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scaling_mia_the_pile_00_HackerNews

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Facebook Focusing on Privacy Is Like McDonald’s Focusing on Healthy Food - RamyHassan23 https://medium.com/@magdoub/facebook-focusing-on-privacy-is-like-mcdonalds-focusing-on-healthy-food-53ce81ac3b79 ====== Magdoub Thanks for sharing, I wrote this article after I felt the amount of indoctrination happening under our eyes! ------ sarcasmatwork Thank you for calling out FB and what a great analogy! ------ Adamnick32 Finally someone talked about it, I felt he was saying privacy like a hundred times!	{ "pile_set_name": "HackerNews" }
Ask HN: Best resources to to understand BTC/Blockchain and its implications? - jrudin ====== tai_hn I find these three books entertaining. [Blockchain Revolution by Don Tapscott, Alex Tapscott]([https://www.amazon.com/Blockchain-Revolution-Technology- Chan...](https://www.amazon.com/Blockchain-Revolution-Technology-Changing- Business/dp/1101980133)) [The Business Blockchain by William Mougayar]([https://www.amazon.com/Business-Blockchain-Practice- Applicat...](https://www.amazon.com/Business-Blockchain-Practice-Application- Technology/dp/1119300312)) [Digital Gold by Nathaniel Popper]([https://www.amazon.co.jp/Digital-Gold-Bitcoin- Millionaires-R...](https://www.amazon.co.jp/Digital-Gold-Bitcoin-Millionaires- Reinvent/dp/0062362496)) If you want to dig deeper, read [Mastering Bitcoin by Andreas M. Antonopoulos]([https://www.amazon.com/Mastering-Bitcoin-Unlocking- Digital-C...](https://www.amazon.com/Mastering-Bitcoin-Unlocking-Digital- Cryptocurrencies/dp/1449374042)). ------ tboyd47 I would start with the simplest _proven_ blockchain use case: Bitcoin. Bill Gates called Bitcoin a technological tour de force - something I don't think he's said about "Blockchain." Learn about the design choices made in Bitcoin and how its blockchain adds to that integrated whole, and you will see how the stability of the network emerges as a tensegrity of multiple competing forces with opposing incentives. ~~~ jrudin Thanks for the recommendation, anything you've found online that you've particularly enjoyed? ~~~ tboyd47 I recommend the talks of Andreas Antonopoulos. ------ random_moonwalk Check out the readings for Stanford's Bitcoin and Cryptocurrencies course ([https://crypto.stanford.edu/cs251/syllabus.html](https://crypto.stanford.edu/cs251/syllabus.html)). There's a draft of the textbook for the course that's a great place to start imo.	{ "pile_set_name": "HackerNews" }
Free Graphics Software Vectr 1.4 Launched - NickFromVectr https://vectr.com/blog/updates/vectr-1-4-brings-grouping-of-layers/ ====== NonEUCitizen If you download, does it run completely offline or does it still rely partially on your servers?	{ "pile_set_name": "HackerNews" }
IPad MiFi Conversion - hanskuder http://dishtvhdstore.com/ipad-mifi-conversion-for-verizon/ ====== acgourley Wow that's an impressive hack. ------ hanskuder Here's hoping this starts a vibrant community of HackenPad enthusiasts. Void your warranty, lose a bit of bass from your sound, and you've got Verizon for your iPad! ------ cstross But, but, but -- Why not simply use the iPad's wifi via the MiFi as a hotspot? (Yes, I get it; pure hack value. But honestly, other than the hack value, why chop up a piece of kit like the MiFi and void the warranty on the iPad in order to do ... less?) ~~~ spicyj It takes up less space, and you have to carry around only one object instead of two. ~~~ apgwoz Velcro the mifi to the back of the iPad when you're carrying it, and "deploy it" when you need it. ~~~ spicyj It's _also_ reasonably sized and doesn't look like a makeshift solution that someone put together in 30 seconds. ~~~ apgwoz I never claimed that his version wasn't better, but the parent stated that "It takes up less space, and you have to carry around only one object instead of two." My point was that you didn't necessarily have to carry around 2 things. ------ ashishbharthi He didnt comment on how much iPad battery was stripped down by MiFi. ~~~ frankus And I would be a bit worried bypassing the battery-management hardware on the iPad like that. You really don't want to take LiPolys all the way to 0V. Nor, ideally, do you want to go around the amp-hour counter that lets the charger know the SOC of the battery. ------ frankus It would be pretty slick if someone built CDMA 3G (EVDO? Is that what it's called?) or WiMax board that just plugged into the jack on the iPad's motherboard. But I wouldn't be at all surprised if that somebody turned out to be Apple in a year or two. ------ studioprisoner I'm glad we have a decent 3G network here in Australia with Telstra - i roughly get speeds of 3-4Mbps on their 3G network. It's great! ~~~ megablast Shame that it is so ridiculously expensive, dur to Telstra not having to compete properly with other carriers. Tesltra should really have been broken up, into reatil and infrastructure, it is a big joke that it hasn't been, and all of Australia is the worse of, due to that fact. ------ nanijoe I look forward to the iphone hack to make it work with verizon ------ nroach can't wait to see the clear/wimax version ... ------ korch This is an incredible hack, kudos! And for the Apple fans who might consider this a dangerous act of hardware sacrilege, I hear ya! But please consider this as not so much of a practical hack, but rather as a protest hack against the stupid, continued exclusive hardware lock-in to the low quality, over priced phone service of the _Death Star Orifice_ —AT&T. Everyone knows AT&T simply can't provide the same high level of innovation, service and quality as Apple. It has ceased making sense for AT&T to get exclusive bottom line say-so on what Apple can and can't do with the mobile platform. Apple needs to embrace polygamy because AT&T represents the antithesis of Apple's core mission: beautiful software. All AT&T can do is fuck up software. (Bell Labs doesn't count.) And it's usually done by imposing stupid, consumer-unfriendly restrictions on the hardware so they can stick to their old telco monopolist business model of nickel and diming all of their customers. Apple needed AT&T to get a toe in the door to the telco's monopoly. But now that iPads and iPhone are spreading all over the place like a blown out BP oil well, and the entire mobile industry is playing catch up to reach or emulate Apple's tight UI & design in software, it's time for Apple to throw AT&T to the Feds over something. (As much as I despise AT&T, I recognize they are so entrenched that the only way to change them will be another Federal breakup of their monopoly).	{ "pile_set_name": "HackerNews" }
OpaLang: Concise language for writing distributed webapps - xtacy http://opalang.org ====== saiko-chriskun this is seriously the coolest language I've seen come out in a long time. super excited :D	{ "pile_set_name": "HackerNews" }
"Make people want something" - counterpoint - Domenic_S https://pbs.twimg.com/media/BIjuNDECYAAjPzt.png ====== Domenic_S In response to <http://alvybrooks.com/ycposter>. An interesting counterpoint by @pricklynettles on twitter. How much startup failure is not making something people want, and how much of it is failing to make people want it?	{ "pile_set_name": "HackerNews" }
Understanding the Stellar Consensus Protocol - synesso https://medium.com/interstellar/understanding-the-stellar-consensus-protocol-423409aad32e ====== 1053r The authors of this protocol made a valiant effort to defend against sybil attacks by requiring intersecting quorums. However, it's not clear to me that they succeeded. Specifically, I worry that they are depending on people running nodes to vet other nodes in some out of band fashion. Clever and patient sybil attackers could insert themselves into the network over weeks or months, and then disrupt it while shorting it on exchanges, or by conducting double spend attacks against exchanges. As was shown in Bitshares, which relied on holders of BTS to vote on "good" block producers, users can not be relied upon to make these judgements. They will either vote at random, or vote based on trivial stats like uptime. The holders of BTS ultimately paid the price when the creators of the coin forced through a proposal to increase the supply cap and the price collapsed as a result, but the creators have since moved on to other coins. It seems to me that proof of work works, and proof of stake (as implemented in Tezos) may work, although it's not been running successfully for very long. I'm very suspicious of other consensus algorithms protecting billions of $s worth of assets. ~~~ mazieres The Sybil attack doesn't work against SCP because, unlike proof-of-stake, the validators are not anonymous. E.g., are you using Stronghold dollars? Then put their validators in all of your quorum slices and you will be guaranteed not to be forked from them. Eventually, every exchange and issuer should designate one or more validators. By including the validators of the institutions you care about in your quorum slices, you know you will be able to redeem and trade the tokens at those places. Now what makes SCP different from traditional BFT replication is not just that the quorums are defined in a decentralized way, but that they require a transitive closure of dependencies. So if you depend on stronghold and stronghold depends IBM and binance also depends on IBM, then even if you don't think you care about binance, you will still remain in sync with them. ------ agorabinary Who cares? The vast majority of Stellar's currency XLM is owned by the founders just like Ripple, and their efforts to distribute this currency to the public are entirely disingenuous. For example, their 2017 airdrop purported to distribute up to 16% of the initial XLM to Bitcoin holders, while less than 10% of that amount was actually claimed (as to be expected when you make people jump through hoops to claim something of dubious value). The crypto space has an near-infinite supply of new coins and new whitepapers to trap the naturally curious into a hopeless cycle. ~~~ DanielFlower While temiri is right, I'd like to continue the discussion that you've started by mentioning that their last airdrop, done in collaboration with blockchain.com, was also a fiasco. A lot of people didn't even bother claiming anymore, and many of those who tried (including me and a buddy that lives in the same building), weren't able to claim because the process was littered with bugs. Hopefully, a serious non-profit foundation will take over (fork) the open source Stellar tech, create a good and fair initial distribution mechanism, and then restart the cryptocurrency. It would probably need the help of governments or big corporations like Facebook/Google in order to insure a fair initial distribution. ~~~ oh_sigh I encountered one of those bugs and was able to get 'my' coins after maybe 3 back and forths with a human support person. It wasn't too hard for what could be a free $500. ------ drexlspivey Good discussion on an old thread between D.Mazieres (protocol author), Greg Maxwell and Vitalik [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9342348](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9342348) ------ badrabbit The one thing I am curious about is the idea of reputation establishment. Has there been any attempt to reduce impact of a sybil attack by introducing reputation metrics? What if for example with SCP quorum slices form only between nodes of agreeable reputation where reputation could either be transaction confirmation history or transaction participation history or some combination of both. I would argue,if some form f reputation metric was in play,a simple 51% majority (for unfederated) would not mean much,especially if each node gets to unilaterally decide reputation metrics it finds agreeable which will make it hard for a sybil attacker to know how many nodes of what reputation it needa to control to succeed.where a failed sybil attack could reduce or eliminate reputation of the nodes it used. The whole idea is so simple I feel a bit cluelees even asking about it,but does anyone know if similar consensus systems have been explored? ~~~ mazieres The thing is that reputation isn't formed in a vacuum. E.g., in the case of Stellar's blockchain, you have companies issuing assets like digital dollars or carbon credits or shares in commercial real estate ventures. The tokens have value because people trust their counterparties. Even in the case of XLM, Stellar's "native" cryptocurrency, ultimately people believe it has value because they can trade it for other assets on Stellar's built-in DEX or sell it for fiat currency or other crypto at exchanges. It doesn't matter how many Sybil nodes an attacker creates, if I place Kraken and Coinbase in my quorum slice, I will remain in sync with their validators and know that I can subsequently choose to deposit all of my tokens on those exchanges for trading. ------ jimmcslim I'm reading Charlie Stross's (cstross here) "Neptune's Brood" at the moment, which envisions an interstellar society constrained by physics (i.e. no FTL)... I can imagine the SCP would play a role in such a society perhaps! ~~~ DennisP I don't think it'll spoil anything to say Stross actually invented his own digital currency protocol for that book, taking advantage of the speed of light limit.	{ "pile_set_name": "HackerNews" }
Chinese Textile Mills Are Now Hiring in Places Where Cotton Was King - danso http://www.nytimes.com/2015/08/03/business/chinese-textile-mills-are-now-hiring-in-places-where-cotton-was-king.html ====== kelukelugames Reminds me of the episode of daily show where the overseas call center outsourced to Americans who had to fake a foreign accent. ------ spremraj This was also mentioned in We the Economy. I live in south carolina and know a few textile owners as they are self-insured employers (my company sells health benefits programming). It is amazing how differentiated and specialized the fiber industry is. There is still a decent supply of suppliers and specialized laborers that it would make sense for chinese to set up shop in the carolinas.	{ "pile_set_name": "HackerNews" }
Drop Dropbox - PhilipA http://www.drop-dropbox.com/ ====== grellas Think about what it means to the HN culture to have a subject that normally would have been flagged out of existence as overtly political suddenly be featured front and center in the apparent belief that ideological purity is now a litmus test for who can serve on a board of directors in the startup world. In a free society, people can unite in their business ventures even though they might be far apart in how they view the world generally. Startup culture thirty years ago had a decidedly American flavor. Today, it does not because the world is big and diverse and because entrepreneurs today who do startups come from all sorts of cultures and backgrounds. Surely, those who come from such divergent backgrounds hold differing political and religious views. Some are conservative, others liberal, still others apolitical. Some are theists, others atheists. The variations are many but one thing is certain: _not all people think alike on political, religious, or social topics_. These are issues that inherently will divide. What happens, then, when people attempt to set political, social, or religious tests as criteria for who can hold important positions in a business organization? Well, it gets about as ugly as it can get, just as such tests proved ugly when used historically by, say, Christians to exclude Jews from holding important positions in society or to punish atheists for not holding to some prescribed creed. One might say, " _this_ is different" because we are not holding to an arbitrary creed but rather to fundamental principles that ought to govern all humanity. Well, that is precisely how those who sought to impose thought control in other eras rationalized their conduct. "Are you now or have you ever been a member of the Communist Party" is a question that destroyed many careers as the blacklists proliferated back in the 1950s. That was indeed a repulsive set of events by which many innocent persons were hurt and today our national conscience wishes it could take back the damage done to them. So why is this any different? It is easy enough to whip oneself up into a lather over Ms. Rice’s policies if one disagrees with them but what about the half of America (or whatever significant percentage) that does not. And why should this be relevant to board service? Politics, religion, and social worldviews _divide_ people and have no place as limiting tests in a business environment. Scolding and finger-wagging was bad enough coming from a first-grade teacher trying to promote sanctimonious values back in the 1950s. Do we really want a counterpart agenda now setting rules for who can be a founder, who can be an investor, who can be a director, who can be a CEO, or who can otherwise take a prominent role in the startup world? The answer should be an _emphatic_ no. Principle is more important here than a particular outcome. What happens with Ms. Rice is not the issue here. What matters is upholding the abiding principle (precious in a free society) that people can hold divergent views on such topics as politics, religion, and society without being punished for their views in a business context. People can and ought to be able to unite to form great companies without having to compare notes on how they voted in the last election or some similar matter having nothing whatever to do with whether someone can add value to the venture. This is central to startup culture. Let us not lose sight of something so basic. ~~~ janj Starting an unnecessary war is a big deal. Denying due process and torturing detainees is a big deal. The Patriot Act was one of the most un-American acts of Congress. Rice had a significant role in destroying the values I once thought were vitally important in claiming American exceptionalism. We can never get that back. We are now a country that starts unnecessary wars, tortures detainees and denies due process and spends vast resources on surveilling every citizen and she had a role in that. We will never be the country we once were before Rice and the Bush administration. I am proud to have always been vocally against the war, torture and the Patriot Act. I will continue to oppose the people who led these efforts and oppose anything they are involved with, staying true to my own personal values requires this. ~~~ MarkPNeyer > I am proud to have always been vocally against the war, torture and the > Patriot Act. I will continue to oppose the people who led these efforts and > oppose anything they are involved with, staying true to my own personal > values requires this. I hope this extends to opposing the Obama administration, which has continued and extended war, torture, and the patriot act. If the tech community dumps anyone from any party who supports these policies, that's awesome. Marissa Mayer at Yahoo, Mark Benoiff at SalesForce, Sergey Brin and Eric Schmidt at Google all gave large contributions to Obama, who extended the patriot act, defended bush torture, and maintains a 'kill list' that took the life of an american citizen without trial. None of them are getting this kind of outrage. I would love it if they were! I'd love it if we held these tech leaders accountable for the horrendous policies their supported leaders have put in place. You can't say you value your users' privacy and then give money to candidates who don't share that value, unless you say "but these other policies that he supports matter more to me" \- and then fine, give us a list of what you value more than protecting my privacy. Show me where I fall on this list of yours. A president who decides he supports gave marriage when it's poitically convient is not as important to me as a president who insists on defending my privacy. So far this looks to be partisan. I hope it isn't. To be honest, I miss having GWB as a president, because then the smart people were all outraged at the horrible stuff the president was doing. Now the president is still doing the same horrible stuff, plus some new stuff, but the smart people aren't as upset anymore. ~~~ nilved > I hope this extends to opposing the Obama administration, which has > continued and extended war, torture, and the patriot act. Of course it does. That's the logical conclusion. Why wouldn't it? There isn't any informed person in 2014 who is unable to realize Obama has been worse than Bush as far as torture and war go. ~~~ rbanffy > Obama has been worse than Bush as far as torture and war go Please remind me how many wars did Obama start based on fake intelligence. Obama may not be the president the world hoped he would be, but Bush is on a whole different league. If the US is much less secure today than it was before 9/11, you can thank Bush and his cronies (Rice included) for that. That situation also severely limits what your current president can do. ~~~ nilved Bush isn't actively dropping bombs on schoolhouses. Bush isn't actively detaining and torturing people in black sites. These are things that were pioneered by Bush and perfected by Obama. If you hate Bush, you need to hate Obama, or you're simply an unreasonable hypocrite. This isn't up for debate. ~~~ rbanffy Bush started your country down a path that has led it towards unprecedented insecurity and cost countless lives, both Americans and foreigners, and he did it on a crucial moment when he had the option to act differently. Obama is left with little choice in a lot of regards - the world - and your country - is already the wreck Bush left us with. Just leaving Iraq on day one would lead the country to a certain civil war and most likely another yet theocracy that hates the US (and this one for reason I can completely understand). Just closing Guantanamo would unravel an insane chain of resentment that most probably should have been faced rather than postponed. I hate neither. Bush was grossly incompetent. Spectacularly incompetent. Dangerously incompetent. Again, Obama is a huge disappointment, but I suspect he, under less grim circumstances, would have been a much better president than he is now. In so many ways, his hands are tied. A president - any president - is limited in his actions to what's legally and politically possible and that severely restricts his actions. Even with his hands tied, Obama is light years ahead of his predecessor. ------ netcan I'm not American, so this is a little removed for me. In truth I don't really see big enough (non cosmetic) differences between the parties or administrations to justify the partisanship you guys seem to have. What bother me here is not Condoleezza Rice specifically. Every ranking official of any country (or company) owns a big share of that country's sins and there are no "clean" administrations. Complicity is the price of admission and they all pay. What _does_ bother me is what this is a symptom of. Lets be honest about why board members are selected. Ex politicians wield political and corporate influence and a board seat is a way of renting that influence. At best its an elite club, at worst it's outright corruption but its always on that scale. I guess that if pressed they would say that they bring experience and competence. That's as nonsensical as a large corporation justifying their political donations as an innocent, democratic expression of political preference. It's hard to say with a straight face. Having ex politicians on a board is such a public display of stink. It's like when a politician who spends his entire life as a "civil servant" is obviously and publicly living a billionaire lifestyle with yhahts, mansions & private jets. They don't even bother to launder that dirty money. It's just displayed filth and all. ~~~ jshen The bush administration asserted that it could detain anyone without a trial and torture them. This is not equivalent to any average administration as you implied. ~~~ maxcan The current administration asserted that it has the right to assassinate anyone it wants, American citizen or not, outside of a battlefield, without any oversight or due process. ~~~ gnopgnip Could you provide a source for this? There is an entire process that is full of oversight. ~~~ aeroevan [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anwar_al- Awlaki](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anwar_al-Awlaki) is the case most people bring up. Killed by a drone strike without due process, but nobody claims that he was anything but a terrorist. ~~~ kzrdude And his US-born US citizen 16-year old son was killed in a separate strike. Nobody claims he was a terrorist. ------ pvnick I'm not sure how I feel about this. On the one hand, I absolutely agree with most of the opposition to Condi Rice wrt the illegal war, warrantless wiretaps, torture, etc. On the other hand, I threw a hissy fit over the opposition to Eich based on his beliefs. I'm not sure how I can oppose Rice while standing up for Eich without inconsistency. Anybody else feel conflicted and have some insight? I'm still probably going to cancel my Dropbox membership simply because I have free 100gigs google drive that I got when I bought my chromebook [1] and this gives me a great excuse to transfer over and save some money. But I don't know that I can go on the same kind of crusade for which I faulted the Eich lynch mob. [1] Free 100 gigs google drive when you buy a chromebook, which if you install crouton makes for a cheap, decently powerful linux machine (great deal!). I recommend the hp chromebook 14 with 4 gigs ram since it comes with free 200mb 4G tmobile internet every month for life. ~~~ adnam Unlike Eich, Rice went far beyond simply holding beliefs and making donations. She held real power and used it in unconscionable ways. Given the current climate, I find it incredible that a cloud storage company would be involved with someone who actually wiretapped members of the UN Security Council. It's almost like they're saying "thanks for all the data, oh and f __* you ". ~~~ rmc Yeah, Eich donated $1,000 to a campaign. Rice _ran the campaign_. ~~~ baddox And one campaign was to deny a group the legal right to marry, while the other was to kill thousands of people. Neither is particularly wholesome, but I think there is a difference in scale. ------ JackFr Consider that when acting under uncertainty, intelligent, informed people of good will can examine the same set of facts and reach different conclusions. It has become an article of faith that the Bush administration acted in bad faith about weapons of mass destruction in Iraq, while all that really has ever been shown is that they were tragically, woefully and extraordinarily wrong. How intelligent, well educated people be so wrong, unless they were secretly evil? Groupthink for one, and in particular _a failure to consider alternatives because of assumption of bad faith on the part of those who disagree with them._ I really don't care one way or another whether Condi is on the board of Dropbox or not, and I applaud you for refusing to do business with a company you believe is immoral. But I would be surprised (pleasantly) if this was a standard you were applying consistently, thoughtfully and evenly. ~~~ chez17 One thing I can't stand is about our hyper-partisan culture is that attacking someone from one side is seen as 100% political and there are posts like these that are trying to be "even" when, in fact, it's you yourself that is being partisan here. >It has become an article of faith that the Bush administration acted in bad faith about weapons of mass destruction in Iraq, while all that really has ever been shown is that they were tragically, woefully and extraordinarily wrong. [http://www.cnn.com/2008/POLITICS/01/23/bush.iraq/index.html?...](http://www.cnn.com/2008/POLITICS/01/23/bush.iraq/index.html?