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They Live - dchest
https://whispersystems.org/blog/they-live/
======
grandalf
Have been thinking of something similar lately: A fictitious newspaper with
headlines that illustrate the propaganda aspect of our news orgs. Headlines
like:
\- Foreign leader lacks dignity
\- US institutions solid
\- Life in the 3rd world is horrible
\- Life in the 3rd world is meaningless/scary
\- Something some politician said was important.
\- Politician's legacy is important
\- Foreign institutions/economy shaky
\- Foreign unemployment soars
\- Life in foreign city dangerous
\- Election in foreign country rigged
\- Arcane details about silly political spat matter
\- US institutions beyond reproach
\- Firms are not beyond reproach
\- Sports matter
\- Storm with name nears
\- Three cheers for successful US company
\- You know buzzwords so you are informed about science
\- You know buzzwords so you are informed about technology
\- Token story about the EU
~~~
karmacondon
Isn't that called "The Onion"?
As they say about programming, the best way to complain about software is to
write software. If you don't like what the media is reporting then start your
own news organization of whatever kind, including satire. To complete the
exercise, put years of your life into building circulation, attracting
talented writers, dealing with technology costs and issues, creating and
maintaining relationships and generally doing the things necessary to scale a
business. Then after all of that investment, make the decision between
"listening to your customers and giving them what they want" and "sticking it
to the man".
The majority of media organizations don't select stories on the basis of what
will be the most effective form of propaganda, but based on what they think
people want to read about and discuss. Any business that has the mindset of
telling it's customers what they want instead of listening to them and
responding to their needs is going to have a rough go of it, including media
businesses. You may not like the results, but any fault that you perceive lies
more with your fellow citizens than it does with the organizations that
deliver news to them.
~~~
coldtea
> _As they say about programming, the best way to complain about software is
> to write software. If you don 't like what the media is reporting then start
> your own news organization of whatever kind, including satire. To complete
> the exercise, put years of your life into building circulation, attracting
> talented writers, dealing with technology costs and issues, creating and
> maintaining relationships and generally doing the things necessary to scale
> a business. Then after all of that investment, make the decision between
> "listening to your customers and giving them what they want" and "sticking
> it to the man"._
This seems to me like a very American conception of the issue (culturally I
mean).
The "continental" idea is that the Press (news) is not supposed to be a
business first and foremost, but a kind of service to the republic first, and
a business second.
The business aspect (ads, etc) is tolerated in the degree that the Press is
independent, informative, helps decocracy and transparency, etc.
If a news outlet owner can't make money off of it, he can always not do it.
Doing it badly, untruthfully, link-baity etc, is not something that's really
OK (e.g. because "they have to make money" \-- pimps have to make money too,
that's no excuse), but something that is an example of a sick Press.
> _The majority of media organizations don 't select stories on the basis of
> what will be the most effective form of propaganda, but based on what they
> think people want to read about and discuss._
That's also not 100% accurate. Will a lot of stores are run like that, other
aspects (like their stance in foreign politic issues, bills etc) are more
often than not based on the interests of the owner or sponsors of the outlet,
and in lots of cases downright propaganda (from the crude Operation Mockinbird
ways onwards to today:
[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Mockingbird](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Mockingbird)
).
~~~
cbd1984
> The "continental" idea is that the Press (news) is not supposed to be a
> business first and foremost, but a kind of service to the republic first,
> and a business second.
This is dangerous because it is a lie. If the newspaper can't sell itself as a
business, it can't buy ink and paper, and it shuts its doors. The business
aspect is inescapable unless it's owned and run by the government, which is
even more dangerous to press freedom. If you deny the business aspect, you
can't analyze it, and you can't see if it biases coverage.
> If a news outlet owner can't make money off of it, he can always not do it.
> Doing it badly, untruthfully, link-baity etc, is not something that's really
> OK (e.g. because "they have to make money" \-- pimps have to make money too,
> that's no excuse), but something that is an example of a sick Press.
Except they _do_ have to make money. If you think of that as a sickness, all
Press is sick.
~~~
johnchristopher
>> The "continental" idea is that the Press (news) is not supposed to be a
business first and foremost, but a kind of service to the republic first, and
a business second.
> This is dangerous because it is a lie. If the newspaper can't sell itself as
> a business, it can't buy ink and paper, and it shuts its doors. The business
> aspect is inescapable unless it's owned and run by the government, which is
> even more dangerous to press freedom. If you deny the business aspect, you
> can't analyze it, and you can't see if it biases coverage.
"Continental" press is highly subsidized.
------
mrxd
I liked the documentary version of this post better:
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DBOINEXp0B8](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DBOINEXp0B8)
~~~
tylermauthe
Agreed -- no attribution given to Žižek either.
~~~
zevyoura
Attribution for the premise of They Live?
~~~
ad_hominem
First line of Moxie's post: " _The 1988 film They Live is one of the last
great masterpieces to come out of the hollywood left._ "
First sentence spoken in Zizek video: " _They Live from 1988 is definitely one
of the forgotten masterpieces of the Hollywood left._ "
------
getdavidhiggins
One of the great advantages of having supreme mastery of any field is - you
gain the ability to not partake in that field of your own volition. Others
still in the apprenticeship stages don't have that luxury, because they need
to learn - they need to absorb as much information as possible, and they can't
afford to simply opt out of learning more.
In terms of a specific symbol that identifies hacker/privacycare types there
is things like the glider symbol. Also, loose and informal groups like
Telecomix, and Anonymous are usually a sign someone has opted out of the
matrix and knows the game is rigged.
Cory Doctory makes the analogy that general purpose computers are going to get
inadvertently infected/compromised no matter how hard you try. Once a computer
is connected to the public Internet - it is a sitting duck, and exposed. We
can lock it down, but it is still speaking to the packet switched net, which,
by design - is going to be toxic.
I don't know how to protect my devices. A lot of the problems are too
systemic, and need massive changes in policy and law to get systems trusted
again.
Worth reading/watching:
Everything is broken:[https://medium.com/message/everything-is-
broken-81e5f33a24e1](https://medium.com/message/everything-is-
broken-81e5f33a24e1)
Telecomix: [http://telecomix.org/](http://telecomix.org/)
Redesigning a Broken Internet:
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_J_9EFGFR-Y](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_J_9EFGFR-Y)
Hacker Emblem: [http://www.catb.org/hacker-
emblem/](http://www.catb.org/hacker-emblem/)
~~~
nickik
Its a economic war. Sitting on the switch and sniffing cleartext is easy and
cheap. Compromising every enduser point and the aggregating all the data is
much, much harder. More risk of detection, less reliablity and it needs
constant uptake because of software and hardware updates.
The NSA is not able to do this at the moment and they do everything they can
to avoid having to do it thatway. Keep with the words of Snowden "Secure
crypto properly developed", if we can make that happen we can increase
worrying about end user devices.
-Prio 1: Secure Crypt
-Prio 2: Good secure, crypto code
-Prio 3: Secure Enduser devices
------
nickik
I love whispersystems and use there products. This post gives a real inside
into the mind of of many hackers, specially in the last couple of years. You
spend so much time with Alice and Bob and because its intresting you think
about it even when talking to normal people and this might be a harmful way to
think when actually trying to build a relationship.
Moxie has probebly felt this more then most, and I want to take this change to
thank him and the rest of the people working on these systems.
I hope that we do meet on that beach and that classical liberals are equally
welcome even if we do support global capitalism :)
------
javajosh
"They Live" is a fun movie, and like Marxism, it certainly taps inot the
vague, nearly universal "everything is wrong" vibe that affects nearly
everyone but especially young adults. Other examples: The Matrix. Philip Dick
and Stanislaw Lem (perhaps the most underrated SF author ever) made careers
out of this emotion. For a modern incarnation on Netflix, check out Black
Mirror, particular "15 Million Merits"[1]. Powerful stuff.
When I step back and look at the world, for all of our terrible mistakes, we
(the western capitalist states) really _are_ the good guys, because personally
and politically, overwhelmingly, we really do despise the despots, and the
racists, and the needless violence and barbarism that rises to power in too
many places in the world. More than once we've spilled blood and spent money
not to benefit ourselves, but to stop something evil from happening to others.
And no, this doesn't excuse the fact that we've spilled _even more_ blood for
our own selfish ends, be they resources or the assertion of misguided
idealism.
Consumerism, unlike unjust war, is a trickier beast to slay. Why? Because it's
good in one important way! Consumption really _does_ drive an economy, which
is good for people's bellies, and well-fed people are pretty happy (watch
Triumph of the Will[2] and notice how often Riefenstahl shows food and people
eating). The urge to consume, and all the messaging that goes into it, are
manipulative, but it manipulates us into wealth. (Heaven help us all when even
the elite can't ignore the externalities of this approach, particularly WRT
climate!) We will soon see if virtual goods can thread this needle.
_> Once we’ve put on the glasses, what do we do? Where are the aliens, and
how do we start killing them?_
As anti-authoritarian as I am, I still can't get behind killing anyone. Maybe
it's naive, but I really believe in non-violent (not passive) resistance.
Ghandi, MLK, Aung Yung Suu Kyi - they show us the remarkable power of
patience, love, and unyielding persistence.
[1]
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fifteen_Million_Merits](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fifteen_Million_Merits)
[2]
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GHs2coAzLJ8](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GHs2coAzLJ8)
~~~
programmarchy
> When I step back and look at the world, for all of our terrible mistakes, we
> (the western capitalist states) really are the good guys, because personally
> and politically, overwhelmingly, we really do despise the despots, and the
> racists, and the needless violence and barbarism that rises to power in too
> many places in the world.
The history of western capitalist states has largely been one of rampant
colonialism. [1] Post-WW2, the U.S. has overthrown countless governments,
often democratic ones, to install regimes that would carry out U.S. policy,
and serve western national and corporate interests. [2]
> As anti-authoritarian as I am, I still can't get behind killing anyone.
Except for the covert coups and the mass genocides. Those are nothing to worry
about and can be written off as "misguided idealism", since we "really are the
good guys".
[1] [http://www.amazon.com/Killing-Hope-Military-Interventions-
Si...](http://www.amazon.com/Killing-Hope-Military-Interventions-
Since/dp/1567510523)
[2]
[http://www.ratical.org/ratville/CAH/warisaracket.pdf](http://www.ratical.org/ratville/CAH/warisaracket.pdf)
~~~
javajosh
I am not a cold war historian. Let's take something more recent, like the 2003
invasion of Iraq. There was a great deal of killing in that war, and all of it
under false pretenses in the service of the neocon idea that overthrowing
Saddam would have a domino effect in the region, and create a democratic,
liberal middle east free of it's oppressive dictatorships.
It was wrong, it was stupid; but the _goal_ was right. The various Arab
Springs proved that. Governments in the middle-east are terrible and
oppressive. And sure, these sick states _exist_ because of historical western
imperialism and the aftermath of WWI, and are more recently maintained by oil
revenue. Fine. The fact remains that democracy is better and ideally there
would be democracy (and yes, capitalism) in the middle east.
Maybe I'm totally wrong. But my personal experience here was good, and it
doesn't seem evil to give other people the same benefits I got. My parents
were poor high school graduates who created a small business that put me
through college and made them wealthy. Western capitalism gave them that
opportunity. It also gave them the ability to worship how they wanted, and
encouraged them to tolerate, and appreciate, people of other races, creeds and
religions. If there's a nation or a system of government that gives those
benefits without any of the drawbacks, then I'm all ears, programmarchy! The
incompetent and frankly evil ways in which we've tried to protect and spread
that system are shameful, but it doesn't undermine the value of the system.
(This assumes, of course, that our goal is to spread our way of life
throughout the world, and not just consolidate control of natural resources
for the Fatherland's inordinate consumption, a la Rome).
------
conformal
they live is one of the best john carpenter films, and that includes the epic
10-minute on-concrete wrestling match before keith david will don the glasses.
being extremely entertained to see a blog entry about they live aside, making
privacy simple is super hard. similarly, making people care about privacy is
super hard. killing the aliens is even harder.
ubiquitous surveillance has a pretty obvious response in the long run:
ubiquitous encryption.
~~~
grecy
I've not seen the movie (yet) but reading the description on the blog was
enlightening for me.
I don't fit into Western Society at all - I couldn't care less for
consumerism, sports, mass media, smartphones, etc. etc. and I've always
thought it's because I can see the truth behind stuff, where other people just
see the glitter on the surface covering up the ugly truth.
Now I know I've just been wearing a pair of these sunglasses my whole life.
~~~
Chlorus
You sure are a special snowflake. Thank you for sharing your insights with the
rest of the world. Do you have a newsletter? I would like to subscribe to it!
Your fresh, humble insights are a beacon to us all, who have to contend with
the dumb sheeple on a daily basis.
~~~
grecy
newsletter? no. Blog about driving around the world following my dreams and
passions? yes. [http://theroadchoseme.com](http://theroadchoseme.com)
(yes, I know you were joking. I'm not :) )
------
zmap01
>years of avoiding products from Google
I found this passage quite confusing as TextSecure is wholly reliant on
proprietary Google services. Is there any chance that will be resolved soon,
Moxie?
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Why Google App Engine Shouldn't Include PHP - mikeyur
http://blog.jeffhui.net/2009/04/why-google-app-engine-shouldnt-include-php/
======
gord
He seems to be saying "PHP shouldn't be supported because its a bit of an ugly
language and somewhat insecure"
But then should they only support Scheme? :]
The problem is theres so much useful {badly written} PHP code out there, its
going to be hard to ignore.
I guess they'll _have_ to adopt PHP, Python, Ruby/Rails in order to get user
volume.
Which language is better is probably irrelevant.
~~~
jlees
Well, the OP seems to point at PHP developers generally being poorly educated
and clueless, mostly deploying other people's apps rather than writing their
own. In short, they won't have a clue how to use GAE if it provides BigTable
rather than MySQL so out-of-the-box LAMP apps fail to work without a rewrite.
Does GAE really want user volume if those are the sorts of users they'll get?
------
RossM
While the comment that many PHP applications depend on a MySQL database (I'd
seriously expect WP to have some sort of DAL by now) is true it wouldn't be
impossible for someone to write an extension to support Google's BigTable _.
Article was a little confusing(ly structured) but surprised me by not
completely bashing PHP.
_ I haven't actually used GAE and assume BigTable is another database
platform.
~~~
anamax
> I haven't actually used GAE and assume BigTable is another database
> platform.
Background: GAE doesn't provide access to BigTable. It provides access to GAE
Datastore which is built on top of BigTable. Both are key-value stores. I
don't know how much indexing that bigtable provides, but datastore has a fair
amount (under user control).
There are no joins or aggregations in the GAE query API and queries can only
return one type of object. (The provided subclass/roll-up model seems a little
odd.) These constraints seem baked-in.
The transaction model is basically "all objects under a given root name can be
updated/created/deleted as an atomic operation." (Within said atomic
operation, a given object can only be written once and I forget whether reads
see writes.) This makes it hard to do certain sorts of real-world
transactions. (Imagine transferring money between two accounts.)
The datastore also has certain size and "number of object" limits. Then again,
the platform limits the amount of time that each operation is allowed to take.
------
ZeroGravitas
It may already be too late, PHP on the JVM:
<http://www.caucho.com/resin-3.0/quercus/>
Note, I know nothing about the project, just first result from Google. I knew
something existed because I'd read about IBM's Project Zero, but I think their
implementation of PHP on the JVM (called P8, iirc) is closed source.
------
ssharp
Has blatant PHP bashing been made so taboo around here that we must now endure
passive-aggressive PHP bashing?
------
robotron
Wow, this is a horrible article. Where does the author get his facts about the
quality level of "most" PHP developers? Sounds like typical religious flaming
and half-arsed fud.
------
gonick_daysbury
The argument being made is unclear. Is the author saying that Google App
Engine should not support PHP because PHP is not a robust language? If so,
that's not a very persuasive argument.
More importantly, this is a very poor piece of writing, the worst I've seen in
some time. For starters, the author would do well to learn how to write a
thesis statement:
<http://www.unc.edu/depts/wcweb/handouts/thesis.html>
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Setting the date to 1 January 1970 will brick your iPhone, iPad or iPod touch - sabbasb
http://www.theguardian.com/technology/2016/feb/12/setting-the-date-to-1-january-1970-will-brick-your-iphone-ipad-or-ipod-touch
======
sschueller
So in theory I could create a SDR setup using openBTS and then go around
sending a GSM date of 1970-01-01 "bricking" iphones left and right?
Alternatively a bug or misconfiguration in the GSM time service could "brick"
phones.
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Grooveshark Co-Founder Josh Greenberg Found Dead at 28 - DadADadADA
http://techcrunch.com/2015/07/20/grooveshark-co-founder-josh-greenberg-found-dead-at-28/?ncid=rss
======
ColinWright
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9917442](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9917442)
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
The Most Exclusive Restaurant in America - brandur
http://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2016/08/29/damon-baehrel-the-most-exclusive-restaurant-in-america
======
brandur
This one's on the longer side, but it's worth the read. It starts out as an
article about a high-class dining experience, but ends with a twist.
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
VPN.sh are offering a VPN for £2/year. Yes, £2 yearly D: - halfpipe
https://www.vpn.sh/clients/cart.php?a=add&pid=1&billingcycle=annually&promocode=12MONTHS_2
======
frdmn
Actually it's £2/month:
[http://up.frd.mn/8a552.png+](http://up.frd.mn/8a552.png+)
~~~
halfpipe
Nope, follow the original link and click checkout upon the "Yearly" selection.
It'll automatically add the promotion code on the next page, dropping the
price down to £2/year :)
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Gym Retro - lainon
https://blog.openai.com/gym-retro/
======
frenchie4111
I created a Google Colab notebook that runs Gym Retro. Feel free to clone it
to play around with Gym Retro.
[https://colab.research.google.com/drive/11Mxg30mXEvhk8jB0iJ-...](https://colab.research.google.com/drive/11Mxg30mXEvhk8jB0iJ-
cFw1k0wICkf8e#scrollTo=_SzYiZIjETHX)
~~~
cbanek
Very cool. Though in your first cell, you misspelled build-essential:
!apt-get install pkg-config lua5.1 build-esbsential libav-tools git
~~~
frenchie4111
Huh. Good catch. Thanks
Should be fixed now
------
vthallam
Off Topic, but I really love OpenAI's blog design and how they present content
in each blog post. It's very much visually appealing.
~~~
inteleng
FYI: "much" in your last sentence is misused, and should be left out. You
could say "it's very much a visually appealing presentation," but the current
usage is just wrong.
------
minimaxir
The big improvement to Gym Retro is that it now supports Nintendo systems by
default (it used to be Atari 2600/Genesis only), with a pretty impressive
library of configurations included.
([https://github.com/openai/retro/tree/develop/retro/data/stab...](https://github.com/openai/retro/tree/develop/retro/data/stable))
~~~
yazr
I have a custom game that i use for DRL and simulations. Is it worth
while/possible to hook this game into Gym Retro.
If I do, can i then use all the baseline algos on this ?
How does this compare to ALE ?!
------
Abishek_Muthian
Off topic :
If Sixers from Ready Player One had used Gym Retro, the agent would have
easily found the easter egg in the ATARI Adventure than the humans; was bots
not allowed in OASIS?..or wait didn't Halliday himself became an agent?
------
samfriedman
The integration tool is neat. Basically a small memory scanner/editor that
will let you search for score values you'd like to define as a goal/reward. I
wonder how it handles games that may may not have a static memory location of
certain variables: usually you'd need to hook into the process and check out
what bits of code are writing to that memory to hammer out a more "permanent"
fix. Of course, these retro games might not be that complex.
------
jlebrech
Is it possible to train ai to be the cpu characters?
~~~
tachyonbeam
Yes, but you’ll most likely have to become fairly proficient at 6502 assembly
and need to use a hex editor.
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Show HN: An interactive visualization of Switzerland's public transport network - aubryio
https://tempusfugit.ch
======
perilunar
Really nice visualisation!
------
robsalasco
dead
~~~
aubryio
Thank you for this constructive comment. The visualization is using deck.gl
which requires WebGL. I'm working on a fallback message but for now it won't
show any data if your browser doesn't support WebGL.
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
In 10 years, Tesla has gone from one-car company to being compared with Porsche - HNLurker2
https://www.businessinsider.in/in-10-years-tesla-has-gone-from-a-one-car-company-to-being-compared-with-porsche-heres-why-thats-incredible/articleshow/71351652.cms
======
NeedMoreTea
Oh that's some _hilarious_ framing.
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Do We Really Need Another Smartphone OS? - aynlaplant
http://www.wired.com/insights/2013/01/do-we-really-need-another-smartphone-os/
======
moccajoghurt
Wouldn't a real Linux OS on a smartphone be every developer's dream? I will
definitely get a Ubuntu phone. Think about the the variety of options you'll
have...
However I am not sure if the mainstream market will be as interested.
~~~
garuda
Android is a real Linux
~~~
ricardobeat
Trapped in a Java VM
~~~
barik
It is no such thing.
You are correct that there's a VM -- Dalvik is the process virtual machine in
Android, and that a common use case is to use Java bytecode and then convert
it to Dalvik, but this is a far cry from being "trapped in a Java VM".
In fact, at even the fundamental level, the Java VM is a stack-based machine,
while the Dalvik VM is a register-based machine (the merits or criticisms of
doing so are beyond the scope of this post; that's a different discussion).
And if the notion of a VM is still utterly offensive, you are welcome to write
portions of your Android applications in native code, such as through C or
C++, although for many applications there's really no or marginal benefit to
doing so.
------
ChuckMcM
Wow, that was disappointing.
It says something about the fashion sense of a reporter if they approach the
question this way. You should ask, "What capabilities are we going to want in
our phone going forward?" and work from there, but fretting over brand
awareness seems, well, a bit shallow.
Do you only buy a car because it has a "Hemi" V8 engine ? And wonder, "Do we
really need another engine for cars?" Of course you don't. I would love a
smart phone that was less susceptible to malware (the tension of
programmability meets actual exploits against my bank account). If the current
OS makers can do that, fine, if there is a new OS that does this better, that
is ok too.
------
ricardobeat
Do we really need another model of mobile phone?
Do we really need more screen sizes?
Do we really need more apps?
That's an inane question, and the article doesn't even try to answer it.
------
jfb
Why not? I don't see a reason to use it myself, but hey, a diverse software
ecosystem is a healthy one, and good ideas can come from anywhere. So, "yes".
------
ladzoppelin
The phrase "A real linux OS phone" is pretty frustrating considering Android
exists and is supposed to be "real Linux". What are the main reasons Android
is not "real Linux"? (Its hard not to be upset with Google for this situation
if the reason is what I think it is).
~~~
green7ea
When people say Linux, they usually mean more than just the kernel. Stallman
insists we call this GNU/Linux since a good portion of userspace comes for the
GNU project. When people say 'real linux' I believe they are referring to the
full userspace that usually accompanies the Linux kernel.
The userspace in Android is very different from the userspace in GNU/Linux. In
GNU/Linux, it is very easy to program using your preferred programming
language. This isn't the case in Android, everything is very tightly wrapped
up around Dalvik. Before you mention the NDK, let me say that it's only a
subset of C++ (no exceptions among other things). Ubuntu on the cell phone
also opens up the possibility of things like shell scripting, local
webservers, etc.
What this really comes down to is programming freedom that you can find in
GNU/Linux that isn't found in Android. You will now have a full fledged
computer in your pocket instead of a limited device.
~~~
jamesjguthrie
Ubuntu can run alongside/on top of Android. Is that still limited?
------
ttuominen
I would absolutely love to see Ubuntu and others (Jolla) succeed.
Unfortunately I'm also highly skeptical they will. The reason is that
currently their marketing story seems so far removed from actual consumers:
think about the fact that they're even trying to sell the idea of an
_operating system_ , not a complete product. This seems really backwards
compared to the evidently successful Apple model. Granted, they are probably
having discussions with manufacturers right now, but we'll have to wait for
the results. I'd be happy to hear somebody refute this argument!
~~~
samstokes
Ubuntu for phones is not (yet) a choice available to consumers. I assume their
marketing is currently targeted at OEMs because that's who they need to
convince first.
Hopefully when phones running Ubuntu are available on the market, they'll come
up with a more compelling story for consumers.
------
gee_totes
This is the first headline I've ever seen that violates Betteridge's law of
headlines[0], which states that any headline that ends in a question mark can
be answered by "no". But in the case of this headline, the answer is a
resounding "yes".
[0]<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Betteridge%27s_law_of_headlines>
~~~
DeepDuh
How about we generalize the law? The answer to headlines ending in a question
mark is whatever the rhetoric question is not suggesting?
------
Executor
Pros: \- A real linux OS phone, more open than Android \- Ubuntu getting more
popularity \- Gives Apple, Google, MS less control/power, users more diversity
Cons: \- Canonical likes making big mistakes (mandatory Unity interface,
Amazon search/spyware integration)
~~~
Tmmrn
> mandatory Unity interface
Mandatory?
sudo apt-get install kubuntu-desktop
* log out
* choose kde
* log in
~~~
moccajoghurt
Who needs a WM anyway? Just use the console.
./call 01 __ __ __
------
Proleps
Competition is always good. But I guess some people prefer the dictatorship of
a monopoly.
------
general_failure
Do we really need another news site? Isn't hacker news and bbc.com good enough
for everyone?
Why wired? Join the discuss here.
------
zobzu
I'm really tired of those articles. Tired enough to complain in a comment.
That's classic FUD.
------
mtgx
I'm interested in seeing Ubuntu getting a fair shot at the market. I don't
know what to think about web-apps based operating systems like Firefox OS yet,
but I think it will help Firefox, the browser, become more competitive from
what they learn making the OS.
I don't care as much about Tizen and Sailfish, but I'd rather see strong open
source competitors standing up against Android and iOS, than more closed ones
like WP8 and BB10.
I think, if not Samsung, at least more desperate companies like HTC, LG and
Sony should definitely give Ubuntu a fair try. Asus might do it anyway, as
they are already making Ubuntu laptops, and they have that whole Padfone thing
going on, but they haven't been very successful in smartphones yet.
~~~
slurry
> I don't know what to think about web-apps based operating systems like
> Firefox OS yet,
I think it is a mistake. A modern operating system, particularly on mobile
where power management and security are concerns, needs a mature well-
optimized managed code environment to write middleware and more complicated
applications in - hence Objective-C with automatic reference counting on iOS
and Java/Dalvik on Android.
HTML5 for all uses under the sun is going to either underperform users'
expectations or drain power, or both; and letting unmanaged C applications in
is a recipe for disaster.
I would like to be excited about this, but I do not think the architecture as
presented makes any sense.
~~~
gtufano
Objective-C is not "managed". iOS apps are sandboxed, but obj-c is _very_ near
to C (and most of the Foundation API are pure C). Also, ARC is not mandatory
and there is no garbage collector on iOS.
~~~
slurry
Nonsense. If my Objective-C app is sandboxed, it is "managed". Saying ARC "is
not mandatory" is another way of saying it is "enabled by default". There is
little formal computational difference between ARC and a conservative garbage
collector.
Fact: Objective-C is "managed".
------
camus
Do we really need competition ?
~~~
freeduck
Of course we need competition. Android is a nice platform - I use it every
day. But I also would very much like one or more vanilla GNU/Linux phone
platforms. The Linux ecosystem has benefited a great deal from having multiple
distros(fedora,debian,gentoo...) with each their own focus. As long as they
will agree on some common standards like freedesktop.org - diversity is a win.
~~~
edwardy20
I believe he was being sarcastic.
------
trimbo
Whether these succeed or not, I simply don't get it.
Android is open source. Fork it. Improve it. Why build something completely
new. Is it just to keep a brand name like "Ubuntu" and "Firefox"?
~~~
madisp
As far as I understand it actually is a fork of Android in the sense that it
runs the Android-flavoured Linux kernel.
~~~
ttuominen
This, and also Android's overall userspace design is kind of idiosyncratic.
I'm sure there are other legitimate designs of a Linux-based mobile OS, which
don't rely so heavily on Java and a virtual machine. Ubuntu will be Qt-based,
for example. That throws out the possibility to reuse the Android application
framework.
~~~
trimbo
Ok, but there's nothing that prevents them from implementing QT on Android
using the NDK. You don't have to throw out _all_ application compatibility to
achieve something like this.
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
The Fair Price Of A Bitcoin Is Zero - brown9-2
http://www.businessinsider.com/the-fair-price-of-a-bitcoin-is-zero-2013-12
======
oxalo
Seems like the author is trying really hard to make Bitcoin fit current
monetary theories rather than allowing the possibility that Bitcoin could
break them.
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Reservations for Taco Bell’s hotel sell out in 2 minutes - hsnewman
https://www.cnbc.com/2019/06/27/taco-bell-hotel-reservations-sell-out-in-2-minutes.html
======
smacktoward
That place is going to be crammed to the gills with Instagram "influencers."
Recommendation: nuke it from orbit. It's the only way to be sure.
------
hsnewman
Hope the toilet paper is soft.
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
1900 NYC colorized by latest and unreleased DeOldify model - justinzollars
https://twitter.com/citnaj/status/1219156481762713602
======
gbronner
Color palette leans too much towards purple, and the whites are far too bright
-- those people would be lucky to own two outfits, and keeping the shirts that
white on a daily basis without laundry facilities would have been impossible.
Not to mention the smoke and soot from coal-burning stoves would have affected
the white lintels more.
~~~
_bxg1
And the fascinating/mildly disturbing thing is that because the image looks so
convincing to our expectations (which is what these sorts of models are best
at achieving), everyone who sees it subconsciously accepts it as reality, even
though most of these colors are probably wrong. It's not "restoring" the
color, it's making it up. Even those of us who know better can fall into that
trap if we aren't thinking about it.
Of course for a toy example like this it doesn't really matter. But at a large
enough scale, something like this could subtly distort our collective concept
of the past. More importantly, when applying ML models to much more impactful
domains, they can easily create a more dangerous, subtle collective self-
delusion about reality that by definition is very convincing even to its
creators.
For a slightly more meaningful example: lots of people in the replies are
posting pictures of their relatives, asking them to be colorized. In a very
real way this model is subtly re-writing people's memories of what their loved
ones looked like.
~~~
perl4ever
"something like this could subtly distort our collective concept of the past"
[https://www.gocomics.com/calvinandhobbes/2014/11/09](https://www.gocomics.com/calvinandhobbes/2014/11/09)
...really?
------
specialist
Would these projects benefit from having real world reference colors?
Find the actual objects in the real world, like bricks, stones, paints,
flowers, then sample them.
------
dasanman
Not perfect but pretty damn awesome!
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Kryptos & Overestimating the CIA - MikeCapone
http://michaelgr.com/2008/12/29/overestimating-the-cia/
======
pmjordan
The British seem to hold a similar respect for GCHQ (which is probably more
like the NSA than the CIA) - there seems to be a widespread belief that they
can crack even strong, modern encryption. (I doubt it, but nobody really seems
to know anything about GCHQ - the grandfather of a UK friend of mine
apparently worked there and the family only found this out after his death)
~~~
brl
I really doubt that intelligence agencies such as the NSA and GCHQ have any
secret and powerful ways to break cryptography at all.
I know that everybody thinks that they do, but where is the evidence for this?
Even during the 60s and 70s when they had a near monopoly on cryptographic
research there is no indication that they made any unique and spectacular
breakthroughs.
~~~
pmjordan
I know little about cryptanalysis and the mathematics behind cryptographic
ciphers, so I can't comment much on that. But I doubt they'd break widely-used
ciphers and continue to allow the military and executive to use them. Once
broken, they would have to fear that the method would leak or be independently
recreated by someone else. Everyone still uses RSA, D-H, AES and Blow/twofish
though, as far as I know.
And I find it unlikely that they've developed and built special hardware to
brute-force these algorithms and nobody knows about it.
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
There Are No Truffles in Truffle Oil (2014) - obi1kenobi
https://priceonomics.com/there-are-no-truffles-in-truffle-oil/
======
gabemart
If this is true, I am genuinely surprised that it is legal to sell "Truffle
oil".
Take the truffle oil offered by 3 big UK supermarkets [1][2][3]. All three
stores describe it as having:
> Ingredients:
> Extra Virgin Olive Oil, Truffle Extract
What else are we to interpret "truffle extract" as, other than an extract made
from truffles?
Sainsbury's describes it as "Truffle flavour" [3] which I guess I could see as
not actually stating it contains truffles (aside from the previously mentioned
ingredients list). But Tesco describes it as "Truffle Flavoured" [1], which
seems to me to more strongly imply it actually contains some truffle, and Asda
describes it as "Flavoured with White Truffle" [2] which to me sounds like an
unambiguous statement that it contains at least some white truffle.
If this article is accurate, it seems like a complete and utter con.
[1]
[http://www.tesco.com/groceries/product/details/?id=292974500](http://www.tesco.com/groceries/product/details/?id=292974500)
[2] [https://groceries.asda.com/product/seed-nut-oil/la-
espanola-...](https://groceries.asda.com/product/seed-nut-oil/la-espanola-
extra-virgin-olive-oil-flavoured-with-white-truffle/910002512430)
[3]
[http://www.sainsburys.co.uk/webapp/wcs/stores/servlet/gb/gro...](http://www.sainsburys.co.uk/webapp/wcs/stores/servlet/gb/groceries/la-
espanola-truffle-flavour-olive-
oil-250ml?langId=44&storeId=10151&krypto=PZcOd%2FzyK5UzG9u54ivMIX4MX2tRdTeU7MGFHHWCKsseTJyaQ63bOvh5V61FjA1RMzt4p5lrIWnHfuDhwZG51WeK9NxDJM7KdBhoYCj9RTbKVsTLeBSQojSDErlw%2FK2n&ddkey=http%3Agb%2Fgroceries%2Fla-
espanola-truffle-flavour-olive-oil-250ml)
~~~
andrewla
I agree that this seems odd, and all I've ever seen as proof that "truffle oil
does not contain truffles" is the bald assertion, without any other evidence.
In the US, I can imagine (barely) that this might be permissible, but in
Europe, with DOC and AOC laws, it seems almost impossible that something could
be called "truffle oil" as opposed to "truffle-flavoured oil". "Truffle
Extract" and "Flavoured with White Truffle" seem to be pretty unambiguously
claiming that truffles were involved in the preparation.
~~~
soperj
There's also been cases of shredded Parmesan not containing and Parmesan at
all, and a big part of it actually being woodpulp.
~~~
13of40
Cellulose powder - says so right in the ingredients, alongside lipase, calcium
chloride, and potassium sorbate:
[http://www.garycameron.org/files/2012/04/Kraft-100-Parm-q50....](http://www.garycameron.org/files/2012/04/Kraft-100-Parm-q50.jpg)
Even better, it says "The label doesn't just say parmesan, it says 100%
parmesan. That's because we only use the finest ingredients, carefully crafted
and aged for a sharp, distinctive taste that enhances your favourite dishes -
a taste that's 100% real, 100% parmesan."
They can get away with it because "parmesan" doesn't actually mean anything
outside of the EU.
Edit: As that other poster just pointed out, maybe it does mean something in
the US (that label was from Canada), since someone's actually facing criminal
charges for it.
~~~
tunap
Totinis frozen pizzas changed their description in last year or so. The new
description says "pepperoni flavored pizza topping" now. Who defines what
"pizza topping" is, however, IDK.
~~~
Udik
Flavored? It makes you wonder what those slices are actually _made_ of. Ah,
now I googled and saw the box. It says "made with pork, chicken, beef". In no
particular order and in variable proportions, I guess.
~~~
oxide
"mystery meat" doesn't have the same ring to it as "pepperoni flavored pizza
topping"
------
nommm-nommm
There was an episode of Cutthroat Kitchen where a contestant used truffle oil
on a dish.
Jet Tela (judge): truffle oil, man, there's just no place for it in the
kitchen.
Alton Brown (host): yes there is. _throws the bottle in the garbage._
Harsh.
(I do agree that using truffle oil is a sign of an amateur chef)
~~~
dagurp
Reminds of this over-the-top reaction on masterchef
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hJEaSGzSOqE](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hJEaSGzSOqE)
~~~
baby
The funny part is that Gordon Ramsay's BURGR restaurant has truffle oil in the
menu:
[https://gordonramsayrest-2938.kxcdn.com/assets/1-Menus/USA-R...](https://gordonramsayrest-2938.kxcdn.com/assets/1-Menus/USA-
Restaurants/GR-Burger-Menu-2016.pdf)
~~~
nkozyra
I don't see truffle oil specifically - it has truffle aioli which would
obviously be a different condiment/ingredient. Their reaction in that clip
seems to be in response to a few things:
1\. the assertion there's no actual truffle in white truffle oil 2\. that it's
pungent and the contestant was pouring it on
I imagine Ramsey is not opposed to truffles, per se, but certainly to fake
scents manufactured to smell like truffles and using the flavor to excess.
~~~
baby
Dang it, I read that menu too fast :)
------
koliber
There are many things that are flavored like something, but don't actually
contain any extract from the actual thing. I don't think you should focus on
truffle oil. This sort of thing is all around you, with many types of food.
Often times, the molecules used to flavor these foods are a major component of
a flavor of a given fruit, vegetable, nuts, or fungus. However, it is
sometimes cheaper to produce them synthetically rather than extract them. In
many cases the stuff used to flavor the food was never in the thing whose
flavor is being imitated.
\-
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Isoamyl_acetate](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Isoamyl_acetate)
is used to imbue a banana flavor.
\-
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Benzaldehyde](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Benzaldehyde)
gives you an almond flavor
\-
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vanillin](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vanillin)
is pretty much what you get in most vanilla-flavored things
\-
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2,4-Dithiapentane](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2,4-Dithiapentane)
is used to make truffle-flavored oil
The list goes on and on.
It's great to be aware that there is an industry in making things that taste
like other things. If you walk down your supermarket isle and pay attention,
you will notice that many things are not what they seem. You will first feel
surprised, maybe cheated, and perhaps angry.
Is truffle oil with truffles a scam? I don't know. I was certainly fooled
once.
I now try to pay attention to these types of things more. Things flavored with
actual extracts tend to cost more and are harder to find. However, with many
things, once you taste the real thing, you will notice that the fake stuff is
off. Often times, the synthetically flavored food taste flat, sometimes
chemically, and fake.
Don't get angry. Get educated, spread the knowledge, and pay attention to what
you eat!
~~~
4ad
The problem with truffle oil is that it smells like gasoline, not that it's
synthetic. It smells nothing like truffles. And it can't be made any better
since the compounds that give truffles their complex signature are not soluble
in oil.
There's a resemblance between rubbing alcohol filtered through bread and
bourbon, just like there's a resemblance between truffle oil and real
truffles, but the comparison is really apt. Even though there's some
resemblance, it's nothing alike, and it's really bad.
------
adlpz
I'm always amazed that this sort of blatant false advertisement is just
allowed anywhere in the world.
In other news:
> Historically, there is at least some mention of Italians infusing olive oils
> with real truffles, and Urbani Truffles sells truffle oil that it says is
> made from real truffles
I actually do that myself. Get a truffle, cut it in a couple of pieces and
leave it soaking for a month or two in good olive oil. Not that hard, not even
that expensive either if you live remotely close to where they grow. It's a
bit funny how they try to make this look like if it was some arcane secret.
~~~
bpicolo
Do be careful with making your own infused oils. Truffle/Garlic variants (and
I'm sure others) definitely carry botulism risk.
~~~
fdgdasfadsf
The only careful way to make your own flavoured oils at home it to not make
them.
~~~
tptacek
It's safe to make truffle or garlic oil at home. What's not safe is storing it
for long periods of time.
I make garlic oil at least once a week (by very slowly simmering cloves in
olive oil for an hour or so, which also produces spreadable roasted garlic.)
~~~
fdgdasfadsf
Eaten that day or the next? Long periods of time include a week - and
certainly a couple of months in the GPs case has a huge hazard and a non-zero
risk. I hope you and she continue to have good luck.
~~~
tptacek
This is Russian Roulette with a gun with literally hundreds of millions of
empty chambers, because virtually nobody ever gets botulism from garlic. Look
up the stats, remembering the implicit denominator.
Heat of any real kind quickly denatures botulism toxin. Significant heat ---
above 120c --- detroys spores, which are not themselves toxic. The roasted
garlic itself isn't brought uniformly to 120c, but the oil is, for well over
the few minutes it takes to get a 10D reduction. Botulism spore germination is
retarded (though not eliminated) in refrigeration.
Paranoia about garlic oil doesn't make a whole lot of sense, considering how
many food systems we happily introduce not just cooked garlic into but also
_raw_ garlic. In many of those systems garlic is isolated in anaerobic
environments and little if anything is done to retard its germination and
doubling. But we happily eat Chinese food leftovers every day.
Garlic is also not a uniquely dangerous food. It's just a low-acid vegetable
that happens to grow underground. There are lots of low-acid vegetables that
are also potential settings for botulism; we just don't preserve them in oil.
But, like garlic, we use them in all sorts of food systems that could easily
germinate botulism. And still: almost nobody gets food-borne botulism.
To sum up:
Yes, I agree, don't jam a bunch of raw garlic cloves into a bottle of olive
oil and forget it in the back of your refrigerator. You'd almost definitely be
fine if you did, but a small risk of great harm is something worth taking
seriously.
But don't act like combining garlic and oil is the culinary equivalent of
combining pure sodium and water. It is not.
If you want to be paranoid, put some lime juice in your garlic oil and make a
mojo. Whatever.
