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Ask HN: Help Kevin McCallister in 2018 with today‘s tech - lucattelli
Hello HN,<p>One of the things that got me thinking as a kid watching Home Alone II was how Kevin was able to accurately rewind the tape on his voice recorder to the exact point he needed. He nailed every time. Of course, that was a limitation tech had those days.<p>Today I remembered that ahd thought: now he`d just record and play it on his iPhone. No big deal.<p>That got me thinking... what would a 2018 version of Kevin McCallister do with all the tech our homes have today?<p>So please, help us think of creative solutions that current tech would help him overcome those bandits?<p>Please, exclude the obvious ones such as posting online LEFT ALONE BY MY PARENTS, SOMEBODY`s ON MY DOOR, PLEASE HELP! :)<p>Kevin McCallister needs your help this Xmas, HN... Please help!
======
jonbesga
Haven't you seen this? [https://youtu.be/xKYABI-dGEA](https://youtu.be/xKYABI-
dGEA)
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Ask HN: What are real Ruby on Rails alternatives in 2017? - rubyfan
What are the real alternatives to Ruby on Rails in 2017? When I saw “real” I mean, what frameworks offer a wide variety of packages/libraries, common integration with “as-a-service” offerings, and have an opinionated methodology for delivering high level web and API functionality rapidly?<p>I hear constant refrain “Ruby is dead” so much so that it reminds me of the situation with FreeBSD many years ago.<p>Admittedly I’m partial to Rails but also love microframeworks too... Sinatra, express, Kemal, iron, etc. but none of those seem to really offer a comprehensive opinionated toolset the way Rails does. There are things that are close but don’t satisfy.<p>Is there anything close in JS/ES, Kotlin, Rust, Go, Crystal, Scala or Java 8+?
======
neilwilson
I think it is more 'Ruby isn't sexy any more' because people older than 25 use
it.
It's just the usual thing of the next generation not wanting to listen to the
music the previous generation did.
These things come in cycles. I remember when 'Hot Java' was sexy and cool and
only throwbacks wrote C. (And when C was sexy and cool and only throwbacks
wrote COBOL, etc) There were lots of other languages and frameworks around at
the time too that have long since been consigned to the history books.
I never thought fashion would be a factor in IT engineering, but you realise
over time that the two things you cannot escape are fashion and politics. They
are fundamentally part of the human condition.
If you want long lasting skills in the IT industry make sure you're good at
fashion and politics. They'll take you all the way to a comfortable
retirement.
~~~
o2l
That's a very good insight.
------
danso
Elixir's Phoenix is where a few former Rails folks have migrated to, so it
shares a few of the ideas that made Rails so appealing:
[https://hackernoon.com/phoenix-is-better-but-rails-is-
more-p...](https://hackernoon.com/phoenix-is-better-but-rails-is-more-
popular-8975d5e68879)
A list of companies using Elixir/Phoenix:
[https://github.com/doomspork/elixir-
companies](https://github.com/doomspork/elixir-companies)
Discussion on how Bleacher Report (1.5B pageviews/month) moved from Rails to
Phoenix:
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13606139](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13606139)
~~~
rubyfan
I used to work at a company in a similar vertical as BR also linked off CNN
frequently and also running Rails. I understand the scalability challenges
that might lead someone to something like Erlang and Elixir.
Curious, what’s your take on why this hasn’t caught on?
~~~
danso
I've only played around with Phoenix/Elixir so can't claim to have any special
knowledge. But I've heard it argued that functional languages/frameworks
aren't as common in startups as expected because functional programming isn't
as popular among current developers, nor as commonly taught in school. And
Erlang seems to be particularly specialized:
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7277797](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7277797)
Elixir is relatively new (2011), Phoenix even newer. Maybe it's too early to
say whether or not it will take off in the same way Rails did? And maybe it
won't ever take off because Node/Express brings sufficient performance while
allowing developers to use JavaScript, arguably the most popular language in
production today.
~~~
jetti
As somebody who has been diving into Elixir and Phoenix this year I have to
say that the Phoenix way into Elixir isn't as exciting as a backend
application written in Elixir in regards to the power of the language and the
platform. A lot of Phoenix is hidden and is "magic". You don't need to utilize
the OTP at all when using Phoenix and you don't interact directly with what
makes Elixir (and Erlang) so special.
I started using Phoenix and Elixir and while I liked Elixir's syntax better
than other languages I just didn't see what was so great about it. Then I
started doing non-web things with Elixir and it became clear how awesome
Elixir is. I heard the same thing with Ruby back when I looked at Rails 5 or
so years ago. Elixir seems like just another language when you aren't really
digging into the OTP.
------
mtmail
I found Laravel (PHP) to be almost the equivalent to Rails (Ruby) with
[https://lumen.laravel.com/](https://lumen.laravel.com/) similar to Sinatra.
I've coded, tested, debugging in both extensively. That said I don't consider
Ruby declining at all and personally prefer Rails over Laravel (language,
ecosystem, packages, day-to-day coding).
~~~
rman666
+1 for no Rails bandwagon bashing!
------
guu
I think the closest would be Java's Spring Boot:
[http://projects.spring.io/spring-boot/](http://projects.spring.io/spring-
boot/)
I think it is easier to find resources to answer rails questions though.
In addition, many of the languages you list are very young and their
frameworks lack the maturity of something like Rails, Django, Spring, or
Laravel.
I think it's worth asking, why are you looking to switch? If rails is not a
performance barrier for you, then I do not see a good incentive to switch
other than wanting to learn something new.
~~~
rubyfan
Spring doesn’t seem as straightforward to me as I would hope. Play is similar,
there is promise there but just too open ended.
~~~
rubyfan
The funny thing I see on the springboot quickstart page:
_Absolutely no code generation and no requirement for XML configuration_
And the very next thing is a maven xml config.
~~~
ivan_gammel
It's not a requirement to use Maven, so their statement is correct even in
this extended sense. There's Gradle after all.
~~~
rubyfan
Yes it’s just an ironic presentation.
------
jfaucett
I'm a long time ruby developer and have switched to erlang/elixir now for
about 2 years now. IMHO phoenix is at least as good as rails, personally I
think its most often a better option when building large applications, though
this is due mainly to elixir/erlang and OTP.
Elixir offers production grade options for all the major packages/libs you
need and all the packages I've had to build have been the same kinds of minor
things like api clients or whatever that I had to build a gem for when I was
using ruby.
So phoenix/elixir is certainly a "real alternative" since I've been building
production systems in it for 2 years.
lastly Phoenix is not quite as opinionated as rails, but its still very
opinionated and any rails developer will feel very much at home there.
------
bo77_avantgarde
I have not looked into Elixir Phoenix but have been hearing some noise about
it recently. Folks also frequently compare Rails to Django (Python) ... my 2
cents is Rails has a lot of good tools to build web apps fast and underneath
it all provides a lot of strong functionality. Most things are relative though
to the specific "thing" you're building so I can not say Rails is the best
framework without knowing xyz, but for most web applications I'd stick with
Rails. You get a lot that often gets taken for granted. Nowadays it seems
folks take 1 month bootcamps and come out thinking they know everything and
are so quick to try the next framework. I think that bad implementations, lack
of expertise, and biased opinions has hurt the public opinion on Rails.
Ultimately Rails enables you to quickly build and figure things out. Once your
business is set in stone, the data model is consistent, and you're no longer
figuring it out you can switch focus outside of something like Rails and break
your system up into solid super fast micro-services. It's just my biased
opinion since Rails is "easy" for me. Perhaps Elixir or Django are just as
nice, but ultimately I guess it boils down to the developers themselves, the
mentorship, the team etc. Ruby isn't dead but if in 2017 developers are
banking on 1 language or framework then good luck. Full-Stack problem solvers
is becoming a norm now. Just figure out how to become a strong developer in
general and care less about frameworks that most people / companies abuse and
implement incorrectly all the time. Sorry for the rant but God Damn this Ruby
is dead buzz is so annoying, irrelevant, and usually backed by people using it
incorrectly in the first place.
~~~
rubyfan
Great rant. In a way my question is a challenge the Rails is dead noise. Maybe
I’m an old dog but the stuff I see lately misses the mark. Developers seem to
spend a lot of time thinking about how they’re going to run their
microservices before any functionality is built... there’s something wasteful
there. Rails just works and seems to be faster to solution than any of the
piecemeal approaches I see in the microframework world.
------
LordHeini
I quite like Lift which is a Scala framework allowing stupidly fast rapid
prototyping (rails is really slow and clunky in comparison) . There are no
routes and all the Javascript stuff is built in (so no annoying manual
Ajaxcalls). It is multithreaded via Aktors and has build in comet for async
stuff which is almost trivial to use. The example for using the framework a
life webchat which is a handful of files with a few lines code each. On top
the HTML is, well... proper HTML. No scull operators or such thing. The
framework attaches functionality via css selectors in so called snippets which
are like small controllers but not for an individual view but more for a
specific functionality which helps with reusability. On top you get all the
cool thing from scala like option types, static typing with type inference,
the speed, multithreading and so on.
The biggest downside is the rather awful documentation (often outdated) and
the missing migrations. I found it quite a step to lean since it is not an mvc
framework and inherently stateful. There are a few free books however.
------
saluki
Laravel (PHP) is very Rails like.
I love Rails but clients/projects have pushed me toward using Laravel the past
few years.
It's been a great experience.
Lots of great packages, great community, great tools for deployment Forge +
Envoyer.
Laracasts.com is a great resource to see what it's all about.
~~~
acmecorps
Nooo.. But then I have to use PHP..
I kid, I kid ;)
~~~
saluki
ha . . . this is true.
Laravel makes it tolerable though.
~~~
cutler
Yes, if were not for Laravel's Collections I wouldn't touch it. The biggest
barrier for me with PHP is the idiomatic PSR-driven abuse of blank lines, a la
Kernigen and Ritchie, coupled with code hidden in doc-comments. You're lucky
to find more than 5 lines of code visible on a screen when surrounded by this
code style monstrosity.
------
dudul
Phoenix in Elixir seems to be really appreciated. The Play framework in Scala
is also often mentioned as a very performant tool if
latency/throughput/reliability is really what you are after.
~~~
rubyfan
I’m after productivity ala Rails. Nothing seems to come close for me yet.
~~~
dudul
Have you considered that you feel that Rails is very productive simply because
you know it? What you perceive as intrinsic productivity is just you knowing
the framework/tool very well.
~~~
rubyfan
Sure enough a valid point.
When I didn’t know it I was productive too, circa Rails 0.14.3. I’ve stepped
away for programming for many years and skipped mostly through Rails 3 and 4.
Recently picked right back up in Rails 5 and just as productive as ever.
------
quickthrower2
.net core. With Asp.net MVC.
~~~
2_listerine_pls
Is it dependent on Azure or Windows-only tools?
~~~
bdcravens
Nope:
[https://docs.microsoft.com/en-
us/aspnet/core/publishing/linu...](https://docs.microsoft.com/en-
us/aspnet/core/publishing/linuxproduction)
------
ajitid
Just started with Django, I am praying noone comes to me tomorrow and say
"Django is dying", atleast not for now.
~~~
halfnibble
If someone ever says that to me, I'll still keep using it to the day I die.
And I'll maintain it if need be. Because Django is awesome.
------
afarrell
At GoCardless, we've replaced ActionController with Coach for request handling
while still using the rest of the rails toolset:
[https://github.com/gocardless/coach](https://github.com/gocardless/coach)
It has worked really well for us over the past few years.
------
olavgg
Grails Framewok! [http://grails.org](http://grails.org)
Built on top of Spring Boot.
Awesome performance, both in execution and development speed.
Convention over configuration. But it is still easy to access the rich Java
libraries.
Comes with GORM, an ORM layer on top of Hibernate. Makes it work a lot more
like Active Record with dynamic finders.
Groovy, very similar to Java. Metaprogramming, easier JDBC, execellent, makes
it very easy to work with JSON. Groovy also has performance close to Java.
Java and Groovy can access each other as they have similar byte code.
Very few breaking changes from release 0.4 to 3.3. You can expect that most of
your code will work without needing a rewrite the next 10-20 years.
Superb HTTP parameter binding and validation with Command Objects.
It is a very mature framework and you have full access to Spring Framework.
Great community!
~~~
peller
I inherited a Grails 2 codebase about 8 months ago. I'd never worked with Java
or Spring before, but I have pretty extensive experience with Django, Flask
and Symfony (inspired by Spring, as I understand it). Anyway, from my
perspective, I'm sorry to say I have to strongly disagree with all of these
points - I've never had a more miserable experience with a framework.
<rant>
First off, I found the documentation to be _really_ bad. All of it assumes
you're already deeply familiar with Spring/Hibernate, and it offers zero
direction for those who aren't. Furthermore, Grails has a _ton_ of magic.
Which I guess could be OK, but again, it's all very poorly documented - and
trying to read the source code of Grails itself to get a grasp on what's going
on? Forget it.
Development speed? Hot code reloading pretty much doesn't work; any time I add
or change a route, or a JSON marshaller (aka a serializer in every other
framework known to mankind[0]), or simply add a JS file, you have to restart
the dev server. Which, to top it off, spins up insanely slow compared to a
proper dynamic language.
GORM. Same documentation rant. They cover the simple cases and leave you in
the dark if you need to do anything more complex than a join. Luckily people
on SO are helpful here, but I wish I could understand what the hell is going
on behind the scenes.
Plugin ecosystem? Seems pretty small/inactive, especially compared to Django.
Oh, and each time you install a plugin, expect at least another 30 seconds to
spin up the development server.
Breaking changes? The recommended upgrade path from 2 to 3 is "start a new
project and copy over your files." WTF?
The parameter binding/validation does work pretty well, as long as you don't
try and do anything non-straightforward. But step outside the box, and it
falls apart. And again, the documentation of these magical transformations is
utter shit. Related: no default arguments allowed for controller parameters?
Really guys?
[0] This whole "let's make up a new name for some already widely established
concept/function" appears especially rampant in Groovy/Grails. Not a fan.
</rant>
Perhaps coming from the perspective of JavaLand it's an upgrade, but man, this
shit is not for me. Sorry for the rant.
~~~
vorg
> documentation rant. They cover the simple cases and leave you in the dark if
> you need to do anything more complex
The business model for Apache Groovy and Grails after Groovy creator James
Strachan was pushed out became to hook users in with free open source
software, then charge them for consulting and conferences when they'd amassed
some technical debt.
> The recommended upgrade path from 2 to 3 is "start a new project and copy
> over your files
Virtually no-one's upgrading from Grails 2 to 3, or even starting new projects
in version 3.
------
cutler
For the size of website Rails is optimised for nothing matches Rails IF you're
considering all dimensions rather than just performance. That's because Rails
capitalises on the unique design of the Ruby language. Ruby manages to blend
OO, procedural and functional, taking the best features of Perl, Smalltalk and
Lisp. The result is perfect for creating the kind of DSLs Rails is built on.
Clojure and Elixir come close but they're strictly functional languages. Scala
claims to excel in blending OO and functional but the result is a mess which
has fragmented the Scala community whereas the Ruby community speaks with one
voice.
------
BilalBudhani
I was pondering over the same question some time back which lead me into
experimenting with frameworks in NodeJS and oh boy, I missed Ruby On Rails on
every single line I wrote in those other frameworks. I whole heartedly regret
looking into other frameworks just because I felt Ruby On Rails isn't sexy
anymore.
This experience made me double sure on why Ruby On Rails is one of the
strongest & productive frameworks available. My advice is, don't look anywhere
else if you're not facing any problem with your current stack.
------
neverminder
Play Framework - supports both Scala and Java. It was inspired by RoR to be a
lightweight alternative to such legacy behemoths like Spring. It's a full
featured web framework based on Akka, scalable out of the box. Combination of
Play/Scala/Slick gives you compile time safety for database queries - very few
alternatives can offer that. Also, strict types significantly reduces your
test coverage which is not possible on any dynamic languages.
~~~
ivan_gammel
The comparison with Spring does not make any sense, because Play and Spring
have different scope. Play is just a web layer, Spring is modular general
purpose framework, compatible with different web layer implementations. If you
want to compare "lightweight alternative to legacy behemoth", take the full
feature stack (and mention all other additional libraries you'll need for Play
to match the functionality). I doubt there will be significant difference.
------
1ba9115454
At the moment nothing comes close. Theres are lots of 'Me Too' frameworks but
they don't give enough extra benefit to make it worth switching.
In the future we might see something coming out of Rust, there's a nice HTML
template api which is typesafe and an ORM called diesel which is also type
safe and could give ActiveRecord a run for its money.
------
guitarbill
I know you didn't list Python, but Django works very well. Bit of a learning
curve though. Flask is a microframework (also Python), with emphasis on the
micro.
Django makes some trade-offs that might make it seem like you're less
productive. Maybe it's true, but Django apps are very maintainable in my
experience.
------
sandGorgon
Migrations, asset pipeline, debugger, package management.
I haven't seen anything that has all of these built in.
------
f00_
PHP: Laravel, Lumens Python: Django, Flask, Pyramids, Tornado Java: Spring
Scala: Akka?
most experience with Python
------
rajangdavis
Have you considered hacking together your own? Rails is built on top of other
components (Thor for command line).
I just started hacking together my own and I would say the hardest part (for
me) is file generation.
~~~
rubyfan
The thing that’s cool about Rails is there’s some common understanding of _the
Rails way_ and in theory I can hire easier I have consistency of this working
across versions, etc.
I know when I start a Rails project I’m a few steps away from business
valuable functionality... less so with everything else, there’s like a design
and architecture step that comes first. Sometimes/most times I just want to be
productive.
------
marcus_holmes
Friends don't let friends use frameworks
[http://www.catonmat.net/blog/frameworks-dont-make-
sense/](http://www.catonmat.net/blog/frameworks-dont-make-sense/)
~~~
marcus_holmes
fair enough, I'll take the downvote because it was a bit trolly.
But it's a serious point. Frameworks are not helpful in the long term.
Go has no commonly-accepted web framework because the idiomatic solution is to
use the standard library and write just the code you need. Instead of
importing a tonne of code (and assumptions about your project) that you don't
need.
A framework will help you get something up quickly. But as the project
continues it will get in your way, more and more. I've seen it so many times.
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
A Hong Kong real-estate tycoon wants to build a new city in Ireland - simonebrunozzi
https://www.businessinsider.com/hong-kong-real-estate-tycoon-wants-new-city-in-ireland-2020-7
======
aww_dang
If Ireland won't have them, I'm sure other commonwealth regions would be glad
to have this kind of investment. Caribbean nations with a history of financial
services might be another option. Regions where this kind of investment brings
a larger negotiating position could be another option. Guyana might work.
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Photo-realistic lip-sync from text - giacaglia
http://ritheshkumar.com/obamanet/
======
wizardforhire
I'm enamored and terrified at the same time. As a documentary film editor this
is going to literally save my ass for those times when production didn't quite
get it right. As a citizen, hacker / child of the 80's whose watched a few
successive generations come around I feel it's going to be that much harder to
have a good bullshit detector. I've watched in disbelief as my peers believe
in whatever happens to be printed and watched culminating into our currrent
fake news catastrophe. I predict an even greater rift between the skeptical
few and the duped masses. Maybe there's hope? Maybe when nothing can be
believed anymore everyone will be forced to become skeptics. I doubt it
though. It takes good mentors and willing minds to develop good bullshit
detectors. It's sadly not something that is obvious to most in my experience.
~~~
untog
> Maybe when nothing can be believed anymore everyone will be forced to become
> skeptics.
I don't think that's a good thing, though. Right now you can catch a
politician in a lie, on tape. Once that's easily faked people will just see
whatever confirms their preexisting bias.
It's something more than being a skeptic - when there's no definitive proof of
anything, you just pick and choose what you believe.
~~~
foota
There was an interesting take on this in black mirror, the idea was that
sensor technology would grow quickly enough that you could produce high enough
quality fakes to stay ahead.
------
dontreact
This is awesome. My paranoid side is greatly concerned with the recent news
that Trump has been denying the Access Hollywood tape to people. With
something like this around, he could point to literally anything, say it’s
fake, and a significant portion of the population would believe him.
~~~
neotek
If the last few years has taught us anything it's that Trump supporters don't
need _any basis in reality whatsoever_ to maintain a belief in whatever Trump
says. Trump could claim aliens from Mars are influencing the mainstream media
and /r/the_donald would have a sticky up linking Martians with Clinton before
Breitbart was finished typing the headline.
~~~
ZeroGravitas
Not sure if you're intentionally referencing it, but NASA did have to deny
that it was running a child sex slave ring on Mars during the election after
an accusation by an Alex Jones guest.
~~~
Johnny555
I really thought you were making that up. Yet...
[https://www.thedailybeast.com/nasa-denies-that-its-
running-a...](https://www.thedailybeast.com/nasa-denies-that-its-running-a-
child-slave-colony-on-mars)
It was even picked up by space.com
[https://www.space.com/37366-mars-slave-colony-alex-
jones.htm...](https://www.space.com/37366-mars-slave-colony-alex-jones.html)
------
js2
Radiolab episode on the subject from earlier this year:
[http://www.radiolab.org/story/breaking-
news/](http://www.radiolab.org/story/breaking-news/)
------
make3
It's funny to me everyone says it looks really good. I actually feel like it's
surprisingly bad, but it's indeed just a start I guess.
~~~
bramen
Pretty firmly planted inside the uncanny valley. I think it'll be a while
until it's truly convincing, but it should be interesting to follow.
------
LV-426
The video claims it's to help people who have lost the ability to speak. Can
someone explain how this is supposed to work?
Because it looks more like, and is seemingly marketed as - if a video of
Barack Obama saying things he hasn't said is typical - a way to make prank
videos.
Edit: And why is it even called ObamaNet? Is it endorsed by the former
president?
(I'm not making a political point here, I'd ask the same if it was TrumpNet or
GagaNet. Is Obama notably connected with this kind of tech or research?)
~~~
Aditya_Garg
There's a popular youtube channel called barackdubs where the creator stitches
clips from obama's speeches into pop songs.
~~~
exikyut
[https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCvHn0MTf40rdEQu6Y2yNL5g](https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCvHn0MTf40rdEQu6Y2yNL5g)
Very interesting, thanks.
------
lisper
They haven't quite gotten out of the uncanny valley here. It sounds like Obama
is slurring his speech at times. Still, very impressive, and more than a
little scary. I'm sure that with a little more development they'll be able to
knock off the last few rough edges, and then we really won't be able to tell
truth from fiction in videos any more.
------
mustacheemperor
I have to wonder if today's instant and constant news cycle will end up being
a brief anomaly, once the technology to literally create "fake news" is a bit
more powerful and accessible. Will journalism require much more verification,
or will the torrent of crap just become uncontrollable?
~~~
danso
Sure, why not? The improvement in tools to efficiently produce and disseminate
video are enjoyed by honest journalists too. Many of these official events
have more than one photographer/videographer [0]. If only 1 outlet can produce
a highly-suspicious video of a public event recorded/observed by dozens of
other outlets, then distrust that single outlet. We already have had to do
this in a medium that is efficiently easy to fabricate: text.
Society as a whole will just have to realize that video is as alterable as
text.
[0] [https://www.nytimes.com/2017/06/09/insider/a-photo-of-
james-...](https://www.nytimes.com/2017/06/09/insider/a-photo-of-james-comey-
takes-the-internet-by-storm.html)
~~~
sahil-kang
This is a fantastic analogy. Since you've pointed out how alterable text
mediums are, I'm now thinking of services which provide a ranking of accuracy
for text publications. Off the top of my head, I can think of two metrics: (1)
The number of sources a publication cites, like a bibliography. (2) The number
of publications which refer back to a publication, like PageRank.
------
avenoir
There is a saying in Russian that goes "Одно лечишь — другое калечишь" which
translates roughly to "You heal one thing, but cripple another". I understand
that they see this technology used by people who lost the ability to
communicate, but in my opinion, it's far more destructive than it is helpful.
Either way, the Obama video is leaps and bounds better than other demos I've
seen just a few months ago. Pretty impressive progress.
------
beager
This sort of thing really makes me feel like the field of "authentication" is
about to become much broader and extremely important.
------
exion
Does anyone else find it amusing it sounds like "liar bird"? I think their
intent is very nice, but all I can see in the long run is this being abused by
conspiracy theorists and people with an agenda to distort the truth.
People are gullible enough as it is (e.g. 9/11 conspiracists), and usually
just want to believe what they already think is true. This will just fuel
ignorance and is another reason why it's very important that we somehow as a
society get people to think for themselves sensibly.
That said, the demo they showed is very impressive, very good work by them.
~~~
Lxr
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lyrebird](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lyrebird)
------
np_tedious
Looks pretty good. Their example video _sounds_ terrible and robotic,
seemingly by design.
Would the best approach to actually deceiving the viewer be a voice
impressionist paired with this technique?
~~~
save_ferris
With the rate at which this technology is advancing, I see this as more of an
MVP to a much more powerful tool in the not-too-distant future. But I also
wouldn't hate being wrong on this one.
------
cdevs
The lip syncing tech looks great, and the personality that comes out in the
voice would be a dream to have if I couldn't speak for myself.
------
flexie
Now it will get much easier to fabricate statements and much easier for
someone to deny something they actually said (by claiming it was fabricated).
This is a Photoshop of voices and as such it is neither more or less
dangerous.
We desperately need better ways to detect BS built into browsers, social
networks etc.
~~~
org3432
Turns out the masses have been getting duped for millennia it's so trivial. So
the bar is pretty low already.
------
2pointsomone
That is absolutely excellent work - the very best of DL. Keep crushing it,
Lyrebird team.
------
lovelearning
I'm surprised they have blatantly named it ObamaNet. Will it not make them
vulnerable to defamation or impersonation or some other legal violation? Is
this kind of use of a person's name, face and voice legally allowed in US?
~~~
vtange
I think they named it exactly this to highlight the possibility of malicious
use for defamation/impersonation attacks. Plus if it was really used to say
impersonate Obama, it'd be rightly referred by name in the news as "Obamanet",
which to a layperson would sound like a smoking gun.
Lyrebird.ai similarly followed this approach as they realized their own
technology could be used for nefarious purposes given the current political
climate.
------
justboxing
Isn't this the same video from
[http://futureoffakenews.com](http://futureoffakenews.com) ?
~~~
saagarjha
I found ObamaNet to be much high quality, to be honest.
------
lph
These researchers are building weapons. I hope they understand that.
~~~
ajdlinux
Lyrebird's website leaves me with no confidence whatsoever that they
understand the ethical implications of the technology they're developing or
that they are working to develop their technology in such a way as to address
those concerns.
I hope every company that's working on this stuff either fails, financially or
technologically, or ideally gets regulated out of existence, at least until
they commit to working on technology, policy and journalistic techniques to
mitigate the absolutely inevitable misuse, because as a society we simply are
not ready for this. If you work for one of these groups, you should either
ensure they're working on said mitigations, or quit.
~~~
whataretensors
Technology is always a double edged sword. It's up to all of us to ensure that
the good outweighs the bad.
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Stop writing code. - hncoder
Stop writing code. Know how to write code. Be good at it. Be very good at it. But don't do it for long. Or else your growth will be stalled. You'll be just a resource. Unless you're Walter Bright or Andrei Alexandrescu and lets face it, most of us are not them or cannot become like them. Most of us are just making minor enhancements, copy-pasting or running behind new languages/frameworks in an attempt to look cool.
======
angersock
To quote Eisenhower:
"Nuts."
_Most of us are just making minor enhancements, copy-pasting or running
behind new languages /frameworks in an attempt to look cool._
Speak for yourself--and how do you expect to get good, I mean really _good_ ,
at coding if you don't play around with silly things and minor modifications?
~~~
kapilkaisare
Wasn't it acting Division Commander General Tony McAuliffe who said that?
~~~
theforgottenone
Thank you for not forgetting the 101st.
[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anthony_McAuliffe](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anthony_McAuliffe)
------
cpayne624
I sympathize and get it. As a Fed developer I feel your frustration, trust me.
I love coding, though. Wouldn't want to do anything else. After all the
meetings and strategizing, levels of management and Scrums, nothing matters
w/out capable devs pushing code. I think the key is finding a group to work
with that acknowledges and appreciates your value.
------
wturner
I code as a catalyst to be creative in a technical enclave where I constantly
learn new things people are willing to pay for.
I am sorry but I will not stop this. At least not at the moment. I don't think
any of this is cool. This activity is my personal escape from "fluff" while
still being able to subsist in a society driven by it.
------
gtmtg
I don't think that there's anything wrong with writing code itself, but
perhaps apply it in a different context, e.g. robotics or computer vision, to
actually make a contribution.
------
tptacek
Uh, what? No.
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Show HN: InaPic: Yet Another Photo App that Isn't So. Smart Photo Albums. - ksolanki
http://getinapic.com<p>What is InaPic?: Photo sharing + Image recognition.
InaPic gives you photo albums with multiple collaborators. It then automatically organizes thousands of photos contributed by tens of users. This is accomplished by state-of-the-art image recognition technology. Clutter is removed by stacking repeating pictures, and highlights are created with a single click, which can seamlessly be shared on a more open forum such as Facebook or Flickr.<p>I invite you to check InaPic's self-organizing photo albums on getinapic.com. Some of the features mentioned above are currently being built so this is a dry demo of how it would look like. The shown results are created completely automatically, though. I am posting it early because I want your honest feedback!<p>Why InaPic?: So many photos, so less time. We believe, technology should assist in organizing our photos (say, by backdrop, by people, and by place). We should be able to tag photos in a bunch (stacks created by image matching). We should be able to search them by content. Also, we do activities in groups, then why do we have lonely albums? On-the-fly group albums is the InaPic's way. Please see the about page for brief description on our beliefs: http://getinapic.com/about<p>But why InaPic, really?: One day we will surely have technology seamlessly organize our photo albums. Why not now? Why not by us?<p>Here's my story: When I left my job about an year back I knew nothing about how to do startups. Heck, I didn't even know about hacker news. Flashback to early 2010: With a PhD in image processing/information hiding, I was happily researching and hacking computer vision projects for DARPA and Navy. Then one day it struck me: What am I doing that's creating value to the world? Am I doing anything worthwhile that could justify my time, effort, and even my salary? This feeling stayed in me for good 6-9 months. (I think) I am fairly respected in academia for my research contributions (>400 citations). So I thought of moving to academia. But the urge to build something useful overpowered my fears of uncertainty, and with support from my wonderful wife, I decided to leave my job to do a startup. The goal was to build a consumer startup around computer vision and image analysis. The first thing we built was LinkaPic (http://linkapic.com) a mobile visual search engine that would be the wikipedia for the real world. After a few months of struggling to market the idea, I realized that it is too broad and too vague for greater market adoption. Then came the depression. After struggling for a couple of months almost doing nothing, came the pivot. Using the same technology, we set out to build InaPic, and here I am, posting this, exactly 300 days after I signed up for hacker news.<p>Lastly, are you a python/django and/or javascript hacker and love InaPic so much as to want to join me in building it? Please send me an email (address in my profile).
======
sriyer10
Great tool! Very intuitive for the novice photographer struggling with
cataloging his/her pictures. Love the highlight feature that lets you collate
pics that are worth sharing versus those that are relatively ordinary and best
kept under wraps. All in all, I'm impressed by this particular application of
image recognition technology. Kudos and keep up the good work!
------
sinjeet
Simply Amazing. Site design is really cool, and this application is really a
must have for professional as well as any novice photographer to extract
pictures in a manner that makes sense!! To my opinion, this tool makes 1000s
of snaps of a single trip enjoyable and not like, "Oh God... let's get over
with".
~~~
ksolanki
Glad you like it. InaPic indeed is built to help organize thousands of photos
and make the process seamless. Hoping to receive more feedback from the
community!
------
vjthakkar
Takes me days to collect and organize pics after every trip...Can't put a
price on such memories so painstakingly hand-sorted them but always wished
someone would do that for me... I guess, this InaPic genie is the
answer...Kudos for the design...Looking forward to the full-featured app...
------
geniji2001
Finally somebody is fixing the real problem...organizing pictures in SINGLE
CLICK....heck,why am I still using picasa!!!,
------
sidcool
For the lazy <http://getinapic.com>
------
nsolanki
This sounds very interesting. Would definitely try this.
------
joncooper
I sent you an email. Would love to chat.
------
snowleopard1010
I always wanted something like this :)
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
TechCrunch gets a facelift - dhouston
http://www.techcrunch.com
======
brm
There's almost no emphasis on the navigation and for a site with so many parts
this is a negative.
On the whole I like the move to the cleaner and simpler layout but it still
puzzles me that they almost completely neglect categories or tags.
------
beaudeal
I think the redesign is absolutely terrible, and I'm not talking about
visuals. The emphasis of the UI is on advertising / sponsorships, and not on
content; for a content-focused company, this doesn't work. I can't help but
think of a tirade that David Cross goes on about Arrested Development where he
basically ridicules the network for shortening the length of the show, minutes
at a time, in order to increase ad revenue at the expense of the show and its
viewers. Techcrunch appears to be doing the same thing, albeit in a different
medium.
------
rms
Not nearly as big of a change as the last redesign.
The original TC design:
[http://web.archive.org/web/20060101080638/http://techcrunch....](http://web.archive.org/web/20060101080638/http://techcrunch.com/)
------
johnrob
Liked the old UI better :(
~~~
iamdave
Why are more and more sites getting facelifts that completely ruin user
experience? What ever happened to good old fashioned design elements like
contrast, spacial awareness, things like this?
The page looks like a Word Document now.
~~~
jamesjyu
Okay, the redesign is much more sensible than the old. It's cleaner, clearer,
and IMO much better.
Contrast?! The new design plays much better to contrast. They took out
unnecessary visual debris (well, besides the ads, of course).
This is at least one thing TC is has done right recently.
------
zacharye
GigaCrunch?
~~~
catone
That was my first thought too -- it has a very GigaOm-ish feel.
Most interesting change to me is that they moved the RSS link/Feedburner
button to the footer.
------
markbao
That logo feels so foreign.
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Book “Exploring Mayan EDMS” available in pre-release format - loneviking
https://forum.mayan-edms.com/viewtopic.php?t=1046
======
PassingCroft
I'm not able to upvote this post. The upvote button is missing!?
------
loneviking
Getting messages that some comments are not showing up. Seems Hacker News has
shadow banned comments on this post.
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Zuckerberg Says Twitter Is Wrong to Fact-Check Trump - laurex
https://www.newsweek.com/zuckerberg-says-twitter-wrong-fact-check-trump-1506958
======
mcph
Ay carumba. Like many who have been posting about this, I really struggle with
his attitude here.
I frequently have a knee-jerk emotional response to Zuck's commentary on this
topic, but even taking a step back and assessing logically I have a fairly
critical take:
1) If a founder is going to oppose corporate arbitration of "truth" of content
on the basis that the venue for that content is a platform, then it's
essential that the same policies be uniformly applied across the platform
itself. If policies aren't uniform, then the venue isn't really a platform.
But Facebook routinely arbitrates content on the basis of "accuracy" or
"realness" to progress the business: [https://www.reuters.com/article/us-
vietnam-facebook-exclusiv...](https://www.reuters.com/article/us-vietnam-
facebook-exclusive/exclusive-facebook-agreed-to-censor-posts-after-vietnam-
slowed-traffic-sources-idUSKCN2232JX). Why should policies be different
domestically?
2) His reference to "private companies" and the inference that such companies
shouldn't arbitrate content because they're private implies that public
companies, by nature of being public, are somehow better equipped to arbitrate
content (because the market can then respond to their arbitration through the
stock price?). That attitude draws a logical relationship between share price
and "rightness" that rubs me the wrong way.
I think I have to reserve judgment until the entire interview is released,
since this is a snippet cut to hype the segment.
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
2012 in Review: Encrypting the Web with HTTPS - zoowar
https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2012/12/end-year-blog-post-2012-https-rise
======
lambada
I made the switch just recently to making my perosnal site HTTPS only. It was
surprisingly easy to do with nginx.
StartSSL gives free 1 year certificates - although each certificate is good
for only one sub-domain and the root.
I do wish wildcard, and multi-domain certificates weren't so expensive though
- it would give me so much more flexibility.
~~~
gst
SSL/TLS Server Name Indication
(<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Server_Name_Indication>) is supported by all
major browsers nowadays. No need for a multi-domain certificate, just use an
individual certificate for each virtual host.
~~~
mike-cardwell
I think the problem is that startssl will only give you one certificate per
domain. Ie, they wont give you multiple free certificates for different
subdomains of the same domain.
Also, as far as I understood it SNI doesn't (and never will) exist for Windows
XP IE users, making it a non-starter for most websites for many years to come.
~~~
btgeekboy
I know for a fact they will give out separate certificates for individual
subdomains; we do it regularly.
~~~
mike-cardwell
Free ones?
~~~
btgeekboy
Yep.
Remember, "www" is a subdomain just as much as "somethingelse" is.
~~~
mike-cardwell
If that's the case, I wonder why they only let you use one domain in the certs
subjectAltName field. I have a cert from them with my domain (which we'll
pretend is example.com) in the Common Name field, and "www.example.com" in the
subjectAltName field. But I really want a second subjectAltName field in the
same certificate for a legacy hostname. This, they don't offer.
------
ctz
HTTPS is certainly a better option than no HTTPS. But we shouldn't forget that
its trust model it is fundamentally and irrecoverably broken -- it has
hundreds of single points of complete failure (to wit, DigiNotar and Comodo
who both silently and completely broke HTTPS for the entire internet, for a
time).
So, for the short term -- HTTPS is the best we have. In the medium term, the
security model of HTTPS (and by implication, SPDY) must die, and CAs along
with it. DANE or Convergence seem like good replacements. Convergence
certainly has the right trust model. DANE is perhaps more easy to migrate to,
but suffers from being built on DNSSEC's unacceptably shitty crypto
infrastructure.
~~~
gizmo686
A remember hearing a talk about a half solution to the broken model of HTTPS
that could be done with the existing system, which was either a proposol or
being implenented. The idea was that when you establish an HTTPS connection to
a new site, you save their certificate for a certain amount of time. In the
future when you log in, if the certificate they provide dissagrees with the
one you have then you assume it is compromised. Becuase of the obvious
promblem of legitimatly changing certificates there was a mechanism for the
server to inform you of that, but this requires active participation by the
server, so the entire system is only done if the server explicitly enables it.
In the long term, we need to replace HTTPS entirely.
------
lemcoe9
More people would use HTTPS if self-signed certificates weren't something that
scared users into leaving and SSL certificates were cheaper. You can get one
for around $10 a year, but that's still not free.
~~~
mike-cardwell
You can get one from startssl.com for free.
------
hayksaakian
The notion that SSL is a cost keeps it from mass adoption.
~~~
sliverstorm
Do you believe that is an incorrect notion? It most certainly _is_ a cost.
Even if certs were free, there is overhead. Not a lot of course (on modern
hardware), but it is there.
~~~
hayksaakian
I mean its something perceive as a burden rather than a benefit.
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Limiting the power of package installation in Debian - l2dy
https://lwn.net/Articles/770784/
======
heinrichhartman
I don't get why we would want to allow packages to run any scripts
before/after the installation. I get why it's necessary at this point, but the
true solution should get away without executing any code.
IMHO, a package should deliver a set of files to certain directories. That's
it.
It should not overwrite existing files, that were installed by other packages.
It should not change existing files in any way.
It might advise the system to trigger certain reindexing actions (systemd
daemon reolad, update man-db, etc.) but doing this should be the duty of the
package manager, not the package itself.
AFAIK, nix and Solaris' pkg are pretty close to this ideal.
A big advantage that this has, on top of security, is that:
\- packages can be uninstalled safely and without side-effects
\- package contents can be inspected (pkg contents)
\- corrupted installations can be detected using checksums (pkg fix)
\- package updates/installs can be rolled back using file system snapshots.
~~~
nine_k
Running arbitrary code may be needed if you want to upgrade an existing
installation in-place. Imagine that you are upgrading to a new major version
and want to migrate the existing configuration to a new format.
This need not be an automatic action, though; you might choose to postpone the
migration, and offer a separate tool for the user to run.
This prevents any packages from _depending_ on such a package, though: they
can no longer be automatically installed, because their dependency cannot,
too.
This changes the concept of package management seriously enough.
~~~
heinrichhartman
Well, for me this is a question who owns the config file:
* If the package owns the file, and the user is not supposed to make changes to it, then package updates may do whatever to the file on update. It's good practice though, to leave a copy of the old file in /lost+found.
* If the user is allowed to make modification, then the user owns it. The configuration syntax becomes and API and should be treated as such. Breaking changes should be rare, preceded by a deprecation period and announced as major versions. As you say, it's questionable if such updates can/should be automated.
~~~
hashhar
What about binary formats like gpg keyrings?
------
pilif
I'm having slight trouble understanding the threat vector this is supposed to
be protecting against. If you don't trust a package's install script, why
would you trust any of the binaries installed by that package?
If you're unsure about bugs in a package's install script, why aren't you
equally unsure about bugs in the binaries installed by the package.
In-fact, install scripts are auditable; third party compiled binaries aren't
(at least not easily).
I see other advantages in declarative approaches - for example more freedom
for debian to change the underlying file system layout, or to give the user
some information about what the package is going to change for easier
troubleshooting, but I do not see any advantage security-wise.
~~~
saurik
I mostly agree with you, but it is worth noting that most software is
installwd by root but run by some "less privileged" user. That said, I still
agree with you, as there is no data of value on any computer I own that is
only accessible to root: all of the data that matters is in fact accessible to
whatever the least privileged user that is using all of the software on that
machine happens to be... on my laptop, that's me and on my database server
that is my database. So really there is no difference between running software
as root and running it as the "less privileged" user.
Like, the idea that I care that Chromium can run software as root is
nonsensical: yes, root can modify all of the software not on my computer... to
what end? The only thing of value on my computer is in my home directory,
owned by me... hell, thanks to a bunch of people who (incorrectly) think they
can make their computers safer by running fewer things as root, a ton of
executable files are in my home directory thanks to userspace package managers
provided by rust and node.js, so you can even modify other software without
even having to be root anymore :/. There is simply no security advantage to
any of this.
~~~
bluGill
There are a still a handful of multi-user linux systems out there. Chromium as
non-root cannot read the other users files when you log into some evil site
that knows of a backdoor. (Assuming no other root backdoor)
There is one other point: if my OS is sound and my user files are corrupted -
well at least I can restore my files from backup without first trying to
reinstall my machine. It saves a little effort.
------
peterwwillis
Docker is a nice idea. It's one tool, one system, for easily packaging
software and running it, in an isolated environment. But Docker includes a lot
of crap most people don't need. Do we need an isolated network for our apps?
Do we need an isolated cgroup? Do we need to install a complete base image of
an OS? Do we need root to run those apps? The answer, for most cases, is no.
Then there's things like Flatpak. They also want to make it easy to package
and distribute software. And they see all the features of Docker and go, "Hey,
a sandbox! That sounds cool! Let's make it mandatory!" In order to simply
distribute software in a compatible way, they include a lot of restrictions
they don't need to just distribute and run software.
All you need to distribute a software package is files, and a subsystem that
maps files into the user's environment, and links together the files needed to
run the software. We can accomplish this with a copy-on-write, overlay
filesystem, and some software to download dependent files and lay them out in
the right way. It _should_ be incredibly simple, and it _should_ work on any
operating system that supports those filesystems. And those filesystems should
be simple enough to implement on any operating system!
So what the hell is the deal here? Why has nobody come along and just provided
the bare minimum needed to just distribute software ( _edit_ : in a way that
also allows it to be run with all its dependencies in one overlay filesystem
view)? Why is it always some ass-backwards incompatible crap that is
"controversial" ? Why can't we just make something that works for any
software?
~~~
rkeene2
I did. [http://appfs.rkeene.org/](http://appfs.rkeene.org/)
You're welcome.
~~~
peterwwillis
Errr... that's not really what I'm looking for, my last paragraph was a bit
inaccurate. But seems cool nonetheless.
~~~
rkeene2
It's literally what you described in the third paragraph:
> All you need to distribute a software package is files, and a subsystem that
> maps files into the user's environment, and links together the files needed
> to run the software. We can accomplish this with a copy-on-write, overlay
> filesystem, and some software to download dependent files and lay them out
> in the right way. It should be incredibly simple, and it should work on any
> operating system that supports those filesystems. And those filesystems
> should be simple enough to implement on any operating system!
It's literally, and exactly that. I'm not sure how it can be not what you're
looking for.
~~~
peterwwillis
Well, first of all, there's almost no documentation. I can see how to install
it and run it, but I have no idea how to use it. How am I supposed to package
software for it, or with it? How does it work internally? How is it supposed
to provide an overlay for an individual application, much less multiple? How
does it link dependencies? What's even the package manifest format? I skimmed
through the C code and the Tcl code and none of it was readily apparent to me,
and I could find no more documentation than a Getting Started guide. The
manual is literally just the arguments to the app. I'm not sure how anyone
other than the author could figure out how to do what I'm looking to do with
it.
Also, you may be missing that I'm looking for Docker-like functionality. That
is to say, have, say, 3 trees of files, one built on top of the other. When
launching the application, lay the first tree down on an overlay, then the
second, then the third, then run the application. By having the third tree
link to the first two, I just pick the tree I want to run (the third tree, the
one with the app), and it creates the correct overlays with the correct
dependencies and runs it. No special paths needed by the application. What I'm
asking for could be done with existing packaged software, with no need to
change existing packages - the same way Docker does it now.
~~~
rkeene2
Much of that is documented in the page called "Getting Started":
[http://appfs.rkeene.org/web/home/Getting%20Started](http://appfs.rkeene.org/web/home/Getting%20Started)
I'll summarize it here:
1\. To use it to run application: a. Get AppFSd running; then b. Run the
application you actually wanted to run 2\. To package an application: a.
Create a package manifest b. Run the build script to create a CPIO archive c.
Upload that CPIO archive to a webserver d. Run the script to publish the
archive 3\. The package manifest format is described in the README (
[http://appfs.rkeene.org/web/doc/trunk/README.md](http://appfs.rkeene.org/web/doc/trunk/README.md)
) -- it's CSV with the format "type,time,extraData,name" where the extraData
is depends on the value of "type" for type==file, it's "size,perms,sha1"
If you're looking for something Docker-like then it's different since this is
a filesystem based approach which doesn't require any of the containerization
techniques used by Docker... which is how this conversation got started. It
would also not be available on every platform since not every platform
supports the same containerization mechanisms, and for platforms that do they
often require escalated privileges.
~~~
peterwwillis
I should have looked up the actual functionality to avoid confusion, my bad.
This is what I'm talking about:
[https://docs.docker.com/storage/storagedriver/#how-the-
overl...](https://docs.docker.com/storage/storagedriver/#how-the-
overlay2-driver-works)
The Overlay2 filesystem driver is Linux-native, but you could implement it as
a FUSE module. It would provide basically all the functionality I'm looking
for, minus the network code. The idea would be to unpack software packages on
the filesystem (e.g. chroot environment) and then overlay the directories of
the packages needed before running a particular version of an app.
In order to make custom paths transparent to the application, you need some
custom system calls that Linux provides, such as mount namespaces, which is
essentially a containerization technology - but you don't need to use
"containers" per se, just a particular system call. If you don't use mount
namespaces, you have to use complicated hacks to make an application's view of
the filesystem unique, such as chroot with bind mounts, or an LD_PRELOAD
filter, but all that's too hacky for a general solution.
Plan9 had mount namespaces (among other things) decades ago, but good luck
getting modern OSes to implement useful features in a standard way
~~~
rkeene2
Which is why AppFS doesn't rely on that and instead relies on the ability to
present a single unified filesystem.
------
frumiousirc
I've used Debian since 1994 and can't recall a single package installation or
removal which exhibited any problem this discussion claims to be solving.
~~~
scbrg
Packages in the official Debian archives are generally well behaved.
Unofficial packages, sometimes less so. There was an incident a couple of
months ago where a package (from Microsoft, incidentally) replaced your
/bin/sh with bash. Wouldn't it be neat if such an atrocity wasn't possible?
~~~
rlpb
"Unofficial packages" aren't really in the set of supported dpkg use cases.
They're a hack that fail in the general case because there are various things
they can't express because the expression of them comes from the other side of
the package relationship (eg. Breaks/Replaces), and official packages don't
declare such things for packages outside the Debian archive. Therefore
external packages are fundamentally broken, but third parties keep using them
because better alternatives haven't existed in the past.
> Wouldn't it be neat if such an atrocity wasn't possible?
An easier way might be to make it difficult for users to install "unofficial
packages", but that would be against the philosophy of users having ultimate
control over their systems.
Your suggestion puts us in the rather interesting situation that you're
requesting a new feature for something that primarily affects third party
packages that aren't actually supported in the first place.
------
perlgeek
I'd love it if some more common things that are done in postint scripts could
be done in a declarative way, like adding system users.
And then there are things that are declarative in the debian/ dir (like
auto-(re)starting the installed services) that end up as generated, procedural
code in the postinst script.
When such things can be done in a declarative manner, it's much easier to
reason about them programmatically, and maybe you could completely disable
postinst scripts for a whole category of packages.
~~~
brazzledazzle
When I first learned how Debian (and other) packages were put together I was
somewhat surprised. Not just by the security implications but also by the
inherent complexity. Even if you’re using templates and generators you can
gain a lot by moving all of that out of the package and into the package
manager/installer. Distribution-level changes, user OS customization and
possibly even reduced privileges would become easier to handle. On the package
manager side it seems like maintainability would (in the general case) vastly
increase.
~~~
bluGill
There is a downside though: if you forget something in the declarative tool it
cannot be done. Using bash scripts lets a good programmer get what they need
done. Using declarative makes it easier to do everything we thought of but
some things are accidentally impossible.
I think an escape to bash might always be required, but I think it should be a
restrictive thing. That is packages with that flag require a special flag
passed to dpkg. Also any packages using bash should automatically get extra
reviewers.
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Twitter Will Finally Stop Making Your Images Look Terrible - fewi
https://onezero.medium.com/twitter-will-finally-stop-making-your-images-look-terrible-2ed882dfcd9e?source=rss----444d13b52878---4&gi=fad303263da1
======
gojomo
Next, maybe Twitter can assign a big team the multi-month project of making it
so that when you click an image, to zoom for more details:
* it doesn't ever shrink the image size (as currently happens with certain oversized/proportioned images)
* it doesn't add new overlays obscuring edges of the image that you just clicked to get a fuller view
Baby steps! I know they're running a cash-starved skeleton crew over at their
non-profit hobby site.
~~~
ryanlol
Perhaps after they close these tickets they could make the website load
successfully more than half the time?
Ah, nevermind. I’m asking for way too much.
------
sedatk
The depreciation of digital images is an interesting phenomenon. Like the real
paper, the quality of memes on the Internet gets worse and worse over time. We
were promised that digital medium would never lose quality yet here we are. Of
course, it's not just lossy compression but bit rot too.
I wonder how we will be tackling these problems in the future. Maybe, at some
point, the savings of JPEG will be negligible for what we have so we'll have
images as PNGs?
~~~
Edmond
The phenomenon of meme photo degradation is indeed an interesting one.
I think that is one reason I have always been put off by memes even when they
come from loved ones, the photos look LITERALLY dirty, as if passed around by
hand :)
~~~
serf
a lot of that has to do with meme-regurgitator sites that stamp their
watermark all over an image.
the reality is that the picture is being passed around by way too many
automations that apply filters or reencodes with little regard to the quality
drop, and lots of priority going to making the image smaller, and thus cheaper
to host.
~~~
ryanlol
>and thus cheaper to host
Sure, if you host all the images on S3. But why would you? Anywhere else you
can get unmetered gigabit for a few hundred/mo, the savings would be non-
existent.
------
zaroth
Yes, this is apparently a multi-billion user site used to share images, which
doesn’t know that the image which is currently being uploading has already
been compressed at a quality setting _lower_ than what they are about to try
_recompressing_ the image at, and so will endlessly recompress the same image
ad nauseam until it becomes illegible. But now, maybe not. But only if the
upload the image through a web browser. So impressive.
------
egdod
>To make Medium work, we log user data and share it with service providers.
Click “Sign Up” above to accept Medium’s Terms of Service & Privacy Policy.
Gross.
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
DIY Weapons of the Libyan Rebels - MatrixBai
http://www.theatlantic.com/infocus/2011/06/diy-weapons-of-the-libyan-rebels/100086/#
======
norova
The Toyota Hilux - one amazing pickup truck. It still makes me laugh a bit to
see all of the various uses people find for that vehicle and all of the
ridiculous situations[1] it finds itself in. Hell, it even has a war named
after it.[2]
[1]: <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Toyota_Hilux#Reputation> [2]:
<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Toyota_War>
~~~
Griever
Top Gear had an excellent several-part episode which illustrated just how
ridiculously well built these things are.
<http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xnWKz7Cthkk>
------
thaumaturgy
Interesting article -- somewhat less "DIY" than "salvaged", but still
interesting.
Also interesting how, all other politics aside, we're not likely to see such
an article detailing the improvised weapons of Iraqi Rebels.
------
templaedhel
Related: [http://www.newsweek.com/2010/10/14/why-rebel-groups-love-
the...](http://www.newsweek.com/2010/10/14/why-rebel-groups-love-the-toyota-
hilux.html)
Although that article is in reference Afganistan mainly, it's interesting to
see how prevelent the Toyota trucks are for the rebels here as well.
------
softbuilder
I was puzzled that the UB-32 rocket launchers have English instructions
printed on them instead of Arabic. The CIA World Factbook does say that
Arabic, Italian, and English are all understood in the major cities. Still
surprising.
~~~
zokier
I was surprised by that too. I would have excepted Russian instructions
instead of Arabic though. Maybe all (official) Russian exports have English
text?
~~~
kstenerud
English is the new lingua-franca.
------
tybris
Hopefully they don't get too good at this. It's rare that a revolutionary army
can lay down its weapons after the war. The French thought it would be fun to
"liberate" the rest of Europe after their revolution.
<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/French_Revolutionary_Wars>
~~~
ms4720
well America did it pretty well
~~~
tybris
?
~~~
ms4720
Well after the American Revolution was finished, we stopped. There was the
whiskey rebellion but it was a small affair. ie after the revolution we
actually got something better and stable. only one civil war in +200 yeas not
a bad record.
~~~
nasmorn
The native americans would object to your theory. I think the only difference
was that America was plenty big and the people killed there didn't survive in
significant enough numbers in America today so their view of the whole affair
doesn't concern many people nowadays.
------
dmix
Bad time to give the peace sign when holding 8 rockets in your arms.
[http://cdn.theatlantic.com/static/infocus/libyarebel061411/s...](http://cdn.theatlantic.com/static/infocus/libyarebel061411/s_r16_RTR2NJJK.jpg)
~~~
billybob
When the person in picture #3 makes that sign, it is described as the "victory
sign." I imagine that's what the guy holding the rockets meant, too.
~~~
hugh3
Both the "peace" and "V for victory" signs have the palm facing forwards.
That's a "fuck you" sign, at least where I'm from.
I'm not from Libya though.
~~~
pbhjpbhj
From [http://www.icons.org.uk/theicons/collection/the-v-
sign/biogr...](http://www.icons.org.uk/theicons/collection/the-v-
sign/biography/v-for-victory)
"The Churchillian gesture
Winston Churchill took up the Victory campaign enthusiastically, and made a V
sign with his fingers whenever a camera was pointed at him, his palm facing in
both directions. This dismayed his private secretary, John Colville. In
September 1941, Colville wrote in his diary, ''The PM will give the V-sign
with two fingers in spite of representations repeatedly made to him that this
gesture has quite another significance.''
Churchill was eventually persuaded to use only the palm forwards gesture."
There are images of Churchill using both gestures.
I don't think one can be entirely sure of the intention though general body
language and facial expression usually will carry which meaning is intended.
------
aninteger
It seems that there is a lot of left over ammo all over the place or are they
creating their own ammo? At what point of do the Qaddafi forces run out of
cash to keep funding this war.
Also, love all the Toyotas.
~~~
colonelxc
I think it is mostly captured, except for the moltov coctails and the refilled
RPG that they showed. They did show that they were taking the time to get the
rust off of ammunition. You probably wouldn't do that if you had means to
produce it in quantity.
------
majmun
Related: [http://defensetech.org/2011/06/14/libyan-rebels-diy-
weapons-...](http://defensetech.org/2011/06/14/libyan-rebels-diy-weapons-
factory-robots-and-all/)
------
athst
This is the makings for a hit show on Discovery channel or TLC
~~~
fletchowns
Seems like kind of an insensitive thing to say, given that there are people
dying over there.
~~~
athst
What's wrong with saying that? I'm just commenting that it's fascinating to
see what they are coming up with. Obviously it's just an idea, but if there
actually was a show or documentary or something, it would help them get there
message out a lot more easily.
~~~
fletchowns
Information about the Libyan rebels has been on the frontpage of the news for
weeks, I don't think a cable TV show is what they need right now. Their
message is definitely out there, and it's being echoed by top US officials.
Just a few days ago Hillary Clinton addressed the AU urging them to join in
the call for Gaddafi to step down. While it is fascinating (and frightening)
to see what these people are going through, I don't think a show on the
Discovery Channel about how to refurbish and modify weapons seized from the
military is an appropriate thing to talk about. If you want to talk about the
journalists and the difficulties they face when trying to document events like
these, that's fine.
------
bdunbar
Interesting from a DIY point of view.
Also interesting that the battlespace is being prepared for boots on the
ground intervention by - among other things - getting the home front in the
mood for intervention by showing plucky rebels with home built ordnance.
------
notahaxor
Anybody know what type of rifle is pictured in #25? Is it some sort of strange
P90 variant?
~~~
aarongough
It's an FN F2000 (<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/FN_F2000>)
------
config_yml
#25 looks like a brand new F2000 from FN Herstal. Is there any similar report
on Qaddafi's left over arsenal?
~~~
Tuna-Fish
Gaddafi has a lot of money, and his army always came first. The equipment of
his elite troops is the best money can buy.
------
aresant
I have similar pictures in albums from my childhood.
Same look of mad scientist engineering delight, damn lucky to be born in
America where instead of machining artillery ammo I'm building forts, water
balloon launchers, and other weapons of low destruction.
------
gnufs
Here's the Al Jazeera's video coverage of how the DIY weapons are made:
[http://english.aljazeera.net/video/africa/2011/06/2011614112...](http://english.aljazeera.net/video/africa/2011/06/201161411201323416.html)
------
zwieback
Hopefully all this engineering ingenuity will be put to good use in peaceful
times.
------
niels_olson
The first image, with the flag-painted rocket launcher, suggests morale is
high.
------
philthy
That aircraft missile launcher mounted on that truck bed has to be terribly
dangerous, either the back blast or recoil could easily roll that truck.
~~~
turbojerry
If they don't put a blast panel on the cab they could fry the occupants, it
has happened before.
~~~
lysol
At least in all of the pictures, there are no occupants in the cab.
~~~
bdunbar
Not after the first time it was fired.
------
JulianMorrison
It's like the A-team for real.
------
gubatron
nice free intel work done for the Libyan government this very detailed gallery
of the Rebel's arsenal.
~~~
lysol
I'm sure this is information they already had. If anything, it makes them look
more organized.
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
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Say Goodbye to the Password - kniht
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424127887323585604579008620509295960.html
======
ianstallings
_Eye roll_. I've heard this ~20 years now. I welcome fingerprint readers
myself but I doubt they'll get the traction this article implies. Particularly
with the privacy-consciousness of the modern user.
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Why the world is full of buttons that don't work - electic
https://www.cnn.com/style/article/placebo-buttons-design/index.html
======
a-dub
I don't buy this argument that they were explicitly installed as a placebo.
Instead I think they're basically a form of technical debt. In the elevators,
they probably once did work, but then the ADA stuff came about or the
maintenance people just didn't see the point of hooking them up. For
crossings, some of them do work, and perhaps many. What's easiest, roll them
out uniformly or install a hodge podge? ...and for the motels, it wouldn't
surprise me one bit if it's cheaper to buy a residential thermostat with a
knob than a commercial temperature sensor. Maybe that even worked as well...
Engineers and builders don't care about "placebo effects on users" except for
in the most carefully built UX scenarios. We're talking about basic
infrastructure here, no one really cares about UX that much as long as it
meets basic requirements. All these buttons exist as an accident, or they're
detritus from an era when they did work, or it was just cheaper to get the
panel with a button than a blank.
"Let's put a placebo button in to make people feel better." said no traffic
engineer, elevator installer, motel HVAC installer, ever.
~~~
s_dev
Lots of devs are now using fake loading bars to emphasise certain tasks e.g.
Spinning up a Droplet on Digital Ocean.
I heard that loading bar is just a placebo to emphisise the creation of a new
droplet as being important. Apparently the droplet is finished initialising
long before the loading bar's 4 or 5 second length. It's probably why this
loading bar apprears to load so perfectly -- it's not timed on anything but a
counter.
In fact I had to draw out the experience of topping up in our app. It happened
too quickly and people didn't know what was just happened. They clicked their
pay button and were brought to the balance screen.
They all panicked for some reason and ran back to history to check the
transaction went through. We put in a success message before being brought to
balance screen and panic is gone. The success messasge is just elaborting on
what already happened -- it's a placebo.
I think you're right about the real world. Real buttons are often just broken
but in the world of software theres lots of bright and dark patterns behind
the buttons -- no software button broke from mechanical failure.