_s=PM%253Cimg%2520src=) It has been shown, conclusively, that they lied, that they lied knowingly, and that they lied a lot. Don't white wash history in an attempt to be "even" or see "both sides". There is objective truth here. ~~~ JackFr The article you point to, to be clear, relies on reports from two non-profit (not _not_ non-partisan) journalism watchdogs. And what they come up with is 'false statements'. They won't go so far as to call them lies, because to be a lie the statement has to be believed to be false by the speaker. You seem to reach the conclusion that it is inconceivable that the Bush Administration believed their own arguments. I not only find conceivable, I think its probably likely. Never ascribe to malice that which can be explained by incompetence. There's certainly room for moral revulsion for the Bush Administration -- negligently acting to cause destruction and loss of life at such a scale makes one culpable nonetheless. I am not interested in arguing the WMD in Iraq debate. I ask you to please assume good faith on the part of your ideological opponents. Try to understand their arguments on their terms, and see where you differ fundamentally. ~~~ chez17 >I am not interested in arguing the WMD in Iraq debate. I ask you to please assume good faith on the part of your ideological opponents. Try to understand their arguments on their terms, and see where you differ fundamentally. This is exactly what I'm talking about. Why do you assume they are my ideological opponents? Are you assuming I'm a liberal in this case? This is the hyper-partisan culture I'm talking about. I do assume good faith from people who disagree with me, there comes a point when an intelligent person must look at the evidence provided and adapt their view. People hide behind the "both sides" argument in an attempt to be wise and fair, when in reality that can be the most partisan of all point of views. People are wrong sometimes. People lie sometimes. Not acknowledging this is not wise. Some arguments don't have "both sides", some have one side, some have two sides, some have fifty sides. Remember that. ------ antonius _When looking to grow our board, we sought out a leader who could help us expand our global footprint._ Condoleezza sure left a global footprint in the Middle East alright. Hate do this Dropbox, but time for me to move on. Edit: Suggestions for a Dropbox substitute? ~~~ MPiccinato We have been using [https://copy.com](https://copy.com) without any issue. ~~~ bambax It's an American company (Barracuda Inc.) ~~~ EC1 Any no bullshit European companies that can match the quality of Dropbox software? I hate that I even have to make decisions like this, what the fuck kind of world are we living in. ~~~ perakojotgenije Try hubic ([https://hubic.com/en/](https://hubic.com/en/)), they are a French company. ------ dctoedt I'm as anti-war as the next guy; we military veterans tend to be more so than most, and I've gotten even more so as I've gotten older. Still, there are those who appreciate that: (A) political leaders aren't supermen and -women. Like all of us, they have to make the best decisions they can with the limited information available to them at the time; (A1) [ADDED:] the signal-to-noise ratio can be problematic; the available bits of information are often of varying quality and sometimes are flatly contradictory --- a major part of the leadership challenge is figuring out what the hell is really going on; (B) most political leaders genuinely want to do a good job, even if that's mixed in with a larger- or smaller dollop of self-interest (as is the case with most of us); (C) in late 2002 and early 2003, memories of 9/11 were still raw; (D) Saddam Hussein had irrefutably demonstrated that he was willing to use weapons of mass destruction in pursuit of his ambitions: he had used chemical weapons both on Iraqi Kurds and on Iranians (and let's not forget his brutal conquest of Kuwait); (E) it was unclear to what extent Hussein had made any progress on building -- or buying -- nuclear weapons; (F) the downside of a false negative on that issue was considerable; and (G) hindsight is 20-20, and there are _always_ Monday-morning quarterbacks around who are certain they could have done better. ~~~ Touche Sorry, but tempered reasoning like this is not acceptable in the maximalist society we have today. You must be absolutely certain about every issue and realize that those who disagree are evil, intentionally so, full-stop. ~~~ EC1 > You must be absolutely certain about every issue When was the last time you were _absolutely certain_ about something? Are you always _absolutely certain_ in your day to day life, let alone in the shoes of someone like Rice? ~~~ krallja WHOOSH ~~~ kenrikm Right over his head and out of the park. ------ alandarev The pictures on drop-dropbox sites are self-explanary and exponentally stronger, than common comments on why tech X shall be avoided I come across every day. That is first time a "stop using tech X" site made me change my opinion. Fully supporting. Those who are searching for alternatives - try out BitTorrent Sync. I have been using it for a while, will pull a plug on Dropbox acc. ------ tomasien Dropping Mozilla because Eich is anti-gay-marriage made sense to me because Mozilla is the beacon of open source. Mozilla belongs to us in a very personal way, many of us have contributed code to Firefox personally. But Condi Rice joining a completely private Dropbox as a board member - this is a non-issue. I'm as strongly anti-Bush administration and anti-war in general (especially the Iraq War - good grief) as anyone you could hope to meet, but this is ridiculously naive and short sighted to think that Condi being involved with Dropbox is something to get excited about. There are SO many people involved with private companies that are so much more partisan and support with no hesitation so many terrible things that if you want to go down this rabbit hole, you're going to be down there for a while my friends. Edit: that Condi Rice is a "privacy" concern - ok. Fine. I think that's ridiculous but you know what - nothing is particularly ridiculous when it comes to privacy anymore. So I will accept that argument. ~~~ frabcus This sounds like holding non-profits to higher standards than corporates. That seems a strange and grossly unfair thing to do, ultimately counterproductive to the very purpose of non-profits. Of course, when it comes to their core values you have to hold non-profits to high standards - e.g. Mozilla on the open web. But when it comes to things unrelated to their mission... Why should they be any more perfect than a for-profit corporation! I like people holding organizations to high standards, its fantastic. But please, hold _all_ of them to high standards - both for-profits and non- profits. ~~~ TylerE This is rapidly turning very ugly, and I can't stand it. Is being "anti-gay" or "pro-war" or even just "republican" the new Communism? The new witchcraft? ~~~ EC1 I hope so. We're moving into a phase where there you can grab information about anything, from nearly anywhere, at almost any time. There is little advantage to decision making based on cemented ideals anymore. This new era has exposed the good and bad in all facets of life. It's no longer about republicans, or communists, or this, or that, it's just about life. I prefer to remain non-partisan and instead look at things as a complete outsider, just as a regular human being without any rooted loyalty in any one system or another. If a company hires a shitty person, and people start dropping their service like flies, and that company reconsiders, then we're moving in a good direction, and I view my "vote" of not sticking with Dropbox more as a single ballot to living in a more informed and refined society. _I really hope somebody replies and lets me know why I 'm wrong rather than just sitting here at -2. Please don't turn HN into Reddit :(_ ~~~ dangayle Situational morality is really not morality at all. ~~~ EC1 And that is what I am trying to move to, because no two situations are exactly alike. Choose the correct weapon for the job. ~~~ TylerE So, do you own a PC? If so, how can you possibly justify that? After all, IBM helped the Nazis, so everything they touched is morally tainted. (And no, I'm not Godwinning, just pointing out how absurd the line of thinking is when taken to extremes) ~~~ EC1 Yeah that's fair, but none of the original founding members are still active within IBM, so the intent has essentially been burnt out. They are remnants long forgotten. Condoleezza Rice however, is still alive and well, and is actively on the Dropbox board. The decision is easy to make, so I made it. ------ cmiles74 To my mind, the most relevant issue here is that someone asked Rice something along the lines of "Should we illegally wiretap these people" and Rice then said "Yes." It seems clear that she believes the government, law enforcement, etc. should have access to whatever data they feel that they need. With her on the board of Dropbox, it seems reasonable to fear that she'll err on the side of providing data to government and law enforcement rather than fighting to keep Dropbox data private. This alone strikes me as a good reason to want her off the board and, consequently, to move to another product. I don't see this as being a direct parallel to the issues around Eich and Mozilla. In that situation, many people didn't feel that his personal beliefs and personal behavior would materially effect the quality of Firefox or it's feature set. In this case, it seems we're talking about almost the opposite situation: wondering how a person's past professional behavior and views they publicly held while in their past professional roles might effect their decisions in their new business role. ------ jpwagner I don't get this kind of stuff. I'm sure it's based on good intentions, but this will just lead to MORE nepotism and less transparency because the price of negative press is that much greater. It feels similar to the hit on the Mozilla guy, which really rubbed me the wrong way. For all I know he clubs baby seals in his free time, but nobody bothered to investigate the truth until it was too late. One individual or group, finally crawling out of being persecuted, deciding to persecute another is just plain disgusting. ~~~ mcv To me, this feels totally different from the Eich case. His political beliefs has nothing to do with Mozilla's product. However, giving someone who approves of wiretaps an important position in a company that people trust with their data, seems like an unbelievably bad idea. It's not just about whether someone in the company has an opinion I find despicable, it's about whether my own data is still safe. ~~~ mattzito She's an independent board member. She does not have the ability, in practice, to do anything other than vote on compensation and various other corporate policies. And if all it takes to get dropbox execs to turn over data is fiscal threats from a board member who is a _former_ government employee, then they were going to give up long before Condi shows up on the board. EDIT: and I just want to be clear. If you just don't like the idea of having someone who was involved with the war in Iraq/Afghanistan on the board of a company, you're entitled to your opinion (though I think it's pretty hard to be secretary of state or any other position of power in the govenrment without being involved in _something_ evil). But I find the idea that somehow Condi's presence on the board an indicator that they'll disclose my data to the government borderline ludicrous. ~~~ mcv But why is she a board member? Who hired her? You make it sound like she was forced on Dropbox by outside forces, and they completely disagree with her. In reality, Dropbox hired her, so they do not completely disagree with her. It's not just about Rice, it's about what this says about Dropbox. ~~~ mattzito I did not mean to give the opinion that I thought Dropbox was forced to hire Condi. Nor did I intend to suggest that Dropbox agrees or disagrees with her. Here's what I _think_. I think Dropbox said, "As we try to beef up our credibility with large enterprises and government agencies vs. Box.net and Google and other companies, it would be helpful if we had a board member with some street cred that we could use as a selling point with large CEOs, CIOs, and other senior tech people". This is not an uncommon thing. At that point, you look out across the landscape of "famous people" you can put on your board. It can't be anyone who is affiliated with a competitor, and there's a lot of competitors. It has to be someone with name recognition who _also_ is willing to be a board member _and_ has some sort of leadership experience. At some point, Condi's name cropped up with a few others, they met her, thought she was smart, she had the time and availability, and they brought her on. I bet someone at some point said, "Hey, you know, are we concerned with the affiliation with GWB?" and they thought about it they said, "Hey, look, she was SECRETARY OF STATE, the first female african american one, she's a former stanford professor, she's a genius, surely people will recognize that this is different than her work with GWB" ~~~ brokenparser Thank you. Mrs Rice isn't what would make Dropbox unsafe, it's their lack of encryption and other insecure practises. A quick DuckDuckGo search yielded these articles: [http://www.darkreading.com/vulnerabilities-and- threats/dropb...](http://www.darkreading.com/vulnerabilities-and- threats/dropbox-files-left-unprotected-open-to-all/d/d-id/1098442) [http://www.wired.com/2011/05/dropbox- ftc/](http://www.wired.com/2011/05/dropbox-ftc/) [http://thehackernews.com/2013/07/hacking-dropbox-account- vul...](http://thehackernews.com/2013/07/hacking-dropbox-account- vulnerability.html) (This is just a semi-random selection.) ------ bicx Unless a company is actively hurting people, I'm going to choose what I use based on the quality of the product, not on a board member's past. Maybe they determined that a hardened political voice would balance them out in the boardroom. Maybe they need someone there to play the devil's advocate in an industry that can be extraordinarily narcissistic. ~~~ ekianjo > Unless a company is actively hurting people, I'm going to choose what I use > based on the quality of the product, not on a board member's past Seems like it did not work so well with Mozilla recently. And that guy there did not kill anyone either, even indirectly. ~~~ nightski Uh we have all killed indirectly. Do you pay taxes? ~~~ ekianjo I'm not American, and the country where I pay taxes does not wage wars in foreign countries as far as I know. ~~~ samolang Have you ever bought a product/service from an American company? ~~~ ekianjo I have, but it's significantly less than the amount of taxes I pay, and it's even less than the US government is getting in the end. ~~~ samolang It may be a smaller amount, but it is voluntary. Paying taxes is not voluntary. ~~~ ekianjo It's as voluntary as taking a shower everyday. I don't consciously think about where the product comes from when I buy stuff, especially when it comes to commodities. If you start doing that you can't buy stuff anymore and you have to grow your own stuff yourself and stop trusting everyone else on the planet :) ~~~ samolang > If you start doing that you can't buy stuff anymore and you have to grow > your own stuff yourself and stop trusting everyone else on the planet :) That's exactly my point. If you're assigning blame for something the US government did to someone because they paid taxes, then you can pretty much assign blame to everyone for everything. Oh, you went to Stanford during the '90s? Well Rice was provost then, so you helped pay her salary are therefore responsible for the deaths that occurred in the Iraq war. It's absurd. ~~~ ekianjo I think you are extrapolating vs the original point. I was answering to : > Uh we have all killed indirectly Well, Rice has been certainly much more 'directly' involved in killing that the ones who paid taxes. ------ fennecfoxen Allow me to quote (gay rights activist) Andrew Sullivan, via The Economist, over the Eich issue. I think it mostly applies here -- [http://www.economist.com/blogs/democracyinamerica/2014/04/to...](http://www.economist.com/blogs/democracyinamerica/2014/04/toleration- dilemmas) _" The ability to work alongside or for people with whom we have a deep political disagreement is not a minor issue in a liberal society. It is a core foundation of toleration. We either develop the ability to tolerate those with whom we deeply disagree, or liberal society is basically impossible. Civil conversation becomes culture war; arguments and reason cede to emotion and anger."_ Also available at above link: select quotations from John Locke. \-- Postscript. Oh, of course I'm going to be modded down for this. Civil conversation has been replaced with culture war. Well, maybe not culture war, but a close analogue. :P ~~~ quaunaut > Postscript. Oh, of course I'm going to be modded down for this. Civil > conversation has been replaced with culture war. Well, maybe not culture > war, but a close analogue. :P Lets not get into that. However, to your point: This is one of those areas where I'm forced to wonder just how strongly everyone felt. Did I like Eich representing me, as an open source contributor? No, certainly not. Did I feel _that_ strongly about it? No, not really. I wasn't going to boycott anything, I wasn't going to speak out against Mozilla. I'd be mildly disappointed he was their choice, then I would move on. I sincerely have to wonder how many others would have felt the same if not worked into a lather. ------ aioprisan Weren't John Kerry and Hillary Clinton arguably equally responsible for any war that Condy supported? The voted for the funds that made it possible, how is that less responsible for the results? ~~~ fit2rule I didn't know they were on the board of directors of Dropbox. Very interesting. Yes: a large percentage of the politicians in power today _are_ responsible for the heinous crimes against humanity being committed, even yet daily, in the name of the American people - and YES, you SHOULD hold them accountable, since - as an American - you, yourself, are _also_ responsible for the heinous actions of your nation state. ~~~ mbrutsch Sadly, most Americans don't hold themselves responsible for the actions of our duly elected leaders. It's how we sleep at night. brb, dropping Dropbox... ~~~ dotBen Actually Rice has never held a democratically elected office - a strange trait of the American government system is that The President can appoint anyone he likes to hold these offices. This counters to countries like Britain where these roles have to go to,democratically elected Members of one of the two Houses (usually the lower House of Parliament where the Prime Minister sits). So assumeing Condeeleza Rice had some degree of agency in her role of Secretary of State, it's hard to even hold President Bush accountable for _all_ of her actions. ~~~ aioprisan The check there is that all cabinet members have to be confirmed by the Senate, which are all elected officials. ------ hawkharris The Chevron example came out of left-field. While the other sections focused on actions or positions that Rice had taken, the Chevron anecdote would have us believe that Rice is an unethical person simply because she had a relationship with the company. This is one of many unfair generalizations about energy companies. In reality, Chevron is one of the greatest contributors to alternative energy research. Without it and ExxonMobil, there wouldn't have been half as much progress toward sustainable power. ~~~ _dark_matter_ Well this is blatantly ignoring the anti-alternative energy contributions they've given. Although their own research may have contributed that much, the possible government funded research _if they had not lobbied against it_ would have been that much more.[1] They've deliberately stifled research that would directly contribute to non-oil based energies. I mean, just imagine if the subsidies and tax cuts the oil companies get went instead to alternative energy research. We would be decades ahead of where we are now. Look at this 2008 article from PBS: [http://www.pbs.org/now/shows/347/oil- politics.html](http://www.pbs.org/now/shows/347/oil-politics.html). [1] [http://usatoday30.usatoday.com/news/washington/story/2012-07...](http://usatoday30.usatoday.com/news/washington/story/2012-07-02/renewable- fuels-oil-congress/55987052/1) ------ ewindisch The fact is that the IC (Intelligence Community) has infiltrated most companies of strategic intelligence value. That's not really up for debate. However, it's also clandestine and presumably against the foreknowledge of the infiltrated companies. While as user, these actions are concerning, it's understandable that infiltrated companies may not be willing divulging their customer's data. While it's easy to point fingers, I'm willing to look beyond a certain amount of corporate ignorance stemming from a pre-Snowden world. In a post-Snowden world, continued ignorance of embedded security assets in the corporate infrastructure is no longer acceptable. I say this with some hesitation, as I'm friends with several such assets and wish no ill will toward them as individuals. Yet, it cannot be ignored that companies should be expected to limit their trust of those whom have sworn oaths in conflict with their corporate interests, especially when their actions have spoken louder than their words. Condolezza Rice has repeatedly shown that her interests lie too close to the agenda of the Intelligence Community and are at conflict with the expectations of security and privacy that I expect of a service such as Dropbox. This is what I told Dropbox when I deleted my account. ------ ebiester Within the progressive community, and other activist communities from all sides (in and out of the US), there is a line of thinking that individuals should actively seek to do business with companies that share their values, use neutral companies when avoidable, and endure discomfort before using products of companies actively doing evil. I think that before we can discuss the "hypocrisy" of this versus Mozilla, or of the merit of such protests, we should first ask ourselves whether we agree with the above statement as part of our core values. After that, we can discuss what actions line up within the three categories, and if the actions of the company are equivalent to the actions of the leadership. To _me_ , the Iraq issue is important, but it is not as important to me as my right to be a first class citizen of this society. My friends who work on the issue would have a different perspective. Thus, to me, this is a warning indicator that Dropbox may not align with my values, and is worth investigating, but isn't worth making a quick decision. That said, I felt the same way about Mozilla. Many of the comments that I've seen here are indirectly addressing this issue, but I think this is a value proposition that we each have to make within ourselves first. ------ avenger123 I am sure this has been brought up already. Why would a company that can store people's potentially most sensitive documents want to bring someone on board that directly or indirectly was a part of shaping the NSA programs? That boggles my mind. How does the conversation go in this situation? "Hey, we don't leak your information but guess what, we just brought someone on our board that fully believes taking a peek at your documents is A OK and was involved with making sure the government could take a look." That to me is a bit mind boggling. ------ tommo123 A lot of people here seem to have absolutely no issue with saying "I have no problem with the ethical ramifications of a company's actions or choice of representatives or the beneficiaries of a company's wealth that my support helps grow". I can't tell if you're sociopathic or just utterly clueless. Not taking a 'moral stand' isn't business -- it's taking a moral stand of not caring. Culpability can stem from inaction as well. ------ beaker52 Even if Rice goes, I'm not going back. The board has already shown it's ugly face. No amount of backtracking will convince me I didn't see what just happened. ------ estebanrules I'm floored by this news, and extremely disappointed with Dropbox. From the beginning I have been a huge proponent of Dropbox. I was lucky enough to get a free 50 GB account, and I use it for probably 30+ daily automated tasks. I will absolutely not be using Dropbox for any reason whatsoever if she remains on the board...I'm going to wait a week and see if they remove her and if not, bye bye. ------ joemaller1 I was wondering how long this would take. Thoughtcrime is here. The quest for ideological purity is kneecapping our future. Shutting out half of the brainpool because they hold opposing views about disconnected topics is a recipe for societal failure. ~~~ gregd Interesting, since Condoleeza Rice seems to be the very definition of Thought Police. Her quest for ideological purity resulted in hundreds of thousands of people being killed or maimed. ~~~ talmand I require sources to prove your claim of "Her quest for ideological purity". I already know of the Thought Police claims so I don't require those. ~~~ gregd I.R.A.Q. ~~~ talmand That's not an adequate source as it implies nothing in terms of my request. If that's all it takes then will you agree with me that the current administration and its members, present and past, have been conducting a quest for ideological purity in Afghanistan and neighboring areas? Therefore none of them should hold a job of any significance now or in the future? ~~~ gregd I'm really not at all interested in providing you a source nor arguing with you about who should hold a job or not. Draw your own damn conclusions on the information that is already public knowledge. ~~~ talmand I apologize. Once again I made the mistake of thinking I was having a civil discussion about a topic and asking for more information. Again, I apologize for