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React and LiveScript = Love - defrun
https://medium.com/@flyber/react-livescript-livescript-2-0-164d35ca5373
======
defrun
Does anybody else use LiveScript with React.js? Any pitfalls?
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Perhaps Pandora Must Be Our Sacrificial Lamb - jmorin007
http://www.techcrunch.com/2008/08/16/perhaps-pandora-must-be-our-sacrificial-lamb/
======
pedalpete
Pandora could license their Music Genome (back-end that decides what tracks
get played), to other companies, or go the 'songza/mixturtle/skreemr/seeqpod
route and just link to music which is already freely available.
They tried going the considerate route and payed the highest royalty fees to
the labels. Pandora has tried to do everything on the up and up, and they just
keep getting battered because of it.
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Show HN: Flipper Zero – Tamagotchi for Hackers - zhovner
https://flipperzero.one/zero
======
ge96
Interesting I see the other version has WiFi. Kind of curious if these become
ubiquitous enough just having one would make you seem like "a bad person".
I suppose most people probably wouldn't know what this is.
Anyway looks really cool
~~~
zhovner
I believe it won't look worse than owning an Raspberry Pi with antenna.
~~~
ge96
Yeah at least this doesn't look as sinister as a bare board, looks like a
gaming unit or something.
I do like that aspect of it being like a "pet" hence the title but yeah.
------
samaro
Looks awesome.
The tamagotchi from my childhood had totally different body though
------
1337shadow
Really cool, try presenting it as a pentesting tool perhaps, tamagotchi just
reminds me of the game where you take care of a pet
~~~
londons_explore
Regular attendees of CCC will know that tamagotchis are famous in the hacker
community...
------
zxcvbn4038
Just what every office poltergeist needs, adding to wish list.
------
rebataur
Very nice. Thank you
------
netcrash
shutupandtakemymoney.jpg
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Report on the current experience of using IPFS to deploy a website - shuckles
https://macwright.org/2019/06/08/ipfs-again.html
======
zlynx
I had to stop using IPFS to read websites because it kept crashing my router.
It makes hundreds of connections to other IPFS servers. And if you have
working IPv6 it makes many of those _twice_. I'd often see over a thousand,
then the router would slowly stop working until it self reset.
There may be a way to limit the number of connections but I never looked too
hard. My plan still is to put the cable router into bridge mode and start
using my own router with OpenWRT -- but that's been my plan for a couple of
years now, so you see that the follow-through is lacking.
~~~
pmlnr
I nearly got my server banned in Hetzner, because the default config of IPFS
starts aggressively scanning the network for local peers immediately.
~~~
hecturchi
When running in such environment it is necessary to run configure IPFS with
"ipfs init --profile server" which will prevent this from happening.
Documented here: [https://github.com/ipfs/go-
ipfs/blob/master/docs/config.md](https://github.com/ipfs/go-
ipfs/blob/master/docs/config.md)
------
ResearchAtPlay
The Inter Planetary File System has the potential to radically change content
hosting to become truly decentralized. This report names some of the most
pressing barriers to widespread adoption of ipfs.
In my opinion the biggest issue is _terrible_ documentation on ipfs.io (as
noted by the report). The "Getting Started" page fails to explain the basic
structure of ipfs and uses jargon that isn't defined. This lack of
documentation prevents even tech savvy users from adopting ipfs.
------
darsnack
Tried setting up an IPFS website using Hearth, and I ran into the links issue.
Gave up pretty soon after in favor of GitHub Pages.
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Show HN: Notification Control my weekend project - Email notification setup - benjlang
http://notificationcontrol.com/
======
1880
Just nitpicking here, but I noticed that a new HTTP request is done when
hovering the links in order to download a different background, and that is
not a good idea, because it will always flicker. Use one image with two states
and modify the 'background-position' to "shift" the image.
~~~
Veera
+1
instead of having separate image files for each logos, I would prefer two
sprites(b/w & color) and apply CSS to reduce the number of HTTP requests.
------
benjlang
Built this because I've found that email notifications have gotten out of
hand.
Even when I unsubscribe from some service, they still keep coming and then I
have to login to that service and look around for the carefully hidden email
notification settings.
Made this so that in just a minute any person could easily set up email
notifications from most of the important services out there.
If people request more services, we'll certainly add them.
Have you had similar issues? Hope this helps!
~~~
dools
Wow looks like a much nicer implementation of what I was setting out to do
with emaildigest.me :)
------
dwynings
Consider making an image sprite for all of the icons, so when I hover over one
it's preloaded with no delay.
~~~
benjlang
Good idea, will look into it. Appreciate the suggestion.
------
jmathai
Nice and simple. Can't tell you how many times I just delete emails that I
never wanted in the first place because I'm too lazy to change my notification
settings.
If you're logged into the service you're wanting to change then this makes it
a breeze.
~~~
benjlang
Thanks Jaisen, glad to hear that.
------
PabloOsinaga
A nice add to the service would be the following:
1: let me choose my overall preference in a simple 3-levels way (alla
investment management where you can choose "conservative, long term,
aggresive" - something like that
2: Scan my email (automatically hook up alla greplin)
3: Suggest me changes to all services to meet my high level preference
4: Let me apply those changes by simply clicking "GO AHEAD"
5: (or I can go and edit the specifics and do a bulk update in that way)
ability to scan my email/s and suggest me changes based on a super-simple "3
level" setting
~~~
charliesome
There's absolutely no way I'm letting any old service read my email messages.
------
whichdan
Cool little site. Is there a reason the eBay link goes through bit.ly?
~~~
benjlang
Thanks! Good question, fixed, it's now a normal eBay link.
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Ask HN: Can the person who received thousands of emails from Google sue them? - usaphp
I wonder if that person who received thousands of emails on his hotmail account can sue google for spamming him?
======
jordsmi
I haven't read about this but is it really that big of a deal? Can't he just
delete them?
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Ask HN: Looking for email delivery for 500k subscribers - twog
Hey HN,<p>I run a site that has 500k email subscribers, and were looking to do a big mass mailing campaign in the upcoming months.<p>We are planning on sending close to 6 campaigns (so 3 million emails) in one month. What is the best solution for us to role this out? Were looking for something our non-technical marketing guy can use, but that I can set up.
======
giladvdn
MailChimp allows you to buy credits as you go, or pay them monthly by
subscriber count. It's also built for marketers so after importing your list
there your marketing guy should be fine.
If you're looking to do it cheaper, SendGrid offers a newsletter function
that's less easy to use and has less features but will allow you to do it
cheaper.
~~~
twog
Mailchimp is really, really expensive for anything this size. I contacted
SendGrid & so far they look like the front runners
------
johnmurch
I would recommend Amazon SES (<http://aws.amazon.com/ses/>) Take a look at
<http://sendy.co/> as it's a PHP script if you don't want to write your own.
~~~
twog
I use sendy for a personal project, but amazon SES limits you to 10k emails a
day. For our use case, we need to send 500k in one day. Anyone have experience
requesting a higher send limit with SES?
~~~
johnmurch
What about <https://postmarkapp.com/pricing> would that be an option for you?
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Show HN: Social engineering with Chrome's autofill - simonbrown
https://www.isimonbrown.co.uk/address-game/#
======
richardmjohn
On first attempt it took me to my address in Chrome's autofill preferences,
then second time it worked (got the alert).
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Github and Stackoverflow programming language popularity - mooreds
http://redmonk.com/sogrady/2012/09/12/language-rankings-9-12/
======
smoyer
"a few surprises on this list – the continued traction of Java"
I'm not surprised by this at all ... while looking for work recently, I was a
bit shocked at how much of the doom and gloom being spoken about Java was
wrong. It's not cool to say you're a Java developer, but most of the corporate
world runs on it, even if no one admits to be the person developing those
applications.
There were even a few projects where the cool languages (we're moving from a
Node.js platform to something that's more maintainable) had failed and were
being replaced. I'm not sure this is Node's fault (you can get this with any
language if the architect and/or lead don't know what they're doing) but it
does say something about Java.
At JavaOne this year, there were a lot of great sessions and a lot of optimism
about where the next set of specifications were headed. I for one fell back in
love with Java through a combination of JEE6 and GWT. It's so much easier to
be a developer than it used to be. I will admit that I love Python and
Coffeescript too, but I don't generally write large projects in either one.
So I don't expect Java to lose popularity more than a few spots ... it's
entirely possible that Java is now "well known" (at least by the StackOverflow
measure) and just doesn't have as many unanswered questions. In any case, I
expect it to be around a while, When Y3K rolls around it won't be the Cobol
programmers in demand - it will be those of us who know Java inside and out.
~~~
teacurran
Java doesn't get a lot of press or cool points, but the enterprise world is
massive and anyone in it knows there's still a lot of spending going on for
java projects.
It's also worth noting that several other languages on the list only run on
the Java Virtual Machine. (Scala, Groovy, Clojure, Gosu, Ceylon). Jobs for
these languages are commonly filled by people who identify as Java developers.
~~~
halvsjur
There is a Scala.NET (<http://lampwww.epfl.ch/~magarcia/ScalaNET/>) project by
the way.
~~~
ville
And Clojure also runs on CLR (ClojureCLR) and can be compiled to JavaScript
(ClojureScript).
------
bryanlarsen
Keep in mind that Javascript is hugely overcounted on Github. How many web
applications include a copy of jQuery and friends in their source? There are
lots of Ruby on Rails applications on Github that list Javascript as their
primary language.
~~~
saryant
Same with Scala vs. Java. I have a few Scala projects on Github and they tend
to be counted as Java even if there's one file of Java code in there versus
dozens of Scala files.
------
aai2
Check out my article "Measuring Language Popularity is Harder Than Many Think"
[http://smthngsmwhr.wordpress.com/2012/11/19/measuring-
popula...](http://smthngsmwhr.wordpress.com/2012/11/19/measuring-popularity-
of-programming-languages/) and I must say that both github.com and
stackoverflow.com are not just typical sites and getting data only from those
sites is not enough. JavaScript is very popular at github.com and C# at
stackoverflow.com Other sources give different results as well.
We may be more or less sure only in 10 or so most popular languages and
judging relative online popularity may be hard for them.
------
jff
This is a good measurement of what languages people on Github use, and which
languages people on StackOverflow are having trouble with.
They mention Go, for instance. I write a lot of Go. I put it all on Bitbucket.
I've also found that questions about Go are best answered on golang-nuts or in
the IRC channels, or in the documentation, rather than StackOverflow.
It's a pretty cool plot, as long as you take it for what it is: a
representation of how many repositories exist on Github, and how many people
are asking questions on Stackoverflow. In terms of measuring language
popularity, it's about as useful as TIOBE.
------
achat
Somehow I do not feel confidant about correlating language popularity on
stackoverflow to the actual popularity. For some languages (e.g. in my
observation:, c#, objective c), there are only few tutorial/sample code
outside of stackoverflow as compared to other languages (e.g. again in my
observation Java). This makes more and more activity on stackoverflow for some
languages as compared to the other languages which has more sample/tutorial on
other place on internet. In my observation, whenever I am writing code in c#
and objective c, I almost always land to stackoverflow by google search but
this is not the case whenever I write code in JAVA
~~~
sogrady
(disclaimer: i'm the author) it's important to keep two things in mind when
considering any ranking: first, and most obviously, no language ranking will
be perfect for all readers, because the metrics for ranking languages will
vary on an individual basis. second, the intent of the ranking. for our
purposes at redmonk, this is an important consideration, because we neither
intend to nor claim to produce rankings that are representative of language
use broadly. if the rankings were representative of all use, languages such as
COBOL would have a substantial presence on the list. we are rather interested
in communities that we believe to be more predictive in terms of future use,
of which github and stackoverflow are two obvious examples. the sustained
strength of javascript on both properties has been one example of their
ability to identify trending languages.
as for the criticisms regarding the usage of stackoverflow above, this is why
we correlate the stackoverflow rankings with github. one represents discussion
and research about a language, the other is manifestation of activity within a
language. what's interesting is that the correlation between these properties
has historically been strong and appears to be getting stronger over time.
again, no ranking is perfect - ours included - but we feel that measuring
programming language interest and traction via these properties is at the very
least an interesting datapoint.
~~~
achat
Completely agree. I commented based on my personal observation which, I guess,
can not be generalized.
------
aai2
And judging the relative popularity for less popular languages such as Common
Lisp is even less precise if we base the research only on github and
stackoverflow. So I would be very careful with this comparison of language
popularity. Although it is better to have some chart that none :)
~~~
mooreds
I agree. The data is not the best, but having some data is better than none,
as long as the graph is taken with a grain of salt.
~~~
aai2
Yes, precisely. Still this is a very interesting research and you can see
clusters of languages like the most popular ones. I just noticed that people
often tend to look at a chart and jump to quick conclusions, so just wanted to
add this "grain of salt" :)
------
city41
These are curious statements:
* CoffeeScript is a simplied version of JavaScript that infuriates technologists with its technical compromises
What compromises and how is it simplified? If anything it's more complex than
JavaScript.
* while Assembly is as close to the bare metal as most developers today are likely to get.
The only thing closer would be machine code. Not sure I want to develop in
that :)
(btw, hijacking the clipboard is kind of annoying :-/)
~~~
KMag
Arguably VHDL and Verilog are closer to the bare metal than assembly. Of
course, everyone I personally know who are coding VHDL or Verilog
professionally are either working on latency-critical financial systems or
defense systems.
Edit: ... and my guess is that VHDL and Verilog are likely to be under-
represented in public data.
------
pjhyett
If folks want to improve our language detection on GitHub, please take a look
at <https://github.com/github/linguist>
------
igouy
The "analysis" is just as broken as when it was last posted here 2 months ago
<http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4512702>
------
novalis
Looks like the biggest mover is Haxe and it doesn't get a mention at all, or
am I misreading these charts.
------
somid3
is it possible to get numbers and units on the axis? what does the 80 mean, I
think this is incredible
~~~
mertd
I'm having trouble parsing the SO axis as well. Python (145K tags) and PHP
(300K tags) are right next to each other around 90. R (19K tags) and Delphi
(17K tags) are just slightly below around 80.
~~~
sogrady
the numbers for both axes are their respective rankings, not actual tag
counts. their positioning, therefore, isn't directly proportional to the
actual tag volume, but how they rank relative to one another. if we had actual
numbers on the github side rather than just the rankings, we'd account for
this by introducing a logarithmic scale, but we're constrained by what the
data we have access to.
------
hakcermani
Great Haskell is right up there with Assembly. And which Nimrod will learn
Nimrod ?!
------
somid3
this is an incredible graph, I am sending to all my coder friends
~~~
igouy
"incredible: impossible or very difficult to believe"
[http://dictionary.cambridge.org/dictionary/american-
english/...](http://dictionary.cambridge.org/dictionary/american-
english/incredible?q=incredible)
See <http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4516651>
~~~
klibertp
I would suspect that grandparent knew exactly the meaning of "incredible", as
it is just very difficult to believe that this graph represents anything more
than what people use SO and github ;)
~~~
igouy
I suspect that somid3 was simply being emphatic.
Actually, the graph is a gross distortion rather than difficult to believe --
see <http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4516651>
~~~
klibertp
Yes, I read that and was referring to this exactly, but somewhat jokingly. I
just thought that "incredible" could be a more polite way to say "useless"...
~~~
igouy
>> "incredible" could be <<
... enthusiastic - like "terrific" "fantastic".
What somid3 meant is not at all clear.
------
Toshio
My interpretation of this is that Common Lisp is a computer scientist's
language (lots of code written in it, very few questions, presumably these are
very advanced level questions).
On the other hand, C# and Visual Basic are weekend coders' languages
(reasonable amounts of code, massive amounts of very basic level questions).
~~~
anonymfus
>On the other hand, C# and Visual Basic are weekend coders' languages
Or they simply have anti-git bias in developer's culture. Like F#, which is
not popular among beginners but placed far away over median too.
~~~
josteink
Seconded. In C#'s favourite environment (Visual Studio) the GIT-support is so
far from seamless that it's one of the last source-control/VCS's you'll
consider.
~~~
nahname
Does that matter because of the missing feature (which is actually pretty good
if you try git-extensions or github for windows) or is this because of the
community? Not needing editor/IDE integration is one of the primary reasons
git is better than other source control options. You could easily make the
case that VS users are not comfortable on the command line.
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Ask HN: Why is it so hard to hire good engineers? - arlix
I was wondering if anyone in charge of hiring here has any insights on why its generally so hard to hire a good engineer. I have been brainstorming a startup focused around recruiting, and I am an engineer myself who has struggled with this in the past in small startups. Does it become easier if youre hiring for a bigger company than a small startup?
======
imauld
Because they all have jobs. And if they are looking for a new one they can
pick where they want to go because by virtue of being good engineers it's easy
for them to find jobs since everyone is looking for good engineers.
And if they aren't looking, why not? My best guess (aside from being happy
where they are) is that the engineer interview process is broken. People don't
want to go sit in a room and grilled on CS 101 level questions for 4 or 5
hours. It's stressful, it's a poor predictor of performance, and it's most
likely not what they will be working on. So they avoid it.
Just my opinion though.
~~~
pacala
From the other side of the interview table, how do you tell apart engineers
from bulls__t masters, who take credit for their team's work without ever
having a positive engineering contribution?
~~~
sidlls
Have them talk about the problems they solved at their current and previous
employers, and get to some technical depth while doing so.
This doesn't mean asking him to implement some CS algorithm from scratch on
the board or doing a Big-O analysis.
It means asking him about the specific methods and how/why they worked and
going into some depth. His former employers' "company secrets" aren't a good
excuse for hedging here, either: with few exceptions he should be able to use
a contrived, but representative system, data, etc. to explain if he truly
contributed to the solution.
------
git-pull
Are you sure it's not the other way around?
Maybe it's hard for good engineers to find good employers and bosses.
9/10 of the technical screens I take are bunk. It boils down to what's fresh
on my mind that moment; random trivia.
I feel the comment I made "It's an employer's market"
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12667346](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12667346)
rings true.
There's no incentive for the employer to apply more thought into holistically
seeing if a can perform a role - or learn it if accommodated.
Not impromptu, fanciful, hypothetical scaling scenarios and job requirements.
> good engineer
What does that mean?
Those involved in hiring aren't skilled engineers. They lack qualification to
determine what a good engineer is. It's Dunning-Kruger.
A manager is reluctant to hire a star programmer that could run laps around
them and upstages them. A junior programmer will use on-the-spot technical
interviews to disqualify - catch them off guard - so they don't hire the
person who replaces them.
Merit is thrown out the door due to turf protection. So maybe a more correct
word would be, an "appropriate" engineer. To suit the political dynamic and
lack of incentive to make the company tech-centric.
If you've been bossing people around for the last years, you haven't been
doing much other than talking while we've been hacking all this time.
~~~
PaulRobinson
You're generalising and stereotyping in a way that suggests you're not very
experienced, so perhaps we can put down the bizarre sweeping statements to
inexperience.
I'm an experienced engineer and have hired many people. I specifically look
for people who are better than me and I can learn from, even if I'm going to
be their boss.
Why would I do that? I believe if you want to get better at something, hang
out with people who are already better. I get better if I work with better
people and, as it happens, my bosses/shareholders are happy with that too
because they end up with a more talented workforce.
The trick then is making them want to come and work with me. If I'm super
lucky, they have gaps that others in the team can help with, and that way they
can still grow within the team.
It's no different to building a band: Paul, John, George and Ringo all knew
the others were better at something than they were, and knew that was the
secret to them all individually stepping up and beyond their previous
abilities.
The fact you've worked in toxic environments with toxic people is something I
am sorry to hear. I sincerely hope it gets better for you one day. However,
please don't make your experiences a statement of fact about the state of
technical management and leadership in general.
~~~
notyourday
> You're generalising and stereotyping in a way that suggests you're not very
> experienced, so perhaps we can put down the bizarre sweeping statements to
> inexperience.
Dunno, his experience pretty much matches experience that I had in different
parts of this industry in different roles all the way to being someone who
only reports to a board of directors. It also matches the experience of lots
of people that I know. It is the "mean" of all industries and even unicorns
revert to the mean in time.
> Why would I do that? I believe if you want to get better at something, hang
> out with people who are already better. I get better if I work with better
> people and, as it happens, my bosses/shareholders are happy with that too
> because they end up with a more talented workforce.
That maybe true in some small companies. In fact, it probably is true for all
small companies that survive. It is certainly not true in larger or large
companies until those companies convert individual departments into entities
judged by P&L and only P&L.
> It's no different to building a band: Paul, John, George and Ringo all knew
> the others were better at something than they were, and knew that was the
> secret to them all individually stepping up and beyond their previous
> abilities.
This is how the bands that do not make it out of a garage look like - the ones
that are staffed by sad 40 year old men who think their music is awesome and
they are just about to make it while working as waiters and bus boys in
restaurants.
Successful bands are staffed by "rock stars" \- the minimum acceptable level
of performance is so high these people are not even in a market. There are no
managers that are not rock stars at what they do and non-rock stars are
definitely not telling rock stars what to do.
------
tabeth
This is a myth. It's easy to hire good people, just offer more money. The end.
Now, if your question is how to hire the best engineers on some budget, that's
a different question. Regardless, the less money you offer, the less likely
you'll be able to hire "good people".
\---
A more interesting and profitable question to have the answer to is how to
make a bad engineer a good one for the least amount of money possible.
~~~
lmilcin
Believe me, it's not as easy as you may think.
The main reason is that good engineers will be quick to change their jobs when
faced with enough bullshit, but the B and lower grades will be all to happy to
take any bullshit as long as you pay them the good money you are paying.
You can't make good engineer from bad. Good engineer is a person who is
interested in what they are doing. You can't make a person genuinely
interested in engineering if they are not.
You can make skilled, experienced good engineer from unskilled/unexperienced
good engineer.
You can tell who will be a good engineer even before they start doing
professional work. These will be the people who have integrity, who like to
learn, have capability to solve complex abstract problems, stamina to deal
with complicated problems for an extended period of time.
~~~
tabeth
"B and lower grades"... what? If you have some magical process to separate the
"B and lower" from the supposed A, do tell. Even if you had such a process
money would be the mechanism to capture and retain the best people, so yeah,
money is still the solution to this problem.
~~~
PeterisP
That's kind of the problem - no one has a magical process to quickly/easily
separate good engineers from the mediocre ones, you can only filter out
obvious incompetence.
So simply offering lots of money is not sufficient to hire good engineers,
you'll still get a mix of good and poor ones, and will need to figure out to
filter them afterwards when you've had sufficient time to see what they're
made of.
~~~
tabeth
You're right that there's no process to quickly and easily separate them,
however for enough money people will endure a long and difficult process,
which is the point.
------
jseliger
It is hard to hire good anyone because reality has a surprising amount of
detail: [http://johnsalvatier.org/blog/2017/reality-has-a-
surprising-...](http://johnsalvatier.org/blog/2017/reality-has-a-surprising-
amount-of-detail) and many if not most people are poorly suited to abstract
symbolic manipulation work.
Add to that the difficulty of the profession itself and the constellation of
ancillary skills one needs (conscientiousness, the ability to interact with
other people, articulateness, the ability to disagree respectfully and
intelligently, etc.) and you will find it hard to hire good "x" in general.
Finally, it is often hard to hire good "x" unless you are paying at or above
the market wage for x. The people who have a hard time hiring are generally
not paying the market wage or above it. When they do, they suddenly find it
much easier to hire.
------
iabacu
A lot of people commented on the pay.
Most companies don’t have the option to offer more to the good engineers in
the first place.
First, they don’t apply at all, and if they do, the company will probably fail
to identify them as good.
And if they do identity the good engineer, then they will tend to offer below
market (for the good engineer), and then lose out because of pay.
But it’s not because the company is necessarily cheap: it’s so rare to have a
good engineer that they probably don’t even understand the value of one (or
can’t make good use of them) in the first place, and therefore can’t justify
the offers that the market is swinging at them.
------
ssivark
I'm going to venture a guess:
I think PG's "Blub paradox" [1] applies to all kinds of skills, generally. In
very open-ended (multi-dimensional) domains, a practitioner who's achieved
level "B" will not generally be able to appreciate the additional value of a
practitioner at a significantly higher level "N >> B" \-- at least not enough
to compensate them at a correspondingly higher level. In a constrained
evaluation (like a few hours of interviewing) the probable outcome is that
higher-level practitioner will be considered slightly better, with a lot of
strange stuff thrown in, of unclear value; after all engineering is a very
open-ended domain (unlike athletics for example, where just by watching for a
few minutes you can say someone is much much better).
Since engineering skill is so multi-dimensional, one key to hiring well is
understanding which characteristics are super important for the specific role,
will therefore be compensated appropriately. Looking for generic "good
engineers" will probably be a waste of time, or very hard to accomplish.
Correspondingly, companies which can compensate well to acquire people with
specific skills will probably lure away engineers from other employers who
value them as just amorphous "good engineers".
To be able to hire good engineers, the hiring process needs, at the very
least:
1\. Good engineers as part of the selection team, so that they can select good
engineers. 2\. People who understand the (additional) value brought by
good/great engineers, so that they can make the decision to compensate
accordingly.
PS: All this assuming that the business model is functional (i.e. the business
can afford to pay a good engineer's market rate) and the work being done
actually requires the additional skills of a high-quality engineer.
\--
[1]: PG's article on the Blub paradox --
[http://www.paulgraham.com/avg.html](http://www.paulgraham.com/avg.html)
------
charlesdm
You mean why is it hard to hire engineers at "ok-ish" salaries? Life is (and
gets) expensive.
Pay engineers $500k a year or more -- they'll be kicking down the door.
------
cylinder
Why would any good engineer join you as an employee if you literally have
nothing besides a "brainstorm?" Do you have money to pay salary? Sounds like
you're looking for a co-founder, not an employee.
~~~
mratzloff
I think he means he wants to create a recruiting startup focusing on this
problem, which seems like it would be yet another company built around
increasing the recruiting funnel. I don't believe it's possible to solve the
problem _en masse_ ; the unwelcome answer is that it requires changing the
culture.
------
bdcravens
> I have been brainstorming a startup focused around recruiting
I think the difficulty around finding good engineers is because they hide from
the traditional recruiting markets, as recruiting is typically a negative
experience for the developers involved. Good engineers don't need recruiters,
and likely have a network that is far more valuable when they need a job.
> I am an engineer myself who has struggled with this in the past in small
> startups
I assume you mean that it's hard to find a good engineer at "small startup"
rates? Offer 1.25x market, and you'll find good engineers.
------
lmilcin
As a person regularly in charge of hiring engineers and being engineer myself
I have some observations.
In my opinion this comes down to the fact, that there is only a limited number
of people genuinely interested in engineering but unsatiable demand for
skilled engineers.
As in any other field requiring dedication to master, only genuinely
interested will ever become highly skilled. There is only limited number of
these people. There may be many "engineers", but they are not really dedicated
to their field. The demand creates an opportunity for people who aren't really
skilled and aren't really dedicated but who would like to profit from high
wages in the field.
These people may be interested in other fields (maybe they genuinely love
cinema or are dedicated parents) but the only reason they do their work is
because they have to provide for them or their families and they find
engineering the better choice than alternatives that would probably pay less.
It is my observation that only genuinely interested people actually produce
almost all of the results of any engineering organization.
Now, if you are an engineer and you love what you do where will you want to
work? Will you want to work for large company that has probably a lot of
interesting problems to solve and experience to gain or will you want to work
for unknown company for roughly the same money?
The issue is that all good engineers already have jobs and due to demand they
never stay long on the market. To hire a good engineer you not only have to
find a way to distinguish the genuinely interested, you also have to figure
out a way to change their mind as to their current place of employment.
If you are a company that has only mundane problems and you don't want to pay
extraordinary rates then you really are out of luck.
The best advice I can have for companies who struggle to find engineers in a
field is to try and allow fully remote work. That is if the field allows this.
Get your systems and company environment ready for fully remote work. You will
immediately benefit for being able to choose from people all over the world
and not just local to your office.
That is, provided you already have the rest of your hiring process in top
shape.
~~~
txsh
> There may be many "engineers", but they are not really dedicated to their
> field.
What qualifies you to decide someone isn’t “dedicated” enough?
~~~
sheepmullet
Results are all that matters.
All the top devs I know have had to put the hours in. Same as all the top
lawyers and all the top engineers.
If you can be in the top 5-10% of your field while never working more than a
40 hour week and no side projects or out of hours study then more power to
you.
But that's rare.
When I was, arguably, in the top 5% I was working 45-50 hours a week at a
great job and doing 2 hours a day self study on top.
~~~
txsh
I have reservations to take my wife out on Valentines Day. Should I instead
divorce her so I can spend more time balancing binary trees? Would that get me
hired, sir?
~~~
sheepmullet
> Should I instead divorce her so I can spend more time balancing binary
> trees?
It takes a lot of sacrifice to make it to the top.
Should I be allowed to study while you enjoy your Valentines Day? Then I might
just get ahead of you.
Luckily for us in tech you can make good money without being in the top 5-10%.
------
bsvalley
People want to hire great "engineers" by asking them to write stupid functions
on a whiteboard 4 hours in a row. That's after 2 phone interviews of 45
minutes each asking the exact same stupid questions. Are you guys looking for
CS students or engineers?
------
mratzloff
Three interrelated reasons:
1) Companies have no interest in investing in job skill growth
Which leads to
2) Companies have devalued the role of engineering management
Which leads to
3) The tech interview as it exists today is fundamentally broken
------
invalidOrTaken
I think a big part of the problem is insufficient agency on both sides of the
equation.
I was talking to a potential client today and he told me that he'd been
considering hiring an engineer with a strong "official" background (Cisco,
etc), who had billed himself at $100/hr.
"I don't think I can afford that," my friend said.
The next day the engineer messaged him saying he'd cut his rate to $50/hr.
In other words: No one has any idea what they're doing. It's still very much
the Wild West. The in-demand currency, I've concluded, is _security_. If
you're funded to the point of not worrying about payroll: engineers will flock
to you. If you're battle-tested in scaling something huge: terrified founders
will follow you around.
The critical skill, IMO, is finding entities who could be great, _with your
help_. One of FAANG's strengths is that they pay their devs so well that they
can stop worrying about money, and feel safe enough to get absorbed in
whatever problem is on their plate.
~~~
BjoernKW
If neither the engineer in question knows if his service is worth $50 or $100
dollars an hour nor the client (i.e. the employeer) has any idea of if the
service might be worth that price how can we expect the market to settle for a
a price both parties can agree on?
The underlying problem is that the value of software development is hard to
quantify and that professionals in that area often even try to keep it that
way.
Why is engineering output commonly measured in time wasted instead of value
created?
~~~
invalidOrTaken
Well, it's funny, after writing that comment, I'm not really sure I still
regard the situation as a "problem." For the distributed systems guru with a
proven track record, the world is his oyster. What problem?
PG's advice that basically reduces to "fundraising sucks" rings true to me,
but I suspect that someone _really good_ at it would also find a lot of
opportunities falling into their lap.
I guess my general train of thought is: most engineers treat the business side
as consisting solely of downside---they want to "get fucked as little as
possible" and then seek their upside in engineering. But there's opportunity
there for those who look for it.
------
koopuluri
Have had experience interviewing, and exploring similar space.
My beliefs that I'm in the process of validating further:
-> Poor resume filtering (based on keywords and proxy credentials) reduces the size of the candidate pool - biased to those that have worked at brand name institution, or went to brand name school, which leaves out many talented folks.
-> Technical interviews are low accuracy predictors of competence, which means you have to up-weight previous experience & credentials to reduce risk of bad hire. If you do choose to open up doors to interview candidates from non-traditional backgrounds, due to the greater variance in competence, you have to spend more time interviewing before you make a hire, driving up the costs.
-> Companies are biased towards cheaper, low-risk interviewing. They want to get the talent to meet the business needs, as long as they can do the job and fit the culture ==> paying more to get the talent that they know has greater chance to deliver is totally worth it.
A bigger company has the advantage of having more data about their hiring
process, which could lead to more systematic experimentation to improve
hiring. They also have a brand that would attract more people - bigger company
often correlates with stability, and market rate pay, which are also drawing
factors. They also have less risk --> a bad hire, that can be identified
relatively quickly and fired, hurts a bigger company less than smaller ones,
and they have more money to throw around.
Hiring at startups is tough: Your low-risk talent pool has other, great from a
financial perspective, opportunities. Your higher risk talent pool is
expensive to validate competence for because industry standard approaches are
low-accuracy signals.
Fix interview process to give a higher signal, which allows you to reduce
weight on credentials and experience, which allows you to increase size of
candidate pool (because you've reduced the risk and cost to validate).
There's a lot of talent in the world that doesn't fall into the low-risk
bucket that everyone is competing for.
------
sidlls
This is a broad question and really depends on the context and environment.
Outside of major tech hubs the answer usually boils down to "insufficient
supply of any quality above poor".
In the major tech hubs it usually boils down to the glut of CS graduates who
think they know everything or that they are smarter than everybody else
perpetuating the CS hazing ritual that is the modern interview process. The
bar is set too high using a bad method of measuring skill: the bad definition
of "good" leads to an artificial scarcity of "good" engineers.
Good engineers aren't going to tolerate that crap, and will be able to get
positions that outside of the typical hiring process.
------
notyourday
Are you sure the question is not "Why is it so hard to hire good engineers if
I do not want to pay them good money?"
------
maxander
Thinking like an engineer: to hire good engineers, you need A) good engineers
to apply for the position, and B) to tell which of your applicants are the
good engineers. Those two conditions are necessary and sufficient.
As other commenters have noted, A boils down to “offer lots of money.” Some
really interesting fields may be able to offer less out of “cool factor,” but
odds are you’re not hiring for one of those fields- all your potential hires
who claim to think CRUD apps are fun and intellectually stimulating are just
lying. ....So A is simple, if you’re honest with yourself and bite the
financial bullet.
B is a problem that is apparently beyond present-say technology, and quite
possibly not possible to achieve at all. There are code-testing sites that go
beyond the standard CS interview, but how can a several-hour exam test
someone’s ability to manage a codebase over months or years? In particular
_your company’s_ codebase, which will have many important idiosyncrasies and
be a very different environment than any project the hire has worked on in the
past. ...We’ll likely have flying cars before we figure out a halfway decent
solution for B.
------
gamechangr
Q: How do you know you're not paying market rate (or enough)?
A: Good Engineers are not finding you through their network
\--------------
Other than that, you need to find good engineers -before they are proven -
believe in them and ask for their commitment for let's say 3 years.
------
howscrewedami
What is "good engineer"? How can a company tell if someone is a "good
engineer"? These are hard questions. And I think you gotta answer them first
if you want an answer to your original question.
------
knewter
not paying enough or not vetting well
------
praulv
The problem is you're trying to hire engineers to do business analysis,
product management, support and quality assurance. The problem is your lack of
engineering culture and process.
------
txsh
Because nobody wants to train good engineers. It’s not like the people you’re
interviewing set out to be bad engineers. It’s just that people like you won’t
hire them unless they’re already perfect.
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Too few pages indexed by ggl. why? - bee
Hello, I have a question.<p>I have a website, and I submitted a sitemap in google webmaster tools, with about 10k pages. But only around 2k (around 20%) are in google index. Any ideas how to get indexed more pages?<p>I have the exact same script on another website, and around of 80% pages are in google index.<p>I don't know what's the difference... any ideas?
======
michael_dorfman
I've got the same problem, and I am told that the problem is due to a lack of
links to the pages in question. Simply being in the Sitemap is not by itself
sufficient to guarantee a page appearing in Google.
So: make sure that the pages that _are_ listed link to the ones that _aren't_
, so some PageRank trickles down.
~~~
bee
Thanks, but the point is I have the same script installed on another website
that has 80% pages in index...
~~~
JoachimSchipper
That site probably has a higher PageRank.
~~~
bee
Is curious, I've launched it after the one with few indexed pages :)
------
iwr
A site with a sitemap, but nothing else (already ranked) linking to it would
probably not get indexed.
~~~
bee
that must be it I guess, should get more links, even the links are on the
index and not inner pages
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
A basic guide to SEO, by analogy with Jerry Seinfeld - kerno
http://afatefulhaven.com/2012/12/a-basic-guide-to-seo-by-jerry-seinfeld/
======
calciphus
SEO: Making lousy content slightly more prominent for a short period, and
charging a surprising amount of money to customers who dont understand
technology.
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
What I Love About Wordpress Plugins - madmax108
http://meta.discourse.org/t/what-i-love-about-wordpress-plugins/5697
======
jacques_chester
As a wordpress administrator, I detest plugins.
There's no isolation. If a plugin breaks or is slow, the whole of Wordpress
breaks or is slow(er).
That's not entirely their fault. Every PHP application that runs in a shared
hosting environment is stuck with the same unsolvable stability / security
problems:
* Shared login to the database means and plugin or theme can see any data on any table
* Single-process structure ensures that a single glitch halts the world
* Serial execution means a slow plugin can choke a site
And so on and so forth.
I still believe that when web apps are targeted at VPSes a lot of this pain
will go away. Imagine if plugins ran as jailed processes and communicating by
message queues. If a plugin faulted or didn't meet the render deadline, its
input would simply be skipped and life would go on.
A man can dream.
~~~
eevee
Some of this is inherent to the nature of plugins that alter the guts of a
large program—look at the issues Firefox has had. At best Wordpress could
rewrite itself to be insanely parallel _just in case_ a plugin in any
particular area is slow, but that's a whole lot of work, the result is harder
to maintain, and PHP isn't particularly amenable to it.
~~~
jacques_chester
As I said, they are constrained by the general LAMP architecture. You _can't_
make it more parallel, you _can't_ make objects more independent.
> _the result is harder to maintain_
This I disagree with.
------
67726e
I have to disagree with the filters. Sure, it's convenient at first glance,
but it turns into a nightmare. The filter functionality in WordPress leads to
spaghetti code at it's worst. I don't want to think about how many times I've
had to comb through a dozen plugins on a WordPress install trying to find some
obscure, poorly written filter that breaks something in a very peculiar way.
I think the problem is that you're altering some global state with no
knowledge of how others may be altering the same data, and the code itself
becomes an entangled mess of callbacks.
------
Svip
To be quite honest, I dislike GetText() quite a lot. Drupal re-implements it
as t(), but it still is fundamentally lacking in context, which Drupal later
had to add as a second parameter. The English word 'order' can be translated
to »sortering« or »bestilling« depending on context in Danish.
I much _much_ more prefer MediaWiki's approach, by naming all message strings
something related to their purpose, this often results in a name structure,
that defines their grouping and purpose, takes up less space, and does not
require context definitions, because it does per default.
As a result, you contain all your messages - per default at least - in a
message file, such as this:
[https://gerrit.wikimedia.org/r/gitweb?p=mediawiki/core.git;a...](https://gerrit.wikimedia.org/r/gitweb?p=mediawiki/core.git;a=blob;f=languages/messages/MessagesEn.php;h=c5dba69dc0dbe10af14991d83a7b515ee75642f5;hb=HEAD)
But each message can be altered, which is then saved in the database; if a
message is not in the database, its default is used.
------
kijin
Aaaaand of course there are downsides to every convenient feature.
Ability to install plugins directly from the admin interface? Instantly enable
them without restarting anything? This is only possible because your plugins
directory and everything in it is writable by the web server. In other words,
any plugin can mess with any other plugin, or even WordPress itself. The only
reason this doesn't happen is because you have yet to come across a malicious
plugin.
WordPress plugins can do anything and everything. They are very powerful.
Therefore, they should be treated with the same level of caution that any
powerful yet relatively unrestrained program deserves. Like ActiveX controls
on IE6 (shudder). You don't simply search n' download them for a test drive,
unless you really really trust the competence and moral integrity of the
author and the repository.
~~~
davidlumley
> Therefore, they should be treated with the same level of caution that any
> powerful yet relatively unrestrained program deserves.
A friend of mine's mother routinely compromises his vps simply by installing
themes which include the popular TimThumb
(<https://code.google.com/p/timthumb/>) plugin. Through the plugin, it's easy
for an attacker to install web shells etc.
This is true of many plugin systems, and RubyGems for example is not immune
from this. The difference between installing a new gem however, is that as a
software engineer or developer it's your job to have confidence in the
security of the gem. With a Wordpress plugin, any user of Wordpress can easily
install it, and sometimes it's the theme which includes the plugin.
~~~
michaelbuddy
The old Tim Thumb is vulnerable. The writer of tim thumb fixed that security
hole though after the issue from what I read.
------
mschuster91
The Ruby/Python fanboys might downvote me for this, but the author here states
the biggest advantage of the PHP ecosystem in general: most popular software
is unpack-and-it-works! And that on near every OS/server combination out
there.
~~~
eevee
Why downvote? It's true, and we need to be stealing that somehow.
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Ancient virus found hibernating in the human genome - mromanuk
https://arstechnica.com/science/2016/03/ancient-virus-found-hibernating-in-the-human-genome-and-it-might-wake-up/
======
JoeAltmaier
Maybe we're mostly made of coopted virus fragments? Could be intelligent apes
were spawned not by mutation but by viral meddling, however inadvertent it may
have been.
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Google CEO: we need to “take a much harder line on inappropriate behavior” - Analemma_
https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2018/10/google-ceo-we-need-to-take-a-much-harder-line-on-inappropriate-behavior/
======
londons_explore
Googlers internally are like children with a lot of petty squabbles. There are
some with quite 'far out' views, and rather than accept differences of
opinion, they like to squabble about it, pick sides, get offended, and, more
often than not, fire a bunch of people.
Googles CEO has the very hard task of trying to calm the crying ones, punish
the ones stirring the pot, all while not making others stomp off because they
think the whole thing is unfair.
~~~
izacus
Uh, the topic is sexual harassment. How is that a "pretty squabble"?!
~~~
writepub
As evident from oodles of press, it can be anything. From a damore memo, to
search in China. From a deal with the Pentagon, to Trump's election. Anything
and everything is outrage worthy for the average Googler, if you believe the
press.
And the CEO keeps reacting. At some point, he needs to ask those who aren't
aligned with business deliverables, and wallow in externalities to walk away -
they aren't just unproductive themselves, but drag the whole company into the
mud in the press
~~~
apacheCamel
I do not believe that standing up to sexual harassment or other morally
objectionable things as "dragging the company into the mud in the press". They
are calling Google out on a multitude of shady business practices like any
good employee would do. Keeping sexual harassment under wraps will just cause
it to ferment inside the inner workings of the company and eventually it will
boil over in an even larger scandal. It should be taken care of as soon as it
comes up.
~~~
prepend
I don’t think, I hope, that anyone thinks sexual harassment is petty. But
there are different lines depending on lots of factors.
For other issues, it’s realky variable as to what needs to “be taken care of
as soon as it comes up.”
The tough part is that so many people have so many topics they could focus on
rather than build mission stuff.
Are you ok with a decent chunk of the workforce forcing abortion restriction
be taken care of because they are pro-life? Or anarchists demanding that no
government be supported?
Recent press has shown Google all over the place on topics of various
importance. As an outsider, I’m not sure what is a priority for Google or what
its values are that allow for firing sexual harassers, but not reporting
privacy breaches.
It seems to me that the CEO makes statements once the outrage gets loud
enough.
------
bradknowles
Okay, insofar as those words go, I can agree with that statement.
But what is he actually going to do?
Because otherwise they’re just empty words.
------
finnthehuman
It goes without saying, but still worth pointing out that the official line
from google is now:
Inappropriate = Grossly unprofessional behavior where "even one person
experiences Google the way the New York Times article described."
Appropriate = Collaborating with a communist country to manipulate their
populace with censorship and surveillance.
~~~
BLKNSLVR
Inappropriate = sexual harassment
Appropriate = operating within a country according to that country's laws.
The US* trades with China. How many other US* companies have manufacturing in
China that exploit cheap labour and have done for decades?
You're at the entrance of a deep, winding rabbit hole that very few
individuals come out of smelling like anything but a hypocrite of epic
proportions.
* Replace with almost any other country and it remains true.
~~~
thedudeabides5
well, maybe that's the point.
