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Ask HN: How does sharing trademark or copyright ownership work? - tci22
======
ggchappell
(IANAL; ignore me if you wish.)
First of all, trademark & copyright law are completely separate. Don't depend
on any general principles to apply to both.
Second, it's probably better if you don't think in terms of "ownership". In
Berne-convention signatory nations (i.e., just about all nations, including
the U.S.), copyright exists in most works on their completion, with the legal
author(s) holding the copyright until it expires. That would usually be the
actual authors, unless it is a work for hire, in which case it is usually the
employer.
So if the work is created by employees of a corporation as part of their work,
and there is no contract stating to the contrary, then the issues you bring up
do not arise; the corporation is the sole legal author.
In a work with multiple legal authors, all authors would have to agree to any
licensing. One way to do this is for all authors to agree formally that some
particular party may act as their agent in such matters. If this is not done,
then, whenever any licensing or publishing issues come up, they need to be run
by all authors for their approval.
As for trademarks: couldn't say.
~~~
tci22
Is the paperwork involved laborious? I ask this because I think it would be
interesting to streamline the process and create a marketplace where
conceivably tens or hundreds or more people could 'own' a copyright and/or
trademark, grant licenses and divvy the profits among themselves whenever the
license is evoked
~~~
ggchappell
> Is the paperwork involved laborious?
Depends on what you mean.
As I said in the GP, under the Berne Convention, copyright exists in a work
when it is created. There is no paperwork required. For example, thousands of
people hold copyright to portions of Wikipedia. The Wikimedia Foundation makes
the license, and the terms under which contributions are accepted, clear, and
that's it.
But if you want to be dividing up money, then you'll need to carefully
consider the issues of whether the licensing terms would hold up in courts in
various jurisdictions, how to prove at a later date that authors did indeed
agree to the license terms, and how the licensing terms might be changed, if
necessary, without all authors needing to be contacted individually. For that,
you need to talk to a real lawyer (which, once again, I am not).
And then there is the issue of just how you're going to collect money and get
it to all those people ....
~~~
micks56
I am a lawyer, and what ggchappell said is correct.
The work required to license either isn't difficult. Arguing back and forth on
terms is how the legal bills add up. It all boils down to how much money must
be paid.
Your product is mostly the underlying asset, not the streamlined process.
Remember, every licensee of the copyright or trademark will be selling the
same thing (mostly). How do they differentiate themselves in the market?
Probably price, in a multitude of ways.
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Giant Frog Farms of the 1930s - microtherion
https://www.atlasobscura.com/articles/frog-farming-1930s-failure-ponds-canning-legs-conservation?utm_source=Atlas+Obscura+Daily+Newsletter&utm_campaign=fa9a7b617f-EMAIL_CAMPAIGN_2017_10_27&utm_medium=email&utm_term=0_f36db9c480-fa9a7b617f-64276797&ct=t()&mc_cid=fa9a7b617f&mc_eid=f20119bcb7
======
KGIII
Oh, Louisiana. That is where I met a crazy swamp beast that scared the hell
out of me. It turns out, it was a Nutria and similar to this frog deal. They
were supposed to be a profitable critter to raise but they aren't. No, the one
I met crawled out of a swamp, covered in slime, and ate a rotten fish - while
staring me down.
It did not look even remotely tasty or like I might want to wear its fur. I
can't imagine what people were thinking, kind of like these frogs. Frogs are
handy for catching food, however. I am not sure if even gators eat the nutria.
They are now an invasive pest species. They look worse when they are covered
in swamp slime.
~~~
ivanhoe
Actually nutria fur is very nice to touch and a good quality since it's water
resistant (if we set aside the moral side of wearing furs). Also they're cute
little critters (when you see them outside of the swamp, I guess), but yes,
they're horribly invasive pest, and here in Europe create a lot of problems
because they dig holes in river banks and dams.
~~~
KGIII
Yeah, they look like nice friendly things you want to cuddle and pet - unless
your first encounter with them is in a swamp while you're in a very inebriated
state. (Meaning my state, not the State of Louisiana, though they are often
pretty inebriated.)
------
Fezzik
I wish people would hunt bullfrogs up here in the Pacific Northwest - they are
a terrible bane to our riparian ecosystems as they eat _everything_ that lives
in a wetland (except the larger mammals). And, as the article mentions, their
appetites are almost insatiable.
------
zafka
Good timing on this article. After catching 6 bufo toads that were eating my
bees, I considered the wisdom of breeding toads.........
------
mythrwy
Frogs are as unpleasant to eat as you might imagine (IMOP).
They don't taste like chicken.
~~~
jakeogh
I have eaten farmed bullfrog a bunch of times and it's definitely like chicken
in a good way. The bones are thin, and there's not much meat, but 10 of them
will fill you up.
------
dddddaviddddd
Interesting that raising live feed for the frogs would be one of the major
bottlenecks (despite good efficiency of 3 masses of food to produce one mass
of frogs).
~~~
Someone
I don’t think 3 is that good for creatures that size. Commercially bred
chicken are at 1.6, and for eggs it’s about 2
([https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Feed_conversion_ratio#Poultry](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Feed_conversion_ratio#Poultry))
If one slaughters pigs young enough, one can get under 3, too.
------
pcmaffey
Non sequitur opportunity to recommend one of my favorite movies of all time:
Delicatessen.
[http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0101700/](http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0101700/)
If you've seen the movie, you'll get why I'm posting this.
------
theyregreat
Served with a side of mealworms, or crickets, if you prefer.
Interestingly, allrecipes lives up to the name on its tin:
[http://allrecipes.com/search/results/?ingIncl=frog&sort=re](http://allrecipes.com/search/results/?ingIncl=frog&sort=re)
~~~
_eht
What is the reference to mealworms and crickets?
------
gweinberg
Maybe it was just an idea ahead of its time. It sounds like people really did
consider the frogs to be delicious, but raising them was a lot of trouble.
Modern techniques out to be able to automate a lot of the labor.
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
A Big List of Browser-Based Emulators and Ports of Classic Games - ghosthamlet
https://archive.vg/blog/a-big-list-of-browser-based-emulators-and-ports-of-classic-games
======
ggm
N64? I have kept my cartridges for just such an occasion. I know its a folorn
hope but presumably somebody will make a card to read the roms, so I don't
have to pirate roms?
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Evolving JavaScript with TypeScript - tosh
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ut694dsIa8w
======
tosh
tl;dr: Interesting up-to-date (Thanksgiving) Google Tech Talk about everything
TypeScript by Anders Hejlsberg (C#, .Net, TypeScript, Turbo Pascal, …)
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
A Forest Grew for Millennia in North America Without Anyone Noticing - curtis
http://www.atlasobscura.com/articles/a-secret-forest-grew-for-millennia-in-north-america-without-anyone-noticing?
======
MiguelVieira
Ancient forests like this are not too rare in the United States. You can find
a list of them here:
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_old-
growth_forests#Uni...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_old-
growth_forests#United_States)
Disclosure: I compiled most of the list.
~~~
maxerickson
Hartwick Pines (one I'm familiar with) has an accessible asphalt trail through
it. It's not undiscovered.
It's also cheesy that the wiki list gives the size of the park reserve rather
than the size of the actual old growth stand. The full article gives the much
smaller size of 49 acres of remaining old growth forest rather than the 9,642
acres given in the list.
People estimate that the Michigan lumber boom was larger (in value extracted)
than the California gold rush. They cut down almost everything.
~~~
MiguelVieira
> It's also cheesy that the wiki list gives the size of the park reserve
> rather than the size of the actual old growth stand.
Probably an overzealous editor. I haven't checked the edit logs for that page
in years. Feel free to correct it.
~~~
maxerickson
Randomly spot checking (first click), the Cathedral Pines in CT also lists the
size of the preserve, even though the resources talk about the forest being
damaged by tornadoes. It's more problematic in that a number for the old
growth isn't obvious.
------
nxzero
Reminds me of how one man accidentally killed the oldest tree ever:
[http://www.smithsonianmag.com/smart-news/how-one-man-
acciden...](http://www.smithsonianmag.com/smart-news/how-one-man-accidentally-
killed-the-oldest-tree-ever-125764872/)
Then of course there's this article, "Vintage Photos of Lumberjacks and the
Giant Trees They Felled"
[http://www.atlasobscura.com/articles/vintage-photos-of-
lumbe...](http://www.atlasobscura.com/articles/vintage-photos-of-lumberjacks-
and-the-giant-trees-they-felled)
~~~
pavel_lishin
One thing I never understood is, were there other trees around that one? Are
they also as old?
~~~
maxerickson
It's mentioned at the end of the link that an older tree has since been
recorded.
Note the photo and think about counting 5000 age rings on a pencil (roughly
the situation with a core) and I think it becomes clear that 'recorded' is an
important part of it.
~~~
xufi
Definitely. Thats how I I started recognizing the older trees from the
sequoias I believe which are one of the oldest species of trees out there.
------
dzdt
Such old trees growing in marginal environments like the rocky cliffs are
valuable records of the past environment. Their annual growth is constrained
by twmperature and rainfall. By measuring the rings produced in past years, we
get information about the temperature and rainfall at those times. Since tree
rings are annual, this gives climate data resolved to exact past years. For
regions and times with no written records, this is one of the key sources to
reconstruct past climate details.
------
mason240
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Niagara_Escarpment](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Niagara_Escarpment)
------
jdfellow
And then there's Pando, the largest known living organism, and it's at least
80,000 years old.
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pando_(tree)](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pando_\(tree\))
------
chongli
How soon before word gets around and tons of people start climbing the cliffs
to see the trees? Hopefully we find a way to protect them before then.
~~~
soundwave106
Word _is_ around. From what I see, the information on the trees has apparently
been known for a decent amount of time. Per this:
[http://www.escarpment.org/_files/file.php?fileid=fileQZNQsAz...](http://www.escarpment.org/_files/file.php?fileid=fileQZNQsAzXRF&filename=file_2_kelly.pdf)
Research on this began in 1989, quite a long time ago. So there's been a lot
of awareness for a while. Most of the web pages on Niagara Escarpment nature
activities already mentions this old forest (one example is here:
[http://brucetrail.org/pages/about-us/the-niagara-
escarpment](http://brucetrail.org/pages/about-us/the-niagara-escarpment)).
However, you are right to worry -- apparently in this case the worry is that
this area gets a _lot_ of rock climbers, and there does seem to be a
significant concern about rock climbing's impact on the trees (and other
fauna). Yes, some actions are being done to protect them too. This article
goes into some of the detail.
[http://www.thespec.com/news-story/2249972-loving-it-to-
death...](http://www.thespec.com/news-story/2249972-loving-it-to-death/)
~~~
dragonwriter
> there does seem to be a significant concern about rock climbing's impact on
> the trees (and other fauna).
Nitpick, but trees are flora, not fauna, so that parenthetical should probably
be stated differently, perhas as either "(and other flora)" or "(and fauna)".
~~~
soundwave106
Hmm, maybe "(and other biota)" might be the best phrase.
One of the concerns was the impact on lichen for instance; I think lichen is
neither considered flora or fauna.
------
wilblack
I love trees.
------
grillvogel
hurry up we need to monetize this somehow
~~~
Ericson2314
haha
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Arduino ESLOV IoT Invention Kit (Kickstarter) - OrangeFlash81
https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/iot-invention-kit/eslov-iot-invention-kit
======
RichAP
Really looking forward to this...it's going to be great for little makers as
well as some of us older less patient makers ;-)
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Man in a ‘vegetative state’ for 12 years, wakes to tell incredible story - tobydownton
http://www.news.com.au/lifestyle/real-life/incredible-story-of-man-who-wakes-after-being-frozen-in-his-body-for-12-years/story-fnixwvgh-1227184009664
======
ColinWright
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8864791](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8864791)
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Breaches, traders, plain text passwords, ethical disclosure and 000webhost - finnn
http://www.troyhunt.com/2015/10/breaches-traders-plain-text-passwords.html
======
brianclements
After reading all that, am I the only one who thinks that sites with security
practices that egregious aren't simply fronts or traps for mining this kind of
information?
~~~
toyg
Hanlon's razor disagrees.
If they were fronts, they wouldn't have done something as stupid and high-
visibility as resetting everyone's password; that's the desperate act of
someone who doesn't know what he's doing.
~~~
brianclements
Probably right. But wouldn't action like that only have mild effect on the
value of the stolen data anyway? There were no other announcements that came
along with the forced password reset, so most people not knowing any better
would change their passwords for 000webhost only and move on. But isn't the
real value in cross-referencing multi-use passwords on other sites? I would
imagine that only a very small percentage of 13 million users that are met
with a forced password reset would proceed to then change that password
everywhere it's used.
Fun thought experiment: What would you do differently if you were to actually
set up a front operation solely for the gathering of password/email
credentials from unsuspecting users? Would you make it stupid simple for
people to hack such as 000webhost? Thereby dodging blame, or would you just
leak the data in secret in obfuscated chunks so as not to give away the
source?
------
heymishy
seems to me like the guy who started out as a one-man reseller host scaling
out into something he's nowhere capable of managing.. scary to think how many
of these are out there
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Deadpool: Five Stupidest Startups of the Summer - ordersup
http://valleywag.com/tech/deadpool/five-stupidest-startups-of-the-summer-292031.php
======
ahsonwardak
Unless it was intentionally stupid, they are trying. I have to disagree with
Doostang.com. I've heard a lot of good things, and the other sites are the
beginnings to good ideas. Usually, 2 or 3 sites have to start in a certain
direction, before another one gets it just right.
For Doostang, LinkedIn is a forerunner to better sites, or it's the successor
to Monster, HotJobs, and the like.
~~~
yubrew
I hear good things about Doostang. They appear to be a good source for
finance/VC/private equity/hedge fund jobs. Not sure where it goes from there
though.
~~~
portLAN
That name is just horrible though. I'm not even going to write what it sounds
like; but more to the point, it's totally non-descriptive unlike LinkedIn,
MySpace, or Facebook, which is counterproductive for a social networking site.
Edit: Of course one of the founders is named Krapivin...
------
palish
At least they're trying things.
~~~
chaostheory
i agree - and I don't think Wishhood is that bad of an idea it's a lot more
useful than most social networks - which are akin to pokemon collecting except
with people (by that I mean that most of the "friends" people have in their
lists mean nothing to them - they haven't even met them in person...)
I do think that crap stain err i mean doostang should change its name (then again it's so memorable haha)
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Mile of London Tunnels for Sale, History Included - robg
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/11/28/business/worldbusiness/28tunnel.html?ref=business&pagewanted=all
======
abstractbill
As my wife just pointed out, it's cheaper than a lot of houses in Palo Alto
and way cooler!
~~~
robg
And much bigger too!
------
josefresco
Reminds me of <http://www.silohome.com>
------
andr
Great for data centers?
~~~
riahi
The article implies that it is fairly warm in the tunnels, so unless the data
center can be made cool...
~~~
gaius
They were running generators down there, so there must be cooling available. I
guess they've just left it off to save money while there's no tenant.
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Reddit DMs will not reach their destination if they contain certain text - ValentineC
https://www.reddit.com/r/privacy/comments/8ps94a/it_appears_reddit_direct_messages_are_being/
======
sotojuan
From that thread:
> Reddit's new "private" chat system is powered by send bird without any
> additional end to end encryption.
> This means send bird provides a searchable plaintext database of all of
> these "private" chats.
> [https://sendbird.com/features](https://sendbird.com/features)
> I like the (public) chat feature but to introduce "private" chats a feature
> that is clearly intended to increase interactivity and thus use of the
> feature without making this clear is just wrong IMO.
~~~
beefhash
I think that's backwards. You cannot assume that a "private" message is
actually private unless end-to-end encryption is advertised. You still cannot
safely assume so unless you've checked the code yourself. Privacy is never the
default.
Hence the move to call things "direct" messages, rather than "private" as it
used to be.
~~~
Ninn
You cant even be sure when you have checked the source code of the project --
whos to say that is actually what is deployed?
~~~
Boulth
Reproducible builds.
~~~
aserafini
But how do you know that the build you verified yourself is the one that is
running on their server? It would be amazing to solve this problem - are there
any solutions?
~~~
megous
End-to-end yousually means client to client. So all you need to verify is
client code.
------
Operyl
A bit ago there was a mass spam wave of malware being spread via PM hosted on
mega. It could just as likely be an anti spam measure gone wrong.
~~~
duxup
I still get hit with DM spam on Reddit every once in a while.
I'm kinda surprised, if some new account tosses out 100 DMs ... you'd think
they'd be able to automatically cut them off.
Then again they don't cut off accounts that just spam their blog or news site
all the time either...
~~~
Operyl
It’s a never ending battle.
~~~
slig
It yes, but there are a handful of very simple heuristics that Reddit (and
Twitter) never cared to implement properly.
~~~
apatters
This is probably a sign that the situation is more complicated than it appears
to be.
I mean if they have hundreds or thousands of engineers, billions of dollars
etc. they have surely considered these heuristics before, and there's probably
a reason they haven't done them "right," we just are not privy to that reason.
~~~
kuschku
It’s not really.
You can throw the SpamAssassin detection engine at the PMs, and you’ll already
get a much higher detection ratio than what Reddit gets today.
------
Fnoord
Yeah, and MSN and Facebook block messages containing ThePirateBay.org. You can
argue both ThePirateBay.org and Mega.co.nz are _very_ likely copyright
infringement material.
Also, these are not _private_ messages. That's why Tweakers.net calls private
messages "direct messages" (DMs) and not "private messages" (PMs). They scan
them, they read them back in case of a dispute, but apart from the moderator
team _other users_ cannot read them.
The title of this subject seems to call it DM whereas Reddit appears to call
their system PMs. Either way, Reddit falls under a different jurisdiction than
Tweakers.
A simple solution could be using GPG, or a different method of communication
e.g. using JS over a less censoring platform. By using GPG (or some other form
of public key cryptography), the messages are private, and the integrity of
the data can be guaranteed.
~~~
flatline
Boy, if you think getting people to use encrypted email is hard, I can only
imagine trying to convince reddit users. Why would you even use reddit to send
an actual, private communique? If you know the person through some other
channel, why prefer a pseudonymous platform controlled by a third party, that
is notoriously unreliable? If you don’t know them outside of Reddit, I find
the odds of wanting or needing truly private communications very small, and a
DM could easily be used to establish a more secure connection elsewhere.
~~~
chatmasta
You don’t need to know them outside of Reddit, just outside of the DM. I can
easily imagine a situation where members of a subreddit might want to DM each
other securely. For example users of a marketplace subreddit might want to DM
each other to negotiate transactions. In that case I could imagine the OP
providing a GPG public key in a post and asking anyone who sends a DM to send
it GPG encrypted with that key.
Also, convincing reddit users to use GPG is definitely easier than convincing
email users, because it only needs to happen for specific subsets of them, and
many already use it (eg in the old /r/DarkNetMarkets).
------
klodolph
It seems like Reddit, Facebook, YouTube and others are "converging", partly
due to the economic forces behind delivering good engagement metrics to
advertisers and not placing ads next to undesirable content.
~~~
rarec
It is a strange blessing and mercy that websites unattractive to advertisers,
like 4chan, are seemingly spared the worst of it.
------
SquareWheel
Reddit's blocked Mega links for years. I'd have been surprised if their new
chat platform _didn 't_ use the same filters.
I bet URL shorteners don't work either, for the same reason.
------
IIAOPSW
first the redesign now this.
reddit is really starting to go downhill.
~~~
stochastic_monk
Whenever I open reddit without logging in, I’m filled with abject horror by
the abomination before me.
Sure, it’s fixed after logging in, as I’ve opted for the “classic” look, but
how long will they support both displays?
~~~
technofiend
I can't read Reddit without logging in because that's what applies all my
filters. It's a much more agreeable site once you strip off all the politics
subreddits. Now I just need a way to filter off the karma whores like
gallowboob.
------
ggg9990
I don’t see what’s in this for Reddit. They can’t possibly get sued for not
doing this.
------
exikyut
I've had the same experience with imgur "private" messages. At least imgur are
honest enough to not concretely state that they don't look.
------
randyrand
Mega is the best implementation of large file downloading on the web.
Shame.
------
qrbLPHiKpiux
Nothing is private if someone else controls the channel.
~~~
jerezzprime
That's not true. Private/Public key encryption is just one example of secure
communication over an unsecured channel.
------
kirykl
"It's a little insurance policy...You're our product. And we can't very well
have our products turning against us, can we?"
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
The Types of Emails not to Send Us (websummit.net) - donal_cahalane
http://blog.websummit.net/post/21641261574/the-types-of-emails-not-to-send-us
======
microcentury
I would bet my house this is supposed to be a joke. It just falls slightly
short of the mark in a way that's hard to define, and so looks like it might
possibly be serious. It comes from the same school of humour that occasionally
gets Irish people arrested by Homeland Security when they're asked if they
have anything dangerous in their bags, and they roll their eyes and say 'Yeah,
a bomb.'
~~~
joshu
Agreed, but: <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Poes_law>
I think the followup emails make me think it is serious.
~~~
edanm
The second email made it seem _more_ obvious it was a joke to me.
~~~
joshu
is it too late for me to say that i meant the opposite when i wrote that?
------
JohnnyFlash
Make 10B in 8 months and single handedly pull Ireland out of recession...
wow...
Its almost funny until you read how despite needing funding he expects
investors to pay for hotel and presumably travel so he can pitch. You then
have the NDA on top of that.
I wonder what the idea is... probably something new and down to earth. Like a
thimble with an edge so people with short / no fingernails can open a can of
drink and avoid potential injury. I would buy that!
~~~
pavel_lishin
> You then have the NDA on top of that.
Not to mention, an NDA that all employees must sign.
Yup, I sure am worried about our custodial staff running off and undercutting
your genius idea out from under you. I bet they're in cahoots with the lady at
the front desk.
------
StavrosK
Oh come on, that can't be serious. I'm being literal, they're probably
joking/trolling.
~~~
AznHisoka
That's what I thought. I know people who send emails faking acquisition
interests to startups just for laughs. 99% chance this is fake.
~~~
troels
That's ... mean
------
chris_wot
Is it possible that you were dealing with someone with a mental illness? Looks
pretty bipolar to me!
~~~
jrockway
I don't think "delusions of grandeur" is in the DSM-IV yet.
~~~
Maxious
DSM-IV would probably suggest Bipolar Affective Disorder "Inflated self-esteem
to levels of grandiosity" or Narcissistic Personality Disorder "Believes that
he or she is 'special' and unique and can only be understood by, or should
associate with, other special or high-status people (or institutions)" "Has a
sense of entitlement, i.e., unreasonable expectations of especially favorable
treatment or automatic compliance with his or her expectations"
~~~
jrockway
My point is: not everyone that writes something dumb on the Internet is
mentally ill. They may just be bad at writing or unclear about the importance
of their work. (Remember, we only laugh at people like the subject of this
article when they're wrong. If Zuckerberg sent them this letter, the reaction
would be much different.)
------
alanmeaney
Comedy gold!
A couple of weeks ago I was waiting in line in a phone shop in Grafton Street,
Dublin. All the shop assistants were busy and there was a man in his sixties
ahead of me at the top of the queue. Five minutes later he was not so
discreetly f’ing and blinding the sales assistants out of it calling them lazy
so and so’s and accusing the customers being dealt with as being thick for
taking so long. When he got served he handed over a vintage nokia phone and
asked the sales assistant could he change the time.
Dealing with the public you really don’t know what you will get next.
Sometimes it can provide a laugh or two.
------
TomGullen
I'm pretty sure it's a troll!
------
PaulHoule
About once every two weeks I hear from somebody who has a "once in a lifetime"
opportunity who wants me to build an A.G.I. in three weeks and do it on spec.
~~~
archivator
AGI == artificial general intelligence?
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Google ends first click free policy - maxgiraldo
https://digiday.com/media/please-subscription-hungry-publishers-google-ends-first-click-free-policy/
======
grzm
Previous discussion on NYTimes piece covering same policy change (1 day ago,
132 comments):
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15384512](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15384512)
------
jszersze
Does this include entire articles or just pieces of an article?
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
When Mozilla's Fanatics Make Us All Look Bad - jasoncartwright
http://lauren.vortex.com/archive/001099.html
======
ZeroGravitas
This seems a little bit "fanatic" itself, though I've not read what they're
responding to so maybe that's even worse.
I'm glad someone is coming up with the ideas, even if the right answer is "not
yet" or "we need to fix X and Y first".
------
binaryatrocity
First of all, Mozilla is talking about slowly shutting down -features- in
their browser to non-https sites, especially those that could pose a security
risk to the user or their computer. I see nothing wrong with that.
Second, Mozilla is partnering with the EFF to launch Let's Encrypt! which will
be a Certificate Authority providing free and automated SSL certs - so that
should remove the 'resource barrier' the OP is so concerned about.
Mozilla is taking steps in the right direction to provide a safer internet for
all of us, but more importantly, those of us that don't know any better, don't
know how to protect themselves.
Keep it up Mozilla Team!
~~~
pc2g4d
I personally don't think the existence of Let's Encrypt makes mandatory
encryption more palatable. Requiring encryption is a problem because it
introduces one more filter I must pass through before getting my
message/app/product out on the web. Now in addition to the DNS registrar and
the hosting provider, I have to make Let's Encrypt or some other CA happy---
jump through their hoops, not upset their politics, etc.
I'm just not okay with that.
------
ggchappell
One conclusion I draw from all this is that it is long past time to separate
encryption from identity.
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Books For Learning to Design, The Hard Way - bad_user
http://alexn.org/blog/2011/11/25/4-books-for-learning-to-design-the-hard-way.html
======
commieneko
The Robin Williams book is great. I used it as a text several years ago for a
class I taught. A very good overview.
I was a bit surprised to see the Edwards (Drawing on the right side of the
brain) book. Pleasantly surprised. One of the things I've always stressed to
my students is that learning to draw is actually learning to _see_. People
think the can see things clearly and objectively, but what they are actually
doing is _recognizing._ (There is a small motor skill component to drawing,
but _seeing_ is by far the most important.)
If you want to communicate visually, you first have to learn to see.
Design theories and formulas will only get you so far.
Those students who learned to do a little sketching improved dramatically.
And yes, it is hard to do. It is a process as deep as you are.
~~~
mannicken
It's just not seeing, but also knowing. That's why some art schools have
dissection labs where art students learn how human body is structured. And
when you know anatomy, you can draw from imagination which is really a lot
more valuable skill than copying a person's photo using a grid method :P
~~~
commieneko
Drawing synthetically or constructively is a different skill. And learning to
draw observationally, that is learning to _see_ , is still a prerequisite.
Knowing anatomy, by the way, doesn't necessarily help you draw. I've had
doctors that specialize in anatomy in class and they were terrible at drawing
until they learned to see. They could recognize and label the parts, and they
could even do a simple 2D schematic type diagram of muscles, but put a real
3D, foreshortened person in front of them and they were just as awkward as
anyone else.
~~~
mannicken
Well, when you're drawing from a long pose (week or longer), the model is
bound to change her/his shapes slightly.. So just drawing what you see is not
enough, you have to understand the 3-dimensional structure of the thing you're
drawing at least on a basic level.
But also, I agree -- foreshortening is hard until you learn 2-point
perspective and can "see" perspective points that you can easily build up the
foreshortened feature from.
~~~
commieneko
Seeing isn't necessarily a 2D process; and not just because our vision is
binocular. Our visual system is very complex. The hardware is, optically, very
crappy. Our image processing and integration software is very complex, much
more complex than we really are able to understand at this time.
And it behaves almost nothing like a camera. Even mechanically, the optical
projection is very different than a camera makes, or what one would get from a
linear perspective projection.
There is a projection, but the "image" is actually composed of multiple
viewpoints over time. The adjustments an artist must make for small changes in
the model's pose is nothing compared to the varying nature of the mental image
you actually "see" inside your brain. It is far from static, and is in fact
very dynamic.
Which is why that drawing from life is considered much more important than
drawing from a photograph when learning to see.
Note that I'm not knocking the study of structure or synthetic processes like
linear perspective. They are important tools and aids in perception and image
synthesis. But a good drawing, or painting, or photograph for that matter, is
not a mere 2D projection of light and dark. It is an encoded record of a
multitude of perceptions, or perception artifacts that your brain then
interprets, inside it's magic "seeing" box, which then produces a simulacrum
of a perceived event or process.
Else making a good drawing or photograph would be an entirely mechanical
process that anyone could make by following a few simple rules. Instead they
are like moments of insight into a scene or event.
And all of this is relevant if you are creating software that is going to
communicate visually. When you are building your data structures and models
inside your head, it is a very different from that which the experience the
user has. Your job is to make the important aspects of that model manifest
visually, and usefully manipulatable.
------
_delirium
I tend to split design books into two related but somewhat distinct clusters:
books about visual or aesthetic design, and books about engineering or
technical design. Of course, it's not a clean split (architecture in
particular strongly combines the two), but some books are clearly more on one
side or the other.
For the engineering-design side, two good books, imo:
Herb Simon's classic _Sciences of the Artificial_ , which approaches design
from the lens of an AI researcher trying to figure out what design really is,
partly to develop it into a science of design, and partly with an eye towards
formalizing a model of design that a computer could use:
[http://mitpress.mit.edu/catalog/item/default.asp?ttype=2&...](http://mitpress.mit.edu/catalog/item/default.asp?ttype=2&tid=5579)
_Designerly Ways of Knowing_ by Nigel Cross, which positions design as a
third kind of inquiry, neither fully science nor fully humanities, but a kind
of constructive investigation of objects and their properties:
[http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/3764384840/ref=as_li_ss_tl?...](http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/3764384840/ref=as_li_ss_tl?ie=UTF8&tag=abxxm-20&linkCode=as2&camp=217145&creative=399369&creativeASIN=3764384840)
------
andrewcooke
why is this the "hard way"? is reading introductory books hard now? what's
easy? and get off my damn lawn.
~~~
ashconnor
I believe this a popular new phrase thanks to Zed Shaw.
~~~
MaxGabriel
It's been awhile since I've read LPTHW, but as I recall from the intro, and
from the LXTHW site, ""Less Talk, More Code" summarizes the philosophy." Given
the lack of emphasis on doing here (outside the last book) I don't think this
post really captures that philosophy
(That's not a commentary on the quality of this post though, or the
recommendations)
------
tsunamifury
Drawing on the Right Side of the Brain is a very well written book which
highlights perceptual issues of representing space. It also does a great job
of mixing in developemental psychology to help you understand how a human's
representation of the world changes as they grow older.
One of the best examples from the book explains why hands in children's
drawings of people are always so large. Essentially, as a child focuses more
on complex details (each individual finger) they unconsciously enlarge the
object in order to fit in all the detail. Its a good illustration of our
perception of scale vs scale relative to other objects.
There are plenty of other great observations about the way humans think
visually in the book as well.
~~~
joystick
+1. I think anyone could learn to draw from life by reading and do the
exercises from this book. The trick is to stop trying to draw symbols ( left
brain ) and draw what you actually see ( right brain )
It's for anyone who ever told themselves they can't draw
~~~
commieneko
The book is a marvel. I read the first edition when I was in college and it
taught me more than two semesters of basic drawing taught by an indifferent
"modern" artist. In most books that try to teach drawing as a mechanical
process, as opposed as a purely "creative" exercise, they seem to leave out a
"magic" step that makes things possible. Turns out that it isn't magic, but it
is fairly subtle. The books makes a process explicit that is too often left to
subliminal happenstance.
Don't mistake, the process is still hard, and requires much effort, but it
does remove a lot of the magic feather aspect.
------
billswift
_Thinking with a Pencil_ , by Henning Nelms, would be a better choice for
practical drawing and design, rather than _Drawing on the Right Side of the
Brain_.
[http://www.amazon.com/Thinking-Pencil-Henning-
Nelms/dp/08981...](http://www.amazon.com/Thinking-Pencil-Henning-
Nelms/dp/0898150523/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1322243364&sr=8-1)
------
struppi
"The non-designer's design book" is really great, I learned a lot from it. It
helps to know these things, even though I am a software developer and normally
do little to no design work for my clients.
Currently I read "Visual Language for Designers" (-) which is also very
interesting. It describes how our brain processes visual information and how
you can use this to create better (easier to understand) designs.
(-) [http://www.amazon.com/Visual-Language-Designers-
Principles-U...](http://www.amazon.com/Visual-Language-Designers-Principles-
Understand/dp/1592537413/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1322229312&sr=8-1)
~~~
sbuk
If you are interested in the theory design and if you can find them (no,
they're not the A-Team, just maybe out of print), have a look at "Design and
Form" and "The Elements of Colour" both by Johannes Itten and "Principles of
Form and Design" by Wucious Wong.