~~~
hueving
Visual feedback is not the same thing as a placebo effect though.
A placebo would be adding a button that says "accelerate droplet launch speed"
that does nothing. It's something that the user takes action on that is
irrelevant.
------
wodenokoto
Is this an American phenomenon[1]?
If I forget to click the pedestrian button, cars in the same direction as me
will get green light, while I wait for red.
Most elevators don't have a close button in Denmark. But it definitely worked
in Japan.
I can't remember ever sitting in an office with a temperature control knob
available.
[1] ... or am I just fooling myself on these accounts?
~~~
Macha
Yeah, the pedestrian section is clearly an optional part of the cycle at most
traffic lights I interact with (Dublin). If no button is pressed, then some
other part of the cycle is extended and the pedestrian light is skipped.
This isn't the same as pressing the button indicating that traffic will be
stopped in 20s or similar, but I don't know of anywhere traffic lights ever
worked like that. You're still going to have to wait for the allocated
"pedestrian" time, but it will never come without a button press
~~~
dmurray
Agreed. All traffic light buttons do something in Dublin, as far as I can
tell. Most lights are at junctions. If you don't press the button there, there
will be no point in the cycle where you're guaranteed no cars will cross your
path. If you do, there will.
Some traffic lights are just for pedestrians crossing, away from a junction.
Normally those work pretty quickly - traffic stops in 10 seconds, so long as
the last stop was at least 30 seconds ago.
In some countries, pedestrians can get a green light while cars are still
allowed turn across them. I'm not sure if that's the case in New York, but it
might explain some of the confusion.
------
dagenix
The fake thermostat is the most frustrating example and tends to make me
angrier than anything else. The problem is, fake thermostats tend to tell you
what the temperature is. And no matter what you set them to, which has no
effect, they continue to mock your failed attempts to become comfortable by
continueing tell you just how very cold you are. And nothing is more upsetting
than turning up the heat, only to see the actual temperature continue to drop.
~~~
ljm
I'm not sure I understand the logic of that when it's a hotel room, but in an
office environment it's fair enough. As long as the maintained temperature
sticks to what we understand as a typical room temp (21-23°C).
What makes me think that is the attitude to weather in the UK, where the
polarity shifts as soon as summer transitions to winter and vice versa. As in,
thermostats in most UK shops and pubs and bars in the summer are set to levels
of cold you would only begin to experience as November approaches; they're
practically icy and an amazing example of desert conditions when night falls.
But then winter approaches and everything is fired up to the point where
you're practically sweating if you're wearing full on winter wear. The total
lack of humidity prevents the sweating but the heat goes beyond cosy.
I hate this, so my idea of getting a comfortable temperature doesn't align
with the normal situation. But if I was to change it to suit my needs then
that would have a negative affect on everybody who justified the need to
freeze their ass off every time they walk into a shop when the sun takes its
hat off.
So when it comes to local climate control, it's practically impossible to
please anybody. You can't give one person the power satisfy their taste at the
expense of everybody else, that's why air conditioning fucking sucks. The best
you can do is maintain a comfortable average, remove or restrict the
thermostats, and provide other solutions that allow comfort without changing
it for all.
~~~
dagenix
Oh yeah, the thermostats in offices totally shouldn't work - that would be
maddening as everyone fought over temperature.
I'd just rather have nothing at all than something which both pretends to do
something while also making it very clear - via the temperature display - that
it does nothing.
At least at a crosswalk or in an elevator, I can pretend that what I'm doing
has an effect.
~~~
narag
_Oh yeah, the thermostats in offices totally shouldn 't work - that would be
maddening as everyone fought over temperature._
In a former job, people just opened the windows when they didn't like the
temperature. So we had cold in winter, heat in summer and I guess a pretty
high energy bill. But no wars, people opened _their_ window. Oh and I was just
a contractor so no chance to complain.
------
neumann
My favourite button that doesn't work is The DFA fader [0]. Basically, a tool
of the audio engineer to give difficult clients an auditory placebo effect
when they want to 'get it just right'. There is even a paper on its effect
[1]. There was the story of a famous record (I can't recall which) where after
endless battles in the studio the audio engineer let the artist twiddle an
unconnected dial so they felt they tweaked it just right. Maybe using a Rane
PI 14 [2].
[0]
[https://intelligentsoundengineering.wordpress.com/2017/08/15...](https://intelligentsoundengineering.wordpress.com/2017/08/15/what-
the-f-are-dfa-faders/)
[1]
[http://www.aes.org/e-lib/browse.cfm?elib=18711](http://www.aes.org/e-lib/browse.cfm?elib=18711)
[2] [http://www.rane.com/pi14.html](http://www.rane.com/pi14.html)
------
asaph
I challenge the notion that there can be any net-positive effect from
deliberately misleading the public and insulting people's intelligence. As
word spreads that people are being actively deceived, overall trust in the
system is eroded. These placebo buttons are a fraud and should be removed.
~~~
kpil
I agree, but I will settle for a sticker that says "disabled."
Also, when I press a "close door" button in an elevator, I expect a so-fast-
it's'-silly Star Wars closing speed.
Or realistically at least a reaction within 0.5 seconds or I get instantly
annoyed.
------
tialaramex
There are three crossings near me that exhibit some different behaviours
you'll see in the UK
1\. There's a major crossroads (junction of a bypass). The natural phase
design means that vehicles will be stopped before each crossing in the phase
anyway. So the buttons _almost_ do nothing. Why "almost" ? Well, in the middle
of the night with almost no traffic, the phases stop being automatic, bypass
traffic gets a green all the time. If something comes on the side road, the
phases will happen, but you don't want to wait for that as a pedestrian, your
buttons will cause all the phases (even the ones you don't care about for
crossing motor traffic) to happen so that you can cross. In practice of course
at this hour few pedestrians push the buttons anyway, they can see there's no
traffic.
2\. The high street nearby has an old-fashioned Pelican crossing, and the
buttons work as expected. A Pelican is a familiar design, traffic lights
control the motor traffic and red/green lamps are attached for pedestrians,
facing them from the far side of the road, the pedestrian presses the button,
a timer starts, and after some configured delay the traffic signals bring
motor traffic to a halt, then you can cross.
3\. But it also has a newer Puffin crossing. The Puffin crossing is
superficially similar to a Pelican, and road vehicle operators need no extra
training, but for a pedestrian the operation is improved in one immediately
visible and one invisible way: Visibly the red/ green lamps are moved to the
pedestrian's side of the road, positioned so that when looking at them the
pedestrian can also see the road with oncoming traffic (in the UK this will
usually be to their right, but in some cases it's the left and the Puffin is
adjusted appropriately). This reduces the hazard of pedestrians stepping in
front of traffic when they have a green light but a motorist hasn't slowed.
Also, the timer now starts when the crossing is used, and inhibits further
crossing activations. For a busy crossing this makes no difference, but at a
quiet crossing it means if you arrive after a long lull it will activate
immediately, since the traffic has not recently been interrupted. A big
improvement.
Elsewhere in my city I've also noticed examples of the Pegasus and Toucan,
which are similar to the Puffin except that they're intended to also
accommodate horses (Pegasus) and bicycles (Toucan) where routes allow these in
addition to pedestrians.
~~~
dingaling
The nearside Puffin crossing display can be obscured by crowds. The reason
they are mounted low is cost: the same unit can be used for command and
display.
They therefore require looking down, whereas farside displays keep the head
lifted which makes it easier to transition to looking at the road. In _all_
directions. Which is why nearside displays aren't used at junctions.
Puffin crossings are an excellent example of a system being redesigned to
reduce cost and then having bogus UX 'justifications' pasted over it.
~~~
tialaramex
How are two mechanically separate components "the same unit" exactly ?
The Puffin displays are replicable, which is how Pegasus crossings work (a
person on a horse obviously can't reach down to the level of a pedestrian
button, the crossing is functionally similar to a Puffin but adds a picture of
a horse & rider, and is replicated higher up the pole)
------
Scoundreller
I’ve found an ice/hot pack around the thermostat, packaged with a bubble
envelope, quite effective at controlling temperatures to my wishes.
------
donatj
What's more frustrating is the lights in my town literally won't give you
walk, ever, unless you push the button. So some do nothing, and some are
required. That makes all required, and that is frustrating.
------
nmstoker
In the UK, the majority I run into seem to be near-placebo, but they do
actually work in particular scenarios, it's just influenced by an algorithm.
The key one is Tube train buttons. For indoor stations, they are effectively
placebo buttons, but once the weather gets very hot or cold and the Tube train
is outdoors, they tend to become active. By the inconsistent way they're
activated, I believe it's the train driver in control but that may be
different on different lines.
The part that interests me is just how many people fail to notice they have no
effect indoors - whilst it's potentially difficult to spot with an isolated
button (eg at a road crossing), it's blatant for the Tube as everyone's door
opens at the same time and everyone emerges at basically the same time just
after (with tiny variations).
What stitches to tourists in London, is that it's the other way on UK railway
trains (near London at least) - they usually do work always, and thus the
inconsistency provides a further barrier to figuring it out!
~~~
im3w1l
I like the way the Swedish subway system works. Door buttons are normally
inactive, but when they are active they are lit up.
~~~
nmstoker
Yes, that's ideal
------
ljm
> These features, such as tactile paving and audible traffic signals, help
> people with visual impairments cross the road and are only activated when
> the button is pressed.
Unless I'm living in a different version of London to the authors, it is
unfortunately not the case that pressing the button invokes an interstitial
foot massage.
~~~
anticensor
You placed your feet wrong.
------
blackbrokkoli
That is one long non-article. Let's try:
It's an aplication of the placebo effect. It gives people the feeling of
having an impact on critical systems which work better automated when they
have not, like on traffic lights. A net-positive effect is widely observed.
~~~
UweSchmidt
Can't agree that the effect is net positive.
It adds another level of confusion and doubt in technology, since occasionally
people will figure out what's going on or read articles like this one.
How about showing a timer on the traffic light when they will turn green, or
temporarily disable traffic lights when there is little traffic (using live
data).
~~~
maxxxxx
"How about showing a timer on the traffic light when they will turn green"
In some areas they have these and it's really nice.
~~~
craftyguy
Yea having been to cities where this is deployed widely (e.g. Taipei), it's a
shame that they aren't in use everywhere.
------
kbart
Why this myth 'elevator close door button does not work' keeps reapearing
every now and then? _It 's not universal_ \- in some places it works, in some
it doesn't. Why the obsesion to find a single 'truth', is so hard to accept
that it's not the same everywhere? Same goes for pedestrian crossing button -
I've missed quite few green/red traffic light iterations on my way to work,
because I forgot to press a button and had to wait for another round.
~~~
coatmatter
It's a creative writing problem. It's fine when creative writing is writing
for writing's sake, but when dubious facts and over-generalisations are mixed
in, myths start to develop. It reminds me just a tiny bit of the "carrots are
good for night vision" myth.
------
paulsutter
In Japan, elevator close buttons not only work they are used everyday all the
time. The doors are set to close with a long delay, so everyone habitually
closes the door manually.
Now that I’m back, I notice that elevators in the US often close immediately
upon pressing a floor button. But also, most elevator close buttons do
actually work.
------
mjevans
Actually I believe they often DO work in service elevators and other 'back of
house' situations.
In a normal elevator I imagine they also do work when in a privileged mode
(such as an EMS key override).
------
njarboe
I would love for the elevator door close to work for me, but I thought they
still existed for operation during a fire. You can see a key where the firemen
can override the system and keep doors open or shut as long as they want. Here
is one site[1] that seems to verify that the close door button is used during
emergency operation.
[1][https://www.wikihow.com/Operate-an-Elevator-in-Fire-
Service-...](https://www.wikihow.com/Operate-an-Elevator-in-Fire-Service-Mode)
------
Havoc
>As for the lights, a growing number of them are now integrated into an
electronic system that detects traffic and adjusts intervals accordingly
(giving priority to buses if they're running late, for example), which means
that pressing the button has no effect.
Surely pedestrian presses button is a valuable input to any such semi-smart
traffic management system?
If the system is smart enough to know about _late_ buses and their routes then
this very binary input should be easy to integrate...
~~~
dredds
Thou if the buttons were used for pedestrian management (stats) then a certain
group of people would still 'hammer' them like on old arcade machines just for
the heck of it. (note the high-stress people that repeatedly smash these
buttons that never work)
------
rosege
A local Sydney paper just did an article on how the pedestrian buttons in the
city dont actually do anything during the day because they are on preset
timers [https://www.smh.com.au/national/nsw/when-pushing-the-
pedestr...](https://www.smh.com.au/national/nsw/when-pushing-the-pedestrian-
button-works-and-when-it-doesn-t-20180820-p4zykp.html)
~~~
coatmatter
> "Pedestrian council chairman Harold Scruby"...
Any time this so-called "Pedestrian Council of Australia chairman" (Harold
Scruby) is covered by an Australian reporter, doubt should be heavily cast on
the validity of the entire article or reporter's credibility.
Look up who Harold Scruby really is. I'll say no more.
------
carc1n0gen
In the city I live in, the crosswalk buttons are not for making the lights
change, but to tell the crosswalk to play an auditory signal the next time it
changes. This is of course for the visually impaired.
------
spicyusername
"World full of buttons"... Describes only three buttons.
------
droithomme
These buttons aren't really non-functional. They work to spread disease.
------
meesterdude
The same is unfortunately quite true of the web.
------
gumby
warning: Safari "reader" mode can't fix that page, so you get little dribbles
of text separated by pictures that don't add to a pretty minimal "story"
(TLDR: various buttons are placebo in the US. Some, like elevator "door close"
buttons, for ADA reasons -- they're really there for emergency personnel
anyway, and some just as placebo, like some crossing signal buttons).
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
What Medieval England Can Teach Us about Software Development - fergie
https://medium.com/@fergiemcdowall/hackathons-on-festivals-and-feastdays-what-medieval-england-can-teach-us-about-software-661c73b328c2
======
gbtw
Not to shit on your nice story :) but much what we know is either wrong or
incomplete about archery.
Lars Anderson made a nice series of videos on this:
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BEG-
ly9tQGk](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BEG-ly9tQGk)
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Masks Went from Don’t-Wear to Must-Have During the Coronavirus Pandemic - rbanffy
https://www.wired.com/story/how-masks-went-from-dont-wear-to-must-have/
======
misanthropian00
>Don’t put masks on, because we’re going to be taking them away from health
care workers,” says Anthony Fauci, director of the National Institute of
Allergy and Infectious Diseases. “That understandably got interpreted as, we
didn’t think masks were of any benefit.”
That is not what he said and that is not what he said. Why can't he understand
that lying and then lying again and then trying to deny and rewrite history
does not build trust.
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
PickyDomains – Risk-Free Naming Service - steeples
http://www.pickydomains.com/
======
colinbartlett
I noticed they are soliciting reviews (read: links) to their site and paying
for them:
[http://www.pickydomains.com/make-money](http://www.pickydomains.com/make-
money)
...including a requirement that the site have a PageRank of 2. Is this
consistent with Google policies or are they going to get dinged down the
results because of this behavior?
~~~
samsolomon
Technically, they aren't asking for links, just reviews—definitely a gray
area.
It would be a lot less suspect if they didn't require the blogger to have a PR
2. To me that just screams "I need backlinks!"
~~~
simonebrunozzi
Kind of dark grey.
------
haskman
I recently named my android app and website through them. It was quite a
straightforward and pleasant experience.
------
ada1981
Similar to [http://BootName.com](http://BootName.com)
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
EBook piracy sites to be blocked by UK net providers - SimplyUseless
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-32899041
======
alexc05
Not that I'm actually planning on using any of them... but if I were in fact
interested in pirating e-books but didn't know where to start, the BBC would
have just given me a list of what I suspect are the 7 _BEST_ ebook sites in
the world.
"Streisand effect" comes to mind somehow.
------
DarkLinkXXXX
I suppose we'll be seeing a bunch of libgen.org proxies soon?
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Show HN: Cellular Automaton Music Generator with HTML5 Audio and JS - zmitri
http://www.zmitri.com/static/automataJS.html
======
zmitri
I was inspired by the other post I saw yesterday and decided to make my own,
but without flash. The goal is so that when my iPad finally arrives I can play
it on there! You can fork on github if you'd like:
<http://github.com/dmitric/automataJS>
Please note, it can take a bit for the audio clips to load the first time.
I've tested on Firefox 4 and Chrome.
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
How to change my apple id for icloud use? - harinath92
I recently updated my iPad2 to iOS, I have one problem not able to use icloud, as it expects my apple id to be like email, but mine is not.
seems my image imports have vanished thank god had backup of most on facebook.<p>is it me alone or others who face the problem? how do i change my apple id for using icloud?
======
michaelpinto
If you came over from MobileMe your name could be [email protected] or you could
also make a new ID (which I did by accident)
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Robocall fines rise to $10k per call under newly passed law - prostoalex
https://www.theverge.com/2019/12/19/21030114/robocalls-bill-congress-president-trump-sign-law-illegal-fcc-ajit-pai
======
dang
Comments moved to
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21838333](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21838333).
------
privateSFacct
Simple - $500 fine payable by your carrier.
They have a right to collect from whomever originated the call AND have the
responsibility to track who originated. If they don't know who originated they
still pay and can't recover the payment.
Interconnection is still guaranteed.
Anyone interconnecting is required to post a $500K bond.
If that bond is exhausted no one is required to interconnect anymore with you,
but can if they want (bearing risk of being unable to recover the fees paid
out from responsibility party).
Call recordings from one party consent states may be used as support for
robocall claims - and your phone may auto record and keep calls for 12 hours
as evidence - to be discarded if not marked as a robocall.
Just an idea
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
In the Age of Google DeepMind, Do the Young Go Prodigies of Asia Have a Future? - muloka
http://www.newyorker.com/tech/elements/in-the-age-of-google-deepmind-do-the-young-go-prodigies-of-asia-have-a-future
======
chenglou
I mean, that's like asking whether marathon runners have a future now that
we've got cars. Exercising one's brain/having pleasure through the game could
be an end in itself, and is independent of how machines perform.
~~~
conanbatt
Take it from someone that walked the path of becoming a professional Go
player, being a professional and an amateur are completely different attitudes
towards the game. Tic Tac Toe is solved, but can be fun to play when you are a
kid. Amateur Go playing can still exist, but the goal of strength is more
instilled in the path to pro-ship.
This really suggests that going the path of being the strongest is no longer
sensical. Why would a human try to be the best calculator in the world,
knowing it will never beat any calculator ever? Just to prove itself to other
human caculator wannabes? Senseless.
This is a real paradigm shift and we still need to understand what to do. But
obliviously ignore AlphaGo is akin should be unfathomable for a professional
aspiring player.
As a professional, the first question to ask is what will AlphaGo bring to Go
Theory. We still dont know how much stronger it is than Lee Sedol (or how far
it is from "God"). Pushing it to its limits will show us insights we havent
found yet and we will update ourselves as players to the most current theory.
The second step is answering the following question: Can human + AlphaGo beat
Alpha Go? A human potentiated with AlphaGo's reading power can intuitively
pick variations that would give it an edge? If so, we have found that Go still
harbors a human secret that is jsut overly compensated by reading.
The last step would be, even if human participation gives negligible results,
can human + Alpha Go create better games than Alpha Go?
~~~
yannyu
Anything that Go has to go through as a result of AlphaGo, Chess has already
gone through with Stockfish and its predecessors (such as Deep Blue, though I
realize it's not exactly the same).
Is there a particular reason why a chess computer would be any more
undefeatable than a Go computer? Even though Kasparov lost, Nakamura destroyed
Rybka 10 years later. Now that we have a competitive Go AI, isn't it likely
the game of Go will shift and be even more competitive since now more players
can get world-class practice and suggestions on their own?
~~~
conanbatt
If I understand AlphaGo correctly, I don't think that any human in the future
will be able to beat the AlphaGo today. AlphaGo didn't beat Lee Sedol because
it played new and marvelous moves we need to understand.
It played better because it knew the exact consequences of the options it was
presented, and could calculate it and make better decisions than human
intuition. No human can develop that reading power, and its not reasonable to
think a human in the future will have intuition that beats the calculation of
AlphaGo.
Since reading, the core ability of Go can now be completely replaced by a
computer, the question is what others decisions can a player make. Can he make
strategic decisions better than AlphaGo? Can intuition still best AlphaGo
calculating capacity?
Eventually, we can think that we will have computational power to actually
solve Go, and if there is any sense at all to play Go after that, its about
finding those beautiful games, from beginning to end, that provoke emotions
and turn Go purely into art.
------
Animats
From the article: "It is estimated that, of South Korea’s three hundred and
twenty pros, only around fifty are able to earn a living on tournament
winnings." This isn't going to result in massive unemployment.
However, cheating with computer assistance is likely to become a problem, as
it is in chess.[1] (The state of the art in computer chess is now roughly at
"laptop with off the shelf program can curb-stomp human world champion.")
[1] [http://en.chessbase.com/post/yet-another-case-of-cheating-
in...](http://en.chessbase.com/post/yet-another-case-of-cheating-in-chess)
~~~
zitterbewegung
What kind of configuration would you need to run the DeepMind setup? Looking
at the wikipedia page if we assume the setup [1] there then it seems like at
this time it would be out of the realm of feasibility at this time of setting
up this software for cheating.
[1]
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/AlphaGo#Hardware](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/AlphaGo#Hardware)
~~~
aikinai
Google's infrastructure gives it an extra boost, but even the single machine
version can beat the distributed version 25% of the time.[1]
[1]
[https://twitter.com/demishassabis/status/708489093676568576](https://twitter.com/demishassabis/status/708489093676568576)
~~~
wheresmypasswd
The nice thing about most of this deep learning stuff is that you can use a
million machine hours to train your model, and almost no time to make an
evaluation. So the single machine version has all of the pattern recognition
given to it by the cluster, but a few ply less tree search depth.
So to me this underscores the relative importance of the deep learning model
vs the tree search.
------
shas3
The game play among human competitors is sure to change just as in chess, as
new players will train on AlphaGo, etc. whose gameplay will differ
significantly from accepted norms in a purely human playing field. For
instance, chess programs can plan and optimize to a much further depth (number
of moves) in terms of strategy. So, newer players like Carlsen, etc. play
differently these days than older ones like Anand, etc. [1]
[1] [http://noenthuda.com/blog/2016/03/11/how-computers-have-
chan...](http://noenthuda.com/blog/2016/03/11/how-computers-have-changed-
chess/)
~~~
reidacdc
This is already happening. Down at the end of a recent Wired article about Fan
Hui, the European champion who lost to AlphaGo recently, it mentions that his
close interactions with the software has changed his view of the game, and his
ranking has also moved, from 633 "into the 300s".
The relevant paragraph is the one with the heading "Machine changes human", at
the end.
[http://www.wired.com/2016/03/sadness-beauty-watching-
googles...](http://www.wired.com/2016/03/sadness-beauty-watching-googles-ai-
play-go/)
------
fiatmoney
The safest best for sectors of the economy that will continue to prosper under
a hard-AI regime are those that involve making humans, especially the rich
(eg, owners of AI-based companies) feel happy via human interactions. Go
instructors are such a niche.
Actually I would expect game-players and game-instructors to do better than
the median profession under such a scenario, because playing games against
other humans for entertainment & pure enjoyment of competition is a very human
pursuit.
~~~
meric
If that's the future, then I'd say AI companies should have to be at least 49%
owned by a trust fund in which every citizen automatically has a share.
~~~
fiatmoney
In the limit near every company becomes an AI company.
------
chj
I wouldn't write those professionals off so easily. People barely knows
AlphaGo until now. Once they start learning about AlphaGo's behaviors, they
may be able to come out with new tactics. No doubt it will be a collective
effort from the Go community, no one can beat the machine alone.
~~~
grondilu
It's true that humans should be allowed a rematch. And all professionals Go
players could be playing in concert.
Hell, Google should organize a "AlphaGo against the world" on internet.
~~~
nindalf
Can't wait for Twitch Plays Go.
------
carbocation
In the age of Deep Blue, do young chess prodigies have a future?
~~~
verroq
In the age of high tech robot replacements, do unskilled factory workers have
a future?
~~~
hemdawgz
This one unfortunately isn't analogous with the others.
------
Pamar
In general I'd suggest reading "The player of Games" by Banks. A Culture novel
that explores why would someone care about being good at "boardgames" in a
universe where even the dumbest appliance could easily outperform any human.
~~~
JabavuAdams
One thing that Banks never addressed in his Culture novels was humans wanting
to become Minds. I mean if I live in a society where there are humanoids and
Minds, then I want to be a Mind, with a stream-of-consciousness that includes
the transition. Wouldn't this be true of many people who are in to science?
~~~
saalweachter
Didn't the Minds manipulate culture to channel their charges in various
directions (ie, against war-like tendencies)? Maybe ascension was one of the
thought-patterns they engineered out.
~~~
Filligree
They did. It isn't explicitly stated, to the best of my knowledge, but the
Minds are smart enough that they could easily have done that—and were shown to
engineer other parts of the society, such as their deathism.
Humanity has very limited purpose in the Culture. On the surface, it looks
nice, but they're effectively pets. Their willingness to ascend was cut off
right along with their willingness to live.
All of which is done by social engineering. If you _want_ to go the
intelligence-enhancement route, they'll help. They just make sure that very
few people do.
~~~
david-given
That's true, but it's also rather deceptive. Humans are the fundamental core
of the Culture; its basic purpose is to look after human-scale people, and
this shapes everything it does --- the Culture's a bit suspicious of ascension
because they feel it's an abandonment of their responsibilities. Humans are,
in effect, the Minds' religion.
And dying is just one of several end-of-life events you can pick, if you want
to (including opting out entirely). Naturally it's the one we tend to focus
on, because it's the only one we currently have, but the Culture's got lots.
~~~
JabavuAdams
Right, this is where things break down. It's fictional universe, after all.
What are the negative effects of having more Minds? Resource depletion?
If your cat suddenly tells you that what it wants more than anything is to
learn General Relativity, then either you're having a psychotic episode, or
you have to question how benevolent and ethical your coddling is for your
fuzzy wuzzy slave animal.
------
apalmer
I would think this has to be a serious inflection point... As far learning how
to think, strategize, competing with friends, etc go will remain. However for
the extremely few say 100 really top level players, this has to in a way be
disheartening... at that level its about competition, and the will, discipline
and ability to advance... it has to be disheartening to know you will never be
the best.
Its kind of like climbing mount Everest 'because it was there'. Its just not
'there' anymore.
~~~
taneq
It'd be like climbing Everest on foot in the shadow of a cable car which runs
to the top. Still a clallenge, but one that feels pointless.
------
partycoder
Go has still much more to offer as it is not even close to be a solved game.
Additionally, there's handicap Go, and additionally handicaps can be applied
to the machine. Go offers the possibility for players of different levels to
enjoy a game.
------
dinkumthinkum
It seems like the authors are trying to use the latest story in the Go world
to write about how all the jobs will be replaced by neural networks or
something. I mean, people still throw javelins even though it is fairly
trivial to build a machine that shoots a projectile farther than a human can
throw.
We still enjoy trivia games even though it is easy to google the answers. I
dunno, I think it is a bit of a stretch to think AlphaGo has ended serious
competitive human Go.
------
geebee
I'm pretty sure humans will not stop playing go at intensely high levels just
because a computer can beat them.
The analogy to chess is an interesting one, though, not quite as
straightforward as it may seem. Chess, when it was first conquered by
computers a couple of decades ago, was a triumph of computer vs human, sure,
but in such a different way from the way humans play it. Chess is amenable to
brute force search in a way that go isn't (though I understand the chess
programs really aren't pure brute force), but human chess players don't (as
far as I know) really don't play chess in a brute force way, they rely in
intuition, experience, and even a bit of gambling and hedging whether their
opponent will "see" or "realize" the strategy in time.
As a result, the chess programs were winning through a "reasoning" process
that was very different from what you experience watching people play the
game. Something very different is going on when humans play, which makes it
interesting - in that sense you can sort of dismiss the machine as playing a
different game, albeit one with the same board, pieces, and rules. Instead,
it's a giant calculation that happens to beat the more intuitive approach once
you can search and score X positions per second through an entirely alternate
approach to the game.
This current breakthrough with go sounds different, in that it _may_ mean that
computers now play go in a way that is much more similar to the way humans
play it (it would be interesting to see if a chess program designed more like
the go program would have a huge edge over the brute force search approach).
Or, if not the same, perhaps a way that is equally if not more interesting.
I'm kind of bummed that I'm out of my depth on this one (I don't know go or
chess well enough to really say), but it's an interesting question.
------
mark_l_watson
Good writing.
I also expect that more people will start playing Go, or like me, get a
renewed interest in the game.
I read that Lee Sidol is planning on retiring from active play in a few years
and move to the USA to evangelize the game in the West.
I played the South Korean national champion and the women's world champion in
handicapped exhibition games in the 1970s. It would be awesome to get to do
the same with Lee Sidol!
------
sandGorgon
This reminds me of the 1947 story "With Folded Hands" \-
[https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/With_Folded_Hands](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/With_Folded_Hands)
\- where a post apocalyptic future is the consequence of full automation and
robotics . people have no purpose left.
------
burritofanatic
Well, absolutely, if they're talking about Golang that is. In all seriousness,
a computer did fairly well on Jeopardy some years back, and we're still
watching the game show as it's still quite relevant.
~~~
eru
And a trained human + computer with internet access (Google search!) could
beat the best humans in Jeopardy for quite a while now.
~~~
chongli
Not really. Jeopardy is all about buzzer timing[0]. With Google search, you're
always going to be slow on the buzzer. That's okay, though. The actual trivia
is pretty easy. It's designed this way to be accessible to the average TV
viewer.
[0] [http://www.pisspoor.com/buzzer.html](http://www.pisspoor.com/buzzer.html)
~~~
furyofantares
Buzz then search. I think players tend to work this way too, buzzing as soon
as they feel like they'll know the answer, but before they actually
consciously have it.
------
mirimir
Maybe if they learn to collaborate with AI. Or eventually, get implants. As
all serious professionals will need to do. That may seem far-fetched, but how
many runners compete with bicyclists?
~~~
makapuf
Well you don't see pro runners get bicycle implants (that would hurt)
~~~
mirimir
True. But people do get surrogate limbs.
------
golergka
TL;DR: several personal stories about people who invested a lot of time in the
game, general information about go in general as well as what's going on right
now, and finally, a semi-answer with a quote:
“A dolphin swims faster than Michael Phelps, but we still want to see how fast
he can go,” Lockhart said. “We’re humans and we care about other humans and
what they can do.”
Too many words, too little information for one article.
------
beatpanda
Here's a related and possibly more interesting question nobody seems to be
asking -- in the age of robotics and artificial intelligence, does
exploitation of workers and environmental catastrophe at the point of
extraction of the materials we use to build computers and robots have a
future?
And if the answer is yes, why isn't anyone trying to use robots for that
purpose?
~~~
eru
People are automating resource gathering all the time. See eg
[http://www.abc.net.au/news/2015-10-18/rio-tinto-opens-
worlds...](http://www.abc.net.au/news/2015-10-18/rio-tinto-opens-worlds-first-
automated-mine/6863814)
------
mapt
All AI does is remove the ability to progress through the ranks accurately via
online play. Unregulated online competition will suddenly become a bumpy road
full of Elo-breaking presences.
I gather this may be a Big Deal, but except insofar as it kills the sport by a
thousand cuts, 'Young Go Prodigies' have nothing to worry about.
~~~
eru
The computer will be able to give you an Elo number just by looking at all the
moves you did in a few games.
Since the computer can tell for every single move whether you played perfectly
or if not, by how much you decreased your chances of winning against perfect
competition, you'll be able to get a hundred signals out of a game into your
elo calculation, instead of just one win/loss condition.
They already do that for catching cheaters in chess. In essence, you treat the
positions that occur in a game not as a logical sequence, but as a series of
multiple-choice questions.
~~~
mapt
Color me skeptical. The value of things like Elo is they provide a ramping
scale with some degree of statistical significance, because they cover play
over many games. I don't think a computer is going to be able to extrapolate
with a high degree of confidence, because human play is variable from game to
game and long-run strategies are non-obvious constructs for the computer.
You're thinking in terms of 'The AI has solved Go mathematically', but that's
not the case; Just because you can run a Monte Carlo best-choice-
picker/guesser algorithm doesn't mean you can meaningfully rank how deliberate
choices compare with each other more than a few plays away.
~~~
eru
Long-run strategies are a human crutch. It's easiest to see when you solved a
game mathematically, that you can just value positions independently.
Go hasn't been solved to that level, but it's apparently been solved to higher
level than humans ever reached.
I am just parroting
[http://www.uschess.org/content/view/12677/763](http://www.uschess.org/content/view/12677/763)
here, so I might as well quote:
"To catch an alleged cheater, Regan takes a set of chess positions played by a
single player—ideally 200 or more but his analysis can work with as few as
20—and treats each position like a question on a multiple-choice exam. The
score on this exam translates to an Elo rating, a score Regan calls an
Intrinsic Performance Rating (IPR)."
This approach also allows to score historic players absolutely, instead of
only relatively and trying to find sets of overlapping lifetimes until we
reach the modern age.
------
bitmapbrother
This article is trying to answer a question no one asked. Of course Go
prodigies will always have a future regardless of how well computers become at
playing Go. When we start handling out championships, officially ranking
computer programs and awarding prize money to them then we can have this
conversation.
------
ilaksh
Why should I really be concerned about Go prodigies? Aren't there a lot more
ordinary people being affected by technological unemployment who have much
fewer resources to fall back on?
~~~
mirimir
Such as lawyers. And truck drivers, of course.
But there's so much more to this than human obsolescence. This is the cusp of
a new stage in evolution.
------
locusm
I would love to see AlphaGo vs itself.
------
partycoder
In the age of computers and pocket calculators, does mental calculation have a
future?
------
itsAllTrue
Forgive me, but the headline, all by itself, left me thinking:
Why are there so many young programmers adopting the Go
programming language, throughout Asia, exclusively?
------
sterl
...Have Chess players had a future...?!
------
jtth
This is stupid.
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
CMU 15-721 (Spring 2016) Database Systems - snaga
http://15721.courses.cs.cmu.edu/spring2016/schedule.html
======
curiousDog
Professors like Andy Pavlo are probably the best thing to happen in the
Database area. Existing DBMS courses are very outdated and most profs teaching
them lack passion. It's always the same boring exercises from the "cow"
textbook. In his words, he's "trill as fuck"
------
stale2002
From the syllabus:
" Trigger Warning: The material presented in this lecture uses explicit
language and discusses certain situations in database management systems that
may be triggering to some students."
~~~
ssijak
So sad that they are forced to put such "warnings" on this kind of courses.
~~~
shubb
I guess people signing up for a database course should expect triggers to
feature at some point
~~~
rdtsc
If they have to be warned about triggers what are they going to do when they
see a multi-page stored procedure :P
------
znpy
Awesome, I was just looking for a course in database systems.
It's a pity that Jennifer Widom's db-class isn't offered anymore in a
classical manner (I don't like self-paced minicourses).
EDIT: Oh, it's a course in database systems internals, not basics... Does
anyone know of a good introductory course in databases ?
~~~
chirau
Stanford had a great Introduction to Databases MOOC on Coursera a few years
back. I don't think it's still available on Coursera but you can still take
the self paced course directly from the Stanford website.
[https://lagunita.stanford.edu/courses/DB/2014/SelfPaced/abou...](https://lagunita.stanford.edu/courses/DB/2014/SelfPaced/about)
------
gamapuna
Thanks for posting OP, can someone comment on how this compares to mit 6.830
(hopefully someone who has taken both the courses :))
[http://db.csail.mit.edu/6.830/sched.html](http://db.csail.mit.edu/6.830/sched.html)
[http://db.csail.mit.edu/6.830/notes.html](http://db.csail.mit.edu/6.830/notes.html)
For folks interested there's another implementation specific db course
[https://web.stanford.edu/class/cs346/2015/](https://web.stanford.edu/class/cs346/2015/)
although the lectures are not on youtube
~~~
anonetal
This (CMU Course) is a graduate research-oriented course, with lots of
research papers as required reading.
6.830 is a standard introductory database course (although somewhat more
advanced than other introductory database courses like Stanford CS245, or
Berkeley CS186).
------
B1FF_PSUVM
Nicely designed pages, especially the Schedule one. 1996-clean, but with make-
up ...
Also got curious about the 'Piazza' top link, looks like an external forum
system:
[https://piazza.com/cmu/spring2016/15721/home](https://piazza.com/cmu/spring2016/15721/home)
(49 students, 273 posts, 3 staff, but nothing much public)
~~~
bllguo
Yep, piazza is widely used nowadays in universities. A board where students
can post questions and receive answers from other students, TAs, and
instructors. Not meant to be public.
------
nxzero
By taking this course and referring others to it you're directly supporting
CMU - and indirectly supporting CMU's activities related to breaking the
Internet for the FBI/US:
[https://www.google.com/search?q=CMU+TOR](https://www.google.com/search?q=CMU+TOR)
~~~
mafuyu
CMU SEI is more or less a separate institution that was founded with
government money. Very little relation to the workings of the school, but it's
still unfortunate that the work was done under the CMU name.
~~~
exelius
The SEI is located like a half-mile from the main part of the campus of the
school (it's basically on the campus of University of Pittsburgh). Some of the
professors in the CS department might work under SEI grants, but yeah, the SEI
is basically an independent research organization that is heavily government-
funded (like almost every research institution). They do a lot of non-evil
things too, especially related to the challenges of building and maintaining
extremely large applications (and the organizations that build and maintain
them).
Fun fact; their building was used as a police station in The Dark Knight
Returns.
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Guide to becoming a modern front end developer - Lilian_Lee
https://roadmap.sh/frontend
======
JimDabell
This is a disaster and more likely to put a newbie off or confuse them than to
help them.
Why is the largest callout dedicated to WebAssembly, noting it as not ready
yet? Why is "Using DevTools" near the bottom, branched off PWAs instead of
near the top? Why are server-side things like Apollo on there, above things
like static site generators? Why are mobile and desktop applications on there?
There's a stack of "Redux, MobX, RxJS, NgRx, VueX" boxes along one side with a
tick next to each one. Who is that supposed to be helping?
How is a newbie trying to get into front-end development meant to make sense
of this without being completely overwhelmed? I know developers with years of
experience that would be scared by this; it's one gigantic imposter syndrome
trigger.
In order for a resource like this to be effective, it needs to prioritise and
contextualise. This reads more like a "look at all the things I know about"
boast. Less is more. A resource that aims to actually help newbies should be
at most a quarter of the size and actually provide context and priorities.
~~~
benburleson
I took a quick look at the scale of the chart and assumed it was satire.
The state of front end development is a major shit-show.
~~~
Polylactic_acid
The presence of many tools does not make something a shit-show. I have been
doing frontend development using a modern toolset for years now and I have not
even heard of half the tools listed on this chart and I only actively use
about a quarter. And most of the stuff listed isn't some major investment to
learn, you just find it when you need it and spend a day reading the docs.
There are plenty of problems with frontend dev but this chart doesn't
highlight anything more than searching github for a list of C++ libraries
does.
------
mattlondon
This seems to be very specific to certain libraries and frameworks (mainly
react and it's ecosystem it seems).
This I feel is a mistake.
Not so long ago AngularJS was _the_ framework, and now it is basically
legacy-/maintenance-only (...and before that jQuery-based things). React will
suffer the same fate one day too ... the same way that it happens to all
things in tech eventually. Plus react is not the only game in town either, and
you may never even touch it in your work so you might be wasting time learning
all the react ecosystem things on that list.
I think it would be better for new developers to focus more on the core
fundamental techs (while cognizant that these techs may change in the future!)
and transferable skills first rather than bothering to even think about react
and it's ecosystem:
\- know inside-out what happens front-to-back when you put in
[https://example.com](https://example.com) in your browser and the page
appears (so DNS, TCP/IP, TLS, HTTP, HTML, DOM etc)
\- learn HTML + CSS (semantics, layout approaches, accessibility etc)
\- learn how to run your own server (Apache, nginx, iis or whatever - doesn't
matter) so you know _how_ things get hosted and served. Do some basic server
side "hello world" thing using PHP/C#/Ruby/Java/whatever + a DB to learn how
server-side rendering happens, then try just returning JSON instead of
rendered-HTML.
\- learn JavaScript _and then get really really comfortable doing lots of
JavaScript_. Also learn how JavaScript + HTML DOM work together.
\- Optionally now learn typescript and if you're not from a technical
background also learn about testing, build tools and source control (these are
a given for experienced Devs from other disciplines)
\- learn the OWASP top 10 security problems, and strategies/techniques to
mitigate them.
\- Don't forget basic UX fundamentals in case you find yourself being the
designer as well as the developer (happens a lot for better or worse)
... now you are ready to go and use whatever the current flavour of the month
library is both for today and for tomorrow.
Good luck to any aspiring Devs! Frontend work is really fun and satisfying
work IMO. Stick at it! :)
~~~
thrwaway69
Add functional programming to the list.
------
erikschoster
It’s nice to a number of articles making it to the front page that prioritize
fundamentals, but it made me sad to see accessibility listed here as a second
class topic. It goes well beyond HTML annotations. Opening the door wide
shouldn’t be an afterthought.
~~~
johnnylambada
Please. Most books and articles don't mention accessibility at all.
Accessibility is important but is it really as important as understanding http
or other main line topics?
~~~
ddnb
It really should be, people with disabilities can really have trouble
navigating websites, the least we can do is make it a relative smooth
experience.
~~~
johnnylambada
I don't doubt that. I even said as much. But one has to understand how to
build a web site before they can understand how to build a website for a
specific class of individual.
~~~
mattlondon
Ideally you should design in and implement accessibility from the start.
Doing the site first then accessibility second usually either means
accessibility simply doesn't get done at all (since people forget and/or
priorities change before it is done), or it is retrofitted in a really half-
assed way.
This is really important stuff (both legally these days in many countries, but
also ethically) so giving it second-billing is probably a mistake.
------
daenz
I've been teaching my partner to code lately (Python). She's picking it up
fairly quickly, but what I am learning is just how damn complicated and
unapproachable we've made everything. There's layers upon layers of
outdated/wrong documentation online. Frameworks/best practices/patterns
falling in and out of favor. Giving a new person the abbreviated version of
why some things are the way they are is a really difficult task. It's
demoralizing to me because I know how demoralizing it would be to her if she
knew the breadth of things she needs to learn to even have a hint of
competence.
I've got no answers, but this roadmap brought out all of those feelings.
~~~
jamil7
I’m going through the exact same thing with my girlfriend. She has a fair bit
of scientific programming experience from uni but wanted to build a small
hobby app. I set her up with react native and expo thinking that would be the
easiest and quickly found myself struggling to explain in a simple way why it
worked the way it did without delving into what came before and what it’s
built on top of. I’m struggling to know if this is the right way to introduce
newcomers to building apps or if going back to fundamentals and building the
app natively is better.
------
gorpomon
These flowchart guides to being an X developer are posted on here
periodically, and they're often pilloried for being bloated and intimidating.
I think they're plenty fine, they just require the right framing.
The keyword for this one is "modern", and the keyword for almost all of these
comprehensive lists should be "senior". As a senior front end engineer I have
exposure to almost every item on this list and can speak to either a time I've
used them, or why I opt not to use them (Tailwind CSS, Gatsby.JS, Rollup, and
some others). As a newer developer, you are not expected to have exposure to
most items in the list. Rather we just want you to be on your way to being
highly proficient in the important ones.
Also, picking one item from a group (items connected to a block by dotted
lines are in the same group) and learning it well is sufficient. In learning
one of those well you'll get scant exposure to the others (via reading
articles and such), and from that you can make a switch at some point, or
better know why you won't be switching.
These charts can be valuable for understanding the scope of a profession, but
they shouldn't be intimidating.
------
ahnick
I remember when being a frontend developer meant having gone through most of
the material on the HTMLGoodies site. Life was so much simpler in the 90s. :)
------
bound008
The backend one is GOLD. Literal GOLD.
[https://roadmap.sh/backend](https://roadmap.sh/backend)
~~~
Polylactic_acid
Following this chart it looks like I need to set up rabbitMQ and use graphQL
before I learn how to set up nginx.
~~~
DeathArrow
You also seem to have to master neo4j before learning about web sockets. :D
------
kingludite
As much as I hate most things onthere I have to applaud the overview.
Now for the jokes since I cant help myself:
1 - I feel the map needs pictures of sea monsters and mermaids.
2 - Imagine how much more useful this would be printed on paper.
3 - View the source of the page and "woah!" with me, all that to display an
<img>?
4 - Which one of all these tools makes such wonderful flowcharts?
5 - Why cant html make such beautiful pages?
6 - I tried clicking on one of the many boxes expecting a tutorial. Having to
look up the entries on a different page is really not-done in IT.
7 - I tried copying the text but it is an image. (see 4th & 5th item on the
right)
8 - "Find the detailed version of this roadmap on..." wait.. I'm already on
roadmap.sh? You could put a div with a white background-color over the image
to cover up this [extra] bit of confusion (Even I don't know if I'm joking
anymore)
9 - At the end above "keep learning" it should say: "static html"
10 - Where do I buy the T shirt?
Conclusion: Well done! Ill be visiting this page many times! Thanks for making
it!
~~~
viklove
> 2 - Imagine how much more useful this would be printed on paper.
Do you want me to fax this webpage to you?
------
DeathArrow
So if you, God forbid, use MVC to generate views on the server side or use
plain JS and jQuery that means you are using antiquated, obsolete, outdated
methods of web development?
What if you are bypassing JS and target web assembly using Blazor? Is Blazor
obsolete before even being officially released?
I strongly believe in "right tool for the job" and while Angular & React & NPM
& Node can be the right tool for a particular job, I don't think they are the
answers to all web development needs, modern or antiquated.
The same with React Native. I don't think that every mobile app should be
written in React Native just because it exists, it's JS and it's "modern".
Somehow I won't be surprised if someone will release a "modern" JS framework
targeting systems programming. And people trying to write game engines,
operating systems and process images with it because it's modern.
------
nojvek
We’ve seen this before.
The guide to modern front-end isn’t hard. Learn html, with css for styling and
raw vanilla JS for a bit of interactivity.
Learn git so you don’t lose your work. May be deploy with GitHub pages.
That’s it, everything else will come later when you experience the pain for
it.
------
thrwaway69
Road map to frontend development:
1\. Learn about internet (domains, http, browsers, servers etc)
2\. Build something with html and css. Learn about accessibility (so many
people don't properly add all the properties on their html tags)
3\. Learn javascript to add interactivity.
4\. Get a book for functional programming. Most modern ui frameworks use a lot
of functional concepts. Learn a functional language too. (Elixir is pretty)
5\. Deployment, stuff that was supposed to be backend engineers job but now
you can do it. Functions, cloud stores, cdns, etc.
5\. Look for jobs on the job boards and see which framework is trending right
now.
6\. Build a HN clone in it.
Thank you for coming to my hn talk.
~~~
DeathArrow
You can't build a HN clone using the JS frontend framework of the day because
HN isn't an SPA.
To build a HN clone you can use a MVC framework like Laravel, ASP.Net or
Django.
~~~
thrwaway69
Uh no. You definitely can.
MVC isn't unique to those frameworks or languages. It's just an architecture.
You can find many MVC frameworks in js.
Secondly, you don't need MVC architecture to build HN. You can use a different
pattern and still have a server side rendered app that reloads on each page
click.
Also, afaik HN uses firebase to expose an api. You can directly store data to
firebase from client side. So you still don't need those full stack frameworks
to build HN.
------
tzmudzin
I see a commendable effort, but am very concerned about the treatment of
security/privacy topics.
If we educate our front-end developers like that, web security will remain an
unwanted bolt-on providing minimum protection and no regard for privacy.
It is a shame these topics are not addressed in more detail, as they will
likely remain more useful than the tool of the day.
May I suggest treating that as an opportunity?
------
yumario
See a lot of criticism here. For a math new grad who wants to break in
software development, what similar guide would HN recommend? I'm specially
interested in backed.
I prefer the guide to be extensive like this one because it give me a sense of
what I know and don't know.
~~~
DeathArrow
Take a look at Stefan Mischook videos. They are rather general, targeted to
beginners and can teach you what to learn and in what order.
[https://www.youtube.com/user/killerphp/search?query=web+deve...](https://www.youtube.com/user/killerphp/search?query=web+development)
In short, in any kind of programming, you have to learn the basics first. For
web frontend, these I think will be: HTML, latest CSS spec, Javascript ES6.
After that you can pick up a small library like jQuery. After that, you will
know by yourself if you need to learn a particular JS framework.
For backend: A bit of HTML/CSS/JS, a language usable on server side (C#, PHP,
Python, maybe Java, maybe JS), SQL and one RDBMS (Postgres, MySQL, SQL Server
etc.). After that you can learn about REST, CORS and more advanced stuff. If
you reach this point, you will know by yourself what you need to learn next.
------
adamleithp
I know Angular has it's place in this world, but I just don't like it, and
will never like it. React, Vue, or Svelte for me (Coming from a front end to
full stack)
------
sunsetSamurai
It would be great if it had a list of resources attached to every concept,
sometimes it's hard to know where to study from.
------
justlexi93
Learn HTML and CSS. And become good at it. Build things. Playing around with
(small) UI elements is one thing. Read, read, read. There's more to front-end
development than building a website. Know your tools. Version control will
save your life.... Be the middleman. Do not rush.
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
SF Mono Fonts with Line Gap Baked In - kentliau
https://github.com/kentliau/SF-Mono-LG
======
kentliau
This version exists purely for Xcode, which lack of option for controlling the
line height in editor.
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Sex drive-in opens for business in Switzerland - jacobr
http://worldnews.nbcnews.com/_news/2013/08/26/20192594-sex-drive-in-opens-for-business-in-switzerland
======
jacobr
I wonder what it is in West/Central European cultures that make them
relatively tolerant of prostitution, even publicly. Just mentioning something
like this in Sweden would be unthinkable.
~~~
CHsurfer
US expat living in Switzerland here.
Zurich used to have a really bad crime problem associated wiith drug addicts.
Google 'needle park'. They started to provide the drugs for free in clinics,
tied with option conselling, etc. The difference is really remarkable. Now,
Zurich feels much safer than most other cities it's size.
This seems to be a similar approach, based on the good results of their drug
policy.
------
WayneDB
"Hey, can we stop at that Starbucks?" ... "I really don't think we have time
for a hand-job right now!"
\- Idiocracy
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
WaveNet implementation in Keras - basve
https://github.com/basveeling/wavenet/
======
svantana
The most interesting thing here is the note at the bottom regarding
computational cost: "A recent macbook pro reaches about 5 samples per second."
This shows how far this model is from realtime usage. However I'm sure
Deepmind researchers are already looking into how to make this blockbased or
some other optimization strategy.
~~~
basve
And I should add that this was measured using a downsized model (just two
blocks of dilated convolutions and a sampling rate of 4khz). Deepmind's paper
does not report how many stacks are used to generate the samples, but I assume
it's quite a bit more.
~~~
unlikelymordant
They (deepmind) reported it took 90 minutes of processing to generate 1s of
speech via tweet. Hopefully this comes down in the future.
~~~
espadrine
Do you have a link?
This implementation says: “A Tesla K80 needs around ~4 minutes for generating
a second of audio at a sampling rate of 4000hz”, which is significantly
faster.
~~~
basve
90 minutes for 1s of audio was reported by someone from Google on twitter, but
the tweet has been deleted. I've clarified in the readme that my measurements
are for a much lighter/smaller model than Deepmind's :).
------
robeastham
I was very impressed with the TTS examples in the original DeepMind article
([https://deepmind.com/blog/wavenet-generative-model-raw-
audio...](https://deepmind.com/blog/wavenet-generative-model-raw-audio/)).
Can someone elaborate on the usefulness of this implementation for Text-to-
Speech?
I'm keen to experiment with voice synthesis. I want to create dialog, from
multiple voice sources, for some characters in a VR application that I'm
working on.
Perhaps this lib is a better option for TTS:
[https://github.com/ibab/tensorflow-
wavenet](https://github.com/ibab/tensorflow-wavenet)
I guess I could do with an ELI5 on how I'd approach this with either of these
libraries. I'm not familiar with any deep learning frameworks. But I am pretty
handy with Python and have implemented SciKit stuff.
Also thinking this will give me a reason to try Azure K80 instance vs the AWS
GPU instances I've been using for other stuff. That said, is a Tesla K80 the
only option for WaveNet? I'm guessing I could run it on other GPU's but had
read that memory might be an issue on some cards. If so what the lowest card I
can run it on and will one of the AWS GPU instances suffice? I also have a GTX
970 at home, but I'm guessing that won't cut it.
~~~
hiddencost
Short answer: Don't use this for practical purposes. It takes 90 minutes to
generate 1 second of audio.
Here's a good TTS system:
[http://www.cstr.ed.ac.uk/projects/festival/](http://www.cstr.ed.ac.uk/projects/festival/)
~~~
robeastham
But does anyone know if it's possible to do TTS with the recently released
libraries?
Thanks for the links, but to my ear the samples on those links don't hit the
mark. The Wavenet samples in the original article cross the threshold for me.
So I'd like to try some short length dialog tests, especially as I've read
elsewhere that 1 second only takes 4 minutes on a K80.
Any light anyone else can shed on this would be great.
~~~
basve
Afaik none of the released libraries support the TTS experiment described in
the paper. Deepmind used pre-computed linguistic features to guide the system
in generating natural sounding speech, so your output will probably depend on
the quality of those features. For the sake of not spreading misinformation;
the 4 minutes was measured using a small model with a sampling rate of 4khz,
this would not generate something sounding like the samples from Deepmind.
~~~
robeastham
Thanks for the clarification and for spotting the 4khz error. This is
fascinating stuff.
Looks like I'll have to concede that voice acting is much more practical, for
now at least.
------
alphaBetaGamma
Slightly off-topic question about WaveNet:
In the paper, they say that they double the dilation factor up to a limit and
then repeat: 1, 2, 4, ..., 512, 1, 2, 4, ..., 512, 1, 2, 4, ..., 512
The doubling of the dilation factor makes sense to me, but what is happening
with the "repeat" part? I don't understand what they are trying go do.
Wouldn't make more sense to continue doubling?
~~~
basve
My intuition is that the doubling up to 512 does increase the receptive field,
but you're essentially building a non-linear convolutional filter with a
kernel size of 1024. The network benefits from stacking multiple of these
groups, because each group can again convolve over the previous outputs at
every temporal distance, which allows for learning deeper/higher level
features. It is similar to the stacked 2d convolutions used for images, where
every subsequent convolutional layers learns more abstract and higher level
features/attributes of the data. This is just intuition though, there is no
evidence yet that this holds for wavenet's architecture.
------
toth
Tangentially related, but was not aware of the python package sacred that they
used. Seems pretty useful for organizing data science runs.
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Newegg just switched everyone's reviews to use their name on record - Glyptodon
Newegg seems to suddenly have made everyone's reviews show their name without any sort of opt in or notification.
======
Glyptodon
Just to clarify, I filled out a review a couple days ago and put in a 'name'
to use for the review like always. Today I logged in to track shipping on
something unrelated and discovered it used first name, last initial instead.
There's a new control panel option for 'anonymous' reviews, but there was no
notification of this change. To be honest, it's not the end of the world, but
it was a shock and just felt wrong.
If you look at the pages for a product with lots of reviews like this gpu
[http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16814131...](http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16814131338),
you can see that even on the 36th page you still see firstname last initial.
And apologies if this happened a while ago/isn't new and I just didn't notice.
Update: The option to go anonymous also doesn't seem to be working.
------
RexRollman
No warning seems odd.
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Go reliability and durability at Dropbox - astdb
https://about.sourcegraph.com/go/go-reliability-and-durability-at-dropbox-tammy-butow
======
tlb
What does "Reliability of 99.9999999999% (twelve 9s)" even mean? Obviously you
have to exclude large classes of user-visible failures (network outage,
account over quota) to achieve that. I don't think they're claiming less than
0.00000000001% chance of a zombie apocalypse/Mad Max/ex Machina/asteroid
impact end-of-times situation. So just what failures are counted?
For comparison, public telephony systems aimed for five 9s. That was usually
expressed as "20 minutes downtime over 40 years, combined hardware and
software budget, for outages affecting more than 32 users." One software crash
requiring human intervention would count for more than 20 minutes, so you were
allowed <1 of these in 40 years system lifetime.
~~~
coldtea
> _For comparison, public telephony systems aimed for five 9s. That was
> usually expressed as "20 minutes downtime over 40 years, combined hardware
> and software budget, for outages affecting more than 32 users." One software
> crash requiring human intervention would count for more than 20 minutes, so
> you were allowed <1 of these in 40 years system lifetime._
And all of that is total bogus (the "aim", not your information), as no public
telephony system (and surely not in my country) ever had anything close to
that.
A few hours of downtime a few times a year is much more like it, although it
has been getting better over time.
~~~
kuschku
Not really. The German phone and power networks get quite close to this
reliability. I've had less than 30 minutes combined downtime in my life.
~~~
apk17
How would you know? Or at least, how would I know? If, back in the POTS day,
the exchange went down half the night, I wouldn't have noticed.
Nowadays, you can look into your router logs. And Telekom had serious issues
with their VoIP stuff.
Likewise, even the apparently planned outages at my previous location exceeded
the 30 minutes. (It's still good, but not _that_ good.)
~~~
kuschku
> Likewise, even the apparently planned outages at my previous location
> exceeded the 30 minutes. (It's still good, but not that good.)
Yeah, they're starting to do maintenance here now, too (for introducing the
500/200mbps VDSL2), but I've never been with Telekom, and my existing ISPs
never had real issues.
------
kylequest
Here's the actual video:
[https://youtu.be/5doOcaMXx08](https://youtu.be/5doOcaMXx08)
------
didibus
> It’s easy to be productive in Go.
Hum, I'm not sure what this means. Is it saying go is a productice language,
or just that you'll master go quickly and reach peek go productivity quickly?
~~~
barsonme
Both, really. Go's so small you can be quite proficient with in months. While
it's not as productive as, say, Python (wrt how quickly you can get your code
up and running) it's much quicker than other languages (and nicer to use in
the long run).
~~~
smegel
> months
? Go is tiny. The tutorial takes an afternoon. A C programmer will be
profecient within days.
~~~
IshKebab
They may learn the language in days but not the standard library. That's
always what takes the most time.
~~~
wvh
I agree. And may I add the ecosystem: which third party modules you should or
shouldn't be looking at, and if you should rely on them or roll your own.
~~~
stouset
Then months for best practices, idioms, and understanding the pitfalls around
concurrency and channels, which are nowhere near as "batteries-included" as
people would lead you to believe.
This "hype" around go letting you be productive sooner is honestly just
bullshit. I've been programming for 20 years, with C, C++, Ruby, Perl, Scheme,
Haskell, Rust, Go, Java, and others I've surely forgot. Sure, I was able to
start writing go within a day. But it was _terrible_ go, and months later I
was still dealing with the consequences of early bad decisions.
This isn't unique to go by any means. But if you go in thinking you're going
to write a project that does some sort of non-trivial task and be able to rely
on that later, you're going to have a bad time.
~~~
greenhouse_gas
But that's true with all those languages too. If you're an experienced Java
programmer moving to Rust, you'll write Java in Rust.
So it's 1 day of learning Go + 1 month of learning style vs 2 weeks of
learning Rust + 1 month of learning style. [1]
[1] Note, I think that Rust has the best community when it comes to getting
beginners up to par, whether in #rust-beginners or on /r/rust. It just is a
hard and not forgiving language.
~~~
stouset
> But that's true with all those languages too.
That is exactly my point, and I said as much in my post.
> So it's 1 day of learning Go + 1 month of learning style vs 2 weeks of
> learning Rust + 1 month of learning style.
More like 1 day vs. 1 week, with six months of ramp-up before you're writing
anything approximating production-quality code. At which point, does it really
matter that you were able to write garbage in one day rather than seven?
~~~
logicallee
Hi. Could you (or anyone else here!) kindly answer this question:
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14934690](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14934690)
One way to get your correct answer is for me to propose a wrong or partial
answer. How is this as a message to the past (i.e. I am guessing your answer
to the above request):
WRONG/FAKE ANSWER:
"Note to past self: although you can write code that compiles on day 1 and day
2, before considering your code idiomatic and ready to build on top of (or
even deploy to production), DO/LEARN THE FOLLOWING:
1) read and work through all of The Go Programming Language book. This teaches
all idioms.
2) Practice and use Go's testing tools (built-in). Always use its reformat
tool applied on every save from your IDE.
3) Begin using a better error and logging library than the built-in error
passing idiom. Google this.
4) Use a debugger. Google this.
5) Security and versioning with go get is broken: Google this and learn
vendoring with versions. Otherwise your code cannot go on production.
6) You control garbage collection frequency. Learn to set this. In emergencies
disable it entirely to trade memory for latency to gain one or two
milliseconds (approach hard realtime), for example when you are dropping
requests. Then reenable when you can take the (very small) hit. Garbage
collection is very efficient and low-latency.
7) Channels and concurrency (goroutines) do not work as described.
Specifically:
\- This link will solve your problems with channels:
[https://stackoverflow.com/questions/41200505/whats-the-
best-...](https://stackoverflow.com/questions/41200505/whats-the-best-
practice-to-synchronise-channels-and-wait-groups)
Adopt it. Then they work as described.
