Why the Popularity of Unit Testing is Waning - <AUTHOR> http://lispy.wordpress.com/2008/05/23/why-the-popularity-of-unit-testing-is-waning/

<comment><USER2> The article that the author links to[1] is talking specifically about unit testing in Java. I'm not sure it has ever been that popular in Java to begin with, although there may have been buzz about it for a while. The arguments for its waning hinge on the idea that unit testing is hard and requires training and books. Refactoring legacy code for testability can be tough (or at least scary), but writing unit tests themselves is pretty easy, and questions about how JUnit works can be answered by a web search.

[1] [http://binstock.blogspot.com/2008/05/is-popularity-of- unit-t...](http://binstock.blogspot.com/2008/05/is-popularity-of-unit-tests- waning.html)

</comment><comment><USER3> This hasn't been my experience at all in my own work. While I don't subscribe to the extreme 'unit test every single function' mindset, I definitely find unit testing to be useful for checking the consistency of key functionality on a per-module basis. And that has the bonus side-effect of ensuring that I keep the code structured in easily-tested modules with well-defined interfaces.</comment>


HTTP 451 Unavailable for Legal Reasons - <AUTHOR> https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/HTTP_451 <comment><USER2> Should the title contain the year 2016[0]?

[0] - [https://tools.ietf.org/html/rfc7725](https://tools.ietf.org/html/rfc7725)

<comment><USER3> No, since wikipedia is generally considered a "live" source with constant revision.</comment></comment>


This Is the Year Donald Trump Kills Net Neutrality - <AUTHOR> https://www.wired.com/2017/01/year-donald-trump-kills-net-neutrality/?mbid=nl_1217_p3&CNDID= <comment><USER2> I remember how Tom Wheeler was supposed to kill Net Neutrality.

After reading through the claims being made yet again that NN is in mortal danger and we are all going to get charged by our ISP's to watch youtube HD, It's hard to find much evidence to show that's even close to happening.</comment>


12 jQuery based chart - <AUTHOR> http://www.dreamcss.com/2009/03/12-jquery-based-chart.html

<comment><USER2> Not only do I hate this guy "ravindra1982", who has never commented here and does nothing but spam every single blog post from his (lame) site, but this list is stupid and wrong. Half of them aren't even jQuery.

How do I flag a _user_? Does persistent spam warrant a ban?

<comment><AUTHOR> i don't have time to comments and response to every person sorry for that and list is jquery based chart if you have any queries then visit there site and see all jquery chart. thanks for beautiful comments

<comment><USER3> No they are not:

1\. Not jQuery based, registration needed to download.

3\. Not jQuery based, uses the Ext JS library.

7\. Not even JS based, uses CSS and HTML markup.

8\. Not jQuery based.

9\. Not even JS based, uses Flash.

10\. Not jQuery based, uses the MochiKit JS library.

11\. Not jQuery based, uses the GWT library (Java).

12\. Not jQuery based, costs $ for version with source code and without watermarks.

The rest (4 items) are jQuery based.</comment></comment></comment>


SIGAINT email service targeted by 70 bad TOR exit nodes - <AUTHOR> https://lists.torproject.org/pipermail/tor-talk/2015-April/037549.html <comment><USER2>
        I know we could SSL sigaint.org, but if it is a state-actor
        they could just use one of their CAs and mill a key.

Please don't use that argument. It's like not putting a lock on your door because thieves can just bust it open anyway.

It's true at face value, but you are ignoring that a) it keeps smaller attackers at bay and b) it makes noise when it breaks. In case of SSL the noise is that a user receives a valid but unusual certificate, which can be caught by something like the SSL Observatory ([http://tor.stackexchange.com/a/1879](http://tor.stackexchange.com/a/1879)).

<comment><USER3> Yeah, the fact that they would make such an argument is a big red flag to stay away from their service.

There are currently _zero_ known cases of intelligence agencies forcing CAs to sign bogus certs. If SIGAINT is the first victim of this approach then they will have done the whole security community a service by catching it and the CA that was coerced will be revoked.

But if they never use SSL at all then it's wide open to anyone at all, not even just governments. And it's hardly like governments are the only threats against people who use such services.

<comment><USER4> >There are currently _zero_ known cases of intelligence agencies forcing CAs to sign bogus certs.

[https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2011/05/syrian-man-middle- agai...](https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2011/05/syrian-man-middle-against- facebook)

[https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2011/08/iranian-man-middle- att...](https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2011/08/iranian-man-middle-attack- against-google)

[http://securityaffairs.co/wordpress/32469/hacking/china- runs...](http://securityaffairs.co/wordpress/32469/hacking/china-runs-mitm- outlook.html)

[http://thehackernews.com/2014/10/chinese-government- executes...](http://thehackernews.com/2014/10/chinese-government-executes- mitm-attack.html)

<comment><USER5> > [https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2011/05/syrian-man-middle- > agai...](https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2011/05/syrian-man-middle-agai..).

> The attack is not extremely sophisticated: the certificate is invalid in > user's browsers, and raises a security warning.

> [https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2011/08/iranian-man-middle- > att...](https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2011/08/iranian-man-middle-att..).

DigiNotar was compromised, not compelled.

> [http://securityaffairs.co/wordpress/32469/hacking/china- > runs...](http://securityaffairs.co/wordpress/32469/hacking/china-runs..).

> the connection was established with a self-signed digital certificate.

> [http://thehackernews.com/2014/10/chinese-government- > executes...](http://thehackernews.com/2014/10/chinese-government- > executes..).

> but the company's SSL certificate is replaced by the intruders for a self- > signed one

<comment><USER6> France did it:

[https://nakedsecurity.sophos.com/2013/12/09/serious- security...](https://nakedsecurity.sophos.com/2013/12/09/serious-security- google-finds-fake-but-trusted-ssl-certificates-for-its-domains-made-in- france/)

[http://googleonlinesecurity.blogspot.com/2013/12/further- imp...](http://googleonlinesecurity.blogspot.com/2013/12/further-improving- digital-certificate.html)

<comment><USER7> I don't see any evidence of an intelligence agency being involved or of the CA being forced to sign the certs.

>ANSSI has found that the intermediate CA certificate was used in a commercial device, on a private network, to inspect encrypted traffic with the knowledge of the users on that network.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><AUTHOR> From an email further down in the thread [https://lists.torproject.org/pipermail/tor- talk/2015-April/0...](https://lists.torproject.org/pipermail/tor- talk/2015-April/037553.html)

 _While these relays account for 6% of the total number of exit relays, they only sum up to 2.7% of exit probability, which is what really matters.

Almost all of them were younger than one month and they seem to have joined the network in small batches._

[https://lists.torproject.org/pipermail/tor- talk/2015-April/0...](https://lists.torproject.org/pipermail/tor- talk/2015-April/037554.html)

 _the diversity here is interesting. My hunch is that we are looking at 38 popped boxes.... The question to me is: Do they all have something in common? What was the vector of compromise?

Curiously enough, they all run Debian stable (according to the SSH version string "SSH-2.0-OpenSSH_6.0p1 Debian-4+deb7u2" ALL of them spit out on port 22 — no exception!)._

<comment><USER8> > While these relays account for 6% of the total number of exit relays, they > only sum up to 2.7% of exit probability, which is what really matters.

If that probability is on a per-tor-session basis, that is actually not very in favor of the user. My combinatorics are a bit rusty, but wouldn't your odds of being in the 2.7% increase significantly each time you use the tor network?

<comment><USER9> Tor uses entry guards [0] to mitigate this kind of an attack.

[0]: [https://www.torproject.org/docs/faq.html.en#EntryGuards](https://www.torproject.org/docs/faq.html.en#EntryGuards)

<comment><USER10> Entry guards do nothing for bad exits... sticking to particular exits across sessions would significantly harm your privacy in a way that entry guards do not.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> The guy apparently _sells_ the SSL for an _account upgrade_ [1], which IMHO is kinda bad practice. The SSL is the only thing keeping away low and average level attacks easily.

> The attacker doesn't seem to be after passwords (they probably have some of > them now). We get less than 1 user of 42K complaining about their account > being hijacked every 3 months.

Hm, I wonder how many of the 42k users have paid for an upgrade. I always had the feeling that many services would have a considerable amount of users/clients if they had a counter-part running on TOR and accepting bitcoins (or any alt-coin).

[1] [http://sigaintevyh2rzvw.onion/upgrade.html](http://sigaintevyh2rzvw.onion/upgrade.html)

<comment><USER12> > The SSL is the only thing keeping away low and average level attacks easily.

The password is meant to authenticate the user to the server; the user is meant to authenticate to other users through the use of PGP. In theory it shouldn't be too big a deal to lose control of your password, because your emails should all be encrypted. (Though theres certainly a lot of metadata that someone with your password could glean that you'd much rather they didn't.)

<comment><USER7> The MITM could insert malicious javascript, or delete all your emails.

And PGP doesn't encrypt the subject.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> Re: State level actor

How much does it cost to rent 70 boxes? Not that much I imagine.

</comment><comment><USER14> Maybe a dumb question, but would running Tor exit node(s) on their own server(s) help in this situation?

<comment> glass- It is possible to run a Tor node as an exit enclave[0], ie. a node that allows exits to its own IP address on specific ports. For example DuckDuckGo runs a Tor node with the IP 220.127.116.11 that allows exits to 184.108.40.206 ports 80 and 443.

However newer versions of Tor do not honour enclaves for various reasons.

[0] [https://trac.torproject.org/projects/tor/wiki/doc/ExitEnclav...](https://trac.torproject.org/projects/tor/wiki/doc/ExitEnclave)</comment></comment>


Eclipses and Decibels - <AUTHOR> http://apenwarr.ca/log/?m=201708#27 <comment><USER3> As anyone who has experienced totality knows, the difference between a total eclipse and the deepest partial eclipse is not just a quantitative change.

At the deepest partial phase, you see Baily's Beads and the Diamond Ring. This is still the sun's photosphere peeking through the moon's valleys, bright enough that it washes out the corona, and bright enough that you had better use eye protection. Only when the moon completely blocks the photosphere do you see the solar corona.

This is totality. This is where you no longer need (and can't use) the protective glasses or filters or pinhole projectors. During totality, you can view the corona with your own eyes, with no protection, and even with binoculars.

The difference between a 99.9% partial eclipse and a 100% total eclipse is not 0.1%. It is infinity.

