jQuery.sheet – Easy and fast spreadsheets for the web - <AUTHOR> http://spreadsheets.github.io/jQuery.sheet/ <comment><USER2> It's also worth checking out Handsontable: [https://github.com/handsontable/handsontable](https://github.com/handsontable/handsontable)

I've not used their pro version but the free MIT Licensed is really excellent.

<comment><USER3> Agreed. Handsontable is an amazing library, and I'm so glad that the author was able to take it "Pro" and get paid for all of his hard work.

For a great use-case of handsontable, everyone's favorite HN'er wrote a great blog post last year: [http://www.kalzumeus.com/2015/01/28/design-and- implementatio...](http://www.kalzumeus.com/2015/01/28/design-and- implementation-of-csvexcel-upload-for-saas/)

</comment></comment><comment><AUTHOR> I was looking around at various datagrid implementations and most were lacking in one regard or another. When I found this I was very impressed by it.

It's lack of recent activity concerned me but I was somewhat reassured by the responses here: [https://github.com/Spreadsheets/jQuery.sheet/issues/91](https://github.com/Spreadsheets/jQuery.sheet/issues/91)

</comment><comment> Digit-Al Using windows 10. Tried both Firefox and Chrome (both up to date versions) with same results. Menus don't work. Learn More button doesn't work. I can enter a simple formula such as '=5*10' and get a result, but can't refer to another cell. Can't move to anywhere past row 8.

<comment><USER4> Same thing on Firefox/Linux

</comment></comment><comment><USER5> Project hasn't had any commits in 8 months. Look like it was very active, and then the funding was pulled.

[https://github.com/Spreadsheets/jQuery.sheet/issues/91](https://github.com/Spreadsheets/jQuery.sheet/issues/91)

</comment><comment><USER6> Sadly it's broken in the latest version of Chrome.

Uncaught TypeError: RegExp.prototype.sticky getter called on non-RegExp object

</comment><comment> rm_-rf_slash Not bad, reminds me of the functionality I get by mixing DataTables(1) and Jeditable(2). I might take a look at this and see if I can work it into any of my current projects.

(1) [https://www.datatables.net](https://www.datatables.net)

(2) [http://www.appelsiini.net/projects/jeditable](http://www.appelsiini.net/projects/jeditable)

<comment><USER7> May not need to: [http://editor.datatables.net/](http://editor.datatables.net/)

<comment> rm_-rf_slash Editor costs money. Jeditable isn't bad, just takes a little work to get it up and moving.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> That's very interesting! I wonder how does it compare to handsontable.

<comment><USER9> Same question here. I just paid for a Handsontable Pro license and looks like they are planning quite a bit of roadmap ahead.

But really interested to hear about a comparison

</comment></comment><comment><USER10> Add a spreadsheet, select new spreadsheet, cannot select/edit a cell.

<comment><USER11> Menu backgrounds are also transparent for me. Chrome/Win7 48

</comment></comment><comment><USER12> > Stable and tested, Big Data ready

Tried to click on "View Details" but it doesn't show more information. Sends a bad message w.r.t being enterprise ready. (Sys info : Chrome + Ubuntu)

</comment><comment><USER13> Is it just me, or using jQuery for a complex web app in 2015 looks like, mmm, a bit strange choice?

The author has, of course, done a great job, for we see a working app; this trumps almost any objections. Kudos to the author.

But if you developed a spreadsheet of a similar functionality, would you choose plain jQuery and writing state machines by hand? Or would you be forced to use jQuery because you'd have to use key components based on it?

<comment><USER14> > Is it just me, or using jQuery for a complex web app in 2015 looks like, > mmm, a bit strange choice?

This statement is everything that is wrong with the Javascript craze. It's not even 2015, it's 2016 and the argument for not using jQuery is that it's not trendy.

Since when are we so obsessed with looking trendy and keeping up with fashion? I still see people using php + jQuery to build apps that otherwise would've taken twice the time and twice the amount of bugs that take twice the number of developers.

Tech stack should be chosen based on merit that can only be built through the test of time. This is why I'm against using Node.js to write CRUD apps and why I'm against writing everything from scratch because it's the 'right' way. Guess what, 'right' or 'wrong' wont matter if the tech stack you chose slows you down or hurts other important requirements.

Why novelty is rewarded over reliability in SV, I'd never fucking get.

<comment><USER15> I'm there with you, except that jQuery in 2015(/2016) is not just about fashion; it's about technical merit.

The biggest selling point for jQuery was unifying the mess of browser APIs under one, consistent API. Back in 2006 browser support for ecmascript was so haphazard that writing vanilla JS was an absolute ache. Or so I hear.

As years progress, browsers become steadily more conformant. In tandem, jQuery's value drops.

Meanwhile, cost (speed, size) remains constant.

This argument can be made without considering fashion; even if nobody had ever written a single library after John Resig did, jQuery in 2015 _could_ still be considered an strange choice just for that.

<comment><USER16> jQuery is still a whole lot easier to use than native DOM APIs.

<comment><USER17> jQuery is a thin wrapper on the DOM APIs. React and similar tools are entirely different (better, IMHO) abstractions.

<comment><USER18> That problem is that it is not a thin wrapper. You can see that in various performance comparisons that jquery is much slower.

[http://stackoverflow.com/questions/11503534/jquery-vs- docume...](http://stackoverflow.com/questions/11503534/jquery-vs-document- queryselectorall/21539115#21539115)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER19> This needs to be integrated with ownCloud. I really wish I could have spreadsheets like this without google drive.

<comment><USER20> Check out Ethercalc my friend

</comment></comment><comment><USER21> funny, the "learn more" button is broke but the "buy me a beer" one works just fine!

</comment><comment><USER22> This perpetuates the crime against usability that is discrete scrolling by cell. Continuous scrolling, people! Continuous!

</comment><comment><USER23> jquery.sheet.js:5180 Uncaught ReferenceError: TSV is not defined

</comment><comment><USER24> Unusable with touch in Windows 10 with latest Chrome and Edge.

</comment><comment><USER25> Seems angular would have made development of this much easier.

</comment><comment><USER26> Menus are broken on Safari, Chrome and Firefox. El Cap latest

</comment><comment><USER27> why not decouple this from jQuery?</comment>


Facebook shares slide after reports of data misuse - <AUTHOR> https://ca.news.yahoo.com/facebook-shares-slide-reports-data-misuse-120513980--finance.html <comment><USER2> It's definitely awkward that the co-founder of the company that sold data to Cambridge Analytica is right now employed by Facebook as in-house psychologist: [https://www.theguardian.com/news/2018/mar/18/facebook- cambri...](https://www.theguardian.com/news/2018/mar/18/facebook-cambridge- analytica-joseph-chancellor-gsr)</comment>


Long-lost British space probe found on Mars - <AUTHOR> http://phys.org/news/2015-01-long-lost-british-space-probe-mars.html <comment><USER2> In London, Parker said: "The history of space exploration is marked by both success and failure."

Obvious but so true. Just finding out that Beagle 2 landed after all has to be a nice consolation. It's a shame they're saying they can't recover any data from it, it would be interesting to see if it failed outright or sat there collecting data without the chance to ever transmit it to Earth.

</comment><comment><USER3> Earlier discussion:

[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8898046](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8898046)</comment>


SQLITE: JSON1 Extension - <AUTHOR> https://www.sqlite.org/json1.html <comment><USER2> It should be made clear that this functionality is not equivalent to the Postgres JSON support where you can create indexes based on the structure of the JSON. This is an extension to the query language that adds support for encoding/decoding within the context of a query:

        SELECT DISTINCT user.name
        FROM user, json_each(user.phone)
        WHERE json_each.value LIKE '704-%';

It's pretty neat considering they rolled it all on their own: [https://www.sqlite.org/src/artifact/552a7d730863419e](https://www.sqlite.org/src/artifact/552a7d730863419e)

PS: If you haven't looked at the SQLite source before, check out their tests.

<comment><USER3> Anything specific about their tests? I found this doc: [http://www.sqlite.org/testing.html](http://www.sqlite.org/testing.html)

<comment><USER4> SQLite is frequently cited for having incredible robustness, and this is certainly related to incredible test coverage.

Many of the stats on that page are impressive, but the one that always gets me is that for 122 thousand lines of production code, the project has 90 _million_ lines of tests.

<comment><USER5> Though I am a huge fan of SQLite, I am not sure if the incredible test coverage necessarily leads to success :

"Trying to improve software quality by increasing the amount of testing is like trying to lose weight by weighing yourself more often. What you eat before you step onto the scale determines how much you will weigh, and the software-development techniques you use determine how many errors testing will find. If you want to lose weight, don't buy a new scale; change your diet. If you want to improve your software, don't just test more; develop better."(McConnell, Steve (2009-11-30). Code Complete (Kindle Location 16276). Microsoft Press. Kindle Edition)

Another unique aspect of SQLite code base is total sticking to KISS([http://www.jarchitect.com/Blog/?p=2392](http://www.jarchitect.com/Blog/?p=2392))

<comment><USER6> That is not an apt analogy. Unit tests improve code quality: code that is easily testable has high cohesion and low coupling. Tests can also serve as valuable documentation.

<comment><USER7> I have to work in a few codebases at work that require 100% line and branch coverage.

There are many cases where someone will write tests that hit an endpoint directly and then assert on the whole response, which in this case is quite huge. They'll then do so for all branches.

Their library / service / etc. code is technically exercised, sure, but doTheFooThing() isn't directly tested, so it could have a bug that is only exposed from another caller with different parameters that would be caught with direct testing. Extreme coupling happens all the time.

Now I'm slowly converting it to sanity, and my teammates are copying me.

To be fair, it was one of those "Get this out now because we're dying" kind of codebases, not do to lack of skill.