I mean Google can do what it wants, but asking someone for a topless back
massage at Burning Man is kinda like asking someone for a cup of coffee when
you enter starbucks.
Yes, guys shouldn't sketch on their interviewees, but this seems like firing a
guy for a level 2 offense to make up for the fact that the $90m horse just
left the stable.
------
writepub
At some point the CEO needs to put his foot down and call bluff on those
threatening to quit. There are plenty of talented, ambitious individuals who'd
love to code and get rich, without all the externalities of holding the
company hostage over __insert__trendy__issue__here.
~~~
nil_pointer
Until those disgruntled ex-employees run to the blog outlets of the web and
make a viral story about Google being mean.
------
navane
> DeVaul’s accuser, Star Simpson, did not know that X had already decided not
> to hire her before the two met at Burning Man in 2013, where according to
> the Times, "he asked her to remove her shirt and offered a back rub. She
> said she refused. When he insisted, she said she relented to a neck rub."
Say no and walk away from that man?
I sit in a cubicle for 10 years getting the life sucked out of me by some
tedious job. I'd love to give some guy a back rub to get a higher up position.
~~~
mtgx
But she wasn't going to get the position anyway.
~~~
apacheCamel
It shouldn't matter if she was going to get the position or not. This
interaction between an interviewer and (recently) interviewee is just wrong.
It is an abuse of power. If she HAD received the job offer, who knows if the
advances would have ever stopped?
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Ask HN: What are the great software development books written in last 5 years? - cryptozeus
======
croo
You don't know javascript: [https://github.com/getify/You-Dont-Know-
JS](https://github.com/getify/You-Dont-Know-JS)
I would also mention that the 3rd edition of Effective Java is still a
standard for anyone using java7-8-9: Joshua Bloch Effective Java (3rd Edition)
------
auslegung
I’ve been impressed with A Philosophy of Software Design. The Little Typer The
Little Typer (The MIT Press)
[https://www.amazon.com/dp/0262536439/ref=cm_sw_r_cp_api_pXxS...](https://www.amazon.com/dp/0262536439/ref=cm_sw_r_cp_api_pXxSBb5X8SY8Y)
looks promising
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Træfik, a modern reverse-proxy - emilevauge
http://traefik.github.io/
======
philips
I like this pattern of using a distributed configuration store like etcd for
load balancers so you can have a single configuration for a set of frontends.
It is also great to have HTTP servers focused on runtime reconfiguration via
APIs. A similar project that I have found useful is called Vulcan:
[http://vulcand.io/](http://vulcand.io/)
~~~
emilevauge
In fact, I'm using
[https://github.com/mailgun/oxy](https://github.com/mailgun/oxy), the reverse
proxy Engine made by Mailgun to build Vulcand :) Vulcand is awsome. But I
wanted to build something simpler, that would work not only with etcd, but
also with Docker, Mesos, Consul, etc.
------
josteink
For a norwegian (ØÆÅ, there you go, proof enough?), seeing someone misspelling
traffic as "træfik" immediately makes me think about some guy from out in the
country, with a semi-thick norwegian dialect and bad, bad norw-english
pronounciation.
"Træfik".
Americanized, with full prejudice, my best træfik character-impression would
be "Hey y'all. Howdy doodely do! What'cha got going on here in the barn?
Because that ain't no country or western I know!"
You get the picture :)
~~~
emilevauge
It comes from
[http://phonemicchart.com/transcribe/?w=TRAFFIC](http://phonemicchart.com/transcribe/?w=TRAFFIC)
;)
~~~
imron
It may well do, but I certainly don't want to visit that page every time I
want to type the name.
~~~
emilevauge
The project on Github is simply traefik without the æ, so it should be ok :)
------
SEJeff
Any chance you can add one of those "Fork me on github" banners? Not even
having the github url a hyperlink is a bit annoying.
~~~
emilevauge
You're absolutely right :) It should be better now.
------
luisfaceira
I'm very interested in dynamically configured reverse proxies, and this one
seems to have a few positive aspects. A few doubts:
* How is the API authenticated?
* Does the API backend persist the configuration?
* Are there any plans for content-modification?
~~~
emilevauge
Hi! 1/ TLS 2/ Not for now, but definitely the roadmap 3/ Not in a near futur
sorry :)
------
thethimble
Have you guys done any performance analysis of Træfɪk vs HAProxy vs Nginx?
~~~
emilevauge
I have made some tests, but as Træfɪk is still in developpement, I will
publish some serious benchmarks later.
Besides, Træfɪk is not in the race of pure performance. It is fast and will be
fast, but it's not my top priority.
~~~
inkel
As long as its performance is not orders of magnitude slower than
HAProxy/Nginx, I think it's great that is not your top priority :)
------
foolinaround
I would like a comparison of features with haproxy.
TIA!
~~~
fgd
+1
------
d2xdy2
The readme links to a releases page to get some binaries, but afaik it's just
source.
~~~
emilevauge
Binaries are here, I can see them :)
~~~
d2xdy2
I must be incredibly dense... forgive me.
> [http://imgur.com/7iNx4btl.png](http://imgur.com/7iNx4btl.png)
is the releases page
> [http://imgur.com/LTJ5AfWl.png](http://imgur.com/LTJ5AfWl.png)
is what I see when I unpack either the Zip or the Tarball.
I don't see a binary anywhere on there. I'd really like to try it out, though!
~~~
emilevauge
Ops, my bad. The release was in draft mode, not public... It should be better
now :)
~~~
d2xdy2
Thanks!
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Do programmers get the respect they deserve? - john_p
http://www.codingismycraft.com/2013/04/30/a-conversation-with-a-technical-recruiter/
======
gee_totes
Maybe a better title for this post is "Do recruiters give programmers the
respect they deserve?"
~~~
john_p
This was the initial title, but I realized that the problem is more general
------
whiteorb
Are programmers needy for attention?
~~~
john_p
I am not sure that attention is the proper word. I think that the overall
image as it is projected to outsiders is what can describe the situation. And
yes, I think that this image certainly counts, not only for social reasons
(which I agree are not very important) but mainly for career progress and
evolution.
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
A Super-Efficient Email Process - nreece
http://blogs.hbr.org/bregman/2012/05/a-super-efficient-email-proces.html
======
Fuzzwah
I have a super efficient email process;
1) use gmail 2) any email which is important I click on and read 3) everything
else remains unread
Most of the time I can get everything I need from an email from what is shown
in gmail's inbox view. I currently have 8,212 unread messages in my inbox. I
like seeing that number get bigger and bigger, as it is a kind of score board
of how much time I've saved by not using a process similar to the one
described in this submission.
Why spend time manually archiving when I'm just going to search to find
anything from the past anyway....
~~~
Wickk
Hi, it's called filters that take 2 seconds to setup.
~~~
Fuzzwah
But then I have to click into separate folders to view the same emails which I
currently take in on a single page?
~~~
Wickk
I'm going to take a wild guess that a large bulk of those 8K+ emails needs to
be sent straight to the trash.
~~~
Fuzzwah
Possibly 25% of them. But why? Its more time efficient to just leave them
there. You seem to be missing my point :)
~~~
Wickk
I just hate having unecessary cruft personally. I need to organize everything
------
qznc
1\. Disable notifications and process emails in bursts.
2\. Re-enable notifications as necessary. For me only emails from my boss fall
in this category.
Most advice focuses on the first rule, but the system does not really work
without the second rule. The second rule provides peace of mind, because you
will not miss important things by not looking into your email client. This in
turn enables you to make larger pauses between bursts.
A corollary rule: Train your "non-necessary" contacts to use the phone for
time-critical messages.
------
exDM69
Who would have thought 15-20 years ago that e-mail would turn out to be a
hindrance to productivity, not a booster. Perhaps it's that e-mail is too easy
to send so people do it even when it wouldn't be necessary or there would be a
smarter way to communicate. So many people end up with thousands of e-mails a
day, only a few of which are important.
It's hard to assess the overall effects of e-mail vs. productivity, though.
------
mark_integerdsv
Administering administration much?
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Ask HN: A friend has a plan to get a job in UK, worried about legal implications - gallinaponedora
Hi, I'm asking on behalf of a good friend and fellow programmer who is looking for a job in London, UK after being made redundant recently.<p>She told me that virtually every offer in job boards are posted by recruiters, who liaise with the companies to help them get candidates.<p>She used recruiters in the past to get her previous job and told me of the ordeal that was to deal with most of them, who conducted themselves with a remarkable lack of morals, taking advantage of her naivety. She was threatened, harassed, verbally abused, lied, etc. She went once to an office were the first thing they did was to ask for her passport to make a photocopy without asking her first and much much more.<p>So she wants to avoid them now, the problem is that they are few offers of employment that aren't advertised through them and most of them are in boards like this that are used by start ups while she prefers working in medium or "big co" where her experience can command a higher salary.<p>To the point: her plan is to create a fake cv with a different name, talk to the recruiters, get the companies name out of them and apply to those companies on her own. I'm concerned about her because she doesn't know for sure whether she would be breaking the law or not doing this, and she could end in a bad position being in legal trouble, possible blacklisted and unemployed.<p>Can someone offer some insight here. What would you do in her situation? She would really loathe to deal with those people again.<p>Thanks.<p>Otherwise if you want to write to her directly send me a pm for her email address.<p>PD: I'm mainly a lurker but decided to ask for help here today for the first time, as it was the first place I could think of for this purpose. I know there are many people from UK here too.
======
notahacker
She sounds a bit paranoid to me: checking passports is in theory part of a UK
employment agency's legal obligations. If that's the sort of thing she's
inclined to make a fuss about, it's not surprising if they were less than
polite and helpful afterwards. Sure, recruiters also exaggerate how good some
positions are, claim advertised jobs are filled and offer alternatives you're
not interested in or suitable for, but employers do that too. Recruiters don't
have a great reputation, but that's more down to them being expensive for
employers and annoyingly persistent than dangerously immoral.
There probably aren't any legal issues with sticking up a fake CV if you get
hired on the basis of a real one, but rest assured it's not going to look good
with employers if she applies for positions they haven't got round to
advertising yet or if they end up with a copy of two suspiciously similar CVs
with similar names, or if it turns out the third party recruiter is actually
being retained to do the initial screening interview (it happens!)
If she's worried about having her passport photocopied she doesn't sound savvy
enough to be doing what the recruiter will consider to be cheating them out of
commission, and even an employer that's quietly pleased not to be paying
commissions will worry about dishonesty if she gets found out.
------
CWIZO
I'm a Slovenian currently looking for a job in London. As far as I can tell
there are many "direct" job postings. You just have to look a bit:
<http://www.cwjobs.co.uk/> <http://roundabout.io/>
<http://workinstartups.com/> <http://www.gumtree.com/>
[https://jobs.github.com/positions?description=&location=...](https://jobs.github.com/positions?description=&location=london)
<http://www.3-beards.com/jobs> <http://careers.stackoverflow.com/> ...
I've also had good experience with recruiters so far. Haven't gotten a offer
yet, but I did get a face-to-face interview for next friday :)
------
pcowans
It's certainly not difficult to apply directly to the big tech players - you
can find these pretty easily with '<company name> uk careers' Google searches:
<http://www.google.co.uk/about/jobs/locations/london/>
<https://www.facebook.com/careers/locations/london>
[https://jobs.apple.com/uk/search?jobFunction=SFWEG#&t=0&...](https://jobs.apple.com/uk/search?jobFunction=SFWEG#&t=0&sb=req_open_dt&so=1&j=SFWEG&lo=0*GBR&pN=0)
<http://careers.microsoft.com/careers/en/gb/home.aspx>
<http://www.ibm.com/employment/uk/>
I don't really have any experience applying to mid-range companies, but
intuitively it doesn't feel right that anyone should feel the need to conceal
their identity when searching for a developer role, especially if your friend
is experienced enough to be optimising salary rather than worrying about
getting a job at all. Are you sure there hasn't been a misunderstanding?
------
jrogers65
Being a web developer in London who has dealt with many agencies, I call
bullshit on this. Not one recruiter who I have dealt with has been a problem
for me, quite the opposite, in fact. There is something wrong with your
friend's perception of reality; that is to say, she is delusional and
paranoid.
~~~
gallinaponedora
Dunno, I believe her. As I said it might be the fact that she was foreigner,
just arrived and not assertive. (if I may add, I'm even surprised someone has
a positive or even neutral opinion of recruiters! I'm pretty pretty sure that
that view is not the common consensus, whether her case is extreme or not)
~~~
jrogers65
Seriously? They're a blessing - I'm rarely unemployed for more than a week
thanks to them.
~~~
pcowans
This may be the difference between being a contractor and being after a
permanent position. For the latter, with the exception of very senior roles,
you don't often hear people talk about them as anything better than a
necessary evil.
~~~
jrogers65
Ah, that explains it. I didn't use agencies when I was a junior and aim for
lead dev/senior positions these days.
------
hazza1
Not sure in which field your friend works but I'd say things are no longer
like this, most medium to large firm resent paying for agents so put their
jobs up on their websites and encourage applicants.
Pretty much go to any major firms homepage and they'll have a list of open
positions that you can apply directly for.
Personally I've never had an issue with using recruiters and have used them in
conjunction with applying myself. I prefer the buffer of using them but you
can't beat your own research.
~~~
gallinaponedora
Thanks for the advice, she is a web dev. She might have had problem because
she is a foreigner, maybe just bad luck... no idea.
------
MattBearman
I'm a UK based Web developer, and about three years ago I was looking for a
job in the London area. While some of the recruiters I spoke to were a little
bit pushy, they were nothing like the experience your friend previously had.
So I think the fake cv thing is probably unnecessary.
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
An amazing traffic light - MaysonL
http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/wonkblog/wp/2013/08/01/this-is-an-amazing-traffic-light/
======
kls
I don't think a lot of people think about it but stop lights are position
coded for the color blind. These things would cause a lot of problems for
those of us with the disability.
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Why Org is better than ReST (& other markup) - punchagan
http://punchagan.muse-amuse.in/blog/why-i-like-org-as-a-markup.html
======
altxwally
What I like the most about Org syntax is that it gives you a framework to plan
your tasks by using nothing but text. For example:
\- [%] Task 1
\+ [X] Task a
\+ [ ] Task b //C-c on this task will check this an calculate the %
\+ [ ] Task c
Plus, it has comments. I haven't researched enough but I cannot remember of
any other syntax that has comments.
# Fix this paragraph later...
* Why I like Org syntax
When you export this to latex, post it to wordpress or with org2blog, etc...
the comments won't be shown. Very useful.
~~~
rwl
For those unfamiliar: these are awesome, but pretty basic, features of Org. In
addition to a plain-text syntax for outlining and making lists (for tasks or
otherwise), Org syntax offers:
\- tags
\- properties (key/value pairs that can affect things like export behavior,
but also have their own API)
\- dates, timestamps, ranges of these, and repeating dates/timestamps, as well
as more complicated complicated scheduling via integration with Emacs diary
(e.g., a class that meets every Monday from January until May)
\- per-file configuration variables (e.g., configure your TODO workflow in a
given file to be: TODO -> INPROGRESS -> WAITING -> DONE)
\- priority of TODO items
\- hyperlinks to local documents, URLs, emails, address book entries, etc.
and more. I'm just listing the syntax I use. And this is to say nothing of
Org's many great features beyond its syntax, like the capture interface, the
publishing framework, and the many useful exporters.
------
jfm3
Article should be titled "I like Org better than ReST".
~~~
punchagan
agreed.
------
bryanlarsen
I'm not so sure about the thesis of the blog post, I haven't used org very
much. But ReST is so much better than the dominant wiki syntaxes in the Ruby
world, it's not even funny. ReST actually had significant effort put into it's
design, whereas Markdown was a quick hack Gruber designed just for himself and
"thrown over the fence". Even so, it's better than the other common one,
textile.
<http://docutils.sourceforge.net/docs/peps/pep-0287.html>
------
ZoFreX
What the hell is org? As a standalone blog post this left me more confused
than anything else.
~~~
kols
This is org, or orgmode: <http://orgmode.org/>
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Vancouver Housing Tax Pushes Chinese to $1M Seattle Homes - dhirenb
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2016-12-04/vancouver-housing-tax-pushes-chinese-to-1-million-seattle-homes
======
adrenalinelol
There should be similar laws all over. In a global economy, if "regular
people" have to compete with multi-millionaires and billionaires who can move
capital wherever, whenever they want, housing where any decent paying jobs are
located will continue to become more and more unaffordable.
Please note: I'm fully aware this isn't the ONLY reason for ridiculous housing
prices.
~~~
tomcam
So you should have the ability to force other people how to use the house they
paid for? Should I be able to tell you how to use your computer, phone, or
car?
~~~
goatsi
They should consider becoming citizens if they want to get the same treatment
as citizens in the country. Most countries have significant limitations on
what non-citizens can purchase, try buying land in China.
~~~
tomcam
My favorite counterargument! Duly upvoted. I did try buying real estate in
China. Just ended up giving money to my in-laws instead.
~~~
amazon_not
That counterargument kind of assumes you _can_ become a citizen wherever you
want. A lot of people can't, even if they could afford to buy a house.
------
toodlebunions
Seattle should immediately enact a 25% foreign buyer tax and an extra annual
property tax assessment for vacant foreign owned homes.
Likewise, Midwest cities that are economically in the dumps could offer
incentives to attract foreign buyers.
~~~
ajmurmann
Why not just tax for vacant homes, regardless if foreign or not?
~~~
solatic
Because that would ultimately discourage new construction. If you're an
investor and you want to invest in a house to hopefully rent out (not keep
empty just-in-case for yourself), then you have to factor in the risk of not
being able to rent out the property. Having a tax if you fail to rent the
house only increases the risk of failing to rent, and thus, makes investing in
real estate more risky. Pro-development policies need investment to be less
risky, not more risky.
~~~
oakwhiz
The investment risk does not increase very much if the price is decreased
accordingly.
------
taurath
From the article, 50% of homes sold in Seattle and its suburbs are foreign
investments. That's absolutely insane - totally disincentivising people from
actually living there from trying to buy a home. Guess it's time to find
another city.
~~~
curtis
> From the article, 50% of homes sold in Seattle and its suburbs are foreign
> investments.
The article does say that, but as a Seattle resident, that really does not
sound right to me. As a counterpoint, this article[1] in the Seattle Times
says:
_Chinese money now accounts for about 55 percent of all homes purchased by
foreigners in Washington, the Realtors association says._
and
_“It’s definitely helped in driving prices up,” Riley said. In some parts of
the Eastside, in particular, she said “we’ve had a large influx of
international buyers coming in. They’re the buyer about 50 percent of the time
right now.”_
That's 50 or 55% in some parts of the market, not the Seattle metro market as
a whole. That's a lot more believable.
[1] [http://www.seattletimes.com/business/real-estate/seattle-
bec...](http://www.seattletimes.com/business/real-estate/seattle-becomes-
no-1-us-market-for-chinese-homebuyers/)
------
nsamuell
Well done, Vancouver city council! The housing market in Vancouver is totally
bananas
~~~
refurb
Foriegn ownership is only a small part of why Vancouver real estate is so
high. The last stats I saw said foriegn sales amounted to 10-15%. It's mostly
Canadian citizens, coupled with low interest rates that are causing this
bubble.
I saw a stat that said 40% of condos purchased in Toronto (another crazy
market) were bought by speculators. Foriegn sales are even lower (sub 10%)
than in Vancouver.
These laws focused on foriegners are good for scoring political points, but
they don't really address the issue.
~~~
kareemm
> It's mostly Canadian citizens, coupled with low interest rates that are
> causing this bubble.
If that's true, how do you explain that the median home price to household
income ratio is roughly 12x?[1] Affordable is defined as 3x.
1 - For house price I used the 900k avg house price from the parent article.
For median family income I used 76k from StatsCan's 2014 census.
[http://www.statcan.gc.ca/tables-tableaux/sum-
som/l01/cst01/f...](http://www.statcan.gc.ca/tables-tableaux/sum-
som/l01/cst01/famil107a-eng.htm)
------
jaredklewis
It's strange that there is so much push back against foreign investment.
Rather than enact a bunch of projectionist policies, wouldn't it be better to
just adapt to the investment in a way that benefits natives? After all, when
foreign people want to buy something you have, that is called an export, and
most people agree those are good for the economy.
If foreigners are investing in housing, local governments will receive a huge
influx of tax income from property taxes. If there is no property tax, then
now is the perfect time to add it (or the similar but more progressive land
value tax) or increase it. The income from these taxes can be used to fund
infrastructure, education, and reduce other taxes like consumption taxes.
The other thing to when demand for housing in your city is high, is to
increase supply. Seattle is not full. The Seattle metropolitan area is 15,000
sq. km with a population of 3.7 million. To compare, the Tokyo metropolitan
area is 13,500 sq km, with a population of 37 million. No idea about the
accuracy, but this site showed that rents were more reasonable in Tokyo (which
matches my own impressions): [https://www.numbeo.com/cost-of-
living/compare_cities.jsp?cou...](https://www.numbeo.com/cost-of-
living/compare_cities.jsp?country1=Japan&country2=United+States&city1=Tokyo&city2=Seattle%2C+WA)
If we are going to take legislative action anyway, instead of a bunch of
protectionist policies that will create long lasting opportunities for
arbitrage and market inefficiencies, why not just make taxes to help the
people benefit from the foreign investment and let development happen to help
reduce costs long term?
~~~
goatsi
It's funny that you think that they pay taxes.
>An unusually high number of Vancouver homeowners living in multi-million
dollar neighbourhoods but reporting poverty-level incomes is a red flag that
needs immediate government action, says NDP MLA David Eby.
>“The focus should be quite straightforward: are you paying your worldwide
taxes inside British Columbia, or not?” Eby, who represents Vancouver-Point
Grey, told reporters during a July 15 press conference.
>“If you’re not you should have to pay extra in order to pay for the public
services that make this real estate so valuable: the environmental controls,
the policing, the court system, the schools and the healthcare.”
[http://www.metronews.ca/news/vancouver/2016/07/15/number-
of-...](http://www.metronews.ca/news/vancouver/2016/07/15/number-of-poor-
million-dollar-homeowners-high-in-vancouver.html)
>Documents obtained by Eby also show 29 of those homeowners have also been
able to take out a mortgage. “There’s a waitress that bought a $2.3 million
property. And there was a casino dealer and a cashier who bought a $1.2
million property as well. Students, homemakers and waitresses, by definition,
have very low or no incomes. Is this why MacKenzie Heights and other
neighbourhoods throughout the Lower Mainland are reporting incredibly low
incomes, despite real estate values being so high? Are the people purchasing
these $1 million homes reporting poverty level incomes for tax purposes?”
[http://www.news1130.com/2016/09/27/homemakers-students-
own-1...](http://www.news1130.com/2016/09/27/homemakers-students-
own-107-million-in-one-vancouver-neighbourhood/)
~~~
matt_wulfeck
It still seems like a property tax assessment on the house, which doesn't take
into consideration the owners tax bracket, Would benefit the community the
local governments?
~~~
goatsi
Property tax on residences isn't they only place municipalities get revenue,
they also get taxes from commercial (shops & companies) property. If the
foreign owners never move into the house and don't rent[0] it there is no
additional revenue in the form of purchasing things or working at an employer
in the city.
[0][https://www.pressreader.com/canada/the-
province/20141127/281...](https://www.pressreader.com/canada/the-
province/20141127/281479274729254)
------
rpedela
I am beginning to think there is another housing bubble, but this time I am
not exactly sure how it would play out if it burst assuming there is one
forming. Would it affect the Chinese economy? The economy in each US city? The
larger US economy? The global economy?
~~~
refurb
Google the Case-Shiller home index. Average prices in the US are as high as
they were during the 2007 bubble.
~~~
MagnumOpus
Not quite correct. The CS20 home price index is...
\- 7% lower than the 2006 peak in nominal terms.
\- 22.6% lower than the 2006 peak in inflation-adjusted terms (adjusted by the
BLS's US CPI-urban NSA)
\- 27.3% lower than the 2006 peak as a percentage of wages (adjusted by the
BLS's average hourly earnings paid to private-sector employees)
Together with massively lower mortgage rates (3.9% rather than 6.2% for a 30yr
fix), the situation is nowhere near as bubblicious as 2006. We are maybe
around 2003 levels - easily sustainable.
------
TheSpiceIsLife
So what happens when foreign owners start voting in council elections?
At what point does foreign real estate ownership start affecting local
politics?
If imposing a tax has no affect on, or only slows, foreign real estate
investment, what do we suppose will be the long term outcomes?
~~~
goatsi
To vote in council elections they will have to become citizens and will
therefore no longer be foreign owners.
------
bootload
_" The week that the government announced Vancouver’s foreign tax,"_
Which government? Fed, state, municipal?
~~~
Tiktaalik
The article is pretty lazy with describing the tax. The municipal government
of Vancouver doesn't have any of these taxing powers, and the tax comes from
the Provincial government. It only applies to the Metro Vancouver area
however, so some are already stating that there has been a spillover effect in
other areas of the Province, such as Victoria.
~~~
elchief
The foreigner tax is provincial (applying only to Metro Van). The vacancy tax
is municipal, applying to CoV. The city requested special taxing powers from
the province for this tax and received it.
------
wenbert
Buy in Auckland New Zealand lol
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Google's Eric Schmidt Talks to Charlie Rose - px
http://www.businessweek.com/magazine/content/10_40/b4197039435964.htm
======
JustinM
charlierose.com
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Drone-mapping slums for land titling – one pixel at a time - ston3r
https://factordaily.com/orissa-drone-mapped-slum-titling-project/
======
perl4ever
This is the happiest article I have seen in a long time.
It makes me think of Hernando de Soto Polar and the ILD.
"Between 1988 and 1995, he and the Institute for Liberty and Democracy (ILD)
were mainly responsible for some four hundred initiatives, laws, and
regulations that led to significant changes in Peru's economic system.[4]
In particular, ILD designed the administrative reform of Peru's property
system which has given titles to an estimated 1.2 million families and helped
some 380,000 firms, which previously operated in the black market, to enter
the formal economy.[5]"
See:
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hernando_de_Soto_Polar](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hernando_de_Soto_Polar)
~~~
simonebrunozzi
I have just read his excellent "The mistery of Capital", and highly recommend
it.
In short, it's about how a reliable property system allows people to use the
non-physical value of their properties (the "economic" value in his words, or
"meta" in my mind) to borrow money and fuel entrepreneurship. Very common in
the developed world, quite unreliable and uncommon in the developing world.
------
lifeisstillgood
This is a fantastic project - one of those perfect intersections of new
technology and political need.
A peruvian I know discussed the De Soto experiment and it was clear that whole
land reform is important, there is a raft of political issues - but things
like this _may_ move the political equilibrium in the right direction.
Still great project.
------
John_KZ
I'm pleasantly surprised this is used for good.
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Google Wallet Co-Founding Engineer Departs Google for Square - hornokplease
http://www.nfctimes.com/news/google-wallet-co-founding-engineer-departs-google-square
======
27182818284
I was really excited for Google Wallet, so much so that I bought a Galaxy
Nexus.
Guess what? Verizon blocks it. If Google doesn't want to fight for their
product, why should their co-founding engineer stick around? Happy he is off
to Square. (I'm not so much grumpy at losing a specific payment option I'm
grumpy at one of the few companies with enough force to lean on Verizon
capitulating. New tech gets slowed and I get sad.)
~~~
lonnyk
I did the exact same thing and have the exact same resentment. Now I am stuck
with a GIANT phone for 2 years.
~~~
wmf
Didn't y'all know that Google Wallet was blocked before you bought the phone?
~~~
jrockway
Nobody really advertises, "capable of Google Wallet, but we won't let you have
it". That's the problem with letting the carrier own the phone.
The Galaxy Nexus is a pretty nice phone, Wallet or not, and I'm not sure if
anything else would have been as good anyway. Verizon's 4G network is better
than Sprint's, anyway. A reasonable tradeoff for what amounts to a novelty. (I
will need to carry my physical wallet until every store on Earth has an NFC
reader anyway.)
------
ChuckMcM
Meanwhile, Osama Bedier is still a VP at Google and now an advisor to Mezz [1]
a startup which, if he signed the same employment agreement the regular folks
sign, means he probably will be moving on from Google shortly. (My personal
experience is that Google pretty much considers any outside work a conflict of
interest)
[1] <http://www.crunchbase.com/company/mezz>
------
joejohnson
Why wouldn't Square want to work to make their payment platform accessible
through multiple channels (NFC, their dongle, mobile-to-mobile, etc.)? Just as
they should develop for many of the big software platforms, they will probably
need to have product offerings that allow payments in multiple ways.
~~~
enra
You can already just pay with the app, which I think really is the best way
since it doesn't require any special hardware for the customer.
Of course only problem is the penetration of Square registers.
~~~
rdl
I don't have any insider knowledge of Square specific to this, but it's not
that hard to make a shim for a PoS to do all sorts of stuff. I contracted for
a company in 2003 which did NFC/RFID readers with a little magnetic shim for
existing magstripe card readers. You can also integrate at a deeper level
directly into the PoS -- there is some customization needed, but a lot of it
is generic.
------
nextparadigms
Why isn't Google buying Square anyway? They really need a popular payments
platform to integrate with Android. I realize they might not want to sell now,
but maybe they want to sell it for a good price.
------
pagekalisedown
Just part of the normal turn over when you have more than 32,000 employees.
~~~
potatolicious
Doubtful. I've been in the same spot myself and eventually also left that
employer - it's incredibly painful to be enthusiastically dedicated to a
project and see it go nowhere. Worse yet, it goes nowhere because upper
management is unwilling to throw their weight into it.
Eventually you get fed up and leave for a company that has a track record of
actually pushing hard in the field you're interested in.
~~~
jrockway
Is Google Wallet really not going anywhere? Who else lets you make NFC
payments in the US today?
------
funkah
Slow news day.
------
philip1209
Congrats to Jim
~~~
philip1209
(McKelvey)
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Solo: open source security key – last week on Kickstarter - ecesena
https://solokeys.com/kickstarter
======
ecesena
Open source code:
[https://github.com/SoloKeysSec/solo](https://github.com/SoloKeysSec/solo)
Previous discussion:
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18131651](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18131651)
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Coronavirus Survey Results: 42% of Employees Drinking While Working from Home - altoidaltoid
https://www.fishbowlapp.com/insights/2020/04/20/coronavirus-survey-results-42-of-employees-drinking-while-working-from-home/
======
service_bus
42% of respondents of an app.
Looking at their app, I'm surprised their audience didnt score higher.
------
garduque
Only on conference calls after 3pm. (And if there are no conference calls I'm
not working past 3pm.) But yeah.
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
See Where People Are Coming to Startup School From - dottertrotter
http://hackrtrackr.com/blog4.php
======
D_T
Knowing where the Hacker News readers come from is interesting. Does anyone
have enough karma to setup a poll for the ages of readers?
Thanks
------
comatose_kid
This is a great idea - thanks to this, I can see that there is at least one
person coming from my hometown of Ottawa :)
~~~
dottertrotter
No problem, if you have any suggestions just let me know.
~~~
cstejerean
I went ahead and submitted my location info, but then realized I had already
done this in the past. Now there are two entries for my username and location
in your database. You might want to consider only keeping one location per
username (or allowing a user to delete previously entered locations).
~~~
dottertrotter
I'll take care of that. Thanks.
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
TabNine now charges 99$ instead of 30$ for personal licenses - derN3rd
https://tabnine.com/buy
======
derN3rd
I personally started using it when I saw it on hackernews and thought about
buying it. $30 seemed to be a good affordable price for me as an independent
developer. But $99 is a big number for me. So I think, that's it. Bye TabNine
~~~
mtmail
Try emailing the author. You'd be surprised how flexible single-person
companies can be. Maybe the new price is a temporary test so your email would
be valuable feedback.
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Covid-19: Only 268 cases and no deaths. How did Vietnam with 97M people do it? - doppp
https://mothership.sg/2020/04/vietnam-covid-19-success/
======
moltar
We have been in Vietnam since March 8th. Prior to that we were in Thailand.
The response of these two neighbouring countries is night and day.
Authoritarian governments can shine during the crisis. In the meantime,
Thailand is in a messy political situation and has lost control of the
situation.
When we arrived, on March 8th, there were stations at the airport doing
temperature checks. Immediately quarantining anyone with a fever. They also
collected extra info on all arrivals for contact tracing.
Majority (~ 80%) of locals were taking it seriously and were wearing masks
voluntarily. And they were really adamant about us wearing masks. Our condo
had free masks and sanitizer in the lobby.
They were also doing home visits of people who have arrived starting from
March 8th. But we didn’t get a visit. I’m guessing they were working backwards
and just never made it to these earlier arrivals.
Overall I’m very impressed with the way Vietnam handled the situation.
But at the same time, I can’t believe these numbers. I have no concrete
evidence, but just feels too low.
There was A LOT of contact. Many businesses continued operating. I know of a
software office that continued asking people to come into the office and the
last week, when permission was given to work from home. Construction was in
full force. Most didn’t wear any masks. Many other businesses remained
operating and didn’t shutdown.
~~~
ekianjo
> Authoritarian governments can shine during the crisis
Pretty bold claim as China did not fare too well and keeps lying from the
beginning about everything.
~~~
moltar
I think they did well. You have to consider the environment they are operating
in. Very dense living conditions. Way more commingling of citizens. And the
sheer population alone.
~~~
yomly
Also China was the epicentre. Other governments and scientists had an extra
two months to think about the problem.
------
colmvp
My prediction is if more cities around North America did post-mortem Covid
tests of people who passed away in February, there's a good chance we'd find
some deceased actually had Covid-19 similar to what California revealed
earlier last week. Because of those findings, some researchers are now
thinking community spread in places like the Bay Area may have started as
early as January.
I say this because reading this article, they mention that Vietnam quarantined
an entire district in Hanoi back in February when the entire country only had
10 cases at that point in time. They also banned travel from and to mainland
China in early February. Those measures done early may have saved them from
tens of thousands of infections. Vietnam has essentially relied on aggressive
contact tracing coupled with strict lockdowns/quarantining.
Here in Canada, we brushed off suggestions of forced quarantines of incoming
travelers or banning flights to/from Mainland China. We solely relied on
travelers telling authorities if they experienced symptoms, which bit us in
the tail when March came along and hundreds of new cases were popped up by the
day.
We didn't reverse our stance on restrictive measures till the virus had gotten
out of a control. Even now as the growth rate has flattened, we're still
dealing with the fallout in long term care facilities as hundreds of elderly
people have passed away due to caregivers/visitors unknowingly infecting them.
That coupled with the growth of the virus in the homeless community has made
it very challenging to sustainably contain the virus.
I think what frustrates me is that we knew we had weaknesses in our system,
yet we decided to go with the non-proactive solution anyway. Even recently we
didn't bother with random testing asymptomatic caregivers until after hundreds
of people died. It's a lot harder to undo the damage than it is to be overly
pre-cautious and prevent the worst case scenario from happening in the first
place.
~~~
sinuhe69
They (they Vietnamese government) had apparently hacked the computers of the
Chinese CDC and the Gates foundation to obtain information about the epidemic
in China in the last weeks of January. Equipped with these informations, the
government of Vietnam could act swiftly and decisively beginning February to
contain the spread of the virus. It was a war-like situation and reliable up-
to-date information is of crucial importance. The governments of many
countries had handled the pandemic not very well because they relied solely on
WHO (and China). And the lack of reliable information turned out to be deadly.
~~~
dirtyid
>The governments of many countries had handled the pandemic not very well
because they relied solely on WHO (and China).
I see this accusation thrown around a lot, but it doesn't align with timeline
and import statistics.
APT32 (Vietnam) hacked China as early as Jan 6th, but didn't shutdown borders
until late Jan, well after WHO confirmed H2H and after China the broadcasted
seriousness of covid19 with Wuhan followed by country wide lockdowns. Apart
from shutting borders with Hubei/China in late Jan - early Feb, the countries
that responded well shared one common quality: they immediately rolled out
effective screening, testing, tracing and isolation. Which is in line with WHO
recommendations on Jan 23 and Jan 30.
The effectiveness of border closing is debatable, since imported cases
statistics from these regions (SK, HK, Taiwan, Singapore) indicate very few
cases were exported out of China (less than 30), most of which were out of
Hubei, whereas hundreds of imported cases came from Americas and Europe.
Australia, New Zealand and Canada is similar. These are all places with
massive traffic flows with China that also repatriated hundreds to thousands
from Wuhan with few positives cases that spread was or could have been managed
without huge impacts on civic life. Vietnam is different in that it doesn't
have as much resources as other countries so it must necessarily ere on the
side of caution.
But broadly, the countries that didn't handled the pandemic well didn't listen
to WHO and China and waited too long before acting.
------
charlysl
From a westerner living in Vietnam:
There are many things that haven't been mentioned here yet.
Vietnamese schools haven't reopened since Tet, end of January.
The population distribution is skewed towards the young end.
Most cases were imported, by youngish people, and the average age of these is
even younger, mostly students, or for business or for holidays. Mostly
relatively rich and young, not many travelling pensioneers in this country.
Mentioned measures contained community spread from said travellers to the
rest.
The very old in Vietnam are not in care houses, they are at home, cared for by
their extended family, who is much more likely to give a damn.
Information from the government news agency has been rather transparent, or so
it seems to me. Every case has a number, and case numbers of contacts of new
cases are reported. If unknown this is also reported.
This appearance of transparency and the fact that everyone infected is
receiving prompt free treatment encouraged people to report suspect cases
rather than hiding.
The government carries as a badge of honor that there haven't been any
fatalities yet. The few critical cases are getting extreme medical treatment,
no resources are being spared, there are so few that they can afford to do
this. Multiple nurses, doctors and equipment per ICU patient. It seems to me
that they will do whatever it takes to prevent fatalities. One of the critical
cases is an european pilot. If he died it would be impossible for the
government to hide.
Facemasks are plentiful, I have shipped many to friends and relatives in my
country, where they are scarce and expensive. Hand sanitizer is everywhere.
It seems that heat doesn't stop the spread after all, but if it slows it down,
that might also have helped, this is a tropical country, though in the north,
and in the mountains, it can get quite chilly in winter.
I feel lucky being here now, but, of course, it's too early to call, I won't
know for sure until this is over.
~~~
johnwangdoe
also they made a viral tik tok banger, which help spread the basic hygiene and
preventive message.
------
decasteve
Along with Taiwan, Vietnam is also another country that dealt with and learned
from SARS in 2002/03.
------
9nGQluzmnq3M
> _Vietnam has become one of the first few countries in the world to emerge
> successfully from the first wave of the Covid-19 outbreak_
It's even more impressive: they emerged successfully not just from the first
wave (direct from China, with which they share a long land border), but the
second wave as well (travelers from Europe, US, Iran etc). Quite a few
countries, notably Singapore, rode the first wave well but stumbled on the
second.
------
alvah
"They were also one of the first few countries to ban return flights to and
from mainland China, having announced the suspension from Feb. 1, 2020,
slightly more than a week after the country's first cases of Covid-19 were
found."
How much of their reported success in containing the virus was due to this,
and how much was due to the lockdown? Other countries which have fared
relatively well (e.g. NZ, Australia) also closed their borders early.
------
sixQuarks
Nicaragua supposedly only has 13 cases of Covid and they never implemented ANY
precautions. Their president was also missing for more than 30 days, just
showed up a couple of days ago finally.
~~~
neuronexmachina
Oof. Are there any stats on how many tests Nicaragua has run?
~~~
bagacrap
14
------
seoguru
Vietnam is doing more to halt COVID-19 than most countries on Earth. people
that are there:
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cme4vNcqFFs](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cme4vNcqFFs)
------
op03
Vietnam is not a magical place. It lies some where at the bottom of the pile
in the press freedom index next to China.
So god knows how many people where silenced, jailed or killed. Wait for a few
years for the full story to emerge.
~~~
jlei523
American living in Vietnam right now.
The first part of your post is true.
The second, is in my opinion, completely false.
As others have mentioned, the government is incredibly diligent in tracking
the virus. And why shouldn't they? They were freaked out by SARS in 2003 and
as a growing 3rd world country, they simply cannot afford to have the virus
spread.
Also, if one person gets the virus or one person is placed in quarantine in
Vietnam, it's all over Facebook and shared. The government can't hide shit
when it comes to the virus.
------
jstewartmobile
Maybe because they don't get extra money for labeling a patient as a COVID
patient:
[https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/factcheck/2020/04/24/fac...](https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/factcheck/2020/04/24/fact-
check-medicare-hospitals-paid-more-covid-19-patients-coronavirus/3000638001/)
------
grrbullshit
The same way Thailand has only 52 deaths, the blokes here could have explosive
diarrhea and still won't consider washing their hands (granted the woman are
the polar opposite - washing their hands continually - scared to death of it)
and with mass exodus from the cities when hospitality went belly up the other
month there is no way it isn't everywhere in SE asia non-city towns and
villages. Whereas Singapore is fucked and they have western approaches to
hygiene, a bit odd that wouldn't you say. Ineffective testing, or ineffective
tests, head in sand, photoshots for the big boys, hospital directors worried
about their livelyhood etc..
All cynism aside I do think SE Asia has fared better than Europe, but the
reasons won't be worthy of someone getting an award (although no doubt their
will be award like ceremonies for years to come) - the temperature theory is
rebounding now etc..
~~~
taneq
> Whereas Singapore is fucked and they have western approaches to hygiene, a
> bit odd that wouldn't you say.
Singapore was doing fine until their blind spot for itinerant cheap laborers
meant this group was never properly tested. Now they've realised that these
people are in fact people.
------
sitkack
I'd love to see an antibody study in Vietnam. I have a theory that with a low
enough viral load, most people won't be symptomatic. If you can infect someone
with a single copy of the virus, they won't notice. You cough directly in
their face and the constant factor starts from that virus population and your
immune system doesn't have a chance to catch up.
This is why healthy medical staff die and the prison population tests positive
for antibodies but didn't show symptoms.
\----
To be clear, I am not advocating for an unethical study, but that infection
rates in Vietnam are much higher than their case count would indicate.
------
wizardforhire
This conversation is rather prescient as the death toll in the US due to covid
will most likely surpass the total US combat deaths of the Vietnam War
tomorrow.
------
cheaprentalyeti
I follow a professor in Vietnam on twitter; he was pointing out last month
that hydroxychloroquine is an over-the-counter drug there and is commonly used
to treat malaria. They're probably not going to wait until you're most of the
way dead before administering it the way the "We Must Have A Study"
bureaucrats will here. I suspect this also apples to the rest of Indochina.
------
blondin
a few things they did:
> On April 15, Vietnam's "fake news" laws went into effect, which was
> introduced to address the spread of misinformation about Covid-19 over
> social media in the country.
> A fine of VND10-20 million (S$605-S$1,210) was to be imposed on people who
> make use of social media to share "false, untruthful, distorted or
> slanderous information"
> Security officials or Communist Party spies can be found on every street and
> crossing in every neighborhood and in every village
maybe they just didn't have super spreading situations? what if it was luck?
~~~
DarthGhandi
You can't hide overall mortality so the truth will come out eventually.
~~~
netsharc
Smells like "we've concluded this person died of normal causes and if you say
it was covid-19 we will fine you heavily for spreading 'fake news'.".
Even doctors in China were punished for trying to speak out, it's easy to
believe the Vietnamese govt would do the same
------
tutfbhuf
In short: They didn't. That are only the measured numbers and they depend on
how well you measure.
------
AzzieElbab
Kind of pointless without knowing how many people were tested
~~~
emiunet
Back when MOH of Vietnam still published number of people tested per day, I
collected the data from their website and made this graph:
[https://i.imgur.com/hzkG3R2.png](https://i.imgur.com/hzkG3R2.png) They
stopped doing that though.
So as of 4/12, number of people tested and came out negative was 121.6K
------
dis-sys
North Korea is doing even better.
~~~
eloff
If you trust them (but who would). That said, given they have so little
interaction with the outside world, it wouldn't be surprising.
------
aaron695
Clearly it's weather.
I'm not sure how much more evidence we need.