------
kingsidharth
No book on Information Architecture and User Interface? Human psychology of
decision making? This is not the hard way.
Hard way is to study human behavior and then study how good things were
designed around them. Study the thought process behind and try and solve some
design problems yourself.
This is not the hard way.
~~~
bad_user
Can you recommend resources for those 2 topics?
~~~
kingsidharth
For starters, see the footer: <http://www.andyrutledge.com/calculating-
hours.php> (His home page is changed so doesn't link to them all)
<http://www.alistapart.com/> Does talk about psychology and logic behind
design.
<http://52weeksofux.com/> UX
And Don't make me think. An awesome book on usability: <http://amzn.to/uZ4uH5>
I haven't found any great resource on Information Architecture yet.
<selfpromiton> I wrote a very brief intro to them all:
<http://www.64notes.com/design/design-and-subsets-essay/> </selfpromiton>
~~~
bad_user
Thanks,
I also read "Don't Make Me Think", but I haven't included it (in this article)
because I don't consider it a good book. It felt like some examples were just
wrong and I also couldn't take away much value from it, although I may have
been biased by my opinions on the matter. Its other flaw is that it bored me
after the first third or so.
Also, "The Design of Everyday Things" (included) does talk about the
psychology behind user actions. It's pretty good.
~~~
kingsidharth
> It bored me.
> The hard way.
Words don't teach; life experience does. Books are good for intro.
------
ryanwhitney
I'll probably have to check out the Color book by Betty Edwards. Any other
recommendations for color-centric books?
I took a "color and design" course my first year of college, hoping for a
lecture on color theory, but instead ended up pasting cardboard paper on
poster board for four months.
~~~
bad_user
"Interaction of Color" was suggested as an alternative -
<http://amzn.to/vnkSqW>
~~~
jacobolus
The main idea behind “Interaction of Color” is that the original was a large
book that included (dozens of?) large colorful cards, and the focus of the
book is on exercises in playing with colored paper and seeing the
relationships created thereby.
The actual “theory” of the book is fairly basic, but I think the approach
(i.e. learning by repeatedly doing) is definitely the right one. If you buy
any recent printing, you have to force yourself to make your own and do the
exercises, if you want to get the full value from the book. Comparing with
other students working exercises at the same time would also probably be
helpful, even if there are only two or three of you.
Here’s a longer review: <http://www.handprint.com/HP/WCL/book3.html#albers>
------
mannicken
The ones that helped me the most were:
Universal Principles of Design
Bridgman's Complete Guide to Drawing from Life -- this is not related to
design that much, but it's a staple life drawing book and once you can draw a
person's face well, everything else becomes easier to draw.
------
earnubs
There is absolutely no harm in getting an appreciation of a complementary
subjects -- quite the opposite, should in fact be encouraged -- and no book
can teach the innate art of either programming or design, but really, isn't
anything worthwhile hard?
------
ggwicz
I don't personally believe you can "become" creative, but putting on good
music and drawing for awhile makes things "flow" better for me. I suck at
drawing tho...
~~~
bad_user
While I never think one could reach the levels of enlightenment of
Michelangelo or Jonathan Ive :) I do believe one can exceed his creative
potential. As with any other endeavor, like software development or sports,
you can be better just by doing it repeatedly, getting out of your comfort
zone, pushing your limits and all that crap other people keep saying.
Another thing I'm contemplating, besides drawing, is learning how to play an
instrument, like the violin. A mere mortal like myself will never be a
virtuoso, but I could be good enough for my own and my family's gratification.
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
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A review of the Nokia E71 - raganwald
http://www.joelonsoftware.com/items/2008/08/22.html
======
gamble
Am I missing something? He lists three requirements for a new phone:
\- decent mp3 player \- laptop tethering \- good Exchange synchronization
Then he spends the rest of the review explaining why the E71 doesn't meet
those requirements.
Seriously, at one point he says: "I’ve been desperately trying to get Merlin
Mann’s Inbox Zero concept working and you need a great Exchange client, not a
1.0 Exchange client."
Then, two paragraphs later: "Nokia’s built in Exchange synchronization is very
1.0."
~~~
kqr2
Yes, but he manages to find 3rd party applications that work nicely. For
example, in the case of the web browser, he raves about opera mini.
Perhaps the key for Nokia is to just ship those apps natively instead of
rolling their own.
------
iigs
The iPhone validates another company's product+market. Most of the whiz-bang
features cited are not really that remarkable these days, even in feature-
phones, let alone smartphones.
That said, I'm not sure why you'd pick this phone over a Blackberry 8300:
\- The Blackberry is the reference standard for corporate mail integration.
\- The camera in the 8100 at least is absolutely rocking, judging from this
picture on the front page of Reddit right now (Mosquito larvae, some people
are weirded out by it -- <http://dl.getdropbox.com/u/42132/IMG00056.jpg> ).
\- I believe the music player is comparably acceptable but unimpressive.
\- Comments about browsing both seem to end with "but that's ok, you can run
Opera Mini on it"
~~~
tsuraan
Well, it looks like the 8300 still have that lovely ball that is the center of
the phone's UI, and that totally stops functioning when it gets the smallest
speck of dust on it. Is the ball of the 8300 removable, or is it like the
8100, where you are totally unable to use any of the menus (or most of the
applications) of the phone for the 5-15 minutes that it can easily take to get
the speck of dust worked out of the ball's socket?
Also, nokia phones tend to be very liberal about bluetooth bonding; they'll
export all their capabilities to anything. With my 8100, it will only
advertise its DUN profile to my powerbook. It won't show that profile when I'm
attempting to pair it with my nokia 770, which is pretty lame. Apparently the
blackberry network is very fragile, and could easily be taken down by rogue
bluetooth stacks using the DUN profile of bluetooth enabled phones, or
something...
Anyhow, I'm holding out for a nice 3G nokia, or maybe an android phone, to
replace my irritating 8100.
------
ajross
Wait for next week's blog, when he discovers the joys of Series60 programming.
~~~
ruslan
Yeah, Symbian API and the entire SDK is complete bullshit. Sadly I have to use
it for past three years :-(.
------
prakash
I can't wait for Nokia to launch a no-keyboard, display only phone -- and see
how that compares with the iPhone.
~~~
kirubakaran
With this: [http://www.engadget.com/2008/01/23/nokia-files-virtual-
keybo...](http://www.engadget.com/2008/01/23/nokia-files-virtual-keyboard-
patent/)
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
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Apple Removing Support for AMD GPUs in macOS Arm64 - ksec
https://twitter.com/never_released/status/1280207485278789633
======
Rebelgecko
That's a bummer for e-GPU users. It was a small niche but seemed like a very
promising one
------
m-p-3
Just when Linux kernel drivers for AMD GPU are actually becoming good. I know
I won't purchase Mac the moment they becomes ARM-only.
------
valuearb
That’s not what that slide means.
------
jitendrac
I think Apple's move to Arm64 will make Hakintosh community get in deep
trouble, and possibly newer devices sale for Apple's mac lines.
~~~
aldonius
I think the community consensus (if /r/Hackintosh is at all representative)
can be summarised as "well, we had a good run".
~~~
jitendrac
Still I think, It will survive. The shift will take at least 3-4 years, even
after that the Apple will likely support older architecture for at least more
3-4 year(like switch to Intel from powerpc). There are also chances of a
emulation based solution to run newer Arm64 apps to current mac computers,
because it is most likely not possible for every developer to re-develop the
apps.
This buffer of multiple years will also help enthusiastic individuals/hacker
time to do research an break newer mechanism of hardware lock for os.
ultimately, I think It will survive but with some road-blocks.
and in my opinion, if someone is trying to build hackintosh for now, he should
gracefully proceed. as current system is at least expected to work for next
5years.
------
henriquez
Isn’t this just a very early engineering release? Apple may just not yet
support all the PCI Express bus stuff required to make GPU hardware work.
I’m most curious about whether Thunderbolt will continue being supported given
that’s basically an Intel Kool-Aid standard. We may have some very
disappointed Pro Display XDR owners soon.
~~~
KSS42
TB3 is an optional part of the USB4 spec.
It's very likely that Apple will support USB4/TB3.
~~~
happymellon
Screwing around with ports is what Apple does best.
------
teruakohatu
I guess that leaves Apple GPU and Intel GPU drivers.
Hypothetical ARM Hackintosh users are going to have a hard time and won't be
able to rely on AMD GPUs without some sort of emulation or virtualization
layer.
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Xray – An experimental next-generation Electron-based text editor - seanwilson
https://github.com/atom/xray
======
feep
A higher performance backend with the undeniable community momentum that Atom
has?
I want this to work.
Also excited to see the discussion and possible cross-pollination with Xi[1]
and raphlinus.
[1] [https://github.com/google/xi-editor](https://github.com/google/xi-editor)
~~~
thinkMOAR
xi editor, when i tried it, would crash upon opening minimised css of
fontawesome
A 3 line file, be it long lines, shouldn't happen
~~~
feep
> A 3 line file, be it long lines, shouldn't happen
No. It should not.
But that’s completely unfair. Xi does not even claim to be beta. I haven’t
touched it in months. But when I did, it was a good (start of) a Mac frontend
that was clearly not finished.
The only people I imagine using it now probably use it to dogfood the backend
and piece together a solid plugin API.
I would prefer Xi-style win the mind share. Native front ends that tie to a
common solid backend that a large community can share to build strong plugin
support.
I’ll settle for xray-style, a better cross-platform frontend that doesn’t
redraw large portions of the DOM quite so often. Javascript is fast enough. A
good (heh) extension language. The drawing layer is what makes Electron a
slow, bloated choice for a text editor.
Since Atom came out, I have had a backgrounded dream that once things settled,
they would write a faster front end for the text. But that is difficult to do
if your API is “can you do it in the DOM with javascript?
But they are atom.io. They can change their API if they need to.
VS Code, with its well-bounded API is a much better candidate. And I would
love to be surprised by a Microsoft skunkworks non-Electron release.
Xi, is a solid idea. Don’t know if they can build a community out of nothing.
I am worried that an API of ”here is a JSON firehose, hook up whatever you
want to it” will fragment the backend.
I think Xi would be well served by saying “Here is your firehose, but, the
official way is our VS Code emulation plugin.” Or something solid and well-
defined.
It is unclear where Xi is going so far, that may happen.
~~~
thinkMOAR
oh yeah, i will give xi another chance, what it didn't crash on it reacted
nicely and fast. But no reason to trade in my sublime text yet :)
------
toomanybeersies
I've always felt like the inevitable conclusion of Atom and other electron
based apps is the reversion to using low level compiled languages.
I'm starting to get tired of how much of a resource hog Atom is.
~~~
ahtu123
I'm always amazed when I see the size of the Atom executable on my
computer(438MB). It's the size of a game! It's also pretty much the worst
performing text editor (in runtime for most operations) and a memory hog. I
really don't get the hype.
~~~
zero_iq
I always think back to when I had a 120MB hard disk in the early 90s. It
contained multiple editors, raytracers, games, music editors + music, images,
paint programs, multiple programming languages and development kits, a multi-
tasking operating system... and room to spare.
90s me would be absolutely floored by a text editor needing 438MB RAM.
Wait, what am I saying? 2018 me is pretty flabbergasted by it, but perhaps
less surprised (and more cynical) than 90s me.
~~~
paulryanrogers
My rose-tinted glasses are cracked, so I don't want to go back. Software was a
lot less capable back then. And APIs were often incredibly obtuse, bespoke, or
both.
~~~
com2kid
> Software was a lot less capable back then.
Some was.
WinAmp came out in 1997, 2.x was released in 1998. Real time streaming media.
Visual Studio 6 came out in 1998, had most of Intellisense up and running. The
refactoring stuff wasn't there yet, but it could do remote debugging.
The Windows APIs were obtuse, but incredibly well documented.
It'd take a long time before a lot of things we take for granted got
commoditized though. A streaming video player (+ server) was still an idea
that a billion dollar company could be founded on.
It wouldn't have been hard to write a Slack competitor then. It wouldn't have
had streaming video, and the client would have been native, but you could have
gotten 80% of the functionality in there, and watched as people still
complained it was just a fancy wrapper around IRC.
Web forums sucked though. Slashdot figured out the right idea, the entire
conversation loaded at once, one big page, it took the rest of the web a lot
time to catch up.
20 years later, I'm writing code, managing files, and have a chat app or two
open. The monitor is higher res, and a lot larger. Hardware plug and play
finally works, and printing is, on Windows at least, pretty much a solved
problem. (Heck even Wi-Fi network printer works almost flawlessly!)
The APIs for writing code have gotten easier to use, but it seems like
everyone's documentation is now 5, small, steps above garbage. Also APIs break
more often nowadays.
My computer has dozens upon dozens of services running, most of which I don't
know what they are. And individual websites take up more RAM than my entire OS
used to.
That last part isn't even a joke. To load a few paragraphs of text, hundreds
of megabytes of RAM.
It is cool that web browsers can natively play video. 99.9% of the time I
don't want them to. I kinda just want that paragraph sitting in the <div
id="content"> </div> tag.
~~~
TeMPOraL
> _WinAmp came out in 1997, 2.x was released in 1998. Real time streaming
> media._
Related to GP's "Software was a lot less capable back then." \- somehow,
WinAmp 2.x seems to be peak capability of music players; I don't recall any
player made later that would be comparable in features for playing local music
(with maybe the exception of Foobar2000).
My rose-tinted glasses have some scratches on them, but I still maintain that
software of today didn't gain many meaningful features over the late 90s /
early 2000s, and yet it grown tremendously in size and resource use.
~~~
KozmoNau7
WinAMP 2.x was nothing short of a miracle, it was a revolution in audio
players. I wasn't a huge fan of the skin-based interface, and the playlist did
some odd things once in a while, but on the whole, it was a damn good piece of
software.
These days I'm using Foobar2000 and Quod Libet, and have looked at other
"music library" type apps, but I'm considering just going with a simple player
such as DeaDBeeF, and handle everything else through the file manager, since
I've taken the time to properly plan the folder layout. I don't need ratings
or playback statistics or all kinds of other things. I need a simple playlist
to add music to, with basic playback controls. If I need to add tracks, I'll
drag and drop from the file manager.
Basically, I don't need in-between applications between simple WinAMP 2.x
style and the all-singing all-dancing streaming services such as Spotify, that
do a much superior job with ratings and especially smart playlists.
------
moosingin3space
The strategies being employed here look similar to those of xi (CRDTs for
multithreaded buffer representation) and neovim (separable backend and
frontend). This is definitely a project I'll be keeping my eye on.
Another thing that's interesting is that if they're targeting a web-embedded
editor (mentioned as a goal), they could possibly reduce the need for a full
Electron install, possibly using the Rust web-view bindings[1] to link with
the system web engine.
[1]: [https://github.com/Boscop/web-view](https://github.com/Boscop/web-view)
~~~
ehsankia
I've been waiting for a proper web editor that allows me to easily access my
configured workspace anywhere easily. c9 and a few other web IDEs come close
(though that former one is in the hands of Amazon now...), but I want
something simpler and more lightweight, similar to Sublime Text.
~~~
suprfnk
SSH into a box with tmux and vim? Or is that too minimal?
------
codedokode
> For all interactions, we shoot for the following targets on the hardware of
> our median user:
> 8ms Scrolling, animations, and fine-grained interactions such as typing or
> cursor movement.
I don't believe that. Either they use expensive powerful hardware or they
measure performance only on start with empty documents. Because even Sublime
Text starts lagging after long use and typing several pages of text. There is
no way HTML page can be faster than optimized native code.
Especially with React (which adds even more overhead and which was never made
for high performance) and these weird ideas:
> a CSS-in-JS approach that automatically generates atomic selectors so as to
> keep our total number of selectors minimal.
~~~
fwip
Sublime Text isn't necessarily "optimized native code."
~~~
saagarjha
Sublime Text is written in C++. Not sure how much closer you can get to
"optimized native code" than that.
~~~
com2kid
All the best, highest performance AAA games have been written in C++.
So have all the slow, under-performing, crash prone, unoptimized AAA flops.
C++ isn't a magic bullet that gives instant speed. Indeed a long running
native app that isn't properly written, will fragment the heck out of memory
and get slower and slower. (With 64bit address spaces, at least they don't
crash now days!)
The choice of algorithms and data structures is of utmost importance.
Optimizing around one's run time is choice #2. C++ doesn't provide some magic
hyper optimized environment. Heck C++ doesn't provide much of anything. You
need to build a threading model and concurrency model that works, and performs
well on different platforms. File I/O performance is different based on the
file system in use, NTFS for example hates lots of small files, other file
systems have less issues with that usage model.
This goes on and on and on. With C++, every decision has to be made, and each
one of those decisions can, if made incorrectly, lead to a poorly performing
app.
~~~
pjmlp
A badly written C++ application will still be faster and consume less memory
than anything written in JavaScript.
C++ has a defined threading model and libraries since 2011.
~~~
com2kid
> A badly written C++ application will still be faster and consume less memory
> than anything written in JavaScript.
JavaScript engines are written in C++. :-D
~~~
cztomsik
Not for long... This could make rust rewrite feasible
[https://github.com/nbp/holyjit](https://github.com/nbp/holyjit)
------
Derbasti
So, they replace backend JS with rust, and frontend DOM/CSS with WebGL. Then
all that's left of Electron is the V8 JS engine for scripting.
For the desktop, they could cut out Electron entirely and replace it with V8
and some minimal OpenGL bindings. I wonder how that would improve performance!
~~~
Corrado
I was just thinking that this effort is a real departure from the earlier
stuff. The original Atom project was to build a text editor using the core of
a web browser to do all the heavy lifting and use web technologies (HTML, CSS,
JS) to provide the GUI.
It looks like this latest effort is ditching most of the web browser stuff,
and some of the web technologies to build something performant and extensible.
Just like Sublime Text (and others). Have we come full circle?
~~~
sbarre
Could we look at it as putting out an MVP to drive adoption and get community
feedback on what matters to developers and how they want to use it, and now
that they know exactly what they want to build, they are re-factoring and re-
building to that?
I feel like the original Atom, as you described, was almost the internal
prototype that got out in the wild, and now we're going to get the production-
ready one eventually..
------
giancarlostoro
It's funny they want to rewrite some of the core functionality in Rust and
make it available through an N-API binding. I've mentioned on HN (and gotten
plenty of hate for it) that another approach to gain performance with Electron
is to use a back-end language to serve up a local web page, I can only imagine
just using a Rust or D web framework that can handle heavy data traffic, only
running on 127.0.0.1 serving up some of the content the Editor (or whatever
application) needs and doing some heavy lifting from Node itself. In fact I
think there's already an open source mail client I don't remember the name
that does this, it feeds Electron from a Python back-end, would not surprise
me if they're doing pretty well performance wise, let back-end people do their
thing, and let front-end people do theirs. Of course things will also get
interesting whenever WebAssembly becomes another way to build an Electron
application (really can't wait for WebAssembly to become totally mainstream).
If my website had half of the stuff on the front-end that my back-end is
supposed to handle yeah people would call me out for shoving so much into the
DOM / front-end and suggest I offset some of the heavier stuff into the back-
end.
Long before Electron I saw applications that ran on localhost in your own
browser (think SlickBear, CouchPotato and Headphones) and they were highly
responsive regardless of browser used! They were all coded in Python too, so I
can only imagine if some of those native API's could just be done as a web api
instead to keep things simpler, then you just need to identify a REST
framework to handle some of those things. Anyone could add on to a RESTful API
for the editor / call said API as well, though it should be locked down
securely for obvious abuse reasons.
I used to like the idea of taking nw.js and making something like Atom (before
it was even a thing) but using D as a back-end language for it, but never
really got through doing it. Ah well.
Edit:
I also find it funny they're ditching CSS for JavaScript when Firefox redid
their CSS engine in Rust. I have to wonder if and when Electron will deviate
from Chrome altogether and become it's own forked browser engine, but maybe
that's a thought a bit ahead of it's time.
------
hartator
Looking for some advice.
I want to build a text editor where git history is displayed as first class
files directly in the file tree. Like a page named landing.html would have
landing.html.v0, landing.html.v1, landing.html.v2, etc. directly as regular
files. With maybe the git commit message also in the file name for more
context.
What would be the best way to make this happen? Build an app from scratch with
something like Electron? Build an extension for an existing text editor like
Sublime, VSCode, or Atom?
~~~
klibertp
Get Emacs and Neotree[1] and start hacking. You'll learn a Lisp, and you'll
have a working demo in under a week.
[1] [https://github.com/jaypei/emacs-neotree](https://github.com/jaypei/emacs-
neotree)
------
adambrenecki
Here's something that's buried right at the bottom, but sounds really
exciting:
> More concretely, our goal is to ship a high-performance standalone editor
> component suitable for use in any web application, something we could
> eventually use on GitHub.com. This standalone editor will give us a chance
> to test a limited set of critical features in production scenarios without
> building out an entire desktop-based editor. We plan to develop this new
> editor in the context of a prototype Electron application, but we'll offer
> the standalone component as a separate build artifact from the main app.
~~~
polskibus
What about MS Monaco, that's used in VS Code? I heard it's very good compared
to atom, VS Code Is receiving much praise on HN.
------
13years
>Bypassing the DOM means that we'll need to implement styling and text layout
ourselves
I really wish the Servo technology was available in something like Electron
which would make this unnecessary
~~~
nicoburns
Servo is actually modular, and most of it is available as Rust libraries
including the layout and rendering engines. There is not a full electron like
solution available yet though.
~~~
mamcx
And how easy is to actually to incorporate in other projects?
~~~
qarioz
Unfortunately it's not very good. Sometimes it works, sometimes there's
regression. Acid2 is still broken sometimes.
[https://github.com/servo/servo/wiki/ACID2-Status](https://github.com/servo/servo/wiki/ACID2-Status)
------
codedokode
Also, I noticed that it requires WebGL so without modern and supported by
WebKit graphic card it won't work. Why is OpenGL necessary for a text editor?
I don't understand.
~~~
stouset
Hardware acceleration of rendering is more energy-efficient and less resource
intensive than CPU-based software rendering.
~~~
codedokode
Is it really so? Can OpenGL update only a small part of a framebuffer (for
example, when a single letter is typed) or will it rerender the whole text?
~~~
zaarn
Depends on how you render.
I've written a OpenGL engine for a university course that use partial frame
updates to reduce the number of redraws per frame.
IIRC the partial rerender variant was about 3 times faster than the full
render.
------
asimpletune
Why doesn’t someone make a better native editor? (That’s not sublime)
~~~
guessmyname
> _Why doesn’t someone make a better native editor?_
I can make it.
In fact, there are many native text editors out there.
The problem is not creating the editor itself but the community around it. If
your editor doesn't supports the most common/basic plugins like linters,
debuggers, painters, formatters, code intelligence, etc then it becomes
another one in the pile.
Atom became the popular piece of software that is today because of the
JavaScript community. Hundreds of high school, college and university students
with several hours of free time during the week, writing code in a language
that overflows on the Internet, to extend the functionality of a program baked
by one of the most popular companies among software developers [GitHub]. This
is the type of community that you need to build around your editor in order to
make it popular.
Take a look at TextMate [1] which used to be one of the most popular code
editor with a graphical interface for Mac years ago. It was open-sourced [2]
after its developer put it in maintenance mode. And while it is still being
maintained today, not many people are well versed in C++ and Objective-C to
contribute to the project at the same speed as a JavaScript programmer would
do with Atom.
[1] [https://macromates.com](https://macromates.com)
[2]
[https://github.com/textmate/textmate](https://github.com/textmate/textmate)
~~~
nurettin
>> Hundreds of high school, college and university students with several hours
of free time during the week, writing code in a language that overflows on the
Internet
Citation definitely needed.
------
asdjlkadsjklads
I love new editors, but i have to ask every time - what is this one doing new?
I'd kill for new editors trying new and interesting methods of text _(or
code)_ navigation and editing, but so often i don't feel like i see...
anything, new. The only one i can recall offhand is Kakoune, which is
basically Vim-like but changes the verb order a bit. It's a nice attempt, i
like it.
Yet with things like Atom, Xi, Xray, i don't get what they're doing special?
I totally get that focusing on easy plugins could be a major selling point.
I'm not disputing that or ignoring it. I'm merely trying to.. well, i guess
understand, why so many new editors pop up but don't try anything new. They
just try.. speed, generally.
Am i alone here? I want more Kakounes of the world.
------
tomc1985
How disappointing that text editors require such... abstraction.
Overengineering at its finest?
~~~
moosingin3space
Every text editor beyond the most basic is incredibly complex. Terminals are a
complete mess, so every terminal-based text editor certainly can't be called
"simple", and that's not even beginning to consider extensibility! Emacs and
Vim have entire interpreters embedded into their codebases, for instance.
Maybe text editors with an extensible feature set really are more complex than
we've been led to believe?
~~~
bluedino
What's the memory footprint of Terminal.app and vim + plug-ins?
~~~
Prefinem
Not sure, but I have had vim lock up my MacBook Pro with 16GB of RAM and force
me to do a hard reboot
~~~
PrimHelios
That sounds like an OS/hardware problem, honestly. There's no reason vim with
_any_ setup should lock up a machine.
~~~
Prefinem
The linter was the issue.
I actually have better performance with Sublime Text and JavaScript than I do
with vim and JavaScript. I wish that weren’t the case.
If you know if any better ways to get vim working with Syntastic for linting
(eslint), I would love to know.
~~~
tomc1985
Agreed, if anything will slog a text editor it is usually the linter
Also, you can choke vim with large (>5gb) test files. Or is that fixed now?
~~~
Prefinem
The irony is that sublime text doesn’t slog down
~~~
Turing_Machine
Sublime Text and TextMate will both choke big time if you feed them a large
enough file without any line breaks. I have some largish machine-generated
(5-10 MB) JavaScript data files that will reliably bring either editor to its
knees if I accidentally click on one of them. The XCode editor also chokes.
I seem to recall (though haven't tried it for a while) that the Visual Studio
Code editor handles them okay.
It's not a big issue -- since these are machine-generated, it's not normally
necessary to edit them by hand. Every once in a while, though, I'll
accidentally click on one of them in the file tree. Then I'll curse and kill
the editor process.
------
dikiaap
raphlinus said that many of the design decisions are similar to xi.[1]
[1]
[https://www.reddit.com/r/rust/comments/7qszkz/xray_an_experi...](https://www.reddit.com/r/rust/comments/7qszkz/xray_an_experimental_nextgeneration_electronbased/dsrpg63/)
~~~
bronson
They're talking:
[https://github.com/atom/xray/issues/4#issuecomment-359483293](https://github.com/atom/xray/issues/4#issuecomment-359483293)
~~~
raphlinus
Indeed. I'm open to the idea of even joining forces, but if the goal is to
explore technology choices, it does make sense for them to do their own thing.
In the meantime, xi is making progress, and I think will be a pretty viable
choice for people who prefer native to Electron.
------
wasx
Another next generation Electron-based editor? What generation are we at now?
~~~
imron
Infinity + 10
------
qwtel
I didn't see it mentioned in the docs, but I assume the idea is to compile the
rust core to webassembly to make this web-compatible?
------
amingilani
I always felt like the Atom team should scrap their work and start afresh. I
love Atom, and have used it as my primary editor since its inception, but it's
been the worse performing text editor I've ever encountered.
I almost switched to Vim a few months ago, but the impact to my performance
was too high for me to keep it up for long enough.
I'm definitely going to be using Xray the moment it becomes stablish.
~~~
s4vi0r
...why not sublime?
I don't understand why these electron editors are popular at all. With all due
respect to the people working on them (because it really isn't their fault for
the most part), they're bloated slow pieces of shit. I don't like electron in
general, but its an especially bad choice for a text editor intended for
developers.
If you don't like vim or emacs, sublime does what the electron editors do but
better. Its probably the most performant of all the text editors I've used;
vim and emacs both don't like gigantic logfiles, but sublime handles them
without issue. The only bad things I can say about it are lacking vim
emulation and worse dev experience than Emacs. But then again, I've never used
an editor anywhere near as nice as Emacs in terms of language integration for
a lot of the languages I work with.
~~~
zzzcpan
> I don't understand why these electron editors are popular at all.
I would like to understand this better too. I'm guessing vim and emacs take
too much time to learn, since they drag the whole unix ecosystem with them.
Sublime might be a decent easier to learn editor, but it's a non-free product
that could disappear one day, you have to go through the hassle of buying it
and it's expensive one too. So sublime is not even a choice for most people.
This leaves us with electron based editors as an acceptable choice. But
obviously bloat, performance still matter and people will choose something
better if available.
~~~
criddell
> it's expensive one too
It's $80. If you work in text all day, then that's practically nothing.
It's kind of disheartening to see how little value people place on excellent
software.
~~~
Derbasti
That's easy for you to say, as a (presumably) rich American developer. It's a
different story in, say, India or Africa, or students or poor folks. $80 can
be several days or weeks of sustenance.
~~~
zzzcpan
True. Most of the world cannot afford to pay $80 for a text editor.
~~~
criddell
We're lucky that there are lots of excellent text editors available for free.
People that can't afford $80 for a text editor aren't really disadvantaged.
Tools generally cost money. Most people can't afford welding equipment but if
you want to be a welder, you need it.
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
How Much Is a Professor Worth? - sew
http://www.nytimes.com/2012/04/02/world/europe/02iht-educlede02.html?pagewanted=all
======
canopylabs
Thanks for posting this. Have you read the book?
I'm from Canada and am very surprised at Canada's high rankings. Wondering if
the authors took into account the relative differences between university /
college systems across countries. Canada has a lot more "colleges" (i.e.
technical schools) relative to universities -- our terminology is literally
different here. Curious if it in any way affects the results.
There's also a related issue of brain drains / gains to related industries
(e.g., banking or corporate analytics) within countries.
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Twitter says a spear phishing attack led to the Bitcoin scam - aspenmayer
https://www.theverge.com/2020/7/30/21348974/twitter-spear-phishing-attack-bitcoin-scam
======
aspenmayer
[https://blog.twitter.com/en_us/topics/company/2020/an-
update...](https://blog.twitter.com/en_us/topics/company/2020/an-update-on-
our-security-incident.html)
> Last updated on July 30, 2020, at 5:45 PM PT with new sections below on
> “What we know now” and “What we’re doing to protect our service”.
Previously on HN:
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23878753](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23878753)
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Save Your Eyes on Chrome - JacobIrwin
https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/hacker-vision/fommidcneendjonelhhhkmoekeicedej/details?hl=en-US
I am sure there are similar fixes for firefox, IE, etc. users.<p>But for Chrome, I just started using 'Hacker Vision' extension and it seems to work nicely: https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/hacker-vision/fommidcneendjonelhhhkmoekeicedej/details?hl=en-US<p>I also have the 'Nicer Inverter' extension running simultaneously (https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/nicer-inverter/oichlckdgnbjkmhaebnnhibamjgpndkm?hl=en-US) -- this is actually my primary (always running) extension. I run 'Hacker Vision' for pages that 'Nicer Inverter' doesn't work on, e.g., Codeacademy.com).<p>Just thought it was a worthwhile tip to share with my fellow hackers. Save your eyes!
======
azzkicker
High Contrast extension --- on the chrome store - works the same way.
------
leethax0r
This just inverts the colors, so it really only works on plaintext.
------
css771
Thanks, I've been looking for something like this.
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Canadian firms plan to try to make car from hemp - chopsueyar
http://content.usatoday.com/communities/driveon/post/2010/08/canadian-firms-plan-to-try-to-make-car-from-hemp/1
======
stretchwithme
I don't know about the hemp, ut what the world needs is an open source car.
you know, one that works like the PC where can upgrade every subsystem as it
wears out with something way better than original.
ok, so cars need a lot of integration so it probably wouldn't be a great car,
but it sure would be cheaper.
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
MVC and Purity - fogus
http://blog.ezyang.com/2010/07/mvc-and-purity/?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+ezyang+%28Inside+245s%29&utm_content=Google+Reader
======
extension
If you have to deliberate on a design pattern on this abstract and dogmatic
level, it is unlikely to be making you more productive.
The most useful principle that comes with MVC is also the most straightforward
and intuitive: decouple the core logic from the interface (user or otherwise).
The rest, like the enigmatic Controller, obviously has no common and
consistent meaning among programmers. I suspect that the original meaning has
been lost to reinterpretation over many generations of changing technology.
But if the original meaning really matters to you that much, you are probably
doing theology and not engineering.
~~~
ezyang
When I do software engineering, I use architectural principles to make
decisions for me. I don’t have to decide where the HTML rendering code will go
because the Model-View principle has made it clear. Furthermore, I get annoyed
when the architectural principle fails to give a me a decision, but I get the
feeling that it should (the example I gave here was input validation, which I
now believe soundly should live in the model). In this case, I can either make
an ad hoc decision or think more carefully about the architectural principle.
