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30,356,874 | 30,356,636 | 1 | 2 | 30,356,312 | train | <story><title>How can you be fooled by the U+202E trick? (2013)</title><url>https://galogetlatorre.blogspot.com/2013/07/how-can-you-be-fooled-by-u202e-trick.html</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>Waterluvian</author><text>Please correct me if I’m overreacting but I feel like Unicode in most cases is just a giant security flaw and the only reason we tolerate it is because it does tremendous good making things more equitable for other languages and cultures.<p>Unicode in URLs and usernames and filenames is just so easy to trick people with.<p>Will there be Unicode email addresses?</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>mkotowski</author><text>&gt; Will there be Unicode email addresses?<p>Apparently, yes. [0]<p>&gt; making things more equitable for other languages and cultures<p>Well, yes. People often hate how compilcated Unicode is, but they also tend to forget that even ASCII was <i>not sufficient</i> for writing English in a proper way. I am not by any means old, but even I still remember the period on the web when non-Unicode encodings were relatively common and how problematic it was.<p>And, with assumption that by “other cultures and languages” you mean non-English speaking regions: Tolerate is a wrong word. Most people are not English native speakers. If we would go the route of deciding who is tolerating who, nations using Chinese Hanzi and its derivatives would be probably the first to claim they tolerate all the others by the speakers’ headcount alone.<p>Moreover, deciding what is&#x2F;can be executed is not so obvious in my opinion. PDFs can have JavaScript embedded, SVG too. Flash games? Python scripts on computers with python installed? It is not just the names, but the very knowledge of what can be considered “executable.”<p>[0]: <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;en.wikipedia.org&#x2F;wiki&#x2F;Unicode_and_email" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;en.wikipedia.org&#x2F;wiki&#x2F;Unicode_and_email</a></text></comment> | <story><title>How can you be fooled by the U+202E trick? (2013)</title><url>https://galogetlatorre.blogspot.com/2013/07/how-can-you-be-fooled-by-u202e-trick.html</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>Waterluvian</author><text>Please correct me if I’m overreacting but I feel like Unicode in most cases is just a giant security flaw and the only reason we tolerate it is because it does tremendous good making things more equitable for other languages and cultures.<p>Unicode in URLs and usernames and filenames is just so easy to trick people with.<p>Will there be Unicode email addresses?</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>WalterGR</author><text><i>the only reason we tolerate it is because it does tremendous good making things more equitable for other languages and cultures.</i><p>Let me rewrite that from the opposite perspective.<p>The reason I use it is so that I can write in my language.</text></comment> |
22,879,303 | 22,879,171 | 1 | 3 | 22,878,515 | train | <story><title>New iPhone SE</title><url>https://www.apple.com/newsroom/2020/04/iphone-se-a-powerful-new-smartphone-in-a-popular-design/</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>coldpie</author><text>Yes. I&#x27;m an Android user who is absolutely sick of phablets. I have a Pixel 3A (5.6&quot;) and it is way, way too big. I&#x27;ve been quite excited about this iPhone SE announcement. However, the lack of a headphone jack is a huge negative, and 4.7&quot; is the absolute largest I think is reasonable. A little smaller would&#x27;ve been ideal. I&#x27;m undecided on whether to switch to the SE, but I genuinely hope it sells like crazy. Then maybe the Android copycat manufacturers like Google will copy the small form factor, but add in a headphone jack. One can dream...</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>hajile</author><text>My current phone has no headphone jack and it&#x27;s been an absolute pain the whole time. Adapters are hit-or-miss and generally suck. Even high-end devices (mine was over $800) often have hissing due to the analog signal running fractions of a millimeter from a bunch of digital signals.<p>Adding insult to injury, music objectively sucks with bluetooth. A good DAC takes space and power. Multiple drivers take space and power. Bluetooth modems require space and power and generate interference simply because they are modems. When you try to shove all of that inside a tiny earphone, there are going to be massive tradeoffs.</text></comment> | <story><title>New iPhone SE</title><url>https://www.apple.com/newsroom/2020/04/iphone-se-a-powerful-new-smartphone-in-a-popular-design/</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>coldpie</author><text>Yes. I&#x27;m an Android user who is absolutely sick of phablets. I have a Pixel 3A (5.6&quot;) and it is way, way too big. I&#x27;ve been quite excited about this iPhone SE announcement. However, the lack of a headphone jack is a huge negative, and 4.7&quot; is the absolute largest I think is reasonable. A little smaller would&#x27;ve been ideal. I&#x27;m undecided on whether to switch to the SE, but I genuinely hope it sells like crazy. Then maybe the Android copycat manufacturers like Google will copy the small form factor, but add in a headphone jack. One can dream...</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>Ataraxy</author><text>The sony xperia compact phone models were my go to for a while since they had covered all of that.</text></comment> |
24,357,695 | 24,356,908 | 1 | 2 | 24,356,130 | train | <story><title>Half of Americans fear a health-related bankruptcy</title><url>https://www.axios.com/health-bankruptcy-fears-poll-ce3c4905-53c6-4f43-ba4f-fde22f4ef849.html</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>dbbk</author><text>Why should a hospital have a price list? Does the fire department? The police?</text></item><item><author>rolobio</author><text>I can&#x27;t think of any other business that can get away with not even giving you a ball-park estimate on costs. If my car breaks down, my mechanic will at least give me an estimate within a hundred bucks or so. But a hospital has no idea what it will cost (and neither does insurance) until they finally negotiate that specific case.<p>Another issue is that insurance does not have to compete across state lines. They&#x27;ve divvied up the country and are sticking to their corners (much like ISPs).<p>Insurance should be required to accept customers from anywhere in the country. Hospitals should be required to publish prices. These seem like no-brainers to me. But hospitals and insurance make too much money, and give too much of it to congress for any real change.</text></item><item><author>Taek</author><text>No price transparency, no ability to choose between doctors, your job decides your insurance.<p>There is no room for a market to function in our health system. With no ability for consumers to move around or even see the differences between different providers, prices will naturally go up, and there will be no pressure to improve care.</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>HarryHirsch</author><text><i>Does the fire department</i><p>Apparently there are unincorporated areas that do not have fire service from the county but you can buy fire service from the nearest city&#x27;s fire department. If you do not have fire service the firemen come and watch that the fire does not spread from your property to the neighbours who have service.<p>This ends up just as you would expect. The poorest and most indigent go without, and then there&#x27;s death threats, newspaper coverage, the works. You wonder why people are permitted to make themselves wards of the state because if your house burns down your biggest savings vehicle is gone and you are homeless and a burden on the public pocket.<p>Similarities with medical coverage are incidental.</text></comment> | <story><title>Half of Americans fear a health-related bankruptcy</title><url>https://www.axios.com/health-bankruptcy-fears-poll-ce3c4905-53c6-4f43-ba4f-fde22f4ef849.html</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>dbbk</author><text>Why should a hospital have a price list? Does the fire department? The police?</text></item><item><author>rolobio</author><text>I can&#x27;t think of any other business that can get away with not even giving you a ball-park estimate on costs. If my car breaks down, my mechanic will at least give me an estimate within a hundred bucks or so. But a hospital has no idea what it will cost (and neither does insurance) until they finally negotiate that specific case.<p>Another issue is that insurance does not have to compete across state lines. They&#x27;ve divvied up the country and are sticking to their corners (much like ISPs).<p>Insurance should be required to accept customers from anywhere in the country. Hospitals should be required to publish prices. These seem like no-brainers to me. But hospitals and insurance make too much money, and give too much of it to congress for any real change.</text></item><item><author>Taek</author><text>No price transparency, no ability to choose between doctors, your job decides your insurance.<p>There is no room for a market to function in our health system. With no ability for consumers to move around or even see the differences between different providers, prices will naturally go up, and there will be no pressure to improve care.</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>bjtitus</author><text>Both public services which don’t directly bill you. Maybe something like a public health system is a good idea...</text></comment> |
22,660,910 | 22,660,427 | 1 | 2 | 22,659,216 | train | <story><title>Show HN: Zoom Redirector</title><url>https://github.com/arkadiyt/zoom-redirector</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>igetspam</author><text>I had no idea there was even a web version. Does it work in Linux? Zoom often leaves me with broken audio and I really dislike having to have more rarely used software trying to stick around in memory. I uninstall it after each use, purely out of spite. This is great.</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>edoceo</author><text>Works great for me, Gentoo, 4.20 kernel, Xfce, Chrome and Firefox.</text></comment> | <story><title>Show HN: Zoom Redirector</title><url>https://github.com/arkadiyt/zoom-redirector</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>igetspam</author><text>I had no idea there was even a web version. Does it work in Linux? Zoom often leaves me with broken audio and I really dislike having to have more rarely used software trying to stick around in memory. I uninstall it after each use, purely out of spite. This is great.</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>runarberg</author><text>On Ubuntu + Firefox I can see other people, but I can’t hear anything, nor can they hear me (I don’t know if they can see me)</text></comment> |
27,991,022 | 27,990,137 | 1 | 2 | 27,988,964 | train | <story><title>Amazon EC2-Classic Is Retiring</title><url>https://aws.amazon.com/blogs/aws/ec2-classic-is-retiring-heres-how-to-prepare/</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>slownews45</author><text>Holy crap - is this one of the first actual depreciation and get off service things AWS has done?<p>Kind of crazy honestly? They were kind of famous for NOT doing this sort of thing - at all.<p>GCP just announced enterprise API&#x27;s I see with some (pretty vague) promises about longevity.</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>jsjohnst</author><text>EC2 Classic was essentially deprecated back in 2013, whether it was said as such at the time or not. 8+ years is an incredibly long sunset period, especially compared to AWS’s competitors.</text></comment> | <story><title>Amazon EC2-Classic Is Retiring</title><url>https://aws.amazon.com/blogs/aws/ec2-classic-is-retiring-heres-how-to-prepare/</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>slownews45</author><text>Holy crap - is this one of the first actual depreciation and get off service things AWS has done?<p>Kind of crazy honestly? They were kind of famous for NOT doing this sort of thing - at all.<p>GCP just announced enterprise API&#x27;s I see with some (pretty vague) promises about longevity.</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>ComputerGuru</author><text>You’re generally right but it’s definitely not a hard rule.<p>Amazon&#x2F;AWS has deprecated and then put to the grave multiple payment services. I made that same comment when SimpleDB was deprecated and someone said the same thing. More recently, torrent support in S3 is being killed off with little notice.</text></comment> |
41,144,267 | 41,143,214 | 1 | 3 | 41,142,710 | train | <story><title>Judges suspends FCC net neutrality restoration rule</title><url>https://www.inc.com/bruce-crumley/judges-suspend-fcc-net-neutrality-restoration-rule.html</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>parasense</author><text>Back in the old days, early 1990s Net Neutrality actually meant something, and was not an overloaded nebulous term like today. It was very simple, being a boiler-plate contract clause between Internet routers, such as universities that peered with eachother. In peering agreements there are several contractual clauses, and the net neutrality was simply sayign that each side of the agreement would forward packets without any interference. In some cases this causes one side to disproportionatly overload the other, but with increased peering the load would ballance out as time went. Many universities had this kidn of agreement with other universities they peered with back in the days of inter-academic networks. No reason to router over the internet when reasearchers can direectly access paperes on the backside, and everything was peachy... Net Neutrality meant something, and it was a very concrete idea.<p>Transiting services changes things, those are not exactly peering agreements, it more like a company connecting one university to another, and that traffic was interfered with... usually to simply offload the packets&#x2F;frames off the network as quickly as possibly, or in other cases to not impact other higher paying customers.... and those packets&#x2F;frames would transit over a crappy legacy network to be dumpped on the other side with little care for quallity beyond the minimum agreement.<p>This is why it&#x27;s so weird for consumers to say they get to have Net Neutrality, because consumers are not normally peering with other consumers, or universities, or whatevery industry. Their just end nodes on the network, and there is fundamentally nothing to be neutral about.<p>When it comes to netflix complaining about some ISP refusing to peer with them for free, it&#x27;s also very strange, because there is no mandate to freely peer with anybody. And, when a traffic hogs asks to peer with you (as an ISP) that would certainly entail a higher level of network management or infrastructure. So again, these net neutrality crusaders are very strange when looked at in perspeective of the OIG net neutrality.<p>Should the internet be a common carrier, in my humble opinion probably yes. But that&#x27;s orthogonal to the meaning of Net Neutrality. The point is it&#x27;s an overloaded term that means nothing anymore.</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>rsingel</author><text>This is wrong on so many accounts.<p>An ISP selling Internet access to regular folks sells access to the entire Internet. To do that the ISP connect its network to the rest of the internet via a transit connection.<p>All your traffic goes through that unless you peer with other networks. When you peer with them you send less through your paid transit connection. So both parties benefit when they interconnect so long as they send a decent amount of traffic back and forth.<p>There&#x27;s no such thing as a bandwith hog network. Netflix sends traffic to your network because your users asked for it and they pay you to deliver that traffic.<p>The notion that traffic ratios have anything to do with whether it makes sense to peer and whether someone should pay as long been debunked in the internet context. Those ideas are just remnants from the phone network which operates on a very different economic model, the one that make phone calls cost dollars per minute.<p>Here&#x27;s a very clear presentation from 2005 from a NANOG meeting explaining exactly why you&#x27;re wrong.<p><a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;drpeering.net&#x2F;white-papers&#x2F;The-Folly-Of-Peering-Ratios.html" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;drpeering.net&#x2F;white-papers&#x2F;The-Folly-Of-Peering-Rati...</a><p>And you&#x27;re also wrong but what neutrality is.<p>It&#x27;s simply the principle that the network that you pay to get online doesn&#x27;t get to interfere with what you do online. That encompasses lots of behaviors including interconnection.</text></comment> | <story><title>Judges suspends FCC net neutrality restoration rule</title><url>https://www.inc.com/bruce-crumley/judges-suspend-fcc-net-neutrality-restoration-rule.html</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>parasense</author><text>Back in the old days, early 1990s Net Neutrality actually meant something, and was not an overloaded nebulous term like today. It was very simple, being a boiler-plate contract clause between Internet routers, such as universities that peered with eachother. In peering agreements there are several contractual clauses, and the net neutrality was simply sayign that each side of the agreement would forward packets without any interference. In some cases this causes one side to disproportionatly overload the other, but with increased peering the load would ballance out as time went. Many universities had this kidn of agreement with other universities they peered with back in the days of inter-academic networks. No reason to router over the internet when reasearchers can direectly access paperes on the backside, and everything was peachy... Net Neutrality meant something, and it was a very concrete idea.<p>Transiting services changes things, those are not exactly peering agreements, it more like a company connecting one university to another, and that traffic was interfered with... usually to simply offload the packets&#x2F;frames off the network as quickly as possibly, or in other cases to not impact other higher paying customers.... and those packets&#x2F;frames would transit over a crappy legacy network to be dumpped on the other side with little care for quallity beyond the minimum agreement.<p>This is why it&#x27;s so weird for consumers to say they get to have Net Neutrality, because consumers are not normally peering with other consumers, or universities, or whatevery industry. Their just end nodes on the network, and there is fundamentally nothing to be neutral about.<p>When it comes to netflix complaining about some ISP refusing to peer with them for free, it&#x27;s also very strange, because there is no mandate to freely peer with anybody. And, when a traffic hogs asks to peer with you (as an ISP) that would certainly entail a higher level of network management or infrastructure. So again, these net neutrality crusaders are very strange when looked at in perspeective of the OIG net neutrality.<p>Should the internet be a common carrier, in my humble opinion probably yes. But that&#x27;s orthogonal to the meaning of Net Neutrality. The point is it&#x27;s an overloaded term that means nothing anymore.</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>candiddevmike</author><text>Most folks have 1, maybe 2 viable ISP options. For them, net neutrality is one of the only things keeping the carriers from completely screwing them over. We need far stricter laws around what it means to be an ISP, what minimum service guarantees should be, and how to provide more competition in the space, such as splitting line (physical cable going to your residence) and access (your IP provider).</text></comment> |
25,167,497 | 25,166,543 | 1 | 3 | 25,165,752 | train | <story><title>Optimizing Your Web App 100x Is Like Adding 99 Servers</title><url>https://lukerissacher.com/blog/optimizing_your_web_app</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>Scotrix</author><text>We’re a startup and focussed on easy horizontal scalability early on. From a management point of view premature optimizations are cost intensive, especially while we’re still figuring out what our product is and how it works. At the end there are a lot of changes all the time to functionality and implementation and optimizations early get wasted very quickly. We rather purchase new servers. A powerful server cost 100 USD&#x2F;month and wehe development team can focus on implementing features and functionality which moves our product forwar d, optimizations are opportunity losses at the beginning of a product. Of course, as soon as bad performance impacts user experience it’s a different story and also if you start to have hundreds or thousands of servers but then you’ll know what your product is doing and changes become smaller, focused and code optimizations start to make sense.</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>ineedasername</author><text>That&#x27;s not an argument not to optimize, that&#x27;s an argument to consider the costs &amp; implications of optimization. Failing to do that now can cost much more later on when compute resources need balloon and product scope&#x2F;codebase is much larger, making optimizations more labor intensive.<p>There&#x27;s no yes&#x2F;no on this. It&#x27;s all on a slider, a spectrum.</text></comment> | <story><title>Optimizing Your Web App 100x Is Like Adding 99 Servers</title><url>https://lukerissacher.com/blog/optimizing_your_web_app</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>Scotrix</author><text>We’re a startup and focussed on easy horizontal scalability early on. From a management point of view premature optimizations are cost intensive, especially while we’re still figuring out what our product is and how it works. At the end there are a lot of changes all the time to functionality and implementation and optimizations early get wasted very quickly. We rather purchase new servers. A powerful server cost 100 USD&#x2F;month and wehe development team can focus on implementing features and functionality which moves our product forwar d, optimizations are opportunity losses at the beginning of a product. Of course, as soon as bad performance impacts user experience it’s a different story and also if you start to have hundreds or thousands of servers but then you’ll know what your product is doing and changes become smaller, focused and code optimizations start to make sense.</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>curyous</author><text>What about the cost of putting shitty, slow software into the world?<p>How about having respect for you user&#x27;s time? Depending on how many users you have, shaving seconds or milliseconds off your response time will save humanity hundreds, thousands, or millions of hours waiting for your software to do something.</text></comment> |
31,176,745 | 31,176,798 | 1 | 3 | 31,152,511 | train | <story><title>Show HN: M3O – Universal Public API Interface</title><url>https://m3o.com</url><text>Hey all, I&#x27;m Asim, the founder of M3O, a curated catalog of APIs that provides simple abstractions for the most common API use cases. The idea is to create a single place to explore, discover and consume public APIs as higher level building blocks.<p>Most of the time I don’t use all the features of an API and I assume most devs don&#x27;t either, so picking and choosing the common patterns, abstracting it away and surfacing a new building block is useful. For example, Twilio has a lot of APIs but I only care about SMS. Even then I just want a quick way to send it. So stripping it all away results in something that&#x27;s one endpoint and 3 fields (from, to and message).<p>Another example is something like email. There are services like sendgrid that provide a really feature rich experience for email but I’m just looking for something simple that will let me send plain text or html.<p>There are a number of API marketplaces out there, but we’re doing something different—our goal is to improve productivity. For example, RapidAPI has thousands of APIs, but there’s a lot of duplication. It’s overwhelming for developers. Choice is the enemy of productivity. AWS, on the other hand, offers a curated catalog of services where each focuses on a specific problem. We feel the same: from an API perspective you only need one of each building block. You only need one SMS, Email or Geocoding service.<p>I&#x27;ve been obsessed with this problem since working as an SRE at Google in 2011, seeing how the internal platform and APIs were being used by teams. I then worked at a ride hailing startup called Hailo where we got to build something similar, and experience the velocity of development in shipping products on top of simple, easily discovered APIs. I spent the next few years bootstrapping an open source project called Micro, trying to get people to standardize their API development to reach this goal.<p>Ultimately it took raising funding to take a real shot at it. After seeing the productivity Google unlocked and what Hailo could have done with their platform, it was clear to me it could and should be a product: a single way to consume APIs with one platform, one account and one framework.<p>Our goal is to build an API catalog that can act as the building blocks for most use cases, and then double down on services that have a lot of demand so we can improve the features and reliability.<p>In the wild, every API looks different, the docs are different, you have to figure out if there&#x27;s client libraries or not. We unify all that, so everything looks and feels the same. All our docs are generated based on OpenAPI specs, and we code generate examples&#x2F;client libraries for JS, Go, Dart and the CLI. It means you only ever need one client to access all these APIs.<p>Unifying API development and consumption requires a lot of resources to do at scale, hence it&#x27;s only happening inside fast growing startups and large tech cos. There are a lot of barriers to entry. Getting started isn&#x27;t easy. Our approach has been to first nail API development for ourselves and then focus on API consumption by end users— ultimately we want to let anyone offer APIs on our platform. That requires enough large scale distribution and inbound traffic to make an attractive proposition to developers.<p>We&#x27;ve spent a year building the product with a lot of feedback on what worked and what didn&#x27;t. We’ve signed up 8000 people, served 5M API requests and have 60+ APIs on the platform.<p>On billing: we&#x27;re still figuring it out and would like feedback. It started as a free product, then moved into per request pricing. Unfortunately that&#x27;s hard to scale without a lot of volume and it felt like people were more used to subscriptions for SaaS products so that&#x27;s the route we&#x27;ve gone.<p>Anyway that&#x27;s us, hope you try it out (<a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;m3o.com" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;m3o.com</a>), and would love to hear your thoughts in the comments!</text></story><parent_chain></parent_chain><comment><author>fadesibert</author><text>Some questions come to mind after poking around the catalogue (having worked in an enterprise that ended up with many API catalogues, and now many APIs in startup land, I get the pain point).<p>- What&#x27;s the difference between currency and forex? They look to be serving the same case, but in different ways, without reference to one another - challenging the implied claim to &quot;this is the best way to X&quot;<p>- payments. Stripe&#x2F;... integration into any moderately saas business is a ball-ache. Current &quot;subscription management&quot; services are woefully, laughably inadequate . If you had a &#x2F;pay endpoint, where I could offload payments, I would have been quite happy indeed
- email. Needs better documentation. When sending an email through this interface, is there impersonation? Or is it &quot;[email protected] &lt;[email protected]&gt;&quot;<p>Neat idea - the enterprise survivor in me wishes you success</text></comment> | <story><title>Show HN: M3O – Universal Public API Interface</title><url>https://m3o.com</url><text>Hey all, I&#x27;m Asim, the founder of M3O, a curated catalog of APIs that provides simple abstractions for the most common API use cases. The idea is to create a single place to explore, discover and consume public APIs as higher level building blocks.<p>Most of the time I don’t use all the features of an API and I assume most devs don&#x27;t either, so picking and choosing the common patterns, abstracting it away and surfacing a new building block is useful. For example, Twilio has a lot of APIs but I only care about SMS. Even then I just want a quick way to send it. So stripping it all away results in something that&#x27;s one endpoint and 3 fields (from, to and message).<p>Another example is something like email. There are services like sendgrid that provide a really feature rich experience for email but I’m just looking for something simple that will let me send plain text or html.<p>There are a number of API marketplaces out there, but we’re doing something different—our goal is to improve productivity. For example, RapidAPI has thousands of APIs, but there’s a lot of duplication. It’s overwhelming for developers. Choice is the enemy of productivity. AWS, on the other hand, offers a curated catalog of services where each focuses on a specific problem. We feel the same: from an API perspective you only need one of each building block. You only need one SMS, Email or Geocoding service.<p>I&#x27;ve been obsessed with this problem since working as an SRE at Google in 2011, seeing how the internal platform and APIs were being used by teams. I then worked at a ride hailing startup called Hailo where we got to build something similar, and experience the velocity of development in shipping products on top of simple, easily discovered APIs. I spent the next few years bootstrapping an open source project called Micro, trying to get people to standardize their API development to reach this goal.<p>Ultimately it took raising funding to take a real shot at it. After seeing the productivity Google unlocked and what Hailo could have done with their platform, it was clear to me it could and should be a product: a single way to consume APIs with one platform, one account and one framework.<p>Our goal is to build an API catalog that can act as the building blocks for most use cases, and then double down on services that have a lot of demand so we can improve the features and reliability.<p>In the wild, every API looks different, the docs are different, you have to figure out if there&#x27;s client libraries or not. We unify all that, so everything looks and feels the same. All our docs are generated based on OpenAPI specs, and we code generate examples&#x2F;client libraries for JS, Go, Dart and the CLI. It means you only ever need one client to access all these APIs.<p>Unifying API development and consumption requires a lot of resources to do at scale, hence it&#x27;s only happening inside fast growing startups and large tech cos. There are a lot of barriers to entry. Getting started isn&#x27;t easy. Our approach has been to first nail API development for ourselves and then focus on API consumption by end users— ultimately we want to let anyone offer APIs on our platform. That requires enough large scale distribution and inbound traffic to make an attractive proposition to developers.<p>We&#x27;ve spent a year building the product with a lot of feedback on what worked and what didn&#x27;t. We’ve signed up 8000 people, served 5M API requests and have 60+ APIs on the platform.<p>On billing: we&#x27;re still figuring it out and would like feedback. It started as a free product, then moved into per request pricing. Unfortunately that&#x27;s hard to scale without a lot of volume and it felt like people were more used to subscriptions for SaaS products so that&#x27;s the route we&#x27;ve gone.<p>Anyway that&#x27;s us, hope you try it out (<a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;m3o.com" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;m3o.com</a>), and would love to hear your thoughts in the comments!</text></story><parent_chain></parent_chain><comment><author>lonelyprograMer</author><text>#
I&#x27;m so frustrated, this product was advertised so many times and it also was &quot;rebrended&quot; a lot. At first it was an API hub, then it became an alternative to AWS, then the author was selling it as serverless thing, now it is Universal Public API Interface.<p>Author is also know for working on project called micro that changed the license once so you could not use it for any purpose that competes with the project, but it was changed to Apache later again. Such bold decisions of the author and now the creator of m3o service makes one to think twice before trying the product.
Link to the commit: [Update LICENSE · micro&#x2F;micro@31c1254 · GitHub](<a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;github.com&#x2F;micro&#x2F;micro&#x2F;commit&#x2F;31c12547b9cd4a4fd0176be5997b09650a3985ea" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;github.com&#x2F;micro&#x2F;micro&#x2F;commit&#x2F;31c12547b9cd4a4fd0176b...</a>)<p>Besides all of that product is bad, therefore doesn&#x27;t suite for production use cases. A few points:<p>1. Pricing is dumb. &quot;Unlimited API requests&quot;, &quot;1M requests per credit&quot;, what does it mean?<p>2. Community support? Where is the community and the community can answer my questions if you don&#x27;t have any documentation?<p>3. Any SLA? No even for Business plan?<p>4. Authentication and user management. Are you crazy? Who is going to use it? No idea is the data encrypted or not, can I backup it? Do you have failover solution? Again, SLA? This kind of API can&#x27;t be just used by anyone in any production environment.<p>5. SMS API relies on credits. Where is the pricing for credits on your website?<p>6. What about OpenAPI, JSON Schema or GraphQL? JS, Go, Dart and Bash SDKs are not enough. You probably don&#x27;t have enough resource to cover 99% of the most used programming languages, so just publish OpenAPI spec and let the customers to generate code in Java, for instance, until you finish the SDK for Java.<p>*Conclusion*
It seems that m3o is just a pile of different API that are supposed to be an alternative to SMS provides like Twillio, some finance APIs, Email providers like Sendgrid, a few products from AWS etc. Yet it doesn&#x27;t even cover a 1% of the features that those companies do provide.<p>Please, be responsible for your product, don&#x27;t mislead your customers. If you want people rely on your product in production put in alpha or beta stage, make it free or let a limited number of users test it, work on every API you want to provide thoroughly, write documentation AND then put sell it.</text></comment> |
1,902,023 | 1,901,880 | 1 | 2 | 1,901,830 | train | <story><title>Tenacious C: Cool C IDE</title><url>http://tenaciousc.com</url></story><parent_chain></parent_chain><comment><author>SkyMarshal</author><text>Good top post on the blog page, made me lol:<p><i>'I like C, but I have to admit that, sometimes, “The Old Man of Programming” can be a bit of a killjoy. This is one of the most exciting eras in computer history, but lately, C’s acting like he doesn’t even want to have a good time. While the cool kids like Ruby and Haskell are living it up, C’s over in the corner obsessing over bits and bytes and memory alignment and pointers and the stack and machine architecture and unreachable allocations and multiple indirections…and it’s…kind of a buzzkill. You want to tell him, “Dude! Lighten up! This is supposed to be fun!”<p>But of course C can’t relax. He’s holding the entire computing universe on his shoulders, after all. It’s not turtles all the way down — it’s turtles all the way down, </i><i></i>__then C__<i></i>. <i>Not a lot of room for fun underneath that, is there?<p>Is there?<p>Well. Here’s the secret: C does let loose sometimes. And after being bottled up for so long, when the release finally does come, it’s pretty much an F5 of crazy.'</i></text></comment> | <story><title>Tenacious C: Cool C IDE</title><url>http://tenaciousc.com</url></story><parent_chain></parent_chain><comment><author>Groxx</author><text>I've been waiting for <i>something</i> to implement at least <i>something</i> DDD has done for years... and less fugly is nice. Any idea how it handles circular references?<p><a href="http://www.gnu.org/software/ddd/all.png" rel="nofollow">http://www.gnu.org/software/ddd/all.png</a></text></comment> |
37,090,265 | 37,087,155 | 1 | 2 | 37,063,502 | train | <story><title>Oscilloscope Music</title><url>https://oscilloscopemusic.com/</url></story><parent_chain></parent_chain><comment><author>creeble</author><text>In 1977 I took an old B&amp;W TV (tubes!), took the yoke off the neck of the picture tube, and put another one on.<p>Then I ran the wires from the yoke to the speakers (left X, right Y) of an 8-track player that had a built-in amplifier, and popped in Wish You Were Here.<p>Invited some friends over, had a couple of doobs and beers, and dubbed it the Orgasmatron, after the gadget in Sleeper. We were super excited to bring the rig to a bigger party the next evening; it was awesome.<p>So the next evening my buddy and I are packing up the mess to bring to the party, and we start heading up the stairs from the basement lair of our family home. My friend had the TV by the top handle, leading the way.<p>Suddenly we hear this little ‘whoosh’ and crack sound. Sure enough, my buddy had whacked the neck of the picture tube (sticking out the open back of the TV) on the banister. He was standing there on the bottom step, frozen. I burst into laughter.<p>Another glorious invention that literally never made it out of the basement.</text></comment> | <story><title>Oscilloscope Music</title><url>https://oscilloscopemusic.com/</url></story><parent_chain></parent_chain><comment><author>0xbadc0de5</author><text>Jerobeam Fenderson is good. His &quot;Spirals&quot; I think is his best work.
However, I think &quot;Globetrotter&quot; by C.Allen is damned impressive.
