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scaling_mia_the_pile_00_HackerNews

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Why code in C anymore? - zwieback http://www.drdobbs.com/cpp/why-code-in-c-anymore/240149452# ====== tgflynn I wonder why the linked benchmark site shows g++ to be 27% slower than gcc. Is this just compiling the same C (as subset of C++) program with two different compilers or are they comparing two distinct implementations of the same algorithm ? I didn't see any obvious links to the details of how these benchmarks are run. ------ zwieback I just came off a few years of small embedded systems programming and C is still firmly entrenched. Somewhat to my surprise I didn't really miss C++ all that much. I did have opportunity to program utilities in C++ and C# but all my day to day work was in C and I thoroughly enjoyed it.	{ "pile_set_name": "HackerNews" }
Fennec (aka Firefox Mobile) To Debut Next Week - pclark http://www.readwriteweb.com/archives/fennec_aka_firefox_mobile_to_debut_next_week.php ====== pclark I think it's an uphill struggle for Moz now that the iPhone is so popular. Apple only allows webkit browsers on their store.	{ "pile_set_name": "HackerNews" }
Long-time Googler will head Silicon Valley patent office - azylman http://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2012/11/long-time-googler-will-head-silicon-valley-patent-office/ ====== JohnGB A first step in the right direction. I don't think the fact that she formerly worked for Google is an issue though. The fact that she has sane views on patents is what matters. I'd love to see the USPTO review some of the more silly patents they have granted, and start applying both the innovative and inventive criteria.	{ "pile_set_name": "HackerNews" }
Wilhelm von Hackensplat: 'First Past the Post' isn't. - billpg http://blog.hackensplat.com/2011/01/first-past-post-isnt.html ====== edderly If I understand rightly, the AV system being discussed in the UK allows the voter to choose to vote for either one or a limited number of candidates. All votes won't be carried to the final round so this means the winner isn't guaranteed a 50+% share of the vote. ~~~ AndrewDucker People don't have to fill in all candidates, so some votes may be lost along the way. The winner is guaranteed a 50% vote share of all votes that make it to the final round - and nobody is denied a chance of getting their vote there. ------ jgranby If you want to be pernickety, 'alternative vote' is also a misnomer: the word 'alternative' comes from the Latin 'alter', which means 'the other of two [options]'. There are more than two voting systems, so AV is incorrect as a name, at least to traditionalists. But this really doesn't have any bearing on which, if any, someone in Britain ought to vote for. That the name doesn't really fit doesn't say much at all about the merits of the system itself.	{ "pile_set_name": "HackerNews" }
How Cloud Computing Edges Out Other Hosting Services - Katel http://www.freearticlesnow.com/article-how-cloud-computing-edges-out-other-hosting-services-67709.html This is how cloud computing edges out other hosting services being offered by different hosting providers firms in Australia. A web hosting services include shared hosting, reseller hosting, dedicated server hosting, virtual private server hosting and cloud computing. ====== davedickenson Cloud computing is certainly shaping up to dwarf other hosting services. I'm not so sure that business will flock to it. Sure a start-up could gain all the benefits you mention but they need to consider ramifications for IP protection and possible ownership claims by hosts. More established business would love cloud computing but I bet they'd rather host the cloud themselves rather than farm it out, and for the same reasons IP, ownership as well as control. On the plus side, the cloud will definitely appeal to the same millions that are attracted to social-media sites and for the same reasons that draw them to social media sites. Still millions more home/mobile users will like it for the benefits you mentioned.	{ "pile_set_name": "HackerNews" }
Show HN:Review my App - Elapsed - The Timer App for Hackers(Multi-Taskers) - appsuler Long time lurker reading and learning from the community here. Inspired to act and currently working to escape from cubicle nation. Financial constraints mean I can't quit cold turkey but realized that working on the "Next Big Thing" part-time doesn't really work either.<p>So, I'm trying to first bootstrap my way out of the day job by being less ambitious and churning out some useful apps. Released the first, Elapsed ~ 2 weeks ago. Apple featured it as a "New & Noteworthy" Productivity app.<p>http://www.elapsedapp.com<p>Elapsed is the ultimate timer app for multi-taskers. Multiple concurrent timers, frequently used timers saved as Presets for single-tap reuse, multiple instances of the same Presets (ex. 2 loads of laundry around the same time), editing timers while they run (change duration, remaining time etc.)... plus a lot more!<p>Have around 600 downloads and around 20-30% of the user population seems to be active on a given day (based on ad impressions). Reviews and ratings seem to indicate that people like it.<p>So, now the question is how do I spread the word, drive adoption and take it to the next level?<p>Online Review sites seem to be little more than "Paid Advertisement" farms with virtually every submission being greeted with a solicitation for an "Expedited Review" that costs X dollars.<p>I'm seeking the wisdom of the crowd here on the following:<p>1. The App (http://itunes.com/apps/elapsed) - What Sucks? What works? What Can be done better?<p>2. The App Website (http://www.elapsedapp.com) - How can I make it more discoverable? - How can the content be improved?<p>3. What else can be done to spread the word and drive adoption?<p>---<p>tl;dr - Long time lurker releases first product - Elapsed, a timer app for the iPhone designed to streamline multi-tasking. Apple picks it as a "New & Noteworthy" Productivity App. Still, downloads are unimpressive while ratings/reviews are decent. Seeking feedback on how to improve app, website and drive adoption. ====== appsuler Clickable link: <http://www.elapsedapp.com>	{ "pile_set_name": "HackerNews" }
POLL: What computer do you use for programming? - azizali Recently we had a poll on what programming language we you use. Now I want to know what computer do hackers use? ====== TheSmoke I have a retina macbook pro for my own development and have a macbook air at work. ------ NAFV_P A dirty, smelly black Toshiba Satellite C660D. ------ iajrz dell workstation, HP notebook	{ "pile_set_name": "HackerNews" }
Amazon Releases Kindle Fire Source Code - revorad http://briefmobile.com/amazon-releases-kindle-fire-source-code ====== drewda See the discussion at <http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3114383>	{ "pile_set_name": "HackerNews" }
Ask HN: Does Hacker News make you overwhelmed or frustrated or worried? - pshyco After being a HN regular for more than two years, I've now changed the way I think. That is the only way I can get over this and stop going crazy.<p>When you scroll through all these pointers and read some of them, I used to feel like I'm the worst programmer in this world. I know nothing. While I'm fixing these bugs, changing label names and doing CRUD on web, others are making millions with startups, writing books, making cool softwares etc etc.<p>Now I'm changing the way I think.<p>There are 1000s of posts in HN. It touches many subjects. I'm just an OK programmer, not a superstar or rock star as they say. I try my best to do my job and improve myself and enjoy life.<p>Out of 30 posts on the main page as I see now, one is about games industry, one about anti-virus, radio technology, Elm, Apk Tool (whatever that is) - none of these matter to me at this time and I don't worry about it. I don't have to learn that. I dnt have to make another tool. Yeah its nice to know things but its not necessary.<p>This is how I think these days and I'm at ease. No pressure no rush. ====== brudgers There was a time -- before the commercial internet -- when I was under the delusion that I was "keeping up" with computing and it's technology. But now I think William Gibson is right: The future is already here — it's just not very evenly distributed. He was then, too. On the other hand, William Faulkner was also right: The past is never dead. It's not even past. But I'll add that the past isn't very evenly distributed either. The Cambrian explosion has a positive feedback loop: between any two technologies there is a niche in which another technology may develop. There's not just a combinatorial explosion of technologies, tools, and ideas...it's fueling itself. For better or worse, most of the explosion will die because the system is brittle. Niches have dependencies and a tool that sits lives in the space between Angular, Docker, ClojureScript and Less is exceptionally fragile and has nowhere to grow. ------ mindcrime Yes, in a way. It's both a blessing and a curse. I definitely learn a lot of cool stuff from browsing here, and I enjoy the comments and discussion (most of the time). I would definitely say HN has added value to my life. BUT... on the flip side, yeah, it has also added stress and fear and confusion, etc in other ways. The feeling of needing to churn constantly to "keep up" with tech is probably exacerbated by hanging out here so much. And I find myself drawn off onto a lot of tangents, reading books or papers or articles or something that I found here, that aren't necessarily something that I Really Need To Do Right Now. And since I want to learn every programming language, use every database, try every tool, play with every neat new gadget, etc., that I come across, I definitely feel overwhelmed sometimes and HN adds to that. But, I figure it it wasn't HN, it'd be something else. I subscribe to the Apache Incubator mailing list and just the new project proposals there leave me with the same feeling sometimes. And if I wasn't on HN, I'd be on Reddit or something, or even just checking Google News, and I'd still feel overwhelmed and frustrated at times. I've just kinda learned to deal with it. _shrug_ ------ sjg007 I went through this with Slashdot back in 1997. Then a little from reddit and finally hacker news. You have to look at this like it is a tabloid or at best as a news junkie. It doesn't help that apps, tech and startups have been celebritified. Also tech is constantly changing unlike medicine or the law where years of study get you to the top. So the trick is to specialize and focus on your niche and ignore everything else. ------ dhagz I dunno. When I first joined, I felt on the outside and like I wasn't a "real" programmer or whatever. Then I realized I felt that way because I wasn't making anything, just reading. So I started making things and spending more time programming. After doing that, I found I didn't care as much about what all the Bay-area startups are doing or getting a job at the next unicorn - it's just not who I am. And I'm happy now. I learn about new tools here, I learn about new ways of doing things, I find new software I can use and new products to make my life better. And that makes me happy. I'd love to be over in the Bay area, barely able to afford rent despite my 5-6 figure programming job; I'd also love to be a trust fund baby who had no idea what having a job was even like. ------ abstractspoon As a programmer in my 50s I'm comfortable with my coding skills and am now interested in broader material so I filter HN by 'software' and that gives me just 20 hits a day which is feels manageable. ~~~ hacknat Do you do this manually? If not, care to share your filter? ~~~ pshyco Would be nice if you could share your filter. I tried doing search with the texbox at the bottom of page but results didn't look pretty/ ~~~ ldd Not OP, but using google search tools, I got this: [https://www.google.ca/#tbs=qdr:d&q=intitle:%22software%22+si...](https://www.google.ca/#tbs=qdr:d&q=intitle:%22software%22+site:news.ycombinator.com) It displays ~15 results ------ sdegutis I'm better than some, I'm worse than some, neither of those matter because at the end of the day, if I'm getting paid for doing my job then that's what counts. I'm not changing the world, I'm not curing cancer and I'm not solving homelessness and world hunger. But that's okay, I'm getting by as a married father of 4 in a single income house. And my wife and children are all healthy and happy. So at the end of the day that's what counts. ------ hacknat I find it frustrating and encouraging. Mostly, I think, people who do not know what they are talking about dominate discussion. ------ hanniabu I tend to like it. I'm competitive by nature so seeing what everyone else is doing gives me motivation to keep striving and seeing my goals higher. I may not ever catch up and be in the talking edge, but it at least keeps me on my toes and prevents stagnation. ------ tmaly I find some great posts on the new section that rarely make front page. Its my luck that I find them given the speed at which new posts are added. To answer your question, maybe a little overwhelmed at times but hey fake it till you make it ------ sanosuke This is great hahaha, I thought I was the only one feeling that way, such a relief. I'm doing the same thing as You. ~~~ atmosx No, that's a recurring theme, on "ASK/Tell" actually. I believe that most programmers feel that way, but I am not sure if it's a matter of personal treat or skill. ------ leonard_cohen After scan HackerNews, I should go to San Fransico Bay area, otherwise, I am not in the tech industry. ------ dorfuss The feeling you are describing I have when I happen to visit FB - which I don't do very often, and I try to use it only one way - to send or share. Never to read the "what's new". It makes me feel depressed. It has become a space of self admiration, where everyone is so perfect, so happy, so successful, traveling the world, meeting new fascinating people, partying and making out with hot chicks. It's a fantasy world that hits some structures in your brain hundreds of times more powerfully than tv commercials. I have the luxury of studying humanities (getting another degree) and not programming anymore for work. That's an absolutely great situation. I can learn useless languages, outdated technologies and not worry about deadlines. Programming is a nice break from reading medieval sources on development of mysticism. You say: "overwhelmed or frustrated or worried?". My perspective is different. Of course there are some people who will make a handsome passive income, or become very successful and earn shitloads of money. But it's more the matter of luck, like winning a lottery, rather than of consistently working towards your goal. Success seems random, chaotic at best. And HN has a very high concentration of people obsessed with success stories. I don't believe in IT anymore - unlike many people here do. For example I don't think Google is doing a good job with the ads business - I live abroad on a scholarship in a country where I don't speak the language, and YouTube serves me advertisements of expensive cars I will not buy, in a language I don't understand, or commercials targeted for woman. They are wasting my time and their money. But still I am a consumer nevertheless and have my 500 euros to squander. The ads I stumble upon have NEVER tempted me to click on them. They are perfectly irrelevant. Or I get ads of products I have already bought. Pointless, don't you think? There are web sites that take 10-15 seconds to load, then my laptop starts to roar, gets boiling hot executing Flash and JS. That's an absurd! For me what's going on in the IT world is just a tech bubble. Nothing to be frustrated or worried about. And there are millions of things we have to fix in the world (I live in Scandinavia. Today I tried to make a report about a car break-in for over 30 minutes and then I gave up. The post office did not inform me, that there was a parcel waiting for me since Thursday...) And you want an intelligent Deep Learning algorithm. We are still struggling with providing drinking water to a large percentage of humanity. So the wonderful things presented over here are not really revolutionizing anything. They are mostly admirable toys, but let's not be too crazy about them. PS: My friend's laptop has broken and since then he goes to the library, reads 3 books a week, takes notes. Blogs and wikipedia proved to be of little value. In short - less Facebook, more productivity ;) ~~~ pshyco I very much agree with you. I wish I could do something else rather than sitting on my bum all day staring at these two screens. But I can't, got bills to pay.	{ "pile_set_name": "HackerNews" }
We need a new document markup language – here is why - Yuval_Halevi https://medium.freecodecamp.org/we-need-a-new-document-markup-language-c22e0ec44e15 ====== tannhaeuser SGML, on which HTML and XML is based, has had the features the author is looking for since before 1986. No need to pull a 927 and invent yet another markup language. Table of content generation: easy using _link processes_ (= transformation rule pipelines for filtering source markup into eg. ToC or other nav) Text variables, optionally in external files: _entities_ Custom Wiki syntaxes for translating markdown etc. into regular markup: _short reference delimiters_ See my page at [http://sgmljs.net/docs/sgmlrefman.html](http://sgmljs.net/docs/sgmlrefman.html) ------ daly Latex. Fixed that for you.	{ "pile_set_name": "HackerNews" }
Something Weird Is Happening on Wall Street, and Not Just the Stock Sell-Off - tysone https://www.nytimes.com/2020/03/12/upshot/markets-weird-coronavirus.html ====== withinboredom Is it really not obvious? 80% of the assets being sold belong to people who either A. are at risk of dying from this virus and B. don’t expect to live through it. They’re not interested in bonds, they’re interested in surviving. This isn’t your typical “cash crunch” stress, this is real world survival.	{ "pile_set_name": "HackerNews" }
EU proposal to clamp down on Bitcoin curb terrorism funding - ghosh http://mobile.reuters.com/article/idUSKCN0T81BW20151119?feedType=RSS&feedName=topNews&utm_source=twitter ====== mikekchar The headline is misleading. This is a Reuters reporter reporting that some ministers are planning to discuss non-bank methods of money transfer at the upcoming emergency meeting. The report seems to get it's information from a "draft conclusion" document, but does not reference it. The headline suggests the EU has already decided to clamp down on Bitcoin, but it is far from clear to me that it will even be discussed. All we know is that some unnamed officials want to talk about it (together with transfers of precious metals, etc). ~~~ dang Thank you. We changed the title to reflect that. ------ Sealy Good timing. Yesterday, the UK Treasury released an official document stating that Bitcoin and cryptocurrencies have the lowest risk and lowest likelihood of money laundering amongst the areas of finance they studied. Guess who came first, Banks. Good job HSBC! You have laundered more money ever then the entire cryptocurrency industry is worth... 10x over [http://www.coindesk.com/uk-treasury-digital-currencies- low-m...](http://www.coindesk.com/uk-treasury-digital-currencies-low-money- laundering-risk/) HM Treasury link to the National Risk Assessment carried out by the Home Office: [https://www.scribd.com/doc/290214176/UK-NRA- October-2015-Fin...](https://www.scribd.com/doc/290214176/UK-NRA- October-2015-Final-Web) ~~~ bko I'm a big supporter of bitcoin and I have a superficial understanding of how the public ledger works, but why is it not incredibly easy to launder money through bitcoin? Since the currency is fungible, aren't there services that allow you to send bitcoins and it will send move your bitcoin around through many other accounts, including bitcoin from deposits of others? The end result being that the end state of some bitcoin cannot be traced back to the origin. How would someone reasonably trace that with any degree of certainty? ~~~ lallysingh It's not anonymous. All transactions are trivially followable, up to an anonymizer. But anonymizers have to eventually send the money to a destination, so their effect is pretty muted - just track the flow and user the resultant amounts to differentiate. I think people look at bitcoin and hear "crypto" and immediately think opaque and unbreakable. Neither are true, but first impressions matter a lot. ~~~ VMG > just track the flow and user the resultant amounts to differentiate. The usual mitigation for this is to use common denominations for all inputs and outputs. ------ mootothemax Given how extremely traceable bitcoin payments are, I'm pretty surprised that they're not _trying_ to get Bad People to use Bitcoin, whether publicly or behind-the-scenes. I mean, in a way, maybe this is what this story is all about: a great big advertisement saying "Come use this _completely anonymous_ payment system," with a sly nudge and a wink because bitcoin's nothing of the sort. Just imagine: a plot is discovered, payment details made via bitcoin stumbled upon - and now you have a long list of _every transaction_ those people have ever made using Bitcoin! (for the inevitable bitcoin cult members wanting to chime in about "tumbling" or "fog" services, aka bitcoin money launderers, 1. they're still traceable and 2. there's not enough money going through them to successfully launder a four-digit amount, let alone anything greater.) ~~~ bduerst It's impossible to track bitcoins when people transfer in and out of other currencies between bitcoin addresses. The process is called _tumbling_ , and it's primarily how bitcoin tax evaders use it now to get around the "public ledger". ~~~ mootothemax >It's impossible to track bitcoin laundering when people transfer in and out of other currencies, between bitcoin addresses. >The process is called tumbling, and it's primarily how bitcoin tax evaders use it now to get around the "public" ledger. I very briefly addressed this at the bottom of my comment. In short order: \- Tumbling is traceable: throw a beefy server at the list of transactions, and since you know how much money arrived in someone's possession on a given date, you can now trace it backwards by crunching the numbers. Analysing long lists of transactions like this is something computers are _really_ good at. \- But that doesn't matter, because tumbling sites _can 't_ work: they don't have enough capital in them to successfully launder more than a few play dollars at a time. ~~~ bduerst I think you're under the assumption that currency conversions are traceable. Once you convert bitcoins to dollars or yuan, your beefy server can't see the remaining transactions. For example: 20 BTC -> $4000 -> 25000 yuan -> 4 new addresses @ 5, 10, 2, & 8 BTC The only way to trace these is to compromise the exchange servers, get account information, and subpoena transactions from the banks. Very difficult to do given the international nature of these exchanges and banks. ~~~ mootothemax >I think you're under the assumption that currency conversions are traceable. I was specifically addressing tumbling services. I'm guessing that you accept those services are easy to compromise (heck, for all we know, various governments might operate the current ones) which is why you bring up currency conversion. >For example: 20 BTC -> $4000 -> 25000 yuan -> 4 new addresses @ 5, 10, 2, & 8 BTC Let's turn this around: you have a list of transactions, you know when they took place, you know where the money ended up, and now you're tracing the line backwards, knowing that at some point, there will be a connection (or connections) to other transactions _at least as big as this one_ ; why do you think this is so hard to analyse? >The only way to trace these is to compromise the exchange servers, get bank account information, and get transactions from the banks. Very difficult to do given the international nature of these exchanges. Not really, given how little is known about some exchanges' operators. ~~~ celticninja huge list of assumptions there, but having read your responses you dont really understand bitcoin, transactions or tumblers. Tumblers can delay sending transactions by anywhere from hours to days, so matching 1 input with 1 output would be dificult at the very least. If 1 input is split into 6 outputs of varying sizes, sent at various times how would a beefy server help you. Say I send in 10BTC to a tumbler and my output is split into 6 outputs of between 1 and 2 btc each, these are issued to different addresses over a 5 day period. How do you trace that in amongst all of the other several thousand transactions that occurred in that 5 day period? I would genuinely be interested in how you think this would work, as would many in law enforcement and the bitcoin ecosystem. ------ DamnYuppie I didn't see in this article where they actually gave a valid reason for the crack down. Is there evidence that the funds for these attacks, or any others, originated from bitcoins? The initial reaction of my inner knee-jerk skeptic says this is another example of those in power, this time banksters, not letting a good crisis go to waste. ~~~ patrickk There's no evidence for this, they are using the attacks as an excuse. It's like the encryption hysteria. Look at this blatant propaganda from the BBC: [http://www.bbc.com/news/technology-34842854](http://www.bbc.com/news/technology-34842854) Some choice quotes: _" They are not using the big obvious systems at all," he tells the BBC._ They were using _SMS_.[1] _" They are all now using the OTR [Off the Record] protocol, which offers end-to-end encryption," he says._ _" The arrests that are going on now have come from a trawl through metadata"_ This is actually how they found the other would-be attackers: _European media outlets are reporting that the location of a raid conducted on a suspected safe house Wednesday morning was extracted from a cellphone, apparently belonging to one of the attackers, found in the trash outside the Bataclan concert hall massacre. Le Monde reported that investigators were able to access the data on the phone, including a detailed map of the concert hall and an SMS messaging saying “we’re off; we’re starting.” Police were also able to trace the phone’s movements._ The amount of bullshit and propaganda coming out is scary. This is the website of one of the BBC's experts, for added hilarity[2]. [1] [https://www.techdirt.com/articles/20151118/08474732854/after...](https://www.techdirt.com/articles/20151118/08474732854/after- endless-demonization-encryption-police-find-paris-attackers-coordinated-via- unencrypted-sms.shtml) [2] [http://www.pmsommer.com/](http://www.pmsommer.com/) ~~~ sohcahtoa Peter Sommer's nom de plume was Hugo Cornwall - a name Brits who got their start in the 80s will recognise. I'm not sure where the hilarity is? ------ joshstrange _sigh_ this /feels/ like it's in the same vein as "ban encryption". As in "we have no proof this is happening but the Paris attacks give us a window where we can push through whatever BS we want and silence any critics with 'Do you want this to happen again?'" ------ tlrobinson So is this a case of _" never let a serious crisis go to waste"_, or _" We must do something. This is something. Therefore, we must do this"_? ~~~ arethuza The Politician's syllogism: [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Politician's_syllogism](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Politician's_syllogism) ------ oneJob Check out the book "Money: The Unauthorized Biography". It does an excellent job making an argument that a sovereign that loses control of the primary currency loses control of political primacy. This isn't just about terrorism or money laundering. It's very much about political power. review 1: [http://www.nytimes.com/2014/04/13/books/review/money-by- feli...](http://www.nytimes.com/2014/04/13/books/review/money-by-felix- martin.html?_r=0) review 2: [http://www.cato.org/publications/commentary/book-review- mone...](http://www.cato.org/publications/commentary/book-review-money- unauthorized-biography) review 3: [http://www.theguardian.com/books/2014/jul/08/money-the- unaut...](http://www.theguardian.com/books/2014/jul/08/money-the-unauthorised- biography-by-felix-martin-review) ------ tankenmate More importantly than their intent, exactly how do they expect to enforce this new "policy"? It seems to me to be as enforceable as banning individual to individual cash transactions. Good luck with that. ~~~ dtech You can ban/heavily regulate legitimate usages of the currency, which devalues it. If no-one outside of illegitimate circles can accept/process bitcoin money laundering becomes a lot more difficult, since the bitcoin loses value for legitimate purposes. ~~~ Caprinicus This is a great idea. The legitimate users will have to find someone to offload their bitcoin to, and since the legitimate outlets are shut down, they'll have to do local, difficult to trace trades. And since the only people buying bitcoin at that point is going to use it for illegal purposes... wait this is a terrible idea ------ tomp Will they also clamp down on Transferwise? The fallacy here is, Bitcoin doesn't actually _move_ money. It can only move _ownership_ of money. If I want to finance terrorism, there must already be someone with e.g. $1M where I want it (in Islamic State), so that I can trade 3000 BTC with him/her. ~~~ Lunar_Lamp TransferWise hasn't done anything with Bitcoin since April 2013 - [https://transferwise.com/blog/2013-04/notice-to-bitcoin- user...](https://transferwise.com/blog/2013-04/notice-to-bitcoin-users- april-2013/) ~~~ yc1010 Transferwise accepts payments from debit cards or to their eastern European bank (Latvia or something), and then they pay from their US bank for example. They do ask for ID documents and perform AML checks, but then again so do all proper bitcoin exchanges with the exception of the shady btc-e from Russia or thereabouts. But its not like bad guys are afraid of using fake IDs (as seen in Europe this last week) which brings the obvious question as to why they would bother with all that when they can just use cash and traditional banking. The whole article is click bait of the highest order based on fud. \---- If the powers to be want to hit ISIS where it hurts how about destroying their oilfields, oil refining and transport capabilities. A few armed drones can do this on the cheap remotely. Make it clear that any oil extraction, processing or transport equipment in the area controlled and sympathetic to ISIS will be destroyed and grant these scum their wish if living in the middle ages. ------ dtech It looks to me more like this was something that was already planned and now they're using the Paris attacks as an excuse. Bitcoin is a lot less anonymous than cash, since everyone can follow who pays what to whom, and it's often possible to tie a wallet to an identity. ------ jmnicolas Before they had the "pedonazis", now they have the terrorists to justify whatever they want to ban. Since the terrorists used cars for their attacks (there was even mention of a Volkswagen Polo involvement) I propose we ban cars for our collective safety. I wonder, did the terrorists ever used cash, a debit or credit card ? Maybe we should ban this too then. ~~~ mootothemax >I wonder, did the terrorists ever used cash, a debit or credit card ? Maybe we should ban this too then. FYI The various known terrorists/terrorist organisations lists are a large part of Know Your Client (KYC) checks. ------ nutmeg "It was difficult to transact legitimate business with cash in the Sprawl; in Japan, it was already illegal." ------ vpkaihla Perhaps we should be looking at GNU Taler ([https://taler.net/](https://taler.net/)) instead. They're supposed to provide personal liberty and many of the other benefits of crypto currencies, but without criminal security. ------ teekert The Saudis use Bitcoin? Within the EU? ------ vdaniuk So it goes. Terror attacks provide opportunities for special interest groups to advance their agenda while public is frightened and irrational. Makes you think about the implicit beneficiaries of terrorism, doesn't it? ~~~ JustSomeNobody Indeed, governments around the globe absolutely love terrorism. It's good for business. ~~~ chki I think this is not true for several reasons. One (only in multi-party systems) is the rise of new political parties (for example here in Germany) that are very "right-winged" and strongly oppose the current government. I think it can not possibly be in the governments interest to loose power to these groups. ------ gtpasqual EU should be focusing on the funders, but social repercussions would be negative towards certain groups. I mean, if the payment process was the problem, they should ban money. ------ MichaelGG How much funding is really needed? They talked about this after Sept 11, but that always seemed like a rather cheap thing to pull off. Certainly "bootstrappable" given a few dedicated people. Some flight sim time, perhaps a few lessons to get some insight into ops, and uh, go? Really, the creative spark and meeting of a few collaborators was the only hard part. How much funding did Breivik need? ------ badloginagain So we shouldn't let refugees in, even though no refugees were part of recent terrorist events. We should outlaw encryption, even though the attack was planned with unencrypted off the shelf technology. We should crack down on bitcoin, even though the attack wasn't funded with bitcoin. Do lobbying groups just wait for this kind of thing to happen? It seems completely ridiculous to me. Then again, I'm not afraid. ~~~ logfromblammo They do, actually. "Never let a good crisis go to waste." As morally abhorrent as most of us may find the practice of profiting on human suffering to be, we often forget that there are people out there whose morality is almost entirely incompatible with our own, or who lack any sense of morality whatsoever. For a variety of reasons, those same-species parasites are drawn to positions where they can manipulate overly credulous humans for their own gain. These propaganda campaigns are roughed out ahead of time, like a Mad Lib, and the details are filled out after any relevant crisis occurs, with any inconvenient facts stretched out and re-tailored to fit the narrative structure. It's not a conspiracy. Those people are not working together. They just coincidentally fired their bullets on the pull of the same trigger. The terrorists didn't use Bitcoin? Well, in that case, imagine how much worse it could have been if they did use it! They didn't use encryption? How many more would have died if they did? ------ pakled_engineer Terrorists have traditionally raised their own local funds through organized crime. They kidnap for ransom, extort businesses and target drug dealers and other black markets in their neighbourhoods to jack and tax for money. Al Qaeda in Iraq started as highwaymen robbing commercial trucks and assassins for hire, the realIRA group robs and kills dealers, 70s terrorists robbed armored cars and banks, ect. One of the Boston bombers jacked and murdered some local drug dealers and cops wrote it off as common gang crime. Since they already are criminals doesn't seem that any money laundering crackdown will make any difference, they will just extort somebody else to receive their money through all these regulation hoops they specialize in being thugs. ------ imgabe I don't think it's about money laundering, which isn't even mentioned in the article. With Bitcoin, governments can't order anyone to freeze the accounts like they can with a bank. That makes it harder to prevent terrorists from accessing funds. ------ tsmarsh Then ban cash. Either we're for anonymous currency or we're not. ~~~ PythonicAlpha They are already planning it (I think, I heard it already from Sweden). But to ban cash will be much more difficult than Bitcoin, since so many people will shout up -- with Bitcoin, who cares, when a few hackers who are probably already involved in illegal activities (drug, sex, copyright violations, .... you name it) will be mad. ~~~ SyneRyder There are already stores in Sweden where cash is not accepted. One notable example is the ABBA Museum, where ABBA songwriter Björn Ulvaeus believes a cashless society will reduce crime: An ABBA Star's Campaign for a 100% Cash-Free Sweden [http://www.bloomberg.com/bw/articles/2014-10-28/abbas-bj- rn-...](http://www.bloomberg.com/bw/articles/2014-10-28/abbas-bj-rn-ulvaeus- does-his-part-to-make-sweden-cashless) ~~~ PythonicAlpha While a cashless society might reduce crime (for a little while), it will definitively bring an Orwellian system onto us. Also, we have seen, that there are enough corrupt banks and bankers around, so crime will go on ... (money laundering also does work today in company with banks). ------ logingone Tinkering around the edges. Why don't they clamp down on religion? ~~~ teekert Why don't they clamp down on freedom? Oh wait... ~~~ logingone Freedom? Religious people have been trained like animals from youth. There's no choice there. That's not freedom. ~~~ bduerst I'm sorry you haven't had any positive life experiences with people of religion. ~~~ logingone I've said nothing of my experiences with people of religion. Please control your knee jerk. ~~~ bduerst Your aggression towards and stereotyping people of religion is speaking enough. ------ return0 What is the evidence here. If i were a terrorist i would avoid any online / electronic "anonymous" transfer method like the plague. Good old print oil money is the best. ~~~ maze-le They (Daesh/IS) are accepting donations in bitcoin, I don't think it is beeing used for something else. I recently read an article, describing how a teenager was scentenced to prison, because he showed how such a transaction can be done. [http://www.dw.com/en/us-teenager-sentenced-to-prison-for- sup...](http://www.dw.com/en/us-teenager-sentenced-to-prison-for-supporting- islamic-state-online/a-18680144) ------ mtgx I assume this is because they found the vast majority of terrorism funding is done through Bitcoin, and not just another knee-jerk reaction to "crypto" \- right?! ------ cubano Never underestimate the money laundering "bandwidth" of a shipping container full of cash crossing the oceans[1] [1][http://people.exeter.ac.uk/watupman/undergrad/ron/methods%20...](http://people.exeter.ac.uk/watupman/undergrad/ron/methods%20and%20stages.htm) ------ Fuxy This is so stupid do they really think that terrorists care about their own privacy when they know that they are not going to come out of the attack alive. And if they believe that they are going to catch the activity before the attack happens they are smoking crack. They signal to noise ratio is just too high. Plus they can always just use cash. ------ phusion Here's the non mobile link [http://www.reuters.com/article/2015/11/19/us-france- shoootin...](http://www.reuters.com/article/2015/11/19/us-france-shoooting-eu- terrorism-funding-idUSKCN0T81BW20151119) ------ guard-of-terra What can we do to counter this and teach them a lesson so this does not happen again? Where is our community long term planning? They (people that nobody voted for doing what they do) are engaged in this unrightful activity without no punishment in sight. This is wrong. ------ Kinnard Bitcoin is not anonymous. Something must be done to disabuse journalists of this notion! It's misinformation and particularly dangerous for people who need actually anonymous payments like dissidents living under oppressive regimes. ~~~ mirimir Yes, people hear "crytocurrency" and think "hidden". Bitcoin just uses cryptographic signing for authentication, to prevent theft and double spending. It's the opposite of anonymity. ------ drcode Hi Barbra, meet Streisand! ------ nly RIP localbitcoin.com? As of right now individuals can trade bitcoin through via personal bank transfers thanks to sites like this. I see this being squeezed to death eventually, which is a real shame. ------ hosh This is why we can't have nice things. ------ late2part This is how they will try to ban cash. ~~~ drcode I think Bitcoin is slowing the demise of cash- I think the powers that be will prefer the devil they know (cash) over the devil they don't know (cryptocurrency). ------ cabalamat Bitcoin is a good deal less anonymous than cash. ~~~ aianus But also a good deal easier to smuggle across borders, just saying. ------ iamsohungry Never let a good disaster go to waste... ------ benevol "Carpe Diem!" Sincerely, _Your banking industry_ ------ AC__ Quite possibly the dumbest thing I've ever read on here. I hate to be cliche, but to quote Chomsky, "Everyone’s worried about stopping terrorism. Well, there’s really an easy way: Stop participating in it". Regardless, the CIA and Mossad didn't use bitcoin to finance ISIS. ------ nickysielicki Down with terrorism! Woo hoo! Take _that_ ISIS!	{ "pile_set_name": "HackerNews" }
Sub-second reloads for mobile developers with Flutter and Dart - rpeden http://news.dartlang.org/2016/10/flutter-sub-second-reloads-on-mobile.html ====== rpeden I like the potential for code sharing between web and mobile. In the past, I've done this with React and React Native. Angular 2 (Typescript) can easily accomplish the same thing using NativeScript. I could see sharing quite a bit of code between the Dart version of Angular 2 and Flutter. App logic and services could live in separate functions and classes, and be used by both web and native mobile. ~~~ matanlurey One of the talks today ([https://youtu.be/-03R4Fj79_E?t=164](https://youtu.be/-03R4Fj79_E?t=164)) was exactly on that :). I've used a bit of NativeScript and React Native, and I can tell you that Flutter is _completely_ different. Worth trying for yourself.	{ "pile_set_name": "HackerNews" }
Show HN: An even better solution for declarative animation - leeluolee http://regularjs.github.io/blog/2014/07/26/2014-7-26-animation-rethink/ ====== zjuwwq so flexible design support event trigger and conditional trigger, support chainable even between two element, easy extend	{ "pile_set_name": "HackerNews" }
Do You Really Want to be Doing this When You're 50? - rw140 http://prog21.dadgum.com/154.html ====== edw519 57, programming for 33 years with hardly a day off, and having more fun than ever. My motivation? It's not about the technology, the tools, the apps, the business, the customers, or even the money, although any of those can provide plenty of motivation. And believe it or not, it's not even about the happy dance feeling I get when something I built works for the first time. It's about the achievements of those who use what I built. Hopefully that'll keep my busy for another 33 years. ~~~ mengine This sounds pretty depressing to me. You're building the software that allows others to retire while you're a cog in someone else's wheel for another 33 years. Why not build your own achievements? ~~~ jerf You're presuming an awful lot in that analysis there. Besides, who is not a cog in some wheel or other? In civilized countries, there is nobody who is at the top of all hierarchies, no King. It's a pejorative with no bite if it applies to all. ~~~ mengine I just find it sad people write themselves off as never being rich or running their own business. There are 16 year olds making 6 figures writing their own iphone apps yet people view their only alternative to programming is moving to middle management. ~~~ stevewilhelm "16 year olds making 6 figures writing their own iphone apps " The reality is there are very few people making six figures writing their own iphone apps. Even fewer that can sustain that level of income as a sole proprietorship for a couple of decades, which is what you will need to do to retire at fifty. For every programmer who does create a sustainable business, fewer still get rich doing so. One reason, creating a wildly successful business is a completely different skill set from programming. Another reason, it takes a fair amount of luck for a company to become wildly successful. Goog luck. ~~~ Evbn "goog luck" Great Fredudian typo, or greatest Freudian typo? ~~~ georgeorwell Definitely a Fredudian typo, Freudian would have been "Good fuck". ------ tptacek Please note extremely effective demonstration of "privilege". Two employee candidates interview successively. One is 25, the other 53. Both are comparably conversant in technology, evince comparable cognitive capability, are equivalently literate in the problem domain being tackled by the role they're interviewing for. Privilege: the 25 year old is not asked (overtly or subtextually) whether they "want to be doing this". It is simply assumed that the 25 year old's head is in the game. No demonstration of lifestyle commitment to the craft is required. Take the idea and turn it around in your hands for a little while. Try this: imagine that instead of software developers, these were master woodcrafters; luthiers, say. Notice how the subtext changes: age is an asset. A lifetime spent designing guitars is a signifier of passion and competence. Flip the switch back to development and notice how age suddenly connotes something else, like "career failure forcing person to retain technical role". You will get old someday, if you're lucky. But controlling for spectacularly unlikely values of "lucky", you are aren't going to strike gold in this field, such that you'll have no career concerns when you're 45-50. It is unfortunate that our field manages to devalue competence and experience that way it does; here's a second-time Rails gem author instead of a virtual memory system designer, see you at SXSW! ~~~ mechanical_fish It's about the rate of change. Luthiers are practicing an art that would be recognizable to Stradivari, three hundred years ago. The tools are made of more modern materials but they're basically the same. The product has a more modern design (both functionally and stylistically) but is basically the same. More importantly, the culture and business of instrument-making is largely the same. You have a shop in your garage or basement, or in the back of your store. You make instruments by hand a few at a time and sell them, preferably for cash, to individual buyers. You learn by apprenticing with someone who knows, or reading books and practicing like crazy for decades. Maybe you'll scale up to a factory with a few dozen journeymen cranking out instruments… like Stradivari did, three hundred years ago. The problem with programming is that it's unstable. And I contend that it isn't even the unstable languages and platforms that hurt (as everyone says, experience makes it _easier_ to learn new languages). Nor is it the eternal brokenness and turnover of APIs. This is not a new problem, nor does the patience to deal with it necessarily decline with age. Indeed, to an extent the opposite is true: experience has taught me not to panic when my favorite API is shot out from under me. (The first time it happens is a really awful surprise and a test of your patience, but the fifth time it happens you're probably used to it.) No, I think the real problem is the constant turnover in _culture_. Programming in the late 1980s, for example, was a _completely_ different social universe than web consulting in PHP, or iOS development: Different typical org structure, different business model, different way of learning the trade, different communities and communications channels, different career tracks, different project management styles, different constraints, different everything. Immersing yourself in a new culture is _hard_. You're going to get schooled by kindergarteners, so check your pride at the door. And you're going to have to relearn your whole approach to the business, not just a new syntax or a new set of APIs. You're even going to need to learn new jokes. And the biggest challenge of all is that your old culture rarely dies cleanly, so you're never quite sure if you're doing the right thing by becoming an expatriate. Why not just go home, where you have the seniority and the contacts, where you know the old stories and can visit the old hangouts? The old way is shrinking, but is it really time for the funeral? ~~~ rkwz >No, I think the real problem is the constant turnover in culture. As a 24 year old, I find it difficult to relate to this. Can you explain a bit more about this - in a blog post or so? ------ jgrahamc In short, yes, and I'm in my 40s. I actually returned to programming after years managing programmers in part because I was unhappy. I realized that the further I got from the machine and _making_ the less happy I was. So, if you asked me whether I wanted to be 'managing' at 50, I'd say "Hell, no!". The enjoyment of making things work, learning and shipping it real. I hope I'm still able to feel those things at 80. I never got the same satisfaction and enjoyment from managing people and processes. ~~~ bambax I don't think this is about "programming" versus "managing". It's about "actual problem solving, and building things" (which is good and enjoyable at any age) versus "navigating oceans of constantly changing APIs" and getting bitten by minuscule oversights in enormous volumes of documentation, which requires a lot of stamina, and maybe optimism, that you have less of as you get older. I hate arcane APIs with a passion. I love programming and building things. Always have, always will. I think one's tastes don't change much with age; what changes is your willingness to put up with things you don't like. Like a grumpy old uncle who says inappropriate things at family reunions, at some point in your life you just stop pretending. ~~~ anklos I often see aged programmers are more tolerant with things they dont like,as they know most jobs are just boring from their years of working experience. Lots of them think job is just for paying the bill. ------ raganwald If you're young, be sure to read the responses here very carefully. There are lots of people like me who love what they do at fifty or beyond. Yay! But of course, this sample has survivor bias. How many people who left the profession in their forties are going to post on HN? How many people who are fifty and hate their jobs are going to post on HN? I love what I do and try to share that love. But my advice to you is this: Don't pay attention to how much we love our jobs at fifty, pay attention to how we got to be fifty without burning out. ~~~ MattSayar So how did you get to fifty without burning out? The advice I've always seen is a mix of: have a healthy work/life balance, exercise, find satisfaction outside of work, enjoy people more than products, and make sure you actually like what you do and where you do it. Anything else? ~~~ blisper In my personal experience, resisting the urge/pressure to get into management (vs. staying in engineering). Management in a larger setup invariably involves having political skills of some sort. ------ plinkplonk The interesting idea in the post(beyond the programming vs age bit, which is sure to trigger some rage,) is this "To me, there's an innate frustration in programming. It doesn't stem from having to work out the solutions to difficult problems. That takes careful thought, but it's the same kind of thought a novelist uses to organize a story or to write dialog that rings true. That kind of problem-solving is satisfying, even fun. But that, unfortunately, is not what most programming is about. It's about trying to come up with a working solution in a problem domain that you don't fully understand and don't have time to understand." If this is a problem that affects you don't do 'most programming'. Nothing really stops a developer from learning a problem domain with economic potential. Sure you may have to go to school or read some books or get some experience, but so what? The idea that a programmer always has to work in a half understood domain transforming some one else's ideas into code is just that, an idea. It is a dominant idea, but nothing really stops anyone from mastering an interesting domain in addition to programming. Knowing how to program is like knowing how to write (in a largely illiterate society, so your knowledge has economic value). Or like knowing how to cast spells. Yes, if you spend all your life scribing other people's thoughts or casting spells to manifest other people's wishes, it could get boring. Could, but doesn't have to be. You don't _have_ to be a scribe just because you know how to write. ------ DanielBMarkham I love programming and still consider myself a programmer first, although I do a lot of other things too. If I wanted to rag on programming, I'd point out how many dysfunctional programming workplaces we have, or how our tools are always 100 times more complex than they need to be, or how setting up and managing the programming environment can take the joy right out of actually doing the work. (I could go on at length here) But overall it's a great place to be. We're the Michelangelos of the great age of machine intelligence which is yet to come. We're sketching out how it's all going to look. We're at the forefront of solving incredible problems and creating magical devices. A guy told me something back in my 20s when I was just getting started that rings true today: technology development is the one area where _you can create your own reality_. Not only in terms of a virtual reality, but in terms of how you want your work day to go, how you want to interact with your peers, how you get compensated, how you spend your free time. It's all up to you. This is completely unlike many other professions such as doctors where everything is tightly regimented. I worry that as the job of programming matures, we are losing track of that fundamental insight. One of the reasons I like Agile and Scrum is, when done correctly, it liberates the teams and takes them back to the way programming should be. It is rarely done correctly. ~~~ Lagged2Death _We're the Michelangelos of the great age of machine intelligence which is yet to come._ If there's a great age of machine intelligence to come, then one in a million of us may be a Michelangelo. The rest of us are house-painters, and the houses we paint are slated for demolition within our own lifetimes. ~~~ TheFuture So true. Just crushed me... ~~~ Evbn What is wrong with everyone doing well, including your peers and descendants? Why must everyone want to be the top dog forever? You are going to die. No one will buy or code their way out of that, not even Zuck or Gates ~~~ TheFuture My point was more how as programmers, the emotional toll of everything that we're making will be destroyed, usually in only a few years. Yes, we're paid. But it's hard to have satisfying work when the result you produce becomes worthless. It would be like spending 12 months carving a beautiful piece of furniture out of wood, get paid $100k for your work, and then handing it to the owner who lights it on fire right in front of you. ------ jacquesm Hell yes! There are many different kinds of programming, some are fun and some are not. If you really want to be doing this when you're 50 make sure you get good enough that you can pick the projects that are fun. If by the time you are 50 and you've been doing this for 3 decades you are still gluing api's that's not the fault of 'programming', that's a direct result of choices made earlier. And one more thing: on the scale of things that you could be doing, look at your parents, grandparents and their grandparents and what they were doing when they were 50. Suddenly that api gluing doesn't look so bad at all. ~~~ Surio @Jacquesm, I agree with your FU money concept and I am actively working on that. I think this comment is a byproduct (side-effect?! (-;) of your having achieved FI. But what you mentioned here is what I would consider "Let them eat cake instead" advice. :) Not well thought out. Nostalgia is a very powerful emotion, and besides historical perspectives are based on whatever set of lenses you choose to wear. Actually, our grandparents (even parents) had more time in their lives, more variety in their lives that was completely unrelated to their 9-5 routines, their professional lives were (mostly) on autopilot, so they had more free time to pursue all kinds of hobbies and tinkering, while still working on a daily job! So, yes I am looking at grandparents too, but I chose to wear different lenses. ~~~ jacquesm My grandparents would have been very happy with time and energy left over for 'hobbies and tinkering'. ~~~ saraid216 I think you both need to remember that you probably have different sets of grandparents living in different circumstances. ------ praptak Late 30s represent, yo. The author of the article mentions high stress. My experience differs. In my case the stress sort of waned by itself. I think I moved a bit towards Wally character from the Dilbert series. I don't overcommit anymore and I certainly gained resistance to "aggressive schedules" and visions of doom and gloom tied to deadline skips. So I stress out less and less and I believe it comes naturally with age. ~~~ muyuu I think the crux of the matter is your job security and your financial stability (the economy where you live, etc). If you can afford to delay projects as needed without risking your position then of course that takes a lot of pressure off you and things are more enjoyable. In an ideal world, I'd be set financially by the time I'm 50 and I would work in my own stuff exclusively or almost exclusively. ~~~ DennisP In my experience it's not so much about missing deadlines with impunity, as negotiating up front what you're willing to commit to delivering. A lot of times you can put off some "nice to have" features without anyone complaining, as long as the core functionality is ready on time. (That may be what you meant by "delaying.") The other part is renegotiating timelines when they make changes to stuff you've already built. Financial security helps but the real key is being skilled enough to accomplish a lot without breaking a sweat. As much as possible, build reusable components with nice APIs, even if it means putting in some extra time up front. Always think about how to make your own job easier down the road, and after a while you'll have an easy job. ------ dschiptsov That's solved long ago. There are some underlying concepts, foundation ideas which didn't change much since 1960-70-80s, the time when they have been discovered, studied and defined. Yes, people are piling up tons of crap in order to get money, and this is how we got a millions lines of meaningless Java code which no one could understand or maintain, which seems to work well only because most of unit-tests passed and hardware is so cheap. I don't even want to mention current Javascript madness. At the same time, however, almost nothing were added to the ideas expressed by John McCarthy, and followers. Yes. They are stuffing tons of useless crap into new Scheme standard, as they did with Common Lisp, but, the underlying ideas and the principles of "less is more" and "good enough" remain unshaken, like mountains in Nepal.) In a very rare occasions we still can witness some miracles. For example, the source code of this site - the engine _and the language translator in which it written_ is less than one megabyte. (just imagine what amount of traffic it handles and how much money already created). There are also Plan9, nginx and few other wonders. So, in ones 50s one, perhaps, should enjoy knowing and applying these principles and ideas and produce ones own small wonders. Or teach others, as enlightened people like Gerald Jay Sussman or Brian Harvey do. ~~~ wumpushunter Would you mind sharing the the "few other wonders"? I've been able to pull many programming lessons from the other activity I enjoy, woodworking. When I first started, I was overwhelmed by the sheer number of items in catalogs and stores. I didn't know where to begin! And then I discovered Japanese woodworking, and traditional woodworking, and people like James Krenov and Roy Underhill. It is impressive what people have built with a small set of simple, sharp tools. I love seeing these gems, regardless of the domain! ~~~ dschiptsov MIT Scheme, T3, vi, Gambit-C, postfix, openssh, postgresql, redis, GNU Emacs, clisp ------ kamaal No, Because I seriously would like to see myself retired by 40. Not even 50. Would I like to code in my spare time? Yes! But I'm dead sure and certain the nature of programming is likely to have changed so drastically in so many years I might find myself a losing horse in such a race. Not that I cannot compete,but after looking at my father I can say for certain priorities in life at 50 are very different than what they are 25. Solving problems is something that I would love to do even after retirement. But solving problems doesn't always mean programming. I love programming, but I just like money a little more! ~~~ Surio +1 Good to see I am not alone with views like these. I agree with you. It is also about where you are doing "programming" too ;-) See my comments elsewhere. ------ btilly Let's draw an important distinction. There is programming, writing code that helps computers do what people tell them to do. Then there is the experience of programming that this author seems to have, which involves a lot of long hours, and nights until 2 AM. It is rare for competent and experienced people to be tolerant of the toxic environment that was assumed for programming. Over time you learn that there are lots of professional programmers with reasonable lifestyles, and you'll want to become one of them. However programming itself, if it is enjoyable for you, is likely to remain enjoyable for a long, long time. (Mid-40s here. Didn't learn that I liked programming until around 30.) ------ gonzo I am 50. I had a large portion of the 'middle' of my career in management, including a couple CTO/VP Eng positions, with the traditional increasing stress. So I moved to Hawaii for nearly a decade, got rid of the stress, rediscovered programming, and I'm happy again. ~~~ kamaal I think the reason you are even able(read afford) to move to Hawaii is because you went through a couple of CTO/VP Eng positions, with traditional increasing stress. ~~~ woodhull Any American citizen can move to Hawaii anytime they like. It's not terribly hard to do, especially with a high demand skill that lets you find work anywhere, globally, like being a software engineer. ------ brooksbp > But large scale, high stress coding? I may have to admit that's a young > man's game. 2.5 yrs out of college. Code monkey. Really, really good at monkey programming. Used to get upset when people made claims