Both practices are valuable.
------
Chris_Newton
Interesting article, but I don't buy the conclusion. I think this is partly
because the term MVC has been distorted considerably from its original meaning
when used in the context of web sites.
The key thing about real MVC is to separate not just the I/O details from the
model, but the input details from the output. The view's only purpose is to
render data from the model to some output device so the user can see it (or
otherwise detect it). No matter how many monads you use to dress this up, it
is fundamentally effectful: it updates the screen, plays sounds through
speakers, etc.
This is where the confusion with web-based "MVC" comes in. If all your view
does is generate some HTML as pure data, it isn't much of a view at all. No-
one can see the results. You need a web server sitting on top, to take that
HTML and send it back to the browser client using HTTP, and in the traditional
sense of MVC that would be part of the view code as well.
This may be a useful distinction, in that it provides separation between the
(necessarily impure) outside-facing code and the (potentially pure) rendering
operation. A view module can be built up in layers from submodules just like
any other part of a software system, and likewise the top layers can be
effectful while depending only on pure code below. But the view module as a
whole is always effectful, or it serves no purpose.
~~~
Periodic
In terms of pure code, the view returns data, which the controller then can
route to the appropriate place to show. In this case the view generates an
HTML response, but it could also generate an audio response or a video
response.
I understand that from an OO stand point it makes a lot of sense for the view
to directly control that, but in a functional world it makes more sense for
the view to pass back something which the controller then routes to the user,
making it more of a formatting layer than a display layer.
So yes, a functional MVC and OO MVC may have very different meanings.
~~~
stan_rogers
Huh? In the world I grew up in, the controller is the middleman sitting
between the model (the raw data representation or, at the highest level, the
ORM) and the view (the "client", if you will). The controller is where the
application logic lives. In a web app, the view is the HTML chain (it requires
the web server, the browser and the HTML/JS/CSS to be complete) and the
controller is just about everything that sits between the database and the
HTML page. Complete separation of the view and controller can only really
happen with a templating system (or with a page that essentially self-
assembles in the browser using AJAX/AJAJ).
~~~
Chris_Newton
This is a fascinating discussion, because I don't think either of the
architectures described in the parent and grandparent posts is even close to
MVC.
Views returning data that controllers then show? Controllers containing
application logic?! To me, it seems these things are almost the opposite of
what MVC is supposed to achieve.
Then again, distortion of the term is commonplace in server-side web
programming frameworks, as I mentioned before. I did once look at the
Wikipedia article on this subject, but it's one of those where people with no
understanding of the original concept have taken over so comprehensively that
it is beyond hope and needs a complete rewrite... preferably by someone who
knows that Smalltalk is a programming language, not to be confused with idle
chat at web developer conferences. :-)
~~~
stan_rogers
Hmmm... model as persistent state, controller as state-change manager and view
as, well, what you see -- that's pretty much the way Burbeck described it. The
model may "know" how to reflect state changes (and that would include things
like object-relational mapping where appropriate, maintaining relational
integrity and so on), but what to change (the application logic) is and was
the responsibility of the controller -- yes, even in Smalltalk 80. Some of us
do go back rather a long way, you know.
~~~
Chris_Newton
I suppose it depends on what you mean by "state-change manager".
My understanding has always been that a controller's job was to translate user
actions into domain-level operations to be carried out. You might start the
foobazifier by clicking a toolbar icon, pressing a keyboard shortcut, or
selecting a menu item, but they all have the same effect. The controller's job
is to interpret those user actions to determine the required effect. The
model's job is to understand what that effect _means_ and update things
accordingly.
In practice, of course, it has never really been quite that simple. Views tend
to have metadata (such as the current cursor position in a document or zoom
level) that are also maintained by commands from the controller, so not all
data is stored in the model, only the important, domain-related state.
Observer patterns get implemented so that the model can remain independent of
any particular controller/view pair, but it still has to provide both an API
for updates from controllers and a defined set of events that interested
modules can observe.
In any case, the model's role is not just to be a thin wrapper around the
database/file system/whatever. It is also the guardian of "business logic". I
think one danger with the term MVC is that it suggests a system composed of
only three modules. In reality, MVC is a high-level architectural pattern, and
in non-trivial applications all three of those components are going to need a
lot of internal structure as well. Representing domain concepts and persistent
state may well be at the core of the model, but just about any code that works
entirely in terms of domain concepts probably belongs within the model
component somewhere.
------
stretchwithme
What is meant by the expression "code purity"?
~~~
superk
[http://www.haskell.org/haskellwiki/Functional_programming#Pu...](http://www.haskell.org/haskellwiki/Functional_programming#Purity)
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
New Line Of German Stuffed Animals With Mental Illnesses - cwan
http://newsfeed.time.com/2010/09/09/new-line-of-german-stuffed-animals-with-mental-illnesses/?hpt=C2
======
sosuke
[http://www.parapluesch.com//catalog/product_info.php?product...](http://www.parapluesch.com//catalog/product_info.php?products_id=30)
Looks like they have been around a while. Kroko was added in 2004!
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Show HN: I Built My Dad a SQL Consulting Page - aarondf
http://sqlstanley.com/
======
aarondf
Hey HN, I just wanted to post this here and ask for feedback / advice.
My dad is a genius and has been working with SQL Server for almost as long as
I've been alive. He recently left his last job and is considering doing
consulting, so I built this page for him. I'd love any feedback on the copy or
advice for him as he's getting started. I really want to see him succeed in
this, and will do anything I can to help.
Thank you!
~~~
toomuchtodo
Impressive! Have you thought about charging for this as a service?
~~~
aarondf
I haven't, at all. I assume you mean putting together consulting pages like
this? Interesting idea.
~~~
toomuchtodo
> I assume you mean putting together consulting pages like this?
Indeed. I'd be interested, as I don't have time to put one together myself,
and am an infrastructure engineer (and have no frontend experience).
~~~
aarondf
Huh, who knew.
Shoot me an email at aaron d francis at (googles email service)
~~~
toomuchtodo
Thanks, I'll have an email off to you tonight.
And regarding "Huh, who knew", while I won't go so far as to say "everything
has value", if you can create value for someone else, you can charge for it.
I'd highly recommend you check out patio11's work on this:
[http://www.kalzumeus.com/start-here-if-youre-
new/](http://www.kalzumeus.com/start-here-if-youre-new/)
------
rmcastil
Great copy! My only issue is with the "How I Can Fix Your SQL Server Woes".
Everything prior is the right level on the ladder of abstraction. This section
needs to be more specific though since it is the last area besides the
testimonials to handle potential client objections.
It needs to have actual use cases where your Dad's expertise helped these
businesses. You can think of it as the bullet points in a resume. It may also
help to include some kind of case study that formalizes your Dad's offering.
~~~
drglitch
Speaking of copy, i would rephrase the sentence at very end: "Stanley
developed a reporting utility to analyze and uncover possible issues with
future clients before they became a problem."
... who became a problem? the future client? (or their data) :)
Also, whole page is 1.5MB, 1.3mb of that is a photo of subway rails on top
which, while cute, adds zero value. Consider compressing or replacing that.
Great copy otherwise!
~~~
aarondf
Updated the image :)
Thanks!
------
philkchan
There's a bit of a run-on sentence in the first paragraph - it could be
revised to "You know that SQL is amazingly fast, and should be able to process
massive amounts of data quickly..."
------
brianmcc
I like it, good luck. Couple of things to add:
\- where are you based? I'm guessing UK based purely on the railway station
image, but other countries might well use similar constructions :-)
\- does your Dad want to do onsite or remote? I'm guessing the enterprises
most likely to engage him might insist on onsite
\- does your Dad want to work on projects, or is it exclusively short term
troubleshooting he's keen on?
~~~
Phogo
>\- where are you based? I'm guessing UK based purely on the railway station
image, but other countries might well use similar constructions :-)
Dallas/Fort Worth Area according to Linkedin
------
willcate
Looks good... well-written also
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Netflix announces “The Switch”, a programmable button - thedufer
http://makeit.netflix.com/the-switch#overview
======
ratfacemcgee
so its a DIY netflix and chill button?
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
A Good Samaritan Law for Engineers at a Software as a Service (SaaS) Company - rmason
https://www.bennadel.com/blog/3652-a-good-samaritan-law-for-engineers-at-a-software-as-a-service-saas-company.htm
======
rmason
I've known Ben and his cofounder Clark Valberg for probably fifteen years.
Clark is the front man, the CEO, of InVision. Ben strikes me as someone
wanting to avoid being a manager at all costs and happy to just code. They're
both great people.
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Last Words of Great Men - _ttg
http://www.online-literature.com/twain/2848/
======
masonic
(1889)
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Show HN: Disrupting the hypnosis industry - xekul
I've been a hypnotherapist for the past five years, doing fairly well for this small niche, but since day one I've had ambitions of expanding beyond the borders of my city. The only question was how to do it without a corresponding increase in staff (...and capital, and headaches).<p>So I thought up Hypnotizr: http://www.hypnotizr.com<p>Hypnotizr provides online hypnosis sessions by sequencing together snippets that are recorded in advance. It's an inexpensive way to deliver well-made recordings that are also customized to individual clients' needs. With good voice control and a little post-processing, it sounds like one continuous recording. Nobody else is doing hypnosis like this, but I believe it strikes a good balance between personalization and cost.<p>Currently this is just a minimum viable product. To launch cheaply, I built the site using Drupal and Ubercart (with a lot of CSS/Javascript help from brianfarr, who you should hire if you ever get the chance: http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3152012). I'm fulfilling orders by hand. If this site gains traction, I'm planning to hire a developer to rebuild the website from scratch, with automation for the session construction process (which isn't trivial, since some judgement-based decisions are involved). I'll probably rework the recordings too, depending on initial user feedback.<p>In any case, I'm hoping that this will be viewed as a "good enough" service compared to a bona fide hypnotherapist, for an affordable price.<p>If you have any thoughts on the website or the service, I'd appreciate your comments. If you're interested in becoming a beta tester, e-mail me at [email protected] and I'll give you a test session for review.
======
eps
Pardon my general ignorance on the subject, but I remember a documentary
saying that certain forms of hypnosis require a therapist to actually instruct
patients to _blink_ because they won't do it on their own. I know I wouldn't
want my laptop to bluescreen in a middle of a session like this.
~~~
xekul
Hypnosis is usually done with the eyes closed -- people tend to visualize
better that way, and I guess it prevents the eyes from drying out too.
Many people have used hypnosis tapes, CDs and MP3s, for decades, without the
presence of a hypnotherapist, and I've never heard of anybody being harmed by
it. If the recording cuts out halfway through, the client will eventually
emerge from hypnosis, as though they were waking from a nap.
------
brudgers
My impression is that several U.S. states have registration or licensing
requirements - how does your business plan to ensure compliance with them?
~~~
xekul
A few states do, although most states don't regulate hypnotherapy. My
understanding is that the licensing applies to one-on-one hypnotherapy
services and wouldn't apply to hypnosis recordings created by a semi-automated
process. Among my competitors who offer hypnosis recordings online (either
pre-made or custom recorded), I don't see any of them restricting their sales
to states without licensing requirements. Having said that, I appreciate your
comment, and I think it's a good idea to double-check with my lawyer that
everything I'm doing is kosher.
------
AznHisoka
It looks like a good start. I think you'll need to do a lot of marketing, but
you got domain expertise, and a hunger to create a product of it, so that's
gotta count for something.
~~~
xekul
I like to joke that this is a business that funnels money from customers to
Google Adwords, while I take a small cut for actually delivering the product.
But even if that turns out to be the case, it's not so bad. I have few costs
other than support staff and marketing.
~~~
DanielN
I'm sure you can get decent traction from adwords in this market, but I would
think that you could do wonders with seo here. The number of blogs you could
write and forums you could comment on have got to be nearly endless.
~~~
xekul
I think it's a good idea to do both. It can take a few months to see results
from an SEO campaign, so in the meantime, I'll do Adwords to optimize my
landing pages and figure out which keywords convert the best.
~~~
stfu
Have to agree on that good Seo is the key. I set up a while a website for my
mum allowing her to offer some online service and there is a tremendous
demand. I just wish the service was as automatizeable as yours. Good luck with
that, its a great idea!
------
tokenadult
<http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/17365070>
~~~
xekul
One of the reasons I'm leaning toward automation is that I'd be able to build
the biggest "hypnosis lab" in the world. Imagine getting anonymous feedback
after every session... With that data, I'd be able to quickly sort out the
snippets that work from the snippets that don't.
------
sajid
This is a great idea and could be really successful if executed well.
~~~
xekul
Thanks!
~~~
sajid
Some thoughts that immediately spring to mind:
1\. Initially focus on the weight loss and quit smoking programs.
2\. Create special landing pages for these programs and A/B test them using
different traffic sources.
3\. Incorporate the client's name in the audio, that will really give it the
personal touch. If it's too difficult to do that in the actual hypnosis
session then add a preamble.
~~~
xekul
I definitely have #1 and #2 in mind. #3 is hard to do in session, but dropping
the client's name into the preamble can work. I think it would drive home the
point that the session's customized for every individual, although it does
mean I can never be too far away from my (makeshift) studio, at least until I
get through the 1000 (?) most common first names.
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Ask HN: How do I sell my business? - saltcod
I've got a friend (no, really) who owns an office equipment business. He has about 5 employees and has a recurring income of about $30-40k per month. If he sells more, he can make more, but that $30-40 comes from existing contracts.<p>Problem is: he wants to retire, but doesn't know how to sell the business. If he puts an ad in the paper, three things will happen:<p>1) his competitors will start hounding his customers and slowly eat away at them, and<p>2) his customers will probably get spooked, realizing he's closing and eventually move to competitors on their own<p>3) his employees will probably leave<p>The company is worth something. He's got a long history, with many original customers and a solid recurring revenue. How can he put the business up for sale without disclosing what the business is and scaring away his existing customers?
======
lifeisstillgood
"business brokers" exist almost solely for this very reason - acquiring quiet
offers for a business. Find one with recent sales in your geographic /
industrial area.
However afaik the business equipment / stationary world is a hard and low
margin one, so I suggest your friend starts to prepare - clearing out small
debts, tidying up paperwork, having a "sellers pack" prepared with all usual
questions answered, reviewing employee contracts and pay scales, just house
keeping in short.
Also it's worth looking to see if you can attract the attention of companies
likely to acquire - do you have a local delivery or knowledge advantage? What
major chains are sniffing round your existing clients - they alone would be
worth talking to - always much nicer to buy a guaranteed contract than spent
years on a sales force approach.
~~~
mrfusion
Or perhaps a company looking to vertically integrate? Delivery companies,
moving companies?
------
JSeymourATL
Selling a business involves a lot prep work. Here's solid overview from the NY
Times>
[http://www.nytimes.com/2010/01/07/business/smallbusiness/07g...](http://www.nytimes.com/2010/01/07/business/smallbusiness/07guide.html?pagewanted=all&_r=0)
Possible Option: Depending on the sophistication level of his employees, one
or more could step-up as a potential buyer. Your friend could structure
favorable payment terms. He gets checks monthly over 3-5 years. Win-win.
------
marcomassaro
I believe [http://www.bizbuysell.com](http://www.bizbuysell.com) is the spot
for this
------
mrfusion
I think you raise some really good points about the risks of listing it for
sale. Perhaps it's worth talking to a trusted business broker? They might have
ways to sell it discreetly?
Another idea, perhaps he could sell it to the employees?
BTW, could you shoot me an email with a few details? Mostly for curiosity's
sake, but you never know.
------
zomg
one option that is common with small business owners is to approach an
employee of the company about buying the business.
there are lots of ways to structure such a transaction. a common way is seller
financing, where the seller receives a small down payment, in kind, on the
purchase price. the balance due is then paid monthly (or quarterly) to the
seller over some period of time (with or without interest, depending on the
contract).
ether way, an attorney should be used to draft the contract and make sure all
possible "gotchas" are covered (ex. the business goes bankrupt during the
payment period). a lien on the buyer's home or other valuable asset is
commonly used to protect the seller during the repayment period.
------
mrfusion
What is office equipment exactly and how can it pay that much?
~~~
sjs382
Hell, lightly-used/reclaimed office furniture can pay that much. :)
~~~
mrfusion
How would a business like that work? You buy a warehouse and then buy up old
office furniture? then find places to market it?
~~~
jpetersonmn
I used to work for office furniture companies when I was younger, it's a very
profitable business. The place I worked for bought and sold, primarily used,
furnitures. (cubicles, etc...) When businesses go under the actual cubes are
the last thing anybody is really worry about and they can sell for as little
as a $5-$10 per cube. The person buying them has to send guys to take them
down, load them on a truck and bring the back to the warehouse. The refurb
team cleans and puts new fabric on them if needed, etc...
People that are wanting to open a new office, or expand one they already have
and go cube shopping. First they go online and are blown away by the cost of
new cubes, then they find these dealers. Even a used cube still can cost a
couple grand. It's a lot of overhead and the business isn't what it used to
be, but still pretty profitable if managed well.
I remember when I used to work with office furniture, I remember how I wished
I worked in a cube instead. Went to computer school and now spend my days day
dreaming about not working in a cube. (I actually work from home during the
summers, but that's almost over.)
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Ask HN: Any interest in an API for original HN submission titles? - ecaron
More and more I'm believing that editor adjustments of titles are dissuading conversation and interest. I'm considering throwing together a simple system that scans new submissions, retrieves/retains their titles and their destinations' titles. I'd offer this up in a REST API so anyone wanting to integrate a GreaseMonkey script or do their own study would be able to do so.<p>My question: If I built it, would anyone else use it? Or am I just whining in my own echo chamber?
======
intellection
Insight from censored originals is thoughtworthy.
Likewise other sites share same problem, I asked
[http://www.quora.com/Editing-Questions-on-Quora/Could-
showin...](http://www.quora.com/Editing-Questions-on-Quora/Could-showing-a-
questions-original-wording-next-to-its-community-wording-be-helpful-and-
insightful-If-our-community-owns-its-questions-is-it-good-to-remember-and-
share-how-our-questions-really-started?share=1) equally concerned we lose
important info, by burning what real people wrote first.
------
toutouastro
I was thinking about something like that lately
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Google bans reddit client from Play Store for "sexually explicit material" - veeti
http://www.reddit.com/r/Android/comments/r3dhg/reddit_is_fun_banned_for_sexually_explicit/
======
georgemcbay
The march towards being a half-assed Apple continues.
<http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3700731>
The disappointment continues as well.
I never would have thought replacing Eric Schmidt as CEO was a bad thing, and
I'm sure there are more factors at play here than just that, but I can trace
my waning support of Google to a pretty specific time that happens to coincide
with Page taking the CEO spot.
~~~
w1ntermute
And this is where the strength of Android shows. Just download and install the
APK: <https://github.com/talklittle/reddit-is-fun/downloads>
And if this keeps up, someone will just make an alternate market.
~~~
georgemcbay
You can jailbreak an iOS device and install whatever you want as well, that
doesn't change the fact that Apple makes ridiculous decisions about what can
and can't appear on the app store.
My problem with this decision isn't that it makes it impossible for me to
install this one app, but rather that it looks very much like the path towards
where Apple is, where maybe I have to install a custom Cyanogenmod build on my
Android phone just to have the option to install non-'Play' APKs (this isn't
the situation now, but I can much more easily see this happening today than I
could a year ago).
~~~
w1ntermute
> it looks very much like the path towards where Apple is, where maybe I have
> to install a custom Cyanogenmod build on my Android phone just to have the
> option to install non-'Play' APKs
I find it very difficult to believe that Google will remove sideloading.
Things have actually moved in the opposite direction. For example, after
preventing sideloading for years, AT&T made the decision to enable it last
May[0]. Apparently that was thanks to Amazon. So since there are already 2
dominant markets, I don't think it'll happen going forward.
Also, keep in mind that Google has a dominant position in the smartphone
market, so such restrictions could draw interest from antitrust regulators.
0: [http://www.wired.com/gadgetlab/2011/05/att-sideload-
android-...](http://www.wired.com/gadgetlab/2011/05/att-sideload-android-
amazon/)
~~~
rplnt
And it's not Google's decision either.
------
Pewpewarrows
For any curious devs: the distinction between this and the reason why web
browsers (like Chrome, Dolphin, or Firefox) aren't banned, according to Google
at least, is direct linking. An app is allowed to "browse" to NSFW material,
but cannot explicitly link (or come pre-loaded with favorites or bookmarks) to
said material.
That said, this is still an awful and draconian policy. I wouldn't have batted
an eyelash if this was a news story coming from Apple's App Store, because
that's just par for the course in their ecosystem. I love what Android used to
stand for, but lately I'm finding it harder to stand by my principles, with
Apple providing a very enticing walled garden that's getting harder to avoid.
~~~
nkohari
Except multiple Reddit clients exist for iOS, and have for years.
~~~
chrisrhoden
And none of them link directly to NSFW reddits.
~~~
nkohari
I guess I don't understand what you mean by "link directly," but NSFW links
appear on the Reddit homepage often, and touching them will open the link in
the app's browser. Also, (at least in Alien Blue) I can subscribe to any
subreddits I want, including NSFW ones.
~~~
Pewpewarrows
By "link directly" we mean that a subreddit devoted solely to NSFW content
appears as a default in a list of ones to browse from the moment the app is
launched.
You've always been free to add specific NSFW subreddits that you know about
after the fact. And NSFW links appearing on the frontpage is an occupational
hazard, that quite possibly never happened during the App Store review
process.
------
Urgo
I don't have any sexually explicit apps on my phone, I don't care to download
any, and I don't even care to have a reddit app (I don't use the site) but the
lack of censorship in the android marketplace was always the biggest reason I
supported Android. Yes its true you can get apps from other sources but you
shouldn't have to. I opposed the need for the amazon app store for example.
Anyway this really makes me sad that google feels the need to start filtering
for any reason other then malware. I've been a huge android supporter over the
past few years, and this in no way is making me get an iphone, but if they
continue down on this path I don't know if I'll follow in the future.
~~~
pbhjpbhj
> _the lack of censorship in the android marketplace was always the biggest
> reason I supported Android_ //
So you support Android only as far as they allow the undesired exposure of
users to hardcore porn or shock imagery? That seems a very strange line to
take.
~~~
Urgo
They have content filtering settings in the market.
[x] everyone
[x] low maturity
[x] medium maturity
[x] high maturity
[x] show all apps
With settings like that where the device owner can pick what they want to see
why block anything.
~~~
pbhjpbhj
So lack of censorship isn't the reason that you love Android it is instead
categorisation of censored material??
> _why block anything_ //
Presumably to retain users _and_ keep inside the relevant laws.
------
bostonvaulter2
This seems like a great place to plug f-droid which is basically an Android
"market" of all open-source apps that they compile themselves. Download reddit
is fun from f-droid here:
[http://f-droid.org/repository/browse/?fdid=com.andrewshu.and...](http://f-droid.org/repository/browse/?fdid=com.andrewshu.android.reddit&fdpage=6)
------
jballanc
In some ways, I wish this was a case of a company enforcing its own morals.
Chick-fil-a is closed on Sundays. Fine. I don't eat there. Enough people do to
keep them open. Great.
The thing about morals, though, is that everyone can have their own view. Taco
Bell is open on Sundays. So is McDonalds, Burger King, and literally thousands
of other restaurants. So why should I care that Chick-fil-a is closed?
No, I think this is about litigation. That's a lot more troubling because all
companies (at least those based in the US) are subject to the same threats of
litigation. Obviously, laws are based on morals, but ideally laws are based on
the union of a population's morals, not the intersection.
This does not bode well for America.
~~~
javert
_Obviously, laws are based on morals_
I think that's an astute observation... probably not obvious to most people.
_ideally laws are based on the union of a population's morals, not the
intersection_
Did you mean this the other way around? The union of my morals and those of
Chick-fil-a would mean I can't work on Sunday. The intersection is probably
more like, don't initiate force against others.
------
tvon
So they don't want to promote it in the Android Market, but you can still
install it from other sources, can't you?
I mean, wouldn't a curated collection in "Play Store" (or whatever it's
called) along with the option to download outside apps be the best of both
worlds?
~~~
ajross
Yes, you can always install a .apk file directly via download, though there
are a few steps to the process (turn on "developer mode" or whatever, then
find the unassociated downloaded file and launch it). Amazon seems to be
making it work with their market app though, so it's probably not
insurmountable.
But no, I wouldn't consider that a "best" of the two worlds. Adult sites like
reddit mix "clean" content and NSFW stuff all the time, and dumping them in an
unsupported bin isn't likely to make anyone happy. If there's a curation step,
there also needs to be a opt-in for people who don't mind the occasional
nudity with their geek news.
~~~
pbhjpbhj
> _opt-in for people who don't mind the occasional nudity_ //
This sounds like a fanboy-like purposed miscategorisation. Reddit links to
hardcore pornography (and mirrors it in thumbnail form) and has until very
recently carried Child pornography. It is also a hub for extreme NSFL shock
imagery.
You can argue that someone should provide a repository for Android apps that
allow access to such things but I don't think you can fairly expect any
particular company to put their name to promotion of that sort of content. Any
company that wishes to remain with an appearance of respectability would
probably do well to keep a large distance between themselves and reddit (and
probably 4chan from what I've heard but I'm not that familiar with it - I've
visited a couple of times and what I found was relatively tame compared to
what I've seen on reddit, YMMV).
>'reddit is fun banned for "sexually explicit material"'
That sounds like the correct analysis to me.
~~~
ajross
_Reddit links to hardcore pornography (and mirrors it in thumbnail form)_
I guess that's true, because Reddit accepts and mirrors thumbnails from any
image link posted. But that doesn't make it a "porn site" either. Lots of
folks like me go there to read stuff like /r/askscience, which is about as
good a pop science hub as any in print or web form anywhere in the world.
You're saying you'd want to be censoring that forum because of stuff people do
elsewhere on the site? You're not alone, but I suspect you'll find very few
supporters for that opinion here.
And I think your information might be a little spun. When on earth did Reddit
carry child pornography? Doing so is a crime pretty much anywhere, and I don't
remember any FBI raids.
~~~
pbhjpbhj
> _But that doesn't make it a "porn site" either. Lots of folks like me go
> there to read stuff like /r/askscience, which is about as good a pop science
> hub as any in print or web form anywhere in the world. You're saying you'd
> want to be censoring that forum because of stuff people do elsewhere on the
> site?_ //
Nice and strawy. I never said that reddit was a "porn site"; probably because
it isn't primarily (though there's observer bias, that's not how I use it
shall we say). However subreddits do promote hardcore porn.
I didn't at any time say I was going to deny anyone access to, nor label as
adult material, /r/askscience.
> _And I think your information might be a little spun._ //
I visited a "bestof" thread that linked to what is almost certainly
categorised as child pornography in my jurisdiction (and in the US AFAICT
under the Dost test) and FWIW reported the content of that subreddit to the
IWF based on the thumbnails+titles (IWF is a UK watchdog, see
<https://www.iwf.org.uk/hotline/assessment-levels>). There was a previous
incident involving subreddits created by violentcrez (sp?) where the subreddit
was closed by reddit as users were making offers and requests explicitly for
images of an under-age girl.
See <http://i.imgur.com/mWqlJ.png> (NSFW, images there may be illegal in your
country - they're copies of reddit thumbnails) for example and the thread I
found that in
[http://www.reddit.com/r/WTF/comments/pj804/are_you_fucking_k...](http://www.reddit.com/r/WTF/comments/pj804/are_you_fucking_kidding_me_with_this/)
which started as a rather forceful apologia for paedophilic imagery.
~~~
pbhjpbhj
> _Yeah, that's pretty spun._ //
So you're saying that Dost isn't a test used in US law to determine whether
images are child pornography or not.
My point in referring to my report to IWF was that under their summary
recapitulation of the Sentencing Guidelines Council's Definitive Guidelines of
the Sexual Offences Act 2003 WRT such images I was convinced that this
material was child pornography.
Are you saying that crotch shots of pre-teen girls entitled "juicy" or making
reference to them as sexual objects is not child pornography or are you
defending child pornography as something that should be allowed?
Were there actual children exploited on/through reddit. Yes.
> _Most sane people I know are more liberally tolerant if the relative benefit
> is higher._ //
Ah gotcha: So I'm insane because you feel that a few sexually exploited
children should be perfectly fine as long as you get your fix of askscience in
a ready Android app?
Wow. I hope you're trolling.
~~~
Dylan16807
Why are you bringing up the creepy comments attached to the images? Those
thumbnails seem to be of clothed children not engaged in explicitly sexual
behavior. Cropping and making inappropriate lewd comments is exploitative but
it's not pornographic.
~~~
pbhjpbhj
Someone raised that very point in the linked reddit thread (paraphrasing) "you
can see pics like these in the Sears catalogue". Presentation and intent make
it pornography.
One of those images as a picture in a family album (assuming they've not been
posed sexually) - not pornographic. Same image with sexualising content and
presented alongside similar images in a forum intend to pander to the
salacious nature of those who get aroused by sexualised images of children -
pornographic.
Or do you think that there is no such thing as pornographic image of a human
because you could see those same parts of the body in an anatomy book? If you
do go that far, then presumably you'd also not find anything to be erotic?
Would you also say that intent is not important?
~~~
Dylan16807
I believe that the intentions of the subject and photographer matter. I do not
believe that the intent of any distributor matters. A photograph is a moment
of time set in stone, and cannot be changed by appendices.
~~~
pbhjpbhj
So if someone posts your picture on the front page of your local paper with a
headline "rapist at large" then you're fine with that because it's just an
image and context doesn't matter?
~~~
Dylan16807
Wow, I sure screwed up communicating because you have my point exactly
backwards.
1\. I think it's bad and I'm not 'fine with it'.
BUT
2\. I think it's not an 'image of a rapist' because context can't change an
image.
------
gitarr
Why is the US such a prude country?
They show people blowing their head off with a gun in the afternoon news while
children are watching, but omg, a boob or even worse a nipple they go crazy!
This ban has to be taken back, or all other means to browse reddit must be
banned as well, including all google browsers, etc. I see a lawsuit coming
otherwise.
~~~
pohl
_This ban has to be taken back, or all other means to browse reddit must be
banned as well, including all google browsers, etc._
I don't understand your reasoning here. When a store decides to not devote
shelf space to an item, they are in no way trying to prevent you from going to
another store that carries it. My local grocer does not carry tomatillos, but
they're not going to sue me if I get them elsewhere.
~~~
darklajid
The analogy is crap.
Let me make it worse: You're the only store around for miles and miles and
people really just buy what you've got in stock. Sure, they could order online
or grow something in their backyards. Maybe there's this obscure and small
outlet for some of the missing things from your inventory, but most customers
don't know the place.
But you just decided to remove meat from your store now. You consider eating
meat distasteful and barbaric and really want to have nothing to do with that
sort of stuff.
In my book you'd be
\- abusive in your position as a quasi-monopoly
\- an asshole by forcing your morale standards on others
I think that's a good point the GP makes. I don't give a damn what the weirdo
moral limits are in the US. They are totally insane if you have my upbringing.
If you want to police the market, add proper age restrictions. Or use this
braindead misfeature of regional support and don't allow apps like this in the
US (now that would be a change, eh?).
------
stevejabs
Looks like Android users are going to start losing one of their "talking
points" if this is going to become a trend in the Google Marketplace.
Instead of making the choice to crack down on sexual content I wish they would
instead focus on getting ICS onto more handsets, cracking down on carriers /
manufactures modifying device OS, and bouncing malware apps.
~~~
pyre
Well, one of the "talking points" is that Google Marketplace isn't the only
way to install apps. If Google goes this route, someone else can create an app
market that competes. With Apple, you're stuck with what they spoon-feed you
(unless you're successful enough to launch a PR campaign against them that
works in getting them to back down).
------
gcb
They should remove gmail as well. I get some crazy things via that app
And it goes direct to my notification bar. talk about direct linking
------
benihana
...Redditors find some way to blame Apple and "hipsters"
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Fall on your ass, it's good for you - nephronim
http://pitch.rs/fall-on-your-ass-its-good-for-you/#.UTSbixm65LE
======
a_macgregor
Sorry, but you do not have permission to view this content.
~~~
nephronim
Yeah sorry about that. Permissions issue in the cms. All fixed now. Thanks for
letting me know.
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Magic Wars - your iPhone is a wand - sara
http://pocketfungames.com/
======
sara
What do people think?
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Tables vs CSS: CSS Trolls begone - iamelgringo
http://iamelgringo.blogspot.com/2009/02/tables-vs-css-css-trolls-begone.html
======
dasil003
Lets call them zealots since they're mostly not really trolls.