<a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.youtube.com&#x2F;watch?v=J2YQD8Go_Hc">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.youtube.com&#x2F;watch?v=J2YQD8Go_Hc</a> as is &quot;DANCER&quot; by the same artist <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.youtube.com&#x2F;watch?v=jQjJZbgMw7E">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.youtube.com&#x2F;watch?v=jQjJZbgMw7E</a></text></comment> |
9,614,033 | 9,613,674 | 1 | 2 | 9,613,206 | train | <story><title>Scientists reverse aging in human cell lines and give theory of aging a new life</title><url>http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2015/05/150526085138.htm</url></story><parent_chain></parent_chain><comment><author>SCHiM</author><text>I know my words are probably going to sound quite harsh, and I realize that there will be people who will take offense, still this is my opinion on the matter, and this being the Internet you&#x27;re obliged to read and then ignore it ;p<p>To me it seems that choosing whether or not to live is a very personal choice, arguably the most personal choice you can make. Not wanting to contribute to a goal another might have is fine, nobody should be forcing you to contribute to anti-aging research or experimentation. However I don&#x27;t think you should have a say in whether or not another ends&#x2F;extends his or her life. It follows that you aren&#x27;t allowed to forbid research into this area either, you might think it immoral, dangerous or distasteful, but it&#x27;s not your choice to make.<p>There are a lot of arguments against changing what people think of as the &#x27;natural order&#x27;. Various people are concerned that it will lead to overpopulation, perhaps it will. Perhaps when it gets really bad wars and&#x2F;or famine will break out. Nature doing its &#x27;job&#x27;.<p>Perhaps it&#x27;s selfish of me, but given the choice between inventing a &#x27;cure&#x27; for aging (that I can then subsequently use) and dying when &#x27;my time has come&#x27;. I&#x27;ll pick the cure for sure. I do care about the consequences, just not enough to stop me from producing and using said cure.<p>And I think that goes for many people. Only they&#x27;re afraid to make that point and&#x2F;or follow through with what they are actually advocating. Why else would you prefer dying of old age, to not dying at all?<p>If you truly think it&#x27;s better to die of aging, and thereby preventing &lt;insert horrible future&gt; why don&#x27;t you just decide to end yourself, and leave others be?</text></comment> | <story><title>Scientists reverse aging in human cell lines and give theory of aging a new life</title><url>http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2015/05/150526085138.htm</url></story><parent_chain></parent_chain><comment><author>fapjacks</author><text>Whenever this kind of thing makes it to human trials, I will be the first in line. Injections, blood treatment therapy, uploading my consciousness to the internet... Whatever. More time to learn all those JavaScript frameworks. ;)</text></comment> |
10,499,705 | 10,499,880 | 1 | 2 | 10,498,786 | train | <story><title>Haskell Web Development: A Freely Available Book</title><url>https://www.indiegogo.com/projects/haskell-web-development-a-freely-available-book#/</url></story><parent_chain></parent_chain><comment><author>jasode</author><text>John Resig (of JQuery fame) got a $7500 advance[1] for a Javascript book. I think it&#x27;s reasonable to assume that a Javascript book would be 100x (or even 1000x) more popular than a Haskell book. To this day, I don&#x27;t believe he&#x27;s made much beyond that advance. I doubt he&#x27;s reached $20k since 2007.<p>If the author can crowdsource $20k, more power to her. On the other hand, maybe the monetary threshold needs a reality check. EDIT ADD: I looked again and noticed that the $20k is a &quot;flexible goal&quot; so presumably, the author will write the book even without reaching that amount; therefore, the author already understands market forces at work that might prevent a $20k payout.<p>(Of course it&#x27;s possible that the Haskell book market can charge a premium because of a uniquely enthusiastic audience . E.g., doctors pay $500 for a book that shows surgical procedures and the volume of sales is only in the hundreds.)<p>In the economics of books, the big money is fiction. (50 Shades, Harry Potter, etc). To a lesser extent, you have some non-fiction titles making a decent amount of money (Chicken Soup for the Soul, Eat Pray Love, etc). Way down on the totem pole are the trade publications like computer books. The economics on that level basically dictate that you slave away writing &quot;Java for Dummies&quot; for less than minimum wage. You then use it as a <i>business calling card</i> and let it open doors to speaking engagements at conferences and attract consulting gigs.<p>[1]&gt;<a href="http:&#x2F;&#x2F;ejohn.org&#x2F;blog&#x2F;programming-book-profits&#x2F;" rel="nofollow">http:&#x2F;&#x2F;ejohn.org&#x2F;blog&#x2F;programming-book-profits&#x2F;</a></text></comment> | <story><title>Haskell Web Development: A Freely Available Book</title><url>https://www.indiegogo.com/projects/haskell-web-development-a-freely-available-book#/</url></story><parent_chain></parent_chain><comment><author>brbsix</author><text>For anyone interested, I found the author&#x27;s Patreon page here: <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.patreon.com&#x2F;user.php?v=queertypes&amp;ty=h" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.patreon.com&#x2F;user.php?v=queertypes&amp;ty=h</a><p>Cost of living is listed as $5k&#x2F;mo on this page, which contrasts with the $6.6k&#x2F;mo listed on the IndieGogo campaign.<p>The author is a self-described anti-capitalist but this campaign looks an awful lot like free-market economics at work. Rather than simply writing the book for free and accepting donations, the author has simply stated a price ($20k) for a product (an open source book).<p>I also found a blog post here <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;blog.cppcabrera.com&#x2F;posts&#x2F;53-announcing-queer-types.html" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;blog.cppcabrera.com&#x2F;posts&#x2F;53-announcing-queer-types....</a> where the author goes into more personal detail about the project. Apparently the $20k would cover in excess of 3 months living, whatever that means. There was even mention of releasing additional books if funding reached $60k+. Sounds pretty far-fetched.</text></comment> |
38,811,387 | 38,806,595 | 1 | 2 | 38,803,589 | train | <story><title>Salt and salary: Were Roman soldiers paid in salt? (2017)</title><url>http://kiwihellenist.blogspot.com/2017/01/salt-and-salary.html</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>throwaway1492</author><text>I never understood the &quot;salt scarcity in antiquity&quot; idea. As in they could just use a splash brine water from the sea if you physiologically need salt. And transport sea water inland as needed.</text></item><item><author>empath-nirvana</author><text>There are lots of slang words for wages today that have to do with food: &quot;cheddar&quot;, &quot;cabbage&quot;, &quot;dough&quot;, &quot;bread&quot; &quot;bacon&quot; -- maybe future etymologists will assume that we were paid in bread and cheese.</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>Ekaros</author><text>It really wasn&#x27;t any more scarce than let&#x27;s say wheat. And price seems to have been around same level with wheat take or leave some depending on distance from production.<p>What really made it special was that it was commodity with possibly limited production locations, that kept extremely well and was in steady demand. So it is one thing that everyone uses and is relatively easy to tax. And the price likely was much more stable compared to food and other goods.<p>The large scale demand also lead to it being desirable as military target, once you control the production you are good.</text></comment> | <story><title>Salt and salary: Were Roman soldiers paid in salt? (2017)</title><url>http://kiwihellenist.blogspot.com/2017/01/salt-and-salary.html</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>throwaway1492</author><text>I never understood the &quot;salt scarcity in antiquity&quot; idea. As in they could just use a splash brine water from the sea if you physiologically need salt. And transport sea water inland as needed.</text></item><item><author>empath-nirvana</author><text>There are lots of slang words for wages today that have to do with food: &quot;cheddar&quot;, &quot;cabbage&quot;, &quot;dough&quot;, &quot;bread&quot; &quot;bacon&quot; -- maybe future etymologists will assume that we were paid in bread and cheese.</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>andrewflnr</author><text>Transporting water from a well is already a pain in the neck. You think they&#x27;re going to transport bulk seawater deep inland just to make their food soggy?</text></comment> |
37,380,970 | 37,380,677 | 1 | 2 | 37,380,270 | train | <story><title>Researchers have found that micro-spikes etched into titanium rupture microbes</title><url>https://newatlas.com/medical/titanium-spikes-effective-drug-free-kill-antibiotic-resistant-superbugs/</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>noodlesUK</author><text>I’m no expert in this field, so my question might be completely nonsensical.<p>If this surface treatment is physically destructive to bacteria, is it also damaging to the human cells it is trying to sit next to after implantation?</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>tokai</author><text>All types of human cells are much larger than Candida, up to several orders of magnitude. If the effect that destroys the cell is indeed some kind of stretching, it would make sense if the titanium surface doesn&#x27;t have an effect on humans cells.</text></comment> | <story><title>Researchers have found that micro-spikes etched into titanium rupture microbes</title><url>https://newatlas.com/medical/titanium-spikes-effective-drug-free-kill-antibiotic-resistant-superbugs/</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>noodlesUK</author><text>I’m no expert in this field, so my question might be completely nonsensical.<p>If this surface treatment is physically destructive to bacteria, is it also damaging to the human cells it is trying to sit next to after implantation?</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>helpfulContrib</author><text>This material would be most usefully applied in a hospital environment, where extremophiles are capable of adapting to the hostility they normally encounter, and is rather a leap beyond the existing strategies for containment.<p>I don&#x27;t think it has direct application to the human biome; more as a protective measure to stop the superbugs.</text></comment> |
15,412,196 | 15,411,249 | 1 | 2 | 15,410,531 | train | <story><title>Lessons from France's first cyber-attack, nearly two centuries ago</title><url>https://www.1843magazine.com/technology/rewind/the-crooked-timber-of-humanity</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>joemi</author><text>&quot;Cyber-attack&quot; seems like the wrong term in this case. They weren&#x27;t trying to attack or damage anything.</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>KekDemaga</author><text>They were attacking the market in a sense as it relied on latency of information to determine prices. Certainly I&#x27;d dub these gentlemen posthumously as hackers, maybe they were the first.</text></comment> | <story><title>Lessons from France's first cyber-attack, nearly two centuries ago</title><url>https://www.1843magazine.com/technology/rewind/the-crooked-timber-of-humanity</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>joemi</author><text>&quot;Cyber-attack&quot; seems like the wrong term in this case. They weren&#x27;t trying to attack or damage anything.</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>AskewEgret</author><text>I agree. As well, these things were called semaphores rather than mechanical telegraphs.<p>Furthermore, the British Navy sent many cannonballs in their direction during the Napoleonic Wars, which were long before 1834. That might count as a cyber-attack.</text></comment> |
34,259,120 | 34,258,489 | 1 | 2 | 34,257,646 | train | <story><title>Slack's private GitHub code repositories stolen over holidays</title><url>https://www.bleepingcomputer.com/news/security/slacks-private-github-code-repositories-stolen-over-holidays/</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>r4vik</author><text>it&#x27;s totally plausible. and best practice.<p>If you have a localised blog for multiple regions you will probably have your main blog set up to be indexed and your regional blogs set up to be no-indexed so that Google isn&#x27;t indexing the same stuff twice.</text></item><item><author>have_faith</author><text>&gt; marked with &#x27;noindex&#x27;<p>How do they even provide a plausible excuse for this? very bad look.</text></item><item><author>openplatypus</author><text>What&#x27;s the most interesting in this whole write-up is this:
&gt; Security update hidden from search engines<p>Slack is selectively and deliberately limiting public access (discoverability) to the security breach announcements.</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>h1fra</author><text>Not best practice at all. Multi-language blog posts should be handled via canonical or rel=”alternate” (own google recommendation)</text></comment> | <story><title>Slack's private GitHub code repositories stolen over holidays</title><url>https://www.bleepingcomputer.com/news/security/slacks-private-github-code-repositories-stolen-over-holidays/</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>r4vik</author><text>it&#x27;s totally plausible. and best practice.<p>If you have a localised blog for multiple regions you will probably have your main blog set up to be indexed and your regional blogs set up to be no-indexed so that Google isn&#x27;t indexing the same stuff twice.</text></item><item><author>have_faith</author><text>&gt; marked with &#x27;noindex&#x27;<p>How do they even provide a plausible excuse for this? very bad look.</text></item><item><author>openplatypus</author><text>What&#x27;s the most interesting in this whole write-up is this:
&gt; Security update hidden from search engines<p>Slack is selectively and deliberately limiting public access (discoverability) to the security breach announcements.</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>weird-eye-issue</author><text>No that&#x27;s not best practice. You think only English should be indexed in Google?</text></comment> |
26,282,507 | 26,273,037 | 1 | 3 | 26,272,084 | train | <story><title>ISO 8601: a better date format</title><url>https://kirby.kevinson.org/blog/iso-8601-the-better-date-format/</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>young_unixer</author><text>Tangentially related: I hate GNOME&#x27;s approach at configuring formats.<p>In their format settings, you have to pick a country and that determines the format of dates, time, numbers, and the unit system.<p>Of all the countries, none of them has the sane choice for all of the fields, namely: ISO 8601 for dates and times with 24h (no AM&#x2F;PM), metric system (or SI, whatever), and dot as decimal separator.<p>You can have sane dates, but then you have AM&#x2F;PM in the clock. You can have 24h clock, but then you have a comma as decimal separator, etc.<p>Can we add a country &quot;Saneland&quot; with the sensible options for all fields? cause that&#x27;s where I want to be from. Saneland: the imaginary place where we use reasonable standards and things work.</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>SAI_Peregrinus</author><text>I don&#x27;t use GNOME, so I can&#x27;t say exactly how it configures those formats, but from the rest of the discussion it seems to just set the locale, probably via LC_ALL. But you can set the various settings individually.<p>Sane Linux Locale settings<p><pre><code> LANG=&quot;en_US.UTF-8&quot;
LANGUAGE=&quot;en_US&quot;
LC_CTYPE=&quot;en_US.UTF-8&quot;
LC_NUMERIC=&quot;en_US.UTF-8&quot;
LC_TIME=&quot;en_CA.UTF-8&quot;
LC_COLLATE=&quot;en_US.UTF-8&quot;
LC_MONETARY=&quot;en_US.UTF-8&quot;
LC_MESSAGES=&quot;en_US.UTF-8&quot;
LC_PAPER=&quot;en_US.UTF-8&quot;
LC_NAME=&quot;en_US.UTF-8&quot;
LC_ADDRESS=&quot;en_US.UTF-8&quot;
LC_TELEPHONE=&quot;en_US.UTF-8&quot;
LC_MEASUREMENT=&quot;en_DK.UTF-8&quot;
LC_IDENTIFICATION=&quot;en_US.UTF-8&quot;
LC_ALL=
</code></pre>
On my Debian system (KDE) that works for what you asked for. LC_MEASUREMENT=&quot;en_DK.UTF-8&quot; sets SI units, LC_NUMERIC=&quot;en_US.UTF-8&quot; sets dot as decimal separator, and LC_TIME=&quot;en_CA.UTF-8&quot; sets ISO 8601 dates and times with 24H format. LC_ALL being left undefined is important, it will override the rest.<p>The process for updating your locales will vary depending on your distro. But even if GNOME doesn&#x27;t allow it you should be able to use the terminal.</text></comment> | <story><title>ISO 8601: a better date format</title><url>https://kirby.kevinson.org/blog/iso-8601-the-better-date-format/</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>young_unixer</author><text>Tangentially related: I hate GNOME&#x27;s approach at configuring formats.<p>In their format settings, you have to pick a country and that determines the format of dates, time, numbers, and the unit system.<p>Of all the countries, none of them has the sane choice for all of the fields, namely: ISO 8601 for dates and times with 24h (no AM&#x2F;PM), metric system (or SI, whatever), and dot as decimal separator.<p>You can have sane dates, but then you have AM&#x2F;PM in the clock. You can have 24h clock, but then you have a comma as decimal separator, etc.<p>Can we add a country &quot;Saneland&quot; with the sensible options for all fields? cause that&#x27;s where I want to be from. Saneland: the imaginary place where we use reasonable standards and things work.</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>akvadrako</author><text>Probably those are from the locales package?<p>en-dk is the best one, it is Europe standard english which I think fits all your requirements for Saneland.</text></comment> |
8,428,035 | 8,427,934 | 1 | 2 | 8,427,757 | train | <story><title>Final – A credit card built for the 21st century</title><url>https://getFinal.com</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>arfrank</author><text>CTO&#x2F;Co-Founder of Final here.<p>Final is what we built to take back control of our own credit cards for how and when we’re charged, instead of leaving it up to merchants. That led to merchant-specific numbers and limits, managed automatically, as well as transparency in statements. It’s our stake in the ground, a way to shift the culture in credit towards consumer friendliness.<p>Happy to answer questions</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>Someone1234</author><text>Do you actually know, for a fact, that you can generate arbitrary card numbers? Meaning have you got an agreement with visa, mastercard, or similar where they allow you to do that.<p>Is there a limit on how many customers&#x2F;unique card numbers you can have, and is there an inherent cost in gaining a new number (e.g. will accounts be capped at X disposable numbers per Y period).<p>Once you delete a card number how quickly is it returned to the &quot;pool?&quot; And do you re-assign it to a new user requesting a number?<p>Do you think third party web-sites will break because a card number is used twice for two different users (e.g. user 1 and user 2 both have the same number on their accounts, because user 1 let it expire, and then user 2 received it and utilised it).<p>Are you worried that these numbers could be used for fraud or abuse (e.g. unlimited trials).</text></comment> | <story><title>Final – A credit card built for the 21st century</title><url>https://getFinal.com</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>arfrank</author><text>CTO&#x2F;Co-Founder of Final here.<p>Final is what we built to take back control of our own credit cards for how and when we’re charged, instead of leaving it up to merchants. That led to merchant-specific numbers and limits, managed automatically, as well as transparency in statements. It’s our stake in the ground, a way to shift the culture in credit towards consumer friendliness.<p>Happy to answer questions</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>notJim</author><text>One of the problem w&#x2F; traditional credit cards is that my interests are not aligned with those of the card issuer. It&#x27;s better for me to pay off my balance every month, but better for my bank if I don&#x27;t so they can collect interest.<p>Will this be any different with Final? If so, how do you plan to make money?</text></comment> |
10,314,933 | 10,314,982 | 1 | 2 | 10,313,489 | train | <story><title>Why Fogbugz lost to Jira</title><url>http://movingfulcrum.com/why-fogbugz-lost-to-jira/</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>outworlder</author><text>An interesting point from that, since everyone likes to bash Wasabi:<p>&gt; &quot;If we hadn&#x27;t done Wasabi, then we&#x27;d have had to rewrite all of FogBugz, and that would&#x27;ve killed the company. Wasabi also gave us stuff that developers are only now rediscovering, like code that executes on both client and server (e.g. via server-side&#x2F;client-side React), that even gave us a development edge. I&#x27;ve written about this at length (<a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;news.ycombinator.com&#x2F;item?id=9779133" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;news.ycombinator.com&#x2F;item?id=9779133</a>) and won&#x27;t revisit it, but while I think that Wasabi targeting .NET may have been a mistake, Wasabi itself was not a mistake.&quot;</text></item><item><author>JimDabell</author><text>There&#x27;s an interesting discussion happening on Reddit involving ex-employees of both companies:<p><a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.reddit.com&#x2F;r&#x2F;programming&#x2F;comments&#x2F;3n2sc1&#x2F;why_fogbugz_lost_to_jira&#x2F;" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.reddit.com&#x2F;r&#x2F;programming&#x2F;comments&#x2F;3n2sc1&#x2F;why_fog...</a></text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>glass-</author><text>This blog post about Wasabi is worth a read (another perspective from someone who worked there): <a href="http:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.tedunangst.com&#x2F;flak&#x2F;post&#x2F;technical-debt-and-tacking-into-the-wind" rel="nofollow">http:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.tedunangst.com&#x2F;flak&#x2F;post&#x2F;technical-debt-and-tacki...</a></text></comment> | <story><title>Why Fogbugz lost to Jira</title><url>http://movingfulcrum.com/why-fogbugz-lost-to-jira/</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>outworlder</author><text>An interesting point from that, since everyone likes to bash Wasabi:<p>&gt; &quot;If we hadn&#x27;t done Wasabi, then we&#x27;d have had to rewrite all of FogBugz, and that would&#x27;ve killed the company. Wasabi also gave us stuff that developers are only now rediscovering, like code that executes on both client and server (e.g. via server-side&#x2F;client-side React), that even gave us a development edge. I&#x27;ve written about this at length (<a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;news.ycombinator.com&#x2F;item?id=9779133" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;news.ycombinator.com&#x2F;item?id=9779133</a>) and won&#x27;t revisit it, but while I think that Wasabi targeting .NET may have been a mistake, Wasabi itself was not a mistake.&quot;</text></item><item><author>JimDabell</author><text>There&#x27;s an interesting discussion happening on Reddit involving ex-employees of both companies:<p><a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.reddit.com&#x2F;r&#x2F;programming&#x2F;comments&#x2F;3n2sc1&#x2F;why_fogbugz_lost_to_jira&#x2F;" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.reddit.com&#x2F;r&#x2F;programming&#x2F;comments&#x2F;3n2sc1&#x2F;why_fog...</a></text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>zem</author><text>i thought wasabi was an excellent idea when i first read spolsky&#x27;s post about it, and nothing i&#x27;ve heard since has changed my mind. these days, when i see it blamed for any of fogcreek&#x27;s problems, i simply see it as a sign that the commenter is unfamiliar with the issues involved.</text></comment> |
4,036,607 | 4,036,616 | 1 | 2 | 4,035,516 | train | <story><title>Why cheap customers cost more</title><url>http://sachagreif.com/why-cheap-customers-cost-more/</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>patio11</author><text>For Appointment Reminder, approximate per-account customer support incidents per month. I've taken the liberty of scaling them to X, where X represents the number for the highest publicly available account plan.<p><pre><code> Personal ($9): 7X
Professional ($29): 4X
Small Business ($79): 3X
Office ($199): X
</code></pre>
The character of the questions is also different at the various plan levels. Most common question for Office: "What's the timeframe on integrating this with ..." followed by "Our $TITLE would like a report saying $NEEDS, can you make that happen?" Most common question for Personal: "How do I schedule appointments?" followed by "The system is working exactly the way it says it does on the screen. Can you please tell me why that is happening? I thought it would work in a way completely opposite to the way described on the screen. It would be convenient if you could fix that. No, I didn't read the 'If you want this to work in the opposite fashion...' text on the screen to change that setting, I have more important things to do than worry about computers."<p>Your mileage may vary. If I were doing the math based on phone calls waking me up in the middle of the night, the numbers get skewed due to one pathological customer in the $29 bucket, who has literally called me more than every other customer combined.<p>P.S. I have fairly exact privileged information regarding this question at a handful of companies and anecdotal evidence from dozens of my software buddies. It is our universal experience that the support load for cheap/free customers crushes the support load for the higher plans, both on an absolute and per-customer basis.</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>speleding</author><text>I noticed a similar pattern in my business (I run an appointment scheduling web site). An additional insight was that when you provide a quick reply to the "dummies" they will start asking even more questions instead of trying to find stuff out themselves.<p>Here's what works for me: on the second "silly" support request they send I put them in a "cool down" queue that gets answered a day later. If they keep asking simple questions they move into the two day wait queue. (Obviously, this only works if your support is by email.)<p>I worked as a consultant for a company once where they would go even one step further and would actively encourage customers that used too much customer support to switch to another provider. The trick is doing this in such a way that the customer does not realize he's being told to leave lest you get a bad reputation. I'm not going to divulge all my trade secrets here, but I've found a way to do something similar for my business, perhaps you can think of one for yours too.</text></comment> | <story><title>Why cheap customers cost more</title><url>http://sachagreif.com/why-cheap-customers-cost-more/</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>patio11</author><text>For Appointment Reminder, approximate per-account customer support incidents per month. I've taken the liberty of scaling them to X, where X represents the number for the highest publicly available account plan.<p><pre><code> Personal ($9): 7X
Professional ($29): 4X
Small Business ($79): 3X
Office ($199): X
</code></pre>
The character of the questions is also different at the various plan levels. Most common question for Office: "What's the timeframe on integrating this with ..." followed by "Our $TITLE would like a report saying $NEEDS, can you make that happen?" Most common question for Personal: "How do I schedule appointments?" followed by "The system is working exactly the way it says it does on the screen. Can you please tell me why that is happening? I thought it would work in a way completely opposite to the way described on the screen. It would be convenient if you could fix that. No, I didn't read the 'If you want this to work in the opposite fashion...' text on the screen to change that setting, I have more important things to do than worry about computers."<p>Your mileage may vary. If I were doing the math based on phone calls waking me up in the middle of the night, the numbers get skewed due to one pathological customer in the $29 bucket, who has literally called me more than every other customer combined.<p>P.S. I have fairly exact privileged information regarding this question at a handful of companies and anecdotal evidence from dozens of my software buddies. It is our universal experience that the support load for cheap/free customers crushes the support load for the higher plans, both on an absolute and per-customer basis.</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>monkeymace</author><text>In writing a comment on Sacha's blog, I came to the idea of deciding to offer a simple response to support incidents coming from the lowest paying tier. I wonder if anyone has done this and if you think it would work, or be a smart move?<p>Create a canned automatic response to someone submitting a request/support email that goes something like this.<p>"We have worked really hard to make this app/service as easy and intuitive to use as possible. On top of that we decided to price it very low to make it even easier and affordable for people to take advantage of. 80% of our paying customers never contact us for help or support. We honestly just don't have the time or resources available to explain how to use our service. If our help section and FAQs can't fix your problem, then you probably shouldn't be using this app, or we're gonna have to ask you to pay for support.<p>Option 1: Click here and we will immediately cancel your account and refund you.<p>Option 2: Click here to upgrade your account for support<p>Option 3: Figure it out!<p>Have a Nice Day!"<p>Or something like that. Perhaps it can written to be more friendly or in a more suitable tone. But you get the idea.</text></comment> |
8,380,668 | 8,380,190 | 1 | 2 | 8,379,683 | train | <story><title>What's up with the number 163?</title><url>https://plus.google.com/101584889282878921052/posts/7u73y5FzEZY?pid=5963315119367216690&oid=101584889282878921052</url></story><parent_chain></parent_chain><comment><author>nilkn</author><text>I&#x27;ll be honest -- I don&#x27;t find this sort of thing terribly interesting. I feel when reading this as if I&#x27;m being pressured to ooh and ahh, but to me the magic is just not there.<p>It also strikes me as backwards that people are referring to these incredibly deep algebraic connections as explanations. They&#x27;re not explanations -- they&#x27;re just connections. I don&#x27;t need any of that stuff to prove these identities. I just need a pocket calculator. The algebraic connections might be useful for discovering these identities in the first place, but are not necessary for proving anything here. For any given arithmetic identity I&#x27;m sure you can find some remarkably obtuse algebraic connection which illustrates the same identity. These connections are interesting only insofar as the <i>other stuff</i> is interesting. The Monster group is interesting, but this identity itself is not particularly amazing to me.<p>Finally, is .999 really &quot;extremely&quot; close to an integer? In engineering, maybe. But in pure mathematics that seems &quot;extremely&quot; far from an integer.</text></comment> | <story><title>What's up with the number 163?</title><url>https://plus.google.com/101584889282878921052/posts/7u73y5FzEZY?pid=5963315119367216690&oid=101584889282878921052</url></story><parent_chain></parent_chain><comment><author>mproud</author><text>In Major League Baseball (<a href="http://mlb.com" rel="nofollow">http:&#x2F;&#x2F;mlb.com</a>), the season lasts 162 games, from late March&#x2F;early April to the very end of September. Game 163 is played, only if necessary, as a tiebreaker game (<a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Major_League_Baseball_tie-breakers" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;en.wikipedia.org&#x2F;wiki&#x2F;List_of_Major_League_Baseball_...</a>) that usually determines which team is heading to the postseason and which team is “going home.”<p>Why 162? In 1961, the American League expanded from 8 teams to 10 teams, so instead of playing 154 games against 7 different opponents (22 each), a team now played each other 18 times. (This also works well because 18 is a factor of 3, and baseball often plays its games in a series of 3, held at the same ballpark.) The next year the National League followed suit.<p>If there are any Game 163’s this season they’ll happen Monday.</text></comment> |
6,578,893 | 6,578,838 | 1 | 3 | 6,578,280 | train | <story><title>Google turned my iPod touch into a free wifi phone</title><url>http://www.codercowboy.com/2013/10/19/oh-google-just-turned-my-ipod-touch-into-a-free-wifi-phone/</url></story><parent_chain></parent_chain><comment><author>super-serial</author><text><i>&quot;The downside to Google Voice has always been that it’s not actually a phone. When you dial someone with the Voice app, it dials your contact, then dials your real phone, and connects you together – you can’t just dial right out on a computer or non-phone smart device like an iPod touch and use a headset.&quot;</i><p>On a computer it can &quot;dial&quot; GChat, so you don&#x27;t need a &quot;real phone.&quot; I don&#x27;t own a landline or a cellphone so I would know.<p>But I never knew you could make calls from apps. I have an iPod Touch 4, so this is going to be awesome. Now my friends might actually think I&#x27;m normal.</text></comment> | <story><title>Google turned my iPod touch into a free wifi phone</title><url>http://www.codercowboy.com/2013/10/19/oh-google-just-turned-my-ipod-touch-into-a-free-wifi-phone/</url></story><parent_chain></parent_chain><comment><author>triplesec</author><text>So this is integrating Google voice and hangouts? Still separate on my android, but if so, I suppose you might say it could be inevitable..</text></comment> |
2,464,918 | 2,464,599 | 1 | 3 | 2,463,936 | train | <story><title>YouTube Videos Now Served in WebM</title><url>http://youtube-global.blogspot.com/2011/04/mmm-mmm-good-youtube-videos-now-served.html</url><text></text></story><parent_chain><item><author>Terretta</author><text>Anyone wanting to try hosting their own HD or SD video portfolio in WebM can try <a href="http://www.vive.ly/" rel="nofollow">http://www.vive.ly/</a> which is like parts of Dropbox, Zencoder, and Hulu in a blender, for original video files you want backed up, encoded, and published publicly or privately -- without the YouTube problems of giving up your copyrights or having competitor videos promoted alongside yours.<p>Drop your originals in a folder, we encode into SD and HD in H.264, Ogg, and WebM, and build you a mini-Hulu video site that works in Flash, Silverlight, or HTML5 across browsers. You can also download the encoded files for use elsewhere, embed them, or rebrand the video site with your own logo and domain name.<p>Use our Hacker News invite code hd4yc to sign up free, and let us know what you think of the WebM encodes. We encode all the files in parallel, and the video pages update as the versions become available, so you may have to wait a bit for the WebM encodes to finish.</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>codejoust</author><text>Currently, it looks as if the gallery pages are using flash -- what about using native html for browsers that can play WebM video natively?</text></comment> | <story><title>YouTube Videos Now Served in WebM</title><url>http://youtube-global.blogspot.com/2011/04/mmm-mmm-good-youtube-videos-now-served.html</url><text></text></story><parent_chain><item><author>Terretta</author><text>Anyone wanting to try hosting their own HD or SD video portfolio in WebM can try <a href="http://www.vive.ly/" rel="nofollow">http://www.vive.ly/</a> which is like parts of Dropbox, Zencoder, and Hulu in a blender, for original video files you want backed up, encoded, and published publicly or privately -- without the YouTube problems of giving up your copyrights or having competitor videos promoted alongside yours.<p>Drop your originals in a folder, we encode into SD and HD in H.264, Ogg, and WebM, and build you a mini-Hulu video site that works in Flash, Silverlight, or HTML5 across browsers. You can also download the encoded files for use elsewhere, embed them, or rebrand the video site with your own logo and domain name.<p>Use our Hacker News invite code hd4yc to sign up free, and let us know what you think of the WebM encodes. We encode all the files in parallel, and the video pages update as the versions become available, so you may have to wait a bit for the WebM encodes to finish.</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>deltaqueue</author><text>I assume you're either the founder or work for Vively--do you have a contact email or phone number? I have a few questions about this this service and how it might be useful for my company's customers.</text></comment> |
12,907,058 | 12,906,727 | 1 | 3 | 12,906,232 | train | <story><title>Canada's immigration website crashes on election night</title><url>http://www.ctvnews.ca/canada/canada-s-immigration-website-crashes-on-election-night-1.3152231?hootPostID=14d10ea891a36bd74ea02d19ec7cf954</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>tuna-piano</author><text>If you didn&#x27;t read the newspaper, how many of the negative things you mentioned would actually impact your life? Would you even know who was president for the last 4 (or the next 4) based on the impacts to your life? I&#x27;d guess not.<p>Just live your life and be happy, vote when you can but don&#x27;t let what you don&#x27;t control make you sad.</text></item><item><author>M_Grey</author><text>Canada would be an odd choice for many reasons, but is probably attractive for the combination of proximity, and cultural&#x2F;linguistic similarities. For me, I&#x27;ve been looking at Ireland, Denmark, or the Netherlands for a while, and I&#x27;d say they&#x27;re looking far more attractive today than yesterday.<p>Besides, money isn&#x27;t everything. There is something to be said for not having to deal with the insane evangelicals, bitter uneducated whites, and insane levels of violence too. Not to mention the impact this will have on the SCOTUS, and how incredibly screwed up healthcare is.</text></item><item><author>colmvp</author><text>Canada seems appealing to Americans until you realize you could be earning more in the U.S. while spending less on a bunch of other things.<p>Don&#x27;t get me wrong, I love living in Canada and I mostly don&#x27;t miss living in Bay Area, but most of my friends lament the fact that their salary and career opportunities are a joke compared to what they could have in the U.S. (even adjusting for cost of living).</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>nkoren</author><text>I grew up and lived most of my life in America, then emigrated to a country with universal healthcare (the UK). When I developed a life-threatening condition which my US insurance would never have covered, the National Health Service saved my life.<p>These things don&#x27;t matter until they really, really, really do. Having seen the grass on both sides of the fence, I can attest that it really <i>can</i> be meaningfully greener.</text></comment> | <story><title>Canada's immigration website crashes on election night</title><url>http://www.ctvnews.ca/canada/canada-s-immigration-website-crashes-on-election-night-1.3152231?hootPostID=14d10ea891a36bd74ea02d19ec7cf954</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>tuna-piano</author><text>If you didn&#x27;t read the newspaper, how many of the negative things you mentioned would actually impact your life? Would you even know who was president for the last 4 (or the next 4) based on the impacts to your life? I&#x27;d guess not.<p>Just live your life and be happy, vote when you can but don&#x27;t let what you don&#x27;t control make you sad.</text></item><item><author>M_Grey</author><text>Canada would be an odd choice for many reasons, but is probably attractive for the combination of proximity, and cultural&#x2F;linguistic similarities. For me, I&#x27;ve been looking at Ireland, Denmark, or the Netherlands for a while, and I&#x27;d say they&#x27;re looking far more attractive today than yesterday.<p>Besides, money isn&#x27;t everything. There is something to be said for not having to deal with the insane evangelicals, bitter uneducated whites, and insane levels of violence too. Not to mention the impact this will have on the SCOTUS, and how incredibly screwed up healthcare is.</text></item><item><author>colmvp</author><text>Canada seems appealing to Americans until you realize you could be earning more in the U.S. while spending less on a bunch of other things.<p>Don&#x27;t get me wrong, I love living in Canada and I mostly don&#x27;t miss living in Bay Area, but most of my friends lament the fact that their salary and career opportunities are a joke compared to what they could have in the U.S. (even adjusting for cost of living).</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>mattnewton</author><text>Yes. I have two sisters that could lose access to birth control and planned parenthood. One of them dates a black man and already gets racial slurs thrown at them in public. These results are only going to embolden that behavior. America has voted for a mysogynistic sexist at its highest ceremonial office, you don&#x27;t think that affects what is acceptable discourse? You don&#x27;t think the SCOTUS is changed for a generation now?</text></comment> |
19,724,496 | 19,719,126 | 1 | 2 | 19,717,786 | train | <story><title>PySnooper: Never use print for debugging again</title><url>https://github.com/cool-RR/pysnooper</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>scwoodal</author><text>For my Django projects the development server is werkzeug [1] and anywhere a break point is needed I&#x27;ll add 1&#x2F;0 in the code then hit refresh in the browser which pulls up an interactive debugger [2].<p>[1] <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;django-extensions.readthedocs.io&#x2F;en&#x2F;latest&#x2F;runserver_plus.html" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;django-extensions.readthedocs.io&#x2F;en&#x2F;latest&#x2F;runserver...</a><p>[2] <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;werkzeug.palletsprojects.com&#x2F;en&#x2F;0.15.x&#x2F;debug&#x2F;#using-the-debugger" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;werkzeug.palletsprojects.com&#x2F;en&#x2F;0.15.x&#x2F;debug&#x2F;#using-...</a></text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>marcell</author><text>FYI you can do<p><pre><code> import pdb; pdb.set_trace()
</code></pre>
It pulls up console debugger and is a standard python package.</text></comment> | <story><title>PySnooper: Never use print for debugging again</title><url>https://github.com/cool-RR/pysnooper</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>scwoodal</author><text>For my Django projects the development server is werkzeug [1] and anywhere a break point is needed I&#x27;ll add 1&#x2F;0 in the code then hit refresh in the browser which pulls up an interactive debugger [2].<p>[1] <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;django-extensions.readthedocs.io&#x2F;en&#x2F;latest&#x2F;runserver_plus.html" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;django-extensions.readthedocs.io&#x2F;en&#x2F;latest&#x2F;runserver...</a><p>[2] <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;werkzeug.palletsprojects.com&#x2F;en&#x2F;0.15.x&#x2F;debug&#x2F;#using-the-debugger" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;werkzeug.palletsprojects.com&#x2F;en&#x2F;0.15.x&#x2F;debug&#x2F;#using-...</a></text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>someguy1010</author><text>thanks for showing me this! I use the more I learn about django-extensions the more impressed I am with its features. Being able to interact with the django shell with a jupyter notebook is awesome too.</text></comment> |
11,318,510 | 11,318,569 | 1 | 2 | 11,318,004 | train | <story><title>Redox – A Unix-Like Operating System Written in Rust</title><url>http://www.redox-os.org/</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>teamhappy</author><text>Operating systems aren&#x27;t that big, and if you know your stuff, I&#x27;m sure it&#x27;s not too hard to pull off. Here&#x27;s an example I borrowed from StackExchange:<p>According to cloc run against 3.13, Linux is about 12 million lines of code. 7 million LOC in drivers&#x2F;, 2 million LOC in arch&#x2F;, and only 139 thousand LOC in kernel&#x2F;. (<a href="http:&#x2F;&#x2F;unix.stackexchange.com&#x2F;a&#x2F;223753" rel="nofollow">http:&#x2F;&#x2F;unix.stackexchange.com&#x2F;a&#x2F;223753</a>)<p>Edit: Would be nice to have the numbers for the latest Minix release for comparison. Does anybody know how big their core team is? (The kernel is something like 15k LOC IIRC.)</text></item><item><author>qz_</author><text>I&#x27;m pretty impressed that 37 people are capable of writing an entire OS with a gui in under a year. Looks really cool.</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>Manishearth</author><text>Btw, if anyone is interested in learning how to write an OS, and interested in Rust, check out <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;intermezzos.github.io&#x2F;" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;intermezzos.github.io&#x2F;</a>. It&#x27;s a &quot;learning OS&quot; in Rust, with a companion book. Incomplete, but a good start.</text></comment> | <story><title>Redox – A Unix-Like Operating System Written in Rust</title><url>http://www.redox-os.org/</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>teamhappy</author><text>Operating systems aren&#x27;t that big, and if you know your stuff, I&#x27;m sure it&#x27;s not too hard to pull off. Here&#x27;s an example I borrowed from StackExchange:<p>According to cloc run against 3.13, Linux is about 12 million lines of code. 7 million LOC in drivers&#x2F;, 2 million LOC in arch&#x2F;, and only 139 thousand LOC in kernel&#x2F;. (<a href="http:&#x2F;&#x2F;unix.stackexchange.com&#x2F;a&#x2F;223753" rel="nofollow">http:&#x2F;&#x2F;unix.stackexchange.com&#x2F;a&#x2F;223753</a>)<p>Edit: Would be nice to have the numbers for the latest Minix release for comparison. Does anybody know how big their core team is? (The kernel is something like 15k LOC IIRC.)</text></item><item><author>qz_</author><text>I&#x27;m pretty impressed that 37 people are capable of writing an entire OS with a gui in under a year. Looks really cool.</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>iagooar</author><text>Warning: I have no idea about systems programming.<p>I understand that the amount of lines of driver code comes from the variety of devices. But still, it looks completely unbalanced, when compared to the kernel code itself. So I have some questions here:<p>1) Shouldn&#x27;t there be common interfaces &#x2F; abstractions for most of the devices?
2) If they exist, could they be improved somehow?