But once code is written, it's hard to undo. Then the bad pattern becomes "keeping the same style"

<comment><USER8> I am in favor of testing the way you complain about. The advantage is primarily that you can refactor code without getting bogged down in having to change tests. An API is a) more stable, so you are maintaining compatability for that surface anyway, and b) uses your code under exactly the preconditions that really matter.

If doTheFooThing() is called from somewhere else than that somewhere else should also have tests. So I find that an argument from "purity" more than practical consideration about bug probability.

Also, if you _only_ test doTheFooThing but not the API then you could accidentally refactor yourself into breaking the API in a backwards- incompatible way (or not be bug-compatible, which is sometimes required, or at least you should detect it and check logs and warn consumers). So the API tests are needed anyway.

There's a balance of course, if doTheFooThing() is an important internal cross-road, or if it is algorithmically non-trivial, or important for other reasons then it should be tested in seperation. But between only semi- integration tests (hitting endpoints and checking responses), and only lots of small unit tests that break or needs rewriting for the simplest refactorings but doesn't catch subtle API breakage, I'd want to work with the former any day. The units of code are often trivial where mistakes are not made, and the mistakes comes when stringing them together, and then it is more difficult to trust the human capacity to figure out failure scenarios than just run the real handlers.

<comment><USER9> I've gone through various stages on my feelings about full coverage unit testing vs functional testing.

Having full unit coverage with full path coverage is a great ideal. The reality is that for most companies the overhead of having and maintaining these tests is impossible from a business POV. Getting buy-in to spend more than 50% of your time maintaining (writing, updating, verifying) tests is a very hard sell. For companies with under-staffed/over-worked development teams, it just doesn't happen.

At this point in my career I'm firmly in the camp that functional testing is really what matters in most cases. It is a compromise between the realities of business and the needs of engineering. I can test the end product of the development work as a whole and identify that everything works as expected and has no known strange side-effects. This also serves as a contract with your business users as to functionality of the product. If bugs are discovered you can add specific use-case tests to attempt to trigger the bug and prevent regression. All of this does not preclude limited unit testing as well for critical code paths. I find this to be a much more pragmatic approach.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> Wait, what? Isn't storing JSON data as text in a relational DB against all kinds of normalisation rules? Under what circumstances should one do this?

<comment><USER11> when you have arbitrary semi-structured data of limited scope to store. For example the stuff I was working on today is pluggable payment infrastructure. The vendor response is stored json (comes down the wire as xml or json, json is easier, I refuse to anticipate the structure of the data for future providers but I want the whole data returned for debug purposes), and the extra data it requires for transaction resolution is also json. Again I have no idea what this will look like for future payment providers, and this data will not result in consequences for other bits of the database.

<comment><USER12> Yep, I've done something very similar for payment processing (from multiple providers) recently. Have a well defined schema containing the columns that I _know_ I need now for handling a transaction, but also include a jsonb column that stores all of the data that the payment provider provides for the transaction.

For one, this makes debugging easier, and it also means that should business needs change in the future and some field that we've been receiving becomes important for payment processing, it can be extracted from the json field and promoted to a column in the table, without having to _now_ define a load of columns for every possible field that every payment provider can ever supply.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> SQLite is a great database for microservices and other minimalist architectures. You'll never get a "TCP socket failed/timeout/reset" from SQLite - that's for sure.

</comment><comment> vhost- I always seem to be the black sheep in a group of people when I say that I love sqlite. It's seriously so handy. If I need to aggregate or parse big CSV sheets, I just toss them in a sqlite database and run actual SQL queries against the data and it makes the process much faster and I can give someone their data in relational form on a thumbdrive or in a tar.gz.

<comment><USER14> I thought everyone loved SQLite! It's tiny, no-fuss but full-featured, performs well, and works great as a data-interchange format. I use it in all my simple ad-hoc personal apps, and where would mobile be without it?

<comment> vhost- Not to mention browsers. Many people are surprised to learn iMessage, Chrome and Firefox all use SQLite.

<comment><USER15> More people would probably be surprised to discover Adobe Lightroom catalogues are sqlite databases (which means you can pull all sorts of info out of your catalogue, should you so desire, or fiddle with it in unsupported ways).

It's a shame I don't see Adobe on the list of sponsors/contributers, I have to say. Lightroom makes a huge amount of money for them.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> sqlite 'all the things!'. Seriously. One of the best tools ever. So many data, and related performance challenges, in almost any app can be solved efficiently with this (for what it does) tiny little library.

</comment><comment><USER17> Oooh! I just arrived at work and things are calm, this will be interesting reading! We use sqlite for mostly every tool we develop.

</comment><comment><USER18> Not clear if you can compose these functions. Flatbuffers over rocksdb should be considered an alternative. You can then use iterlib to do similar things.

Plug: [https://github.com/facebookincubator/iterlib](https://github.com/facebookincubator/iterlib)

<comment><USER19> Thank you for plugging iterlib here, I hadn't heard of it.

Have you heard of storehaus? [https://github.com/twitter/storehaus](https://github.com/twitter/storehaus)

In terms of the fundamental abstraction offered, it seems comparable to iterlib to me, but I'd love to hear your opinion.

(See also: [https://upscaledb.com/](https://upscaledb.com/))

</comment></comment><comment><USER20> I use this for a custom JSON query tool and browser I wrote for our company (the C# client can load extensions). It's been available for a while. Is this post to spread awareness or have they added something to new to the extension?

</comment><comment><USER21> This is very interesting, I wonder what drove this extension and how things will shape with SQLite. I always loved that in Python I can 'just use' SQLite quite easily.

</comment><comment><USER22> >Experiments have been unable to find a binary encoding that is significantly smaller or faster than a plain text encoding. (The present implementation parses JSON text at over 300 MB/s.)

I understand that JSONB in Postgres is useful primarily for sorts and indexes. Does SQLite work around this somehow, or is that just not included in their experiments?

<comment><USER23> Looks like you can't index based on JSON in SQLite, so they might be optimizing for different metrics?

<comment><USER9> My understanding is that yes you can create an index using this JSON data. You just have to create an index from an expression. [http://sqlite.org/expridx.html](http://sqlite.org/expridx.html)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER24> Here are instructions for building the extension as a shared library on OS X [https://burrows.svbtle.com/build-sqlite-json1-extension- as-s...](https://burrows.svbtle.com/build-sqlite-json1-extension-as-shared- library-on-os-x).

I wasn't able to get a working build on Windows.

<comment><USER25> What happened on Windows?

<comment><USER24> I was able to build the dll and load it into python, but using any of the json1 functions caused my python to crash.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER26> Is there a Ubuntu PPA or docker image of SQLite + JSON extension enabled?

I can't get the compiled json1.so to load on Ubuntu 14.04 lts with stock SQLite.

<comment><USER27> I think the version on 14.04 is too old. I found the statement you need 3.9 for that (is that somewhere documented properly?).

For what is worth, the sqlite3 version in Ubuntu 16.04 has that json1-extension loaded by default:

        sqlite> CREATE TABLE user (name TEXT, phone TEXT);
        sqlite> INSERT INTO user VALUES("tester", '{"phone":"704-56"}');
        sqlite>  SELECT DISTINCT user.name FROM user, json_each(user.phone) WHERE json_each.value LIKE '704-%';
        tester

I'm now even more happy I upgraded my server to that version yesterday, the server for that project was like yours on 14.04. It was even also because of sqlite, I wanted to have a version that supports the WITH clause. Upgrading to 16.04 (actually, I made a fresh install and moved the data over) seemed like the easiest way to get that.

</comment></comment><comment><USER28> How does this perform on larger tables?

</comment><comment><USER29> Is there any plan to support jsonb (or similar) which would speed processing by eliminating the need to reparse?

</comment><comment><USER30> The embedded version of mongodb?

<comment><USER31> > The json_object() function currently allows duplicate labels without > complaint, though this might change in a future enhancement.

Just like Mongo. I was suprised to learn that Mongo can actually store an object with two identical keys. Most drivers will prevent you from doing so, and will fail to display the record fully if it does happen, but it is possible.</comment></comment>


I created a Google Spreadsheet app that sends bulk SMS - <AUTHOR>

I learnt about Google Apps Script, and hacked up a Spreadsheet app that send SMS.
I call it SMS Spreader. It can be found in Google Docs template gallery. Will like some comment on my first app with Apps Script :)
http://blog.just2us.com/2011/08/sms-spreader-run-sms-campaigns-using-google-spreadsheet/ <comment><USER2> Not so subtly requires signing up with your service...I mean, that's not all bad but it's only half a solution as posted. Still quite cool for DIY mobile marketers who are willing to spand 3.5 cents per SMS.

<comment><AUTHOR> Signing up with Hoiio SMS API is a pre-requisite. I won't call that half a solution :)</comment></comment>


How to become the "go to" expert? - <AUTHOR>

Hey guys,
I am an artisan entrepreneur, so I am more familiar with my craft than I am with running a business. That said, I'm good at what I do and I was able to bootstrap a small graphic design and app development firm with the funds I've earned from freelance work. I always am willing to work hard, and have been doing so for a long time. But now I'm kind of playing it by ear.
There is a strong network of friends backing me, including an attorney offering free legal advice (bless his heart) and an accountant who is willing to answer many of my questions.
My problem, however, is that in spite of all the work and experience I have accumulated, I am pretty unremarkable, and so is my business. Contract work is exceedingly hard to come by, and my business is always in "starvation mode."
My current goal is to become an established expert in my local community. I have been attending networking events and connecting with good people in hackerspaces. I like people, and they seem to like me well enough.
But even so, it is really hard to stand out and be someone people remember. Since I am currently operating my young small business alone, and my personal portfolio is being displayed on my company website, my personal brand is currently mixed with my company brand. My (goofy) face is the only face that will sell the company.
So, what would you recommend doing to be remarkable and the "go to" expert on a subject, and how would I best route people's interest to my business?
Of course, in the event my philosophy to the whole thing seems "off" somehow, tell me. I can take abuse. <comment><USER2> Be the expert.