that it can't or shouldn't be done. "Of course it can be done you lazy #$%*$%. You call yourself a software engineer??" Then I pull it off. A couple more people love me, a couple more hate me. I become the monkey programmer. I am the one who brings designs to life the quickest. That's the gist, and it's getting old. Requirements change. Social issues. It's like trying to drive a ferarri up switchbacks of a mountain. No wonder companies love hiring new grads. The largest benefit from this is: reading & writing a lot of code. There is no substitute for this. It has helped me identify design areas that I need experience with. It has also helped me reason about code more efficiently, which is a very useful skill when interacting with other programmers. Edit: And then I go home and read HN and /r/programming and play with other programming languages and build stupid little programs and read my books and try to figure out my next move... ------ saraid216 Some people actually seem to be missing a significant part of his point. He's not talking about "Do you want to be coding at all when you're 50?" He's talking about the dependency management that goes into building something large on the shoulders of others. That's a lot different from "hacking on your homepage" or throwing together a quick Ruby script utility to do some scraping. ~~~ Surio Well put! ------ mikecane When you reach your 50s, you have enough experience to see what is real bullshit and what isn't. He is basically talking about being a hamster spinning on a wheel made of someone else's bullshit. You are old enough to see that many things shouldn't be the way they are and you get tired of having to fight basically the same battle again and again with the same enemy that is just wearing a new uniform (API). Hm, maybe the solution is to have people in their 50s design APIs, so they can make sure the bullshit doesn't get in? BTW, I'm not a coder but I Follow several on Twitter and too often see their frustrations with bizarre APIs and things not working as documented -- and these guys are young! ------ geofft I'm excited to see all the other folks in this thread who say they're 50 and they're programming! I've been worried that because everyone _else_ thinks "large scale, high stress programming" -- i.e., the kind of programming that's _fun_ -- is a young man's (or woman's) game, I won't be able to have a job like the one I have when I'm 50, and I might need to find some other career I enjoy in order to continue having a job I enjoy when I'm 50. I'm not looking for advancement, since advancement would be out of programming and into management, nor a pay raise, since programmer salaries are already plenty high. I just want to be doing exactly what I'm now doing in thirty years. ------ lazyjones For much of this frustration I blame the modern practice of letting some committee design a protocol or other standards and then force that down the throats of programmers. This leads to bloated designs and deficient implementations and documentation and last, but not least, far too many revisions and alternatives. Back in the day, protocols (tools, languages, ...) were designed by people who thought very hard about the implementation, the required resources and the programmers whom these were inflicted upon. In contrast, entities like the W3C display complete ignorance for the implementation details (look how they've failed to provide even a half-assed implementation of a browser as proof-of-concept for their "designed by committee" standards). Whatever builds on top of such lackluster work is doomed and will frustrate programmers endlessly ... ~~~ colomon I don't know squat about your specific examples, but I couldn't agree more with the general principle. In my sub-field, the obvious example is the ISO- designed STEP file format, which several times longer than the older IGES standard (exact count is hard to get because the STEP standard is split up into dozens of books, not all necessarily relevant) yet is drastically less specific about how you actually put together a meaningful file. For instance, the STEP AP203 standards document is 500+ pages long. (That's the old edition, I don't have a printed copy of the second edition handy.) But those pages don't tell you how to use the hundreds of classes they define to actually create a meaningful file. For that you need the supplemental "recommended practices" document ([http://www.steptools.com/support/stdev_docs/express/ap203/re...](http://www.steptools.com/support/stdev_docs/express/ap203/recprac203v8.pdf)), which has been marked "preliminary" for the last 14 years and is itself not particularly clear. (On the bright side, at least it's free!) Of course, that only applies to one of the many different STEP application protocols, and while I did find a reference to an AP214 (which I also need to support) recommended practices document, the link to it was dead. ------ adamc I'm fifty, and I still enjoy programming, but my interest in incidental complexity -- the details of APIs, say -- isn't what it once was. And the likelihood that I will put in a ton of overtime to meet an arbitrary schedule isn't what it once was either. I'm less interested in the technology than I once was, and more interested in how people are using it to solve problems. ------ TwoBit I love programming professionally at nearly 50. I doubt that is going to change. And I'm in the game industry. ------ Surio Remember the mantra - "location, location..", and also context. In other words, where you are working (geolocation of company, and therefore the strategic operations concentrated in that place, company size, technology, etc.), what you do on a daily basis, whether you are doing things like "skimming great oceans of APIs, but the market will have moved" day in and day out. (There's a lot of gems in that article, BTW) Add to my above para, this other gem of an observation: <blockquote> If you're fresh out of school, there are free Starbucks lattes down the hall, and all your friends are still at the office at 2 AM, too...well, that works. But then you have to do it again. And again. It's always a last second skid at 120 miles per hour with brakes smoking and tires shredding that makes all the difference between success and failure, but you pulled off another miracle and survived to do it again. </blockquote> That article really resonated with me. And, no I can't see myself doing it at 50 :-) EDIT: One more thing to add with regards to context of operations, rewards are also skewed in favour of management rather than "engineers", so at some point mortgage, loans, education and medical expenses will overshadow 'fun'. ------ lifebeyondfife I know and have worked with coders in their 50s, even 60s. They were very much what I'd call 9-to-5 coders though. They were never given big, important or new projects but as a consequence were never expected to burn the midnight oil. The main thing that looks unappealing to me about being a hacker decades from now is the constant cycle of learning. I'm on probably my 3rd generation upheaval. I've worked on a daily basis in a team of programmers with C, C++, C#, Java and Python. Getting familiar enough with those languages to do more than just tinker took a lot of effort - even for the languages that are pretty similar e.g. C# and Java. I'm now looking to do more front to back website coding (away from pure desktop/server stuff) so I'm trying a few things out before choosing on the main stack of technologies I need to master. In my early thirties I still have the enthusiasm to do this but I find it hard to picture doing the same ten years from now with the same smile on my face. ~~~ lincolnq Oh, interesting. I love the learning cycle. If I wasn't constantly learning new tools and tech then I would get really frustrated with my job. ~~~ Surio I'm happy for you. But sooner or later it gets to you. No one can say when/how/why, but it does. Happens to the best, happens to everyone else a little sooner. Until then, enjoy the ride. :-) ------ henrik_w Absolutely! I'm 46, I have been programming professionally for 21 years, and I still love it. I think we're lucky to be in such a creative and interesting profession where you get to learn lots (and it pays comparatively well too). I've written about the joy of programming in "Why I Love Coding" <http://henrikwarne.com/2012/06/02/why-i-love-coding/> ------ outside1234 40 year old here. The key to a long enjoyable career is making sure you really love 80% of the work you do in your role. You'll never enjoy 100% but if you find yourself only loving 20% of it then you need to examine what that 20% is and figure out how to make it at least 80%. I made a long (5 year) detour into management because "I was supposed to" and it took me 4.5 years to realize that I hated 80% of my job. That isn't to say management is "bad" but you need to understand what makes you tick and what doesn't and then find a role that matches that. Don't worry about the money - the money will find you if you love your job. ------ Swizec Man, I _hope_ I still get to program when I'm 50. This stuff is fun! That said, I sure hope it's not my day job by then. Programming is much more fun when you're just doing it for yourself than when you're solving other people's problems to extract money. Although even those projects can be made fun by making a valid business case about cool things to clients. ------ ryanlchan A bit of a false dichotomy here. Don't do the work because it's expected of you, because it's sexy, or because it's "interesting". Don't do it because your friends are impressed, because the pay's good, or because your friends are there. Do it because it enables you to do what you love. ~~~ 10098 What if suddenly, by the time you're 50, you find that you no longer love it, but it's the only thing you can do to put food on the table? ~~~ snogglethorpe Sure, but there's nothing particularly programming-specific about that situation. It can happen with _any_ profession, and I can't see that it's any more likely for programmers. [Personal note: I'm my late 40s, and have been a professional programmer my entire working life. I still love it, and can't think of anything else I'd rather do.] ------ mgkimsal "It's about trying to come up with a working solution in a problem domain that you don't fully understand and don't have time to understand." Hrm... it's like that for me, but it's not like that for others I know. Some people I know have worked in the same industry for several years and have a good grasp on the problem domains they address. That doesn't mean they know the solution to everything off the top of their head, but it does mean they'll likely have time to figure it out, as they're in that business for the long term, and have incentives to get it right vs 'fire and forget and move to the next project'. I'm in my 40s and have been programming, for 30 years. Initially as a hobby (obviously) but getting paid to do it, first part time, then full time, for about 20 years. I had this same conversation with an uncle last year - shouldn't I be doing something else (OK, not quite the same tone as the OP, but we had the discussion). I have skills that allow me to solve problems for people. Many people do as well, but with software, I do it with electrons, and can do it wherever and whenever I want. In contrast to many other types of work which dictate location, tools, timing, software work is incredibly flexible. But... more to the point, as more of the world continues to become software-based, the opportunities to offer my problem-solving skills to people increases at a rate few other industries/skills have enjoyed (or will continue to enjoy). Even if I switched focus to work in "company X" vs "company Y", my core ability will still be "problem solving with software" - I just don't see that changing for me over the next 20-30 years. The 'how' and 'who' may change, but probably not the 'what' so much. ------ donpark FYI, I am 50 and loving it still. More relevant question IMO is: are you doing what you enjoy doing? ------ Stratoscope I'm 60 and have been programming for 44 years. This year I'm working on election maps for Google. I still like learning new languages - this year it's PostgreSQL and PostGIS, Go, Autohotkey (a very strange language!), and now TypeScript (not quite a new language). One thing I get an odd pleasure out of is when other programmers use phrases and styles I came up with years ago. A recent example is the $ prefix on a JavaScript variable containing a jQuery object: // Set $test to a jQuery object and test to the DOM object var $test = $('#test'), test = $test[0]; I just saw someone explaining that on reddit last night and it gave me a smile. Much longer ago, I coined the phrase "fire an event" back in the 80's when I was designing the VBX interface for Visual Basic (then called Ruby). Alas, not all the names I coined for that project survived: VB Controls were originally called Gizmos, which I thought was a much more fun name. But still it's neat to see people talk about firing an event. ------ happywolf I have been programming for 10+ years professionally (not counting those 'Hello world' days in school), and I need to admit the OP hit the nail at its head. Yes, I still believe programming is fun, problem solving is fun, and solving a hardcore problem is fun. But putting all these in the context of a tight deadline, management who has no clue about technology, and changing requirements, I really am tired to pull the miracle off by working my ass off. A quick glance through the posts here reviews a lot of folks here have better luck and it is a good thing. To put things in perspective, I have been working in Asia Pac and now in China. Now I am in the business dev turf where a technical background is proven useful. ------ epo People are being very selective in what they are responding to. The final words are "But large scale, high stress coding? I may have to admit that's a young man's game." High stress coding is what companies can get away with when they hire kids fresh out of college, i.e. young, stupid and inexperienced. And before people throw a hissy fit about being called 'stupid', look back at 10 years ago and tell me you weren't stupid with regard to what you think is important _now_. No one is saying you can't (or shouldn't) code in your 50s or beyond, but the older you get the more particular you get about what you work on and what your working conditions are. ------ robomartin Programming, by itself, the mechanics of it, isn't something that I find stimulative enough to derive long-term enjoyment. I think the author is right in pointing out that there's an ugly side to programming that includes bugs, bad API's, bad tools, bad documentation, etc. This is what I have come to term "programmer on programmer violence". We certainly can't blame anyone else for these issues. This I don't enjoy. Not to single them out --because EVERYONE has these issues-- but you look at the bullshit you have to deal with when doing iOS programming and, yes, it can be down-right demoralizing. Horrible documentation, an IDE that looks more like an iTunes-styled toy than a professional development system, bugs, bugs!, no feedback, huge delays in fixing problems, etc. Again, this isn't just about Apple, as nearly every system I've worked on over the years has some kind of bullshit that you have to deal with, like it or not. This, I do not enjoy. That's why, when justified, I've always gone for projects where I can "own" all of the code. Two typical cases are FPGA-based projects where you start with a blank slate of sorts and develop it into a useful signal processing subsystem. Or, embedded systems where I've had the chance to roll my own RTOS from scratch. These projects are fun. And you don't have to deal with other people's bullshit, laziness, incompetence and technical baggage. These projects I really enjoy. The other side of this question is: If you didn't program, what would you do? I am an odd duck. I am equally at home designing multi-gigahertz digital circuits, programming embedded systems, FPGA signal processors, iOS apps, workstation apps, websites, doing mechanical design and even running a CNC shop. I've been lucky enough to have had the opportunity to learn tons of disciplines through hours-upon-hours of hard-work and dedication. I've enjoyed every minute of it. What I have not enjoyed --and I'll try not to get too political here-- is when your efforts are affected or even destroyed by external --political-- forces. I recently had to close down a beautiful electronics manufacturing operation that took me fifteen years to build. Typical story: Started in the garage. Worked my ass off. Learned a ton of stuff I didn't know. Worked some more. Grew it to a 15 employee company in a 10,000 square foot building with top- notch manufacturing equipment. That's the good side of the story. While I was busy doing this, fucking idiots, otherwise known as politicians, where busy meddling with free markets and passing laws and regs that would, ultimately, cause the economic implosion in 2008. My customers couldn't finance their purchases (this was B-to-B in a mostly leased-equipment environment) and orders went to zero or nearly zero instantly. There's a lot more to it, but that's the basics. At one point no option remained but to fire everyone and shut it down. How does this relate to the "Would you want to be doing this at 50?" question? Be careful about doing something or falling in love with something that external forces can seriously affect, damage or take away. For me I'll generalize and call this "manufacturing". No, I don't want to be in manufacturing any more. Not now, not when I am 50. It's a shit business in the US and, between our politicians and what's going on in China, it is getting destroyed a little more every day. Here's a case of having invested fifteen years of my life into something that the government destroyed. I did not destroy it. None of my actions caused the economic downturn. None of my employees or my customers caused it. It was government policy that allowed millions of people making $50K a year to buy $500,000 homes they could not afford. And so it went. The software industry, as fucked-up as it can feel from time to time, can have a lot more isolation from these issues. That's not to say that it isn't affected by economic ebbs and flows, it is. There's a fundamental difference between the nature of a software business and, say, a manufacturing business. At any given time I had to have one to two million dollars in inventory, tools and equipment (parts, assemblies, raw materials, manufacturing equipment, tools, infrastructure) in order to be a small manufacturer. And, when things go bad, this infrastructure is sitting there, right above your head, ready to squash you, ready to kill you off unceremoniously. It can happen almost literally overnight. Software is different in that infrastructure is minimal and there is no real inventory investment. You can do software from your bedroom and build a nice lifestyle business or million dollar venture. Most importantly, software is incredible in that you can pivot overnight. You can be doing children's educational apps one day and a real-time process monitoring system the next. This allows for great security and potential stability for years and years. This is a huge advantage and, yes, this is something that would be desirable to have in your life at fifty and beyond. ~~~ dexterchief Sorry to hear you had to fold up shop like that. It sounds like you have plenty of talents to fall back on but that probably doesn't remove any of the sting of having all your hard work swept away. That said, US Politicians have plenty of misdeeds to answer for, but over-regulating the financial sector is really not among them. The requirement to prove that you have some sort of income before getting a house loan was one of the things deregulation "fixed". It was bank policy not government policy that "allowed millions of people making $50K a year to buy $500,000 homes they could not afford". Check out Alan Greenspan's testimony before congress. Its easy to find on youtube. ~~~ giftedbygod LOL: and who guaranteed all these bad loans? Who guaranteed all the mortgages by the Law? The US Government and the FED. Are you really surprised that banks were approving nearly all mortgages when Government GUARANTEED they if house owner stops paying, the Government will buy the mortgage?! That's the very purpose for which Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac were created. To guarantee risky mortgages so even people who shouldn't get a house (lazy) would still get one. With the Government guarantee. The unintended consequence was (of course!) that banks started giving out loans to everyone. Look for Peter Schiff videos on youtube from 2005/06/07 when he talks about it and everybody laughs at him. ~~~ forensic The lesson is that you can't just ignore politics. You can't just leave politics to the politicians. The same people who bitch about the government typically refuse to take control of the government. Democracy is bullshit and it's time for technical and scientific people to create a Platonic state. The price good men pay for indifference to politics is having their businesses destroyed by evil men. What mystifies me is how all of these smart technologists and scientists refuse to use their intelligence to take over the state. People should have to pass science and math exams if they want to vote. It's that simple. ------ tremendo Fifty? Pfft, sure! I'm almost there, and yes, I want to continue… Now Sixty… I'll confess that my evil "plan" from many moons ago was to—by then—be able to balance this with my other loves, being outside and moving (not just my fingers). I suppose many professions suffer from the same disadvantage, but programming _is_ a slow killer. Eyes, joints, all that clot-inducing sitting, disrupted cicardian-rhythms, too easy to get trapped in bubbles disconnected from reality, you need to be extra-vigilant and pro-active if you care at all about your health and those that love or at least put up with you. ~~~ genbattle I definitely feel this. I'm only 24, but already I can feel the effects of being in a chair for 8-16 hours a day. It's sad that it is happening so quickly, but it has really made me realize how much I need to break the cycle and start thinking about this now, rather than just deferring it till _when I have time_. Also I deeply feel the mental bubble that forms around me when i'm programming. It makes it scarily easy to just start withdrawing from other people and the world around me. ------ noonespecial 30's here. I'm actually calling "still doing this when I'm 50" my best case scenario. It will mean the joy I take in making was able to outrun the creeping cynicism that seems to catch up with far too many people as they get older. _It's about getting derailed by hairline fractures in otherwise reliable tools, and apparently being the first person to discover..._ I actually live for these moments. When I google the error, in quotes, and get 0 responses. Its a total rush to know that I'm the first one there. Its even better when I figure out a decent fix and then light out across the forums to share my new-found knowledge. ------ lifeisstillgood The frustrations of this are less than frustrations of almost every other job I know. I hope to mitigate the frustrations by simplicity - the idea of a few great tools I know inside and out ~~~ lifebeyondfife The point is you have to be prepared to re-select the 'few great tools' you know every decade or so and invest time getting to know them inside out. That can get very tiring as you get older. ~~~ danso How is that different from any other job? Listen even to people in traditionally creative/uplifting jobs...including artists and teachers. It's depressing to hear how much of their time is struggling with data entry/Excel/why-wont-the-font-stay-the-same-size issues...time (and energy and angst) that is probably substantial over their career ~~~ lifebeyondfife Interesting. I remember an industry teacher once saying to me that "You'll probably never put '10 years experience in Technology X' on a CV." because by the time it's been around for that long it will be pretty much obsolete. The fundamentals of computer science won't change (big-O, synchronised distributed systems, logic etc.) so I suppose it will just come down to re-learning the modern day tech. But that's the same for lawyers (fundamental laws / processes unchanged, need to be up-to-date on modern rulings and changes), doctors (fundamental human physiology unchanged, need to be up-to-date on modern techniques and drugs) sales assistants (knowing how to greet and assist a member of the public never changes, need to know how to use the latest cash register / Square-up card reader terminal). I suppose you can't escape it in another industry. I still stand by my point that your skillset as you get older will make you more appropriate for other duties. ~~~ lifeisstillgood I think the skillset as we get older is knowing when to duck. It might be called wisdom, mentoring, what have you but basically, having been in situation X before, you can give sensible advice to someone just entering situation X. Monetising that is generally harder ~~~ Surio Reading through all the comments has reinforced my original comment that this kind of "bring it on" passion is heavily correlated to geo-location, culture, industry and day-to-day grind that one is put through. >> Monetising that is generally harder Tell me all about it! So, I've heard of elephant graveyards and jet graveyards... Now, where do all those grizzled, veteran (old) programmers go away (other than into management)? :) ~~~ lifeisstillgood we hang around on HN, moaning ------ donebizkit Finally an article that tells it like it is. A word to the commenters trying to disparage the author. I am sure wherever you live, in la la land, you wake up smiling, sipping your coffee, checking tech blogs, dev sites, spending couple of hours learning a new technology and then when you feel like it you write a single PHP page and call it a day. But let me tell you how the rest of us do it. You wake up with a headache because you spent last night dreaming about all the meetings you had the day before. You chug your coffee hoping the headache will go. You spend 15 minutes catching up on emails and if you are lucky 15 on reading tech blogs and then the misery begins. In 15 minutes increments you jump from coding project 1 to a meeting to fixing project 2 to a meeting to learning about the domain of project 3 ... And then some douchebag in a meeting says why don't we use technology X and spend many days learning about it to build something we could've coded in couple of hours. And then management says why don't we use technology Y because all the douchebags on the internet are talking about it. You try to make you case that we don't need any of that i.e. we don't need to use Hibernate for COUPLE of select/update/delete queries SQL is not that evil! and then even though most of the team agrees with you, no one has the guts to say it out loud. You return to you desk trying to remember the algorithm you were designing in your head but part of it is gone. You jump from JAVA to .NET to PHP to javascript to C++ to SQL to Hibernate to jquery to YUI to MVC to mapper to, to, to ... You go back home, do whatever nightly routine you do and call it a day. Sorry, passion is not the problem here. Software developer is a tough job and I know I can't do it when I am 50. ------ lukeholder I just turned 29 and this depressed me. ~~~ peterhost You'll see, turning 40 is even worse ;) ~~~ tonyedgecombe I'm nearly fifty and have found things get easier as you age. The things I used to worry about in my twenties just aren't on my radar now. ------ velebak I've been doing software development for a total of 16 years, with a stint as an IT manager for 5 additional. Did some side work here and there to keep skills sharp, but I recently got back into full-time development after I realized I like creating more than I like maintaining. I'll be 42 in November, and my experience gives me a guided path to understanding and solving problems, independent of technology, language or API. I don't need to chew through espresso and lattes until 2am, because I've gotten smarter over time. I can identify patterns and problems faster than I did 20 years ago. I work more efficiently and don't need to take a scatter- shot, unfocused approach to work. I don't disagree that software is a continual source of frustration to develop, but I think that's because we expect at some point to be super- experts for any problem domain. Yes, tools and frameworks change. Sometimes they suck. Sometimes they don't. If you don't love learning new things and investing yourself in continually keeping up to date, then you doom yourself to being miserable in this profession at any age. ------ grownseed I liked that article, it's a question I've asked myself numerous times. I love programming, been doing it for about 14 years now and I regularly find renewed interest. I think one point that's maybe not stressed out enough here is that the passion for the activity itself doesn't necessarily have to do with a passion for the job related to that activity. I very often do things at my work I honestly wish I didn't have to do, a lot of it is really, really numb. Consequently, sometimes I think I wouldn't want to do that for too long, but then I realize the problem is the job itself, not programming. There's also the question of whether I'll still be able to keep up with all the new stuff when I get older. I've often relied on the fact that I can adapt and learn things pretty quickly. Then I think back and it turns out that it's not so much a 'mechanical' problem, it's more of motivation problem. So I suppose as long as you can keep yourself motivated, you'll keep going. ------ rapind I think the key, just like any career, is to truly make an effort to reduce your cost of living (yes even with dependents, or what I like to call _barnacles_ ). This will help you get the stress under control and free you up to be a little pickier with the projects / products you work on and the people you work with. Still happily coding away @ 37 here. ------ Zigurd It really depends on what you mean by "programming." Following some dullard's waterfall plan to put sludge data in one server into a database of sludge on some other server would make anyone depressed. Writing books, consulting on multiple interesting projects, and being well- remunerated is a very rewarding way of making a living. Can't complain. ------ mark_l_watson I am 61, started programming in high school in the mid-1960s, still really enjoy it. But, that is the issue: enjoyment. The author of the article is not enjoying himself (apparently) so time to try something else. I enjoy the tech and helping people. My only frustration with my work comes when occasionally projects, for whatever reason, don't work out well. ------ eda I'm 51 and I've been programming since I was 21. I write code every day. I love what I do and I have never been more productive than I am now nor have I ever written better code than I am writing now. I write highly complex multi- threaded algorithmic code that operates on extremely large graphs (up to 3.5 billion nodes). I have no interest in getting into management. I did get "lucky" in that I was a member of the founding team of a publicly traded company and am now a technical co-founder and chief software architect of an up-and-coming engineering software startup. I've written 3 blog posts in career and, except for LinkedIn, I participate in no social media/networking. I've never posted on StackOverflow. Outside of my niche industry, I'm sure that no one has ever heard of me. And, that's exactly how I like it. Just my $0.02 ------ wbharding Whether I'm still programming when I'm 50 (currently 33, programming for about 20 years), will depend on whether I have the same appetite for being wrong that I do today. To constantly program, you have to constantly learn, and to constantly learn, you have to constantly be confronted with the fact that you're doing it wrong. Not using the right API, the right language, the latest technique, etc. The best programmers are the best learners. The author here doesn't seem to be particularly passionate about learning from his battles with Hard Problems. I don't blame him, because it's hard and painful to be in a constant battle. But for my part, I hope that I still have a taste for the pain of learning when I'm 50; the day I stop wanting to learn is the day I become bored & boring. ------ talmir I am at 29 and finally after years of wanting it I landed my first software developer job(Didnt have the uni degree needed, but now I do, hells yeah!). I know that I will be happy doing this until the day they pry the keyboard/neural-thought2ascii interface from my cold, dead hands/brain. ------ GnarfGnarf I'm 63, been programming since my student days in 1965. Programming is one of the greatest jobs in the World. I'd rather program than play golf. All my life I've been incredulous that they actually pay me to do this. (I'm not sedentary, I walk 3 km/day, 8 on week-ends). ------ xyzzy123 Yes. But not actually for technical reasons. I program to be a part of something, to participate in a vision or shared goal. I program because the experience of creating something is (currently) the major way that I have fun with people. If I'm working on a projects/products I care about I think I could easily do that for the rest of my life. At times, it's the enthusiasm of others which pushes me along, while I provide technical expertise / experience. Other times I will have a silly idea of the way the world should be, and I can use that to gather others around me and make their lives better. Programming at its best, for me, is vision enabling :) How could you ever grow out of that? ------ thedealmaker I think it is very important to understand the "real" differences in what it means to program vs. manage. In programming in most cases you are working on projects. Once you deliver the code that project is essentially over (minus support and bug fixing of course). In a management role many of the key activities never really conclude. For example, resource allocation overall and amongst various projects, is something depending on circumstance, you may have to revisit on a weekly or monthly basis. So you don't get the satisfaction of "delivering" anymore and items stay in your inbox much longer. This for me is the key difference. ------ agentultra Yes and I hope to continue programming well into my 60s and beyond if I will be so lucky. However I hope that by then I won't be working for a boss and stressing to meet deadlines. I hope that I will be conducting research and working with fellow hackers to seek out the next frontier of the future. While I think the present we live in now is full of wonders, I don't get a very gratifying sense that it's going to last. It seems more to me that we're finally able to apply the things we've spent enormous amounts of time and money learning over the last thirty years -- we're not out seeking the future so much as we're claiming a stake in the present. ------ mandeepj I think those who hate IT, programming are the one who does not understand the computer architecture, compilers, programming languages, protocols (http, tcp), OS, does not becomes friends with tools, never try to improve themselves. They don't know what is happening behind the scenes like how code gets compiled, how inter machine, inter process communication happens. How browsers work, what is the work involved when someone requests a web page from a server. How to debug issues? Effective debugging requires great knowledge of the components involved and creative thinking and above everything else lot of patience. ------ nathan_f77 I'm 23, so I have no idea, but I'm pretty sure that I will still love programming as much as I do now. I started as a kid, so it's a big part of me. However, a lot can change in 27 years. Programming is a huge passion of mine, but music and charity work can also steal all of my focus if I let them. I'm a Ruby on Rails specialist at the moment, and I absolutely love the framework and community. GitHub and rubygems are amazing. Google and Stack Overflow are like all-knowing genies. I'll go out on a limb and say that right now is the best time in history to be a developer, and tomorrow will be even better. ------ njharman I will always program, for myself, solving my problems, exploring my interests. I doubt I will always program for someone else, solving their problems. I'm sure I'll do it for another 8yrs at least. Which will put me at 50. ------ nprasanna87 After being inspired by a Team Lead in my office, 2 years into my career as a software engineer, I chose to focus all of my efforts onto Programming. The main reason it seemed attractive than any other option was that I liked the feeling of having found a solution to a seemingly hard puzzle or a challenge. The small victories. But of course now the reasons include the prospect of creating something of value for which I could get paid passively. Thanks to hacker news! And yes, I like it and don't see myself doing any other thing that programming! ------ kabdib I'm 51, and having a blast. I'm still learning. I'm an ACM member and read at least a paper a week from one of the journals. I keep trying to improve my skills. (A couple months ago I realized I hadn't done much work with trees in a few years, so I spent a week going through tree balancing algorithms from several books. It was fun). Hardest thing: Having to learn new stuff that isn't designed right. I'm going through a fair amount of that now. Having to move in with a large, not very well designed system and make serious additions to it is . . . irritating. ------ ww520 Yes, I do plan to be doing this when I will be 50 or 60 or whenever. There's always something new coming up, new platforms, new hardware, new languages, new tools, new problem areas. For example, I've just learned a new vision algorithm that came up couple year ago that makes one of the vision problems solvable with modern hardware, that opens up the possibility to build solutions for this kind of problem. We are slowly but surely automating life with software, and we developers are in the middle of it. Why stop just because you've aged? ------ rbanffy If I can still build planes in the sky and herd cats when I'm 50, I'll be happy. I've been building planes for my first 20 years and herding cats for the rest of my career and there is probably nothing in the world I'd be happier doing. Note: those may be obscure references for some. <http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y7XW-mewUm8> and <http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=m_MaJDK3VNE> should help. ------ laichzeit0 No. I'd like to be retired before 50. I'll probably still code when I retire, but it will be in something like Mathematica or R while I sit around learning subjects that interest me. ------ gexla Taken to extremes - if it's not worth doing at 20 then it's not worth doing at 50. If you feel that you don't want to be doing this at 50 then you should probably get out as soon as possible. He also mentions something to the effect of not being able to take the time to completely understand everything. But the problem is, it doesn't matter if you are being paid or not. Your lifetime will always be a constraint. You will never completely understand everything you are working with. ------ pre Yes, course I still wanna be coding when I'm fifty in a decade's time. If I was rich enough to not need a job I'd be hacking on my homepage. I just hope my wrists hold out that long. ------ scrozier 54, programming for 34 years. Numerous adventures in entrepreneurship, one of them successful. Came back to programming in the last few years because it's the most satisfying work for me. Making stuff that amazes people and makes their lives better is totally rewarding for me. Nothing wrong with being a craftsman, using your intellect, and making others happy. In some ways, pursuing the elusive "big win" seems a little shallow by comparison. ------ theoa 65 and coding harder than ever. All the things I have wanted to do for years are now becoming easy. It's not that I am getting any smarter. There are so many new tools and so many new techniques with thoughtful discussion to back them up, that creating cool new stuff is becoming a piece of cake. My world is all about 3D. WebGL and libraries like Three.js are breakthrough tools. Stuff that would have taken weeks to code gets dashed off in hours. I would not stop coding even if you paid me to stop. It's way too much fun right now! ------ akadien I want to do exactly what I'm doing now in seven years. Like several stories, I drifted out of programming and into various management roles over the past few years. I'm super-fortunate to be out of Excel and Word and back into a command-line and VIM. As a side note, I work with a well-known researcher/developer in his 70's, and it's like working with Yoda. There is so much to learn from him. ------ tmerr I enjoy it now and that's the best prediction of the future I could hope for. It would be silly to worry about something so unpredictable! ------ dumb-dumb I think this is the reason VC need kids to build hyped contraptions of unneeded but usefully obfuscating complexity that can be pitched to investors as "the next big thing". Adults would just skip the hype, the faux productivity, and do things efficiently in the simplest way possible. Case in point: the author's small image composition program built using C and Erlang. ------ ef4 No matter what you do, you should absolutely be asking yourself "do I want to still be doing this in N years?". It isn't just a matter of trying to have a fulfilling life -- it's a matter of survival. People who don't look up once in a while and consider their larger place are the people who get steamrolled when a new technology kills their entire industry. ------ 6ren > ... a problem domain you don't fully understand and don't have time to understand. One resolution is to create products that address problems. Then, you can justify time in understanding and improving, because it's amortised over many users. Of course there's still pressures, and technology still moves, but it's not cut and paste and pray. ~~~ cmdkeen Or go and work in that industry. I work in finance and the office has plenty of older programmers who have been trained in the theory of what they're working on. Being a good software engineer still puts you in a large group. Being a good software engineer with good domain specific knowledge instantly puts you in a much smaller group. It can also be much more satisfying work. And an awful lot more secure (depending on the firm) compared to starting out on your own. Trying to be a rockstar competing on your coding merits alone is going to be damn hard to keep going for 30+ years. ------ danso I want to be programming, but in the line of non-professional software development, whether it's making open-source tools or to advance the processes of a cause/organization/business that I support, on my own terms. I've been lucky that I haven't had to go into a purely software dev job at a company... ------ unsigner Game development in a fairly NIH-ish studio can be very close to the good scenario: very little API wrangling, very little red tape, the "client" (game designers and artists) are in the next room and generally reasonable. I'm not terrified by the idea of doing this 15 years from now, aka when I'm 50. ------ henrik_w From codinghorror, on the subject of working as a programmer "Programming: Love It or Leave It" [http://www.codinghorror.com/blog/2008/12/programming- love-it...](http://www.codinghorror.com/blog/2008/12/programming-love-it-or- leave-it.html) ------ sentinel Yes. Maybe not exactly the same thing (because as the author mentions, technology is an ever-changing field), but it's very interesting to see and adapt to that change as it is happening. Especially now when the tech sector is at the core of everything around us. ------ tharris0101 I think it depends on WHAT you're programming at 50. Anyway, my philosophy is that I want to be defined by what I'm doing away from my job/career. It is extremely depressing to me to think that my career will be my driving force through most of my life. ------ bryanwb I really started programming at 30. Prior to that I spend 5 years managing medium-sized groups of IT staff (telephone, wan/lan,satellite). Managing the IT groups was a billion times more stressful. Programming is so much more fun and rewarding. ------ nydev I will still enjoy programming at 50 and will still want to it for money. But will the ageism in this industry permit that to happen? It feels like the tech culture must change to accept that there are good programmers who aren't in their 20s. ------ anil_mamede If you look for achievement in programming field you have to plan it for a long term in specific area. Unfortunately many programmers turn to be jack of all trades, working in many things at the same time and without a long term purpose. ------ michaelwww \- But large scale, high stress coding? I may have to admit that's a young man's game. This statement verges on ageism, which I forgive you for because it is common in the tech industry. Ask Rob Pike (b.1956) if high impact programming is for young men. ------ lambda So, what do you do instead? As someone whose only job has ever been programming, what else is worth moving to that pays about as well, has similar job prospects, and is suited to the type of person who is drawn to programming? ------ stantonk If that's been your experience of programming either: 1\. You're doing it wrong. 2\. You work for some sort of agency / programmer- for-hire outfit where you never work on the same project for longer than a few weeks or months. ------ Joss451 I've been programming for 37 years. Programming is learning and learning makes me happy. I don't hunt, fish, play golf, chase women or drink in bars. I learn. I discover. This vocation is perfect for me. ------ bbunix I had to reply... more than a comment, an entire blog post :) <http://blog.maclawran.ca/hell-yeah-hacking-at-50> ------ azakai > But large scale, high stress coding? I may have to admit that's a young > man's game. Was there a reason to use "man" instead of "person" here? Being a man doesn't seem important to the article. ------ EwanToo Yes, because I can't guess what the world will be like in 20 years time, but I am 100% certain that I'll want to be working with the insanely powerful computers that we have then. ------ b4c0n Reading the mostly positive replies of "Yes, I definitely want to keep doing this well past 50!" gives me manly tears of happiness. ------ Craigangus Yes, maybe I do! Just need to make the sure you end up being an ageing Rockstar programmer rather than retired Lounge singer ------ daven11 50 next month, and yes :-), and do cutting edge development still. I'm worried I wont be able to do it when I'm 70 ------ dragondilesh Hell yes! Im only 20 and if I can program/code/solve problems for the rest of my life, I know i'll be content until I die. ------ wglb I'm not gonna say by how much, but I passed that mark some time ago. So the answer is emphatically yes. ------ lrobb Would you ask that of a lawyer or an accountant.... Or even a civil engineer? ------ nsxwolf It would be nice to have that kind of job security. ------ droope FUCK YES!!!!! of course I do ------ genbattle I'm literally going through this at the moment. I'm currently 24. I do still love programming, and I'd like to think i'm pretty damn good at it. But do I want to be doing it as a job in 30 years time? I'm not so sure anymore. I've been through one software job at the very loose-and-fast end of software development, but the pace (and a huge amount of overtime) burnt me out. I got to the stage where I couldn't get myself out of bed to go to work the next day. Over time I recovered somewhat, but I just wasn't enthusiastic about the work anymore. My current job is at the complete opposite end of the spectrum. Medical software development is very slow, conservative, and methodical. To be honest I can see why most of the companies in this industry are at the thousands-to- tens-of-thousands scale; you literally need that critical mass in terms of staffing to deal with all of the overhead associated with a medical product. Reports, standards, committees, meetings, audits. And yet this company is doing it with less than 10 people. It's really feel-good work, but it is really easy to get bogged down in the day-do-day drudgery and overhead, to the point where you completely miss the big picture of helping save peoples' lives. Do I want to be doing this when i'm 50? I don't think so. In general in software development there's a couple of things that I've realized you have to work really hard at to have as a software developer. I've also discovered that both of these are much more important to me than I used to think: \-- Physical health and fitness: if you're sitting statically in a chair for 8-16 hours a day you have to really watch your diet and make continuous conscious efforts to exercise at every opportunity: it's going to catch up with you eventually (especially by the time you get to that 50 mark). \-- Varied and changing environments: both of my parents have "desk jobs", but both have extensive trips out of the office to visit customers or other sites. As a programmer I don't get this variety (the spice of life), so it's very easy to get bogged down and forget the big picture. I think this also leads to getting stuck in mental and emotional loops, due to a lack of external stimulus (kind of like what people who work from home report). Nothing prepares you for actually being in a 9-5 programming job. At university it was obvious that there were people who were able to pass tests well enough, but would obviously struggle to code their way out of a paper bag. What about the people like myself, who are competent and practical, but are not prepared mentally to handle the rigors of 9-5 programming? Maybe that's why there is a shortage of labour in this sector: not only are we struggling to find people who are excited about programming and skilled at it, but we also struggle to find people who can handle working in these commercial scenarios? There are also a number of companies that aren't like the examples above, especially in SV. But the problem with that is that not all of us are, or want to be, in Silicon Valley. Could I start my own company? Maybe, but that's not where my competencies or passions lie, at least currently. Some deep thought is required about where exactly I will go next, given the time and effort I've invested up till this point into electronics, computers and programming. ------ michaelochurch I enjoy programming and would like to be doing it at 50, but with regard to the software industry itself... not in its current state. If you want to be able to survive more than 10 years in the software industry, you need to get manager-level clout and full autonomy over your work. That's non-negotiable. This industry destroys you if you don't have those things. The terrifying thing about the software industry is that if you don't continue to get good work, you decline pretty quickly. Also, I honestly think 90% of what makes some engineers great and most not (once filtering for natural talent has taken place) is past experience: you need a continual stream of high-quality work to become and remain decent at this job, and the good stuff is rare. The actual work of programming can be a lot better (more interesting, more rewarding) than anything that managers do. The hard part is figuring out a way to be a full-time engineer but retain manager-level clout. Many engineers think that actually becoming managers will give them what they need to enjoy engineering again, but the problem is that this strategy doesn't work. If you're a manager and your reports figure out that you're taking all the interesting work for yourself and throwing them the scraps, they'll get pissed off and either underperform or leave. ~~~ joshyeager There is another option: find a really good manager who is able and willing to give you what you need, make sure they understand your value, and stay with them. I don't really know _how_ to do that, I just got lucky. I moved into management myself about five years ago (still working for the same guy), and I'm trying to be the same kind of manager for the people who work for me. ~~~ michaelochurch I like that idea as well, but the problem is that your manager will, over the long term, change. Most people have no insurance against some person they've never met being hired above them. You need enough independent credibility to protect yourself against that. You have 5 years of managerial experience, so you probably have enough work experience that any job move would be a likely promotion, so your company has incentives not to treat you badly. I used to think the software industry was about programming: writing great code to solve hard problems. It's not. It's about credibility and technical risk. The software industry is 90% industry and only 10% software. Most of your time will be spent convincing people to allow you to do useful stuff, not actually doing useful stuff. The ironic thing is that, as software jobs increasingly slide toward looking more like widget-making and less like research, programmers become a lot less effective. Valve established that open allocation works. ([http://michaelochurch.wordpress.com/2012/09/03/tech- companie...](http://michaelochurch.wordpress.com/2012/09/03/tech-companies- open-allocation-is-your-only-real-option/)) Every other software shop has proven that the alternative (still more popular) doesn't. The Death of R&D, I think, will be looked upon as the "conscious" decision (of course, large groups such as nations do nothing "consciously"; it's a historian's metaphor) of the United States to go from a world leader to third- rate in a few decades. ~~~ joshyeager Most of my experience has been in product-focused teams, so there is a good mixture of R&D and polish work. The company as a whole has to spend time convincing customers that our product is useful, but the development team is able to focus on actually making a useful product. I can see how what you're saying could be a much bigger problem in a project- focused organization (or if you're working on a product that isn't actually useful). So maybe my advice is twofold: "find a good manager and stay with them, and work for a company that values software for its long-term potential." ~~~ prodigal_erik My version of "values software" is that it be mission-critical. If it breaks, we're going to be chatting at 2 AM and testing a patch at 3, because we'd lose vast sums of money or customers by waiting until after breakfast. I met my favorite manager turning around a shop like this. Most software is utter garbage because everyone knows better than to actually rely on it and nothing bad happens to incompetent people maintaining it. ~~~ slurgfest Just making heads roll is not going to magically improve software. You can keep firing your teams but if there are other issues like unrealistic deadlines, bad process you are going to get bad output even from good people; all firing will achieve is churn. ~~~ prodigal_erik I don't necessarily mean firing people (though there are some who really aren't good fits for this work). I mean I see better work from people who literally lose sleep over bugs, rather than merely shrugging. ------ andyl I was a manager in the dot-com era, made good money then took a decade off to climb mountains and raise my kids. Now approaching 50, I've taken up programming and just loving it. Today's tools are incredible - I can do myself what used to take a whole team and literally millions of dollars. Ruby/Rails/Sinatra/Rspec/Postgres/Backbone/Coffeescript/Erlang/Elixir/Chef/etc/etc - we are blessed. Creating with my own hands and having a direct relationship with my customers is so much better than hassling with investors, attorneys, employees etc. I hope to do this the rest of my life. ------ bravoyankee _It's about skimming great oceans of APIs that you could spend years studying and learning, but the market will have moved on by then and that's no fun anyway, so you cut and paste from examples and manage to get by without a full picture of the architecture supporting your app._ Well stated. Man, do I feel like that. But I think this is a universal problem now. Information is freely available, and there's so much of it. An endless buffet, and it doesn't matter what field you get in to. ~~~ lifebeyondfife It's not so much the field but rather your role within it. Someone with many years experience as a programmer working within a specific industry might have the experience necessary to make sound, informed technology decisions. Not saying that would be an easy job or not stressful but it's a better use of that persons skills and experience. ------ pyrotechnick Yes I do but we'll all be writing genomes by then.	{ "pile_set_name": "HackerNews" }
Apple: We’re responsible for over 500,000 American jobs - GBond http://www.washingtonpost.com/business/technology/apple-were-responsible-for-over-500000-american-jobs/2012/03/02/gIQAnRaEnR_story.html ====== davewicket Please stop posting this to HN.	{ "pile_set_name": "HackerNews" }
Ethics, Morals, and the Law: Where do you draw the line at what to develop? - DanielBMarkham http://www.whattofix.com/blog/archives/2007/10/wheres_the_line.php ====== gibsonf1 I enjoyed the post until we hit Kant. This "imperative": "Act only according to that maxim whereby you can at the same time will that it should become a universal law." is the kind of idea that makes it "rational" to go out and kill all the Jews as the Nazi's so aptly demonstrated. They felt that the elimination of Jews should become a universal law. Note that this is a very different idea than: act only as you would want others to act towards you. It is rather: act only in a way that you think all others should act. A very different story, and a complete void as to the defining of "should". Kant was not only confusing to himself and others, but his ideas were "dangerous" to the extent that ideas can be when used to justify actions. ~~~ amalcon This is a misapplication of the categorical imperative. Of course, I suspect that you knew that; it's only a naive viewpoint that would cause someone to miss that. The correct "universal law" to use in this case, would be "Eliminating people who you find problematic." It would take a truly insane person to actually want this as a universal law. Tying the rule to any specific group of people makes it not universal. Of course, if someone only understands "philosophy-lite," it becomes an easy thing to mix up. ~~~ fauigerzigerk You say "the correct 'universal law' to use...". I think this shows very well why Kant's imperative is so useless. It simply replaces judgement on the original question with judgement on the right way to generalise it. ~~~ olavk It's a lot more useful than eg. "Don't be evil". No, it does not free you from having to use your judgment. But no philosophy or religion will do that for you. ~~~ fauigerzigerk Nothing frees us from judgement of course. But science is about giving us tools to make better judgements. I don't see how Kant's imperative does that. ------ brl My personal ethics would prevent me from developing surveillance tools, anything which is mostly military in nature, or any kind of video game which requires a heavy investment of time. ~~~ idea What games do you consider to _require_ a heavy investment of time? A Korean who was obsessed with Starcraft died after playing too long. Do you believe Blizzard is somehow responsible? ~~~ brl I'm mostly thinking about the type of online role playing games which people throw their lives away on, but I would consider Starcraft to be a borderline case. I do believe in general that people are responsible for the consequences they create even if they could not have possibly predicted them. I certainly don't think that Blizzard should be punished for the death of that man. I would only hope that when they heard the news that as individuals they stopped and spent a couple of quiet minutes asking themselves if what they are doing contributes to improving human society or not. ~~~ rms Have you considered the alternative that for many people, online games like World of Warcraft are truly better than real life? ~~~ brl If WoW is better than real life for so many people maybe that's because there are some severe and imminent problems to solve in this world. The last thing we need right now is for everybody to be drugged out on video games.	{ "pile_set_name": "HackerNews" }