For goroutines:
Follow this document -
[https://gist.github.com/pzurek/6642797](https://gist.github.com/pzurek/6642797)
After incorporating the above specific changes, you are ready to commit to
production and build on top of what you want to build.
"
is the above message completely wrong and bullshit? Then please correct it.
Your insight and experience are appreciated and I would love to read what you
would write as a message to yourself in the past, to save those lost months.
Thank you.
~~~
stouset
Those months weren't "lost". There's no shortcut to learning idioms, best
practices, and — more importantly — understanding the most natural way to
model a solution in whatever language you're working with.
Sure, read books and blog posts. Test things. Learn debugging tools. But
nothing really substitutes for actually working with a language. Having an
experienced mentor helps, but only if they're advising you on _why_ they chose
a certain approach, or why a critiqued approach you chose was bad.
~~~
logicallee
Essentially I am asking you to be that mentor (to your past self) and share
the email you could write, specific to YOUR particular coding that you were
doing. Think a mentor should include "why"? Then include why.
Remember: I didn't ask for a shortcut, I asked for specific sentences that you
could have sent back in time to prevent this:
>months later I was still dealing with the consequences of early bad
decisions.
Your sentences can be literally anything, specific to your specific situation,
that could have prevented those bad decisions.
So, let's be clear. Your message to the past you reads:
"Hi - I am you from the future. I was asked to send back a message in time
listing specific things you can do right now, having just learned Go, based on
my having to deal with your code, that can prevent your bad decisions which
you will be dealing with months later. It is impossible to put this into
English words. So, I have no advice for you of any kind. Fuck you, past-me.
And also fuck me - I'll just have to deal with your lack of understanding. I
hope you have found this mentoring by me to be as helpful as I have. I don't
believe in mentoring."
So, that's the new version of your message, based on your review of your own
code and memory of your decisions and learning process at the time.
Well, okay. I guess I accept your viewpoint. (Note: if there's some other
reason you don't want to answer publicly, such as not talking about your
codebase, you can email me at the email in my profile.)
I am looking for specific architectural advice, using your experience as a
case study.
------
0xCMP
Oh, I thought Dropbox was using Rust instead of Go for a lot of things, but
maybe they ended up using both. I can see why they'd have wanted to be just
moving to either Rust or Go since from what I understand they used to be
mostly Python for everything.
Cool that they use Go a lot.
~~~
0xFFC
Go and Rust are not competing for same space. They are different language for
different purposes.
~~~
coldtea
Rust is multi-purpose, and with improved tooling and a little more maturity
(Rust 2.0) I can see it getting all the (network/server) systems and command
line stuff Go does.
(But not vice versa: Go wont be able to handle the no-GC close-to-the-metal
use cases).
~~~
painted
Rust is great, but to be honest, Rust's learning curve is way steeper than
GO's. And this may slow down the Rust's domination.
------
mostafah
I have an off-topic question: This is the second company (after GitLab) I see
with an “about” subdomain. Is this a new trend of using “about.x.com” for the
marketing website and “x.com” for the web app? Is there a blog post or
discussion about this?
~~~
sytse
At GitLab we first used www dot the marketing site and the apex for the app
but many people assumed they would have the same content. That is why we
introduced about. Cool to see we might have started a trend.
~~~
tokenizerrr
Wow, never noticed that. When did you change? It would have confused me so
much.
------
justinclift
Anyone know where in the talk it has the mention of "Debugging tools (mostly!)
work well"?
I'm skipping back and forwards through it, but the talk isn't in the same
order as this article which is making it very difficult without watching the
whole talk from start -> end.
Asking because debugging is a pain point I've been having with Go for a few
months, so am surprised to see it described as mostly working well. I'd like
to get my debugging experiences to at least that level of "(mostly) working
well". :D
~~~
ctrlrsf
What are you having trouble debug? Or what do you think isn't working well for
you?
~~~
justinclift
The two main problems are:
a) Pretty much any platform other Linux doesn't seem to work (for debugging).
;)
b) Breakpoints occasionally not firing even when running Linux (Fedora 25 in
this case)
This is with CGO enabled code, which isn't optional as it's from the libraries
we use (no choice).
Using Delve for debugging (though Gogland atm), as we're not yet in
production.
Fairly worried about how things will er... go ;) in prod though when we get to
rolling things out.
With Delve, it's apparently the state of the art with Go debugging. If
something else actually works reliably though, I'm happy to try it. :)
------
apta
> The biggest pain with Go that Tammy identified was in dealing with race
> conditions.
> Data races are the hardest type of bug to debug, spot, fix, etc.
Exactly what Rust aims at preventing. Sad to see that the industry is not
learning.
~~~
jacquesm
> Sad to see that the industry is not learning.
Sad that Rust advocates are not learning. This sort of comment is what drives
people away from Rust. Stop ramming your stuff down other people's throats. Go
build that exclusively Rust based Dropbox clone that outperforms Dropbox and
show how well Rust performs in that situation.
Rust has trade-offs just like Go has trade-offs. Being honest about the
deficiencies of ones chosen platform is a good thing, it helps to keep you
sharp and to avoid problems associated with those deficiencies.
Besides having an over-zealous community that posts off-topic comments all
over threads that have nothing to do with Rust, Rust has deficiencies too.
Note also that Dropbox is already using Rust in some places.
~~~
innocentoldguy
Is it off-topic though? Go has warts and is plagued by poor design decisions,
just like most software. I think it is worth mentioning those, and offering
recommendations that don't have those issues, so people can make the best
technical decisions when choosing a stack for their projects. It also may help
Go maintainers in fixing legitimate complaints in Go, thus making it better.
I've never used Rust, but I have used Go, and found certain things about it
unappealing, so I'm interested in this information, and I'm also interested in
Go improving.
------
didibus
Does rust gurantee data race free code?
~~~
general_pizza
This explains pretty well: [https://doc.rust-
lang.org/beta/nomicon/races.html](https://doc.rust-
lang.org/beta/nomicon/races.html)
------
zzzcpan
Yeah, Go has the worst possible model for concurrency there is - shared memory
multithreading. Hopefully more and more companies will realize how bad this
model really is and start looking into languages with decent concurrency
models, like Erlang and Elixir or at least stick to event loops.
~~~
twic
The worst _possible_ model? Oh my dear fellow, not even close:
[http://catb.org/esr/intercal/ick.htm#Multithreading-using-
CO...](http://catb.org/esr/intercal/ick.htm#Multithreading-using-COME-FROM)
~~~
rrdharan
My favorite is still the multithreaded apartment model...
[https://blogs.msdn.microsoft.com/larryosterman/2004/04/28/wh...](https://blogs.msdn.microsoft.com/larryosterman/2004/04/28/what-
are-these-threading-models-and-why-do-i-care/)
------
dan-compton
What a terrible article.
~~~
TRManderson
>This post was best-effort live-blogged at the conference
Cut them some slack.
~~~
breakingcups
To promote their own service. While the actual talk will probably be actually
posted online in multiple forms.
------
nolanpro
> She talked at GopherCon 2017 about
Ya'll too young to remember OG Gopher
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gopher_(protocol)](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gopher_\(protocol\))
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
I Rewired My Brain to Become Fluent in Math (2014) - paublyrne
http://nautil.us/issue/17/big-bangs/how-i-rewired-my-brain-to-become-fluent-in-math
======
nicolas_t
This is related to the Curse of the Gifted. When I was a kid, I could grasp
concepts easily and I understood maths very quickly so I didn't really bother
doing things like homework or actually studying.
I then went to a decent university (a French Grande Ecole) and for the first
year, I was still doing okish but I went from being a student who always had
good results to doing average. Then, the second year came, and just
understanding the concepts without cultivating fluency by practicing wasn't
enough anymore and I failed hard. I hadn't learned how to learn and while I
understood the concepts and could easily follow when the teacher solved a
problem together with us, I had difficulties doing it on my own. I worked
doing exercises and was able to pass but time and time again in my
professional life, I've had the same issue where I tend to rely too much on my
intuitive understanding until it fails.
I'm not sure how to help kids not to go down this path. As a kid, I would
avoid any rote memorization and would probably not do any non graded exercise
since I knew that I understood (and also since as a geek wanting to fit in, I
tried to be more accepted by my peers by purposefully not doing my homework).
In the end, I think the key is play and giving maybe challenging exercises
that forces the kid to use his newly found understanding would be a way to get
them used to not just rely on their intuition understanding.
~~~
drakonka
This is exactly what happened to me as a kid, but in my case it wasn't curse
of the "gifted" but curse of the pushed. In my younger years growing up in
Ukraine my parents and granparents pushed us hard to learn math, and so did my
school. Endless repetition, hours of homework, Saturday classes, etc. I didn't
have any sort of gift for math, this is just how children were taught there.
Moving to the US and going into 5th grade, the first several years were just
repetition of things I'd already learned in Ukraine. They were so easy. My
grandmother wasn't there anymore and to my parents it looked like I was doing
_great_ so they also loosened up and didn't really push me further.
When we finally got to substantially new material I started to struggle. I got
too used to everything being so easy and built on concepts I'd already had
drilled into me. I failed a math test once - even my teacher was surprised. I
ended up falling from perfect score As to Cs, then scraping back up to Bs by
the end of high school.
Now I regret not taking math as seriously as I should have after leaving
Ukraine, and am now taking time at home to learn on my own. Thankfully I'm
used to self-learning in other areas, so I think it's going pretty OK.
~~~
arvinsim
I have the same experience. For context, I live in a third world country.
I was lucky in the sense that I was enrolled in a prestigious school from
kindergarten to grade 4. The school has a great curriculum that doesn't dumb
down math and science while also emphasizing the arts. Arts and Sciences were
equally interesting to me. I made no distinction with my enjoyment of solving
arithmetic with creating poems or painting.
Unfortunately, my family went into hard times and I had to transfer to our
public school. In contrast to my previous school, teachers can't personally
help each student because there were 50+ students per class. I also found out
that the lessons they taught are already covered in my earlier years. I
coasted through Grades 5 and 6 using my stock knowledge.
When I got to high school, I was used to leaning back on what I learned. This
is where I first tasted difficulty in learning the advanced math subjects.
Sure, I got good grades in algebra but when it came to calculus, I was
stumped. I could not care less about it because "math should be about
calculation, not this symbolic mumbo jumbo". My boredom and inability to deal
with the challenges resulted in my delinquency. I often cut classes and
plagiarism homework. I still can't remember how I manage to graduate from high
school.
Now I deeply regret that I didn't apply myself back then.I am now a software
developer and a lot of interesting stuff are closed to me because I can't
understand the math behind them. I resolved to return studying high school
algebra last year. Armed with experience and a new perspective, I realized how
much I have missed and how useful math is.
~~~
drakonka
I'm in the same position as you now, I think - a coder who wants to explore
interesting subjects that rely on math knowledge I don't have. How are your
studies going now? I have recently (a couple of weeks ago) started going
through a textbook on discrete mathematics, spending 1-2 hours a day. So far
it feels like I'm going through concepts that I intuitively already know (the
first chapter is on logical thinking), but it has been very interesting to
learn how to put names and definitions to those concepts, and to prove them.
After this I hope to study algorithms and statistics.
------
meesterdude
> Gradually, neuroscientists came to realize that experts such as chess grand
> masters are experts because they have stored thousands of chunks of
> knowledge about their area of expertise in their long-term memory. Chess
> masters, for example, can recall tens of thousands of different chess
> patterns. Whatever the discipline, experts can call up to consciousness one
> or several of these well-knit-together, chunked neural subroutines to
> analyze and react to a new learning situation. This level of true
> understanding, and ability to use that understanding in new situations,
> comes only with the kind of rigor and familiarity that repetition,
> memorization, and practice can foster.
This made a lot of sense to me. A pianist plays through these chunks of
knowledge - and learns through them as well. These "chunked neural
subroutines" can be built, and clearly are.
I think a lot of resistance for me comes from learned helplessness (aka baby
elephant syndrome). For me, growing up my inner narrative was one of failure
and rejection. But as i've grown and changed this narrative to be more
nurturing, I do see more and more, my capacity for a great many things. Am I
crazy? A genius? An idiot? Nope. I just figured out that with a lot of
curiosity, play and patience, you can become proficient or even a domain
expert. That's easy to see, at a certain level.
But I think for a lot of us, we have a concept of who we are, what we are and
what we are not. And this, at least for me, this definition of I, has held me
back more than anything. Change the definition, challenge assumptions, push
boundaries. See who you are.
~~~
justifier
i agree, and i like your 'see who who are'
i say the same when people cite the taxi cab number(o) story and suggest some
kind of intuition or magic
ramanujan simply had worked with cubes enough to recognise the number, still
very impressive, but anyone could do it with the kind of interest ramanujan
had for number theory
(o)
[https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Taxicab_number](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Taxicab_number)
~~~
number-sequence
a rather interesting aspect of the taxicab number story is that ramanujan had
been looking at "near misses" to the fermat equation, and this was the first
values of one of the infinite families of near misses he had constructed. The
story is often dramatized to make it sound like Ramanujan just knew about all
the cubes and their sums and he pulled this out of thin air on the spot, but
the truth is probably that he had worked enough with these equations to
recognize the number when Hardy mentioned it.
check it out, super neat number thy stuff!
[https://arxiv.org/abs/1510.00735](https://arxiv.org/abs/1510.00735)
------
imjk
I've realized lately that I often fool myself into thinking I'm proficient in
some subject by picking up on concepts quickly. I think I "get" it because I
can understand something on a conceptual level, but when it comes to practice,
my deficiencies become apparent. I guess the tricky part is to push myself
past those initial concepts to delve deeper into the subjects with practice. I
need to slow down and remind myself that I don't really "get" it just because
I can understand the concepts in a very broad sense.
~~~
Waterluvian
Binary trees was that for me. I listened to lectures and understood them very
well from a conceptual point of view. But once I started writing them from
scratch as an exercise did I learn that understanding the theory alone was
woefully insufficient.
~~~
trentmb
Maybe you just didn't understand the "theory" as well as you thought you did.
I fell into the "it makes sense when we go over it in class, but not when I do
it at home" trap often.
------
Rainymood
Can highly recommend the book the Coursera course is based on [1]: A mind for
numbers [2]. Have read it multiple times back to from and front to back.
[1]- [https://www.coursera.org/learn/learning-how-to-
learn](https://www.coursera.org/learn/learning-how-to-learn)
[2] [https://www.amazon.com/Mind-Numbers-Science-Flunked-
Algebra/...](https://www.amazon.com/Mind-Numbers-Science-Flunked-
Algebra/dp/039916524X)
------
chrismealy
The author is not wrong to emphasize the fundamental necessity of drilling,
but in her article it sounds like she, having memorized basic facts (in
Russian and math), ultimately achieved fluency through play.
~~~
meesterdude
That was my takeaway as well. The author played with the equation f=ma, and
understood it inside and out in various scenarios.
------
theyoungestgun
This is mentioned in her bio at the end, but worth noting here, I think:
Barbara runs a coursera course on learning how to learn
([https://www.coursera.org/learn/learning-how-to-
learn](https://www.coursera.org/learn/learning-how-to-learn)).
It is interesting in that I find that Coursera courses highlight the flawed
learning processes she mentions quite well. I often find myself watching the
videos, thinking I get it, buzzing through the usually basic follow-up
questions, and moving on. Likely that material won't last in my brain for very
long in a quickly usable fashion.
~~~
fny
Coursera simply mirrors collegiate pedagogy: a professor lectures you for an
hour, you take a quiz here and there, and then there are some larger
assessments that prove mastery. Study habits and methods are entirely left up
to the student. You could employ Dr. Oakley's methods, whatever works for you,
or just breeze by without truly internalizing anything.
Coursera's missing one powerful dynamic of a traditional university, however:
incentives to remember beyond a class.
Say you coast your freshman year without internalizing: you'll pay the price
the following year or when you take some cumulative assessment like the MCAT.
With Coursera everything still feels very disjointed. Even in the
specializations, knowledge doesn't need to compound for success. You can
easily succeed in edutainment mode. Why take notes when you can use your hands
for popcorn?
------
pmoriarty
Lately I've been picking up the soroban[1], the Japanese abacus, and it's been
tons of fun. It feels a little like solving a Rubik's cube with arithmetic, or
maybe like working with a finite state machine. There are different algorithms
to apply depending on the state of the soroban, and applying the right
sequence of these algorithms will get you to the right result.
I find it to be a little addictive, and sometimes find it a bit hard to stop.
I always feel like wanting to improve my skills a little more, become a little
faster at it, and increase the number of digits I can handle without making a
mistake.
The soroban is a great tool for developing concentration, a memory for
numbers, a facility for performing a relatively complex series of steps in a
certain sequence, and eventually for lightning fast mental arithmetic.
In Japan, soroban use is taught to young kids[2], who after a while develop
enough proficiency not to need the physical device any longer and can perform
the calculations on an imaginary soroban, and eventually can achieve some
really amazing feats of mental arithmetic, such as this example from their
national competitions: [3]
[1] -
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Soroban](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Soroban)
[2] -
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Px_hvzYS3_Y](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Px_hvzYS3_Y)
[3] -
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7ktpme4xcoQ](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7ktpme4xcoQ)
------
closed
> By interleaving my learning—in other words, practicing so that I knew not
> only when to use that word, but when not to use it, or to use a different
> variant of it—I was actually using the same approaches that expert
> practitioners use to learn in math and science.
This is huge! Even if you learn something so that you can use it without fail
today, if you interleave your practice of using it (today) with other things,
you'll do much better a week from now.
~~~
Jugurtha
Interleaving has served me very well during my second year of Engineering. I
hadn't attended that much and had a grade of 3/20\. There were the final exams
where the materials of the whole year was fair game.
I buckled down for a month with a friend at my sister's house which was empty.
I eliminated the modules with diminishing returns that I had passed or where I
was close (easier to go from 0/20 to 12/20 than it is to go from 8/20 to 20/20
for the same amount of points).
I was left with five modules I hadn't attended: Numerical Analysis (ANAI),
Rational Mechanics(MECA), Strength of Materials(RDM), Vibrations-Waves-and-
Propagation(VOP), and Atomic and Nuclear Physics(PAN).
I drew a pentagon and organized the modules. Starting at the top, going
counter-clockwise: VOP, ANAI, PAN, MECA, RDM.
Each day, I'd do two modules:
Day1: VOP-ANAI
Day2: PAN-MECA
Day3: RDM-VOP
Day4: ANAI-PAN
Day5: MECA-RDM
Day6: Restart cycle.
Many benefits:
\- You only do a module for half a day. Intensely. Then switch to another
module and you sort of hustle your brain for a fresh start. It's not tired
because you're doing something else now. "It's not like you've been studying
all day" is the impression.
\- Mixing modules gives new insights. Especially in second year, there's a
bootstrapping phenomenon: to understand a module of Physics, you had to
understand a module in Maths.
\- You study a module hard. You don't see it the next day, but the day after.
Not too soon to be sick of it and burn out, but not too far in the future not
to remember any of it.
The problem with the methods most other students followed was that it violated
their brains and common sense: they'd do one module exclusively for a week
(all chapters, all exercises). Then go on to the next one and do the same. By
the time the exam comes: they're sick of the modules, and they remember
nothing for the most part because it's been 3 weeks since they've last done
the first module they started with.
I, on the other hand, have seen any given module at most 3 days before.
This allowed me to study 13 hours per day during a month without burnout
(reading the course material for the first time, going over the exercises and
exams, etc). The key was keeping a schedule.
Up at 0500.
0500 - 0700: Study.
0700 - 0800: Breakfast.
0800 - 1200: Study.
1200 - 1300: Lunch and nap.
1300 - 1700: Study.
1700 - 1800: Afternoon snack and chill.
1800 - 2100: Study.
2100 - 2200: Dinner.
2200 lights out, going to sleep.
------
equalunique
``At some point, self-consciously “understanding” why you do what you do just
slows you down and interrupts flow, resulting in worse decisions.``
I experienced this phenomena while learning the dvorak keyboard layout. The
GNU Typist dvorak lesson can be completed in just one day. A mental map of
where all the keys are in dvorak was developed very quickly. The problem I was
faced with was the relatively slow thought process of envisioning the key
layout, moving my typing finger to where it needed to be, and then continuing
this thought process as I went on to type full words. Knowing I could type
much faster in regular Qwerty layout, this was frustrating. After a month, I
was thankful many words no longer required much thinking to write. Months
later, I now very much prefer to turn on Dvorak layout on whatever computer
I'm logged into.
Great article. I'm also keen on brushing up on my math. Kahn Academy is an
amazing learning resource and math is their biggest offering. Not taking
advantage of it seems like a sin.
------
sigi45
I read her book, watched her videos and i like her.
But while i do already know a shit ton of how to learn, my level of knowledge
is not caped by learning issues or by my iq.
It is caped because my stamina is where it is. I have enough stamina to learn
and understand a shit ton of stuff but not to sit down day/every second day
after day to learn. To Exercise. To do it on a regular base.
~~~
dualogy
Well that's an entirely different problem to attack.
Exercise: I used to do all kinds of programs incl "45 mins a day, 6 days a
week" but found "sufficiently enjoyable results" while _keeping_ the process
enjoyable and in full balance with the rest of my life with just 3 reps a day,
no break days, cycling through 8 exercises. Good enough for both health and
looks if no Mr. Olympia goals.
For learning, the right balance is a lot harder to strike IME. Going too hard
on oneself _or_ too soft is a real danger. The motivating goals for learning
something or other will have to be consistently and sustainedly present to
settle into the right balance over time. Whether (perceived) low stamina is
merely due to "the undertrained stamina muscle", mismatch of expectations and
results, or some deeper real physiological/psychological factor is also the
the likeliest found out by yourself. Not reason not to go meta on this
roadblock!
------
scribu
Previous discussion:
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8402859](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8402859)
------
hive_mind
Barbara Oakley's MOOC is great. I taught me to take Pomodoro seriously. Also
taught me that taking breaks is important to help the brain integrate
material.
------
Chris2048
> your mind constructed the patterns of meaning. Continually focusing on
> understanding itself actually gets in the way
For an engineer, who only needs to _use_ the math, maybe. But what if you need
an understanding too? Once you have "intuition" it's easy to stick with that,
rather than challenge your understanding.
------
JamilD
I've realized exactly the same thing. A starting intuition is necessary, but
not sufficient, for understanding.
I can watch as many lectures as I want, but nothing beats sitting down with a
pen and a piece of paper, playing around with equations and developing a true,
intimate understanding.
~~~
pm90
This is why a lot of the best mathematics books won't just state theorems, but
will actually heavily encourage the reader to solve problems as well, as that
is considered an indispensable part of the learning process.
------
notvaluable
I seem to recall that this post was posted here previously, I don't remember
when. Well googling 15
seconds,[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12508776](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12508776)
------
EternalData
Every time I see Barbara Oakley I feel the need to post her "Learning How to
Learn Talk".
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O96fE1E-rf8](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O96fE1E-rf8)
------
gyrgtyn
Check out the book Make It Stick. It's the recent research, summarized.
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
McKinsey: Half the World’s Banks Too Weak to Survive Downturn - anm89
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2019-10-21/banks-must-act-now-or-risk-becoming-a-footnote-mckinsey-says
======
throwaway66920
I believe this is the actual article
[https://www.mckinsey.com/industries/financial-
services/our-i...](https://www.mckinsey.com/industries/financial-services/our-
insights/global-banking-annual-review-2019-the-last-pit-stop-time-for-bold-
late-cycle-moves)
Broadly it seems to be less extreme than Bloomberg’s summary and more nuanced
to particular conditions.
I like how exhibit 6 is rotated to encourage reading it from either direction.
Haven’t seen that before in charts.
~~~
avs733
Well of course it's more nuanced. Bloomberg is about speed not MECE.
~~~
dfxm12
_MECE_
Mango-eating computer engineers?
No, that doesn't fit in based on the context clues...
~~~
stakhanov
Mutually Exclusive & Comprehensively Exhaustive. It's how to do bullet points
according to McKinsey. They had to invent it in the 1960s because apparently
by the 1960s no one at McKinsey was yet, you know, aware of the existence of
centuries' worth of literature on formal logic. So they reinvented the wheel
as far as that particular cultural achievement was concerened. Or the first
millionth of it, to be more precise, and left it at that, because the rest of
it would have no longer fit onto a single PowerPoint slide.
~~~
TurkishPoptart
God, these consulting companies are the _worst_.
~~~
throwaway66920
Alternatively, this is just some guy asserting that everyone at McKinsey
thinks they invented a brand new concept, when in fact, it’s just a heuristic
they teach people to communicate more effectively, because communication is
hard.
~~~
vraivroo
I see you are unfamiliar with McKinsey.
~~~
throwaway66920
Former employee
Edit: I cannot reply to the below, but I will say, that’s a pretty contrived
justification for your view.
Communication is hard. Few things done at a corporate scale are easy to
implement. People like to point at big consulting firms and say “I could have
done that” or “they could have just asked me” but that’s really just a
fraction of it.
~~~
tomrod
Former employee of former McKinsey employees. Grandparent point stands:
McKinsey seems to offer little to no value that isn't already known and easy
to communicate.
I will say though that McKinsey alums I know seem to be better at playing
corporate politics than the average, which can be a skill when married with
technical acumen.
~~~
op00to
You call it playing politics, others call it effective communication.
~~~
tomrod
Effective communication is pushing people the alums dislike out of their jobs
and building silos?
~~~
throwaway66920
“Playing politics” is is largely empathy and communication skills. Giving
people what they want is actually not intuitive because, again, people are
generally bad at communicating what they want. It’s common to hear people
maligned for being “political players” but I’ll be honest; if you’re bad at
office politics, it generally implies you don’t have people’s confidence,
trust, and friendship- often because you’re fixated on the idea that work
should stand for itself and not recognizing the massive importance that is
working with others.
Being a dick with your influence is a different concept
~~~
tomrod
Being a dick in influence is what I observe more often from my (biased,
certainly) sample of McKinsey alum. We both agree that salability of work
product is an important and underutilized skill.
------
dawg-
And if you're a bank, guess who is conveniently standing by ready to fix it
for you with an army of $2000 an hour consultants? McKinsey.
Same exact scam as the shady mechanic who wants charge you $400 to flush your
transmission fluid and convinces you that your car will surely blow up if you
don't do it.
~~~
bitcoinmoney
2k/hr?????
~~~
shantly
It's basically therapy for corporate executives, delivered via powerpoint,
with a healthy side of blame insurance. And yeah, it's expensive.
~~~
ploxolo
Dad worked at a bank (just below CEO). He once said that McKinsey was most
useful when you wanted to kill a project diplomatically, and make sure it
would stay put. Have McKinsey come in, make the recommendation that X project
was no good, and kiss it goodbye with McKinsey absorbing the blame. Other way
around was to give projects some extra push and credibility.
~~~
zxcmx
Or launch a thing, to be fair.
We came up with a product internally. So our CEO hired a top-tier consulting
company to sell our own idea back to us. That process cost millions.
But they _do_ make real slick presentations and they have higher status than
internal staff, and the CEO can say that a top-tier consulting firm
recommended we do x, y and z... Blame insurance is right.
Once you hit a certain scale, e.g. where CEO is so stratospherically above
rank-and-file in social status that it's not appropriate to speak directly
anymore, consultants can act as a social buffer. Among other things they can
launder recommendations from regular staff to management and put that
objective shine on them.
The downside is that we know for a fact (when they accidentally published an
android app to the playstore, I reversed it and it was our code) that
collateral, research and demos that we paid for got sold to others.
------
twh270
Much, possibly most, of the economic value in a downturn comes from weeding
out the weaker companies -- through bankruptcy, acquisition, or
restructuring/pivoting.
I well remember the "dot com" crash. It wiped out tons of companies that had
no business existing (pardon the pun).
(Of course when it comes to banking, that can be a bit of a special case as
we've witnessed multiple times.)
And yes, downturns are hard on people, and this is why a social safety net is
invaluable. Gives them time to find a new job, or retool their skills, or
otherwise adjust. And I don't pretend that's easy either.
~~~
ur-whale
I believe the consecrated term is "creative destruction"
------
lepetitpedre
Sadly, regular taxpayers will pay the bill. Just like last time.
~~~
dmix
Once again completing the cycle of moral hazards in the name of reducing the
"impact" of rescissions in the short-term. The only metric that apparently
matters.
~~~
QuesnayJr
In the last recession, unemployment in the US reached 10%. How big does
unemployment have to reach before you take the quotes away from "impact"? 15%?
20%? Unemployment in Spain reached as high as 26% because Spain was unable to
reduce the impact.
~~~
dmix
The unemployment rate is the short term metric which is exactly what I’m
taking about.
A long term perspective means preventing future recessions too, not just
fixing the short term problems. Creating new moral hazards, negative
incentives, behaviour and careers which would have been tarnished and
discredited normally are allowed to continue, often with the same people and
companies.
If we were serious about preventing recessions our policies should not only be
measured in how they deal with the fallouts but also addressing the things
that cause it in the first place, and balancing what’s lost by not letting the
markets naturally correct themselves.
~~~
QuesnayJr
We've had recessions for the entire history of capitalism, under a large
number of legal regimes. We had recessions back when banking was much more
tightly regulated. We had recessions under laissez-faire. Recessions are
endemic to the system. Our choices are either "combat unemployment" or get
ready for socialism to finally win the war of ideas.
~~~
dmix
> or get ready for socialism to finally win the war of ideas.
Yeah how's that working out in Venezuela and Ecuador (who only half-heartedly
did it and still got burned).
~~~
QuesnayJr
It's working out badly. But we get 25% unemployment, and a lot more countries
are going to try it.
------
Merrill
Problems with weak banks are usually solved by merging them with stronger
banks.
It's the non-bank financial institutions that are more worrisome. Recall that
Lehman Brothers and AIG were not banks.
~~~
scribu
> Recall that Lehman Brothers and AIG were not banks.
AIG was an insurance company, yes.
But Lehman Brothers _was_ an investment bank.
From Wikipedia:
> in 2008, Lehman was the fourth-largest investment bank in the United States
~~~
Merrill
"Investment banks" were only colloquially banks. They were not members of the
Federal Reserve, not regulated by the Office of the Comptroller of the
Currency, and not FDIC insured. Survivors became banks after the crisis, but
in their place we now have lots of hedge funds, private equity funds, etc.
that have grown large to do similar financial operations without bank
regulation.
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shadow_banking_system](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shadow_banking_system)
------
geodel
Not that I disagree. Its same pattern: half of the universities, most of
liberal art colleges, 60% of IT companies, 70% of private Doctor practices and
so on are too weak to survive next shock. The only sad part I see is nasty
businesses like McKinsey is not fitting in any pattern of failure.
~~~
helpPeople
I don't agree on the private doctor practice. Source, married a dr
Worst, worst case, the ~15k/yr in rent, ins, and software put a dent in
profits, but if each visit is min 75$, you can figure out how hard it is to
break even. Upper revenue is 200k+/yr
~~~
toomuchtodo
Reimbursement compression along with EHR/EMR requirements has seen a lot of
practices acquired by large health systems.
~~~
helpPeople
Not to get too bogged down with details, but this winter she is looking to
change EMR systems. The current one is the most expensive/established EMR for
her field.
Rent is 12,000 dollars of expenses. EMR is almost trivial.
~~~
et2o
Vast majority of private practices are closing or being purchased by larger
hospital systems.
~~~
throwaway5752
Sure, same is true for software startups. Trade long hours and slightly above
market pay for a lump sum payment and predictable patient load? The increasing
complexity of interacting with health insurance providers and diagnostic labs
has something to do with it, also. Why wouldn't a lot of them do that?
------
StreamBright
McKinsey, the ultimate power point company. They also nobody got fired for
hiring them. I could not believe this reasoning but it exists. We tried to
solve problem X but even McKinsey failed. This problem is declared unsolvable
now.
------
olivermarks
McKinsey & Accenture could do with some anti trust investigation at this
point, they have too much of the outsourced brain work and strategy of
important western firms executed in a cookie cutter way that then exploits the
inside knowledge for future projects. This banking prediction is an example of
this type of thinking. McKinsey are the problem not the solution
~~~
TuringNYC
Serious question: could you cite some Accenture projects with serious brain
work? They are typically in the systems integration category while MBB
(McKinsey Bain BCG) get the prestigious work.
~~~
olivermarks
I meant Accenture in the context of executing McK (& BB) projects in a closed
loop. MBB & Deloitte are pretty short on 'serious brain work' and long on copy
and paste of their own and others work in my recent experience
------
richliss
AKA On behalf of our banking customers we're going to be advising that
governments get ready to do another bailout.
~~~
omginternets
>do another bailout.
I know you're being tongue-in-cheek, but in theory, are governments even
capable of doing another bailout?
My understanding is that public debt in most Western countries (not sure about
China/India) is through the roof. Other than printing money and risking a
cataclysmic devaluation, what can be done?
~~~
IAmEveryone
The problem was never with banks failing, it was with some of them being "too
big to fail". This news therefore doesn't mean attempts to prevent another
2008-like crisis have been unsuccessful.
Also, let's the remember the last bailout was a somewhat underrated success: "
TARP recovered funds totalling $441.7 billion from $426.4 billion invested,
earning a $15.3 billion profit or an annualized rate of return of 0.6% and
perhaps a loss when adjusted for inflation.".
Apart from that, public debt is up considerably in the US (mostly due to tax
cuts) but rather flat in the EU. Nothing would preclude another bailout of the
same magnitude as the last one.
But that's a somewhat silly question. Because if there's one thing we can be
sure of, it's that the next crisis will be different than the last one.
Italy going bankrupt is a far more imminent danger than private banks, and one
that would be too big to contain, for example.
~~~
howard941
From the bank shareholder's perspective the bailout was a stunning success.
For the rest of us debtors, for those who greased the runways for the
shareholders with their lost homes and lost savings that went to paying off
debts in disinflationary dollars when stimulus and reasonable inflation would
have made paying debts off easier, it remains an ongoing disaster.
~~~
ChrisLomont
>For the rest of us debtors...it remains an ongoing disaster
Taxpayers didn't pay for bailouts. The Fed did. Taxpayers did make a profit
form them, however, since the profits the Fed saw from the bailouts were, by
law, handed over to Treasury (except for statutory operating expenses),
offsetting taxes.
>those who greased the runways for the shareholders with their lost homes
Most of those those losing homes did so by taking loans they could not pay,
and the ripples were felt by those not taking such loans, in their retirement
funds. Those who left those funds alone recovered the value and then some
after the recession. Those who did not, or could not, did lose value.
But don't just blame bankers. Also blame borrowers defaulting.
~~~
pjmorris
> Taxpayers didn't pay for bailouts. The Fed did.
The 2+ Trillion dollar expansion of the Fed balance sheet during the crisis
costs taxpayers every day that they pay interest on a loan enabled by that 2T+
expansion. Every house that used to be $200K and is now $500K is part of the
price people are paying for how the crisis was managed.
> But don't just blame bankers. Also blame borrowers defaulting.
The core function of a bank is to evaluate risk. Being able to do so correctly
enables the bank to make loans at a profit. Being unable to do so means that
the people involved should go do something else. Debtors have been defaulting
for millennia, it's a well-understood process. The financialization and
securitization of housing was the creation of bankers, not borrowers.
~~~
ChrisLomont
>The 2+ Trillion dollar expansion of the Fed balance sheet during the crisis
costs taxpayers every day that they pay interest on a loan enabled by that 2T+
expansion.
Taxpayers don't pay interest on Fed assets. You have a fundamental
misunderstanding of how monetary policy works. What makes you think your
statement true? Did you read it in a explanation of how the Fed works, or did
you make it up?
>The financialization and securitization of housing was the creation of
bankers, not borrowers.
This is shortsighted and incorrect. If borrowers didn't default, there would
be no crisis. Many were expecting housing to rise forever and were taking out
second mortgages as piggy banks, then got in trouble when prices didn't
increase forever. High risk borrowers could keep refinancing at higher and
higher prices since house prices were climbing. When the prices stopped
climbing, this process stopped.
>Debtors have been defaulting for millennia, it's a well-understood process.
And bubbles from irrational people have been happening for millennia too. Does
this simplistic tautology allow me to assign all blame to borrowers?
~~~
pjmorris
Compare your
> 'Taxpayers don't pay interest on Fed assets.'
with what I said; 'they pay interest on a loan enabled by that 2T+ expansion'
(of Fed assets.) The Fed bought ~1.5-2T of MBS, turning bad loans that would
never be repaid - credit that simply never should have been issued - into bank
reserves. Those reserves both inflate asset prices and enable the banks to
make loans on which interest is paid.
> When the prices stopped climbing, this process stopped.
The price climb - and the influx of less able borrowers - was primarily
enabled by securitization.
> And bubbles from irrational people have been happening for millennia too.
> Does this simplistic tautology allow me to assign all blame to borrowers?
Borrowers can only exist if they've borrowed from lenders. Hence my point
about lenders needing to evaluate risk to continue to be lenders.
~~~
ChrisLomont
>Those reserves both inflate asset prices and enable the banks to make loans
on which interest is paid
Banks don't need those assets to make loans. Banks can make loans whenever and
where ever they want, and can simply borrow from the Fed. This is the point of
short-term interest rates - banks can lend past reserve requirements whenever
they find a decent loan to make. It's the difference between exogenous and
endogenous theories of money, and modern economies with central banks usually
work this way to allow the market to decide how much money is needed, not how
much reserves a bank can obtain because a central bank absorbed assets.
And most loans rate people get are tied pretty directly to Fed rates, not bank
reserves. This is again due to endogenous money creation - demand creates
money, not reserves. So the Fed and banks having 0 reserves or having 100
trillion reserves is nearly irrelevant - it is interest rates that matter, and
those are set directly by the Fed board.
Also, if you recall, the banks were famously _not_ giving loans after the
bailouts, despite having the capital to do so [4]. I guess that also doesn't
help your claims.
>they pay interest on a loan enabled by that 2T+ expansion
If you're going that far afield, then it's simple to point out what financial
trouble they would be in if the Fed didn't make those loans. People would
likely be far worse, in which case it makes the argument for those loans even
stronger.
It would be interesting to check even correlation between Fed balance and
interest rates.
Here's [1] an IGM Forum economist poll of most of the country's top economists
on whether or not the bailouts improved unemployment. I'd guess being
unemployed is worse than claimed interest rate hikes.
Here's [2] their answer to the question: "the benefits of bailing out U.S.
banks in 2008 will end up exceeding the costs" \- resulting in strong support
with certainty (especially considering the types of questions these polls ask
- check other questions).
So there's not much real argument on the bailouts being beneficial.
Now that the Fed is selling off MBS [3], shouldn't that cause the reverse of
what you claim absorbing them did? Because those effects are not see in the
markets. Maybe your effects did not happen?
[1] [http://www.igmchicago.org/surveys/bank-
bailouts](http://www.igmchicago.org/surveys/bank-bailouts)
[2] [http://www.igmchicago.org/surveys/bailouts-banks-and-
automak...](http://www.igmchicago.org/surveys/bailouts-banks-and-automakers)
[3]
[https://www.federalreserve.gov/monetarypolicy/bst_recenttren...](https://www.federalreserve.gov/monetarypolicy/bst_recenttrends.htm)
[4] [https://research.stlouisfed.org/publications/economic-
synops...](https://research.stlouisfed.org/publications/economic-
synopses/2016/02/05/bank-lending-during-recessions/)
~~~
pjmorris
I'm sorry to come back to this so late, but I've been otherwise occupied, and
I think the topic really matters. I agree with the GP that the bailouts were a
success for the banks and an 'ongoing disaster' for many others.
> Banks don't need those assets to make loans.
I agree with you on the endogenous theory of money (cf. Steve Keen), and
understand that banks aren't constrained by 'loanable funds.' I was meaning
capital and regulatory reserves, and mentioneing them only to acknowledge that
not every dollar of the Fed's money creation went to asset price inflation.
Just most of them.
> So the Fed and banks having 0 reserves or having 100 trillion reserves is
> nearly irrelevant - it is interest rates that matter, and those are set
> directly by the Fed board.
This is where I think you err. Once a bank's minimum capital requirements are
met, its managers are going to look for maximizing returns on the capital
available to them. To say that that will not have effects on the economy at
large doesn't make sense to me.
> Also, if you recall, the banks were famously not giving loans after the
> bailouts, despite having the capital to do so [4]. I guess that also doesn't
> help your claims.
How so? Here are the chief claims I've made: > The 2+ Trillion dollar
expansion of the Fed balance sheet during the crisis costs taxpayers every day
that they pay interest on a loan enabled by that 2T+ expansion. > The core
function of a bank is to evaluate risk. > Debtors have been defaulting for
millennia, it's a well-understood process. > The financialization and
securitization of housing was the creation of bankers, not borrowers.
I don't see how any of these are contradicted by the data in the St. Louis Fed
'Bank Lending During Recessions' article you linked. The entire investment
world recognised that they'd underpriced risk for years, and there was a
correction.
> If you're going that far afield,
I don't think this is far afield at all; I think it's critical to consider the
effects of additional capital, in the form of debt, on the real economy.
> then it's simple to point out what financial trouble they would be in if the
> Fed didn't make those loans. People would likely be far worse, in which case
> it makes the argument for those loans even stronger.
Which people? The banks, yes. A creditor's assets are someone else's debts, so
larger debts are good for banks. Generally borrower's situations are improved
by brrowing less, at lower interest rates for a given asset.
> Here's [1] an IGM Forum economist poll of most of the country's top
> economists on whether or not the bailouts improved unemployment. I'd guess
> being unemployed is worse than claimed interest rate hikes.
Here are my favorite comments from the economists in that poll:
> There were much better policies, but what was done was better than nothing,
> give the bad policies that preceded.
> The question presumes Paulson’s forced alternative. If the only choice is
> between evil and Armageddon, evil might look ok.
From experience, being unemployed is terrible. Avoiding it on a mass scale is
crucial. But avoiding unemployment is a pretty narrow question compared to the
entire picture. Wages (real, median) have pretty much stagnated while housing
(both a necessity and an asset) has inflated above historical norms (see
Robert Shiller's chart from 1890-2005, and the Case-Shiller indexes.) That
puts pressure on employed people that the poll question leaves out of
consideration.
> Here's [2] their answer to the question: "the benefits of bailing out U.S.
> banks in 2008 will end up exceeding the costs" \- resulting in strong
> support with certainty (especially considering the types of questions these
> polls ask - check other questions).
First, I note that the number of economists who strongly agree is outnumbered
by the group who are uncertain or disagree.
> Now that the Fed is selling off MBS [3], shouldn't that cause the reverse of
> what you claim absorbing them did? Because those effects are not see in the
> markets. Maybe your effects did not happen?
There's been a ~10% decline after a ~400% increase. How much of an effect
would you expect to see?
Lastly, my favorite comment from the second pol:
> Not compared to an ideal policy of an orderly reorganization imposing losses
> on creditors according to seniority. But better than chaotic.
He sort of sounds like Bagehot, "“Lend without limit, to solvent firms,
against good collateral, at 'high rates". The choice that was made was to lend
without limit to the largest firms against all collateral at low rates. That
choice has consequences as well as benefits, and I would urge you to seriously
consider both.
~~~
ChrisLomont
>This is where I think you err. Once a bank's minimum capital requirements are
met, its managers are going to look for maximizing returns on the capital
available to them. To say that that will not have effects on the economy at
large doesn't make sense to me.
How did I err? Banks have unlimited capital available, borrowable at Fed
rates. It does have an effect on the economy - it lets the economy grow at
rates demanded by commerce instead of being constrained by too little capital
or by being overflooded with capital.
But the fact remains banks getting assets bought by the Fed has almost zero
effect on loans, which was your claim. This is empirically true as I
demonstrated, and have given the theoretical reasons for.
>Here are my favorite comments from the economists in that poll:
Yes, you can post-select the side you want to be true. Now take the entire
post instead of cherry-picking the answer you believe. It's not worth
providing evidence of complex things with nuance to someone who has chosen
their side and post selects the parts they like. So stop being dishonest with
the evidence.
>Wages (real, median) have pretty much stagnated
Wages are a tiny part of total remunereation or of cost to employ. Fortunately
BLS tracks both those variables - then the fact is that total remuneration has
increased due to perks and legal requirements (go check the data), and cost to
employ has gone up (due again to legislation requireing more cost per employee
that is now paid by employers yet benefits the employee). BLS tracks all these
- wages is far too simplistic.
Also, demographics have changed - a younger workforce is earlier in a career,
and gets paid less, yet can still make more at each point in a career than
previously. This is also a true effect and can be teased out of Census data.
Also, median wages now includes women and minorities, who have seen tremendous
growth in their median wages for decades. The only class that has lost some is
white men, and even there the losses are not very large.
So the "flat wages" is far from the truth on the quality of life gains people
have seen. I doubt many would like to live at the equivalent wage in 1980
compared to now.
>while housing (both a necessity and an asset) has inflated above historical
norms (see Robert Shiller's chart from 1890-2005, and the Case-Shiller
indexes.)
Case-Schiller ignores (among other things) that the size of houses has
increased. Not even factoring in quality increases like better insulated,
lower cost to maintain, safer, when you simply factor in cost per square foot
the values are remarkably flat for decades. [1]
The increase in size is mostly because people want and can afford bigger
houses than in the past.
In short, your wage and housing views are too simplistic and ignore important
nuances that reverse the evidence for the position you're taking. In both
cases you're moving too many variables to make the claims you're making, and
by holding important variables constant you get the opposite conclusions, ones
which are the correct measurement regarding quality of life improvements.
>Lastly, my favorite comment from the second pol:
If you've chosen your answer the the point of not reading all new data with
equivalent belief, then I see how you've reached your current world view. The
comments you pick from so many while ignoring the totality or central points
of the polls shows tremendous bias in your ability to absorb well sourced
data. As such it's not worth it to continue if you treat this like climate
deniers. Every complex system will have uncertainty - but the uncertainty is
not the central feature of this one.
>First, I note that the number of economists who strongly agree is outnumbered
by the group who are uncertain or disagree.
This precisely shows me you're dishonest. Why pick those categories while
ignoring the "agree" one? To make the result not be what it is? For anyone
reading this far, here are the results: Strongly agree 10%, Agree 49%,
uncertain 13%, disagree 13%, strongly disagree 0%, no opinion 0%.
That you cite those two cases while ignoring so many counter to what you want
to be true is dishonest and misleading at best.
With this level of intellectual dishonesty there is no reason to continue.
It's not worth trying to deliver good evidence when you're clearly going to
misread and selectively cite it.
[1] [https://www.aei.org/carpe-diem/todays-new-homes-
are-1000-squ...](https://www.aei.org/carpe-diem/todays-new-homes-
are-1000-square-feet-larger-than-in-1973-and-the-living-space-per-person-has-
doubled-over-last-40-years/)
~~~
pjmorris
> This precisely shows me you're dishonest. Why pick those categories while
> ignoring the "agree" one?
Because it shows evidence of dissent in the community of economists polled. I
am happy to admit all of the specifics into the discussion. I am adamantly
opposed to painting over the real disagreements in the economics community,
because I think it's important.
> That you cite those two cases while ignoring so many counter to what you
> want to be true is dishonest and misleading at best.
On the other hand, you seem to think that I should accept the top-level
conclusion you want me to accept without any reference on your part to the
real disagreement present in the polls.
I don't think 'dishonest' is a fair characterization of my attempt to point
out that you are presenting your favorite side of the argument without
considering the dissent.
> How did I err? Banks have unlimited capital available, borrowable at Fed
> rates. It does have an effect on the economy - it lets the economy grow at
> rates demanded by commerce instead of being constrained by too little
> capital or by being overflooded with capital.
Please clarify here: what would 'over-flooded with capital' look like?
------
Apocryphon
I wonder how credit unions would fare.
------
helpPeople
I look at 8 year automotive loans, and I wonder- who is about to get screwed.
People with jobs at gas stations buying new $30k vehicles.
Either inflation is about to get bad, and our parents/Grandparents lose big or
deflation happens and young people are screwed.
Are there any other options?
~~~
segmondy
$30k vehicles are cheap these days. My mouth dropped when I was at the auto
show and seeing SUVs like navigator and escalade with price of $80k+
~~~
mywittyname
The _median_ new car price is quickly approaching $40k. Probably 65% or so of
new cars cost more than $30k.
------
std_throwaway
We can always make more money if we really want to. The economy might run out
of oil, sand, gold, land, and willpower but it will never run out of money
until the central banks stop the money supply or politicians cause a hard
fault.
~~~
jsjohnst
No wonder you are hiding behind a throwaway, as you clearly don’t know what
you’re talking about and are just posting mindless drivel. If you want to know
the outcome of “we can always make more money” attitudes, look no further than
Zimbabwe. In ~2007 they had a 50 cent paper note. ~6 months later a common
paper note was $10,000,000,000. Just a short while after that, paper notes
were being printed in _one hundred trillion dollar_ increments. What could you
buy with that $100T note? Basically not even something from a vending machine
(aka worth less than 1 USD in value).
Source: I have all the above paper notes from Zimbabwe and have read about the
economic policies that led to the collapse of the currency.
~~~
std_throwaway
Zimbabwe did not run out of money.
I did not say that a bank can make everybody rich by printing money just that
there is no limit to the money that the banks can print, as is evidenced by
Zimbabwe. They ran out of everything else but not money. We are basically
expressing the same thing from different viewpoints.
~~~
AnimalMuppet
If Zimbabwe is your example that shows that you're correct, it also shows that
your point is completely irrelevant in the real world. So they didn't run out
of money. That did them no good whatsoever.
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Keys to Shopify’s Success – an Interview with Tobias Lutke - kevt
http://www.yearonelabs.com/top-5-keys-to-shopifys-success-an-interview-with-tobias-lutke/
======
ludicast
One other thing that Shopify did well was extract a lot of code into open
source projects. Liquid, DelayedJob and ActiveMerchant are all thanks to their
hard work.
So rather than just make money for themseves (which they did do), they "moved
the ball forward".
------
inovica
When I first saw Shopify I thought "That's never going to be successful". I
immediately ruled it out and how wrong I've been proved! What they did, as
I've watched them grow, is to launch early and then progressively make their
application better and better. That is something I've read and read countless
times and watching it in action has been inspiring and sobering (in that I'd
not done that with my own products). I'm really pleased for them and wish them
a lot of success. It has also inspired me for our new products and we soft-
launched one within a month from a standing start.
------
bhoung
After wanting to just create a simple online store and initially setting up
Drupal and Magento, I've found Shopify to be surprisingly customisable and
easy to use. Really impressed with their product. Love the start-up story
also. I can see how Tobi came to the conclusion that the stuff out there for
the non-corporate market wasn't that great (even now).
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Robert Zubrin answers “why should we go to Mars?” in the most eloquent way - sktrdie
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EKQSijn9FBs&t=49m16s
======
dalke
The three reasons are 1) it's where the science is, 2) it's where the
challenge is, and 3) it's where the future is.
This is further described as 1) if we find fossils, or don't find fossils,
then it helps us understand abiogenesis, and if we drill and find life then we
can understand biology better, 2) it's a "bracing challenge for our society"
that will drive a new generation of scientists, engineers, and doctors, and 3)
we need new branches of humanity on Mars, just like the European settlement of
the Americas.
He does not (in that short clip) explain why _humans_ need to be on Mars to do
the science.
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
What I wish a Ruby programmer had told me one year ago.. - Sirupsen
http://blog.sirupsen.dk/me/what-i-wish-a-ruby-programmer-had-told-me-one-year-ago/
======
njharman
> After a few days playing around with Python, I felt okay with it. I didn’t
> love Python,
Probably should try longer than a few days, but this is the best/only metric
for personal programming language (business/group programming may impose other
metrics).
If you don't love the language you're programming with, you should find
another.
~~~
nearestneighbor
> If you don't love the language you're programming with, you should find
> another.
It's the other way around. If you love a language, you are probably unaware of
its flaws or of other languages (It's like the stupidity-confidence
correlation). This is one of the reasons fanboys make me want to puke.
~~~
silentbicycle
Well, if you love a language enough, you'll eventually be dragged through all
of its weak areas and get real perspective.
The important thing is just to keep quiet during the "best thing EVER!!!"
phase. The reason fanboys are so annoying is the combination of enthusiasm and
relatively shallow knowledge.
~~~
nearestneighbor
> Well, if you love a language enough, you'll eventually be dragged through
> all of its weak areas and get real perspective.
You'll be dragged, but you won't get any perspective if you know only that
language.
~~~
silentbicycle
Oh, absolutely, but switching languages every weekend isn't going to get you
deep perspective either. It's probably best to focus on just a couple
languages, but languages that are sufficiently different from each other that
they expose you a wide variety of techniques.
------
jorgecastillo
It's kind of disappointing to see the hate some HN readers express toward non
mainstream Linux distros like Arch. As some readers have pointed out this sort
of Linux distros are not for everyone. We can use whatever OS we like for
whatever reasons we choose and there is no reason to get angry or offensive
about it.
P.S. I use OpenBSD.
------
brazzy
"Error establishing a database connection"? That's deep wisdom indeed...
~~~
augustl
Yes, Ruby doesn't scale.
~~~
Sirupsen
The blog is powered by Wordpress. :D
------
augustl
[http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:http://...](http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:http://blog.sirupsen.dk/me/what-
i-wish-a-ruby-programmer-had-told-me-one-year-ago/&hl=en&strip=1)
The post in Google's cache, while the site is down.
------
trebor
Breaking out of a programming paradigm is difficult, but one of the most
liberating things that you can do. Now when you go back to working on PHP
projects you can approach it with different methods. The roughest time I had
breaking my paradigm was when I learned a little Lisp...
~~~
dagheti
If found working in a ML language like Haskell or F# puts a really tight
straight-jacket on code style, and is wonderful at forcing you to adopt a new
paradigm.
When you go back to coding in other languages, you approach the same problems
in different ways because you were forced to solve them in a strongly typed
functional manner.
~~~
silentbicycle
Yeah, and after you're comfortable with ML or Haskell, try Prolog.
Unification+backtracking is like pattern matching cranked to 12. As a bonus, a
lot of the corners of Erlang will suddenly make more sense, and several Prolog
implementations come with good libraries for constraint programming.
Also, not to nitpick, but Haskell isn't an ML dialect, and while my experience
is with OCaml (not SML or F#), OCaml doesn't _force_ you to do anything in a
purely functional manner the way Haskell does - it just makes it an option. (I
think this is a good thing, but I guess it's a downside when you're trying to
force yourself to try new stuff.)
------
nearestneighbor
> And then I recommend something like Arch Linux whenever you feel like you
> are ready for something more advanced!
What's so great about Arch? Why should I waste my time getting the basic
functionality working, like X or audio?
~~~
abentspoon
Less magic. Ubuntu is a complex system, and hard for a beginner to learn and
customize. However, there's no need to switch while you're happy with Ubuntu.
~~~
koenigdavidmj
Agree. I'm a Slackware user because too many times has Ubuntu booted and
showed me a dialog box saying "I updated your system and broke everything;
have fun fixing it".
If I wanted something that constantly breaks things and then try to get off by
looking cute, I'd get a puppy.
EDIT: s/Slackware/& user/
------
nearestneighbor
tl;dr: PHP noob discovers Ruby and OOP. Thinks he's now so awesome that people
care about his opinion about unrelated topics like Linux distros.
------
noxn
I bet if this post was about python and not ruby (and maybe leave the Arch
Linux part, as people didn't seem to like that), there wouldn't be anyone
calling him a fanboi.
~~~
Macha
Nah, attacks happen. It is the internet after all. Post a highly subjective
post in favour of anything, and you'll find someone to disagree loudly with
you.
~~~
noxn
Probably. I still have the feeling that it wouldn't get this much bad comments
in a python entry.
------
owyn
i think that's a new record. flame war from the first post.
------
Sirupsen
Very sorry about the downtime, wasn't expecting such a rape.
~~~
Sirupsen
Aaand.. it's up!
------
butterfi
Grammer cop says no.
Honestly, your choice of words is distracting. Your server got "raped"? PHP is
"evil?"
What, no Nazis?
I'm not sure why this post is getting votes...
~~~
nonrecursive
Was "grammar" intentionally misspelled?
~~~
Semiapies
It's a rule - you have to typo when criticizing someone's grammar.
~~~
icey
<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Muphry%27s_law>
------
hvs
This is what I've come to expect from articles about Ruby:
And of course point them towards Linux:
“Windows is not the best development platform in the
world for Ruby. I recommend you to try out Linux. Start
with a simple distribution, like Ubuntu. And then I
recommend something like Arch Linux whenever you feel
like you are ready for something more advanced!”
Really? In an article about Ruby you feel the need to point people at your
personal pet OS? Pointless.
~~~
Mc_Big_G
It's not pointless at all. Trying to develop in Ruby or Rails on Windows in a
huge pain in the ass. I know, I did it for a year or so. He could have
recommended OS X, but the price is a barrier to entry.
~~~
rubinelli
I think the biggest problem is the number of gems with native libraries. I
switched to JRuby, and felt a lot less pain. Now if only it had a faster
startup...
~~~
kunley
Btw you can try nailgun to start JRuby's JVM once. See your
$jruby/tool/nailgun/
~~~
rubinelli
I looked into it and it's definitely interesting. It's just a pity NetBeans
doesn't use it (and given the current situation, probably never will). Anyway,
thanks for the tip.
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Virtual Machines Vs. Containers: A Matter Of Scope - wslh
http://www.networkcomputing.com/cloud-infrastructure/virtual-machines-vs-containers-a-matter-of-scope/a/d-id/1269190
======
mpweiher
We _should_ need neither VMs nor Containers. The process isolation and
environment virtualization provided by the OS should be sufficient, that's
what it is there for.
The fact that it is not seems like a huge failure both in terms of application
architecture that assumes it owns an entire machine and operating system
technology that can't prevent this.
VMs always seemed like a ridiculous (expensive, over-engineered, under-
performing, mis-applied, ...) solution to that problem (they're fine for
OS/hardware simulation etc.), but containers look like a nice, minimal
extension to the isolation offered by the OS.
~~~
travem
> We should need neither VMs nor Containers. The process isolation and
> environment virtualization provided by the OS should be sufficient, that's
> what it is there for.
This is of course assuming that there is a common OS that supports the
applications that people actually want to deploy. Virtualization at the x86
level has taken off partly because of the support for mixed operating systems.
This has provided operations teams additional flexibility and enabled some
consolidation of disparate workloads on shared hardware.
~~~
mpweiher
>This is of course assuming that there is a common OS that supports the
applications that people actually want to deploy.
I think you missed:
"(they're fine for OS/hardware simulation etc.)"
~~~
travem
Thanks for pointing that out, I didn't catch the precise scope of the problem
you were calling out in my initial reading.
------
twic
_Asking this question led me to ask other questions. In particular, is
abandoning full-machine virtualization for containers a real possibility? Is
this a move that cloud architects should truly be considering?_
It's a move FreeBSD, Solaris, and mainframe users made years ago (although it
was full-machine, er, physicalisation they abandoned), since when i imagine
they've been sitting around staring at the Linux industry's VM frenzy with
bafflement.
------
wernerb
I'm surprised I haven't seen anything being said about reproducability
advantages of docker.
Docker images are always reproducable through their Dockerfile's. While
virtual 'appliances/images/snapshots' are - if at all - much harder to
reproduce.
~~~
wmf
It's pretty easy to write a Dockerfile that isn't completely reproducible,
like anything that uses apt-get.
I would also say that VM images should be built in an automated way, although
VMs do allow you to shoot yourself in the foot.
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
EFF details post-Bilski confusion on what is too "abstract" to patent - grellas
https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2011/09/trio-post-bilski-cases-fail-clearly-define
======
cduan
So it seems that the "abstract idea" under Bilski has turned into "does it
look complicated enough."
In Research Techs. Corp. v. Microsoft Corp., from last year, the court said
that a method of halftoning was not abstract, because it involved a process of
comparing pixels. In CyberSource, the court explained that comparing pixels
was not abstract because "the method could not, as a practical matter, be
performed entirely in a human mind."
Similarly, in the Ultramercial case, the court says that the method is not
abstract because "Many of these steps are likely to require intricate and
complex computer programming," and "certain of these steps clearly require
specific application to the Internet."
These words, "as a practical matter," "intricate and complex computer
programming," and "specific application to the Internet," are what throw me
for a loop. As a practical matter, I can compare four numbers on a piece of
paper, but I can't download a million numbers off of the Internet and compare
them. So comparing four numbers on a piece of paper is an abstract idea, but
comparing a million numbers on the Internet is not?
------
6ren
> On its face, this all sounds well and good, until one considers the patent’s
> own depiction of its allegedly not abstract invention:
What point are they making? Surely it can't be that the diagram is abstract...
Diagrams are by nature abstract.
IIRC, the key to _CyberSource Corp. v. Retail Decisions, Inc._ (about credit
card risk assessment over the internet) was in the precise wording of the
claims - they didn't use the word "internet", even though that was how the
invention was described. The thing is, the description in a patent is just
"one embodiment" of the invention, and it is up to the claims to be clear
about the actual scope of the invention. Claim too much and you're dead.
That's why most inventions have a series of dependent claims of decreasing
scope - if the court finds one is too broad, the next one might be OK. A
ridiculously broad first claim does no harm - provided you confine it later.
