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Elon Musk Lobs New Criticism at SEC: Tesla CEO says ‘I do not respect’ agency - ryansmccoy
https://www.wsj.com/articles/elon-musk-lobs-new-criticism-at-sec-1544411580
======
muhneesh
You love him or you hate him.
Elon is likely frustrated by his limited degree of freedom in his ability to
express himself given his role as a chairman and CEO of a $60B public company.
It takes a unique empathy to understand the nature of that frustration -
you're super smart, super rich, well-intentioned, but you still can't do
everything that you want to do because of the constraints posed by the laws of
our society, which by necessity, adhere to a lower common denominator.
The solution here for Elon is relatively straightforward, though. Continue to
prove out Tesla's business, and get to the point where you can take the
company private.
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
My Favorite jQuery Plugin Template - kolodny
http://kolodny.github.io/blog/blog/2013/12/27/my-favorite-jquery-plugin-template/
======
5vforest
Neat. I also like this one (Coffeescript):
[https://gist.github.com/rjz/3610858](https://gist.github.com/rjz/3610858)
------
maemilius
I'm not a huge fan of the double wrap of anonymous functions. The inner one
seems entirely superfluous unless you're adding multiple plugins in one file
and, I think, makes the code a little harder to read since you have to look at
the invocation of the function to get all the information you need about it.
It seems a lot clearer to simply declare `var pluginName = "borderize";` at
the top of the function than to pass it in. Granted, that does add 6
characters to the total length of the file.
~~~
kolodny
Well I plan on using this for multiple plugins in that same iffe. I also like
that I'm able to copy/paste it as a block inside other jQuery blocks.
~~~
jbeja
"I plan on using this for multiple plugins in that same iffe"
Isn't a little bit inconvinient, talking about modularity, will you be the
only one using those plugins?
------
nilliams
These days I'd prefer a plugin template that doesn't infect the jQuery
namespace by default (and is AMD compatible) so I can use it with a module
loader:
var borderize = require('jquery.borderize');
...
borderize('div');
And my linter will tell me off if I forget a require.
Edit: I guess such a thing is not really a 'jQuery plugin' but a 'module that
depends on jQuery'.
------
phlyingpenguin
Why not: options = $.extend(true, {}, defaults, options);
~~~
kolodny
Because I didn't think of it :)
Actually that's better because if one of the options is an object I wouldn't
have to worry about accidentally changing a propery because this does a deep
copy.
I've updated the post, thanks.
------
rdebeasi
Cool stuff! This reminds me a lot of jQuery Boilerplate:
[https://github.com/jquery-boilerplate/jquery-
boilerplate/blo...](https://github.com/jquery-boilerplate/jquery-
boilerplate/blob/master/src/jquery.boilerplate.js)
Personally, I find the "that" variable to be a little confusing. A developer
looking at the code might wonder whether "that" is the plugin, a DOM element,
or something else. To make the code a little clearer, you could use something
like "elem" to represent the element on which the plugin has been called, and
"plugin" to represent the plugin itself.
Happy coding!
~~~
kolodny
That's a good point. I've updated the post to use `elem` and `$elem`
Thanks
------
xiata
Save a few bytes.
;!function($){
...
return this.each(function($elem, elem){
$elem = $(elem);
...
});
...
}(jQuery);
~~~
prezjordan
Ho boy not this again...
[https://github.com/twbs/bootstrap/issues/3057](https://github.com/twbs/bootstrap/issues/3057)
------
amadeus
How does anyone consider this sane javascript? Is this what the community has
been reduced too?
------
cturhan
What is the problem with `$this = $(this)` ? You used `that` but I didn't get
that.
~~~
kolodny
Once I set up an alias for `this` I try to only use that from then on to be
consistent. The reason I do that in the first place is in case I need to pass
it to a callback, I can just use the alias and don't have to worry about when
`this` will be the global object
~~~
jasonlotito
If you minimize your javascript, `that` can be minimized, `this` cannot.
------
voidr
I find the pluginName parameter excessive.
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Why Is Front-End Development So Unstable? A Perspective - jbreckmckye
http://www.breck-mckye.com/blog/2018/05/why-is-front-end-development-so-unstable/
======
slededit
At the end of the day the front-end is heavily tied to the visual design of
the site. When the visual design changes drastically it makes sense to throw
out the tightly coupled logic with it, and so front-end work is more
ephemeral.
In this environment there is no incentive to make things last long term.
Frameworks can make breaking changes version to version, and websites may
change their technology completely in each iteration. It doesn't matter
because you will just throw it out in relatively short periods of time.
------
tomlagier
I'm very interested as to why this phenomenon - not having an authoritative
way to vet third party libraries - seems to be a uniquely frontend concern.
What have the dozens of other, battle-tested languages done to solve this? How
do I know that a Maven package or Rust crate is legitimate, useful, and sans-
malware?
It seems like this is a question fundamental to any programming ecosystem,
that _must_ have a reasonable solution which balances developer time assessing
a potential library with the utility of that library. I'm very interested in
some strategies the JS ecosystem could take to foster a culture or platform
with well-known, well-supported standard libraries.
------
bobfirestone
The one thing I would add is the JavaScript standard library is deserving of
some blame for the micro-library problem. Being bundled with the browser or
server side in node doubling the size of the standard library to avoid
situations like the left pad library being pulled from npm seems like a no
brainer type of decision. ES2017 adds the padEnd and padStart functions is a
step in the right direction. There is movement in the right direction but I
would like to see the JS standard library at a minimum match the ruby standard
library and eliminate a bunch of the micro dependencies that creep into
libraries.
------
daltonlp
"Backbone all day."
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13944631](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13944631)
Choose a stable foundation. Think about the tradeoffs, and accept them.
There is much beauty and satisfaction in using a framework that is
straightforward to understand, and does its designed job very well.
------
expertentipp
Self-promotion is a plague in this industry. First page of Google results
regarding any JS framework topic is some marketing folks aiming to be
hired/contractors, promoting outsourcing/nearshoring location, without any
meaningful content created. Then this laughable community celebrities and
"authorities". Crockford, Zakas, Souders, Resig - ever heard of them? In three
years nobody will even remember or care about that Angular-Google guy, or
React-Facebook guy, or ngrx-whatever guy... except those who end up
maintaining some legacy codebase and cursing the universe.
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Blogging begins turnaround for homeless woman - edw519
http://www.cnn.com/2009/LIVING/09/11/homeless.blogger/index.html
======
onreact-com
Inspiring story. It won't work for all homeless though. Giving homeless people
a voice, via Web access is a good idea though.
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Show HN: Good use of Covid-19 social distancing spare time dev projects - kkielhofner
Once I got done scrubbing my entire house down for the third time I got to looking around for some potentially fun development projects to make use of my (ample) time indoors.<p>What fun stuff have you gotten around to these days?
======
brettkromkamp
Doubling-down on my (open source) knowledge management application:
[https://contextualise.dev/](https://contextualise.dev/)
------
kkielhofner
I'll go first:
[https://github.com/krisk84/RetroPie-
Setup](https://github.com/krisk84/RetroPie-Setup)
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Fake online stores reveal gamblers' shadow banking system - rbanffy
http://uk.reuters.com/article/uk-gambling-usa-dummies-idUKKBN19D13E
======
michaelbuckbee
This sounds somewhat similar to the polite fiction of Japanese Pachinko
parlors [1].
"Taniguchi swapped the tray of thousands of winning silver balls for a
receipt, which in turn was swappable for alcohol, toys or other prizes. To get
money, you need to ask for the “special prize” tokens. These are plastic gold-
coloured tokens that can be swapped for cash -- but not within the pachinko
parlour. Instead, they are cashed in at TUC shops that are always located
nearby and exist as a legal loophole enabling you to win money in a country
that technically forbids gambling."
1 - [http://www.bbc.com/travel/story/20120815-the-big-business-
of...](http://www.bbc.com/travel/story/20120815-the-big-business-of-japans-
pachinko-parlours)
~~~
the_cat_kittles
great travel story. it misses something that i felt in _spades_ whenever i
popped my head into a pachinko parlor: it is incredibly depressing. ive never
seen slots in vegas but i imagine its similar. theres something incredibly
reductive about sitting there watching balls bounce randomly and slowly losing
money. especially knowing that people are hopelessly addicted to it. but, i
get it. we are all capable of succumbing to things like this. the void is
utterly palpable in those places.
~~~
balabaster
Wow, I've been in about a dozen casinos in my life. I hated every minute I was
in them. I had pre-budgeted a specific amount and when it was gone, it was
gone.
I could never really place my finger on what it was I disliked about them
except that the games bored me. But it was so much more than that. I failed to
connect the dots until exactly the moment I read your comment.
There _is_ a void, an abyss of loneliness and sorrow. Many of the people there
are empty. Lost. An air of depression, desperation hangs in the air. It's like
they've lost the will to live and this is their last hope at redemption that
fades with every token they drop into the machines.
As an empath, this emptiness, this void that you describe being so palpable.
That cuts to the very core of how it makes me feel when I enter them and why I
spend the entire time longing for the door. It's like the Dementor's Kiss for
me.
Thank you! Sincerely!
~~~
csa
Take 20x the min bet (e.g., $200 to a $10 table) to a craps table, bet the
pass line, get free drinks, and cheer like crazy for the shooter.
This is a relatively low variance and no skill way to have fun at a casino.
The craps table are usually where the fun people are.
A few general comments:
\- Your expected value on a $10 bet is -$0.15. You get maybe 25-30 bets an
hour at a full table. It's a very cheap game to play.
\- Tables are active at different times in different casinos. Evenings are
often the best time. Weekends can be good, but sometimes more crowded and/or
higher minimums.
\- Stakes can matter in some casinos. The difference of clientele at a $5 min
table and a $10 min table can be noticeable. Casinos with a wider range of min
bets will also have wider range of atmospheres. Pick your poison.
\- Remember that you are responsible for your bet and collecting your winnings
(i.e., pulling it in). Dealers sometimes make mistakes, and sometimes people
grab the wrong bet (intentionally or unintentionally). This is usually not an
issue, just stay on top of it at a busy table.
\- Bring some $1 or $5 chips to tip the dealers and the cocktail waitresses.
Good tipping usually gets you better service.
~~~
balabaster
I know there are loads of people that _do_ find enjoyment in Casinos. So I
know my perspective isn't the only one by a _long_ shot.
A friend of mine used to be a professional gambler. He stuck to the poker
tables... I guess he must've played medium stakes. He did pretty well because
you're playing against the other players, so even though the house wins
overall, if you're a decent poker player, you can walk away with more than you
started every night, and he did and the house still wins. The odds work far
more favourably when you're betting against other players rather than the
house. He started off without much money in the bank, but he was pretty
quickly pulling in enough to cover his rent, bills and never seemed to want
for much.
It always seemed to me if the game itself could've held my attention longer
than 15 minutes, it would've been a pretty easy way to augment my income. The
truth is though, after 15 minutes I'm bored with that.
~~~
laumars
> _if you 're a decent poker player, you can walk away with more than you
> started every night,_
This is a huge exaggeration from what my poker playing friends have told me.
One notable individual being a professional poker player of several years and
who has wins in national tournaments as well. So he really knows his game.
We've often talked about the odds of winning and how sustainable it is as an
income. The figure he gives me is around 20% - that is you can only expect to
cash in around 20% of the competitions you enter. Which means you can often go
months without seeing a return. However it's not just him I've seen give that
figure, other players I've spoken to have echoed a similar statement.
~~~
phil21
I also know a WSOP final table player, and what you say is true of tournament
play.
Think of that more like the lottery for professional poker players. The
celebrities do that a couple times a year, and the grinders hope to make
enough for buy-in and "make it big". It's the least mathematically interesting
way to "make a living" playing poker there is.
Where you grind out your living is the daily cash games. Yes, if you are
making a living off of Poker it's basically a job. That means boring play for
little hourly money most days of your life. After a few months, I imagine this
feels more or less identical to an actual job.
I've watched "pros" grind out their day to day life, and it really doesn't
seem that compelling. Better than working fast food, but on average seems to
pay about the same and be roughly the same intellectual stimulation. 4 screens
with 6 tables on each playing video poker every day doesn't sound that great
to me.
~~~
chx
> Better than working fast food, but on average seems to pay about the same
There are quite a few people who play from places where living costs are
low(er) like Costa Rica or Mexico or, for that matter, Hungary and make --
compared to the locals -- an astonishing amount of money. Istvan Ratkai, who
wrote a few successful text adventure games in the eighties have been one of
the most well known Hungarian video poker players. He said he played about 3-4
hours a day and made 50-70% more than the minimal wage -- the full time
minimal wage, that is. He had an ordinary programmer job as well so this as a
secondary was quite a nice haul.
------
ChuckMcM
As I've mentioned before I first encountered transaction hiding in World of
Warcraft. There were 'grey'[1] items in the Auction House with a buy it now
price of 500 gold (which at the time was extreme). I could not figure out who
would buy a twill vest for 500g until it was explained that you went to a web
site, paid them some cash for gold, told them your character name, and then
put up for auction a grey item that was priced at how much gold you had
purchased. One of the vendors 'agents' would then go into the auction house
and buy it. You ended up with your gold and as far as the game was concerned
it was a straight up, if unusual, transaction between players.
[1] Item descriptions were colored, grey was "trash" and meant to be sold to
vendor for cash, "green" were somewhat nicer/rare, then "blue" for very rare,
and "purple" for epically rare, and "goldenrod" for legendary.
~~~
splonk
Around 10 years ago before the rise of bitcoin, WoW gold was the de facto
illicit currency of the internet, since there was a reasonably robust market
for it. Things like batches of stolen credit cards would routinely be bought
and sold in prices delineated in WoW gold.
According to a Blizzard employee one of my coworkers talked to, their
chargeback rates were significantly higher than even porn sites (15+%, IIRC),
to the point that it was somewhat surprising that their payment processor was
still doing business with them. It's unclear to me if those accounts were
primarily used to generate mules to facilitate these transactions, gold
farming, or something else.
~~~
wcummings
Could be that people were buying WoW gold with stolen cards and trying to
"fence" it before the chargeback.
~~~
splonk
I don't believe you could buy gold directly from Blizzard at the time.
~~~
hamstercat
Indeed you couldn't. Technically you still can't, but now you can buy a game
token with cash and then sell that to other players on the auction house for
gold.
------
deckar01
Customer support gave up the con on a phone call? I imagine with a little more
effort they could have been indistinguishable from a legitimate business.
~~~
dragonwriter
> Customer support gave up the con on a phone call?
They kind of have to, since the whole purpose of the support number seems to
be to reassure people who know they paid “MyIllegalPokerSite.com” but see a
charge on their bill from “MyTotallyLegitFabricStore.com” that the charge
corresponds to their payment to the poker site, and that they shouldn't
contest the charges as fraudulent with their card issuer.
~~~
draw_down
Yeah. This scheme makes it seem easy to issue a chargeback though, gamblers
can just tell their credit card co "I have no idea who FabricFactory.com is".
I wonder how/if they prevent gambling customers from doing that.
~~~
dragonwriter
From the article, they told the reporter that they handled virtually all
online gambling transactions; they might just accept a certain level of it and
then blacklist the customer. (They might even let a customer suggesting that
they might issue a chargeback know that that is the consequence.)
~~~
ljf
It is also very hard to withdraw money from illegal gambling sites. It can be
done, but is often a slow drawn out process, to get you as close as possible
to the date that you can't cancel. Also don't forget that these are dodgy
people who have your home address... And know you've been breaking the law -
likely with also some tax issues too on the winnings.
~~~
willstrafach
I believe they usually have a 90-day waiting period for withdrawals if you
load via credit card (instead of Western Union or BTC), helping them ensure
the user does not perform a chargeback.
------
downandout
I noticed one of these payment processing fronts when I looked at my card
transactions after making a PartyPoker deposit back in ~2006. In this case, it
was a site called Gygon.com. If you visited their website, you would have
thought it was an online lamp store with many broken features. I later learned
that GYGON stood for "get your game on".
------
djhworld
I feel really stupid, can someone explain to me what people are allegedly
doing here?
My understanding is a Poker company (for example) puts all transactions from
US customers through these fake stores. Then the organisation running the fake
stores reimburses the Poker company outside of the US and takes a small slice
for the service?
~~~
mongmong
I would think this is primarily to hide gambling activities so it doesn't
affect your credit score. If you're applying for a loan or credit card your
bank statements can be assessed and if it finds transactions to known gambling
sites or ATM withdrawals from known gambling venues or hotels then that will
affect your credit rating badly.
~~~
querulous
[https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Unlawful_Internet_Gambling_E...](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Unlawful_Internet_Gambling_Enforcement_Act_of_2006)
------
MrFoof
PBS Frontline covered this in their February 9th, 2016 episode, "The Fantasy
Sports Gamble" ([http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/frontline/film/fantasy-sports-
gamble...](http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/frontline/film/fantasy-sports-gamble/))
Zip to around 18:15 in the video.
_" After I set up the account, I couldn't quite figure out how to deposit
money. That's when I got a phone call on my cell phone and a guy walked me
through how to put money on the book. Took my credit card right over the
phone. Then he assured me there wouldn't be anything on my credit card
statement that said BetOnline."_
What would show up on the statement was MoserSafety. Which was a front
website. If you called the contact information, they confirmed they had no
safety goggles, gloves, hard hats, etc. to actually sell you. It was a shell.
In fact, they confirmed on the phone that the number called was a, _" third
party payment processing support service."_ Some time later, the site no
longer existed.
------
weego
Only about a decade behind on covering this.
------
sofaofthedamned
Some usenet indexers and pay-for-join torrent sites use similar fronts to be
able to accept PayPal.
~~~
kchoudhu
They usually ship you the item. You can pay extra to not receive it, which
always struck me as odd...
~~~
peterlk
If you're using a stolen credit card or fake address or whatever and you don't
want to create any waves, not shipping the item is a value-add.
~~~
willstrafach
If you're using a stolen credit card, the cardholder will definitely issue a
chargeback.
~~~
CamperBob2
And then people wonder why PayPal is such a pain in the ass to do business
with...
~~~
jeltz
And this is why everyone should start requiring 3D Secure. On sites with 3D
Secure support I need to use an app to authorize transactions, so if this was
the norm online credit card fraud would be a much smaller problem.
~~~
joshmn
3DS is mostly a joke for anyone who _really_ wants to use your credit card. I
won't go into details publicly, but I will say that having an app to authorize
transactions is a step-up from the good 'ol "enter your PIN"
~~~
jeltz
If all physical stores required chip and PIN and all online stores required 3D
Secures then my credit card number, expiry date, and CVV would no longer be
sensitive information meaning someone would need to either steal my physical
credit card and my PIN or the secret key stored in my phone plus the PIN for
the app. This means I would not need to worry about websites stealing my card
info.
~~~
joshmn
3DS doesn't process your card, it simply validates a transaction.
------
blowski
The linked article is also very interesting
[http://uk.reuters.com/article/uk-britain-consett-
companies-s...](http://uk.reuters.com/article/uk-britain-consett-companies-
specialrepo-idUKKBN13I144)
------
e40
Still online:
[https://www.myfabricfactory.com/index.php](https://www.myfabricfactory.com/index.php)
------
johnnyg
I'm shocked, shocked to find that gambling is going on in here. Do we need
enforcement here or do we need to change policy?
------
joshschreuder
This is quite common with torrent site donations too, where you are directed
to a webstore selling 'merch' that is actually your donation to the site in
question.
------
ajmarsh
Nice, maybe I can start playing online poker again here in the US. Just have
to figure out a way to send me my winnings that are not bolts of fabric.
~~~
lazerpants
Just use cryptocurrency. Or VPN into a state that allows it.
~~~
ljf
New Jersey (at least) doesn't just rely on ip now, and need a companion app or
similar.
~~~
lazerpants
Oh wow, I just looked it up and yes, they use a shockingly sophisticated
system for this now [0]. I suspect you could still defeat it, but crypto is
absolutely the easier option.
Funny though, my friends who use Draft Kings were able to just VPN into NJ
from NY to use it.
[0] [https://www.dailydot.com/business/new-jersey-online-
gambling...](https://www.dailydot.com/business/new-jersey-online-gambling-
fence-new-york-manhattan/)
------
benologist
How could a platform detect this kind of "transaction laundering"?
------
pdelbarba
"Reuters examination has found" => we called the help desk and they said "yea,
we don't sell anything, we're a front you dummy"
~~~
dmurray
It's a weakness in the system, because the help desk employees have to be
trained to tell people "yes I know it says MyFabricFactory on your credit card
bill, but that was actually your deposit to our gambling website" because they
get that call all the time and they need to be able to put the customers at
ease rather than have them call Visa to dispute the transaction.
------
strathmeyer
Ok who here hasn't ordered "something" from Europe that showed up on your
credit card to some ecommerce site selling overpriced ipods? Let this be a
lesson to you kids, try anything unscrupulous and the feds will catch up to
you in a couple of decades.
~~~
dsfyu404ed
I ordered a pump typically used in dialysis machines for a project that
happened to require a pump of that nature. It came from some former Soviet
republic and had been opened and examined by customs in a handful of countries
(as evidenced by layers of cut tape and identifying tape and stickers placed
on it when it was deemed passable). I wonder if after the first customs
official inspected it all the subsequent countries decided if it was good
enough to be of interest to the prior country they had better open it up and
take a look as well.
I'm not sure if stuff like that is highly regulated but I was able to just buy
it on eBay and it got to me no problem so it was pretty painless.
Based on purchases a friend of mine alleges one of his friends had made the
really shady "somethings" go through .onion sites using bitcoin.
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Show HN: Frop.io, instant remote presentations. In your Browser - derwildemomo
https://frop.io
======
derwildemomo
Hi HN!
[https://frop.io](https://frop.io) is a simple application that allows you to
present content (PDF presentations, Images, Text, YouTube videos) on a remote
screen without installing any software. It's completely based on web standards
(Websockets, JS) and runs in most modern browsers.
Simply start a session by calling frop.io/[yoursessionname]
I posted this two weeks ago. Since then I've completely overhauled the design
and built a native tvOS and Fire TV viewer app (both free and publicly
available).
Once again, looking forward to your comments, suggestions and criticism.
Thanks!
------
CDillinger
I love this concept, and it's great to see the current support for dragging
and dropping images and PDFs.
I was checking out the functionality and tried dropping a couple different
formats into the host screen (Word documents, Excel spreadsheets, .txt files),
and the host screen would either do nothing or get stuck on the validating
screen. I'm guessing this is because these aren't currently supported types.
If this is the case, I'd suggest notifying the host that the file type is not
supported.
~~~
derwildemomo
Hi, thank you for your feedback!
You are right, the current feedback mechanics need some love. I'm working on
that ;)
Supporting Word, Excel, PPT is also an item on the list, but since we rely on
client-only processing, displaying documents consistently across platforms and
browsers needs some time and work. But: On it!
------
kpsychwave
Excellent.I was working on a similar personal project. I had these
functionalities in mind:
\- Gradient / Color full screen mode \- Keep remote screen awake \- Screenshot
preview of remote screens (html5 canvas)
\+ Visualizations
It is nice to have a TV/monitor on to use as a light, clock... without having
to deal with Chromecast
~~~
derwildemomo
I like the gradient/Color-Mode Idea very much. Going to integrate that (with
attribution if you don't mind).
Do you have any example regarding the Visualizations? I'm keen to learn more
about that and to see if it fits in well.
~~~
kpsychwave
Looking forward to seeing it. :)
I don't have examples. I am thinking loop videos, GIFs, or CSS3 animations.
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=27XvZReW_cs](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=27XvZReW_cs)
[http://likethemammal.github.io/css-
visualizer/](http://likethemammal.github.io/css-visualizer/)
------
moondev
Looks cool. Would be nice to be able to drag a pptx or google slides link
which would unpack the images or slides automatically. Then you could use
arrow keys to easily advance the stream. May be outside the scope for
simplicity though
~~~
derwildemomo
Ha, I'd actually love that. Google Slides should be in the realm of possible
things, PPTX could get more complicated.
What I suggest you try is to upload a PDF. I've built a moderator mode on the
presenting screen, there you can do exactly what you want (just not with a PPT
but with a PDF-Presentation).
The reason is that PDF can be rendered very consistently across platforms,
this is more problematic with Powerpoint and friends.
------
detritus
Does this only allow for one viewer per presentation?
I can imagine a lot of use-case scenarios with multiple viewers enabled, if at
all possible?
Nice work though, I can see some uses for this already!
~~~
derwildemomo
At the moment it's one viewer per presentation, though that limit is quite
arbitrary and could be changed in the future.
I thought or considered this to be a nice-to-have but not mandatory feature,
but more people keep asking for that. Always good to have some external
feedback – thank you!
------
david90
Great work! Supporting multi-page PDF is a good feature there.
~~~
derwildemomo
Thank you!
------
avi02
I tried it and it looks good to me, my only concern was how will be the
session name collision is handled?
~~~
derwildemomo
Sessions are ephemeral – once you close the tab or browser window, the session
is gone (and the viewer will go back to the 'waiting for content' screen).
This is by design – frop is meant for realtime collaboration or presentations,
so having something stick around forever is not really the use case (in my
head).
------
nojvek
This is great. Does it do any screensharing?
~~~
derwildemomo
Not really, I think there are better and more mature tools for doing that
(like appear.in or Skype) out there. frop.io is quite special in that it does
not do screensharing at all, but just transmits the content, being super
bandwidth-conserving.
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Ask YC: What to do if burned out, and have dozens of deadlines for tomorrow - burnedouthacker
Just wanting to ask for your advice, on how you deal with this problem. I pulled an all-nighter yesterday in order to meet with my deadlines for today, but have a dozen more for tomorrow. I can't seem to find the focus and concentration needed to get something done due to my lack of sleep. What other options do you think I could opt for besides going to bed and missing those deadlines?
======
s_baar
Sleep or take a shower, and slip into something comfortable. See if you can do
it listening to music.
If that fails, re-evaluate your life and introspect how all these deadlines
mean that something is ending, giving you an opportunity to either do
something better or just give you more free time/sleep.
------
lacker
If you are too tired to work effectively, first sleep, then work. Set your
alarm clock very early. Then hopefully the adrenaline will help you work. If
you still miss your deadlines, be honest, apologize, and try to work something
out.
------
blhack
What city are you in? Go get some Yerba Matte, the loose kind.
But about 1cm of it in the bottom of a french press, and about 2cm of milk in
the bottom of a 20oz glass. Mix.
Then add a few squirts of peppermint. (like 4 squirts).
I'm serious, this concoction has gotten me through more all-nighter-afters
than anything else ever.
------
physcab
When my roommate gets stressed he has 4 glasses of Carlo Rossi and passes out.
Does the trick every time.
In all seriousness though, just take a nap and realize that in the grand
scheme of things what you're working on is probably not that important. I
always recall one particular chapter in Bill Bryson's "A Short History of
Nearly Everything" where he outlined the fact that the human race somehow
survived something like 7 extinction periods. That always puts things in
perspective for me.
Just be happy.
------
Shamiq
Is finding help possible?
Living with a pair of hackers, I frequently run about asking technical
questions or getting them to review bits of code. It makes the process a lot
faster, and speed helps getting things done.
Good luck to you, mate. I would keep working and only refresh this page every
hour or so -- only other people with insane workloads are still up ;)
------
whatusername
If it's a once (or twice) off:
* Go for a run.
* Then take a cold shower.
* Then dose up on caffiene of your choice.
But please don't do stuff like this often - if you're always working like that
- then just go to bed.
------
albertsun
Getting off of HN and any other news site would be a start.
------
critic
Get drunk or stoned. A solution will come to you!
~~~
mannicken
That actually works like a charm.
------
earl
Take a nap, feel better, then triage. Do things in priority order and don't
stop working on item #1 until it's finished or you're blocked.
In your spare time, read Getting Things Done. Even if you don't like the book,
it's decent advice.
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Ask HN: How long until ramen profitability with iphone apps - phd_student
I'm considering dropping out to focus full time on iphone apps.<p>I'm curious to hear stories from people who've already taken the plunge.<p>How long did it take you to ream ramen profitability with iphone apps?<p>(Responses like "3 months ... long insightful story ..." is much much better than things like "3 months")
======
hboon
1 single practical piece of advice if you decide to drop out - make sure you
set up the paid developer account along with both paid and free contracts
before you drop out.
If it's done quickly, you have nothing to lose for waiting, if it takes a long
time, count yourself lucky you waited.
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
F.C.C. Vote Sets Precedent on Unfettered Web Usage - robg
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/08/02/technology/02fcc.html?partner=rssuserland&emc=rss&pagewanted=all
======
mdasen
I'm not trying to be a downer or anything, but what the FCC did might have
been a lot more narrow than what everyone in our community is advertising.
The vote didn't say that companies can't throttle traffic. It was against
Comcast's truly evil reset packets - basically, against Comcast's forged
traffic. It is a very good thing that the FCC has taken a stand against ISPs
forging traffic to disrupt people's internet connection. However, I would
caution against statements like the NYTimes article has saying that the FCC
has come out against "equipment that slowed - but did not completely block -
file transfers using BitTorrent". This wasn't mere traffic shaping or
throttling in the Comcast case.
------
zandorg
Not technically 'Web' usage - more Internet usage.
I thought that distinction worth pointing out.
I doubt anyone's going to court over a multi-megabyte webpage...
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Show HN: Luc - JS Improved - pllee
http://github.com/pllee/luc
======
pllee
I'm looking to get some input on this. I'd really like to hear what everyone
has to think.
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
The Primordial Gound - diodorus
http://publicdomainreview.org/collections/the-primordial-gound/
======
marssaxman
I don't know Kant well enough to clearly see the edges of the game being
played here, but this species of game is delightful, and this, despite my
confusion, is an enjoyable instance of the form.
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Paleo Diet Lawsuit Dismissed By Court in Blow to Free Expression - cwan
http://reason.com/blog/2012/10/11/paleo-diet-lawsuit-dismissed-by-court-in
======
Evbn
Incredbly confusingly written story written by the plaintiff. Does anyone have
a news story explaining what actually happened that they are challenging?
"Standing" is a horrible bug in or legal system thoughm It is insane to say
that you have to have evidence of concrete loss before you can challenge a law
that restricts your freedom. That means that only lawbreakers have access to
relief provided by the courts!
Especially horrible when it was used to stop people from challenging the
PATRIOT ACT -- Congress gave feds be power to hide evidence of abuses, and
made it illegal to share that evidence, and then courts rejected petitioners
who didn't have that evidence in hand!
Bonus HN: reasons mobile website forces a 8px font height. No thanks!
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Helping the Travel Industry Rebound - odyssey1
http://www.aitravelers.com
======
odyssey1
We are working on our MVP and beginning to create an ai-fueled matching engine
to help our subscribers, as well as travel suppliers, bounce back from these
hard times.
~~~
SONtraveltech
I like it, but I don't want to just hand my birth date, income, and other
personal details to some random site posting here. Is there another way to
collect signups and earn trust before harvesting info?
~~~
odyssey1
We are trying to narrow our target market, I like that suggestion. Perhaps we
will give more of a range of age. Would that open your willingness to give a
range of income or do you have other suggestions to figure out demographics?
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Geolocation with 3m accuracy and error correction in 10 symbols - pjkundert
http://hardconsulting.com/products/13-reed-solomon#EZCOD
======
mtmail
The only advantage I see is the checksum and in my opinion it makes more sense
to check the whole message and not just a pair or coordinates.
Google's open location code is relatively new and they discussed all common
existing systems. One advantage of open location code is to avoid characters 0
vs O or l vs 1. [https://github.com/google/open-location-
code/blob/master/doc...](https://github.com/google/open-location-
code/blob/master/docs/comparison.adoc)
~~~
pjkundert
The EZCOD uses a base-32 encoding that equates 0, O, o, and , 1, I, i, and 2,
Z, z, and 5, S, s. The real key asset that EZCOD has vs. the other common
encoding systems is the ability to correct errors -- not just detect them.
Even the most basic version with one parity symbol allows you to recover 100%
accuracy, if you can identify the symbol that is lost (eg. the letter rubbed
off the page).
Thanks for the link; it looks like a great resource. A quick rundown of the
list of "Desired Attributes" seems to match perfectly with what EZCOD provides
-- with the addition of the error detection and correction.
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
AMA with webpack Team - tilt
https://hashnode.com/ama/with-webpack-team-cilqks5re00038g53qqgpvqza
======
vvoyer
It's live now and awesome answers!
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Ask HN: Most comfortable keyboard? - quantumpotato_
I use Microsoft Ergonomic 4000.
They keys take a lot to press, so I'm considering a mechanical keyboard like a rat7.<p>However, I feel the layout of most keyboards (rectangular) isn't adapted to a natural form of my hands (more open, spread away from the torso instead of closed in).<p>What's the best keyboard for long-term programming?
======
kps
I'm a fan of the Kinesis contoured keyboards, which I've been using for 15
years now.
The two major keyboard fora, which you can use to help research and discuss
what would suit you, are [http://deskthority.net/](http://deskthority.net/)
and [http://geekhack.org/](http://geekhack.org/)
~~~
jrmiii
I second the Kinesis - although, I could never get into the foot pedals.
~~~
jfb
I have one of the foot pedals, and I use it sometimes, but mostly to shock my
coworkers. I never really got into the hang of using it in my day to day life.
------
pasbesoin
For me, not layout but key force and travel became problems. I've ended up
with a Kensington keyboard... Ci73 that has a "low profile" and "laptop-type"
keys/keyswitches. Much better...
The 73 is wired. They also make a wireless model; however, wireless keyboards
have had security issues, particularly at the time I settled on the
Kensington, and so I avoided wireless.
I have it adjusted to the "right height" behind a 3M gel wristpad model that,
unfortunately, is no longer made.
Amongst the choices in this category, note that IBM and now Lenovo make a
ThinkPad style external keyboard. The last I checked, there were two
revisions. I think the former had an integrated trackpad while the latter did
not. Opinions varied as to which was better.
YMMV. But for some, it may be worth considering key action and travel,
particularly if you've ever found yourself favoring a laptop keyboard (perhaps
before so many of them went "chiclet") over a desktop/external keyboard.
------
GoNB
I have a Noppoo Choc Mini. It's on the quieter side of mechanical keyboards
(Cherry Reds). It's more of a typing/gaming keyboard, but I can still type
110+ WPM consistently and without pain.
[http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B0091QOCNA/ref=wms_ohs_prod...](http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B0091QOCNA/ref=wms_ohs_product?ie=UTF8&psc=1)
If you're looking to reduce RSI/wrist pain, I found that far more important
than a keyboard is your posture and arm position. More or less:
[http://www.egodevelopment.com/wp-
content/uploads/2008/03/4.j...](http://www.egodevelopment.com/wp-
content/uploads/2008/03/4.jpg) (I would actually have my monitor a tad higher
than in that picture)
------
jfb
It depends. I've used a lot in the ~20 years or so I've been programming; and
I've come over the last decade or so to rely on the Kinesis Advantage. The big
reason I chose it when I did is because it doesn't force your wrists into a
positive angle, which always causes me pain.
I used to use a Model M or one of its derivatives; I also spent a lot of time
on the old Sun keyboards. I never found the key action to be as important to
my continued health as the physical design; I also don't use a custom layout.
I'm happy with my choices, although occasionally I try something new.
------
meerita
A mechanical one, for sure. Then, what it would matter it's the type of the
switches. I use black ones, because I like gaming and it's what its for but i
code a lot with it. It depends on your taste.
Probably the most comfortable but expensive ones are the Topre's capacitive
switches, used on Happy Hacking keyboards, they're a mix of best quality,
comfort and healthy keyboards you can acquire.
For coding, writing, experts recommend blue or brown switches, but in the end,
it is our own taste what it will matter.
------
codereflection
I've been a fan of the Kinesis Freestyle keyboards for years
[http://www.kinesis-ergo.com/freestyle2.htm](http://www.kinesis-
ergo.com/freestyle2.htm).
They're a little more expensive than most, but totally worth the price. I
never could get used to the MS Ergo keyboards, same experience, the keys take
too much effort. Bonus, all of my wrist pain as disappeared since switching to
the Freestyle.
------
mushrew
[http://ergodox.org/](http://ergodox.org/) you can get more info at
[http://deskthority.net/workshop-f7/split-ergonomic-
keyboard-...](http://deskthority.net/workshop-f7/split-ergonomic-keyboard-
project-t1753.html) or geekhack.org/index.php?topic=22780.0;nowap
It's open source, but I purchased my own DIY kit a few months ago from
massdrop.com
~~~
mheathr
I second this, and I would third this if possible; I obtained mine through
massdrop as well.
Having suffered from debilitating RSI at one point that took several months to
even moderately recover from, an ergonomically sound keyboard (along with
other habits) is a necessary step for satisfying best practices and not having
to change careers as a result.
RSI is an extremely annoying and potentially career ending injury that is not
resolvable fully through surgery, so doing everything possible to avoid ever
having that is very smart.
If you ever have it you will wish you went with the ounce of prevention rather
than the pound of cure route.
At one point the injury was so bad that I could not even read a book or touch
a surface without searing pain; any force on my hands was agony basically and
empathizing with people who have physical disabilities is accessible at a
whole new level.
An unfortunate side effect of RSI/CTS is that while you appear perfectly
healthy to external observers you are incapable of actually doing the same
things a healthy individual can without worsening the injury and prolonging
recovery in addition to the searing pain.
So be prepared for strange looks in some social situations from those unaware
of your ailment.
Anyways, the ErgoDox keyboard is currently the state of the art if ergonomics
is being maximized for, all other keyboards are either completely
incompetently designed and effectively not designed for human beings or suffer
from more flaws than the ErgoDox does.
Researching ergonomic keyboards and ways to help recover from my injury as
well as avoiding having the same thing happen again revealed that most
keyboards had show stopping design flaws inherited from typewriters or as a
result of maximizing for cost and ease of manufacturing rather than quality
and usability.
As someone who wants to avoid re-injuring myself, uses a keyboard heavily, and
uses emacs and vim as much as possible I choose what keyboard to use based on
these qualities:
1) Modifier keys (shift, alt, control, and in my case option fn as well as
another key to act as a fifth modifier so that I have hyper and super keys in
emacs) must be accessible by the strongest digit humans have: the thumb.
Designing modifier keys such that they are solely accessed by the pinky while
the other fingers remain on the home row, the least durable digit, is utterly
bereft of intelligence.
The Kinesis Advantage and the ErgoDox satisfy this property.
2) Modifier keys must have a mirrored layout such that they exist in the same
location on both sides of the keyboard.
The ErgoDox* and Kinesis advantage satisfy this property as well as the Truly
Ergonomic.
The Truly Ergonomic does not feature an island for thumb keys though.
* Note that the ErgoDox is the only one that satisfies this if the user needs more than three modifier keys (alt, shift, ctrl).
3) When the hands are on the home row, the entire hand and forearm must be
aligned perpendicular to the keys,* deviating from this is main contributor to
RSI and why in part laptop keyboards are not comfortable to use for long
periods of time.
Split keyboard designs are the best design for satisfying this requirement for
as many users' body types as possible as the different halves can be arranged
the appropriate width apart.
The split keyboard design is rarely found due to manufacturing complexity as
well as increased component cost.
That requirement is why most keyboards can be immediately crossed for not
being designed for humans.
The ErgoDox satisfies this property; as the degree of deviation from
perpendicular alignment the worse the keyboard is to use in practice.
* Note that in the case of the fingers their differing lengths may be taken account for via a sunken key design which the Kinesis Advantage utilized where the fingers curl inward comfortably
Ideally, the keyboard design would also be such that it is trivially
disassembled for regular maintenance, such as removing the grime that develops
over time from using the device, however I have not found any keyboard which
actually has this property; it is on my wish list for a keyboard.
4) While the fourth one is not necessarily a requirement, it is very nice to
have and an expectation. I expect the keyboard to have quality components,
which means no rubber dome switches used. Buckling springs, mechanical
switches, or capacitive switches satisfy this.
Ergonomically speaking, capacitive switches require the least force to trigger
a key input, however they also have no tactile feedback by themselves and as a
result there is no indication while touch typing that the key was actually
pressed.
Capacitive switches are the least popular due to their cost and also the need
to modify them to have some sort of tactile feedback so that the user does not
bottom out the keys.
Cherry MX switches are the most popular among quality keyboards, however there
are other mechanical switches available such as the Topre ones.
What switches the user will prefer varies; however the user can modify them to
require less force to depress or have greater tactile feedback if they wish or
simply swap them out for another switch that still fits the keyboard. The
Cherry MX switches fit the ErgoDox.
Personally, I like the Cherry MX Blues, but the Cherry MX Brows that the
Kinesis Advantage uses also had a nice feel; your mileage may vary here.
On top of the switches and springs used, the keycaps can be independently
sourced and swapped out through various manufacturers; depending on the
manufacturing process the keycaps will have different properties, some having
a flat design that appears on the DAS keyboard, others having a depressed
surface.
While an entirely aesthetic choice, keycaps also come in many different
colors; so if the user wants keycaps with pink elephants etched on top the
surface that is possible.
So far, the ErgoDox keyboard has been the keyboard I have found the least
flaws with, and I now use it over my Kinesis Advantage all the time except
when traveling, at which point I am resigned to the unfortunate keyboard
design laptops have.
The one flaw the ErgoDox has is that the island of thumb keys are not all
comfortable and not awkward to access while having the fingers on the home
row.
I think that the Grand Piano keyboard design
([http://geekhack.org/index.php?topic=44940.0](http://geekhack.org/index.php?topic=44940.0))
will rectify that issue though, and I am very anxious to actually be able to
purchase a keyboard that utilizes the design as a result.
I love my ErgoDox and consider it state of the art as previously mentioned,
however Acidfire's design would have all of the features I like about the
ErgoDox while fixing the issue with the thumb key placement that the ErgoDox
and Kinesis Advantage have.
Fixing that will cause the thumb keys to be even more ergonomic for users like
myself that want a control, shift, alt, fn, and a fifth mirrored key that is
comfortable to use frequently in chords (a prominent design property in
computing outside of designs employed by vi/vim).
I wish laptops followed the same design somehow while still not being massive
in scale to accommodate that.
An 11" or 13" laptop with retina or better resolution with sufficient battery
life to last 12+ hours per charge and an ergonomic keyboard available without
using an external device is my ideal laptop, unfortunately such a laptop does
not actually exist, so I will have to make due with only having 2 of those
wants until then.
In addition to using an ergonomic keyboard though, I also regularly take
breaks from using my hands, especially from typing and gaming, and use the
colemak layout.
The workman programmer layout is hypothetically an even nicer layout for
English, however not having that layout available by default in any OS is a
deal breaker, so I use the colemak layout for that reason.
Using an alternative layout has not resulted in issues with touch typing in
qwerty still, I can switch between the two fluently still; I was somewhat
concerned that touch typing with a qwerty layout would become an issue
starting out, but in practice it has not been a problem whatsoever.
I also use evil-mode in emacs and make use of meta, hyper, super, escape,
shift, and control so that I can use key chords that only consist of a
sequence of one modifier key plus a one non-modifier key in the vast majority
of cases.