giving the impression I disagreed on the matter even though I never stated my position one way or other. Based on other responses throughout this topic I'll call it a day on the matter. ------ atmosx Just did actually. Was it easier that I originally thought. I was about to start using 'Google drive' but I'll try handle my staff off-line first, then see how this plays out. There are things I don't mind keeping online, Google drive comes handy because I work with 2 macs and a chromebook. But I will take some time and review my options before proceeding. Here are some hints for others looking for another service: * Wuala: Servers in Switzerland, owned by Lacy, iPhone/Android/Mobile Windows clients ready. * SpiderOak: Everything should be encrypted (servers in the US though). Don't know about mobile integration but I guess it's there * Google Cloud: Nice if you don't mind Google having your files. * OwnCloud: For to be considered secure, you need a VPS (~100 USD/year) + OpenSSL certificate + time to set-it-up and manage the VPS. Has mobile clients. I'm closer to Google Cloud for the time being.. ------ grandalf I am also fairly disappointed by this news. Rice was complicit in the Bush administration's war crimes and crimes against humanity. She also led the propaganda effort to dehumanize the Iraqi people in the minds of intellectuals. It's a very strange feeling of disappointment... as if something precious, Silicon Valley innovation, talent, success, can somehow not succeed without the blessing/involvement/connections of government officials. This definitely makes me question the ethics of Dropbox as a company. This is not about politics at all, war crimes are clearly defined. FWIW Obama has also committed many and I'd be equally disappointed if he or one of his top warmongers was added to the Dropbox board. ------ Zikes Come on everyone, if we work together we can get Condy fired just like we did Brendan Eich! ~~~ secstate Thanks for the flippant comment. Eich resigned because while talking heads on TV would have you believe otherwise, the gay rights movement is a civil rights movement. By actively donating against it, he was making a strong statement about his leadership qualities that he would actively discourage equal rights for homosexuals. That said, the idea to drop a product over the composition of its leadership is perfectly valid. If Robert Mugabe showed up on the Dropbox board of directors, I imagine a great many people would be nonplussed and Dropbox would have undergo a trial by public that would not end well. A great many people would argue that given Rice's track record as a public servant, her personal and professional proclivities, while certainly more nuanced and less egregious than Mugabe, are not great when considering where you should store your data. IMHO, tapping Rice for their board was a terrible decision and speaks more towards Houston trying to pump up the old-school market strength image of Dropbox than a wise strategic move to improve the quality of their service and business. TL;DR, Houston, you fucked up. ------ walden42 Spider Oak is great, and cares about your privacy. Everything's encrypted client-side. ------ KhalPanda Yeah... or I could continue using Dropbox as I have done for the past couple of years safe in the knowledge that a director's political background has little-to-nothing to do with the day-to-day running of a tech company. ------ alecco Dropbox board and CEO decided this was a good move. They know it will alienate the original userbase, the tech savy, the first movers. In exchange they'll access old money, the old school corporations and government agencies. They decided to screw the current userbase for a new userbase. It's over, just get over it. The maximum you can do now is refuse to use Dropbox. It's sad how tech is getting to a cycle of befriend-and-switch on the community. This will surely make people more cynical and will make it much harder for upcoming startups. This is the highest cost we'll pay about this new trend. ~~~ AznHisoka exactly. I dun even understand the love affair ppl have with DropBox. It's just a cute GUI over FTP. ------ edlebert Keep those torches lit for everyone in the current administration too, right? Torture, war, and mass-surveillance continue to this day, 5 years after she stopped being Secretary of State. In addition, many in the current administration were involved in the Iraq war as well. ------ ep103 Bittorrent sync is actually an amazing dropbox replacement, and actually has a number of really good privacy implementations built in from the start. I'd highly recommend it, if anyone sees this comment. ~~~ pjreddie Bittorrent Sync is an amazing product, I'd recommend switching even if you don't have political issues with dropbox. I use it to keep work files in sync between 3 different computers as well as to backup 100s of GBs of pictures, something that would cost a non-trivial amount to do with cloud providers. ------ huntleydavis I think it's safe to say that when a tech company reaches a certain size, especially ones that have a substantial amount of user data, it's impossible to be politically neutral on the war on data. If a company doesn't outright say where there position lies, it will come out in the leadership actions that are taken. I agree with this opposition against Dropbox because a company like Dropbox has to adamantly say, both with words and actions, that they are in favor of data privacy. Without this strong declaration, I can't do anything but assume that their integrity in regards to data privacy is weak or that they are outright in favor of exposing sensitive data in exchange for powerful partnerships. ------ captainmojo I don't feel this site goes far enough. As someone who values privacy, I feel I've already been slighted with this decision, and I don't plan on forgiving Dropbox for it if they change their mind. I'm cancelling my paid subscription this weekend. ------ macca321 Boom. Downgraded my account to free. Now I have 8 months to accept OneDrive into my life. It feels quite empowering to have the ability to protest the Iraq war with my wallet, more so than not voting Labour did. ------ Deusdies I have generally been using Google Drive anyway, but after what this person did to my country as well, I am not going to support a company that supports her. Time to move all of my files from Dropbox to GDrive. ~~~ mbrutsch That was quick and painless. I was already using gdrive for my work files; downloaded and installed gdrive sync in about 5 minutes, and now I have over 3 times the free space I did with Dropbox. Thanks, Condy! ------ ptbello Just delete your account already instead of tweeting empty promises [https://www.dropbox.com/account/delete](https://www.dropbox.com/account/delete) Reason: Other Care to elaborate: Condoleezza Rice ------ api Funny the reaction of so many against this. If it's okay to vote by ballot, why is it not okay to vote by dollar? They're your dollars. It's perfectly fine to choose not to give them to companies that do things or whose leadership holds views you disagree with. Dollars are far more powerful mechanisms of voting than ballots IMHO. Imagine if everyone investigated the leadership of companies they did business with and refused to buy from companies whose leadership supported unnecessary war, discrimination, etc.? If indeed it is corporate leadership that _really_ leads the country, then corporate leadership might be a more important target for change than governmental leadership. ~~~ htns Because voting by dollar is not democracy. ~~~ api Then let's ban for-pay lobbying. ------ bachback I'd suggest the alternative [http://mega.co.nz](http://mega.co.nz) ~~~ kzrdude They didn't seem to know how to do cryptography right though. ~~~ sprash Well they responded to all criticisms fairly reasonable and also introduced a vulnerability reward program. If you find a flaw you get up to 10000 €. ------ davexunit Finally people realize that Dropbox is unethical. They've been denying your computing freedom for years now, but it took hiring Condoleezza Rice for people to start to catch on. Replace dropbox with ownCloud. [http://owncloud.org/](http://owncloud.org/) ~~~ dhimes I was looking at their site for a while and I really have no idea what they sell. I'm sure it's just a communication issue, but it seems kind of weird. Like I have to register to find out that I will get a client for free but pay $10K/month for the enterprise software or something. How do they make money? Apparently you use your own server so you must buy the code? ~~~ sparkie ownCloud is free/open source software - you have no obligation to use ownCloud's servers or pay them anything - you can download both the client and server source code, host the server on your own machine, and connect to that with the client. ownCloud run a business where they can host a copy of the server software for you, if you don't have your own machine or a usable connection - but there's no requirement to use that - you could spin up an instance in Amazon's cloud or elsewhere too. ------ vishalzone2002 its not only dropbox. She is also on board of multiple class-A valley startups including thomas siebel's c3 energy [http://www.c3energy.com/about-board-of- directors](http://www.c3energy.com/about-board-of-directors) ------ joyeuse6701 Hah, you know, back in the day, when people had a problem with a political action it usually ended up in a serious sacrifice e.g. seppuku, self- immolation, revolt, crucifixion... guillotines, assasinations. Nowadays one can disagree vehemently with a leader just as before, but simply stop using a service related to them to help with some passive aggressive need of absolution from the shame you somehow internalized! Grand. Absolutely. Grand. I mean, sure if you have an issue with the deaths this woman is tied to...DEATHS, you know, for emphasis, you'd think that that would have been the last straw, that you would have given up your citizenship and moved elsewhere in at least some sign of protest against the U.S. Government as a Service. But no, this...this is the last straw, because now you can 'fight' her on your terms that won't hurt you too bad, show the world your 'mettle'. The sacrifice is symbolic enough you can tell your friends about it, but not so much that it actually hurts you, which really isn't a sacrifice at all. All you can do here is express an opinion, and change your money flow, which really doesn't alter anything, you've stalemated the battle, but the war is still lost. ------ ixmatus I'm moving over to BtSync ASAP; I really wish there was a Tarsnap like service but synced my data across multiple devices :( I can only really use it for backups... ------ micahroberson Aside from personal views, I question why Dropbox would make a move like this knowing that there would _some_ backlash at the very minimum. There are other people out there that would make just as good of a board member without the potential that Condi has for stirring up discontent. If they didn't anticipate this or consider the ramifications of adding Condi, then the execs behind the decision need some help. ------ DanielBMarkham I'm not even going to ask you guys to stop with the angry villager thing. Almost a thousand of you upvoted it, you must be enjoying yourselves. But I will ask that you take this off HN. All kinds of people in the world. They do all kinds of things and hold all kinds of opinions. I don't want to visit HN each morning and find the top item is the result of the latest googling and angry mob. Go get a room or something. It's not only that it's not interesting, it's actively non-productive. Every minute you spend with this is a minute you could be doing something better with your life -- the current person of outrage has nothing to do with anything. Trust me, there'll be a new one next week. Just get a room. Take it somewhere else. Please. ~~~ mkr-hn I'm half with you on this. People can choose software based on their needs and values, and they should be free to encourage others to do so. It's perfectly valid to make a campaign like this. But HN has proven itself uniquely incapable of discussing political matters without making a mess of itself, so it doesn't fit here. ~~~ DanielBMarkham I deeply support people's right to talk about these things, boycott, and so on. I'm even in favor of talking about moral issues here. As technologists, we bear a lot of the blame for many bad things that go on in the world. Too many times we like to feel like we're somehow above the fray. My problem from a system standpoint is that we're starting to see a trend of engineering these things. Person X joins tech company. They get googled -- or they're just controversial. Then I got the top 3 spots of my HN feed full of Person X. If it happened once a year it'd be one thing, but I'm feeling like this is going to be a new trend for us, and frankly, that's bullshit. The goal here isn't to have a conversation, it's to form up into little groups and go to war with each other. It's manipulative. Nobody is going to read this thread and suddenly decide "you know, maybe I was wrong about that Iraq war decision all along" We're in cable news land, where we just want _drama_. Today was the first time I actually felt that HN actively didn't want me here. That's not the community I joined. ------ dinduks I find it surprising that people are so desperate they beg the Dropbox company and still want to use the software after this. 1) You CAN live without Dropbox. There are alternatives (I personally use BTSync, which is great). 2) You shouldn't NOT be using an American service that holds and versions your data in first place. It is not new that all these services are wiretrapped, or at least easily accessible by the gov (not mentioning they sell/use your privacy to make money). 3) They won't kick out such an "extremely brilliant and accomplished individual". 4) Even if she gets kicked or leaves, this is yet another reason to not trust them, since they're blind/careless enough to hire her. ------ mcherm Attacking companies for working with leaders who happen to have a conservative political viewpoint is simply unacceptable. For goodness sake, Condoleezza Rice was the US Secretary of State! There are a substantial number of people who found her to be an excellent leader -- including at least 2/3 of the US Senate. I am quite liberal, but I do not believe in blacklisting people because of their political beliefs. At one point, this country blacklisted "Communists" because of their beliefs -- it was not enforced directly by the government, but the blacklisting was nevertheless quite real. Let us not recreate that sad chapter in our history with "Conservatives" replacing the "Communists". ~~~ insuffi This has nothing to do with political beliefs or a conservative background. You can be a conservative in all possible ways and still uphold moral principles. The last time I checked morality does not include lying, undermining human rights, waging foreign wars. ~~~ rjohnk It has everything to do with her political beliefs and conservative background. Just admit it. You can still disagree with her and boycott Dropbox. Just say that you disagree with her political beliefs. The things the article referenced are all political. ~~~ insuffi Nope. In my world, morals matter more than political affiliation. Conservative or not, neither of those is inherently bad. What matters is how it's executed. Oh, and by the way,I have observed this trend in the US where people who are liberals automatically disagree with conservatives just because. Sorry, I do like me some critical thinking, you know? You have that, right? I explained my case loud and clear. War is bad, regardless of whether you're conservative or liberal. ~~~ rjohnk But you said it had nothing to do with her political beliefs - Going to war against Iraq is a political statement as she and others believed that WMDs were there and posed a threat to the region and the World. It's a political belief. I'm not arguing your moral stance. What I see is wanting something both ways - being able to say you don't disagree with politics of the woman, then disagreeing with the politics of the woman. (BTW, I'm not incensed, I'm the type that could argue all day with someone and then go shoot the breeze with a cold one later) ~~~ insuffi Except she did know that there were no WMDs there, and so did the rest of the admin. Even if the WMDs were there, that in no way posed a threat to the region or the World. If anything, that was just a charade. It's widely known the US had a close relationship with Saddam. Expanding on her making a political statement, people would have every right to condemn her that political statement if it's a pure lie. P.S. Political affiliation/beliefs, like I said, don't make you a bad person. Fucking shit up and holding a certain belief are not connected. EDIT: Plus, following your logic, if you're a republican and you beat your wife, does that mean being a republican is bad? ------ dzink A board member does not decide on features or dig into your account to look for your political preferences. I can think of a dozen reasons why they would have invited her and all of them would be good for the company and good for users: \- advise on security matters and help keep the NSA out of my files. \- get government business for Dropbox thus maybe reducing bureaucracy for citizens and small business owners alike in this country and others. \- help the company navigate Washington in a lot of ways My imagination is poor on the subject, but I think if a company gets a politically savvy partner who was chief diplomat in the most powerful country in the world for a while it is for the benefit of the company and it's users. ~~~ joshstrange >> advise on security matters and help keep the NSA out of my files What about her past makes you think she would have this position? I'd argue if the options are "Help protect your data from the NSA" or "Hand over your data to the NSA" that she would be much more in favor of giving your data to the NSA. ~~~ talmand What about her past makes you think she would have this position? ~~~ joshstrange Rice authorized National Security Agency to spy on UN Security Council in run- up to war, former officials say [0] >> Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice defended Bush's actions, telling "Fox News Sunday" the president had authorized the National Security Agency "to collect information on a limited number of people with connections to al Qaeda." >> ... >> Asked why the president authorized skipping the FISA court, Rice said the war on terrorism was a "different type of war" that gives the commander in chief "additional authorities." [1] >> Wolf Blitzer Interview with Condoleezza Rice on Domestic Wiretap Controversy [2] [0] [http://rawstory.com/news/2005/After_domestic_spying_reports_...](http://rawstory.com/news/2005/After_domestic_spying_reports_U.S._spying_1227.html) [1] [http://www.cnn.com/2005/POLITICS/12/18/bush.nsa/](http://www.cnn.com/2005/POLITICS/12/18/bush.nsa/) [2] [http://transcripts.cnn.com/TRANSCRIPTS/0512/26/sitroom.03.ht...](http://transcripts.cnn.com/TRANSCRIPTS/0512/26/sitroom.03.html) ~~~ dzink Josh, that just tells you she is able to defend and promote the interests of the organization she works for. ~~~ joshstrange So it's fine for someone to have no morals as long as they are good at their job? ~~~ dzink Morals are essential. But we are judging them without knowing facts. We know neither why Drew, one of our own, had to make the hire, nor what kind of choices she was really faced with in the past. The position of Diplomat is a very tricky one in politics. In fact many opposition leaders get hired into it (including Hillary) because a Diplomat HAS TO parrot the decisions of the administration. ~~~ vdaniuk As soon as Drew is ready to shake hands with a person, directly or indirectly linked to mass war deaths, he ceases to be one of our own. For me, at least, this is the case. ------ Rofu2000 I approve of any thought process that allows me to narrow down the amount of awesome cloud services out there to choose from. Making choices is really hard for me. Also, I prefer ethical reasons because it makes me feel warm at night. ------ higherpurpose What a brain-dead decision by Dropbox. I can't believe they actually thought of this themselves and decided what a great idea it would be to have someone like Condoleezza Rice on the board. For some reason I expected a little more from a YC star. ------ BetterLateThan 1\. Uninstalled. 2. In 2014, every business faces the choice to either quit businessing or collaborate with the government. This choice will soon trickle to individuals, if Rome, Germany and the USSR are any reference. ------ ajsharp This is just silly. ~~~ equalarrow How so? So it's ok to be a part of the team that was responsible for killing many men, women, and children and not only not answer for it, but move on to be on company boards where you can be a part of some serious collection of money at some point? Wow, ok. We must be living in different realities because those years that she was part of will be looked at (or already are) as some of the worst - if not the worst - in American history. It's sad that none of that crew will ever answer for what they started and did. Granted, there were a lot of people in that chain that should have stood up and said no and not killed anyone. But they didn't. And if you or I did any of those things not wearing an army uniform, we'd be locked up and/or on death row. I would never in a million years even acknowledge anyone from that team let alone bring them on the board of my company. We really are in an era where it's all about valuations, elevator pitches, and exits. I'm waiting for some young company to bring Dick Cheney on next. Pick your battles I guess and I will be looking for an alternative that doesn't welcome war criminals. ~~~ ajsharp While convenient to paint a picture of everything being messed up and different than previous generations, none of this is at all accurate. The difference is that we lived through the Bush administration, remember it vividly, and many of us disagreed with nearly everything that happened during those 8 years. And it just happened, so it's still fresh(ish). As the saying goes, "everything's different, everything's the same." I agree those years were really bad; whether they were the worst or whatever is relevant only to someone trying to make a broader point (which I'm not). Personally, in most cases, I don't have a problem with hiring someone based on their merits, despite what their past job was, or even what their political beliefs are (see: Brendan Eich). Apparently Condoleeza Rice is extremely smart, capable, and, as the former Secretary of State, obviously well- connected in the international community. And while you made a pretty good attempt at equating her to Dick Cheney, she's just not Dick Cheney. At the end of the day, this is about Dropbox, not the Bush administration, and if Drew Houston has a spine, nothing will change about this situation. ------ ep103 Bittorrent share is actually an amazing dropbox replacement, and actually has a number of really good privacy implementations built in from the start. I'd highly recommend it, if anyone sees this comment. ------ taksintik Very troubling hire. Very bad pr move by Dropbox. I relly don'why they would choose such a polarizing person. ~~~ capitalisthakr Money. Just a guess. ------ kayoone How Dropbox could possibly not expect a shitstorm like this is beyond me. ~~~ ajsharp What makes you say they didn't? They probably just don't care. ------ jalfresi (With apologies to Zed Shaw, I am just using him as a high profile example) Zed Shaw can be an asshole. But that guy can sure sling code, and I'll eat up anything he programs. Hire him as CEO of a large public company? Now we have a problem... Brendan Eich actively opposes gay marriage. But he programs at Netscape and invents Javascript. Love the guys work. Hire him as CEO? Now we have a problem... Hopefully this shows that the responsibilities at different levels within a business have differing impacts on society. So what if Zed Shaw is an asshole as a software developer? At that level he lacks the political clout to negatively impact society on such a large scale. We can then see that his short temper and sometimes vicious (and often hilarious) barbs are confined in reach. But what if he was President of the United States, sat in a room with Putin, discussing the Ukrane situation? Diplomacy may suffer. This is why I had a problem with Eich as CEO of Mozilla. His backwards political views would have the political clout and mechanisms to negatively impact society. As for Rice being appointed to Dropbox? I simply do not trust someone who has been shown to lie for political ends, to the point of invasion of a soverign nation and promote, participate in and endorse war crimes. I require COMPLETE TRUST in any data storage provider I use and as such deleted my dropbox account. ------ krick I don't know who author of that mentions by saying "we", but I somehow don't feel I should respond to his call. I don't even really know who is that woman he is speaking about, I don't know about politics, I don't want to know. I can't even recall without googling who's running Dropbox right now and I surely don't know (I wonder if I could!) if they are good or bad people. I know Dropbox. Dropbox is a service that does something valuable to me. So, why should I be concerned? I could be concerned if author explained me why and how is that _Dropbox_ does something "bad". If it'd show that it will hurt customers or dolphins or whatever. I surely would be concerned if it'd show that there's no way we can trust Dropbox anymore because of that. But if it would be so I don't think I should trust them anyway, because, you know, Condoleezza Rice doesn't fall from the sky right in the directors chair usually, she's invited first. They are already connected somehow. But manifesting some organization (that does something useful, which rarely the manifesting ones do) because of some woman-who-supported-war (or man-who- is-against-gay-marriages, for that sake) is sitting the hight chair in it is stupid. I don't think I could use _anything_ if I protested about every company having some personality I disagree with in its owners/directors list (however their names may be somewhat less known than "Condoleezza Rice"). And if you want to hurt that Rice specifically for some reason — too bad, but I don't think that's big problem for her. I believe she has money to avoid dying of starvation anyway already. ------ morgante I wholeheartedly agree with this cause, but think the framing is terrible. It's clouding the picture by making things political when they don't need to be. Rice's support of the Iraq war does not matter. Dropbox will not be starting wars or having anything to do with them, besides possibly getting lucrative DoD contracts. Rice's position on torture does not matter. Dropbox has no reason or likelihood of torture. Rice's involvement with Chevron does not matter. If anything, this is evidence that she might be an okay choice. The only thing which matters is her position on warrantless wiretapping. It's not political. I'm just not comfortable having someone make key privacy decisions who, on the record, doesn't believe in my right to privacy. Even if (bizarrely) you think mass surveillance might be acceptable, you should oppose Rice being on the board. Our system works best when there's an adversarial relationship between actors—when the government comes knocking, corporations will at least ask a couple questions about why, even just to verify this is a legitimate government request. Having someone who designed, and firmly believes in, the surveillance state on BOTH sides of the table destroys that. So, yes, drop Dropbox. ------ mentos >Tell Drew Houston: drop Condoleezza Rice or we will So if they drop Condoleezza Rice you'll be fine with their decision making process and keep your dropbox account? ~~~ watty No. It's more of a "let's hurt their image because we don't agree with the political decisions of Condoleezza Rice" at this point. ------ infra178 > This is not an issue of partisanship. That's exactly what it is. ------ mikeash Here are some things I've "learned" from the comments in this thread: 1\. Public discussion and encouraging people to vote with their wallet does not belong in a civil society. 