Late Capitalism and the Ends of Sleep - <AUTHOR> http://www.newstatesman.com/business/2013/07/late-capitalism-and-ends-sleep-jonathan-crary-sleep-standing-affront-capitalism <comment><USER2> I find it interesting that there's this continual barrage of articles and thinkers taking swings at capitalism; often they offer some vaguely Marxist- sounding critique ( _not_ that I'm up on Marx or his intellectual descendants).

Isn't there any other economic critiques of the current Way Of Things outside of using the anti-capitalist bogeyman?

<comment><USER3> Are you sure that it isn't just that most people are conditioned to consider anything anti-capitalist to be Marxist in nature?

<comment><USER4> well what else is there? We tend to think of economic systems as falling somewhere along the one dimensional axis between Marxism (no private property allowed) and Capitalism (everything is private property). What other axis are you suggesting?

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

<comment><USER5> The way I think about economic systems is

\- Level of business regulation. From left wing Marx style central production control to pure capitalism.

\- Level of redistribution of wealth. From high taxation with redistribution of wealth and strong infrastructure for all citizens (think Sweden or Denmark) to low taxation.

I believe some form of capitalism mixed with somewhat aggressive redistribution of wealth would yield the highest productivity and the most humane society. This is basically how Sweden operates.

<comment><USER4> "\- Level of business regulation. From left wing Marx style central production control to pure capitalism."

This is about private property. Marxists deny the right for individuals or companies to own the "means of production".

"\- Level of redistribution of wealth. From high taxation with redistribution of wealth and strong infrastructure for all citizens (think Sweden or Denmark) to low taxation."

This is also about private property because aggressive redistribution of wealth is by definition impinging on the right to accrue private property.

"I believe some form of capitalism mixed with somewhat aggressive redistribution of wealth would yield the highest productivity and the most humane society. This is basically how Sweden operates."

This is socialism which sits in the middle of the one dimensional spectrum of economic systems.

Also how do you define productivity? Because I assure you that a sweatshop is more productive per dollar than any shoe factory in Sweden.

Unless you mean maximizing the sum productivity and humanity at the expense of one or the other. But humanity is a little harder to quantify eh? :)

<comment><USER5> No matter how high taxes are, if you let people in a first world country work with whatever they want, you're not going to end up with university educated professionals in a shoe sweat shop. If they work in a sweatshop in Sweden, it will be one of clothing design, software engineering, or some other line of work producing many orders of magnitude more value per hour where they can make some solid money for themselves while paying a significant amount of taxes.

And yes, of course I believe that productivity and happiness are two different things and that they need to be balanced. I don't believe in trickle down economics, or that they are two different facets of the same variable on a linear axis that somehow move in unison as you slide left/right up/down.

You can probably quantify humanity (like the Gross National Happiness people are trying to do) somehow, but it's of course not going to resemble true science. I do think there are some basic markers of a civilized society that I have a hard time understanding how some people disagree with though. These include public access to nature and beaches, good education for everyone, good healthcare for everyone, etc. To me, this is a separate _economical_ issue from how much the government meddles in the work life of its citizens. If it's easy for you to think of these issues on one axis be my guest, but it is not a mental model that works well for me.

Cheers!

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> The really important thing this touches on, IMO, is that people who are "poor," are not just cash poor or asset-poor, but also time-poor, and as a result they are increasingly sleep-poor. Because a unit of a poor person's time is worth very little money, they have to sell so much of it just to pay the bills, that it encroaches upon the time they have available for sleep. Being sleep-deprived drains a person's energy, causing them to work less efficiently, which helps perpetuate the vicious cycle of poverty.

<comment><USER7> I think that even more important is that this provides an explanation for the obsession with getting less sleep that seems particularly pernicious in start- up culture, but is noticeable elsewhere as well. It goes beyond merely worrying about the health consequences. It is human biology representing an affront to longer working days and increased productivity.

</comment></comment><comment><USER8> Interesting first comment:

>This caused conflicts with those who had the idea work consisted of doing as little as possible for the most finanical reward. Liberals.

The idea of a "work ethic" (a contradiction in terms if there ever was one!) is so pervasive in most people's minds that they label people who have appropriate capitalist values (i.e., work is a competition between the boss and worker; each attempts to maximize value for minimal cost) by their political enemies.

<comment><USER9> Of course there's going to be conflicts when people have "appropriate" values while their "enemies" have "pervasive" ones.

<comment><USER8> Pervasive means "common". I'm not sure if this is what you meant (it does sound like "perverse" and if you're not a native english speaker I can see how the mistake could be made).

But of course your statement is correct either way. Interesting how both sides see themselves as lone warriors against a sea of villainy.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> Highly recommend reading this book. It's actually a fairly quick read and is a bit of a departure from his other works and areas of interest.

Also not mentioned in the article, Crary co-heads one of the best independent publishers, Zone Books. And every book is beautifully and minimally designed by the legendary studio of Bruce Mau.

Disclosure: author is my wife's grad school advisor.

</comment><comment><USER11> As I write, another article on the front page of Hacker News is entitled: "This is what Tesla owners are doing while you sleep"

[http://blog.opower.com/2014/07/this-is-what-tesla-owners- are...](http://blog.opower.com/2014/07/this-is-what-tesla-owners-are-doing- while-you-sleep/)

"While you are in bed dreaming about how some day you too might own an electric car, many EV owners are doing something dramatic; something unusual..."

<comment><USER12> If sleep is a luxury, it stands to reason that Tesla owners are getting plenty.

</comment></comment><comment><USER13> Well for a start, by definition we don't have Capitalism, so any article referring to 'current day Capitalism' has missed what Capitalism in its true essence is about. The simple act of free trade, property rights and self- ownership is what Capitalism is. What people refer to now as Capitalism, is in fact Corporatism, which of course has its own set of deeply serious problems.

The trouble with everyone bashing 'Capitalism' now is that people draw a false parallel between 'Capitalism' and 'Corporatism' and run a mile in the opposite direction and adopt quite predictable Marxist views.

If we're going to get into Marxism, this was a man who never had a real job... he mooched off of his factory owning friends (so a complete hypocrite) and took advantage of a maid working in his families service and brought about a child of whom he never cared for. He isn't a good role model, and couldn't even live by his own views.

</comment><comment><USER14> What does this article have to do with capitalism ? When you go right down to it communism, socialism, even mercantilism are all trying to maximize productivity and consumption. I think it's probably the one thing all economic systems agree on. Hell, even natural selection agrees on that.

So is sleep an affront to them all ?

<comment><USER15> > What does this article have to do with capitalism ? When you go right down > to it communism, socialism, even mercantilism are all trying to maximize > productivity and consumption.

Yes, a hundred times yes!!!

> I think it's probably the one thing all economic systems agree on.

There I will have to disagree. The three examples you provided are modern (post Enlightenment) economic systems. I am sure there are more examples along the world history, but it is far fetched to say it is common to _all_ systems.

> Hell, even natural selection agrees on that.

Strongly disagree. Every instance of rapid growth in nature either finds a balance with the larger ecosystem or self destroys (by causing severe, though not necessarily terminal, damage to the larger ecosystem). Think cancer. Think the introduction of exotic species into isolated ecosystems. Think the depopulation of the Americas during the XV and XVI century due to European diseases.

> So is sleep an affront to them all ?

In a way, yes. At the end of the day, power means access to limited resources. Besides the obvious cases (access to actual raw materials), time is a limited resource for every human being. But you can expand in a way your life span by having other people do what you want instead of what they want. Ultimately, there is a hard limit on how much this vicarious life extension is available: Num_people_under_your_control * 24_hrs_per_day / biological_needs_factor. Given than people usually need in the ballpark or 8 hrs of sleep per day, this is the single largest component of biological_needs_factor.

Be it a capitalist robber baron, a communist dictator, or a mercantilist king, they get more power by having their people sleep less and work more... up to a point.

<comment><USER14> > There I will have to disagree. The three examples you provided are modern > (post Enlightenment) economic systems. I am sure there are more examples > along the world history, but it is far fetched to say it is common to all > systems.

I'd like to know a few examples of that. You know, a long time ago I visited one of the interior countries in Africa, and got an up-close experience of what's probably the closest thing to original human settlements I'm going to see in my lifetime. They know about the modern world, and they've got some kids that left for the city and learned French. So you can talk to them.

When you look at these people, you would swear that "laid back lifestyle" doesn't quite cover it. They do the bare minimum necessary to survive, and a little bit to get comfortable. As the locals say, they will never amount to anything. And, frankly, these people are right. They will never build (granted, maybe not never ever, but ...).

So you might think. No economy ... no pressure, right ? Wrong.

You see, they are acutely aware of the land's carrying capacity. So they have a choice :

1) don't have kids (or not more than their group can take). Result : neighbouring tribe that didn't see the light comes over, kills all the men, and uses the women and children to expand. Besides, you may have noticed, sex is fun. Kids are fun. And I guarantee that any argument for abstinence will fall on deaf ears.

2) Have kids, and while they don't know the math behind it, they are aware that they'll exceed the carrying capacity of their land in a matter of time (incidentally, you may want to avoid visiting tribes that are close to this limit, don't worry, they'll place markers at the edge of their territory and tell you. Don't ignore them, and if you suddenly see a number of people appear on a ridge, turn fucking back).

BTW: the problem with option 2 is that destructive behaviour can delay the point where they do run out of resources, at a great cost. You see, when the land can't normally support them anymore, they can burn it, which gives them access to a great amount of meat. It's simple : you burn a piece of forest (surprisingly, doing this well takes a surprising amount of skill). You have archers cover the sides of it. Animals who are normally unreachable either try to escape, taking their chances with the archers, or they burn. In both cases : Food ! Of course, at some point, everything is burned. The next step : war (if successful : the tribe splits up, because social structures don't last when groups are 50+ kilometres apart, if unsuccessful, well, we all know what happens in that case).

So truth be told, that system is absolutely trying to maximize productivity and consumption.