Having a hyper and super key in emacs allows me to avoid experiencing as much
collisions that occur with default key bindings in emacs due to ctrl, meta,
and shift becoming so overloaded in modes; I also abstract out common commands
between modes to use the same chords consistently as they are not unified
across emacs modes by default regrettably.
Doing so greatly reduces the solution space and required learning curve when
changing between modes and states and implementing new features.
Aside from being a vim refugee, still using vim for some tasks, and being as
lazy as possible to the point of aggressively eliminating anything that is
redundant, potentially automated, and reducing what is reducible in effort,
the reason I use evil-mode is that having access to vim's modal design makes
per state bindings available as well as per mode bindings.
As a result not only do I have chords that are composed of merely two keys to
issue a command thanks to having a hyper and super keys, I also often have to
press only one button to accomplish a task thanks to the potency of vim's
grammar.
All of these habits come together for a very comfortable and efficient
computing experience with as little hazard as possible to my health without a
career change, plus I have access to C-x M-c M-butterfly
([https://xkcd.com/378/](https://xkcd.com/378/)).
------
ScottWhigham
I liked the MS Ergo but, due to an office change, needed a wireless keyboard.
I switched to the Logitech wireless keyboard and have absolutely hated it. The
keys are too small and I make so many mistakes while coding, and that's after
a year with it. Whatever you buy, check the size against the MSFT keyboard so
that you don't do what I did: get stuck with a keyboard that's too small for
you.
------
talles
I always wanted a HHK (happy hacking keyboard,
[http://www.pfusystems.com/embedded-
keyboard/hhkb/index.html](http://www.pfusystems.com/embedded-
keyboard/hhkb/index.html)), but it seems impossible to get one around here
(Brazil).
At home I use a razer cyclosa (not mechanical, but feels really good though).
At work I use a dell keyboard (with a huge spacebar, I love it).
------
Sealy
I actually prefer the feel of laptop style keys so the apple keyboards get my
vote. I find the low travel and light weight touch is easier on RSI.
------
c54
Having mechanical switches is a mandatory keyboard feature for me (and I'm
sure it wouldn't be hard to find others who agree)
If you want to go all out get one of these
[http://www.trulyergonomic.com/](http://www.trulyergonomic.com/) (ergonomic,
kinda different keyboard layout, mechanical switches). There'd be a definite
learning curve.
------
deadfall
I had a coworker swear by the Das Keyboard. Very pricey but was nice on the
fingers and reduce typing noise. I have had this on my list of things to buy.
I use a cheap HP SK-2880 keyboard meow but it is pretty comfortable.
[http://www.daskeyboard.com/model-s-
ultimate/](http://www.daskeyboard.com/model-s-ultimate/)
------
digisth
I've been using the Kinesis Maxim for years, and I highly recommend it. It's
split, adjustable (both width and height), has great keying, and is very
sturdy:
[http://www.kinesis-ergo.com/max-spec.htm](http://www.kinesis-ergo.com/max-
spec.htm)
------
iron_ball
The Microsoft Natural is my pick. Split enough for ergonomics, good key
response, not very expensive.
[http://www.amazon.com/Microsoft-A11-00337-Natural-
Keyboard-E...](http://www.amazon.com/Microsoft-A11-00337-Natural-Keyboard-
Elite/dp/B0000642RX/)
------
swayvil
Deck 82 key. Glowing yellow symbols on black keys. Smooth action. Built like a
tank. It's perfect.
[http://www.deckkeyboards.com/product_info.php?products_id=30](http://www.deckkeyboards.com/product_info.php?products_id=30)
------
Terretta
Goldtouch two axis adjustable ergo keyboard for Mac (and PC):
[http://www.goldtouch.com/p-2-goldtouch-v2-adjustable-
comfort...](http://www.goldtouch.com/p-2-goldtouch-v2-adjustable-comfort-
keyboard-pc-mac-compatible-usb.aspx)
------
mrexroad
work: Kinesis Advantage home: IBM Model M (from my first computer)
the kinesis advantage has been a huge improvement for my wrists and elbows.
the large space between where my hands are positioned has probably been the
greatest factor.
------
rfnslyr
This keyboard is extremely good. I've been using it for years and I've never
gone back to anything other than this.
[http://www.logitech.com/en-us/support/illuminated-
keyboard?o...](http://www.logitech.com/en-us/support/illuminated-
keyboard?osid=1&bit=32)
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
The Mobile Phone Addiction - jseliger
http://avc.com/2015/02/the-mobile-phone-addiction/?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+AVc+%28A+VC%29
======
jseliger
I also left this as a comment:
I've seen this too, and I notice in particular that phones and Facebook seem
to be bad for relationships
([http://jseliger.wordpress.com/2012/09/14/facebook-and-
cellph...](http://jseliger.wordpress.com/2012/09/14/facebook-and-cellphones-
might-be-really-bad-for-relationships) ; "Facebook" now stands in for any
number of other web communication platforms). Perhaps phones just accelerate
the weaknesses of already weak relationships, but I'm not so sure: they seem
to sap people of the ability to be present with their significant other, while
simultaneously offering a slippery slope towards new relationships.
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Tell HN: Fun side project pebkac-stories - Omnipresent
I've been a long time lurker on HN, though, not giving my value in comments but I visit the site on a daily basis. I plan to share all my upcoming sideprojects with the community.<p>This one might get my karma further down but we needed a perspective on site we started for people to share their day-to-day pebkac stories: http://www.pebkac-stories.com<p>Site is just on a simple wordpress template...we'd like your feedback.
======
RiderOfGiraffes
Clickable: <http://www.pebkac-stories.com>
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Show HN: Buckets for Mac - nrj
http://bucketsapp.net
======
joshstrange
I have no problem paying for quality software and I have paid for many apps
from the OS X App Store but I find it highly misleading when your launch page
uses the word "Download" when it really means "Buy". I've seen this tactic
used on quite a few OS X/iOS apps posted it HN. No mention of price anywhere
on the page and all wording is careful to say "download", "go get", "click
here for X app". I don't appreciate being, at the least, kept in the dark and,
at the worst, being subject to a dark pattern designed to hook me on the idea
of something before showing me the price. Before I look hard into any *aaS,
app, etc I look at the pricing so I don't fall in love with something that is
unreasonably priced, out of my price range, or just not in line with what my
needs are. I don't like having to click through to the iTunes page to see the
price because your page was specifically designed to hide it from me.
Does anyone else share this sentiment?
~~~
nrj
Developer here. I appreciate the feedback and I totally understand. The price
has now been added to the launch page.
~~~
joshstrange
Thank you very much for taking the time to respond and for updating your
launch page. Even though I normally use Transmit for connecting to S3 I just
bought your app. I will probably continue to use Transmit (I haven't fully
played with Buckets yet) but I am a strong believer in putting your money
where your mouth is and I want to show my support for your decision to update
your launch page.
~~~
nrj
Thanks! I really hope you enjoy it and if you have any feedback you can always
find me here.
------
sdfjkl
That icon reflects exactly what I think of every time someone talks about S3.
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
British scientist 'solves' mystery of Himalayan yetis - aritraghosh007
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-asia-24564487
======
api
One one hand you could call this "debunking." On the other hand if it's true
it demonstrates that many of the people who claimed to see Yetis were not
stoned, drunk, hallucinating, making things up, or misidentifying something
completely ordinary. They really did in fact see something that looked very
strange to them.
That's one of my pet peeves with some skeptics. People are not _that_ stupid.
I do believe many people who claim to have seen UFOs, for example. I don't
necessarily think they're aliens or whatever, but I do believe people have
seen very odd things in the sky that defy easy explanation.
~~~
huxley
It is easy to misidentify something ordinary when it is somewhere you don't
expect it:
[http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/nova-scotia/lone-cow-hikes-
blo...](http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/nova-scotia/lone-cow-hikes-blomidon-
provincial-park-for-several-weeks-1.2075296)
For a few weeks, Park officers were getting calls about a black bear in
Blomidon Provincial Park but it turns out that what the people saw was an
escaped cow.
It's not that those people were necessarily stupid (though some might be), but
it doesn't mean they've seen anything peculiar just that they believed they
had.
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
American ISPs to launch massive copyright spying scheme on July 1 - antr
http://www.rawstory.com/rs/2012/03/15/american-isps-to-launch-massive-copyright-spying-scheme-on-july-12/
======
ecubed
Is this legal?
~~~
wmf
Yes.
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Worst Programming Language Names - chobeat
https://write.as/chobeat/worst-programming-language-names
======
sorokod
languages with a noun as their name require <name>\+ lang in Google searches,
so: Rust, Julia.
------
Millennium
This list fails for lack of Brainfuck.
------
PaulHoule
I think scala is short for "stairs". I know salespeople who think it is
scalable but the rest of us know better.
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
A Year with MongoDB - mitchellh
http://blog.engineering.kiip.me/post/20988881092/a-year-with-mongodb
======
rdtsc
> Safe off by default
I think that is fixed now.
But this the single most appalling design decision they could have made while
also claiming their product was a "database". (And this has been discussed
here before so just do a search if you will).
This wasn't a bug, it was a deliberate design decision. Ok, that that would
have been alright if they put a bright red warning on their front page. "We
disabled durability by default (even though we call this product a database).
If you run this configuration as a single server your data could be silently
corrupted. Proceed at your own risk". But, they didn't. I call that being
"shady". Yap, you read the correctly, you'd issue a write and there would be
no result coming back acknowledging that at least the data made into the OS
buffer. I can only guess their motive was to look good in benchmarks that
everyone like to run and post results on the web. But there were (still are)
real cases of people's data being silently corrupted, and they noticed only
much later, when backups, and backups of backups were already made.
~~~
jbellis
According to <http://www.mongodb.org/display/DOCS/getLastError+Command> it is
still unsafe by default.
~~~
latch
No, the journal file is turned on server-side and you'll get a journal append
every 100ms (by default).
~~~
vsl
That's not what is meant by "safe" here. Safe is when you can be sure that the
data were written (into the journal at least) _by the time the write call in
your code returns_. Doing it up to 100ms later leaves a wide window open when
the application believes the data are safely stored, while they are in fact in
RAM only.
------
Philadelphia
The impression I got after hearing some of the 10gen developers speak at a
conference is that MongoDB has the same essential problem as PHP. It was
written by people without a lot of formal knowledge who, for whatever reason,
aren't interested in researching what's been tried before, what works, and
what doesn't. Because of that, they're always trying to reinvent the wheel,
and make flawed design decisions that keep causing problems.
~~~
latch
One of the silliest things I've read on HN, largely because of how insulting
it is, yet how easy it is to verify.
Rather than making a comment that can be summed up as "i think it's written by
people who don't know what they are doing", why not Google them and find out
what their background is?
The developers at the conference might not have represented the kernel team
(it's a surprisingly large company with a lot of different development
branches (core, drivers, tools, support)).
------
sirn
> We changed the structure of our heaviest used models a couple times in the
> past year, and instead of going back and updating millions of old documents,
> we simply added a “version” field to the document and the application
> handled the logic of reading both the old and new version. This flexibility
> was useful for both application developers and operations engineers.
Ugh, this sounds like a maintenance nightmare. How do you deal with adding
extra field to the document? Do you ever feel the need of running on-the-fly
migration of old versions? (But when you do, shouldn't running a migration for
all documents a better idea?)
I'll admit I'm a non-believer, but every time I see "Schemaless" in MongoDB, I
think "oh, so you're implementing schema in your application?"
~~~
radicalbyte
> oh, so you're implementing schema in your application?
Isn't that where the schema belongs? Each document represents a conceptual
whole. It doesn't contain fields which have to be NULL simply because they
weren't in previous versions of the schema.
I've been an rdbms guy (datawarehousing/ETL) for a long time now, I've seen a
lot of large databases which have been in production for considerable time.
They get messy. Really messy. They become basically unmaintainable. Apples,
oranges and pears all squashed into a schema the shape of a banana.
It's a pretty elegant solution, and is the problem XML/XSD were designed to
solve _.
The cleanest solution that I've seen in production used a relational database
as a blob storage for XML-serialized entities. Each table defined a basic
interface for the models, but each model was free to use its own general
schema. After 10 years it contained a set of very clean individual entities
which were conceptually correct.
_ As opposed to the usage as a serialization format for remoting, which has
been largely replaced with JSON.
~~~
trimbo
> isn't that where the schema belongs? [In the application]
Well, unless you have, you know, multiple applications accessing said data.
Then it's kind of important to keep it in sync, which is why RDBMS exist and
operate the way they do.
In my experience, on a long enough timeline, the probability of needing multi-
application access for your data goes to 1.
~~~
matthewcford
build an api
~~~
quadhome
It's a shame this comment is pithy, because I think it's dead-on.
There times to integrate at the database level. But, the default should be
single-application databases.
The rationale is the same as the grandparent's rationale FOR database
integration. The odds of needing to share data over time are 1.
Given that shared belief, the problem with database integration is that MANY
applications need to share facets of the same data. The single database ends
up having a huge surface area trying to satisfy every application's needs.
The resulting schema will have definitions relevant for applications A, B, and
C but X, Y and Z.
But, worse, there are dependencies between each application's working schema.
This means ensuring integrity becomes harder with every application that
integrates.
Finally, integration points are the hardest to change after-the-fact. The more
services that integrate, the less ability to make the inevitable model changes
necessary to fix mistakes/scale/normalize/denormalize/change solutions.
Thus, "build an api" is the best solution. Well-defined APIs and data-flows
between applications helps data and process locality and avoids most of the
problems I just listed. The trade-off is you're now meta-programming at the
process level— the complexity doesn't disappear, it's just reconceptualised.
~~~
fusiongyro
> The single database ends up having a huge surface area trying to satisfy
> every application's needs.
This is, more or less, exactly what views are for.
> Thus, "build an api" is the best solution.
And you can do that within the database with stored procedures, perhaps even
with the same language you would use in the front-end (depending). And look at
the advantages you have:
\- No implied N+1 issues because your API is too granular
\- No overfetching because your API is too coarse
\- No additional service layers needed
\- All the information is in the right place to ensure data validity and
performance
Let me be clear: I see these as two viable alternatives and different
situations are going to determine the appropriate tool. I bring this up
because I do think the NoSQL crowd overall has a very distorted and limited
picture of what exactly it is RDBMSes provide and why. If people look
underneath their ORMs, they may find an extremely powerful, capable and mature
system under there that can solve lots of problems well—possibly (but I admit,
not necessarily) even _their own_ problems.
~~~
quadhome
> \- All the information is in the right place to ensure data validity and
> performance
This is where we part ways.
We're talking specifically about integration. That means each system have
different processes and are talking with other people.
If this is a case of three apps exposing the same process over three different
channels (HTTP, UDP, morse code); then, database-level integration makes
perfect sense.
But, as soon as differing behaviors comes in, then the database level doesn't—
by definition— have enough information to ensure validity. One app thinks
columns X and Y are dependent in one way, the other app views it another way.
Now, one or the both of those apps are screwed for validity. And this problem
grows with N+1.
I am certainly not arguing against good databases. Stored procedures, views,
etc. are all great even for a single application. But, I am arguing database
level integration should be the rare exception to the rule.
------
luca_garulli
Hey, by reading all the bad things seems that OrientDB would fit better than
MongoDB for them:
\- Non-counting B-Trees: OrientDB uses MVRB-Tree that has the counter. size()
requires 0ns
\- Poor Memory Management: OrientDB uses MMAP too but with many settings to
optimize it usage
\- Uncompressed field names: the same as OrientDB
\- Global write lock: this kills your concurrency! OrientDB handles read/write
locks at segment level so it's really multi-thread under the hood
\- Safe off by default: the same as OrientDB (turn on synch to stay safe or
use good HW/multiple servers)
\- Offline table compaction: OrientDB compacts at each update/delete so the
underlying segments are always well defragmented
\- Secondaries do not keep hot data in RAM: totally different because OrientDB
is multi-master
Furthermore you have Transactions, SQL and support for Graphs. Maybe they
could avoid to use a RDBMS for some tasks using OrientDB for all.
My 0,02.
~~~
mtrn
Thanks for writing OrientDB! - I tried it, but I was pressed for time, so I
needed something that more or less worked instantly for my requirements -
which in the end was elasticsearch.
TL;
I researched MongoDB and OrientDB for a side-project with a bit heavy data
structure (10M+ docs, 800+ fields on two to three levels). MongoDB was
blazingly fast, but it segfaulted somewhere in the process (also index
creation needs extra time and isn't really ad-hoc). OrientDB wasn't as fast
and a little harder to do the initial setup but the inserting speed was ok -
for a while (500k docs or so) and then it degraded. I also looked at CouchDB,
but I somehow missed the ad-hoc query infrastructure.
My current solution, which works nice for the moment is elasticsearch; it's
fast - and it's possible to get a prototype from 0 to 10M docs in about 50
minutes - or less, if you load balance the bulk inserts on a cluster - which
is so easy to setup it's scary - and then let a full copy of the data settle
on each machine in the background.
Disclaimer - since this is a side project, I did only minimal research on each
of the technologies (call it 5 minute test) and ES clearly won the first round
over both MongoDB and OrientDB.
~~~
AdrianRossouw
i love ES, but i don't really feel comfortable with it as a primary datastore.
We tend to use couchdb to write to, and ES to query against. It all happens
automagically with a single shell command.
I won't use ES on it's own, because I have experienced situations in the past
where the dynamic type mapping functionality gets confused, ie: the first time
it sees a field, it indexes it as an integer, but then one of the later
records has 'n/a' instead of a number. The entire record became unquery-able
after that, even if it might have stored the original data.
You could fix this by creating the mapping by hand, BEFORE any data has been
imported, as it can't be modified later. But what you have then is a situation
where you have to maintain a schema to not get it to 'randomly' ignore data.
You also can't just tell ES to rebuild an index when you need to mess with the
mappings, you have to actually create a new index, change the mappings and
then reimport the data into the new index (possibly from the existing index).
It actually also feels right to me to split storing the data versus querying
the data between separate applications, because they have different enough
concerns, that being able to scale them out differently is a boon sometimes.
~~~
mtrn
Thank you for your input. Had minor issues with dynamic mapping, too - but
since the data is more or less just strings, I could circumvent ES' mechanism
to infer datatype from value by simple using an empty default-mapping.js. I'll
definitely give your approach a try.
------
tolitius
great post. direct and to the point, although there are many more flaws that I
am sure you could have shared.
we tried MongoDB to consume and analyze market feeds, and it failed miserably.
I can add a couple of things to your list:
* if there is a pending write due to an fsync lock, all reads are blocked: <https://jira.mongodb.org/browse/SERVER-4243>
* data loss + 10gen's white lies: [https://jira.mongodb.org/browse/SERVER-3367?focusedCommentId...](https://jira.mongodb.org/browse/SERVER-3367?focusedCommentId=66490&page=com.atlassian.jira.plugin.system.issuetabpanels:comment-tabpanel#comment-66490)
* _re_ sharding is hard. shard key is should be chosen once and for all => that alone kills the schemaless advantage
* moving chunks between shards [manually or auto] can take hours / days depending on the dataset (but we talking big data, right?)
* aggregate (if any complex: e.g. not SUM, COUNT, MIN, MAX) over several gigs of data takes hours (many minutes at best). Not everything can be incremental..
Those are just several. MongoDB has an excellent marketing => Meghan Gill is
great at what she does. But besides that, the tech is not quite there (yet?).
Nice going with Riak + PostgreSQL. I would also give Redis a try for things
that you keep in memory => set theory ftw! :)
~~~
taligent
MongoDB is successful because of more than just marketing.
It has great tool support, decent documentation, books and is accessible. Plus
the whole transition from MySQL concept makes it easy to grab onto.
~~~
chad_walters
That all supports the marketing effort. Mongo is optimized for a good out-of-
the-box experience for developers. It is basically the MySQL model -- hook
developers first, fix the fundamentals later. Caveat emptor.
~~~
madworld
Exactly, hook them in, so they question whether or not to deal with the
problems when it falls on its face.
------
lalmalang
We had a very similar situation ~300 writes per second on AWS. _but_ I suspect
some of this has to do with the fact that most people address scaling by
adding a replica set, rather than the much hairier sharding setup
(<http://www.mongodb.org/display/DOCS/Sharding+Introduction>), this seems
natural b/c mongodb's 'scalability' is often touted. In reality though,
because of the lock, RS dont really address the problem much, and we
encountered many of the problems described by the OP.
Not to denigrate the work the 10gen guys are doing -- they are obviously
working on a hard problem, and were very helpful, and the mms dashboard was
nice to pinpoint issues.
We decided to switch too though in the end, though i still enjoy using mongo
for small stuff here and there
~~~
jasonmccay
Again ... this is more an indictment on the poor IO performance of Amazon EBS
vs. MongoDB as a solution. MongoDB can scale both vertically and horizontally,
but as with anything you scale on Amazon infrastructure, you are going to have
to really think through strategies for dealing with the unpredictable
performance of EBS. There are blog posts galore addressing this fact.
I often think MongoDB has suffered more as a young technology because of the
proliferation of the AWS Cloud and the expectations of EBS performance.
~~~
lalmalang
In fact, I tried on-instance storage too -- this didnt help substantially. The
reality is that many (most?) stacks these days need to be able live happily on
AWS...
------
jrussbowman
From the beginning I've understood mongodb to be built with it's approach for
scaling, performance, redundancy and backup to be horizontal scaling. They
recently added journaling for single server durability, but before that
replication was how you made sure you data was safe.
It seems to me when I see complaints about mongodb it's because people don't
want to horizontally scale it and instead believe vertical scaling should be
more available.
Just seems to me people don't like how mongodb is built, but if used as
intended I think mongodb performs as advertised. In most cases I don't think
it's the tool, rather the one using it.
~~~
mitchellh
[Note: I wrote the blog post]
I'm not at all against horizontally scaling. However, I don't believe that
horizontally scaling should be necessary doing a mere 200 updates to per
second to a data store that isn't even fsyncing writes to disk.
Think of it in terms of cost per ops. Let's just say 200 update ops per second
is the point at which you need to shard (not scientific, but let's just use
that as a benchmark since that is what we saw at Kiip). MongoDB likes memory,
so let's use high-memory AWS instances as a cost benchmark. I think this is
fair since MongoDB advertises itself as a DB built for the cloud. The cheapest
high-memory instance is around $330/month.
That gives you a cost per op of 6.37e-5 cents per update operation.
Let's compare this to PostgreSQL, which we've had in production for a couple
months at Kiip now. Our PostgreSQL master server has peaked at around 1000
updates per second without issue, and also with the bonus that it doesn't
block reads for no reason. The cost per op for PostgreSQL is 1.27e-5 cents.
Therefore, if you're swimming in money, then MongoDB seems like a great way to
scale. However, we try to be more efficient with our infrastructure
expenditures.
EDIT: Updated numbers, math is hard.
~~~
zzzeek
typo in the numbers ? I can get your mongoDB number but not pg:
>>> seconds_per_month = 60 * 60 * 24 * 30
>>> ops_per_month_pg = 1000 * seconds_per_month
>>> ops_per_month_mg = 200 * seconds_per_month
>>> 330.0 / ops_per_month_pg * 100
1.2731481481481482e-05
>>> 330.0 / ops_per_month_mg * 100
6.36574074074074e-05
~~~
nivertech
You could have skipped all the calculations and just say, that 1000/200=5, I.e
PostgreSQL 5 times more cost effective than MongoDB.
------
mrkurt
Part of the lesson here is that if you're doing MongoDB on EC2, you should
have more than enough RAM for your working set. EBS is pretty bad underlying
IO for databases, so you should treat your drives more as a relatively cold
storage engine.
This is the primary reason we're moving the bulk of our database ops to real
hardware with real arrays (and Fusion IO cards for the cool kids). We have a
direct connect to Amazon and actual IO performance... it's great.
~~~
mitchellh
> Part of the lesson here is that if you're doing MongoDB on EC2, you should
> have more than enough RAM for your working set.
We had more than enough RAM for our working set. Unfortunately, due to
MongoDB's poor memory managed and non-counting B-trees, even our hot data
would sometimes be purged out of memory for cold, unused data, causing serious
performance degradation.
~~~
jasonmccay
I understand your point, but the performance issues still stem off of poor IO
performance on Amazon EBS. As we continue to use it, we continue to find it to
be the source of most people's woes.
If you have solid (even reasonable) IO, then moving things in and out of
working memory is not painful. We have some customers on non-EBS spindles that
have very large working sets (as compared to memory) ... faulting 400-500
times per second, and hardly notice performance slow downs.
I think your suggestions are legit, but faulting performance has just as much
to do with IO congestion. That applies to insert/update performance as well.
~~~
ismarc
We are using Mongo in ec2 and raid10 with 6 ebs drives out performs ephemeral
disks when the dataset won't fit in RAM in a raw upsert scenario (our actual
data, loading in historical data). The use if mmap and relying on the OS to
page in/out the appropriate portions is painful, particularly because we end
up with a lot of moves (padding factor varies between 1.8 and 1.9 and because
of our dataset, using a large field on insert and clearing in update was less
performant than upserts and moves).
There's really two knobs to turn on Mongo, RAM and disk speed. Our particular
cluster doesn't have enough RAM for the dataset to fit in memory, but could
double its performance (or more) if each key range was mmapped individually
rather than the entire datastore the shard is responsible for just because of
how the OS manages pages. We haven't broken down to implement it yet, but with
the performance vs. cost tradeoffs, we may have to pretty soon.
------
axisK
Nice article, the write lock has really been making me think about whether
it's really the way to go in our own stack.
------
nomoremongo
Yyyyyyyup.
<http://pastebin.com/raw.php?i=FD3xe6Jt>
------
aschobel
We love MongoDB at Catch, it's been our primary backing store for all user
data for over 20 months now.
> Catch.com
> Data Size: 50GB
> Total Documents 27,000,000
> Operations per second: 450 (Create, reads, updates, etc.)
> Lock % average 0%
> CPU load average 0%
Global Lock isn't ideal, but Mongo is so fast it hasn't been an issue for us.
You need to keep on slow queries and design your schema and indexes correctly.
We don't want page faults on indexes, we design them to keep them in memory.
I don't get the safety issue, 20 months and we haven't lost any user data.
_shrug_
~~~
bretthoerner
> I don't get the safety issue, 20 months and we haven't lost any user data.
> shrug
Nobody loses any user data until they do.
~~~
siavosh
This should be a deal breaker for any serious app. Does the performance hit of
safe mode negate all other advantages of MongoDB?
~~~
madworld
That's most people's findings. If your dataset can fit in ram [1] and you
don't care about your data being safe then there might be an argument for
MongoDB. Once you care about your data, things like Voldemort, Riak, and
Cassandra will eat Mongo's lunch on speed.
[1] But as Artur Bergman so eloquently points out, if your data can fit in
ram, just use a native data-structure (<http://youtu.be/oebqlzblfyo?t=13m35s>)
------
jalons
Am I missing something, or did they say they didn't want to scale mongo
horizontally via sharding, then comment that they're doing so with riak, but
faulting mongodb for requiring it?
~~~
madworld
What they are doing with Riak isn't sharding. Riak from the ground up was been
designed as a distributed database. They didn't want to go horizontal when
really they shouldn't have to with their datasize based on Mongo's claims. The
problem is, Mongo lies about what their database can do, and the fact that
Kiip figured that out is why they didn't want to bother scaling out with mongo
as a band-aid for its problems. It was better for them to just use something
made to scale. That's how I read it, based on that blog and by his comments on
this post.
------
gregbair
If you're going to have a (management|engineering|whatever) blog for your
company/project, have a link to your company/project home page prominently
somewhere on the blog.
~~~
pearkes
Good point. For the record, we're at <http://kiip.me>
------
DonnyV
Please upvote collection level locking for MongoDB here.
<https://jira.mongodb.org/browse/SERVER-1240>
------
citricsquid
Not related to the article but the site: has anyone else been getting
"connection interrupted" errors with tumblr recently? If I load a tumblr blog
for the first time in ~24 hours the first and second page loads will result in
connection interrupted, the 3rd and beyond will all load fine.
------
pixelmonkey
This is a pretty epic troll on MongoDB, and some of their points are important
-- particularly global write lock and uncompressed field names, both issues
that needlessly afflict large MongoDB clusters and will likely be fixed
eventually.
However, it's pretty clear from this post that they were not using MongoDB in
the best way. For example, in a small part of their criticism of "safe off by
default", they write:
"We lost a sizable amount of data at Kiip for some time before realizing what
was happening and using safe saves where they made sense (user accounts,
billing, etc.)."
You shouldn't be storing user accounts and billing information in MongoDB.
Perhaps MongoDB's marketing made you believe you should store everything in
MongoDB, but you should know better.
In addition to that data being highly relational, it also requires the
transactional semantics present in mature relational databases. When I read
"user accounts, billing" here, I cringed.
Things that it makes total sense to use MongoDB for:
\- analytics systems: where server write thorughput, client-side async
(unsafe) upserts/inserts, and the atomic $inc operator become very valuable
tools.
[http://blog.mongodb.org/post/171353301/using-mongodb-for-
rea...](http://blog.mongodb.org/post/171353301/using-mongodb-for-real-time-
analytics)
\- content management systems: where schema-free design, avoidance of joins,
its query language, and support for arbitrary metadata become an excellent set
of tradeoffs vs. tabular storage in an RDBMS.
[http://www.mongodb.org/display/DOCS/How+MongoDB+is+Used+in+M...](http://www.mongodb.org/display/DOCS/How+MongoDB+is+Used+in+Media+and+Publishing)
\- document management systems: I have used MongoDB with great sucess as the
canonical store of documents which are then indexed in a full-text search
engine like Solr. You can do this kind of storage in an RDBMS, but MongoDB has
less administrative overhead, a simpler development workflow, and less
impedance mismatch with document-based stores like Solr. Further, with GridFS,
you can even use MongoDB as a store for actual files, and leverage MongoDB's
replica sets for spreading those files across machines.
Is your data relational? Can you benefit from transactional semantics? Can you
benefit from on-the-fly data aggregation (SQL aggregates)? Then use a
relational database!
Using multiple data stores is a reality of all large-scale technology
companies. Pick the right tool for the right job. At my company, we use
MongoDB, Postgres, Redis, and Solr -- and we use them each on the part of our
stack where we leverage their strengths and avoid their weaknesses.
This article reads to me like someone who decided to store all of their
canonical data for an e-commerce site in Solr, and then complains when they
realized that re-indexing their documents takes a long time, index corruption
occurs upon Solr/Lucene upgrades, or that referential integrity is not
supported. Solr gives you excellent full-text search, and makes a lot of
architectural trade-offs to achieve this. Such is the reality of technology
tools. What, were you expecting Solr to make your coffee, too?
Likewise, MongoDB made a lot of architectural tradeoffs to achieve the goals
it set out in its vision, as described here:
<http://www.mongodb.org/display/DOCS/Philosophy>
It may be a cool technology, but no, it won't make your coffee, too.
In the end, the author writes, "Over the past 6 months, we've scaled MongoDB
by moving data off of it. [...] we looked at our data access patterns and
chose the _right tool for the job_. For key-value data, we switched to Riak,
which provides predictable read/write latencies and is completely horizontally
scalable. For smaller sets of relational data where we wanted a rich query
layer, we moved to PostgreSQL."
Excellent! They ended up in the right place.
~~~
jeffdavis
So, they made some mistakes, learned from them, and ended up in the right
place.
Sounds like a great story for a blog post, that others might learn from as
well.
Calling it a troll -- just because their mistakes involved mongo and their
solution did not -- seems harsh.
~~~
pixelmonkey
Fair enough, perhaps it's not quite a troll. And I am not trying to devalue
the post or discussion.
But I'm finding that in this whole SQL vs. NoSQL debate, everyone is
desperately seeking the "one database to store everything" -- rather than
carefully evaluating trade-offs of systems before putting them into
production.
The conclusion of the article suggests that new projects start with
"PostgreSQL (or some traditional RDBMS) first", and then only switch to other
systems "when you find them necessary". Wrong conclusion. Think about what
you're building, and pick the _right_ data store for _your_ data.
~~~
jeffdavis
> everyone is desperately seeking the "one database to store everything" --
> rather than carefully evaluating trade-offs
Agreed.
> Think about what you're building, and pick the right data store for your
> data.
I partially disagree. Most businesses adapt considerably over time, and data
projects almost always expand as far as the engineering team can take them.
Even small businesses have a lot of different kinds of data, all held in
different systems and spreadsheets, and there is a lot of value in bringing
that data together (often driven by accounting).
So, at the beginning, you don't know what your data is, you just have a vague
idea (unless you are an early-stage startup with very specific data management
needs).
(Aside: your _queries_ are at least as important when choosing a data
management system as your _data_ ).
Traditional RDBMSs have been designed and have evolved over a long period of
time to offer pretty clear answers for the business data needs of most
"normal" businesses. It makes perfect sense to start with a general solution,
and try to pick out the special cases (e.g. "I need faster response on these
queries") as you go.
That doesn't mean that traditional RDBMSs are the only way to make a general-
purpose data management system. Maybe another architecture or model will come
along that will prove superior; or maybe it's already here and it's just not
mature enough.
But I would give very similar advice in most situations: start with a
traditional RDBMS, and then pick out the special cases as needed. Not all
cases, of course; a key-value system might be great for caching, or you might
need to do analysis that's just not working out with SQL.
------
paulsutter
This article is an excellent articulation of the strengths and (fixable)
issues with mongoDB.
I like MongoDB a lot, and the improvements suggested would really strengthen
the product and could make me more comfortable to use it in more serious
applications.
~~~
madworld
How is the global write lock "fixable" without a major rewrite of the
codebase?
Like the article suggested, it would be one thing if they did it for
transaction support. In reality, from looking at the code, it seems like the
global write lock came from not wanting to solve the hard problems other
people are solving.
~~~
geoffeg
DB-level locking is planned for MongoDB 2.2 which should be out within a few
months.
<https://jira.mongodb.org/browse/SERVER-4328>
~~~
spidaman
Meh, if your other option is to use PostgreSQL and get row level locks, a db
level lock is still a fail.
~~~
j-kidd
And here's a great post that provides some insight on how much effort has been
put in by RDBMS vendors to handle locking:
<http://stackoverflow.com/a/872808>
------
radagaisus
Start Up Bloggers listen up! If I click on your blog's logo I want to see your
product, not the blog's main page.
------
Jebus
_Uncompressed field names - If you store 1,000 documents with the key “foo”,
then “foo” is stored 1,000 times in your data set_
Oh my god. I didn't know about this. And I hate short, meaningless and anti-
intuitive field names. Please fix it mongodb devs!
~~~
gatesvp1
This is a long-outstanding bug, over 2 years old now:
<https://jira.mongodb.org/browse/SERVER-863>
Obviously you can vote for them to fix the bug. But it's been two years, so
I'm not sure it's really high on the priority list.
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
True confessions: I wrote for an Internet content mill - galaktor
http://arstechnica.com/information-technology/2015/07/inside-an-online-content-mill-or-writing-4156-words-a-day-just-to-earn-lunch-money/
======
angdis
There was quite a bit of outrage about "content farms" a few years ago. Not so
much now. Did readers or search engines get better at filtering the crap out?
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
The Man Who Stuck His Head Inside a Particle Accelerator - hhm
http://www.wired.com/wired/archive/5.12/science.html
======
phaedrus
I would have thought the chamber these beams travel through would have to be
kept at vacuum to work -?
~~~
RK
They don't really provide details, but generally yes. If you have achieved
your desired energy, you might then want to irradiate something in air
(remember some of this was used in weapons research). So he could have stuck
his head in front of the beam exit, or they might have pulled apart a section
of the accelerator, sealed it off, but for some reason the beam was still run
and the beam simply passed through the seal.
I'm guessing that he was probably working on one of the beam dumps (not the
main accelerating ring), which meant that the beam could have already been
accelerated many times around the synchrotron.
------
jmah
FTA: "though we don't know of anyone else who has been exposed to radiation in
the form of a proton beam moving at about the speed of sound"
Do they mean "speed of light"?
~~~
michaelneale
hmm.. yes. Otherwise it wouldn't be that different to shooting a jet of
hydrogen from a tank at someones head (assuming some would be stripped of
their electrons on the way out the tank !).
------
RK
If anyone is interested in sticking their head in a proton beam, you could try
proton therapy. Like most things, the dose makes the poison.
<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Proton_therapy>
------
mhb
Note to self: "Keep head out of proton beam".
~~~
timr
"Do not look into proton beam with remaining eye."
------
opal
I guess he got bored with the pickle slicer.
------
compay
Isn't this old news?
<http://tinyurl.com/2dr69e>
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Ask HN: Web hosts that support Perfect Forward Secrecy? - eliot_sykes
I'm waiting to hear back from Heroku to see if/when they'll support Perfect Forward Secrecy, and thought in the meantime I'd ask this here: do you know any hosts already supporting Perfect Forward Secrecy?
======
cloudflare
Not a web host, but if you use CloudFlare with SSL in front of your host you
get PFS: [http://blog.cloudflare.com/staying-on-top-of-tls-
attacks](http://blog.cloudflare.com/staying-on-top-of-tls-attacks)
~~~
eliot_sykes
Good to know, thanks. What are the options for communication between
CloudFlare and the origin? Do you recommend anything in particular?
~~~
cloudflare
Can be SSL or not to the origin. Plus there's the Railgun option that also
uses TLS.
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Smartphone-based earthquake alert system triggered by Mexican football fans - okket
https://www.reuters.com/article/us-soccer-worldcup-ger-mex-mexico/mexicans-jubilant-over-world-cup-win-trigger-earthquake-sensors-idUSKBN1JD125
======
JorgeGT
There's a lengthy explanation published in Facebook [1](in Spanish, sorry).
The important fact is that there's an app which reads accelerometers in
people's phones, which is used to trigger these "seek shelter" type alerts.
Since many smartphones shook a lot in unison, the public alert was triggered.
They apologize for this and state that they are working to avoid this from
happening again.
However, they remark that actual, scientific seismographs _did_ indeed pick
these "soccer goals" events, although since they were of relatively low
magnitude (III to IV Mercalli scale), no public "seek shelter" alert was
generated on the basis of these readings.
[1]
[https://www.facebook.com/sismologia/posts/2149439968431910](https://www.facebook.com/sismologia/posts/2149439968431910)
~~~
acqq
Now it’s time to compare these actual measurements with all that’s written
about “what would happen if all Chinese would jump at once.”
~~~
gberger
[https://what-if.xkcd.com/8/](https://what-if.xkcd.com/8/)
~~~
chatmasta
The most insane part of that blog is that the entire world population would
fit within the state of Rhode Island.
------
basicplus2
What If Everyone On Earth Jumped at Once?
Allain found that our jump would push on the Earth ever so slightly, giving it
a recoil speed of 2.6 x 10^-13 m/s. That is, in one second, Earth would move
about a hundredth of the radius of a single hydrogen atom .
[https://www.livescience.com/33383-everyone-on-earth-
jumping-...](https://www.livescience.com/33383-everyone-on-earth-jumping-at-
once.html)
~~~
pknerd
would like to read XKCD response :)
~~~
f_allwein
Here you go: [https://what-if.xkcd.com/8/](https://what-if.xkcd.com/8/)
------
natex
Here's the tweet by the Institute of Geologic and Atmospheric Investigations
in Mexico.
[https://twitter.com/SIMMSAmex/status/1008374780351967233](https://twitter.com/SIMMSAmex/status/1008374780351967233)
------
amarant
Mexico City was built on a lake. I wonder if that makes it more susceptible to
such man-made earthquakes?
~~~
tomhoward
Perhaps, but that’s irrelevant in this case; there was no tremor. The alert
was falsely set off by people’s phone apps.
~~~
ColinWright
That's not entirely true - "proper" detectors did detect a "tremor".
[https://www.nytimes.com/2018/06/17/world/americas/mexico-
soc...](https://www.nytimes.com/2018/06/17/world/americas/mexico-soccer-world-
cup.html)
------
tabtab
My mom warned me to diet.
------
senectus1
lol nope. not unless the sensors were buried less than a foot underground
under a really big crowd.
~~~
bcraven
Well actually it happened recently in Peru:
[https://twitter.com/alerta_sismo/status/930989560896647169](https://twitter.com/alerta_sismo/status/930989560896647169)
So either someone saw that and decided to make this story up, or it does
indeed happen.
I can tell you from experience that seismometers are ridiculously sensitive-
the noise reductions that need to be done after shooting a land survey are a
nightmare.
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Elon Musk Shows off the Dragon Capsule, Back From Space (video) - thenextcorner
http://science.slashdot.org/story/12/06/14/2032230/elon-musk-shows-off-the-dragon-capsule-back-from-space-video
======
confluence
Cue comments about how Elon Musk is doing so much more with his money than
everyone else, and how SpaceX/Tesla Motors/SolarCity are so much more valuable
than anything else.
Cue complaints about how no one works on hard problems any more, and that
everyone is just chasing
instagram/facebook/twitter/groupon/zynga/social/local/mobile.
Forget that Elon Musk started an advertising/publishing company in 1995-1997,
intelligently riding the bubble, and then created X.com (a more complex
Mint.com), which he then merged with Confinity to create PayPal (from where he
was essentially fired - unfortunately).
Forget that battery tech wasn't useful enough until just over 5 years ago (not
nearly dense/cheap enough), and how we needed the massive production increases
in laptop battery production for Tesla to make sense. Also forget that NASA
had 0 use for SpaceX until the Space Shuttle program was shutdown - which is
curiously lined up with the COTS program. Also forget that Solar panels
required massive production gains thanks to China which only occurred within
the past 5 years. Finally, ignore the fact that he would never have been able
to do anything without the money from a stupid email payments thing.
Big problems are awesome. Little problems are better.
Everyone starts small. Even Elon (a personal hero of mine and a man I deeply
respect).
Start on new small things, work hard, and TIME your entry/exit with extreme
precision. Malcolm Gladwell says a lot of things which are "truthy", but his
Outliers book was right on the money.
"Big things have small beginnings"
(<http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eB52xyaY4kk>).
~~~
carbocation
Your core message was pretty fantastic, and with a different tone it could be
even better, and better received.
~~~
confluence
Felt like I had to get it off my chest. My sincere apologies for the ranty
tone everybody.
------
erikpukinskis
As a decade-long reader of Slashdot, who transitioned almost completely to HN
several years ago, it's remarkable how good the visible comments on /. seem
after a long absence.
On discussions of sufficient size, because of the depth-first nature of HN I
almost inevitably bail out around the 2000 pixel mark. I just don't want to
wade through that much garbage, and that's about as much space as it takes for
HN threads to devolve into a pointless tête-à-tête these days.
I think when I switched to HN, there basically _weren't worthless comments_ ,
but those days appear to be over. The transition here wasn't noticeable, but
going back feels like a breath of fresh air.
~~~
vidarh
I'd suspect the current state of Slashdot is helped by Slashdot not being the
"in" thing anymore too. A lot of the noise-makers have moved on, or aren't
finding the site in the first place any more.
------
Nevaeh
Thank you. It's such a refreshing sight as just 3 months ago, Elon was visibly
quite disappointed in this video:
[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pJnW7vtqaf4&feature=relat...](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pJnW7vtqaf4&feature=related#t=11m40s)
2 months later, the Dragon successfully docked with the space station.