2\. Nonviolent grassroots campaigns are anti-democratic. 3\. It's OK to do terrible things as long as you had good intentions. Seriously, are you guys all completely insane? The quality of these comments is just amazingly bad. It goes beyond the standard "internet bad" comments full of trolling and bad reasoning, and over the edge into "actively ridiculous". I'm sure there are good arguments to be made against this _but they aren 't being made here_. Please think about what you're about to write makes any kind of sense before you comment. Edit: if I were more conspiracy minded, I'd be wondering if the Brendan Eich affair was deliberately created as a weak example to create a wedge and discredit the whole idea of attacking companies based on the politics of their high-level people. It certainly strikes me as unlikely that there would be so many negative comments towards this if the Eich business hadn't first put so many people in that mood. ------ havaze This is insane. All that's done here is seeking a scapegoat that can be hold responsible for everything. This is nonsense, the American people are responsible for the decisions of the very same people they voted for, and nobody else. She never has held a democratically elected office you say? That doesn't matter either, the system which allowed this to happen was. Now I'm not saying dropping dropbox is an unreasonable decision, privacy concerns come to mind, but what's one of the options the article suggests as replacement? Ah yes Microsoft, one of the most "evil" companies in existence. So we trade one evil for another, but wait there is more! What's about the companies that made you mobile phone, clothing, car and the other thousand things you use in your daily life? Well, if you finished checking every single one of them, and dropping products from the "evil" ones then please send me an email with a list of goodies that can be considered ethical. Or wait, you'll not have a computer any more at this point. ------ amcnett All this time I thought the line item reading "roll my own dropbox clone with a raspberry pi or something" on my Someday Maybe Projects list might always stay buried low on the stank rank. Then this news broke. My personal digital exodus has commenced. Best not to wait until she conveys the authorization of Dropbox's administration to submit user data and activity in a privacy-flouting fashion. "The president instructed us that nothing we would do would be outside of our obligations, legal obligations, under the Convention Against Torture," she replied. "So that's -- and by the way, I didn't authorize anything. I conveyed the authorization of the administration to the agency . . .By definition, if it was authorized by the president, it did not violate our obligations under the Conventions Against Torture." \- [http://www.huffingtonpost.com/phil- trounstine/stanford-anti-...](http://www.huffingtonpost.com/phil- trounstine/stanford-anti-war-protest_b_195364.html) ~~~ macca321 You can always spin up [http://owncloud.org/](http://owncloud.org/) \- it sets up a WebDAV thingy, and there is an android photo sync app. ------ jimmytidey It makes it easier that I don't really like Dropbox as a product anyway. ------ cschmidt Her 9 page CV is here: [http://politicalscience.stanford.edu/sites/default/files/sta...](http://politicalscience.stanford.edu/sites/default/files/staff_cv/CV%20_Rice_April_2013.pdf) From that she is currently on the corporate boards of KiOR, C3 Energy, and Makena Capital. She previously was on the boards of Schwab, Chevron, Transamerica, and HP. ------ gress This is a great way to express political opinion in a capitalist society where the ballot box is ineffectual. I hope we see more of it. ------ sfk Comparing this voicing of disapproval to Mc Carthyism is completely disingenuous, and I'm surprised that you do not know better. In the 1950s it was the _government_ who harassed innocent citizens. You cannot escape the government, because it has absolute power. What we are seeing here on the other hand is a peaceful protest of free citizens exercising their right to free speech. ------ mkhalil I am happy to hear more people understanding the notion that every dollar you spend is a vote. No matter what one may believe, being ignorant to the fact that business and politics have a lot to do with each other does not make you innocent. Spend your dollars responsibly. In fact, I'd even go as far to say that the way people spend their money can impact their government/politics/society in a much more drastic way than voting in the booths. Rice was a war monger. She broke many laws-including international laws which we tend to throw out of the way when it comes to us-that were put in to protect us, the people. You think politicians don't choose their which business they invest in based on politics of people involved think again. We need to change the way we spend our real vote, money, if we want real reform in our society. We need to show our influence and have politicians think again before passing the next SOPA act, or invading our privacy. ------ cscheid Does anyone know of a version of [http://theyrule.net](http://theyrule.net) with updated data? ------ brudgers The most positive aspect of Rice's appointment is that it is a clear signal as to how DropBox is likely to act when evaluating claims that a particular course of action will affect the United State's national security interests as those interests have been defined in recent years. It expresses that DropBox's operations are likely to be in accord with a particular interpretation of American patriotism. Whether one as an American agrees with that interpretation of American patriotism or holds an orthogonal view, or whether a non-American sees that interpretation as right or not, individuals will now be able to make an informed choice about if, when, and how they use DropBox. There should be no wishful thinking, DropBox has declared itself part of the American military- industrial complex. Such honesty is refreshing irrespective of my opinion regarding the nature of patriotism or what constitutes superior forms of its expression. ------ stephengillie I was expecting to see this response for their lacking reaction to Heartbleed, not to having Rice join their board... ~~~ microtherion For me, it's the _combination_ of the two events that is disturbing. Dropbox was discovered to be vulnerable to an exploit that may have been planted to facilitate government surveillance, and around the same time, Dropbox brings on board one of the architects of the current government surveillance overreach. ------ whizzkid This is like being in the same boat with someone that caused a massive amount of people's life. Maybe that person has nothing against to you, or harmed you, and she can even be a the perfect captain for the boat. But personally, If i have the option of another boat to board on, I would rather not be on the same one with her. ------ homulilly Dropbox has made it pretty clear in the past that security and privacy isn't a major priority for them and this appointment makes it even more obvious. That said, any US company doesn't have much choice when it comes to handing over information so I don't know how big of an impact this will have in practice. ------ Zelphyr For those comparing this to the ouster of Brendan Eich: It seems to me there is a distinction in that he, despite his ignorant views, was able to keep them separate from his work. Making this country less free and more war-like (e.g.; _less_ safe) WAS her work and she did it all too well. Her ties to the NSA alone are serious cause for concern. Do we really want someone in a position of power at a place that stores massive amounts of (supposedly) private user data? I already removed 99.9% of my data from Dropbox after the NSA revelations with the assumption that the latter had access regardless of whether Dropbox was complicit. I assumed they weren't. With former Secretary Rice on the board I now assume Dropbox will become complicit and so I will delete my account altogether. ------ jmnicolas I just closed my DropBox account with the reason "Condoleezza Rice". I want those people to know there are consequences to their actions. Now if I was rational about it and it was as easy as living without DropBox, I would stop using Microsoft softwares. ------ jcolemorr11 Maybe I'm the only one who's thinking like this but... ...It's just Dropbox. "But she access to ALL THE THINGS!" I highly doubt Dropbox will intentionally jeopardize the meat of their business model. And again. It's just Dropbox. Not the golden keys to nuclear warfare or even a tech mover and shaker like Google. What I want to know is why a highly educated, over qualified, former leader of the country is joining a cloud storage company. Her skill set could be leveraged so much better elsewhere. It's just...what the hell. That's what's confusing me. Not her wielding political influence to rename my file extensions to .nsa or .chevy. ------ shiftpgdn Kind of wish there was a picture of dead kids warning before I clicked the link. ------ whistlerbrk Oh please. Every American here, myself included, started the war in Iraq and helped pass the Patriot Act by electing these buffoons and not throwing them out of office. The fault is within ourselves. ~~~ cpt1138 And how do you suggest throwing them out of office? ------ mattmaroon I love how it says it's not because she was a member of the Bush Administration and not partisan, then goes on to list a bunch of things she did as a member of the Bush Administration. ------ thesis I've kind of been waiting for a reason to switch to Google Drive because of (mainly) price and a few other factors. While not the main reason, this is the tip of the iceberg. ------ VuongN If you find yourself needing to use Dropbox (or other cloud providers) for one reason or another, I would humbly suggest giving us a try: [https://www.ncryptedcloud.com/](https://www.ncryptedcloud.com/). We try to remedy the situation by allowing what cloud storage providers do best: syncing & sharing of data and we secure them. Having the data without the correct key render the data useless to any prying eyes. ------ pdpi I feel that at this point we might to coin the verb "to eich", meaning "to shitstorm a company into forcing a high-ranking manager to resign". ~~~ mkr-hn The word is protest. It's a valid and useful form of speech. Not everyone wanted him out of a job. I don't even think that was the majority opinion. I only wanted to know that the new CEO's values lined up with the values of the company if I was going to continue using and supporting the company's products. ------ tambourine_man The only real alternative is building your own. I have, it was fun and it mostly works. But suggesting that Box.com, Microsoft or Google are more trustworthy is misleading. ------ bsaul This post is wrong on so many level it's not even fun... Instead of denouncing the fact that a corporate has to hire political figures for their influence ( upon whom ?) it's a never ending list of clichés about good politician ( like obama letting the syrian people die, i suppose ?) vs bad politicians ( the world would have been such a better place with saddamn hussein !) from the point of view of a 5 year old. Grow up a bit, please. ------ edtechdev I've been looking for an excuse to finally copy over my stuff from dropbox to google drive, thanks, I was too lazy to bother with it before :) ------ Ryel It sounds like Dropbox is giving the middle finger to everyday consumers and this is simply a move to get Dropbox on every government machine. ------ ezrameanshelp This is why my company's board is 100% cyborgs. ------ dkhenry Well I thought it would take longer for activists to start targeting companies in the wake of the Mozilla issue. I am actually surprised to see this happen so quickly. Its good to know that I am free to excersize my rights unless I want a job in the tech sector in which case I am required to conform to the social worldview of a selection of internet activists. ~~~ vdaniuk Is it a human right to approve torture, work towards starting a war and helping installing mass surveillance? I might have missed the U.N. meeting protecting those "rights". ------ sugarfactory You shouldn't use any of the alternatives listed here either. Because none of those supports encryption. All the cloud storage services which do not provide encryption are unexceptionally evil. Because given the easiness of implementing an encryption feature, not to implement it means the administrators of a service are willing to see users' files. ------ bagels I read through the whole site... where are the instructions on deleting a Dropbox account? Not that it was very hard, but the link is non obvious in the Dropbox account settings, spent a couple more minutes than I'd like. For those interested, this is a link from the support page: [https://www.dropbox.com/account/delete](https://www.dropbox.com/account/delete) ~~~ speeder Thanks! As someone that is from a country that suffered from US meddling, and someone that was very critical of Condolezza Rice even before the actual war on Iraq started because of her role back then, I had to delete my account, I don't even bothered to make a backup, I just deleted it. ------ CamperBob2 The link to [http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2009/04/22/bush-adviser- rice...](http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2009/04/22/bush-adviser-rice-gave-ok- waterboard/) is broken on the page. There's no contact link to the drop- dropbox.com admins, so maybe they'll see it here... ------ mschuster91 Recommend Google Drive and MS OneDrive? As if those two were any better. Google mines your data and MS sleeps with the NSA. ------ microjesus So as a vocal, technically proficient and wealthy segment; we are now basically a lobby group. Minus third party funding, hidden agendas and three piece suits. I love this. I think that using our significant influence to form an opinion followed by digital exertion of will is simply of mirror of formal politics. Game on. ------ avani I'm not about to read through 600 comments to find out if someone has already asked, so apologies in advance, but what is the state of viable dropbox alternatives right now? Through their college promotions and puzzle hunts, I have ~20GB of free storage there (afaik in perpetuity). Is there anything comparable? ~~~ mkr-hn I've used Copy for a while. I wrote a post on it comparing features with Dropbox: [http://mkronline.com/2013/09/25/dropbox-vs-copy-a- comparison...](http://mkronline.com/2013/09/25/dropbox-vs-copy-a-comparison- of-features-and-benefits/) ------ chrisBob If you really don't like dropbox you won't tell people to quit. You will tell them to get free accounts and: dd if=/dev/random of=~/Dropbox/junkFile bs=1024 count=1000000 Adjusting the count according to the account size (obviously). If you do it again a few minutes later they will even help you out and store both copies! ------ shittyanalogy Just remember; Dropbox is convenient, and with that convenience come Condoleezza Rice having possession of your data. ------ cm-t I linked this thread to /r/ubuntu since they might be concerned with the shutdown of Ubuntu One: [http://www.reddit.com/r/Ubuntu/comments/22p14s/if_you_are_le...](http://www.reddit.com/r/Ubuntu/comments/22p14s/if_you_are_leaving_ubuntu_one_for_dropbox_i_saw/) ------ KhalilK There's a broken reference in the site: <a href="www.foxnews.com/politics/2009/04/22/bush-adviser-rice-gave-ok- waterboard/">lied about the extent to which she was involved</a> Fix: Add [http://](http://) to the link. ------ jader201 I see shades of gray all over the present and future of this thread. Pretty sure if there were ever an appropriate thread for enabling pending comments [1], it is this one. [1] [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7484304](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7484304) ------ acconrad If we collectively invested 1/10th of this passion towards real problems (like boycotting mega banks for the billions they stole during the financial crisis) instead of whether or not my free hard drive is advised by a ex-high-ranking politician, we'd be getting a lot more done. ------ cpt1138 Rice brings Enterprise and Government contracts. In terms of Dropbox's valuation, I don't really see consumer dollars justifying any business model they have. Just look to Palantir if you want to see an example of a service that does very well with no consumer dollars at all. ------ msoad I'm from Middle East. I can't be the one who make Ms. Rice richer and happier. Goodbye Dropbox. ------ Mindless2112 First Mozilla for Brenden Eich and now Dropbox for Condoleezza Rice -- is this what Hacker News is now? a tool for the Internet lynch mob? Disgusting. "First they came for the Socialists, and I did not speak out-- Because I was not a Socialist. Then they came for the Trade Unionists, and I did not speak out-- Because I was not a Trade Unionist. Then they came for the Jews, and I did not speak out-- Because I was not a Jew. Then they came for me--and there was no one left to speak for me." [1] Some will say "But Dropbox/Condoleezza Rice is no victim here! They're just reaping the results of their actions." But that's exactly the point, isn't it: it's all fair until the Internet mob turns on you for something you've done that they don't approve of. I'm not saying I approve of Condoleezza Rice being on the Board at Dropbox, but using HN for this sort of activism disgusts me. [1] [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/First_they_came_...](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/First_they_came_...). ~~~ mike_hearn In this case, "them coming" just means a consumer boycott, at worst. It is in absolutely no way comparable to goons dragging people off to death chambers and you demean this debate by implying it is. ~~~ Mindless2112 The death chambers may be missing, but the goons are definitely there. Feel free to tell Brendan Eich that it was a consumer boycott, at worst. ------ jqm I just deleted my Dropbox account. It was a free account anyway. I found it contained about GB of files I hadn't accessed in a couple of years. Then I realized.... What a wise move on the part of Dropbox to bring Rice on board. They probably will free up a few Petabytes of space from non-paying geeks:) ------ beggi I dropped Dropbox about a year ago, after realizing I only used it for backups. Although a nice feature in idea I actually never accessed my files on other computers, so I dropped Dropbox and switched to Arq backups. I recommend it for anyone with the same dilemma. ------ joshdance I was hoping this would be a site that would review and compare cloud storage alternatives. ~~~ cruise02 That might be even more convincing! :) ------ johnpowell On 20 March 2003 I was a student studying accounting at Portland State University. By the end of the night I tried to block the Burnside bridge and the cops beat the shit out of me on the south-side steps for protesting the war.. ------ rjohnk Why is this? Because she was a part of the Bush administration? Because she is a Republican and we should hate Republicans? I mean, come on, isn't Al Gore on Apple's Board? He's no saint! No. This is not an issue of partisanship." They then proceed to bring mostly partisan viewpoints to the table. This is usually what those on the left do (yes, yes, I know, not all). Set things up as non-partisan and then proceed partisan attacks. We have A) Iraq War was wrong B) Torture and Bush lacky C)Warrant-less wiretaps D) BIG SCARY OIL Let us back up and acknowledge that Congress okayed much of this, so any member at the time who is now a board member of any company should also be tarred and feathered. You have the right to disagree with dropbox, but come on, drop the "this isn't partisan" partisan arguments. ------ cjoh While I wish people took more moral stances like this, I feel like it's nonsensical to worry about Condi Rice, and worry more about the broken incentives around the financial system that Dropbox is headed for. Goldman Sachs is a substantial investor in Dropbox. Where were the cries to drop dropbox then? [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Goldman_Sachs#Controversies](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Goldman_Sachs#Controversies) Or the ideology "fiduciary responsibility" for public companies, which involve companies like Google and Apple hoarding money offshore and using sophisticated accounting tricks to avoid paying taxes? I'd like to see more of our "I AM OUTRAGED" efforts be aimed more towards the systems that cause our problems than the people who arise from them. ~~~ vdaniuk Really, isn't this the case that a lot of people are constantly outraged about goldman sachs, current state of affairs in the valley and perverted incentives of the start-up ecosystem? ------ hueving Can someone explain to me how being involved with Chevron is unethical? ------ newsreader Dropbox deciding to employ Condoleezza Rice is not reason enough for me to drop Dropbox; sorry. I will continue to use Dropbox, OneDrive, Google Drive, Box, and whatever else is out there. ------ elwell Just curious; what services would you not abandon if say, Bashar Al-Assad were to join the board? I thought maybe GMail for me, but then I decided maybe there aren't any services I wouldn't leave. ------ elwell It should be noted that her consulting firm [0] has been advising Dropbox for the last year. [0] - [http://www.ricehadleygates.com/](http://www.ricehadleygates.com/) ~~~ aridiculous Just had a look at their website. It's like a dream team of awful people. ------ nextstep Ok, I agree with most of this. What is the best Dropbox alternative? ------ pbreit At first, this Democrat thought this was a joke. I'm prepared to believe it still might be a show of how ridiculous this line of thinking is. Rice is a huge "get" for Dropbox who I think has a good chance to be a significant asset for Dropbox once all this dust blows over. Rice has demonstrated time and again that she works for her team. In this case, that could mean making Dropbox the strongest, securest offering in the market. She is bright, well-connected and effective. Hardly anyone is mentioning her tenure at Stanford which is obviously a big plus for the company. I don't see strong parallels to the Mozilla case. Different role, different company, different subject. ------ news_to_me I disagree with product boycotts in general, including this one. It means we're "voting with dollars", which means people with more dollars have more votes. ------ lohankin If I open a thread "Drop HN", will it be published here? The site did more than enough during the last week to promote hate and intolerance. What do you think? ------ joeblau That escalated quickly! This is a pretty strong digital political attacks to be lobbied against a tech company. I'm curious to see what response Dropbox will have. ------ bogwog The only thing this article said which I agreed with was the wiretapping part. The other stuff: torture, Chevron, the war in Iraq, etc had nothing to do with Dropbox ------ crazy1van My thoughts as I read this article: "She helped start the Iraq War" Ok, that was a costly war with a lousy outcome. "She was involved in the creation of the Bush administration's torture program" Ok, torture and no due process seems pretty antithetical to a free society. "Rice not only supports warrantless wiretaps, she authorized several" Ok, I like the 4th amendment and that weakened it even more. "Rice was on the Board of Directors at Chevron" Omg, what did Chevron do on the same order as torture and warrantless wiretapping??? Oh, turns out nothing. Or at least this article offers no evidence. Kinda weakens the whole argument. ------ MrBlue sudo apt-get remove dropbox; rm -rvf ~/.dropbox ~/.dropbox-dist done! ~~~ mkr-hn What about the files on Dropbox's servers? ------ mbeattie "HEY HERE ARE SOME NON-PARTISAN REASONS TO NOT LIKE CONDI: partisan reason number 1 partisan reason number 2 reason 3 is valid partisan reason number 4" ------ scottydelta Well I have been planning to host my own dropbox like service on my own server for myself and I think now is the high time that I do!! Bye bye Dropbox!! ------ geekymartian [http://www.wikihow.com/Uninstall-Dropbox-from-a- Mac](http://www.wikihow.com/Uninstall-Dropbox-from-a-Mac) ------ theorique Why all this politicization of Rice's role? What possible relevance could her actions (or hysterical descriptions of her actions) in the Bush administration have in regards to her role as a board member of Dropbox? Most likely, this is a political appointment to get Dropbox connections in Washington, to sell large contracts into the federal government. And, possibly, to sell into governments abroad where Ms Rice's connections may also be of value. (None of which has any relevance to the usefulness of their product to me.) ~~~ doktrin Actions have consequences. It's perfectly acceptable for individuals to choose to no longer support a product based on its leaderships decisions. ------ caycep One could argue she was the temporizing influence in that administration...without her, Cheney and co would have had unchecked free reign... ------ nomadcoop Anyone know of a Dropbox equivalent based in Europe? ~~~ Cyclenerd I recommend [http://www.wuala.com/](http://www.wuala.com/) In order to protect your privacy, Wuala encrypts the data on your computer before it is uploaded. ------ sys32768 Safe to assume the persons behind the 900+ comments here approve of the political