From reading several patents, I've formed the impression that the first claim
is often used as a sort of framework "here's the basic idea", and its wording
is more to do with making it convenient to hang the other claims on than
intrinsic merit.
~~~
cduan
> A ridiculously broad first claim does no harm
That might be true other than the fact that each claim gives rise to an
individual legal right. A ridiculously broad first claim can be asserted as in
a cease-and-desist, it can be the basis for a lawsuit, and it can cost those
who are threatened thousands of dollars to invalidate, if it even is
invalidated. So they actually do cause a lot of harm.
------
Hyena
Sometimes I get the feeling that SCOTUS thinks they have said something
meaningful when they haven't. It would be a decent study to see if judges are
just re-applying their priors but, of necessity, using the language of Bilski.
That would be better than statements about conclusions, since it would help
build a clear set of criteria the Court can apply to itself when they want
their ruling to have a predictable effect.
------
brlewis
Despite the confusing parts of Bilski, is it at least now clear that In re.
Alappat and State Street are no longer considered valid precedent?
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
A $430 27" WQHD (2560x1440) S-IPS LED Monitor - shawndumas
http://www.anandtech.com/show/6131/nixeus-vue-27-a-430-wqhd-2560x1440-sips-led-monitor
======
rorrr
You can get one for $285 on eBay with free shipping:
[http://www.ebay.com/itm/27-Inch-Matrix-NEO-LED-270WQ-
IPS-256...](http://www.ebay.com/itm/27-Inch-Matrix-NEO-LED-270WQ-
IPS-2560x1440-WQHD-Quad-HD-
Monitor-/150864434755?pt=Computer_Monitors&hash=item2320389643)
~~~
wmf
DisplayPort is worth ~$100 for many people since otherwise they'd have to buy
a dongle. Also, there has to be a reason why the Korean brands are not stocked
by _any_ US retailer.
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Making Poverty Fashionable to Millennials - riverlong
https://jayriverlong.github.io/2020/08/08/poverty.html
======
lalos
It's interesting seeing how humans are deciding to forgo one of the most
innate patterns of life itself, passing their own genes via these phenomenons.
It's almost as if it's a 'invisible hand' regulating the population by
cornering people to prefer an achievable amount of pleasure (retire early,
travel, etc) by trading it for not having offspring. This also relates to all
the news about the rise of 'despair deaths'. No jobs, no way to ensure
offspring a quality life, therefore game over for those genes. It is a big
claim that these communities don't have kids, I would want more evidence of
that before jumping to conclusions but if that's the case it's pretty crazy to
read about.
~~~
cheschire
Is it not inherently part of that animal pattern to only procreate until the
resources become a limitation? Maybe the Wachowskis were wrong, and humanity
isn’t a disease that keeps spreading and growing.
~~~
nordsieck
> Is it not inherently part of that animal pattern to only procreate until the
> resources become a limitation?
Most animals don't self limit - their environment limits them instead.
~~~
anon9001
How can I tell if I'm self limiting or if I'm being environmentally limited?
~~~
nordsieck
> How can I tell if I'm self limiting or if I'm being environmentally limited?
Are you voluntarily having fewer kids than you physically could, or did you
starve to death?
~~~
stevenicr
If you fear your kids would starve or otherwise have a terrible life, and you
voluntarily do not inseminate - I think it could be argued that you are
volunteering - however I think it's a reaction to the environment and a
calculated view of what's to come.
~~~
tmn
That's a self limiting decision. It's easy to rationalize yes
------
akhilcacharya
This is bubble talk. I don't know anybody that went to my undergrad that is
remotely interested in any of these except remote work, which was promised to
everyone as soon as broadband became available to common people in the '90s.
Poor folks aren't the ones blogging about van life, they're the ones that
_live in their cars in Menlo Park_. Meanwhile, the classmates that didn't
leave my state have either already purchased houses or are planning to within
the next year. Mind you these aren't rich folks, these are folks making $75k a
year at best, half of what a Princeton CS grad would make. I've talked to them
about FIRE'ing before and got a blank look on their face. The only thing they
do is max out their 401k, if that.
This isn't a case of "resource constraints" making poverty fashionable. It's a
case of out of touch elites trying desperately to either "rough it" for the
sake of the experience they never had or to aggressively retire at the age of
30. The median student loan debt burden is closer to $0 than $100k, and while
growing and maintaining inter-generational wealth is a massive problem for
communities of color because of persistent housing discrimination, I really
don't see these folks represented in the communities OP's article mentions.
..that is, of course, if this isn't a partially GPT-3 generated blog as
speculated here [0] but there do seem to be active responses from the author,
so it just appears to be pseudonymous.
[0]
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23952750](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23952750)
------
giorgioz
I have been a digital nomad for 8 years of my life and my partner and I (also
digital nomad for 2+ years) had actively decided to become parents and have a
2 years old daughter. We do live as expats in Budapest where the cost/quality
of living ratio is better with a foreign salary. I did attend a couple of FIRE
meetups in Budapest last year.
I think the article is discussing a lot of real problems but is assuming too
much cause/effect rather than just correlation.
I think many of these movements make sense now BECAUSE travel is easier and
millenials are not marrying or are having less kids anyway.
The FIRE movement is quite helpful anyway to start to manage your savings and
debt. There is a lot of exchange of knowledge about ETF and passive investing.
In the line of the lifestyle blog
[https://www.mrmoneymustache.com/](https://www.mrmoneymustache.com/) By Retire
Early most people intend actually "Retire Early from a job you dislike" and
keep working on something you enjoy.
I'm from Italy which with Japan is one of the countries in the world with the
steepest population decline. Fast population decline with an older population
is a though new challenge we'll have to face consciounsly soon.
~~~
galfarragem
A bit off topic: isn't it strange that many people _choose_ to live on
countries like Hungary, that media portrays as being the gross ones in the EU
context? Something doesn't seem right here.
~~~
cko
Not sure what you mean.
I semi-retired early, and I currently live in Cluj-Napoca, Romania. I saw a
(uploaded 5 years ago) Youtube video that mentioned the city as a place rife
with corruption and poverty and people somehow scrape by. I showed the
girlfriend, who grew up here, and we were both confused.
On the other hand, I don't know why people _choose_ to live in a country with
high property taxes and healthcare costs and mandatory driving. As an American
I love the US but feel relaxed where I am now.
A friend once asked me why I didn't move to London instead. Because I grew up
near NYC and it's like the same thing, that's why.
~~~
petre
How did you get residency? Another guy from AZ (?) was denied entry into
Romania after overstaying his visa and then he moved to Moldova and now the
unrecognuzed PMR, aka Transnistria after trying other EU countries. He wrote a
book about the country and runs this eccentric but also sometimes funny blog:
[https://kingofromania.com](https://kingofromania.com)
------
sxp
> Having children is very expensive, so it’s hard to make that work with FIRE.
> On the other hand, van life and tiny houses are logistically prohibitive to
> having children.
This is debatable. If neither parent is working and they have the time and
knowledge to homeschool their kids, having children becomes cheaper since the
parents don't need daycare, a nanny, an expensive private school, etc.
People of all social classes have been having kids since the dawn of humanity.
Kids can be as cheap or as expensive as you want if you don't have to worry
about working 9-to-5 at the same time.
~~~
schwartzworld
So, kids can be cheap if you don't have to worry about working?
How do you feed your children in this scenario where neither parent works? How
about medical bills?
I'm not saying a lot of people couldn't spend less on childcare etc, but the
ability to do it without working assumes a certain level of financial comfort.
That's not even taking into account the added cost of leaving the workforce
for several years. I know several parents who found it difficult to return to
their former fields.
~~~
sxp
> How do you feed your children in this scenario where neither parent works?
> How about medical bills?
FIRE. If your life plan involves having kids, you'll need higher FIRE number,
but it's still possible. Medicial bills are always the hardest part of FIRE
since you can't plan for them and they have an unlimited ceiling. But you can
aim for a basic insurance plan on Obamacare or move to a country with a modern
medical insurance system.
------
P4wl0w
I agree with the underlying conclusion but there is one thing you said but did
not properly reason about:
> On the other hand, van life and tiny houses are logistically prohibitive to
> having children.
This is just not true. Only here in the wealthy west people think they need a
big house to have children. In the rest of the world you will see whole
families living in one tiny room together.
Also there is a lot of valid reasons not to put children into this world
without being part of some lifestyle romance.
~~~
riverlong
In the rest of the world, you see whole families living in one room together
_because they are poor_. Virtually no-one chooses to live like this. Case in
point, as soon as such people get money, they upgrade to larger houses.
------
an_opabinia
These lifestyles, as the author seems to point towards and not consummate, are
the consequence of millennials being lonely, not poor.
~~~
Bootwizard
I would say you're wrong. I know this is anectdata but I'm a non-single
millenial, and my girlfriend and I have decided to never have kids because we
value our own happiness and wellbeing too much to sacrifice it raising a
child. We would be happy to live this type of lifestyle.
Edit: and it has nothing to do with our income. We're both 6 figure engineers.
~~~
polotics
May I suggest your understanding of the word "happiness" will change as you
age? My happiness at 25 is not the same as at 50. As a male I guess society is
on your side and you can be a late father if you find a willing younger
partner. For your girlfriend however it's no dice: at 50 and childless I
assume earlier happiness may taste different.
~~~
ReactiveJelly
This is a big "may" to put on someone else.
------
abellerose
Affordable homes aren't being built for Millennials. I predict there will be
assisted suicide by the time most turn 60 and people will just turn to that
service. I also assume the generations to come will look back on this time
period as how the generations before the Millennials really threw a group of
people into despair for their own well being.
~~~
BuckRogers
That should come sooner than later. I’m 38 and a Millennial but definitely
feel more like a Xennial. I’ve “done well”, never given a dime, no help or
network, and have worked a tax paying job since I was 12, put myself through
college with 30 hours a week work (night shifts at stores etc) and my net
worth including my 401K today is about 200K. That’s saving, hard, for a very
long time. I’m still far behind where I need to be financially, will never
retire, and would definitely consider it today. The only reason I stick around
is to outlive a few people that I don’t want to give the satisfaction that I
died. I’m a petty man, one with no real future, but to continue making
employers rich. I do want to be part of defeating my class enemies though, the
investment class. I often say I understand the opioid crisis- those who died
may have been the smart ones. They knew.
There’s really only one way forward and it needs to start now, worker owned
cooperatives. No more capitalism, it isn’t working. While there will still be
a place for capitalism, most businesses are proven business models. There’s no
reason Google shouldn’t be owned by its employees. Let alone 7-Eleven. Once
people get a taste of democracy in the workplace, they’ll demand it out of
their government.
~~~
gremlinsinc
You sound a bit like me, a little more in my depressed days though.
I'm a lib socialist, so worker coops are my jazz.
I want to start a virtual union/commune that say everyone pays $100/month.
We use that to buy real estate rentals, eventually we launch all types of
businesses from gas stations to grocery stores to a full amazon + aws
competitor.
All union-owned. All workers are union members, and anyone who wants to join
just joins. Maybe every hour and $ spent/invested = 1 share in the union. Each
share = 1 vote and is used to calculate payouts for UBI (if we get to that
point).
Initially all the cash our businesses bring in would go into a fund for
healthcare. Our own single-payer plan if you will. We can create our own
insurance companies as well in most states, maybe eventually we take over
medicaid/medicare and buy up some hospitals and drug companies so we own the
whole health supply chain. We could lobby congress for funds as well to up our
health fund, and free up our cash on hand to pay out UBI.
Could also have some sort of credit card account with reward points, that you
could use at sub-union companies... Say a union member starts a worker-coop,
and decides to pay a 10% tax to the union, it'd be a sub-union company. Maybe
union members would also get discounts at the shop if it was ecommerce or
something, and be encouraged to shop there or help them promote their
business.
The key is creating something that benefits all, encourages each other to help
each other, and is ran somewhat democratically, and of course is self-
sufficient. Also CEO caps for all companies under the umbrella.
~~~
CapricornNoble
>>>Maybe every hour and $ spent/invested = 1 share in the union. Each share =
1 vote
Heh, you should check out this story:
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Hl5fCxw6NJY&t=621s](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Hl5fCxw6NJY&t=621s)
All it takes is one whale entering such a system to up-end it.
~~~
gremlinsinc
You could set limits on yearly credits that can be earned. To keep it fair and
balanced. Like maybe 40 hours * 52 weeks, so that you can't exceed what a
normal employee would get. Employees, can get 2x that much, cause they can
also double dip by investing their own $$.
------
aogaili
I disagree, while financial aspect is important but it is not the only factor
why folks choose these kind of lifestyles.
First, having a kid these days might not actually be a good idea, with 7
billion people and counting, uncertaining future job market and the huge
expense required to raise a functional kid in modern society. Previous
generations never had those obligation or constrains and kids were able to
contribute to their farms/income from early age.
Second, technology allowed for lifestyles that were not even feasible in the
past, it is really obvious and I don't think I need to elaborate on that.
Last, humans were nomads settling.
To sum up not everyone wants to live the mainstream lifestyle. So it could be
due to preference and choice rather than financial pressures only.
------
krrishd
reminded me of the “premium mediocre” view of millennials coping with downward
mobility [https://www.ribbonfarm.com/2017/08/17/the-premium-
mediocre-l...](https://www.ribbonfarm.com/2017/08/17/the-premium-mediocre-
life-of-maya-millennial/)
~~~
riverlong
Definitely. The "premium mediocre" stuff has been on my mind a lot, and I'm
sure it's conceptually related. "Downward mobility" is a good term here.
------
anm89
I love how the narrative is spun on these things.
It's not individuals making decisions about how to live their own lives.
Its they, the all encompassing shadowy cabal who wants to tempt naive young
people into living in vans, and preposterous less then 5000 sqft houses, with
their secret goal of impoverishing everybody.
Or maybe there are just people who prefer those things? Surely occams razor
prefers the shadowy cabal though...
It's like an exaggerated version of the peasents from the Monty python sketch
on the anarcho syndacislist commune.
.
------
mdragonpkf
Powerful post. Unfortunately no potential solutions are explored. Ideas? Is it
a matter of figuring out how to shift/part wealth from the ultra wealthy of
the world? Or develop a means of building wealth at lower costs? Of course
limited land is still an issue. Even if you got cheap land in a remote area,
you're likely to be disconnected from the world without running water,
electricity, and internet.
~~~
reducesuffering
Affordable housing and health care is really what it comes down to. Food is as
cheap, inflation-adjusted, as ever. Quality, reliable, transportation is as
cheap as ever. College education is free in many places of the world, but a
luxury in the US with the way it's taught. Employers are coming around to the
fact that it's not a good signal any more, so the reasons to go ~50k+ in debt
for a questionable degree are ceasing. The rest of millennial spend are
generally luxuries. They can't afford to keep going with the conspicuous
consumption and status-signalling that other generations could. But that's not
what we should care about improving.
We need to start tackling the insane complexities of the US health system and
the complete failure of building regulations to provide an affordable place
for the next generation to live.
~~~
akhilcacharya
> College education is free in many places of the world, but a luxury in the
> US with the way it's taught.
Community college is extremely cheap and free in several states like
Tennessee. In state tuition at most state schools will run $30k max on the
remainder. Not cheap, but for the income gains...not expensive.
------
ThA0x2
Hilarious how entitled the author is. It's delusional to believe that
millennials, or anyone else for that matter, are owed living in some of the
most expensive cities on the planet.
So many people just BELIEVE that if you fumble through college, you're
magically owed an affordable, nice house/apartment in some of the most
desirable metros on the face of the planet.
~~~
arvinsim
Who do you think inculcated that narrative to millenials when they were young?
~~~
ThA0x2
Their parent's generation for sure, and the liberal educators at the time.
------
Tiktaalik
Lots of "fashionable" millennial hipster trend things were just normal stuff
that were bought by millennials because they were poor artists or working
class. eg. converse shoes, pabst blue ribbon, thrift finds.
Oh oh it's so ironic uh no it's stuff millennials can afford because they're
poor af.
------
brnt
Rent seeking capitalists have managed to work their way into every corner of
life. There _is_ no way for a significant portion of the population to produce
a personal surplus, because 'markets' will be quick to funnel this into ever
fewer pocket, thanks to the neoliberal tools they've managed to convince us
were necessary for 'business' to not be 'choked' by government. Two working
partners, working in well paying jobs in large cities, it doesn't matter,
you're not going to keep your surplus.
Apart from being lucky and be either born or get a lottery ticket into the
0.01%, the only way I see of building up your surplus (without expending your
body with working 80hrs+ for 40+ years) is checking out of usual patterns,
patterns that are still not being eaten up by rent seekers. Like a good job on
the perifery of your country rather than in/near commercial/industrial
centers. And vote labour, of course. In the end, only law can end rent
seeking, and for that, we need to stop believing the economy musnt be under
our control rather than the reverse.
~~~
ReactiveJelly
Isn't it possible to have a controlled economy that doesn't exploit people,
which is still capitalist within its bounds?
~~~
ManuelKiessling
I’m pretty sure that at least for some time, the system of “Soziale
Marktwirtschaft” (social market-economy) in Germany nailed that balance quite
well. It’s totally not my area of expertise, though.
Still, my gut feeling is that if someone capable would check the numbers, the
result would be that from the 1950s to at least the 1990s, the personal
economic situation for most Germans improved dramatically, while German
companies were extremely competitive and successful in comparison to the rest
of the world at the same time. Like, no need to exploit the former or
sacrifice the latter; it worked hand-in-hand.
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Groggle boggled by Google mean spirit - bootload
http://www.theage.com.au/technology/biz-tech/groggle-boggled-by-google-mean-spirit-20100428-trq5.html
======
jerf
Trademark law is, broadly speaking, a good thing. It can be abused, but there
is a reason it is there.
Coming at this cold, Groggle strikes me as a bad-faith effort to build on the
Google name. This is exactly what trademark law is supposed to stop. If it
weren't a search app I might feel a bit more sympathy, but come on! Am I
seriously supposed to believe you would have named your app that if there
wasn't a world-famous Google? Yes, the odds are non-zero ("grog" is a funny-
sounding, memorable word and definitely a good base for a name), but in a
world where everyone knows the name Google, give me a break.
If this is trying to drum up sympathy, it has failed. Don't wave red flags in
front of bulls then complain about the result.
~~~
anigbrowl
Well, 'grog' is a synonym for 'booze' in UK and Australian culture. So it's
not as arbitrary as it might seem. I think Google is overdoing it a bit here,
and he could consider fighting it.
An injunction is not a trial, and if he loses at a court hearing he'll only
have to pay his own lawyer but not Google's, unless Australian civil law is
very different from here. It's basically down to the judge's opinion of
whether Google's claim of substantial similarity has any merit, and with
'grog' being popular slang for alcohol, I'm guessing he'll side with the
Australian government in allowing it.
~~~
jerf
I know what grog is. I said everything I said fully aware of what it meant, I
never said "arbitrary". <http://arrrr.com/grog.shtml>
You didn't answer my question, probably because it wouldn't help your point.
Do you seriously expect me to believe that the name Groggle had nothing to do
with trying to be a play on Google? In a _search_ context? Google, the seventh
most valuable brand in the world in 2009?
<http://www.interbrand.com/best_global_brands.aspx>
If this was an innocent mistake and they had the purest intent, they might as
well pack it in as they are too stupid to run a business anyhow. But that's
not what happened, what happened is they tried to ride somebody else's name.
There are good reasons we do not allow that, and casting the story as "awww,
poor little dudes" doesn't make those reasons go away. (Indeed, "poor little
dudes riding on established name" is one of the exact things trademark law is
meant to prevent, and it is a _good_ thing; being able to reliably and easily
identify who you are doing business with by the name is one of the basic
fundamentals of commerce, needed by all entities large and small. It isn't
even remotely worth trading that away to make the "poor little dudes" happy.)
~~~
anigbrowl
_Do you seriously expect me to believe that the name Groggle had nothing to do
with trying to be a play on Google?_
You're so angry about this, my answer is no, I don't expect you to believe
that. As a matter of fact, I think it's quite likely they said 'oh cool, that
sounds very web 2.0, like google for Grog'.
Where we differ is that I don't think they're infringing. ____gle is such a
common suffix in English that I don't think it's sufficiently unique for
Google to claim ownership of it. I know, I know, it boggles the mind that I
would try to wiggle out of a tight corner by juggling etymological components
on behalf of such an obvious boondoggle as a website that makes it easier for
people to haggle over the price of a drink.
~~~
jerf
Your last paragraph is disingenuous in at least two ways. First, it isn't just
a "suffix in English", it's a "suffix in search". Quick, what's the search
engine that fits "___gle"?
Second, it's not even "___gle". It's "G_o_gle".
And finally, you all but admit my point in your first paragraph. When you're
saying that your name is cool because it's like this big name other brand,
STOP RIGHT THERE. You've already lost at this point. If you can say that with
a straight face (and you most assuredly can), you are _already agreeing_ that
there's an infringement taking place. Why they chose it or how they got there
isn't relevant; you can say that, and that's bad.
~~~
anigbrowl
I'm sorry, I don't agree. I know trademark laws sanction appropriation of a
common word for use in a brand (eg googol, yahoo, woot). And I know that a
strong brand is agreed to create a secondary meaning for that term - and that
brandholders must defend this secondary meaning assiduously, so as not to
avoid accusations of trademark abandonment, since trademarks enjoy far less
protection than copyrights in most legal environments.
Nevertheless, I think there are limits on how much adjacent linguistic
territory a brand is entitled to claim, and in this particular case I think
Google's reach exceeds its grasp.
You made the point (which I failed to address first time) that this is a
competing search engine. I don't really agree. It bills itself thus: 'Groggle
is a location driven alcohol price comparison service', and on their site they
invites signups from retailers. Unless this is the result of some radical
recent change, that seems very different to me from 'search'. It's selective
(of the booze you want) and location-based (because you want it now). It
doesn't crawl the web, but serves retailers' structured price information. you
will never be able to go anywhere with it other than to the website of an
participating alcoholic beverage retailer.
That is a very narrow and specific kind of service. Saying 'they're in search'
is like saying Gem Hardware Co. is infringing on GE's trademark because GE
manufactures electrical motors & turbines, and Gem sells some electrical power
tools.
As for your point about "G_o_gle", I do not buy that all letters in a word are
equally weighted like bricks in a wall. The start of a word is a _much_ better
guide to its identity than the end. _Grog_ is only one letter different from
_Goog_ , but the sound is very different: it sounds a lot more like 'blog'
than it does 'goog'. R and O have plenty of distance between them on a
keyboard. Plus, I do give some weight to its pre-existing meaning - it's not a
neologism or (un)creative spelling alteration, but has a well-known provenance
of its own. They took a common and highly specific slang word and extended
with a common suffix.
It does have some similarities to the word Google, and both companies are on
the internet. Unlike you, I don't think they compete in a very similar space.
And they're not aping any visual aspects of Google's mark - even a drunk
person would distinguish the two with ease.
And look, it's not my name. I said it's quite likely they noted the
similarity, but that was by way of acknowledging your point. I would
appreciate if you disagree without SHOUTING at me.
------
JacobAldridge
I believe the owner when he says they went for Groggle after discovering
Grogger was taken (not sure how universal a term grog is, but strewth, I know
what you mean mate).
But this description of the company from the article probably explains why
Google are taking an interest (italics mine): "allowing consumers to _search_
for the cheapest price".
Groggle sounds like Grog + Google, and the product sounds like Grog + Google.
I hope this gets settled, because the name is far less important to me than
the service - looking forward to its launch!
------
winter_blue
Groggle does sound like Google. And _"Google could force him to pour two years
of work and tens of thousands of dollars down the drain."_ is a bit of a
stretch. All he has to do is change the name.
~~~
gojomo
May I suggest:
_Groghoo_
_Boozinga_ (to get both Bing and Zynga angry!)
(Both .com's are available!)
~~~
thejake
Not for long ;)
------
visural
This guy should just be pleased - national publicity in the major papers.
Best thing he could do is change the name quick and get people using the
service.
~~~
megablast
He is pleased, but he is not going to say so in the article, or there would be
no reason to have the article in the first place. No doubt he will do
everything you just said.
------
rickmode
grogsearch.com is also available.
I'm with the other dissenters here. Groggle is an obvious play on Google. Get
over it.
~~~
megablast
It is clearly a combination of Grog, a very common name for alcohol, and
Google. Not sure how much of a difference you need. It does sound quite
similar too.
Not sure how this is all his work down the drain, surely he can come up with
another name, and keep going?
------
xiaoma
It is clearly a combination of grog and ogle.
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Show HN: New app, CHEEKY, connects the contact photo with a photo messenger - cprutting
https://www.facebook.com/thecheekyapp
======
cprutting
Today I released the first version of my new app (ios only for right now,
android is in the works) CHEEKY! It's a photo messenger that connects directly
with your address book so you are able to send photos to your friends that
will automatically become your contact photo in their phone. There is a
download link on the FB page link or you can search the app store for
"cheeky!" and its the one whos icon is a yellow wink face. Any feedback would
be greatly appreciated!
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
One man's obsession with rediscovering the Doves typeface - tankenmate
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/magazine-31534032
======
lindig
The Doves Type font can be seen at this site [http://www.typespec.co.uk/doves-
type/](http://www.typespec.co.uk/doves-type/), which als tells the story how
it was recovered.
~~~
vortico
Why doesn't BBC have even a single link to the project page? Do they assume
nobody actually cares about the news they read on their website? The entire
point of the WWW is to make a network of information with hyperlinks
connecting them.
~~~
Zikes
I find a lot of online news publications still write as though they're dealing
with print.
NYT has made huge strides with this, greatly increasing the amount of
visualization and interactivity in their articles.
~~~
Vexs
Some bloomberg articles are downright gorgeous to look at, this brilliant
minimalist gradient design.
------
evolve2k
If you enjoyed reading about the quirky history of different typefaces, like
this one, I can reccomend the book 'Just My Type' by Simon Garfield. Each
chapter introduces a bit quirky of history of a type face designer along with
details of the type they cremated and what it's good for.
[http://www.amazon.com/gp/aw/d/1592407463](http://www.amazon.com/gp/aw/d/1592407463)
~~~
Daneel_
Thanks for the recommendation!
A related book would be 'Type Matters!' by Jim Williams - it's actually
suggested for me at the bottom of the 'Just my Type' page. It's a fantastic
book on typography, layout, font detail and suggested practices for
legibility. I own it and would highly recommend it, especially at the price on
Amazon (it's over $60 in Australia).
[http://www.amazon.com/Type-Matters-Jim-
Williams/dp/185894567...](http://www.amazon.com/Type-Matters-Jim-
Williams/dp/1858945674)
------
tinco
I remember there being an article about this font a few years back, perhaps
2010. I, like most would, fantasised about what it would be like if someone
actually retrieved the type. Crazy idea that perhaps this Mr Green also read
that article and actually got a mudlarkers permit to (literally) get to the
bottom of it.
The article doesn't mention if the 150 retrieved pieces together actually
constitute a useable font or if there's any essential letters missing or
damage from being underwater for almost a hundred years.
~~~
noir_lord
[http://www.typespec.co.uk/recovering-the-doves-
type/](http://www.typespec.co.uk/recovering-the-doves-type/) better pictures
of recovered type here.
------
cschmidt
The Economist had a good article about this in their 2013 Christmas special:
[http://www.economist.com/news/christmas-
specials/21591793-le...](http://www.economist.com/news/christmas-
specials/21591793-legendary-typeface-gets-second-life-fight-over-doves)
------
wodenokoto
Why couldn't the font be reproduced from printed sources? Seems much easier
than to try and fish old, rusty typefaces out of a river and then try to
reconstruct them.
~~~
gpvos
That is how he started, but it does not give completely satisfactory results.
The article in the Economist addresses this:
_> That sounds simple—yet the uneven printing that letterpress-lovers cherish
made tracing the type impossible. Once ink hits paper, no single letter is
reproduced identically. Guessing the shape of the metal that made the marks
takes time and patience. Guess wrong, and the error is imperceptible at first;
but lined up in text the letter looks awkward, the typeface distracting._
[http://www.economist.com/news/christmas-
specials/21591793-le...](http://www.economist.com/news/christmas-
specials/21591793-legendary-typeface-gets-second-life-fight-over-doves)
------
Animats
It's not clear that this font, as a replication of a work out of copyright, is
copyrightable in the US. See Bridgeman vs. Corel.
~~~
jahewson
True, though if the hinting was done manually or the outlines adjusted for the
screen, that's plausibly a new creative work.
~~~
dovestype
The outlines were redrawn manually because there were no drawn outlines as
such in existence. It is a new creative work, in that it's my interpretation
of the Doves type which only ever existed in metal. It was never redrawn for
filmsetting or digital by its original creators because they disposed of it
before these technologies came into existence. So the final typeface was never
drawn as such, as would have been necessary for adapting it (as so many other
types have been) for new reproduction techniques.
The original drawings for the type, by Percy Tiffin, are more like sketches or
visuals – guidelines to give the punchcutter a direction rather than precise
instructions. They bear little relation to the end product, so they are not
the typeface in & of themselves. (I initially tried to use these as reference
& after a couple of hours realised that they were pretty useless, containing
no uniform measures, proportions or elements). The final 'outlines' for the
type were created in the metal itself by the punchcutter, Edward Prince. He is
responsible for drawing, or rather carving the form of the type straight onto
the steel punches from which the final type moulds (matrices) were cast.
The name Doves Type® is copyrighted to protect my drawings. But if someone
wants to go ahead and do what I did and recreate the type from the original
printed sources there's nothing to stop them, as long as they do not use my
font data as a basis for their font. It took me 5 years, on-&-off, to reach
the stage where I was satisfied that I had captured the overall essence of the
original. Though one can never recreate the patina of a letterpress type – the
appearance of each glyph varies from word to word, line to line, page to page.
That's why I prefer to call my digital type a facsimile.
~~~
asjo
From what are you protecting your drawings/recreation?
~~~
dovestype
Anyone taking repackaging and selling as theirs. It's my research & work. This
is what I do for a living.
------
DiThi
Sorry for the off topic but.... F*CK autoplay videos! Couldn't they at least
use the page visibility API (or even just requestAnimationFrame) so it doesn't
start playing after I've opened a dozen tabs?
Is there a Firefox add-on that enables audio/video and flash only when you see
the page?
~~~
the8472
flash: enable "ask to activate" in the extension settings
<video>: set media.autoplay.enabled = false
you could have googled that instead of whining.
~~~
nekkoru
Or it could have been set as a sensible default, since an overwhelming
majority of users despise autoplaying videos on sites other than Youtube?
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Suspend Uber from London over 'flawed driver checks', minicab operators say - jackgavigan
http://www.theguardian.com/technology/2015/jun/18/suspend-uber-london-black-cab-drivers-claims-flawed-checks
======
DrScump
Are London black-cab operators still required to learn "The Knowledge"
(exhaustive detailed geography and traffic patterns) to get a license? I'm
guessing that Uber drivers are not.
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
PhoneGap vs RubyMotion - jballanc
http://iconoclastlabs.com/cms/blog/posts/phonegap-vs-rubymotion
======
freehunter
One thing that really put me off about this article: the giant header that
scrolls with the page. Vertical real-estate is already limited on a wide-
screen monitor. I hate it when CNet does it, I hate it when news sites do it,
I hate it all around. I understand I might not be speaking for everyone, but a
nice thing would be an option to stick the header to the top. It could scroll
by default until you click a button, where it would lock to the top of the
screen.
As is, though, I find myself judging a site/article/company based on how many
elements of their site irritate me. And it's a giant header.
~~~
GantMan
buy a better monitor jj. Good point, we'll add an unstick on our todo list.
~~~
lloeki
> we'll add an unstick
_NO_. This is just as bad. I loathe sites that require me to take action to
make browsing sane just as much as the current situation. Each site that does
this has its own way to make it unstick and I won't even bother looking 15
seconds how to hide that crap you're sticking through my optical nerve to read
some content I may or may not even be interested in.
_Solution_ : show your header for a second or two, then roll it up, leaving
the bottom rounded part shown as a hint. If the user wants to show it again he
will reach for that middle rounded part, upon which you could react to a
hover, a click/tap and/or a drag. Why does it suck less? The animation builds
expectation and explains the behavior, while the hint explains how to take
action. Zero thought needed, and no friction to 100% content.
------
phamilton
Phonegap is useful when you want to get a quick and dirty one off application
launched. It lets your designers work in CSS which is very familiar territory.
Most one off apps are more informational than interactive (Think conference
schedule app) and phone gap is more than responsive enough. It supports enough
basic api calls to do simple things like take a picture and stuff and does it
well. Ruby Motion seems like what I wouid use for a stable long term code base
for a new application. The difference being the product. The small one offs
are usually supporting a bigger product (like a conference) and the long term
code base is a product itself.
------
gavingmiller
The article isn't necessarily a far comparison: PhoneGap is cross platform,
RubyMotion isn't. But it's nice to see someone holding up the different tools
against one another.
His conclusion is more than correct for PhoneGap: PhoneGap feels like half-
assing it.
~~~
evilduck
Disclaimer: I'm Matt, the other half of Iconoclast Labs.
That platform limitation of RubyMotion and the cross-platform nature of
PhoneGap is acknowledged multiple times in the post.
From a business perspective, the cross platform nature of PhoneGap may make it
a better choice for some projects but from our short comparison of the
PhoneGap version of the app deployed on both platforms, iOS appears more
promising* so that's why we chose to write a native version for iOS (plus,
coming from more of a Ruby/web background and having no Obj-C experience,
RubyMotion lowered the barrier to entry for that). It's been an interesting
learning experience for sure.
[*] [http://iconoclastlabs.com/cms/blog/posts/chatoms-app-
store-e...](http://iconoclastlabs.com/cms/blog/posts/chatoms-app-store-
earnings-report-month-1)
~~~
z92
Can I include a C source file in RubyMotion project, compile it, and call the
C functions directly from Ruby? That can be done easily with Obj-C.
I was looking for its answer for some time now. Our projects include a lot of
C code.
~~~
lrz
Yes, you can vendor pure C libraries and use their APIs in a RubyMotion
project (assuming the C interface is simple enough). Here is an example that
uses the OpenGL C APIs:
[https://github.com/HipByte/RubyMotionSamples/tree/master/Hel...](https://github.com/HipByte/RubyMotionSamples/tree/master/HelloGL)
------
anuraj
I can understand PhoneGap will be handy when requiring cross platform
compatibility and you are not a multi platform expert. The experience is
always going to be underwhelming. RubyMotion is much more ambiguous, on one
hand we have beautiful XCode and Objective-C environment which is a pleasure
to use, and then this command line monstrosity! And it do not save you from
learning cocoa libraries - So if you want to develop for iOS, try to use Apple
tools - period.
~~~
lrz
Well, there are folks who don't find Xcode or Objective-C beautiful and prefer
using the command-line. A lot of folks, actually. :)
~~~
anuraj
Well - try developing a pixel perfect app on command line and see! And by the
way Objective-C is the fastest growing language out there.
~~~
jballanc
In my experience, the text-editor/command-line path is the _only_ way to be
truly "pixel perfect". Visual tools can get you most of the way there, but it
seems you always inevitably have to touch the drawing code if you want true
accuracy.
Oh, and as for Objective-C being a fast growing language? The rise of
Objective-C is _directly_ tied to the rise of the iOS platform. If iOS had
been written in any other language, Objective-C would still be a mostly
forgotten language today.
------
programminggeek
Having just spent the weekend doing an iOS app in PhoneGap and jQuery Mobile,
I can say that PhoneGap can get you to the first 80% really fast and it can
look/feel native, but the devil is in the details and the last 20% is going to
take an extra 80% for sure.
Native vs HTML/PhoneGap is about tradeoffs. With a little bit more experience
I'll be able to easily ship a working app in a weekend using PhoneGap, but
there are plenty of use cases where native would be a much better way to go
(games, photo filter apps, etc.)
It's not about what is better in all cases, it's about what is better for your
project.
------
brodney
I don't understand the apparent disdain here for phonegap. I'm currently
working on a freelance project to convert a blackberry app to a phonegap app.
Everything they want to do they can do using phonegap. I don't feel held back
or like I'm half-assing it. I have access to CSS for, in my opinion, easier UX
designing, and jQuery for things like posting or modal dialogs. Why aren't
more people excited about developing once and it working on multiple
platforms?
~~~
eddieroger
I think it comes back to the idea of "jack of all trades, master of none." No
matter what PhoneGap does, it will never do everything superbly, and sometimes
(often, even, I'd say) the trade-off isn't worth it.
There's also probably an ego play, too. I see the "Objective-C isn't that
hard. Learn it." argument a lot, but it does have a steep learning curve. For
one, it's syntax is confusing if you don't recognize the brackets and
messaging. Second, it's a lot closer to C than something like Ruby or Python,
so you have to learn about types and memory management.
~~~
brodney
I thought it might be the jack of all trades issue. I find phonegap to be a
great framework when it is appropriate to use. In the project I mentioned, it
fits the client's needs perfectly. I wouldn't use it to develop an app that
needs tighter access to the api or hardware than what phonegap offers. I have
another project using audio units - phonegap would be a bad choice there.
It's a mistake to compare these frameworks to native apps, not that you did
but several posts are. They are different, and that's good. It's like
complaining that C isn't object oriented. Find the right hammer for your nail.
~~~
GantMan
That's the attraction to phonegap, but what happens when your "nail" changes?
Your client might ask for a small feature that the API doesn't support, which
renders your entire solution useless, or cumbersome.
One of the points in the article is that the second you want something
phonegap doesn't provide, you're stuck back-peddling, or over-engineering your
fix. We've already come across such a situation with one of our upcoming
projects that requires camera overlays.
Ultimately, it's important to compare options, whether they be frameworks,
native, or toolchains. They're all avenues that need to stand their ground
against other avenues.
------
jasonlotito
Seems kind of an odd comparison to make. I see RubyMotion more in competition
with something like Titanium. The question then becomes whether you want to
use JavaScript or Ruby, as well as the support.
Personally, I just bit the bullet and spent time learning Obj-C, and found it
to be much more pleasurable (especially when you don't limit yourself to just
using XCode).
~~~
cnp
Titanium uses it's own methods and translates that code into Obj-C (you can
actually see the * incredibly insane* trans-source when you build the app) --
RubyMotion is a direct interface with Cocoa and Obj-C. If you know Obj-C you
can immediately start experimenting with RubyMotion --comfortably-- and if you
know Ruby and can "read" Obj-C you can immediately pick up the iOS cookbook
and get started, like the authors did. Think of it as a dialect, similar to
CoffeeScript, where all the same rules apply, but things are just... better.
Having zero Obj-C experience and, I admit, no desire to go into the realms of
byte-sized memory management, I avoided it for a long time, but after just a
few weeks with RM I feel like I have a very strong grasp on both Ruby and
Obj-C, and can read and write both interchangeably, including interfacing with
Storyboards and Interface Builder. Two languages for the price of one, IMO,
and that was well worth the $150 dollars I paid, aside from any products that
I may release with the toolchain.
But yeah, in short: there's no comparison between Titanium and RM.
~~~
jasonlotito
Not a fan of Ruby (which pretty much nails RM's coffin for me), so really
can't comment. You appear a fan of Ruby, so I take what you say with a grain
of salt.
> there's no comparison between Titanium and RM.
Well, there is. As much, I guess, as there is between PhoneGap and RM. I
really just saw RM and Titanium having more in common then what PhoneGap had
to offer, and saw the comparison as a bit odd. PhoneGap's goals are different
then RM or Titanium. That's all I really meant.
~~~
cnp
Well, I'm now a fan of Ruby; I learned it via RubyMotion :)
------
bryanjclark
I'm still waiting to see _one_ app made in PhoneGap that doesn't look like
complete rubbish.
For my nickel, I believe your best bet is to either make a native app, or a
mobile website. These "cross-platform" tools just make apps that feel like
junk.
~~~
phamilton
[http://itunes.apple.com/us/app/michigan-danger-on-our-
roads/...](http://itunes.apple.com/us/app/michigan-danger-on-our-
roads/id465543077?mt=8)
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Neural network for recognising porn stars by face - wgx
http://pornstarbyface.com/?u=http://poplavok-irk.ru/e107_plugins/sgallery/pics/8fv03yh21tf1/31313131.jpg
======
Cheyana
I will honestly be more impressed when they recognize them by ::wink wink::
"other" attributes.
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Rethinking the test pyramid, and other topics: TalkPython#45 - variedthoughts
https://talkpython.fm/episodes/show/45/the-python-testing-column-now-a-thing
======
variedthoughts
There's also a book give-away if you comment on the episode show notes. But
please do listen to the discussion first.
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Best PC games - manelfg24
https://www.pcgamer.com/best-pc-games/
======
manelfg24
Interesting
~~~
manelfg24
Aha
------
manelfg24
fgdh
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
The Problem with EULAs (sneaky bitcoin mining) - privong
https://www.schneier.com/blog/archives/2013/12/the_problem_wit_5.html
======
infruset
What if some intern at Sony adds a little mining-when-idle module to the next
PS4 update? Surely this would generate decent profit?
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Did Facebook trademark "like" on domains? - fbquery
It seems like there is so much potential for business around "Like" button but no one is doing it. Is it because FB has a trademark on the word "like" ?
======
kopko
<http://techcrunch.com/2010/08/26/trademark-face/>
They are trying to (see the end of that article). Even though it may be too
broad to enforce, a cease-and-desist from a big company like fb often goes far
enough in chilling usage.
------
sorbus
<http://lmgtfy.com/?q=facebook+like+trademark>
From the first result: "Facebook also has no fewer than 14 applications
pending to trademark the word "like.""
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Jailbreak your iPhone? iBookstore purchases may be unreadable - Hagelin
http://arstechnica.com/apple/news/2011/02/ibooks-to-jailbreakers-no-yuo.ars
======
chapel
"But Apple appears to be within its legal rights to prevent a jailbroken
device from decrypting DRM content, and it may actually be obligated to do so
in its agreements with publishers."
Then why does the Kindle app work on Android and Jailbroken iOS devices? Or
Netflix on said iOS devices? I understand the need to keep security in check,
but the way Apple tries to lock people out of their phones, even though it is
entirely legal now, just seems backwards.
*I am an Android supporter and have a Google Nexus One, for the specific reason I could unlock it officially.
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
OpenGL Is Broken - watermel0n
http://www.joshbarczak.com/blog/?p=154
======
fixermark
Quite a few of these issues (especially in the "Too many ways to do the same
thing" category) relate to OpenGL's age as an API, which is something
Direct3D's design was able to learn from and improve upon. OpenGL's origin was
as a vector-based drawing tool for CAD applications which was repurposed to
games; D3D was targeted for performant rendering with games as a specific
target. This is demonstrated by some key features necessary for performant
games (clock synchronization to avoid 'tearing' comes immediately to mind)
that are core to the D3D spec and extensions to the OpenGL spec. There's also
a bit of a cultural issue; if you learn OpenGL from the 'red book,' you'll
learn the function-per-primitive API first, which is precisely the _wrong_
tool for the job in making a performant game. Really, the OpenGL API is almost
multiple APIs these days; if you're using one flow of how to render your
primitives, the other flow is downright toxic to your rendering engine (in
that it's going to muck about with your GL state in ways that you shouldn't
burn mental energy predicting).
Some of this is ameliorated by the OpenGL ES standard, which throws away a big
chunk of the redundancy. But I'm not yet convinced that OpenGL has gotten away
from its philosophical roots as a performance-secondary CAD API, which
continues to dog its efforts to grow to serve game development needs. The fact
that it's functionally the only choice for 3D rendering on non-Windows
platforms is more testament to the nature of the hardware-software ecosystem
of graphics accelerators (and the creative doggedness of game developers) than
the merits of the language.
~~~
gaustin
I dabbled with the Red Book aeons ago, but never got very far with 3D
programming. What would you suggest for learning OpenGL? Or is there some
other tool you'd recommend learning?
~~~
yoklov
This is the list I typically see given to newbies (on freenode ##OpenGL, and
/r/opengl) wanting to learn modern OpenGL.
1\. Arcsynthesis's gltut
([http://www.arcsynthesis.org/gltut/](http://www.arcsynthesis.org/gltut/)) is
good and reasonably thorough. He explains things well but not always in the
order you'd like him to. At the end you will probably know enough to be able
to figure out the rest on your own as you need.
2\. [http://open.gl/](http://open.gl/) is good but somewhat short. It also
goes in depth into creating/initializing a context with various APIS (SDL,
SFML, GLFW, ...). More of a good starting point than a complete guide.
3\. [http://ogldev.atspace.co.uk/](http://ogldev.atspace.co.uk/) has a lot of
good tutorials on how to do more advanced techniques, as well as many beginner
level tutorials. I've never gone through them so I can't speak to their
quality, but I've heard good things.
4\. [http://www.lighthouse3d.com/tutorials/glsl-core-
tutorial/](http://www.lighthouse3d.com/tutorials/glsl-core-tutorial/) is also
good, but focused on the shading language.
See /r/opengl and freenode's ##OpenGL channel for more. Both those places are
fairly newbie friendly (/r/opengl moreso than ##OpenGL, but as long as you
actually know your language of choice they're nice), so feel free to ask
questions.
------
raverbashing
I think what's broken is not OpenGL, D3D, etc
What's broken is that the abstraction between graphics card and data (on the
screen) is too big
We don't have troublesome/fat drivers as these since the "Softmodem" days and
even then (Wifi is also complicated)
It's too big of a gap.
In 2D graphics, you send graphical data and it is displayed. You may even
write it directly to memory after some setup.
Audio, same thing. Network, it's bytes to the wire. Disk drive, "write these
bytes to sector X" (yes, it's more complicated then that, still)
With 3D, we have two APIs that have an awful amount of work to do between the
getting the data and displaying it.
I'll profess my ignorance in the low-level aspects, I only know "GlTriangle" ,
OpenGL 101 kind of stuff, and I have no idea how: 1 - this is sent to the
videocard, 2 - how does it decide to turn that into what we see on the screen.
Compared to the other drivers this is a lot of work and a lot of possibilities
of getting this wrong.
Adding GPGPU stuff makes it easier in one aspect and more complicated in other
aspects. We don't have a generic way of producing equal results from equal
inputs (not even the same programming environment is available)
We don't have OpenGL, we have "this OpenGL works on nVidia, this other one
works on ATI, this one works on iOS, or sometimes it doesn't work anywhere
even though it might be officially allowed"
~~~
sliverstorm
To my understanding, the critical difference between framebuffer graphics and
3D API graphics is the processing! In a framebuffer scenario, the CPU does all
the rendering. Since CPU is poorly suited to rendering 3D, we have a
coprocessor called a GPU. The CPU has to feed the GPU work.
Because the GPU is cutting-edge, there is a certain amount of magic voodoo
required for top performance that needs to get abstracted away- maybe this
_particular_ model of GPU you have doesn't support some common instruction.
You don't want to handle that in your software, you want to hide that in the
driver.
Beyond that, the API is also there to make the GPU easier to use. OpenGL is a
mess, sure, but to my understanding most developers would pull their hair out
and give up if they had to program the GPU directly.
~~~
cousin_it
Isn't the GPU just a computer that happens to support more parallelism than
the CPU? Why not have a simpler API based on general-purpose operations like
map/reduce/scatter/gather? Then there would be no need to add new "cutting
edge" operations every year. I for one would be happy to use that instead of
OpenGL or DX.
~~~
overgard
> Isn't the GPU just a computer that happens to support more parallelism than
> the CPU?
Not really. It's like quantum mechanics compared to classical physics.
For instance, "branches" don't work like you'd expect. On a cpu you execute
one branch or the other. On a GPU, you get things like both branches execute,
but then it just throws away the half that shouldn't have run, but that means
you're bottlenecked by whichever branch takes the longest (Or something like
that -- the details escape me but I do remember something about CUDA's
branching doing weird things). Point being, GPU's are weird. It's nothing like
programming a CPU at all.
~~~
geon
> On a GPU, you get things like both branches execute, but then it just throws
> away the half that shouldn't have run
It's not that weird. You don't really have thousands of parallell processors,
but a single processor, operating on thousands of values. (Like SIMD on
steroids.)
Since all operations must be done identically on all values, a "branch" is
really doing both branches and recombining them with a mask of equally many
booleans - as you say "throwing away" the unwanted branch.
------
druidsbane
Well-reasoned response: [http://timothylottes.blogspot.com/2014/05/re-joshua-
barczaks...](http://timothylottes.blogspot.com/2014/05/re-joshua-barczaks-
opengl-is-broken.html)
~~~
mmarks
I nod my head in agreement with most of these OpenGL are broken articles. I've
work on the OpenGL version of Call of Duty, Civilization, and more for the
Mac. I think Timothy misses the real point on driver quality.
[https://medium.com/@michael_marks/opengl-for-real-world-
game...](https://medium.com/@michael_marks/opengl-for-real-world-
games-7d0f4d35891c)
------
espadrine
The "compiler in the driver" part of this post sounds awfully like the "asm.js
vs. NaCl" debate.
Sure, building an IR from scratch is fun. But making it truly cross-platform
and ready for many usages is really hard. Also, the GLSL source _is_ an IR
between the programmer's intent and the driver's behaviour. Code is just
another type of binary. It is just slightly harder to parse, but not by much;
without performance comparisons, a complaint about how hard it is to parse
code is invalid.
Feeding the driver GLSL can also yield much clearer error messages for
programmers. I can only imagine what kinds of error messages the IR compiler
would produce. Sure, hopefully, our cross-platform IR would be accepted by all
GPUs without pain, but that's improbable.
Regardless, starting from a clean slate is much harder than working our way
from the current state to an improved OpenGL. Just like few browsers are on
board with NaCl, few GPU makers would be on board with a brand new design.
~~~
fzltrp
> Sure, building an IR from scratch is fun. But making it truly cross-platform
> and ready for many usages is really hard.
It's not that hard, as long it remains as close as possible to the source
language (ie. GLSL). Iow, as the OP is advocating for, an AST of the shaders.
This removes the cost of parsing the source code (but requires on the other
hand to validate the AST, so this isn't exactly a complete gain, but
definitely an progress compilation wise). However, I suppose that what
motivated the choice of using GLSL source directly is the simplicity of the
approach: no need to build the GLSL scripts separately. When working with
interactive tools, it's a non negligible comfort, imho. Another interesting
aspect is the ability to build the scripts dynamically, like people do with
SQL. I wonder if this approach is used by professional game studios.
------
pyalot2
This post is factually wrong, and misguided. Here's why:
#Preamble: Except on Windows you cannot run Direct3D anywhere else. Unless you
plan not to publish on Android, iOS, OSX, Linux, Steambox, PS4 etc. you will
have to target OpenGL, no matter how much you dislike it.
#1: Yes the lowest common denominator issue is annoying. However, in some
cases you can make use of varying features by implementing different
renderpaths, and in other cases it doesn't matter much. But factually wrong is
that there would be something like a "restricted subset of GL4". Such a thing
does not exist. You either have GL4 core with all its features, or you don't.
Perhaps author means that GL4 isn't available everywhere, and they have to
fall back to GL3?
#2: Yes driver quality for OpenGL is bad. It is getting better though, and I'd
suggest rather than complaining about OpenGL, how about you complain about
Microsoft, Dell, HP, Nvidia, AMD etc.?
#compiler in the driver: Factually this conclusion is completely backwards.
First of all the syntactic compile overhead isn't what makes compilation slow
necessairly. GCC can compile dozens of megabytes of C source code in a very
short time (<10ms). Drivers may not implement their lexers etc. quite well,
but that's not the failing of the specification. Secondly, Direct3D is also
moving away from its intermediary bytecode compile target, and is favoring
delivery of HLSL source code more.
#Threading: As author mentions himself, DX11 didn't manage to solve this
issue. In fact, the issue isn't with OpenGL at all. It's in the nature of GPUs
and how drivers talk to them. Again author seems to be railing against the
wrong machine.
#Sampler state: Again factually wrong information. This extension
[http://www.opengl.org/registry/specs/ARB/sampler_objects.txt](http://www.opengl.org/registry/specs/ARB/sampler_objects.txt)
allows to decouple texture state from sampler state. This has been elevated to
core functionality in GL4. The unit issue has not been resolved however, but
nvidia did propose a DSA extension, which so far wasn't taken up by any other
vendor. Suffice to say, most hardware does not support DSA, and underneath,
it's all texture units, even in Direct3D, so railing against texture units is
a complete red herring.
#Many ways to do the same thing: Again many factual errors. Most of the "many
ways" that author is railing against are legacy functions, that are not
available in core profile. It's considered extremely bad taste to run a
compatibility (to earlier versions) profile and mix&mash various strata of
APIs together. That'd be a bit like using Direct3D 8 and 11 functionality in
the same program. Author seems to basically fail in setting up his GL context
cleanly, or doesn't even know what "core profile" means.
#Remainder: Lots of handwaving about various vaguely defined things and
objecting to condjmp in the driver, again, author seems to be railing against
the wrong machine.
Conclusion: Around 90% of the article is garbage. But sure, OpenGL isn't
perfect, and it's got its warts, like everything, and it should be improved.
But how about you get the facts right next time?
~~~
leorocky
> how about you complain about Microsoft, Dell, HP, Nvidia, AMD etc.?
These companies are businesses that need a business reason to support your
platform. Until more people are playing triple A games on platforms that use
OpenGL you can't really fault them for spending money when it doesn't make
sense. Apple designs its own chips for its mobile device so I'd think the
OpenGL on iOS would have better driver support.
~~~
pyalot2
OpenGL is the only thing you get on iOS. There is no Direct3D on iOS.
Likewise, it's the only thing you get on PS4, Steambox, OSX etc.
But that's not my issue, I acknowledge freely that OpenGL drivers are bad. I
just don't quite see how that's a failing of OpenGL, rather than the vendors
who actually implement the drivers.
~~~
kevingadd
PS4 doesn't use OpenGL. No game console I'm aware of has ever used OpenGL.
(The PS3 is the closest example, since it used to let you run Linux, so you
could run Mesa - but the GPU wasn't accessible to you.) I don't know why
people keep claiming that a given console runs OpenGL.
~~~
Mikeb85
PS4 doesn't use 'OpenGL', just a low level api and a higher level api that has
features suspiciously close to OpenGL 4.3...
Also uses Clang and a bunch of Unixy open source stuff...
~~~
kevingadd
Sure, but in practice this is not 'OpenGL' enough to count when talking about
OpenGL making ports trivial. (I say this as someone who recently shipped a
game w/a OpenGL renderer that has a PS4 port in the works - there are a
surprising number of differences!)
The core OpenGL feature set and API factoring are almost certainly things you
can expect to be similar on console platforms, at least where the hardware
matches. So in that sense 'It's OpenGL' is almost true!
------
npsimons
OpenGL might be broken, but Direct3D and DirectX are _not_ the solution.
Otherwise, you might as well just correct yourself and say "Windows gaming"
_not_ "PC gaming". And clinging to a different single vendor's proprietary
standard doesn't seem like a good idea either.
~~~
Tuna-Fish
Maybe that's why his blog post was full of links to Mantle.
------
VikingCoder
Reason #2 is chicken and egg.
I'm not excusing OpenGL for this fact, I'm just stating that if people cared
about the quality of OpenGL drivers and made purchasing decisions based on
that, then you bet your ass the manufacturers would make the OpenGL drivers
better.
------
jmpeax
I've written an in-house visualization program in OpenGL that runs on Mac and
Windows. These articles just make me laugh, especially the bit where they talk
about cross platform being a myth, then follow on with the virtues of DirectX.
~~~
lilsunnybee
The article specifies OpenGL being deficient for high-performance gaming, not
so much for other graphics computing tasks.
------
Mikeb85
So the solution he proposes at the end is to use Mantle? AMD has already
proven themselves incompetent (or are they only unwilling?) at implementing
OpenGL, unable to compete with either Intel or Nvidia, and now they want to
fragment graphics APIs? And this is the 'solution'?
As for OpenGL's issues - that's what happens when a spec gets old enough. But
the fact remains, it's the only graphics API that could be called 'universal',
they have modernized the spec, and despite all its failings, somehow it still
delivers better performance than DirectX...
------
CmonDev
And it will never be properly fixed due to backwards-compatibility
requirements - just hack-patched. Just like web (HTML/CSS/JS).
------
icambron
I don't know anything about graphics programming, but I couldn't make any
sense of this:
> While the current GL spec is at feature parity with DX11 (even slightly
> ahead), the lowest common denominator implementation is not, and this is the
> thing that I as a developer care about.
Isn't DX restricted to Windows, meaning its lowest common denominator
implementation is nothing at all?
~~~
MBCook
What I believe he means is that if you have an OpenGL driver that implements
the ENTIRE specification (correctly and in a performant manor) then you have
basically all the features of a modern DirectX 11 card available.
The problem is that many OpenGL drivers implement the base OpenGL specs and
then a couple of extensions here and there. Because of this you can't rely on
what's available and you end up with something that's more akin to a mix of
many previous versions of DirectX: some advanced capabilities but many basic
ones missing.
------
AshleysBrain
I think the difficult thing about OpenGL is it is hard to learn. The core
profile of the latest version might be nice, but in practice there are still a
wide range of OpenGL versions in use, so you have to learn the various ways of
doing things through the OpenGL versions, or code against a crufty old version
which is the lowest common denominator. Then there are various driver issues,
platform-specifics around context creation, and so on. Overall it's a pretty
tough chestnut if you're not going to use it directly instead of relying on an
engine/framework that has figured out lots of that already.
Mobile on the other hand seems decent - OpenGL ES 2+ seems to be a well-
designed clean and relatively minimal API with widespread support.
------
ksec
With the traction of iOS Ecosystem. I think Apple could have created its own
API, or even just reuse Mantle or use it as a base for a new API. This
certainly wasn't possible when Mac was the minority. But now even if Apple
gets only 10% of the Phone market there is still a huge userbase.
No longer bounded by OpenGL.
------
alariccole
Your site is broken.
[http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:http://...](http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:http://www.joshbarczak.com/blog/?p=154)
------
shmerl
What is the current stance of Nvidia and Intel on implementing Mantle support?
And what are the chances of mobile GPU makers doing the same? Is it easier to
make a better OpenGL 5, or to adopt Mantle across all GPU manufacturers?
~~~
corysama
Even if it is technically quite feasible, I would be seriously surprised if
Nvidia and Intel implement Mantle if only for political reasons. However, they
definitely will implement DX12 --which as far as I can tell is pretty much the
same thing as Mantle except explicitly multi-vendor. If Mantle was a tap on
OGL's door, DX12 is a full-on wake-up call.
Back when I worked in Windows/console games, my market demanded D3D (+
sony/nintendo's wacky custom APIs). Now I work in mobile and my customers
demand GLES. GL advocates used to cry "GL has the better tech! D3D only wins
because of politics! Boo!" It will be quite a turn if they switch tunes to
"D3D has better tech, but GL still wins because of politics! Yay!"
DX12 API Preview vid
[http://channel9.msdn.com/Events/Build/2014/3-564](http://channel9.msdn.com/Events/Build/2014/3-564)
DX12 API Preview slides
[http://view.officeapps.live.com/op/view.aspx?src=http%3a%2f%...](http://view.officeapps.live.com/op/view.aspx?src=http%3a%2f%2fvideo.ch9.ms%2fsessions%2fbuild%2f2014%2f3-564.pptx)
~~~
shmerl
DX12 is not the way forward because it remeains MS only and there is no
indication that MS is interested in opening it up. The way forward is either
creating a new open API which all manufacturers would support (Mantle, or
whatever), or seriously improving OpenGL if it's possible.
------
zurn
> The GL model, placing the compiler in the driver, is WRONG
How does he figure OpenGL mandates this? OpenGL allows a (caching) GLSL
compiler to be part of the OS OpenGL support, leaving drivers to consume
bytecode or some other kind of IR.
------
maaku
You're webserver is broken. Anyone have a cached link?
~~~
robin_reala
[https://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:http%3...](https://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:http%3A%2F%2Fwww.joshbarczak.com%2Fblog%2F%3Fp%3D154)
!cache in DDG will get that for you in future.
------
SteveDeFacto
I can't agree 100% with everything in the article but the part about GLSL is
spot on.
------
feistyio
As is your server.
------
Cocodyne1
OpenGL works fine for me, so it must be user/programmer error.
~~~
fixermark
I'm not sure if you're being sarcastic. On the chance that you're not, you may
very well be working in a space where you haven't had to either port your
OpenGL-utilizing app to another hardware platform with an OpenGL API, or you
haven't needed the "deeper magic" parts of OpenGL that become necessary when
you get close to the limits of hardware capabilities.
Which means I envy you, in short. ;)
~~~
Cocodyne1
Is that why I was downvoted?
Seems petty.
------
foxhill
theory: articles of the form: "X is broken", "X is wrong", or some other
equally dramatic statement, say almost exactly the same thing; nothing.
~~~
sdfjkl
While I hate link baiting as much as the next guy, I find myself agreeing with
most of the things he says about OpenGL.
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Ask HN: Design Resources for Developers? - vital101
I've been working on a side project for quite some time and have been skirting around the issue of design. I started out using Bootstrap, then purchased a nice looking design from ThemeForest and hacked it to my needs. Even with my lack of design skills, it's actually starting to look pretty nice.<p>The problem I'm having is how to visualize data. Users rate an item on a scale of 1 - 10 for how often that item was required. For instance, a rating of 1 would mean "I needed this item infrequently. Chances are you won't need it either." and a rating of 10 would mean "I needed this item all the time. You will need it.". When the user is entering the rating, it's easy enough to have a quick text description of how it works, however when you're browsing through reviews without that context it's hard to tell what a rating 1 - 10 actually means.<p>Are there any good design resources out there for visualizing data? I need to figure out how to display that kind of data in a way that can be interpreted and understood at a glance.<p>Thanks.