<comment><USER4> > _This is still the sun 's photosphere peeking through the moon's valleys, > bright enough that it washes out the corona, and bright enough that you had > better use eye protection._

The photosphere (diamond ring, etc) is not dangerous if you only see it for 1 or 2 seconds. It is prolonged, central-vision, fixed staring that takes more than a few seconds that is dangerous.

So when the diamond ring comes out, take one look at it. But that's it, one look. Then turn away and put your goggles on. You'll be fine as long as you don't linger beyond a couple seconds.

The problems begin when people keep staring at it fixedly beyond a handful of seconds.

> _The difference between a 99.9% partial eclipse and a 100% total eclipse is > not 0.1%. It is infinity._

Well put.

<comment><USER3> Finally, someone who knows the truth!

Indeed, at the end of totality in the 1979 eclipse, I kept looking at the diamond ring and Baily's beads for a second or two _with my binoculars_. It did not damage my vision at all.

In the weeks leading up to this year's eclipse, I almost felt like it was my civic duty to correct some of the misinformation that was going around in the media. I had a feeling that many thousands of people who went to considerable trouble and expense to go to the path of totality would miss it entirely, because they got scared into keeping their eclipse glasses on the whole time.

There was such a fear campaign going on, just like the one in 1979 when Oregon schools changed their hours to keep the children indoors during totality.

This TV report was a good example:

[http://www.kptv.com/story/36143862/portland-man-shares- warni...](http://www.kptv.com/story/36143862/portland-man-shares-warning- after-being-partially-blinded-by-1963-eclipse)

The gentleman in the report did unfortunately damage his vision by staring at the 1963 partial eclipse - for 20 seconds! Truly a sad thing, but in the video they kept talking about the dangers of staring at a partial eclipse, while showing photos of a total eclipse - as if there was no difference between the two!

I tried to set the record straight in the comments, but man, it was an uphill battle. Read the comments and weep...

<comment><USER4> This is why:

[http://phdcomics.com/comics/archive.php?comicid=1174](http://phdcomics.com/comics/archive.php?comicid=1174)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> It's not true that you don't perceive the darkening of the sun until just near totality. Instead, what you get is a really weird subliminal creepy feeling that something is _wrong_.

You're seeing things with the brightness of a rainy day, and then with the brightness of sunset, but the color balance is that of full sunlight. For me at least it's very unsettling, and I wonder if other people experience it that way.

The uncanny feeling is quite visceral and a big part of the reason I think eclipses just have to be experienced. All kinds of alarms go off in your animal brain when the moon eats the sun.

This is not to take away from the author's very correct observation that the light effects only really kick in close to totality, I'd say with over 90% of the sun covered.

<comment><USER6> Yup, it's a "had to be there" thing. Complete eclipse, start to finish, took 3 hours. Totality was just over 2 minutes. Most of the time, lighting can only be described as "odd" \- as you put it, color balance of full sunlight for brightness of sunset. Bugs & animals picked up on it, rapidly heading into night mode. Humans tended to stand around slowly realizing "huh? that's odd". Lighting starts as a sense of just wrong. Then at about 95% totality (!) you finally perceive the rate of change, as it exponentially plunges into darkness. Then you realize the darkness isn't, you're seeing with the visibility of a nightlight (but color balance still that of full sunlight), and proceed to freak over the visibility of the corona surrounding a big, well, black hole where the sun was. The horizon is also oddly bright.

And yes, there's a huge difference between any perceivable percentage away from totality, and totality itself. We're talking fractions of a second making a difference between direct viewing vs rapidly going blind.

<comment><USER7> NB: The colour-balance of night, say, under a full moon, is actually pretty close to that of daytime.

It's just ... well ... a _lot_ darker.

Shooting long-exposure slide film is a good way to confirm this (no colour adjustment possible).

Moonlight is has a _slightly_ lower (that is, optically "warmer") colour temperature -- 4100K rather than 5000K.

Contrast with "daylight" vs. "tungsten" film colour balance: 5500K vs. 3200K.

[https://physics.stackexchange.com/questions/244922/why- does-...](https://physics.stackexchange.com/questions/244922/why-does- moonlight-have-a-lower-color-temperature/244929)

[http://www.apogeephoto.com/white-balance-and-color- temperatu...](http://www.apogeephoto.com/white-balance-and-color-temperature- in-digital-photography/)

<comment><USER4> > _Shooting long-exposure slide film is a good way to confirm this (no colour > adjustment possible)._

Or shooting long exposure with a digital camera that does not automatically adjust the color balance. E.g. take the raw data from the sensor, instead of a camera-generated JPEG.

<comment><USER7> Right. I was also contrasting _print_ film (negative process) as virtually all film-development would attemtp to "correct" shots for exposure and colour balance.

(Much of my experimental night photography was conducted ... some time ago.)

<comment><USER4> Hey, I did some of that too. Had my own little dark room and everything.

Working with film was, um, exciting? Not sure if that's the right word. Anyway, mistakes were final. I remember deliberating on the settings for a really long time before pushing the button.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> A slight correction: according to some measurements that I found [1], the ambient illumination during totality is roughly 2-5 lux, which is "only" about 45dB below normal. (Full daylight is about 10^5 lux.)

I started researching this a few weeks ago after seeing a Reddit comment asking (paraphrased) "my house is just a couple miles outside the path of totality, is it really worth the trouble of finding a different spot to view the eclipse?" The answer is that even at 99.5% occlusion, the sky is still hundreds of times brighter than complete totality.

[1]: [http://www.strickling.net/sofi_eng.htm](http://www.strickling.net/sofi_eng.htm)

<comment><USER9> I think for me the think that it really drove home is that the sun is really really really really bright.

</comment></comment><comment><USER10> Interesting. I was in Wyoming and noticed this as well. During the partial eclipse it was impossible to tell that the sun was dimming except that I could measure this with my camera's light meter. My friend hardly believed me when I informed her the sunlight had been halved three times (losing three stops) -- except that we could _feel_ this difference in how chilly it had become. It is only as the last bit of sun is obscured that the world goes dark in any noticeable way.

<comment><USER11> It was also fun to notice the street lights & home outdoor lights all come on in what looked like sunny day. The brain really compensated for the dimness.

</comment></comment><comment><USER5> The main source of light during totality is the ring of daylight around the horizon. It looks like sunset in every direction.

I wonder how dark an eclipse could get under optimal conditions (wide track, and heavy overcast all around except in the path of the shadow).

<comment><USER9> It looks weirdly different as everything about it is backwards. Blue sky is beyond the sunset, but the light is coming from above you.

</comment></comment><comment><USER12> I have a plot of WWVB radio propagation here, for several days about the eclipse:

[https://zenodo.org/record/851609](https://zenodo.org/record/851609)

The ionosphere was doing strange things the entire day, and even past local sunset.

Does anyone know of a tool that plots the earth/moon/sun position on arbitrary days? I'd like to go back and figure out what was going on.

<comment><USER13> Probably not ideal, but I know that PyEphem can be used to figure out relative positions of all of these at arbitrary times from a given location.

</comment></comment><comment><USER14> I went to view totality for the first time, in Salem, and thought exactly the same thing; I ended up putting a jumper on as I felt a little chilly, even though there was a mere sliver of the photosphere visible.

It's curiously satisfying (I suppose because it's affirmative) to see one's subjective experience described objectively like this though.

</comment><comment><USER15> You must remember that the irises in your eyes are dialating as the sun is being eclipsed. If that was not happening, you would undoubtedly notice the change in visible light like you do the heat.

<comment><USER16> The dilation of your pupils is actually only responsible for a small portion of your eyes' ability to adjust to ambient brightness. The rest is your rods and cones adjusting their sensitivity biochemically.

</comment></comment><comment><USER17> > When the sun is completely blocked by the moon (which appeared about 3% > larger than the sun during this particular eclipse), the total power > delivered becomes 0% for a while, which is -infinity dB

The total power delivered during a total solar eclipse is obviously not zero. The author even admits a few paragraphs down that the corona is visible - <USER2> it's what people enjoy viewing during an eclipse. This one numerically inaccurate phrase spoiled my enjoyment of the article, unfortunately.

<comment><USER18> Bummer that a nit that small would change your summary and overall emotional response, and prevent you from enjoying a great blot post, especially when the author pointed it out. "0%" is numerically accurate to at least 3 significant figures, isn't it?

For me, it's really interesting that there's a discrepancy between the heat you feel and the light you see, and I love the writeup that is explaining the primary reason why -- because our perception of brightness is logarithmic, but our sensation of heat seems more linear in this case.

The experience of being there and having it go cold before it got dark was startling, and I have to agree with the author, it's easy to see why this stuff caused so much emotional stir before science showed us how it all works.

There's a much larger source of error, btw, in using a straight decibel scale as a proxy for brightness. (Also admitted & linked in the article.) It just doesn't matter, it's close enough, it's true, it's interesting, and it supports the narrative.

<comment><USER17> The author's rushed approximation of "-infinity dB" is disingenuous, and discounts the efforts of people who handle low-level signals.

For example, his claim makes it impossible to compare the ambient light level of an eclipse versus the light level from a full moon or new moon.

For example, not knowing the noise floor will make it impossible to tell whether a 16-bit audio recording, or 20-bit, or 24-bit is the best choice.

What is the "larger source of error" in using a decibel scale for brightness? Maybe the fact that human eyes are not perfectly logarithmic? But such a scale is very appropriate for calculating camera exposures.

<comment><USER18> Aww, come on, don't double-down, just let it be. If you want some benefit of the doubt, feel free to give some benefit of the doubt. We can nit pick each other to death, but that isn't going to be productive or fun at all.

You can't take something out of context and claim that it's insulting people that he wasn't talking about. He wasn't discounting anyone. Yours is a bigger and more intentional error than his statement that totality is 0% energy. You're picking a fight instead of acknowledging that totality really is approximately 0% solar power for the purpose of figuring out how much heat you're going to feel on your arm during the eclipse, compared to before the eclipse.

He admitted the noise floor is not really zero. He wasn't contradicting himself, he was clarifying for the sake of the nit pickers. You're using that against him instead of accepting that both of his statements can be true at the same time. He was never claiming absolute zero with infinite precision, that is completely clear from the article.

He also wasn't asking what bit depth to use for audio recording. That would be weird, wouldn't it? Because he's talking about the sun's heat and not the sound it makes. He wasn't talking about photographing it either, or even measuring the heat precisely. He was showing why it gets cold before it gets apparently dark. You can do that in even less than 16 bits.