3) A bit unrelated, but how fun &#x2F; interesting is it to develop driver code?</text></comment> |
22,752,915 | 22,752,848 | 1 | 2 | 22,752,231 | train | <story><title>SteamCAD – 2D CAD designed to draw steam locomotives</title><url>https://github.com/oskardolch/SteamCAD</url></story><parent_chain></parent_chain><comment><author>mmastrac</author><text>I love how specific yet comprehensive this package is. The manual appears to be lovingly crafted and from what I can tell, well written [1].<p>I don&#x27;t know how many people are specifically looking to draw CAD diagrams of steam locomotives, but I absolutely love that this was someone&#x27;s itch to scratch and they put so much time into this.<p>[1] <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;github.com&#x2F;oskardolch&#x2F;SteamCAD&#x2F;blob&#x2F;master&#x2F;SteamCAD.pdf" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;github.com&#x2F;oskardolch&#x2F;SteamCAD&#x2F;blob&#x2F;master&#x2F;SteamCAD....</a></text></comment> | <story><title>SteamCAD – 2D CAD designed to draw steam locomotives</title><url>https://github.com/oskardolch/SteamCAD</url></story><parent_chain></parent_chain><comment><author>chrisseaton</author><text>Are there any screenshots? I couldn&#x27;t find them myself.<p>The sample output is extraordinarily well-crafted.<p>Sometimes I think I&#x27;d love to write a traditional desktop app like this as a side project. I haven&#x27;t done it for years.</text></comment> |
17,973,061 | 17,969,701 | 1 | 3 | 17,968,537 | train | <story><title>A Proposed Alternative to Corporate Governance and Theory of Shareholder Primacy</title><url>https://corpgov.law.harvard.edu/2018/09/12/a-proposed-alternative-to-corporate-governance-and-the-theory-of-shareholder-primacy/</url></story><parent_chain></parent_chain><comment><author>grellas</author><text>Under modern corporate law, shareholders are the owners of the entity and its assets (operating businesses) and the ultimate governing role falls to a board of directors whose fiduciary duty is to act for the best interests of the company and its owners.<p>A modern B corp permits a board to balance this traditional fiduciary duty to act for the benefit of the shareholders with other specified goals defined in its charter and <i>agreed to</i> by those shareholders.<p>At no point in any of this does any type of governmental authority have any say whatever concerning how the company should be managed and for whose benefit (government has a role in a technical sense only in providing a state charter giving the corporation a legal existence and in non-management aspects such as having the power to tax the entity and to enforce broadly applicable criminal and regulatory laws against it, e.g., laws against securities fraud or illegal securities offerings).<p>In other words, the whole modern corporate structure assumes that private actors using a state-chartered mechanism (the corporate entity) can arrange their affairs freely to optimize the management of the entity to further the economic interests of the owners of that entity. As to that part, government has no say whatever.<p>The Warren proposal would substitute a range of public dictates for the private choice that characterizes the current system. It would initially apply to large cap companies but there is no limiting principle preventing the idea of such public dictates being applied to any manner of corporation or, for that matter, to any other limited liability entity, whether large or small. Taken to an extreme, this sort of regime could easily be implemented in a way that transforms most forms of private enterprise into entities restricted or burdened by whatever dictates the politically-organized forces who happen to hold sway at any moment might want to decree.<p>Of course, none of that might happen. It is certainly possible to adopt the Warren proposal and keep it limited to a narrow sphere of enterprise (large-cap companies) where its impact might be limited. But I wouldn&#x27;t bet on it. With no restraining principle behind it, the proposal could easily be the foundation for completely transforming the notion of enterprise in the United States and I for one don&#x27;t want to see a day where bureaucrats, lawyers, and second-guessing judges are gnawing termite-like at the foundations of what today are vibrant and healthy businesses in the name of other goals having nothing whatever to do with the economic interests of shareholders.</text></comment> | <story><title>A Proposed Alternative to Corporate Governance and Theory of Shareholder Primacy</title><url>https://corpgov.law.harvard.edu/2018/09/12/a-proposed-alternative-to-corporate-governance-and-the-theory-of-shareholder-primacy/</url></story><parent_chain></parent_chain><comment><author>billbrown</author><text>This proposal would effectively make the federal government the Executive Chairman of a board. It&#x27;s too radical and won&#x27;t go anywhere, even with Democrats. It reads like establishing progressive bona fides.</text></comment> |
1,683,616 | 1,683,418 | 1 | 2 | 1,683,294 | train | <story><title>Go That Way, Really Fast</title><url>http://www.codinghorror.com/blog/2010/09/go-that-way-really-fast.html</url></story><parent_chain></parent_chain><comment><author>bldg46</author><text>The first meetings about Chrome were held in 2006.<p>The entire project is based on Apple's WebKit, which was a cross-platform, arguably best-of-breed browser toolkit on the day they started.<p>Lars Bak, the architect of V8, has been working on language technologies since the early 90s, including Smalltalk.<p>A key Chrome team member, Ben Goodger, had already been working on browsers since the Netscape era, and was an early participant in Firefox.<p>There really are no miracles in software. People used to talk about "Netscape time" or marvel at how Google seemed to come out of nowhere. But even in those cases you can see how prior to those projects becoming household words, they had a long gestation period, during which time they were protected from competition. Netscape included a lot of people from the earlier NCSA Mosaic effort. Google was an academic project that, as an economic entity, grew up in the sheltering shadow of Yahoo.<p>I'm not saying these people didn't work hard, or aren't brilliant, or don't deserve their success. It's just that whenever you see someone moving much faster than is normally considered possible, don't assume that it's <i>only</i> due to skill. It's far more likely that they had some history of working on the problem, for far longer than you think.</text></comment> | <story><title>Go That Way, Really Fast</title><url>http://www.codinghorror.com/blog/2010/09/go-that-way-really-fast.html</url></story><parent_chain></parent_chain><comment><author>alextgordon</author><text><i>Google went from nothing, no web browser at all, to best-of-breed in under two years</i><p>That's obviously wrong. The Chrome beta was over two years ago, and you can bet V8 didn't just appear overnight. Chrome is older than its 1.0. Not to mention that it's based on WebKit, which has been in development for a decade (if you start from KHTML).</text></comment> |
15,418,128 | 15,418,084 | 1 | 3 | 15,417,501 | train | <story><title>The Supreme Court discussed my research on gerrymandering: some misconceptions</title><url>https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/monkey-cage/wp/2017/10/06/the-supreme-court-discussed-my-research-on-gerrymandering-there-were-some-misconceptions/</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>djrogers</author><text>I think the author may be getting a bit too defensive of his work here - not that he doesn&#x27;t have a right to defend it, but he may be seeing attacks on it where they don&#x27;t really exist.<p>It&#x27;s exceedingly common for Supreme Court justices to ask controversial questions they think&#x2F;know others will have, regardless of their own opinions - many times you will see them ask questions or dig in to areas that are in direct contrast to their leanings.<p>The reasons for this are two-fold. First, these <i>are</i> Supreme Court Justices; their opinions become law, and they have a responsibility to understand both sides on an argument. Second, they understand that it&#x27;s best for the court and the country if controversial&#x2F;questionable things are brought up and addressed in session rather than debated endlessly after their decisions are issued.<p>In short, don&#x27;t read too much in to what questions the justices ask, or what aspects of a case they question...</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>dcow</author><text>This is, in a nutshell, both why I love hackernews and what&#x27;s so frustrating about discussing a topic these days. It&#x27;s impossible to explore something you may totally disagree with without people generally reducing that exploration to a proxy for your worldview and consequently making character judgements or finding a way to get offended to the point where the identity politics card gets played and you get labeled a bigot for some conclusion you never supported but was obviously present in the undercurrents of your questions. The Supreme Court judges aren&#x27;t special in that respect. Anyone should be allowed to question and explore a topic without having to issue trigger warnings or generally be expected to manage the &quot;visceral&quot; response their questions might evoke from a bystander observing the discussion or even the participants. The way you handle input into your personal biological process is your responsibility not mine. And society does not exist to protect you from malicious input, although you are free to choose networks where the chances frequency of receiving such input is relatively low.</text></comment> | <story><title>The Supreme Court discussed my research on gerrymandering: some misconceptions</title><url>https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/monkey-cage/wp/2017/10/06/the-supreme-court-discussed-my-research-on-gerrymandering-there-were-some-misconceptions/</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>djrogers</author><text>I think the author may be getting a bit too defensive of his work here - not that he doesn&#x27;t have a right to defend it, but he may be seeing attacks on it where they don&#x27;t really exist.<p>It&#x27;s exceedingly common for Supreme Court justices to ask controversial questions they think&#x2F;know others will have, regardless of their own opinions - many times you will see them ask questions or dig in to areas that are in direct contrast to their leanings.<p>The reasons for this are two-fold. First, these <i>are</i> Supreme Court Justices; their opinions become law, and they have a responsibility to understand both sides on an argument. Second, they understand that it&#x27;s best for the court and the country if controversial&#x2F;questionable things are brought up and addressed in session rather than debated endlessly after their decisions are issued.<p>In short, don&#x27;t read too much in to what questions the justices ask, or what aspects of a case they question...</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>stevenwoo</author><text>On examination of the evidence, the motive for a questioning supreme court justice is leaning to supporting the other side.<p><a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;fivethirtyeight.com&#x2F;features&#x2F;what-justice-kennedys-silence-means-for-the-future-of-gerrymandering&#x2F;" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;fivethirtyeight.com&#x2F;features&#x2F;what-justice-kennedys-s...</a></text></comment> |
24,277,912 | 24,277,681 | 1 | 2 | 24,268,522 | train | <story><title>Zappos CEO Tony Hsieh is stepping down after 21 years</title><url>https://footwearnews.com/2020/business/executive-moves/zappos-ceo-tony-hsieh-steps-down-1203045974/</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>betocmn</author><text>I grew up in Brazil, where customer service was bad-to-terrible in 90% of the companies I had to deal with.<p>When I moved to Australia, I thought it would be a lot better. It wasn&#x27;t much different.<p>When I joined a wine subscription startup in 2016 as the technical co-founder, I wasn&#x27;t just building the recommendation engine. I was also helping to pack the boxes at the warehouse.<p>We all got fascinated with Tony&#x27;s book &quot;Delivering Happiness&quot; [1]. As I packed boxes, I listened to the audiobook several times. Then I read it later on again.<p>I&#x27;m still surprised how bad customer service is in most companies. Don&#x27;t talk to me like a robot. Just pretend you&#x27;re messaging a co-worker in plain-friendly-English. And be genuinely interested in solving my issues knowing that you will have higher LTV in the long term if you invest the time and resources to make me happy now.<p>A few years later and our customers are obsessed not just about the wine we recommend. They also write love letters about how happy they are to deal with our customer service team. I&#x27;m still writing code on the other side, but it makes my day to see that part of the business working so well.<p>[1] <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.goodreads.com&#x2F;book&#x2F;show&#x2F;6828896-delivering-happiness" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.goodreads.com&#x2F;book&#x2F;show&#x2F;6828896-delivering-happi...</a></text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>tjr225</author><text>&gt; Don&#x27;t talk to me like a robot. Just pretend you&#x27;re messaging a co-worker in plain-friendly-English. And be genuinely interested in solving my issues knowing that you will have higher LTV in the long term if you invest the time and resources to make me happy now.<p>This is an easy thing to say as a customer or a customer success oriented person.<p>I am leaving a support role just now. I am actually taking a pay cut to do so. Almost all of my customers speak to me in a rude tone.<p>I have no incentive to pretend to have an interest in their issues. I don’t think the issue is with customer support, but general attitudes among IT professionals.<p>On top of this, customer success is treated as a second class to engineering even if our problems are harder and more stressful. Imagine finding a bug and being blamed for the bug not being fixed while at the same time engineering is mad at you for wanting it fixed. Gross.<p>Anyway- support; never again.</text></comment> | <story><title>Zappos CEO Tony Hsieh is stepping down after 21 years</title><url>https://footwearnews.com/2020/business/executive-moves/zappos-ceo-tony-hsieh-steps-down-1203045974/</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>betocmn</author><text>I grew up in Brazil, where customer service was bad-to-terrible in 90% of the companies I had to deal with.<p>When I moved to Australia, I thought it would be a lot better. It wasn&#x27;t much different.<p>When I joined a wine subscription startup in 2016 as the technical co-founder, I wasn&#x27;t just building the recommendation engine. I was also helping to pack the boxes at the warehouse.<p>We all got fascinated with Tony&#x27;s book &quot;Delivering Happiness&quot; [1]. As I packed boxes, I listened to the audiobook several times. Then I read it later on again.<p>I&#x27;m still surprised how bad customer service is in most companies. Don&#x27;t talk to me like a robot. Just pretend you&#x27;re messaging a co-worker in plain-friendly-English. And be genuinely interested in solving my issues knowing that you will have higher LTV in the long term if you invest the time and resources to make me happy now.<p>A few years later and our customers are obsessed not just about the wine we recommend. They also write love letters about how happy they are to deal with our customer service team. I&#x27;m still writing code on the other side, but it makes my day to see that part of the business working so well.<p>[1] <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.goodreads.com&#x2F;book&#x2F;show&#x2F;6828896-delivering-happiness" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.goodreads.com&#x2F;book&#x2F;show&#x2F;6828896-delivering-happi...</a></text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>steve_adams_86</author><text>I really believe customer service this effective is worth its weight in gold.<p>I worked on a SaaS product that was essentially a booking engine. Vacations, rentals, tours, b&amp;bs; etc. Their product was complete shit and it was so stressful to work on. Nearly a decade of terrible choices and the wrong technologies stacked up like a card house.<p>The only thing that kept the customers there was the insanely talented and competent customer service. They knew the app inside and out and were able to smooth out the insane number of rough edges for new and old customers alike. When gifts were sent to the company, they were typically sent to customer service.<p>Everyone in CS was paid terribly. It really bothered me. The software team was doing a Bad Job and getting paid well for it, and CS was really saving everyone’s asses. Since then I look at the customer support team a lot differently.</text></comment> |
31,547,603 | 31,547,740 | 1 | 2 | 31,546,604 | train | <story><title>The use of ‘class’ for things that should be simple free functions (2020)</title><url>https://quuxplusone.github.io/blog/2020/05/28/oo-antipattern/</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>mojuba</author><text>I once, a long time ago, had a similar argument (somewhere online) with a bunch of Java coders. I asked them to create a library for solving quadratic equations. Asking to create a library itself was a trap of course.<p>Everybody came up with some solver classes in Java, some stateful, some stateless. One guy presented the most monstrous solution with 100+ lines of code where you could individually assign the coefficients, individually modify them, trigger recalculation, get the number of roots, get the roots. That guy was very proud of what he did.<p>Oh, I found bugs in his code. But that was considered normal. People make mistakes, right?<p>I showed them a two-line solution with a single function (where you&#x27;d try hard to make a mistake) and nobody liked it. I was ridiculed right there, for not solving the problem &quot;properly&quot;.<p>It struck me how someone can overengineer a solution to the simplest problem <i>and be proud of it</i>. I thought at the time this industry is screwed if this is the norm.<p>In fact probably some 90% of so called library code on GitHub is overenginnered crap. 90% is arbitrary but from my experience every time I look for some solution let&#x27;s say for some GUI effect on iOS, find a library or a framework, take the source, analyze it, start simplifying it and I end up with a version that is orders of magnitude shorter and can be just copied into my project it&#x27;s so trivial.<p>You realize that it was so trivial that there was no need for a library in the first place.<p>I liked the post about minimaism the other day here on HN [1]. It still amazes me how minimalism is not the norm, is not taught as <i>the only way</i> you should solve problems in software engineering. There&#x27;s no &quot;proper&quot; way other than the most minimalist one, period.<p>However, minimalism requires some extra effort to achieve, and that&#x27;s the whole point of engineering.<p>[1] The post was about minimalism in programming languages, but the author had another, more general post: <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;pointersgonewild.com&#x2F;2018&#x2F;02&#x2F;18&#x2F;minimalism-in-programming&#x2F;" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;pointersgonewild.com&#x2F;2018&#x2F;02&#x2F;18&#x2F;minimalism-in-progra...</a><p>Edit: mandatory favorite essay: <a href="http:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.paulgraham.com&#x2F;power.html" rel="nofollow">http:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.paulgraham.com&#x2F;power.html</a></text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>kgeist</author><text>&gt;You realize that it was so trivial that there was no need for a library in the first place<p>Minimalism can bite you, too. We have around 30 microservices written in Go, each one one of them living in their own repository (separate codebases owned by different teams). Initially we followed Go&#x27;s idiom &quot;a little copying is better than a little dependency&quot;. So every team simply was borrowing code snippets from other microservices&#x27; codebases without creating a common shared library, because those snippets were &quot;trivial&quot;. Then it hit production and we found that under load&#x2F;diverse user input many of those trivial functions were quite buggy or inefficient with edge cases. Since those functions&#x2F;classes were copypasted over multiple codebases, now you had to contact owners of 30 repositories and coordinate bugfixing in all of them, which is slow and painful. Now we&#x27;re back to having a shared library of common functions, because it&#x27;s well tested and it&#x27;s easy to fix bugs by just upgrading. Often what seems trivial is not trivial at all.</text></comment> | <story><title>The use of ‘class’ for things that should be simple free functions (2020)</title><url>https://quuxplusone.github.io/blog/2020/05/28/oo-antipattern/</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>mojuba</author><text>I once, a long time ago, had a similar argument (somewhere online) with a bunch of Java coders. I asked them to create a library for solving quadratic equations. Asking to create a library itself was a trap of course.<p>Everybody came up with some solver classes in Java, some stateful, some stateless. One guy presented the most monstrous solution with 100+ lines of code where you could individually assign the coefficients, individually modify them, trigger recalculation, get the number of roots, get the roots. That guy was very proud of what he did.<p>Oh, I found bugs in his code. But that was considered normal. People make mistakes, right?<p>I showed them a two-line solution with a single function (where you&#x27;d try hard to make a mistake) and nobody liked it. I was ridiculed right there, for not solving the problem &quot;properly&quot;.<p>It struck me how someone can overengineer a solution to the simplest problem <i>and be proud of it</i>. I thought at the time this industry is screwed if this is the norm.<p>In fact probably some 90% of so called library code on GitHub is overenginnered crap. 90% is arbitrary but from my experience every time I look for some solution let&#x27;s say for some GUI effect on iOS, find a library or a framework, take the source, analyze it, start simplifying it and I end up with a version that is orders of magnitude shorter and can be just copied into my project it&#x27;s so trivial.<p>You realize that it was so trivial that there was no need for a library in the first place.<p>I liked the post about minimaism the other day here on HN [1]. It still amazes me how minimalism is not the norm, is not taught as <i>the only way</i> you should solve problems in software engineering. There&#x27;s no &quot;proper&quot; way other than the most minimalist one, period.<p>However, minimalism requires some extra effort to achieve, and that&#x27;s the whole point of engineering.<p>[1] The post was about minimalism in programming languages, but the author had another, more general post: <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;pointersgonewild.com&#x2F;2018&#x2F;02&#x2F;18&#x2F;minimalism-in-programming&#x2F;" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;pointersgonewild.com&#x2F;2018&#x2F;02&#x2F;18&#x2F;minimalism-in-progra...</a><p>Edit: mandatory favorite essay: <a href="http:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.paulgraham.com&#x2F;power.html" rel="nofollow">http:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.paulgraham.com&#x2F;power.html</a></text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>arinlen</author><text>&gt; <i>I asked them to create a library (...) I showed them a two-line solution with a single function (...) and nobody liked it. I was ridiculed right there, for not solving the problem &quot;properly&quot;</i>.<p>And did you solved the problem &quot;properly&quot;?<p>Odds are you did not.<p>I mean, it&#x27;s terribly easy to come up with all sorts of two-liners if you just ignore all requirements and constraints, and don&#x27;t pay attention to usecases.<p>This is a major problem plaguing software development. Plenty of people act like they have to carry the burden of being the only competent and smart individual in a sea of fools, and proceed to criticize everything that everyone around them does, for the sin of not doing something that exactly matches your personal opinions and tastes.</text></comment> |
22,450,444 | 22,450,381 | 1 | 3 | 22,442,513 | train | <story><title>A quick primer on type traits in modern C++</title><url>https://www.internalpointers.com/post/quick-primer-type-traits-modern-cpp</url></story><parent_chain></parent_chain><comment><author>rjeli</author><text>The amount of background knowledge you need to understand what’s happening here... I don’t envy people who have to catch up<p>becoming more and more convinced that when sfinae opened the Turing hatch it doomed c++</text></comment> | <story><title>A quick primer on type traits in modern C++</title><url>https://www.internalpointers.com/post/quick-primer-type-traits-modern-cpp</url></story><parent_chain></parent_chain><comment><author>RossBencina</author><text>I found the use of &#x27;if constexpr&#x27; in the example pretty nasty. I would have thought it more idiomatic to use std::enable_if to enable different implementations of &#x27;algorithm&#x27; as in the example of &#x27;construct&#x27; and &#x27;destroy&#x27; given here:<p><a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;en.cppreference.com&#x2F;w&#x2F;cpp&#x2F;types&#x2F;enable_if" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;en.cppreference.com&#x2F;w&#x2F;cpp&#x2F;types&#x2F;enable_if</a></text></comment> |
30,873,371 | 30,873,444 | 1 | 3 | 30,858,295 | train | <story><title>Their secret for workplace Zen: Landlines and ethernet cords</title><url>https://www.wsj.com/articles/secret-for-workplace-zen-landlines-and-ethernet-cords-remote-work-11648220628</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>ryandrake</author><text>Maybe I&#x27;m showing my old age, but I never thought of Wi-Fi networking or mobile voice as anything other than &quot;toy&quot; technologies, unsuitable for SeriousBusiness™. Wi-Fi is what you use very temporarily at a coffee shop or something when you simply <i>have to</i> log in to deal with an emergency while on the go. But, for serious daily driver usage, it&#x27;s wired all the way. First thing I did when I moved into my home was crawl under the crawlspace and run two CAT 6 drops to each room.<p>If I were to be hired by a company and went into their office the first day, and they said, &quot;so the corporate Wi-Fi SSID is...&quot; well, I&#x27;d kind of not take them really seriously as a business. I realize with today&#x27;s much better Wi-Fi and cellular technologies, that this is an emotional response and there&#x27;s no rational facts behind the way I feel. Just an artifact of growing up with &quot;wired = reliable&quot;.</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>rayiner</author><text>I have a friend who is an experienced senior paralegal. (Experienced paralegals are sought after because the best ones often leave the job quickly to go to law school.) She started work at a new boutique law firm founded by prominent litigators. She was to head up the paralegal department within the firm. She quit days later. Key to her decision, she told me, was the fact that their IT plan apparently involved using <i>the building WiFi</i> instead of setting up an internal wired network. She figured that this was such a red flag regarding the firm’s administrative competency that she was going to have a rough time.</text></comment> | <story><title>Their secret for workplace Zen: Landlines and ethernet cords</title><url>https://www.wsj.com/articles/secret-for-workplace-zen-landlines-and-ethernet-cords-remote-work-11648220628</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>ryandrake</author><text>Maybe I&#x27;m showing my old age, but I never thought of Wi-Fi networking or mobile voice as anything other than &quot;toy&quot; technologies, unsuitable for SeriousBusiness™. Wi-Fi is what you use very temporarily at a coffee shop or something when you simply <i>have to</i> log in to deal with an emergency while on the go. But, for serious daily driver usage, it&#x27;s wired all the way. First thing I did when I moved into my home was crawl under the crawlspace and run two CAT 6 drops to each room.<p>If I were to be hired by a company and went into their office the first day, and they said, &quot;so the corporate Wi-Fi SSID is...&quot; well, I&#x27;d kind of not take them really seriously as a business. I realize with today&#x27;s much better Wi-Fi and cellular technologies, that this is an emotional response and there&#x27;s no rational facts behind the way I feel. Just an artifact of growing up with &quot;wired = reliable&quot;.</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>gerdesj</author><text>I think you are both right and wrong!<p>You are old enough (I assume) to remember really dodgy wifi but it has moved on and APs from nearly all vendors are really rather good. ISPs in the UK (I can&#x27;t comment elsewhere obviously) have generally woken up to delivering really quite decent &quot;hubs&quot; instead of a shonky Thompson Rainbow type device. That said, even those have some mileage with a firmware change.<p>It&#x27;s all about tools for the job. You know as well as I do what drywall&#x2F;plasterboard does to wifi or what a skin of bricks does to wifi propagation, compared to generally wooden construction.<p>Yes, running a CATn cable will nearly always trump a wifi connection but it&#x27;s fixed. I personally stick to CAT5e at home instead of 6 but I won&#x27;t rule it out in future. 5e -&gt; 1Gb&#x2F;s over 100m. 6 ... which one? 6 is nominally 10Gb&#x2F;s and 6A is 40 I think. 6A needs the shielding to be earthed properly.<p>I run most things over wifi if I can. My servers have fixed ethernet and things like my doorbell obviously get a PoE CAT5e connection. ... ... ... obviously!</text></comment> |
29,390,528 | 29,388,906 | 1 | 2 | 29,388,296 | train | <story><title>Solidjs – JavaScript UI Library</title><url>https://www.solidjs.com/</url></story><parent_chain></parent_chain><comment><author>skrebbel</author><text>(repost from the Asciinema thread, this comment feels more on topic here)<p>Wow, I just read about Solid for the first time, and I&#x27;m impressed at the API design. I love how it&#x27;s a fully reactive data flow thing, but it looks and feels like React Hooks.<p>The other reactive&#x2F;observable-based frameworks I&#x27;ve seen (eg Cycle) put the observable streams center piece. I always felt that was distracting, and that nuances about how the underlying observable stream library worked (eg Rxjs or Bacon) quickly got in the way.<p>Solid still puts the components firmly at the center, just like React, but replaces React&#x27;s state concept by reactive observable state, called &quot;signals&quot;. You use them like you useState in React, but deep inside it&#x27;s an observable stream of data changes, and you get all the finegrained update control that comes with that.<p>I also love how noun-heavy it is. Resources, tracking scopes, effects, signals. It&#x27;s just like how React moved from &quot;do this thing after the component updated&quot; to &quot;ok we have this concept called an effect&quot;, but extended to more topics such as dealing with async data loading, when exactly a signal is observable, etc.</text></comment> | <story><title>Solidjs – JavaScript UI Library</title><url>https://www.solidjs.com/</url></story><parent_chain></parent_chain><comment><author>no_wizard</author><text>Heck of a library, and its creator, Ryan Carniato, is a very smart engineer who works on both Marko[0] and solidjs. He&#x27;s really patient and answers my random questions on Twitter pretty reliably, I have to say I appreciate it!<p>The performance that SolidJS eeks out of the DOM is really next level.<p>I think it could use a small augment in the docs about migrating from React to SolidJS, but all around the project is very approachable and fantastic, and its <i>fast</i><p>[0]: <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;markojs.com&#x2F;" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;markojs.com&#x2F;</a></text></comment> |
17,524,013 | 17,523,735 | 1 | 2 | 17,523,623 | train | <story><title>Dhall – A Distributed, Safe Configuration Language</title><url>https://github.com/dhall-lang/dhall-lang</url></story><parent_chain></parent_chain><comment><author>ff_</author><text>Dhall was such a godsend to make our infra configs more safe &amp; modular (we jointly configure Kubernetes &amp; Terraform with it).<p>If you need some example of use cases to see if it might help you, check out &quot;Dhall in Production&quot; [0]<p>So far I&#x27;m a maintainer of dhall-kubernetes [1] and we&#x27;ll soon open source some of our integration with Terraform.<p>And because it&#x27;s absolutely safe to distribute Dhall code I&#x27;m toying with the idea of making some kind of Dhall-Kafka pubsub, in which you can safely distribute Dhall code and data, with automatic version migrations (check this out for more info on why this is possible [2])<p>[0]: <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;github.com&#x2F;dhall-lang&#x2F;dhall-lang&#x2F;wiki&#x2F;Dhall-in-production" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;github.com&#x2F;dhall-lang&#x2F;dhall-lang&#x2F;wiki&#x2F;Dhall-in-produ...</a><p>[1]: <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;github.com&#x2F;dhall-lang&#x2F;dhall-kubernetes" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;github.com&#x2F;dhall-lang&#x2F;dhall-kubernetes</a><p>[2]: <a href="http:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.haskellforall.com&#x2F;2017&#x2F;11&#x2F;semantic-integrity-checks-are-next.html?showComment=1511801973283#c6412191866661551590" rel="nofollow">http:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.haskellforall.com&#x2F;2017&#x2F;11&#x2F;semantic-integrity-chec...</a></text></comment> | <story><title>Dhall – A Distributed, Safe Configuration Language</title><url>https://github.com/dhall-lang/dhall-lang</url></story><parent_chain></parent_chain><comment><author>KirinDave</author><text>Dhall&#x27;s really cool because you can use it even if your tooling doesn&#x27;t support dhall. There is direct JSON&#x2F;YAML support with dhall-json: <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;github.com&#x2F;dhall-lang&#x2F;dhall-json" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;github.com&#x2F;dhall-lang&#x2F;dhall-json</a><p>If you wanted to generate something like an NGINX config (or, for example, TOML or Terraform) you could use dhall-text: <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;github.com&#x2F;dhall-lang&#x2F;dhall-text" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;github.com&#x2F;dhall-lang&#x2F;dhall-text</a><p>Oh, did I say terraform? Someone&#x27;s already on supporting that directly: <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;github.com&#x2F;blast-hardcheese&#x2F;dhall-terraform" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;github.com&#x2F;blast-hardcheese&#x2F;dhall-terraform</a><p>Dhall is very unique among configuration because it&#x27;s &quot;distributed&quot;, meaning that Dhall can load any file as a dhall expression, and has builtin URI resolvers to make even remote endpoints part of local configuration. This is excellent for, say, CI integration.<p>Dhall has &quot;semantic hashing&quot; so that if someone does change a dhall dependency in a surprising way, the dhall script will refuse to continue (and give a very clear error about what changed, where it was looking for the change, and why it&#x27;s stopping).<p>Dhall is a secret superpower for project configuration. Especially as of the 1.14+ releases, it&#x27;s become an increasingly go-to tool for me. Even in just one-off JSON generation scripts, I find it to be a lifesaver.</text></comment> |
6,675,231 | 6,675,168 | 1 | 2 | 6,674,366 | train | <story><title>MacKenzie Bezos Writes Amazon Review for Jeff Bezos Biography</title><url>http://www.amazon.com/review/R2I0T26SV0ELPP/</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>saalweachter</author><text>Did anyone else find this section weird:<p><pre><code> In an archive of the thousands of thank you messages written
to Jeff over the years, a small sampling includes “I just
wanted to thank you for giving my husband the opportunity to
work for your company so many years ago and let you know
that he always spoke kindly and enthusiastically of the
distribution center, the people and you.” “Having finished
my shift I thought I would send you a short email to say
thank you. There is a fantastic team based here and we have
super support. Our mentors are true Amazon angels providing
guidance and showing great patience.” “I cried as I read the
Career Choice announcement on Amazon today. What Amazon is
doing to help its employees is affecting lives in the most
meaningful way I can think of. It restores my faith in
humanity.”
</code></pre>
I&#x27;m not saying they haven&#x27;t received thousands of thank-yous, but that&#x27;s weird, right? I&#x27;ve never once considered sending a thank-you to any CEO&#x2F;boss, nor have I met anyone who has. (Of course, I&#x27;ve also never worked at Amazon--)</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>clinth</author><text>It might be weird, but I&#x27;m a thank-you letter writer. I wouldn&#x27;t write those exact letters, but I&#x27;ve written similar sentiments.<p>I&#x27;ve written my CEO, because I live in a house I bought with money earned from this job, raising a family of three kids, and appreciate that my enterprise is sustainable. I&#x27;m grateful for my job, the opportunity to do the work I do, and to the people who make it happen.<p>However, I write a half-dozen or so such letters per year. Not just professional: personal, community, and so on. This rate is trending up as I get older. I&#x27;m getting more and more grateful for how our lives all fit together. There are many people working hard toward good ends and probably not being thanked for the good work they do.</text></comment> | <story><title>MacKenzie Bezos Writes Amazon Review for Jeff Bezos Biography</title><url>http://www.amazon.com/review/R2I0T26SV0ELPP/</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>saalweachter</author><text>Did anyone else find this section weird:<p><pre><code> In an archive of the thousands of thank you messages written
to Jeff over the years, a small sampling includes “I just
wanted to thank you for giving my husband the opportunity to
work for your company so many years ago and let you know
that he always spoke kindly and enthusiastically of the
distribution center, the people and you.” “Having finished
my shift I thought I would send you a short email to say
thank you. There is a fantastic team based here and we have
super support. Our mentors are true Amazon angels providing
guidance and showing great patience.” “I cried as I read the
Career Choice announcement on Amazon today. What Amazon is
doing to help its employees is affecting lives in the most
meaningful way I can think of. It restores my faith in
humanity.”
</code></pre>
I&#x27;m not saying they haven&#x27;t received thousands of thank-yous, but that&#x27;s weird, right? I&#x27;ve never once considered sending a thank-you to any CEO&#x2F;boss, nor have I met anyone who has. (Of course, I&#x27;ve also never worked at Amazon--)</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>jcutrell</author><text>I absolutely don&#x27;t think people writing thank you notes to their boss is weird. I do this on almost a daily basis via email or text.<p>This block of text does seem weird though - I think it&#x27;s because she was highly emotional while writing. (Completely a guess.) And this particular portion would have likely been the most emotional for her. It&#x27;s not as well composed as the rest of the fairly well-formed critique.</text></comment> |
11,319,833 | 11,319,879 | 1 | 2 | 11,318,175 | train | <story><title>Some Rookie Mistakes in Go</title><url>http://engineroom.teamwork.com/go-learn/</url></story><parent_chain></parent_chain><comment><author>csense</author><text>&gt; Go has multiple returns from functions so a very typical scenario is a function that returns something and also an error, which would be nil if everything worked okay<p>This is one of the problems I have with C. You basically have to remember to manually check for an error on every function call, which means (1) an algorithm with short and simple pseudocode becomes lengthy and hard to read real code, because you need to add a ton of error handling, (2) it is easy to forget to handle an error in some place. Exception-based error handling lets you delegate errors to a top-level handler without cluttering up intermediate code (i.e. an exception anywhere in webpage rendering logic should be handled by 500&#x27;ing the entire page, which exception-based error handling lets you do without cluttering intermediate functions between the function producing the error and the function handling the error with error-handling logic).<p>I&#x27;ve been thinking about learning Go, but if its only error handling mechanisms are &quot;pack it into a return value&quot; or &quot;panic() which is like exit(1) in C&quot; then it&#x27;s a black mark against the language. It&#x27;s still a black mark if the language has exception-like error handling but it&#x27;s not considered &quot;idiomatic Go&quot; and the stdlib and a good chunk of third-party libs report errors in return values.</text></comment> | <story><title>Some Rookie Mistakes in Go</title><url>http://engineroom.teamwork.com/go-learn/</url></story><parent_chain></parent_chain><comment><author>logingone</author><text>Why does Rust get articles about eg an operating system written in Rust, but all the Go posts are how to tie your shoe laces? Somebody explain, please.</text></comment> |
28,031,753 | 28,031,649 | 1 | 2 | 28,030,636 | train | <story><title>Square to acquire Afterpay for $29B</title><url>https://squareup.com/us/en/press/square-announces-plans-to-acquire-afterpay</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>hn_throwaway_99</author><text>I&#x27;ve just come to accept that I&#x27;ll never understand corporate finance. Based on the data I could find, this works out to a sales price of about 76 times <i>revenue</i> for Afterpay. Even for a fast growing company, how can they ever grow into that valuation? Of course, it&#x27;s an all stock deal, so perhaps it&#x27;s better to just consider what percentage of Square they&#x27;re giving to Afterpay stockholders, but I still just can&#x27;t wrap my head around these prices given the revenue numbers.</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>kevindong</author><text>The acquisition is entirely in stock, so very little actual cash is changing hands.<p>According to the Afterpay investor relations site, Afterpay&#x27;s gross revenue for FY21 (ended June 30, 2021), assuming constant currency exchanges rates, was $978 million AUD [0]. If you subtract out the first half of FY21&#x27;s revenue ($385.2 million AUD) [1], we arrive at an implied revenue of $592.8 million AUD for the second half of FY21. Convert that to USD (USD$1 = AUD$1.36) and we arrive at an annualized revenue run rate of ~$871 million USD.<p>Which implies an acquisition price of ~33.3x gross revenue. Which is certainly a lot better than 76x ratio. Moreover, that growth rate is ~53.9% ($592.8 million &#x2F; $385.2 million) over the prior half-year which is truly astounding growth.<p>[0]: On <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;corporate.afterpay.com&#x2F;investors&#x2F;asx-announcements" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;corporate.afterpay.com&#x2F;investors&#x2F;asx-announcements</a>, go to &#x27;ASX Announcements&#x27;, then find the &#x27;FY21 trading update&#x27; dated 2 Aug 2021, $978 million is on the second data column of the second table on the first page.<p>[1]: On <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;corporate.afterpay.com&#x2F;investors&#x2F;asx-announcements" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;corporate.afterpay.com&#x2F;investors&#x2F;asx-announcements</a>, go to &#x27;ASX Announcements&#x27;, then find the &#x27;H1 FY21 Results Announcement&#x27; dated 25 Feb 2021, $385.2 million is on the fourth data row of the first page&#x27;s table.</text></comment> | <story><title>Square to acquire Afterpay for $29B</title><url>https://squareup.com/us/en/press/square-announces-plans-to-acquire-afterpay</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>hn_throwaway_99</author><text>I&#x27;ve just come to accept that I&#x27;ll never understand corporate finance. Based on the data I could find, this works out to a sales price of about 76 times <i>revenue</i> for Afterpay. Even for a fast growing company, how can they ever grow into that valuation? Of course, it&#x27;s an all stock deal, so perhaps it&#x27;s better to just consider what percentage of Square they&#x27;re giving to Afterpay stockholders, but I still just can&#x27;t wrap my head around these prices given the revenue numbers.</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>TuringNYC</author><text>Other potential reasons for high multiple:<p>- Acquirer sees huge growth and thus a reasonable PEG ratio<p>- Acquirer wants some key market they have been unable to win themselves<p>- Acquirer wants some key technology, patent, or engineering know-how<p>- Acquirer wants team that has achieved something impressive to apply to acquiring company&#x27;s own product<p>- Acquirer wants to absorb client base with higher growth than they have internally<p>- Acquirer has M&amp;A execs who cant get promoted without deals<p>- Acquirer has inflated stock, so the cost is only relative to this inflated stock while the stock remains inflated</text></comment> |
26,816,991 | 26,817,108 | 1 | 2 | 26,816,444 | train | <story><title>Psilocybin 'promising' for depression</title><url>https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/health-56745139</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>simonswords82</author><text>I have a friend who has experienced magic mushrooms recreationally about half a dozen times in her 20s. After each trip she reported feeling clear headed and more mindful - she described it as though her mind&#x27;s harddrive had been defragmented.<p>Fast forward 10 years and that same friend felt low during lockdown over the past 12 months. After reading up online she decided to try microdosing mushrooms rather than the mainstream route her doctor would prescribe - anti depressants.<p>She has been taking a tiny dose every other day and feels immeasurably better. More optimistic about the future. More energy. More focus. Less sad.<p>To say it&#x27;s frustrating to read these official press releases about the positive impact of mushrooms nearly 20 years after she discovered them for the first time is the understatement of a lifetime.<p>I&#x27;m convinced we&#x27;ll look back at this era as a form of prohibition on drugs that governments threw down as a wide blanket and ultimately society was worse off for.</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>internetslave</author><text>I know a lot of people whose minds were ruined by psychedelics. It’s something you will see when you spend time in those communities. It doesn’t happen to everyone, but it’s common.</text></comment> | <story><title>Psilocybin 'promising' for depression</title><url>https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/health-56745139</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>simonswords82</author><text>I have a friend who has experienced magic mushrooms recreationally about half a dozen times in her 20s. After each trip she reported feeling clear headed and more mindful - she described it as though her mind&#x27;s harddrive had been defragmented.<p>Fast forward 10 years and that same friend felt low during lockdown over the past 12 months. After reading up online she decided to try microdosing mushrooms rather than the mainstream route her doctor would prescribe - anti depressants.<p>She has been taking a tiny dose every other day and feels immeasurably better. More optimistic about the future. More energy. More focus. Less sad.<p>To say it&#x27;s frustrating to read these official press releases about the positive impact of mushrooms nearly 20 years after she discovered them for the first time is the understatement of a lifetime.<p>I&#x27;m convinced we&#x27;ll look back at this era as a form of prohibition on drugs that governments threw down as a wide blanket and ultimately society was worse off for.</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>simion314</author><text>I have zero experience with drugs, so I am wondering if there is a sugar&#x2F;cigarette industry that put a lot of money into promoting it&#x27;s products, then what will be different when drugs get legalized?<p>Won&#x27;t we repeat the history where companies make billions from this products, put them into ads to spread the use and addict people, suppress research into bad side effects etc,.<p>Personally I think there are some good applications for mushrooms or marijuana but my instinct is that the greedy people would do what they do best, sucker people and make big money.</text></comment> |
16,930,262 | 16,930,208 | 1 | 2 | 16,929,405 | train | <story><title>'We're doomed': Mayer Hillman on the climate reality no one else dare mention</title><url>https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2018/apr/26/were-doomed-mayer-hillman-on-the-climate-reality-no-one-else-will-dare-mention</url></story><parent_chain></parent_chain><comment><author>caf</author><text>As someone who was actually around in the industry and saw the massive efforts that were made to successfully fix things, it shits me to tears when people talk about the Millenium Bug as some kind of crying-wolf moment.<p>I saw some of the awful bugs that were fixed first hand. I have no reason to doubt that my experience wasn&#x27;t replicated in important &quot;legacy systems&quot; right across the industry. Things only passed so smoothly <i>because</i> of that effort.</text></comment> | <story><title>'We're doomed': Mayer Hillman on the climate reality no one else dare mention</title><url>https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2018/apr/26/were-doomed-mayer-hillman-on-the-climate-reality-no-one-else-will-dare-mention</url></story><parent_chain></parent_chain><comment><author>ppod</author><text>Here&#x27;s the part that I don&#x27;t get (and I would be afraid to admit to this in a non-anonymous setting among my peer group).<p>I completely accept the evidence and the consensus that human action is causing global carbon levels and therefore temperature to rise. The part I don&#x27;t get is what exactly happens to the planet, our species and other animals given say, a 2C rise by 2200. Say that&#x27;s a 2 metre sea level rise. Ecosystems and societies are pretty robust to that level of change over 200 years. There would be very bad effects on some low-lying coastal cities, and the areas of the earth that are productive for different kinds of agriculture and habitats would change.<p>This is bad and we should work to avoid it, but I think that we lose credibility when we speak of the end of civilisation, or even major threats to our normal way of life globally.</text></comment> |
15,884,249 | 15,884,209 | 1 | 3 | 15,883,777 | train | <story><title>Photo-realistic lip-sync from text</title><url>http://ritheshkumar.com/obamanet/</url></story><parent_chain></parent_chain><comment><author>wizardforhire</author><text>I&#x27;m enamored and terrified at the same time.