======
vitovito
There are actually three issues here:
1\. Are reviewers rating the data using the right scale/format? 1-10 might
mean one thing to you and something different to someone else. 1-10 might be
inappropriate when you really mean a multiple choice, 1 of N text
descriptions. Different types of inputs mean reviewers will _think about
things_ differently, and also mean you'll have to process your data
differently to get an appropriate visualization.
2\. What are browsers trying to get out of it? Maybe those ratings, or their
descriptions, are helpful in the general case. Maybe they're only really
helpful when someone actually wants to make a decision. Maybe browsing _by
rating_ instead of by product is how things should be sorted. There's any
number of possibilities in how potential browsers might use your service,
regardless of your intent.
3\. Only after you know those things can you decide on an appropriate
visualization, and I must warn you that something that looks really attractive
and draws people in and gets people to say how awesome your site is is not
necessarily the visualization that will be most useful. In addition, most-
useful-at-a-glance is not the same as most-useful-after-I-understand-it or
most-useful-with-a-lot-of-practice.
This sort of thing is why an actual designer is useful. You've got a lot of
encoded assumptions and we're trained to break them down.
That said, to answer your question, even though it might be the wrong
question, there's a great O'Reilly book called "Information Dashboard Design"
which explains how to make data visualizations that are actually useful.
After you get through that, you might look for an old book called "Using
Charts & Graphs" by Jan V. White. It's out of print, so finding a copy might
be hard, but it's the opposite of the Tufte books someone will invariably
suggest, but which are inappropriate for you. "Using Charts & Graphs"
specifically talks about what we now call infographics: telling a story using
a chart or a graph.
(Tufte's books are inappropriate here because they're textbooks for print
people, and while they have lots of good information, implementing their
takeaways in electronic form is left as an exercise to the reader. It's way
too much work for this situation.)
You might also try to dig up the work done by Summize back in 2007/2008,
before they were acquired by Twitter.
Finally, if you'd like to talk more about this with an actual designer, you
might be interested in a design "office hours" experiment I'm running, called
UX Hours: <http://uxhours.com/>. For comparison, this well-defined question,
resulting in advice on things to consider and two places to find out what you
need to do, is just about right for a 30 minute consult.
~~~
vital101
Thank you so much for your reply. I think you're correct in that I'm going to
need to challenge a lot of my assumptions with regards to visualizing this
data.
I have a few designer friends that I'll talk this out with over beer sometime,
but I also look forward to reading your book recommendations.
Thanks!
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Flawed Study of Advanced Prostrate Cancer Spreads False Alarm - hvo
http://www.nytimes.com/2016/07/21/health/advanced-prostate-cancer-false-alarm.html?rref=collection%2Fsectioncollection%2Fscience&action=click&contentCollection=science®ion=stream&module=stream_unit&version=latest&contentPlacement=10&pgtype=sectionfront
======
DrScump
_Prostrate_ cancer? That's bound to bring sufferers to their knees, I guess.
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Ways to improve gender equity in the tech sector - Oatseller
http://newsroom.ucla.edu/stories/ucla-faculty-voice-five-ways-to-improve-gender-equity-in-the-tech-sector
======
yagibear
Why is it that so many people (such as this author) use participation rates as
an indicator of equity? I understand gender equity to refer to equal TREATMENT
of different genders, which is quite different from having equal NUMBERS of
both genders in the workplace. Some differences in participation rates MAY be
due to gender inequity, but some may also be due to other factors such as
innate differences between genders (a crude example: perceptions about the
meaning of prerequisites as mentioned in the article).
The first proposed "solution" merely promotes participation rates as a measure
of gender equity, and the 2nd proposal "Provide female entrepreneurs with..."
just adds another form of inequity. Only the 4th proposal seems truly gender
neutral and constructive.
~~~
B-Con
> Why is it that so many people (such as this author) use participation rates
> as an indicator of equity?
It's easier to chase metrics than fix problems. Any many are deaf to the
possibility that equal treatment would not yield equal participation.
~~~
setra
This is just the Marxist dialectic applied to social issues. If there is a
difference in outcome it can only be because of discrimination.
~~~
necessity
Relevant: [https://youtu.be/ENL-Jv8GVkk#t=29m15s](https://youtu.be/ENL-
Jv8GVkk#t=29m15s)
------
gyardley
The best way to improve gender equity in tech (and fight just about every
other form of discrimination at the same time) is to put an end to Silicon
Valley's ridiculous culture of overwork. I don't know how everyone fell into
this trap - it leads to terrible code, developer burnout, and eventually
drives out anyone who has or wants any semblance of a life outside of work,
which in practice is anyone who isn't a male in their twenties.
I don't care what your personal politics on gender equality are - if you're
making your employees work sixty-hour weeks you're functionally identical to
Pat Buchanan.
------
codemac
#4 is super important for many things, not just gender equity.
One of the biggest ones is to make sure that you actually clearly communicate
what you want out of an employee. If you expect someone to be doing more work
than someone else, but they have the same title.. you may want different
titles. Or clear (and public!) pay grades that signify seniority if you don't
want MTS1 MTS2 MTS3 MTS4 MTS5 MTS++ style titles.
Companies, especially small ones, that skirt performance review policies as
either unimportant or "too formal" can lead to a lot of incidental/accidental
discrimination that goes unnoticed until it's too late.
~~~
meric
We had expanded to a new country and decided to open an office there. Since we
didn't know the market rates for developers over there the founder proposed to
pay whatever people ask for plus 10%. We ended up hiring a light skinned
person and a dark skinned person. The latter was more experienced and skilled
than the former and had asked for 40% less salary. I only found out after we
had hired them and spent a lot of goodwill convincing the founder to increase
his salary to the same level. It was crazy we were going to pay one person
more for less skills because the color of his skin made him have higher salary
expectations! There was also the other issue of him acting as if he knew more
than everyone when he didn't but I'm digressing...
~~~
zo1
>" _It was crazy we were going to pay one person more for less skills because
the color of his skin made him have higher salary expectations!_ "
Let's not bring race into this. Not unless said employee was making
comments/opinions such as "I'm white, therefore I deserve more" or "I expect
more because I'm white".
At the very least, you would have no idea to the motives behind his higher
expectations (or the other person's lower expectations).
~~~
meric
Yes, let's make it clear it isn't a first order effect but likely a third or
fourth order effect. E.g. They grew up in different areas of the country, one
part having higher living standard expectations, and if you get to the bottom
of it, it had to do with race at some point decades ago.
------
xixi77
All looks very reasonable; but I have some partial doubts on the #3, Improve
Job Descriptions, more specifically on picking words that women prefer to see.
It may be the case that women on average prefer job descriptions mentioning
(quoting the link) "sociable" and "responsible" to "independent" and
"analytical", but these are not entirely meaningless characteristics. There
definitely are people, both men and women, who would be turned off by the
former and attracted by the latter, and perhaps they would have been a better
fit for the job, given the original description?
~~~
collyw
Most of the ads I see want specific tech skills. If men or women don't have
those they are not going to apply.
~~~
xixi77
Well, actually my anecdotal experience kinda aligns with what the article says
in that part: I know a few people -- all of them women -- who would look at an
ad saying "X,Y,Z,and T", and say "sure I am comfortable with X, Y and T, but I
don't know much Z, so it's clearly not for me".
------
notacoward
Blind auditions. Do knowledge- and skills-based tests in such a way that the
people administering them don't know the race, gender, or age of the
candidate. Ditto for behavioral tests - you know, the trick questions and fake
scenarios designed to ferret out whether you're honest, passionate, creative,
etc. Have _someone else_ evaluate experience and/or references.
Constructing the necessary exercises and evaluations is a lot more work than
traditional interviewing, especially if you also want to avoid the "silly
puzzle questions that only prove you read the same book" syndrome, but it is
possible and would avoid most kinds of bias.
------
KaiserPro
Your first port of call should be equality.
Your job postings are quite rightly designed to filter out people that lack
the skills you are after. However they also serve as an unwitting barrier.
One thing I have seen that is successful is actively going out and recruiting
people who are different from you. Universities are a great source of untapped
talent. More importantly they haven't been beaten down by
classism/sexism/*ism.
Being surrounded by people who look, act and sound like you is a boring boring
life.
------
skimpycompiler
Even simpler methods exist.
Realize that framing your daughters behavior by giving her babies, princesses,
dolls, makeup, clothes and similar to play with, while your boy gets the
newest action games, puzzles, balls, competitive and brain engaging fun, will
definitely influence her future career choices.
When you take your daughter to look at some princess movies, or some toy story
thingy, while you watch star wars and star trek with your son, long into the
night, think of what kind of framing is done.
Of course, even if you try to keep all the options open. Someone from her
school might make your daughter do "girls only" activities. Or maybe she'll be
forbidden from accessing the Star Wars room at Legoland because she's a girl.
Whole world is against your little girl becoming like a man. She needs babies
so she knows she has to be a mother. She needs kitchen games so she knows she
has to cook. She needs to play with dolls, to groom them, to dress them, so
that she eventually does the same for herself. She needs to be pretty, and by
pretty we mean makeup.
If someone is naive enough to believe that boys and girls have innately
different interests, then so be it.
But girls ain't "gurls" because they don't like technology.
~~~
collyw
"If someone is naive enough to believe that boys and girls have innately
different interests, then so be it."
Its been shown that male monkeys prefer boys toys while females prefer girls
toys. No cultural conditioning required.
[http://animalwise.org/2012/01/26/born-this-way-gender-
based-...](http://animalwise.org/2012/01/26/born-this-way-gender-based-toy-
preferences-in-primates/)
~~~
Kalium
Before someone jumps in with the notion that monkeys have culture too, it
should be noted that monkeys have not developed the wheel. Thus, they are
unlikely to have defined gender roles for wheeled toys.
------
TazeTSchnitzel
Also remember that gender isn't the only diversity issue in tech. Race is too,
among others.
~~~
collyw
Race is an interesting one in IT. I have seen many indian programers but
hardly any black ones. I never see any Asian techies in europe, but I hear
there are a fair number in the states.
~~~
S4M
> I never see any Asian techies in europe
There you have one, and in the same city as you! At my previous workplace (in
Barcelona) there was a Taiwanese programmer, and before that in London I met
many Asian (mostly Chinese) programmers.
------
Mz
I wish we had something more like The Rooney Rule and less of this kind of
discussion:
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rooney_Rule](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rooney_Rule)
------
facepalm
Perhaps one reason is that jobs in Computing are typically not all that
attractive? My current freelance project sees me working in a room with 20
people, lined up on long desks (not even Cubicles). After a while, it can get
a bit smelly. There are 4 women and 16 men working in the room, and to be
honest I wonder why the women put up with it (they are not developers,
either).
That kind of setup is not uncommon. I have been asked to work in windowless
rooms, which I rejected. I have worked in ugly industrial areas and ugly
buildings. I have worked in the basement that wasn't officially suitable for
human use (only legal for storage).
After 6 hours, my eyes hurt from the strain of looking at HTML and Javascript
all day, trying to find tiny mistakes in the source code. But I have at least
2 more hours to go. Human interaction is minimal - yes there are meetings, but
that is not the same as human interaction that for example a doctor sees.
Sure, jobs at Google or Facebook might be fancy. But even at big companies
(including Google) I have seen those big open plan offices. They just had more
colorful toys lying around at Google. And most devs won't work for Facebook or
Google.
Why do I put up with it? Because I need the money to feed my family, and I can
not easily switch to another profession. This is probably controversial and
will give me downvotes, but most women don't need to work to feed their family
- their husbands do that. So they are not forced to put up with smelly,
crowded, windowless rooms for years and years on end. And women can easily
switch profession, too: they can simply become mothers, which 40% choose to do
(become fulltime moms, that is - more women become mothers of course).
I enjoy programming for my own projects, but most dev jobs I did for money
were gruesome.
Note that this gruesomeness affects women and men in the same way. There are
no offensive Star Wars posters or other Geeky things lining the walls. The
environments just tend to be less comfy, because devs only stare into their
computers anyway.
The notion always seems to be that the women who shy away from tech end up
leading "wasted", brainless lives as housewives. Not so. They become doctors,
or journalists, or liberal arts people (and btw., housewive and spending time
with your kids is not all that bad either).
I understand if companies want to lure women into tech, because it gives them
a greater talent pool and lower wages (because of greater supply). But it is
not an issue of equality.
~~~
TazeTSchnitzel
Programming can be shit for sure.
But we shouldn't push out people who want to do it. We don't tell boys not to.
~~~
facepalm
We don't tell girls not to, either. Quite the opposite in fact. The only
people who tell women not to enter tech are feminists.
And I am honestly torn about recommending it to my son. I will (try to) teach
him programming for sure and even hope to encourage him to earn money on the
side while at school. But for real professions, there might be better options
to consider. Oh, and I will also do the same for my daughter, of course, it's
just that your claim was about what we recommend to boys. I will also teach my
daughter not to listen to the feminists.
I will teach them because that is something I have knowledge about, and I
think kids should benefit from their parent's specialties if possible. If I
were a designer I would teach them design, if I were a musician I would teach
them music, and so on...
~~~
TazeTSchnitzel
> The only people who tell women not to enter tech are feminists.
You've never spoken to conservative parents, then.
~~~
facepalm
How common are they? It is 2015, not 1950.
~~~
TazeTSchnitzel
Plenty common. Witness the upset at attempts to remove 'boy' and 'girl' toy
labelling.
~~~
facepalm
Well that is a pretty loaded issue, not sure if it is a good indicator for
conservativeness.
In any case, where are the campaigns targeted at parents, if it is such a big
worry?
------
kelukelugames
Making security badges more friendly to women's clothing would go a long way.
~~~
blhack
Can you explain?
~~~
kelukelugames
There are a lot of little thing that remind women they don't belong.
Apparently badges are one of the minor peeves. A guy can just clip them on
their belt loops. That doesn't always work for women.
~~~
trhway
I wonder how well an employee can fit into a corporate drone role (what most
jobs in tech are) if that employee's issues already start with the badge.
~~~
kelukelugames
It don't think it's a major issue. Just something I heard a couple of my
friends complain about.
------
necessity
Why are there so few male manicures? Why so few male babysitters? Why so few
female NASCAR drivers? Why so few female in the army? Why so few male in the
wedding dress business?
We MUST to do something about this! People of a certain gender cannot prefer
some activities over others!
This is ridiculous.
------
jfaucett
For me a portion of this problem is caused by religion as well, particularly
those with sexist ideologies (for example islam see:
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Women_in_Islam](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Women_in_Islam)).
Though, this is a subject that I rarely if ever hear brought up in the media,
even in european irreligious countries like sweden.
([https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Irreligion_by_country](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Irreligion_by_country))
If you cross reference the countries by religion and their rating on gender
equality, you will notice the most religious countries are some of the most
inequal.([http://reports.weforum.org/global-gender-gap-
report-2014/ran...](http://reports.weforum.org/global-gender-gap-
report-2014/rankings/),
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_religious_populations#...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_religious_populations#By_proportion))
This doesnt mean both are related of course, but if you think beliefs about
moral affect behavior you would expect to see this type of correlation.
Im prepared to get downvoted for my opinion on the detriments of religion here
so have at me :)
EDIT: If you downvote please say why? Id like to see good counter argument.
~~~
trhway
interesting how a strong necessity (like life and death necessity) overrules
the gender inequality, even the one well embedded in the dominating religion
in a pretty religious country - i mean females serving in Israel army.
------
setra
This is literally what happens:
[http://freethoughtblogs.com/pharyngula/files/2015/06/stemwom...](http://freethoughtblogs.com/pharyngula/files/2015/06/stemwomen.jpg)
~~~
arenaninja
I might get downvoted for sharing the following anecdote.
I've a niece whom I absolutely adore. I try to steer her now and then to
software development as a career. She's 14 so I don't expect much focus out of
her, but her curiosity for it just doesn't seem to be there. Her brother is
11, and it couldn't be more obvious to me that he is much more adept at
tinkering, even though I've never broached the subject with him. My niece will
usually agree with me so I'll stop talking, then go on facebook or netflix or
look up kardashian news (not a stereotype, this is 100% what happens). I'm
still trying to figure out a way to reach her, but so far every effort has
been met with active disinterest. She says she likes the perks that I seem to
get (flexible hours, work from home, decent pay, etc.), so at least there's
hope she could still be drawn to that eventually
~~~
jack-r-abbit
Some might advise you to keep pushing her and pushing her because "we need
more women in STEM" and all that. I would advise you to just let her be. We
like to teach our children that they can be anything they want to be when they
grow up. So... maybe she doesn't want to be a software developer.
"We need more women in STEM... even if we have to drag them kicking and
screaming", said no one ever.
~~~
TazeTSchnitzel
What is needed is to stop pushing women out of STEM (believe it or not, many
girls are attracted to it) and encourage them to get into it to the same
degree we do for boys. You're absolutely right that force is not the way to
go.
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
The iPad is [priced like] a game console - ssp
http://semiaccurate.com/2011/02/22/ipad-game-console/
======
schraeds
The BoM for the iPad is around $259.
([http://www.electronicsadvocate.com/2010/04/08/ipad-bom-
is-25...](http://www.electronicsadvocate.com/2010/04/08/ipad-bom-
is-25960-says-isuppli/)) Apple buys a majority of all touch panels and flash
memory manufactured as well as highly optimizing the design and integration of
the hardware. The game console model would mean Apple loses money on the
hardware, hoping to make it up in sw sales/fees. Obviously this is NOT the
case. Your comment is awaiting moderation.
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Is Google Stadia Doomed? - baud147258
https://www.shamusyoung.com/twentysidedtale/?p=46628
======
DKnoll
I'm in the Nvidia Geforce NOW beta at the moment. It's fantastic. If you want
to get in the beta it's running until early May. Invites are going out fairly
quick at the moment (a friend just got on with a one week wait).
Their pricing is not released yet (the beta is free with unlimited use, you
just have to disconnect and reconnect every 3 or so hours), it might be hourly
or monthly.
They do not provide the licenses for games, you just log into Steam (or one of
the other publishers launcher you have your games on) and play any of the
supported titles.
I am able to play every game (Conan Exiles, PUBG) I've thrown at it on max
settings and the servers are peered very well so it's very low latency to my
machine and also the game servers I am using.
It's crazy to be able to play modern games on ultra at 60+ fps with a near-
native experience on a machine I built 10 years ago.
These streaming game platforms definitely have legs.
~~~
Nullabillity
Just as with any other X-as-a-service, it quickly becomes cheaper to just buy
it outright than to rent it.
And even if the pricing itself isn't that clear-cut, not having the constant
stress of "I'm spending $x/h, I had better enjoy every minute of it" (or, on
the flip side, "I'm already spending $x/mo, so I need to use it as much as
possible") makes it a lot easier to enjoy the experience.
~~~
DKnoll
If you play games a lot it will quickly become cheaper to buy a high end PC.
But if you're like me and only game a couple hours a week on average, it ends
up being cheaper than getting a new top-of-the-line PC every 3 years to
continue playing new games on max settings.
Right now it's free.. can't get any cheaper than that. :P
------
Lowkeyloki
I'm also concerned about the fading concept of ownership. But, IMHO, the
author gives up most of his credibility by spending the first half of his
opinion piece picking a semantic argument over an advertising tagline.
~~~
noworld
It's funny how things come full circle. We're coming back to pumping quarters
into arcade machines.
------
millstone
I'm not worried about the loss of ownership and the rise of "disposable games"
that the article identifies. Most games, like most movies, are good the first
time but not worth a second run, and that's completely OK. We shouldn't expect
"games as an art form" from AAA studios. So why not have a model that reflects
that reality?
I'll start worrying if indie games got sucked into this, to the point you
could no longer purchase them. Indie games are more likely to become high-
replay classics (Braid, FTL, Papers Please...) and don't require a powerful
gaming PC.
I'll also start worrying if ads start appearing in-game, and that seems like a
much more likely outcome.
~~~
davidjnelson
It depends on what you like to do. If you’re really into modding Bethesda
games you can easily do many playthroughs.
I guess with Stadia modding is no longer a thing, or only supported on a
limited and expensive basis using systems built directly into the game such as
Creation Club.
------
tapoxi
This is an awful argument. The author begins by nitpicking at the "gaming is
not a box" argument, while Google has positioned Stadia as you targeting a
_datacenter_, multiple GPUs can be utilized at once and the very fast
networking between Stadia nodes is an ideal environment for middleware like
SpatialOS. That's what they mean by 'a box', it's not confined to one node.
There's the expected rant about digital ownership, but I imagine more people
will warm to this if it's a Netflix-like model, or if a Stadia purchase grants
you a downloadable copy of a game as well.
The rest is a complaint about games the author doesn't like, implying that
Google's main focus is Ubisoft and that Ubisoft makes games he forgets about.
------
WestCoastJustin
Maybe think of it this way. How many people watch movies by going out and
renting/purchasing a dvd. I'm willing to bet a lot less than 10 years ago.
We're all doing it on-line. It sort of sounds like these cloud based gaming
services want to mirror what netflix is doing. Sure, this is already happening
to an extent.. but we still have to purchase the gaming console (dvd player vs
just using your computer/smart tv). I guess that will have implications for
the gaming blockbuster stores out there. If you look at it from that viewpoint
it seems almost inevitable that it will happen eventually. Plus, from a
consumer perspective you are isolated from having to cycle one less piece of
hardware all the time. 10 years from now, how many people will have dedicated
gaming consoles vs streaming online.. I'm willing to bet a lot more than
today. I own maybe a handful of physical dvds and movies now.. its is all
online. I'm totally happy about that too.
Same thing happened with cell phones. You used to have a walkman, dvd/cd
player, a camera, a calculator, a pager, flashlight, notepad, etc. Now, you
just have a phone.. add the gaming console to this list (and most other
electronics too).
~~~
deogeo
> how many people will have dedicated gaming consoles vs streaming online..
Why not try playing on a PC then? No need for anything 'dedicated'.
~~~
davidjnelson
Pc gaming is awesome. Not everyone can afford it though. If stadia can
actually get low latency 60fps ultra settings graphics on low end hardware
that will change everything.
One issue here though is exclusives. Many of the best games are console only,
or even ps4 only. I don’t see how Stadia could overcome that, but I guess
we’ll see.
~~~
baud147258
Is it possible to get 60fps with current network speeds?
~~~
deogeo
More importantly, is it possible to get the responsiveness of 60 fps with
current network _latency_.
------
SideburnsOfDoom
The first part on if servers are box-shaped or not misses the point.
The future is not _a_ box, just like the present of running code in the cloud
is not _a_ box, it's a provider running _multiple_ boxes for you on demand,
and transparently updating and replacing them behind the scenes, with
individual boxes lying below the threshold of things that you need to care
about.
Same with serverless "Functions as a service". Of course there are still
servers. But you don't have to worry about them any more.
Running games in data centers won't live or die depending on the question "is
there a box or not?", rather it will depend on "is the latency acceptable?".
~~~
badsectoracula
It is a joke.
~~~
SideburnsOfDoom
As a joke, I found it painful and pointless. Wrong target.
------
m-p-3
Personally, I believe that the savings made on not needing a good computer and
sufficiant network bandwidth to run games with Stadia aren't worth it. And
there's nothing that will stop Google from pulling the plug on the service
like they did with other projects.
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Otto Zero is a robot for your travels - zerzeru
https://www.personalrobots.biz/otto-zero-is-a-robot-for-your-travels/
======
piro234
Cool when the code will be released?
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
JSON Resume – a JSON-based open source standard for resumes - krrishd
http://jsonresume.org/
======
esbranson
Europass CV (can be embedded in PDF files, easily exports to everything using
EU government web services):
[http://interop.europass.cedefop.europa.eu/](http://interop.europass.cedefop.europa.eu/)
HR-XML (also comes in a JSON variant, "HR-JSON"?):
[http://www.hr-xml.org/](http://www.hr-xml.org/)
[http://www.hropenstandards.org/](http://www.hropenstandards.org/)
There is also Microformat (hResume):
[http://microformats.org/wiki/hresume](http://microformats.org/wiki/hresume)
Europass is used by the European Union, HR-XML is used by the US government.
Microformats are probably used by many. This stuff is OLD news. We certainly
don't have a shortage of usable standards.
~~~
iaskwhy
Other people might be able to confirm it but I have never received an Europass
while working in London. I was told I should never send a cv made with the
Europass template as the relation between British people and European things
is not always the best. I understand this might be incorrect but it was enough
for me to avoid using it. Then I also spoke with some HR people from other
European countries who told me they didn't really like Europass so in the end
I created my own template using Bootstrap.
~~~
Argorak
Europass is also largely unknown. Politics aside, it is a good format and I
would much prefer to get standardized CVs like this, especially for the skill
assessment in languages.
The problem here is: some European countries use very particular formats for
their CVs. e.g. Germany has the "tabular CV", which expects all these things
to be organized by time and date, it even includes where and when you went to
Kindergarten. Europass doesn't fit many of those particularities (which is
kind of the point).
------
oh_sigh
I like the idea, because I deal with a lot of resumes and can't parse them
programmatically.
Some thoughts:
\- Eliminate first/last name distinction, and let people just put in their
full or legal/passport name. Names are very crazy across cultures, as in some
people don't have first or last names, so might as well just let them enter
free form text as their name.
\- Include a "Preferred name" field, also as freeform text. Some people like
to go by nicknames, or shortenings of their names, and it will help out.
\- Collapse location region and state into a single field.
\- If "websites" is a hash with only a single field, call it "website" and
make it a string.
~~~
thomasfromcdnjs
Awesome feedback, we already have an issue created for the firstName/lastName
dilemma.
Will create issues for your other feedback ->
[https://github.com/jsonresume/resume-
schema](https://github.com/jsonresume/resume-schema)
------
alexatkeplar
This is cool! We do a lot of work with JSON Schema at Snowplow. Here's a few
suggestions:
1\. Semantic versioning doesn't work for schemas. (What's a patch/bug fix for
a schema? It's meaningless.) Use SchemaVer instead -
[http://snowplowanalytics.com/blog/2014/05/13/introducing-
sch...](http://snowplowanalytics.com/blog/2014/05/13/introducing-schemaver-
for-semantic-versioning-of-schemas/)
2\. Make your schema self-describing so that a given resume instance is
associated with its schema version
[http://snowplowanalytics.com/blog/2014/05/15/introducing-
sel...](http://snowplowanalytics.com/blog/2014/05/15/introducing-self-
describing-jsons/)
3\. Publish your JSON Schemas to Iglu Central, the first schema registry for
JSON Schema - [https://github.com/snowplow/iglu-
central](https://github.com/snowplow/iglu-central)
~~~
thomasfromcdnjs
Adding your issues to the tracker and also thanks for the link to Iglu
central!
~~~
alexatkeplar
Nice one! If I can help in any way, just let me know. Iglu and Iglu Central
are very young but we're v excited about them.
~~~
thomasfromcdnjs
I imagine you have seen [http://schemastore.org/](http://schemastore.org/)
~~~
alexatkeplar
Cool - hadn't seen that. I really like the catalog concept - we didn't have
that in Iglu previously, have added a ticket for it. I'll reach out to Mads -
thanks for the link!
------
ARussell
I disagree with so many people in this discussion recommending XML without
much reason. The best reason I've ever seen to pick XML over JSON is mixing
text and elements, and that doesn't seem like an issue, here.
As for feedback on the schema itself, I'd probably like to see some more
detail allowed for the courses under education. I remember after graduating,
there really wasn't anything more substantial that I could put other than
details about my courses. Using the example on your page, I think "HS1302" and
"Introduction to American History" could possibly be separate fields, and I
think there should be an additional details/description/highlights field.
Also, I am a consultant, and I like to list a projects section. Each project
could have a name, a client, an employer (the consulting company), a date
range, and details.
~~~
thomasfromcdnjs
Thanks! Will copy your feedback where appropriate to the issue tracker
------
macspoofing
If only there was an extensible markup language you could employ to create a
resume standard.
//
Seriously, JSON really sucks at markup (it also kinda sucks as data
interchange as well, but let's not worry about that here). This 'standard' is
so hand-wavy. Every property is a 'string', so why are you even bothering
putting it in? Right, not really 'strings' because a bunch of fields have a
JavaScript (so we're not really sticking JSON here, are we!) comments to
describe it. Presumably order of object properties matters, or maybe it
doesn't, or maybe it matters for some (e.g. root object / address) and not for
others (eg. phone numbers). Date format? Who needs that! Which fields are
optional? All of them? Some of them? None of them? I like the 'hobby' field.
Complete waste of space on a real resume and a complete waste of space here as
well (hah: hobby name and hobby keyword). Urgh.
It's a mess. A total mess.
~~~
thomasfromcdnjs
You are right, it is a mess, we are working on the specification at the moment
and deciding on correct data types and semantics. If you think with a bit of
love it can be made into a usable standard please come help us out at
[https://github.com/jsonresume/resume-
schema/issues](https://github.com/jsonresume/resume-schema/issues)
~~~
macspoofing
JSON is the problem, so this will continue to be a mess. Especially if you
have hopes for this to be used by many many people and especially if you hope
this can be ingested by many many different systems (e.g. every resume
submission server for every company). You need to formalize the structure, so
you need some sort of a formal schema. You may pretend you don't need one, but
you kinda have one right now. The schema you have right now is your example
structure and JavaScript comments.
~~~
tracker1
You do realize that there is a JSON Schema specification, not to mention that
JSON more naturally matches a program's object structure for serialization and
deserialization. Generally speaking XML is more flexible than any object
representation should be. Objects tend to have properties, and those
properties may be a given type. But XML may define some properties as
attributes, and others as a single /nested child element and others as 1+
child elements, or a child element with 1+ child elements. JSON is a natural,
easy to understand and comprehend map without extra content that really isn't
needed. JSON maps neatly to several object streaming systems, XML does not.
I'm sorry, but XML isn't some panacea of describing or encoding document
structures. It's generally a collection of fragile verbose and overly
complicated tools in a few given platforms to satisfy people that think
enterprise programming means implementing every pattern that loosely fits
their situation instead of clean, simple, elegant solutions that hide
complexity where needed instead of creating more.
JSON + JSON-Schema is no more of a mess than XML + XML Schemas. And generally
far more forgiving in any modern programing environment for client/server use.
~~~
hyp0
> JSON + JSON-Schema is no more of a mess than XML + XML Schemas.
For this reason, many developers resist JSON-Schema. _We already have one
mess, if we need it - let 's keep JSON clean! That's why we like it._ A
concrete example of keeping JSON clean was the removal of comments from the
JSON spec to stop people using them as directives. If they had stayed, and
JSON became complex and ugly and messy, would its popularity have continued?
However... the increasing prevalence of complex JSON formats may eventually
make _some form of_ JSON schema necessary.
------
dheera
Nice. Although I'm not too sure what the social implications of this would be.
As it is already I think employers do too much parsing of resumes rather than
looking at them with human eyes. PDF resumes are awesome in that you get a
blank sheet of paper to do whatever you want with to impress the employer.
There's a lot of reading between the lines that can be done in an resume. Even
the fonts say something about the person. If the person is claiming to be a UI
designer and their resume has poorly chosen fonts and bad kerning, I'd toss
it. If they claim to be a physics researcher and the resume is written in
Word, I'd toss it too. With a JSON resume you don't get any of this
information.
Also, it's not entirely clear how extensible this "standard" is. Resumes take
multiple forms. A computer scientist might want to list a few open source
projects. A photographer might want to embed a sample or two of their work.
~~~
keehun
Yeah, I was going to say that this project is awesome, and I like the web
themes, but the PDF export needs a lot of work. I think that will be the
hardest aspect to achieve. Maybe some LaTeX resume themes can be borrowed
from. There are some very nice ones in LaTeX.
~~~
dheera
Maybe. As someone who likes to be creative I'd still never use someone else's
template though. Even the font I use on my resume I did some editing on
because I didn't like the way a couple of the glyphs looked.
~~~
xienze
I think that gets to the heart of why a standard metadata-to-pretty-resume
solution has never really taken off. The people who really care about it don't
even bother trying to make a one-size-fits-all solution, since it's such a
customized and personal undertaking. Glad to hear I'm not the only person
who's spent countless hours tweaking my resume to the nth degree.
------
bphogan
I think this is a great idea. I love the idea of a universal data format for
resumes.
However, I'm not at all convinced that JSON is the way to do it. I think the
way to do it is with XML and XSLT, although I already can hear the cries of
"But XML is yucky and XSLT is hard." But by using JSON, we lose some semantic
markup and end up having to parse it to create some semantic markup.
Still, I hope this, or something like it, takes off. This just needs a web-
based GUI tool to publish a resume so that non-geeks can make it happen.
~~~
thomasfromcdnjs
It was a very hard decision to make and starting such a movement is
unfortunately from my viewpoint much more than making rational choices about
the technologies. We wanted to have a low barrier to entry and also take
advantage of the large ecosystem of libraries. At the moment the majority of
web technologies are using JSON so we believe that to get this standard off
the ground we will need to go with the grain.
LinkedIn actually exports into a Microformat called hResume which has been
around for a long time but has evidently not been able to amass a large
developer community. This was another reason we decided to not start with XML.
~~~
xienze
> LinkedIn actually exports into a Microformat called hResume which has been
> around for a long time but has evidently not been able to amass a large
> developer community. This was another reason we decided to not start with
> XML.
So, not trying to be rude here, but have you wondered why it is that an XML
resume format hasn't taken off? Other than it being based on icky XML? I mean
XML+XSLT has been around for a loooong time and can more than handle exactly
what this format sets out to do, and yet a standard XML resume format hasn't
taken off.
~~~
mindcrime
There's nothing particularly "icky" about XML. That's just a silly hipster
meme. XML is just a tool, it makes sense in some places, less so in others.
Same deal for JSON.
_I mean XML+XSLT has been around for a loooong time and can more than handle
exactly what this format sets out to do, and yet a standard XML resume format
hasn 't taken off._
It's just as likely that the answer is "a standard resume format hasn't taken
off" where the serialization format is irrelevant. Maybe not enough people are
interested in working with documents and knowledge at that deeper,
semantically meaningful level. Maybe sending resumes as PDF or MS Word or ODT
and using simple keyword extraction has been "good enough" that nobody has
felt the pull to use a better system?
What I mean is, it's entirely possible that this will fail to gain adoption
for the exact same reason that the XML based one(s) did, and that the
difference between JSON and XML is actually irrelevant. This is, of course,
just speculation on my part. In any case, I _hope_ this (or something like it)
gains traction, since I'm a strong proponent of publishing semantically
meaningful content, whether it's in RDF/XML, JSON-LD, SGML, DAML+OIL, YAML,
Texinfo, Markdown, Hytime or hieroglyphics chiseled into stone tablets. :-)
~~~
e12e
Agreed. There is one difference with json (and yaml) though: it truly is more
human writable (and readable), and by extension provides nicer diffs. I'd be
much more happy to maintain my resume in json than in XML, even if I might be
more happy _exchanging_ / _submitting_ resumes with (one of) the existing XML
standards.
But all that's needed is a script that eats XML resumes and outputs json
resumes, and vice versa.
Just like I'd rather write markdown and read (rendered) html+css.
That said, on the subject of XML not being "icky": one resource for having fun
with XML: "Program Generators with XML and Java" by J. Craig Cleaveland
(Prentice-Hall, 2001):
[http://craigc.com/pg/](http://craigc.com/pg/)
~~~
e12e
Hm, looks like there might be bit too many dependencies here for my taste:
npm install resume-cli
du -hs node_modules
103M node_modules
All this, and it doesn't provide line numbers when reporting errors due to an
extra comma in the json file? Nor does it (yet) have LaTeX output...
Still, can't complain, 5 minutes and I have a resume draft that doesn't look
half bad in html, and is presumably entirely reasonable to customize (not to
mention it's all inn a json-file anyway, so one could just use what's in ones
actual resume, and shove the json through pretty much any scripting language
w/templates and generate something reasonable).
~~~
thomasfromcdnjs
Sorry about the large dependency size, we were mainly rapidly prototyping and
didn't expect so much usage. That size will drastically be reduced and we hope
to have better error reporting.
Currently have 60 fresh issues on Github for the schema so after we digest
those we will be improving the CLI once again.
------
grillp
I know it's a little heavy weight, but there is already an open standard
around this:
[http://www.hropenstandards.org/](http://www.hropenstandards.org/)
They have a HR-JSON and HR-XML schema for HR docs..
Reinventing?
~~~
simonw
It appears you have to register for an account on that site AND wait for your
membership to be approved before you can even download a standard or view
documentation.
If that standard is important and well designed, it should be trivial to write
a converter from JSON Resume.
As Douglas Crockford once said (I believe in reference to XMLRPC) the great
thing about reinventing the wheel is that you might get a round one.
~~~
indymike
You can download without being a member. There is a Download Standards page
that anyone can download from. It's pretty straightforward.
(on the HR Open Standards Board of Directors)
------
tommorris
Just use HTML + hResume. hResume is based on vCard and thus the name and
address fields are actually sensible rather than hacked together without
considering edge cases. It lets you use prefixes and suffixes (like Dr, Prof,
Rev, PhD, MD, JD etc.). It lets you format text using HTML tags. You can link
to it.
If you want JSON, you can export it from the hResume using a parser.
Unlike JSON (or XML), non-programmers can read HTML in a crazy new piece of
technology called a web browser without having to run it through any
transformation tool. Want PDF to send to a company? There are a few WebKit PDF
renderers available.
Want to style it? CSS.
Want nice fonts? WebFonts.
It's a web page. Crazy idea.
Classic version:
[http://www.microformats.org/wiki/hResume](http://www.microformats.org/wiki/hResume)
New version:
[http://www.microformats.org/wiki/h-resume](http://www.microformats.org/wiki/h-resume)
------
thomasfromcdnjs
Hey guys, we weren't actually ready for a lot of eyes to see this project. We
were hoping to keep it small and get some feedback on important decisions
about the project's trajectory.
The plan is to create a standard that developers worldwide are comfortable
enough with to build upon.
To give the standard some traction, we have built tools to export to other
formats such as pdf, txt and doc.
We also thought it would be cool and useful to have an NPM like system for
resumes. So we built a CLI heavily inspired by NPM, to init and publish your
resume to the jsonresume.org registry.
The themes right now are in bad shape, and we are looking for designers who
would love to jump in during the early stages. We are thinking of building a
theming version manager on top of NPM to take advantage of
versions/distribution and also allow theme developers to implement their
theming systems however they like (erb, mustache, md etc).
All the code is open source and available at ->
[http://github.com/jsonresume](http://github.com/jsonresume)
Theme developers should be looking at the resumeToHTML repo ->
[http://github.com/jsonresume/resumeToHTML](http://github.com/jsonresume/resumeToHTML)
People with comments about the standard semantics and structure are encouraged
to post their ideas to Github issues. -> [http://github.com/jsonresume/resume-
schema](http://github.com/jsonresume/resume-schema) We also want to formalize
the standard a lot more over the coming weeks.
If the project can be pulled off professionally and driven by the community,
we believe that working with resumes will be fun!
Edit: Here are some of the reasons why I personally think JSON resumes will
improve HR.
(trying to figure out bullet points)
\- Better searching and filtering than PDF/doc. Making recruiting a tad
easier.
\- Applying themes will be a lot easier.
\- Applying for jobs will be easier. Instead of filling out complex forms over
and over again services might start allowing you to auto-fill with your JSON
resume.
\- There are many services that ask for your career history such as LinkedIn,
Angel.co etc. These could be autopopulated or synced with your master copy.
\- You can update your resume programatically so Github projects can be
inserted and any other online certificates that you might want automatically
added to your resume like Mozilla Open Badges ->
[http://openbadges.org/](http://openbadges.org/)
\- The comment section suggests that lots of innovation could arise from it.
\----------
Make sure you try the CLI! _sudo npm install -g resume-cli_
~~~
pserwylo
I would just like to say that I think that this is a great idea(despite
agreeing with others here that XML + XSLT would seem like a more logical
choice). I hope it gets some traction in the long run.
I've posted an issue on github [0][1] mentioning that "firstName" and
"lastName" is probably not a good representation of names. I don't actually
know what the solution is, but this article [2] gives some great reasons why
we tend to make incorrect assumptions about peoples names, which have the
possibility of excluding some people form our tools based on their name alone.
[0] - [https://github.com/jsonresume/resume-
schema/issues/4](https://github.com/jsonresume/resume-schema/issues/4) [1] -
It seemed like an appropriate place to comment. Please let me know if there is
somewhere else you'd prefer such comments. [2] -
[http://www.kalzumeus.com/2010/06/17/falsehoods-
programmers-b...](http://www.kalzumeus.com/2010/06/17/falsehoods-programmers-
believe-about-names/)
~~~
Uehreka
Regarding names, I've heard of two solutions that cover enough edge cases to
be suitable:
1\. Asking for "Given Name" and "Surname" clears up most issues with cultures
like Korea (where surname comes first).
2\. Simply have a "Name" field. Accept any Unicode characters. Hope for the
best.
If someone has a name that cannot be represented in written characters or
cannot be rendered in Unicode (which would be amazing, since Unicode covers
ancient dead languages and fictional languages like Klingon) they probably
have more pressing issues than trying to serialize their resume.
~~~
pbiggar
Mostly, people ask for firstname and lastname because they want to call you by
one of them. you can avoid this problems by having a "Full name" and a "what
do we call you": my full name is "Paul Biggar" but you should call me "Paul".
This solves some of the falsehoods programmers believe about names:
[http://www.kalzumeus.com/2010/06/17/falsehoods-
programmers-b...](http://www.kalzumeus.com/2010/06/17/falsehoods-programmers-
believe-about-names/)
~~~
wink
Still not the silver bullet.
In Germany it's not really common to call people by their first name (IT is an
exception), but I would hardly put "Mr. Lastname" into "what do we call you".
It all depends on the context, even in the limited scope of a resume.
~~~
couchand
If they're just looking for something to say on the other end of the phone
when you answer, isn't "Mr. Lastname" the appropriate thing to enter in that
box?
~~~
levosmetalo
No, it's not, because calling someones phone is also culturally dependent.
Because in Germany, when you are calling someone, it is expected that person
picking up the call will speak up first and introduce themself. Something
like: "Herr Mustermann, hallo!".
You see, if you are calling person from Germany, knowing how to address him is
not enough, you shall still know how to make a call. If you don't know that,
you'll be rude anyways, and if you know that, you'll also know a proper way of
addressing persons in different cultures.
------
mindcrime
I have to admit, I'm having some trouble seeing the value in this... JSON does
not strike me as a great format for a document of this nature, although it's
certainly _possible_. Offhand, I'd think XML is a more natural fit for this.
Anyway, more to the point, there has been some existing work done on
developing standards for representing resumes. I would _highly_ , _highly_
encourage you guys to look at this and consider making whatever you do
compatible with the existing work as much as possible. Consider ResumeRDF[1]
for example. Maybe consider doing JSON-LD and using the FOAF and ResumeRDF
vocabularies?
[1]: [http://rdfs.org/resume-rdf/](http://rdfs.org/resume-rdf/)
~~~
DanBC
I just had a look at ResumeRDF.
Class: cv:Person
Person - CV subclass of WordNet person
in-range-of: cv:aboutPerson cv:referenceBy
in-domain-of: cv:gender cv:birthPlace cv:hasCitizenship cv:hasNationality cv:maritalStatus cv:noOfChildren cv:hasDriversLicense
[back to top]
It's probably a bad idea to encourage people to list protected characteristics
on a CV / resume. Employers (except vary rare exceptions) can't use this
information so there's no point including it.
~~~
mindcrime
That's an interesting point. And to be honest, I'm not sure what the rationale
was for including those terms (I wasn't involved with defining ResumeRDF or
anything).
I'm _guessing_ it happened because they "borrowed" a generic notion of "person
attributes" from some other, less specific, source, and didn't really consider
the legal implications you mention.
I guess it's an open question whether or not there's any actual valid scenario
where somebody would want to put that stuff. It seems unlikely to me, but
maybe in other countries or something? Hmmm... dunno.
~~~
thomas11
In Europe, at least in Germany and Switzerland, it's normal and expected to
state your birthday and place of birth. You also include a passport-sized
photo of yourself, usually in the top right corner.
See for example this guide to resume writing by a German university [pdf]:
[https://www.uni-
muenster.de/imperia/md/content/math_nat_faku...](https://www.uni-
muenster.de/imperia/md/content/math_nat_fakultaet/formularefb_11/lebenslauf.pdf)
~~~
mindcrime
Aah, OK. That's pretty interesting, actually. Here in the US it's practically
verboten to ask anything about nationality, religion, ethnicity, etc., and
conversely pretty much nobody ever volunteers that stuff either.
------
TeeWEE
This is exactly where XML is the only right choice. JSON is much simpler than
XML, thats why lots of people like it. However for documents XML markup is
more appropriate. The reasons:
\- Allows extensibility with other xml standards (such as SVG and MathML in
your resume, which might makes sense) \- Allows linking to other stuff with
XLink \- Allows styling it with lots of xml styling technologies. \- Better
versioning support
JSON is not bad however, so if you just want to have simple plaint text cv's,
json is good enough. I do agree that with XML comes bloatness, complexity, and
more crap. However from a pure technical point of view, its a better option
for doing resumes.
~~~
stevekemp
I have a resume I've been working with for a few years now, and it was built
using:
[http://xmlresume.sourceforge.net/](http://xmlresume.sourceforge.net/)
That project seems dead now, and recent updates to my systems have resulted in
me being able to build HTMLTXT but not PDF.
In the future, when looking for a job, I'll be looking at JSON instead. It
might not be the best tool, but it seems to be what several _live_ and active
projects are using.
------
mitchellh
I looked over the website briefly, and I couldn't find an answer to this
question so I'm going to ask here. I am not asking this tongue-in-cheek, these
are serious questions:
* By "open source standard," what do they mean? I don't see any evidence they're on an RFC track, so this would be "standard" in what way?
* Why? I've never needed a resume in JSON format, but that is anecdotal. They don't really say why they're pursuing this on the site, except why they chose JSON.
Good luck, either way! Making something isn't easy, so I applaud any effort to
do anything.
~~~
gkoberger
Assuming this takes off and everyone uses it (you be the judge of those odds),
I can see a standard format being really useful for both employers and job
board websites.
Let's say you had a bank of resumes -- you could easily find all resumes that
know Java and have had at least 2 jobs and an active GitHub repo, and
automatically send out a request to their references.
Currently, you have to read an unformatted PDF and extract the info manually
-- it's not the end of the world, but it gets tedious if you're dealing with
lots of resumes.
~~~
hmsimha
It would be really useful for the people making the resume also. Right now the
current mainstream advice is to use Microsoft Word for creation and editing
and then (typically) to submit as PDF. Both of those document standards are
proprietary and opaque. If you two computers that don't have the same
operating system, you're probably SOL for tweaking your resumes across
computers as well.
------
BinaryIdiot
This is a neat idea but this schema is a bit...specific in areas. Much like
XML schemas of past the great thing about the JSON interchange format is that
it's insanely flexible and anything goes (essentially).
I feel like it would be a much better way of handling resume type data if it
was self describing rather than using a very specific schema that ties you
into a data structure that may not make sense in many cases. In that case you
could simply look for different types of data to display versus a very
specific format that won't hold up to every use case.
------
Qantourisc
My main concern and same question for my own resume: what skill strings should
be used ? Server Administrator or System Engineer ? Programmer or C++ ? etc...
That's what will be one of the more challenging things to solve. Otherwise you
might have a resume-format, but no way to reliably use that data as a
computer, or that out of scope ?
~~~
icebraining
This is why the Semantic Web has _links_ (URIs), so that we point to
unequivocal concepts. They would do much better to use JSON-LD instead of dumb
strings for these CVs.
------
jaltekruse
While I don't jump for opportunities to fiddle with a word processor to make a
document like a resume look good, I am curious if this is partially driven by
an effort to populate databases with information. While I have been
unimpressed by efforts to do this by scanning a doc or pdf file, I am afraid
of the possible implications for encouraging poor recruiting techniques.
Having a searchable database can be nice, but there are so many other layers
to finding good talent.
------
crdoconnor
If you want this to take off, you really need to provide a mechanism for
exporting it to a wide variety of large resume handlers (monster, various
large employers, etc.) and importing (e.g. from linkedin).
Otherwise you have the xkcd problem:
[http://xkcd.com/927/](http://xkcd.com/927/)
It's boring and tedious work, and the number of edge cases will multiply
geometrically, but it's likely the only kind of thing that would make this
take off.
P.S. Why not YAML?
~~~
thomasfromcdnjs
We were nearly going to do a brand change because JSON and YAML are
interchangeable and it doesn't really make any sense to just promote JSON in
this case. I also love YAML, the problem was writing specification's seems a
lot more mature when you follow the json-schema.org project. So I thought why
not write it initially in JSON with the json-schema project as a basis and
then just supply the tools for people who prefer YAML.
~~~
crdoconnor
Ugh, json schema is horrible. Have you used orderly? It's far less verbose,
more readable and it compiles to json schema.
I agree that making it interchangeable is best overall (especially since there
is a 1:1 convertibility between the two languages).
Perhaps the brand should actually reflect this instead. JSON is preferable in
a data interchange scenario, but for keeping or displaying a human readable
version, YAML is better.
As before, though, it's not YAML/JSON - it's the richness of the import/export
filters that will make this idea float or die. Nobody much is going to want
this so that they can publish their resume on jsonresume.org. People will want
to use it so they can efficiently and easily import their linkedin resume and
upload it to [insert fortune 500] company's custom HR portal / top 7 job
sites.
------
yellowapple
Looks nice (and this is coming from someone who's pretty weary of the "hey
let's put the whole world on npm" attitude). Seems to be a pretty decently-
thought-out structure; after converting to YAML (my preference), it's pretty
straightforward to work with.
Some comments:
\- I found it a bit odd that 'resume init' only prompted for firstName and
personal email; a more complete wizard would be useful. I suppose it wouldn't
be hard to create a third-party "JSON resume generator" app with a nice
friendly pretty interface for this (it _is_ just JSON, after all).
\- As mentioned in other comments, the "firstName" and "lastName" fields make
excessive assumptions about the user's native/preferred naming convention.
\- The schema only provides for a "blog" element in the "websites" array. More
options would be appreciated, since not every personal website is a blog.
Alternately (if the intent is really for only one website entry), providing a
scalar/string "website" element would be more to-the-point.
\- As someone who prefers YAML (it looks so much nicer), built-in support for
YAML<->JSON conversion would be awesome for me (i.e. be able to export to /
import from YAML). For now I'm fine with using yaml2json/json2yaml, but such
import/export functionality would be awesome. Perhaps a command-line switch
for exporting (i.e. "resume init --yaml")? Alternately...
\- On the above note, would it be possible to make "resume init" output to
STDOUT instead of directly to a file? That way, it would be simple to run
"resume init | json2yaml > resume.yaml" (for example).
~~~
thomasfromcdnjs
Thank you! We are inundated with work right now so I can't reply fully but I
will probably end up using the YAML version myself so I've created an issue to
implement YAML into the CLI -> [https://github.com/jsonresume/resume-
cli/issues/20](https://github.com/jsonresume/resume-cli/issues/20)
Will add your other feedback to the issue tracker soon.
------
Mister_Snuggles
Some things that I think would be useful to add to the schema, in no
particular order:
* It's common for resumes to include a full address, so elements supporting that could be added to the location. There should probably be a way to strip this out before publishing it to a public place though.
* I'd like to see a section for volunteer activities. I do some volunteering which, while not related to my day job, is worth highlighting.
* The references section would usually include contact information for a potential employer. Generally this would be a separate page that would be given during an interview. My main resume says "References available upon request" and I have a separate document with my references in it.
The biggest win, in my mind, is that the schema captures the knowledge of what
belongs on a resume. Being able to take that single source and produce
multiple versions (e.g., the public one, the private one with full details, a
list of references, etc), not to mention everything else that comes with a
standard schema, is a huge bonus.
~~~
thomasfromcdnjs
Great ideas! I will start add them as issues to the schema repo ->
[https://github.com/jsonresume/resume-
schema](https://github.com/jsonresume/resume-schema)
Your meta-layer idea is great too, at the moment we only have password
protected resumes.
We are actually building an encryption converter, so you can encrypt your
resume with a passphrase, I imagine these public,private etc versions could be
controlled by encryption.
------
awalton
In other words, Microformats have arrived in the Web 3.0 sphere. (hResume
never really caught on either, despite LinkedIn supporting it.)
------
konstruktor
As someone from a country with very different resumes, my suggestion would be
to be more explicit about this being about US style resumes. If you want
decent rendering, you need to focus on one style anyway (too much variation),
so just be open about your scope and optimise the hell out of it, saving you a
lot of i18n worries (names, addresses etc.).
------
prat0318
I have earlier written a similar json resume conversion gem -
[http://prat0318.github.io/json_resume](http://prat0318.github.io/json_resume)
I am currently working on i18n and a real time conversion web app. I would
love to have something standardized and i hope it gets an active community.
------
peteretep
I write software that interacts with CVs/Resumes for a living. Why would I use
this over something based on HR-XML?
------
emiller829
This reminds me a bit of an idea I messed around with a bit last year:
[http://erniemiller.org/me.json](http://erniemiller.org/me.json)
I posted about it then ([http://erniemiller.org/2013/06/19/my-happiness-
formula-me-js...](http://erniemiller.org/2013/06/19/my-happiness-formula-me-
json/), but the thought at the time had been that it would be nice if
prospective employees published something along the lines of things that
contributed to their contentment with work.
This was eventually intended to be presented sans ratings in a little browser
plugin, for recruiters and the like to score themselves honestly against the
criteria, and a little bit of math would yield a compatibility rating on a
click.
It wouldn't take long until such a thing evolved into a more full-featured
resume such as this. I like the idea.
------
codgercoder
Doesn't it ever dawn on anyone that employers insist on detailed, accurate
information about applicants, in standardized forms, while the information
available about employers is a mess? There's no standard, there's no
requirement, and they can mislead in quite creative ways. Hardly seems fair.
~~~
ubershmekel
[http://www.glassdoor.com/](http://www.glassdoor.com/) is a good start.
------
hunvreus
I've been thinking about exporting my resume to a similar format (hResume or
equivalent) for a while; I find LinkedIn of little value for me.
I can imagine that for certain people it offers opportunities to "network",
but in my case it is more an invitation for random people to spam me than a
tool to connect.
Beyond the resume, I am wondering if it would be possible to build some kind
of decentralized professional network, with resumes as nodes and
professional/academic relationships in between, maybe even a vetting system
(LinkedIn recommendations are not only time consuming but also worthless
IMHO).
------
krapp
Random Project Idea - use this as part of an API which scrapes multiple sites
(like Linkedin, Github, Monster, what have you) and builds a single, canonical
resume from the various sources using this standard.
I don't know that the themes, necessarily, are that useful (I don't like the
idea of implicitly connecting presentation with JSON like that - i'll make my
own themes thank you) but I do like the idea of a common transport format for
resumes.
~~~
thomasfromcdnjs
That sounds very ideal, I'd love to automatically insert my online
achievements into my resume.
------
zobzu
I find less-structured formats easier to read for this kind of data. Such as
wiki-style markup (markdown, RST, etc.)
~~~
cm127
Same here. My resume is a text file in markdown. Bullets, titles and subtitles
are all you need for a simple, easy to read resume.
------
baconchunks
Another possible section to add: speaking engagements (or public appearances
or perhaps the more generic "public events").
You have publications, but that implies written material is produced. And
should publications have a place for co-authors? It seems wrong to not
acknowledge them.
~~~
thomasfromcdnjs
Just added this as an issue yesterday ->
[https://github.com/jsonresume/resume-
schema/issues/3](https://github.com/jsonresume/resume-schema/issues/3)
Thanks!
------
troydm
I've been more partial to schema.org's JSON-LD patterns. I'm curious what key
differences made you opt for one over the other.
I could see this as a natural expansion of
[http://schema.org/Person](http://schema.org/Person)
------
jaseemabid
I'm happy that there is no 'Career Objective' section. This website[1] is down
now but I think the name convey the idea.
1\.
[http://whatthefuckismycareerobjective.com/](http://whatthefuckismycareerobjective.com/)
------
ff7c11
[http://microformats.org/wiki/h-resume](http://microformats.org/wiki/h-resume)
looks good as you can choose how you want to display the data as well as
allowing parsing to JSON if you want
------
michaelq
Would it make sense to mimic attributes present in LinkedIn's JSON structure?
Most people already have a LinkedIn profile, and it would be easy to make a
tool that exports LinkedIn profiles into you new open standard.
~~~
thomasfromcdnjs
You are correct, LinkedIn uses a Microformat called hResume, in our templates,
we will export to HTML with built in support for the Microformat.
We also want to build a feature into the command line tool that lets users
sync their resume.json to LinkedIn.
------
sktrdie
There's already a W3C Ontology for Resumes:
[http://www.w3.org/wiki/ResumeRDFOntology](http://www.w3.org/wiki/ResumeRDFOntology)
All you have to do is use the terms with JSON-LD.
------
mb2100
I just wrote my resume in markdown and export it to txt/html/doc/PDF with
Pandoc: [http://johnmacfarlane.net/pandoc](http://johnmacfarlane.net/pandoc)
------
ironlady
Very cool! I started something like this with a WordPress implementation a few
years ago and never bothered to complete it, so cool to see somebody else with
a similar idea and actually finished it!
------
ladon86
In the education section, I'd like to see an option for GPA or degree class.
Be aware that some countries do not provide a GPA (for example, the UK has
these classes: 1st, 2:1, 2:2, 3rd).
~~~
thomasfromcdnjs
Added as issue to the schema repo, thanks!
------
est
Need more formal ontological definition of the "skills" field, E.g. If you
type "Django" the system should infer that you have fair amount of Python
skills already.
------
59nadir
Is it just me, or does it feel just a tiny bit ridiculous to see Twitter
proposed as being on a CV? GitHub, sure, but Twitter? Shouldn't we just add
our WoW accounts and maybe our old ICQ numbers too?
For people interested in standardized CV, by the way:
[http://europass.cedefop.europa.eu/en/documents/curriculum-
vi...](http://europass.cedefop.europa.eu/en/documents/curriculum-vitae)
This site details some stuff about working with Europass:
[http://interop.europass.cedefop.europa.eu/](http://interop.europass.cedefop.europa.eu/)
I'm surprised they didn't go for interoperability with what's already out
there.
------
pacmanche
Created a JSON Resume LinkedIn exporter [https://github.com/mblarsen/resume-
linkedin](https://github.com/mblarsen/resume-linkedin)
------
pests
I could see validators and other resume-specific checks coming about because
of this.
Checking that dates are logical, spell checks, checking for dead links,
showing employment gaps and so on.
~~~
thomasfromcdnjs
Great idea! Added as an issue to the resume-schema repo
------
onassar
Awesome idea. I could imagine a marketplace for resume themes that is based on
this. Would be easy to switch between different designs to see consistent
details.
Well done.
~~~
anko
Isn't the look of your resume one of your competitive advantages as job-
seeker?
Sorry I really don't understand the use-case. Having an API is good for
styling (as you say), or doing some soft of programmatic transformation to
data. I am having trouble understanding the need to do either for a resume.
Maybe it would help as metadata for a search engine, but in that case I think
a plain text search would be just as effective?
I think json schema is a really nice thing to have and I'd like to see more
people adopt it, but I'm having trouble coming up with the point for this use.
~~~
aroman
Came here to say this. I feel the same way — even about the schema. Having a
poorly-organized or thought out resume should be an immediate signal to
employers. This eliminates that.
Of course, this is not to imply that having a really well-done resume is
really worth much either.
------
kalleboo
It took me until I got to the sample before I realized the page was talking
about Resumés, not resuming file uploads or something. It was very confusing.
------
nileshtrivedi
Nice. Now create a schema for job postings as well so that one can write a
crawler to find all interesting vacancies in one's favorite companies.
------
akusete
Looks cool, but Queensland is a state, not a region.
------
kijin
Looks cool, although it looks a bit U.S.-centric and techie-centric.
Other people have mentioned the firstName/lastName problem and the
region/state ambiguity. I'll mention a few more items that might be helpful if
you really want this to become a worldwide standard:
1\. In some countries, it is not only legal but also customary for employers
to ask for, and job seekers to include, various demographic information about
themselves that would be considered discriminatory in the U.S. For example,
sex/gender, date of birth, marriage status, and family details. It would be
good to define such fields in the schema but leave them optional. Or define a
catch-all field where anyone can add any key-value pair.
1-1. Don't forget the full street address, including the postal code!
1-2. Citizenship. This is very important for companies that might need to
sponsor your visa and/or geeen card.
1-3. In some countries, it is customary to include a photograph of yourself in
your resume. Perhaps this could take the form of a "photo" field that takes a
URL.
1-4. There needs to be a field where you can write down an alternate
expression of your name. Many Korean names can be written in either Hangul or
Hanja. Most Japanese names are written in Kanji, but often accompanied by
Hiragana to help the reader pronounce them properly. A lot of employers in
these countries require both forms.