views and actions of the Hacker News owners and staff? Dang, I guess I do! ------ grannyg00se I'm sure that bringing Brendan Eich's politics into question when he moved into CEO position has made this a more popular trend. ~~~ xenophonf Business leaders' politics have always been an issue, and people arrange boycotts all the time because of them (left, right, and center). It's called political speech, and it's actually a good thing. Heck, it even cuts both ways - for example, the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation has definitely changed my opinion of the Microsoft founder, and in a good way. ------ Grue3 Oh boy, yet another idiotic witch hunt. I'm sure the author uses only software written exclusively by people with purest intentions. ------ mason240 Looks like we are living a new age of McCarthyism. ~~~ CamperBob2 Except McCarthy was seeking to destroy numerous people who had done nothing wrong. Other than that, yeah, it's the same. ~~~ macinjosh Hindsight is 20/20\. At the time I'm sure many people believed those targeted by McCarthy had done things wrong. ------ araftery > No. This is not an issue of partisanship. Yes it is. Nearly every reason on there is partisan. Say what you want about "trustworthiness" and the fact that having an "untrustworthy" person on a cloud service provider's board is worrisome. Frankly, it's not. Even if Rice _were_ untrustworthy, I don't think my data would be in any danger. If you're going to make complaints on partisan grounds, at least don't veil them as some kind of assessment of character. ------ hrish2006 Bit torrent sync! ------ jon_black I'm tempted to write nothing more than the following quote: "You must be the change you wish to see in the world." \- Mahatma Gandhi But of course, Ms. Rice would probably have said the same thing about the reasons why she made the decisions she did. We are all struggling with the same thing. I want/expect/believe the following, and here is my excuse/reason/proof of it. I find it hard to be open minded when so many are driven by their dirty ideals - myself included. ------ jliptzin I've been meaning to switch to Google Drive for a while now, this is a nice catalyst to actually get me to do it. ------ rpowers No. This is not a trend I wish to support. Turning private business decisions into politicized movements is not cool. ------ rodolphoarruda That picture of a dead girl is really disturbing. The link should have some sort of warning for graphic content. ------ mkr-hn This seems like a prime candidate for being moderated off the front page, but it's still at #1. ~~~ general_failure Why what's wrong with it? ~~~ mkr-hn Every link on the Mozilla thing was demoted. What the mod said about doing it seemed very reasonable, but I can't recall the details at the moment. ------ gesman If one's major business depends on DropBox's righteousness and nobility - then these points become more or less valid. For millions of others who use it just to backup stuff - what matters much more is the cost of the service rather then the resume of board members. It's good for everyone to stir the waters though to show that the world at large is not sleeping any more. ------ boston1999 Politics aside, I don't see what she can contribute to a technology company like Dropbox! ~~~ smsm42 Government connections -> contracts -> profit. ------ orochi235 I can't help but notice that whoever is behind this campaign found it necessary to give attribution to the people who produced the images on the page, and provided helpful links to Dropbox's CEO's social media accounts, but didn't bother to sign his own name to the cause. That's the very definition of gutless. ------ dfa0 Vote with your bits[and dollars] if you disagree. Nerd rage alone is fruitless without tangible follow-thru. ------ vvpan This article reminded me - why aren't the people from Bush administration in prison? ------ stevehawk I have full faith that that website is the dumbest thing I will have read this month. ------ ewams [https://AlwaySyncd.com](https://AlwaySyncd.com) ------ caiob I call this internet bullying. I'm most def not gonna stop using a product just because I don't agree with the ideas of one person in the team. This makes me wonder if Google, Microsoft, Box or even Amazon aren't behind this kinda message; y'know trying to make it viral and stuff... ~~~ efficientarch I think it's the historic actions of the person rather than their ideas that are bothering people. But I can't speak for them, of course. ------ exodust It's not enough reason to drop dropbox. I'd need a more serious reason, like if the service deleted all my data. BTW, I recommend Keepass in combination with dropbox for a good reliable password manager. The file is encrypted before sent to dropbox, so Rice won't be able to snoop in your passwords.... Or will she? ;-) ------ don_draper What's a good sync solution for 1Password that doesn't use Dropbox? ~~~ jkelsey iCloud is the other featured cloud provider that AgileBits proclaims on their website, although I wouldn't recommend it. Not a knock against Apple, but I prefer to diversify my technology and not get locked-in into any one service. I just switched back to 1Password from LastPass, and I'm just syncing between my iPhone and my MacBook (my only computer ATM) using wi-fi sync, and backing up my 1Password data on my MacBook to tarsnap. I've seen someone else say they sync their 1Password data using BitTorrent. Haven't tried it myself, but that seems interesting. ------ mattbeck LOL. I was just hilariously accused of being a racist for tweeting the #dropdropbox hash tag. ------ glisom Eich donated $1,000 to a campaign he agreed with. Rice helped run part of the country you are lucky enough to live in. Get over yourselves. I bet everyone of you would work at Dropbox or Mozilla in an instance, even if they were prominent figures in the company. ------ Houshalter This is incredibly childish HN. First the guy from firefox and now this. Politics is the Mind-Killer. [http://lesswrong.com/lw/gw/politics_is_the_mindkiller/](http://lesswrong.com/lw/gw/politics_is_the_mindkiller/) ------ sidcool I appreciate your feelings towards the matter, but I don't support your action. An open letter to Drew Houston would have been enough. It's a corporation, we cannot force it to do something we want to. Boycotting them is not a good option. ~~~ vdaniuk Why it is not a good option to boycott them? I'd say this is a great option to putting pressure on a corporation. ~~~ sidcool It's almost like Socialism, where a populist sentiment is tried to be shoved down the throats of the corporations. I don't use dropbox, but I for sure appreciate their creative genius. It's their prerogative to appoint anyone they wish. You might say it's your privilege to boycott, but then mass boycott is like mob mentality. ~~~ vdaniuk Are you being sarcastic? ~~~ sidcool Not really. Chasing Condi Rice throughout her life for what she did during her term as the Sec of state is uncalled for. If anything, she deserves a fair trial. ------ jays Dropbox certainly has lost some peoples trust. What makes any of the other companies more trustworthy though? Has someone personally interviewed all the employees, performed a security audit of their system, and determined they are legit? Seems like a false sense of security. ------ donnfelker "Its not about who you know, its about who knows you." ------ loupeabody I find the explicit images of war and torture very distasteful. Especially alongside a goofy illustration of Condoleezza's head in the Dropbox logo. There are certainly more appropriate ways to communicate your message besides FUD. ~~~ Crito > _I find the explicit images of war and torture very distasteful._ Really? You find the _images_ distasteful, rather than what the images represent? You should be far more distressed by _war and torture themselves_ than depictions of them. Sort out your priorities. ~~~ loupeabody I suppose if you interpret my words literally, you're correct. Sorry if I was unclear, but I meant that the presence of war and torture images (which in turn themselves automatically represent something, which is in this case, actual war and torture) is grossly out of proportion to the message being presented in the parent link. Out of proportion, that is, to the very mundane event of someone becoming one of Dropbox's board of directors. There's an implication here that Dr. Rice, by being a board member, will guide Dropbox into committing acts of war and torture. This implication is most strongly suggested by the presence of those images. I could make a webpage which looped a video montage of people being beaten and murdered by police officers and upon it superimpose the message "DON'T ARGUE WITH POLICEMEN". Certainly there are more civil and dignified ways to convince people to not argue with police officers? ------ pritambaral The fb share link has href="[http://www.facebook.com/share.php?u=<url>"](http://www.facebook.com/share.php?u=<url>"). It still functions though, js triggered. ------ knightofmars I'm a little suspicious about this whole thing. I want to know who authored this website. Otherwise I hate to say it but I have to assume it is a hit- piece produced by "Box.com" to get people to leave Dropbox. ------ mac1175 There should have been some warning on this link. That picture of that grieving (I assume) father was too much. I get the point the author is trying to make but it didn't have to be an /r/wtf subreddit. ------ diestl I just switched to Google Drive, it's cheaper as well. ~~~ VMG I'd use it also if there was a Linux client. ------ VikingCoder Who's next on their Board of Directors, Linda Tripp? ~~~ dmourati Pol Pot? ------ taivare Im going to'Dropbox'before I ever pick it up ! ------ davidgaw The way I would "drop Dropbox" if they or Rice give in to this shameful attack on diversity of thought. Otherwise, thanks in part to this effort, I will remain a loyal Dropbox customer for life. ------ peeze I thought this was going to be about Heartbleed...darn. ------ dbg31415 Worked at Firefox... should work at Dropbox, right? ------ dangayle But Guido van Rossum works for Dropbox, are we supposed to not support Guido? These witch hunts hurt a lot of people, much more than the single figurehead that everyone get all up in arms over. ~~~ amcnett "Figurehead" doesn't exactly apply in this case given her role specifically entailed the orchestration, coordination, and authorization of unconscionable (at worst) and morally repugnant (at best) acts. ------ macinjosh I thought Silicon Valley was dying for more women and minorities to join their ranks! Rice is both so shouldn't we all be elated?! Oh, she's a Republican? Fuck her. ~~~ Tyrannosaurs How about she has a questionable approach to privacy and Dropbox is an application where privacy is key? ~~~ pbreit How about, she's in a remarkable position to help Dropbox become the leading provider with respect to privacy? ~~~ Tyrannosaurs She could join Amnesty and be in a remarkable position to campaign against torture but her history suggest that isn't something she is remotely likely to do. Similarly her history suggest that she is not a proponent of individual privacy where it conflicts with the perceived need of the state so I'm not sure why you think it's something she'd do now. ------ jokoon dropbox is not a good product, and will never be. so I'm not concerned. tech unsavvy people use those kinds of products, and that's how you spy on so many people. I'm not surprised, and I don't care, because most people don't really care to understand the implications of technology and the implications it can have, and that's exactly how you rule over uneducated smartphone and computer users. ------ twcooper Basically, the argument is to Drop Dropbox because Condi was a part of the Bush administration and is a Republican. ------ payapp Drew@dropboox - bad move... ------ p0nce HubiC is 25 free gigs. ------ up_and_up Seems like an extremely odd selection to me as well as politically charged. ------ digitalcraft drop everything, after all you have the NSA - silly ------ it_learnses These are exciting times! Companies and their leaders are actually being held accountable directly by the people for their unethical, immoral behaviours by diverting their business elsewhere. It's amazing to know that so many in the tech industry care about these issues. ------ paulhauggis Why does it seem like all of these campaigns are against right-leaning people? if this is the kind of tactics you need to use to win, I hope you never win. ------ frik Wow the HN anti flamewar algo (as someone mentioned)... As Dropbox is a YC alumi it puts also a bad light on HN. ------ mantrax4 Internet outrage - one the most promising resources of the 21st century. It's cheap, it's renewable, and the Internet is producing more of it than we can handle. If we could figure out how to power engines with Internet outrage, we'd solve all of our world's problems. Right now it's mostly producing angry tweets and protest pages, but I'm sure if we work together we'll figure it out, eventually. Until then, keep the outrage coming! I believe in outrage! ~~~ buckbova The internet outrage machine is highly inefficient and produces considerable less energy than put into it. ------ elliott34 grow up ------ ozh 3 words: not gonna happen. ------ fredgrott Okay lets describe this with satire.. How Many of you Voted for Bush Sr? If you did you are just as guilty as dropbox.. Oh please... ~~~ dragonwriter > How Many of you Voted for Bush Sr? What does Bush Sr. have to do with this? ------ davidkellis Why is this on HN? This is just a political powder keg. Anyone who agrees with the article will upvote it and any comment supporting it. Anyone who disagrees with the article will downvote it and any comment opposing it. The only "benefit" to this post is that the publicity given to the grievance (whether real or imagined) will sway Dropbox leadership to drop Condi. Whether that's a good thing or not for Dropbox as a business is not even considered. The content of the article has no real benefit to anyone. ~~~ captainmojo Powder keg or not, a Privacy concern would certainly influence my decision of whether or not to use their APIs in my software, especially on behalf of consumers. They've been trying to attract developers to their API, and they just lost my interest. ~~~ davidkellis I don't see the privacy concern. Is the fear that Condi is going to persuade Dropbox leadership to open the doors to govt. snooping? ~~~ captainmojo I don't fear that, so much as that she would facilitate it or fail to act to prevent it. I don't care about most of the content of the OP's page, but I'm not really willing to give her the benefit of the doubt when it comes to making sure I'm the only one with access to my data. As MichaelGG points out, maybe I was wrong to assume that my data was safe in the first place. In either case, yes, Dropbox and its APIs are no longer on my radar. ------ sebastialonso >Why is this? Because she was a part of the Bush administration? Because she is a Republican and we should hate Republicans? I mean, come on, isn't Al Gore on Apple's Board? He's no saint! >No. This is not an issue of partisanship. __Okay, let 's read on then... __ 3 of the 4 reasons OP explained are directly linked with her being a part of the Bush Administration. I do believe having Ms. Rice on board is a bad idea. But please don't say one say one thing ("it's not because she was a part of the Bush administration") and then do other ("IT IS because she was a part of the Bush administration"). Bad way to get people behind you, and makes you look painfully unserious. ~~~ fnimick It's not because she was part of the Bush Administration, but what she did while she was there. There's a difference. ------ Shivetya Wholly disagree. However I am always amazed how much effort so many here put into trying to take offense, show their claimed offense, instead of acting when similar if not worse is coming from the current administration. Really guys, grow the fuck up. We do not know all the facts that Rice and others in her position had let alone the options available. We did however have our time back them to rail against them yet the same railing against her are fawning over the drone assassin we have in office now. So honest, take your fake angst, your damnable wannabe clique and shove it. You do nothing with the evil at your door today only to jump on the train of least resistance. Oh, its easy to pillory Rice, Bush, or any of those evil Republicans, but damn if you stand up to those in power now. At least Snowden did, he has done more than the rest of this site will ever do.	{ "pile_set_name": "HackerNews" }
Show HN: Diceware Passphrase Lookup and Generator - iamben http://www.diceware.net/ ====== iamben After reading The Intercept article posted on HN earlier this afternoon I thought I'd stick this together. Comments welcome!	{ "pile_set_name": "HackerNews" }
YC Winter Application Notification - LiveTimeCards So, we are getting close to the deadline for YC choosing the groups for this winters session.<p>Does anybody know if they e-mail both the `chosen` ones and also the groups that were not picked all on the 29th? Do they ever make phone calls?<p>Thanks. ====== pg We'll email everyone on Oct 29.	{ "pile_set_name": "HackerNews" }
Qt Creator 2.1.0 brings enhanced Qt Quick and mobile applications support - Tsiolkovsky http://labs.qt.nokia.com/2011/03/01/qt-creator-2-1-0-released/ ====== MrUnderhill Most people I talk to seem to think QtCreator is only any good if you're developing Qt applications. Not so! It's imho actually a marvellous IDE for any C++ project. The debugger is allright, and the auto complete / code navigation is excellent compared to all other C++ IDEs for Linux I've tried. It's not exactly snappy on my box, but reasonable compared to what else is out there. ~~~ sho_hn For excellent C++ support in a Linux IDE you should have a look at KDevelop 4.x some time. Qt Creator reuses KDevelop's C++ parser, but doesn't quite go as far on making use of it for semantic functionality as KDevelop does. For example, it does excellent semantic syntax highlighting where the same variable is drawn in the same color throughout - after using it for a while, code in other editors looks pretty dead :-). ~~~ MrUnderhill True enough, I'm not sure why I forget KDevelop. Possibly (and yes, my insides ache when I'm being this superficial, but I can't help it) because it looks ghastly. ~~~ sho_hn They're both Qt apps, i.e. they pick up their looks from your active Qt style engine and settings (aside from the fact that Qt Creator foregoes full system integration in favor of using hardcoded backgrounds on some widgets, which tends to be a frequently cited criticism against it actually). ~~~ Raphael_Amiard Well the cold hard truth is that Qt Creator looked good on every system i used it in (Windows XP/Seven, Gnome, KDE) while KDevelop looks quite bad/unpolished on its only platform (KDE) ~~~ sho_hn Well, for reference, here's a screenshot of the current KDevelop release on the current KDE release with default settings for each, so people can make up their own minds: <http://simplest-image-hosting.net/jpg-0-plasma- desktopud5039> And FWIW, considering that KDE apps do work on and get shipped for Windows and Mac OS X, that "only platform" is a pretty broad one. Actually I can't speak to how complete the port of KDevelop's own application logic to those platforms is as I haven't tried it there, but I certainly happily use apps like Okular and Gwenview on Windows 7. Here are shots of that too, while we're at it: <http://simplest-image-hosting.net/png-0-windows> and <http://simplest- image-hosting.net/png-0-capture24> ~~~ sho_hn Here's a shot of Qt Creator for comparison, default settings as well: <http://simplest-image-hosting.net/jpg-0-plasma-desktophl5039> That shows some of the issues I have with it - I don't like the custom theming, especially given how inconsistently it's applied (still uses system looks for scrollbars, the menu bar doesn't fit at all, etc.).	{ "pile_set_name": "HackerNews" }
Time travel: Light speed results cast fresh doubts - gps408 http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-14289114 ====== btilly It should be noted that this result was completely expected. It turns out that light traveling through a medium can have 3 different velocities: phase, group and signal. Typically the latter two are the same and we can think of the group velocity as being the real "speed of the particle", but that is not always true. See [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Group_velocity#Physical_interpr...](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Group_velocity#Physical_interpretation) for more. This experiment manages to measure the signal velocity for the leading photon and verifies what we already knew for larger signals. ------ hugh3 Kudos to the journalist here, it's hard to write a story on the subject "Thing, once thought to be completely fucking impossible, turns out to be completely fucking impossible".	{ "pile_set_name": "HackerNews" }
Atrium lays off lawyers, pivots to tools - janeshmane https://www.axios.com/law-firm-startup-atrium-lays-off-most-of-its-lawyers-e4637120-27a7-44c5-8a52-37e2b0194928.html ====== tempsy I think anyone considering a job at a company founded by a serial entrepreneur should heed this as a warning. These founder raise pre product market fit because they can, and often raise too much money. Having too much money when you don’t really have a viable product that people want can easily turn your company into a zombie, where people are just sort of going through the motions because there’s nothing else to do but chug along. I’ve seen it many times. Some end up eventually finding the market after a few pivots but it’s really not a fun place to be as an employee with little decision making power. And the founders are usually wealthy enough at that point independent of the success of this current company that it isn’t “do or die” for them which creates another layer of zombie-esque behavior. ~~~ bradlys I had the opportunity to interview with Atrium over a year ago. It was very clear that they weren't doing well. Their founding team had opposing ideas about how to do things. Their CTO was fired very early on. Clearly, it hasn't worked out smoothly. To me, it looks like they just rode on the wave of eager investors. I've seen the issue with wealthy enough employees at all the startups I've been at too. Once you get people who no longer feel a certain hunger, they lose ambition and direction quickly. I've seen it happen as startups go from mildly successful to unicorn. Where the founders were able to cash out enough to buy a house in the bay, they suddenly were way less eager about being acquired or IPOing. And I've seen it with people who are on the tail end of their careers, exiting one startup with a very sizeable amount to enter another. The hunger is gone for them, they're just coasting, and they don't seem to have any real reason to even be working beyond avoiding boredom in retirement. And the worst part is that it feels like these types of people are way too well represented at the top of the hierarchy. The part of the hierarchy where these attitudes matter the most! ~~~ lbacaj I disagree with this, like anything else it’s going to depend on the person. It’s really hard to generalize when it comes to people’s ambitions. There are so many examples of serial entrepreneurs doing it over and over. Likewise of employees of startups going on to do even better in the next startup they join. Serial entrepreneurs do get to raise more money, markets reward success, and I am with you that it’s not always deservingly. I also think many startups can and do pivot and serial founders aren’t more likely to pivot than the non serial kind. I would bet on Justin Khan finding a way to success, much more so than not. ------ anotherfounder [https://www.atrium.co/inside-atrium/the-future-of- atrium/](https://www.atrium.co/inside-atrium/the-future-of-atrium/) For someone who has spent so much telling founders to cut buzzwords and speak in plain and simple English, this blog post by Justin Kan is something special. Case in point: > Similarly, at Atrium, we’ve made the tough decision to restructure the > company to accommodate growth into new business services through our > existing professional services network. Simple facts hidden in positive-sounding buzzwords, as if, they believe that the reader doesn't know better. It seems like a variation of 'Our incredible journey..' template Honest question, why do companies do this? It seems disrespectful to everyone - employees (both fired and current), customers, and any adult for that matter. ~~~ serf >Honest question, why do companies do this? It seems disrespectful to everyone - employees (both fired and current), customers, and any adult for that matter. generally because it keeps the person who wrote it hire-able post closure, and makes those that lost money or effort on the deal feel as if their loss is actually being spun into something else, like concepts, innovation, future profitable IP, whatever. I agree, I think it's disrespectful, but then again there's a lot about business that I feel that way towards. ~~~ tempsy He got the same feedback on his accompanying tweet [https://twitter.com/justinkan/status/1216896251754450946?s=2...](https://twitter.com/justinkan/status/1216896251754450946?s=20) Bigger red flag from his tweet is there’s basically zero engagement from others in the tech community. For someone who is that high profile to tweet something big about his startup and get almost no responses is _really_ strange. ~~~ cameronlpmoore That does seem super strange. Any ideas why that might be the case? Most of his day-to-day tweets seem to get a pretty solid amount of interaction. This tweet from December 10 seems pretty weird now: Justin Kan @justinkan "Early-stage fundraising: \- need a great narrative \- can get by with bad metrics \- but MUST know those metrics" ~~~ tempsy Digging deeper on Twitter there’s a ton of pissed off lawyers (obviously including the laid off ones) and customers who both felt blind-sided. The corporate legalese speak made things worse, of course. I guess I underestimated the anger this would cause, so makes sense people are not going to touch it. ------ woah My company used Atrium to help us think through some very complicated niche legal issues. We were on a flat rate plan, and it was nice to be able to brainstorm without watching the clock. We were pretty happy with their service, but it all came from one attorney, who also was the one who found us and brought us in. Whenever we dealt with anyone else there, it was disorganized and low quality. When our main attorney left, of course we followed them. I had bought into their philosophy at first but the experience showed me why law firms have the partner-oriented structure they do. Legal work is built around trust in the lawyer in most cases and that's hard to automate. ~~~ gumby It’s always been weird to me when a law firm tells me about all the services and such they have. It’s not the firm, it’s the lawyer, and if they decamp, you follow. Likewise just because I am really happy with lawyer X at firm Y Doesn’t mean I’m interested in Y’s patent practice when I need patent assistance. For his reason I’ve always been puzzled why law firms merge. You ever pay multiples of revenue; it’s just literally a pro data merge with a little goodwill thrown in from one side. ~~~ arethuza Cross selling is often a major source of business for law firms and there may be rewards for successfully introducing an existing client to a new part of the firm. ~~~ gumby Those are dumb clients! It’s like assuming your developers are all the same. ------ rayiner > Even lawyers aren't immune to the unpredictability of working for a > startup—and the appeal of generating high margins from selling software > instead of human services. Companies tend to do the opposite, though, right? Apple could increase its margins by selling iOS and the Ax processor IP. But it makes more “boatloads of money” selling hardware, even at lower margins. Instead of selling IP, Apple uses its superior IP to dominate the market for phones. Its likely the issue isn’t margins, but scalability. Scaling a law firm is difficult to impossible due to conflict of interest rules. That’s why the largest international law firms have 4,000 lawyers while PWC has 230,000 accountants and advisors. That puts a low ceiling on how much you can scale while doing actual legal work. ~~~ Adrienvdb Conflicts of interest rules make it harder for law firms to scale but it is possible by setting up Chinese walls ([https://uk.practicallaw.thomsonreuters.com/3-100-8763?