<http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YjuvIlskUf4#t=7m20s> Just look at Elon's
excitement at the 9:36 mark of this video as well as all of SpaceX employee's
enthusiasm. This was truly a huge success despite the challenging odds.
Looking forward to the future Grasshopper mission. Perhaps it will fail at its
first few attempts just like the Falcon1, but with Elon's determination and
his excellent team of engineers, I believe they can do it. They have already
proven themselves during the darkest times in SpaceX history. Skip to [38:30]
to hear it from Elon himself. [http://www.bloomberg.com/video/73460184-elon-
musk-profiled-b...](http://www.bloomberg.com/video/73460184-elon-musk-
profiled-bloomberg-risk-takers.html) And his reaction after Falcon9
successfully launched on the very first try. [39:12] All that hardship and
pain, totally worth it.
We will be victorious, indeed.
------
rwhitman
Weirdly enough the thing I'm fixated on in this video is the fact that he's
meeting with NASA at a press event dressed in a t-shirt.
------
dhughes
When did Slashdot get TV?
~~~
kristopolous
yeah, that's totally the biggest news here for me. Is there actually a decent
half hour video program of technology news that's not just a beauty pageant
for new consumer electronics?
~~~
someperson
> beauty pageant for new consumer electronics
That's a good way to describe it. There's been a lot of crappy 30 minute tech
shows, with CNET TV (has local versions produced in suprisingly many
countries) being the latest one I've been exposed to (and one of the worst.)
The same was once true of game-review shows. But in Australia at least, the
show "Good Game" (and the for-kids spinoff "Good Game Spawn Point") have
completely amazed me with it's quality and the hosts being the kind of people
who would watch the show.
Sorry for the long-winded post, but I find it hard to articulate the huge
shift that happens going from a technology show that's basically shows paid-
for advertising to ones that are GOOD.
I hope somebody can make the weekly 20-30 minute show that I crave, but can't
articulate :)
------
mkramlich
This video reminds me of another of Elon's strengths, beyond just a technical
mind and an entrepreneurial mind: he's very well-spoken, and he's very
charismatic -- and it comes off as very natural, so it helps to close the gap
with his audience whenever he speaks. He doesn't come off as some egghead
academic or engineer -- though clearly he can think like one. Instead he talks
like he's a friend speaking casually and calmly, off-the-cuff, with a mixture
of what you might call British-style humility. But backed by confidence and a
sense of persistance. One of his repeated phrases across many interviews is
that he's determined to make X thing happen, and he's confident he can, that
they can. If they can't make something happen the first time perfectly out of
the gate, then they'll learn, adjust and try again until they do.
He probably has a one-in-a-million combination of both a strong technical
mind, a strong business sense, and strong personal charisma. There are a ton
of folks out there that have maybe one of those things, and rarely two, but
it's extremely hard to find all three. Plus he scored big early with Zip2 and
PayPal. Arguably this fourth thing -- a huge war chest to draw from, beginning
in the late 90's or so -- has made him even more rare. Indeed, a Tony Stark of
his age.
------
wissler
Don't miss seeing the animation toward the end of the video.
~~~
minikomi
The first instance of that landing would be quite something to witness!
~~~
frankydp
I would drive any distance to see a vstol landing of an suborbital or orbital
vehicle. Talk about game changing.
~~~
mkramlich
Agreed. If you'd like to cheat and get a sneak preview of what it could be
like, at least the last leg, go dig up the Armadillo Aerospace videos of their
capsule VTOL launch/land successes. As a thumbnail argument, if we've seen
Armadillo do just the VTOL launch/land part, and we've seen SpaceX do the
rocket launch & parachute splashdown part, it's not hard to imagine the
engineering equivalent of smooshing those two solution spaces together into a
single entity which can accomplish both.
I will be as giddy as a lunch table of teen girls at recess when I see SpaceX
pull this off.
~~~
InclinedPlane
Armadillo, Blue Origin, and Masten (and the DC-XA before them) have all been
working on rocket powered VTVL flights and have done sub-scale test flights.
It's a technology that just plain makes sense, especially now that computers
are so cheap and so fast. Perhaps in 20 or 30 years it will be so common and
routine that a lot of people will think it's a natural part of spaceflight and
wonder how it could possibly be done any other way.
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Adrian Chen from Gawker pretends to be cancer patient? - dhughes
http://twitter.com/#!/Adrianchen
A post on Reddit from a person who said they were going to end their life using Oregon's 'Death with Dignity' program is a hoax according to Adrian Chen from Gawker, he's bragging it was him all along.
======
dhughes
Original post on Reddit:
[http://www.reddit.com/r/IAmA/comments/fy6yz/51_hours_left_to...](http://www.reddit.com/r/IAmA/comments/fy6yz/51_hours_left_to_live/)
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Why are introspective verbs used for data in programming? - petar
Why are verbs like “be”, “believe”, “understand”, “sense”, and so on rarely seen in source code? When they are seen, why are they usually names of variables and not names of functions, as would befit a verb?
======
tjr
Just guessing / offering personal opinion... such words would rarely make
sense in source code.
What would a function called "believe" do?
I can imagine such function names in, say, artificial intelligence projects,
but even there used (probably) in a loose way. I suspect few web applications
or iPhone games or flight control programs would be doing any "believing",
real or imaginary.
Of the words you suggested, "sense" seems most likely to appear in real use,
as robotic software and such may be literally accessing sensors.
------
ACow_Adonis
Also, the last thing we need is more confusing language that gets in the way
of absolute beginners realizing there's no ghost/consciousness/intentionality
in the machine.
Indeed, unless you were doing, say, work on some scientific survey about
people's beliefs, or whether school children understood a passage, or a game
where these are literally mechanics, or something like that, i'd even be
loathe to suggest ever seeing those as either function names or as variable
names.
Its bad programming style 101 to give your variables/functions names that have
some kind of cognitive connection/bias in people's minds apart from the
function they actually serve in the code, and those are some pretty loaded
words in most cultures...
------
bjourne
The verbs aren't choosen at random. They are almost all a write-word (write,
set, create, put, save, update, dump, clear, reset, print, append, ...) or a
read-word (read, get, ensure, load, check, ...). But the verbs you list
doesn't fall into either category. Think of what it would mean to command
someone to "believe!" it doesn't make sense (to a non-sentient entity
anyways!). "print!" otoh, is perfectly understandable.
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
World's deepest pool to open in Poland - HillaryBriss
https://www.cnn.com/travel/article/worlds-deepest-pool-scli-intl/index.html
======
tomatotomato37
I wonder what engineering challenges are involved in this. I'd imagine it's
more complicated than just digging a bigger hole and adding more water filters
~~~
gpm
Every 10m of depth adds about 1 atm of pressure. Not sure what challenges
specifically that introduces though.
~~~
sandworm101
Leaks. Water at those pressures finds holes, opens cracks and eats away at
foundations. A little trickle quickly becomes a sinkhole, or your structure
starts to float away. It all depends on the soil.
------
chungleong
It's also the pool with the least pronounceable name. Staring at "Mszczonów",
most non-Polish people will just give up, I suspect.
~~~
g_lined
For those who are intellectually curious, this site has two recordings of how
to say it:
[https://forvo.com/word/mszczonów/](https://forvo.com/word/mszczonów/)
~~~
Intermernet
Odd, I don't speak Polish, but my mom and grandparents did. Even that small
exposure was enough for me to get that pronunciation 100% correct. I wonder
what the minimum exposure to any given language is to allow someone to
correctly guess pronunciation. I speak a little German and French but
regularly get the pronunciation incorrect, but I didn’t grow up around native
German and French speakers.
~~~
YjSe2GMQ
Polish pronunciation is actually incredibly easy, there's a direct mapping (a
mathematical function) from a simple partition of letters to phonems. Unlike
in English, where we have weirdnesses like "vehicle" or "colonel". There's a
price to pay for quick and massive import of words, lack of centralized
language development coordination body and conquering the global stage of
accents, I reckon.
Example for the town: Mszczonów -> Mshchonooff (Americanized).
~~~
Grustaf
It’s not easy, it’s very very hard, even for other slavs, but it’s very
predictable based on spelling.
~~~
chungleong
I blame the Poles for the muteness of their non-slav neighbors.
~~~
Grustaf
Ah now I finally got it! Nemtsy, makes sense.
------
acjohnson55
I'm surprised such pools don't already exist. 40m is the limit you can dive
without extra training and probably special gas.
I guess it must just be really expensive to build and maintain a pool this
big.
~~~
guiomie
I thought it was 18m (60ft) for PADI open water.
~~~
acjohnson55
Looking it up, you're right, and the Advanced Open Water says 30m max. I don't
know if it changed or if I just misremembered. I'm pretty sure I did 40m as
part of the deep diving segment of Advanced Open Water, but that might not be
accurate either. It was about 10 years ago.
~~~
saiya-jin
I never met instructor who was very fond of keeping strict limits as per our
current certification, I guess those folks are rather laid back and don't care
about some rules that much.
I recall when doing my original SSI Open water cert in Croatia (max should be
18m), the instructor took us to 33m, it was maybe 4th dive in the course (and
in my life). I was a bit worried and showed him the depth meter, he just
signaled back OK, so I went along (like I could do anything else at that
moment).
When training for Advanced OW, or diving after I obtained it in various
places, nobody cares about precise limit (should be cca 30m for SSI IIRC),
generally 35-40m is the limit for real dives.
At least they all rigorously follow decompression stops on a way up, wrist
computers help greatly with more precise measurements. You just need to stick
to +- same depth as instructor, not be constantly 5m below him chasing
creatures.
~~~
nradov
Dive computers will give you _precise_ instructions, but they aren't
necessarily _accurate_. Many people fail to appreciate the difference between
precision and accuracy.
------
pndy
There's already small swimming pool complex in Mszczonów city, built on
thermal spring source - hence the name Termy Mszczonów.
That pool is going to be a part of larger aqua park located 5 km away from
Mszczonów, in Wręcza village.
------
logicallee
Near the bottom there's a picture of a different pool, the current largest. A
"mermaid" is swimming around without scuba gear. Here is a video I found about
that:
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pFAdSdzAdi0](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pFAdSdzAdi0)
------
muloka
Cool!
Other deep pools are:
* Nemo 33 in Brussels, Belgium
* Y-40 "The Deep Joy" in Padua, Italy
~~~
dontbenebby
All of these pools are in the EU. As Americans, we cannot allow a deep-pool
gap!
~~~
chrisco255
Agreed. I'd love to see one in Texas. We've already got artificial surf parks:
[https://www.bsrcablepark.com/cable-park/texas-surf-park-
bsr-...](https://www.bsrcablepark.com/cable-park/texas-surf-park-bsr-surf-
park/)
Now we just need a good scuba diving park and there's no need to visit the
coasts ever again!
~~~
kwindla
[crocodile dundee accent] That's not an artificial surf park, _this_ is an
artificial surf park: [http://www.kswaveco.com/](http://www.kswaveco.com/)
~~~
Grustaf
Yes but how to visit? The website doesn’t even say where it is! Shut up and
take my money!
~~~
kwindla
I know, right? For now, you have to know somebody who knows somebody who knows
Kelly. :-)
Word is that they're going to start opening up reservations for full-day
events, sometime this year. Maybe $30k for the day (but that's just a guess).
One wave every four minutes. 7 hours in the day. You can bring a dozen friends
and surf until your arms (and legs, because the rides can be a full minute
long) are noodles. Or you can bring 30 friends and still get eight or ten
waves for the day.
After being lucky enough to tag along to a group that surfed there last year,
I've spent a ridiculous amount of time thinking about what my income level
would have to be for the $30k to seem like a "reasonable" outlay, once a year.
The answer is "a lot lower than is sensible." It's a clean, head-high face, a
super-fast down the line wave, and two legit barrel sections. Better than the
best waves anywhere on the California coast outside of a handful of days a
year.
Of course, $30k is just the entry level option. They are starting to think
about licensing the plans and tech. For maybe $10M you could build your own!
(No idea what it costs to run it per year.)
~~~
Grustaf
Hm, for 30k I can build a cablepark, my brother just got a quote. A 2.0 cable
but still, I wakeskate so for me it’s perfect.
There are “wave gardens” in other places too, one in England and one in Spain
I think. But I still haven’t figured out how to visit any of them...
But thanks a lot for the info, now it makes more sense!
------
brlcad
The Superpond at APG, Maryland run by the DoD is 46meters (150ft) deep.
~~~
auiya
Closed indefinitely due to deaths in 2013.
[https://patch.com/maryland/aberdeen/aberdeen-proving-
ground-...](https://patch.com/maryland/aberdeen/aberdeen-proving-ground-super-
pond-closed-indefiniteldd2cbfdefb)
~~~
brlcad
That article is out of date. It’s still operational and in use. Policies
changed after three deaths in close succession. Still, the point is that
manmade pool exists and has for years contrary to the article.
------
ChuckMcM
Could be an interesting place to train for free diving.
------
dmix
China doesn't like not having the biggest of something. I expect this to be
beaten within the next couple of years.
------
orblivion
"How low can you?" \- the opening sentence of the article as I type.
Probably will be corrected soon, but pretty amazing how sloppy copy editing is
on one of the largest news sources.
~~~
TeMPOraL
There's no copy editing anymore, that's something that disappeared around the
time on-line news happened...
------
irrational
It will include a hotel with rooms for a view, but a view for whom? Hopefully
the hotel room windows have one-way glass.
~~~
pochamago
Or curtains?
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Software Transactional Memory in Clojure - llambda
http://java.ociweb.com/mark/stm/article.html#Overview
======
kristianp
Are there any benchmarks for parallel algorithms done with/without STM? What
is the performance hit?
------
nandemo
If you want to learn about STM, I recommend Simon Peyton-Jones' _Beautiful
Concurrency_ , which is a chapter of the _Beautiful Code_ book:
<http://research.microsoft.com/pubs/74063/beautiful.pdf>
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Assange Smeared Seth Rich to Cover Russia - JudasGoat
http://www.thedailybeast.com/mueller-report-julian-assange-smeared-seth-rich-to-cover-for-russians
======
averros
Moar conspirology! It used to be Trump in cahoots with GRU. Now it's
<s>reptiloids</s> Assange.
Since when leaking the evidence of shady dealings is something immoral?
Really, why outrage at Assange who is merely a messenger rather than at people
whose deeds were so embarrassing so the leak is widely seen as damaging?
How about simply not doing stuff which will cost you an election if made known
to general public? Nah, too hard.
~~~
viraptor
It's not black and white as you present. Media has limited bandwidth, people
have limited attention span, voters have limited things they can care about
deeply, etc.
The absolute part doesn't change - bad actions are bad. But you can definitely
divert attention from some things to others by feeding the right facts at the
right time. So if you publish something with a specific intention/framing then
it can definitely be held against you, irrelevant of the content itself.
------
milsorgen
I'm not sure how much of that narrative I really believe, and yes I did read
relevant sections of the report. I still think the public having that
information offered far more benefit than harm.
After all information wants to be free.
------
JudasGoat
I know the basis for Mr Assange's support is 1st Amendment protections of a
journalist. Does someone engaged in subtrafuge such as this pervert
journalism?
~~~
microwavecamera
Well therein lies the rub. Assange isn't a journalist or an American citizen.
Neither applies. Seriously though, I don't think those rights are exclusive to
either journalists or Americans. I personally believe those rights are
inalienable rights that everyone deserves, among others. In fact, all others.
We are all created equal and should be able to live as such, but any right
comes with responsibility. I don't feel Assange is being responsible or
transparent. He's past the point of being given the benefit of the collective
doubt. I don't know what's going on, but honestly, no one involved in any of
this seems innocent at this point.
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Ask HN: What apps can we build to help stop the spread of Coronavirus? - harrisreynolds
A friend called me yesterday to discuss ways we could help with the coronavirus pandemic. It got me wondering if there are any ideas in the HN community for apps we could stand up quickly to help in some way.<p>My friends idea was a simple app to log your health each day and include any symptoms you develop. This could be used to know where it is spreading the fastest.<p>Ultimately the most important thing anyone can do is to stay away from group activities. So anything that could encourage that would be a plus.<p>Do you have any ideas for how to help with software or otherwise?
======
dubs333
audio parsing cough ai that compares cough of cv infected vs normal cough
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Webtendo: a game console for the internet - ben_mann
https://benjmann.net/a-game-console-for-the-internet-8e9dddb01892#.kjgs9fwj0
======
jjyoung135
Loved playing Spacewar with friends! Keep it up :)
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
ISPs and Tunnel Vision (2019) - cy6erlion
https://cy6erlion.keybase.pub//tunnel-vision.html
======
dsr_
Once upon a time, we had a functioning FCC that was contemplating the
difference between content and infrastructure. The goal of an infrastructure
business is to provide the best service to end-users. The goal of a content
business is to get end-users to look at their stuff.
When you combine the two into one business, that business inevitably increases
profits by reducing the quality of all services that do not lead directly to
their own content.
Make it illegal for content businesses to own infrastructure businesses (and
vice versa) and the need for other market regulations drastically decrease.
~~~
ralgozino
Man, this is the best explanation of net neutrality that I've read. Thank you.
------
tenebrisalietum
Counterpoints:
\- Before the Internet was handed to the masses in the mid 90's, there was
still a lot of creativity. In the past 50 years we have numerous new
styles/genres of music, art, movies and other types of entertainment.
\- Technically oriented, educated people that tend to be outside of popular
social spheres were the ones that tended to understand the Internet the best,
use it, communicate with others of a like mind, and were there in the initial
rush in the 90's. I'll call these "Internet people". This is not most people.
The same people that can't tell the difference between Facebook and the
Internet still won't without zero ratings.
\- Small websites were always hard to discover unless they happened to be in
the right place at the right time or you were an Internet person and spent a
lot of time exploring and looking. Google helped small websites for a while,
but is now tuned to the normal user, not Internet people.
\- Mass manipulation of society through Internet services doesn't need zero
rating, it needs a self-feeding network effect and a site accessible enough to
non-Internet people. Facebook has achieved this and didn't need zero rating to
do it.
\- Non-Internet people with their inability to see the Internet as anything
other than television 2.0 + Facebook is causing ISPs to consider zero rating
as something to capture customers with. Remember when various groups in the
50's and 60's said TV was evil? They were right.
~~~
icedchai
I miss the 90's. Too bad the thing that ultimately made the Internet
sustainable also ruined it: the masses.
------
blakesterz
I'm not quite sure if this needs a [2019] in the title, but it's from November
of last year. I don't know where the cut off is for posts needing a [YEAR] tag
added, 5 months ago might not be long enough?
~~~
dang
I think 5 months is long enough. Added.
------
rcarmo
This has been going on in earnest for almost ten years now (I configured zero
rating for several services as far back as 2008, back when WAP was still a
thing).
In Europe it’s a staple of many prepaid mobile data plans. The big difference
now is that (some) telcos are actively doing it for OTT services (like
streaming).
------
Arubis
Merely tangential, but I’d missed or forgotten that you can use Keybase as a
static hosting platform! Very cool.
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
An Economist Goes to a Bar (and solves the mysteries of dating) - bluishgreen
http://www.slate.com/id/2177637/nav/ais
======
mynameishere
_from Columbia University's various graduate and professional schools_
There's a random sample for you.
------
adrianwaj
Interesting that females go toward someone of their own ethnic/cultural group
(except for East Asian women who are neutral) and males are indifferent to the
group of their would-be partner. It's like men are still spreading the seed
far and wide, and women seek to avoid the raping conquerors.
------
Alex3917
"economists marry economists, probably not because they actually prefer to do
so, but because those are the people they meet in daily life."
That pretty much sums up my feelings toward economists as well.
------
curi
Did they really have to apologize for their part in _dispelling mystery_? :/
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
UC Berkeley: Coronavirus Has Mutated, Appears More Contagious New Study Finds - jzer0cool
https://www.nbclosangeles.com/news/coronavirus/coronavirus-has-mutated-and-appears-to-be-more-contagious-now-new-study-finds/2357412/
======
linuxftw
Unsurprising, mutation is the hallmark of the corona viruses in the wild.
I read elsewhere that for genetically engineer viruses (which there is
speculation that this may be the case here) are quick to lose their
alterations via the natural mutation process.
In any case, more contagious doesn't mean more deadly, and that's probably
what's most important.
~~~
sfj
> I read elsewhere that for genetically engineer viruses (which there is
> speculation that this may be the case here) are quick to lose their
> alterations via the natural mutation process.
It's speculated that the genetic engineering in this case was for “gain-of-
function”, specifically to enable it to infect humans, so it's unlikely to
lose its alteration.
From [https://medium.com/@yurideigin/lab-made-cov2-genealogy-
throu...](https://medium.com/@yurideigin/lab-made-cov2-genealogy-through-the-
lens-of-gain-of-function-research-f96dd7413748)
_The fact that the deeper you dive into the research activities of
coronavirologists over the past 15–20 years, the more you realize that
creating chimeras like CoV2 was commonplace in their labs. And CoV2 is an
obvious chimera (though not nesessarily a lab-made one), which is based on the
ancestral bat strain RaTG13, in which the receptor binding motif (RBM) in its
spike protein is replaced by the RBM from a pangolin strain, and in addition,
a small but very special stretch of 4 amino acids is inserted, which creates a
furin cleavage site that, as virologists have previously established,
significantly expands the “repertoire” of the virus in terms of whose cells it
can penetrate._
> In any case, more contagious doesn't mean more deadly, and that's probably
> what's most important.
It does mean that because there is more than one strain out there, you may be
immune to one but not the other, and that it seems to be more likely that it
will continue to mutate and reinfect again and again, just like the common
cold or flu. How many courses of this disease can you take, considering each
one leads to what seems to be permanent lung damage?
------
anigbrowl
Los Alamos National Laboratories, the story was written by someone whose first
name is Berkeley.
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Streaming Cassandra at WePay - matchagreentea
https://wecode.wepay.com/posts/streaming-cassandra-at-wepay-part-1
======
georgewfraser
There's some excellent choices in this design, but using Kafka in the middle
makes no sense. The Cassandra change-data segments are written in batches, and
BigQuery loads in batches. So the author is splitting up change-data segments
into individual rows, feeding those rows into Kafka, and then re-batching them
on the BQ side for ingestion.
The use of a streaming system adds a tremendous amount of complexity for no
benefit, because the original data source is batch. A simpler solution would
be to process the data in 5-minute batches and use a BigQuery MERGE statement
to apply that "patch" to the existing table.
You really shouldn't use Kafka unless you have a true streaming data source
and a hard latency requirement of < 5 minutes. It's much easier to work with
data in small batches, using local disk and blob stores like S3 as your queue.
~~~
matchagreentea
OP here.
Thanks for the feedback! I totally agree with you that using a streaming
approach seems like an overkill. Actually making the pipeline truly real-time
is part of our future work for Cassandra CDC (This is mentioned in Part 2 of
this blogpost, which is expected to be published next week). In Cassandra 4.0,
the CDC feature is improved to allow real-time parsing of commit logs. We are
running 3.X in production, however we plan to add 4.0 support in the future.
~~~
georgewfraser
What does the 4.0 api look like? I would home that they would expose a high-
level interface for change data, similar to SQL Server or Snowflake streams.
Most databases leave this as an afterthought, which is so unfortunate.
~~~
matchagreentea
[http://cassandra.apache.org/doc/latest/operating/cdc.html](http://cassandra.apache.org/doc/latest/operating/cdc.html)
The high-level idea is hard-linking the commit log segment file in cdc
directory as it is being written + have a separate index file to keep track of
offset.
~~~
pfarnsworth
Relying on an eventual consistency database sounds like a huge challenge in
terms of getting absolute consistency between Cassandra and Kafka. There seems
to be many edge cases that could cause the data in Kafka to get out of sync,
it doesn't sound very reliable. Especially if you want to rely on Kafka for
event sourcing later on, which is sounds like you're planning on in the
future. For a payments company that sounds very risky.
What happens if you write a row to Cassandra but that row is invalidated
because of failed writes to the other nodes in the cluster (ex. the write was
QUORUM and it succeeded on the node that you're reading from but failed on all
other nodes). In Cassandra, when an error occurs, there are no rollbacks, and
the row gets read-repaired. It sounds like that row will get outputted to
Kafka. How do you "disappear" data written into Kafka if it gets read-
repaired?
~~~
matchagreentea
great question actually. There is a nuance in cassandra regarding to read-
repair. If you issue a QUORUM read and the read itself failed (say, because
2/3 nodes are down), but succeeded on 1 node; and later on you read again when
all three nodes are up, the failed write will actually be resurrected during
read repair due to last write wins conflict resolution.
This is why it is recommended to always retry when a write fails. This way
data might arrive at BQ slightly before cassandra itself for a failed write,
but eventually they will be consistent.
That said, at WePay cassandra is being used by services which do not have to
be strongly consistent at the moment. Not to say it’s not possible, as there
are companies that use Cassandra’s light weight transaction feature for CAS
operations.
As for consistency between kafka and cassandra, agree that its hard to make it
100% consistent (due to a number of limitations cassandra poses). This is why
we tend to be pretty careful about which services should use cassandra, and
specify clearly what is the expectation and SLA for cassandra cdc.
------
benjaminwootton
Curious if you also looked at Aurora over Cassandra being as you are in the
AWS ecosystem?
We are an AWS aligned consultancy who are seeing lots of take up of Aurora as
it’s MySQL API compatible but with better performance and fully managed.
There’s an interesting pattern here using Lambda for CDC between Aurora and
Redshift, though not sure how the cost would scale at WePay scale
[https://aws.amazon.com/blogs/big-data/combine-
transactional-...](https://aws.amazon.com/blogs/big-data/combine-
transactional-and-analytical-data-using-amazon-aurora-and-amazon-redshift/)
~~~
chucky_z
Aurora and Redshift do not scale well enough for companies at their scale
(only 64TB for Aurora last I checked, and Redshift falls over near the 100TB
level). They'd be looking at DynamoDB.
~~~
gregorygoc
I don’t think any managed AWS service scales well for any bigger enterprise
which have to handle a decent amount of traffic. Once you reach certain
threshold you soon hit some throttling and limits BS and AWS solution is just
to throw more money at them.
~~~
chucky_z
DynamoDB scales a lot. It falls into the "throw money at it," bucket though,
and you need to have a pattern that shards well with it. If you have a reason
they will basically always increase your limits, too.
------
Luker88
I'm not saying nosql dbs don't have their place, but...
Articles like this are exactly why my current company moved to cassandra, and
why I regret not having tried harder to stop them (but I was new, didn't knew
cassandra and I'm digressing)
Cassandra is (very probably) wrong for your use case.
The only model that makes sense in cassandra is where you insert data, wait
for minutes for the propagation, hope it was propagated, then read it, while
knowing either the primary/clustering key or the time of the last read data
(assuming everything has the timestamp in the key, and has been replicated)
Anything else in cassandra feels like a hack. Deleting stuff is kinda bad, it
will remain there (marked as tombstone) until the "grace period" has expired
(default 10 days). It is really bad unless you put the timestamp in the keys,
which you basically must do in cassandra. default 100k tombstones ad your
query will be dropped. You want a big grace period for the data, 'cause if a
node goes down that is exactly the maximum time you have to bring it up and
hope all data has finished resyncing. Otherwise deleted data will come up
again, and your node will have less data. If the grace period has passed or
are not confident in the replication speed, absolutely delete that node and
add a new one.
Bigger grace period means more tombstones (unless you never, ever delete
data). Even if all the data/tombstones have been replicated to all nodes, the
tombstones remain. Running manual compaction once prevents the automatic
compaction from running ever again. You need to pay attention to never scan
tombstones, so no queries like select without where, always use a LIMIT or
where that will ensure you will not scan deleted data. (but don't use 'where'
on columns that are not keys... Unless X, unless Y on the unless X and so on
for everything)
They need kafka because the probably need a queue, and there is no way to
implement those in semi-realtime in cassandra without the tombstone problem
killing your queries.
Features have been added and then deprecated (see material views), or very
limited in their use (secondary indexes, which basically work only per-
partition). Queries that are not plain select/insert (or update, which is the
same as insert) have loads of special cases and special cases on the special
cases. LWT are much slower, and are the only transaction/consensus you will
find. for single-row only. COPY TO/FROM works with csv, but will not properly
escape all kinds of data, giving you all kinds of fun. Hell, manual copy-
pasting a timestamp from a select to an insert does not work, the format a
tiny bit different.
Backups/restore procedures seem complex and amateurish, especially when you
have to restore in an other cluster.
You can select how many nodes to query for an operation, but things like
"Quorum" are not a transaction or consensus. BATCH is atomic, not isolated.
read-after-write works only on exactly the same node (unless you write to ALL
nodes, and I have not checked what happens if one is down). And a sh*tload of
other stuff.
I could go on, but even if this fits your use case, don't use cassandra. Try
scylladb first. Same protocol, missing material views and LWT (until next year
apparently), but 10x as fast, probably due to being C++ vs java
~~~
pixelmonkey
I had a somewhat similar experience.
This, especially, is what my team also found to be true: "The only model that
makes sense in cassandra is where you insert data, wait for minutes for the
propagation, hope it was propagated, then read it, while knowing either the
primary/clustering key or the time of the last read data."
We use Cassandra in production at my company, but only after much scope
reduction to the use case.
We needed a distributed data store for real-time writes and delayed reads for
a 24x7 high-throughput shared-nothing highly-parallel distributed processing
plant (implemented atop Apache Storm). Cassandra fit the bill because writes
could come from any of 500+ parallel processes on 30+ physical nodes (and
growing), potentially across AZs in AWS. And because the writes were a form of
"distributed grouping" where we'd later look up data by row key.
At first, we tried to also use Cassandra for counters, but that had loads of
problems. So we cut that. We briefly looked at LWTs and determined they were a
non-starter.
Then we had some reasonable cost/storage constraints, and discovered that
Cassandra's storage format with its "native" map/list types left a lot to be
desired. We had some client performance requirements, and found the same thing
that hosed storage also hosed client performance. So then we did a lot of
performance hacks and whittled down our use case to just the "grouping" one
described above, and even still, hit a thorny production issue around
"effective wide row limits".
I wrote up a number of these issues in this detailed blog post.
[https://blog.parse.ly/post/1928/cass/](https://blog.parse.ly/post/1928/cass/)
The good news about Cassandra is that it has been a rock-solid production
cluster for us, given the whittled-down use case and performance enhancements.
That is, operationally, it really is nice to have a system that thoughtfully
and correctly handles data sharding, node zombification, and node failure.
That's really Cassandra's legacy, IMO: that it is possible to build a
distributed, masterless cluster system that lets your engineers and ops team
sleep at night. But I think the quirky/limited data model may hold the project
back long-term, when it comes to multi-decade popularity.
------
KaiserPro
Interesting article!
One question, how are your backups?
We moved away from datastax for a number of reasons, one of the biggest was
the lifecycle manager. For us, it silently failed to make backups, created
backups that were unrecoverable, and other generally nasty stuff.
The worst part was with every update, something broke that should have been
caught be QA. It felt like nobody was regularly testing their backups, or they
rolled their own(which defeats the point of buying support)
Having said that, if you wanted to stream things like log data, cassandra was
brilliant.
However, it collapsed like a sack of poop as soon as you wanted to do any kind
of reading. In the end we replaced a 6 node r4.4xlarge 4TB cluster with a
single t2.medium Postgres instance.
~~~
agacera
Can you please elaborate a little bit more of how you replaced it by postgres?
Because it is strange that a single box of postgres in way less powerful
instance type would perform the same as your cassandra cluster. This kind of
seems that the first solution was way over engineered or was built for
different requirements.
~~~
KaiserPro
Oh it was a total mistake, Fortunately it wasn't mine. But I did have to
support it and migrate away from it.
Cassandra session are quite heavy, We have a large farm that spins up, does
stuff and closes down. So thats the first problem. (yes we used kafka to
pipeline the data in, and that worked well, but...)
It _used_ to be a very heavy write/read ratio. But as time went on, we needed
to read more and more thing concurrently.
Because its "distributed" and basically a glorified token ring system,
throughput drops dramatically as load increases.
We are not inserting that much data, just lots and lots of records. We then do
a geospatial query later on to pull that data back. postGIS is far better at
handling this, compared the datastax graph layer + solr(ie, the full datastax
"stack" ).
But honestly, we could have coped with that, if the backups worked. That and
shipping code with a 4 year old CVE that could have been easily remedied if
they'd bothered to do an automated scan.
Every point release would involved 1-5 days of hard work from me. considering
the support cost was > my wage, that stung quite a lot.
------
marcus_holmes
I'm really curious why MySQL was dropped instead of being optimised?
SQL databases can (and do) scale to high volumes, and would have avoided a lot
of re-engineering. What was the final blocker for WePay that meant that
optimising SQL could go no further?
~~~
marcinzm
SQL on it's own scales to a point, that point being however large you can make
a single machine. Which can be quiet small depending on the data sizes in
question. Beyond that you need to use something like Vitess (which the article
mentions) but that comes with it's own overheads and caveats. You no longer
have SQL really, you have Vitess. A couple years ago a company I was at tried
to use Vitess but found too many edge cases and too much operational overhead.
------
ledneb
Looking at the "double-writing" option, this talk by Udi Dahan ("Reliable
Messaging Without Distributed Transactions") could be of interest to you
[https://vimeo.com/showcase/3784159/video/111998645](https://vimeo.com/showcase/3784159/video/111998645)
It's still a "double write" but you may not need distributed transactions if
you're happy with at-least-once writes to Kafka and deduplication on the
consuming side.
------
matchagreentea
Part 2: [https://wecode.wepay.com/posts/streaming-cassandra-at-
wepay-...](https://wecode.wepay.com/posts/streaming-cassandra-at-wepay-part-2)
------
vijaybritto
Sorry, Off topic here: Why are there three scrollbars for the window??!
~~~
twic
Redundancy. Only one of the scrollbars is actually active at the moment, but
if it fails, a leadership election will take place, and one of the others will
take over as the active.
------
tony1234
good job
------
fasthandle
This was a remarkably detailed and honestly confusing post from Tencent, until
I noticed the Chase logo at the top, and it was not by Tencent. (The WeChat
team in Tencent there is very small, close, integrated).
Pretty major name clash here, WeChat pay aka WePay, perhaps WeChat Pay, and
well, another WePay.
For those not familiar, WeChat, somewhat a WhatsApp+/Facebood Messenger of
China, probably earlier mover however riding from QQ, transact billions of
yuan in payments every day and together with AliPay is promoting a cashless
society (which I think is wrong, I like cash).
~~~
haecceity
Why do you think cash is preferable to electronic payment? I personally hate
carrying change.
~~~
easytiger
One big benefit is decentralisation.
~~~
Assadi
Decentralized centralized-currency?
~~~
easytiger
As in as happened many times, when the card provider goes down it still works.
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
No salary for Elon Musk but a $7bn payout if Tesla reaches $650bn valuation - sjcsjc
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/business/2018/01/23/elon-musk-wont-take-salary-bonus-tesla-pursues-650bn-valuation/
======
inetsee
The headline is incorrect. The Telegraph article says that Elon Musk's
potential payout is $70 billion, not $7 billion.
The New York Times article
([https://www.nytimes.com/2018/01/23/business/dealbook/tesla-e...](https://www.nytimes.com/2018/01/23/business/dealbook/tesla-
elon-musk-pay.html)) lists the potential payout at $55 billion.
Either way it's a lot of money, but if he can succeed, he will certainly have
earned it.
------
loceng
I like that milestone, roughly 10x of current market cap.
I believe Elon will succeed in lining everything up optimally for Tesla to
succeed and outcompete others (even if they all copy his ecosystem
design/plans - he's still ahead with mindshare and strategy and arguably
execution).
I look forward to having a Tesla or two that I share with friends and family,
a house with Tesla solar roof tiles, Tesla Powerwalls, etc.
~~~
earenndil
I also like the milestone, but I don't think it's achievable. As the article
mentions, it's on a similar order of magnitude to google and apple.
~~~
loceng
Elon and Tesla have been laying the foundation for exponential growth I
believe they can achieve; along with SpaceX that will lead the way for mining
asteroids etc will further be a profit layer others won't have that he can
leverage in the future to his heart's content. Tie SpaceX's global satellite
network and connectivity with vehicles ... there's a lot of synergy to what
he's doing, a buzzword that should be used to describe the ecosystem Elon's
creating.
Edit: Not to mention some other boring plans he has that will disrupt
transportation even more than electric vehicles and reusable rockets will..
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Venezuela President Maduro 'survives drone attack' - DanAndersen
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-latin-america-45073385
======
DanAndersen
Footage from Venezuelan TV:
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ew0RN8ozA8I](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ew0RN8ozA8I)
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Top Iranian General Qassim Suleimani Is Killed on Trump’s Orders, Officials Say - boyd
https://www.nytimes.com/2020/01/02/world/middleeast/qassem-soleimani-iraq-iran-attack.html
======
arkadiyt
A few weeks ago 5 senior pentagon officials resigned [1], probably over this.
This can easily be the start of war with Iran.
[1]: [https://thehill.com/policy/defense/475205-fifth-pentagon-
off...](https://thehill.com/policy/defense/475205-fifth-pentagon-official-
announces-resignation-in-seven-days)
~~~
dmix
These dates don’t line up with the attacks on the US military base which
killed an American and heavily damaged the base plus the embassy siege which
NYT reported showed tacit support from local police. It’s unique in the region
where the US doesn’t respond to protests with mass shooting of protestors like
the hundreds killed in Iraq this past month.
Hands down this is the boldest thing Trump has done since taking office and
will have serious implications.
But I don’t think anyone is under any illusion that both men were responsible
and helped finance/support countless terrorist operations. And the Quds leader
had his hands in every dirty Shiite business in the region, most notably
playing a big role in suppression the revolution in Syria, bombardments of
Israel from Lebanon, and constantly stirring up shit in Iraq including openly
attacking Americans.
Also some 60% of the Iran economy is owned by gov connected groups and
agencies including the imperial guard and Quds who all pay zero taxes and live
in luxury, while jacking up gas prices on the poor when things get tough.
Not many people in the west are gong to miss this guy at all. Still the
methods are quite shocking and atypical.
~~~
craftinator
> These dates don’t line up with the attacks on the US military base which
> killed an American and heavily damaged the base plus the embassy siege which
> NYT reported showed tacit support from local police. It’s unique in the
> region where the US doesn’t respond to protests with mass shooting of
> protestors like the hundreds killed in Iraq this past month.
They don't have to. This attack had been in planning for a good long time
before the attacks on the US military base. You say it's unique for the
region; I say that it is, because it isn't in response to any action taken.
They've wanted him dead for a long time, and the US base attack was a
scapegoat casus belli.
------
threatofrain
More of basically the same post today:
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21942965](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21942965)
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21942853](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21942853)
Presumably people are concerned because this may be the beginning of war.
~~~
TeMPOraL
Indeed they may be. I definitely am.
~~~
Arnt
From what I've heard, this airstrike took place about 5km from the nearest US
base, which seems like a reason to be optimistic if it's accurate. An accurate
airstrike is impressive, I'm sure, but if an airstrike is the pentagon's best
option within walking distance of a base, then perhaps they're not in shape to
start a real war... and they have enough analysts to say so.
~~~
Fnoord
It is the least dangerous for American lives. Soldiers on the field can die. A
UAV pilot can die from PTSD or whatever (as can soldiers), but not directly
from taking part in the strike.
~~~
Arnt
Let me put it differently. If a military force thinks sending soldiers even as
little as 5km out from the base is best avoided, that military force is not in
shape to start a war. The Pentagon has analysts enough to say so.
------
enilakla
Does anyone know why this post is flagged? Or why similar stories have been
removed, etc?
Is it that it's off-topic?
Edit: It seems every post remaining on this story has been flagged. I imagine
it's 'off-topic' but curious why other off-topic stuff hasn't warranted such a
strong reaction?
~~~
anigbrowl
Some folk insist that HN not address mainstream news or politics, though
having been here over a decade I can vouch for the fact that this didn't used
to be the case.
------
Just1689
"The United States, Israel and Saudi Arabia have targeted Soleimani for
assassination for over a decade. In 2019 alone, Iran reported over half a
dozen alleged plots to kill the general, the most recent of which was in early
October." [1]
[1]
[https://intelnews.org/2020/01/03/01-2700/](https://intelnews.org/2020/01/03/01-2700/)
------
emilsedgh
I'm an Iranian living in the states and I hate the Islamic Republic to the
bone. Islamic Republic is the evil of my era.
With that being said, I truly don't understand what the U.S. plan is at this
point. Do they want to make Iran another Syria? Or Iraq? Because _everything_
they've done in this administration is aligned with one of those examples.
Basically U.S. strategy is like holding a gun to someone's head and saying
"kill yourself or I will kill you".
Of course that person is gonna fight back.
I am worried about a war and I'm worried the U.S. population doesn't slightly
care about government's actions outside the country. And the U.S. has been
acting quite hostile for many years now.
This is truly sad news. Not because I liked or cared about that genocidal
motherfucker. Because Islamic Republic is (probably) gonna have to respond.
I think there are 2 important questions:
1\. Can Iran retaliate this?
2\. Are they willing to?
I think the answer to this question 1 is, yes, they can. Shadow of war has
been on Iran for more than a decade now and Iran has strong influence in Iraq
and Afghanistan. I'm pretty much sure they have plans ready to attack U.S.
targets in case of war. Because of course Iran cannot defend itself against
U.S. in a classic war.
But hopefully, the answer to question 2 is, No. Supreme leader Khamenei
understand that if they try to "really" retaliate this, the war may be
imminent. And over all these decades he has shown that he is afraid of war and
he would step back if necessary.
But again, we've never been this close to a war. At this point any side can
miscalculate the other one's reaction.
Another point I want to make: Islamic Republic is not a match for the U.S.
obviously. But you have to remember: Their pain threshold is quite different.
Islamic Republic may lose a general or a thousand soldiers. They can take it.
But if Islamic Republic responds back with a few bombings and killing of a few
American diplomats, it's enough to make it a full-blown national disaster for
both the administration and the country.
I'm sorry about the long post. I'm afraid for my home country, family and
friends who are already crushed and destroyed by the sanctions and are now
threatened by war and I'm not necessarily level-headed.
~~~
calebm
Thank you for sharing your perspective.
------
zmoreira
The status quo in the region is that Iran is winning and the USA is not
winning. Perhaps this is an attempt to provoke Iran into making errors, but I
doubt that will happen.
I think not much will (visibly) happen. The USA will keep on not winning,
because they don't have any Soleimanis. Have you heard American generals
speak? It's all TED Talk level BS. Decadence is a powerful force.
------
pmoriarty
Is it a coincidence that Trump just happens to be in the middle of an
impeachment right now and he's chosen to start a war?
~~~
mflyingget
Good point and IMO the answer is no. Its a game that many presidents (from
both sides) running for a second term have played in the past.
------
blendo
On HN I keep politics low, but since I found the story here first, I’ll opine
Trump may have just bought the farm.
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Ask HN: Any Startups in Portland? - jkaykin
I will be in Portland, Oregon on July 31st and August 1st and would love to check out the startup scene and meet any developers working on something cool? Where do all the startups hang out/work? Thanks!
======
mountaineer
PIE is an incubator that just kicked off their latest class, probably a good
place to start:
[http://www.piepdx.com/](http://www.piepdx.com/)
Others are close by: Urban Airship, Simple, Puppet, Cloudability, etc.