CSS zealots are a lot like TDD zealots. Both CSS and TDD have huge, _huge_
benefits that you shouldn't write off before you actually take the time to
learn them. The problem is the zealots talk about them as panaceas and ignore
the fact that there is no one methodology that separates the pros from the
amateurs. Instead they use their expertise in one tiny niche to prove to
themselves how their work is so much better than the majority of similar work
due to a few arbitrary criteria. Then they form small self-congratulatory
communities to pat themselves on the back about how brilliant they are and how
much everyone else could learn from them.
These are the people who you find trolling your blog. Usually they aren't even
particular skilled at what they do, which is why they cling to dogma and feel
the need to attack other people.
But let me be clear. I haven't layed out a website using tables since 2001
(and I used tables for 5 years before that), once you develop your mental
model of CSS (and browser deficiencies) there are actually only a few edge
cases where tables are easier. CSS can actually solve 90% of web design
challenges more elegantly than tables. CSS makes it easier for designers to
and developers to work together (I am both). There are many techniques which
are only available in CSS. All future technical developments in web design
will be in the realm of CSS.
So it really is worth the time to slug it out with CSS and figure out what's
what. That said, web design coding (ie. HTML/CSS) is just one tiny piece of a
huge potential set of web development skills. Why does google put CSS inline?
Because their design considerations are driven by 100 things that are so far
over CSS Zealots heads they can't even fathom it: scalability, latency, back-
end HTML generation, js compiled from other languages, etc.
~~~
iamelgringo
RE: _Why does google put CSS inline? Because their design considerations are
driven by 100 things that are so far over CSS Zealots heads they can't even
fathom it: scalability, latency, back-end HTML generation, js compiled from
other languages, etc._
From: [http://www.fastcompany.com/magazine/100/beauty-of-
simplicity...](http://www.fastcompany.com/magazine/100/beauty-of-
simplicity.html)
_But the original [Google] home-page design was dumb luck. In 1998, founders
Sergey Brin and Larry Page were consumed with writing code for their engine.
Brin just wanted to hack together something to send queries to the back end,
where the cool technology resided. Google didn't have a Web master, and Brin
didn't do HTML. So he designed as little as he could get away with._
~~~
markup
What does the design of google back in 1998 have to do with the inline CSS
argument?
~~~
iamelgringo
I have a big hunch that design decisions at 75% of Alexa's top 20 sites aren't
really based on CSS idealogical purity, scalability, algorithmic complexity or
back-end html generation issues. I think those decisions are based on plain
and simple expediency and frustration. Much like my decision to go ahead and
use tables.
I think that's what guided Google's decision in 1998, and I still think that's
what guides their decisions now.
~~~
markup
What guided Google's decision back in '98 was to deliver the most kickass
search engine ever, the sooner the better (I guess). From that point to now
it's a matter of perfectioning every single aspect of their creature, to
ensure a great UX (therfore fidelization).
What makes a great UX? A clean UI, a fast service and possibly no hiccups (to
make it very short). The UI has changed _a lot_ from 98 to now (check out
web.archive.org) and so did their HTML code. A _single line_ HTML page is
obviously a conscious decision and so is the inline CSS.
I don't know you, so I have no idea on your experience in this field, but when
you get to deal with I'm not saying huge, but decent amount of users you
simply _have_ to deal with scalability under every single aspect. If you
don't, chances are you end up delivering a crappy service OR you spend WAY
more money (bandwidth, cpu power, etc) than you actually need to.
EDIT: google is obviously more than html and css, and if you really want to
have an idea on how they are paranoid with performances you should check out
their google app engine documentation.
------
Jasber
The people preaching 100% CSS design are purist, they're people that love
design and love CSS. These are the Eric Meyers, Doug Bowman and David Shea's
of the world.
The way you see beauty in "perfect" code, they see in pure designs.
But there are benefits to their methods. Usability, accessibility, SEO,
increased caching and reduced page load times are all side-effects of "pure"
CSS designs.
I'd suggest taking the 80/20 approach to CSS. Take the best of what works and
then just get it done and move on.
Also, my time limit for CSS problems is 1 hour. After that I use the best
solution instead of the perfect one.
~~~
ssharp
What does "pure CSS" page offer in terms of usability and accessibility that a
mixed-use table/css page wouldn't?
If anything, CSS would be worse as its difficult to render the same across all
the different browsers and platforms. With fixed width tables, you can pretty
much guarantee your results.
I'm not advocating either and tend to try to use as much CSS as possible but
sometimes you spend twice as long to achieve an inferior result. After many
years of working with HTML, I think most people find that happy medium.
~~~
dpifke
In theory, it offers better separation of content from presentation. For
example, a news article that renders in one column on-screen and two columns
printed. Or that renders as columns for a sighted user but is read aloud in
the correct order for a blind user.
~~~
neilk
It doesn't, not even in theory.
CSS did a good job of freeing us from layouts that were dominated by concrete
layout, stretchy invisible gifs and so on. But CSS does not separate content
and presentation. CSS still depends on concrete layout to work. You often
can't have a feature of your style that doesn't have a div or whatever
attached to it. (The pseudo-selectors are a horrible hack to try to fix this.)
The problem is that we were all collectively duped into not wanting things
that CSS didn't give us.
An example: I used to lay out the music and entertainment section of my
college newspaper. With CSS, you can't even do a multiple column layout that
flows, and PageMaker had that on day one.
Sometimes, I would design a headline that ripped right through articles in the
middle of the page. Even diagonally. I can't imagine how you could do that in
CSS, without tedious calculations and placing concrete divs into your text.
Even if some of what I've said is possible, very, very few designers seem to
be able to cope with this. The evidence is that most of them struggle just to
get two-column layouts that don't even flow, if one judges by the number of
tutorials.
------
tdavis
Article summary in 3 sentences (apply these rules to whatever you want, not
just table usage!):
If big sites do it, it must be okay!
If I can't be bothered to do proper research to learn _why_ one should not use
technique X, the reasons must be trivial and stupid!
If I am too lazy to learn how to do something properly, I must justify doing
it improperly _somehow_!
\------
I haven't used tables for page layout in roughly _a decade_. I think I used a
table improperly for the first time since then last week, when I was laying
out a form and couldn't get it to render consistently after a Javascript
update. I don't consider this the end of the world, nor do I take it to mean
that CSS is unnecessary and I'm going to go back to pretending it's 1999.
The problem with sensationalist bullshit like this article is people will read
it and form an opinion based on it, without doing their own research. Do your
own research (and looking at the table counts of Alexa Top 100 sites doesn't
fucking count as _research_ , FYI). Learn the _real_ reasons why you shouldn't
use tables for layout (or why to adhere to various other web standards). If
you don't find those reasons compelling enough to switch, _then do whatever
the hell you want_ \-- at least you know _why_ you're doing it.
Learn that if you choose to use the proper methods, all the layouts have
already been made for you, so you can be as incompetent as you'd like and
still layout a page better than Google (and yes, Google are complete shit bags
when it comes to adhering to Web Standards. Thankfully, what Google does
should be irrelevant to you!) Finally, at the end of the day, just because you
use tables occasionally doesn't magically mean CSS IS DEAD. I can't think of a
sufficiently funny metaphor for this obvious fact because I am too god damn
pissed off.
~~~
randallsquared
"Do your own research (and looking at the table counts of Alexa Top 100 sites
doesn't fucking count as research, FYI)."
Yes. Yes, it does count as research. When you see people who have done what
you want to do, looking at how they did it _is_ likely to guide you in how you
should do it. That doesn't always work, but it's a damn fine start.
~~~
tdavis
Even if I concede that it's a damn fine start, it is not research sufficient
to jump to the conclusion that (a) CSS layouts are overcompensating (based on
a "hypothesis" taken out of thin air) and (b) people who believe using tables
for layouts is bad are wrong based on said research.
Edit: He also managed to not even properly conduct this simplistic research
considering that many of the tables used on the sites were used correctly,
e.g. for _tabular data_.
------
JoelSutherland
The CSS Problem has been solved. There are a large number of people in the
world who can take any arbitrary design and make it work in all browsers using
compliant XHTML/CSS.
In fact, there are so many, that the rate to do such a think is between $100
and $200:
[http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&rlz=1C1GGLS_enUS291US...](http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&rlz=1C1GGLS_enUS291US304&q=css+slicing+service&btnG=Search)
In my mind this leaves only two defenses for not having a website done in
(roughly) proper CSS + HTML:
1\. You believe that it is _better_ to layout pages in tables.
2\. You can't do it personally and don't have $150
~~~
pg
Or
3\. You just don't care.
which is by far the most common explanation in all situations of this type.
~~~
JoelSutherland
I fail to see how that is different than #2? Maybe I should have said "don't
want to spend $150".
------
shaunxcode
Dude what you need in your life is something like malo. It allows the
simplicity and elegance of the nested tables paradigm but with out the cruft
of using tables! <http://code.google.com/p/malo/>
Personally I have an abstraction layer which allows me to express my layouts
as s-expressions and then be rendered either as "html" (tables, great for
quick development) and then rendered to "xhtml" (divs + css) for when I am
polishing things up.
Right now it is written in php (yes the s-expression reader and everything,
and yes it caches the interpreted files so the overhead is worth it) and I
plan on releasing it on googlecode when I am happy with the "interface" of
required methods for each "layout adapter".
edit: I forgot to mention malo is like 9 lines of css w/out comments.
~~~
jaxn
Thanks for the pointer to Malo. I have looked at 960.gs and Blueprint as well
before I decided to use use CSS Reset and then my own layout using the same
technique as 960.gs
------
mattmaroon
Inlining styles can be a good way to boost performance for webpages that tend
to be viewed once and left, like Google or Yahoo's home page.
<http://developer.yahoo.com/performance/rules.html>
It seems as if having external CSS is only good for scalability due to
caching. If you knew a page wasn't going to be revisited, you would inline it
to save an extra http request.
------
willwagner
I'm not a CSS purist by any means but I think heavy use of nested tables can
be a real hassle for the visually impaired. I think if you find yourself
putting a table within a table strictly for layout, you should at least
consider other alternatives.
Personally, I like using tables for forms, which makes it relatively easy to
line things up for both the labels and the input elements, and it also makes
the css rules fairly straightforward to read. I'm sure CSS purists might
disapprove, but I think it's a good tradeoff and hopefully not much of an
additional hassle for screen reader users.
------
jballanc
I'm sorry but I don't see how you can write an article comparing Tables to CSS
and not mention Internet Explorer...not even once! In my experience, the only
reason I've resorted to tables for layout is when I need to worry about IE
compatibility (well, that and when I actually want a table).
This is also why the author's argument doesn't interest me in the slightest.
Claiming that "all the popular sites" use tables is nothing more than an
appeal to authority. Furthermore, it's a blind appeal since the author doesn't
even consider the backwards compatibility logic in using tables.
If you're going to tell me why tables are better than CSS, then tell me why
tables are better than CSS. Don't just show up to the argument with a bigger
gun...
------
sjs382
Am I the only person who finds CSS easier to write and easier to wrap your
head around? I don't think I could go back to tables without a significant
effort in changing the way I do things. CSS has just become natural. Maybe the
author just needs more experience or practice.
------
cakeface
I've always been confused by google's use of tables and inline styles in their
homepage also. Is it to shrink the file size and send less over the wire? Is
it to maintain support for IE 4 or some other archaic browser?
Using one of the css frameworks like yui grids or malo gives you table like
designs quickly and easily. Yeah there could still be cases where a table is
easier for layout but I feel like there are less and less excuses for that.
~~~
bk
Tables probably for cross-browser support with minimal code size.
Inline css and javascript for 1 http request instead of 3. Much faster, and
less load. The content-length of the google home page is 2752 bytes (gzip).
------
mcargian
Is there any reason you can't use an unordered list with one of the pre-made
jquery tree plugin's to give indentation, collapse and expand?
<http://jquery.bassistance.de/treeview/demo/>
~~~
iamelgringo
It would probably work, but then, you're creating a work-around for a CSS
shortcoming with javascript.
~~~
GHFigs
How so? You'd be effectively solving the problem using both CSS and JavaScript
they way they were intended, as opposed to using tables for layout, which has
always been a hack around HTML's lack of any other layout support. Seems like
if you're going to reject one approach on the grounds that it's too hackish,
it'd be the other one.
------
lisper
<http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=463234>
------
zain
Really? You use Photobucket and Rapidshare as examples of sites whose design
examples you want to follow?
I'm certainly not a CSS purist, but I'm sure you could've found better
reasoning than "all the big guys use tables, so I should too."
~~~
webwright
He's not saying they have wonderful design. He's saying that most of the top
sites liberally use tables, which is interesting given that they probably have
some pretty great devs and an infinite budget.
I've walked the same road as the author has and currently use tables for
layout and CSS for text style, paddings, margins, borders, colors,
backgrounds, rollovers...
------
poppysan
He references Google finance. Google finance only uses tables for tabular
data, not layout which goes against his own point....
I completely think this is cheer leading for anti-CSS trolls.
------
vaksel
as long as it works, it doesn't matter if you use CSS or tables. The end users
just don't care.
------
tlrobinson
I'm very wary of people who cling to principles as if they're sacred truths
that shall never be broken. I think these sorts of things serve better as
guiding principles.
------
jlft
Learn the pros and cons and then use whatever fits the job better.
------
volida
what? i think you are focusing on the wrong problem people.
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Natural image reconstruction from brain waves - soofy
https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1101/787101v3.full
======
anonytrary
I'm highly skeptical. I mean, a hash function that has four output states also
maps _anything_ to one of those four states. That doesn't mean it's some next-
level classifier.
The problem here is EEG. EEG bandwidth is not enough to capture that much
information. There is far too much noise introduced by the skull and muscles.
It's most likely physically impossible to do something like this with EEG.
What's likely happening here is that there's some large scale oscillations
that are sufficiently unique to discern the images from each other. This does
not mean they are reproducing the images. I am highly skeptical of the methods
used here -- they are almost certainly flawed.
I, too, once had dreams of conquering the planet with EEG when I was a grad
student. I quickly learned that physics makes this infeasible. Anyone who is
serious about BMIs are studying invasive BMIs and how to make them as safe as
possible. Going inside the brain is unavoidable, I'm afraid.
~~~
tudorw
There is at least one 'affordable' fNIRS device coming to market that looks
promising, [https://foc.us/fnirs-sensor/](https://foc.us/fnirs-sensor/)
There's a paper somewhere on using machine learning to help identify signal,
this one is specifically about pain,
[https://www.nature.com/articles/s41598-019-42098-w](https://www.nature.com/articles/s41598-019-42098-w)
Say for example you were making an insurance claim for neuropathic pain, this
kind of information could be very important.
~~~
jacquesm
Instead, it will be repurposed for lie detectors and 'terrorist mindset
detectors' in airports.
------
echelon
This model is incredibly overfit.
Video: [https://youtu.be/nf-P3b2AnZw](https://youtu.be/nf-P3b2AnZw)
Watch how it has preconceived notions of these scenes. It frequently fails to
reconstruct the correct scene from video, and it also turns completely blank
input into one of the scenes it was trained on.
------
unscrupulous_sw
Imagine the shitshow this will cause once law enforcement adopts this.
Currently eyewitness criminal sketches are still drawn by artist so they are
naturally low fidelity.
That will change once you can generate a photo of a face (like
[https://thispersondoesnotexist.com/](https://thispersondoesnotexist.com/))
based on your brain waves.
This will be disastrous on so many levels. The eyewitness might not have a
good sample of a minority race. The GAN dataset itself might also only be
trained on celebrity faces so it doesn't know how to generate anything else
(e.g., a teen).
But it will be deceptively high resolution so police will rely on it.
If you have a generic face your life is fucked.
~~~
Erlich_Bachman
OR they will just find out that this method can just as easily be producing a
picture that someone who is good at visualizing just made up in their mind and
is actually "looking at" in their mind's eye. This making this technique
useless as a form of truth seeking machine.
------
dr_dshiv
My research group is doing the same thing but with music. Music may be more
promising than images because of the Frequency Following Response -- a sort of
direct resonance effect in the brain in response to sound.
We have 24 subjects listening to 12 songs in random order, with 128 channel
EEG sampling at 1000hz. We can then label all these data points with the
musical features at the time the data is collected.
We don't have a public repo yet, but we are sharing data.
------
lbj
I dont think their model is working, and Im not sure it ever will. Simply
reading brainwaves, a bi-product as I understand it, of the actual neuron
activity, couldn't possibly give you an accurate result.
------
rangibaby
The end results are much, much better than I thought they would be. Luckily, I
think it would be easy to fool the training by thinking about a totally
different image to the baseline one. Idk if that would stand up to rubber hose
cryptanalysis, but there’s got to be a way that can.
~~~
dannyw
The end results show an overfit model. It's not predicting that specific input
out of an option space of everything; it's essentially predicting that mode
(out of the 4) and probably capturing things like "if brain's audio regions
are active, it's a waterfall, because waterfalls are loud and trigger that".
------
Roark66
I read in some article some time about use of SQUIDs
([https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SQUID](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SQUID))
to map activity of a single neuron non-invasively. There was a lot of hype at
the time for brain-computer interfaces based on that, but then same as with
many technologies that were "just 5 years away" those 5 years came and went
with no deliverables expected.
------
snowwrestler
There’s a great movie called _Until The End Of The World_ that centers on this
kind of technology. Once the scientists get it to work, they realize that they
can record and play back their dreams, and they become addicted to watching
them.
------
rasz
Lena source image resulting in some other random woman "reconstruction" =
model over fitted AF. Put a dead fist and it will continue generating
"reconstructions".
------
olliej
It’s interesting to see that the reconstructed Lenna has the high quality
reconstruction, but of a generic woman.
~~~
viraptor
See the figure title:
> an original face image replaced by an image sample due to publication policy
~~~
olliej
Ah, I was having difficulty reading the text due to formatting.
------
d-d
What would a world look like where all thoughts are public?
~~~
quangio
* a LOT more weird porns
* we do not need passwords
* eventually, human will be more empathetic
* new educational system
~~~
csomar
> * we do not need passwords
Probably the opposite. All passwords are machine generated/stored. Everyone
uses an HSM.
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Google's Chrome on Android Support Library only for Samsung Devices - fredliu
https://plus.google.com/+ArtemRussakovskii/posts/6tSXAePWz6N
======
fredliu
This was released almost 2 months ago, but still not exactly sure what this is
for from either comments on G+ or in the play store.
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
REASONS: My final blog entry… love you all… [Wilkes McDermid] - CmonDev
https://wilkes888.wordpress.com/2013/02/08/my-final-blog-entry-love-you-all/
======
CmonDev
Interesting reasoning.
PS: [http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/law-and-
order/1140149...](http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/law-and-
order/11401497/Food-blogger-plunges-to-his-death-from-roof-of-Coq-
DArgent.html)
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
HN Violates the GDPR - feld
There is no way to delete your account and your comments on HN. This is a violation of the GDPR. Why has this not been addressed yet?<p>https://gdpr-info.eu/art-17-gdpr/
======
DanBC
Citizens don't have an absolute right to have all data erased on request.
The comments are still needed and being used for the purpose they were
gathered for, so this fails the first point in your link
> the personal data are no longer necessary in relation to the purposes for
> which they were collected or otherwise processed;
If there is identifying data in the comment you can email the mods and they
will (I think) redact it for you.
Most usernames do not identify a natural person, so that means most accounts
fall outside GDPR. If they do identify a natural person I think you could
email the mods and they'd change the name. (Obviously I have nothing to do
with HN so I can't tell you what they will or won't do).
tl;dr most accounts aren't covered by GDPR and the mods will do stuff with the
ones that are.
~~~
yummybear
I don't believe this is compliant with the GDPR. Afaik usernames are
considered personal data, as are user ids. Both are a form of online
identifiers:
"Natural persons may be associated with online identifiers provided by their
devices, applications, tools and protocols, such as internet protocol
addresses, cookie identifiers or other identifiers such as radio frequency
identification tags. This may leave traces which, in particular when combined
with unique identifiers and other information received by the servers, may be
used to create profiles of the natural persons and identify them."
~~~
DanBC
Sure, if I can identify the natural person from the name yummybear then
yummybear is personal information.
But HN simply can't do that for most accounts, and so for most people their
username isn't personal data.
------
alanfranz
If you write to the moderators at [email protected] they'll answer and comply
quickly.
------
jsty
IANAL
My armchair argument would be that when you sign up to post on a public forum,
you should have every expectation that your posts will remain visible.
Expecting otherwise would be rather like publishing a book before invoking
GDPR to 'un-publish' it and demanding to have all the sold copies destroyed
several months after release simply because your name is on the cover.
The expectation of content remaining public is also explicitly stated in HN's
terms, along with a pretty broad-ranging agreement to allow them to use the
content you upload. Thus arguably HN has a contractual right to continue
publishing the content, as allowed for under art 6.1(b).
GDPR Article 6: "Processing shall be legal if and only if to the extent that
at least one of the following applies ... (b) processing is necessary for the
performance of a contract to which the data subject is party ..."
------
ars
Are you saying you want EU users blocked from HN? Lots of sites have done
that, but I think EU users find the blocks annoying.
------
trothamel
I'm sure we could find a North Korean law HN doesn't comply with, if we looked
hard enough.
------
mtmail
Last year's discussion "Ask HN: Does HN respect the GDPR?"
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16661323](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16661323)
------
Dayshine
Why do you think Article 17 applies to Hacker News?
I don't mean the GDPR, I mean having read the article, which of the grounds do
you believe applies?
The only one that's plausible is 1.b), and I'm not convinced that Hacker News
is storing your data using Article 6 1(a).
The Right to Erasure applies to some pretty specific situations, mainly where
the data is being held using consent only. I'm fairly sure that Hacker News
stores your user content either under "Legitimate interest" or "Contract".
------
hombre_fatal
Why would HN care about some EU directive? They also don't have that obnoxious
cookie warning.
~~~
yulaow
I think they don't have a cookie warning because they don't use profiling
cookies but just the technical ones.
------
zxcvbn4038
I care about GDPR because my employer has a physical presence in multiple EU
countries. However, a US based company with no physical presence wouldn't
really care. Wouldn't it be nice if they had to.
There are a lot of things in GDPR that I agree with and anyone who follows it
in spirit is going to get my business over someone who does not, and that is
something all of us can do. But beyond that, I'd recommend that OP remember
the classic saying "You catch more flies with honey than you do with vinegar"
and maybe ask the moderators nicely to remove whatever past comments are
irking him.
~~~
PerusesVanes
AFAIK the GDPR applies to every company, regardless of where it is located, as
long said company has customers / users / ... from an EU country
------
ariwilson
HN is a small scrappy upstart that has only invested in $80B of tech
companies. It can't possibly be expected to comply with the GDPR.
<sarcasm>
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Why a Toaster Is a Design Triumph - cjCamel
https://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2017/07/toaster-a-bit-more-button/534312/?single_page=true
======
brudgers
When I need perfect toast, I use TASS. My usual TASS provider also offers
EASS, BASS, and CASS but limits its hours of operation. Fortunately, Waffle
House is also available in my market and offers acceptable TASS (even though
it is better known for its WASS).
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Name My Colors – Bulk Color Naming Tool - djcoleman
https://domcoleman.github.io/name-my-colors/
======
karmakaze
It gives the same name to similar colors but seems very useful as that should
be uncommon in practice.
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
The five biases pushing women out of STEM - anigbrowl
https://hbr.org/2015/03/the-5-biases-pushing-women-out-of-stem
======
paulhauggis
"A Latina geographer had a different take on social isolation, saying that
white people are “afraid of people of color in a way, like just worried
they’re going to say the wrong thing or do the wrong thing. So they avoid that
entirely.”
Honestly, you can't really use this as an excuse. People get fired ALL THE
TIME for saying the wrong thing, even if it was a complete accident and
outside of the work place.
You can't have a society that is harsh on people they deem "racists" and the
turn around and wonder why it creates a culture of fear and isolation.
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
China Turned 350M Millennials into Day Traders - paulpauper
https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/how-china-turned-350-million-millennials-into-day-traders/2019/04/11/c007d8ba-5cad-11e9-98d4-844088d135f2_story.html
======
TheOperator
Isn't this just gambling with extra steps?
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Sim-Template – A Clojure Template for Simulation Testing - rkneufeld
http://homegrown.io/articles/introducing-sim-template/
======
mlakewood
Simulation testing using simulant is very intriguing to me. But up till now
its been pretty impenetrable. Glad to see somebody picking up the education
baton.
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Ask HN: How do you build your MVP - vishalzone2002
Share the tech stack you use or suggest to build quick MVPs for your ideas?
======
leeraj
minimum money maximum functionality
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Tools for Coders and Developers - nicolasd
http://dailytekk.com/2012/09/24/100-terrific-tools-for-coders-developers/
======
zalew
I love it when a website wants me to tweet-like-+1 them with an annoying popup
even before I got the chance to check out their content.
------
zwieback
Real eye opener for me. Been coding for 30 years and have not heard of hardly
any of these things. I'm sure this is focussed mainly on web/social/mobile
developers but I would have thought there's more overlap with traditional app
development and embedded development, which is what I'm doing.
My favorite tools:
\- Keil IDE + Eclipse, Visual Studio
\- Coverity for static analysis
\- git and SVN on our own servers
\- Jenkins for CI
\- homegrown unit testing framework
\- RallyDev for tracking
What I'm seeing on the list from the article is a lot of online tools for
faster collaboration. That's really where I can see traditional development
models could learn from the web crowd.
~~~
gutnor
Today with close to 0 money and 0 time spent you can be setup with a
professional grade development environment for a one man/few men shop with
continuous integration, test/prod servers, bug tracking, ...
Parallel to that there is a similar list of utilities that handle the
management part of the business. (time management, meeting, marketing,
billing, ...)
All of those give you opportunities to scale your business before you need to
"enterprisify". Quite an exiting time for experimenting businesses on the
cheap.
One worry though, there is not much "open source" or more precisely a lot of
lock in. Nothing new of course for cloud based SaS, but still something ...
------
philip1209
Can anybody shed light on how Modulus is different from Heroku? Just curious
because I saw them at the Brandery in Cincinnati and it was explained to me as
a "Heroku for Node," even though it is my understanding that Heroku supports
Node.
------
shreyansj
No BitBucket for Source Control.
No Cloud9 for web-based IDE.
No BugZilla for bug tracking.
No XNA for Game development.
This is a weird list.
------
vineet
Found a number of tools that I hadn't heard of before. Love the effort.
------
dtnguyen1
Interesting that they didn't include IDEs
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
When SEO Fails: Single Channel Dependency and the End of Tutorspree - nedwin
http://www.aaronkharris.com/when-seo-fails-single-channel-dependency-and-the-end-of-tutorspree
======
_sentient
It's interesting to read a thorough postmortem of this variety. I think
adversity can help unmask all sorts of problems that can be hidden by
unrelated success.
We've seen similar stories played out in many US companies post-recession.
Many of these companies saw significant efficiency boosts after hard times
forced them to analyze their operations and optimize production.
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Show HN: Stackey.com, a place where you can stack things that go together - andyshora
http://www.stackey.com
======
julianpye
I have been working on a few horizontal products and the starting challenge
with chicken and egg is always the same - you need to attract one vertical
community and allow to fill it with content. What kind of strategies do other
people use here? We tried automated import of existing content (e.g. from a
publisher), paying people to generate content (with a set of rapid authoring
tools). These strategies fill up content, but they don't engage a community
and don't engage users to share content. Another strategy is to engage a lead
user who already has a following, but this distorts the product into an
individual one.
------
fiatjaf
Previous entry, from 1 day ago:
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8071532](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8071532)
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Caves in Which Jewish Rebels Hid from Romans 2,000 Years Ago Found in Galilee - wslh
http://www.haaretz.com/jewish/archaeology/1.744834
======
Animats
Haaretz page layout has become awful. Banners sliding in from the top. Banners
sliding in from the bottom. Banners which play thunder sounds.
It's a clickbait article, too. This isn't a new discovery. The Daily Mail had
an article about it in 2011.[1]
[1] [http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2032155/Caves-
Hirbet...](http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2032155/Caves-Hirbet-
Madras-Jewish-rebels-hid-Roman-soldiers.html)
------
blowski
Anybody know how this compares to Biblical history? This would have been
around the time the Gospels were written, and Galilee is mentioned a lot in
the New Testament. But was Christianity growing in Galilee at the time?
------
rabboRubble
An interesting article. But those caves were very... obviously there? Like a
village full of people could look up at the cliff face and see the caves'
entrances.
You can't tell me that teenagers from those villages weren't going up there
and getting into some sort of trouble.
------
dimlim
And I thought it was Palestinians all the way down ...
------
Hitard
Not a recent discovery. I worry that these misleading headlines get recycled
as anecdotal justification for Israeli land claims.
------
known
Jews were exiled from the land of Israel by the Romans in 135 C.E., after they
defeated the Jews in a three-year war, and Jews did not have any control over
the land again until 1948 C.E.
[http://www.jewfaq.org/israel.htm](http://www.jewfaq.org/israel.htm)
~~~
vhfnfnncs
I mean, what goes around comes around when you're comitting mass genocide to
take people's land. A whole lot of Canaanites had to die to make ancient
Israel known as ancient Israel.
~~~
jganetsk
There was no genocide of the Canaanites. That's myth, not historical fact.
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Book_of_Joshua#Historical_and_...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Book_of_Joshua#Historical_and_archaeological_evidence)
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_ancient_Israel_and_...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_ancient_Israel_and_Judah#Late_Bronze_Age_background_.281600.E2.80.931200.C2.A0BCE.29)
~~~
gnarbarian
You aren't some kind of Canaanite genocide denier are you?
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Review startup: blurtt.com - exspiro
http://www.blurtt.com
We want to deliver thoughts and emotions or just a burst of words on a 3.5"x5" physical card
(what we call "blurtts") easily and with as much impact as possible.Send them to your friends,
your family; send them to famous people or big corporations. Send them anonymously to a
lover and much more, for $.99 (includes postage)
======
greengirl512
Cool! I'm absolutely retarded when it comes to going to the mailbox to deposit
mail-it usually sits on my desk for a few weeks first. And I never seem to
have stamps. I think you should organize the card designs into categories,
though, to make them easier to browse. This isn't a huge concern now but it
will be as you continue to add to your design collection.
I did get an error page when I tried to connect with Facebook- Here's what it
said: "The browser has stopped trying to retrieve the requested item. The site
is redirecting the request in a way that will never complete."
Also, you might want to try retitling this post: Ask HN: Review my Startup. I
think you'll get a better response if its more clear that you're asking the
community for input.
~~~
exspiro
Awesome! Thanks for the input, we're looking into the facebook connect issue
you were having. Happy blurtting! :)
------
ABrandt
I'm liking it. Its pretty clear what the site does, but I prefer more
straightforward tag lines like "Send real postcards to anyone." Out of
curiosity though, where does a start-up get $50,000 for a design competition?
I've often considered similar practices to lure early-adopters, but I've never
come up with a viable plan.
------
justinchen
Very cool. I could see using this to send thank yous to customers. Alot easier
than going out and buying postcards and mailing them. It'd be nice to be able
to do them in bulk with a volume discount.
~~~
exspiro
Hey, thanks for the feedback, we definitely have options for businesses in the
pipeline.
------
alanthonyc
I like it. Simple, clean, affordable, useful. I'm having a little trouble with
the name, but I'm sure I'll get over it.
~~~
exspiro
Thanks! Enjoy :)
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
U.S. teenager tortured in Kuwait and barred re-entry into the U.S. - yeahsure
http://www.salon.com/news/opinion/glenn_greenwald/2011/01/06/kuwait/index.html
======
mrr2
As a Somali, this person's life is likely absolute hell in Kuwaiti prison. The
Middle Eastern countries are incredibly prejudiced against people of Indian
Subcontinental and African origins as many come to the peninsula in order to
work on construction/menial jobs. Family friends (I am of Indian origin) have
horror stories of passports being confiscated, police blackmails, and blatant
racism.
Its truly sad that the U.S. has let a citizen be treated like this by a state,
especially a state where the U.S. has as much influence.
------
myfoolishpride
A very sad story. I find it interesting that Bush is still brought up without
noting that the policy of rendition started under Clinton and was largely
replaced under Bush with Gitmo.
Also, calling Kuwait a puppet of the U.S. is a vast over simplification of the
situation. Though, the FBI agent and other officials who visited this young
man should be severely disciplined if they showed the disregard that is
alleged here.
------
marze
Very sad.
Just a practical question, if someone is on the "no fly" list, does that
prevent them from flying in all countries? One would think not, so why
wouldn't that person be able to fly to Mexico then present their passport at
the border for reentry into the US?