------
hdlothia
Meh. The truffle fries at my local burger spot still taste good. As long as it
doesn't kill me I'm not overly concerned.
~~~
tptacek
French fries and popcorn are the only two allowable venues for truffle oil.
~~~
4ad
Dunno man, the smell of gasoline really turns me off.
Actually, that's not right. I find the smell of truffle oil similar to
gasoline, but I _like_ gasoline. Truffle oil turns my stomach around.
------
merraksh
It is just a coincidence, obviously, but the Italian for "scam" is "truffa".
Truffle itself is "tartufo".
~~~
GFK_of_xmaspast
See also:
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tartuffe](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tartuffe)
------
codezero
And if you want to get meta angry, most olive oil isn't olive oil!
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12281775](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12281775)
~~~
MrJagil
It would be nice if there was a website where you could look up the local
groceries you have in doubt. Maybe check how honest the brand is... We rate
movies why not groceries?
------
baby
Here's on bottle I bought in Marianno's, a supermarket in the US. The bottle
was around 10-15$ I think.
[http://i.imgur.com/6ygdyRR.jpg](http://i.imgur.com/6ygdyRR.jpg)
I does say olive oil, flavored, but also has a dehydrated truffle in it. Does
the dehydrated truffle not contribute anything to the taste?
Also, it tastes pretty good.
~~~
karlshea
> Does the dehydrated truffle not contribute anything to the taste
It does not.
------
kazinator
Cannot parse: "it is olive oil mixed with 2,4-dithiapentane, a compound that
makes up part of the smell of truffles and _is as associated with a laboratory
as Californian food is associated with local and organic ingredients._ "
Synthetic 2,4-dithiapentane _is_ associated with some laboratory somewhere,
whereas "Californian food", whatever that is, isn't necessarily "local and
organic". It's not local if I'm enjoying it in New York rather than in
California, and it's not organic if it didn't come from an organic farm.
------
dragonwriter
> it is olive oil mixed with 2,4-dithiapentane, a compound that makes up part
> of the smell of truffles and is as associated with a laboratory as
> Californian food is associated with local and organic ingredients.
So, what this is saying is 2,4-dithiapentane has little more to do with a
laboratory than any other randomly selected ingredient, despite being linked
to it in popular culture? (Or, more likely, that this is an extremely poorly
chosen analogy...)
~~~
brodie78382
This analogy also gave me quite a pause. I'm going with the latter,
personally.
------
danielhooper
The truffle oil you buy from the grocer has a deserving reputation, it's just
scented oil, but I've eaten in restaurants where their truffle oil was
literally sliced black truffles in olive oil, so at least on a restaurant menu
you shouldn't dismiss "truffle oil" immediately.
~~~
tptacek
Fair enough, but at least in the US, if you're not eating prix fixe or paying
$30+ per plate, you should assume things that are "truffled" don't contain
actual truffles.
Also: apparently (according to eGullet, at least), oil infusions of real
truffle aren't all that powerful, and if you're trying to disperse truffle
flavor in a fat, butter is the way to go (you end up with flecks of truffle
strewn throughout).
------
Posibyte
I read in the article that truffles are outside of the domain of human ability
to control its growth.
> Truffles are the world’s most expensive food because they resist all our efforts to control them. They cannot be mass produced or meaningfully eaten out of season.
Have there been any efforts to create some controlled version of truffles to
meet demand or make it more available? To me, the idea of a GMO truffle that's
available year round seems pleasing.
~~~
munificent
Yes, in fact the cultivated truffle industry is starting to get going now. In
the past few years, farmed truffles have appeared on the market. I tried
truffles for the first time a month ago and they came from Australia,
presumably one of the new farms there.
The history of this is pretty fascinating.
Truffles grow in the roots of certain oak trees. To cultivate them, you need
to plant those trees, carefully protect them from other undesired fungi, and
wait 7 to 10 years for the fungus network to mature in the trees roots. Any
given tree has an active lifecycle of only about 30 years, so after that, you
have to replant. This process was figured out in the late 1700s. By the 1800s,
there were over 100,000 acres of truffle farms in France, and truffles were a
reasonably priced easily available foodstuff.
Then WWI hit. 20% of the male workforce was killed and many others had left
rural areas and moved into cities. Without expertise and available labor, many
truffle fields were lost. This is when they became a rare expensive luxury.
In the past few decades, after truffles became fashionable, cultivation has
started again. It's only in the past few years that these new fields have
begun to sell product. Going forward, you can probably expect real truffles to
become more common and less expensive.
Oh, and the truffle I tried was shaved on top of a mushroom risotto. It's
possibly the best tasting thing I have ever eaten.
------
AdmiralAsshat
Commercially available truffle oil sold in US markets tastes absolutely
horrid. It has a pungent, chemical aroma, and its taste completely overpowers
whatever you put it on.
Do yourself a favor and just buy some high quality olive oil if you want a
better finishing oil for your food. Oilve-oil and vinegar taprooms seem to
have exploded in popularity in the US over the past few years.
~~~
kls
Agreed, I went to culinary school years ago and we had access to both high
quality black and white truffles, to say the least I fell in love on first
bite, we used to fry slices up in butter and eat them like a potato chip while
in class, that was heaven. My first introduction to truffle oil was years
later and conversely flavor hell. I could never really put the flavor into
words until I read this article, a gasoline like flavor is a perfect
description. I knew when I tasted it that there was no way any essence of
truffles where in it. Truffles make other flavors "pop" and have umami.
Truffle oil kills the flavor of the underlining ingredients and replaces them
with a chemical and gasoline taste.
------
huhtenberg
I beg to differ :)
[http://i.imgur.com/RtAsZKp.jpg](http://i.imgur.com/RtAsZKp.jpg)
This is from a fancy-ish local (European) supermarket that's generally praised
for the quality food they sell. The cost was around $15.
~~~
stouset
The flavor compounds in truffles aren't oil-soluble. So even _if_ you bought a
piece of truffle dunked in oil, you're probably not getting what you hope to.
If it tastes like truffles, that flavor is virtually guaranteed to not come
from the truffle at the bottom but instead from 2,4-dithiapentane.
~~~
huhtenberg
Oi vey, please kindly adjust your tinfoil headwear.
They might be insoluble in theory. In practice, it's dead simple to infuse oil
with truffles - take oil, heat it up, add shaved truffles and let it sit for a
bit.
~~~
stouset
Now leave that bottle on a shelf for a week, and see if the original bears any
resemblance.
It won't.
This isn't controversial, it's basic chemistry. The aromatics in truffles
(excluding 2,4-dithiapentane) are water-soluble, not fat-soluble. Applying
heat to your truffles-in-olive-oil mixture is not going to change this simple
fact.
~~~
huhtenberg
> The aromatics in truffles (excluding 2,4-dithiapentane) are water-soluble,
> not fat-soluble.
Source, please. What you say goes against what I personally sniffed at my
friend's house, which was the home-made truffle oil as per above.
------
dredmorbius
For related topics, see: fraud, signalling, Veblen goods, status, status
signalling, and aspirational goods.
Something rare and expensive is used to give the appearance of quality,
undercut by not only the lack of the underlying element within the good (a
chemical imposter is substituted), but with either an implication or outright
false representation that the aspirationally desired quality is in fact
present.
There's a tremendous amount of criticism of the concept of market function in
this story.
------
mmanfrin
Truffle oil is just the less-scary-sounding version of adding msg to a dish.
'Truffle flavoring' is plain msg, most likely.
MSG is great for cooking, it is the taste of "Umami". Umami/Truffle/Parmesan
are all just means of adding this msg taste to things without triggering the
anti-MSG rhetoric.
The Family Seasoning for Steak: Lowry's Garlic Salt, black pepper, msg.
Delicious.
------
nicolas_t
It's still quite possible to buy truffle oil with real truffles but of course,
it's not going to be 2.5 pounds for 250ml but instead 12 pounds for 250ml...
I usually buy this one [http://www.edelices.co.uk/olive-oil-flavored-black-
truffles....](http://www.edelices.co.uk/olive-oil-flavored-black-
truffles.html) which is quite good...
------
cmurf
Truffles, like most mushrooms, contain basically 0% fat. 0.2g of fat in a 28g
truffle is basically fat free. No fat, no oil to extract.
~~~
semi-extrinsic
This hypothesis can be easily and cheaply tested: buy some nice normal
mushrooms and fry them in olive oil. Does the oil taste of mushrooms
afterwards?
(If you want to do it properly, carefully heat a few cups of olive oil with
mushrooms in it, let it simmer for half an hour and then let it cool
completely before draining.)
~~~
cmurf
I'm not suggesting there are no oil soluble materials in mushrooms. But just
because there are such materials does not mean there is any such thing as
"truffle oil" or "mushroom oil" in the same way there are nut, avocado, and
olive oils which are produce by extraction. To actually get truffle oil would
be insanely expensive and insofar as I'm aware, there's no evidence either the
flavor or smell we're interested in with truffles is even in its own (minimal)
fats.
~~~
semi-extrinsic
Well, "X oil" does not necessarily mean "oil made by pressing X", it can also
mean "oil infused with X". Case in point: chili oil, or "olio al peperoncino",
has been made in Italy for centuries and the name is not made up to confuse
consumers.
In fact, one can argue that the English language is really the problem here,
because it does not have prepositions like e.g. Italian has. In Italian, we
wouldn't be having this argument, because "olio al peperoncini" or "olio al
tartufo" are clearly in a different class of things from "olio di olivo" or
"olio di noce".
------
mmcclellan
If this is true of Truffle salt, then I have definitely fell for it before. At
least Wikipedia suggests truffle salt is not usually of synthetic origin
([https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Truffle_salt](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Truffle_salt))
------
anexprogrammer
TL;DR Why don't US consumers give a toss about consumer protection?
This comes up time and again on HN. Most recently Apple not recognising the
iPhone 6 faults. US consumer protections appear to be none existant. I've long
known things were more "relaxed" over there, but it seems relaxed to point of
no longer even basically functional.
What the hell happened since the start of the 20th C when there were efforts
both sides of the Atlantic to ensure that the food you buy is what it claims
to be, unadulterated and safe? That stemmed from widespread adulteration,
short measures, and often horrific safety.
Why are American consumers (Republicans included) not picketing and email
bombing the Whitehouse or Congress? Do you not want to buy what you expect
you're buying? Do you like paying expensive restaurants for Artisan food when
they apparently buy the lot from the nearest discount wholesaler?
UK has the Tory party, who also love the market as the solution to everything,
even what it patently cannot solve. Every now and then they suggest some
industry voluntary agreement, or to relax some aspect of labelling. These
ideas rarely hit statute, as the Tory voters are consumers too and don't want
safety to be simply handed to multinationals. It's going to lose them voters,
so we usually end up with something fairly acceptable. EU legislation helps
greatly on this too.
We had the piece about restaurants in the US recently. That gave the
impression restaurants able to lie to such an extent that the expensive
"organic locally sourced salmon" you order from the menu might be none of
those things.
If it were the UK, and you sold Truffle Oil containing no truffle, the
retailer has broken the law and would be liable to fines and recalls(usually
used for safety issues, or discovering beef isn;t). The retailer can then
claim against the supplier or manufacturer.
There are legally mandated amounts where you can name something Chocolate
Spread (min % choc), reduce it below and you end up in the band where you have
to call it Chocolate Flavoured Spread (As found in cheaper ranges). Keep going
to the point of no chocolate and you have to switch to "flavour" which can be
artificial flavourings (bottom of the heap discounters). Those wordings
correlate to whatever percentages or weights have been mandated.
Large retailers therefore test products for safety, legality, labelling before
first sale, and they'll periodically randomly check. When _this_ comes up,
Americans often claim this isn't possible, there's simply too much stuff.
Walmart (Asda) do it here, and if you look at supplier guidlines for any large
UK retailers they'll all have details of the testing process you as a supplier
are expected to meet.
We then have Trading Standards who randomly check products on sale for safety,
especially food, and including restaurants. Breach those rules and you can go
to prison, or have the business _closed._ They can, and do, test for the foods
being what are claimed, the presence of allergens, labelling and even whether
it's organic or not.
All is not perfect here, of course. The Conservatives reduced the number of
Trading Standards such that the public are at higher risk (not enough to go
around), and some labelling has minor loopholes such as get outs for country
of origin, and the assorted terms "farm fresh", "free range" and the like.
They sometimes don't legally mean what common sense and the public think they
do.
So if I buy a bottle of Truffle Oil here and it has none, I can sue Tesco (not
for very much I expect). Realistically I'd take it back for a refund, or more
sensibly send it to Trading Standard who can send a letter with legislative
force.
~~~
CannisterFlux
The US government want their scams to spread to Europe too with the
Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership. It is all due to "lobbying",
which is a politically correct way to say "bribing" in America. Corrupt US
politicians doing the bidding of those multinationals, screwing over the
general public. As usual.
With Brexit expect some of that EU legislation protection to disappear in
Britain too. Maybe you'll get greek yoghurt instead of greek-style yoghurt
now, though it might be neither Greek nor yoghurt ;-)
~~~
anexprogrammer
I don't much like the sound of any of the parts of TPP I've seen leaked.
I'm not a fan of Brexit, it's a silly idea. Doubly so if govt decide to start
fiddling with the best aspects of legislation (consumer, worker and human
rights protections). I imagine one of the tabloids would try and get a
campaign going if they wear things down too much.
Well I hope so - I'm happy to pay a bit extra for stuff in return for the
proections we have.
------
slr555
What I find interesting is that truffle oil is often denigrated for not
containing actual truffle based solely on this lack of authenticity. I have
eaten white truffles in Italy, black truffles and dishes with truffle oil.
From an anecdotal perspective, white truffles are damn good, black truffles
are pretty damn good and truffle oil can be a nice addition. As long as you're
not being defrauded, I say no harm, no foul.
Sometimes one wants to go whole hog and buy organic this and prime that and
create all components of a dish from scratch. And there are many time when one
simply wants an easy dish that tastes great and doesn't cost a mint.
To me the real confusion in truffedom is caused by truffles being funghi and
there also being chocolate truffles. That's just wrong.
------
veridies
Related question: where can I buy real truffles? I've had them in the past,
but I have no idea where I can buy them from, online or in person, that I can
trust the quality of. Anyone have any leads?
~~~
alfanick
if you like truffles you should try morels - awesome mushrooms IMO on par with
truffles
~~~
evincarofautumn
One morning in college, I was walking to class and saw a cluster of morels
growing near my apartment. I checked that they weren’t false morels, and
resolved to pick them after I got back from class.
I returned to find that the lawn had been mown, and those poor shrooms had
been blown to smithereens. :(
------
shanev
Not surprised. There are many products like this. Most commercial maple syrup
for example contain no actual maple syrup, just flavored corn syrup.
~~~
dec0dedab0de
Not in Vermont. [http://www.npr.org/2011/02/03/133456136/Vermont-To-
McDonalds...](http://www.npr.org/2011/02/03/133456136/Vermont-To-McDonalds-
Dont-Mess-With-Maple-Syrup)
------
aidenn0
> 2,4-dithiapentane
Now I know what to blame when my roommate pours a couple tablespoons of
truffle-oil on whatever it is she is cooking.
------
jheriko
i am not surprised at all.
a lot of this new fancy food type stuff is a scam... in most cases selling
inferior products and scams at higher prices.
"organic" means "not made with the benefit of modern developments in
agriculture" after all... i am stunned why people think this is a good thing.
noble savage "logic" perhaps?
------
dsego
Truffles kinda lose their appeal when you have two lagottos digging some up
every few days.
------
trufflexpert
Ok. They can grow truffles on a farm. In fact it was really big before the
world war. However it killed the price and after the war everyone had a
gentleman a agreement not to do it again.
~~~
sanj
[citation needed]
~~~
nkrisc
This Wikipedia article talks about cultivation of truffles:
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Truffle#Cultivation](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Truffle#Cultivation)
I can not attest to the veracity of the sources however. It also makes no
mention of a "gentlemen's agreement" to artificially inflate the prices of
truffles.
------
randrews
Also, duck sauce contains no duck.
~~~
NoGravitas
Duck sauce is a sauce you put on duck. Is truffle oil an oil you are supposed
to put on truffles?
------
MaxGabriel
The author's claim that truffle oil is just olive oil and and added scent
doesn't match up with my experiences. Truffle oil tastes totally different
from olive oil, and I don't like the flavor.
The oil being artificially flavored is much less of a con than not being any
different from olive oil.
~~~
chefandy
They didn't say it tasted no different from olive oil, they said it _was_
olive oil, with artificial flavoring added. Which is true. Tang is
artificially flavored water. That doesn't mean it's no different from water.
~~~
corin_
> " _Despite the name, most truffle oil does not contain even trace amounts of
> truffle; it is olive oil mixed with 2,4-dithiapentane, a compound that makes
> up part of the smell of truffles and is as associated with a laboratory as
> Californian food is associated with local and organic ingredients.
> Essentially, truffle oil is olive oil plus truffles’ “disconcerting” smell._
> "
That implies that (most) truffle oil is only different to olive oil in smell,
which is a big difference from oil that tastes of either real or artificial
truffel flavouring.
~~~
chefandy
Aside from differing levels in what you can directly sense with your tongue–
Sweet, Salty, Bitter, Sour, and Glutamates (umami), which we would all
consider to be 'seasoning' elements (not broaching the topic of different
chemical effects, such as with capsaicin)– the primary difference between any
two foods is how they smell, which is why when you have a totally blocking
cold, you can easily tell if something is too salty, but you couldn't say what
herbs were used in it.
Consider a lime lollipop and a cherry lollipop with the same ratio of sugar
base to whatever acid they were using for sourness. Going strictly by your
sense of taste, maybe because of Anosmia, they would be utterly
indistinguishable. The flavoring components, however, which really just give
the pops a scent, are what makes the lime one taste like lime, and the cherry
one taste like... whatever cherry lollipops are supposed to taste like. Our
brain combines the tongue sensations and smells (and arguably, its appearance,
mouthfeel and sound) to create our perception of something's 'flavor.'
This is why seasoning food, especially with salt, is important. It's not going
to change the intensity of the brownness of a steak, or the freshness of an
ear of corn, but it stimulates the tongue in a way that makes our brain much
more aware of what we're smelling. It turns up the volume on the existing
flavors, as if to say "hey! pay attention to what you're smelling, because
it's coming from what's in your mouth." (I imagine this evolved from a
combination of our need to seek nutrition, as well as our need to detect
poisons.) Lacking stimulation on your tongue, foods come across as flat and
uninteresting.
I'm sure our bathrooms would be designed very differently if our brains were
worse at making the distinction between what we're just smelling, and what was
in our mouths.
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
EMusic leaks email address to spammers - RiderOfGiraffes
My wife recently made a purchase from eMusic.com. According to our usual procedure she invented an email address unique to them for the registration. We are now getting around 100 spam a day to that email address:<p><pre><code> 2009/04/04 : 41
2009/04/05 : 30
2009/04/06 : 41
2009/04/07 : 35
2009/04/08 : 61
2009/04/09 : 65
2009/04/10 : 43
2009/04/11 : 85
2009/04/12 : 91
2009/04/13 : 95
2009/04/14 : 118
2009/04/15 : 116
2009/04/16 : 95
</code></pre>
No other email addresses have been compromised, so it isn't that our machine is infected by a worm or virus that's giving out addresses - it must be them. Besides, the purchase was made via a Linux machine.<p>Emails to their "service" department as listed on the "Use of Private Data" pages have gone unanswered. Clearly they either don't care, or are incompetent.<p>This is exactly why we use unique email addresses for every service we use - it's trivial now to spam bin them, but be warned.<p>Don't use an email address you care about with eMusic.com
======
XRaySpeX
Me too :(
2/3 years ago I started registering for free trial at Emusic and gave a UNIQUE
email addy on the 1st page. Then, when it started asking for my credit card, I
curtailed my application.
So, I wasn't even a member of emusic (couldn't log in as you would expect).
Yet, it obviously remembered my email addy and leaked it, as shortly after I
started to get spam addressed to this email addy that I used exclusively for
emusic.
I complained to them but a director replied denying that they had any security
breach.
For a couple of years I got the odd spam using this addy. However, in the past
few months I'm getting about 40/50 per day.
I'm not too concerned yet, as the spams are not very large and I can filter
them to delete from server without downloading them. I'm just a bit worried
that they are on the increase and could get larger and more of them to fill my
server mailbox.
These are not isolated instances, there are quite a few articles and blogs
about it. This is how I found here by googling "emusic spam"!
------
tjstankus
I hope this is not true, but it looks like you have pretty good evidence. I've
been a happy emusic subscriber for years. I don't mind spam so much only
because Gmail's filters are pretty good. But, I _do_ get quite a bit of it. >
1000 in my spambox right now. And it's totally uncool if emusic is responsible
for any of it. Upvoting in hopes this catches the attention of emusic. I might
even submit a support request with the link. I'd love to hear their side.
UPDATE: I submitted a support ticket with a link here.
~~~
RiderOfGiraffes
Imagine my domain name is OddName.com. The email address we gave them is
something like [email protected] where XX is the checksum of "emusic", and
that is the address to which spam is being sent.
I think the evidence is overwhelming.
I'd also love to hear their side of it, but given that they didn't bother to
reply to my email I suspect they either don't care, or don't accept my
evidence.
------
ErrantX
Was the email address one on a custom or little used domain?
Or on a "major" provider address (e.g. Yahoom, Gmail etc.).
I have set up MSN and Yahoo addresses in readiness for future use and started
getting spam to them within the space of a week :)
EDIT: what Im saying is a you making a big accusation. Something like that can
damage eMusic for good. If it's true then good - but there are other
explanations too.. which we should conasider first.
~~~
RiderOfGiraffes
The email was address was unmistakeably exactly the email address we gave
them. It is largely unguessable, of a specific form with the equivalent of a
checksum built in to it, and on our personal domain.
~~~
ErrantX
in which case I think you have a point :)
------
emusicspamhater
I have this with two email addresses I used which were unique to emusic. One
when I did a trial, one when I signed up. Both have now received thousands of
spam messages. I found this topic by doing a google search for 'emusic spam'.
It looks like this problem has been going on for years.
------
emusicsucks
Yes. Two email addresses I invented for emusic are now receiving all sorts of
spam. I own my own domain, so it's definitely the case that those addresses
were leaked.
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Nine new startups from TechStars -- from golf to Twitter to baby monitors - waderoush
http://www.xconomy.com/boston/2009/09/11/techstars-first-class-of-boston-startups-launched-at-microsoft-hosted-gala/
======
HeyLaughingBoy
I like HaveMyShift. I had a similar idea a few months ago when my wife was
trying to find someone to cover her shift at work because she was ill. It took
hours of calling and texting to find someone who was available and it occurred
to me that it would be a great idea for a webapp. I just never thought it
through to the point of how to monetize it.
Now they've got me thinking about it again :-)
~~~
vijayr
you see some app, and kick yourself, saying "why didn't I think of it first" -
this is one such app.
~~~
HeyLaughingBoy
Oh, I don't care that I didn't think of it first. What I care about is that
I'm thinking of it again, and it's still a viable business concept.
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Unlimited Influence: Sell Any Idea One On One - PeterWales
Jonathan DeCollibus is releasing a book called Unlimited Influence, I found out about it because I was forwarded a copy by accident. The main designer sent me the whole thing, I can provide a bootleg version if you guys want?
======
braunshizzle
Would be cool to grab a copy and check out..
------
trekky1700
That would be cool for sure!
~~~
PeterWales
okay, I'll figure out how to send it, I'm pretty new to this site
------
shawnk
I would love a copy!
------
anwaar
I would love one!
------
bmelton
Please don't. Aside from the obvious questionability from a moral perspective,
you could be setting yourself up for fines, penalties, law suits or jail time.
Ignoring whether or not copyright violations are morally good or bad, they are
most certainly illegal in this country. Whether or not you feel comfortable
engaging in such behavior on your own is nobody else's choice to make, but I
would respectfully request that you don't do so publicly on HN, possibly
subjecting others to legal woes.
Also, for what it's worth -- not sure if this is a guerrilla marketing tactic
or not, but the book is currently available for free on Amazon either way, and
perfectly legal:
[http://www.amazon.com/Unlimited-Influence-Sell-Any-Idea-
eboo...](http://www.amazon.com/Unlimited-Influence-Sell-Any-Idea-
ebook/dp/B00HB89MRG/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1387270346&sr=8-1&keywords=jonathan+decollibus)
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Nearly half of American workers have low-wage jobs - howard941
https://www.knoe.com/content/news/Report-Nearly-half-of-American-workers-have-low-wage-jobs-565741211.html
======
mnm1
Not only have our minimum wage laws not been updated to realistic levels,
neither has the poverty level. Half of Americans are indeed too poor to
support themselves. They are not even making what the minimum wage should be
and should get government assistance. Hard to keep calling America a developed
country when easily half of its population cannot support itself and most of
that half is not supported by the government. Definitely can't call that
democratic either.
------
elicash
From the union discussion the other day, one thing that always struck me was
how weird it was that more conservatives don't encourage labor unions in the
private sector.
I'd have thought, since fundamentally union membership is about private
contracts between employers and a group of workers, that conservatives would
see it as an alternative to government stepping in and setting up minimum
wages.
If we had friendlier labor laws and we allowed more groups of workers to
organize, the need for the federal government to step in with wage floors
would decrease and, importantly, there would be more flexibility for employers
AND employees -- like instead of paying above a certain minimum wage both
sides could agree to more generous healthcare and/or retirement packages.
~~~
Miner49er
Modern conservationism in the United States is, by definition, anti-union. [1]
This sort of political view aligns more with libertarian socialism,
specifically in ideas like syndicalism.
[1]
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Conservatism_in_the_United_Sta...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Conservatism_in_the_United_States)
~~~
elicash
Your comment is an interesting one, so not trying to disagree, but...
Modern conservatism is not so well-defined. I'd say "conservatism" is best
defined by the values of people who call themselves conservative, not by
political theorists. And that therefore that it's more partisan and tribal
than ideological.
------
pysxul
there is a big lack of information in theses poor written 20 lines, and
probably misleading on purpose.
\- Are theses low-wage jobs only considering full time jobs? \- What about
student jobs? \- If some people have multiple part-time jobs but all of them
individually fall under the median annual wages of $18,000, then they are
increasing the statistics
~~~
elicash
Students and part time workers are in fact people and should be counted as
such for their work.
If you were just asking for additional context in the article, that's one
thing, but this is certainly not "misleading."
------
dxemy
What is arguably more appalling, is the fact that half of American workers,
earn less than the average,
~~~
Miner49er
Only 30% of people make more than the average.
------
ChrisLomont
For perspective, 18k a year in the US puts a person in the top 5% of income
worldwide.
[http://www.globalrichlist.com/](http://www.globalrichlist.com/)
~~~
defertoreptar
[https://www.washingtonpost.com/graphics/2018/business/global...](https://www.washingtonpost.com/graphics/2018/business/global-
income-calculator/)
This is saying it puts you in the 67th percentile when adjusting for
purchasing power, which is still saying a lot.
~~~
ChrisLomont
It says that for a 3 person household. For a single income, it puts you above
90%, eerily similar to the data I presented :)
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Any bad experiences with Y combinator? - bluekite2000
Seems like everyone I talked to or post I read loves it. Is there no negative experience? If there is, please share.
======
pg
We surveyed the founders after the last batch. Their main gripes were:
1\. There aren't enough social events, especially early in the cycle. So we're
adding more.
2\. Founders were surprised how harsh our feedback was at times. We may be
able to be more diplomatic. But I think the fundamental problem is that this
is a domain where, so far at least, many participants fail. So if you're
truthful, you're often going to be delivering bad news.
3\. The speakers got swarmed after talks, because there were some founders who
schmoozed with all the speakers as a matter of course, instead of giving
priority to others with specific reasons to talk to that speaker. We have a
plan to fix this.
4\. The acoustics in the orange room are a disaster. When the room's full of
people talking you have to yell to be heard. Kate is having a huge sound-
absorbing curtain made to fix this.
5\. It's too inflexible that office hour slots are exactly 25 minutes.
Different problems need varying amounts of time. So we'll make the slots
adjustable.
6\. Founders wanted a more organized way of getting and sharing feedback about
specific investors, so we're going to build something for that.
7\. We have to start teaching founders about fundraising earlier in the cycle,
because investors are approaching them earlier.
~~~
Aqua_Geek
_2\. Founders were surprised how harsh our feedback was at times. We may be
able to be more diplomatic. But I think the fundamental problem is that this
is a domain where, so far at least, many participants fail. So if you're
truthful, you're often going to be delivering bad news._
Disclaimer: I don't have YC experience.
In school, my classmates and I too often experienced the opposite kind of
feedback: pat on the back, great job, I thought it was fantastic, etc. What
little criticism was given usually came in the format of a "compliment
sandwich."
Although praise is nice, in general I find that being nice to avoid
confrontation or to prevent hurt feelings only promotes complacency and lack
of (personal) growth. Not to mention if you tell me something was great when I
know it sucks, you've lost all credibility with me.
Don't sugar coat it - I have a pretty good general idea of what's working. I
find honest feedback more helpful.
~~~
nicholasjbs
_Don't sugar coat it - I have a pretty good general idea of what's working. I
find honest feedback more helpful._
pg's brutally honest feedback was actually one of my favorite parts of YC.
It's wonderfully refreshing.
------
bhousel
This isn't a place where you would get an unbiased review of the YCombinator
experience.
I have seen some mixed reviews of YCombinator on <http://thefunded.com>. Or
you can search for other sites that compare various funds and accelerator
programs. Each have their pros and cons, and you shouldn't expect any one
program to be perfect for all startups.
~~~
SteveMorin
Well <http://thefunded.com> may not be the most unbiased since it runs
founders institute. Just like this isn't going to be the most unbiased crowd
for YC.
A recent email sent out by them to Alumni of the program claimed over a 192
companies world wide. You should also know that it's a different model and you
pay to be in the program.
Personally I believe in the YC model and think they have a much better
network.
------
dotBen
I've not had a negative experience with YC because I've chosen not to apply,
for a specific 'complaint'/'issue' with the program. Not sure if that falls
within your interest for this request, so apologies if not.
First off, I want to just say thatI think YC is a very good program for
younger developers and/or those who know the problem space they want to
develop in but haven't quite worked out the firm business model.
However, my negative experience with the program is that I think the funding
for the equity you give away is a very poor deal for founders. $20k/$6k a
founder doesn't last long and it seems to me that you could raise similar/more
money on much better terms elsewhere.
Sure, you get the incubator program as the 'meat' of the investment but it's
like saying working at Google is best because you get the wonderful free
lunches... I can get better job + pay elsewhere and sort out the lunches on my
own (read: where 'lunch' is the network, connections, feedback on my startup,
that YC offers... others can provide that too etc).
I'm expecting this will get down voted because most people here are very pro
YC. I am too, I even went to Startup School last weekend. I just wouldn't want
to take funding at YC over other angel and seed routes at a better valuation
(or even better, delay valuation entirely and take a note instead).
~~~
davidbalbert
The money is probably the least valuable thing we've gotten out of YC. When we
came here, we had no network and no connections to the valley. As part of YC,
we've gotten:
1) Contacts - we can sit down with just about anyone we can think of.
2) Alumni - the YC alumni network is pretty huge and the alums have been super
helpful. We've gotten advice, design feedback, encouragement when we were
having darker days, and we've used them as product guinea pigs.
3) Brand name - being able to say "We're a YC company" makes people instantly
pay attention to you.
4) Advice - yc has seen a whole bunch of startups. They were able to to save
us from going down a bunch of bad paths, even when we didn't want their
advice. It's hard to quantify, but I feel like I have a better understanding
of how to build something that people will actually use because of yc.
4) A support structure - Office hours with pg, jl, harj, et al are
indispensable. These are now available to us forever.
Before getting accepted into yc, my cofounder and I had a bunch of discussions
about how much of the company we were willing to give up. We were nervous and
thought the upper bound (around 10%) seemed really high. In retrospect 10%
would have been a totally reasonable price to pay for what we've gotten in
return.
~~~
dotBen
_When we came here, we had no network and no connections to the valley_
Do you think that translates to "YC is more optimal if you are not currently
located in the Valley"?
BTW: what is your startup, it's not in your profile!
~~~
davidbalbert
I think it was even more helpful considering we weren't already in the valley,
but I think most of the benefits apply even if you are already here. This is
from asking much more established co's. FWIW we were coming from NYC.
Our startup is HireHive. Totally forgot to put it in the profile.
------
tlrobinson
I feel like you're going to run into a bit of a selection bias on Hacker
News...
I know many founders of YC companies that ended up not being successful but
I've never heard serious complaints from any of them. Some of them have even
gone on to do YC again.
------
aepstein
The YC experience is what you make of it. They're there to help whenever you
need it/ask for it, and they don't pressure you to do anything you don't want
to do.
------
stealthdude
It would be counter-productive to say anything bad about seed investors who
own 10% of your company, on their news website.
~~~
geuis
Completely the opposite. I've been on HN for several years and am currently
applying to YC with a cofounder. Having had the pleasure of meeting pg this
past weekend I would say that both he and YC are very open to legitimate
criticisms when they arise. YC is all about helping startups to succeed,
because if they do then so does YC.
~~~
pclark
I would like to think if someone were criticizing my baby they'd email me to
discuss first.
------
answerly
I've never heard of a negative YC experience either. I'd guess I've met at
least one founder from roughly 40% of all YC startups. This includes some
companies that have failed or been absorbed into other YC startups.
YC was/is certainly an amazing experience for us.
~~~
tptacek
I can't track it down right now, but there were allusions made on HN awhile
ago about at least one person who wasn't thrilled with the program. I'm pretty
sure there aren't _no_ bad experiences.
That said, I've gotten to talk to a lot of people who have done YC now, and
everyone _I've_ talked to --- against pointed questions from me! --- has been
thrilled with it.
------
_delirium
There was a bit of discussion about a month ago, but nothing really came up:
<http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1688972>
------
serverdude
Did anyone here make it to the interview round and then get rejected? I wonder
what the %age is of folks who make it to the interview stage.
~~~
dzlobin
IIRC, they invited ~90 companies? And given the last few class sizes we know
they accepted ~35?
I could be off so feel free to correct those numbers
~~~
serverdude
Thanx. Any clue how many total applications out of which 90 made it?
~~~
dzlobin
Just gave this estimate in another thread:
<http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1808263>
~~~
serverdude
cool - thanx! The first stage seems like a killer one!:)
------
facebookChina
I guess there are quite a few negative experiences. Esp those that were
rejected by Y Combinator.
I think Y Combinator is over-rated- atleast now (I am attracting downvotes-Go
ahead)
Their startups havent had really big exits, so far.Once they do,things might
change.
~~~
tptacek
If anything, the valuation of a YC session has to have risen over the past
couple years, because the alumni network is so huge. Meanwhile, the YC terms
don't appear to have gotten less favorable. This point pretty much has to be
the opposite of true.
(NB: and I'm a YC skeptic).
~~~
revorad
Why are you a YC skeptic? Is it their investment model or the kind of
companies they fund or something else?
------
BANSAL
I'll not say it's bad experience but not so many responses :(
<http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1772675>
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Show HN: Mobile CSS Stylesheet for Hacker News - filipmandaric
http://pastebin.com/KcFjaMtP
======
filipmandaric
I visited Hacker News today on my phone and noticed that the site is not
mobile friendly. There are some homespun mobile versions around the web, but
they don't seem kosher. So I decided to take a break and entertain myself with
the challenge of "mobilizing" Hacker News with its existing HTML!
To my front end developer brethren, paste this code at the end of news.css in
Chrome, squish the viewport to a <768px width, and you should see the site
mobile friendly. Feel free to edit this code and post your own version with
any bugfixes or improvements I might have missed. Other comments, general
discussion on mobile CSS, and any anecdotes about the pain of retroactively
mobilizing websites are welcome too. ;-)
Also, the site HTML may not be perfect (tables...), but I think it'd be great
to get some form of this code actually deployed on the site so we can browse
on our phones, upvote please!
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Kent Beck and Don Reinertsen on Value of Storytelling - skmurphy
http://www.skmurphy.com/blog/2014/05/06/kent-beck-and-don-reinertsen-on-value-of-storytelling/
======
skmurphy
A twitter exchange from Dec-2013 after both had presented a the 2013 Lean
Startup Conference
Kent Beck: The beauty of teaching through storytelling is that the listeners’
lessons aren’t limited by the storyteller’s imagination.
Donald Reinertsen: And, as in the old story of a donkey carrying a load of
books, the payload can sometimes be more sophisticated than the narrator.
Kent Beck: Good thing I don’t mind being a donkey :)
Donald Reinertsen: I rather enjoy it. Such moments permit one to
unintentionally deliver an unexpected, and unreasonable, amount of value.
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Has Capitalism Reached a Turning Point? - DocFeind
http://www.forbes.com/sites/stevedenning/2014/09/26/has-capitalism-reached-a-turning-point/
======
573f
I have long believed that capitalism is fundamentally flawed. It is a system
that was designed when the world seemed endless. There were always new lands
to discover (and exploit) and new markets to conquer. Capitalism is based on
the idea that growth is always possible. Your investments will, on average,
provide a return through increased value.
But, we now know that the Earth is essentially a closed system. There is a
finite amount of energy available. What happens when a system based on
constant growth runs out of room to grow?
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
CipherCloud Responds to the Crypto StackExchange Controversy - signifiers
http://blog.ciphercloud.com/responding-to-the-myths-about-cipherclouds-encryption-technology/
======
tptacek
Weasel wording filter:
Graf 1, sentence 1: "a few board threads" -> Internet's current most important
programming forum.
Graf 1, sentence 1: "contributed to by our competitors" -> Smoke screen,
unsupported, irrelevant.
Graf 2, sentence 2: "basically admitted they really didn't know the facts" ->
Because the facts weren't provided, the contributors set about reversing them
from published material, the point of the thread.
Graf 3, sentence 4: "does use publicly available, well researched, and NIST
validated cryptographic algorithms" -> Virtually all cryptography anywhere can
make a similar claim, and most of that code is broken. NIST validates
primitives and a few basic constructions, but tying those primitives into a
functional cryptosystem is outside their purview.
Graf 4, sentence 1: "for any customer deployments" -> Leaves open the question
of whether they implement semantically insecure constructions in any setting.
Graf 5, sentence 2: "fundamental security features (full field encryption,
randomization through IVs) were disabled" -> Randomized encryption isn't a
feature, it's a fundamental property of a cryptographic construction.
Graf 6, sentence 1: "currently in the process of obtaining our FIPS 140-2
certification" -> FIPS 140-2 doesn't involve a rigorous analysis of
cryptographic primitives; the crypto-specific components focus on use of NIST-
approved ciphers and block modes, but do not assure that those primitives are
used securely. To illustrate that point: every vulnerable version of SSL3 and
TLS1.0 and TLS1.1 has had a FIPS-compliant implementation somewhere.
They should just be honest about their desire to suppress the use of their
copyrighted IP in critiques of their product. They're in a competitive space,
they're a small company, hard to manage their online reputation _and_ build
product, &c. The Reddit/HN/Stack Overflow scene wouldn't like that response,
but it's better than this one, which actually creates more questions about
their product capabilities.
~~~
TillE
> their desire to suppress the use of their copyrighted IP in critiques of
> their product
Which is a textbook case of fair use. They may _want_ to do that, but legally,
they almost certainly can't.
~~~
zapdrive
An example needs to be set. They should be sued for issuing a DMCA notice in
bad faith.
~~~
rdl
I'm curious who has standing. One of the people who posted/commented in the
original thread? A user who wanted to learn about CipherCloud? StackExchange
itself?
~~~
zapdrive
I think it should be StackExchange. I wouldn't mind pooling in for legal fees,
if they start a fund or something.
------
rdl
This is a good example of bad legal/PR turning a company from a fairly well
respected new security company to a joke.
Tokenization, which CipherCloud does, could actually be done fairly securely
if you had a decent amount of local storage. They IIRC use a FIPS HSM for
local key storage in their local appliance (I talked to one of their founders
as a security event a year or two ago and was initially suspicious of their
claims, but it seemed adequate for certain use cases based on how they were
using it -- maybe things have changed). It's fundamentally not too different
from when Stripe gives you a user key vs. PCI information.
Basically, if you can correctly identify certain fields as sensitive and
others as not, and force all your traffic through a proxy, you could do
totally unrelated random tokens in fields, and then do search locally on the
appliance, rather than on the untrusted service. E.g. if you wanted to use
Salesforce, but keep customer addresses secret (because they were super-
confidential government sites or meth labs or something), you could still put
names in Salesforce and do everything else, but just put a random string in
for addresses; do address searches on the proxy, either going from single
record to address or maybe even "give me all the records in Missouri". There
is no magic here. Someone could do an open source implementation for any
specific site (via scraping or a public API) easily. The difficulty is doing
it for many sites, and keeping it updated, supporting it, and selling it to
fortune 500.
I don't know if they've been pushed to do stupid stuff, or if they just have
horrible marketing/PR now (which is weird since they raised a fuckton of VC),
or what.
~~~
pchowdhry
Agreed, no magic here. I rolled a quick version using Squid and greasy spoon.
Got it to work on SFDC and Gmail inside of a day. Using tags around the
encrypted content and regex you could then feed the content into the
decryption engine. Search works, etc. You could even using a unique IV per
user to add a level of security, but it is by no means rock solid. It would
however address some of the frequency analysis concerns, since if the
encryption (tokenization??) was cracked it would only reveal the contents for
a single user. That would work for the gmail side, but doing in in SFDC is a
whole other issue, and unless the have some Harry Potter stuff going on, is
likely huff and puff.