Call your local chambers and biz groups and offer a free seminar on logo planning and styling or the best way to do whatever you do best. Find non- profit groups and do the sane thing. When you are in front of a group, you become the expert. Give everyone that attends something free to download from your site and let them optin to your email. Make it so when their friends say they need someone, you come to mind. Give away ALL your knowledge. Do it yourselfers will remember and refer and those that need help will ask.

Hold/sponsor a local best business idea contest and give away a logo or biz card design. Get the local press to publicize and write about it before and after. Team up with the people that are helping you to help them publicize themselves and give away an hour of their services. Have local powerful people that are highly networked and recognized as judges so they remember and talk about you.

Always be willing to advise and help to the extent it doesn't kill productivity.

Volunteer at local events doing what you do and get your web address on their promo materials.

Blog, blog, blog about what you do, local community, new businesses, etc. make sure to include your community name.

Take successful business people to lunch and ask them for advise and offer to help them in any way you can. They'll remember you when someone needs a referral.

Create a network of local creative businesses both competitive and not. Hold a monthly luncheon to discuss your business and help each other grow. Find the ones you like best and refer business to them that you can't or don't want to do.

Write a press release for every new client signing. Send to local paper and blogs. Post on your site. Make it all about promoting them with mentions of you.

Talk up and refer every local business you know or meet. Always be about helping them to connect and grow. The good actions will come back to you. Constantly be a connector.

</comment><comment><USER3> Isn't clear whether you want to be an expert in your trade or the small graphic design app biz you started. First question is, is there demand for an expert in the area? Second question is, is the trade area affected much by locality? For example, if I need a jquery expert, I might not care if he/she is in Warsaw, chennai, SF, or London. Most people seek out experts in a field because they have a difficult problem in that space, and often come across them in social engagements like hackerspaces, conferences, and probably more often by word of mouth referrals. Experts build notoriety by solving those problems, and making well known that they solve those problems (publications, blogs, presentations at conferences/etc).

</comment><comment><USER4> If you are an "expert" on the subject, find a venue to give a talk on that subject. If the audience hear and feel your confidence on the subject then your on your way to become the goto expert.</comment>


'Publisher' Google ordered to pay $40k in damages for defaming Melbourne lawyer - <AUTHOR> https://www.abc.net.au/news/2020-04-30/google-ordered-to-pay-40k-in-damages-for-defaming-lawyer/12201180 <comment><USER2> To add a little colour here, Mr Defteros was previously awarded damages and costs when he sued the authors of the article (and book chapter). Google was notified of the defamatory material in February 2016, but did not remove it until December 2016 after it had been accessed ~150 times.

In this case the court found -- paraphrasing a lengthy judgement here -- that having being notified of the defamatory material, and failing to remove it, Google is a publisher of defamatory imputations. As such damages were awarded.

<comment><USER3> Thanks for this, seems then things aren't quite as bizarre as the article makes them appear.

Any more background info? Mostly in terms of the takedown request. A successful suit giving the right to get anything directly based on the source material scrubbed elsewhere seems fair enough.

But how is an entity like Google supposed to supervise the validity of such claims? Seems ripe for abuse and no-questions-asked compliance lest they be sued. Clear ground rules as in the EU seem like the only answer here.

<comment><USER2> > Any more background info?

This was the sixth case, including appeals, relating to this specific matter.

> But how is an entity like Google supposed to supervise the validity of such > claims?

Without wanting to appear too glib, Google also indexes all the judgements! Otherwise, you raise an interesting question which will perhaps be answered in a subsequent appeal.

<comment><USER3> It would appear judge may want to consider suing ABC to force them have you consult on any further reporting. Thanks for clearing things up.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> Australia's defamation laws are some of the toughest in the world and not in a good way.

There's been a few new articles about people having to pay big damages due to online reviews, social media posts[1] and how it stopped women speaking out over the me to stuff over here[2].

[1] [https://www.smh.com.au/national/nsw/email-spat-between- manly...](https://www.smh.com.au/national/nsw/email-spat-between-manly- residents-leads-to-120-000-defamation-payout-20190521-p51pkq.html)

[2] [https://www.uts.edu.au/partners-and- community/initiatives/so...](https://www.uts.edu.au/partners-and- community/initiatives/social-justice-uts/news/metoo-exposes-problems- australias-defamation-laws)

</comment><comment><USER5> How on earth are such things in 2020 possible?

<comment><USER6> When you've spend a decade acting like a publisher, don't be surprised when the courts start acting like it's one despite big G lying about it.

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> Seems like a good wake up call to Google and Google Users.

There's an editorial reason for Wikipedia summaries. There's an editorial reason why some results are promoted and others are pushed down.

Even Google rules to promote HTTPS sites can be considered an editorial decision. If that is good or bad is interpretation.

Google search results are not just links popularity ranking so it make sense to remove some non-publisher protections.

</comment><comment><USER8> it's too bad the damages are too small to incentivise change of any kind for google

</comment><comment><USER9> > "The Google search engine … is not a passive tool," she wrote in her 98-page > judgement.

> "It is designed by humans who work for Google to operate in the way it does, > and in such a way that identified objectionable content can be removed, by > human intervention.

How are people this stupid allowed to become justices?

<comment><USER10> How is it stupid? It's true. Google controls the results and the presentation of the results. The way Google behaves in the world has real world effects. Google hiding behind an argument that it's all automated and nothing to do with them isn't very convincing.

<comment><USER11> Hang on, I'm about to make HN culpable. Let's see what they do.

According to ABC, George Defteros was charged with the murder of Carl Williams and other underworld figures.

<comment><USER12> Well, it's your comment, you submitted it yourself, and you agreed to "release, indemnify and hold Y Combinator and its affiliates and their officers, employees, directors and agents harmless from any from any and all losses, damages, expenses, including reasonable attorneys' fees, rights, claims, actions of any kind and injury (including death) arising out of or relating to your use of the Site or any related information, any User Content (...)".

You did read the ToS[0], didn't you?

(Though seriously, did anyone? I didn't, and only opened that page to CTRL+F for a counterpoint right now :).)

\--

[0] - [https://www.ycombinator.com/legal/#tou](https://www.ycombinator.com/legal/#tou)

<comment><USER11> They don't know who I am so the buck is going to stop here.</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment>


Interactive SICP - <AUTHOR> http://xuanji.appspot.com/isicp/1-1-elements.html <comment><AUTHOR> Hello everyone, author here. Sorry for forgetting to enable billing on appengine - the page should be displaying now.

I shared Interactive SICP with HN last year ([https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4860370](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4860370)), and thought it was time to share it again. Since that time, I've

\- added more sections of the book \- replaced the javascript scheme engine \- added mathjax \- made the evaluation asynchronous (to avoid freezing the UI during long computations) \- improved dependency management between blocks of code \- separated out the interactive library - I should be releasing it soon!

What I haven't been able to do is to make the entire book interactive due to a lack of time. I was thinking of using indiegogo to pay myself and my co-author so that we can finish the book. What do you guys think?

<comment><USER2> Thanks for making this!

It seems like I can't skip ahead to further chapters and start working through it there - for instance if I start here:

[http://xuanji.appspot.com/isicp/3-0-modularity-objects- and-s...](http://xuanji.appspot.com/isicp/3-0-modularity-objects-and- state.html)

and click the right arrow, it brings me back to the beginning. Is that by design to enforce that I work my way through from the very beginning? One reason I'd like to start mid-way is I've read this book a number of times, getting more out of it each time, and I don't feel like spending the time on the basics.

<comment><AUTHOR> I think it's a broken link. Try clicking the home icon on the side panel and navigating through that.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER3> I wonder if you are familiar with Bret Victor's elaborate criticism of Khan Academy's live coding environment. This effort looks like it could really benefit from its insights.

[http://worrydream.com/LearnableProgramming/](http://worrydream.com/LearnableProgramming/)

While an inline interactive Scheme interpreter does make the SICP _examples_ easier to follow and play with, it doesn't by itself make the content more understandable and learnable.

A "learning environment for SICP", with the principles of learnability and understandability in Victor's article applied, would be very beneficial for present day learners. It surely is a lot of work, but would be an interesting route for your project to take.

<comment><AUTHOR> I've definitely read that particular link and thought hard about how SICP should be written for a live coding environment. I don't think either the original SICP or Bret Victor will be the last word on this matter.

In Bret Victor's terms, the scheme used in SICP has very little "vocabulary" to learn to read. The first section (which I linked) uses only arithmetic functions and `if` to teach you, well, how to program. And the "show flow" examples emphasize mutation of variables through time, while scheme uses recursion in place of loops. I think something that shows the function calls explicitly would be good, or at least something that shows the flow of function call (like the DrRacket debugger).

At the risk of generalizing, Bret Victor deals with things like graphics, animations and simulations, while SICP treats programming like a branch of pure math, and it's not straightforward reconciling the two.

I'd love to talk more about this with you though!

<comment><USER3> Yes, the specific example scenarios that Victor has used are hard to directly reconcile with what SICP is doing. But, that the examples are oriented towards graphics and animation has only to do with the fact that the immediate target of his critique in the essay is Processing and a particular live coding implementation of it. I was thinking more in terms of applying the _principles_ of learnability that he has put forward, and are manifest in the examples he has cited (Logo, Smalltalk, etc.), "how exactly" admittedly being an open question.

One thing I'm more or less certain about is that it would entail less live coding, and more stepping through visualized execution states (perhaps similar to pythontutor.com's visualizer).