> Strongly disagree. Every instance of rapid growth in nature either finds a > balance with the larger ecosystem or self destroys (by causing severe, > though not necessarily terminal, damage to the larger ecosystem). Think > cancer. Think the introduction of exotic species into isolated ecosystems. > Think the depopulation of the Americas during the XV and XVI century due to > European diseases.

This is not true. You forget how natural selection works. There's lots of different tactics. Take rabbits for example. No biologist ever is going to call any rabbit population anywhere on the planet balanced. And you do have a point, rabbit populations breed themselves into extinction daily. Cats do the same. In theory the whole thing should end in a "natural balance", somehow it never does.

The way life survives is simple. Natural selection :

1) multiply, and use it to try a million new things

2) 99.99% of them die off

3) use the remaining 0.01% to GOTO 1

So the purpose of natural selection most definitely is to use bubbles to their maximum advantage. Yes, some species have a slowdown factor built in, but not a very big one.

The reason nature uses bubbles ? If you don't someone else will. And then, you get to deal with all the after effects of strip-mining the bubble, yet you did not get the advantages during the strip-mining that could have allowed you to expand into areas that aren't so heavily effected by the after-effects of the bubble.</comment></comment></comment>


Exits and Assholes (why shutting down your startup makes you a turd) - <AUTHOR> http://blog.downie.com.au/578746

<comment><USER2> Why are people surprised when founders close down a product in a way that maximises their revenue? To play on a quote, "cheap, features and stability - pick any two".

<comment><USER3> People begging for money online (see those "please donate cash so I can get breast implants" sorts of things from a few years ago and on various sub- reddits) are probably a more honest way to earn money than the start-up cashing out method.

If I donate money for some stranger to get larger breasts, I at least know with certainty I'm being used. Not so with many start-ups.

At least that's how I interpret the guy's rant in the article. And in some respects, I share his view. But in many ways, it's no different than someone ranting about their favorite indie band signing up under the litigious umbrella of the RIAA labels.

Sure, the individual(s) producing the goods need to feed themselves (and feed themselves exceedingly well, according to a poster below), but if you as an individual engage with a group of fans/customers, then you are in fact betraying them to some extent when you change your game out from under them.

<comment><USER2> Maybe I'm just cynical then, but I take "please use this great app" in much the same way as "please donate cash".

I just assume that anything that hasn't been round for at least a few years is probably unstable in more ways than one. My solution is not to depend on proprietary software for anything absolutely critical in my life.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> hmm. I sold my startup because i was offered a wonderful amount of cash. Now my children get a great education. I got to design and build my own house. I get to spend quality time with my well educated family. I have fun, and don't need to work 18 hours a day. I dreamed, created and moved on. Nothing is forever.

<comment><USER5> You don't need to apologize for that. You did what made financial sense for you. The OP definitely has some kind of chip on his shoulder... best to ignore crap blog posts like that.</comment></comment>


Numerical Linear Algebra for Programmers - <AUTHOR> https://aiprobook.com/numerical-linear-algebra-for-programmers?release=0.9.0 <comment><USER2> I have to echo what others have said: great book idea, but not so hot on the model.

I studied linear algebra in college and I could use a refresher for AI, but I don't want to study math in the traditional way, with convoluted abstract examples that lead nowhere. Hated it back then and hate it now. The prospect of doing it in code makes it infinitely more exciting so you've definitely got something going on there there...

However, I'm not going to get into _another_ subscription, mainly because I don't want to check every month to see the state of the project.

I'd personally pay you around $40 for an early access fee that also gets me the final product... It'd be a discount from your target price but I'd also be taking a risk (what if you don't finish it?).

I'm favoriting this and will check how it evolves. Worst case, I'll buy the finished product if the reviews are good!

<comment><USER3> You may be looking for this book: [https://www.manning.com/books/math-for- programmers](https://www.manning.com/books/math-for-programmers)

<comment><USER2> That looks great, thank you. I'm actually tempted to buy it - have you worked through it?

</comment></comment></comment><comment><AUTHOR> Part of my Interactive Programming for Artificial Intelligence book series.

The companion book in the same series:

Deep Learning for Programmers: An Interactive Tutorial with CUDA, OpenCL, DNNL, Java, and Clojure

[https://aiprobook.com/deep-learning-for- programmers/](https://aiprobook.com/deep-learning-for-programmers/)

</comment><comment><USER4> I saw a great talk explaining linear algebra where the presenter used it to solve the angles of an arm joint to place an animated robot arm at a specific co-ordinate.

I think it might be this actually, can't watch it all right now to check. Demo I'm thinking of should be [https://youtu.be/3v75aX5-gSA?t=1436](https://youtu.be/3v75aX5-gSA?t=1436)

</comment><comment><USER5> For a great introduction to numerical linear algebra, I cannot recommend enough the book from Trefethen and Bau.

Or Golub & Van Loan, if you like pain.

<comment><USER6> I don't like Strang books that much as I find them a bit verbose, but his latest one is geared towards machine learning and it's pretty good: [http://math.mit.edu/%7Egs/learningfromdata/dsla_toc.pdf](http://math.mit.edu/%7Egs/learningfromdata/dsla_toc.pdf)

He covers some numerical linear algebra, and he spends a lot of time on topic modeling and deep learning.

<comment><USER7> > I don't like Strang books that much as I find them a bit verbose

I'm not sure I agree with you. I remember his elementary calculus book, where he states and proves the fundamental theorem of calculus on the first two pages (including the definition of derivative and the definition of integral). He says something like "this is not a car analogy, this is the real thing and we are already done, the rest of the book is just minor details and examples". I do not know how you can be more concise than this, considering that half of the first page was taken by a cute drawing of a speedometer and an odometer. That you call verbose?

<comment><USER8> two different books, just like people, can have two different styles right ?

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> The book looks interesting and the associated libraries (neanderthal for e.g.)

But while going through your performance comparison [1], I feel something is off.

I am not that familiar with libpython-clj and how it works, but looks like you are loading python from within the JVM and in turn the python is loading the C++/fortran OpenBLAS libraries to get the numerical calculations done for the Correlation Coefficient. I suspect this multi-level indirection is creating it's own performance overhead. For now, I don't believe the performance benchmark are telling us the true story :-)

But after saying all that, I love how concise is the clojure implementation is.

[1] [https://dragan.rocks/articles/20/Clojure-Numpy-Cupy-CPU- GPU](https://dragan.rocks/articles/20/Clojure-Numpy-Cupy-CPU-GPU)

<comment><USER10> The follow up article addresses this concern. Similar results

[https://dragan.rocks/articles/20/Clojure-Numpy-Cupy-CPU- GPU-...](https://dragan.rocks/articles/20/Clojure-Numpy-Cupy-CPU-GPU-2)

<comment><USER11> Yeah, well, that's a nonsense comparison: the neanderthal package is freaking lapack (in C++), and they used a java trick to get Clojure fast on it (basically run the C++ on allocated unmanaged memory blobs, which is the only marginally sane thing one can do in a language like Clojure). I wrote an early version of this in Clojure before throwing my hands up at the atrocity of doing this sort of thing. They also wash over very obvious (to anyone who knows how a computer works) issues with using Cuda and Clojure numerics in general. Misleading and Fail statements.

If the whole book is filled with such chirpy and wrong assertions, they should fall on their swords for offending their numeric linear algebra forefathers and the shame of it all.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> Now even books are subscriptions?!

<comment><AUTHOR> Author here.

Please consider an alternative viewpoint: you can try the book draft for $9, and if you don't like it, just don't continue subscription. Total cost: $9.

If you like the book, please consider that 100% of the book proceeds go towards the development of related _free open source libraries_ [https://github.com/uncomplicate](https://github.com/uncomplicate)

<comment><USER13> I've bought plenty of MEAP books at Manning that were incomplete. The difference is that I only had to pay the $30-40 (normal book price) one time and never think about it again, and new revisions would just be delivered to me.

There have been several early access books where the author needed to take a (well deserved) break, or be slow at delivering new chapters because of other revisionary work. This has sometimes meant a few months without new content, which I was OK with in that model.

In this model I could easily end up spending way more than than that, and every month I have to make a decision if it's worth cancelling.

Not only that you have another book on there that's "early access too" so you are juggling two books (and books are not trivial things to write and get finished/polished). So how am I to expect you'll get either done in a reasonable time.

So sorry, I'd be happy to give you a flat $30 for early access to the book and full access to the ebook when it's finished, but I'm not going to subscribe and hope it's in a good state prior to reaching that point in monthly fee.

This is despite I think this book is very much what I'm looking for as I'm wanting to get into 3d graphics, but I'll pass.

<comment><USER14> I've bought early access book from Manning as well, and after few months of silence the author decided to drop the chapters that I was looking forward. Left a bad taste in my mouth.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> No way..

After backing and not receiving Punk Mathematics since 2010, I realized paying for something unfinished makes absolutely no sense at all.

I prefer to pay more and get something complete.

<comment><AUTHOR> Just to clarify: the book you backed and got burned with in 2010 has no relation to this author nor this book.

<comment><USER16> Good comment, my initial thought after reading the parent was that it was by the same person.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER17> > no C++ build hell

> no C++ syntax hell!

> no C++ at all!!!

The author of this book has some strong feelings about C++.

<comment><USER18> The two classic graduate texts for numerical linear algebra are Matrix Computations by Golub and Van Loan and Numerical Linear Algebra by Trefethen and Bau.

The reference you are looking for (includes executable C++) is Numerical Recipes by William Press et al.

There are a couple other good ones as well that are more broad - e.g. Quarteroni, Sacco, & Saleri Numerical Mathematics also covers numerical diffeq, convex geometry, & approximation theory.

I can't comment on how OP's book fits in.

<comment><USER11> Trefethen&Bau, Golub & Van Loan and Demmel's "Applied Numerical Linear Algebra" make up the holy trinity. I don't know what audience the OP book is supposed to serve, but it's evident on inspection; it ain't me.