Yes, human eyes are not perfectly logarithmic. Interesting that you don't care for the sake of camera exposures in the middle of a conversation about the sun and moon, where you just cited bit depths and people who handle low-level signals. The logarithmic approximation isn't particularly good, which the link in the article discusses in detail. Log is good enough for this article, but not for vision scientists. The logarithmic brightness approximation really truly breaks down when you look at the sun or the night sky, human vision does not give an approximately logarithmic response to either the sun or the night sky, not even close. Camera film and camera sensors also break down and begin to clamp at either end of a moderate log range that is narrower than human vision. Photographing the corona well is really hard due to the extreme dynamic range and the way that camera response stops being logarithmic at the ends.

<comment><USER19> The person you are replying to is not wrong though. The author of the article is.

Even during totality it's not as dark as night. It's around the illumination of just after sunset, and he could have definitely plotted that - it's not that hard to lookup how much there is then, he doesn't have to measure it himself.

<comment><USER18> Ugh. Be very precise and tell me, what does it matter? What about the story would change if he'd used super extremely precise numbers? How would the conclusion change, exactly?

Does the correct number for solar power during totality explain why it gets cold before it gets dark?

The article was not wrong, it was an approximation, which he stated clearly. Did you perhaps not understand this sentence: "Anyway, there is never really "zero" radiant energy to detect. In reality there's always some kind of background noise, maybe at -90 dB or so."?

If he had used the correct number, you would see that it is approximately 0% power. Again, and I'll state it as fact now rather than rhetorical question, the article was accurate to more than 3 significant figures.

BTW, the discrepancy between night time levels and the darkness of totality is due in part to atmospheric scattering during the eclipse, so you're introducing a red herring.

> he could have definitely plotted that

Given that the heat plot goes from 0% to 100%, and that the brightness plot goes from -70dB to 0dB, will you estimate for me how many pixels in both plots would be different if he used really precise numbers for solar power during totality? My current estimate is 0 pixels would change across both plots. Do you think the number is higher? If so, why?

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER20> Excellent science writing! It is rare to see such quality here.</comment>


Dinosaur Feathers Found in Ancient Amber - <AUTHOR> http://blogs.discovermagazine.com/d-brief/2013/09/20/dinosaur-feathers-found-in-ancient-amber/ <comment><USER2> Archaeopteryx lived 150 million years ago, the feathers here (and proto- feathers) are from 78 million or 79 million years ago.

So these are very modern Dinosaur feathers or feathers from proto-bird-like creatures.

What is interesting here is probably the proto-feathers / fuzz which might shed light on the evolution of feathers and whether late dinosaurs were fuzzy.

[http://news.sciencemag.org/paleontology/2011/09/dinofuzz- fou...](http://news.sciencemag.org/paleontology/2011/09/dinofuzz-found- canadian-amber)

<comment><USER3> It now looks like feathered dinosaurs were a lot more common than that though. Virtually all of the raptors (velociraptor, utahraptor, etc) are assumed to be feathered based on fossil evidence today. When I was in grade school the real breakthroughs were in the area of evidence of warm-blooded dinosaurs. More recently though, there have been a lot of breakthroughs suggesting feathers were much earlier than we had previously thought.

<comment><USER2> Indeed.

I think what I was trying to point out is that this doesn't add weight to early dinosaurs being feathered. These feathers are from the same period as Velociraptors.

It's cool, its fascinating and it's mind-blowing that some of these feathers could be from Velociraptor-like creatures! It's also great science.

But I was guarding against people saying "proven: all dinosaurs had feathers" which is the inevitable route that some of the internet commentary will take.

<comment><USER4> Velociraptor almost definitely had feathers, as well as wings. In fact, it pretty much _was_ a flightless proto-bird (though scientists believe it may have descended from a flying predecessor). If it were alive today, we'd basically see it as a curiously shaped, medium-to-large land bird with teeth.

Check out some of the post-2007 renderings of Velociraptor. My mind was certainly blown, especially after having grown up with the image as portrayed by _Jurassic Park_.

(2007 was when Velociraptor bones were discovered with quill knobs, almost indisputably indicating that the animal had wings and feathers).

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> So not knowing anything about genomics / evolution - what advantage might proto-feathers (and 'pre-proto-feathers' before them - if there is such a thing) have conveyed that caused them to become full feathers? How does any evolutionary advantageous feature get started?

<comment><USER6> For one thing, evolution can sometimes work by going through several stages, of which the intermediate are not particularly useful but not harmful either. By mere chance, they happen to last long enough for the actually useful changes to build on top of them. For example, see Lenski's long term evolution experiment with e. coli.[1] He's spent 25 years breeding several populations of e. coli, and freezing samples every 500 generations or so (every 75 days). After about 20 years, he discovered that one of the strains had evolved the ability to metabolize citrate in an aerobic environment, which e. coli normally can't do. Going back to the historical record, unfreezing some of the past samples and repeating the experiment, he found that sample from after generation 20,000 could re-evolve this trait, but clones from before that time could not, indicating that there was a potentiating mutation that that particular strain had had shortly before generation 20,000, which the other samples did not have. Further evidence has shown that it may have actually been two separate potentiation mutations.

Beyond that, however, proto feathers would have probably been useful for insulation. They seem fairly similar to down feathers, which are great insulators. Given the the feathers were also colorful, they may also have been decorative, and used for catching the eye of potential mates.

1: [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Escherichia_coli_long- term_evo...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Escherichia_coli_long- term_evolution_experiment)

<comment><USER7> But we don't know that those potentiating mutations didn't have some kind of benefit on their own, so that doesn't do much for the question of how proto- feathers provide enough benefit to stick around and _spread_ long enough for the next several million mutations to arrive and turn them into feathers. Is insulation adequate for that?

<comment><USER6> If you take a look at the Lenski paper[1], it says:

> The potentiating mutations are not known to confer any phenotype amenable to > screening, so there is no simple way to distinguish between potentiated and > non-potentiated clones.

Now, that isn't conclusive evidence that there was no benefit on its own, but it doesn't sound like there's any evidence that it did provide some kind of greater fitness. It sounds like all evidence shows that the original mutation didn't provide any particular phenotypic change on its own, it was only after the later mutation that it had any measurable effect.

Now, with dinosaurs it's much harder to tell. We obviously can't do any kind of controlled experiments, or observe them directly. But we can offer up a few potential explanations. One is that some mutations can occur without either helping or harming, but later on another mutation can lead to something useful.

Or there may be benefits conferred by proto-feathers. Remember, in addition to their similarity to down, proto-feathers are somewhat similar to hair, and may provide many of the benefits that hair provides: warmth, colors which allow either catching the attention of mates or blending in to the background, better sense of touch (you can feel something before your skin brushes against it), better sensation of the wind, and protection from things that may scrape or cut you.

According to Wikipedia[2], the insulation and display (colorful feathers for attracting mates) hypotheses seem to be the more probable. Obviously, we're not going to solve this by speculating here on HN, and it may be that the reason can never be conclusively determined because you can't go back in time to run controlled experiments, but based on the evidence we have those theories sound reasonably plausible.

[1]: [http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3461117/](http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3461117/) [2]: [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Feathered_dinosaur#Primitive_f...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Feathered_dinosaur#Primitive_feather_types)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> One step closer to Jurassic Park.

</comment><comment><USER9> [http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0107290/](http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0107290/)

<comment><USER2> DNA only lasts 10,000 years. They'd need a _lot_ of DNA from a single dinosaur type to be able to stitch enough strands together to make one.

However… Mammoths!?

<comment><USER10> > DNA only lasts 10,000 years.

Source? Seems like an arbitrary number plucked out of somebodies ass.

<comment><USER2> I got my information directly from a geneticist friend who was explaining why cloning dinosaurs is not going to happen.

He may of course have been simplifying it for us.

Looking at the internet it looks like it's usually a lot lower. 10,000 years is the longest it _might_ survive.

[http://www.slate.com/articles/health_and_science/explainer/2...](http://www.slate.com/articles/health_and_science/explainer/2013/02/dna_testing_richard_iii_how_long_does_dna_last.html)

This discussion explains it:

[http://science.slashdot.org/story/12/10/10/1754212/half- life...](http://science.slashdot.org/story/12/10/10/1754212/half-life-of-dna- is-521-years-jurassic-park-impossible-after-all)

 _" 10,000 years is roughly 20 half-life periods, so they should expect roughly 1-millionth of the DNA to remain"_

EDIT: Reading on I see that if stored at cold temperatures it can last a lot longer.

<comment><USER11> Honestly, if you're worried about your image the citation to slate isn't the one I would have disclaimed.

That's quite some editorial comment at the end of the crev.info piece:

""" These claims should be remembered if ancient DNA older than that is confirmed in future finds[...] if intact DNA is found in a dinosaur or other fossil older than the upper limit they just stated, it could have the effect of falsifying the evolutionary timescale. Since evolutionists are such staunch believers, though, most likely the reaction will be, "Well, what do you know; DNA can survive for 65 million years." [...] The rest of us should remember what they said beforehand about DNA's upper limit age, and not let them get away with it. """

Now we know -- if you've had result A for hundreds of years, and result B for singles of years, then evidence suggesting that the two conflict clearly supports result B.

EDIT: link to [http://crev.info/2013/07/longevity-of-dna- estimated/](http://crev.info/2013/07/longevity-of-dna-estimated/) (and vacillation about the propriety of citing to slate) was removed even before I posted this reply. It seems to be a nice, on-topic summary of current knowledge on the longevity of DNA, but wow, the editorializing. :/

<comment><USER2> Ha.

I _really_ should have taken a second look at what I was citing! I removed that before I saw your comment. For some reason I thought I'd cited some interesting genetics blog. I read the paragraph. Yep. Took a quick look around — looks science-y.

Oops. Bah. My shame. I spat my coffee out when I read the whole article.