Yes they are lying a bit. Yes they have done great work. But these aren't
enough to see what we are seeing.
And all the counties going into winter are going to be crying in a few months
no one warned them, or it was somehow unexpected.
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Soloshot: Automatically film outdoor activities without a camera operator - nazwa
http://shop.soloshot.com/
======
IanDrake
I've had the SoloShot 2 for almost a year now. I use it for surfing, but just
got a small racing dinghy (RS Aero) and will probably use it for that too.
The device paired with the recommended camera works fantastic. If you're using
it to review your technique, I think it's better than a go-pro.
My only complaint is that the arm band isn't really ideal for surfing. Before
I ever used it, I emailed solo shot saying that it would easily fall off and
was assured their user base didn't have a problem. Sure enough it fell off on
a closeout barrel the first time I used it. That's a $150 replacement part.
I've since customized the arm band so that it can't come off. Let me know if
you have any questions about the unit.
~~~
danielweber
Shouldn't the camera let you track exactly where it is so you can find it?
~~~
IanDrake
The transmitter is normally on your arm (above water) to keep a signal with
the base. As soon as it goes underwater the signal is lost.
They asked me if I had a floaty on it. So I asked them which floaty? The one
you didn't include with the product, or the one you don't sell on your
website?
~~~
dredmorbius
Floaties are quite readily available aftermarket. Most boating / marine / rec
stores.
Or on this newfangled thing called "The Internet" via "electronic commerce":
[http://www.amazon.com/s?ie=UTF8&field-
keywords=key%20float&i...](http://www.amazon.com/s?ie=UTF8&field-
keywords=key%20float&index=blended)
~~~
IanDrake
I just checked it out! That Internet thing is pretty cool!
However, I saw nothing in your hypertext link that would easily attach to the
armband and not interfere with my stroke.
SoloShot should sell a floaty or provide one of those new-fangled affiliate
links I hear the kids talking about these days to a compatible 3rd party
floaty.
~~~
dredmorbius
Surfing, right, we're not talking marathon swimming or similar?
Having stuff dangle off your arm is a PITA, I'll allow. But some way for
attaching _something_ buoyant to the strap (not sure what it looks like my
apologies), might be possible.
The drink -- she claims many toys....
~~~
IanDrake
Indeed. Ended up putting a button whole in the arm band and putting a button
on my wetsuit.
------
traviswingo
This is badass. As an athlete whos heavily into extreme sports I'd buy one in
a heartbeat.
I think you've got some JavaScript issues going on with your page, though, It
keep jumping to the top of the page when I'm scrolling down.
~~~
monk_e_boy
We kitesurf and use GoPros, often on tripods on the beach. People come up and
take them as soon as we're more than 200m away. It's quite easy for us to spot
them, confront them and get it back. But it happens _all the time_
No. 1 rule - don't leave anything of value on the beach.
~~~
IanDrake
>People come up and take them as soon as we're more than 200m away.
I don't have this problem where I surf, but here's some thoughts I've had
about it...
\- Attach a motion alarm (made for purses and such) that will go off and at
least attract attention if someone moves it.
\- Put a sign on it that says "Do not touch. My buddy is watching this
camera." or "Due to recent theft, I have a HIDDEN camera recording this
camera."
~~~
nadams
I wonder if you could put up a sign that says:
"If you steal this camera you agree to pay a $200 fine" \- just having a sign
is a deterrent but not a strong one.
Though, a better idea is to attach a speaker to it and when someone steals it
blast vulgar sounds through it like "I'M A MOFO THIEF LOOK AT ME HAHA". I
doubt any thief would want attention drawn to what they just did.
I've been wanting to do a social experiment where I leave a laptop out with a
GPS tracker and a note with my information and see what happens. My guess will
be that many people will attempt to steal it.
~~~
TheGRS
This sort of candid camera experiment has been done many times, there are many
who will return the items and some who won't. If you truly don't want your
things stolen then you just need a buddy to watch your stuff.
------
Animats
There was AIMe [1] which was supposed to do much the same thing. But then,
instead of shipping the $299 version they still advertise on their site, they
decided to market a $5000 "professional" version instead.[2]
There's Pixio, which has a kickstarter.[3]
Soloshot is $399 on Amazon, with customer reviews, so it's a shipping
product.[4]
Reviews of Soloshot indicate that it has a minimum range. You have to be at
least 30 feet from the camera before it tracks properly.
[1] [http://www.jebiga.com/aime-automatic-tracking-camera-
mount/](http://www.jebiga.com/aime-automatic-tracking-camera-mount/) [2]
[http://www.jigabot.com/launch/](http://www.jigabot.com/launch/) [3]
[https://www.indiegogo.com/projects/world-s-first-indoor-
outd...](https://www.indiegogo.com/projects/world-s-first-indoor-outdoor-auto-
follow-cam#/story) [4] [http://www.amazon.com/SOLOSHOT2-with-Base-and-
Tag/dp/B00DSGI...](http://www.amazon.com/SOLOSHOT2-with-Base-and-
Tag/dp/B00DSGIS2A)
------
brianstorms
It's very cool, but the demo videos suggest that the tracking isn't ideal yet.
Which susprises me, because we only have what, 50+ years of R&D with tracking
moving targets. As in, if you can figure how how fast the target is moving
across the field of view, you should be able to predict where it is going to
be in the next frame, PLUS, take into account the latency of the Soloshot
motor, and calculate that all together in real-time such that the target stays
as close as possible to the center of the field of view. Right now, based on
the demo videos, it appears that either the CPU is slow, or the Soloshot motor
is slow, or both, with the result being that the target gets ahead of the
Soloshot and gets to the edge of the field of view regularly, making for less
than optimal viewing afterward.
Seems like a totally, well, 99% fixable problem, and given Soloshot's been out
for a while I'm surprised the demos aren't more stellar.
Still, it's impressive and I'm surprised GoPro hasn't acquired the company
already.
~~~
IanDrake
In practice, tracking has never been a problem for me. Have you seen the demos
of it tracking quad copters?
~~~
bitJericho
The skier video on the website is just plain bad. The camera should zoom out
slowly and smoothly, instead it was jerky.
~~~
IanDrake
Yeah, that one is bad. If I had to guess, I'd say that the further away you
are, the more the camera is zoomed in, the more jagged the panning will seem,
as the distance in one degree of arc at 100ft is much less than 1000ft.
I imagine this could have been easily taken out in post production.
------
radiorental
No cameraman? No problem
30 minutes later,
No camera, problem.
~~~
ape4
Needs to be able to fly away when being stolen ;)
~~~
Jemmeh
Andddd we're back to flying drone cameras.
------
jredwards
It seems like you'd still need to solve the problem of convincing anyone to
leave their two thousand dollar DSLR unattended.
------
ggrothendieck
Not the same but there exists a microphone which can be thought of as an audio
version of this:
[https://www.acousticmagic.com/](https://www.acousticmagic.com/) It senses the
direction of the speaker and outputs audio from that direction filtering out
audio from other directions. As different speakers in different locations
speak it changes the direction it uses. It also outputs a location signal that
can be used by software to, for example, have a computer position a camera
toward the current speaker. (I don't have one - this is just based on the
material I have read.)
~~~
apaprocki
You can also get entire rooms wired for this as well. I recently helped design
one of our presentation rooms where the system (with the help of a lot of
array mics) processes who is speaking and if the speaker puts the room into
Q&A mode it will focus on / boost whoever is speaking. The intent was to get
rid of the "could you repeat the question" issue (anyone who has ever been to
a NYTM knows this one :)) or awkward pauses as an entire room waits for
someone with a mic to walk over. It helps make recordings of Q&A much more
natural and fluid.
~~~
DenisM
Did that end up working well when you were done with setup?
~~~
apaprocki
Yes.. it works remarkably well and is tuned so your brain doesn't even notice
the amplification. If, for example, the reverb is jacked up to make the room
sound like a cathedral then your brain immediately knows it is "fake" \-- but
under normal settings unless the system was explained, someone in the room
would not notice what is going on.
------
s_dev
This seems much more
useful:[https://www.lily.camera/](https://www.lily.camera/)
However - I'll wait till the separate approaches are priced accurately before
I form an opinion on which is better.
~~~
simonk
lily only lasts at best 18 minutes.
------
thenomad
This is a fascinating product - I wrote about it a while ago over at
[http://www.strangecompany.org/will-your-next-cameraperson-
be...](http://www.strangecompany.org/will-your-next-cameraperson-be-a-robot-
maybe-yes/)
I'd love to get hold of one to do a practical test, actually... It strikes me
as a much more immediately usable technology than the follow-drones, because
the latter just look like they're _certain_ to run into trees, and that's not
a problem a tripod has.
------
adpd
From the FAQs:
_Does SOLOSHOT2 work indoors?_
_Not yet. SOLOSHOT is currently an outdoor only product due to some of the
technologies involved._
Anybody know why this is the case?
~~~
StavrosK
I would theorize that they have GPS in both units, and the tag sends its
position to the base. Along with a compass, you can pretty accurately tell
where the camera is looking, and you can probably gauge the distance between
the tag and camera by the time it takes for the signal to travel to the
camera, but I'm not sure how that's useful.
~~~
arianvanp
Why not use bluetooth low-energy for this stuff? Or would you need to have
three beacons to triangulate?
~~~
cbhl
1) range 2) clock precision (you can't measure time fast enough to actually
measure position using bluetooth)
~~~
tripzilch
> clock precision (you can't measure time fast enough to actually measure
> position using bluetooth)
Interesting, why is that and how fast would that be, then?
Also what's different about triangulating via WiFi APs signals, that bluetooth
doesn't work?
------
pcardoso
I could see this being used as a hands-free iPad stand for FaceTime, so it
always points in the direction of the speaker.
------
vog
From the site:
_> Range: 10-2,000 ft_
_> Cameras: Supports up to 5-lbs_
Is this meant to be for the US market only? If not, I'd recommend to provide
internationally recognized units (mostly SI units), such as _m_ and _kg_.
~~~
vog
To those who downvoted this: Do you care to explain? What's wrong with
criticizing overly US-centric business? In the world wide web, being more
international should be good for companies as well as customers.
Did I miss something?
~~~
andrewchambers
I'm from a country which uses Kg and meters. I can read the US units no
problem.
~~~
tripzilch
I like to think I'm pretty good at mental arithmetic. Converting feet (0.3)
and inches (2.5) are easy enough to do with good accuracy, but lbs requires
multiplying the number by 0.45 in your head. Sure I could do that, but it's
hardly what I'd call "read the US units no problem", and definitely not
something to expect of your general customer base.
The other option would be to try and get a mental "feel" for the size of a
foot, 10 foot, what's 5 lbs of water look like, etc. I did something like that
back when we switched from Dutch Guilders to the Euro, cause I knew it was
going to stick around, so keeping a conversion in my head was just holding me
back.
But with US units, nobody's switching, and further, there's no ubiquity in my
IRL day-to-day life of things that are supposed to be exactly 1 lbs, 5 lbs, 1
gallon, 10 foot, etc. to calibrate with. The only time I come into contact
with inches is in the abstract space of the Internet, where they mean nothing
except a quick mental arithmetic puzzle getting in the way of what I actually
want to know.
------
davnicwil
Looks to be an amazing piece of engineering but seriously, what's the usecase?
It looks to be targeted at the amateur market ('shoot like the pros') and I
just don't see the demand or workability in this space.
To pick on a few hinted at on the page:
A game of football: Leaving a camera on a tripod on the sideline while I'm
focused on the game? Not in any park I've ever played in. Taking the stick
from my teammates for being enough of a nerd to set this up?
Skiing: Putting a camera on a tripod, unattended, on the piste? Then get the
lift up to the top so you can ski back down towards the camera? Again, I can't
see this ending well for the poor old camera.
Dirt biking/other extreme sports: because people often do these alone, and so
need an automated cameraman to get any filming done?
EDIT: reading some of these comments my opinion has changed, there are more
compelling use cases for this than I first thought of (like letting the person
who would have done the filming relax and watch the event, whilst still
attending to the camera, that's a great one). This is amazing tech but the
main limiting factor for now is the risk of leaving such expensive equipment
unattended. When the price falls I have no doubt this will be an extremely
widely used tech, as widely used as cameras themselves are now.
~~~
ctdonath
Immediate use: presentations, accurately tracking the speaker without having
to hire someone to keep camera on subject the whole time. Even moreso when
multiple cameras. Just need one A/V control booth person, much cheaper to buy
several of these than hire several cameramen.
Think TED Talks, Apple Keynotes, anything fairly big-budget where chasing the
random motions of the speaker just doesn't look on par with the money going in
& out of the presentation.
~~~
superuser2
Live production is ALL about reliability. A boring lights-up lights-down
corporate show ALWAYS has 2 $100,000 light boards in active/hot standby even
though one $50 DMX controller would do.
We always opt for wired where possible, even if wireless exists. We are
paranoid about secure and safe cable runs. When wireless is necessary, we
transmit on multiple frequencies with smart frequency-hopping algorithms so
that if two of them get interference, the content still comes through on the
third.
We have a visceral distrust of rechargeable batteries. We swap out AAs and
9-volts (only the brands we trust) obsessively. A good sound engineer is made
very uncomfortable by (and thus obsessively monitors) battery-powered devices
in the critical path.
In short: there's no way you're going to get respectable production companies
to trust this thing. One, it flies, Two, it's battery. Three, it's RF. Under
these circumstances, we proceed with EXTREME caution. We'd much rather build
truss to get a camera where it needs to go, run cables to it, mat and tape
them as appropriate. Automation is okay, but there is existing, battle-tested
camera automation and it's not even that widespread yet.
Film production, maybe. A blown take isn't free, but it's pretty cheap. A
flying camera at WWDC hitting battery starvation, motor failure, RF
interference, etc. _is_ the end of the world in that line of work.
~~~
tripzilch
Ok. Just noting that the product discussed here, doesn't actually fly. It's
not a drone.
------
iamthepieman
This is begging for an API or open source firmware. Impressive technology
applied to something with limited practical usefulness.
For starters, I'd like to decouple the tracking system from the tags.
~~~
thenomad
I'd cheerfully pay sticker price for just the tracking system, no tripod
required (assuming I hadn't overspent on media gadgetry already this quarter,
anyway).
~~~
iamthepieman
I would too, but I want to track things I can't put a tag onto. Wildlife, cars
speeding past my house. If I could hook it up to an arduino with infrared
sensors that would be awesome.
------
Dwatson783
I've seen some interesting points in this thread about target users of the
product and the big issue seems to be:
\- Target user group is unlikely to spend this much on the type of equipment
and/or isn't technically inclined enough to leverage it.
At first glance I'd say this is fair, based on traditional markets and camera
use but I'd argue 2 things:
1\. The demand of this type of product is likely to rise. As self broadcasting
goes up, the demand of this type of ingenuity will rise. What Twitch is doing
for gaming, this could help bring along for many other areas of interest.
2\. Through internal development or by going open source, the development of
tracking could be increased to support a number of different objects.
Pucks/Balls in sports in particular could be very interesting to automate the
recording of sporting events.
With these 2 points noted, I can imagine the use of these in a number of
scenarios- for consistency of an argument, I'll take the use case of hockey.
If I'm a minor league hockey team, if I can obtain the proper quality of
cameras at a reasonable enough price to surround my rink, along with the
proper tracking system applied to each player and devices of the game (pucks,
nets), and if I can coordinate this with software to turn on which devices I
follow per camera at any point, I could create a system for broadcasting a top
quality version of my game online without the cost of camera men as well as
the space that may be required for the setup.
Additionally, if I'm the team, I could use this in practice to follow each of
my players setting a camera to each so that I can review their particular
actions and do video review with each - without having to limit what gets
taped for each guy or having multiple camera guys at each practice.
Add this to object recognition software and I could start using the cameras to
collect more about where people are on the ice during games and plays and push
along my ability to analyze what is happening and how I can work on
tactics/strategy to manage it.
Again, a lot of this is relying on additional software/tracking/processes but
I believe as a technology, it's empowering. I'm not sure the current use
case/expected market is ready for this (or at least not in the form it's
likely to have technically) but I believe in a few iterations, we'll see
something that serves a significant market share, especially if the product
roadmap includes abilities and integrations to further its use with other
software and mutiple unit tracking capabilities.
~~~
trdrake
...and if you're the facility, you're renting the film to the team.
Also, from experience an increasing amount of the coaching of youth soccer is
outsourced to coaching companies (like QuickStrike or PlayersEye), and some of
them are starting to include video analysis in their packages.
And then there is, for what it's worth, recruiting films. There's a lot of
people trying to video their kids and putting together a college recruitment
highlight reel.
People doing that would be happy to drop what is, in reality, not very much
money to help put together something they hope will save them $10Ks in tuition
------
nathan_f77
Awesome, I always wanted to make one of these. I had the idea about 10 years
ago, when I was really into making stunt videos and timelapses as a teenager.
This was way before Raspberry Pis and Arduinos, so I think it would be a lot
easier today. Of course there's a huge difference between a hobby project, and
a commercial product. But watching all of those Youtube videos was like seeing
my idea come to life.
------
biturd
Seems to me the Lilly is a better product and can do what this one does more
or less, check it out, I love it, wish I had the money to get one. They are
several discounted if you pre-order, around 600, then almost 1000 when they
are officially on sale.
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OWrApA8oRbI](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OWrApA8oRbI)
~~~
ntaylor
Not sure if it's necessarily _better_. The Lilly also requires a tag to work,
but it can only handle 20 minutes of battery with no way to insert a backup.
This is relatively low-tech and seems to be capable of enhancing your existing
hardware, rather than replacing it. That's a big win.
Still, the Lilly is really cool.
~~~
kristinac820
Different use cases. Soloshot lasts for 4 hours. If you are doing an athletic
endeavor you are likely doing it for longer than 20 minutes
------
c-slice
Seems like some serious tech. It looks to be using GPS and some wireless
signals to determine distance and direction?
Im guessing GPS because their user manual says it can only be used outdoors.
I wonder if it can be miniaturized in future versions- seems like you could
eliminate GPS if you used a synthetic aperture bluetooth or wireless receiver
to determine direction and ranging for tracking.
------
josefresco
Site is crawling for me - cdn.shopify doesn't seem to be handling the traffic
well.
The waterfall shows one image occupying almost the entire load time:
[https://gtmetrix.com/reports/shop.soloshot.com/JKiP7lSv](https://gtmetrix.com/reports/shop.soloshot.com/JKiP7lSv)
~~~
thenomad
Search on YouTube to get some practical demos. They're pretty cool.
(Not OP but I follow this sector pretty closely.)
------
dbuxton
I can see even school sports teams using these for player video tracking -
imagine being able to analyse every player individually even as an amateur.
Although that would probably require some nifty software to make the 16-odd
hours of footage resulting from a single football match useful...
Also that's a lot of DSLRs.
------
joshu
As a hobby, I drive racecars. I have been thinking about something like this
near the track to video me going by. (Far away vantage points look boring.)
It seems like for much less than $500 you could build an RPI and just track
moving objects via optical flow (assuming you are alone on the track.)
~~~
rickr
LeMons racer? That's the first application I thought of but when are you ever
alone on track?
You could throw one or two of these in common passing places and combine that
feed with in car video. You could get some really neat video.
~~~
joshu
SCCA Spec Miata. I rent the track privately sometimes.
This would have been much more exciting if it were closer:
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vfQC0135Vfs](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vfQC0135Vfs)
------
markbao
Does anyone know how this and the other cameras in this field (e.g. Lily) do
subject tracking? A few people have commented in this thread that it might be
a combination of GPS and inertial tracking, but does anyone know any
specifics?
------
nicklovescode
Would it be possible to mimic these features in post prod? Essentially gather
a giant high res shot, using the money spent on fancy feature on higher res.
Then run the same algorithms in post to get a similar video?
~~~
hellofunk
Not really. The level of resolution necessary is an obstacle. Additionally,
having a rotating tripod mount as part of the flow means the angle of view is
changing, as opposed to a static angle you describe. That said, it could be
faked, but wouldn't be the same.
~~~
nicklovescode
Makes sense. Thanks!
------
eggoa
The uncle from Napoleon Dynamite is super excited for this.
------
segmondy
Like many ideas I have had, I'm both happy and sad. I had this idea a good 5
years ago. Kicking myself, but then again, I' not a hardware guy.
~~~
nathan_f77
I had the idea too, maybe even 10 years ago. But don't worry, it's not like
you narrowly missed winning the lottery. Building a product like this takes
years of dedication and hard work.
------
Istof
Place a remote controlled gun next to that camera and you have a remote
hunting system? (probably illegal in most jurisdictions though)
~~~
lvs
Uh, one that shoots at you? How are you going to get the tracking beacon onto
your target?
~~~
MichaelGG
Setup system across from office entrance a month beforehand. Drop the tag into
the target's coat at restaurant coat check. Trigger remote system based on
proximity. Someone's probably already done this in a spy movie.
It'd be a much better idea to simply have a remote controlled system, using
tech that's been around for decades. Though I suppose if you're truly
paranoid, you might be worried about signals tracking. Maybe have it connected
to the Internet and use thermite to wipe out the evidence after shooting.
------
tmaly
I use a radio remote for my DSLR that gives me about a 100 meter range. I wish
there was a version of this for Iphones
------
Schwolop
My primary use-case for this would be to go back in time and replace my
wedding videographer with this robot.
------
estefan
That's so cool. How does it stop itself getting stolen? Oh wait, I guess it
just films the thief... :-D
------
ape4
I can see this functionality being integrated into some cameras.
------
JustSomeNobody
Does it have a built in anti-theft deterrent?
But seriously, this is one exciting piece of technology. Very, very cool.
------
benjaminjackman
For some reason the page keeps scrolling back to the top in my browser, very
annoying.
~~~
jamiethompson
If only they could solve that 200 year old problem of having a website that
you can actually scroll through.
~~~
adeptus
If only websites trying to be trendy could stop using eye popping font size 70
text that cause me to roll my chair back 10 feet to read the web page.
~~~
irln
Will all due respect, for an old guy, I like large fonts :)
~~~
marcosdumay
Then zoom-in your pages.
I'm not old, but I also like large fonts. Except for sites that completely
break if you zoom too much (like HN), there's not problem with designers using
small ones.
~~~
irln
If only I could time travel into the future and ask your 30 year older self
whether you agree with your 30 year younger self's comment. :)
------
justwannasing
It doesn't "film" anything and, yes, that irritates me.
------
comrade1
Ed powers is going to love this.
------
pj_mukh
Use a drone! :).
------
Systemic33
ShowHN?
------
Thaxll
It's a good product until your camera weights more than 1kg...
~~~
michaelbuddy
that won't matter for most use cases. the heavier the camera setup the more
likely manual control is desired or required anyway. this is more for set-and-
forget kind of shooting. On the video they've got a good size DSLR with an
autofocus lens on it. If it can carry that, it's gonna work for people.
------
gmvidr
Wow, I've been making professional and entertainment videos for over 12 years
(I'm not a camera man), and I would never use this. You can't replace human
skill with this. At least not if you want to produce something really
outstanding. I suppose this is fine for mediocre content, but then why bother
in the first place?
~~~
damoncali
You can replace nothing with this, though, which is what most people have
access to. I don't think anyone expects these to spit out Kubrick films. But I
bet it records better than _I_ do.
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Alexa Says YouTube Is Now Bigger Than Google. Alexa Is Useless - transburgh
http://www.techcrunch.com/2007/08/13/alexa-says-youtube-is-now-bigger-than-google-theyre-wrong/
======
lkozma
For google, all regional domains are counted separately, google.com, .de, .ro,
etc., while for youtube, as far as I know there's only .com that's viewed all
over the world.
~~~
gojomo
Also, the YouTube.com measure that exceeds Google.com is only 'page views' --
the Alexa 'reach'/'rank' relationship between the two sites is much more
similar to the Compete.com numbers that TC thinks is "getting it right".
Perhaps Alexa counts offsite embeds of YT videos elsewhere as 'page views',
and Compete does not? Or, Alexa might reasonably count clicks within a single
long-displayed page (paging through comments, starting/stopping/replaying
video) as multiple 'page views' even without a reload.
Compete's numbers on pages/visit (16 youtube.com :12 google.com) and visit
duration (16 mins : 6 mins) suggest YT 'views', if counted any differently,
could way outpace its 'reach'.
And while journalists and techies might visit Google dozens of times a day,
but YT far less often, I can believe there are plenty of people for whom the
relationship is reversed. The TC view -- "this must be wrong!" -- could be
inside-the-bubble thinking.
Alexa's stats have issues -- but TC's analysis is pretty flimsy, and could be
missing something interesting in its haste to mock the Alexa totals.
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
PayPal Redesign - webbruce
http://bruceackerman.com/paypal-redesign/
======
zmillman
Just a quick usability issue I noticed: The numbers in the Gross (Amount?)
column are only differentiated by their color. Red-green colorblindness is
pretty common, so it may be hard for colorblind users to distinguish between
the two. Adding a minus sign before negative amounts would probably help a lot
for them.
~~~
cliveowen
So true, I am red-green colorblind and I didn't notice the difference until I
read your comment, they look almost the same to me.
------
benmorris
Paypal has one of the most broken UIs I've ever seen. Not only is it horribly
dated it is completely inconsistent across all of their portals. As a web
payments pro member, developer, standard user there is a huge break down in
consistency. The developer portal, paypal manager, standard portal, and home
page all look totally different. The standard portal I can rarely find the
setting I need without searching online.
Having relied on paypal to ship packages (do you sell on ebay?) it is amazing
there is no button to just make a shipping label (without getting money from a
specific person). You can do it, you just need to know the hidden URL (why is
it hidden?).
~~~
Domenic_S
I think it's because they expect you to follow the happy path, which is sell
item, then collect payment, then ship. Shipping something without having a
matching, paid-for transaction isn't a typical user path.
(disclaimer, I work for eBay inc, but not on the teams that decide that stuff.
This is my personal opinion.)
~~~
benmorris
I agree, but a button or link somewhere (anywhere) would be nice. Instead I
have to google to find out how to do it. I've bookmarked it now ;) (I believe
it is /shipnow)
------
actionscripted
Not to be too harsh, but the final design looks like a rushed Bootstrap
prototype. I like many of the decisions made and agree with others here who
think the navigation needs some love, but it just feels like every other flat,
blue site I've seen.
------
edem
Chrome says this is a reported phishing page.
~~~
yajoe
It's for the favicon of all things: [http://bruceackerman.com/paypal-
redesign/img/favicon.ico](http://bruceackerman.com/paypal-
redesign/img/favicon.ico)
Holy cow, Google, this is pretty good for automatic protection. It looks like
Google sees that the guy is hosting the Paypal favicon (or something very
close to it)... why would any legit site do that? Even the redesign doesn't
need to show the Paypal favicon. So Google errs on the side of caution.
Wow, that is really cool. Good job Google!
For comparison, the actual Paypal favicon:
[https://www.paypalobjects.com/en_US/i/icon/pp_favicon_x.ico](https://www.paypalobjects.com/en_US/i/icon/pp_favicon_x.ico)
------
cliveowen
Nice redesign, I often wonder why many successful companies neglect the aspect
of their websites. Take IMDb for example, it has a dated design and it could
be made more useful and accessible. Is it a technology problem (UI closely
tied to the backend, very broad scope) or there's another reason?
~~~
sisk
My experience with this has been an aversion to disturb the existing user-base
(and normally within organizations with deep-seated users). A lot of sites
where you'd _previously_ seen this type of reluctance (IMDb, eBay / PayPal,
Craigslist, Amazon, Google) seem to be some of the older sites on the top end
of the internet spectrum. However, luckily that attitude seems to be shifting
(to varying degrees from incremental fixes on Craigslist to broad changes with
Google products). In some cases, there are certainly technological constraints
but I've never seen anything that seems entirely insurmountable.
------
jdludlow
I'd settle for not having to click through three screens of "yes I'm sure" and
opt-in doublespeak every time I want to "really, really, I promise you" use my
credit card.
~~~
grossvogel
I'd just like to see more than 20 transactions at a time. I'm sure the sheer
number of table rows isn't the reason it takes 6-10s to load the page! (Kudos
to OP for mentioning the endless scroll.)
------
milesskorpen
My PP homepage and Bruce's PP homepage look really different — it almost looks
like PP went through a redesign process while he were doing his redesign, and
came to similar conclusions!
~~~
cocoflunchy
Yes, they're rolling out a new design right now. I have to say it's much
better than before!
------
buro9
My issue with the PayPal dashboard is not that I can't get the information I
need quickly.
My issue that I can't quickly get to where I need to go to do some specific
task.
I already know my account balance and transactions from things like Xero, and
when I login to PayPal it is to:
1) Manage user subscriptions
2) Withdraw money
3) Manage the API and callbacks
And I'm sure that other people doing the same.
The thing begging for a re-design at PayPal is their entire navigation and
menu system.
It's so damn hard to find the right page to do the thing you want to do, and
that's the problem.
~~~
jcampbell1
I have a similar usage pattern. My issue is that it is so slow. I agree, it is
a confusing, but that wouldn't be a problem if it didn't take 30 seconds
between clicks to see if you clicked the right thing.
The first thing I would implement is a search that accepts most things like a
profile_id, transaction id, or email, and returns results within a few
seconds. Right now it is about 13 clicks, and 30 second wait only to find out
you didn't select the right combination of option buttons. The system is awful
when you have a customer on the phone and are trying to figure out what is
going on.
------
philliphaydon
Don't like the new design. And what the fuck is "retina design"? Can we stop
making up new stupid ways to describe stuff.
~~~
hobbes300
Design with images that are retina display ready.
------
teh_klev
I'd reduce the size of the "hero banner" (is that what the large dark blue
section is called?). It totally dominates the page and is hugely distracting.
I'm more interested in my activity than I am in money saving tips. If that was
1/3 the size then I could warm up to it.
------
spartango
This reminds me of the PayPal mobile application, both in terms of
organization and information priority. Both this concept and the mobile app
headline account balance, simplify actions to four items, and allow the
transaction log to make up the body of the content.
Look-and-feel aside, I think this concept aligns with the intent to bring
parity between the mobile experience and desktop. I do worry, however, that
the use cases for the desktop application may differ (particularly for bigger
sellers) from the mobile, and this flow may fall apart for them.
------
d0m
This would be such a beautiful website for such a terrible company.
------
jotm
As a matter of fact, Paypal is beta testing a new design - I accepted it for
one of my accounts (strangely, it's one that I use very little) and it looks
quite nice.
It's not as modern as the design proposed by Bruce, but it's better than
before, easier access to everything, easier to view transactions (though still
limited by how far back you can go), easier to manage invoices.
I'm guessing the final version will be quite good.
------
vtmountainman
My problem with PayPal isn't the ux, but their archaic process' and how they
between eBay and PayPal have literally fee'd me to death.. I quit using heir
service and had them cancel my accounts awhile back.. Adapt or die, I prefer
paying for things on the net with bitcoin.
------
hobbes300
Why is the 'Search for transactions' field so far away from the list of recent
transactions?
------
Robadob
The paypal screens all changed for me the otherday when I was paying through
it. I had to stop for a second and check it wasn't just a bad phising site,
payment sites changing makes me lose trust in them :s
------
kelvie
Is there a reason that they didn't use the HTML5 placeholder attribute for
their input fields?
Maybe I'm a little OCD, but it bugs me when I'm able to select the word
"Password" in password boxes.
------
bovermyer
I like the design. I'm particularly fond of large, thin typefaces.
------
knodi
Paypal's redesign sucks. I use to just go back to the old design when ever it
gave me the option to do so. Now it seem even the option to use the old design
is gone.
------
EGreg
Can copyright law actually allow PayPal or another company to sue people who
try to post such "redesigns"?
I doubt it, but just wanted to make sure.
~~~
toomuchtodo
If Paypal wanted to be shitty about it, they could file a DMCA notice against
the host or bring up trademark infringement.
Most companies wouldn't, as these sorts of redesigns are done in good faith.
There's always that one company though.
~~~
EGreg
I wonder if it would hold up in court. It seems like this is fair use... but
of course fair use is up to the courts...
~~~
toomuchtodo
Most of the time, it doesn't have to hold up in court.
[http://www.chillingeffects.org/](http://www.chillingeffects.org/)
------
ck2
The paypal redesign I want is where they stop showing splash ads while they
take 3% of transactions for doing nothing.
------
jlt
They should hire you.
------
antidaily
Hopefully, this gets someone fired too.
------
felipelalli
It will accept Bitcoin?
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Judge a (Clojure) Programming Book by Its Cover - dragandj
https://dragan.rocks/articles/19/Judge-a-clojure-programming-book-by-its-cover
======
dragandj
The books in question:
1\. Deep Learning for Programmers: An Interactive Tutorial with CUDA, OpenCL,
MKL-DNN, Java, and Clojure
2\. Numerical Linear Algebra for Programmers: An Interactive Tutorial with
GPU, CUDA, OpenCL, MKL, Java, and Clojure
[1] [https://aiprobook.com/numerical-linear-algebra-for-
programme...](https://aiprobook.com/numerical-linear-algebra-for-programmers)
[2] [https://aiprobook.com/deep-learning-for-
programmers/](https://aiprobook.com/deep-learning-for-programmers/)
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
For 21 Years, No-One in Britain Knew How Long an Inch Was - Kednicma
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mmh819Lfgfs
======
Kednicma
Tom is not pleased with himself for the scaffolding in the background, but I
find it to be a delightful bit of flavor that accents the history.
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Demo of Short-Range Wireless Power Transfer - saycheese
https://www.disneyresearch.com/publication/quasistatic-cavity-resonance-for-ubiquitous-wireless-power-transfer/
======
jf
If you're having trouble loading the page, here is the direct link to the PDF:
[https://s3-us-west-1.amazonaws.com/disneyresearch/wp-
content...](https://s3-us-west-1.amazonaws.com/disneyresearch/wp-
content/uploads/20170215220933/Quasistatic-Cavity-Resonance-for-Ubiquitous-
Wireless-Power-Transfer-Paper.pdf)
Here are the YouTube videos:
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gn7T599QaN8](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gn7T599QaN8)
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pkMbZmwhpDc](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pkMbZmwhpDc)
------
saycheese
TLDR: Demo shows that in a 54 m3 specially designed room that it is possible
deliver power to small coil receivers in nearly any position with 40% to 95%
efficiency — and 1900 watts can be transmitted to a coil receiver enabling
safe and ubiquitous wireless power.
~~~
seanxh
from what I observe after work in high power radio wave industry, there is a
possibility that long time exposure to high power radio wave can have effect
on people's chromosomes, not quite sure what will happen if someone expose too
long to this type of device
~~~
nardi
In this device, power is not transmitted via electromagnetic radiation, but
via oscillating magnetic fields. It's completely safe for humans and any
electronics not connected to an antenna tuned to the resonant frequency.
EDIT: Obvious in retrospect, but alternating current like this is exactly how
you make EM/radio waves, so my comment above is misleading.
However, that's the cool part about this research. They are generating
quasistatic magnetic fields, and decoupling the magnetic field from the
electric field—similar to how near-field charging pads work, but at room
scale. So they are producing very little in the way of EM radiation. From the
paper:
> For example, radiative transfer methods have tightly coupled electric and
> magnetic fields that propagate over long distances and are typically used
> for radio communication. These far-field wireless power techniques have not
> found wide spread use, since they are limited to delivering only a few
> milliwatts of power due to health and safety concerns. In contrast, non-
> radiative transfer systems such as inductive charging cradles and resonant
> charging pads can safely deliver 10s-100s of watts of power by loosely
> decoupling the magnetic fields–which are used to transfer power–from the
> potentially harmful electric fields. However, near-field coupling is a
> highly localized phenomenon and transfer efficiency drops off rapidly as the
> source and receiver are separated by more than a coil diameter. Likewise, it
> is not possible to strongly couple coils of drastically different sizes.
> Drawing upon recent work using far-field standing electromagnetic waves to
> generate uniform field patterns in a metallic chamber, we introduce
> quasistatic cavity resonance (QSCR); which can be used to create near-field
> standing waves that fill the interior of the resonant structure with uniform
> magnetic fields, allowing for strong coupling to small receivers contained
> within.
~~~
jfoutz
> power is not transmitted via electromagnetic radiation, but via oscillating
> magnetic fields
I don't think you can have one without the other, can you?
~~~
nardi
That's probably true. I admittedly am pretty bad with basic EM physics. Would
love someone to explain this to me like I'm five.
~~~
aidenn0
A varying magnetic field produces an electrical field.
A varying electrical field produces a magnetic field.
Therefore if you produce either a varying electrical field or a varying
magnetic field, you will generate the other, which will then propagate out;
this is EM radiation.
I only did a quick read of the paper, but this looks like they are generating
a standing wave (think like a guitar string, where the amplitude of motion is
fixed at any point along the string) with a wavelength much larger than the
size of the room; this lets them capture the electrical field in capacitors in
the center of the room while still having a moving magnetic field throughout
the room, thus effectively separating the two, which allows for a moving
magnetic field (which the receivers can convert to an electric field) without
having a high-magnitude electrical field in the free space of the room.
~~~
msravi
Seems to me more like they used the big copper tube in the center of the room
and the aluminum walls of the room itself to guide the current flow. It's as
if the copper tube and the room are a big conductor through which electricity
flows (actually oscillates) - this changing electric field in the conductor
creates a magnetic field in the space around it, i.e., the room. So the
electric field is contained and guided through the conducting walls of the
room, while the magnetic field permeates the space in the room itself.
~~~
aidenn0
Yes, the walls and ceiling conducting are important to this (otherwise there
would be a large induced electric field outside the room).
There are capacitive elements in the pole which is important for allowing it
to be resonant at a wavelength much larger than the room (the wavelength used
is over 200 meters).
The very long wavelength means that, in theory, one cuold design a room with
less of the perimeter conductive (a wire mesh would certainly work; they
suggest that doors and windows, or even conductive panels that are connected
could work).
------
wyldfire
Avg whole body SAR limit they use is .08W/kg. For reference, IEC 60601 governs
the SAR limit for MRIs at 2-10W/kg [1]. Also, FCC limits cell phones to
1.6W/kg [2].
[1]
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Specific_absorption_rate#MRI_s...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Specific_absorption_rate#MRI_scanner_SAR_testing)
[2]
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Specific_absorption_rate#Mobil...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Specific_absorption_rate#Mobile_phone_SAR_testing)
~~~
Gravityloss
You could also heat humans, much more energy efficient than heating the whole
apartment or house.
Though it would heat any water or fat lying around.
~~~
mirimir
It's an old idea: [https://www.newscientist.com/article/mg15220615-500-not-
cook...](https://www.newscientist.com/article/mg15220615-500-not-cooking-but-
warming-serious-researchers-are-turning-themselves-into-living-radiators-by-
walking-into-giant-microwave-ovens-pete-moore-wonders-why/)
very far infrared == very short microwave
~~~
rm_-rf_slash
It was also a joke on the first season finale of Silicon Valley.
~~~
tekromancr
I remember seeing that and thinking it was actually a solid idea
------
Animats
From the article: _" While QSCR enabled spaces do require purpose-built
structures, as the walls must be conductive, it offers a substantial
improvement in the tradeoff between range and the magnitude of power that can
be safely delivered."_
Think theme park and sound stage, not home and office.
~~~
glitch003
Until we start offering conductive walls as an option in new homes :)
------
jacquesm
Neat stuff!
Notes:
\- pacemaker warning sign on the edge of the doorframe
\- Frequency smack in the middle of the AM band (1.32 MHz)
\- demo'ing very low power consumers
\- very directionally sensitive (just like any other radio transmitter)
\- room is set up like a Faraday cage
~~~
bowmessage
If you watch the video, they have a 3-coil power receiver that is not
directionally sensitive!
~~~
pinewurst
It's 3 coils, each at a different orientation. For something like a
smartphone, constrained in thickness, it might be difficult to do more than 2
orientations (L x W).
~~~
maemilius
You should still be able to do all three. Consider a block around the height
of the device and around half the width. You could have one set of coils going
around the small edge, one around the middle width-wise, and one around the
middle length-wise.
Unless I'm mistaken, that should give you 3 orthogonal coils.
~~~
randyrand
You are both correct and mistaken.
That does give you 3 orthogonal coils, technically, but the other 2 orthogonal
planes will get very little power.
------
saycheese
Core issue with the solution appears to be that the faraday cage used by the
room would require any wireless wifi/cell access points be inside the room,
otherwise they would be blocked.
~~~
m-j-fox
That and the lack of windows might not be to everyone's taste.
~~~
comex
FTA:
> Finally, the high Q-factor and sub-wavelength operation of the QSCR room
> permits the inclusion of windows and doors, without significantly altering
> system performance.
But there may be limits on how much area can be covered by windows...
~~~
jacquesm
Thin enough silver layer on glass is transparent.
------
beamatronic
What could you do with this? A small drone that hangs in the air indefinitely?
~~~
david-given
A huge swarm of flying drone manipulators in a manufacturing facility.
There are already demos of this:
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JnkMyfQ5YfY](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JnkMyfQ5YfY)
...but drones use so much power that it's unsustainable beyond demos. Beaming
power to them suddenly makes this useful because you can keep them flying
indefinitely.
I'll predict that if Disney actually have this working beyond a prototype,
we'll see demos of drone swarms building complex objects out of children's
bricks within a year, and prototypes of tool-wielding drones actually doing
assembly within another.
~~~
bane
It also increases the weight of the payload they can move around since they
wouldn't have batteries (unless the weight of the receiving coils overwhelms
that).
------
flukus
Just what the world needs, less power efficiency.
------
ge96
Man that is awesome. Wouldn't mind that. I guess although you'd only use a
quarter of it, that pole wouldn't look bad in a corner of a room. But they did
say they could shrink it. Maybe you'd just tape some wires on your walls that
blend in to the color of your walls for that pole part.
I wish them well.
~~~
dawnerd
Im sure they could mask the pole by using a dividing wall or something.
~~~
ge96
Couldn't they setup wires in the corners of walls though or just in the walls
too. Is that pole's diameter a contributing factor?
I don't mean literally in the wall like behind sheetrock, I mean if you scored
a line in the sheetrock and placed the thick 12 gauge wire in there or
whatever.
------
jwatte
40% efficient, so let's just generate 2.5x as much electricity! (Oh, and
remove all of that extra heat with more air conditioning, too!)
Even at 95%, I wouldn't want a 1900W cool near my body for fear of burns.
(Compare 100W light bulb)
Finally, what do other electronics do within this field? It's not like there
aren't already lots of coils (inductors) that would now have to worry about
significant RF back power!
~~~
IanCal
It depends heavily on what you're doing though, as to what the tradeoffs are.
A simple example: remote controls use very little energy and the extra energy
required at 40% efficiency would probably easily pay for the energy cost of
creating / replacing the batteries. Phones, similarly, use very little actual
energy.
------
madengr
Pretty neat demo, sitting inside a loaded cavity resonator. Probably not very
practical, but still cool.
------
w8rbt
Tesla would be proud.
------
supremesaboteur
From the uBeam discussions, I thought this was impossible
~~~
manarth
uBeam's USP was charging via ultrasound, rather than wireless charging per-se.
------
ricardomspires
This don't have any harm to health?
------
unusximmortalis
this is all cool, but those fields created all around the room could affect
(charge?!:) us as well; we are after all electrical beings before we are
biological beings; so how is the presence of such fields all around us for
extended number of hours daily for a lifetime (or half of lifetime) is
affecting human health?
~~~
glitch003
The electric field is contained by using capacitors in the pole in the middle
of the room. The magnetic field is what propagates around the room to power
devices.
But I suppose you'll say we are magnetic beings or something?
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Ask HN: What are the best technologies you have worked with in 2013? - domaniac
I have spent about a year away from writing code and I miss it. I want to learn something cool and fun in my leisure time.<p>What are your recommendations HN?
======
JoelAnair
You're going to hate this answer, but after a couple of years of Node/Express
development I'm really enjoying writing Asp.NET in C# using Visual Studio
2013.
~~~
chidevguy
I'd love to hear your reasons for this, as I've been looking at moving away
from the Microsoft stack. Thanks!