Faster-Than-Light Neutrino Puzzle Claimed Solved by Special Relativity - dhimes http://www.technologyreview.com/blog/arxiv/27260/ ====== thegrossman This is an almost trivial application of special relativity. It was be absolutely shocking if the dozens of scientists involves in the neutrino experiment didn't take this into account. ~~~ gruen In 1999, NASA lost a $300MM Mars probe due to a metric/imperial conversion oversight. Shocking, yes; unheard of, no. ~~~ Eliezer But then they found the error afterward. These physicists _were_ looking for an error, hard. ------ DanielBMarkham Okay. This should be an easy one but somehow I'm getting stumped. I understand the difference in frames between the GPS satellites and the ground, but the sats themselves are fixed to each other, right? And the ground stations are also fixed to each other. Each pair is in a separate frame. But the measurement was on the ground, and the ground stations are not accelerating relative to each other, not from the satellites. So is this saying that the ground stations set their clocks initially wrong because of their relative movement to the satellites? If so, wouldn't this be proven out by comparing the neutrinos time to the time of a photon? ~~~ InclinedPlane I haven't read the article yet. However, the ground stations are deeper in the Earth's gravity well than the satellites. That is equivalent to acceleration in relativity. ~~~ lutorm That's negligible. ~~~ hebejebelus When it comes to 60 nanoseconds, I'm not sure anything is negligible. ~~~ VladRussian The GR effects here is on the scale of 1e-15s, i.e. several orders of magnitude less than observed 6e-8s. 7 orders of magnitude is "negligible" as GP correctly stated. ~~~ mrb Actually gravitational time dilation on Earth's surface is on the order of 1e-9. But still negligible. ~~~ VladRussian >Actually gravitational time dilation on Earth's surface is on the order of 1e-9. But still negligible. it is compare to zero gravitation far from Earth. The effect i'm talking about is integral of gravitational dilation change along the path of neutrinos. This path is a chord under Earth surface - the 350 km down to 10km depth and the next 350km bringing back to surface. The dilation change is about 1e-16 per meter of depth. ------ kiwidrew But the GPS satellites and receivers already correct for these relativistic effects. Specifically: "The engineers who designed the GPS system included these relativistic effects when they designed and deployed the system. ... Further, each GPS receiver has built into it a microcomputer that (among other things) performs the necessary relativistic calculations when determining the user's location." [1] [1] [http://www.astronomy.ohio- state.edu/~pogge/Ast162/Unit5/gps....](http://www.astronomy.ohio- state.edu/~pogge/Ast162/Unit5/gps.html) ~~~ thegrossman Relativistic effects are only taken into account when determining the position of the satellite itself, and the rate of it's clock. It can't compensate for the effect in the linked-to article (namely, the fact that the distance and flight time between the neutrino source and destination is shorter according to the satellite, versus an observer on the ground) because that effect depends on the specifics of the experiment. Consider this: If you flipped the location of the neutrino source and destination, you'd actually get the reverse effect (neutrinos would appear to be going slower than light). So it's up to observers on the ground to compensate for relativistic effects of this nature. (As I mentioned in another comment, I would be shocked if they didn't already do that) ~~~ pbhjpbhj As I understand it, and I've only read the original OPERA experiment paper, they use the GPS signal to sync some caesium clocks (I'm assuming they're caesium based on their name CS-something) and that they've done a comparison by physically moving the clocks to check the synchronisation. The paper is pretty involved on the points of the GPS sync though so I could have misread that. I was impressed that they allow for continental drift in their analysis and indeed that they were apparently able to detect the crusts movement by an Earthquake with the apparatus. > _Consider this: If you flipped the location of the neutrino source and > destination, you'd actually get the reverse effect (neutrinos would appear > to be going slower than light)._ // Flipped WRT what? They've run the experiment at differing times of the day when the experiment is effectively flipped WRT the _helios_. They also present a tentative energy relationship with the apparent superluminal speed which wouldn't, it seems, be accounted for by a simple relativistic [time-shift] systematic uncertainty. ~~~ cube13 >Flipped WRT what? They've run the experiment at differing times of the day when the experiment is effectively flipped WRT the helios. It's "flipped" only with respect to the center of the earth. Since this isn't a point of measurement(the satellites are the ones effectively holding the stopwatch), it's not really worth taking into account. If the neutrino stream was going west->east(i.e. with the satellites) rather than east->west, the receiving station would appear to be moving away from the starting point of the neutrino stream. That would effectively decrease the speed of neutrinos. ------ martincmartin If true, this just goes to show how many effects you need to take into account when dealing with numbers that are 2 thousands of a percent. Effects that can normally be ignored because they're in the noise, turn out to be in the signal instead. ------ jasondavies Link to arXiv paper: <http://arxiv.org/abs/1110.2685> ~~~ qntm I've never seen "photon" spelled with an F before. ~~~ themgt I think English isn't the author's first language: _The authors of the OPERA paper [5] seem to include a correction for the Lorentz transformations, but they not correct for the change in scenario. And because they project back the time of provided by the moving clock to the baseline they seem to incorrectly assume that the outcome of their experiment should be equivalent to that using a clock in the baseline reference system_ ~~~ eldina Still a little odd, as the Dutch are generally considered to be the best non- native speakers of English in Europe. ~~~ mauro_oto Foton is spanish for Photon, I guess it's the same way in Dutch. (It is) ~~~ mladenkovacevic I'd imagine Photon is spelt Foton in pretty much any phonetic language in the world (or as they would say fonetic lol) ~~~ kachnuv_ocasek You mean _fonetik_? ~~~ mladenkovacevic Haha yes, pardon me. ------ daimyoyo Until the faster than light result can be recreated in an independent experiment, I am treating this like cold fusion. Neat result and absolutely deserving of further investigation, but not definitive. ~~~ Jach I don't really get why you're being downvoted to oblivion, that's a great stance to take on science in general. So much media buzz is made over n=1 things; you can cut out a lot from your information diet by ignoring things until they get replication. If special relativity is wrong, we'll find out in due course, and the current counter-evidence against special relativity is hardly a dent compared to the massive evidence in favor (both theoretical and experimental). Just a few days ago I discovered this paper: <http://arxiv.org/abs/1005.4172> They assert Events as the only fundamental object, not space, not time. Then: "by asserting that some events have the potential to be influenced by other events, but that this potential is not reciprocal, we can describe the set of all events as a partially ordered set or poset, which is typically known as a causal set" and from there they derive Special Relativity. ~~~ jholman Actually, while I fundamentally agree with the "ignoring things until they get replication" proposal, I think there's an impracticality there, due to the way information dissemination works. There will be no flurry of HN links about this when someone replicates it (even assuming, for the sake of argument, that neutrinos really can be fired FTL, all of current physics is wrong, etc etc). Maybe a single link. It just won't have the network effect; too much of the collective audience's interest has already been consumed. And there'll definitely be no HN links when the third and fourth teams replicate it. Even if that's a wrong claim for this hypothetical result about relativity, consider yesterday's "forced exercise and Parkinson's" link ( <http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3106799> ). That result is _completely_ immature (the rat experiments tested something very different from the human experiments, there has only been one human experiment, the causal story is all conjecture, etc), and there's no _way_ we're gonna hear about it when it's usefully mature (i.e. after ten more studies). (Epistemologically, I think the current result is not far removed from alternative medicine - there's some evidence, but no elegant pattern of evidence across multiple contexts, and no rigorous-but-failed attempts at falsification.) It's an interesting subject, and an interesting research programme, and I want to know about things like this, but it's too early to take this into account when making lifestyle tradeoffs. So it seems to me that my choices are kind of ugly: I can read a LOT of cutting-edge stuff, and read all the follow-ups, knowing that most of the ground-shakers won't actually pan out. Or I can wait 20 or 50 or more years until it starts showing up in undergraduate textbooks. Or... I don't know, there must be other options, but I don't know what they are. Another option is reading Malcolm Gladwell et al, which I think is generally viewed with a certain exasperation by the genuinely knowledgeable? Is there a blog or magazine or whatever, that popularizes science, with this slightly delayed view? "Exciting science news from 10 years ago, complete with a decade of 20/20 hindsight!" ~~~ 0x12 You're on to something here. One of my favorite subjects is 'what happened to 'x'' where 'x' is some discovery or bit of news some time down the line. Most people don't even remember 'x' when asked about it until you jog their memory a bit, I can't seem to help remembering all those things. So, how did that story with the solar panels made from hair pan out? It was pretty solidly debunked here on HN (as it rightly should have been), but what interests me is what happened to the major players in that episode, if they're still making solar panels from hair or if they came to terms with their error and documented that and published it to negate some of the damage done. ------ zb This paper: <http://tycho.usno.navy.mil/ptti/1996/Vol%2028_16.pdf> states that "the time rate is appropriate to observers on the surface of the rotating earth, that is, in the ECEF". I'm interpreting that to mean that the issue raised in the OP is not correct, but I am by no means an expert in relativity. Interestingly, the paper also states ('Missing Relativity Terms?', pp. 195-197) that there has been confusion in the past caused by people thinking the time is measured in the ECI frame. It shows that the uncorrected-for relativistic effects have an error on the order of only 2-3mm for a stationary observer on the earth's surface (the same is _not_ true for e.g. other satellites). 'In short, there are no "missing relativity terms."' ------ alain94040 Wouldn't an obvious test involve sending something else than neutrinos through the same path, and measure that they are slower? ~~~ sp332 The path goes through the earth, so they can't send things on the same path. The detector is far underground to protect it from interference. ------ ck2 Why don't they have synchronized atomic clocks on the ground? ~~~ perlgeek They do, and they used a mobile atomic clock to compare the times. The problem is that both locations are in different, accelerated frames of reference, so reasoning about time in those frames of reference can become non-trivial. ~~~ quijote Apparently they didn't use a mobile atomic clock but a mobile gps clock to compare the times: <http://operaweb.lngs.infn.it/Opera/publicnotes/note134.pdf> So it appears they synchronized both timing sources with an orbiting clock, and the critique from this dutch guy seemingly stands. ------ macaroni could someone please explain this, i wish i could say i get it, but i am so confused. i don't understand, are they not using gps just to synchronize the clocks on both ends? what does it matter if in orbit the distance seems shorter or longer if observed (viewed) from the satellites (is this what they are saying?)? ~~~ podperson Let's suppose you're trying to time a 100 yard dash based on sound. Someone fires a gun, the race starts, and when the first runner crosses the finish line another gun is fired, you determine the elapsed time. There are obvious things to correct for -- e.g. if you're standing at the finish line the sound from the finish line will take 1/3 of a second (roughly) to get to you, so you need to adjust your calculation. Now suppose that you are standing off on a barge during the race. You know the distance to the start and finish lines but ignored the drift of the barge because you figured it was insignificant. We're talking 60 nanoseconds. The satellites are moving at tens of thousands of miles an hour. ~~~ podperson "the sound from the _start_ line" :-) ------ martinkallstrom And Einstein snickers high up in the heavens, his hair as white and woolly as the cloud upon which he partakes his afternoon slumbers. ~~~ martinkallstrom "Fools", he mutters under his breath, "Neutrinos flying faster than light... I pity your indolence." With wiry fingers he taps his pipe on his knuckles, flinging burnt tobacco beyond the edges of the cloud. "Ah well," he sighs, connecting his iPhone to his Macbook Air, "time to install iOS 5. I bet those servers are not running as red hot any longer". ------ crizCraig What's the general consensus on whether or not this was actually debunked? <http://www.wepolls.com/p/3873491>	{ "pile_set_name": "HackerNews" }
After Travis Kalanick’s Resignation, Will Uber Really Change? - hluska http://www.newyorker.com/tech/elements/after-travis-kalanicks-resignation-will-uber-really-change ====== thevardanian Maybe Kalanick wants to manufacture a return story. ~~~ iamdave I was thinking about this last night after listening (paradoxically) to a podcast from ESPN about Phil Jackson and Steve Jobs. This was The Dan Le Batard podcast from Thursday and they talked about return stories. Dan posited the line from The Dark Knight "you either die a hero or live long enough to see yourself become the villain" and asked if Phil Jackson had become the villain (the context here is Phil jackson's problems with the New York Knicks and the conversation around how unlikeable he's become to fans of NBA basketball compared to his status first at the head coach of the Jordan area Chicago Bulls and early career Kobe Bryant era Lakers) Producer Mike Ryan then brings up Steve Jobs and his exit from Next and eventual return to Apple. That's what got me thinking, would it even be possible in today's hyperspeed/"always on" media world for Kalanick to return or even foist the conditions for a return to Uber or whatever Uber becomes the way Steve Jobs did with Next and eventually Apple? ~~~ mc32 I think it's possible if Uber bumbles along for a while. Jack returned to Twitter --under way different circumstances, but still, I don't think it's inconceivable that if Uber goes south enough, even investors who pushed him out might have a change of heart. ~~~ iamdave Allow me to take the easy answers off the table and ask you to remove the scandals ongoing and ask: what would it take for Uber to go under enough for those conditions to take place as you put them? I ask as a person who lives in a town that watched both Uber and Lyft leave in protest of local regulations, watched those same companies lobby my legislature for laws that effectively neutered municipal code, watched Uber and a Lyft return operations, and is watching competitors that sprung up in the vacuum quickly die. With Truckload of chagrin. It's a very strange but fascinating thing to watch at the local level so I'm always curious to hear how others look at the behemoth. ~~~ mc32 Thinking off the top of my head I would say a conservative leadership which would allow a challenger to gain an upper hand and render Uber a flagging company. I think that scenario is possible if the management devote too much of their energy on overcorrecting internal matters.	{ "pile_set_name": "HackerNews" }
How SQLite Is Tested - deegles http://www.sqlite.org/testing.html ====== voltagex_ Previous discussions: [https://hn.algolia.com/?query=http:%2F%2Fwww.sqlite.org%2Fte...](https://hn.algolia.com/?query=http:%2F%2Fwww.sqlite.org%2Ftesting.html&sort=byPopularity&prefix&page=0&dateRange=all&type=story) ------ antonios This post is the most reliable karma generator I've seen on HN. ------ a3_nm It's interesting that, even though sqlite is free software (it is even public domain), some of the tests are proprietary: [https://www.sqlite.org/th3.html](https://www.sqlite.org/th3.html). I wonder what's the goal of this... ~~~ acqq How about the goal of allowing the author to actually earn something? ~~~ hueving And how exactly would the author do that? ~~~ acqq The author is selling the support to the companies that can request some changes. Having the best tests, he can claim that the modifications he introduces are "production ready" and charge for that too. Others can just say "we changed something and it works maybe." Just writing the code is significantly easier than having it verified and tested. See specifically: [http://www.sqlite.org/th3.html](http://www.sqlite.org/th3.html) "SQLite itself is in the public domain and can be used for any purpose. But TH3 is proprietary and requires a license. Members of the SQLite Consortium get free and unlimited access to TH3. Others can contact the SQLite developers for information on how to obtain a license to access and use TH3." ------ michaelmcmillan Does anyone know how long time it takes to run these tests? ~~~ SQLite The minimum set of tests needed to provide 100% branch coverage takes about 3 minutes on a fast machine. To run all of the tests under various compile-time options and on all supported platforms usually takes two to three days, assuming everything works. A full-up automated test on just Linux x64 takes about 18 hours. ~~~ delinka Does this include the tests that run on other database servers? ~~~ SQLite The sqllogictest suite ([https://www.sqlite.org/sqllogictest](https://www.sqlite.org/sqllogictest)) only has to be run on all the various servers when the tests themselves change, in order to validate the tests. Otherwise, those tests only need to be run on the system under test, since the tests themselves contain the correct answer to check against. The sqllogictest suite takes about 15 minutes to run three times against SQLite (once with all optimizations turned on, and twice more with various optimizations turned off) on a fast machine. ------ NelsonMinar I wonder if this test suite will be the last known use of TCL in modern code? ~~~ kijin AFAIK the test suite for Redis is also written in TCL. ~~~ bch Indeed - both antirez and drh are big Tcl users. drh is a Tcl Core Team (TCT) member emeritus, and antirez is responsible for this Tcl love letter: [http://antirez.com/articoli/tclmisunderstood.html](http://antirez.com/articoli/tclmisunderstood.html)	{ "pile_set_name": "HackerNews" }
Quickest way to $30,000 profit after taxes? - airwick I'm a programmer employed full time. I need to find a way to earn 30,000 dollars or so after taxes to pay for some health related debt I incurred last year. What kind of site or online activity would you start in your free time to make that kind of money? ====== rms I've got into ticket scalping lately. It's not legal in many states but it is completely legal in my state as long as you do it online and conduct business using your real name. Check your local laws. It is really, really easy. All you do is check <http://ticketstumbler.com/blog/> for upcoming sales and refresh ticketmaster at 10AM when they're on sale. I don't use a script, though a simple one to get you direct to the CAPTCHA would save 2 seconds which definitely makes a difference in quality of seats. Some intuition about what will be instant sellouts is needed. This is the best one going on soon: a legendary performer known for rarely touring and he is playing tiny venues. [http://www.ticketmaster.com/Leonard-Cohen- tickets/artist/733...](http://www.ticketmaster.com/Leonard-Cohen- tickets/artist/733217?tm_link=tm_homeA_k1) Don't buy seats at the back of large amphitheaters unless it is for Phish. It's easiest to sell on Stubhub but using Craiglist can add 8-10% to your margins. It's annoying to have to email/call back and forth with the people though. ~~~ zain Wow, that's genius! Let me make sure I have you straight (I've never heard of this before)... You check the TicketStumbler blog for hot pre-sale tickets. You buy them for face value when they go on sale (10AM?) hoping they'll get sold out. Then, you flip them on StubHub/Craigslist after they're sold out? What if the show doesn't get sold out? Also, did I understand you correctly in that TicketMaster gives the best tickets to the first people who buy them, and you might get bad seats buying at 10AM? How can you tell if the seats are good enough? Thanks for the info :) ~~~ rms Yeah, you got it. It's not just presales, there isn't a big difference between buying in a presale and a regular sale. Presale just gives you two shots at it. The tickets are first come first served so whoever completes the CAPTCHA fastest gets the best tickets. However, some will always be released when people don't actually complete the transaction. So you can keep trying again and again for 15 minutes or so. Whatever you do, do not try to buy different tickets at the same time on the same computer. You cannot buy tickets for two cities at once, you will lose all your tickets. You need a VPN or your cell phone internet if you want to start playing that game. The best way to decide on a show is to look at the listings on Stubhub for a show by that artist that is already on sale. Assume that to sell a ticket you need to beat the lowest price on Stubhub. This isn't always possible and that's where your intuition comes into play. If you're in doubt about whether or not to purchase, feel free to email me and ask. For now, Leonard Cohen is a really good one to start with. The presale passwords are easy to find on google. Phish will also be announcing more shows soon and they are just about the hottest ticket this summer. In a small theater, any seat is good enough. In a pavillion, only the front sections or the front of the rear sections are ok. The back of the rear sections in pavilions are a trap. Lawn tickets usually don't have very good margins. In an arena, anything that isn't behind the stage is usually ok. This is because in a pavilion the rear seats are usually the same price as the front seats, but in an arena the upper seats are significantly cheaper. I haven't had a show yet where I have lost money, but I make my picks carefully. 200% profit isn't very common though. 50% profit is probably a realistic average. I may end up getting rid of Billy Joel/Elton John tickets soon at just a little over cost. ~~~ anewaccountname Why would anyone want to do this? It is completely zero sum. You aren't creating any wealth, even if you are making money. ~~~ ggrot You are essentially performing arbitrage. For the person who has a little more money, but not enough patience or planning to login to the ticket website at 10am, actors like the commenter are creating wealth for this person. ~~~ nostrademons But if the ticket scalper hadn't been scraping the ticket website at 10am in the first place, the ticket would still be on sale. (Okay, it likely would've gone to someone else who got there after 10 but before the customer. But now you're cheating that person out of the ticket they otherwise would've had. Still zero-sum.) ~~~ davidmathers Insert Inigo Montoya quote here. ------ nostrademons Porn, drugs, or gambling. ;-) Joking aside, I think the easiest way to make $30k after taxes is to drastically cut your living expenses and save $30k. To make $30K after taxes, you'd have to make close to $50K before taxes (I assume you have a decent programmer's salary already, and this'll put you in a high bracket). There aren't many ways to make $50K in a hurry without a long ramp-up period. If you could, everyone would quit their day job and make their freelance business their real one. ~~~ falsestprophet Good news, you can deduct medical expenses over 7.5% of your income. <http://www.bankrate.com/brm/itax/tips/20010323a.asp> ------ vaksel Well first things first you need to realize that the $30,000 price tag takes into account the fact that they think they are charging insurance. If the hospital realizes you are actually paying this yourself, the price will come down. Second of all you need to realize that there is absolutely no reason for you to pay that amount in a lump sum. Do you think your average person has $30K on hand to pay? Work out a payment plan with the hospital so that you can pay it off a small amount at a time. Third you need to realize that there is pretty much no way to make $30K after taxes "quickly" as a sidejob. So you need to think long term for the solution. ~~~ mattchew What vaskel said. You may have more leverage than you think. I'm pretty sure in my state (Kansas) your credit rating _cannot_ be dinged for late payment on a medical bill. Used to be the case anyway. It would be handy to know if that was true for you too. When my father got sick there was a flood of bills. I just sent every creditor $20 a month. I figured they would be happy to get anything since so many people pay nothing. I never made any formal payment plans or arrangments. This worked fine. Another thing you might do is challenge large bills. I challenged a big bill with several charges, don't remember why, but they ended up adjusting it down _more_ than what I asked for, on _different_ charges than the ones I was objecting to. They could not explain this, just "that's what the reviewers came back with". Give them the opportunity. ------ staunch If you can't afford to pay back $30k for health care don't forget to try to negotiate with the hospital/doctors. You should be able to get a large discount on that amount if you agree to actually pay it back (instead of never paying a dime, which is what they're used to). ~~~ viggity Just ask them one simple question: "Is that the best you can do?" [http://www.popswallet.com/2009/02/is-that-the-best-you- can-d...](http://www.popswallet.com/2009/02/is-that-the-best-you-can-do/) ------ Kaizyn Just take on a conventional second job to make the money. If you reduce your living expenses at the same time, that will make your earning requirements for the second job lower. Aside from inventing an innovative idea or finding an existing business idea that is good but not yet being done, that's the only sure way to make the kind of profit you're needing. I'm sorry you're in such a position and can only hope that you are now cured of the medical ailments that got you into this position in the first place. ~~~ mindslight Sorry for downmodding you - I blame microscopic arrows and lack of undo. Your advice is some of the best in this thread. Entrepreneurship is about taking on risk, which is exactly the opposite of predictable money. Perhaps a second "conventional job" isn't what's called for, but consulting definitely is. The important part is to get paid _now_ rather than hoping to strike it rich through sweat equity. ------ cellis _"I need to find a way to earn 30,000 dollars or so after taxes..."_ Learn objective-C and create an iphone app that is novel but incredibly simple. Should be based on a humorous topic (e.g. iFart, Sound Grenade) That should be able to bring in 30k in a day. If you don't have a mac to hack on, turn your pc into a hackintosh. Write me back with the results. Good luck :) ~~~ jneal I find this to be the best suggestion thus far. iPhone apps are making more and more money each day. I believe the percentage is 70/30 nowadays. So If you sell 15,000 copies of your game at a price of $2.99 a piece you will bring in 70% or $31,395 which will be pretty close to bringing you to your goal (still have to pay taxes.) ~~~ staunch I think the problem is that there actually is a lot of lead time on this. I think a lot of the explosive apps you see were people that started early and had a lot of failures before they finally got a win. Still a bit of a gold rush going on, but it is a gold rush. Most people strike out. ~~~ spaghetti I've been making iPhone apps for about 7 months now. My third app was approved less than 2 days ago. Here is a brief summary of my experience: First app \- a 0.99 cents novelty app \- 1 month dev time \- 3 months wait for approval \- sold about 1500 copies to date \- received about $300 from Apple (more on the way) \- sales are down to about 10 copies / day Second App \- simple, innovative 0.99 cents game that wasn't polished \- 1.5 months dev time \- 2 days wait for approval \- sold about 150 copies in the first few days \- received small amount of money from Apple \- sales immediately dropped to < 1 copy / day after the first week \- app removed from store 3 weeks after release Third app \- super-simple free noise making app a la sound grenade, ifart etc \- 5 hours dev time \- 1 week wait for approval \- 250 downloads the first day (today is the second day) \- no money yet... an ad-supported version is awaiting approval into app store ------ mattmaroon If there were some fast way to make $30k, everyone would already be doing it. ~~~ tjic No. If there was some way that was EASY to earn $30k, everyone would be doing it. Just like if there was some way that was EASY to lose 30 lbs, everyone would be doing it. In fact, there are drop-dead simple ways to earn $30k and to lose 30 lbs. Take on a second job. Tons of first generation immigrants work 60 and 70 hour weeks. ------ brianobush No easy route that is legal. if you are innovative, you can find unique business idea - but the sole goal should not be to make money quick, since those endeavors typically don't embody the passion to be successful in the business. See: _The Entrepreneur's Manual: Business Start-Ups, Spin-Offs, and Innovative Management_ by Richard M. White. Though it is out of print, you might find it used on abebooks.com ------ quizbiz Borrow $3,000,000, loan it, collect loan with interest, pay back loan. Result ~$30,000. Easier said than done. It is, after all, what got us into this mess. ------ HeyLaughingBoy Get a second job? You'll start making money the first week, guaranteed! ------ anewaccountname Bankruptcy is by far the fastest way for this special case where you are using the profit to eliminate a debt. Warning: won't work for student loans from the government. ------ nikblack I am in the process of doing this right now but I can't tell you my secret. I can, however, sell you my secret to making $30,000 for a low price of $500. ------ ryanmahoski Record and sell hacker screencasts a la PeepCode. ------ cperciva The fastest way to $30,000 profit after taxes is to rob a bank. :-) ~~~ mindslight No, the fastest way to $30,000 profit after taxes is to be the one collecting taxes.	{ "pile_set_name": "HackerNews" }
Coding practices NASA uses to write millions of code - SenHeng https://www.reddit.com/r/learnprogramming/comments/4npim9/10_coding_practices_which_allows_nasa_to_write/ ====== LandR Link to pdf is broken on that reddit site. Think this is the link [https://lars-lab.jpl.nasa.gov/JPL_Coding_Standard_C.pdf](https://lars- lab.jpl.nasa.gov/JPL_Coding_Standard_C.pdf)	{ "pile_set_name": "HackerNews" }
CCRMA at Stanford, anyone students or faculty around these parts? - thealphanerd Looking to get an idea of what kind of grades, portfolios, and GRE scores students had. Also curious what type of references you used.<p>Also would be interested in hearing anything positive or negative any has to say about the MA/MST ====== burrokeet I attended CCRMA for two years as an EE PhD (post-masters) student. I really didn't like it, which sucked, since in theory it is a really interesting place. First, my interests were heavily in UI stuff and interactive interfaces, but the EE side of it is REALLY heavy in just signal processing and modeling. Having said that, Prof Julius Smith (one of the main EE faculty there) is a great guy. Second, from the music side of things, there was a really strong bias against any form of popular music and towards heavily experimental music. The word snob comes to mind. Third, the place just had a weird and uneasy energy - not welcoming and just strange. Another friend of mine who was there at the same time commented on this to me also, and also stopped the CCMRA programme. YMMV - this was in the 1990s To answer your specific question though, I had a BA and MS from a so-so state school, average (B-) grades at undergrad and very good grades in grad school (3.9/4.0 ish) and 700+ on each of the GRE sections (just the general one, I didn't sit the specialized ones). I had one publication in a peer-reviewed journal as well. ~~~ thealphanerd It is unfortunate to hear that you didn't have the best experience. Have you heard anything about similar programs at Berkley or UCSC? ~~~ burrokeet no i haven't, but i should say that despite my experience, it is pretty hard to go wrong at Stanford ~~~ thealphanerd thanks for taking the time to write me :D	{ "pile_set_name": "HackerNews" }
Angels sing: ‘frankly ridiculous’ restrictions might ‘destroy Silicon Valley’ - pstevensza http://venturebeat.com/2010/03/26/angel-investing-chris-dodd/ ====== pstevensza This bill strikes me as being a little odd in light of the drive toward the small and agile versus the monolithic and too big to fail. I think this paragraph sums up the potential for disaster: "Obviously, I’m deeply concerned about Senator Dodd’s proposal to place these restrictions on angel investing. I think angel investing is undeniably one of the largest engines for job creation as well as innovation and competitiveness on the global scale for the United States. There’s no doubt about it that the restrictions that he’s proposing would absolutely chill investing." Chilling investment is the last thing that bootstrapping start ups need. ~~~ hga Given that the bill enshrines the "too big to fail" concept and those who fit that definition (as the government will define it), perhaps it's not so surprising. Given that it potentially extends to dentists ([http://volokh.com/2010/05/04/could-senator-dodds-consumer- pr...](http://volokh.com/2010/05/04/could-senator-dodds-consumer-protection- bureau-regulate-dentists/), be sure to look at the update at the end), the total chilling effect on the smaller parts of the economy might be substantial. Dodd's looking out for big companies like the dominant insurance industry in his Connecticut.	{ "pile_set_name": "HackerNews" }
Lockheed Martin's laser can stop a truck from over a mile away - eplanit http://www.engadget.com/2015/03/04/lockheed-martin-laser-athena-test/ ====== lettergram I don't see any benefit to this in its current state. It's way less inefficient than standard weapons today, and it is effected by things such as smoke, humidity, etc.	{ "pile_set_name": "HackerNews" }
Ask HN: How do you manage multiple client servers on Amazon? - zenincognito I am looking for a tool that can monitor the services and perform some automation as restarting server when certain events are triggerd.<p>Any solutions out there ? ====== smt88 AWS supports this natively. Not sure how to do it through the GUI, but you can easily set it up using the API[1]. But why would you want to do this anyway? Why do your servers need to be restarted? 1\. [http://docs.aws.amazon.com/AWSEC2/latest/APIReference/API_Re...](http://docs.aws.amazon.com/AWSEC2/latest/APIReference/API_RebootInstances.html) ------ techjuice Puppet, Chef, Ansible, Microsoft OMS, are a few very popular tools that can be used. With any of those you can fully monitor automate many system tasks.	{ "pile_set_name": "HackerNews" }
Hacker Steals Military Docs Because Someone Didn’t Change a Default FTP Password - Jerry2 https://www.bleepingcomputer.com/news/security/hacker-steals-military-docs-because-someone-didn-t-change-a-default-ftp-password/ ====== hinkley He stole the docs by compromising a router that was running the FTP protocol. That shouldn’t even be a thing happening in this decade! The default password barely enters into it. Vendor leaves giant foot gun. Customer blows foot off. ~~~ icedchai If they changed the default password, it would be much, much harder, FTP or not ~~~ some_account I've noticed that in Enterprise environments, it's very common that people don't change default settings. I think it's because in a team, you don't care as much. It's not your own stuff, and you sometimes don't feel like you have the authority to change things like default passwords. Someone could be using that password, you could be breaking some app etc. Easier to ignore it. I think I read somewhere that it's a lot harder to hack home networks than enterprise systems, which makes very much sense to me. ~~~ true_religion Home networks have only a single point of failure. Enterprise systems have multiple points of failure, some of which are unknown because the people who were the "failures" have left the company for decades. ------ AndrewDucker Why are the military using home routers?	{ "pile_set_name": "HackerNews" }
Trump’s FDA plan should raise concerns for Americans who eat food - ArtDev http://www.msnbc.com/rachel-maddow-show/trumps-fda-plan-should-raise-concerns-americans-who-eat-food ====== ArtDev This article title is priceless. "The good news is, if you don’t eat food, you have nothing to worry about. Everyone else, however, should probably take note." I think we need to bring back the phrase "E. coli conservatism".	{ "pile_set_name": "HackerNews" }
Alleged Coinomi exploit shows how easy it is to have Bitcoin stolen - timcc50 https://decryptmedia.com/5414/alleged-coinomi-exploit-concern ====== rory096 To _Google Chrome 's_ spellchecker. It's a bad vulnerability, but it's unlikely that it's really the attack vector here. ~~~ Veen Right. The "thief" would have to be extremely lucky to have been intercepting the right data, recognized what the key was, and used it. As mentioned in the story, I suspect this chap found the vulnerability and is hoping to parlay it into a payout. ~~~ cjbprime No, more than that: assuming the connection to the spell checker uses TLS, the thief would have to _be Google_. I'd be surprised if it doesn't use TLS? ~~~ hackinthebochs There was another instance of a massive coin theft a year or so ago and the weak link again was the recovery seed being sent to a Google server. The guy described his operational security and it seemed like he did everything right. The only slip up he could point to was that he had mistakenly pasted his seed into his Chrome address bar (which then performs an automatic lookup). It was shortly after that when his funds were drained. I'm certainly not saying it was someone at Google, but it would be a mistake to not consider them an adversary in the battle to secure your funds. ~~~ 781 A ton of people use GMail for their crypto accounts. Claiming that someone at Google stole the funds is quite an extraordinary claim. You should have more proof than just the seed being sent to their spellchecker. ~~~ hackinthebochs I'm not sure what the volume of gmail accounts is supposed to demonstrate. But gmail is known to be high value, and so it stands to reason that internal safeguards around access to gmail accounts would be much greater than data from a spellcheck API or search autocomplete. It certainly is an extraordinary claim, but there does come a point where the totality of evidence points to the likelihood of it. I'm not saying we're at that point, but in my mind we've reached the point of reasonably possible. ~~~ eridius Spellcheck API or autocomplete is also expected to end up with a _ton_ of sensitive information sent to it. I would expect them to either not keep logs of the actual query strings to begin with, or heavily restrict access to them. ------ ccnafr It's not an exploit. It's a vulnerability baked in the wallet app source code. There's a difference. The article seems to have been written by someone who has a poor grasp on security terms. I'd recommend reading the researcher's write-up and avoid getting the wrong idea of what's happening there: [https://www.avoid- coinomi.com/](https://www.avoid-coinomi.com/) ~~~ Dirlewanger Yup, not saying that if Coinomi was open source this wouldn't have happened...but, chances are someone would have caught this if it was. ~~~ AgentME All I can think is who the hell even uses a closed source cryptocurrency wallet? I'm not completely an open source purist in all places, but if there's ever a place to be one, it's in cryptocurrency. You'd think people that wanted to hold money that they didn't trust to banks wouldn't then trust that money to a random unreviewed app. It frustrates me that unfamiliar people are going to see this article (or ones about random fly-by-night exchanges running away with deposits) and just come away thinking this type of problem is an unavoidable part of cryptocurrency, which it's not. Maybe it is for people who don't do their research, but I'm not telling them to use cryptocurrency. I hate that whenever there's talk about cryptocurrency, these amateur cases dominate the conversation. It'd be like if every time the act of camping was brought up, people were aghast and talked about how unsafe camping is and how it's a horrible thing because of how some family died camping recently (after they went camping in the middle of the desert without supplies). ------ wcoenen If I were a security consultant, I would be a bit more hesitant about telling the world that I casually entered a seed phrase worth $60K into an online device, never mind which software it was. The report mentions that the seed phrase originally came from his exodus wallet (desktop software), which is also a wallet that is not suitable for storing such large amounts. For those amounts, use a hardware wallet, or software that supports generating the transactions offline so that the device with the key never has to go online. ~~~ updateYourMind Can someone who finds your hardware wallet use it to sign tx? I'm guessing there is a PIN. ~~~ hanniabu Yes, there is a pin and usually a limit to attempts. Ledger has a 3 attempt limit and then it'll reset the device. You can retrieve your funds by entering a 23 word mnemonic phrase that was generated when first setting up the ledger (and keys). ~~~ Zenbit_UX 24 word ------ paraxisi The video in the article essentially shows nothing; the claim is "Google stole my coins." Possible? Sure. Likely? No. The corroboration with the two users from Reddit is useless because they didn't use a seed phrase. edit/ To clarify: Yes, this is a stupid practice. You should be doing this locally or ideally not at all. But thinking Google is stealing your coins is a pretty big stretch. ------ 40acres Decentralized currency is simply not viable for the mainstream, an economy needs institutions that can be relied upon and a certain level of centralized control to take the wheel when things go sour. There are still gains to be made via speculation but the dreams of folks like Nick Szabo will not be realized with crypto in its current state. ~~~ hanniabu Everyone on here seems to be very bitter and salty about this stuff and I'm not sure why they're not seeing the bigger picture. This is probably the same group that would have laughed at predictions that there would be personal computers. As the technology improves, all this stuff will be abstracted from the user. There are ongoing experiments to solve this issue such as a way to store your keys in a decentralized manner in case it is lost. This can be combined with the ability to automatically move funds to different accounts periodically and also to keep funds spread across different accounts. The UX will come and the are many efforts working on this. It just takes time. ~~~ dreamcompiler > As the technology improves, all this stuff will be abstracted from the user. I'm not optimistic. We still have an Internet on which it's basically impossible for a non-expert user to reliably send or read encrypted email. ~~~ hanniabu I believe this is done on purpose because it's not in the company's interests to have your data encrypted. There's no incentive for them to make it easier. It's certainly possible though. ------ anjc Between people losing their keyphrase, to software wallets being hacked, to hardware wallets being compromised...at what point is it more safe to just keep your coins on a reputable, insured, exchange? I think the odds of Coinbase doing a Mt. Gox are a lot more slim than the odds of a random person screwing up their own storage solution. ~~~ AgentME >to hardware wallets being compromised The only hardware wallet compromises I've heard of still required someone to have physical access to the device. If you can keep the device in your possession, it's still much safer than any of the alternatives. ------ dontbenebby Why would you spell check a password? Passphrases are in vogue, but a field whose very mature is to be high entropy probably doesn't conform to traditional spelling/grammar... ------ api Why does a _spell checker_ need to live in the cloud? To harvest user text for marketing analytics of course. Never mind. ~~~ SketchySeaBeast You NEED live updates for spellcheck, or you'll end up with a bunch of red squigglies every time you try and write "bingeable" or "rando". ~~~ api So you click "learn." Done. This has been a solved problem since the 1980s. Dictionary updates are also tiny and local storage is gigantic compared to the size of even a massive multi-language dictionary. This is just total nonsense. ~~~ SketchySeaBeast Yeah, sorry, that didn't come through in my text, it IS a ridiculous scenario. ~~~ api Ahh! Yeah, your sarcasm went _whoosh_. :) ------ yingw787 I still don't get cryptocurrencies. Yes, a blockchain works when zero trust is needed/desired for transactions, but that's still an implementation-level concern, and implementations aren't perfect. Without legal means of redress, somebody is always going to get burned. If there are legal means of redress, then by definition you trust somebody, right? I think a blockchain fits well when you need to verify a legal authority, like a felonies database (can you trust the cop that filed the report?), but otherwise it kind of just goes around the legal system; by doing so, you're just re-inventing the wheel. ~~~ andrewla Why would you say that there's no legal means of redress? If someone steals my cryptocurrency, then I can still have law enforcement track them down and attempt to recover the funds. This is not dissimilar to how cash works -- if someone takes my cash, by fraud, by theft, or in legitimate exchange for goods or services, that's it. They can now spend it however they want. Cash itself is a trustless system in the same sense. Where there is trust it's largely a matter of preventing forgery; which is not dissimilar to the idea of preventing double-spends. But until Bitcoin there was no real way to do cash-like transactions electronically. In other words, the utility of Bitcoin is well-established; humans have been using cash for a very long time. The implementation is novel. I don't speak here to the general "blockchain" concept, which has become so nebulous that I don't feel it's worth making general statements about. ~~~ wil421 If someone steals money from my Bank account my bank will retun the money next business day. No police reports required and little intervention on my part. I’ve had it happen twice when my card was skimmed in Europe. Both times they called me to report suspicious activity. Your comparing cash to something electronic. No matter how you spin it Bitcoin is not physical. It’s more akin to cash in a bank account. Cash is in my hand, Bitcoin is virtual. >The $0 Liability Guarantee covers fraudulent transactions made by others using your Bank of America consumer credit cards and consumer and small business debit and ATM cards. To be covered, report transactions made by others promptly, and don't share personal or account information with anyone. Access to funds next business day in most cases, pending resolution of claim. Consult client and account agreements for full details.[1] [1][https://www.bankofamerica.com/privacy/faq/data-compromise- fa...](https://www.bankofamerica.com/privacy/faq/data-compromise-faq.go) ~~~ mikeash Bitcoin is an attempt to make digital stuff that behaves as much as possible like physical cash. In terms of the way it works, a bank account is very much not the correct analogy. Cash is. Losing $60,000 in Bitcoin is like losing $60,000 in cash. It’s not exactly a surprise that it can happen, and it’s expected that there will be no real recourse. I think the trouble is that people still aren’t really thinking of it properly. If this story happened with cash, the first question everybody would be asking would probably be, “Why did you have $60,000 in cash sitting around? What did you think was going to happen?” Like cash, most people shouldn’t be holding large amounts of Bitcoin themselves. If they want large Bitcoin holdings for whatever reason, they should be held with a trustworthy entity that can properly secure them, like a bank. If they do insist on holding large amounts of Bitcoin directly, they need to understand that it’s like keeping a vault full of cash, and they need to work hard to keep it secure. ~~~ fixermark Correction: BTC is an attempt to make digital stuff that behaves as much as possible like physical _gold_. Cash is a fiat currency and reproducible infinitely by the controlling government. The point of gold (as a money medium) is that it self-regulates the amount in circulation by being a tangible material in finite supply with cost associated in seeking more. This model has significant benefits and drawbacks (and, it's probably worth noting, its drawbacks are what led to the fiat model most countries use today). ~~~ mikeash I don’t think “cash” necessarily implies fiat. Bitcoin’s model of creating new currency is different from both fiat and gold, although it’s certainly a lot closer to gold. ------ arisAlexis so if an unknown mail provider in Zimbabwe gets hacked email is insecure. Logical ------ YeahSureWhyNot the crypto tech was marketed as the most secure financial instrument but so far it has been repeatedly proving itself to be quite the opposite:) ------ MusaTheRedGuard This entire thread: "Why don't you just use the post office why do you need email?" ------ chdaniel You know what's the most painful thing? If (I'd say when) years go by and Bitcoin value is a significant multiple of what it is today... Much like those who lost their wallets in 2011-2012-2013, most probably it will be haunting ~~~ isostatic Wasn't there a Big Bang Theory episode where this happened? ~~~ glaurung_ Not sure about big bang, but there's a scene in the most recent season on Silicon Valley about this scenario.	{ "pile_set_name": "HackerNews" }
A Quick Demo of Apache Beam with Docker - ecesena https://medium.com/@ecesena/a-quick-demo-of-apache-beam-with-docker-da98b99a502a ====== ecesena Author here: feel free to reach out for comments, additional details, clarifications...	{ "pile_set_name": "HackerNews" }
Lua: the world's most infuriating language? - jgrahamc http://www.slideshare.net/jgrahamc/lua-the-worlds-most-infuriating-language ====== Pxtl ... that is the _strangest_ collection of complaints I've ever seen about Lua. He obsesses over minor syntactic quibbles like the lack of a += operator and the ~= and "not" instead of C's inexplicable exclamation marks (how does this man stand SQL?) but he doesn't dwell on Lua's bigger flaws. I mean, 1-based arrays, weird scoping and the pairs/ipairs thing seems far more serious than the lack of a proper conditional operator (how long did Python go before it got a conditional operator?) Lua is everything it was meant to be - a lightweight, user-friendly, safe language that runs nice and fast in spite of being very hashtable-oriented. There's a good reason it's heavily used as a scripting language for game engines and other platforms that need to let users run code provided by other users - a more "batteries-included" language would have users wiping each other's filesystems. ~~~ aDevilInMe 1 based indices are fine most of the time, they are mostly like 0 based yet start at 1 :) When it does become a problem is when you are reading and using binary formats and offsets, where I seem to always get off by one errors. A ternary function, iff, is soo simple to implement Lua. Scoping is just something you have to understand as with tables there is no problem with them besides a beginners understanding of them. What you consider a minor gripe, compound assignment operator, I personally think is a flaw in the language same goes for bitwise functions instead of operators. Here is an example I posted earlier on twitter. object = object + other "object" and "other" here are full userdata and the code is going to malloc a new userdata and also create a new object in C/C++; which is straight away going to over write the original instance. Huh? why? += makes so much sense. Each to there own, I can fix my issues using patches but it would be nice if I did not have to. ~~~ bonzaro Might I ask, how would you implement a ternary function that should retain the lazy evaluation quality of the syntactic ternary operator? ------ Demiurge So why is Lua so much faster than Python? I tried searching about this but primarily people discuss historical context. I'm curious about real language features and whys. ~~~ oscargrouch Mike Pall is behind Luajit.. Get him or Lars Bak to work in a jit compiler and you language will be fast as it can be.. Of course, bad designed language in terms of performance will suffer more to get into the state-of-the-art ~~~ masklinn Mike Pall has noted design decisions of Python which make it much harder to optimize than Lua in the past: [http://lua- users.org/lists/lua-l/2004-11/msg00083.html](http://lua- users.org/lists/lua-l/2004-11/msg00083.html) ~~~ Demiurge Thank you, that's the kind of stuff I was looking for. ------ compay I've heard almost all of the complaints before and had a few of them myself. But before tearing this guy a new one for rattling off a list of trivial- sounding complaints, be aware that the second half of the presentation extols the virtues of Lua and advises you to "get past the initial irritation." ------ truebosko I felt the same way, but I used MoonScript for a simple hack project and it removed a lot of the Lua annoyances. ([http://moonscript.org/](http://moonscript.org/)) ------ justincormack The video is here, although the sound quality is not great, sorry [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_pOkOAq5jfM](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_pOkOAq5jfM) ------ kazagistar Well played. Title intentionally plays off the "question mark in title means answer is no" meme. ------ 16s I think of it as the C of scripting languages. You have to roll a lot of your own stuff. ~~~ jacques_chester I think that a better analogy is the Scheme of script languages. ~~~ mseepgood I always felt that Scheme was the Scheme of scripting languages. Or is Scheme rather the Lisp of scripting languages? ~~~ mheathr One of my favorite Scheme reads was an e-mail discussion on whether it was possible to add OOP to a functional programming language, and then the author goes on to do so in a trivial amount of code. A cursory search doesn't turn up the exchange I had in mind though, or I would link it. ------ benbeltran It's weird that I see many people complaining about tables because of pairs/ipairs or trivial stuff like that, which are more nuisances than anything. The flexibility of tables/metatables make them a very powerful data structure (not unlike javascript's prototype). I've been playing a bit with it for game development and you can build some very powerful stuff just using tables. Maybe instead of trying to use lua as another language, you should totally embrace "the lua way" and then you'll understand why their tables/metatables is the way it is. ------ snarfy If you can't get past the initial complaints, try squirrel. [http://www.squirrel-lang.org/](http://www.squirrel-lang.org/) It's basically Lua, with his complaints fixed. ------ stevekemp I have to save I've loved using lua recently, in my console mail-client. Being able to apply operations to messages, and do interesting things is great: [http://lumail.org/examples/](http://lumail.org/examples/) Sure there are warts, such as the lack of "+=" or "++", but once you get into the right state of mind it is a pleasure to work with. ------ joaomsa You get past most of these syntax nitpicks after a while. I wrote plenty of Lua at my previous job, but every once in while would still forget about globals by default. I really would love to know why they went ahead with that design decision, when most languages take a far more conservative approach to variable scoping. ~~~ kazagistar Store the environment in "global" table. Make a new environment. Point the __index of the new environment at the global table. Make __newindex of the new environment a function that throws an error. Congradulations, you have metaprogrammed lua to only set globals explicitly. Good job! ------ mcv Learning Lua reminded me a lot of Javascript. They're both weird languages with a very similar object model, and they're both very practical once you get past the initial hurdles. They both have some issues, but they also have plenty of redeeming features. ------ anonymoushn I wonder if he knows that he can write a loader to fix all this stuff.	{ "pile_set_name": "HackerNews" }
Show HN: ShareSEER- Research tool for investors - shareseer https://shareseer.com/ ====== shareseer ShareSEER is a research tool for investors. We are excited to announce the launch V 1.3 of ShareSEER. We now have: \- A real time insider filing dashboard - [https://shareseer.com/today/insiders](https://shareseer.com/today/insiders) . View live sales and purchases of stocks by company insiders! Get information one day faster than in major brokerages. Filter by existing companies. \- A risk extractor which highlights unique risks for S & P 500 companies. e.g - [https://shareseer.com/analysis/risks?tick=MOS](https://shareseer.com/analysis/risks?tick=MOS) -We augment the existing feature of searching for 10-k/10-Q's for a given company with a.) Recent Insider filing information when available b.) Extracted risks for S & P 500 companies. E.g [https://shareseer.com/search?q=KLAC](https://shareseer.com/search?q=KLAC) \- Super fast infrastructure. We have rewritten the previous generation infrastructure to a blazing fast go server. We are still learning what investors want to know. This tool is born from the pain we faced as individual investors. We want to level the playing field between what the big investors know and what we know. We would love to hear your feedback to make ShareSEER even better. Please check it out. One more thing. For now- ShareSEER is free!	{ "pile_set_name": "HackerNews" }
Custard Antenna - maxerickson https://michaelcullen.name/2019/04/custard-antenna/ ====== anilakar If you're willing to experiment, you'll find out that you can tune pretty much anything from a random spool of wire to an iron frame bed, and in this case custard. I've found that an inductively coupled sausage is a nice match on the VHF air band with a proper number of turns. However, getting a nice 1:1 voltage standing wave ratio only means that the transmitter sees a proper 50 Ω load that does not reflect anything back. Most of the radiation probably happens in the feedline and the rest is absorbed as resistive losses. The whole setup only works because at lower "high" frequencies signal levels are relatively strong and receiver sensitivity is rarely a problem. Most HF transceivers actually have front panel knobs for attenuation and gain reduction. Also, FT8 is a relatively new digital modulation that works at low SNR and is not feasible for transmitting any information apart from the callsigns of the communicating parties. ~~~ philpem Exactly this. A dummy load (a 50-ohm resistor) will give you a perfect 1:1 SWR, but makes a rubbish antenna... an SWR match just means it's less likely to fry the transceiver's power stage. You could transmit data over FT8, but you're right -- with identification requirements you'd be limited to maybe half a dozen characters per 15-second cycle. Slow as molasses but it'll be receivable even if the signal is down in the noise floor. ~~~ nominatronic > Slow as molasses Slow as custard, surely. ~~~ philpem Depends how thick the custard is. Is it thick enough to classify as a non- Newtonian fluid? ~~~ thfuran That isn't a label for particularly viscous fluids but for fluids where the viscosity is dependent on applied force. ------ jhallenworld W6LG made a lightbulb dipole and got 750 miles with FT8: [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XSy271C07b4](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XSy271C07b4) FT8 is really something. I built a cobweb antenna and got Japan from Massachusetts on my new IC-7300: [https://photos.app.goo.gl/ciefcobDkiTrawsB9](https://photos.app.goo.gl/ciefcobDkiTrawsB9) So here's a funny thing: FT8 was written by a Nobel laureate in Fortran! ~~~ mindviews Can anyone simulate this light bulb setup in HFSS or another antenna simulation software? I'm always on the lookout for comparisons on weird cases like this for the simulation code I've written. If I can find material property data on custard as easily as for tungsten (watch the temperature dependence!) I might give that a shot next. ~~~ madengr You really don’t need to simulate it. It will just be a electrically small magnetic loop with a large real resistance. Any antenna text book should have it, with gain proportional to frequency. Of course the nonlinearity of the filament will change things slightly, but it will converge down to a fixed impedance. ~~~ mindviews I suppose a bit more context would be explanatory. My real interest is not the free-space performance of the antenna, but the eventual installed performance. In the video describing the setup he says "I talked with a couple of engineers, and some other guys, and we've come to the conclusion that if I put 100 watts into it, it might radiate a milliwatt. And not all that well." I'm not sure if they were thinking of it as a magnetic loop antenna the way you described or coming up with the numbers some other way. But then at the end mentions, "I'm gonna set it on the top part of that air conditioner and put it right in the window." How much of his success is a result of sticking the antenna on what may be effectively a (admittedly electrically small compared to 20m) metal box? That's what I think is interesting to simulate. ------ pizza You think that's cool, check out this antenna made from a jet of seawater: [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9tIZUhu21sQ](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9tIZUhu21sQ) ~~~ bobowzki This is much cooler because it's actually an antenna that works. ~~~ mich181189 I plan to make a working custard antenna. This was explicitly attempting to tune a bowl of custard, not so much radiate ------ myth2018 I've initially thought it was some sort of April fool's article. But I'm skeptical. He didn't detail, but probably used a proper, non-irradiating cable, or no cable at all, when he experimented with the dummy load. If that was the case, he can't say he just swapped the dessert with the dummy load and, then, can't attribute the change in the results to that. So my guess is that the wires were in fact playing the role of an antenna there. Besides, impedance matching doesn't mean much per se. As they say, even a dummy load can be tunned. The effectively irradiated power and the irradiation patterns are even more important than tunning in many situations. ~~~ mich181189 In this configuration, yes, the wires are most likely doing quite a bit of the pickup. The custard is more or less a dummy load - I didn’t intend it to radiate or really work as an antenna - I just wanted to try it to see what would happen. I do want to see if I can make custard radiate though. It’ll probably be quite lossy but it’ll be fun to try! ~~~ myth2018 Perhaps the custard is working as a resistive load of a kind of beverage antenna. It's a valid experiment. I only think that is a bit misleading for those who read about it. People get impressed thinking that the custard was tunned to operate as an exotic antenna. ------ mothsonasloth Great post, I would have liked a bit more deep diving into the custard. For example, what are the merits of using a fresh, organic or powdered custard. Would Madigascan vanilla increase reception? ------ mikepurvis Without knowing anything about this, how much of it is the custard vs. the wires leading _to_ the custard? Like, could you pull them out, and have them hanging in the air a few inches apart and get the same result? Or, I suppose, insert a resistance equivalent to the custard? ~~~ brian-armstrong The post mentions that he tried that and was not able to receive anything using a dummy resistive load. ~~~ myth2018 Indeed. But he didn't mention how he connected the dummy load to the radio. Dummy loads have usually a standard antenna connector and are meant to be attached directly to the radio or through an non-irradiating cable. So, my guess is that, by using the dummy load, he disconnected the actual antenna: the "dipole" made by the wires between the radio and the dessert ~~~ anilakar The custard probably mostly acts as a resistive load and mechanical support. Actual radiation happens in the wires. ------ msds Isn't it possible to convince most antenna tuners to effectively match "into themself", and dissipate most of the power internally? I accidentally did that with a matching network I was trying to use to tune a weird inductively- coupled plasma setup. Sounds like he made a weird partially-shorted dipole antenna, and needs a good VNA to answer the rest of his questions. ~~~ curiousfab It is. In this case however I suppose the resistive component of the custard plays a significant role in the match and therefore power dissipation (but not radiation). The main components acting as an antenna here are indeed the wires. ------ sigi45 What is he actually 'tuning'? I mean i don't understand it. He puts some wire into custard and then a device is 'tuning' and then the reception is better after? ~~~ bobowzki There's nothing surprising here. The custard will present a certain impedance (resistance and reactance, normally represented as a complex number) at a frequency. A radio transceiver normally expects 50ohms (real) at the antenna port for maximum energy transfer (and smallest standing wave voltage ratio). Using a network of capacitors and inductors (the tuner) the custard's impedance can be transformed to 50 ohms. But it's still not an efficient antenna, in the sense that it won't radiate more. ~~~ brians You are using the ubiquitous jargon of radio engineering. But for those on this site who are not radio engineers: of course the impedance of the custard does not change. The impedance of the system including the custard and the antenna tuner is different – and better for the radio to work with — than the custard alone. ------ Aloha "Because I can" has produced some odd results over the years. This however is among the oddest. ------ behnamoh Not directly related to the post, but I remember back in the day we had a black-and-white TV which could receive only 3 basic channels in the country. I connected a co-ax cable to the output of a receiver and connected it to a dipole antenna. Now, after tuning the TV on the exact frequency of the antenna, I could play anything on the TV. It was a simple in-house broadcasting station. Of course, had to disassemble it due to concerns with electromagnetic waves. ------ bayesian_horse Can it tune fish fingers, too? ~~~ newaccoutnas You can tune a piano but you can't tune a fish (finger). Allegedly. ~~~ jfk13 But everyone knows you can tuna fish. (In either oil or water, according to taste.) ~~~ bayesian_horse Just my kind of humor! ------ IIAOPSW Ok but can he tune a fish? ------ skoopie Looney tune	{ "pile_set_name": "HackerNews" }