I will be going through SICP with these in mind in the following weeks/months; I will keep you posted if I end up with notes that I think you might find useful.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> This looks really neat. Glad to see that the source is available, but there is no licensing information to indicate what can/cannot be done with the source. All I know is that SICP's text is CC-BY-NC.

</comment><comment><USER5> This is pretty cool. I've been meaning to do SICP forever. It's got the first 2 sections completely it seems.

</comment><comment><USER6> Thanks a bunch! SICP is my current course literature at Linköping University.

<comment><USER7> Consider yourself lucky! We had some boring and entirely too basic OOP-y course (with Java, of course). I'm reading SICP now (this beautiful PDF version: [https://github.com/sarabander/sicp- pdf/blob/master/sicp.pdf](https://github.com/sarabander/sicp- pdf/blob/master/sicp.pdf)). I would've loved to have had it when I was in college.

Alternate HTML5 version here: [http://sarabander.github.io/sicp/html/index.xhtml](http://sarabander.github.io/sicp/html/index.xhtml)

<comment><USER8> > _this beautiful PDF version:[https://github.com/sarabander/sicp- > pdf/blob/master/sicp.pdf](https://github.com/sarabander/sicp- > pdf/blob/master/sicp.pdf) _

This is the direct link to the pdf file: [https://github.com/sarabander/sicp- pdf/raw/master/sicp.pdf](https://github.com/sarabander/sicp- pdf/raw/master/sicp.pdf)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> Over quota, btw, i found the source here:

[https://github.com/zodiac/isicp](https://github.com/zodiac/isicp)

</comment><comment><USER10> I have to admit I'm probably going to love this quite a bit. I'm a sysadmin who has dabbled in scripting languages and a little bit of c, python, and perl, but other than that my programming always kinda scared me off. I read the wizard book for the first time last year and it has absolutely helped me gain a new understanding of just about everything I do in daily work and has helped remove my programming fears. If they do more work on the built in interpreter I will probably go through it a time or two more.

<comment><AUTHOR> Hello! I'm the author - what improvements would you like to see in the built- in interpreter?

<comment><USER10> I really don't have any major complaints, at first noscript was messing up things but everything works afterwards so far.

One idea though, where you have the green box that can be hidden, it would be nice to have an interpreter box there, to mess around with as one goes through (and keep it persistent between pages). That way, if someone just wants to mess with the text already entered on the page, they can, but if they are like me and like retyping things (a form of mental note-taking) they could do that too.

I know at first the main issue I found with lisp was that I didn't know how to get an environment going to just mess around with, and having something like that might be useful to provide a standalone from the iSICP (or it might not).

Overall, very impressive, good stuff.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> I created an implementation of R5RS in Javascript[1] that perhaps you'd be interested in. I know you already have one, but you might have opinions and needs that could influence my implementation. I got stalled trying to get (real) macros to work, but I already had a Scheme->JS FFI and asynchronous evaluation without the use of web workers.

[1] [https://github.com/erjiang/foxscheme](https://github.com/erjiang/foxscheme)

<comment><AUTHOR> How do you get asynchronous evaluation without the use of web workers? My understanding is that, without web workers, javascript and the browser share a single thread, and executing javascript freezes the UI.

</comment></comment><comment><USER12> Very cool! I have also been making an (iPad) app to help people get through SICP and I somehow didn't run into this.

If anyone is interested in reading SICP now, you should try out my app. We find you someone and you have a good conversation about the material each week through video chat and a whiteboard. We aren't launched yet, but you can check out our simple demo ([https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DlUTKzrqECE](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DlUTKzrqECE)) and send me an email if you want to try the beta. firstname.lastname@example.com

</comment><comment><USER13> It's not obvious how to run examples after editing — it's explained in readme.md, but I didn't see it the book itself.

[It's Ctrl-Enter. Actuallghy just pressing Ctrl is enough.]

Ideas to make it more discoverable: \- re-run an expresion when the editor is unfocused. \- add a "▶" button in the corner of each editor. \- add a tooltip with the kbd shortcut on the "▶" button

<comment><AUTHOR> The expression is re-run when the editor is unfocused. If you're not seeing that behavior please let me know!

<comment><USER13> Oops, you're right. I thought it's not but cannot reproduce now.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> If you're coming out of pocket to pay for the app engine charges, I'd put up a gittip / microdonation link.

Great work, and very useful.

</comment><comment><USER15> When I worked my way through SICP I found the following javascript based scheme REPL very useful:

[http://bluishcoder.co.nz/jsscheme/](http://bluishcoder.co.nz/jsscheme/)

Unfortunately, searching for jsscheme in Google gives you a list of many different projects that either share the same name or have a very similar name.

</comment><comment><USER16> This is very cool, every innovation helps. I wonder if it wouldn't be helpful for learning to add execution visualization, such as provided at [http://www.pythontutor.com/visualize.html](http://www.pythontutor.com/visualize.html) (click "Visualize Execution")

</comment><comment><USER17> Small suggestion: add navigation arrows at the bottom of the page as well.

</comment><comment><USER18> I look forward to seeing it, once it quits 503ing.</comment>


Scientists at Stanford develop water splitter that runs on ordinary AAA battery - <AUTHOR> http://news.stanford.edu/news/2014/august/splitter-clean-fuel-082014.html <comment><USER2> I'm amazed at the ignorance in these comments.

First, _yes_ this is cool new science. No one imagined nickel would work as a water-splitting electrocatalyst. This is very surprising, and awesome.

Second, the point of water-splitting is obviously _not power generation_. It's power _storage_ , just like a battery, but with better transport and storage characteristics.

<comment><USER3> I don't know about ignorance, but basically, the energy you get from splitting the water molecule (in the form of H2 and O2) is lower than the energy consumed to make the split. For storage you will also have to deeply freeze the gases unless you want to have huge tanks for storage

So what makes a hydrogen exposed freezing tank better suited for transport and storage than a chemical battery?

<comment><USER4> A car which runs on hydrogen can be refueled in a few minutes. Batteries need an hour of charge or a battery swap which costs labor.

<comment><USER5> A battery swap only costs labor if you do it manually. I don't see why you would do that.

[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H5V0vL3nnHY](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H5V0vL3nnHY)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> Presumably the low voltage saves energy. If a given number of electrons produce the same quantity of H using two different methods, that means the yield is related to current, and is the same for both methods, ampere for ampere. And so the higher voltage method will have a bigger dissipation (product of voltage and current).

Still, as a user, I don't care about voltage. How many kWh of energy does it take to produce n grams of hydrogen with this method, and how does it compare to existing methods.

Give me the highest relevant abstraction related to energy use.

</comment><comment><USER7> ... and not a single word about how the necessary electricity needed to make this "zero emission fuel" is supposed to be produced.

Plus, all I know about hydrogen points to it not being anything close to "an ideal fuel for powering vehicles, buildings and storing renewable energy". It has very low density, requires cryogenic storage or very heavy pressure vessels, migrates through materials, and is explosive when mixed with air.

<comment><USER2> This is like commenting on a battery tech article with, "Yes, but how are we going to _charge_ all of those batteries?!" Or power grid technology, "Great, but where is the electricity going to _come from_?!?!"

<comment><USER7> Well, if they claimed that using batteries was "emissions free", I would complain about that, too.

With hydrogen, the issue issue is that (at least to my understanding) if you _have_ electricity, we already have a far more efficient solution: put the electricity _directly_ into a battery and use it to power a motor. Going the route over electrolysis->hydrogen storage->fuel cell imposes such efficiency penalties that it would need extremely compelling other advantages to be competitive, and I don't see them.

<comment><USER2> Hey, I like chemical batteries too, but they're not capacitors. You don't put electricity into them. You drive an electrochemical reaction with them, which is subject to its own inefficiencies, as well as wear and tear on the battery, which isn't a problem with hydrogen fuel cells.

Hydrogen fuel cells also tend to be highly efficient.

<comment><USER7> Sure. Are you saying the fuel cell cycle is actually more efficient than the battery cycle?

The long-term performance question is interesting, though. Any idea how long the time scale would have to be before the fuel cell wins?

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> I came across this video of Mike Strizki showing off his hydrogen setup during my freshman year of college. I'll never forget it: [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XcIbOkakkDQ](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XcIbOkakkDQ)

</comment><comment><USER9> Reminds me of Stanley Meyer's invention: [http://youtu.be/Vd7QL1-NnlU](http://youtu.be/Vd7QL1-NnlU) A claim of hydrogen obtained by water splitting fueled car. Very intriguing case of potential pseudo science.

</comment><comment><USER10> How is this a story? Did someone at Stanford open up a grade 10 Chemistry textbook?

<comment><USER11> From the article: "Using nickel and iron, which are cheap materials, we were able to make the electrocatalysts active enough to split water at room temperature with a single 1.5-volt battery. This is the first time anyone has used non-precious metal catalysts to split water at a voltage that low. It's quite remarkable, because normally you need expensive metals, like platinum or iridium, to achieve that voltage."

<comment><USER10> But it really isn't. The only thing of minor note here is room temperature vs doing it at 60 deg C.

<comment><USER12> At scale, that's a good bit of energy, I would assume. But I had the same reaction as you did. "My 7th grade science class did that..."

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> This isn't news.

"The researchers also plan to develop a water splitter than runs on electricity produced by solar energy."

Unfortunately that approach would be less efficient that simply transferring the electrical energy to an electric motor.

Light > Electricity > Hydrogen > Electricity > Electric Motor

is longer than

Light > Electricity > Electric Motor

<comment><USER2> Ignorance. The news here isn't "we discovered electrolysis!" It's "we developed a new, efficient, and cheap electrocatalyst!"

Did you do that when you were 9 too?