As a documentary film editor this is going to literally save my ass for those times when production didn&#x27;t quite get it right.
As a citizen, hacker &#x2F; child of the 80&#x27;s whose watched a few successive generations come around I feel it&#x27;s going to be that much harder to have a good bullshit detector. I&#x27;ve watched in disbelief as my peers believe in whatever happens to be printed and watched culminating into our currrent fake news catastrophe. I predict an even greater rift between the skeptical few and the duped masses. Maybe there&#x27;s hope? Maybe when nothing can be believed anymore everyone will be forced to become skeptics. I doubt it though. It takes good mentors and willing minds to develop good bullshit detectors. It&#x27;s sadly not something that is obvious to most in my experience.</text></comment> | <story><title>Photo-realistic lip-sync from text</title><url>http://ritheshkumar.com/obamanet/</url></story><parent_chain></parent_chain><comment><author>js2</author><text>Radiolab episode on the subject from earlier this year:<p><a href="http:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.radiolab.org&#x2F;story&#x2F;breaking-news&#x2F;" rel="nofollow">http:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.radiolab.org&#x2F;story&#x2F;breaking-news&#x2F;</a></text></comment> |
25,338,406 | 25,338,377 | 1 | 2 | 25,336,294 | train | <story><title>SpaceX gets $886M from FCC to subsidize Starlink in 35 states</title><url>https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2020/12/spacex-gets-886-million-from-fcc-to-subsidize-starlink-in-35-states/</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>bumby</author><text>I don&#x27;t know if those who would argue against funding SpaceX take the &quot;either traditional defense contractors or SpaceX&quot; bait. I think a major argument is that there are better ways to spend the money here on Earth. I.e., it&#x27;s nobler and more feasible to protect and improve this planet than settle another one.<p>As a former space industry worker, I don&#x27;t know if I subscribe to that, but that&#x27;s the best steelmanning I can come up with.</text></item><item><author>juanbyrge</author><text>If there is any corporate entity I&#x27;d happy giving public funding, it would be SpaceX. Their end goal is to settle Mars and potentially other bodies in the solar system. Compared with the absurd amounts of money wasted on defense contractors, I am perfectly happy with funding SpaceX in every way possible.</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>fiftyfifty</author><text>This money is being spent to improve things here on Earth. This is about providing internet to underserved communities on Earth. Now you could argue that SpaceX has made it clear that they created Starlink to increase their funding for settling Mars (developing Starship etc) but at the same time StarLink stands to be a huge boon for people in communities that don&#x27;t have access to high speed internet currently and that seems like a win-win. According to the article, Charter Communications made even more money ($1.22 billion) from the FCC as part of this deal, I don&#x27;t see anyone on here complaining about how Charter chooses to spend the profits from this deal, it&#x27;s certainly not going to go to settling Mars.</text></comment> | <story><title>SpaceX gets $886M from FCC to subsidize Starlink in 35 states</title><url>https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2020/12/spacex-gets-886-million-from-fcc-to-subsidize-starlink-in-35-states/</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>bumby</author><text>I don&#x27;t know if those who would argue against funding SpaceX take the &quot;either traditional defense contractors or SpaceX&quot; bait. I think a major argument is that there are better ways to spend the money here on Earth. I.e., it&#x27;s nobler and more feasible to protect and improve this planet than settle another one.<p>As a former space industry worker, I don&#x27;t know if I subscribe to that, but that&#x27;s the best steelmanning I can come up with.</text></item><item><author>juanbyrge</author><text>If there is any corporate entity I&#x27;d happy giving public funding, it would be SpaceX. Their end goal is to settle Mars and potentially other bodies in the solar system. Compared with the absurd amounts of money wasted on defense contractors, I am perfectly happy with funding SpaceX in every way possible.</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>mabbo</author><text>The problem with the &quot;spend it here&quot; argument is that there <i>is</i> plenty of money to be spent here. Nobody wants to.<p>How many trillions are spent on war? On corporate subsidies and kickbacks on everything else? How much money is wasted in so many other stupid things? We have a GDP rising at a faster rate than our populations and have for decades. We don&#x27;t spend the that extra money helping people. We could, but we don&#x27;t.<p>And then people look to NASA and SpaceX and say &quot;Look at all that waste&quot;.<p>Meanwhile, this money is going to go to providing low-cost internet all over America (and then the rest of the world). It&#x27;s going to provide a real, tangible benefit to people at a lower cost than the alternatives.</text></comment> |
12,489,994 | 12,489,724 | 1 | 3 | 12,488,644 | train | <story><title>Fewer foreign entrepreneurs say they need the U.S.</title><url>https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/innovations/wp/2016/09/13/fewer-foreign-entrepreneurs-say-they-need-the-u-s-thats-a-problem/</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>calvinbhai</author><text>I&#x27;m really glad US has such tight immigration norms. As someone from India, it is great the see that those innovators who couldn&#x27;t get visas, are innovating outside US and living a much better life. why move be an alien in US, when you can live in home country and innovate?<p>I think the author (also an Indian turned American) has been making this point for quite a few years. Not all, but some of America&#x27;s loss is China and India&#x27;s gain.<p>India and China are so vastly different markets, that most of the products made for US really dont fit outside US. And innovating in China &#x2F; India truly help these countries!</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>rushabh</author><text>I totally agree. As a company, we lost two of our best engineers who emigrated to the US in the past year. And no, it was not because of the pay or working conditions or no equity. People have been sold the &quot;American Dream&quot; to people outside America over the decades. Young people have seen their relatives from previous generations live much better lives in the US over India.<p>Bringing people back will take time and I think once the infrastructure is fixed (which is very fixable in the next 10-15 years), most people will not think of emigrating. Having lived in the US and India, I think the society in India is as free as in the US, without the anxiety of &quot;fitting in&quot; and leaving your family behind. Also today you have access to the best products, technology and knowledge being in India so other than the physical infrastructure (housing, travel, cleanliness) the gap is much reduced.<p>I sincerely hope the immigration laws get tighter in the US so that we can build great companies, create wealth for the society, create jobs and remove hardship and poverty in India.</text></comment> | <story><title>Fewer foreign entrepreneurs say they need the U.S.</title><url>https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/innovations/wp/2016/09/13/fewer-foreign-entrepreneurs-say-they-need-the-u-s-thats-a-problem/</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>calvinbhai</author><text>I&#x27;m really glad US has such tight immigration norms. As someone from India, it is great the see that those innovators who couldn&#x27;t get visas, are innovating outside US and living a much better life. why move be an alien in US, when you can live in home country and innovate?<p>I think the author (also an Indian turned American) has been making this point for quite a few years. Not all, but some of America&#x27;s loss is China and India&#x27;s gain.<p>India and China are so vastly different markets, that most of the products made for US really dont fit outside US. And innovating in China &#x2F; India truly help these countries!</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>kamaal</author><text>Also, Tighter immigration is just one part of the story. India itself has grown up and fixed a lot of its issues. Apart from the current generation, even the generation that saw the first wave of benefits of 1990&#x27;s reforms has already reaped far more benefits than their peers who moved to US around the same time. Most are disproportionately rich, have had better careers and family&#x2F;social circles in India.<p>My guess is as more things get fixed in India(which they will), and more situation improves here, it will be harder by the day to think of restarting your life elsewhere while your peers do better than you back home. At the end nobody wants to end up being worse off than their peers despite doing a lot more of that extra work as immigrant in a foreign land.<p>Now we are in the second generation of this trend. Among my friends who moved to the US for MS and never returned. Most of us in India have done better on nearly every count.<p>Essentially today immigration to a foreign country in India has been reduced to a social status issue.<p>The actual financial reasons have been drying out for a while and very few remain today.</text></comment> |
34,571,748 | 34,571,638 | 1 | 2 | 34,570,065 | train | <story><title>FCC threatens to disconnect Twilio for illegal robocalls</title><url>https://commsrisk.com/fcc-threatens-to-disconnect-twilio-for-illegal-robocalls/</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>roywashere</author><text>I’m in Europe and hardly ever receive unsolicited SMS or phone calls. Somehow, at least to me, this seems like a US problem. Why is that? What does EU do that it is not a problem here? Or does it just mean that we have a ‘business opportunity’ here?</text></item><item><author>troydavis</author><text>Of the robocalls and text message spam that I tracked back to the originating carrier (OCN), by far the two largest source carriers were:<p>1. Commio and its subsidiaries Teli and thinQ (commio.com and teli.net)<p>2. Telnyx (telnyx.com)<p>If the FCC reads this comment: look into those two. In particular, both companies do a poor job of policing their resellers&#x2F;affiliates. Even when a recipient is savvy enough to find the source OCN and report it to them, the spammers just move from one reseller to a different reseller of the same carrier.<p>Both carriers know this and look the other way, since it&#x27;s cheaper than than investing more resources (content blocking, tighter velocity limits, carrier-verified opt-in) or removing the resellers who repeatably sign up spammers. Twilio was in the top 5, but as a % of their total traffic, nowhere near Commio&#x2F;Teli and Telnyx.<p>(And if the FCC is reading this, a wish: add a &quot;SPAM&quot; or &quot;ABUSE&quot; SMS keyword that carriers are required to process. Operationally, it would behave similar to &quot;STOP&quot;, with a couple differences: it would be entirely processed by the carrier; the carrier would be required to respond with the name and full contact info of both the carrier and their customer; and it would give responsible carriers a way to hear about&#x2F;act on abuse complaints. Right now, 10DLC spam is so hard for regular people to track that abuse mostly goes unreported.)</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>Karellen</author><text>I think it might be because in Europe the sender pays for SMS messages, but in the US, apparently the <i>recipient</i> pays for SMS messages (!)<p>AIUI, this is because in the US they don&#x27;t set aside different prefixes&#x2F;area codes for mobile&#x2F;cell numbers, so when they were first introduced and mobile calls cost more, it was unfair to bill callers extra because they had no way of knowing they would be calling a mobile number. Therefore, they put the extra cost onto the receiver of mobile calls. With this billing expectation in place, they put the cost of SMSs onto the receiver also.<p>It does mean that in the US, businesses sending SMSs to individuals are supposed to go through a &quot;double opt-in&quot; process and have really easy opt-out procedures, on pain of the FCC having some kind of punitive actions available. But I guess they must not be working, or something.<p>Or my info may be out of date?</text></comment> | <story><title>FCC threatens to disconnect Twilio for illegal robocalls</title><url>https://commsrisk.com/fcc-threatens-to-disconnect-twilio-for-illegal-robocalls/</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>roywashere</author><text>I’m in Europe and hardly ever receive unsolicited SMS or phone calls. Somehow, at least to me, this seems like a US problem. Why is that? What does EU do that it is not a problem here? Or does it just mean that we have a ‘business opportunity’ here?</text></item><item><author>troydavis</author><text>Of the robocalls and text message spam that I tracked back to the originating carrier (OCN), by far the two largest source carriers were:<p>1. Commio and its subsidiaries Teli and thinQ (commio.com and teli.net)<p>2. Telnyx (telnyx.com)<p>If the FCC reads this comment: look into those two. In particular, both companies do a poor job of policing their resellers&#x2F;affiliates. Even when a recipient is savvy enough to find the source OCN and report it to them, the spammers just move from one reseller to a different reseller of the same carrier.<p>Both carriers know this and look the other way, since it&#x27;s cheaper than than investing more resources (content blocking, tighter velocity limits, carrier-verified opt-in) or removing the resellers who repeatably sign up spammers. Twilio was in the top 5, but as a % of their total traffic, nowhere near Commio&#x2F;Teli and Telnyx.<p>(And if the FCC is reading this, a wish: add a &quot;SPAM&quot; or &quot;ABUSE&quot; SMS keyword that carriers are required to process. Operationally, it would behave similar to &quot;STOP&quot;, with a couple differences: it would be entirely processed by the carrier; the carrier would be required to respond with the name and full contact info of both the carrier and their customer; and it would give responsible carriers a way to hear about&#x2F;act on abuse complaints. Right now, 10DLC spam is so hard for regular people to track that abuse mostly goes unreported.)</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>scooke</author><text>I was a micro-entrepeneur, or auto-entrepeneur, in France, and unsolicited calls and messages started the very next day I registered. Don&#x27;t ask me the about the email spam.</text></comment> |
24,408,212 | 24,408,281 | 1 | 3 | 24,407,674 | train | <story><title>Adam Curry launches a new, open podcast directory</title><url>https://podnews.net/update/podcast-index-open-directory</url></story><parent_chain></parent_chain><comment><author>flerchin</author><text>I remember when he did this 15 years ago. He hosted fraudulently uploaded podcasts with ad-inserts. Along with his podcast network that literally stole the names from several of the biggest podcasts at the time through their Podshow Contract. This looks to be exactly the same. Scammers gonna scam.</text></comment> | <story><title>Adam Curry launches a new, open podcast directory</title><url>https://podnews.net/update/podcast-index-open-directory</url></story><parent_chain></parent_chain><comment><author>cowmix</author><text>Not a huge Curry fan but I&#x27;m REALLY not a fan of the co-host of his podcast. I have been reading John C Dvorak, in real-time, since the mid-80s. I challenge you to find someone so consistently wrong about technology and be wrong in the most douchebag way possible.</text></comment> |
12,493,537 | 12,487,594 | 1 | 3 | 12,487,112 | train | <story><title>GitLab Master Plan</title><url>https://about.gitlab.com/2016/09/13/gitlab-master-plan/</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>mikepurvis</author><text>Makes for a tough pitch at an established shop with existing tools already in place.</text></item><item><author>theunquietone</author><text>Hey Paul - All great notes. We believe in a single solution from idea to production. More about that here: <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;about.gitlab.com&#x2F;direction&#x2F;#scope" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;about.gitlab.com&#x2F;direction&#x2F;#scope</a><p>We hope to make it easy to go to a single place for everything needed for development from issue boards, CI, analytics, etc. The unified UX for this tool is key and we are hiring a great team to support that goal.<p>Later today we&#x27;re having a live event to talk more about that vision and answer questions. <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;page.gitlab.com&#x2F;20160913_unveilingmasterplan_landingpage.html" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;page.gitlab.com&#x2F;20160913_unveilingmasterplan_landing...</a><p>Again, love the notes and how you&#x27;re thinking about this. Happy we are aligned!<p>Edit: Sorry! Removed the signature. Habit :)</text></item><item><author>PaulRobinson</author><text>It&#x27;s interesting to me how much effort is being spent on adding tools like issue tracking, build pipelines, deploy management, etc. vs just providing good hooks for standalone tools that do all those things.<p>We have discussions about Jenkins vs Concourse, where to keep ansible vault passwords, should documentation live in Github wiki or in Confluence (apparently &quot;tech&quot; documentation in the form, &quot;business&quot; documentation in the latter - what if it&#x27;s both? Who decides?), and so on.<p>There is something nice about being able to go to a single place and saying &quot;OK, it&#x27;s all here in this box&quot;. Github has made inroads with some of this stuff, but not quite enough. Gitlab could try and do all this, but then people will moan (&quot;I prefer JIRA&#x2F;Trello&#x2F;whatever&quot;).<p>Most of the pain around developer&#x2F;business workflow around us at the moment actually comes down to the fact that nobody has _really_ thought about providing a great unified UX for all of this.<p>Part of the concern is people want to be &quot;flexible&quot;. No, dictate, just make sure what you dictate is a better solution to what people have.<p>If GitLab get it right, github could be a minor player (unless they keep up) in a few years time.</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>sytse</author><text>We want to play nice with established tools and give people the option to use them.<p>We have:<p>1. Extensive JIRA integration (and we&#x27;re working on improving this) <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;docs.gitlab.com&#x2F;ee&#x2F;project_services&#x2F;jira.html" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;docs.gitlab.com&#x2F;ee&#x2F;project_services&#x2F;jira.html</a><p>2. Jenkins support <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;docs.gitlab.com&#x2F;ee&#x2F;integration&#x2F;jenkins.html" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;docs.gitlab.com&#x2F;ee&#x2F;integration&#x2F;jenkins.html</a> via our commit status API <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;docs.gitlab.com&#x2F;ee&#x2F;api&#x2F;commits.html" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;docs.gitlab.com&#x2F;ee&#x2F;api&#x2F;commits.html</a><p>3. Slack integration <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;gitlab.com&#x2F;gitlab-org&#x2F;gitlab-ce&#x2F;blob&#x2F;master&#x2F;doc&#x2F;project_services&#x2F;slack.md" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;gitlab.com&#x2F;gitlab-org&#x2F;gitlab-ce&#x2F;blob&#x2F;master&#x2F;doc&#x2F;proj...</a> and we&#x27;re working on a Slack bot <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;gitlab.com&#x2F;gitlab-org&#x2F;gitlab-ce&#x2F;issues&#x2F;20799" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;gitlab.com&#x2F;gitlab-org&#x2F;gitlab-ce&#x2F;issues&#x2F;20799</a><p>We realize that we should allow other tools to integrate well and want to open up as much as we can via API&#x27;s.</text></comment> | <story><title>GitLab Master Plan</title><url>https://about.gitlab.com/2016/09/13/gitlab-master-plan/</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>mikepurvis</author><text>Makes for a tough pitch at an established shop with existing tools already in place.</text></item><item><author>theunquietone</author><text>Hey Paul - All great notes. We believe in a single solution from idea to production. More about that here: <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;about.gitlab.com&#x2F;direction&#x2F;#scope" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;about.gitlab.com&#x2F;direction&#x2F;#scope</a><p>We hope to make it easy to go to a single place for everything needed for development from issue boards, CI, analytics, etc. The unified UX for this tool is key and we are hiring a great team to support that goal.<p>Later today we&#x27;re having a live event to talk more about that vision and answer questions. <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;page.gitlab.com&#x2F;20160913_unveilingmasterplan_landingpage.html" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;page.gitlab.com&#x2F;20160913_unveilingmasterplan_landing...</a><p>Again, love the notes and how you&#x27;re thinking about this. Happy we are aligned!<p>Edit: Sorry! Removed the signature. Habit :)</text></item><item><author>PaulRobinson</author><text>It&#x27;s interesting to me how much effort is being spent on adding tools like issue tracking, build pipelines, deploy management, etc. vs just providing good hooks for standalone tools that do all those things.<p>We have discussions about Jenkins vs Concourse, where to keep ansible vault passwords, should documentation live in Github wiki or in Confluence (apparently &quot;tech&quot; documentation in the form, &quot;business&quot; documentation in the latter - what if it&#x27;s both? Who decides?), and so on.<p>There is something nice about being able to go to a single place and saying &quot;OK, it&#x27;s all here in this box&quot;. Github has made inroads with some of this stuff, but not quite enough. Gitlab could try and do all this, but then people will moan (&quot;I prefer JIRA&#x2F;Trello&#x2F;whatever&quot;).<p>Most of the pain around developer&#x2F;business workflow around us at the moment actually comes down to the fact that nobody has _really_ thought about providing a great unified UX for all of this.<p>Part of the concern is people want to be &quot;flexible&quot;. No, dictate, just make sure what you dictate is a better solution to what people have.<p>If GitLab get it right, github could be a minor player (unless they keep up) in a few years time.</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>omnibrain</author><text>But it&#x27;s a great pitch for a shop with limited ressources that currently has nothing.</text></comment> |
3,085,929 | 3,085,680 | 1 | 3 | 3,085,417 | train | <story><title>Why FSF Founder Richard Stallman is Wrong on Steve Jobs</title><url>http://www.readwriteweb.com/enterprise/2011/10/why-fsf-founder-richard-stallm.php?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+readwriteweb+%28ReadWriteWeb%29</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>calibraxis</author><text>[There goes my karma...]<p>Since a lot of people here seemed to have an emotional reaction to Jobs' passing, I had no desire to say anything here. But now the topic is Stallman, and for whatever reason, people are wanting to discuss his comments.<p>I (and probably most people I know) don't think Stallman's comments are a big deal. Steve was known for acting cruelly to people; apparently acted like a sociopath. If he treated people like shit when he was alive, then it's not the end of the world when someone says a few less-than-respectful things about him when he's gone.<p>When confronted with the death of someone he disliked, I doubt Steve would be so sentimental. (At least not inwardly.)</text></item><item><author>redthrowaway</author><text>Free Software truly does deserve better than RMS. The guy is just about the least-suited person to being a spokesman (or any public figure) I've seen. As a hacker and behind-the-scenes guy, sure. But his complete lack of tact, social skills, and presentability makes him more harmful than helpful as a figurehead.</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>kprobst</author><text>&#62; Steve was known for acting cruelly to people; apparently acted like a sociopath<p>Stallman is also a sociopath by your definition then; remember his comments in some mailing list when someone announced they had had a child. There are plenty of other examples. Richard Stallman is an asshole. A brilliant and useful asshole, but an asocial asshole incapable of basic empathy nonetheless.<p>I don't <i>admire</i> either of them (though I'd give more credit to Stallman for fighting the good and difficult fight all these years), but it seems to me that Stallman's supporters behave exactly the way they claim Jobs' supporters do - by eulogizing and finding excuses for the ugly sides of their heroes and claiming "the others" are a cult.<p>History is full of brilliant and useful assholes. both Jobs and Stallman should be given their rightful due and called on their failings. But neither of them should be casting aspersions about the other (not that Jobs can do that anymore). At some level they are fundamentally the same.</text></comment> | <story><title>Why FSF Founder Richard Stallman is Wrong on Steve Jobs</title><url>http://www.readwriteweb.com/enterprise/2011/10/why-fsf-founder-richard-stallm.php?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+readwriteweb+%28ReadWriteWeb%29</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>calibraxis</author><text>[There goes my karma...]<p>Since a lot of people here seemed to have an emotional reaction to Jobs' passing, I had no desire to say anything here. But now the topic is Stallman, and for whatever reason, people are wanting to discuss his comments.<p>I (and probably most people I know) don't think Stallman's comments are a big deal. Steve was known for acting cruelly to people; apparently acted like a sociopath. If he treated people like shit when he was alive, then it's not the end of the world when someone says a few less-than-respectful things about him when he's gone.<p>When confronted with the death of someone he disliked, I doubt Steve would be so sentimental. (At least not inwardly.)</text></item><item><author>redthrowaway</author><text>Free Software truly does deserve better than RMS. The guy is just about the least-suited person to being a spokesman (or any public figure) I've seen. As a hacker and behind-the-scenes guy, sure. But his complete lack of tact, social skills, and presentability makes him more harmful than helpful as a figurehead.</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>jacobolus</author><text><i>Arrogant</i>? For sure. <i>Narcissistic</i> even? perhaps. <i>Sociopath</i>? Give me a fucking break.</text></comment> |
5,680,467 | 5,680,428 | 1 | 3 | 5,680,258 | train | <story><title>A solution for designers who don't know Wordpress</title><url>http://bckmn.com/naked-wordpress/</url></story><parent_chain></parent_chain><comment><author>kijin</author><text>I remember when I first tried to learn the WordPress Codex. It was way more difficult than it had any right to be, not only because of the strange format of WordPress themes (Why would you call a function to start a loop?) but also because WordPress didn't ship with any theme that could serve as a good example.<p>The default theme was, and still is, too bloated for learners to wrap their heads around. It has too many features, too many branches, and too many sub-templates extending the main template, due to the fact that it also needs to serve as a showcase for all of WordPress's features. I resorted to downloading the most minimalistic third-party theme that I could find, cleaned it up some more, and used it as a base for all the themes I've written since then.<p>I'm glad that someone finally made an open-source theme specifically for the purpose of being a rock-solid base for other themes. This is something that should have been done by the core developers 10 years ago. I don't know how much longer we'll have to suffer the sprawling spaghetti monster that WordPress is, but since a lot of us are stuck with it anyway, why not make our lives easier for the time being!<p>P.S. Please add a link to the GitHub repository, too. Some of us prefer git clones to tarballs.</text></comment> | <story><title>A solution for designers who don't know Wordpress</title><url>http://bckmn.com/naked-wordpress/</url></story><parent_chain></parent_chain><comment><author>steveinator</author><text>This is one of the better things to come across Hacker News recently. People will hate on Wordpress all they want, but at the end of the day I still have to support a bunch of clients that use it.</text></comment> |
19,132,422 | 19,130,601 | 1 | 2 | 19,129,378 | train | <story><title>Plummeting insect numbers 'threaten collapse of nature'</title><url>https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2019/feb/10/plummeting-insect-numbers-threaten-collapse-of-nature</url></story><parent_chain></parent_chain><comment><author>gdubs</author><text>We have to change how we grow food. Endless monocrops of corn and soy – much of it grown for animals in industrial feedlots – totally void of biodiversity. Without competition, well-adapted bugs can wipe out entire crops. Hence, the ever-escalating war of farmer vs bugs, fields drenched in pesticides.<p>There are alternatives: Agroforestry, silvopasture, permaculture. Diverse agricultural systems that lean on natural processes. It would mean a diet of more plants, less animals. But frankly, meat is far too cheap. None of the externalities are priced in.<p>I stopped eating meat years ago, but still eat fish on occasion. I would rather pay $100 for sushi, than live in a world with no fish.</text></comment> | <story><title>Plummeting insect numbers 'threaten collapse of nature'</title><url>https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2019/feb/10/plummeting-insect-numbers-threaten-collapse-of-nature</url></story><parent_chain></parent_chain><comment><author>canada_dry</author><text>It&#x27;s not hard to imagine tobacco like lawsuits in the next decade or so that may well uncover how the likes of monsanto&#x2F;bayer et al knew and hid that their products were killing too broadly, but that it was too costly to care.</text></comment> |
3,862,497 | 3,861,115 | 1 | 3 | 3,859,506 | train | <story><title>Time To Get Past Facebook And Invent A New Future</title><url>http://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2012/04/the-jig-is-up-time-to-get-past-facebook-and-invent-a-new-future/256046/</url><text></text></story><parent_chain><item><author>rohern</author><text>This article is spot on in its thesis, though not always in its arguments.<p>Everyone is convinced -- because the people who work in marketing are happy because they can sell ads -- that social media is an important thing. It is not.<p>Social media is people doing what they were already doing, only more often and anywhere. Flirting with girls, talking with friends, etc. Making these activities digital is not changing society or improving lives. It is the same society and the same lives, with more time spent on these activities. Never has anyone gone to bed thinking "Gosh, I wish I had spent more time looking at funny pictures of strangers today." People often go to bed regretting not doing what they could have done when instead they were on Facebook and Twitter and [insert the names of 90% of the startups you have heard of].<p>Every founder will go on and on about "changing the world" if you let him. This is as if changing the world were something worth doing for its own sake. If you see a problem that is worth fixing and you fix it, then the change effected is important and even virtuous. But the key is that problem must be worth solving. Just because a petulant and spoiled American wants his iced mocha faster does not mean that speeding up sales of mocha is a worthy problem. Can you make money doing it? Probably.<p>I went to school to become an engineer (I'm 24) because I thought that computers and the internet were going to make invention and innovation possible even for people who did not work for industrial laboratories. Maybe the hugely reduced barriers to entry into the technology sector that resulted from cheap computers and good programming tools would lead young and eager people of brilliance to found ambitious companies to finally -- aren't we all sick of being exasperated by the mediocrity of culture and politics in the past 20 years? -- steer human life into better modes of existence and a new frontier of boldness. Sure, the internet cannot do this all on its own, but is such a powerful and promising tool, that maybe it would start things.<p>This has not happened. There are a few gems like SpaceX and Willow Garage that seek out challenge in this way, but they are doing it independent of the cheapness and openness that computers now allow. Worse, many of the companies that have been founded are dedicated to aggressively ruining the internet by making it a place for sucking up private information, showing ads, and selling the same old useless junk.<p>What it seems to me this article is about is that innovation in technology right now is about money, not about betterment. A billion dollars was just spent on Instagram. To do what? If you are so in the bubble of the "startup world" that you do not see the self-evident absurdity of a situation in which that is a possible and reasonable event, you are become blinded.<p>Stop thinking like a marketer and think like an inventor with balls. Stop trying to get rich unless you are getting rich by doing something that is worth doing.<p>I write this as someone who honestly loves technology, hacking, the hacker ethic, and HN, but I walk around Palo Alto every day being slowly crushed by disappointment. The problem is not that the good hackers are being spread across too many companies, it is that too many companies are not doing things worthy of hackers.</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>mseebach</author><text>&#62; Social media is people doing what they were already doing, only more often and anywhere. Flirting with girls, talking with friends, etc. Making these activities digital is not changing society or improving lives.<p>That is completely wrong from my experience. By the same logic the mobile phone didn't improve anything because you could already call people on land lines (and indeed, people argued <i>exactly that</i>). E-mail didn't improve anything, rather it was damaging, because people stopped writing letters.<p>Facebook has improved my life. A lot. It has enabled (not enhanced, <i>enabled</i>) loose but very enjoyable contact with acquaintances I hadn't seen for ten years. The light-weight way of staying in touch is perfect for keeping associated with my network in my former city after I moved. I get a steady stream of pics and status updates from my sister and her kids. People I've met travelling years ago suddenly mention they're coming through my city, and we catch up, or vice versa.<p>All of these COULD be facilitated using pre-Facebook technology, but pre-Facebook experiences suggests that they didn't.</text></comment> | <story><title>Time To Get Past Facebook And Invent A New Future</title><url>http://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2012/04/the-jig-is-up-time-to-get-past-facebook-and-invent-a-new-future/256046/</url><text></text></story><parent_chain><item><author>rohern</author><text>This article is spot on in its thesis, though not always in its arguments.<p>Everyone is convinced -- because the people who work in marketing are happy because they can sell ads -- that social media is an important thing. It is not.<p>Social media is people doing what they were already doing, only more often and anywhere. Flirting with girls, talking with friends, etc. Making these activities digital is not changing society or improving lives. It is the same society and the same lives, with more time spent on these activities. Never has anyone gone to bed thinking "Gosh, I wish I had spent more time looking at funny pictures of strangers today." People often go to bed regretting not doing what they could have done when instead they were on Facebook and Twitter and [insert the names of 90% of the startups you have heard of].<p>Every founder will go on and on about "changing the world" if you let him. This is as if changing the world were something worth doing for its own sake. If you see a problem that is worth fixing and you fix it, then the change effected is important and even virtuous. But the key is that problem must be worth solving. Just because a petulant and spoiled American wants his iced mocha faster does not mean that speeding up sales of mocha is a worthy problem. Can you make money doing it? Probably.<p>I went to school to become an engineer (I'm 24) because I thought that computers and the internet were going to make invention and innovation possible even for people who did not work for industrial laboratories. Maybe the hugely reduced barriers to entry into the technology sector that resulted from cheap computers and good programming tools would lead young and eager people of brilliance to found ambitious companies to finally -- aren't we all sick of being exasperated by the mediocrity of culture and politics in the past 20 years? -- steer human life into better modes of existence and a new frontier of boldness. Sure, the internet cannot do this all on its own, but is such a powerful and promising tool, that maybe it would start things.<p>This has not happened. There are a few gems like SpaceX and Willow Garage that seek out challenge in this way, but they are doing it independent of the cheapness and openness that computers now allow. Worse, many of the companies that have been founded are dedicated to aggressively ruining the internet by making it a place for sucking up private information, showing ads, and selling the same old useless junk.<p>What it seems to me this article is about is that innovation in technology right now is about money, not about betterment. A billion dollars was just spent on Instagram. To do what? If you are so in the bubble of the "startup world" that you do not see the self-evident absurdity of a situation in which that is a possible and reasonable event, you are become blinded.<p>Stop thinking like a marketer and think like an inventor with balls. Stop trying to get rich unless you are getting rich by doing something that is worth doing.<p>I write this as someone who honestly loves technology, hacking, the hacker ethic, and HN, but I walk around Palo Alto every day being slowly crushed by disappointment. The problem is not that the good hackers are being spread across too many companies, it is that too many companies are not doing things worthy of hackers.</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>unimpressive</author><text>&#62;People often go to bed regretting not doing what they could have done when instead they were on Facebook and Twitter and [insert the names of 90% of the startups you have heard of].<p>I know I have. Many more times than I care to admit.<p>&#62;it is that too many companies are not doing things worthy of hackers.<p>Excellent. And since I always ask this question of people who lament the status quo:<p>What <i>did</i> you have in mind?</text></comment> |
8,412,079 | 8,411,705 | 1 | 3 | 8,411,532 | train | <story><title>The Most Ambitious Environmental Lawsuit Ever</title><url>http://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2014/10/02/magazine/mag-oil-lawsuit.html</url></story><parent_chain></parent_chain><comment><author>rayiner</author><text>What&#x27;s tough and utterly ignored by this article is that it&#x27;s not just the lobbyists who oppose you, it&#x27;s ordinary people. There is a sincere and deep seated belief that it&#x27;s morally objectionable to ask companies to answer for their actions in a court of law, that there are no alternatives to destroying the environment, and that such lawsuits threaten the existence of economies like that in Lousiana.<p>That&#x27;s why these politicians can take actions in favor of the industry with impunity.<p>&gt; Jones figured there would be a period of quiescence while the industry decided how to respond. Within hours, Jindal, who was in Aspen, Colo., at a meeting of the Republican Governors Association, released a statement. “This is nothing but a windfall for a handful of trial lawyers,” Jindal said, arguing that the suit came “at the expense of our coast and thousands of hardworking Louisianians who help fuel America by working in the energy industry.”<p>85% of people in Louisiana buy this stuff up. They&#x27;ll buy it up until all the oil is gone, and when the companies leave they&#x27;ll have no jobs and their state will be a wasteland unfit for any other sort of economy.<p>To be fair, it&#x27;s not just Louisiana. During the last Presidential election, Obama and Romney literally fought during one debate to show who was more pro-coal. There&#x27;s no point in doing that if you&#x27;re just after campaign donations--the coal companies can do their own advertising. No, such theatrics are to get votes in places like West Virginia, Pennsylvania, southeastern Illinois, etc.</text></comment> | <story><title>The Most Ambitious Environmental Lawsuit Ever</title><url>http://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2014/10/02/magazine/mag-oil-lawsuit.html</url></story><parent_chain></parent_chain><comment><author>selimthegrim</author><text>I saw John Barry speak; had no idea he had a doctorate. Brought down the house, a real barnstormer.</text></comment> |
9,033,854 | 9,033,783 | 1 | 3 | 9,032,685 | train | <story><title>DATAcide: The Total Annihilation of Life as We Know It</title><url>https://www.adbusters.org/magazine/115/datacide-total-annihilation-life-we-know-it.html</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>Chlorus</author><text>TL;DR