~~~
JoelAnair
I like the IDE (a lot). I'm not reinventing anything, just doing web
development. Visual Studio gives you every tool you need to get the job done
in one package that's frequently updated and runs stably and consistently (on
my machine). The individual tools may not be better than their OSS
equivalents, but as an overall ecosystem they are fairly well-tested and work
together extremely well in my experience. NuGet is very cool and easy to use.
The end result for me has been that I spend significantly less time wondering
why things aren't working (almost none, really) and more time actually writing
and improving my code.
If you are doing something groundbreaking or way-out-of-the-box, Visual Studio
is probably not a great choice. But for workaday web developers like me it's
reliable, easy, and has objectively made me more productive compared to
Node/Express/Backbone.
------
lmm
Scala and Wicket. Writing web apps is a dream. And I'm worried I won't get to
do it in 2014, because the world has moved over to javascript, whose type
system is 10 years behind scala's.
~~~
workhere-io
_the world has moved over to javascript_
I'm not so sure about this. Python and Ruby seem to be just as popular as Node
(if not more) for new projects, and as far as older projects go, PHP is still
king.
~~~
playing_colours
My experience with Berlin startup scene is that Node.js took its niche and its
popularity is not growing so rapidly now. There are more projects in Ruby and
Python. I see there are couple more Scala jobs appeared and even saw 1-2 in
Go.
~~~
kbudinoski
I am wondering how you are tracking Berlin wanted technology stack?
------
playing_colours
Scala - great language with an expressive type system (many evenings and
nights spent reading blogs/books/code trying to adopt its power), I also
enjoyed learning functional programming with it.
Akka - Scala/Java actor framework for better concurrency.
Angular.js - very powerful js framework with dependency injection, 2-way
bindings. I am more a backend guy so I haven't dived deeply into its Tao yet.
------
IanChiles
Go has been an absolute blast to use. It's incredibly fun to write, and
manages to still be fast after that.
------
mjn
Answer Set Programming, specifically via the Potassco tools:
[http://potassco.sourceforge.net/](http://potassco.sourceforge.net/)
Combines the solver goodness of modern SAT and CSP solvers with the modeling-
language richness of classic Prolog.
~~~
andrewcooke
what are you using this for? how did you get started?
~~~
mjn
I'm using it for modeling videogame prototypes in logic, and then deriving
properties of them, aimed at providing richer design support:
[http://www.kmjn.org/publications/Playtesting_AIIDE09-abstrac...](http://www.kmjn.org/publications/Playtesting_AIIDE09-abstract.html)
The longer-term goal is something CAD-like, where you get immediate feedback
on design changes, analogous to how architectural CAD systems will highlight
things like "lacking structural support" or "violates building code". With
games simple versions could be "unreachable areas", "item never needed", etc.
More involved versions could be generation of basically the kind of log data
you would get from playtesting, only instead of empirical log data, it's
analytically generated logs of _possible_ playthroughs exhibiting requested
properties:
[http://www.kmjn.org/notes/analytical_metrics.html](http://www.kmjn.org/notes/analytical_metrics.html)
Many of the above can also be done with software-verification systems, which
in some cases might be a better choice for efficiency reasons. However, the
stuff coming out of the AI community is a lot more flexible as a modeling
language, feels less like writing a fixed specification. It's also designed to
be editable, e.g. you can add or remove game mechanics without re-formalizing
the whole domain (a property John McCarthy calls "elaboration tolerance"), due
to being based on a nonmonotonic logic. I was also already familiar with
Prolog, and ASP's syntax is heavily modeled on Prolog's, even though they work
entirely differently under the hood.
As far as getting started with it, the Potassco people have a pretty good
book:
[http://potassco.sourceforge.net/book.html](http://potassco.sourceforge.net/book.html)
As a much shorter way in, a colleague of mine wrote a tutorial on using ASP
for generating game maps that are guaranteed to have certain properties:
[http://eis-blog.ucsc.edu/2011/10/map-generation-speedrun/](http://eis-
blog.ucsc.edu/2011/10/map-generation-speedrun/)
~~~
andrewcooke
thanks! that looks v cool. i will check out the book. [edit: oh and map
tutorial v nice!]
------
FurrBall
New? I'm still going headfirst down the Emacs rabbit hole. You can never
escape wonderland.
------
orchdork10159
Laravel is "the PHP framework for web artisans." It's powerful, yet easy-to-
use CLI makes development, testing, and deployment a breeze! Check it out at
[http://laravel.com](http://laravel.com)
------
ioddly
Redis. I got back into web programming this year and looked over all the NoSQL
databases and it was the only one that really stood out to me. I've even read
a bit of the source code and it's all very well done and nice to use.
~~~
scottyallen
I definitely would concur, and would add that we're using it as a
queuing/messaging bus, and we like it way better than the *MQ options out
there. Far more comfortable to work with, way easier to administrate, and
plenty performant for our needs.
~~~
hashtree
Are you using the reliable queue or circular list pattern?
------
goyalpulkit
Mobile Development with Objective-C (for iOS) and Java (for Android).
Objective-C has already been mentioned, so I vote for Java. I know I am
inviting rants writing Java here, but using Java for Android app development
is a lot of fun.
------
workhere-io
Flask (Python). It's a joy to work with.
------
beat
Neo4J. Graph database is awesome, it'll change how you think about data back
to how you _should_ think about data in many cases.
~~~
hashtree
Check out Titan, if you get time. You are spot on about it changes how you
think about data stores.
------
cheald
I've just started using ZeroMQ, and it's been a whole heap of fun. I really
like the idea of opinionated sockets.
------
dustinrcollins
Vagrant, Chef, AWS CloudFormation. Writing your infrastructure as code saves
you a ton of time and headaches.
------
relaunched
Glass - It's paradigm altering and has an endless array of possibilities, most
of which are new.
------
squeed
I finally made the jump from Python to Clojure when I needed to really chomp
on some data.
The world is a better place for me now. Paredit is an absolute dream, and the
JVM has shown itself to be truly worthy.
------
kyrre
Scalding, Scala and Tornado
------
hamidr
I just wonder why nobody hasn't mentioned C++11 yet :) ( so i'd be the one :P
) Btw, Compilers (almost all of them e.g: clang, gcc) completed all the
standard.
------
bliti
Objective-C. I've worked with C, C++, and C#. But objective-C seems to fit my
thoughts better. I like how it reads. Currently building iOS/Mac apps with it.
------
nyan_sandwich
LuaJIT. The FFI is really, really, cool (inline low level access to memory and
C in a high-level garbage-collected dynamic language? Yes please.)
------
Patrick_Devine
I just started a stats course on Coursera and it's being taught with R. R is
pretty fun, and super easy to create vectors and matrices.
------
mcrider
Meteor.js. I'm surprised at how young it still is but its got an active
community and heading in the right direction.
------
namarkiv
Titan graph db and the tinkerpop stack.
------
the_concussed
Knockout, AngularJS, NodeJS, NPM, MongoDB, Redis, Google Analytics, Github,
AWS, ConcussionJS
------
philipDS
AngularJS, Redis, Rails, ElasticSearch :)
------
AznHisoka
For me it's been ElasticSearch.
------
garenp
PostgreSQL
------
scriptstar
Javascript
------
hhimanshu
AngularJS
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
What Piracy? The Entertainment Industry is booming - llambda
http://torrentfreak.com/what-piracy-the-entertainment-industry-is-booming-120130/?utm_source=dlvr.it&utm_medium=twitter
======
RandallBrown
It doesn't matter that it's growing, they're just going to say that it's
growing less than it should be. "Think how good the economy would be without
piracy!?"
I think it really is a service problem, like Valve says, and that piracy can
be beaten by providing a better service. Unfortunately, the important people
in the entertainment industry don't and won't understand that. As time goes by
and more younger clued in people start taking over the big companies, things
will change.
~~~
colmmacc
You're right, better and more convenient service would erode piracy, but it
would also erode profits and destroy the core business. The core business of a
media company isn't simply to deliver content, but rather it is to leverage
that content as a mediation tool.
Media companies mediate; they push consumer convenience just as far as they
can in return for advertising and distribution dollars.
Examples;
* Cable companies know just how much money the market will bear for channels they don't even want, for the ones that they do.
* Television companies know just how many ads you can tolerate, before time-shifting dominates.
* Hollywood knows just how long it can make international markets wait for releases, in return for cheaper distribution and marketing (a global launch would make a publicity tour very hard).
* The music industry knows how to set prices so that you'll buy the same piece of music over and over again in different formats.
* TV and Movie content gets sold 4 or 5 times over, in theaters, on television, DVDs/blu-ray, online rental, subscription streaming. Only delays and segmentation (both inconvenient for consumers) make this possible.
Media companies are the middle-men, the grand-bargain makers, with their
desirable content on one side of the scales, and inconveniences like ads,
delays, prices and draconian punitive laws on the other side. Media companies
don't mind being hated, that usually means they're doing a good job, as long
as you love some of their content - the system still works.
This is why the convenience represented by technology presents such a threat,
it dramatically alters the bargaining positions of both the content owners and
the distributors.
That middle-man business must be nearing its end, so the question is; can
consumer convenient technological distribution get more return for the content
creators, the financiers and backers?
------
roguecoder
All available evidence shows piracy boosts legitimate consumption. It makes
perfect sense that rising piracy has led to a boom in production, especially
since it has also broken up the monopolies and gatekeepers that kept prices
artificially high.
The RIAA and the MPAA are those monopoly gatekeepers, so their profits aren't
booming. They have been made irrelevant. It's better for consumers, better for
artists and worse for the people who hire lobbyists.
------
krupan
Link to the full report that this references:
<http://www.scribd.com/doc/79846477/The-Sky-is-Rising>
A quick skim shows that it cites things like youtube, self-published e-books,
and indie film distribution websites. I'm sure the RIAA, MPAA, etc. don't
count any of that as growth.
~~~
warfangle
Of course not. Industry players that aren't a part of the cartel are obviously
not industry players.
------
casca
Naturally torrentfreak has a completely unbiased view on this issue...
------
DealisIN
Good stuff, but the section on music is extremely misleading. Some of the
numbers provided I think are actually false. I completed an industry report
for record labels using IBIS and Factset. If anything, the music industry has
plateaued after looking at SEC filings of the Big 4.
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Is our fight against coronavirus worse than the disease? - hecubus
https://www.nytimes.com/2020/03/20/opinion/coronavirus-pandemic-social-distancing.html
======
scout4
_The clustering of complications and death from Covid-19 among the elderly and
chronically ill, but not children (there have been only very rare deaths in
children), suggests that we could achieve the crucial goals of social
distancing — saving lives and not overwhelming our medical system — by
preferentially protecting the medically frail and those over age 60, and in
particular those over 70 and 80, from exposure._
Finally, some sanity.
The over 70 and chronically ill should be quarantined and provided with
hydroxychloroquine + azithromycin, and the rest should "social distance" those
at risk, but otherwise go about their business. That way the virus spreads
quickly among the less at risk, they suffer no or minor symptoms, and develop
herd immunity.
~~~
slowmovintarget
Except that children can spread it faster among caretakers that have contact
with the elderly. Many of those caretakers, like people my age, either have
young children (like me), or are in contact with people who have young
children.
It also turns out that certain classes of drugs can drop the otherwise
statistically less at risk squarely into the grave risk category without their
knowing it. (High BP meds, NSAIDS, others we perhaps don't yet know about).
Going for the "maybe it isn't that big of a deal" approach seems like a bad
idea to me.
~~~
hcurtiss
That has to be weighed against the impacts of cratering the economy, which we
know to be a big deal.
------
wesnerm2
There are a number of reasons why the fight is worth it. \- 88% of the people
who contract COVID-19 develop a fever. \- 20% of the people who contract
COVID-19 are hospitalized-they require oxygen. If they recover, they are left
with 20-30% decreased lung function. \- 6% are critical require ICU.
This virus has different properties from the flu. It actively destroys lung
cells. It's not clear that there is long-term immunity. Concentrated exposure
is very lethal; we have several members of a NJ family die after contracting
the illness during a dinner party. We have only a fraction of the hospital
capacity for all the coronavirus patients and this also hurts ICU patients
with other diseases.
I don't think that we want this disease to embed itself in the same way as the
flu currently does. We can't have this disease mutate each year like the flu
and cull an additional 2% of the population annually over the current annual
death rate of 0.95%. Overnight, this virus would become the leading killer--
more than all other causes combined. The number of people that will die from
this disease compares with major wars.
This is just the first of this type of pandemic. There were other viruses like
bird flu and Zika that didn't have an impact.
This also causes society to reorganize itself to lessen the impact of future
pandemics. Even without the government actions taken, the fear was already
affecting travel and other industries.
~~~
Kinnard
How did you calculate that 20%?
~~~
wesnerm2
[https://www.businessinsider.com/coronavirus-recovery-
damage-...](https://www.businessinsider.com/coronavirus-recovery-damage-lung-
function-gasping-air-hong-kong-doctors-2020-3)
------
nisten
Hmmm, I dont like the article however there is some logic here.
If you are a low risk adult, and if you have the option to infect yourself at
home, you would only have to isolate for 2-3 weeks until you have developed
immunity and are good to go back to work and help others etc...
By not letting young people get infected we're isolating them for way way
longer than they should be and this is extremely inefficient.
However, leaving ethics aside entirely, for that solution to work we would
need self-infection kits for low risk people to use at home which is quite
messed up.
------
mbostleman
The mass isolation approach fails for me on multiple levels. First, why would
you change the way 100% of the things work when all you have to do is change
the way 5% to 10% of the things work? Why not employ levels of isolation that
are proportionally aggressive to vulnerability to serious symptoms or death?
Second, I thought we decided that trying to manhandle nature because we think
we know better doesn't work? Wouldn't we be better off if we let nature take
it's course so that 90% of the population suffers mild flu systems, but gains
some level of enhanced immunity to further protect the vulnerable groups going
forward while at the same time not collapsing the economy?
------
dsjoerg
Subhead is better than headline: "There may be more targeted ways to beat the
pandemic."
Thought-provoking piece.
And if we had much more available testing, what it proposes could be a smart
way to go.
Until we have much more available testing, it's a pipe dream.
~~~
zigzaggy
Exactly. With mass testing options, we would be one solid plan away from
getting back to some semblance of normal life. A combo of taking temp and
testing those with fever, and the quarantining the sick, we could be confident
in being in public again. I know this is critical but how long will we need to
isolate if we don’t get medical intervention? Can our economy survive this
kind of shut down for more than a few weeks?
Edit to say I’m all for flattening the curve, and I’m not a denier. But there
are trade offs going on here. We aren’t rich enough to ride this out for
several months without permanent systemic damage. I think tough questions are
warranted
~~~
DanBC
> A combo of taking temp and testing those with fever,
You can have, and spread, covid-19 for several days before you develop a
temperature.
~~~
zigzaggy
Well I’m hearing most people are going to get it anyway. With tests we can
slow it down. We’re going to have to accept some risk though aren’t we? We
can’t really afford to shut the whole economy down for several months. And if
you look at Italy it doesn’t appear to working that well anyway.
At least with testing we can catch a large chunk of the asymptomatic spreaders
and get control of this thing. But in a few weeks when this fist wave passes,
we’re gonna all have to learn to mitigate risk with good hygiene and accept we
may get it. Testing is our only hope to returning to normal life before we
totally crush our economy.
------
ardit33
Eh.... no... that's what Italy tried to do, (tried to stamp out clusters,
while keeping everything the same and itdidn't work)
Right now they are having massive casualties per day, to almost (if not more)
than ww2, and there is no sign of slowing down yet.
"Italy reports 5,986 new cases of coronavirus and 627 new deaths, raising
total to 47,021 cases and 4,032 dead"
~~~
sparrish
No, Italy's real issue is they're have the oldest population in Europe and the
highest per/capita smokers in Europe. Since Covid-19 hits that demographic
hardest (elderly with respiratory issues), they have the highest mortality
rate. The average age of those dying from this in Italy is 80.
~~~
taylodl
Don't forget the under 55 group are still consuming precious ICU resources.
No, they don't typically die, but yes they're tying up needed resources and as
such are contributing to the overall number of deaths.
------
mooreds
This discussion on HN has some great first hand accounts about the situation:
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22627636](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22627636)
------
nicholsonpk
One point that stood out to me as odd is that he says family units are
clustering together and that's worse for the elderly/most at risk. He mentions
students coming home from college but aren't they the only major group coming
home that don't live there normally? If people live with their parents and
grandparents then it seems to make sense that working to keep them from
getting infected (ie - keeping K-12 students home, parents avoiding the work
place) is a better course of action than sending them into school and work. If
they've already moved away then they shouldn't be taking this time as a free
vacation to see those people anyway. I'm not sure how you would protect those
at risk people while keeping everyone else in their normal lives. Fill the
hospital beds with them and don't let in the coronavirus infected?
Edit to add: US Population 65 years and over: 16.03% (male 22,678,235/female
28,376,817) (wikipedia)
Total Staffed Beds in All U.S. Hospitals: 924,107 (aha.org)
------
thepangolino
Yes.
Current approach is a disaster.
I would have asked most at risk population to self quarantine.
Cut on red tape for usage of antivirals. (Hydroxychloroquine a proven safe one
said to work has been held back for weeks due to paperwork)
I would have even gone as far as requisitioning private companies to par for
the lack of medical supplies and drugs.
The eroding of civil liberties some EU countries is experiencing is plain
unacceptable.
------
hcurtiss
Why was this flagged?
------
yamrzou
The article asks some legitimate questions that beg for answers:
_If we succeed in slowing the spread of coronavirus from torrent to trickle,
then when does the society-wide disruption end? When will it be safe for
healthy children and younger teachers to return to school, much less older
teachers and teachers with chronic illnesses? When will it be safe for the
work force to repopulate the workplace, given that some are in the at-risk
group for severe infection?
When would it be safe to visit loved ones in nursing homes or hospitals? When
once again might grandparents pick up their grandchildren?
There are many possible answers, but the most likely one is: We just don’t
know. We could wait until there’s an effective treatment, a vaccine or
transmission rates fall to undetectable levels. But what if those are a year
or more away? Then we suffer the full extent of societal disruption the virus
might cause for all those months. The costs, not just in money, are staggering
to contemplate._
------
ChrisClark
No. It might have been easier if countries reacted in January when it was
obviously going to infect everyone. Now it's too late for anything but a
lockdown.
~~~
CydeWeys
Yup. The surgical strike option is long past viability in the US and many
other countries. There's already way too many cases, and we don't remotely
have enough resources in the form of tests and case workers to track down
active infections and everyone that person has been in contact with.
------
Vysero
The simple fact of the matter is you can't have a significantly long lock
down, that's not possible. If the economy truly fails we all go down. You
think fighting over: toilet paper, hand sanitizer, respirators and testing
kits is crazy? Wait till people are fighting over food, water and shelter.
------
Kinnard
@dang dissenting view points are being supressed, people need access to this
type of analysis
We're killing the 10th man: [https://www.strive.com/post/the-10th-man-
rule](https://www.strive.com/post/the-10th-man-rule)
I spoke to a physician at Yale where Dr. Katz is based: he asked me to copy n
paste the text because it's behind a paywall. _facepalm_
------
onetimemanytime
I am afraid that we will sacrifice (a LOT) and the same people will die
anyway. Let's face it, maybe we'll extend their life by 7 weeks or so. Many
are alive that to millions of dollars in medical support for their last years.
But then no country will just say, "let's let our people die." However, unless
a vaccine is discovered soon enough or the virus miraculously is manageable,
people will be very uneasy.
------
danharaj
This article is almost completely rhetoric, bereft of quantitative analysis
and at odds with what the broader medical community has been saying. The New
York Times really does let any credentialed dingus post shit on their website.
~~~
yborg
The root cause of this article seems to be that it's inconvenient having my
adult kids in the house and how long must this go on.
The idea seems to be to somehow isolate at risk populations (the elderly,
mostly) and resume business as usual. As pointed out by others, it's too late
in the absence of a vaccine to do anything but try and reduce the infection
rate, unless society decides to just let the cards fall where they may and
sacrifice the old and sick.
How long it goes on would depend on the effectiveness of this strategy, and
you can tell be monitoring the infection rate. China claims that it has
essentially stopped new infections after ~3 months, so this doesn't seem like
it will be an indefinite lockdown.
------
bsder
No, because the goal is to buy _time_.
Many things that can create positive outcomes are in motion: vaccines, drugs
to lessen symptoms, testing spin up, etc.
However, all of these things need time to come to fruition.
For example, once we actually have enough tests, targeted quarantines now
work. At that point, we can start backing off the full lockdowns.
However, we're currently in an unchecked exponential growth phase. The only
thing you can do right _NOW_ , is shut down.
Given time, more options may open up. But what we need most right now is
_time_.
------
imustbeevil
I'm finding that the fight against the fight against covid is the most
unnerving.
------
ck2
Even the opening photo caption in that opinion piece is wrong.
There are plenty of 20 and 30-somethings that end up in the hospital from not
being able to breathe.
Our fight is worse because there is no testing in the USA when every other
country has mass testing. If we knew who had it, we could isolate just those
people and the country wouldn't be headed towards recession (hopefully not
depression).
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Writers write, but this one couldn’t about the most important person in his life - NaOH
https://www.coloradoindependent.com/2019/12/02/littwin-susie-wife-alzheimers-memorial
======
DoreenMichele
Under the best of circumstances, it's tough to talk about very long
relationships. So much of it has its own private context and meaning. It's far
too easy for others to filter it through their own experiences and draw the
wrong conclusions.
Most people reading this simply will not have had a close relationship to
anyone for five decades. Can you really extrapolate from a two-decade long
marriage what five decades should mean?
I doubt it.
------
rajatsharma91
Writing isn't an exact science, even the best of them fail to pen a single
sentence occasionally, and even the worst of them have enough inspiration
flowing sometimes to create mind-blowing literature (if only they'd care to
write). We can't predict when someone can churn out a bestseller and when he
cannot.
~~~
Archit3ch
It doesn't help that the link between mind-blowing literature and bestsellers
is tenuous.
------
Dylan16807
While it's a nice story, am I missing something about the title? The part
about not being able to write is only briefly referenced a couple times. It's
not a subject of the article.
~~~
jmcgough
He's referencing the fact that he wasn't the one to write his wife's obit for
the same paper, months earlier:
[https://www.coloradoindependent.com/2019/06/14/the-
indy-500-...](https://www.coloradoindependent.com/2019/06/14/the-
indy-500-susie-mike-littwin-love-story/).
FTA:
"When Mike is ready he will tell you himself of the love of his life, his
college sweetheart, who would become his partner for more than half a century,
a woman of grace and beauty and intelligence."
~~~
Dylan16807
And he did tell of the love of his life.
But he didn't tell of his trouble writing that story. He left that as a quick
mention of a story, to be told another time or never at all.
It would be equally unfitting to title this article "I talked to my grandson
about death" even though it's a poignant emotional moment and it's clear what
he means. It's not what the article is actually about.
~~~
jmcgough
Article titles, especially for creative or personal stories, aren't always
summaries of the article's contents.
It serves as an introduction, and frequent readers of his column will know
that his wife died several months ago and that it was too painful for him to
write the obituary himself at the time. Mike Littwin is one of the more well-
known journalists in Colorado, and has been publishing a regular opinion
column for years.
This is like complaining that the clockwork orange is only briefly mentioned
in A Clockwork Orange.
~~~
Dylan16807
It's not a book title, it's a headline that forms a complete sentence and
describes a topic.
It's a bad introduction to hand you a plot thread that's never properly woven
in to the work that follows.
~~~
jmcgough
You are not the primary target audience for the article. The many colorodoans
who have read his column for years have the context to understand what his
title is referencing.
I think it's a way more compelling than a more straightforward alternative. It
hooks you from the start, because you want to know why he couldn't write about
her, and the explanation doesn't need to be explicitly stated. Reading the
article makes it clear how much he loved her and how painful this has been.
Spelling it out explicitly would just detract from the story - he wants to
focus on her, not his own pain.
~~~
Dylan16807
> You are not the primary target audience for the article. The many
> colorodoans who have read his column for years have the context to
> understand what his title is referencing.
Again, I knew _what_ it was referencing. That's not sufficient for a good
title.
> It hooks you from the start, because you want to know why he couldn't write
> about her, and the explanation doesn't need to be explicitly stated. Reading
> the article makes it clear how much he loved her and how painful this has
> been. Spelling it out explicitly would just detract from the story - he
> wants to focus on her, not his own pain.
That was obvious from the very start! The article doesn't slowly and
implicitly build an understanding of that. It's something you know from the
very first sentence, static and unchanging.
It's not a bad article. It does slowly build a detailed and emotional
understanding of the relationship. But none of that development gives any more
insight into why he couldn't write. It's just a broad stroke of a background
detail as far as the article itself is concerned. The details of that personal
journey are left untold.
> Spelling it out explicitly would just detract from the story - he wants to
> focus on her, not his own pain.
I'm definitely not saying he should be spelling it out in the article devoted
to the story of his wife. I'm saying that the title is wrong. He could write
about his own pain later, if he wanted to. And the title would be appropriate
for that article, not this one.
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Show HN: Textile Notes: A Replacement for Squarespace Note App - andrewxhill
https://github.com/textileio/notes/blob/master/README.md
======
jhunter1016
The cool thing about this that's probably overlooked is how Textile keeps
building apps to showcase their development tools that make building with IPFS
as performant and generally comparative to building with a traditional stack.
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Run CasperJS scripts in your browser - gggarnier
http://casperide.io
======
karolisd
Is this on Github?
~~~
gggarnier
I'm sorry but it isn't.
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Ask HN: Project based interviews in SF? - sfthrowaway
Are there companies in SF that do project based interviews? I am currently looking for a job in the bay area (from the East Coast), and I am finding it extremely tough/nerve wracking to do these live coding sessions that every SF based company seems to do. As I am still currently working, trying to line up these phone sessions during my days off are tough, but I <i>really</i> do not want to go on-site and do these white board tests as the only technical test of my ability. It seems like I have to pass them to get any kind of offer, and I feel like it would be beneficial (to both parties) if they can judge me of my abilities before they pay me to fly over there.<p>I just find it frustrating as I always hear about the huge demand of developers in the bay area, and I believe I have a great resume and work experience (at least good enough to get a response to companies I like) to at least get some type of position, but trying to schedule all these interviews and the added pressure of "performing" in front of someone that can make or break my plans is just not a very pleasant experience. That's why I'm looking for other ways to show off my technical abilities, and project based interviews seems to be ideal. I can work on them nights/weekends and overall, it is less time consuming (vs studying/planning/flying). Plus if a company rejects me, I feel like they at least judged me by my code rather than some interview question that I didn't get because of being too tired/stressed/etc.
======
philipDS
I've felt the same way for a long time... and the only way to get over it is
to practice. Buy a whiteboard and practice at home. Buy some books (e.g.
[http://www.amazon.com/Introduction-Algorithms-Edition-
Thomas...](http://www.amazon.com/Introduction-Algorithms-Edition-Thomas-
Cormen/dp/0262033844) and/or [http://www.amazon.com/Cracking-Coding-Interview-
Programming-...](http://www.amazon.com/Cracking-Coding-Interview-Programming-
Questions/dp/098478280X/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1411625412&sr=1-1&keywords=cracking+the+coding+interview)).
You can also subscribe to
[http://codingforinterviews.com/](http://codingforinterviews.com/).
Not exactly an answer to your question, I know. Most startups I know in SF/Bay
Area at least do a technical test (either coding or just regular questions) on
the spot. It is stressful, but as anything, you can learn how to do it.
~~~
sfthrowaway
Thanks for the recommended books and links. That's actually what I'm currently
doing. Studying and practicing. I just wish there was a better way. I feel
like I'm back to my school days where your SAT/GRE scores mean more than your
body of work. Of course, the difference is that I have to take a test for each
company I apply to now.
------
timrosenblatt
Wow, that's one big paragraph. :)
It's going to depend heavily on the companies you're applying to.
Do you have a Github account? That might help. Also if you've got a really
healthy Stack Overflow account or similar, it might help change the course of
your interview.
There was a thread the other day about this --
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8200562](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8200562)
\-- where the OP is trying to avoid onsite interviews, so clearly they're out
there.
On another level: you should know that there's no universal consensus on how
to hire developers. If you keep talking to different companies, you'll find
someone that's a good fit for you in your current situation.
Keep at it, and don't get frustrated.
~~~
sfthrowaway
Hah.. sorry about the long paragraph. I edited it so it's now two whopping
paragraphs :) And thanks for the link, that's really useful!
An active github/stackoverflow account would definitely have helped me, but it
seems like, those things just gets you to the first step of getting a phone
interview. You will still have to go through the entire process. But yeah, I
do just have to keep at it.
~~~
timrosenblatt
One other idea that comes to mind:
If you're talking about a company that's been around a while and has a big HR
department, they're going to have a well-defined interview process, and you'll
be playing by their rules.
A smaller company or a startup is more likely to be flexible, and you may be
able to suggest that they give you a sample project to start. They may prefer
this, as they don't have to pull an engineer off an active project to spend
time interviewing you. Everyone is different, so if they don't like the
suggestion, you may have to work with them.
I saw from another commenter that you are practicing your skills at working
with someone. The time and energy you invest in your people skills will pay
off in a lot of ways over the course of your career (and in your personal
life), so it might help to think of this as an opportunity.
FWIW Here's my company's project (bottom of the page)
[http://cloudspace.com/hiring/](http://cloudspace.com/hiring/)
------
hkarthik
We do project based interviews for candidates with the right backgrounds. If
you want to know more, my email is in my profile.
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Designing Calm Technology (1995) - kevbin
http://www.ubiq.com/hypertext/weiser/calmtech/calmtech.htm
======
DonHopkins
i miss you, Mark.
From [email protected] Wed Feb 17 19:49:56 2010
Date: Wed, 25 Feb 87 00:24:52 EST
From: [email protected] (Mark Weiser)
To: [email protected]
Subject: paper
Leave it (a) on my sun keyboard, (b) in my second floor mailbox,
(c) at the bottom of a pan of hash brownies. I'll be sure
to find it in any of those places.
-mark
------
chrisdancy
MOAR
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Radio Shack to start stocking Arduino, Other Goodies - vineel
http://blog.radioshack.com/2011/07/21/top-ten-diy-suggestions-from-you/
======
SwellJoe
I remember watching my local Radio Shack turn into just another commodity
electronics shop, and not a very good one, at that. By the end, it was just a
place I would go if I wanted to be harassed about buying a cell phone (i.e.
never).
If Radio Shack has gotten rid of the high pressure cell phone sales people,
started hiring nerds again, and started stocking the kind of things I need
when I want to finish a project but don't want to schlep out to Fry's or wait
for an order from Amazon for, I might return. But, it's been a long time since
I've been to a Radio Shack, and I rarely think of them as the place I should
go for anything, since they trained me out of that habit.
I have to admit that carrying Arduino and other assorted tinkerers toys does
make me think maybe the company at least has some of its old spirit. I guess
we'll have to see what comes of it. Next time I pass one, I'll probably take a
stroll around...I'll know whether they've gotten good again by whether I walk
out empty handed or not.
~~~
biot
The best Radio Shack satirical slogan I've heard which sums up their decline:
"Radio Shack: You've got questions, we've got more!"
~~~
kijiki
"Radio Shack: You've got questions, we've got batteries."
------
mmaunder
This is exactly what RS needs to do. Go back to their roots. I was bitterly
disappointed a few months ago when I needed a breadboard and a few basic
components and RS didn't have half of them. I ended up going to a store in
Denver that strips old electronics and sells the components.
There are tons of electronics geeks still around from Arduino builders to car
audiophiles building custom circuits to the RC crowd - and no one serves them.
Right now half RS's inventory is available at Best Buy, Walmart and every
other store with an electronics department. There's a very profitable niche
waiting for them if they're willing to do what they do best.
Employing a few guys who know what they're doing would help too. The local ham
radio club and computer and electronics engineering faculties would be a good
place to start recruiting.
~~~
sfennell
What is the store in Denver? I would love to know another place I could go
locally for parts. (other than RS obviously)
------
sp332
They're really looking to make stronger ties with the "maker" community, and
are ramping up their DIY cred by hiring Meredith Scheff
<http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wpZ7FyjGkGk> (of NorthSkirt fame
<http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UktOOIK_6nU>) at Noisebridge, and Ed Lewis at
Instructables <http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pxRqGOSHbUg> to do ads.
~~~
adolph
At first I was like "whoah," and then I got to the last part of the sentence "
_to do ads._ " That's still cool I guess.
~~~
sp332
Yeah, I had a really hard time trying to fit all that into one sentence :)
------
jff
I had heard something like this a few weeks back--that Radio Shack is going to
start stocking more components again. Discussing it with my co-workers, we
decided they probably can't make as much on the old business model any more.
Every time I've been, they try to sell me a cell phone, but there are cell
phone stores in every town already. Everything they sell is available at Best
Buy for comparable prices (with better selection), or on Amazon for far
cheaper.
I look forward to a day when perhaps Radio Shack will sell kits and electronic
components... even if it's more expensive than Digikey. There aren't really
any nationwide brick-and-mortar electronics stores, but there are plenty of
consumer electronics + cell phone stores... I'd love to see Radio Shack making
money with a new business model.
~~~
starwed
>Everything they sell is available at Best Buy
Well, I've found radioshack sells cables _far_ cheaper than the equivalent at
best buy.
~~~
lukejduncan
really? aren't they the single most expensive place to buy cables or has the
internet spoiled me?
~~~
protomyth
If you have to buy local, Radio Shack does have some cheaper cables. I notice
Best Buy is the worst, but Apple has ok priced cables. This is mainly in
locales without Fry's or other non-mainstream box stores. Heck, Apple has been
cheaper than Wal-Mart in cables.
Obviously, online is cheaper than any retail.
~~~
starwed
Yeah, no Frys where I live. :(
We recently got an apple store though, I would never have thought to look
there for cables. For some reason assumed they'd be overpriced... :)
~~~
CamperBob
Likely because Apple has other stuff they can make money on, while Best Buy,
having won the race to the bottom, really doesn't.
------
walexander
It's great that Radio Shack is reaching out to the community and trying to
stock more DIY items, however I'm not sure if it's going to work out for them.
DIY is a small subset of the population and a smart one. They're going to buy
this stuff online, whether Radio Shack stocks it or not.
I read a AMA from a McD exec who said people are always complaining about them
needing more healthy choices. Well, whenever they add them, no one buys them.
The people who want that stuff aren't going to eat at McDonalds anyway, so why
waste inventory space.
So, sure, i'd love to be able to be able to get in my car and get an arduino
board and some servos, but I'm not sure if that one one trip a year or two
from me is worth it.
~~~
stonemetal
I don't know if it were cheap enough. I could see using them as a rush order
place, a little more markup over mail order but much faster.
------
9999
Good first step for them. Next:
\- Price cables and connectors at only a slight markup from monoprice levels
(cover the overhead costs, but basically sell without any profit margin)
\- Stock every single high traffic component possible at just slightly higher
markup than digitech
\- Sell components for custom PC builds (a la Fry's, CPUs, RAM etc.), charge
slightly less than Fry's, slightly more than newegg, etc., but only stock
components that are highly recommended by Tom's Hardware and other respected
build guides. Have employees build machines with these parts and know what
will go wrong, advise customers accordingly.
So where do the big profits come from?
Service contracts.
Give free support to walk-ins, one time only, charge on subsequent support
requests. Become a non-ripoff/know-nothing version of geek squad.
~~~
chalst
> _basically sell without any profit margin_
Free one-time support is not going to make this strategy profitable.
------
simonsarris
The only knowledge I have of Radio Shack is when I went in and found the
tinest of commodities - things like single LEDs and audio connectors and
flashlights - to be priced so high it was almost unreal.
Is this still true of the place? Or did I go during a bad period in their
history?
~~~
nolite
are they even still called "Radio Shack"? or is it "The Shack" now? They use
to be the most amazing place ever, and would supply components and things to
keep you busy beyond your wildest imagination. and at cheap prices too! Some
kids went to the mall for the arcade. Radio Shack was my arcade. But that was
decades ago..
~~~
Vivtek
No, they're still called Radio Shack. Not that they bear much resemblance
nowadays. I saw (and programmed) my first TRS-80 there. Ah, halcyon days - now
they're a phone store and the bookstore in the same mall - the bookstore where
I bought _Gödel, Escher, Bach_ and _I Will Fear No Evil_ on the same day - is
dead.
We need new cool stuff. The old stuff's all sad.
------
markbao
Totally serious question: how is Radio Shack still in business?
I would love to see them go back to basics, with drawers upon drawers of
components and wires and stuff. Seems like nobody likes doing that stuff on
their own nowadays.
~~~
yellowbkpk
When I worked at RadioShack (several years ago) there was a near-constant
stream of people coming in to purchase cellphones. As an employee I got a
fairly good cash bonus every time I sold one, so I imagine RadioShack made a
LOT of money off cellphones and accessories. For example: The cellphone sale
itself was $X cash to me but accessories were $2X, $3X, or $4X as more were
purchased. A brand new featurephone with 3 accessories and a warranty netted
me roughly $75-100 cash for the sale. The warranty was actually good, too. We
sent lots of different kinds of phones back in a re-usable plastic box to a
repair facility somewhere. People seemed to trust Radio Shack more for
cellphone purchases than the brand stores across the road.
However, that was back when Sprint, Verizon, and AT&T stores weren't as easy
to find as they are now. I imagine they're not able to attract nearly as much
cellphone traffic as they did before.
~~~
kabdib
The last time I was in an RS it was for a capacitor. I found the bin (in the
back of the store), dug out what I needed, and went to pay for it.
The salesman just sneered at me and didn't even trouble to ring it up; he just
gave it to me and waved me out the door.
I haven't been back.
I'll stop by one this morning, I'm curious if they've changed at all.
~~~
oconnore
Since when is free stuff an insult?
------
cpenner461
I hope this works for them, I've been getting into Arduino and other
electronics lately and would be nice to have a local place to pick stuff at
the last minute. I went into our local shack a few months ago to pick up a
piezo transducer to use as a pickup in a cigar box guitar I was making with
the kids. It was dead when we got there, so all of the salesmen descended on
me asking if I needed help. So I said I needed a piezo transducer, and they
all looked at me like I had 3 heads. "Do you mean a transistor?" :) I asked
them to just show me where the transistors were and I'd take a look around.
Sure enough down in one of the bottom drawers of components was a label "Piezo
Transducer" - bingo! As I checked out a few minutes later the manager was in
awe that he had such a thing in his store. Surprisingly the same store
actually had a decent (though small) selection of other supplies (hookup wire,
breadboards, blank circuit boards, etc).
------
hrabago
I arrived in the US in 1998. Prior to that, I remember reading good things
about Radio Shack. When I finally found a branch, I browsed inside to see what
the big deal was. I'm not sure what I was expecting, but I remember leaving
very disappointed. It seemed to be all custom gadgets (PDAs, RCs, etc),
cellphones, and expensive batteries. Reading comments here of what Radio Shack
_used to be_ at least clarifies why it got good buzz in the past.
~~~
ghaff
I think Radio Shack gets the benefit of a lot of at least somewhat rose-tinted
memories. Yes, they were a source for various electronics components at a time
when there weren't a lot of sources for such things. And you had a decent shot
at finding a knowledgable employee. However, for as long as I remember Radio
Shack--which takes us back to the mid-1970s--their shelves were also filled
with all manner of mostly overpriced and poor quality audio gear and the like.
So they've been something of a mixed bag for a very long time.
------
rmason
I am a ham and as a kid I used to visit the local Radio Shack weekly. For a
while they even stocked ham radios. I haven't been in one for over ten years.
I just attended an all day Arduino workshop a few weeks back and it was a
blast. Talking afterwards it seemed everyones number one request was to get a
local vendor to stock some of the more common Arduino parts. I sure hope Radio
Shack is listening.
------
brianbreslin
That's awesome! I remember 20 years ago radio shack was amazing for me as a
child hobbyist. Now I only go there for obscure sized batteries (so once every
2 years). Let's hope they can revive the original spirit.
~~~
xinsight
As a kid in Canada, I had this radio shack battery club card, where I could
get a free battery every month. I always got the 9V size, which was perfect
for little projects, handheld games or just sticking on your tongue. Sad to
see what the shack became, but that little promo bought them a ton of
goodwill.
------
krashidov
I wonder if Radio Shack is going to implement a DIY education system or
something. I don't know how to build stuff with Arduino but if they had a
little kiosk that showed how you could set up and program a hello world (led
blinking) in Arduino I'm sure it could interest some people who had no idea
what Arduino is.
~~~
jfischer
Back in the day, I learned a lot about basic electronics and computer design
from their old "Engineer's Notebooks" (e.g.
[http://www.radioshack.com/product/index.jsp?productId=108524...](http://www.radioshack.com/product/index.jsp?productId=10852491&clickid=prod_cs))
and some books they sold about TI's line of microprocessors. If they wrote new
books for Arduino, that would be a great start. I might even play around with
hardware again (haven't touched it since I got my EE degree).
------
chalst
Just to quibble: Radio Shack have only acted on two of those points, and not
the top Arduino point. They say _we’re actively working on every single one of
these_ , but that might not actually mean they will stock Arduinos in their
regular stores.
------
apalmblad
While great news for those who can go to RadioShack, I'm somewhat disappointed
that where I live, Vancouver, Canada, Radio Shack's have been replaced by "The
Source". NOt that I was really a fan of what Radio Shack had become, but I've
got good memories of Radio Shack from it being the only electronics store as I
grew up in a smaller town. If Radio Shack is really trying to offer hobbyists
more, than it's too bad that their retails stores are no longer open up here.
[Checked Wikipedia, CircuitCity owned RadioShack, changed the name to "The
Source", then sold off the Canadian operations as part of bankruptcy
proceedings.]
------
inportb
Oh man... it would make Radio Shack awesome again. I might actually visit one
of those stores on the way home. The parts might be more expensive, but if it
saves me a trip to China, I'd do it.
------
daimyoyo
Does this mean that Radio Shack will stock the Android Open Accessory Kit?
Because I've been looking all around the net and I can't find a site I trust
that carries all the boards.
------
breckinloggins
They don't seem to have the store space for all these things unless other
things are going to go. Is this just in the catalog?
~~~
marshray
Resistors and capacitors don't need to take up that much space. Heck, I
remember when they used to hang them on the walls in blister packs. Drawers
seem a lot more sensible.
------
rbanffy
Now, they could bring back the TRS-80 name with a line of non-PC-compatible
computers ;-)
~~~
marshray
Heck yeah. I bet an Arduino would be fast enough to emulate them. They should
make a miniature 3" high TRS-80 Model I kit with all the old software library
included.
~~~
rbanffy
That would be cool, but I guess there would be cheaper ways to do it - a
TRS-80 CoCo is more or less as complex as a C64 and that requires just an
FPGA. You could build the whole TRS-80 line inside one chip.
~~~
marshray
The point is not to do it the cheapest possible way, the point is to do it in
a way that appeals to hackers, makers, and other tinkerers.
Still, an FPGA could be even cooler than an Arduino if it were reprogrammable.
------
jc4p
Will they continue trying to sell me batteries and cell phones with simple
overpriced electronics components?
------
haydenevans
Finally, a reason to go to Radio Shack
------
sliverstorm
I wonder if there exists a chance they will notice their current downward
trend, look back at their heyday, and do an about-face?
~~~
ddw
That's what I'm wondering, but they are still heavily promoting cell phones
like the recent HTC Evo for Evo 3D trade-in. I don't think they can be a
relevant DIY shop and standard electronic store at the same time. All of the
stores I've been don't have the room, not to mention the staff.
------
georgieporgie
I go to Radio Shack several times per year. I would be absolutely thrilled if
they would just pay attention to what's in their parts bins and actually keep
them stocked.
------
logjam
The last time I bought something at Radio Shack (probably a battery), they
asked me for my phone number, then made an issue out of it when I would not
give it.
I haven't been back.