<comment><USER14> Actually, the kids chemistry book that I read as a 10 year old or so had a very clear picture in it of one of the electrodes made of a guilder (dutch coin at the time) and noted it worked better than other coins because of its high nickel content.

That may have been coincidence but it certainly wasn't new knowledge to me that Nickel works well as an electrode when splitting water in Hydrogen and Oxygen.

I wished I'd kept my books from childhood and I'd be able to show you. It wasn't a particular fancy set either, just a bunch of test tubes, some leads to attach to a 4.5 V flat battery (I haven't seen those in ages either) and a bunch of basic chemicals.

<comment><USER7> We must have had a similar childhood! :-)</comment></comment></comment></comment>


Windows users are cheap -- Humble Indie Bundle payments - <AUTHOR> http://i.imgur.com/Cn5vX.jpg

<comment><USER2> And, apparently, Linux users are not. I find that interesting, considering that one of the most prevalent arguments for not offering software for Linux is that its users refuse to pay for anything.</comment>


How Houston Gets Along Without Zoning Laws - <AUTHOR> http://www.businessweek.com/the_thread/hotproperty/archives/2007/10/how_houston_gets_along_without_zoning.html

<comment><USER3> I love Houston. I lived there for several years growing up, having moved their from the SF Bay Area. Yes, it has sprawl like none other. From the westernmost point on I-10 to the easternmost is about 50 miles and growing every year. Yes, you need a car. But it's a fascinating place on a scale few cities can rival.

Houston is home to the world's largest medical center. 20,000 doctors _and it was started as a tax dodge!_ It's the most ethnically diverse city in America, moreso than LA or NYC. It's affordable, the schools are good (in the burbs anyways) and the food is unbeatable, from endless pho shops on Westheimer, Iranian and Turkish in West Houston and creative restaurants like Pass and Provision or Underbelly in Montrose. One of the largest private art collections in the world is smack in the middle of the city.

The people are friendly and welcoming and as tolerant as you'll ever find (Houston has the nation's first openly lesbian mayor). Unless you're on the road in which case everyone is a raging maniac trying to kill you. Houston's drivers are the most balls-to-the-wall crazy I've ever seen and I'm typing this from Penang in Malaysia...

<comment><USER4> I grew up near Houston and would totally take Houston drivers over Seattle drivers (Though I'm not living in the US as of this year).

Houston drivers drive. There's a sense of urgency to them. Not so in Seattle where it's normal for the left lane traffic to go 15 mph below the speed limit.

<comment><USER3> I would say "urgency" is an understatement!

<comment><USER5> Well, that's the thing, right?

If you're on the 59/610 west interchange, it's dangerous--so you should drive faster to be exposed to danger less. It's obvious.

Especially in the rain..

And the ice.

<comment><USER3> I spent a summer commuting from Katy to University of Houston's main campus. Westpark toll to 59 passing through the 610 interchange.

Westpark's off ramp lands you in an exit only lane to 610, so you immediately have to merge over three lanes within less than half a mile.

IIRC it's the most dangerous stretch of highway in America.

<comment><USER6> That stretch has a rival in Houston: if you're heading towards downtown on Allen Parkway and get onto I-45 northbound, the entrance ramp is a tight upward spiral and you'll need to accelerate from 30 to 70 lickety-split because it dumps you right into a full-fledged interstate lane, not a merge lane!

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> For a few years, I dated a girl whose parents lived in Houston, so I got to spend some time there. Now as a European coming from a well developed city with millennia of history, I am rarely impressed by any US city, but man was Houston bad.

First of all, the city itself is huge and sprawling. Her parents lived in a nice suburb where all houses looked the same. You had to drive 10 minutes within the suburb on twisted roads with a 5mph speed limit to get out of it, at which point you'd be on the highway and had to drive at least another 5-10 minutes to get anywhere. Forget walking anywhere - without a car, you wouldn't go anywhere. The highways were quite shocking as well - I've never seen so many lanes on a single road, nor so many stretches of road going over and under each other. Perhaps my memory serves me poorly, but I remember exits with three or four layers of highways going all over one another.

I spent some time downtown, which was a bit better - they had a nice museum, some trees, and even a tramway to get around. Sadly, the downtown area was minuscule, and had no personality. Things emptied out early in the evenings - it was mostly businesses or day entertainment.

Overall, I hold a very poor memory of Houston and one could never pay me enough to live there. I hope for the US's sake that this is not the model of urban development they herald as the future, like the article implies.

<comment><USER8> Houston's a tough and gritty place, but it's not without its charms. For instance, a lot of people don't know that Houston is the home of the largest medical center in the world - including M.D. Anderson, which is routinely ranked as the top cancer treatment center in America.

I know, I know, having been cured of cancer probably influences my opinion just a bit, but I think Houston's a pretty damned cool town :-)

I think every place has it's own charms, you just have to look for it - <USER2> some places you have to look harder than others, sure. I hated NYC the first year I lived there, and later came to really like it. But, I'm the kind of person who'd enjoy living in the Mojave just as much as I'd enjoy living in Manhattan - it's all good, and every day I'm breathing is a great day to appreciate wherever the hell I happen to be.

<comment><USER9> My wife calls Houston the _Mecca of Medicine_.

<comment><USER5> ...which is fitting, given the number of nice visiting folks from oil-enriched nations we get. :)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> Having grown up in Houston the zoning issue is definitely something everyone young and old knows about. It's almost part of the ethos. In practice though, it was rare to see development that was crazy or so "out of place" that it would have caused problems. That said, places like the Heights and the wards have some interesting character as a result.

I would never move back largely due to the lack of public infrastructure, heat and humidity but the sprawl of the city isn't really a result of poor urban planning but rather seemed to be a function of the cost of real estate and the need to access the oil corridor while also not living in the refinery wasteland to the South east.

<comment><USER11> > it was rare to see development that was crazy or so "out of place"

Part of that is because, imo, the "no zoning" mythos doesn't really result in practical freedom to develop land however you want. There are two big zoning- like restrictions in practice, which if anything end up with more restrictive land use than many cities which do officially have zoning.

The first is that just about all neighborhoods built after WW2 are master- planned communities laid out by one developer (in many parts of Houston, subsidiaries of the various oil companies who were selling off land). These developers built neighborhoods intended to have a particular character, most commonly a suburban-style character, and attached deed restrictions to the properties requiring buyers to maintain that character in perpetuity. This has very similar effects to zoning, in that there are huge swaths of Houston which are by deed restriction not allowed to be redeveloped into anything but single-family homes with a minimum lot size (owners also cannot subdivide their home into rental units). In some ways it's even worse because "rezoning" is even more difficult than usual. Most of these communities do have a way to modify the deeds in principle, but it's all routed through homeowners' association politics, which make regular municipal politics look well- functioning.

The second is a big set of development restrictions from the city which, while not precisely zoning, strongly influence what can practically be built. Rules on minimum setbacks, height, and minimum parking really constrain a lot of possible redevelopment.

<comment><USER10> Well exactly, the whole Deed restriction and HOA thing that is rampant is what makes most of Houston's newest developments frustrating to live in.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> I like Houston but I have only visited. If I were to live there, I would live inside the 610 loop, which has reasonable density. It is still a driving city, though.

The closest thing to a walking city are the underground tunnels downtown. However, as another commented, the downtown empties out at night; at least that was the case 20 years ago. Houston is very hot in the summer, so a walking city is probably not a reasonable thing to ask for.

One of the absurdities was the Transco tower, called today the Williams tower. It used to be the tallest building in Houston, and it is outside the 610 loop and 4 miles from the downtown. Everything around it is quite small and it is difficult to understand what economics motivated building it.

Update: I'm trying to think why I like the city. I guess it is the vegetation. Houston is perhaps a bit like how Mayan cities must have been.

<comment><USER13> Houston's surprisingly nice, like a Texas version of Los Angeles. A great place to buy a used car: incomes are high, real estate is cheap, nobody wants to buy a pristine car with 80k miles that's never seen snow or dirt.

<comment><USER14> LA is much drier and Houston is pretty wet; mold would be a problem in the latter but not the former.

<comment><USER8> This. If there's one thing I can't stand about Houston, it's the mold. You could probably make a living selling bleach door to door in this town.

<comment><USER15> Isn't that what AC is for? ;) It's funny you should say this, though - I had someone come to my door a few months ago and say "you have some mildew on your foundation and roof, I can take care of it for $75.."

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> Native Houstonian here. This is a great place to make a living. We even have some pockets of genuine beauty here and it is really frustrating that they are so spread out. Houston is going to have some real opportunities as we transition to a driverless travel situation. The amount of land we have that is covered in soon to be useless parking surfaces is mind boggling. Hopefully we don't screw it up.

</comment><comment><USER17> The only good thing I have to say about Houston is that it has good food. That's it. On the downside, it's huge, noisy, polluted, terrible traffic, very high humidity, toll-roads everywhere, McMansions, susceptible to flooding, hurricanes, etc. The best view I ever had of Houston was in my rear-view mirror.

</comment><comment><USER18> Yah, we get along fine without zoning laws. We have this wonderful urban sprawl and no hope for useful public transit. Oh and the surprises! Buy a nice house in a new neighborhood and just wait to see what pops up nearby! It could be anything, like a drill pipe manufacturing plant! But if you don't like your neighborhood, just wait for the next dip in oil prices, you'll have all new neighbors when the price goes back up and people buy up the foreclosed homes in your neighborhood and turn them into rental homes. Constant new people to meet! Sometimes they even cut their grass! Want to protect your investment in your home? Don't worry developers will be quick to build low cost apartments around your house the moment enough retail exists. Who needs equity!

Look, I lived in San Francisco, Chicago, and elsewhere. It is definitely easier to exist here in Houston because it's damn cheap, but it sure as hell ain't pretty.

<comment><USER19> In fairness you don't have a Houston address ;)

If you want some stability live in a deed restricted neighborhood.