Check Calagator for events too: [http://calagator.org/](http://calagator.org/)
------
evv
I'm on the TrapIt UI team in Palo Alto, and we have a very solid team of
platform / dev ops / machine learning engineers up in Portland.
We are mostly looking for a new dev-ops/sysadmin guru, but we are constantly
searching for great talent in other areas too. Send me a pm and I'd be happy
to help you get in touch.
A little bit about TrapIt: [http://trap.it/about/](http://trap.it/about/) The
jobs page: [http://trap.it/jobs/](http://trap.it/jobs/)
------
pjungwir
If you post to the pdxruby list introducing yourself, I'm sure you'll get
several invitations to drop by and visit:
http://pdxruby.org/
One startup I don't see mentioned yet is New Relic. There are lots of smart
and friendly people there. Also Cloud Compass and Elemental Technologies.
------
rman666
[https://angel.co/portland](https://angel.co/portland)
------
NathanCollins
Janrain and Engine Yard have been known to host community events.
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
OPEC 2.0: Bandwidth is the New Oil - pierrefar
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/07/30/opinion/30wu.html?hp
======
biohacker42
I can't upmod this enough.
The higher telco profits come at a great cost to the economy as a whole.
Bandwidth is today just as important to economic growth as any other basic
infrastructure.
The geographic challenge of the US is a red herring. Monopolistic laws,
regulations and just plain old collusion, along with very high barriers to
entry (regulations again) are responsible for the sorry state of US bandwidth.
~~~
davidw
I wasn't very impressed. Comparing bandwidth to oil seems like a silly way to
start (hint: bandwidth isn't something that you have to pump out of the ground
in faraway lands), even if the rest of it actually contains some good points
before returning to the contrived comparison in the conclusion: "Americans are
as addicted to bandwidth as they are to oil. The first step is facing the
problem."
~~~
byrneseyeview
It's easy to find holes in the analogy. But part of his point is that this is
an easier problem to fix, because the scarcity is artificial. If we could
legislate more oil into existence, that would be an easy problem to solve,
too.
I'm not sure how serious an issue bandwidth really is, though. It doesn't seem
to be the limiting factor in many activities.
~~~
davidw
> It's easy to find holes in the analogy.
That's the sign of a bad analogy. He should have just made his point (a
sensible one) and got on with it, without what to me looks like attention-
grabbing hand waving.
------
electric
This is not a very good comparison.
Oil is a finite resource. You can increase infrastructure to get more but in
the end there is no more than a finite amount of oil on the planet.
'Bandwidth' on the other hand is infrastructure dependent. Increase the number
and width of pipes (or tubes! :) and you increase data throughput.
~~~
jonmc12
No resource is infinite. Technically, we could make more oil too. Just build
some carbon lifeforms and give them the right environment for a few million
years. In fact there is plenty of oil in the earth that we just can't get to
because of the cost of retrieval.
The point is, once the cost of adding bandwidth exceeds the value to the
market due to shortages of materials, energy, real estate, maintenance, etc
you run into the same situation. Bandwidth availability has an s-curve like
any other resource, and once you pass a certain threshold its just too
expensive to add more pipes. It may not happen soon, but it will happen
eventually. Its the same problem on a different time scale.
~~~
robg
An example of that S-curve today - my only possible "broadband" connection
these days is satellite. And I'm only 100 miles from Boston.
------
robg
I'm dealing with a satellite connection because state and local governments
don't yet understand the role of IT infrastructure as an alternative to
highway infrastructure. Problem is, the flow of highway tax dollars doesn't
include IT either. I've seen some calculations to suggest how much oil could
be saved if office workers were allowed to tele-commute one or two days a
week. The debate is moving in the right direction, but this failure is a clear
instance where the federal government needs to take a much more active role -
just like with the Interstate Highway System.
------
mdasen
The article is just flat out wrong.
What makes oil special is that it cannot be produced. It is finite. Bandwidth
can be produced. While we might be dominated by a few companies, there is
nothing stopping you from raising money and building out your own fiber. Yes,
it's a massive undertaking to build a fiber network, but it can be done.
With oil, we can't make more of it as demand increases. We can lay more fiber.
Likewise, a country without oil can't turn itself into a country with oil
while a company without fiber can make itself into a company with fiber.
While we don't have a plethora of people owning fiber, if the price ever
starts going up like oil, more producers will enter and the prices will stay
in check. That isn't the case with oil.
------
noonespecial
This part is somewhat bogus however:
_Many “owners” of spectrum either hardly use the stuff or use it in highly
inefficient ways. At any given moment, more than 90 percent of the nation’s
airwaves are empty.
The solution is to relax the overregulation of the airwaves and allow use of
the wasted spaces. Anyone, so long as he or she complies with a few basic
rules to avoid interference, could try to build a better Wi-Fi and become a
broadband billionaire._
That's like saying that 90% of the sky is empty so air traffic control is not
doing its job well enough. Just give everyone a pilot's license and tell them
to watch out for other planes...
The empty spaces are _important_.
------
senthil_rajasek
Too many hypothetical arguments, "likely..." "almost..." "if we are not
careful..." etc.,
Today, I am able to watch instructional/recreational videos at a reasonable
download rate with my cable connection, I do not want to digress and go into
how much I am or should be paying for it (read FREE).
Luckily, I still remember the Web 1.0 bubble days and here is an article about
a company (Enron :-) ) that wanted to trade bandwidth.
<http://www.internetnews.com/xSP/article.php/8_253861>
Also, if I have to speak for the Internet backbone providers alone, then it is
certainly not a cartel.
------
MaysonL
No: bandwidth is the new Windows.
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
How to build a Java buildserver - Garbage
http://www.zenbi.nl/en/blog_how_to_build_a_java_buildserver.php
======
mthomas
Why not simply use Hudson: <http://hudson-ci.org/>. It has a bunch of plugins
<http://wiki.hudson-ci.org/display/HUDSON/Plugins>
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
New Developers: Want to Hack Your Coding Interviews? Start with This One Item - jjashcraft
https://hackernoon.com/new-developers-want-to-hack-your-coding-interviews-start-with-this-one-simple-item-3de3022e490e
======
chemicalcrux
This reminds me of how you're suggested to take notes in a lecture, then read
and re-write the notes a little later. Using multiple forms of expression
seems to help concepts to sink in more thoroughly.
Unrelated to the main content of the article - it was a little odd to find the
entire last page of this brief article taken up by clap spam and links to the
author's other platforms...
~~~
jjashcraft
It definitely does help to exercise muscle memory, in this case...training
your brain to use whiteboards from the start so they don't feel foreign.
Thank you for the comment about the bottom of the post. I'm experimenting with
techniques suggested by other authors to increase reader interaction...maybe I
could do a little less when the articles are short.
I edited the article based your feedback.
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
A Wyoming Creek Flows into Two Oceans (2017) - DoreenMichele
https://www.cntraveler.com/story/this-wyoming-creek-flows-into-two-oceans
======
cjensen
There's a creek like this in Banff National Park in Canada [1]. It is
amazingly fake. It was rebuilt when I was younger and the rocks that keep the
creek in place are not found upstream or downstream of the divide. Before it
was rebuilt, it flowed into a marshy area and trickled off to both sides. My
guess is that it was originally constructed by the railroad (which is right
next to it) as a tourist attraction when crossing the divide.
The problem with a divide creek is that it is inherently unstable. One of the
sides _will_ erode more quickly than the other, which diverts the water and
erodes the remaining side to permanently capture the water.
I note that photos of the Wyoming creek show a suspicious number of rocks in
perfect place diverting some water off to the lesser branch. Perhaps someone
has been fighting off the inevitable end of the fork.
[1]
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Divide_Creek](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Divide_Creek)
~~~
username223
Maybe someone has been hiking out there to maintain the creek, but that's some
serious middle-of-nowhere territory, so I doubt it. Also, it's depicted as a
big flat marsh on the USGS 7.5' maps, so I imagine it doesn't experience much
erosion.
~~~
mannykannot
It is a day's hike from the roadhead, on an established trail, and at the
point of the split, the water flows freely. The run-off from a single storm
could be enough to close off one branch, and if left to its own devices, this
fork would probably open and close repeatedly before settling on one
direction.
Pics and more info: [http://www.amusingplanet.com/2014/09/parting-of-waters-
creek...](http://www.amusingplanet.com/2014/09/parting-of-waters-creek-that-
flows-into.html)
~~~
username223
Thanks! That website is a JavaScript-soaked nightmare, but I'll try to check
it out when I'm next in the area (and maybe even do some creek maintenance
;-).
------
eigenvector
There is also a "triple divide" point in North America, from where water can
flow into the Pacific, Atlantic or Arctic Oceans. It's either in Montana or
Jasper National Park in Canada depending on whether you define Hudson Bay as
part of the Arctic or Atlantic.
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Triple_Divide_Peak_(Montana)](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Triple_Divide_Peak_\(Montana\))
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Snow_Dome_(Canada)](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Snow_Dome_\(Canada\))
~~~
severine
Similar to "Pico Tres Mares" (Three Seas Peak), in Spain:
> The Pico de Tres Mares (Three Seas) got its name because it is the source of
> three main rivers which flow from it into three different seas - the Híjar,
> tributary of the Ebro which flows into the Mediterranean, the Pisuerga,
> tributary of the Douro which flows into the Atlantic and the Nansa which
> flows into the Cantabrian sea. This peak, which rises to 2,175m, reveals a
> splendid circular panorama to the north of the Nansa, to the east of the
> Sierra de Peña Labra and the Montes de León, and to the west of los Picos de
> Europa.
------
chrissnell
So, if you were a salmon, you could swim up from the Pacific and back down to
the Atlantic--theoretically. Is there anywhere else you could do that?
There are some really long salmon runs in Idaho. The Salmon River is one of
the longest, I believe. Fish travel several thousand miles up it to spawn in
their home creek.
~~~
discreteevent
That's an impressive feat of endurance considering that salmon seem to eat
very little (if at all) in fresh water.
[http://salmo.proboards.com/thread/39/salmon-eat-fresh-
water](http://salmo.proboards.com/thread/39/salmon-eat-fresh-water)
------
bencollier49
"All the explorers looking for the Northwest Passage between the oceans never
realized that they could have sailed across America this way—if they'd used
tiny little boats that could handle the six-inch shallows of Two Ocean Creek."
Is anyone going to take that as a challenge? And video it?
~~~
saalweachter
I wonder how navigable it is - you _are_ paddling up a mountain; I imagine
there’s a few spots you’ll need to carry the boat around rapids/falls.
~~~
bencollier49
I was thinking more of a sort of robotrout with leaping abilities..
------
cbr
This means everywhere uphill from this creek can't be assigned to a watershed,
or we can't model watersheds as a tree. My guess is water modeling software
can't handle this situation.
(Cases where an elegant model covers almost everything but not quite are
frustratingly common.)
~~~
mannykannot
I think only if watersheds are required to terminate on an ocean, but that
does not work for basins that are not connected to the sea, one notable
example of which is not that far south of this point, containing the Great
Salt lake. An alternative view (touched on in the article) is that
technically, the fork is the end-point of the Atlantic-Pacific divide, and
everything upstream on this creek is in a watershed that has one end on one
branch downstream of the fork, and the other end on the other branch. In this
view, it is the paths downstream of the fork that are not in a watershed. This
is not a useful viewpoint, so I agree that this is a corner case in which the
tree model does not work.
------
niftich
Also in Wyoming is the Great Divide Basin, an endorheic basin straddling the
Pacific-Atlantic Continental Divide.
In a not-to-distant past it probably drained out northeast towards the North
Platte [1], but is now a closed basin with about 43 meters of elevation
separation before it would overflow at bedrock. Further complicating this is a
bunch of sand dunes over its most likely outflow.
[1]
[http://geofaculty.uwyo.edu/heller/Papers/Heller%20GSAB%2010....](http://geofaculty.uwyo.edu/heller/Papers/Heller%20GSAB%2010.pdf)
~~~
Theodores
Nice, I found that to be most fascinating on Rand McNally maps from back in
the day. I cycled past the Great Divide Basin on the road down from the
Tetons, through the Snake River canyons and the view did not disappoint. High
points on the divide were attracting lightning on a near continual basis from
the late afternoon onward and it was quite a light show.
------
205guy
Other instances:
[https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_unusual_drainage_sys...](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_unusual_drainage_systems)
------
burger_moon
That was a really interesting tidbit of information.
I was also caught a bit off guard by the website, cntraveler. I only ever
heard of conde nast as the company that used to own reddit. The author's name
was also interesting as it's the same as the famous Jeopardy winner, which
this being a quirky trivia type of article makes me wonder if it's the same
person.
~~~
rflrob
It is the Jeopardy winner. As a hint, in most online publications you can
click on the authors name and it will take you to a bio and/or a list of other
articles by that author in that publication.
~~~
Latteland
It's always amusing to read articles "from the future". The byline date is May
1, 2018. Perfect for a super human like Ken.
~~~
sulam
Apparently it’s been corrected to 2017.
------
cup-of-tea
For some reason on Firefox mobile as soon as I load this page I get a drop
down at the top with my search history.
~~~
contingencies
Ditto, Firefox desktop Linux. I suspect it's javascript selecting an input box
with a very common _name_ like _q_ or _search_.
~~~
dghf
Likewise, Chromium on Linux. Search box appears when I try to scroll with the
down-arrow key.
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
All of Mozilla Is Out There in the Open - bevacqua
http://viewvc.svn.mozilla.org/vc/projects/
======
bevacqua
For reference, see
[https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=949446](https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=949446)
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Lens Dashboard for Kubernetes Updated: Performance Through the Roof - xfiler
https://blog.kontena.io/lens-2-3-released/
======
java-man
what is the point of animated transitions in charts?
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Why passenger jets could soon be flying in formation - pseudolus
https://www.cnn.com/travel/article/airbus-formation-flight/index.html
======
gervwyk
This is cool. I actually did my Masters on autopilot design for the follower
aircraft back in 2015, also under a Airbus future project. Nice to see it make
some headlines.
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Top Programming Languages Survey – Coding Infinite Poll - shehryark
https://codinginfinite.com/top-programming-languages-survey-poll/
======
bsg75
This survey asks for the “best” programming language.
Best for what? No one language is best for everything.
Is this more of a popularity contest?
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Ask HN: What'd you do with an extremely short domain-name? - kmbd
i got my hands on an extremely short domain name, like t.co, j.mp etc. A quick solution is to deploy a URL shortening service or resell it for a much higher price.
What else would you do with it? Commercial or otherwise.
======
mr_ali3n
Sell it if not a URL shortner service.
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
40% of babies use a mobile device before they can even speak full sentences - prateekj
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-2478328/40-babies-use-mobile-phone-tablet-speak-sentences.html?ico=sciencetech%5Emostread
======
tymathews
It's a lot of fun watching a child learn how to interface with a touchscreen
for the first time. Even better to see them interact with something like a
flatscreen tv or a toy feature phone after they understand how a touchscreen
works.
When my son was 3 he was very frustrated with my tv since he couldn't swipe
through channels.
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Redditors share the way the world was 20 years ago - socratees
http://www.reddit.com/r/AskReddit/comments/esid8/from_sex_to_phones_to_star_wars_what_would_older/
======
melling
About twenty years ago I was trolling around the Internet explaining how
Microsoft was going to screw over IBM and OS/2. I went by melling back then
too:
<http://www.skytel.co.cr/advocacy/research/1991/0817.html>
And for hacking fun, I was enamored with Steve Jobs' NeXT computer. Among
other things, I worked on the Tetris port:
<http://www.artizia.com/tetris/contributors.html>
A year later, I found my first developer job via the Internet and ended up in
the NYC area. About a year out of college I bought a used 386 computer, got
Linux running and a PPP connection, then I was back on the Internet.
Today, the Internet is just bigger and faster, while Steve's NeXT computer
fits in your front shirt pocket.
------
wallflower
> We played _outside_ (there was nothing to do inside anyway)
Having happily spent hours playing with the dirt under a bush in my front yard
with Star Wars action figures when I was young, lost in my imagination, aided
by props, I lament the complete shift that has occurred for many kids. It's a
sea change, and I was ecstatic recently when my toddler niece played in the
dirt on my watch - only got caught because she got dirt on her cheeks - I hope
she never loses that curiousity - her parents were away...
Now my nephews - my sister has successfully resisted the introduction of video
games for at least six years - hope she can continue to fight. For when the
video game console gets in, it will change expectations forever.
~~~
axod
> my sister has successfully resisted the introduction of video games for at
> least six years - hope she can continue to fight.
idk. I bought my son a Nintendo DS when he turned 3 (reward for potty
training). I'm really glad I did as he's already showing off some cool
mathematical and logical thinking ability. There's good games and bad games,
plusses and minuses as with everything. I think the key is variety and
moderation.
~~~
eru
Where are you from? The US?
Is it normal to do potty training so late?
~~~
sliverstorm
Talk about shaping the evidence to suit your hypothesis.
~~~
eru
I don't know. I recently borrowed a book from a co-worker, a young mother,
about potty-training. They talked about different approaches in different
parts of the world. The author was American, so I thought this would be a good
opportunity to cross-check what she wrote. (And most people on HN are from the
US, that's why I assumed so.)
------
ilamont
20 years ago today people were very scared about what was about to happen to
the Middle East. This was about two weeks before the first Gulf War erupted,
and a lot of people thought (correctly) that Iraq would try to drag Israel
into it.
I remember two technological developments that year: I saw email for the first
time at the Boston public broadcaster WGBH, and one of the larger American
airlines installed phones in the backs of economy seats (I still see them
every now and then, but don't think they work anymore). The calls were
expensive as hell.
Some people had car phones, and "beepers" had spread out from professional
occupations to youth culture (the Tribe Called Quest song "Sky Pager"
references this) but I did not know anyone who had a mobile phone in the US in
1990. I saw my first mobile phone in London in 1991.
GUIs were very widespread on campuses, but there were still a surprising
amount of command-line based software being used in the workplace. At one of
my first jobs at a UK record label in 1991 they had me using Word Perfect (?)
which involved green text on a black screen, and lots of keyboard shortcuts.
Aside from the email example mentioned earlier, every business I dealt with in
1990-1991 used faxes or the post to send documents.
EDIT: added beeper/mobile phone/GUI/fax recollections
------
srean
A few odd couple short of 20 years ago, but nevertheless, Linux was a new
wonder to me. Red Hat CDs came packaged with issues of a computer magazine.
This was in India. 7 KB/sec was fast, and it lasted a burst or two per day.
Was absolutely new to programing. Wrote a p2p service for sharing rpm
packages, because downloading them from upstream was so slow. Wrote it in TCL,
it went nowhere. But a few snippets of that code found its way into the tcl
library.
Laser printers were a frightfully expensive piece of equipment and wasting
toner bothered me. So went through ghostscript code to realize for the first
time how beautiful code can truly be. Patched a part of the driver to handle
economy mode.
Had it not been for FSF and open-source, I would perhaps have never learned
programming. I did not major in CS, but for those who did, without FSF it
would have been unaffordable.
------
blhack
Hmm.. I'm not that old (I'm 23) and a lot of this stuff was also normal when I
was a kid. I wonder if things are _that_ different for 8 year olds now (the
stuff about being a kid and getting into trouble, I mean).
I had to dress up to go to church.
From the time I can remember forward, the rule was that I just had to be
home...eventually. I couldn't actually spend the _night_ in the woods, but I
could explore them to my heart's content.
I rode my bicycle _everywhere_. I rode my bike to school starting the summer
of 4th grade, 3 miles each way down a highway and through town, but I didn't
even get killed a little bit.
------
iwwr
_If you wanted to know something, there was no Google or Wikipedia. You might
be able to find out a basic fact if you had a set of encyclopedias. But most
information, from important stuff to basic trivia ("who was in that movie?")
was not available unless you had a reference book or went to the library and
really searched._
Rumors, lies, media manipulation, thwarted by a few seconds of research. If
more people bothered, it would be a better world.
Off topic, but obligatory Monty Python piece
<http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Xe1a1wHxTyo>
~~~
Create
SEO and its opposite, Googlewash [1]. Writing on the Googlewashing episode in
the New York Times, Stanford linguist Geoffrey Nunberg warned [2] that:
The rankings give disproportionate weight to opinions of the activists and
enthusiasts that may be at odds with the views of the larger public. It's as
if the United Nations General Assembly made all its decisions by referring the
question to whichever nation cares most about the issue: the Swiss get to rule
on watchmaking, the Japanese on whaling.
That seems quite prophetic now. And there are links between gaming the system
for political gain then and now. [3]
Oh, and the feedback loop [4].
[1]
[http://www.theregister.co.uk/2003/04/03/antiwar_slogan_coine...](http://www.theregister.co.uk/2003/04/03/antiwar_slogan_coined_repurposed/)
[2] <http://www.nytimes.com/2003/05/18/weekinreview/18NUNB.html>
[3]
[http://www.theregister.co.uk/2010/04/28/web_politics_how_rea...](http://www.theregister.co.uk/2010/04/28/web_politics_how_real/)
[4]
[http://www.theregister.co.uk/2009/01/26/britannica_slaps_goo...](http://www.theregister.co.uk/2009/01/26/britannica_slaps_google/)
------
Semiapies
What's the "20 years go" bit about? It's not in TFA's title.
Twenty years ago was (late) 1990, not $700 VCRs, no video games, or people
kicked off of airplanes for wearing sweatpants.
------
ben1040
> No Facebook or email. Long distance calling was expensive... Sundays were
> the days to call family and friends, because rates were cheaper.
I remember as a kid being told by my father to go play somewhere else, because
I was bothering my mother who was on the phone _long distance._
Even when I went to college in 1999, I remember it being an issue since not
everyone's cell plan featured long distance included, but everyone came with a
cell phone that had a number local to their hometown. People would end up
racking up long distance charges on their cell phones just to call a friend in
the next building over.
Thought: mobile data charges are the next generation's "long distance" (or are
at least headed that way).
~~~
ghshephard
Yes, I'm currently paying $15/Megabyte on my iPhone. Nobody in Vancouver
(Virgin, Rogers, Bell, Telus) is willing to sell me a "Pay-as-you-go MiFi) for
a reasonable rate (< $200) - so I ended up buying a rogers Rocket-Stick for
$150 and putting data on it, one day at a time for $15 @ 1 Gigabyte/day (or $5
for 50 megabytes/day - how's that for a curve), connecting to it from my
MacBook Air for all my data needs.
------
tzs
The original poster is talking about way more than 20 years ago, as far as I
can tell. It looks like his items cover a range, going as far back as 40 or 50
years ago, up to about 10 years ago.
------
ghshephard
" People lined up at banks on Fridays, to deposit their paychecks and withdraw
cash for the weekend. If you ran out of cash over the weekend, too bad."
Not in 1990, that's for sure. Heck, in _1981_ we had ATMs all over my small
town of Vernon, BC. Wikipedia (which _wasn't_ around in 1990, and I would
sorely miss) tells me the first ATMs came into the United states around 1969 -
and browsing through that article, the appear to be fairly common by 1975)
~~~
adestefan
It was at least the early 90s before the first ATM showed up in the large
central PA town I grew up in. I still remember waiting for the mail on
Thursday for my dad's paycheck. My mom would sign his name and we'd go to the
bank, same teller every week, and get $100 in cash and the rest into the
checking account.
~~~
ghshephard
Okay, name the town with > 2000 people in the United States that didn't have
an ATM until 1990. I'm genuinely curious as to how that came about.
~~~
adestefan
It was Altoona, PA and in 1990 the population was somewhere in the 50,000
range. I'm not saying there were no ATMs just that I remember when they put
the first one in at our bank. It was a big deal that they were giving out ATM
cards.
------
erreon
Aww, I remember the outside.
Seriously though, I'm grateful to my brother who's kept my nephews on a strict
time limit and filter when it comes to TV and video games. They play outside
and put their amazing imaginations to use.
------
ck2
You don't even have to be that old to remember most of that. Except for milk
deliveries, well-dressed for airplane trips, and a few other things on there I
remember how things were...
If you think about it, it's all before super cheap labor/parts from China, not
just a technological gap.
One of my more earlier memories is standing in line for Star Wars. It went
clear around a building or two and as a child it was the most spectacular
thing to see that many people in a row.
Oh and I remember being given a nickel to buy a bagel. Damn I've gotten old
:-(
------
juiceandjuice
This article is mostly only relevant to people under 20.
In my opinion, the real generation gap begins close to the current age of 22.
People 22 or younger very likely had the internet in Elementary schools, a
computer before they entered middle school (probably with the internet), video
systems with 3D accelerators, broadband before they got out of high school,
and Wikipedia for the entirety of their college career, among other things.
~~~
adestefan
I remember the day a 56kbps frame relay circuit was installed in our house in
1997. It was connected back to my dad's office and I could use it to access
the Internet via their connection. It was amazing the day that I didn't have
to dial anything.
I think I was the only person who was in my freshman college class in 1998
that knew you didn't need disk up to connect to the Internet. Sharing that
single T1 with 2000 other students sucked.
------
notJim
The nostalgia in this article really bothers me, in some ways. Maybe I'm just
oversensitive, but it just seems like there's a lot of unacknowedged white
male bias. Where are the women talking about how incredibly sexist everyday
society was, or the black people talking about open, shameless racism?
I am about to take off on a plane so I don't have much else to say, but this
was really bothering me.
~~~
Untitled
> Where are the women talking about how incredibly sexist everyday society
> was, or the black people talking about open, shameless racism?
Really?
How about today's white self-hatred? I lived in Japan for quite a time, and it
is a breath of fresh air not to year people go on and on about how ashamed you
should be because god gave you a white skin (and that all social ills of other
groups are due to you).
~~~
notJim
I think that's orthogonal to my point. All I was saying was that many of the
answers presented only a majority view of the '50s, '60s, and '70s, and that
if you were to ask women and blacks what they thought, you might see some
different answers.
Maybe I didn't express myself clearly enough, but I don't think there's
anything wrong with pointing out that you're only seeing one side of the
story.
> year [sic] people go on and on about how ashamed you should be because god
> gave you a white skin (and that all social ills of other groups are due to
> you).
Also, maybe I'm hanging out with the wrong crowd, or don't watch enough CNN,
but I have never experienced this in my life.
------
david927
About 25 to 30 years ago:
\- I got my first computer: an Atari 400 computer with 16k of RAM and no
storage, so I would write a program and then just turn it off. The OS and a
BASIC interpreter also fit in that 16k so it wasn't hard to write a program
that would be too big to fit into memory.
\- The APPLE ][ was a spark of pure genius. The first time I played with it,
it changed my life. I would walk a couple miles to the computer store on
weekends so I could work on one. (I rememeber the Lisa and then Macintosh
coming out and somehow not being impressed.)
\- Software piracy was rampant. Software was sold through publishers, like
books.
\- Elephant memory was the cool makers of floppy disks. I had this big poster
in my room: [http://home.comcast.net/~kevin_d_clark/ems/ems-mag-
ad-2-smal...](http://home.comcast.net/~kevin_d_clark/ems/ems-mag-
ad-2-small.jpg)
\- My first modem was 300 baud. That was so slow, it took a second or so for
each character to appear.
------
protomyth
20 years ago today, I was getting ready to head back to my final semester of
my undergrad in CompSci. I had just completed my last course that used the IBM
370 with Modula-2 (the base language for UND at the time). The Internet for me
was mostly mailing lists and USENET. I so wanted a NeXT cube but there was no
way I could afford it. My last papers were completed on a Mac SE/30. No class
I had touched a GUI. The one class that had Lisp was a nightmare because the
VAX had too little memory so the REPL became batch processing with 2 or more
students working at the same time. The only computer I bought was an Atari
130xe to replace my old 400, and all it was used for was electronic fun with
the joystick/paddle ports (or the occasional MULE game).
------
david2777
I'm 17 and this makes me wonder what my generation will write about in 20
years. Pretty crazy how many things change in such a short period of time.
------
The_Igor
No one mentioned burning ants with a magnifying glass.
------
parbo
I made a database for my LP's (and maybe a CD or two) in Turbo Pascal on my
dad's laptop. Yes, he had a laptop. It was a Compaq with a 386DX20 and a
grayscale screen. I didn't really know any sorting algorithms so I came up
with the world's worst bubblesort. I think it was O(n³), possibly O(n⁴).
Note: my memory is a bit fuzzy, this might have happened anywhere from
1990-1993.
------
socratees
One comment talks about "rewinding cassette tapes".
~~~
protomyth
The "spin it using a pen" technique was the true winner.
~~~
Timothee
Until you did one spin wrong and it would start spinning the other way :)
It's interesting though that the most common 6-sided pencil would fit
perfectly for the cassettes. Had the hole been just a bit bigger or smaller
and it wouldn't have worked.
I remember a friend in junior high using a pen to rewind to spare his walkman
batteries…
~~~
protomyth
We did it because Pioneer car stereos took forever to rewind. They went faster
on fast forward then the rewind (so flip, ff, flip). I really wish I could get
a transcript of the meeting that affected the rewind speed.
------
lhnn
Almost everything in this discussion can be simulated by not having digital
appliances: No instant communications, photos, information, banking, trade, or
travel.
Basically:
You had to be more diligent when taking care of business; You had to be clean
when going places (no pajamas on a plane); There was no bull __ __security
theatre when travelling; There were fewer distractions for children.
------
kingkilr
20 years ago I was about 2 months old. I don't remember shit.
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Is it allowed in India to earn an extra money online while working in a company? - alokbanjare
I am working with a reputed MNC, Currently I am running a website and want to monetize my site using adsense. Is it allowed in India to earn an extra money online while working in a company?
======
jacquesm
You should ask an Indian lawyer that you pay for. Getting online advice for
stuff that might get you fired or sued is generally a losing strategy.
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
ADVICE NEEDED: Alternative ICO Bounty System Instead of the Viral Exchange? - merubin75
Hello,<p>In the past year, I've managed two ICOs and used The Viral Exchange to manage the Social Media bounty. I found it an easy way to gain Social Media traction quickly. Unfortunately, TVE's owners are no longer accepting new campaigns. The core system has not been upgraded in over a year, so this is not altogether surprising.<p>Does anyone have recommendations for something new I can use to replace The Viral Exchange?<p>To be fair, I'm managing an ICO now where we are using the "traditional" method of asking people to report their here in bitcointalk. But ideally, I'd like to also use a system that easily incentivizes users to share/RT/Like Social Media content -- AND makes it easy for me to manage.<p>Any ideas or thoughts?<p>At your service,
Michael
======
wmf
HN probably isn't a good place to ask for advice on ICOs. We'll just tell you
that you're a scammer and you should die.
~~~
merubin75
Thank you for choosing to be a douche canoe instead of being kind or helpful.
Have a nice day.
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
How Twitter is supercharging jihadist recruitment - casca
http://www.foreignpolicy.com/articles/2013/08/14/zero_degrees_of_al_qaeda_twitter
======
claudius
I can’t believe Foreign Policy didn’t black out Y __ __ __.
Apart from that, if these people are allowed to use Twitter to spread their
messages, they shouldn’t be treated any different from any other account – so
the question is whether to allow people to spread such messages using Twitter,
and from my outsider-like perspective, it appears that Americans usually have
a rather strong opinion regarding freedom of speech.
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Fedora 18 Isn't Looking Too Good, Anaconda Problems - ari_elle
http://www.phoronix.com/scan.php?page=news_item&px=MTIxODk
======
nodata
This problem is going to get worse: Red Hat's "thing" these days is to develop
software internally, then release it open sourced.
Which is nice: except you skip all of the community testing that gives Red Hat
Linux its value.
One good example is sssd, the single authentication provider, which was a
buggy mess until recently. Not community tested - and difficult to community
test - it's an enterprise component.
Another example is RHEV - almost no community testing.
These days shoving software into the beta or RC releases of Fedora - things
which used to be tested throughout the entire Fedora testing cycle before.
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Apple marks Chrome as 17+, keeps Safari as open for all - srathi
http://www.webpronews.com/is-apple-restricting-google-chrome-for-ios-out-of-spite-2012-09
======
DeepDuh
Now look, I don't want to defend Apple for everything they do, but now it's
getting ridiculous. If the author would calm down first and think for a bit
(and / or not being click bait addicted), he could easily find out that Apple
does this for a (pretty good IMO) reason:
You can prevent users from using Safari through the restrictions. If you
wanted to restrict them from Chrome as well, you would have to prevent _any_
new App from being downloaded, including kids friendly stuff. Now with this
update, your kids can still download the apps they want, but not Chrome
anymore.
Doesn't that make sense? Through these measures iOS has become a pretty good
platform for the first steps in computing, I myself wouldn't want to give my
children unrestricted internet access until, say, 15. Before that they can use
an iPod or iPad and a linux box with root access in a restricted network at
home. If they do figure out proxies or VPN until then - so be it, at that
point you can't really restrict them anyway anymore.
------
mhd
Isn't this just because it offers unfettered web access? Safari has its own
section in the "Restriction" settings (does this apply to UIWebViews, too?). I
guess if apps could opt in to use that and Apple were to rename it to "Safari
& Web Access" or something, there'd be no need to mark something 17+.
------
ja27
Those ratings are up to the app submitter. Apple can reject the app if they
feel the ratings aren't appropriate, but it's entirely possible that some of
the mature rating levels were selected by the submitters.
What I don't get is why Twitter, Tumblr, and Facebook are allowed to be rated
ages 4+.
------
statictype
YouTube (and Jasmine - a youtube client for the iPad) also go through the same
thing.
I thought this issue was sorted out an year ago when apparently any app that
embedded a UIWebView and a location bar was deemed unsafe. I was under the
impression that Apple fixed that.
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
How to Understand Developing Native, Hybrid and Progressive Web Apps - digidondraper
https://creatorsneverdie.com/blog/item?q=the-cost-of-developing-native-hyrbid-progressive-web-apps
======
b_t_s
"It can take up to 2x-3x times longer to make an Android app" . Is this still
true? Was it ever really true? I've seen android features tend to take a bit
longer, but we're talking like 20% longer, 7 years ago. Now, in the age of
kotlin/swift, better android tooling, numerous iPhone sizes/DPIs, the Notch™,
etc, etc I think I think the playing field is pretty level.
~~~
asnrk
Matching UI to designs was horrible on Android, at least as of ~1.5yrs ago.
Even if designers were shooting for "Material". Plenty of rough edges. I
wouldn't say 2x-3x longer for a typical project, though.
I could see there being issues with relatively new-to-Android developers not
appreciating the degree to which advice from the official docs, especially
relating to structuring applications, should be taken with a largish dose of
salt, leading to slow-and-getting-slower development as an Android project
went along.
~~~
kkarakk
To get to the level of world class competitiveness i'd say it's true. if you
want to compete with say instagram then android is such a PITA to design for.
As for your second point, i've always followed the official docs,are you
saying there's another way?
~~~
asnrk
Square's guides and libraries in particular were a great place to start when
last I worked on Android (2017). They filled in a lot of dumb gaps in basic,
common functionality, and their guides and blog posts on Android topics
generally left me feeling more confident in them than in Google's Android
team. They were among the ones calling "the Emperor has no clothes!" over
fragments, for instance, and they described and built alternatives.
It does look like they've abandoned a couple of their big view-related Java
libs, which makes me wonder what they're using now. Seems they've switched to
Kotlin for a lot of stuff.
Don't remember their blog being on Medium (ick) but it is now, looks like:
[https://medium.com/square-corner-blog](https://medium.com/square-corner-blog)
------
neurotrace
Good content but that eye-searing blue and custom cursor really bother me.
------
dillonraphael
I only want to develop PWAs for now on.
[https://appsco.pe/](https://appsco.pe/)
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
iPhone XS – A12 Bionic - tambourine_man
https://www.apple.com/iphone-xs/a12-bionic/
======
newfocogi
It was interesting to hear apple state that one of their goals for building
products was to make them last longer in order to minimize waste. People often
accuse hardware manufacturers, including apple, of intentional obsolescence. I
am interested to see if they actually change anything about their process,
software and hardware, to put any weight behind this claim, or if it is just
marketing doublespeak.
~~~
AndrewStephens
Apple are already pretty good in this regard - their devices are expensive but
made to last, and they directly support them for 4 or 5 years. The upcoming
iOS release is supposed to be focused on getting better performance on old
devices as well.
~~~
Narkov
> their devices are expensive but made to last, and they directly support them
> for 4 or 5 years
Do you think a $1,000+ phone lasting only "4 or 5 years" is really that good?
~~~
avianlyric
There’s a big difference between how long a device is directly supported for,
and how long it lasts.
Additionally many people would consider a laptop being directly supported for
5 years pretty good.
~~~
thisacctforreal
High Sierra supported 2009 Macs, but it looks like Mojave is going to be cut
off at 2012.
------
ulfw
I wonder if Apple/ARM has now peaked in performance too (same as what happened
with intel 4-5 years ago). "Up to 15% faster" is not noticeable outside the
realm of benchmarks.
~~~
valarauca1
Unlikely
Apple/ARM is developing their processors for a very narrow power budget
(mobile). While they have shown promise in benchmarks designed to compare
their peek performance while mitigating thermal issues [1]. The long term
consistent heat mitigation, and power draw limits consistent behavior.
Secondary performance gains from multi-tier caching (Apple does 2, Intel does
3, IBM does 4) and multiple channels of ddr which can greatly accelerate
application throughput.
In short. Apple's processors are designed for mobile first, and ARM can still
gain _a lot_ in terms of performance. While it is approaching compute/cycle of
Intel's processors it isn't there yet.
[1] What I'm trying to say is don't link GeekBenchmark that what ever mobile
process has >= the same number of BogoMIPS as a server class CPU. Geek
Benchmark throttles hard on mobile doing burst testing to avoid thermal
throttling, this effects the benchmark results negatively on server class
computers (as the test doesn't generate enough load to kick up the core clock)
and positively effects mobile (by avoiding dropping the core clock).
------
NicoJuicy
So, 80% of the ad is about augmented reality and applications?
I've never used any of that, we should have consoles for that.
The most thing I use my phone is for calling, sms, WhatsApp, Google maps and
Chromecast.
I don't see me as an augmented reality user
~~~
simonh
There’s not much point trying to sell on things everyone knows about and uses
already.
~~~
NicoJuicy
It is the origin of iPhone..
Everyone knew how to call and use a smartphone browser ( eg. Nokia ngage )
------
abhisuri97
Say what you will about hardware and chipsets...the website is downright
amazing.
------
regecks
Wherefore art thou iPhone SE? :(
~~~
raydev
It's called the Xr now. Given the niceness of the phone with that small of a
price tag (relatively small, of course), Apple's gonna leave the Xr alone for
3 years before they replace it with the next "flagship downgrade."
~~~
masklinn
> It's called the Xr now.
The XR is bigger than the XS. The price point is not why the SE was so beloved
(though it was probably a factor for many).
The XR is the new C, not the new SE.
~~~
raydev
That small size was certainly beloved by a subset, but I don't think Apple
would have made the Xr so large if the SE's sales were good.
------
lkurusa
This looks like an interesting processor and 7nm sounds great, however since
the process size became mostly a marketing term, is there a comparison of
Apple’s process sizes to that of GlobalFoundries and Intel?
~~~
wereHamster
> The Apple A11 Bionic is a 64-bit ARM-based system on a chip (SoC), designed
> by Apple Inc. and manufactured by TSMC.
(source:
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Apple_A11](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Apple_A11))
So really you're asking for a technology comparison between TSMC, GF, and
Intel.
Related to that, one should note that GF stopped pursuing 7nm.
[https://semiengineering.com/gf-puts-7nm-on-
hold/](https://semiengineering.com/gf-puts-7nm-on-hold/).
------
glhaynes
Remember a year ago when the notch was going to be Apple's downfall? I don't
think I've seen a single person mention it being on the phones announced
today.
~~~
Jtsummers
It doesn't hurt that many flagship Android phones have similar notches now.
The new phones have similar sizes to the prior years models, but larger
displays overall. Consequently, the notches don't have much impact. The
notches (in practice) are less annoying than most detractors had anticipated.
~~~
__sr__
All Android phones (with notches) have notches _in addition to_ an ugly chin.
The lack of other bezels is what made the notch on iPhone X acceptable (to me,
at least). The thought of a notch _with_ a chin (or worse, a forehead, or
both) is frankly irritating. Xiaomi probably did the best job building a near
bezel less phone with their Mix lineup — except for the front camera. If
Android phone vendors can’t work an iPhone X like display (no chin), why not
just build phones with a narrow forehead and no chin? The forehead could be
used for display connections and camera, sensors, speaker etc. Even a Galaxy
Note 8 like design (narrow chin and forehead) would be preferable to this
madness. Alternatively, they could do what Xiaomi did with Mix lineup.
~~~
dogma1138
Some have notches and a chin some do not, just as some are completely edge to
edge with no chin with a pop out camera and in screen fingerprint sensors.
------
qalmakka
I guess that if the current pricing trend holds, in 2030 the top iPhone will
cost like a small hatchback.
~~~
rezistik
If the rumors are to believed, in 2030 the top iPhone might _be_ a small
hatchback.
------
dman
Did they consider that some people might call this iPhone Excess?
------
timvdalen
Really, they went with "XS" for the biggest phone yet?
~~~
masklinn
It's actually XS Max. Like pepsi.
XS is the smallest of the three phones announced today.
~~~
twiceaday
No, it is the same size as the XR.
~~~
masklinn
It really is not. The XR is quite a bit bigger (150.9x75.7x8.3mm versus
143.6x70.9x7.7mm) and with a bigger (6.1" versus 5.8") but lower-quality
screen (326 DPI LED w/o 3D touch versus 458 DPI OLED w/ 3D touch).
------
Lind5
as designs shrink to 7/5nm and beyond, quantum effects are emerging as a more
widespread and significant problem, and one that ultimately will affect
everyone working at those nodes. [https://semiengineering.com/quantum-effects-
at-7-5nm/](https://semiengineering.com/quantum-effects-at-7-5nm/)
------
Svoka
I find it fascinating how Apple delivers 7nm processors, while reportedly
Intel is struggling with 14nm and delaying 10nm.
~~~
lostmsu
TSMC
------
gaius
“Apple-designed GPU” eh, this’ll be interesting.
~~~
simonh
That started with the A11.
------
daddyofive
can anyone do a brain dump on the ML part of the chip?
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Is “always use /dev/urandom” good advice in an age of containers and isolation? - jMyles
https://security.stackexchange.com/questions/186086/is-always-use-dev-urandom-still-good-advice-in-an-age-of-containers-and-isola
======
jMyles
I'm inclined to think that the answer is "no", but it's also interesting to me
that getrandom hasn't become more popular yet.
Interestingly, for the purposes of generating randomness in Python, as of PEP
524, os.urandom() no longer uses urandom, but instead uses getrandom.
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Obama lawyers asked secret court to ignore public court's decision on spying - uptown
http://www.theguardian.com/world/2015/jun/09/obama-fisa-court-surveillance-phone-records
======
randomname2
As a The Guardian reporter summarized:
June 2, 6:03pm: Obama says he'll sign law banning bulk collection.