------
Bud
Here's my anecdote about the decline of Radio Shack:
I went there to get a USB cable the other day. The only normal male-male USB
cable they were stocking had gold-plated ends (for reasons unknown), a big
non-standard bulge in the connector at one end, and a ludicrously grandiose
package, festooned with details about how this was a USB "transfer" cable,
specially designed to transfer data between Windows computers.
For this reason, apparently, it was necessary to price it at $40. That's forty
dollars. For a USB cable.
I laughed in the clerk's face while he was explaining to me about the
"transfer cable" nonsense, told him he just lost a customer forever, and left.
~~~
davidjade
Could it be that you picked up one of these?
<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Easy_Transfer_Cable>
Maybe overpriced but it was likely not just a USB cable if it was called a
"transfer" cable.
~~~
Bud
To me, that's no excuse. I have a better idea: sell a regular USB cable for
$2, which is what they should cost, and design your OS so computers can talk
to each other without having to build gold-plated $40 SuperWindowsTransfer
versions of commodity cables. It's outrageous to me that such a product even
exists, outrageous that it was $40, and outrageous that Radio Shack, of all
places, could not carry a reasonably-priced USB cable. I would have even been
ok with a certain price premium; I don't expect a retailer to match Monoprice.
But $40 for the only USB cable in the shop? Please.
~~~
georgieporgie
Uh. That weird USB cable makes possible things which aren't designed into the
USB hardware spec. It's the USB equivalent of a null-modem cable on RS232,
something which cost quite a lot when purchased over the counter.
~~~
marshray
It may be not even be correct to call it a cable. Doesn't it need a CPU in it?
~~~
CamperBob
Correct. It makes for an interesting product-design case study -- the
manufacturer probably thought they were being clever by making an intelligent
peripheral look and behave like a 'cable', but the work went unappreciated
("This is just a stupid USB cable. Why are they charging $40 for it?")
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Ad-Free Social Platform App.net Raises Another $2.5M From Andreessen Horowitz - jayzee
http://techcrunch.com/2013/08/14/app-net-new-funding/
======
tsurantino
I'm confused, as I thought that part of the reason why app.net pursued it's
monthly payment ad-free business model was to ensure that it was sustainable
while providing a non-intrusive service to users.
The way that app.net did this originally was by charging it's monthly fee.
It was actually very difficult for me to find a pricing scheme for the site
this time around. So what's the plan to normalize the business? What else
besides not adding advertising or something of that nature? Tax developers?
Tax users?
~~~
gizzlon
_"..but the two positive examples of non-advertising companies that Caldwell
cited are Dropbox and particularly GitHub, which both offer free services and
then charge for additional features."_
------
robk
Traffic growth doesn't seem to be very good:
[https://www.google.com/trends/explore?q=app.net#q=app.net&da...](https://www.google.com/trends/explore?q=app.net#q=app.net&date=today%2012-m&cmpt=q)
~~~
coryl
Google trends is not always a good indicator of traffic
~~~
Kiro
It definitely is in this case though.
------
Dirlewanger
This is the first story I've heard in months on this website. Who's using it?
Has anything meaningful happened behind its paywall? Is there anything at all
besides a gimped Facebook clone or whatever the hell it is?
~~~
Neff
There has been a lot going on in the past year for the service: * Free tier of
accounts. Limited to following 40 people, limited file storage * Multiple
microblogging clients on just about every platform * 2FA and messages, files,
search, and geolocation APIs
It isn't just a "gimped facebook clone", the App.net service is a framework
for developers to build a multitude of social networks on top of a single
platform. The microblogging aspect was just the easiest "get" for them out of
the gate. You can look at their One Year post [0] if you want to see a list of
everything that they've implemented.
[0]: [http://blog.app.net/2013/08/14/we-are-just-getting-
started/](http://blog.app.net/2013/08/14/we-are-just-getting-started/)
------
BaconJuice
I don't understand app.net, I have a free account and I never use it. Can any
one explain to me the difference between app.net and twitter?
~~~
patrickaljord
It's like twitter with no ads and no one on it. Also the api is less
restrictive than twitter's but you have to pay a small fee to use it. The fact
that the api is less restricted allows devs to build any kind of apps on top
of it and this is what they are trying to push right now.
~~~
BaconJuice
but what's is the use of their less restricted api if there are no users on
it? Also I didn't think twitter has ads does it? even if it did I've never
noticed much which means its not intrusive in any way.
------
onedev
Welcome to Silicon Valley eh?
------
ksec
The problem is how is it sustainable.
------
workbench
This service has become such a joke.
People paid for a Twitter clone and just got a confused mess of hand wavy
nonsense about being a general purpose pipe for applications.
~~~
lukifer
...actually, I would say that people paid for hand wavy nonsense about a
general purpose pipe for applications, and instead got a Twitter clone. :P
I love app.net, but I never use it; brass tacks, most people are still on
Twitter (which is itself a small player compared to Facebook). I'm rooting for
Caldwell and I applaud what he's going for, but it's going to take some very
clever disruption and/or pivoting to unentrench or sidestep the social
momentum of Facebook and Twitter (even Google with its billions isn't really
cracking that nut). Federation would be the best approach; it's just a shame
that that the nuances of social networks make it a much tougher problem than
with email or the web.
One potential path might be to integrate with hardware and offer some sort of
"self-hosted identity as a service", an encryption-heavy digital break-out box
that provided web, email, distributed social network, Dropbox-style app
integration, etc. The initial buyers would the people nervous about recent
spying revelations, but if the UX was compelling enough, it might have enough
other consumer benefits to cross over. I can dream, anyway. :)
~~~
jamesbritt
G+ seems to be doing quite well: [http://venturebeat.com/2013/07/08/google-
plus-one-number-two...](http://venturebeat.com/2013/07/08/google-plus-one-
number-two/)
~~~
lukifer
That appears to measure G+ for the purpose of logging in to third-party sites;
and I'd guess that to most users doing so, they think primarily in terms of
their Google account, or their Gmail account. I've heard of very little
traction with "regular people" for Google+ itself; Facebook still reigns king
there.
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Details of Google's Project Glass revealed in FCC report - polskibus
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-21290934
======
meaty
Watch this before you consider one:
<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Black_Mirror_%28TV_series%29>
Season 1 Episode 3: The Entire History Of You
~~~
psbp
Watch a paranoid melodrama slighting the product before I consider it? Why not
just reasonably consider its possible significance in your life?
~~~
mquander
The parent just linked to a half-hour long TV show which does a reasonably
thoughtful job at depicting the possible significance of ubiquitous recording
in people's lives. Is this not the right kind of considering, or what?
~~~
defrost
It's not a new consideration; Bob Shaw’s 1972 book _Other Days, Other Eyes_
does a credible job of looking at a world with ubiquitous recording - a cheap
dust like recording medium is crop dusted across entire countries with the
result that it can be hoovered up and played back to show whatever took place
in the vicinity.
[http://www.tor.com/blogs/2010/10/slow-glass-seen-from-all-
ar...](http://www.tor.com/blogs/2010/10/slow-glass-seen-from-all-around-bob-
shaws-other-days-other-eyes)
~~~
mquander
Also: <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Light_of_Other_Days>
------
abecedarius
I wear hearing aids. The bone conduction had better be optional.
~~~
tantalor
What exactly is your complaint? Surely you could mute the device?
~~~
abecedarius
Unless the sound is available as an audio out pluggable into a hearing aid (or
a hearing-aid replacement), it's useless to me beyond basic boop-beep.
------
rikacomet
"You are not authorized to access this page." on FCC :(
I wonder why they are going with something like bone-conductor, instead of
normal Bluetooth headset type set-up, when it is actually not good at the only
thing it should do: Sound good !
~~~
jrockway
I'm not sure that the goal for Glass v1 is audiophile-quality music
reproduction. I think a more realistic goal is to make sure that you can use
the device without annoying others with audio leaking out. With that in mind,
bone conduction makes sense. (Actually, I've never used a bone-conduction
headset, so I don't know if it's any good. But the idea seems promising to
me.)
~~~
CrazedGeek
I have a pair of bone conduction headphones, and sound leaking out is
definitely a problem. The advantage of bone conduction is that it doesn't
block sound from the outside world like normal headphones do.
------
taligent
I still don't understand why nobody is talking about the legal and social
issues around the video recording capabilities of the Google Glasses. Which so
far looks like its only real use case.
It is illegal to record someone without permission in particular on private
property. It is illegal to record children. There are major implications if
illegal activity is recorded. Are you responsible if you don't notify police
about a crime. Then there are the myriad of social concerns. If you record me
and for privacy reasons I want the video erased how can I do so ? Or am I
forced to remove the glasses from your head and destroy them?
Just like smartphones are required to make a noise when taking a photo I
wonder whether there should be a red LED light to indicate when recording is
occurring or a button to erase the last 5 minutes of video.
~~~
kenjackson
_Just like smartphones are required to make a noise when taking a photo_
I'm pretty sure that just about every smartphone allows you to mute the
shutter sound.
~~~
taligent
Not on iOS IIRC.
And it definitely is a law that ALL smartphones make that sound in many
countries e.g. Japan, South Korea.
~~~
raldi
iPhones in vibrate mode make no shutter sound.
~~~
wahnfrieden
Not in Japan.
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
A Canadian Bill Proposes Barring Public Employees from Wearing Head Scarves - t1o5
https://www.nytimes.com/2019/03/28/world/canada/quebec-head-scarves.html
======
currymj
adding the crucifix ban is a ridiculous fig leaf, as there's no obligation to
wear an enormous crucifix in any Christian sect that I know of. whereas there
is clearly an actual obligation to wear a kippah, headscarf, or turban. the
bill is obviously targeted at Jews, Muslims, and Sikhs. if there were any
special dress requirements for mainstream Christian groups, these bills would
never have been proposed.
~~~
LifeLiverTransp
That headscarf is there for one and one reason only. To shame other women. If
the catholic church jumped out of the history books to demand the right for
its believers to wear it in office- you would rightfully tell them no. Because
what that scarf yells at all those who do not wear it, through the voice of
all the "believers" is "harlet, wrench, slut". If that thing was pushed by the
catholic church, or evangelicals, you would be on the barricades by now. But
it is by a supressed minority? Well that minority is not supressed in over 40
countries. In fact its the majority there, and supresses anyone not wearing a
headscarf. Want to see what happens if you do not wear a headscarf there?
[https://www.theguardian.com/world/2013/jul/05/egypt-women-
ra...](https://www.theguardian.com/world/2013/jul/05/egypt-women-rape-sexual-
assault-tahrir-square)
That machoism is very real in the middle east- and the headscarf is part of
the dividing and conquering. Nothing less. Cause there is always the mother
and saint who wears it and the "cheap" whores free to hunt who dont.
May be that for some, this clothing has already lost its symbolism, like the
white-wedding dress lost the symbolism of virginity it once held for
christianity. If it has no symbolic value, why make such a fuzz about wearing
it at all?
But in that case, i rather be safe then sorry.
~~~
0815test
> Because what that scarf yells at all those who do not wear it, through the
> voice of all the "believers" is "harlet, wrench, slut".
That's a problem with that religion-dominated subculture, not with the
symbolism itself. The notion that women should be shamed for the mere act of
_wearing_ a particular piece of clothing shuch as a headscarf is just as toxic
as the one you're reacting to in your comment.
~~~
LifeLiverTransp
It shouldnt matter. But that dream is for another paradise edition of earth
yet to come.
Its really difficult to find out wether a piece of clothing was a personal
choice or something chosen/force upon a person to define in and outgroups.
Basically, it boils down to detecting a thought-crime against open society.
So why not agree on some middle ground. Transparent Headscarfs? Headscarfs
made from hair-extensions? Something like that?
~~~
crooked-v
> So why not agree on some middle ground. Transparent Headscarfs? Headscarfs
> made from hair-extensions? Something like that?
Are you intentionally trying to sound like you're writing a South Park
episode, or is that accidental?
~~~
LifeLiverTransp
You know what - seperation from society, aka the public plaza from any
religion and attempts to impose religion like dogmas/rules/systems.
It really is the most easy way out. Nobody gets to errect his borderwalls of
textile or lack thereof in main street. We vote on a standard, and thats it.
That way all those warmongers steering the soupkitchen of hate cant warm on
the heat of the debate. The only solution is not to play.
~~~
crooked-v
> and attempts to impose religion like dogmas/rules/systems
So why do you want to impose Christian religious standards of bare heads on
Muslims?
~~~
_rutinerad
Bare heads is our default, is it not?
~~~
crooked-v
Bare everything is our default, but you don't see society forcing people to go
around naked.
------
dmode
Weirdly, this bill would end up hurting Sikh men the most. And they are
probably one of the most well integrated communities in Canada.
~~~
richjdsmith
Sikhs are some of my favorite fellow Canadians. The Sikh community puts a lot
of effort into really integrating into the Canadian culture and it shows.
~~~
kjeetgill
It really helps that Sikhism is a relatively young religion that didn't ask
_that_ much of individuals. We're just "below the fold" enough to not have too
many prejudices attached to us. Even the keeping hair / turban stuff isn't
really required unless you want to.
Come to think of it, that's probably true of most Hindus too. I think it's
just the Abrahamic religions that have too deep a history of conflicts within
the western world.
------
knight-of-lambd
Title is a bit misleading. It's a provincial bill. It's like state law vs.
federal law.
~~~
nickelcitymario
Agreed. I thought the title was suggesting the federal government was looking
at a bill similar to the one in Quebec, but it’s actually about the one in
Quebec.
------
danbolt
Other commenters have noted that this is a provincial rather than a federal
bill, but it’s also worth adding context that this was a hot topic in Canada’s
2015 federal election. [1][2]
[1] [https://www.cbc.ca/news/politics/canada-
election-2015-niqab-...](https://www.cbc.ca/news/politics/canada-
election-2015-niqab-neil-macdonald-1.3246179) [2] [http://www.parli.ca/niqab-
debate/](http://www.parli.ca/niqab-debate/)
~~~
jgon
This bill bans every "religious symbol", including a hijab. The niqab is, from
my understanding, a full face and body covering garment, and most people would
consider that different from what this bill targets. I don't think it is fair
to say this exact same thing was a "hot topic" in the Federal election.
~~~
nickelcitymario
How is it not fair to say it was a hot topic? It was one of the biggest and
most controversial stories in Canada at the time. Am I missing something?
~~~
wutbrodo
The claim isn't that the niqab bill wasn't a hot topic, it that this bill is
about hijabs and not niqabs.
~~~
danbolt
Oh wow, you're totally right. I totally should have realized the distinction
there. Thank you for speaking up!
------
jgon
This isn't a "Canadian" bill, as much as a specific provincial government
bill. It has already received condemnation from the leaders of every major
Federal party which is probably the only thing they've agreed on in the last
several years. Several public sector organizations such as the Montreal public
school board have already stated that they will not enforce it.
So we'll see what happens but the headline would be like saying some sort of
insane law passed by a state is an "American Law". The provincial government,
voted in by ~38% of the population (thanks FPTP!) in a single province has
proposed a law that will likely not be standing when the government changes in
a few years time. This does not represent the views of a major or even
significant minority of Canadians.
------
k_sze
They should ask Her Majesty the Queen to remove the cross on her crown first.
------
anth_anm
This is a Quebec bill.
Would be like talking about an Illinois bill as an "American bill".
------
prolepunk
I'm guessing burka ban bill got finally struck down, so Parti Québécois is at
it again.
CBC source, no paywall, actually explains what's in the bill --
[https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/montreal/quebec-laicity-
secul...](https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/montreal/quebec-laicity-secularism-
bill-1.5075547)
Also the party will invoke Notwithstanding clause, which basically overrides
the courts ever considering it or concluding that this whole thing is totally
unconstitutional.
------
allengeorge
As many other posters have noted this is a Quebec bill, and has (sadly) been a
long time coming.
My personal opinion is that this is making a mountain out a molehill. And, I
don’t think this is the right way to encourage integration (if anything, I
suspect it’ll engender resentment, can’t prove it). I’m disappointed that the
Quebec government pursued this.
------
solitus
The latest poll on this issue showed 64% of Quebec’s population backed the
bill. One of the issue in Quebec is that the French (I’m French Canadian) are
affraid of getting assimilated and fight toe and nails to keep their
traditions which sometimes come off as racist. Quebec feels like it is the
only important Canadian minority.
------
gerbilly
I’m ashamed that so many of my people support such a stupid bill. (I’m French
Canadian)
As far as I’m concerned people can wear whatever they want: hallowe'en
costumes, huge onesies with bunny ears, headscarves whatever...
Ironically, all the teachers at my grade school wore headscarves (nuns) and
that’s not that long ago...
------
ackfoo
How about changing the bill so that men have to wear exactly the same thing
that they force their women to wear? Or else no one gets to wear any religious
symbols.
Because I think, subconsciously, that what makes me bananas about religious
symbols is not the symbols themselves, but the gender-inequality with which
they are applied.
Muslim coverings are a very thinly-disguised misogyny. Same with kippahs and
the stuff they force nuns to wear.
I support very strongly people's right to wear a symbol of any ridiculous,
half-assed, imaginary bullshit that some shithead told them about and they
believed on zero evidence.
But when it is a symbol of unequal treatment of women, of subjugation, of
silent misery, it makes me angry to see it because it is not consistent with
the equal rights that I associate with our country.
That, if only subconsciously, is where this is probably coming from.
------
sys_64738
Will there be religious exemptions to this?
------
devoply
Freedom is a state of mind, not a ban on head coverings.
------
bearcobra
While this is specific to Quebec, I think a lot of Canadians are blind to the
Islamophobia that exists across the country. Looking at some of the comments
by members of the UCP or some of Doug Fords pals, I don’t think Quebec is that
out of step with other provinces.
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Crowdfunded businesses may owe taxes, too - eplanit
http://www.reuters.com/article/2012/08/13/us-column-feldman-crowdfunding-taxes-idUSBRE87C0F120120813
======
daemon13
This whole article reads kind of bullshit from US GAAP perspective.
In case people who pledge will receive tangible goods in exchange, of course
it is a sale. But these pledges will be accounted for as as prepayments in the
start-up's books.
The sale most probably will be recognized when the goods will be
shipped|delivered and will be offset with cost of goods sold.
R&D expenses are completely different matter, and will be expenses or
expensed/capitalized based on applicable accounting/tax policies.
~~~
einhverfr
Yeah. Additionally any article you'd get there will oversimplify to the point
of mostly offering an admonishment to check with an accountant.
As a business typically you are going to pay for net income. Calculating net
income is going to be difficult in this case because it depends on what you
are raising money to do.
Raising $500k to pay some experts to go develop the world's best pizza recipe
in a year? Do this the same year as the fundraising? If you can spend all of
the money you raise on bona fide business expenses (but see amortization
below!) then it isn't going to raise your tax liability at all.
Similarly suppose it is for a pizza oven. Now we get into the complications.
Do the tax laws (we are talking tax accounting not GAAP or financial
accounting here) allow you to take the whole thing off the first year? or are
you required to amortize the cost at a specific schedule? Irrespective of the
ability to do so, would you prefer to amortize over a specific schedule with
the idea that you save up for a replacement? Now you get all the questions
that matter and the answer as to whether it raises your taxes or not are not
at all straightforward.
The real lesson should be "talk with your accountant but also learn the basics
yourself."
~~~
rprasad
You're confusing the issue.
Capital is never taxed as income under the U.S. income tax code. Ergo, the
money raised in your example would never subject the business to income taxes.
_Prepayments_ of revenue, i.e., for goods or services that will be provided
in the future, are income and are taxed as income. Ergo, if you collect
prepayments of $500,000 from pizza-lovers to sell them the pizza that you will
develop using their money, the net would be taxed.
~~~
einhverfr
Capital (equity) and net income (income - expense) are separate. It is
possible, as you point out, for for taxes to be affected and this is what I am
getting at. Something can affect equity and assets without affecting net
income but net income _always_ affects equity and assets.
As for prepayments, assuming you aren't one of the rare cash-basis filers, it
will be deemed income at the time goods are delivered (and is technically a
loan before that point since you have a debt (the goods to deliver) to the
customer and if you have to refund the money you may yet have to do so.
------
jlarocco
This seems pretty obvious. If you're raising money and you're not a non-
profit, then you're going to owe taxes.
~~~
jcoder
As I read the article, it's _not_ about raising money---it's about the
exchange/the transaction. By offering "rewards" on KS, you're making a sale.
~~~
einhverfr
The point has to do with what you are exchanging. In general you are going to
only gain money in these cases in one of three ways:
1) Sale of a good or service (direct or indirect). This is income and if
income exceeds expense, will increase taxable income. If income does not
exceed expense then as a fundraising effort it is a failure.
2) Sale of equity. This is not income. It's a straight asset/equity swap. This
can be done crowdsourcing too due to recent regulatory changes.
3) Sale of promissory notes. This is not income. It's a straight
asset/liability swap. I would be surprised if you could go out and sell bonds
on street corners but if you could it too would not be income unless you were
paying back less than what you sold it as which isn't usually the way these
things world.
~~~
rprasad
Actually, you just provided 3 taxable transactions.
The sale of equity is taxable as income to the seller. I believe you actually
mean the issuance of stock by the corporation in exchange for contributions of
cash or other property to the corporation. This is not a sale, nor is it
taxable. See Sec. 351.
The sale of debt is income to the seller. I believe you mean the issuance of
debt by the corporation in exchange for a loan of cash or liquidable assets.
This is not a sale.
Note that income is not a matter of gain or loss. You can sell something for a
loss and still have income. However, gain or loss is relevant to the
determination of how much in taxes you pay for the year. That discussion could
fill entire hard drives.
------
greenback
"It it's a sale, it's taxable". Where does the money go? Wait... I already pay
1000 different taxes every day.
We should just blindly accept whatever politicians tell us to do.
~~~
rosser
In what world is _selling something_ not going to incur a tax liability?
~~~
propercoil
In the world before 1913 when the unconstitutional tax mandate became "law".
People are blind
~~~
_delirium
A Constitutional amendment _specifically_ authorizes income taxes, so it's
pretty impossible for them to be unconstitutional. Or are are you referencing
one of the theories [1] that the 16th amendment was never ratified?
[1]
[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tax_protester_Sixteenth_Amendme...](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tax_protester_Sixteenth_Amendment_arguments)
~~~
propercoil
_delirium read the amendment. either way it states clearly that no tax from
income should be collected
~~~
_delirium
The amendment reads in full, as follows:
_The Congress shall have power to lay and collect taxes on incomes, from
whatever source derived, without apportionment among the several States, and
without regard to any census or enumeration._
It quite clearly states exactly the opposite of what you claim.
------
rprasad
It depends. This is how the US federal income tax code would probably treat
the issue:
\- If the business is an S-Corp or a Pass-through (i.e., LLC or partnership),
then it reports income when funds are received. Individuals and pass-through
entities are cash method taxpayers, so they report income when received, not
when earned.
\- However, if the business is a C-Corporation, they report income when the
transaction is completed. C-corps are "accrual" method taxpayers, so they
report income when actually earned regardless of when actually received.
This does not mean the business actually owes taxes on the income, since
businesses are taxed on net income, i.e., profits remaining after expenses,
credits, and various deductions are deducted from revenues.
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
What is everyones thoughts on Ethereum? - aml183
http://www.nytimes.com/reuters/2016/03/02/business/02reuters-banking-blockchain-bonds.html?_r=4
======
dang
It's against the HN guidelines to rewrite article titles unless they are
misleading or linkbait, so please don't do that.
------
aml183
I know it's been posted here many times, but Ethereum has had a number of
advancements over past week so I assume a lot of opinions have changed.
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Building an electronic human brain - ronnier
http://www.israel21c.org/201005237948/technology/building-an-electronic-human-brain
======
az
Go Israel!
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Facebook’s first week is the worst of any IPO in 10 years - MRonney
http://venturebeat.com/2012/05/26/facebooks-first-week-is-the-worst-of-any-ipo-in-10-years/
======
zaroth
Is it really such a bad wrap for facebook (the company). They've already said
they don't really 'care' that they are a public company, and never really
wanted to be one. It was just the easiest way to raise a boatload of money.
Now that they ARE public, why should they care about their share price? They
don't plan on selling any more shares to raise money, and there's zero chance
of a hostile takeover, even if shares trade down to $1. You think Zuck is
worrying about the shareholders before breakfast? Not a chance.
Facebook (the corporation) has already sold all the shares it planned to sell,
and raised the absolute most money it could have ever hoped to raise for those
shares.
The low share price will keep employees holding on (and working for FB)
waiting for shares to cross that magic $42 point. And it arguably puts a
bullet in the IPO market, cutting off a major source of funding for
competitors (like twitter). Could it have worked out any better for facebook?
------
potatolicious
I'm not affiliated with Facebook, nor do I own any of their stock, nor am I
even particularly a fan of what they do.
But is there a point in beating this dead horse? Is there any new information
in this link that we haven't already seen 50 times in the past week? I'm not
opposed to talking about this topic, but can we have something more
substantial than "Facebook stock tanking!" worded in 50 slightly different
ways?
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Apple airs unfortunately-timed ‘Do Not Disturb’ ad with Venus, Serena Williams - Pr0
http://9to5mac.com/2013/01/01/apple-airs-unfortunately-timed-do-not-disturb-ad-with-venus-and-serena-williams-video/
======
msie
I don't get why it was ill-timed.
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Wheelcrowd: is the world around you wheelchair accessible? - ehuard
http://jabberwocky.eu/2012/11/25/wheelcrowd/
======
178
You might want to check out Wheelmap, it is a very similar project ans they
have already almost 300.000 points. <http://wheelmap.org/>
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Ask HN: Review my new email marketing startup, redcappi.com - alecbee
RedCappi was launched privately about 2 months back, and publicly just 2 weeks ago.<p>I am an entrepreneur who believes that email marketing can be simplified and stripped down to the basics for the average small to medium sized business operator. Our platform offers an uncomplicated DIY drag-and-drop technology for email creation.<p>Please feel free to signup at www.redcappi.com and check out our software, particularly the ease in which you can create an email campaign.<p>Mahalo :)
======
nedwin
I think you can simplify your home page and messaging.
When I first got to the page I had to hunt around to work out exactly what it
was that you did and what your unique selling proposition was.
I would suggest running some usability testing: maybe grab a copy of Steve
Krugs "Don't Make Me Think".
~~~
alecbee
Thanks, I'll take that into consideration. But what about the actual platform?
You can easily create an account to tryout.
------
onecofounder
You really need screenshots / screencasts. Nothing on your marketing site
compels me to signup. I'm a happy user of Campaign Monitor so I think I get
the general idea of what you do.
~~~
alecbee
Yes, I agree. We are currently working on our video demo. Since you use
Campaign Monitor and are familiar w/ email marketing, I would have loved your
FB on the software.
------
nedwin
Clickable link <http://www.redcappi.com>
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Rubigo: Golang dependency tool and package manager - yaa110
Homepage: https://github.com/yaa110/rubigo<p>Rubigo is a dependency tool and package manager for Golang, written in Rust. Rubigo uses vendor directory (starting from Go 1.5) to install packages, however it is possible to add packages globally (in GOPATH/src directory) or make a local package in vendor directory.<p>Why?<p>I started a project with Glide, then created some local packages inside vendor folder (which makes it possible to change the path of project without worrying about GOPATH), I wrote some codes, before staging them, I ran glide install ... oops! ... my code has gone. I marked those local packages as ignore in the manifest file, but it seems glide does not respect to its features. So, I decided to write my own package manager which respects to my manual changes.
======
christophberger
> which makes it possible to change the path of project without worrying about
> GOPATH
Trying to ignore GOPATH, or trying to work around the requirements of GOPATH,
often calls for trouble.
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
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Show HN: Trailer gods and you never miss a trailer again - bert2002
http://www.trailergods.co/
======
bert2002
I created the site, because I always missed some trailers when I am working.
Their were no easy way to catch up. Its aggregates the data from one source at
the moment, but want to add more. Which would you like? You can share,save and
vote for the trailer to keep track and inspire others.
------
DanBC
What I'd really like is a way to have trailers that I might be interested in
fed to me.
Currently I read "little white lies" magazine but that misses a bunch of films
I'm interested in.
I also have no idea where to get subtitled trailers for Korea, Hong Kong,
Japan, etc.
[http://www.littlewhitelies.co.uk/](http://www.littlewhitelies.co.uk/)
------
hashtag
As someone who is a major movie buff and all, I generally check for new movies
coming out and check their trailers on YouTube or Apple Trailers.
I don't think I'd use this site as the above fulfill my needs pretty well.
------
skidoo
For most people I would imagine it's not an issue of ever missing trailers,
but more of an issue of being inundated by them.
~~~
bert2002
Yes that's another problem, you see one trailer more then once in your feeds.
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
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Steve Jobs, Superman - razin
http://uncrunched.com/2011/10/09/steve-jobs-superman/
======
michaelpinto
Akio Morita is as close as I've seen to a Steve Jobs in my lifetime - I was
into his work in the 80s thanks to the Walkman, but that was the last big
notch on his belt that he'd been working on since just after WWII. Even if you
think about a Nolan Bushnell -- he did some amazing work, but he did have the
hit after hit that Jobs did. My guess is that like a moon landing I'll be
lucky to see that again before I die.
PS For those of you who don't know about Mr. Morita and the story of Sony I
recommend the book "Made in Japan" which inspired me very much back in the
80s: <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Made_in_Japan_(biography)>
[http://www.flickr.com/photos/michaelpinto/sets/7215762682198...](http://www.flickr.com/photos/michaelpinto/sets/72157626821983693/)
------
tzs
Blog is hosted at Wordpress.com, so iPad users be warned: It has OnSwipe.
~~~
navs
This is my first time witnessing onswipe.
Since I don't have an iPad (or any tablet device) I opened it up in the
simulator. At first glance, I felt it was fine. Clean, readable. Don't see a
problem. But viewing the homepage and navigating onward was a real 'ugh'
moment.
I understand why wordpress bloggers install plugins like wptouch. Small
screens and all that but why the iPad?
~~~
tzs
> I understand why wordpress bloggers install plugins like wptouch. Small
> screens and all that but why the iPad?
The bloggers typically don't install OnSwipe, or even know that it is there.
That's Wordpress.com's doing. By default on all Wordpress.com blogs, if your
visitor is on an iPad then the OnSwipe theme replaces the theme you chose for
your blog. As far as I can see, there's nothing that makes it obvious to the
blog owner when they pick their theme that it is being overridden on iPad.
If the blog owner somehow becomes aware of it, there is a setting in their
blog control panel that lets them turn it off.
------
nirvana
One of the greatest projects Steve Jobs undertook, after coming back to Apple,
was to ensure Apple wouldn't need Steve Jobs. Apple University was created to
perpetuate the culture he created, and perpetuate the company by keeping its
executives operating according to his standards.
I'm sure these efforts accelerated after he was diagnosed with cancer, but
they existed before that time, and even to some extend before he was pushed
out the first time.
Steve Jobs last product was to Bottle Steve Jobs. I think that this is the
most proprietary product Apple will ever make. I don't think anyone outside of
Apple will ever see it, and it will be closely guarded.
We'll see how successful he is. In a way this is a test of the great man
theory. I don't think that any other point in history can you have a great man
die, and leave behind such a set of capable, intelligent executives, who are
also absolutely aligned with the beliefs of the dear leader.
No corporate turnaround or technology story can compare to Apple over the last
decade, and Tim Cook has been at Apple for 14 years, much of that mentored by
Jobs.
Let's hope the project was successful, and Apple is able to keep operating as
the singular source of innovation in our industry.
But even if it doesn't, it won't be for lack of effort on Steve's part.
People credit him with a lot of products, and while all of them were more the
result of others under his guidance than his inventions, he did create one
great machine... and that is Apple. Apple is his legacy. He has tried to
preserve it.
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
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Offer HN: I will work for free this Wednesday in São Paulo or REMOTE - just_testing
I want to meet startups in São Paulo or nice remote ones and I thought of trying new things, so... I'll do anything. No task is big or small. You could have me move boxes, enter data, clean up the floor, but here is a list of areas where you could find me most useful:<p>- Sysadmin - Python Programming - UX - Translations- Analytics - Finance<p>About me: mathematician/programmer/sysadmin, worked in startups and in the financial market. Loves to wear as many hats as possible. Recently took an sabbatical to go to meditation retreats and is coming back to the market.<p>If you have nothing for me to do, I'm just as happy to drop in for a chat.<p>Send me an email: tiagofassoni at gmail<p>Or look my resumé: http://a.fancyresu.me
======
seven
Let me make this clickable: [http://a.fancyresu.me](http://a.fancyresu.me)
Really fancy! :)
~~~
just_testing
Thank you!
------
soneca
Tiago, this week we have the Campus Party, with a huge are of startups called
Startups & Makers. More than 200 startups will be there on the free are ( the
Open Campus).
A great place to meet new startups! I will be there with mine, if you want to
meet there, email me!
------
benjaminlewis
Hey Tiago,
Always great to hear from other Sao Paulo-based people on here. Hit me up @
[email protected]
------
abuiles
hey man, send me an email [email protected] if you want to grab a
coffee.
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Ask HN: How do I negotiate my job (salary/conditions)? - throwaway1986
I have been working in this startup for last 3 years, and overall my salary increased around 60% since the beginning, but I live in an expensive country, and this increase does not even cover the cost of living increase over the years.<p>My salary is about 30% less than the market value, for my skill-set and experience level (I'd got an offer which was 30% more than my current salary, 8 months back. (40% more than my salary then)). I am doing some contracting on the side, which pays decent (about thrice as much per hour of work).<p>How do I go about asking for more money or allowing remote work (so that I can move to my hometown, which is much cheaper), with fallback as consulting, to my boss?<p>Edit - I always got very positive reviews from my boss.We are a small shop, so till now all positions were at the same level, but with a recent restructuring, I will be offered best designation amongst all developers. (Unfortunately, its just change in designation, without any monetary appraisal associated with it.)
======
allenc
Hm...does your boss and your company _know_ what market rates are? Don't
assume that your company is purposefully underpaying you; it may very well be
that they don't know enough of the market. In that case, esp. if you're on
good terms with your boss, it'd be a simple matter of educating them in your
research.
Startups usually don't have a ton of cash, so if you feel like you're still
being shortchanged and the company simply can't afford to pay you more (from
the company's perspective, increasing your salary may mean increasing
everybody else's as well), you can ask for other things: more options, more
days off, better benefits, and as you mentioned working remotely.
You're in a good position, and have built up good will over the years, so I'm
sure they wouldn't want to lose you. It might be just a simple matter of
bringing it up, so do that first.
~~~
throwaway1986
> Hm...does your boss and your company know what market rates are?
I am sure he does not. (He moved back recently, after working in the US for
around last 20 years). I brought up this issue indirectly several times, when
we tried to recruit people, conducted campus drives. Recently, a colleague of
mine (who used to get the same salary as myself), left for over 70% salary
hike. I intend to present more data points when talking to him.
How do I say "I think you are out of touch of the market rates for my
skillset", without hurting his feelings/implying the company is cheap?
I actually prefer benefit (of possibly remote work, from a less
expensive/better city), than hike. I just dont know how to bring it up. (ie,
how to word it, without feeling/sounding awkward/needy.)
~~~
allenc
Well, you begin by _not_ saying "you're out of touch". =p You begin by saying
"According to my research, these are the market rates for someone in my
position. What are your thoughts?"
If it's really that he just didn't know what the going market rates are, then
showing him the numbers shouldn't be insulting to him or the company; they're
not purposefully underpaying you. If they were aware, then this is probably
the gentlest and most professional way of "calling them out".
You might want to check out this classic:
[http://www.amazon.com/Negotiating-Your-Salary-Make-
Minute/dp...](http://www.amazon.com/Negotiating-Your-Salary-Make-
Minute/dp/1580087760/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1304192182&sr=8-1)
Which goes into the strategies of salary negotiation, including raises and
benefits and all that other good stuff.
------
michaelpinto
Salary negotiation is cultural — so saying which country you are in is
critical. In fact my advice was going to be to jump to a new job is you're
below market value, but in some cultures that's a bad idea, yet in other
cultures one would be surprised that you didn't do it sooner...
------
nandemo
Given that you're in a country with high inflation, your best bet is to move
to fulltime freelancing, assuming that you can get gigs consistenly.
Otherwise, if you stay in your job, even if you get a raise now then you'll
still need another in 6 months.
~~~
throwaway1986
Which is true, but as long as the company does not mind making up for
performance+inflation, I dont see a financial reason to ditch them.
------
sebkomianos
If the company/startup isn't that big, why don't you just sit down and talk
with them explaining the position you are at?
------
pitdesi
If you've got another offer, that is your trump card. Tell your boss you're
leaving... you seem to have a lot of options, so why not leave or atleast
pretend to? If your boss thinks you'll actually leave and you are valuable to
the company, they'll do whatever they can to keep you. Hiring people is time
consuming and expensive, and when you have a good person you'll do most
anything to keep them.
Also - I don't understand what you mean by the cost of living increase over 3
years is more than 60%... did you have to move somewhere?
~~~
throwaway1986
I do not have another _job_ offer, but I do have consulting gigs, so I am
comfortable moving out of the job, anyways.
> Also - I don't understand what you mean by the cost of living increase over
> 3 years is more than 60%... did you have to move somewhere?
I work in a major city of the country, and in recent years, rate of inflation
averaged between 15-18%/annum.
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
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We have broken HTTP - nkurz
http://gadgetopia.com/post/9236?retitle
======
Animats
We suck at error reporting to the user. One of the legacy curses of UNIX is
trying to encode all error info in "errno". Then came HTTP, which most
languages try to treat as something like a file access. When there's some
complex problem at the remote end, the error presented to the user has often
been hammered down to some errno value that's vaguely appropriate.
This came up recently on HN in connection with GoGo WiFi on airliners, using
satellite links. GoGo doesn't have the satellite bandwidth to let users view
streaming video, so they block YouTube and some other sites. The problem is
telling the user what's going on. They used an awful hack involving a self-
signed fake SSL certificate for YouTube to try to get a coherent message to
the user.
According to the IP standard, they should send back an ICMP Destination
Unreachable message with a code 13, "Communication administratively
prohibited". Most IP/TCP/HTTP/browser stacks won't get that info all the way
up to the end user, especially the "Communication administratively prohibited"
part. Even if the error code made it to the user, many customers would not
interpret "Communication administratively prohibited" as "No, you can't watch
Youtube because you're on an airplane and we don't have the bandwidth for
that".
~~~
jdmichal
Why not just reroute those addresses via proxy to a static page explaining?
~~~
eropple
They're under SSL. All a reroute would do is pop up Chrome's bad cert page.
------
dalke
Was HTTP ever non-broken?
I remember trying hard to get URNs to work, and proposed them for one project.
They required a URN resolver, which is entire new set of infrastructure.
I tried using path segment parameters (I believe the author refers to syntax
like '[http://a/b/c/g;x=1/y'](http://a/b/c/g;x=1/y') rather than
'/key1:value1/key2:value2/'.) At the time (mid-1990s) the tools I used didn't
support it, and I never came up with a need for them. Still haven't. The
current spec (ftp://ftp.rfc-editor.org/in-notes/rfc3986.txt) says that the
text after a ';' is a "non-zero-length segment without any colon" and that the
contents are "considered opaque by the generic syntax." "[I]n most cases the
syntax of a parameter is specific to the implementation of the URI's
dereferencing algorithm."
Regarding "404 (traditionally “Not Found”) means it was never here. 410
(traditionally “Gone”) means it was once here but is now gone"; the spec says:
> [404] The server has not found anything matching the Request-URI. No
> indication is given of whether the condition is temporary or permanent. The
> 410 (Gone) status code SHOULD be used if the server knows, through some
> internally configurable mechanism, that an old resource is permanently
> unavailable and has no forwarding address. This status code is commonly used
> when the server does not wish to reveal exactly why the request has been
> refused, or when no other response is applicable.
It doesn't say anything about 404 meaning "was never here", and in fact
includes the possibility that perhaps the server doesn't want to give more
information.
~~~
Jabbles
And indeed the spec for 403 (Forbidden) includes 404 as a valid return code if
you do not wish to reveal the fact that there's anything there:
_An origin server that wishes to "hide" the current existence of a forbidden
target resource MAY instead respond with a status code of 404 (Not Found)._
~~~
chris_wot
Which is precisely the default behaviour of IIS.
------
WoodenChair
My problem with this article is not the general sentiment that developers
should know the history of the technologies they work with, which I think is
absolutely right, but instead how the author seems to put HTTP on a pedestal.
It just happens to be the protocol TBL & company came up with in the early 90s
for this thing that took off beyond anyone's wildest imagination. It's not
some perfect work of art that should be revered. Also native apps don't make
me sad. They're faster, more featureful, and have more consistent platform
specific interfaces than their Web brethren. There are good reasons they exist
and consumers prefer them.
~~~
curun1r
This whole discussion reminds me of discussions about language evolution. Some
people are prescriptivists and believe that learned language experts should
determine what is and isn't correct usage. Others are descriptivists, arguing
that languages are a living reflection of how they're used and that incorrect
usage can become correct if and when it becomes widespread.
Similarly, we have standards boards, who are often very divorced from the
realities of actually building real-world software and we also have the
engineers building real-world software. Which version of HTTP is correct, the
one codified by the W3C or the version codified by the engineers building
Chrome, Firefox, IE, Apache and Nginx?
As a learning exercise, I implemented an HTTP server a few years ago and
remember finding it fascinating that none of the popular user agents
implemented the Keep-Alive header per the specification. And yet they all
implemented it in a common, non-compliant manner. It made me realize that as
much as I was using the spec as my guide, my implementation wouldn't be
correct if I followed what it said for that header.
~~~
Morgawr
>Which version of HTTP is correct, the one codified by the W3C or the version
codified by the engineers building Chrome, Firefox, IE, Apache and Nginx?
There is a reason why protocols are not languages. A protocol is a well-
defined standard that engineers are supposed to follow. There really is no
space for "descriptivists" in technology and especially in standardized
protocols. What is that, the protocol is useless? Well, maybe we should come
up with a new standardized one instead of bastardizing the already-existing
one and creating a lot of confusion and ambiguity (which machines have a hard
time to deal with).
~~~
cpeterso
Specs have ambiguities and bugs that may be resolved by standardizing
implementations' behavior.
------
overgard
Maybe the simpler explanation is that HTTP/WWW was always broken. It's never
been a great application platform. It's popular and universal and simple
(sortof), so that's awesome, but in terms of great tech it's kind of been junk
all along.
It's not like it ever was universally conformed to. It's not like there was
this golden era. What would be the golden era? The web before AJAX? Geocities
and Hotmail? Frames broke URLS more than almost anything. PHPNuke forums? Web
apps sucked back in the early days.
Makes me think of a fun Alan Kay quote:
> The Internet was done so well that most people think of it as a natural
> resource like the Pacific Ocean, rather than something that was man-made.
> When was the last time a technology with a scale like that was so error-
> free? The Web, in comparison, is a joke. The Web was done by amateurs. --
> Alan Kay.
~~~
woah
Yea, the specification of status codes is cumbersome and annoying to deal
with, like you're supposed to go find a list of what they are supposed to be
on wikipedia and then match it up to what's going in your application as best
you can. Also the PUT, POST etc stuff. It's just a pain to try to match up
your application's behavior to a crusty old spec that was never that good.
It's really refreshing to code with websockets and just write an application
naturally. HTTP is good for GETing static web pages and that's about it.
~~~
TylerE
Way to oversimplify. HTTP works ok for some super dumb use cases. But pray
tell, what's the proper way to update multiple objects at once?
Simple verbs work for simple tasks - only. There is more to life than REST.
~~~
jdmichal
Updating multiple resources of the same type is easy: POST to the plural form
of the resource.
If you need to update multiple resources of different types atomically, then
you probably need a new resource abstraction that covers both of the resources
anyway. Then just POST to that.
------
craigds
Sounds like the OP's problem is not so much the protocol itself, as the long
tail of developers using it who have no idea what it can actually do.
There are developers who do use most/all of HTTP. I'm one. I think I've used
most of the obscure features he mentions, including URL parameters and all
those status codes (excepting 402 Payment Required, which I've never had a
need for, but I do know it exists).