~~~
rdl
Maybe the correct response here is an open source version of CipherCloud,
built on open/published principles (to make it easy to verify the level of
security provided).
~~~
pchowdhry
I would be happy to post my code, but honestly the process is so
embarrassingly simple, I'm sure other could do it better. Setting up the squid
proxy with SSL bump was more difficult than the code, as there are some great
libraries out there. Using a reverse proxy and Icap server, you need to parse
all content using something like jsoup (regex if you really wanna hack). Jsoup
grabs the element and you then run it through a great encryption library like
bouncy castle you then add some unique identifiers arounds it (! __!) so that
you can decrypt it using simple parsing to get the encrypted content. Plop it
back into the content using your trusty greasy spoon. And walla magic! All
persisted data is encrypted. When data is pulled out you simply parse for the
unique tag, and then run it through the decryption side. There are a number of
things that you can do to increase the security of this implementation, with a
little tweaking it works for searching, and the such, so gmail is no problem.
An app like SFDC with joins between records would be significantly more
difficult to do properly. Doing it improperly is trivial, as you could just
just all of the same keys and IVs per org (the unit of work in SFDC).
------
zapdrive
This is total BS. How is posting a few screen-grabs from their publicly
available video a violation of their copyright? Isn't it considered fair use?
I was expecting more on the lines of "we are sorry for the whole fiasco, our
legal team acts independently whenever it feels like there is a violation",
instead of him defending the DMCA. They used DMCA to try and censor a debate
about their lies. Talking about DMCA, is it just me, or does anybody else
think that government is always eager to pass copyright protection (aka
censorship) laws, rather than passing laws to protect the citizens from
corporate greed?
~~~
wmf
That's what the citizens get when they don't hire lobbyists.
~~~
zapdrive
So how can this be fixed?
~~~
betterunix
Stop voting for politicians who have proved themselves to be servants of
lobbyists and corporations, start voting for these guys:
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Third_party_%28United_States%2...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Third_party_%28United_States%29)
~~~
zapdrive
Whats the guarantee these guys won't sell out?
~~~
unabridged
The price of democracy is vigilance. They should know the same movement that
swept them into office will gladly sweep them out if they cross the line.
~~~
zapdrive
How effectively is the Right to Recall implemented in USA?
------
gfosco
May be honest, it's just very convenient. "That demo we have on our site to
show off the technology? It's really crippled and doesn't actually show off
the technology... We promise the real thing actually works! Oh, you want to
hear about the DMCA takedown? That was just our legal team, you know how they
can be!"
~~~
zapdrive
And oh, about the forums.. it was just a bunch of jealous competitors trying
to put us down.
~~~
hluska
That was my "favourite" part of the whole message.
------
pchowdhry
I'm a little confused about not wanting to disclose IP during a patent
process. Isn't that what the patent process is designed to do? Disclose a
novel invention, and have it (among other things) vetted for prior art. They
say these patents are pending, in which case, shouldn't they be searchable?
Has anyone found them? I did an albeit cursory search and couldn't find
anything. I'd like to give these guys the benefit of the doubt as they are
funded by a16z, but the lack of information is troubling.
------
bbatchelder
Link to the Crypto StackExchange thread:
[http://crypto.stackexchange.com/questions/3645/how-is-
cipher...](http://crypto.stackexchange.com/questions/3645/how-is-ciphercloud-
doing-homomorphic-encryption)
------
earlz
Favorite line in the whole thing "Some of the fundamental security features
made available (e.g. full field encryption, randomization through IVs, etc.)
were disabled because we were not comfortable sharing such IP on the internet
while our patents are still pending"
So, apparently they are going to be patenting padding/randomization in
encryption and "full field encryption". Our patent system at work for obvious
things.
~~~
c0ur7n3y
Sigh. The whole supposed purpose of patents is to encourage disclosure of the
invention.
------
zapdrive
> A couple of recent discussions in a few board threads contributed to by our
> competitors have questioned CipherCloud’s approach to delivering cloud
> information protection.
My BS meter is running high.
~~~
pi18n
You might want to recalibrate it; the mercury should have burst the tube at
this point. Searching encrypted data is impossible without fully homomorphic
encryption and fully homomorphic encryption is wildly impractical for use at
present.
"Contributed to by our competitors" -- if that's the case, the competitors are
giving informative SO answers about crypto. Whereas they are engaging in
censorious shenanigans. I, for one, prefer the "competitors'" contributions.
~~~
betterunix
"Searching encrypted data is impossible without fully homomorphic encryption"
That is not true; a private information retrieval protocol can be used to
search encrypted data:
[https://ieeexplore.ieee.org/xpls/abs_all.jsp?arnumber=568331...](https://ieeexplore.ieee.org/xpls/abs_all.jsp?arnumber=5683316&tag=1)
You could also use an oblivious RAM, although I do not think that is practical
yet:
<http://eprint.iacr.org/2010/366.pdf>
~~~
pi18n
Don't those require that the client actually do the searching? (I couldn't
devote enough time to read them now, so I only read the abstracts. Thank you,
by the way, for sending the links; this kind of stuff is really interesting.)
To be specific I mean a second party being able to search the data for
arbitrary strings would mean the security of it was broken completely, and I
thought this service was storing and searching without client input.
~~~
betterunix
I am not really sure what it is that CipherCloud provides or even claims to
provide; it looks like a big pile of buzzwords but few details. I am not sure
what sort of a service would be searching ciphertexts without _some_ input
from the client -- at the very least, the service will need to know _what_ to
search for.
You are correct that the PIR and ORAM protocols involve the client performing
some of the work of the search. The point is that the client does not need to
store or scan the entire database (for ORAMs there is usually a one-time setup
that involves scanning the database, but this can be viewed as "uploading" the
data to the server; this may not be acceptable for all use-cases). With FHE,
the client will perform less work, but still has to at least encrypt its query
and decrypt the result. However, FHE is still many years from practicality,
whereas PIR is practical now (but maybe not for database search) and ORAMs are
nearly practical.
------
rys
10 links to their own website in that post. Not even links to other content,
just root links. I feel bad not having much more to add because I don't really
understand their technology, but that really stood out.
Probably some auto highlighter running amok.
------
lwf
looking at the page in Google's cache, it looks like they have a bunch of spam
on their site :)
[https://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache%3Ablog...](https://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache%3Ablog.ciphercloud.com%2Fresponding-
to-the-myths-about-cipherclouds-encryption-
technology%2F&aq=f&oq=cache%3Ablog.ciphercloud.com%2Fresponding-to-the-myths-
about-cipherclouds-encryption-
technology%2F&aqs=chrome.0.57j58.845j0&sourceid=chrome&ie=UTF-8)
"A couple of recent discussions in a few board threads contributed to by our
competitors have questioned CipherCloud’s small online payday loans. same day
payday loans. easy online payday loan. direct lender payday loans online.
approach to delivering cloud information protection."
~~~
dchest
Looks like your usual WordPress malware.
------
Finster
Looks like they stand firmly behind their DMCA takedown. EFF should slap them
with a trout, as far as I'm concerned.
------
zapdrive
Here is a link to the DMCA notice, in case anyone cares. Its not just a DMCA
notice, it contains claims against slander and defamation too.
<http://www.pdf-archive.com/2013/04/20/notice130419/>
~~~
danbruc
»CipherCloud's product is NOT deterministic.« No, really, it is not. They say
it three times. Who has not at least once dreamed of having your data
processed by a non-deterministic system?
~~~
edmccard
I think they are claiming that they are not using deterministic encrpytion[1],
which can be used to allow searches of encrypted data, not that their software
is "non-deterministic".
[1] <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Deterministic_encryption>
EDIT: Or maybe you know that and I missed the joke.
~~~
danbruc
I know the difference between probabilistic and deterministic encryption but I
did not think of it at the time I read the PDF and posted the comment. »[Our]
product is NOT deterministic.« instead of »Our encryption algorithm is not
deterministic.« tricked my brain into visualizing their software as a random
number generator. So it is good that you point that out, I misinterpreted
their statement.
------
TranceMan
Coral cache version as site seems to be struggling already:
[http://blog.ciphercloud.com.nyud.net/responding-to-the-
myths...](http://blog.ciphercloud.com.nyud.net/responding-to-the-myths-about-
cipherclouds-encryption-technology/)
~~~
shabble
Due to a malicious denial of service attack, likely by our competitors, in
which they leverage forum-promulgated references, which through human-mediated
multiple hyper-text transfer protocol requests to our blog hosting
infrastructure, attempt to access proprietary information about our strategic
positioning viz a viz current nonpositive media attention,
we are unable to provide this patent pending document at this time.
Our legal department will be shortly dispatching a DMCA infringement notice to
all parties "mirroring" our content as a sign of our ongoing commitment to
protecting our valuable intellectual properties against these thieves and
scoundrels.
If you should encounter any further difficulties with our information
dissemination services, please sign the following non-disclosure agreement[1]
and affix the supplied Fedex label to your firstborn. We aim to respond to all
communications within 6 working months, as part of our Quality Commitment
Assurance.
[1] Whilst blood is preferred, red ink will suffice.
------
DanBC
> _Service Temporarily Unavailable_
> _The server is temporarily unable to service your request due to maintenance
> downtime or capacity problems. Please try again later._
Everything they do is destroying their reputation. Unfortunately, only among a
few people who would have been suspicious anyway.
~~~
hluska
If you're interested in seeing what's left of their reputation, take a look at
Google's cache of their page. Looks like some malware:
[http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:http://...](http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:http://blog.ciphercloud.com/responding-
to-the-myths-about-cipherclouds-encryption-technology/)
------
darkarmani
> A couple of recent discussions in a few board threads contributed to by our
> competitors have questioned CipherCloud’s approach to
...DMCA takedown requests.
------
pessimizer
"All of our customers, that I know of, have selected our solution as the
recognized standard for cloud information protection after a thorough
evaluation, testing, and scrutiny of our product’s design and implementation
by _their cryptographers_ and key management experts."
If you had to guess, how many of CipherCloud's customers do you think keep
cryptographers on staff?
------
danbruc
I see no way this could ever work the way they want and still be secure. They
have two conflicting requirements - strongly encrypting the data and not
breaking the functionality of third party applications operating on this data,
that is making the encryption transparent to a (sub)set of operations (not
under their control).
It is feasible to strongly encrypt all data but you have to make sure that you
do not accidentally implement ECB mode or something similar when using a
common block cipher like AES. So you definitely want a unique IV for every
piece of data you encrypt. But now you have also broken all server-side
functionality because (almost) no useful operation will produce the expected
result when operating on encrypted data. Client-side functionality is no
problem because it only sees decrypted data.
Therefore they (have to) make compromises. Actually the user has to make the
compromise - keep some data unencrypted or lose the server-side functionality.
This is most prominent in the demos with numeric data that needs to be
aggregated, averaged and what not. Actually it would be not to easy to encrypt
this numeric data because you have to preserve the format including limits and
disallowed values or otherwise the server would reject some values.
What about the infamous text fields? They are probably the easiest to encrypt
but you still have to be careful not to break validation rules, for example by
making the encrypted text much longer or making an e-mail regular upset (but I
bet most applications perform only client-side validation). But this again
makes the third-parts application a lot less useful because you lost the
ability to search in your textual data. The problem to solve is the following
one (with some minor details ignored).
text.contains(searchText) == encrypt(text).contains(doSomething(searchText))
I - not being a cryptography expert - can not think of a way to get this
working without leaking information and CipherCloud's solution as discussed on
Stack Exchange definitively leaks a lot of information. This is really a very
tough problem. (Probably) not even homomorphic encryption would help because
you have no control over the comparison method - it is plain old substring
search, maybe case insensitive and that's it. It is solvable using private
information retrieval in the relaxed case when you have control over the
comparison operation but with substring search it is probably to hard (if you
want to keep the cipher text length similar to the plain text length).
------
Zarathust
I didn't follow this story. Where can I find more information about this
"Controversy"?
~~~
betterunix
Basically, someone called out CipherCloud on apparently bogus claims about
what they provide (homomorphic encryption). CipherCloud responded with DMCA
takedown notices. Now they are trying to explain their actions, with a lot of
"trust us, we are only hiding the crypto details because we need to maintain a
competitive advantage!"
~~~
tveita
One correction: I don't think CipherCloud have actually claimed to do
homomorphic encryption - at least I can't find any such statement on their web
site. That was an assumption on the part of the StackExchange user.
It would be hard for them to make a security guarantee that isn't bogus, if
the screenshots from their demo is an accurate representation of their
technology, but they don't appear to have made this particular fraudulent
statement.
------
L0j1k
"We are terrible at putting out fires" is what I read here. And that's not a
quality I want in a service provider...
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Introducing TrailerMatic.com - jtokash
http://blog.briangreenbaum.com/introducing-trailermaticcom
======
Game_Ender
I like trailers but they are not all created equal. The longest trailer,
released close to the release of a movie, is usually spoiler ridden. It will
contain shots from every important scene, each action sequence/set piece, the
crucial plot twist moment, and all the good effects shots and props. They take
much of the awe and surprise out of seeing a movie.
The 30-60 second teaser trailers seem to be much better. They still get you
interested, but don't try to actually hide things, and leave you wanting more.
~~~
jtokash
I'm pretty lucky. I usually forget most of the trailer content before I
actually see a movie.
------
siculars
First, this is really cool. Grats for putting it together. Next, I would say
that this falls into a category of app that I like to call "Discovery". There
is just so much content of every flavor out there that Discovery apps will
carve out an entire niche for every niche of people out there. Have you
thought about adding a log in that would allow people to simply click +(more)
or -(less) for each item presented? Thereby allowing you to hone your
recommendations...
~~~
BrianMatch
Thanks for the complements! I like the idea of helping the user hone in on a
set that better matches their preference, while keeping the interface clean
and uncluttered. I was going to add a simple genre filter, but I might
experiment with an opaque filter based on +'s and -'s.
------
atldev
It works great. In fact, it recommends such good movies that I'm almost
guaranteed to have seen them many times already. Ferris, Outlaw Josie Wales,
Back to the Future. All are perfect picks for me, but it might be neat to add
a few lesser known selections. I find myself keeping a google doc of movie
recommendations from reddit threads, then renting when I have the time. Found
Primer this way.
~~~
BrianMatch
I'm looking for more hidden gems to add to the site. Besides Primer, does
anyone have any other good recommendations?
~~~
CrazedGeek
Would you happen to have a list of the movies available?
And just a few recs (not really 'hidden', per se): Moon, Pi, Soylent Green,
The Producers (2006), and Thank You for Smoking.
------
BrianMatch
For convenience, here's a link to the TrailerMatic app:
<http://www.trailermatic.com/>
------
callil
I'd love to be able to save for later. Also, a link to imdb or a similar movie
db would be nice too.
great start but too many 80s movies!
------
siculars
How do you know if these movies are available on Netflix? (no, I haven't
checked to see if netflix has an api for this)
~~~
mbenjaminsmith
They do. <http://instantwatcher.com/> is built on it. It allows you to pick
based on rottentomatoes.com ratings or NY Times picks. There's a random button
as well if you're feeling lucky.
------
joedev
Neat idea. It would be great to be able to only show trailers of movies
available on Netflix.
~~~
BrianMatch
The developer here. You can if you go to this modified URL:
<http://www.trailermatic.com/?netflix_only=true>. I'll eventually make
filtering easily available through the UI.
~~~
jtokash
Another nice feature would be to filter on Amazon Prime Unlimited.
------
ale55andro
what a nice simple app. I like it!
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
SimCity traffic AI is why services and traffic are broken - ry0ohki
http://answers.ea.com/t5/Miscellaneous-Issues/Traffic-quot-AI-quot-This-is-why-services-and-traffic-are-broken/m-p/737060#U737060[
======
ripperdoc
Glassbox engine has been shown as a challenging and CPU-sucking way of solving
the simulation. I'd love for it to actually work, but is it really so
difficult/resource intensive to solve the problem? In old SimCities one could
click a house and see which route that invididual worker would take, e.g. a
(permanent?) mapping between worker and job, student and school, etc. Of
course, then the actual traffic simulation in previous SimCities was just
crap. Why couldn't an agent based system work, just that you keep in memory
for each agent where they belong and where they go? And then at regular
intervals (every few game days or so), randomize some of those mappings to
create people moving, jobs changing, etc. Is it that the path-finder is too
resource demanding if every agent has a pre-defined destination, and much less
taxing if just picking random targets?
------
sturmeh
This is a link to a thread in a forum, not any official statement from EA.
(For those who may be a little confused at first.)
------
ImprovedSilence
haha WOW. I haven't played many Sims since the early ones, but that sounds
pretty bad/1998esq level of effort.... Did any of the previous Sim Cities have
any level of intelligence above this?
~~~
wmf
AFAIK the earlier versions had coarser simulation which paradoxically tended
to produce more realistic results. The new SimCity appears to have a sort of
"uncanny valley" level of simulation which is both highly detailed yet not
detailed enough to work properly.
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Ask HN: What are best practice approaches for cross-platform projects? - TheCabin
I am interested in starting a project that runs on desktop (Linux, MacOS, Windows) and mobile (Android, iOS, mainly aiming and tablets). The final application has a GUI with standard components (ListViews, Buttons, etc) and maybe some less standard components (NodeView / TreeView). It will need to access local storage.<p>Are there good technology stacks to accomplish this, offering maximal code-reuse and minimal overhead?<p>The programming language doesn’t matter at all (C++, Haxe, Kotlin, JS, Python...) productivity is what I am looking for.<p>tldr:
A while ago I wanted to do something similar and ended up using Electron + React (with a library for components). While web-technologies are platform-independent in principle, setting up the project to run on different devices was no fun at all. Also, the library for components wasn’t stable and my code was super hard to maintain. I am getting the impression that web technology libraries (offering basic components such as drop-down menus) come and go and don’t provide a reliable base for applications. I have limited time to work on open-source projects, so if setting up the applications requires an investment of a week already, then I’ll rather ditch the project completely.
======
verdverm
[https://github.com/sysgears/apollo-universal-starter-
kit](https://github.com/sysgears/apollo-universal-starter-kit)
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Rare seventeenth century poetry manuscript at risk of export - gruseom
https://www.gov.uk/government/news/rare-seventeenth-century-poetry-manuscript-at-risk-of-export
======
i386
That’s how the rest of the world feels about the stolen treasures in the
British Museum
~~~
devoply
Yeah India wants all the stuff the British Raj stole from it back.
------
tartinipaolo
That would be such a shame! I understand that the costs are just too high to
be paid by a state institution, but usually a collector's interest isn't
always to use the masterpiece to educate.
~~~
cafard
Who's to say it won't go to the University of Texas, or some such institution?
------
Koshkin
Just scan the damn thing?
------
bsder
This feels like an attempt to shake down some local English
aristocracy/bureaucracy for money.
I presume there are a zillion ways to prevent this from leaving if people
_really_ cared.
------
sneak
How is this not a violation of (one of) the four freedoms?
~~~
OJFord
What makes you think 'goals articulated by United States President Franklin D.
Roosevelt' (saving others the search I needed) hold any weight over HM
Government in the UK?
They may be meant to apply globally, but 'violating' one doesn't mean anything
if it's not more than a rousing speech. (i.e. not an international treaty that
the UK's signed.)
~~~
DanBC
The four freedoms refer to European trade.
[http://en.euabc.com/word/506](http://en.euabc.com/word/506)
~~~
OJFord
Ah, thanks. That makes much more sense (I just hadn't heard of it either, and
wasn't ranking as highly as Roosevelt for my search).
------
ginko
So put it under an export embargo. This press release seems like they're
already preparing one anyways.
~~~
simlevesque
Please read the article before commenting.
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
You Do Not Have to Drink 8 Glasses of Water a Day - denzil_correa
http://www.nytimes.com/2015/08/25/upshot/no-you-do-not-have-to-drink-8-glasses-of-water-a-day.html?_r=0&abt=0002&abg=1
======
mangeletti
Without any disrespect to the author, why don't we all just start thinking for
ourselves when it comes to our health, rather than being told contradictory
information every 3 years by mainstream media?
One minute it's best to eat ice cream for breakfast; the next minute we
shouldn't eat any carbs at all; then we should start drinking red wine every
day; then more water; then less water, etc. It's as if we're just a big
experiment or some sort of inside joke to the mainstream media.
~~~
dekhn
Are we all experts who are capable of thinking for ourselves ("thinking for
ourselves" seems to equal: inspecting the primary literature, or review
literature, and coming to a conclusion)? No, we're not.
Thinking for yourself is untenable- we need scientists who are experts in
analyzing data to provide specific suggestions, and disseminate those in the
media. Unfortunately, there is little consequence to reporting false
conclusions, or inaccurate health data, so I don't see any change forthcoming.
~~~
mdpopescu
Out of curiosity, do you realize that the same thing can be said about
religion? You don't know enough about it - definitely not as much as the
people who specialize in it - so you should listen to your priest on the
subject. Or politics: just pick a party and follow its lead, politics is a
complex subject and you can't know as much as the professionals.
~~~
dubya
Protestants, at least, have the idea of the "priesthood of all believers",
meaning roughly that each person can have authority in doctrinal matters. So
you should listen to your priest, but you don't have to accept that he's
correct if God is telling you something different. Thus the billion different
protestant denominations.
~~~
zaphar
Protestants if you go back to their roots actually _expected_ you to become an
expert in scripture in order to recognize when your "priest" is wrong. But
they didn't promote anything goes. It's more that you should learn and be able
to apply scripture correctly. This didn't prevent the proliferation of
denominations because of course different people would interpret a piece of
scripture differently and get really worked up about it.
~~~
yellowapple
This is in contrast with Catholicism, where pretty much everything was
conducted in Latin rather than local languages; the emphasis on layperson
understanding of theology was a direct response to the trend of most followers
having zero understanding or ability to understand the scriptures and sermons
they were expected to follow.
Of course, this also resulted in the more decentralized power structure
relative to Catholicism's. Quite a bit of Protestant philosophy and tendency
stems from immediate responses to a perceived-to-be corrupt and exclusive
Catholic Church.
------
mikhailt
> The human body is finely tuned to signal you to drink long before you are
> actually dehydrated.
Easily said than done. This is only true if the body is healthy in the first
place, once you starts messing it up with unhealthy diet (especially high-in-
sugar and salt diet) and so on, your body will confuse thirst with hunger. You
have no idea how often people confuse both, the body will be happy to eat any
food because most food has water in it.
The reality is that water is about the easiest and healthiest thing people can
do and yet, in US, it's more common to see people drinking juices, soda, and
any other sugar beverages with zero pure water drinks.
For people who can't think for their health, telling them to drink 8 cups of
water and nothing else is the best thing we can do. Once they do, they are
likely lose a lot of weight without any exercise. Unfortunately, it is more
likely they won't follow through because sugar is an addiction that is not
easily given up by the body.
~~~
yellowapple
Not to mention that such a signal doesn't always come early enough to consume
water before dehydration sets in, particularly during long-term physical
activity (i.e. running long distances every day); if you slack off on water
intake because "well I'm not thirsty right now", by the time you start feeling
thirsty again, it's pretty likely that you're already dehydrated.
Really, the whole "8 bottles of water a day" thing depends on physical
activity levels. A sedentary person might just need one or two glasses of
water, tops. A person who's running for hours a day might easily go through
several gallons.
------
branchless
If I go for a pee and it's yellowish I have more water. Also I do it when I'm
thirsty.
------
jtolj
They mention this in the article, but bears repeating - if you don't want to
get a kidney stone (and believe me, you don't) 8 glasses a day is probably not
a bad idea.
~~~
jedberg
> if you don't want to get a kidney stone (and believe me, you don't)
To put some perspective on that, I recently had one and it was the worst pain
in my life. I asked some women who have had both a stone and a natural
childbirth which was worse, and they said the pain is about the same.
The difference is that at least you know +/\- about a month when you're going
to have a child and can prepare; with the stone, you're just suddenly in
excruciating pain.
~~~
bkmartin
And, at the end of childbirth you get the joy of having a baby... no one has
cake every year to celebrate the birth of their kidney stones.
------
jbb555
Yeah, there are number of people I know who are otherwise intelligent who seem
to blame almost every minor ailment they have on being "dehydrated". And when
I say I'm not dehydrated because I have 2 small glasses of water, 2 cups of
tea and coffee almost gasp because "coffee dehydrates you".... No. Actually it
doesn't. It's about 99% water...
------
forkandwait
The forkandwait/ ancient Greek ideal diet: A bunch of whole grain bread, fish,
olive oil, and all the random seasonal fruits and vegetables you can get your
hands on, but don't eat until you are full. Every once in a while gorge on
meat and dairy and honey. Get lots of exercise. Don't get killed in battle,
get enslaved, or die in an epidemic.
There should be a special name and place in hell for all the diet bullshit
that goes through the culture like this.
Not that i follow my own advice or anything...
~~~
sp332
And yet, there is no country in the world that has lower life expectancy now
than 200 years ago. [http://www.maxroser.com/everyone-is-better-off-life-
expectan...](http://www.maxroser.com/everyone-is-better-off-life-expectancy-
increased/)
~~~
dkersten
My completely uninformed made up argument: medicine, medical care and
sanitation have improved a lot. ;-)
------
suprgeek
There are two main problems with science & especially health research "news".
First is the urgent need of the Media to "sell more papers" (Or whatever the
digital equivalent). Nothing sells more than vaguely alarmist news that is of
concern to everybody. So "Drink 8 Glasses of Water every day or suffer the
consequences" is an excellent hook to draw-in almost everybody.
Second the ability of companies to influence the research - If the research
shows a slight problem with Milk (for example) you can bet that the dairy
industry will promote another conflicting study that shows Milk is just GREAT!
Now the consumer is completely alarmed and confused by these two trends - so
it always was and always will be.
~~~
jonlucc
Even if you only have disinterested, non-partisan scientists performing very
rigorous studies, the science on this stuff is _hard_ and layperson takeaways
are nearly non-existent.
------
moron4hire
I generally think, if you feel off and can't figure out why, the first thing
you should check is your water intake. A lot of people live with mild
dehydration and don't know it. I know I did for a very long time. It's amazing
the difference in how I feel when I'm drinking "enough" water and when I
don't. There is always the possibility it could be something else, but check
the water first.
I basically just fill up a 64oz beer growler with water in the morning and
make sure I get through it by some point in the day. That's enough to get me
feeling great and not like I just want to stay in bed all the time.
------
tormeh
The EFSA recommends[0] 2.0 litres of water for women and 2.5 litres of water
for men, so there's that. The governmental organizations' advice is slow-
changing and well-founded. Unless you want to flip-flop along with the
freshest preliminary research I would say it's your best bet.
0:
[http://www.efsa.europa.eu/en/press/news/nda100326](http://www.efsa.europa.eu/en/press/news/nda100326)
~~~
IkmoIkmo
Did you read his article and looked at what you're referencing?
From the website you're referencing:
> Adequate Intakes (AI) have been defined derived from a combination of
> observed intakes in population groups with desirable osmolarity values of
> urine and desirable water volumes per energy unit consumed.
The article attacks exactly that line of reasoning:
> I’m a pediatrician, and I can tell you that I have rarely, if ever, used
> urine osmolality as the means by which I decide if a child is dehydrated.
> When I asked colleagues, none thought 800 mOsm/kg was the value at which
> they’d be concerned.
More importantly, intake of water != drinking water.
95% of lettuce is water, on the extreme end, but it's not unique. 90% holds
for carrots or beets, too. For potatoes it's about 70 to 80%. And when cooked,
it soaks up even more water. That adds up quickly and severely reduces the
amount of glasses of water you actually need to drink. After all, 2.5 litres
of water would easily amount to (over) 8 cups/glasses of water. The article
attacks exactly that notion.
------
acomjean
When I was treating water to drink while traveling I would 2 liters a day.
That seemed to be right on the edge of being thirsty a lot while being fairly
active
I drink more than that now. But it gives me an excuse at the office to get up
and walk to bathroom then walk around. So its not just the staying hydrated.
Plus its hard to drink too much water and better for you generally then other
liquids.
------
bitsoda
If you're thirsty, drink water until you're no longer thirsty. If you're not
thirsty, don't drink water.
~~~
onion2k
How do you know you're thirsty? For a start, there are _a lot_ of medical and
neurological issues that can stop you feeling thirsty (diabetes etc). A large
percentage of the population don't have the correct hormone response that
tells them to drink. Secondly, especially in Western societies, there are
social conventions that mean we always have a drink with food. That creates a
conditioned response that means many people _literally_ mistake thirst for
hunger, so when they feel thirsty they eat something. (That also contributes
to obesity.)
'Drink X glasses of water a day' is a simple adage that mitigates all these
problems with very little risk.
~~~
bkmartin
"A large percentage of the population don't have the correct hormone response
that tells them to drink." Please define large percentage and offer a
reference to this fact. The point made in the article was based around
"otherwise healthy idividuals"... not people who have a health issue that
would not let them know they are thirsty.
~~~
onion2k
That was hyperbole on my part really. There are about 10% of people with some
form of diabetes, and one or two percent for the other conditions. That's a
'large percentage' if you compare it with other unifying factors across the
population (you can't say '12% percent of people have X condition' for many
medical problems), but I guess it's not strictly a large percentage on it's
own.
------
dingaling
Why is this still a 'thing' capable of causing contradictory advice?
Over the past three decades most Western armies have developed water-
replenishment rates based on environmental conditions and activity. They based
these on actual empirical studies of performance and illness ( and fatality )
rates. Not dietary fads.
Here's the US Army tables. The British Army ones are similar and are even more
stringently applied, due to several incidents of soldiers dying because they
tried to preserve their water. The squad now stops and drinks its water en
masse.
[http://www.evans.amedd.army.mil/PM/WorkRestTable.pdf](http://www.evans.amedd.army.mil/PM/WorkRestTable.pdf)
I only wore blue but even then if I showed-up on exercise with the wrong
quantity of water loaded for the conditions it was a charge.
~~~
ilaksh
That says if you are doing 'easy work' you should drink 1/2 qt. per hour +/\-
1/4 qt/h +/-1/4 qt per hour = 0-1 qts per hour depending on the person and
conditions.
In other words it doesn't really say a lot especially for people who aren't
soldiers marching in the sun.
------
jqm
It all depends..
I was a landscaper in Phoenix AZ for a few years. Over the summer. We usually
got to work ~5:00 AM and went home about 1:30-2 but it was still extremely hot
(regularly 113F or 45C) . I regularly drank over a gallon and half of liquid a
day. And was still somewhat dehydrated. Drinking that much fluid a regular
basis really starts washing salts out of your body... along with the sweat.
You become very sensitive to amount of dissolved solids in liquid. Water
starts being extremely unsatisfying at the days end but drinking salty stuff
(Gatorade etc) at the wrong time (early morning before you really have drunk
much) will really lay you out as it heats up.
------
neverminder
No, You Do Not Have to Trust What Mainstream Media Says Every Day.
~~~
lcswi
'Mainstream media'? I mostly hear nutrition tips like this via Facebook posts
of dubious pseudoscience lifestyle sites.
------
Camillo
Yes, your body will let you know when you are thirsty. But I think it's still
important to remind people to _drink_ when they are thirsty (you'd be
surprised at how often people try to hydrate by _eating_ instead), and to
drink _water_ when they are thirsty (not soda or fruit juice or coffee).
------
Oletros
No, you don't have to drink 8 glasses of water, nor 2 nor 12, you have to
drink what your body needs and asks for
------
sp332
Only 8 cups? My throat is uncomfortable if I drink less than that at work, and
I drink a lot at home too.
------
lazyant
Somehow related, very rare but good to know
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Water_intoxication](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Water_intoxication)
------
weka
I would think that not every human, regarding their weight/age/height, would
not have to drink the same amount of water.
Water is delicious, though.
------
traviswingo
Aldo respect, this article is a waste of time. We're so obsessed with putting
a number on everything - that's why the "8 glasses a day" rule exists. It's
not literal. It means "drink a lot of water throughout the day and you'll feel
better." Which is true. I drink tons of water and it's made a massive
difference in every aspect of my life. I have no idea how much I drink daily,
though. It doesn't matter. Because we're all different. Just drink more water,
and stop trying to figure out that magic number by reading articles from the
media that change every week.
~~~
IkmoIkmo
If you read the article he's basically saying drinking 'tons' of water is
completely unnecessary and not linked to any evidence of benefits to your
health, contrary to what you're saying. He's a scientist, you're speaking from
personal experience, which is as valid as people saying they feel much better
after praying to their pet lizard every night (i.e. it may be valid, it may
simply be a placebo, and it may simply be unrelated entirely).
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Strangers Drowning: Voyages to the Brink of Moral Extremity - lermontov
https://literaryreview.co.uk/grace-notes
======
cjbprime
> Singer and many (but not all) of the figures whose stories feature in
> Strangers Drowning are committed Kantians in their ethics
I choked on my drink. Peter Singer has been famous for decades as possibly the
singularly least Kantian (and most consequentialist) philosopher on the
planet.
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Crapify - twampss
http://mattmaroon.com/?p=622
======
gruseom
Based on direct observation of some similar projects, I'd advise skepticism
about claims of "crowdsourcing". It is typically used as a buzzword to draw
attention to projects that don't actually deserve any, and wouldn't otherwise
get it. The way this movie was made is likely a lot closer to traditional
methods than the hype would suggest.
------
puzzle-out
Good writers develop through practice. If crowdsourced films gives aspiring
writers the opportunity to practice their craft, then there is some
justification alone in that.
------
gsmaverick
I also watched the trailer not that good. I definitely see no future for
crowd-sourced movies.
------
jfarmer
That reminds of these paintings, "designed" by committee:
<http://www.diacenter.org/km/painting.html>
Everyone likes each individual element, but in concert they produce
(hilariously) awful artwork.
------
neeson
I'm surprised that Iron Sky hasn't come up. It's an online collaboration, and
the trailer looks frickin' awesome:
<http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Xn4DW1uvsAE>
From Wikipedia:
Iron Sky is produced in collaboration with an on-line community of film
enthusiasts. At Wreck-a-Movie, everyone interested in chipping in with their
ideas and creativity can read the tasks given to the community and take a shot
(write an entry) at them.
------
jawngee
I posted this on your blog, but I'll post it here since you want to take this
pointless discussion to a new level:
You're post is so incorrect, I don't even know where to start.
_Apparently they crowd-sourced an entire movie. Everything from the script to
the casting was voted on, presumably by the same lunkheads who turned Digg
into an extension of Apple marketing interspersed with unfunny comics and
left-wing commentary. It’s a process scientifically designed to produce a film
that’s mediocre for its budget range, which apparently was somewhere in
between what a student film normally costs and my monthly car insurance
payment._
First of all, the process you've outlined in your post is _not_ the process
used on Massify. Massify users voted for the story, not the screenplay. The
winner did not direct the movie, he served as a producer and got a small role
in the movie. What he did get to do, however, is sit in on the production and
participate, work with the screenwriters to flesh out the story, etc.
Furthermore the budget for the film was way beyond the cost of a student film
and your monthly insurance car payment combined.
_Don’t get me wrong, it’s neat the way the process worked, but I guess I’m
unable to see the value in coming up with a novel way to produce more
cinematic detritus. Hollywood regurgitates this crap 10 times a year, except
(judging from the trailer) with more polish. They don’t need crowd sourcing to
add to the dung heap._
It's painfully obvious you've had little to do with film, like ever. Do you
really believe most films are the work of a single individual? Movies have
been crowd sourcing since before the internet tubes. The only thing Massify
changes is who gets let into that particular crowd.
_Don’t get me wrong, it’s neat the way the process worked, but_
How can you call the process neat when you haven't the faintest clue how it
works?
_I guess I’m unable to see the value in coming up with a novel way to produce
more cinematic detritus. Hollywood regurgitates_
I'm not exactly sure our process is that novel. All we've really done is put a
web interface on the same mechanic and opened up who can participate, nothing
more and nothing less.
_In fact, the one thing the movie industry has going for it is that it’s
still much more meritocratic than most of the rest of America. A good script
is a good script, no matter who wrote it,_
Again, you write with authority but it's obvious you aren't a student of film
history.
I'd argue your points more, but discourse on the web is futile, specifically
when there is a risk that the OP will be shown to be clueless and pedantic.
~~~
jawngee
PS. I'm the CTO of massify and built the entire thing with my own eight hands
(props to Nick, PDM, George and the rest of the crew).
------
ken
"they couldn’t even afford the narrator with the really deep voice that
everyone else uses"
That's because he's dead: <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Don_LaFontaine>
~~~
Angostura
Not the only one: You can watch Hal Douglas do his stuff here, in an amusingly
self-referential trailer
<http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=yXbFuNQwTbs>
------
ejs
While I agree that this will probably not be a great movie... who cares? Why
must the whole endeavor be run down this way. So since they may not produce
anything very exciting they should just throw their hand up, go home, and
watch TV?
I find it very interesting that these people have enough motivation and drive
to at least try to do something.
To me it feels like going and telling the people at the park playing
basketball to just go home, they wont make it to the NBA....
Is it so bad to make something, potentially sub par, just for the enjoyment of
it?
~~~
iamdave
Right.
While I understand the idea that Matt is trying to convey here (and agree that
a dying/inherently boring genre as slasher horror was a poor choice to
christen this idea on), I think he's going about it from the wrong angle
entirely. One bad movie does not negate the utility, and overreaching novelty
of crowdsourcing a movie.
That, and I think
_Letting a gas station employee play director is perhaps less dangerous than
letting him be a thoracic surgeon, but it’s no more likely to achieve a good
result._
Is a wholly inappropriate thing to say, given the ultimate goal of this entire
project: do what has never before been done in this spectrum of entertainment
and produce a complete movie. That's an especially tough pill to swallow if
you haven't seen the movie, or met the director. (actually, it's an
inappropriate thing to say even if you put aside the fact that they're making
a movie. That's needlessly harsh)
------
rantfoil
Massify looks like it has the potential of becoming a great social niche play
for indie/low budget film production. ModelMayhem seemed like a tiny idea, but
now they're as big as friendfeed. Not everyone is going to be churning out
Henri Cartier-Bresson-level work, but that's not the point.
~~~
bd
I just checked ModelMayhem. Wouldn't their growth be explained by the fact
that a significant chunk of their content appear to be naked ladies?
~~~
rantfoil
It's a members-only site and it's hard to become a member without actually
being a model, makeup artist or photographer. Though I suppose it doesn't
hurt. ;-)
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Ask HN: WordPress designers in NYC area? - ebaysucks
A webmaster I know is looking for a WordPress designer/studio in the NYC area and asked me for recommendations.<p>Which WP designers in NYC would you recommend?<p>Thanks
======
collint
Here's a guy I know in NYC who can do wordpress:
<http://gregorygallagherdesign.com/>
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Apple staffers reportedly rebelling against open office plan - V99
https://www.bizjournals.com/sanjose/news/2017/08/08/apple-park-employees-floor-plan-hq-spaceship-aapl.html
======
seorphates
Working in open office plans is simply awful.
Personally I believe remote work, for any tech-enabled employer, makes the
most sense. The impact on infrastructure by removing commuting alone could
maybe help save the planet. And our collective sanity.
Wouldn't it be nice to have ISPs that can provide an infrastructure that could
actually support that? I think so.
The hideous effects of cluster-fucking hundreds of thousands of people daily
just needs to stop. Tech companies are guilty. They're huge and, humbly
opined, are idiots for making it worse and not really needing to. Top that off
with an open floor destination and.. damn, work is beat.
~~~
hota_mazi
Nah, it's fine. If it gets noisy, put on headphones or go sit in a different
place for a few hours. Individual offices can be awful and isolating. Cubes
can be an acceptable compromise but it still kills a lot of spontaneous
conversations.
You gain a lot with open space plans: more interaction with coworkers,
cultural gel and socializing. And of course, the company can cram more people
in the same place.
~~~
majormajor
Sadly, I'm still looking for headphones that can be comfortably worn over my
ears + glasses for more than an hour at a time. In-ear ones have other comfort
issues.
~~~
jamie_ca
I expect this will depend a lot on your frames - if the arms on your glasses
are thick it'll be more inclined to squish into your head.
That said I'm really happy with my Logitech G930s - I usually use them wired
to keep the charge (the usb cord length is _very_ generous) but they're just
fine wireless too, and do a good job staying put if I'm moving around a bit.
My only complaint is that they seem to be sensitive to 2.4ghz interference,
which can kick them off the wireless connection. Since there's no wired
override (plugging in is purely for battery) this means plugging in can't save
you. Once I switched my devices at home to prefer 5ghz wifi, it went from 5-10
times an hour at its worst to once or twice a month (and I can maybe blame
that on the neighbours).
------
inetknght
My company only has offices for upper management. Everyone else is at a
_table_. Tables are arranged in groups of four.
Now, I get it, some people like open office environments. Good for them.
Me? Well, I've told many coworkers that I can't work from home because I
_wouldn 't_ work from home. There are too many distractions at home, so I need
to be at the office to be productive.
But this open office?
There are days where I am convinced I would do more work, be more productive,
and feel more satisfied if I worked from home.