2\. Since this is going to be electronically processed, perhaps it would be a
good idea to include the ticker code for publicly traded companies in one's
employment history? GOOG is much easier to search for than variations of
"Google", "Google Inc.", etc.
3\. The publications schema will need to be significantly expanded if you want
scientists and other academics to even consider using this. Take a look at how
academic publications are cited. At the very least, there needs to be a field
to specify the type of publication, e.g. book, ebook, edited book, journal
article, newspaper article, conference presentation, workshop presentation,
blog post, website, etc. There should also be a "doi" field for scientific and
other academic publications.
3-1. The education schema needs a "summary" field, just like the employment
schema.
4\. Some employers prefer to get the content of the reference from the referee
him/herself, rather than having the applicant include it in the resume.
(Otherwise, the applicant could modify the content.) So you need fields to put
the email address (to contact the referee) and a URL (to grab the content of
the reference) in the references field. Oh, and don't forget the referee's
employer and title/position. Those things matter.
4-1. Bonus points if the content of the reference can be authenticated with
the referee's PGP key.
4-2. Extra bonus points if the entire resume can be authenticated with the
applicant's PGP key, to prevent hiring agencies from messing with the content.
~~~
thomasfromcdnjs
Excellent feedback and you've set the bar high which is good! I don't have the
time to reply to each point at the moment but will definitely copy it over to
the issue tracker.
------
bitL
Ugh, what's the point? Hiring by robots?
------
edoceo
Another multi format resume/CV tool: [http://ars.io/](http://ars.io/)
------
auvrw
seemed like a good idea to me, although i didn't go the full 9 and write a
schema or anything.
[https://github.com/ransomw/ransomw.github.io/tree/master/med...](https://github.com/ransomw/ransomw.github.io/tree/master/media/resume)
------
Xophmeister
Beginning to wish I hadn't abandoned my modular JSON to LaTeX CV builder...
C'est la vie!
~~~
thomasfromcdnjs
ahh that would have been perfect!
------
pavanred
I keep thinking an ontology instead of JSON based resume would be a lot
better.
------
steve918
Seems like reinventing the wheel a bit here. Why not use jcard?
------
b3n
Could this be used with Namecoin (where JSON values are stored in a
blockchain)? Perhaps something like
[https://github.com/onenameio/onename](https://github.com/onenameio/onename)
~~~
tommorris
That'd be a great way to make a pointless format even more pointless. But,
sure.
------
sirji
Gravatar Url?
~~~
thomasfromcdnjs
We should be able to generate those from the email. Good suggestion though,
I'm going to add mine to my resume.
------
leed25d
Thanks, but I'll keep using LaTeX.
~~~
treve
I think you missed the point. It's not about displaying and formatting
resumes, it's about exchanging data between software.
------
exabrial
an XSD?
------
stevesunderland
this is f---ing brilliant.
------
korzun
As somebody who deals with hiring, who is going to use this exactly?
The only 'benefit' I see is that the crawlers/recruiters can parse your resume
easier.
Great for them; usually not so great for you.
~~~
lylejohnson
Are you kidding? With this, I can more easily skip over those applicants with
tons of Java and C++ development experience when I'm looking for a C#
developer. No more wasting time on reading resumes with completely unrelated
experience!
~~~
korzun
Why would I be kidding?
You are just backing up my point that recruiters will use it to grab your data
and filter you like a product.
There is absolutely no benefit to you as an engineer. Quality / noise ratio is
the issue here.
------
ttrbls
lol
------
sgonyea
lickMyAsshole.json
------
n0body
stupid
------
jimktrains2
Now, if only people will actually use this.
~~~
jimktrains2
To clarify, I meant that when looking for a job it is a pain to retype your
resume multiple times (because having a human look at candidates apparently
isn't a thing, especially at larger organizations). Having a standard format,
supported by many employers would have made the process much easier.
My resume is set up as
[http://www.microformats.org/wiki/hresume](http://www.microformats.org/wiki/hresume)
and noöne supports that, and it's been around for a while.
------
zak_mc_kracken
Nice try, LinkedIn.
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Common sense dies when adults catch teenagers "sexting" each other - jseliger
http://www.reason.com/news/show/133863.html
======
mustpax
OK let's take a step back and examine the core issue here: are minors capable
enough of making sound decisions to be held legally liable for the outcomes?
If they are, then they should also be allowed to "sext" similar peers. If not
they are not capable of making such decisions, then they should not be
arrested for receiving such messages.
To say that teenagers are both culpable and incapable of sound reasoning is
not a consistent position. But then, are we really trying to be sensible?
~~~
bestes
Minors are _not_ capable of making sound decisions, which is why they should
be treated differently (and usually are). But, I _disagree_ that this is the
core issue. I believe that this is _not a crime_. At all. Not even a little
bit. The idea that it is _illegal_ for those under 18 to do anything sexual is
wrong. It moves to preposterous when you start calling them sex offenders.
Why? Because it is a natural and normal part of growing up. The body secrets
huge amounts of testosterone/estrogen during puberty. Humans are
designed/programmed/whatever to start thinking about sex at this point.
Finally, because kids are actually people too. They do get to make decisions.
Small ones at first, but bigger ones later. A 17-year-old that is going out
with an 18-year-old should not have to break up with their significant other
simply because of the magical 18th birthday.
~~~
ErrantX
great post!
I think the kid puts it best (and ironically in an extremely mature way) when
he talks about how a split second decision screwed it all up. We talk about
underage and minors because we are a lot older - but forget that to them that
age divide is non-existant. At home with the guys, testosterone going, recieve
a text from a girl that sounds a bit sexy - hey we've all done it. Difference
is where it's "allowed" for us - for them it, apprently, isnt. Leaving the
images on screen or w/e is, obviously, very thick but I struggle to see a
serious crime. The boy's parents approach seemed the best of the lot......
Yes, nail whoever actually posted them publicly online (and perhaps lightly
reprimand the guy for leaving his inbox open). That is the _real_ crime -
regardless of the age of the victim.
(ps sorry about spamming this topic: strong opinions here :D shout if it's too
much)
~~~
dougp
Apparently him leaving the inbox open wasn't what spread them she sent those
same pictures to other guys.
------
benmathes
I only read half the article, but from what I can tell:
\- 14 year-old girl sends topless pics to multiple teenage peers.
\- One of the recipients leaves his inbox open and his friend posts the images
online.
\- That same recipient gets arrested.
It seems like of those three people (the girl, the recipient, and the poster),
the most-innocent one was the one that got arrested. That's bass-ackwards.
~~~
spoiledtechie
you should have read the entire thing...
------
quoderat
Anyone who aids and abets this sort of thing -- criminalizing the quite
natural urges of those growing into adulthood -- should go to prison
themselves.
The perils of living in a puritanical country....
------
tptacek
It's not a minor thing if naked pictures of your daughter are permanently
circulating around Internet porn sites.
I have no other comment to make about the underlying issue here, and I am
specifically _not_ making a stand. I'm just saying, it's not a minor issue.
~~~
bestes
As a father with a daughter, I can imagine I would be very distraught. But, in
this specific situation, if my daughter took pictures of herself, of her own
volition and sent them out, it's really her decision. She might also get a
tattoo or ride a motorcycle or even want to program in Java. My job is to
educate her, get her ready to make big decisions and teach her that her
decisions have real consequences.
~~~
batasrki
>"...if my daughter took pictures of herself, of her own volition and sent
them out, it's really her decision"
And that's the key here, isn't it? She wasn't coerced into these pictures. She
may have been peer-pressured, but the article doesn't cover whether this is
the norm in this school or not. I suspect not. She did it, she distributed the
picture. What did she think it was going to happen?
Her father's quote is laughable: "This country has laws in place to protect
children. Those laws need to be enforced, and parents need to pursue those
laws to the fullest extent to protect their children." What the hell does he
think happened here?
~~~
electromagnetic
Her father is blaming someone else's child as being the 'bad egg', just like
is frequently seen when a parent denies their child being a bully.
He's an incompetent parent who doesn't want to admit his daughter has turned
into an eSlut sending multiple pornographic images and videos to multiple
people at the same time. I'm sorry, but sending nude pics to your boyfriend is
acceptable, sending it to a non-boyfriend is trashy, but 4 guys at the same
time is just slutty.
~~~
philwelch
This kind of attitude (some third party with absolutely no business butting in
deciding what is or isn't an "acceptable" way for another human being to
express their sexuality) is exactly what got these kids into this legal mess.
------
enneff
Reading this I couldn't help but think that standardised, easy-to-use, end-to-
end crypto could have prevented a lot of these cases. No way for the pictures
to be intercepted by the law, no way for a "friend" to steal them out of the
recipient's mailbox. Of course, trust only goes so far as a teenage boy's
trustworthiness, but it's something.
~~~
jcl
The reason the friend was able to steal the pictures was because the recipient
left his e-mail program open and unattended. End-to-end crypto is useless if
either of the ends are compromised.
~~~
enneff
That is true, but I would imagine crypto-centric email software would have a
timeout feature or similar to mitigate this.
------
telegraph
"That might have been the end of it, had the files not, as digital files will,
leaked onto the Internet."
This makes it sound like the tubes were leaky that day and because the files
were "digital," they just spread out over the Internet like an oil slick. Um,
no. Files do not spread simply by virtue of being on a computer.
------
nikblack
here is a case where we actually need DRM. the girl should have been able to
secure the content and allow access to only those people she wished to grant
it to - there is both nothing legally or morally wrong with that.
there is a tech angle to this story - and its about how we need solutions to
stop unauthorized propagation of private content. DRM systems as already built
into Windows and other systems would work perfect - it just needs to be
standardized and rolled out across mobile and web platforms (most of it is
based on open protocols)
It's a shame because we have the technology, it is just currently being
applied in the wrong places
~~~
spoiledtechie
wow, isn't that a good idea!!! Startup idea for anyone who wants it.
~~~
moe
No, it's a bad idea. It wouldn't work. Neither on a technical level (DRM on
images is trivially circumvented), nor on a social level (idiots will always
be idiots - no matter how many safeguards you build in, they always find a way
around them).
And that's without even getting into the slippery slope aspects of DRM
technology.
~~~
nikblack
no, it would work. it doesn't have to be DRM per se, just automated public key
encryption and signing using something unique such as the phones IMEI number.
it is very possible to implement encryption and signing without having the
user go through key generation etc. make it all transparent and give them a
lock to click on if they want to make the message and attachments secure. PGP
already has a similar product, and hushmail is pretty easy to use.
~~~
moe
And what does that gain you? Nothing.
The image needs to be _displayed_ on the receiving end. From that point the
cat is out the bag, no matter how many locks you put on the bag.
~~~
nikblack
we are talking about propagation here. its built so that the person who
receives the image is then unable to forward it to somebody else. or at least
they can, but that person won't be able to unencrypt.
its pretty standard, and working with e-commerce for a while now.
~~~
moe
_its pretty standard, and working with e-commerce for a while now._
In what area of "e-commerce" is that standard and working? I don't know of any
but I know at least one where DRM was tried and failed miserably (music
distribution).
Moreover I can only repeat that DRM is technically infeasible for images
because the images need to be _displayed_ on the clients screen. When your
eyes can see it then the lens of your digicam can also see it. Get it?
~~~
nikblack
wow, your on a completely different page - and im going to leave it at that.
------
babo
From my point of view this is a kind of overreaction from the society to an
existing problem where we mixing real criminals with kids. Based on that
strict rules long generation could be criminalized... The magical figures of
legal age are based on traditions but puberty comes way earlier nowadays with
all the bad consequences. We are sending police officers after kids but there
are no words against the girly image from the media which is far from innocent
and a good inspiration for all the illegal behaviour. As a father of three I
just hope the best that my kids will survive these years without an incident
like that.
------
electromagnetic
This is just a clear illustration of the fallacy of our legal systems. I had a
2MP camera phone at ~13 years old, even at that time it was fully integrated
to the cellular network and internet. Any picture I took could be sent to
another phone or emailed on. I had a webcam on my own computer and vast
knowledge of computers; I started on DOS at like 3 and was online long before
the mass adoption of IM.
------
wlievens
So basically, everyone who took private pictures of their high school
sweetheart back in the day and never bothered to delete them after turning
eighteen is in possession of child pornography?
~~~
pyr3
Even _BEFORE_ you turn 18. There are cases of <18 yo kids being tried as
adults for 'possessing', 'producing' or 'distributing' child pornography. Even
the girl who takes the pictures of herself is not safe from this sort of legal
system madness.
------
TheAmazingIdiot
It makes a really nice system of governance if people break laws early in
their life, and "government" can tag them and monitor them for the rest of
their life... if you represent the government.
And "child porn" brings in a lot of emotional baggage. We all think of Mr 40
year old kiddie diddling with a 9 or 10 year old. That's just gross. So
politicians made laws to handle that. Of course, the young boy looking at porn
was completely ignored. However, the other fact that was ignored completely is
simple biology. We all know about 'adolescents' and their 'hormones', yet the
laws ignored any idea of following biology. Instead these politicians follow
the most puritanical belief set they can find.
And tell me: What politician wants to give up that much power, or "Let Those
Evil Men Have Sex With Your Young Child" ?
Yes, Im cynical, only because I've seen this 'game' in many other areas of
government. Alcohol, seat belts, Smoking, university funding, Roads... you
name it.
------
jdbeast00
"Then there were the things they could not control, such as the confiscation
by police of the computer belonging to the dean of students at Alex’s school.
The dean had requested the images in an effort to sort things out" ---
haha...sure dean, sure. "sort things out"
~~~
noonespecial
I know its a joke here, but if that attitude really prevails, there will be no
way at all to deal with this in a rational way at the level where it will do
the most good.
We've already got a serious problem with over-escalation here. All this will
do is make the people most able to deal with the problem too afraid even to
acknowledge it.
Don't look, don't think, just call the Miniluv.
~~~
ErrantX
True enough: but that is not something the dean is equipped to cope with on
his own. They are pictures of minors and no matter his intentions requesting
them (where from?) off his own back sounds like a bad move!
Get in with the police force (in all liklihood they would welcome his
connection to the pupils) and provide suppor through that medium; that seems a
more logical approach (what he did sounds like a half cocked investigation of
his own - which is a bad idea full stop anyway :D).
As it is he will almost certainly be let off with a caution (provided nothing
else is found) - but siezing it is all but mandatory. If nothing else to
ensure the images are correctly destroyed.
~~~
noonespecial
In the current environment, the dean's best course of action (provided he
cares about the students and their futures) is to keep the images as far from
the police as possible and try to handle it as quickly and quietly as he can.
Such is the sad but true we now find ourselves in.
~~~
Zak
It didn't happen at school, and it didn't involve school resources as far as I
can tell from the article. The best course of action for the dean is to avoid
dealing with the situation entirely.
There seems to be a common attitude among school administrators that anything
involving students is their business. It is not.
~~~
jdbeast00
can someone explain why Zak is +14 while i'm -7 and we basically said the same
thing. it was a joke guys.
~~~
philwelch
Because Zak just said it (clearly and understandably), and you tried to convey
it through a vague and not-especially-funny witticism.
You also complained about getting downmodded, which is why you're at 0 here.
------
jasonlbaptiste
Maybe she shouldn't be such a slut. Just my two cents.
On top of it, the distribution wasn't intentional by the boyfriend. Why not go
after those that did distribute it ie- his friends? May be hard to prove the
computer was left open and "person x" did it.
Yes, it's horrible this happened, and I'd be pissed if I was a dad. I'd also
try to be rational. Like Chris Rock said "Youve done a good job if you keep
your daughter off the pole". Seems like this Dad is about to fail.
~~~
natrius
When I have a daughter, I want her to be able to do whatever she wants without
worrying that society will judge her for actions that have harmed no one.
Comments like yours make that less likely. Please stop.
~~~
jasonlbaptiste
I agree with you. I'm not for over protective parenting and kids should be
able to have fun/express themselves without lots of judging.
Honestly though, there's probably a fine line somewhere. I think you can say
that it might not be the best idea for your daughter at 14 to be sending
around naked photos and stripteasing.
This could easily become a long argument and no one is wrong or right. Maybe
it's more of a case of would rather and would rather not. Most people would
probably agree that they would rather not have their 14 year old daughter
sending around some naked photos and videos.
~~~
natrius
I definitely wouldn't want my daughter to send around naked pictures of
herself. However, if she did, that wouldn't make her a bad person, as "slut"
connotes.
~~~
randallsquared
I don't think it connotes that to everyone. At least, to me, it only suggests
high promiscuity, which isn't a bad thing in and of itself. Nor is it
necessarily true in this case, but to those who formed our worldviews before
omnipresent recording, sex-themed pictures of someone intuitively imply
promiscuity. We'll just have to get over it; the world has changed.
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Flickr Gets More Photogenic With A Complete Photo Page Overhaul - aresant
http://techcrunch.com/2010/06/23/new-flickr-design/
======
zacclark
1\. open webkit browser (safari or chrome) 2\. go to new photo page 3\. click
on photo 4\. look at url
Has webkit introduced a way to modify the url without adding a hash character?
As far as I was aware you could only dynamically change things past a #
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Remote Tech/Design/Marketing Jobs - remotemonk
https://www.remotemonk.com/
======
remotemonk
Find the best remote jobs in Tech, Design, Marketing, Sales on Remote Monk.
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Renaming the Bro project - henridf
http://blog.bro.org/2018/10/renaming-bro-project_11.html
======
394549
> On the Leadership Team of the Bro Project, we heard clear concerns from the
> Bro community that the name "Bro" has taken on strongly negative
> connotations, such as "Bro culture".
My understanding is that the negative connotations of the word "bro" come
wholly from outsiders who co-opted it to use as a pejorative to attack a
community. It originated and remains an in-group term of endearment and
familiarity in that community.
It's interesting to note that seems like an inversion of what I understand
happened to certain forms of the n-word. It started out as a pejorative slur
used by outsiders to attack a community, but then forms of it were "reclaimed"
by that community to be used as an in-group term of endearment and
familiarity.
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
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Army Conducting Black Hawk Operation Around Washington D.C - microdrum
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2019-07-22/army-lets-slip-that-it-s-conducting-secret-operation-around-d-c
======
dogma1138
The US army trains to protect the political nerve center of the US.
In other shocking news when it rains the ground gets wet.
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Implementing a programming language in C, part 2 - ScottWRobinson
http://www.vnev.me/implementing-a-programming-language-in-c-part-2/
======
peterjmag
Part 1: [http://vnev.me/implementing-a-programming-language-in-c-
part...](http://vnev.me/implementing-a-programming-language-in-c-part-1/)
And previous discussion:
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9555972](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9555972)
~~~
johnmaguire2013
OP should put a link to part 1 in the article.
~~~
freefouran
I told him to do that, but he thought he already did! I'll bug him so he does
this :)
------
iyn
From my experience, implementing a programming language can be easier to grasp
when doing it _backwards_ , that is: back end -> front end. I can recommend
The BNF Converter
([http://bnfc.digitalgrammars.com/](http://bnfc.digitalgrammars.com/)), which
is a tool that generates the front end (C, C++, C#, Haskell, Java, or OCaml)
from BNF grammar. Writing a back end gives you pretty clear big picture of how
different parts work and relate to each other. When you have that you can
write the front end with this vision.
Obviously, this is only my experience, but I thought of sharing, since in
almost every compiler course I've seen everything starts with writing the
front end. I still have a very, very limited experience and knowledge, but
after I learn more about implementing PL/writing compilers, I see it
everywhere.
~~~
lmm
I recommend [http://www.hokstad.com/compiler](http://www.hokstad.com/compiler)
, which covers the process of writing a compiler in the way that makes sense
to me, the way you'd write any other program.
------
hoangddt
The link is broken:
[http://i.imgur.com/0qc3wf8.png](http://i.imgur.com/0qc3wf8.png) I got this
error: Heroku | No such app There is no app configured at that hostname.
Perhaps the app owner has renamed it, or you mistyped the URL.
~~~
freefouran
Hi, the author is my friend. He hosted his Ghost blog on Heroku, but after a
certain threshold (traffic-wise) it got deleted.
------
snorrah
Parts 1 and 2 cached links:
[http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:http://...](http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:http://vnev.me/implementing-
a-programming-language-in-c-part-1/&ie=UTF-8&oe=UTF-8&hl=en&client=safari)
[http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:http://...](http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:http://www.vnev.me/implementing-
a-programming-language-in-c-part-2/&ie=UTF-8&oe=UTF-8&hl=en&client=safari)
------
xigency
I must have missed the first part, but this is a topic that always interests
me, especially when starting from fundamentals.
Writing a lexer in C, while simple, is non-trivial mainly due to the tasks of
pointer arithmetic and string manipulation. If the author continues on to the
task of writing a completely customizable LR parser or something of the sort
in C or another high-level language, it might be useful to take a look at the
source code for an LR(1) and SLR parser-generator here:
[https://github.com/gregtour/duck-lang/tree/master/parser-
gen...](https://github.com/gregtour/duck-lang/tree/master/parser-generator)
I may fork this branch from the main duck programming language trunk because
it could be useful to other programming languages.
My focus in studying programming languages has been concentrated on frontends
for languages. One drawback of my parser's implementation is that it can be
slow for generating complete canonical parsers for any deterministic context
free grammar and the tables can be quite large. However, there must be ways to
improve the code base to provide better features and performance. Also, once
you have a parse table, it really is a fast parser.
The benefit to using a ground-up approach like this is not only having a
complete understanding of all of the technology involved but also in having
complete control.
Although I haven't used GNU tools like LEX or YACC in practice, I dislike the
idea of generating code in a macro form or really breaking the paradigms of C
and C++ to create auto-generated code. For me, it is much easier to have
programs that take an input, like a BNF grammar, and provide an output, the
parse table. That can then be applied to create a syntax tree from source
code. For me, this makes more sense in creating code that operates on data and
data structures rather than having code generated around templates or macros.
Having control over the data structures in use is helpful because then a
programmer knows exactly where all of the data is going and where it is being
stored, somewhat useful in designing a programming language and something you
lose in using someone else's libraries.
~~~
ScottWRobinson
Just posted part 1 to HN as well. Here it is: [http://vnev.me/implementing-a-
programming-language-in-c-part...](http://vnev.me/implementing-a-programming-
language-in-c-part-1/). Part 2 is definitely more interesting (to me, at
least). Great articles overall
------
freefouran
Links broken guys, but the cache is up so you can still read it.
[http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache%3Awww.v...](http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache%3Awww.vnev.me%2Fimplementing-
a-programming-language-in-c-part-2%2F&oq=cache%3Awww.vnev.me%2Fimplementing-a-
programming-language-in-c-
part-2%2F&aqs=chrome..69i57j69i58.764j0j4&sourceid=chrome&es_sm=119&ie=UTF-8)
------
freefouran
Hi, I'm a friend of the author. We're currently migrating his blog to one of
my servers, wont be long :)
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Yahoo Mail for iPhone - evo_9
https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/yahoo!-mail/id577586159?ls=1&mt=8
======
andyrubio
but why? maybe it's for folk who enjoy reading spam?
~~~
atarian
>maybe it's for folk who enjoy reading spam?
middle-brow dismissal much?
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
HSBC Mobile App – Authentication Flaw - valkyrieuk
I discovered a flaw in the UK HSBC Mobile banking app.<p>Essentially the flaw consisted of being able to authenticate through the mobile app using characters that are not in your password (i.e the wrong password).<p>I raised this withe HSBC via twitter and this was the response.<p>"Hi ValkyrieUK, my name's Claire and I'm from the Digital Complaint's Team. Thanks for getting in touch about the concerns you have with our app. We're aware customer's can enter additional characters on to their password and it will be accepted as a successful log on. We don't classify this as a security risk, as your password must still be entered correctly for it to be accepted. I'll certainly record your feedback about this matter though and would like to apologise for any concern caused. Kind regards, Claire"<p>How can this be correct? They clearly are not following a well proven authentication standard, possibly some kind of REGEX involved.
======
mjoxley
Confirms they are not salting passwords and probably storing them in plain
text. I think the app doesnt allow special charactors in passwords either.
They really should be called out over this "security".
------
valkyrieuk
Related tweet -
[https://twitter.com/BradleyAllen512/status/10735448523637145...](https://twitter.com/BradleyAllen512/status/1073544852363714561)
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Ask HN: Built a successful app business, now I desperately need a biz partner - rdelerna
======
ravensley14
Is the app published? whats the name of the app?
------
redmattred
Built _
~~~
rdelerna
that too. thanks
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
The Tesla Bricking Story? It’s Nonsense - jsherry
http://techcrunch.com/2012/02/22/the-tesla-bricking-story-its-nonsense/
======
Kaedon
If anything, this confirms the other post. Making the parallel between
standard automobiles and the Tesla makes some sense to me, as does comparing
motorcycles to the Tesla. I feel like even given these comparisons, it does
not seem acceptable that they can permanently brick in the way that they do. I
can understand why the owners would feel upset.
~~~
bryanlarsen
Do you think it's acceptable that Ford will not honour their warranty if you
don't change the oil in your car?
~~~
Kaedon
I think that it would have been reasonable for Ford to honor the warranty for
cars in the Model T era. Fully electric vehicles have not been around long
enough for it to be common knowledge that draining a battery is as serious an
offensive as never changing the oil in your car. I understand the reasons that
they aren't honoring the warranty. I think that Tesla could consider replacing
the battery for the early adopters that got surprised by this and make it more
clear to future consumers that bricking can happen.
------
dmethvin
Where's the nonsense? This doesn't seem to debunk the claim that if the
batteries go totally dead you are screwed, out a $40K battery pack.
> Tesla batteries can remain unplugged for weeks (or even months), without
> reaching zero state of charge.
Maybe I'm trying to find a conspiracy here, but the batteries generally
_aren't_ unplugged; they are connected to the car and it's drawing a small
current. That drain from the mostly-idle Tesla's electronics are enough to
flatten the battery faster than if it was truly unplugged.
~~~
DanBC
That quote should be read as "tesla batteries can remain unplugged from a
power source for weeks".
I agree this article doesn't debunk the other article.
I haven't read the Tesla documentation, but if "bricking" is real I'd expect
some firm warnings about it. The other article said that those warnings were
absent; it also claimed that the documents played down the risk.
------
Anechoic
The TC story doesn't seem to back up the headline "It's Nonsense," it just
shifts the blame to the car owners.
~~~
sek
Why is everyone complaining about a Techcrunch headline? It's Techcrunch^^
------
apress
I don't get how the story remotely supports the headline. Nothing in Tesla's
long-winded statement says the bricking story is not true.
------
bstar77
IMO, this is a huge problem for the future of electric cars. If you own one,
you will always have to worry about this when going away for extended periods.
When I had my honda insight, just leaving it un-driven for 2 weeks would
seriously deplete the battery. I never killed the battery, but after the car
had 130k miles, just leaving it garaged for a few days would noticeably
deplete the charge. I'm afraid that electric cars will become the new
disposable car at some point because no one wants to flip the bill for a new
battery pack.
------
georgemcbay
I thought the story was a bit overblown when it was first posted, and still
do, but I don't see how you can call out another article as "nonsense" without
refuting a single factual claim it made.
"The Tesla Bricking Story? It's Overblown"... okay, yeah... but "Nonsense"?
Prove it.
------
p0ss
And what about Tesla remotely tracking vehicles without the owner's knowing?
------
rantertoday
I used to read techcrunch pretty often.. often enough to know that this
"article" is damage control then anything.
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
How does an Angel Investor get invited to a YC demo day? - anthony_james
======
gtmtg
I'm pretty sure you can apply for an invite at
[http://www.ycombinator.com/demoday](http://www.ycombinator.com/demoday).
------
dang
This type of question is probably better addressed to [email protected].
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Sundial: Harmonizing Concurrency Control and Caching in a Distributed OLTP DBMS [pdf] - lnyng
https://people.csail.mit.edu/devadas/pubs/sundial.pdf
======
lnyng
The author of this paper gave a talk today in UW-Madison about this and his
other related works. Sundial is an extension to his previous work called
TicToc [1], both of which are governed by the idea called "logical lease."
Logical lease serializes seemingly conflicting transactions by keeping track
of logical time of read/write operations, and committing at logical time
instead of physical time.
It is hard to get serialization right for DBMS transactions, but this protocol
seems straightforward to reason about. Sundial is an application of logical
lease in distributed OLTP DBMS, so that transactions can still serialize while
using stale cache copies.
I am recently taking some database and computer architecture courses, and this
paper seems very relevant to whoever also interested in these fields.
[1]
[https://people.csail.mit.edu/sanchez/papers/2016.tictoc.sigm...](https://people.csail.mit.edu/sanchez/papers/2016.tictoc.sigmod.pdf)
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
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Coda 2 - idan
http://panic.com/coda/
======
flixic
They seem to have defined their target user, and design around it. And I think
most of us are not this target user.
I have used Coda since 1.0, but later switched to TextMate and now, Sublime
Text. And eventually, I replaced all the good parts of Coda with something
that wouldn't work with Coda as well:
\- I write Ruby, not PHP, and it's not one-input-file-equals-one-output-file
at all. So preview is not that useful. Completion probably won't work for Ruby
as well as for PHP, and so on.
\- I don't write CSS or JS anymore, and I don't think I could live without my
SCSS or CoffeeScript (well, I can, but it's painful). So all the fancy CSS GUI
pop-ups don't help, I have a probably even better solution in code and mixins.
\- Finally, all the UI seems to be Novice-friendly, with sidebars and tabs,
while I don't even have a sidebar at all on ST2, and just use Cmd+T for
opening / switching files.
Also, as for the site itself, the demo tour looks awesome (even though a bit
crammed).
All the best to them! I won't be upgrading, but I think many will find Coda 2
a great improvement.
P.S. I love that they list app being "Retina-Ready" while we still don't have
any retina Macs yet :)
~~~
erifneerg
I followed that same path of editors but ended in vim (instead of sublime) and
use a number terminal tools.
Coda is really pretty and wish i could have some of my workflow.
~~~
tylermenezes
(Sublime is gradually implementing VI commands, if anyone's interested. Look
up the Vintage and VintageEx packages.)
~~~
erifneerg
Yes, I did notices that. Sublime is very tempting but the cost and having a
workflow that I'm happy with stop me from using in a project atm.
~~~
TylerE
Cost? Seriously? It's like $40.
~~~
ConstantineXVI
$59; which is IMHO a totally fair price. Even if you're that strapped for
cash, there's no cap on the trial so you aren't pressed for time to come up
with the money.
------
whalesalad
Looks good but I think this is still more like iWeb than a true hacker's
editor. Too much GUI. It assumes you are dealing with more-or-less the LAMP
stack and basic PHP websites. Also, I feel like this is kind of another
example of do one thing well vs. do a lot of things decently well. If you're
depending on one single app for your terminal, MySQL GUI, CSS editor, etc...
it feels like bloat. Hand-holding development. Fisher Price. I think most
hackers would rather use individual tools that might be more powerful and
configurable.
I don't know anyone using Coda except a friend who chickenscratches together
jQuery scripts and pieces of PHP. He's not a craftsman.
Just to be clear: Panic makes some great software and they're some really
talented guys. I just dislike Coda.
Just for fun: Textmate user for 5 years, have shifted to Sublime because I
enjoy some of it's key commands better. They're very similar though. vim on
the server.
~~~
taligent
Tools are there to make things easier. It doesn't make you any less of a
developer just because you use the Refactor command rather than manually
change 20 files. In fact it makes you a better developer.
No offense but I would NEVER hire anybody who subscribed to your way of
thinking.
~~~
uxp
Interesting. As a hacker myself, I would be more interested in hiring (if I
was in the position to hire) someone that could quickly `grep` and `sed` their
entire repository for the occurrences of a function name that needed
refactoring, all the while never leaving the same terminal window that Vim or
Emacs was running in.
I agree with both of you though. My frontend co-workers need to constantly
have that browser window open and complain about their F5 key wearing thin,
while I'm lucky if I manage to remember what local domain name I assigned to
Apache that points to the project I've been working on for the past 8 hours.
My code tests tell me everything I need to know, and I can tell whether or not
they're passing from my same terminal window.
We all use different tools, many times to solve the same problem, and on
occasion we'll use the same tools to solve different problems. The wheel
wasn't a breakthrough in the transportation technology only, it also sparked
the mechanical revolution once someone meshed two together.
~~~
Udo
This is a false dichotomy. Knowing how to grep is essential, but that doesn't
mean you must forego other convenient tools just in order to preserve your
"hacker cred". Use whatever is most efficient to do a specific task.
------
FuzzyDunlop
I noticed it's nice new CSS feature only generates Webkit specific CSS[1].
That is _not_ good.
However, I think their usage of CSS3 transforms to focus on different parts of
the video is pretty clever. Watching the video on its own feels rather bland
in comparison.
[1] <http://i.imgur.com/rpVUw.png>
~~~
SimpleQuark
" I think their usage of CSS3 transforms to focus on different parts of the
video is pretty clever. Watching the video on its own feels rather bland in
comparison." It may have been clever, but it absolutely thrashes my cpu. Why
didn't they just do the transforms/transitions in whatever they used to record
the screencast? Coda2 looks great but using css3 like that will thrash the
browser way more than building it out in Flash would have.
~~~
eridius
What browser are you using? It runs like a dream in Safari.
~~~
FireBeyond
And therein lies the rub. Panic is hardly alone, but where once stood a legion
of Mac users screaming bloody murder (and rightly so) at websites that were
"Designed for IE on Windows", now there is a generation of "Works in Safari?
Looks good on my iPad? Ship it!" designers and developers.
~~~
irons
Nobody's specified the browser where CSS3 animations look bad yet. I'm not a
web developer, but I use Safari, Chrome, and Firefox to varying degrees, and I
don't see single-browser breakage going on.
~~~
FireBeyond
True, unusued CPU power is "going to waste", but when an i7 950 overclocked to
3.5GHz, running of an SSD and 1600MHz memory with Chrome 18 uses 20% of CPU
for a transition that's a problem (though with what is a different argument).
My point, though, was that to me it highlighted a more symptomatic issue, that
a certain segment of the population, who used to rail against discrimination
against their chosen platform, are more than happy to cheerlead / defend /
exonerate discrimination for their chosen platform.
------
davvid
1\. Any sufficiently complicated text editing program contains an ad hoc,
informally specified, bug-ridden, slow implementation of half of vim.
2\. No new programming environment will ever satisfy advanced vim users
without adding a "vim emulation" mode, thus satisfying #1. (p.s. I am a vim
user)
~~~
balanceiskey15
I totally agree with #2. I'm curious whether you've tried Sublime's Vintage
Mode and what things may have been slow or buggy.
I'd say my Vim skills are somewhere between novice and intermediate and feel
entirely out-of-place editing text without vim bindings nearby.
~~~
davvid
BTW it was a parody of <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Greenspuns_tenth_rule>
~~~
balanceiskey15
Ohhhhhhh, gotcha.
------
juddlyon
Wow, tough crowd.
This is a Dreamweaver killer for CMS themers, no need to bring Vim into the
conversation.
~~~
tsurantino
Finally someone makes the explicit mention.
The app looks great but I think the tab interface looks really...just dumb. I
don't understand why so much of my screenspace has to be filled with this
obtrusive icon preview of an entire webpage (which you can't completely see),
page of code (which you can't completely see), MySQL editor (which you can't
comp-ok you get my point).
Otherwise looks good.
------
filmgirlcw
Looks good. TextMate remains my go-to editor (and that's not going to change,
it's just not), but I've always appreciated Coda when doing WordPress work.
The new features make it look like for WordPress or other MySQL-backed CMSes,
it'll be super nice.
Would love to know if they plan on doing more to get developers to create more
add-ons for Coda. The community is there, but it's super small compared to
TextMate, Sublime Text and even Espresso.
Still, as a rule, I buy anything Panic puts out so I'm getting this on
Thursday.
ETA: I think the real brilliance here is Diet Coda for iPad. AirPreview is
genius and bringing subset editing functionality to the iPad in a meaningful
way is great.
~~~
adeelk
> AirPreview is genius and bringing subset editing functionality to the iPad
> in a meaningful way is great.
There’s no editing functionality, just a preview of the page.
~~~
jpxxx
Yes there is, read again. AirPreview is a single feature of the portable
viewer/editor for iOS.
<http://panic.com/dietcoda/>
~~~
adeelk
Completely missed that, sorry.
------
kaolinite
Hm, when I clicked on the Coda tour button, it sped through the video at 2x
speed. That's odd.
I feel a bit sorry for Panic. Their designs, imo, have been mimicked so much
across the internet that their site now looks old and cliche. It's not their
fault and it looks very nice, but because so many sites use it I just can't
stand it now.
------
cmelbye
Wow, looks very nice. I didn't see anything about this on the page, but is it
still geared towards PHP/static/etc sites with normal non-rewritten URLs? It
didn't seem to work very nicely with fancy rewritten URLs when I tried it last
(for example, the preview feature doesn't work).
~~~
stevekinney
The demo shows PHP and the feature list mentions "Improved Ruby," although I
am not sure what that means. It's been years since I used Coda and I wasn't
doing a lot of hacking back then.
------
marcusestes
Panic markets their own software better than just about anyone in the
business. I always love their new product demo sites!
~~~
btb
Not sure I agree. I've never heard of Coda before, and the webpage doesnt
really tell me what it does or why I need it. I get the impression its some
sort of visual studio-like thingy for mac users?
------
pkh80
I like Coda for the built in SSH support.. all my dev work is done on a
dedicated dev server, I don't code anything locally.
So everyday text editors don't really work for me. I have tried remote
mounting SSH and using text editors that way but its never been as smooth as
Coda with the integrated file browsing.
Having a dedicated dev server is a real treat if you want to code from
multiple machines and need a real robust server environment.
------
tedsuo
Love coda for managing large numbers of cms installs. Use it for all my non-
vim work (pair programing and more serious dev tasks just work better in vim,
makes me think better). Exploring a code base works better for me in coda, the
function names in the sidebar and file management, it's a nice light weight
IDE. I often end up with both coda and vim going at the same time.
~~~
speg
Yes. Function names in the sidebar is the reason I still use Coda. Our
workplace code base is so sprawled, this feature alone saves me so much grief.
~~~
mikeroher
Have you tried this? SHows functions in a tag bar in vim.
<http://www.vim.org/scripts/script.php?script_id=273>
~~~
speg
I think I tried that one out when I was giving Vim a whirl. Unfortunately I
couldn't get into it. If there was something similar for Sublime Text 2, I
would be very interested.
~~~
mattacular
Command/Ctrl+R will bring up the symbol explorer in ST2. Basically the same as
Coda's function explorer.
I do wish it could be a permanent fixture on the sidebar though... not sure if
this is possible or not with a plugin.
------
deathwarmedover
I really did enjoy using Coda when I was doing PHP work around 2008-2009 (got
my company to buy me a copy). Now that I work primarily in Ruby and forced
myself to learn Vim a few months ago, I can't ever imagine myself going back
to Coda.
That said, it looks like they added a bunch of features I would have loved
back then.
------
sycren
Is there an upgrade path for Coda 1 users? Also while the video is presented
well, I think they need to change the music - Its far too distracting..
~~~
stevekinney
Direct customers (e.g. not the Mac App Store) can upgrade for $75. Recent
purchasers (via the direct channel and after April 10, 2012) can get it for
free. In addition, every one can get it for $50 (half-off) for the first 24
hours, which is a great tactic if you want to elicit impulse buys through a
channel that doesn't support refunds—I'm looking at you Mac App Store.
------
kevinSuttle
Users really had to wait so they could build a MySQL editor? Who was asking
for that? I'm pretty disappointed, unlike the voiceover for that video. Think
I'll stick to Espresso.
------
saeedjabbar
Having used Coda since 1.0 as well I have to say I'm very disappointed with
this release. The GUI looks like crap and is not intuitive at all.
All the file navigation can easily be done with a keyboard short cut similar
to sublime, no need for 50 different ways to do it. The mysql editor looks
half assed as well. Where is the improved support for Ruby they mentioned?
Coda 2 looks like an improved version of iweb in the ilife suite.
Really expected more for Panic as I was really excited for Coda 2.
------
simonbarker87
Looks nice, I'm still trialling Sublime text 2 so theres a chance for Panic to
win me back - although I am loving Sublime, Coda is what I learnt with so ...
I wonder if they will honour the offer they made during a coda 1 promotion in
early 2009. I forget the exact details but there was the promise of a code 2
discount or some kind.
Either way, nice job
~~~
jarrodtaylor
They mentioned in the blog post about the release that it would be 50% for the
first 24 hours, and a free upgrade for recent purchasers.
~~~
simonbarker87
Fair play, didn't read the blog post. Just watched the video
------
jlbprof
It is not clear to me what Coda is. They certainly do not mention it at the
site. It looks like some form of IDE but there no other information. I am not
going to go through the tutorials without some simple explanation of what it
is and where it is applicable.
~~~
54mf
Are you serious? The first paragraph:
"You code the web. We revolutionized that process in Coda, putting everything
in one place. An editor. Terminal. CSS. Files."
~~~
jlbprof
What languages does it support? What OS? or is it a Web App itself?
~~~
nickheer
The Mac App Store icon infers that it's a Mac app. As for languages, you're
right that it isn't clear. Having said that, the main window is a text editor
which performs highlighting on all of the major web languages (in Coda 1.x
anyway).
~~~
jacobr
If you're not a Mac user, how would you know what the App Store icon looks
like?
There was nothing in the Help/FAQ either, so it wasn't until I manually
navigated to panic.com, seeing that they do Apple apps, that I finally got
pretty sure it wouldn't be available for my platform.
~~~
dorian-graph
There comes a point where preparing for all levels of pedantry isn't wise and
it's fine for people to assume a certain level of knowledge/experience from
their target audience especially if their target audience isn't everyone.
------
user23409
* AirPreview requires separate purchase of Diet Coda.*
Thats a pretty big bummer considering it's the most compelling feature. Also,
I know panic is a mac only shop, but platform locked desktop apps seem a bit
unsavory these days. Especially applications for developers.
------
mehulkar
Reminds me of Dreamweaver
------
xbryanx
Ack, that music makes me feel like I just found a dark and dangerous bonus
level in Mario.
------
pacomerh
Ultimately it's about what you do with the tool, there's not one size fits all
editor as far as I know. You don't need to be a CMS themer or Dreamweaver fan
to like this, it has all sorts of features that you may or not use if you
don't like. What you can do with it it's up to you. For example, I do music
and use software that costs around $500 dlls. I know several musicians that
are using far less expensive software, with less capabilities and they're
making amazing songs. Well?
------
crag
Well, it's about time. I mean, it only took 3 years.
Coda has always been for the "front end" developer. I've moved on to PHPStorm
and Sublime. But I will be taking look at Coda 2.
I don't see the cost anywhere?
~~~
KingMob
I think it said $50 for the first 24 hours, after that it's a $75 upgrade, $99
new.
------
desireco42
As someone who really uses vim all the time, this is impressive, even if I am
not target user. Coda for me was app that was defining mac as a platform.
------
michaelmartin
I want to know more about why they chose to share absolutely nothing in the
build-up, launch a gorgeous video today, and then aren't ready to take
purchases for 48 more hours?
That just seems like a huge mistake to me. Surely the point of being silent in
development was to have this big unveiling. Shouldn't the sale then kick off
right now while we're still (in theory) amazed at it?
(Especially with MAS not offering refunds...)
------
alexobenauer
Is anyone else unimpressed by what is new given the amount of time they've
taken between releases 1 and 2? Coda 1 came out over 5 years ago, and few, if
any, of the highlighted new features are new to the world of development, just
new to Coda.
I will say I like the embedded editors for colors in CSS, but that was the
biggest improvement I think I see.
~~~
guywithabike
You didn't read anything on the page, did you?
------
pooriaazimi
I didn't find anything about 'App Sandbox' in the app features/descriptions...
Is it fully sandboxed? Because, you know, Apple will enforce sandbox effective
June 1st! It means that Apple will pull Coda 2 in about 7 days after its
lunch.
I wouldn't buy Coda 2 from the App Store before June 1st if I were you.
~~~
ryannielsen
> It means that Apple will pull Coda 2 in about 7 days after its lunch.
Citation required. Can you back up that statement? Everything else that I've
seen indicates that Apple will require apps _submitted_ after June 1 to be
sandboxed. I've seen nothing indicating they'll pull old apps.
Furthermore, what's to say they can't get custom entitlements? Apple is
extremely eager to have every app sandboxed and has emphasized many times
they'll work with apps who need permissions not in the standard set of
entitlements to build custom entitlements.
~~~
pooriaazimi
I wouldn't give Panic $49, $79 or $99 (or even $0.99) _just_ for Coda 2.0.0.0.
I want all the future updates, which, if Apple does not grant custom
entitlements, wouldn't make it into the App Store.
I have a huge respect for Panic (specially for their taste in design) and I
use their products, but not addressing this issue seems very unprofessional to
me.
------
pwthornton
Coda works really well for WordPress work and for static sites. I'm interested
to see if the new version is strong for uses beyond that.
I am very excited for Diet Coda. I can't see myself doing serious code work on
an iPad, but for quick fixes and small work, it would be great to have it on
the go.
------
moondev
Finally!!! Coda's editor really shines with their sidebar IMO. Being able to
drag and drop files, seeing meaningful icons, built in ftp editor when you
need it... etc. I just hope it has a split-pane feature the way sublime does
as I have become addicted to the way that works.
------
ehutch79
I own a coda 1 license, but i'm not sure any of this will pull me away from
sublime text 2.
I only use coda for remote wordpress sites. It looks like it's even better for
that, but for anything significant, sublime, along with a raft of individual
tools seems to work way better.
------
TwiztidK
I'll probably pass on this one. I used Coda 1 for a bit but then moved onto
TextMate when I started doing almost everything with Rails.
The one Panic app I still use often is Transmit, so I wouldn't mind if they
worked on upgrading that now that Coda 2 is near completion.
------
acomjean
I use coda for my personal site and a non-profit site I work on on the side.
Its not as hard core as my work setup, but its fast and easy and I do like it.
Its easy and fast but was getting a little long in the tooth.
I'm all optimism about this.
------
Derbasti
Say what you want, but that demo was absolutely brilliant.
I am not the target audience, though.
------
weslly
It looks awesome, but I don't think I would enjoy this fancy GUI after a
couple of weeks using it. It looks like a replacement for dreamweaver or iWeb.
------
ehed
"Proverbial butter." Nice. Most of the features I hop over to Espresso for
(code folding, for one) are in Coda 2, yay!
------
kbd
They added Git support but not Mercurial :(
------
aaronbasssett
Until I can set filters on the file display so I don't see .pyc files I'll be
giving Coda a pass.
------
uptown
via @panic:
Tap the \ (backslash) key while the video is playing to reveal the entire
screen.
~~~
mogstad
Is it just me that thinks this is rather stupid? Now they are downloading much
more data then needed and pre rendering the camera movement should also get a
better frame rate and the edges would have been anti-aliased.
------
white_devil
Is there any reason to use this over something from JetBrains?
------
ckluis
I'll purchase if it supports Wordpress in a meaningful way.
~~~
lukifer
There's a third-party syntax mode for WordPress on Coda 1, I suspect it will
still work for v2: [http://wordpress.org/support/topic/wordpress-syntax-mode-
for...](http://wordpress.org/support/topic/wordpress-syntax-mode-for-coda-
editor)
------
faizanaziz
Does anyone know wether it will be good for python dev?
~~~
fusiongyro
I'd be surprised. Coda 1 can edit lots of file types, but it's clearly
intended for a PHP workflow: edit files, preview them, upload to the server.
Not sure the whizzy features are going to help you much.
------
dmishe
is it useful for anything other than php/css/html?
~~~
filmgirlcw
At least with Coda 1, Ruby and Python are supported too -- and JavaScript,
obv. But it's not as robust as some more hardcore text editors.
------
philip1209
Does a license to Coda 1 include a free upgrade?
~~~
54mf
Nope, but it does give you $20 off. $79 vs $99. Also, the app is $50 for
everyone for the first 24 hours.
A bit of a bitter pill, for sure, but considering that it's a total rewrite
with massive new features, it seems fair.
~~~
philip1209
"If you bought Coda 1 very recently (after April 10, 2012) directly from us,
you are entitled to a free upgrade. Unfortunately, Apple does not provide us a
way to give free upgrades to all customers who purchased Coda 1 from the Mac
App Store recently"
That's what I was looking for - I bought it in the last month.
Thanks for your response.
------
nerdfiles
1\. Full File Browser
2\. List View and Groups [for Sites]
3\. Git support
These features make me incredibly happy. Though I will probably stick to
maintaining my ragtag collection of tools (vim, cli tools etc.)
I'm wondering if there will be an upgrade license.
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Microsoft Accused of Hindering Firefox Browser - ssclafani
http://online.wsj.com/article_email/SB10001424052702304070304577394760696347108-lMyQjAxMTAyMDAwOTEwNDkyWj.html
======
SoftwareMaven
I really love my iPad, but I wish Apple would let Firefox into the garden.
Apple is getting away with it because Safari is a webkit browser and is
staying "on the edge", but there is no difference between what Microsoft is
doing here and what Apple is doing.
For consumers, competition is very rarely a bad thing, and in this case, I
can't imagine a case where it could be considered bad for users.
~~~
recoiledsnake
>there is no difference between what Microsoft is doing here and what Apple is
doing.
There is a difference and the difference is that Windows RT will allow Firefox
and Chrome and other browsers to run in Metro mode, just not in the desktop.
Edit: I was wrong.
~~~
contextfree
However, the restrictions on the sandbox for Metro style apps mean that
alternate browsers would either have to be skins around the IE engine, or be
very slow (because it's not possible to run dynamically compiled aka JITted
code). That is why there is a special exemption for "Metro style enabled
desktop browsers" (which appear to the user as Metro style apps but have all
the capabilities of desktop apps) on Windows 8 (x86), which is what Metro
style Firefox will use.
~~~
recoiledsnake
Interesting, I stand corrected in that case. I assumed that the x86 Metro app
would work on the ARM version as well.
------
sirclueless
This is probably going to become a major point of contention. There is a
demonstrable security benefit to restricting applications to a subset of
available APIs and vetting or at least signing all applications that are
installed. The iOS platform is very secure because of this. Android also does
well by gating its app store. But if you restrict apps in this way, you are
setting up an environment where it is easy for a first party to control a de-
facto monopoly.
Openness is great for competition and innovation, but it has inherent security
problems. There will always be a tension here.
~~~
fpgeek
That's an interesting way of framing it. I generally come down on the side of
openness, but it makes me wonder if something like a "right to be available
absent proof of maliciousness" (with part of the hurdle being that a developer
would have to demand their right to be included in some non-trivial way) would
be a useful compromise.
------
koeselitz
Given that Microsoft has already moved to ban Linux from ARM devices at the
UEFI level, it seems like they believe strongly that ARM is going to be an
important battleground for them:
[http://www.bit-tech.net/news/bits/2012/01/16/microsoft-
block...](http://www.bit-tech.net/news/bits/2012/01/16/microsoft-blocks-linux-
arm-hardware/1)
[edit - changed "BIOS" to "UEFI"]
~~~
recoiledsnake
>Given that Microsoft has already moved to ban Linux from ARM devices at the
UEFI level..
Uhh, Microsoft cannot and hasn't done anything like that.
They can't stop Android tablets from shipping can they?
They're more likely going to subsidize Windows RT tablets by charging a
smaller license fee, and trying to compensate that with the money from Windows
App Store/Bing/Music etc.which they lose if users are allowed to change the
OS.
That's like saying Microsoft banned all other consoles, just because they have
a locked bootloader on the XBox.
~~~
fpgeek
Microsoft is at the very least trying to ban dual-booting of Windows RT
tablets. To me, that is very significant.
Also, Microsoft certainly can provide OEMs financial incentives for not making
Android tablets. As you note, they're already talking about subsidizing
Windows RT devices (one of the justifications for blocking dual-booting) and
Microsoft has done worse before...
~~~
recoiledsnake
I do not know why there is this expectation that if something runs Windows it
should be able to run other OSes. First of all this is not Windows, and none
of the millions of Windows programs will run on it. Why should Microsoft be
denied the freedom to do the same things that Apple is succeeding very well
with(and supposedly killing MS in the post-PC world, if you see posts on here)
?
~~~
fpgeek
Some of us think that Apple shouldn't be permitted to do some of those things
either (e.g. banning side-loading and locked bootloaders).
------
fpgeek
I wonder if Microsoft would have let Firefox onto Windows-on-ARM devices if
they'd decided to take Bing's money instead of Google's. I could see them
doing that, but I could also see their desire to emulate Apple trump their
desire to work more closely with a new partner.
~~~
recoiledsnake
How is allowing Firefox in Metro mode on Windows RT tablet "emulating Apple" ?
Edit: I was wrong.
~~~
fpgeek
You can't write Firefox in Metro mode. The only way you're getting Firefox
with a Metro interface on the desktop is the special "browser mode" that had
to be invented. That "browser mode" isn't available on Windows RT (and
shouldn't be the way to solve this problem anyway because it is a terrible
hack).
~~~
contextfree
Any ideas for a better solution to the problem? (not snarking, genuinely
curious to hear your thoughts)
~~~
fpgeek
Have user-grantable permissions for escaping from the Metro sandbox? (JIT
permission being the most obvious, of course) That might devolve into a "de-
facto" desktop permission at the start, but if they were clear that the
permission model was in flux I could see incrementally turning it into
something reasonable. And saying "your app might/will break in the future" is
much nicer than saying "people can't get your app at all".
~~~
recoiledsnake
History has shown that it never works and the users can be coerced to do
anything to make their app work and are incapable of deciding what's malware
and what's not.Case in point, declaring app access permissions in Android.
Most software seems to have no trouble with user adoptions while requesting
every permission available like making phone calls.
>but if they were clear that the permission model was in flux I could see
incrementally turning it into something reasonable. And saying "your app
might/will break in the future" is much nicer than saying "people can't get
your app at all".
The problem is that with the first breaking change, users will be annoyed and
MS will regardless take the blame for it.
Also the iPad has proven to be a roaring success with the very same
restrictions.
~~~
fpgeek
I'd say plenty of permissions systems have been a success, including the app
permissions system in Android. Does it have tons of rough spots and issues?
Absolutely. Handling permissions is a hard problem no one has cracked. But
Android's system has also unequivocally has provided a net positive value to
users and the platform.
First, there's the baseline transparency. Android hasn't had Path-style
surprises because things like whether or not an app is accessing the address
book or your location are out in the open.
Second, the permissions system (including negative reviews driven by it)
encourages app developers to not just request permissions, but explain why
they are needed. Not everyone does that, but plenty of the apps I've used do.
Among other things, I can wish that were more integrated and consistent (e.g.
a mandatory text string provided along with the request to shift the default),
but, even today, this valuable information ends up in the app description
where everyone can see it.
Third, there's all sorts of potential for tools you can build on top. It's
easy to answer questions like: "Which apps access my location and can send
SMSes?" There have also been attempts to revoke permissions that users didn't
want to give. This doesn't always work well because apps usually don't
gracefully handle not getting an expected permission, but most of the
technical infrastructure is there, so it is a logical future step. And so on.
I'm not saying a permissions system will be wonderful out-of-the-box, but it
is a good foundation on which you can make things better in the future, rather
than settling for a false choice today.
------
DHowett
But a Metro version of Firefox is being worked on[1]: in light of that, how
does the removal of desktop style apps impact Mozilla? It does not appear to.
[1]: <https://wiki.mozilla.org/Windows8>
~~~
fpgeek
Did you read the "Open issues/risks" section? That makes it clear that any
Metro for Firefox on Windows 8 depends on special accommodations from
Microsoft that (so far as we know) won't be available on ARM.
~~~
DHowett
I did, but none of that is mentioned in either the original Mozilla blog post
or this article. We have no reason to believe that disabling desktop mode
precludes an application acting as a Gecko rendering bridge for a Metro UI.
They seem completely unrelated: in fact, the only way they could be is if one
expects a Desktop Firefox to run in the background and serve pages to Metro.
That's not listed in their design plans and, furthermore, is not how IE works
on the same platform.
I will admit to not having read the Application development guidelines for
Windows RT. It could potentially be a sandbox violation, depending on the
aforementioned guidelines - however, that's a completely different issue, and
it's not "Microsoft locking Mozilla out of the market by removing desktop
mode."
~~~
fpgeek
As someone else notes, Firefox needs to break out of Metro to JIT JavaScript,
at the very least. For third parties, there's nothing other than Metro on ARM,
so how would that be possible (absent special accommodation from Microsoft)?
------
contextfree
This is a surprisingly well-written and accurate article.
------
cooldeal
How is this remotely related to antitrust(any more than the iPad i.e) ?
Desktop Windows gains it's monopoly leverage from running Win 32 apps and
people are forced to run it for compatibility. None of those programs will
ever run on Windows RT. Windows RT is basiscally starting from zero, just like
the iPad did.
Just because it has Windows in it's name does not mean it's subject to
antitrust. What next? Insinuating that Windows Phone should be subject to
anti-trust restrictions that the iPhone or Android is not?
~~~
fpgeek
Um, there's going to be Office for Windows RT. That's certainly leveraging one
of Microsoft's monopolies.
~~~
cooldeal
That seems to be quite a stretch.
MS is rumored to be working on Office for the iPad. If that's true then will
it get them off the hook?
~~~
fpgeek
Offering Office on other platforms doesn't mean they're not leveraging it.
After all, which platform is it going to work _best_ on?
~~~
replax
This is ridiculous. Of course I hope it is going to work best on the MS
Tablet. Why not? It'd be a fail if it wouldn't work best on their own OS.
There is nothing whatsoever wrong with that, in fact, it is called decent
engineering. And if e.g. Apple does not want to provide the same access to iOS
as MS has to Windows, it will not work as slick.
Also, I heared Apple is leveraging Safari on iOS, where is the law?
~~~
fpgeek
The difference between Office and Safari is Microsoft has a monopoly with
Office and Apple doesn't with Safari.
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Firesheep - smaili
http://codebutler.com/firesheep/
======
tams
We should be thankful for Firesheep.
It was brilliantly simple, spread fast, and forced the major players to adopt
HTTPS rather quickly.
------
i80and
This is from 2010.
Facebook uses HTTPS for everything now, right?
~~~
mrdrozdov
Correct, but at the time of this release many websites (including GMail and
Facebook I believe) did not and were vulnerable to Firesheep. The title of
this post should be updated to reflect the 2010 posting.
------
ddavidn
Are we just here for the memories?
------
mrdrozdov
For the first time I've noticed the "past" option under the title (between
flag and web).
------
michaelmcmillan
Astonishing to think about the lack of encryption in big services like
Facebook 5 years ago.
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Ask HN: Simple feature request tracking service? - shockie
I'm going to launch a new product and I want to provide the users a way to submit feature requests. The code is hosted on Github but it's a private repo so the issue tracker can't be used. Is there a service equal to the functionality of the Github issue tracker(So no getsatisfaction)?
======
namenotrequired
I haven't used it (for any of my sites), but a site that did a Show HN
yesterday (<http://instantname.me/>) used <https://www.uservoice.com> which I
liked.
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
What do you like to see on Internet? - lebme
Well, I want to create a directory of sites, something like Wimp.com, without a pretty design, but with a lot of content and a good organization.<p>Any idea?
======
krapp
Umm... learn (or find a good library to) parse the metadata of submitted sites
to create 'profiles' similar to embed.ly. Then let people sign up and tag them
or create feeds or whatever. Make sure to respect robots.txt and all that, and
include any copyright information, author tags, etc.
I've been working on something vaguely similar for a few months now. Good
luck.
~~~
lebme
Oh, that's a good idea, let me see more about embed.ly, thanks, and good luck
too!
------
samuelh
cats
~~~
lebme
There are a lot of Cat lover sites [http://voices.yahoo.com/top-ten-cat-lover-
websites-2026893.h...](http://voices.yahoo.com/top-ten-cat-lover-
websites-2026893.html), but it will be funny too
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Chartd: responsive, retina-compatible charts with just an img tag - ingve
http://chartd.co/
======
morisy
A few folks were asking about open-source alternatives. I've found Quarz's
Chartbuilder is really nice, though not able to throw-parameters-in-a-URL
which is a super handy feature.
Use:
[https://quartz.github.io/Chartbuilder/](https://quartz.github.io/Chartbuilder/)
Source:
[https://github.com/quartz/Chartbuilder/](https://github.com/quartz/Chartbuilder/)
Chartd looks super awesome for a variety of use cases though, especially if
you've got regularly updated data you want to visualize.
------
x5n1
if Google has taught us anything, it is that this is a bad idea. Sooner or
later this service will shut down as it has no business model taking your app
with it. It should be available as open source to deploy if you need to do so
in the future.
~~~
Pyxl101
Oh. I assumed this was open source and you host it on your own server. Yes,
not a good idea to use a free hosted product provided by a company where
you're using the service anonymously over the Internet.
It's funny that you mention Google. Google used to offer a web-based chart API
a lot like this one. Well, it looks like they're technically still offering it
as Image Charts [1] but it is deprecated. I think it used to be called just
Google Charts, but that brand was repurposed to a client-side JavaScript
library. I'd say it's virtually certain that they pull the plug on it at some
point, given Alphabet and the whole "era of fiscal responsibility".