Most of the features he mentions aren't very useful for browser interaction,
but really shine for APIs. If you're trying to write an HTTP API, and you
haven't _at least_ got to grips with all the status codes and methods, you
should and take the time to understand them all and when they should be used.
It's a real joy to use an API that uses methods and statuses properly. If in
doubt, read the Github API docs - their API is (mostly) very good in this
regard.
------
savanaly
Web developer for less than a year here, so just offering my perspective on
what "new web devs" know these days. I know there are status codes beyond 200
and 404, and work with maybe a dozen in regular rotation. I know there are
probably hundreds more, but until they are in more regular use I think it
would just inhibit clarity to use them (just like how using less precise
language paradoxically makes your prose clearer sometimes). This is sort of a
chicken and the egg problem, but the paradigm could definitely shift if the
marginal usefulness is high enough.
URN's I had not heard of, but the article didn't make it clear to me what
problem they would solve.
Of course I know about HTTP verbs PUT and DELETE and HEAD-- is there really
any web dev who doesn't? And I am pretty rigorous about using the appropriate
one (unlike with status codes).
I don't have an opinion on how apps are isolated from the web and don't have
interlinks between them. Don't really use mobile apps myself except utility
ones like Spotify and Netflix.
~~~
BillinghamJ
You should put a bit of effort into making sure you use the most appropriate
status code.
If a client isn't already aware of the code, it decides what to do based on
the first number:
\- 1xx - continue receiving content
\- 2xx - finished receiving content
\- 3xx - follow redirect
\- 4xx - client error occurred, show error page
\- 5xx - server error occurred, show error page
So there is no harm in using better (but less commonly known) codes
~~~
ilghiro
\- 1xx - Don't Refresh Yet
\- 2xx - You Don't Need Refresh
\- 3xx - We're dealing with Refresh for you
\- 4xx - Don't Bother Refreshing
\- 5xx - Refresh, You Might Get Lucky
------
djur
Most of the good stuff here (using the full range of HTTP verbs and status
codes, idempotent GET, stable URLs) is already common knowledge among web
developers and built into any modern framework.
URNs are interesting but difficult to work with in practice; 402 Payment
Required has been "reserved for future use" forever. Then there's the
suggestion to use custom HTTP methods, which is ill-advised [1].
[1]:
[http://programmers.stackexchange.com/a/193826](http://programmers.stackexchange.com/a/193826)
------
ctz
Google cache:
[http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:0PUMGvU...](http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:0PUMGvUWC70J:gadgetopia.com/&hl=en&gl=uk&strip=1)
(Server is not responding at the time of writing, from two locations.)
~~~
3princip
Well, he does claim that we have broken HTTP. :)
I think the situation is improving and serious developers are using a broader
range of HTTP features. Proper status code and verb usage has become very
common with the proliferation of RESTful APIs.
------
cozuya
> Do you know why your FORM tag has an attribute called “method”? Because
> you’re calling a method on a web server, like a method on an object in OOP.
> Did you know there are other methods besides GET and POST? There’s HEAD and
> OPTIONS and PUT and DELETE.
Except HTML(5) forms do not support any methods other than GET and POST.
~~~
einrealist
A form is for user input and should always be "posted" through a gateway or
handler on the server side. A PUT would imply that the payload is accepted as
is. Also a PUT implies that a form cannot be sent twice to the same URI after
the resource on the server has been created. So PUT is basically a nightmare
for user interaction.
A DELETE has no payload.
OPTIONS and HEAD make no sense for a browser, because there is no information
to show to the user.
So that leaves us with POST and GET. As I already stated, POST is the best
form to send user data to a server. And a form with GET is just an URI
builder.
Edit: Well no, that does not leave us with POST and GET, because there are
also CONNECT and TRACE. But who wants to concern a user with those?
------
tekacs
> Anyone working in this space 20 years ago couldn’t possibly have known of
> their problems so every problem deserves a new solution.
It's worth noting that sometimes the reason for developing a new solution is
to be free of the baggage that comes with all the failed attempts on the old
infrastructure...
e.g. JSON-based solutions over the many attempts to use XML (XML is a capable
base, but many find it unwieldy to say the least)
~~~
csirac2
Well, I'm sure the creators of JSON weren't thinking of XML use-cases at the
time. When it comes to solution-agnostic, self-describing, self-validating
semantic markup, I'm not sure JSON-LD buys you much over RDF serialized to XML
(for example).
~~~
erikpukinskis
I can speak for myself and say XML died for me when it was decided that the
standard interface to it would be stream parsing. I found that stuff
incomprehensible. I get the perf benefits, but it was always premature
optimization for me.
You throw a JSON string at a simple parser and get an object back. That's why
it won a place in my heart. Nothing prevented xml from being that except
that's just not what the lib authors did. There was so much talk about XML
being the One True Data Structure I think it ended up being a jack of all
trades, master of none.
~~~
lmm
The problem with XML was that people tried to make it semantic. You had XML
Schema (awful), and because of schema you had to have namespacing (also
awful).
Take that away - plain unnamespaced tags, with no semantics beyond "this is a
character sequence", common-sense business-specific tag names, and no schema -
and you get something that's just as nice to work with as JSON is. And there
are plenty of libraries (e.g. Jackson) that will serialize back and forth to
objects. But too many people drank the semantic kool-aid and tried to
autogenerate classes from schemata or other such silliness.
------
rhapsodyv
In my experience as interviewer, the major part of web developers doesn't know
nothing besides URL in the address bar is a GET and form submission "must" be
POST... Headers? What is this?! It's sad...
~~~
danellis
Who's supposed to be teaching them, though? If they don't know this stuff
exists, how are they going to know to look for it? I learned it because I was
always a complete RFC nerd, but I know that many developers are not like that.
~~~
eyko
Any web developer that is writing not just front-end code but also backend
services or an APIs should have come across HTTP status codes and know the
reason for their existence. I came across this quite early in my programming
career when writing a very basic http service (it's not that long ago, I've
been programming for about 10 years) and the first thing you learn are that
your HTTP response will usually have headers, a body, and a status code.
In my experience, though, when working as a front end developer I've had to
deal with developers (mostly in the .Net camp) who will gladly return errors
with 200 OK and an xml/json object with the typical "StatusCode: xxx", where
XXX is some made up error code that you'll need to reference in their
application.
I believe this is because many backend developers are in web development by
accident, and don't really care much about the web as a platform.
------
wtbob
This intrigued me:
> Don’t even get me started about URL parameters. No, not querystrings – there
> was originally a specification where you could do something like
> “/key1:value1/key2:value2/” to pass data into a request.
I couldn't find a specification, but I did find [1] which led to [2], both of
which indicate that there's an idea of parameters within the URL hierarchy
itself. It seems to me that it could be useful for API versioning at least.
As to the article itself, I completely agree. The problem is, though, that
there's just not enough incentive for folks to actually use the Web standards
suite the way (I want to believe) it was meant to be used. How much would cost
to make a fully-semantic, JavaScript-extended (but not -requiring), machine-
usable website which is also adaptive and beautiful and appealing to humans?
And how much benefit would one realise?
Rather than do things the Right Way, folks just hack through and do it A Way,
and get on with life. I wish that it weren't so, I truly do, but it is. At
this point, railing against it feels like railing against the tides.
[1] [http://doriantaylor.com/policy/http-url-path-parameter-
synta...](http://doriantaylor.com/policy/http-url-path-parameter-syntax)
[2]
[http://tools.ietf.org/html/rfc3986#section-3.3](http://tools.ietf.org/html/rfc3986#section-3.3)
~~~
waxjar
API versioning should be done with a HTTP Header.
------
james-skemp
Wow. Dublin Core. Now _that_ is a name I've not heard since around a decade
ago.
It is amazing to look back to my own development history and remember that I
too used to care about proper status code, using metadata elements, and the
like.
But after adopting so many, and seeing so many either fail to catch on, or
infighting tear them apart, or the big names pick them up and then put them
aside ... it's not surprising that current developers don't think about them
or don't care.
------
andrewstuart2
For the most part, I say "1000 times yes!" I love the general idea he
expresses that developers MUST take the time to understand the giants on whose
shoulders they stand. To that end, I have one noteworthy point (more of a
clarification) I think is worth making:
> And, technically, you’re supposed to make sure GET requests are idempotent,
> meaning they can be repeated with no changes to a resource. So you should be
> able to hit Refresh all day on a GET request without causing any data
> change.
I think it's important to note here that idempotence does not mean that the
resource will never change. It means that the resource will not change _as a
result of a get request_ (barring some meta requests, for example `GET /my-
last-http-request`). A resource can definitely change. I think the author
would agree with me but found his language there a bit ambiguous. Allow me to
quote the good reverened himself, Dr. Roy Fielding:
> "More precisely, a resource R is a _temporally varying_ membership function
> MR(t), which for time t maps to a set of entities, or values, which are
> equivalent. The values in the set may be resource representations and/or
> resource identifiers." (emphasis mine) [1]
Immediately prior this quote he references "the weather for Los Angeles today"
as an example of a resource complete with its own resource identifier (perhaps
GET /weather/la/today, most-to-least specific). The contents at the end of
that URI will most certainly change, but they shouldn't ever change based on
the request.
[1] Section 5.2.1.1
[https://www.ics.uci.edu/~fielding/pubs/dissertation/fielding...](https://www.ics.uci.edu/~fielding/pubs/dissertation/fielding_dissertation.pdf)
~~~
spb
To hit the most important point of what you mean by "change based on the
request", this doesn't mean "changing your request changing the resource you
get" (which wouldn't make any sense).
It means that the act of GETting the weather right now will never _change the
weather_. (If you want to change the weather via HTTP, you'll need to do it
with a method like "POST /weather/hill-valley" and a body like '{"rain":
"stop"}'.)
Think of it like a getter function that gets syntactically hidden by the
language: you wouldn't want "if (user.accesses < limit || user.accesses >
threshold )" to have two different values for "user.accesses" based on the
number of times you referred to it.
In a less ludicrous example, it also means "GET
/tokens/reset/dsf46JtCb385PDs2" shouldn't log you in and invalidate the token,
something that most password-reset pages fail to comply with.
------
Yadi
Amen to this:
"My point is that a lot of web developers today are completely ignorant of the
protocol that is the basis for their job."
~~~
benihana
What a ridiculous statement. Forgetting about the false hyperbole of
"completely ignorant," HTTP is no more the basis of my job than the mixing of
asphalt is the basis for a trucker's job. The basis of my job is making
electronic tools for people to help them accomplish tasks. I would do that
with or without HTTP (which I'm knowledgeable in thanks).
~~~
danellis
It's more like a trucker that only knows a couple of basic road signs.
------
shortstuffsushi
I largely understand what he's saying, in terms of misuse of the protocol. I
think you're going to find those sorts of things being the case for any
toolset, though. Given enough time, and enough developers, you'll eventually
run into people using it an entirely different way than you initially
intended, regardless of the specifications or documentation written around it.
One thing I'm not sure I agree with, though, is the mobile application
"linking" he mentions. When have non-web applications ever linked? What of all
of the old "desktop applications" that everyone used to use? Those don't
typically link, why is there a different expectation for mobile applications?
Oh, and most mobile apps do support linking (in some sense, though it's not
really a primary feature). Perhaps I'm misunderstanding what he means with
this.
~~~
maephet
I work at Branch (referenced in the NYT article) which tries to make it way
easier for mobile devs to leverage better deep links to stuff in their apps.
Making the analogy to desktop apps is fair, but I think the better question
would be why not? The URI scheme registration mechanism in Android and iOS
allow the dev to create a new OS level namespace for his or her app and all
'pages' inside. For example, [http://](http://) is the scheme for browser app
based addresses just as venmo:// is the scheme to address all payments or user
profiles in the Venmo app. Why not leverage this technology to make app
content more open and easier to access?
Now, if we could just get rid of the app store enforced install process and
have apps automatically retrieved and cached, things would be a lot
smoother...
~~~
TeMPOraL
> _Now, if we could just get rid of the app store enforced install process and
> have apps automatically retrieved and cached, things would be a lot
> smoother..._
I totally see what you did there ;).
[http://xkcd.com/1367/](http://xkcd.com/1367/)
I feel the lack of linking in apps is done partially because of laziness, and
partially on purpose. Most apps that are neither games nor utilities seem to
be made to control the viewing experience and/or help the authors trick the
users into parting with their money. Increasing interoperability seems to be
counterproductive if the only reason for your app to exist is to earn a quick
buck from the less savvy users.
~~~
maephet
We just discovered that one a few weeks ago - It was then we realized that we
had just dedicated our lives to the premise of an xkcd comic
I disagree with your last comment as you could make the same argument for
websites in general - there will always be spectrum of usefulness/scamminess.
Utilities or games might not have the concept of 'pages' as a news app or a
social photo upload app, but imagine being able to link to specific
constellations in the star chart app, the various calculator faces of some
popular calculator apps, or a user's city in Clash of Clans. It's going to be
awesome.
~~~
al2o3cr
"imagine being able to link to specific constellations in the star chart app,
the various calculator faces of some popular calculator apps, or a user's city
in Clash of Clans. It's going to be awesome."
I'm imagining it, and in most of those cases I'm imagining the horrible
fragmentation clusterf __k that will have to be solved in Yavascript - linking
to "some popular calculator apps" (plural) means either providing a mess of
links for the user to decide, or somehow guessing which one to show.
Two alternatives that both land in the "NAH GANNA HAPPEN" category:
* "everybody agree on a standard prefix for basic things like calculators" HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA
* "allow client JS to detect installed apps" see also the detect-visited-sites-with-CSS info leakage for why this would be terrible...
~~~
zaphar
"everybody agree on a standard prefix for basic things
like calculators" HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA
That's a URN. Unfortunately they never really got adopted. But thy solve this
exact problem.
urn:calc:rpn
You click the link and your mobile phone then looks to see if any of your
calculator apps satisfy that urn.
If they find any they open it up or present the user with a choice between
them or open the one the user configured as their choice.
If they don't find any they check the app store or web and offer the user the
opportunity to install one that satisfies that urn.
Actually this is exactly what androids intents do as well minus the app search
and install. But I don't think they use urns under the hood.
~~~
shortstuffsushi
I was actually going to reply something along the same lines. These sorts of
services exist on both iOS and Android (can't speak to Windows Phone). Not for
the provided example, but for Android, the Intents like you mentioned, and iOS
has a similar concept for things like "Apps that are capable of
routing/mapping" and possibly other things. Neither of these are done through
the example "standard prefix," but both are through by adding some standard
permission or key to your app.
------
nkozyra
I'd say the reason why following spec on status codes has fallen out of favor
is because browsers don't do anything interesting or informative with them for
most users.
On APIs, I'd say it's a sin to not return proper HTTP headers, but when the
end user on a web site sees a File Not Found that's 200 Status OK versus File
Not Found that's 404, it doesn't really matter.
And while it matters for things like the Googlebot, over the years developers
stopped caring, because delivering an attractive and descriptive status page
was more important than delivering an error status and not rendering a page at
all.
I'm not saying it's right, but it was largely a ornamental step in the early
days of the Web, so I understand why it disappeared. If browsers proactively
provided data to users about HTTP status codes, I think they'd be adhered to
much more.
~~~
seandhi
Returning a 404 status code and displaying an attractive and descriptive
status page are not mutually exclusive. If you go to
[http://www.google.com/unknown](http://www.google.com/unknown), you will get a
404, but you will also see a custom page.
~~~
nkozyra
Absolutely, I don't disagree. I'm saying that for most end users, there's no
distinction. Status codes are for machines, but if early browsers did
something noteworthy with those codes, developers wouldn't have been so quick
to dismiss them in a way that is now largely habit.
------
peterkelly
Ironically, the URL of the post is
[http://gadgetopia.com/post/9236?retitle](http://gadgetopia.com/post/9236?retitle)
~~~
einrealist
And?
~~~
peterkelly
It doesn't exactly follow the recommendations in the second link from the
post: [http://gadgetopia.com/post/6346](http://gadgetopia.com/post/6346)
~~~
einrealist
Yes and that is why the linked post and this post itself are bad. Both authors
do not understand the principles of an URI in the context of the web.
To a client, the URI should be opaque. If a client has to start to make
meaning of the contents of an URI, the server loses the ability to change its
implementation (or just move resources around).
Edit: Ah, its the same author for both blog posts. That explains it.
------
ChuckMcM
I had to chuckle at this, its true of course that http as a standard is
greatly abused and it is one of the big reasons that writing a web crawler is
not just a matter of calling GET again and again.
In providing APIs for third parties that are rate limited, our APIs return a
'509' error to tell you that you've exceeded your query rate. Which if you
just sleep for a bit and then send a request you'll get an answer, but no, as
a 'soft' error too many developers just retry it immediately which is useless.
Some folks want only 3 errors, 'ok', 'dead', or 'try again' and can't deal
with any more subtlety than that.
------
drcomputer
I love implementing stuff like standardizations. Seriously, I love reading
documentation that has lists of codes meant to concisely summarize specific
frequently occurring events. I am the biggest nerd when it comes to pouring
through documentation that was designed specifically with the intent to unify
a common need that started off fractured.
In general though, it's just hard to know exactly when and where to implement
what standardization. It's not just HTTP. The entire world of programming and
computer science would be much more elegant with intelligent standardization,
but it's literally a hard problem. The source of information is the hard
problem. It is subject to change.
How can you standardize something that is consistently evolving, evolving to
the point that it is expected that the functionality of the system is going to
exceed all known expectations of it's operation and behavior? As developers,
we are consistently striving to exceed our own boundaries, to do things
better, more optimally, more safely, more legibly, more precisely, more
correctly. Our expectations of ourselves is what screws us when we think about
'the big picture', because we apply the same model of reasoning to 'the big
picture'.
Yes, we do not know what we do not know. However, we additionally do not know
how to determine the difference between 'that which exists that we do not
know' and 'that which does not exist that we do not know'. That is the core
problem that lays underneath the lack of implementing standards, and it the
reason people standardize things in the first place. Standardization prevents
us from re-inventing the wheel. Standardization makes things safe.
Standardization makes complex systems predictable even when information about
adjacent systems are unknown. Standardization is a vehicle for implementing
trust.
People get confused because there are too many words for the same thing - too
many ways to describe the same things, too many languages to do the same
thing, too many explanations meant to teach the same thing. Either we have to
learn the hard way (by observing massive failure, or by experiencing it), or
we have to hope we are implementing things the most correct way, and trust we
will get there.
------
fndrplayer13
I feel like the ignorance of developers here is overstated. Most APIs that I
know of make good use of the HTTP status codes. This includes APIs from big
players like Google, all the way down to small startup APIs. Sure I've seen
bad ones, but I don't know that I would agree that its the majority? Maybe
I've just had good luck or lived a blissfully unaware existence as a
developer. Hard to say.
------
nimnam1
This is just symptomatic of a saturated market. Between Google and apple there
are over 2.5 million apps and probably over a billions website or something
like that, all of which are using HTTP(S). On top of that, the market for
developers is exceptional, because of this people are flocking to it by the
minute. They are all excited to build a bridge without taking a class in
engineering.
------
junto
One of my personal pet peeves is the misuse of the 401 Not Authorised status
code being issued to logged in users. No, try a 403 instead please.
------
xsace
What a pointless rant. Things evolve, even norms and specs.
There's a reason why URNs are not used in the code, there are not enough by
themselves, if you need use URIs.
There's a reason people don't use every status code in every webapps. It's a
waste of time, better spent elsewhere.
Most webapps uses more then GET.
Etc. Anyway, HTML is not broken, it's used everywhere by billions of users
every seconds.
~~~
gtramont
Perhaps if people understood better the technology that allows their business
to operate, they wouldn't _waste time_ versioning APIs and having to re-write
clients (web, mobile...) every time the server changes something!
~~~
xsace
You can't expect everyone to master everything. It's like ranting about how
the whole classroom haven't got A+.
It's pointless ultimately.
The real question is how can we improve a protocol so it's better used by most
people. Hence why it's evolving. Nothing should be set in stone forever and
then expect everyone to comply to it or die.
------
iamleppert
You know what really bothers me? It's not the abuse of HTTP status codes. It's
the closed nature of apps.
How many of us got our start in web development by viewing the source of the
page? By looking at how others did things? Hell, I still do that now.
Apps are the Microsoft of the Internet -- closed, proprietary and secretive.
Open source and github has helped this some, but meh.
------
wrs
> ...developers tend to think they can solve every problem, and they’re pretty
> sure that nothing good happened before they arrived on the scene. ... they
> feel no need to study the history of their technology to gain some context
> about it.
So, so true. In fact, this happens depressingly often when "technology" is
defined as narrowly as "the app a developer is working on" and "history" is as
short as "a month ago".
This has always happened, but it feels like it's gotten worse since "agile"
became widespread. As if the principle of YAGNI ("You Aren't Going to Need
It") has been turned into a poisonous assumption that nobody before you
_could_ have put any thought into the future. Rather than trying to understand
the natural extension mechanisms that might already be in place, people just
jump in and write more special-case code.
------
byuu
The current state of the web is the result of too many cooks in the kitchen.
Nobody is ever willing to stand up and say _no_ to countless new additions
that often simply replicate old behavior, or don't add anything compelling or
likely to ever be used by others. We even have outright gags in the official
specs, like the 418 response.
It's already too late to make HTTP something sane. What we need are developers
who understand and appreciate simplicity and minimalism, to make something
awesome with a chance of actually catching on. (Please don't xkcd/927 me.) And
they'll have to be fierce in protecting it against third-party extensions
(which may not even be possible with something this popular.)
That's unlikely to happen, so I guess we'll just keep playing this perverted
game of Jenga ad infinitum.
~~~
nattaylor
Ha, I had to look up 418.
418 I'm a teapot (RFC 2324) This code was defined in 1998 as one of the
traditional IETF April Fools' jokes, in RFC 2324, Hyper Text Coffee Pot
Control Protocol, and is not expected to be implemented by actual HTTP
servers.
[http://tools.ietf.org/html/rfc2324](http://tools.ietf.org/html/rfc2324)
~~~
ddoolin
Sorta related, The HTTP2 Error Code of ENHANCE_YOUR_CALM strikes me as a joke
because of the name...
[http://http2.github.io/http2-spec/index.html#ErrorCodes](http://http2.github.io/http2-spec/index.html#ErrorCodes)
A quick Google shows that it's previously just been used by Twitter to
demonstrate rate limiting.
------
pixie_
Also see the discussion here -
[http://www.reddit.com/r/programming/comments/2rzlay/we_suck_...](http://www.reddit.com/r/programming/comments/2rzlay/we_suck_at_http/)
------
ekimekim
I've heard a couple of times that requests coming from JS "need to get a 200"
in order to see the response data at all. Now, I've never worked with JS
myself, but to me this sounds more like a badly-designed library problem, but
it keeps becoming an issue every time I push for an API without broken error
codes.
~~~
rmrfrmrf
Just looked this up and you're right: in Firefox 3.6, there's a bug where the
XMLHttpRequest response body won't be populated by Firefox if the status code
is 400. Seems like a little-known bug that has been vaguely referenced
elsewhere.
[http://bugs.jquery.com/ticket/7868](http://bugs.jquery.com/ticket/7868)
[http://stackoverflow.com/questions/5884286/jquery-ajax-
with-...](http://stackoverflow.com/questions/5884286/jquery-ajax-with-
non-200-responses)
~~~
umurkontaci
That's a regression from 4 years ago. You can get the response body in any
status code in JavaScript.
------
mark_l_watson
I liked the author's comment about using canonical URLs (with a link to
another of his articles on this subject). This is something that I have been
intending on doing for a while - I just pushed changes supporting canonical
URLs to my main 3 web portals.
------
olssy
HTTP is too flexible not to theoretically break but in practice it can be used
and abused and still deliver.
------
gaius
As a protocol, it works perfectly well for transporting hypertext, what's the
problem?
~~~
M2Ys4U
Implementations.
------
halayli
It sounds like this guy just learnt about HTTP details.
------
stevenspins
HTTP comprehension and usage are critical. People wonder why websites don't
perform and api are difficult to program for. I have seen that developers have
this weird need to create your own method and means of communicating errors.
Even ws-* developers don't use soap errors. That is what we are talking about
mostly in this article non-standard messages/state.
Treating your application and data as resources (REST is the style of the web)
and leveraging the power of HTTP so powerful. You are not a crabby old man. If
you do count me in, 33 years old. I could make a career consulting and only
fixing http and resource abstraction/usage problems.
IMO though educating our fellow developers on HTTP is easy compared to the
REST HATEOAS constraint.
~~~
bluetomcat
> I have seen that developers have this weird need to create your own method
> and means of communicating errors.
Developers ignore most of the status codes because they introduce unnecessary
complexity on both ends (client and server) and do not always map well with
the application logic. With JSON payloads, HTTP is used as a "light vehicle"
to carry the application logic. Since the payload is going to be specially
interpreted anyway, I don't see a benefit in cramming legacy HTTP cruft in the
headers and in status codes.
The really annoying thing is the web server spitting out HTML on error
conditions instead of the expected JSON.
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Lightspeed Summer Fellowship: Your Questions Answered - pushpins
http://lsvp.wordpress.com/2011/04/12/the-lightspeed-summer-fellowship-program-explained/
======
pushpins
There were a lot of questions and concerns about this
(<http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2380567>) in the original post on why
LSVP gives away money, office space, etc. in exchange for no equity. John
Vronis - who runs the program gives a really good explanation of this here.
------
ytkliu
John is honestly a great guy and we had an excellent experience with the
program. I'd highly recommend Lightspeed for anyone looking for an alternative
to the summer incubator route (though it's important to be aware that, as John
states in the blog post, it's NOT an incubator.)
------
bpang
I did the program last summer and John was our team's mentor. He was really
helpful in brainstorming idea and mentoring. We had a really good experience!
------
visualplant
John is incredibly helpful and smart. He takes a risk offering the program
without any guaranteed upside for himself or Lightspeed. Genuinely generous.
------
petermichail
Lightspeeds summer incubator has the best of both worlds you get space to work
on your venture and money to live off of while you're out enjoying CA.
------
dshankar
Just curious - is the office space at the LSVP Sandhill offices?
~~~
ytkliu
There's an office building right next to LSVP's offices, and they have an
entire suite there that the teams use. It's actually a great space, although
when we were there the AC was off during nights/weekends.
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Guy Steele Interviews John McCarthy, Father of Lisp [video] - b-man
http://www.infoq.com/interviews/Steele-Interviews-John-McCarthy
======
evanrmurphy
The interface is frustrating because there are only hooks to the questions,
not the answers.
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
LibreOffice 6.3.5 - jrepinc
https://blog.documentfoundation.org/blog/2020/02/20/libreoffice-6-3-5/
======
bookmaster
latest version is 6.4.0
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Post-mortem on the Skype outage - Uncle_Sam
http://blogs.skype.com/en/2010/12/cio_update.html
======
wccrawford
Skype just sent an email with the above link and a "credit voucher worth a
call of more than 30 minutes to a landline in some of our most popular
countries, such as USA, UK, Germany, China, Japan. Or spend it however you
like on Skype."
I redeemed it and it was $1.
Seriously? They expect me to think that that major disruption was only worth
$1 of my time?
I use Skype for language exchange and if I had paid for the same service
locally I'd have spent a lot more than $1.
I'd be less insulted if they had just apologized and given no money.
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Fuchsia Rust Crates - juancampa
https://fuchsia.dev/fuchsia-src/development/languages/rust/crates
======
ldeangelis
Here is is the "Fuschsia Programming Language Policy" that was here some time
ago
[https://fuchsia.googlesource.com/fuchsia/+/refs/heads/master...](https://fuchsia.googlesource.com/fuchsia/+/refs/heads/master/docs/project/policy/programming_languages.md)
------
bsaul
Anyone knows if this project is going to translate into a real world OS
deployed on commercially available devices, one day ?
~~~
ZeroCool2u
I don't have a source off hand, but I believe it's already been confirmed that
Fuchsia is powering Google's Home Hubs.
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
With Assembly (YC W12), anyone can contribute to open-source and get paid - awwstn
http://www.theverge.com/2014/11/21/7258667/assembly-collaborative-work-open-source
======
bitsweet
Today we announced $2.9MM in funding from Union Square Ventures, Thrive,
Collaborative Fund, and others. We're eager to get back to work.
Happy to answer questions.
~~~
debacle
Why do the ownership shares of a project never seem to add up to the total
bounties for that project?
It seems like many users are creating bounties for projects that they work on
and then fulfilling those same bounties.
Most projects also have a single user with over 90% of the ownership of a
project. While that mirrors how many OSS projects are structured, it doesn't
really favor the "collaborative" message of Assembly. Are you doing anything
to adjust that, or is it something that is fine in your minds?
If an OSS project gains traction, it generally becomes a PaaS solution with
3-5 major providers and many smaller providers. How in the world can Assembly
hope to promise people revenue with that model?
~~~
bitsweet
> Why do the ownership shares of a project never seem to add up to the total
> bounties for that project?
Open bounties represent new ownership potential. Transparency is important
here - it is one reason why ownership is on the blockchain, this allows it to
be verifiable outside of Assembly.
> It seems like many users are creating bounties for projects that they work
> on and then fulfilling those same bounties.
All new ownership in a product is earned through the same mechanism. This
makes progress transparent and participation fair.
> Most projects also have a single user with over 90% of the ownership of a
> project. While that mirrors how many OSS projects are structured, it doesn't
> really favor the "collaborative" message of Assembly. Are you doing anything
> to adjust that, or is it something that is fine in your minds?
Active products rarely have owners with anything close to 90%. Some products
may be skewed to an individual that's done a lion share of work initially, but
there are many others that are more spread out or become so with time. Opposed
to completely working alone, having others to bounce ideas or make other
contributions that complement your skills is what Assembly community members
find collaborative.
> If an OSS project gains traction, it generally becomes a PaaS solution with
> 3-5 major providers and many smaller providers. How in the world can
> Assembly hope to promise people revenue with that model?
It's challenging to compare Assembly products to traditional open source
projects & libraries. The Assembly community is building real products, they
just happen to have source code that is open source and participation is open,
transparent, and collaborative. To clarify, Assembly does not promise a
product will earn revenue...only that if any profit is generated, it will be
distributed to the contributors. Assembly is already distributing proceeds
from revenue producing products, some members are earning over $1000 a month
for previous contributions. This aligns Assembly's success with our community.
~~~
debacle
> Open bounties represent new ownership potential.
You didn't answer my question. The real answer is that the project contract
can create a situation where a project initiator could completely abandon a
project and still continue to earn shares in the project due to the
"obligatory service charge" nature of the bounty system for early adopters.
> This makes progress transparent and participation fair.
mdeiters receives 20% of all new bounties completed on the coderwall project.
In what way is that fair?
> Active products rarely have owners with anything close to 90%
Two of the top 8 projects on the projects page have over 90%, and three have
over 70%.
------
mbesto
I just recently joined. I think this is a HUGE opportunity specifically for
people who are looking to get experience with building real software projects
and shipping code. (i.e. juniors) Good luck to you guys...I might be helping
out on some projects in the near future.
My only critique is if this things scales to become big, it means people will
increasingly try to game the system (i.e. figure out how maximize returns by
illegitimate means). Money motivations do funny things to people.
------
debacle
Assembly's website has an incredibly beautiful design.
But it's atrocious to use. 50% of the page is wasted in whitespace, another
30-40% in boilerplate and the use of the site is not intuitive. My cursor will
change to a pointer when things aren't actually clickable and trying to use
the slider causes text on the page to be selected.
Onto the actual application, it's impossible to determine how value is
assigned, what a vote is, why I can vote if I'm logged out, what that means,
etc.
This is a tool designed to be primarily used by smart, relatively technical
people with copy and design directed towards your average Facebook user.
Edit: As a final note, your FAQ is 10 pages and almost 100 questions long.
This creates a huge barrier to entry for new users. Many of those questions
only exist due to inefficiencies in your UI. It's very daunting, and honestly
I would never use this product for its intended purpose at this point.
~~~
chrislloyd
Hey debacle! I'm a front-end engineer at Assembly. We've pushed out a bunch of
new features in the last couple of days and are still ironing out the edges.
Namely, we shift from Kickstarter-style "product" pages (with even more
boilerplate) to using feeds to help expose more content. The large header is
going to be revisited pretty quickly as we unify the different sections on a
product. I've created a Meta bounty with your feedback so you can follow our
progress addressing it:
[https://assembly.com/meta/bounties/834](https://assembly.com/meta/bounties/834)
~~~
debacle
I signed up (ack) and replied with some of the UI bugs/issues that I found.
------
derekp7
Let's say I have an open source project. And people start contacting me about
purchasing paid support. Now I currently have a day job, and the total paid
support contracts wouldn't be enough to quit and support the project full
time. What I'm looking for is a company that I can contract with to provide
that support, with a portion of the proceeds going to the open source project
in return for making that company the primary support channel.
Would Assembly be able to provide this type of service, or is there another
one out there that does this already, that I'm not aware of?
------
userbinator
The first thing I think of when I see the name is the demoparty (
[http://www.assembly.org](http://www.assembly.org) ). I suppose Compile would
be a good name too...
------
ChaoticGood
I love this! I think in the future we will be focused more on bidding on a
plethora of tasks the market has to offer. Assembly so far is the closest
thing to that future. I also like
[https://worklist.net/](https://worklist.net/) The idea that I can fill my day
with a variety of new and compelling tasks sounds more awesome than getting
stuck in a routine. Sounds like a great way for a junior developer such as
myself to gain vital experience.
------
notduncansmith
I think Assembly is a really cool idea - however, I've noticed a few things
that are driving me away from the platform.
#1. Lack of good ideas. Most of the ideas are rather unmotivational to me. I
realize that this could be an entirely personal hangup, so I don't hold this
against the platform.
#2. Lack of good leadership. After participating in discussions with a few of
the project leads, and reading the content posted by others, it looks like few
(if any) of the people starting projects there have any idea how building a
product works. See "Voices" for an example. It's tough to get behind some of
these people.
That said, Assembly could be a really powerful platform. Just waiting for the
right idea to come along I guess...
------
jonaldomo
For each project listed, are 100% of profits distributed through app coins? Or
does the owner of the project decide what percent of profits to share with the
assembly community. It would be nice to see what this percentage is.
~~~
awwstn
Yes – 100% of profits are distributed to the community based on App Coins. The
person who initially submits the product has ownership just like everyone
else, and gets paid that way.
~~~
jonaldomo
I think its a cool idea, I am just thinking about how to prevent from getting
taken advantage of. Couldn't the project owner up his earning package as the
business gets successful which in turn decreases profit that would be paid
out?
(Thanks for the 689 coins just now!)
~~~
awwstn
Glad you think it's a cool idea!
A few things:
The product doesn't have an "owner", and nobody has an earning package.
So a user could create large bounties and award them to him/her self (thus
increasing his/her share of the profits), but that would make the community
less motivated to work with that person, and anyone in the community can weigh
in on what a bounty should be worth, so the community is able to protect
itself from bad behavior.
Also, most products end up with multiple core team members, so typically the
additional authority of the Core Team doesn't lie on one person.
------
jj00
So what if the Open Source project doesn't make any money? Do they expect the
project to pay percentages based on donations or something?
~~~
fiatjaf
They will pay the percentages based on the money made, 50% of zero is zero.
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Starbase comes with its own programming language - jrmurray
https://www.pcgamer.com/starbase-comes-with-its-own-programming-language/
======
rendall
It looks a bit like BASIC. Interesting choice to have goto statements.
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
COBOL's Not Dead - solipsist
http://www.readwriteweb.com/enterprise/2011/01/cobols-not-dead-in-the-enterprise.php
======
cao825
I started at a company 2.5 years ago as a COBOL programmer and am now a
Software Architect for the company. I would say that COBOL still runs a very
large percentage of business systems (especially banking). Our system does
even implement GUI and we are starting to use a form of MVC for new
development.
While I think most companies that have COBOL systems want to get rid of them
and move to a newer language, doing so is going to take a very long time. My
company has wanted to move from COBOL to a higher language for over 5 years
now and never been able to prove the business case. The language will be
around, at least in maintenance if not development for at least another 20
years imho.
The big problem that companies are having is that the majority of COBOL
programmers will retire in the next 5 years and new college grads don't have
experience with it and don't want to learn it because it is considered "dead"
by mainstream CS. That means those that actually know the language stand to
make a very large amount of money in the coming years helping big banks
convert their systems, when they have nowhere else to turn.
------
mindcrime
There's even a little bit of activity on the /r/cobol subreddit:
<http://www.reddit.com/r/cobol>
------
maxharris
COBOL is dead. This is just another press release from Micro Focus, a
legacy/COBOL vendor. If you're fooled by this, you're not thinking critically.
~~~
cao825
I think you need to define dead. If you are saying it is dead in the sense
that there is no new development being done on it and/or it is not in high
use, then you are completely mistaken. I would say the best "dead" definition
for it is: any company looking to implement a new system would not choose
COBOL as their language. In that sense, it is technically dying, but
definitely not dead.
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Show HN: CloudTunes - jkbr
https://github.com/jakubroztocil/cloudtunes
======
MeoMix420
Hey,
This is really nice. Would you mind chatting with me sometime? I'd love to
pick your brain or even just converse with someone who has similar interests.
I've spent the past two years developing Streamus,
[https://streamus.com/](https://streamus.com/), an open-source music player
which runs off of YouTube as a browser extension; it has 130,000 users
currently.
Hit me up if you want to chat! [email protected] and if you'd like to browse
the repo,
[https://github.com/MeoMix/StreamusChromeExtension](https://github.com/MeoMix/StreamusChromeExtension)
~~~
lips
Holy cow. Streamus is a dreamus. I'm really digging this.
------
squeaky-clean
Really cool idea. Who hasn't thought of doing this before? Congrats on
actually making it, and making it look beautiful. Already forked it, can't
wait to start playing with it.
I don't see any mobile screenshots, how does it look on a phone screen? I can
imagine that being a great use-case for this app.
~~~
rakoo
Congrats on the design, but it's sad to see that once again, the wheel has
been reinvented: there once was playdar [0], the content resolver that clearly
separated the data that was of interest to the user (artist, song, ...) and
the actual sources. Its biggest problem was, I believe, that it wasn't an
actual music player.
Its gentle folks decided to restart from scratch with a music player in mind,
and keep the idea of having different resolvers to target different sources,
such as local disk, youtube, spotify, radioshark, ... Really, if you know
javascript, you can write a resolver targetting the platform of your choice.
The end result is Tomahawk [1] and if you're interested in that you should
have a look.
Maybe it didn't spread because it's not a webapp ?
[0] [http://www.playdar.org/](http://www.playdar.org/)
[1] [http://www.tomahawk-player.org/](http://www.tomahawk-player.org/)
~~~
squeaky-clean
>Maybe it didn't spread because it's not a webapp ?
I think this is it. I remember checking out Tomahawk a while ago, about the
time Songbird announced it was discontinuing development. I ended up just
going back to iTunes because it did all I needed (even if it is bloated). If I
can install Tomahawk on a computer, I can probably install my music library
onto it as well, so I don't need the resolving features it has.
I actually just tried installing Tomahawk because of your comment, and it does
work very well, and looks pretty while doing it. It was able to find several
obscure artists with perfect accuracy. (Though it did grab most of them from
Soundcloud at 128kb/s, when a few of them are on Spotify with higher
bitrates). But unless I can access it anywhere, with a moment's notice, I
don't really have a purpose for it being installed on a machine.
I rarely even listen to music on my computer anymore. I use my phone for
Spotify on the go and even at work. It's nice to not have another program
running while I'm working. But a lot of artists I like aren't on Spotify, and
my phone doesn't have enough storage to fit my entire library.
That's why this interests me so much. I would love to set up a server where I
can open the URL on my phone, laptop, friend's laptop, etc, be able to play
most of my music through web services, and the artists that aren't on those
services would play from my server directly, or my DropBox, or whatever, and
hopefully it can all be a seamless experience.
~~~
lorenzhs
If you want a real surprise as to Tomahawk's design, grab a recent nightly.
Looks fantastic now.
Also, an Android app for Tomahawk is in the works!
------
toomuchtodo
Could this support playing music from S3 and storing/reading metadata as S3
headers? I currently store about 200GB of music in Amazon Cloudplayer, which
has recently gone sideways with their push towards Music Prime. I'm currently
ripping all my music out and putting it into S3.
~~~
RexRollman
That's the problem with the main Music Lockers: they keep integrating music
stores into them. All I want is to upload my music and play it remotely.
~~~
dublinben
You can run Subsonic on your own server or a VPS.
~~~
RexRollman
Thanks for the info. I never really considered running my own but that might
be worth doing.
~~~
stoplight
There's also a really great Android app called DSub that integrates really
well with it
([https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=github.daneren...](https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=github.daneren2005.dsub))
~~~
vincentkriek
Is it better than the "Subsonic" Android app [1]? Just looking at the
screenshots of DSub is that it doesn't look as good as the Subsonic Android
app.
------
Sir_Cmpwn
I once wrote a simple web-based multiplayer music player to test out my roll-
your-own web framework:
[https://github.com/SirCmpwn/staccato](https://github.com/SirCmpwn/staccato)
You might consider a jukebox mode where several listeners are synced up and
can suggest songs.
~~~
suprjami
More shameless self-promotion:
[https://github.com/superjamie/playlist-
generator](https://github.com/superjamie/playlist-generator)
It's just a PHP file lister and audiojs, but it works on pretty much every
modern desktop and mobile platform.
------
Grandeon87
Could I integrate this with my server _cough_ seedbox _cough_
~~~
dewey
It's probably easier to use Subsonic for that, it's build for dealing with
local files.
[0] [http://www.subsonic.org/](http://www.subsonic.org/)
~~~
xzel
I've tried to use subsonic and madsonic (a fork of subsonic) before. I didn't
like either of them much nor did I like the phone apps to accompany them (many
are paid apps as well). I'm gonna look at this project tomorrow and see if I
want to undertake a server port. I think it would be viable.
~~~
dewey
Agreed, the mobile apps are mostly ugly or abandoned and the server software
itself still uses a flash player. It's just something I put up with because
there's no better alternative at the moment.
~~~
xzel
I'll see what I can do about it ;) I just found this from some of the comments
above [http://ampache.org/](http://ampache.org/). I'm gonna install that and
see how it is, but I really think I'm going to move forward with trying to
integrate this with a seedbox type of server. Since the client is done in JS
as well it could be practical to port that to Android and iPhone also.
~~~
dewey
Sounds good, I'll be watching the repo. If you need someone to test it on a
server with a bunch of music on it let me know.
------
reubano
Wow, really cool. Since you're already using brunch [1]. You should checkout
chaplin [2]. It's a backbone framework built by the same guys who made brunch.
It supports coffescript, pub/sub, dynamic url construction, plus a bunch of
other features that make working with it a breeze.
[1] [http://brunch.io/](http://brunch.io/) [2]
[http://chaplinjs.org/](http://chaplinjs.org/)
~~~
jkbr
Thanks for the tip. I actually did originally start with Chaplin. It helped me
to start quickly, but later I replaced it with a very simple, custom Backbone-
based MVC (Chaplin-inspired to some degree).
~~~
reubano
Interesting... you mind explaining the reason for switching? If it was missing
functionality, I'm sure the team would appreciate pull requests. I'm often
dismayed that angular is grabbing all the spotlight these days and not many
new web apps use backbone in general or chaplin in particular.
~~~
jkbr
There is a tradeoff between speed of development and degree of customizability
when it comes to frameworks. With CloudTunes, I was going for a highly-
customized and performant UI, and at some point it simply became easier to go
back down by one layer of abstraction and build it just with Backbone instead.
------
jschmitz28
Really cool. At first glance it seems to me like there might be two
products/services here - one that is what you have here minus YouTube and
other publicly available media sources, and another centralized web app that
provides users access to all public media without having to run their own
server. Maybe they could be integrated in a way where users can add their own
media sources through the centralized web app to have it all in one place.