I went and bought some noise cancelling headphones. They help, but definitely
not enough. My _table_ is by the main door. With a room of 40+ engineers,
there's constant distracting traffic. Some people make snide comments about my
choice of operating system, keyboard, language, editor, typing noise, attire,
whatever. Or to chat about the games that I missed last night, something
happened at the not-company-sponsored-happy-hour that I didn't get the invite
to, or something about lunch that, you know, you should have been there and if
only you wouldn't _leave the office for lunch_. Or about how your racing car
is in for the shop because, well, actually I don't even care why. It's just in
the shop (I know! you told me!) and you expect me to care about car parts too,
and shame on me for not knowing the difference between a maserati and a miata.
On the other hand, any time I mention to my boss that I'd like at least a
cubicle the response is "it's not going to happen". Thanks, boss! I'm glad
you've got my productivity concerns on your plate. I'm glad they can just, you
know, be heard. Not addressed, just heard. It's really helpful to be heard.
All day. It's real helpful to hear _everyone_ 's discussions while I'm trying
to do work.
Honestly, guys, if you like an open office environment, that's good for you.
Not everyone wants one and not everyone works well in one.
~~~
pteredactyl
Visual distraction is very real when trying to focus.
~~~
ThrustVectoring
Visual distraction is the second worst, IMO, with noise in third.
Number 1 is vibration and physical movement. I've had a desk environment where
two folks would be sitting on opposite sides of a wide table, so there's one
shared and non-isolated surface that both people work on.
Every time my coworker would stand up, they'd brace themselves on the desk and
shake the shit out of it, and I _never_ learned to filter it out. Headphones
don't help. Lots of big monitors don't help.
Or when the hardwood floor has enough flex that you can feel people walking
near your desk. Ugh.
~~~
mathw
Where I currently am (I'm a consultant, based mostly in various client
offices), the floor has a lot of flex in it. When people walk past, I can feel
it bouncing under my chair.
We do have decent-sized desks, so the open plan isn't too bad. It's actually
pretty good as these things go, although there are no kitchens in which one
can make a proper cup of tea.
No proper kitchens for tea-making.
We're in England.
Come on!
Admittedly this is a German company I'm working with at the moment, but still,
the office is full of Brits.
Open plan is perfectly normal here, but I still hate it. Especially the ones
where they put really loud people near you (but you can't make a seating plan
based on how loudly people tend to talk), or when there are people whose jobs
involve loads of phone calls and who shout down their headsets, in the same
open plan space as a highly technical team who really need to concentrate and
occasionally have a quiet conversation with each other.
No one space works for everyone. It just doesn't. And that's not even taking
into account personal variations, as we've seen from these comments some
people like the open collaborative possibility and some feel the need to hide
away and bash the keyboard for hours at a time.
I have days when I want to do one, and days for the other, so I really don't
know what kind of office I'd like!
~~~
Jaruzel
> No proper kitchens for tea-making.
It's because the insurance on offices without kitchens is cheaper. They save
money, and we get wet mud in a plastic cup from a machine.
------
Joeri
_Apple has insisted in presentations to the city of Cupertino that the open
floor plan designs are conducive to collaboration between teams, per
Bloomberg. But the high-level executives, including Apple CEO Tim Cook, are
exempt from this collaborative environment and have offices on the fourth
floor of the new building._
See, this is exactly what's wrong with open plan offices in most places. If a
CEO honestly believes open plan is better for collaboration, then they need to
eat their own dog food. That CEO needs to be sitting right in the middle of
things. If they find they can't get anything done as a consequence of the
collaboration they are in the right place to take action to fix that. And if
they are able to achieve productive outcomes, they are also in the right place
to argue against people who say it's not possible. Letting upper management
avoid all the downsides of the open plan layout causes problems with it to
fester and will bring overall worker satisfaction and productivity down. In
short, it is bad management to treat management in a special way.
~~~
bottlerocket
That jumped out at me as well, it's always the folks in a private office
touting the virtue of an open plan
------
loco5niner
Hopefully, more and more companies experience backlash from this. It is a
horrific mistake to add distracting elements to most programmers environments.
Even worse, in my open office plan, they put our very loud finance group right
next to us. Absolutely no thought of noise management was considered, except
for putting in horrible "white noise" generators that set off my tinnitus
Thankfully, my direct manager is understanding and let me turn off the one
directly over my head. And by directly over my head, I mean about 4 feet.
~~~
exergy
Fuck, that sounds awful.
It's hard for me to believe that there are techies who haven't ever heard of
Peopleware, have never heard of Joel Spolsky and his FogBugz offices, and have
never consulted even a single authority on what makes software developers
productive. It's even harder to believe that those people are responsible for
diverting giant sums of money towards making palatial office buildings that
will house thousands of such developers.
~~~
6nf
The problem with the Spolsky example is that Atlassian with their huge open-
plan offices completely overshadowed Fog Creek in just a few short years.
~~~
anildash
In some ways. They did raise $60 million, too, which didn't hurt. I think
we're doing just fine having a successful business on our own terms.
For what it's worth, Atlassian's NYC headquarters is… our Fog Creek offices,
complete with private offices for coders. More about that here:
[https://medium.com/make-better-software/apple-is-about-to-
do...](https://medium.com/make-better-software/apple-is-about-to-do-something-
their-programmers-definitely-dont-want-fc19f5f4487)
(Source: I'm the CEO of Fog Creek.)
~~~
6nf
The NYC 'headqarters' is not even on their list of locations
[https://www.atlassian.com/company/careers](https://www.atlassian.com/company/careers)
so I'd be surprised if it hosts a signficant percentage of their development
workforce. As far as I know their Sydney office is really the heart of their
operation and it's very open plan.
~~~
loco5niner
I don't think he is saying Atlassian HQ is _located_ at Fog Creek, but that
Atlassian HQ has a similar office plan as Fog Creek, "complete with private
offices for coders".
~~~
sencho
[https://www.businessinsider.com.au/atlassian-sydney-
office-2...](https://www.businessinsider.com.au/atlassian-sydney-
office-2017-7#)
------
nemo44x
It all seems so backwards. Instead of having collaborative working spaces with
private rooms for meetings, doesn't it make more sense to have private rooms
for working and collaborative meeting spaces?
~~~
IBM
The WSJ story has some pictures of what it looks like [1]. There seems to be
offices with doors, but they look like it seats about 20 people. There are
also common areas with long tables between them.
[https://si.wsj.net/public/resources/images/BN-
UF776_0817CO_1...](https://si.wsj.net/public/resources/images/BN-
UF776_0817CO_1000RV_20170711160556.jpg)
[https://si.wsj.net/public/resources/images/BN-
UF775_0817CO_1...](https://si.wsj.net/public/resources/images/BN-
UF775_0817CO_1000RV_20170711160538.jpg)
[https://si.wsj.net/public/resources/images/BN-
UF777_0817CO_1...](https://si.wsj.net/public/resources/images/BN-
UF777_0817CO_1000RV_20170711160614.jpg)
[1] [https://www.wsj.com/articles/how-jony-ive-masterminded-
apple...](https://www.wsj.com/articles/how-jony-ive-masterminded-apples-new-
headquarters-1501063201)
~~~
fullshark
Looks like the ministry of information in a sci fi dystopia.
~~~
phonon
Or a large airport business lounge.
------
hkmurakami
It's really kind of amazing to me how in 20 years we've gone from laughing at
the cacophonous, claustrophobic, diseases-transmission-inducing, open office
plans of other economic regions (ex: the traditional Japanese office
[http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-CadIFZ3h638/T7yGtzdxVDI/AAAAAAAABe...](http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-CadIFZ3h638/T7yGtzdxVDI/AAAAAAAABeg/YhOhlNmYRDc/s1600/5367034132_e04df3f6fe_o.jpg),
or the Wall Street trading floor), to precisely emulating their layouts (with
better superficial aesthetic design), inheriting both their economic
efficiency and productivity inefficiencies.
I'll take a cube farm with 5 feet walls any day over an open office.
~~~
brudgers
Historically, a cube farm is an open office plan in architectural lingo. About
twenty years ago, there was a movement toward movable furniture and hotelling
and removing the cubical walls. For what it's worth cubicles were generally
considered an improvement on grid layouts of desks.
------
chmaynard
I worked at Apple during the years when the company designed and built its
first campus at 1 Infinite Loop in Cupertino. As I recall, Apple R&D employees
were considered stakeholders and participated in the design of the interior
spaces. Apple wisely decided to give each engineer a private office. There
were open areas near the offices with comfortable furniture and whiteboards
for engineers to meet and collaborate. I worked in one of these buildings from
2001-2007, and I can confirm that the work areas were beautifully designed and
ideal for fostering productive work. It's sad to hear that Apple apparently
abandoned this approach in its new campus.
~~~
doomlaser
Yes. The Infinite Loop space was designed really well, and each of the
buildings was somewhat different with some character.
------
aetherson
I am fairly close to someone who works at Apple. His team is avoiding the new
spaceship building. He mentioned wanting to keep his office, but that was just
one part of several different complaints, including just "it turns out that
the building isn't big enough for most of the people who work at the HQ in
Cupertino," and "My team would probably have to split up in awkward ways
because not everyone would be able to work in the spaceship (due to space
constraints)."
~~~
ClassyJacket
The building looks gigantic but most of it is empty space due to the donut
shape. I wonder if they plan to ever build in the middle.
------
nashashmi
Man, I remember in college when we would be working long hours in the library
on a computer lined up in a row of computers. Every one would be intensely
working on what they needed to. Sometimes two would work together. This was
especially true before presentations when we were trying to put our stuff
together. It was neat. It was collaborative. It was fun. And we were happy.
Open floor plan is reminiscent of those days, but it isn't working. And I
cannot figure out why. What's missing? Intensity? Work? Stress? Team building
therapy? Or just trust? Whatever it is I hope we figure it out.
~~~
dasmoth
The comments about library etiquette are on to something.
But I think it also helps that most of the other people in the library are
probably strangers, and if a couple of them are talking it's probably about
something quite different from what you're working on.
"Team" conversations that _might possibly_ be relevant to your stuff are the
worst distractions.
~~~
J_Sherz
Agreed - I liken it to my college experience: if you want to eat or drink
anything other than water, or talk to other people, you go to the coffee shop.
If you want to focus on your work and take breaks to do the rest you go to the
library.
I always chose the coffee shop, so open offices don't bother me hugely. The
caveat is that a good pair of headphones is a must.
------
sidlls
Open offices diminish workers to cattle status. Most work, even the kind many
developers would not think of as being so, in tech companies requires
thoughtfulness often and collaboration less often. I consider open office
plans to be disrespectful and an indicator of second-class status.
~~~
danpalmer
Another point of view would be that by having 'senior management' in the same
rooms, at the same desks in an open office, they are more human and there's
less of a perceived barrier between them and everyone else - which could be
seen as a positive.
~~~
whipoodle
Managers often end up commandeering a meeting room to get around not
technically having an office.
~~~
danpalmer
Sure, and I wouldn't want meetings taking place at desks anyway as that would
be disruptive, but having the CEO at a 'normal' desk like everyone else, and
having them there for any time they are doing tasks alone, I think humanises
them more.
------
minwcnt5
Headphones are a poor solution to the noise problem in open offices. I find it
uncomfortable to wear them for 8 hours at a time, and it means I can't
overhear the conversations I _do_ want to overhear. Sitting elsewhere only
works if I have a task I can do on a laptop; for serious development work I
need a lot of screen real estate. That solution also has the same problem as
headphones where I might miss important conversations because I'm too busy
hiding from noise created by people doing work completely unrelated to mine.
There's a pretty happy medium, 2-10 person offices (with 4-5 being the most
common size) with glass walls. Google used to have a lot of these before
completely open plans became en vogue, and it was very rare to hear
complaints. They allow frequent interaction with your most common
collaborators while blocking out conversations from distant teams. They reduce
visual distraction while still allowing in lots of natural light and inviting
conversation. Doors were usually left open, so it was pretty comfortable to
walk into another office and start up a conversation.
With the giant, open, chicken-farm style floorplans, people feel too self-
conscious about dozens of people overhearing to have small 2-3 person
conversations near their desks, which means more formal meetings with all the
associated overhead, and fewer impromptu questions like "hey does anyone know
of a tool to do X?" And then you're still more distracted anyway due to all
the typing, people walking by, large groups being loud when gathering to eat
lunch or go to a meeting together or whatever.
I only see two advantages of completely open floors: slightly cheaper (glass
offices can be made almost as dense, but not quite, and I guess the glass
partitions aren't free), and better circulation to dissipate bad odors more
quickly.
------
kevinburke
One solution to this problem would be for Apple employees to form a union and
collectively bargain for better working conditions. Probably just threatening
to do this would lead to significant concessions.
Any Apple employees interested in this should contact Maciej Ceglowski on
Signal at +1415-610-0231.
~~~
sooheon
Interesting you'd recommend him, I enjoy his writing but didn't know he had
expertise here. Any reason why?
Also isn't "unionizing" a quick way to get a black mark in Silicon Valley? I
vaguely remember Michael O. Church was essentially exiled just for accusations
of unionizing.
~~~
kevinburke
Maciej (and others) believe the best way to get your company to stop doing
things you may not like:
\- keeping user history around forever
\- donating more from the company PAC to Republicans than Democrats
\- keeping engineers in open plan offices
\- providing services to election campaigns of anti-immigrant politicians
\- not paying the same amount of money to men and women for the same work
\- provide less-than-livable wages to cafeteria staff
Is to form a union and strike or negotiate for more worker-friendly policies.
Notably no one is suggesting striking for higher engineering wages, just the
avoidance of bad policy and a say in the company's future direction.
As to your second point, I can't speak to that, other than to say it's illegal
to retaliate against someone for discussing or organizing to form a union.
~~~
idlewords
Forming a union is a big step. You can fight for these things through
concerted collective action, and still enjoy most of the protections of labor
law (especially against retaliation). The point is to organize so that a large
group of employees is speaking with a single voice about the workplace issues
that matter most.
I urge anyone interested in learning more to contact me or coworker.org, who
have experience running successful employee campaigns, and understand the tech
world well.
------
knorker
I recently watched the movie Office Space.
Oh, such a wonderful working environment. To have the privacy and isolation
from distractions and interruptions that a cubicle gives. What I wouldn't give
to work in such a great office space.
~~~
Clubber
It's funny that the work environment became worse than Mike Judge imagined it
would be in Office Space. Wait till that happens to Idiocracy!
------
chank
My company recently switched to an open floor plan. It's done nothing but
increase distractions and office gossip. Everyone I know tries to get away
from their desk as often as possible. Ducking into side rooms, attempting to
work from home, and just plain using any excuse to escape the zoo.
Management loves open plans because it's the cheapest seating arrangement.
They claim that it will increase collaboration while exempting themselves from
having to deal with the environment. The truth is that just being able to see
someone without walking over to their desk isn't going to magically make you
communicate with them more or make your output higher. Some people like open
floor plans but it's been my experience most people don't and just grin and
bear it while slowly dying inside.
~~~
paulsutter
It's worse than that, managers like open plan because they can "feel the
energy" of people working, subconsciously they want to see all the work being
done, and to know who leaves and arrives when.
And notice how managers always arrange to have their screens hidden from
others view, while most people feel a constant sense that someone is looking
at their screen.
------
borplk
> open floor plan designs are conducive to collaboration between teams
This is just an overused cover-up story to avoid stating the real reasons
which is cutting costs and monitoring employees.
They use "collaboration" so that you can't voice your opposition to it easily.
If you do that they will beat you with the "not a team player" and "not a
culture fit" sticks.
Then in reality unhappy employees sit next to each other with noise cancelling
headphones whose job has been unnecessarily harder than it already is because
now a part of their mental focus and capacity is actively going towards
ignoring distractions.
------
synicalx
We're going one step better at my work with our new/future office, "Activity
Based Working". All the trappings of "open plan" but with even more features
to make Government work more soul-crushing and complicated.
One office, with desks for 80% of the staff (because the other 20% need to
take the hint and resign). Each desk only has one monitor, keyboard, and a
mouse. If you've got certain ergonomic requirements, or need a colour accurate
monitor, or a large monitor, or several monitors then you're just a naysayer
who is obviously not productive enough to understand the ways of the future.
No one 'has' a desk, instead you grab your laptop out of your locker each
morning and go find one. Or you might be allocated a desk via a morning
raffle, not sure on this one yet. At the end of each day you clean every
surface with alcohol wipes, which you then queue up to place in the singular
bin that services the 300ish staff. Anyone who sits at the same desk twice
will have to complete "Activity Based Working" training, in much the same way
intoxicated road users may attend a DUI class.
There will also be no car parks for staff, who are being encouraged to use
public transport. The fact that this public transport doesn't actually exist
yet is just a "growth opportunity", but who's growth we're referring to here
is not yet clear.
This might all sound like a joke, but the sad thing is it's 100% serious.
Literally all of the above has been set in stone by minister that our
department reports to.
~~~
bumblebeard
That sounds infuriating. Have you started looking for another job yet? I know
I would.
~~~
synicalx
I'm hanging on until I can officially pad my resume with all the office-move
stuff (network redesign being a big one), but the second another job comes up
after that I'm out there.
------
pimmen
"But the high-level executives, including Apple CEO Tim Cook, are exempt from
this collaborative environment and have offices on the fourth floor of the new
building."
Because private offices offers control over your working environment; if you
need to collaborate, use a conference room, if you need a quick discussion,
call them up on Slack.
I'm not going to touch wether or not the CEO has earned the best working
environment, but let's bring attention to the fact that the CEO is promoting
less control over your working environment for his employees and claim open-
office plans offers all kinds of benefits, while the C-level management
chooses to opt out. Either that's very noble of them to sacrifice all the
benefits of open-office, or they're being a bit disingenuous about why almost
everyone else gets an open-office plan.
------
a3n
In (almost) all open office environments, people above a certain level have
private offices.
Why?
Why don't they want to be as productive and collaborative as their reports?
Conference rooms and phone rooms are just as available to them as they are to
the rest. They can probably even afford much better head phones than the rest.
I just don't see enough of a difference to justify it.
~~~
Veratyr
I don't really buy it but a potential reason is that people above a certain
level have a business need for a private space.
Say you need to be on the phone all day talking about privileged information
like the upcoming earnings call or a major business deal. Even at lower levels
than that, maybe someone wants to come to you in private with a complaint or
maybe you need to tell someone they're underperforming. You could do these
things in meeting rooms like everyone else but if you're doing it 75% of the
time you're working, you may as well have a private meeting room (i.e.
office).
There's also security. People with higher privileges have more sensitive
information that needs to be better protected. Yes workstations should be
encrypted and confidential paper documents shouldn't be laying around the
office but defence in depth is a thing.
Efficiency is another concern. The time of people at a certain level is
extremely valuable and it can be wasted on suboptimal collaboration. Their
time needs to be planned very carefully.
And finally, it's just a perk.
------
nupertino
I wonder if anyone will make a claim about necessary workplace accommodations
under the Americans with Disabilities Act for ADD/ADHD. I already take
medication which makes it _almost_ OK for me to share an office - a recent
change for me after 20 years. But I'm still freaked out by someone literally 3
feet away from me. My social anxiety and borderline asperger's really make me
seize up until I can be alone in the late afternoon / evening.
When I had my own office, I was able to do things like coordinate health care,
talk to my wife, and eventually the divorce lawyers, but with the knowledge
that I could close my door and have privacy - now I have to escape to a
staircase to have a private conversation.
Plus, I'm terribly annoying to be around. From my mechanical clicky keyboard
to a desk overflowing with artifacts and fidgets of various ilk, sharing a
workspace means subjecting everyone else to my idiosyncrasies, mumblings and
offensive body oder.
------
pasbesoin
Apple has the money to afford whatever it wants. If it's like any other place
I've seen, I expect there's longstanding communication of one or another sort
from high performers that they want distraction-free environments.
From what I've observed of such high performers, they are _not_ anti-social
nor anti-collaborative, nor are they "crippled" in either respect. Rather,
many of them are the _most capable_ in these areas, because they actually _pay
attention_ and focus on _getting things done_ \-- and done as well as time and
resources allow.
The fact that Apple, like many workplaces I've observed, chooses to ignore
this and push a paradigm that _increases_ their stress and _decreases_ their
effectiveness and efficiency?
Well, as I learned in my own experience, over the years: This is just a
fundamental level of dis-respect.
I don't know anything about Apple work internals, specifically; the last time
I intersected with those peripherally was in the early '90's.
But when you blatantly disregard what employees tell you -- and in this case,
"professional" employees who have a high degree of training and awareness
about the tooling they need, including their work environments, to be most
effective. Well, that's just disrespect.
And employers who persistently engage in such, deserve what they get. I hope
-- because at some point, this counter-productive... "ideology" needs to die.
P.S. Those employees that _want_ cubicles or open-space? Fine, give it to
them. I don't want to dictate environment, either way.
Trust your employees to select what works best for them.
And measure the results. Objectively, not in the typical performance review ex
post facto rationalization and justification.
In my own experience, top performers cautiously (politics) leapt at the chance
to work from home and otherwise gain undistracted blocks of time to adequately
focus on complex problems and program management.
Those who embraced the cycle of endless meetings, interruptions -- including
environmental -- and superficially-addressed delegation? They faced the same
problems, month after month, cycle after cycle.
------
brudgers
Good architecture does not come from curved glass and 1mm joints between
materials. It comes from human habitability. Why build a building that makes
people unhappy? It seems to miss the point.
~~~
dilemma
Hubris, narcissism, God complex.
------
norea-armozel
I'll never understand the fascination with firms repeatedly going for the open
office plan. I remember seeing pictures from the early 20th century where such
offices existed full of people typing away. I don't know how they handled the
noise or the fact they couldn't isolate themselves to do their work whether it
was repetitive or novel in nature. It just seems like firms think of labor as
a singular mechanical process and not as something that's done in an irregular
and discoordinated fashion (as I've seen in my personal experience from
working in factories and currently working in software development). I really
think managerial practices need to update with the facts instead of forcing
the facts to fit with their expectations.
------
skc
Every article I've read about this building in the past has gone to great
pains to point out the artistry, elegance and taste that was applied in
building it.
I now find it highly amusing that at Apple, form over function won out yet
again.
------
maxxxxx
It seems a lot of managers live in that phantasy world where people do nothing
but collaborate. Do they really think that code gets written that way?
~~~
Clubber
Managers mark their value by how many meetings they attend. If their calendar
is booked all the time (even with pointless meetings) it's because they are
valuable.
Developers mark their value by what they create. Unfortunately people tend to
think everyone is like them. In this example, managers tend to think since
their value is through constant collaboration, they think everyone is valued
in the same metric.
------
LyalinDotCom
from the story ... "Prominent Apple podcaster and blogger John Gruber passed
along rumors that some high-level Apple staffers are unsatisfied with the
company’s open floor plan — which has many company engineers working at long
tables with co-workers, instead of in cubicles or offices."
wow, "long tables" for lots of devs to work at, what can go wrong right? and i
thought Microsoft open space had its issues, this sounds much worse.
When do people focus again?
------
aphextron
Everything Old Is New Again
[https://cdn.thinglink.me/api/image/866329202121506819/1240/1...](https://cdn.thinglink.me/api/image/866329202121506819/1240/10/scaletowidth)
~~~
borplk
At least in those days they didn't pretend like that was a beautiful thing.
Now we have these charlatans who not only want to push these concepts. But
also want everyone to acknowledge just how great they are.
And not to mention the proponents are never seen working in one for a single
day.
It's only good for the peasants.
------
oddity
Surely, they'll all realize that it takes courage to embrace the office layout
of the future?
Jokes aside, this was a problem five years in the making, and as far as I can
tell there was no secrecy about the plan. I'm surprised the complaints are
only coming now.
~~~
mncharity
And it's such a privilege to participate in the dialog between architecture
and society.
(MIT dean of architecture on why inflicting a Frank Gehry building on CSAIL
was worthwhile.)
------
cordite
I've worked in both, and both have their benefits. However, my evaluation of
open office may be biased because we also use slack.
Regarding open office plans: Focus does suffer in an open layout. Creativity
does suffer too. In the face of a fire in production, an open office creates a
low friction environment for task distribution to handle it. A factor that
makes up for this is that we can work from home one day a week. I find these
times to allow me to be most creative for planning long term solutions.
Occasional remote work is possible and effective thanks to several
technologies including Slack.
Regarding individual or paired offices: focus is easy to accomplish, and it is
easier to be creative. It can be quiet, but it sure feels lonely when my team
members take 3-6 minutes to walk to. Unfortunately, meetings, ad-hoc visits,
and email were the communication methods here. Remote work was near impossible
and impractical with just email for peer involved processes. This was also in
a very corp-legacy environment and my ability to make an impact was
unsatisfying. So I feel my creativity was often wasted and unvalued.
Overall, I think I like what I have now, which is mostly open office, but
still occasional time for individual creativity.
------
Animats
_Bench seating, work tables and open cubicles._
Apple? Famous for not letting their developers talk to people outside the
project?
~~~
oddity
Oh, upper management is even more paranoid than that. It's what made this such
a strange move for the company.
~~~
tyingq
Does it maybe work like the Pentagon, where you can't just randomly enter any
area?
------
tarikjn
I knew this was going to happen when I saw some of the office picture/renders
a few months back.
Highly relevant article:
[http://timharford.com/2017/02/what_makes_the_perfect_office/](http://timharford.com/2017/02/what_makes_the_perfect_office/)
And for a bit of history about cubicles, their first incarnation was actually
a developer's dream: [https://www.wired.com/2014/04/how-offices-accidentally-
becam...](https://www.wired.com/2014/04/how-offices-accidentally-became-
hellish-cubicle-farms/)
------
mmanfrin
I hope they win, open offices are the stupidest thing since cubicles.
~~~
falcolas
And yet I would personally prefer cubicles to an open office plan. At least
cubicles provide visual interruptions, reduce the overall noise, and provide a
space for you to personalize.
~~~
mmanfrin
I totally agree. Every argument I've heard against cubicles were actually
arguments against poor lighting and lack of windows -- a well lit, green,
many-windowed office that had cubicles would be much more preferable to open
office plans.
------
jansho
They should do more huts instead.
[https://officesnapshots.com/2012/07/16/pixar-headquarters-
an...](https://officesnapshots.com/2012/07/16/pixar-headquarters-and-the-
legacy-of-steve-jobs/)
~~~
stevesearer
Office Snapshots here.
Direct links to those "hut" images for those interested (many of you). The
above link goes to to the entire gallery of images:
[https://officesnapshots.com/photos/16797/](https://officesnapshots.com/photos/16797/)
[https://officesnapshots.com/photos/16765/](https://officesnapshots.com/photos/16765/)
------
booleandilemma
My company has an open office plan and I feel like the area directly behind my
chair was designated as the company's unofficial meeting space, but no one
ever told me.
~~~
Practicality
Oh man. About 10 feet behind my chair is where another department likes to
have their meetings. And for whatever reason, they also like to stand there
and swap gossip about all the employees.
I mean seriously. I DO NOT need to know any of those things. Especially while
I am trying to work. Please go away. Of course they talk really loudly too.
------
peterwwillis
Ever walked into a Starbucks with those long communal tables and 10 people on
laptops, with two people having a conversation, and others walking past every
now and then? And you go to get your coffee and turn around, and now you're
looking in the direction of 12 people, some of whom look up from what they're
doing because they wonder what you're looking at. You go find a place to sit,
set down your coffee, get out your laptop, and log in - only for Frank, the
retired cab driver who is a regular here, to immediately strike up a
conversation with you about "those fuckin' contractors who won't get shit done
on my addition".
It's not as cramped or loud, but it is awkward and distracting. It's
definitely not the end of the world. But if working in a coffee shop full of
people you see every day does not work for you, this is an unproductive floor
plan.
They had enough money that they could have built 10 different kinds of
workspaces spread out in a building with five times the work space on the same
property. Instead they built a hollow glass donut. Because: Steve Jobs.
------
carapace
I will take $20,000 off of my pay if you will give me my own office with a
door I can close.
~~~
abawany
Don't give them any ideas. The whole open office dumpster-fire has probably
been a cover to further reduce software engineer salaries. Edit: added
probably.
~~~
astrange
Since when has anyone reduced software engineer salaries?
~~~
abawany
One way I can think of is this (slightly applies to me): when my large company
with generous benefits and RSUs went to the open office plan, it (amongst
other reasons) caused me to leave. They were likely able to hire more junior
staff to backfill (as was their practice) netting them a net reduction in
wages.
------
mschuster91
I'm happy about German regulations. This would not fly for long in any company
with a Betriebsrat ("work council" is apparently the English word) once noise
levels get broken.
~~~
DocTomoe
I'm sitting in an German open-office setup right now. There is nothing in the
regulations to forbid these (and most of these Arbeitsschutzgesetze only are
applicable to industrial settings).
------
bipson
Everybody arguing for open office plans and stating that they or "some people"
thrive in such environments should finally come around to read Peopleware [1].
Although they might base some statements on assumptions I do not fully agree
with all the time, and before reading I was had not decided if I was strictly
for or against open office plans, their conclusion is spot on: _open plans do
not foster collaboration or communication_. They may cause a constant buzz and
_seem_ productive, but nobody will be smart, creative or productive in that
environment, compared to a silent, uninterrupted workplace.
All you multitaskers and procrastinators (including me): You are lying to
yourself.
[1] [https://www.amazon.com/Peopleware-Productive-Projects-
Teams-...](https://www.amazon.com/Peopleware-Productive-Projects-
Teams-3rd/dp/0321934113)
~~~
bipson
I might add: I honestly do think we thinkers, developers, programmers,
researchers, etc. do not talk enough and communication and exchange is
important.
That being said, the open office plan is not the solution to that, it will
kill every possibility of focus, and make the lives of people seeking it
miserable - because there _needs_ to be communication, but it should not
interrupt everyone especially if not actively participating.
------
zitterbewegung
I have heard that open office plans are justified by decreased cost. Does it
make sense that they would build a 5 billion dollar office with open floor
plans? I suppose given that large price tag there would be motivation to cut
costs that way other than the fact that the open office plan as a fad still
exists.
~~~
wmf
Maybe the justification is density, not cost. The floor space of the spaceship
was finalized years ago and maybe Apple is trying to shoehorn more employees
into that space.
------
icanhackit
John Kullmann, who ported OSX from PPC to x86, was able to work from home. I
wonder if it's set up so that when you need to get shit done you work from
home and when you need to collaborate you visit the spaceship?
Or perhaps only the superstar engineers get to pull that kind of thing.
~~~
mrpippy
As I remember, that was a special-case arrangement for some kind of family
reason (and after he had worked in Cupertino for several years). There are
current Apple engineers with the arrangement you describe though, I know of at
least one on Twitter.
------
jmull
Open office spaces is something that will be laughed at in the future.
------
meddlepal
In the future when I do my next job hunt I'm giving serious extra
consideration to any company with private offices or high wall cubes even if
the comp is worse. Open office plans suck. It's time these companies start
being penalized
------
auggierose
I guess there will be two classes of people at Apple. Those with their own
office, and those without. Although it has its rough edges, I am becoming a
big fan of Swift. I hope Chris Lattner has his own office.
~~~
jnbiche
Chris Lattner hasn't been at Apple since leaving for Tesla back in January (he
has recently left Tesla, as well).
~~~
auggierose
Just read up on the whole thing. Yes, I remember now that he went to Tesla. I
think it is unusual for a programming language guy to do machine learning. Not
surprised it didn't work out.
------
mathattack
I'm ok with an open office, but my job is to be interupted. It's less good for
deep thinking jobs, or heavy phone call jobs. Our engineers don't seem to mind
though, maybe they just plug in their headsets?
Joel Spolsky wrote about this [1] though his main citation is experience at
Microsoft.
I do have to admit Open Floors are a shift for a company focused on secrecy.
[1] [https://www.joelonsoftware.com/2008/12/29/the-new-fog-
creek-...](https://www.joelonsoftware.com/2008/12/29/the-new-fog-creek-
office/)
~~~
pilsetnieks
> Our engineers don't seem to mind though
Eventually you just seem to attract the people who can tolerate such
conditions, or who are happy to keep up the pretense.
------
cylinder
I'm sure Jony Ive's office is nice and quiet.
~~~
astrange
The new building is based on his ID lab.
[https://www.cultofmac.com/303396/design-studio-behind-
iron-c...](https://www.cultofmac.com/303396/design-studio-behind-iron-
curtain/)
------
Someone
IMO, it is all in the execution. Open offices can be terrible, but they also
can be good, just like private offices.
There's a huge difference between a few dozen desks in a bare concrete hall
without any dividers between desks or a few dozen desks in a room with sound-
dampening dividers between desks and lots of sound proofing on the walls and
ceilings.
I work in an open office, and barely hear it when people three meters away
make a phone call.
------
Bonge
The open office arrangement works for some industries but for others, each
company would need to evaluate how specialized their workforce is to choose a
suitable arrangement.
I would prefer a glass office with the freedom to have it closed much of the
day without any "judgement".
I am developer with an office now, but if i close the door I seem to be
keeping people off, and not "social" or "accommodating". Leaving the door open
exposes me to a lot of distractions (noise, visual-people walking etc, people
just stopping by or spying on me) which are unhealthy and reduce my
productivity. I have since learnt to ignore as much distractions as I can.
Working previously in an audit firm, the open space worked well, because there
is constant collaboration with multiple audit colleagues and all tasks
complement each other hence the need to constantly keep tabs. But in
development,if I have my specs or requirements , I don't need to keep in touch
unless when giving updates, requesting for a resource, asking fr help or
something else that is really pressing.
------
siculars
"Gruber continued, “When he [Srouji] was shown the floor plans, he was more or
less just 'F--- that, f--- you, f--- this, this is bulls---.' And they built
his team their own building, off to the side on the campus … My understanding
is that that building was built because Srouji was like, 'F--— this, my team
isn't working like this.’”"
Ya, what that guy said ^^.
------
tradesmanhelix
My main disappointment with most businesses that implement open office plans
has been the lack of choice. Everyone (except management) is expected to work
in the open environment regardless of personal preference or the negative way
such a setup impacts them.
I personally struggle to be productive in an open office environment, but time
has proven that there's very little that I as a non-managerial employee can do
about it. I've tried:
\- Using noise-cancelling headphones. They kind of work, but I don't want to
listen to music all the time (hurts your hearing after too long of exposure)
nor do I want to wear them all day (uncomfortable for 8+ hours).
\- Moving to quieter locations around the office. Yes things are quieter, but
my assigned desk is set up the way I like it - HD monitor, RSI-preventing
keyboard + mouse, my Varidesk, etc. If I move to a different location, I lose
all of the above and my productivity and happiness suffer.
\- Asking for changes (i.e., 1/2 height cubicles). "We'll see," or, "We can't
afford that" were the two responses our team got from management despite
numerous requests from multiple employees.
In the end, I decided to lobby against open offices the only way I could - by
voting with my feet. I quit my job, making sure to share my dissatisfaction
with the work environment during my exit interview. I now enjoy a fully-remote
development position where I can work from the comfort of my home office.
However, I know there are only so many such jobs and that they're not ideal
for everyone, so I come back to my original point: The fact that the vast
majority of businesses don't make at least some sort of effort to provide
their employees with options for their work environment that will allow them
to do their best work is sad. Doing so just seems like common sense, which I
guess is really not all that common after all, especially when it comes to
open offices.
------
deathanatos
> _Apple has insisted in presentations to the city of Cupertino that the open
> floor plan designs are conducive to collaboration between teams_
Oh, please. A trip to Wikipedia would have told you that[1]:
> _A systematic survey of research upon the effects of open-plan offices found
> […] high levels of noise, stress, conflict, high blood pressure and a high
> staff turnover. The noise level in open-plan offices greatly reduces
> productivity, which drops to one third relative to what it would be in quiet
> rooms._
> _Open-plan offices have frequently been found to reduce the confidential or
> private conversations which employees engage in, and to reduce job
> satisfaction, concentration and performance, whilst increasing auditory and
> visual distractions._
Further, open office plans spread disease more readily[2]:
> _elevated risks [for disease] were found among employees in all three
> traditional open-plan offices_
An open office floor plan robs you of the ability to control the noise level
in the environment. There is literally no way for me to convince enough of my
coworkers that they should:
* Either take their phone with them, or silence it if leaving it at your desk.
* Stop having meetings in the aisle immediately next to my desk.
* If you're going to video conference in the meeting rooms, and have the other end at full volume, close the damn door. If you don't know enough about video conferencing to understand what a feedback loop is, and want to spend the first 10 minutes of the meeting generating them, _close the damn door_. Stop looking at me like I'm rude when I close the door for you.¹
Calling people out gets a typical "oh, sorry", but not an actual change in
behavior.
_Maybe_ it encourages me to talk to the team nearby. _Maybe._ But is it worth
the losses? No. (The team next to me is sales. They're not bad people, but
they are fairly noisy. (And I'm sure they'd say the same of us, in fact!))
[1]:
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Open_plan](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Open_plan)
[2]:
[http://www.tandfonline.com/doi/pdf/10.1080/00140139.2013.871...](http://www.tandfonline.com/doi/pdf/10.1080/00140139.2013.871064)
------
jacobr
We have screen walls (~2 meters) around teams of 2-4 people. I think 2-4
people is a decent compromise, you get friction-less cooperation with the
people you work with but you don't get to overhear 20 different conversations
about what someone did on their weekend.
I am still bothered by other people's conversations across the screen-walls
though, and I prefer to not listen to music all day.
Our CEO is sympathetic to the issue with open offices and maybe if we move to
another place it will have a different layout, but converting an open office
to separate rooms is not that easy. Does anyone have any suggestions when
management would actually accept taking measures to avoid the negatives of
open office plans?
Are there 4m high screen walls, with doors..?
------
MikeTLive
they screwed up my award winning office design. common section down the middle
with individual offices on opposite walls, large enough for pair programming,
one end of the alcove has windows above shelves, other end has multimedia.
offices to be used as small conference rooms and manager offices, without
windows, are in a perpendicular central hallway. i designed this over 10 years
ago and a virtually identical design was used for my company's buildout the
following year. no one is assigned to the common central table. offices can
have the door open or closed depending on the occupant need/desire to be heads
down or passively participate with others. each alcove houses a functional
team
------
nottorp
Hmm. In a field like software development, where the good people work wherever
they want, this means they will lose their best staff.
Time to take a look at current desktop Linux again :)
------
chewrocca
I worked at a place that had the floor to almost ceiling cubicles. It was nice
and quiet. Then we went to the open floor plan. Then the Nerf guns arrived.
------
eecc
As a freelancer I'm looking forward to the day my customers will accept that
I'm just as effective (actually more so) sitting in my own shared office space
located just a short commute from home rather than their own desk and office,
alas a grueling journey away.
I guess they don't trust us children doing the work we are assigned and want
to smell us sweating away at their stinky enterprise codebases
------
marze
Apple is famous for pixel perfect prototyping, of numerous possible solutions,
before choosing.
Did they prototype and test various office layouts? If not, why not?
~~~
Digory
The WSJ article said Apple prototyped one work area, and then multiplied it
across the available space.
"Having settled on an overall shape, the team then broke it down into
smaller parts. “One of the advantages of this ring is the repetition of a
number of seg-ments,” says Ive. “We could put enormous care and attention
to detail into what is essentially a slice that is then repeated. So
there’s tremendous pragmatism in the building.” The ring would be made up
of pods—units of workspace—built around a central area, like a spoke
pointing toward the center of the ring, and a row of customizable seating
within each site: 80 pods per floor, 320 in total, but only one to
prototype and get right."
~~~
marze
Prototyping one version seems un-Apple. I would have expected them to have
prototyped many office layout options, had people work in them for six months
each and rate them or otherwise measure quality.
------
dsfyu404ed
One of the perks of working in defense is the office buildings you wind up in
are usually either all offices or a series of very small cube farms because
the building organization needs to be capable of supporting teams working with
materials of various levels of sensitivity. Even for unclassified work most
stuff is "don't share this if you don't need to".
------
jorts
Putting on headphones and listening to white noise like rainfall blocks out
just about everything for me. I don't like open floor plans due to noise when
I'm not wearing headphones, but with them on it's fine. When I don't put my
headphones on it allows me to engage with my team when I am not hyper focused
on something.
------
molestrangler
This is only a rumour, I would wait for some photos to appear to confirm this.
Anyone got any recent images now people have started moving in?
~~~
galonk
The reaction from the troops is a rumour. The fact that almost everyone has to
work in open space is not. It's well documented fact.
------
peeters
> bench seating
Wait long tables is one thing, but what on earth does bench seating mean? Like
it's one long picnic table?
~~~
stevesearer
"Benching" refers to a style of desk system that connects into a row.
Example from Steelcase:
[https://www.steelcase.com/products/benching/frameone/](https://www.steelcase.com/products/benching/frameone/)
------
b34r
God I hate open office layouts. The only job I've ever had with a proper cube
was a marketing agency, and it was glorious.
My team recently got little flags for our desks that explicitly say "open for
business" and "busy, come back later"... but even with those people still
bother you!
------
signa11
'peopleware' by demarco and lister, goes over this and lot of other issues in
great detail. imho, it should be required reading for s/w managers at the very
least.
edit-001 : added author info for the book.
------
zz9815
I wonder how many Apple employees will be fired for speaking their minds (or
writing 10 page documents) about how much they hate open office designs...
------
BrainInAJar
They should rebel collectively, through a union perhaps
------
danso
OT, but is there a good book on the history of offices, at least in American
workplaces? What existed before cubicles?