</comment></comment><comment><USER15> Houston is a strange place but I mostly love it. I've lived in a suburb north of Houston (literally 30 miles north) for the last ten years or so and really love it up there, but it's really very different (and VERY far away, even at 80 mph) from the city itself. (fwiw, I'm a NY'er and moved here from CA, so I've got some experience in other big cities; Houston's the fourth largest city in the USA.)

The strangest thing to me, and a result of the zoning laws (which seem to be a slightly insane form of pure genius to me), is the multiple downtowns that are scattered around aside from the 'real' downtown. Pockets of skyscrapers and tall office buildings are every 30 miles or so. It's interesting and so I'm still finding (huge, significant) parts of the city that I've never seen before. It's so spread out that it make other big cities (like SF) feel distinctly small; going there once makes you feel like "oh, this is tiny compared to, say, NYC", which is, of course, mostly true, but then you find out that you're only looking at one of the 'downtown' sorts of areas.

Houston has a surprisingly large arts community. Low costs of living tend to help there. It also has lots of alternative lifestyles, but also (rather small) pockets of religious and conservativism. It also has an incredibly vibrant culture, with more theater seating than any other city in the country, except for NYC. (Yes, even more than Chicago or LA). [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Houston_Theater_District](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Houston_Theater_District)

It's also a great food town. Since it's more ethnically diverse than any other city in the United States, you can find almost any food you want. There's also a very nice part of town that's quite reminscent of Austin's downtown.

And I've spoken with other startups -- Houston tends to be attractive to startup engineers coming from the Bay area and in some ways feels alternately like SF or SV, depending on where you are. It tends to be more difficult to attract serious tech startup executives, however.

The only significant downsides, at least to me, for the HN crowd: the city is so spread out that it's hard to build a strong community. (I run The Woodlands Entrepreneur's meetup w/ over 300 members, but only about 30 or so are in tech startups of some sort; I also run the Houston AWS and Houston Cloud meetups and most of the AWS users are associated with big oil or big medtech, not tech startups.) Still, there's SO much here.

The other downside is the utter lack of VC, and what little is here is not competitive. This alone may be a reason to pick another city. (Austin has a few really great VC's.) .. on the other hand, if you're bootstrapping, you really can't go wrong with Houston. Your runway goes a really long way here.

</comment><comment><USER20> the best bar in north america is in houston, on rice campus

<comment><USER5> willys is terrible tbh</comment></comment>


A Truck the Russians Make for $50K - <AUTHOR> http://truckyeah.jalopnik.com/the-russians-make-the-best-truck-in-the-universe-for-5-1758030433 <comment><USER2> Reminds me a bit of this crazy screw-propelled tank which is also Russian made: [https://youtu.be/RbDe5dEu07I?t=34](https://youtu.be/RbDe5dEu07I?t=34)

<comment><USER3> Which reminds me of the Fordson Snow Machine [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rn5jkXEFTZ4](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rn5jkXEFTZ4)

<comment><USER4> There's a long history of screw-drive vehicles like that. They work well on snow and mud, and work badly on roads. Useful for special purposes only.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> Truck in action: [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3j7n00Xx38o](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3j7n00Xx38o)

<comment><USER5> No steering wheel, but two levers instead: [https://youtu.be/JLnSlJVAsvU?t=1m44s](https://youtu.be/JLnSlJVAsvU?t=1m44s)

<comment><USER6> Kind of looks like driving an M113. Driving them was fun, but I definitely don't miss anything else about them.

<comment><USER7> The M113 heyday was already over in my time but they were still around, especially in training brigades. Fun to drive? They were so, so slow compared to Bradleys and Strykers.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> There's a similar all terrain, inflatable tires motorcycle, also made by Russians(0). Of course, when you have roads(1) as in Russia, you simply have to make something like that.

0\. [http://blog.motorcycle.com/2014/04/01/funnies/russian-2wd- te...](http://blog.motorcycle.com/2014/04/01/funnies/russian-2wd-terrain- motorcycle-fits-bag-video/)

1\. [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Mg_nUf2W6vU](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Mg_nUf2W6vU)

<comment><USER9> Well, it was just flooded, no wonder that the road is damaged.

<comment><USER8> It's just a single example. Google more if you didn't like it.

<comment><USER9> You can find many extremes everywhere, but claiming that extreme is a common occurrence is not very honest.

Yes, I know what happens with ice roads during summer. That's why they are ice roads.

<comment><USER10> Extremes do absolutely exist everywhere, but Russian roads _are_ still well- known to be some of the worst in the developed world. That isn't to say that it's entirely a problem rooted in lack of funding, though; as it turns out, building roads across permafrost is extremely difficult and Russia has a ton of that across its eleven time zones. And, even in areas that do periodically thaw, if there's a major river nearby (famously: as there is near the Lena Highway), you should be prepared for a really muddy hell during the summer; the Lena Highway becomes impassable when the Lena river floods annually, cutting Yakutsk off from the rest of the country.

<comment><USER9> Well, nobody expects the Russian roads to be up to German and Austrian level, but then, in many other countries, including US, they are not up to that level either.

That video was from Rostov - and Rostov has actually fine roads. The Ukrainian side is in much worse conditions (and it is not due to the war; it was worse before the war in Donbass too).

Of course, going through Siberia has it's problems. Just few days ago I was reading article about Vasyugan Mire - [http://siberiantimes.com/ecology/casestudy/features/f0207-sp...](http://siberiantimes.com/ecology/casestudy/features/f0207-special- status-for-swamp-that-saves-the-world/) , marveling about it's beauty and hoping, that nobody will try to find out how to make a road through it ;).

<comment><USER11> You're comparing US roads with Russian roads?

Really?

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> Well, there are still terrains where Sherp would need to be carried by DT30 Everpresent [http://www.military- today.com/trucks/dt30_vityaz.htm](http://www.military- today.com/trucks/dt30_vityaz.htm)

<comment><USER13> The Russians don't mess around when it comes to rough terrain vehicles.

<comment><USER14> I think you mean the Czech's, who make the Tatra trucks.

<comment><USER15> Kamaz is certainly up there with Tatra. When I was still following the Paris- Dakar rally (back when it was still taking place in Africa) I seem to remember that Kamaz trucks absolutely dominated the truck competition.

<comment><USER16> in West Siberia Kamaz trucks relegated to only in-village or where at least some kind of road is supposed to be. Anywhere else, where still possible for wheeled vehicles, the workhorse of USSR/Russian military is used - KrAZ (AWD, higher mount).

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/KrAZ#/media/File:Kraz255b.jpg](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/KrAZ#/media/File:Kraz255b.jpg)

<comment><USER15> Yeah, forgot about those (was also on mobile and couldn't search easily). We also have one of them in my city, Bucharest, is employed by the local transport authority to help pull trolley-buses or even tramways whenever they break. Here's an image of it sometime in winter: [http://tramclub.org/files/iarna_in_bucuresti_6_februarie_009...](http://tramclub.org/files/iarna_in_bucuresti_6_februarie_009_177.jpg) . It's a pretty intimidating machine, to be honest, but cool as hell!

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER17> "The Russians Make The Best Truck In The Universe For $50K" I bet author have not ever owned Russian car.

<comment><USER18> I've known a few people who've owned older Lada Nivas (aka VAZ-2121), New Zealand traded milk powder for Ladas for a while in the 80's.

The engine is horrible, and the interior is what you'd expect, but they are built like a brick shithouse. You can literally barrel roll one down a hill and it will be fine. They're probably resistant to light small arms fire too.

<comment><USER11> > The engine is horrible, and the interior is what you'd expect, but they are > built like a brick shithouse

So why buy a brick shithouse with horrible engine, if you've actually wanted a car?

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER19> I just got my son this toy (the nano version for 30 eur), reminds me very much of this concept [0]. The little thing is a lot of fun and very robust and maneuverable with its tank-like control (forward backward for left right wheels only). This movie is not mine by the way.

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?time_continue=105&v=C3Pry2nLaR...](https://www.youtube.com/watch?time_continue=105&v=C3Pry2nLaRk)

</comment><comment><USER13> The Americans did make the Rolligon which is pretty neat.

[https://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=rolligon](https://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=rolligon)

William Albee invented the tech but it's now owned by a petroleum production equipment company. [http://www.nov.com/Segments/Completion_and_Production_Soluti...](http://www.nov.com/Segments/Completion_and_Production_Solutions/Intervention_and_Stimulation_Equipment/Pressure_Pumping_Equipment/All_Terrain_Vehicles.aspx)

</comment><comment><USER20> This would be a cool toy if you have lots of land to drive it on like you would a quad.

That said - since this is using Kubota engine - you can get an actual Kubota tractor with twice the horsepower in this price range. For 60K MSRP you can get a tricked out top of the line Kubota Mudder which is pretty awesome and way more practical.

</comment><comment><USER21> Swap that 1.5 litre diesel for the one Renault make that has 110 hp and it'd be great.

<comment><USER22> Why would you swap anything made by Renault into anything?

<comment> at-fates-hands This was my thought as well. I had a roommate in college that was a mechanic and engineer. He LOVED these cars, but said, "Fuck all if they're not the hardest car to get to parts for and they're right expensive as shit."

The only upside is their engines are incredibly reliable.

<comment><USER23> Hah you clearly don't watch Formula 1

<comment><USER21> What the championship where they won for four years in recent years?

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER24> When you start looking you might be surprised what you can both legally purchase and actually afford on the surplus market. A US military m35 deuce and a half is pretty cheap and would be generally more useful with large payload capacity and able to cruise close to 60mph. The "argo" is a cool amphibious utility vehicle you could throw in the back to go for a swim. Together they might set you back around $15k for nice ones or quite a bit less if you're willing to do some work which is part of the fun. Not new, but just as much fun.