June 2 9:50pm: DOJ asks secret court for 180 more days of bulk collection
— Spencer Ackerman (@attackerman) June 8, 2015
~~~
MrZongle2
The explanation is simple, really. The 6:03pm action was by _Candidate_ Obama,
whereas the later one was at the direction of _President_ Obama. Two different
guys, you know.
------
mkempe
Let's quit pretending that Obama's _lawyers_ were responsible for this action.
_Obama_ is clearly in favor of the surveillance state. Who will do anything
about that?
------
shit_parade2
No worries, the secret laws totally make this legal, honest!
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Ask HN: How do you know you're ready to quit your day job? - BadassFractal
This has been puzzling me for a while now and I was hoping HN would be so kind as to provide advice and feedback.<p>I'd love to quit my day job to pursue working full time on a project I've been working on with a couple of people for more than half a year now, but I don't quite know at what stage that's generally not too crazy of an idea. Obviously if I were to do it right now, I'd be without any income whatsoever, which is a fairly bad idea, even though I don't have any dependents. I imagine I could quit if the seed round was sufficiently beefy, but it's my understanding that most people end up waiting until they have real customers and serious income and then they actually jump ships.<p>I honestly don't know how long I can continue doing the whole 80 hour weeks for, if half of that is spent on a drudgy dead-end job (I'd honestly be ok with spending that much on my own company), and as I found out it's pretty hard to keep the two separated if so much of your energy is drained by the "secret project". I feel management will eventually catch on to what's going on heh.<p>Do you have similar experiences to share? Any tips? Any rules of thumb?
======
prawn
Obviously you're ready to make the move save for the financial situation.
I'm not sure if this is good advice because I've just thought of it and
figured I'd suggest it, but what about getting a basic job that pays your
essential bills/food away from technology. I imagine that many people
freelance or shift to part-time and the line between that work and their
start-up is blurred meaning that neither really gets full focus.
What if you found a job away from a computer? I know most of those wouldn't
pay exceptionally well, but perhaps that separation would help? You'd come
home from a bar or gallery and step into your startup space to get working.
Are there any fairly-available non-tech jobs in your location that pay
reasonably well?
~~~
BadassFractal
That's a very interesting perspective! I've actually not had non-tech jobs so
far and so I haven't even remotely considered doing something that doesn't
involve software... In fact I don't think I've ever asked myself the question
of whether I'd be able to make above minimum wage doing anything but software!
~~~
prawn
I haven't worked outside web in 15 years so no idea what the landscape is like
and I don't know what your living costs are like either, but thought it might
put a different perspective out there. Of course, if hospitality is paying
$10/hr and you can get a near-endless supply of freelance work at $100/hr,
it's hard to ignore but like I said, you might be constantly battling that
temptation to take the immediate money rather than go cold turkey and work on
the startup.
------
gapanalysis
Before you bail put a "business plan" together. How much (how little) do you
need to earn to meet your living expenses? What can you do to earn that amount
while you work on your project? What skills can you market? To whom?
When I left my full time job, I was able to freelance write for tech pubs and
blogs, and my partner hacked code in a developer-for-hire position. Look for
the kinds of jobs where you can manage your time, schedule and how much you
earn.
~~~
BadassFractal
Are there perhaps well established venues for being hired as a temp/contractor
on existing projects? Some reputable site perhaps that gets you in touch with
people in need of specific expertise?
~~~
gapanalysis
I honestly didn't use venues of this kind. I was fortunate to have some folks
contact me. There are publishers who look for authors for book chapters. I
found these to be too much work for too little compensation. I don't know if
ifreelance.com or similar sites (search "freelance tech writer") are reliable
but you have some time to research perhaps?
------
gexla
The rule of thumb for starting any business is that ideally you would have
enough personal funds socked away to be able to live for 6 months.
~~~
BadassFractal
What are you trying to reach though during those 6 months? Are you waiting for
some sort of investment or are you waiting for actual revenue?
------
plasma
Can you take several months leave from work (even if its unpaid)?
It's something I'm doing soon.
~~~
BadassFractal
Are you saying you'll not officially quit your job, but instead announce a
several months leave hoping you can score an outside opportunity in the
meantime, and still have a plan B in case you tank?
~~~
prawn
I think they meant just Plan B (return to the original job if the startup
thing fails). You'd probably want some cash reserves to keep you afloat during
that period of leave.
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
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Creating honeypots using Docker - mistaken
http://itinsight.hu/blog/posts/2015-05-04-creating-honeypots-using-docker.html
======
jamescun
This is a bad idea. Concerns about Docker's security (or lack thereof) aside,
containers provide "good enough" separation of concerns to apps. They are not
security hardened and designed to be exposed to vulnerabilities, particularly
when by design a honeypot is to tempt attacks (automated or otherwise).
A virtual machine (or better) is better suited to this task.
~~~
j_s
So why not one virtual machine hosting multiple containers?
~~~
antocv
Why not several virtual machines? There are more choices and more mature
software for managing thousands of virtual machines, configurations and
images, than there is for docker.
Also, the memory footprint of several virtual machines isnt that bigger
compared to docker - because of KMS and such.
~~~
j_s
Pardon my ignorance, but I thought the whole point of containers could be
summarized as sacrificing security for performance. Wrapping containers in a
single VM to restore security seems like a reasonable compromise.
I would be interested in learning more about the differences in management
software availability as well as how KMS (KSM?) reduces the performance
penalty of using virtual machines.
~~~
antocv
> point of containers could be summarized as sacrificing security for
> performance
No.
Containers are and can be secure, perhaps even more so than QEMU/KVM Id argue,
see latest lxc - you can run it without root and with seccomp syscall
whitelist (if not in lxc that feature is in firejail, or a simple .c to setup
yourself).
Its only docker that is fundamentally insecure. First it runs a server as
root, second it has a server-client architecture with quite complicated
communication between them. Then it also has an API and talks to various
indexes/registries, also vector of attack.
With say firejail, its only one process, no server-client, no registries, the
whole thing is in a few hundred lines of C.
The performance penalty - is somewhat bigger memory usage - and startup time,
thats it, with hardware accelerated virtualization which most computers have
these days, the performance impact once the VM is up and running, is
negligble.
------
mocko
There is a glaring omission from the possible attacks: the kernel itself
provides a huge surface area and local root exploits are not uncommon.
Speaking as an infrastructure/devops/hosting consultant - I've done a couple
of Docker deployments lately and clients often ask whether it's suitable for
hosting multiple semi-trusted codebases on the same metal for better resource
utilization. I tell them "no": once a competent attacker has shell they will
not find it hard to escape the sandbox and take over the parent machine, and
with it all other hosts. Docker is a great tool for rapid deployment,
dependency management and dense hosting of microservices but security was
never the primary goal.
Hypervisor based virtualization solutions (e.g. Xen, VMWare) expose a much
smaller attack surface to the child environment. I would therefore say that
while more resource intensive they are a far safer way to spin up honeypots.
~~~
task_queue
I'd say spin up the VMs on a machine that doesn't matter if you're attracting
automated attacks.
If you wake up one morning to an exploit being discovered and have an
unpatched host machine, is it still a honeypot?
------
callumjones
Given the recent news about breaking out of Docker containers, this would be
best wrapped in a VM. You'll get the performance boost of not spinning up
separate VMs coupled with greater security from breaking out of a VM.
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
TLS mutual-auth now works with elliptic curve client keys in iOS 8 - josephhainline
https://github.com/josephhainline/AppleBugTLSConnectionFailsWithEllipticCurveClientCert
======
josephhainline
Retested a year old EC bug, and it's now working in iOS 8, but not in iOS 7.
Have not tested in OS X.
My older post of this bug is here:
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7511347](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7511347)
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Is there a 'bamboo ceiling' at U.S. companies? - cwan
http://management.fortune.cnn.com/2011/10/07/asian-americans-promotion-us-companies/?iid=SF_F_River
======
byoung2
_About 5% of U.S. residents identify themselves as Asian, but Asian Americans
hold fewer than 2% of executive jobs at Fortune 500 companies_
I have a feeling that Asian Americans are overrepresented in other fields,
such as healthcare, where they make up 16% of doctors
(<http://www.numberof.net/number-of-doctors-in-usa/>), and
science/engineering, where they make up 9%
(<http://www.math.buffalo.edu/mad/stats/TO1993.html>).
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
The Internet Isn’t Killing Books (In Reality, It’s Probably Going to Create a.. - alexjmann
http://philalawyer.net/?p=569
======
fawkestrot
Then what is killing books? It isn't magazines. It isn't newspapers. The
writer's approach is interesting. Where it fails is in comparing any data on
how many people have shifted to short-burst consuming against how many still
read longer texts.
~~~
unalone
The fact that very few types of writing actually work well in book format?
I've written a novel: It takes a lot of work and a lot of effort to make one,
and it's very hard to write one without padding it. Most things novels deal
with can be dealt with better in movie/short story/blog format. Just because
we as a society don't appreciate how niche books are doesn't mean books aren't
niche.
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
MA's Opsware bought by HP for $1.6B - terpua
http://blog.pmarca.com/2007/07/hp-buys-my-comp.html
======
zach
Hmm. That's pretty good, I guess. How many Jr. Bacon Cheeseburgers is that?
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Will MySpace ever lose its monopoly? (2007) - Jarred
https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2007/feb/08/business.comment
======
dvt
Back in 2003, I would've found it absolutely _inconceivable_ to not chat with
my HS classmates on AIM. For me, even bigger than MySpace dying was AIM dying.
It still kind of blows my mind. AIM was _the_ way you got social cachet back
then. Everyone was on AIM. _Young people_ were on AIM.
I am completely convinced that FB will go the way of the dodo in the next
decade, and it will take Snapchat and Instagram with it.
~~~
losteric
I remember moving to FB when my mom joined MySpace... I've since straight up
quit social media, but I know folks that moved on to IG/Snap so they could
broadcast content they didn't want certain social groups to see via FB. Of
course now those social groups are joining the newer mediums.
Maybe social media platforms are inherently cyclical? At least under the
"maximum growth" mindset:
* Innovators develop new platforms because they're unhappy with the old
* Early adopters like the new platform's features or community
* If it's good enough, the early majority slowly follows as knowledge disseminates
* New features and narratives are developed to attract the late majority and laggards
* The presence of those people, and tactics used to attract them, disenfranchise the early adopters
* Unhappiness rises until a new digital eden is discovered. Then the cycle repeats
~~~
deathhand
My personal journey: Slashdot, Digg, Reddit, HN
~~~
DrScump
Based on other responses here, I guess I'd be dating myself to say mine
started with Usenet.
~~~
tyingq
BBS, Fidonet, Usenet, ...
Someone will oneup this too with Arpanet or similar :)
~~~
dbcurtis
I talked to the other hams in high school using Morse code and a vacuum tube
transmitter.
And get off my lawn. :)
I've actually joked about building a Bluetooth telegraph key to make texting
more concenient.
~~~
Someone
I assume you already have the Morse key USB keyboard?
([https://mitxela.com/projects/morse_code_usb_keyboard_mk_ii](https://mitxela.com/projects/morse_code_usb_keyboard_mk_ii))
------
philwelch
If Facebook goes away, MySpace is nowhere near an adequate analogy. Facebook
has 2.2 billion monthly active users. In other words, there are more active
monthly Facebook users in the world than:
* Roman Catholics (1.2 billion)
* People living in China (1.4 billion)
* Total speakers of English, the most widely-spoken language in the world (1.4 billion)
* Muslims (1.8 billion)
* Viewers of the 2014 FIFA World Cup final (1 billion)
* iPhones ever manufactured (1.2 billion; also, the top two most-used apps are Facebook and Facebook Messenger)
* Windows users (1.4 billion)
* Inhabitants of the European Union (508 million)
* Cats (600 million)
* Firearms (875 million)
* Africans (1 billion)
Now, obviously whether or not you use Facebook isn't as important to your
identity or as hard to change as your religion or where you live, but it's
also not something that's just going to suddenly disappear without some sort
of replacement, or else if it does, it will be the first time in human history
that _two billion people_ all decided at once to give up on something.
~~~
dotsh
Probably half of that are fake profiles, profiles made by people for
commercial purposes or bots. If you make fake account and you will start
wandering in the endless facebook steppes, you will notice that many of them
are one post account that advertise or play games. The best ones are those
with pictures of known or lesser known models to collect friends and sell such
an account for dollars later. I have reported several hundred of such
profiles, of which maybe 1/20 have been blocked rest is fine because
moderators can't see difference between real life person and photo from google
images in 20 accounts in a row...
~~~
philwelch
2.2 billion isn't the total number of accounts, it's the number of "monthly
active users"\--and Facebook would probably be in much hotter water than they
are now if they cooked the books on that number.
~~~
dotsh
This don't change my comment still many of them are fakes. I know people who
have 5-6 accounts active at one time playing different games with 500+ friends
on it. Many of those "friends" also are fakes, some even with the same profile
picture of "real person" with fake data but I have nothing against FB, every
medium is abused.
It's just interesting that not a single research was done on this topic that I
know about. :)
~~~
da02
Why do your friends have 5+ accounts opened? To get around limits on games?
~~~
dotsh
Game limits, not wanting to share private account with some random folks used
in games or for commercial purposes aka selling account later on and I can
tell that this business is booming! :)
------
legitster
This is a perfect summation of how people feel about Google and Amazon, or
Sears in the 1920s and Kodak in the 1960s. And it's a perfect reminder that
monopolies are much more fleeting than people realize.
~~~
brianpan
I'm not so sure that FB's place will be so fleeting. I think they will lose
their place at the same rate that Microsoft lost theirs. They will still be
around in 15 years later, just not quite as relevant.
~~~
gfo
Microsoft is coming back in a big way though. Sure, it may not have the
dominance it used to have but they've learned from the problems of the Ballmer
era. Satya Nadella seems to be a huge proponent of meeting customers where
they are and it's paying off in a huge way.
If Facebook learns to listen to their customers the way Microsoft has (as
opposed to trying to tell them what they want) then they could recover. But
with Facebook, users are starting to have large issues with its core business
model, and to listen to customers and adopt the changes they want, it would
cost them too much and would eventually disappear as so many others have
before them.
~~~
isostatic
> Microsoft is coming back in a big way though.
Really? They still have corporate desktops and cheap skanky laptops (for some
reason), but azure is not a challange to AWS, they aren't in the media
business, the home market is being chipped away, where are they doing better
now then they were 12 months ago?
~~~
spiralx
[https://www.forbes.com/sites/laurengensler/2017/07/20/micros...](https://www.forbes.com/sites/laurengensler/2017/07/20/microsoft-
fourth-quarter-earnings-cloud-azure/)
Since 12 months ago profits have doubled, shares are up 19%, revenue is up
13%, cloud revenue is up 11%, cash reserves are up, oh, and PC-related revenue
is down a whopping 2%.
Actually the latest quarter shows cloud revenue up 98% (I assume year-on-
year), so Azure is doing pretty well.
[https://www.computerworlduk.com/it-vendors/is-microsoft-
azur...](https://www.computerworlduk.com/it-vendors/is-microsoft-azure-really-
making-up-ground-on-aws-3671566/)
------
pdkl95
Dan Rather, after offering sage advice[1] to Mark Zuckerberg regarding the
recent FB/CA drama, concluded with:
> This is about Facebook's survival, pure and simple. If you don't change
> things, people will leave faster than you can say "MySpace".
[1]
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kObNf_gUXxE](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kObNf_gUXxE)
------
rconti
Facebook was started in, what, 2004? It went mainstream on most college
campuses in 2005. By 2006, MySpace was a place for the non-college educated;
the older generation never used it, the college-aged users had switched (if
they ever used it at all), and the younger generation either weren't on
either, or were on MySpace but aspired to be on Facebook by the time they got
to college.
There were legions of people who couldn't handle how downright ugly and
terrible MySpace pages were, and simply never used it, even when it was the
only option.
The idea that MySpace had a "monopoly" on anything, 2 years after Facebook
went mainstream, is absurd. It never had anything like the market penetration
FB has, even among those online and interested in social media, let alone the
overall user numbers that FB has.
~~~
slavik81
I was slow to join Facebook and I signed up in late 2006, several months
before this article was written. The author here was just out of touch.
In September 2006 Facebook opened to everybody. At the end of the year,
Facebook had 12 million active users, roughly doubling their number from 2005.
By April 2007 they had 20 million users. By the end of the year they had 50
million. The author wrote this piece right in the middle of Facebook's
meteoric growth and they didn't even notice.
The press had the same blindness over AOL Time Warner. To 13-year-old me, that
merger sounded like a dinosaur from the Cretaceous combining with a dinosaur
from the Jurassic, but for some reason all the papers thought AOL was the
business of the future. They had no sense for what was cool.
------
acheron
I love this article. I think I submitted it to HN myself a couple years ago
during some other Facebook news cycle.
I'd call it "Peak Guardian", but they keep outdoing themselves, so there may
never be a Peak Guardian.
~~~
JBReefer
Can you explain stereotypes of the Guardian? The article is pretty over the
top, but as an American I am not intimately familiar with them like, say, the
Journal.
~~~
matthewmacleod
The Guardian is generally a mildly left-ish, middle-class-ish kind of paper. I
would say in the UK it tends to conjure up an image of a well-meaning,
slightly naïve, hand-wringing sort of readership, though of course it’s base
is likely wider than that.
What particularly makes it stand out is it has quite an open comments policy;
it quite often publishes fairly ludicrous points of view from a variety of
commentators. I’d say on the whole that’s quite a good thing, though it does
tend to result in some absolutely preposterous headlines from time to time.
~~~
MarkMc
Although usually mild-left, they sometimes publish articles which are pretty
crazy-left.
Here's an example[1]: You have a university professor citing research saying
that the 'acting white' phenomenon exists in integrated schools, plus _her own
black students tell her they suffered from the 'acting white' stigma_. Yet she
somehow concludes that belief in the phenomenon is not just wrong but
'intellectually dishonest'.
[1]
[https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2014/oct/22/acting...](https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2014/oct/22/acting-
white-theory-dear-white-people-college)
~~~
dragonwriter
> You have a university professor citing research saying that the 'acting
> white' phenomenon exists in integrated schools
...in the course of arguing that it's image as a feature of all-black
communities is false. ( _Integrated_ is very different from _all-black_.)
> plus her own black students tell her they suffered from the 'acting white'
> stigma.
What sdoes is relate that the “bullying essay” is a well-known archetype of
freshman comp essay, and the common subtype of that type of essay she sees is
one conforming to a particular form of the “acting white” narrative.
Freshman comp essays from people who don't have stories they want to share
reflecting the author inserting themselves into narratives from the common
folklore of their community instead of actual personal experience is a rather
well-known phenomenon.
------
JohnJamesRambo
"It did." -Ron Howard narration
~~~
phil248
Comedy doesn't seem to fair well on HN, but at least Arrested Development is
still sacrosanct.
~~~
phil248
Ahem, _fare_ well.
------
pascalxus
If FB declines completely and goes the way of my space, what will happen to
all those 3 million dollar 100 years old, 1200 sq ft houses in palo alto?
~~~
IAmGraydon
Facebook != Palo Alto. The real estate in Palo Alto is propped up by far more
than just Facebook. Mainly by massive amounts of venture capital flowing into
startups.
------
alangibson
At 2B users, it's hard to imagine doing a faceplant as fast as MySpace did.
But I can definitely see a situation where it is hollowed out in the short
term, meaning that 'high value' demographics flee to some other service. If
it's bad enough, it could drop their advertising revenue enough to hobble them
and precipitate a slow decline.
~~~
teleclimber
The "face-planting" could be regional. It's possible North American and
European users might drop off swiftly while FB continues to grow in other
parts of the world.
------
gtycomb
This reads like a comedy now, the flow of logic faultless, reminding us how
fleeting these technologies are along with the anxieties we have about them
taking over the world.
~~~
Nomentatus
Right, a social network gaining market power and maybe abusing that? Ha, those
days are long gone, kappa.
------
submeta
I wonder if an open source platform and protocol for messaging and contacts
would have the potential to confront all the Facebooks, Whatsapps, etc
I am not talking about broadcasting / sharing. Just messaging and contacts (a
listing where you can publish your latest contact data).
So many people say that they would leave FB but they have no other means to
contact many of their friends on their list. So is there anyone who can offer
a solution for just this?
Email is a protocol that works very good. So is sms. Platform and provider
independend. - Something as successful as email with a listing of people and
auto-updating contacts list (details only shown to someone that I allow).
~~~
deadbunny
There are a few projects that try and address this. The issue for 99% of the
population is that you need to run it yourself (read run a server) or know
someone who does.
You could go the p2p route (I'm thinking Torrents + magnet links kind of
decentralised) so you just run a client and connect to the network.
Of course this then leads to the problem that users would have to backup their
data (which they don't) and be online to participate with no real capacity for
offline comms. Which leads back to needing to running a server of some kind.
------
blackoil
Do monopolies of this scale are ever overthrown? MS in desktop OS, Intel in
desktop and server chips. IBM is still a monopoly in mainframe market(not
sure). It's just that new powerful industry in terms of mobile, internet
services, social media have come up.
American Tobacco, Bell, Standard Oil and too some extent MSFT are all gone
because of govt. actions.
FB has already successfully maneuvered industry change to mobile. It bought in
its way into mobile apps and communication platforms. So FB won't be replaced
by mastodon or Signal, but by an industry level shift which FB misses and
can't buy in.
~~~
wilsonnb
You're correct, IBM is more of a monopoly in the mainframe market now than
ever before.
As far as I know, no one else makes mainframe hardware anymore aside from
storage racks you can use with an IBM mainframe.
------
afsina
My take is, The Guardian does not understand the concept of monopolies well.
------
ggg9990
Facebook has long been losing its monopoly... to Instagram. They have enough
money to keep buying the Next Big Thing.
~~~
Double_a_92
But isn't instagram (and also Snapchat) mostly photo sharing? How can that
replace a communication tool?
Do young people really like chatting in public comments and in that cumbersome
Snapchat chat?
Mostly I've seen teen girls just writing and "luv ya bb" under each others
photos...
------
LMMojo
Does Diaspora still exist? (Answer is "yes") Does anyone use it? Asking
because I have no idea, but the idea looks cool.
[[http://DiasporaFoundation.org](http://DiasporaFoundation.org)]
------
fourmii
It's funny, I used to use MySpace to bookmark bands I liked or may like. Now I
use FB for the mainly same thing, as well as keeping up on other interests
like skating and surfing. Oh, how cyclical the world is...
------
psychometry
Was this article supposed to be a joke at the time it was written? Facebook
had been open to the public for a year at that point and it was clear that
Myspace didn't even have a monopoly left to lose.
~~~
incompatible
There's another article from a few months later about Facebook "opening up"
their platform with apps. They were taking over fast at that point.
[https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2007/may/31/newmedia....](https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2007/may/31/newmedia.media2)
------
arnaudsm
Breaking monopolies is always a good thing for consumers.
Anyone knows a Social network with solid features, perfect UI and good privacy
?
~~~
M4v3R
I hear Mastodon [1] is getting traction, though for me the UI is a bit
unintuitive.
[1] [http://joinmastodon.org](http://joinmastodon.org)
~~~
theptip
IIUC Mastodon is a twitter alternative;
[https://diasporafoundation.org/](https://diasporafoundation.org/) is more
targeted at replacing FB.
~~~
taborj
Diaspora has been around for a while; I remember joining about 6-7 years ago,
but it suffered from the problem all new social networking sites suffer from
-- nobody I knew or wanted to follow was there, so I abandoned it.
I've since come to the conclusion that I'm not really a social networking type
of person.
~~~
ams6110
Both Mastodon and Diaspora suffer from absolutely horrible names.
------
mkadlec
Wait, MySpace is dead?!?
------
IronWolve
And to think Fubar.com outlived them all.
------
m3kw9
They lost it when they couldn’t scale
------
jpm_sd
Google+ is going to take over the world any day now!
~~~
johnhenry
I'm sticking with Facebook. They're the only social network with whom I can
trust my private data.
~~~
klez
Said no-one ever.
Seriously, I'm too biased now to remember, but was there ever a time this was
the feeling about FB?
~~~
johnhenry
It was never even a consideration. Social network are still a relatively new
phenomenon for the world and few people thought seriously about their
implications. In retrospect, more of use should have thought about how our
data is bing used. Hopefully we can learn from our mistakes.
------
feelin_googley
facebook.com (1998)
"With aboutface.com you can easily set up a directory for your organization in
your own private location right on this Web site. If you prefer, we also offer
a traditional, Windows-based product, AboutFace/Windows version 3.9, which you
can use on your LAN.
aboutface.com is a Web-based service that functions as a directory for your
organization. aboutface.com maintains photographs and biographies of your
employees and takes the place of your old-fashioned printed phone lists,
address lists, facebooks, etc. aboutface.com is available for low monthly
rates and resides in a secure, private location on our servers.
We are the premier producer of electronic facebooks (online "names and faces"
directories) for the business and academic communities."
Source:
[http://web.archive.org/web/19981212013921/http://facebook.co...](http://web.archive.org/web/19981212013921/http://facebook.com:80/)
------
heckless
Pedant alert: "it's" -> "its" :)
~~~
dmerfield
They don't call it the Grauniad for nothing!
See: [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Private_Eye#In-
jokes](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Private_Eye#In-jokes)
------
justherefortart
All the cool kids were on facebook.
I remember signing up in 2005 because I was taking German for my future trip
to the World Cup (pointless as 95%+ will reply in __English __(edit), unlike
those darn French!).
As it grew in size and popularity, the limited nature of it really made those
that couldn't get in jealous. I remember all the kids screaming about the feed
when it went live, how they'd leave. Then once it opened to everyone, they'd
leave then.
WhatsApp seems to be the new kid's playground, so facebook buying it was a
smart move.
There will be another. Hell, maybe I'll make it :-)
Dropped out of my (still better IMO) Telegram style program after worrying
about N$A fallout.
~~~
ryandvm
The per university rollout of Facebook was genius. Actually keeping people
from signing up until there is critical mass is, I suspect, crucial for
building a social network.
There's nothing to discourage me from coming back quite like the feeling of
signing up and finding out I'm the only one I know.
~~~
justherefortart
Well it was based off Harvard's yearbook which was called facebook. At least
that was my understanding.
~~~
SippinLean
A "face book" is a generic term for a student directory.
~~~
justherefortart
Back in my day we just called it the student directory. Didn't have photos in
any I'd seen as a kid/college student, those were only in yearbooks.
------
yuhong
Personally I don't like the current debt-based economy where almost infinite
money can be printed in the first place.
------
chrisseldo
I hope the posting of this article isn't some insinuation of FB's fate.
~~~
influx
Why do you hope that? Are you a FB shareholder?
~~~
chrisseldo
Perhaps I should rephrase to what I meant to imply: I find it funny that
people think Facebook is going away / will fade into irrelevancy.
~~~
JohnJamesRambo
The whole point of posting this article is that people felt exactly the same
about MySpace, Ford, Atari...
~~~
onychomys
Ford sells hundreds of thousands of vehicles a month. I wouldn't put them in
quite the same boat as MySpace.
~~~
dsfyu404ed
Cars also get replaced regularly and have practically no network effect (for
the typical user).
Every time your Tacoma frame rusts out you're presented with an opportunity to
switch to a differen't company's product.
~~~
emodendroket
They may not have much network effect, but I am quite confident that a lot of
people buy the same manufacturer's car (or, hell, even the latest model of the
same vehicle) every time they are in the market for a new car. Like, there are
people who just buy a new Camry every four or five years.
~~~
isostatic
If a $MAKE hasn't given you any problems, then you may well go back to it. If
I were to buy a small car I'd buy a nissan micra -- I've owned two and both
were really good.
However if $MAKE has given you problems, then you're likely to avoid it.
~~~
emodendroket
Of course there is a limit, but I feel like many shoppers do not seriously
compare very many cars and sometimes brand loyalty trumps even the most
negative experiences.
Either way, it means that Ford's position is pretty secure for a while.
------
clairity
many years ago, i had bet a friend that facebook would begin to decline in
2016. seems like i might have been off by two years. _shucks_
my bet was predicated on (1) people realizing the insidiousness of facebook,
(2) the cool kids moving on to other platforms, and (3) mobile communications
being omnipresent and eclipsing facebook (solid but not earth-shatteringly
original reasons).
i'd attribute the demises of friendster and myspace primarily to #2 (with
underlying product and marketing issues exacerbating it). but more than that
was required to topple the massive network effects moat that facebook built.
notice that it wasn't another social network (e.g., snapchat) that will have
overtaken it but rather a confluence of other issues striking in concert (some
self-inflicted).
~~~
tomhschmidt
What exactly is declining? Their MAU, Time Spent, # Advertisers, and Revenue
numbers are all increasing
([https://techcrunch.com/2017/06/27/facebook-2-billion-
users/](https://techcrunch.com/2017/06/27/facebook-2-billion-users/)). Maybe
they're just declining in eyes of SV bubble residents.
~~~
ajkjk
Well, their widespread acceptability seems to be declining, as indicated by
all these articles and quittings lately. Presumably widespread quitting of
users would only come after, not before, some high profile upsets and
mistakes.
And # of Advertisers and Revenue are proportional to how people think they're
doing, not how they're actually doing, and would presumably only decline after
a mass exodus.
~~~
emodendroket
Yes, people are grumbling about them, but how many of them are leaving?
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Now Google is grooming a biotech firm / Company invests $3.9 million in business begun by Brin's bride - gibsonf1
http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?file=/c/a/2007/05/23/BUG0QPVKGF1.DTL&type=tech
======
andre
This is like throwing a nickel into a homeless hat.
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Cloud Based Rendering and Light Field Displays - zmanian
http://www.themill.com/millchannel/631/looking-ahead:-cloud-based-rendering-&-light-field-displays
======
billconan
cloud based rendering has too much latency. you will feel dizzy in VR.
~~~
zmanian
There are ways of coping with that like sending volumetric information to the
headset rather than individual frames
~~~
zardo
I think the problem is if you have the user affecting the environment, say, it
tracks your hands and displays them. You don't just need volumetric
information, you need to render the possible actions the user can take over
the next few milliseconds.
Or, you split rendering work, and leave some things for the local machine to
render.
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Ask HN: What are the best Hacker Houses in SF? - meisterbrendan
======
gatsby
A few I know of:
Rise: <http://www.risesf.com/>
Chez JJ: <http://chezjj.com/>
The Glint: <http://theglint.com/>
Rainbow Mansion: <http://www.rainbowmansion.com/>
------
joonix
What is a Hacker House?
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
When and How to Use Masks (WHO) - TakakiTohno
https://www.who.int/emergencies/diseases/novel-coronavirus-2019/advice-for-public/when-and-how-to-use-masks
======
ilyaeck
They lost me at the first sentence: "If you are healthy, you only need to wear
a mask if you are taking care of a person with suspected 2019-nCoV infection."
Without being tested, how can you possibly know if you are healthy?..
What a harmful, irresponsible guidance!
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Intrade Betting is Suspicious - rplevy
http://www.fivethirtyeight.com/2008/09/intrade-betting-is-suspcious.html
======
mattmaroon
Not so hard to believe, given that Intrade allows Americans and Betfair does
not.
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Would anyone have any interest in “Who wants to be trained/certified?” threads? - selotapemeasure
In a similar vein to the “Who wants to be hired?” posts which are extremely valuable, I was wondering if there is an apetite for a thread for people seeking certification. e.g. for ITIL, LPIC, Prince, PSM... etc. ?
======
mtmail
There's appetite for many such threads, but first try asking the question in
regular 'Ask HN' without making it seem official, regular or too structured to
test interest. I've seen quite a few questions which hardly got 5 replies.
Yesterdays "Seeking Tutor"
([https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20328296](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20328296))
got no replies this month (some last month), "Who is starting a startup?"
([https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20335253](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20335253))
hasn't got any traction, "Seeking co-founder"
([https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19821656](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19821656))
had few replies.
Dang, one of the HN moderator, commented on such threads
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15151412](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15151412)
and it seems unlikely more get added.
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
How to Think Real Good (2013) - michael_fine
https://meaningness.com/metablog/how-to-think
======
gyuserbti
Interesting read that loops full circle to classic AI debates.
I was frustrated a bit by the dismissal of probability theory, though, as if
Bayes theory solved it, and by extension, and probability as a whole could be
dismissed.
A lot of the issues the author raises are limitations with Bayesian (at least
classical Bayesian) theory. The author's critisms dovetail with some areas of
probability theory (cf Jaynesian or algorithmic probability literature); I
suspect their concerns are one in the same at some level as some of the
concerns discussed there.
The problem is uncertainty to various degrees is fundamental to reasoning, so
probability must be involved at some level. An integrated approach is needed.
I agree that Bayesian theory per se isnt the end of the story, but something
involving probability will be part of it (and because Bayesianism is a big
part of that, probably that too).
~~~
naringas
> but something involving probability will be part of it
quantum mechanics without the physics?
~~~
iwintermute
> "Even though it was discovered by physicists, it's not a physical theory in
> the same sense as electromagnetism or general relativity. <...> Quantum
> mechanics is what you would inevitably come up with if you started from
> probability theory, and then said, let's try to generalize it so that the
> numbers we used to call "probabilities" can be negative numbers."
[https://www.scottaaronson.com/democritus/lec9.html](https://www.scottaaronson.com/democritus/lec9.html)
------
mercer
> Work through several specific examples before trying to solve the general
> case. Looking at specific real-world details often gives an intuitive sense
> for what the relevant distinctions are.
This describes well why I like the more functional approach to programming
(whether within an OO framework or otherwise). I often find myself solving a
problem a number of times before I abstract it. And usually creating said
abstraction before the problem appears leads to over-engineering.
When writing 'functional' code, I come up with solutions that are isolated
enough that I can later replace them with various more abstract solutions,
whereas the more OO or procedural approach can leave me with a mess that is
too much work to disentangle.
~~~
bonestamp2
I'm the same. One of my work projects is a fairly large code base and we add
new features to it regularly. When I'm adding a new feature I generally
prototype it all in one file (or at least as few as possible).
Once I have something working, I try to simplify it, then I look at the
relationships within the code and as it interfaces with other code. The
abstraction usually becomes quite obvious at that point. This approach of
starting "dirty" usually results in very clean code at the end of refactoring.
If I try to start clean, it is usually far dirtier and I end up changing much
of the architecture anyway. So, it seems more efficient to start without any
architecture and then tailor fit at the end.
I guess it's like writing text, it's best start with a rough draft to get the
ideas down, then you can organize it once you've got a working version.
------
woodandsteel
In terms of academic philosophy, I would say he is doing a version of
pragmatism.
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Ask HN: Best Noise Canceling Headphones - matt_the_bass
Hi all, I have Bose Quiet Comfort nc headphones from 2004. I loved them. Electronically, they still work great, but mechanically they are on their last legs.<p>I’ve had a hard time finding what seem like good reviews online.<p>My use case is primarily for airline flights.<p>Can anyone make any suggestions? Any thoughts about in ear vs over ear?
======
digital_voodoo
I've had Sony WH-1000XM2 for two years now.
Bought it just before boarding for a 7-hour flight, and it was great. Even
after a dozen flights since then, I'd still recommend it anytime. Its noise
cancelling is amazing (source: I've tested it in comparison with Bose QC35,
everyday in the shop before going for this one).
The XM3 has been released a while ago (minor update IMHO), has good reviews
and is regularly discounted. With Black Friday almost there, you should get
good deals on it.
I personally don't feel the need to buy it since I have the XM2, but I could
get it for my wife.
~~~
ScottFree
I've had the XM3 for a year. It's a great set of headphones and the noise
canceling works great. It does have a few peculiarities to be aware of.
My biggest issue is you can't use the noise cancelling or the bluetooth
connectivity while it's charging. You either have to wait for it to charge
(which is absurdly fast. 10m will give you at least 4-6 hours) or you have to
plug in an 1/8th inch audio cable.
The touch controls are kind of odd. If the headphones are tilted slightly
forward or backward and you try to increase the volume, you can accidentally
trigger backward or forward. It also doesn't trigger consistently. Sometimes,
I have to try once or twice before it recognizes the gesture. However, Cupping
the hand over the right headphone to hear what's going on around you works
every time and is priceless in an office environment.
The built in microphone is terrible. Don't use it. I use either the built in
microphone in my 2015 macbook pro or the Antlion ModMic Wireless.
If you live in an area where winter is a thing and like going for walks while
listening to podcasts, then don't use the gestures at all. Once the
temperature dips below 32F, touching the touch-sensitive controls even once
will cause the headphones to switch to "ambient sound" mode, where it pipes in
the sounds around you. You can't switch it off and you can barely hear the
podcast. To sony's credit, this isn't permanent. You can reboot the headphones
and it works perfectly again, provided you avoid those touch controls.
All that said, I don't regret my purchase in the least. They're great
headphones and I'll use them until they die on me.
~~~
digital_voodoo
Hey, thank you for the extended review. I agree on all the points you've made.
Concerning the microphone, yes it's terrible enough for me to avoid taking my
calls with it. So whenever I have a incoming call in the middle of my
music/podcast, I have to take off the XM2 and put on a tiny bluetooth earset
(both connected to the phone). A bit cumbersome and not great.
For the touch controls, I live in a very hot (tropical) area, so no chance of
having winter here ^^
------
georgespencer
I've had:
1\. Bose QC-15
2\. Bose QC-25
3\. Bose QC-35
4\. Bose QC-35 ii
5\. Bose 700
6\. Apple AirPods Pro
Far and away my choice now is AirPods Pro. They are comfortable to wear whilst
sleeping on a flight (over ear can't be worn comfortably), and the noise
canceling is significantly better than the Bose.
The only downside for me is battery life (I get about 5hrs out of them).
~~~
orev
For sleeping on a flight, you can switch to a $0.25 pair of earplugs. Today’s
technology consumer seems to forget about the simple and obvious things.
~~~
rhinoceraptor
Earplugs are great, but they can't play the podcast I use to fall asleep
(Sleep With Me).
Without it, it's hard to quiet the racing thoughts in my mind that keep me up
for hours.
------
q-base
I have tried quite a few different as I value th sound quality as high as the
noise cancelling.
I originally had Sennheiser Momentum Wireless 2. They had amazing sound,
connected quickly and quite good battery life. They were however not that
comfortable for long durations as the headband lacks padding.
I then bought B&O H9 which was almost as good sound quality wise but a lot
more comfortable. They however ended up having problems with bluetooth and I
had to switch them.
Both Sony MX3 and Bose QC35 have a way too synthetic sound to them for my
taste. I then tried the third gen H9 but they did not sound as good as my old
ones for some reason. I then tried the new Sennheiser Momentum 3 which sounded
quite good, with really good deep bass, but it lacked some control at places
and was just a very large headset.
Then finally B&W came out with the PX7 recently and once I tried those I just
had to have them. Their sound is almost bar none - at least to my taste, and
their noise cancelling is exceptional on par with MX3 to my ears and finally
they have extremely long battery life.
So 4 weeks in or something like that, I am really loving my PX7's and would
recommend giving them a listen.
------
jedisct1
I have the QC35 and the WH-1000XM3.
The Sony have punchy sound. If you're a bass head, you are going to love them.
The application that goes with them also gives you a lot of control. However,
after playing with all the settings for a few days, I found myself not
touching them ever again.
For noise cancellation on airline flights, the Bose do a better job. Even
after adjusting the Sony to the aircraft pressure level. Maybe the Sony are
better at canceling other people's voice, but they are not as good as the Bose
to cancel the noise of the aircraft engine.
The Airpods Pro also do a surprisingly good job at canceling the noise of the
engine. During my last flight, I used the Airpods Pro _and_ the Sony on top of
them. Not very comfortable, but noise cancellation was amazing :)
When it comes to comfort, the Sony tend to hurt the top of my head after a
while. The Bose are more comfortable.
~~~
csunbird
I have experience with both WH-1000XM3 and Bose QC35 II and I must say, your
description is spot on for both headphones. Bose QC35 II has a very balanced
sound spectrum and I like them a lot when I am listening relaxing music and
everything. Sony WH-1000XM3 has great bass and the noise cancelling is really
good but I like balanced headphones more, so I just go with my Bose instead.
~~~
davidivadavid
This is contrary to my personal experience so I would recommend people test it
for themselves. The Sony to me sound far more balanced compared to the muddy,
bass-heavy Bose.
I love the Sonys, with a couple caveats that have been mentioned: hand
gestures are a gimmick (sometimes skips a track if you remove your headphones
the "wrong" way), default charging cable is too short, and my number 1 pet
peeve, the announcer voice (for low battery, changing NC modes) mutes the
sound, and those announcements are slooooow, which means you sometimes have to
skip back if you miss something you were listening to. All minor annoyances
compared to the great experience of using the product, though.
~~~
makruiten
Although it’s definitely subjective whether or not you like them, I can
objectively say that the Sonys are more bass heavy than the Boses [1]. I’ve
tried both of them extensively and I also found that to be the case
subjectively. The Sonys do offer some ways to adjust this, but in the end I
went for the out of the box sound of the Boses.
[https://www.rtings.com/headphones/tools/compare/bose-
quietco...](https://www.rtings.com/headphones/tools/compare/bose-
quietcomfort-35-ii-vs-sony-wh-1000xm3/565/678)
~~~
davidivadavid
Interesting data! I wonder what explains my perception.
------
deaps
I purchased the BOSE QuietComfort 35's - and they felt nice, were lightweight,
cancelled noise well. They did not give me a headache, etc. For my personal
taste, I found the bass lacking. I like to listen to dubstep when it gets
noisy at work (something that I can just zone out to and not have lyrics to
listen to, etc). And the lows just didn't hit hard enough for me.
Shortly after, I returned them and got Sony WH-XB900N -- after reading many
reviews on both headsets. They are also lightweight, do not give me a
headache, and were easy to set up / pair. The bass in them is amazing. If I'm
ever distracted, throw them on, turn on some dubstep and just _feel_ the
music. It's a totally different experience. I feel much more immersed in the
sound with them.
I should say that prior to purchasing either of the above, I only used the
stock earbuds that come with the iphones. They weren't so compatible with the
shape of my ear canal though, and my ears would start to hurt around the 30
minute mark.
~~~
awinder
Is the headache concern something you’ve dealt with from using tight/heavy
headphones or is that something to do with noise canceling?
~~~
deaps
Yes. I haven't found over the ear gaming headphones that I can wear. I've
tried countless sets, and all result in a headache after about 30 minutes. My
preferred gaming headset is a behind the neck style.
I think the headaches (for me) result from pressure (clamping force), not
necessarily the noise-cancelling. The Sony's and the Bose were both light
enough that there isn't much of a clamping force from left to right on my
head. I do not get a headache from the Sony's and did not from the Bose
either.
------
kkapelon
[https://www.reddit.com/r/headphones/](https://www.reddit.com/r/headphones/)
and
[https://www.reddit.com/r/HeadphoneAdvice/](https://www.reddit.com/r/HeadphoneAdvice/)
are much better source for this kind of info than HN.
Apart from Bose the other popular choice is Sony.
I wound not underestimate normal headphones as well.
Senheiser HD280 for example are very good with passive isolation at a really
low price.
I personally use PXC 550 Wireless which can connect to two devices at the same
time (a feature not always present to NR headphones)
------
kxes
Bowers & Wilkins PX are a solid alternative to Bose/Sony and similar price
range.