<comment><USER18> The best thing I remember from Demmel's book is that i'm pretty sure the spooky possessed baby on the cover is his kid.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER19> My interpretation of this subscription landing page was that I could preview a few pages from the book to see if the writing style worked for me. I wasn't able to figure out how to do so, as the 'AVAILABLE' link next to the linear algebra refresher simply went to a Patreon page full of locked/unavailable posts. This looks like it could be nifty, but the ultra-polished marketing is too focused on paid conversions and doesn't meet the basic necessaries of "Is this content valuable to me?".

<comment><AUTHOR> [https://dragan.rocks](https://dragan.rocks)

and also the Downloads section of the [https://aiprobook.com](https://aiprobook.com)

</comment></comment><comment><USER20> Does this include "traditional" numerical linear algebra (e.g. stability, conditioning) or is it the modern deep learning interpretation that linear algebra ≈ matrix multiplication?

</comment><comment><USER21> Is there some sort of preview material? I am always quite skeptical about mathematics through programming books, so it would be nice to get a feel for it's rigor.

<comment><USER22> [https://aiprobook.com/downloads/lafp-sample-vector- spaces-0....](https://aiprobook.com/downloads/lafp-sample-vector- spaces-0.1.0.pdf)

</comment></comment><comment><USER23> I think there's a misspelling on your pitch page - "aren't these two frends adorable? the book is too!"

</comment><comment><USER24> I am trying to read Axler's book and it is proving to be extremely boring to me (no offense to the author) but this post gave me an idea that I should probably explore a linear algebra library along with the book to make things interesting.

<comment><USER7> I also find Axler unbearable. If you are interested specifically in matrices, the book by Denis Serre is quite a masterpiece. And if you are interested in numerical linear algebra, the book by Tim Davis "Direct Methods for Sparse Linear Solvers" is also extremely beautiful and readable (the goal is not the software implementation in itself, but most of the presented algorithms are illustrated by pseudocode, and some of them even in C).

</comment></comment><comment><USER25> It lost me at no C++ at all.</comment>


Stroopwafel.me: Redefining SaaS (Stroopwafels as a Service) - <AUTHOR> http://stroopwafel.me

<comment><USER2> Is this only for homesick Dutch expats? I'd like 3 per month in a regular envelope.

<comment><AUTHOR> Who can live on < 1 stroopwafel per week?</comment></comment>


Your Apple Watch can now open your hotel room door at over 100 Starwood Hotels - <AUTHOR> http://9to5mac.com/2015/04/24/apple-watch-hotel-room-key/ <comment><USER2> You've been able to do this with a phone for a while now as well.

</comment><comment><USER3> Yes, but can someone else's Apple Watch also my hotel room door?</comment>


Apple will no longer terminate Epic's usage of 'Sign In with Apple' - <AUTHOR> https://9to5mac.com/2020/09/10/apple-no-longer-terminate-fortnite-sign-in/ <comment><USER2> Smart move on Apple's part, they do this once and it raises the possibility with all app developers that it could happen to them without warning or recourse - Apple already has an solid history of pivoting without warning and being uncompromising. Their even threatening to do it should raise alarm both with Apple, and with social login in general as Facebook and Google have demonstrated similar behaviors.

<comment><USER3> I wouldn't be so quick to trust Epic's telling of the "facts"

> When reached for comment about yesterday's news, Apple told The Verge that > it was not doing anything to stop "Sign In with Apple" accounts from working > with Epic Games. So there's some kind of discrepancy in who is telling the > truth, as Epic is maintaining that Apple was previously enforcing the > shutoff (and the way Epic is talking about it, still possibly could). Apple > did not immediately reply to a request for comment about today's > development.

Source: [https://www.theverge.com/2020/9/10/21431396/epic-sign-in- wit...](https://www.theverge.com/2020/9/10/21431396/epic-sign-in-with-apple- will-keep-working-fortnite)

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> > On June 30, 2020, Epic emailed Apple requesting to offer a competing Epic > Games Store app through the App Store that would allow iOS device users to > install apps from Epic directly, rather than through the App Store and to > offer payment processing options within Epic's apps other than IAP. > On > July 10, Apple responded that "Apple has never allowed this . . . we > strongly believe these rules are vital to the health of the Apple platform > and carry enormous benefits for both consumers and developers."

> Around 2am on August 13, Mr. Sweeney of Epic wrote to Apple stating its > intent to breach Epic's agreements: "Epic will no longer adhere to Apple's > payment processing restrictions." Hours later, Epic activated a secretly > planted payment mechanism in Fortnite to slide a non-approved change into > the app that blatantly evaded App Review.

From the legal document: [https://regmedia.co.uk/2020/08/21/appleepic.pdf](https://regmedia.co.uk/2020/08/21/appleepic.pdf)

The back and fourth on case this is pretty insane

<comment><USER5> Thank you, that is one of the clearest descriptions of the events leading up to this that I've seen. On the surface it seems to be blatant provocation on the part of Epic the outcome of which should have been no surprise to anyone.

If I were a customer of Epic I think I'd be pretty pissed that their actions caused me to lose access to my purchased content.

<comment><USER6> Maybe you shouldn't have bought stuff you didn't actually own?

<comment> m-p-3 With how locked the iOS ecosystem is, you don't really own the hardware either..</comment></comment></comment></comment>


Will Crushing Student Loans and Worthless Degrees Politicize Millennials - <AUTHOR> http://www.oftwominds.com/blogmay13/politicizing-GenY5-13.html

<comment><AUTHOR> Follow the white rabbit (or is "Ignorance bliss."). Knock, knock.</comment>


Scientists Unveil the 'Most Clever' CRISPR Gadget So Far - <AUTHOR> https://www.statnews.com/2016/04/20/clever-crispr-advance-unveiled/ <comment><USER2> The paper takes CRISPR/Cas9 and turns it into a targeting system for an set of enzymes that allow modification of a single DNA basepair at a specific locus in the DNA without introducing a double strand break.

The reason this is important is because a double strand break (the result of standard CRISPR) is a devastating event, introducing a risk of uncontrolled mutation. However, if you're able to modify a single basepair in the DNA in a targeted fashion, you eliminate that risk, making it much more practical to use this technology in the clinic.

There are still absolutely massive obstacles to using CRISPR in a clinical setting, but this is a very important step forward. It still remains to be seen how you get the CRISPR/CAS system into a cell (and other ancillary accessories specified in this work) reliably in a clinical context. Still early days, but a very important step.

Full disclosure: David Liu (the PI on this work) may be seen as a competitor to the lab where I did my graduate work.

<comment><USER3> So it does prevent failure in NHEJ, doesn't it? But how does it prevent offtarget effects? I mean, if the wrong guide sequence is bound, an offtarget is mutated all along, isn't it?

<comment><USER4> Does this answer your question, or are you asking something else?

> The problem addressed by the new technique is not the usual one discussed > with CRISPR, namely, off-target effects. That refers to changing a region of > the genome other than the intended one. While early genome-editing > experiments had that problem, there has been "tremendous progress" in fixing > it, said Dr. Keith Joung of Massachusetts General Hospital.

<comment><USER3> Thanks, thats what I was looking for. The first paragraph totally sounded like they were targetting offtargets, but in the end they dont.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> Huh.. this paper introduces a technique that works the way I originally had understood CRISPR/Cas9 to work based on my casual reading of the technology. So that's pretty good news and I should apply my previous excitement about it here I guess!

<comment><USER6> This is pretty typical of popular press descriptions of new science and tech. Initially describe it as though it works flawlessly. Reveal flaws only later in the context of their having been dealt with. I also used to see this a lot back when I was an audiophile. A new piece of kit would be reviewed as absolutely amazing and worthy of its huge price. Then a few years later a new bit of equipment would be praised as improving on the previously reviewed one's well known flaws.

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> Cool. So they basically took away Cas9's ability to cut, but retained its ability to target specific loci on the genome. Then attached an enzyme that converts the base.

Changing the other combinations of bases might be tricky. Not sure if there are existing enzymes that will perform those functions biochecmically, as C -> U conversion is relatively simpler compared to other conversions.

</comment><comment><USER8> So CRISPR is definitely a hot topic right now, and we hear that it has better success in vitro rather than in vivo (correct me if I'm wrong), but how far out is this to being available as a therapeutic mechanism in the treatment of diseases?

And what diseases are those?

<comment><USER2> A major issue is that in vitro you have the luxury of many attempts to get the right result.

Here's a somewhat simplified but illustrative example:

Say you have 10 mouse embryos. You use CRISPR, then check them for whether it worked out as expected. Only one of those embryos is as desired.

That's totally fine, and massively accelerates lab research. But you can't apply those numbers to something like human embryos ethically.

I think (and people I know in academic science agree) that CRISPR is awesome for research science, but that it's going to take some time before it's directly useful in the clinic. And even when it is, it's likely to be useful in a subset of cases where you can check whether CRISPR had the desired effect before introducing the results into a patient. This is still very useful (immunotherapy for cancer for example, another very hot topic these days), but doesn't quite match the breathless statements from the mainstream press.

This work is really nice because it likely reduces the number of embryos (in the above contrived example) you'd need to screen before finding an appropriate one. On the other hand it's still very very hard to get this to work when you have a limited number of cells you can apply CRISPR/CAS to. Progress, yes. Panacea, no.

<comment><USER9> And I would have thought that letting an agent that can modify DNA loose anywhere except strict lab conditions could be dangerous? Do you expect gov regulations to happen soon in this area?

<comment><USER10> Not dangerous at all. Requires high concentrations of reagents to function, can't penetrate cells on it's own, sensitive to pH and solution conditions, protein doesn't aerosolize on it's own, etc. The government regulates how you can use it, but cas9 itself is harmless

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> Why do government and public funds get spent supporting universities to train specialists to develop then patent important stuff ?

<comment><USER12> There is actually a long history of doing exactly this. In short, the government (correctly) believes that it is not very good with creating business, and it is better left in the hands of the private sector.

In terms of the ownership of the intellectual property, the extent to which these NIH/NSF Grants reach ends with the discovery of the knowledge. These Grants are not considered benefits or entitlements, but awards to support specific public purposes. It is a form of transfer payment from the government. You can consider it a lever for the government to support selected fields of research, but no more than that. These Grants are designed specifically to not entitle the funding agency ownership of the discovery.