<comment><USER25> Well, you could get a new Ural 4320 for about 2 million roubles (25K USD):

[http://uraltrucks.com/ural-4320-1031-truck/](http://uraltrucks.com/ural-4320-1031-truck/)

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F0Ji7D2WT3I](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F0Ji7D2WT3I)

</comment></comment><comment><USER26> Price is misleading. Actually $65k base ([http://sherp.ru/en/sherp/](http://sherp.ru/en/sherp/)) Still badass.

<comment><USER12> The article says «$50K in roubles» — the Russian-language site quotes 3.85 millions Russian roubles, and right now it is possible to exchange $50 000 in cash to 3850000 ₽ in cash.

<comment><USER27> And every day it's cheaper and cheaper

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER28> Any information on the 4-wheel drive system? Is it an electronic limited slip differential or does it have actual differential locks (rear and maybe front)?

<comment><USER29> Since it's a skid-steer (steering consists of slowing the rotation of wheels on side you want to turn towards) the whole setup is probably different. I'm guessing it has two hydraulic motors, one for the left side and one for the right side, powered by a hydraulic pump driven by the engine.

</comment></comment><comment><USER30> Just watched a piece on it on local TV. The inventor says the machine uses 44 horse power 1.5L engine, a Japanese one. Which is interesting because it it's on par with regular consumer ATVs. Wheel are very light, 800 liters each, hence it's floating capabilities.

In Russia, these are called "шишкотряс" \- cone shakers. Hand-crafted small garage ATVs.

</comment><comment><USER31> I watched this when it was posted on Reddit. I wanted to see this vehicle take on obstacles. The compact platform, high center of gravity (or not?) makes me worry about rock crawling and steep inclines.

Reminded me very much of the movement of a Bobcat loader. I know several guys (contractors) who could rip it up in this thing if it has similar controls.

</comment><comment><USER4> Nice. For snow and thin ice, that's the right tool for the job. There's a long history of big-tire off road vehicles. For some reason, car-sized ones are rare. There are lots of little open ATVs that can float, but they're for marshes, not Siberia. There are bigger amphibious trucks, sized for military and oil operations. This one is conveniently car sized.

It's skid-steer, so on-road driving won't be great and corners must be taken slowly.

</comment><comment><USER32> I seriously has to look closely... I thought it was an RC toy until you could see the driver !

</comment><comment><USER33> Russia to American rednecks: "We bring it from the dirt to icy lakes. Your move."

Seeing it get on a lake with thin ice I was thinking "Oh shit..." Then, seeing it tackle said ice like a boss I was thinking "OOHH SHIIIIT!!!"

</comment><comment><USER34> How do you get in? It looks like the front panel/window opens up.

<comment><USER35> Through the back door

<comment><USER34> Thanks.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER36> Reminds me of Ghe-O: [http://www.ghe-o.com/](http://www.ghe-o.com/)

</comment><comment><USER37> Damn ruskies:) Fucking brilliant with something so simple!

</comment><comment><USER38> I believe the low price tag is a result of 1\. Low cost of manufacturing labor 2\. Less strict regulation. Making this road legal or even just legal in any western country would cost a lot.

<comment><USER39> yeah but who'd want to drive it on an actual road...?

<comment><USER40> Yeah, it's more like an overgrown quad than a road-legal car.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER41> what's its use case, other than transporting two people in rough terrain?

<comment><USER42> I enjoy ice fishing, and while it's a bit heavy for normal use it would be nice to have a back up plan for if the vehicle goes through the ice.

</comment></comment><comment><USER43> "Does it come in black?"

<comment><USER44> Yes, [http://i.kinja-img.com/gawker-media/image/upload/s-- 0K1aA8sc...](http://i.kinja-img.com/gawker-media/image/upload/s-- 0K1aA8sc--/c_scale,fl_progressive,q_80,w_800/eahqfm06lj1evp3anaq4.jpg)

</comment></comment><comment><USER45> Only in Mother Russia... :)</comment>


Tired of twitter and facebook? Here is one of my idea's. - <AUTHOR>

I would love some feedback on my project, GettingPopular. I don't want to make a bajillion dollars. I just like building things. I hate the fact that facebook shares all my information with everyone. If I want to do that I have twitter.
So, I built a system where you can add points to a relationship. NOT A PERSON. I know this sounds really bad at the start. But I think its a positive interface that actually helps you in the long run.
I created a video explaining my thoughts and showing how it works.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eEMXHVX69vc
I am just interested in feedback about the _idea_. The site still needs work.
Just want to know if there is any interest out there.
Thanks.
Here is the site: http://www.gettingpopular.com <comment><USER2> A friend and I had a conversation related to this last night. We were speaking about how Facebook has seemed to become the dumping ground for acquaintances that you'd like to keep in contact with, but never will, and who you're not really comfortable texting. It's a problem I've had with Facebook for a while. They just don't differentiate the relationships I have with people enough. And because almost everyone is on the same level, I'm hesitant to share information and act as I would if it were just me and my close ring of friends. Often times, others will just post things to garner attention because they're posting to the world, and so my news feed is usually cluttered with garbage I'm not really interested in.

Anyway, I think adding points to relationships, or even people really, is a good way to go about differentiating friends. Come to think of it, I can see a Facebook app where you have 3 tokens to choose your top 3 friends to be pretty successful. Throw in an option to let people buy more tokens to add more best friends, and you'll have a bunch of teenagers buying tokens so as to not make the 4th and 5th best friends feel left out. :P

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks for the feedback. Really good to know you are having this same problem.

I've had this problem to. Some information you just don't care about. However, you do care about some of it or you wouldn't have "friended" them. My system will allow you to see as much as you like, with a type of valve on the relationship.

I don't want to encourage adding points to people. I could see it becoming more of a who's better than the other person. Which is a system I don't want to be apart of. I would rather build tools that will help us strengthen our friendships and help us to appreciate our differences.

I think facebook apps are dead. However I think facebook connect and twitter's api are very useful and more applicable.

Thanks again.

</comment></comment><comment><USER3> i watched your video. It's a cool idea, and I've thought about just using CRM software to manage all my contacts (including friends.) That's basically what it seemed you were describing: an organized priority system for how people should get your time and attention. And that's what good CRM or contact management systems already do.

One thing those other solution do not do is let people see your evaluation, or create network effects based on everyone's evaluations. Maybe you are thinking in that direction, but the video didn't say much beyond just setting priorities using a point system.

Good luck with it!</comment>


What may happen in the next hundred years [December 1900] [pdf] - <AUTHOR> http://www.personal.psu.edu/staff/t/w/twa101/whatmayhappen.pdf <comment><USER2> Pretty good work! Bonus points for the big strawberries and the "giant telephone apparatus" that connects us all. Those couldn't have been obvious.

Education turns out to be the hardest one to get right over long periods. That and workplace norms. I did some work a while back on The Wall Street Journal's long-term prophesies over the decades. Similar results. I think in those fields, talking to the experts is a waste of time. Major change comes from unexpected places.</comment>


Digital Ocean promo code (~2 months of free hosting) - <AUTHOR>

Need a SSD VPS server for side projects/blog/app ? Here is a promo code for $10 credit : UBUNTUDROPLET (Worth two months of hosting for free).<p>You can use my referral link if you wish : http://bit.ly/12666Dj <comment><AUTHOR> Clickable link : [http://bit.ly/12666Dj](http://bit.ly/12666Dj)

</comment><comment><USER2> Awesome! Thanks!</comment>


Mistakes we've made - <AUTHOR> https://www.hackerschool.com/blog/34-mistakes-weve-made <comment><USER2> For what it's worth I still think the name is great. The meaning of words change. The identity of Hacker School is strong, and I could easily see it deciding what hacker and school _means_ in the future, not unlike YC and the words hacker and incubator. Granted, it's an uphill battle, but the name recognition is strong, unlike Foo Bootcamp (I might be biased in this regard, but friends have remembered the name without being prompting just because it sounds cool).

</comment><comment><USER3>
        presents strong evidence that this language is gendered.
        We've since stopped saying that people must "love"
        programming

Could someone expand on this point and explain how the "love programming" phrasing is gendered?

<comment><USER4> The linked book ( _Unlocking the Clubhouse_ [1]) is based off a multi-year study of Carnegie Mellon CS majors. They found it was common for the male CS majors to describe themselves as "in love" with programming but much less common for female CS majors to do so.

(That's obviously greatly simplified, but that's the gist of it.)

[1] [http://mitpress.mit.edu/books/unlocking- clubhouse](http://mitpress.mit.edu/books/unlocking-clubhouse)

<comment><USER5> That doesn't imply that "love" is a gendered word, it implies that males use the word more.

<comment><USER6> I wouldn't call the word itself gendered. The problem is it appeals disproportionately to men (for a variety of cultural reasons described in the study).

It's not in Hacker School's interest to skew their appeal toward certain groups of people for no reason.

<comment><USER7> Personally i'm much more concerned with why "i love programming" appeals more to one gender than another, and would prefer to see the cause of the problem tackled first. Abandoning the wording removes any need to have a conversation about things like gender-leaning language in the first place, further burying the issue.

<comment><USER6> It's a worthwhile question. The referenced study ("Unlocking the Clubhouse") explores part of the issue and is a very interesting read. Take a look!

Unfortunately, the lead time for solving the root cause is at least 1 generation. We will have to use stopgap solutions until then.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8>
        We shouldn't have named our company "Hacker School."
        Both parts of our name have caused us trouble: Hacker
        because so many people take it to mean a person who
        breaks into computers rather than a clever programmer.

Why would that matter? Everyone who's interested in Hacker School is a hacker and understands the true meaning of the word.