__lrTS...](https://uk.practicallaw.thomsonreuters.com/3-100-8763?__lrTS=20181218001936411&transitionType=Default&contextData=$sc.Default$&firstPage=true&bhcp=1)) ensuring lawyers from the same law firm can work in parallel. Ultimately, conflicts of interest rules apply to each lawyers individually, not to the law firm. ~~~ rayiner The US has stricter conflicts rules, and typically impute conflicts to the firm, except inherently personal conflicts (spousal conflicts). Chinese walls require client consent, and some jurisdictions, like Texas, do not give effect to Chinese walls at all. ------ staticautomatic As far as I can tell, Kan fundamentally misunderstood the nature and value of automation in the legal services industry. Kan was quoted in 2018 as saying "The goal with the tech side has always been...to help attorneys spend more of their time on meaningful work and less of their time on crank-turning work." Time spent on "crank-turning work" constitutes a relatively negligible portion of billable time for any attorney billing at a reasonably high rate. They delegate as much of it as possible to people who bill at lower rates, like assistants, paralegals and junior associates. So you're not really automating much of the attorney's work at all. Even if you build an ergonomic software platform for routine tasks (like Atrium's glorified Dropbox), the amount of time/money it would save over the course of a large engagement is de minimis. And if you aren't dramatically saving time, you can't dramatically reduce client costs under any fee structure. So they end up with this software group making tools that don't help the legal side make more money. And the tools don't contribute meaningfully to the legal side's pitching for work in part because they don't save the prospective client much money. Meanwhile, the software side can't sell the tools to other law firms because the software side is tied to a law firm. Ultimately, they end up with a bunch of lawyers and software developers who can't help each other. This outcome is so predictable that it's downright hilarious they ever thought it would be a money-making strategy, and apparently the investors didn't understand or think it through, either. What Kan mostly got wrong was thinking that automation would be _profitable_ for a law firm. There are lots of automation tools that would be extremely _valuable_ to a law firm, but that usually means you should be selling them _to_ a law firm, not _from_ a law firm. ~~~ dustingetz Kan tried to sell $36k/yr fixed price legal packages as "efficiency" to early stage startups. He generated leads with bait-n-switch tactics - by pretending to be a startup accelerator with a YC-style application - afaict the accelerator did not actually exist. I will never forget that he tried to pull that on me. ------ santojleo FWIW - This was my product hunt review 3 months ago, after using them for about 4 months. Reads like a post mortem now. All in all, I actually feel I overpaid for subpar legal services. I will credit them with a smooth and enlightening (albeit overpriced) corporation formation, and maybe they are pearing down the product to just that - because that was the only thing that worked, IMO. I felt as if they were taking advantage of early stage startups preparing to raise capital. You can’t bill their rates and then ghost them, those are precious dollars and precious time. “I have been trying to cancel for over a week, and more of the same. NO ONE RESPONDS FOR WEEKS! These are ATTORNEYS! Waste of money. I’ve dealt with many lawyers coming from my last startup which was in a highly regulated space. Atrium is like an expensive legal zoom, but overpriced. Understand it’s cheaper to use a lawyer at any other law firm because your retainer is a deposit on future services. With Atrium your paying $6k a year in subscription fees for “legal advice” which is otherwise baked into any other law firm, and they don’t provide much advice. They really specialize in financing, using ycombinator docs. These docs are publicly available templates. All other services are limited to their “al la crate menu”... again all templates. It takes days to get a email back from them. It takes a week to get a call setup, if they have the time, and if they will even discuss the matter. Litigation? Find someone else Overseas? Find someone else Doing something outside of California like an asset purchase? Find someone else So you basically need other lawyers anyways if you use atrium, The rest of their menu is boiler employment agreements, NDAs, and terminations - all of which are 2x local rates. They custom quote TOS and privacy policies - and again it’s all template based - and 2x local rates. I asked them about the impact of California’s new AB5 and yep, ask someone else! Save your money - don’t buy the hype. All your doing is helping VCs cover their recurring legal expenses by paying Atrium to overcharge you and build valuation based on their “tech” which is just a drop box and bad customer service, and no legal support.” ------ seibelj I worked at a company that experimented with them. We had a lot of legal spend to white shoe firms (multiple) and wanted to give Atrium a try. They had a flat monthly rate, and then a la carte billing if you needed extra things, IIRC. The real problem was, when we needed something reviewed or worked on, they couldn't deliver on time or promise any guaranteed deadline. My CEO was very frustrated. ~~~ duxup It's kinda like buying something that saves you money by cutting support....and then calling support. ------ petesmithy I get that this shit is hard but who thinks that saying "[o]ur in-house attorneys _will shift to have the option to become_ preferred providers in our professional services network" is ok? This is such a gross way of putting it. This isn't a publicly listed company ffs, just say what everyone knows it means: "our startup's Plan A performed unexpectedly so some of our great colleagues, who believed in us and worked hard for up to 2.5 years, are losing their jobs, and this sucks, but based on what we all learned, including thanks to the valuable work the in-house guys did, we're kicking off Plan B today". ------ jelling I will always remember them for their outreach emails that pretended to be from Justin and included “Sent from my iPhone” to deepen the illusion. After talking to them - and already having competent counsel - it was clear they wanted to turn legal services into a predictable cash flow SaaS business more than they were actually solving anything. ------ dboreham It's not looking good for self-driving cars if we can't make a self-driving lawyer. ------ orliesaurus so what exactly is Atrium now? A dev shop? tech tools it developed for lawyers and law firm clients, and for new areas it will expand into. This press-release feels was very shallow to me, can anyone explain? ~~~ mdotk Could NEVER understand what the heck they do and how they got $75M. Just sounded like they were a law firm specialising in start ups. Big whoop. ~~~ meritt > how they got $75M Justin Kan sold Twitch to Amazon for nearly $1B after 7 years, Socialcam for $60M in 18 months, and Exec for "under $10M" in 2 years. That's how he raised $75M. The company/product was completely irrelevant. ~~~ OnlineGladiator That downward trend is a little concerning. And honestly, "under $10M" is probably a bad exit (although I don't have enough context to say for sure). ------ KaoruAoiShiho Did they prove or felt like they proved product market fit before they hired loads of lawyers? I wonder how that worked. (Serious question, not trying to be critical). ~~~ staticautomatic They're probably now on the long list of law firms that tried and failed at alternative fee structures. Legal services consumers have shown time and again that they like regular old hourly billing. ~~~ sjy Can you expand on this? It sounds plausible, but then so does the narrative being pushed by the “new law” firms – that clients want alternative fee structures because they don’t like the open-ended cost of time billing. ~~~ pkilgore Not OP but former litigator turned programmer here. This gets very complicated because saying "legal work" is a giant generalization for a broad field. But talking about this with my peers (still a slice of the market) we arrived at this: There are three types of legal work (exceptions, yada yada, but mostly): 1\. Normal people shit. Parking tickets and most criminal law, etc. Flat fees fine and usually nice so your clients understand (and understand their ability to actually pay your rate). Work itself can be pretty predictable, or taken on contingency for civil stuff. 2\. Line of business legal work. If you fuck this up it sucks, but rarely is it a material risk to the value of the company. _This work is usually brought in-house ASAP, to control costs._ Before that point, you see both hourly and flat fee work, mostly based on client sophistication to negotiate such things. 3\. Bet-the-company (and white collar/wealthy criminal) work. Here clients only care about one thing: WINNING. You win M/A by closing. You win regulatory work by clearing the way for profit making activity. You win bet the company litigation by....winning. The cost of legal services, even at hourly rates, are negligible compared to the profit making ability success unlocks (or unlocks the continued existence of the company, a guy not going to prison). Clients rarely give a shit what or how you charge as long as you win. They will pay whatever "winners" charge. They will only bitch about costs if they percieve themselves to not be winning. You cant talk about this as if legal work is the same. That's probably why you percieve a disconnect as an outsider. ~~~ sjy So, contrary to the OP, you would argue that clients _don’t_ like time billing, but when the stakes are high, the price doesn’t matter. That makes more sense to me than the idea that clients actually like a pricing model that encourages inefficiency. ------ duxup >Its goal was to improve on the traditional law firm model, by developing software to improve efficiency for both its attorneys and clients. Any word on what they actually were doing to gain these efficiencies? ~~~ heymijo If I had to guess based on parsing these articles, Atrium went up against incentives in the legal industry and lost. [0,1] Legal firms bill hourly. Efficiency means less billable hours. (warning: moving into personal experience and conjecture) Yes, boilerplate forms for repetitive use cases seems like it should be a thing, but in my experience building businesses, every lawyer I have dealt with has found any reason possible to have custom documents. It's also not clear they ever found Product/Market Fit. [2,3] > _This week Kan confirmed that the company has completed its fundraising process, raising $10.5 million_ > _as Atrium goes through its product development phase and tries to achieve product-market fit._ [0] [https://abovethelaw.com/2017/09/competition-is-for-losers- th...](https://abovethelaw.com/2017/09/competition-is-for-losers-the-rise-of- atrium-part-i/) [1] [https://abovethelaw.com/2017/10/justin-kan-answers-the- call-...](https://abovethelaw.com/2017/10/justin-kan-answers-the-call-the- rise-of-atrium-part-ii/?rf=1) [2] [https://techcrunch.com/2017/06/15/justin- kan-atrium-lts-fund...](https://techcrunch.com/2017/06/15/justin-kan-atrium- lts-funding/) [3] [https://techcrunch.com/2018/09/10/atrium- legal/](https://techcrunch.com/2018/09/10/atrium-legal/) ~~~ duxup I wonder what the yin and yang in customer's minds are with "Thank goodness my law firm is saving me money by generating these documents for cheap!" And "You know this is kinda important but I'm not sure I want discount lawyer's on this who automate paperwork...." ~~~ nrp Most/all law firms have templates they hold internally and modify slightly for their clients. Very few billable hours are going into handing you your standard agreements like NDAs, offer letters, CIIAA, and so on. Your lawyers are really there to help you when things go non-standard, which is inevitably going to happen with any non-trivial business. I evaluated Atrium out of curiosity when I was looking for a law firm for incorporation purposes. I filtered them out after the first call because they weren’t set up to handle the slightly unusual setup I had, which other law firms had no trouble with. ~~~ duxup Yeah I have some limited visibility to a very large law firm. Paperwork you can just script never comes up as a problem and it's not like these organizations would just duplicate effort like that if they could avoid it / save themselves money. Also I never got the impression that the really profitable customers are shopping for those kinds of efficiencies.... ~~~ jimmydddd "... really profitable customers ... ." I agree. If an attorney can choose their customers, they are not going to choose the penny pinchers. ~~~ duxup Yeah I've worked enough to see companies chase budget products, customers, etc .... to see them regret it often. ------ Felz Last I heard part of the idea behind the lawyering was that it'd give valuable in-house experience to develop the tools. What changed there? Did they get a big contract with Orrick to replace the in-house lawyers? ------ eganist "Startup Straight Talk" [https://pbs.twimg.com/media/EONrLRRUYAATmAp?format=png](https://pbs.twimg.com/media/EONrLRRUYAATmAp?format=png) ------ ryanmccullagh So now they are competing with Relativity? (Chicago based)	{ "pile_set_name": "HackerNews" }
The only laws on the Internet are assembly and RFCs - atestu http://www.phrack.org/issues.html?issue=65&id=6&mode=txt ====== markup Too bad the tor server for elettra looks dead -- or is it just me?	{ "pile_set_name": "HackerNews" }
A new type of book - aen http://aenism.com/end-of-passive/ ====== Vaskivo I don't believe that reading is a "passive" activity. "[Tom] saw a new girl in the garden--a lovely little blue-eyed creature with yellow hair plaited into two long-tails, white summer frock and embroidered pantalettes." (Tom Sayer, by Mark Twain) Reading this, we all pictured the girl in our minds. But I believe the exact image of the girl I have is different from yours. This is our mind working and filling in the gaps of the information that it believes to be missing. Some people may see the girl vividly, filling it with details like some freckles and an embroidered dress while others will simply see a blonde girl with blue eyes. But our ming WORKED to make that. In the book Understanding Comics by Scott McCloud, he says that the most import place in a comic book is the place between the pannel, where our mind rushes in to fill in the gaps, to connect the action. Even movies have this. We have the jump cut, that can be considered a jump from one panel to another (with the implicit "space in between"). We also have the "places outside the scene". If someone goes away to get a coffee, we can picture it happening. If the scene is being filmed in a room, and we can only see 3 of the walls, we KNOW there is a fourth one. And, besides it all, with every medium we consume, we have the "baggage" we take with us. Our knowledge of previous stories, movies, songs, books; our own opinions on the theme and even if we had a good or bad day will influence our experiencing of the "object" (book, movie, etc.) It isn't because we're not moving our hands that the medium becomes "passive". Books are what they are. And they are good at it. The author's fault is that he is trying to change books while what he should really be doing is creating a new medium. ------ pedalpete I think this is really interesting, though in many ways it sounds more like a game than a book. A book (to me) has a single story line based around a structure which the author intended you to follow. Even a 'choose your own adventure' had a basic story the user followed. I admit, technology now allows us to now have as many stories intertwine as we like, it still doesn't make it a reimagination of the book. It does make the reimagination of a story. What I find most facinating about this idea is how it relates to an amazing skill I've noticed in two of my friends. Whoever they meet, within a few minutes, they are able to ascertain what makes that person tick, what they're interests are, and what makes them special. If you're picking up a story and intertwining with different characters at different points, you'll need to be able to do that in order to make the story interesting. ~~~ aen A reader will always follow a path and every path is a single story. Like how you are not aware of other parallel universes. So I still think it's more of the hardware that's being reimagined. You just flip the book differently. About your two friends, it sounds like intuition. How do you think it relates? ------ DanBC BBC Radio 4Extra has run a couple of experiments that feel like early iterations of some of those ideas. One was a drama where listers could vote on a couple of out comes at the end of each episode. The other was a crowd-sourced drama. They'd start with an episode, then invite listener-written followups. List ers would write each episode. (The episodes were short and the plots got twisty fast). But the idea in the article sounds like how some games should be. It'd be great if games could use more, better, writers. I'm not sure how easy it would be to allow a person to follow a path and not have clashing incongruities when different paths merge. ------ thejteam I've been thinking along these same lines. It's going to be very tricky to simultaneously get the rich language required for interesting reading and make it sufficiently interactive. It will be pushing the state of the art in natural language processing, because portions of the story will need to be procedurally generated as you go. Or possibly have a team of writers modifying the story in real time as you go, which is also intriguing. To make it interesting and interactive, there will most likely be too many branches to do it any other way. By the way, nice diagrams. ------ VLM He's trying to re-invent the MUSH without knowing what a MUSH is or the early experiments with MUSHes linked to the web and such. From my experience with MUSHes in the mid-early 90s the biggest problem is the general public is not terribly creative. A general cultural desire for drama and formulaic entertainment. Look at how big the Second Life world was, but how the population density was about 75% clustered around the spawn point talking, regardless of the world being nearly limitless in size. ~~~ aen What's a MUSH? ~~~ VLM I'm not going to try to beat wikipedia and google at their game, but I can try something like what if your MUD / text adventure was more mod-able than minecraft? The experience of playing around on them in the 90s reminds me strongly of the linked article's ideas. ------ dante_dev I can't see how the fact that other players can modify my story with their decision could be somehow more fun that a pre-scripted story. I mean, yes, it sounds somehow fascinating, but it doesn't really impact the fun on the game. And what about the tradeoff with the quality of the story? You can "easily" make 1 epic\awesome story, you can't do that with hundreds of forks. ------ kelvinquee Like a visual novel? ([http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Visual_novel](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Visual_novel)) ~~~ aen Except each character "instance" is controlled by another reader at each juncture. ------ robinhoodexe Very interesting!	{ "pile_set_name": "HackerNews" }
Promoting your iPhone app in print - alex_c http://blog.indieiphonedev.com/2010/01/27/promoting-your-iphone-app-in-print/ ====== patio11 I love people trying to innovate, but this is going to run into the brick-wall reality of conversion math. My site, where 6 cents gets me a guaranteed visitor: ~20% download or sign up, ~2.5% pay, cost per conversion thus about $12. I charge $30 and smile. The iPhone app will have three different gates in the funnel: percentage of people who visit website (or search on AppStore by name -- can you even do that?), percentage who download, percentage who purchase. I can tell you that gate #1 is not going to be anywhere near 100%. I'd be pleasantly surprised if it were in the two digits. The math just gets more depressing from there. Don't charge $2 if you're going to have marginal advertising expenditures, folks. It is not sustainable. ~~~ Zev I don't see $150 breaking the bank, not if the app being advertised has sold marginally well in the past. And its a fun, different way for people to remember about your app _after you've spoken to them about it_ (say, after a conference). If they seem interested, give them a card. And if the person in question isn't interested, just don't give them a card. Not that the situation I outlined above is how the cards are being used. Instead, an _application about running_ is being advertised at a _running event_. Presumably, you have some sort of interest in running, if you're watching a leg of a marathon take place. So, its not too hard to presume that this would be useful for more than 1 in 25 people watching the marathon. This kind of reminds me of a sticker. Only, instead of just a picture of the app (or the app icon, in Colloquy's case when we handed out stickers), it also says a few words about what the app does for you. _percentage who download, percentage who purchase._ These two "funnels" are the same. The App Store doesn't currently have any sort of trial, and this app doesn't seem to have a free version of any sort. _or search on App Store by name -- can you even do that?_ Yes, you can search for applications by name (or keyword, or developer) in the App Store. _Don't charge $2 if you're going to have marginal advertising expenditures, folks. It is not sustainable._ As a random datapoint, I've seen a few companies pay for a weekly spot on daringfireball, which is $2,500/week where the app only costs $2/app and the company didn't have any other applications available. ------ megablahblah I will be curious to read about the results. I don't foresee it being very successful. My guess would be 1 in 100, at best, will result in a sale. I think he'd have more success with iPhone text ads targeting running-related sites on the mobile web. It will cost him $.25 per click, but the conversion rate will be much higher because 100% of the people that click the ad will have an iPhone and be interested in running. ------ robryan Possibly if the app is really good this kind of advertising could generate a lot of word of mouth buzz around the app.	{ "pile_set_name": "HackerNews" }