The government is determined to help the scientists and the institutions to turn the discoveries into businesses, because only through business can these insights gained from research benefit consumers. There are specific grants for this purposes and they have in the past been successful at helping brining discoveries to market, creating viable small businesses. The idea is that the ownership of the intellectual property is best bestowed upon those who were involved in the original discovery. And it is best to leave the creation of businesses to the private sector, because the government is not very good with creating businesses directly. If you are looking for an examples of government being inefficient at running business, you can look at the nuclear power industry. It is completely government owned because of the obvious homeland security implications. Yet it continuously operates at a loss.

As a side-note, to address your comment on "universities train these specialists":

these specialists are not trained by the Universities. These specialists __are __the universities sans the administrators, There won 't be Harvard without these PI's. Also, knowledge is useless on paper. It is these specialists who knows how to use these knowledge who are valuable. Just to give a sense of how rare(and valuable) these specialists are, in physics and biology (where I have worked), I noticed that in most of the fields there are usually less than five lab and their corresponding PI's who are contributing 95% of the most cutting edge work.

<comment><USER13> While I generally support private sector solutions, I don't agree that, self- evidently or absolutely, private business is the only way to do these things. It's a great tool, but not the solution to all of life's problems.

Also, whether or not private business is the ultimate solution, the intellectual property still can be free and open. In the IT industry we probably can name a few examples of free, open IP that facilitated a little bit of business, such as the Internet, the Web, Email, the IBM PC design, Unix ... maybe a couple of others ...

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> "changes one-letter misspellings in DNA called point mutations... it could fix misspellings in DNA that cause Tay-Sachs"

I don't follow. Tay-Sachs is usually (always?) caused by a frameshift, not a point mutation.

</comment><comment><USER15> It's interesting that the mainstream media mostly glossed over the apparent danger of CRISPR/Cas9 of causing massive mutations. Very exciting stuff but clearly we have a ways to go yet.</comment>


Ask HN: Family Business Goes South - throwaway-story

tl;dr Family starts brick & mortar business, founders dispute, how to deal with aftermath.
Long version: Two family members and I started a bar business located in Arkansas. First business venture for all of us, and therefore we didn't know anything about vesting or the like. We have an LLC with 1/3 ownership per partner, no exit-clauses, no vesting, no special cases. Basically the minimum paperwork you could have filed. We took out a loan and also all invested a small (mid 4-figure) amount.
There was a business-related dispute that turned personal after about one month. One family member--we'll call him Angry--walked out and has not been back in in over two years. He has not spoken to either of us regarding the business. If relevant, the dispute was about how to run the business, Angry didn't agree, and it had to do with changing a couple of trivial things he had been doing. It was presented well (we weren't shitty) and culminated in several "fuck you guys" from Angry.
This has been a lingering shadow for two years, and we'd like to handle it--especially because I plan to depart from the business myself. We have opened a dialogue with Angry, who appears to believe he's owed 1/3 of the "profits"--disregarding our (time) investment (over 15,000 hours combined) vs his (about 70 hours the first month). Also, if relevant, profits are negligible (think breakeven) not counting a VERY meager draw the remaining founders have taken weekly.
What do you think? The paper says he's owed it, correct? Do we have any (legal) recourse? Is there a way to "make things right?" What's right? Angry will seek the maximum money, regardless of morals/values/etc.
Also, lessons learned: vest shares, don't mix biz and family, take care of this way sooner. <comment><AUTHOR> Being a lawyer, I'm pretty sure this is a lawyer question, not a "Ask HN" question. Everyone here with a brain is just going to tell you to call a lawyer. Unless you're just looking for moral support, then you should create a poll and we'll all vote for Angry not getting anything and possibly contracting lupus.

<comment> throwaway-story Fair enough, I guess part of what I'm asking is can the lawyer even do anything outside of say "pay him 1/3"?

Meaning, do we actually have any kind of argument because he "abandoned" the business?

<comment><AUTHOR> Well, that's what they're there to tell you. Usually, the consultation is free or a small fee. A good lawyer can get the facts from you in an hour, can take a look at your agreement, and armed with knowledge of the laws of Arkansas, can tell you some odds or whether you have a good case or not. We here on HN, unless we are AK lawyers, aren't going to know how good your argument is because AK might have laws on the books about this sort of stuff we don't know about.

<comment> throwaway-story Law sucks. And it's hard to research.

Someone fix it.

<comment><AUTHOR> It sucks because its very fact specific. Too many variables, if you will. Anyone can read the law online, but a good lawyer can tell you how its applied, who courts are sympathetic to, what kind of judges your county has, what direction the law is moving and how well you might do. Its a mess, but the U.S. likes it that way, because each state can follow its own direction.</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment>


ECMAScript 4: The Missing Version - <AUTHOR> https://evertpot.com/ecmascript-4-the-missing-version/ <comment><USER2> On this bit:

> Perhaps if ES4 landed, fewer people would need complex build tools like > Babel, Webpack and Typescript.

I'd pose it the other way: if stuff like Babel existed at the time, folks might have actually written es4 because they could do so without breaking backwards compatibility. And most of the value in a static type system is the ability to flag errors before running the program, so I don't think there's anything you can add to the browser that would have obviated an offline tool for that.

Frankly, I think we'd be better off if we started getting a lot more selective about what gets added to browsers. Adding more and more features to browser's js implementations is silly when most folks are using ahead of time build steps to get access to those features without the browser's help. And continuing to add things is a great way to ensure that they'll keep right on using those tools, so they don't have to worry (as much) about who supports what. And it just makes the barrier of entry for building browsers higher and higher.

There's more utility when native browser support can do something a compiler can't. Things like reducing code size for really widely used functionality, enabling technologies that can't be bootsraped through developer tools (e.g. WebRTC). I'd like to see additional growth of the web platform be focused on areas that can't adequately be addressed by separate tools.

<comment><USER3> Mind that features like type hinting in ES4 / AS3 were more about execution speed than about IDE-like error checking. There were times when AS3 was faster than any native browser JS, exactly because of this (and due to faster object lookup, as well).

<comment><USER2> Ultimately though this end probably would have been better served by bytecode.

<comment><USER3> Mind that byte code is generally much larger than source code.

(This is also, why scripting languages were prevalent server-side with slow hard disks: loading and compiling a Perl script was faster than loading a massive binary. See also the 2MB Java Hello-World.)

<comment><USER4> Which highlights why bytecode is such a bad idea. It isn't a sort of assembly language, its much dumber, more like a pocket calculator language. It actually loses semantic information. It has to be re-compiled like the source code but with most of the useful source clues lost.

A far, far better choice would have been some orderly structuring of the semantics of parsed and interpreted code. What the compiler has internally after digesting the source, but before generating code. Choose some schema and emit json or something. That would have been a game-changing choice some decades ago. But no we got saddled with byte-code and a billion dollars has been spent mitigating that disaster.

<comment><USER5> > _What the compiler has internally after digesting the source, but before > generating code. Choose some schema and emit json or something._

You mean the parsed Abstract Syntax Tree; AST.

The next step would obviously be that people choose to start programming _directly_ in the AST form. And now you have created Lisp.

<comment><USER4> Denied. The next step is not pretending everybody wants to be a compiler internals expert. Programming languages are two or three orders closer to human understanding.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> I remember sitting outside a Mountain View Starbuck's with Lars Hansen, then at Opera, and Brendan Eich, then at Mozilla, and listening to Lars explain that he'd lost faith that ES4 was realistically implementable. I think that was the day I knew it was dead.

I spent years working on ES4 and I'm not sorry it failed (namespaces in particular were just a disastrously bad idea). The whole affair was a formative experience for me.

<comment><USER7> How did namespaces in ES4 differ from namespaces in Java?

<comment><USER8> In Java you would use packages to group together class definitions

same as with C++, C# where you would use namespaces to do that

aka define the scope of classes

in AS3, the packages are used the same, group collection of definitions, not only classes and interfaces but also variables, constants.

The namespaces in AS3 are used to define the visibility of definitions at the class level, a bit like being able to define your own "public" attribute.

In ActionScript 3, by default the AS3 namespace is open, for example with a builtin like Array instead of using the push() method defined in the prototype, it uses the push() method defined in the AS3 namespace.

See [https://github.com/adobe/avmplus/blob/master/core/Array.as#L...](https://github.com/adobe/avmplus/blob/master/core/Array.as#L187)

But you also have mode to compile with -ES to not open that AS3 namespace by default.

In ES4, namespaces could do more advanced stuff like namespace shadowing (only a proposal at the time), see [https://web.archive.org/web/20070629024201/http://developer....](https://web.archive.org/web/20070629024201/http://developer.mozilla.org/es4/spec/chapter_12_namespaces.html)

For AS3, see 1.9 Namespaces / 12 Namespaces / etc. [https://github.com/as3lang/ActionScript3/wiki/Specification](https://github.com/as3lang/ActionScript3/wiki/Specification)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> > _In 2008 the standard was pronounced dead, and ES3.1 was renamed to ES5, > which was a much more conservative and incremental update to ECMAScript._

> _The closest thing we had for ES4, was probably Flash Actionscript 3. There > was a point during the release of AS3 that some of us thought that Flash and > the Web was eventually going to converge._

> _For more details on politics and history of ES4, check out this great > article on the auth0 blog [1]._

ECMAScript 4 was actually quite nice, Typescript like but ActionScript3 (AS3) was a great implementation of it. The classes, events, types (was also dynamic) and more were just so right.

I used a ton of AS3 in Flash games, Flex and that moment _just before_ mobile took over the world in 2008. From 2005-2008 Flash vs Silverlight was a massive thing and Flash video had revolutionized the world earlier with Youtube and others. Macromedia was a great company and I wish that Microsoft had bought them (they owned part) instead of Adobe.

The big problem I think was that ultimately it was Macromedia that really started the movement and then Adobe bought them and was really pushing the charge with AS3/ES4 and it went right at the other tech companies platforms. Flex before apps was really webapps done right for a time.