~~~
awad
Don't have a good book but a quick search led me to this Wired post:
[https://www.wired.com/2009/03/pl-design-5/](https://www.wired.com/2009/03/pl-
design-5/)
Anecdotally, when I think back to images from the early century, I'm led to
believe that open plan with higher level employees in private offices is
actually the historical norm. While the actual nature of work of course has
changed, I'm not so sure that everyone having their own private office has
ever been a reality other than a select few employers.
------
romanovcode
Well I would also be pissed if I had an office and then was told to give that
up.
------
wdb
If you do open office plans then everyone should do it including the
executives
------
diogenescynic
Good. I wish this happened more often. I would be much more productive with a
little more privacy. Open floor plans are awful.
------
khazhoux
(if I may repost a comment I wrote here before...)
We have an open floor plan, and it works like this:
* Desk area is for getting work done. Everyone agrees on this.
* We have "phone rooms" for small discussions. But we limit those usually to 1:1s or discussing office politics.
* Try to limit all discussions at the desk area to 5 people or less.
* If someone sighs loudly as they put on their headphones when you're having a discussion right behind them, then that is their signal to you to keep talking loudly, as their noise-canceling headphones will eliminate any trace of your conversation.
* You can usually carry a conversation at your desk at any volume, because other engineers will let you know if you're being too loud. Engineers tend to be extroverted and won't hesitate to let you know if you're bothering them.
* When someone first sits at their desk, it's polite to immediately engage them in a 30-minute conversation about their weekend or what they did last night. It eases their transition into work.
* A person working without headphones on, signifies that it's ok to tap them on the shoulder to ask them a question.
* A person working WITH headphones on, signifies that it's ok to tap them on the shoulder to ask them a question.
* If someone usually works off in quiet parts of the building, one should always remind them "you're never at your desk" with an accusatory tone.
~~~
andrewfong
You can improve upon this by giving everyone VR headsets to shut out visual
noise. You'll still need to come into the office though. Face time is
important.
~~~
inetknght
Ironically I have a Vive at home and it would be _one_ of the reasons I'd
never get much work done
~~~
jaggederest
Mostly, in my experience, the struggles of working from home are precisely the
opposite of that, in basically every way - people half-jokingly half-enviously
chuckle about how many video games you're playing, because that's what THEY
imagine they'd do if they worked from home, and they've never actually put
themselves in the position to find out.
------
1_2__4
Every single company does this now and it's a fucking nightmare. They'll give
you a million useless and stupid perks, but they won't give you a fucking
place to actually do work. It's infuriating beyond words.
------
pinaceae
Not everyone at Apple is a coder. Not every job is the same.
Note how designers and architects work in teams, in open work spaces.
I have seen communication in a PM group go to shits because of a move from an
open layout to a walled cubicle garden. PMs were avoidig their cubes, sitting
in the cafeteria as they enjoyed the "coffee shop hum".
Reality, as always, is nuanced.
------
Cozumel
Investing in everything but the people who work there.
~~~
pinewurst
I don't think that was the intent.
My guess is that this was planned in an era (sadly now) where open space is
portrayed as the "cool" way to work.
~~~
Spooky23
I'm sure Jony Ive has an office.
~~~
maxxxxx
Yes. Once I see all the big shots sitting elbow by elbow at a long table the
whole day I will revise my opinion about open offices.
~~~
pilsetnieks
Musk and Zuckerberg "sit" among the peasants. It makes for a good photo op but
in reality they have to spend very little time at their desk. At that level,
they probably spend most of their time in meetings, and even when not, it's
not like anyone would chastise them for behaving inconsiderately to other
people in the office, or taking over a conference room as their impromptu
office.
~~~
borplk
Same with Jack from Twitter. At that point it's just an empty gesture.
------
masterleep
Open offices are a direct manifestation of Satan's plan.
------
smegel
> instead of in cubicles
Wait, I thought cubicles _were_ open plan, in comparison to offices? This
sounds like super-exposed office planning.
~~~
borplk
Open offices is even-cheaper cubicles.
------
dogruck
When was the first "rebellion against an office plan"? Can anybody link a
report from the early 1900s? The 80s?
------
homosaphien1
I might be in the minority but I HATE cubicle farms and love open office
design. Just give every a sound cancellation headphone if they complain. To me
cubical farms are depressing.
~~~
exergy
There are many of us who code in spurts, and spend the rest of the time
goofing off on Reddit or hacker news. At the same time, we'd prefer not to get
judged on what percentage of time we have Facebook open on our monitors, and
more on the work we do. But when everyone can see what you're doing, it's hard
to get rid of the nagging feeling that you're being watched.
~~~
intoverflow2
It's not really goofing off, I absolutely work in several focused spurts
during the day. Which is also why I'm never that fussed about turning up on
time because I never do any real work in the morning anyway.
Can't dig it out now but John Cleese did a good talk on creativity explaining
why this works and how brains solve problems in the background which is why
inspiration hits in the shower and on the train. By alternating between
focusing then procrastinating and ignoring work you can force a decent cadence
of creativity into your work.
------
lowbloodsugar
The "I don't like open spaces, so therefore my team doesn't" is the same
failure as "I don't like an office, so my team doesn't get offices".
Developers are humans, and not all humans have the same preference. I
_personally_ prefer to work in an enclosed space that includes all my team.
Open spaces suck for me. A closed office with just me in it also sucks, for
me. If anyone on my team is more productive in an office, I'll do my best to
get them an office.
There are two fundamental problems that always show up on this issue:
1\. Believing that "I am human. My preference is X. Therefore X is the
preference of all humans", and
2\. "Office as a signal of seniority".
If a team can get past both of those, they should be good.
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Flash vs HTML 5 - kloc
http://www.nytimes.com/external/readwriteweb/2010/03/10/10readwriteweb-does-html5-really-beat-flash-the-surprising-81090.html
======
ZeroGravitas
This is an unchanged repost of a ReadWriteWeb post, which in turn only
summarises the original article by Jan Ozer which is discussed here:
<http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1181452>
------
Groxx
This has nothing to do with HTML5 and everything to do with _playing videos_.
Flash vs <insert browser's decoder here>.
------
kjf
There are other factors to consider here besides performance. Security for
one.
~~~
arethuza
Not to mention functionality - code the same thing in Flash and using Canvas
and compare what is involved. Some things that are trivial in Flash/Flex are
(as far as I can see) pretty difficult when using Canvas.
Note that I _really_ want to use Canvas - but at the moment when it comes to
interactive graphical applications I don't think the two are currently
directly comparable.
~~~
Groxx
Give it time. The canvas element isn't even out of draft phases yet. How long
has Flash been around?
Honestly, I think canvas will catch up to Flash in capabilities pretty
quickly. And I'm holding out hope for OpenCL hooks for Javascript for this
reason precisely. What's really needed now is a _good editor_ like Flash's
studio.
People are still largely doing everything by hand-coding things. Put Flash on
that same level, and see how easy things are to do.
~~~
gb
Actually a lot of Flash apps are mainly code + assets now, that's certainly
the way we make things.
I've tried using canvas to replicate some things that we've made in Flash, and
quickly ran into some problems:
1) There is no way of interacting with elements drawn to canvas, as it's just
a flat image (as someone else mentioned in the comments here, canvas is just a
way of drawing bitmaps). You could obviously write your code to deal with
mouse and keyboard interaction, but it's even more overhead on something that
is already quite slow, and even if you could interact with individual elements
it brings me to the other thing...
2) Flash has everything in layers that can be updated independently, when it
comes to canvas if you want to change something you have to redraw that
section of the image entirely, something that isn't always practical which
means you end up redrawing the whole canvas. Essentially Flash does the same
thing, but as the compositing is handled by the plugin it is far faster than
anything you can do in Javascript at the moment.
Also related to the above, the drawImage method that draws bitmap data to the
canvas is painfully slow at the moment, so compositing using that is out of
the question. If that can be optimised significantly it will certainly help.
Basically canvas is too low level to duplicate the kind of functionality Flash
offers at the moment. Until manipulating the canvas and Javascript is
optimised further it's not possible to layer in the interaction or flexibility
of rendering that Flash has. I'm sure a framework offering this will happen
one day, but it won't be any time soon.
~~~
Groxx
1) I'll seriously disagree with you on this. Flash is likely much easier,
because it's designed around doing this, but it's easily possible in Canvas
too. Just maybe not currently. An OpenGL-like pipeline to help figure out what
you clicked on, combined with JavaScript objects that can draw themselves,
allows identical behavior. I don't know about interaction speed, can't comment
on that. And I'm only using OpenGL as an example because I have some idea of
how it works, there are other ways to detect what was clicked.
Heck, if you wanted, you could literally duplicate OpenGL in its entirety in
JS for Canvas. There's _nothing_ preventing this, except lack of threading /
parallel processing, though I admit it'd be ungodly slow.
2) Also primarily a problem currently, and likely due mostly to the lack of
mature libraries to do just this. With compositing rules (source-over, source-
atop, etc) and masks for objects, you can re-render only the displayed portion
of any object on a Canvas as well.
Low level: well yeah, it's a thin layer over a bitmap surface. Libraries are
needed to abstract away from that. It's kind of like saying that OpenGL isn't
fast because it's core is low-level. That low-level feature-set Canvas has
will be wrapped in libraries to make specific uses simpler, I guarantee it.
Speed will come, especially as Canvas gains focus. It's still very new. Was
Flash this fast/capable in pre-1.0 days? I have no idea if it'll catch up /
surpass Flash, but it's far from its optimum right now.
I'm not calling for the death of Flash, and I seriously doubt it'll ever
supersede Flash on everything, so Flash has it's uses and will continue to do
so. Just pointing out that they're not on equal playing grounds in terms of
development.
~~~
gb
Actually I think you just agreed with everything I was saying!
My point was canvas isn't quite there _yet_ , not that it never will be, and
also that I think the Flash-has-an-editor argument isn't the reason why canvas
isn't ready yet.
As a side note, I'm already one of the people writing a library/framework to
overcome the things I mentioned, the problem is I don't think it's going to be
fast enough to do much with for a while.
~~~
Groxx
Aaah, ok. I was keying in on the "There is no way of..." and "have to..." to
mean you thought it was impossible, not that it just wasn't easy currently.
------
lovskogen
What's with NYT anti HTML5 agenda?
~~~
arethuza
Why does it have to be an "anti HTML5 agenda"?
~~~
benologist
Because it's not saying what everyone wants to hear aka flash is doomed!!!!
~~~
nlabs
dont you want flash to be doomed? In 5 years why should the web require a
plugin to show video or vector graphics?
~~~
benologist
I love Flash, and the core problems people rant about boil down to crap Adobe
can fix.
HTML5 has some amazing possibilities ahead of it but none of that eradicates
Flash's future. Fantasizing and circlejerking about that possibility is just
retarded -plugins fill a void the W3C and browser vendors can't do themselves
- and that is keeping up.
What are your needs in 5 years and what makes you think HTML5 is somehow
perfectly anticipating them? How about 10 years? How about even _one_ year
from now?
Are you going to upgrade any software at all you use over the next 5 years? Or
did they all get it perfect too?
~~~
pohl
"Adobe can fix" < "Anybody can fix"
I've lived in a world where I couldn't access online banking if I was using
anything as exotic as Mozilla on Linux. Thankfully, the situation has improved
a bit since those days, but I would never want to return to them. Note that
today you don't have to stray very far from the mainstream before Adobe stops
delivering their plugin. The web should be such that it can be used on
innovative platforms without being at the mercy of one CEO who doesn't like
another CEO that day, or thinks your FreeBSD or Plan 9 or Haiku are too
marginal, or that your CPU instruction set insufficiently ubiquitous.
------
cpetersen
This article seems to miss the point.
First, it starts off talking about the iPad and how Flash may not be the CPU
hog its made out to be. It then goes on to say that HTML5 is more efficient
than Flash in Safari. The iPad runs Safari, in effect contradicting their
previous argument about the iPad.
Next, they say that Apple could allow Adobe to make Flash faster, all they
have to do is open up access to the hardware APIs. Who exactly wants a browser
plugin to have low level access to the hardware APIs?
Seems kind of ridiculous to say that something else is at work here. Does
Apple want to kill Flash? Probably, but even if they didn't want to, they've
got plenty of reasons not to allow flash on the iPhone/iPad/etc.
------
est
The problem with HTML5 is that it does not provide any better new features of
multimedia, but an incomplete alternative to Flash. I would definitely choose
HTML5 if I can make something that can not be done with Flash nor HTML4
~~~
simonw
"I would definitely choose HTML5 if I can make something that can not be done
with Flash nor HTML4"
Interactive graphics that work on the iPhone and iPad.
------
Thuglife
2010 and i am bound to a company so i can have "proper" video on a web page.
Flash VS HTML5 is a no brainer for any sane person.
I almost forgot, FU Adobe i use FreeBSD.
Good riddance.
------
GBKS
HTML is doomed. Flash is way more powerful and installed on almost every
computer in the world. Flash also runs almost the same on all browsers, even
IE6, where many HTML sites break - another clear advantage...
Seriously, this argument is getting old. Chose the right technology for your
purpose and use it wisely to prevent CPU spikes, security issues, etc. HTML
makes strides forward and so does Flash. HTML is great for 90% of all needs,
and Flash fills in the other 10% where you need some more flexibility, play
audio, have multiple file-uploads, run it as an Air app on the desktop, etc.
~~~
Groxx
_HTML is doomed. Flash is way more powerful and installed on almost every
computer in the world._
What, HTML isn't installed on almost every computer in the world?
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
High frequency cryptocurrency historical raw market data replay API - tardis_thad
https://tardis.dev
======
tardis_thad
Hi, founder of [https://tardis.dev](https://tardis.dev) here. Happy to answer
any questions you have.
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Ask HN: Are there any studies on if and how are dark or light themes better? - qwerty456127
======
tedyoung
Yes, a Google Scholar search provided some experimental results:
* "The impact of color combinations on the legibility of text presented on LCDs" ("Dark text generally leads to greater legibility when contrast ratio is greatest."): [https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S000368701...](https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0003687014000696)
* "Night Mode, Dark Thoughts: Background Color Influences the Perceived Sentiment of Chat Messages" (not directly applicable, but interesting: "Those who rated the messages against a black background perceived them more negatively than those who worked against a white background"): [https://link.springer.com/chapter/10.1007/978-3-319-67684-5_...](https://link.springer.com/chapter/10.1007/978-3-319-67684-5_12)
There's probably more, but I'd guess it's highly dependent on personal
preference, vision, and ambient lighting, among other things.
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Dexcom outage that kept patients from tracking blood sugar was complete surprise - zootme
https://www.cnbc.com/2019/12/03/dexcom-cto-our-biggest-ever-glitch-was-a-big-surprise.html
======
wglb
It seems seriously irresponsible to be in a position where outages of any
scope are "a complete surprise". Especially with a service that is key to
real-time monitoring of health, the entire company should be of the mindset of
"What could possibly go wrong."
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Berlin 1945 and today - chrtze
http://interaktiv.morgenpost.de/berlin-1945-2015/
======
gus_massa
Previous discussion:
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9492068](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9492068)
(168 points, 34 days ago, 43 comments)
It has a few comments about a similar project for Warsaw with links to the
videos.
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Building the Midwest: Money. Liquidity. Talent? - pthomas551
https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/building-midwest-money-liquidity-talent-nick-cromydas?trk=v-feed&lipi=urn%3Ali%3Apage%3Ad_flagship3_detail_base%3BZPZMszK1jbY0l7i2MLH%2FWQ%3D%3D
======
aceeightofspade
The big question is how do you bring in additional and quality talent with
less funds? Especially, when you are competing with the attractiveness and
money of the coasts?
~~~
pthomas551
For sure. I think cost of living is a big differentiator. As for weather, let
people work remote from the West Coast in the winter ;)
------
pthomas551
Great article! Talent is definitely a big challenge in building out startups
here in Chicago.
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Show HN: Nikon DSLR as video conf webcam on Mac - dognotdog
I've spent the COVID weekends working on an open-source plugin to use my Nikon DSLR as a webcam for the endless Zoom calls, and here it is:<p>https://github.com/dognotdog/ptpwebcam
======
jamesponddotco
Nice!
If anyone is looking for an alternative to use your DSLR on Linux as a webcam,
I wrote Fujicam[1] recently. It is not anywhere near as polished as
dognotdog's implementation — it is just a wrapper around v4l2loopback,
libgphoto2, and ffmpeg, really —, but has been working pretty well for me.
Despite the name, it should work with any camera compatible with libgphoto[2],
not just Fujifilm cameras. Maybe I should remove it from my dotfiles, give it
its own repository, and polish it a little.
[1]
[https://git.sr.ht/~jamesponddotco/dotfiles/tree/master/.loca...](https://git.sr.ht/~jamesponddotco/dotfiles/tree/master/.local/bin/fujicam)
[2]
[http://gphoto.org/proj/libgphoto2/support.php](http://gphoto.org/proj/libgphoto2/support.php)
~~~
dognotdog
Very nice, definitely give it it's own repo!
I would've gone with libgphoto2, too, if the Mac didn't already have all this
half-baked PTP infrastructure in place, and if libgphoto2 would've been easier
to integrate into the CoreMediaIO pipeline.
~~~
jamesponddotco
For macOS I would probably use the official drives that Fujifilm released —
less hacky, for sure —, but it does not look like Canon released something
similar.
You should probably ping the guys at PetaPixel[1] to get it out there, as I am
sure a lot of people would benefit from this.
[1] [https://petapixel.com/contact/](https://petapixel.com/contact/)
~~~
dognotdog
Canon does have _something_ , but it does have problems. E.g., it cannot get
around the Library Validation problem with Zoom and Skype (they tell you it
can't be used with those, which isn't quite true), plus you cannot change
camera settings while running it.
~~~
jamesponddotco
> plus you cannot change camera settings while running it
Same goes for libgphoto, and Fujifilm's own implementation, by the way.
~~~
dognotdog
That is interesting. It might be a semantic difference between actually
recording a movie stream via PTP, vs. using Live View, which is what I am
doing. Libgphoto2 seems to support both, but I haven't tried the former, as
the setup seemed more complicated, whereas Nikon's LiveView just gives you a
plain JPEG when you request a frame. Even though it's only VGA resolution in
the case of my camera, it beats the "HD" of the builtin webcam by a long shot.
------
dubyabee2
Thanks, great project.
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Groupon daily emails and RSS feeds, a lesson in nagging and timing - a4agarwal
http://sachin.posterous.com/groupon-daily-emails-and-rss-feeds-a-lesson-i
======
mrshoe
To anyone sending emails (including posterous), I'd recommend going beyond A/B
tests. You should know the optimal time to contact _each user_.
For new users you can intentionally send emails at various times (and days of
the week). Then you can track a time-specific clickthru rate for each user.
Eventually you'll converge on one or more optimal times/days. You can
accomplish this with a machine learning algorithm or you can simply track the
timestamp of each user's last N clicks and use that to decide when to email
them. Precision isn't of the essence here, but I've found that clickthru rates
can be _dramatically_ affected by picking the right time of day and day of
week.
~~~
patio11
You need an awful lot of clicks to get time-specific CTR, and that strikes me
as unlikely with most services, but it takes _zero_ clicks to identify one
time the user is at the computer ("the anniversary hour:minute of their
signup") and one click to identify a time at which they open the email (the
time at which they opened any email from you, causing a download of your web
bug, or clicked from the email to your website).
------
adityakothadiya
May be it's just me that I'm not so impulsive buyer as Sachin. But here is
what I do when I see the Groupon deal - ponder upon if I want to buy this or
not. Of course, the % discount is always incredible, there is no question
about it, so I know I'm going to get it at lot cheaper price than I usually
do. But the pondering is always about - do I need it? So the moment I see a
Groupon deal, I can't decide right away that I want to buy it or not. I keep
pondering over it till afternoon, and most of the times I purchased the deals
in the late afternoon or evening. So it takes some time for me to see the
deal, and then make the decision. I can't think of myself making the decision
within few minutes after I see the deal, and that too before sleep after a
tiring day of work. So I actually don't mind getting these emails in the
morning, when I'm fresh and ready to get started for the day. So not sure if
the pattern Sachin wrote about is most common or the pattern I'm seeing is
common. Yeah, that's when A/B testing will help.
~~~
a4agarwal
I'm a very impulsive buyer. If I see something I like (or is a good deal), I
just do it. You should see my Amazon order history, it's been pretty insane
since I got Prime :)
------
ajg1977
Ironically, the "Daily Posterous Subscriptions" email I receive every day
suffers from exactly the same issue that their co-founder has observed in
another service.
Because it always seems to be sent around 4:30am and is relatively low value,
it's one of the first emails I delete during my morning inbox routine.
~~~
a4agarwal
I agree, and we'll be changing this. Thanks!
------
dalore
It could be they have so many emails to send out and they don't wont them to
be flagged as spam so they stagger them.
------
aresant
If you have a list, you can drive monster gains via basic A/B testing of
components.
\- Time of day sends make huge differences, early AMs test well for us despite
article's counter point.
\- Highest open rates are Sunday but Tuesday we see highest level of
transactions.
\- Including company name in your email can increase opens and clicks
substantially.
etc etc - so much good data on this topic - particuarlly the first link:
[http://www.email-marketing-reports.com/tactics/best-time-
to-...](http://www.email-marketing-reports.com/tactics/best-time-to-send/)
[http://conversionvoodoo.com/blog/2010/07/personalizing-
your-...](http://conversionvoodoo.com/blog/2010/07/personalizing-your-email-
subjects-can-drop-your-conversion-rate/#more-614)
<http://www.mailermailer.com/resources/metrics/index.rwp>
| {
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} |
DefCon Hackers Tell How They Cracked Brink's Safe in 60 Seconds - mtuncer
http://www.eweek.com/security/defcon-hackers-tell-how-they-cracked-brinks-safe-in-60-seconds.html
======
xenophonf
"So the issue isn't so much that there is no
acknowledgment that there is a problem; rather,
the vendors have been pointing fingers about
whose problem it is for over a year, without
progress made on the actual resolution."
And my colleagues wonder why I support full disclosure. I tell you what - if I
was a bank that used these products, I'd be going around and epoxying these
USB ports closed ASAP.
~~~
david_shaw
I used to work as a penetration tester, and one of our clients hired us to
perform a "custom application" assessment. I can't give specific details (for
obvious NDA-related reasons), but this application was a large device that
interfaced with mission-critical hardware -- and ran Windows XP embedded.
They'd done a pretty good job securing the OS and device itself: we couldn't
actually connect it to any networks, so network penetration testing was
difficult, and there were no USB ports or CD drives. Unfortunately for them,
they _did_ leave an archaic port open on the back of the device. Now, this
wasn't a USB port or anything, but (with certain difficult-to-source adaptors)
we _were_ able to get an external 3.5" floppy drive hooked up -- through which
we could (slowly) load arbitrary executables, and take over the device.
When we explained this finding, the client told us that certain customers of
theirs required this port for proprietary communication, and that they
couldn't remove it from production. The end result was that for every
production run of this device that _wasn 't_ going to one of those edge-case
customers, epoxy was manually applied to close off the port.
Not the most elegant solution, but I guess it worked!
~~~
x0054
Why not simply score the motherboard around the port to cut the traces? Epoxy
sounds like such an inelegant solution. But I am a neat freak :)
~~~
xenophonf
I personally would prefer epoxy because just about anybody can apply it,
whereas to safely cut traces on a motherboard requires someone with a modicum
of technical skill, the purchase of suitable tools, hardware testing
afterwards, etc.
~~~
x0054
That's true, but isn't the company making these devices? If they are making
them, they must have someone capable of operating an x-acto knife. Also, if
you are concern about an attack that requires someone to load code very slowly
from floppy, wouldn't you also be concerned about someone using a battery
operated rotary tool to cut the epoxy around the pins, and then connecting
probes to those pins which would allow to than connect the floppy drive.
~~~
simoncion
Epoxied ports are like locks. They're there to keep honest people out and to
slow down (and in the case of epoxied ports, _really_ slow down) dishonest
people.
I don't know where the hardware was going, but computers are often either
located in places where only trusted employees are permitted, or where there
is not-infrequent foot traffic. Combine either trusted employees or random,
unpredictable passers-by with regular inspection of the hardware, and you have
a pretty decent solution.
Epoxied ports can also be used as an after-the-fact intrusion warning. You
know the thing was epoxied from the factory. If your inspection reveals that
the epoxy is missing or has been altered, then you're almost certain that
something nefarious was going on.
~~~
x0054
Some time ago, around 2008, I let my friend use my bicycle for a few weeks. He
ended up loosing a key to the bike lock, and I had to cut off the lock to get
the bike out. So here I was, with an battery operated angle grinder, wearing a
hoody, cutting a bike lock in the middle of downtown San Diego at 4pm on a
weekday with streets full of people, 4 blocks from central jail, and cops
going up and down the street. It took me 15 min to grind though the lock, and
it made a lot of noise. No one even bothered to ask me what I was doing,
people were walking by as if I didn't exist. Cops drove by without stopping.
My point is, if these machines were destined for public places, it wouldn't
surprise me if a man in overalls could sit next to them and grind away epoxy
with impunity for hours before anyone would think twice about it.
~~~
simoncion
From the story, it sounds like the client actually cared about the security of
these devices. I would be somewhat surprised if they were left unobserved long
enough for someone to surreptitiously carve out the epoxy and attach a drive
to it.
Though, we can't know if the client was looking for intrusion prevention, or
merely after-the-fact intrusion detection. :)
------
jhull
'...[they] literally "smashed" on the keyboard to see what would happen when
arbitrary keys were pressed together. Using that smashing technique, the
researchers were able to figure out how to escape the kiosk mode.'
They also just invented the newest SaaS model: "Smashing as a Service"
~~~
stygiansonic
Sounds like keyboard fuzzing; a strange way to get out of kiosk mode, but hey,
it worked.
~~~
hwillis
Certainly does. Public terminals at Boston University used to crash to desktop
if you smashed on the keyboard enough.
~~~
kbenson
This is a tried and true technique used by students for decades.
~~~
FeepingCreature
When I was a kid, a bookstore nearby had a computer where you could download
free software, with a closed interface. Anyway, some guys came along and were
like "look, we're gonna hack this thing", at which point they started mashing
on the keyboard like madmen. (The poor beeps of that abused computer ...)
And now you're telling me this is an actual thing?? My life is a lie.
~~~
kbenson
What do you think fuzzing is? Keyboard mashing taken to 11. ;)
------
striking
So the hack is a classic kiosk mode breakout, like you could try to do with
poorly secured public computers. The wonder here is not in the hack, because
it's just a set of keypresses and mouse clicks. The wonder instead lies with
the the manufacturer who made a safe stupid enough to be bypassed with a mouse
and keyboard.
~~~
timboslice
10+ years ago I was at a public library with terminals that were in kiosk mode
with IE in fullscreen, hidden start menu etc. I used a paperclip to eject the
cd drive, put in a CD with autorun, and voila, visible start menu and was able
to get to the internet from IE
~~~
amalag
I hear Brink's QA department is hiring.
~~~
mannykannot
QA is not the solution - this is a design failure.
~~~
someone7x
Exactly. Often in BigCorp type places bugs are classified as deviations from
requirements. If this poor design was the requirement, then any objections
that may have arisen would've probably been classified as suggestions instead
of bugs.
~~~
mokus
I have to think even the most myopic bureaucrats would remember to include
"cannot be opened except by authorized parties" in a requirements document for
a safe.
~~~
tyho
Yes, but all that will achieve is a tester writing it into their plan to check
that invalid credentials don't let you in. It will not magically teach
programmers to write secure code.
~~~
mokus
The bit I was replying to was a hypothetical situation where QA does, for some
reason, find the flaw but management rejects it because it doesn't match a
bullet point in the requirements. My point was just that if that's not in the
requirements then you have even bigger problems. I never claimed or even
implied (because I don't believe) that writing down that requirement would
actually achieve anything.
------
powertower
> Oscar Salazar, senior security associate at security firm Bishop Fox
> explained that _money inserted into the CompuSafe is automatically deposited
> to the retail store 's bank account_.
In-case anyone was also wondering what that is, after looking it up, it's
provisional credit with the bank... The safe transmit daily deposit data to
the bank, and the bank credits your account.
~~~
ams6110
Which they will certainly debit out of your account if the money isn't
actually in the safe.
------
coldcode
Even funnier that the money is the banks' once it goes into the safe. So once
again the reason to rob a bank is "that's were the money is" except here you
can do it with a usb widget. If the money stays in the safe overnight (how
often do the Brinks people come?) it's a pretty easy score.
~~~
logfromblammo
Now, I'm not all that familiar with the banking industry, but it seems like
assuming ownership of bearer instruments (banknotes) before they are actually
in your possession seems like a risky practice. You're basically assuming that
all those third parties involved in securing your property are going to do
their very best to prevent you from losing it, without actually having much at
stake themselves.
If the transfer of ownership is completed the instant the store drops the cash
into the safe, they only have an interest in securing the path to the point of
deposit, and have no interest in securing the safe itself.
Indeed, the naive criminal plot would be to adjust the store surveillance
cameras such that the safe-deposit process could be visually verified, but the
cracking process would be obfuscated. Then a store employee cracks the store's
own safe, takes the money out, and takes it out through the loading dock with
the trash.
[Edit:] It seems as though the safe credit is actually a provisional deposit,
and banks aren't all that crazy after all.
~~~
pjc50
Banks are quite adept at both insurance and recovery from petty fraud.
------
Vexs
"tool that Salazar and Petro created basically emulates mouse and keyboard presses"
USB Rubber ducky? Neat tool that is.
~~~
VMG
Thanks, haven't heard of it before
[http://usbrubberducky.com/](http://usbrubberducky.com/)
~~~
Vexs
It's pretty cool- afaik, it's based off of the teensy 2.0 uC. There's actually
some neat firmware that lets it emulate a flash drive at the same time as a
keyboard/mouse, allowing you to deploy software on the flash drive. For that
reason especially, it could be useful for anyone in IT.
------
edc117
They've known about the vulnerability for a -year-?? Come on. In some fields,
fine, but in a safe company?
~~~
mfoy_
They probably assumed that the cost of fixing the issue and actually pushing
that fix to every unit in the field would outweigh the cost of not fixing it.
~~~
john_b
True, though now that it's public they may start accounting for the potential
cost of lawsuits within the next year.
------
flashman
This sounds a lot like Samy Kamkar's USBdriveby tool:
[http://samy.pl/usbdriveby/](http://samy.pl/usbdriveby/)
_USBdriveby is a device you stylishly wear around your neck which can quickly
and covertly install a backdoor and override DNS settings on an unlocked
machine via USB in a matter of seconds. It does this by emulating a keyboard
and mouse, blindly typing controlled commands, flailing the mouse pointer
around and weaponizing mouse clicks._
------
Spoom
I predict they will attempt to shut down the talk before it happens via legal
means.
~~~
beambot
I have a question about this: With all the BlackHat / Defcon talks that have
been squelched over the years in the run-up to the conference... why do they
still advertise talks ahead of time?
Wouldn't it be much, much better to just keep the topics secret until the
moment of disclosure?
~~~
orf
That would derail the hype train
------
god_bless_texas
Is this actually made by Brinks?. Loomis offers a similar product named
"SafePoint".
From the pictures, it looks like the same hardware.
I wonder if the vulnerability is specific to the customer or the hardware?
~~~
tlb
Made by Tidel. [http://www.tidel.com/](http://www.tidel.com/).
------
mfoy_
Interesting article aside, was the shadowy ninja with a fedora really
necessary?
~~~
usefulcat
Also, isn't that figure holding the sword with the blade pointed towards his
own neck? The blade looks pretty straight compared to most katana pictures
I've seen but notice the tip.
~~~
0xffff2
It's straight because it's a Ninjato[1], not a katana. It's most definitely
being held backwards though.
[1]
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ninjat%C5%8D](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ninjat%C5%8D)
------
christop
Somebody took Microcorruption a bit too literally!
------
zimbu668
I was expecting something like this:
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_detailpage&v=nB...](https://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_detailpage&v=nBhOjWHbD6M#t=148)
but USB sticks are probably a little less suspicious than crow bars.
------
gcb0
> safe had a usb port.
nothing else to read here.
------
at-fates-hands
So if they can use the exploit to open the safe, I'm assuming there is a way
to then lock the safe down and keep the Brinks and company employees out of
the safe?
------
soyiuz
Is it exactly 60 seconds? Or more like 58? or 71? Not a fan of such
sensationalist headlines.
~~~
acveilleux
It's probably blind so it's more like "about a minute".
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Why Australia must embrace the digital age - dan_siepen
http://coderfactory.co/posts/why-australia-must-embrace-digital-age#.VMnwOqy28C4.hackernews
======
Sir_Substance
We're hearing the same narrative in this piece that we do in the US. I
graduated last year (in Australia) with a degree in software engineering with
first class honors and a year of employment already under my belt thanks to a
nifty government opportunity that I mixed into my honors. I thought I was a
scoop.
It has taken me 12 months to find a job, and that job is not in Australia.
Of the 7 friends I went through uni with (including myself) that completed,
three found local jobs in their field, three founds jobs overseas and one took
a PhD to duck and cover from the economy.
When it's as difficult to find jobs in the country as it is to get them
overseas, you can hardly froth over how it's a problem that Australian IT
demand isn't being met because students aren't interested.
Not our fault arseholes, maybe if you hired someone occasionally, people would
consider it more of a career option.
The reality is that the Australian IT industry is dead, dead, dead. There is
no startup culture anywhere, almost every games company abandoned ship during
the GFC, and big companies like Microsoft ship Australian graduates to the US
rather then employing them here. The jobs that stay in Australia are two-
faced. One of the guys I mentioned got a local job with HP, and a few months
later he was handing out fliers at the job faire for the next years graduates.
HP sure must value his technical expertise, and they aren't the only ones.
Cisco was advertising for engineers (electrical, software, computer) for their
graduate program. Upon further inspection, the first 6 months of their
graduate program involved coursework in sales.
COME ON. I did not do 4 years of university to hawk routers.
Why is this shit happening? I don't know for sure, but it's clear something
about the Australian environment is very hostile to IT business.
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Where Boys OutperformGirls in Math: Rich, Whiteand Suburban Districts - jbredeche
https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2018/06/13/upshot/100000005950701.app.html
======
mkirklions
I have a hard time with these studies because they obviously had an agenda
before they started.
Rural areas likely do not have as much communication with friends and the
income to support a tech lifestyle.
While you grow up in the suburbs, you see your friends get the latest video
games, you spend more time online. One day you decide you want to 'hack' and
10 years later you are making apps and websites.
There seemed to be a culture among my friends that math/tech was extremely
important. I know my sister had very little interest, they'd play outside with
my both male and female neighbors who none ended up being good at math/tech.
~~~
roenxi
To be fair, this is an area where it is impossible not to have an agenda. Both
being pro-status-quo or pro-something-here-should-change are relatively
radical in the eyes of the other, and there isn't a lot of middle ground.
Ideally, more money would be sunk into raising the statistical literacy of
everybody. Then we can all talk sensibly about the statistics involved here
and take it for granted that Simpson's Paradox is being considered in all
studies involving gender :P.
~~~
tomp
The way the article's written, it's putting much more emphasis on the slight
and sporadic outperformance of boys in math, rather than on the much stronger
and more consistend outperformance of girls in language. _That 's_ the problem
with the agenda, IMO.
Edit: as _mlthoughts2018_ points out, the title could as well be:
_" Boys, increasingly abandoned in English class, turn to math as a domain in
which they can be rewarded for success-- especially in rich, white suburbs."_
------
commandlinefan
I can't find it now, but I seem to remember a study that showed that boys
dominated both ends of the "bell curve" when it came to academic achievement:
the top achievers were boys, but the lowest performers were, too. The author
here doesn't seem to be particularly interested in averages, which would make
for a fairer comparison.
~~~
tomp
Yeah, I was also missing some measures and discussion of _absolute_
performance (both girls vs boys, and rich vs poor).
------
creaghpatr
Alternative title: "Where Girls Outperform Boys in Math: Low Income, African-
American districts"
~~~
qntty
Why does it matter?
~~~
cgb223
Not the top level commenter, but my take on that would be that you can tell a
lot of different stories with the same data
Maybe if it was framed this way, we might be looking into solutions to help
struggling boys in lower income areas
Not that one is more or less valid than another, just that different framings
of data can lead researchers to different conclusions/solutions
------
mrep
Wow, pretty interesting to see my school district as one of the closest 15 to
the bottom right corner. Looking back though, I can definitely see it. Most of
the kids in my AP computer science class were boys and I now see way more guys
from my high school in STEM jobs then girls.
In my opinion, the biggest cause was due to gender stereotypes. We weren't the
actual school based on for the movie mean girls (although lots of people joked
that we were), but it had a very similar vibe in that math was not seen as
being cool for girls to do and popularity was definitely a major focus for a
lot of people.
Edit: reading further into the actual paper, the first possible reason they
site are gender stereotypes. It's a pretty interesting read. I would at least
skim if it if you are at all curios and it's a shame that this article seems
to have been shadow hidden from the front page despite having 25 points in an
hour:
[https://cepa.stanford.edu/sites/default/files/wp18-13-v20180...](https://cepa.stanford.edu/sites/default/files/wp18-13-v201806_0.pdf)
------
ameister14
"Instilling children early with motivation and confidence to do well in school
is crucial, researchers say. When students reach high school and have more
choice in the classes they take, the gender gaps in achievement grow even
larger."
Interestingly, it doesn't appear to be the gender gap in math that grows
larger, but instead the gap in writing and language.
------
sigsergv
The correct title should be: Boys that live in rich, white and suburban
districts outperform girls in standardized test scores.
------
mlthoughts2018
It borders on dangerous lack of journalistic responsibility to write a story
like this which does not even mention the effect size observed.
The closest statement I can find to something like mentioning an actual effect
size is this:
> "In the Montgomery Township district in New Jersey, for example, the median
> household income is $180,000 and the students are about 60 percent white and
> 30 percent Asian-American. Boys and girls both perform well, but boys score
> almost half a grade level ahead of girls in math. Compare that with Detroit,
> where the median household earns $27,000 and students are about 85 percent
> black. It’s one of the districts in which girls outperform boys in math."
'Boys score almost half a grade level ahead' \-- ahh so much imprecise
terminology that we can't know what it even means, let alone if this example
was representative or cherry-picked.
I'm not talking about holding a popular newspaper to some unrealistic
standard, like giving us informative plots of the spread (uncertainty) of
results or minor description of the methodology or anything. I wish, but
there's no way.
I'm saying they aren't even throwing any numbers into the clickbait. The
takeaway from this article is _purely_ subjective, because we don't know what
' grade level' or 'almost' or 'better' mean in any of the description. What
does "5 months of grade level" mean, and how does it vary by state or
district, etc?
Normally there's at least something like, "Boys did X% better on SAT math
sections between 2010-2016" or something, and you can look at X% and decide
whether it looks huge and meaningful or looks small enough that it might be
spurious or have no meaningful effects in students' lives down the road or
something.
These just seem like made up numbers in units of months or "grade level". How
do I know what it means? Given that the blue point cloud is roughly around the
0 line, and I don't know how much "1 unit" "means" on the vertical axis, I
seems like there's no conclusion to draw.
_In fact_ the most salient effect size mention is _about girls_ and _about
language arts_ :
> "In no district do boys, on average, do as well or better than girls in
> English and language arts. In the average district, girls perform about
> three-quarters of a grade level ahead of boys."
Maybe the title should be something like,
"Boys, increasingly abandoned in English class, turn to math as a domain in
which they can be rewarded for success-- especially in rich, white suburbs."
(The point is, it's just as consistent with the utter lack of detail of the
article.)
~~~
mrep
> 'Boys score almost half a grade level ahead' \-- ahh so much imprecise
> terminology that we can't know what it even means, let alone if this example
> was representative or cherry-picked.
Well the paper is linked in the third sentence if your curios and want to get
all the details [0]. Newspapers generally try to keep it simple for the
average person. From the paper: "We estimate the mean math and ELA test scores
for male and female students for each of roughly ten thousand U.S. school
districts in grades three through eight from the 2008-09 to 2014-15 school
years. These data enable us to estimate male-female testscores gaps, as well
as changes in the gaps over grades and cohorts within districts, providing
adescription of gender differences in academic performance at an unprecedented
level of detail.
[0]:
[https://cepa.stanford.edu/sites/default/files/wp18-13-v20180...](https://cepa.stanford.edu/sites/default/files/wp18-13-v201806_0.pdf)
~~~
mlthoughts2018
Why does the paper being linked have a bearing on this?
The point is that even in a popular article or cursory summary, you at least
need the context of an effect size with interpretable units.
If you have to follow a link to the paper _even for that_ then the article
itself would have to be worded in an entirely neutral way (as in, not
indicating that the data supports any particular conclusion).
Any non-neutral presentation (like saying the data supports any type of
conclusion about boys’ math performance in rich, white suburbs) will create
subjective impressions about what the result means (which can be fine, so long
as an effect size and interpretable units are attached).
People seem to disagree with my comment because the study (among others) was
hyperlinked in the Times article. This strikes me as entirely missing the
point of my comment.
~~~
mrep
Because this is a newspaper, not a scientific journal or peer review and
newspapers are generally written for the average reader who probably does not
want nor even understand all of those details.
~~~
mlthoughts2018
But a basic notion of effect size and units are often included in popular news
coverage of statistics. That's a basic expectation, involving zero nuance or
statistical rigor.