If you want to listen to silence or audiobooks then the others have a stronger
cancelling effect and will probably suit better. But if you enjoy listening to
music I found the PX is more subtle, with 'just enough' NC that it does not
compromise on sound quality but still removes annoying environment noise.
I have flown with them a few times now as well as the QC35 and prefer the PX.
The build feels better (a little heavier) and has the same nice features like
fold flat and removable cups. I think they will hold up well with travel
abuse.
~~~
kraih
The new B&W PX7 actually has much improved ANC and is getting very close to
the QC35.
------
BigAl
I think the new benchmark seems to be the Sony WH-1000XM3. I was lucky enough
to be able to try these and the Bose QC35II and for me the Sony just edged it.
They are over ear, have extraordinary battery life and are very comfortable.
They can even hold their own on the London Underground which is saying
something. Highly recommended!
------
alberth
Everyone seems to talk about noise cancellation as it relates to wearing them
on an _airplane_.
Airplanes are an easy problem to solve for because the engine noise is loud
and of a constant tone.
The problem I need to solve for is random noises found in the workplace like
people talking, printers printing, and other _inconsistent_ tones that’s
happen throughout the day.
Has anyone found a good pair of noise cancelling headphones that work in an
office environment?
~~~
superhuzza
I'm not sure if any products like that exist. The problem is twofold:
1\. Noise cancellation works best for consistent noises
2\. Noise cancellation doesn't really work for high frequencies (in
headphones, at least)
[https://www.rtings.com/headphones/1-2/graph#678/2090](https://www.rtings.com/headphones/1-2/graph#678/2090)
Your best bet is just to get some closed-back headphones with good noise
isolation, like the:
* Sennheiser HD280 Pros
* Beyerdynamic DT770 Pros.
~~~
CallidaVorhis
I second the Beyerdynamic DT770 Pros. I've been using them for the past 3
years in the workplace and they work wonders. If you really want to go
overboard with them, and care about excellent sound quality, I suggest getting
a DAC and tube eventually.
------
okapii
Sorry, not trying to spread FUD but is nobody worried about the fact that new
findings [1] have put a questionmark behind the safety of bluetooth
headphones? I use my QC35 only in wired mode nowadays anymore.
[1] [https://qz.com/1572885/the-truth-behind-claims-airpods-
cause...](https://qz.com/1572885/the-truth-behind-claims-airpods-cause-
cancer/)
------
mikece
I really like the performance of my Bose QC-35. The problem is the slide
switch: it broke with days left on the one year warranty so I called Bose
expecting an ordeal but within five minutes a “new or refurbished” QC-35 unit
was on the way — with the warranty extended out another year - along with a
return shipping label to send back the broken pair. It’s been a couple years
since the warranty swap and the slide switch on the replacement QC-35 has also
broken. I simply set the auto-time-off to five minutes and use the pause/play
button to turn them on after auto shutoff. The only problem is pairing the
headset with another/new device as the slide switch needs to be gingerly
manipulated in just the perfect manner, something you’re not going to do while
driving.
All of that to say that when I saw the details on the model 700 I smiled when
I saw there was no more slide switch on the device. I’m patiently waiting for
my QC-35 to die completely before buying the model 700 as a replacement.
------
leftnode
Wirecutter[0] always has the best in-depth reviews for headphones (of every
type). I have the Bose QC35's (older generation, they were just refreshed) and
they are great. I would recommend over the ear, especially if you are using
them on flights or a noisy office.
[0] [https://thewirecutter.com](https://thewirecutter.com)
~~~
basseq
I'll echo on the older pair of QC35s. They still work great. I bet you could
find a screaming deal on eBay. I've refreshed mine with new pads and a
bluetooth adapter.
At the time, the Beats noise cancellation was considered sub-par compared to
the Bose. That may have changed.
I haven't tried the new AirPods, but I do very much like an over-the-ear form
factor for long sessions. (I have "regular" AirPods, too.) Anything in or on
my ear get uncomfortable after a while for me.
------
kahlonel
Sony WH-1000XM3: I've used several ANC headphones before. None of those come
close to this. Sound quality is extremely good too. Good battery life. A 15
minutes charge gives me 5 hours of playback. On the negatives: A bit heavier
than Bose headphones but not by much. The "touch control" is sometimes
annoying to use.
------
slowmotiony
I had to return by Bose because the NC gave me a weird pressure like feeling
and it was uncomfortable to listen for more than 20 minutes at a time. Funny
enough, the Sony 1000XM3 don't give me that feeling at all, I can listen to it
all day no problem. I highly recommend the Sonys.
------
dochtman
Just start reading at the Wirecutter:
[https://thewirecutter.com/reviews/best-noise-cancelling-
head...](https://thewirecutter.com/reviews/best-noise-cancelling-headphones/)
------
jonny383
If you're after a very good set of budget noise canceling headphones, I would
recommend Plantronics BackBeat PRO 2.
------
tunnuz
Over hear are the best in my opinion, but now that it's winter I regret that
it's difficult to use a hat and over hear headphones at the same time.
I have a pair of Bose QuietComfort 32 II, which are quite lightweight and
absolutely love them. However before the new 700 model came out, Bose released
a firmware that reduced the noise cancelling impact on the QuietComfort 32 II
(although they swear that the firmware upgrade shouldn't change impact noise
cancelling it was measured by independent parties and it is indeed reduced).
------
nudemanonbike
As far as noise cancelling goes, there's really only 3 phones that are worth
considering:
WH-1000XM3
QC35
Bose 700
As a side note, I use a pair of beyerdynamics DT770 80 ohm headphones, and
they have positively excellent isolation. With music on, I can't hear anything
outside, and nobody can hear anything I'm hearing at all. Have you tried to
see if closed, isolated headphones fit your use case? There's way more options
in that space, so you're more likely to find something comfortable and with a
sound signature you really like.
------
Sendotsh
Apparently in tests the new Sony’s are slightly better NC than the Bose, but I
tested them in a store and preferred the audio quality of my Bose QCs and
couldn’t personally tell a difference in NC.
I couldn’t live without my Bose QCs and they go everywhere with me. You don’t
realise how much noise there is in day to day life until you’ve worn some good
NC headphones around for a while then forgotten to take them with you one day.
~~~
LandR
I'm the same. I kind leave the house without my BOSE headphones. THey make
just walking about outside, or the office or public transport bareable.
I don't know what I'm going to do when they break as they don't make spare
parts for my model anymore. I tried their wireless equivalent and just wasn't
that impressed with the audio quality compared to my wired ones.
------
prometheus76
I can't believe no one else has mentioned the Audio-Technica ATH-ANC9
headphones. They are $139 the last time I checked and they blow the doors off
of any Bose noise-cancelling headphones I've tried. They are great for
flights. I've had mine for years and bought several pairs for friends and
family, and everyone I've gotten them for loves them.
------
lowmagnet
I use Nuraphones at work. Their main advantages are a gel-based ear surround
and in-ear deliver of most non-bass sound, combined with environmental
filtering and pass-through option if you need to hear around you.
Also, they detect your hearing range though some sort of auditory feedback
they're sensitive to, and are really clear as a result.
------
zulln
Beoplay H9. Had QC35 for years until they broke and have tried Sony’s, but
like H9 the best so far.
Cost a few dollars more though.
------
ollerac
I'm using the Bose QuietComfort 25 wired headphones right now. I've been using
them for years. Every time an ear cushion wears out or falls off, I buy new
ear cushions and replace the old ones. I've now resorted to even using Gorilla
glue to keep them attached (because the base isn't in good shape any more).
They're still perfect in sound quality and really, really comfortable.
I tried buying beyerdynamic headphones a couple weeks ago, but the comfort
didn't compare - at all. They were too tight and the cushion wasn't nearly as
soft.
I'd strongly consider comfort as one of your metrics. There are a lot of nice
over-ear headphones with good sound quality, but the cushion padding and
stretch of the bridge matters too. Bose uses really nice cushions. I've heard
good things about Sony's as well.
------
moksly
I bought a pair of Sony MX3 earlier this year, or maybe late 2018 and at the
time I did a lot of research on them. I think it boils down to a choice
between the MX and the QC and the best option for you is probably going to be
a tad personal. I know people who swear by the the QC, my wife included, but
the MX fit me (and my rather sturdy glasses) much better.
There may be a few technical favours either way as far as version goes, the
MX3 has an advantage when I bought them, but having tried my wife’s QC for a
week they certainly do the job as well.
The hand control features/gestures on the MX suck by the way, so don’t take
those as a selling point. Solely go for long term comfort.
------
bigwheeler
I also have a pair of QuietComforts that are over a decade old. I recently
bought replacement ear covers from Bose, and an aftermarket cable on Amazon,
and after using them all day yesterday, can report that they seem to be good
as new!
~~~
matt_the_bass
Yeah, I’ve already replaced the ear covers once. Now the head band broke. I’m
limping along with electrical tape repair. I think 14+ years is reasonable
life expectancy though l!
------
bloke_zero
I've been using the same set of parrot zik v1's for about 7 years. Cons:
heavy, 6 hour battery life Pros: good sound, comfortable (for all day wear),
over ear - so good for blocking out the extraneous noise, funky design
I quite often check mixes I'm working on from home while day jobbing on them
and they are not studio grade, but they are good clear revealing without too
much hype in any of the frequency ranges - they are a little 'smooth' compared
to studio quality, but that seems good in a set of headphones that are
primarily for blocking out noise.
I replaced the ear pads for the first time this year - now good as new.
------
flurdy
On a plane, I double up. Either my Shure in-ear (noise-insolation) or my Bose
QC30 in-ear (noise-cancellation) with my older Bose QC15 (noise-cancellation)
over-ear on top. Seems to work really well for me. Obviously, if I have any
music/film on then the in-ear are the ones plugged in.
For my commute (train+tube/bus+walk) I use my Bose QC30. Full-on noise
cancellation on the train/tube, then I dial it down to 50/50 on the noise
passthrough when walking in London to avoid being crushed by a bus or cyclist.
(And also in-ears are harder for moped based thieves to steal off your head)
------
QueridoGuy
Audiophile perspective: Even though i like the idea of ANC , it can fail in so
many places. If you want something that can block noises, i would consider
going for noise isolation instead. Shure earbuds offer great isolation. But
they tend to have flatter bass. Shure SE535 is a great balanced one but
expensive a little.
Sony’s ANC is your bet if you are looking for ANC headphones. Any of their
line has a good implementation.
For overly expensive ANC, you can try the AKG noise cancellation headphones.
They are extremely expensive to the point i don’t recommend them
------
jedimastert
I don't have much experience from a NC perspective, but I recently got the
Sony WH-1000X MK3 for office & travel and I greatly enjoy them. From a an
amateur audiophile perspective, they sound pretty good, they're pretty comfy,
and the touch controls are pretty nice.
One nice feature that I found out about digging around the manual is that if
you touch your whole palm to the right side (the touch control side) the sound
quiets and the ambient noise is amplified, kinda like taking one ear out. It's
a nice little touch.
------
lcall
Not exactly to the question, but for reference in an office environment (where
the noise is more intermittent): several years ago my Bose headphones weren't
helping me for that, and I found the best combo for me was industrial earmuffs
(like 3M, blocking maybe 30 decibels), combined with foam (or noise-blocking)
ear buds placed underneath, and a white noise or similar app (like chroma doze
off the f-droid.org app store). If there is better general noise blocking for
offices, I'd like to know.
------
NonDescriptName
While I know this post is specifically about Noise Cancelling Headphones, Let
me introduce you to a combination of Noise Cancelling, Personalized Sound
Profiles, and Bass that you can adjust and feel:
[https://www.skullcandy.com/shop/headphones/bluetooth-
headpho...](https://www.skullcandy.com/shop/headphones/bluetooth-
headphones/crusher-anc)
------
m00dy
Hey,
I'm using WH-1000XM3. I bought it couple of months ago. I think it is good.
But, it also depends on your music taste. I mean if you are bass-heavy,
WH-1000XM3 might not be enough for you.
~~~
danilocesar
that's interesting. if you read reviews about Bose (qc35 ou bose 700) they say
to go to XM3 of you want more bass power. maybe you have a faulty unity?
~~~
m00dy
I would prefer sony wh-xb900n extra bass model for better bass experience.
------
boomlinde
I have a pair of Bose QC 25. I don't know whether they're the best in terms of
noise cancellation (certainly good enough for listening to music or watching
movies at a comfortable volume on a flight), but they are the most comfortable
headphones I've ever owned, which is an important factor if you intend to wear
them for long stretches of time. They are literally the only pair of over-ear
headphones I can wear for a workday without my outer ears hurting.
------
runjake
I have the Bose QC 25s and the Sony WH-H900N headphones.
I am not an ANC expert and it is subjective, but they're both great, but if I
had to pick one, I'd say the Sonys edge it out for sound isolation and noise-
cancelling.
The QC 25s are nice, because they use a AAA battery, and not a sealed, lithium
ion battery. So, with proper care, they should last a while and aren't
obsoleted by a bad, sealed battery.
------
jotjotzzz
I have an old wired Bose QC25 which still works great.
Although I have taken it to many flights, I recently bought the Bose QC20
wired because headphones are harder to sleep in especially if you sleep on the
side. I would recommend the old Bose QC20. I wish Bose would update this and
still keep it wired, it's great.
------
poof_he_is_gone
Not one Sennheiser post here? I have the Momentum 2.0 and have found them to
be very comparable to Bose in noise cancelation, and better for music.
~~~
ivraatiems
Right?? Bose is fine but Sennheiser makes fantastic stuff. I have the PXC 550s
and they are excellent. Well worth it, especially now you can get them for
~$200.
~~~
adeeshaek
Strongly agree. I have had my PXC 550s for about 2 years now, and they have
held together very well. In my opinion, they are comparable with the Bose and
Sony flagship NC headphones.
------
floatingatoll
I have a pair of 2004-era QC and they’re super nice, but I found that the
Beats Studio Wireless noise cancellation was as good as theirs and have been
happy.
I can’t use the modern Bose QC because they cancel so strongly that it makes
me want to vomit, so apparently there’s a limit somewhere.
I haven’t had a chance to try the AirPods Pro in an airplane yet, but their
noise cancelling seems equivalent to the other two so far.
~~~
flamtap
For what it’s worth, I have the QC35 II and they do have a “low cancellation”
setting. It’s not the default though, which would be annoying to change every
time you turned the ‘phones on.
~~~
floatingatoll
Valid, but: “Annoying” is a significant understatement in my personal context
- what for others might be annoying inconvenience is, for me, “remember to
flip this switch every time you use this device or you’ll hurl” - making the
device unsafe to use.
~~~
kkapelon
Senheiser PXC 550 Wireless have a setting from 0 to 100% for Noise Reduction.
The setting persists everytime you power the headphones, so if you set it once
there is nothing to remember.
You can change it on the fly with the mobile app.
~~~
floatingatoll
Thanks, good to know. Does it persist across 0% battery remaining events?
------
renaissancec
I use both inner ear and over ear Bose. I find noise cancellation feeling is
more prominent to the point of distraction on the inner ear QC 30s. I find the
QC 35 over ear provide better experience. Sony's 1000 seems to edge Bose out
in noise cancellation. However I have been impressed with the 700, and I think
Bose is now back on top. Either of them are cracking noise cancellation
headsets.
~~~
jefozabuss
QC35 is the reason I still haven’t quit my noisy open office job
------
void_ita
If you are looking for Noise Cancellation, there's just ONE answer: Bose. In
my experience, no other brand provides a better active noise cancellation.
Bose is still king (and by far). I've tried Sony, Schneider and others that I
forgot. The QC35 were by far the best ones. I have not tried the latest Bose
version tho, so I don't know if they are worth it or not.
~~~
trm42
Bose QC 35 ii is not worth the money. They are overpriced and have bunch of
problems:
* QA seems lacking. Our whole team has company sponsored QC 35 ii's and one came as DOA, couple of them have suffered the same fate within a year * Noice-cancellation is good. It's so good that I can't keep it fully on for more than 15 minutes and the lower cancellation level leaks more sound. Maybe personal problem but annoying still * Audio quality through bluetooth is lacking. The integrated amp doesn't have the oomph for the elements and the sound sounds a bit muddy * AQ problem can be remedied with the provided cable which is short. And what's the point of wireless headphones if it lacks on that side? * In the plane I have bunch of other stuff with me so I don't want to reserve so much of space for the headphones
I like my own AKG NC60 sound quality, size and the noise cancellation is
usually enough (although not so all encompassing as the Bose's) but AKG's
problem is really bad mechanic quality. With even lightweight usage they end
up breaking badly, so I'm going to need to buy a ned headphones and for that
I'm looking forward for Sennheiser's and Sony's. Stay away from AKG and Bose
;)
------
matteuan
I'm using Sony WH-1000XM3 and I'm extremely satisfied. Before I was using some
JBL in ear. Expecially in an open office, the additional passive noise
cancellation of good over ear headphones is important for me. I find the Bose
QC 35II at the same level (and now cheaper) but the Sony look better :)
------
sh-run
If anyone has issues with ANC, I suggest giving Etymotic IEMs a shot. I have
ER2XRs, they provide a quoted 34-42dB of isolation. I never had a problem with
the deep insertion, they sound great and are relatively cheap.
This isn't necessarily directed at OP since he's been using Bose since 2004
------
LinuxBender
For whatever it's worth, I've had the same pair of Bose QC-15's for many
years. I have replaced the cable twice and the ear pads twice. They are
comfortable and have decent noise cancelling. I won't use wireless anything if
I can avoid it, but I am weird that way.
------
pearjuice
In terms of reliability and support I would say whatever Bose's latest NC
headphone is in the QC line.
~~~
matt_the_bass
Have you had recent interactions with Bose? I’ve heard they’ve gone downhill
over the past few years. Any thoughts?
~~~
mlthoughts2018
I bought Bose QC 35 last year and they are great, definitely my personal
favorite of the ones I sampled or tried by borrowing from friends. I would
disagree with any claims Bose NC models are dropping in quality.
~~~
matt_the_bass
Thanks for the follow up!
------
danilocesar
I owned a few (sony, beats, Samsung, and others - all over the ear) and
settled with Bose. My QC35 was great and worked for years, but recently I
upgraded to a Bose 700 and can say that, if you're looking specifically for
Noise Cancellation, you can't go wrong with it.
------
jCharv
Slightly ot.
For sound quality, go for B&O Beoplay h9i.
Worse ANC than Sony XM3s or Bose, but the sound is so nice. I tried Bose QC35,
bought and returned Sony XM3. For flights, as others have said, bose or sonys
(maybe airpods pro?). But for music listening in the office, can't recommend
h9i enough.
------
lcall
Somewhat related, current discussion: "Why office noise bothers some people
more than others."
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21565841](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21565841)
------
jedieaston
The QCs are unbeatable for noise cancelling. My QC15s are my best friend at
school, or, at least they were until I got the new AirPods. If you’re using
them on a plane, I doubt anything could beat the QC35s.
------
TheAlchemist
Can I crash your topic ?
I'm looking for a similar recommendation but with one additional requirement -
minimal latency, as one of my use cases will be watching movies. Any ideas ?
------
JamesMcMinn
Sony XM3, Bose QC 35 or Bose 700 - try them all and pick whatever is most
comfortable. Noise cancelling in all 3 is good enough that you're unlikely to
be able to tell the difference.
------
Havoc
Sony WH-1000XM2 can be had for a steal occasionally - given that it's last gen
model.
Definitely over ear for flights. Combined with foam plugs you can pretty much
sleep in silence on overnight flights
~~~
Kirby64
Don't buy the 1000XM2's. Although cheaper, there's lots of reports that the
XM1's (and 1st gen) have cracking issues on the headband portion. XM3 appears
to have fixed that. XM3's go on sale for high $200s often, so it's not much of
a stretch to get XM3's.
------
throwmeback
Edifier W860NB. I never wore anything more comfortable on my head. It's half
as cheap as the popular mentions here (bose and sony), but the sound quality
is miles better.
------
Fiahil
If you're going for Bose, their latest Headphones (NC 700) is something you
should look at. Sony came a close second, but that was before Bose updated the
QC35.
------
Pete-Codes
I just returned the Bose QC35 - was worsening my tinnitus, they are really
flat and uncomfortable to wear around neck.
Sticking with Sennheiser HD25s
------
lm2s
Piggy-backing this question: does anyone knows good noise cancelling
headphones that are wired?
------
sharpercoder
I have done extensive testing and review reading. You have two options: sony
xm3 or bose 700.
------
monty5811
I love my PSB M4U 8s. Great sound, replaceable batteries. Been using them for
about a year.
------
sidcool
Any of these in budget range?
~~~
drcongo
I have a pair of cheap (£30), Chinese Bose knock-offs. In terms of performance
they're pretty much indistinguishable from a pair of genuine Bose I tried, but
to my tastes not quite as good as a pair of recent Sonys. I strongly suspect
that they're almost identical internally to Bose.
Mine are unbranded, but search for "JH-ANC804" and you'll find them.
------
ReDeiPirati
I've had Bose QC-35, one word: amazing! Extremely recommended.
------
norin
QC35 ll best there is.
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Chinese tech giant Huawei has developed its own operating system as a 'plan B' - jonbaer
https://www.businessinsider.in/Chinese-tech-giant-Huawei-has-developed-its-own-operating-system-as-a-plan-B-in-case-its-barred-by-the-US-government-from-using-Google-and-Microsoft-products/articleshow/68433984.cms
======
pjmlp
Actually Huawei is doing research in micro-kernel based OSes.
[https://archive.fosdem.org/2018/schedule/event/microkernel_e...](https://archive.fosdem.org/2018/schedule/event/microkernel_era_of_datra_centric_computing/)
[https://fosdem.org/2019/schedule/event/hardware_software_co_...](https://fosdem.org/2019/schedule/event/hardware_software_co_design/)
How much it relates to this news, no idea.
------
shinryuu
I find it a bit curious that they are not using an effort such as lineageOS.
In fact companies that don't want to rely on Google, why don't they rally
behind an effort like that?
------
comradesmith
No mention of Linux in the article, but if I was trying to urgently replace
Windows and android I would consider using something like Ubuntu mobile as a
starting point for my plan.
------
JudasGoat
If they released it with an open source license, it would increase my
confidence in Huawei considerably.
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Ask HN: Living in Berlin, family of 4, working for tech - propeller_head
Hi all
Keen to hear experiences of people with families who made the move to Berlin in recent years.<p>I got an opportunity to live and work there (FinTech) on a good salary for at least two years.<p>Interested in lifestyle, safety and schools mainly.<p>From my research it seems that the city is very much geared towards the new generation but I'm happy to be wrong.<p>I currently reside in Australia if that helps.<p>Thanks!
======
onebot
Just moved here in September. Similar situation. We love it here so far. Kids
are far more independent than USA. Strong work life balance. Tons of
diversity.
~~~
propeller_head
Thanks for your reply. Yes, I heard about work life balance there; in a way
seems similar to Australia so that's good.
What about inclusion? You and your family feel like you're part of the
community in a way? Not much racism/discrimination because you're a foreigner?
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Defining a new standard for online radio - knes
http://supersteil.com/work/538/538_site/
======
thisisroyal
Fancy page for sure!
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
LiveJournal data breach impacts 33M users with plaintext passwords - weleakinfo
https://twitter.com/weleakinfo/status/1149904387374026752
======
Fuccboi88
Plaintext passwords huh, that's about as bad as it gets when it comes to
breaches. The only upside is that this data is from 5 years ago so _hopefully_
a percentage of this breach is outdated.
~~~
thom
Even if everybody on LiveJournal has since changed their passwords (there and
everywhere they repeated it, which we know they won’t have), this now adds to
the dictionary of passwords which _other_ humans may have chosen elsewhere and
will certainly increase the hit rate of password spraying attacks etc.
While everyone recommends turning on 2FA everywhere, I’m increasingly
convinced we’d all be safer if the password was the second, optional factor.
~~~
ryanlol
>will certainly increase the hit rate of password spraying attacks etc
I do not see how this works in the context of _other_ humans.
~~~
thom
Because people don’t choose random passwords on the whole. So for every person
who is revealed to have used zxcvbnm1234567890 as a password, there is a
chance others have too. Obviously not for every password, but every large leak
of actual passwords adds some that will match elsewhere.
~~~
ryanlol
I don’t see how this leads to an increased hit rate, now you’ll just be making
more incorrect attempts.
Only way I see this kind of working is if you’re cracking the passwords
offline.
~~~
thom
Yes, that’s one use case. Let’s say you have a database of actually properly
hashed passwords. What passwords are you going to prioritise to try first?
Every plaintext leak adds to the list of passwords you’d be sensible to try
before brute forcing. Plus even for online attacks like password spraying,
you’ve got to get an idea of common passwords from _somewhere_ and this leak
inevitably adds to that. The only point I’m making is that humans are similar
and therefore there’s always a chance they pick similar passwords. Therefore
even if all LJ users have since changed their passwords, there are still many
risks.
------
GEBBL
Expect a knock on the door from the Information Commissioners Office.
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
The World's Most Influential Person Is... - asmosoinio
http://www.time.com/time/arts/article/0,8599,1894028,00.html
======
syaz
Isn't this victim of precision hack?
[http://musicmachinery.com/2009/04/15/inside-the-precision-
ha...](http://musicmachinery.com/2009/04/15/inside-the-precision-hack/)
~~~
paraschopra
Yep, this is:
[http://www.time.com/time/specials/packages/article/0,28804,1...](http://www.time.com/time/specials/packages/article/0,28804,1883644_1883653_1884731,00.html)
------
marksutherland
I remember when I was Time's person of the year back in 2006. Which is to say
I'm not sure how much can be read from this. It's amusing they had the wit to
run with it and I'm intrigued to see if this does anything to raise the
profile of 4chan.
------
jokermatt999
I cannot believe they actual gave it to him. It was fairly obviously hacked,
and it isn't like 4chan has all that much real world influence (excepting when
the hive mind decides to do something, but moot isn't at the head of that).
~~~
mtinkerhess
Time acknowledges that the vote was hacked:
_TIME.com's technical team did detect and extinguish several attempts to hack
the vote._
I don't think it's obvious that a hack went undetected by Time and gave the
vote to Moot. What seems more likely to me is that more people voted for him.
Clearly Moot isn't actually as influential as an individual as, say, Barack
Obama. But he represents the power of the internet masses, whose influence is
proven by his victory.
~~~
ErrantX
A fair point.
But they gamed the whole vote not just his position.
The first letters of the first 21 names still spells:
"Marblecake also the game"
All of the top 21 are in those positions because of the engineering of Anon. -
so, basically the vote is worthless.
Not so much the masses behind him but a devoted few :)
------
alexkearns
What!!! Not me.
------
csbartus
the answer is on www.theyrule.net
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Google Reader - RIP. Now go try something new - BenStroud
http://www.thewhatnoise.com/2013/03/google-reader-rip-now-go-try-something.html
======
buddylw
I'm actually getting a bit tired of having to evangelize google reader and RSS
in general. I personally don't believe that this is the end of the world, and
I believe that the most harm was actually done by Google when they neglected
reader for years so that it couldn't grow along with the internet.
That being said, I'm getting the feeling that these bloggers don't understand
how these social sites, and the internet actually work. There is a point in
time before your story is on reddit or HN where it will eventually get most of
it's eyeballs. At this point your content still needs to be discovered. You
have only a few options:
1.) I check my RSS feeds and read your story (not necessarily skim - unless it
sucks)
2.) You post a headline on twitter (definitely skimming here) AND I happen to
be watching the stream the moment you post.
3.) You get lucky and facebook doesn't hide your hard work from me, or you pay
facebook to distribute it.
4.) I happen to see the post during my bi-annual checking G+.
From a user perspective, RSS is hands down the most reliable way to keep up
with sources that I really care about. Everything else causes me to miss
articles from sources that I love all together.
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
900 Workers Have Already Died Building Qatar’s World Cup Infrastructure - jonmrodriguez
http://www.smithsonianmag.com/smart-news/over-900-workers-have-already-died-building-qatars-world-cup-facilities-180950088/?no-ist&1
======
ChuckFrank
Boycott FIFA. Call on the Architects and Engineers to end their working
relationships on the projects. This is outrageous. We know better. It can
start with Ms. Hadid. Speer the Younger and Arup.
[http://www.theguardian.com/world/2014/feb/25/zaha-hadid-
qata...](http://www.theguardian.com/world/2014/feb/25/zaha-hadid-qatar-world-
cup-migrant-worker-deaths)
[http://www.spiegel.de/international/spiegel/german-
architect...](http://www.spiegel.de/international/spiegel/german-architect-
albert-speer-plans-for-the-2022-world-cup-in-qatar-a-836154.html)
[http://www.arupassociates.com/en/case-studies/qatar-
showcase...](http://www.arupassociates.com/en/case-studies/qatar-showcase/)
~~~
contingencies
Holy crap. If I'm not reading this wrong, the German architect in question is
the son of a Nazi architect, _a member of Hitler 's inner circle_. This guy
made his career in such bastions of human rights as the Middle East and China.
Who'd have thunk it? Not looking good for Germany really, is it? Architects
depending on slave labour... runs in the family.
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Albert_Speer,_Jr%2E](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Albert_Speer,_Jr%2E)
(His father was _the Nazis ' principle exploiter of forced labor_.
[http://www.auschwitz.dk/Speer.htm](http://www.auschwitz.dk/Speer.htm))
~~~
bruceb
So if you mother or father is a bad person, then automatically you are. Great
logic.
~~~
contingencies
Heh. Your logic is this
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Straw_man](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Straw_man)
... I never said that. On the contrary, I believe that each person is
ethically responsible for their actions, direct or indirect. This man and his
father are both guilty.
~~~
rjurney
Actually, you strongly implied that his father being a Nazi somehow influenced
his own behavior. Why bring up his father at all otherwise?
~~~
Crito
Not caring to look myself, did this man's father raise him?
My father certainly influenced my outlook on many aspects of life when he
raised me. I am of course responsible for my own actions, and it is everyone's
responsibility to rise above the shortcomings of their parents, but to ignore
the role a parent plays in their child's development is just silly.
For example, my father is an evangelical christian. I am not. Realizing that
my father is gives a window, however murky, into my development and provides
context for many of my beliefs and convictions.
Noting the similarities between the father and the son gives us potential
insight into the [lack of] moral development of the son.
~~~
phaer
Not too much, except for the first eleven years, Albert Speer Jr. was born in
1934. In 1945 his father got sentenced to 20 years in prison and served until
1966, mostly in Spandau. Wikipedia states that he wrote many letters to his
children from prison but "found himself unable to re-establish his
relationship with his children, even with his son Albert".
------
rayiner
Well this is what happens when you have no worker safety regulations and the
families of the workers are poor Pakistanis and Bengalis that can't file
wrongful death lawsuits. America's support of countries like Qatar will be
remembered in history like our support of the Apartheid regime in South
Africa. These countries treat Pakistanis and Bengalis as de facto slaves.
~~~
krasin
Qatar is one of a few countries which have an exit visa. These workers (en
masse) could not leave the country, even if they want. So, yeah, they are
slaves.
[http://www.moi.gov.qa/PermitForm/PermitFormE.jsp](http://www.moi.gov.qa/PermitForm/PermitFormE.jsp)
~~~
letstryagain
Exit visas? Wow I never knew such a thing could exist. If you are a citizen of
a country you should always be allowed to travel to that country unless you're
arrested for committing a crime elsewhere.
~~~
bruceb
It is a way to check you before you leave. Like a security guard checking your
bag before you leave a store. Do you owe money, have legal trouble, etc. I am
not saying it is right but that is how it is viewed.
------
antonius
This and news that a Qatari firm paid off one of the top FIFA officials for
votes during bidding for the World Cup doesn't help Qatar's image going
forward. [1]
[1] [http://www.theguardian.com/football/2014/mar/18/jack-
warner-...](http://www.theguardian.com/football/2014/mar/18/jack-warner-fifa-
world-cup-2022-payment-allegations)
~~~
largote
Those news were completely unsurprising.
------
rkalla
Just to put this in perspective, Qatar won the bid in Dec of 2010 -- they are
_literally_ killing 1 worker a day building this.
I spent some time in Dubai and Abu Dhabi and saw this "big money, big
building" craze first hand... it truly is modern day slave labor. No more
thought is put into the migrant workers than you would an extra shovel,
concrete or tile - they are a resource to expend during construction. The
locals don't see them as human, just building material.
------
pasbesoin
I refuse to have anything more to do with professional sports. That includes
the "professional level" university sports. (And -- I am reminded of their
recent, latest round -- the Olympics.)
I'm just one person, but for my part I won't reward nor contribute towards
such behavior.
The next step, I hope, is in my country to strip such institutions of their
tax breaks and tax exempt status. And the perpetually extorted... "public
construction funds" for new stadiums and such nonsense.
I've quite enjoyed playing sports, and I don't begrudge the role of the
spectator. But current circumstances have become extremely distorting; this
extends to the IP lobbying that continues to hamstring technical developments
around media and connectivity.
~~~
trendoid
>I refuse to have anything more to do with professional sports.
Genuine question, what exactly have you stopped doing? I guess not watching
FIFA 2014 world cup is on the list?
~~~
pasbesoin
I haven't attended a game in several years -- although most of my infrequent
attendance had been at others' invitation, anyway.
Although I was never a sports nut, I no longer watch games on TV, at all.
Recently, I told one friend I would not be attending his Superbowl party, this
year. I had the prior year, with some misgivings, because I wanted to see
people.
I did not watch the recent winter Olympics, and I told friends why. I shared
some links to articles describing the outrageous branding practices, among
other things. This seems to have gotten at least some friends thinking about
the matter.
For the fellow who throws the Superbowl party, I specifically shared some
recent reporting both on the ever more apparent link to traumatic brain injury
(including that "Frontline" show and connected reporting) and on the enormous
tax shelter that pro-sports teams have become for their owners. Also the
financial shenanigans around facility financing. He has been reconsidering his
attachment to the game and to other pro sports (including non-US football, aka
soccer).
One friend is an auditor for the Federal government. He has taken the point
that while this is not his specific purview, a lot of public money is, one way
and another, going to line the pockets of specific, well-connected interests.
Being an honest soul, he admits to significant discomfort with this.
I think that most people are basically "fair" and decent people. As they learn
more, they find an increasing distolerance towards stomaching the situation.
And they decide that there are other things they can spend their time, energy,
and money on.
Again, I'm not dumping on sports. I'm communicating my strong dissatisfaction
with what this "sports industry" has become.
~~~
trendoid
Thanks, I would love to see more reporting done on such practices. If you
still have those links you shared with friends, please share them here.
~~~
pasbesoin
Taking a quick look, per what I referenced:
How the NFL Fleeces Taxpayers
[http://www.beyondchron.org/news/index.php?itemid=11877](http://www.beyondchron.org/news/index.php?itemid=11877)
Frontline's "League of Denial:The NFL'S Concussion Crisis" Airs
[http://www.metafilter.com/132838/Frontlines-League-of-
Denial...](http://www.metafilter.com/132838/Frontlines-League-of-DenialThe-
NFLS-Concussion-Crisis-Airs)
And, since I happened across an older mention of this, as well:
[http://www.metafilter.com/124600/Soccer-matchfixing-
probe-68...](http://www.metafilter.com/124600/Soccer-matchfixing-
probe-680-suspicious-games-worldwide)
------
yeukhon
Before we look at 2022, just look at 2014's World Cup.
It is known that the Brazilian government is still behind their schedule
delivering stadiums and basic infrastructure.
Personally, I am proud to say the new NYC Mayor has made an excellent decision
not bidding Winter Olympics ([http://theweek.com/article/index/256746/hosting-
the-olympics...](http://theweek.com/article/index/256746/hosting-the-olympics-
in-new-york-city-is-a-terrible-idea)). Multi-years of preparations before and
after selection is going to take away energy focusing on real domestic-city-
wide issues.
The Beijing 2008 Olympics was a great success given the amount of new stadiums
and infrastructure added. Though the main stadium (Bird Net) was officially,
completely finished sometime around March 2008. London's main stadium was
completed in 2011 and under budget. Clearly if the government really care
about the event, they will everything to stop corruption and prevent delays. I
don't know anything about Brazil's local politic, but press has been
criticizing Brazil government its poor coordination and corruption.
~~~
hristov
Every olympics or world cup is preceded by stories about how construction is
far behind. And in the end, with some exceptions, most olympics and world cups
work out fine.
These labor abuse stories are another issue altogether and a much more serious
one.
~~~
megablast
One day everyone else will start to notice this cycle as well. Look at the
reporting for the recent Sochi games, where the first week was rife with
stories about unready facilities and hotels.
Then, once it starts, everything is forgotten and the sports become the center
piece.
------
trendoid
Vice did a documentary on similar shit happening in Dubai :
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gMh-
vlQwrmU](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gMh-vlQwrmU)
There are so many issues occupying the world currently that I doubt anyone
from governments will raise an eyebrow for 'just 900 deaths over 2 years'.
------
tzs
It's hard to figure out how bad this is because they don't give enough
information about the other projects they compare to.
For instance, they compare to 25 construction worker deaths when preparing
Sochi for the 2014 Winter Olympics. As far as I have been able to find with
some Googling, Sochi officially involved 74000 construction workers, but an
advocacy group for migrant workers says that there were around another 50000
working without permits. Let's take the high figure, and that gives us 1 death
per 5000 workers.
So given 1.2 million migrant workers in Qatar, then if they were as safe as
Sochi workers, we'd expect 240 deaths, so 900 does indeed look like it
indicates they have some major safety problems.
The comparison to 11 who died during the Golden Gate Bridge construction seems
pretty worthless. The FAQ at goldengatebridge.org says it was built by 10
prime contractors and the subcontractors, but also that they don't have any
employment records from any of them so can't say how many workers were
involved. It's also not a good project for comparison because it actually only
had two fatal accidents. The first killed one man. The second killed 10 men,
when a scaffold failed and the safety net did not catch them.
Up until that point, the project had set a record for remarkable safety. The
norm for that kind of project was about one death per million dollars of
construction, so getting that far with only one death was amazing, and even
with all 11, I think they came in quite low. It was a $30 million project, so
30 deaths would have been normal. At that death rate, taking into account
inflation, a project the size of the Qatar FIFA project would have, if safety
was comparable to typical bridge projects at the time the Golden Gate was
built, about 5000 deaths total for the project--which is close to what the
article says they are looking at. However, bridge work is, I think, inherently
more dangerous than much of the FIFA infrastructure work, and I'd hope bridge
work today is more safe than bridge work was when the Golden Gate was built,
so this is consistent with the Sochi comparison. Qatar does indeed to be doing
something very wrong.
Conclusion: something very bad is indeed happening in Qatar.
~~~
Crito
As another data point, there were _no_ deaths during the construction of
London 2012 Olympic Park: [http://www.hse.gov.uk/press/2012/hse-olympics-
research.htm](http://www.hse.gov.uk/press/2012/hse-olympics-research.htm)
There was a single death during the construction for the 2010 Winter Olympics
in Vancouver, and 10 deaths during construction for the 2008 Beijing Olympics.
[http://constructiondatacompany.com/olympics-world-cup-
constr...](http://constructiondatacompany.com/olympics-world-cup-construction-
worker-deaths/)
_(As you speculate for Sochi, there may also be reporting issues for the
Beijing Olympics, but that is nothing but speculation on my part. I don 't
believe that the same could be said of the construction projects in UK or
Canada.)_
There is something __really__ wrong going on in Qatar.
------
jamespitts
Forget asking Qatar to kill fewer people, etc. The world should simply force
Qatar to withdraw.
Any number of countries have the infrastructure to support the event and would
be happy to do so without resorting to quasi-slavery.
------
brianmwaters_hn
For me, every work day starts by strapping on a pair of steel-toed boots and a
hard hat, climbing high up some steel structure (usually hundreds of feet),
building an anchor, and rappelling in to get done whatever needs gettin' done.
I think this gives me a different perspective on matters of industrial safety
than the typical Hacker News poster.
Granted, I have never worked in a developing country; neither have I worked in
the United States in the 1930's.
The culture of industrial safety in the United Sates is... interesting, to say
the least. The squeeze for productivity is there for sure, and it sometimes
flies in the face of every employer's claim that "safety is our number one
priority."
This puts the worker square in the middle of the predicament. Pressure,
culture, and, sometimes, a lack of training and equipment creates the worker
who is less-than-dilligent about their own safety. Then, when something does
go wrong, whether it's a real accident, a "near miss," or just a "violation"
that could have escalated but did not, the worker is blamed. Disciplinary
action and firings are commonly heard about. This happens because the employer
gets to point to "safety first," loads of policy, and their entire (huge) HSE
department, while ignoring the fact that the worker was under pressure, mired
in a culture of others behaving exactly the same, and, sometimes, poorly
trained.
I'm talking about the United States in 2014, where we benefit from a history
of labor unions, modern government regulations, two centuries of industrial
experience, incredible technology, and a legal environment that scares the
pants off every employer.
I cannot imagine what these migrant workers in developing countries are going
through. Given the safety statistics we've seen here, can you imagine what the
day-to-day grind is like?
------
trhway
compare to that, Russia starts to look almost like civilized country. Some
displaced people, some unpaid salaries, nothing serious :)
[http://www.bwint.org/default.asp?Index=5192&Language=EN](http://www.bwint.org/default.asp?Index=5192&Language=EN)
~~~
rjurney
Maybe not so much if you count the still-existing North Korean slave camps in
Russia.
[http://mondediplo.com/2006/04/08koreanworkers](http://mondediplo.com/2006/04/08koreanworkers)
------
joesmo
"The world is a place rich in natural beauty and cultural diversity, but also
one where many are still deprived of their basic rights. FIFA now has an even
greater responsibility to reach out and touch the world, using football as a
symbol of hope and integration." \-- FIFA Mission Statement
([http://www.fifa.com/aboutfifa/organisation/mission.html](http://www.fifa.com/aboutfifa/organisation/mission.html))
Slavery in this region is nothing new and this choice is abominable on FIFA's
part. This type of treatment is endemic in the region including the UAE. In an
organization that supposedly promotes equality, Qatar and other such nations
should not even be allowed to participate or be members of FIFA. I suppose
money talks loudest, however, mission statement be damned. Not to mention the
"mistake" acknowledged by FIFA's president already of scheduling the world cup
in a country whose average temperatures in June is 81 - 106 degrees
Fahrenheit.
([http://sportsillustrated.cnn.com/soccer/news/20130909/2022-q...](http://sportsillustrated.cnn.com/soccer/news/20130909/2022-qatar-
world-cup-mistake-sepp-blatter-winter/?sct=obnetwork))
------
TheMagicHorsey
You can get away with a lot of shit if you hold the keys to some petroleum.
------
jonalmeida
There are several similar stories of people not being able to leave the
country, or life threatening situations like this in Dubai. It's a very
similar case there as well with expatriate workers.
------
gregschlom
It's a tragic story, but it doesn't seem a good fit for HN. This is the sort
of story that major media outlets should be reporting, and there's no
technology angle.
~~~
mayneack
As I posted elsewhere, they (TV) aren't.
------
bertil
The question was asked on a different thread earlier today, and I think it
deserves asking here too:
What does this has to do on Hacker News?