Silverlight was ES3 and Google had lots invested in Javascript with Maps/Gmail/Docs/etc. Microsoft and Google did not like that Adobe was leading it as they ran both big browsers at the time in IE/Chrome and killed off ES4 to go to the ES5 on path. Apple ninja'd in with apps in 2008 and one upped them all with WebGL, Canvas for a plugin free web (Flash/Silverlight EOL'd without notice) and OpenGL ES, Obj-C/C++ for app/handheld games. Apple and apps signaled a move away from the plugin web to standards web and native apps for better or worse with gave platform owners in appstores/browser more control of what technology is used.

It is too bad, I think javascript would look more like TypeScript and be less of a mess today, this is coming from someone that loves javascript since the late 90s.

Side note: I love all of Anders Hejlsberg language/platform design in Turbo Pascal, Delphi, C# and TypeScript and Danish by ancestors so maybe I am biased. ActionScript 3 based on ES4 was along those lines of _just right_ to me, the best format/language doesn't always win, the platform owners dictate technology history.

[1] [https://auth0.com/blog/the-real-story-behind- es4/](https://auth0.com/blog/the-real-story-behind-es4/)

<comment><USER10> ActionScript 3 was a great language. Would have been nice to have it native in-browser.

I also have to agree with Anders Hejlsberg, he has great intuition for what makes a well balanced well rounded language.

</comment></comment><comment><USER11> This is perhaps a good example of how sometimes you can't force the hand of progress, it simply takes some time. So many ideas that were novel additions to Javascript at the time but are standard practice in one form or another today. The touted reason for its failure was lack of backwards compatibility, but I can't help but wonder how much of it was simply browser wars and different factions refusing to cooperate. In 2008, Internet Explorer still held majority of the web, Firefox was a big player and Chrome had just barely entered the scene.

<comment><USER12> I also wonder that. IE is famously non-compliant when it comes to web standards and they were a big player back then.

Chrome gained a lot of it's early traction by being quick to adopt new technologies.

I wonder if it was also to do with the dramatic increate in the size of the spec. ES4 would have added so many more concepts I can't help but think thebrowsers would have nather not gone to all the effort.

<comment><USER13> It's safe to guess that if Netscape had won in the 90s, JS and the browser would have progressed much farther in the 2000s. Microsoft was in it to stop the browser being used as a platform that threatened their monopoly. Once everyone was using IE, they had little incentive need to improve it.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> ES4 had a bunch if problems.

It didn't address major language problems - the lack of unambiguous specification for the existing "specified" language, it failed to document the existing shipping language features that weren't in the es3 spec. Basically it left a whole bunch of the spec ambiguous with differing engine behaviours.

On top of that, the spec was _massive_ , included a lot of kitchen sink style accumulation of language features - I can't recall which feature it was, but I do remember when some language showed a new feature it was almost immediately shoehorned into ES4.

And while a lot of the work was on static typing, more time was consumed by academic features of little real world value - object capabilities were a huge drain on committee time and complexity of many features.

The end result was that ES4 as a spec was far too large to implement, didn't solve The very obvious major problems with the existing spec, and didn't actually provide much in the way of features that people were asking for.

Incidentally the reason we have for(of) in javascript is because that would be ambiguous with the type syntax designed in ES4. The reason I couldn't use for each was because of the other spec this article talks about: E4X.

Both of these were language specifications pushed by Mozilla and a few academic PLT folk with little-to-no interest in other implementer feedback.

At this point even ECMA has retired E4X (it's been withdrawn, or whatever language ECMA uses for a spec that no longer exists)

<comment><USER15> > On top of that, the spec was massive, included a lot of kitchen sink style > accumulation of language features - I can't recall which feature it was, but > I do remember when some language showed a new feature it was almost > immediately shoehorned into ES4.

And in very many cases, too much was added too fast: the spec was _miles_ ahead of any implementation. You really don't want the spec getting too far ahead, as so many issues only become obvious during implementation, and you don't want to be building indefinitely on top of that potentially unsound base.

</comment></comment><comment><USER16> There is a lot of excellent information on ES4 (and other things) in Allen Wirfs-Brock's "JavaScript: The First 20 Years": [https://zenodo.org/record/3707008](https://zenodo.org/record/3707008)

<comment><USER17> Sounds interesting, but sadly a dead link =(

<comment><USER18> The announcement blog post is at [http://www.wirfs- brock.com/allen/posts/866](http://www.wirfs-brock.com/allen/posts/866) but sadly the wayback machine doesn't have a copy of the pdf

<comment><USER8> You can find a copy of the PDF here

[https://discuss.as3lang.org/t/javascript-the- first-20-years/...](https://discuss.as3lang.org/t/javascript-the- first-20-years/2309)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER19> I wrote _a lot_ of ES4 back in the day, or rather AS3. It was my main programming language from around 2007 to 2014. It was a nice mix between ES6 and TypeScript.

</comment><comment><USER20> I remember hearing rumors back in the day that MS dragged its leg with ES4 because they didn't want the browser to be powerful enough runtime to compete with Windows. Mind you that Flesh with AS3+E4X aka Flex was powerful enough to run spreadsheet or text processor in the browser - long before Google Spreadsheet or anything similar was possible with ES5.

<comment><USER21> Everyone who wasn't Adobe realise that standardising on a new version of Javascript that Adobe already had a runtime and tooling for thus having the defacto implementation of would put themselves and a massive competitive disadvantage.

</comment></comment><comment><USER22> Does anyone know where one might find the reference implementation of ECMAScript 4? It's linked here[1] and you can find a form to fill out and download it via archive.org[2], but because it was behind a form, archive.org doesn't have the actual file.

[1]: [https://brendaneich.com/2007/06/ecmascript- edition-4-referen...](https://brendaneich.com/2007/06/ecmascript- edition-4-reference-implementation/)

[2]: [http://web.archive.org/web/20090721022046/http://www.ecmascr...](http://web.archive.org/web/20090721022046/http://www.ecmascript.org/download.php)

<comment><USER16> [https://github.com/dherman/es4](https://github.com/dherman/es4)

</comment></comment><comment><USER23> Another interesting proposal for ES4 was a Python-inspired array slice syntax.

I would quite to have seen this feature adopted, and am glad to see it looks like there is once again a proposal under consideration: [https://github.com/tc39/proposal-slice- notation/blob/master/...](https://github.com/tc39/proposal-slice- notation/blob/master/README.md)

</comment><comment><USER24> I covered ES4 in my book, Get Programming with JavaScript Next. ActionScript 3 was basically a real world implementation of ES4.

</comment><comment><USER25> I'm so glad ES4 never happened. Bullet dodged. Nice to see that sometimes, at least, the industry avoids needless suffering.

But I like that JS can be a primarily functional, rather than primarily object oriented, language.

<comment><USER26> > I'm so glad ES4 never happened. Bullet dodged. Nice to see that sometimes, > at least, the industry avoids needless suffering.

You're so glad now most shops use Microsoft Typescript when there could have been an open standard and implementation in all browsers 13 years ago? Because JS still ended up having classes, and no, they are not "just functions" since you need to call them with the new operator or it yields an error. Ultimately we've got the worst of both worlds, with Microsoft typical EEE cherry on the top.

I'm not glad we wasted all these years because of petty political infightings at ECMA.

</comment></comment><comment><USER27> JavaScript, the Leisure Suit Larry of programming languages.

<comment><USER27> I feel I should explain this lackluster joke. It's not a comment on the quality of the language, but rather on how the Leisure Suit Larry game series skipped episode 4 completely, and the in-universe explanation was that there was a lost game called "Larry 4: The Missing Floppies."

</comment></comment><comment><USER28> This could easily be a nice compiler project. The like operator is quite interesting along with generic functions.

</comment><comment><USER29> The explanation I heard was that E4X died at the time because (a) JSON developed by the early/mid 2000s to compete with XML and (b) XHTML would so easily break in strict browsers that the web was pushed in the direction of HTML5 instead of XHTML. In short, there was a rather large backlash against "enterprise" technologies like XML, WS-* and Flash (in some circles) in favour of HTML Microformats, REST and JSON. This is roughly around the same time when AJAX moved from shipping XML (2003-4) to shipping bits of HTML (PJAX) or using JSON APIs via AJAX or JSONP. The thinking of the day was if XHTML 2.0 was dead on arrival, then we should probably back out the E4X changes as "from another era." CORS is a great example, the original CORS was "Authorizing Read Access to XML Content Using the <?access-control?> Processing Instruction 1.0" from 2005: [https://www.w3.org/TR/2005/NOTE-access- control-20050613/](https://www.w3.org/TR/2005/NOTE-access-control-20050613/) which in 2007 became a header, then several headers, then the CORS specs we're a bit more familiar with by 2009 as Chrome was introduced.

Worth noting that compiling new syntax to old is also not new — anybody remember CoffeeScript? I'd say if there's a new part, it's the prevalence of implementations of standards and of polyfills for them in both TypeScript and core-js via Babel such that you can confidently write code in new syntax knowing you wouldn't have to rewrite it later. Nobody remembers CoffeeScript or sees it today because it was generally all converted to JS long ago — it wasn't a syntax we could build on top of. Arguably, if it was, you'd still see projects using it today, but it's hard to modify syntax in an unambiguous way (for parsers I mean) while also simplifying the syntax as CoffeeScript did. Implementing standards are safer, though until implemented and shipped in multiple browsers, anything could still change. There are a few places where TypeScript has to be changed or will be changed due to changes in the JS standard...

To illustrate how messed up standards can still be though, I'd present "decorators" —- seemingly a solved problem in Babel or TS but apparently very hard to implement as a standard: [https://github.com/tc39/proposal- decorators](https://github.com/tc39/proposal-decorators) I'm beginning to think JSX will ship in browsers before decorators do ;-)

That said if there's something the web community learned from ECMAScript 4 and XHTML2 it's that usage, what people want to use and working code, always wins out over arbitrary standards. If two options are good enough, the one folks implement and use will win when it comes to standards. To this end, I'm pretty sure future standards required 2 independent implementations to actually graduate and become standards instead of remaining proposals. Not sure how that will change if Chrome ever becomes a larger monoculture than it already is... maybe web developers will have to vote with their codebases as standards bodies write and distribute polyfills to encourage their spec to "win".