Ask HN: I'm 24, coding since 14, and I don't know what to do - frostbytes I'm absolutely lost. I have been coding for so long but I have never had a software development job, I've been self taught and been on this road for so long. Surprisingly I have been extremely active in sports, I'm extroverted, I love being social and coding has been my passion. I can't get a job because the requirements and qualifications is way too demanding even though I am 100% I can handle the work load and delivery whatever it is the companies need.<p>I did 5 years of PHP, HTML, CSS, Javascript, I studied Java in University, I have done Python, and for the past two years Objective-c/Swift I've built 15 applications.<p>It is extremely hard in this industry that is changing so fast and it is very competitive.<p>I really feel like giving up. ====== nrjdhsbsid The interview process for engineers is absolutely brutal. I almost lost hope on my last job jump when it took me three months and six on-site interviews before I got an offer. What will help you the most in the search is probably not what you think. I thought have a GitHub and some cool projects and a nice blog would make landing a job easy for me... Annnddd 95% of the companies I talked to didn't care. What helped enormously was studying the same questions that interviewers are likely to pull from. Once I studied hard on interview Q&A I went from no offers to getting three in the same week. The interview process is usually borderline hazing and the questions being asked have little or no bearing on the actual job. The job requirements listed are actually just some staff engineers wish list of what he would use if he could rewrite the garbage fire that is the application you'll be working on. It doesn't help that half the time the manager interviewing you hasn't written a line of code for ten years... or ever in the case that you're interviewing with HR. My theory is that male dominated fields tend to be steeped in competition, or at least the goal is to appear that way. You don't want your hiring to be "weak" and new guys definitely need to "climb the ladder". This makes interviewing for these positions a complete nightmare. Just keep up applying and remember the interviews are tough on purpose. HR doesn't look good unless they can bring in an endless stream of top tier applicants. Management doesn't look good if they hire "anyone that walks through the door". The result: companies throw away many, maybe most of their good applicants. ~~~ trymas > What helped enormously was studying the same questions that interviewers are > likely to pull from. Once I studied hard on interview Q&A I went from no > offers to getting three in the same week. Interesting to hear on what are the sources 'that interviewers are likely to pull from'? And probably some guidelines as well, because interviewers like to be stingy and want to hear _the right_ answers. ~~~ nrjdhsbsid Study google search results for "interview questions language X" with X being anything mentioned on the application. If js is listed expect things like the difference between == or === and whether variable declarations are hoisted for example. Other questions I got were things like "can a static class be extended in language X" and other questions that test your trivia abilities but don't really matter when writing code 99% of the time. Like for js, everyone knows not to use == but most people don't know exactly why. What I did was read several books on the language semantics for my top 2 languages cover to cover multiple times. The process was painful but I was prepared for nearly anything. Answer quickly even if you might be wrong. Concise answers are perceived as more correct from what I've experienced. ------ sambobeckingham Are we in the same industry? 26 here, coding since 11, never got a degree. Decided to develop for a living, managed it within a couple of months - didn't even have a portfolio. The industry is crying out for developers, theres no reason why you wouldn't be able to get a job. Yeah the industry is fast moving but businesses aren't. If they choose to use a framework, them its going to be in their legacy code base for a good few years. Remember,you are not paid to develop, you are paid to make the business money. Would you rather hire a developer who wrote an amazing 200 LoC a day and earned you 10k or the developer who deleted 3 lines, sent a few emails and earned you 100k? Apply for every interview, don't aim too high - you can get a junior position no problem. ~~~ curun1r Same industry, but likely different locations. Despite being quite possibly the most remote-friendly job, availability of software development jobs is still frustratingly regional. As annoying as this advice might be to someone who likes his/her current home and doesn't want to move, coming to one of the tech clusters and putting in two years where you specifically focus on growing your network will help open up opportunities, establish a reputation and often help you earn a salary higher than you'd get in your local market. ------ sealord I can't really say I know exactly how you feel, but I can safely say I've been in a slightly similar position before. And honestly, every time I look at frameworks like Angular or React, I feel like throwing in the towel right then! I think it's a good idea to choose a niche, and stick to it. Full-stack devs are awesome, but there's nothing wrong in sticking to a particular competency. Looking at your profile, it seems you're pretty good at writing Swift/Obj-C apps. If that really interests you, why not stick to mobile as a domain? I feel it's easier to keep track of how the ecosystem changes, in one field. As for jobs. I'm not entirely sure what the problem here is, but I know what it's like to not have the right qualifications. I studied engineering for two years, dropped out because the coursework had zero coding, studied Russian for 6 months and then dropped out again due to campus politics. But I've managed to hold jobs with IBM, Cvent and some media houses simply because I could convince the overlords that the lack of a professional degree didn't stop me from executing what was expected. But it was hard. Have you tried checking out spaces/events where startups converge, and probably pitch your skills to them? A good place to start would be coworking spaces. Establish a relationship with the space's owners/managers, and they'll happily introduce you to teams who need your expertise. Many startups don't care what certificates you've got, so long as you add value. And if there's a startup that does look for a degree - well, you probably don't want to join them anyway. I hope this helps. Please don't give up - obviously you love writing code, and there's no reason why circumstances should make you give up doing something you love. :) ~~~ frostbytes Thank you Sealord, You post means alot, I would love to stick to mobile apps but majority of companies are looking for "Senior iOS developer" and the funny thing is they list frameworks that literally just surfaced in the tech community, yet these HR reps are asking for seniority and expert levels, on top of that you have things like Superiority in problem solving, x amount of years in agile dev/dev ops principles..etc This is the overwhelming area, even if I want to do mobile development they ask for things that are senior level! Your suggestion about establishing a relationship with space owners, and approaching startups is a good idea, I haven't thought about that to be honest. ~~~ sealord I've got friends who're HR professionals, and I'll say it anyway - they're idiots. I'm yet to see an HR person who genuinely understands how dev ecosystems change, and what they should really look out for as opposed to what their books in business school said. On an ideal note, try _not_ to go for companies that have HR doing recruitments. It's bound not to work in your favor. Your best bet is to interact directly with product owners because they know what they're looking for, and it's easier to have a direct conversation with them about the best tool/framework for the job. And a lot of startups are liberal - they have "preferred" tools/frameworks, but they're happy with someone coming in with a different option. Please do try checking out coworking spaces. If there's startup events in your area, try them out too. A lot happens when there's a casual chat over a coffee/beer. I should know, I met my cofounders over a joint. ------ primary0 Make some of your code public on Github. Do a web or mobile app or two - even proof of concept type stuff but it has to be 'complete' in the sense that it should do the job it's supposed to. Use these to demonstrate your programming ability during interviews, and let employers know you're ready to learn new tools. Pick one set of tools to be your current 'major', say Swift perhaps and spend time getting better at Swift than the rest of the stuff you know. Apply for Swift jobs and be confident! One more thing. Always be prepared to switch your major to a new one (language, platform). If you ask me, Elixir/Phoenix has lots of potential and 2017 might be seeing a lot of job openings for it. ------ gigatexal Find a niche and start a company -- solve something you hit as a programmer for example. Expose an API and call it good. You seem uniquely qualified being extroverted and competent. It's a crazy long shot I know but I found that only when I was day-tading (not the same thing) I was happiest because I was earning for myself and making my own hours and best of all trying to see if my hypothesis (or in your case your company) could pass the test in the market. ~~~ gigatexal I should add that I lost almost 100k day trading but I learned a few things: 1) my hypothesis didn't work; 2) I loved doing it even given the losses; 3) finance wasn't for me - trading stocks always will be given that it's more-or- less gambling, and who doesn't love gambling -- but it helped me figure out what I wanted to do. The best part was I was my own boss. I woke up at 5AM (willingly!), was often up a few grand by noon, and then left my multi-monitor setup to go have fun for the day. I never felt more in control of my destiny than I was at that time, and I imagine it's the same running your own business ~~~ paulcole >was often up a few grand by noon couldn't have been that often >lost almost 100k day trading ~~~ gigatexal It wasn't the smartest choice but it was fun and informative. ------ cleric I was in a similar situation, but got an offer and moved to Beijing. Best thing I ever did. This takes a lot of pressure of since quality is not has strict in the Chinese market, and there is not that many people who have 10+ years experience in CS things. So if you show up with a "let-get-shit-done" attitude, or just a sense of quality, you will be well rewarded. You can also work on scales that are normally only something for the best and brightest in SF etc. Making day to day task be more challenging and fun. On the social side, its fun to be an expat, everyone and their grandmother wants to ask you questions and you get a extended family with other expats in no time. The social pressure from home goes away and you hang out with people from all walks of life, on the other side of the world we are all just guests. China worked great for me, but there is other new crazy markets like Vietnam, Indonesia, Burma. Where a middle class are starting to use their smartphones more and more. All these countries needs localized versions of basic apps, or as in the case of China, niche version of basic apps. I remember when I was stuck in traffic on the highway back home from work, before China, and thinking if this is it. A change of scenery was all I needed. If you do what you love and it still doesn't feel right, my bet is that you are in the wrong place. Good luck. ------ a13n Interviews are really a numbers game. The first ten will be rough, then you start to recognize patterns, then you start getting good at them. Apply to 200 software positions, might be good to start with internships. Every company you can think of, big and small. Every interview you get, ask the interviewer what they thought of your answer or if there was a better way to solve the problem. Write down every question you get asked. Google them later to learn the better answers you don't know. After a while you'll know the answer to 90% of the questions most companies ask. Also sounds like there may be an attitude problem. If you've never had a software development job then how can you be so confident that you can get the job done? That's plain arrogance. Approach the situation with a growth mindset - you have loads to learn and you can't wait to absorb it all from your peers. This is a lot more encouraging than someone who thinks they know it all. And if after all this you still can't land a gig, do work for free just to get something on your resume, to get considered at the decent/great places. You won't get your ideal job tomorrow but through hard work and dedication you can get there in a few years no problem. ------ ninu I'm a PM at Google and former SWE, Twitter: @ninu Message me and let's talk further. We're always looking for strong SWE applicants. Happy holidays and remember to never give up! <3 for code. 'Tis the season to help others. ~~~ frostbytes hahaha <3 thanks ninu, I'm not Google material, that is for the exceptionally chosen and talented. ~~~ ninu Nonsense. Show us what you're made of and learn to build confidence in your abilities. You never will know unless you try! SWE interviews at Google are challenging, no question, but they're also where you can shine presuming there is a command over the basics (data structures, algorithms, etc). You've built multiple apps and coded in various programming languages correct? Post a link to your Github and let's check it out. ~~~ throwaway_374 Sorry but this is total nonsense and false encouragement. Let me translate what "command over the basics" means: If you don't know your Floyd Warshall from your Tarjan from your Manacher then you'll just fumble around thinking you got close unless you have the remarkable gift of being able to derive these from scratch in a whiteboard situation. Also I cannot stress enough how difficult - and entirely pointless - a whiteboarding interview is. edit: I didn't mean this to come across pessimistic and critical. I just think it's important to serve a dose of reality regarding the standard expected (and hopefully some pointers towards the kind of algorithms theory you should be not only comfortable with but also able to reproduce on a whiteboard under pressure). ~~~ dang > _total nonsense_ The HN guidelines ask you to edit this sort of thing out of your comments: [https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html](https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html). We'd appreciate it if you'd err on the side of civility. ~~~ throwaway_374 I've complied and edited it purely out of courtesy even though it is frankly total and utter rubbish, but feel free to knock yourself out with all the rest: [https://www.google.co.uk/search?q=site%3Anews.ycombinator.co...](https://www.google.co.uk/search?q=site%3Anews.ycombinator.com+%22total+nonsense%22) ------ fsloth Have you tried approaching CEO:s directly with a phonecall? If you make a good impression that can make a world of difference. Athletism and extroversion are certainly an asset using this approach. If you can program and not just copy and paste stack overflow that should put you at least in the top half of candidates. Also - coding skills alone are not that hot - they just make you into a replaceable cog. However, if you combine this with domain specialization this could make you into a valuable contributor. And by domain specialization I mean what ever is the core business of a business. Tomato delivery logistics? Insurance policy business rules? Trash truck maintenance database operation? (I'm making this up, but most businesses are run by their own rules and terminology - being familiar how they work gives you the right to claim 'domain knowledge'). I'm 100% sure there is a domain for you to specialize out there. You'll find it if you don't give up. Social skills are probably a really good asset here. Stop talking to HR. Start talking to the upper management directly. Everybody likes to interact with a nice person when they have the time - unless they are lizard people, in which instance they should be avoided in any case. ------ megalodon I'm 23, coding since 12. Probably echoing a lot of comments here, but contribute to open source! Not only will it help your prospects of getting a job, you will be helping others which is just as rewarding (if not more). I have only studied 2/5 years of a master in CS, and I get job offers solely based on my Github profile. I don't even have a CV. The industry isn't as competitive as you think. Good developers are rare. ------ LammyL I'm in Toronto and we're looking for a web developer now with possible mobile (android/iOS) work in a year. Your post seems like you would be a good fit if this interests you. ------ rekado This may not be what you are looking for, but it is worth considering /not to work in the industry/. I've been coding since the age of 7 and I'm now in my early 30s. There's a lot of programming that can be done outside of this industry (e.g. by working on free software projects), and in some cases it can even be financed through grants. In my experience a software development job is often the easiest way to destroy what you may love about programming. There may be exceptions, but many of the jobs and their limitations cannot compete with coding out of passion. Jobs in the software development industry are not the only way to make use of and grow your programming skills. ~~~ bdcravens Since 1998, I don't think I've ever worked for a "software" company (transportation, HR, healthcare, and logistics make up the bulk of my experience). As a result my code has tangible results, instead of trying to innovate itself into meaning. ------ shubhamjain Some companies work and hire on the "trends"[1] — MEAN stack guy, Elasticsearch ninja. Some companies give more weight to technical soundness and discount the Fleeting Fad of Flashy Frameworks. They focus on solving problems — even if imperfectly so. Although, the job descriptions would sound daunting (they did to me two years back) but in my view, every company that falls in category two should be willing to hear from you. Sincerity, communication, curiosity and great work ethic go long way compared to scant experience in a particular framework. A cursory look at the everyday applications that companies get would make you realise how you are far ahead of the curve. I would advice you to not get intimated by job requirements and start applying. If they don't reply, try following up (don't worry you are not intruding). Try reaching out to your network if anyone is up for hiring. Get comfortable doing interviews and meeting people. And don't get discouraged by rejections. Companies, after all, are run by people who have their own biases and idiosyncrasies. They might pick up the wrong impression or you might get rejected for a reason that is far disconnected from your coding ability. [1]: [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11326940](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11326940) ------ rl3 > _I can 't get a job because the requirements and qualifications is way too > demanding ..._ You seem overly concerned about this. If a company wants to prevent themselves from hiring someone perfectly capable of doing the job (namely you), then they're probably foolish and you don't want to work there anyways. On the other hand, it's possible you're mentally hung up on having a desired skill set that's seemingly forever out of reach. If that's the case, just resign yourself to the fact that software development requires perpetual learning in a field where the ground is always shifting beneath you. Keep in mind that a typical senior developer is just someone who has enough experience to know how to learn fast and not fall victim to common pitfalls in the process. I suggest finding a job at a nice place to work where you'll be doing something that you enjoy, then worry about the technology stack later. Good companies usually understand that both whiteboard-style interviews and formal degree requirements are bad. The best ones explicitly state that they don't care if you're inexperienced with their stack, so long as you have solid experience. > _I really feel like giving up._ If that means starting a company as some of the other comments suggest, don't. You're 24. Enjoy your youth while it lasts, don't piss it away doing a startup. ------ Todd I went through a similar phase when I was younger. I had been involved with amateur radio since I was 13 and everything in my life pointed to EE at university. By the time I got there, I didn't see the point anymore. I no longer found it interesting. Shortly thereafter, I rediscovered programming and I've been doing it ever since (20+ years). In hindsight, I think I had just gone through my first bout of burnout. I still find electronics interesting and enjoyable. So burnout may be one aspect of what you're experiencing. Since you're an extrovert, you have a natural propensity that many people don't have in this industry. That can be a superpower for you. You might excel at giving talks, communicating with other teams, managing groups, and the like. The fact that you enjoy development and have put in the time means that these activities won't be vacuous. The feelings of exasperation that you have are similar to what many others-- novices and veterans alike--are feeling. Things change quickly in this field. Many others have written about how to cope with this. It's a real thing but something that can be mitigated and gotten past. You might consider taking a step back and recharging. The New Year time frame is an excellent time to do so (generally speaking). Think about a few goals that you may want to focus on this year. If you pick a project, choose one that means something to you. It could be one of your own or someone else's. We live in an amazing time of open source and collaboration. The main thing is, don't worry. You've got plenty of time ahead of you to pick your path and make things work. The fact that you're reaching out and searching for answers is a great indicator of future success. Just keep moving forward. ------ sudshekhar Hi! Lots of good advice already given out here. But I would like to add some of my own view points About me : 23, ex-WalmartLabs, currently working on my own startup. There are many ways to become a software developer, it all depends on what kind of role you're aiming for. \- Software Developer (SDE) Typically the job offered to most young grads at the bigs cos (google/linkedin/walmart etc). They want to test your algorithm and programming skills. Check out [0], [1], [2] . It should take you 1-2 months to go over most of this stuff and several more to get really good. Start applying once you have a grasp of the basic principles, perfection only comes with practice. If you're serious about such roles, I recommend spending at least 3-4 hours a day doing these problems. \- Technology specialist roles (IOS/Android/Node/Python/PHP etc) These also require some programming knowledge. Use the above resources and at least do the basic Data Structure questions. Apart from that, showcase your projects, contribute to other libraries and/or roll out your own. \- Devops Another cool field to get into. I am not well versed with the requirements myself but AFAIK, you need lesser DS and algo skills here and more tech domain knowledge. \- Freelance/Consulting Just keep doing what you're doing right now. Find some consulting firm to market your skills for you. The monthly HN thread might be a good way to find leads/contacts. Can also consider bidding for projects on upwork/freelancer/others. ========= All in all, only thing I can say is that there's no need to be disappointed. You _will_ get a job. You just need to prepare with a proper plan. 0 - [https://www.geeksforgeeks.org](https://www.geeksforgeeks.org) (Recommended at least basic linked list, trees, arrays, graphs and greedy algo questions) 1 - [http://www.leetcode.com](http://www.leetcode.com) (Do all these questions) 2 - [http://www.spoj.com](http://www.spoj.com) (can also use topcoder for this. Use this to level up your skills and land the high paying jobs ) ~~~ sudshekhar Also, as others have mentioned, do play the numbers game. Apply to as many positions as you can. Be polite and friendly (lots of rejections happen because of bad attitude). Would recommend reading Clean Code. Might help you improve the quality of the programs you write during interviews. ------ shams93 It depends upon where you're located. Are you looking for remote work? Its far more difficult to get hired for a remote job than to find one that is local to your area. The bulk of remote jobs go to engineers in inexpensive countries not in places like LA and SF with a high cost of living. ~~~ frostbytes Toronto, ON! I agree ~~~ shams93 Yeah probably starting out freelance is your best bet, the old school method of building sites and apps for local business. You might find the local market can work for you if a lot of local businesses still need web and or ios apps. ------ keviv I'm 30 and I'll turn 31 in January. I've been coding since I was 15. Worked in 3 companies till now and currently freelancing. Though I studied Computer Science in College, I learned to code pretty much on my own. I quit my job because I was stuck using outdated technologies and frameworks. I make less money as a freelancer and I don't regret it. Sometimes you get overwhelmed by looking at other people's success. Sometimes, I feel like giving up too. I feel worthless looking at some people who have achieved a lot before they turned 30. But I've got back up each time I was depressed. Never give up and don't stop looking. Keep building stuff and learn new things. Good things happen to people who keep trying even after failing hard. All the best. ------ cannonpr Out of curiosity, what's do you find the main barrier to be right now for you ? For example which stage of the interviews do you suspect you have trouble with, and do you have any friends who are already developers that could run you through a few mock interviews ? ------ ciaravino What's your ideal day-to-day and week-to-week? Directionally, what are your career goals? What impact do you want to have in the word and in business (without limiting thinking to a feature, product, etc.)