On a related note, I really wish HN had a preview feature. I often end up posting & _then_ editing because 1) no preview 2) sessions timing out.</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment>


Firebase Data Within a Team - <AUTHOR> https://tech.residebrokerage.com/firebase-data-within-a-team-fb05c02b184 <comment><USER2> So cool that a tool like this exists for use with firebase</comment>


Road to the Python Commit Bit - <AUTHOR> http://hynek.me/articles/my-road-to-the-python-commit-bit/

<comment><USER2> For kicks, here's how it works for KDE:

a) You sign up at our SSI, KDE Identity (identity.kde.org).

b) Once you've got an Identity, you'll find a form to request developer access in the web app that manages it. That form asks you to optionally name a supporter for your application, and provide a written justification.

c) Our sysadmin team (of which I'm a part) is tasked with screening the incoming applications. What we look for in doing so is evidence that the applicant has already gathered some experience in working with the community, especially in the form of prior patch contributions, which we encourage them to list in their written justification. If the applicant has named a supporter, we check with the supporter to get their confirmation and opinion on the applicant. If we're satisfied the applicant knows the ropes, the request will be granted; if not, we encourage some further social mingling and patch-based contributions first and to re-try later.

In practice, it's relatively hard, but not entirely impossible, to gain developer access without naming a supporter, because evidence of social ties / working relationships with other team members is very important to us. Occassionally a proven track record of successfully getting lots of patches through review will be enough, and occassionally a low-quality justification will result in a rejection even despite a supporter (after conferencing with them on the matter).

The goals here are to make sure every new developer can immediately act confident about their role in the project, that everyone knows the etiquette well enough to work together productively, and that mutual trust remains high as everyone can rely on their peers having been through the same process.

d) Once you have your developer access, that's basically it: Aside from a few sensitive areas that require additional, special karma that must be requested separately (mainly the websites to avoid embarassing and directly public- facing screwups), all of our developer accounts have equal write access to every repository.

In other words, KDE embraces a flat, meritocratic hierarchy and broad access. We certainly make use of review-based workflows (some teams more than others), but they're enforced by social etiquette, not by ACLs. We find that this makes for a lovely atmosphere in the community and a sense of shared responsibiliy over all our products, and consider it key to our longevity as a successful open source project.

Contrasting with the nine month timespan between first patch submission and getting push access mentioned in the linked article, I'd say our average is probably closer to six months. It can be significantly lower than that, and it can be longer, too.

<comment><USER3> Well, that sounds the same like CPython.

And to be fair, 4 months of that 9 months were myself sulking in the corner – one of the reasons why I wrote that article was to give others the hint to do it better. If you embrace the whole process, happens faster (I have no numbers to back that though).

But proving yourself takes time and work in any case.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> I think his point about perseverance bear repeating. You'll have to work, and wait, for anything to happen. You won't get it overnight.

<comment><USER5> And that's good actually.. Projects are likely to gain more by inviting people with a long-term interest than one-off committers. It doesn't mean that one of them it's better than the other, or that the contributions are not equal. It's just much easier to maintain a consistent view of the progress in the core team that way. It prevents people trying to rewrite your project in their way - it may well be a better way if you were starting from scratch, but it's probably not worth it in a mature project (apart from major version increases, etc.)

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> Interesting. Question to article author : is it easier to start helping on documentation?

<comment><USER3> Sure! My first patch was a doc patch too and got committed within hours.

We've got people that work on the docs nearly exclusively – it's a big deal for Python to have great docs.</comment></comment>


Dell's gamble on Linux laptops has paid off - <AUTHOR> http://www.techradar.com/news/why-dells-gamble-on-linux-laptops-has-paid-off <comment> luka-birsa As a 20 year Linux user I really appreciate Dells support in proving the market exists. This improved support across all manufacturers.

I've recently acquired a HP Envy 13 2017 laptop with Windows preinstalled. I've really wanted to try Windows out, but after installing Google Chrome and Docker (1hr after starting it up) it stopped working - windows boot up into a blank black screen.

In a hurry I've downloaded Ubuntu 17.10, clicked yes and I had a working OS in 15 minutes time. With everything (suspend, broadcom card, USBC video,...) working out of the box.

Super impressed.

If you're a developer there's no UX reason to go Windows anymore.

<comment><USER2> Windows has gotten a lot better, but the rules regarding new computers hasn't changed in the past 30 years, you still need to wipe the hard drive and install it yourself from scratch, and then spend a little time disabling the ads, bing crap, telemetry, etc.

Once you do, it's rock solid, but it should be OOTB and it annoys me that it isn't. It leaves those not familiar with Windows with a bad first impression, and those tech savvy enough to install Linux just don't come back.

<comment><USER3> There's an option in Windows Defender settings that automatically wipes the hard drive and reinstalls from scratch, without the manufacturer's bloatware

<comment><USER4> Tried this on a Lenovo notebook and it will reinstall the Lenovo bloatware anyways. I think this restore the initial windows image state, but the image that came in the notebook is customized by Lenovo.

<comment><USER5> I believe it's even more sinister than that. I recall reading about a feature of Windows 10 where it will automatically install OEM bloatware from separate storage on the board, even if you install from a generic Window disk/USB. I'm trying to find a source.

Edit: I cannot find a source, so take this with a grain of salt, however I do clearly remember reading it.

<comment><USER6> I believe the one you're referring to is the "Windows Platform Binary Table (WPBT)" feature, which has a slot in UEFI where an exe can be put, which is run by Windows during an install.

Couple of refs for anyone interested:

[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10039870](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10039870)

[https://arstechnica.com/civis/viewtopic.php?p=29544745#p2954...](https://arstechnica.com/civis/viewtopic.php?p=29544745#p29544745)

<comment><USER7> It actually runs on every boot, even worse. This is how overbroad nanny software like Computrace works, you can remove it but Windows will just reinstall it at boot.

Kind of a glaring security issue.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> At my company, most of the developers use Ubuntu end-user machines, all from Dell. Not only does this avoid us having to pay for Windows licenses we never use, but we know the hardware is actually going to work fine with it. There's some quirks, of course - Ubuntu doesn't much like the 4k screens in our 13" XPSen so there's a lot of tweaking involved, but we're getting some very good hardware at a good price, and stuff just works. It's the right choice to target the high-end of the market, since the users are likely highly Linux- knowledgeable and so far we've never had to contact Dell for any software issues, which is going to improve their profits while our stuff just keeps working.

The only issue is the long lead times between actually ordering a batch of laptops and them being dispatched. It can be a fortnight or more. Currently I (as the sysadmin) keep a cupboard full of them ready for use, but I never look forward to ordering more.

<comment><USER9> > Ubuntu doesn't much like the 4k screens in our 13" XPSen so there's a lot of > tweaking involved

> stuff just works

I can't reconcile these two statements.

<comment><USER10> This harkens back to the classic Unix statement, "Unix is user friendly, it is just picky about its friends."

I must agree that the support of high DPI displays is not optimal just yet. However, it is not that bad. At a corporate level one person can do the tweaking and create a great user experience for an entire organization.

Given the amount of tweaking and "management" goo organizations foist upon the average OSX installation blasting out a few lines of DPI tweak commands is almost nothing.

So it just works in the sense that you can do sane configuration activity and it behaves as you might expect.

Also, Unity out of the box is still pretty good on a scale like this: very bad, bad, tolerable, pretty good, good, great. It does "just work" for the most part :)

<comment><USER11> > "Unix is user friendly, it is just picky about its friends."

Specifically, all of its friends are masochists.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> It's funny how a primary criticism of consumer linux is "you'll have trouble running it on any laptop you pick at random." Isn't this an unfair criticism? If you apply the same logic to MacOS (only works on _one_ laptop!) or Windows (only works on laptops specifically designed for it), Linux begins to look extremely compatible in comparison.

Linux has demonstrated itself to be compatible with nearly any hardware combination imaginable, to various degrees of usability. It runs on everything from tiny embedded microcontrollers to supercomputers. MacOS and Windows cannot say the same.

It is perfectly valid to criticize the frequency of driver incompatibility. However, this criticism should not be leveled at Linux. It should be directed at the hardware manufacturers who do not release Linux drivers for their products, or the software vendors like Microsoft and Apple, who forego open standards in favor of proprietary protocols.

The fact that hardware vendors can successfully produce and market a "Linux first" laptop shows that those vendors are responsible for any incompatibility in their other products. They've proved they can make compatible hardware, so why don't they do it by default?

<comment><USER13> > or Windows (only works on laptops specifically designed for it)

Windows also works well on laptops specifically designed for MacOS. It helps that all the commodity parts that Apple uses were designed for other Windows laptops. Plus, Apple has put some effort into Boot Camp to ensure that Windows can be loaded, and Microsoft has probably spent some effort making sure that Windows runs well on Apple hardware, but that's one example of a machine not designed for Windows which still runs it.

Unfortunately, that's basically the only example of a laptop which is not designed for Windows that I can think of. Perhaps the Novena laptop [1] is an example of a laptop not designed for Windows? Are there others?

[1]: [https://spectrum.ieee.org/consumer-electronics/portable- devi...](https://spectrum.ieee.org/consumer-electronics/portable- devices/novena-a-laptop-with-no-secrets)

<comment><USER12> ChromeBook would be a good example.

<comment><USER13> That it would, thanks for pointing it out!

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> I _wanted_ to throw my money at Dell last year. I wanted the top of the line XPS laptop with Linux. But I needed it quick. At that point, at least, Dell were building them to order in China. Two weeks _plus shipping_ for the UK market.

I'm not sure if this is the same for their other models but I bet there's a big pile of Windows machines sitting in an EU warehouse.

To add insult to injury, I asked if they could improve the price in a web chat and the guy botched it so hard he added an extra £93 onto the price. Outsourced, off-shored support at its very worst.

In the end I dropped a fraction of the money on a next-day-delivered Thinkpad 13, tore Windows off it and raised another flag for glorious penguin.

<comment><USER15> No, same with Win10 machines.

Bought an XPS13 maxed out from Dell. Website deceivably back then said 2 days shipping, but I didn't realize it meant 2 days to deliver it to the carrier and the 3 weeks to Germany from China. Website made it look like it was in Europe when I ordered. BIOS gives smoke detection loudness (!) level alarms at night when some hardware part fails and laptop reboots.

Beside that, hardware is crappy, get's too hot, also hardware gives load pitching and buzzing noises when under load. Keyboard has problems too. I can't run Linux b/c I've stupidly ordered NVMe.

Would never again buy Dell, I'm back with Apple for my next laptop.

<comment><USER16> FWIW, my Lenovo T460s also has NVMe and it works just fine via /dev/nvme*. Eg. my boot partition is /dev/nvme0n1p1

<comment><USER14> Yeah I'm using nvme on a few machines. No issue.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER17> Sorry, I'm gonna have to flame Dell out here.