~~~
yardie
You would think it works the way it is written but there have been a few
instances of flights being diverted even though they would never fly through
US airspace. And don't even think about flying to Canada, they are in lockstep
with the US as far as the no fly list is concerned.
For example, last year a flight from London to Mexico City was turned back
because a US citizen on the no fly list was onboard. Plane landed back in
London, the passenger was asked to leave, no argument, and the flight resumed
eight hours later. No one has been able to find out who he was and what
happened to him; arrested, cleared immigration, deported (where?).
------
TeMPOraL
Isn't it true that an american citizen can not be banned from entering his
country and isn't that a constitutional law? I'm not from US, but I remember a
small media mess around a case, when TSA didn't want to let an american
citizen out of the airport (was mentioned on HN).
~~~
chrisbennet
Sadly, our US consitutional rights are have been severly abridged by the State
"in order to keep us safe". Rather than admit we are sliding into some sort of
police state, we try to rationalize that only the "bad" people are treated
unconsitutionally.
While a few brave souls stand up for their rights, the majority are too afraid
to. We submit to warrantless searches every time we fly (even if we know it's
pure ineffective security theater) lest we miss our flight.
~~~
TeMPOraL
Thanks for your answer :). But still, I'd like to know if it is a
constitutional right or if I misread it somewhere?
BTW. I heard a joke about current flight security policies in general (ie. not
specific to any country) that "you can board the plane with a fish in a bowl,
as long as you dispose of water before entering" ;).
~~~
drinian
(Disclaimer; I am not a lawyer, but I have studied the history of
Constitutional rights).
As far as I know, there's no specific right to _international_ travel in the
US Constitution, but the law and the courts have generally held that
withholding a citizen's ability to enter and exit the country should not be
used punitively.[0]
That being said, the First Amendment specifically protects citizens' ability
to petition the government for redress of grievances, as well as publicly
assemble.[1] I know that people have attempted to use that to establish a
definitive right to travel, as in _Gilmore v. Gonzales_ [2]. I don't know
whether they've had any success.
It's interesting that the Wikipedia page on citizens' rights doesn't have any
sources for their claim that all US citizens have the right to re-enter the
country [3]. However, I imagine that to deny someone right to entry would also
deny them their right to due process, specifically guaranteed under the Fifth
Amendment [4]. Heck, usually the government pro-actively tries to extradite
criminals back to the US...
[0]
[https://secure.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/wiki/Freedom_of_mo...](https://secure.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/wiki/Freedom_of_movement_under_United_States_law)
[1]
[https://secure.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/wiki/First_Amendme...](https://secure.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/wiki/First_Amendment_to_the_United_States_Constitution)
[2]
[https://secure.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/wiki/Gilmore_v._Go...](https://secure.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/wiki/Gilmore_v._Gonzales)
[3]
[https://secure.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/wiki/Citizenship_i...](https://secure.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/wiki/Citizenship_in_the_United_States#Rights)
[4]
[https://secure.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/wiki/Fifth_Amendme...](https://secure.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/wiki/Fifth_Amendment_to_the_United_States_Constitution)
------
CWIZO
Warning: the page opens a video ad that starts to play automatically. I nearly
shat my pants, since I opened it in the background :)
~~~
nopassrecover
AdBlock Plus
~~~
srean
If you care for a different cure, then noscript. The developers of each had a
spat in recent times though.
~~~
nopassrecover
Wow I wasn't aware, but after reading this post:
<http://adblockplus.org/blog/attention-noscript-users> I'm honestly concerned
about using NoScript any longer.
//Edit: [http://hackademix.net/2009/05/04/dear-adblock-plus-and-
noscr...](http://hackademix.net/2009/05/04/dear-adblock-plus-and-noscript-
users-dear-mozilla-community/) The reply by NoScript was excellent. I feel
reassured.
------
srean
Shocking! But my comment is about something else: the different presentation
style used by NYT and Salon.
The chances that I would have skipped over the NYT article is much higher than
I would have the Salon article. A picture makes a lot of difference, so does
"U.S. Teenager" versus "Detained American", and of course "torture" versus
"beaten".
~~~
sliverstorm
I think "torture" may be a little extreme. Are threats, beatings & lashings to
the feet & hands considered _torture_?
I mean, definitely not desirable or anything, but I always understood torture
to refer to the much more extreme. Otherwise we conclude schoolyard bullies,
police, and schoolteachers regularly engage in torture, though schoolteachers
have mostly ceased using canes for lashing.
~~~
srean
Prolonged beating of the soles of the feet, or phalanga as it is sometimes
called, is definitely torture. It has a _rich_ history. It is extremely
painful, primarily because of the abundance of nerve endings in the sole of
ones feet. It takes a long time to heal so the punishment effectively gets
extended over a long period of time, possibly permanent.
Conveniently enough it leaves almost no evidence.
Edit:A study on the effects of phalanga
[http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:_4_CVER...](http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:_4_CVER1g5YJ:www.irct.org/Admin/Public/DWSDownload.aspx?File%3D%252FFiles%252FFiler%252FTortureJournal%252F19_01_2009%252FLong-
term_consequences.pdf)
~~~
yeahsure
A friend of mine was in an orphanage in MX when he was a child. He suffered
from extended beatings on his soles (among other things like cigarette burns
and the like). I don't know if it's true, but he says he can't feel absolutely
nothing with his soles (ie No pain).
So yes, this is definitely torture, with permanent consequences.
------
iwwr
For every story like this, there are countless that never get told, though
people in the Arab world are keenly aware of them.
------
ScottWhigham
Sad tale, of course, but why is this front page news on HackerNews?
~~~
iwwr
When just the act traveling to a certain country makes you a target for
torture and imprisonment _by your own government_ , it would make one
uncomfortable, particularly as a person who would like to travel.
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
ASK HN: 1 core for a 16 core VPS server, is it dedicated or shared? - ForFreedom
I was having a discussion with a VPS web host ( a well known web host). I asked them is them about the usage of the core. They said that if I choose a 1 core VPS it will be dedicated to me. To my understanding that cores on a VPS are never reserved for "ONE" user. So if they have 50 different customers would they allot ONE 16 core bare metal box if 1 core is reserved for one customer?<p>We went on to chat for one hour, and I think they avoided to answer my question or the person on the live chat had no idea what I was asking.<p>So my question here is if there a bare metal box and the max is 16 core for a VPS server can the web host dedicate 1 core to each user or the core is shared?
======
gus_massa
Perhaps they can use processor affinity to put each user in one core (
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Processor_affinity](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Processor_affinity)
).
Sometimes this is useful to make single thread programs fasters, because it
avoids the necessity to "transfer" the cache form the old core to the new
core. ( [http://mailinator.blogspot.com.ar/2010/02/how-i-sped-up-
my-s...](http://mailinator.blogspot.com.ar/2010/02/how-i-sped-up-my-server-by-
factor-of-6.html) the article is old (2010) but interesting)
I never tried this in a situation like yours, so I don't know if this is
useful in your case.
~~~
ForFreedom
Interesting article from 2010. So what you are saying is that they can
dedicate one core to multiple users(who hosts multiple websites) using
processor affinity?
------
coldtea
> _So my question here is if there a bare metal box and the max is 16 core for
> a VPS server can the web host dedicate 1 core to each user or the core is
> shared?_
Yes, they can dedicate 1 core (or more) to a user. They just pin the VPS
processes to specific cores per user.
Xen allows this for example: "vCPU Pinning for guests - You can dedicate a
physical cpu to a particular virtual cpu or a set of virtual cpus."
What exactly do you find hard to believe?
~~~
ForFreedom
That they can assign a core to a particular user. So assume the VPS is a 16
core, according to your statement if they have 16 clients, the web host can
allot 16 clients only?
~~~
coldtea
> _That they can assign a core to a particular user._
How's that hard to believe? You can even assign a single particular process
(e.g. nginx) to a core (or a range of cores) yourself in your own linux
laptop.
Assigning a virtual CPU to a physical core is no more difficult with modern
supervisors.
> _So assume the VPS is a 16 core, according to your statement if they have 16
> clients, the web host can allot 16 clients only?_
No, they can also allot 1,000 clients, which would then be sharing cores.
But IF they pin each of their clients to a single core, then yes, they can
only have up to 16 clients (or less) for a 16-core server.
And they can also combine those two options: allot 4 cores to 4 customers (one
per core), and the remaining 12 cores to 20-30 other customers...
------
ForFreedom
[update] I shall post the chat transcript if required.
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
When to buy what in a start-up, and who pays for it? - robertgaal
======
robertgaal
This is a problem I have right now in my current start-up, Wakoopa.
We're currently working on a thematic social site, which will launch in about
a month. We've had a small investor gives us some seed money, which could last
us for about a year. We both have our personal laptops to develop it. I use a
17" Acer, my partner has a 13" Macbook. He sometimes uses an extra screen,
property of another company at our shared office, a 20". This ofcourse saves
him a lot of stress and lets him develop somewhat faster.
We'd like to buy him an extra screen of course, but is this really fitting for
a small start-up that isn't earning money yet? We've got the budget, but
should it be tapped into? And of course: who pays for this thing? Should we
just order it through our company and forget about it, or do we hold it in on
my partners (very modest) salary?
This all has to do with your personal guidelines and budget, but what do you
guys think? Buy the thing and be done with it, or be more thoughtful of what
you spend in such an early stage?
~~~
PindaxDotCom
Always buy what you need to get the job done. If you're doing a web startup
then you need the hardware and software. Get it, spend the money, and consider
it an investment in your company. When it comes to having the right tools
don't be cheap!
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
NASA Artemis - bentaber
https://www.nasa.gov/specials/artemis/
======
bentaber
Explanatory video
[https://youtu.be/_T8cn2J13-4](https://youtu.be/_T8cn2J13-4)
------
buffaloo
Please raise my taxes as much as you need to in order to do this.
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
An Arab Spring For IT - FluidDjango
http://techcrunch.com/2012/02/04/an-arab-spring-for-it/
======
andrewvc
This is disgusting. Taking an international movement against dictatorship and
comparing it to trends in the tech sector?
Not only is this a poor analogy, it's outright disrespectful.
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
U.S. Senate to let NSA spy program lapse, at least for now - suprgeek
http://www.reuters.com/article/2015/06/01/us-usa-security-surveillance-idUSKBN0OG0RF20150601
======
shit_parade2
A misleading title,
"Still, eventual resumption of the phone records program in another form, and
the other government powers, appeared likely after the Senate voted 77-17 to
take up the reform legislation, called the USA Freedom Act.
"This bill will ultimately pass," Paul acknowledged after the procedural
vote."
They bury the lead.
[http://www.theguardian.com/business/2015/may/27/corporations...](http://www.theguardian.com/business/2015/may/27/corporations-
paid-us-senators-fast-track-tpp)
Americans, your country is open for business and for sale, and rather cheap as
well.
~~~
skidoo
Gaze for long into the FNORDS and soon the FNORDS gaze back.
------
alexnewman
suree.... Luckily we can trust them
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
The NSA is building the country’s biggest spy center - bootload
http://www.wired.com/threatlevel/2012/03/ff_nsadatacenter/all/1
======
guimarin
The most chilling quotation from the article: "Binney held his thumb and
forefinger close together. 'We are, like, that far from a turnkey totalitarian
state.'" In the Future, you will be tried for crimes you committed in the
past. Even if you didn't know you committed those crimes.
~~~
white_devil
Interesting how this article has caused no discussion whatsoever. I tried to
submit the same thing.
"Oh, the NSA sees _everything you do online_? No biggie!"
~~~
guimarin
whether or not a submission makes it to front page of HN is largely dependent
on the time of day it was submitted, not necessarily on the strength of its
content. Obviously, making it to the front page is a strong indication of
underlying quality, and so comments are usually quick to follow.
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
The next Bank of England £5, £10 and £20 banknotes will be printed on polymer - ohjeez
http://www.bankofengland.co.uk/banknotes/polymer/Pages/default.aspx
======
switch007
> The Serious Fraud Office and the Australian Federal Police are conducting a
> joint investigation into the activities of the employees and agents of
> Securency International PTY Ltd and their alleged corrupt role in securing
> international polymer banknote contracts.
> The trial of Peter Chapman is currently on-going and began on 4 April 2016
> at Southwark Crown Court. Mr Chapman’s first court appearance was on 5 May
> 2015 at Westminster Magistrates Court. There he faced six charges under the
> Prevention of Corruption Act of allegedly making corrupt payments to an
> overseas official in order to secure contracts of polymer for his company,
> Securency. The alleged offences took place between 9 July 2007 and 18 March
> 2009. He has been remanded in custody.
[https://www.sfo.gov.uk/cases/innovia-securency-pty-
ltd/](https://www.sfo.gov.uk/cases/innovia-securency-pty-ltd/)
------
semi-extrinsic
Polymer banknotes were introduced in '88 by Australia, who switched completely
to polymer in '96\. Other (ex-)commonwealth nations have followed suit, so
it's not that surprising Britain is switching as well.
~~~
kevin_thibedeau
The question is will they be using the same Australian printer as many of the
other countries that have switched to polymer notes. Seems like a big single
point failure node at this point.
~~~
kuschku
I think the Eurozone uses a different polymer printer than Australia, so the
UK might just use the same as the rest of the EU.
~~~
Symbiote
The euro is printed on paper.
Romania is the only European country to use polymer notes.
~~~
kuschku
Not anymore, at all.
For 2 years now it’s been on polymer:
[https://www.ecb.europa.eu/euro/banknotes/europa/html/index.e...](https://www.ecb.europa.eu/euro/banknotes/europa/html/index.en.html)
~~~
davb
That's really interesting, I didn't know that. Does anyone know what the
timescale is for phasing out paper? I seen that the website mentions parallel
issuance for a period - in the last year I've visited Munich and Paris and
only come across paper.
I'm genuinely interested to see how the logistics of rolling out a new
material will work across such a large area with so many countries and banks
involved
~~~
kuschku
5€ bills were replaced several years ago, 10€ bills over the course of last
year, and now 20€ bills were replaced already.
The old 10€ bills stopped showing up in the change I got from stores by end of
2015, and around march 2016 the old 20€ bills stopped showing up.
Obviously, they’re still in use in several places.
And regarding the rollout: Most banks have had to accept dozens of possible
payment methods, for them one more type of bills is not an issue. Producing
the money is more of an issue, but the link I mentioned before has an article
about that, too.
~~~
Symbiote
These new notes are paper. It says so on (1).
I don't live in the Eurozone, but I have a new and old €20, and the paper is
the same. I have an old €50, and a new €5, and the paper is the same.
Polymer notes almost always have transparent windows, and they feel like
plastic, not paper.
(1) [http://www.new-euro-banknotes.eu/Euro-
Banknotes/PRODUCTION](http://www.new-euro-banknotes.eu/Euro-
Banknotes/PRODUCTION)
~~~
kuschku
The €20 note has a transparent window, and feels like plastic.
Are you sure you have actually gotten one of the new €20 notes?
~~~
Symbiote
Do you have one? The window is only in the security strip, and it's clear on
the reverse where the window has been cut out from the paper. The plastic is
applied somehow to one side of the note.
Polymer notes like those I've used from New Zealand and Vietnam have the whole
thing made from plastic, and no paper at all. Example:
[http://banknote.ws/COLLECTION/countries/ASI/VIE/VIE0124.htm](http://banknote.ws/COLLECTION/countries/ASI/VIE/VIE0124.htm)
See, for example, [http://www.reuters.com/article/us-euro-fakes-
idUSBREA0C0JQ20...](http://www.reuters.com/article/us-euro-fakes-
idUSBREA0C0JQ20140113) I can find no mention anywhere of polymer Euros.
~~~
kuschku
As far as I know they’re a cotton-nylon base with plastic coating on top, in
contrast to the previous cotton-paper base without coating.
That counts as plastic money, IMO.
------
tombrossman
Slightly off-topic but did anyone else find it amusing that the Bank of
England website does not support HTTPS? I think that's the first bank website
I've ever seen that uses HTTP only.
~~~
chrisseaton
It's all just policy information on there. It's not online banking. It'd be
nice if all sites were available on HTTPS, but it's not unusual or funny.
~~~
tombrossman
There are many reasons to switch to HTTPS - protecting financial data in
transit is just one of them. Here's an overview with further explanations but
many similar examples exist: [https://snyk.io/blog/10-reasons-to-use-
https/](https://snyk.io/blog/10-reasons-to-use-https/)
~~~
chrisseaton
Yes, amazingly I understand that. But it's not any more surprising or funny
that the Bank of England would be on HTTP compared to any other policy website
which still isn't on HTTPS.
~~~
tombrossman
Okay, fair point. Perhaps I did not explain myself thoroughly.
When I see bank + policy + not just some random bank but the BANK OF ENGLAND,
I do expect to see HTTPS guaranteeing the integrity of what is unquestionably
important and influential data being served to decision makers.
This amused me, but maybe I'm just easily amused.
------
jonahrd
I like the Canadian plastic money. The only complaint is that when working
retail you have to deal with people who fold their bills ot put them in a
small wallet, and the bills are so much harder to unfold than paper making
them difficult to count.
~~~
adiabatty
I swapped some bills with a Canadian friend when he came to visit. They're
nice and space-agey, but I couldn't feel the difference between them and the
receipts in my wallet. I'd miss the ability to distinguish between bills and
receipts by touch if we ever moved to plastic money.
~~~
davb
This raises an interesting point for visually impaired people. Sure, once you
separate the banknotes and other paper, UK notes can be differentiated by
their dimensions. But it might result in some confusion if similarly sized and
textured receipts get mixed in with the banknotes.
~~~
thedays
The next generation of polymer banknotes in Australia will have a tactile
feature to help visually impaired people - see [http://www.rba.gov.au/media-
releases/2015/mr-15-02.html](http://www.rba.gov.au/media-
releases/2015/mr-15-02.html)
These new tactile notes haven't been released publicly yet.
------
oblio
We've had them in Romania for about 15 years or so. They're just great.
------
vegabook
a) be thankful that banknotes are not being withdrawn altogether, but...
b) mention of the 50 suspicious by its absence.
~~~
Symbiote
The £50 has only relatively recently been reissued, and presumably lasts a
long time in circulation.
There's an FAQ on the bank site, buried in a PDF, saying it will be considered
later.
~~~
vegabook
...more likely it is being considered for withdrawal from circulation
altogether for all the usual war-on-cash reasons. Indeed, in large amounts,
500 euro notes are already selling for 515 euros for reasons of moving money
outside of the banking system (demand very high in China), so as to avoid that
system's prying eyes, and also for reasons of negative interest rates becoming
the norm. The GBP 50 has the same bad reputation in _bien pensant_ policy
circles.
Anonymous, large-denomination notes have this amazing attribute that they are
_not_ easily controllable by politicians and central banks, the latter in
their quest for negative rates particularly stymied by them. By contrast
wealth in your bank account, or the dematerialized stocks and bonds that you
might own, can be switched off completely with a few SQL queries, on demand.
~~~
Symbiote
€500 is worth £390, not really comparable.
£50 is worth less than $100, so I doubt it's of much interest to international
criminals.
With inflation, it's useful in Britain, though difficult to get as only a
couple of cash points in Canary Wharf dispense it.
------
Aelinsaar
Is the US likely to follow suit?
~~~
microcolonel
Honestly I hope not, we have polymer notes in Canada and they tear horribly. I
have lost bills just pulling them out of my wallet, most tellers will not take
them unless you mend them first.
U.S. bills are excellent, and I would encourage them to continue printing them
as-is.
~~~
timthorn
The Bank of England has a very good reputation for reimbursing people with
damaged notes:
[http://www.bankofengland.co.uk/banknotes/Pages/damaged_bankn...](http://www.bankofengland.co.uk/banknotes/Pages/damaged_banknotes.aspx)
~~~
vermontdevil
US as well
[http://www.moneyfactory.gov/submitaclaim.html](http://www.moneyfactory.gov/submitaclaim.html)
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
My biology paper in Science - nabla9
http://www.scottaaronson.com/blog/?p=2862
======
biounit
A better title for your link would be - "OUR biology paper in Science." Big
congratulations on the paper. Impressive.
------
Rainymood
>ZYX _Y_ = GATTACA TAG AGT CTA.
Subtle ;) I like it.
------
guard-of-terra
That's nice!
Turns out, biologists (many kinds of scientists probably) are in need of
computer modelling, information retrieval and so on. Naturally it gives
opportunity to us IT folks, even without terribly much scientific background.
I've co-authored a biology paper too. Here is the resulting code:
[https://github.com/alamar/microbe](https://github.com/alamar/microbe)
------
myrloc
Looks fascinating. Does anyone want to summarize?
------
anc84
If papers themselves were written like that, "science" would be so much more
approachable!
~~~
johncolanduoni
Unfortunately this is hard to do because (a) insufficient time (b)
insufficient number of Scott Aaronsons. I struggle to think of anyone else who
can write about science in such an accessible way (without convenient
misconceptions and falsehoods).
~~~
beambot
Not sure that's true... It takes a lot of effort to translate text into
concise science speak ("I'd have written a shorter letter if only I had more
time").
This would have a huge added benefit of making per review easier, making
science more approachable, and making it all less pedantic.
~~~
the_duke
Domain specific language and formalisms exist for a reason. They enable
efficient communication for people who know the field.
Scientific papers are not written for the layman with an interest, but to
communicate the results of your research to others in the field.
Admittedly a lot of papers are also just written to keep your University from
giving your job to someone else. But publish or perish is another issue.
I agree that there should be more scientists writing articles / blogs that
make their research approachable and engaging for the layman, but that does
not extend to papers, in my opinion.
~~~
Arnt
Or, perhaps: They enable grants.
I've only ever helped write a single grant application. My parts of that had
to be rewritten with more use of passive verbs and general neutral-sounding
but largely vacuous prose.
I thought it's like those chick jokes. You don't offer comments about random
women's gorgeous breasts because you really want to, it's just expected in
some contexts. It tells the audience you're one of the guys. Overlong
sentences where all that's done is passively done inform the grant reviewers
that the author a proper scientist who should be enabled to continue with
valuable research.
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Founders: live with cofounders or not? - OpenWebU
Here's the situation: I have an extra room at my home. A developer I have been working with overseas is now excited about the idea, and is willing to fly here and live in the extra room to accelerate the project. We're doing ok in our current working relationship - he's consulting to pay his bills -- my stuff is 2nd or 3rd priority -- things are getting done but slowly. He knows about my boyfriend, and my boyfriend knows him. So, here's the question: is living with cofounders a good idea or not? One friend says, do it - it would accelerate the project. Another friend says don't - it would make things personal and make it difficult to make business decisions. I'd like to hear about others'opinions on this - thanks.
======
donw
I would vote for 'no'; you will spend so much time around each other, with no
way to really separate your own spaces, that it will make you sick and
reclusive. If anything goes south, you then have more than just a business
that dies -- you have to deal with tenants, and there's likely additional
legal ramifications as well.
~~~
rksprst
I would also say "no" for similar reasons. Your project is not his first
priority and I doubt that will change once he moves into your apartment. I
think that having cofounders living together is great if you guys are a couple
or have been best friends since elementary school. Otherwise though, I can
only see problems from this arrangement.
If he wants to move to your city then let him, than you can have weekly
meetings at starbucks or something. But I'd not recommend living with a random
developer that is your cofounder just because you have an extra room. Again, I
can only see problems arising from this (both professional and personal).
I'd be curious to hear what you decide to do. Let us know.
------
lux
Ultimately, how much are you willing to sacrifice for the project? That
includes sanity ;) Shared living can make things difficult, but if it's needed
to give your project the extra boost it needs, it may make sense to try. At
least living in the same city so you can meet regularly really helps, since
there's nothing like face to face sometimes for quick idea exchange.
Ground rules, respect for each others' privacy, and talking all that out up
front seems to be the best approach if you're going to room together, so
you're not making assumptions about who will do what and when. My current
roommates are the messiest I've ever lived with, and since I work from home
that makes it a really hard work environment. They have to be told to do even
the most basic things or they won't do them. Fortunately, I'm moving June 1st.
I was actually talking with my business partner about becoming roommates, but
we're still on the fence about it. The place has to afford enough privacy and
space separation that our respective messiness won't drive the other one
crazy...
So I couldn't give a definite yes or no, but do exercise caution and plan
accordingly :)
------
pxlpshr
For a time, 4 of us live together and work from a house our investor owned in
bel-air. The year is coming to a close and I must say, it was both worthwhile
for the company and a blast as a personal experience. Felt like 3 years
crammed into 1...
Make sure to give each other personal space... and be very tolerant of each
other's annoyances, cause you have them too. :)
------
amrithk
It depends. A few months ago, my current room-mate had an idea for a startup.
We decided to move in together as it would be easier to brainstorm ideas,
code, and plan what we needed to do. Both of us have full-time day-jobs and we
work on week-nights and week-ends on our idea.
We have been pretty good so far in seperating work from our personal
activities. We both make sacrifices to move our project forward. At the same
time however, we don't interfere with each other's personal issues and
activities. It takes some time to have a good arrangement and the best thing
to do would be to communicate your expectations to the developer, and also
listen to what he wants in terms of a working relationships. Lastly, I would
recommend doing social things together with your developer. For example, you
could have dinners with your developer and boyfriend. Such activities
strengthen the working relationship and inspire everyone to continue working
on the project.
~~~
rksprst
If she was good friends with the developer then I would agree with you, but
from what I could tell from her post, the developer is not a friend but
someone she probably met and hired online. In that case, I would definitely
say no to moving in together.
~~~
rglullis
I hope I won't be misunderstood, but I wouldn't be so sure to call the poster
a "she". There is nothing in the post that guarantees that the poster is
female. Is there?
~~~
ardit33
True. I learnt this in my second week in SF. At my first salsa lesson, we
split in two lines, between "leaders" and "followers", to match up, and I see
this guy in front of me. Me: You are in the wrong line Him: No, I am not. I
hope it is ok with you
umm...... ok, sure.... it was kinda awkward,
~~~
a-priori
This is getting off-topic, but...
A couple years ago my girlfriend and I took swing dancing lessons. Although I
normally led, for one of the exercises everyone switched roles; I learnt to
follow, and she learnt to lead. That was probably the single most helpful
exercise of that class.
------
attack
I've been there and it worked great. That was for same gender and while single
though.
So, depends. No pressure either way.
------
OpenWebU
Hey, thanks for the advice. I got one email from someone who recognized me who
said, "Are you on crack cocaine?" but he's a lawyer.
Including my friends' votes, the tally is 7 Positives and 5 Negatives. The
developer is from Europe, so the longest he can stay here on a travel visa is
3 months for education and training purposes. And, by law, I can't pay him.
According to several people, I need a technical cofounder. The startup is a
risk, time is money - and I have a solid working relationship with this guy.
His willingness to come out here from Europe is a huge vote of confidence, so
I'm veering towards yes.
I appreciate everyone's stories suggestions for the kinds of details that need
to be worked out. If for some reason things go south, I'll repost here with
lessons learned. Thanks again for the input.
------
mkull
The first 6 months of my startup the 3 founders lived together , and worked
from the same (large) apartment. I would say that was a keystone in us being
able to put in the 24/7 focus/communication/time necessary to get it off the
ground.
~~~
pxlpshr
yep!
------
Flemlord
The most important thing is to be in the same room during the day when you're
working on your company. Ideally, you would live in separate residences but
meet in your house during the workday. But if living together is the only way
to make it happen, you should do it.
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
A Simple Explanation for Why HP Abandoned Palm - A-K
http://daringfireball.net/2011/08/hp_apotheker
======
acangiano
I think his interpretation of the facts is very plausible. Sadly, Larry
Ellison was absolutely right when he said, at the time of Hurd's scandal, "the
HP Board just made the worst personnel decision since the idiots on the Apple
Board fired Steve Jobs many years ago."
Good CEOs who can revamp stagnant companies are hard to come by, particularly
in the consumer space. Hurd was that CEO, Apotheker is not. And getting out of
the consumer space, at a time when there are several paradigm shifts going on,
means missing huge opportunities.
~~~
blinkingled
Firing Hurd was the right thing to do - I will argue that they were late. Hurd
was seen as aligning with Oracle and making decisions that did not conflict
with Oracle. EDS, conveniently missed Sun acquisition, consumer focus in lieu
of enterprise paints a consistent picture. There is a reason Hurd now works at
Oracle and Larry did not like him getting fired. Besides show me what he did
apart from cost cutting.
Apotheker comes from Oracle's competitor SAP. To that effect he isn't shy of
focusing on interests that happen to conflict with Oracle's. To that end, what
Gruber is saying is right - the board always wanted more Enterprise focus and
that required going against Oracle. That's what Apotheker is doing.
As for missed opportunities - it does not matter. HP just does not have the
DNA to do great in the already saturated PC and phone/tablets market. Not
having to deal with that means they can focus their resources and capital
where they are well oiled to do great. It only mattered if HP managed to get a
CEO that can change its DNA - Neither Hurd nor Apotheker were into that. If
they could have found a great consumer focused CEO with proven and relevant
record, then it would have been worthwhile to risk competing in consumer space
when it meant losing focus on Enterprise. Otherwise its just not really smart.
And they are still not giving up on webOS. But the only catches here are they
don't yet know what to do with webOS and the Oracle/Itanium problem. With PSG
off their bottom line they could now afford to ignore webOS until they find
the right thing for it and focus their hardware resources to sell more
proliants and fix the Itanium problem. That's the idea.
~~~
palish
Wait --- what? They fired Hurd as a direct consequence of him paying a hooker.
What's that got to do with strategy? Or are we claiming that it's "okay to
lie" about why someone is being fired..?
~~~
teyc
Hurd didn't pay a hooker. At worst he was having an affair with a events
organiser. With full hindsight, I'd say the board wanted Hurd and consumer
business out.
~~~
wisty
At worst, he used company funds to pay for his affair. That's a big no-no.
------
cletus
I tend to agree with the basic reasoning but there's one thing I don't
understand.
Why cancel the TouchPad? Why not just spin that out with the hardware business
to Compaq (which is the idea, yes?)? It seems they've devalued that unit by
killing WebOS.
All PC makers are on razor thin margins... apart from Apple. A post from
yesterday [1] painted an interesting picture where Dell, through a series of
seemingly rational decisions, essentially taught Asus the PC business,
allowing the Taiwanese manufacturers to eat US PC makers for breakfast in
later years.
[1]: <http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2907187>
~~~
chollida1
> Why not just spin that out with the hardware business to Compaq (which is
> the idea, yes?)? It seems they've devalued that unit by killing WebOS.
I'd imagine one of the biggest reasons is patents. If they spin out the
business they have to sell the patents. If they're going into a new market
where they don't traditionally have alot of expertise their only chance of not
getting sued into oblivion is to be able to cross license patents.
Spinning off the Palm patent portfolio significantly hurts them in this
regard.
With the price of patents being what it is these days, it might have been
worth more to them to keep the patents and bury the project.
~~~
nknight
What? Why would they have to sell the patents? Keep the patents, license them
to the spin-off, no?
~~~
raganwald
In the current legal environment, my guess is that a technology with patent
licenses is nearly worthless compared to a technology with patents. Note that
if someone wants to _license_ webOS, naturally they license the patents. But
who would want to buy the business but not the IP? That’s like licensing the
operating system, being responsible for maintaining it, and paying a massive
fee for the license up front. Such a business would be hard to run and hard to
sell since you aren’t buying the IP and therefore can’t resell it.
------
sek
WebOS was for Hurd just a fig leaf to make a future orientated impression, in
reality were all the profits he made short term.
What HP needs now is focus and that is what Apotheker is doing. Some people
are disappointed that it is not consumer orientated, but when you look at the
"smart phone wars" this seems reasonable to me. HP can't compete with Google,
Apple and Microsoft there. Look at Nokia and Blackberry.
~~~
masklinn
> What HP needs now is focus and that is what Apotheker is doing.
Yes and no. Focusing would be to reduce the surface of the corporation to its
core business, basically what Jobs did when he got back to Apple.
What Apotheker is doing is to change HP's business altogether.
~~~
skrebbel
> What Apotheker is doing is to change HP's business altogether.
No he isn't, he's reducing its scope to the most profitable and future-proof
business units. HP is one of the world's biggest enterprise software business.
Yes, also before they bought Autonomy. They just _also_ make PCs and printers
and the likes, which makes consumers not know any better than "HP is a PC and
printer maker".
~~~
masklinn
Uh... before they decided to end it, "PCs and printers and the like" made up
the majority of HP's business.