"This is a newspaper" is a reason why they might leave off details about
methodology, metrics of uncertainty, etc. _Not_ a reason why they would make
an _entirely_ unqualified claim attached to no notion of the effect size.
Essentially you're saying we should hold the New York Times to the same
reporting standards as some clickbait site that fuels confirmation bias with
sensational headlines, and not expect large world-spanning newspapers to have
even the _slightest_ of better practices than that.
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Show HN: Shazam in Java - wsieroci
https://github.com/wsieroci/audiorecognizer
======
ck2
Now make it identify EDM.
Because that seems to be a next generation thing that nothing can achieve
right now even with 30 second clips.
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
LibreOffice remote arbitrary file disclosure vulnerability - sanqui
https://github.com/jollheef/libreoffice-remote-arbitrary-file-disclosure
======
jwilk
Remote arbitrary file _disclosure_ vulnerability. Please fix the submission
title.
~~~
dang
Ok, we'll take your word for it.
------
kevinoid
Does anyone know what the threat model is for LibreOffice?
For Microsoft Office, VBA Macros are allowed to execute arbitrary code. I
assume it's the same for LibreOffice Basic. For files without macros (like
this exploit) what are the boundaries that should be enforced? It looks like
Excel supports reading data from named files by design.[1] Is it ever safe to
open a partially-trusted file in LibreOffice?
Edit: Some quick testing reveals that external links do work in LibreOffice
Calc. If you answer "Yes" to "This file contains links to other files. Should
they be updated?" on startup, it can read any file (and presumably use
WEBSERVICE to upload the contents via query string).
1\. [https://support.office.com/en-us/article/create-an-
external-...](https://support.office.com/en-us/article/create-an-external-
reference-link-to-a-cell-range-in-another-
workbook-c98d1803-dd75-4668-ac6a-d7cca2a9b95f)
~~~
ggg9990
There are more exploits outside VBA than inside it.
------
campuscodi
Is this what they fixed in 5.4.5 and 6.0.1 security patch?
~~~
kevinoid
Yes. The advisory is at [https://www.libreoffice.org/about-
us/security/advisories/cve...](https://www.libreoffice.org/about-
us/security/advisories/cve-2018-1055/)
~~~
mrob
So LibreOffice can still make arbitrary HTTP/HTTPS connections without the
users knowledge? Unless WEBSERVICE URLs are disabled by default, this doesn't
sound like a complete fix.
~~~
zokier
> bringing WEBSERVICE URLs under LibreOffice Calc's link management
> infrastructure.
Sounds like using WEBSERVICE should trigger a warning, although I'm not sure
if that is what "link management" means.
~~~
erAck
a) after the document is loaded such use triggers the "links to other
documents" warning and linked content is updated only after confirmation
b) the URL is shown under menu Edit -> Links...
------
jasonjayr
This is a big deal for any systems that use Open Office to convert files to
PDF (or otherwise) w/o proper sandboxing :(
------
codedokode
Why do they enable such dangerous functions by default?
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Chimpanzee Browsing Instagram on iPhone with Precision - okket
https://9to5mac.com/2019/04/25/chimpanzee-using-instagram-iphone/
======
ASalazarMX
With precision is too vague. The chimpanzee actually chooses what to see:
scrolls, watches chimp videos, swipes off boring snake videos, etc. It's said
they are roughly as intelligent as a toddler, and it certainly looks that way.
Awesome.
------
thestartup
This sounds like a good demonstration of how mindless the activity of
scrolling through Instagram truly is. (Even a monkey can do it).
It's similar to watching TV or mindlessly browsing the web for non-
intellectual activities. Perhaps we should be concerned about the impact of
these technologies on our evolution as a species. There does seem to be
supporting research for this (sorry for not providing links/ref).
~~~
djtriptych
Why isn't it a demonstration of how intuitive the hardware and UI are.
~~~
higginsc
haters gonna hate
------
jchrisa
I used to play with an idea to build kiosks for wild chimps with video phone
recording software. With an interface tuned for them, I wonder if you could
build social software that actually provided utility to the chimpanzees. I can
imagine something like TikTok being able to send news or otherwise connect
them in a meaningful way.
~~~
chatmasta
There is a Ted talk about an “Interspecies Internet:”
[https://www.ted.com/talks/the_interspecies_internet_an_idea_...](https://www.ted.com/talks/the_interspecies_internet_an_idea_in_progress/up-
next?language=en)
------
wortelefant
A 2005 study observed this behavior in macaques; male monkeys would pay some
amount of fruit juice to look at leaders' faces or females' hindquarters
("socially useful information").
[https://www.nature.com/news/2005/050131/full/news050131-5.ht...](https://www.nature.com/news/2005/050131/full/news050131-5.html)
------
coldcode
Impressive, but I would be more impressed if it started posting and generating
followers, then monetizing the followers into a media empire. Isn't that the
whole point of instagram?
~~~
imgabe
There's already a monkey selfie created by a wildlife photographer who set up
a camera that monkeys could activate to try to get a picture of them. It's
embroiled in a copyright dispute over whether the photographer or the monkey
owns the photo:
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Monkey_selfie_copyright_disput...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Monkey_selfie_copyright_dispute)
~~~
saagarjha
> The disputes involve Wikimedia Commons and the blog Techdirt, which have
> hosted the images following their publication in newspapers in July 2011
> over Slater's objections, and People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals
> (PETA), who have argued that the macaque should be assigned the copyright
> In April 2018, the appeals court affirmed that animals can not legally hold
> copyrights and expressed concern that PETA's motivations had been to promote
> their own interests rather than to protect the legal rights of animals.
------
hguhghuff
Back in the old days there was slot of talk about how hard computers were to
use, and how much work remained to be done to make user interfaces usable.
The task is complete.
Also here is a painting elephant:
[https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=owSZs7H24UY](https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=owSZs7H24UY)
~~~
Jyaif
FWIW the elephant was tortured into learning how to do this.
~~~
nickelcitymario
It was? Do you have a source for this? That's horrible if true.
~~~
rchaud
If this is the video I'm thinking of (can't open it at work), the elephant is
chained to a post while painting. These types of "sanctuaries" are nothing of
the sort, they exploit animals for tourist $.
There are tourist-friendly elephant sanctuaries that are built on respecting
the animals' personal space; Elephant Nature Park in Thailand is one. Tourists
are basically only allowed to observe the elephants in a forest/jungle
habitat. At other places, tourists are allowed to hug and play with baby
elephants, and the animals are trained to put up with it, while the mothers
are chained and kept apart from the babies during "tourist time".
~~~
nickelcitymario
That's awful. Thanks for the info.
FWIW, I don't see any chains in the video, but it does seem more likely that
they were trained abusively (like circus elephants) to get them to do this.
------
wishrider
The left swipe doesn't work on my android phone, I have to click the icons.
Does that only work on the iPhone?
~~~
saagarjha
Yes, it’s a standard iOS gesture with no equivalent on Android other than
implementations that apps try to come up themselves.
~~~
dhritzkiv
Not entirely: the standard behaviour of navigation on iOS is to allow swiping
from only the left edge to go back. It seems that Instagram added the ability
to swipe left from anywhere on the screen, not just the edge.
~~~
saagarjha
I don't use Instagram, but I'm not surprised that they've decided to
"customize" that behavior.
------
gurumeditations
Can’t help but be reminded of a great album
[https://youtu.be/uVSBawXaoT4](https://youtu.be/uVSBawXaoT4)
------
waffleguy
So there is at least one intelligent Instagram user out there.
------
kylek
Next unicorn IPO: Tinder for chimps
~~~
whitepoplar
You kid,
but...[https://twitter.com/Sierra_2015/status/929822581699629061](https://twitter.com/Sierra_2015/status/929822581699629061)
------
lukaa
Go monkeys go. Even title make me laugh.
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
U.S. Statement on Reliability of Election Results - r721
http://www.nytimes.com/2016/11/26/us/politics/us-statement-on-reliability-of-election-results.html
======
ryuuchin
Nate Silver made the point on twitter that when you control for race and
education the effect that you see in the counties that used paper ballots
completely disappears[1][2][3].
Clinton's lead continues to grow in the popular vote but it's the weakness in
the EC that hurt her in the election.
[1]
[https://twitter.com/NateSilver538/status/801220813890277376](https://twitter.com/NateSilver538/status/801220813890277376)
[2]
[https://twitter.com/NateSilver538/status/801221546685661184](https://twitter.com/NateSilver538/status/801221546685661184)
[3]
[https://twitter.com/NateSilver538/status/801221907609579520](https://twitter.com/NateSilver538/status/801221907609579520)
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Rapid Development with Codeigniter and RedBean ORM (+source code) - legierski
http://blog.self.li/post/21377767608/rapid-development-codeigniter-redbean-php-orm
======
babuskov
I used to use CodeIgniter. It's really good for beginners and easy to to get
into. But, it's still not rapid enough for me. After a few big successful
projects, I have switched to Yii framework. I wrote about the reasons the
switch to Yii here:
[http://www.backwardcompatible.net/post/8961623281/7-reasons-...](http://www.backwardcompatible.net/post/8961623281/7-reasons-
why-yii-framework-is-better-than-codeigniter)
RedBean does reduce 7 reasons to 6, but still. With Yii you get everything in
a single RAD MVC framework.
------
Kudos
I can't be the only one who thinks Codeigniter is a terrible framework. Does
it still break GET vars by design?
It seems like it's mostly the tool of choice for web designers.
~~~
legierski
Yes, it does. But you can access GET vars using
$this->input->get('variable_name'), which coupled with built in global XSS
filtering is much better idea than accessing GET directly.
~~~
Kudos
The fact that they're available at all now is an improvement from when I last
had to use it.
~~~
kingatomic
It's grown up into a relatively good framework. I've used it for a few one-off
projects at work (nothing at high scale); CRUD is a well-solved problem, so
it's not surprising that CI handles forms/validation in a relatively sane way.
One thing conspicuously missing are (good) generators; I typically prefer
things like seam-gen or the rails generators to lay the groundwork. I ended up
rolling one for my own projects, which makes it phenomenally easy to get an
app going.
------
legierski
I'm wondering, would it be useful for anyone if I added html5 boilerplate and
folder structure for js/css/img ?
~~~
buchin
It's already there <https://github.com/buchin/ci-bootstrap>
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Startup in Silicon Valley or Day Job in Paris? - alain94040
http://blog.fairsoftware.net/2010/08/16/startup-in-silicon-valley-or-day-job-in-paris/
======
ABrandt
I have little experience in the corporate world, but I get the feeling that
the OP's analysis could apply just about anywhere. There's certainly places
that are great for 9-5ers to raise families, don't get me wrong. But the
bigger picture is that the stereotypical fears associated with
entrepreneurship can be in many ways more favorable than its corporate
alternative.
Steve Blank's "Epitaph for an Entrepreneur[1]" is a great resource on how to
live a fulfilling life in startups. My favorite quote: " _Someone gave me a
thought that I tried to live my live my life around. He asked me, when you’re
gone would you rather have your gravestone say, 'He never missed a meeting.'
Or one that said, 'He was a great father.'_ "
\---
[1] [http://steveblank.com/2009/06/18/epitaph-for-an-
entrepreneur...](http://steveblank.com/2009/06/18/epitaph-for-an-
entrepreneur/)
------
mhd
Ah, the beauty of anecdotal evidence. Meanwhile, Parisian office workers are
enjoying their 37 days of vacation time per year (US: 13).
~~~
alain94040
True. In France, you get to spend many weeks of vacation with your kids. But
then, you don't see them the rest of the year. Your choice (except that it's
not really your choice, you can only change that by moving 5,000 miles away).
~~~
mhd
You really think that's the average story for both SF and Paris? Quite a lot
of people actually live in Paris, and quite a lot of people have to commute in
the Bay Area. I'm gonna make a guess that the average for the US is definitely
higher than the average for France. And if I remember correctly, you'd have to
go to South Korea or Japan to beat the weekly hours of the average US worker.
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
PostgreSQL needs a new load balancer - eksith
http://www.databasesoup.com/2012/03/postgresql-needs-new-load-balancer.html
======
pilif
The article is from 2012, but its contents is still very true. The only
general purpose solution out there is pgpool, but from my own experience,
unfortunately, it's less than stable at times and it has its own interesting
quirks you have to live with (like having a SQL parser that lags behind
PostgreSQL 1-2 releases).
Then there are bugs. Sure: As they are discovered, they get solved quite
quickly, but if you are depending on certain functionality, it can still be
very annoying.
It's also touted as a HA solution, but from my own experience last year, I
greatly increased the overall stability of an installation by getting rid of
pgpool - there's too much magic going on in there.
Finally, I was quite unhappy about them silently fixing a case where an
unauthenicated client could request all the servers memory to be consumed. No
security announcement - not even a release was made.
Unless you are very willing to spend a lot of time working around quirks and
deeply familiarizing yourself with the source code, I would recommend against
pgpool at this time, which leaves us, again, without any general-purpose load
balancing solution. Other solutions have restrictions that make them quite
situational (no prepared statements, non-deterministic cleanup after the
client disconnects, etc).
~~~
jwr
The article is definitely still true. When using Postgres in larger systems
it's always a problem when the client asks "well what about redundancy?" —
there is no good answer to that, for reasons outlined in the article and the
post above.
~~~
pilif
That's entirely not true. Postgres has built-in replication and you can even
do synchronous replication if you want to pay for the latency - you can't have
more redundancy than this.
Doing the failover is trivially done using something like keepalived or
heartbeat as Postgres has built-in support for quickly promoting a slave to
the master.
What we don't have, however is good load balancing. Also, because load
balancing is f'ing hard to get right when you are in a master/slave
replication configuration because it's really hard to know what queries you
can safely send to the slave. After thinking quickly, here are some cases: use
of nextval/currval, use of select after insert/update in a transaction,
querying unlogged tables, and probably many more.
A good load balancer knows about all of this.
~~~
willvarfar
I think in spirit the post you were replying to meant load balancing?
------
roncohen
We ditched PgPool for PgBouncer for connection pooling from our webservers.
PgPool tries to do way to much, and the documentation is horrible. PGBouncer
been rock solid compared to PgPool.
I'd love for PgBouncer to poll the servers it's connected to and automatically
talk to the master, so in case of master failure I would only have to promote
a new master (and STONITH) and PgBouncer would auto-failover to the new
master.
~~~
jaytaylor
Yes, PgBouncer is a little better but could still be improved upon in
significant ways. E.g. Getting PgBouncer working with SSL connections- You
have to do it through a specific version of stunnel. Then stunnel always has
to be running in addition to PgBouncer. Not friendly or fun to setup.
~~~
theatrus2
Out of curiosity, are you using Postgres with SSL for an offsite or multi-DC
replica? Would switching to a site-to-site VPN be more efficient here?
~~~
stingraycharles
Wouldn't using site-to-site VPN be adding a SPOF just as well, namely the VPN
server (and, in addition to this, make the VPN server a bottleneck for
transfer speed) ?
~~~
vidarh
You can "easily" enough set up two VPN connections on separate pairs of
machines and route to a virtual IP on each end and use ucarp or keepalived to
have one or the other take over. It's not pretty, but it works.
And the VPN server may very well become a bottleneck for transfer speed at
some point, but most of us won't ever need to deal with a level of bandwidth
where that's an issue.
------
mkhpalm
I think the elephant in the room for postgres is its lack of bidirectional log
replication. Once that finally happens, I'm sure dead-simple balancing tools
will start popping up everywhere.
~~~
wahnfrieden
Is there progress on this front?
~~~
Someone
Is that what
[http://wiki.postgresql.org/wiki/BDR_Project](http://wiki.postgresql.org/wiki/BDR_Project)
is about? They aim to "implement main BDR features into core Postgres" in
versions 9.4. Looking at past history, that could be the third quarter of 2014
([http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/PostgreSQL#Major_releases](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/PostgreSQL#Major_releases)),
but of course, that is just a guess.
------
Qantourisc
Clustering is very hard to do correct. Clustering while maintaining unique
auto_increments, solving split brain, rolling back transactions, ... while
maintaining speed: even harder. So the cluster is never going to be "simple",
might be simple to install, but never simple.
Side node: if you want load balancing, no replication, yes then it's easy to
do :)
------
rpedela
What about Postgres-XC for load balancing? I know it does several things, but
isn't that one of the use cases?
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Show HN: The Creative Commons of Privacy Policies - Facens
http://www.iubenda.com/en
======
zoowar
Seems to me listing "Various types of data" defeats the purpose of informing
users as to what is being collected.
~~~
Facens
Good point! Actually, those "various types of data" are explained within the
complete privacy policy ([http://www.iubenda.com/privacy-policy/www-iubenda-
com/legal/...](http://www.iubenda.com/privacy-policy/www-iubenda-
com/legal/en)), but we are working on a more clever way to show the privacy
policy summary. Do you have any other advice on it? To me it should look more
compact, with icons and groups (similar to Facebook Apps' Authorization
popup).
------
jdp23
Interesting! Have you looked at also generating "privacy nutrition labels"[1]
automatically?
[1] <http://cups.cs.cmu.edu/>
~~~
Facens
Are you somehow involved in the project? I think that the approach is not so
easy to understand for end users, but it can be considered as a starting point
for further improvement. I'm in touch with Aza Raskin too, who released these
beautiful privacy icons: <http://www.azarask.in/blog/post/privacy-icons/>
~~~
jdp23
No I'm not involved with it ... agreed, it still needs some work; it's still
an interesting direction to go. Aza Raskin's privacy icons look great but
similarly I'm not sure how easy they are for end users to understand. It's a
bit of a chicken-and-egg problem until they catch on ...
~~~
Facens
This needs some experiments, and we'll try to proceed in that direction. Let's
see what happens, at the moment we are focused on getting feedback from
website owners, to improve the "generation side" of the privacy policy. If you
care about us, spread the voice and keep in touch :)
------
arkitaip
Not much to see when it's in private beta.
~~~
Facens
You can see a preview of the Privacy Policy that you can generate. I hope this
helps you give us some sort of advice, if you'd find it useful, beautiful,
crappy and so on :P
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Continuations: One Control Flow Construct to Rule Them All - PieSquared
http://blog.bytefreeze.com/past/2010/4/29/one_control_flow_construct_to/
======
Vivtek
Sigh. I'm 43 years old and only really grasped _closures_ this January. It's
going to take another ten years for my continuation epiphany.
This is what happens when you start with BASIC.
~~~
silentbicycle
Continuations sound confusing because they give you an explicit handle for
something that most languages don't let you reference directly: who gets the
result of the current computation.
Are you familiar with setjmp/longjmp in C? Continuations are similar, but
allow longjmp-ing to the same point multiple times. As you might expect, this
gives you a lot of flexibility in defining control constructs.
You can implement exceptions easily via continuations - pass along an
alternative continuation to receive errors. Continuations are more _general_
than exceptions, backtracking, co-routining, etc., but this generality can
make them seem overly abstract - it can be hard to see what those constructs
have in common.
Hey, and don't worry - I started with BASIC too. (I was five or six.) You
gotta start somewhere. After you feel comfortable with continuations, try
learning about unification. :)
~~~
eru
> Continuations sound confusing because they give you an explicit handle for
> something that most languages don't let you reference directly: who gets the
> result of the current computation.
Yes, unfortunately continuations don't play nice with lazy evaluation.
~~~
cousin_it
How about this? <http://www.haskell.org/all_about_monads/html/contmonad.html>
~~~
eru
Yes, I know about the continuation monad. But that continuations have to be
encapsulated in monads is telling.
I have found a discussion about this <http://lambda-the-
ultimate.org/classic/message10560.html>
------
blasdel
Conditional Jump: _Another_ Control Flow Construct to Rule Them All
~~~
fab13n
Not another, pretty much the same. If you add to "goto" the required stuff to
play nice with closures, you get a continuation.
~~~
blasdel
Was that Functional Completeness not obvious in my joke?
Except that in this case, they're not quite as equivalent as NAND / NOR are —
continuations assume a lot more "required stuff" (as you put it) than just a
basic memory space, a means to test values, and the ability to set the program
counter.
~~~
eru
That is if you approach the requirements from the implementation point of
view. In theory continuations aren't really that much more complex than Gotos.
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Not A Waste - sahillavingia
http://al3x.net/2011/03/18/not-a-waste.html
======
maxklein
"But it’s worth a read to understand the perspective of a vocal minority in
the tech industry."
That statement is a bit off-putting. First of all, this 'minority' is the
majority. Most software businesses are indeed small, and are not aiming for
venture capital and outsized returns. It would not even be mathematically
possible to be otherwise.
Secondly, the 'vocal' people are the people trying to make you start a big
business. Almost all blogs and writers cater to the startup crowd, not the
mISV crowd. Most people writing country specific tax software or inventory
sorting software are not blogging at all.
Maybe I am misunderstanding what he means - but to me it seems like he is deep
in the bubble, and can't see out of it. That's why the article he reacted to
would have been so disturbing to him.
~~~
erikpukinskis
Yeah, it's truly bizarre that Alex is at Amy Hoy's throat about this. Amy is
utterly dedicated to encouraging more people who don't feel safe starting a
business to GO DO IT. That seems like something Alex would be into.
Maybe because he's shooting for the stars right now with BankSimple (which I
am SO excited about) he's feeling a little nervous about that strategy. Being
pre-launch on something so anticipated and ambitious must be at least a little
scary!
~~~
jv22222
I guess I can understand Alex's perspective when I consider he's one the lucky
few to be on the 0.0001% side of the equation and raised $2.9 million first
round funding. (Must be nice.)
~~~
KirinDave
I think the idea that only %0.0001 of people who enter into startups walk out
with their lives improved is absurd. It's a myth that we're all in this game
for an FB payout, and it's a myth that that's the reason we want to play the
game.
Most of my startups have had payouts to me personally, via either stock
buyback (to retain control of the company while securing more funding), or
exit deals (in the case of powerset). And even for the cases where I didn't
get a big payout, my experience and skills were improved dramatically by the
environment and demands placed on me by the job.
I went from working a dead-end job at Lockheed Martin and getting less than
3/4 the fair salary for someone with my skillset to courting jobs and turning
people down. Anyone who knows me will tell you I am _not_ a lucky person, and
I am not a brilliant star amongst the constellation of smart people that fill
the Valley. I simply play the game and move to jobs that balance my personal
improvement with my chance for a payout.
~~~
erikpukinskis
I really like your ideas here! But the thing you do where you take what
someone else said, and then turn it into something absurd, and then call them
out for being absurd... it doesn't really move the dialog forward.
jv22222 said "Alex [is] one the lucky few to be on the 0.0001% side of the
equation and raised $2.9 million first round funding"
You translate that to "only %0.0001 of people who enter into startups walk out
with their lives improved"
Really, what does that accomplish?
------
DanielBMarkham
Let's say I buy a box of doughnuts and go down to the street corner and sell
them.
For each doughnut I sell, somebody gives me money and I give them a tasty
treat. They are happier because of our exchange, if only for a short while,
and I know that I have "done some good" for that hungry person.
Now I could just as easily stay home and try to invent the uber-nut, a killer
replacement for doughnuts that costs half as much as lasts twice as long. A
treat that will change the snacking world as we know it! I can build a factory
to make uber-nuts, I can design complicated equipment, I can go on the web and
talk about how earth-shattering uber-nut is going to be.
But none of that sells any uber-nuts. It's just me spinning out an imaginary
architecture and vision of world domination and using my skills to construct
this fake world where it all is going to happen.
For every guy who makes an uber-nut and changes the world, there are
_thousands_ of failed attempts. For all of those attempts, most of them result
in making the world no better at all. It's a long, bitter experience. As
opposed to the guy who actually buys the doughnuts and goes and sells them,
where he knows he is doing some small amount of good in the world. For every
20 or so guys just looking to make a difference, any difference, only one of
them makes it happen.
Those are some amazing numbers, and you'd be a smart person to take some time
and think about them.
What folks are saying is simple: Go make a difference. Right now. Some little,
_real_ difference. Sell a doughnut. Find a small niche and improve people's
lives in it. Because even if you do one tiny, unimaginative, boring thing that
only helps one person in some really small way? You've actually _done_
something. As opposed to imagining you are creating the next earth-shattering
invention and then flaming out. Because even if you created the uber-nut that
changes snacking as we know it? You're going to do that by making a box of
uber-nuts and going down to that street corner and making one person happy at
a time. You roll out huge changes by picking one small niche at a time. It's
the same difference. The key question here is how much self-bullshitting you
want to do versus how many doughnuts you want to sell.
~~~
taphangum
"The key question here is how much self-bullshitting you want to do versus how
many doughnuts you want to sell." <\- This.
One of the best comments i've read on HN. What you just said knocks it out of
the ballpark.
The thing that is wrong with the lifestyle business though is that at some
point the founders intend on stopping their value creation beyond what they
need to survive.
It's inherently selfish while the startup is inherently (mostly
unintentionally) unselfish.
That's what, i think, the OP was trying to say with his post.
~~~
nhangen
Are you sure you want to claim that startups are unselfish? And furthermore,
what is wrong with being selfish?
Selfish can make the world better as a byproduct.
------
patio11
I find this notion that small businesses mean small impact downright bizarre
in the Internet age. BCC is pretty freaking small. I have _hundreds of
thousands_ of users and _thousands_ of customers. I wanted to go into teaching
back in the day. I taught more lessons to more kids while sleeping last year
than I would have been physically able to in a several lifetimes.
A time tracking app with a thousand customers improves the life of enough
people to pack a stadium. Their businesses improve, their families make more
money, their customers see less deadweight loss dealing with them, their
communities see the benefits of economic growth, etc etc.
~~~
ahoyhere
Hear hear.
If I can give 1,000 people an additional 15 minutes of pleasure a day -- or 15
minutes less of stress & self-recrimination -- then that is 250 hours of
additional happiness added to the world. Or 3,800 days of additional happiness
per year.
That's a lot of extra happiness.
------
Nate75Sanders
I think that his comment about AmyHoy's app was childish and his comments in
this article are both naive and megalomaniacal ("I'm trying to touch more
people's lives than you, so I'm better!").
I get the feeling that he doesn't understand the different types of glue that
hold together the various scales at which society operates.
This coupled with yesterday suggests a childish acting-out of sorts.
I prescribe a healthy dose of spending time with people instead of trying to
change the world from your computer desk.
------
jraines
_When you look back on your life, do you want to be the person who got by and
lived for your own happiness, or the person who brought happiness, security,
and prosperity to countless others?_
I think this is a false dichotomy. If not, then the word "countless" is
important.
Most of these small businesses are "lifestyle businesses" because they
purposely limit their market by focusing on a specific niche. This is one
reason they're supposed to be a "safer" bet -- you address a need that you
either already know well because you are a part of the market, or it's small
and accessible enough that you can get a firm grasp of its needs and provide
value.
Yes, these businesses provide value. That's what their customers are paying
for. Is it not noble (or at least, not self-serving) to provide value to a few
thousand, say, occupational therapists who need a particular service that
they're willing to pay $10 a month for? Or is it only worth venturing to help
"countless" people?
My father is a doctor, and his lifetime number of "customers" is probably a
lot lower than a largeish web app serving some good purpose, but I wouldn't
call it a wasted life.
~~~
loganfrederick
"My father is a doctor, and his lifetime number of "customers" is probably a
lot lower than a largeish web app serving some good purpose, but I wouldn't
call it a wasted life."
I would disagree. Doctors help save and improve people's lives. Those people
then go on to continue to impact people. Doctors most certainly help
"countless others" :)
~~~
scott_s
I think that was jraines's point: if you're going to be reductive about how
you measure impact, your conclusions are going to be silly.
------
alexophile
I think there's a really strong disconnect here that is really common around
HN - basically, do you really want to change the world? It seems like people
have a tendency to answer "yes" to this question because the alternative makes
you look dispassionate.
This line of thinking makes the assumption that ambition is a necessary
prerequisite for efficacy. I'm not exactly in a position to qualify this
statement, but I would guess that the people who make the greatest positive
changes in the world weren't necessarily setting out to have a huge impact,
they were just doing what they knew to be right.
Because everyone loves statistically unproven case studies, I offer Penny
Arcade. PA launched a webcomic in 98. Five years later, they launched Child's
Play - a charity that has raised ~$9M to fund research and facilities for
children's hospitals.
When asked about it, Mike mentioned that, when they started Child's Play,
neither of them were parents so they didn't know how effective their efforts
would be, they just knew it was the right thing to do.
~~~
umjames
I agree. Which type of story resonates more with would-be entrepreneurs? The
"I want to help others via my business" story, or the "I hate my crappy job,
and want to seek what I perceive to be happiness via my own business" story?
I'm not saying that you can't have a mixture of both, or transition from one
motive to the other, but most people's first thoughts are about themselves,
others tend to come afterward. We are afraid to admit this in public, but I
think we can all agree it exists.
So what's wrong with seeking personal happiness first? Does that preclude you
from being more altruistic later in life? If you can put others' needs first,
more power to you, but that doesn't make those who cannot worse people.
~~~
ahoyhere
Very good points. To which I'd add, happiness is a social contagion. Happy
people make people around them happier. They are nicer, more generous... they
give more to charity. Etc. etc. etc.
But woe be unto the selfish, lazy person who seeks personal happiness.
Somebody out there is ready to school him/her on what he/she really ought to
be doing!
------
jv22222
When I read through your post it was all going well until the part where you
say:
"At the core of the pro-micro business argument is an idea that I find hard to
swallow: that merely being happy should be purpose enough for a person."
Wow.
Doesn't everyone have the goal of being in an non-state of pain and suffering.
Which, is basically the same as being happy/content/satisfied.
If _your_ "non-state of pain and suffering" = you need to be a billionaire...
then, there was NO point in my original article that said "you can't be a
billionaire". So what relevance does that point have to the article?
The main point I was trying to make (and it's my lack of good writing that
didn't get this across) was absolutely nothing to do with what your post talks
about.
I was proposing that we would all have a better ultimate chance of fulfilling
our entrepreneurial goals if the very first thing we did was to build a micro
business.
Build a micro business. Make it successful. Then swing for the fences.
The advantages are:
\- You will have a more rounded understanding of "business"
\- You will be financially free and able to pursue your other big risk
ventures
\- You will loose less % in any future investment deals you cut because you
will have proven yourself
\- You will ultimately have more control and less people to answer to
"The waste" that I was referring to was that by taking the other route
(chasing after golden ticket investment) is a waste of potential real world
business learning.
Sure we all learn with every route we take, but the faster and more immersed
we become in dealing with ALL aspects of business - the better we get.
The beauty of a micro business is that it's far easier to see all the facets
of business. Any other route... there are bound to be some facets that we miss
out on compared to a microcosm of a total business experience.
------
pg
Boy is this thread boring. I was about to write that it's like a thread about
politics or religion: huge angry comments that teach one nothing. Then I
realized why. The whole question of startups vs "lifestyle businesses," while
a neutral topic for most people, is for many of the users of this site a
matter of identity (<http://paulgraham.com/identity.html>).
~~~
blasdel
I find your comment even more obnoxious that what al3x wrote, just for its
sheer disingenuity.
This isn't a neutral topic for you either, not in the slightest, but declaring
the discussion to be as useless as /r/atheism is simply petulant.
The top level of comments in this thread (barring yours) is full of some of
the most helpful and insightful comments I've ever seen on HN. A respected
member of the community flames out and people are earnestly helping him figure
out where the disconnect was. Given that he chopped down his blog post in
response, it looks like al3x really appreciated them and is understanding that
the flaminess of his argument wasn't what people were really upset about.
~~~
pg
Actually it is a neutral topic for me. I know there have to be both types of
companies, and no one is more aware than I am that startups aren't for
everyone, because every 6 months I have to pick, from a huge pool, the people
I think are suited for it, and it's painful for all involved when I pick
wrong.
If you're going to be so nasty, you should be sure first you're right. Though
frankly, if you're right, you don't need to be nasty.
~~~
tptacek
You just reframed the debate in the light most favorable to your argument. The
issue isn't whether there should be lifestyle companies or not. The issue is,
for a hacker equally capable of and equally armed by circumstances to starting
_either_ a "lifestyle" business or a shoot-the-moon startup, is there a
"right" choice?
------
olivercameron
I think an apology to Amy, even just one sentence, would have been good.
Calling her out seemed really unnecessary. Otherwise, it seems like a more
well thought out comment than the original:
<http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2338911>. I still disagree, however.
~~~
KirinDave
He as apologized for his tone more than once, and in more than one venue. What
more do you want?
[http://isalexpaynesorryforhistonetowardsamythatdreadfulthurs...](http://isalexpaynesorryforhistonetowardsamythatdreadfulthursdaynight.com)?
~~~
olivercameron
I'm not talking about his tone, I'm talking about how he called out someone
for no good reason.
~~~
KirinDave
You can't unsay something you already said, man. Or did you miss how this all
started?
------
jdp23
> Some readers found my comments to be anti-small business. This was not my
> intent.
Then you should have avoided statements like "There's nothing wrong with being
a small software company.... It's boring, but there's nothing wrong with it.
Don't expect anyone to celebrate you for doing it, though."
I don't know what your intent was, but it comes across as very hostile to
small business.
------
cageface
I'd be a lot more sympathetic to this argument if I thought the people
"swinging for the fences" were really creating something of lasting human
value. Maybe I'm in the minority on this, but it's not clear to me at all that
things like Twitter and Facebook empower the man in the street nearly as much
as they empower entrenched interests.
Just yesterday I was privately lamenting all the energy young people today are
pouring into gimmicky, me-too social networks and into chasing dollars. I'd
love to see that energy redirected into something more artistic and creative
and, yes, personal.
------
eof
So it's morally superior to use your rad skills to get rich and make the world
a better place than by simply using your rad skills to have a good life? Sure.
Are 99% of the people really swinging for the fences doing this? No.. they are
trying to get fame and fortune for the fun of it. Nothing wrong with that; but
let's not get confused about what we are talking about.
I am 28 and will probably never have to work more than 20+ hours a week doing
things I enjoy for the rest of my life. I imagine far less than that in not
too many years. I could really swing for the fences and bust my ass until I am
45; but that is 17 years of not engaging with my life in the same way I would
if I weren't "working" all the time.
------
ziadbc
I'm saying this earnestly and with care:
The first priority should be finding out what is right for yourself.
Ultimately, no one can tell you what is right for you.
Hacker news is a good place to reflect, but hopefully you can read things
without having your whole mental framework being disrupted by one article with
a different perspective.
------
PaulHoule
Uh, I think microbusinesses may be more oriented towards "making a difference"
than some businesses that go the V.C. route.
It would be unfair to tar all V.C. funded companies with the same brush,
because many of them really are trying to create something awesome and make a
splash in the world. However, when times get bubbly, people come out of the
woodwork who are more concerned with making a fast exit than they are in
building a business.
Whereas, if you're bootstrapping a microbusiness, you need to find some market
where you're making something somebody is willing to pay for right away, so
you're definitely "making a difference" for somebody, even if you're not
changing the world.
------
rams
pg seems to have said something alex'ish elsewhere:
"I once sat in a crowded hall and listened to Paul Graham give a keynote
presentation about going big, doing it quickly, and getting tons of funding.
During Q&A, someone asked what was wrong with instead of trying to go big with
big money backers, you just went for profit and kept ownership to yourself and
Graham said something like "you want to run a little business? Go run a shoe
store then"
Matt Haughey [http://dashes.com/anil/2011/01/mom-and-pop-at-web-
scale.html...](http://dashes.com/anil/2011/01/mom-and-pop-at-web-
scale.html#comment-6a00d8345409f069e20147e2000033970b)
------
rbarooah
Alex Payne is a self-professed afficionado of minimalism and good design - not
just in software, but in physical products.
I'd venture to say that a great deal of good design work is done by small
studios which would count as 'lifestyle' businesses by his description.
Is he claiming that by trying to make real but incremental improvements to
relatively mundane things, these designers are wasting their lives? Should
they give up their practices and instead concentrate only on the most world
changing ecological projects, or trying to create the next iPod or Dyson?
If not, why does this apply only to digital goods, and not physical goods too?
Accusations of 'hoodwinking' aside, A successful lifestyle business implies
that you're doing something that other people value. A failed 'shoot-for-the-
moon' business does not.
------
MicahWedemeyer
Thanks! I wasn't aware of Amy Hoy before this but now I've got a new role
model to aspire to :)
~~~
grails4life
Yes the twitter dropout only helped Amy gain exposure
~~~
swombat
So he "dropped out" of Twitter. Where did you drop out of?
------
philwelch
I like this post, even though I disagree with it, because it gets at the
fundamental moral motivations and justifications behind starting a business.
Alex is an altruist, and from that perspective it indeed makes sense to try
and go big. If it's your duty to improve as many lives as you can, why not try
and go big? What's interesting is hearing it from that perspective rather than
a more selfish perspective.
From a more selfish and individualistic perspective, I think a small business
makes sense if you consider your moral duties to only go as far as producing
more value than you extract from the world. From this perspective, it might be
praiseworthy to try and provide as much value to as many people as possible,
but it's not obligatory to be much more than a net positive contributor. And I
think a lot of people go about as far as living up to their moral obligations
and then satisfy their own desires after that.
------
fingerprinter
Yesterday when I saw his comment on twitter I almost fell into the "someone on
the internet is wrong!" trap, but today I feel I can't resist.
Almost everything about this angers me. It's presumptuous, arrogant,
intellectually lazy and fallacy driven. And worst, Alex not only thinks he's
correct, but morally right! Absurd!
Lets start at the top.
1\. "If selling subscriptions to a small web application to cover my mortgage
and subsidize my hobbies is “freedom”, then I’ll happily risk incarceration."
- All Alex is really saying is that he defines "freedom" a different way than
x person. You can't really judge that. Perhaps be perplexed, maybe
inquisitive, but don't judge. In this regard, to each their own. And please
don't confuse what makes you happy with what makes someone else happy. Alex is
saying that obligation makes him happy. Great! Go for it. Someone else is
saying that taking care of their family and living a simple live makes them
happy. Cool...
"Seek first to understand, then be understood".
2\. "When I read statements like this, my secular humanist streak flares up.
... We should endeavor to improve the lives of as many people as possible in a
lasting and significant way, making the most of our own skills in the
process." - Uhm...wow? This is nearly a nonsensical statement, saved merely by
the fact that I _think_ I know what he is trying to say. Several problems
arise from this statement, the first being that he brings in Humanism.
Humanism, meant to enlighten perspective, only clouds the statement with
doubt. Secondly, "should" is a word that will always get you into trouble with
regard to other people. "Should" implies "I know better than you" or "let me
tell you why you are wrong" not "hmmm..interesting perspective but I've always
been of the mind that " which is a conversation, not an attack.
Lastly, it is worth noting that the statement is cute in that it provides an
ego boost for the person espousing it, the statement itself is nearly
worthless alone. I suspect that the statement serves to boost ones ego more
than it serves to guide ones life. It also smacks of a statement made by
someone with very little life experience.
3\. "Building a business around maximizing your individual happiness is not
particularly useful or admirable. That is my position, and I’m well aware that
it may be unpopular with some." - Equivocation. Alex is not using the "term"
happiness to talk about this side of things, but that is what it is. He is
striving to find meaning/happiness on his own terms in his own way: by going
big and making an impact. Deriding someone for doing the same thing in a
different way is, at best, silly, at worst, narcissistic.
I would like to leave with a story about a country doctor I knew. He worked
for 40 years in the bush in Australia. He loved living there and it was where
he grew up. He was able to make a good living working there and being the
small town country doctor and generally found happiness doing it. He told me
about when he did a rotation in the UK and was offered a job starting a new
hospital. He would have been able to reach massively more people in one year
than he could in his entire work life in the country, make tons more money and
have a hugely beneficial impact. He turned it down and went back to Australia.
His reasoning "someone other than me would have taken and done that job, but
that same person was unlikely to help these people in this town."
~~~
verysimple
I had a reply that said a few things along those line, deleted it. Yours is
much better.
Just wanted to add a few things:
1- some contributions in this world are only _accidentally_ world changing
(see various open-source software). They were not done with some zealous
ambitions. Their instigator merely had an itch to scratch and it turns out
that the rest of the world appreciated it so much that it just took a life of
its own.
2- I am a notoriously trashy person, yet I love a clean space, but I'm also
notoriously slow to clean stuff. There's this little lady who has a business
cleaning apartments in the neighborhood and she comes once in a while to clean
up my place for 30$ (takes her about 30-45min). By _some_ people's standards
she's only making herself happy with her business. But I'll tell you, when she
leaves my place my brain starts functioning again. The place is spic and span.
I produce some of my best code and sometimes throw in new features for my
clients for free. I'm pretty sure it might make their own clients happy. This
is the butterfly effect of small contributions. You don't need to change the
entire world to make a difference.
------
noelsequeira
In one line: the classic dichotomy of opinion just degenerated into a
vitriolic debate.
If only sanity prevailed, most commentators would probably dismiss this entire
conversation with a "to each his own".
Dwell on the entire conversation for a couple of minutes, and it's immediately
apparent that it smacks of religion. I'm ashamed to say a lot of individuals I
have a tremendous deal of respect for, have dropped their guard in an
unabashed attempt to proselytize the masses.
Yes, I get it. You feel strongly about it, and your unequivocal about how you
feel. That's why it's called religion. Just don't shove it down other people's
throats.
If there were ever an embodiment of Paul Buchheit's words "ADVICE = Limited
Life Experience + Overgeneralization", this would likely be it.