<comment><USER4> That was initially our assumption, but we've learned that there are some people who are interested in (and ultimately great fits for) Hacker School who don't primarily interpret the word as we do.

Also, while most people who come to Hacker School understand our use of _hacker_ , many of their families and friends don't. And that's caused Hacker Schoolers a surprising amount of annoyance ("What do you mean you're quitting your job and moving to New York for _Hacker School_?!")

<comment><USER8> Sorry for the late reply, I was temperately banned after my comment got downvoted twice.

> Also, while most people who come to Hacker School understand our use of > hacker, many of their families and friends don't. And that's caused Hacker > Schoolers a surprising amount of annoyance ("What do you mean you're > quitting your job and moving to New York for Hacker School?!")

That's a really great point, I hadn't though of that. I'm still glad you chose that name though, if you hadn't I probably wouldn't have been interested enough to read through your website and ultimately decide to apply in the future.

If you were to re-make Hacker School with the knowledge you have now, what would you name it?

<comment><USER4> I don't know. We've considered a number of names but haven't found one we really like. We're open to suggestions :)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> I'm very impressed by this post. Concise. Insightful. Practical. Honest.

</comment><comment><USER10> _We 're also updating our internal review system to obfuscate applicants' names to avoid any subconscious bias during our application review process. We'll soon be considering applicants named "Blue Dart" and "Purple Rover" rather than "Jane Doe" and "José Smith"._

Careful. I am reminded of a classic hacker koan (perhaps, appropriately for a hacker school):

[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hacker_koan#Uncarved_block](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hacker_koan#Uncarved_block)

The situation would likely be better than before, but this may be trading one set of subconscious biases for yet another.

</comment><comment><USER11> I'm glad I got to read this post since I recently didn't get into HS for this summer.

I don't think I'm worried that they may have made a mistake with my application because I'm worth the time, or other self affirming points (blah blah blah). Although, it would have been nice if they mentioned what exactly made them feel like I wasn't a good fit so I could work on that. I get that it's not always possible since they probably get a huge number of applications to go through.

It seems like they do a lot of introspection which I like to see - gives you a sense of what kind of people they are and makes me want to go there even more.

EDIT: Grammar

<comment><USER4> Thanks for the kind words, and I'm sorry things didn't work out this time around :\

Regarding feedback: We tried to give individualized feedback up until last year, but we stopped doing it because it took a ton of time and wasn't particularly effective. We wrote about this here: [https://www.hackerschool.com/feedback](https://www.hackerschool.com/feedback)

<comment><USER11> Thanks for link. It would be great to add that to future emails so people understand the use of a generic email.

Impressed as always!

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> I disagree with one "but" in this post. Rebranding is not optional/too expensive. It's THAT important. Don't not do it, and never give up on a necessary TODO. Good luck! You guys are doing great.

<comment><USER7> It's funny because they actually know a bit about rebranding. Hacker School evolved out of Hackruiter, which in turn came from HireHive. [http://unschooled.org/2012/06/the-path-to-hacker- school/](http://unschooled.org/2012/06/the-path-to-hacker-school/)

All told they've been around since 2011. If they think three years is too late to change brands, well, it just sounds pretty shortsighted to me. They can take their existing customers with them and build much needed credibility in being true to their vision. As long as the new brand is better than the old brand I don't see a downside.

</comment></comment><comment><USER13> I personally think something like 'Code Atleier' has a nicer ring to it. :)</comment>


Self-hosting Firefox Sync 1.5 - <AUTHOR> https://known.phyks.me/2015/self-hosting-firefox-sync-15 <comment><USER2> I must warn against running only Sync server and relying on Mozilla-hosted Firefox Accounts as there _is_ a way for Mozilla or whoever has access to their servers (served with NSL or whatever force they can't resist) to figure out your _plaintext_ password when you log in to the service.

The issue is, Firefox Accounts login page is served from the network, and you can only blindly trust that the password you type is only passed to a secure JavaScript KDF and not sent anywhere. I really don't know why Mozilla implemented it this way and login UI is not a part of the browser itself.

\---

Shameless plug follows.

I didn't like how Mozilla implemented this (a mess of languages and servers, way too complicated to my tastes) and started my own project (Python/Django) that tries to implement standalone Accounts and Sync services in a single package, as small and as simple as it's possible.

It's not usable yet - I didn't have time to work on this any seriously, and over the last year had only spent a few weekends. I can't vouch for its security - on the contrary, it looks somewhat fragile to me and whoever decides to try it must proceed with extreme caution. But I have Accounts part working and some parts of Sync too, so, I guess, someone may consider at least some pieces code useful: [https://bitbucket.org/drdaeman/firesync](https://bitbucket.org/drdaeman/firesync)

<comment><USER3> > I really don't know why Mozilla implemented it this way and login UI is not > a part of the browser itself.

How does making the login part of UI help, would you blindly trust part of native UI instead?

the password is secured with JS locally on the client and you can clearly and easily inspect all the requests that firefox makes via dev tools.

<comment><USER2> Why blindly? I can audit the browser's code, lock the updates and know it's reasonably secure against this kind of attack.

With the current implementation, with the page served from the network, there's no reasonable way to check that I'm not suddenly served with something malicious. I mean, I could be served a different page next time.

Well, of course, to be precise, after auditing the in-browser login dialog code I would also have to check the XUL and JS engines that it's using, the compiler that was used to produce Firefox, the system libraries, kernel, firmware and CPU microcode and so on. But that's another story.

<comment><USER4> Well, you _could_ run a proxy locally, force all traffic through that and serve your own version of the page.

<comment><USER2> It's using HTTPS - and while I haven't actually tried to MitM it, I suspect that since it's served from Mozilla domain, the certificate must be pinned.

But you're right - it may be not simple to do (or maybe I'm mistaken here) but it's certainly possible (Firefox is FOSS, so as a last resort measure it can be modified to ignore any pins). Thanks for the suggestion.

<comment><USER4> Browsers allow you to override pinned certificates with locally installed ones.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> A lot of people don't realise but the weakest point in their setup (from a security POV) is things like the password used on their browser sync account. There is a _huge_ amount of responsibility on the sync service providers. Firefox literally knows _everything_ about me and my accounts. Hell it knows passwords for accounts I don't even remember opening.

Self hosting the sync server makes a lot of sense. I think I will spend some time doing this over the Christmas holiday.

<comment><USER6> Personally I never let my browser remember my passwords, synchronized or not, precisely because it's a huge point of failure. I still think it's valuable for my history to be securely synchronized, but my Firefox Sync account does not have my passwords. Even though I do trust Firefox Sync and I have a very secure password, so this has nothing to do with that. But imagine that you leave your laptop open, then somebody passing by can get any password just by going to any website in your browser. And of course, with an open laptop, you can argue that you can be compromised regardless, as that passerby could install a keylogger. But security is all about raising costs for potential attackers.

Lately I've been a 1Password user, so that has made things easier. But even before that I've had a system of generating unique passwords and I could tolerate the pain of a fresh browser instance, because " _remember me_ " works just fine. The only account you should not lose access to is your email account, because that email account can be used to recover the passwords for every other account. It's also the one account for which you need a really strong password and preferably 2-factor authentication.

<comment><USER7> Personally, I find it more convenient (and possibly safer) to use blueproximity to auto-lock my laptop if I forget to manually do so.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> It's weird for me that the article headline is "Self-hosting Firefox Sync 1.5" but the author basically just says, read the README and that's it. I had a really hard time setting it up [https://jeena.net/firefox- sync-15](https://jeena.net/firefox-sync-15) full of misunderstandings and misconceptions.

</comment><comment><USER9> I have been using xmarks for years and switched to firefos-sync a while ago, so far so good. I did not know the code is open and I can self-host it until now, will try that. I do agree that we shall also own the firefox-sync login/password and it should have nothing to do with mozilla/firefox.

even better if it can support other browsers, but it seems I'm using firefox everywhere so I don't really care that much these days.

<comment><USER2> Chromium (and Chrome) also have option to self-host sync server. However, the architecture and encryption are significantly different so I believe it's impossible to create an "universal" sync service that'd accept both.</comment></comment>


U.S. election agency breached by hackers after November vote - <AUTHOR> http://reuters.com/article/idUSKBN1442VC <comment><USER2> I'm getting really tired of these click-bait titles.

It should read: "Company in charge of securing voting machines breached after election"

And they should have started the article with: "The U.S. voting process is decentralized and there were no reports of widespread fraud in November."

Fake News: The deliberate attempt to spread false or misleading information.

I am not saying that this is false, it seem's very much true. But it is definitely misleading the reader into thinking the entire election system was breached...until the 2nd the last sentence of the article.

<comment><USER3> _the 2nd the last_

For future reference: penultimate.

<comment><USER2> yeah..it was an obvious typo "2nd to last"

<comment><USER3> I didn't mean to draw attention to the typo, but rather to point out that there's a word which means "2nd to last." Like "defenestrate", it's a shame not to use it when the situation calls for it. :-)

<comment><USER4> Your attempt to expand my vocabulary is much appreciated. :D

<comment><USER2> Mine too, upvote for you ;)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> Voting machines seem like a bad idea. If the investigation finds things about those machines getting hacked, it's going to be gruesome.

<comment><USER6> They are a bad idea. Netherland recently banned the use of voting machines. The main problem to me is that to most people, voting machines are a black box. You can't verify that your vote was correctly cast and correctly counted. And if the voting machine or the count can somehow be compromised, it can be compromised on a large scale, unlike with paper ballots, where it would be a hell of a lot of work, and easily detected by layman observers.

<comment><USER7> Being a blackbox means that you can also imbue it with magical powers, like being hacker-proof, or whatever quality you wish to believe in. And some "expert" pundit will always be around to back you up.

And that's why the U.S. has and will continue to have horribly designed electronic voting machines.</comment></comment></comment>