I own a Dell XPS 13 9365, a 2-in-1 laptop. Dell have decided, arbitrarily, not to support Linux on this machine, but you can still actually make it run by disabling Secure Boot and setting the SATA mode to AHCI. Even then, Ubuntu doesn't seem to detect when you've rotated the screen for tablet mode or stuff like that -- but that's probably Ubuntu's driver support. The machine also can't wake up from suspend mode, which I suspect is a driver thing.

Problem is, if you then apply a typical, recommended firmware upgrade from your Ubuntu Software Manager, it bricks the laptop. The problem being, "applying" the firmware upgrade in Ubuntu just primes it to run when you restart the computer. When you restart the computer, the BIOS detects a present firmware upgrade and applies it, without apparently double-checking that, you know, this _isn 't gonna brick the computer_. I now have to wait for a technician to arrive today and replace my motherboard, then figure out how to change those BIOS settings _again_ so that I can boot back into Linux.

Maybe Ubuntu could have stopped this by detecting compatibility issues between the firmware package and the hardware. Dell's BIOS _definitely_ should have stopped this by detecting the compatibility issue between its own settings and the firmware package. Alternately, if the issue is that, for instance, the BIOS won't check these packages because I've disabled Secure Boot, the BIOS needs to bloody well differentiate between Secure Boot for operating systems (which we want off, because _we own our laptops, thank you very much_ ) and for BIOS/firmware packages (which we want _on_ , because why brick a good machine?).

Overall, great machine, but bad Dell, no cookie.

<comment><USER18> I really wanted this same laptop, but I got the 9360 in the end because of the lack of Ubuntu support on the 9365.

> Dell have decided, arbitrarily, not to support Linux on this > machine...Ubuntu doesn't seem to detect when you've rotated the screen for > tablet mode or stuff like that

I suspect that this is exactly the reason why Dell decided not to ship with Ubuntu on this particular machine. I'm not sure that GNOME has support for tablet mode yet; Unity 7 (16.04 LTS) certainly doesn't.

> Maybe Ubuntu could have stopped this by detecting compatibility issues > between the firmware package and the hardware.

Firmware updates come directly from [https://fwupd.org/](https://fwupd.org/) I believe. Ubuntu (like other distributions) doesn't have anything to do with distribution and release management of the the firmware blobs themselves; that's done entirely by Dell I believe.

> Dell's BIOS definitely should have stopped this by detecting the > compatibility issue between its own settings and the firmware package.

What exactly do you mean by "brick"? Dell explicitly don't support Ubuntu on this particular machine. If you had been running Windows, would you still be stuck? If not, I don't think you can reasonably blame Dell here. They don't QA with Ubuntu (or any Linux) on this hardware, and you knew this before you purchased.

<comment><USER17> >Ubuntu (like other distributions) doesn't have anything to do with distribution and release management of the the firmware blobs themselves; that's done entirely by Dell I believe.

Indeed, and yet here y'all are, saying that if I didn't want a brick, I shouldn't have run Linux. Ubuntu didn't do anything to the hardware, it just queued up a Dell-distributed, Dell-released firmware update to run upon BIOS POST.

Since this update was _supplied by the manufacturer_ , I expect that _at the very least_ , it can check for BIOS settings which render the update incompatible, and should _most probably_ just, you know, install itself cleanly. It should never, ever brick the machine, because why in the hell is the manufacturer sending me something that bricks their own hardware?

>What exactly do you mean by "brick"?

By brick I mean _brick_. It fails POST and the several input combinations for resetting to a clean BIOS don't work either. Dell is having to send a technician to me to replace the motherboard, after which I can once again figure out the BIOS settings to run Ubuntu cleanly.

This doesn't mean that Ubuntu crashes after GRUB loads it. It means the BIOS no longer loads, period, let alone GRUB and Ubuntu.

>Dell explicitly don't support Ubuntu on this particular machine. If you had been running Windows, would you still be stuck? If not, I don't think you can reasonably blame Dell here. They don't QA with Ubuntu (or any Linux) on this hardware, and you knew this before you purchased.

 _Bull_. They QA their own BIOS and firmware. The whole point of firmware- BIOS-OS separation is that the operating system never even _speaks_ to the BIOS directly. BIOS runs the bootloader, bootloader loads the OS, OS proceeds according to a standard for how PCs are run. What I do to customize the machine is my responsibility, but proprietary updates from the manufacturer are theirs. If I've altered the BIOS settings to run a different operating system, the update needs to detect the altered settings and, if necessary, refuse to run. Then I can get on with my usage of the machine I bought.

It's not my job customize their firmware, nor should their firmware updates have compatibility issues that cripple the BIOS, ever, period.

<comment><USER18> > Bull. They QA their own BIOS and firmware. The whole point of firmware-BIOS- > OS separation is that the operating system never even speaks to the BIOS > directly. BIOS runs the bootloader, bootloader loads the OS, OS proceeds > according to a standard for how PCs are run.

The complexity here is that the firmware updates shipped for Linux may well take a different QA path to the firmware updates shipped for Windows, as the distribution channels are different. Further, manufacturers usually try to unify (to some level) firmware updates for different systems into fewer actual binary blobs to reduce release engineering workload.

What keeps a complex system such as this working smoothly is QA. Dell cannot reasonably be expected to spend effort on QAing combinations they clearly do not support.

While the fact that your system was bricked is likely a bug that should not have happened, nevertheless I think it's unreasonable to blame Dell for this as viciously as you are doing because they do not support or QA that combination and cannot be expected to do so. That they're fixing it is the most I think you can reasonably expect.

I understand that you've accidentally ended up having a poor experience here. But you can't reasonably expect that to reflect on the experience others might get following a path Dell actually supports and can reasonably be expected to actually QA.

<comment><USER17> >The complexity here is that the firmware updates shipped for Linux may well take a different QA path to the firmware updates shipped for Windows, as the distribution channels are different.

Assuming that they're all still Dell-made firmware blobs, I don't see why they'd be different at all. Anything that Ubuntu can "do to them" ought to ruin the signature. Only an authentic Dell firmware blob should actually make it through the BIOS' checks to installation.

It's like saying, "look, you opened our cryptographically signed file under our system, sure, but you _downloaded_ it through an unsupported channel."

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER19> meanwhile in Thinkpad land...

honestly I never understand why people go for Macbooks or XPS. X/T model user since 7 generations. I did look at the XPS but there are so many disadvantages with those modern one-body-all-closed-no-mods laptops.

Before you down vote me, I still applaud Dells decision to get Ubuntu Laptops out there. But I don't really see what the big game changer is whether a laptop comes preinstalled with Ubuntu or if I do it myself.

<comment><USER20> > I don't really see what the big game changer is whether a laptop comes > preinstalled with Ubuntu or if I do it myself.

It means a certain level of support. They're actively trying to make this thing run Linux well, instead of leaving it up to "the community". And you don't have to go reading forums or blog posts before buying just to figure out if it will have some stupid UEFI bug or whatever that makes installing Linux on it a real hassle.

Although I prefer Thinkpads, I very much understand why people want Macbook- like computers – they look quite nice! You shouldn't have to fit into some black-and-blue mold just to run Linux.

<comment><USER19> Lenovo did the same in the early days at least, they were very aware of having to produce high compatibility laptops. Not so much for the point of open source but for business usage which sometimes required non-windows OS's. But sure I applaud Dell. The world should rid of Windows.

<comment> castle-bravo No longer, apparently. A colleague if mine has had some headaches with ubuntu on his legion Y520, including no wifi connectivity at work. My T430 has no problems though.

<comment><USER21> AFAIK, the Y-series line is not a ThinkPad line. What the parent said applied to the ThinkPad line, which is treated differently by Lenovo to their consumer lines.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER22> Ironically enough, inside Dell there is an initiative to push everyone onto Windows, no Mac or Linux. With no exception for engineering.

<comment><USER23> How did you hear this?

<comment><USER24> I can actually confirm this, through a third party. I use to work for EMC, and left in early 2017, but still have a lot of friends still working there. Going forward employees were no longer going to be able to connect to the VPN with anything other than the Dell official Windows img. This mostly just meant that any work laptop must run Windows. Developer workstations could still run Linux, at least in the office I worked in as the IT there was not EMC or Dell, but our own internal that originated prior to our EMC acquisition many years ago.

I could see other organizations which were not so disconnected from Dell EMC being force further down Windows. Their solution is to run Linux in a VM, which is just unfortunate given the work and the product.

<comment><USER22> EMC acquisition — Isilon by any chance? :-)

<comment><USER24> Hello :-) _00_

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER25> Got the XPS 9560 from Costco, which they sell at the max configuration (32gb ram, 1tb SSD, 4k touch screen, nvidia 1050) for a few hundred dollars cheaper than Dell, and it's a beast. Got Ubuntu running on it without too much trouble, though it required a bit of tweaking. Only thing that doesn't have a driver is the fingerprint scanner. I'm extremely happy with it so far. Have had no stability issues at all. Only real issue is not the laptop so much as Linux with patchy software support for 4k screens. I run Xmonad as my desktop so I have to configure several things manually to work with HiDPI.

<comment><USER26> In arch that laptop works pretty well without tweaks.

Don't try to use the GPU and the CPU at the same time for longer than 5 minutes or you will be very disappointed (I own the same model).

<comment><USER25> What are you referring to? Does it overheat? Battery run down?

<comment><USER27> I don't know what jorgemf is referring to but I own the same laptop. It's bad at switching between the intel and nvidia GPUs, most notably in Chrome it even causes lockups. Pretty sad they haven't resolved it yet, out of the box Chrome is now locked down to Intel on Win10.

<comment><USER26> You need to use Bumblebee for this, and then launch the apps with primusrun or optirun. Some programs like steam doesn't need anything, and work without issues.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER28> I had the first version, currently on am on my second version of the Dell XPS 13 developer edition, and about to order a brand new one to replace it. It is a really great package.

Not to mention having HW from a major company like Dell with all the drivers already in the Linux kernel means you can pretty much run any distro you want and it "just works".

<comment><USER29> I'm currently waiting on the 8th gen CPU version (9370) of the Developer Edition to come out.