------
GordonRobertson
I live in neither the of these camps. Perhaps that's why both articles read
the same to me - "here's how I think you should lead your life". Nonsense.
------
Detrus
A healthy economy needs a balance of small and large businesses. Today's
technology is making it easier to make incremental improvements to existing
ideas, which are usually small businesses. This is a safer strategy and people
could flock to it like they flock to safe corporate jobs today.
It becomes a problem when there is an imbalance. Many domains/markets are
crowded. Today we have too many CMSs, fart apps, MVC frameworks etc.. At one
point we had an abundance of word processors.
It wouldn't be healthy if every programmer tried to make his own word
processor, progress in the domain would flat-line. It's only after the dust
settled and people had time to think about the concept that we have some
genuine innovation, like the no-distraction trend.
Too many small businesses in the same niche is just as bad as a monopoly if
your goal is technological progress. The money is distributed differently of
course, so if your goal is to create a healthy middle class, small business
overcrowding is better than big business monopolies.
It's hard to judge what the right balance is. People working on ideas that
don't scale don't crowd the space for ideas that do. Like all matters of
complex systems, it's complicated. We won't get to the bottom of it with
essays alone.
------
camcaine
Doing enough to 'get by' is not failure. Sometimes you do what is necessary to
make ends meet to feed you and your family, and helping others in significant
ways has to wait.
A large hole would be left in most modern economies without the 'lifestyle'
business and 'solo-preneur'. If you believe in this so strongly, is BankSimple
going to reject anyone who is 'wasting their life' by your account?
------
nhangen
I think most entrepreneurs overestimate the amount of "world changing" they
are actually doing.
The original post was off-base, and I think this one is too.
~~~
rythie
Alex worked at Twitter, pretty world changing if you ask me.
~~~
nhangen
really? World changing how?
~~~
rythie
For example for reporting fraud in the Iranian election which wasn't being
reported otherwise. Enhancing free speach in 'Trafigura' situation in the UK.
Numerous other examples at <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Twitter_usage>
------
statictype
The implicit assumption he makes is that small businesses are incapable of
positively affecting a lot of people's lives.
A (slightly tenuous) example: I derive significantly more value from
Instapaper/VLC/Thunderbird than I do from Twitter or Facebook.
2 of those 3 are not even for-profit ventures and the other one is very much a
'small business'.
------
dminor
> We should endeavor to improve the lives of as many people as possible in a
> lasting and significant way, making the most of our own skills in the
> process.
Why the qualifier?
------
jacoblyles
"Even if one’s contributions are comparatively modest, we should admire the
individual who tries to help others in significant ways."
Effect should be judged more highly than intention. We all know what the road
to hell is paved with. And the vast majority of the improvement in the human
condition has been unintentional, as a side-effect of selfish actions in the
free market.
------
zasz
That was really uncharitable towards small businesses. The article makes a
false dichotomy between wanting your freedom and helping other people. Surely
my ability to do the latter is maximized once I'm free of the need to go to a
soul-sucking, exhausting 9-5.
------
gm
So this is a reply to a blog comment board? Why put it on HN and not on the
comment board itself?
~~~
davidw
A desire to change the world, apparently.
------
pauldisneyiv
That was a lot of writing. While you may have clarified your views I have to
wonder how many will fully read them.
That being said - and having read the full piece - you have a view and are
attempting to communicate it and that is to be commended.
------
naner
Oh, come on. How many successful startups can you list that are benevolent
world-changing businesses versus how many are simply solving some technical
problem or a fun distraction.
------
BornInTheUSSR
Do you want to impact as many people as possible because that is what makes
you happiest?
------
ahoyhere
There is a big difference between people who tell you what you CAN do, and
people who try to tell you what you SHOULD do.
I can't decide which is more aggravating -- that somebody many people respect
is out there, in public, trying to shame me by claiming that I'm not living up
to my potential... (that my dreams aren't big enough, that what I do isn't
good enough for the world, blah blah blah).
Or that the person doing it seems to be ignorant of what I'm actually about
and what I actually do, and why, and what my future plans are.
Should I defend myself by explaining myself, or should I just fight the very
idea that anyone should expect me to explain myself -- especially after
insinuating something so rude, that I was "duping credulous customers" into
buying trendy crap?
After some reflection, I'm going to stick to the latter course.
By the way - why me? Wondered that? Me too. I wonder if it had something to do
with the fact that, many moons ago, al3x approached me to design the first
preview version of BankSimple. It didn't work out, and I always figured that's
because they really wanted a full-time designer and I was definitely unwilling
to devote more than a little bit of consulting time to it, because I was
committed to my own products.
KirinDave is going to come on here and try to skewer me, imply I'm lying and
that story is untrue, etc., etc., so I'll just pre-empt it here and state that
that is his viewpoint.
FTR: I think BankSimple is going to be really awesome, as well as beautiful,
and that al3x is very, very, very smart. Yet this whole brouhaha is extremely
confusing to me.
~~~
acangiano
A few brief thoughts on this:
\- I understand how it hurts to be unjustifiably attacked for doing what you
love. But I believe you'll only benefit from this, because your work will be
exposed to more people as a result of his attack. No one here seems to believe
that you are duping people.
\- I don't have any way of knowing this for certain, but from the way how Alex
writes, I get the impression that he doesn't really know what it means to be
broke as hell. If he did, he'd probably consider lifestyle businesses as the
saving grace for many people out there, rather than a manifestation of small
ambition.
\- Lifestyle businesses can become empires with time. It's just a different
approach to reach the same end goal of creating stuff you love, and doing
something that matters.
~~~
ahoyhere
Oh, I'll absolutely benefit from this. No doubt about it. But this is not how
I would have picked to gain exposure. I like al3x.
------
earl
What bugs me about Alex's post is that he started at twitter what -- 9 months
in? I think I read that somewhere. So it's not to hard to imagine that, given
his early start date, and given Twitter's amazing valuations, and given that
some employees have cashed out, that he also has taken some money off the
table. So my apologies if I'm wrong, but your perspective totally changes even
if you make, say, $1MM in cash. That certainly isn't fuck you money, but it
does really allow you to be very selective about what you do for the rest of
your life and insulates you from lots of downsides. The fact is, _if_ he has a
million dollars or so and he shoots for the moon on try 2, his worst case
scenario is he has $800K after not taking a salary for 2 years and not even
trying to conserve cash. Whereas the downsides facing a different person
without a large cash cushion are much worse.
Just my .02, and obviously, if Alex hasn't cashed out, he still holds a decent
chunk of Twitter stock that is probably relatively easily converted to cash.
That's not to say I don't respect him, because I do, but I think that -- as
the 37 signals people have beaten to death -- if you have a 10% chance at $1MM
or a .0001% chance at $1B, you'd probably be a fool not go for for the easier,
more likely money. Try to shoot the moon try two.
------
mkramlich
I've seen good points on all sides of this debate. What I think hasn't been
emphasized enough is that one goal/philosophy does not preclude the other. You
can do both. For example, you can first aim to make a small exit, and/or a
small recurring revenue from a lifestyle business, then, move on to try a
larger exit, or add additional revenue streams. I do think the "let's go for a
huge exit, and change the world!" on one's very first attempt, especialy if
you come from humble financial background, or have significant financial
dependents, is probably not wise, in the general case. You should crawl before
you walk before you run. Plus if you are going to fail, don't let anybody kid
you into thinking it's better to fail using millions of dollars of other
people's money than to fail with just a few hundred of your own. It's nice to
have the ability to quietly bury your mistakes. You still get the upside of
learning from them, but with less of the downside.
Side note: Ack, just got bitten by the "Unknown or expired link" flaw with HN.
Paul, man, what is with that? Bad user experience. Don't tase my flow, bro! :)
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Show HN: San Francisco MUNI Transit Delays, Visualized - bdon
http://bdon.org/transit/
======
dougmccune
Trying to compare against the published schedule isn't all that useful. As a
resident of SF, I long ago gave up the idea that you could look up the
scheduled arrival of a bus and plan around that. However, if a bus is supposed
to be running every 12 minutes, that's the number you can plan around (or use
to benchmark the performance of a bus line). So instead of trying to show how
the times compare with the theoretical schedule I think this would be more
useful to show how the buses deviate from the planned interval. If I know it's
a 12 minute bus that means I should never have to wait at any given stop for >
12 minutes. If I'm standing there for 30 minutes, then the bus service is
failing me.
It would also be useful to color code the historic tracks based on which trips
ended up taking something like >10% or 20% longer than the planned time. Again
not worrying about if it was late compared to the scheduled route, but just
whether it was late relative to its own departure time and expected pace.
~~~
timr
It's pretty remarkable how buses in other cities manage to adhere to the
published schedule, but MUNI can't seem to manage. I've ridden buses all over
the world, and MUNI is absolutely the worst at scheduling or latency. It's
almost like they aren't even trying.
And even if you drop the requirement of "stick to the schedule", they still
suck: you can have two lines running the same route up a major thoroughfare
(e.g. 47/49 on Van Ness), and you'll still routinely get three busses back-to-
back, followed by 45 minutes of delay. The only reasonable scheduling
mechanism I've found for MUNI is to know _exactly_ how far away the next bus
is from your stop. Without real-time position information it's an unusable
system, because arrivals are essentially a poisson process.
~~~
dougmccune
I don't know if you rode Muni before they had GPS tracking vs after, but
you're right in that it's the only thing that makes the system at all usable.
I used to use Muni for my daily commute back before they added GPS to the
vehicles and it was an absolute nightmare. At the end of my work day the bus
line I took was supposed to run every 15 minutes. It was fairly common for me
to have to wait 45 minutes for that "15 minute" bus (and watch 3-4 buses on
the same line going the other way pass by). The worst thing is just simply not
knowing how long your wait is. Now at least you can check how far away the
next bus is and know that you're going to be waiting a ridiculously long time
(and call a cab or go to a coffee shop or do _something_ ). Even if the delays
haven't improved (I don't really know), just the ability to track the buses
makes the whole system incredibly more usable.
~~~
dekhn
Agree 100%. I used to work at UCSF Medical Center (Parnassus) and take N Judah
from Outer Sunset.
Typical case was I would start walking towards work (or, towards home in the
evening) when I didn't see a train. Although the N-Judah schedule was "every
15 minutes", there were often ~45min-1hour delays ,which was enough time to
quickly walk from Parnassus to Outer Sunset. Of course, it didn't help that
many trains stopped at 19th or Sunset and turned around rather than going the
whole way (which meant you'd have to wait another 15-45 minutes for the next
train, if it didn't turn around).
Another problem was at the turnaround at La Playa- drivers would disappear
into the Muni bathroom there for half an hour, and block all the subsequent
trains. Eventually (this was ~2000) Muni put a full time supervisor on site
who "watched" the drivers and knocked on the door to get them to go back to
their trains. Eventually they started using the switching in the track to skip
a few trains in front of slow ones, as well.
More recently I've gone back and the psychological advantage of knowing how
long I have to wait has improved the experience a bit.
------
timr
Looking at some of the bus routes confirms something I've suspected about MUNI
for a long time: most of the "delays" happen at the beginning of the route.
I've watched bus drivers sit there for 10+ minutes past the departure time on
many occasions, and there appears to be no penalty for the behavior.
I don't know if the drivers are taking a mandated minimum break, waiting in
response to orders from dispatch, or just being lazy, but when I see lots of
long delays at the top/bottom of every single line on these graphs, it really
drives home the source of the problem. I find it difficult to believe that
buses leaving at 5AM are encountering enough traffic to cause 15 minute delays
immediately upon departure.
~~~
cbhl
Are you sure that's not "the bus driver is waiting for his clock to read the
scheduled departure time" or "the bus driver is waiting for people to pay
their fare and board the bus" or "the bus driver turned the bus on early to
warm it up"?
Every bus I've ridden in has signs plastered all over the front saying how you
need to idle it when starting up / shutting down the bus to avoid destroying
the innards, so I would expect there to be long horizontal lines at the
start/end of runs but I wouldn't expect that to be indicative of drivers being
"lazy".
~~~
blaines
Hang out around Embarcadero Station during evening rush or 4th & King
sometime. It's a real mess. I've seen 4 busses running back to back, and some
mornings I'll see 5 or more trains backed up. Not to mention the entire system
already runs at a snail's pace. I generally bike, and I will usually get there
in about 1/2 the time. Compare to Chicago where there's no way I could outrun
a CTA bus, let alone the trains.
~~~
timr
Yeah, that's fine. I expect delays at rush hour. I don't expect to see nearly
every departure for nearly every line delayed by ten minutes or more. That's
what these plots seem to be suggesting.
------
oscilloscope
This graphical schedule visualization is often called Marey's Trains.
[https://mbostock.github.io/protovis/ex/caltrain.html](https://mbostock.github.io/protovis/ex/caltrain.html)
Another project that uses Marey's Trains is an interactive exploration of the
MBTA system.
[http://mbtaviz.github.io/](http://mbtaviz.github.io/)
------
birken
Looks interesting.
One minor thing is that if the sorting of the bus lines was numeric rater than
lexical I think it would be easier to find a specific bus line. Also the
limited lines should be right after the regular lines (like 5L should be right
after 5, 9L right after 9), though with a numeric sort this would just be
fixed for free.
------
alexmr
Well done. This would be extremely useful in one of the mobile muni apps. I
look at Transporter in the morning to know when to leave for the N, but if it
had an indicator of delays, I'd know that it's time to walk/bike/uber instead.
------
njharman
Buses esp 38 Geary and Mission don't look as jacked as I remember them from
~15 years ago. Regularly use to see 3 mission buses bumper to bumper every
30min rather than 1 every 9min.
------
Camillo
Could you swap the vertical axis for N Judah? It's a bit confusing to have
King & 4th at the top and Judah at the bottom.
~~~
bdon
This bothers me as well- I'm trying to figure out a consistent way to
determine which direction is "Inbound" and which is Outbound - turns out this
is quite difficult!
In the case of the N, the 4th and King terminus is closer to some abstract
"downtown" point than the other end at Ocean Beach, however this heuristic
doesn't generalize to genuinely "crosstown" routes like the 22.
So this depends on when/if I find a method I'm satisfied with.
------
swang
Go home 6 MUNI, you're drunk:
[http://imgur.com/q4FDcWC](http://imgur.com/q4FDcWC)
------
refurb
What do the short black lines represent? I see some lines start, then abruptly
end. Is that a train changing route assignments?
~~~
bdon
Yes, it's likely vehicles that change their assigned route or are moving
between depots.
------
justizin
This would be a lot more interesting with data about private bus locations
interlaced with coordinated time.
------
evanm
This is awesome. Nice work.
Accurately shows the N-Judah ridiculousness I experienced this morning.
------
carlosdp
You can actually see the delay the switch toward Embarcadero station causes
outbound on KT/N.
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Introducing GitHub Traffic Analytics - xPaw
https://github.com/blog/1672-introducing-github-traffic-analytics
======
abritishguy
Well that makes [https://github.com/igrigorik/ga-
beacon](https://github.com/igrigorik/ga-beacon) somewhat redundant
~~~
igrigorik
Wohoo!
[https://twitter.com/jnunemaker/status/420634885552754688](https://twitter.com/jnunemaker/status/420634885552754688)
:)
------
tedivm
Oh thank you thank you thank you! This disappeared when they introduced the
new graphs, and I've been missing them ever since. This time we can even see
uniques, which is awesome.
------
heuermh
Bitdeli ([https://bitdeli.com/](https://bitdeli.com/)) is another free service
that provides analytics for Github pages. I have been using it but didn't like
the association with AdRoll, a targeted advertising company.
~~~
vtuulos
Just to clarify: GitHub Analytics at
[https://bitdeli.com](https://bitdeli.com) has been a fun side project of mine
and jtuulos - it has nothing to do with AdRoll.
------
sqs
Shameless plug: my site, Sourcegraph, gives you a 1990s-style numeric visit
counter for your READMEs, among other things.
[https://sourcegraph.com/help/authors/badges](https://sourcegraph.com/help/authors/badges)
While GitHub Traffic Analytics shows the repository author much more info, the
Sourcegraph counter makes the visitor count visible to everybody. This helps
users see how popular your project is.
------
nilved
Notably, Google Analytics and the ga-beacon can be blocked by disabling
JavaScript or blocking the beacon's domain. How can privacy-conscious users
avoid being tracked by this feature?
e: I've just looked at my own pages' analytics and was quite surprised to find
data from before today. Is this to say that GitHub has been surrepticiously
recording data about my project without any way to opt out?
~~~
pselbert
From my understanding all Github features are deployed to staff only behind a
feature flag. Naturally they had it partially in production before flipping
the flag for everybody
That said, surely the notion of a website where you are hosting content
tracking who is visiting individual pages is not outrageous.
~~~
nilved
c.f. your web host inspecting your access logs. My project is my own and your
platform is yours. That said, my primary concern is that I as a user have no
way to opt out.
------
prezjordan
Excellent! IIRC there used to be a "traffic" chart, no? I don't remember it
doing anything, though.
EDIT: According to my Timehop they also released the "contributions" graph a
year ago (the little grid on your profile) - great feature :)
------
colinbartlett
So that Google Analytics for GitHub project is already obsolete?
~~~
dewey
Not if you want to aggregate your stats in your Google Analytics Dashboard.
~~~
joshpeek
You can still export the data from GitHub Analytics into Google Analytics.
That'd give you more info then what you get from a bad image hack.
------
lukebaker
Does this provide traffic details for GitHub Pages associated with the repo?
~~~
technoweenie
Nope. You're free to use whatever you want on your own pages (Google
Analytics, Gauges, etc).
------
ozh
About time. Thanks Github :)
------
kclay
this is great
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Chat with Khan Academy's Founder, Sal Khan - gill
http://afraj.com/chat-with-khan-academys-founder-sal-khan
======
joeevans1000
Khan Academy appeared as a remarkable thing: a self paced single page app of
sorts, readily apparent to the user in it's construction. That simplicity was
it's greatest quality. That was the entire power of it: a person happened
across the site and realized in a flash that they were just one click from
learning something they had considered unobtainable. No login needed: just
start learning. Flash forward to now: it's another heinous and bloated maze,
hidden behind a login. That was what happened when Sal allowed it to be
developed into something completely different. I don't blame him, not knowing
the full story. I am very grateful to him for creating the initial version.
This has been a major travesty.
~~~
jonnybgood
I don't see the maze you're referring to. You still don't need to log in to
see the videos.
On the top bar is a drop down of all the subjects which leads to the videos.
It took literally one click to get to the Algebra 1 videos.
~~~
joeevans1000
I realize now that mousing over the top shows the drop down. The maze is still
there compared to the single page presentation of before. I tried to bring up
an example on the wayback machine, but it seems that the early versions no
longer render properly. The magic of the early version was that you could see
the taxonomy of the videos laid out in front of you, and hence, in a sense,
the taxonomy of the subject. Now it's the search model. I believe strongly in
the power of search, but the problem with it is that you can't get a sense of
the structure of the topic.
~~~
degenerate
I remember this, and agree the treeview was really great. It helped the
learner understand the context and purpose of a topic and a visual
representation of what is "coming next", if they choose to keep on that
learning path.
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Should high school seniors go to College or become an Entrepreneur? - travisketchum
http://thecollegestartup.com/college-or-entrepreneurship/
======
mmastrac
The insane tuition costs in the US have turned this into a reasonable
question, IMHO.
For students in countries with reasonable schooling costs -- I still consider
our costs in Canada to be reasonable, as in possible to pay back most of your
school costs working summers and mid-school interships -- I'd still recommend
going for a CS degree.
As someone who has hired for startups I've founded, I do give a small amount
of weight to whether the individual has a relevant degree. But to be honest,
the majority of my attention for non-new-grads is focused on work experience
(places they've worked and things they've done) and technical chops.
| {
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Don't wake up the programmer - g9
http://alexthunder.livejournal.com/309815.html
======
gruseom
There is something distinctively Russian about this delirium. I'm pretty sure
I've never seen a Dostoevskian programming blog post before.
------
d-rock
This reminds me of Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi's TED talk on flow.
~~~
defrex
[http://www.ted.com/index.php/talks/mihaly_csikszentmihalyi_o...](http://www.ted.com/index.php/talks/mihaly_csikszentmihalyi_on_flow.html)
| {
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A CIA officer turned police officer: thoughts on policing - mmhsieh
https://www.vox.com/policy-and-politics/2020/6/2/21277438/police-officer-george-floyd-patrick-skinner-interview-militarization
======
eljost
As someone from Germany it seems very strange how casually he talks about
being shot at, as if this is a normal thing.
| {
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Thoughts on Entrepreneurship with Jason Fried - srs0001
http://samuelrsolomon.com/entrepreneurship-with-jason-fried/
======
InfinityX0
What's up with the fake "positive" comments at the bottom of this thread?
Makes you think this was manipulated up (every user has -3 karma). Always sad
to see and it feels like this has been happening more frequently.
~~~
joevillanueva
Unless you know that those users actually manipulated the post, your post is
relegated to gut-based conjecture.
~~~
usernamer1
In a post below this, user Asian11 admitted to a group of people being his
peers and classmates. They also used the word "we". That seems to be more than
'gut based conjecture'.
~~~
joevillanueva
That user was created the same day and has only 1 post.
Funny, thats the same background as yourself - now the occurrence of those two
similar profiles and comments seems a little more contrived than what was
previously suggested.
------
saltcod
Well that answers my question — Can Jason Fried code? Answer: soon.
~~~
packetslave
He's a graphic designer by trade.
~~~
saltcod
Well, I think he's an entrepreneur by trade, but I always if he put in the
time to learn Ruby/Rails with all that expertise around. As someone who's been
_slowly_ learning to program myself for years, I'd love to get his perspective
on it.
------
scotttownsley
Great summery, Sam. I feel like I was actually there.
------
aacostarubio
Awesome recap!!!
------
smk
nice writeup Sam.
------
Jango83
Great post, Sam.
------
tundra
Awesome post Sam!
------
vcabansag
Great recap Sam. And nice photo.
------
dmehrman
Thanks for the summary of his talk Sam, it was a great read
------
nickhould
This is awesome. Great article Sam!
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
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TV News is Ridiculous Compared with Internet News - NathanKP
http://www.experimentgarden.com/2012/02/tv-news-is-ridiculous-compared-to.html
======
zowens1190
This article highlights a real generational gap I never considered until
earlier this year.
I started Googling when I was about nine years old, at the latest. My brother,
who is five years old, has used Google since he was three or four.
My entire life, I have been able to investigate my interests and other bits of
information, with individual independence. If a news story interests me, I
have been wired, by habit and what-have-you, to seek out the info when and
from whom I want it.
A local news program once teased a fluff piece about some record-breaking
octopus. They were hoping it would entice viewers enough to sit through the
commercials and watch it when the program returned. In the past, this would
have been the case.
But instead, because that subject piqued my interest, I went ahead and looked
it up very quickly online. Immediately, through Google News, I had access to
dozens of articles to whet my appetite. I got the jist of the subject, and
then I moved on. All of this before the commercials on TV were over.
When the program returned, they dedicated seconds to the subject, and moved
on. There was a huge difference between what I knew about the subject from
what I learned online, and the very little I would have known if I had only
relied upon the TV news segment. Entire generations are wired to rely on the
latter, the youngest ones are wired to Google.
My parents, who are still rather young--they are both 41--are more likely to
just wait for the news program to return.
These cultural differences blow my mind. They remind me how dynamic culture
is, and how much it has changed even throughout the course of my short life.
I told my five-year-old brother a couple weeks ago, that the internet is not
very old, and there was a long time when people did not have it. It was hard
for him to grasp a time when people did not have Google. I have to admit, I
ask myself that very same question all of the time.
(Head Explodes)
~~~
NathanKP
Exactly. I can foresee that soon television news programs will find it harder
and harder to attract viewers as the newer generation with its use of the
Internet for news turns away from the television networks.
It'll be interesting to see what they do to stay alive, and if they try to
fight back against the internet like the movie industry is doing.
| {
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Light at the end of the scalpel - Hooke
http://mosaicscience.com/story/tumour-paint-cancer-surgery
======
melling
"Jim Olson remembers being ridiculed. It was 1989 and he was defending his PhD
thesis, and the bank of University of Michigan professors asked what his next
goal would be. “If we can bring radioactivity into these tumours for PET
scanning, I would love to find a way to bring light into the cancer so that
surgeons can see it while they’re operating,” Olson told them. The professors
chuckled. “Okay, Buck Rogers,” one of them heckled, “but what are you really
going to do?”"
So, as little as 25 years ago we still had a myopic view of technology. Anyone
else feel like we've probably wasted a lot of valuable years?
| {
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Ask HN: What is the correct way of session handling in web applications? - sunilkumarc
Hi Hackers,<p>I'm a naive web developer who is trying to build a small web application using Node.js and React.js. Currently I'm stuck at session handling for the chosen technology stack. I have seen some examples(One example : https://github.com/rdegges/svcc-auth ) which use Node.js for the back end and Jade template engine for the front end. In such applications, sessions are being handled only the server side. I'm facing difficulties in doing the same thing with Node.js and React.js combination because I'm handling the routing on the client side using react router.<p>I'm a bit confused about session handling in web applications. So, I wanted to know what a typical session handling architecture looks like in web applications and what is the correct way (best way) to implement this for Node.js + React.js combination.<p>Any links/resources/comments are highly appreciated.
======
lsiunsuex
I've only this week began working with React, so I can't speak for that
specifically, but sessions generally have the same idea across most languages,
IMO.
A session is nothing more then a handful of variables and values stored
somewhere specific to the user that can be passed back to the server, a query
of sorts ran using those values and an output provided.
(generally speaking)
In PHP, a PHPSESSID generally gets stored on the users machine in a cookie
when a user visits a page where session_start() has been executed. That ID
corresponds to an array ( $_SESSION ) on the server where for example user_id,
name, email, might be set and used to generate this query with the query
looking something like (very generic) select * from users where
id=$_SESSION['user_id']
Your using NodeJS which means your probably using a document store like Mongo
so you can't really do queries in the traditional sense, but you can request
variable documents
In a recent AngularJS / Firebase app I built, I use localstorage service to
store non-critical information - id, name, email, etc... NEVER the password.
Name and email are for presentation - when a user loads a page, it's nice for
the system to show them who they are - but user_id is what gets passed back to
Firebase to do the lookup so in the case of Firebase the "query" is
site.firebaseio.com/users/user_id - this will spit out whatever you have
stored in /users/user_id be it chat history, email address, etc...
Could someone modify localstorage variables? yeah probably - but that's why on
the server side (your NodeJS) your gonna check the incoming variable, make
sure it's nothing malicious and pass it into the DB and in the case of
Firebase, you can setup access rules to further limit who has access to what.
I'd assume a localstorageservice is available to React or something similar.
It would be a good place to start.
And NEVER store sensative information in a cookie / session / localstorage,
including address info or CC info.
(2 cents, I may be completely absolutely wrong)
| {
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A Fully Automated Society - Current Arguments Are Oversimplified - StandardFuture
http://standardfuture.com/
======
eip
It is patently impossible to discuss social engineering or the automation of a
society, i.e., the engineering of social automation systems (silent weapons)
on a national or worldwide scale without implying extensive objectives of
social control and destruction of human life, i.e., slavery and genocide.
Energy is recognized as the key to all activity on earth. Natural science is
the study of the sources and control of natural energy, and social science,
theoretically expressed as economics, is the study of the sources and control
of social energy. Both are bookkeeping systems: mathematics. Therefore,
mathematics is the primary energy science. And the bookkeeper can be king if
the public can be kept ignorant of the methodology of the bookkeeping.
All science is merely a means to an end. The means is knowledge. The end is
control. Beyond this remains only one issue: Who will be the beneficiary?
Since energy is the key to all activity on the face of the earth, it follows
that in order to attain a monopoly of energy, raw materials, goods, and
services and to establixh a world system of slave labor, it is necessary to
have a first strike capability in the field of economics. In order to maintain
our position, it is necessary that we have absolute first knowledge of the
science of control over all economic factors and the first experience at
engineering the world economy.
In order to achieve such sovereignty, we must at least achieve this one end:
that the public will not make either the logical or mathematical connection
between economics and the other energy sciences or learn to apply such
knowledge.
This is becoming increasingly difficult to control because more and more
businesses are making demands upon their computer programmers to create and
apply mathematical models for the management of those businesses.
It is only a matter of time before the new breed of private
programmer/economists will catch on to the far reaching implications of the
work begun at Harvard in 1948. The speed with which they can communicate their
warning to the public will largely depend upon how effective we have been at
controlling the media, subverting education, and keeping the public distracted
with matters of no real importance.
| {
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Ask HN: Where can I learn how to build APIs for developers? - rm2904
I am looking to learn how to build APIs for developers, what are the best practices around organizing them and exposing them through API keys.<p>Any courses, guides, blogs, or books that people found helpful?<p>I code mostly in Python and Javascript.
======
mjhea0
For theory, check out
[http://slides.com/jamesgibson-4/deck#/](http://slides.com/jamesgibson-4/deck#/).
For practice, check out [https://testdriven.io/](https://testdriven.io/).
| {
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On Free: a flight across Europe for five pounds is indistinguishable from magic - ivankirigin
http://www.longtail.com/the_long_tail/2007/11/a-flight-across.html
======
abstractbill
I've taken advantage of a bunch of these flights (I'm from the UK).
I live in the US now though and I'm wondering why this model hasn't taken off
here. For me to fly just over one hour (San Francisco to Las Vegas) recently
cost me around $80 each way - and that was after an hour of looking for good
deals.
~~~
dcurtis
That's a horrible price. You can get flights for about 39 dollars each way
(JetBlue, Virgin America, etc). Try Kayak.com, virginamerica.com,
southwest.com, jetblue.com.
| {
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Frankenimage – Reconstructing images with pieces from an image database - sebkomianos
http://gimlids.github.io/frankenimage/
======
zingermc
Is the mosaic of The Creation of Adam generated by Frankenimage? Judging by
the results in the videos, it doesn't seem capable of making that.
Edit: I did a Tineye search and it is used all over the web, so it wasn't
created by Frankenimage.
~~~
crazygringo
"The following image represents a series of 20 oil on canvas paintings by
contemporary artist Lewis Lavoie, each depicting an individual, in tandem
depicting the head of Adam from Michelangelo's The Creation of Adam."
~~~
GhotiFish
"The following image represents a series of 20 oil on canvas paintings by
contemporary artist Lewis Lavoie"
Does that not read "a series of 20 oil on canvas paintings by contemporary
artist Lewis Lavoie"?
ie. Lewis Lavoie had painted the 20 oil on canvas paintings.
That's how I read it, but searching his name reveals otherwise
[https://www.google.ca/search?q=Lewis+Lavoie&safe=off&source=...](https://www.google.ca/search?q=Lewis+Lavoie&safe=off&source=lnms&tbm=isch)
So I understand the parents confusion.
------
mprat
Very cool. (1) Have you thought about using HOG templates for the matching
step? Seems like you might get some interesting structural encoding
similarities there. (2) When generating image patches, could they be different
sizes? Or is the idea to make a simple grid?
~~~
sebkomianos
I am not the one behind this, I just shared it here. I just tweeted to him
though:
[https://twitter.com/davidstolarsky](https://twitter.com/davidstolarsky)
------
mattkenefick
"In contrast with a photomosaic," ehhh.. it's just a photomosaic.
| {
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Chartwell font exploits ligatures to build charts from character sequences - mef
http://www.tktype.com/chartwell.php
======
zbanks
This is pretty amazing & clever.
I wish the font file was available just to play with, even if it was a
crippled version. Even though it's not a "full" typeface, I'm surprised he's
not charging more. If it works as advertised, I'd gladly pay more than $15 for
that bit of cleverness.
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
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If Ruby is object-oriented Perl, then Reia is object-oriented Erlang - bascule
http://www.unlimitednovelty.com/2010/06/reia-everything-is-object.html
======
deno
Besides Ruby-like syntax how does it differ from parametrized modules?
From his example:
= Reia:
class Foo
def initialize(value)
@value = value
end
def value
@value
end
end
= Erlang:
-module(foo, [Value]).
value() -> Value.
And it's actually prettier.
Can you do some crazy pattern matching and type overloading like with Scala?
Or is it just syntactic sugar for parametrized modules?
~~~
bascule
Parameterized modules don't have constructors. That doesn't matter in a
trivial case, but it does when you want some complex state set-up which you
don't want to repeat every single time you "instantiate" a parameterized
module?
Also, Reia has inheritance. Parameterized modules don't.
~~~
deno
They certainly do with -extends(). As for constructors… there's probably way
around that too. Point is Reia's OO-revolution doesn't introduce any
fundamental changes besides syntax.
~~~
bascule
-extend() is another half-assed solution. It's closer to mix-ins than inheritance.
Object orientation in Reia is baked into the core language itself. Like Ruby,
all of its core types are objects. In Perl and Erlang they are not. Reia
factors the core language types into objects, instead of amalgamations of the
core types with arbitrary and poorly factored functions which act on them.
------
viraptor
I wonder about " _The canonical approach, Erlang records, are a goofy and oft
reviled preprocessor construct with an unwieldy syntax._ " After writing a bit
of Erlang code, I don't mind records that much. They're not prefect, but I
would never call them bad, goofy, etc. They're also used in pretty much every
situation where a state in a predefined form is needed (config files, server
state, etc.) so that proplists are not needed (no need for dynamic list).
So... what is the complaint about records really?
~~~
rubyrescue
i agree, you get used to them. but what i don't like about them is that the
way you have to specify the record every time you reference the object. so
Bar = Foo#foorecord.bar, Baz = Foo#foorecord.baz
it feels unnecessarily redundant. Shouldn't we already know Foo is a record of
'fake type' #foorecord? It's like a poor man's type system, and it's ugly.
Also, probably more importantly, since they're a compile-time trick you can't
use them in the console, which makes experimentation and sometimes debugging
harder.
~~~
viraptor
> _Bar = Foo#foorecord.bar, Baz = Foo#foorecord.baz_
#foorecord{bar=Bar, baz=Baz} = Foo
Readability depends on what does your brain process, when you see "=" ;)
> _since they're a compile-time trick you can't use them in the console_
Check the `rX` commands from <http://www.erlang.org/doc/man/shell.html> You
can use the records just like in normal code, but you have to load them
explicitly.
------
baddox
The title is correct, albeit vacuously.
------
yah
Clearly the author knows Erlang almost as well as he knows Perl.
~~~
azgolfer
LOL - Ruby is Smalltalk, not object oriented PERL. PERL has had objects for
quite a while.
| {
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New Relic launches perpetually free tier, 100gb data ingest and 1 user license - dan-buzzkill
https://newrelic.com/signup
======
Havoc
Looks promising :)
| {
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ARE OCTOPUSES FROM OUTER SPACE - ijafri
http://www.newsweek.com/alien-octopuses-outer-space-930942
======
gigatexal
They are majestic, smart and caring and cunning creatures. They’re my favorite
animal in the animal kingdom. I’ll never forget the clip I saw of David
Attenborough narrating how a female octopus holed up in a save cavern rarely
sleeping and slowly dying to ensure that her young were birthed safely only to
die as they were born. It was so sad yet so humbling. I also love hearing
about times when they escape from aquariums or fishers’ ships. Also isn’t the
plural Octopi not as it is in the title?
~~~
qbrass
>Also isn’t the plural Octopi not as it is in the title?
Octopuses is the standard English pluralization, while Octopi and Octopodes
are acceptable variants.
| {
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What's it like to be a drug dealer? - bemmu
http://www.quora.com/Whats-it-like-to-be-a-drug-dealer
======
jsavimbi
A pain in the ass, mostly. It's comprable to being a good-looking bartender at
a high-priced club. Sure, the customers will be there because after all it's
drugs you're selling, but then the place will fall out with the in crowd, your
looks will fade and you'll slip up trying to maintain the lifestyle you've
accustomed yourself to during the good times and end up broke without any
marketable skills. It's a young person's business with a very finite timeline,
just like any business that deals in vice.
| {
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Congress Looking into Anticompetitive Behavior in the Digital Library Market - IfOnlyYouKnew
https://www.publishersweekly.com/pw/by-topic/industry-news/libraries/article/81549-congress-investigating-anticompetitive-behavior-in-the-digital-library-market.html
======
IfOnlyYouKnew
I especially enjoy how the first comment is relating this story to a quote
from Charles Dickens.
| {
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Appeals Court Overturns 2007 Unix Copyright Decision - gasull
http://yro.slashdot.org/story/09/08/25/0021246/Appeals-Court-Overturns-2007-Unix-Copyright-Decision?from=rss
======
bdfh42
I rather thought that the court set aside a summary judgement - saying there
was sufficient grounds to require a trial of the facts.
No decision as to copyright ownership was made.
| {
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The Sunspot Enigma: The Sun is "Dead", What Does it Mean for Earth? - gibsonf1
http://www.dailygalaxy.com/my_weblog/2008/06/the-sunspot-mys.html
======
dandelany
A couple relevant links:
[http://science.nasa.gov/headlines/y2008/11jul_solarcycleupda...](http://science.nasa.gov/headlines/y2008/11jul_solarcycleupdate.htm)
NASA solar physicist David Hathaway thinks that this is mostly alarmist
nonsense, and after looking at his solar cycle graph, I'm inclined to agree
with him. The Maunder Minimum was a huge departure from the cycle, and it's
far too early to extrapolate and assume a similar departure.
<http://www.spaceweather.com>
Space Weather tracks daily sunspot activity, as well as lots of other cool
tidbits of current astronomy.
~~~
grimoire
There is some serious smack-down in that NASA article.
"In the early 20th century there were periods of quiet lasting almost twice as
long as the current spell."
"In summary, "the current minimum is not abnormally low or long.""
"Hathaway anticipates more spotless days, maybe even hundreds, followed by a
return to Solar Max conditions in the years around 2012."
Along with some interesting graphs, it looks like everything is business as
usual for the sun.
A google search on the author, Rebecca Sato, shows that she typically writes
lots of "what if" and other fluff pieces.
Sounds like fear mongering to me.
~~~
kajecounterhack
Whatever it is, what does it matter if we can't predict what's going to
happen? As far as we know, the world's getting warmer and its time to start
buying priuses wherever we can afford them ;)
~~~
kingkongrevenge
> As far as we know, the world's getting warmer
Temperature peaked in 1998.
~~~
ojbyrne
It would be nice to have a reference for that.
------
Retric
The earth acts as a block body so it's input energy must approximate its
output energy or its temperature changes. So what magnitude change in input
energy would equal a change of .7f? Well black body radiation (power out) =
(T1^4 - T2^4) [in kelvin] so 1.0057x the power output or .57% but the
estimated change in solar output is ~0.1% variation over the last 2,000 years
which does not add up.
Granted the global temperature is not uniform and the earth is not a true
black body but these numbers are not even close and it would take a huge swing
in solar activity to get changes in the 1+ deg range.
PS: La Niña - is the likely culprit.
~~~
gibsonf1
Is it possible that the disappearance of sun spots for the first time since
the "little ice age" indicates a huge swing in solar activity?
~~~
Retric
They disappear every ~11 years and have been for a while but the next cycle
has not started yet so some people think it might be while. Anyway, check:
(<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Solar_variation>)
Edit: If you graphed solar radiation received at the outer surface of Earth's
atmosphere you would see solar output over the last 100 years as a long line
of 1,366w/m with some peaks at 1,367w/m and a possible drop into 1,365
territory.
------
dandelany
Global warming + Miniature ice age = There is a God!
~~~
boredguy8
In competitive academic debate, we've long been reading evidence that we're
'due' for a new period of global cooling and so all the global warming
activity is good because it's helping stave off the next ice age.
~~~
gaius
Indeed, in the 1970s the "green" movement was very worried about a new ice
age, and the solutions they proposed to global cooling were, strangely, almost
the same solutions now proposed to combat global warming.
~~~
Retric
There are always wacko's saying the end is near but most of them are far from
credible. Unfortunately it can be hard to tell who is full of it when they
extrapolate past reason. Anyway, particulate matter does lower global
temperatures but unlike CO2 it does not stay up for vary long.
------
river_styx
Can any of the physics gurus here offer an explanation of how sunspot activity
is related to heat output? It doesn't really explain that in the article. Less
heat output means less fusion reaction, means less magnetic activity, means
lack of sunspots, I presume?
~~~
ars
The sun is actually a very good insulator. All the heat is generated in the
middle and takes millennia to reach the top.
So anything that basically "mixes" the sun will cause more heat to be emitted.
No sun spots=no mixing, and all the heat remains trapped.
I think that after trapping heat for so long, the sun gets hotter and
generates more sun spots because of all the extra energy. The sun spots bleed
it out, and the cycle continues.
~~~
ced
Uh, what? Sun spots come from the magnetic flux tubes from the inner layers
becoming unstable and rising to the surface, forming loops. If anything, I'd
guess that sunspots _inhibit_ the flow. The mixing happens mostly because of
the persistent convection cells in the sun and of course the turbulence.
I don't know offhand the answer to the parent's question, but in my
experience, the above doesn't make sense.
~~~
ars
Convection cells are the baseline mixing, but any activity in the sun, and sun
spots are far from quiet areas, despite being dark, would cause additional
mixing.
Why would you say sunspots would inhibit the flow?
"magnetic flux tubes" would not arise from nothing, they would arise from
large amounts of ions moving (making an electrical current), and therefor
mixing the suns layers.