&quot;I&#x27;ve built my own echo chamber!&quot;</text></item><item><author>Snhr</author><text>TLDR; I&#x27;ve done what you&#x27;ve done on a massive scale.<p>Most things end up depressing me if I follow them, knowing people are willingly participating in such an absence of brain activity. I had to stop myself from constantly scrolling down on facebook when I was bored (I realized I don&#x27;t even actually read what people post most of the time because I&#x27;m looking for something interesting, but I still subconsciously notice what people are doing somehow.) I&#x27;m not against this by any means, so don&#x27;t take this as me complaining. I don&#x27;t know what&#x27;s popular right now, I don&#x27;t know what is trending on twitter. What&#x27;s left is my little bubble where I have what I need to explore what I&#x27;m interested in. I can find interesting articles, I can find new music, and I can talk to people who actually are interesting to talk to. I&#x27;ve completely cut off any noise and am completely left with pure signal.<p>I&#x27;m completely out of touch with most everybody, and I&#x27;ve never felt better. I guess this goes hand in hand with being super introverted, I couldn&#x27;t imagine actually holding a conversation with anybody around me with the information I know that wasn&#x27;t super technical or completely shallow. I&#x27;ve lived with this obvious gap between me and other people my entire life though so it doesn&#x27;t even feel lonely anymore when I can just find whatever I need to keep myself occupied when I&#x27;m bored.<p>The beauty of the internet.</text></item><item><author>api</author><text>&quot;if you are tired of talking about the same old thing, go somewhere that isn&#x27;t doing that.&quot;<p>I was getting bored with music a while back, so I did an experiment: I limited the music on my phone to nothing older than five years. To do this I had to remove hundreds of albums.<p>At first there wasn&#x27;t much left, so I went looking... for nothing released more than five years ago.<p>I found quite a bit of new stuff.<p>Eventually I re-added old stuff I loved, but my musical repertoire had broadened quite a bit.<p>Part of the problem today is that the amount of signal around us has increased so much that it&#x27;s overwhelming, and people haven&#x27;t yet learned that it&#x27;s <i>okay</i> to tune out a significantly larger amount of chatter than what they had to tune out in previous eras. It feels like ignorance, or being &quot;out of the loop,&quot; but it&#x27;s essential.<p>I plan on repeating the music experiment regularly. I should probably purge some of my &quot;feeds&quot; too.</text></item><item><author>kasey_junk</author><text>I quite liked this piece to read as art. But there are some pretty simple solutions to the general malaise he is expressing:<p>1) get out of the myopic SV culture. There are lots of actually interesting problems to solve (even in the very small world of software) and if you are tired of talking about the same old thing, go somewhere that isn&#x27;t doing that.<p>2) if you aren&#x27;t interested by the data you are consuming, don&#x27;t interact with it. Don&#x27;t consume facebook, twitter, HN, et. al. Or more realistically only consume the ones that add value to your life. It&#x27;s harder to opt out of being collected in the massive hoovering of this data, but in nearly all instances out of sight, really is out of mind.</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>ctdonath</author><text>To the contrary, seems he built an anechoic chamber. The only signals he perceives is what he wants, cleanly. He has decided what he <i>doesn&#x27;t</i> want, knows that most signals out there are just variants on the same such content, and blocks it all.<p>I&#x27;m approaching half a century old. Comes a point where you realize you <i>have</i> heard it all, and are not interested in anything &quot;new&quot; because it isn&#x27;t. I&#x27;m this -&gt;&lt;- close to shutting it all off and going seriously minimalistic. The tipping point would be a news service which presents only actual need-to-know news, and a stream of new music.<p>Address, enumerate, and centralize your core axioms. Build from there. <i>Stop letting others dump $#!^ in your head.</i></text></comment> | <story><title>DATAcide: The Total Annihilation of Life as We Know It</title><url>https://www.adbusters.org/magazine/115/datacide-total-annihilation-life-we-know-it.html</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>Chlorus</author><text>TL;DR
&quot;I&#x27;ve built my own echo chamber!&quot;</text></item><item><author>Snhr</author><text>TLDR; I&#x27;ve done what you&#x27;ve done on a massive scale.<p>Most things end up depressing me if I follow them, knowing people are willingly participating in such an absence of brain activity. I had to stop myself from constantly scrolling down on facebook when I was bored (I realized I don&#x27;t even actually read what people post most of the time because I&#x27;m looking for something interesting, but I still subconsciously notice what people are doing somehow.) I&#x27;m not against this by any means, so don&#x27;t take this as me complaining. I don&#x27;t know what&#x27;s popular right now, I don&#x27;t know what is trending on twitter. What&#x27;s left is my little bubble where I have what I need to explore what I&#x27;m interested in. I can find interesting articles, I can find new music, and I can talk to people who actually are interesting to talk to. I&#x27;ve completely cut off any noise and am completely left with pure signal.<p>I&#x27;m completely out of touch with most everybody, and I&#x27;ve never felt better. I guess this goes hand in hand with being super introverted, I couldn&#x27;t imagine actually holding a conversation with anybody around me with the information I know that wasn&#x27;t super technical or completely shallow. I&#x27;ve lived with this obvious gap between me and other people my entire life though so it doesn&#x27;t even feel lonely anymore when I can just find whatever I need to keep myself occupied when I&#x27;m bored.<p>The beauty of the internet.</text></item><item><author>api</author><text>&quot;if you are tired of talking about the same old thing, go somewhere that isn&#x27;t doing that.&quot;<p>I was getting bored with music a while back, so I did an experiment: I limited the music on my phone to nothing older than five years. To do this I had to remove hundreds of albums.<p>At first there wasn&#x27;t much left, so I went looking... for nothing released more than five years ago.<p>I found quite a bit of new stuff.<p>Eventually I re-added old stuff I loved, but my musical repertoire had broadened quite a bit.<p>Part of the problem today is that the amount of signal around us has increased so much that it&#x27;s overwhelming, and people haven&#x27;t yet learned that it&#x27;s <i>okay</i> to tune out a significantly larger amount of chatter than what they had to tune out in previous eras. It feels like ignorance, or being &quot;out of the loop,&quot; but it&#x27;s essential.<p>I plan on repeating the music experiment regularly. I should probably purge some of my &quot;feeds&quot; too.</text></item><item><author>kasey_junk</author><text>I quite liked this piece to read as art. But there are some pretty simple solutions to the general malaise he is expressing:<p>1) get out of the myopic SV culture. There are lots of actually interesting problems to solve (even in the very small world of software) and if you are tired of talking about the same old thing, go somewhere that isn&#x27;t doing that.<p>2) if you aren&#x27;t interested by the data you are consuming, don&#x27;t interact with it. Don&#x27;t consume facebook, twitter, HN, et. al. Or more realistically only consume the ones that add value to your life. It&#x27;s harder to opt out of being collected in the massive hoovering of this data, but in nearly all instances out of sight, really is out of mind.</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>JonnieCache</author><text>The problem is, it&#x27;s becoming necessary to live in some kind of chamber in order to stay sane. Staring into the infinite void of indiscernible and contradictory truth forever is more than the brain can handle. More than mine anyway.<p>The challenge is to maintain the right mix of echoes in your chamber.</text></comment> |
27,733,818 | 27,733,483 | 1 | 2 | 27,730,567 | train | <story><title>The future is in symmetrical, high-speed internet speeds</title><url>https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2021/07/future-symmetrical-high-speed-internet-speeds</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>crazygringo</author><text>I&#x27;m not convinced.<p>Take current 100&#x2F;20 Mbps speeds. An average Zoom call uses 0.6 Mbps upstream, while a super-HD 1080p one uses 3.8 Mbps up. (And virtually nobody videoconferences from home in 1080p anyways, who wants coworkers to see your skin blemishes in maximum detail?!)<p>So a connection or 20 Mbps upload supports 33 users in theory, or 5 at super-HD. Even allowing half that in practice... seems fine to me.<p>The 100 Mbps <i>download</i> is necessary when you&#x27;ve got someone watching an 8K VR video on their headset, and a few 1080p movie streams going as well, which is more reasonable in a family setting.<p>But most people just don&#x27;t have any use for upload speeds anywhere near as fast as download. Or at least certainly not until we start doing 8K 3D video calls in front of massive 3D displays, which isn&#x27;t anytime soon...<p>[1] <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;support.zoom.us&#x2F;hc&#x2F;en-us&#x2F;articles&#x2F;201362023-System-requirements-for-Windows-macOS-and-Linux#h_d278c327-e03d-4896-b19a-96a8f3c0c69c" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;support.zoom.us&#x2F;hc&#x2F;en-us&#x2F;articles&#x2F;201362023-System-r...</a></text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>colechristensen</author><text>&gt;But most people just don&#x27;t have any use for upload speeds anywhere near as fast as download. Or at least certainly not until we start doing 8K 3D video calls in front of massive 3D displays, which isn&#x27;t anytime soon...<p>Most people don&#x27;t have any use for upload speeds because very few have upload speeds that can be used in an interesting way.<p>If lots of people had lots of upload, you might start to see widespread commercial products for home-hosting what currently goes in cloud providers and social media sites.</text></comment> | <story><title>The future is in symmetrical, high-speed internet speeds</title><url>https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2021/07/future-symmetrical-high-speed-internet-speeds</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>crazygringo</author><text>I&#x27;m not convinced.<p>Take current 100&#x2F;20 Mbps speeds. An average Zoom call uses 0.6 Mbps upstream, while a super-HD 1080p one uses 3.8 Mbps up. (And virtually nobody videoconferences from home in 1080p anyways, who wants coworkers to see your skin blemishes in maximum detail?!)<p>So a connection or 20 Mbps upload supports 33 users in theory, or 5 at super-HD. Even allowing half that in practice... seems fine to me.<p>The 100 Mbps <i>download</i> is necessary when you&#x27;ve got someone watching an 8K VR video on their headset, and a few 1080p movie streams going as well, which is more reasonable in a family setting.<p>But most people just don&#x27;t have any use for upload speeds anywhere near as fast as download. Or at least certainly not until we start doing 8K 3D video calls in front of massive 3D displays, which isn&#x27;t anytime soon...<p>[1] <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;support.zoom.us&#x2F;hc&#x2F;en-us&#x2F;articles&#x2F;201362023-System-requirements-for-Windows-macOS-and-Linux#h_d278c327-e03d-4896-b19a-96a8f3c0c69c" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;support.zoom.us&#x2F;hc&#x2F;en-us&#x2F;articles&#x2F;201362023-System-r...</a></text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>DaiPlusPlus</author><text>&gt; while a super-HD 1080p one uses 3.8 Mbps up. (And virtually nobody videoconferences from home in 1080p anyways, who wants coworkers to see your skin blemishes in maximum detail?!)<p>I posit the real reason is because <i>no-one</i> makes a decent webcam for desktops and laptops, not even Apple.</text></comment> |
24,896,067 | 24,895,191 | 1 | 3 | 24,878,116 | train | <story><title>Rethinking Attention with Performers</title><url>https://ai.googleblog.com/2020/10/rethinking-attention-with-performers.html</url></story><parent_chain></parent_chain><comment><author>underdeserver</author><text>This is about the machine learning concepts of Attention and Performers.<p>I was hoping for some help holding my attention and performing better, was disappointed :&#x2F;</text></comment> | <story><title>Rethinking Attention with Performers</title><url>https://ai.googleblog.com/2020/10/rethinking-attention-with-performers.html</url></story><parent_chain></parent_chain><comment><author>desmap</author><text>OT: I want to get into transformers for NLP, what&#x27;s the best way?<p>About me: Mostly done TS the last years. Dipped into Python, a bit pandas, a bit numpy, a bit Kaggle for the last 3-4 weeks.<p>Why I ask: It&#x27;s so easy to get lost, this field is wide, e.g. I spent days with spaCy, CoreNLP, etc. before I learned that transformers-based stuff exist and outperform former.</text></comment> |
20,022,817 | 20,022,948 | 1 | 2 | 20,022,186 | train | <story><title>Why is chicken so cheap? [video]</title><url>https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JiYVoHEV5hs</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>RandallBrown</author><text>Wow, 39 is much shorter than I expected.<p>I guess it makes sense, because how else could you keep up with demand, but my view of animal lifecycles only has stuff like bugs fully maturing so quickly.<p>Interesting stuff.<p>Now my question is why are bananas so cheap? They come all the way from like Brazil, but they&#x27;re still cheaper than the apple that is grown just a couple hours from me.</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>anon5579</author><text>Regarding bananas, I would recommend taking a look at the history of the United Fruit Company: <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;en.wikipedia.org&#x2F;wiki&#x2F;United_Fruit_Company" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;en.wikipedia.org&#x2F;wiki&#x2F;United_Fruit_Company</a><p>It&#x27;s really a fascinating but tragic history of the exploitation of &quot;banana republics&quot; where banana exports become so profitable that a US-based company owned more land in some Central American countries than anyone else. They had (have?) huge fleets of ships solely for the purpose of bringing bananas into the US.<p>It is quite a long and complicated story, and there are more than a few books written about it.</text></comment> | <story><title>Why is chicken so cheap? [video]</title><url>https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JiYVoHEV5hs</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>RandallBrown</author><text>Wow, 39 is much shorter than I expected.<p>I guess it makes sense, because how else could you keep up with demand, but my view of animal lifecycles only has stuff like bugs fully maturing so quickly.<p>Interesting stuff.<p>Now my question is why are bananas so cheap? They come all the way from like Brazil, but they&#x27;re still cheaper than the apple that is grown just a couple hours from me.</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>ymolodtsov</author><text>Bananas are very easy &amp; cheap to transport which led to them becoming a more popular fruit, accelerating demand and supply, etc, etc.<p>They can be delivered while they are green and sturdy and then they are kept in ethylene atmosphere which makes them ripe so they can be instantly sold to the consumers.</text></comment> |
38,233,918 | 38,228,444 | 1 | 3 | 38,227,463 | train | <story><title>Starship’s second flight test</title><url>https://www.spacex.com/launches/mission/?missionId=starship-flight-2</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>Xenoamorphous</author><text>Any hints on how this is going to change civilisation, for non-space nerds?</text></item><item><author>happytiger</author><text>It’s bonkers. It’s absolutely bonkers. I feel like I’m witnessing the creation of the wheel.<p>Non-space nerds don’t quite understand why it’s so exciting. But I can’t imagine how much this is going to change the world, and civilization. It’s kind of the equivalent of going from local freighters to the Seawise Giant in one iteration.</text></item><item><author>modeless</author><text>If Starship meets its reusability goals it&#x27;s going to be absolutely nuts. Flying to orbit and back multiple times in a day like an airliner or something, carrying more than the entire habitable volume of ISS every time. It&#x27;s impossible to overstate how much that would change access to space, and how much of an advantage it would give SpaceX over its competitors (even other nations).</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>somenameforme</author><text>How much do you think it would cost to send a bottle of water to space? Even on a Falcon Heavy you&#x27;re looking at spending around $700 [1] to send one 16oz bottle of water. That&#x27;s a far better than past times, where it&#x27;d cost around $25,000 to send it up on the Space Shuttle. But with Starship? You&#x27;re looking at that price drop to as low as $5!<p>Because of this, trying to meaningfully predict the future is not possible. You&#x27;re looking at a incomparably large revolutionary leap being made overnight. Up until now costs have made any significant scale space project a complete non-starter. If Starship succeeds, then costs will instantly become almost entirely irrelevant. Space colonization, industry, tourism, mining, and so all become completely viable - instantly. Really, everything becomes viable. Space just becomes another domain for casual exploration, exploitation, and expansion.<p>I think this is why everybody is waiting before adapting. So many industries are simply impossible to even toy with, without Starship. And while it seems ever more imminent, there is of course still the possibility that it somehow ultimately proves unviable, or perhaps it only sends that bottle of water down to $300, which would still be a great leap forward, but probably not far enough ahead to really open the door to space, just yet.<p>[1] - <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;en.wikipedia.org&#x2F;wiki&#x2F;Space_launch_market_competition#2010-2020s:_Competition_and_pricing_pressure" rel="nofollow noreferrer">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;en.wikipedia.org&#x2F;wiki&#x2F;Space_launch_market_competitio...</a></text></comment> | <story><title>Starship’s second flight test</title><url>https://www.spacex.com/launches/mission/?missionId=starship-flight-2</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>Xenoamorphous</author><text>Any hints on how this is going to change civilisation, for non-space nerds?</text></item><item><author>happytiger</author><text>It’s bonkers. It’s absolutely bonkers. I feel like I’m witnessing the creation of the wheel.<p>Non-space nerds don’t quite understand why it’s so exciting. But I can’t imagine how much this is going to change the world, and civilization. It’s kind of the equivalent of going from local freighters to the Seawise Giant in one iteration.</text></item><item><author>modeless</author><text>If Starship meets its reusability goals it&#x27;s going to be absolutely nuts. Flying to orbit and back multiple times in a day like an airliner or something, carrying more than the entire habitable volume of ISS every time. It&#x27;s impossible to overstate how much that would change access to space, and how much of an advantage it would give SpaceX over its competitors (even other nations).</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>maxlin</author><text>-Not being dependent on Earth for survival of the species as Starship in its huge capability and reasonably cheap cost, among with refuelability on Mars begins the road to believable planetary colonization<p>-Asteroid &#x2F; Moon mining<p>-Overally, being capable of going to space with more than just miniscule science-oriented payloads. FYI, ISS has cost us over a 100 billion dollars. When Starship hauls its worth in volume in one launch with just just methane and maintenance costs, it&#x27;s a whole new space age.</text></comment> |
34,948,599 | 34,948,780 | 1 | 2 | 34,946,844 | train | <story><title>“Yes, if”: Iterating on our RFC Process</title><url>https://engineering.squarespace.com/blog/2019/the-power-of-yes-if</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>JohnBooty</author><text>I wonder if anybody&#x27;s had similar experiences...<p>I&#x27;ve worked at two companies with RFC processes. At both companies, the processes were -- and I hate to use such a strong word -- a total <i>sham.</i><p>I suppose the processes were crafted to look like some egalitarian meritocracy. In reality, it was just a test of who had the most political pull. If you had management on your side, your &quot;RFC&quot; was effectively law and dissenting voices were effectively career suicide.<p>Which, you know... fine. I understand that choices are made based on cliques and political capital rather than anything else. Cool. That&#x27;s okay! Sucks sometimes, but that&#x27;s how the world works. Hopefully your org structure itself is at least <i>something</i> of a meritocracy, so that edicts from on high are of a generally high-enough quality. If they get it right-ish often enough, your org will be okay... probably.<p>But what really rankled me was the fact that the RFC processes amounted to some kind of elaborate cosplay so that, I guess, folks could pretend that there was some sort of healthy collaborative process. If you&#x27;re going to let a few &quot;popular and management-blessed&quot; engineers make all the decisions, <i>fine</i>, but don&#x27;t add insult to injury by pretending otherwise.<p>I&#x27;ve heard similar things from others, elsewhere. I hope there are at least a few companies dedicated to being something better.</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>miketery</author><text>I think the most important part of these processes is to document what’s being proposed and have a period for comments &#x2F; inputs. I also think it’s ok for a monarchy as opposed to democracy ruling what gets approved, assuming merit based is not an option.<p>In general merits (rationality?) can bubble up if it’s framed in correct way for upper levels (eg. risk, profit, time horizon), and can then sway the position.<p>But yes on average what’s decide at upper levels is gospel. But that’s how corporations function, and that’s ok.</text></comment> | <story><title>“Yes, if”: Iterating on our RFC Process</title><url>https://engineering.squarespace.com/blog/2019/the-power-of-yes-if</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>JohnBooty</author><text>I wonder if anybody&#x27;s had similar experiences...<p>I&#x27;ve worked at two companies with RFC processes. At both companies, the processes were -- and I hate to use such a strong word -- a total <i>sham.</i><p>I suppose the processes were crafted to look like some egalitarian meritocracy. In reality, it was just a test of who had the most political pull. If you had management on your side, your &quot;RFC&quot; was effectively law and dissenting voices were effectively career suicide.<p>Which, you know... fine. I understand that choices are made based on cliques and political capital rather than anything else. Cool. That&#x27;s okay! Sucks sometimes, but that&#x27;s how the world works. Hopefully your org structure itself is at least <i>something</i> of a meritocracy, so that edicts from on high are of a generally high-enough quality. If they get it right-ish often enough, your org will be okay... probably.<p>But what really rankled me was the fact that the RFC processes amounted to some kind of elaborate cosplay so that, I guess, folks could pretend that there was some sort of healthy collaborative process. If you&#x27;re going to let a few &quot;popular and management-blessed&quot; engineers make all the decisions, <i>fine</i>, but don&#x27;t add insult to injury by pretending otherwise.<p>I&#x27;ve heard similar things from others, elsewhere. I hope there are at least a few companies dedicated to being something better.</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>oscillonoscope</author><text>That&#x27;s the intended purpose and origination of these systems. In a traditional hardware firm, marketing is constantly coming up with ideas but you can&#x27;t constantly change hardware without delaying the project. So you come up with an engineering change request system. This forces marketing to go through a bit of bureaucratic pain every time they want to add something to the project. The committee acts as a gatekeeper but mostly, that little bit of extra work makes marketing self-select the more important ideas to go through the process.</text></comment> |
39,320,467 | 39,319,211 | 1 | 3 | 39,309,723 | train | <story><title>Thoughts on tech employment</title><url>https://ma.tt/2024/02/thoughts-on-tech-employment/</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>jawns</author><text>&gt; At Automattic last year we did not do layoffs, but allowed performance management and natural attrition (voluntary regrettable was 2.9%, non-regrettable 6.8% for us in 2023) to allow our size to shrink down more naturally<p>&quot;Non-regrettable&quot; attrition means either that the person was fired or laid off. Since the post says Automattic didn&#x27;t do layoffs, that means all of that attrition took the form of being fired because of performance problems.<p>If 7% of the company exited the company in a year because they were fired -- which seems quite high to me -- then even if you don&#x27;t call it a layoff, it has many of the same characteristics as a layoff.<p>In a classic layoff situation, you&#x27;ve over-hired, expecting future growth, and then the winds change, and you need to reduce the workforce to match the declining growth.<p>In a case where you&#x27;re firing 7% of the company because of performance problems, you haven&#x27;t over-hired, but you have certainly poorly hired!<p>Either way, now the remaining workforce has to adjust and &quot;do more with less,&quot; and I&#x27;m going to guess that most of them have a reasonable fear that they might be next on the chopping block!</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>kelnos</author><text>&gt; <i>&quot;Non-regrettable&quot; attrition means either that the person was fired or laid off.</i><p>Unless that&#x27;s a technical&#x2F;industry term, I assumed it additionally means people who quit, but the company did not mind seeing them go. That is, their performance was only fine-ish, maybe not down to the level where they&#x27;d get fired, but also not at a level where their departure would be lamented by their manager.</text></comment> | <story><title>Thoughts on tech employment</title><url>https://ma.tt/2024/02/thoughts-on-tech-employment/</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>jawns</author><text>&gt; At Automattic last year we did not do layoffs, but allowed performance management and natural attrition (voluntary regrettable was 2.9%, non-regrettable 6.8% for us in 2023) to allow our size to shrink down more naturally<p>&quot;Non-regrettable&quot; attrition means either that the person was fired or laid off. Since the post says Automattic didn&#x27;t do layoffs, that means all of that attrition took the form of being fired because of performance problems.<p>If 7% of the company exited the company in a year because they were fired -- which seems quite high to me -- then even if you don&#x27;t call it a layoff, it has many of the same characteristics as a layoff.<p>In a classic layoff situation, you&#x27;ve over-hired, expecting future growth, and then the winds change, and you need to reduce the workforce to match the declining growth.<p>In a case where you&#x27;re firing 7% of the company because of performance problems, you haven&#x27;t over-hired, but you have certainly poorly hired!<p>Either way, now the remaining workforce has to adjust and &quot;do more with less,&quot; and I&#x27;m going to guess that most of them have a reasonable fear that they might be next on the chopping block!</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>maximinus_thrax</author><text>&gt; &quot;Non-regrettable&quot; attrition means either that the person was fired or laid off. Since the post says Automattic didn&#x27;t do layoffs, that means all of that attrition took the form of being fired because of performance problems.<p>&gt; If 7% of the company exited the company in a year because they were fired -- which seems quite high to me -- then even if you don&#x27;t call it a layoff, it has many of the same characteristics as a layoff.<p>In my experience, this will have a way worse effect on morale than layoffs and will trigger regrettable attrition, as the smarter people in the room realize that you&#x27;re always one reorg away from having a &#x27;performance problem&#x27;. Sad.</text></comment> |
14,667,390 | 14,667,195 | 1 | 3 | 14,666,936 | train | <story><title>California solar power output sometimes exceeds predictions</title><url>http://www.latimes.com/projects/la-fi-electricity-solar/</url></story><parent_chain></parent_chain><comment><author>jessaustin</author><text>I wondered whether TFA would ever get to the cause of this waste, and eventually it did!<p><i>Once state regulators approve new plants or transmission lines, the cost is now built into the amount that the utility can charge electricity users — no matter how much or how little it is used.</i><p>Oh, so <i>that&#x27;s</i> why they kept building natural gas plants that don&#x27;t get used most of the time! If you&#x27;ve ever been to a PUC meeting, you&#x27;ve seen corruption at its most brazen. &quot;Citizens&#x27; groups&quot; entirely funded by utilities and telcos wait their turn to dutifully read the prepared statements, the commissioners dutifully thank them, and then they go to work with the rubber stamp. It doesn&#x27;t actually matter that power plants get built in a timely fashion or actually operate more than a small percentage of the time, the rate-payers are already on the hook. The only way a utility executive gets a bonus is by saddling the public with CWIP charges, so that&#x27;s what they scheme to do every working day.<p>No coal, gas, or nuclear plant should ever be built by forcing the public to do the job of investors. If investors can&#x27;t be found to support a plant that supposedly will generate for decades, maybe we should listen to the market?<p>[EDIT:] Great article, though, because it tells the whole story, and that seems rare anymore.</text></comment> | <story><title>California solar power output sometimes exceeds predictions</title><url>http://www.latimes.com/projects/la-fi-electricity-solar/</url></story><parent_chain></parent_chain><comment><author>aeturnum</author><text>Alternative title: Solar power output exceeds most optimistic predictions.<p>It seems like a non-story for a burst-y power source to occasionally produce more power than we need.</text></comment> |
19,861,625 | 19,861,543 | 1 | 2 | 19,860,093 | train | <story><title>Google Fights Back</title><url>https://stratechery.com/2019/google-fights-back/</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>pdimitar</author><text>I fully switched from Android to iOS when iPhone X came out in November 2017.<p>I realised in the next months that the perceived &quot;freedom to tinker&quot; on Android is something hugely overrated. I could achieve almost everything I wanted on my iPhone -- it just took a bit of time to find the proper apps. Later Apple added the Shortcuts which is a very solid automation app.<p>Many Android users also lament the lack of a visible filesystem but that&#x27;s a huge plus in my eyes. What are Android apps doing with that? You guessed it, scan your internal storage and SD card and upload them feck knows where (and this has been proven by many advanced Android users). iOS&#x27; sandboxing is not a bug. It&#x27;s a feature which I appreciate a lot.<p>I&#x27;ll not shy away from the fact: there are areas that I miss from Android. For example, I could have inspected WiFi strength signal with an Android phone and I cannot with a non-jailbroken iPhone.<p>Again though, as a guy who used Android phones for 4.5 years before switching to an iPhone, I found that the uncomfortable feeling of switching to an entirely new (and supposedly more &quot;locked down&quot;) ecosystem is mostly an illusion created by our brain&#x27;s unwillingness to endure big changes. You get over it very quickly. Don&#x27;t trust your brain on these matters, it floods you with non-truisms to avoid cognitive shock.<p><i>P.S.</i> I too loathe the notch. So after 15 months with the iPhone X I switched to iPhone 8 Plus. Easily the best phone on the planet to this day (plus a bigger screen and a slightly bigger battery). Now I dread the day the device will no longer be sold.</text></item><item><author>loudtieblahblah</author><text>Google is already not Google.<p>The &quot;Don&#x27;t Be Evil&quot; corporation that valued open source rather than open-washing, that valued openstandards over &quot;oops, we didn&#x27;t mean to break that for you!&quot; isn&#x27;t here anymore.<p>The company that bends over backwards, much farther than the law requires, to enable the surveillance state.<p>I despise Apple. Especially on mobile. No SDCards, no headphone jack, walled garden app stores. Ugh ugh ugh.<p>I have applications that does E2E for contacts and calendars that I&#x27;ll have to find an iOS solution for.<p>I loathe the notch.<p>But my next phone will be an iPhone.<p>Google collects so much absurd amount of data - that all the Proton-mail, DuckduckGo, Wire&#x2F;Signal, Firefox (loaded with adblocking and tracking plugins) apps in the world can&#x27;t keep you totally from it as long as you&#x27;re on Android. You disable things, you opt out of stuff and it just keeps on collecting anyways.<p>And i don&#x27;t believe for a second the data they&#x27;re allowing you to &quot;autodelete&quot; genuinely gets deleted. It just gets removed from your view.</text></item><item><author>areoform</author><text>Google owns my soul. Their boxes know when I sleep, when I wake, how much I exercise, what I listen to, my innermost thoughts, my chats with loved ones, what I watched on Netflix last night, what my company does, the flu I have at the moment, what the hypochondriac in me looks up in the middle of the night, what I buy, whom I call, what I spend money on, where I spend it...<p>I nominally pay for these services, but I suspect it makes me a vassal instead of a serf. Google consumes. Google contemplates. Google cognates. Google knows. Google sees me while I will never get to see it.<p>At face value, as long as Google is Google, everything is okay but what happens when google is Google no more? When it goes to join the great corporate farm in the sky? What happens to the exabytes of data they’ll have gathered by then? Who will own it once Google is Google no more? What will happen to our lives once the data changes hands a decade or four from now?<p>Are there any contingency plans for the largest dataset on Earth? Do we get to know these plans?<p>Who the fuck owns MySpace now?<p>Say what you will about Apple (and I’ve said a lot), at least I know where we stand. I have switched to iOS and I recommend that you should do the same. At the very least, Google will no longer know when you sleep.</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>nirvdrum</author><text>I don&#x27;t know if it falls under &quot;freedom to tinker&quot;, but having a microSD slot saved my vacation once (well, the pictures of it anyway). We were out at a children&#x27;s amusement park in the mountains with poor service, so just moving things to the cloud wasn&#x27;t an option. Deleting apps from my phone to pick up space is of course an option, but also a silly one. Swapping out the microSD card, however, was simple and I just got back to taking pictures and videos.<p>I went iPhone -&gt; Android -&gt; Windows -&gt; Android. I&#x27;d really like to get back to an iPhone for privacy reasons, but the storage situation really doesn&#x27;t work for my family. Traditionally, it&#x27;s been a low capacity entry model and then ~$100 to upgrade to each new tier, paying Apple&#x27;s wildly inflated markup. The pricing is also way out of line with our budget. I was really hoping for a new SE model for my wife.<p>I&#x27;m fairly happy with my Galaxy S9+ now, but I really miss a lot about Windows 10 Mobile. I&#x27;ll never forgive Google for doing everything in its power to make sure another mobile platform didn&#x27;t become viable.</text></comment> | <story><title>Google Fights Back</title><url>https://stratechery.com/2019/google-fights-back/</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>pdimitar</author><text>I fully switched from Android to iOS when iPhone X came out in November 2017.<p>I realised in the next months that the perceived &quot;freedom to tinker&quot; on Android is something hugely overrated. I could achieve almost everything I wanted on my iPhone -- it just took a bit of time to find the proper apps. Later Apple added the Shortcuts which is a very solid automation app.<p>Many Android users also lament the lack of a visible filesystem but that&#x27;s a huge plus in my eyes. What are Android apps doing with that? You guessed it, scan your internal storage and SD card and upload them feck knows where (and this has been proven by many advanced Android users). iOS&#x27; sandboxing is not a bug. It&#x27;s a feature which I appreciate a lot.<p>I&#x27;ll not shy away from the fact: there are areas that I miss from Android. For example, I could have inspected WiFi strength signal with an Android phone and I cannot with a non-jailbroken iPhone.<p>Again though, as a guy who used Android phones for 4.5 years before switching to an iPhone, I found that the uncomfortable feeling of switching to an entirely new (and supposedly more &quot;locked down&quot;) ecosystem is mostly an illusion created by our brain&#x27;s unwillingness to endure big changes. You get over it very quickly. Don&#x27;t trust your brain on these matters, it floods you with non-truisms to avoid cognitive shock.<p><i>P.S.</i> I too loathe the notch. So after 15 months with the iPhone X I switched to iPhone 8 Plus. Easily the best phone on the planet to this day (plus a bigger screen and a slightly bigger battery). Now I dread the day the device will no longer be sold.</text></item><item><author>loudtieblahblah</author><text>Google is already not Google.<p>The &quot;Don&#x27;t Be Evil&quot; corporation that valued open source rather than open-washing, that valued openstandards over &quot;oops, we didn&#x27;t mean to break that for you!&quot; isn&#x27;t here anymore.<p>The company that bends over backwards, much farther than the law requires, to enable the surveillance state.<p>I despise Apple. Especially on mobile. No SDCards, no headphone jack, walled garden app stores. Ugh ugh ugh.<p>I have applications that does E2E for contacts and calendars that I&#x27;ll have to find an iOS solution for.<p>I loathe the notch.<p>But my next phone will be an iPhone.<p>Google collects so much absurd amount of data - that all the Proton-mail, DuckduckGo, Wire&#x2F;Signal, Firefox (loaded with adblocking and tracking plugins) apps in the world can&#x27;t keep you totally from it as long as you&#x27;re on Android. You disable things, you opt out of stuff and it just keeps on collecting anyways.<p>And i don&#x27;t believe for a second the data they&#x27;re allowing you to &quot;autodelete&quot; genuinely gets deleted. It just gets removed from your view.</text></item><item><author>areoform</author><text>Google owns my soul. Their boxes know when I sleep, when I wake, how much I exercise, what I listen to, my innermost thoughts, my chats with loved ones, what I watched on Netflix last night, what my company does, the flu I have at the moment, what the hypochondriac in me looks up in the middle of the night, what I buy, whom I call, what I spend money on, where I spend it...<p>I nominally pay for these services, but I suspect it makes me a vassal instead of a serf. Google consumes. Google contemplates. Google cognates. Google knows. Google sees me while I will never get to see it.<p>At face value, as long as Google is Google, everything is okay but what happens when google is Google no more? When it goes to join the great corporate farm in the sky? What happens to the exabytes of data they’ll have gathered by then? Who will own it once Google is Google no more? What will happen to our lives once the data changes hands a decade or four from now?<p>Are there any contingency plans for the largest dataset on Earth? Do we get to know these plans?<p>Who the fuck owns MySpace now?<p>Say what you will about Apple (and I’ve said a lot), at least I know where we stand. I have switched to iOS and I recommend that you should do the same. At the very least, Google will no longer know when you sleep.</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>loudtieblahblah</author><text>&gt;Many Android users also lament the lack of a visible filesystem but that&#x27;s a huge plus in my eyes<p>That&#x27;s awful in my eyes. What&#x27;s more is my inability to browse that file system without a third party application when i want to simply move files to my computer.<p>The only reason I&#x27;m even contemplating the move to iOS, is b&#x2F;c I have a android based, digital audio player that has 2 SDcard slots that I keep disconnected from Wifi (and it does n&#x27;t have a 4G connection at all).<p>If my music was still on my phone, I simply would not move to iOS over this singular issue. You&#x27;re talking 250-400GB of files, not including my downloads, my pictures, my Keepass databases, my SSH keys, my certs file for my VPN, and files that I don&#x27;t want the OS to index and put in some general library.<p>It stills seem ridiculously daunting to let go of. Because I use it extensively. Daily - even without my music on there.<p>&gt;ou guessed it, scan your internal storage and SD card and upload them feck knows where (and this has been proven by many advanced Android users)<p>Except only the apps I trust are allowed storage access.</text></comment> |