------
sinemetu11
CloudPlay is a similar app for Mac. It has pretty good shortcut integration.
[http://cloudplay.fm/](http://cloudplay.fm/)
~~~
zymhan
That doesn't seem to support music you already have though, which is a pretty
big feature of Cloud Tunes.
------
jamestomasino
I got banned from Dreamhost about 6 years ago for building something almost
identical to this for my own use. We've come a long way.
------
zz1
Would be great to have this interface for MPD!
~~~
jkbr
Oh, that's an interesting idea :)
------
pbreit
I've always thought it might be interesting to have apps like this that run
locally on web technologies. Is there hope for this model? One obviously
shortcoming as exemplified here is the painful installation process. I suspect
people are also going to be concerned with what's being installed where.
~~~
jkbr
I'd been planning on releasing it together with a Dockerfile so that people
could easily run it locally in an isolated container. It turned out to be a
bit more complex than I had anticipated so Docker support will come later. But
I think that could be a viable model for locally-installable web apps in the
future.
~~~
jkbr
Btw, help with the Dockerfile would be appreciated:
[https://github.com/jakubroztocil/cloudtunes/issues/2](https://github.com/jakubroztocil/cloudtunes/issues/2)
~~~
jkbr
Already dockerized!
[https://github.com/jakubroztocil/cloudtunes#with-
docker](https://github.com/jakubroztocil/cloudtunes#with-docker)
------
spindritf
What about music stored on the server on which CloudTunes is running? Can it
play that?
~~~
jkbr
That currently is not possible, but wouldn't be very difficult to implement as
I had it in mind from the beginning. Inspiration could be the Dropbox
integration:
Client-side model:
[https://github.com/jakubroztocil/cloudtunes/blob/master/clou...](https://github.com/jakubroztocil/cloudtunes/blob/master/cloudtunes-
webapp/app/models/media/sound.coffee#L53-57)
API endpoint: for local files, it could simply serve the file:
[https://github.com/jakubroztocil/cloudtunes/blob/master/clou...](https://github.com/jakubroztocil/cloudtunes/blob/master/cloudtunes-
server/cloudtunes/services/dropbox/handlers.py#L102-135)
Plus it would also need indexing, configuration, and to introduce a new media
type across the app.
~~~
__david__
Would it be hard to add support for a WebDAV backend? Looks like
XMLHttpRequest supports PROPFIND…
------
girvo
Nice work! I personally use ownCloud (which has Ampache support) for my
streaming of my library, but this is a really nice job. I might see how hard
it is to integrate into ownCloud :)
~~~
socceroos
Let me know how you go! I use ownCloud/Ampache too.
------
maz29
For anyone interested I made something similar for iOS. Supports Dropbox,
Google Drive, Mega, and Box. [http://vibe.pw/](http://vibe.pw/)
~~~
virmundi
For the love of possible users, put some sort of scrolling indicator on the
page. Firefox in OS X doesn't show scroll bar. I spend about a minute clicking
on the slant phone and the name in the top right before accidentally causing
the page to scroll down.
------
ertdfgcb
Oooh, this seems like a perfect app for sandstorm (sandstorm.io)
------
wj
With Dropbox upping their quotas I was literally thinking about this two days
ago!
I look forward to checking this out. Going to take me quite a while to finish
uploading my music though.
~~~
hnriot
better ensure it is indeed your music, because Dropbox will likely report
infringements of copyright
~~~
wj
Don't they only do that when placed in shared folders?
Some of my Dead could maybe cause a problem (though it was all once freely
available on archive.org).
~~~
meowface
Imagine the uproar if Dropbox started removing files from people's personal,
private folders due to alleged copyright infringement.
They could theoretically do this in a way that doesn't really invade privacy
(by using only hashes), but the controversy would probably kill Dropbox.
------
zend3v
I'm going to try and get this working with MEGA cloud storage, since you get a
50gb capacity account for free.
------
why-el
Very well done. Where can we see it running live? Your domain name redirects
back to Github.
~~~
jkbr
It's not running anywhere right now, sorry about that. That is because the app
is not really ready for public production use. As mentioned in the README,
I've kinda stopped working on it some time ago. I think it could still be
interesting/useful to people who want to run in even in this state by
themselves. The codebase also hopefully has some interesting bits, so I've at
least opened it up for now. Another thing is that the backend talks directly
to the Musicbrainz API, which is throttled (their DB is open though, so one
could make a web service on top of it).
------
hrrsn
How does this handle YouTube's advertising?
------
relaxitup
How about adding support for a seafile server?
------
Koldark
What about OneDrive and Google Drive support?
~~~
joelrunyon
These comments make sense from end-users but I feel like they're out of place
on HN. I mean, sure OneDrive & GoogleDrive support can obviously be
implemented down the road, but especially when first showing the idea off -
it's way easier to keep it simple and get feedback to improve the product and
then later integrate with more services.
These comments remind me of the few apps I've put out that start with an iOS
version so we can collect / data & feedback so we can make future versions (on
both platforms) better, but that info almost always gets shouted down by
chants of "why not an android version?" The obvious answer of "it costs 2x
time and resources" to get the first version out, almost always gets
completely ignored.
Let's give feedback on this version - help him improve it & then worry about
the other service integrations later.
~~~
scott_s
I think you're taking the question as a veiled criticism. It's possible the
question is just a question.
~~~
joelrunyon
I don't think it's criticism, it's just not the most useful question they
could be asking at this point in time. If he's showing off a new project - I
think it's probably best to help improve what he currently has now and then
worrying about the integrations later
~~~
scott_s
Consider the perspective of someone who has never heard of a new piece of
software before. They just want to know a bunch of things about it, so they
can form a concept of it in their mind. This is one such question.
I don't disagree with what the author's focus should be, but I don't think
that this question distracts from that.
~~~
Koldark
I am a developer, I haven't dug into how he was processing the audio. I was
simply asking a question. I don't use Dropbox so I was simply asking if it was
on the roadmap so I could try it in the future.
------
avinassh
amazing!
------
poncytwit
disappointed. Single-page app relies on flash technology.
~~~
jkbr
When I was working on the YouTube integration for CloudTunes (looong time
ago), there wasn't an HTML5 <video> based API. Is there one nowadays?
~~~
MeoMix420
YouTube now defaults to using the <video> element unless the video would show
an advertisement. In those scenarios, it falls back to using the flash player.
------
tuananh
sorry but what's the use case for this?
~~~
colinramsay
For one: you can play your music collection from any location if it's stored
on Dropbox?
~~~
mikewhy
isn't that kind of inherently possible due to the nature of Dropbox? Albeit
this has a proper UI.
Plex, for instance, does this and much more provided you have a collection
_not_ in a cloud.
~~~
aroch
Plex however relies on you either have 1) a good home connection (with no
caps) or 2) a server "in the cloud(tm)". Dropbox provides the backend hosting,
which makes providing the data files easier.
------
higherpurpose
Music in Dropbox? Who keeps music in DropBox's 2GB of free storage? (I'm
assuming market who pays for DropBox storage is a lot smaller)
~~~
Afforess
I dunno about you, but I have 18.13 GB of free storage with Dropbox. It wasn't
particularly hard to achieve, either.
~~~
hrrsn
According to Dropbox, I've earned 91.88 GB of free storage.
Of course I now pay for it, only for the packrat feature though.
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Performance Mushrooms - bookofjoe
https://lairdsuperfood.com/products/performance-mushrooms
======
bifrost
This is just an ad...
~~~
bookofjoe
True. But the concept is just so...
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
The flattening of design - l33tbro
http://bits.blogs.nytimes.com/2013/04/23/the-flattening-of-design/
======
mnicole
> Steven Heller, co-chairman of the M.F.A. Design Department at the School of
> Visual Arts and author of more than 150 books on design culture, said that
> part of the push toward flat design was to try to escape the overabundance
> of design that looks digital, where things “have started to look cliché.”
The irony. I would disagree; it picked up because people tried to make the
case that it was more user-friendly under the guise that
simplicity/cleanliness = understandability at the expense of affordance.
_Some_ interfaces can get away with this, others cannot. I'd say that most
cannot, simply because most designers are designing out of aesthetics, not
fundamental usability.
Commenter Trevor has it right:
> It's amazing the justifications being used for a new design trend.
> No, a flat design is not required because of mobile. In fact, with the
> advancements of CSS and HTML, which mobile phones are driving, designers can
> do non-flat designs easier than they ever could. If there ever was a time
> when flat design was a required because of technological constraints, it was
> 15 years ago when all we had was CSS1.
> Nor is flat design "less distracting". A musical note tells no more inherent
> of a story than a shiny sparkling CD. Icons exist within the cultural
> context. Now that CDs are becoming obsolete, a musical note might make more
> sense to indicate music. But whether that icon is rendered flat or not has
> no bearing on it's usability.
> The flat design trend is just that, a trend. Designers get bored of using
> the same style. So a new style emerges. Technologies and culture may provide
> minor tweaks and constraints, but most of it is driven by the fact that the
> current design has been around for a couple years now and designers want to
> try something new.
> Let's accept the new trend as a trend and stop trying to justify why it is
> "better" in some absolute sense.
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
The secret economics of a VIP party - jelliclesfarm
https://www.economist.com/1843/2020/07/03/the-secret-economics-of-a-vip-party
======
082349872349872
"secret economics"? Is the decidedly non-VIP conventional free admission with
a skirt no longer a thing?
------
1cvmask
Seems like a high signal to noise (noise included) ratio.
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Hillary Clinton Joins the 'Make Silicon Valley Break Encryption' Bandwagon - adrianmacneil
https://www.techdirt.com/articles/20151119/18032932868/hillary-clinton-joins-make-silicon-valley-break-encryption-bandwagon.shtml
======
jrcii
It's disturbing that advocating against encryption may become the latest
device for bolstering the perception of a candidate as being tough on crime or
terrorism. The general public's poor grasp of encryption makes the political
cost of the position small.
------
aburan28
I find it comical that they even think they can put the genie back into the
bottle
~~~
pdkl95
Never assume that the people attacking you are doing so because they are
_stupid_. Some people may truly misunderstand encryption, it is extremely
unlikely that Clinton, McCain, the the directors of several TLAs actually
believe they can re-bottle the encryption genie.
Stopping encryption is obviously not the goal.
They may want to put a leash on the power that Silicon Valley has been gaining
over the last few decades. Asking for something impossible is a good way to
set someone up to fail, especially when the you can tie it to various recent
tragedies with the usual emotion-driven rhetoric.
Maybe the goal is just to scare people away from encryption by associating it
with terrorists or the fear of arrest for aiding-and-abetting[1].
What about banking and other business uses of encryption? Nobody ever said the
government was internally consistent; selective enforcement is a powerful
tool. I'm sure those uses will continue to be ignored.
[1] the disgusting comments about hanging Snowden (
[http://thehill.com/blogs/blog-briefing-room/260817-ex-cia-
di...](http://thehill.com/blogs/blog-briefing-room/260817-ex-cia-director-
snowden-should-be-hanged-for-paris) ) could be interpreted as a veiled threat
to anyone that uses encryption
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Top Visual Studio Code Extensions for Node.js - reverentgeek
https://developer.okta.com/blog/2019/05/08/top-vs-code-extensions-for-nodejs-developers
======
reverentgeek
Hey! I wrote this because I've given lots of introductory talks on Node.js and
written a lot of tutorials, and one of the most frequent things I'm asked is
the tools I use. If you use VS Code, what are your favorite extensions? If you
don't use VS Code, what are your favorite tools for writing Node.js apps?
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Using TLA+ to Understand Xen Vchan - technion
http://roscidus.com/blog/blog/2019/01/01/using-tla-plus-to-understand-xen-vchan/
======
pron
> Writing formal proofs is a little tedious, largely because TLA is an untyped
> language.
I've written a somewhat lengthy discussion of this point on the TLA+
subreddit:
[https://www.reddit.com/r/tlaplus/comments/abi3oz/using_tla_t...](https://www.reddit.com/r/tlaplus/comments/abi3oz/using_tla_to_understand_xen_vchan/ed0imf1/)
~~~
mjb
I agree with a lot of that, but in practice some syntactic sugar around types
in TLA+ (or at least canned type invariant macros) would make it easier to
write concise readable specs. Think "x is a natural number", "y is a member of
set x", etc. It wouldn't satisfy the type theory folks, but would be nice for
TLA+ users. In practice, it seems like everybody (including me) ends up re-
writing a whole lot of type invariants in each TLA+ spec, and it would be nice
to avoid that both to reduce boilerplate and to communicate to the reader what
the author's intent was around data types.
~~~
pron
It may be worthwhile to allow declarations of the form
VARIABLE x ∈ Nat
but I haven't considered all the implications of doing that. May be worth a
discussion on the mailing list or at the conference in September.
As to "satisfying the type theory folks," I'm not sure what it means. Type
theory studies the features of typed formalisms; it makes no claims as to
_when_ working in a typed formalism is preferable to working in untyped ones
(although different people have different opinions). There are implementations
of TLA in typed formalisms (in particular, Isabelle and Coq). Lamport explains
why he designed TLA+ as an untyped language.
~~~
mjb
I think it is worth a discussion.
I simply meant that adding simple macros wouldn't make TLA+ typed, and so
wouldn't make the people who think TLA+ should be typed any happier than they
are today.
~~~
pron
There are typed TLA formalisms[1], but they're not called TLA+. I don't know
what it means to want TLA+ to be typed. It's like saying someone wants the
untyped lambda calculus to be typed. I can understand someone who thinks
Lamport was misguided in designing TLA+ as an untyped formalism, but so far it
seems that he was right (for the reasons I detailed in my Reddit comment).
[1]: [https://www.isa-afp.org/entries/TLA.html](https://www.isa-
afp.org/entries/TLA.html),
[https://drive.google.com/file/d/1rAn3N5hViv3xNe2E55lMzpFFym1...](https://drive.google.com/file/d/1rAn3N5hViv3xNe2E55lMzpFFym1lpx9C/view)
------
transpute
Additional information on Xen inter-VM communication is available at
[https://wiki.xenproject.org/wiki/Argo:_Hypervisor-
Mediated_E...](https://wiki.xenproject.org/wiki/Argo:_Hypervisor-
Mediated_Exchange_\(HMX\)_for_Xen)
_> The technologies provided by VMMs for communication between VMs have a
critical impact on VM isolation properties, on the confidence components can
have in the delivery of data and in the integrity of the data that is
received. The video below identifies aspects of inter-VM communication system
architecture that support important properties that are valuable for building
secure systems. Terminology is introduced to enable classification of the
existing body of art and survey relevant communication technologies in modern
hypervisor, OS and microkernel systems. An example is presented — Argo, an
inter-VM communication mechanism developed for the Xen hypervisor — and how it
is distinguished from other communication channels on the Xen platform and
elsewhere._
------
michaelmior
Always love seeing more examples of TLA+ in action!
> One really nice feature of TLC is that (unlike a fuzz tester) it does a
> breadth-first search and therefore finds minimal counter-examples for
> invariants.
It's worth noting that many fuzzers go to great lengths to produce examples
that are as small as possible, but it's true that this just comes naturally
with TLC.
~~~
im_down_w_otp
It seems like an odd comparison though. Considering that TLC is exercising a
very, very coarse model and a fuzzer is usually exercising a real
interface/implementation. The former is dealing with an idealized
simplification and the latter is dealing with a shape of real domain coverage
when searching for counter-examples.
Making even moderately complex TLA+ models or minor iterations on a simple
model's depth of representation often results in exploding the search space
for TLC and consequently the time to perform checking.
Both classes of tools are useful, but the comparison seemed odd since you
wouldn't use TLA+ like a fuzzer, nor vice versa.
~~~
pron
> Considering that TLC is exercising a very, very coarse model and a fuzzer is
> usually exercising a real interface/implementation. The former is dealing
> with an idealized simplification and the latter is dealing with a shape of
> real domain coverage when searching for counter-examples.
TLC checks the TLA+ specification, however detailed it is. In practice, it's
true that it is usually much more useful to specify at a level well above the
code, but it could be at the same abstraction level as the code (the
specification could even be mechanically generated from the code), or even, in
principle, much finer: you can refine the TLA+ specification to an arbitrary
level, including down to the level of electronics in the CPU. However, very
fine specifications are far less practical.
> Making even moderately complex TLA+ models or minor iterations on a simple
> model's depth of representation often results in exploding the search space
> for TLC and consequently the time to perform checking.
You can avoid the explosion by asking TLC to sample the behaviors in the same
way a fuzzer does, but then you'll lose the exhaustiveness and the proof of
absence of errors.
~~~
im_down_w_otp
I'm aware of both of these things.
In either case the purpose and thus optimization of each kind of tool is
fairly different, even if abstractly they're both "state space exploration",
which made the comparison seem odd to me.
------
sidcom
What a well written article!
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Twitter and Yes, Inc - coloneltcb
http://yesitsyes.com/joining-twitter/
======
jondubois
WTF is "Yes, Inc"?
They're so insignificant, they don't even have an Alexa ranking.
[http://www.alexa.com/siteinfo/yesitsyes.com](http://www.alexa.com/siteinfo/yesitsyes.com)
None of their products seem popular either:
[http://www.alexa.com/siteinfo/getfrenzy.com](http://www.alexa.com/siteinfo/getfrenzy.com)
and
[http://www.alexa.com/siteinfo/itswyd.com](http://www.alexa.com/siteinfo/itswyd.com)
This has SV nepotism all over it. Thankfully, Twitter doesn't have a monopoly
so they can't afford to keep doing this.
If I was a Twitter investor, I would be outraged (assuming that this article
is true).
~~~
pavlov
There's three kinds of hiring in the tech industry. The proles must take an
agility course of whiteboard coding interviews that maintain a pretense of
objectivity, but actually are loyalty filter tests that only measure how much
time are you willing to spend on studying shit books like "Cracking the Code
Interview" which have no application in the real world.
Then there's the networked hire who basically lets people know he/she is on
the market, and can land a job without having to spend 6 hours at a whiteboard
answering trick questions about the space-time complexity of the interviewer's
socks.
Finally, the super-networked can get in through an acquihire, so they don't
have to feel bad about having spent a couple millions of investor money on
their startup sabbatical.
~~~
ng12
"Coding interviews are the devil" is my favorite HN meme. This post magically
appears any time anybody mentions hiring of any kind.
------
tptacek
This whole thread is so bad I flagged the story as a form of psychic self-
defense.
Like, apparently, the rest of you, I have no idea what "Yes" does, or why I
should care. I don't know why 'coloneltcb submitted the story --- they don't
work at Yes.
What I do know is that if you run a company --- really any company --- and it
winds down, it is a normal thing to write a post like this. In this case, the
company apparently has many dozens of users, so it makes even more sense to do
it. †
Meanwhile, another perfectly normal thing to do in 2016 is to "acquire" a
company as a means of importing a gelled dev team all at once. If the acquired
company has no other real prospects, this isn't a bad thing; it's a soft
landing. The availability of soft landings makes it easier for all of us to
start companies. Since most companies fail anyways, it's hard to see how they
hurt users.
Almost every comment on this thread seems to be taking Yes to task for putting
a brave face on an acquihire. "Spot the duress acquihire" is one of our less
appealing sports here on HN. I wish we'd do some more self examination about
where the impulse to play that game comes from.
† _We just went through this ourselves, and the anticipation of a thread like
this is a big part of why I haven 't gotten around to writing it yet._
------
downandout
Each of their apps have 10-50K users. Based on the number of reviews on each,
I'd say they're probably on the higher end of that. But let's say they have
100K combined users...how does a company like that even get on Twitter's
acquisition radar? I doubt it's for very much - probably more of an acqui-hire
situation - but even those can be in the low seven figures. It's interesting
that they're doing acqui-hires in the wake of layoffs.
I guess it really is all in who you know.
~~~
geodel
Twitter seems to be learning best practices of Yahoo. Acquiring
small/insignificant products and generate buzz (laugh?) in tech media.
~~~
tptacek
Is there some other buzz I'm missing or is the only buzz we're talking about
literally just the blog post the company they acquired wrote to announce
they'd been acquired?
------
caiob
I still have a hard time understanding why an early stage acquisition is
something to be celebrated in this industry.
------
ProAm
Joining Twitter seems like a bad move for any company, hopefully those stock
options paid out well.
------
jaxomlotus
Lots of acquisition announcements today. 'Tis the season.
~~~
burger_moon
Maybe it's a case of 'use it or lose it' for their acquisition budgets with
the year coming to a close.
------
nicky0
Has there ever been an acquisition announcement that didn't include the word
"excited"?
~~~
teen
obligatory:
[https://ourincrediblejourney.tumblr.com/](https://ourincrediblejourney.tumblr.com/)
~~~
nicky0
Nice, thanks. Turns out the answer is "yes".
------
f_allwein
Surprisingly devoid of information.
------
0xCMP
What do they actually do/make?
------
agency
[https://ourincrediblejourney.tumblr.com/](https://ourincrediblejourney.tumblr.com/)
~~~
keville
This is awesome, and sad, just like the Valley.
------
sean_patel
Acqui-hire?
------
poetic
they joined the sinking ship...
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Apple Has Learned The Importance of Play. We Should Too - pius
http://whydoeseverythingsuck.com/2008/09/apple-has-learned-importance-of-play-we.html
======
jcromartie
My wife is in school for design, and she was telling me about one of her
professors. Whenever someone says that they have been "playing" with an idea
or a design, the professor will interrupt and lecture the student on how "we
are professionals, we don't play... we do serious work..." ad nauseam. I think
this woman is, like anybody who thinks that everything they do is "serious
business", really insecure in her profession. Sure, doctors and bankers can't
"play" with their work, but anybody whose work involves the synthesis of
something (whether it is creative in the traditional sense or not) can and
should play with their tools and materials.
I also like how this post touches on the fact that _school_ is broken. People
learn so much more from real experiences (play being one kind of real
experience) than from pre-packaged curriculum in age-based compulsory school.
If we are going to move forward as a society, we need universal education.
That doesn't mean universal school. It does mean, in part, a new attitude
towards industrial design, where building education into an object is just as
important as usability and aesthetics. Deliberately building the capacity to
play into a gadget is a great way to do that.
------
raganwald
This post captures something of what I mean when I use the word "hacking:"
_joyful playful exploration_.
------
tdavis
I've based my entire life around playing with stuff, more or less. I barely
graduated high school because by junior/senior year it had become more
difficult to get away with never opening a book to study for a test while
paying little attention in class as well. In college this was largely the
same, but I managed to learn a few study habits. I still don't recall an iota
of what I learned via mechanical study, though. But I always aced the
programming courses and could probably still write a few lines of x86 Assembly
if my life depended on it.
I vehemently refused to learn standard study habits necessary to excel in
school, but it wasn't because of sheer laziness or something, I just knew that
such a habit was by and large useless to actual learning. Now, what was the
atomic mass of hydrogen again...
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Y Combinator’s latest batch of startups is too big for one Demo Day stage - laurex
https://techcrunch.com/2019/02/11/y-combinators-latest-batch-of-startups-is-too-big-for-one-demo-day-stage/
======
snowmaker
Hi, I work at YC. I think this article is a bit misleading, so I wanted to
take the opportunity to give you some of the data. I'm happy to answer any
questions on this topic.
1) YC's acceptance rate for applications has remained basically constant since
2015 (< 2%). This batch is not bigger because we accepted a higher percentage,
but because we got way more applications. The primary reason we got more
applications is that over 15K companies participated in our startupschool.org
program and many of them applied to YC. Our general policy at YC is to grow
the batch size proportional with the number of good applications we get, and
this larger batch is just a natural consequence of that policy.
2) We have been wanting to move demo day to a new larger venue for a long time
now. The reason is not that there are too many startups, but that there are
too many investors who want to come. We have enough demand from investors to
fill the previous demo day auditorium several times over, and this new space
means we can allow many more investors to come, which is better for the
companies.
3) As the batch at YC has grown, we've grown the number of partners
proportionally and plan to continue to do that. The ratio of companies to
partners is actually lower now than it was a few years ago, and we've
increased the amount of time we spend per company.
4) I think the ultimate measure founders should care about - and certainly the
one we do - is the success rate of YC companies on average. If we grew the YC
batch and the success rate went down, that would be bad. So this is something
we track extremely carefully to make sure that does not happen. And so far, it
hasn't. Based on the last 1-2 years of companies, the success rate of YC
companies is the highest it's ever been.
Also for general background, I'd really recommend reading a great short
statement Paul Graham wrote about why we think growing YC is better for both
us and the founders:
[https://www.ycombinator.com/atyc/#size](https://www.ycombinator.com/atyc/#size)
~~~
rajacombinator
I have no opinion or interest in the size of YC batches. But just wanted to
point out that this:
>The primary reason we got more applications is that over 15K companies
participated in our startupschool.org program
Comes across as insincere and hurts the credibility of the rest of your
response. It’s just not plausible that a brief online course made a major
difference in the number of YC worthy companies out there. Just go with the
real reason. (Eg. We have more money and partners, we happened to get a strong
application batch, etc.)
~~~
snowmaker
It actually did. It surprised us too!
We can track this directly so there's no uncertainty over the result. We're
not entirely sure why it worked so well, though.
~~~
edoceo
Brand Indoctrination. They went to your school, then applied to the next step
after a few months of getting your message.
------
minimaxir
Related/meta question: despite the increase in YC cohort sizes, has anyone
else noticed a sharp drop in the number of Launch HNs / YC Startup Launch
Announcements on HN?
EDIT: Checked the data and yep, there's a drop:
[https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1EBcI3Jm2I9Kj_JMGyRnN...](https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1EBcI3Jm2I9Kj_JMGyRnNIWZ89EfFscZA5RKVQuGVVV4/edit?usp=sharing)
BigQuery:
#standardSQL
SELECT TIMESTAMP_TRUNC(timestamp, MONTH) as month_posted,
COUNT(*) as num_posts_gte_5
FROM `bigquery-public-data.hacker_news.full`
WHERE REGEXP_CONTAINS(title, 'YC [S|W][0-9]{2}')
AND score >= 5
AND timestamp >= '2015-01-01'
GROUP BY 1
ORDER BY 1
~~~
kozikow
What's more, it's also probably because companies at YC are generally later
stage now.
It's not unusual now to see companies well past launch or even product market
fit prior to YC.
~~~
threeseed
Exactly.
It was even talked about a lot from YC about how they are seeing more and more
people who reapply year after year and how that is seen as a "positive
signal".
And I saw this first hand from our StartupSchool batch. The only people who
made it through were ones who had already had significant numbers of
customers.
~~~
sandslash
That's actually untrue - almost half of the Startup School companies that we
ended up funding for the W2019 batch were unlaunched.
~~~
threeseed
I never said that all Startup School companies had customers.
My point was that it seems like the needle has shifted towards companies who
do have some level of product market fit. Has the percentage of companies who
were unlaunched changed over time ?
------
alain94040
Regarding class size, the incentives are not aligned between the incubator and
the startups. For the incubator, the marginal cost of adding one more startup
is almost zero, but the chance that you might miss out on the next unicorn is
big. So you grow your class size.
For the entrepreneur, the larger class size dilutes you. Yes, the incubator
can scale mentoring reasonably well, but the visibility and prestige of
pitching at Demo Day is going down.
If YC is graduating 400 startups per year, it's fair to say hundreds of them
will not lead to anything. I don't have a good solution for this, each actor
is trying to maximize their self-interest.
~~~
prickledpear
This is only true to the extent that YC is a monopoly.
If other accelerators compete with YC, entrepreneurs may choose to do business
with an accelerator that selects smaller classes.
~~~
alexpetralia
Are there any other accelerators that have the same cachet as Y Combinator
however? The only other one I've really heard of is TechStars.
~~~
capocannoniere
Erik Torenberg's Village Global [1] was started fairly recently and is already
extremely highly regarded in the start-up community. Much more so than
Techstars or any other non-YC accelerator in my impression.
[1] [https://www.villageglobal.vc/](https://www.villageglobal.vc/)
[https://www.villageglobal.vc/network-
catalyst/](https://www.villageglobal.vc/network-catalyst/)
------
jedberg
As someone who has sat through a bunch of demo days: No I don't think it's too
big. It's a lot more diverse now. Back in the day, everything was a software
startup. Now they have a bunch of bio and hard science and bigger startups
that have longer cycles.
Not every investor will invest in every space they cover, so having two stages
probably won't be that big a deal. Even if a firm invests in multiple
categories, they probably have partners that specialize in different areas and
will go to their respective stages.
From what it looks like from the outside, they are basically running multiple
parallel tracks that get the added benefit of sharing a timeline and having
founders in totally different areas to talk to as well as founders in their
own area.
Seems like an advantage for everyone.
------
temp1928384
Maybe this is partially a personality thing, but my biggest fear with starting
a VC-backed co is that you're effectively trapped as soon as you accept money
even if your company goes nowhere. If your burn rate is low, you could just
exist for years without accomplishing much of anything.
~~~
kozikow
For most startup founders, there is an alternative cost of well over $100K
salary as an employee, especially for technical founders in the Bay Area.
So lingering for many years is not so great of an option.
~~~
nostrademons
Liquidation preferences can dramatically change the math on how big an
acquisition needs to be to be profitable for the founders.
Say you've got 3 founders who each want to make at least $2M for a startup
they've been toiling away at for 5 years which has built something kinda-sorta
useful but not a huge hit (that's roughly equalling what they would've made at
Google/Facebook). If they took a $5M Series A at $15M post with 1x
participating preferred, they need to sell for ~$17M to hit their target (the
VC gets their $5M back, then $4M of the remaining $12M for their for their
33%, then 20% goes to the employees from the option pool, then the founders
split the remaining $6M). If they took no funding, they need to sell for $6M.
If they took just angel/seed funding for 25% of the company, $8M.
It's generally a lot easier to get acquihired for $1-2M/head than for
$5M/head.
------
temp1928384
Would love to see something like a "YC ETF" where an investor could invest,
say, $50k, in a portfolio of YC startups.
~~~
zhoujianfu
I actually have essentially such a thing.. I started it last class, I
completely randomly select 10 YC companies and invest $50K in each at their
current demo day terms. All accepted the investment last time so it should
actually be a valid random sampling. If you’re an accredited investor and
possibly interested in joining this “lucky fund” for W19 (I’m doing it again),
PM me!
~~~
brandnewlow
I run one of the YC Demo Day funds on Angel List (not sure if it's an SEC
violation to link to it) and therefore spend weeks assessing founders and
startups in each batch to make about 15 investments. It'd be very very
interesting to compare our returns and outcomes to see if your approach
destroys mine or not. Will send you a note!
~~~
aaronblohowiak
Here’s a neat article you may like
[https://www.forbes.com/sites/alexknapp/2013/03/22/computer-s...](https://www.forbes.com/sites/alexknapp/2013/03/22/computer-
simulation-suggests-that-the-best-investment-strategy-is-a-random-
one/#7af78e035136)
------
mrnobody_67
Series a funding is flat last 5 years... just funding more failures.
~~~
pvarangot
You'd need to see if there's a rise in acquhire, that your expensive capital
intensive long term biotech project got acquired by a big company is usually
not a failure for anyone. Not the investors, founder, or even the project
itself.
------
georgek
FWIW I remember this question being posed about our batch (Summer 2012) which
had ~80 companies in it.
~~~
Kye
That was only ~3 years after the economy came out of a deep free fall caused
by bad investments. It was a reasonable concern in context.
------
diego
Too big for what? Without some qualification, the question doesn't make sense.
Is it too big for it to be worthwhile to YC itself? YC obviously doesn't think
so. Is too big for startups to feel like they are getting a good deal? You'd
have to poll the startups themselves and find out. Is it too big for
investors? No, investors like having a big funnel.
As an investor, having 200 startups to comb through is similar to being an
employer with 200 resumes to choose from. 200 resumes is better than 100. It's
your job to filter and choose the ones you're interested in.
~~~
supermw
Too big to be interesting. As the cohorts grow in size, the returns begin to
mirror the returns of the entire startup market.
It's the difference between having a large index fund, and having a portfolio
of 5-10 good companies.
Basically it's like they're not even trying to filter much anymore.
~~~
mikekij
“Basically it's like they're not even trying to filter much anymore.”
I believe their acceptance rate this batch was still <<2%. That’s still a
pretty fine filter IMHO.
~~~
kerng
That's not unexpected, with the popularity more companies apply - even some
who would have never done it in past. So, I'd assume applications will
continue to grow and acceptance rate should be going down. If the acceptance
rate stays the same, I guess YC is lowering the bar. This likely happened
already given the top ranking post from a YC member saying that acceptance is
same still even though many more apply.
------
an4rchy
I've always been curious about what YC demo days are like but since it's been
limited to VCs/investors, figured I wouldn't be able to attend.
With this change, would it be possible to get a live stream or even a post-
event Youtube video for the rest of the community?
If not, would appreciate any insights into if/why this is a bad idea.
~~~
snowmaker
Unfortunately we can't open the video stream to the public because many of the
companies share confidential information that they don't want to be publicly
accessible (in particular, visible to their competitors).
If you want to see what it's like, this TC video does an excellent job of
that: [https://techcrunch.com/video/behind-the-scenes-at-yc-demo-
da...](https://techcrunch.com/video/behind-the-scenes-at-yc-demo-day-where-
the-hottest-new-startups-pitch-their-companies/)
------
plaidfuji
Typo in the first sentence: that’d be _pole_ position
~~~
Hydraulix989
Yeah, that's a motorsports (NASCAR) reference that is more familiar to us HN
readers from the midwest. Surprised this one was missed because track racing
is big in the VC world.
------
crispytx
Just change the name to "Demo Week." Problem solved.
------
ykevinator
What's the yc deal $100k for 10% or something like that?
~~~
ngokevin
$150K for 7%.
------
jotto
What's going on with Techcrunch's format here?
* Headline
* Hero image
* Sales pitch for TechCrunch premium
* 98 words (598 characters) for this article
* seemingly non-sequitur into next article
~~~
minimaxir
This particular article link is a TC weekly summary (not unusual for tech
blogs).
A better URL for this submission is:
[https://techcrunch.com/2019/02/11/y-combinators-latest-
batch...](https://techcrunch.com/2019/02/11/y-combinators-latest-batch-of-
startups-is-too-big-for-one-demo-day-stage/)
~~~
dang
Changed from [https://techcrunch.com/2019/02/16/startups-weekly-is-y-
combi...](https://techcrunch.com/2019/02/16/startups-weekly-is-y-combinators-
latest-cohort-too-big/). Thanks!
------
ukyrgf
I'm guessing the title was changed after many of these comments were posted?
Can anyone fill me in on what it was?
Right now the title is "Y Combinator’s latest batch of startups is too big for
one Demo Day stage".
~~~
sctb
The original article's title was “Is Y Combinator’s latest cohort too big?”:
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19186238](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19186238).
------
supermw
The age of prestigious incubators and accelerators is coming to an end IMO.
As we wrap up the 2010s, I feel that a lot of the entrepreneurial wave in this
decade was catalyzed by the founding of mobile app stores, the network effects
of expanding social medias and cloud services making software deployments
easier than ever.
Incubators seemed well poised to help this flood of new entrepreneurs navigate
the changing landscapes and get exposure to investors, but by now people have
become more savvy and this is mostly a solved problem.
Investors are also well aware by now that incubators do not magically produce
unicorns or even great companies, and are looking for better returns
elsewhere. Demo Days are mostly a lazy way to sit and listen to a bunch of
pitches without really giving a fuck. I know at one demo day a couple of
investors spent most of their time talking in the hallway while founders
pitched on. Investors know all your tricks to make your company seem more
appetizing: fake appointments in your calendars, strategically chosen metrics,
name dropping, paper trails, etc...
~~~
kkarakk
[https://techcrunch.com/2018/08/20/here-are-
the-63-startups-t...](https://techcrunch.com/2018/08/20/here-are-
the-63-startups-that-launched-today-at-y-combinators-s18-demo-day-1/)
if you just look at a sampling of these startups, i think you're wrong -
entrepreneurship has always been about applying technologies in disruptive
ways and the companies are following the trends - IoT, alternative reality and
disrupting traditionally non-tech spaces like assisted living.
you may be right about the rest but then again entrepreneurship is becoming a
more mature market and investors actually have more people on their team to
"guide" them about what a "hot" startup looks like(hence them seeming bored at
pitches that aren't going to predictively skyrocket imo)
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Show HN: Reverse-engineered game worlds using WebGL - Jasper_
https://noclip.website/#smg/HeavenlyBeachGalaxy
======
s-macke
That's an impressive list of games. I don't know how many hours were spent
reverse engineering these games.
I did a bit of reverse engineering myself on some 3D game worlds. Test Drive 3
[1] and Comanche [2]
[1]
[https://simulationcorner.net/td3/td3.html](https://simulationcorner.net/td3/td3.html)
[2]
[https://github.com/s-macke/VoxelSpace](https://github.com/s-macke/VoxelSpace)
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Show HN: Alerts for the Cheapest Airline Tickets - ertra
https://www.jetcheater.com
======
jack2017
Which countries can I choose from, I cannot find Cuba there?
~~~
ertra
hello,
thanks for the comment. At this moment, we only supports EU countries,
register and when we include ROW, we will send you email.
regards tomas
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Cathy O’Neil on Weapons of Math Destruction - icebraining
http://www.econtalk.org/archives/2016/10/cathy_oneil_on_1.html
======
pliny
Cathy's use of 'problematic' seems to paper over any need to actually go into
an analysis of cost and benefits of using statistics and statistical learning
in sentencing, personal banking etc.
In the business of making credit decisions (specifically, who to extend credit
to, and at what rates), preventing banks from using better information only
harms people who would have been the subjects of erroneous decisions in their
favour, and the ability of the bank to consistently make better judgements
means they can also offer lower rates and fees to people they choose to extend
credit to.
This is in contrast to sentencing, where you prefer (in theory, at least) to
bias judgements in favour of leniency (in the spirit of Blackstone's
formulation), and you might even to prefer to make mistakes, if making the
right decisions alienates people who interact with the justice system.
~~~
mcherm
> In the business of making credit decisions (specifically, who to extend
> credit to, and at what rates), preventing banks from using better
> information only harms people who would have been the subjects of erroneous
> decisions in their favour
I disagree. For instance, in the credit-card business a key factor in the
ability of a bank to be successful is the ability to assess the likelihood of
a person defaulting on their payments. There are a lot of factors that go into
the formula to calculate that risk today, especially things like previous
payment patterns and previous borrowing history. There are some factors that
do NOT go into the formula like the borrower's race or the payment patterns of
family members.
Now, I am sure (although I have not actually run the numbers) that an analysis
would show that race and family-member credit scores are fairly strongly
correlated with default rates. That means that a credit card company chose to
use factors like race as part of the scoring decision the company would do
better than another bank that didn't use those factors.
But we do not WANT to be using race or family wealth to decide credit
decisions. Speaking as a banker, my company does not want to be using those
criteria; speaking as a citizen, my country does not want banks to be using
those criteria. Restricting what criteria are permissible for making credit
decisions enables the banks that would refuse to use that data for ethical
reasons to remain competitive. Restricting it allows us to craft a society
where any citizen has an equal chance of success.... well, that may be a
stretch but at least it is CLOSER to such a society than if we did not have
such restrictions.
Sure, you can categorize this as "erroneous decisions in the favor of those
who come from a poor or minority background", and I suppose you are
technically correct. But that pretty phrasing doesn't make it ethical.
~~~
anthony_james
It's important that while we keep in mind the ethical considerations of
minorities there is also an ethical consideration of marginalized users of
financial capital, who are denied credit because banks are unable to afford
them a lower rate due to lacking information.
This isn't a black-and-white choice between including peripheral information
into credit lending. When banks and lenders make a deliberate decision to
ignore information that could allow them to be more accurate with lending,
those costs are passed down to users - and although it may not hurt the
typical HN user, marginalized credit-seekers can literally have their hopes of
home-ownership or education denied because of a bank's choice to be ignorant
but considerate. Neither choice is completely without consequences.
~~~
wfo
It's true -- we also, however, ban firing based on race or sex. Purportedly,
in the view of the managers who would wish to do so, their company would be
more efficient if they were allowed to hire and fire whomever they wish (i.e.
only employ white people, for example) -- perhaps they believe, in their
racist world view, that having a company full of one race would create
workplace unity, etc.
We could just let the market decide, and since we know the antiracist
hypothesis is true, racist companies would miss on a huge amount of qualified
labor and get beaten in a free market, forgetting for a moment that free
markets are a myth and don't exist, and that the markets we do have aren't
even close to efficient.
But we don't. We force companies to act a certain way even though they don't
wish to because we are forcing ethical standards on them. This is, akin to
your point at the expense of all of the workers not protected by the law.
Every time we prevent a black person from being fired because he is black,
it's at the expense of the white person who would take his job. The costs are
passed down to white people. Neither choice is completely without
consequences, yet we've made the one against racism.
~~~
anthony_james
I think this case is slightly more complicated because the demographics of
marginalized credit-seekers tend to be minorities. So by catering to minority
groups by keeping their ethnic or racial information private, we may hurt
minority groups financially. In some of the situations you mention, we force
ethical standards on businesses, but ideally they don't hurt other minority
groups in the process.
In this situation, the question is between whether ensuring privacy is more
ethical than ensuring access to capital - and this is almost entirely focused
at minority groups. If we assume that banks can make more efficient and
competitive lending transactions given more demographic information, then
denying that information raises the ceiling on financial capital for those
marginalized groups.
As of now, I don't have a definitive answer. Although I think it would be
beneficial to examine how certain data impacts credit-lending and move from
there. A lot of these concerns may be moot if the information in question
isn't even relevant to credit lending.
------
panglott
Some really interesting points in her negative review of Nate Silver's book:
"In baseball, a team can’t create bad or misleading data to game the models of
other teams in order to get an edge. But in the financial markets, parties to
a model can and do. ...Silver gives four examples what he considers to be
failed models at the end of his first chapter, all related to economics and
finance. But each example is actually a success (for the insiders) if you look
at a slightly larger picture and understand the incentives inside the system.
...Silver confuses cause and effect. We didn’t have a financial crisis because
of a bad model or a few bad models. We had bad models because of a corrupt and
criminally fraudulent financial system.
...Silver has an unswerving assumption, which he repeats several times, that
_the only goal of a modeler is to produce an accurate model._ "
Her other examples are things like pharmaceuticals research.
[http://www.nakedcapitalism.com/2012/12/cathy-oneil-why-
nate-...](http://www.nakedcapitalism.com/2012/12/cathy-oneil-why-nate-silver-
is-not-just-wrong-but-maliciously-wrong.html)
------
theoh
There's a fine paper called "Bias in Computer Systems" which is helpful in
thinking about these problems.
[https://www.nyu.edu/projects/nissenbaum/papers/biasincompute...](https://www.nyu.edu/projects/nissenbaum/papers/biasincomputers.pdf)
I found this recently in an appendix of Susan Leigh Star's book "Standards and
their stories" which outlines a syllabus for the teaching of "infrastructure
studies". The reading list also discusses the consequences of systems of
categorization such as the DSM and medical notions of gender.
~~~
spangry
For well over a year now I've been mulling over about the damaging effects of
DSM's categorisation of mental pathology. It had never occurred to me that
this issue might be of more universal concern. For what it's worth, I think
the damage caused by DSM stems from inaccurately modelling mental illness as:
(1) binary propositions instead of assessing functionality/dysfunctional on a
continuum (i.e. you either have 'major depressive disorder' or you don't); and
(2) discrete and distinct 'diseases', instead of the cumulative effects of
dysfunction/abnormality in multiple neural 'sub-systems'.
If you're interested in the DSM case, and the likely way forward (from my
understanding, the convergence of psychiatry and neurobiology and increasingly
accurate and affordable neuro-imaging techniques), the textbook "Stahl's
Essential Pharmacology" is well worth a read.
~~~
spangry
Ah crud. That should actually be "Stahl's Essential Psychopharmacology".
------
robocaptain
For anyone who is a fan of Cathy and wants to hear more, she is a co-host on
the Slate Money podcast[0] (along with the amazing Felix Salmon) which covers
a lot of these topics.