------
bpreece
Also, the statement "That period coincided with a little ice age on Earth that
lasted from 1650 to 1700" is inaccurate. Actually, the period from 1650 to
1700 is not for the little ice age, but for the Maunder Minimum, the previous
period when there were few sunspots. The little ice age has no sharp
beginning, and is variously said to start almost anywhere after the medieval
warm period - say anywhere from mid-14th century to the mid-17th century. The
little ice age ended with the beginning of global warming in the mid-19th
century.
~~~
gibsonf1
<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Little_ice_age>
------
KevBurnsJr
What's not important here is the amount of radiation coming from the sun.
What is important is the systems at work within the sun. A blank sun is the
calm before the storm.
Solar flare : Dec 21st, 2012.
~~~
humanlever
Gotta love that Mayan calendar Voodoo.
| {
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Ask HN: How should I catch up on fundamentals as a self-taught programmer? - superpops
I learned programming as I was studying another major basically, not Computer Science. And I was mainly learning that during my work-study job because there were a ton of slow hours in the computer lab and I got curious about learning web development and stuff. So I started reading some tutorials on HTML and CSS. Then they eventually started putting me on updating some of the department websites. Now, years later I have been a web developer at several different companies.<p>But it's just not the same anymore and I want to take on something more challenging in my career. That's where the CS fundamentals come in, right? Well, since I didn't take CS, I guess I have some catching up to do. The companies I've been with are on the smaller side, not Fortune 500 type companies.<p>Is it a stretch to want to jump right into a large tech company so I can expand my knowledge that way? I'm going in straight cold with the applications, no referrals (don't have any for those companies...yet) and it's been bothering me because I think this is the main reason I am not getting replies.<p>So in the meantime should I take any online courses? Where do I begin? And where to I go for work to apply the fundamentals that I learn if the big shots do not want to interview me (yet)? My employer unfortunately cannot pay for education or conferences even if it benefits all the employees on their part... so I have to carry it all on my own.
======
jupiter90000
This resource is pretty nice if you want to keep mainly on the self-teaching
route: teachyourselfcs.com
Do you know what the more challenging thing in CS you'd like to get involved
with is (distributed systems, embedded systems, database engine construction,
etc)?
| {
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} |
ECommerce Startups - codecondo
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/alex-ivanovs/5-ecommerce-startups-you_b_7179272.html?
======
scottgarza
I suggest you to have a try with uber apps for startups. I would like you to
have a check with this link @mowares.com
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Computer scientists has software that realistically make anyone say anything - puppetmaster3
https://fpdl.vimeocdn.com/vimeo-prod-skyfire-std-us/01/2310/6/161551044/508826461.mp4?token=57053e5c_0x821197a5a2acd9f4cc5a2e80f7b47e7767cad2c5#038;profile_id=119
======
mindcrash
Error 410 - Gone.
------
david-given
Warning: link to autoplay video.
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
A Curated List of Wordpress and Wordpress.com REST API Apps - cdarwin
http://www.justthink.it/wordpress-rest-api-applications/
======
cdarwin
I haven't found a list like this the net, so I thought it would be interesting
to have one.
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Apple facing record bill for Irish tax - shazzy
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-37216176
======
djrogers
Seems kinda crazy to retroactively assess taxes/fines on a company that was
doing something completely legal in the country it was operating in. If you
don't like the rules, change them - but to go backward in time and say what
was clearly legal shouldn't have been is crazy.
That'd be like re-scoring the 1890 World Series based on today's MLB rulebook.
~~~
Marazan
It wasn't legal though, it was illegal state aid in contravention to the laws
of the single market Ireland was signed up too.
~~~
JoshTriplett
That depends heavily on whether Apple received clarifications and information
about the existing tax code, or whether they received special-case tax breaks
that didn't apply to everyone. The latter might violate EU requirements.
~~~
Marazan
Apple have publically admitted to getting special treatment.
~~~
anonbanker
source?
------
cryptoz
I still don't understand why companies avoid local taxes. It doesn't make any
sense to me. Their fiduciary duty is to act in the best interests of their
investors. Unless the investors all consider their best-case-scenario to live
in a world of anarchy and lawlessness, it is obviously in everyone's best
interest (financially and otherwise) to pay taxes as expected. Anything else
is an affront to the structure of modern civilization.
It is not in the best interest of Apple shareholders for the quality of life
in the US/California/etc to deteriorate due to missing tax dollars. Long-term,
stable societies are much more useful for making money than a few billion in
secret stash tax havens.
~~~
aianus
I'd rather pay taxes to Apple, Tesla, and Google than the US government. At
least they're competent.
~~~
oconnore
So, in case anyone else hadn't noticed, we have reached peak libertarian
techie madness.
~~~
s_kilk
It's almost as if none of these guys have ever read any nightmarish dystopian
cyber-punk fiction. Megacorps as stand-in for governments == bad.
~~~
icebraining
Or they don't happen to think that cheap sci-fi pulp, which is the vast
majority of cyber-punk, are a good argument for or against anything.
~~~
Apocryphon
"We live on an internet created by corporate persons, our government is hacked
by Russian spies, and virtual reality is real now, dear." \-
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gazACJ0R1Hc](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gazACJ0R1Hc)
------
adwhit
Amusing that Ireland are going to appeal a decision which results in their
receiving billions of dollars. They accurately calculate that a few billion is
scant compensation if the Masters of the Universe then choose to go elsewhere
for their tax-avoiding needs.
~~~
anonymousDan
Not really. Apple have been in Ireland since the eighties and are one of the
biggest private sector employers in Cork. There are a lot of jobs on the line,
it's not like they are some kind of brass plate company with no actual
presence here.
~~~
Graphon1
> one of the biggest private sector employers in Cork.
What do all those people do? do you know? I'm interested.
~~~
yardie
Simple, they take the mail out of a corporation's fake HQ PO box in Ireland
and forward it to where they're actually based.
------
J0-nas
I think it's quite amusing how Apple(+other companies) and their tax avoidance
scheme earned them a fortune in "tax heavens" and now both the EU and the USA
are trying their best to get some of the money back.
Here is to hoping EU politicians fix the tax system and force companies to pay
a meaningful tax in the countries where they sell their products.
Personally, I'm not very optimistic considering J.C. Juncker is still one of
the most influential EU politicians.
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jean-
Claude_Juncker#Controvers...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jean-
Claude_Juncker#Controversies)
~~~
cloudjacker
funny thing to say since the US Treasury is criticizing the EU over this abuse
of tax law
The US and Ireland both signed off on the arrangement that apple and other
companies use to avoid tax.
Now, a government that didn't exist at the time, is using new case law it has
created, to retroactively change the tax laws of the governments underneath
it.
Think of it as Europe's Marbury v Madison moment
~~~
rtkwe
> Now, a government that didn't exist at the time, is using new case law it
> has created, to retroactively change the tax laws of the governments
> underneath it.
It's kind of tricky because though the EU as it is today is relatively new
Ireland joined the European Economic Community which essentially became the
EU. Also whenever that rule came into effect the special rules Ireland gave
Apple should have been reevaluated and removed. They've always been against
the state aid rule it's just not been tried until now. As for "changing the
tax laws of governments underneath it" that's part of being in the EU you give
up parts of your national sovereignty in a number of areas for the benefits of
being in the open market.
~~~
rtkwe
> Ireland joined the European Economic Community which essentially became the
> EU
Forgot to finish this sentence:
"Ireland joined the European Economic Community which essentially became the
EU back in 1973"
------
matt_wulfeck
Isn't it Ireland's prerogative if they want to collect taxes on corporations
or not? It's bringing in excessive amounts of jobs (and payroll taxes) and
investments to their country.
This whole tax avoidance criticism just boggles my mind. There's a sale in
China. One person pays money to another person in their country for a phone
created in China that never left China. Yet somehow US citizens believe they
are entitled to 30-40% of the money that exchanged hands there or it's "tax
avoidance".
~~~
Oletros
> Isn't it Ireland's prerogative if they want to collect taxes on corporations
> or not?
What is not a member of the UE prerogative is giving unfair deals to just some
companies. This is what the case is about.
------
rdtsc
> US warning The investigation into Apple and similar probes into other US
> firms have been criticised by US authorities.
Ha! I like it. US all of the sudden is defending Apple. Not because it loves
Apple, but because it was hoping it would get its hands on those billions ...
somehow.
EU here is basically saying, "ok Uncle Sam, fish or cut bait, do something. If
not get out of the way, we'll take that money". So Uncle Sam is a bit upset at
that, he doesn't like to be handled that way.
They will probably be various threats of sanctions from US and EU will buckle
eventually. Maybe some scheme to divide the tax penalty between US and EU
eventually.
Ireland's position is understandable. It could lose those companies overnight
basically if this goes through.
~~~
peteretep
I like the EU slowly becoming a friendly and peaceful counterpoint to the US.
Two democratic superpowers of about the same size is better than one.
------
nxzero
Interesting that the US is backing Apple's tax shelter scheme, which isn't to
say that EC isn't grasping way beyond any reasonable measure of where it
should go.
~~~
ChuckMcM
I think it is hilariously hypocritical coming from a tax authority that wants
to collect taxes on income their citizens earned while working outside of
their borders. Talk about trying to be a 'supra-national tax authority'.
In some ways there is a fight going on with national governments telling
corporations to start putting their hoarded cash to work in the various
economies or else we'll take it and put it to work in the economies. In a
number of dystopian futures there is an event in the past called the
"corporate wars" and this kinda feels a bit like something you might call a
corporate war.
[1] "Do I Owe Taxes On My Foreign Income?
U.S. citizens and resident aliens earning over a certain amount of income from
foreign sources may have to pay income taxes on the foreign income." \--
[http://www.efile.com/foreign-earned-income-and-income-
exclus...](http://www.efile.com/foreign-earned-income-and-income-exclusion/)
------
fffernan
Apple (with backing of the US government) vs EU. My money is on Apple winning
this battle. I'm sick of these lawsuits against Apple/MSFT. Europe is just
jealous that US/Korea/Japan can create global tech brands that anyone cares
about.
~~~
singularity2001
Or people in the EU get angry that it's hard to compete against US monopolists
'tech brands' who pay 10000 times less tax percentually.
------
Oletros
Here are the allegations
[http://eur-lex.europa.eu/legal-content/EN/TXT/HTML/?uri=CELE...](http://eur-
lex.europa.eu/legal-content/EN/TXT/HTML/?uri=CELEX:52014XC1017\(08\)&from=EN)
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
LXQt 0.11 Released - Tsiolkovsky
http://lxqt.org/release/2016/09/24/lxqt-011-et-al/
======
scrollaway
So while this is on HN, I wanted to talk a bit about LXQt and desktop OSes in
general.
Context: I'm one of the original leads on LXQt, and I initiated the merge of
Razor-qt and LXDE-Qt into LXQt.
I've been using LXQt as my main desktop for several years now. I've kept up
with what other desktops have been doing. I've been especially impressed by
the efforts of the GNOME team, and especially disappointed with the
clusterfuck KDE has become... but those are just details.
I feel like the Linux desktop is dead, and one of the worst examples of open
source software right now.
Almost nobody actually collaborates on anything. Everybody wants to do their
own thing and it leads to _developer fragmentation_. Every project is
undermanned. LXQt is _especially_ undermanned right now. The Cinnamon guys,
last I heard, want to switch to Qt but don't have the developers to do it and
would end up being a LXQt clone.
Nobody needs that many desktops, especially when nearly all of them are clones
of each other in either GTK or Qt and 95% of the apps duplicate each others'
functionality. The worst part is that, with more effort spent on cross-desktop
specs and evangelism, software written "for" one desktop would work far better
on others. But the XDG (cross desktop group) is in a pathetic state right now,
with nobody reading the mailing list and no specs ever being worked on. Nobody
cares, because very few people have enough context to see the need for it all.
Not to mention the sad state of UI toolkits right now. This isn't about GTK
vs. Qt or anything... but you can't pick up your favourite language (Python,
JS, whatever) and easily write cross-platform apps that work well on Linux. So
what does everybody do? They ship a god damn copy of Chromium in their app.
Bloody electron apps that, of course, respect zero accessibility settings,
platform integration out of the window etc. Because that is the easiest thing
to do.
It's pissing me off. Most people who care about their desktop have migrated or
are migrating to OSX and the whole thing snowballs.
TLDR: No collaboration across desktops. Fragmentation with no cross desktop
compatibility. 2016 was the year the Linux desktop died - won't anybody revive
it?
~~~
keyle
I feel it's somewhat a deeper change. Older developers are getting kids and
have very limited / no time to allocate for open source development
(unsupported financially).
Younger developers are chasing the golden goose on the web/mobile, or banging
frameworks until sunrise. They feel like old c++ codebase etc. are like old
ruins, in deep dark caverns. They wouldn't touch any of it. They're anti-
mailing-list and pro-slack. There is a huge gap between the two.
It's as if new generations come in and they want to make their own mark. And
there is what's sexy ("getting rich yo") and what's completely unsexy ("let's
pick up grand pa's code and move it forward on my mac book pro").
~~~
scrollaway
It's not like you can't make desktop development "sexy", though. You _could_ ,
but we're not there yet.
Qt is a pretty amazing framework (yes, I'm biased). You can write apps in
Python, but Python is a clusterfuck for shipping anything cross-platform or
any kind of desktop apps.
My vision for LXQt was to very much have a _modern_ desktop (targeting recent
tech such as fingerprint readers, wayland etc), while retaining some design
patterns from the classic desktop ("classic" taskbar or global menu, icon-
based desktop grid, etc) without trying to reinvent "desktop shells".
Working on the desktop doesn't always mean using ancient tech, nor solving
ancient problems - FWIW I'm probably younger than the average HN demographic.
We tried having/creating solid developer tooling, good documentation, a
decent-looking website but there's only so much you can do when you're lacking
manpower in every area. Nearly all my time was spent doing developer outreach.
~~~
keyle
Yes I really like your vision of desktop. And I'm not saying desktop dev is
unsexy. I'm a designer/ux/ui developer. There is tons of sexy stuff to do.
Just look at the VFX of scifi movies and take cues
([http://www.aspenexcel.com/](http://www.aspenexcel.com/)), desktop is stuck
in the past and could move forward.
What I meant is: the code base is ancient to them. The unsexy monolithic code
base that's not running on the cloud and doesn't emulate itself 3 times before
running. No new developer fresh of the boat wants to pick up large projects
codebase, they want to write funky new code from scratch with tons of bugs,
because that's where the fun lies when you're not paid.
~~~
scrollaway
Yah I got what you were saying. It just annoys me that this is the state we're
in.
I share your love for UX and UI development. For what it's worth, the LXQt
project could _really_ use people like you dedicating a few hours now and then
on drafting app designs, filing UX issues, etc. If you're ever interested,
file an issue on the tracker[0] and cc me (@jleclanche) on it.
[https://github.com/lxde/lxqt/issues](https://github.com/lxde/lxqt/issues)
~~~
acchan
How do you feel about elementary OS? [0] They spend a lot of effort on UX and
it's the project I personally believe has the most chance to push Free
Software to a wider audience, but on the other hand it's yet another project
contributing to fragmentation.
I'm not sure where they stand wrt XDG, but I bet if you asked them for help
with UX and designing stuff, they would love to collaborate.
[0] [https://elementary.io](https://elementary.io)
~~~
scrollaway
I like that they're doing some good UX work (although it's really just copying
apple's HIG... and style), but again it's not very interesting to have a group
of people working on _apps_ , when the apps themselves look like crap on any
other desktop.
On LXQt, I made sure there was no NIH. All the apps that came out of LXQt were
lightweight alternatives to bloated stuff from KDE and were "in scope" of the
desktop environment. Whereas Elementary includes an Email client.
To put things in context: An email client is office software. It's such a
burden to maintain that Mozilla dropped support for theirs (Thunderbird),
despite its massive userbase.
People work on what they want to work I suppose, but we're talking about apps
that are never going to be used outside of that one particular desktop. That
one desktop out of god knows how many, since everybody is working on their own
piece.
Are there really so many different ways to do a lightweight tabbed text editor
with syntax highlighting in GTK, that Scratch, gedit and Leafpad all need to
exist? Or can we admit there's a problem?
------
red_admiral
How much of this is due to fragementatation/walled-garden mentalities, and how
much due to issues with the C++/OOP-style API that most GUI/widget toolkits
seem to share? With fragmentation as a consequence of everyone exploring their
own solution to a genuine problem.
I'd say that the object-oriented style of GTK/wx/Qt/you name it is inherently
hard to use cleanly in a language like lua - not that it can't be done but you
constantly feel like "there must be a better way to do this". And then the kid
next door shows you a HTML5 interface that just makes you go "wow", and the
same again when he tells you he built it in 5 minutes. (The wow effect wears
off quickly enough once you try such "arcane" things as keyboard shortcuts, or
even getting a consistent TAB order half the time.)
It seems to me like everyone has realised that we need something better than
writing python while thinking in C++, and everyone's experimenting with their
own solution - hence why we have meta-object compilers and g-introspection and
whatnot. Perhaps that's necessary because I don't think anyone has made a
really good 21st century dynamic-language desktop application API yet that's
almost as quick to work in as electron, but gets things right. Possibly with a
sprinkle of functional programming and some kind of async thrown in.
You can't blame gnome 3 for not trying, but the amount of custom undocumented
CSS you need to hack on to do something like picking an accent colour for the
currently selected control make me think this is a really good learning
example of how not to do it.
------
aq3cn
Since when I have switched to i3 window manger, I am totally enjoying it. It's
minimal, fast, keyboard centric and perfect for computer with small screen
size.
[https://i3wm.org/](https://i3wm.org/)
~~~
lsh
If we're shouting out to our favourite window managers, then a long, long time
ago I switched to ion3 and then for a long long time it was left unmaintained
until Notion (not-ion) came along:
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ion3](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ion3)
[http://notion.sourceforge.net/](http://notion.sourceforge.net/)
My sincere thanks to all authors and maintainers of ion3 and Notion. I've used
your work for at least a decade, probably longer.
------
sudhirkhanger
Any of you use a lightweight desktop environment like on high end expensive
system. Why? Does it matter if you end up using lightweight desktop
environment on a low end system and end up using resource intensive apps on
top of it?
~~~
int_19h
Those things aren't lightweight only in the matter of resources used - they're
also lightweight in how much attention they demand when interacting with them.
Some people just want a simpler flow with less overhead.
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
How is the recruitment process in 2017? - gatby
I was supposed to have 4 phone interviews this week but every single one of them has been delayed. Are recruiters just busy or am I being paranoid?
======
reflexorozy
It could be employers still nailing down their budget? I know that there are
(in Salt Lake City) fewer companies hiring at the beginning and end of the
year than during other times.
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Gmail is getting PGP Signatures (Feb 2009) - graywh
http://www.paulspoerry.com/2009/02/13/gmail-is-getting-pgp-signatures/
======
koanarc
Over a year ago they were experimenting with this, and still no results? Not
very encouraging. Has anyone since seen any evidence of further developments
in this area? I've never noticed these features when receiving signed mail.
I had always hoped that gmail would popularize PGP signatures, if not
integrate outright encryption (PGP has been implemented in JavaScript plenty
of times -- right up Chrome's alley).
I'm sure there are all kinds of legal implications for Google to consider
(disabling features for users in countries where crypto is illegal/more
strongly regulated, places it would be illegal to "export" to, etc), not to
mention the fact that encrypted mail would preclude targeted advertising, but
email and crypto go together like PB&J. HTTPS enabled by default was a step in
the right direction (and it certainly took them long enough), but signature
support seems terribly overdue, to me.
~~~
jff
Letting Google manage your secret key kind of defeats the purpose, doesn't it?
~~~
koanarc
Absolutely, but I don't see why it couldn't still manage public keys for
verifying signatures and encrypting outgoing mail.
Your private key could still be handled locally. Hell, even if they left
signing and decryption (the parts you'd need your private key for) entirely up
to the browser or plugins or a full-blown mail client, you could still verify
signed mail that you'd received and send out encrypted mail from within
Gmail's interface. That alone could go a long way towards encouraging
cryptography beyond the security-conscious crowd. At the very least, it
spreads awareness.
EDIT: Also, as far as my more unimportant emails are concerned, I'd rather
have them bouncing around the internet encrypted by a compromised/throw-away
key (i.e., one that Google has access to) than not encrypted at all. But in
common use, yeah, the illusion of security would be worse than no security at
all.
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Website that suggests domain names? - csdrizzle
Recently read an article about a service that recommends domain names based on keywords. Anyone know what its called? Thanks!
======
kunle
dont know but you can use domai.nr to find domain name combos based on the
words you're thinking of
------
venuescout
www.dotomator.com/web20.html
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Show HN: Dating app focused on chatting and gamification - cstechofficial
https://blurry.chat
======
sk0g
No offence, but I would get the landing page looked at by a native English
speaker. A fair few instances of quirky language there.
But as for the product, having to earn virtual currency to keep using a dating
app by watching videos? Tough proposition when most popular dating apps are
free with purchasable benefits/ boosts.
~~~
cstechofficial
None taken:) We will check the landing page thank you for this feedback. This
is a completely free app too. You dont need to use virtual currency to write
or get messages. Coins are used to purchase gems. Those gems provide you
climbing up in search results, privacy, boosting yourself, to change location
etc. You can collect coins by claiming your daily reward, watching videos or
purchasing them from store.
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Tips for a Less Sugar Diet - awwam
http://lifehacksforhumanbeings.blogspot.com/2015/07/tips-for-less-sugar-diet.html
======
yiiman
How a can somebody avoid the taste of sugar?
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Parents: This is What Your Founder of A Son Does - feint
http://feint.me/2010/09/parents-this-is-what-your-founder-of-a-son-does/
======
swombat
Fuck, man, learn basic grammar.
I could have, not I could of.
My parents would cry if they saw me write like that.
The rest of the article is also littered with omitted words and little
mistakes. It makes it really hard for me to even begin to consider forwarding
that to _my_ parents, no matter how good or bad the points may be. Get the
final line right at least:
_I know Parents, that doesn’t really help. Just people I’m a web designer._
-> I know, Parents, that doesn't really help. Just tell people I'm a web designer.
~~~
rewind
Fuck, man, take it down a notch.
~~~
swombat
Sorry, the triple-whammy in the first paragraph got me ruffled up. I care
about grammar.
~~~
rewind
It's not that I disagree with you; I just thought you could of been a bit less
harsh.
~~~
gruseom
I don't think swombat was being mean so much as passionate (about good
English, a worthy subject) and concerned (for the author, who badly needs to
hear this). In other words, tough love!
Edit: it's probably worth pointing out why founders should care about basic
grammar: not knowing it is bad for business. It makes you seem what Russians
call bezgramotny (our closest word is "illiterate" but a better translation in
this case might be "grammarless"). This makes it harder to impress successful
people.
~~~
rewind
Some people get annoyed by bad grammar. Other people get annoyed when every
grammar mistake is pointed out. Ninety-five percent (or more) of the people
who read that saw the mistakes. We could potentially have a grammar
conversation about every post with a grammar error. Discussions can get pretty
meta as it is. These grammar-related observations never having anything to do
with whatever point the article is trying to make, and they're just stating
the obvious. We can all see the grammar is weak.
------
fragmede
> Me: Sort of. I build online tools that people use.
> Them: Like what – Google?
> Me: No. For example, one tool I built sends people reminders.
What specific distinction is the author making with "No"?
[http://www.googletutor.com/screencast-how-to-setup-sms-
alert...](http://www.googletutor.com/screencast-how-to-setup-sms-alerts-for-
google-calendar/)
They don't work for Google? That their web-app isn't a search engine? So the
post doesn't apply to epi0Bauqu (DDG)? That a search engine isn't a web-app?
I'd go with "Yes, but..."
------
ant5
Am I the only "founder" / "entrepreneur" that doesn't really appreciate these
special labels? They're generally something I only hear from the VC tech
startup crowd, and usually in the context of breathless veneration.
I'm running a business. I'm not special, a new breed of business man, and I
don't need a special startup-glorifying vocabulary for what I do. I'm just
another person running a small business -- something people have _always_
done, and it's something that parents (and everyone else) _understands_.
A neighbor recently started a coffee shop. She puts in long hours, manages the
books, orders food, directed the installation of the sound system and kitchen,
manages the kitchen staff, makes and serves coffee, and works the cash
register.
Nobody is calling her a "founder". She's just a small business owner. She had
to raise capital, her business could expand into a large chain, she could (but
isn't likely to) become the next Starbucks, or even get bought out by
Starbucks. She could also fail miserably. Is it really all that different from
what we do?
------
wallflower
> Just [tell] people I’m a web designer.
Just a thought. Maybe you could show your parents how to demonstrate what
task.fm does and how people use it. Could be as simple as giving them a canned
1 min video to play for people who ask.
------
jeffepp
Love this. I have drafted a similar post directed not only to my parents but
most of my friends, etc..
Unless they truly understand "startups and/or webapps" they have no clue what
we do with our days (and nights, weekends..)
~~~
aaronbrethorst
Just tell them "I'm building a company." No fuss, no muss.
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Eric Schmidt struggled to answer a Google interview question - ohjeez
http://qz.com/846339/alphabet-chairman-eric-schmidt-struggled-to-answer-a-google-interview-question/
======
dudul
The problem is that startups were eager to follow Google's lead and introduce
such dumb questions into their process, but seems to not be that eager to drop
them.
In my limited XP, 1 out of 3 interviews includes these idiotic brain teasers.
My guilty pleasure when it happens to me: toy with the interviewer until
he/she gets the hint that I won't play the game. Interviewer: "How many tennis
balls can you fit in a 1-meter cube box?" Me for the next 15 minutes "What's
the color of the box? What's the material the box is made of? Can I deflate or
crush the balls? What's the brand of the balls? Do I have to put a lid on the
box? Am I on Earth or on the moon? etc etc"
~~~
ohjeez
To be fair, Google didn't start this. I encountered the same sort of questions
at Microsoft in 1987.
~~~
grzm
I've heard of these types of questions referred to as Microsoft-type
questions.
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Bug in HN Noprocrast (if you use noprocrast don't read...) - jacquesm
There seems to be a simple way to get around the noprocrast feature, the only thing you can't do is edit postings / vote but you can still read the site, comment and submit.<p>The way to do it is when you get the 'back to work' message hit the '/logout' url, this will log you out, you can now view the site like you normally would. Then when you want to comment on something or reply simply click the link, make your comment, go through the password prompt and your item/comment will be submitted.<p>Hit /logout to continue the cycle.<p>Fix: Logging out during a noprocrast timeout should be disabled.
======
profquail
_Fix: Logging out during a noprocrast timeout should be disabled._
Couldn't you just delete your cookies to get around that? And, if PG
implemented something that tied a login to an IP, then you'd run into issues
with people behind NAT routers.
A better fix would be to block any actions on the site (loading any pages,
disallowing logins, etc.) when your noprocrast timeout expires. If that was
done server side, then you could browse the site anonymously to get around
noprocrast but you wouldn't be able to login and do anything until the "work
period" expired.
------
tsally
This isn't really a bug. Even if a user can't log out using the site, they can
still clear cookies. Or just another browser for that matter. No procrast
isn't iron proof and there is no way to make it so. ;-)
------
SwellJoe
Seriously? If you're going to take steps to avoid the feature, you _could_
just turn it off. It's not a security feature...it's a polite reminder that
you're wasting your day by sticking around too long.
~~~
jacquesm
> it's a polite reminder that you're wasting your day by sticking around too
> long.
If that were the case a simple message at the top of the page would suffice,
the fact that this site is addictive is why the noprocrast exists in the first
place.
If you have a feature it might as well be solid.
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Our First Business Card - Tangaroo
http://blog.spotfordot.com/?p=65
======
Tangaroo
Please also check out our soft launch site and register at www.spotfordot.com
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Drone Adventures, Pt. 1: Building a Drone - zsupalla
http://z.svbtle.com/drone-adventures-pt-1-building-a-drone
======
jonalmeida
I really like my Crazyflie and I've been meaning to use it with my Spark Core.
So far I've controlled it with a Leap Motion controller but haven't had time
to finish the controller entirely mainly because of time[2].
Also, the word "drone" has negative connotations in the media that
FliteTest[1] cover here.
[1]:
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dMe0J-mTtLM](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dMe0J-mTtLM)
[2]: [https://github.com/jonalmeida/hack-the-north-
crazyflie](https://github.com/jonalmeida/hack-the-north-crazyflie)
~~~
headShrinker
On the use of the word "drone"
I agree it's awful that the news has contorted a word to mean such evil things
in the eyes of the public. I have come to the realization that the word is
here to stay. We can't stop using it just because the meaning has been colored
somehow. It is still the correct noun. There is no other word to use in its
place. I have given in to using the word and correcting any one that starts in
on their MSM provided 'drones are scary' narrative.
~~~
kenrikm
I'm been sticking to UAV (Unmanned Aerial Vehicle) "Drone" has some negative
connotations attached to it.
------
asynchronous13
I built one, too. :-)
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b7SjOOuTct0](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b7SjOOuTct0)
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Support Vector Machines (SVM) in Ruby - brett
http://www.igvita.com/2008/01/07/support-vector-machines-svm-in-ruby/
======
aswanson
Victory shall indeed be mine.
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Ask HN: Code checker for Javascript - shire
I need a program that I can enter my Javascript code and it will tell me what it is doing line by line to understand some Javascript code is there such program out there?
======
kaoD
It's called a debugger. There's a nice one in your browser probably.
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Who Invests in Hardware Startups? - roarden
https://medium.com/bolt-blog/who-invests-in-hardware-startups-d1612895a31a
======
kickingvegas
Given that it's nice to see posts like this (disclaimer: I'm in one of those
HW startups listed) I'm reminded of an old ASIC joke:
How do you make a small fortune? Take a large fortune and build a chip.
~~~
trsohmers
And I'm a startup hoping to disprove that joke, especially since I don't have
the large fortune to help ;)
------
6stringmerc
Very interesting, and I appreciate the inclusion of hardware discussion. I'm
looking to compete in the Intel Curie challenge for an invention, but that is
just one of my projects dreamt up over the past few years.
Unfortunately, for my most prized invention, I still feel the best avenue is
to put my own capital at risk and secure the patent for myself. For all I
know, this is the pragmatic path before seeking investment?
I've had a good consultation with a patent attorney specializing in such
cases, and his fee appears reasonable, so unless I'm really off track here,
I've always thought of that as Step 1...Step 2 being the Business Plan /
Margins Caluclations...Step 3 being seeking partnerships / funding, and then
Step 4 is getting to market and hopefully growing the business to the point of
taking on a more limited role due to expansion requiring more company
infrastructure.
Guidance very welcome, and thanks again for posting this for review.
~~~
tomlor
I've started a hardware company before and went down the patent route. What we
did, with success, was to file a provisional patent before raising money -
which is far cheaper and less time consuming. That satisfied investor
questions regarding IP protection and then we used investor money to file the
actual patent itself.
Regarding your proposed step four - if you truly intend to have a limited role
for yourself in the future, disclosing this to investors (as you should) might
make fundraising more difficult. If you are the visionary behind the
tech/company - they'll want to see your continued involvement.
~~~
6stringmerc
Thank you for sharing your experience and thoughts, I truly appreciate the
individual contribution. My understanding of the patent system is still
limited, but I definitely follow the logic of How and Why your venture went
with Provisional. The goal of IP protection has, without question, been my #1
priority and testing of patience.
Also, I appreciate your commenting on Step 4, and can clarify: From a lot of
articles / testimonials through HN and other places, I've seen a lot of
caution regarding "Trying to do everything / be everything / resist giving up
control" in a Start Up environment. I'd love for my venture to breed more
ventures long-term. As in, if I could be successful once I'd like to use that
success to cautiously expand my portfolio (get back to work inventing things)
and participate in business management on a prudent level. I certainly don't
want to project a flighty here-today-gone-tomorrow type of attitude, because I
wouldn't want to invest in such an approach either. Thus, a big thank you for
noting the expectation within the field regarding ongoing involvement.
------
avidanr
As the founder of one of the hardware focused firms listed (ROOT/VENTURES --
[http://root.vc](http://root.vc)) I couldn't be happier that the crew at
bolt.io wrote this article. I'm also a huge fan of HN, so if anyone has
specific questions to ask about the VC approach to hardware, lets hear em.
~~~
6stringmerc
Hi there, I've been active in my own thread asking a couple questions relating
to a consumer device that I wish to pursue. It's one of several things I've
worked on, so I'd like to use this opportunity to toss out a question of
sorts:
For one project, an influence has been the Bloomberg Terminal. The concept
relates to aggregating large amounts of publicly accessible data, using a
proprietary system of sorting and arranging, and then present the customer
with a batch (folder?) of useful information relating to their business
pursuits. It's kind of like a business intelligence / lead generation
platform, but that's simplistic and misses the value of the concept.
Now, how this relates to hardware! As a musician I'm very familiar with the
iLok USB-key concept used for certain software suites (some of which have gone
cloud-based). This also gets back to the Bloomberg Terminal. Would pursuing a
"Subscription Service Requiring Desktop Box/Key" type design be an initial
Negative or Positive?
I do feel like this isn't exactly a hardware question, but with the amount of
data and investment that would be involved to build the system in mind, having
a physical, subscription component seems practical. I suppose that's about the
extent I can describe at this point without getting explicit about how it
works, what it works with, and who the target audience is/will be. My apology
if it came out as a bunch of jibberish. Please feel free to ask for
clarification or point out examples similar or drastically different. Thank
you for your time!
~~~
avidanr
Ok. I think I understand. I'm gonna step right out there and show my bias. I
absolutely HATE the iLok. I bought myself a laser cutter for my wedding (she
got a ring, i got a 90watt), and it came with an iLok for the horrible
software that the chinese company built. It just takes up a USB port i could
otherwise use.
That being said, its a great tool for very big, old software companies that
have to protect from pirating.
I think that you have an entirely different play at hand. Because you are
building a platform, you dont care if people pirate. What you just want to be
sure of is that people aren't sharing logins. Soooo....just make the logins
tie to personal info. Back in the day, when I used to send sensitive PDFs, I
would just make the password on the PDF the recipients last 4 of their SSN. I
could basically guarantee they wouldnt send the PDF around. The equivalent in
your situation is to use Oauth with something like LinkedIn or Google. For the
users to share your account, they would need to create an fake LinkedIn or
Google account...and if you system is all about lead generation, that becomes
crippling.
Overall, i dont care about iLok vs another form of protection. For me, the
most important thing you are thinking about is can you create an amazing
amount of value for your customer. Can you get them hooked, and improve their
(business) life. If you can, then you can put a dollar amount on that
improvement. I used Bloomberg terminals many moons ago, and it was not the
best software in the world, but the data was immensely valuable. So we paid.
Good luck!
~~~
6stringmerc
Great response and thanks for your time and input. You're not stepping on my
toes noting a dislike of the iLok - it actually finished off my interest in
ProTools and sent me deep into Ableton Live years ago. I think you definitely
grasp what I'm going for in concept, and parlayed that into useful guidance.
As you mentioned about Bloomberg, it's the data that's primarily of value, and
from what I've experienced, the communications platform limited access via
other terminals are two driving factors for why they're used.
Your point about value to the customer is good for me to keep in mind. The
whole idea I have is an intersection of publicly available financial
information, marketing, government business, and with a scope of service that
would span over several months to possibly more than a year. It could be
enhanced by arragements for data sharing with certain established industry
players (ex: Thomson Reuters). I'm reluctant to call it an SaaS platform, but
maybe I should just frame it as such for practical reasons.
On a different note, how interested would you be in a concept for a
recreational personal flight device?
It's what I'm going to submit for the Intel Curie contest, but that's like a
TV show thing and could go sideways on me. I'm pretty proud of my R&D thus far
on the concept and would probably like the challenge of putting together a
pitch for it (that I could also use in my contest entry). Just curious!
~~~
avidanr
ill give you a great quote on building planes (or human carrier drones).
"When failure is not an option, success becomes very expensive" -chris lewicki
------
hoopism
People who didn't already lose a ton of money doing it before... _rimshot_
~~~
westpfelia
Not all hardware start ups are failures. Its like most start ups. Most of them
fail or manage to break even. A couple though blow up and that's what
continues to drive people to invest.
------
archimedespi
Quite a few hardware startups have gained a (sometimes large) portion of their
series-A funding through Kickstarter or similar platforms.
~~~
josephpmay
Could you provide a single example of a successful hardware Kickstarter that
has made it to production without a VC series-A?
~~~
ajross
Formlabs shipped their first printers before VC money I believe. Wikipedia
tells me they've since taken $19M more via traditional channels.
~~~
iammaxus
Not exactly. We raised a seed round of $1.8m a little less than 1 year before
the Kickstarter. We probably could have built and shipped the product off of
the crowdfunding proceeds, but we couldn't have had such a successful
crowdfunding campaign without spending some of that money to design the
product and market it well.
------
minimaxir
Er, what's the data source?
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
There Are at Least 36 Intelligent Alien Civilizations in Galaxy, Say Scientists - jchanimal
https://www.forbes.com/sites/jamiecartereurope/2020/06/15/there-are-36-intelligent-alien-civilizations-in-our-galaxy-say-scientists/#23805dac694f
======
AnimalMuppet
... _if_ their particular model is right.
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Who owns these gTLD companies? - simonlast
http://newgtlds.icann.org/en/program-status/delegated-strings<p>This page is full of bogus names like "Spring Falls", "Storm Orchard", and "Holly Hill". Who owns these companies?
======
arcdigital
Those companies are usually Donuts Group companies. (www.donuts.co). If you
look them up here:
[https://gtldresult.icann.org/application-
result/applications...](https://gtldresult.icann.org/application-
result/applicationstatus/viewstatus)
You'll see the contact listed has a donuts.co email address. For example, try
.exchange
------
greenyoda
It looks like these companies may have been set up specifically to hide who
owns them (sort of like what patent trolls do).
Here's some information about "Storm Orchard, LLC", incorporated in Delaware
in 2012:
[http://www.bizapedia.com/de/STORM-ORCHARD-
LLC.html](http://www.bizapedia.com/de/STORM-ORCHARD-LLC.html)
------
tehabe
That is why the campaign by Global Witness to end anonymous companies is so
important.
It is really a bummer that ICANN accepts just any legal corporation. Without
knowing who they really are or without disclosing this information to the
public.
~~~
icebraining
Why? Why is it that important that we know who owns those gTLDs?
~~~
tehabe
For the same reason why it is important to know who owns the house you are are
living in or the company for who you work. Or the company who runs a factory
across town.
It is a question of accountability and also stability.
When you start a business on a domain and you rely on that domain it is
important to know that this domain is well maintained. What if the company is
giving your domain to someone else. And you can't do anything about it because
the company is gone.
Top level domains are a key to the infrastructure of the internet, there
should be transparency and accountability. Otherwise this market will fail.
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Ask HN: Page pagination (more) for Who is Hiring post is back - zerr
Hello,<p>Why the page pagination is back for Who is Hiring posts?
======
gus_massa
Probably too many posts, splitting makes the server happier (?). It's better
to ask this directly to the mods [email protected]
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
I built a website uptime checker and I'm looking for feedback - jamesmd
I know there are other website uptime monitors and checkers so you may be wondering why this is any different?<p>It checks the uptime very frequently to show the true website uptime present and passed.<p>Runs from multiple locations<p>Lightweight<p>easy to use<p>URL: https://isitup.site<p>Purpose
To check the uptime of websites both current and historic.<p>Technologies Used
DEBIAN 10, PHP7, REDIS, Bootstrap, ChartJS<p>Feedback Requested:<p>General Feedback of use, any suggestions?
======
PascalAnimateur
Share the code !
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Beyond the Hype: 4 Years of Go in Production - neoasterisk
http://www.infoq.com/presentations/go-iron-production
======
joekinley
I'm 15 minutes into the video, and must say, not even considering Erlang might
have been a bad move. Because all the points that are made towards go, seem to
be solved much better with Erlang. I can also see some downsides to chosing
Go, that were not even called on.
Mainly, he said, rolling back on code or updating is just putting the binary
on the server and run this. This means a downtime in the service. Which might
be pretty harsh for a real time data logging and messaging service. With
Erlang, and it's hot code reloading feature, this would be a non-issue.
Also when he talked about the system rarely crashing, could have also been
better addressed with Erlang, as it is part of the main philosophy to deal
with this.
I think Erlang would have been an even better choice for this company.
~~~
joekinley
And the first question was about Erlang (just saw it now). The answer
explained it, they were "just not into it" and "nobody really knew about it".
Apparently they didn't even deeply looked into the language, and as the
discussion with one of the first commenters (which could be barely heard
unfortunately) shows, that Erlang might have been another good choice, but it
seemed to be a greater risk for them than going the go route.
It is interesting that a pro point for Go was for him because it was backed by
Google. This apparently was one pro to go with the risk of the language,
which, regarding Erlang, being backed by Ericsson, was NOT a pro.
For this company it worked out good going the Go route, and there is nothing
wrong with that, it just seems that going the other risk with Erlang, and
actually having put in the work to properly research it, might have been an
even better step into the software, and the downsides that are apparent
through the presentation and the half sentences you could understand from the
discussion with the first commenter.
------
joekinley
I don't like, and actually don't understand his point on "Why not JavaScript".
His answer was "It's JavaScript", and "Performance is good, but it's still
JavaScript". Does not explain at all why.
Could have made the same point with Java, but there he actually gave
explanations for it.
So why the JavaScript hate? I don't want to start a language war here, but a
professional explanation that explains the decission, apart from that bully
answer, would be interesting.
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
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