32,073,829 | 32,072,515 | 1 | 3 | 32,071,020 | train | <story><title>James Webb first images – complete set of high resolution shots now live</title><url>https://webbtelescope.org/news/news-releases?Collection=First%20Images</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>chaps</author><text>Direct links --<p>Stephan&#x27;s Quintet (NIRCam and MIRI Composite Image):<p><a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;stsci-opo.org&#x2F;STScI-01G7DB1FHPMJCCY59CQGZC1YJQ.png" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;stsci-opo.org&#x2F;STScI-01G7DB1FHPMJCCY59CQGZC1YJQ.png</a><p>Southern Ring Nebula (NIRCam and MIRI Images Side by Side):<p><a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;stsci-opo.org&#x2F;STScI-01G79R28V7S4AXDN8NG5QCPGE3.png" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;stsci-opo.org&#x2F;STScI-01G79R28V7S4AXDN8NG5QCPGE3.png</a><p>“Cosmic Cliffs” in the Carina Nebula (NIRCam Image):<p><a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;stsci-opo.org&#x2F;STScI-01G7ETPF7DVBJAC42JR5N6EQRH.png" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;stsci-opo.org&#x2F;STScI-01G7ETPF7DVBJAC42JR5N6EQRH.png</a><p>Webb&#x27;s First Deep Field (NIRCam Image):<p><a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;stsci-opo.org&#x2F;STScI-01G7DDBW5NNXTJV8PGHB0465QP.png" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;stsci-opo.org&#x2F;STScI-01G7DDBW5NNXTJV8PGHB0465QP.png</a><p>Exoplanet WASP-96 b (NIRISS Transmission Spectrum):<p><a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;stsci-opo.org&#x2F;STScI-01G7NBXDHYYSVBP2M476PRGG3A.png" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;stsci-opo.org&#x2F;STScI-01G7NBXDHYYSVBP2M476PRGG3A.png</a></text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>j0e1</author><text>&gt; “Cosmic Cliffs” in the Carina Nebula (NIRCam Image):<p>&gt; <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;stsci-opo.org&#x2F;STScI-01G7ETPF7DVBJAC42JR5N6EQRH.png" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;stsci-opo.org&#x2F;STScI-01G7ETPF7DVBJAC42JR5N6EQRH.png</a><p>Is this for real?! It looks like it came right out of a Sci-Fi movie&#x2F;book. Could anyone explain how much of this is post-editing magic?</text></comment> | <story><title>James Webb first images – complete set of high resolution shots now live</title><url>https://webbtelescope.org/news/news-releases?Collection=First%20Images</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>chaps</author><text>Direct links --<p>Stephan&#x27;s Quintet (NIRCam and MIRI Composite Image):<p><a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;stsci-opo.org&#x2F;STScI-01G7DB1FHPMJCCY59CQGZC1YJQ.png" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;stsci-opo.org&#x2F;STScI-01G7DB1FHPMJCCY59CQGZC1YJQ.png</a><p>Southern Ring Nebula (NIRCam and MIRI Images Side by Side):<p><a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;stsci-opo.org&#x2F;STScI-01G79R28V7S4AXDN8NG5QCPGE3.png" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;stsci-opo.org&#x2F;STScI-01G79R28V7S4AXDN8NG5QCPGE3.png</a><p>“Cosmic Cliffs” in the Carina Nebula (NIRCam Image):<p><a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;stsci-opo.org&#x2F;STScI-01G7ETPF7DVBJAC42JR5N6EQRH.png" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;stsci-opo.org&#x2F;STScI-01G7ETPF7DVBJAC42JR5N6EQRH.png</a><p>Webb&#x27;s First Deep Field (NIRCam Image):<p><a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;stsci-opo.org&#x2F;STScI-01G7DDBW5NNXTJV8PGHB0465QP.png" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;stsci-opo.org&#x2F;STScI-01G7DDBW5NNXTJV8PGHB0465QP.png</a><p>Exoplanet WASP-96 b (NIRISS Transmission Spectrum):<p><a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;stsci-opo.org&#x2F;STScI-01G7NBXDHYYSVBP2M476PRGG3A.png" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;stsci-opo.org&#x2F;STScI-01G7NBXDHYYSVBP2M476PRGG3A.png</a></text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>rootusrootus</author><text>Thanks for the direct links!<p>&gt; Webb&#x27;s First Deep Field (NIRCam Image)<p>Is this image distorted in any way at all? It feels like the galaxies are somehow oriented around a center spot. Not all of them, but enough to give the image a distorted feeling. Probably it&#x27;s just my mind pattern matching against something that doesn&#x27;t really exist.</text></comment> |
35,348,660 | 35,348,225 | 1 | 2 | 35,345,612 | train | <story><title>EU Commission doesn't understand what's written in its own chat control bill</title><url>https://mullvad.net/en/blog/2023/3/28/the-european-commission-does-not-understand-what-is-written-in-its-own-chat-control-bill/</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>seydor</author><text>I &#x27;m actually shocked that people are OK with that. People in countries that have had dictatorships recently probably remember that. Snitches everywhere, the police raiding houses again and again for no reason, with no recourse and people were just accepting it.</text></item><item><author>dahwolf</author><text>Software is flexible which seems to result in our human rights being equally flexible.<p>Imagine the police regularly raiding your apartment without announcement. The post office opening all your mail. Storage box companies searching your unit.<p>You wouldn&#x27;t be OK with that. You&#x27;re innocent until proven guilty and a search requires a reasonable suspicion of wrongdoing and an approved warrant. Private communication is private and absolutely nobody else&#x27;s business. It&#x27;s a crime to open somebody&#x27;s mail.<p>In the digital domain, we&#x27;re fine with all of these illegal searches, either we don&#x27;t even know they happen or we do know yet let it pass, as it feels &quot;invisible&quot; and not intrusive. Plus, you&#x27;re a standup citizen so all is good.<p>And that&#x27;s how one day you end up as a bankrupted outcast for having insulted the king.</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>mananaysiempre</author><text>As a Russian student studying in Paris, it was a <i>terrifying</i> realization that the mayor can, apparently, prohibit any and all mass protests by simply issuing a decree, no higher authority needed. (This was in 2018 IIRC.) This is apparently part of the anti-terrorist law or something? I dunno, and nobody seemed to care except for the participants of the protests that were happening at the time.<p>Compared to the constant, unceasing reminders by Russian activists that the <i>de facto</i> prohibition on protests in Russia is a legal sham and the actual thing would require the president declaring a state of emergency (that only happened in 2022 and then not fully), the silence in an established democractic society was deafening.<p>The tired “freeze peach” responses on HN evoke similar feelings, as do the “private businesses can deny anything to anyone”. (Never seen a less-than-loyal artist’s concert cancelled the day before because the venue received a suggestion—not a command, mind you, a <i>suggestion</i>—from a city official’s phone? Have I got news for you.)</text></comment> | <story><title>EU Commission doesn't understand what's written in its own chat control bill</title><url>https://mullvad.net/en/blog/2023/3/28/the-european-commission-does-not-understand-what-is-written-in-its-own-chat-control-bill/</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>seydor</author><text>I &#x27;m actually shocked that people are OK with that. People in countries that have had dictatorships recently probably remember that. Snitches everywhere, the police raiding houses again and again for no reason, with no recourse and people were just accepting it.</text></item><item><author>dahwolf</author><text>Software is flexible which seems to result in our human rights being equally flexible.<p>Imagine the police regularly raiding your apartment without announcement. The post office opening all your mail. Storage box companies searching your unit.<p>You wouldn&#x27;t be OK with that. You&#x27;re innocent until proven guilty and a search requires a reasonable suspicion of wrongdoing and an approved warrant. Private communication is private and absolutely nobody else&#x27;s business. It&#x27;s a crime to open somebody&#x27;s mail.<p>In the digital domain, we&#x27;re fine with all of these illegal searches, either we don&#x27;t even know they happen or we do know yet let it pass, as it feels &quot;invisible&quot; and not intrusive. Plus, you&#x27;re a standup citizen so all is good.<p>And that&#x27;s how one day you end up as a bankrupted outcast for having insulted the king.</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>waboremo</author><text>Many struggle understanding consequences unless it&#x27;s happening directly to them at that very moment. Until then, the problem ceases to exist for them.</text></comment> |
742,076 | 742,156 | 1 | 2 | 742,029 | train | <story><title>YC startups unite to drive nail into the coffin of Internet Explorer 6</title><url>http://deals.venturebeat.com/2009/08/04/startups-unite-to-drive-nail-into-the-coffin-of-internet-explorer-6/?</url><text></text></story><parent_chain></parent_chain><comment><author>pg</author><text>This is the biggest example I've seen of the network of YC alumni organizing to do something. YC itself didn't organize this or even know about it.<p>I've been looking forward to seeing what this type of network can do that a traditionally hierarchically structured organization can't.</text></comment> | <story><title>YC startups unite to drive nail into the coffin of Internet Explorer 6</title><url>http://deals.venturebeat.com/2009/08/04/startups-unite-to-drive-nail-into-the-coffin-of-internet-explorer-6/?</url><text></text></story><parent_chain></parent_chain><comment><author>brandon272</author><text>Unfortunately, there are a huge number of corporate environments that have virtually no reason to upgrade their browsing platforms. Many of these environments don't even really have a technical reason to not do the upgrade, they are just administered by overworked staff and upgrading IE6 to something newer and safer is just at the bottom of the list.<p>The bottom line is that until the end users who have to use IE6 every day become inconvenienced enough (in the form of sites blocking them out, not warning them) or the people who pay these IT admins actually think it's a priority, we're not going to make much headway on this issue.<p>With that said, I think that initiatives like this are a great start. What I would like to see is a distributed technical effort to encourage upgrades, which is what they are doing, followed up a technical effort to block access to IE6 starting on a specific date. Let the note of encouragement that participants place on their sites let users know that unless their browser is upgraded, they will be unable to access the site as of June 1, 2010.<p>Eventually these IT admins will be placed in the position of having to choose between keeping IE6 to support their legacy intranet applications and upgrading IE6 because third party sites have started to implement functionality that IE6 doesn't support.</text></comment> |
18,582,076 | 18,581,928 | 1 | 2 | 18,581,269 | train | <story><title>Receiving NOAA Weather Satellite Images with $10 USB SDR Device (2014) [video]</title><url>https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0efTTWMl3v0</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>josephgl</author><text>A $10 SDR device sure, but then he’s using a $200+ antenna!<p>There is a link in the video description for a DIY alternative, but its a little intimidating for a beginner like me (there are no WIP pictures!)<p>Anyone have any tips&#x2F;links for someone interested in building a DIY, lower cost antenna for receiving these weather satellite signals?</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>viraptor</author><text>You can make them pretty easily. I made a qfh one for ~$30 worth of PVC and cable. <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;photos.app.goo.gl&#x2F;TLMZWZmkAuBJtUPz6" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;photos.app.goo.gl&#x2F;TLMZWZmkAuBJtUPz6</a><p>Similar to what this person&#x27;s doing: <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.instructables.com&#x2F;id&#x2F;NOAA-Satellite-Signals-with-a-PVC-QFH-Antenna-and-&#x2F;" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.instructables.com&#x2F;id&#x2F;NOAA-Satellite-Signals-with...</a></text></comment> | <story><title>Receiving NOAA Weather Satellite Images with $10 USB SDR Device (2014) [video]</title><url>https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0efTTWMl3v0</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>josephgl</author><text>A $10 SDR device sure, but then he’s using a $200+ antenna!<p>There is a link in the video description for a DIY alternative, but its a little intimidating for a beginner like me (there are no WIP pictures!)<p>Anyone have any tips&#x2F;links for someone interested in building a DIY, lower cost antenna for receiving these weather satellite signals?</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>wdfx</author><text>You can apparently make a suitable antenna from a wire coat hanger or aluminium rod as such: <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.rtl-sdr.com&#x2F;simple-noaameteor-weather-satellite-antenna-137-mhz-v-dipole&#x2F;" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.rtl-sdr.com&#x2F;simple-noaameteor-weather-satellite-...</a><p>I tried this and whilst I could detect the signal carrier, I did not manage to decode more than about a few dozen lines of image.<p>sdr-radio V3 with its satellite tracking plugin makes the receiver part easy, and does the Doppler correction for you.</text></comment> |
31,077,025 | 31,077,019 | 1 | 2 | 31,076,495 | train | <story><title>Why the Arrest of a Lebanese Doctor Should Terrify Every Visitor to the UAE</title><url>https://insidearabia.com/why-the-arrest-of-a-lebanese-doctor-should-terrify-every-visitor-to-the-uae/</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>dwater</author><text>It was the location of the movie &quot;Sex and the City 2&quot;. The UAE has put a huge effort into internationally branding themselves as a luxury tourism destination. I imagine there are loads of visitors who have no idea what the laws or legal system are like.</text></item><item><author>foobarian</author><text>As if anyone traveling to a place like that is not already terrified.</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>apohn</author><text>&gt;It was the location of the movie &quot;Sex and the City 2&quot;.<p>It wasn&#x27;t filmed there. It was filmed in Morocco and they just said it took place in Abu Dhabi. The UAE government said they couldn&#x27;t film there.<p><a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;en.wikipedia.org&#x2F;wiki&#x2F;Sex_and_the_City_2#Filming" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;en.wikipedia.org&#x2F;wiki&#x2F;Sex_and_the_City_2#Filming</a><p>It might seem like a random topic for me to know, but I lived in UAE for a portion of my life and the government is pretty mindful of having their name associated with some of the themes you&#x27;d typically see with that particular TV series. So I was quite surprised when they claimed it was Abu Dhabi, and not surprised that they actually filmed it elsewhere.</text></comment> | <story><title>Why the Arrest of a Lebanese Doctor Should Terrify Every Visitor to the UAE</title><url>https://insidearabia.com/why-the-arrest-of-a-lebanese-doctor-should-terrify-every-visitor-to-the-uae/</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>dwater</author><text>It was the location of the movie &quot;Sex and the City 2&quot;. The UAE has put a huge effort into internationally branding themselves as a luxury tourism destination. I imagine there are loads of visitors who have no idea what the laws or legal system are like.</text></item><item><author>foobarian</author><text>As if anyone traveling to a place like that is not already terrified.</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>dillondoyle</author><text>I can&#x27;t find it.. but i read an article last week that went through how these oppressive governments are using sports (and their money) to build up their image. Russia did it before their first invasion. China did it twice with the olympics.<p>the use of sports and FIFA is an example of this.<p>*qatar not uae, is the absolute worst place to hold a giant soccer tournament. They have to use special AC units inside giant stadiums (built on deaths of lots of migrant workers) because it&#x27;s a hot desert. But they claim they are still &#x27;green&#x27;<p>Saudi using art is an example too. They paid a ton of money to use the name Louvre even though their museum has nothing to do with the institution. ironically he refused to loan his $450 million &#x27;da vinci&#x27; to the real museum. Evidently sitting on a yacht hidden because good chance it&#x27;s not by da vinci&#x27;s hand.<p>As a queer person who loves to travel (or did before covid) there are some countries i just refuse to visit, despite the awesome cultural heritage. I know that citizens don&#x27;t always necessarily agree, but many do. And I just can&#x27;t support the expansion of authoritarianism - and potentially risk my life.</text></comment> |
20,930,628 | 20,929,593 | 1 | 3 | 20,928,067 | train | <story><title>WeWork Bonds Drop Below Par for First Time Since IPO Filing</title><url>https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2019-09-10/wework-bonds-drop-below-par-for-first-time-since-ipo-filing-k0dutcn0</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>cs702</author><text>It&#x27;s <i>remarkably easy</i> to make fun of WeWork, given the company&#x27;s high-as-a-kite ambitions, its largely conjectural business model, its dependence on fresh capital for survival, its charismatic CEO’s new-age antics, and its disregard for conventional norms of ethical corporate behavior.[a]<p>But if the IPO of a company as prominent as WeWork fails and the company is unable to raise the fresh capital it needs to stay afloat, we should view that as a <i>warning sign</i> that capital markets are shifting from &quot;grow at all costs&quot; to &quot;show me the profits.&quot;<p>The last time we had such a shift, in 2000, it was sudden and cruel. Many fast-growing companies found themselves unable to raise capital. Down-rounds became common. There was a wave of failures. The startup ecosystem went through a long, cold winter.[b]<p>If you are at a money-burning startup, please make sure your company has a viable plan for survival in the event that access to fresh capital is suddenly cut off.[c]<p>--<p>[a] <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;twitter.com&#x2F;shiraovide&#x2F;status&#x2F;1161601877517246464" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;twitter.com&#x2F;shiraovide&#x2F;status&#x2F;1161601877517246464</a><p>[b] <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;en.wikipedia.org&#x2F;wiki&#x2F;Dot-com_bubble#Aftermath" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;en.wikipedia.org&#x2F;wiki&#x2F;Dot-com_bubble#Aftermath</a><p>[c] Here&#x27;s a good first-hand account of a fast-growing, money-burning company that managed to survive the post-2000 environment, while most of its competitors went bankrupt: <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;a16z.com&#x2F;2010&#x2F;03&#x2F;17&#x2F;the-case-for-the-fat-startup&#x2F;" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;a16z.com&#x2F;2010&#x2F;03&#x2F;17&#x2F;the-case-for-the-fat-startup&#x2F;</a></text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>nabdab</author><text>Framing the entire market as “either you buy into this single obvious scam or everything falls apart” is extreme. WeWork has been a gamble throughout, and the latest antics just pushed investors from “yes its a bad investment long term but short term I’ll make a profit” into straight up “this bag is on fire and I’m sure it’s filled with shit so I’ll let someone else step on it”. Wework failing is not going to trigger a complete market collapse. When Theranos blew up the next Monday was business as usual for every single other company.</text></comment> | <story><title>WeWork Bonds Drop Below Par for First Time Since IPO Filing</title><url>https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2019-09-10/wework-bonds-drop-below-par-for-first-time-since-ipo-filing-k0dutcn0</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>cs702</author><text>It&#x27;s <i>remarkably easy</i> to make fun of WeWork, given the company&#x27;s high-as-a-kite ambitions, its largely conjectural business model, its dependence on fresh capital for survival, its charismatic CEO’s new-age antics, and its disregard for conventional norms of ethical corporate behavior.[a]<p>But if the IPO of a company as prominent as WeWork fails and the company is unable to raise the fresh capital it needs to stay afloat, we should view that as a <i>warning sign</i> that capital markets are shifting from &quot;grow at all costs&quot; to &quot;show me the profits.&quot;<p>The last time we had such a shift, in 2000, it was sudden and cruel. Many fast-growing companies found themselves unable to raise capital. Down-rounds became common. There was a wave of failures. The startup ecosystem went through a long, cold winter.[b]<p>If you are at a money-burning startup, please make sure your company has a viable plan for survival in the event that access to fresh capital is suddenly cut off.[c]<p>--<p>[a] <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;twitter.com&#x2F;shiraovide&#x2F;status&#x2F;1161601877517246464" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;twitter.com&#x2F;shiraovide&#x2F;status&#x2F;1161601877517246464</a><p>[b] <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;en.wikipedia.org&#x2F;wiki&#x2F;Dot-com_bubble#Aftermath" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;en.wikipedia.org&#x2F;wiki&#x2F;Dot-com_bubble#Aftermath</a><p>[c] Here&#x27;s a good first-hand account of a fast-growing, money-burning company that managed to survive the post-2000 environment, while most of its competitors went bankrupt: <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;a16z.com&#x2F;2010&#x2F;03&#x2F;17&#x2F;the-case-for-the-fat-startup&#x2F;" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;a16z.com&#x2F;2010&#x2F;03&#x2F;17&#x2F;the-case-for-the-fat-startup&#x2F;</a></text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>mrweasel</author><text>Shouldn’t “show me the profit” have been the basis for investing all the time? It’s the growth at all cost that’s dangerous.</text></comment> |
16,870,085 | 16,866,152 | 1 | 2 | 16,865,607 | train | <story><title>Uncontrollability of a bricycle (2014) [video]</title><url>https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=rNQdSfgJDNM</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>torrance</author><text>This reminds me of the backwards brain bicycle a bit [1]. I get that the argument they’re making here is one of physics - but failing to ride a counterintuitive bike isn’t something that can just be ‘done’ without a lot of practice!<p>[1] <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;youtu.be&#x2F;MFzDaBzBlL0" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;youtu.be&#x2F;MFzDaBzBlL0</a></text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>skookumchuck</author><text>A long time ago I saw a documentary where a guy wore special glasses that turned everything upside down. He wore them all day except when sleeping, and masked his eyes when sleeping. After a couple weeks, suddenly the world was right side up again.<p>But taking the headset off, now everything was upside down.</text></comment> | <story><title>Uncontrollability of a bricycle (2014) [video]</title><url>https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=rNQdSfgJDNM</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>torrance</author><text>This reminds me of the backwards brain bicycle a bit [1]. I get that the argument they’re making here is one of physics - but failing to ride a counterintuitive bike isn’t something that can just be ‘done’ without a lot of practice!<p>[1] <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;youtu.be&#x2F;MFzDaBzBlL0" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;youtu.be&#x2F;MFzDaBzBlL0</a></text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>maaaats</author><text>I have been trying to ride the other way on my fixie[0] lately. I think this is kinda the same. I know what I have to do, but instinctively it all gets wrong. I can kinda override it, but then my reactions are way too delayed. So here&#x27;s hoping for it will click some day..<p>[0]: A fixie is a bike with no freewheel. So the pedals follow the back wheel, and the other way. So if I pedal backwards, the bike goes the other way.</text></comment> |
17,580,427 | 17,578,328 | 1 | 2 | 17,573,298 | train | <story><title>Sounding the Alarm: Now Is the Time to Be a Cockroach</title><url>http://www.erica.biz/2018/cockroach/</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>rbliss</author><text>The article fails to articulate a specific reason for a market failure besides:<p>1) The market is really good right now and has had a long run so we must be at the top.<p>2) An appeal to their own authority for having &quot;trained myself to recognize the top&quot;.<p>This comes across as a scare clickbait piece devoid of substance. That&#x27;s not to say we won&#x27;t have a market failure in the near future, but without a clear rational, this specific article is junk.<p>It&#x27;s good to run a cash flow positive company, it&#x27;s good to have 6 months of savings and low debt, but please post something more substantive.</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>ericabiz</author><text>Hey rbliss, article author here. I&#x27;ve been out of pocket all day. I was getting ready for bed when I saw my article on the front page of Hacker News!<p>Your comment is fair. It&#x27;s late here, so I don&#x27;t have the mental energy right now to write the 1000+ words I would like to on this matter.<p>It&#x27;s totally worth writing another followup blog post explaining in more detail, which I&#x27;ll aim for next week.<p>But, in brief:<p>-- Flattening yield curve<p>-- Ridiculously low unemployment (&quot;full employment&quot; is the term that&#x27;s floating around)<p>-- Record high housing prices<p>-- Public corporations sinking profits into stock buybacks instead of acquisitions or capital investment (I find this a highly dangerous trend for the economy)<p>-- Consumer debt levels now higher than they were in 2008<p>-- Subprime auto loans being &quot;tranched&quot; and sold to investors much like subprime housing was in 2005-7 (and this is even worse, since cars are depreciating assets): <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.bloomberg.com&#x2F;news&#x2F;articles&#x2F;2018-07-16&#x2F;riskiest-subprime-auto-bonds-shrug-off-consumer-lending-worries" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.bloomberg.com&#x2F;news&#x2F;articles&#x2F;2018-07-16&#x2F;riskiest-...</a><p>And I saw this one yesterday: <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.feld.com&#x2F;archives&#x2F;2018&#x2F;07&#x2F;early-stage-vcs-be-careful-out-there.html" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.feld.com&#x2F;archives&#x2F;2018&#x2F;07&#x2F;early-stage-vcs-be-car...</a> -- specific to the startup&#x2F;tech field.<p>If anyone has any more questions, please feel free to ask me here, and as I said above, I&#x27;ll aim to write a more detailed followup next week.</text></comment> | <story><title>Sounding the Alarm: Now Is the Time to Be a Cockroach</title><url>http://www.erica.biz/2018/cockroach/</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>rbliss</author><text>The article fails to articulate a specific reason for a market failure besides:<p>1) The market is really good right now and has had a long run so we must be at the top.<p>2) An appeal to their own authority for having &quot;trained myself to recognize the top&quot;.<p>This comes across as a scare clickbait piece devoid of substance. That&#x27;s not to say we won&#x27;t have a market failure in the near future, but without a clear rational, this specific article is junk.<p>It&#x27;s good to run a cash flow positive company, it&#x27;s good to have 6 months of savings and low debt, but please post something more substantive.</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>NeedMoreTea</author><text>Agreed, to a point.<p>Having been through several more recessions, since the mid 70s, all have been different. Different symptoms, different causes, different sectors.<p>+ 1970s - Oil crisis &amp; OPEC<p>+ 1980s - Deliberate govt policies and adoption of monetarism<p>+ 1990s - ERM, Black Monday, US S&amp;L<p>+ 2002 - dot Com bust, post y2k contraction<p>+ 2008 - Global banking crisis<p>The nearest I&#x27;ve seen to being able to &quot;recognise the top&quot; is some young person, usually looking too young to drive, turning up on national TV financial news explaining why &quot;this time it&#x27;s different&quot;, why the boom will continue, or why the property market isn&#x27;t overheated. This is usually a clear sign that the economy is now having a Loony Tunes moment, in mid-air and not yet noticing there&#x27;s no ground any more.</text></comment> |
40,024,704 | 40,024,550 | 1 | 3 | 40,024,062 | train | <story><title>The FCC needs to stop 5G fast lanes</title><url>https://cyberlaw.stanford.edu/blog/2024/04/harmful-5g-fast-lanes-are-coming-fcc-needs-stop-them</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>EPWN3D</author><text>I was definitely someone who wrote the FCC (futilely) in support of net neutrality in 2017, and I figured the inevitable outcome of the FCC decision back then would be skyrocketing broadband costs, fast lanes, etc.<p>Except none of it happened. It turns out there&#x27;s actually kind of okay competition in this space. Maybe not as much as there should be, but prices have stayed reasonable, broadband access is expanding, and people by and large don&#x27;t seem bothered by data caps when they&#x27;re subject to them, and they have access to reasonably priced, uncapped plans.<p>All that said, I certainly won&#x27;t say no to reinstating net neutrality, since I don&#x27;t think you can argue it&#x27;ll make anything worse. In fact it might make competition easier. But it&#x27;s not the existential pillar to online existence that we seemed to think it was.</text></item><item><author>KaiserPro</author><text>The thing that is actually missing from this entire essay is competition.<p>The biggest single reason why the USA&#x27;s (and to a lesser extent Canada&#x27;s) internet is shite is because of the monopolies that exist.<p>In the EU there are similar offers for &quot;enhanced&quot; access, but its not speeding up&#x2F;slowing down apps, but giving &quot;free&quot; access, as in not counting to your data cap.<p>Instead of making the FCC stop fast lanes, the FCC should either be breaking up infrastructure from retailers (ie allowing regulated priced access like openreach) or splitting up operators and fining ones that dont provide proper access.</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>free_bip</author><text>AFAIK the actual reason most of these things did not appear is because of many states passing their own net neutrality laws, such that it would be a regulatory nightmare to offer services in violation of net neutrality without coming under fire.</text></comment> | <story><title>The FCC needs to stop 5G fast lanes</title><url>https://cyberlaw.stanford.edu/blog/2024/04/harmful-5g-fast-lanes-are-coming-fcc-needs-stop-them</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>EPWN3D</author><text>I was definitely someone who wrote the FCC (futilely) in support of net neutrality in 2017, and I figured the inevitable outcome of the FCC decision back then would be skyrocketing broadband costs, fast lanes, etc.<p>Except none of it happened. It turns out there&#x27;s actually kind of okay competition in this space. Maybe not as much as there should be, but prices have stayed reasonable, broadband access is expanding, and people by and large don&#x27;t seem bothered by data caps when they&#x27;re subject to them, and they have access to reasonably priced, uncapped plans.<p>All that said, I certainly won&#x27;t say no to reinstating net neutrality, since I don&#x27;t think you can argue it&#x27;ll make anything worse. In fact it might make competition easier. But it&#x27;s not the existential pillar to online existence that we seemed to think it was.</text></item><item><author>KaiserPro</author><text>The thing that is actually missing from this entire essay is competition.<p>The biggest single reason why the USA&#x27;s (and to a lesser extent Canada&#x27;s) internet is shite is because of the monopolies that exist.<p>In the EU there are similar offers for &quot;enhanced&quot; access, but its not speeding up&#x2F;slowing down apps, but giving &quot;free&quot; access, as in not counting to your data cap.<p>Instead of making the FCC stop fast lanes, the FCC should either be breaking up infrastructure from retailers (ie allowing regulated priced access like openreach) or splitting up operators and fining ones that dont provide proper access.</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>peddling-brink</author><text>I know there’s a gun pointed at my head, but listen, nobody has pulled the trigger yet, it’s fine.</text></comment> |
16,265,214 | 16,264,470 | 1 | 3 | 16,263,247 | train | <story><title>Advanced Denanonymization through Strava</title><url>http://steveloughran.blogspot.com/2018/01/advanced-denanonymization-through-strava.html</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>abcd_f</author><text>This is neither advanced nor denanonymization (sic).<p>They basically pluck an interesting route from the hotmap (as per other people&#x27;s recent discovery), pretend that they have also run&#x2F;biked this route and Strava will show them names of others who run&#x2F;biked the same way. That&#x27;s clever, but that&#x27;s not &quot;advanced&quot; by any means.<p>It&#x27;s also not a deanonymization as there&#x27;s really no option in Strava for public _anonymous_ sharing to begin with.</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>fortythirteen</author><text>The best hacks always appear overly simple, or even slightly benign, once explained.<p>You could potentially use the hack the author explained with one of those possible black-sites in Africa to see who&#x27;s deployed there. A little more research and you can find their home address in the states. Now, tell me an enterprising counter-intel or terrorist organization wouldn&#x27;t want that info.</text></comment> | <story><title>Advanced Denanonymization through Strava</title><url>http://steveloughran.blogspot.com/2018/01/advanced-denanonymization-through-strava.html</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>abcd_f</author><text>This is neither advanced nor denanonymization (sic).<p>They basically pluck an interesting route from the hotmap (as per other people&#x27;s recent discovery), pretend that they have also run&#x2F;biked this route and Strava will show them names of others who run&#x2F;biked the same way. That&#x27;s clever, but that&#x27;s not &quot;advanced&quot; by any means.<p>It&#x27;s also not a deanonymization as there&#x27;s really no option in Strava for public _anonymous_ sharing to begin with.</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>wallace_f</author><text>This is a good example to bring up when people talk about a digital bill of rights. It fundamentally shouldn&#x27;t be so easy to undermine individual privacy and military op sec, but when you allow private data to be shared recklessly, you get that.</text></comment> |
29,851,451 | 29,850,432 | 1 | 3 | 29,848,744 | train | <story><title>Where is every IP Address?</title><url>https://tech.marksblogg.com/where-are-ip-addresses-ipinfo.html</url></story><parent_chain></parent_chain><comment><author>Fileformat</author><text>I wrote a test page [1] to compare results from the various ip geolocation apis, including ipinfo and maxmind and 20 others.<p>This is a great article showing how ipinfo gathers their data. It would be fascinating to see how it compares to the other providers.<p>I would really like to see the results of some of the ip addresses that he says are being spoofed as US-based.<p>[1] <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;resolve.rs&#x2F;ip&#x2F;geolocation.html" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;resolve.rs&#x2F;ip&#x2F;geolocation.html</a></text></comment> | <story><title>Where is every IP Address?</title><url>https://tech.marksblogg.com/where-are-ip-addresses-ipinfo.html</url></story><parent_chain></parent_chain><comment><author>ycuser2</author><text>As a freetime project I monitor my internet connections and display them on a world map. It&#x27;s interesting to see where your traffic goes in the world and to what company. You can make statistics like &quot;which company got the most traffic or most TCP connections from me&quot;.<p>I wonder if this will be still possible with IPv6.</text></comment> |
15,543,679 | 15,543,977 | 1 | 3 | 15,543,181 | train | <story><title>Coda, a “next-generation spreadsheet” – from rows and columns to custom apps</title><url>https://www.theverge.com/2017/10/19/16497444/coda-spreadsheet-krypton-shishir-mehrotra</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>conceptoriented</author><text>&gt; Coda is a next-generation spreadsheet designed to make Excel a thing of the past<p>There are many projects aimed at making Excel &quot;a thing of the past&quot; but they focus on different needs:<p>o <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;airtable.com" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;airtable.com</a> - use tables for data organization (organize anything)<p>o <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;fieldbook.com" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;fieldbook.com</a> - spreadsheet as a database<p>o <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.rowshare.com" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.rowshare.com</a> share data (share rows, not data)<p>o <a href="http:&#x2F;&#x2F;conceptoriented.com" rel="nofollow">http:&#x2F;&#x2F;conceptoriented.com</a> - data transformations and data wrangling (I am the author)<p>o Coda - integration with documents<p>It is interesting if one of these approaches will eventually dominate or we will have a zoo of spreadsheet-like applications.</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>ryanmarsh</author><text><i>There are many projects aimed at making Excel &quot;a thing of the past&quot; but they focus on different needs:</i><p>I think this is why Excel&#x2F;Google Sheets still dominate and will continue to.<p>All of these products do one or a few things things that Excel or Google Sheet do, but perhaps they make it little easier for a novice. I think what people don&#x27;t understand about Excel (and to a lesser extent Google Sheets) is that it&#x27;s an IDE. A novice can build interesting things, a power user can build incredible things.<p>The only way to make Excel a thing of the past would be to make a blow-away awesome replacement that does everything excel does but better. There&#x27;s plenty of blue ocean around Excel and I think each of the products you listed could do just fine.<p>I would love all of Excel&#x27;s power available to me but delivered like Google Sheets. That would definitely kill Excel. So far neither Microsoft nor Google seem really committed to this. Google Sheets is nice but just grabs the low hanging spreadsheet fruit. Office 365 is anemic.<p>If I had the time and funding I&#x27;d love to make a true Excel killer that was a faithful recreation of ALL of Excel&#x27;s capabilities but delivered in a modern way. I&#x27;d pay good money for this. I believe many would. Excel may be a dinosaur, but it&#x27;s still the apex predator.</text></comment> | <story><title>Coda, a “next-generation spreadsheet” – from rows and columns to custom apps</title><url>https://www.theverge.com/2017/10/19/16497444/coda-spreadsheet-krypton-shishir-mehrotra</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>conceptoriented</author><text>&gt; Coda is a next-generation spreadsheet designed to make Excel a thing of the past<p>There are many projects aimed at making Excel &quot;a thing of the past&quot; but they focus on different needs:<p>o <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;airtable.com" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;airtable.com</a> - use tables for data organization (organize anything)<p>o <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;fieldbook.com" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;fieldbook.com</a> - spreadsheet as a database<p>o <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.rowshare.com" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.rowshare.com</a> share data (share rows, not data)<p>o <a href="http:&#x2F;&#x2F;conceptoriented.com" rel="nofollow">http:&#x2F;&#x2F;conceptoriented.com</a> - data transformations and data wrangling (I am the author)<p>o Coda - integration with documents<p>It is interesting if one of these approaches will eventually dominate or we will have a zoo of spreadsheet-like applications.</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>Glench</author><text>To throw my hat in the ring, I&#x27;m developing a prototype environment for data transformations I&#x27;m calling Flowsheets: <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.youtube.com&#x2F;watch?v=y1Ca5czOY7Q" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.youtube.com&#x2F;watch?v=y1Ca5czOY7Q</a><p>Although my goal is to use it to understand how we can write software better.</text></comment> |
39,766,424 | 39,766,649 | 1 | 2 | 39,763,458 | train | <story><title>Space Shuttle teleprinter reverse engineering</title><url>https://twitter.com/kenshirriff/status/1770188240777044079</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>generj</author><text>I am fascinated they used 60 pounds and a large amount of space for this teleprinter. At 30K per pound of payload that is $1.8 million per flight. Really shows how important reliable printed updates were considered.<p>And all the flaws of the printer that were managed around - turning it off to save power and prevent it overheating with specific tones.</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>beerandt</author><text>The thing that immediately jumped into my head is coded military use. Especially since they mention the printer being based on a military design.<p>It&#x27;s still rather obscure, if not still secret, just to what extent we were actually using the shuttles in their intended military capacity.<p>But when designed, the military use was expected to be much much higher than what panned out.<p>This printer would be high on the list of the weight budget, to the point that I wonder if it wasn&#x27;t critical protocol to some still secret military use, similar to the teletype nuke codes &#x2F; orders on a sub.<p>Running over the audio system also makes me curious if it was strictly unencrypted comms, or if it could plug in to a decrypted steam. Were they clear broadcasting coded messages, or encrypted-broadcast clear messages (or both or neither).<p>IIRC, NASA used to have at least some &#x27;private&#x27; comms with astronauts that were in the clear, but they basically just didn&#x27;t rebroadcast to the public or publicize those currently used frequencies, and just sort of trusted those in the know not to listen in.</text></comment> | <story><title>Space Shuttle teleprinter reverse engineering</title><url>https://twitter.com/kenshirriff/status/1770188240777044079</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>generj</author><text>I am fascinated they used 60 pounds and a large amount of space for this teleprinter. At 30K per pound of payload that is $1.8 million per flight. Really shows how important reliable printed updates were considered.<p>And all the flaws of the printer that were managed around - turning it off to save power and prevent it overheating with specific tones.</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>tyingq</author><text>Here&#x27;s my guess. Government bureaucracy is probably very high for anything space related. So <i>&quot;based on the military&#x27;s AN&#x2F;UGC-74&quot;</i> could have helped get it through approvals. It would have ticked a lot of boxes for ruggedized parts, use in harsh environments, and so on.</text></comment> |