Both articles are about groups are the lagging edge of development; both
groups are made exclusively of one gender (although, unsurprising, only the
other one used that aspect to hammer victimisation). Both issues are connected
to an existing hardware technology that could be, but is not of interest to
HN.
I read that kind of article (both) in my daily rotation outside of HN, so I
don’t mind -- but I was wondering if HN commenters had felt the parallel, and
would have reacted the same way on both.
~~~
mayneack
> Off-Topic: Most stories about politics, or crime, or sports, unless they're
> evidence of some interesting new phenomenon. Videos of pratfalls or
> disasters, or cute animal pictures. If they'd cover it on TV news, it's
> probably off-topic.
This sounds like an interesting phenomenon in that I assume this wasn't the
case at other recent major sporting events.
As for TV news:
[http://www.msnbc.com/search/world%20cup](http://www.msnbc.com/search/world%20cup)
(nothing) [http://www.foxnews.com/search-
results/search?q=world+cup&sub...](http://www.foxnews.com/search-
results/search?q=world+cup&submit=Search&ss=fn) (nothing)
[http://www.cnn.com/search/?query=world%20cup&sortBy=relevanc...](http://www.cnn.com/search/?query=world%20cup&sortBy=relevance)
(nothing)
I almost didn't even bother with CNN because it was obviously nothing due to
the missing flight.
~~~
bertil
It wasn't covered by TV recently because it's not recent.
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Cameras on San Diego streetlights turned off until ordinance in place - loteck
https://www.sandiegouniontribune.com/news/public-safety/story/2020-09-09/mayor-orders-san-diegos-smart-streetlights-turned-off-until-surveillance-ordinance-in-place
======
MurMan
I'm a San Diego resident that was falsely accused of a serious offense a few
years ago. Surveillance footage from a restaurant saved me from prosecution.
I know that this is a minority opinion, but I'm in favor of cameras in public
places. There will always be the potential for abuse even with strong
restrictions, but I think the benefits are worth it.
~~~
kelnos
Completely disagree. It's not that there will be the _potential_ for abuse.
There _will_ be abuse, full stop. I do not want to live in an authoritarian
police surveillance state, thanks.
You're lucky that in this case it helped you maintain your innocence, but that
use will be in the tiny tiny minority. The actual solution to your particular
problem is proper due process and rooting out police sloppiness and
prosecutorial overreach, not adding features to our society that make it easy
for those in power to violate people's civil rights.
~~~
treis
>There will be abuse, full stop
Can you give an example of this abuse?
~~~
darkwizard42
I think the ACLU has a great set of examples:
[https://www.aclu.org/other/whats-wrong-public-video-
surveill...](https://www.aclu.org/other/whats-wrong-public-video-surveillance)
Police databases have been routinely abused so I don't see how the watchers
can be trusted with more information when they have zero oversight and ability
to manage what they already have :/
~~~
treis
If we go to the level of one time a cop did a bad thing with this tool then
yeah everything will be abused. I'm more interested in cases where the police
as a organization abused CCTV.
~~~
syspec
You asked for an example, and they provided it. Then you moved the goal post
~~~
treis
Because the first goal post was meaningless. If that's the level we're looking
at then we can't even give cops sticks because at least one of them is going
to beat an innocent person with it.
~~~
ABCLAW
>Because the first goal post was meaningless.
You're the one that placed it there.
~~~
treis
Not really. They said abuse. I took that to mean abuse by the police as a
group. Not abuse by any individual cop.
------
slg
How are these "Smart Streetlights" and not standard CCTV cameras that
governments and private entities have been installing for decades? Is this
just clever marketing to reduce public outrage?
~~~
loteck
they have sensors on them that collect environmental data. In fact, the
cameras by default are used to generate pedestrian and vehicle data. You have
to specifically add the vendor's "situational awareness" module to get a
console for viewing raw video footage.
But you're right, Smart city technology is always wrapped up in marketing
lingo to obfuscate its surveillance properties.
~~~
GekkePrutser
"Smart City" sounds a lot cooler than "1984-style surveillance state". Add
some light artwork, upbeat music and some stock photos of happy people and you
get the population rooting for you. Just like Apple, Google and Amazon do. Yes
Apple is better than the other two, no they're not angels.
And really, the safety aspect is easily circumvented for the bad guys. Take a
standard corona mask, hoodie and some sunglasses and you're done.
For the rest of us it means living even more in a panopticon than ever before.
~~~
01100011
Weren't the cameras in 1984 in private locations as well? I don't think you
can argue that cameras in public are tantamount to a 1984 style police state.
------
brobdingnagians
> while it was not part of the initial plan, police later began to review the
> raw camera footage to help solve serious or violent crime
Once the technological hurdles are overcome, the social barriers are more a
matter of "when" not "if". Having dumb streetlights is much more of a
protection against surveillance, and less of a temptation, than having
streetlights capable of it, but guarantees "that we don't intend
surveillance". It's a lot harder to sneak $30 million dollar expenditures
through a city budget than a memo in the police department about fully using
capabilities that already existed anyways...
~~~
the8472
A german saying that translates to "where there's a trough, the pigs will
gather" is sometimes is more apt than "build it and they will come".
------
loteck
Hi all, I've been answering questions about this effort over on Reddit [0],
but happy to chat on questions about how this is going down here as well.
[0]
[https://www.reddit.com/r/sandiego/comments/ipyei8/san_diegos...](https://www.reddit.com/r/sandiego/comments/ipyei8/san_diegos_smart_streetlights_have_been_shut_down/)
~~~
UhDev
I came here to get away from reddit!
~~~
loteck
Sorry about that, just linking because there's a lot of questions answered.
Mass surveillance technology should definitely be of interest to the HN crowd.
Ubicquia, the company operating the system in San Diego, just landed $300M in
VC funding. Modern mass surveillance tech is absolutely a tech startup
phenomenon.
------
themark
If you are looking for some entertainment, read the City Attorney's attempt to
explain the data that was being collected:
[https://timesofsandiego.com/wp-
content/uploads/2020/01/stree...](https://timesofsandiego.com/wp-
content/uploads/2020/01/streetlights.pdf)
~~~
munk-a
I particularly like the "What does processed data look like" and they just
have a picture of some random hexadecimal digits which is accurate I guess,
but that's what all data looks like if expressed in hex.
~~~
est31
Which now makes me wonder what the data behind the hex is.
09 00 ba 8a b6 f7 42 c8 8f d0 aa 8e bf f5 99 b6 5a f2 42 26
Oc 92 25 4a 14 2f 6d fc ee e7 c3 f3 e7 19 82 a0 14 6f dc 7b
Oc b8 0e 11 e7 5d c5 0d a0 19 bb 97 32 79 13 11 d2 af 8e fc
Oc ee 29 af c6 8d 3c 59 9f 73 23 ab f6 58 22 ae aa fd 30 c5
0e f5 fO d1 1f 31 00 ec 6d e6 7d 53 a9 36 2a 8d Of 46 8e 48
10 76 20 ee ac 87 af 7b 2a ec 85 f8 b9 88 43 60 78 6S a6 ea
13 b8 b8 93 d8 62 25 c2 d2 f4 c7 e4 7a ad 2d lb a6 00 b7 36
1f ca 1c 43 cf 5f c3 5b 7d 3f da 2a 41 6f 6b fb 05 ed ff cc
Putting it into hex to ascii converters doesn't yield anything useful.
Putting it into a frequency analysis tool [0] doesn't give any special
patterns either. 8 bytes are present 3 times, 25 bytes 2 times, and 86 bytes 1
time (total 160 bytes). I inputted a 160 long sequence from hexdumping urandom
and I got 5 bytes present 3 times, 27 bytes 2 times, 91 bytes 1 time. Not a
statistician but it seems pretty close.
[0]: [https://www.dcode.fr/frequency-analysis](https://www.dcode.fr/frequency-
analysis)
~~~
munk-a
It's way too little data to get anything useful out of unless it was
intentionally seeded. I am a bit sad it didn't decode as "Yea we know this is
just hex but it looks fancy" since that would've been a pretty good get from
whoever prepared images for the document.
Also yea - it's probably not going to text decode trivially since there are
random null bits in the middle. My guess is that it's some random data from an
image off the camera - but it could also be a snippet of environmental
information.
------
zobzu
I always find these stories interesting, because, frankly, these cameras I'm
sure DO help catch criminals very effectively.
However, they also allow very effective privacy violations of course.
Because of this there's no perfect outcome (and opinions across the board).
~~~
sudosysgen
There are much better ways to reduce criminality that don't violate our
privacy. As long as those solutions haven't been tried seriously, as they have
worked in other countries, then there is no justification for this.
~~~
GekkePrutser
Maybe start with that obvious little thing.. People not having guns means
people not being shot at chicken restaurants, hence less crimes to solve. It
does really work here in Europe even though it's not perfect - yes some
criminals still have guns. But the big effect is someone being spotted on the
street with a gun = insta-arrest + jail time for possession.
I know proposing it is political suicide there, but when I see what BLM have
accomplished in awareness I did think some spontaneous movement like that
would happen too in the gun debate, after the xx'th senseless mass shooting.
Also, the other obvious thing (also starting to bite Europe in the backside in
all fairness), is the huge income equality leading to crime life.
~~~
kyleee
what prompted the chicken restaurant bit of your comment?
~~~
GekkePrutser
The source article. In particular this passage:
"They hailed the cameras as a game-changer, and said the images helped to
identify the suspected gunman who shot three employees, killing one, last year
at an Otay Mesa Church’s Chicken"
~~~
kyleee
thank you sorry i missed that bit
------
pkamb
> Smart Streetlight _cameras_
~~~
loteck
Your point is valid. In fact, after San Diego missed its last payment,
Ubicquia shut down all access to the "smart" data sensors & kept only the
cameras running, for police use.
So, we can go ahead and drop the whole Smart Streetlight charade now and just
call them surveillance cameras now.
------
tolbish
Wasn't one of the two San Diego mayoral candidates, Todd Gloria, on city
council when they passed the resolution to install these? Why is there no
scrutiny of his part in all of this?
~~~
tomc1985
This isn't an excuse, but IIRC they were sold to the city as simple sensor
boxes. GE (or whoever it was that made/sold these) added the surveillance
capabilities later, ostensibly for internal use but easily receivable via
police action
~~~
rbecker
I'm sorry, what? Doesn't a "sensor box" by definition have surveillance
capabilities? The only way that sentence makes sense is if you're using some
ridiculously narrow definition of "surveillance".
Edit: Fair enough. But in this case, cameras and microphones were included,
were they not?
~~~
DanBC
If it only senses light or dark it's difficult to see how that would count as
surveillance.
------
eggsby
At the same time, the city government is adding explicit surveillance feeds
for law enforcement.
[https://www.sandiegouniontribune.com/communities/east-
county...](https://www.sandiegouniontribune.com/communities/east-county/lemon-
grove/story/2020-09-08/lemon-grove-sheriffs-ready-roll-out-camera-coverage-of-
city)
~~~
loteck
Lemon Grove is a different city from San Diego, but youre right that we have a
problem at the _county_ level as well.
------
GekkePrutser
Just need to add face recognition and you basically have China's playbook...
Scary.
------
Animats
How about making them all accessible to the public? Maybe with a 12 hour
delay.
~~~
GekkePrutser
Great idea!
Now the snoopy old lady across the road can actually follow you around town at
all hours.
------
jxramos
I wonder how these sorts of decisions would stand up if put to a ballot
initiative. Has there ever been an instance of the public voting on cameras
and surveillance technology in their towns?
------
chundicus
$30 million dollars? Feel like we could have used that money in many better
ways...
~~~
makecheck
Lights aren’t exactly cheap either way; even years ago they would be about
$100 a pole just for the light, modern LED ones are about that [1] and cities
can have thousands of them [2]. For example, the 250,000 lights in NYC at $125
per light (without even considering installation) would get you about $30M.
[1] [https://www.edn.com/weighing-the-costs-of-led-street-
lights/](https://www.edn.com/weighing-the-costs-of-led-street-lights/)
[2]
[https://www1.nyc.gov/html/dot/html/infrastructure/streetligh...](https://www1.nyc.gov/html/dot/html/infrastructure/streetlights.shtml)
~~~
chundicus
Interesting! I guess that makes sense but I definitely would have
underestimated that cost.
In this case the cost seemed to apply in part to 3,000 cameras. But solely
based on the article, it's hard for me to tell what portion of that $30
million went to upgrades/maintenance and what portion went to the cameras.
However it does clearly say it would be another $7 million to maintain the
cameras over the next four years.
~~~
Stupulous
For anyone who doesn't want to do the math, that's $10,000/installation and
$600/light/year maintenance.
------
everybodyknows
Also this, same day, same newspaper:
[https://www.sandiegouniontribune.com/news/politics/story/202...](https://www.sandiegouniontribune.com/news/politics/story/2020-09-09/san-
diego-moving-toward-repeal-of-seditious-language-ban-police-have-used-during-
protests)
>San Diego moves toward repeal of ‘seditious language’ ban police have used
during protests
>Rule against anti-authority speech ...
~~~
1f60c
Is that a bad thing?
~~~
munk-a
Yea it is - the US has a pretty clear and sane definition of what speech
should be protected at a national level. Cities and states have no business
trying to muddle the line of what speech should be protected.
~~~
slg
>the US has a... sane definition of what speech should be protected at a
national level
The US has a more extreme view of protected speech than almost all of our peer
nations. Whether that is "sane" or not is a matter of opinion. Many Europeans
would scoff at our campaign finance laws for example.
~~~
naberhausj
I'm was not familiar with the exact definitions of "protected speech" and
"campaign finance laws". Having looked both up, I still fail to see your
point. How does our regulation of a candidate's fundraising indicate
extreme/nonsensical regulation of protected speech?
Compared to Europe, we don't have any hate speech laws that risk make
criminals out of people because of public whim. I will not scoff at that
though, because hate speech is only a necessary evil. Do you real feel the
range of opinions you can express here is less than what you could express in
your average European country?
I think the original definition of protected speech, namely that is
inalienable, is the only sane one. How flawed the implementation of that
definition is (and truthfully it was flawed from the start) is definitely a
problem of course. Any other guarantee would be worthless because very few
people will suffer somebody spewing what they view as or want to be lies if
they don't have to.
~~~
slg
>How does our regulation of a candidate's fundraising indicate
extreme/nonsensical regulation of protected speech?
It corrupts our democracy. A democracy should be one person, one voice, one
vote. In our democracy the people with money have an outsized voice and
therefore an outsized influence which leads to a government that is more
concerned with appeasing the wealthy class minority than the majority of the
rest of us.
>Do you real feel the range of opinions you can express here is less than what
you could express in your average European country?
No, the point is the reverse. We can express ourselves here more than they can
in Europe. Even still, I don't think you will find a huge percentage of
Europeans who feel they can't legally express themselves. That is because most
of the things that are protected here and not in Europe are a net negative on
society. I also fail to see how outlawing something like Holocaust denial is a
slippery slope to authoritarianism. Why do we need to protect speech that is
objectively and inarguably incorrect? Defaming a individual person in the US
is illegal. Why should defaming an entire class of people through hate speech
be legal?
Plus the US doesn't even have universally protected speech anyway. We outlaw
plenty of speech from our meager campaign finance laws to threats of violence.
There is no binary choice between free speech and no free speech. We are just
debating where the line is and the US isn't drawing the line where most other
countries are drawing it.
~~~
srtjstjsj
One person, one vote?
Why should someone get to increase their voting power simply by producing more
children to indoctrinate?
In Europe it's illegal to criticize the crimes of religious figures. That's
horrific.
~~~
slg
>Why should someone get to increase their voting power simply by producing
more children to indoctrinate?
Are you serious with that one? There are much quicker, cheaper, and more
effective ways to enact political change than spending 18 years and the
literally hundreds of thousands of dollars it costs to raise a child in order
to get one more vote.
>In Europe it's illegal to criticize the crimes of religious figures. That's
horrific.
I agree. I didn't say other countries were perfect. However many countries do
recognize that blasphemy laws are unjust are have repealed or have started
debated repealing them. Ireland is one notable example of a country that
amended their constitution recently to remove them. And even in the countries
who still have those laws on the books, it is extremely rare for them to be
prosecuted.
------
tomc1985
Good, that these were even allowed to be installed is a travesty
------
la6471
I don’t see what is the problem if the footage from this camera is made
available to the general public all the time including law enforcement
authorities. Open access to information is better and can have a positive
impact.
~~~
r00fus
Are cameras like this open-access for anyone? In that case, great data source
for image analytics AI startup.
------
s1mon
The article title is missing the key word "camera". "Smart Streetlights" just
sound like they intelligently control when the lights turn on and off, and
saying that they would be turned off sounds like San Diego would be plunged
into darkness at night.
~~~
loteck
My original title was "orders city's surveillance camera network shut down."
HN likes to defer to original headlines, which is understandable.
~~~
JamesSwift
Thats understandable, but the edit also left out the 'surveillance' bit from
the original
------
eanzenberg
Good experiment to see if this causes crime to increase.
~~~
LinuxBender
Most criminals didn't know these existed. For that matter, neither did most
citizens know that cameras were peering into their backyards and microphones
doing machine learning on what people were saying. Sorry I don't have the
links to the tech specs handy.
~~~
sitkack
A system like this could be used as a massive phased array microphone to
literally listen to anyone between 2 or more poles.
------
throwawaysea
I don’t get why people are against cameras. We have limited police resources
and need to enable them to locate wanted criminals easily. Betting on police
randomly spotting a suspect with their eyes while on patrol is a bad bet. We
can do better and this technology is the way.
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Iter8 CoFounder Hackathon (San Francisco, only 8 seats) - matrixownsyou
http://iter8.org/
======
jlees
Tell us more about who you are and what gets you excited before I waste time
bragging about myself to an anonymous wall.
Also, far more minor, lack of clarity with the question Skype or XMPP => I'd
just reply "XMPP" ;)
~~~
onetimeiter
Fair points.
What kind of generic information would help you? We're pretty excited about
graphs, social software, collaborative filtering, event coordination, behavior
analysis, and collaborative editors, but would consider working on anything
interesting with a realistic chance to succeed. We like iterating and letting
the market guide us. These are roughly the things we agree on, and why we are
considering to work together.
If you email us at [email protected] we can give you more personal info.
~~~
tonystubblebine
I think this is a good idea, but I had the same reaction to the lack of
information. What I want is specific information, not generic. For example:
1\. How many of you are there?
2\. Why are you withholding your identities?
3\. Are there several organizers looking to find co-founders for several
different startups, or are the organizers already committed to working
together?
4\. Is the point to co-found companies with the organizers or will it be setup
so that any two (or three) attendees have a chance to group together?
5\. Name one example of a "pretty impressive" thing that you've built. If you
insist on being secretive could you give an example of a similar thing that
somebody else built that was as impressive as the things on your resumes.
~~~
onetimeiter
We are three right now, we're not sure if us (the initial attendees) will be
matches - that's part of what we want to find out. we'd be happy if others
find cofounders and we don't. All of us are already working on side projects,
but are not far enough along for that to be a hindrance towards joining
someone elses project. We don't want any special position over the other
attendees - in fact you'll get root on iter8.org and if everyone decides to do
a startup without one or all of us, we would not complain. We do this exactly
to find out who to work with. We're secretive because we have jobs right now,
and bragging anonymously doesn't work.
------
toisanji
8 seats isn't very much.
~~~
onetimeiter
Yeah we prefer small groups and focus on actually getting work done. We want
to figure out by actions not words if some subsets of us would make good
teams.
------
onetimeiter
asked matrixownsyou on #startups to post this for us (our fresh account got
autobanned by HN)
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Show HN: Texttop – Interactive desktop rendered in TTY with ASCII - tombh
https://github.com/tombh/texttop
======
xvilka
May be image quality could be improved by using whole unicode set, rather than
just plain ASCII. E.g. braille-fonts, like in blessed-contrib[1].
[1] [https://github.com/yaronn/blessed-
contrib](https://github.com/yaronn/blessed-contrib)
~~~
StavrosK
Aw, this is great but node.js is putting me off it :/ I was hoping I wouldn't
have to install something so heavy for such a small utility...
~~~
yaronn01
so try [https://github.com/yaronn/wopr](https://github.com/yaronn/wopr)
~~~
StavrosK
That's interesting, but not very well-suited to real-time dashboards, is it?
Seems to be for one-offs.
~~~
yaronn01
curling the markup is not for realtime. sometimes you can get away with
curling in a loop with some sleep, and depending on the latency / scale you
will get the same effect. however blessed-contrib can also be used as a server
side component where clients curl for its endpoint (which is different than
curling a static markup). that way it can return a live stream of data. you
would use the same approach as
[https://github.com/yaronn/wopr/blob/master/server/server.js#...](https://github.com/yaronn/wopr/blob/master/server/server.js#L27)
where your present method implementation will run in some loop / timeout and
keep sending data (by calling screen.render).
------
dhotson
This is so cool, very nice work! :D
I've been playing with writing little custom SSH server stuff recently as
well—try this for example:
ssh hello.dn.ht
One thing I've been testing to get some extra vertical resolution on graphical
stuff is the unicode half block character
([https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Block_Elements](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Block_Elements))
with a separate foreground and background color. Works ok, but background
color can bleed through depending on the font you use.
~~~
tombh
Haha Wasn't expecting that, very cool! How did you do that? Have you some code
somewhere? Thanks for the praise :) A big part of pushing forward with this
was seeing the quality of @jart's hiptext[1] renderings, I find it creates
much more aesthetically pleasing ASCII images than libcaca and libaa. It only
uses those block elements, like your webcam video.
[1] [https://github.com/jart/hiptext](https://github.com/jart/hiptext)
~~~
dhotson
Ok yeah wow, hiptext's output looks pretty fantastic. :)
I'm using my own text webcam thing:
[https://github.com/dhotson/txtcam](https://github.com/dhotson/txtcam) .. not
too fancy, just using greyscale with some shading characters to do some basic
"dithering".
Also, if you're on Mac OSX and using iTerm2 version 3, you might be interested
in its 24bit colour support. It's not that widely supported yet in other
terminals unfortunately though:
[https://gist.github.com/XVilka/8346728](https://gist.github.com/XVilka/8346728)
~~~
tombh
Oh, that textcam code isn't too complicated and you get a really good effect
from it.
I never even knew that there was true colour support in terminals, let alone
how many terminals support it! Hmm, so I'd need to figure out if SSH sends the
terminal's ability to render true colour. And then also update hiptext. It
would make a really big difference to the "readability" of the texttop output.
------
SirRockALot
I implemented this neat trick that gives 4x spatial and 2x color resolution
using Unicode Block characters
[http://www.blitzcode.net/rust.shtml#term_gfx](http://www.blitzcode.net/rust.shtml#term_gfx)
[https://github.com/blitzcode/term-
gfx/blob/master/src/main.r...](https://github.com/blitzcode/term-
gfx/blob/master/src/main.rs)
I think it could work great for your software.
~~~
tombh
Is that similar to this do you
think?[https://github.com/jart/hiptext/blob/d50329e3b975ffac0209c0a...](https://github.com/jart/hiptext/blob/d50329e3b975ffac0209c0ade91120cec499918f/hiptext.cc#L134)
Where `kUpperHalfBlock = L'\u2580'`
Because Hiptext is already supporting it, but when I enable the flag to
support it, it crashes in Alpine, but not in my local env :/
~~~
tombh
OMG, no, it's not the same, you go even further with 4 colours per char!!
[https://github.com/blitzcode/term-
gfx/blob/master/src/main.r...](https://github.com/blitzcode/term-
gfx/blob/master/src/main.rs#L59)
~~~
SirRockALot
You still only get 2 colors (bg & fg), but you get to chose for each of the 4
sub-pixel, it's a bit like DXTC texture compression
------
tombh
Forgot to put the word "interactive" in the title. Edit: didn't know you could
edit the title after submission.
------
1ris
It's probably beside the point, you could double the number of pixels and
foremost make them square if you used fore- and background color for U+2584 or
go even further with U+2596 to U+259F.
~~~
tombh
Hiptext supports this:
[https://github.com/jart/hiptext/blob/d50329e3b975ffac0209c0a...](https://github.com/jart/hiptext/blob/d50329e3b975ffac0209c0ade91120cec499918f/hiptext.cc#L134)
But it's crashing when I run in Alpine :/ I have hope because it works fine in
my local Arch/ZSH env :)
------
macscam
Cool idea but I haven't been able to get it working. Docker is proving to be a
real drag to install. Furthermore in the GIF on the README the text is
illegible.
~~~
tombh
The text only becomes legible at very high zoom levels. I needed to strike a
balance when recording that GIF, so I didn't zoom in all the way.
------
AnthonBerg
NX / X2Go
~~~
tombh
Had never heard of them, thanks. Do you have experience with them over
connections that drop, eg; travelling on a train, or connections as low as
3kbps?
~~~
AnthonBerg
They work at least decently over connections that drop - I can't remember if
they autoconnect or keep things alive like mosh or if it works more like
screen. Low bandwidth is surprisingly good - not sure if I've gone as low as
3Kbps but I do remember working out of a hotel room in China to a Linux
machine in Iceland over NX. The regular web was hardly usable but NX was
fine!, even good enough to browse the web over.
~~~
tombh
Wow, okay, that's good to know, another way around the Great Firewall. I will
have to give NX a spin.
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Using the Klout API in Google Docs - blarshk
http://www.whitefireseo.com/tools/klout-api-google-docs/
======
dtsingletary
Just want to add that when consuming an API like this, it's always good to
make sure you're adhering to the Terms of Service.
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
The Unix and the Echo (2001) - charlysl
https://everything2.com/title/The+UNIX+and+the+Echo
======
hunter2_
If you have a file consisting of some text, the file might or might not end
with a \n
If you have a file consisting of some lines of text, the file will end with a
\n because a line of text (unlike text generally) is typically defined by
matching ^[^\n]*\n
Therefore, `echo` with no arguments returns a line of text which contains
nothing.
~~~
charlysl
I think you are right, it is a matter of convenience, to type less, as the
story hints, but not only for writing to files, also for displaying messages
on the console.
According to the book quoted in the link:
_Since a command should by default execute its most commonly used function,
... echo appends the final newline automatically._
It may seem insignificant, but this story highlights, in nerd humour, some of
the design philosophy behind Unix.
Classic Kernighan (as the book's co-author).
------
LeoPanthera
"echo -n" will omit the trailing newline, on both Linux and BSD. echo -n with
no other arguments therefore outputs literally nothing.
(Except for the "echo" builtin in /bin/sh, which does not recognise -n.)
~~~
teddyh
Debian GNU/Linux guarantees that the echo builtin, even in /bin/sh, supports
the -n option:
[https://www.debian.org/doc/debian-policy/ch-
files.html#scrip...](https://www.debian.org/doc/debian-policy/ch-
files.html#scripts)
------
saagarjha
> f u cn rd ths u mst uz unix
I thought this was cursing at me at first!
By the way, if you actually care about your newlines use printf.
------
jeffrallen
Everything2 rocks. I used to be a somewhat prolific noder.
------
TedDoesntTalk
I'd say they overthought the behavior of echo... just a little bit.
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Why C# is not a good choice for web development? - afshinmeh
http://afshinm.name/why-c-sharp-is-not-a-good-choice-for-web-development
======
coldtea
The "one file to update whole up" is not really an issue (and you don't need
to upload whole dll, if size's an issue, can always rsync (besides people
appreciate getting a single artifact from e.g. Go, and of course they compile
their JS into a single bundle with webwork etc).
Changing and touching "only one file" might be doable in Python or Node, but
it's not the way it should be done there either.
You should have an automated process for deployments.
Plus, if there were interdepencies between files, you'd need to fix and upload
them too, only Python wouldn't help you find which those are because the
tooling is not that good as in a statically compiled language.
Not to mention: the tendency in dynamic languages is to lament for lack of
typing and related toolsets when it comes to large scale programming. People
go from Python/Node to Go for this, or add types to JS (Typescript, Facebook's
Flow), or add type annotations to Python (see 3.5), or do the same to PHP, or
create a PHP-derived language with types (Hack), etc.
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
The Bitcoin personality cult lives on – (I post without commentary) - dpcheng2003
http://ftalphaville.ft.com/2014/02/27/1783842/the-bitcoin-personality-cult-lives-on/
======
gwern
ft.com links don't do well here because of their paywall.
~~~
dpcheng2003
Reposted now as a pastebin text. Thanks!
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Product Management Frameworks IO - rakeshnc
https://www.notion.so/nag/50-Must-Know-Product-Frameworks-6ea624ffceb647d7b706598af472aedf
======
rakeshnc
50 Must-Know Product Frameworks Use these frameworks in interviews, your day-
to-day PM Job, or in your daily life for decision making!
Benefits Utilize these frameworks for effective interview preparation
Uncover Secrets of Creating an Effective and Actionable Product Strategy
Learn How to Work Effectively and Deliver on Time
These Frameworks Help you Build the Right Product
Build a Reliable, Predictable Product Creation Process
Access Link: [https://upscri.be/ndmcd5](https://upscri.be/ndmcd5)
Portal Link: [https://www.notion.so/nag/50-Must-Know-Product-
Frameworks-6e...](https://www.notion.so/nag/50-Must-Know-Product-
Frameworks-6ea624ffceb647d7b706598af472aedf)
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Android fans: pay for your apps, please - cobrausn
http://www.pcpro.co.uk/blogs/2012/04/27/android-fans-pay-for-your-apps-please/
======
dlikhten
I'm just going to say this right now: Windows is the primary place where video
games are pirated. If you make a game, it WILL be pirated. Hell even
multiplayer will be pirated. End of story. So are all developers abandoning
windows? HELLZ NO.
What about consoles? Oh yes there's piracy on the PS3 using a software hack.
Is the PS3 being abandoned? No.
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Predict future by running 2.5M correlations in sec with GDELT and BigQuery - spountzy
http://googlecloudplatform.blogspot.com/2014/08/correlating-patterns-of-world-history-with-bigquery.html
======
lutusp
The title of this submission is misleading and isn't supported by the linked
article. No one is suggesting that this work will lead to meaningful
predictions. Correlations are not cause-effect relationships.
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Ask HN: Should I testify? - goingtogetsued
I've been contacted by a major law firm to testify against a former employer about how they've broken California and federal law. I have proof and witnessed it from a bunch of people inside so I'm not worried about that part.<p>But what will this do to my career? Now when people google me, they find good stuff like projects and presentations and blogs posts. They won't let me be anonymous and the employer is prominent and popular here so people will find out. What happens if they find this instead? Would it be a deal killer if I applied at your company?<p>I'm looking for career advice here, not legal advice. I have enough of that.
======
mattvanhorn
Tell them to subpoena you - then the choice to testify is not yours any more.
You'll have to. But you can tell future employers that you were forced, if
you'd like to.
~~~
fixxer
This is smart. Guilty as sin or not, testifying against an employer seems
risky for one's career. You want to be able to explain to future employers
what happened in a manner that takes personal character assessment out of the
equation: somebody broke the law and you got a subpoena.
EDIT: I've worked at some shops that were "cultish" and would look at
testifying without a subpoena as not being part of the team. Fucked up, but
organizations are often so. You need to do the right thing in the smartest way
possible.
~~~
evan_
> Fucked up, but organizations are often so.
You can choose not to be a part of these organizations.
~~~
fixxer
You can certainly aspire to that. Some companies are really good at hiding
their true colors.
Mortgage, kids... Sometimes you need a paycheck.
~~~
sauronlord
This is what they mean by 'your house is not an asset'
Mortgages are not inherently bad. It's what you take the mortgage for is the
bad decision.
Example:
Good:
Having a mortgage for a legal duplex (2 dwellings) and renting the other half
out, while you live in one.
Bad:
Getting a house that's one big sink hole of cash and having more
bedrooms/lawn/what have you.
You can be employed to build someone else's dreams. However there are other
options available to you that don't involve being a rat.
~~~
kragen
My reading of “your house is not an asset” is “Robert Kiyosaki apparently
failed Introduction to Accounting because he still doesn’t know the
definitions of basic accounting terms.” (Except in very rare cases, like when
the verdict against you for the neighbor kid drowning in your pool is more
than your house will sell for.)
------
humanarity
I'd say there's something even more important operating here for you than
career, and that's who do you choose to be? This is really a question it works
for you to answer yourself. Consult your own values, search your feelings, is
this something that really inspires you? Are you being you authentically if
you do testify or not? Whatever you discover, take the risk and act on that,
whichever it is. The choice that is you, even if it's risky. This is an
identity inflexion point. Get your game face on :)
~~~
Confusion
crypt1d's response on this level is invisible for being flagged, but I think
he does raise a serious point: wouldn't OP be admitting that he has broken the
law or allowed the law to be broken for a longer period of time? What would be
the consequences for him because of that?
~~~
pron
It's a civil suit, not a criminal suit, and he's not the one being sued. I
think only company officers may be personally sued for company behavior.
~~~
humanarity
Great point. I'm no law expert tho I've heard there's different types of
companies ( Delaware c ? ), as a matter of curiosity I wonder if the
indemnification changes depending on the type of company.
------
jvdh
I'm going to answer from my own experience, which may or may not fit your
situation at all (you're kind of vague about it, so there's no way to judge).
This is also in part inspired by the comment of humanarity
([https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9360218](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9360218))
Several years ago in The Netherlands we had a website blockade of The
PirateBay. Most ISPs had to block it, it was stupid, and it did not work at
all. The ISPs were challenging it legally. The question got asked: "How
effective is this blockade anyway? Can we measure it?".
I did not realise it at the time, but this was somewhat an identity inflexion
point for me, and very much changed my career.
As a scientist in computer networking, with some knowledge of Bittorrent, I
thought to myself, how hard can it be? I could take some torrents off TPB,
record IP addresses passing by and checking which ISP they come from. I
finished the bittorrent measurements, wrote a report, and tried to publish it.
Only the dean and the faculty lawyer got wind of it, and they were not amused,
and saw a risk of getting sued by the entertainment industry.
I challenged them on this, and noted that I would publish this, even without
their support. Fortunately I also got full support of my professor, and we did
get to publish it. It was used in the court case, and it helped show the
ineffectiveness of the website blockade, so it got lifted.
This little weekend project changed my research interests, has made me focus
on ethics in computer science research, and especially security research. This
has changed much of how I initially planned my career, and it has gotten me to
where I am now. I have enjoyed every minute of it, and months later also
realised I was not happy with the way my career was going.
I took some risk in doing this, but it was something I believed in. The change
was possible because I was a researcher at a university, so that made it
somewhat easier.
~~~
jacquesm
And now downloads have been made illegal. So you were right in the short term
but the longer term effects were actually worse than the blockade was!
Still, kudos for standing up for what you felt was right and not giving in in
the face of such pressure, that was pretty brave.
~~~
jvdh
I have less of a problem with downloading being illegal in general. I strongly
object to censorship in a democratic society, especially without a good
checking mechanism or rules about ending a blockade.
------
declan
A few thoughts based on my experience, which included being subpoenaed by the
U.S. Department of Justice while I was at Wired. We filed a motion to quash,
which was unsuccessful, so I was forced to take the stand. I posted the docs
here: [http://mccullagh.org/subpoena/](http://mccullagh.org/subpoena/)
So, the thoughts:
* I would refuse to testify against my former employer unless I were subpoenaed. Even then, I may move to quash the subpoena (this may be different in your case, of course).
* Being subpoenaed could include depositions and travel and courtroom testimony and rescheduled evidentiary hearings because the judge has a murder trial that's running long -- it could take weeks of your life. This is not an hourlong process. Also, everyone else involved in this process is going to be paid for their time; who pays for yours? Do you even _want_ , ethically speaking, to be paid for your time? Remember the "major law firm" does not work for you and does not have your best interests at heart; their interests may be opposed to yours. To protect yourself you could hire your own attorney, who isn't going to work for free.
* If your former employer has an active fanbase and strongly and convincingly denies your allegations, you could be attacked by name, and your family members dragged into this, online and via social media.
* There are innumerable laws and regulations, some of them rather nuts, and at least one employee at every large company may have innocently violated one of them at some point. Do the laws you believe your ex-employer violated punish behavior that _you_ personally believe should be illegal ( _malum in se_ vs. _malum prohibitum_ )? And did management know about and approve these illegal actions, or was it a rogue employee at fault? If the answer to either question is "no," you may want to drop this.
* Now that you've been contacted by a law firm, you could be subpoenaed even if you do not respond and try to drop this.
* If you believe your former employer has institutionally engaged in actions that are illegal and unethical, you have other options beyond testifying. You could write up your experiences and post them publicly, anonymously if necessary.
~~~
carrotleads
This..
When the rubber hits the road this is what happens and worse
------
lisa_henderson
Let's be realistic: there are many companies that won't hire you after this.
The question is, are those the companies that you want to work for? It's a
tough choice, of course.
You mention that the company you worked at is popular here on Hacker News. So
let's assume we are talking about Apple or Google or perhaps AirBnB. So from
now on, when people look up your name, they will see something like "Testified
against Apple".
A lot of companies will quietly remove you from consideration, if they see
that you have testified. And, sad to say, this might exclude you from a lot of
the better paying jobs in the industry.
All the same, you have to ask yourself, how will you feel about yourself if
you don't testify? What kind of world do you want to live in? What sort of
tech industry do you want to live in?
~~~
javert
There's got to be lots of companies that, as a policy, don't do illegal
things. Especially smaller businesses that can't afford to break the law. But
larger ones too.
Presumably, those kinds of places just wouldn't care if you testified against
a former employer who broke the law. Because it just wouldn't matter.
~~~
poikniok
This to me is a silly idea, as I am confident that if you let me follow any
person, or work in any company for a day, I could find laws that they are
breaking. Everybody breaks laws, and nobody wants to have the passenger in
their car report them for speeding 5mph over the limit.
~~~
Squarel
The OP does not seem to be testifying against a company for under declaring
the amount of stationary they have though, unless that involves major law
firms, and breaks state and federal law.
------
x0x0
There's a lot of naive bullshit in here, with people running their mouths
about integrity or other nonsense. Remember that the only person prosecuted
for waterboarding is the whisteblower John Kiriakou, and he got two and a half
years for his trouble.
My point is, you need to look out for number one and not let some law firm
looking for (their own) payday get you entangled in their profits, because
none of them give a fuck less about you.
So without more clarity on which laws were broken and your role in this (are
you the primary witness? Sole witness? One of a dozen?) it's hard to give
specific advice.
But just don't let yourself get screwed because some lawyers see a payday they
damn well aren't going to share with you.
ps -- if you get a subpoena, get your own lawyer. Maybe even get one now; a
lawyer's job is risk management and that's what you need.
ps2 -- Depending on what happened, when people ask, "What kind of person do
you want to be" the response might be, "The sort who has a career and can
afford indoor living." Here's another whisteblower about mortgage fraud who
has destroyed her career [1]
[1] [http://www.rollingstone.com/politics/news/the-9-billion-
witn...](http://www.rollingstone.com/politics/news/the-9-billion-
witness-20141106)
~~~
marrington
"integrity or other nonsense"
------
Qworg
Testify. It demonstrates integrity. Any firm that doesn't want to hire you,
especially if the case is clear cut, is not worth working for.
~~~
mavdi
This is bad advice. This is living life on hard mode. I wouldn't testify. You
don't have anything to gain other than morality points, but you'll have
everything real to lose.
~~~
BurritoAlPastor
Confucius once wrote that 'seeing the right thing and not doing it is
cowardly'. This is still true today. But you are right that the life of a
coward is easier.
Living a virtuous life is always 'hard mode'; if it were not, would we ever
have bothered to identify virtue?
~~~
mavdi
Why stop here then? Why not donate 90% of your income to charity and live in a
shanty town?
~~~
SnacksOnAPlane
Sometimes doing the wrong thing (or at least "not the right thing") allows you
to do a much bigger right thing in the end.
For example, Bill Gates. We all hated on Microsoft in the 90s. But Gates has
become an amazingly generous humanitarian, which he couldn't have done if he
donated all his money to charity in the beginning and didn't focus on
ruthlessly building his company.
------
tptacek
Data point (as requested): I can't imagine factoring trial testimony into a
hiring decision, nor can I imagine wasting years of my career I'll never get
back at the kind of company that would do that.
------
porter
I don't think any company here will tell you it'd be a deal breaker. Certainly
it will have an impact though. You could testify but still have a plan for
controlling what comes up when people search your name. For example, by doing
SEO on yourself.
Also, if the law that was broken was actually a major thing then I'd be hard
pressed not to testify. It might affect your career, but only with companies
that themselves have questionable ethics. You probably don't want to work for
them anyway.
~~~
flurp
I agree with the advice above, and adding on to it, as a founder... If the
case is morally and ethically sound then I wouldn't hold it against you,
probably applaud you. On the contrary if it's a shakedown of sorts I would be
questionable.
As an exercise I would look into the recent lawsuit against VC firm Kleiner
Perkins. Search the web for "kpbc lawsuit" and read how people have reacted to
that case.
~~~
smitherfield
I'd agree with this; if it's something along the lines of "executives were
embezzling from the company," I'd consider it a sign of integrity. If it's
"Uber isn't complying with taxi regulations!" then I wouldn't want to work
with you.
~~~
tinco
"Uber isn't complying with taxi regulations!"
->
"XXX isn't complying with YYY regulations!"
->
"Apple isn't complying with workforce competition regulations!"
So what you're saying is there's a certain level of integrity, and if someone
goes over that level of integrity then they are too integer, and you don't
want to work with them?
~~~
Andrew_Quentin
No. What he is saying is that there are some common sense good laws he agrees
with and there are some outdated laws that no reasonable person would want to
continue to uphold and need to be changed but our grandpas in congress have
not gotten around to it yet.
------
throwaway78821
My name is associated with a lawsuit where I testified against a former
employee. It's all in the public record, but it's almost impossible to find
using Google unless you know a few of the details. Like you, I've been
creating a lot of my own content for a while and that's still what dominates
the results for my name in Google. From a practical standpoint, unless you get
mentioned by name in all the resulting press, you're probably safe.
------
kichuku
If you do want to testify, definitely do it. If you are worried about people
able to Google you and find that you testified, there is a lot of ways to
solve that problem.
You don't even need to go for extensive SEO, as Search Engines may change
their algorithms every now and then.
What you can do is, you can create a website for your professional profile
where you write blog posts. In one of the blog posts, you can clearly explain
your standpoint in your own words. Just link this website to your Linkedin and
other social networks. This is important because you have to say in your own
words what you want others to see about you, so as to nullify any false idea
others may get on googling you.
The recruiter who is going to hire you will surely see the link to the website
that YOU have listed and if he really cares about you, that person will read
the blog posts. So you definitely have control.
Celebrities all across the world have to deal with stuff which might malign
their image, every single day. And you can notice that many celebrities just
give a clear statement in their own words and it works out well.
Finally, it comes down to the decision whether you would like to testify or
not.
~~~
josinalvo
not sure if you should testify. If you do, remember that there are services to
clean up your image on google ...
~~~
josinalvo
btw, did you try carrers.stackexchange ?
we here seem to be using a lot of opinion and not much fact ...
------
alain94040
It really depends on what the lawsuit and testimony are about. If it's a
frivolous kind of lawsuit that you disagree with, don't volunteer. If the
lawsuit is about something that you support, your ethics should compell you to
testify.