Eating out – one month in SF - rf45 http://rf45.wordpress.com/2012/09/04/eating-out-one-month-in-sf/ ====== jacalata Very interesting. I look forward to reading a summary of your month of eating in, but one thing to be careful of is that because you won't have any staples/basics, you should be planning/ready to spend more than you hope your 'average' costs will be. For instance, olive oil, salt, pepper, other seasonings to taste, can all add up fairly quickly but you'll only need to purchase them every few months, if that. Especially if you find some good bulk food stores, you could stock up on non-perishables for a couple of months: while it looks bad on a one-month budget, it'll look good on a three month view. ------ superic It's possible to eat out cheaply and healthy in SF but it requires years of practice (in my experience.) You'll eventually figure out where to go and what to get where based on the day of the week (specials), time of day (portion sizes) and time of the year (seasonal items.) For instance, I just happened upon a place in Mission Bay that makes a custom salad (literally, they make it in front of you) with meat, cheese and two other items for $7.50. This salad must weigh 1lb. It's huge, healthy, a great deal and could be split into two meals. Don't give up!	{ "pile_set_name": "HackerNews" }
58% Of Americans Still Own A VCR - nettizen http://www.businessinsider.com/pew-research-electronics-poll-2014-1 ====== tzs I have a VCR. To play a tape I would have to dig it put of a closet and hook it up. If I were surveyed by them, would I be counted among VCR owners?	{ "pile_set_name": "HackerNews" }
Measuring HTTPS Adoption on the Web [pdf] - okket https://static.googleusercontent.com/media/research.google.com/en//pubs/archive/46197.pdf ====== prathiks what the % number ~~~ lifthrasiir That's not what the paper primarily shows. The gists are sentences in italic (in the section 3): > Is HTTPS usage still growing? (Yes.) > Does HTTPS usage differ by operating system? (Yes.) > Is HTTPS usage equal across the world? (No.) These sentences combined illustrate the difficulty of calculating a single accurate and representative measurement. Probably the following summary (mine) is better than nothing: > HTTPS usage ranges from 40% to 70% when one looks at the ratio of page > loads. The wide range is due to the regional, OS variations and different > methods to determine the ratio. It is noted that Japan and South Korea had > slightly lower usage rates, no reason is given though. ------ jwfxpr Side note: Publications like this not clearly dated in the document are very frustrating. ~~~ kbart Not only publications like this, but all the contest on web. Just today I was reading Bitcoin related article and only realized how old it is when reaching the part where it promotes Mt. Gox as a trusty Bitcoin exchange service. It really annoys me and I usually skip articles/posts that are not dated.	{ "pile_set_name": "HackerNews" }
Show HN: Libtmux – A tmux workspace manager in Python - git-pull http://libtmux.git-pull.com ====== foota Might be able to make some cool neovim (or another text based editor) python plugins with this. ~~~ tekacs Perhaps like how the Kakoune text editor[0] (discussed a few days ago on HN [1]) uses tmux to manage panes (although that's C++ and just uses the Tmux client[2]). [0]: [http://kakoune.org/](http://kakoune.org/) [1]: [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13165919](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13165919) (the article has a video of panes) [2]: [https://github.com/mawww/kakoune/blob/f7e2bfd76fc1629ffd4e16...](https://github.com/mawww/kakoune/blob/f7e2bfd76fc1629ffd4e1664eff3de2bb3935bed/rc/base/tmux.kak) ------ mcjiggerlog Just wondering what the use cases are for this? I can't imagine how I would make use of this. ~~~ nfrmatk It looks like it's been used to create tmuxp[0], a tmux session loader à la Teamocil[1]. [0]: [https://tmuxp.git-pull.com/en/latest/](https://tmuxp.git- pull.com/en/latest/) [1]: [http://www.teamocil.com](http://www.teamocil.com)	{ "pile_set_name": "HackerNews" }
A collection of useful .htaccess snippets - scapbi https://github.com/phanan/htaccess ====== _cudgel While I think this is a very valuable resource, and patterns are always welcome by me, it should be noted that the Apache docs recommend against using .htaccess files due to the performance penalty. From the docs ([http://httpd.apache.org/docs/current/howto/htaccess.html](http://httpd.apache.org/docs/current/howto/htaccess.html)): _You should avoid using .htaccess files completely if you have access to httpd main server config file. Using .htaccess files slows down your Apache http server. Any directive that you can include in a .htaccess file is better set in a Directory block, as it will have the same effect with better performance._ ~~~ DrStalker These snippets should all be fine to go straight into a directory block, so it's still a really good resource, ~~~ tobltobs Are you sure this is true also for the Rewrite Rules? ------ lebinh Cool idea! I've created a similar repo for Nginx from my experiences: [https://github.com/lebinh/nginx-conf](https://github.com/lebinh/nginx-conf) ------ csharperer Pretty sweet! Would love to see something similar for nginx. ~~~ keidian There is some stuff listed at [http://wiki.nginx.org/Configuration](http://wiki.nginx.org/Configuration) but it's more laid out in full examples rather than this code block does X ------ loevborg The most important thing when it comes to web server configuration is to have a testing setup you understand and that is fully under you're control. That goes twice for working with mod_rewrite. My recommendation: use only curl -I so caching is ruled out as a problem source. Use a virtual machine that you can reprovision quickly and reliably. Crank up the log level to debug in you apache config. And don't give up! ------ oneeyedpigeon The HTML5 boilerplate project also provides a great source for sane apache config: [https://github.com/h5bp/server-configs- apache/blob/master/di...](https://github.com/h5bp/server-configs- apache/blob/master/dist/.htaccess) ------ raziel2p I think the arguments _for_ www are just as valid, if not more valid, than the arguments against. [http://www.yes-www.org/why-use-www/](http://www.yes- www.org/why-use-www/) ------ tux Thank You :-) Please make nginx one now in similar style and categories. ^_^ ------ emersonrsantos You can make good http(s) firewalls (albeit not fast as a IP one) against threats. Needs to add more to this, especially configs against SQL injections and other hacks. ~~~ rostigerpudel Actually, I dont' think that is the webserver's job. Relying on your webserver to protect you against SQL injection is probably not what you want to do. The webserver has no knowledge at all about what kind of program you run behind it. You would need to teach it everything about what you're doing. Seriously, you are much better off just using prepared statements everywhere than trying to teach a webserver the finer points of your particular combination of SQL and the language you use. It's like parsing HTML with regular expressions. It might hold up for a while or for certain tasks, but will explode quite unexpectedly at some later point. ~~~ krapp That's true, but sometimes (especially with completely naive or old PHP) 'using prepared statements everywhere' means 'rewriting everything.' In those cases, htaccess might be the only flexible option you have until you can. ~~~ theblueprint Consider ModSecurity with the Core Rule Set (or Trustwave Commercial Rule Set) instead of attempting to repurpose .htaccess files as a substitute WAF. ------ neoterics Nice, this is very useful, thanks! ------ roshansingh Thanks a lot for making this!	{ "pile_set_name": "HackerNews" }
Putin’s playbook for discrediting America and destabilizing the West - matthewsinclair http://kottke.org/17/06/putins-playbook-for-discrediting-america-and-destabilizing-the-west ====== addmeaning So author basically read Wikipedia page about some Russian philosopher's book and somehow connected it to Putin and assumed that it is Putin's masterplan. It resembles [https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dulles%27_Plan](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dulles%27_Plan) ------ daemin "Without firing a shot" \- I'm sure people in Ukraine would disagree.	{ "pile_set_name": "HackerNews" }
Wow very terminal doge - thiderman https://github.com/thiderman/doge ====== alanh very humor enough wow still doge homepage again stop now done shibe ------ benatkin This predates the doge_js twitter account, the doge npm package, and dogescript. It's also pretty neat with the terminal art! Nicely done. ------ larrybolt As stupid as it sounds, I actually have a use for this script: When I clearly want to mark that I start installing something or logging and need a "marker" that stands out. Very likely there is a better way to do this, but doge stands out.. and if someone would be looking over my shoulder at least it would make them laugh or ask about it. ------ SnakeSupply What did you use for the terminal (shibe) art? ~~~ thiderman [https://github.com/rossy2401/img2xterm](https://github.com/rossy2401/img2xterm) It's pretty easy to use. The problem is usually to create good input for it. I spent roughly an hour in GIMP just tweaking the original doge.png and trying to get good dithering for the colors. ~~~ SnakeSupply This is worth a few good giggles from my friends so good job! Just a few questions after peeking through the source: how long did it take you? Why is it so much more complicated than it seems on first impression? What was the hardest part? ~~~ thiderman The initial code work was probably not even an hour from initial idea to actually having random colored strings and a test shibe. Then I spent some time tweaking the image to be better, as already mentioned. I never felt it looked complicated. The code is not even 300 lines, and at least I feel that the abstraction is all right. I wrote the code to be flexible, and because of that, adding piping to stdout was really simple. What parts of the code do you find complicated? The hardest part was getting the Python packaging right, haha. It was difficult to get the doge.txt file distributed in the package in a path that would work both when installed to site-packages and that would work whilst developing. I have since started doing more Python packaging for my other projects (I'm on a contribution streak, so I do a lot right now) and it's gotten a lot easier. ------ Cthulhu_ wow	{ "pile_set_name": "HackerNews" }
Ask HN: Where do Rubyists host their application? - hendricius Where are rubyists currently hosting their applications?<p>So far I mostly hosted at OVH/Hetzner. But I am looking forward to moving to PaaS service or so.<p>What are you doing right now?<p>Thanks, -hendrik ====== blairanderson heroku, aws, digitalocean	{ "pile_set_name": "HackerNews" }
Approve or Reject: Can You Moderate Five New York Times Comments? - dotluis http://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2016/09/20/insider/approve-or-reject-moderation-quiz.html ====== franciscop > "Women and their monogamy obsession. Why are they so insecure and try to > fight biology?" > "Reject" > "We would have approved. Whether we agree with a comment, we want to provide > a space for interesting interactions to occur. Put simply, the replies to > this comment may prove to be enlightening for many readers. The comment does > not criticize a specific woman, so it is not a personal attack. While it > might be considered an insult against a class, alleging an "obsession" is > not a particularly inflammatory insult. We don’t seek to police opinions, > only to help as many people as possible express themselves on nytimes.com." It was about calling women "insecure" besides "obsessive" in a two sentence comment in a pejorative tone. It is not about agreeing with the comment or not. ~~~ chc Yeah, their rationale on that is bizarre. Not only does the comment contain a sexist insult, the comment is _nothing but_ a sexist insult. ------ empressplay There appears to be a double standard between insulting a race or religion, and sex or sexuality... they appear to argue that insulting women or gay people is okay because such discussion is somehow in the public interest, but that insulting a race or religion (middle-eastern people and muslims in particular) is not in the public interest? Seems arbitrary. ~~~ lallysingh The part of the comment that got it rejected: >This problem will not end unless a significant portion of the middle east is sterilized and even then you would still have to sterilize Iran and possibly Saudi Arabia The sterilization was the reason for rejection. ~~~ emodendroket It just seems like an odd place to draw the line; the stuff about women isn't really going to foster a productive discussion either. ------ emodendroket Frankly, I don't think they've given you enough info to moderate according to their highly specific standards. ~~~ morsch Well, it's not a contest. Whether or not your moderation agrees with theirs, the explanation tells you about their standards for moderation. I think it's a pretty cool demo. Kind of reminded me of Slashdot's meta-moderation (no idea if that's even still a thing), I wonder if they're analyzing the response to see if their readers' intuitions agree with their policy. ------ strictnein On the first one, I've read "Repiglicans" and "Rethuglicans", etc so many times that I didn't even notice "Repugnicans". ~~~ lostmsu I don't ever read this word often, but still did not notice this as well. This kind of stuff should be marked by robots. ~~~ chias That is part of the basis for this whole exercise (that they're augmenting their moderation efforts via automated means). ------ danso Anyone else who finished the quiz think that the comment moderation process is bonkers in terms of work load? 11,000 comments a day. I got 2 out of 5 and it took me 46 seconds, which means it would take me more than 28.1 hours to do a day's work. Even split across a few staff members that's insane. But this is something they needlessly put on themselves by making comments _hidden by default_. An editor has to read _every_ comment before approving it. This could easily be fixed by having it show-by-default, queue-after-flags/downvotes (which is how I assume HN mods act so quickly) There are a few "trusted" users who are auto-approved. I complained that there doesn't seem to be any automated filters or heuristics. If they know "Repugnican" is a word used in name-calling, why isn't it blacklisted so that all such comments either get thrown out or just thrown to the bottom of the queue? I've subscribed to the NYT paper edition for several years, which means I've paid at least $1000, nevermind the ad revenue they get form my page visits to the site. And yet I have to wait in the queue, usually 15 minutes to an hour, before my comment is approved, like any of the free registered users. I believe they have a million subscribers. I think it is a logical courtesy and efficiency to give _paying_ members the benefit of the doubt. Not many people pay 3x a Netflix subscription just to be an asshole on the comment boards. edit: Made it clear that even longtime paying subscribers are treated as untrusted commenters. ~~~ empath75 metafilter.com has a $5 lifetime fee to sign up. They have an extremely strict moderation policy and fairly frequently ban people who don't interact in positive ways, almost always refunding the sign-up fee. They have one of the most readable comments sections of any site i read, although it has it's own problems. ~~~ JoelBennett In that regard, I've been kind of curious to know how Hacker News deals with comments. It seems like there's only a single upvote button (no downvoting), and you can't see how much something has been upvoted. It kind of kills the popularity contest part of things. The whole psychology of online commenting and having groups rate things is quite interesting. ~~~ Yen I believe there is a 'downvote' button, but it's only available once you've scored above a certain karma threshold. Also, while you don't know how often something has been upvoted, a comment with a higher score will be at the top of the page, and you'll see it first and be more likely to give it an additional upvote. ------ ja30278 "And again if it be true, that a wise man like a good refiner can gather gold out of the drossiest volume, and that a fool will be a fool with the best book, yea or without book, there is no reason that we should deprive a wise man of any advantage to his wisdome, while we seek to restrain from a fool, that which being restrain'd will be no hindrance to his folly" ------ SilasX So, I get their broader point: It doesn't scale; too much human time and effort to read the comments and apply policy correctly. What _would_ scale, then? You'd want to a) use free labor from readers, and b) have a way to punish trolls. I imagine something like: 1) Some central identity/commenter rep provider (CIRP) that shares rep across forums. (privacy issues discussed below) 2) If you're registered with a good CIRP at all, you get a big bump in visibility -- maybe even a trashed account appears before anons. The higher a rep your CIRP vouches for, the more visible your comment. 3) Readers upvote and downvote as before, but this doesn't directly affect visibility; it just decides probability of the comment being placed before a human reviewer, who can pass a more focused judgment on it. 4) If multiple, non-communicating human judges agree on good/bad, that users' rep is adjusted in that direction. 5) Privacy: the CIRP just signs a token indicating your rep (within a range), not your ID itself. (They don't even need to store your comments, just your login and rep, though comments are nice for later auditing.) The advantage are: A) If you establish yourself as having good comments on other forums, that carries over to the NYT (or whatever) comment section, creating an bigger incentive for good comments. B) Humans can take the time to carefully judge your comments, since they only need to see a sample of them. C) It has a nice hierarchy of checks and balances: forums can discount bad CIRPs; CIRPs can check that their judges are doing it right; judges validate other judges. ------ firasd I understand the issues with comments but I feel publishers are making a mistake. NPR recently said their comments are non-representative of their total listeners and are annoying to users and take time to moderate, so… they’ll remove them and let you comment on Twitter, Facebook, etc. But are people talking on Twitter, Facebook, etc always making delightfully erudite comments on shows? Are social media posters representative of all NPR listeners? Hell no. So publishers make this decision to send the user base and activity to other internet platforms, then they complain that all their traffic is being captured by and funneled through social media… Maybe publishers should start competing head-to-head with internet platforms: going for network effects, monthly active users, making recommendation and personalization systems, that kinda thing. Not going “oh, some people don’t like reading our comments, so we deleted our user activity system.” At least the NYT is making an effort keep the comments in place and use tech to help with moderation. ~~~ webwanderings Makes sense. Each news outlet is a platform in itself (if they choose to be one). They should "own" their own platform, instead of relying on others. It is one thing to not set the stage for the world to interact on your platform, but it is another to not own your own thing. Speaking of NPR. I got tired of their non-stop coverage of one particular presidential nominee. I thought NPR should be the last news outlet in the world to be going for the rating wars, but they did. ~~~ emodendroket > Makes sense. Each news outlet is a platform in itself (if they choose to be > one). They should "own" their own platform, instead of relying on others. It > is one thing to not set the stage for the world to interact on your > platform, but it is another to not own your own thing. Then they scream bloody murder when Facebook acts in its own interests and demotes their stories in the feed, as though that weren't totally predictable. ------ segmondy 5/5 in 35 seconds. It's mentally taxing. Some I wanted to reject, but i had to think of fairness. If I rejected everything I agreed with, I would probably have rejected them all. I would have to be paid at least $350,000/yr to do that everyday for hours. I would still hate my life. ------ InclinedPlane And, here we see the problem with the whole system. None of these comments truly adds to the discussion, they are all aggressive, insulting, and biased. Yet it's difficult to achieve a level of moderation that doesn't seem overzealous without allowing some of this garbage into the conversation. ------ cft With the help of Google Jigsaw the results will look like this: [https://www.google.com/search?q=american+inventors](https://www.google.com/search?q=american+inventors) ~~~ gohrt Replied to wrong post? EDIT: Oops, I skipped to the quiz and missed the intro about Jigsaw. ~~~ ksenzee No, the NYT is going to use Google Jigsaw in an attempt to improve their comment moderation. ------ pfarnsworth This is why reddit-style upvoting works well. Of all of the systems I've seen, reddit has hit enough critical mass such that the upvoted comments are truly great. ~~~ SCdF Wow really? I have the opposite opinion: easy and safe (for reddit's hive mind / what is currently popular / anti-popular) rise to the top, things people disagree with get downvoted. The effect lessens the further you get from the front page, but the formula is the same. NB: this is not true for some of their _highly_ moderated subreddits like AskScience / AskHistorians or whatever. The rest of reddit does not operate that way though. ~~~ SilasX Right, but (per parent), it's still _better_ than the alternatives. You can cite flaws, but it was an improvement over what we had before (yabb, slashdot, etc). You can do better -- like the AskScience/AskHistorian forums -- but only at the cost of investing a lot more work. Is there something more scalable? ~~~ SCdF > You can cite flaws, but it was an improvement over what we had before (yabb, > slashdot, etc). FWIW I considered /. to be a better system than reddit. But I mean, it all depends on what you consider "better". Reddit is certainly more popular, so clearly it's better by some metric. ------ kchoudhu "You can partake in moderation in a limited fashion" Didn't/Doesn't Slashdot do this? ------ CPLX I believe pretty strongly that commenting on articles is generally a waste of time and doesn't add much value for the reader, or the discourse in general. And no, I can't reconcile that with what I am doing at the present moment. ------ webwanderings >> In response to an article that quotes the United States House minority leader, Nancy Pelosi, criticizing her Republican counterparts for agreeing to pay for the legal defense of a federal ban on gay marriage: “This is so much political correctness. The family, men plus women = children is the basis of society. Scientific facts are not altered by political correctness and neither is the law and design of man by God. Two men can create a relationship, but not a child. This is not marriage. This is sodomy. Check out Sodom & Gomorrrah if you would like God’s opinion about it. A lie is not the truth. Stop it Obama.” << You should reject because it shouldn't be about Obama. ------ lallysingh Note that it's just Jigsaw, not "Google Jigsaw." ~~~ harryh [https://jigsaw.google.com](https://jigsaw.google.com) ~~~ lallysingh Despite the domain, Jigsaw's under Alphabet directly.	{ "pile_set_name": "HackerNews" }
Twitto: A web framework in a tweet - kenver http://twitto.org/ ====== dchest How about (secure?) OO version (with no error handling)? $c=new ReflectionClass('co');$m=$c->getMethod($_GET['m']);if($m && $m->isPublic()){$i = $c->newInstance();$m->invoke($i);} Example usage: <?php // "Framework" $c=new ReflectionClass('co');$m=$c->getMethod($_GET['m']);if($m && $m->isPublic()){$i = $c->newInstance();$m->invoke($i);} // Controller class co { public function index() { echo "index!"; } public function test() { echo "yes, it's test."; } } ?> Call: example.com/?m=index example.com/?m=test ~~~ dmoney _How about (secure?) OO version_ Nice. You should call it TwitOO. ------ tptacek I'd have been more impressed if he also write a 2-line ORM based on SQL statements fed from browsers. ~~~ tlrobinson I was going to give you a lecture on why that's a ridiculously bad idea. Then I noticed your username. Then I went back and looked at the code. I see now. ~~~ tptacek Mine is a subtle humor. ------ nate love this line: » TWITTO IS NOT SECURE, DON'T USE IT FOR YOUR NEXT WEBSITE « ~~~ Hexstream Yeah, because you see, Twitto is a web framework you can't use for web development. That makes it the coolest web framework around. ------ paul_houle this is why i like hacker news: anything about PHP gets downvoted into oblivion on reddit. ~~~ nir One of the symptoms of Reddit's takeover by the same kind of idiots that comment on YouTube was the knee jerk downmod of any non-derisive mention of PHP. I hope the fact the parent comment is downmodded so quickly doesn't mean those people have arrived at HN too, now. IMHO, attitude towards PHP is a great way to tell if someone really codes or just quotes the current hype. People that actually build stuff appreciate PHP's ease of deployment and scaling, even if its weaknesses make many coders (self included) choose other tools most of the time. ~~~ sho _"IMHO, attitude towards PHP is a great way to tell if someone really codes or just quotes the current hype. People that actually build stuff appreciate PHP's ease of deployment and scaling"_ I don't agree with this. Yes, everyone knows PHP is easy to deploy, and it's faster than the ruby/pythons etc. But it's an ugly mess with a long history of security problems and a design that flows against the principles of well designed architecture. I know plenty of people who "really code" and abhor PHP. I know what you mean about "trendy" language snobbishness being a hallmark of someone who doesn't actually know what they're talking about, but in PHP's case I think there is a case for informed people having strong, negative opinions. Doesn't excuse the Reddit behaviour, of course, I don't miss that one bit. Just sayin'... ~~~ ahoyhere Or maybe it's just because they spent lots and lots of hours doing things that made PHP (and thus them) cry. When you spend every day for months writing methods like __get and __set and so on, and try to work around the other busted aspects of the object model, it can get to you. ------ antirez too bloated, but nice hack ~~~ Andys It doesn't scale, either ------ pierrefar I thought Perl was supposed to be the king of really low char count code! (Sorry for the alliteration.) ~~~ simonista One should never apologize for alliteration. It is a joy to stumble upon. ------ mrfish So what exactly would I use this for. Aside from shitting myself with geeky- ness ~~~ treo I think the point is that PHP is a web framework by itself and there is no need for a fancy framework around it. ------ loincloth cute	{ "pile_set_name": "HackerNews" }
Run Bash on Ubuntu on Windows - jessaustin https://blogs.windows.com/buildingapps/2016/03/30/run-bash-on-ubuntu-on-windows/ ====== dang [https://hn.algolia.com/?query=bash%20windows&sort=byDate&dat...](https://hn.algolia.com/?query=bash%20windows&sort=byDate&dateRange=all&type=story&storyText=false&prefix&page=0) ------ platz "while you’ll be able to run native Bash and many Linux command-line tools on Windows, it’s important to note that this is a developer toolset to help you write and build all your code for all your scenarios and platforms. This is not a server platform upon which you will host websites, run server infrastructure, etc" ~~~ valarauca1 >This is not a server platform upon which you will host websites, run server infrastructure, etc Yet they demo'd a website being hosted via the Linux sub-system -_- thanks microsoft! ~~~ jongalloway2 No, they demonstrated developing and testing a Ruby application on Windows via the Linux sub-system, then deploying it to Azure (using ssh, mina and git). Important distinction - they're building support for developing Linux-based web applications into Windows, not hosting websites. ------ msellout I wonder if PG will update his "Microsoft is dead" prediction. Nadella seems to have resurrected Microsoft. I can't imagine them doing this under Ballmer or Gates. ~~~ shimon This is a nice move, but if you think this changes the "Microsoft is dead" statement (not prediction) then you don't appreciate what Microsoft was as compared to what Microsoft is today. In the 1990s, Microsoft was in many tech markets the default winner, with such powerful monopoly influence that large classes of startup idea would not even make sense to consider because Microsoft was just so well set up to kill any threats to their dominance. And quite willing to do so. This is a level of dominance and ferocity that has not been attained by other tech companies since. Companies like Apple, Google, and Facebook have pretty strong dominance powered by their lead in product quality, engineering talent, and brand/network effects, but it doesn't strike fear into people the way Microsoft once did. Plus, there is some balance of power among them. Microsoft now is a participant in this power dynamic. They play in the normal way, by trying to make good products and attract developers and users to their platform. In the 1990s, this would have seemed a pathetic weakness. That Microsoft is still dead. ~~~ msellout I remember. So, M$FT is dead, long live MSFT? ~~~ shimon Past the headline, PG never claimed MSFT would actually die (or even cease to make lots of money). [http://www.paulgraham.com/microsoft.html](http://www.paulgraham.com/microsoft.html) ------ awalGarg "Third, note that Bash and Linux tools cannot interact with Windows applications and tools, and vice-versa. So you won’t be able to run Notepad from Bash, or run Ruby in Bash from PowerShell." ~~~ ktRolster To me, that means that it's less useful than Cygwin currently. ~~~ JdeBP In that vein, see [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11416392](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11416392) . ------ MountainJack Posix on Windows! Yay! Together with the open sourcing of DotNet (that now enjoys an MIT license), this new Microsoft stance is looking more and more compelling. Comparing MS policies that to the rather hostile licensing/litigation policies of Java/Oracle makes me reevaluate. ~~~ jewel For those that haven't seen it, this isn't the first time (or even the second time) that Microsoft has released a POSIX layer for Windows: [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Microsoft_POSIX_subsystem](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Microsoft_POSIX_subsystem) [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Windows_Services_for_UNIX](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Windows_Services_for_UNIX) ~~~ ktRolster And they all suck (but are better than nothing). I really wish I could get the windows socket() function to return an integer. ------ kevinSuttle Sure wish they'd discuss a release date... ~~~ voltagex_ My theory is that it got announced / leaked way too early. Although, the driver files have been in the Preview builds for a while now. ------ Touche It seems weird to me that conhost.exe handles how console commands are displayed. I've read where some 3rd party attempts to improve the terminal experience on Windows have done so by essentially scraping what conhost outputs and then using the data to display output themselves. Am I wrong about this? I have never worked on terminals so I very well could be, but my expectation would be that terminals call into shell APIs which return a result that the terminal can then display however it wishes. If so, then I think the next natural step would be for Windows to decouple conhost's responsibilities. ~~~ Analemma_ This isn't as necessary as it used to be: conhost.exe got a major overhaul in Windows 10 and it sucks a lot less now. There's wrapped selection, copy/paste, and transparency (if you're into that). There's plenty more to go but overall the experience is no longer pull-your-hair-out agony, and Microsoft did say (without providing any specifics) that more improvements were on the way and that they are still soliciting feedback and feature suggestions. You could propose changing the way commands are displayed if you wanted. ~~~ Touche Those improvements are nice, but ultimately 3rd party terminals should be able to handle display completely by themselves. Is this now possible? ------ drdaeman I wonder if this means that Windows will be finally able to use ext3/4 filesystems out-of-box, read and write. Or Microsoft won't dare to hurt their FAT-LFN & exFAT cash cows and make that "uh-oh developers only" feature? ;) ~~~ JdeBP It's a subsystem for running Linux binaries, unaltered, on top of the Windows NT kernel. There has been no mention of additional Windows NT filesystem drivers, anywhere. ------ rb808 After 30 years using windows this is very good news. Right now on Windows I use Git Shell which works great but is based on mintty. Will be nice to be something close to native. ------ ultramancool Is this in Insider Preview Build 14295 or is there an estimate on when the next preview will be out? ~~~ Analemma_ It is not in the current Preview Build; they have said it's coming soon but did not give specifics. Preview builds are pretty fast-paced now (about once a week) so I suspect it won't be long. ~~~ zzzcpan No, they said very specifically - in the next preview build, which is in two weeks. ~~~ Analemma_ I must've missed that bit. Thanks! ------ samfisher83 Anyone have the download link? I can't seem to find it. ------ manojlds Does this make msys(git) defunct? ~~~ jandrese Hasn't msys been half dead for years now? I still use it, but it has felt like it is on its last legs for a long time now. ~~~ kryptiskt MSYS2 is very up-to-date. [https://msys2.github.io](https://msys2.github.io) It uses pacman from Arch Linux as its package manager and it contains many libs in addition to just the compilers (and the unixy tools)	{ "pile_set_name": "HackerNews" }
Critical Code in Millions of Macs Isn't Getting Apple's Updates - doener https://www.wired.com/story/critical-efi-code-in-millions-of-macs-is-not-getting-apple-updates/ ====== floatingatoll The same Twitter-posting Apple employee noted in a thread last week that they had intended EFI checks to ship in Sierra. This indicates that Apple has been considering EFI as an attack vector for at least a couple years, and may perhaps (!) be aware of the risk category.	{ "pile_set_name": "HackerNews" }
Enterprise software vendors have no taste - lelf https://medium.com/michael-dubakov-selection/enterprise-software-vendors-have-no-taste-add7e78b7f69 ====== pinaceae The design challenge behind a modern enterprise app is also way steeper than on any consumer app. Enterprise apps like CRM, ERP, HR, etc. need to cover a myriad of use cases and local/regional/global intricacies. They achieve this through configuration and even customization options. Nobody, ever, uses enterprise apps out of the box. So your iPad app now needs to readjust and reconfigure itself based on customer defined data models, page layouts, workflows, triggers. And by customer I mean some yokel at Accenture/CapGemini/etc who is at least three layers removed from the person who wrote the requirements, plus never had any real training on how to configure the app. And as they can change even stuff like field labels, your beautiful and simple UI now needs to handle huge strings in random places, etc. Source: Running a team that builds a very successful enterprise app in a specific vertical. And we're spending a huge amount of time on protecting the end users from all the tasteless forces between us and them. Props to the Salesforce UX team, who are fighting the same fight. Go look at the Salesforce Wave analytics app - truly wonderful UI. Their way of drilling into a donut graph is simply awesome. ~~~ dpweb It's not about making it "look good". Completely subjective. The app needs the capbility to switch out the CSS. For instance, we resell/implement a popular cloud app - just our company - we do dozens of large implementations. Out of box, this app has a super modern look! It is not the SAP etc.. of days gone by. Even with this, some love it, some hate it. Waste of time trying to guess what people think looks good. Put their logo on, probably 8 out of 10 ask for this. No brainer. Need custom CSS, 1 out of 20 ask for this. App should be able to. If they want to get crazy, the capability for complete custom pages. Maybe 1 out of 50 customers ask for this and after you quote them the price they'll not want it. ------ herge Enterprise software is often picked by committee, who will find it easier (at the same price point) to go for the product with more features rather than the product with a better design. Hence, most of the negative feedback enterprise software vendors receive from the sales process is usually "We went with competitor X because they could do more for us.", which pushes the vendor to add more features at the expense of taste. ~~~ acveilleux I work in enterprise software as well and unless the UX/features of an app is critical, you are spot on. On the product I work on, one of the major GUI client is heavily used by power users with direct decision factor on the deals. It gets a lot of effort and polish and IxD folks go to client sites and maintain a feedback loop. Other parts of the app are meant to be used by, well, "lesser" users (from a sales PoV) and get less IxD time/effort. It's all very rational. ------ devonkim The article author seems to have had very little experience actually in the positions that he criticizes. The truth is that actually good people in those positions are working very hard and that they have basically no resources available nor dedicated to "make it look good." The number of cycles that consumer-oriented start-ups put towards design is roughly similar to what enterprises would spend on compliance and security. Both sides are motivated by completely different business drivers - start-ups and consumer companies need design to drive customer acquisition, and enterprises tend to require sales teams to be able to engage their enterprise customers. This dramatically changes the output obviously. Only the top-performing enterprise vendors that have been able to get the funding necessary to meet compliance issues AND design have a remote chance of doing decent UI. Also, another factor to consider is that most enterprise software these days by the typical vendors are acquisitions, so that software has already been around for roughly... 5 years or so. After they're rebranded, it's been another 2 years and the original engineers and designers have left after displeasure with their new masters. And most of these new companies have very little interest in rocking the boat and just want to keep squeezing the existing customers for whatever and will take years and years to introduce the acquired software to their other accounts. So, by then you'll have really, really old software that you just bought. ~~~ tablet >The article author seems to have had very little experience actually in the positions that he criticizes The article author runs a company for 10 years that creates a single product for B2B market. ------ ocdtrekkie They may not look pretty, but they work a lot better than the over-designed crud with pretty UIs. As a SysAdmin, I hope none of these enterprise vendors ever hires a single designer. ~~~ lultimouomo I laughed when I read the complaint about the "embarrassing lack of spaces"... Add the generous amount of space any fancy _à la page_ UI needs and try to keep the all the functionality these apps have, you'll need way more than a 4k screen for it to fit the screen. No, less is not always better. ~~~ tablet So you think this is OK? [http://cl.ly/image/0a0r1P1m0b2U](http://cl.ly/image/0a0r1P1m0b2U) ~~~ smcl I don't think that is quite what the parent was referring to. I think it was more "space" as in "have a clean simple uncluttered UI with ample padding around the edges" (see point 3 here: [https://medium.com/@erikdkennedy/7-rules-for-creating- gorgeo...](https://medium.com/@erikdkennedy/7-rules-for-creating-gorgeous-ui- part-1-559d4e805cda?hn=1)) not _literally_ a lack of   spaces between elements. ~~~ tablet I mean exactly that in the article. Spaces between forms and labels. ~~~ smcl Ah sorry, I take that back then ------ PaulHoule The root cause is that enterprise software is not sold to the people that use it. As for salesforce.com you should see how much worse the things it replaced were. I would also frame it in terms of usability rather than beauty. As a programmer one of my pet peeves is issue tracking systems that force you to fill out 25 irrelevant fields and wait 40 seconds several times to create a ticket. Not to mind that when you say you spent 4 hours on a ticket you might find that 4 hours got added to the estimate one time and the estimate got zeroed another time. A tell is that during standups the PM is moving post its around because it is too slow to use electronic tools. In an environment like that what should take 30 seconds takes more like 5 minutes. ~~~ rikkus Yes the article seems to be based on screenshots which are deemed to be too 'busy' or have too many gradients, rather than on actual usability. ~~~ tablet The article is about taste, not usability. It is intentional. It is possible that usable solution still ugly. But in ideal world we should have both. ~~~ pwnna I'm not sure if that's possible. The screenshot in the article shows a lot of screens with a lot of information and a lot of possible actions to take. For software that I need to use to interact with large amount of complex data, I do not want options to be hidden behind 4/5 clicks. When I was a part of a team that did enterprise-ish management software, one of the complaints of our initial design is that it's too simple and it takes too long to perform actions (>1 clicks from the main UI), and actually making it far more complex (users had to learn where the buttons are). Also, "Taste" is pretty subjective. Personally, I find software that's easy to use to be of good taste. A high learning curve (lots of options) is not necessarily bad as long as I can be efficient when I'm familiar with the software (think: Vim vs Google Maps) ~~~ PaulHoule It may be possible but it is also difficult and adds one more constraint. There certainly are cases where usability falls by the wayside for looks, and plenty of cases where the people involved are oblivious to everything and are just trying to get something based on mainframe or first wave client-server technology to be accessible by the web. The learning curve issue is a real one and it has a few dimensions. One is the case of an app you use every day where click minimization is the number one thing. The other is the app that you use only occasionally and the user's long term memory is the bottleneck. One trouble is that even the app you use every day probably has some corner that you go into every six months, so even that kind of app has learning curve issues that don't go away. ~~~ TeMPOraL In serious software for serious work there is a simple way to cut down the learning curve - training sessions. Instead of dumbing down the UI and slowing everyone down, you can just take new employees to a few hours long session where they get familiarized with the parts of the tool they need for the job. ------ dyoder Many of these responses hilariously demonstrate why enterprise software interaction design is so poor: the market simply doesn't care. The root cause is not that enterprise software vendors have no taste, it's that the stakeholders involved in the procurement process don't value interaction design. Like any market, it's likely that the vendors that are successful value those things that their customers value, and interaction design is not one of those things. The vendors that are passionate about design eventually do something else, because their work isn't valued by the enterprise market. The vendors that remain in the market either don't value design or aren't committed to it. And, by extension, the best designers don't stick around in companies where their talents aren't valued. ------ jakobegger I see two problems: 1) Beautiful design takes lots of effort. Making sure that texts and buttons align, choosing color schemes, takes a lot of time. A large fraction of the code is UI code, so minimizing the amount of time spent on coding the UI is a quick way to safe time and money. 2) Beautiful design requires authority. When you make a twitter client, you can just scrap that confusing feature that noone will use. In enterprise world, you need to implement every stupid feature the client wants even if it makes the product worse. No amount of taste or design can fix an interface that is broken in principle. ------ indymike Enterprise software is designed to demo well (that means lots of well exposed one dimensional features) and differentiate against competitors in demos/shootouts. Everything else is secondary - design, usability. This makes it easy to sell, but leads to high levels of dissatisfaction - (i.e. the 80% failure rate of CRM or ERP or ATS software). ~~~ rushabh I will take it one step further. Enterprise software is designed to "sell". In enterprise software, the buyer and the user are not the same person and the buyer has the power. That is why enterprise software sales is so bloated. We build and sell enterprise software and our strength is design. The way we work around this problem is that we are selling only to early adopters and have also open sourced our product. We are not getting the big bucks, but its starting to show result. ------ awkward The non-design is often a feature and a selling point for these vendors. There are some simple reasons that these might go against current trends in design - for example, these need to be high-information density displays, not minimalist showpieces. This gives plenty of room to ship something that is suboptimal, but to market it to the customer as clearly more functional, BECAUSE it's ugly. I really think that UX can be improved, and better design could squeeze more efficiency out of these systems, but this thought process - that ugly directly means functional - actually does move a lot of software. ~~~ ocdtrekkie I literally was at a talk from an AXIS Communications salesperson yesterday. They advocated their never-changing web UI as a feature, and everyone agreed it was one. ~~~ kayfox If you mean the company that makes the network cameras, it is kinda nice that you don't have to change your code for every new camera or version of software. Sometimes what works does not need to be changed,* especially when your talking physical security, where a camera system may be installed for upwards of 20 years. Oh, and guards who still don't know how to operate it. * In this case I think they have made substantial changes behind the scenes to fix security holes, but the UI remains the same. ~~~ ocdtrekkie Yup. ------ zenpaul I've developed many enterprise software solutions over the years. In my experience, there's a fundamental tradeoff in enterprise software (and software in general) that has to do with the number and sophistication of users. Basically, if you have lots and lots of unsophisticated users, you HAVE to spend time on design to make it intuitive so you are not overwhelmed with customer support issues. If you have a few, more sophisticated users (that often require a more complex interaction with the data) you can get away with a simple interface and make up for it in training or customer support. It's a simple cost-benefit tradeoff that enterprises with limited resources make all the time. Given that, I agree that much enterprise is needlessly badly designed. I can look at systems and tell that nobody even mocked up the screens before the programmers started coding. ~~~ MaggieL Mocking the screens would require that there be a design. Having a design would require...well, _requirements_. Too few internal enterprise development environments manage to do these things. So an enterprise product with beautiful design is at a disadvantage for all the reasons other have noted, but also because it breaks the branding of the suite of enterprise software in which it becomes embedded, makes the rest of it look bad, and draws attention to the fact that the local IT department had to go out and buy something. :-) . ------ DanBC I'd love to see some "better" designs. Good design is hard, and it's worth paying a good designer to do the work, but often designers will make something look nicer whilst making it harder to use or a lot more resource intensive. I regularly have to load hundreds of kbs of stuff just so someone can show me a design feature that has no function. to be clear: I'm not talking about line spacing (which makes things easier to read) or font colours (which can improve contrast) or some javascript that actually does something. tldr designers need to start calling out the bad design, not just un-designed software. > Rational Team Concert has home icon in top corner. Why? So many product blogs make the mistake of having the big icon linking to the home of the blog, not the home of the product. Link to the product. ------ crazygringo This is really quite simple. It's not worth it from a cost-benefit analysis. Good design takes a lot of effort and a lot of money. Good UI is _really hard_ , and means spending salaries on extra people. Good design is important if that's a competitive differentiator, which is usually the case in _consumer_ apps/objects. For enterprise software purchases, buying decisions are made on functionality, not design. So why would an enterprise software company waste resources on design that could go toward additional functionality, bugfixes, etc.? Saying: > _Is it so hard to add correct spaces between form element and labels? No, it > is not, but nobody cares._ is ridiculous. First of all, yes it _is_ hard, because most developers are not trained in design, and then programming good layout actually takes a _lot_ of effort as well. And secondly, many people _do_ care, but it's just not a smart business prioritization of resources. ~~~ coldcode If these products were cheap I could buy this argument. But I see stuff licensing for 6 or 7 figures with UX from hell. The problem is that the people who are forced to use this crap are not the "customer" who pays for it, is sold on it, meets about the purchase, or cares about usability. ~~~ smackfu Just because the customer isn't the end user doesn't mean they are some disinterested party. Often they are writing requirements that the end user doesn't even care about, because this software has to fit into the existing software ecosystem at the megacorp. Stuff like LDAP, SAML, and ERP integration. And also provably meet corporate standards, and work on the corporations reference hardware architecture, etc. ------ ebbv Good design is subjective. What you or I might think is good design, someone else will think is wasteful because it has too much white space. Believe it or not, the customers for enterprise software usually want the software to pack as much information onto a single page. It might look nasty to you, but it's what the customer wants. That's not to say it couldn't be organized better or cleaner, everything can always be improved. But you're mistaking your own opinion for universal fact. ~~~ ocdtrekkie Exactly. The designer obsession with whitespace is basically a cancer to tech products. I go out of my way to find software that was made by an enterprise vendor, ideally one that has no designers on staff. o_o ~~~ MrDosu It's those people that want to remove gridlines from spreadsheets, because pretty... ------ jamiesonbecker Information-rich screens can reduce clicks and save massive amounts of time, but it's very hard to design information rich interfaces that don't clog your forest for the trees. Add in a requirement that the screen needs to be responsive and work well on mobile, and what was a heavy lift before becomes massive. For example, [https://Userify.com](https://Userify.com) has a very simple (and rather prosaic) interface with not a lot of tools, but it's easier and faster for people to pick up than trying to hook authentication in their Linux boxes to Active Directory or LDAP. The next release, by necessity, will be more complex and powerful because it's getting an approximate metric ton more functionality. We'll try to balance that by fixing the blah design and color scheme, but balancing info-rich interface against functionality on varying size screens is just really hard. Even so, the author is right -- but _form follows function_ still applies. I'd rather have an ugly, but fast and functional, interface over a beautiful and weak interface any day. The app that succeeds in both will be most successful. Ultimately it's an optimization problem. ------ voidhorse I can confirm, that, at least at some companies, more time has been devoted to ux, and now ui. If I am correct, I think they've always shot for good ux, but ui was usually secondary. Now they have focused on ui a lot more, and companies have even begun incorporating an extensive styleguide for the user facing components (something that would noramlly be done for a webapp or website by a front end dev, but is usually neglected in enterprise apps). ux has also been refined. Legacy products are probably not getting extreme make overs any time soon(because of existing customer base, but you never know), but I would not be surprised if we begin to see other developers of enterprise level software begin to pay more attention to UX/UI and likely mimic the look and feel of web apps created by what were originally smaller companies. We are at the point where enterprises are not only using domain specific applications, but have employees familiar with webapps like twitter, facebook, etc., all of which blow a lot of older enterprise products out of the water design wise. Essentially, customers expect more on the design side these days, and I think enterprise devs will begin to attempt to meet that expectation to the extent that they can. (I've even seen enterprise apps that have started using what I would term 'cutesy' user facing messages. There's probably a technical ux term for it but a good example would be github's "github <3's you' or whatever they display when you sign up--stuff like that, or giving the user a pat on the back when they run a function like 'good work!' stuff you'd never imagine would appear in enterprise level apps is creeping in because of the sheer popularity of webapps like twitter, etc.) ------ csears Are there examples of enterprise software with "good taste"? I'm sure someone out there must be doing it correctly. I agree that the interfaces from the screenshots looked cluttered, but I think a contrasting shot of a properly designed enterprise app would have made for a stronger argument. ~~~ totalrobe Atlassian products are pretty and functional to boot. ~~~ mercury_craze SourceTree is obviously the exception to this rule. ------ leppr Most people have no taste, that's all there is to it. Minimal and clear visual design has just started to get mainstream, just pick any piece of amateur GUI software at random and there's only a 1/1000 chance it won't be ugly. Even the most used GUIs in the world (Windows/OSX/Android/iOS) are full of little imperfections and nonsensical design decisions. One day software will be important enough that everything we use everyday will have been designed carefully, this isn't the case yet. ------ trymas It's quite simple. 1\. Enterprise needs vast amount of custom, specific features 2\. It must be universal, to be able to do any business operations. 3\. Good design costs, businesses want features, not designs (reasonably good/usable design is enough), thus save money In my experience, specs change on the go, due to how much customization business want, this is really hard to manage on the back-end, if you'll need to do this on the front-end, development cost raises dramatically. Reasonably good, and extensible design usually is more than enough. ------ suttree It's true. My concern is that well designed, tasteful and thoughtful services are seen as hipster. I'd imagine that anything with a font size that is readable can be dismissed as hipster bullshit by enterprise clients. Even gov.uk was derided for having a clean design. But, we've seen many times that our enterprise clients are drawn towards the design of somewhere.com, they want to use something that was built to be enjoyed. Taste is a barrier. ------ jbigelow76 Sorry for the snarky nit picking but... One of the critiqued UIs includes the following annotation: _Rational Team Concert has home icon in top corner. Why?_ Surely the author wouldn't be so indeterminate in their own design right? _Targetprocess 3 has a user gravatar in the top left corner. Why?_ (Actually Targetprocess looks like it has a very nice UI, but then again I don't find the others all that horrendous either. There's just no accounting for taste.) ~~~ tablet Targetprocess design is definitely not perfect and there are many areas that are ugly and outdated. We face the same problem as all other vendors. However, we do try to design better and better and almost all of our new solutions are better than the old ones. Taste is personal. I think these applications have no taste. ------ HarveyKandola Enterprise software procurement will shift thanks to SaaS and the ability of teams/departments to buy what they need quickly. More and more, this is a means to bypass the formal, long-winded procurement process. Hence pricing SaaS to sit below team credit card spend limit helps. That's when polished, 'tasteful' and usable software should win. ~~~ acveilleux Just look at JIRA... It's ubiquitous, cloud based, ugly and bad user experience. It's still successful. ~~~ matthewmacleod I think the UX and design of Jira and the rest of the Atlassian tools is pretty good. It's reasonably clean and consistent while being customisable as required. If anything, I'd use Jira as an example of what enterprise software _should_ be like! It's hardly perfect, but I s better than almost every other non-tech- oriented SaaS I've used. ~~~ acveilleux I think it's the enterprisey configurability really. A lot of the instances I've had to use were confusing messes with local OK parts, I wouldn't be surprised if some combination of configuration yielded much better usability. Bugzilla is obviously very ugly (and directly out of the 1990s) but it does work pretty well and it's fairly logical to use. ------ thebouv Another reason is needing to support old browsers in SaaS for enterprise. All the new sparkles and rainbows are great design, but often also require the newest browsers to really use. I've never worked in an enterprise environment that didn't still have to support IE8. Enterprises are slow to move on this. ------ vaskebjorn Yet another reason for this not already mentioned is that some enterprise customers actually expect these ugly interfaces. This horrible ie 6/7 aesthetic has come to signify what "enterprise" software looks like, and it's what's expected. ~~~ ocdtrekkie Quick, efficient, and functional. That's what I expect of enterprise software, yes. It should have lots of options, and no useless cruft like CSS, JavaScript, etc. ------ smackfu I wouldn't be shocked if a lot of these companies literally have no designers working on these products. Just engineers laying out UI similar to what is already in the product, based on the requirements. Any art assets come from stock libraries. ~~~ chuck8088 Yeah, you pretty much nailed it. When a boss sends an email and says 'use an image like this' \- you use that image. I suggested hiring a designer, just for some of the most used features and all I got was 'yeah, okay, hmmm' ------ wooyi Have you ever changed the UI on a legacy Enterprise app. The reaction from the Windows 8 UI changes is a taste of it. Customers hate change. They have been trained on the legacy UI. You change the UI you make their job harder (at least that's the perception). ------ retrogradeorbit It's not that enterprise software vendors have no taste, it's just that taste is not a factor in the business of selling the software. And taste costs, so why spend money on something that brings zero return. Enterprise software vendors are looking at their own product and going, gee, that's ugly, but hey, look at our bank balance. More of that! Consumer software, totally different story. But this is enterprise. As an enterprise employee, you're not paid to sit there blissing out on how good your screen looks on a rounded corner tech gadget. You are paid to do your job, whatever that is. Whatever increases that metric is what wins. ------ zwieback Most enterprise apps are truly ugly but what matters isn't looks but how many clicks or clacks it takes to get a specific task done. If you use the same app every day it hardly matters how pretty or even intuitive the app is. ~~~ yuchi Actually this is true and it isn’t. I mean, for sure ‘how intuitive’ is not a good metric for enterprise products, which usually come along with a big bunch of days for training, because you have a small number of users, somehow forced to use your product for a long time. If you’re investing in reducing the ‘time to learn’ (learn the semantics of your product) you’re probably focusing on the wrong thing. Yet, all these products (and I work on those a lot) are not well designed as a symptom of missing care for the “cognitive cost” for the user. Anyway, the products listed in the post are way better than others. Which is sad :\ ------ craigching While I agree with the premise of the post, I do think that the use of design is changing in enterprise software. All of those products have been around for awhile now and I think that the idea that you need designers and good design is just a relatively new concept for ESVs. I can see it happening at my own company, a couple of years ago UX wasn't really something we considered, but now we are hiring UX people for all of our products. So I think you'll see this change going forward, it's just the enterprise is always the last to join the game. ~~~ ocdtrekkie Or the reality is, you _don 't_ need designers, but the hipster crowd convinced companies they do, because they needed something to do with their art degrees they'd get paid for. ------ djrogers Hiring has something to do with this in the current climate as well. If you find a dev with good UI/design chops odds are against you hiring him/her to build a UI for an invisible B2B/enterprise company in the Bay Area. Most of the people fitting that description seem to want to go to a VC backed startup building the next world changing Uber-of-SoLoMo app something or other. ------ pessimizer I really think all of these interfaces look entirely adequate. I can imagine being able to easily use all of them without much training. There's really no comparison to the stuff I was trying to use 5-10 years ago, which tended to the illogical and unusable. I guess I have no taste? I'm glad I'm not an interior designer. ------ tindrlabs Enterprise software is just a reflection of enterprises in general. A lot of the left hand doesn't know the what the right is doing, duplication of work, etc. Where a lot of consumer software maps towards what a human would do naturally without the constraints of business. ------ tybulewicz I'd say that B2C apps are designed by small commited team while huge apps for B2B are designed by committee and developed by many separate teams focused on different aspects of application. ------ twunde Unfortunately another contributing factor is that many enterprise websites or applications have to support old versions of ie. My company is still supporting XP due to a particular partner. ------ retrogradeorbit I would like to see the OP do mock redesigns of these sites they've picked, showing by example how these designs could be improved. ------ bsbechtel What about the re-designed Quickbooks Online released last Spring/Summer? Is that not considered enterprise software? ~~~ tonyarkles Call it whatever you want... I love it. I think I (unintentionally) signed up for it shortly after the redesign. At the start it felt like there were a few things that should have been easier to find than they were, but it has quickly and subtly evolved. I didn't think I'd ever say this, but the new QBO has been by far the least painful small business accounting software I've used. Very very impressed! ~~~ bsbechtel It was a bit of a learning curve from the old layout, and I still think there's a gap between what it is and what it could one day be, but I agree that it is certainly better than 99% of enterprise software applications. QBO also serves a market where the line between consumer applications and enterprise applications is less clear. ------ ThomaszKrueger As a target process user, I have to agree with the assessment that Enterprise Software has no taste.	{ "pile_set_name": "HackerNews" }