15,900,940 | 15,899,642 | 1 | 3 | 15,899,397 | train | <story><title>How to Know If an Idea Is Worth Pursuing</title><url>https://www.indiehackers.com/@thwiv/how-to-know-if-an-idea-is-worth-pursuing-75501f81ad</url></story><parent_chain></parent_chain><comment><author>thewayfarer</author><text>Our educational culture has us convinced that we need to have some kind of complete mental process before we produce an answer for some problem. In school, you answer a question by recalling information, making deductions, and only after eliminating your doubts to a sufficient degree do you scratch your answer on a piece of paper. Oh, and a good student is always afraid of being wrong. It&#x27;s a mentality that we carry into adulthood only to be paralyzed by it. If only we taught kids to instinctively do and produce even at the risk of being wrong or looking like a fool later. We should habitually be exploring, doing, and engaging with problems and ideas. Pursuing the right ideas in your career should amount to selecting from your experiences and the experiences that others have shared with you. What ideas worked and what didn&#x27;t? How did the outcome conform to your expectations? It doesn&#x27;t have to be a complete and finished product. What did you learn from making this prototype? What surprised you? No doubt you&#x27;ve have many bad ideas over the years. We all have them. What projects are providing value to you because you enjoy working on them, and what projects look like they could provide real value to others in the world? Those are the projects worth pursuing for the long run.</text></comment> | <story><title>How to Know If an Idea Is Worth Pursuing</title><url>https://www.indiehackers.com/@thwiv/how-to-know-if-an-idea-is-worth-pursuing-75501f81ad</url></story><parent_chain></parent_chain><comment><author>stevenj</author><text>If your goal is to build a company, I think you should focus on the following:<p>1. Find a problem that you (or someone you know very well) have.<p>2. Look at the existing solutions to the problem and evaluate not only if you can build a better solution, but also how quickly people will switch to something better if they came across it today (i.e. How fed up are people with current offerings? How easy will it be for them to switch?).<p>3. Build and market something for a very small group of customers or users. Focus on making that group extremely happy with your product or service. (It could be as small as one customer or user at first.)</text></comment> |
16,582,128 | 16,582,185 | 1 | 3 | 16,579,701 | train | <story><title>AWS documentation is now open source and on GitHub</title><url>https://aws.amazon.com/blogs/aws/aws-documentation-is-now-open-source-and-on-github/</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>samschooler</author><text>Then again, Y Combinator makes no direct money off HN. AWS’ docs, if they are quality directly impacts their profit because more people can use their services more easily.</text></item><item><author>always_good</author><text>Just think of all the uncompensated value you&#x27;ve given Y Combinator every time you&#x27;ve left a quality comment on their forum.</text></item><item><author>jjeaff</author><text>Brilliant. Let unpaid volunteers fix and update the documentation for your proprietary systems so you don&#x27;t have to pay someone to do it.<p>Can someone explain to me why people will inevitably put in countless hours of free labor for Amazon here?</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>TAForObvReasons</author><text>YC does two things that aren&#x27;t directly making money but are definitely helping their portfolio companies:<p>1) Special ad positions with front-page placement (currently #22 is &quot;Willing (YC S15) Is Hiring a UI &#x2F; UX Designer&quot; <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;willing.com&#x2F;designer" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;willing.com&#x2F;designer</a> , a privileged post that can&#x27;t be voted or commented on)<p>2) The moderators can and sometimes do intervene by removing certain comments that are critical of YC companies.<p>Comments make the forum more interesting to the community, which increases eyeballs and makes the front page spots more valuable. And shaping the discourse helps with damage control when necessary.</text></comment> | <story><title>AWS documentation is now open source and on GitHub</title><url>https://aws.amazon.com/blogs/aws/aws-documentation-is-now-open-source-and-on-github/</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>samschooler</author><text>Then again, Y Combinator makes no direct money off HN. AWS’ docs, if they are quality directly impacts their profit because more people can use their services more easily.</text></item><item><author>always_good</author><text>Just think of all the uncompensated value you&#x27;ve given Y Combinator every time you&#x27;ve left a quality comment on their forum.</text></item><item><author>jjeaff</author><text>Brilliant. Let unpaid volunteers fix and update the documentation for your proprietary systems so you don&#x27;t have to pay someone to do it.<p>Can someone explain to me why people will inevitably put in countless hours of free labor for Amazon here?</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>justicezyx</author><text>AWS does makes no direct money off documentations either.<p>Engineers generally have a natural tendancy to fix things, and documentaitons are worth fixing. And it also helps their future work.</text></comment> |
39,989,392 | 39,988,657 | 1 | 2 | 39,983,233 | train | <story><title>Yes, social media is a cause of the epidemic of teenage mental illness</title><url>https://www.afterbabel.com/p/phone-based-childhood-cause-epidemic</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>myspy</author><text>That&#x27;s true. We restrict access to Snapchat, TikTok, Instagram, FB, they can use WhatsApp, YT, iMessage, Phone and Pinterest. I&#x27;m fucking annoyed by other parents that don&#x27;t set boundaries that way. I have so much discussions about other platforms. Pushing them to physically meet is hard too.<p>We grew up at a time where SMS was a thing when I became 16. I know that keeping up is cool, but social media is a disease. The amount of dumb and uneducated people that couldn&#x27;t even listen to expert advice during a fucking pandemic is driving me up the wall.<p>I&#x27;m annoyed mainly because people around me make bad decisions that have an influence on my own life.</text></item><item><author>whstl</author><text><i>&gt; It doesn&#x27;t matter whether you abstain from using Instagram or not</i><p>Yep. The other problem is that not having social media and mobile devices can be alienating and ostracizing, especially for teenagers.<p>Avoiding the problems of social media requires skills and restraint that even most adults don’t have.<p>It is a “damned if you do, damned if you don’t” situation.</text></item><item><author>raziel2p</author><text>&gt; if you don&#x27;t like these products and feel they are negative, then don&#x27;t use them<p>It&#x27;s really not that simple. The products have become so widespread and influential that they change the very culture of our society for the worse. It doesn&#x27;t matter whether you abstain from using Instagram or not, some of your friends will still be more or less subtly influenced by its existence in your social interactions.<p>There&#x27;s a nice quote from Marshall McLuhan&#x27;s Understanding Media, which IMO hasn&#x27;t aged at all in 60 years: &quot;Our conventional response to all media, namely that it is how they are used that counts, is the numb stance of the technological idiot. For the &#x27;content&#x27; of a medium is like the juicy piece of meat carried by the burglar to distract the watchdog of the mind... The effects of technology do not occur at the level of opinions or concepts, but alter sense ratios or patterns of perception steadily and without any resistance.&quot;</text></item><item><author>rgbrenner</author><text>The author had it right in the first paragraph. In the 90s version of this hysteria, Congress passed a law that would have prevented access to education medical information, dirty curse words, and other filth from being published on the internet to protect the children. The federal government fought a case all the way to the Supreme Court to enforce it. If they had won that case, the internet would look very different today. But the Supreme Court got it right when they said it would squelch free speech.<p>You may not like FB, IG, TikTok, etc.. I certainly don&#x27;t care for any of these products. But these are communications platforms. Restricting the right to free speech does have negative consequences... from the development of critical thinking skills; development of technical skills; and limiting of educational information. Being exposed to shit on the internet teaches you there&#x27;s bullshit on the internet, and not to believe everything you see.<p>And just like the Supreme Court wrote 30 years ago, the answer is the same today: if you don&#x27;t like these products and feel they are negative, then don&#x27;t use them. Restrict your children&#x27;s access to these platforms.<p>I certainly dont believe anyone should be forced to use these platforms. I don&#x27;t use any of these products, and havent since they launched. That&#x27;s a freedom you and everyone else can take advantage of also. But those who advocate censorship aren&#x27;t advocating for freedom... they&#x27;re advocating for their personal parental decisions to the be decisions of the entire nation.</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>belorn</author><text>People tend to agree with expert advice when that advice align with their own personal views and values. Sadly both smart and dumb, educated and uneducated people falls for this and the pandemic demonstrated this in waves and continues to do so.<p>Take this study (<a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.nature.com&#x2F;articles&#x2F;s41562-020-01009-0?error=cookies_not_supported&amp;code=b4778558-acdd-452b-845a-c0354d9dc375" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.nature.com&#x2F;articles&#x2F;s41562-020-01009-0?error=coo...</a>). How many people on HN will agree with the ranking of those interventions? Early restrictions on travel and preventing people from gathering are the most effective measure to prevent an pandemic, but what people want to form sides around are the discussion around masks. Shutting down airports and imposing general self isolation are not in alignment of what either smart and dumb people believes in.</text></comment> | <story><title>Yes, social media is a cause of the epidemic of teenage mental illness</title><url>https://www.afterbabel.com/p/phone-based-childhood-cause-epidemic</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>myspy</author><text>That&#x27;s true. We restrict access to Snapchat, TikTok, Instagram, FB, they can use WhatsApp, YT, iMessage, Phone and Pinterest. I&#x27;m fucking annoyed by other parents that don&#x27;t set boundaries that way. I have so much discussions about other platforms. Pushing them to physically meet is hard too.<p>We grew up at a time where SMS was a thing when I became 16. I know that keeping up is cool, but social media is a disease. The amount of dumb and uneducated people that couldn&#x27;t even listen to expert advice during a fucking pandemic is driving me up the wall.<p>I&#x27;m annoyed mainly because people around me make bad decisions that have an influence on my own life.</text></item><item><author>whstl</author><text><i>&gt; It doesn&#x27;t matter whether you abstain from using Instagram or not</i><p>Yep. The other problem is that not having social media and mobile devices can be alienating and ostracizing, especially for teenagers.<p>Avoiding the problems of social media requires skills and restraint that even most adults don’t have.<p>It is a “damned if you do, damned if you don’t” situation.</text></item><item><author>raziel2p</author><text>&gt; if you don&#x27;t like these products and feel they are negative, then don&#x27;t use them<p>It&#x27;s really not that simple. The products have become so widespread and influential that they change the very culture of our society for the worse. It doesn&#x27;t matter whether you abstain from using Instagram or not, some of your friends will still be more or less subtly influenced by its existence in your social interactions.<p>There&#x27;s a nice quote from Marshall McLuhan&#x27;s Understanding Media, which IMO hasn&#x27;t aged at all in 60 years: &quot;Our conventional response to all media, namely that it is how they are used that counts, is the numb stance of the technological idiot. For the &#x27;content&#x27; of a medium is like the juicy piece of meat carried by the burglar to distract the watchdog of the mind... The effects of technology do not occur at the level of opinions or concepts, but alter sense ratios or patterns of perception steadily and without any resistance.&quot;</text></item><item><author>rgbrenner</author><text>The author had it right in the first paragraph. In the 90s version of this hysteria, Congress passed a law that would have prevented access to education medical information, dirty curse words, and other filth from being published on the internet to protect the children. The federal government fought a case all the way to the Supreme Court to enforce it. If they had won that case, the internet would look very different today. But the Supreme Court got it right when they said it would squelch free speech.<p>You may not like FB, IG, TikTok, etc.. I certainly don&#x27;t care for any of these products. But these are communications platforms. Restricting the right to free speech does have negative consequences... from the development of critical thinking skills; development of technical skills; and limiting of educational information. Being exposed to shit on the internet teaches you there&#x27;s bullshit on the internet, and not to believe everything you see.<p>And just like the Supreme Court wrote 30 years ago, the answer is the same today: if you don&#x27;t like these products and feel they are negative, then don&#x27;t use them. Restrict your children&#x27;s access to these platforms.<p>I certainly dont believe anyone should be forced to use these platforms. I don&#x27;t use any of these products, and havent since they launched. That&#x27;s a freedom you and everyone else can take advantage of also. But those who advocate censorship aren&#x27;t advocating for freedom... they&#x27;re advocating for their personal parental decisions to the be decisions of the entire nation.</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>nicolas_t</author><text>One of the criteria I used when choosing my son&#x27;s school is that mobile phones are not allowed at all in school. It&#x27;s a primary school (until 12 years old) so you wouldn&#x27;t think that mobile phones would be that common at that age but from what I&#x27;ve heard of other parents, smart phones are common already this early.<p>I don&#x27;t believe in completely forbidding access to everything when my son is older but there&#x27;s a time to introducing things like this and it&#x27;s not this young.</text></comment> |
39,840,604 | 39,840,204 | 1 | 3 | 39,838,580 | train | <story><title>Boeing's Dead Whistleblower Spoke the Truth</title><url>https://www.thefp.com/p/boeings-dead-whistleblower-spoke-the-truth</url></story><parent_chain></parent_chain><comment><author>FabHK</author><text>&gt; In an effort to get the plane out quickly, Boeing, with the assent of the FAA, had even told the airlines that their pilots didn’t need to conduct flight simulator tests. That was a critical mistake, because the pilots would have discovered the issue that caused the planes to crash.<p>Is that so? The simulators would have been able so simulate the failure of one of the two AOA sensors, and the simulated MCAS would&#x27;ve kicked in, issuing stabiliser trim nose-down commands, and the pilots would&#x27;ve tried to fix it with the trim nose-up switch on the yoke, and this would&#x27;ve gone back and forth a while until they&#x27;d stopped trimming up for a bit, and it would&#x27;ve simulated a crash?<p>That&#x27;s possible, but news to me. Here&#x27;s a source [0] saying &quot;the simulators have been shown to be incapable of replicating the conditions under which the two 737 MAX aircraft crashed&quot; and &quot;Boeing have discovered that their simulators cannot accurately recreate a fault with the anti-stall system.&quot;<p>Seems to me that (at least) one of the two articles is wrong.<p>[0] <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;simpleflying.com&#x2F;boeing-737-max-simulator&#x2F;" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;simpleflying.com&#x2F;boeing-737-max-simulator&#x2F;</a></text></comment> | <story><title>Boeing's Dead Whistleblower Spoke the Truth</title><url>https://www.thefp.com/p/boeings-dead-whistleblower-spoke-the-truth</url></story><parent_chain></parent_chain><comment><author>Fripplebubby</author><text>I&#x27;ve been thinking about this a lot lately.<p>In my opinion, Boeing is a company that is expected to do something about 10x more difficult than other companies: they build and sell massively complex machines that have to work safely and reliably 100% of the time (discounting planned redundancy), and even a small mistake in design or execution compromises the safety of hundreds or thousands of people, even if it takes years for the flaw to become apparent. If you couple this with all the growth in air traffic in the past few decades, I think failures like we&#x27;ve seen are nearly inevitable.<p>Honestly, even with the tragic MAX crashes, I think it&#x27;s nearly a miracle that air disasters happen as infrequently as they do (Boeing, Airbus, or what have you). People point to mismanagement at Boeing, including lately labor outsourcing &#x2F; labor arbitrage (building plants in SC instead of WA to avoid unions, Spirit Aerosystems, etc) but I see that as part of how Boeing tried to meet the growing demands of air travel. That&#x27;s not to let everybody off the hook, because clearly some changes need to take hold so that this doesn&#x27;t happen again. That&#x27;s the gold standard of the aviation industry, after all - that we can prevent a particular disaster from ever happening again, and we&#x27;re willing to spend the time and money to see it so.<p>I think all the true crime enthusiasts following the John Barnett case is just going to distract from solving the hard problems - getting the design and execution right on every single plane, 100% of the time. Professional class people have gotten used to cheap&#x2F;affordable jet travel anywhere, anytime, that is safe all the time - but I don&#x27;t think many have internalized how difficult this is to do and maintain.</text></comment> |
26,810,655 | 26,810,414 | 1 | 2 | 26,807,738 | train | <story><title>Instructions around the usage of meta robot tags and robots.txt files</title><url>https://github.com/CMSgov/price-transparency-guide/commit/bc8e96e5467202ea8f78f50582adfd221b91a948</url></story><parent_chain></parent_chain><comment><author>mimsee</author><text>Why are they banning the methods instead of saying how the pricing should be displayed. E.g. why say you cannot have &quot;noindex&quot; instead of saying &quot;the pricing information needs to be in plain-text, human-readable, accessible, indexable...&quot; and so on.</text></comment> | <story><title>Instructions around the usage of meta robot tags and robots.txt files</title><url>https://github.com/CMSgov/price-transparency-guide/commit/bc8e96e5467202ea8f78f50582adfd221b91a948</url></story><parent_chain></parent_chain><comment><author>rbinv</author><text>Nice. They should probably add HTTP headers (X-Robots-Tag) to the list. Cloaking, too.</text></comment> |
23,439,121 | 23,439,093 | 1 | 3 | 23,438,634 | train | <story><title>Patent on displaying SQL data in HTML, granted to IBM in 1998</title><url>https://patents.google.com/patent/US5737592A/</url></story><parent_chain></parent_chain><comment><author>wisecoder</author><text>IBM pays their company employees to file patents. It is also one of the key factor for promotions. That&#x27;s why you can see lot&#x27;s of stupid patents out there in IBM name.</text></comment> | <story><title>Patent on displaying SQL data in HTML, granted to IBM in 1998</title><url>https://patents.google.com/patent/US5737592A/</url></story><parent_chain></parent_chain><comment><author>wolco</author><text>Does anyone have a good software patent story? Where a small company was able to use for good or to fight off a bigger player.</text></comment> |
3,244,648 | 3,244,555 | 1 | 2 | 3,242,864 | train | <story><title>Airport full-body X-ray scanners banned across Europe as unsafe</title><url>http://www.geek.com/articles/news/airport-full-body-x-ray-scanners-banned-across-europe-as-unsafe-20111116/</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>martingordon</author><text>I experienced "security theater" just this past weekend coming back from Nashville. As the line for the x-ray scanner started to grow, they started letting people just go through the metal detectors. Once the line shrunk back down, they started forcing people to go through the scanner again.<p>I opted out of the scanner just as they started letting people go through the metal detector again. The TSA agent told me, "you know these are completely safe and no human sees the pictures anymore, right?" If I had gotten in line just a few seconds later, I wouldn't have had to go through the scanner or be subject to the enhanced pat down. I mentioned this to the TSA agent doing my screening and he said, "sometimes timing is everything". If the scanners are as necessary as they want us to think, I'm glad to know that the chance that my plane gets blown up doesn't depend on how well those scanners work but simply on whether a would-be bomber went through security during a busy period.</text></item><item><author>Cushman</author><text>Is there a reason why the concept of "security theater" hasn't caught on in the mainstream? It seems like it should be easy to oppose things that make us feel safer but objectively make us <i>less</i> safe.</text></item><item><author>tallanvor</author><text>While I'm happy to see them banned for any reason, I'd much rather they were banned on the basis that they constitute an unacceptable violation of peoples' privacy.</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>roc</author><text>The TSA has an absolutely abysmal record for catching weapons and explosives during security audits.<p>The most embarrassing bit of security theater is that, even if these new devices <i>were</i> safe, even if they <i>were</i> necessary, even if they <i>were</i> effective at presenting the relevant data to their operators, that those operators simply <i>do not catch</i> actual weapons ~80% of the time. [1]<p>And that number has been that bad year after year after year.<p>Truly, a given flight's chance of getting blown up depends on little more than the chance that someone capable <i>is trying</i> to blow it up.<p>The only comfort to be found is in the relative difficulty in assembling a suitable explosive and the low co-incidence of that skill alongside murderous intent.<p>[1] <a href="http://abcnews.go.com/Blotter/loaded-gun-slips-past-tsa-screeners/story?id=12412458" rel="nofollow">http://abcnews.go.com/Blotter/loaded-gun-slips-past-tsa-scre...</a></text></comment> | <story><title>Airport full-body X-ray scanners banned across Europe as unsafe</title><url>http://www.geek.com/articles/news/airport-full-body-x-ray-scanners-banned-across-europe-as-unsafe-20111116/</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>martingordon</author><text>I experienced "security theater" just this past weekend coming back from Nashville. As the line for the x-ray scanner started to grow, they started letting people just go through the metal detectors. Once the line shrunk back down, they started forcing people to go through the scanner again.<p>I opted out of the scanner just as they started letting people go through the metal detector again. The TSA agent told me, "you know these are completely safe and no human sees the pictures anymore, right?" If I had gotten in line just a few seconds later, I wouldn't have had to go through the scanner or be subject to the enhanced pat down. I mentioned this to the TSA agent doing my screening and he said, "sometimes timing is everything". If the scanners are as necessary as they want us to think, I'm glad to know that the chance that my plane gets blown up doesn't depend on how well those scanners work but simply on whether a would-be bomber went through security during a busy period.</text></item><item><author>Cushman</author><text>Is there a reason why the concept of "security theater" hasn't caught on in the mainstream? It seems like it should be easy to oppose things that make us feel safer but objectively make us <i>less</i> safe.</text></item><item><author>tallanvor</author><text>While I'm happy to see them banned for any reason, I'd much rather they were banned on the basis that they constitute an unacceptable violation of peoples' privacy.</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>slowpoke</author><text><i>&#62;As the line for the x-ray scanner started to grow, they started letting people just go through the metal detectors. Once the line shrunk back down, they started forcing people to go through the scanner again.</i><p>That's not even limited to airports. I've seen it on festivals and concerts as well, and I'm sure it extends to other public events. Most notably I remember the security checks at the entrances of the infield on the Wacken Open Air 2010. When Iron Maiden or other very popular bands played, they just waved everyone through. It was ridiculous, really.<p>Also, there's a really amazing video[1] from a German talkshow on Youtube where Werner Gruber[2] completely embarrasses one of the most fervent supporters of the body scanners, Wolfgang Bosbach[3] of the CDU party. He easily smuggles enough thermite to blow a decent hole into the wall of a plane through a body scanner, and later demonstrates its destructive capabilities on a frying pan.<p>[1] <a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nrKvweNugnQ" rel="nofollow">http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nrKvweNugnQ</a> - German, I sadly cannot find a subtitled version, though it's quite possible to understand the basic gist by merely watching what Gruber does (he's the slightly chubby guy with the red tie).<p>[2] <a href="http://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Werner_Gruber" rel="nofollow">http://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Werner_Gruber</a> - Also German, he has no English wikipedia entry.<p>[3] <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wolfgang_Bosbach" rel="nofollow">http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wolfgang_Bosbach</a> - Quite uninformative, the German version is much better. He's a supporter of all sorts of completely ridiculous laws and measures, including a ban of "Killer Games" (violent video games) and all sorts of surveillance and anti-privacy laws.</text></comment> |
12,081,034 | 12,079,899 | 1 | 2 | 12,079,573 | train | <story><title>Professional Software Development</title><url>http://mixmastamyk.bitbucket.org/pro_soft_dev/</url></story><parent_chain></parent_chain><comment><author>dboreham</author><text>I like this book as a means to present the ways people describe how software is developed. However, as I read I&#x27;m itching to annotate it with notes on &quot;what really happens&quot;. I&#x27;ve worked in this business for a few decades now, in various locations and various sizes of companies, including a few that are household names. I have NEVER seen software built on the ground in exactly the ways one sees documented (documented anywhere, not just in this book).<p>A couple of things I don&#x27;t see mentioned (apologies if they&#x27;re in there, I haven&#x27;t read every word):<p>1. Process does (and should) vary tremendously depending on factors including the organization size, organization maturity, market maturity, experience level of the people involved, budget, etc. The book seems to suggest that there&#x27;s a one-process-to-rule-them-all.<p>2. Often there are significant unknowns about a project : unknown technologies, unknown market needs, unknown requirements. Being able to accommodate the unknowns, which can mean not expending effort trying to know something unknowable, is important. The book I think gives an impression of quite confident smooth progress toward project completion that I personally have never observed.<p>Also: The value of Rubber Chickens is not mentioned...</text></comment> | <story><title>Professional Software Development</title><url>http://mixmastamyk.bitbucket.org/pro_soft_dev/</url></story><parent_chain></parent_chain><comment><author>mixmastamyk</author><text>Author here, writing this book was one of the hardest things I&#x27;ve ever done, and there is seemingly no end to the small issues I&#x27;ve faced (both writing and technical). Would appreciate some feedback to make it as good as it can be, AMA thanks.</text></comment> |
7,460,155 | 7,460,172 | 1 | 3 | 7,459,529 | train | <story><title>Brendan Eich becomes Mozilla CEO</title><url>https://brendaneich.com/2014/03/mozilla-news/</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>antimagic</author><text>Precisely. There is no rational[1] grounds to oppose gay marriage, so we are left with the only remaining possibility - irrational aversion to homosexuality.<p>[1] where by &quot;rational&quot; I mean justifiable with facts and statistics to back it up.</text></item><item><author>WoodenChair</author><text>So now anyone who opposes gay marriage is homophobic? You do know that homophobia is defined as &quot;an extreme and irrational aversion to homosexuality and homosexual people.&quot; (New Oxford American Dictionary)<p>Edit: Clearly I touched a nerve - before the hate mail comes in, I should clarify that I don&#x27;t oppose gay marriage. I support the elimination of government sponsored marriage all together.</text></item><item><author>anon1385</author><text>I guess 2 years is long enough for most people to have forgotten the brief storm about his homophobic political activities. I wonder if this appointment would have been made 18 months ago when that was still fresh in people&#x27;s minds. I can&#x27;t help thinking that it doesn&#x27;t really fit with the image Mozilla tries to present of themselves.<p><a href="http://tommorris.org/posts/2550" rel="nofollow">http:&#x2F;&#x2F;tommorris.org&#x2F;posts&#x2F;2550</a></text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>shasta</author><text>It&#x27;s marriage. It&#x27;s a tradition, not something which you can derive rationally. Let&#x27;s hear your rational explanation of the role of marriage. Be sure to explain why it follows logically that it should only apply to groups of two or more.<p>If you&#x27;re honest with yourself, you recognize all of this language about rationality as rhetoric in a culture war in which you&#x27;re attempting to shift cultural norms.<p>I&#x27;m for gay marriage.</text></comment> | <story><title>Brendan Eich becomes Mozilla CEO</title><url>https://brendaneich.com/2014/03/mozilla-news/</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>antimagic</author><text>Precisely. There is no rational[1] grounds to oppose gay marriage, so we are left with the only remaining possibility - irrational aversion to homosexuality.<p>[1] where by &quot;rational&quot; I mean justifiable with facts and statistics to back it up.</text></item><item><author>WoodenChair</author><text>So now anyone who opposes gay marriage is homophobic? You do know that homophobia is defined as &quot;an extreme and irrational aversion to homosexuality and homosexual people.&quot; (New Oxford American Dictionary)<p>Edit: Clearly I touched a nerve - before the hate mail comes in, I should clarify that I don&#x27;t oppose gay marriage. I support the elimination of government sponsored marriage all together.</text></item><item><author>anon1385</author><text>I guess 2 years is long enough for most people to have forgotten the brief storm about his homophobic political activities. I wonder if this appointment would have been made 18 months ago when that was still fresh in people&#x27;s minds. I can&#x27;t help thinking that it doesn&#x27;t really fit with the image Mozilla tries to present of themselves.<p><a href="http://tommorris.org/posts/2550" rel="nofollow">http:&#x2F;&#x2F;tommorris.org&#x2F;posts&#x2F;2550</a></text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>humanrebar</author><text>Why should Brendan Eich or anyone else who supported Prop 8 share any of their views when they have already been pre-judged as irrational?<p>Stuff like this is why the secret ballot exists.</text></comment> |
20,219,403 | 20,219,408 | 1 | 2 | 20,219,228 | train | <story><title>Millionaire hacker gets 9 years in death of man building nuclear bunker tunnels</title><url>https://www.baltimoresun.com/news/crime/bs-md-nuclear-bunker-fire-20190617-story.html</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>dx87</author><text>I&#x27;m suprised that he got 9 years in prison and was convicted of 2nd degree murder for this. What he was doing was definitely strange and ended up causing someone&#x27;s death, but I haven&#x27;t seen anyone from Tesla or Uber going to jail when people died because they&#x27;re beta testing autonomous cars on public roads. The double standards are crazy.</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>jessaustin</author><text>He&#x27;s a weird guy, which means certain jurors will be biased against him. He&#x27;s also an asshole, which also means certain jurors will be biased against him. Also he killed someone, even if out of negligence rather than spite. This doesn&#x27;t seem like a giant miscarriage of justice.</text></comment> | <story><title>Millionaire hacker gets 9 years in death of man building nuclear bunker tunnels</title><url>https://www.baltimoresun.com/news/crime/bs-md-nuclear-bunker-fire-20190617-story.html</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>dx87</author><text>I&#x27;m suprised that he got 9 years in prison and was convicted of 2nd degree murder for this. What he was doing was definitely strange and ended up causing someone&#x27;s death, but I haven&#x27;t seen anyone from Tesla or Uber going to jail when people died because they&#x27;re beta testing autonomous cars on public roads. The double standards are crazy.</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>tedivm</author><text>If comma.ai had killed someone while illegally testing their self driving cars I would expect someone to go to jail. If Tesla and Uber are following the laws regarding testing then they probably wouldn&#x27;t be held liable.<p>I do think there&#x27;s a huge double standard where companies get treated better than individuals, but I also think that this guy ignored enough regulations regarding construction that he should definitely be held liable for this death.</text></comment> |
32,447,482 | 32,447,435 | 1 | 2 | 32,419,404 | train | <story><title>Emacs and Eev, Or: How to Automate Almost Everything</title><url>http://angg.twu.net/eev-article.html</url></story><parent_chain></parent_chain><comment><author>edrx</author><text>Author here! Please don&#x27;t try to read the &quot;article&quot;, it is VERY obsolete! The standard (meta-)starting point is this URL: <a href="http:&#x2F;&#x2F;angg.twu.net&#x2F;#eev" rel="nofollow">http:&#x2F;&#x2F;angg.twu.net&#x2F;#eev</a></text></comment> | <story><title>Emacs and Eev, Or: How to Automate Almost Everything</title><url>http://angg.twu.net/eev-article.html</url></story><parent_chain></parent_chain><comment><author>bfennema</author><text>wrestled through a video presentaion. How I see it is the author found a way to generate a script that is both notes and commands-in-a-shell that you can execute step by step. e.g. &quot;how to install &lt;xyz&gt;&quot;. That way it functions as a sort of knowledge repository, i guess.
However, I have a hard time understanding the author as he has a very difficult way of presenting...
Despite that, there must be something to learn here, i think. Keeping this on my to-read list.</text></comment> |
25,109,524 | 25,108,760 | 1 | 2 | 25,107,556 | train | <story><title>RCEP, the world’s biggest trade agreement</title><url>https://www.economist.com/finance-and-economics/2020/11/15/the-meaning-of-rcep-the-worlds-biggest-trade-agreement</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>cocoland2</author><text>Sure , I am from India.<p>The diary sector in India is largely unorganized , these are managed as daily livelihood for poor income families who have at best a few cows that provide them with livelihood.
The co-operative sector in India mentioned how imports from NZ will wreck the system , for example the largest co-operative AMUL in India was against RCEP and imports from NZ (<a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.nationalheraldindia.com&#x2F;india&#x2F;rcep-amul-warns-modi-government-letter-to-piyush-goyal-likely-to-fall-on-deaf-ears" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.nationalheraldindia.com&#x2F;india&#x2F;rcep-amul-warns-mo...</a>)<p>The exact trade rules and local content are in many cases impossible to vet and verify and are in many cases not transparent. And given the sentiment in India , no one will take chances with China</text></item><item><author>nl</author><text>&gt; huge red flags domestically<p>Probably useful to specify what country you are in.<p>&gt; Diary[sic] &amp; associated products from NZ to India<p>NZ dairy is generally considered high quality and good cost, so it is unclear what the problem is here<p>&gt; Chinese goods getting re-routed through Vietnam<p>People say this like customs enforcement agencies don&#x27;t know about this. In some cases this is acceptable, but it depends on the exact trade rules about the amount of local content that needs to be added in a country.</text></item><item><author>cocoland2</author><text>There were several caveats in RCEP that were huge red flags domestically. For example , Diary &amp; associated products from NZ to India , Chinese goods getting re-routed through Vietnam (Manufacture a shoe in China , just label it in Vietnam and route to India) etc. that were a problem.
It is worrying that Chinese influence is grappling ASEAN economies , most times it is the worry that they won&#x27;t play fair with smaller trade partners. For once , a lot of people were happy in my state the agreement was not signed.</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>andylynch</author><text>Interesting point on Indian dairy co-ops. The NZ dairy industry, has from the very beginning had a strong co-op focus as well as being concentrated on exports, even as its beginnings in the nineteenth century.<p>Despite great pushes over the last forty years this remains in modern form to the present day and is seen by NZ farmers as an essential part of their success, as this has allowed them to pool resources and invest in the vertical integration (transport, factories, shipping) to compete overseas.
A similar structure also exists in other countries (US with DFA milk, Denmark &amp; Sweden with Arla are also in the top ten global dairy companies)<p>Until the early 1980s, NZ also operated a very protectionist trade policy dependent on access to traditional markets which ultimately failed badly. This experience and the (painful) resulting changes is a major reason why NZ is such a proponent of trade agreements and multilaterality more generally on the global stage.</text></comment> | <story><title>RCEP, the world’s biggest trade agreement</title><url>https://www.economist.com/finance-and-economics/2020/11/15/the-meaning-of-rcep-the-worlds-biggest-trade-agreement</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>cocoland2</author><text>Sure , I am from India.<p>The diary sector in India is largely unorganized , these are managed as daily livelihood for poor income families who have at best a few cows that provide them with livelihood.
The co-operative sector in India mentioned how imports from NZ will wreck the system , for example the largest co-operative AMUL in India was against RCEP and imports from NZ (<a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.nationalheraldindia.com&#x2F;india&#x2F;rcep-amul-warns-modi-government-letter-to-piyush-goyal-likely-to-fall-on-deaf-ears" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.nationalheraldindia.com&#x2F;india&#x2F;rcep-amul-warns-mo...</a>)<p>The exact trade rules and local content are in many cases impossible to vet and verify and are in many cases not transparent. And given the sentiment in India , no one will take chances with China</text></item><item><author>nl</author><text>&gt; huge red flags domestically<p>Probably useful to specify what country you are in.<p>&gt; Diary[sic] &amp; associated products from NZ to India<p>NZ dairy is generally considered high quality and good cost, so it is unclear what the problem is here<p>&gt; Chinese goods getting re-routed through Vietnam<p>People say this like customs enforcement agencies don&#x27;t know about this. In some cases this is acceptable, but it depends on the exact trade rules about the amount of local content that needs to be added in a country.</text></item><item><author>cocoland2</author><text>There were several caveats in RCEP that were huge red flags domestically. For example , Diary &amp; associated products from NZ to India , Chinese goods getting re-routed through Vietnam (Manufacture a shoe in China , just label it in Vietnam and route to India) etc. that were a problem.