I've actually written a clone of Google Chart API for private use. It relies
on ChartDirector though which isn't free; it's basically a URL skin over that
product. If this would be useful open source to anyone I could see if my
company is willing to agree to release it. However I had sort of assumed that
web-based charting APIs were dead by this point in favor of client-side ones.
Edit: Is this a paid API? StatHat looks like something that's a paid service
but I can't tell if the feature in the article is paid.
[1]
[https://developers.google.com/chart/image/docs/making_charts](https://developers.google.com/chart/image/docs/making_charts)
~~~
x5n1
At the very top of the page. I thought it was already gone.
"Warning: This API is deprecated. Please use the actively maintained Google
Charts API instead. See our deprecation policy for details."
------
angilly
Disclaimer up front; party in back: I'm about to discuss a freemium service
that I built & operate related to this :)
I looked around for a solution like this for a while last year while building
a new weekly email for Ramen[1]. I tried a bunch of services but ran up
against a bunch of issues mentioned in this thread:
\- GET query string character limit
\- Stress around unreliability of free alternatives
\- Need to be able to handle large spikes of image generation when sending
emails
So I ended up building a service and turning it into a freemium product:
ChartURL.com[2]
It is:
\- Free for low usage w/ branding
\- Based on C3.js[3] (for major flexibility)
\- Supports datamaps.github.io[4]
\- Has an API whereby you can POST huge datasets and get back a short URL that
can be used in an img tag
\- Supports retina & `srcset` via a `retina=1` option
You need to sign the URLs which means it's not a simple "just drop the data in
the URL" but it's close.
I'll hang out in the comments here for a while if any of you want to ask
questions about it.
[1] [https://ramen.is](https://ramen.is)
[2] [https://charturl.com](https://charturl.com)
[3] [http://c3js.org/reference.html](http://c3js.org/reference.html)
[4] [http://datamaps.github.io](http://datamaps.github.io)
------
oneeyedpigeon
First, despite the reservations expressed by others so far, I think it's a
good thing that something like this exists; it's a big shame that Google
abandoned their own equivalent.
Having said that, I would be surprised if there weren't good open-source
alternatives (anyone?); maybe the problem is that server-side requirements
might get a bit awkward, even if you can find a good solution in the language
of your choice.
> All chartd charts look great on retina displays. The SVG charts are vectors
> and render perfectly. chartd generates all the PNGs @2x the resolution so
> they scale appropriately.
Is this why when I view an image directly [1] it's twice the size of the
requested dimensions? I'm viewing this on a 'retina' screen, in case that
affects things. Is this the best way of handling retina displays, to make
everyone else's image 4 times bigger than it needs to be, and scaling it in-
browser?
[1] e.g.
[http://chartd.co/a.svg?w=580&h=180&d0=SRWfaZHLHEDABKKTUYgpqq...](http://chartd.co/a.svg?w=580&h=180&d0=SRWfaZHLHEDABKKTUYgpqqvws0138eZfaYtwxxsxyst)
~~~
jbuzbee
It's a bit stale, but I've used Eastwood in the past as an open source
substitute for Google Charts
[http://www.jfree.org/eastwood/](http://www.jfree.org/eastwood/)
------
philsnow
One shortcoming: these requests are always HTTP GETs, and various web
browsers/servers/proxies will impose different limits on the length of the
request. In the best case, it looks like you're going to get 8k requests, and
if you're dividing that up among multiple timeseries, it's not a _whole_ lot
of data points.
You'll also end up needing to do a length check client side, since the
degradation is probably not graceful as you approach the request limit (fine,
fine, fine, fine, fine, HTTP 414).
That's probably fine for a lot of use cases, but if you adopt this charting
library / system and then later want to do more complicated things with it,
you're going to end up needing to rip it out and replace it with something
else that doesn't have this limitation.
I don't see a way around it, you can't make the browser POST to get the img
tags AFAIK.
~~~
mgkimsal
'get' to a shorter url which has more of the params you want which POSTs, then
passes through the img data back? might be more trouble than it's worth?
------
dbb01
I agree with the previous comments about a project like this not being open
source isn't a great idea. Hard to monetize on GETs and anyone who invests a
lot of time developing to the url's API will have to redo their app when you
deprecate your service, as google did with the chart API.
Still, having it as a hosted service doing image charts can be great, you just
need to give folks a backup plan.
------
ecesena
To show responsiveness, it would be better to place the "don't care about
responsive?" in a separate page...
------
devbug
Wrapping on the <pre> tags is broken. You need to specify white-space: pre-
wrap;
------
patrickxb
Hi, I'm the author of chartd.co. Let me know if you have any questions!
------
hashkb
I don't see pricing info. Will this be free forever?
~~~
patrickxb
The revenue from StatHat supports it.
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
EXE/OM – Erlang Language with Dependent Types and Changeabe Encodings - 5HT
https://github.com/groupoid/exe
======
brudgers
Language home: [http://groupoid.space/exe.htm](http://groupoid.space/exe.htm)
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Remind HN: Unicode hacks - olalonde
Just a friendly reminder that some Unicode characters[1] look like spaces and should be taken into account when writing filtering/trimming functions. Of course it's not a big deal but something to keep in mind to prevent stuff like usernames who are basically a bunch of spaces.<p>[1] http://www.cs.tut.fi/~jkorpela/chars/spaces.html
======
tptacek
This is a classic web security problem; most famously, WinAPI systems have a
"flattening" function that would convert things like PRIME U+2032 into ASCII
0x27 (the tick that terminates SQL statements). Database engines can also
interpret character sets differently than the rest of the app stack, leading
to similar problems. UTF-7 cursed Wordpress for something like a year in which
multiple preauth SQL injection flaws were discovered.
The answer to these problems is whitelist filtering and neutralization; if a
character isn't known-safe, substitute its HTML entity alternative. If you're
writing blacklist filters that need to know what spaces are, you're already
playing to lose.
~~~
perlgeek
Sorry, whitelisting isn't the answer to SQL injection - bind parameters are.
With bind parameters you can pass data out of band, and the DB engine never
tries to parse it as SQL.
~~~
tptacek
I wasn't trying to be prescriptive about SQL injection. But, it always skeeves
me out when people knee-jerk out "parameterized queries" as the answer to SQL
injection. Yes, they're better and safer and you should use them wherever you
can. But they don't "solve" SQL injection; for instance, there are query
fragments that can't be parameterized (which is why you still find SQL
injection in sortable table headers and in pagination and in custom query
builders).
Be careful.
------
olalonde
Seems like Twitter is "vulnerable" to U+00A0 tweets:
<http://twitter.com/#!/olivierll/status/7852651047817216>
For those who are wondering, you can type Unicode codes directly from your
keyboard (Ubuntu: Ctrl-Shift-u, other OS:
<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Unicode_input>)
~~~
Bootvis
A more innocent trick with unicode and twitter is squeezing extra characters
in a tweet by using unicode ligatures:
[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_precomposed_Latin_chara...](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_precomposed_Latin_characters_in_Unicode#Ligatures)
Unfortunately the amount of ligatures is small but it might come in handy.
------
VMG
Interesting - just tested it in python and everything is removed with
str.strip(), _except_ "\ufeff", which also has zero width.
>>> print("\ufeff#")
#
>>> print(len("\ufeff#".strip()))
2
------
olalonde
For more details on the potential visual spoofs:
<http://unicode.org/reports/tr36/#visual_spoofing>
------
stwe
There are also other unicode hacks like changing text direction (U+200F).
~~~
stwe
It used to have funny effects on websites (browser name in title bar spelled
backwards), but it doesn't seem to work now. The above comment contains the
unicode character three times.
------
citricsquid
~~~
citricsquid
Seems ALT+0173 works here as a "blank" character. I'm not sure of its exact
purpose, but I've never seen it dealt with and often use it as "nothing". The
only solution I've seen to properly sanitising Unicode characters is just to
disable them entirely and print their name.
~~~
alanh
If you break my “typographer’s quotes” by overzealously sanitizing when you
don’t absolutely need to, you’ll end up 6' under a † if you know what I mean.
;-)
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
8 traits of successful people by Richard St. John - cx42net
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NOl0v54DaXo
======
cx42net
And to sum up what is told on that video :
The eight traits are :
1\. Passion: Love what you do.
2\. Work: Really hard.
3\. Focus: On one thing, not everything.
4\. Push: And keep on pushing yourself.
5\. Ideas: Come up with some good ones.
6\. Improve: Keep improving yourself and what you do.
7\. Serve: Serve others something of value.
8\. Persist: Because there is no overnight success.
------
cx42net
The original post is from Lifehacker : [http://lifehacker.com/the-eight-most-
common-traits-of-succes...](http://lifehacker.com/the-eight-most-common-
traits-of-successful-people-1635017441)
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Show HN: Dead simple file uploads to your Amazon S3 bucket - junction
https://www.kiteuploader.com
======
irl_zebra
Site doesn't work at all. :(
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
MPAA Publicly Threatens to Stop Writing Checks - nextparadigms
http://www.techdirt.com/articles/20120120/14472117492/mpaa-directly-publicly-threatens-politicians-who-arent-corrupt-enough-to-stay-bought.shtml
======
redthrowaway
The minute they stop writing checks is the minute they stop having power. They
_may_ back republicans, but I doubt it.
So Hollywood's finally figuring out their representatives can't be trusted to
act in their interests? Shame, that. Must be tough. They have my sympathy. No,
really, I mean it. Can't imagine what they're going through.
~~~
thotpoizn
Does this constitute a confession on Dodd's part? Seems like some law
enforcement types would, I dunno, investigate that sort of thing...
<http://wh.gov/KiE>
~~~
younata
Except that, in the US, bribing congress(wo)men is legal.
------
ivankirigin
Lobbying is legal. Donating to campaigns of politicians you like is legal. I'm
not sure why people are surprised.
The answer isn't to kick these specific bums out. It is to change campaign
finance laws to make contributions illegal. I'm not sure what people here
would agree to that doesn't amount to censorship though. Should the MPAA be
disallowed to make a political commercial and pay for its broadcast?
~~~
pacemkr
Nicely summarized and a valid question.
From what I gather, direct campaign contributions and the way corporations are
funneling money into elections are not connected. Corporations are NOT making
direct contributions to campaigns. They are making indirect and anonymous
contributions to superpacs.
We don't need to "make contributions illegal." Nor do we _need_ publicly
financed campaigns. That would be very hard to get.
We can start by having superpacs disclose their donors. Or by setting a limit
on individual, and by extension corporate, contribution to said superpacs.
The loophole is that you can't make a large contribution directly to a
campaign, yet you can make a contribution of any size, anonymously, indirectly
to the corresponding superpac. This is why money = voice.
In answer to your question: "Should the MPAA be disallowed to make a political
commercial and pay for its broadcast?" They should be allowed to make a
political statement by contributing to a superpac that runs the commercial,
but the contribution should not be unlimited nor anonymous. In effect, they'll
need other companies in the pool to get enough money for that commercial.
_Now_ we can say corporations are people, problem solved.
~~~
yummyfajitas
I think you are making the implicit assumption that some people should not
have a greater voice than others. Is that correct?
If so, do you favor removing Paul Krugman or Glenn Beck's bully pulpit? If
not, why not?
~~~
pacemkr
The implicit assumption is that you shouldn't have the legislator's ear
because you have a fat check in hand. Chance are that the check will win over
a petition.
If we are to have freedom of speech, then Beck should be able to have his
show. That's the easy part.
Beck converts money into public opinion. Arguably, SuperPACs do the same.
Hence the Citizens United decision. In practice, SuperPAC donors just tell the
legislator why the check was written, or in which case it will be. Nothing
wrong with the premise (free speech), plenty wrong with the outcome (money =
voice, or rather money = ear?)
Now that I ran this circle, I can see how publicly financed campaigns might be
the only answer. Thank you for asking a difficult question to answer. I'll
definitely think about this more.
~~~
yummyfajitas
_In practice, SuperPAC donors just tell the legislator why the check was
written, or in which case it will be._
If it were not a check, but merely using influence, would things be better?
I.e., if Krugman were to offer to endorse Romney only on the condition that
Romney expands Obama/Romneycare, would that be acceptable?
Or how about if some rich person stated he would buy a newspaper and use the
newspaper to push Romney?
------
Eeko
Bribery:
"Bribery, a form of corruption, is an act implying money or gift given that
alters the behavior of the recipient. Bribery constitutes a crime and is
defined by Black's Law Dictionary as the offering, giving, receiving, or
soliciting of any item of value to influence the actions of an official or
other person in charge of a public or legal duty."
<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bribery>
~~~
Eeko
Extortion:
"Extortion (also called shakedown, outwresting, and exaction) is a criminal
offence which occurs when a person unlawfully obtains either money, property
or services from a person(s), entity, or institution, through coercion.
Refraining from doing harm is sometimes euphemistically called protection.
Extortion is commonly practiced by organized crime groups."
<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Extortion>
------
Bud
Extraordinarily blatant. I'm amazed that 30 years (thirty years!) in the
Senate didn't teach Dodd to be more subtle in the uses of power than this. I
mean, this guy ran for President. This is the best you can do, Dodd?
My cat would be a better lobbyist.
~~~
freejack
Or possibly, 30 years in the senate may be where he fine-tuned his arrogance.
------
abraxasz
First, I'd like to say that what follows is in no way an attempt to justify
what Dodd said, or find excuses for him. I believe what he said was chocking.
However, it does raise questions about lobbies in general. I'm not american,
so when I arrived here, I was surprised by how widespread the phenomenon was,
and I've been trying to understand the reasons behind it. From what I read,
lobbies basically give money to politicians for their campaigns is that right?
My first question is: why do they need that money? I mean, where I'm from
(France), politicians don't spend a tenth of what their american counterparts
spend for there campaign. So how did the US arrive to a point where so much
money is needed to win an election?
My only guess is that they noticed that the probability of being elected was
proportional to their media visibility. Meaning that some people vote for the
guy they see the most on tv. And when I say "some people", I mean a lot of
people. So my second question is: "Is our voting behavior not responsible for
the phenomenon of lobbying"?
Again, this is an external point of view. Please do tell me if I'm missing
something.
Edit: grammar
~~~
ambler0
Well, a more cynical explanation might be that this money barrier constitutes
a filter for keeping politicians who aren't bought out of the process. That
is, it's a quite intentional state of affairs. Politicians who try to run
honest campaigns are shut out of the process.
I don't know if anyone remembers 2000, but Nader wasn't even allowed in to
_watch_ the debates, let alone participate.
In my view, the only answer to all of this is 100% publicly funded elections.
~~~
anamax
> In my view, the only answer to all of this is 100% publicly funded
> elections.
And what are you going to do about newspapers that promote candidates?
How about movies that promote a candidate or party?
Can I make a sign and put it in my front yard with my money? How about if my
neighbor and I decide to put up a bigger sign across the border between our
lawns?
Yes, I know, to make an omelet, you've got to break a few eggs. However,
breaking eggs doesn't mean that there's going to be an omelet.
~~~
Peaker
How about disallowing political ads on TV and newspapers for a few months
before election, except for publicly funded ones in secured slots for that
purpose?
~~~
skymt
And what about political TV programming and editorials? Should those be
censored as well?
~~~
Peaker
In Israel, where I live, some forms of political speech in political TV
programming and editorials is disallowed in the pre-election time period.
~~~
learc83
That would require a constitutional amendment:
"Congress shall make no law...abridging the freedom of speech, or of the
press..."
------
cjoh
The minute Barack Obama does something I really don't like, the minute I stop
donating to his campaign.
There, I said it!
That statement is neither proof that I am a corrupt insider, nor is it
sufficient evidence that I have control over Barack Obama.
~~~
yellowbkpk
If you modified your statement to "The minute Barack Obama does something I
really don't like, the minute I stop donating tens of millions of dollars to
his campaign." the outcome might be different.
~~~
rickmb
Now change "does something I really don't like" to "stops executing policies I
dictate" and you're getting somewhere..
------
Nrsolis
Honestly, I would _LOVE_ to see the MPAA and RIAA stop writing checks to
politicians.
Many folks think that there is already way too much money in politics,
particularly to those politicians who are incumbent. Consequently, if the
MPAA/RIAA stop buying our politicians out from under us, maybe we'll get them
to pay attention to us again.
That's really where the MPAA should be spending its money anyhow: convincing
individual voters that piracy is hurting their business and what the effects
will be. Honestly, I _do_ think we need some modifications to the copyright
regime in this country (US). I just want the MPAA/RIAA to stop bypassing the
voters and appealing to the folks we elected to represent _our_ interests.
If the MPAA/RIAA stop funding elections, that means victory for the rest of
us.
~~~
epscylonb
They aren't going to stop writing checks, they are going to write checks to
different politicians (or people trying to get elected).
While the electorate are apathetic, moneyed interests will get their way.
~~~
Nrsolis
In principle, I don't necessarily disagree with the idea that people should be
allowed to use their resources to get their message out. I do feel that's
limiting speech.
What I disagree with is the _conveyance_ of funds to front groups that obscure
WHO is doing the speaking. There is a distinct flavor to the PACs && SuperPACs
that connecting the message to the author would allow the public to gauge WHY
they are taking a particular position. Given the government's/industry's
attempts to limit the anonymity of individuals, I find the corporate attempts
to enhance and leverage that anonymity troubling.
I don't think we'll get the money out, but I do think we need transparency in
the process for all or for none.
~~~
russell
I agree with your call for transparency. In California statewide self funded
candidates, millionaires like Whitman or Huffington, tend to fail. The same is
true of blatant corporate initiatives.
------
mmaunder
Perhaps those of use who truly care about intellectual freedom should be
writing checks too. I have no problem buying politicians for the right
reasons. It appears to be the way business is done in the United States.
Anyone interested in starting a lobbying organization that supports real
patent reform and a free Internet?
~~~
pi18n
I have a problem buying politicians for the right reasons. We are already
paying them handsomely to act in the country's best interests. I'd rather
start an organization that supports real governing than pass more money to
these goofballs.
~~~
eternalban
I searched for "office" in this thread and nothing showed up. Why is the far
more effective option of running for office never considered in our circles?
We could certainly use a new political party, and we most definitely could use
public representatives who actually "represent" us.
Running for office, of course, will not address the critical short-term, but
do consider that the intersect between Technology and Governance will become
even more critical in the upcoming years. To sum: we shouldn't complain about
public servants being servants of moneyed interests, if none of us danes to
ever even think of serving our nation as public servants. Run for office.
~~~
nitrogen
Running for office doesn't really work if you can't get your message out
because the media and political parties refuse to declare anyone but the
incumbent "electable." I've worked on a political campaign before, and also
know people who are delegates for their respective parties, and the inertia
incumbents have is _extremely_ difficult to counteract.
One problem is that people with lots of money can afford to pay others to work
full time in their interests, while those of us _actually doing stuff_ with
our time can't afford to spend eight hours a day in caucuses, party delegate
meetings, city halls, legislators' offices, etc. trying to fight for an issue
and/or get elected.
------
CharlieA
I don't understand how he (or anyone) can get away with saying things like
this--it's practically a straight up admission that they're buying votes.
How is this not corruption?
~~~
ludflu
because to prosecute, you would need to prove a quid pro quo in a particular
instance.
------
SeanDav
Wow, the only time this guy takes his foot out of his mouth, is to shoot
himself in said foot.
Actually let us hope he makes a few more comments like this one so that even
more people can see what the MPAA are really about.
~~~
tatsuke95
Dodd's just doing his job. Now, that job is one that most of the populace
would consider 'corrupt', but that's another story. What's amazing is how
_explicit_ he is in that statement with regards to how the system works.
I fully agree with the hope that he continues to do this. I honestly can't
believe that this battle is devolving this quickly.
------
rbanffy
I am absolutely shocked by the thick layer of spin that goes around a couple
seconds of actual edited footage:
[http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2012/01/19/exclusive-
hollywo...](http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2012/01/19/exclusive-hollywood-
lobbyist-threatens-to-cut-off-obama-2012-money-over-anti/)
~~~
atakan_gurkan
I watched the footage you linked to. The quote in the OP is longer, so there
must be another video.
However, from the footage I watched, it does not look like a spin at all.
Nothing is taken out of context. The guy is basically saying that they are
unhappy with the current actions of the administration and they will stop
giving money. Where is the spin?
~~~
rbanffy
They imply the only campaign at risk of losing funding is Obama's. I seriously
doubt these people put all their eggs in the same basket, specially when there
are so many other baskets for sale. And while they mention Fox supported SOPA,
they fail to mention Fox is also a member of the MPAA and that Chris Dodd also
represents their own interests.
------
Shenglong
It's actually really sad, that it took a a joint effort on some of the web's
largest companies to shove it in the faces of ordinary people, what could
happen if such destructive legislation would pass.
It goes to show how apathetic the general population is, how representative
democracy really hinges on funding from corrupt corporations, and how the
entire government structure of the United States needs reworking. It might be
the people who vote, but right now, every politician knows that money buys
more votes (campaigning, etc) than doing the right thing.
~~~
jberryman
I think you're being overly-pessimistic on several fronts:
1) I don't think the public was apathetic on this issue, just unaware. And
that's YOUR fault (okay _our_ fault), not the fault of the media or corporate
interests.
2) the blackouts were an appeal to the voters, making them aware of the issue
and urging them to call their congress-critters; in the end it was effective
communication uniting people that killed these bills: democracy won over
corporate money.
3) A longer response to "the entire government structure of the United States
needs reworking":
this is simply false. The system we have is the result of the incentives in
place. For all the obvious, bipartisan agreement that corporate money is
corrupting politics, there hasn't been a movement formed to unite people
behind reform, probably because people don't realize that changing the system
and changing the incentives are easy, not hard.
You change the incentives and politicians will come around overnight. And it
doesn't have to start with a constitutional amendment; there are creative
finance reform ideas that can be implemented immediately that would have huge
effect: <http://republic.lessig.org/>
~~~
maurits
Me personally, I am not so much shocked as I do have an overwhelming feeling
of deja vu. Similar stories of greed, power and also corruption are a regular
occurrence (everywhere). Actually, I find a bit candid honesty refreshing.
And out of the many shocked, only a couple of people seem to have the audacity
to point to the root causes of this problem and talk reforming campaign
financing and lobby laws, and even less talk about reforming the way the
democratic process now works.
You hint that changing the system via the incentives in place could be very
easy.
But this begs the question, why isn't this done yet? Is it not that big an
issue actually? Is there a majority with a vested interest in the current
system? Surely the thea party has shown that a well organized vocal group can
gain influence, so a starting minority doesn't have to be a problem to further
political ideas.
------
RealGeek
Does anyone from MPAA ever read what Internet industry, bloggers or customers
have to say? Do they read any articles like these or it is just falling on
deaf ears?
~~~
burgerbrain
The MPAA is not the intended audience. We know they don't care, they only care
about their wallets.
------
MrJagil
Does anyone have a link to the actual video?
~~~
firefoxman1
I'm looking for it myself. I wouldn't be surprised if Dodd himself requested
the video pulled from the network.
------
beedogs
I am ashamed Chris Dodd was once my senator. :(
~~~
Arubis
That, and: he was the guy who seemed _more_ sane than Lieberman.
Seriously, I actually liked Dodd. He was a friendly, sanely leftist Senator.
Where did the MPAA bit even come from?
What worries me is the unpredictability here. Haven't researched this
(downvotes incoming, I suppose) but Connecticut has few ties to
Hollywood...how can we know which Senators will leap from a reasonable voting
record to outright offensive actions within months?
~~~
Drbble
Dodd got a taste of money when he ran for President. He instantly turned from
a progressive to a cash hound. At the start of his campaign, he sponsored an
email drive to oppose some anti-corruption bill (I forget which), but it was
actually just a front to collect email addresses for his campaign fundraising.
Way to misread your constituency under the influence of greed.
------
Aloisius
Money in politics is a huge problem. I'm not one to actively campaign, but I
do recommend people check out Larry Lessig's Rootstrikers -
<http://rootstrikers.org/>.
There are some local rootstriker groups starting up in SF and what not trying
to come up with a sane solution.
------
kidmenot
Someone finally took the time to say publicly how things work... what's all
the fuss about?
------
mathattack
And this is the same Dodd who supposedly reformed WallSteet
------
middayc
When writing checks with ROI expectations to politicians happens in (for
example) eastern europe it's called corruption and hopefully penalized (and I
agree with it). when it happens in "developed" democracies it's called "that's
how the gov. works"?
~~~
steve-howard
No, it's called "We used to think this was preposterous but the Supreme Court
told us it's not."
------
twelvechairs
Is it wrong that he is saying this on the record? I dont agree with the
lobbying system either, but dont shoot someone just for being transparent
about the way the system works.
~~~
pyre
I don't think it's going to help public perception of the MPAA, though...
------
yuhong
I hope Google finally starts writing bigger checks in response.
------
shampoo
Rather then purchase content from Hollywood, where else could one place their
entertainment dollars to help squeeze Hollywood ? Games ?
------
fleitz
This sounds like influence peddling I think a prosecutor needs to look into
this.
------
daniel-cussen
SV will have to multitask. Kick ass and lobby at the same time.
------
funkah
I tend to think they will get what they want, eventually. Congress is bought
and paid for, and if they keep trying to pass bills like SOPA, issue fatigue
will set in at some point among common folks. Blacking out Wikipedia can only
work so many times.
------
shareme
Yeah, and there is no drugs in any Hollywood studios, right?
------
gavanwoolery
"Corrupt Politician" is an oxymoron.
~~~
JonnieCache
You mean a tautology.
~~~
gavanwoolery
Argh - I am an idiot - I meant to say the opposite. You are right, tautology
what I was looking for.
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Adblock Plus Is “Unethical” and “Immoral”, Says IAB Chief - elorant
http://mobilemarketingmagazine.com/adblock-plus-is-unethical-and-immoral-says-iab-chief/
======
na85
I am so off-the-charts sick and tired of advertisers and "content" producers
that feel entitled to dictate what I can and can't choose to see on my device.
In their hubris they have decreed that anyone who doesn't want to waste
bandwidth downloading their ads is a thief, again because they feel entitled
to turn a profit seemingly just because they exist.
The simple fact is that not everything on the web deserves to make money. A
massive, massive amount of Internet content is simply inane drivel. If we were
to see a great die-off of content producers due to lack of ad revenue I'm not
convinced that the internet wouldn't be better off. Advertising is, after all,
the business of manipulating me into buying something that I don't want to
buy. Frankly I find that and the people who do it to be reprehensible.
~~~
JohnTHaller
As a counterpoint, I find it rather ironic that a lot of the things people
complain about being "inane drivel" yet continue to consume every day. "This
is shite, it doesn't deserve to make money" "So, why do you keep reading it?"
~~~
xlm1717
Exactly. Someone has to be keeping this inane drivel alive.
------
elorant
It’s also unethical to track visitors without their consent but no one in the
advertising industry seems to care asking for permission. They profile us, we
block their ads. Simple as that.
------
ronnyf
It's simply wrong to assume people would gladly want to be exposed to ads in
general. The only unethical thing here is to call people unethical who simply
decide not to participate in ad viewing.
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Hong Kong Protests Show Dangers of a Cashless Society - kyleblarson
https://reason.com/2019/07/02/hong-kong-protests-show-dangers-of-a-cashless-society/
======
mindfulhack
Any technology that is pro-society should never be over-centralised (e.g.
control over citizen freedoms to use that technology).
Physical cash is material technically government-controlled and -produced, but
people can freely trade it with great independence.
I don't think we'll have a big problem here. People's drive to freely trade
critical resources between each other is so strong that they'll create their
own currencies if they need to - which is exactly what the burgeoning
ecosystem of cryptocurrencies already is.
------
jaclaz
While the overall point is IMHO extremely valid (cash is some form of
liberty), I somehow feel that something in the matter is _queer_.
Taking public transport to get to the area of the protests might have not been
the best choice anyway.
I mean, is it so far-fetched that the queues at vending machines are monitored
and recorded by security cameras and facial recognition can be later used
(syncronized with the actual ticket emission time) if the government wants to
know who went where?
I see from the photo of the linked within article:
[https://qz.com/1642441/extradition-law-why-hong-kong-
protest...](https://qz.com/1642441/extradition-law-why-hong-kong-protesters-
didnt-use-own-metro-cards/)
that many people wear surgical masks, but I dont think that would be an issue
if the governement wants to identify someone.
And there is no need of a pre-made database, it can be built later, assuming
that the holder of an Octopus card re-uses public transport, you film him/her
_next time_.
~~~
Arn_Thor
If the government has a high-resolution camera and the latest tech maybe.. But
a regular security camera would probably need at least eyes plus the
nose/mouth to make a facial model afaik. If a person enters their home station
wearing a mask, and returns with a mask later, that probably keeps them quite
anonymous.
A more immediate concern for the protesters is probably that police were
stopping young people clad in black in MTR stations at hotspots, as well as
those taking minibuses leaving the scene of the June 1 event, and jotting down
their IDs.
------
sneak
I have been beating this drum for a long time:
[https://vimeo.com/27653912](https://vimeo.com/27653912)
------
Kasoha
article of the week.
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
The Lowly Folding Chair, Reimagined with Algorithms - techpulse
https://www.wired.com/2017/04/lowly-folding-chair-reimagined-algorithms/?mbid=social_twitter?ref=techpulse.co
======
bobsil1
>when you let algorithms optimize the shape of the legs and back of a chair;
they start to resemble animal bones
Evolutionary algorithm evolves biomechanics…
------
MisterBastahrd
Last time I checked, even basic folding chairs have backrests.
~~~
pimlottc
I'm not even sure which side is the back.
------
dogma1138
These types of chairs are common in the Middle East and parts of Asia they are
usually called Syrian or fan folding chairs here is a 19th century example of
a 19th century one
[https://www.google.co.uk/amp/s/www.1stdibs.com/amp/furniture...](https://www.google.co.uk/amp/s/www.1stdibs.com/amp/furniture/seating/chairs/19th-
century-syrian-wood-inlaid-folding-chair/id-f_7118093/)
There is also another common design in which the chair unfolds to like a
bundle of crossed beams and you put a pillow in the middle to sit.
Not exactly sure what "algorithm" was needed to design the chair, I would
think by now Sweden would be familiar with middle eastern designs.
------
krallja
> lowly folding chair
> 27 cherry wood pieces
Yeah, okay.
~~~
radarsat1
To be fair, i couldn't help read this article with a picture in my mind of
repeating the design or something similar using a simple laser cutter and
acrylic. I bet it'd be cheap, easy, and look good. (If you like that kind of
design.. a bit 60's retrofuturish I guess.)
------
mikejmoffitt
I don't see a video of a person actually unfolding this thing, which looks
like a complicated process when your friend gravity insists on helping you
out.
------
anotheryou
It doesn't even fold into itself? Just goes flat?
I'm tempted to say a good carpenter could eyball this quite quickly.
------
kahrkunne
Looks really heavy. Also, no back rest. And no pillow, so hard on your butt.
Not a great design if you ask me.
~~~
fwefwwfe
Unless your ass is in the shape of a bunch of curved piano keys.
~~~
Cpoll
> It also had to be comfortable, so Ratti designed the seat shape around a 3-D
> scan of a human body.
If true, it shouldn't be too uncomfortable, no more so than a wooden chair.
The gap between the slats doesn't matter much (again, you can see a lot of
wooden patio furniture for examples).
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Keeping a Bibliography - Topolomancer
https://bastian.rieck.me/blog/posts/2020/bibliography/
======
ohmyblock
Why not using Zotero or similar? Isn't it much more convenient?
~~~
funklute
The one thing I wish Zotero would have is the ability to export (and then
version control) the collections layout. I don't really trust Zotero to not at
some point mess this up, especially if I'm trying to sync multiple accounts
after an internet outage, and having the collections layout backed up would
really make me trust the platform a lot more.
------
calstad
If you use org mode I highly suggest org-ref
([https://github.com/jkitchin/org-ref](https://github.com/jkitchin/org-ref))
that leverages and adds a lot to Bibtex. It makes
creating/managing/citing/searching a bibliography a breeze.
------
dysosmia
Another reference to Zettelkasten! I've only recently become aware of it,
though it's pretty clear to see how that concept and the bibliography concerns
here complement each other. Anyone have any experience combining the Z method
with good reference management for the long-term?
~~~
henrikeh
I think most implementations of a Zettelkasten _does_ include a reference
system, but it is not explicitly a _part_ of the Zettelkasten, but simply a
complementary tool.
I can’t comment on “long-term”, but I have been working on a paper this past
week and have used my Zettelkasten notes and references extensively. Writing
the draft has mostly consisted of copying snippets and titles from the ZK.
Sine all my notes have references in place, the draft already have references
ready to be converted to something LaTeX will handle.
I’ve also used the reverse: finding which notes reference a particular paper.
------
kens
What's the best way to keep track of notes on the documents and books that one
reads? I use a combination of Evernote, text files, directories of scanned
pages, and so forth, and it's not optimal.
~~~
funklute
I prefer to keep it simple. I add references in my .bib database via Zotero,
then I version control the .bib file (exported from Zotero). And then I add
.md files with notes, and the .md files are named according to the citation
key in the .bib file. Then I version control those .md files. Advantage is
that notes are all in the same format and place, regardless of what reference
type (e.g. pdf, webpage, could even cite a video), and they are all very
easily searchable, including through time (via version control).
EDIT: I keep a separate folder on my Dropbox (so not version controlled) of
the actual resources, such as .pdf files. Again named according to the
citation key in the .bib file.
~~~
sasvari
you might wanna have a look at pubs [0]. It is a command line bibliography
manager.
The folder structure looks like this:
~/.pubs/
bib/
doc/
meta/
notes/
The bibkey is the filename for the different files in those folders, and for
notes you can use markdown. You can then keep your pubs folder under version
control (or symlink the (sub)folder(s) to wherever).
[0] [https://github.com/pubs/pubs](https://github.com/pubs/pubs)
~~~
funklute
Thanks, that looks really interesting!
------
Cenk
If you prefer to automate most of this -->
[https://citationsy.com](https://citationsy.com)
------
kmill
Has anyone compared JabRef to Zotero? I chose JabRef a while back (its
database is nothing more than your bib file, it helps organize your pdfs well
enough, it can import bib entries from MathSciNet and the ArXiv, it runs fast
enough), but every once in a while I wonder whether the programs I'm not using
are the ones that deliver true bibliographic salvation.
~~~
funklute
I switched from JabRef to Zotero a while ago, mainly because JabRef seemed to
be extremely buggy. I'm broadly using the same feature set on both, but Zotero
is a lot less buggy, and it's faster and easier to add new references.
If JabRef was more stable, I think I would have stuck with that, because of
the inherent simplicity.
EDIT: I'm an exclusive linux user, and as you can maybe tell, I like JabRef
because of the unix-ish philosophy: a tool that does exactly what it needs to
do, and nothing more.
------
coliveira
Bibtex is the true standard for bibliographies. Practically every scientific
publisher uses it. This shows how well designed the bibtex format was: nearly
30 years after it was created, we see it used everywhere.
~~~
Topolomancer
In particular with BibLaTeX it truly is a joy to use for me! I am saddened by
seeing how little some publishers care about providing good output, though.
------
superflit
I am surprise no one cited
Jabref([https://www.jabref.org](https://www.jabref.org)).
The author does cite it on *6.
It works nicely, cross-platform. It can work on Lyx, Latex, Bibtex, and Word.
~~~
funklute
Unfortunately I've found it rather buggy (on linux) in the past. It really
could be a super nice tool, if they traded some features for more stability,
in my opinion.
~~~
lmns
This is also my experience with JabRef on macOS. If I remember correctly, I
had some problems where it silently corrupted parts of my bibliography. I'm
not sure if it was related to me using it with subversion or some other
problem, but I was a little bit surprised to say the least.
~~~
funklute
Ouch, that sounds pretty bad... Thankfully I didn't have that issue - mostly
my problems were to do with java libraries, glitchy UI, and the "add
reference" tool often didn't work.
------
raister
I'll leave this here [https://www.mendeley.com/](https://www.mendeley.com/)
~~~
uneekname
I'd recommend Zotero as an easy-to-use, open source alternative.
[https://www.zotero.org/](https://www.zotero.org/)
~~~
Bedon292
I have used both extensively. And I really want to love Zotero, but to me
Mendely is just so much better I have to use it.
Am really curious about JabRef though that other people are mentioning.
Haven't used it before.
~~~
funklute
For me the key drawback about Mendeley is a very limited ability to control
the citation keys. Even on Zotero this is a second-class citizen, since you
have to install a plugin.
Have you been able to control the citation keys on Mendeley? It's been a while
since I've tried it now...
~~~
Bedon292
Sorry, slow response. Every item has a Citation Key field on it in the
details. Just put whatever you want in there. Annoyingly it doesn't show up
until after you try and export or copy it the first time. I just hit Ctrl-K to
copy the citation and then change it if needed.
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
.NET Core Image Processing - jamessouth
https://blogs.msdn.microsoft.com/dotnet/2017/01/19/net-core-image-processing/
======
skrebbel
This might sound like a small thing but the .NET image processing stuff has
traditionally depended a _lot_ on Windows builtins. Mono shipped an entire
mediocre rewrite of GDI (the graphics layer that's been Windows since the
early nineties) just to support the .NET Framework image processing stuff.
Note: not for image _display_ (which is what GDI is mainly for) - even for
headless image processing.
In practice this meant that if you were cropping an image server-side in C#
code on a Linux server, a C-rewrite of a Windows UI layer would kick in and do
the work for you. Amazing work from the Mono team, because it worked, but also
pretty nuts.
If there's one place I remember having stuff that "just worked" on Windows and
had weird subtle quirks on Mono, it's image processing (I'm talking a few
years ago). So IMO it's pretty awesome that they're replacing all that legacy
with a decent 100% .NET image processing library.
(Sidenote: this was also the _only_ real problem we faced developing a C#
backend with a team on Windows, Linux _and_ OSX computers, and running it all
on Mono on Docker on Linux - all well before .NET Core. Mono really is/was
that good)
~~~
ygra
Mono shipped a reimplementation of the types in the System.Drawing namespace
which uses GDI+ (note the +) on Windows. This reimplementation is also what
CoreCompat.System.Drawing is based on. To my knowledge Mono _did_ shim a few
Windows APIs, mostly related to window messages so WndProc can be overridden
in a useful manner, but not actually GDI, as far as I know.
~~~
kodfodrasz
And the implementation was buggy as hell. When I needed to resize pictures on
mono + Linux I finally had to resort to manually building libgb, writing a
simple wrapper for the resizing part, and use that, as back then every other
alternative as either incomplete, or pain to use and/or buggy.
Note: libgd is a well designed native library with design emphasis on simple
interop wrappability.
------
jamessouth
Great to see the positive comments here. ImageSharp is my baby and it fills me
with a lot of confidence that it's something that developers both want and
need.
~~~
camus2
Why would you expect negative comment? .NET Core is a solid platform for web
development. It's easy to deploy and relatively fast compared to the usual
Python/Ruby/PHP and co... only matched by Java(controlled by Oracle) and
Go(which is obnoxious). .NET Core is growing at a fast pace, and it deserves
it, C# and F# are phenomenal languages.
~~~
jamessouth
This isn't my first rodeo with Hacker News, I've unfortunately had negative
responses before when sharing my work.
~~~
MichaelGG
Thank you for your work! I used it with a client that had a System.Drawing
impl. Just making thumbnails of uploaded images. It actually was our CPU
bottleneck! And then it started crashing when load was high, making us drop or
reprocess (which added more load and drops...).
With your lib and a few hours of work, all that disappeared and CPU went way
down. Thanks!
On a side note, users should try to send gratitude to open source authors in
general. I know it's hypocritical of me, since I didn't take the time to email
you before this! I've done it a few times in the past and the replies I've
received indicated that I was the only one to ever thank them! That sucks.
I've written some stuff I know more than a few companies built entire products
and services with -- I've received about 2 notes in 6-7 years. It's not much
but just a bit of thanks really provided motivation.
Cheers to you.
~~~
jamessouth
That's great to hear, With future updates and a little help I'm sure we can
improve the performance further and make us the g0-to library.
And thanks for saying thanks, it is rare and always very much appreciated.
------
kodfodrasz
My experience with any ImageMagick and derivateives is terrible. Obscure
install is needed, app is not portable (which is normally a great default
feature of .Net apps), or building it is difficult. Also its security track
(of the native parts) is very bad, so i strongly discourage anybody using
those libraries.
On the other hand ImageSharp is convinient, and the author is a nice helpful,
responsive guy. I totally suggest using his library. When I needed it once for
mono, though then it did not meet my needs, Mr. South was really helpful.
Eventually I had to stick to manually wrapping libgd, but I'm about to revisit
that code and change it to use a new ImageSharp version! (Also the fluent APIs
make working with images using that lib pretty awesome!)
~~~
simooooo
Magiic.net works fine but it occludes the real API so you might struggle to do
certain things
~~~
kodfodrasz
The real api is a bit of brainfuck to me. I'm not sure what psychedelic the
creators of ImageMagick were on, or maybe they thought it is kinda funny, but
for me the GetMagicWand call was also a single sign that I don't want to use
that.
So what I mean by this: in my opinion occluding the real API is probably a
feature of Magiic.net. Still I do not like if a library needs systemwide
install and config files, etc, as ImageMagick/GraphicsMagic does. Maybe the
creators of these libs have solved the portability problems created by this,
but I'm disgusted by these native libraries, and I avoid them. (Back then the
one wrapper I tried needed a systemwide install of imagemagick. A click
through wizard needing administrative rights, instead of dropping a dll into
the PATH or the program directory... Also it has config files. Config files..
for a library. IMHO this is insane! It is a good approach to configure apps by
config files. Libraries should be configured by API calls, or build time
constants.)
Having custom build scripts for 3rdparty code is a huge work to keep up to
date which will always lag behind, thus the security will also lag behind. On
the other hand this is needed to solve the portability issues of the native
parts. I find this approach unproductive, but wish the maintainers the best.
------
jamessouth
Amazed this is trending. If anyone has any interest in image processing of
performance in general please get in touch and give me a hand. Any help will
be appreciated.
------
jsingleton
Nice post. Looks like I'll need to update the compatibility list:
[https://github.com/jpsingleton/ANCLAFS#image-
manipulation](https://github.com/jpsingleton/ANCLAFS#image-manipulation)
NB: You shouldn't use System.Drawing in a web app. It can lead to memory leaks
and lots of pain. Even the newer WPF equivalents are not safe for use on a web
server.
~~~
koyote
What would you recommend instead of System.Drawing in a web app?
Any of the ones listed in the article?
~~~
jsingleton
Unless you have a good reason to then I would recommend against rolling your
own (with any library). Use an existing cloud service that specializes in it.
~~~
gjjrfcbugxbhf
Most b2b saas products have a specific reason to not use a third party for
everything - their customers don't want their data sprayed everywhere. Add to
that anyone with a government contact.
------
gthtjtkt
What are the best resources for someone who wants to move from .NET desktop
development to .NET web development? All the popular sites like Udacity and
FreeCodeBootcamp rarely (if ever) touch the MS stack.
I know this isn't exactly the right place to ask, but I've had no luck
anywhere else...
~~~
phhlho
If you are already familiar with .NET, you might find some courses on
Microsoft Virtual Academy a good starting point. There is a web development
category: [https://mva.microsoft.com/training-topics/web-
development#!i...](https://mva.microsoft.com/training-topics/web-
development#!index=6&lang=1033)
Looking at the courses available, I would probably start with:
[https://mva.microsoft.com/en-US/training-courses/getting-
sta...](https://mva.microsoft.com/en-US/training-courses/getting-started-with-
web-technologies-15937)
then look into either ASP.NET MVC: [https://mva.microsoft.com/en-US/training-
courses/introductio...](https://mva.microsoft.com/en-US/training-
courses/introduction-to-aspnet-mvc-8322)
or ASP.NET Core: [https://mva.microsoft.com/en-US/training-
courses/intermediat...](https://mva.microsoft.com/en-US/training-
courses/intermediate-aspnet-core-10-16964?l=Kvl35KmJD_4306218965)
This is coming from someone that hasn't actually used these, so take my
recommendations with a grain of salt.
------
benmorris
I have a ton of code that relies on System.Drawing so I've been watching this
closely. These are projects that go back over 10 years now. I have code in
both web server and client side versions. System.Drawing offers some features
that other image processing libraries don't. My use case probably isn't
typical but when you are trying to go back and forth from vector to raster
data you need access to the point data (along with manipulation) that is going
to be drawn. System.Drawing provides this flexibility through the GraphicsPath
object. It is good to see some official word on this though.
~~~
jamessouth
Chat to us on github. Our path drawing public API's are very similar to
System.Drawing so we may well be able to provide you with the same
functionality.
~~~
benmorris
I'll check it out James. I keep up with you on twitter, wish I had more time
to contribute. I have a lot of respect for your hard work though.
~~~
jamessouth
Thanks!
------
okreallywtf
Also take into account that rely on the GDI API won't work in Azure App
Services (which is where most new azure based web apps reside) [1]. It would
be nice if this reduced some of the issues with 3rd party libraries (pdf
generation etc) running inside of app services. We've had some issues having
to keep old web/worker roles around for this exact reason and it costs us more
money.
>Components rely on GDI API may not work on Azure Websites. The workaround is
moving to Azure Web Role. (If you are using the ReportViewer control, we have
enabled PDF generation for most applications.)
[1] [https://social.msdn.microsoft.com/Forums/en-
US/6ed5c738-390a...](https://social.msdn.microsoft.com/Forums/en-
US/6ed5c738-390a-4ca7-81d0-370124a4fc88/azure-websites-
faq?forum=windowsazurewebsitespreview)
------
alexc05
Is it a pipe dream to hope they go for DirectX in dotnetcore one day?
I'm so happy to read that they've gotten the image processing piece in place.
A while ago, on a bit of a lark and to see if I could, I started trying to
port a copy of selenium webdriver to DNC and was initially surprised bow how
successful I was in getting it to compile and build.
For the most part it was just re-pointing namespaces to their new locations.
When I got to the piece about image processing I hit a wall.
Maybe I'll take that on again sometime.
~~~
rubber_duck
>Is it a pipe dream to hope they go for DirectX in dotnetcore one day?
What do you mean ? DX is Windows specific, .NET core is cross platform. And DX
doesn't even have official .NET bindings on full .NET AFAIK.
OTOH I'm sure SharpDX and the likes could be ported (if it already isn't -
this :
[https://github.com/sharpdx/SharpDX/issues/520](https://github.com/sharpdx/SharpDX/issues/520)
suggest it should work but I haven't tried it)
~~~
mellinoe
Yes, SharpDX does work on .NET Core. Although it's not "official", it is
essentially the de-facto library for DirectX bindings.
------
romanovcode
Offtopic:
I am the only one who absolutely hates charts like [0]these? Like what are
those numbers on top, why it has no legend? Is it CPU utilization,
miliseconds, seconds (maybe it was done over 1000 images or so)?
[0] -
[https://msdnshared.blob.core.windows.net/media/2017/01/Resiz...](https://msdnshared.blob.core.windows.net/media/2017/01/ResizeWin.png)
~~~
endorphone
In this case does it matter though? The purpose of the chart is relative
performance, which it conveys minus a legend. Though I would agree that if
they aren't including the legend, they should remove the axis and standard
range labels entirely.
~~~
lanaius
It matters at a quick glance - is performance measured in images per
millisecond or milliseconds per image? The answer to that question is
obviously important to how you interpret the relative performance. Both
metrics (units per time and time per unit) are used widely in computing.
I was initially confused by the chart and yes the text (and following table)
make the units clear, but the chart should be standalone.
------
morrbo
Great to know, and good article. Can't help but feel that the author should
have put in the full compressed images so we can view them. From the table at
the bottom, Skia looks like it has quality issues, but it is kind of hard to
say without seeing the full-sized compressed images. The uncompressed ones are
on github, unless i've missed something, the compressed ones aren't.
~~~
bleroy
What do you mean? The test is doing resize and JPEG compression. If you're
interested in isolating the compression part, the code on GH should be super
easy to modify to your particular requirements.
------
aphextron
This seems like a really great use case for dotnetcore. I can see it being
perfect for an image manipulation microservice.
------
wolfspider
Why wasn't Pixman/Cairo tested but Skia was tested? I'm sure it has to do with
the natural availability of these things on .NET but I just checked and Cairo
still has binding pre and post Mono. I would consider this option strongly
there is way more support for Cairo in just about everything than Skia.
~~~
bleroy
Because it's not Skia that is tested, but SkiaSharp, which is a .NET / Mono
wrapper for Skia. It was included because the work to make it compatible with
.NET Core is close to completion and because it's promising work. I hope this
clarifies. If there were Pixman/Cairo .NET Core wrappers in existence or close
to completion, I'd be happy to update the post with them.
~~~
wolfspider
[https://github.com/zwcloud/CairoSharp](https://github.com/zwcloud/CairoSharp)
~~~
bleroy
Thanks, I'll check it out.
------
replete
Google's library destroys in benchmarks, but quality and filesize is lower
which suggests to me it wasn't a fair test.
The quality settings should have been standardised to human-perceived image
quality, given that's the purpose of an image.
~~~
bleroy
Unfortunately that's not possible. Each library makes choices and tradeoffs on
their defaults. Each time, I set whatever quality dials existed to the highest
available, and I standardized on 75 JPEG compression. There is no way to get
consistent quality across all libraries, which is why I included the results
for the 12 images used in the test in the blog post, so everyone can handle
this the way they want.
------
manigandham
There is also [https://imageresizing.net/](https://imageresizing.net/) with a
new ImageFlow library for cross-platform
~~~
bleroy
Yes, but that doesn't have a .NET Core library, and as such wasn't included in
the post.
------
pmalynin
Does anyone know when .NET Core will get a decent linear algebra library?
I've heard MathNet.Numerics has a plan to add it, but so far there seems to
not have been much progress.
------
jononor
5-10 megapixels input images might be more representative, as many phones
produce such sizes.
~~~
bleroy
It doesn't make a difference in the relative performance of the libraries on
the metrics in the post, it only makes the benchmarks slower to run. This
being said, the code is available, so this is easy for anyone to check. If I
ever get to do a memory benchmark, that would probably be a different story,
however.
------
thomasz
If you need something right now, consider imagemagick or graphicsmagick.
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Ask HN: Are tech companies making any effort to diversify their supply chains? - hindsightbias
For example, after 3 years of trade conflict and now C19, is Apple making any attempt to diversify? If not, is that rational?
======
hncensorsnonpc
No
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Town Introduces its own Currency - dangoldin
http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=newsarchive&sid=aq6uUiFX9_ZM
======
Protophore
I heard about this a month or so ago on NPR. I don't see the benefit in it
really. Unless they can back their currency with gold or something else it
will continue to fluctuate in value with the pound.
Furthermore I can't see why people would really want to have this town's
currency other than as a collectors item. You can only spend it in this
particular town, and not even at all of the businesses there.
It's been said that this will help keep business (money) in town. Meaning that
locals will be more likely (forced) to spend money at local businesses if they
have the local currency. But why would anyone want to restrict themselves like
this as a shopper? What's to stop them for refusing to accept change in the
local currency or to trade it in at the bank for official British currency?
~~~
jsmcgd
I agree. Can someone explain how this currency which is tied to Sterling
protect people from the devaluation of Sterling?
------
alexfarran
I was there last night. At the launch you could buy L£22 for £20. Local
traders are offering incentives, such as discounts if you pay in L£.
It doesn't force anyone to spend their money locally, because you can always
trade your L£ for sterling. It's more like a constant reminder and a helpful
system for keeping money in the local economy.
Income in L£ is counted as sterling as far as the tax man is concerned.
Stewart Wallis of the NEF mentioned a local currency scheme in Australia where
the taxes could be paid in local currency. Of course when it came time to
spend it it could only be spent locally. So they re-roofed the community
centre.
There's a web site here: <http://www.thelewespound.org/>
------
jwilliams
I once had the idea for my own "personal currency"... I would set the exchange
rate... For some reason it didn't really catch on.
The article alludes to it, but in the UK, legal tender is a bit sketchy at
best:
[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Legal_tender#In_the_United_King...](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Legal_tender#In_the_United_Kingdom)
The reality of this really comes home when you try to spend your Scottish
Pounds in England (I got caught by this first time I went to Scotland).
Of course, the counter-example is the Euro - which the participating countries
seem to grumble about a bit (it's blamed for inflating some prices)... but as
a tourist it's a godsend.
~~~
dangoldin
I think the reason it's frowned upon is due to tax evasion reasons. Imagine
paying your employees in this town's currency and then having them spend it
within the town.
~~~
Protophore
I'm not quite sure I follow your reasoning here. How does paying your
employees in the town's currency allow tax evasion? You would still have to
report paying them the money.
You could pay them under the table (not report it to the government) in cold
hard cash using the British pound just as easily as using a local currency. I
can't see how using a local currency would make it any easier.
~~~
dangoldin
I guess the point is that it's easy to not report when you are dealing with
the town's currency.
If you take it to the extreme and consider a barter system. I can be a farmer
and give a few tomatoes to the barber who cuts my hair. The government does
not know what happened and you do not report the income as earned.
You are right that it's identical to paying under the table but I think there
is a higher incentive to do that with these town currencies.
Thanks for making me rethink my logic.
~~~
gnaritas
Which is perfect, barter works, fuck the government and their theft of your
income.
~~~
jwilliams
This is exactly the idea behind BarterCard <http://www.bartercard.com/>
------
ken
<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ithaca_Hours>
~~~
mattmaroon
Ha, I was just coming to post that. On a related note:
<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tax_evasion>
------
andyking
I read an interesting article in the paper the other week about Zimbabwe,
where the Z$ has been inflated so vastly that it is valueless for all
practical purposes.
The government there have started to ration petrol and issue vouchers
entitling the holder to 20 litres of the stuff. People started to swap these
vouchers between themselves for other goods and services, and in many areas of
the black market petrol vouchers are approaching the status of a de facto
currency. Instead of a loaf of bread costing Z$6 billion or something, it'll
cost you two litres of petrol.
It has fascinating implications--because the official currency is backed by
nothing and is now meaningless, these bits of paper backed by a tangible
quantity of a valuable commodity (ie. petrol) have effectively become their
own currency. People are trading them with no intention of redeeming them for
petrol, in the same way as you'd never go and ask for £10 of gold for your
tenner. Perhaps something inventive like this would be a better way of running
these town currencies than simply pegging them to the pound.
------
streety
Statements like "Totnes, a town of about 8,000 people" and "In Totnes, there
are about 5,000 notes in circulation" suggest to me this is no more than a
gimmick. Even as a local currency it can't work.
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Microsoft comes to Facebook's aid with 550 patents - bproper
http://allthingsd.com/20120423/microsoft-and-facebook-to-announce-550-million-patent-deal/
======
larrik
Title is wrong. It's Facebook paying Microsoft $550 million for about 650
patents (former AOL patents).
~~~
rollypolly
I've always wondering how large companies buy and sell patents in bulk like
that. Do they just point at a filing cabinet and say, there's 650 patents in
there, it's yours for 550M$, take it or leave it. Or do they have an army of
lawyers pour over them one by one?
~~~
eblume
It's a bit of both. I don't work in legal but I see them going at it from time
to time when patent stuff comes up. There is definitely 'the filing cabinet'
(more like a room) and it contains one of several copies of the important
documents - but the lawyers are the interface to those documents.
Sometimes I can't help but feel that _most_ lawyers do not much more than
present an obfuscation layer around standard forms.
~~~
rollypolly
Sometimes I can't help but feel that most lawyers do not
much more than present an obfuscation layer around
standard forms.
I bet non-technical people also have that feeling about engineers.
"It took you a second to change the behavior of this. You're obviously not
working very hard." ..when in reality, it took a lot of effort to make a
system flexible enough to adapt its behavior quickly to changes in
requirements.
...but I'm getting off topic now. :)
~~~
eblume
No, it's a great point, and one well taken.
------
soupboy
Makes one think if Microsoft was acting as an intermediary for Facebook all
along, maybe because AOL wouldn't sell the patents to a competitor?
------
ajross
$550M in cash this week for a patent portfolio. $300M last week for Instagram
(edit: typo). This has been a very expensive few days for what is still a
private company. How much cash does Facebook have?
~~~
soupboy
It is Intagram, not Infogram. And the purchase price was $1B, not $300M.
Facebook's trailing 12M revenue was a billion dollars, so it's not as if they
have cash problems.
~~~
ajross
It was a billion in nominal value, but most of that was Facebook stock (at a
valuation of $75B, thus all the stories last week about whether the IPO would
cover that or not).
------
geetee
The paper trail of ownership and licensing for these things must be pretty
obnoxious.
------
latchkey
Instead of just working out a licensing deal on Yahoo's 10 claimed infringing
patents, Facebook spends $550 million to buy 650 aol/m$ patents. I bet FB's
board was involved with this decision.
~~~
jimmyvanhalen
it's a pre-emptive strike to anyone who's thinking about suing Facebook.
~~~
rbanffy
Or a weapon to sue anyone who dares to threaten Facebook.
------
ldayley
While Microsoft is making a tidy profit from these patents, keep in mind that
they have a +- 3% stake in Facebook. I'm sure they would love these Yahoo!
lawsuits to go favorably for Facebook.
~~~
freehunter
Then again, Yahoo search is powered by Bing. Microsoft has a stake in both
aspects of the fight. I expect they'll be playing mediator, doing their best
to make sure no one loses.
------
johnohara
Strictly from a cash perspective, that's just shy of 4 million copies of
Windows 7 Professional OEM.
------
wavephorm
I think we are about to witness a Software Patent World War unfold in MAD-
style (mutually assured destruction). The software patent laws have trapped
everyone into corners from which it is no longer possible to innovate without
trampling on someone else's intellectual property. The absurdity of our
litigious bureaucracy is going to de-evolve into madness that will make patent
lawyers every where squeal with joy and the make the lives of technology
workers everywhere suck.
~~~
rbanffy
The analogy fails because, in MAD, the unthinkable scenario happens quickly
and there is no turning back once the process starts - effectively preventing
it from starting - while in the lawsuit-standoff-from-hell it is a very long
and expensive process with plenty of opportunities to abort and negotiate a
deal.
~~~
wavephorm
This is from 2010, and the landscape has become quite a bit worse since then:
[http://www.guardian.co.uk/technology/2010/oct/04/microsoft-m...](http://www.guardian.co.uk/technology/2010/oct/04/microsoft-
motorola-android-patent-lawsuit)
~~~
rbanffy
Still, the MAD doctrine won't prevent this war. The damage is spread across
periods too long to effectively prevent lawsuits. Or innovation. It will just
raise entry barriers and prevent small players from entering the market (or
impose additional costs when they become large enough).
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
As Competition Wanes, Amazon Cuts Back Discounts - kanamekun
http://www.nytimes.com/2013/07/05/business/as-competition-wanes-amazon-cuts-back-its-discounts.html?pagewanted=all
======
zaroth
> It is difficult to comprehensively track the movement of prices on Amazon,
> so the evidence is anecdotal and fragmentary.
I guess this is the difference between award winning journalism and
essentially an editorial.
David Streitfeld of the NY Times should be inspired by the work of the Sally
Kestin and John Maines of the Florida Sun Sentinel, who won the 2013 Pulitzer
for Public Service for their "investigation of off-duty police officers who
recklessly speed and endanger the lives of citizens, leading to disciplinary
action and other steps to curtail a deadly hazard." The Sun manage to acquire
and then data mine the timing data from on and off-duty police officers' toll
transponders to reverse engineer their average speed, and in the process blew
the lid off some seriously reckless driving by the officers.
By comparison, the data that Streitfeld and the NY Times was looking for to
turn their cute anecdotes into hard hitting journalism were only an API call
away. I'd love to see journalists collaborating more with hackers and the open
source community, or perhaps even big data competition sites like Kaggle to
collect and parse this data into a real expose. Like what we saw with
Strongbox
([http://www.newyorker.com/strongbox/](http://www.newyorker.com/strongbox/)) -
the New Yorker's platform for protecting anonymous sources - or Barret Brown's
ProjectPM ([http://trueslant.com/barrettbrown/2010/03/24/project-
pm/](http://trueslant.com/barrettbrown/2010/03/24/project-pm/)) - but
targeting specific topics and data sets. Note to reader, you might want to
visit those links via Tor...
Nothing like hard evidence to shine a bright light on anti-competitive
behavior of a wanna-be monopolist. On the other hand, maybe Amazon is just
intelligently pricing their products using their sophisticated proprietary
models based on tried and true supply and demand. Based on this article, who
can say what's closer to the truth?
~~~
kommissar
Actually, a website already exists to track Amazon prices. They could have
just searched for it:
[http://camelcamelcamel.com/](http://camelcamelcamel.com/)
~~~
moconnor
By looking at the prices of a few fiction books in my collection over the
period 2011-today I didn't see any evidence of the increasing price trend
hinted at by the article.
The tech books I looked at might do, certainly a larger sample size would be
interesting:
[http://camelcamelcamel.com/Joel-Software-Occasionally-
Develo...](http://camelcamelcamel.com/Joel-Software-Occasionally-Developers-
Designers/product/1590593898?context=browse)
[http://camelcamelcamel.com/The-Innovators-Solution-
Sustainin...](http://camelcamelcamel.com/The-Innovators-Solution-Sustaining-
Successful/product/1578518520?context=browse)
[http://camelcamelcamel.com/Hackers-Painters-Big-Ideas-
Comput...](http://camelcamelcamel.com/Hackers-Painters-Big-Ideas-
Computer/product/1449389554?context=browse)
I'd like to see the results of deeper analysis. A report following an
investigation. I suppose that would be _investigative reporting_?