Elementary OS Loki Released - aroman https://elementary.io/ ====== billconan the os seems to be built on top of linux and gtk? can you really sell a linux distro? given it's gpl licensed? ~~~ r3bl You can charge for the distribution of the software any way you want. You just need to provide the code. They don't even need to offer a compiled version for free (hint: it is currently, you can type in "0" in the custom field) and it would still be legal.	{ "pile_set_name": "HackerNews" }
Ask HN: Should we create a Crypto Bank that issues bank notes? - Findeton Some people have created "bills" and physical "coins" that actually contain crypto. I haven't seen anyone creating bank notes that are simply backed by a bank that stores the crypto for them. What do you think about the idea?<p>I believe it could be useful for people in some developing countries. My initial idea is to create a branch in Colombia/Cucuta, oriented to support people from Venezuela crossing the border forth and back.<p>Pros about such a bank:<p>- Crypto bank notes enable off-chain transactions with zero cost.<p>- Bills/notes enable use non-gov backed currency (may fluctuate, but won't have inflation) without requiring internet.<p>- A "current" crypto bank account also enables you to forget about taking care of the security side of crypto addresses, where it's also easy to move money to an Ethereum address or back to other currencies like colombian pesos or dollars.<p>What do you think?<p>PD: I'm based in Europe, but I've been to Colombia. ====== gus_massa [Hi from Argentina!] How do you prevent counterfeit? Bank notes have a lot of security measures and the government will send to hail anyone that tries to make a fake bill. How is this better than dollar bills? ~~~ Findeton A dollar still has inflation. Counterfeits are an issue though there are well known mitigation approaches. Honestly it’s not that different from a dollar, it’s just something that I haven’t seen anyone testing it. ~~~ gus_massa The inflation rate in Venezuela is more than 200% monthly. (!!!) That makes it very difficult to deal with the money and essentially worthless for anyone outside Venezuela. Using dollars that has only an inflation rate of 1-2% annually would be a huge difference. You are underestimating counterfeits. Here in Argentina we had 20 years ago some "barter clubs", it was like a local market but people use a fake internal money instead of the national money. It was like a local/neighborhood money backed by thin air. It worked for some time, until some of them were popular enough to get counterfeits attacks.	{ "pile_set_name": "HackerNews" }
Dafny: A Language and Program Verifier for Functional Correctness - kushti http://research.microsoft.com/en-us/projects/dafny/ ====== nickpsecurity Good to see it show up on HN. It's a nice language and their rise4fun project brings such stuff to a wider audience. I wonder if any readers with a lot of hands-on experience in these can tell me how it compares to SPARK Ada. About the same? Behind in capabilities? Ahead in some ways? SPARK would seem to be the definitive baseline to compare all the others, too. ------ brudgers Source: [http://dafny.codeplex.com/SourceControl/latest](http://dafny.codeplex.com/SourceControl/latest) ------ cperkins I like it. The Dafny annotations seem straightforward and approachable. Anyone know of a similar system for Javascript? ------ whitten Does anyone have an estimate to the difficulty of using Dafny as an annotation to programs written in another programming language? I'm thinking of one on a different OS (Linux) than the MS Windows OS for which Dafny appears to be written. ------ SchizoDuckie Eruhm Is it just me, or is describing the functional correctness of a program with another programming language asking for more problems? ~~~ wellpast Not to me. I've found unit tests to be indispensable in establishing and maintaining code correctness -- and my unit tests have always been written in a PL, too. ~~~ lomnakkus There are two cruical properties you want, I think: A) It _must_ be possible to automatically and completely mechanically ensure that implementation & proof don't get out of sync. Having a formal proof for an algorithm which isn't the algorithm that you've actually ended up implementing doesn't really help you one whit :). This is relatively simple for unit tests and property-based tests like QuickCheck: Just observe that the number of tests run actually increases over time and never decreases unexpectedly. (Actually, it seems to be rather rare to have support from Continuous Integration tools for tracking the latter.) B) There must be (in some sense) at least some non-trivial difference between the implementation & "proof". (At the absurd extreme: bisimulation doesn't really work as proof of anything if the implementations are one and the same.) For example, in Idris the implementation is basically just code while the proof is the accomanying types -- which ensures that they're not basically just saying the (trivially) same thing, even though the types greatly _constrain_ what the implementation can do. I think that the allure of "practical" dependent types (e.g. Idris) may be that such languages trivially obey both properties. Of course you still end up with a "trusted computing base" which is non-trivial in such cases.	{ "pile_set_name": "HackerNews" }
Switching roles told me how hard it is for women to get the respect they deserve - pvorb https://twitter.com/SchneidRemarks/status/839910253680553988?s=09 ====== pvorb Disclaimer: This story is _not_ by me but really worth reading. Posting it here for better discussion.	{ "pile_set_name": "HackerNews" }
ASk HN: I Need a Self-hosted blog platform - BeccaCory I'm a marketer, and looking for a blog platform where we can host the blog ourselves - ie, I want to implement extreme customization. Anyone have any recommendations.<p>Wordpress is not capable enough. ====== robotys If wordpress is not capable enough for you it is either 1) what you are trying to do is not within scope of normal web interaction or 2) you have very limited experience using wordpress. you need to consult a web developer that you trust for these issue. ------ michaelchum A lot of hackers use Octopress [http://octopress.org/](http://octopress.org/) it is a framework over Jekyll which lets you write posts in an easy way like Wordpress. It also contains templates so you don't have to take care of the HTML/CSS/JS like in Jekyll ------ zachlatta People seem to be pretty excited about [https://ghost.org/](https://ghost.org/) these days. It's open source and looks to have a pretty strong community. ~~~ BeccaCory This looks awesome, thanks! ------ digisocialnet Maybe the poster means wordpress.com is not capabale enough? To me, Wordpress is a self-hosted platform and overly capable as a blog. It's also pretty capable for any other CMS-based site. ~~~ BeccaCory Wordpress is a fully capable blog, but we're trying to brand the way it looks, implement some discovery widgets that lead back to our actual site, and also add some features. Basically, we want to be able to edit the HTML and potentially more, but Wordpress.com doesn't let you do this. ~~~ digisocialnet Wordpress.com is a hosted implementation of Wordpress, which is available at wordpress.org. It sounds like you should research the available blog platforms out there. You can google search "top blog platforms 2014" or something similar to get an idea of what's possible. The upside of Wordpress is that there are thousands of themes and plugins that come close to what you want. The downside of Wordpress (especially on this website) is that many developers and designers are tired of it. The code is bloated but will probably be your best bet to use because of the large community surrounding it. You can edit anything in the self-installed version, but you can also break it which is why wordpress.com doesn't let you edit the HTML. Do a google search of "Best _____ Premium Wordpress theme" or "best ____ wordpress plugin" with whatever your ideas are and see what comes up. ------ ColinWright What are you capable of? What skills do you have in house? If you need extreme customization, what can you do? With the right skills you could just write your own. ------ mindcrime Roller? [http://roller.apache.org](http://roller.apache.org) ------ Skywing Github with Jekyll? ------ bmelton What deficiencies does Wordpress have? How is it not capable enough? Knowing whether it won't perform well under the kind of load your audience generates leads to an entirely different answer than knowing that it is limited in some other way. If Wordpress is lacking in extensibility, then my guess is you'd be better off with something like Django, which isn't a blog at all, but could easily be converted into one -- or you could start with an existing, minimalist Django blog package and extend it. If Wordpress is simply lacking features you need though, that's a different conversation, as it's the most likely to get those feature in the future, and/or possibly the cheapest to have those extensions developed.	{ "pile_set_name": "HackerNews" }
‘None of this happened the way you think it did’ - Avshalom https://www.hcn.org/issues/51.10/communities-none-of-this-happened-the-way-you-think-it-did-cremated-remains ====== rurban Great timing. Just lost my grandmother (she was 92), and now she's getting cremated next week. I can really use that info to detect suspicious scam.	{ "pile_set_name": "HackerNews" }
CloudFlare on Spamhaus SBL - simpleenigma http://blog.wordtothewise.com/2012/07/cloudflare-and-spamhaus/ ====== simpleenigma I recently got an message from a client who has a business email blocked because of a Spamhaus SBL listing for CloudFlare. I know they have already responded to this at <http://blog.cloudflare.com/thoughts-on-abuse>, but my client is paying them for speeding up their website, not to get blocked by an anti-spam filter. I see both sides of this, but the bottom line is that if they don;t resolve the problem with Spamhuas they will start to loose business starting with mine. ------ cmer I've been a Cloudflare (paying) customer for less than a week and I can't say it's been a smooth ride. Are they usually worry-free or did I just add problems to my stack? I'd like to hear from people who've been using them for a while. ~~~ simpleenigma I've been a long time proponent of CloudFlare. Usually they just speed things up and life is good. I've had a few minor problems where they 'clean up' some JavaScript and break it in the process, but those got resolved without any effort on my part within a few days.	{ "pile_set_name": "HackerNews" }
Are crowds really all that wise? - blasdel http://nonbovine-ruminations.blogspot.com/2009/08/are-crowds-really-all-that-wise.html ====== billswift You might try actually reading Surowiecki's "Wisdom of Crowds". Once you get past all the hype and glosses on the book, and the book's introduction, you will find that the "wisdom" of crowds is restricted and only functions under particular conditions that rarely hold in the real world. But when they do hold "crowds" actually do function well. Wikipedia does not satisfy those conditions. It seems to be mostly accurate for non-controversial technical information, but I wouldn't trust it much on anything. ------ envitar Probably not. Herd behaviour is not necessarily wise, mostly to the contrary. Buffett wasn't successful because he followed the crowd but the opposite.The "madness of crowds" is well documented. Wisdom of crowds? No thanks.	{ "pile_set_name": "HackerNews" }
Welcome Back, Nokia - tilt http://techcrunch.com/2012/02/24/just-try-a-windows-phone/ ====== laacz TechCrunch did it again. Brutal PR. I mean, 33% (OMG, 33%!!) of a market, which is tiny. In a linked article it says, that nokia sold 1 million (that's rounded up from mentioned .9 mil) devices in Q4. WP7 share is around .5 to 1.5% (range seen on few quickly googled reports). So, 33% you say? ~~~ nailer Sure, WP7 isn't much of the market now. The implication is that this is market share of a _growing_ platform. WP7 handsets sell for the same pricepoint as low end Android devices. And, according to most of the reviews, it's a better product. The idea TC has is that Nokia is going to take a lot of those customers. ~~~ JoeAltmaier Supported by what? The article was vague, it talked more about the plastic than the apps. What apps? Why did I have to ask that question? Where's any hard data? ~~~ nailer > Supported by what? Both sales data, and user agents on the mobile web. This is fairly easily Googlable. > The article was vague, it talked more about the plastic than the apps. What > apps? Are you saying app #s would be a more relevant measure of market growth? ~~~ JoeAltmaier So now I do the legwork for articles, instead of the author? Great! "All Minnesotans are stupider than Iowans! Look it up!" Apps may not really be relevant to market grows, but they would be relevant to the article subject, "Welcome back, Nokia". Are they back? Is anybody writing apps for their phone? Why would I want one? All reasonable questions, revolving around apps. ------ nailer I've always admired the design of Windows Phone, and (despite owning three Android phones in a row) hated Android's "we've made the sale, now we don't care anymore" support model. But I was never going to buy one of those horrible LG or Samsung Windows Phone devices. They feel cheap and clunky. The 800 is a solid, smooth credit-card- like device. It feels nice in the hand, like the first iPhone did. Once WP8 is released (provided it has some equivalent of W8's WinJS) I think I'm going to buy one.	{ "pile_set_name": "HackerNews" }
NVIDIA reaches settlement in class action suit affecting Apple, Dell, HP laptops - lotusleaf1987 http://www.engadget.com/2010/09/30/nvidia-reaches-settlement-in-class-action-suit-affecting-apple/ ====== kls Wow great info, I did not even know that this was going on, I have one of the affected models, thanks for the info.	{ "pile_set_name": "HackerNews" }
Grantoo lets college students earn tuition by playing games - thegarside http://venturebeat.com/2012/04/04/grantoo-lets-college-students-earn-tuition-by-playing-games-exclusive/ ====== vitno as a college student, I say the games really suck...	{ "pile_set_name": "HackerNews" }
“AI-generated” content is sometimes just unaltered training data - weswpg https://twitter.com/eevee/status/1298932940697550848 ====== weswpg > it appears this was "produced" by an AI, but it also exists verbatim > elsewhere as written by a human, so it was probably picked up in the > training data and then spat back out unaltered > so if it decides to start with A, and it's only ever seen A next to B, and > it's only ever seen B next to C, and it's only ever seen C next to D... then > you might get out ABCDEFG and go "wow amazing it came up with the alphabet > all by itself" > but no, it didn't do that. it saw someone else do that and it couldn't > figure out anything else to do it. it's not a sign of intelligence; it's > exactly the opposite. and the messier your training data is, the less > similarities within it, the more likely this is to happen > yeah you can get an essay out of that one text generator. cool. but do keep > in mind 1. it had //millions// of pages of input from formal sources like > newspapers and encyclopedias, all written to a similar style. 2. how much of > its output is truly original? have you checked? > the funny thing is that we already saw a lot of this stuff happen 20+ years > ago with markov chain bots in irc. sometimes the bot would say something > remarkably poignant and, oh, no, it's basically repeating something a human > said earlier because it started with a rare word ------ MrStonedOne that one copyright case everybody in AI is depending on to protect them is not likely to be as protective as they are assuming.	{ "pile_set_name": "HackerNews" }
Tesla crash victim had complained about auto-pilot in same location - ucaetano http://abc7news.com/automotive/i-team-exclusive-victim-who-died-in-tesla-crash-had-complained-about-auto-pilot/3275600/ ====== antirez "Our data shows that Tesla owners have driven this same stretch of highway with Autopilot engaged roughly 85,000 times since Autopilot was first rolled out in 2015. ... There are over 200 successful Autopilot trips per day on this exact stretch of road." Who wrote this statement does not understand software. If there is some kind of Heisenbug, those numbers are too small to prove that the software is ok, and actually the guy that died reporting that there was an issue there, and later crashing there, looks like a very interesting hint about a potential software bug that should be investigated. The Tesla statement is the equivalent of "works in my laptop" at a bigger scale. Also consider that 85k times since 2015 means that potentially only a fraction of those trips were executed with the latest version of the software. Moreover the street layout may now be kinda different triggering some new condition. ~~~ shawn Heisenbugs in AI are also interesting. As computers approach sentience, it will become progressively harder to explain their behavior. Why did you eat a bagel instead of eggs this morning? Usually there isn't a scientific answer. In the present, AI models are already so complicated that it seems hard to get reproducible diagnostic results, short of just saving every frame of data that the car's sensors pick up. And for video that seems rather prohibitive. Imagine collecting all sensor data for each of those 200 trips per day along the entire stretch of road. ~~~ smartician Aren't many AI methods also inherently probabilistic? That would make it by definition impossible to definitively explain any particular behavior. ~~~ baddox What do you mean by probabilistic? If you mean that the models takes input and outputs one or more labeled probabilities (e.g. “90% confidence the input photo is a dog, 10% confidence the input photo is a cat), then yes, I believe that many AI systems work this way. If you mean _random_ , in the sense that the system may return different results given the exact same inputs, then in not sure if there are AI systems that work that way. ~~~ joshuamorton There are. Monte Carlo methods is the keyword you're looking for. AlphaGo (Monte Carlo Tree Search) is an example of one such AI. Obviously you can set the RNG seed to be the same every time too, but even that only works if your system is wholly synchronous, which a car probably isn't. Note that I doubt Monte Carlo methods are common in the autonomous vehicle space. ~~~ chaboud I'd expect Monte Carlo methods to be used in a number of cases that have deterministic time envelopes for evaluation. Randomized selection and evaluation can be incredibly effective. They also resist degenerate structured input vulnerabilities. I'm not in the automotive space, but I'd be surprised if there were a viable self-driving car team _not_ using Monte Carlo methods somewhere in the vehicle stack. ~~~ joshuamorton Yeah, this was unfortunately worded. There are subproblems for which MC/randomized methods fit well, but in general those circumstances are well understood. ------ segmondy One of the things you learn in flying is not to force it. If conditions are not safe. Just forget about it. It almost seems the same type of judgement needs to be made for auto-pilot. If your auto-pilot acts up at all. Just turn it off and don't use it till it's resolved. All you need is one incident to be dead, so if you get a chance to observe any abnormalities, consider it a blessing. Something that will also be great will be a sort of "crash dump/bug report" button for these cars. If at any time your car does something unsafe, you can hit that button. The car will save the last 60 seconds so the manufacturer can analyze it to debug and figure out what went wrong. I was so excited about auto-pilot and dreamed of getting in my car and sleeping while it made cross-country trips. So much for that, that seems way far out. ~~~ herbst > I was so excited about auto-pilot and dreamed of getting in my car and > sleeping while it made cross-country trips. So much for that, that seems way > far out. This is more a hijack than a direct critique but I think the general issue is the assumption that we need a private vehicle for that. Trains are perfectly capable for bringing me from A to B while I am sleeping for years now. Edit:// with years I mean years. Before that pressure made longer rides usually more uncomfortable than they are now with modern trains. Probably only because my area has plenty of mountain tho. ~~~ mohaine In the US you will have lots of time to sleep due to waiting for an oncoming train to clear. In most parts of the country we don't have dedicated passenger tracks. Amtrak (our passenger line) just rents track time on the freight lines. The problem is that freight lines are often single track lines so if there is oncoming freight you just wait until the freight clears. Sometimes this his hours. Until we have dedicated passenger lines, long distance train travel is a non- starter here. It was too slow for my 75 year old uncle on a site seeing tour. His exact words were "fun, but never again" ~~~ greglindahl I've ridden a lot of Amtrak and it's never been on a single track line. Are you sure that's an actual problem? Long delays, sure, but is that the reason? Seems to usually be train equipment failure. ~~~ tbihl Having ridden a lot of Amtrak almost makes it less likely that you'd have experienced the single track problem, since quality rail experiences in the US are pretty concentrated such that someone who has good train experiences probably lives/works in an area where that is the rule. On the East coast, pretty good service arguably extends as far south as Richmond, but past that sitting on the tracks is very common. And with that you get the classic downward spiral of crappy transit. Ride a train in SC or GA, and you'll see that anyone with the money for a plane ticket has abandoned rail there. ~~~ greglindahl I mostly rode the train from SC to Boston and back (Southern Crescent) ... it's dual track all of the way. Also DC to Chicago, southern route, dual track all of the way. ~~~ james-mcelwain I _love_ Amtrak and am willing to put up with the delays, but DC to Chicago stop all the time, especially in the mountains, to wait for higher priority trains to pass. Sometimes it's only for a few minutes at a time, but sometimes it adds up to hours. ------ anonytrary I can't believe this person kept using it. If I had noticed a bug in auto- pilot and complained about it, I would be way too scared to ever use auto- pilot again. Personally, I never use auto-pilot because driving is piss easy, as it's designed to be. _Perfect_ self-driving cars is a nearly impossible feat to accomplish in an unbounded track. I can only imagine automated driving in a system which has no room for error. Examples include: tunnels under the ground, chain links on the ground (as in trolleys, trains, etc.), or anything else that vastly reduces the entropy involved in driving. With self-driving cars on current roads, it will probably take years to get from 1% error to .1% error, and decades to get from .1% error to .01% error, which isn't even good enough. Perhaps it will take a century or longer to develop the required artificial intelligence to make self-driving cars perfect "enough". There's just too much room for unique problems to spawn. Bounding vehicle freedom seems to be the only way forward. ~~~ WhompingWindows Your numbers about error percentiles don't make sense. Ideally, you'd want an outcome measure like fatalities per million miles, accidents per 100k miles, not "% error" which is vague. Furthermore, look at the actual data we have right now. SDC makers actually put out data in California about their "disengagement rate" which is how many time the human drivers took over from the software. Waymo have steadily increased that rate over the past few years, now they are driving many hours without disengagements. Look at the link below, page 4, you'll see they have 63 disengagements over 350k miles. That's 1 per 5.5k miles, so these cars are driving for days without a human takeover. They will not need their own infrastructure, that would be not be economically viable. They will go on the roads we have or they won't go at all. Tunnels are going to be reserved for high-density point-to-point travel, if the boring company or others ever get scale... ~~~ anonytrary Then let's add some perspective. You must be referring this[0] paper. If the average person puts on 1,000 miles per month[1], then that means they'd have to deal with disengagement (a mishap) at least twice a year, which is not acceptable for fully autonomous driving. I'm going to define a "fully autonomous vehicle" as "a vehicle which should not _ever_ require me to sit in the front seat and control it under any conceivable circumstance". Put differently, I should be able to lay down for a nap in the back seat and wake up at my destination without any chance for disengagement during my entire lifetime. At the current rate of 1 mishap per 5,500miles, I would be dead after about 6 months. Assuming a human lives to 75 years (we should really be using 75years minus 16years, but it's unimportant), a lifetime of driving is about 1,000mi/mo x 12mo/yr x 75yr = 900,000 miles. I don't even want the probability of encountering a mishap to be once per _lifetime_ , let alone once per 6 months. One mishap per 900,000 miles isn't enough, because, on average, I'd encounter one disengagement in my lifetime. Assuming we're striving for a world where 7 billion people can drive without a single incident in 75 years (a vast underestimate), we need the probability of a mishap to occur to be less than once per 7,000,000,000humans x 900,000mi/human = 63 x 10^14 miles. 1/5e3 is not even _close_ to 1/6e15. We're talking about 12 orders of magnitude in our error rate. I'd say we're laughably far away from our goal. We've got a _long_ way to go. [0] [https://www.dmv.ca.gov/portal/wcm/connect/42aff875-7ab1-4115...](https://www.dmv.ca.gov/portal/wcm/connect/42aff875-7ab1-4115-a72a-97f6f24b23cc/Waymofull.pdf?MOD=AJPERES) [1] [https://www.fool.com/investing/general/2015/01/25/the- averag...](https://www.fool.com/investing/general/2015/01/25/the-average- american-drives-this-much-each-year-ho.aspx) ~~~ nemothekid > I don't even want the probability of encountering a mishap to be once per > lifetime, This doesn't seem reasonable - Waymo's report doesn't dive in depth enough about each disengagement to warrant this sort of extreme reliability. If "2 disengagements" per year, were at most fenderbenders - something I'd wager humans do way more than twice per year - that would be a very different story than if those 2 disengagements were life threatening. Sure you'd wake up from your nap, but you wouldn't be dead, and at most you'd have to exchange insurance information. ~~~ anonytrary > This report covers disengagements following the California DMV definition, > which means "a deactivation of the autonomous mode when a failure of the > autonomous technology is detected or when the safe operation of the vehicle > requires that the autonomous vehicle test driver disengage the autonomous > mode and take immediate manual control of the vehicle.” So, you're right, there's no clear distinction, but I would further argue that it doesn't matter. Even if only 1/1000 disengagements are fatal, my conclusion remains the same. I think we're splitting hairs at this point, though. Even if not fatal, I highly doubt a significant fraction of such events (as defined above) would allow me take a nap upon departure and wake up at my destination, so it would still be unacceptable to me. I guess we have to agree on what an acceptable end-game is for fully autonomous vehicles. If you think "waking up on the shoulder exchanging insurance" is acceptable, then that would indeed change the numbers (but by how much? Two, maybe four orders of magnitude?). Humans get into fender-benders all the time, but surely we'd strive to eradicate this inefficiency in the automated driver. I think this is still an active area of debate; some assembly-line work can be made more efficient with machines, but we've seen humans out-perform machines in other types of work. I think driving tends to utilize more reactive, intuitive "System 1" thinking[0], so I imagine that humans will be vastly better than machines at driving for a very long time. [0] [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thinking,_Fast_and_Slow](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thinking,_Fast_and_Slow) ------ WillPostForFood The path into the barrier looks a lot like a lane. [https://imgur.com/a/iMY1x](https://imgur.com/a/iMY1x) And the old striping is lightly visible as well. ~~~ dixie_land looks like that would trick a human driver under certain lighting conditions. between Seattle and Bellevue a stretch of freeway looks just like that and trips me over every time ~~~ cesarb Either the same place or a nearby one (same pair of highways) did trick a human driver two years ago: [https://www.ntsb.gov/investigations/AccidentReports/Reports/...](https://www.ntsb.gov/investigations/AccidentReports/Reports/HAR1701.pdf) "[...] when it entered and traveled in an unmarked gore area, rather than the intended high-occupancy-vehicle (HOV) lane, and collided with a crash attenuator. The 990-foot-long gore, with an unmarked inside area, separates the left exit HOV lane for State Route 85 from the US-101 HOV lane." ~~~ pacificmint Not the same place nor nearby. From the picture on page 24 it's clear that this is the 85/101 interchange in south San Jose, about 20 miles away from the other 85/101 junction where the Tesla accident happened. The type of accident does seems comparable though. ------ MBCook If he had seen this issue multiple times before why would he keep using autopilot in that area? That seems like a very odd decision. ~~~ ucaetano True, but let's not blame the victim. ~~~ twblalock I'd definitely blame an airline pilot who crashed because he relied on autopilot in a situation he knew was not handled well by the autopilot. (I would _also_ blame the autopilot.) I don't see why the driver of a car with any kind of semi-automated system should be held to a lesser standard. It sucks that the driver died, and it sucks that the Tesla autopilot system had problems handing that kind of situation, but that does not mean the driver is blameless. He put himself and the people in the cars around him at risk by using the autopilot feature on a stretch of road where he knew it did not work well. ~~~ jschwartzi > I don't see why the driver of a car with any kind of semi-automated system > should be held to a lesser standard. Because the driver didn't receive any training from the manufacturer. Airplane pilots, in contrast, receive a ton of training right down to how to fly a specific type of aircraft(single-engine, twin-engine, instrument flying, etc.). Additionally the manufacturer will provide training to pilots on how to operate any nifty features of the commercial aircraft. I don't believe Tesla provides any training whatsoever on how to use these features. And I'm not aware of any mechanisms preventing untrained users from activating these features. A tutorial that you can click through does not count because you do not ensure rapport with the trainee like you would in a person-to-person training. Back when cars were being commoditized the dealer would often provide training to new drivers. And in all states new drivers are required to take a practical test to demonstrate that they are competent to drive. Does Tesla require their users to prove any sort of understanding or competence before they unlock Autopilot? You might argue that requiring training sets a dangerous precedent, but users need to be made aware that the driver assistance systems are not foolproof, and the only foolproof way to do that is to require them to attend a training. ~~~ machinehermit Exactly. Tesla is beyond irresponsible with this and IMO they should be sued out of existence. It isn't a new feature on a cell phone that you just watch a youtube video on and move on with your day. ------ jijojv [https://www.cnbc.com/2018/01/31/apples-steve-wozniak- doesnt-...](https://www.cnbc.com/2018/01/31/apples-steve-wozniak-doesnt- believe-anything-elon-musk-or-tesla-say.html) "Man you have got to be ready — it makes mistakes, it loses track of the lane lines. You have to be on your toes all the time," says Wozniak. "All Tesla did is say, 'It is beta so we are not responsible. It doesn't necessarily work, so you have to be in control.' "Well you that is kinda a cheap way out of it." ~~~ cup-of-tea Unlike people like Elon and Jobs, you can safely calibrate your bullshit meter with Woz. He's not as famous because the press don't generally like that. ------ aerovistae I love Tesla to death and in most cases will defend them beyond the point of reason. But I took a test drive in a model S for the first time earlier this year and almost immediately noticed autopilot’s extremely unreliable behavior— it would swerve out of lanes in ordinary situations that should have been easy to handle. The _second_ I saw that, hat was it: I would never use it again before many years of testing and improvement had taken place. No way am I gambling my life on a clearly incomplete feature just because it’s cool. Fuck that. Of course Tesla is fairly safe behind their disclaimers and warnings, and to be honest I think it may be impossible to develop such a system without putting it into the wild before it’s perfect. But for me, personally...I’ll let other people choose to be the Guinea pigs. The risks are all too obvious. Continuing to use the feature is very dangerous. Do it knowing this may very well happen to you. ~~~ kwhitefoot I have a 2015 Tesla model S and I have never seen the behaviour you describe. I use autostart a lot on the ground that it's good to have two of us paying attention. ~~~ makomk They dropped the system used in their older cars because their supplier for it decided they were too reckless and refused to do business with them anymore. Happened around 2016, I think. Since then they've been using an in-house system that doesn't work so well. ------ wjp3 It'll be interesting to see if anything comes of the issue with the already- collapsed crash barrier and what CalTrans says about it. That sort of thing is there for a reason, and to be left in a crushed state for any period of time is bad. ~~~ Cshelton In Texas, I've seen crushed barriers remain collapsed for weeks on end. Either that or they are just hit again right after being replaced. Which tells me, it's a poorly designed road and causes confusion for drivers. Which in fact may be what this Tesla crash turns out to be. ~~~ hagope Exactly, I drive past this barrier every day...the problem is the left two lanes on 101 are carpool/EV lane so Tesla drivers just zoom down it...at this particular exit, the left carpool lane leads to an HOV flyover exit which puts you on 85. If you are not paying attention (ie on autopilot flying past traffic), you will end up on a completely different highway! I see people very frequently swerve out of the flyover lane back on to 101 very often, so my initial thought was that he tried to disengage too late to either get back on 101 or the catch the flyover (not clear which one). ~~~ ScottBurson He lived in Foster City and was working at Apple, so it's likely he wanted to take the 85 ramp to Cupertino. I've seen something that said that the car was warning him to take control, but he hadn't done so. Texting, maybe? ~~~ djm_ Before this rumour spreads: the latest Tesla statement [1] is worded in a deliberately misleading fashion and the only thing we can tell from it is that his hands were _according to the software_ not on the wheel for 6s before the impact. >The driver had received several visual and one audible hands-on warning earlier in the drive and the driver’s hands were not detected on the wheel for six seconds prior to the collision Note the _and_. [1] [https://www.tesla.com/blog/update-last- week’s-accident](https://www.tesla.com/blog/update-last-week’s-accident) ------ _ph_ One thing to remember in all the discussions about the accident is, that there is no information available whether the autopilot was active at the time of the accident. ~~~ modeless Tesla has just announced that autopilot was on during the crash. [https://www.tesla.com/blog/update-last- week’s-accident](https://www.tesla.com/blog/update-last-week’s-accident) It sounds like they are saying the driver had 5 seconds to notice the problem and react. It is scary to think that when you are on autopilot you may be 5 seconds away from death at any time. Better not take those eyes off the road! ~~~ imtringued If you take the human factor away 5 seconds ahead of time warning is quite a lot. The car could have slowed down to a possibly non fatal speed. By asking the human to act the autopilot is actually throwing away at least 2 of those precious 5 seconds. ------ jijojv SW/HW Bugs happen - fact of life. More concerning is that Tesla denying this was ever reported to them... I had my driver side view mirror stuck issue fixed and they put in the notes that they re-filled all my tires during repair service allegedly as reqd. by some CA law. Later that week I got an alert that my tire pressure was low and had to get it air pumped so obviously they didn't do that despite having claimed to have done just that... ~~~ CobrastanJorji > More concerning is that Tesla denying this was ever reported to them. This is how Tesla reacts to all bad publicity. Bad review on battery life comes out? Data dump indicating the reviewer might've done something wrong. Accident? Statistical dump showing that most cars don't do this. I like this technique more than generic "we can't comment" responses, but I'm pretty confident they heavily cherry pick, looking for something that people who glom onto data can see and say "oh good, Tesla's right." ~~~ jackvalentine Yup Tesla knows their audience - it's their semi-rabid owner and aspiring owner fan base. Throw out some logs or stats without context and let them do the dirty work for you. ------ userbinator _Walter took it into dealership addressing the issue, but they couldn 't duplicate it there_ Why not get a mechanic to ride along with him to that location, perhaps with extra diagnostic equipment connected? I could see how a bug that is dependent upon being at that location would certainly not be reproducible somewhere else. Here's an automotive service booklet from almost 70 years ago which recommends the same thing for troubleshooting: [http://www.imperialclub.com/Repair/Lit/Master/021/Page14.htm](http://www.imperialclub.com/Repair/Lit/Master/021/Page14.htm) ------ mdekkers _before the crash, Walter complained "7-10 times the car would swivel toward that same exact barrier during auto-pilot_ ...and after 7 to 10 times , he still didn't learn his lesson? That's pretty stupid if you ask me. If my car does something weird at a particular stretch of road, especially 7 to 10 times, you can bet your bananas that i'll be paying a lot of attention on that stretch of road. If my "autopilot" (seriously, Tesla should stop using that name) isn't reliable in certain circumstances or places, then - guess what? - I WONT BE USING IT THERE. Why blame Tesla (I'm no Tesla fan), when the operator of the vehicle refused to operate it properly in the face of prior experience? Poor guy, and I feel for his family, but come on, what a dumbass ------ jakobegger Previous discussion of this crash: [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16694365](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16694365) ------ markmark I really don't like autopilot. It's good enough to make drivers trust it and not pay attention, but it's not good enough to not kill people when they do that. And when there's an accident Telsa come out and say "the system warned the driver to put their hands on the wheel" or something similar. Unless a car can 100% self drive drivers aids should require the driver to have hands on the wheel and be paying active attention at all times. ~~~ toast0 This is part of why I haven't considered a Tesla. If I get into an collision in any other manufacturer's vehicle, the manufacturer's PR team won't impune my honor in the court of public opinion. It seems like the Tesla autopilot is very similar in capabilities to other manufacturers' active lane keeping, adaptive cruise control and active collision avoidance braking systems, however the marketing and user behavior is much different. There's no expectation that a Pacifica with all the bells and whistles is going to do a good job driving for you with no hands, but if somebody stops suddenly, it will too. ------ marcell Highway driving is supposed to be "easiest" problem for self driving cars to solve, since there are fewer edge cases, less turning, etc., but it's also the most dangerous type of driving. You are much more likely to die going at 65mph than 25mph. I think deploying self driving cars at <=25mph speeds at first would be wise. Personally, I wouldn't risk letting a car take over at high speeds until there is a longer track record of safety. ~~~ ivanech Many places with <=25mph speeds have pedestrians, and they're a lot more delicate than vehicles are. Drivers aren't the only ones at risk. ------ animex The fact that it happened to him "several times" and not to others to me might indicate a specific hardware/sensor issue related to his vehicle. A sensor, slightly misaligned or not working to the same tolerance? Pure speculation, I know. Also the 200 trips/day refers to what? All Tesla vehicles? How about for his specific year & model and software version and configuration (both equipped and driver-defined)? ------ tytytytytytytyt He complained 7 - 10 times and then just forgot about how it used to swerve towards a head on collision with the median? ------ dawhizkid Do you "feel" any responsibility as an autopilot ML engineer? I know a few that joined within the last year. ------ icc97 Is there a specific system for traffic sign detection? I'd have thought you could have a system that is dedicated to spotting traffic signs in the current country with a significantly higher accuracy than cat detection. Even a small part of a sign should be enough. They're designed to be easy to spot. It seems like we just set neural networks up to recognise all objects and assume they'll recognise simple objects too. However typically how humans learn is through simple cartoons first and then layer on top of that rather than the other way round. Edit: should have done some googling before opening my mouth [0] [1] [0]: [https://amundtveit.com/2017/07/13/traffic-sign-detection- wit...](https://amundtveit.com/2017/07/13/traffic-sign-detection-with- convolutional-neural-networks/) [1]: [http://www.bartlab.org/Dr.%20Jackrit's%20Papers/ney/1.TRAFFI...](http://www.bartlab.org/Dr.%20Jackrit's%20Papers/ney/1.TRAFFIC_SIGN_Lorsakul_ISR.pdf) ------ sjg007 Certainly CalTrans is responsible for not replacing the barrier. Expect a lawsuit/settlement. Tesla will be found liable too, that’ll be a jury trial civil suit. Why? Despite reporting that AP failed at that interchange and despite still using it, drivers and juries expect safety features to work as advertised. ~~~ static_noise The autopilot is not a safety feature. ------ lewis500 I am pretty mystified why tesla is even running autopilot on their cars. They already have more demand than they can handle, and I don't think anyone buys a tesla because of the autopilot. They are opening themselves up to huge court claims at the same time they are low on money. Just keep running tests and maybe do a pilot for a few years. Isn't Waymo sort of in the lead right now? They aren't running their software on millions of vehicles but seem to be progressing okay. It seems all these companies are in a big rush and being slapdash. Maybe it's a disconnect between the engineers and the execs/shareholders. It doesn't even seem profit-driven...almost fear driven. ("we don't wanna be left behind.") ~~~ sseth It allows them to develop self driving technology without the expense of dedicated cars and paid drivers, and without any liability (because drivers take the risk). ------ raverbashing The question is, if the driver was aware the autopilot was unsafe at that area, why did they keep using autopilot there? You can't just throw your hands on the air and hope for the best. Your car, you are on the wheel, you are responsible. ------ smoyer Am I the only one that thinks that drivers with auto-pilot and back-up drivers for driver-less cars should be ready to drive at any instant? As an engineer, I'm seeing these features as beta at best. ~~~ sf_rob The problem is that that's not how human cognition works. If the auto-pilot is working well your brain will inevitably become accustom to the lack of stimulus. Ironically I think that these systems have a kind of uncanny valley type area where they are probably safest when the auto-pilot is poor or great, but not in the middle. ~~~ smoyer I understand that ... and that's another problem we've yet to solve. What you've described is what led to the crash of the Korean Airliner that undershot the runway at SFO a few years ago. In that case, they would have been better off letting the plane land itself but that's not SOP. ------ Bombthecat Side story, I have an open with crash warning. On a highway I think it even detects crashes ahead of you ( had once two cars in a three lane almost crashing while one car tried to switch Lanes) Well, back to story. I have a street where cars park left and right of the street like a zick Zack. There is one spot where it always warns me about a crash.. ------ pmarreck IMHO, they need to get autopilot at least an order of magnitude better than human drivers statistically, before releasing this tech, because this sort of news is extremely bad public-perception-wise. I don’t think it’s reasonable to expect a Tesla driver to always have his hands on the wheel during autopilot ------ utopcell Why call something "auto-pilot" when it is clearly not remotely ready to do what its name implies ? ~~~ SteveCoast Unless someone has ever used an auto pilot in something like a Cessna, that person would probably have a wildly overoptimistic idea of what an autopilot does. Even on a passenger jet it's really not that smart, there's just lots more volume to explore so it's hard to kill everyone. A better analogy would be cruise control. It controls essentially one variable. As does lane keeping. You combine a couple of these things and you think it's smart, and it isn't. We learnt this (edge cases between single variable trackers) ~40 years ago in aircraft, that there are places in the flight envelope that combinations of single variable trackers will still let you go, but will also kill you. ~~~ freehunter There used to be the same problems with cruise control, though. People thought it would brake automatically and steer around corners, and would get into accidents that proved their assumption wrong. ------ dotsh Why no one talks about other victims of car accidents and their is about 6k per month on average in US alone. But Uber and Tesla are on headlines when someone dies and there is like what 3-4 victims in total after all those years? It is not even worth mentioning. ~~~ vasilipupkin Miles driven, genius. There are millions of other vehicles on the road and not that many teslas ------ hedora Am I the only one that finds it odd that a human also ran into the same barrier within 24 hours of the crash? Perhaps Caltrans is partially to blame. (Full disclosure: Their incompetence almost killed me a few times back in my I-880 commuting days) ~~~ lazyjones > Am I the only one that finds it odd that a human also ran into the same > barrier within 24 hours of the crash? Source? ABC7 says the previous crash was 11 days ago (DUI...), the barrier just wasn't fixed immediately. [http://abc7news.com/automotive/exclusive-i-team- investigates...](http://abc7news.com/automotive/exclusive-i-team-investigates- why-caltrans-didnt-fix-safety-barrier-before-tesla-driver-died-there/3280399/) ------ jaimex2 They should rename autopilot to auto-scapegoat. There is zero information yet and its all everyone is jumping onto. Last week the same thing happened to a Tesla that wasn't even equipped with autopilot. ------ godelmachine "Autopilots performance is unrelated to navigation" Tesla is mincing words. ------ zamalek My opinion: EVs, self-driving or directed, need an ejection mechanism for their batteries. Petrol has the advantage that it _may_ ignite, where batteries are almost guaranteed to when damaged. Ideally, it would be an active system (launching the batteries no more than a meter away) - but that could fail under the conditions which caused the damage to the batteries. An alternative would be a passive system made of materials known to melt when exposed to a lithium fire - providing a few centimeters of separation from the cabin. Either way, the current situation is not ideal. ~~~ freehunter So your system would throw a burning pile of lithium into the woods to start a forest fire, into oncoming traffic to cause another crash, into a pedestrian on the sidewalk, etc? ~~~ zamalek You're right. It's a terrible idea. Pity it's too late to edit or delete that dumb comment. ------ saudioger Tesla is very very very bad with PR when something goes wrong. Their response to this is awful. ------ cube00 It looks like Status: WORKSFORME won't cut it in this brave new world. ------ SpaceEncroacher Crash victim? More like crash dummy, auto-pilot is raw. ------ devit Seems pretty inexcusable for a self-driving system to ever hit a static obstacle (while not trying to avoid another collision). There should be manslaughter charges for this kind of thing. ------ Maro It's interesting nobody is asking why the crash attenuator was not replaced faster. ------ Skunkleton The fire seems pretty severe too. I wonder what caused the battery containment to fail? ------ sabujp blame the customer, blame the govt, but your software is perfect Tesla?! ------ notafxn Super fun to compare the comments on this to the comments on the Uber accident.	{ "pile_set_name": "HackerNews" }
Ask HN: I got kicked out of an Ivy League, now what? - crappystudent I got withdrawn from the Engineering program at an Ivy League because of my grades. Looking back, it was completely my fault, but I can't change that now. I was transitioning from a "core" engineering major to CS but before I could, I was asked to leave. I've applied for transfers but lets see where that goes. I'm a fairly decent coder, getting better and better now that I have nothing else to do, and I want to know if its even necessary to have a university degree at the end of the day. Do employers really care where you went to school as long as you have a great portfolio of projects you've worked on? Also if anyone knows of any programs or universities I could apply to that would seriously consider me despite my situation, that would be helpful, especially if they are tech/entrepreneurial programs (like makeschool). ====== MichaelCrawford Everyone says they do, but really they don't. Tom Cumming, one of the very finest embedded systems developers that has ever walked the earth, never even applied to college. I myself was kicked out of caltech for being mentally ill. That would be illegal now, but the americans with disabilities act had not been enacted yet. I transferred to UC Santa Cruz, but eventually dropped out to work as a coder. I did so for six years - with no degree - but eventually did complete my degree, but only because I grew weary of being asked by interviewers why I never graduated. If you are someone who, like me, is commonly discriminated against, a good solution is to start your own business. I'm working on that right now, and I've done it successfully in the past. ------ gamechangr If you go open source a degree is not necessary. If you go enterprise, it will be hard to get your first job. In enterprise it may limit your ability to be promoted. ------ GFK_of_xmaspast My understanding of ivy league schools is you really gotta screw up to get the boot. Are you sure you're ready to continue school. ~~~ crappystudent got one F and i was told i couldn't continue ~~~ GFK_of_xmaspast Without more to it, that is very atypical.	{ "pile_set_name": "HackerNews" }
Swatting Could Soon Be Illegal - ColinWright http://mic.com/articles/128931/swatting-could-soon-be-illegal-in-all-50-states ====== bpicolo This sounds like something that's already illegal. How would fraudulently calling law enforcement NOT be illegal? ~~~ mistercow Yeah sounds like this is about a new law that is more specific and provides harsher penalties. ~~~ pmiller2 Exactly. I think it would fall under "making a false report" or something, in most states. In California, that's a misdemeanor that gets you up to 6 months in jail. Edit: California has a specific anti-swatting law that's still a misdemeanor and can get you up to a year in jail and $1000 fine if nobody gets hurt, or a felony with up to a $10000 fine and up to 3 years in jail. ------ jakejake It would seem like this law will only be useful if it's also very specific about how juveniles are charged. Most of the offenders are likely to be underage. ------ viraptor Now, how are they going to enforce it will be interesting to see. Our current telephony system looks pretty much like the first days of the internet. Most telcos will happily say "Ah, you're a service provider and send us a call from 011111111111, we'll route it right away!". Add a voip channel or two with a redirection set up and you're unlikely to ever get caught. ~~~ mcv It's certainly hard, but apparently not impossible. Here's a story about how a particularly prolific swatter eventually got caught: [http://www.nytimes.com/2015/11/29/magazine/the-serial- swatte...](http://www.nytimes.com/2015/11/29/magazine/the-serial-swatter.html) While following the trail was hard, another big obstacle was simply to get more law enforcement agencies interested in stopping this guy. It also makes clear that an international approach is necessary. ------ mcv Swatting is far worse than merely expensive and embarrassing. The swatters know how easily US cops shoot when faced with a potentially dangerous situation. Many swatting calls mention guns, bombs, etc. I'm pretty sure at least some swatters hope their victim gets shot. ------ avuton Couldn't see the article through the ad. Seriously annoying. ------ rplst8 Why is this a thing? I don't understand this world anymore. ~~~ lemevi Technology is empowering teenage stupidity. Some kids go through a bad mix of negative emotions and a naive understanding of danger. In time these issues can become resolved and the teenager becomes a responsible person. This phase though has become more dangerous with the things technology lets kids do. In my opinion as long as teenagers are a thing this is an inescapable trait of human life. Unless you are law enforcement, try to stay out of their way and not be a target. ~~~ mapt I fear there might also be a component wherein developing empathy for other people requires, or is at least accelerated by, seeing their faces and hearing their voices and taking censure from the people around both of you, when you hurt them. The possibility is the primary reservation I maintain with a world full of anonymity and pseudonymity. ------ hooloovoo_zoo Internet piracy is illegal and yet people are rarely apprehended for it. Obviously swatting is a much more serious crime, but it faces the same or greater enforcement issues. ------ brudgers The attached audio is pretty good.	{ "pile_set_name": "HackerNews" }