<comment><USER7> > maybe web developers will have to vote with their codebases as standards > bodies write and distribute polyfills to encourage their spec to "win"

I think WASM gives some real possibilities here. I'm not sure how polyfiling WASM will look like.

</comment></comment><comment><USER8> > The closest thing we had for ES4, was probably Flash Actionscript 3.

No.

Flash = a browser plugin

ActionScript 3 = a programming language

ActionScript 3 can run in other runtimes than just Flash

Adobe AIR is another runtime, target desktop (Windows, macOS) and mobile (iOS, Android).

Redtamarin is yet another runtime (based on the avmplus) target the command- line and server-side (Windows, macOS, Linux).</comment>


Nasa head of human spaceflight resigns days before 'historic' space mission - <AUTHOR> https://www.theguardian.com/science/2020/may/20/nasa-head-of-human-spaceflight-doug-loverro-suddenly-resigns-days-before-historic-space-mission <comment><USER4> Eric Berger, the author of this article [0] on this departure is a very good source for space news. You might want to check his Twitter feed [1], there is more about this.

[0] [https://arstechnica.com/science/2020/05/nasas-human- spacefli...](https://arstechnica.com/science/2020/05/nasas-human-spaceflight- chief-just-resigned-and-the-timing-couldnt-be-worse/)

[1] [https://twitter.com/SciGuySpace/](https://twitter.com/SciGuySpace/)

<comment><USER5> Commenters on there think he was forced out for not selecting Boeing as one of the lunar mission providers.

<comment><USER6> This seems to clearly demonstrate that NASA's reason for existing is pork, with space an afterthought. Sad.

<comment><USER7> SpaceX's Falcon Heavy was developed on a budget roughly equal to 10 days worth of NASA's annual funding.

<comment><USER8> NASA's budget also includes astronaut training, educational outreach, and a ton of other programs. There's a categorical breakout of the NASA budget here: [https://www.nasa.gov/sites/default/files/atoms/files/fy2021_...](https://www.nasa.gov/sites/default/files/atoms/files/fy2021_summary_budget_brief.pdf)

<comment><USER9> To mention a few more, the NASA budget includes human operations (ISS), and the entire science enterprise (Earth, Planetary, Astrophysics) - <USER2> including Hubble, JWST, Curiosity.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> > It had nothing to do with commercial crew," he said. "It had to do with > moving fast on Artemis, and I don't want to characterize it in any more > detail than that." Artemis is NASA's program to return people to the moon.

[https://www.washingtonpost.com/technology/2020/05/19/nasas-h...](https://www.washingtonpost.com/technology/2020/05/19/nasas- human-spaceflight-chief-resigns-week-before-first-launch-astronauts-decade/)

<comment><USER11> Story so far: (correct me if I'm wrong)

NASA has plan to get into the Moon by 2028.

Pence blindsights NASA and contractors by moving timeline arbitrarily forward without a plan in a grandstanding speech. "At the direction of the President of the United States, it is the stated policy of this administration and the United States of America to return American astronauts to the moon within the next five years". It's not a Tweet so NASA must scramble to make a plan. Funding for a new timetable is not there.

Gerstenmaier is removed without explanation as a head of HEO almost immediately after he testifies to congress. Gerstenmaier quits NASA to consult SpaceX.

Loverro comes in, is very bullish about the timetable. Now Loverro quits suddenly.

I think it's time for Jared to come in. If he can handle Middle-East peace and Covid-19, why not a Moon landing as well.

<comment><USER12> > I think it's time for Jared to come in. If he can handle Middle-East peace > and Covid-19, why not a Moon landing as well.

People say he's unqualified for anything. But he is uniquely qualified in that he is immune to being fired for fucking up everything.

<comment><USER13> Jared's talent (if he has any) is to screw up and then convincingly claim he did a great job. Trump sees this as the apex of ability.

<comment><USER14> And so do his supporters. It makes an extremely effective political combination: all the enthusiasm of winning without actually doing anything. And it works as long as you can have goodwill and assets to burn.

<comment><USER12> Except when something happens that defies spin, like a pandemic that takes away jobs and lives.

I'm not sure how this is going to turn out, but even if the US elects a different president, the current one has provided a nice handbook to a potential autocratic future president to gain unlimited power.

<comment><USER14> I suspect that even a pandemic may not suffice. The only thing that gets through is a direct personal loss, and the death rate seems too low for that. You'd need deaths in the millions for everyone to know someone who died.

Even then it's easy to blame it on someone else. There's a reason they are calling it the Wuhan Virus.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> "Two people with knowledge of the situation who spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss the personnel matter said his resignation was spurred when Loverro broke a rule during NASA's recent procurement of a spacecraft capable of landing humans on the moon."[1]

My guess is that he was told: "Keep the moon landing on track for 2024 or you're fired." And the only way he could do so was to illegally expedite the selection process.

1: [https://www.washingtonpost.com/technology/2020/05/19/nasas-h...](https://www.washingtonpost.com/technology/2020/05/19/nasas- human-spaceflight-chief-resigns-week-before-first-launch-astronauts-decade/)

<comment><USER16> Or maybe it was "You shouldn't have accepted gifts from contractors", my point is only that you are guessing with no basis in underlying fact.

<comment><USER17> I think you might be on to something. Maybe there is a further clue in his preface of "My guess is..."

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER18> Followup by Berger: [https://arstechnica.com/science/2020/05/heres-why-nasas- chie...](https://arstechnica.com/science/2020/05/heres-why-nasas-chief-of- human-spaceflight-resigned-and-why-it-matters/)

He guesses that Loverro violated rules around procurement, potentially by pushing Boeing to improve their proposal because he favored a SLS based solution.

</comment><comment><USER19> While Mr Loverro offered no further explanation, he told the Axios news website that his decision to leave the agency was unrelated to the upcoming launch. "I have 100% faith in the success of that mission," he said.

[https://axios.com/nasa-head-of-human-spaceflight- resigns-692...](https://axios.com/nasa-head-of-human-spaceflight- resigns-692bc6c4-d38a-417e-b2d3-2825d9f2e0ac.html)

</comment><comment><USER20> This reminds of the human factors issues during the Challenger Disaster:

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Space_Shuttle_Challenger_disas...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Space_Shuttle_Challenger_disaster#Thiokol%E2%80%93NASA_conference_call)

</comment><comment><USER21> It's an eye-catching headline but maybe there's nothing to see here. The resignation may be unrelated to the upcoming mission. I couldn't see anything in the article to suggest otherwise.

<comment><USER22> They're probably not related. But whatever prompted the departure must have been big if he didn't wait just a few more days.

</comment></comment><comment><USER23> Is NASA no longer an acronym or something?

<comment><USER24> UK style, and this article is from the _Guardian_ , is to capitalize only the first letter of acronyms that are pronounced like words, "Nasa" and "Nato" being frequent examples. When each letter is pronounced (AKA an initialism), they capitalize each letter, such as for the WHO: [https://www.bbc.com/news/world-us- canada-52294623](https://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-52294623)

<comment><USER25> Very interesting, thanks for this.

I find this practice very dumb. A huge amount of acronyms now have to be written like regular words.

<comment><USER26> Eh, Americans do it too, just less consistently. When's the last time you saw LASER?

<comment><USER27> I'd say things like laser are no longer the acronym they once were. How many people actually realize that laser is/was an acronym in the first place? The word itself has 'genericized' to the point that it's just a word to most people now.

<comment><USER28> I could as well suggest the same about Nasa :) For all HNers that the distinction will be incredibly obvious, to Joe Schmo from Idaho, perhaps less so.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER29> People act like this moon landing is not going to happen in 2024. It's gonna happen.

<comment><USER30> The most obvious retort -- the one that springs to mind first, is, "What makes you think that?" But that's not really the most useful question...

More usefully, I'd ask, "Why the Moon?"

The US has been there, the science is well known (which is not the same as saying the science is all done) and all you (the US) can do in a international consortium to "Moon" is _give away the crown jewels_ in knowhow and tech. Add to that, it's a research mission down another gravity well. I'd think that Mars is a more attractive science target (if you're determined to get stuck with gravity wells), one of the Lagrange points more useful from an engineering/space exploration perspective as a way-station, the asteroids for science and potentially minerals/engineering/learning to build/do stuff in space and outside the Earth's magnetosphere, or the gas-giants' moons for science/the search for extraterrestrial life. And _all_ of those are things that (for large values of `true`) _only_ the US has the capability to do. Leave other nations to go back to the moon.

Do the stuff no-one else can do and that will hugely enhance US space capability over anyone else. (I say all this as a non-US person.)

<comment><USER31> _Add to that, it 's a research mission down another gravity well._

There are so many practical advantages in a Moon base that I don't know where to start. It's very surprising to see them ignored in every discussion about relative merits of the Moon respect other options. Maybe they've been forgotten because much time passed since Apollo.

The main point is probably that the Moon is not _another_ gravity well. It's a much much weaker gravity well. Take a look at the Saturn V and then to the LEM. Of course the former had to carry the later and the other modules. But still, only the upper half of the LEM was needed to put two humans in lunar orbit:

[https://youtu.be/sj6a0Wrrh1g?t=171](https://youtu.be/sj6a0Wrrh1g?t=171)

Another important point: you can cover habitational containers with regolith to provide a good protection against micrometeorites.

Eventually factories will be made. Unlike humans, you don't need to take stuff from Earth, saving tons of fuel. The only things that seem to be a problem to make there are fuel, and oxygen because there's no water. Solar energy is even stronger while not at night, obviously.

Oh and "research project" is a way of talking. You can say "exploration" as well, eventually "industry".

Edit: a couple of advantages more, that I don't see mentioned. One that the Moon has gravity and a surface. That means that humans can work more like on Earth and storage is much cheaper to build.

And another one: if a way to make ships or fuel from lunar materials is found, it would help any other mission. Taking cargo from the Moon to Earth orbit is much cheaper than doing that from Earth surface. Even if you plan to go to Mars or the asteroids, a Moon base is a great thing to have.