------
ChuckMcM
This is poor journalism. From the article:
_" Now, with Borders dead, Barnes & Noble struggling and independent
booksellers greatly diminished, for many consumers there is simply no other
way to get many books than through Amazon. And for some books, Amazon is, in
effect, beginning to raise prices."_
Now what they are really saying is that Amazon is pricing books closer and
closer to "list price" which is the price that brick and mortar book stores
can sell books at and survive (generally). So if Amazon were to suddenly sell
every book for list price, there would be a great cheer heard from all the
book sellers as they now had a viable business.
No question that Amazon has used its position to establish market dominance
and its pricing has killed a lot of book stores. Amazon can't raise prices too
far without allowing book stores to flourish. As the article points out, the
publishers aren't changing their prices, Amazon is.
~~~
kryten
To be honest, Borders was like a library with built in coffee shop in the UK.
People just went in there, checked out the book and bought it on amazon whilst
sitting in the shop eating blueberry cheesecake and drinking a nice
cappuccino...
~~~
xyzzy123
I used to be an avid Borders customer; I could physically go to the store and
check out their computer section and through serendipity I would find things I
liked and buy them.
They were enormously overpriced, like most computing related books outside the
U.S. ($100 NZD +), but I would wear that because I liked the experience.
This was in about 2003. By 2008, the section which held the long tail I liked
had shrunk to maybe 2 shelves. They no longer kept the kinds of books I liked
in inventory, just "Photoshop for dummies" or perhaps the odd "Learning
Python".
At the point where everything I might want had to be ordered in and would take
longer to arrive than from Amazon, I stopped bothering to go :/
~~~
ChuckMcM
This was my experience as well. When I first discovered borders they were very
well run. They had a lot of interesting books and a very energetic staff. Then
they sort of lost their way and suddenly they didn't have any books I wanted
and the staff was replaced by people who always seemed to have "just started."
I stopped going.
That said, every time I go to Portland I spend a couple of hours and at least
a couple hundred dollars in Powell's books.
------
manojlds
The penultimate paragraph compounds my confusion:
> For Mr. Hollock, the “Born to Lose” author, the issue is readers, not
> dollars. His award-winning book, published by Kent State University Press,
> had a steep list price of $35 to begin with. In the author’s view, Amazon is
> simply compounding the trouble by raising its price to more than $30 from
> $23.
Why is the author complaining about Amazon, when the list price is as high as
$35? Yes, Amazon might have gone from $23 to $30, but that is still a 14%
discount.
Why was the list price so high in the first place? Shouldn't the author be
complaining about the press?
~~~
_delirium
It's a 14% discount only thanks to the strange way pricing in the publishing
industry has developed: it's a 14% discount off of an 100% markup.
For mostly historical reasons, wholesale price has become quasi-fixed at 50%
of list. So in this case what's happened is the publisher has chosen to sell
the book for $17.50, and the way you do that is by setting an entirely
notional "list price" at 2x the intended wholesale price. But the $35 is not a
real price; the real price in the publisher-bookstore exchange is $17.50. It's
then up to bookstores how much they want to mark the book up above $17.50.
Here, Amazon is choosing to sell it for a 70% markup above wholesale, whereas
previously they were selling it for a 30% markup.
(This is U.S.-specific; list prices mean different things in different
countries. Also, I believe the 'standard' ratio of wholesale-to-list varies in
some categories, e.g. it's different for textbooks.)
~~~
gabemart
You are correct, but the system isn't really as strange as you imply. Many
wholesalers in many different markets set a recommended retail price that's
some multiple of the wholesale price they charge to their customers.
As far as I understand, Amazon works out the optimal discount for a book based
on a number of factors including the popularity of the book and the prices
charged by their competition. The same book at B&N is $31.49 [1], 88 cents
more than Amazon is charging.
[1] [http://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/born-to-lose-james-g-
hollock...](http://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/born-to-lose-james-g-
hollock/1113551830?ean=9781606350973)
------
jmduke
By "as competition wanes," the headline means "Amazon has a 29% market share."
By "cuts back discounts", the headline means "Amazon is selling books for
slightly more, which is still less than brick and mortar stores."
~~~
_pmf_
I'm always looking for the catch with Amazon (from a consumer standpoint, not
from a labor conditions standpoint), but there's nothing at all. They're the
cheapest and the ones with the easiest return policies. They even replaced
some stuff that was missing from a ripped-and-patched-up parcel that I
accidentally signed off as being complete.
~~~
kryten
Agree. Never had a single problem that wasn't immediately resolved in over 300
orders.
Prior to using amazon my options were basically phone up then trek to Foyles
in London or go to my local book shop and try and work out how to get them to
order something that wasn't top 100 dross.
If you buy used books from them as well, they are actually cheaper than a lot
of the charity shops now as well and you get a better hit rate.
And that's just the books side of things. Lenovo parts from China, phone parts
from Canada, phones, computer parts, memory cards, camera, laptops. Just the
best experience so far.
And you can talk to a human pretty much instantly from experience.
------
rogerbinns
The publishers/authors who think Amazon are making too much profit can open
their own stores/sites and sell that way. It is a free transparent market.
They can also go to competitors like Walmart and give them whatever deal works
for the goals. Or they can use rebates which keep the profit the same for the
store (Amazon) but lowers the price the consumer pays.
I don't see any reason why they are making demands on Amazon's pricing and
profits, but don't see fit to adjust their own.
------
salmonellaeater
Amazon is intensely interested in finding the right price for everything. If
you pay attention you can see small adjustments in the prices of a lot of
products; they're most likely doing the equivalent of A/B testing to discover
their most profitable point for every product. A product without competition
will be less price sensitive, so they'll end up pricing it higher. An
interesting question is whether Amazon could end up in legal trouble for what
their pricing algorithm does.
A major theme of the small publishers and authors quoted in the article is
that Amazon's price is higher than the publisher would want. If Amazon pays a
fixed price for every book, then there's a fundamental conflict between the
parties. Amazon wants to make margin, the publisher wants to make volume. If
the publisher wants Amazon to keep their best interests at heart, they'll have
to change the nature of their deal with Amazon so that their interests align.
~~~
temp453463343
I think there is a lot less black magic than you think. The overwhelming
majority of the time the small price fluctuations are in response to changes
in the price by 3rd party sellers (the ones selling the same item in "new"
condition).
just check for yourself at
[http://camelcamelcamel.com/](http://camelcamelcamel.com/)
They virtually always undercut the 3rd party - which always begged the
question: why do the 3rd parties even bother trying to sell on amazon?
Actually if you think about the kind of testing you're talking about, it
doesn't make a whole lot of sense from a human psychology perspective. You
don't look for a camera and think: "This should cost $123.76" and anything
less will be huge turn off. There are probably more drastic things at play,
like if the price ends in .99 or if it's more than a hundred dollars, or maybe
people don't like certain price numbers for some completely random reason.
They probably have some internal database of the average (across all
inventory) of the rate-of-sales vs. the listed-price and the algo just looks
for a local maximum around the price that is a bit lower than the 3rd parties.
------
staircasebug
Just seems like typical retailing to me. Non mass-market books don't get
discounts. If someone is really searching to purchase "Jim Harrison: A
Comprehensive Bibliography, 1964-2008", they're probably going to buy it with
or without the discount attached.
Btw, Kindle price of "Born to Lose" is $9.34 at the moment. Seems like a good
discount to me.
~~~
cranefly
Amazon kindle price here is US$20.35 even though I'm using Amazon.com. Usual
excuse for gouging us here is the cost of transport to our small market. Never
thought that applied to electrons too :(
~~~
barking
With a netherlands ip address it's $10.59 on amazon.com.
------
n00b101
> Amazon, which became the biggest force in bookselling by discounting so
> heavily it often lost money
IANAL, but this sounds like a potential anti-trust case to me. "Predatory
pricing practices may result in antitrust claims of monopolization or attempts
to monopolize. Businesses with dominant or substantial market shares are more
vulnerable to antitrust claims. However, because the antitrust laws are
ultimately intended to benefit consumers, and discounting results in at least
short-term net benefit to consumers, the U.S. Supreme Court has set high
hurdles to antitrust claims based on a predatory pricing theory. The Court
requires plaintiffs to show a likelihood that the pricing practices will
affect not only rivals but also competition in the market as a whole, in order
to establish that there is a substantial probability of success of the attempt
to monopolize." ([http://bit.ly/12pG6gq](http://bit.ly/12pG6gq))
~~~
dangrossman
Amazon's sales are just 29% of the book selling market (2012 share, even after
Borders was out of the picture for over a year). B&N's are 20%. If their
discount pricing hasn't even gotten them 1/3rd of the market after all these
years, it'd be hard to prove that they're soon going to monopolize it.
~~~
adventured
I agree with your overall premise, but anti-trust law is far broader in scope
than monopolization. Indeed, there's nothing about anti-trust law that forbids
a monopoly, and there's no specific market share requirement.
Market share is but one market-power consideration when the government looks
at whether a company has caused harm.
There are several angles to anti-trust, such as collusion and predatory
pricing, that can matter even at modest market share points, if the government
can prove consumer harm.
------
ajtaylor
Maybe I'm hopelessly naive, but why don't the publishers drop their prices by
5-10%? Since Amazon is selling books at a percentage of the cover price,
dropping the cover price should theoretically offset the decreasing Amazon
discount. I know that books have the price printed on them, but what a great
marketing project it could be: "Look, we're dropping our prices across the
board by 5%. Go buy a book!"
~~~
lettergram
or Amazon just keeps it at the same price, making more money.
~~~
ajtaylor
It was hinted at in the article, but the publisher sells the book to Amazon
for less than the cover price. Of course, I have no idea if Amazon's purchase
price is a percentage of the cover. But if it's not (and that's what I would
have negotiated) then changing the cover price won't affect the revenue to the
publisher.
~~~
abhaga
Retailer's purchase price is almost always a percentage of the cover price.
~~~
ajtaylor
Then I guess it's up to the publisher to do the math and see what works out to
more profit in the end: keeping prices the same w/ less volume, or dropping
the price and (hopefully) increasing the volumn.
------
styrmis
It seems strange that there is no mention of inflation in the article given
that they are comparing prices from up to four years ago to today's prices.
> When Mr. Striphas’s book, “The Late Age of Print: Everyday Book Culture from
> Consumerism to Control,” first appeared in paperback in 2011, Amazon sold it
> for $17.50, the author said. Now it is $19.
Well, given that the 2011 $17.50 price would be ~$18.12 today (due strictly to
inflation) then it is not as big an increase as suggested.
> When the University of Nebraska Press brought out a bibliography of the
> novelist Jim Harrison four years ago, Amazon charged $43.87. The price this
> week: $59.87.
2009: $43.87 Today: $59.87 Correcting only for inflation the price would be:
$47.63
Inflation doesn't even account for the majority of the price increase in this
case but still this article appears to draw rather strong conclusions from
rather flimsy analysis.
------
fauigerzigerk
What keeps publishers and authors from starting a non-profit that sells books
at exactly the price they determine?
I realise that selling books from their own websites is difficult, especially
for individual authors, and it gives them less visibility than Amazon
provides. Banding together would solve that problem.
~~~
chii
you might find that the accumulated cost (admin/server/people etc) might end
up making that sort of service on par with amazon, not cheaper, and thus find
that it is either unsustainable (can't sell at a loss), or is at amazon's
price level (and so no real benefit?).
------
javajosh
BTW where is a good place to buy books online that isn't Amazon?
~~~
nness
bookdepository.com is the one I often hear about. Particularly because Amazon
isn't available in all countries, and The Book Depository's prices are
sometimes pretty comparable. Shipping is still 1-2 weeks though.
~~~
steve19
Amazon purchased The Book Depository in 2011.
~~~
nness
... goes to show how long ago I ordered something from them.
------
marme
I dont understand why they are complaining to amazon. The publishers are the
ones negotiating the deals with amazon so they should complain to their
publisher to renegotiate the deal. Or else they could just open their own
amazon seller account and price the books how ever they wanted
------
lancewiggs
I'd argue that the real issue here is not Amazon reacting to less competition,
it's Amazon reacting to less demand for printed books. I suspect ebook pricing
is still as sharp as ever, and that the affected authors should be looking at
their format and market.
~~~
JacobJans
Is there actually less demand for print books? According to Amazon, print book
sales are still growing.
[http://www.publishersweekly.com/pw/by-topic/industry-
news/pu...](http://www.publishersweekly.com/pw/by-topic/industry-
news/publisher-news/article/55721-amazon-e-book-sales-soared-print-
crawled.html)
------
rabbitonrails
"It is difficult to comprehensively track the movement of prices on Amazon, so
the evidence is anecdotal and fragmentary."
[data upon which entire thesis of article rests] -> stopped reading
~~~
robryan
It isn't actually all that hard. There is an API call to get the prices for
each seller on an item. Not sure if that also works for Amazon as the only
seller listings but you can definitely track the marketplace with it.
~~~
reiichiroh
Is this what [http://camelcamelcamel.com/](http://camelcamelcamel.com/) uses?
~~~
robryan
Yep, looks like it judging what they have on each product.
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
How good are anti-virus heuristic scanners? - thristian
http://archive.cert.uni-stuttgart.de/bugtraq/2003/06/msg00251.html
======
ZoFreX
> ESATF is used to "check", so, in order to get a "full" checking, I think it
> should be treated like a true virus
No, it shouldn't. EICAR is a special test-case, and if it was detected
heuristically then Hello, World! would also get flagged as a virus. Not
helpful.
A better way to test heuristics in AV scanners would be to run a 6 month out
of date antivirus program against viruses that have emerged in the last 6
months, and that is exactly what the heroes at AV Comparatives [1] do every
year.
[1] <http://av-comparatives.org/>
~~~
nodata
Direct link: [http://www.av-
comparatives.org/en/comparativesreviews/retros...](http://www.av-
comparatives.org/en/comparativesreviews/retrospective-test)
------
ordinary
8 year old post. Interesting, though.
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Google plans monthly security updates for Nexus phones - moviuro
https://threatpost.com/google-plans-monthly-security-updates-for-nexus-phones/114148
======
thescrewdriver
That doesn't help for 99.9% of Android devices out there (including mine)
which aren't Nexus phones, and will only receive 1 or 2 updates, usually
within 12 months of purchase and nothing after. The only way to stay current
for Joe public is to buy a new phone every year. Lack of long-term updates
(along with getting everything google shoved down my throat by default) are
the primary reason's I'm actively considering alternatives to my current
preference for buying Android phones.
~~~
untog
True, but it embarrasses the phone operators. This isn't new - Google has used
the Nexus line to push various features that manufacturers have then picked
up.
~~~
thescrewdriver
It's not just the operators. If an Android phone is more than 12 months old
manufacturers simply stop providing updates, and even if they did they'd have
to wait for the operators to add their crapware. It's a problem with the
Android ecosystem as a whole, which doesn't seem to affect (the overpriced)
iPhone from what I can see.
~~~
aNoob7000
I'm not sure what Apple has to do with the poor software support by Android
manufacturers.
I want also point out that cost is really not the issue with Android support.
As an example, Samsung which has large share of the smartphone market does a
very poor job of keeping their phones updated.
~~~
droopybuns
This is simply incorrect.
The OEMs have to pay developers to implement AOSP on their devices. They
reassigning the developers to new devices after a Handset has shipped. Those
developers are always working on the next revenue source.
Assigning developers to implement patches on devices that have long since
launched does not generate new revenue and it takes them away from developing
devices that will generate new revenue.
------
spiralpolitik
How does this help the wider Android ecosystem or is Google pretty much saying
it doesn't care about the non Nexus market ?
Google holds all the cards in solving Androids security patch problem. The
fact that they haven't done anything about it says volumes.
~~~
patrickaljord
Blaming Google for not updating your non-Nexus Android phone is like blaming
Linus Torvalds for not updating your cisco router from your ISP just because
it uses linux.
Android is based on AOSP, which Google does not control because of the
license, not sure why especially on HN, people do not seem to understand or
want to understand how open source licensing work.
~~~
revscat
I don't think this is true. Google could have handled Android licensing in
such a way that resellers were required to patch security holes within a
certain amount of time after release.
AOSP is a software license, and governs contributions and replication. The
agreements whereby various vendors get rights to sell and distribute Android
devices are between Google and the various vendors. If Google had so chosen
they could have added conditions to those agreements whereby vendors would be
required to apply security updates within some reasonable amount of time. They
did not do so in order to increase their marketshare. This decision hurt the
platform, at least insofar as security is concerned.
It was a choice: marketshare vs. security. Google chose marketshare.
~~~
patrickaljord
AOSP is not a software license, AOSP is the name of the open source project
(like chromium is to chrome), the license of AOSP is Apache Software License,
Version 2.0 (and some GPL and LGPL stuff).
[https://source.android.com/source/licenses.html](https://source.android.com/source/licenses.html)
------
Aoyagi
_“With the recent security issues, we have been rethinking the approach to
getting security updates to our devices in a more timely manner. Since
software is constantly exploited in new ways, developing a fast response
process to deliver security patches to our devices is critical to keep them
protected. "_
I don't think Mr Dong Jin Koh knows what "timely" and "fast" means. Then
again, a month is better than months, except I don't think this changes too
much if it took them a month to fix something they knew about. Nothing stops
them from releasing a security patch in a fifth batch after discovery of a
hole...
~~~
jsight
How does this turnaround time compare to the typical turnaround time for
desktop operating systems?
~~~
Aoyagi
Well, Windows updates weekly with actually critical updates being pushed as
they come. Not sure what it's like on OSX and various Linux distros.
~~~
ac29
Linux: constantly. On a rolling release distro like Arch its rare to have less
than a few updates a day. Security patches are often available within hours of
upstream release if not earlier.
YMMV based on distro.
------
ikeboy
Awesome!
Can we get a fix for Logjam yet? It was first reported on May 20 [0],
presumably Google knew about it earlier (I know Firefox was given advance
notice [1]), yet the latest stable releases of chrome on both mobile and
desktop are still vulnerable.
Firefox fixed it on Jul 2 [2], Apple fixed it on June 30 [3]. Can someone
explain to me why Google hasn't released a fix to something that affected 10%
of popular websites on disclosure day [0]?
[0] [https://weakdh.org/](https://weakdh.org/)
[1]
[https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=1138554](https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=1138554)
[2] [https://www.mozilla.org/en-
US/security/advisories/mfsa2015-7...](https://www.mozilla.org/en-
US/security/advisories/mfsa2015-70/)
[3] [https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT204941](https://support.apple.com/en-
us/HT204941)
~~~
RobAtticus
[0] says I'm not vulnerable and I'm using Chrome 46 on Windows, so I guess
it's on its way.
(Chrome 44 on Android still vulnerable.)
~~~
ikeboy
46 is not stable (the current stable release is 44, see
[http://googlechromereleases.blogspot.com/](http://googlechromereleases.blogspot.com/)).
Also, if you want Chrome Beta on android you can go here:
[https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.chrome.bet...](https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.chrome.beta)
------
gambiting
The idea that software updates have to be approved and released by carriers is
still incredibly stupid and unnecessary.
~~~
michaelmcmillan
What if it breaks some functionality the carrier has implemented?
~~~
vetinari
It can break also standard functionality, like the first iOS 8 release did.
When things like this happen, both Apple and carriers scrable to fix things.
However, Apple has a "special" position by the virtue of it's image, carriers
are not going to do the same for everyone.
------
acd
One could engineer phones differently so they would be more secure. Having
some fallback option if a phone update fails, which I think is a reason why
manufacturers does not update.
For example having a boot loader and two different flash areas. One primary
area and one secondary then you tick tock boot between the different images.
This how routers and CoreOS and XenServer does it.
The kernel can be live patched as of Linux 4.0
It's either that or more open phones where the customers can install and
maintain their own operating system. Android stock, Cyanogenmod, Ubuntu phone
etc.
------
fulafel
Before Stagefright the situation about Android security was very strange.
Google and the Android OEMs basically had ancient unpatched WebKit running on
ancient unpatched Linux, both with huge swaths of unpatched serious
vulnerabilities, on zillions of devices with some half assed sandboxing thrown
in, and they were getting away with it. No widespread malware outbreaks.
Maybe they were just experimenting how long they could keep this laissez faire
thing going on until they had to react, and had a plan in the back pocket.
------
skybrian
Samsung will be doing this as well. Perhaps that will encourage others?
[http://www.engadget.com/2015/08/05/samsung-montly-android-
se...](http://www.engadget.com/2015/08/05/samsung-montly-android-security-
fixes/)
~~~
aNoob7000
I'll believe it when I see it. As a Samsung Galaxy Note 4 owner, I'm still
waiting for Android 5.1.1 on my handset.
------
brimoh
Nexus phones are suffering from app crashes and frequent phone restarts,
Security is important, but at the same time stability too matters. Google
should take care of these issues first. Samsung, HTC and LG's build are more
stable than google's stock android.
~~~
jcastro
Lollipop has effectively made my Nexus 5 worthless. Battery barely lasts a day
now and the phone is still continuously plagued by disconnecting from the
network at seemingly random times.
I've owned every generation Nexus and the 5 went from being the best phone
they've ever made to the worst phone I've ever owned in one fell swoop. :(
Ordered a Moto this time around to see if I can have better luck there.
------
SCdF
While this is just lovely news, I'll withhold my breathless excitement for the
headline: "Google implements monthly security updates for Nexus phones"
------
SchizoDuckie
I'm more interested in what they're going to do to push updates to android
2.x+ devices. Will it even be technically possible without vendors?
------
yssrn
Google claims that a security patch came out yesterday, yet my Nexus 6 still
has no OTA update available.
What, do they not have the bandwidth to send it out at once?
~~~
francoisblavoet
I don't think it is a bandwidth issue. I think that they purposefully push the
update to x% of the users first, wait for potential problems and then resume
the rollout.
------
condescendence
So basically, they're starting to do something they should've been doing?
------
rplnt
Considering how they can fuck up "feature" update.. no, thanks.
------
tempVariable
I have bought a Nexus 4, it has giant issues where you are unable to hear
recipients, intermittently until you reboot. This has been reported to Google
via so many ways.
Being able to talk on a phone is kind of important. Is it also important to
Google ? Since I don't want to shell-out another two bills for a different
phone - please let it be!
------
kolev
So, stay unprotected for an average of half a month? If this is what Google
can do best, imagine the others! I'm highly disappointed! Not to mention that
Nexus updates, although Google doesn't have so many of them, usually take a
whole week to roll out! Google is setting a really bad example here!
~~~
moviuro
Still, it'll be far less worse than having the carriers take care of those
up-//whats?//
However, Google is moving in the right direction IMHO: don't forget that there
is this weird thing named "No-Disclosure", so hopefully, you'll get a patched
Android even before the bug/flaw is unveiled.
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Rails Rumble 2008 Apps - melvinram
http://48hrlaunch.wordpress.com/2008/10/20/rails-rumble-2008-apps/
======
zapnap
Just an FYI... The official list will be online at the Rails Rumble 2008 site
shortly, once voting opens.
Teams have an additional 24 hours to update their profiles (make screencasts,
etc) and then we need to review and weed out any entries that were
disqualified. Therefore, I would expect voting to open sometime Tuesday. In
the meantime, please register as a judge to vote! <http://railsrumble.com>
(anyone can judge!)
The entries this year were absolutely unbelievable. Thanks to everyone who got
involved.
------
tyler
I was on the team that built <http://bootleggers.r08.railsrumble.com>
Think of it as election.twitter.com... except you make your own channels. And
you can follow or fork other people's channels, and blah blah.
Oh and it's not just Twitter. :)
------
melvinram
Which one do you think will be most successful? (i.e. alive 2 yrs from now)
My vote is for <http://app.r08.railsrumble.com>
~~~
wallflower
TastyPlanner, the winner of RailsRumble '07, was built by a 4-man team.
According to them, it has been improved ever since but the core of it is what
existed at the RailsRumble '07 deadline.
<http://www.tastyplanner.com> 10,000 real monthly users
------
railsjedi
Here's my entry: <http://comicly.r08.railsrumble.com>
One man effort. Hoping to win the solo prize :-).
------
markbao
I was the guy with <http://inspiresme.r08.railsrumble.com>
Yeah, it didn't turn out that well.
~~~
melvinram
Mark, what are you talking about? It's an good app, especially for 48 hrs.
Don't sell yourself short.
~~~
markbao
I'm talking comparatively.
Thanks for the kind words, though.
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
When Robots Take All the Work, What'll Be Left for Us to Do? - e15ctr0n
http://www.wired.com/2014/08/when-robots-take-all-the-work-whatll-be-left-for-us-to-do/
======
anigbrowl
This is an important and increasingly pressing question. On one level, you can
ask 'what will we do with ourselves' \- that is, to give our lives a sense of
purpose and so on. To me that's easy - we already know how people like to
entertain or amuse themselves, and beyond simple consumption and hedonism it's
also obvious that people are happy to do some kinds of work for self-
fulfilment rather than efficiency - eg gardening when you could just buy food
or flowers from a farm, washing dishes even though you could get a dishwasher,
painting for pleasure even though you could take a photograph and/or have the
image printed or repainted on canvas. In short, I don't worry about how we'll
occupy our time.
But I do worry about the question of how people make a living in these
conditions. It's not enough to say 'basic income' because absent a massive
economic shift most robots are going to be privately owned, and the owners of
such capital will ask why they should donate a large volume of their profit to
support non-productive individuals. Put another way, I'm not sure that the
arrival of technological abundance will necessarily be accompanied by optimal
social structures in the short term. A sudden and drastic acceleration in
social stratification followed by unrest sems to be a far more common pattern.
A luddite backlash is also a possibility, and a stronger one than usual given
the factor of AI, which some people seem to have an atavistic fear of.
~~~
treenyc
Productivity is over rated. It made sense in a scarcity based economic
worldview when we didn't have the technology and know how to create abundant
wealth.
How do one measure productivity?
Is it based on number of (quantity) of products produced and service offered?
------
Zirro
I have done a lot of thinking about this lately. In my country a lot of the
recent political discussions have revolved around the creation of jobs. Though
their ideas differ, they all seem to agree that everyone who is able to work
should have a job. I don't think that is required.
I believe that (unless humanity faces a devastating event) the times when
there is a job available for everyone are gone. Robots will eventually take
over a majority of our current jobs.
Many peoples first reaction to this is to regard it as if it was a dystopia,
but I believe we should embrace it. There are a lot of jobs out there which
people choose only because they need an income. If the need for these jobs can
be eliminated through the use of robots, and the income of the people can be
supplied through a basic income, they can pursue jobs and passions which they
didn't dare to do before. The basic income can be financed by replacing
current ways of supporting those with poor economies, and will require less
money if robots are performing many services.
Jobs will still exist, but only for those who are well-educated. Not everyone
is suited for that, and I don't think forcing them to choose between poverty
or education is a solution.
Robots will take over many of our jobs, and I believe it is time to embrace it
and change our society for it to work.
~~~
transfire
I we don't embrace it, we will get a dystopia.
------
yogthos
It simply blows my mind that automation of work can be seen as a negative. The
problem isn't in the fact that the work is being automated it's with the fact
that we structure our society around work. The simple answer is that without
work we could do things that we enjoy doing.
~~~
rayiner
I don't think people see automation per se as a negative. Rather, they are
skeptical of our ability to restructure our society, and fear the social
impact of automation in that context.
I mean, what happens when AI replaces programmers? When a designer can "write
a program" just by telling a computer in natural language what he wants to do?
Not only will most of HN be out of work, but many of our hobbies will be
irrelevant. Who will read a blog post about Rust making it easier to write
correct concurrent software when some AI is going to handle that much better
than a human ever could?
~~~
yogthos
Sure, but the focus should be on how to restructure society as opposed to
bemoan automation. It's worth noting that automation of jobs has been going on
for a long time now, and nobody would want to go back to doing any of them.
~~~
krapp
> and nobody would want to go back to doing any of them.
I'm sure at some point in the recent past you could have found some formerly
employed factory workers who would disagree. It's true, jobs replaced by
automation tend to be jobs that people would rather not do, but the loss of
_employment_ itself is a different matter. A crappy job is better than no job
at all.
~~~
yogthos
Again, my point is that it's the fault of the society for not providing a good
transition path as opposed to the automation itself.
------
xsmasher
"The work that robots can't do," just like now.
Rewind this conversation about 150 years and ask what the steel-drivers will
do when the steam drill puts them out of business.
------
tannerc
It's when we create the robots that can build (and program) other robots that
this conversation will really get interesting.
Until then, who's going to be the brains behind making the machines? Certainly
humans (albeit, and understandably, a small segment). That's work, right?
------
thuuuomas
>"But customer service itself is a human problem."
...Says an unnamed academic who, in all likelihood, hasn't worked retail in
the 21st century.
Tho, you'd think they'd go to a grocery store once in awhile & be subjected to
the customer service atrocity that is the self-checkout. (Or touch an ipad
barista at a coffee shop, or patiently repeat "speak to a representative" to
an automated telephone system...)
~~~
john_b
Did you even read the article? Right before the part you quoted the author
_defined_ customer service to be the un-automatable parts of what we now
consider customer service, the purpose of the redefinition being to make
people realize that not all aspects of it can be automated. You mentioned
problems with the computerized components of what we today call "customer
service". You're arguing with a definition the author didn't use, not to
mention making a speculative ad hominem attack...
------
lotsofmangos
Work is the curse of the drinking classes.
------
greatergoodguy
I will do magic tricks.
------
NaNaN
Let's make games.
------
zackmorris
I'm concerned that this is one of the great problems that humanity can't deal
with, like the tragedy of the commons. Only a small percentage of the
population recognizes that freedom from labor is a positive thing. So the way
I see it, we have two choices:
1) let the small percentage automate their way to freedom and the rest can
join if they wish
2) adopt automation on a wide, institutional scale the way we did with public
education and social security
Unfortunately, with the political slant of the country leaning so far towards
libertarianism at the moment (government = bad, taxes = bad, welfare = bad,
etc) I am becoming more convinced every day that we will go with option #1 and
create a two-tier society. The tiny elite today has trouble discerning where
unearned income comes from. They don’t seem to care if their capital gains
come from a working class or automation. As someone who dabbled in dead end
manual labor jobs for most of my 20s, I find that appalling. It’s like trying
to talk to someone about vegetarianism who has never slaughtered an animal by
hand.
So, these things will probably go the way they always go. A small percentage
who sacrifice tremendously for the greater good of society, with the masses
riding the coattails of progress glibly unaware of it. I suppose in the end
that that has always been the American way, or at the very least, the western
way.
Maybe a path towards enlightenment is to picture a day in the near future as
we approach the singularity and find that economic gain is no longer tied to
labor. It’s going to be a bit like winning the lottery, here and there, small
amounts at first but growing larger every day. I will believe that automation
has arrived when I begin seeing random acts of selflessness by people who
recognize that financially, they have arrived. As in, randomly receiving a
call one day that your credit card bill has been paid in full. Or maybe a city
receives a large donation for the building of bike paths. Or a solar panel
installer goes door to door and gives people free kits to get off the grid and
never pay another electric bill. I think small, targeted amounts of money
injected directly into the system like that could be quite disruptive.
So in the end such ominous changes could come to pass with a whimper instead
of a bang. It could be one of the great advances in civilization that people
thousands of years from now look back at in awe, wondering how we ever
transitioned from a dog-eat-dog hierarchy to egalitarian anarchy. I guess they
will have just had to have been there, witnessing the epic stupidity that
we’ve witnessed over the course of our lives. Stepping back from that,
rejecting it summarily is not such a hard thing to do. Not if you grok that
the other side of the threshold is not just possible, but probable. And then
be willing to take a leap of faith and persevere long enough to see it
through.
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
3D Visualization of a Convolutional Neural Network - carlosgg
http://scs.ryerson.ca/~aharley/vis/conv/
======
carlosgg
In 2D
[http://scs.ryerson.ca/~aharley/vis/conv/flat.html](http://scs.ryerson.ca/~aharley/vis/conv/flat.html)
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Ask HN: Where to find good mobile devs? - kotrunga
I am planning on building a small side-income project. I would build the website and backend. If it is profitable enough and made sense to have iOS and Android apps, I would like to have them. However, I won't have time to build the apps while working on the website and api, in addition to my fulltime job and other responsibilities.<p>Where is a good place to find iOS and Android devs that may be interested in working together for a side income project like this?
======
thedevindevops
I feel the need to prefix this with 'I'm not joking' but really, try the
highest rated craft ale pub in the city
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Playing Golf, and Other Mistakes CEOs Make - r0h1n
https://www.linkedin.com/today/post/article/20140626151302-69244073-playing-golf-and-other-mistakes-ceos-make
======
Liesmith
A lot (edit: all) of these are dumb correlation = causation crap. The most
egregious one is the "don't win awards" point, on which all the following ones
are predicated. The suggestion that you can have better performance by not
winning the award in the first place is indescribably poorly thought out. It's
the same as the Sports Illustrated curse. Think it through: if you win an
award, you presumably are at the top of your field, at the high point of your
career and your powers. There are those demigods who go from strength to
strength, and being the best is the norm for them, but the vast majority of
people only reach those heights for a few months or years before their
performance normalizes. The awards don't cause your performance to suffer,
they simply mark your high-water mark, the moment when the stars aligned and
you had a great team, strong vision, and everything went right for you. This
doesn't happen all that often so of course everyone's going to drop off after
winning an award.
Meanwhile of course you're going to write a book after winning an award, and
be invited to sit on panels. And the article doesn't even give evidence that
this is a bad thing: it just said that it is linked to winning awards. My God!
What an astonishing result! Notably successful people are desirable and feel
qualified to speak on their success! Somebody call the New York Times, I think
we've got a front page for them!
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Turn on MFA Before Crooks Do It for You - todsacerdoti
https://krebsonsecurity.com/2020/06/turn-on-mfa-before-crooks-do-it-for-you/
======
ping_pong
This is absolutely getting unwieldy to the point of being fucking ridiculous
and unusable.
I've been in tech for 25+ years. I'm very familiar with security, and I have
the internal endurance to sit patiently and work through IT-related issues.
However, at this point, there are just too many broken ways and I'm at the
point of giving up. I use LastPass and if that somehow gets hacked or phished,
I lose absolutely everything. I'm waiting for the next virus or phishing
attempt to steal my LastPass password.
I use multi-factor authentication on some accounts, but if they use SMS like
many sites do, I can get my phone number stolen from me and then I lose
access.
I use Gmail and Google Authenticator, but if I somehow do something to piss
off Google, I can lose my gmail account and access to Google Authenticator and
then I'm really fucked. I've lost some gmail accounts because they will ask me
for security questions when I log in with the correct password, and I don't
remember them so my account gets locked, so they're gone forever.
What we need is a single way to do login, MFA and security across every single
site. We can't have every company incorporating their own methods. We need
standardized customer support, where Tier 1 customer support can't give you
access to things like credit card numbers, last 4 digits of SSN, or change
passwords. Changing passwords needs to be a higher level, better trained
customer support.
There needs to be an ISO standard that is well thought out and implemented by
all the vendors, or at least all the big vendors. If there's a standard way of
doing security but also a standard way of doing customer support and what data
is exposed to various levels of customer support, then social hackers can't
take partial info from sites A and B, and use that to social engineer site C.
This has to be simplified because it's absolutely unwieldy even for a veteran
like me. There are too many ways I can get hacked and we are all just sitting
ducks. The only thing protecting us is that we aren't high-value targets.
~~~
saulrh
Re: Google Authenticator, I've started grabbing the TOTP secrets and storing
those in backups. Download the QR code and decode it to get a string like the
following:
otpauth://totp/Domain%3Ayour%40email.com?secret=HXDMVJECJJWSRB3H&issuer=Domain
That "secret" field is the only thing that TOTP actually cares about, and any
app that supports TOTP will happily ingest the secret and provide 2FA codes.
~~~
bigiain
Careful with those backups though. You should probably treat your TOTP secrets
as password-equivalents.
I grab all my QR codes or secrets, but I store them in 1Password so they're
strongly encrypted in my backups.
~~~
saulrh
Agreed. They live in BitWarden right next to the passwords. I lose _some_
security, since compromising my password manager now also compromises my 2FA,
but the password manager is itself behind 2FA, a Yubikey, and its backup codes
are on paper in my safe.
~~~
justinc8687
Yubikeys can do TOTP. Why not just store the secrets on the key itself?
~~~
saulrh
Laziness, old Yubikey hardware that doesn't do TOTP natively, logging in to
websites on my phone. I probably should upgrade, it's just pretty far down my
to-do list.
------
muststopmyths
>“During this period, we started realizing that his bank account was being
drawn down through purchases of games from Xbox and [Electronic Arts],” Dayman
the elder recalled.
You should never trust any of these companies with your actual bank account.
All of them have garbage customer service with hoops upon hoops to get real
help if your account is somehow compromised.
Use a credit card, prepaid card (in the US Amex gift cards you get at grocery
stores will work just fine) or buy codes from Amazon and redeem them.
~~~
pmiller2
Agreed. By extension, you also should not use a debit card as a credit card,
for largely the same reasons. Credit cards have excellent fraud protections
enshrined in law that are not extended to bank accounts or debit cards. Your
individual banking experience may vary, however. For example, my credit union
has a $0 liability guarantee for fraud on my debit card, but they are not
required to offer that.
Personally, the only companies that have direct access to my bank account are
those that either won't accept credit cards, or make it excessively difficult
to do so. Chief among them would be the service that processes my rent
payments, and PG&E.
~~~
muststopmyths
I have something called "Bill Pay" from my credit union where they send the
checks for payment (Rather than the company drawing from your account). That's
how I pay PG&E. You might want to investigate if your bank has the option
(unless you already have, in which case never mind :)
~~~
pdonis
Sending checks isn't really any different, since the checks contain the same
information that you would provide the company to draw from the account. Even
the one additional safeguard checks used to have, that they have to clear
through the banking system so there's a paper trail, often doesn't apply any
more since many companies will now process the check as an ACH transaction
instead of a paper check transaction, the same as they would if they were
drawing directly from your account.
~~~
mindslight
AFAIK, most bill pay services move the money from your account into an account
owned by the bank, and then send out a bank check. But verify this for
yourself before trusting it.
~~~
toast0
When I was using my credit union's billpay, sometimes they would do that, and
sometimes they would write a check against my account; it wasn't apparent why
(as I recall, some scheduled checks were issued with both methods over time)
------
tgsovlerkhgsel
2FA is a maintenance nightmare.
I have 2FA turned on for Github. Since they refuse to recover accounts that
have 2FA enabled if you lose your second factor, I have many alternative ways
configured: TOTP, U2F, recovery codes, recovery phone number.
I have the recovery codes stored in a secure location, and several U2F tokens
enrolled (one of them is also off-site at a different location).
But I didn't back up my TOTP seed. I still have the old phone with Google
Authenticator, but it's too old to accept the version that lets me export my
keys.
Getting a new TOTP seed requires me to re-setup 2FA, which will invalidate the
recovery codes and possibly unenroll my security keys (it says "This will
invalidate your current two-factor devices and recovery codes.")
It's also apparently impossible to set up Github 2FA with "only" a set of
security keys + recovery methods - you have to first set up an authenticator
app or SMS 2FA as a primary method.
So now my options are:
\- Leave the dead TOTP on the account, and don't have a working TOTP setup
\- Re-setup from scratch, invalidating the recovery codes and possibly U2F
tokens, requiring me to visit two distinct off-site locations to re-setup
everything, one of which is currently locked down and inaccessible due to
Coronavirus.
And Github is one of the better sites when it comes to 2FA!
~~~
lambda_tango
I had to get the seeds out of Google Authenticator several years ago. The
seeds were stored in an SQLite database file in the app directory. I think I
used another app to read the DB file and export the seeds to plain text, but
you could also conceivably copy the file to a computer and work from there,
though you might need root access either way.
~~~
tgsovlerkhgsel
Yes, all of this requires a rooted phone or otherwise subverting the Android
security model.
A potential alternative could be finding an ancient APK that didn't have the
'prevent backup' bit set, downgrading via adb install, and pulling an adb
backup. Still, massive PITA.
------
branon
Or just don't reuse passwords.
Two-factor authentication is largely an annoying band-aid over an easily-
solvable problem. It either relies on devices and protocols like smartphones
and SMS (which are fundamentally insecure to begin with) or requires expensive
proprietary solutions like Duo.
I do like hardware (U2F) keys a lot though.
~~~
majormajor
How do you accomplish "don't reuse passwords" in practice without relying on
those same devices like smartphones or computers to store your passwords?
~~~
branon
Personally? [https://masterpassword.app/](https://masterpassword.app/)
It's like an anti-password manager. Doesn't depend on any specific device.
Essentially it's a sane implementation of what others have already discussed
below, in the other child comments -- using the name of the site to derive a
secure, non-reusable password.
~~~
linsomniac
I used to do this in the distant past, but gave it up because it didn't cope
well with:
\- Sites that have different password requirements (some require special
characters, some don't allow them, for example). \- Changing my password on a
site.
I took a peek at masterpassword.app, but couldn't see that it solved these.
Does it?
~~~
branon
Barely. In order with your requirements, Master Password offers:
\- A choice between a few different password types (numerical, short, long,
complex, phrase) for picky sites. It relies on you to remember which password
type you used for which site.
\- A counter you can increment arbitrarily to generate new passwords for a
given site. Again, relies on you to remember that you're on password #3 for
site X, password #5 for site Y, ...
I haven't reached a point where I've had to make heavy use of these features
(yet) but if you use lots of picky sites, or change passwords very often,
certain limitations will become apparent.
If it's any consolation, passwords generated by Master Password tend to have a
unique phonetic cadence -- that is to say, once you're familiar with the first
or second syllable of your password for a given site, you'll know pretty much
instantly if you're looking at the right one, despite not being able to
reproduce the entire string from memory.
This might make it easier to increment the counter several times in quick
succession while being able to conclusively discard passwords that don't
"sound right".
YMMV of course. If this sounds like something you'd hate to do, Master
Password may not be a viable solution.
The Java-based desktop app somewhat solves these issues by (optionally)
caching encrypted data about your passwords (site names, password types, and
counters) on disk. However this could possibly end up defeating the point of
"doesn't rely on any specific device", if the user grows to become reliant on
the cached data.
------
mnm1
The downside is not touched upon, however: losing access to an mfa account
because the mfa is lost. This can happen in a multitude of ways. Losing a
phone, wiping a phone, changing phone number, losing a hardware access key,
losing recovery keys (if they're even provided, many times they are not), etc.
It's inconvenient too, especially for sites that require it on every log in
and whose sessions were short lived (aws). Or refreshing everything when the
mfa changes including codes. I have almost 500 logins in my password manager.
That's 500 potential mfa code generators and 500 sets of restoration keys. All
I'd have to manage manually (pw manager can help with the keys but it's all
manual).
~~~
twblalock
Most of my MFA accounts allow me to download offline backup codes in case I
lose access to the authenticator.
~~~
Mirioron
How do you keep all of that safe though? Unless you use a password manager
that backs up into to cloud you can still be in trouble. If your house burns
down then there's a good chance your codes went with it.
~~~
bakoo
Keep it where you keep your other valuables, and store a reasonably safe copy
with family or friends.
------
wwarner
There is also an argument here against multi-factor authentication. If
compromised _first_ the second channel makes the system more vulnerable.
------
klaasvakie
Living in South Africa, I actually turn off 2FA wherever I can. I use a strong
random password per site stored in a password manager, but my phone number is
controlled by a drone at a telco helpdesk which can easily be convinced to
port my SIM to another.
SIM-swap fraud is super common here, so turning on 2FA actually reduces the
security of my account.
------
technion
Since this is a gaming article..
A soon to be released patch offers world of Warcraft players an in game
upgrade (additional bag slots) for players with MFA setup. I would have
thought this would be supported by a community.
Instead, the feedback I'm seeing everywhere us "it's just a scam to make you
setup the authenticator, don't fall for it". I cannot fathom why people think
this, when it's a free offering and protects you more than them.
It just shows how differing some community views are from the security
community.
~~~
MrStonedOne
MFA has made authentication less reliable.
You can reset a lost password with an email and an automated process. You can
not do this with 2fa on just about any 2fa enabled site I've seen.
2fa is a net gain in how likely you are to get locked out of your account,
This is why nobody wants to use it.
------
notkaiho
The article mentions the father having recovery codes in a safe. For those of
you who do use MFA with recovery code access if the MFA device is lost, how do
you store your recovery codes?
Say I have MFA enabled to send me an SMS when I log into my email.
I am abroad, and my phone gets stolen. I need to log in to my email on some
other device and re-access my boarding passes, maybe communicate about my
upcoming radio silence. But I can't access my account without the code sent to
my phone...
That's my worry with this thing.
~~~
justinc8687
I print them on paper and snail mail them to my sister and parents. I lose my
yubikeys (I store TOTP secrets here, not my phone), I can call them
internationally and have them ready me the seeds (or send me a picture, at
which point I roll them all over).
I've also done it where I sent them a YubiKey with my secrets, then set it up
so I can access a computer remotely (via ssh, rdp, etc...). I have to call
them to insert the key into the machine, so if the machine gets compromised,
there's not much risk, as it's only plugged in if I call them to do so (and
tell them to unplug it X minutes later).
~~~
notkaiho
Interesting! I think I read about a person who had a "only turn on this
machine if I ask you to" situation, where that computer would boot,
automatically connect to a network and allow for connections to the secrets
store, in a situation like you describe.
Of course, that requires maintenance and checks it would work in a real life
situation, that network configurations haven't changed, the parents are
present and compos mentis, etc.
------
dastx
Every now and I then I get a password reset email from spotify. Someone
somewhere keeps trying to login to my account (not sure what the point is to
try and go through the password reset process, since the email gets sent to my
email, and they likely won't know which email it gets sent to). Would be
brutal if they find out my password is 64 random characters.
What's annoying is that a lot of these attempts would stop if spotify simple
started forcing MFA. Even if through their mobile app.
~~~
jimmaswell
What's the point of breaking into a spotify account?
~~~
chewz
It happens a lot.
1) To get free premium account
2) Same email/password re-used on other sites
NYT: Who’s Hacking Your Spotify?
[https://www.nytimes.com/2019/12/05/style/spotify-hacked-
what...](https://www.nytimes.com/2019/12/05/style/spotify-hacked-what-to-
do.html)
~~~
kipchak
Sorry to hijack, but I came across your comments on Dyatlov Pass after looking
into a bit myself. Do you have a favored theory by chance?
~~~
chewz
After reading a lot and especially watching recent programs on Russian TV with
witnesses comming out I am strongly convinced of human action.
They were lined in front of tent and told to leave external layer of clothes
and shoes in the tent. Otherwise it would be to easy to escape in the
darkness. Walked down the slope, some resisting had been beaten (Kolmogorova,
Slobodin) and under the tree some were undressed and tortured with fire
(Krivonischenko).
This TV show is a mess of but there are some interesting witnesses who came
forward.
[https://youtu.be/uBzHvq3fWh8?t=1295](https://youtu.be/uBzHvq3fWh8?t=1295)
[https://youtu.be/dN7LSVjpPGs?t=882](https://youtu.be/dN7LSVjpPGs?t=882)
[https://youtu.be/UM2csYGEU5k?t=2160](https://youtu.be/UM2csYGEU5k?t=2160)
The most mysterious persona are Krivonischenko nad Zolotaryov .
~~~
kipchak
Both are definitely mysterious, it's a bit difficult to tell by reading
English translations but as far as I can tell Zolotaryov's body had a tattoo
(I've seen it described as military related, crime related and unknown) that
people who knew Zolotaryov said he didn't have, Had a fifth camera that was
unknown to the rest, had different tooth caps and didn't match a DNA test
after a recent exhumation, though later testing matched.
Also on the subject of the rib fractures, they've been described as consistent
with a bomb or car accident, a snow mobile like a B7 seems like a possibility.
Maybe Krivonischenko was suspected of leaking information and Zolotaryov was
there to keep an eye on him, and the rest got caught up in the mess. And when
things got out of hand, Zolotaryov sided with the group.
~~~
chewz
Fortunately I can still understand Russian that I had to learn at school..
Krivonischenko was no ordinary guy. His father was in rank General Major and
in charge of constructing Soviet nuclear plants. Krivonischenko himself worked
on liquidating Mayak (Kyshtym disaster -
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kyshtym_disaster](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kyshtym_disaster))
then he suddenly quit his job and ignored letter denying him release. From
what he saw at Mayak and from informal talks with his father he could have had
troves of valuable information.
[https://dyatlovpass.com/konstantin-
krivonischenko?rbid=18461](https://dyatlovpass.com/konstantin-
krivonischenko?rbid=18461)
Suprisingly there is another member of the group - Kolevatov - that from
analysis of his biography looks like career officer involved with nuclear
industry. At 19-year-old Kolevatov graduated from the Mining and Metallurgical
College in Sverdlovsk and was sent to Moscow to work at 9th Directorate of the
NKVD of the USSR laboratory "B", focused on creating protection against
ionizing radiation. And then sent back to Sverdlovsk (which does not make
sense as voluntary career move but makes sense as some sort of assignment).
[https://dyatlovpass.com/rakitin-on-
kolevatov](https://dyatlovpass.com/rakitin-on-kolevatov)
And Zolotaryov - there are witnesses of him beeing seen at different places at
the same time. We know that he had zek brother (kept in Gulag for beeing
traitor after WW2). He was leading tourist expeditions often close to the
borders of USSR (in 1950s it was difficult to achive permits for such
expeditions - there were people trying to escape and in some still active ant-
Soviet partisans).
He claimed that after Dyatlov expedition he will achive fame. He was simple PE
instructor but working in secret city.
On the TV show the daughter of Zolotaryov life partner and a person who have
taken bath with him on previous expedtion does not remember Zolotaryov
tattoos. No one else does and Zolotaryov was handsome man and well remembered.
It was also at times hard to imagine for a normal member of Soviet society to
have tattoos. Especially for PE instructor who has been leading PE classes
with students in short sleeve shirt.
[https://dyatlovpass.com/resources/340/gallery/Semyon-
Zolotar...](https://dyatlovpass.com/resources/340/gallery/Semyon-
Zolotaryov-29.jpg)
Zolotaryov young son disappeared without a trace. He was apparently given into
foster care but boy's mother (Zolotaryov's life partner) had been actively
looking for him for long years in vain. So it looks like the paper trail of
the boy vanished or have been erased.
[https://dyatlovpass.com/semyon-
zolotaryov?lid=1&flp=1#sasha](https://dyatlovpass.com/semyon-
zolotaryov?lid=1&flp=1#sasha)
So we might assume that Zolotaryov had been given new life, taking boy with
him and the body found have been his brother's.
[https://dyatlovpass.com/zolotaryov-
exhumation-3?rbid=18461](https://dyatlovpass.com/zolotaryov-
exhumation-3?rbid=18461)
Tumanov - pathologist on the TV show - claims that Krivonischenko's burns are
a sign of prolonged exposure to fire - not an accident casue even semi-
conscious person will react to contact with fire. So either Krivonischenko
climbed the tree and fire was used to force him to get down or it was plain
torture to extract some information.
Slobodin (amateur boxer), Kolmogorova and Dyatlov all had died of hypothermia
but also all have signs of blunt force trauma. So hypothermia might have been
result of being left unconscious in the cold after receiving serious blows
(back of skull for Slobodin, batton on a hip and bleeding nose of for
Kolmogorova and Dyatlov had frozen with his both hands in protective gesture).
Especially in case of Slobodin the snow evidently melted under his warm body
and frozen later.
All three of them especially Kolmogorova have been really well dresed so
hypothermia is unlikely explanation (they were all tough tourists, familiar
with camping in the snow without all the equipment that we have now (polartec,
gore-tex, down parkas and down sleeping bags, mats etc.) - all of them
perishing from hypothermia within few hours is absurd).
The ravine four might have been just finished off with broken necks. Their
bodies had autopsy after long time in snow.
There are less credible sources saying that Dyatlov group had been followed by
another group of people. On the Rusdian TV show there is a guy who tells that
his father was hunting in the area, saw the fire, came closer and have seen
people being beaten. He did not came forward cause hunting without permit was
criminal offense.
\---
Now this is all armchair theorizing, grasping at straws and nothing more and
it probably belongs in [https://dyatlovpass.com/](https://dyatlovpass.com/)
forum rather then here. ;-)
But let's hope that as Russia's attorney opened the investigation we may learn
what has happened some day.
------
unethical_ban
MFA is great if it is something like Google Authenticator, with recovery
codes.
And yes, store your recovery codes in your safe. Or print them, I guess, but
it isn't that big a deal.
My problem is with most banks that make me use some MFA that I can't
reasonably recover with codes, or those that can be recovered so easily that
MFA is a joke.
------
caiobegotti
Is there a simple site or a table somewhere with services/products saying
whether they support MFA or not? Kind of like
[https://pyreadiness.org](https://pyreadiness.org) for MFA.
~~~
herman_toothrot
The article mentions
[https://www.twofactorauth.org/](https://www.twofactorauth.org/)
------
nuker
KeepassXC can do TOTP, no need for Google Authenticator or other phone app.
And sync/backup your database.
------
kleiba
The lesson learned is that _allowing_ MFA but not making it _mandatory_ poses
a security risk. Arguably, that practice can be even worse than not offering
MFA at all if it gives hackers even better control over your account once they
get in: they can lock you out even more effectively.
------
freetanga
I try to have strong discipline of erasing and closing my digital footprint,
and not relying on freebies like gmail to support my digital identity. News
like these remind me how important that is...
------
xoa
An interesting piece (as Krebs' typically are). There are a number of
takeaways here for both users and implementors. The headline one of course is
that poor implementations of MFA can themselves become a risk factor in a
variety of ways. Ideally if a company is going to implement one at all, they
need to be really careful about what they're rooting the trust in. If it's
required for everybody when the account is created originally, than it can be
assumed by definition that the same human who created the account setup the
MFA as well. But if it's something that can be added on later, is there any
thought to how that fact is established and what recovery procedures are
available if it isn't? That's particularly the case when money is involved,
and it's also curious in that subcase that the money trail itself isn't more
often used as a recovery identifier. Ie., when linking financial accounts a
fairly common verification procedure is that a couple of <$1 deposits are made
and must be entered. This is a pretty core way to verify that at the least the
money is also controlled by the same person, and financial accounts usually
have a lot more identity tied to them. It's almost surprising entities the
size and sophistication of Microsoft or Google don't do that, because it'd
also help reduce the potential financial return for attackers. Want to make
core account changes when money is involved? You need to verify you control
the money. Attackers could change to their own funding source, but that'd
reduce the value of the attack.
Of course it also is a reminder to be careful about what money you tie to
online accounts at all:
> _Nevertheless, the thieves began abusing their access to purchase games on
> Xbox and third-party sites. “During this period, we started realizing that
> his bank account was being drawn down through purchases of games from Xbox
> and [Electronic Arts],” Dayman the elder recalled._
I would never, ever tie a checking/savings account to basically anywhere
online. When the money is pulled out of those it's a huge pain to get back if
it's possible at all. Credit cards, even ultra basic low cap starter types for
people with no credit history yet, are another layer of protection and
intermediation. Virtual card numbers with unique cards per account may
sometimes be useful. Even better is to take the convenience hit and leave no
stored financial payment at all. Just reenter each time, or get $10/25/50 gift
cards and use those to fund a game account as needed for new purchases.
> _“I pulled the recovery codes for his Xbox account out of the safe, but
> because the hacker came in and turned on multi-factor, those codes were
> useless to us.”_
I think this is bad design by Microsoft. Why should turning on MFA, or adding
a new MFA factor, obviate one-time use recovery codes which are to some extent
a weak form of MFA themselves and explicitly should serve as a final emergency
recovery thing people have in a physical safe? A decent recovery code system
itself is typically a requirement for good MFA, as a final resort in case the
factors are all lost/damaged. They could also be used as another way to try to
meet the issue of verifying the person who created/owns the account is indeed
the one turning on MFA.
~~~
perl4ever
Honestly, I think the authentication method used by the credit bureaus is
pretty good, and I think that other companies can license it or something.
They ask you multiple choice questions that require you to know elements of
your credit report. They have the data to make plausible false options. It
certainly seems to work better than Google's recovery process for gmail.
~~~
RandomBacon
Many of those questions are laughably-easy for anyone to figure out.
Also once, I got locked out because they used incorrect data to generate one
of those questions. Once I got in, I then had to dispute that data.
~~~
perl4ever
If they give you five options for where you've had a loan, how would a
stranger know which one is real?
~~~
RandomBacon
Protecting your identity with a 1 in 5 guess is absurdly unsecure.
Let's say I was a bad guy and I looked at my target's social media. I see he
was in the military, and I see USAA (a bank that caters to the military) is an
answer choice, I'll try that one. Or if I know approximately where my victim
lives, I'll look at an online map and see what banks are close by. Chances are
the victim would get a loan at a bank they are already a member of, and would
be a member of a nearby bank so they could deposit/withdraw easily.
~~~
perl4ever
That's not how it works; they don't use a single question.
I suppose it may work better for people who have lived in a variety of places
and had a number of different accounts or loans.
~~~
RandomBacon
I know how it works: I've been subject to them several times. (For those that
don't know, it's a series of questions, see link for screenshots.)
Most of the questions can be easily figured out. See this article:
[https://blog.alloy.co/answering-my-own-authentication-
questi...](https://blog.alloy.co/answering-my-own-authentication-questions-
prove-that-theyre-useless-386191e4f62f)
Anecdote: I was once asked what type of car I got a loan for. First of all,
just because the dealer pulled my credit doesn't mean I bought it (I never
took out a loan for the vehicle). Second, just go on Google Street View to see
what car is in my driveway, or check social media because people like to post
pictures of their cars. So again, more incorrect data they used to verify me,
and if it was correct, it wouldn't be secure!
------
a_imho
Treat accounts like cattle, not pets.
I only use MFA when it is forced on me, yet to encounter a situation where it
prevented anyone but me from accessing a service.
------
lizard
Many years ago, before MFA was really a thing, I changed my email address to
get away from the spam list I'd built up in my youth. Still, I had used the
account for some personal communications and was concerned some people
wouldn't catch immediately update their address books, so I set up a
forwarding rule to my new address for anything that got through the spam
filters.
The old account has been silent for years, to the point that if I'd forgotten
whether I'd even deleted it or not. So imagine my surprise when in the span of
a minute, I get several forwarded emails from Google stating that the account
was recovered, a new device has signed in, password was changed, secret
question changed, and recovery email changed.
Now, as far as I'm concerned, the account is dead and hasn't been linked to
anything I've signed into for years. But that doesn't mean it was never linked
to anything important and who knows what's still sitting in the archive or
who's still in the contact list. So as soon as I saw the messages I jumped to
figure out what happened.
But it turns out that all these security alerts from Google are just to "let
you know about important changes to your Google Account and services" and if
there's a problem just tell you to click a button to login and "Check
activity"...which is difficult to do when all your security information has
been changed before you have time to respond.
There are options to try old passwords and linked email addresses, but after
several attempts all I got was "Unfortunately Google couldn't verify that <the
account> belongs to you." and a link to "Recover your account"[1] that just
tells you to try the recover options that have already been prompted for, and
if all else fails "consider creating a replacement Google Account."
There is no contact information, no option to let anyone know you have a
problem. The emails alerts are sent from the uncaring "no-reply" address while
Googles "Contact Us" only gives a physical mailing address and directs you to
the same help articles.
Now, again, the account is--has been--dead as far as I'm concerned. But
considering the forwarding rule was still in place Google probably thinks
differently. So now the account, and everything in it, belongs to someone
else.
The moral of the story is not only do you need to practice good security now,
you need to have done it your whole life, and go back to do it better when new
security practices are adopted--before crooks do it for you.
1:
[https://support.google.com/accounts/answer/7299973?hl=en](https://support.google.com/accounts/answer/7299973?hl=en)
------
BruceEel
Am I the only one who came here expecting to read about crooks conspiring to
sign me up for a Master of Fine Arts?
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Show HN: Website to Play Board/Card Games – Looking for Feedback - ravipatel
https://www.funnode.com/
======
sazers
More atractive design will be fine (avoid white background) + add some trendy
colors: [http://colorhunt.co/](http://colorhunt.co/)
~~~
ravipatel
Thanks sazers - did you try the different 'Themes' and 'Palettes'? You can
toggle through them via the 'Settings' dropdown on top of the page.
Also, do you have any favourites on colorhunt.co?
------
okwme
playok.com might be a good reference. it has all the bases covered and a great
balance between simplicity and features, plus an active community. I played
your othello bot and it was really easy, maybe you could use some of the open
source othello programs like edax to make a more challenging computer?
[http://abulmo.perso.neuf.fr/edax/4.3/index.htm](http://abulmo.perso.neuf.fr/edax/4.3/index.htm)
~~~
ravipatel
Thanks okwme -- I'll check out Edax!
------
reefoctopus
I personally only play chess online against humans. It looks like you can only
play against computers. Is there a way to play against other people?
~~~
ravipatel
Definitely reefoctopus - if there are other players online, you can challenge
them or simply create a match with no bots and allow others to join
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Show HN: Social project – Tinder? not quite, it has a different angle - alaserm
http://tinderofreconciliation.tk/
======
pictur
Want my bank account information?
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
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