Raganwald on Inheritance - 0x44 http://weblog.raganwald.com/2008/04/is-strictly-equivalent-to.html ====== ambition Summary: If superclass has method X with behaviour Y, do not override X to have behaviour Z in a subclass, because this violates the spirit of inheritance semantics. To be fair, his version is long, persuasive and well-written. And it has references. ~~~ Retric Granted there is a loss of clarity when a sub class changes a parent classes behavior. But, there are still times where it can be useful. EX: You want to add a section to an online banking app that handles IRA accounts. It would be nice to reuse as much of the logging, balance transfer, and UI as possible but you don't want to alter well tested core classes. So you use inheritance to get something that works and is reasonably clean until you can refactor a cleaner solution. ~~~ 0x44 It is likely I'm misunderstanding, but why would you use inheritance instead of composition in your example? ~~~ ambition I bet the alternatives that were considered were: class Parent { void a() {...} void b() {...} void c() {...} void d() {...} ... void zzz() {...} } class B { Parent m_a; void a() {m_a.a()} void b() {m_a.b()} void c() {m_a.c()} void d() { specialized logic } ... void zzz() {m_a.zzz()} } vs. class B : Parent { void d() { specialized logic } } ~~~ Retric Your first example works fine until void a() Parent.a() calls Parent.d() and you need the code to call B.d(). An interface also works but you end up cutting and pasting a lot of the same code between the two classes. ------ wallflower Unfortunately, I've spent more-time-than-I-should time over the years debugging issues where a subclass was supposed to have overriden a superclass method's behavior but the subclass method had the wrong method signature (and thus was never called). Console log statements never lie.. ~~~ raganwald The idea that different methods can have the same name but different signatures presents many challenges. IMO, if you are going to live with the drawbacks, you ought to be able to enjoy all of the benefits, such as you will find in full-features MOPs like in Common Lisp or pattern-matching languages like Haskell. BTW, Ruby and Java both solve this problem. In Java, use the @override annotation. If you are not overriding a method, you get a compiler error. Ruby "solves" the problem by only having one method per name. But you can mix in some magic and get pattern matching if you want.	{ "pile_set_name": "HackerNews" }
Show HN: TubeDrop.in, simple and quick YouTube to audio conversion - gmaster1440 http://tubedrop.in ====== Eduard hmm, searching for "Whitebeard - No we can't" didn't list me the video that actually exists at Youtube. ~~~ gmaster1440 That's because, for now, TubeDrop only searches through videos that support at least 720p for faster conversion. ~~~ Eduard I'm a user of PwnYouTube (meta converter service), to convert Youtube material to the highest possible MP3 quality. What I like about your service is that I as a user don't get bugged with quality settings and cropping settings - which raises the question which quality you use. I'm also curious to know about how Youtube MP3 rips relate (from a fidelity perspective) to "native" high quality MP3s. ~~~ gmaster1440 Good question. TubeDrop (for now) only returns search results that support at least 720p. That means all search results are videos whose audio is encoded in at least 152 kb bitrate with 2 channels at sampling rate of 44100. Some videos that are encoded in WebM have a bitrate of 192 kb. TubeDrop automatically defaults to 192 kb bitrate with 2 channels at 44100. That is essentially the highest quality you can get from YouTube, so why bother customizing it? ------ shrig94 Great job gmaster! :) ~~~ gmaster1440 Thanks!	{ "pile_set_name": "HackerNews" }
Landmark Copyright Lawsuit Cariou V. Prince Is Settled (2014) - nkurz http://www.artinamericamagazine.com/news-features/news/landmark-copyright-lawsuit-cariou-v-prince-is-settled/ ====== lloydde Seems like the expensive road Andy Baio wisely chose not to travel, [http://waxy.org/2011/06/kind_of_screwed/](http://waxy.org/2011/06/kind_of_screwed/) ~~~ jamesbrownuhh I found that article really interesting. One question that stuck out in my mind was that Andy mentioned having gone to the efforts to licence the music from the original publishers, for the 8-bit cover versions. But then having gone through that process, why would it be natural to assume that the original album artwork would not be equally in need of licensing if it were to be reproduced in a derivative form? Much of the same arguments apply - if the use was transformative then there would have been no need to pay for the music or the artwork. Yet it was recognised that payment for the right to cover/derive from the music was necessary, so it would seem logical to apply the same perceptual standard to a no-less-copyrighted piece of artwork. Much sympathies to Andy, though, as it doesn't sound like a fun time to have to go through something like that over a project that was fundamentally well- meaning.	{ "pile_set_name": "HackerNews" }
The Daily WTF maliciously infringes Programming Praxis trademark - igorhvr http://programmingpraxis.com/2009/08/13/the-daily-wtf-maliciously-infringes-programming-praxis-trademark ====== johns Anecdotally, shortly after The Daily WTF gained popularity I emailed Alex to suggest starting a sister site for non-programming IT related WTFs and he tried to poo poo the idea saying he didn't think it would have enough content, etc. Without support of the Daily WTF, it was a lost cause so I gave up on it. Shortly thereafter, he started a section on the Daily WTF site for non- programming stories. ------ ajg1977 Since "Programming Praxis" is not a registered trademark then it would likely be a long and costly battle to legally force The Daily WTF to cease using it. (Common Law trademarks do have rights, but it's not nearly as clear cut). That said, if the emails are accurate I do think The Daily WTF is behaving incredibly poorly and they've just lost this reader. ~~~ micks56 Trademark rights arise once the mark is used to identify goods in the stream of commerce. Registration gets you two things: 1\. The scope of your mark applies beyond your geographical area. 2\. Registration on principal register is constructive notice to the nation. It creates nationwide coverage and removes defenses of good faith and lack of knowledge. If "Programming Praxis" is not registered, then Daily WTF can asset good faith and lack of knowledge defenses. I don't think that the geographical limitation issue has much weight on the internet. Those would be the only differences. Registration also puts a nice, convenient stake in the ground of who was there first. I don't think that will be an issue here. ~~~ cruise02 I think the prior agreement between The Daily WTF and Programming Praxis would make a lack of knowledge defense difficult. ------ tlrobinson Alex seems to have some reading comprehension problems. In nearly every email Phil mentions his desire to keep his blog as separate... "You and I have similar objectives: you want to extend your already-successful brand by offering something new to your readers, I want to grow my new blog." "I like the idea of having a Programming Praxis sub-section on TDWTF, and I also want to keep my blog at programmingpraxis.com." "May I ask a favor? Can you please include somewhere in the text of the exercise a link to my blog?" "First, programmingpraxis.com will continue to exist in roughly its current form, as a stand-alone web site with two exercises per week, no matter what happens with Programming Praxis exercises at TheDailyWTF." "Regarding linking: If Programming Praxis is going to become a regular weekly feature on TheDailyWTF, with at least some original content, I don’t see the problem with putting a link to programmingpraxis.com somewhere obvious." Alex constantly ignores this until the end when he says: "I don’t want to come across as abrasive or inconsiderate, but we started this conversation on the premise of joining forces, and I’ve reiterated that intent several times. My understanding has been that, if our test(s) proved successful, then we’d combine blogs; if not, then you’d continue with your blog, and I would continue with mine." ~~~ jcl And if he was operating under the assumption that the first few articles were just "tests" (as he refers to them repeatedly), why is it suddenly so hard to change the name of the section? According to the e-mail log, he introduced the new "programming praxis" section name mere days after Phil asked him to stop using the term. That strikes me as needlessly antagonistic. He could have avoided the whole issue by simply picking a different name at that point, but he instead chose the one name that would sabotage the work of his former collaborator. While I'm sure TDWTF will triumph legally, I can't help think that the incident will influence their relations with any future collaborators. ------ anigbrowl The argument from TDWTF that 'it's too late to change it now' is pretty much an admission of guilt. Lawyer up, spend a few hundred on a C&D and then register your TM. ------ CodeMage It's astonishing to see how many comments on the blog are not only hostile, but rude and hateful. I guess I'm naive and overly optimistic, but it always surprises me to see the Greater Internet Fuckwad Theory [1] proven in practice... [1] <http://www.penny-arcade.com/comic/2004/03/19/> ------ ErrantX Alex is quickly (rightly or wrongly) coming off as a "bit of a dick" in this. On the Internet you can live or die on your reputation - right. Surely the logical approach would have been a "sorry dude, ill change it, misunderstanding" And of course the cynic in me is saying; well programming praxis will be getting a shed load of new publicity now :) ------ sfk He can trademark his _site_ name, but it would be ridiculous to forbid the name "Programming Praxis" as a header for a column or subsection of another website. It's just too generic. ~~~ ErrantX Yes agreed. But if the section is identical in theme to that of the Programming Praxis blog I think he has a legitimate point (or at least has some rationale for making the point) ------ Seiwynd This story is summed up very well by a comment on the page made by sorryoldman - "It sounds like this: “You had her first all right, but I slept with her and she’s way too hot for me to give up now. So bugger off and dont come looking for her. She’s too sexy and she’s mine now.” I hope this last sentence puts things in persepctive." ------ lincolnq alex responded on proggit [http://www.reddit.com/r/programming/comments/9a7zr/programmi...](http://www.reddit.com/r/programming/comments/9a7zr/programming_praxis_accuses_the_daily_wtf_of_name/c0bzilo) ~~~ cruise02 He's responding on the blog itself. The user that posted that on proggit is a brand new account, so I don't know if that's really him. ------ metachris Trademarking the generic title "Programming Praxis" seems a bit over the board. There are too many trademarks -- everywhere! To me, this seems to be contradicting the open-source and free knowledge spirit! As one commenter in the original article put it: "He’s a prick. You’re a winey bastard. Move on, yo." ~~~ chrismeta Yeah, I know what you mean. I talk about this a bit in my blog at www.newsforhackers.com ~~~ jcl Or, more to the point: <http://hackernews.com> ------ alex_c Is this a registered trademark? (I poked around the USPTO search form a bit, and couldn't find anything resembling "programming praxis"). I know copyright kicks in automatically, but is there such a thing as a non- registered trademark, and does it carry any legal weight? ~~~ carbon8 As I understand it, trademarks need not be registered: <http://www.uspto.gov/web/offices/tac/doc/basic/register.htm> ------ Mike2239 Let’s see if there’s an apology coming from Phil now that Alex has changed the category name (and after he gave a reason for the delay) and whether it receives as much attention as the attention __*ring post on the site. ------ greyfade Wonderful. More drama. The Internet needs more drama. The babies need their attention. ------ ajkirwin Wow, that guy sure does have a stick up his ass, doesn't he. ------ tamas Not a trademark. ------ DanielStraight Two things. One, if you don't bother to get legal protection for your "trademark", don't complain if people "steal" it. You can't have something stolen from you that you never owned. Get over it. Two, generic terms should not be eligible for trademark in the first place. Especially, no phrase of the form adjective-noun and no compound noun should be elgible for trademark. ~~~ theBobMcCormick Registration is not required for a trademark in the US. <http://www.uspto.gov/web/offices/tac/doc/basic/register.htm> ~~~ DanielStraight Nor for copyright, but having copyright does not guarantee legal protection for copyright. If you can't prove that you have it and had it first, you may as well not have it at all. The site you linked to says quite clearly that you should register to get: """ # a legal presumption of the registrant's ownership of the mark and the registrant's exclusive right to use the mark nationwide on or in connection with the goods and/or services listed in the registration; # the ability to bring an action concerning the mark in federal court; """ So in other words, if you don't register, you don't have these things. Yes, you have a trademark, sure... you just can't do anything about it. ~~~ unperson <http://marklaw.com/trademark-FAQ/benefits.htm> "The owner of a federal trademark registration may sue in federal court more easily. It is worth noting that even without a federal trademark registration you still may be able to sue in federal court, but it may be more costly when proving jurisdiction (i.e. diversity of citizenship & amount in controversy over $75,000). Even if you can't sue in federal court, you can always sue in state court. However, attorneys usually prefer federal court in trademark cases for perceived procedural advantages." ------ mrkurt Flagged this because it's not a trademark. While he might have a legal case due to first use, and be able to trademark it now, he doesn't currently have a trademark. Bad title, no biscuit. Upvoted because it sounds skeezy as hell. ~~~ sp332 He's not talking about a _legal_ trademark, he means his "trademark" phrase has been co-opted by TDWTF. ~~~ alex_c He's talking about legal threats and "confusion in the marketplace of ideas". Definitely sounds like there's some confusion going on.	{ "pile_set_name": "HackerNews" }
Show HN: Companion – Your Personal Safety Service - dsfreed http://companionapp.io/ ====== lexieernst This is literally the sickest app idea since Nam. Need this for me and my family!	{ "pile_set_name": "HackerNews" }
Internal Boeing Documents Show Cavalier Attitude to Safety - alistairSH https://www.wsj.com/articles/internal-boeing-documents-show-cavalier-attitude-to-safety-11578627206 ====== bookofjoe [http://archive.is/9fEvf](http://archive.is/9fEvf)	{ "pile_set_name": "HackerNews" }
The Android Pebble App Has Been Pulled from the Play Store - sundvor https://www.reddit.com/r/pebble/comments/b8l6i2/the_android_pebble_app_has_been_pulled_from_the/ ====== sundvor We still have a few Pebbles which we run using the great Rebble initiative - and there's the option of sideloading APKs, however it's going to be interesting to see if this Play store issue can be resolved. Thread says the dead @pebble.com email was the trigger for the take down. Presently dead: [https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.getpebble....](https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.getpebble.android.basalt&hl=en_AU)	{ "pile_set_name": "HackerNews" }
Quality over quantity – The right way to comment your code - feedjoelpie http://revelry.co/2014/09/30/quality-over-quantity-the-right-way-to-comment-your-code/ ====== jMyles You've neglected to mention the most harmful possible comment: the one that is wrong, especially when it was once correct, but wasn't updated in concert with changed code. Also, I must admit that I have (as I surmise many of us have), as you say, read "a code file that was loaded with comments, but when you actually read them, they were largely useless" and then realized that it was my own authorship! ~~~ feedjoelpie That's a really good one. And yes, I think we have all done that. :(	{ "pile_set_name": "HackerNews" }
Layoffs Taboo, Japan Workers Are Sent to the Boredom Room - GabrielF00 http://www.nytimes.com/2013/08/17/business/global/layoffs-illegal-japan-workers-are-sent-to-the-boredom-room.html?hp ====== workhere-io Relevant Dilbert: [http://www.dilbert.com/2013-08-09/](http://www.dilbert.com/2013-08-09/)	{ "pile_set_name": "HackerNews" }
Documenting every apple variety in North America - bookofjoe https://www.atlasobscura.com/articles/history-of-apples ====== oeuviz I grew up near an orchard containing just over 120 varieties of apples and remember being very impressed that so many varieties exist and yet we end up eating only a few of them. Now reading that someone compiled an apple-o-pedia of more than 16k varieties just blows my mind! ------ gadders People in the South East of England who love apples could do worse than visit the Brogdale Collection in Kent. They have over 2,200 varieties of apple and do orchard tours as well as an annual apple festival: [https://www.brogdalecollections.org/the-fruit- collection/](https://www.brogdalecollections.org/the-fruit-collection/) ------ stareatgoats For the welltodo apple aficionado this must be a treasure to have in the library. For me, it is the kind of resource I wish was available on-line, preferably with retained aesthetics. As far as I can see it is only available as (a considerable number of) books. ~~~ taejo The illustrations from the USDA Pomological Watercolor Collection are at least partly digitized and are available on Wikimedia Commons at [https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Category:USDA_Pomological...](https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Category:USDA_Pomological_Watercolors) ------ rplst8 I only skimmed the article, but it's always been my understanding that apple trees are extreme heterozygotes and that a seed from any given apple can produce a wholly new varietal.	{ "pile_set_name": "HackerNews" }
The Uncatchable - AlexMuir http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/special/2014/newsspec_8700/index.html ====== breakyerself 15 comments and no ones bothered to say anything about the content of the article. So let me be the first to say that I love this guy! He's what the public wanted Dillenger and Jesse James to be. He hasn't killed anyone in all these years and literally steals from the rich and gives to the poor. A+ ~~~ cgio Being from Greece, with roots in Kalambaka, which is where Palaiokostas still probably lives, the money he gives to the poor is an insurance policy and makes a nice story, but it is totally immaterial compared to what he stole from the rich. Also, he himself has not killed as far as we know, but his "associates" were quite ruthless, especially Rizai who was convicted for paid executions. ~~~ alexbecker Don't forget that he even further destabilizes the economy and costs the people a lot of money through policing, federal insurance of banks (or whatever system Greece uses), etc. ------ Paul_S Websites are coming closer and closer to the parodies from sci-fi movies. They're not the equivalent of a newspaper anymore, they're closer to a through the door leaflet. Some websites used to have a link to a printable version, can we now have a link to a human readable version, please? ------ gambiting I fail to see anything heroic or noble about stealing, no matter what reason and from whom. Anyone who had anything stolen from them will understand that it produces a huge feeling of insecurity in your own home(or about being in your own town), no matter how small or cheap the stolen thing was. Yeah, great that he hasn't harmed anyone while stealing - I still have absolutely no respect for what he was doing. ------ tomrod I love this design! It pops. Not sure what folks are having an issue with regarding scrolling. Works fine on Chrome, UBuntu + XMonad ------ advocaat23 Wow, again a page that messes with the scrolling experience? What's up with that? Terrible user experience. ~~~ placeybordeaux What enviroment are you on? ~~~ jbrooksuk From my experience, if someone is complaining about scrolling then they're on OSX with inertial scrolling. It really is a pain when websites take control of the scroll positions. ------ snorrah What's with the negative comments about the scrolling? It works fine either drag-mousewheel scrolling, flicking the mouse wheel, dragging the scroll bar on the right, or using a trackpad. The main content, the text, scrolls as normal thoughout, using any preferred method. ~~~ codyb No issues on firefox running on xubuntu. Firefox V. 26.0 Ubuntu 13.04 It was actually very pleasurable as the pictures on the sides would change and the occasional full screen pictures. It's a shame it's such a pain to develop cross browser cross platform modern websites. This one was done well where it works. ------ idlewords presented by the Unscrollable ~~~ JacobEdelman I might be alone in this but I found it easy to navigate. I'm on a laptop but I expect this would be really nice on a tablet. ~~~ morsch Not sure what people are talking about, really, the scrolling is basically unchanged. The native scroll bar exists and is 100% functional. Page- up/down/space just works, seemingly without involving Javascript or anything, and with no delay. I could select and copy paste the entire text! How refreshing. The top navigation bar is unobtrusive, functional, and the links are actual anchors, no javascript involved and ready for sharing. In fact, the whole page renders fine (with very minor feature downgrading) with Javascript disabled. And it looks fantastic on both a 24" desktop screen (Chrome and Firefox) and on a 4" mobile screen, with a typically less-optimised-for browser (Mobile Firefox) to boot. I'm enjoying the high-res, screen filling photos. Printing doesn't work well, but I think we've all moved on (and like I said, copy paste does work). I can't say for sure how accessible it is, one would think the BBC has some sensitivity for that issue. Honestly, I think it's fantastic. On the other hand, it looks so polished I haven't even started reading it.	{ "pile_set_name": "HackerNews" }
Digital coins may be on the verge of going mainstream - jonbaer https://www.nytimes.com/2017/08/03/style/what-is-cryptocurrency.html ====== dcw303 We're a long way off mainstream. Take the Web as an example: When my university lab computer got trumpet winsock and Netscape installed, it wasn't mainstream. When Hotbot was launched and could actually search with some degree of efficiency it wasn't mainstream. When I learned html and javascript from reading Webmonkey posts it wasn't mainstream. When I switched to this new upstart called Google it wasn't mainstream. When I could use Google Maps to zoom in on the house I used to live in it wasn't mainstream. When I could publish posts on Blogger it wasn't mainstream. When I could post on Twitter and Facebook it was starting to feel like it was mainstream. But when my parents could figure out how to get on Facebook on their mobile phones, I knew that the web had become mainstream, even thought it's debatable how much of the web is really left. In the same way that today's web users don't care about html, http, or urls, digital currency won't be mainstream until they don't have to care about private keys, bitcoin addresses, or even (gasp!) the blockchain. We're a long way off. EDIT: Since I get the sense a lot of cryptocurrency proponents are taking this as a dismissal, let me say that I do think it has a bright future. I just think there's a lot of work ahead until we get there. ~~~ CPLX But with Google your Mom can find out when the store is open and where it is. Facebook lets grandparents see photos of grandchildren. Reading a blog replaces reading the gossip column in the daily paper. You could finally buy plane tickets without driving somewhere. And so on. The early web was _really fucking useful_ as it started to mature. It solved a lot of real problems. What is cryptocurrency going to help these people do that they can't do already today? ~~~ mrb " _What is cryptocurrency going to help these people do that they can 't do already today?_" International payments confirmed _and spendable_ in minutes not days. Escaping inflation in Venezuela/Argentina/whoeverisnext. Sending remittance to family overseas without 10% wasted in fees. Receiving monetary donations for organizations that might be victim of oppressive censorship. Participating in modern e-commerce for the unbanked/underbanked. Allowing merchants to save 2% in credit card fees (which doubles their profit margin if it was 2% to begin with). Allowing merchants to sell in industries prone to credit card fraud. Etc. Gosh it's so easy to find many benefits in cryptocurrencies. ~~~ legulere > International payments When was the last time you made an international payment? I never made a payment outside of the EU and inside the EU I already have free wire transfers. For most people this is not interesting. > unbanked/underbanked You have the right to a bank account in the EU. > Allowing merchants to save 2% in credit card fees Currently Bitcoin is more expensive for typical transactions. And there's direct debit which is practically free at least here in Germany. ~~~ mrb " _When was the last time you made an international payment?_ " I love that you asked this question! The very reason it doesn't happen often is because of _friction_ inherent to legacy payment systems. Cryptocurrencies remove this friction in cross-border trade, hence are making such transactions more commonplace. It's like you saying in 1890 "Why buy cars? People don't travel that much." But the invention of cars is precisely what increased the desire to travel. " _You have the right to a bank account in the EU_ " What about the rest of the world? 6.6B humans? " _Currently Bitcoin is more expensive_ " Not for transactions above approximately $100. ~~~ davidgerard > What about the rest of the world? 6.6B humans? “Banking the unbanked” is much discussed in international development circles. Around 2013, Bitcoin advocates started claiming that Bitcoin could help with this problem. Unfortunately: * The actual problems that leave people unbanked are the bank being too far away, or bureaucratic barriers to setting up an account when you get there. * Unless they use an exchange (which would functionally be a bank), they’d need an expensive computer and a reliable Internet connection to hold and update 120 gigabytes of blockchain. * Bitcoin is way too volatile to be a reliable store of value. * How do they convert it into local money they can spend? Pretty much nobody accepts bitcoin. * 7 transactions per second worldwide total means Bitcoin couldn’t cope with just the banked, let alone the unbanked as well. * A centralised service similar to M-Pesa (a very popular Kenyan money transfer and finance service for mobile phones) might work, but M-Pesa exists, works and is trusted by its users – and goes a long way toward solving the problems with access to banking that Bitcoin claims to. Advocates will nevertheless say “but what about the unbanked?” as if Bitcoin is an obvious slam-dunk answer to the problem and nothing else needs to be said. But no viable mechanism to achieve this has ever been put forward. ~~~ flashdance > Unless they use an exchange (which would functionally be a bank), they’d > need an expensive computer and a reliable Internet connection to hold and > update 120 gigabytes of blockchain. Some of your points are well thought out, but I couldn't leave this one alone. The vast majority of bitcoin users don't use a bitcoin exchange to store their coins. They also don't download the entire blockchain. SPV wallets exist (like electrum or the android bitcoin wallet) that give the user complete control over their private keys without needing a copy of the blockchain or using substantial bandwith. [https://en.bitcoin.it/wiki/Electrum](https://en.bitcoin.it/wiki/Electrum) [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bitcoin_network#Payment_verifi...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bitcoin_network#Payment_verification) ~~~ davidgerard > The vast majority of bitcoin users don't use a bitcoin exchange to store > their coins. They also don't download the entire blockchain. I couldn't find numbers on this when I went looking, but that's a numerical claim. Do you have numbers on this? ~~~ flashdance Thanks for being curious. I scraped around to find some numbers to back up my wild claim--I think I did a fairly decent job of it. I do warn you--my numbers are pretty rough. Blockchain.info claims to be the most popular web wallet with 10M users and users have control of their own keys without needing to run a node. Their android app has 1-5M downloads. The Mycelium wallet for android has 100k-500k downloads.This is an SPV wallet like electrum, where users have control of their keys without needing to run a node. Bitpay's wallet for android also has 100k-500k downloads, which is an SPV wallet. The generic bitcoin wallet for android (also SPV) has 1-5M installs. Multibit (also SPV) is the only desktop client that posts statistics but it claimed 1.5 million downloads in 2014. Now that multibit is discontinued (and bitcoin has gotten more popular since 2014) it's fairly safe to assume that electrum has numbers quite a bit higher than that. I suspect (although I can't prove) that electrum is more popular than all of the android wallets--It's even packaged in TAILS by default. For comparison, the only popular wallet where users DON'T have control of their keys is the coinbase wallet with 9 million accounts. Other exchanges exist, and may have higher volume, but they don't market themselves as wallets to users. There are less than 10,000 full nodes running at any given time--and a large amount of that is running 24/7\. Its safe to say full-chainers are in the minority if you do some guesstimation. I got most of these figures from the google play store. ------ jknz Bitcoin seems quite straightforward and easy to understand, compared to our current banking system. A lot of comments mention the difficulty of explaining what is bitcoin and how it works, and that mainstream people cannot get enough understanding to start using it. What about the actual banking system? There are so much mainstream ignorance about our current banking system. What does it even mean that I own $2000 at a bank? Ok I understand that I can withdraw this cash, but other than that it is a very abstract concept, built into the opaque IT system of my bank. If I transfer money from bank A to bank B, what does that mean? Did the banks exchange an envelope of cash? Do mainstream users really understand the details of a bank transaction? I personal have no clue about the inner workings of this banking IT systems. Bitcoin seems very easy to grasp. Understanding quantitative easing? In the bitcoin world this is transparent and easy to grasp. For my national currency I have no clue of how quantitative easing is done, by how much, etc. The more I think of our national banking/currency systems, the more I believe bitcoin is way simpler to explain and understand. ~~~ wingerlang It means they are holding $2000 of your money. And if you send it to another bank then it means they send it to them and now the other bank is holding your $2000. Nothing hard about that. Bitcoin might be easy if you're a techie and interested in it. I am not interested in it and I barely even know where to start. What does it mean to mine stuff? Blockchain? What.. There is no way my parents would remotely get started with Bitcoins at this point. And I believe that once it becomes easy enough for mainstream, it will be as abstract as anything. ~~~ honestlyreally If everyone wants to take their $2000 out at once, can they? In most countries that's highly unlikely, so is it really $2000? Or something entirely different? ~~~ omarchowdhury What happens to Bitcoin if everyone decides to cash in? ~~~ nileshtrivedi Same as what would happen in case of USD - price would drop to zero. ~~~ kaffeemitsahne Well, someone has to be buying all those btc at the other end. It might drop a lot but I find zero unlikely. ~~~ vertex-four "Price drop to 0" literally means nobody's buying it, of course. If everybody (in the absolute) suddenly decided they didn't want to hold bitcoins, the price would indeed be 0, since there wouldn't be any buyers. (It might even be negative in some cases - you'd have to pay someone to take it from you.) ------ nemo1618 >For this reason, none of the investors I spoke with engage in short-term trading but instead choose, in the online parlance of cryptocurrency enthusiasts, to “hodl” (“hold on for dear life,” rather than sell off for temporary gains). Someone trolled this author. "hodl" is just a misspelling of "hold," not an acronym. ~~~ trendia First seen here: "I am hodling." [https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=375643.0](https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=375643.0) ~~~ noddy1 "Pop bottles and Hodl" ------ AlphaWeaver I tend to believe this is being upvoted because people want to believe this, not because it's actually true. ~~~ deelowe There's also probably quite a few influential people who have a vested interest in digital currency increasing in value. ~~~ richardknop This is a big reason. A substantial amount of people with vested interest that would benefit greatly if the price of crypto increases are in tech and post on HN. So you get a lot of crypto and bitcoin related posts upvoted very quickly here. It's just that HN has disproportional amount of people invested in crypto so they act in their interest. Most bitcoin early adopters were hackers after all. ------ dogruck This is dangerous! When everyday folks go bust on their crypto holdings, there will be pain, suffering and retribution. Or, perhaps you agree that we don't need any of these pesky financial and gambling regulations and safeguards. If this article was about Beanie Babies or penny stocks, would you be clapping? ~~~ kaffeemitsahne Just keep in mind the age-old adage: never invest more than you are willing to lose. Same goes for beanie babies, penny stocks, and index funds. ~~~ dogruck Shall we abolish the FDIC and the SEC? Then, should we redirect some of the funds into gambling addiction support groups? ------ ditn >“If my landscaper ever asks me about crypto, that’s the day I get out,” he said. My hairdresser spent an hour extolling the virtues of cryptocurrencies to me a few weeks ago, and yesterday an electrician who was in the office was explaining to us his weekend project which was basically a multisig wallet written in PHP. Perhaps crypto has already reached peak bubble. ------ dangero _it bears mentioning here that the vast majority of cryptocurrency investors seem to be male, and their Twitter discourse tends to be less than refined, with insults often lodged at devotees of rival currencies._ The vast majority of cryptocurrency investors probably don't even have a twitter account. This seems like a big logical jump to make. ------ rubatuga I believe that crypto currencies will not affect most people’s lives (<10%), and therefore it will never go “mainstream”. The applications for BTC are quite limited, and are mostly edge cases such as evading detection, and easy international transfers. The value of a BTC is currently based on the price of mining one BTC, plus mass speculation. If you consider the immense inefficiency and resources required to mine a BTC, you realize that in most cases using your state’s currency is a better option. The trust and safety provided by BTC is subject to the law of diminishing returns, meaning that most will be content with the money system currently being used today. ~~~ malikNF Lets start with the whole, "crypto-concurrency mining is wasting money" argument. This link [https://www.federalreserve.gov/faqs/currency_12771.htm](https://www.federalreserve.gov/faqs/currency_12771.htm) shows how much it costs to print a currency note just in the US. This shows how many notes are in circulation in the us [https://www.federalreserve.gov/paymentsystems/coin_currcircv...](https://www.federalreserve.gov/paymentsystems/coin_currcircvolume.htm) Then there's the cost in securing the money, transferring it, and keeping track of it add the cost of fake notes, lost and damaged notes and you should see where I am going with this argument. Then lets talk about "application of btc for edge cases" moving money internationally is not an edge case, it is something that makes the world go round and disruption in that area is no trivial thing. Its not an edge case. As for crypto being used by people to avoid detection, well, you can do the same things with fiat currencies. Why do you think there are organisation like the FBI hiring highly skilled people to track and trace what people do with their money. In a crypto world there is a better chance for law enforcement to catch criminals. The best thing about the blockchain is it helps us solve the problem of trust, ofcourse I agree there are problems with this model right now, for example how mining pools can technically launch a 51% attack on the major block-chains and the wole tx/s problem. But what you need to realize is these problems are being acknowledged by the community and are being solved little by little, the technology is progressing there's billions of dollars worth of money tied up in this project. One more point, the block chain is not just about currencies, there's so many more areas where they can be useful. Take a look at the Ethereum project. Therefore I am someone who really believe that block-chains are here to stay and they are going to effect every single one of us. ~~~ stephen_g It's worth noting that in most countries, notes are a low-single digit percentage of actual money supply. Most money exists either as central bank reserves or bank credit. ------ skshetry And, now, we have two bitcoins. Cash and umm, Bitcoin.I wonder what effect it has(will have) on the future of cryptocurrency? ~~~ godzillabrennus Coinbase is going to support cash... as they go others will as well... ~~~ gthtjtkt Coinbase currently has no plan to support Bitcoin Cash trading. They won't even support withdrawals until 2018. ~~~ godzillabrennus Crawl, walk, run. Market demand will change all that. ------ rmason Quite the day for bitcoin, it may be going mainstream. A few years back I had to travel to the Valley to find a bitcoin ATM and now there are three in my hometown! Front page of today's Lansing State Journal: [http://www.lansingstatejournal.com/story/news/local/2017/08/...](http://www.lansingstatejournal.com/story/news/local/2017/08/03/lansing- investing-invest-investment-bitcoin/497148001/) Can't get more mainstream than that! ------ tudorw The value of fiat currency is that the issuing entity assures it's worth, ensures it's security, it's validity and facilitates flow. The benefits of cryptocurrency may look appealing, however, as a store of wealth it's a long way from 'mainstream' and I believe entropy will prevail, in the fiat system entropy is handled, the supply of money is flexible, in a system with entropy, everyone's wealth will tend towards zero over the long term. ~~~ blueprint Aren't you talking about fungibility? ~~~ tudorw not in isolation, no, fungibility is solely a currencies ability to be substituted for goods. ------ romanovcode And 2017 will be the year of Linux desktop. ------ Qub3d Digital coins will go mainstream the same year the Linux Desktop does. (A.K.A. $currentyear+1) ------ stronglikedan Regardless of whether it will ever go mainstream in the near future, and as a newbie to cryptocurrency, is it expected that, whenever it goes mainstream, the value will? 1) Dramatically rise 2) Rise 3) Behave as usual (depending on current trend) 4) Fall 5) Dramatically fall I just curious. I dabble because some eTailors give discounts for Bitcoin, but I can also invest a bit at any time (just not enough to seriously get involved in the day-to-day). ~~~ Nition There is a limited total number of bitcoins and the number of bitcoins is increasing very slowly now so technically the more people buy in the more it should go up. Because there is more money in bitcoins but not more bitcoins. ~~~ stronglikedan Thanks. So a physical bitcoin is not worth 1 bitcoin, but rather a percentage of the entire bitcoin market value (maybe not the right term), relative to the number of physical bitcoins, correct? ~~~ sgspace Huh? There is no such thing as a physical bitcoin. 1 bitcoin will always be worth 1 bitcoin. To calculate the total bitcoin market cap you multiply the number of circulating bitcoins by the current exchange rate for your preferred currency. ~~~ stronglikedan > There is no such thing as a physical bitcoin. Of course there are: [https://www.google.com/search?q=physical+bitcoin&oq=physical...](https://www.google.com/search?q=physical+bitcoin&oq=physical+bitcoin&aqs=chrome..69i57&sourceid=chrome&ie=UTF-8) As to how they relate to crypto, I have no idea, which is why I asked about it. ~~~ reefoctopus [https://en.bitcoin.it/wiki/Casascius_physical_bitcoins](https://en.bitcoin.it/wiki/Casascius_physical_bitcoins) ------ booleandilemma My parents know about bitcoin, so as far as I'm concerned digital coins are already mainstream. I'm still waiting for them to ask me what an ICO is. ~~~ sillysaurus3 What is an ICO? (I'm only being half-serious. But it's amusing that there isn't a consistent definition. It's basically "you can buy an asset I created out of thin air that may or may not have any utility.") ~~~ avaer I have a theory that once you can define ICOs, they will cease to exist in their current form. If the layman buying ICOs for their speculative value understands the asset they're buying, they might not want to buy it anymore. ~~~ grandDesigns I have another theory, that this has already happened. ~~~ hathawsh I see what you did there. ;-) [https://www.goodreads.com/quotes/2397-there-is-a-theory- whic...](https://www.goodreads.com/quotes/2397-there-is-a-theory-which-states- that-if-ever-anyone) ------ gloverkcn This reminds me of the wired article "the long boom" which described how the economy was on a permanent upswing. The telco / .com crash happened a couple years later. The article asserts that currency will always go up because people will want it as an investment strategy. Sounds like the idea that real estate value will always go up ------ Gigablah I feel like it's already mainstream, in Singapore at least. I was getting a haircut at the neighbourhood barbershop and I overhead the shop owner talking about cryptocurrency with a female customer -- stuff like regulatory issues, Satoshi's identity, altcoins, and so on. They probably had more knowledge of Bitcoin than I did. ~~~ solomatov It sounds like a sign of a bubble to me. ~~~ DennisP Singapore's government has been very favorable to cryptocurrencies. Startups around the world who want to do ICOs have been basing themselves in Singapore, along with several other friendly countries. It wouldn't be surprising if the five million residents of Singapore have an unusually high level of awareness. ~~~ solomatov I heard similar conversations from laymen in USA recently. During 2000s bubble I heard that you can hear about perspectives of different IT companies form unexpected people as well. ------ vinchuco What exactly is 'going mainstream' as it relates to digital coins? Seems like everyone draws the line differently. ------ codingmyway If nothing else, cryptocurrency might do one thing that is needed, if only roughly and imperfectly, and is to distribute wealth from the the old to the young. It's the one counterbalance to the debt based asset bubbles of the last 40 years that have transferred wealth to pensioners at the expense of the young ~~~ otp124 Care to explain? If anything, it's wealth transfer from the coin/token buyers to sellers. ~~~ codingmyway Yes, it's from more technically savvy to less technical so to some degree from young to old. Not exactly of course but it's the one countervailing flow to the housing and other asset bubbles and debt transfer which have massively transferred wealth in the opposite direction. ------ ZeusNuts Merkle tree code that helps run Bitcoin was written by a grandpa aged person, cryptographic nonces were created by grandpas also and Satoshi and Hal Finney were of the grandpa group too. This generation can thank the last three generations no less, for the opportunity of cryptocurrency. ------ asherkosaraju Not yet in India. It's almost banned here because of lack of compliance. ------ EA The first digital coin land rush was when people and companies were registering thousands of somewhat random domain names per day hoping to hit on one that someone would eventually want. ------ neilwilson Tulip bulbs are prettier. ~~~ sleazybae "I am clever because tulips and Holland lol. you certainly won't find ME getting taken by all those bitcoin hucksters, yuk yuk yuk" ------ jondubois Money has been getting increasingly less tangible over the past few thousand years. Initially, the value of money was in the materials that made it up; e.g gold, silver coins. Then people started paying with paper backed by gold; so although the paper itself had no value, it could be used to redeem gold. ... People got used to paper. Then people started paying with paper fiat currencies not backed by anything. Then people started paying with electronic numbers on computer screens in their bank accounts backed by the fiat paper money. ... People got used to digital numbers in their bank accounts. Now we have cryptocurrencies which are backed by the electronic numbers in our bank accounts. It does seem like a logical progression. ~~~ neilwilson Money has never been tangible. It always has been a token for a debt owed by somebody. There is no difference between a paper bill, a coin and a cheque other than the account it references. ~~~ jondubois There is a huge difference between a coin and a paper bill. Unlike the paper bill, the gold coin is both a currency and a commodity - It has many useful properties. It can be melted down and turned into jewellery, used in electronics, tooth fillings, glass-making, paint, etc... Fiat money can be exchanged for other things but fiat money in itself cannot be converted into anything useful. Destroying fiat currency to sell the underlying material is illegal in most countries. When gold coins were currency, people would shave slivers of gold from their coins to pay for small things. This emphasises that the value of the currency was entirely in its material. The value of a gold coin as a currency was equal to its value as a commodity. ~~~ neilwilson You've obviously never made a paper plane out of a bank note. Or had one with a printing error where it becomes a collectible artwork. The value of any coin is far greater than its metal value in any normal system. Gold included. ------ Animats It's all zero-sum. It doesn't create wealth. ~~~ mathgenius > It's all zero-sum. But this is the same as "conservation of energy". _Everything_ is zero-sum, and yet we still do stuff. > It doesn't create wealth. Well I have two answers for this. One is simple: these are financial products, and people need those. The other answer is a question: what is wealth ? Or, what is value? And these questions are like koans, they are both profound and also without solution. Wild price gyrations on exchanges going back hundreds of years are testament to this. ------ wilg Quick question: what do people do with them? Invest? ~~~ vinchuco I made happy returns (poor-student-sized and regrettably non-leveraged) on three occasions simply by monitoring when exposure would go up and timing the end of hype (e.g. when the first senate hearing on BTC). stats.grok.se, forums and HN were good informers. Then I quit. I wish I knew the full answer to your question. ------ chrismealy Until I can pay taxes with it, not interested. ------ kogepathic Another way to phrase this is: "Are digital coins on the verge of going mainstream?" to which I reply: Betteridge's law of headlines ~~~ discombobulate That's not the headline. The editorialised headline hasn't been changed. ------ discombobulate Incorrect title. ~~~ discombobulate The fucking title is wrong. Not only that, I got downvoted for pointing out it's wrong. & It hasn't been changed. ------ mattdeboard 2017 is the year of Linux on the desktop ~~~ tootie ChromeOS put Linux on the desktop and no one noticed. ~~~ themacguffinman That's not really "Linux on the desktop" as its advocates imagine it. For most ChromeOS users, the Linux-y parts like the shell and the GNU toolchain are largely restricted. ~~~ ty_a Not to be overly pedantic but the "shell" and "GNU toolchain" are literally not Linux. ~~~ themacguffinman You're right, and I didn't mean to imply those things comprise Linux. They are, however, what most people are talking about when they say they "use Linux". GNU + Linux comprise the "desktop Linux" platform. ------ knodi lol, no. Go ahead download the ledger.	{ "pile_set_name": "HackerNews" }
Women 2.0 x Startup Quote: Wendy Tan White, Founder, Moonfruit - raychancc http://startupquote.com/post/7590260543 ====== raychancc Sustaining a successful business is a hell of a lot of work, and staying hungry is half the battle. \- Wendy Tan White (@wendytanwhite) <http://startupquote.com/post/7590260543>	{ "pile_set_name": "HackerNews" }
Bitcoin – what happened yesterday in Japan? - cocoapriest I'm a developer of the Bitcoin Tracker iPad app (http://www.alstertouch.com/bitcoinapp/) and I just noticed a big spike in yesterday's downloads from Japan. Does anyone have any clue what happened over there? ====== mschuster91 There's been some dude broadcasting a BTC transaction out of North Korea... but I don't believe this would cause a spark of interest in Japan. ------ nanofortnight Not sure it's related but I know the Bitcoin Tokyo Meetup Group has a meeting tomorrow.	{ "pile_set_name": "HackerNews" }
Building Waze for the Boston subway: my first adventure in civic hacking - gklitt http://geoffreylitt.com/2015/02/28/mbta-ninja.html ====== sethbannon "In a world where political systems are increasingly gridlocked every day, and much of Silicon Valley is focused on peddling ads, the civic innovation and open data movements are a bright and optimistic exception to the zeitgeist." Amen to this! I'm excited by the trend of more hackers realizing that they have the skills to fix a lot of what is broken about politics and government. ~~~ aepearson Amen, x2! ------ this_user This idea has a lot more potential. Once you have the data, you can obviously give the individual user the best alternative route if there is delay on the desired one. You can also use this proactively, similar to what "Google Now" does, to alert commuters in the morning how much longer their trip might take. You could even offer functionality to automatically adjust the phone's alarm clock. But you can take this even further than individual users and dynamically re- route passenger flows if enough of them are using the service. Say there is an interruption on a main commuter route, but several alternatives exist. Most people are now likely to choose the second best route. Since that route is unlikely to be able to handle the additional passengers, it will probably be jammed very quickly. However, using the RT passenger and situation data, it would be possible to find the globally optimal solution for load balancing the passenger flow. You can then provide the passengers via smartphone with individualised information regarding which route to take to implement this routing. I think this has a lot of potential for taking public transport to the next level by utilising existing capacities to the fullest extent and providing benefits to all passengers. ------ chiph Not actually Waze - title would be better along the lines of: "Building a Waze-like for the Boston subway" ~~~ ryanthejuggler I think the title was written in the spirit of "It's Uber for <X>". Agreed that it could be clearer though. ~~~ gklitt Yeah, this was the intention. As cliche as "X for Y" has become these days, I can see why it's such a popular format. Most people instantly get what MBTA Ninja is, based on a four word tagline. ------ hugenerd This seems similar to is metro broke? [https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/is-metro- broke/id849428357?m...](https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/is-metro- broke/id849428357?mt=8) ------ pimlottc I like the confirmation model. And mbta.ninja is a cool domain name, though why besmirch it with a needless www? ------ untog This could be very interesting, and could even sit in the background and track user's movements without needing an explicit action to report problems. Unless you're in New York where everything is underground of course. Sadly. ~~~ mayneack Most of the MBTA is underground too. However, at least the green and red lines have cell reception underground. ~~~ bwanab The Orange and Blue lines have it also. As far as I know the whole system is wired underground. ~~~ mayneack yeah, figured as much, but didn't want to make claims about lines I hadn't used enough to know for sure. ------ chrisBob Eastbound, Northbound, Southbound, Westbound? I am not sure the authors have ever been to Boston. Here there is only _Inbound_ and _Outbound_. I went to www.mbta.ninja and then spent about 30 seconds trying to figure out if any of the alerts are related to me. ~~~ _august Inbound/Outbound changes at Park St, correct? So South/North/East/West seems to be more helpful here. Of course, they could ask you to input a station first, then display the connecting lines as inbound/outbound. ~~~ sisk The four stations where the directions change are the square made up of Park Street, State Street, DTX, and Government Center (or Haymarket since Gov Center is down? Not sure, haven't been to Haymarket in at least two years). Directionality (for new folks) or terminus (for more seasoned riders) are infinitely better than Inbound/Outbound. ------ cllns I had a lackluster interview experience at the company the author works for and mentions. After completing a coding challenge, I got a generic: "After deliberating, we have decided not to proceed with your application." I asked for more specific feedback, from two different people, and got no response. ~~~ swanson This seems completely unrelated to the article and doesn't really add anything to the conversation. ~~~ cllns I mentioned it because the company itself was plugged in the post. Also there's a bit of irony involved, where they're extolling the virtues of data, but failing to provide proper interview feedback.	{ "pile_set_name": "HackerNews" }
Oat Milk Could Change the Way You Drink Coffee (2018) - indigodaddy http://time.com/5190977/how-oat-milk-could-change-the-way-you-drink-coffee/ ====== dpkrjb I've become a particular fan of oat milk over the past couple of years. It's one of the more difficult milk substitutes to find in at restaurants the UK (coffee places usually fair better), almond and soy are relatively common. There are varieties that also froth up really well that barristas now use. I'm a particular fan of the price point. Being from the UK I can assume that any almond milk I drink would be made from almonds from another country, it's same with the coconut oil I use for cooking. So I am willing to accept some price inflation in order to remove dairy. But oat milk tastes much nicer and would probably get whittled down to a generic price point that beats any other milk substitute because it can be grown locally (almost anywhere in fact) and cheaply. ~~~ Spooky23 What motivates you to eliminate dairy? ~~~ ajaxaddicted Not OP, the reasons for eliminating diary are so many - cholesterol, hormones( most notably estrogen), IGF1 which is cancer promoting, antibiotics, casein morphine( which makes milk products addicting), the dairy industry is extremely cruel and the huge environmental impact due to all the resources needed to bring up a cow ~~~ Dimtree I think you're missing the most common reason. Up to 65% of the global population is lactose intolerant to a degree. [https://ghr.nlm.nih.gov/condition/lactose- intolerance](https://ghr.nlm.nih.gov/condition/lactose-intolerance) ~~~ lawlorino As a counterpoint that's not uniformly distributed globally, the incidence is much lower in Northern Europe including UK where OP is from. ~~~ Dimtree As a counter-counterpoint, you assume OP's ethnicity is Northern European just because he lives in the UK. ------ wastedhours Oat milk is by far the best "alternative" milk I've tried for coffee - I find it really adds something different that cow's milk doesn't. Recently tried making my own and it's a really nice process to go through (to the extent am looking at small scale manufacture). If you can, definitely try it in a flat white back to back with cow's milk. ~~~ ranit > Recently tried making my own and it's a really nice process ... Interesting. Could you elaborate? ~~~ wastedhours Sure, it's essentially just soaking and blending: 1) soak the oats for as long as you like (I do overnight, but can be as little as 30 mins) 2) Pass through a sieve, removing the sitting liquid. 3) Add to a blender with some fresh water and pulse (the amount of fresh water depends on how thick you want it to be afterwards). You can also add cocoa powder here if you want oaty/chocolatey milk. 4) Pass the liquor through a nut milk bag (or muslin etc...) to get the milk. It separates quite easily so you do need to shake before use, but should be easily achievable with household items. ~~~ ranit Thank you. ------ bmj This is really just an ad for Oatly, right? There are other brands in the US market (at least), and I've seen a few different options on the shelves of my local food co-op for at least a few years.... ~~~ bashy They really aren't the same as Oatly. My family changed over to Oatly from cows because of the taste. ------ K0nserv I stopped drinking regular milk actively more than a year ago. At work we have soy milk which is good enough, but Oatly is definitely the gold standard milk replacmenet for me. Unfortunately I am finding that in Edinburgh cafés and other establishments are struggling to find suppliers that supply Oatly. This has resulted in a lot of places using other brands of oat milk which are universally terrible, so now asking for oat milk in your coffee is a gamble. As I understand it Oatly's methods are patented. Upon finding this out I even tried to buy shares in Oatly, but unfortunately they aren't publically traded. ~~~ nabla9 Many people, including me, think that Oatly's iKaffe tastes better with coffee than milk. You can see that in the local market here in Finland. Large number of oat and soy milks next to each other, many brands stay fully stacked (they taste bad) but Oatly's iKaffe is always almost out or out. People have started to buy more of it when it is available, so it vanishes from the shelves even faster. ------ dhimes Here's a comparison of nutritional value, from Livestrong[1] "Let's take Oatly Oat Drink Whole. One cup has: 120 calories 5 grams of fat 3 grams of protein 14 grams of carbohydrate 2 grams of fiber It also provides 25 percent of the RDA of calcium, 18 percent of the RDA of vitamin D and 11 percent of the RDA of potassium. The same amount of cow's milk with 3.5 percent fat contains: 146 calories 11 grams of carbohydrate 8 grams of protein 8 grams of fat It boasts 25 percent of the RDA of calcium, 5 percent of the RDA of vitamin A and 1 percent of the RDA of iron. Unlike oat milk, it has no fiber at all." [1][https://www.livestrong.com/article/267017-what-are-the- benef...](https://www.livestrong.com/article/267017-what-are-the-benefits-of- oat-milk/) ~~~ PhDuck It might not have fiber, but on the other hand it has far more protein. ------ molf Oatly is brilliant to make cappuccinos with: the foam is very stable and tastes great, unlike many other milk substitutes in my opinion. But unfortunately it clogs the cappuccinatore of our Jura coffee machine after a few cups... ------ homero I hated almond milk and recently got into oat milk. I've tried several and they're very different. I thought quaker would have the best but it was the worst. Planet oat was the best. Silk was ok. Haven't tried oatly yet. I still drink regular milk usually and love soy milk. ~~~ Havoc Oatly barrister edition is tangibly better than oatly normal ~~~ stefanfisk Would that be iKaffe vs havremjölk? Because my god iKaffe is so perfect for coffe that I don’t even consider them to belong to the same product category! ~~~ gazab Try the new Havredryck Deluxe for coffee instead of iKaffe! Despite the name it's even better, IMO ~~~ stefanfisk OMG, I hadn't even noticed Deluxe since the packaging is so similar to the regular ones, will definitely give it a try! ------ t0mbstone Pea protein milk (like Ripple or the stuff from Bolthouse) is way better than oat milk. It tastes just like almond or coconut milk, but has a way, way better nutrition profile. Nutrient info for one 8 oz serving of unsweetened original: \- 8g plant-based protein per serving \- Zero sugar \- 50% more calcium than 2% dairy milk \- 32mg DHA Omega-3’s \- An excellent source of Vitamin D \- More iron than 2% dairy milk \- 70 calories \- 4.5g of fat \- 0 carbs \- 130mg sodium It's excellent for low carb/keto diets, too! ------ juandazapata How do you milk an Oat? ~~~ btschaegg Hmm, perhaps one obtains it by milking a goat in a zero-g environment? ;-) ------ hema_n Nice one. ------ magwa101 Carbs so, no. ------ m0skit0 Can we please stop calling these juices with additives "milk". Milk is produced by mammals. Whatever you add to oak juice doesn't make it "milk". ~~~ fredley Usage defines language, not the other way around. ~~~ stillbourne Uh, no. The defining characteristic of mammals is the ability to produce milk. The word itself is derived from the latin word breast. There is a definition for the word milk as a verb in the mechanical sense as in to extract a substance from an object mechanically but the product from that extraction is not, in any sense, milk, as in the noun. The only other known animals to provide milk are a specific species of jumping spiders. But, as this is specifically a single species, or perhaps even a small genus of interrelated jumping spiders, it is not a defining characteristic of its entire class from an evolutionary stand point. Milk is an important substance and the definition of which should be more regulated to prevent distortion or misinterpretation of its function by marketing. The only manufactured food substance that approximates milk is baby formula. It is time to stop calling all of these mechanical extractions that are marketed as substitutions something other than milk. This is important because there is a lot of misinformation and general quackery that is related to these mechanical extractions that endanger the lives of infants such as the parents that killed their 7 month old infant by substituting quinoa milk with actual milk or formula because it was "natural." ~~~ natch Looks like the dairy industry is here on HN. ------ Zecar This is an advertisement. Time was duped but do we have to be also?	{ "pile_set_name": "HackerNews" }