<comment><USER32> A lot of the justification for human space exploration seems to be circular and rest entirely on the quasi-religious belief that sending people into space is inherently good. Once you take away that belief, there's not much reason to do things like building factories or habitats on the moon.

<comment><USER33> > A lot of the justification for human space exploration seems to be circular > and rest entirely on the quasi-religious belief that sending people into > space is inherently good.

It's just a short summary of the reasoning.

Here - [https://launiusr.wordpress.com/2012/02/08/why-explore- space-...](https://launiusr.wordpress.com/2012/02/08/why-explore- space-a-1970-letter-to-a-nun-in-africa/) \- some arguments for space exploration in general.

Human exploration in particular becomes more clear when one realizes that modern robotics can't fit a lot of exploration requirements as well as humans can.

Aside from commercial goals - like resources, tourism, support of space equipment - we have natural, if strategic, curiosity of environment around us. We're just at the point when that "around" starts getting bigger than the planet.

<comment><USER32> > Here - [https://launiusr.wordpress.com/2012/02/08/why-explore- > space-...](https://launiusr.wordpress.com/2012/02/08/why-explore-space-..). > - some arguments for space exploration in general.

I don't think anyone is against using space, but that's quite a different thing from human space exploration. The only specific example he gives of the direct use for space - using artificial satellites - don't require human space exploration. Neither do the more indirect benefits he mentions - <USER3> cooperation and having high level challenges. There are plenty of high challenges (even if we just look at space), many that would also have much more tangible benefits in addition to being a high level challenge.

Talking about our natural curiosity isn't a great reason either - we're already doing much more robotic exploration of space than most cultures historically did of their surroundings. And this exploration doesn't necessitate humans.

<comment><USER33> A good example of benefits of human presence in space is science obtained on orbital stations.

We don't have much more examples of actually being in space for humans - Apollo flights were short and few, so most other examples are either space stations or solo flights. Yet we have advancements of science even from that.

Particularly Apollo flights still represent the best overall scientific review of the Moon - and in general other non-Earth celestial bodies - so from science point of view advantage of robots is unclear. That advantage comes largely from being more economical to send a robot to space than to send a human, but things change with time, and flying to the same place becomes cheaper with time, so this advantage of robots may decrease. Will it be offset by increased robotic abilities is also unclear.

So Stuhlinger's arguments are not the only ones - and rather old by now, so newer ones are better seen.

As for natural curiosity, yes, we did often survey the other side of the river before going there - even before deciding if it makes sense to go, over millennia. Yet by now all rivers on Earth are crossed. So saying that exploration doesn't necessitate humans doesn't seem to generalize - it's the status quo for today, not the necessary law of nature.</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment>


Extensible Access Methods Are Committed to Postgres 9.6 - <AUTHOR> http://akorotkov.github.io/blog/2016/04/06/extensible-access-methods/ <comment><USER2> This is a good strategic move for Russian company PostgresPro because now their work in the fields of rich types & index support has not necessarily to be approved by hackers, and can be shipped in form of extensions. An end user eventually will get more features for full-text search, JSON, hstore, trigrams, array types, etc. And fast full-text search should be the first in this list (as Alexander wrote in the post).

<comment><USER3> I thought their BSD-style license was already a pretty good reason :)

<comment><USER2> The thing is that forking almost always hurts: you cannot easily get all new functionality from new versions of original product. Years pass - and your fork diverge more and more from the origin. So it's much better to contribute to the original product. But it's not that easy if you change smth in core – code review in Postgres is very strict and hard. So back to the topic, adding extensible access methods now gives a lot of flexibility to Postgres Pro devs – I know that they have thing developed but not yet shipped to wide audience because before 9.6, that things could exist only as patches to Postgres. And nobody likes patches. Now it will be mere extensions.</comment></comment></comment>


Intel's tiny desktop PC for DIYers coming this month | Microsoft - CNET News - <AUTHOR> http://news.cnet.com/8301-10805_3-57547955-75/intels-tiny-desktop-pc-for-diyers-coming-this-month/?part=rss&subj=news&tag=title <comment><USER2> Does anyone else see the memory slot on that motherboard? I don't.

<comment><USER3> You have to flip it over.</comment></comment>


Ask HN: What are your biggest pet peeves with the iOS keyboard? - <AUTHOR>

Apple mentioned at their latest WWDC that they will now allow 3rd party developers to create keyboards for iOS devices.<p>What pain points do you have with the current iOS keyboard? What features and improvements could be made to make it better? <comment><USER2> 1) Special characters. A lot of them are 2 clicks away -- I would prefer to have a bigger keyboard when I click the "1,2,3" (i.e. an additional row). As clicking the "#+=" afterwards only changes one row.

2) I'd love to try a swipe/gesture interface (like Android).

3) A keyboard optimized for one-handed typing. This is a bigger project but would be great. The ones I've seen so far aren't very good and obviously don't actually replace the default keyboard.

</comment><comment><USER3> The lack of gesture/swipe typing.</comment>


The bttn – the simplest user interface - <AUTHOR> http://bt.tn/ <comment><USER2> _" Harri summoned an 11 member crack team around him, with the mission of bringing the increasing power of the Internet of Everything to reach everybody's reach. In September 2013 they started making the bttn a reality. Deliveries will start in October 2014."_

11 people set out to build a standalone button that costs 100$... Am I missing something? Is this satire? Great idea, would love to buy one but both price and team strength seem to be off by factor of 10.

<comment><USER3> You're not buying a button. You're buying access to the backend. Admittedly, most HN readers don't need that stuff and could write their own.

<comment><USER4> But even for backend access. The price is way up there for something this simple. That much talent shown in the video should probably be capable of bringing down the cost close to $35 or maybe even less. What they're doing takes time and effort, not that much technically complicated by these days standards.

<comment><USER5> My name is Jussi and I am part of the bttn team. So take my comments with a grain of salt ;-)

From my perspective, you are not wrong at all. At the moment, the product is pretty pricey - that is something we are working on.

It is just a fact of life (which you surely know) that in small quantities, hardware tends to be pricey. We are working our trim little butts off to bring down the price.

As for the simplicity, the product is very simple by design. However, we have some pretty cool things on our roadmap to keep the same magical simplicity of use while adding a whole lot of functionality. It is a balancing act we are hoping to handle the right way.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> $100 dollars?! $100 DOLLARS?! How? How do you justify that price? For a button? Admittedly, a button backed by a web service described in very flowery language, but still. A button for $100

<comment><USER7> Err, I feel you are missing the point. The button itself costs $5. Removing the vowels is the expensive part. Bttns take research, you know.

<comment><USER8> 'd lk t nnnc m nw srvc, Cnsnnt. t prvds prmm vwl rmvl srvcs t vr lw prcs. Wth r hlp, th wrld cn b vwl fr b 2023.

<comment><USER5> Hey, we are working on it. Small quantities are a pain.

But, in general, you are right. 100 bucks is not a sustainable price point and we certainly don't like it. Not a bit.

Which should give you an idea what we are trying to do.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> > The bttn is based on some pretty cool patent-pending inventions.

Please enlighten me as to what on earth is novel (in the patent language sense) about a button on the internet.

<comment><USER10> A self enclosed device to connect to the internet in a user configurable way through a web interface is certainly non-trivial.

<comment><USER11> Isn't that what every router does?

<comment><USER12> I think the grandparent was parodying patent language ;).

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> Since I am a newbie on this forum, I tried to address every comment separately last night and HN put a stop to my incessant commenting ;-)

I'll try to address some of the good points made here now.

First of all, I am a bttn evangelist, so I am a bit biased by profession, but hopefully sane enough to recognize a salient point nevertheless. But keep you salt shakers nearby, just in case.

As I've mentioned in my other comments, the point about the $99 price point is fair. It is too high. We want to bring it down, but early runs of new hardware tend to be pricey (and, as pointed out in other comments, our offering is not just the device, it encompasses the backend and ecosystem).

The point of the presales at this price is to offer the bttn to potential early adopters as early as possible. We are certainly not trying go gouge anyone.

As for the simplicity of the bttn, simple has been the #1 design principle. Looking forward, we want to keep the user experience very simple while still increasing the functionality of the bttn drastically. We have some stuff on the pipeline that we think is pretty cool and our major concern is properly balancing usability and power.

Again, thanks for the good comments and keep them coming. We'll be sure to listen and learn.

</comment><comment><USER13> I can't stand sites that fade in content as I scroll. It makes it impossible to skim. Please, designers, stahp

<comment><USER14> this is why i browse with js disabled by default. i can enable what i need, but that's a small percentage of what's out there.

</comment></comment><comment><USER15> I dig the idea but the price point seems insane. I also don't quite understand why this needs to be kickstarted, why not just take orders and hand make the first N until you get enough profits to be able to mass produce?

I built a _very_ similar button using an arcade button[0] and a raspberry pi, and it cost <$50 in total parts -- it would've cost a lot less if I didn't decide to use a raspberry pi that I already owned for it. Mine just does a POST to an App Engine URL, but since it's a real computer I can SSH into it and make it do absolutely anything on the planet too.

[0] [http://www.adafruit.com/products/1190](http://www.adafruit.com/products/1190)

<comment><USER16> Seriously. For $100 I can buy an android smartphone [1]

[1]: [http://www.amazon.com/SHARKK%C2%AE-Android-Smartphone- Unlock...](http://www.amazon.com/SHARKK%C2%AE-Android-Smartphone-Unlocked- Display/dp/B00LI6ITI0)

</comment></comment><comment><USER17> I'd be much more excited if you could have a single base station (that perhaps could be battery powered and GSM-capable if that was the neatest feature to people), and then non-powered (or rather, push-powered) wireless buttons which talk to the base station. Largely the same effect, but you never have to worry about dead batteries in the buttons. I suppose you wouldn't be able to have the light on the button without a more traditional power source.

</comment><comment><USER18> I've tinkered with a number of raspberry pi projects and one thing which blew my mind was how expensive many options for "adding a simple button" was.