<comment><USER30> Yeah, love my 9360 but the CPU has a serious lack of grunt sometimes. I'd prefer a Ryzen version with AMD GPU though, and HP have just announced one.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER31> I bought an XPS 13 9360 and immediately installed linux on it and it's been running flawlessly. After shopping around for a good linux-compatible laptop, I found that nothing beat the dell in terms of support. I couldn't be happier! I love what Dell has done with their premium laptops and I hope to replace this machine with a future XPS when the time comes. (I bought the windows version because it was $50 less than the developer edition for some reason.)

</comment><comment><USER32> I bought a Thinkpad specifically because Dell refuse to sell me their Linux laptop here in Australia. Thinkpad was better hardware for the money, but I would've bought the Dell if they'd supported it.

</comment><comment> linux-user Is Dell still offering those? I cannot find anything. For example this dell page has no current offerings: [http://www.dell.com/learn/us/en/555/campaigns/dell-linux- ubu...](http://www.dell.com/learn/us/en/555/campaigns/dell-linux-ubuntu-en)

<comment><USER33> Yeah, I'm puzzled as well. Upon reading the article, I tried to find Linux notebooks via their homepage (i.e. by starting at dell.com), but found nothing.

<comment><USER34> Go to dell.com/developers . Dell's site is quite a disaster in general. It boggles the mind how hard it is for this giant corporations (Dell, Lenovo, HP) to make a halfway usable website.

<comment><USER35> None of the 15" Precision series laptops linked from that page seem to be available with Linux on their dedicated sales pages... Weird.

Edit: they don't list Linux as being available until you go to "Customize and Buy".

<comment><USER34> Yes, poor websites. It's also hard to find a xeon-m + ecc memory without nvidia being added as a punishment. 7520 is the only one with such a config, and even that is a bad fit with other compromises.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER36> What's the holdup on DE/WM getting hidpi support? It seems like it would be possible to handle it as Macs do, but Linux support for it is just awful. Inconsistencies all over the place.

Using multiple monitors can be another pain point. It works for the most part, but full-screen a video on one monitor and you get flashing and artifacts on the others, you'll "lose" a screen, all kinds of weird stuff. And that's Fedora/Ubuntu/SuSE on two different laptops.

<comment><USER37> It's hard, we're unpaid, and we have to do it in our free time. Consider setting up a recurring donation to desktops you want to support.

</comment></comment><comment><USER38> I'm using a Dell simply because it's the only option beside Thinkpads that are 'known to work' on current linux distributions. For the Thinkpad I would have had to wait 3 weeks, which again was the only reason for the Dell.

Point is, nobody seems to care about linux desktop users for obvious reasons, being a niche in a shrinking market.

</comment><comment><USER39> I wonder how many machines Dell is really selling. Or if project Sputnik is more of marketing ploy, to get popular with developers.

Linux users are very tough customers in my experience.

And the strategy to have plain Ubuntu installed makes them very vulnarable to competitors. The should have developed their own flavor like System76 is doing with PopOS, imo.

<comment><USER40> > And the strategy to have plain Ubuntu installed makes them very vulnarable > to competitors. The should have developed their own flavor like System76 is > doing with PopOS, imo.

For me it's a plus, similar to manufacturers shipping stock Android. I'd replace anything pre-installed with Fedora anyway though.

<comment><USER41> Furthermore, it is a big effort to maintain a distribution, started from maintaining infrastructure, doing QA, especially ensure security, get releases out… while in the end the buyer typically has his own choice (or requirement) of distribution. Therefore, I think it is more then reasonable to pick out one, but also ensure drivers for all the used hardware make it into the kernel.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER42> I just entered "linux" on Dell's german site and "nothing found". Great!

<comment><USER43> Here you go: [http://www.dell.com/de-de/shop/dell- notebooks/xps-13-develop...](http://www.dell.com/de-de/shop/dell- notebooks/xps-13-developer-edition/spd/xps-13-9350-laptop-ubuntu)

</comment></comment><comment><USER44> The last time I went to Dell specifically to buy a Linux laptop the option wasn't available. I just had to uninstall Windows. The market is here, I'll be looking to buy an XPS with Ubuntu preloaded but please make them available!

</comment><comment><USER45> The dumb thing is that it was cheaper for me to buy my XPS 13 from Microcenter and delete Windows, than get the Developers Edition from Dell.

Had to sticker over the damned Windows logo on the bottom with a Tux sticker; didn't feel right.

<comment><USER46> Similar thing happened to me--was just browsing Craigslist one night (looking for a cheap ThinkPad, actually), and stumbled across a listing for a fully decked-out XPS 13, lightly used, for $800. I really had no choice. Wiped Windows, replaced the Broadcom wifi with an Intel chip, and loaded Fedora onto it.

That model was a 9343, however, and when my extended warranty runs out for it in 2019, I will likely buy a new Developer Edition. The Dell guys have said that loading Linux after purchase doesn't help their numbers--you _need_ to buy the Developer Edition from them in order for their marketing people to gauge interest in Linux.

</comment></comment><comment><USER47> Hmm, so after reading the article I searched for: dell linux laptop and clicked the first link to dell.com

On the product page for the 13 inch XPS Linux I saw a notification: "Sorry, this item is not available anymore for purchase online. Please see our recommended replacement product." And a quick Ctrl-f for 'recommended' or 'replacement' turned up nothing. When I went to the product browser and clicked Operating System the only choices were Windows 7 and Windows 10.

After this experience I'm not entirely convinced Dell actually sells Linux laptops.

</comment><comment><USER48> They should have taken the Latitude 6 or 7 series for Linux laptops. XPS is a toy, the other two are mid-range and high-end workhorses, exactly the kind professional developers and corporate buyers acquire.

<comment><USER49> I have a Macbook Pro (2015 15") at work and a Dell XPS 15 (9550) at home, and personally feel that I'm a very lucky lad to have the two best laptops in the world. My previous job I had a couple of high-end Dell Precision laptops and while they were nice enough machines they were bricks compared to my current laptops, which look far better, feel much nicer, slip unnoticeably into my backpack for my bike commute, and yet have all the heavy hitting hardware I need for my GIS development work. For me, the "toys" win hands down.

</comment></comment><comment><USER50> I recently bought an XPS 13 developers edition from the website after my macbook's screen randomly died (it was old, and ready for an upgrade anyways)

looking at new macbooks, I was unhappy with the lack of a USB slot, thought the fancy bar on the top was unnecessary, and generally you just seemed to get less for the same money.

I NEEDED the laptop right away. The website said it would take 4 days or so. So I waited, then they delayed the order. I couldn't wait, so I decided to cancel the order. I found Microcenter had an XPS 15, which for all practical purposes seemed like the same thing just slightly "better". So I bought that and threw Ubuntu on it.

More or less, it works fine. But I'm not "Wow this is the best laptop ever". I have 1 big complaint. While I'm typing, every once in a while the cursor will skip around. It is infuriating. I'm not sure if it's a hardware or driver issue. My second issue is probably more of an ubuntu issue... but the 4k resolution of the screen (which is actually pretty great) can make some windows scaled super small. From a softer point of view, I don't feel like the frame around this laptop is as durable as the macbook's. I'm very careful when I handle it, because I'm certain one accidental drop, and it's all gone. I dropped my macbook (accidentally!) probably 50 times. No issue.

I really like running ubuntu as my main machine, but this doesn't feel like the "high-end" machine I dreamed about.

<comment><USER9> > While I'm typing, every once in a while the cursor will skip around. It is > infuriating. I'm not sure if it's a hardware or driver issue.

I've seen this happen when my palm was hitting the touchpad and I didn't have the right drivers for it - the default touchpad driver "works" but is missing the palm detection functionality in the "proper" touchpad drivers for that hardware. It might be worth looking up the specific touchpad (via lspci or similar) and seeing if there's a driver for touchpads from that manufacturer. You may have to edit the driver's list of PCI IDs.

<comment><USER51> Same here - I had to end up using touchpad-indicator to fix this (disables the touchpad while typing). Its a shame it doesn't work out of the box and requires this hack.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER52> I hate M$ monopoly in laptop market. So i start looking for best linux laptop 4 years ago. I use ubuntu-wiki-laptop [0] as my buying reference. The choice was Dell Vostro 5470 non-os. This is my main machine since then. As a developer i can say this type are outstanding.

I start with ubuntu 14.04 + gnome-classic. At the beginning the problem just the stereo and volume drivers, solved with patch from launchpad.

Almost my work done in terminal (vim, mocp, bash, psql, mysql, etc). Things that need gui just google-chrome + libreOffice suite. Battery also work great and has no issues with OS, Almost 5 hours average from full charge.

Thanks Dell, thanks canonical. [0] [https://wiki.ubuntu.com/HardwareSupport/Machines/Laptops](https://wiki.ubuntu.com/HardwareSupport/Machines/Laptops)

</comment><comment><USER53> Where/how do you order a linux dell laptop? On the drop down for Operating System only "Windows" options are available. If I search for "linux" I get Canonical support packages and the phrase "Dell recommends Windows" in the top right.

¯\\_(ツ)_/¯

</comment><comment><USER54> Not a Dell shill but I bought a Dell Linux laptop 18 months ago, a Mobile Precision 5510, and I've never been happier.

When the machine arrived I had to disable UEFI Secure Boot to get it working, which seemed to fry the soundcard. I called Dell, was quickly escalated to "Level 3" support, and after a brief diagnostic they sent out a technician to my place of work to replace the motherboard on site the NEXT DAY. I've never had another problem since.

Honestly, what more could they have done, give me a back rub?

The only downsides are no support for Linux support for Apple iTunes and Adobe Photoshop (yes, there's GIMP, but it's not the same). Otherwise it's better in every way, IMHO.

</comment><comment><USER55> I'm using Linux with i3wm and one thing that Windows keep beating Linux over is font rendering.

Font rendering just sucks on Linux, if you like it or not. Microsoft got a few patents end of the 90s and their fonts clearness are just the best. End of story.

<comment><USER56> That as been the opposite of my experience for the last 5+ years.

In my experience, Windows has been the _worst_ at font rendering, and Linux (freetype) the _best_ , with OS X somewhere in the middle (closer to Linux).

Of course, there are edge cases, especially if you are trying to use Windows' fonts, but I very rarely run into them.

</comment></comment><comment><USER57> There are still issues using Linux on XPS laptops from Dell, but funny enough Windows has had both huge touchpad and audio issues for a couple of years(probably a lot of changes with Win10).