HPSD is a very tiny fraction of HP: 14000 employees out of 320000 worldwide,
and that's after having bought 15 companies in barely 5 years. We're talking
$3.5bn _revenue_ , out of $126bn for the whole company. HP is a very small
software business, it's a big hardware and _services_ business: HPES, formerly
EDS, makes up ~$35bn of HP's revenue
~~~
teyc
That reminds me, HP acquired an Australian company Tower Software back in 2008
[1]. That was three years ago. I think these acquisitions have paid dividends
and now HP are signalling they are "all in" and put up all their chips in the
software and services space.
[1] <http://www.hp.com/hpinfo/newsroom/press/2008/080331xb.html>
------
dgreensp
I have no faith in HP's leadership.
I was talking to an insider last year about how HP wanted to be a computer
maker. I said, "I know them for their printers, they make awesome printers."
He said, "Yeah, they're not so interested in printers these days. They think
the money's in computers."
I guess it's whatever the "money's in" this week.
------
nikcub
The HP board made the decision, and I am surprised that nobody has yet made
the link between Andreessen's editorial in the WSJ (he sits on the HP board)
and this recent shakeup.
~~~
chalst
Links, since I looked for them myself:
1\. _Why software is eating the world_ , 20th August.
[http://online.wsj.com/article/SB1000142405311190348090457651...](http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424053111903480904576512250915629460.html)
2\. HN thread: <http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2905410>
------
ayanb
HP has a highly distinguished board of directors. I find it strange that no
one is highlighting the fact that Léo Apotheker is definitely enjoying the
vote of confidence of the top level executives, otherwise this would have
never been possible.
~~~
bvi
Remember, HP's board underwent a major shakeup once Léo came in:
[http://management.fortune.cnn.com/2011/01/28/hp%E2%80%99s-bo...](http://management.fortune.cnn.com/2011/01/28/hp%E2%80%99s-board-
shakeup-apothekers-master-plan/)
~~~
codedivine
Indeed, I just looked at
[http://h30261.www3.hp.com/phoenix.zhtml?c=71087&p=irol-g...](http://h30261.www3.hp.com/phoenix.zhtml?c=71087&p=irol-
govboard)
There are 14 board members in total including Leo the CEO. Out of 13, 6 were
appointed in 2011 while the board leader (Lane) was appointed at the same time
as Leo Apotheker. That means out of 14, only 6 precede Leo.
------
forgotAgain
HP also wants to be in the cloud. After the past week I think they've killed
that as well. Who would lock themselves in to HP at this point?
------
Tichy
That's stating the obvious. Another question would be, why was Apotheker
hired? Whoever did that must have expected something like that?
------
llambda
I guess this is why the vision of the CEO matters so much to investors (think
Jobs). But regardless, HP was in trouble. I wonder if they would have stayed
in the hardware business even if Hurd had stayed on. Maybe WebOS was not long
for the company regardless of who was at the helm; its unequivocal success
notwithstanding, maybe it'd have been abandoned anyway.
------
rwmj
This quote: "Autonomy — a company I’d never heard of before but which more or
less sounds like a rival to SAP" tells you everything you need to know about
the blogger. He knows very little about the software business, and is just
making up opinions based on his gut feeling, without backing it up with
knowledge or evidence.
~~~
VengefulCynic
Have you been to Autonomy's website? Seriously... go have a look... have a
look at the 'Introduction to Autonomy' page:
[http://www.autonomy.com/content/Autonomy/introduction/index....](http://www.autonomy.com/content/Autonomy/introduction/index.en.html)
"Organizations already benefiting from Autonomy technology include Avis, BAE
Systems, BBC, BMW, Coca-Cola, CNN, Ericsson, Fiat, Financial Times,
GlaxoSmithKline, Isabel Healthcare, KPMG, Linklaters, Lloyds TSB, NASA,
Nestle, Oracle, Philips, Safeway, Schneider Electric, Shell, T-Mobile, The
European Commission, The U.K. Houses of Parliament, The U.S. Department of
Homeland Security and The U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission."
If Autonomy isn't enterprise software on the order of SAP (if not exactly the
same business), they sure write confusing marketing copy.
------
dr_
Just because Hurd decided to bet big on WebOS - it doesn't mean that bet was
ever going to pay off. Gruber is correct and HP and Apotheker are going along
with their plan as intended. The tablet/phone business was a long shot and
their PC business over time was going to get weaker, they don't own the OS and
hardware is tough to compete in with Chinese manufacturers. Their best shot at
long term survival was enterprise software, and that's what they are doing.
Perhaps they could come up with some kind of enterprise solution for WebOS in
the future, but it's probably not their focus right now.
------
nivertech
_"Autonomy — a company I’d never heard of before"_
Autonomy is a leader in their field
~~~
masklinn
Which is very small and hard to see, especially for one Gruber which does not
work as a corporate drone
~~~
nivertech
NLP, Text Categorization, Unstructured Data is a huge field.
I worked in a startup, whose competition was Autonomy's consumer internet
spin-off in 2001
------
bugsy
I don't see what the big advantage is of CEOs few have heard of being dragged
in to nuke existing companies and rebuild them in the image of the old company
he used to work at. Why not just nuke the company out of spite (or
alternatively sell off all assets and give to charity if not spiteful) and
have the CEO stay at the old place and keep doing the same thing. Same outcome
but not as painfully dragged out.
Obviously if you keep doing multi billion dollar acquisitions, and then trash
it all and fire everyone a couple years later when you switch CEOS, and then
when things get even worse, fire that CEO with a golden parachute and bring it
his cousin to do it all again, pretty soon your company headquarters are going
to be an abandoned grassy field.
Talk about burn rate!
------
daimyoyo
It's really too bad. I really wanted webOS to gain some traction but now that
HP has all but killed it, it seems incredibly unlikely that webOS will be
anything more than a footnote in history.
~~~
agilemanic
same here. I really liked webOS and thought about buying a Pre, but it was
just too small. That's why I was looking forward to the Touchpad. Big screen
and a very nice OS :-/
------
thewileyone
Wow ... first time I'm agreeing with Gruber whole-heartedly.
------
nvictor
walmart - sold out
target - sold out
best buy - sold out
online hp shop - sold out
office depot - sold out
amazon - ripping off customers with original price
newegg - rip off also
where am i gonna get my touchpad future android mega device? ;(
------
buster
Atleast now HP now has a pretty valuable portfolio of patents of Palm
------
dramaticus3
fireball is a visionary genius
~~~
j_col
Up-voting because I'm assuming you're being ironic ;-)
------
anigbrowl
Autonomy is nothing like SAP. What a ridiculous, empty post.
~~~
webfuel
On the wikipedia page for Autonomy Corporation, under competitors, you'll find
_SAP NetWeaver Enterprise Search plus SAP Business Objects Text Analysis_
[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_enterprise_search_vendo...](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_enterprise_search_vendors)
~~~
allertonm
I tend to agree with anigbrowl. While there are some overlapping products,
those things are a tiny fraction of what SAP sells and far from their core
business (I used to work for SAP Business Objects.)
~~~
bradleyland
If looked at closely enough, no two businesses are alike. The question is,
what's relevant to the discussion? In the scope of comparing consumer products
vs business consulting, we can paint with broad enough strokes to call SAP and
Autonomy "similar" businesses.
~~~
allertonm
Perhaps so, but in this case you don't have to look too closely.
Autonomy & SAP have similar _customers_ , true. But the suggestion in Gruber's
post is that the purchase of Autonomy is a substitute for a purchase of SAP.
Which is a bit like saying the purchase of a front drivers side door mirror is
a substitute for the purchase of a car.
(Downvotes too, jeez.)
~~~
bradleyland
I'm stating this earnestly to try and explain why I think you're receiving a
negative reaction. You'll chose how to take it. I sincerely mean no offense by
it.
You're being downvoted because you are arguing a point that no one is making.
_No one is saying that SAP and Autonomy are in the same business._
It's almost like you're _choosing_ not to get it, just so you can talk about
the differences between SAP and Autonomy.
This is, more or less, the thesis of Gruber's post:
> The thing is, Apotheker’s relevant experience was serving as CEO of SAP.
> What’s SAP? SAP is an enterprise software and consulting company. Honestly,
> we all should have seen this coming. You don’t bring in an enterprise
> consulting guy to turn around a PC and device maker. You bring in an
> enterprise consulting guy to turn a PC and device maker into an enterprise
> consulting company.
The only portion of the post where Gruber makes even a remotely questionable
comparison is this statement:
> Autonomy — a company I’d never heard of before but which more or less sounds
> like a rival to SAP
He off-handedly likens Autonomy to SAP. Maybe that's wrong, but it _doesn't
matter_.
Follow us all here:
Fact: HP was a hardware products company.
Fact: Apotheker was head of SAP, an "enterprise consulting" company.
Inference: Apotheker is going to take HP in an "enterprise consulting"
direction, not a "hardware products" direction.
Arguing whether Autonomy and SAP are the same business is tangential to the
point.
~~~
allertonm
I don't have downvoting capability, otherwise I'd downvote you for
condescension.
Gruber's a great writer for the most part, but this particular instance of his
work is pretty trite and hardly a unique observation. His lack of knowledge
about the players in the space should give a clue to readers about how much
weight to give the rest of his insights about this subject.
~~~
Anti-Ratfish
I don't get it. The bit that is contentious is so far from the point of his
post that it's not of importance. Why be bothered by it?
------
iand
He's never heard of Autonomy so therefore assumes it's similar to SAP? Hmmm.
~~~
rimantas
Why do you assume he assumes instead of doing some little research?
~~~
iand
I'm quoting him: "Autonomy — a company I’d never heard of before but which
more or less sounds like a rival to SAP."
That indicates he didn't do much research. Another thing that indicates lack
of research is that his comparison of Autonomy to SAP is wrong.
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
SolarCity: Tesla's Solar Boondoggle - microtherion
https://www.fool.com/investing/2017/10/18/solarcity-teslas-solar-boondoggle.aspx
======
olivermarks
I have a feeling Tesla could be this generation's DeLorean....
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Show HN: Eternum: Easy IPFS pinning - stelabouras
https://www.eternum.io/
======
fiatjaf
I've been looking for this service for a long time. I liked the way it works
and the simple interface.
What happens if my balance is exhausted? Do you notify me or my files are just
gone?
~~~
StavrosK
We notify you when your balance drops below $1, which should be enough time to
top-up again. In the future we're thinking of having that notify N days before
we estimate your balance going to 0.
By the way, the site uses trackingco.de for analytics, so I can give you some
free balance to return the favor :)
~~~
fiatjaf
Good to know about that, because I tried to top up $1 earlier, the browser
didn't allow me, then I edited the DOM manually and succeeded in getting a
Stripe payment modal -- however it seems that the notification system wasn't
ready for misers like me.
Thank you for the free balance, that was very kind!
~~~
StavrosK
Haha, the $2 minimum was too much, huh? :P
------
sharemywin
I'm trying to understand.
Why use this service when dropbox, microsoft and google offer free plans. And
are 10x-15x cheaper at scale?
and this allows you to bundle multiple services together.
[https://www.opendrive.com/opendrive-is-on-
odrive](https://www.opendrive.com/opendrive-is-on-odrive)
~~~
StavrosK
This service is for pinning files on IPFS. Say, for example, that someone
wants to publish a paper that they want to always be available (even if a
government tries to take it down). IPFS helps by making distribution p2p, as
anyone who accesses the file can also redistribute it until it expires from
their cache.
Pinning removes this expiration, and serves the file forever. Eternum provides
that service, making sure the file will always be on at least one node, and
thus always accessible.
It's not really comparable to Dropbox or S3 at all.
Our marketing currently assumes you're familiar with IPFS, as I don't think
the service will be too useful directly if you aren't. Maybe we should change
that, though.
Another avenue for this is, for example, what IPFessay
([http://ipfessay.stavros.io](http://ipfessay.stavros.io)) does: it publishes
a file on IPFS and then invites you to click a link to Eternum to pin it, even
without knowing how IPFS or Eternum work.
~~~
sharemywin
you will still take it down with a DMCA request though.
~~~
StavrosK
From our server. We can't do anything about taking it down from the network.
~~~
tscs37
If nobody else has a copy of the paper on the network?
~~~
StavrosK
If a file is so obscure that nobody has ever wanted to read it, and it was
only on one node, and that node also stops serving it, then it leaves the
network until someone puts it back in.
~~~
tscs37
Well, then the pinning service is a bit useless, isn't it?
If it's popular it should not need pinning, if it's not popular it needs
pinning but can be easily censored...
~~~
StavrosK
I don't understand. If you want to keep child porn available, I'm afraid
you'll have to find another service. If you're writing subversive propaganda
against the Erdogan regime, we're happy to keep that pinned.
~~~
tscs37
This isn't about Childporn, it's about papers.
You claim to pin stuff on IPFS, however you also say you comply to DMCA.
Unless you want legal trouble, this means you'll have to comply with any DMCA
request that might be remotely valid.
Search up "Alex Mauer" to get a recent example of how DMCA can and will be
misused.
Unless you want to get in trouble with big publishers, you will have to censor
users on your service, it is essentially useless for niche files that cause
legal trouble, regardless of how that is resolved.
How is your pinning service useful to keep such files online? How do you plan
to defend yourself against the Erdogan or Chinese Regime?
~~~
StavrosK
I'm not sure what your argument is. Do you want to post pirated files, or
files for which someone else has the copyright? Why do Erdogan or the Chinese
Regime want to use the DMCA against you?
~~~
jononor
Why would they not use DMCA? It has been used for not-really-copyright-issue
before.
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Steve Jobs Tried to Hire Linux Creator Linus Torvalds to Work on OS X - Brajeshwar
http://www.macrumors.com/2012/03/22/steve-jobs-tried-to-hire-linux-creator-linus-torvalds-to-work-on-os-x/
======
DHowett
This came up and was discussed at length yesterday.
<http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3741813>
------
dfc
Even less interesting today than yesterday:
<http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3741813>
~~~
zalew
and before, when the source article was discussed
<http://hackerne.ws/item?id=3731600>
------
peterb
Mr. Closed vs. Mr. Open?? It would never happen, but I admire Mr. Jobs for at
least trying.
~~~
mvkel
It's not 'closed' vs. 'open', it's business man vs. engineer.
Apple has a few core development projects they offer for free. Darwin and
Webkit to name a few.
The root issue is: Steve Jobs would never understand why you would do
something that makes no business sense. Linus would never understand why you
wouldn't give something away for free if you could.
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Castle Story by Sauropod Studio - the next Minecraft? - brd
http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/902505202/castle-story/
======
wreckimnaked
When you say "the next Minecraft", are you referring to the some innovation on
game dynamics or to the fact that it is an attempt to mimic Minecraft's
gameplay style?
PS: Betteridge's law
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
'Homeland Security could inspect what enters the United States in cyberspace' - azarias
http://rt.com/usa/news/dhs-internet-clarke-cyber-355/
======
dtf
From the Op-ed: "Should hackers uncover classified information and hand it
over to the Chinese, writes Clarke, America’s “competitive edge” against other
nations will be jeopardized."
An alternative to legislation might be to spend money and effort on a
programme teaching American firms how to implement modern security. But this
kind of practical approach fails to open the channels required to snoop on the
general public.
------
tomg
Great Firewall of America.
------
DanielBMarkham
There are several rewrites of this article. Might be best just to let Clarke
make his argument in his own words instead of reading a re-hash.
[http://www.nytimes.com/2012/04/03/opinion/how-china-
steals-o...](http://www.nytimes.com/2012/04/03/opinion/how-china-steals-our-
secrets.html)
~~~
gee_totes
Totally agree.
<rant> My personal opinion is that RT is simply jazzy anti-American propaganda
sold by Putin to the english speaking world. I do not think they are a
legitimate news source. For a backup of my propaganda claim, please compare
their coverage of the Occupy movement with Russian protests against Putin.
</rant>
~~~
GigabyteCoin
Thank you. I fully agree. RT is sponsored completely (they have next to no
advertising) by the Government of the Russian Federation.
I have a really tough time believing anything they say, too.
I turned it on the other night because my conspiracy theorist loving buddy
enjoys their programming apparently, and everything was "USA is bad because of
this"... "USA doesn't do that right"...
I mentioned that you shouldn't believe everything the russian goverment says
and said "buddy" literally flipped out. He accused me of attacking his
character and intelligence. I'm half worried he has been brainwashed by that
channel. He is usually a pretty easy going guy.
------
tomp
That's not that bad of an idea, from the perspective of the rest of the
world... At least the US would stop fucking around with the global network!
And, foreign costumers (e.g. from the EU) could enjoy better privacy
protections if sites like Facebook become inaccessible.
~~~
jonursenbach
But foreign customers might not be able to use Twitter or Facebook in their
revolutions.
~~~
astrodust
Since those were blocked the revolution was directed through dating sites.
Example: [http://abcnews.go.com/Technology/muslim-dating-site-
madawi-s...](http://abcnews.go.com/Technology/muslim-dating-site-madawi-seeds-
libyan-revolution/story?id=12981938#.T38hcFEdMdc)
------
schwit
How do you inspect encrypted data?
~~~
astrodust
You decrypt it, obviously. A lot of the so-called encrypted traffic is barely
encrypted at all because key generators aren't sufficiently random.
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Edge install undermines Microsoft’s argument that automatic updates are critical - butz
https://www.theverge.com/21310611/microsoft-edge-browser-forced-update-chromium-editorial
======
encoderer
Without respect to the facts, it's funny as hell to see this called "a new
low" when browser bundling is what got them sued by the United States 20 years
ago.
~~~
default-kramer
This is worse in my opinion. In the '90s, you could argue that precedent
hadn't truly been set yet. Now that case is almost common knowledge in tech.
They can't even pretend to have an excuse this time around. Until today, I
thought "Microsoft is doing pretty good." Now I want nothing more than to see
them sued/fined heavily for this.
EDIT: I can see now that I wrote carelessly. By "This is worse" I meant "This
is more blatantly illegal." Not "This is more detrimental to the world." The
'90s browser bundling was probably much more detrimental, but not unexpected
behavior. But the recent behavior was very unexpected to me. I had to use Task
Manager to kill it. I can't believe Microsoft would be so bold as to not even
give me some small, hard-to-read "no thanks" button somewhere.
~~~
hinkley
We weren't mad at Microsoft for bundling software. We were mad at them for
strangling out anyone whose shadow even looked like competition.
People with 10% market share are allowed to do a whole hell of a lot of things
that become illegal when you have 90% market share. I suspect this is part of
why monopolies are so uniformly recalcitrant. From their perspective, we
didn't have problems with them doing this 10 years ago, why are we upset about
it now when they have assets worth taking away as a punishment? It's just a
money grab. They're just winning and we're just jealous.
If I own a grocery store, I'm selling formula for below cost to get people
into my store. It's called a Loss Leader. If I'm the biggest formula maker in
the world, and I sell formula below cost, that's called Dumping and I will be
fined and punished if anyone can prove that I am 'too big' and that this is
driving competition out of business.
~~~
perl4ever
If there are major economies of scale to a business, what if it's optimal to
have a duopoly, regulated of course to prevent collusion? Maybe we need to
have more of a system for directly dealing with that situation.
~~~
thatguy0900
I think right now it's just optimal to have a duopoly because it protects the
bigger guy from getting in trouble for being a monopoly, and secures the
little guy all the leftovers. like Microsoft saving Apple from bankruptcy or
Google paying firefoxs bills.
------
gruturo
Aaaand it seems to have registered itself at some point as default pdf viewer,
overriding my previous setting. Not sure when that happened but isn’t it just
lovely.
~~~
prepend
The pdf thing is really annoying. I’ve reset it many times manually and
patched seem to keep resetting it to Edge.
------
aphextron
Am I alone in absolutely loving Edge? It has finally unseated Chromium for me.
It has all the benefits of the latest Chromium build without having to rely on
sketchy binaries uploaded to some website, or giving Google total ownership of
my web browsing. Sure Microsoft now fills that role, but they already own my
OS anyways, so I'd rather reduce my "privacy surface area" as much as
possible. Plus it has great built in privacy features like automatically
deleting all browsing history after every session, and built in adblocking. I
agree that the behavior outlined in this post is annoying, but the reality is
that heavily managed automatic updating is the future for consumer grade
software, and for good reason. If you're not a fan, just use Linux or an LTS
Windows release.
~~~
millennialist
Does it really matter? By nature, all web browsers are essentially the same,
with identical features, except some are open source and others are not.
~~~
zrm
They don't all have the same engines and some of what they do have is non-
standard.
Meanwhile from a user perspective some browsers differ in extensions and
configuration etc. So if you get a monoculture which causes sites to start
relying on non-standard features of only specific browsers, it makes it harder
for people to use or create other browsers that aren't bug-compatible with the
only one anybody is targeting.
The "fast iteration" browser makers like is also damage, because it causes
cruft to accumulate. Once you add a feature, sites start using it and you're
stuck with it basically forever. See how long it took to get rid of Flash. But
now they add features at such a pace that Chrome is now like 35 million lines
of code, all of which is attack surface which causes all browsers to have
disproportionately many security vulnerabilities.
Having multiple independent browsers requires new features to go through a
standardization process that requires buy in from multiple implementations
before sites can rely on them, which causes the changes to be fewer and more
carefully considered -- a good thing for something you'll be stuck with
~forever.
------
supernova87a
Probably some software VP got a directive from higher up to see to it that
their browser/software penetration stats are increasing, and opportunities for
tie-ins with other products too, so this is what you get.
I would guess it is not a customer-product integrity driven priority.
------
cadence-
New low? It’s par for the course for microsoft. They have been doing this for
years.
~~~
drewcoo
If it weren't par, a new low would be better, right? I don't do sports ball.
------
swayvil
Consider Linux. I recommend the "Debian" flavor, with a "Mate" desktop.
It's a no-brainer to install. It works exactly like all the other desktops.
And it's faster, more secure, more stable and doesn't try to sell you stuff.
It's also free.
~~~
techntoke
Manjaro is much better, or Ubuntu. With Debian you'll be lucky to get
acceleration support and constantly be searching for unofficial repos to
install modern software.
~~~
swayvil
I haven't tried Manjaro.
Last time I checked Ubuntu was becoming a bit of a pig and it had suffered
some kind of desktop disaster.
I have not encountered the problems with Debian that you describe but maybe my
needs (browsing, coding and light video editing) are just that small.
~~~
rusticpenn
You don't have to use the default window manager for Ubuntu. I used to have
Arch and Ubuntu LTS with i3 window manager. I found it easier to maintain
Ubuntu LTS with i3 as my window manager.
------
Wowfunhappy
If Windows 10's forced automatic updates were really being done just for
security, Microsoft would offer the option to use LTSC. It's a painfully
obvious solution—keep everyone secure, without changing their system out from
under them. Microsoft is producing the code anyway.
It's not about security.
------
megaman821
I am pretty sure that you get the browser prompt to switch your default
browser anytime you install a new browser (or any app the registers as a file
or url handler). It has your current default on the top with the other choices
below, I don't see what is so objectionable about it.
Now the full-screen splash page is obnoxious. There has to be a more tasteful
way to inform the user of a large Edge update.
~~~
AnimalMuppet
What's objectionable?
1\. _I_ didn't install it. _You_ (Microsoft) installed (actually updated) it.
And because you chose to update it, you think that gives you the right to nag
me again about making Edge the default browser? Edge was already on my
machine; I already answered that question. Stop nagging me about it.
2\. If I just want it to shut up and get out of my face, _it won 't let me
close it by right-clicking on the taskbar._
3\. It's slow to load, so I have to _wait_ for it before I can get rid of it
(or else use the task manager, which also takes time).
Yeah, I'd call the combination of those things "objectionable". I might call
it stronger terms, too.
~~~
genpfault
> (or else use the task manager, which also takes time)
Tried that, left an arrow pointing at the place on the taskbar where the Edge
window used to be. Wouldn't go away without a reboot.
------
MildlySerious
They hit that low for me when they did the exact same thing with Windows 10
upgrades. When people's PC eventually shut down to restart mid-work, because
they just minimized the upgrade pop-up instead of telling it "later" \- which
were the only two options to begin with. When this involuntary upgrade bricked
some laptop models. When they snuck a popup for either OneDrive or Win10 into
an important security update.
The whole point of an operating system is to work and get out of peoples way.
Every needless distraction is a design flaw. Microsoft has, time and again,
proven that they either don't understand or care about that and as such are
not qualified to be OS vendors.
------
imchillyb
I'm not a fan of the Edge browser.
I migrated away from Chrome -to Firefox- over a year ago and haven't looked
back. I don't want a re-skinned Chrome browser. I don't want Chrome. I don't
want Edge.
Please Microsoft, listen to your users and stop trying to shove your products
in our faces. If we want to try your products we will. If we don't want to use
your products, then your own guerrilla-style tactics are only hurting your
marketing efforts.
When people feel they have a choice, they're more likely to be satisfied with
the outcome. When people feel they're cornered, the experience is less than
satisfying and is almost guaranteed to backfire on the one doing the
cornering.
I hope you're listening Microsoft...
~~~
erklik
> When people feel they have a choice, they're more likely to be satisfied
> with the outcome.
Is this really the case? or is it more so that people want the illusion of
choice? Let's not forget that the other major OS in the world has you locked
into using one browser engine regardless of whatever browser you install i.e.
you have the illusion of choice but not really. Would people be okay if
Microsoft forced all browsers to use Chromium on Windows?
------
Godel_unicode
The actual article title of "With Edge, Microsoft’s forced Windows updates
just sank to a new low" is a better explanation of what the article is about,
imho. The word "throat" appears nowhere on the page.
------
ShaneMcGowan
Sure they needed to do this eventually since IE11 is coming to end of life
soon. This isn't as shady as it appears
------
unnouinceput
I don't have this problem. Firefox still my browser. No Edge in sight to do
the shenanigans described in article. I even ran manually a "check for
updates" and came back saying I am up to date.
But I have a local account, and I've disabled all of Win10 crap using WPD.
Maybe that's why? ¯\\_(ツ)_/¯
------
Jyaif
It's a dirty move, but it's an immensely lucrative move.
By switching users to Edge, they are switching them to Bing. The vast majority
of users won't notice the switch since Edge and Bing both look a lot like
Chrome and Google.
This will give MS billions of dollars of additional advertisement revenue.
------
shmerl
Be part of the solution - ditch Windows, switch to Linux and pick any browser
you want. Problem solved.
------
627467
I get that technically it is a new app and it is a browser... but edge has
been bundled (outside of europe) since... ever. So has been the dark pattern
of pushing for 'a better browser'. BTW, google does the same in their digital
'property' (they push for chrome - aggressively). Got no horse in the game but
feels like '90s-hate-m$' nostalgia. How is this news?
In 2020, can you tell me of an OS that doesn't nag you for updates or do so
'during down times'? Ahhh yes... an 'eol' android device from obscure (or not
so obscure) android vendor...
------
tinus_hn
Would be interesting to see how it pins itself to the taskbar and what
Microsoft is going to do if other programs start doing that.
------
throw7
The more things change the more things stay the same.
I'm imagining good ole bill smiling away, "that's a good boy satya."
~~~
stOneskull
i wonder if they play videos of bill at the ms board meetings. i imagine a
goat sacrifice to help them create their evil schemes.
------
throwawaysea
We need a revision of anti trust law as well as significant increase in
enforcement.
------
xadz
Though many web developers rejoice at the increased adoption rate leaving IE
behind.
------
megous
It's a good thing. Also please uninstall IE6-11, old Edge automatically. :)
Anyway, you can write the exactly same article about a random DLL/service you
never asked for somewhere in C:\windows\\* running in the background or
hooking into apps doing whatever.
This is what you get running a proprietary OS.
~~~
joshuaissac
There are lots of enterprise applications that will break in Edge and Chrome,
and only work in IE, e.g. anything that uses XML Data Islands.
~~~
mynameisvlad
Chromium Edge includes IE mode, which uses the Trident engine to render the
page:
[https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/deployedge/edge-ie-
mode](https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/deployedge/edge-ie-mode)
------
modmans2nd
....Microsoft pushed their new native browser out ....the horror!!!! I guess
we should be mad at Google and Apple for forcing their browsers on us too.
------
huffmsa
Great, now do one for Safari
~~~
AlexandrB
I don't remember (desktop) Safari force installing a new version, opening
full-screen undismissable popups, or setting itself as my default PDF viewer.
But ok, sure, Apple bad too!
Great discussion!
~~~
huffmsa
Can you uninstall desktop safari? How about mobile safari?
------
jah
How many months until Github only renders in Edge?
~~~
rbinv
No problem on your own site, just "npm install best-viewed-in-edge"!
------
simonblack
This isn't a 'new low'. Microsoft has always taken advantage of its monopoly
position to take control.
This is no different from the Netscape/Internet Explorer shenanigans of the
1990s. Trouble is, the new generation of computer users don't know MSFT's
previous history so they are "shocked!".
For the rest of us, it's just Microsoft being a dick as usual.
~~~
013a
The thing for me is, so much of Microsoft has shown serious improvements over
the past decade. You've got Azure's push in the cloud championing (at least
some) truly open source community-driven projects like Kubernetes (rather than
Amazon's ECS), you've got Office unveiling their new Fluid document format as
open source day 1, you've got WSL2, Xbox under Phil Spencer making a huge push
to find more equitable ways to satisfy both gamers' desire for more games and
developers' need for revenue with Game Pass, the push to bridge console
generations with Smart Delivery, the push to bridge console and PC with
unified digital licensing...
And then they do things like this. The Windows core team feels to me like a
clandestine shadow organization in Microsoft whose location is unknown even to
Nadella. Of course, that's not what's happening, and its startling to me that
no one has cracked down on them for this shitty behavior.
Its not representative of how Microsoft, by and large, operates today. It is
representative of how they used to operate.
~~~
snarfy
What makes me sad is it's not even necessary. I have complete confidence
Microsoft can turn chromium into a better Chrome than Google can. It would be
easy - integrate a real ad blocker. It's something Google would never do but
makes no difference to Microsoft.
~~~
dylz
What do you mean makes no difference? Microsoft runs Yahoo/Bing Ad Network, an
Adsense competitor, plus serves ads and telemetry all over.
------
solvorn
And that’s a good thing.
------
slowrabbit
You're using winblows, you gave up your rights as a user already.
~~~
techntoke
Pretty much. Closed source at it's core for people that can't be bothered with
freedom and don't mind being lab rats.
------
nojito
No different than what Google does when you visit any of it's properties.
~~~
charonn0
Visiting google.com doesn't silently install Chrome.
~~~
JohnTHaller
Chrome does use bundleware and dark patterns to trick users into installing
it. It's done this for years in things like free Windows antivirus, the Flash
installer, etc. I've had to uninstall Chrome from my mom's computer 3 times.
[https://imgur.com/gallery/WWZxj](https://imgur.com/gallery/WWZxj)
------
cryptozeus
This reads more like a hit piece. Just close the browser and use chrome ff as
default anyway. You are on windows platform, aren’t you ? This discussion was
already over and Microsoft already lost.
~~~
charonn0
You can't close it (easily). The [X] button, Alt+F4, Ctrl+W, etc. are all
blocked and you have to click a "Get Started" button to unblock it.
------
solarkraft
That Microsoft is going this way now is pretty interesting, because the
parallels to Internet Explorer seem pretty obvious - IIRC they really
considered putting a FUD messsge in front of the Netscape website (uncertain
about this, please correct if applicable). It looks like they have gotten too
comfortable again.
They have probably calculated the backlash and decided it was worth it because
most people actually just don't care.
It's going to get so much worse without proper regulation, the trend has been
clear for years.
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
FBI looking into City of Atlanta computer issues - warcop
https://www.wsbtv.com/news/local/atlanta/fbi-looking-into-citywide-computer-issues-in-atlanta/720045695
======
warcop
Channel 2 Action News obtained an internal memo from the Atlanta Police
Department saying that the city network had been hacked.
“The city network has been compromised. If you have not already, please unplug
your Ethernet cable from your desktop in an effort to prevent possible
corruption, but the damage may already have been done. Unfortunately, this may
affect payroll. Please let everyone know that this problem is being
aggressively addressed,” the memo said.
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
2011: The Enterprise Resets - cwan
http://techcrunch.com/2011/01/02/2011-enterprise/
======
JanezStupar
Marketing hogwash...
Mainframe ain't dead and won't be for long... It's quite interesting how IBM
plays this game underhandedly - promoting cloud while betting strong on
mainframes which ain't going anywhere.
In my opinion - the cloud is on its way to a peak. I do believe that it has a
place - It's just not be all end all. Cloud is the new outsorcing.
Unfortunately there are only so many people who are capable of doing a
competent job. And if you're not the company that attracts creme - then it
doesn't really matter what kind of IT CDO you purchase - below its the same
old gringos.
~~~
TomOfTTB
Look...the author is the CEO of Box.Net which is a company whose business
model is the cloud. So there's obviously a bias and I do think he's a little
hyperbolic on some of his points.