It is worrying that Chinese influence is grappling ASEAN economies , most times it is the worry that they won&#x27;t play fair with smaller trade partners. For once , a lot of people were happy in my state the agreement was not signed.</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>stirlo</author><text>Sorry but that&#x27;s what free trade means.<p>If NZ produces dairy products more efficiently then they deserve the benefits. At the same time in India where manufacturing is far more efficient they have the opportunity to export as many manufactured goods to NZ as they want.<p>If the Indian government wants to tax their manufacturers to provide support to their now unemployed dairy farmers they are free to do so but ultimately both countries are better off with India paying overall less for dairy and NZ paying less for manufactured goods.</text></comment> |
19,842,412 | 19,840,790 | 1 | 3 | 19,840,742 | train | <story><title>Microsoft Is Building Internet Explorer into Its New Chromium Edge</title><url>https://www.theverge.com/2019/5/6/18527875/microsoft-chromium-edge-new-features-build-2019</url></story><parent_chain></parent_chain><comment><author>tantalor</author><text>&quot;totally seamless... you’d never be able to tell the difference... designed exclusively for businesses&quot;<p>Sounds like a security nightmare. I assume IE mode is vulnerable to XSS attacks that the normal Chromium mode protects against. So a user might be duped into thinking they are safe when they visit a random site that forces IE mode. Because it&#x27;s &quot;totally seamless&quot; they won&#x27;t notice. Better yet, it only affects business users, the prime target for XSS.</text></comment> | <story><title>Microsoft Is Building Internet Explorer into Its New Chromium Edge</title><url>https://www.theverge.com/2019/5/6/18527875/microsoft-chromium-edge-new-features-build-2019</url></story><parent_chain></parent_chain><comment><author>dfabulich</author><text>This could be the feature that finally kills off IE11. A bunch of businesses mandate IE11 to ensure compatibility with unmaintained internal systems; if they can use Edge in IE11 mode, there&#x27;s no reason to use the IE11 app.<p>(This really makes me wish IE11 mode had been a feature of Edge from the very beginning. Think of how much time we&#x27;ve lost!)</text></comment> |
4,449,072 | 4,449,090 | 1 | 2 | 4,448,500 | train | <story><title>Walking out of an interview</title><url>http://workplace.stackexchange.com/questions/3492/is-it-rude-to-leave-an-interview-early-if-you-have-already-made-your-decision</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>alecco</author><text>I strongly disagree. Perhaps he should have made up an excuse and be less confrontational. But it's not OK to let people abuse you. If you don't respect yourself nobody will.</text></item><item><author>patio11</author><text>My answer on this depends on whether we want to be an emotionally supportive group for people who make a badge of honor out of being socially and professionally inept, or whether we want to give advice which will actually move careers forward.<p>A company which is not a cultural good fit for you, and the employees thereof, can <i>still be very valuable allies.</i> I would not act to antagonize them absent substantial provocation. <i>Not being like you is not a substantial provocation.</i> Most people in the world will, after all, not be like you, and you'll end up not working for approximately all companies in the industry. That's OK.<p>You've already got the day blocked off in your calendar. Smile. Firm handshakes. Thank them for taking the time to interview you. Heck, they're giving you free live-fire practice for your next interview, <i>make the most out of it</i>. You should never say a word of criticism about the company to anyone but your primary point of contact and you should be darn circumspect with how you word it to him. (I like something along the general lines of "Thanks for your time and allowing me to get to know $FOO_CORP better. We're really in the same boat: I only want to work at employers where I'd do my best work, and you only want to hire people who'd do great things at $FOO_CORP. Having had the opportunity to hear you guys out a bit more, I don't think we're a great mutual fit. <i>I will keep my ears open for you in case any of my friends would be a good fit for your position.</i>")</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>harryh</author><text>Exactly how was he abused? He lists a few reasons:<p>1) He was criticized as being wrong for not following very dogmatic principles to the letter of the law.<p>2) He was also concerned that nobody really seemed to care much about his relevant business experience and really only judged him intensely on his programming skills, which he felt was only one aspect of his software development experience.<p>3) It was an open floor plan where everybody wore jeans, t-shirts and sandals.<p>4) The vast majority were in their early 20's with the oldest person and lead developer being 30.<p>5) They expected him to be involved in side projects and code for fun when he wasn't in the office.<p>Which of these are really abuse? Only #1 seems in any way negative, and that sounds more like a slightly bad interviewer than any sort of <i>abuse</i>. Honestly it seems like the OP felt that he was interviewing poorly and decided to walk out instead of being rejected. Now that's a perfectly natural human response; everyone wants to be in control of their own destiny.<p>But is it a professional response to some sort of abuse? No, it doesn't really seem like it.</text></comment> | <story><title>Walking out of an interview</title><url>http://workplace.stackexchange.com/questions/3492/is-it-rude-to-leave-an-interview-early-if-you-have-already-made-your-decision</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>alecco</author><text>I strongly disagree. Perhaps he should have made up an excuse and be less confrontational. But it's not OK to let people abuse you. If you don't respect yourself nobody will.</text></item><item><author>patio11</author><text>My answer on this depends on whether we want to be an emotionally supportive group for people who make a badge of honor out of being socially and professionally inept, or whether we want to give advice which will actually move careers forward.<p>A company which is not a cultural good fit for you, and the employees thereof, can <i>still be very valuable allies.</i> I would not act to antagonize them absent substantial provocation. <i>Not being like you is not a substantial provocation.</i> Most people in the world will, after all, not be like you, and you'll end up not working for approximately all companies in the industry. That's OK.<p>You've already got the day blocked off in your calendar. Smile. Firm handshakes. Thank them for taking the time to interview you. Heck, they're giving you free live-fire practice for your next interview, <i>make the most out of it</i>. You should never say a word of criticism about the company to anyone but your primary point of contact and you should be darn circumspect with how you word it to him. (I like something along the general lines of "Thanks for your time and allowing me to get to know $FOO_CORP better. We're really in the same boat: I only want to work at employers where I'd do my best work, and you only want to hire people who'd do great things at $FOO_CORP. Having had the opportunity to hear you guys out a bit more, I don't think we're a great mutual fit. <i>I will keep my ears open for you in case any of my friends would be a good fit for your position.</i>")</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>paganel</author><text>&#62; But it's not OK to let people abuse you. If you don't respect yourself nobody will.<p>Plus, it was a one-day interview. I've been in job-interviews like this one, where mid-way through the whole thing I was realizing that I would not be a good fit for them, but in my case I could afford to be patient because the interview wasn't going to last more than a couple of hours anyway. But a one-day thingie where for at least 6 hours I would be reminded of me not being worthy for the guys trying to hire me would utterly depress me. I'm scared shitless of depression (pardon my French), so I'd just run away.<p>And a second thing. Once you get through more things in life which a 20-something man hasn't confronted yet (divorce, leaving your parents behind etc.) you begin to value honest no-bullshit decisions like this one. There's no gain in playing actors.</text></comment> |
18,788,553 | 18,734,443 | 1 | 2 | 18,729,224 | train | <story><title>Gluten Free Antarctica</title><url>https://idlewords.com/2018/12/gluten_free_antarctica.htm</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>bloak</author><text>&quot;Allergy or preference?&quot; is an interesting question. For many people the answer would be neither: they suffer physical pain if they eat a significant amount of wheat - half a slice of bread might be enough to produce symptoms, for example - but it&#x27;s not technically an allergy and it&#x27;s not life-threatening. You don&#x27;t need to use different equipment for these people, but you should carefully check the list of ingredients.</text></item><item><author>themodelplumber</author><text>That is funny. I had a kind of opposite experience, when I was struggling with a bad reaction to gluten. My wife and I went to a burger joint in Utah called &quot;Mooyah&quot; where I ordered a burger on a gluten-free bun. As soon as those words left my mouth, the cashier asked, &quot;allergy or preference?&quot;<p>Stunned and wondering if I was being criticized, I said &quot;allergy&quot; only to learn that if you say that, they have to clean all possible traces of gluten off of their equipment before they make your burger.<p>&quot;Allergy!&quot; Then the action started. As I watched two employees vigorously wipe down all this stuff just to make one burger, I felt alternately shocked, amazed, well-served, and embarrassed. Others in the restaurant looked at me like I was from another planet.<p>Anyway, that was one of the best gluten-free buns I&#x27;ve ever tasted.</text></item><item><author>nradov</author><text>One of my colleagues is a vegetarian. He went on a business trip to Texas and his associates took him out for dinner at a steak house. After reading the menu he asked the waitress, &quot;Do you have anything that isn&#x27;t meat?&quot; She thought for a moment and cheerfully replied &quot;We have chicken!&quot;</text></item><item><author>wanderfowl</author><text>As a vegetarian (by ethical choice, not medical necessity), I do my best not to lose sight of the simple fact that <i>I&#x27;m</i> the problem here. When I walk into a steakhouse with my carnivorous wife, they&#x27;re helping me out by finding something to put in my stomach. If I&#x27;m on a camping trip, I&#x27;m bringing my own food, or doing my best to make it fair to folks who are helping me out. And if I&#x27;m visiting for dinner, I try to make it clear that I&#x27;m happy to scavenge sides, you don&#x27;t need to do something special for me. Because, again, my self-made diet choices are not your problem, but mine.<p>Celiac is real, folks who have it should be cut a break, and in my experience, folks who actually <i>cannot</i> eat gluten are just trying to make things work, rather than being a dick about it.<p>But deeply screw people like this lady who make a voluntary diet choice who use it as an excuse to bully others and make people cater to them. They trivialize people&#x27;s actual medical needs, breed a culture of &quot;Yeah, sure lady, there&#x27;s no gluten&quot;, work against whatever cause they&#x27;re in favor of, and largely, they&#x27;re why we can&#x27;t have nice things.</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>yakshaving_jgt</author><text>I wasn’t aware an allergy had to be life-threatening to be classified as such. In fact, double-checking with a dictionary confirms it isn’t defined that way.<p>I grew up allergic to chlorine (swimming pools). The allergic reaction was&#x2F;is eczema. This was not life threatening. For the past 12 years I’ve suffered from pollen allergy annually. Also not life-threatening.</text></comment> | <story><title>Gluten Free Antarctica</title><url>https://idlewords.com/2018/12/gluten_free_antarctica.htm</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>bloak</author><text>&quot;Allergy or preference?&quot; is an interesting question. For many people the answer would be neither: they suffer physical pain if they eat a significant amount of wheat - half a slice of bread might be enough to produce symptoms, for example - but it&#x27;s not technically an allergy and it&#x27;s not life-threatening. You don&#x27;t need to use different equipment for these people, but you should carefully check the list of ingredients.</text></item><item><author>themodelplumber</author><text>That is funny. I had a kind of opposite experience, when I was struggling with a bad reaction to gluten. My wife and I went to a burger joint in Utah called &quot;Mooyah&quot; where I ordered a burger on a gluten-free bun. As soon as those words left my mouth, the cashier asked, &quot;allergy or preference?&quot;<p>Stunned and wondering if I was being criticized, I said &quot;allergy&quot; only to learn that if you say that, they have to clean all possible traces of gluten off of their equipment before they make your burger.<p>&quot;Allergy!&quot; Then the action started. As I watched two employees vigorously wipe down all this stuff just to make one burger, I felt alternately shocked, amazed, well-served, and embarrassed. Others in the restaurant looked at me like I was from another planet.<p>Anyway, that was one of the best gluten-free buns I&#x27;ve ever tasted.</text></item><item><author>nradov</author><text>One of my colleagues is a vegetarian. He went on a business trip to Texas and his associates took him out for dinner at a steak house. After reading the menu he asked the waitress, &quot;Do you have anything that isn&#x27;t meat?&quot; She thought for a moment and cheerfully replied &quot;We have chicken!&quot;</text></item><item><author>wanderfowl</author><text>As a vegetarian (by ethical choice, not medical necessity), I do my best not to lose sight of the simple fact that <i>I&#x27;m</i> the problem here. When I walk into a steakhouse with my carnivorous wife, they&#x27;re helping me out by finding something to put in my stomach. If I&#x27;m on a camping trip, I&#x27;m bringing my own food, or doing my best to make it fair to folks who are helping me out. And if I&#x27;m visiting for dinner, I try to make it clear that I&#x27;m happy to scavenge sides, you don&#x27;t need to do something special for me. Because, again, my self-made diet choices are not your problem, but mine.<p>Celiac is real, folks who have it should be cut a break, and in my experience, folks who actually <i>cannot</i> eat gluten are just trying to make things work, rather than being a dick about it.<p>But deeply screw people like this lady who make a voluntary diet choice who use it as an excuse to bully others and make people cater to them. They trivialize people&#x27;s actual medical needs, breed a culture of &quot;Yeah, sure lady, there&#x27;s no gluten&quot;, work against whatever cause they&#x27;re in favor of, and largely, they&#x27;re why we can&#x27;t have nice things.</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>jefftk</author><text>I think that&#x27;s what they&#x27;re trying to get at with &quot;preference&quot;, but I agree that word&#x27;s connotations are a bit too weak.</text></comment> |
3,517,461 | 3,517,477 | 1 | 2 | 3,517,329 | train | <story><title>Bill Gates on his last visit with Steve Jobs </title><url>http://www.geekwire.com/2012/video-bill-gates-visit-steve-jobs</url><text></text></story><parent_chain></parent_chain><comment><author>willthefirst</author><text>Steve Jobs was a big role model of mine, yet Bill Gates never came close. I'm starting to realize that is due to the dramatic nature of Job's life, which is very different from what we know about Bill Gates.<p>Yet, when things like this comes out, and stories about Jobs emerge, I start to question whether my choice of a role model was really all that well placed. Do you admire the guy with the entrancing personality, or the one that is about to cure polio?</text></comment> | <story><title>Bill Gates on his last visit with Steve Jobs </title><url>http://www.geekwire.com/2012/video-bill-gates-visit-steve-jobs</url><text></text></story><parent_chain></parent_chain><comment><author>oldstrangers</author><text>Is it just me, or does the interviewer seem like he just stepped off the set of CSI: Miami?<p>Regardless, I love hearing Gates speak candidly.</text></comment> |
38,995,911 | 38,993,783 | 1 | 2 | 38,979,196 | train | <story><title>‘This Has Been Going on for Years’: Boeing’s Manufacturing Mess</title><url>https://www.wsj.com/business/airlines/boeing-manufacturing-737-max-alaska-door-plug-spirit-18f7e233</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>gumby</author><text>This point (I put it in italics) should be discussed more:<p>&gt; At the time, then-Boeing executive Alan Mulally said <i>selling the factory to a private-equity firm</i> would let Boeing focus on final assembly, where it could add the most value to its airplanes.<p>By now I think we’ve learned that products made in factories owned by PE firms should carry warning labels. They are proactively anti-quality organizations, focused on extracting the maximum cash out in the short term at the cost of long term value.</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>renegade-otter</author><text>But this is not just PE - this is the Jack Welch school of business. Ascend to the top of the company, attach to it like a parasite, and suck it dry over time.<p>Short to mid term, &quot;woah, the stock is going up, this guy is a genius!&quot;<p>Until there is no more company left to juice the shares with buybacks. This is how the GE engineering culture was destroyed as well.<p>Private Equity is like that, only much accelerated. There is no pretense of &quot;management&quot;.</text></comment> | <story><title>‘This Has Been Going on for Years’: Boeing’s Manufacturing Mess</title><url>https://www.wsj.com/business/airlines/boeing-manufacturing-737-max-alaska-door-plug-spirit-18f7e233</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>gumby</author><text>This point (I put it in italics) should be discussed more:<p>&gt; At the time, then-Boeing executive Alan Mulally said <i>selling the factory to a private-equity firm</i> would let Boeing focus on final assembly, where it could add the most value to its airplanes.<p>By now I think we’ve learned that products made in factories owned by PE firms should carry warning labels. They are proactively anti-quality organizations, focused on extracting the maximum cash out in the short term at the cost of long term value.</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>MBCook</author><text>I wonder if we’ll ever get the guts to outlaw PE somehow, or at least make it so unprofitable it’s very rare.<p>Nothing good ever seems to come from it, despite their claims.</text></comment> |
30,704,391 | 30,704,404 | 1 | 2 | 30,702,823 | train | <story><title>US Federal Reserve raises interest rates for first time since 2018</title><url>https://www.theguardian.com/business/2022/mar/16/us-federal-reserve-interest-rates-inflation</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>IncRnd</author><text>&gt; ...and that the primary risk once the economy reaches full employment is inflation, which seems to be precisely what has happened, no?<p>Certainly, there is inflation. There isn&#x27;t full employment.</text></item><item><author>hn_throwaway_99</author><text>Here are the first two paragraphs on the MMT Wikipedia article:<p>&gt; Modern Monetary Theory or Modern Money Theory (MMT) is a heterodox[1] macroeconomic theory that describes currency as a public monopoly and unemployment as evidence that a currency monopolist is overly restricting the supply of the financial assets needed to pay taxes and satisfy savings desires.[2][3] MMT is opposed to the mainstream understanding of macroeconomic theory, and has been criticized by many mainstream economists.[4][5][6]<p>&gt; MMT says that governments create new money by using fiscal policy and that the primary risk once the economy reaches full employment is inflation, which can be addressed by gathering taxes to reduce the spending capacity of the private sector.[7] MMT is debated with active dialogues about its theoretical integrity,[8] the implications of the policy recommendations of its proponents, and the extent to which it is actually divergent from orthodox macroeconomics.[9]<p>Regarding this being a &quot;test&quot; of MMT, I don&#x27;t see why. The first part of the first sentence of that second paragraph, <i>MMT says that governments create new money by using fiscal policy and that the primary risk once the economy reaches full employment is inflation</i>, which seems to be precisely what has happened, no?</text></item><item><author>andreyk</author><text>An interesting aspect of this is that the endless printing of money in the last few years was a sort of stress test of modern monetary theory, which has been seeing lots of discussion in those same years. I never quite understood how this theory would work while avoiding inflation, and what&#x27;s happening now seems to at least be related - <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.nytimes.com&#x2F;2022&#x2F;02&#x2F;06&#x2F;business&#x2F;economy&#x2F;modern-monetary-theory-stephanie-kelton.html" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.nytimes.com&#x2F;2022&#x2F;02&#x2F;06&#x2F;business&#x2F;economy&#x2F;modern-m...</a><p>Conceptually the answer in the theory is to suck up the excess money with taxes, which of course is not going to fly in the US. But maybe this inflation will make that more viable in the future:
&quot;Ms. Kelton and her colleagues make clear that the pandemic relief packages did not follow one of M.M.T.’s key tenets — they did not try to account for resource constraints ahead of time. In an M.M.T. world, the Congressional Budget Office would have carefully analyzed possible inflation ahead of time, and lawmakers would have tried to offset any strain on available workers and widgets with stabilizing measures and tax increases.&quot;</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>drexlspivey</author><text>Unemployment &lt; 4% is basically full employment. People that are changing jobs are temporarily unemployed. Another metric you can use to reach the same conclusion is that # of job openings &gt; unemployed work force</text></comment> | <story><title>US Federal Reserve raises interest rates for first time since 2018</title><url>https://www.theguardian.com/business/2022/mar/16/us-federal-reserve-interest-rates-inflation</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>IncRnd</author><text>&gt; ...and that the primary risk once the economy reaches full employment is inflation, which seems to be precisely what has happened, no?<p>Certainly, there is inflation. There isn&#x27;t full employment.</text></item><item><author>hn_throwaway_99</author><text>Here are the first two paragraphs on the MMT Wikipedia article:<p>&gt; Modern Monetary Theory or Modern Money Theory (MMT) is a heterodox[1] macroeconomic theory that describes currency as a public monopoly and unemployment as evidence that a currency monopolist is overly restricting the supply of the financial assets needed to pay taxes and satisfy savings desires.[2][3] MMT is opposed to the mainstream understanding of macroeconomic theory, and has been criticized by many mainstream economists.[4][5][6]<p>&gt; MMT says that governments create new money by using fiscal policy and that the primary risk once the economy reaches full employment is inflation, which can be addressed by gathering taxes to reduce the spending capacity of the private sector.[7] MMT is debated with active dialogues about its theoretical integrity,[8] the implications of the policy recommendations of its proponents, and the extent to which it is actually divergent from orthodox macroeconomics.[9]<p>Regarding this being a &quot;test&quot; of MMT, I don&#x27;t see why. The first part of the first sentence of that second paragraph, <i>MMT says that governments create new money by using fiscal policy and that the primary risk once the economy reaches full employment is inflation</i>, which seems to be precisely what has happened, no?</text></item><item><author>andreyk</author><text>An interesting aspect of this is that the endless printing of money in the last few years was a sort of stress test of modern monetary theory, which has been seeing lots of discussion in those same years. I never quite understood how this theory would work while avoiding inflation, and what&#x27;s happening now seems to at least be related - <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.nytimes.com&#x2F;2022&#x2F;02&#x2F;06&#x2F;business&#x2F;economy&#x2F;modern-monetary-theory-stephanie-kelton.html" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.nytimes.com&#x2F;2022&#x2F;02&#x2F;06&#x2F;business&#x2F;economy&#x2F;modern-m...</a><p>Conceptually the answer in the theory is to suck up the excess money with taxes, which of course is not going to fly in the US. But maybe this inflation will make that more viable in the future:
&quot;Ms. Kelton and her colleagues make clear that the pandemic relief packages did not follow one of M.M.T.’s key tenets — they did not try to account for resource constraints ahead of time. In an M.M.T. world, the Congressional Budget Office would have carefully analyzed possible inflation ahead of time, and lawmakers would have tried to offset any strain on available workers and widgets with stabilizing measures and tax increases.&quot;</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>OGWhales</author><text>MMTers argue that government spending at full employment will cause inflation, not that there must be full employment for there to be inflation.</text></comment> |
38,235,547 | 38,235,305 | 1 | 3 | 38,234,653 | train | <story><title>It's OK if your code is just good enough</title><url>https://shiftmag.dev/code-quality-good-enough-2034/</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>manicennui</author><text>In the vast majority of cases, writing good, maintainable code does not require more time. The real problem is that the majority of people working as software engineers barely know what they are doing, and use excuses like this because it makes some amount of sense to the incompetent managers in charge of them.</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>icedchai</author><text>I work with someone who regularly opens PRs for untested code. I&#x27;m talking stuff that hasn&#x27;t even been run once: missing imports, undefined variables, etc... not bugs. I&#x27;m fine with bugs. I&#x27;m not fine with not testing your work in the most basic sense.<p>PR reviews don&#x27;t mean throwing crap over the wall and hoping the reviewer figures it out. With this guy, there is so much back-and-forth hand holding, it would be simpler to close the PR and do it myself. But I don&#x27;t...</text></comment> | <story><title>It's OK if your code is just good enough</title><url>https://shiftmag.dev/code-quality-good-enough-2034/</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>manicennui</author><text>In the vast majority of cases, writing good, maintainable code does not require more time. The real problem is that the majority of people working as software engineers barely know what they are doing, and use excuses like this because it makes some amount of sense to the incompetent managers in charge of them.</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>Tade0</author><text>This.<p>And it&#x27;s often simple techniques like preferring pure functions or using immutable data structures that enable a huge improvement in maintainability, yet few seem to be employing them.<p>Occasionally the difference comes purely from the fact that someone looked into the library docs and chose the appropriate API method.</text></comment> |
37,973,275 | 37,972,811 | 1 | 2 | 37,941,680 | train | <story><title>Using Prolog as the AST</title><url>https://marcellerusu.com/using_prolog_as_the_ast.html</url></story><parent_chain></parent_chain><comment><author>iot_devs</author><text>As very long term goal, I want to work on a project like this but on much larger scale.<p>I have a tiny prototype based on Go and soufflé.<p>The overall goal would be to figure out classical error conditions like nill pointers deference.<p>If I can figure out if a pointer will be nil in some execution branch, there is no reason why a computer cannot do the same.<p>However it is very hard work and the part I am currently stuck in is creating a reasonable abstraction level where I can reason (in soufflé) about code and not about an AST.<p>I personally would see this as an human race level upgrades. Imagine feeding your code to a CI that spit back something like: &quot;you will have a panic at line 156 when your input is &gt; 4&quot;<p>Moreover we will be able to check the &quot;real code&quot; starting from main down to all execution paths. Which is much more powerful than current static analysis that usually analyse a single function without considering how the function itself is invoked.<p>Beside the actual implementation difficulties, the other big elephant in the room is the amount of resources needed to run this kind of analysis.<p>(I am less concerned about that as computation resources exploded due to AI and solving SAT is getting faster and faster)</text></comment> | <story><title>Using Prolog as the AST</title><url>https://marcellerusu.com/using_prolog_as_the_ast.html</url></story><parent_chain></parent_chain><comment><author>JimmyRuska</author><text>Racket made a prolog implementation that is currently used in the compiler, or at least I thought I heard that in one of their talks. Might be worth trying, since its model is a language for making languages<p><a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;docs.racket-lang.org&#x2F;datalog&#x2F;" rel="nofollow noreferrer">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;docs.racket-lang.org&#x2F;datalog&#x2F;</a><p><a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;docs.racket-lang.org&#x2F;racklog&#x2F;" rel="nofollow noreferrer">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;docs.racket-lang.org&#x2F;racklog&#x2F;</a></text></comment> |
24,869,532 | 24,869,339 | 1 | 2 | 24,868,415 | train | <story><title>Business Operations – Tech Stack</title><url>https://about.gitlab.com/handbook/business-ops/tech-stack/</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>phillnom</author><text>Title would be more accurate if it said something like &quot;Gitlab: Business Operations - Tech Stack&quot;. I was confused for a moment why stuff like Rails and Vue.js weren&#x27;t mentioned until I realized it&#x27;s strictly about Business Operations.</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>sytse</author><text>Yep, maybe the mods can change the title to reflect that this is the software GitLab the company uses.<p>This was probably submitted to Hacker News after someone saw my tweet <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;mobile.twitter.com&#x2F;sytses&#x2F;status&#x2F;1319325053217992704" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;mobile.twitter.com&#x2F;sytses&#x2F;status&#x2F;1319325053217992704</a> which has some questions and answers in the replies.<p>John already linked to the architecture of GitLab the application in <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;news.ycombinator.com&#x2F;item?id=24869339" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;news.ycombinator.com&#x2F;item?id=24869339</a> in case you are interested in that.<p>Happy to answer any questions about either.</text></comment> | <story><title>Business Operations – Tech Stack</title><url>https://about.gitlab.com/handbook/business-ops/tech-stack/</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>phillnom</author><text>Title would be more accurate if it said something like &quot;Gitlab: Business Operations - Tech Stack&quot;. I was confused for a moment why stuff like Rails and Vue.js weren&#x27;t mentioned until I realized it&#x27;s strictly about Business Operations.</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>john_cogs</author><text>This might be of interest to you - <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;docs.gitlab.com&#x2F;ee&#x2F;development&#x2F;architecture" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;docs.gitlab.com&#x2F;ee&#x2F;development&#x2F;architecture</a></text></comment> |
17,937,816 | 17,936,421 | 1 | 2 | 17,932,107 | train | <story><title>Go says Wat</title><url>https://about.sourcegraph.com/go/gophercon-2018-go-says-wat/</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>miranda_rights</author><text>The Go runtime explicitly randomizes the iteration of map, because the language designers noticed &#x27;Programmers had begun to rely on the stable iteration order&#x27;[0]. Most languages, as far as I can tell, tell you that the iteration order is undefined but frequently have some stable iteration order that&#x27;s consistent for the compiler or the system architecture, and don&#x27;t take the extra step of randomization.<p>[0]<a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;blog.golang.org&#x2F;go-maps-in-action" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;blog.golang.org&#x2F;go-maps-in-action</a> - Header: Iteration Order</text></item><item><author>krylon</author><text>&quot;The order of iteration for a Go map (a hashmap) is unspecified, by design.&quot;<p>I that surprising behavior? It is not only well-documented, but is in line with most other languages that offer a hash table &#x2F; map &#x2F; dictionary &#x2F; whatever in the base language or standard library.</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>staticassertion</author><text>Those other languages are very arguably making a mistake.<p>I dislike Go for a billion reasons but I appreciate when they &quot;break&quot; APIs that explicitly never made those guarantees.</text></comment> | <story><title>Go says Wat</title><url>https://about.sourcegraph.com/go/gophercon-2018-go-says-wat/</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>miranda_rights</author><text>The Go runtime explicitly randomizes the iteration of map, because the language designers noticed &#x27;Programmers had begun to rely on the stable iteration order&#x27;[0]. Most languages, as far as I can tell, tell you that the iteration order is undefined but frequently have some stable iteration order that&#x27;s consistent for the compiler or the system architecture, and don&#x27;t take the extra step of randomization.<p>[0]<a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;blog.golang.org&#x2F;go-maps-in-action" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;blog.golang.org&#x2F;go-maps-in-action</a> - Header: Iteration Order</text></item><item><author>krylon</author><text>&quot;The order of iteration for a Go map (a hashmap) is unspecified, by design.&quot;<p>I that surprising behavior? It is not only well-documented, but is in line with most other languages that offer a hash table &#x2F; map &#x2F; dictionary &#x2F; whatever in the base language or standard library.</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>wwweston</author><text>Having done the work of observing langugage users apparently want an ordered map, were there any steps taken to add such a facility, or did efforts stop at letting developers know they were they were wrong by taking away a de facto feature?</text></comment> |
17,423,203 | 17,422,750 | 1 | 2 | 17,419,261 | train | <story><title>Southern Europe Has Not Seen Net Job Creation in over a Decade</title><url>http://thesoundingline.com/southern-europe-has-not-seen-net-job-creation-in-over-a-decade/</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>hn_throwaway_99</author><text>Having a single monetary policy for countries as different as Spain and Germany, with no real shared fiscal policy, is a direct contributor to this malaise.<p>If they had separate currencies, Spain could inflate away a lot of their debt. This would cause a bunch of pain for your average Spaniard, but it would also mean that Spain&#x27;s currency devaluation could drastically help its exports (and of course one of Southern Europe&#x27;s most valuable &quot;exports&quot; is tourism). A direct consequence of being on the Euro is exactly what you point out: labor isn&#x27;t really cheap enough to be competitive.</text></item><item><author>angarg12</author><text>Is not even an issue of number of jobs, but of quality of labor.
Spain grew economically in the 70s and 80s because it was a developing country, and could provide cheap labor to neighboring countries. The growth in the 2000s came from a massive housing bubble that didn&#x27;t end well for most involved.
As we became a developed country we didn&#x27;t know how to reorient our economy. Now we are too expensive for cheap labor, which is relocating elsewhere, neither we are specialized or competitive enough to oppose other strong economies.
Some times I have evaluated the possibility of going back there and try to make a career in tech. It just takes a couple of conversations with locals to erase that idea from my mind. The country is not socially tailored to attract and retain highly skilled specialized workers, and sadly it&#x27;s an issue that I don&#x27;t hope to see changed in the future.</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>pif</author><text>&gt; If they had separate currencies, Spain could inflate away a lot of their debt.<p>Which is why Euro is good for Southern European countries: it forces them to concentrate on productivity rather than economic alchemy.
Spanish labor got too expensive? You don&#x27;t need a government to inflate your currency, you just start lowering your rates.
My fellow Italian workers cannot find a job? Stop talking about &quot;articolo 18&quot;, stop looking for assured indefinite term contracts, accept the reality! Enterprises know ups and downs: when thing go well, they&#x27;ll be happy to pay you good money for your services, but when hell breaks loose your salary will be a burden for them. Either accept that employment contracts can be terminated before your retreat, or keep up the good work... uh, keep up the work... just keep up!</text></comment> | <story><title>Southern Europe Has Not Seen Net Job Creation in over a Decade</title><url>http://thesoundingline.com/southern-europe-has-not-seen-net-job-creation-in-over-a-decade/</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>hn_throwaway_99</author><text>Having a single monetary policy for countries as different as Spain and Germany, with no real shared fiscal policy, is a direct contributor to this malaise.<p>If they had separate currencies, Spain could inflate away a lot of their debt. This would cause a bunch of pain for your average Spaniard, but it would also mean that Spain&#x27;s currency devaluation could drastically help its exports (and of course one of Southern Europe&#x27;s most valuable &quot;exports&quot; is tourism). A direct consequence of being on the Euro is exactly what you point out: labor isn&#x27;t really cheap enough to be competitive.</text></item><item><author>angarg12</author><text>Is not even an issue of number of jobs, but of quality of labor.
Spain grew economically in the 70s and 80s because it was a developing country, and could provide cheap labor to neighboring countries. The growth in the 2000s came from a massive housing bubble that didn&#x27;t end well for most involved.
As we became a developed country we didn&#x27;t know how to reorient our economy. Now we are too expensive for cheap labor, which is relocating elsewhere, neither we are specialized or competitive enough to oppose other strong economies.
Some times I have evaluated the possibility of going back there and try to make a career in tech. It just takes a couple of conversations with locals to erase that idea from my mind. The country is not socially tailored to attract and retain highly skilled specialized workers, and sadly it&#x27;s an issue that I don&#x27;t hope to see changed in the future.</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>raverbashing</author><text>The single monetary policy hasn&#x27;t prevented most countries from having growth. The solution is price deflation, which is not as &quot;good&quot; (for variable amounts of good) as inflating your currency, but it works.<p>Tourism seems to be pretty price inelastic to be honest (as seen by neverending lines and crowds).<p>&gt; labor isn&#x27;t really cheap enough to be competitive<p>Minimum wage in Spain is lower than in other <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;upload.wikimedia.org&#x2F;wikipedia&#x2F;commons&#x2F;thumb&#x2F;3&#x2F;3f&#x2F;European_countries_by_hourly_minimum_wage.jpg&#x2F;1200px-European_countries_by_hourly_minimum_wage.jpg" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;upload.wikimedia.org&#x2F;wikipedia&#x2F;commons&#x2F;thumb&#x2F;3&#x2F;3f&#x2F;Eu...</a><p>And this applies even for higher pay functions, it is usually lower than even Germany.<p>I&#x27;d attribute their lack of growth more than internal culture (management culture, investor culture, etc), lack of investment and other factors.</text></comment> |
24,008,796 | 24,008,000 | 1 | 3 | 23,992,882 | train | <story><title>Chronic mania and persistent euphoric states</title><url>https://srconstantin.github.io/2020/07/29/chronic-mania.html</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>reilly3000</author><text>Its really important to understand that mania is not optimism, positivism, or much of anything positive really. Its a state of euphoric destruction for bipolar folks, and chronic mania seems to spread those patterns over the balance of a lifetime. It is a disorder, and it benefits from treatment. Its not fun for anybody except for the manic.</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>erokar</author><text>Mania is debilitating, that&#x27;s one of its diagnostic criteria. The milder hypomania can be both productive and pleasant for some though.<p>It can be useful to think of bipolar mood and behaviour along two axes: depressed vs. elated mood and low vs. high energy levels. Sometimes people with bipolar can be both depressed and energetic, a so called mixed state. Some manic episodes will be energetic and accompanied by an elevated mood of optimism, joy and even ecstasy.<p>I agree that full blown mania needs to be treated.</text></comment> | <story><title>Chronic mania and persistent euphoric states</title><url>https://srconstantin.github.io/2020/07/29/chronic-mania.html</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>reilly3000</author><text>Its really important to understand that mania is not optimism, positivism, or much of anything positive really. Its a state of euphoric destruction for bipolar folks, and chronic mania seems to spread those patterns over the balance of a lifetime. It is a disorder, and it benefits from treatment. Its not fun for anybody except for the manic.</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>__s</author><text>My sister&#x27;s bipolar. Many people (including her) enjoy her manic behavior. It can go a bit too far at times, but there&#x27;s a learning process on how to calibrate it. You work with what you have</text></comment> |
28,589,225 | 28,586,735 | 1 | 2 | 28,584,738 | train | <story><title>Serving Netflix Video at 400Gb/s on FreeBSD [pdf]</title><url>https://people.freebsd.org/~gallatin/talks/euro2021.pdf</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>dragontamer</author><text>&gt; We&#x27;re free to choose whatever egress NIC we want<p>Wait, I got lost again... You say you can &quot;output on any egress NIC&quot;. So all four egress NICs have access to the TLS encryption keys and are cooperating through the FreeBSD kernel to get this information?<p>Is there some kind of load-balancing you&#x27;re doing on the machine? Trying to see which NIC has the least amount of traffic and routing to the least utilized NIC?</text></item><item><author>drewg123</author><text>Thanks for the feeback. I was hoping that the other words on the slide (LACP and bonding) would give enough context.<p>I&#x27;m afraid that my presentation didn&#x27;t really have room to dive much into LACP. I briefly said something like the following when giving that slide:<p>Basically, the LACP link partner (router) hashes traffic consistently across the multiple links in the LACP bundle, using a hash of its choosing (typically an N-tuple, involving IP address and TCP port). Once it has selected a link for that connection, that connection will always land on that link on ingress (unless the LACP bundle changes in terms of links coming and going). We&#x27;re free to choose whatever egress NIC we want (it does not need to be the same NIC the connection entered on). The issue is that there is no way for us to tell the router to move the TCP connection from one NIC to another (well, there is in theory, but our routers can&#x27;t do it)<p>I hope that helps</text></item><item><author>dragontamer</author><text>I eventually figured it out. But I would suggest maybe giving a brief 1-slide thingy on &quot;lagg&quot;, and link aggregation? (Maybe it was clear from the presentation, but I only see the slides here soooooo...)<p>I&#x27;m not the best at network infrastructure, though I&#x27;m more familiar with NUMA stuff. So I was trying to figure out how you only got 1-IP address on each box despite 4-ports across 2-nics.<p>I assume some Linux &#x2F; Windows devops people are just not as familiar with FreeBSD tools like that!<p>EDIT: Now that I think of it: maybe a few slides on how link-aggregation across NICs &#x2F; NUMA could be elaborated upon further? I&#x27;m frankly not sure if my personal understanding is correct. I&#x27;m imagining how TCP-connections are fragmented into IP-packets, and how those packets may traverse your network, and how they get to which NUMA node... and it seems really more complex to me than your slides indicate? Maybe this subject will take more than just one slide?</text></item><item><author>drewg123</author><text>These are the slides from my EuroBSDCon presentation. AMA</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>myrandomcomment</author><text>LACP (which is a control protocol) is a standard feature supported forever on switches. To put it simply both the server and switch see a single port (fake) that has physical ethernet members and a hashing algorithm puts the traffic on that physical ethernet link based on the selected hash. The underlying sw&#x2F;hw picks which physical link to put the packet on. The input to the hash in picking the link can be src&#x2F;dst (for all items listed here) MAC, port, IP addr. LACP handles the negotiation of what that hash is between the ends and also hands a link failure &quot;hey man, something broke, we have one less link now). For any given single flow it will hash to the same link. So a for example in a 4x10G lag (also called a port-channel in networking speak) max bandwidth for a single flow would be 10g the max of a single member. In an ideal world the hashing would be perfectly balanced however it is possible to have a set of flows all hash to the same link. Hope that helps.</text></comment> | <story><title>Serving Netflix Video at 400Gb/s on FreeBSD [pdf]</title><url>https://people.freebsd.org/~gallatin/talks/euro2021.pdf</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>dragontamer</author><text>&gt; We&#x27;re free to choose whatever egress NIC we want<p>Wait, I got lost again... You say you can &quot;output on any egress NIC&quot;. So all four egress NICs have access to the TLS encryption keys and are cooperating through the FreeBSD kernel to get this information?<p>Is there some kind of load-balancing you&#x27;re doing on the machine? Trying to see which NIC has the least amount of traffic and routing to the least utilized NIC?</text></item><item><author>drewg123</author><text>Thanks for the feeback. I was hoping that the other words on the slide (LACP and bonding) would give enough context.<p>I&#x27;m afraid that my presentation didn&#x27;t really have room to dive much into LACP. I briefly said something like the following when giving that slide:<p>Basically, the LACP link partner (router) hashes traffic consistently across the multiple links in the LACP bundle, using a hash of its choosing (typically an N-tuple, involving IP address and TCP port). Once it has selected a link for that connection, that connection will always land on that link on ingress (unless the LACP bundle changes in terms of links coming and going). We&#x27;re free to choose whatever egress NIC we want (it does not need to be the same NIC the connection entered on). The issue is that there is no way for us to tell the router to move the TCP connection from one NIC to another (well, there is in theory, but our routers can&#x27;t do it)<p>I hope that helps</text></item><item><author>dragontamer</author><text>I eventually figured it out. But I would suggest maybe giving a brief 1-slide thingy on &quot;lagg&quot;, and link aggregation? (Maybe it was clear from the presentation, but I only see the slides here soooooo...)<p>I&#x27;m not the best at network infrastructure, though I&#x27;m more familiar with NUMA stuff. So I was trying to figure out how you only got 1-IP address on each box despite 4-ports across 2-nics.<p>I assume some Linux &#x2F; Windows devops people are just not as familiar with FreeBSD tools like that!<p>EDIT: Now that I think of it: maybe a few slides on how link-aggregation across NICs &#x2F; NUMA could be elaborated upon further? I&#x27;m frankly not sure if my personal understanding is correct. I&#x27;m imagining how TCP-connections are fragmented into IP-packets, and how those packets may traverse your network, and how they get to which NUMA node... and it seems really more complex to me than your slides indicate? Maybe this subject will take more than just one slide?</text></item><item><author>drewg123</author><text>These are the slides from my EuroBSDCon presentation. AMA</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>martyvis</author><text>The whole paper is discussing bottlenecks, path optimisation between resources, and impacts of those on overall throughout. It&#x27;s not a simple loadbalancing question being answered</text></comment> |
19,077,931 | 19,078,018 | 1 | 2 | 19,077,548 | train | <story><title>Firefox 66 to block automatically playing audible video and audio</title><url>https://hacks.mozilla.org/2019/02/firefox-66-to-block-automatically-playing-audible-video-and-audio/</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>TheCoreh</author><text>I personally want it, and I&#x27;m sure a lot of people want it too.<p>There are a lot of interesting experiences that can be enabled by autoplay. If a site ends up being too annoying it will simply lose visitors, and extensions can perform more aggressive blocking for those that don&#x27;t like it.<p>IMO this is a fine compromise solution.</text></item><item><author>jonahhorowitz</author><text><i>Muted autoplay is still allowed.</i> WTH Mozilla. Just stop. Stop the stupid auto-playing video. Nobody wants it.<p>This announcement almost made my morning. It&#x27;s frustrating seeing video everywhere when you&#x27;re just trying to read an article. If I wanted video, I&#x27;d turn on my TV.</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>king_magic</author><text>I’ve never once found autoplay video to enhance a web experience. I’ve never once found a single example to be “interesting”. I don’t care if audio is muted. I don’t want it, full stop.<p>It’s atrocious UX. It’s hostile to users. It’s presumptive and frankly rude. There’s no excuse for autoplay. Even on YouTube, it’s more often infuriating than not.<p>Edit: clarified “autoplay video”, not animated GIFs</text></comment> | <story><title>Firefox 66 to block automatically playing audible video and audio</title><url>https://hacks.mozilla.org/2019/02/firefox-66-to-block-automatically-playing-audible-video-and-audio/</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>TheCoreh</author><text>I personally want it, and I&#x27;m sure a lot of people want it too.<p>There are a lot of interesting experiences that can be enabled by autoplay. If a site ends up being too annoying it will simply lose visitors, and extensions can perform more aggressive blocking for those that don&#x27;t like it.<p>IMO this is a fine compromise solution.</text></item><item><author>jonahhorowitz</author><text><i>Muted autoplay is still allowed.</i> WTH Mozilla. Just stop. Stop the stupid auto-playing video. Nobody wants it.<p>This announcement almost made my morning. It&#x27;s frustrating seeing video everywhere when you&#x27;re just trying to read an article. If I wanted video, I&#x27;d turn on my TV.</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>collyw</author><text>&gt; There are a lot of interesting experiences that can be enabled by autoplay.<p>Yeah, like alerting the participants of a meeting to the fact you are browsing crap on your phone.</text></comment> |
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