Heck, I've bought one of each of the three latest(?) XPS 13 laptops, all with windows even though it has been replaced by Ubuntu the day I got them.

Dell does show windows versions on the website before the Linux alternative shows up, and I guess the Linux version would sell even better if we didn't just buy one with windows as we know Dell is working on ensuring Linux support.

Good job Dell, I hope this stuff continues!

</comment><comment><USER58> Can someone explain to me why it is so difficult to produce hardware that is identical to current offerings but with software that is different? Is it driver conflicts and BIOS problems?

<comment><USER59> Because there are lots and lots of chipsets that work somewhere in the range of horribly to not-at-all in Linux (Realtek and Broadcom spring to mind for poor Linux support with their WiFi chipsets). And any driver that hasn't been upstreamed creates a boatload of work for the support engineers, since kernel updates tend to break out-of-tree drivers on a semi-regular basis.

<comment><USER60> You have a bit outdated info here. Both are generally fine considering recent hardware. The drivers are upstream now.

(The problem is nonredistributable blobs.)

Ralink is fine too. In fact most trouble is with new Atheros chips after their latest corporate takeover.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER61> If you don't need the portability of a laptop and want a similar package to the Dell XPS for _a lot_ less money: an Intel NUC might be an idea.

I've been using one for almost a year after my XPS 13 9343 got stolen. Dell's significant price increase on the newer models made me try out the NUC and it's been great so far.

If you stick to these 'mainstream' components (the XPS and NUC have very similar hardware), Linux support really isn't an issue. "It just works".

<comment><USER62> What specific NUC are your referring to?

<comment><USER61> I meant these: [https://www.intel.com/content/www/us/en/products/boards- kits...](https://www.intel.com/content/www/us/en/products/boards- kits/nuc/kits.html)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER63> The Dell Precision 5520 can have a 97Wh battery, that's pretty slick (though it'd be slicker if it were hot swappable, with a small internal battery like you get on the ThinkPad X2xx and T4xx[s]). It'd also be nice if the site didn't just redirect me to the homepage when I connect from Canada. The only way to even look at the specs on a Canadian IP is to download the PDF spec sheets.

</comment><comment><USER64> I tried XPS about a year ago. I ordered the top model with Ubuntu. But had to return it due to high frequency noise from CPU.

It was also super heavy compared to my X1 carbon. And then the noise, the kind of thing not worth trying to get them to repair because it's likely a design flaw.

</comment><comment><USER65> I bought a Precision laptop preloaded with Ubuntu about 8 months ago and it's been awesome. The only problem I've run into is that I completely lose audio every time I reboot. A quick visit to alsamixer resolves the issue though, so not a huge deal.

</comment><comment><USER66> Unless you live in Canada! Then it's radio silence.

Reminds me why I used to dislike Dell so much.

</comment><comment><USER67> I bought a precision with ubuntu (replaced by mint) in January, xeon plus an ocean of ram. An incredible fast machine. Thanks dell. Next time I will probably try system76.

</comment><comment><USER68> I need the XPS 9370 DE like right now! I have the 9350 and it's been great. Good quality build, light, great screen, solid, works flawlessly with Debian 9.

</comment><comment><USER69> Great read, here is some wishful thinking to hoping they get a X1 Yoga-style convertible added to that list!

My current dream computer is an X1 Yoga convertible.</comment>


Restaurants in Italy are reopening ancient 'wine windows' used during the plague - <AUTHOR> https://www.washingtonpost.com/travel/2020/08/10/restaurants-italy-are-reopening-ancient-wine-windows-used-during-plague/ <comment><USER2> Only to put it in perspective the title: >Restaurants in Italy are reopening ancient 'wine windows' used during the plague

there are currently 3 (three) "buchette del vino" that are known to have been re-opened/are used in Florence. (largely because it is not common that an historical building having one is also now a bar/restaurant).

The original use of these small openings has nothing to do with the plague it was an established (before and besides any plague) way to sell wine (and oil) without opening the "main" door of the building, i.e. a "security" measure.

During the plague, the way the wine was sold was changed:

1) you brought your own "fiasco" (the common type of wine bottle)

2) you put the money (coins) on a metal tray or small dustpan

3) the seller would count the coins without touching them and put them directly in a vase full of vinegar to disinfect it

4) there was a small pipe besides the buchetta where you would put the fiasco, with a funnel at the other end inside, where the seller would pour the wine.

[https://buchettedelvino.org/home-1/diario/index.html](https://buchettedelvino.org/home-1/diario/index.html)</comment>


Google Checkout still unfit for business: I got my money, but would you? - <AUTHOR> http://www.slash7.com/articles/2009/3/28/google-checkout-still-unfit-for-business-i-got-my-money-but-would-you

<comment><USER2> Even high-profile complaints will only ever result in case by case resolutions.

Now if someone was able to start a business where they bought the rights to seized google checkout accounts at say 10 cents to the dollar and (now representing sufficient monetary sums to make action worthwhile) launched serious legal campaigns to retrieve the funds, then google would revise their policies.

If I were owed money by google in this way, I'd happily give 90% to a third party, just to see google get nailed (particularly if it helped force a policy change so that no more 'little guys' were victimised).

<comment><USER3> And how would you protect from fraudsters using your service?

<comment><USER4> There's a famous music sharing group where you can only become a member if someone vouches for you. If someone snitches, then they are thrown out of the group along with the person who vouched for them. (Or something like that.)

This sort of system seems like the right idea for preventing fraudulent sellers.

<comment><USER3> That seems absurdly easy to game... but even if it worked, wouldn't Google or PayPal be doing it?

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> Perhaps Google should use the 200 sales and marketing staff that they are about to lay off

[http://googleblog.blogspot.com/2009/03/changes-to-our- sales-...](http://googleblog.blogspot.com/2009/03/changes-to-our-sales-and- marketing.html)

... and reroute them into some sort of review team so that these kinds of errors don't happen again to what looks like lots of people over several Google products?

That's one way to keep their "do no evil" dream alive.

Clearly you would think sales and marketing people would have the skills to deal with people.

<comment><USER6> Perfect idea.

I just read news in my local newspaper that they were going to hire 360 guys while they were laying of 200 (mostly from far-flung regions).

As per what I read on HN, the interview process is very long (around 8 months I read). So instead of spending another 8 months hiring those 360 guys, they should instead transfer those 200 to some kinda special service review team directly interacting with customers and doing those weird tests they often do for color shades (just pick random people and ask whats kinda painful to use their service).

P.S: It would be a lot better if they also had a 'human' review team to review banned accounts. This would eliminate the errors made by the algorithms. Since the industry standard for fraud is just around 1.5% the review team should be able to handle it easily.

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> OP said:

 _"How much business did I lose?

I have no idea how many potential customers tried to buy our JavaScript Performance ebook through Google Checkout and saw a message that our account was disabled."_

The irony of this whole issue is the complaint is resultant from the site attempting to sell an _eBook on JavaScript_.

What possibly happened is that this particular "technical error" was resultant from some kind of conflict between the eBook's syntactically sketchy JavaScript references (perhaps there are code examples within the eBook) and the way that Google Checkout wants to handle JavaScript.

I would think somebody touting and attempting to _sell_ the "performance" virtues of JavaScript would also be aware of the potential evil that JavaScript can do.

 _"Don't get me wrong: I don't hate Google or people inside Google . . . rather, the way Google's abstract, corporate algorithms have treated me."_

It's probably a very good thing that this "technical error" was indeed preemptively caught by the "abstract, corporate algorithm."

After all, JavaScript _can_ be evil.

I would say. . . score one for Google Checkout. Sometimes better safe than sorry.

<comment><AUTHOR> You make a very bad conspiracy theorist. Or comedian.

The language isn't slow, implementations of it are. Regardless, you can still maximize the performance of something slow, even if that local maximum is not extremely fast in the absolute sense.

We cover the whole range of techniques, from better architecture, DOM tweaking, and the maximization of specific bits of code.

The contents of the book never touch Google Checkout, even in their zipped form.

I wasn't aware publically boasting of ignorance was cool after junior high.

<comment><USER7> I never said the language was slow. I said it _can_ be used to do evil things. Your translation was that Google is somehow "evil" for not implicitly allowing your profit-making motives upon potentially evil exploits. So you got chastised by some security check for a technical error. Technical errors happen all the time. Get over it.

BTW where, exactly, in this eBook do you do you cover security issues related to JavaScript?

 _The contents of the book never touch Google Checkout_

Specifically, where do you cover what "touching" means, in a network's mind?

.

See: <http://neil.fraser.name/news/2005/07/16/>

Also, this: <http://message.worldbank.org/isp_403.html>

(Part-time comedian, part time FBI agent)

<comment><AUTHOR> Um?

How do you think that the topic of the book I'm selling and the Google Checkout saga correlate at all?

I'm really curious, because there's not even the tiniest link in the chain between the two totally disparate and unrelated things.

I didn't get "chastised" by a "security check."

They closed my account, disrupted my business, and stole my money.

With no warning, communication, notice or appeal. They give no way to contact them and they tell you the money is gone for good.

I got my account back only through this publicity campaign, which is, in my opinion, a good example of how Google's "Don't be evil" motto has been abandoned.

<comment><USER7> One more thing: You're seeking "paid validation" as a writer through Google.

Welcome to the club. Want to compare AdSense revenue?

How much money do you really think you "lost" as a result of this error? How many people do you picture were lined up to purchase _your_ book?

Can't be much. You seem to intrinsically overvalue your self-input.

True hackers hack for _free_. Anything that comes of it is icing on the cake. Even pennies are enormously welcome. Whining loudly is lame.

You should really try to remember to keep a sense of humor when dealing with certain types of code like JavaScript.

P.S. Thanks, Neil!

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> Essentially, the way Google Checkout can afford to be cheaper than PayPal is by relying on their much-vaunted algorithms to take as many human beings out of the loop as possible. That's why there's almost no way to talk to a human being in AdSense, AdWords or Checkout: human beings are slow and expensive.

However, algorithms are not foolproof, and in the case of Checkout the desire to never have merchants talking to real people means that when the algorithm gets it wrong, these merchants have nobody to talk to, no phone number to reach, nothing. It seems pretty evil, and unless Google want to raise their rates on Checkout to match PayPal, it seems pretty unavoidable.

This is just another case of You Get What You Pay For, except in this case nobody thought Google would have a shitty product.

<comment><USER9> Google Checkout was cheaper than PayPal as a subsidy.