Ask HN: Resources for making hardware ideas into products - collyw I am a software developer. I have a reasonably good idea about how to start a software based company from reading articles on this site. I sometimes come up with ideas for hardware, or a mix of software and hardware (something that plugs into your phone, and gets triggered by the accelerometer for example).<p>Are there any good resources to learn how I would go about putting my ideas to life. I could probably build a proof of concept prototype using Arduino, or Rasperry Pi, but then what? I would have no idea where to go from there. ====== phantom_oracle Then you go from being a prototype designer and software/hardware developer into a businessman. If you are building something that can acquire a patent, you do that first. Make sure your patent applies to the big markets (US, Europe, China). You'll now need to hustle to discover manufacturers in the worlds factory (aka China). You may also be able to find an OEM in Taiwan or another high-tech country that can help you refine your designs and turn the prototype into a working product. You'll also need to develop sales/marketing channels, work out logistics, costing, life of product, etc. Basically, if you are more interested in the technical side of things, you'll quickly grow frustrated with everything else. Before thinking of building a great hardware product, first see if your profile fits that of an entrepreneur. ~~~ collyw Thanks, that's a nice high level overview. Are there any good sites for reading a little more in depth about how to go about each of these steps? ~~~ phantom_oracle There are plenty, I'd just advise you to avoid websites that speak about patents, etc. Ideas can be stolen by some website planting some malware into your system. Try sites like entrepreneur.com, bplans.com, etc. Each part of the building process is a big market within itself, so maybe you should try researching them separately. If you're in a university or you are an alum, you could also speak to people that deal with these kinds of matters (perhaps the electrical engineering department and the business management department). Be careful what you say though... All the best. ~~~ collyw Thanks.	{ "pile_set_name": "HackerNews" }
F# Versus Java Shootout - dayjah http://shootout.alioth.debian.org/demo/compare.php?lang=fsc ====== Jacked What point am I supposed to be getting here? Yup, it's a benchmark. F# was consistently slower than Java, but, consistently used less memory and fewer lines of code. Are you saying this is good, or bad? ~~~ goalieca Well... most of the stats aren't that different but them I'm reminded that this is mono and its using significantly less memory than java. Mono has a really sloppy garbage collector.. what does that say about java's in this benchmark. ------ teilo If this is supposed to be a real-world benchmark, wouldn't it make more sense to be running F# on the CLR? How many sites doing F# development would actually be deploying on Mono?	{ "pile_set_name": "HackerNews" }
NASAs Cassini spacecraft has delivered a glorious view of Saturn... - jug6ernaut http://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/cassini/whycassini/cassini20121218.html ====== T-hawk Here's a fantastic detailed explanation of the geometry and what's going on with each visual element of the picture, from Slate: [http://mobile.slate.com/blogs/bad_astronomy/2012/12/20/satur...](http://mobile.slate.com/blogs/bad_astronomy/2012/12/20/saturn_s_night_side_cassini_sees_rings_and_planet_in_stunning_picture_photo.html) ~~~ dot Thanks for posting the article. Really helped! If you're still having trouble wrapping your mind around the shadowy part... Look at this image and imagine the light source coming from behind instead: [http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/0/0e/Saturn_HS...](http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/0/0e/Saturn_HST_2004-03-22.jpg) ~~~ jebblue Why do they look almost computer generated? Just curious. ------ monkey_slap If anyone stumbles upon a higher resolution image of this I would be much obliged. It's really striking. edit: Just found it! <http://i.imgur.com/ZCEKA.jpg> ------ Tichy Just wondering, is there a network of telescope webcams? Hobby astronomers hooking up their telescopes to the internet, perhaps even with remote controlled mounts? Would save the costs of buying my own telescope, which wouldn't be much use in the city anyway. ~~~ frossie You mean something like <http://www.itelescope.net/> ? Also check for a local amateur astronomy association. Research telescopes often have live feeds for popular events (such as the Venus transit). Finally depending on your location you may be no further than a day trip away to an astronomical facility - they often have events open to the public, stargazing etc. BTW Here's another "christmassy" picture (this time of the Bubble Nebula) from a brand new instrument: <http://www.noao.edu/image_gallery/html/im1136.html> Disclaimer - Latter link is my employer, but I have nothing to gain from you clicking on it :-) Oh Edit: you can also go data-mining in public astronomy databases, though sadly most of them are not geared for use by the general public. Oh Edit2: You can have some fun with this <http://www.worldwidetelescope.org/> but you need Silverlight ~~~ mturmon Another related development in democratization of astronomy is publishing of transient events (brightenings/dimmings of objects) as they happen. You can subscribe to feeds from robotic transient surveys, that do the image processing and photometry to generate events in near real time (e.g.: <http://skyalert.org/>). The events are published in a standard format so you can automate follow-up as well. Many of the events are asteroids or possible NEOs, but others are galactic and extra-galactic, like supernovae, blazars, etc. It's not backyard astronomy, because the events are being detected by 1 meter telescopes and have magnitude of perhaps 18 or 20, but it's a more open and data-rich situation than a few sources being kept under wraps for follow-up by the discoverer only. ------ natex While I do find this image visually appealing, and appreciate its technical merit, I find it a bit unreal looking. Maybe it's a bit two-dimensional. I prefer the more three-dimensional looking images like [http://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/cassini/multimedia/pia1462...](http://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/cassini/multimedia/pia14627.html). ~~~ Sharlin Well, it's the night side, so obviously there's not the same kind of shading that you get with direct sunlight. ~~~ 001sky The planet and the rings seem to violate 3D spatial relations. ie, planet appears outside the orbit of the rings, for example. Its a touch awkward. On a more subjective note, the outline of the planet in artificial colour (the corona effect) seems a bit ?? overdone. I'd like to see other renderings. edit: I think there is a bit of an optical illusion, part of which is happening because of the over-saturation of the corona. The image makes more sense if you soom out a bit and understand you are looking <up> at the planet from the souther hemispher (ie, below the equator/rings belt). The missing rings should be in the fore-ground but are absent due to shadow. Again, the corona;s colour saturation is so strong it throws the image constuct off when looking at it in more magnification. ~~~ Sharlin Yes; you're looking "up" but surely there are no missing rings - they are actually _visible_ against the planet as silhouettes. They are dark because they're in the planet's shadow. ------ imglorp Polar vortex [http://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/cassini/multimedia/N001983...](http://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/cassini/multimedia/N00198390.html) ~~~ jlgreco Saturn's polar vortex has a hexagonal pattern, which I think is pretty interesting: <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Saturn%27s_hexagon> ------ Flenser Why does Saturn appear green in this image but brown in the banner image above it? ~~~ sp332 "The new processed mosaic [is] composed of 60 images taken in the violet, visible and near infrared part of the spectrum". So the colors in the image were chosen for artistic effect, and are not "true" colors because you couldn't see some of them anyway. This image was specifically processed to look closer to real colors: [http://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/cassini/multimedia/gallery...](http://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/cassini/multimedia/gallery/pia08329.html) ------ bmuon It left me wondering: could smaller rocky planets have rings or would their gravity pull not be enough to maintain them? ~~~ jug6ernaut It is theorized that earth at one time had rings, but that they later coalesced into what is now our moon. It is also theorized that the reason that the reason why Saturn's rings do not do this(though this could just a matter of time that we are now viewing them at) is because they are prodomonantly ice crystals which constantly bounce into each other breaking and re-freezing. IE why we can see them at all(reflective surfaces on the ice) rather then them be covered with dirt & dust and rendering them unreflective. Further more to your question I "think" any planet or even any object could have rings, its just there are many factors that go into play and singularly it is REALLY hard to see them, and we only have our galaxy where we would be able to tell if an object did or didn't have them. ~~~ natex "It is theorized that earth at one time had rings, but that they later coalesced into what is now our moon." Indeed. (1997 Nature article) [http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v389/n6649/full/389353a...](http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v389/n6649/full/389353a0.html) ------ charonn0 Must be an awesome view from the surface at midnight on Saturn. ------ elptacek Wow. Thank you for posting this. In light of the superstition of the day and recent events, I am reminded of Bill Hicks: <http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iMUiwTubYu0> ------ loceng That really is gorgeous. I want to be able to fly by it in person. ------ biolime Is there a higher resolution image available? I'd love to make that a new desktop background. ------ b2spirit The emperor's gorgeous new clothes. ------ marcrosoft Why does it look like clipart? ~~~ hahainternet Because it's an exceptionally smooth and beautiful image? ------ mseepgood Fake.	{ "pile_set_name": "HackerNews" }
They Have, Right Now, Another You - kushti http://www.nybooks.com/articles/2016/12/22/they-have-right-now-another-you/ ====== marchenko The idea that Facebook and other services may allow the proliferation of erroneous doppelgänger profiles more attractive to advertisers than the real versions is very interesting. How would this be tested? By seeing if there is any bias in ad-targeting misfires?	{ "pile_set_name": "HackerNews" }
Random Country – Explore the World - sleiman https://random.country/ ====== elmerfud Interesting site, but really need to work on the mobile view of it.	{ "pile_set_name": "HackerNews" }
Turning the Apple //e into a lisp machine, part 1 - antics http://blog.nullspace.io/apple-2-lisp-part-1.html ====== fsck--off If you want to play with a Lisp Machine on Apple hardware, Symbolics is still selling refurbished MacIvory boards. Even though the hardware is ancient the latest model (MacIvory model 3) costs more than a top-of-the-line retina MacBook Pro. The MacIvory 2 is more affordable, if you have an extra thousand dollars to spend. [http://www.lispmachine.net/symbolics.txt](http://www.lispmachine.net/symbolics.txt) ------ lisper Another Lisp for the Apple II: [http://www.flownet.com/ron/plisp.html](http://www.flownet.com/ron/plisp.html) Complete with disk images so you can run it yourself on a real Apple or an emulator. ~~~ msarnoff The documentation link on that site isn't working, but it can be found here: [http://jeffshrager.org/llisp/](http://jeffshrager.org/llisp/) The last chapter is particularly interesting, as it describes the inner workings of the interpreter. ~~~ richardjordan I still have my original Apple II from when I was a kid. Have been meaning to fix it up in a while. This is a great reason to do so! In other news, any hardware hackers in Sunnyvale looking for a fun project... ------ jff A Lisp machine is designed at the hardware level for running Lisp well. This is a neat project to implement a bare-metal Lisp environment on top of Apple //e hardware. ~~~ antics This is true, of course, but our point is that there is not a lot of stuff separating the lisp from the machine -- no OS for instance. It's just a machine that runs lisp and nothing else. ~~~ lispm I think its fine and a good project. I was once using Lisp on my Apple IIc. Generally a Lisp Machine is also really a piece of hardware designed to run Lisp. The CPU of a Symbolics for example is a (mostly) stack machine which knows all kinds of Lisp data types and Lisp function calling conventions. The memory then also contains Lisp data (with tags for data types and GC which are used by the CPU directly). Additionally the Lisp that runs on top of it is providing OS services: device control, I/O, keyboard, disks, tapes, expansion cards, graphics, sound, network, scheduling, ... Getting a Lisp on an Apple II to the level of the built-in Apple Basic with access to keyboard, graphics, etc. should be fun. I'm looking forward to read more of your adventures! ~~~ jordanb Right. Lisp machines came out of the assumption that general purpose hardware would be very bad at running lisp, in an era where custom single-purpose computing hardware seemed to make sense. As it turned out, Unix workstations ran Lisp just fine. So when the 80s AI winter drying up budgets, AI labs decided to buy cheaper SUN workstations and the Lisp machine companies failed. ~~~ lispm No, Lisp Machines came out of the assumption that there was no hardware to run AI development environments as personal workstations. The concept of the Lisp Machine dates back to the early seventies and the first machines appeared mid/end seventies. Lisp developers early on wanted to use the machines interactively. A single Lisp developer could use a PDP with something like Macsyma, which probably was thought to serve tens or hundreds of terminal users. And the memory of that machine was still constraining for Macsyma or some of the other larger Lisp programs. At that time there were no useful 32bit (or more) microprocessors. Other machines were either tiny or very large for multiple users. The 68000 appeared in 1979 and just was good enough to run the console of the Symbolics Lisp Machine a few years later. So Lisp Machines were developed to run a very compact machine code representation of Lisp and with very large main memories (1 Megabyte or more), graphical user interfaces and all that for a SINGLE user - a $100k per machine. Thus when they appeared on the commercial market in 1981, there was nothing like it. Ten years later lots of other processors were fast enough, had enough memory, and were available as capable personal computers or workstations. But initially 'general purpose' hardware was not especially good at running Lisp. The Intel chips were a bad match, the first 68000 was slow with tiny memories, ... It took a few years and the next generations were better: 68020, the SPARC, better Intel processors, ... But when Lisp Machines were designed at at Xerox/PARC (the Alto running Lisp in 1974, then InterLisp-D), at MIT (the CONS in 1975 and CADR), at BBN (the Jericho in 1979) general purpose hardware WAS unpractical for running Lisp, Lisp applications and their development environments. Later in the mid 80s the architectures were brought to microprocessors (TI Explorer Megachip, Symbolics Ivory). It was also tried to design RISC based chips: SPUR, Xerox, Symbolics, ... but then the market for Lisp went away. ~~~ mjn I agree w.r.t. the 1970s, but the Lisp Machines were having cost-competition issues even before the Intel/SPARC machines caught up, due to the advent of lower-cost, smallish minicomputers that could be used as single-user machines if you had the budget. By 1985 you could get a MicroVAX II for ~$20k, plus another ~$8k for a copy of VAX Lisp, and have a quite reasonable Lisp system, with the downside of having to store a reasonably big cabinet (but not full- VAX kind of big). ~~~ lispm The basic MicroVAX II was quite slow, with tiny memory, just a text terminal interface, ... To get anything comparable to a Symbolics 3640 one would have to invest quite a bit more money and it would still be slower as an 11/780. The lab at our University was using a lot of Lisp on a DEC 10 and VAX 11/750 and 11/780\. Nobody I know was keen to move their Lisp development to a Microvax (though there were some), There were some Symbolics 3640 users. Then later Apollo/SUN/Compaq/Mac II, ... ------ hvs Aw crap. Now I may have to setup my Apple IIGSs and begin another marathon Apple hacking session. My wife always finds these times trying/amusing/annoying. ------ antitrust The Apple //e was the hacker-friendliest machine ever. It's probably the ideal learning platform for anyone looking to go into computer science, although perhaps not app programming as a career, which requires a narrower skill set and more focus. ~~~ zwieback I was a die-hard Apple fan until the Mac came out, which felt like a betrayal to the original Wozniak-driven Apple philosophy. The PC, ironically, became the continuation of what Apple meant to me. ~~~ analog31 I suspect that their experience with the //e influenced the decision to make the Mac a closed box. Like you, I found the PC to be a much more comfortable transition. Because the Apple ][ was a locked design, folks started poking directly into ROM and RAM locations, for instance directly manipulating system variables, or even jumping into the middle of ROM subroutines. A book called "What's Where in the Apple II" documented almost every known hook. My mom had that book. She's my hacker role model. As a result of the way that software interacted, it became virtually impossible for Apple to update the ROMs without breaking popular apps. The next generation of personal computers all represented different approaches to avoiding this problem by providing well documented entry points while offering no guarantee of long term code stability. IBM made one mistake: They let people hard code the address of video RAM, which is what led to the legendary 640k barrier. ~~~ antitrust I wish they'd taken a middle path. Having BASIC (or another language) built into the machine was a big plus and encouraged people to see continuity between the OS, the hardware and the code. If that BASIC had to use built-in functions and data-types instead of simply POKE-ing and PEEKING-ing as a de facto interface with the underlying machine code, that would still have been hacker-friendly without being inflexible. It was such a weird relationship between desktop machines and UNIXes back then. It's like the desktop designers had to re-learn the lessons of UNIX in the small. So much was forgotten. ~~~ analog31 I agree. In my view, the "walled garden" of iOS is just the next step in what Apple had already intended to establish for the original Mac. To be charitable, I can imagine it being based on the idea of protecting the user from Bad Software. But lots of us wanted to write Bad Software such as little programs for our own use, or for limited, specialized use by other people. I found the Mac programming docs (Inside Mac) to be impenetrable, and the overhead for writing Hello World enormous. Then I fell in love with HyperCard. But we all know what happened to that. ~~~ antitrust > In my view, the "walled garden" of iOS is just the next step in what Apple > had already intended to establish for the original Mac. I imagine this is a quandary that shows up not in computing, but anywhere that users interact with a single source of definitive rules. For example, it might be easier for government to erect certain walled gardens... or for companies to do this with their employees, parents with their kids, etc. It's not that I don't understand their position or view it as probably the best way to herd cats (I mean, "consumers"). But hacker-friendliness is what gets you the top echelon of users drifting toward your hardware and software. As a result, it's a huge (but invisible) business draw. ------ tcarey83 I'm gonna stick my neck out here and say these guys are choosing the worst and most convoluted way to develop software, much less, a lisp system to for the Apple IIe ever. And then, trying to make a sensation out of it. I was alive and programming back when the Apple IIe was popular. While I mostly wrote code for the Commodore 64 and Atari systems of the time, I did write a bit of code for the Apple II and IIe. Those computers are primitive by today's standards, but nobody was entering hex codes. That ended with computers like the ELF II. A lot of the machine code programming was done with a program called a 'monitor' program that was much like the DOS debug program that allowed viewing and writing memory as well as a single line assembly (i.e. inline assembly) that would allow writing programs a line a time in assembly. But most of the programming was being done using assembler's and compiler's like the Aztec/Manx C compiler that is still availble today (google it) so what they are doing and saying is BS. ------ hcarvalhoalves Which makes you wonder, where would we be today if the Apple //e shipped with LISP. ~~~ sehugg In those days I'd just be happy with a language that let me quickly manipulate 16-bit integers. AppleSoft used floating-point for all intermediate calculations, which made even simple loops very slow. I enjoyed using GraFORTH, which was a 10 kb dialect of FORTH with bitmapped and 3D wireframe graphics (!) that compiled to threaded code. ~~~ rumbler Steve Wozniak's original Apple II Integer Basic had 16-bit signed integers, but no built-in floating point support. Applesoft (licensed from Micosoft) had 16-bit integer variables (such as A%) as well as floating point, but you are right that it converted them to and from real with every operation, which was slow. They were useful for saving memory (2 bytes instead of 5) and not much else. There were BASIC extensions published in places like Nibble and Call-A.P.P.L.E. that added native integer math to Applesoft using the & command, so you could write things like "A% = B% &\+ C%", and the operation was performed without conversion to real. Let's also not forget SWEET-16, Woz's software emulation of a 16-bit kind-of- RISC processor on the 6502, that had 16-bit arithmetic. Reading the source code of SWEET-16 blew my young, impressionable mind. ------ LarryMade2 > There is no assembler and no text editor, so the only development > possibility other than BASIC is to implement directly in machine code. Could have developed off machine then ported over to the ][ lots of resources here: [http://6502.org/](http://6502.org/) like XA65: [http://www.floodgap.com/retrotech/xa/](http://www.floodgap.com/retrotech/xa/) Much 8 bit development nowadays (and there still is a lot) is cross-platform. plus many many apple ][ emulators for debugging... even some running via browser. ~~~ billforsternz Well yes, and that's exactly what they did; Developed off machine and then ported over to the ][ ~~~ LarryMade2 But.. there are assemblers/compilers... and available off-machine. Just pointing out an undiscovered opportunity. ~~~ billforsternz Presumably they used off-machine assemblers and/or compilers ------ cdjk This is very cool. For a slightly easier way of experimenting with a lisp machine it's possible to install OpenGenera. There are scattered tutorials online, but here's one I've found: [http://www.cliki.net/VLM_on_Linux](http://www.cliki.net/VLM_on_Linux) I've been meaning to try this - perhaps I'll write up a better tutorial (or better, an ansible playbook) to set it up. ------ zwieback Nice blast from the past. I eventually built a serial port for my Apple ][. I bet you could do a USB-FTDI-Apple interface pretty easily. The audio interface was always really fiddly although we used cassette tapes back then and most of the problems were due to the low fidelity of the tapes. ~~~ antics Interestingly, in practice the laptop-to-A2e audio transmission almost never fails -- the fidelity is probably not an issue anymore. FWIW, we would have picked a better way to transmit the data if we'd had more hardware. This was basically just a hack that ended up being kind of funny and cool. ------ sehugg I wonder if Andrew Plotkin's "Lists and Lists" (a Scheme tutorial written for the Z-machine VM) can run on a //e? Seems like it would. [http://ifdb.tads.org/viewgame?id=zj3ie12ewi1mrj1t](http://ifdb.tads.org/viewgame?id=zj3ie12ewi1mrj1t) ------ rbanffy One of my personal projects (one that'll most likely never happen due to time constraints) is a Raspberry Pi-ish gizmo merged into an Apple Super Serial (or something with a built-in terminal). This way, you could plug it into a slot and boot into a terminal of a Linux machine. ------ lscharen He should really look into using ADTPro. It even supports bootstapping over the audio input like is described in the post. [http://adtpro.sourceforge.net/bootstrapaudio.html](http://adtpro.sourceforge.net/bootstrapaudio.html) ~~~ antics But then it wouldn't have been a hack! We wouldn't have had to understand anything to get the job done! ... Though, credit where credit is due, the C code we used to generate the audio signal actually is pretty much a direct port of the corresponding code in ADTPro. One of the reasons it's released separately from our lisp code is because ADTPro is LGPL and we prefer the MIT license. :) One of these days I'll make the port more independent and less derivative, so they can all be in the same project. ~~~ lscharen Might I suggest adding something to your project description that acknowledges this. I didn't see any mention of ADTPro or David Schmidt on the linked page or the github repository. David Schmidt has contributed a lot of free software to the Apple II community over the years and, IMHO, deserves recognition for his work by those that build upon it. ~~~ antics The C code that encodes the audio is listed in the dependencies section [1], and ADTPro is freely acknowledged there. However, I'm more than happy to add some reference to the post because I think you're right. EDIT: Aaaaaand acknowledgement pushed into post. Cheers. [1]: Specifically located here: [https://github.com/hausdorff/apple2e-audio- transport](https://github.com/hausdorff/apple2e-audio-transport) ~~~ david__schmidt Thanks very much for the acknowledgement. Your project looks like a lot of fun - very cool use of audio. And of course Lisp rocks. Another audio-based project is the Apple Disk Server - loading games directly to the Apple via cassette port: [http://asciiexpress.net/diskserver/readme.html](http://asciiexpress.net/diskserver/readme.html)	{ "pile_set_name": "HackerNews" }
Spikey Spheres - ColinWright http://www.solipsys.co.uk/new/SpikeySpheres.html?HN_20161120 ====== jakobegger A teacher of mine told us, "Don't try to imagine 4D space. You can't. If you think you can imagine a 4D hypersphere, you're wrong. It's just not possible." And everytime someone talks about how to imagine higher-dimensional space, I have to think back, and I'm convinced that my teacher was right. Our intuitive understanding of 2D and 3D just doesn't generalise to higher dimensions. A hypersphere is nothing like a sphere, just like a sphere is nothing like a circle, which is again nothing like a line segment. If you talk about multidimensional geometries, stick to the math, and don't try imagining it. Analogies to 2D or 3D objects (it's smooth, but like a spike) are pointless and don't lead to new insights. We really need to stick to precise, mathematical language if we want to work with higher dimensional geometry. ~~~ jacobolus However there is a 4-dimensional sphere (3-sphere) that you can easily access: the possible rotations of any object in 3-dimensional space is topologically and metrically isomorphic to a (half of a) 3-sphere, in the same way as the rotations of an object in 2-dimensional space are isomorphic to a 1-sphere (circle). Think of an object’s current orientation as the “north pole” of our abstract 4-dimensional sphere. Rotating the object around any axis pushes you toward the equator, which you reach once you have rotated the object halfway around (the equator is made from all 180° turns, and is topologically a 2-sphere). Continuing to rotate the object takes you towards the “south pole”, which is where you get if you rotate your object 360°. To get back to the north pole, rotate by 360° again. Cf. [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Versor](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Versor) [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quaternions_and_spatial_rotati...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quaternions_and_spatial_rotation) and [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rotation_group_SO(3)](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rotation_group_SO$3$) * * * One other way you can get at the 3-sphere is by taking a stereographic projection into all of 3-dimensional space (plus a point at infinity). If you have some 3-dimensional shapes drawn on the surface of your 3-sphere, these will get distorted under the stereographic projection, but locally angles will be preserved, just like a stereographic projection of the 2-sphere onto a piece of paper. ~~~ JadeNB I think that your terminology "3-sphere" (which is standard) as synonymous with "4-dimensional sphere" (which is not) may be confusing. Of course the 3-sphere is 3-dimensional, hence the name; it is just that it is canonically embedded in 4-dimensional Euclidean space (and not in 3-dimensional, flat Euclidean space). ~~~ jacobolus Fair enough. Hopefully nobody was confused. I was trying to meet the grandparent poster halfway. His comment was “[...] Don't try to imagine 4D space. You can't. If you think you can imagine a 4D hypersphere [...]” ------ srean High dimensions are indeed very, what shall I say, non-intuitive. Bellman introduced, or perhaps popularized, the term 'curse of dimensionality'. High dimensions may also comes with its blessing, 'concentration of measure' a phenomenon where randomness concentrates into events of certainty in high dimensions. I checked out their Wikipedia pages, while the former has a lucid description, the page on the latter is quite technical. Both these notions play a significant role in topics like machine learning, statistics, function approximations etc. Its sometimes a delight sometimes sheer frustration to see these two phenomena play it out. ------ ot One other mindblowing fact is that if you project the mass of the sphere onto a line that goes through the origin, you get a Gaussian distribution as the dimension goes to infinity. If you're interested in more technical details about the weird geometry of balls, I can't recommend enough the first few pages of "An Elementary Introduction to Modern Convex Geometry" [1]. Ironically, the author's last name is Ball. [1] [http://library.msri.org/books/Book31/files/ball.pdf](http://library.msri.org/books/Book31/files/ball.pdf) ~~~ rcthompson It should be clarified that this fact refers to a ball of volume 1 in N dimensions. Since the volume is held constant, as the dimension goes to infinity, so does the radius. ~~~ TeMPOraL Wait, isn't it the other way around? I.e. if you want to keep a volume of the ball constant as dimensions rise, don't you have to _reduce_ the radius? (I'm a noob at this whole dimensions thing.) ~~~ legolas2412 Volume of a hyper-sphere of radius R reduces with increasing dimensions! [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Volume_of_an_n- ball](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Volume_of_an_n-ball) To visualize, take a hyper-cube of length 1. It's volume is 1 unit for any n-dimensional hyper-cube. Scribe a hyper-sphere touching all the sides. How about its volume with increasing dimension? That decreases! (with respect to the cube). To visualize, think about the distance of the cube vertex from the centre, it increases with increasing dimension. In other words, Most of the cube's volume is closer to its vertex, not in the ball in the centre! ~~~ TeMPOraL Thanks! I'll need to spend some time trying to visualize it though, I'm nowhere near grokking it. ~~~ rcthompson You can start by working out the ratio of volumes between a sphere of radius 1 and the enclosing cube in 1, 2, and 3 dimensions (i.e. a line segment, a circle, and a sphere, respectively). You'll see that the ratio starts at 1 and decreases as the dimension increases. ~~~ JadeNB > You can start by working out the ratio of volumes between a sphere of radius > 1 and the enclosing cube in 1, 2, and 3 dimensions (i.e. a line segment, a > circle, and a sphere, respectively). You'll see that the ratio starts at 1 > and decreases as the dimension increases. Be careful using low-dimensional phenomena as a guide to the asymptotic behaviour! If you take a sphere of radius 2, rather than radius 1, then the analogous ratio _increases_ for a while (until n = 5), but then decreases to 0. ------ tel Another counterintuitive result in this vein is to think about randomly sampling uniformly distributed points in a sphere. As the dimension rises, the chance of finding a sample within, say, r/100 of the surface goes to infinity. In high dimensions, all of the mass of the sphere is concentrated at the edge. ~~~ pakl Exactly! Now consider that deep networks that classify images are tasked with getting reliable statistics in very high dimensional spaces. Conv nets are being forced to map from high dimensional spaces down to a very low dimensional categorical decision. This is why weird classification errors you see in "adversarial examples" keep popping up. The learned classification boundaries are very spiky, and it's easy for the world to fall in between the spikes. More data can't solve it (at least not practically) because there are way too many gaps between the spikes. A more tractable approach is to learn to use dynamics for perception rather than ("just") statistics. The dynamical physics of a ball rolling is much simpler (lower dimensional, more tractable) than a statistical view of millions of differently illuminated pixels hitting a camera. (A colleague of mine has a blog post on this issue of "statistics and dynamics" at [http://blog.piekniewski.info/2016/11/01/statistics-and- dynam...](http://blog.piekniewski.info/2016/11/01/statistics-and-dynamics/)) ~~~ js8 Your point about dynamics kinda reminds me of Chomsky's critique of statistical approaches to AI, for example here: [http://norvig.com/chomsky.html](http://norvig.com/chomsky.html) ~~~ pakl Yes, but in direct contrast to Chomsky (who would say there's not enough data/time for kids to learn from) I am saying that there is a ton of rich dynamical data in the world around us all the time. Plenty to learn from. Just plug a webcam into an adequate system and allow it to learn dynamics by trying to predict what it will see next. Chomsky is almost right for the wrong problem: there won't ever be enough human-labeled data for good generalization. ;) ~~~ js8 I think what Chomsky was saying in that particular debate was that purely statistical methods do not lead to true understanding, as opposed to more phenomenological theory. ------ js8 I am not sure I would interpret this observation as spheres that are getting more spikey. Maybe what gets more spikey is the actual box, so the sphere has it easier to touch or even extend outside of it. ~~~ JadeNB > I am not sure I would interpret this observation as spheres that are getting > more spikey. Maybe what gets more spikey is the actual box, so the sphere > has it easier to touch or even extend outside of it. I think that this is not correct. In n dimensions, the cross section of a unit n-cube near the edge is a unit (n - 1)-cube, just as your intuition tells you. However, the cross section of a unit n-sphere near its intersection with the unit n-cube is a tiny, tiny (n - 1)-sphere (the radius of a cross section at height z = 1 − 𝜀 goes to 0 as n goes to ∞); this is the 'spikiness' that the author is discussing. ~~~ js8 On the other hand, it seems to me (maybe I am wrong) that the solid n-dimensional angle of each corner of the n-cube is progressively smaller (as a ratio of full n-dimensional angle). So in that sense, each n-cube gets more spikey, and there is "less space" in each corner for each n-sphere that enclose the central n-sphere. ------ SonOfLilit For a more rigorous treatment (and many other gems on the border of highly practical and highly theoretical), see Richard Hamming's great book "The Art of Doing Science and Engineering", available for download from Bret Victor's website: [http://worrydream.com/refs/Hamming- TheArtOfDoingScienceAndEn...](http://worrydream.com/refs/Hamming- TheArtOfDoingScienceAndEngineering.pdf) ------ snippyhollow I did a quick "visualization" hack a while ago [http://nbviewer.jupyter.org/urls/gist.githubusercontent.com/...](http://nbviewer.jupyter.org/urls/gist.githubusercontent.com/syhw/9025964/raw/441645b476a2a997f27f5993e4da2988febe1ef3/SpikeySpheres) ------ musgravepeter Fun. I love that weird intuition trap you mention - the volume of a N dimensional sphere of radius R sphere goes to zero as N -> infinity. [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Volume_of_an_n- ball](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Volume_of_an_n-ball) ~~~ jacobolus This comes down to the definition of (hyper)volume. We use a (hyper)cube as our unit, but that’s somewhat arbitrary. We could alternately define (hyper)volume using a standard _n_ –simplex as the unit, then we would say the volume of an _n_ –ball → ∞ as _n_ → ∞. ------ pakl To see some concrete examples of how this sort of phenomenon causes surprising failures in deep networks classifying images, see "Intriguing properties of neural networks"[1] [1] [https://cs.nyu.edu/~zaremba/docs/understanding.pdf](https://cs.nyu.edu/~zaremba/docs/understanding.pdf) ------ benjismith Very interesting! I've done a lot of work with higher-dimensional spaces in NLP and Machine Learning (creating feature vectors with tens of thousands of dimensions, and then calculating cosines between vectors to estimate document similarity), but these ideas about spikey geometry are new to me and very insightful. Thanks! ------ nkurz _So one visualisation of a sphere in very high dimensions is not something smooth and round, but something that is somehow simultaneously very symmetrical, and yet also very spikey._ It's unlikely that this will help anyone, but I recently learned that the spiky protrusions a naval mine are called "Hertz horns": [http://www.popsci.com/blog-network/shipshape/terrible- thing-...](http://www.popsci.com/blog-network/shipshape/terrible-thing-waits- under-ocean) So if for some reason you are trying to trying to make a loose analogy to the spikiness of hyperspheres to an older military mariner who has never seen a hedgehog, you could clarify by saying "you know, like the Hertz horns on a sea mine?" ------ sbierwagen [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Curse_of_dimensionality](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Curse_of_dimensionality)	{ "pile_set_name": "HackerNews" }
Apply HN: Remember – Intelligently search all of your files from one place. - merterdir Hello HN!<p>Remember is an intelligent personal search engine that lets you find every moment of your digital life.<p>We connect to your computer, phone, wearables and the services you use (Facebook, Twitter, mobile apps, etc.) and make all of your data searchable from one place. Going a step further, we run machine learning algorithms on all of your files to understand context so you can search using natural language.<p>We lose so much time looking for our files; be it notes, messages, photos, videos, audio recordings.<p>"Let me show you a video I sent Jack it's hilarious!" <i>Stares at phone for 15 minutes looking for it</i><p>"I have a breakthrough idea about mitosis, let me write it down." <i>Never gets back to that note again</i><p>This must end. We want to help maximise human potential, and we think this as close as we can get to having perfect memory with today's technology.<p>Founders:<p>Mert Erdir - Experience Design: BA Product Design in Milan, Italy. Ex-brand ambassador for Samsung, Timbuk2, Betabrand.<p>Fun fact: <a href="http://gizmodo.com/5809621/how-to-upgrade-to-ios-5-today-without-any-developer-account" rel="nofollow">http://gizmodo.com/5809621/how-to-upgrade-to-ios-5-today-wit...</a><p>Nisan Gulsar - Experience Design: Advertising student. Weteraanikonepaivat (Finland) and Sinfonia di Fiori (Italy) art festivals.<p>Yigit Demirag - AI Researcher: PH-SFT at CERN (Switzerland) , Google Summer of Code, Bilkent University Nanotechnology Research Center<p>Kerem Gunes - Back end dev: KAREL Electronics<p>We know that this is insanely hard to build. We're not saying it's a piece of cake for us, but we're planning to get there by keeping learning and working. If you would love to have instant access to all of your life's work and memories, vote for us!<p>Demo: We have a demo, but for technical reasons I can't just post it here yet. You can sign up to the newsletter on our website to be the first to know when the beta is out. If you can't wait, send me an email and I'll send you the demo link: [email protected]<p><a href="http://remember.ai" rel="nofollow">http://remember.ai</a> ====== jeads Apparently great minds think alike. [http://datalba.com/](http://datalba.com/) [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11484635](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11484635) ------ bathelpgordon Would love to use it! Keep constantly catching myself on the idea that having this kind of search would be so much of use and then here you are. Good luck, upvote! ------ necrodome [lol] trying hard with created-1-day-ago-accounts, eh? you should try again with a working demo. ~~~ merterdir Posted this on facebook, friends chose to support. It's obvious to everyone that accounts with no karma won't get anyone anywhere. But it's nice to have people rooting for you. Even though they didn't happen to be long time Hacker News users. Thanks for taking the time to check the accounts of commenters. While you're here, would you mind sharing your feedback about Remember? We'd appreciate it! Edit: Feel free to reach me out via email for the demo. ~~~ necrodome It's not hard to see all new accounts as HN mark them as green, no need to check. I think it is a bad idea trying to boost your submission artificially. It would be great if I can try it immediately, but I don't care enough about the product to go over email. Good luck with your endeavour. ------ adamc1 This is super cool but what do you mean by intelligently? ~~~ merterdir Conventional desktop and personal search is limited to keywords or exact dates. Humans are not great at remembering those. We're using IBM's Watson, Imagga and our proprietary algorithms together to understand your files. For example; if you took a note about Pablo Neruda, Remember knows he's a poet and you can simply search for your "notes about poetry". If you're looking for a video from the skiing trip you took, just search for that "skiing video from last winter". Next step for us is to make Remember train itself. Currently you have to teach the faces of people in your life by manually tagging photos in order to organise by face. We're working on using social media data that's already available. Remember will learn your girlfriend's face out-of-the-box because once you connect to Facebook, it will look for your relationships and use your girlfriend's public photos to learn her face all by itself. All in all we belive this is "intelligent search". ------ erayerdogan Looking forward to see the demo. Go Remember Go! ------ _jdecker I need this in my life! Hope you make it guys. ~~~ merterdir Me too! That's actually how we came up with Remember. We were spending so much time searching for stuff instead of finding :) ------ varszegisissy Great product and great team, go! ~~~ merterdir Thank you!	{ "pile_set_name": "HackerNews" }
Aussies' fix for 'stagnated' email - michaelneale http://www.smh.com.au/technology/technology-news/aussies-fix-for-stagnated-email-20120221-1tkqd.html ====== citricsquid > "The market that we're going for initially is sort of independent > professionals and small businesses that tend to have personal accounts [and] > maybe several work accounts," I'm glad they're only aiming at a small group of people who actually have problems with email. The weekly "re-invent email" posts are getting quite tiresome, the majority of people have absolutely no problem with email, email is an incredibly simple concept and it works for almost everyone. ~~~ tsunamifury I dunno, for most people in corp environment it is a total nightmare mish-mash of to-do list, calendar, notes, and assorted hate mail from their bosses. In short, email is fucking awful and the bane of my existence. At one point I was getting north of 200 emails a day from people demanding meetings, todos, updates, and pieces of information. Please someone... reinvent it! ~~~ BillPosters Nobody gets 200 emails per day all directly asking for something. If you do, as already said, that's a process and staffing issue, not email's fault. The good thing about the old subject line of an email is that you usually can tell whether it's something you need to look at now or save for later, move to another folder, or delete. You can also quickly see whether you are the main target or just CC'd. Speed reading can also assist in processing email. Sometimes you just know whether you need to read something thoroughly, or can glance over. ~~~ tsunamifury AS an FYI -- I was working on the largest merger between two US banks. 150-200 emails a day was a standard for many people making it almost impossible to digest all the information. Speed reading, as you suggest, would not be a good solution to finding mission-critical information. As far as I know, no collaboration tool exists that could handle the complexity that we were dealing with. We tried quite a few, and pushed SharePoint to its limit. ------ waseemsadiq I already built this back in 2009 [http://techcrunch.com/2009/12/01/inbox2-one-inbox-and- commun...](http://techcrunch.com/2009/12/01/inbox2-one-inbox-and- communications-stream-to-rule-them-all/) And here is the desktop client which is now open-source: <http://www.techshout.com/img/inbox2.jpg> People do not need this and will not leave their existing email clients because they simply do not see email as being 'stagnated'. It works and gets the job done. There are lots of problems to fix around email, but a new inbox interface is not one of them. My advice to you would be to go build on top of for example gmail. There are massive number of things that suck horribly. Yes, search is one of them. Inbox navigation is another one, but keep in mind that there is a reason why the current line based inbox interfaces work. The third one is attachments, but that is one I am already tackling with my new startup www.fileboard.com ~~~ GnomeChomsky Did you even read the article, or did you just come here to toot your own horn? All of your "advice" is exactly addressed by Fluent, e.g. built on top of Gmail, better search, better inbox navigation, and better attachment handling. I have no idea how successful Fluent will be at all those things, but it's just peculiar when a site says "we're tackling problems x, y, and z" and you come along and say, "your ideas suck, try addressing problems x, y, and z instead." ~~~ waseemsadiq Lol @ thinking that IMAP and gmail are the same thing Having spent the last 3 years of my life tackling this problem I would say I am pretty qualified to say this solution sucks. And they are totally not solving the problems I mentioned, they are building a new mail client. Which tends to be a completely different thing. Anyways just my 0.02$ ------ Volpe Can we put the actual url in [1] Looks very inspired by by Sparrow.app [2](OS X mail application). Though they have improved on the UI in some aspects. Great that people are still trying to make email better. [1] <http://fluent.io> [2] <http://sparrowmailapp.com/> ~~~ Maro I actually purchased Sparrow, but I don't use it. It was slow and had some UX quirks/bugs. For a time I fired it up every once in a while as an email-backup solution, but I got lazy so I don't even do that now. ~~~ Maro Eg. I usually have Gmail open in other browsers in Windows even if I run Sparrow on the Mac, and it takes several minutes for Sparrow to notice that a message has already been read, which is super annoying. ------ liuhenry Congrats to Fluent! Great design and a slick UI. The stream view is an interesting concept, but we've found that many people don't have a nice inbox of messages as shown in the preview. In fact, it's quite the opposite: messages from friends, family, and coworkers are often overwhelmed by notifications, newsletters, and mailing lists. However, your Amazon shipping and Twitter notifications aren't spam, you just don't want to see them in the same context. I'm working on Glider (<http://glider.io>), a fix for the mess in your inbox. You already know which kinds of emails are important to you, so instead of obscuring that information, we think the best solution is to sort and display emails by sender and context. We did a soft launch on HN a few weeks ago (<http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3519917>), and would love to know what you guys think. Good luck as well to the Fluent team! ~~~ troels A word of advise: Asking me to give you access to my email account is a very big leap of trust. I can't see what your product does without taking that leap - so I don't. ~~~ __jochen__ I quite agree that it takes trust. We do have a demo up for a safe hands-on with the product (demo.fluent.io). We certainly take your privacy seriously. Here's a bit more on that: <http://fluent.io/privacy.html> ~~~ jmarbach "We are well versed in industry-leading privacy practices." \- What is your country of jurisdiction (i.e. what government can access my email)? Google is based in the US and you are in Australia. ------ jacques_chester "we sort of present you with the information that you need _to immediately action on it_." Really? _Really?_ I expect better from my fellow Australians, even if they _are_ Sydney-siders. ~~~ dhanji Fwiw, that's the SMH reporter misquoting us from an in-person interview. However, we'll try to live up to Australian standards better in the future =) ~~~ jacques_chester Then I retract my slur on Sydney and all her works. Except for the journalists. (What did you actually say, in your recollection?) ~~~ BenGrubb FWIW, it was the original quote <http://dl.dropbox.com/u/26309/action.m4a> Regards, Ben Grubb (the journalist) ~~~ adaml_623 Yep. Audio matches written quote. Kudos Ben on your quick rebuttal of the misquote claim. And for an article full of links to all the companies and technologies you're writing about. ------ jtchang Is e-mail that freaking broken for everyone? I must seriously not have the same problems. With gmail spam filters and priority inbox the last thing I need is to visualize my e-mails in a twitter like stream. I can't be the only one one that jumps for joy when someone actually e-mails me something akin to a personal letter. ~~~ BillPosters Nope. Email not broken for me. I like it how it is because filters and sensible organising of inboxes is not hard. Not interested in email streams at all. I'd prefer to keep streams for the kind of information that doesn't require action or response frequently per item. Emails often require action or attention, and it's far better they exist as subject line items in a date-ordered list for easy retrieval, sorting and archiving all at once. ~~~ mdpye But I'd like to take my stream like conversations back to a simple, open, distributed (in the sense of server control) protocol like SMTP and away from Facebook Messenger (for example). It's just a bit of message passing, why should email NOT also handle multiple participants and almost-real-time conversations well? Twitter is a different beast, it's a public stream, but what does FB messenger offer over email, other than an improved user experience? (for some value of improved...) ------ cellularmitosis _standard gripe about technologies being declared "dead" merely because they are no longer growing, rather than because they are suffering from a vanishingly tiny user-base_ ~~~ Groxx 'Dead' doesn't exist in the article, it's a (pointless) bit of editorializing by the submitter. The article revolves around email having _stagnated_ , which pretty nicely fits the "no longer growing" part. ------ rokhayakebe The attachment feature alone is a something I would pay for; I deeply miss Xoopit an we'll-organize-your-attachments plugin which gave my inbox a life. I also like how you can view message and reply without having to go to a new page. The only problem I see is it's taking me away from my comfort zone (gmail). ------ Tawheed We've been thinking hard about innovating email. Interestingly, I don't think reading the emails is where the real problems are, its in composing the emails. ------ SkyMarshal What I'd really like to see is a P2P, encrypted, bittorrent-based mail system, basically something that works similar to bitcoin, but used for sending encrypted mail instead. No central servers, just a single blockchain recording all encrypted messages on the network and shared over a bittorrent network, and an easy-to-use client that doesn't make normal people think too hard. Encrypt a message with your recipient's public key, submit it to the network, it's accepted into the blockchain, and they decrypt it on the other end with their private key when the msg propagates to their client. Private (at least until computing power catches up with the encryption algorithm), decentralized email without ads, popups, etc. Give it a nice Apple-ish/fluent.io-ish/sparrow-ish interface, transparent encrypting and decrypting, and some way of optionally associating email addresses with public keys so normal users don't have deal with intimidating hashes (optional only though, still want the ability to send directly to more anonymous public keys). While you'd still need some method of preventing block chain forking, you wouldn't have to worry as much about double spending and transaction verification since you don't care whether someone sends the same message multiple times to different recipients (as you do with bitcoin). One of the biggest problems would be dealing with exponentially increasing blockchain size. Bitcoin already has this problem and its transactions consist only of relatively terse amounts of data. With full emails (and attachments?) you'd have to implement a method of cropping and perhaps archiving the blockchain, or otherwise solving that problem, or it will quickly become unweildy and destroy the user experience (esp for people with slow connections). Perhaps clients store the blockchain a certain number of blocks back, and then beyond that they only store their own sent and received messages? Not sure... The genius of bitcoin is that it is a solution to a difficult algorithmic problem in distributed systems [1] which can be repurposed for other implementations. It is already being repurposed for a distributed DNS [2] and distributed voting systems for elections [3], why not a distributed encrypted email system as well? Just throwing this out there without really thinking it through thoroughly atm... Thoughts? Feasible? Probably the biggest problem is knowing that one day all your emails would essentially become public domain when hardware catches up... 1\. [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Byzantine_fault_tolerance#Origi...](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Byzantine_fault_tolerance#Origin) 2\. <http://dot-bit.org/> 3\. ddg-fu failing me atm, will add this later. ~~~ nikcub You would lose interop with existing email infrastructure. the problem is that hosted email brings everything back to being too centralized (for eg. most of the email I send doesn't leave the google servers). Take a product that implements its own smtp server, nice PGP integration and a nice interface over it like the one in OP. users may be more likely to want something like that (I know I do - I can't wait to switch away from Gmail) rather than an entirely re-invented messaging system. ~~~ SkyMarshal >You would lose interop with existing email infrastructure. Yeah, when I mentioned the ability to associate email addresses with public keys, I wasn't very clear. I did't mean regular email addresses, but was actually thinking of bitmail-only email addresses. Perhaps ones based on Namecoin .bit domains. But I wasn't suggesting interop with existing email infrastructure, this would be completely separate. In fact, the idea would be to disrupt and supplant the regular email we all know and love, at least for some use cases where privacy is paramount. Everyone would have their bitmail client which they could use to send encrypted email, as well as their regular Gmail addresses and whatnot. Most people have multiple emails anyway, this would just be one more. One nice thing about bitcoin, which would carry over to bitmail, is that despite the core technology (the official client) being completely outside and orthogonal to the current financial system, it's very easy to use for its fundamental purpose. Sending and receiving bitcoins is just simple. I envision the core bitmail client would work similarly and be similarly simple. No need for interop as long as there are specific optimal use cases for it (say, Arabs and others coordinating against oppressive regimes, stuff like that). ------ tga My new take on email: leave it alone and go fix something that's actually broken. I'll take an open source clone of Gmail, thank you very much, especially as they continue messing with the interface for the sake of it and with the privacy policy for kicks. While we're at it, I'll also take an implementation of conversations in ThunderBird, to make it more like Sparrow, which is quite nice on the desktop. ------ johnx123-up Ah, title got changed from "Ex-Google Wave engineers new take on Email (email is not dead yet)" to "Aussies' fix for 'stagnated' email" ------ twakefield The best thing Gmail has going for it are the shortcuts. They're the best feature for ripping through an email backlog. I hope anybody working on an email client includes shortcuts for everything. Once you get used to them, it's painful touching your mouse. ~~~ nash I take it you never used mutt? That is how you rip through thousands of emails in insanely short times. Much MUCH faster then gmail. ~~~ dasil003 Marginally faster. There's only so fast you can make email because you still need to comprehend it. And BTW, comprehension + shortcuts is the killer feature of Gmail. Having a nice GUI facilitates comprehension which allows you to act faster. There are many reasons why an individual might prefer mutt, but "Much MUCH faster than gmail" is overstating the case quite a bit. ------ meiji Is it my imagination or is this a lot like the vision for Mozilla Raindrop. I was quite disappointed that they started talking about it and then stopped work on it almost at the same time. The ability to pump all of your messaging into a single client and have it prioritise what was important seemed a no- brainer to me. I'd love to have rss/tweets/fb/g+ updates alongside emails for people I care about rather than maintaining increasingly complex methods of keeping up to date with each in different apps ------ antonyh To me, this looks like webmail to read webmail. Pretty though. I doubt I'll use it, as it's another entity to trust with my privacy. If it was a replacement for Gmail entirely I'd consider it. I'm still searching for a decent desktop email client, something that looks like this and works on both Windows 7 and Mac OSX. It's a shame that this is a web app, it doesn't solve any problem that I have. ------ marknadal Slick interface and the instant search makes me want to use the product. But I like and trust email because it is stagnate. How is this different than Buzz (dead) or my other 'streams' like G+/Facebook/Twitter? I don't want my email to be a stream, because if I miss one, that could be devastating. I don't want email to evolve, because it is the only thing I can trust that won't become realtime. ------ retrogradeorbit If the mail is still hosted at google, hosted in the USA with all the government snooping and extreme paranoia and everyone is out to get us attitude, with the NSA, CIA and whatever other corporate/government crime syndicate reading it, then it fails to fix the biggest flaw in gmail. And that is the lack of privacy. ------ firefoxman1 Looking at these comments it seems I am the only one blown away by this. It's amazing! Email for the social network generation. We've become accustomed to feeds, and for a good reason: it's efficient. The feature where a panel slides in from the right allowing you to view more is such a great time-saving feature. ~~~ aymeric You are not the only one blown away by this. This story is on the first spot of HN. Great UI, I love the attention they paid to some details. ------ chrislloyd Don't use the Konami code in the app if you want to get anything done this evening! Incredibly slick UI. ------ iamleppert What an over-engineered, proprietary interface-ey mess. But at least people are still plugging away. ~~~ firefoxman1 Anyone ever use Opera mail? _Perfect_ interface and features. I guess it's just overlooked because, you know, it's Opera :( ~~~ copper If I remember correctly, I (reluctantly) had to switch to t-bird back in the day because it didn't do STARTTLS+IMAP. It was perfect, otherwise. I'm yet to see a faster way to search through mail. ------ bobowzki "Email has "stagnated" and three Australians who quit Google say they have built a product that will change the way we interact with email and allow us to get through our bulging inboxes "20 per cent faster"." Google Wave anyone? ------ mirsadm It is a nice idea but to me it seems more suitable as an app for tablet/smartphone then a replacement for GMail. I wonder if they're just aiming to get bought out by Google. ------ mbesto E-mail is stagnated not because of technologic restrictions. Beautiful UI though! This is a people problem, not a technology one. Sorry, just don't see it 'fixing' a problem. ------ ghayes It reminds me of a similar service, ZeroMail [1] (also from Australia). The UI for Fluent is intuitive, and a nice break from Gmail (esp. with Gmail's new look). Given the influx of e-mails I get a day from listservs, friends, business contacts, customers and random services (Groupon et al.), I see this already busy interface getting cluttered very fast. That said, I only tried the demo and would be interested to see what it looks like on my actual inbox with real people. [1] <http://zeromail.com/> ~~~ jacalata Funny, the bit in the article where they mentioned zeromail and talked to the zeromail founders also reminded me of zeromail. ------ kumarm Great to see that someone is still innovating on EMail. GMail was last major +ve change that happened to EMail and its been too long. ------ mhansen Very smooth interface, from what I can see. FYI on demo.fluent.io I'm getting HTTP 400 error trying to connect to the websocket. ------ badboy Wow, the interface is really nice. But I don't think it would work for my daily mail use. I'm too familiar with my mutt setup. ------ firefoxman1 Mozilla Raindrop aimed to reinvent email too. I was so excited for it to launch, but they discontinued it. ------ lurchpop The only thing I feel is broken about [web-based] email right now is that it can so easily be snooped on. ~~~ eru By the email provider or by third parties? https fixes the first part. You can't do much about the second in web-based email. ------ bitwize Soooo, the solution to stagnating email... is to make it look like Facebook. Not what I'd call "fair dinkum", but... ------ sendos Great interface! A big improvement over Gmail and anything else out there that I'm aware of. ------ michaelneale aside: how/why did the title change from the original that I posted? (I gave a title, but it seems to have forgotten that and reverted to the article?) ~~~ underwater Editors can (and do) change the title to avoid editorializing: <http://ycombinator.com/newsfaq.html>. ~~~ michaelneale Thanks - that explains it. Although I object to just using the headline of the page (as I think the ex-wave is more relevant than the 'aussies' bit - but I guess there is novelty for the rest of the world). ------ trentmb At least they left the vowels in the name. ~~~ __jochen__ Over beers, "flnt" seemed good... but sanity prevailed. ------ prtamil yeah pretty much bored after seeing gmail interface. some innovation required. its good. ------ johnx123-up Technology stack, please? Scala? ~~~ chrisbroadfoot I'm guessing Java. ~~~ jdefarge Java, Guice, jQuery, and JAX-RS, at least. Dhanji has been deeply involved on those technologies for a long time. ------ pghimire With Gmail's "new" interface, I am finding it more and more cumbersome to navigate around. I practically run my business through Gmail - so it's great to see another stab at this interface to make things more meaningful and practical. Goodluck with Fluent.	{ "pile_set_name": "HackerNews" }