That said I'm someone who runs what is considered a medium sized enterprise
and have been testing Box.Net for a few months now and I've been impressed. It
allows me to extend file sharing beyond our network firewall without having to
configure (or pay for) an expensive VPN license (I'd started moving the rest
of our Intranet to EC2 in 2009). Plus it duplicates all the Sharepoint
functionality that we were using.
I can honestly say cloud computing has saved me from creating at least 1 new
position at a savings of around $53,000 a year (that's subtracting the EC2 and
Box.Net bills)
~~~
JanezStupar
Duly noted - will take a look into Box.Net
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Company survival does not imply job survival - beeforks
https://whilewest.com/things-might-get-worse-2b5b88caa54#.wnl3butqn
======
runesoerensen
Previous discussion:
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10976280](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10976280)
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
AMD GPU Supply Exhausted by Crypto Miners, AIBs Now Directly Advertising to Them - mrb
http://wccftech.com/amd-gpu-supply-exhausted-by-cryptocurrency/
======
ac29
The article doesn't really touch on it, but this seems to be related to the
"altcoin" boom of the past month or so, most of which are GPU mineable. The
rise in Bitcoin prices seems to have made altcoins rise in price in lockstep,
for reasons I don't quite understand. Many have even increased in value 10-20x
in a matter of a couple months. There are even 8 cryptocoin "unicorns" now,
according to [https://coinmarketcap.com/](https://coinmarketcap.com/).
If you are thinking about gambling in crypto-speculation, my advice would be:
dont do it with any money you cant afford to lose. There are way too many
stories of people losing substantial portions of their life savings buying in
at the top of these market booms.
~~~
jacquesm
> The rise in Bitcoin prices seems to have made altcoins rise in price in
> lockstep, for reasons I don't quite understand.
The Dutch Tulip Mania was not limited to Tulips of a single color.
~~~
dmichulke
Nor did tulips represent 0.025% of the global financial market cap already (~
80bn / 300 tn) ;)
[1] [http://coinmarketcap.com/charts/](http://coinmarketcap.com/charts/)
[2] [https://secure.marketwatch.com/story/global-stock-market-
cap...](https://secure.marketwatch.com/story/global-stock-market-cap-has-
doubled-since-qes-start-2015-02-12)
------
hal9000xp
I remember the story of Samuel Brannan who made lots of money selling picks,
shovels and pans to gold miners during gold rush in 1848.
Quote from Wiki:
"Brannan moved to New Helvetia, where he opened a store at John Sutter's Fort.
When gold was discovered, Brannan owned the only store between San Francisco
and the gold fields -- a fact he capitalized on by buying up all the picks,
shovels and pans he could find, and then running up and down the streets of
San Francisco, shouting "Gold! Gold on the American River!" He paid 20 cents
each for the pans, then sold them for $15 apiece. In nine weeks, he made
$36,000."
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Samuel_Brannan#California_Gold...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Samuel_Brannan#California_Gold_Rush)
------
6d6b73
Oh great. In a time when we struggle with environmental issues on this planet
let's create virtual currencies, that require shitload of electricity to run.
And let's use all these advanced gpus and cpus that require tremendous amount
of time, energy and money to "mine" these currencies so we can make few bucks.
Let's advertise them as decentralized and private when they are neither.
It's not like we could have people dedicate all these resources to develop
better medicines to save lives, or better materials to create greener and
healthier society.
No, let's just spend money and time to fuel our ponzi scheme.
------
ComodoHacker
So is it possible for Nvidia to covertly launch and promote an altcoin
designed so it's more profitable to mine it on Nvidia GPUs?
~~~
floatboth
Of course it's possible. (In fact, you can mine Ethereum on Nvidia and it's
not too bad. GTX 1070 has the same performance as RX 480/580\. The 1070 is
more expensive but it also consumes less power. So you can achieve the same
profit, just with a bit more time.)
But that wouldn't make any sense for Nvidia. They're enjoying their dominance
over the gaming market. They have a lot of fanboy^Wmindshare and now even
gamers who wanted an RX 580 can't even buy it because of miners.
------
SinOverCos
LTC is not the silver of crypto, and Ethereum is not spelled "Etherium"
~~~
kristianp
I've definitely seen LTC referred to as the "silver" to BTCs "gold".
Don't know what an AIB is though.
~~~
kristofferR
AMD Add-In-Board partners
------
amitprayal
Criminal waste of energy
------
daxorid
When did this new trend of referring to cryptocurrencies as "crypto" begin?
This is very irritating, as it is a major namespace collision with actual
cryptography.
------
97s
How long is mining actual viable by the masses at the moment? I assume this
can't continue to happen unless other altcoins also use GPUs for mining. Won't
the difficulty of mining eventually become unprofitable? I assume this is like
bitcoin. However I don't know much about all this.
------
sorenjan
All these altcoins seems to be speculation, does anybody actually use them as
currency?
------
zurn
What does the author mean by ASIC resistence here?
~~~
wtallis
Some hash functions (eg. scrypt) are designed to make ASIC implementations
cost-prohibitive, such as by requiring enough memory that off-chip DRAM
working memory is needed. When the memory interface is the bottleneck, an ASIC
is not going to offer substantial advantages over GPUs.
~~~
idonotknowwhy
But in the end, we got scrypt ASIC miners anyway. And then a coin called
Vertcoin (VTC) came along and replaced scrypt with X11, to fight ASICs
~~~
egeozcan
Does anyone know why they fight ASICs?
~~~
idonotknowwhy
Yeah. Officially it's to avoid centralization. The idea is that anyone can
mine the coins, not just rich people with ASIC mining farms.
They also wanted to avoid GPUs originally, and some new altcoins (also known
as shitcoins) try to do this as well from time to time. I've been known to
either cloud-mine or what I call "Indian-data-center" mine such coins.
I personally like it when a new CPU-only or GPU-only coin comes out because I
can mine with my own hardware. My ASIC miner never made ROI before the Bitcoin
difficulty got to high that it would never pay back the power bill costs.
~~~
zurn
It would be cool if such "GPU resistant" coins became popular, because it
would encourage people to figure out new ways to program GPUs.
------
pawadu
Does mining shorten the life of a GPU? If I am in the market for a second hand
GPU for gaming, should I avoid those?
~~~
alimbada
I read a comment on reddit the other day the gist of which was (sorry, I don't
remember the specifics and doubt I'll be able to find the comment again):
Generally, yes, as miners tend to tweak GPU settings to maximise their
hashrate and it can cause issues when they are run like that long term.
~~~
floatboth
Miners tweak settings to minimize power usage, i.e. undervolt and maybe even
underclock the card.
That's much better for the GPU than, say, pushing the card to the limit for
benchmark scores :D
But generally, GPUs become obsolete before they die.
------
idonotknowwhy
What do you guys thing, this will make AMD shares rise after the next
profitability report?
------
_rav
So what am I supposed to buy instead of rx570? For, like, gaming?
nvidia 1060 or what?
------
ex3ndr
GTX 1050 ti now is more performant than RX 5xx series.
------
DeepYogurt
Oh god, not this again.
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Latin American megacities risk becoming a drag on growth - _delirium
http://www.economist.com/node/21525915
======
tuukkah
Comparing apples to snowballs, are we? " _For example, every dollar of GDP
generated in Chile’s capital, Santiago, requires 60% more energy than a dollar
of GDP generated in (much colder) Helsinki in Finland._ "
Maybe Helsinki requires less energy simply because the economy is more about
immaterial work, e.g. GDP is generated by branding products actually
manufactured in China?
Or maybe the well-insulated houses in Helsinki require less heating during the
winter than the houses in Santiago require cooling during the summer?
------
aaronblohowiak
Weak analysis -- you can't talk about the cities pace of growth vs GDP output
without talking about the sectors responsible for growth in GDP. For instance,
if manufacturing or agriculture were big drivers in GDP growth but the cities
had no available/affordable land do develop for these purposes, then it would
be expected that they would not keep pace.
Either way, the "drag" in this article is just on the average growth %, not an
actual _cost_ per-se.
------
iwwr
It probably has more to do with bad governance than inherent strategical
shortfalls of cities.
------
scotty79
This guy seems to claim that cities can grow without end and that's a good
thing:
[http://www.ted.com/talks/lang/eng/geoffrey_west_the_surprisi...](http://www.ted.com/talks/lang/eng/geoffrey_west_the_surprising_math_of_cities_and_corporations.html)
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
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Ask HN: Tips for maintaining a C codebase? - shortlived
My team has a small but growing C library. We have a set of coding and naming conventions that are generally followed and things are fairly modular. Most of us are not C programmers though, so I want to continue reading and learning from other code to bring in useful ideas to our code base. Thanks in advance.
======
tptacek
Wrap your libraries up in ADT-style interfaces.
Give every such interface a _create() and a _destroy() method.
Have _destroy() either return a pointer (which will always be NULL), or
(better, I think) take a pointer-to-pointer so that it can zero the pointer
out after destroying the object.
Don't check malloc; instead, rig your code up to detonate if malloc ever
fails. Checked allocations create rats nests of error handling.
Have a common hash table, a common binary tree, and a common list or resizable
array, working on void-star. Don't allow programmers do implement their own
hash table or tree.
Have a common logging library, with debug levels.
~~~
euroclydon
Thomas, You've mentioned that your new-programming-language-exercise du jour
is to write a virtual machine (or microcontroller emulator), right? I'd like
to try that in C. How would you go about writing this in a simple way. I know
I could google this, but I'm worried I'll find results with too many details
and pollute my discovery process.
Really, I'd just like some opinionated answers to the following from anyone
who cares:
1) What is a simple instruction set that I can support?
2) What existing programs are available for that instructions set, or what set
of tools are there to compile to that instructions set?
3) What are the high level tasks that I will need to accomplish to write this
virtual machine?
4) What should I look up or borrow exclusively versus figure out for myself?
Thanks!
~~~
tptacek
1) AVR
2) You'd compile simple C programs, of which there are zillions, rather than
writing complex programs in assembly.
3) Make a struct that captures the state of the CPU: an array of integers for
the register file, a flag word for the CPU flags, &c. Decode instructions (to
a struct or something, which captures all the options of the instruction).
Execute one instruction (pick it yourself): resolve its operands into
temporary variables, execute the logic (almost invariably trivial), set the
appropriate processor flags (overflow, zero, &c), and then store the result.
Test lightly, and then repeat for all the other instructions. Most will be the
same except for a single line of code. Make a big u_char array to represent
memory. Write a HEX file loader, which will take a .hex file and populate
memory with its contents; the GCC toolchain will compile C programs to HEX
files. Now write the code to load an instruction, execute it, set the program
counter appropriately, and repeat. Spend the next 2 weeks debugging.
4) I say, do it yourself. You can get yourself tied up in knots reading all
the different ways to implement a VM. To start with, write a naive VM yourself
with no help. Then go back and read that stuff if you want; it'll make _much_
more sense.
~~~
mechanical_fish
Incidentally, "AVR" == "Arduino", so if you want a HEX file to execute you can
have the Arduino toolkit drive the GCC cross-compiler for you, while you sit
back sipping mojitos. Download the Arduino toolkit, open up the "Blink" demo,
and press "Verify / Compile". Watch the little message window as your code
compiles: Near the end of the process it will cough up a line like this:
/var/folders/4x/cwc9yvnx071_9whsft75cjvc0000gn/T/build8742301187783484704.tmp/Blink.cpp.hex
That file seems like it would be a fun thing to explore.
~~~
euroclydon
Scheew! I think I'll close the nongnu.org tab I have open and go get that
mojito right now. Thanks!!!
------
greaterscope
Two projects you may want to review for ideas are Redis and toybox.
Redis comes to mind because it started out as largely a single file of code
that has since been split and organized into multiple files. The code is quite
approachable; you'll likely understand how most of it works after a day of
causal browsing. <http://redis.io>
Toybox comes to mind because it's insanely modular, and aggressive about code
re-use. The logic can feel a bit dense at times, but he's going for size and
speed. I'm a big fan of Rob's efforts. <http://landley.net/code/toybox/>
~~~
shortlived
On the subject of code reading: are there specific areas of the linux kernel
(or minux or ...) that someone would recommend to read?
~~~
chas
Reading through this book[1] was a really mind-expanding experience for me. It
is an overview of the kernel and doesn't dive into any one part in depth, but
it was extremely valuable for me in learning how to structure a large c
project as the same techniques and ideas are useful for many large projects.
[1] [http://www.amazon.com/Kernel-Development-Developers-
Library-...](http://www.amazon.com/Kernel-Development-Developers-Library-
ebook/dp/B003V4ATI0/)
------
dllthomas
If you've a bunch of bare integers or floats you're passing around with
meaning beyond "number" and you're tempted to wrap them in a typedef to add
some readability, consider wrapping in a struct with no additional elements.
The compiler will boil it away entirely when it comes time to generate code,
but it'll catch it when you mix up the order of arguments to a function and
the like.
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Confirmed Coronavirus Cases Are Growing Faster in the US Than Any Other Country - doener
https://www.forbes.com/sites/trevornace/2020/03/20/coronavirus-is-growing-faster-in-the-united-states-than-any-other-country-in-the-world/#4eb806657e72
======
tannerbrockwell
Not really surprising at all. There are most likely a higher percentage of
asymptomatic individuals in the US than is expected. From the article: "In the
past week, the number of tests conducted in the United States has increased,
however, the data for the past couple days has not been compiled yet. This
could skew the numbers to look like coronavirus is growing faster, yet we are
simply testing more."
and since we didn't self quarantine and cancel public events sooner we will
see a wider distribution than would have occurred with social distancing.
"Health officials in New York, California and other hard-hit parts of the
country are restricting coronavirus testing to health care workers and people
who are hospitalized, saying the battle to contain the virus is lost[...]" [1]
[1]:
[https://www.washingtonpost.com/health/2020/03/21/coronavirus...](https://www.washingtonpost.com/health/2020/03/21/coronavirus-
testing-strategyshift/)
------
mattnewport
The article implies that the percentage increase in cases is highest in the US
but that's not actually the case (the list of percentage rates at the bottom
includes several other countries with higher rates). The US seems to have
added the largest absolute number of cases but that's not a particularly
meaningful measure given how widely countries vary in population.
------
Leary
This is actually good news because we are finally doing more testing after
weeks of delay. If we can continue to ramp testing faster than the virus is
spreading, we may actually come out of this okay in a month provided everyone
minimizes their physical contacts.
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
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Om Next Quick Start - ds_
https://github.com/omcljs/om/wiki/Quick-Start-%28om.next%29
======
swannodette
Lots of new stuff in Om Next. Unlike Relay and Falcor we have recovered HTTP
caching [https://github.com/omcljs/om/wiki/Remote-Synchronization-
Tut...](https://github.com/omcljs/om/wiki/Remote-Synchronization-Tutorial).
And due to the redesign Om Next now has a really fantastically simple
automated testing story [https://github.com/omcljs/om/wiki/Applying-Property-
Based-Te...](https://github.com/omcljs/om/wiki/Applying-Property-Based-
Testing-to-User-Interfaces)
Happy to take any questions.
~~~
jarpineh
Could you clarify a bit the state of JS on ClojureScript land?
I just spend a weekend watching videos about Om Next and Devcards. I got Om
Next inside Devcards working, but the journey from there to getting my JS
based React components there was less than smooth.
I believe that things like GraphQL, Relay and Redux could provide what I have
been missing on my web development story, namely code working with the data
regardless of client/server separation. Om Next looks to give these things
with a better language.
I'm now starting to build things with Om Next, since playing with Cljs on
Devcards was really fun. I just had to rage quit a couple times trying to use
my existing stuff.
I saw support for directly importing JS modules mentioned, but I could not
find docs on how it could be used. Other option was to modify build
configuration to get my JS files inserted into package space or converting
them (I assume) to Clojure packages with CLJSJS. Finally I just mangled
several build configs together which somehow worked.
I realize trying to keep one feet on JS land and other on Cljs side might not
be high in your priorities, but my use case happens to require this. I keep
trying, though, so thank you very much for what you've done.
~~~
swannodette
Using the most popular JavaScript libraries is absolutely not a problem.
However integrating random React components in a ClojureScript build is a work
in progress (you could also just pre-build your React bits first and avoid
this issue entirely). Maria Geller and others in the community have pushed the
CommonJS integration forward an incredible distance, we're at the point now
where the devil is in the details. I suspect in 6 months or so using a random
React component in the ClojureScript build process will not be so challenging.
~~~
jarpineh
Ok, thank you.
I have to see how to go about making JS with Webpack -> Cljs a bit more
automated.
------
hawkice
I use Reagent (another Clojurescript React library), and it seems this might
widen the gap between the two in terms of ease-of-getting-started. Reagent is
dead simple to get going with, and requires you learn basically nothing to
build even moderately complicated things. Om is... somewhat notorious for
having more complex abstractions built around deep thought about maintaining
e.g. a single point of mutable data. This new stuff is... not something I
think I could get right the first try.
That all being said, David Nolan is clearly a gamer -- Om will be interesting
to watch even for people who aren't using it.
~~~
amelius
What I always worry about is not the ease-of-getting-started, but more the
ease-of-scaling-modification-and-extending :)
~~~
moomin
The jury remains out on that one too. Om is a bit marmite. :)
------
Gonzih
I was hoping that in om next boilerplate will be cleaned up, but seems like
it's not really different from original om. No reify is nice though.
------
intellectable
Works great with React Devtools [0]!
[0] [https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/react-developer-
to...](https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/react-developer-
tools/fmkadmapgofadopljbjfkapdkoienihi?hl=en)
------
zubairq
As the author of Coils, another Clojure framework (coils.cc) I am really
impressed to see Om Next, and I think that Om Next will become the de facto
framework for building interactive websites
------
amelius
What about performance? How many data queries can it handle per component,
realistically? How many connections can it handle? I.e., where will this
solution break down?
Are the transactions (issued from within the browser) performed
optimistically? If so, will this not give "flicker" in the browser in case a
transaction needs to be rolled back? Is it also possible to easily perform a
transaction from the server (i.e., not optimistically)?
~~~
Skinney
Don't understand the question. Om.Next allows you to have a single root
component, that component is responsible for building a query for every sub-
component. So you really only have a single query, then render based on the
results of that query. Whenever data that is touched by the query changes,
affected components are re-rendered. I would also assume that the time it
takes to render the view is much greater than the time it takes to run a
query, although that depends on your app/query.
~~~
amelius
Ok, perhaps I should rephrase the question. Let's assume there are X items in
your component (say a simple list box), and there are Y users, each editing
one or more items in that same component. At what values of X and Y will Om
break down?
Why I ask this is that before I get hooked on Om, I want to be sure that I'm
not in a dead-end alley :) I want my application to be able to scale as
necessary.
~~~
jraines
Hard to answer that with concrete numbers but Om Next handles optimistic and
non-optimistic updates quite elegantly. Roughly speaking: each query
expression is parsed twice, once locally and once in remote mode, and as long
as your backend can handle Om Next query expressions, it Just Works:
Reading: [https://github.com/swannodette/om-next-
demo/blob/master/todo...](https://github.com/swannodette/om-next-
demo/blob/master/todomvc/src/cljs/todomvc/parser.cljs#L25)
Mutating: [https://github.com/swannodette/om-next-
demo/blob/master/todo...](https://github.com/swannodette/om-next-
demo/blob/master/todomvc/src/cljs/todomvc/parser.cljs#L60)
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
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Google Health Begins Its Preseason at Cleveland Clinic - dskhatri
http://bits.blogs.nytimes.com/2008/02/21/google-health-begins-its-preseason-at-cleveland-clinic/index.html?ref=technology
======
jyu
"would you trust google with your medical records?" 32% yes, 68% no[0]
the follow-up questions should be: -do doctors trust information patients
write up themselves? -how much of that patient-provided info is clinically
relevant (signal to noise ratio)?
[0] [http://www.ask500people.com/questions/would-you-trust-
google...](http://www.ask500people.com/questions/would-you-trust-google-with-
your-medical-records)
------
aneesh
I'm a little skeptical of Google Health. If a patient doesn't even remember to
take their medicine, how do you expect them to go update their medical record?
I think this will only catch on for a small subset of active patients.
------
Dauntless
Google will manage to do what the KGB and CIA where unable to.
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Stanford to Offer Joint Computer Science MS/MBA Degree Program - sethbannon
http://www.gsb.stanford.edu/news/headlines/stanford-offer-joint-computer-science-ms-mba-degree-program
======
vonsydov
bout time
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
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Apple won’t stop “acquihires”, but maybe we can help - slaven
http://blog.tapstream.com/post/27658813582/apple-wont-stop-acquihires-but-maybe-we-can-help
======
jazzychad
So you have to put a js snippet on a page to be able to track conversions,
right? So how can I track if TechCrunch decides to writeup my app and links to
the appstore straight from the article. Same if I tweet the link out to my
followers? I guess I could only tweet out a page which will track them and
then redirect, but that seems wonky.
Maybe I'm missing something? How can I use this to track a wide range of
traffic sources w/o all funneling them through a common tracking page?
~~~
slaven
We can't track links to the App Store, but when press links to your site we
can break it out. We show you each referring domain, how many visitors it sent
and how many users you ended up with from that domain. We also help you figure
out how organic traffic to your site converts, which keywords are good, etc.
For your own Twitter marketing you can use our redirect links, so they'll go
straight to the App Store via Tapstream redirect.
You can use the same method for AdWords, Facebook posts, email marketing, etc.
The links can be created on the fly, so if your company is "Example.com",
you'd create links like
tap.example.com/ad1 tap.example.com/tweet2
etc. As you create them they'll show up in Tapstream the first time they get a
hit. (this assumes a CNAME tap.example.com for a simpler explanation).
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Ask HN: Successful hardware startup in entertainment. How can we go consumer? - sigil
We're iLuminate, a bootstrapped hardware / software startup working our way downmarket from the entertainment industry, and we'd love to hear your advice on how to get our product into consumer's hands. You may have seen us on America's Got Talent Tuesday night, or the HN thread "Dancing hackers create iLuminate system for performance art" <http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2606038> a few days ago. People really go nuts for the synchronized lighting, music and movement combination.<p>After two years of hard work and experience in live entertainment, we know we've got a solidly engineered product and a great team behind it. But none of us have experience bringing consumer devices to a large market. It's a bit daunting. Should we partner up with a company who does, perhaps licensing out the tech? Bring someone on board to run the consumer side of the business? Seek outside investment?<p>If you're a hardware hacker that went to the consumer market, what challenges have you faced?<p>Thanks to everyone in advance!
======
anigbrowl
I don't think going consumer is the ideal outcome, certainly not in the short
term. Does the Blue Man group have a successful line of facepaint products or
wacky musical instruments? HELL NO. They have an entertainment franchise. They
perform shows that reliably draw an audience, and pair up with people who
operate theaters, bars and restaurants. There are multiple BM groups; in fact,
I see they were holding auditions in San Francisco just yesterday, and they
also have a large backing staff of musicians, creative developers, marketers
and admin people.
Right now, your show is the product. If you gave me the gear I could probably
figure it out in an evening, and it happens that I quite like dancing, but I
don't have a darkened stage to work with or loads of time to spend on it.
People who go to raves and nightclubs for pleasure want to have fun and/or
meet attractive strangers, so the market there is likely fairly small.
Additionally, they're just as likely to throw something together on their own
with an Arduino if their tastes run that way - otherwise you could just load
up a truck and sell to everyone at Burning Man. Kids are a more likely target
market, and more likely to spend on an affordable social toy, but to reach
them you're going to have to develop manufacturing and retail pipelines,
defend your IP from ripoff artists (who may well have better marketing and
retail pipelines already in place, especially for a moderately simple
technology like this), and pretty soon you find yourself spending 3 months of
the year travelling between toy sales conventions and sweating over the
consumer confidence index as you enter Q3. I think you would be way better off
licensing it to an established toy company, especially considering that any
product like this is more Amazon than etsy, if you see what I mean. As far as
licensing goes, your negotiating power is obviously going to be proportional
to the strength of your brand, and I'm inclined to think that right now your
job is to burnish the hell out of that.
Finally, don't be in such a rush to put it in the hands of the public. If you
do then you diminish your own achievement, because you'll just be classified
as a bunch of nerds with a clever marketing campaign for a cheap gimmick.
People don't value what comes to them too easily. The reaction of the host
(whose name I always forget) to the mention of software engineering was that
it was so clever as to be intimidating. Well, that's just fine for now. Get
used to the idea of being/doing something so special that people ought to pay
money to watch it. Work on getting famous. When devices like 'e-luminate' with
oddly-similar looking models on the packaging start to appear, then you can
launch the Official iLuminate Kitz and charge a premium for them, and devote
20% of the profits to STEM scholarships for high schools or so. For now, you
want to be thinking about developing and franchising the act, whether you want
to performing on New Year's Eve in NY or go on tour with Daft Punk etc. etc..
------
brk
Find a key person who knows the retail end of the consumer market. Having been
there before, just the time invested in building simple relationships can be a
major resource suck if you're starting from zero. Plus, navigating all of the
oddities of dealing with consumer products (from potential
certification/testing stuff) to packaging/distribution/channel sales and so on
is a world of its own.
Based on my experience, also be prepared to give away a ton of product to
buyers at potential outlets and spend lots of time discussing little nuanced
things that will likely drive you insane :)
Your other option is to setup a retail oriented website and sell direct. It
will take longer to get from Point A to Point B, but will be less resource
intensive. If you can generate some basic demand in that avenue, then you can
pursue QVC or some of the "As Seen on TV" marketing companies for a
distribution deal.
~~~
sigil
> Find a key person who knows the retail end of the consumer market.
Where's a good place to start? Most of our contacts are in live entertainment
or distribution for live entertainment. We've gone to some industry
conferences like LDI, but there's not much of a consumer focus.
> Your other option is to setup a retail oriented website and sell direct.
We're definitely considering this. If you had to do it over again, would you
start here and move to retail channels later?
Great advice, thanks!
~~~
brk
Talk to an executive headhunter that specializes in the retail market. Look
for people who have launched roughly similar (eg electronics, not fashion)
products into large retail channels.
Don't know enough about your product and company cash position to comment on
the second question. If your product has the potential to hit huge sales, you
have just enough time to hit stores in time for the Christmas shopping season.
That would most likely be the ideal case.
Another option I was just thing of could be the summer concert series. It
sounds like you might have an ideal product for pre-concert
shopping/food/drinks concession kiosks. This could also be a good test market.
------
curt
Feel free to email me, I'll be glad to point you in the right direction. I'll
need quite a bit more information though before I'd be able to give you the
correct advice. If it's really good and appropriate I'll even make some
intros.
Just answered a similar question in another post, take a look a my
manufacturing guide. There is a big difference between being engineered well
and being mass producible.
As an aside, I've moved from hardware to web/mobile software (taught myself
iOS, php, and rails) because I got tired of dealing with all the new
regulations and hurdles. So be warned before starting a project.
<http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1840896>.
PS: if you are looking to get it out this year you only have a month or two at
most to act.
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Show HN:I raise you Love As A Service, the RESTful API - nichochar
http://www.loveaas.com/
======
ismaelc
Added to Mashape! [https://www.mashape.com/community/love-as-a-
service](https://www.mashape.com/community/love-as-a-service)
(Disclosure: I work for Mashape) Let me know if you want me to transfer it to
your account - [email protected]
~~~
nichochar
That's cool. I love Mashape!
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Ten things we know to be true - cribbles
https://www.google.com/about/philosophy.html
======
zeveb
> It’s best to do one thing really, really well.
They should probably revisit that at this point …
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Nest recalling 440,000 smoke alarms for safety risk - ntakasaki
http://www.mercurynews.com/business/ci_25808087/nest-recalling-440-000-smoke-alarms-safety-risk
======
_delirium
The AP newswire article that various newspapers are picking up does indeed
appear to be dated today, but it's not clear to me what the new part is. The
firmware update in question was rolled out in early April; is this article
belatedly about that, or is there something else?
edit: Oh, it seems the difference is that it's now officially a safety recall,
rather than just a voluntary update, which makes a legal difference, e.g. it's
illegal to resell unpatched units, and consumers can opt for a refund [2].
[1] Discussion at the time:
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7526682](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7526682)
[2] [http://www.cpsc.gov/en/Recalls/2014/Nest-Labs-Recalls-to-
Rep...](http://www.cpsc.gov/en/Recalls/2014/Nest-Labs-Recalls-to-Repair-Nest-
Protect-Smoke-CO-Alarms/)
------
vonmoltke
Since there seems to be much confusion in this thread:
The recall was issued today[1]. A CPSC recall is a legally-significant action
taken on a product considered dangerous and defective. It requires a product
to be pulled from the market in its current state, and details what action, if
any, needs to be taken to make the product safe to market again. This resale
prohibition applies even if you are a Nest smoke alarm owner and try to sell
it used; you must get the firmware updated or you are in violation of federal
law. That the recall can be addressed via an automatic update does not change
the legal significance of the action.
Edit: _delirium updated their post with the same info while I was posting. Not
that it matters, because it seems like this thread has been flagged into
oblivion already.
[1] [http://www.cpsc.gov/en/Recalls/2014/Nest-Labs-Recalls-to-
Rep...](http://www.cpsc.gov/en/Recalls/2014/Nest-Labs-Recalls-to-Repair-Nest-
Protect-Smoke-CO-Alarms/)
------
wmf
I don't think I've ever seen an automatic firmware update referred to as a
"recall" before.
------
coreymgilmore
The "recall" already happened: they updated the software and disabled Nest
Wave. Now you have to disable an alarm the same way as every other smoke
detector: press the button. I think this drawing so much attention just
because its Nest/Google, ex Apple guys, and a reasonably high-profile company.
~~~
anko
Well if I were in the market for a new smoke alarm, nest wave was a feature
that would steer me towards nest.
While i'm sure it's still a decent alarm, this is a pretty big feature to
recall.
~~~
_delirium
That's one reason for the recall, is my guess. The recall allows consumers who
want to return the product for a refund rather than keeping the patched
version to do so, which would allow people for whom the Nest Wave feature was
a big part of the original appeal to get their money back.
------
arasmussen
A prime example of some linkbait bullshit. They found a bug, they released a
patch. This is not a recall.
------
click170
Page doesn't load for me at all in mobile. Flagged.
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Mission to Mars – PyCon 2014 - twakefield
http://blog.mailgun.com/post/mission-to-mars-pycon-2014/
======
sov
iRobot Roombas also have an API that allows you to communicate with them over
a wire.
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
UPenn DIY Companion Cube with LED's - MarkusB
http://youtu.be/xOFvoRBPGo8
Come on, who here wouldn't want one of these?
======
MarkusB
Source code in the blog here: <http://companioncube.posterous.com/>
------
OrrinB
Looks cool!
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
How Bicameralism Helps Explain Westworld - fmihaila
http://nymag.com/scienceofus/2016/12/how-bicameralism-helps-explain-westworld.html
======
visarga
> consciousness begins when a being (be it human or host) stops believing that
> the voice inside their own head is a message from the gods
Yep, let's define consciousness based on "gods" and "voices".
> People didn’t develop consciousness until about 3,000 years ago.
Consciousness is too flexible a word, it means whatever people want it to
mean. It has moral, religious, philosophical, neurological and even physical
definitions. It is almost as devoid of exact meaning as the concept of God. It
includes the waking and dream state, experience, mental states, emotions,
motor control and consciousness of consciousness. There is no commonly agreed
upon definition of it in neurology, psychology or related fields - not only we
can't explain it, we can't even define it. Let's not play ping-pong with
inexact concepts.
Instead of consciousness, we should use the reinforcement learning paradigm -
an agent, perceiving its state in the environment, selects an action as to
maximize its reward. From time to time, a reward/cost signal might come, and
that is used to learn better behavior rules.
That's it, all concrete and clear, no need for concepts that can't be defined.
We can explain human, animal and artificial agents with the same paradigm. The
three aspects of RL: perception, action selection and behavior learning
(credit assignment) are all expressible in terms of neural networks and can be
studied in biological and artificial systems.
Watching AI progress so much in the last 4 years, inventing mechanisms for
perception, attention, memory, behavior - I have come to realize that
consciousness really isn't magic, there's no ghost inside, no universal field,
no special quantum entanglement. It's not inexplicable, "what it's like to be
a bat?", "does the Chinese room have real understanding?", or "qualia is
irreducible" and a "hard problem" \- these are all armchair experiments.
The problem seems hard because brains are extremely complex in their minutia
and there is no intuitional pump to help us make the leap. Yet brains are not
really so complex in their general makeup, because the code for the brain +
body can be stored in 800 Mb of DNA, of which probably a very small portion
actually encodes the brain architecture.