At the beginning of May they're eliminating the Adsense subsidy, and changing the rates to mirror PayPal's exactly. It's over.

</comment></comment><comment><USER10> It's unfortunate that you had to go through all of that just to get Google to do the right thing. Certainly in this arena Google's image has been tarnished (further?).</comment>


Kitchen worker becomes part-owner of top restaurant - <AUTHOR> http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-39127043 <comment><USER2> Nice to hear. I would love to see more of this or at least low-skilled workers and high-skilled workers getting paid much more equally. I would ask for a pay raise if I had to switch from developing software to cleaning the office toilets, not accept a fraction of the money. Working full-time is working full-time, paying low-skilled workers small money just because they are easily replaceable is unethical. Ignoring some details for brevity like the time spend on education in which you do not earn money and for which you should of course be compensated with a higher salary.

<comment><USER3> > paying low-skilled workers small money just because they are easily > replaceable is unethical.

Sounds like you would feel right at home in socialist Scandinavia. Here the salary of a dishwasher is roughly equal to that of a RN, but the RN has student debts to pay off. And the unemployeed refugee makes almost as much on the dole. All this good for a mere 25%VAT and 35-65% income tax. Welcome.

<comment><USER4> Is RN a nurse? Is there such a thing as student debt in most of Europe, even, unless you want to go abroad or attend super expensive private universities (and a nurse would do neither, I suppose)?

Certainly not the same order of magnitude as US student debt (IIRC median is 20,000 and average is higher).

<comment><USER5> As far as I understand residence, being a RN means working like a dog for essentially no pay - in _any_ country, be it Sweeden, Canada, the United States, or China.

Pointing at a RN to make an economic point is like pointing at the Wall Street interns pulling 130 hour weeks for lunch money as an example of how the poor financial industry is overworked, and underpaid.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> I'm just going to go ahead and say it. 12 children is too many.

</comment><comment><USER7> Without a percentage number this just smells of a PR stunt. Sorry... I have noticed that the Noma guys are quite good at PR. They do know stuff like this gets attention.

/Signed: a current like 0.05% owner of a software company I worked at 20 years ago - lots of dilution since, but I think this illustrates my point. I'd say this small company has a comparable revenue to Noma.

</comment><comment><USER8> Clickbait, it was a human dishwasher.

<comment><USER9> I don't care. It's a happy story and with all the sad news going on re. immigrants, it made my day.

<comment><USER10> I think you missed the joke, but I could be wrong.

EDIT: After all, I'm just a lowly word processor.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> Just by reading the headline, I thought robots are starting to rule to world.</comment>


Python saw impressive growth in 2012 - <AUTHOR> http://blog.briancurtin.com/posts/the-year-of-the-snake.html

<comment><AUTHOR> I was surprised that ~40% of the downloads are Python 3.</comment>


Show HN: Front-end content publishing for WordPress - <AUTHOR> http://buddyforms.com/ <comment><USER2> Hi!

I wish there was a demo because it is hard for me to grok what it does. It says frontend publishing but the screenshots just look like a backend admin view to me.

<comment><AUTHOR> Hey,

I will talk to the owner and get some demo snapshots online soon. Will comment back on Monday!

(Thanks for feedback!)</comment></comment>


Apple Refuses to Kill the 16GB iPhone - <AUTHOR> http://blogs.wsj.com/personal-technology/2015/09/09/it-lives-another-year-apple-refuses-to-kill-the-16gb-iphone/ <comment><USER2> The 64 and 128 GB models subsidize the cheaper 16 GB in a way. Even though 16 GB still has a huge profit margin.

It will be interesting once people start doing teardowns, and we can see if apple has reduced or increased their margins

<comment><AUTHOR> Given memory is so cheap it's the other way around. The 64GB and 128GB models are what allow Apple to enjoy such healthy margins on smartphone sales compared to other competitors.

Keeping the base model at 16GB is going to cause many to shell out an extra $100 to Apple for the 64GB. It's anti-consumer, but this move is going to make them boatloads of more money as the additional $100 is nearly completely extra profit for Apple.

It's a shameless money grabbing move they deserve condemnation for, but they will get away with it any way.

</comment></comment><comment><USER3> People are voting with their wallets. As long as people keep buying them, and they work great, then we'll be stuck with them.

<comment><AUTHOR> The problem is that 16GB is seriously no longer enough local storage given the phone's 4k video and mini-video photos.

There's no doubt that Apple's greed here will significantly boost their short term profits, but in this case they are doing so at the expense of potentially long term pain, especially as consumers grow dissatisfied and frustrated with their iPhone's memory contraints.

<comment><USER3> OK I think you're right because in the end it will make the device (and the brand) look bad. And thinking about it some more, it also hurts users who don't have a say in which phone they get.</comment></comment></comment>


Cambridge breakthrough paves way for same sex couple babies - <AUTHOR> http://www.cambridge-news.co.uk/Cambridge-university-researchers-breakthrough/story-26065812-detail/story.html

<comment><AUTHOR> Original paper - SOX17 Is a Critical Specifier of Human Primordial Germ Cell Fate: [http://www.cell.com/cell/abstract/S0092-8674%2814%2901583-9](http://www.cell.com/cell/abstract/S0092-8674%2814%2901583-9)

A write-up on Science-Alert: [http://www.sciencealert.com/two-dad-babies- could-soon-be-a-r...](http://www.sciencealert.com/two-dad-babies-could-soon- be-a-reality)

Reddit discussion: [http://www.reddit.com/r/science/comments/2wz757/study_paves_...](http://www.reddit.com/r/science/comments/2wz757/study_paves_way_for_same_sex_all_couples_to/)</comment>


The Tunguska Event - <AUTHOR> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tunguska_event

<comment><USER2> Currently reading Pournell/Niven's "Lucifer's Hammer" right now. This was an excellent companion to it.</comment>


Underscore.js Grows OOP-Syntax Sugar (Have Your Cake and Eat it Too) - <AUTHOR>

This morning, Underscore.js went to version 0.4.2. As a brief reintroduction, Underscore is a library of functional helper methods that fits in neatly alongside jQuery. It now has an option to use OO-style syntax, as well as sequences of chained operations on collections. Here's an example of chaining in action:

     var lyrics = [
       {line : 1, words : "I'm a lumberjack and I'm okay"},
       {line : 2, words : "I sleep all night and I work all day"},
       {line : 3, words : "He's a lumberjack and he's okay"},
       {line : 4, words : "He sleeps all night and he works all day"}
     ];

     _(lyrics).chain()
       .map(function(line) { return line.words.split(' '); })
       .flatten()
       .reduce({}, function(counts, word) {
         counts[word] = (counts[word] || 0) + 1;
         return counts;
     }).value();

     => {lumberjack : 2, all : 4, night : 2 ... }

 The library has benefitted immensely from the opinions gathered on Hacker News from an earlier posting, and I wanted to see what y'all think of this addition.
The Array prototype methods are proxied through the chained object, so you can slip in a "reverse" or a "concat" without breaking your chain.
Finally, some speed comparisons with jQuery have been added to the bottom of the testing and benchmark page. Because Underscore proxies to the browser-native implementation, doing an "each()" on a thousand-element array is over 5 times faster than the jQuery equivalent in Safari, and over 3.5 times faster in Firefox. Your mileage may vary, so you can use that page to run your own tests in your favorite browser. <comment><AUTHOR> Clickable Links

Underscore.js: <http://documentcloud.github.com/underscore>

Speed Tests: <http://documentcloud.github.com/underscore/test/test.html>

Development Code: <http://documentcloud.github.com/underscore/underscore.js>

Minified Code (2k gzipped, fits on a screen): <http://documentcloud.github.com/underscore/underscore-min.js>

</comment><comment><USER2> When I read 'OO-style' sadly I immediately thought of sugar to create private variables/methods and some lame class-based inheritance (which I strongly advocate is nigh useless in JS).

Now I understand you mean 'OO-style' in the message passing / Smalltalk sense of the phrase. Which is much better IMHO, but might be lost on monolingual practitioners using "broken" OO style in their languages.

</comment><comment><USER3> Nice work. Have you considered offering your speed improvements as a patch to jQuery?

<comment><AUTHOR> Sure, there's not much there to offer. Underscore just delegates to the native implementations of "map", "forEach", "reduce", "reduceRight", "filter", "some", "every", and so on...

I bet that jQuery would do the same if they could, but their arguments are incompatible with the native versions -- instead of passing in each element as the first argument to the iterator, jQuery binds the element to "this" for each pass through the iterator. In addition, you can return false from a jQuery loop to break out of the iteration, something that's not supported by the native forEach, and that wouldn't work for "map", in any case. Changing any of this would be a major, backwards-incompatible change...

For what it's worth, in Google's Closure Library, they delegate in the same fashion. See "goog.array.forEach", etc.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> Is there a feed? (Or do you have a blog independent of the project?)

Awesome work, I'd love to keep tabs via rss if possible!

<comment><AUTHOR> 'Fraid not, for the moment. Large announcements will be made on the DocumentCloud.org blog, but that covers a bunch of other stuff.

Your best bet for keeping pace with development is probably to follow the project on GitHub.</comment></comment>


ZStack: Heroku for mobile - <AUTHOR> http://www.zstack.com

<comment><USER2> Interesting, but pretty sparse on information ... what exactly does zStack offer that's unique and helpful for mobile apps?

<comment><USER3> I found myself asking the same question. Not sure how heroku's system is much different. Running a web application is running a web application, right? Saying you need "push" is a lousy excuse IMO. Its a "the backend is the backend, right?" question?

Unless I'm missing something, offering sinatra or something lighter would make sense... but it still seems like PaaS to me.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> See also <http://www.stackmob.com>

<comment><USER5> Funny enough, TechCrunch already ran an article claiming it to be 'Heroku of mobile': <http://techcrunch.com/2011/01/27/stackmob/>

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> At first I thought they were in deep trouble with this hitting the front page mere hours after the iCloud announcement. Then I looked at what the actually offer, and it looks like they will be able to compete. They have social, notifications, cross-platform-ness, and analytics in addition to just storage sync. Good luck, I may become a user!

<comment><USER7> And multiple platforms. I expect we'll be waiting a good long time for the Android integration with iCloud...

</comment></comment><comment><USER8> Looks really good in principle, although I think they're offering too much for a first version. The app backend alone is compelling enough for v1.0 IMO.</comment>