Although not ONLY these types of topics, I should say. It's a great nerdy
finance podcast.
[0]
[http://www.slate.com/articles/podcasts/slate_money.html](http://www.slate.com/articles/podcasts/slate_money.html)
~~~
throwaway40483
Definitely one of the better (high wonkish/entertainment ratio) podcasts.
------
thedayisntgray
This is an interesting read that is related. I wonder if she covers this
specific topic in her book in her book
[https://www.propublica.org/article/machine-bias-risk-
assessm...](https://www.propublica.org/article/machine-bias-risk-assessments-
in-criminal-sentencing). Machine bias in prison sentencing.
~~~
barney54
Yes, and it's a large part of the conversation in this interview.
------
darawk
Firstly, I just started listening to EconTalk and it is truly excellent. Even
though I don't always agree with the host, he's always thoughtful and willing
to listen and seriously consider alternative points of view, and seems to be
genuinely interested in understanding the issue he's discussing.
That being said, I took issue with the discussion at the end of this episode
regarding Google's ad targeting being used for 'bad' products like payday
loans or for-profit online universities. Even though they appeared to be on
opposite sides of the issue, neither addressed what seemed to me to be the
core point. Which is, why is it better if rich people have to see ads for
payday loans too? She seemed to be suggesting that Google's targeting somehow
makes this problem worse by focusing these ads on vulnerable people. And while
that may be true, if the thing is harmful when sprayed across un-targeted
media, why is it so much worse when it's targeted? Just because it gives these
people a better ROI on their spend? It just seems like a total red herring
issue to me.
I totally agree that things like sentencing or policing using machine learning
algorithms will strongly tend to reinforce the status quo. But ad-targeting
just doesn't fit into that mould, IMO.
------
mhaymo
Great podcast. It's largely about the fallacy that seemingly intractable
problems can be solved with simple (and proprietary) machine learning models,
and the damage we do by buying into it. In particular I don't know how the
"recidivism risk scores" she rails against can be defended - how can a machine
prediction based on a quiz be a better predictor than the judgment of a
qualified judge who has presided over the defendant's trial?
~~~
throwaway40483
I think she addressed this by saying that the judges usually end up being more
racist than the baked in racism in the algorithms.
------
madenine
Her PR team seems to have been doing a great job. Can't go more than a day or
two without seeing something about this book.
------
leonidr
One wonders about her opinion on the cost and benefits simulations that lead
to the Affordable Care Act.
------
h4nkoslo
Cathy O'Neill's main concern is that someone might discover something true,
useful, and racist / sexist / homophobic / etc. In order to avoid the
cognitive dissonance it's important to remain appropriately ignorant and not
investigate anything where you might discover something "problematic".
You can tell she's interested in preventing knowledge from how she handled her
job to predict effectiveness of homelessness services - she actively decided
to not use particular variables on the grounds they _might_ show a result she
was uncomfortable with. That isn't an issue of "being aware of the limitations
of machine learning", it's intentional ignorance.
[http://www.slate.com/articles/technology/future_tense/2016/0...](http://www.slate.com/articles/technology/future_tense/2016/02/how_to_bring_better_ethics_to_data_science.html)
~~~
inimino
Yes, "intentional ignorance" has value. Justice is blind. That's why some
companies blind gender when screening applications, and why most interviewers
aren't likely to ask a candidate about their religion or politics or sexual
preferences.
Sometimes correlations are self-perpetuating, and it's better to not know
about them when making decisions.
~~~
h4nkoslo
Well, it only "has value" if you're worried about discovering the wrong thing.
If you think you're going to discover the "correct" thing, then you're
apparently morally free to use whatever variables you want.
------
mnw21cam
Ah, so finally someone else has caught on to the "Implements of Maths
Instruction" joke we had back in 1999.
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Siemens (140K+ employees) and 11 other large companies embrace remote-work - theknight
https://www.prospercircle.org/signals/remote-companies
======
sarcasmatwork
FYI, You cant add company without a twitter profile.
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
An open source prosthetic hand costing $1000 - jhrf
http://www.3ders.org/articles/20130905-making-advanced-prosthetic-hands-for-under-using-3d-printing.html
======
kiba
If there's anything that need to be open source from day one, it's prosthesis.
It's more about the ability of prosthetic users being able to own the parts
that has been implanted into their body than being able to modify it per se.
This way, prosthetic users cannot be barred from law or practicality to seek
competent prosthetic specialists and professional that's not from the same
company that makes the prosthesis. For example, if I have an retinal
prosthesis from a company that went bankrupt ten years ago, I can still seek
services from some other company, with a technical manual and blueprint in
hand.
~~~
shakes
> If there's anything that need to be open source from day one, it's
> prosthesis.
My mom had her leg amputated 8 years ago, and seeing her go through the
process of getting a prosthesis I couldn't agree more. Due to wear and tear,
she has to get a new prosthesis approximately every 2 years. We're in the US,
and with insurance it ends up costing $10,000. I'm unbelievably excited to see
new and innovative approaches to tackle this problem.
~~~
acchow
> with insurance it ends up costing $10,000.
You pay $10,000 out of pocket? How much is the total cost, and how much is
covered by insurance?
Also, wow.
~~~
DavidWanjiru
If this article is anything to go by, you shouldn't be surprised:
[http://www.nytimes.com/2013/08/27/health/exploring-
salines-s...](http://www.nytimes.com/2013/08/27/health/exploring-salines-
secret-costs.html?pagewanted=all&_r=0)
------
DanBC
And for the people living on $2 per day there is the "soda bottle prosthetic".
([http://blog.makezine.com/2009/02/05/plastic-soda-bottle-
pros...](http://blog.makezine.com/2009/02/05/plastic-soda-bottle-prosthesis/))
([https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Yvev6shNvSg](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Yvev6shNvSg))
------
ejt
This reminds me of an ultra low cost prosthetic arm that some friends of mine
have been working on for a few years.[0] They originally set out to invent
something very similar to this hand, but ended up designing and manufacturing
low cost prosthetic arms for people in emerging and developing nations
instead.
It would be fascinating if someone ended up making a fully open source
prosthetic arm that could be totally customized to the user's specifications
and then fabricated locally for minimal cost.
\- [0] [http://madebybump.org/](http://madebybump.org/)
------
jhrf
If anyone is interested in helping this project along there is an indiegogo
page (below). I have no vested interest in this project, I simply think it's a
great use of new tech with an altruistic bent.
[http://www.indiegogo.com/projects/the-open-hand-project-a-
lo...](http://www.indiegogo.com/projects/the-open-hand-project-a-low-cost-
robotic-hand)
------
jobstijl
This looks good. I don't have my left hand from birth and did try a prosthetic
hand in the nineties. Then i found them to heavy and 'stupid' to use. This is
something I definitely would like to try.
------
michaelbuckbee
What I really love about this is (aside from the obvious awesomeness of more
people getting the prosthetics that they need) is that it is a perfect usage
fit for the level of output from consumer 3D printing devices like the
Makerbot.
------
gabriel34
Kind of off-topic, but wouldn't it be a nice, if not the best, way to lower
the prices of prosthetics to make them usable by non-handicapped people? for
instance, Doctor Octopus arms could fit everyone. That fiction is a bit far-
fetched, but something similar and not so monstery-looking could improve
everyone's lives. In fact, it could lessen the disability and, ideally, render
it non-existent by making everyone equally able.
------
wcbeard10
Seems like something the FDA would protect Americans from, no?
------
agumonkey
Thinking not long ago this was in the news
[http://www.technobuffalo.com/2013/06/01/chinese-man-makes-
ho...](http://www.technobuffalo.com/2013/06/01/chinese-man-makes-homemade-
bionic-limbs/)
------
mcmire
This (and actually bodily augmentation in general) seems like something that
3D printing is perfectly suited for. I see this sort of thing blowing up in
the next 10 years.
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Dark Side of the Moon arranged for the NES - machrider
http://rainwarrior.thenoos.net/music/moon8.html
======
petercooper
While we're at it, I want to recommend.. <http://8bitcollective.com/>
It's a chiptune media sharing/community site. Very clean design and everything
on there is Creative Commons licensed (so you can use stuff from there in your
non-commercial podcasts, videos, presentations, and so on). There are some
really good tracks on there too (and some crap, naturally).
------
aidenn0
Now we just need The Wizard of Oz implemented with the NES graphics chip!
------
delano
I love this stuff!
If you like it, you could also check out 8bit Weezer:
<http://www.ptesquad.com/more/pte018.html>
And for NES specifically check out The Advantage Band. Two guitars, bass, and
drums covering NES songs _perfectly_. They released two albums on 5RC and
toured a few times but they haven't been active for a couple years. Here's a
little Contra "Alien's Lair & Boss Music":
<http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aKBtcto6ebI>
------
mootothemax
_Why_ does this exist? I can't tell if I love the retro less-than-MIDI or hate
it :-)
I think I might be pining for the Moog Cookbook:
<http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RJwKaGaSAjE>
Edit: How could I forget, The Dub Side of the Moon:
<http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZaR4fsUeTVY>
~~~
dmoney
This exists because there's a subculture that does that:
<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chiptune>
------
anthonyb
Funny that the download is 57MB - for something that would probably have fit
in a 32KB cartridge with room to spare.
I guess that's progress for you :)
------
code_duck
Too bad they didn't arrange it for the C64 or Sega Master System... the NES
had the poorest sound quality.
~~~
lanstein
I think that's kind of the point.
~~~
code_duck
The SMS and C64 were 8 bit systems, though too, solidly from the same
generation as the NES. They don't strongly outclass the NES, just enough that
the music is more enjoyable.
Compare Skate or Die on NES to the C64 version - the title song is so much
more rockin'. Or any NES RPG to Phantasy Star or Ys for the SMS... the
difference is profound.
------
kylec
Slightly off topic, but does anyone know where I can get the 8-bit music
featured on the Engadget podcast?
~~~
sp332
Just look at the "Music" link on each episode page.
[http://www.engadget.com/2010/03/20/engadget-
podcast-188-03-2...](http://www.engadget.com/2010/03/20/engadget-
podcast-188-03-20-2010/) has Castor's "Green Hill Zone" and a link to the
album page on 8-bit Collective
[http://8bitcollective.com/music/Castor/SONIC+-+Green+Hill+Zo...](http://8bitcollective.com/music/Castor/SONIC+-+Green+Hill+Zone+\(Cover\)/)
------
teeja
I can imagine making something that cheesy-sounding for a lark; I can't
imagine making it on Famitracker.
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Ask HN: How can we make the web more seamlessly translated/multilingual? - arikr
It seems at this point that deep learning language translation is pretty solid.<p>But it also seems that Google in other countries doesn't index machine translated versions of webpages that are written in English.<p>That means that we seem to be unnecessarily limiting the convenient access of the non English reading world to lots and lots of knowledge, which seems bad.<p>How can we make this better and easier? Should Google include machine translated versions of webpages in every language in the search results? Why don't they?
======
Alterlife
I work for a large MNC that builds 'enterprise software'. Needless to say I
speak for myself below and not for the company I work for.
To my knowledge, large companies don't deliver unreviewed machine translated
strings to customers because of the legal implications. In any machine
translated interface, the customer has to take active steps to enable the
machine translation. The customer is taking ownership of the page and it's
content by doing so.
This is for several reasons: 1. Machine translated strings are sometimes
literally correct but actually wrong or misleading in implication in the new
language context. 2\. For legal or technical terms the machine translation
just isn't there yet. 3\. For some phrases, the machine translation is just
gibberish.
Another thing I noticed is that machine translated output atleast from google
uses a very formal tone. People just don't write or talk like that.
It turns out that machine translation is not yet 'solid' as your post assumes.
It often generates misleading results and sometimes it is outright incorrect.
Google et al will likely do what you're saying when they get translation
working better.
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
What studying disasters has taught me about Covid-1 - imartin2k
https://librarianshipwreck.wordpress.com/2020/03/26/what-studying-disasters-has-taught-me-about-covid-19/
======
mrfusion
He’s notes in 2016 people stopped thinking his work was silly and started
started asking when the end is coming.
It underscores something I’ve been thinking for a while. We’re gradually
shifting to a victim mentality. We don’t fight bad stuff anymore.
We’re the country that did the Manhattan project, and got a man in the moon.
Why can’t we fight a virus.
~~~
solotronics
It's possible were in a slow decline. Rome didn't fall in a day.
------
blakesterz
This line actually scares me....
"So here is a simple reminder, which may sound silly but is truer than you
might want to admit: the mayor from Jaws (the man who insisted on keeping the
beaches open) is still the mayor in Jaws 2."
~~~
mercer
Wait till you hear how Boris Johnson feels about said mayor!
[https://www.theguardian.com/film/2020/mar/13/boris-
johnson-c...](https://www.theguardian.com/film/2020/mar/13/boris-johnson-
coronavirus-hero-mayor-larry-vaughn-jaws).
~~~
evanmoran
That is a great read! And now the circle is complete and he can be his own
hero and Jaws has him: [https://time.com/5811257/boris-johnson-coronavirus-
positive/](https://time.com/5811257/boris-johnson-coronavirus-positive/)
------
mrfusion
Nice write up but I didn’t see anything too insightful. It all seems pretty
obvious.
------
blackandblue
sounds very western/us-centric.
i have been curious about japan and how they handled the crisis. they are
projecting to re-open schools very soon.
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Google claims Levandowski launched competing projects long before Otto - petergatsby
https://techcrunch.com/2017/04/03/google-claims-levandowski-launched-competing-projects-long-before-otto/
======
itsmemattchung
> Levandowski was able to collect more than $120 million in incentive pay from
> Google, the complaint says, “all while he was breaching his obligations to
> Google and building a company that would compete with Google.”
Uh.... that's a ridiculous amount of money to try and incentivize someone.
~~~
pvelagal
May be google or any other company should treat these new initiatives as a
separate startup company to begin with, with seed money as the input.
Engineers hired should have salaries/options just like founders/co-founders.
If the company achieves its objectives, Google or any other company should buy
them back at a certain price or let the highest bidder buy (like uber or any
other company).No body loses. Giving 100 million dollars upfront without any
sense of ownership/accountability to drive a startup like effort, looks silly
to me.
~~~
tsunamifury
They got the leading self driving car out of it. It's a lot to pay if it
failed, it's a great investment of it suceeded
~~~
londons_explore
Leading a few years back.
We haven't heard anything else apart from a Waymo rebranding in multiple
years.
My guess: The top people left, and the project lost momentum. I expect to see
it grind on for a few years before being canned.
~~~
tsunamifury
This seems like a troll, since in no way would this be true to anyone who is
even remotely paid attention to the space.
------
sushid
The most eye-catching part of the article was the fact that "Levandowski was
able to collect more than $120 million in incentive pay from Google." Wow! I
knew that competition was fierce but not hundreds of millions of dollars
fierce.
That and his chunk of the $680MM acquisition price for Otto means his venture
was well worth it as long as he can avoid jail time.
~~~
arkitaip
Even with jail time it will be worth it for him personally.
~~~
bitmapbrother
How so? If he's found guilty the 680 million, he and his investors, received
from Uber is obviously going to be rescinded. The 120 million he received from
Google may also be challenged considering his deception and the side
businesses he was running.
~~~
tyingq
I don't think it's obvious either of those will happen, even if he admits to
stealing all those documents.
There are both civil and criminal possibilities here, and various avenues
where it might happen. What actually happens though? I don't think the HN
crowd (myself included) knows.
I've tried to be an amateur lawyer before and guess outcomes. It works just
about as well as amateur programming .
~~~
ehsankia
Well one things for certain, I sure as hell wouldn't want to be on the
opposite side from Google's lawyers, especially when it's something as big as
self driving cars, a project they been investing on for almost a decade.
~~~
tyingq
I agree, it looks grim. Actually losing half a billion+, though, depends on
some hairball of laws, judges, juristictions, and so forth...around actual
damages, punitive measures, forfeiture in a separate criminal case, etc.
Handslaps aren't uncommon, and neither are the opposite...awards that seem too
large. There's also the degree to which Uber is culpable (provably, legally)
vs Levandowski personally.
Would be interested in hearing a prediction from an IP lawyer.
------
dkarapetyan
$120M. Google basically paid this guy's lawyer fees and then some. They
literally enabled and financed their own court case through this guy's salary.
Since this is white collar crime this guy will not spend any time in jail, the
lawyers will get rich, and either it will be settled or like Oracle case will
be dragged out for a decade until Uber is out of business but since all the
higher-ups are friends I'm guessing it will be settled.
------
ehsankia
Every day we're finding out about new details of crazy things this guy did.
Everyone's focusing on the $120M, but can we talk about the fact that he was
connected to two other startups while working at Google, never disclosed it,
and later basically acquired both of those?
~~~
dkarapetyan
How is that any different from VCs being board members of various startups and
those same startups "magically" being acquired by the more successful one?
Why is it OK when VCs do it and not OK when a rank-and-file engineer does it?
I think you too are focusing on the wrong things. The startup and VC ecosystem
is all sorts of retarded. This case blowing up just gives you a small glimpse
into the startup shell game.
~~~
magicalist
> * How is that any different from VCs being board members of various startups
> and those same startups "magically" being acquired by the more successful
> one? Why is it OK when VCs do it and not OK when a rank-and-file engineer
> does it?*
Well it certainly doesn't sound like he was rank and file, but regardless I'd
imagine the difference is that he had a contract that said he wouldn't.
~~~
dkarapetyan
And I think board members are not supposed to have conflicts of interest
through insider connections and yet the VC ecosystem mostly operates by
insider connections.
I'm not condoning what this guy did but the reason he was able to do all of
that is not because he was being shady (although from a specific perspective
he was being shady I think it is a matter of degrees when it comes to this
stuff). It is because the system is set up to enable exactly this kind of
behavior and he just happened to overstep a few too many boundaries whereas
the people that have been playing this game for a while have a much more
measured approach.
So instead of jumping on the bandwagon and burning this guy maybe we should
reflect on how the ecosystem operates as a whole and whether the rules are
slightly rigged. He'll have his day in court but if the rest of us don't learn
from the experience then not really sure if all the wasted bits on the matter
are worth it in the end.
------
microtherion
While this is an extreme case, it seems to me that this highlights why aqui-
hires may not be a good idea:
The founders of aqui-hired companies may get compensation which is completely
out of line with what engineers originally at the hiring company earn.
Furthermore, it gives them both the means and the motivation to only stay in
their new job until they've earned out their incentive pay, and then repeat
the quit /found startup/get aqui-hired cycle.
This basically teaches both the aqui-hired and the tenured engineers that the
way to get ahead is to embark on a series of short term engagements. I'm sure
that many consider this style of career the true magic of silicon valley, but
to me it looks like companies are incentivizing disloyalty.
~~~
lawnchair_larry
But it's either that or nothing. These people are not offering to sell their
loyalty for more than a few years. The market has plenty of takers.
~~~
microtherion
But is "that" truly a better deal than "nothing", once you factor in the
effect on morale of your other employees?
------
firstpost1234
if you're going to commit a crime, always make sure it's a $50MM+ crime. that
way you can squirrel away the money and pay for lawyers.
~~~
tdb7893
Also those crimes seem to often have less jail time
------
ChuckMcM
Wow, this story just keeps getting better and better. It would be really
interesting to see if Levandowski was able to get Google's employee agreement
litigated in a California court.
------
sAbakumoff
Levandowski seems like one of those "Hustle" tv show characters who was able
to collect money from everyone by using a sophisticated scheme and almost got
away with it. Hope he will write a memoir one day called "if I did it" or
something
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Face detection with large scale unsupervised machine learning [pdf] - packetslave
http://static.googleusercontent.com/external_content/untrusted_dlcp/research.google.com/en/us/pubs/archive/38115.pdf
======
packetslave
1000 machines, 16,000 cores, three days of unsupervised training, and it can
detect faces without ever having been told a particular piece of data is a
"face"
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
EncFS Security Audit - ghubbard
https://defuse.ca/audits/encfs.htm
======
mmmooo
> This report is the result of a paid 10-hour security audit
In just 10 hours? If really so color me impressed. I don't think I've been so
productive in 10 hours, ever.
~~~
perlgeek
FWIW it looks to me like this mostly isn't a code review, more of a conceptual
review of how stuff is done and stored.
I can imagine that's way faster than doing a thorough code review, though the
number of results from 10 hours is still very impressive.
~~~
mmmooo
Some of it must have required at least some level of code review (e.g.
(MACFileIO.cpp, Line 209)). Even so, between the review, and the writeup, etc,
if the total 'billed hours' is really ~10, the rather large hourly rates I've
seen for such audits do appear much more appetising, at least to me.
~~~
tjaerv
For the particular reviewer who did this work, anyhow.
------
mrpdaemon
Leaking the file size (Issue 2.2) is due to the way EncFS is architected to
work at a file granularity. Adding some random bytes or rounding up to the
next block size are small improvements but still leak approximate file size. I
don't think anyone would like their 5KB file to occupy 2GB on disk so EncFS
sacrifices some level of privacy for practicality. On the flip side this
design tradeoff allows EncFS to be used somewhat effectively on top of cloud
storage services like Dropbox/GoogleDrive etc. whereas full disk encryption
schemes don't work as well.
~~~
klodolph
Issue 2.2 has nothing to do with leaking the file size. It has to do with the
encryption algorithm used.
Most modern encryption schemes operate on blocks of a certain fixed size, but
if the file isn't a multiple of the block size, you have to do something
special with the last block. EncFS apparently uses some made-up scheme for
this, instead of using something more standard and well-understood. The common
choices would be padding and ciphertext stealing.
[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ciphertext_stealing](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ciphertext_stealing)
------
albinoloverats
Nice to see this kind of report, even if the conclusion is rather damning.
And it seems to suggest that using it with (something like) Dropbox is a bad
idea too:
> EncFS is not safe if the adversary has the opportunity to see two or more
> snapshots of the ciphertext at different times.
~~~
mysteriousllama
Boxcrypter uses EncFS. Combined with the vulnerabilities discussed in this
audit, this is pretty bad.
~~~
icebraining
_Boxcrypter uses EncFS._
Not anymore: [https://forums.boxcryptor.com/topic/opening-linux-encfs-
encr...](https://forums.boxcryptor.com/topic/opening-linux-encfs-encrypted-
folder-with-boxcryptor-what-are-the-settings-for-bcencfs-to-do-so#post-5164)
~~~
nieve
Is the current, non-EncFS compatible version open source for the crypto
components or audited by anyone reputable? If not we don't necessarily have
any reason to believe it's safer.
~~~
tjaerv
Indeed, a priori one would have to assume it less secure than an open-source
implementation that has been reviewed by experts. "We built our own" merely
amounts to security through obscurity.
------
akerl_
Does anybody have suggestions for an alternate tool? Preferably one that also
encrypts at the file level so that it plays nice with Dropbox and similar
services (while obviously providing more security).
~~~
nabla9
I use Truerypt and Dropbox. They play well together.
ps. I have repeatedly encountered people who falsely assume that Truecrypt
does not allow incremental backups with Dropbox. The thinking behind this
seems to be assumption cipher-block chaining (CBC) is used. Truecrypt uses XTS
mode.
~~~
mike-cardwell
Does Truecrypt sync changes when a file inside the container is changed, or
when the container its self is unmounted? I seem to recall having issues with
this a few years ago when I tried it out. Probably something to do with
Truecrypt maintaining a filesystem lock or something?
Needless to say, with encfs on Dropbox, files are synced as soon as they are
changed.
~~~
huhtenberg
TC containers are not accessible while mounted.
~~~
mike-cardwell
Thought so. Truecrypt is no use for me then. I need something that will sync
changes as they happen, or at least shortly afterwards. I don't want to have
to unmount and remount my Truecrypt container once an hour or whatever to sync
changes.
~~~
icebraining
Assuming the size of the files isn't that big, you could always keep an
unencrypted copy that you actually work on, and then periodically a script
would mount the container, rsync the unencrypted directory to it, and unmount
it so it can be synced.
Sure the unencrypted copy would be exposed, but not to any process that
couldn't already access the mounted directory, as far as I can see.
~~~
huhtenberg
No, no. A proper setup is like this -
1. Keep TC container in a non-shared location on local disk
2. Mount it, keep it mounted
3. Periodically backup this location to your Dropbox folder
Now, the trick is to use backup software that is capable of
(a) shadow copying
(b) incremental file updates
Shadow copying works around .tc file being locked.
Incremental updating keeps things quick.
The only Windows software I know that is capable of this is Bvckup 2 -
[http://bvckup2.com](http://bvckup2.com)
(I posted this earlier, but then deleted the post as it read kind of spammy.
But this is _the_ way to handle TC container backup, so here it is again. And
that's one gem of a backup program too, totally worth a plug).
~~~
mike-cardwell
Then you end up with duplicate local copies of your entire container. Seems
very wasteful to me... Especially as TrueCrypt forces you to pre-allocate all
the space that you think you'll need.
------
fluidcruft
Followup eCryptFS audit:
[https://defuse.ca/audits/ecryptfs.htm](https://defuse.ca/audits/ecryptfs.htm)
~~~
fulafel
Contradictory docs, ECB in filename encryption, sounds like nobody has even
looked at this before... though maybe it doesn't have that many safe
applications even from conceptual PoV, since all metadata is leaked.
------
ghubbard
What is the current state of EncFS development? The last official release
seems to have been in November 2010. Are any of the issues raised by this
audit being addressed?
------
SEJeff
Moral of the story... Use LUKS.
~~~
onli
How? EncFS is mainly used, at least by me, to store the encrypted files in
Dropbox/X while working on the decrypted ones in parallel. Does LUKS support
that? The Arch table linked above doesn't make it sound like that.
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Tutorial MMO WS Game server in C using libuv and libwebsockets and Cocos2d-x-HTML5 - meir_yanovich
http://www.gamedevcraft.com/2016/08/part-1-multiplayer-websocket-game.html
======
meir_yanovich
Hello all
This tutorial i wanted to publish for along time now.
As i see that the indie IO games are building their servers in C++.
It is intro to writing MMO games but not with the usual Node.js and and
similar.
But this time i'm showing you how to assemble WebSocket server using libuv
(node.js C networking lib) for the server networking and libwebsocktes for the
web-sockets layer.
All server side is in simple pure C
And for client side im using Cocos2d-x the HTML5 version .
P.S
im planing to do the same tutorial using more flexible c++ 11.
And later i will publish tutorial about connecting the server with mongoDB for
persistence
So please register to my news latter list to get updates .
~~~
brudgers
I'm glad you published your tutorial.
I'm curious about any resources that were particularly useful when developing
the game. Particularly what helped in developing a better understanding of all
the 'moving parts'.
~~~
meir_yanovich
Thanks
well the main resource was my own experience on how servers work and what is
the difference between the "hype" servers
and close to the metal servers.especially how can it save money.
using libuv as web socket server there is hardly any info on the web even none
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
How many times has a unittest saved your day? - GrumpyNl
How much time is spend on writing unit tests compared to receiving the bug and fixing it. All i hear around me is, the screen must be green so all unit tests have been successfully processed. When a unit test fails and the dot is red, 99% of the time they have to fix the unit test and not the actual code, I understand when you use unit test to workout your problem, but most of the time its the unit test that fails and not the code.
======
AnimalMuppet
Several. I've found race conditions with unit tests. I found a call to a pure
virtual function in the base class's destructor. I've found "hey, that code I
just wrote didn't do what I thought it did" not _frequently_ , but still more
times than I care to admit. I've also found "whoops, I didn't think about how
my change would affect that code over there" several times.
That's just _my_ code. Then there's finding out what my _co-worker 's_ changes
did to my code...
------
externalreality
I agree most of the time I am just fixing silly issues like this mock is now
broken because I added a method or a field or the like - or some beefy test
setup code is now broken because of some otherwise innocuous change. I do
believe high-level functional/acceptance tests are important however, that is,
tests that check whether the various programs that make up the system actually
do what they are meant to do. For example a CLI test for a program that
interfaces with the user from the CLI. If a program is writing to storage,
check to see if it actually writing to the storage properly. All the little
mocks and stubs and so forth seem to be to form a false sense of security.
Those who are in favor of unit tests have one big weapon on their side of the
argument and that is simply the word "test" "how can a test be bad?, right?"
------
mping
If you are specifically asking about unit tests and not testing in general,
they don't save my day as much as give me confidence that my code is working
as it is supposed, specially at the edge cases. I'm not a fan of mocking alot
of stuff because it takes time to maintain, so in general terms I prefer
testing higher in the pyramid (eg integration testing).
As for saving the day, I find that they are very helpful with refactoring,
specially in dynamic languages. When the business rules change, first thing I
do is rewrite the test, the just make it pass.
------
flukus
So you made a change and a test broke, what about all the ones that didn't
break? They still represent a lot of scenarios you probably wouldn't have
tested manually.
I would also guess that the problems with your tests breaking are because
you're not following the single assert principle. A unit test should generally
(plenty of exceptions) not break unless the specific behavior (the unit) it is
testing for changes. A common anti-pattern is to treat tests as scenarios,
setup the scenario, test it and check everything went as expected for that
scenario. Instead you want to work out the behavior you're testing, "foobar
gets written to the log" is a test and the setup should be just enough to
produce that behavior..
------
photonios
Our code base is primarily Python. We do use type checking, but we risk having
problems that you simply don't have in strongly typed languages.
Unit test save the day every time I need to refactor large parts of the code
base or make a change that affects the entire code base. They don't
necessarily find problems I didn't think of, but they make these kind of large
refactoring a lot easier.
Recently we replaced the ORM. I replaced the code that handles setting things
up, and wrote the code to configure the new ORM. Then I just ran the tests.
Almost all of them failed because the imports and syntax are slightly
different. So, I would just take it test by test and kept fixing things until
the tests passed. When all the tests were passing I was reasonably sure
everything was still working as expected.
Sure, we also face the problems you're facing. Sometimes the tests just fail
for unrelated reasons. Or somebody wrote a test that is a bit flaky and fails
from time to time. Usually we just consider this the cost of doing business so
to say.
When tests are failing every time the code changes, that usually indicates a
problem with how you write tests. Stick to the single assert principle, make
sure tests are simple, don't require a lot of set up etc. complex tests are
usually a sign of complex code.
In dynamic languages, mocks are very popular, but I've found them to be the
source of having to change things. They are often a sign that the code is
poorly split and untestable. Instead, write smaller, isolated modules and
possibly use dependency injection, making the "mocking" part of the code.
~~~
mbrock
Basic idea: to verify your robot in a quick and harmless way, disconnect its
actuators, feed fake data to its sensors, observe its stream of decisions, and
verify that it behaves according to some rules.
If your robot has different parts with their own rules of behavior, then you
should be able to detach them to test them on their own, or in a much simpler
test harness.
I think the complaints about unit tests often amount to “we’re taking the
robot apart into too many parts that actually depend on each other in complex
ways, so testing them independently is tedious and gives us little real
information.”
Another kind of complaint is “our robot has a huge amount of functions that
all interact in very complicated ways and we haven’t specified any overarching
principles so our tests are just a lot of arbitrary scripts that we have to
change constantly to accomodate the robot’s ever-changing repertoire of
fascinating behaviors.”
Or “there is no exhaustive list of our robot’s sensors and actuators, and many
of them are complex third party products which we integrate without any
adapters, so it’s nearly impossible to take the thing apart and provide a
realistic simulated environment.”
I think the underlying complaint is something like “we were told that there
was an easy method to make our software correct, and it’s disappointing that
it doesn’t work well without considerable investment into domain modeling,
architectural work, mathematical analysis, etc.”
------
cimmanom
Not necessarily unit tests, but automated tests in general? All the time.
Setting aside linting failures (and frankly I’m not sure how those even get
pushed), I’d say we have a new test failure on our integration branch in CI an
average of once a day.
------
bjourne
You really learn to appreciate unit tests when writing algorithms based on
heuristics. One heuristic can easily break another so unit tests become
critical to avoid introducing regressions. However, BAD unit tests can
definitely be a drag. But the remedy is not to stop writing unit tests, it is
to write better tests! :)
------
sethammons
More times than I can count.
------
tmaly
unit tests have saved me a few times.
they really help with legacy code where you may not be the original creator.
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
A graph of Twitter post lengths from 1 million tweets - rg81
http://twitter.com/#!/isaach/status/155437871149481984/photo/1/large
======
zipdog
The uptick after 120 characters would seem to be the natural 'long tail' of
the graph, if Twitter didn't have the character limit. Instead of trailing off
those people are forced into condensing their tweet down to 140.
~~~
pud
Good point. I'm often surprised at how many of my tweets are exactly 140 chars
(after condensing, to your point).
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Linksys routers will soon monitor your breathing as well as movement - _bxg1
https://www.theverge.com/2020/1/8/21056418/linksys-wellness-pods-aware-health-date
======
porsche959
Might have been more surprising had we not had the mass adoption of smart home
speakers like alexa, siri and google assistant
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Can we predict the future using a temporal version of the Copernican principle? [pdf] - amichail
http://info.phys.unm.edu/papers/2000/Caves2000a.pdf
======
koolmoe
Upvoted for this mathematician's-gauntlet-throwing snippet near the end:
"I sent an e-mail on 21 October 1999 and again on 2 December 1999 to my
department's most comprehensive e-mail alias, which includes faculty, staff,
and graduate students, requesting information on pet dogs. The responses were
compiled and checked for accuracy on 6 December; a notarized list of the 24
dogs, including each dog's name, date of birth, and breed, and the caretaker's
name, was deposited in my departmental personnel file on 21 December 1999.
Gott's rule predicts that each dog will survive to twice its present age with
probability 1/2. For each of the 6 dogs above 10 years old on the list, I am
offering to bet Gott $1,000 US, at odds of 2:1 in his favor, that the dog will
not survive to twice its age on 3 December 1999. The reason for weighting the
odds in Gott's favor is to test his belief in his own predictions: given the
odds, his rule says that his expected gain, at $1,000 per bet, is $6,000;
moreover, the probability that he will be a net loser (by losing five or more
of the six bets) is 7/64=0.109."
------
amichail
Here's the New Yorker article mentioned in the paper:
[http://www.newyorker.com/archive/1999/07/12/1999_07_12_035_T...](http://www.newyorker.com/archive/1999/07/12/1999_07_12_035_TNY_LIBRY_000018591)
------
arto
The subject being discussed is better-known as the Doomsday Argument, btw:
<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Doomsday_argument>
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Google removes authorship from search results - iamben
https://plus.google.com/+JohnMueller/posts/HZf3KDP1Dm8
======
Kortaggio
It seems to me that Google's motivation for starting author snippets in search
was to drive more people to sign up for Google Plus. Now that they've
discovered it's either (1) not working, or (2) enough people have already
signed up for G+, it makes sense to keep search uncluttered from the UX
standpoint. You can see this steady move away from authorship snippets
starting from when they first removed profile pictures.[1]
[1]
[https://plus.google.com/+JohnMueller/posts/PDkPdPtjL6j](https://plus.google.com/+JohnMueller/posts/PDkPdPtjL6j)
~~~
blueskin_
Google's love of metro-ifying everything and removing useful features clashes
with google's love of foisting google+ onto unwilling users. Civil war,
anyone?
~~~
lnanek2
Fortunately, G+ has been losing lately.
~~~
blueskin_
Whoever wins, we lose.
------
skynetv2
This was a very useless "enhancement" to the search page and its sole purpose
was to get more people signed up for G+ so they names and photos can be shown
in search.
For most users, a picture and name dont mean anything unless they are super
famous or is an author the user follows closely. if the user loves that
author, the user already knows which website is credible because authors
typically are on one site they publish. some cross publish but in most cases,
there is a primary site. so the user intrinsically knows what is a trustworthy
result.
even if we were to assign some weight to the author, as a user I dont need to
know who wrote it. I trust Google to present me with trustworthy articles
instead of wasting space and distracting my attention from the results.
this was a very horrible move on Google's part along with a bunch of other
useless "enhancements"
~~~
billyhoffman
I disagree. You are blurring 2 concepts here, and are throwing out the baby
with the bath water. Decouple the "social network" junk of Google+ from the
concept of validated authorship.
Authorship is valuable. Show me everything that Jane Example wrote. Yes, on
her personal blog, but also in her column for Wired. And didn't she used to
write for the WSJ, or the Guardian? Those too.
Cite systems like this have existed in academia for over a decade. Google's
entire existence, as well as PageRank, grew from Larry and Sergey's Backrub
project at Stanford which, you guessed it, ranked academic papers and authors
based on which other papers/authors cited them, and in turn how those
papers/authors ranked.
Authorship at the index/search level is more powerful and comprehensive that
other approaches. Yes, Jane could keep a website with links to all her
articles. How up-to-date is that? What happens when the WSJ redesigns and
those links 404, even though her content still exists, just in a new location?
The model shouldn't be "I am Jane, and I wrote this thing that's located over
there." Authorship needs to be coupled to the content.
I have not liked Google+ at all. But is a step backward to abandon the concept
of authorship entirely.
~~~
skynetv2
I'm taking specifically about linking authorship and Google+ and including
photos in search results with names. Google can still make it possible to
search by author without needing up search results.
------
joelrunyon
This stuff is really bothersome because they didn't ask nicely - they forced
all google users to use G+. In doing so, they screwed up a bunch of perfectly
fine services.
Now they're trying to un-screw-up what they spent the last 3 years doing and
pretend like it's not a big deal.
I mean, I get it - Google can do what Google wants, but it doesn't do much for
their brand loyalty.
~~~
reidrac
In some of the products there's not need to worry as there's not competence.
Well, it's basically search the service it doesn't really matter what they do.
------
simonw
[http://searchengineland.com/goodbye-google-
authorship-201975](http://searchengineland.com/goodbye-google-
authorship-201975) is a good piece covering the history of this feature.
------
codezero
I wonder why he says it's a difficult decision? What was the upside to users
or authors? If the data shows this is an improved experience for users it
should be a given and not difficult or something to apologize for.
~~~
PhasmaFelis
Because not everyone has the same use cases. A positive change for _most_
users can be a negative for a few, and you don't ever want to be perceived as
saying "We're super excited to be screwing you, 'cause we don't care about
your needs!"
~~~
codezero
Yeah, I'm most curious about who is negatively affected by this.
~~~
donatj
I am. My sites traffic went way up after adding authorship to my posts.
------
IBM
What was the last Google product that was successful without heavy bundling?
In this case, bundling couldn't overcome Facebook's network effects.
~~~
antoko
I guess that would depend on your definitions of "product", "successful" and
"heavy". Realistically if they are in a position to leverage any bundling -
why wouldn't they?
But here goes, in no particular order...
Google Public DNS - Dec 2009
Chromecast - July 2013
Chromebook - June 2011
Chrome Browser - Sept 2008
ChromeOS - May 2012
Nexus 4,5,7,10 - various starting Jan 2010
Golang - 2009
Dart - 2011
AngularJS - 2009
app engine - April 2008
~~~
lnanek2
Would anyone really consider AppEngine successful? I hear so many support
horror stories, only one poorly supported open source project to try to move
off to without recoding to different APIs, and the price is ridiculous
compared to other cloud providers...
~~~
scott_karana
At the very least, it's successful for _Google_ , since they appear to be
making some money from it.
------
spindritf
Does google still recognize authorship? Many people in the SEO/marketing
community were really invested in the idea of AuthorRank and saw it as a
natural next step after PageRank.
~~~
nkuttler
That's an excellent question. I mean, after all, social is the future of
search, right?
“Within search results, information tied to verified online profiles will be
ranked higher than content without such verification, which will result in
most users naturally clicking on the top (verified) results. The true cost of
remaining anonymous, then, might be irrelevance.”
[http://blogs.wsj.com/corporate-
intelligence/2013/02/01/the-f...](http://blogs.wsj.com/corporate-
intelligence/2013/02/01/the-future-according-to-eric-7-points/)
------
e15ctr0n
So first Google+ drops its real name policy [0] and now it's removing forced
integration with Search results? Great to see the forced integration of
Google+ with other Google properties being rolled back after Vic Gundotra's
departure. Nice work, Googlers! What's next?
[0]
[https://plus.google.com/u/0/+googleplus/posts/V5XkYQYYJqy](https://plus.google.com/u/0/+googleplus/posts/V5XkYQYYJqy)
------
x0x0
I wonder if this is to get in front of anti-trust actions. They where clearly
using their search duopoly (US) and monopoly (EU) to juice google+.
~~~
nkuttler
I seriously doubt that, it should have been pretty easy to integrate other
services besides G+. The truth is probably that authorship info sucks for many
users, and this isn't news either [https://www.jitbit.com/news/183-how-google-
authorship-decrea...](https://www.jitbit.com/news/183-how-google-authorship-
decreased-our-traffic-by-90/)
------
aaronbrethorst
It’s also worth mentioning that Search
users will still see Google+ posts from
friends and pages when they’re relevant
to the query — both in the main results,
and on the right-hand side. Today’s
authorship change doesn’t impact these
social features.
I don't think I've ever seen any of this before... Probably a testament to how
little I and my friends use G+. Has anyone else ever seen one of these? What
do they look like?
~~~
kalleboo
> Has anyone else ever seen one of these? What do they look like?
Just did a test search and got some.
[http://mayoyo.tokyo/jyL.jpg](http://mayoyo.tokyo/jyL.jpg)
First result is organic, next two are G+ users I have in my circles. They
don't show up if I log out and perform the same search.
------
BorisMelnik
Did authorship truly help anyone from an ROI or branding perspective? The
entire thing seemed like a huge failed experiment. I am sure it was just
removed because it took too much attention away from AdWords.
~~~
archemike_
I've seen noticeable CTR on numerous campaigns with authorship as a great
picture would grab more attention. Maybe a 3-8% swing which is noticeable on
keywords with search volume >1000
------
fiatjaf
I must confess I skipped the results that had photos in them. I hate photos.
------
rwhitman
I'm pretty glad that's over with. Authorship was a pain in the ass
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Y combinator type of mentoring in the uk - startupdream
Are their any y combinator types of funding and mentoring in the uk that are known espcially in london
======
godawful
<http://seedcamp.com/>
<http://www.thedifferenceengine.eu/>
<http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=518097>
------
ig1
Mike Butcher posted on twitter a couple of days ago that he was compiling a
list of European seed accelerators funds, so I imagine they'll be a list
posted on Techcrunch shortly.
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Downtown Project Buys 100 Teslas To Launch Project 100 - joecurry
http://techcrunch.com/2013/04/02/downtown-project-buys-100-tesla-model-ss-to-launch-project-100-a-car-sharing-service-in-las-vegas/?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+techcrunch%2Fstartups+(TechCrunch+%C2%BB+Startups)
======
ptio
Interview about the project: <http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HQJ22TLBCiM>
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Ask HN: How do you manage server access? - maverhick
We are working on a web project which requires 8 servers. Some are web, some middleware, some database. How to best manage SSH/Security Access?<p>What are the best ways to manage access to ensure security?<p>Team members join in, leave later. How do you manage access at an individual user level? How do you make sure this does not get unwieldy as the no. of servers increase and the team members are transient?<p>Thanks
======
chuhnk
We've got 9-10 production servers. My methodology is allow what you want and
deny everything else. So with iptables specific ports are open for public
access and all else is dropped. For complete access to the servers we use
openvpn. OpenVPN is setup on one server in the production environment that
acts as a gateway to the rest of the servers. Only those with vpn keys can
gain access. Each developer is given a specific IP and access is restricted
through iptables based on what their requirements are. Knockd a port knocking
daemon is used as a way to open a hole in the firewall for 60 seconds to make
the connection to openvpn. I have a backdoor incase openvpn or knockd go down.
The great thing with openvpn is later on you can disable keys if need be. User
accounts are created across the servers for users however ssh keys are only
added to the specific servers they may need access to. No passwords, people
use insecure passwords, they can be cracked. SSH keys with 2048 bits work
nicely.
------
tipt0e
Use a centralized id solution, such as ldap or kerberos, or a combination of
the two. Both MIT and Heimdal kerberos implementations play nicely with
OpenSSH. There is also a patch available (somewhere) for OpenSSH to allow one
to put their SSH public keys into an LDAP directory.
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
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