Either way, be aware that you can be forced to testify. As long as your
testimony is based purely on facts, then I don't see future employers as
having issues with it.
------
kelukelugames
As someone who blogs about interviews and legal issues, I am very paranoid
about my online footprint. I have talked to many of my friends who are
recruiters at tech companies. The recruiters don't dig that deep and the
interviewers are discouraged from looking at more than the candidate's
LinkedIn profile.
I am still inundated with invitations to interview.
I think you will be fine too.
Edit: Look up the names of people who have sued their employers.
[http://www.eeoc.gov/eeoc/newsroom/release/](http://www.eeoc.gov/eeoc/newsroom/release/)
Try googling their names and see if you can link them to the cases. I bet the
connections are hard to make.
------
stevewepay
Testifying isn't as big of a deal as someone who bring a lawsuit against their
company. There are a lot of people who testify in lawsuits, and their names
never make it to the articles. I wouldn't worry too much about it.
------
teammatters
I'm in slightly similar situation in terms of speaking out against a huge firm
in the Valley. This firm found out about my east coast start-up and invited us
to demo our novel technology. They made promises of buying it for lots of
money. Well we flew out there and it was a nightmare, as we were treated like
dogs and or worse.
There is a ton of bad behavior going on in this industry and I have pondered
whether or not to write about our experience as a warning to all other start-
uppers/innovators. I've been going back and forth on whether or not to come
out and say who the company is and those who scammed us out of our technology.
Though will doing such make me look bad, when the narrative is Silicon Valley
companies are no friend to the little guys with no connections!?!
~~~
carrotleads
Well in this case you have to speak out.. to atleast signal to the next set of
scammers to not mess with you.
~~~
teammatters
Scammers HA this is one of the biggest companies in the world. They have some
real jerks working for them!
------
whizzkid
"major law firm" \--> you are not the main character in the movie. So please
keep this in mind. As soon as something goes wrong, you will not be first one
to be saved from the bad situation. At the same time this is a risk that can
lead to both good and bad stuff.
For the career advice;
You will be a lot more known than your projects since this topic will be
covered by media as well.
This can be risky too.
The bad:
If law firm loses the case, then you will end up with them as a loser too
which will lower your chances getting a similar job like you are working now.
Keep in mind that you former employer also have lawyers to defend themselves,
and at the end after the case, they will most probably be still operating.
The good:
You will be known as someone that actually did something about the problem.
This can open opportunities for you to work for/as something else than what
you are doing now. (they might want to host you on TV, interviews, people
would would want to hire you to do some other things, i don't know maybe IT
specialist for law firms?)
For both cases, doing what you are doing now MAY not be easier for you after
this. (This is my opinion)
Taking or not taking this risk should be ONLY your decision since advantages
and disadvantages will mostly affect you.
There are some other things came to my mind that might be worth thinking about
as well.
\- Do you have a family to take care? (taking risks are easier when you are
single)
\- Would you be happy doing something else than what you are doing now?
\- What are you expecting that will happen when the case is over? (How will
you feel about it?)
And one more thing,
Since i am not a lawyer, you actually can find another law firm or a lawyer
and ask them about this offer you got. And listen what they are saying about
the whole thing.
Good luck!
------
lordnacho
If it's clear the company has behaved immorally, and that you have no ulterior
motive, I don't think anyone would hold it against you.
When people are thinking of hiring you, they aren't thinking whether you'll
sue them legitimately. They're afraid of a spurious suit.
------
noir_lord
I'd be more likely to hire someone who testified all things been equal, it's
an incredible indicator of integrity.
~~~
marrington
agree
------
hypatiadotca
The standard you walk past is the standard you accept. (a line from
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QaqpoeVgr8U](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QaqpoeVgr8U)
, if you've not seen it)
Can you live with yourself ethically if you don't testify?
Are there ways that telling the truth about what you witnessed could actually
be an advantage to your career?
Say, for example, that you witnessed sexual harassment and were put on the
stand to talk about that. Sure, there may be some shitweasel who won't hire
you because you "snitched" \- but there may be a woman founder of a healthier
and more profitable company ([http://qz.com/361602/companies-run-by-women-
perform-better/](http://qz.com/361602/companies-run-by-women-perform-better/)
, just sayin') who takes your having testified as a positive, rather than a
negative, signal.
Integrity counts for a lot. If someone doesn't want to hire you because you
showed integrity under difficult circumstances, did you really want to work
for them in the first place?
Now if you're worried about testifying because you yourself behaved
unethically, that's a whole other story.
------
colechristensen
The kind of company you want to work for is the kind of company that looks
positively on the responsible and professional response to difficult
situations like this.
Not everyone is willing, interested, or capable of affording themselves the
luxury of working for such a place though it can be very rewarding to make
those life choices.
In this sort of circumstance the merits of the case might make a difference to
future employers and to yourself, whether the legal action and your
participation in it seems morally just.
You have to weigh your specific circumstances and the circumstances of the
case to make your decision, likely nobody but you can really understand enough
to give solid advice.
------
Bluestrike2
Your question is a lot trickier than you might think at first. A lot of
comments seem to imply that any potential employer that opts to pass on your
resume based on you testifying is a company that you wouldn't want to work
for. Maybe, but I don't think that's how most HR departments would be
considering it.
Their goal is to add value to the company with each hire. They could agree
with your ethics and even applaud your speaking out, but still pass on you
because your past history as a whistleblower (or at least close enough to one
for the term to broadly fit) makes them nervous about what you might do over a
difference of opinion even if _they_ believe their company to be ethical and
law-abiding. Unless you happen to be a major witness in the case and the
defense manages to drag you thoroughly through the mud, it's unlikely that
your CV will be tarnished enough for it to be automatically rejected as though
you marked down a felony conviction on the application.
It's not completely analogous, but imagine a hypothetical case where Edward
Snowden is applying for a position at Google. Were you to poll Google
employees, I'd expect strong support for his actions. Hell, his leaks
_clearly_ benefited Google by informing them what the NSA was up to and how
they were tapping into their internal traffic. But would that support prevent
them from worrying about what might happen if he disagreed about certain
activities at Google? Snowden already demonstrated a strength of character
strong enough to go against the massed might of the United States government
of all entities, and for all of their marketshare, Google's own reach pales in
comparison. I don't think it'd automatically disqualify Snowden, but it's
something that would probably be considered at least in part.
For an employer, it boils down to a simple risk analysis. What's the
likelihood that the applicant will find themselves in a similar situation
again, and how does that weigh against the value that their work would add to
the company? There's really no simple answer here, let alone a guaranteed one.
If you're a strong candidate that they'd otherwise want, it'll matter less
would be the case if you had little to offer them compared to other
candidates.
------
pvg
It's fairly straightforward - follow the legal advice of counsel that
represents you.
It's not going to affect your career in the slightest, unless it's a gigantic,
newsworthy case and even then, it's unlikely anyone will care about your
participation as a witness.
------
gojomo
How controversial are the laws broken?
For example, do you think they're good laws? Or do you think these laws are
widely broken, at least technically, by all comparable companies because
they're unrealistic, and any harm to non-consenting third parties is
negligible?
Do only a few of the worst operators, or worst divisions of a larger company,
break these laws? Do the laws effectively protect identifiable victims?
This could matter, because with good laws, lawful operators are happy to see
transgressing competitors take a fall. And lawful operators need to hire
people who help them stay compliant.
But with problematic laws, that are hard to obey and thus widely violated but
with no harm to others, people who (cheerfully) become involved in their
enforcement can become distrusted. (Did you earnestly try to check the
lawbreaking when first observed, or just stockpile evidence for a later legal
assault? The 2nd strategy can appear to be scheming or disloyal even if the
law is righteous.)
IFF (and it's a big IFF) anyone ever sees your testimony as part of a hiring-
evaluation, whether they care will depend on whether the case looks like a
shake-down/gotcha/technical-violation, or a remedy-of-great-injustice.
OTOH, I tend to agree with others that this is unlikely to be a big deal.
Individual witnesses don't get that much coverage. Unless you're the
plaintiff/whistleblower, you're just one of many people called upon to tell
the truth. The case could easily be resolved long before your testimony
becomes public. Even if it seems at the moment like a giant controversy
involving titans of the industry, it'll soon become a footnote, not a
headline, about your career, and equally as likely to help (with most major
and upstanding employers) as it could hurt.
------
Taek
It would change my thoughts on hiring you. What were the crimes? What were the
values you were defending? Are those values I want in my company? How much
were you sticking your neck out?
Your answers and justifications could swing the pedlndulum either way. I would
want to know that you believed you did the right thing, and that you took the
time to really question what the right thing was.
------
MarkPNeyer
i was a named plaintiff in a class action lawsuit against google in 2009. that
didn't stop them from contacting me repeatedly to try and hire me, and i did
work for google for a bit in 2013.
i wouldn't worry about it.
------
sixdimensional
This is definitely not legal advice, just some personal experience/thoughts.
You're thinking only about your career? How about the mental and emotional
toll that being involved in a court case can take? Don't doubt that there is
one. These are all costs to you.
This may be too simplistic and quite conservative, but if you are not
personally involved in the legal case, nor the actions that were taken which
were illegal, then it is the company's problem and not your own. I like to
hope the legal system was designed to get to the bottom of the issue, which
has already been identified.
From a career or personal perspective, it might be a better idea to stay out
of it unless you must be involved, either because it is needed to serve
justice or because it is required because you are subpoenaed. Why not let the
court decide if that is needed? One thing I know for sure is, if one side or
the other needs/wants you bad enough, you will get dragged into it.
On the other side, if you don't need to be involved, it is probably safer to
stay on the sideline. Especially if there is any chance that you aren't sure
about the legality of the issues involved. Why take the unnecessary risk and
burden to yourself? The company probably wouldn't do that for you.
As for your career question - I think most reasonable employers may ask, but
would realize that the actions of a corporation do not equal those of an
individual working at that corporation. I do think your career can survive
being associated with such an entity, even if you have to be involved.
Worst case, change the entry on your resume to make the company name anonymous
when applying for jobs... instead of XYZ, Corp, just say "A Major Consumer
Technology Firm", etc. I have seen folks do that and it is not totally
unacceptable.
Good luck with your decision.
------
pekk
HN tends to be populated by people who either are or claim to be very
successful, and are very confident they will always have well-paid work.
But many other people have to pay their bills and exist in a hiring
environment which is somewhat hostile - maybe they can't move to the Bay Area,
they are not very outgoing and networked, rumors have been spread about them,
they are old - this industry is punishingly picky and hiring managers like
nothing better than filtering you out. So, bottom line, a lot of us don't have
leverage and do have to play stupid corporate games (and work at shitty and
occasionally unethical employers) on pain of losing our livelihoods. It's all
fun and games until you have to stop writing code and go work at Wal-mart.
If this issue is of Schindler's List magnitude, I guess you have to bite the
bullet, but if all you're doing is making a law firm happy by being a +1 that
might not be worth the risk of self-destruction.
------
mthq
This article gives some ethical analyses:
[http://slatestarcodex.com/2014/08/23/nobody-likes-a-
tattleta...](http://slatestarcodex.com/2014/08/23/nobody-likes-a-tattletale/)
------
2pasc
It depends if you plan on working in big Companies or small to medium size
Companies/startups.
Large public Companies (assuming we are talking about a case against a public
Company) may be reluctant to have you because HR might freak out. HR is all
about damage control and compliance. But startups to medium sized Companies
can be talked into it, and if you work is valued and appreciated, you should
be fine. As a founder or executive of several Companies from 1 to 80 people
here in California, I would not take this against you.
As a side note, I would also advise you to do some SEO on yourself as was said
by porter. It's unfortunate, but worth it.
------
ChuckMcM
So if the law firm has contacted you then it makes things a bit clearer.
Either you'll testify willingly or, if they feel your testimony is important
enough, they will subpoena you to appear and you'll testify anyway. (or serve
time in jail for contempt, which is not advised)
So it really isn't a choice of "do I or don't I" it is really about the choice
you made when asked. The actual choice here may be whether or not you need
representation.
------
topkai22
I'll give the consultant answer- it depends. There are still a surprising
number of employers who don't do a internet search on prospective employees,
but assuming you apply to one that does, testimony would only have a negative
effect if they a) found the testimony and b) thought you to be risk because of
it.
As others have said a) is pretty easy to avoid if you aren't the star witness
in a major trial and you have any sort of web presence (or you have the same
name as someone famous.) Assuming a potential employer did hear about the
trial, they are going to care a lot more if your testimony is related to
something they MIGHT be doing\accused of doing. If you are being asked to
testify that your ex-employer over worked employees or allowed a culture of
harassment to exist, then sadly the HR person or hiring manager may worry that
you'd make an accusation against them because those conditions are sadly
pervasive and\or subjective. If on the other hand you are testifying that the
ex employer is clubbing baby seals to make fancy watch bands, then they are
much less likely to care because they know they aren't also clubbing baby
seals (or if they are, you should be happy they pass on you.)
On a personal level, I'd probably ask them to get a subpoena and testify. I'm
reading between the lines, but it sounds like you think it's the right thing
to do. If you really believe that then it's worth doing, even if it might have
s marginal effect on your some job applications down the line. Tech is big,
good engineers are scarce, and most jobs will come from your personal network
anyways, and the small downside is worth sleeping well at night.
------
grandalf
If you feel the law that was broken should be upheld then go ahead and
testify. If I were considering hiring you I'd probably look at your decision
to testify as a positive one unless I strongly disagreed with the law.
While I don't think we should selectively obey laws, there are certainly some
that are very stupid and I'd question the judgment of someone who went to
great lengths to punish a firm for violating one.
------
louithethrid
Most companys CEOs have a "My Tribe" versus the rest of the world attitude,
with the law beeing defined by themselves. They will see you as a potential
traitor no matter what if you testify. Good or bad arguments for or against
that dont factor into that view on the world.
You certainly can try to fit into that perspective, but those vasalls and
slaves turn productive companys into king-courts that go nowhere. Better start
sooner then later to openly not be one of those. So it actually depends on the
crime comitted. If the crime in question was part of such a court and the
shenanigans those produce. Hit it. And write it in your resume. Dont hide it.
Show it and the reason why you did it. And would do it again. Make clear, that
kings without cloths have a tendency to loose there head throughout history
and that speeding up the fall of unmerited authority is a virtue.
Also, it wont be found out over the web, but via personal contacts. You and
everbody meets twice in live, and they will chat. So if you do testify- tell
it right now.
------
seasoup
It will hurt your career, sure some companies will be enlightened and not hold
it against you but some will. That means less places will hire you, meaning
less prospects. Are those places you would want to work otherwise? Maybe.
That doesn't mean don't testify though, what's more important to you, your
career or getting the company punished for what it did?
------
erikb
I suggest that you don't testify for the reasons you've mentioned. Even a good
company with good people will have a harder time hiring you. When you hire
someone and you have to choose between different people, then a normal HR
manager will choose the one that is less noisy. They are not looking for
someone who does the right thing, but someone who will provide more value to
the company than trouble.
The only thing you haven't mentioned that might be relevant is if your silence
might hurt someone. Then you have to weight own disadvantage against their
disadvantage. Although I'd probably do the moral choice, I don't think it's
the smarter one. In real life moral decisions often don't pay off, not even
for the people you try to protect.
Also if you have spouse or other people who depend on you (e.g.,
brothers/sisters) discuss with these people and make a decision together. Your
decision will also influence their life.
------
BurningFrog
I think it depends a lot on what the actual infraction is.
If it's something that most people in your industry actually think is bad, go
for it.
Then again, there are now so many and so broad regulations that any business
will violate some on a daily basis. I would like to work with people who don't
go to the legal system whenever they can.
------
dataker
I don't wanna sound evil, but why not something else? You could let them know
you've got proof and try to get into a deal.
After that, even if you left the company, they wouldn't get sued or have any
media attention. You wouldn't be known as 'the whistleblower' and probably get
a decent compensation.
------
CodeWriter23
I can't tell you what you should do. I can say for myself, what matters the
most to me is what looks back at me in the mirror. If I felt my former
employer had done something for which they should be held accountable, I would
testify. I would not worry about future employers who would discard my resume
over my choice...I would instead welcome the benefit of their filtering
action, which would lead me away from companies that are intent on breaking
the law, leaving only companies that are lawful and ethical as potential
employers. Companies who would view my actions as those of someone with
integrity. Because the bottom line, the only company who would pass someone
over for something like this is one that operates on legally shaky grounds to
begin with.
------
Mz
_The fearful are caught as often as the bold.
Security is mostly a superstition. It does not exist in nature, nor do the
children of men as a whole experience it. Avoiding danger is no safer in the
long run than outright exposure. Life is either a daring adventure, or
nothing.
It is wonderful how much time good people spend fighting the devil. If they
would only expend the same amount of energy loving their fellow men, the devil
would die in his own tracks of ennui._
The above are all three quotes from _Helen Keller._
I will suggest that you do whatever it is you believe to be ethical. Well paid
careers are often careers in which character and trustworthiness are
important. It is part of why you get paid: They can trust you with the keys to
the thing or the personal data on people or whatever. If a law firm knew to
contact you, then it isn't a secret that you have insider info. If you do the
unethical thing, people learn of that.
If you want some "plausible deniability," sure, tell them to subpoena you. But
reputation matters immensely and when something like this comes into your
life, the question is not whether or not you can avoid the consequences. There
will almost certainly be consequences. There will almost certainly be a price
to pay and, whatever you choose, the price may well be painful. When all is
said and done, do what you believe to be the ethical thing. It will do the
most to protect your employability. So avoiding the consequences should not
enter your mind. The choice here is _which set of consequences do you prefer?_
There is also no price you can place on a clear conscience. I like being able
to sleep well at night. I have a medical condition, so a good night's sleep is
something I have fought hard for. I would hate to lose my good sleep habits
over a guilty conscience. Having lived my entire life suffering from a serious
medical condition, I believe firmly that _bars do not a prison make._ The
prison of our own body or our own mind is often far worse than anything anyone
else can do to us.
Best of luck with both your decision and the path forward.
------
zefei
You are what defines your career, not the other way around. There are a lot of
companies out there, some will see testifying as good, some bad. If your
choice is true to yourself, and the company you want to work for really
doesn't like that, I'd say eventually you will not go along well with that
company and this acts as a "fail fast" filter.
Finding a good career path may take quite some time, but working for the wrong
company can cost magnitudes of more time.
For most HN readers, including me, the answer is an obvious "testify", because
we see it as a big plus. Do you want to work for people who see it as the
right thing to do, or people who avoid it?
------
Frozenlock
Edit: OP, if you read what I wrote, you will see why you shouldn't use the
number of upvotes to make your decision: the point is precisely that a
'popular' choice can quickly turn south. At this point, all these upvotes will
have disappeared and you will be alone facing the consequences.
\----
If they did something so awful that it's keeping you awake at night, do it.
Otherwise, don't.
...
Wait... are you still reading?
Don't!
....
Okay, darn it...
If you STILL want to do it:
Career-wise, make sure it's something which is universally seen as awful _AND
will probably continue to be seen as such_. If the wind changes direction,
there's still going to be a record about what you've done. Things seen as
obviously right can be seen as obviously wrong in the time of a single decade.
When this happens, the 'major law firm' and all those who did encourage you to
do it will magically vanish.
> Would it be a deal killer if I applied at your company?"
Depends on what and why you did it.
If you testify only because someone broke the law, from my point of view as a
hypothetical employer, you are a huge liability. Most people break the law
multiple times a day and don't even know it. I honestly don't want people
around me who are ready to report me just 'because I broke the law'.
If you've done it for moral reasons, even if I agree with you, I might have to
refuse to hire you because it might gives a bad image to my business.
Now, what if I agree with you and you did something which is currently
politically correct. Is there any advantages? Not really... I still don't know
if you are good at your job; I'll have to evaluate you the same as everybody
else.
In short, there's no advantages (employer/employee-wise) to doing it. Only
potential downsides.
It's like behind an asshole on a social network. It might gives your friend a
few giggles, but it can hurt you years down the line.
~~~
Frozenlock
I'm genuinely curious about the downvotes. Which part of what I said didn't
you like?
Is it because you think he should testify, and you just downvote the opposed
side?
Is it because you don't agree with my hypothetical employer?
Is it because you don't like the distinction between morality and law?
It would be much more helpful to say what you don't agree with.
~~~
lmz
I've been watching the votes from the start and the ones against testifying
get downvoted quite often. If I had to guess, it is probably because those
voters refuse to believe that they will someday have considerations other than
their "ethics" or "integrity".
~~~
Frozenlock
Yeah.
The sad thing about this is that OP specifically asked for career advice, not
an open "should I / would you do it".
------
bro_haskell
I would not. Even firms that are not doing anything blatantly illegal steer
clear from whistleblowers and the like. A recruiter that googles you and finds
you testifying against a former employer may just pass on your resume.
~~~
bro_haskell
In terms of career, there is no possible upside to this; I don't think anyone
is more likely to hire you because of this. And, there are plenty of
downsides.
What's good for society may not always be good for the individual.
~~~
bastiaan
Why wound't an employer want to hire someone who is honest and complies with
the law?
------
gershwin
Do what you think is the right thing to do. Any firm that doesn't hire you
based on your decision is saving you the frustration of working with a group
that doesn't match your ethics.
------
late2part
Do you think you can go your whole career making everyone like what you do?
If not, do what you think is right. You'll be your best critic and fan, pay
attention to what's good for you.
Separately, if you want to spend your life working for soulless corporations,
then the publicity could hurt you.
If you want to work for good people that understand real issues, they'll
appreciate what you do if you handle yourself honorably.
This reminds me of John Boyd's famous question: "Do you want to be somebody or
do you want to do something?"
------
hewitt
Any action you take causes some reaction somewhere out there, be it now, or
later; sometimes you know but other times you have no idea where that
somewhere is or will be. Whatever you decide think strategically and long
term.
It's highly admirable to care about the world, but sometimes it turns out the
world will not care about you.
Listen to all the opinions/advice you can get, adjust your beliefs in the
light of this new information, then make a decision you'll be most conformable
with.
~~~
jschwartzi
Sometimes you have to have the courage to care anyway, or nothing will change.
When you look back, history is full of people giving a shit against all odds.
------
dragonwriter
If you have the information and the law firm knows this, and you resist
voluntary testimony, both your testimony and the evidence in your position can
be subpoenaed, at which point you will legally be compelled to provide the
testimony and evidence. I've heard of this happening to people who didn't want
to testify, and also of people preferring to be subpoenaed so that they could
honestly say to others that they testified only because compelled.
------
chatmasta
What do you gain from testifying? Probably nothing. So why would you do it for
free?
Maybe I grew up listening to too much rap music, but personally I would stay
on the sidelines.
------
mazlix
Career advice- it's a wash I don't see how it realistically would hurt you or
benefit you much either.
However, don't get pressured into doing something you're not comfortable
doing. If you morally want to do something, but only feel comfortable doing it
anonymously just stick to that. And if the law firm doesn't see any benefit
from your anonymous reporting then I would recommend to just leave it at that.
------
throwaway78821
My name is associated with a lawsuit where I testified against a former
employee. It's all in the public record, and if you try really hard, you can
find all about it on Google. But it would take you a lot of work. Unless you
get mentioned by name in all the associated press, you're probably safe,
especially given your projects and presentations and blogs posts.
------
dmgbrn
While the "tell them to subpoena you" answer is obviously more correct than
the "do the authentic thing" one, I want to point out that by making certain
sacrifices (you probably shouldn't make any babies if you're going this route)
it's entirely possible to have a career where you simply make the ethical
decision every step of the way.
------
drallison
I would recommend that you engage a good lawyer, one with significant
litigation experience and an understanding of the issues at hand, to represent
you and your interests, which are different and distinct from either of the
parties. Assuming that you are a fact witness and that your testimony is
confined to facts, your good name and reputation will not be sullied.
------
room271
People are giving surprising answers here. But it is really quite simple:
\- do you think the company did something wrong?
\- do you want to help discourage other companies from doing the same thing in
the future?
If the answer is yes to both, then you should testify.
The truth is, no one here has a crystal ball that will tell them the impact of
testifying on your future. In life, you sometimes have to just go with what
you think it right.
~~~
humanarity
Yes. You don't know so choose on your values. It's a fallacy to judge choices
by their results anyway. You sound like a prosecutor, capable of convincing
people to testify! :)
------
andreyf
It would not be a deal killer if I saw this when I Googled your name while
researching your background. Depending on the nature of the case, I might even
bring it up in an in-person interview as interesting smalltalk, as it
definitely sounds like it could be a good story.
------
benjohnson
Testify.
As an employeer, the kind of lawsuits that give me pause would be from a
sanctamonious employee out to make a quick buck.
This lawsuit look like the testamony is coming from a principaled employee:
the kind of employee that I would be proud to work with that would call me to
better behaviour.
------
eonw
I've worked for a number of employers that violated state and federal laws, in
fact one asked me to lie on in a federal court on their behalf.
Ive always kept my mouth shut for the same reasons... most employers are doing
something wrong, and no one likes a tattletail.
------
andersonmvd
That's your chance to do something that is worth for the world. IMHO you
should not let it pass. Good recruteirs will not judge you by that. If they
do, they aren't good recruiters. And good companies should have good
recruiters.
------
aepearson
Seems like any company you would potentially work for that is turned off by
the fact you testified against a former employer who was BREAKING THE
LAW...probably isn't the type of place you should be working. Right?
------
mikgan
Don't be afraid, I would always hold someone with ethics above a peer of
comparable ability and background. Testifying against someone who has done
wrong would only prove an ethical standing.
------
dtcarlso
Tell the law firm to f*%k off. Attorneys are vultures and just care about
themselves (spent most my life working with them). You are just toilet paper
to them. What is the benefit of testifying?
------
trollian
I wouldn't want to work anywhere that wouldn't hire someone for testifying
against wrongdoing. Ideally we'd be more concerned that you weren't a
whistleblower.
------
honksillet
I think most companies are more worried about hiring an employee of POOR
integrity. Such a person is more likely to shirk work and be a liability. You
should definitely testify.
------
alextgordon
Why not offset?
Instead of doing the world a service by testifying, you could do the world a
service by not buying t-shirts made in sweatshops, or something like that.
The moralising in this thread is too much.
------
spacemanmatt
If you testify, a company that is good and wants good people to work there
might see you in a more positive light. This can have positive external
effects.
------
anonymfus
Imagine that there are thousands of people in the same situation as you. Do
you want all of them to testify or to keep their mouths closed?
------
professionis
I would say if you apply for big companies, it probably doesn't matter. The
people who hire you are also employee. But startup may hold that against you,
if they aren't very good companies. Also what you can do is to write an
article about why you choose to testify, to huffpost blog or similar blogs (it
is actually quite easy to write a blog there, especially with your story),
then when people search, they hear the real story about you, not just a media
coverage of the case.
------
dec0dedab0de
If you agree with the law, testify. If you do not agree with the law keep your
mouth shut. Anything else lacks integrity.
------
JabavuAdams
It would not affect my decision to hire you. In fact, I'd probably admire you
more for doing the right thing.
------
rando289
First off: You already have google results, this one will probably not be on
the first page, and you can easily push it down further.
Secondly: A good employer is interested in your current abilities to fulfil
the role they need, and will ignore unrelated information.
I've worried about having anti-commercial anti-proprietary statements on my
google results, but I've never had a problem getting job offers from
proprietary software companies.
------
idlewords
You don't need career advice, you need to degauss your moral compass.
~~~
x0x0
I really respect you, but that's spoken by a person relatively unlikely to
need to convince someone else to hire him again.
~~~
nandemo
Come on. I just want to see a reply from ONE person on HN (presumably working
as a programmer or related job) who had to testify against an employer in the
US and then faced significant difficulties in getting a job.
------
digitalpacman
If you don't care about the crime, don't do it.
------
impish19
Would you mind specifying what was the law being broken?
------
sydney6
Try to imagine how you would think about this if you were 80 years old. Don't
do something you fear you would regret sometime later. Be sure about yourself
and only about yourself.
------
theorique
What's the personal benefit for you, if you _do_ testify? It sounds like they
are asking you to go out on a limb, without compensating you.
------
mattmaroon
FWIW, I wouldn't hold it against a prospective employee if they testified that
their former employer did something illegal.
------
Grue3
Is it Gawker? Please be Gawker.
------
hellbanner
If it's a deal killer for a company, then that company may have a precedent of
acting illegally or immorally.
------
johndevor
I'd say the only reason you shouldn't is if you disagree with the law.
Otherwise, I'd testify.
------
scandox
Do you want to be a free person or the indirectly indentured slave of a small
group of large organisations?
------
teekert
So you want to work for companies that won't hire you because you speak up
when you witness injustice?
------
ScottBurson
Testifying in such a case certainly wouldn't be a negative for being hired
into my group.
------
jedanbik
Do the right thing.
------
aforty
Do what's right for others and it'll be right for you too.
------
louwrentius
What is the moral thing to do?
------
MichaelCrawford
When the end comes and you look back on your life, how will reflect on the
choices you made?
I would testify.
Consider that the law firm can subpoena you. If the choose to do that you
would have no choice but to testify - or rather, you could be prosecuted if
you choose not to.
~~~
pbhjpbhj
Presumably in California USA you can be forced to take the stand as witness
but not compelled to bear testimony or indeed speak? (eg
[http://criminal.findlaw.com/criminal-rights/fifth-
amendment-...](http://criminal.findlaw.com/criminal-rights/fifth-amendment-
right-against-self-incrimination.html) penultimate heading).
~~~
MichaelCrawford
The fifth amendment right against self-incrimination only applies to criminal
matters, not civil matters. There is a lot about employment law, such as the
Americans with Disabilities Act that is civil and not criminal.
Also it is the right against SELF incrimination. One can be compelled to
incriminate others.
~~~
pbhjpbhj
Surely as late2part's sibling post sort of suggests without hearing your
testimony the judge can't determine whether it's likely to incriminate you or
not - you're called as witness to an RTA that you weren't involved in but you
were running drugs at the time? Or you're called on a employment law issue but
you should have been under a non-compete [which of course may not be legal,
but you don't know that and you can't disclose it without _potentially_
incriminating yourself]? Or ...
What's the measure for "self incrimination". For example if I'm called as a
witness for a relatively minor offence (non-violent theft say) but it will
mean giving evidence that I was cheating on my spouse; that's not criminal but
it's potentially going to ruin my life, why would I testify?
What about the converse, there's almost always something you could decide was
unlawful, you were speeding, you dropped litter, you jaywalked, you illegally
parked - if your testimony might reveal such things then can you claim the
fifth?
------
MichaelCrawford
When Rosa Parks refused to give up her seat on the bus to a white person, she
lost her job as a seamstress. No doubt she found it difficult to find work
after that.
~~~
icebraining
But do you blame everyone else who didn't refuse?
~~~
MichaelCrawford
That's a tough question.
Some would have had a lot more to lose than she did; say someone who had an
outstanding arrest warrant, someone who owed a lot of money, no I would not
blame them.
------
mkramlich
do you have FU money in the bank? financially can you retire now? if not, I
think its wiser to say no. Caveat if this is a case of something truly evil
that was done. If its more of a protocol/regulatory/victimless kind of law,
then I'd argue its not worth hurting yourself financially over. Again, unless
you already have FU money in the bank.
There is no single perfect advice anyone can give. This is my off-the-cuff
sense for what my own thought process would be.
~~~
varelse
As someone who is currently getting screwed over for helping someone out, by
the person I helped out, because the thing I let him do was done improperly
and it has caused ~$50K in damages I will likely end up footing, I agree 100%
(I'm not going to provide details here just take it as given that I did
someone a solid and they #$%^ed me hard in return, and yes, I have a lawyer,
that's factored into the $50K).
IMO in our bizarre litigation-driven society, no good comes out of putting
yourself out there unless you 100% CYA which is the mistake I made here. CYA
or you'll (probably) be sorry.
------
a3voices
I wouldn't testify because there is nothing for me to gain monetarily.
------
danschumann
avoid it
------
bbrowngrin
DO NOT TESTIFY
------
bbrowngrin
DO NOT TESTIFY.
------
igl
...because of your career? Are you working in IT or the Mafia?
------
fru2013
Snitches get stitches.
------
sergiotapia
What benefit are you getting for testifying? Is it enough to warrant the
possible negatives?
It's simple: do the positives outweigh the negatives?
------
gargarplex
Don't do it. What's the upside for you? What's the downside?
------
Scarbutt
Are you going to get remunerated enough for testifying? the law firm is
probably as corrupt as your employer.
~~~
logn
Usually it's only ethical to pay expert witnesses. At most maybe try to get
some free suits and first-rate hotel rooms out of it :) ... but if you're
judged to be a whistle-blower you do get paid for winning.
------
fourstar
You getting paid? If not, then do not testify.
Everything has a price, and if you aren't getting paid, someone else is.
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Scribd puts your old documents behind a paywall, no permanent opt-out - slapshot
http://support.scribd.com/entries/224907-my-document-is-in-the-scribd-archive-but-i-do-not-want-it-to-be-what-can-i-do
======
tzs
How is the procedure described on that page in the "Exempting Your Documents
From the Scribd Archive" section not a permanent opt-out?
------
earl
Let me help you with that.
[http://img.skitch.com/20100917-84gr9ftx22rpcu9f3keuu3xpq8.jp...](http://img.skitch.com/20100917-84gr9ftx22rpcu9f3keuu3xpq8.jpg)
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Programming less - bootload
http://www.scripting.com/stories/2007/11/28/programmingLess.html
======
mojuba
_Your code at its kernel level must have this simplicity. But at the edges,
where you're accommodating the minds of users, inevitably it gets a little
messy._
Absolutely. Your core code is usually targeted to programmers, that is,
(hopefully) formally thinking folks, so you may choose to be as succinct as
possible here. At the same time UI code may become illogical, non-linear mess
only because their users can't think formally. Bookkeeping/accounting software
is a perfect example.
Those developers who prefer working on compilers, libraries or operating
systems are actually those who want to get the most out of programming.
Maximum joy, that is.
------
gills
I agree that simplicity and elegance are key, but in my experience the UI does
not _inevitably_ get messy. The same rules apply, but you have to work at
different levels of abstraction. The central structure and algorithms of a UI
are no longer about the data itself, but about transforming the data (and
transforming the transformer!). There's a special brand of programmer crack
reserved for those who create elegant and flexible UI code.
------
adnam
I wish people would test their pages with a text-only browser more. The
article whole article was interspersed with the phrase "permalink to this
paragraph"
~~~
philh
Even in a graphical browser, I found the permalink icons really intrusive. I'm
used to things like that being used to sign off posts
(<http://www.theregister.co.uk/2007/11/29/erskine_steps_down/>), and it breaks
the flow to see them at the end of every paragraph.
------
edw519
"The design of the central data structure of an app determines the quality of
the app, in every way."
Wow!
As Edward Everett wrote to Abraham Lincoln the day after the Gettysburg
address:
"I wish that I could flatter myself that I had come as near to the central
idea of the occasion in two hours as you did in two minutes."
------
downer
dicts FTW.
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
The Media Has Neglected Puerto Rico - ryan_j_naughton
https://fivethirtyeight.com/features/the-media-really-has-neglected-puerto-rico/
======
curtis
I think the quality and quantity of reporting coming out of Puerto Rico has
suffered from both its political status and the fact that it is an island at a
considerable distance from the mainland U.S.
However, I think the situation has been compounded by both the degree of
damage caused by the hurricane and by the kind of damage. Something like 90%
of the cell towers are offline and the landlines have been heavily damaged as
well. So you have this problem where you can't get reporters in and you also
can't get firsthand reports from locals out, either.
It seems like a clear case of no news is bad news, but how is the news media
supposed to report "no news"?
~~~
roywiggins
They managed to keep up 24 hours rolling coverage of a missing plane for what
seemed like weeks. Cable news is really good at filling time with speculation,
talking heads, Wolf Blitzer, and CGI reenactments.
~~~
curtis
Well, yeah. But Maria was the third hurricane in a row. Maybe the news was
suffering from hurricane fatigue combined with a lack of information coming
out of Puerto Rico at the same time.
------
javiramos
Puerto Rican here!
In my opinion, these are two very good pieces to learn about Puerto Rico [1]
[https://youtu.be/CesHr99ezWE](https://youtu.be/CesHr99ezWE) [2]
[https://youtu.be/Tt-mpuR_QHQ](https://youtu.be/Tt-mpuR_QHQ)
------
turc1656
While there may be a legit point to this article, let's also keep things in
perspective. In the past few weeks we've had....... 3 major hurricanes
resulting in enormous damage. The NFL anthem/knee controversy. Escalating
tensions with North Korea. The Catalan vote turned into military police
violence yesterday. The largest mass murder in recent American history today.
OJ was released from prison. More Manafort investigations. The protests/riots
in St. Louis over officer Jason Stockley being cleared in the shooting. The
other riots at Georgia tech where a cop car was set on fire of a different
shooting. The discovery that Jared Kushner has used private email for
government business. Developments in the Russia hacking scandal which may
prove involvement in the election. The deadly riots in India after a religious
leader was convicted of rape. A terrorist knife attacker in France yesterday.
Suicide bombers in Syria today. The alleged murderers of Kim Jong-Un's half
brother began their trial.
And that's just the shit I can remember! I'm afraid to think about what I have
already forgotten - and that's really the point. There's really only so much
any one person can focus on to any meaningful degree. I'm not a fan of the
media, but I don't blame them for this one. People were sick of hurricane
coverage and with all that other stuff going on, they curtailed coverage a bit
to focus on some other hot button issues.
~~~
KGIII
The London Tube bombing. I think that was just a couple of weeks ago.
As you say, there is only so much one can focus on. I don't even try to really
retain or keep up with it all. I can't and I don't care if I'm expected to.
I'd say that I also have a finite amount of empathy. It sounds bad but it gets
used up quickly and I have more local things on which to spend my empathy. I
know it is selfish, but that's just how it is.
~~~
turc1656
Yep, forgot about that one.
I totally understand your point. And it is, in my opinion, a very reasonable
position to take. I believe I'm the same way, for better or worse. I can't
recall with certainty but I believe there is a psychological term for what you
describe. Basically, it boils down to your brain compartmentalizing what you
can and cannot have an effect on. That which you cannot affect you tend to
care far less about and reduce/eliminate empathy and other emotional
connection because it can be draining and isn't productive in any positive way
(usually). That which you can affect or which has a significant impact on you
personally is a totally different story. Wish I could remember the term for
it.
~~~
KGIII
As I was typing it, I was thinking there would be a psychological name for it.
It seems like something they've likely classified and tried to measure.
If you'll permit me a vulgarity, my give a damn button is broken. For PR, I
sent off two donations. It's the same as I did for both Florida and Texas. I
don't view it as buying karma, or anything. I view it as being more that I'm
actually obligated to do.
We don't care need to to overly care, do anything, or devote energy. Being
obligated to outrage is a silly social trend. It's unfortunate and it's surely
painful for those most closely impacted, but we are continually bombarded with
news of tragedy.
Selfish or not, I'm pretty sure it's more healthy to just accept it and
acknowledge it. I'm absolutely not saying it wasn't tragic, I'm just saying I
am unwilling to get emotionally invested in it.
I suspect that makes sense, I'm mostly just trying to explain it in more
detail because I don't know of a more precise term for it. If this happened in
my area, I'd be much more emotionally invested.
------
foxfired
Maybe it has something to do with the word Territory as in a U.S. Territory. I
still don't know what it is, but it implies that it is not a state, not a
city. If Hawaii can be half way around the world and be called a state, why
can't we do the same for Puerto Rico?
~~~
pavanred
What surprised me was that almost every news report/pleas on tv shows to help
seemed to mention and emphasize that these people are American citizens. I
didn't see the same thing happen with the other hurricane coverage. Is
awareness about this really an issue?
~~~
bshep
yes. a lot of people are unaware of puerto rico’s status and its peoples
citizenship.
~~~
bshep
one citation, but i'm sure there are more: "Nearly Half of Americans Don’t
Know Puerto Ricans Are Fellow Citizens" \-
[https://www.nytimes.com/2017/09/26/upshot/nearly-half-of-
ame...](https://www.nytimes.com/2017/09/26/upshot/nearly-half-of-americans-
dont-know-people-in-puerto-ricoans-are-fellow-citizens.html)
~~~
chrisco255
I wonder if these polls are as accurate as election polls.
~~~
learc83
The polls were very accurate at the national level and within a few points at
the state level.
~~~
chrisco255
The same polls that predicted Hillary would win?
~~~
objectivetruth
Most national polls reflected a preference for her of a few percent. Her
popular vote victory was well within that margin of error.
But you already knew about the statistical peculiarity that was the 2016
Electoral College result, so I'm guessing you're repeating this hoping for
some alt-right points on HN? Or just to demonstrate that public policy polling
and statistics are somehow a big snake oil discipline that you're too
intelligent to fall for?
------
StudentStuff
Hurricane Maria and its fallout weren't heavily covered. From what I hear from
friends down there, power and water are still hard to come by, and the
utilities are not providing things like bagged water, which is mandated in WA
State after a few hours without water pressure.
If what happened in Puerto Rico happened on the West Coast, but from an
earthquake, we would have seen a much larger response and better media
coverage. Partly due to utilities here planning, training and funding
resources for such an event (with water distribution warehouses sprinkled
through Seattle), basics like clean, potable water would be in much better
supply.
~~~
godzillabrennus
It wouldn’t hurt that the west coast is connected to the mainland and its far
easier to transport supplies to without major coordination.
------
ghostly_s
Not that I think the central conclusion is wrong, but after skimming the
article it's very odd that relative number of affected people is not brought
up ('population' isn't even mentioned in the piece). The Houston metro has
twice the population of Puerto Rico. I don't know an easy way to estimate
those effected in Florida, and probably the sum total of human suffering is
greater in Puerto Rico thanks to the island's vulnerability, the state of
infrastructure, and the strength of the storm. Obviously there's no real way
to measure these up but it seems an obvious line of questioning in trying to
explain the disparity.
~~~
joemaller1
The Media is very lazy, they'll cover anything they can drive to. Houston and
Florida got tons of coverage because they were already there. Covering PR
would mean significant personal discomfort for the reporters and crews, with
no guarantee of being able to leave on their own schedule. There just don't
seem to be many reporters of that ilk anymore.
~~~
true_religion
Don't major news channels such as ABC, NBC, Fox already have affiliates or
branches in Puerto Rico? It's certainly a large enough market to deserve a
local news channel.
------
dghughes
I was impressed how fast France and the UK sent help to their territories.
France and the UK are about 2,000 miles away from their Caribbean territories
the US is about 970 miles away from Puerto Rico.
------
jjawssd
It is not the media that has neglected Puerto Rico
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UpwYHAN28As](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UpwYHAN28As)
------
musgrove
fivethirtyeight.com clearly doesn't include themselves as a member of the
media.
~~~
jdamon96
Did you bother to even open the article? Literally the first sentence is
"While Puerto Rico suffers after Hurricane Maria, much of the U.S. media
(FiveThirtyEight not excepted) has been occupied with other things..."
~~~
paradite
> Please don't insinuate that someone hasn't read an article. "Did you even
> read the article? It mentions that" can be shortened to "The article
> mentions that."
[https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html](https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html)
~~~
kadenshep
What an absolutely petty and useless rule/standard.
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
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