I had in mind that I'd be able to find a simple usb connected button for next to nix. My research instead turned up prices from $25 to $100.

So rather than a simple single button connected via usb, I found the best options have been:

* a usb numberpad (~$10) * a usb MCE infrared remote (~$15) * an amazon basics wireless mouse (~$5) * an rfid reader + 50 nfc cards (~$20)

In each case, the solution I landed on ended up being cheaper, more versatile and functionally superior to a single simple button.

For example, the wireless mouse is now an interface for a music playback machine. Originally I imaged just a single button which would start and stop the music. With the mouse I added the option of changing the volume using the mouse wheel.

<comment><USER19> I think the cognitive disconnect is that an on-off or momentary contact button is technically extremely simple if you know what you're doing and have a GPIO pin. But if you don't, you'll pay for bttn-like devices like you implicitly pay for IFTTT.

<comment><USER20> > momentary contact button is technically extremely simple

Don't forget debounce. Debouncing can be tough. [http://www.ganssle.com/debouncing.htm](http://www.ganssle.com/debouncing.htm)

<comment><USER19> Easier to do in software if you can spare the CPU cycles, thankfully.

[http://arduino.cc/en/Tutorial/Debounce](http://arduino.cc/en/Tutorial/Debounce) or [http://playground.arduino.cc/code/bounce](http://playground.arduino.cc/code/bounce)

[https://www.cl.cam.ac.uk/projects/raspberrypi/tutorials/robo...](https://www.cl.cam.ac.uk/projects/raspberrypi/tutorials/robot/buttons_and_switches/)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER21> This seems like such a neat, simple idea. Perfect for integration with IFTTT or similar.

I'm a little surprised that nothing like this exists already. I can see how you could easily build one yourself. But that doesn't give you the IFTTT ecosystem, which is probably good for less technical users.

</comment><comment><USER22> So wait... I configure the button through the bt.tn app, then press the button? Do I need to buy different buttons to do different things or go back to the app each time I need the big red button to do something else? Can I set it so it does different things at different times of the day?

I can't imagine a way this works in practice which doesn't seem slightly _more_ complex than just using the app itself. Your presentation makes it seem as if you just press the button and magic happens. But, it's just a front end for the necessary complexity of the app itself. You have to interact with that at some point.

</comment><comment><USER23> What the hell? This is so close to being a parody that I had to check it wasn't April 1st.

I have this vision of a wall with dozens or hundreds of buttons each with its own label and functionality.

And that voice on the video...she sounds completely stoned.

</comment><comment><USER24> Or you could spend half as much and upgrade from "button" to "knob":

[http://store.griffintechnology.com/powermate](http://store.griffintechnology.com/powermate)

(Which conceivably could function as a button, too -- just interpret sliding the knob all the way to the far side as a button press.)

<comment><USER25> I think the knob also acts as a button if you just press it down rather than rotating it. From that page: "It spins like a knob. It clicks like a mouse."

</comment></comment><comment><USER26> Needs to light up.

(I love the above comment as it both critiques the idea and explains why so many good things end up as POS -- mission creep)

Seriously, if you could order different colors, they lit up, and you could stick them on the walls? You could have a lot of fun with these things. (Think IFTTT)

I am also waiting for the reusable post-it notes that use e-ink.

<comment><USER27> Done! From TFA:

 _How does the bttn user know what is happening after the bttn press?

The bttn has handy feedback lights for the end user: Flashing GREEN top means successful completion of the trigger, RED means error, and a circling YELLOW means wait. Pretty simple, really._

<comment><USER28> How would you make feedback work for blind people?

<comment><USER24> A simple buzzer or tone would work -- if you hear the tone the process was successful, if you don't, it wasn't.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER29> It can use cell network but SIM is not included... so no data plan for the 100 bucks.

It's certainly interesting.

I was having this discussion with someone the other day. So far the IoT seems to be 200 dollar Locks/Lightswitches, 100 dollar buttons and academic research on how to handle 10 gazillion devices.

Something is missing.

<comment><USER30> Since the only information is a single "pulse", it shouldn't need a data plan - just do missed calls :)

</comment></comment><comment><USER31> Can't believe the only examples and use cases are at the very bottom of the page in the testimonials.

</comment><comment><USER32> It's the history eraser button you fool!

I just had to push it - so jolly and candy like.

It is kind of expensive so I am looking for $50,000,000.00 in VC to develop an online version. Here's the first prototype:

        <button>button</button>

<comment><USER33> This guy can probably help:

[https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/324283889/potato- salad](https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/324283889/potato-salad)

</comment></comment><comment><USER34> Couldn't they be hacked up easily. [http://www.instructables.com/id/Make-a- Staples-Easy-Button-t...](http://www.instructables.com/id/Make-a-Staples-Easy- Button-tm-Control-your-compu/)

</comment><comment><USER35> How does it handle feedback/errors? If I hit a button to execute a nontrivial task, I want confirmation that it worked. I don't care if it's a physical or digital button.

</comment><comment><USER36> This has huge potential. Very simple, very discreet, especially the 'dead man switch' option.

For price, this could be re-produced for $3-4 on a low production scale, say 10000 pieces.

</comment><comment><USER37> This company has a CEO, CTO, Chief Engineer and Chief Architect. With any luck they will be acquired by Google, Amazon or Apple for a billion dollars.

</comment><comment><USER38> Looks like a joke.

<comment><USER39> I thought I was reading a poorly-timed April Fool's story!

</comment></comment><comment><USER40> Oh great, YO for the internet of things.

</comment><comment><USER41> Who wants to start an open source alternative? 3d printer + basic arduino/raspberry pi

</comment><comment><USER42> Seems revolutionary. Can I configure it to turn CNN off for whenever John McCain shows up?

</comment><comment><USER43> Now we can plug the bttn functionality to send a Yo! message and finally come full circle.

</comment><comment><USER44> OT -- For a moment there I thought my web site[0] was the link.

[0] my personal domain is bt.hn

<comment><USER45> Do you sell Buthons?</comment></comment>


Tips for Tech Leads - <AUTHOR> http://piaw.blogspot.com/2010/04/tips-for-tech-leads.html <comment><USER2> The best way to be a team lead is not to be one. Companies impose a title "team lead" when its not necessary at all. If you are skillful, helpful and bring good energy to the team, other people will respect you, trust you and learn from you and thats what a team lead should be.

An imposed Lead is someone who is a point of beaurocracy, someone who can selectively hide/filter information to have a better control, a step in the approval process and many other unwanted things.

"I am Team Lead, I will schedule 1:1 and frequently schedule lunch ...." sounds like trying too hard. It is sure good to have team lunches, having 1:1 with everyone in team etc, but for some other reasons

</comment><comment><USER3> If you have people working off-site, make damn sure they have a separate dev box, set up their way, locked up in a server room, preferably with a way to reset it when needed.

Laptops do not cut it for development for big corporate C++/C# batch type apps.

I managed to snaffle a decent desktop box and sweet-talk IT into burying it in a corner of the server room. And yes, good devs are 'special'!

It was worth a lot to me to have a fast dev machine on the other end of a VPN, the crucial thing being that numskulls and nincompoops couldn't reassign it so some bozo could check his email and surf facebook on it.

</comment><comment><USER4> I'm glad this article was written. I've found out some of these things the hard way as an introverted geek. Due to my personality and general disdain of meetings, I will probably never go down the management path, so becoming a tech lead is one of the viable options I've taken at a couple places. Let me say that going out to lunch (and beer Fridays if your company allows that) with your team is one of the best things you can do. It helps the team to jell and fosters open communication which is essential IMO.

<comment><USER3> As a former tech lead, if you are really mentoring and helping people, bet on allocating 20% of your time per person. Of course this leaves you with a LOT less time to do your own job, but with luck, your team's goal should be to do a better job than you yourself could have done.

Which was always my target. The team did it, and did it better than I could have expected.

This 20% ties in great with many modest management types who are out of their comfort zone above about 3 people. There a quote somewhere in Programmers at Work that the best team is one that will still fit in a VW Bug.

</comment></comment><comment><USER5> _Peopleware_ is out of print? That's a real shame. I wish as many managers had read _Peopleware_ as have read _The Mythical Man Month_. If your local library has a copy, check it out.

Here are some small excerpts:

[http://www.mattblodgett.com/2008/06/select-quotes-from- peopl...](http://www.mattblodgett.com/2008/06/select-quotes-from-peopleware- part-2.html)

<http://www.kk.org/cooltools/archives/001248.php>

<comment><USER6> Available direct from publisher: <http://www.dorsethouse.com/books/pw.html>

<comment><USER7> Ah cool. Thanks!

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> Great article, and as indicated in his blog's comments, very similar to Rands in Repose (<http://www.randsinrepose.com>) whose writings in this space are similar.

I can't stress enough how useful 1:1s are for my own team (I believe Google follows the Andy Grove model mentioned in "High Output Management", another great book). It's easy for engineers to under-communicate those somewhat- important-but-not-really issues with their tech lead / manager, and getting it out on the table during 1:1s is crucial to keeping said issues from getting out of hand.

</comment><comment><USER9> > "And no, I don't consider upgrades every 18 months a waste of money if your > business depends on the productivity of engineers, but many companies do. I > just don't understand it."

I'm currently using an almost 4 year old Macbook Pro for work. One the one hand I seem to be able to do my job 99% of the time just fine, but it can be slow. On the other hand it is an almost 4 year old computer. I haven't complained about it because it's a Macbook Pro and just about everyone else has Dells with Windows XP and I don't think I'd get another Macbook Pro.

<comment><USER10> My bosses just significantly upgraded our hardware, mainly because they couldn't afford raises at that time. We knew that's why they were doing it, but it was still nice to get new machines with big monitors.

That's what I think the article is getting at. Hardware is a cheap way to make your employees a little bit happier, and the employees at least know that you're trying.

<comment><USER11> That's not the point he is trying to make. Computers are the tools of your job. Not providing the best tools is a false economy because the cost is easily offset by the increased productivity of the programmer.</comment></comment></comment>