Ask HN: Programmers, how do you handle Copyright and IP in your contracts? - pbowyer When working directly with a client or as a freelancer, what do you include in your contract about Intellectual Property and Copyright?<p>The only example contracts I've found (like the very popular Contract Killer [1]) talk about assigning design rights and nothing about the code.<p>Do you have your own code library you port between projects?<p>1. http://stuffandnonsense.co.uk/projects/contract-killer/ ====== trcollinson IANAL however my lawyer wrote up a very nice standard contract for me, and you should have your lawyer do the same. Mine basically states that I use open source libraries and code and that those libraries and code are licensed under the appropriate licenses and are governed under the appropriate laws for the countries and jurisdictions in which the software is being held or used. All code specific to the client, that does not fall under an open source license as provided previously, is owned by the client in full including the right to resell, modify, change, or destroy. As soon as the code is written, it belongs to the client. There are a number of other statements, but again you should get a lawyer to draft you a standard one real quick. The question often comes up among my colleagues about the statement that says basically the client owns the code immediately. "What if they don't pay?!", they say. Well, ownership is 9/10 of the law... and if the client owns the code but doesn't pay it is much easier to legally pursue payment. ~~~ serkandurusoy So you write some piece of code that looks like it can be used elsewhere, perhaps as a library. What happens in that case? Can you not use it without your client's permission? I think the developer should _own_ the code but the client should also be given all rights to use, copy, distribute, resell, or both parties could be given exclusive rights. And then there is the matter of _by-products_ which are pieces of code you develop during your contract time but not necessarily used within that project because somewhere along the line you've discovered that it is something you can use elsewhere and does not make much use for that specific project. Who owns those? From your contract's perspective, the client owns them and you are obliged to deliver them whether or not they end up in the final product. I'm not trying to be dismissive of your lawyer's knowledge in the area, and neither am I a lawyer, but I think it is kind of hard to write down a standard contract that can be applicable to all projects. Contracts should be negotiable and license/IP is something as negotiable as the contract fee. And your contract sounds too protective of the client at your cost. ~~~ trcollinson I understand where you are coming from. However, you have to be careful of who is paying you when you are writing specific code. For example, I have written libraries that I have used for multiple clients. In this case, I have placed the library under an open source license (and on at least one occasion not an open source license, and the client had to pay a licensing fee), and then used it with the client. However, I DID NOT charge my client for the hours I spent writing the library that I was keeping or open sourcing. Now that code does not belong to them, and they should not have to pay me to write code that does not belong to them. I DID charge my client to implement the library within their project. This implementation belongs to them immediately. Now I, of course like many engineers, use similar ideas across clients. However, these are rewrites in one form or another. Frankly I have never read a line of code (my own included) that I did not hate and think I could do better. So I don't have any issue with rewriting code for a client that does something similar to another client I had previously. They own that code and I charge them (quite a bit) for it. Negotiation can take a very long time and that time is unpaid. I would prefer to have a good solid pipeline of clients who use a standard contract and a shorter time from negotiation to signing then having to renegotiation every contract that I come into contact with. And yes my contract protects my clients quite well. Which is why I have a lot of repeat business and get paid regularly, without fights, and on time. ~~~ serkandurusoy Well, all I can say in light of your response is your clients are _very_ lucky to have you. This is by far the most no-bullshit and the most mature point of view I've heard on this matter. ------ mundacho I recently started freelancing so I bought a standard contract for the Swiss market where I'm based. There is a clause for the copyright and licence that basically says: \- I keep the intellectual property for the code that I developed myself. \- If I use third party software or libraries, the owners of the libraries are keep all their rights. \- The client gets all rights to use, copy, and modify the software I provide. Basically, there are no restrictions on the use they can do of it within their company. I give them exclusive rights to that software and I cannot sell the same software to another client without consulting with them. There are other clauses that are there, but those are the three I judge more important. It is important to keep the intellectual property because that way I can always reuse snippets of the software I developed in other projects. ~~~ JoshTriplett That's also a potential point of negotiation: a contract to develop software for exclusive use should charge a higher rate than a contract to develop software that can be subsequently released as Open Source. ------ tumba You should probably have your own lawyer draft something for me, but here's some of my own standard language. Basically, it grants the client an unlimited license while maintaining all intellectual property rights. It also acknowledges that I bring intellectual property to the table when I start and that in no way belongs to the client. "Client shall have a perpetual, irrevocable, nontransferable license to use and copy the materials and deliverables created, discovered, invented, developed or prepared in the course of this agreement (“Deliverables”) and prepare derivative works based on the Deliverables for its internal use. All other rights in the Deliverables remain in and/or are assigned to Consultant. Client acknowledges that the Deliverables may in whole or in part be created using Consultant’s prior acquired knowledge, skill and expertise, and may include Consultant’s proprietary information and prior developed intellectual property of Consultant, which Consultant shall continue to own and have an unrestricted right to use for other purposes. Consultant may retain archival copies of the Deliverables for Consultant's internal use, and nothing herein shall prevent Consultant from continuing to use Consultant's information, knowledge, skill and/or expertise for other purposes." ------ chrisbennet I create computer vision solutions. I wrote a camera abstraction class which I use for multiple clients which I open sourced [using "WTFPL" (1)]. I don't charge my clients for the time spent on open source code that I write for their projects but realistically, I'm giving them free labor. It just seemed like more of a hassle to license it to them at the time. For my current client, I wrote a library that I license to them for a fee. When you license a library it is a lot easier to charge by actual value delivered than by charging by the hour. We agree on an acceptance criteria, they test it to show it passes, the pay me and then they get the source. The code I write for a client becomes the property of the client _upon payment_. This is an important thing to have in your contract. I had a local lawyer draw up my contracts. I spent some time on the researching internets making a rough draft of what I wanted as this gives the lawyer a list of things that I wanted to capture in the agreement. As an aside, I insist on a "10 day net". After 10 days out, the rate is increased by $50hr i.e. if I billed at $N per hour and they take more than 10 business days to pay, they pay me at $(N+50)/hr. (1) [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/WTFPL](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/WTFPL) ------ tracker1 Through some rough lessons I no longer take on many projects that I am personally developing outside of a day job. In general, I bill $x per person:block:day (being each day that I work on something 0-4 hours, and each additional block capped at 4 hours)... Anything that is not a core part of the product (business logic, or specific design elements) may be abstracted away, reused and/or released as open-source. I will also use, as appropriate already written open-source code that won't elevate the risk of said project (no agpl, only gpl if it's a server-side solution). Once a solution is finished and paid in full, any copyright over the solution will be signed over, and will not include outside libraries, even those written to help with said project. I emphatically do not believe in Patents on software, so will not apply for or assign any such rights on what I develop. For the most part when you talk to a client openly about how software is assembled and crafted, and that their part of the product will be theirs, and that you will deliver a finished product while also respecting the larger development community in contributing back, it's usually a smooth process. These days we, as software developers, tend to use large amounts of mit/gpl/isc/apache and other openly licensed software/libraries, that when you explain that what's out there saves you time, and giving back saves everyone time, it's usually less friction. I also expressly do _not_ bid on entire solutions that are not well defined, or are too strictly defined. It tends to become a time sink if you do. And prefer to bill in blocks/day against a deposit against the estimated work/time. I also make clear that what I give is only an estimate, and actual billed blocks may vary depending on changes through the lifecycle of initial development. \---- As far as a day job... I tend to line-out anything that can be construed as assigning rights of work I do outside of the office on my own time, or Patent assignment. As a rule, I only interact with hardware through defined software interfaces. If I were building/designing custom hardware to accompany the software I might have a different stance. \---- If you are uncertain, or unsure of how to establish a written contract, as always you should contact a lawyer. ------ james_in_the_uk IAAL and I come across discussions like these from time to time: Person A: I’m using a standard contract I found on the Internet. I like it because it’s written in plain English. Person B: You shouldn’t use any old contract you found on the Internet. How do you know that it is legally effective? My lawyer has produced a contract for me. I don’t understand it, but my lawyer has assured me it’s fine. Here’s what they told me… Person C: Your lawyer has taken a simplistic approach. How are you sure that it meets your needs if you don’t understand it? In my view, the answer is a combination of all three approaches: 1\. Don’t just rely on a standard form document The principle “Garbage in, garbage out” applies to contracts too. I always suggest that before looking at the document, work out what your objectives are. In the context of 'IP', a typical objective of a software developer might be: "I don't mind giving my client ownership of the specific code I write for them, and the graphics and other resources I create for them, but I want to keep ownership of my framework, libraries and snippets." 2\. Get some help When your livelihood is on the line, I’d always recommend engaging professional help. A good technology lawyer will help you achieve your outcomes by drafting the right contractual terms and helping you work through edge cases. For example, do you want to own any improvements that you make to your framework during the course of the engagement, which at this point are purely for this client but could be used for other clients later? In my experience, the answer is probably "yes". This is at odds with many standard form or precedent contracts, which say all the developed software belongs to client. Sometimes they include an exception that you can keep ownership of your 'pre-existing' software. Pre-existing software is usually defined as software that exists at the time you sign the contract. Under a contract like this, any code that you produce after signature will belong to the client, even that code is an improvement to your general framework. 3\. Insist on understanding Sometimes lawyers will use terms of art, such as 'Background, Foreground and Sideground IP'. These phrases can be useful shortcuts. They are generally understood in the legal profession, not least by the courts. However these terms do not have a fixed definition in law. They are familiar tools – snippets if you like – but they are just words, and still need to be tailored to your particular contract. For example, I usually dispense with ‘Sideground IP'. Who has ever heard of a ‘sideground’? I wrap up framework and library code into the definition of ‘Background IP’ instead. In any case if you - as a developer - do not understand how these terms apply to your project, insist that your lawyer explains. The law is a technical discipline but it should not be a black art. It’s critical that you are sure that these definitions work for your use case. Alternatively, you could ask your lawyer to re-draft the provisions in plain English. After all, a written contract should merely be a record of what the parties are trying to achieve. For example, you could differentiate between: (i) the "Client's Software", of which you would assign ownership to your client; and (ii) the "Developer's Tools and Frameworks", which you own but grant your client a perpetual licence to use them with the Client's Software. This is easy enough to draft, but takes a little more care than using an off- the-shelf precedent. It is important to note that any deliverable can contain code that is "Client's Software" and other code that is "Developer's Tools and Frameworks", potentially even within the same file. The contract will apply to each set of code as a matter of fact, but it is even better if you mark or comment the code so that it is clear. NB. This post obviously doesn't deal with other issues of IP arising: patents, open source, and third party IP. A whole other ball game. This post is not legal advice, of course. ------ akbaralis programmers don't	{ "pile_set_name": "HackerNews" }
Live air traffic of the world - vibrunazo http://www.flightradar24.com/ ====== state_machine Pretty, though, just to nit-pick since I happen to be sitting on a plane, seems to be not quite live: <http://cl.ly/image/002u2g152Y0T> ~~~ _djo_ Flightradar24's data comes from a network of volunteer-run ADS-B receivers, which explains why the coverage is so much better over the US and Europe where there are lots of volunteers with their own ADS-B receivers than the rest of the world where there are not. Note for instance how coverage in Africa really only picks up again in South Africa around the major cities. ADS-B transponders are also not yet required on all aircraft outside of Europe so many planes don't have them and won't show up on this site. Some airline pilots will only activate certain modes of their ADS-B transponders in flight after take-off, particular those used to broadcast velocity and position, so it's possible that's what happened in your case. For all other cases the upload from the ADS-B receiver to the Flightradar24 site will be as real-time as is possible with standard internet infrastructure. ~~~ nmridul Learned something new today. Till this moment I didn't know about ADS-B. Quick link or people like me - [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Automatic_dependent_surveillanc...](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Automatic_dependent_surveillance- broadcast) Lots of stuff is happening in other domains too.. ------ pitchups Very impressive indeed. One of the coolest features of the site is the Cockpit view - a very creative use of Google Maps and graphics to give you a Flight Simulator like view from inside the cockpit of any of the thousands of aircraft in the air. ~~~ marquis I've been watching a plane 'land' via cockpit mode in my home town, a surreally genuine experience given how well I know the terrain and have flown in so many times. Each time the plane rolls to maneuver in, it's as if I'm back on the flight. Oh, now Google Earth crashed as it was getting to the good part. I feel like I missed the ending of a movie. ------ Zaheer Wow. That looks beautiful. Note that just because there aren't that many planes over Africa or other places doesn't mean there aren't planes there. From their site: "Today about 60% (about 30% in USA and about 70% in Europe) of the passenger aircraft and only a small amount of military and private aircraft have an ADS-B transponder." ------ 69_years_and Boats more your thing? <http://www.marinetraffic.com/ais/> ~~~ nja I've visited that site for a while, but I think this is a little more exciting...planes tend to move faster than boats :) Also, of course, the cockpit view is amazing. ~~~ 69_years_and Thanks - I think I need to check the cockpit view. I was recently travelling by plane and from the high vantage point saw how many boats were around Singapore - it was an eye opener. ------ jpalomaki There is also a similar site for marine traffic: <http://www.marinetraffic.com/ais/> The technology behind the system is the same as in FlightRadar (on principle). The ships have AIS[1] transponders which transmit the position and velocity. This information is received through receivers run by army of volunteers and then submitted to the central site. [1] <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Automatic_Identification_System> ------ piffey Anyone else surprised by the number of flights in the air at any given time? I never even imagined that there was this much activity even though I'm a frequent flyer. ~~~ bulltale I read somewhere that on average at any given time, 70-80% of all large commercial planes in service is _in the air_. Compare that to trains or trucks. ~~~ losvedir Well, yeah, but those aren't meant to fly... :-p Seriously, though, that number is quite impressive. In order for that number to work across the population of airplanes, that means on average each aircraft individually needs to spend 70-80% of its time flying. Yikes! I've tried searching a bit for a source, but unfortunately can't find one. If you know where you got that from, I'd love to know. ~~~ bulltale I did some digging and my statement only seems to apply to long-haul flights, as mentioned in this thread [1]. "Well,most long-haul fleets fly a lot more than short-haul ones.BA 772s and VS 343s fly about 17 hours per day." That is 71%! Average utilization is between 42% and 48%. See [2], Figure 6. [1] [http://www.airliners.net/aviation- forums/general_aviation/re...](http://www.airliners.net/aviation- forums/general_aviation/read.main/1164547/) [2] [http://web.mit.edu/airlines/analysis/analysis_airline_indust...](http://web.mit.edu/airlines/analysis/analysis_airline_industry.html) ~~~ khuey My guess is that most long-haul aircraft are flying overnight (since you have to do to a trans-oceanic route) while most short-haul aircraft are parked overnight (there aren't _that_ many short-haul red-eye flights). ------ zrail This is very neat! I love it. Uh, I don't know if this is an error or if they're doing flight testing, but this is a very weird track: <http://fr24.com/KAL32> ------ joshzayin Cockpit view is generating an error: "The Google Maps API key used on this web site was registered for a different web site. The developer of this web site can generate a new key here. (here links to <https://developers.google.com/maps/>) ~~~ soitgoes from the forum - "If you have problems with "Aircraft View" or API-key, make sure to install latest version of Google Earth plugin-in <http://www.google.com/earth/explore/products/plugin.html> and remove your ad- blocker." I logged in to google earth, paused ad blocker and cockpit view is now working for me. ------ colinhowe I never truly appreciated how many planes are in the air until now.. ~~~ spyder and also 13000 satellites: <http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ydbbd-4oEds> ------ bencoder Enjoying it combined with ATC feeds from <http://www.liveatc.net> ------ mikeash Really cool, but the constant nagging popups telling me to download the app instead were unbelievably annoying. ------ chmars A similar project with an academic background is 'AirTraffic LIVE': <http://radar.zhaw.ch/> It was created by students of a Swiss college of applied science in 2007. The test site is focus on Zurich International Airport but they have completed other projects based an their research. A spectacular example is a globe showing air traffic world wide created for a science museum: <http://radar.zhaw.ch/worldwide.html> There is also a Google Earth extension for private use: [http://www.idp.zhaw.ch/de/engineering/idp/forschung/transpor...](http://www.idp.zhaw.ch/de/engineering/idp/forschung/transport- and-traffic-engineering/real-time-air-traffic-in-3d.html) ------ progrock Love it! There's alot of activity! How many planes, how many people up in the air in an average moment? All this talk of a third runway / increased flight support in the UK, but really - how much oil is left - how sustainable is this industry? ~~~ progrock Kind of related Q and A: [http://www.careerfaqs.com.au/careers/interview- questions-and...](http://www.careerfaqs.com.au/careers/interview-questions- and-tips/job-interview-question-and-answer-how-many-people-are-there-flying- in-airplanes-over-the-us-right-now/) ------ nja Interesting...does JetBlue use two types of radar? I'm often seeing two icons for one flight: <http://imgur.com/a/kENc0> ~~~ dll The orange planes you see are from the FAA ASDI Data. That feed is delayed by 5 minutes. I would guess the site is meant to ignore the FAA data where ADS-B data is available, but in this case it looks like the call sign is incomplete in the ADS-B data. ~~~ nja That makes sense. Thanks! ------ jvandenbroeck Cool!:p I'm living next to an airport and it looks like it doesn't pickup everything (or some too late), but just a few minutes ago I heard a plane coming by & it was also on flightradar =') Idea: people give their location & the app says when to expect noise from airplanes and when it will be away=) ------ kgarten nice ... are there any APIs for getting up-to-date flight traffic? Might be fun to play around with it. ------ cefarix The flight map over South Asia, China, and most of South America looks to be very incomplete. ~~~ mixmastamyk Probably the time of day, I notice many more planes in Europe. ~~~ shortsightedsid I wonder it live or delayed. Its 10.30 in India and past noon in China. ------ smcl Just remembered that I found Donald Trump on this a while back - he was flying in to my home city of Aberdeen: [http://blog.mclemon.cz/i-found-donald-trump-in-flight- radar-...](http://blog.mclemon.cz/i-found-donald-trump-in-flight-radar-24) ~~~ longjohnbenton Isn't that just a trump branded plane? He runs a company that charters them out doesn't he? How did you deduce (perhaps you induced) that he was on this plane? ~~~ smcl Good question. He has been back and forth to Aberdeen setting up some gaudy trump branded golf resort. A couple of days after I took the screenshot he appeared before the Scottish parliament in Edinburgh. This is how I concluded he was in the plane, though I admit there is a minor chance that I am mistaken! The site itself is fantastic though, I could spend ages just finding out what planes are going where and thinking about where I might visit next. Plus the coloured trails to indicate the altitude are a lovely touch. edit: it was during this time (excellent clip, by the way) [http://www.thedailyshow.com/watch/thu- april-26-2012/hairland...](http://www.thedailyshow.com/watch/thu- april-26-2012/hairlander) ------ mirsadm Cockpit view is brilliant. Just watching a plane land back home right now :) ------ avaku Why cockpit view is not working for me? It says: The Google Maps API key used on this website was registered for a different website. The developer of this website can generate a new key here. ------ 001sky Thanks for posting this is amazing. The cockpit view is very cool. Reminds me: You can climb Mt everest also now on Google Earth. South Col etc. At 8000m, somewhat crazy but similar views =D ------ Andrew_Quentin I thought there would be a corridor of never ending planes between north America and Europe. According to the map, there are no transatlantic flights. ~~~ bisrig The issue with the oceanic flights is that there are no receiving stations for the ADS-B messages, as these stations are ground based. Therefore, there is no way to receive the position reports to feed into the flight data network. ------ nja This is crazy cool. I love the cockpit view! ------ jasonzemos Looks like the Virgin Atlantic and British Airways 747's hit 600+ knots on the redeye across the pond. ------ curiousDog This is beyond fantastic. Just wow! ------ nodesocket Amazing, didn't realize at any given time, how many planes are in the air around the world. ~~~ MikeCodeAwesome Indeed. According to the August, 2012 print edition of Popular Science, there are 500,000 people being transported in air at any given moment. ------ akg Would be really awesome to see a write up about what powers all this on the back end. ------ josscrowcroft That is absolutely incredible! ------ rapidstuff Absolutely amazing! ------ dhughes planefinder.net is similar. I live in south-eastern Canada and I can confirm it's very accurate, big jets to and from Europe constantly rumble overhead. ------ dinnu Wow..Fantastic..Cockpit view really awesome. ------ khet Amazing how many will not find this amazing. ------ arunoda Wow, this is amazing. ------ mukaiji bravo! Way to kill my productivity. ------ ricksta no plane around beijing?	{ "pile_set_name": "HackerNews" }
The Almanack of Naval Ravikant - swyx https://www.navalmanack.com/ ====== jamestimmins Perhaps I’m alone here, but I find the common obsession with Naval creepy and misplaced. From his content that I’ve read, he primarily spouts platitudes of dubious substance. ------ MR4D The book is free (or paid - your choice) on his site, or you can buy a physical copy at Amazon. I would love to see an autographed copy as an option, as he's giving all the money to charity. Finally, if you haven't read Naval, you should - the value per word from him is astronomical. ~~~ rmvt what would you recommend? ~~~ MR4D Both. Download the pdf and buy the paper version on Amazon. The latter would be a better option at a higher price if it were autographed. I think he could sellout of them at $50 or more if autographed. ------ unraveller Happiness gurus are the original antidepressants. They reframe the identity of the client effortlessly causing dependence on the easy upkeep of that new identity. But all sweet sounding mental models for learning indifference eventually lose their ability to convince. Human's will always have legitimate unique concerns worth actively suffering through to solve rather than blanketing over. ------ throwaway9339 "I got lucky"	{ "pile_set_name": "HackerNews" }
UN experts say hacking of Bezos phone suggests effort to influence news coverage - mzs https://www.wsj.com/articles/u-n-experts-say-hacking-of-bezoss-phone-suggests-effort-to-influence-news-coverage-11579704647 ====== pryce Motherboard (Vice) has the FTI report [1]. [1] [https://www.vice.com/en_us/article/v74v34/saudi-arabia- hacke...](https://www.vice.com/en_us/article/v74v34/saudi-arabia-hacked-jeff- bezos-phone-technical-report) ~~~ dang That article looks like it contains better and more information, so let's go with that thread instead. Comments moved to [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22122779](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22122779). ------ mirimir It'd be nice if I could read it. ~~~ neonate [http://archive.md/2OHmI](http://archive.md/2OHmI)	{ "pile_set_name": "HackerNews" }
The URL Is Dead, Long Live Search - naish http://www.readwriteweb.com/archives/the_url_is_dead_long_live_search.php ====== mynameishere I read somewhere that the #1 search phrase on google is "google". (They publish a different list that filters out that and similar.) I've definitely seen people get to google by searching for "google" on yahoo as well. ~~~ ken Not surprising; I'm guilty of this, too. It's mostly because I can no longer figure out what the long white boxes at the top of my web browser do. For example, with FF3b5, if I type "google" in the URL box, it shows me google.com search results for the string "google". But if I type in "amazon", it goes straight to <[http://www.amazon.com>](http://www.amazon.com>). What's the pattern? I have no idea. (Reads the docs...) Apparently the URL bar first goes to a "keyword search service" (default, google), which will automatically redirect, or show search results. If you disable this, it does "domain guessing" (adding ".com", etc.). Geez, I'm a web developer, and I had to read the docs to find out what the URL box does these days. I feel old. ------ GavinB There are two text boxes at the top of my screen--URL and Google. They function almost interchangeably. If I type a search phrase into the URL, it redirects to google. If I type a URL into the google box I am one click from the site I want to be at. I guess I'm just sloppy, but I use one for the other all the time. It almost seems as though the two could be combined with some clever rules. ------ delano I think he meant domain names are dead. URIs are still very much alive and well. ------ neovive Using a search also helps to avoid potential typo domain versions of a website. ------ ldenman AOL Keyword: E!	{ "pile_set_name": "HackerNews" }
WOWIO: Free Books + Free Minds - dous http://www.wowio.com/ ====== andr In order to register I need a non-anonymous email (i.e., non-Gmail) or Credit card number or Scan of ID card. Are you serious? ~~~ dous <http://www.wowio.com/help/helpmain.asp#newusers6> ~~~ andr Still. Other US-only sites, like Hulu, don't ask for my drivers license.	{ "pile_set_name": "HackerNews" }
Facebook Gets a Multibillion-Dollar Tax Break - kumarski http://www.businessweek.com/articles/2013-02-15/facebook-gets-a-multi-billion-dollar-tax-break ====== miked So, Facebook invites Obama to their HQ to give a "townhall", then many of their execs contribute heavily to his campaign, and then Solyndra, er, Facebook gets a massive tax break. This is one of the many reasons why I, too, have made Obama a secular substitute for Jesus and anti-racism an easy-to- satisfy substitute for a more rigorous personal morality. In other news, Facebook co-founder Chris Zell has purchased The New Republic magazine and turned it into magazine so pro-Obama that even its former owner, Martin Peretz (himself an Obama supporter) has attacked it. [http://pjmedia.com/ronradosh/2013/02/14/the-new-new- republic...](http://pjmedia.com/ronradosh/2013/02/14/the-new-new-republic- house-organ-of-the-obama-administration-and-martin-peretzs-forthright- condemnation/) ~~~ rollo_tommasi Facebook is taking advantage of a long-standing loophole in the tax code, not the President Obama Decrees Special Breaks For Buddies Act of 2013. There is a story here about the insidious influence of major corporations, but it's considerably more nuanced than the one you're pitching.	{ "pile_set_name": "HackerNews" }
Startup Quote: Gregg Spiridellis, co-founder, JibJab - raychancc http://startupquote.com/post/3639205389 ====== raychancc If you make something good and put it out there, people will pass it along. \- Gregg Spiridellis (@jibjabceo) <http://startupquote.com/post/3639205389>	{ "pile_set_name": "HackerNews" }
Elastic SIEM – Security Information and Event Management - praseodym https://www.elastic.co/blog/introducing-elastic-siem ====== strictnein > SIEM detection rules ... on our roadmap The current solution in this space, that actually works really well at scale, is ElastAlert[0]. The problem is that ElastAlert is kind of a mess to work with. Lots of documentation, but you need to get into the weeds with it to figure out how it really functions. Once you get it going it's a great tool. Scaling it out (we run hundreds of rules pretty frequently - upwards of 15 times an hour) is just standing up more instances with their own separate rules. [0] [https://github.com/Yelp/elastalert](https://github.com/Yelp/elastalert) ~~~ frementrep Heard the same about elastalert that it is difficult to manage. Any idea how much time/effort is spent per day/week/month to manage the elastalert rules and what level of expertise is required? ------ jamestimmins I always find that Elastic assumes decent familiarity with their products even when "introducing" them. Everything looks beautiful but I can't quite tell what different tools do. ~~~ freehunter A SIEM is one of those things where you'll know if you need it. Most of the companies I know using a SIEM do it because audit and compliance requires them to have one. ~~~ strictnein Are they using something else to monitor/dig through their network/etc logs, or are they just flying blind? ~~~ freehunter A lot of my clients use a SIEM for security and something like Splunk or LogStash or ELK for application debugging. ------ DeepYogurt So for those interested Mozilla is working on something pretty similar. [https://mozdef.readthedocs.io/en/latest/](https://mozdef.readthedocs.io/en/latest/) They have a set of docker containers which I find very handy for spinning up deploy specific logging sinks or full on SIEMs. ~~~ PenguinCoder Just heard about this today at reinforce conf. Looks pretty interesting and integrates well with cloud logs or on prem. Definitely going to look into it more. ~~~ DeepYogurt Just a heads up; there are some rough edges. That said to get it going you can just do a pull and then a `make run`. It's got zero auth in this mode, but if it's ephemeral whatever. ------ pingec Seems like the natural evolution of the already popular ELK stack. I hope they add popular siem features like archiving, alerting, central configuration management etc. I'll stick with graylog for now. ~~~ jcims I grew up on Splunk and can’t seem to figure out how to get the same level of aggregations and analysis of ad hoc data out of ELK. Sometimes I think I’d be better served with Jupyter and Spark or similar. ~~~ vetrom Thats because most of the ElasticSearch data model is materialized indexes. You need to reindex (or use one of the other ops which amounts to building a composite index) to create different aggregates. Otherwise you need to use constructed JSON queries instead of adhoc lucene string searches to build the more complicated searches on those fields. Kibana provides tools that can help visualize building those if you don't do it from scratch, but its definitely a different workflow than Splunk or something implementing a more traditional query language. ------ msandford Does anyone know what SIEM is? It's said multiple times in the article but never defined that I could see. ~~~ strictnein Also, just as an FYI, it's pronounced SIM. ~~~ Khaine Only in America ------ bryanrasmussen I was at a workshop a couple days ago, pretty worthwhile and they were pretty excited about something coming out in security - I guess this is it. Seems a logical progression from Kibana and Logstash - but sometimes I worry search will suffer for all this other stuff. ~~~ donretag Search has been suffering under Elastic for a long time. Only a small percentage of Elasticsearch users use it for search. Then again, Elastic employs many Lucene committers, so they indirectly help search by being a major maintainer of Lucene. If you want search, most of the NLP crowd is using Solr.	{ "pile_set_name": "HackerNews" }
A top food poisoning expert won’t ever eat these foods - mudil https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/wonk/wp/2016/02/02/why-a-top-food-safety-expert-doesnt-eat-oysters-and-always-orders-meat-well-done/ ====== tzs In the case of steak, the problem is with "mechanically tenderized" meat. Mechanical tenderization involves puncturing the meat with many tiny needles. That process can push bacteria from the surface of the meat deep into the interior. If a steak has _not_ gone through this process then the dangerous bacteria is on the surface and so all you need to do is get the surface of the steak hot enough to kill the bacteria (160F/70C). You can leave the interior as rare as you like. Since even fans of the rarest steaks generally want a nice brown exterior, this will almost never be no problem. When mechanical tenderization has pushed the bacteria into the interior then you have to get the interior as far down as the bacteria have been pushed to 160F/70C if you want the steak to be as safe as one that had not been abused by mechanical tenderization. Unfortunately there is currently no requirement for mechanically tenderized steak to be labeled as such, and you cannot tell just by looking at it. The USDA has passed a regulation requiring labeling, but it does not go into effect until May 2016. ~~~ zurn The common food pathogens can survive surprisingly high temperatures, beyond 70C. Eg here they found that the most common food poisoning microbes on chicken fillets survived ~2 minutes in boiling water even though surface temperature reached 85C in 1 minute. [https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3282150/](https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3282150/) More resilient bugs and spores are another thing. Hospital autoclaves use 30 minutes at 120C/250F. Steak surface obviously heats to 100C pretty quick on a hot pan, but it's going to be pretty hard to consistently ensure that all spots on the sides etc have been hot enough for long enough. ------ DiabloD3 This is just a gigantic scare story. Jack in the Box was a food handling issue borne from corporate policy to cook food as fast as possible, leading to burgers cooked on the outside, and raw on the inside. And as for the Odwalla case, it was improper pasteurization, again, due to cost cutting corporate policies. What he should be saying? Stop eating improperly prepared and/or garbage food. Instead? Hes saying fear everything, fear is good, fear will save your life, fear is America and America is fear. Washington Post should really be ashamed by this story, and it doesn't belong on HN. We're better than this. ~~~ peteforde How do you qualify that this is a "scare story"? People quite literally died from eating Jack in the Box. You don't think that Odwalla refusing to do end-testing because it would create subpoena-able data goes a shade beyond corporate cost cutting? He doesn't say anything like what you're suggesting, unless you consider "From a safety standpoint, I don’t necessarily think that we’re the safest food system in the world, but neither do I think that we’re the worst food safety system in the world. We do have a fairly amazing ability to surveil foodborne illnesses." or "In 22 years of doing this, I’ve obviously seen things that are chilling. But I’ve also seen some great progress." or "Most of the work we did was E. coli cases linked to hamburgers, and those are now almost nonexistent, because the beef industry and the government finally figured out that it was a really bad idea to poison people, and that it was expensive, and they created systems that allowed to lower the level of E. coli in hamburger meat. Now there are fewer people getting sick, and Bill Marler isn’t making as much money, which is a great thing." to be sky-is-falling fear-mongering. I can't tell if you just didn't read the article, or you're angry about a completely different article. ~~~ DiabloD3 I read the article. I remember both Jack in the Box and Odwalla in the news. The problem is, I won't do business with either company because they are generally garbage products. Why isn't he raising the alarm about that? Instead, it is about extremely rare outbreaks that only occurred because of mishandling the product to pad someone's pocket. Yes, people died. What about all the people who continue to die because they eat these products, and it isn't because of E Coli? Odwalla is full of sugar, far more than what their fancy label and branding suggests, and Jack in the Box is just nasty greasy fast food. So yes, this article really is just fear mongering. ------ scarface74 So the lesson is -- don't eat raw and under cooked food. ------ angmarsbane This feels like an advertisement for Bill Marler. ------ venomsnake TL:DР He won't eat anything with taste. The US system is absurdly safe for people with immune systems. If you are or cook for immune-compromised person - go on - incinerate the food. Read the data yourself and make informed decision. ~~~ peteforde 1\. You did not read the article, or you'd realize that your snarky response is actually intended for a BuzzFeed listicle — a completely different and far less interesting article. 2\. Could you clarify which use of TL:RD that you're invoking? [http://www.acronymfinder.com/TLRD.html](http://www.acronymfinder.com/TLRD.html) ~~~ venomsnake _The list includes raw oysters and other raw shellfish, raw or under-cooked eggs, meat that isn 't well-done, unpasteurized milk and juice, and raw sprouts._ Read it. And it is bullshit and paranoia. If you are a healthy person all of those are extremely safe even if treated with the worst possible practices. Except shellfish though - but I don't count it as food anyway. ~~~ elthran >Except shellfish though - but I don't count it as food anyway. I think this is the first time I've ever seen an oyster being the subject of No True Scotsman	{ "pile_set_name": "HackerNews" }
Keeping node.js servers up forever - maraksquires http://blog.nodejitsu.com/keep-a-nodejs-server-up-with-forever ====== intranation This reminds me of the bad old days of Rails, when every man and his dog had some random hacky and myopic solution to keep Rails and Mongrel running. Just say no to Node/Rails/whatever specific-stuff, kids--use system level tools for running processes. Edit: removed references to "proprietary", as indexzero is correct about meaning of that. ~~~ indexzero That's a strange usage for "proprietary" since it's all free and open source (MIT). Either way, the nodejs child_process module is really just a light weight wrapper to execvp(): <http://linux.die.net/man/3/execvp> I haven't dug through the source for tools like monit, daemontools, but I'm sure near the metal they're using POSIX or similar system APIs. EDIT: There's really no reason Forever has to be node specific, I actually say that in the article: "Honestly, it's a one line fix here ([https://github.com/indexzero/forever/blob/master/lib/forever...](https://github.com/indexzero/forever/blob/master/lib/forever.js#L356)), but I'm not sure if users want to put 'node' in-front of every command." I'll file your comment as a +1 for that feature ;) ------ viraptor I just have to wonder - after listing all those projects which already do this job and do it well... Why create / use `forever` which didn't get the same exposure to the production environments yet? ~~~ maraksquires Well, we can call native node.js code from our process monitor now. We can extend our process monitor with functionality that would be difficult to implement in those other tools. ~~~ indexzero @intranation Just to toss out a scenario: Lets say under high traffic your application hits an edge case and starts to crash very frequently. Suppose you want to receive an email, SMS, or IM when something like this happens as a devops person. Would you consider that a valid concern of process monitoring? Planned features to Forever include this from the command line, but if you use it from node directly one could implement that feature now: <https://github.com/indexzero/forever> ~~~ viraptor Bit by bit... monit restarts the server a defined number of times per second. Then it stops if the service fails to start. If the service is not running, nagios dispatches the snmp traps, sms-es, ims and all the rest. ------ jacquesm This leads to a very bad practice though, which is to cause bugs to be left laying around in production systems. You should really form the habit of analyzing such crashes, getting to the root cause of the problem and making sure that it never ever happens again. It's good to have a system like this in place, but it should be used as an insurance policy against unknown bugs, not as a way to work around known and reproducible ones. ------ Kilimanjaro Off topic, but I like to read blogs on my ipad while in bed and I hate it when authors fuck up with the meta viewport tag. If I want to double tap to zoom in, because my eyes are not the same as 20 years ago, just let me do that, ok? Sounded snob? maybe. Sounded reasonable? hell yes. Btw, is there a bookmarklet to remove the meta viewport tag available somewhere? ~~~ ionfish Just for you: <https://gist.github.com/725354> ~~~ Kilimanjaro I was thinking about something like: meta=document.querySelector('meta[name=viewport]') meta.parentNode.removeChild(meta) Thanks anyway for your quick response! ~~~ ionfish Obviously that's fine for your use-case where the querySelector function is available, but it wouldn't work e.g. on Internet Explorer. My version is also more robust when dealing with markup errors, i.e. when there's more than one viewport meta element. ------ jasonkester When I see a blog post like this, it serves more to raise doubts about Node.js than anything else. Before today, I had been considering Node for an upcoming product. Now I read that people are actually building and releasing software to work around the fact that Node.js servers regularly incapacitate themselves. Really? Like it just goes down and doesn't know how to cycle itself? Ouch. That translates to me as "Don't go anywhere near Node.js until they get it stable." So yeah, I'm sure this is a great way to shore up your system. Buy I'm going to think twice before investing time in a system that needs shoring up. ~~~ jrockway More of a safety mechanism than anything else. I use daemontools to run qmail, and qmail has never crashed. But if it did, I would still want to receive my email, even though it's "horrible" that qmail could crash. Sometimes the safest way to handle an error is to kill the process and start a new one. Starting recovery from a known-good state is better than starting from a known-bad one. ~~~ jasonkester Seems reasonable enough. From the tone of the post, it sounded like crashing was a fairly common thing to happen with Node.js, and that it didn't cycle itself. Coming from the context of IIS/ASP.NET, which hasn't yet crashed on me (at least not without cycling itself harmlessly) in the 10 years I've been running sites on it, the possibility that you'd need to worry about such things seemed a bit novel. So basically what you're saying is that it just follows the Unix philosophy and doesn't run its own daemon to cycle it if it falls down. That doesn't sound anywhere near as unreasonable. ~~~ silentbicycle Erlang has heart (<http://www.erlang.org/doc/man/heart.html>) for similar reasons. Of course, it also has distribution, for when the whole computer it's running on dies. I use runit (<http://smarden.org/runit/>) instead of daemontools (same sort of thing, but a bit less opinionated about e.g. where it gets installed). Rather than expecting every daemon to implement its own supervisor, logging system, etc. _correctly_ , just use one of those. ~~~ jrockway Does daemontools care anymore? I use "supervise ~/.dotfiles/service \| readproctitle ............." to start my user-local services when I log in. Works like a charm. ~~~ silentbicycle It's been a while since I installed daemontools. IIRC it created a bunch of root directories (e.g. /commands). There was also an OpenBSD port for runit already. ------ gruseom _By using the 'http' module we can run a stand-alone web server in node.js without the need for a separate server like Apache or nginx._ Last I checked Ryan was saying this was a very bad idea. Has that changed? It's certainly enticing. ~~~ indexzero When did you last check with him? I've been running w/o a separate server (effectively) for ~3 months. ~~~ gruseom Oh, I just meant last I checked on blogs and such (not with him personally). IIRC, his main reason for advising against it was that there were too many security holes. This was in a video talk from several months ago if not longer. I'm curious to know if conditions have changed. ------ todd3834 I have been using supervisord to solve this problem. It doesn't care what language your app was written in and works very well. ------ jimmyjazz14 daemontools is a beautiful thing, personally I think its a much better idea to have a general purpose tool for this kind of thing. I'm not sure why everyone feels the need to reinvent the wheel when it comes to managing background services. ------ substack I like how there's a command line interface plus an application interface, so I can tie forever process management into my web interface and backend control interface. Right now the processes are just sitting in a `while true` bash loop. ~~~ indexzero Thanks. If you dig in a little deeper you can see I use optimist for the CLI parsing :) In the next version I'd like to expose a web service and also have hooks for doing things like sending emails when forever restarts a process. ------ dkasper Just deployed this now. Took all of roughly 10 seconds to setup and working beautifully. I've used supervisor in the past, and this was definitely easier. ------ zbanks Oddly enough, the site is down. ------ richcollins How is this directly related to node and not servers in general? ~~~ iclelland The application described in the article is specifically written to interface with Node.js servers. It keeps those processes running, and restarts them as needed. It is not a general process monitor. ------ mkrecny What's wrong with good ol' inittab? ------ Skywing bookmarked. thank you. ------ waratuman Use Upstart. ------ moonpolysoft Forever a node.	{ "pile_set_name": "HackerNews" }
Android Version Market Share History (from 2.0.1 onward) - mmastrac https://plus.google.com/u/0/104025431341062052230/posts/3bpKVnMgnrz ====== mmastrac Originally subtitled as "from the start", but that was incorrect - this is from 2.0.1 onward. Easy full-size version link: <http://i.imgur.com/qZy56.png> One interesting observation you can draw from this is that there's generally only two or three versions of Android that are widely used at any time. Another is that the 3.x and 4.x versions of Android have very little uptake.	{ "pile_set_name": "HackerNews" }
Yes, some blogs are profitable - very profitable - gibsonf1 http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2007/10/21/BUVJSNSTC.DTL ====== bootload _"... TechCrunch illustrates the new blogging math. It sells sponsorships that allow advertisers to display on the home page at $10,000 per month. It also uses Federated Media to sell display ads, keeping 60 percent of the revenue ,,,"_ From a hacker and software company perspective there is a real difference between writing about software or technology to make money and blogging to make money. The biggest difference is with software once the software is written, thats it. It just keeps chugging along. Sure there might be bugs or additions but you can stop work on it for periods of time and do other things. So it makes more sense to write software than just blogging or blogging about it. But can you also make money writing about technology and software as well? Blogging and other types of writing, (unless you are JK Rowlings) require you have to stay on the writing treadmill whether you like it or not. Churning out articles at regular intervals. If you stop your traffic stops. I'm sure this is the case for sites like Techcrunch. "... writing does not scale very well ..." Thats the problem with writing, it does not scale well. Thats probably the reason hacks and stringers have been traditionally paid by the word. It's one of the only ways to reduce costs. And the only way to increase words is more writers. The other confusing bit in the article is the lack of specifics on how money is made. Do you make money _"by"_ blogging or make money _"off"_ blogging? Most already intuitively understand this distinction but not the reasons why. Here is a list of things that you should also think about. So it makes more sense to make money _"off"_ blogging because: \- "People come back to places that send them away. Memorize that one." Dave Winer [0] \- use blogging to "Sell software, services" \- use blogging to "Brand yourself, get leverage for other things" \- use blogging to "Do good" The list goes on and I've added the references to Dave Winer who seems to have thought about this particular subject the deepest. [1] "I wanted people to look past the subject of making money with blogs, to making money because of blogs." [2] Understanding the key differences means you can get on with the task writing software and concentrate instead on being paid indirectly instead of merely _"blogging for money"_. [3] [0] [http://www.scripting.com/2005/12/12.html#howToMakeMoneyOnThe...](http://www.scripting.com/2005/12/12.html#howToMakeMoneyOnTheInternetVersion3) [1] BloggerCon IV, Day 2: How to Make Money, Harvard Law School [http://www.scripting.com/docNography/bloggerconIv/Day002/how...](http://www.scripting.com/docNography/bloggerconIv/Day002/howToMakeMoney.html) [2] <http://www.scripting.com/2004/11/10.html#When:7:50:58AM> [3] <http://www.scripting.com/2006/04/19.html#When:2:01:39PM>	{ "pile_set_name": "HackerNews" }
Anonymous leaks 1.7 GB of data and email from the U.S. Bureau of Justice - Kenan http://anonnews.org/press/item/1521/ ====== gee_totes Umm... the US Bureau of Justice isn't the name of a federal agency. This dump is actually from the Bureau of Justice _Statistics_ [0]. [0][http://news.yahoo.com/computer-hackers-access-u-justice- depa...](http://news.yahoo.com/computer-hackers-access-u-justice-department- website- spokeswoman-232535047.html?ugccmtnav=v1%2Fcomments%2Fcontext%2F986642c8-3460-3bff-b4ff-0a040e4ea433%2Fcomments%3Fcount%3D20%26sortBy%3Dlatest) ~~~ cube13 Unless I'm missing something, most of that data should already be available either through direct US government publications, or FOIA requests. They actually have a website set up for asking for the information: <http://bjs.ojp.usdoj.gov/index.cfm?ty=daa> ------ farnsworth Halfway through that incredibly overdramatic video, it shows chains around the globe, with each link labeled something like "Police State" ... "Military/Industrial Complex" ... etc. Then there is one labelled "Vaccines". Has anyone, acting as Anonymous, ever taken an anti-Vac stance? I would have expected Anon to be on the scientific side of that issue. ~~~ dkokelley I have no knowledge of Anon being anti-vaccine. If I were to formulate a hypothesis, I would imagine that they view 'vaccines' as synonymous with _big health_. So, "the big healthcare mafia is selling us 99-percenters vaccines at a huge markup, profiteering from their proprietary knowledge, state-protected monopoly, and our dependency." Then again, Anonymous doesn't exactly have a unified message. It's possible that the individual creator of this video has their own conspiracy theories about vaccinations. ~~~ driverdan The funny part about your comment is that vaccines are one of the least profitable things pharma sells. ~~~ justncase80 It's all about the viagra. ------ patdennis Well that's nice. I'm glad they stand for freedom of information. There's nothing here I couldn't have gotten with a simple Freedom of Information Act request. But I guess sending them a letter requesting the information isn't dramatic enough for Anon. [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Freedom_of_Information_Act_(Uni...](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Freedom_of_Information_Act_$United_States$) ~~~ lwat I'm not convinced you can get a TB of internal emails via a simple FOIA request. ~~~ patdennis I've done it. They'll put it on CDs or DVDs for you if you want, or work something else out if its more convenient. I've even hard cartloads of documents printed out for me. You have to pay for the printing, which gets expensive, but they'll do it. They have to. ~~~ lwat Yes but can you request 'all internal emails for the last 3 months' or something as broad as that? ~~~ patdennis You can request anything. They're all public records. Granted, they'll call you and try to whittle you down. If its especially burdensome they'll charge you for the man hours it takes to compile all of the information. If someone who ran a government office runs for elected office, chances are the opposing candidate will hire someone like me, and chances are I'll request all of the office's records for review. Thats how we find things like this. [http://www.nj.com/news/index.ssf/2009/10/chris_christie_exce...](http://www.nj.com/news/index.ssf/2009/10/chris_christie_exceeded_federa.html) The relevant passage: The travel records date to when he was sworn in as U.S. attorney in 2002. They were obtained this week by the campaign of Christie's Democratic opponent, Gov. Jon Corzine, under the Freedom of Information Act. ------ FooBarWidget I don't understand why commenters here speak of a "they". There is no "they" and Anonymous is not a group. It's a label that anyone can put on themselves. They may as well call themselves "freedom fighters" (lowercase). ~~~ Natsu I mentally replace Anonymous with "protester(s)" making this headline something like "Protesters release 1.7 GB of data" which makes more sense. ------ driverdan Has anyone analyzed this data? I'm curious what's in it. ------ fennecfoxen Just think of what a service these people are doing to the world and to the government by raising awareness of data security issues :) ------ far-I Even if they would find anything incriminating, what are kids going to do with this? It's clear by the messages on the anon news site that a lot of them are teens and not activists. It may be entertaining but I don't get it.	{ "pile_set_name": "HackerNews" }

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