~~~
internaut
I've started to think that a lot of what we are isn't present inside our heads
although it informs them. Things like books, culture which are all
intergenerational memories. We're constantly immersed from the earliest
developmental stage in what dawkins called our extended phenotype. Of all the
animals humans have the most extraordinary extended phenotype, particularly
our information infrastructure.
If we take the much vaunted abilities of humans over computers, such as
creativity, and we had a human being who was brought up without any contact
without any exterior sources of information such as reading materials or other
humans to play with then I doubt their 'human ability' would amount to much.
It'd be arguable whether they were a true human. They'd seem developmentally
disabled to other humans though biologically they could be in rude health.
When you look to monkeys and other animals like ravens you find they test
better than we do on a range of cognitive tasks and yet we are us and they are
them. I believe there really is something different about us but that may
exist at the collective level instead of the individual.
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
The flow language manifesto - magnusjonsson
http://www.flowlang.net/p/flow-manifesto.html
======
jsnk
Grey Times New Roman at 12px on pastel background makes it an effort to read.
It looks good visually, but actual reading is difficult. I would change the
font size to 14px and make the font darker.
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Make - A Tutorial - sdp
http://www.eng.hawaii.edu/Tutor/Make/index.html
======
silentbicycle
Here's the canonical reference on BSD make:
<http://www.freebsd.org/doc/en/books/pmake/index.html>
------
jgrahamc
And if you really want to do cool things with make:
<http://www.lulu.com/content/2584447>
~~~
sdp
This book seems to be exactly what I was looking for when I found this
article, thank you.
------
raamdev
Perfect timing! I'm taking a C programming class and this short tutorial on
Make is exactly what I needed. Thanks!
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
WebGL spherical environment mapping and normal mapping - robin_reala
http://www.clicktorelease.com/code/spherical-normal-mapping/
======
pbhjpbhj
Wow, that's really incredible. Given that even doing 2D graphics on this
machine is like wading through molasses this is a surprisingly perky and
detailed rendering.
Only thing is that "normal map" doesn't appear to work for me.
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Howler.js - Javascript audio library for the modern web - james33
http://howlerjs.com
======
lpinca
<http://jsfiddle.net/mt6Tt/1/>
Value is not of type AudioBuffer. Origin null is not allowed by Access-
Control-Allow-Origin.
~~~
james33
This is not a bug in the library, it is a browsers security feature. Audio
files can only be played from the same domain that you are trying to play them
from because an XHR request is used to fetch the audio file.
~~~
lpinca
Yeah, but it's a limitation.
Playing a file in another domain works with
<http://www.schillmania.com/projects/soundmanager2/> or
<http://www.jplayer.org/> (<http://jsfiddle.net/Q4LMV/18076/>)
<https://github.com/CreateJS/SoundJS/> instead respect same origin security
policy (<http://jsfiddle.net/SeUD7/>) like your library.
That being said, i like your lightweight library, well done.
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
How my program passed the Turing Test - ELIZA [1989] - avner
http://www.compapp.dcu.ie/~humphrys/Eliza/eliza.anon.html
======
nazgulnarsil
passing the turing test doesn't count if the subject is a moron.
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Deconstructing "K&R C" - thatmiddleway
http://c.learncodethehardway.org/book/learn-c-the-hard-waych55.html#x62-28000055.1.3
======
zedshaw
Just for the record, I am as sick of this part of the book showing up on HN as
everyone else. I do not post it here, other people do, and I apologize in
advance for it showing up here all the time half-finished.
But, if you have a problem with this I ask that you write code disproving that
the copy() function does not terminate for all possible inputs. Or, that you
write a function that can check if a C style string is valid. If someone can
do that it'd help me with the book.
~~~
eugenejen
Zed,
Please don't feel bad or sorry here. Your critic to the code is VALID.
Besides, you are not the only one who have understood the problem in K&R. I
had a boss who was aware of this since 90's and talked about it when I was
quite ignorant of his points then until I got bitten. But I am glad you
rediscovered the problem and made an effort to write it on web.
K&R has its value in historical context. I hope you are not discouraged by the
general reaction and I really think we should put more effort in creating new
material to teach people in modern context. Please keep on working on it!
------
jleader
For people who say "C strings are null-terminated and you don't pass their
length, get used to it", let me point out
[https://www.securecoding.cert.org/confluence/display/seccode...](https://www.securecoding.cert.org/confluence/display/seccode/API02-C.+Functions+that+read+or+write+to+or+from+an+array+should+take+an+argument+to+specify+the+source+or+target+size),
which is part of the "CERT C Secure Coding Standard", and the new bounds-
checking features in C11 (which I haven't actually seen yet).
------
Turing_Machine
"because it does not terminate cleanly for most possible inputs"
"Most possible inputs", meaning "random garbage"? Insisting that an algorithm
"terminate cleanly" on every possible input is... a somewhat high standard.
<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Halting_problem>
~~~
phleet
I'm a little confused by the reference to the Halting problem.
You don't need to solve the Halting problem to prove that a specific algorithm
will terminate.
Random garbage here is still constrained because the input is still a sequence
of bytes.
~~~
Turing_Machine
Nope, you don't, in this specific case. My issue is with him asserting that an
algorithm is automatically "broken" because you can't determine whether or not
it will terminate. That standard would exclude every single programming
language in common use.
~~~
lmkg
First, programming languages aren't algorithms.
Quite a few algorithms can be proven to terminate on all inputs (even
malformed ones). Zed is asserting that when you have available an algorithm
that will definitely terminate, you should tend to prefer it over an algorithm
that may not. I tend to agree, especially in an educational text because
that's where a lot of people will start picking up habits, both good and bad.
Non-terminating algorithms aren't broken in general, but this one is because
there is a terminating alternative.
~~~
Turing_Machine
"First, programming languages aren't algorithms."
True, but irrelevant.
Any Turing-complete language will allow you to implement functions that don't
terminate, and indeed in general implement functions for which it is
impossible to determine whether they terminate or not.
Better?
"Non-terminating algorithms aren't broken in general, but this one is because
there is a terminating alternative."
An algorithm is only "broken" if it doesn't work. That's not the case here.
Among working algorithms, one may be a better than another because it is
faster, takes up less memory, is more robust when faced with garbage inputs...
many engineering tradeoffs. His implementation is probably safer, but it's
going to use more space and be slower. Now, that's likely a good tradeoff for
most situations, but not all.
However, his claim that the algorithm is "defective" because it doesn't work
on random garbage is absurd. It's as if someone claimed that a car was
"defective" because it grinds to a halt when you fill the tank with soft-serve
ice cream, or that the most common algorithm for integer addition is
"defective" because it doesn't work for vectors.
"Safer" I could live with.
------
thatmiddleway
I'm interested to see what people have to say about this as someone who is
looking in to learning C.
~~~
ranit8
Was this thread not enough for you?
<http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3448573> The topic is good, but couldn't
you wait a bit more to resurface it?
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
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Jason Calacanis: We need to empower hollywood - not kill it - camlinke
http://www.launch.is/blog/we-need-to-empower-hollywood-not-kill-hollywood.html
======
marssaxman
'Can you imagine if Hollywood released a press releasing saying "Kill the
internet?"'
I don't have to imagine it; the rights mafia has been trying exactly that
since they found out about Napster. SOPA is just the latest "kill the
internet" and it won't be the last. PG's making a good point: instead of
fighting a purely defensive war, why not make them defend themselves against
us for a change?
~~~
BerislavLopac
I actually prefer Jason's point: why fight them at all if we can conquer them?
Focusing too much on the competition is counter-productive -- the focus should
be on the end-users' needs.
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Python for Finance - tom_jones
http://www.packtpub.com/python-for-finance/book
======
danpalmer
This is the same as an older thread, but I didn't comment in the last one, so
I thought I'd comment here.
I was a technical reviewer on Node Security from Packt, and it was an
interesting experience, so I thought I'd highlight a few things for those who
have criticised the quality of Packt books.
\- Reviewers are unpaid, I'm not sure if this is normal. I was happy to do it
unpaid as experience that I could talk about with future employers. The only
'pay' is a copy of the book, and one other from the library.
\- I was found and asked to be a reviewer, but I was quite surprised given my
lack of experience. I was also surprised at the lack of experience of the
author. I felt I was able to do my job as a reviewer, and would have declined
otherwise, but I perhaps they should be finding some more experienced people.
\- Node Security is one of their shorter books, most are either several
hundred pages and ~$30-40, or about 100 pages and $20. During the review
process I highlighted that I felt the book did not contain enough content for
a $20 book, lots of it was quite practical stuff that could have been found by
reading some READMEs on GitHub repos for the libraries it talked about.
\- I noticed that much of the advice in the book was around deployment of
Node.js applications, and I suggested an extra chapter specifically about
configuring secure deployments, perhaps covering nginx reverse proxying, etc,
I felt that this would really improve the overall quality of the book, the
focus of each chapter, and ultimately I thought it would make the book well
worth the $20. Unfortunately they declined to do this. I'm not sure why, and
I'm not sure what my role as a technical reviewer was for because of this. I
found some minor issues in the security theory descriptions, and a few errors
in example code, as well as making a few suggestions for how bits could be
worded better, but it seemed they weren't keen on any major suggestions.
I'm not sure whether I'd buy books from Packt, I'd probably have to evaluate
them on an individual basis, but I felt there could have been better selection
of authors and reviewers, and that they should have been more open to changes
proposed by the reviewers.
------
fabulist
I've read some great books from Packt, this wasn't really one of them. When
the first thread was on HN, I got excited because I love Python and had been
looking into starting some investments. Namely, I want to implement a low-
risk, low-frequency automated trade strategy. Naively, I assumed this book
would be for people who knew Python and were interested in learning finance,
but it was the opposite. A lot of concepts were thrown out there with little
to no explanation. I gave up reading it until I actually know finance, and can
use it as a cookbook.
The code in the book is also shoddy. I don't have it with me, but two examples
come to mind. I didn't run any of the examples, but eyeballing them I some of
them wouldn't run because of syntax errors -- rather unfortunate for a
beginner's text. The section of naming conventions. To write a program using a
financial expression like P(1+r) __n (exponential growth /decay), the book
recommends against using confusing variables like p... in favor of P. P stands
for Principal in this case, and I doubt many of you knew that off hand.
For those looking to do finance in Python, I recommend looking into
QuantLib[1]. I'm also watching a series of videos from the University of
Michigan's online Intro to Finance class on YouTube[2]; however I realized a
few days ago that they're probably pirated. That makes me feel bad, but its
still a good reference.
If any quants on HN have some better book recs, they would be strongly
appreciated.
Edited to add; To be fair, I haven't really touched the section on Monte Carlo
simulations, which seems to be the bulk of the value.
[1] quantlib.org
[2]
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pQeZqn-8yM8&list=PL07D40483B...](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pQeZqn-8yM8&list=PL07D40483B1BE4B4C&index=1)
------
j2kun
Older thread:
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7680223](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7680223)
------
Tycho
I have the book, though haven't spent much time with it yet. Initial
impression was that it's quite brisk. You'll get a couple paragraphs on a new
concept and then a code snippet to demostrate. You'd need to compliment it
with deep study of the actual concepts.
Still, sometimes breadth is better than depth.
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Ask YC: Where do you guys find designers for your projects? - nanijoe
======
tjic
I've gotten recommendations from several people...and none of the recommended
designers were all that great. The one I use all the time I met on the general
interest town mailing list - we are two libertarians in a sea of Massachusetts
Democrats. We ended up getting together for poker first, became friends next,
and now we farm out tons of design work to him.
Note: no guarantees that this process will work for you.
~~~
ivan
I always thought that Americans are first business partners and then become
friends. Your story looks like a strange deviation :)
------
jakewolf
I'm using my little brother who owes me a favor and is an awesome designer.
Find sites you like, ask who their designer is.
csszengarden.com or oswd.org
~~~
brlewis
Look at csszengarden if you have a decent budget. Go to oswd if you're looking
for cheap.
I'm very happy with a designer I found via csszengarden, but she isn't cheap.
I'll write a blog post about the whole process when it's done. Currently
ourdoings.com is using a half-finished design from her, because even half
finished it's 10x better than what I had before.
~~~
jakewolf
Can anyone give a range of prices they've paid for designs?
------
carpal
I've used rentacoder.com in the past and didn't have great results.
Now I just tend to do it myself, with mixed results.
~~~
plusbryan
yeah, for whatever reason graphic designers don't tend to congregate there.
great for cheap little programming tasks, not so great for original design.
I think it has something to do with the fact that you can turn out shoddy code
that produces a functional program, whereas shoddy design is immediately
apparent
that's why a lot of design stuff you get when outsourcing is template-based
and replicated across multiple sites.
------
Tichy
Found mine on xing. One I found by comparing the works of several designers I
found on Xing. Another one found me on Xing when he needed a coder, and in
turn I asked him to design.
------
davidw
I found a couple the other week when I took off all the cushions on the couch
and looked at the stuff that had fallen down there.
------
rms
<http://www.programmermeetdesigner.com/>
------
downer
Everywhere -- rip, mix, burn.
~~~
mwerty
huh?
~~~
e1ven
I believe he's advising to look at the sites that you find attractive- See
what elements they have that you can emulate.
As someone mentioned in an earlier thread, one easy way to get better at good
design is to use good reference designs.
~~~
mwerty
Thanks. I had a parsing error.
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
The word “mafia” is never heard in The Godfather - networked
https://www.news.com.au/entertainment/movies/the-one-word-you-never-hear-in-the-godfather/news-story/4301fd8014305c005f13eeaccdca51a2
======
throwaway_tech
Its because its not a police movie, and these group didn't refer to themselves
as Mafia...they referred to themselves as family (in Sicilian "Cosa Nostra"
meaning "our thing" or "thing of ours").
You will hear "Family" plenty in the movie ("never tell anyone outside the
family what you're thinking") even in the article, the mystery caller who
threatens not to make the movie says:
>“Get the f __k outta town. Don’t shoot no movie about the family here. Got
it?”
~~~
tomelders
To add to this; Cosa Nostra is Sicillian. Over the water, in Naples, it's
"Camorra". In Puglia it's "Sacra Corona Unita". In Calabria, it's the awkward
to pronounce"'Ndrangheta", who I believe are consindered to be the most
dangerous, and closely aligned with the Albanian Mafia IIRC.
There are more, but those are the main active ones. Collectivley, they are
Mafia type organisations.
The word Mafia itself is Sicillian in origin, and means "Swagger".
~~~
misiti3780
I believe Mafia is actually a combination of Arabic and Siciliano
“A less romantic and more likely derivation of the name Mafia is a combined
Sicilian-Arabic slang expression that means acting as a protector against the
arrogance of the powerful. Until the nineteenth century, the appellation
mafioso, a Mafia member, had wide currency in Sicily as a noncriminal,
resolute man with congenital distrust of centralized authority.”
Excerpt From: Selwyn Raab. “Five Families: The Rise, Decline, and Resurgence
of America’s Mast Powerful Mafia Empires.” Apple Books.
~~~
Mirioron
So, they were anarchists?
~~~
danans
I've heard the opposite - that the Mafia formed to take advantage of a period
when there was a vacuum of central authority in Italy and therefore little
security for common folks.
The mafia served as the protectors - and if not paid, harassers - of the
people in this situation.
~~~
beerandt
Pretty much any government does the same- try not paying your taxes.
Harassment will follow.
~~~
mwfunk
If you think that's crazy, try stealing a car or assaulting someone! Those
darned government oppressors, always keeping us down with their taxes and laws
and stuff. Who do they think they are anyway, the government?!?
~~~
beerandt
It's payment for justice. We just call it taxes and police. They call it
tribute and protection, or something else. The same basic functions are being
fulfilled in different ways.
~~~
danans
I agree that they share many characteristics and objectives, derived
ultimately from certain realities of the ways humans operate.
But I do contend that the better forms of government that are less mafia-like.
Obviously absolute monarchies and dictatorships aren't among them.
------
notacoward
It would be unrealistic for anyone in The Godfather to mention the mafia.
People involved in a criminal conspiracy typically do not refer to it as such,
for fairly obvious reasons. You'll never see a memo with the words "Witness
Tampering Plan" or "Quid Pro Quo" left out on a desk at such organizations
either, for the same reasons. Such things are discussed via euphemism or
outright code, even that as little and as privately as possible.
~~~
fredgrott
yeah but than again in the 1970s we had creep...for a disgraced president's
reelection campaign
~~~
gowld
Nope! It was CRP, named CREEP by opponents as part of the disgracing.
[https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Committee_for_the_Re-
Electio...](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Committee_for_the_Re-
Election_of_the_President)
------
dmos62
The words "power fantasy" never came up in any of the Marvel movies. Show,
don't tell.
------
tomnj
It’s heard in Godfather part 2, though:
[https://m.youtube.com/watch?feature=youtu.be&t=1m&v=L6DkVsss...](https://m.youtube.com/watch?feature=youtu.be&t=1m&v=L6DkVsssnmQ)
~~~
GrumpyNl
So debunked and bad article.
~~~
TomBombadildoze
^The word “mafia” is never heard in The Godfather$
------
eecc
Well if you ask about or mention organized crime, many Sicilians will just
ignore the subject as if it was never spoken of, gaslighting. Eventually they
might lose patience and rebut that “the Mafia doesn’t exist”, “it’s just a
fantasy of the Continentals”. And act offended, bloody idiots... (before you
downvote, it’s family, i can see how this denial has devastated and is still
hurting a whole country so rich of potential. I claim my prerogative to be
bitter and angry at them.)
~~~
davidw
Lived in Padova with Sicilian roomates for a year, and they certainly talked
about it.
I mean, they kind of roll their eyes if it's the first thing someone mentions,
because Sicily is an incredible, beautiful place with great food, beaches and
Mt Etna - it's much more than the stereotype from the movies.
But it's an undeniable fact of life just the same.
~~~
thefounder
I bet Medellin is such a great place too but who is to blame for its
reputation? It's just that the locals got used with the families/cartels so
they may not be bothered by the crime syndicates that much.
~~~
davidw
It's not an easy problem to solve. If you're the only one to speak up - or
even a visible person - you or your family might get hurt or killed. These are
very nasty, brutal people that run these organizations.
I was just trying to make the point that a lot of Sicilians _do_ talk openly
about it, but might react poorly if that's like the first thing you blurt out
when you speak to them.
------
trumbitta2
That's because mafia refers to itself as "Cosa Nostra", "'Ndrangheta",
"Camorra", and "Sacra Corona Unita" depending on where in Italy is originated
from.
~~~
WilliamEdward
"Ruddy also agreed that the script wouldn’t include “Cosa Nostra,” another
name for the mafia"
~~~
tomnj
Also mentioned in godfather part 2:
[https://m.youtube.com/watch?feature=youtu.be&t=4m26s&v=L6DkV...](https://m.youtube.com/watch?feature=youtu.be&t=4m26s&v=L6DkVsssnmQ)
~~~
aguyfromnb
From the article:
"So Paramount agreed and [the League] thought it’d won this great victory
despite the fact there was _only one use of ‘mafia’ in the script_.”
------
MrGilbert
I wonder what the state of the mafia is these days. Referring to the Wikipedia
article[1], the five families are still a thing in New York.
[1]:
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Five_Families#Original_and_cur...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Five_Families#Original_and_current_Five_Families_bosses)
~~~
paganel
Not sure about the US but unfortunately it is still a thing in Italy,
especially the 'Ndrangheta. This is an article from 2014 [1] but even so, back
then they said that 'Ndrangheta had a turnover of €53bn, and I can imagine it
did only go up in the meantime. The bad thing is that it has "captured" most
of Northern Italy, too, or at least according to what I have read online and
in the papers (I'm not from Italy myself), and it also has a strong European
presence: Germany, Eastern Europe [2] etc.
[1] [https://www.theguardian.com/world/2014/mar/26/ndrangheta-
maf...](https://www.theguardian.com/world/2014/mar/26/ndrangheta-mafia-
mcdonalds-deutsche-bank-study)
[2] [https://linx.crji.org/2019/08/30/bio-mafia-care-producea-
in-...](https://linx.crji.org/2019/08/30/bio-mafia-care-producea-in-romania-
asociata-cu-ndrangheta/)
~~~
saiya-jin
I can't find the article now, but basically Ndrangheta ended up so effective
and successful in black money laundering, all other bad actors (drug cartels,
other mafias, any bad guys) are using them for a fee.
They are definitely in eastern/central Europe, in Slovakia government was
toppled recently because its close ties to it, and because investigative
journalist writing about it was executed with his fiancee. Mostly milking off
EU subsidies, but whatever else gets the money, they want in, or they are
already there.
I can't imagine easy way out of that situation, government capture was pretty
effective. Election change few faces but underlying flows mostly remain the
same.
------
misiti3780
Random fact: In Sicily they call the Mafia "Cosa Nostra" but here, in the US
(and other places i believe), the detectives incorrectly added the article
"la" in front of it (which is incorrect italian) calling it La Cosa Nostra, or
LCN. So anytime you hear LCN, remember it is acronym for bad italian grammar.
------
austincheney
Vietnam is never mentioned in any episode of Gomer Pyle either directly or
indirectly.
[https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gomer_Pyle,_U.S.M.C](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gomer_Pyle,_U.S.M.C).
~~~
1-more
Ewok and Jawa are never mentioned in the original Star Wars trilogy. Maybe
never at all?
~~~
kd0amg
Luke, in Episode 4: "Why would Imperial troops want to slaughter Jawas?"
~~~
1-more
Well I'll be. OK just ewok then.
------
zxcvbn4038
This is news? New generation discovering The Godfather for the first time?
Wait until they find out 2001 isn’t about history - that will really blow
their mind. ;)
~~~
owl57
Well, AI in 2001, surveillance state in 1984… It almost seems like these are
chapter numbers in something like the 1984's inner book about how the modern
world works.
~~~
zxcvbn4038
I’ve yet to see AI. For that matter, where is my floating car and ray gun?
Future is turning out to be more of the same.
~~~
Al-Khwarizmi
Come on. For $50 I can buy a smart speaker that recognizes my voice and I can
ask about the weather, news, events for a given day, factual questions, set
reminders, play music of X genre, etc.
I know the limitations (I work in the field), it's way less powerful than Hal
9000, but by 20th century standards we definitely have AI.
~~~
andrewzah
"Hey siri, play <search term>"
"I didn't get that."
"Hey siri, play <search term>"
"Got it, playing <similar-sounding search term>"
"Hey siri, stop"
"Hey siri, play <search term (enunciating slowly)>"
"Got it, playing <similar-sounding search term>"
"Hey siri, stop"
<opens app on phone and manually types in the correct search term>
\---
"Hey siri, <a search term more complicated than one short sentence with a
clear answer>"
"Sorry, I'm not able to show that. <opens web browser with term>"
\---
We do not have AI, unless you mean in the loosest possible meaning. Everything
is still dumb as rocks, we just have made voice recognition a convenience.
Parsing sound into a search term and dumb-ly searching is still dumb. It's not
AI just because I'm not manually typing it in.
Every system I've asked questions has failed on anything that's not fairly
simple. Taking sounds and mapping that to a google search or a particular app
is not AI. It's some engineer who decided that questions with a similarity to
X or Y can be answered with Z app. (i.e. questions about the weather) Siri and
others are still dumb as rocks.
~~~
Jagat
Having used all three of Alexa, 'Ok Google', and Siri, I'd have to say Siri is
the worst of the three. It's extremely far behind the the other two.
Try your voice searches with Google and it's very likely you'll get what you
want.
~~~
andrewzah
Regardless of the brand, it's still not intelligent in any meaningful way. The
capability of alexa/siri/whatever directly corresponds to whether or not some
programmer implemented a match statement on that particular kind of question.
Alex/siri are still just dumb tools, with voice recognition as a facade.
That's not AI.
------
bamboozled
Why is this surprising ? Actually curious why people think this is weird ?
~~~
kthartic
Living up to your username I see :P
~~~
bamboozled
Do you run around all day talking about yourself in the third person ?
Why would these people ?
------
ranDOMscripts
Al Ruddy (the producer) describes how this came about in his interview with
Malcolm Gladwell[0]. It's quite a story.
[0][http://revisionisthistory.com/episodes/39-chutzpah-vs-
chutzp...](http://revisionisthistory.com/episodes/39-chutzpah-vs-chutzpah)
------
RickJWagner
For anyone who hasn't seen the movies-- run, don't walk, to go get "Godfather
I" and "Godfather II".
Don't bother with "Godfather III".
The book is great, too.
~~~
dudul
The book is not great. It goes on and on with stupid subplots (for some reason
johnny fontane is an important character, go figure). Coppola _hated_ the book
and hesitated a long time before accepting to work on the movie.
The 3rd party is not on par with the other 2, but it gets more hate than it
deserves. It is the closing of the Corleone saga and I found the 3rd act of
the movie very powerful.
~~~
CalChris
Coppola didn't like it on first reading, bu hated is too strong a word. He
really liked it on the second close reading.
[https://ew.com/books/2019/03/05/the-godfather-book-50th-
anni...](https://ew.com/books/2019/03/05/the-godfather-book-50th-anniversary-
foreword/)
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Zs5KdzlWYNI](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Zs5KdzlWYNI)
As for the book, it is a GAM, Great American Novel. It's intended to tell a
broad story of immigration and assimilation. The movie, being a movie with
limited budget and time, has to chop much of that away. Needless to say, I
liked the book.
------
fjp
I highly recommend the book The Good Mothers. Even if you think you know about
the mafia, the scale that they are operating on will blow your mind. The
Calabrian-based mob control a medium-to-large country's worth of the world's
money.
~~~
matthewaveryusa
Gomorrah [1], the book, by Roberto Saviano is pretty good too.
[1] quick fun read on the origins of Sodom and Gomorrah
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sodom_and_Gomorrah](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sodom_and_Gomorrah)
------
inputError
'Star Wars' is also not mentioned in Star Wars—which seems like a HUGE
oversight in retrospect.
~~~
jccalhoun
Ha! I always love it when characters in movies go out of the way to say the
name of the movie. It is a good sign of a bad movie (not always of course but
a lot of times.) I still remember giggling when I saw the Angelina Jolie Tomb
Raider and one of the characters said, "Well, you're the tomb raider!"
~~~
philwelch
In Star Trek: First Contact, they time-travel to post-apocalyptic Montana to
help the inventor of the warp drive, who calls them "astronauts on some kind
of star trek".
------
ubermonkey
Fun fact: this was a question in the original Trivial Pursuit.
------
deepakhj
La cosa Nostra made the filmmakers not mention mafia in the movie.
[https://www.nytimes.com/1971/03/20/archives/-godfather-
film-...](https://www.nytimes.com/1971/03/20/archives/-godfather-film-wont-
mention-mafia-protest-gets-mafia-reference-out.html)
------
mapleboi
really interesting article. this is one of my favorite movies and i've never
even thought about that word
------
anpe
If you're curious about the story in more detail, Revisionist History has a
good episode on it: [http://revisionisthistory.com/episodes/39-chutzpah-vs-
chutzp...](http://revisionisthistory.com/episodes/39-chutzpah-vs-chutzpah)
------
yboris
Malcolm Gladwell talks about this in his Revisionist History podcast: Episode
39 ([http://revisionisthistory.com/episodes/39-chutzpah-vs-
chutzp...](http://revisionisthistory.com/episodes/39-chutzpah-vs-chutzpah))
See transcript: [https://podscribe.app/feeds/https-feedsmegaphonefm-
revisioni...](https://podscribe.app/feeds/https-feedsmegaphonefm-
revisionisthistory/episodes/83002bb4-86cb-11e9-afd9-ff62826378b2)
> word mafia is barely in the script it only appears once so I cross the word
> mafia I said Joe I'ma do this I'm going to take this out of the movie
------
grabbalacious
I started near the end and thought that Columbo had been shot by the mafia. As
in Lieutenant Columbo. The horror!
More seriously, though, they're great movies and I enjoyed them.
Can't help feeling though that some people come away with the wrong message:
they think that mafia morality is how the world really works and so they must
now embrace it.
Instead of noticing that Michael Corleone was trying to escape from it all and
create a different life for his children. A life without the threats and
violence.
(And then I think, hmm, perhaps mafia morality _is_ still alive and well. It's
merely that instead of being assassinated people are being deplatformed,
disemployed, etc.)
~~~
wwright
Deplatforming and disemploying is fundamentally different in that it works by
social consensus rather than an individual “fiat,” at the very least. I can’t
deplatform you without getting the agreement of all relevant platforms.
That’s one big difference in the things you are comparing, without diving too
deep into a different topic.
~~~
grabbalacious
Good point. Although I think it tends to be a consensus among an influential
minority of the populace rather than society as a whole.
~~~
philwelch
Mob rule is never actually mob rule, there's a complicated relationship
between the mob and the demagogues who alternately control the mob while also
being controlled by it.
~~~
lowdose
Controlled opposition while shuffling the real dirty jobs on them and
maintaining plausible deniability.
------
Pxtl
And The Walking Dead never calls them Zombies.
~~~
DonHopkins
The Walking Dead season 7: This is why the word 'zombie' is never used
It turns out horror maestro George A Romero doesn't exist in this show's
universe
[https://www.independent.co.uk/arts-
entertainment/tv/news/the...](https://www.independent.co.uk/arts-
entertainment/tv/news/the-walking-dead-season-7-theres-a-reason-why-the-word-
zombie-is-a-big-no-no-a7461246.html)
~~~
Pxtl
Neat, but I think that's an in-universe explanation for a stylistic decision.
Like "Quiet does commando ops wearing a bikini because she breathes through
her skin".
No, the game designers wanted her to wear a bikini, so they wrote in that she
breathes through her skin.
Same here.
------
LeicaLatte
Terrible SEO by the makers.
------
Lendal
The most interesting part of this article is that the aim of the Italian-
American Civil Rights League was to combat derogatory stereotypes about
Italian-Americans.
The IACRL promptly reinforced all those stereotypes by launching an
intimidation campaign against the production of The Godfather.
------
somacert
The mafia is just government by other means, and "The government" hates the
competition.
------
CalChris
The book uses the word _mafia_ quite a bit, 57 times according to my PDF
reader.
------
oriettaxx
Btw, ask any Italian if they have seen Godfather III: they know it exists,
probably, but they hardly know its content: which is explosive
------
mdszy
How is this on topic in the slightest?
~~~
giancarlostoro
It is about culture. Just because it's about the Mafia and those types of
people are criminals doesn't mean they don't have their own culture. It being
culture, it is interesting to people here on HN.
------
Youpinadi
They never say "Star Wars" in Star Wars
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
RFC 1925 – The Twelve Networking Truths (1996) - avantgarde
https://tools.ietf.org/html/rfc1925
======
nitinics
Thanks for posting this. This is an April Fool's day RFC. Similar hilarious
RFCs are posted almost every year on 1st of April.
Check out the list here
[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/April_Fools%27_Day_Request_for_...](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/April_Fools%27_Day_Request_for_Comments)
------
xyclos
#12 seems particularly relevant to the all the recent Angular 2.0 discussion.
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Show HN: 2D Portals - zakn
https://blog.applepinegames.com/2d-portals-e293dc41a61e
======
jastr
This is a great write up!
~~~
brudgers
I agree. Yet, the spirit of "Show HN" is for items that other people can try
out or play with rather than prose such as blog posts.
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Found: A Batch of DNA Molecules That Seem To Have Originated in Space - jellicles
http://www.popsci.com/technology/article/2011-08/building-blocks-life-can-originate-space
======
RobertHubert
Interesting! Could that rock have come from earth? It would be possible that
pieces of earth that escaped into orbit from a collision some time ago finally
found their way back...
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
US Army grants HP $249 million contract to deploy private cloud services - rdl
http://www.engadget.com/2012/04/03/us-army-grants-hp-249-million-contract/
======
rdl
I've been using the HP Cloud private beta for a while, and it's definitely
interesting. It's basically Open Stack, and might make some sense vs. Amazon
EC2 for clients with on premises (managed by HP consulting/professional
services) and cloud hybrid.
It will be interesting to see HP Cloud vs. VMware (Terremark, etc.) vs. Amazon
GovCloud in the enterprise/government space. EC2 vs. Rackspace is probably the
bigger competition for most b2c webapps.
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Popularity of keyword “recession” on Google for the past 12 months - iamspoilt
https://trends.google.com/trends/explore?geo=US&q=recession
======
joncrane
This displays a lot of interesting characteristics, but I wish I could explore
the data further. For example, zoom in on the 4 years leading up to 2008, then
compare to the 4 years leading up to today.
Also interesting is that the data is clearly cyclical on an annual pattern.
Look at the last 5 years for evidence of that.
------
test6554
It's hard to tell whether one should hoard cash in preparation for a recession
or buy property in preparation for inflation.
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
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