? What's your work experience? I'm hiring for customer-facing tech positions at Google (Bay Area) that don't require SWE level knowledge, but require strong practical coding knowledge and relationship management experience. You can reach out to me at: [https://www.linkedin.com/in/vincentciaravino](https://www.linkedin.com/in/vincentciaravino) if you're interested. Good luck! ------ sasas I know someone who was in a very similar situation and was getting turned down month after month. He made the decision focus on more enterprise technologies (.NET) and invested time in learning and building things with C#. Eventually things worked out. You mention experience with Java - Maybe going the J2EE route could open some opportunities. Some may say going down the more traditional enterprise stack is boring but I do wonder if that's where there is more work locally as opposed to work being sent offshore to a low cost dev shop that works with web /php / etc. Of course I may well be wrong, but it's one perspective. ~~~ nrjdhsbsid At least in my experience the vast majority of coding jobs are not sexy. I did consulting for a while and maybe 5% of the projects were interesting. Most of what we did was automate annoying manual processes, which writing the code for was usually annoying in itself ------ kanataka Sorry for hijacking OP's thread but I would like to ask the crowd about degree and universities. As for someone outside of the US what are my options? The unis are not equal. Most of them are just meh (good enough). Why would I spend 4+2 years in some place just to get a piece of paper when I am currently earning 65k euros? The point is in the EU most of the unis are really just not that up to date when it comes to teaching you the real deal ( minus math and cs basics). And they are inflexible bureaucrats. ------ joeclark77 How do you know you can't get a job? Have you tried to apply? Don't be frightened by job postings. Employers tend to ask for the world, including things like requiring 5-10 years of experience in a technology that's only been around for 3 years. Business (at least in the USA, and I think everywhere) is desperate for IT talent. Maybe you won't get your first job at Google or Microsoft, but I'm sure you can find something. ------ bdcravens > It is extremely hard in this industry that is changing so fast Doesn't move as fast as you think. Tons of work doing "boring" work. Read what Scott Hanselman says about "Dark Matter" developers: [http://www.hanselman.com/blog/DarkMatterDevelopersTheUnseen9...](http://www.hanselman.com/blog/DarkMatterDevelopersTheUnseen99.aspx) ------ ddorian43 What I did/do is pick something that I like/challenging/be-able-to- grow(backend) + has community/jobs(like python) + doesn't change every six months(like js stuff) + has good working conditions/payment(unlike gamedev) and be good at that. All humans(should?) specialize for better ~everything (doctors!,farming! etc). Makes sense ? ------ rdlecler1 If you have the spare time, find a solid Github project and start contributing to build up your portfolio. Leverage your extroversion and give a couple of expert talks at meetup to showcase your knowledge. Basically use the talents you have to sell yourself. PS: If I had to pick a focus area I'd do AI. Supply and demand are in your favor. ~~~ throwaway_374 I was discussing this the other day with my friends who are consultants and they jump through nowhere near the level of interview hoops we have to go through. As developers we have a far more structured approach with checks and balances - a compile, build and test process. On the contrary a consultant alone on client site is a far riskier proposition. ------ cvigoe Have you looked at [https://triplebyte.com](https://triplebyte.com) ? ------ madebysquares Don't give up! I know it sucks, but if development is your passion keep going. I landed my first job at 27 with no experience and no degree. Now 7 years later I'm so happy my first start up took a chance on me. I see that you're in Toronto have you ever thought about moving? ------ rouanza I'm in much the same situation. I decided to travel for a while, so I went to backpackers on the south coast of africa that accept bitcoin. Mind blown. Now I do bitcoin/altcoin trading for most of my income. Starting to grow my own vegetables aswell so I dont need cash so much anymore. ------ iamgopal Github. Just open source your app code that you can, and library that you ended up making while doing so. Even as a freelancer or consultant, you will likely to get tons of prospect when you have code in github that is being followed with hundred plus stars. ------ k2052 First off, two things; 1\. You can do this and you are not alone! I look good enough on paper that I get a seemingly endless number of job leads. And I still cant make it through the hiring pipelines at seemingly anywhere. I know people way better than me that cant either. The creator of homebrew? Max Howell? Yep, that guy. He couldn't make it through the hiring pipeline at Google. [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9695102](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9695102) It isn't you, remind yourself that it is not you. Just keep going forward. You will get there. You will make it. 2\. But is going to hurt. The hiring pipeline in this industry is broken, completely utterly broken. It will not be fun. Until you make it, it will be rough. It is just the way it is. There wont be any saving grace or magical advice that will make it all better. It will be rough, it is that simple. Most people outside of the right stereotypes and demographics wont make it. If you don't fit the right demographic you will have to work 3x as hard and suffer 3x the stress and anxiety as others. But the good news is it can be done. You can do it. First step; figure out what your weakness is and begin to work on it. You can pinpoint this by figuring out where in the pipeline you are continually failing. Then work at getting a job the same way you worked at learning to program. Getting a job is a skill, don't let anyone or yourself convince you that just because you can code a job will happen. They don't just fall into your lap. You must tackle getting a job with the same motivation, and dedication to self-improvement that you have when learning a new framework or programming language. If you cant get your foot in the door at companies, if you cant get them to respond to you, then your problem is you look crap on paper. Go and find people that look good on paper, look up the thought leaders, the people whose work you see constantly. Then copy what they are doing. Make open source projects, contribute to their projects, write articles. Eventually you will look good and the leads will start flowing in. Now here is where it gets harder. If you are failing screens, you haven't learned to talk right. Practice learning how to talk about your work and answering questions (and asking them). Start asking after the screens for feedback. You will eventually learn what you are doing wrong and then you can work at getting better at it. If you are failing the whiteboard challenge phase of hiring, then get good at them. Go to HackerRank and solve solve solve until things get easier. Recognize that they are puzzles, they are not programming. There is no shame you suck at them, you aren't trained as a puzzle solver, you trained as a programmer. But you have to practice the skills they are testing, and they will be testing you to see how fast you can reverse a singly linked list. Recognize it is silly and stupid, but get good at it anyway. ~~~ Ultimatt Instead of finding your weakness and patching that up I would find what you are already strong at and take that to the next level. Then just present yourself as only that person. Craft your image to fit your skills not your skills to some image you wish to project. Unless you are highly competent and a really good self study you wont be able to pull off looking like a 10x Rockstar in _blah_ if all you have is a coursera certificate and a really bad GitHub project. If you have 2 years experience and a highly functional app in something else then lean on that. You can always say you're looking for an opportunity to move field/role with a bit of evidence. ------ pasta I had over 7 jobs and only did an interview once. What helped me: talk to everybody that you are looking for a job. At every party there might be someone who knows someone that needs someone. ------ CyberFonic If you have built 15 applications in 2 years, then that shows some impressive productivity. Why don't you showcase these applications to demonstrate your abilities? ------ ynafey How did you perform in the interviews? Perhaps you need to brush up your Algo and DS skills.	{ "pile_set_name": "HackerNews" }
Y Combinator Founder Paul Graham Issues New Warning to Start-ups - azazo http://www.inc.com/kathleen-kim/y-combinator-advisor-sends-seed-funding-warning.html?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+inc%2Fheadlines+%28Inc.com+Headlines%29&utm_content=Google+Feedfetcher ====== pg Just so everyone understands, I was not saying that Google Ventures is a bad investor and should be avoided. If we thought that, the email would have been a lot shorter. I was just talking about a structural problem that happens when you've already raised some money on a convertible note with a valuation cap, and an investor offers to invest at a lower cap. That sort of offer puts founders in a bind, because if you take it (a) it can anger the earlier investors, and (b) perhaps worse, it can, like a "down round" give investors the impression that your prospects are getting worse. My overall advice about fundraising is to do breadth-first search weighted by expected value. I.e. talk to every investor who's interested but focus on the most promising ones. This is one of many situations whose solution follows from that rule. An investor offering you money on worse terms is at least offering you money, which is better than nothing. But all other things being equal, the expected value of such an investor is lower than that of one willing to invest on the same terms as your existing investors, so you have any of the latter you should focus on them. ~~~ loceng Perhaps Google is leveraging their name and their value as a resource? Google Ventures investing in you could also be seen as a strong positive signal too. And not that I know what those resources offered might be, and not saying it is fair to earlier investors, though I would give someone with say media reach more value than say a local silent investor who has nothing other than money to offer. ~~~ arkonaut Google Ventures is not the "Google" of venture funding. And there are about 5-7 firms that would have this type of brand-value that don't even _consider_ these kind of tactics. ~~~ loceng It's still called Google Ventures to leverage Google's name. Regarding tactics, I guess it's a matter of knowing your poker hand and trying to put your best foot forward. I can see a point to perhaps doing such a lessened risk with incubator-founded startups, in that the model isn't yet proven of how the average incubator startup can compare to an external team that would have very different dynamics of being processed. It's in an incubator's best interest to make things look good - so the startup gets funding and the incubator's equity becomes more available - though it doesn't mean it was people on the team itself that could have achieved the same, nor that those same resources would continue to be available to the team (or at the same amount) once away from the incubator. ------ vnorby I don't know if this is true or isn't true, but Google Ventures' counter arguments are red herrings: "I don't know what Paul's thinking," Maris said. "It's just not true. Our portfolio speaks for itself." and "We've already closed investments on companies from this class, so they don't seem to feel that way," Maris said. Neither of those things mean that what PG is saying is false. Google Ventures is a desirable investor and entrepreneurs would be willing to trade lower caps for a Google stamp of approval on their round. The question is whether it's a matter of their policy to quote a cap at half of a company's existing one, and whether that is an ethical policy. Because they are skirting the question, it certainly makes them look guilty to me. ~~~ qq66 How could it be unethical? I could offer Ferrari $500 for their latest model -- they would would tell me to stick it where the sun don't shine, but it hardly makes the offer unethical. If I was Jay-Z, they'd probably accept my offer for the publicity value, which is what Google is hoping happens to them. ~~~ blahedo It'd be unethical if you knew $500 was undervalued _and you thought Ferrari didn't_ , i.e. if they were inexperienced and possibly accidentally undervaluing their own car. Then you would be taking advantage of them. ~~~ wtvanhest I disagree. The CEO of a startup is an adult, maybe a young one, but an adult no less. They need to know what is over and undervalued for their company. On the other hand, the investor has a fiduciary responsibility to get the best round possible for their fund. In Google's case it is for their shareholders. In other words it would be unethical for the VC to not work to get the best valuation. ~~~ blahedo Interesting code of ethics you're proposing there: that it's actually unethical _not_ to take advantage of people, and your only ethical responsibility is to the people who pay you. Convenient, I'm sure. ~~~ wtvanhest If you invested what you consider to be a large amount of money with a VC to produce a return for you over a 10 year period would your rather they: A) Care deeply about producing the highest return for you and in doing so use their expertise as negotiators including their competative advantage as a well branded firm (google). And in doing so dilute founders and less experienced investors in the process... B) Ask them to negotiate in a way which maximizes other investors' returns and founder returns at the expense of your own returns. Both cases you are paying them a fee to do this. If you answer B, I encourage you to leave a response explaining your position. Then consider you are a pension advisor who needs high returns to make sure that you will be able to pay the pensions of fire fighters. Would you make the same decision? ~~~ akkartik Your argument applies as well to Google Ventures as to Enron. I'm sure there's a line in your head that companies are not meant to cross in serving their investors, but it didn't make it into the argument. Fiduciary responsibility is independent of ethics. You can't use ends to justify means. ~~~ wtvanhest _Your argument applies as well to Google Ventures as to Enron._ Exactly! Enron would be the equivalent if Google Ventures decided to falsify their valuation documents they were sending to investors saying they were getting much better valuations than they actually were. Then one day in 6 years they said all of those financial reports they submitted to the SEC were falsified so there is a total loss in the Google Venture line. In doing so they violated their fiduciary responsibility. _I'm sure there's a line in your head that companies are not meant to cross in serving their investors, but it didn't make it into the argument._ Of course there is, but an arm's length negotiation with CEOs of angel invested startups seeking to be the CEOs of the worlds largest, most innovative companies is well within that line. _Fiduciary responsibility is independent of ethics._ Fiduciary responsibility is the core of business ethics that should never be violated. Within fiduciary responsibility you still can't do anything illegal. Of course ethics are always a grey area which is why there is a discussion about this topic here, but I disagree where the line is clearly with you. _You can't use ends to justify means._ That is not what I am doing. Seriously, ask yourself what you would want the VC you entrust with your money to do. ~~~ akkartik _"Seriously, ask yourself what you would want the VC you entrust with your money to do."_ Is that _all_ you need to ask in considering how ethical an action is? The whole point of ethics is to reason in the context of tensions. Tensions between what you want and what others want. Companies have responsibilities to more than their investors. Their employees, their communities, their customers, their environment. Focusing exclusively on one side of the tension has nothing to do with ethics. Focusing disproportionately on investors is also ethically convenient, because their interests are often aligned with yours. _"an arm's length negotiation with CEOs of angel invested startups seeking to be the CEOs of the worlds largest, most innovative companies is well within that line."_ It may seem obvious to you, but it's clearly not obvious to grandparent since _that is what the argument is about_. _"Fiduciary responsibility is the core of business ethics that should never be violated. Within fiduciary responsibility you still can't do anything illegal."_ I think this position doesn't require the word 'ethics'. You can get by with just 'laws'. This isn't a rhetorical device. I think lots of people think this, and honestly am ok with it. At the least it's internally consistent. It just fails for me because it doesn't permit asking, "what should the laws be?" ~~~ wtvanhest We are discussing CEOs of startups and their negotiation with professional investors. In that scenerio, I cannot imagine a reason why a VC should give up something in the negotiation because he feels like the startup doesn't know what they are worth. Both sides have lawyers and advisors and the CEO is an adult who can analyze his future as well as anyone else. If the CEO is unable to negotiate what they are worth, they should hire a dreaded MBA to help them. ------ pkaler I don't think the problem here is with Google Ventures. The problem is that founders don't understand convertible notes with caps. More by Mark Suster here: [http://www.bothsidesofthetable.com/2012/09/05/the-truth- abou...](http://www.bothsidesofthetable.com/2012/09/05/the-truth-about- convertible-debt-at-startups-and-the-hidden-terms-you-didnt-understand/) ~~~ jbigelow76 Maybe it's not that the founders don't understand convertible notes. Maybe they are taking the funding at a lower valuation because they're willing to gamble on the likelihood of a (big money, not acqui-hire) acquisition by Google later down the road is more likely. ~~~ earbitscom Google Ventures, in my experience, tells entrepreneurs that they have little to do with Google. They do not invest in things because they are synergistic with Google, and they may even invest in things that compete _with_ Google. They make it very clear up front that Google Ventures is a separate organization. At most, they may tap into their network within Google to assist you if it makes sense, but any investor worth their weight in Silicon Valley can connect you with Googlers and other important companies. ------ rdl The phrase I've heard is "Google Ventures is not the Google of venture capital." ~~~ Vaismania It is in Google's nature to try and dip their feet everywhere ------ wamatt Coincidentally, I was just reading this rather insightful essay on press releases <http://paulgraham.com/submarine.html> yesterday, and remember a line that stood out: _> 'why he's writing about this subject at all.'_ Makes one wonder what PG today, would say in response to PG (2005) :p ~~~ timpeterson @wamatt, agree regardless of the "why" PG's email feels petty, YCombinator and its way too many startups are jumping the shark ~~~ SkyMarshal With their business model, the more startups the more likely they are to get a homeruns and base hits, as long as they can maintain a minimum standard that's strongly correlated to outcome (which PG seems to have figured out). It's an odds and numbers game. ~~~ timpeterson YC is billed like the yankees, but singles more likely, how did the Seattle Mariners do with Ichiro all these years? ------ dchest Source link [http://www.businessinsider.com/paul-graham-y-combinator- goog...](http://www.businessinsider.com/paul-graham-y-combinator-google- ventures-lowball-offers-2012-9) ------ crisnoble The warning: "According to the website, the incubator's prominent founder said: "If you're talking to Google Ventures you may be part of a pattern. The pattern is: you've already raised some money at a cap of $x. Then GV says they're interested and wants to invest at a cap of $x/2."" ------ dclusin I'm a bit confused. Is the Google Ventures dig referring to companies that have already raised seed money from GV, and then try to get series A from them? Or is GV just doing this across the board for all startups that have raised seed rounds using convertible notes? ------ TinyBig Why are startups often disasters internally, as PG says in one of the linked articles? ~~~ rsbrown This was my favorite line from the article, actually. The quote in question: "Practically all start-ups internally are disasters" Not just "often", but "practically all" start-ups. It's true in my experience, and not necessarily a bad thing. Of course, it would be great if everyone acted thoughtfully, didn't let ego get in the way, planned things just enough (but not too much), etc., but that's not just not the way it happens. Acknowledging this fact, getting okay with it and still forging a highly functional team in the midst of such chaos and tragedy is the key. That's a tall order. ------ calpaterson One of the worst mobile website I've ever seen. I can scroll down on the article, so I click "go to full site". That takes me back to the main page, which is annoying, but I manage to click back to the article, at which point I am put through to the article on the mobile site again. And that's on top of the fact that I have to view a loading throbbler for a text article. Chrome for Android and the Android Browser ------ duncan_bayne Meta: the Inc.com mobile website offers an horrible experience on my Desire w/ ICS + Chrome. Slow, cluttered and buggy (wouldn't let me scroll to the bottom, kept bouncing back). It's text content. Why not just a nice simple HTML page: instead of all the 'HTML app' cruft on top? ------ mathewgj I'm sure this is both true and reasonable for some companies that did notes with absurdly high caps earlier (which many have) and are now raising more money. Nothing to see here. ------ trips2 So is GV consistently approaching startups that are already being funded, i.e., making offers after the project has had a little time to mature? ------ markmm If Google are willing to invest in your startup then why the hell would you turn that down?, it's like turning down a BJ from a supermodel, because she demands you do it at her house. ~~~ Evbn That's not what an investment is. ------ markmm Did Apple,Google, Facebook, Twitter or Microsoft use an incubator company? Why do people think they are required to be successful? ------ papsosouid It seems pretty hypocritical to be warning people "don't let google rip you off with lowball offers" when you run a company whose business model is "rip off college kids by taking a huge stake in their company in exchange for nothing". Wouldn't "dear google, please don't out-compete us in the ripping off college kids game" have been more honest?	{ "pile_set_name": "HackerNews" }
Show HN: My Django book, Hello Web App, is now free online - limedaring A couple of years ago I wrote Hello Web App (http://hellowebapp.com) to teach beginner Django web app development. It's aimed at non-programmers and designers, and walks folks through building and deploying a basic web app.<p>I'm working on my third book to teach web design fundamentals to programmers (Hello Web Design: https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/1868398473/hello-web-design-design-basics-for-non-designers), so I've made Hello Web App free online during the Kickstarter campaign for the new book.<p>The full Hello Web App tutorial can be accessed here: http://hellowebapp.com/tutorial/intro/<p>Also, I'm happy to answer any questions about writing and self-publishing books — I've probably made about $20,000 lifetime profit on the two Hello Web App books overall.<p>Thanks all! ====== Eridrus As a programmer who has a desire to build things that require UI components, but no real desire to learn the intricacies of UI, what I personally want is a cookbook/toolkit that lets me do common things really easily and then make tweaks, not build anything from scratch. I really liked Bootstrap for this for the web, particularly things like their dashboard templates which gives me a cookie cutter dashboard with minimal effort. ~~~ limedaring I think you'll like Hello Web Design then, since my number one push is for shortcuts and easy guidelines to remember, then teach a bit about the theory and fundamentals (usually taught the opposite way and shortcuts are usually not taught at all). Check out my article, which gives a little preview of the content: [https://medium.com/@limedaring/design-for-non-designers- part...](https://medium.com/@limedaring/design-for-non-designers- part-1-6559ed93ff91#.5u8g9ob0u) ------ gf263 I saw you speak at CUSEC, cool stuff! ~~~ limedaring Aw yay! Super proud of that talk, it's my favorite. :)	{ "pile_set_name": "HackerNews" }
Ask HN: What's the best way to learn how to create a font/typeface? - Kinnard What're the best ways to learn how to create fonts/typefaces? ====== spoonie Knuth's Metafont book.	{ "pile_set_name": "HackerNews" }
WebM Decoder in Flash using Alchemy - robin_reala http://www.bluishcoder.co.nz/2011/01/15/webm-decoder-in-flash-using-alchemy.html ====== alanh Instead of using hardware acceleration like browser-native video decoders can, this involves compiling C to ActionScript and running it on Flash’s VM. So don’t expect his frame rate of 1.5Hz (!) to improve much. This is not a real alternative, even if you just consider how much of your users’ batteries this “technique” would burn away. ------ etherealG With this as an alternative on platforms that don't support webM, wouldn't you get more native support for a video encoded in webM using flash as an alternative than you do currently from h.264? With firefox overtaking on browser usage in the EU, I think it's at least true there. Here's hoping this helps to open up video even further. ~~~ robin_reala WebM encode gives you native Firefox / Opera / Chrome / newer Android, Flash for Safari / IE and nothing for iOS. H264 encode gives you native Safari / IE / iOS / Android, Flash for Firefox / Opera / Chrome. ~~~ etherealG the fact that you can hit iOS as a user means I guess H264 would be probably the better option for now, but it does come with a possible price tag in the future of whatever the legal bills may come to :) also, H264 isn't native in IE at all on release versions either, and things may change drastically before release, so I wouldn't bother including speculation on prerelease versions. That means with ID moving over into the flash for both, you're left with native on Firefox / Opera / Chrome / newer Android vs. native on Safari / iOS / Android. I guess if your target is mobile then pick the closed format, and if it's deskop go open rather? Or perhaps if your target is more likely to be using Mac than PC, then go with H264, or webM if it's PC? ~~~ alanh > price tag in the future of whatever the legal bills may come to Oh great, FUD. If you are doing free video, you don’t have to pay anything. If you are selling premium content, then sure you might have to pay license fees (~10¢/user/year, and that will never go up by more than 5% every five or ten years), but why would you expect a lawsuit!? ~~~ etherealG actually, the free for non commercial only applies up to 2015 I think it is? after that, your already encoded video could cost you.	{ "pile_set_name": "HackerNews" }
Hyperloop \| Blog \| Tesla Motors - ghosh http://www.teslamotors.com/blog/hyperloop ====== gunshor Here is the 57 page PDF for Hyperloop. [http://www.teslamotors.com/blog/hyperloop](http://www.teslamotors.com/blog/hyperloop)	{ "pile_set_name": "HackerNews" }
Program diagnosing cancer more accurately than humans can - nopinsight http://www.economist.com/blogs/babbage/2011/11/diagnosing-cancer ====== nasmorn Well it's back to some e-commerce programming for me. It's a good feeling to know I make a difference in peoples lives.	{ "pile_set_name": "HackerNews" }
Ask HN: How much do you charge your clients for mobile app development? - cronjobma The numbers are all over the place, obviously because each type of app can be totally different. But how much have you been averaging per project, the last 12 months or so? ====== niravbond It totally depends on what client will get if you solve their issue. For example: If you are working on an app which generates $100K/month in revenue you should charge based on flat rate. Your value to the project helps them to generate revenue. Every client wants to get benefit hiring someone who can solve their issue. In this case, you will develop their bug-free app which helps them to sell on apps store and google play store. Your charges always depend on what value you provide to your clients.	{ "pile_set_name": "HackerNews" }
Freemium Model for Lawyers - MediaSquirrel http://www.metamorphblog.com/2010/01/dear-startup-lawyers-please-blog.html ====== grellas This a very insightful piece, as I learned from experience when I began a while back to add useful content for startups to my firm's website. We are a smaller, boutique firm but have been doing startups for a long time in Silicon Valley. The giving away of "a little bit of your brain power" (as the author puts it) has done nothing but pay dividends. The only quibble I would have is with the author's emphasis on this being an ideal way for young, unestablished lawyers to make a mark. This is a field in which much is gained by experience, and the expertise to be shared by a brand new or relatively inexperienced lawyer in this field is likely to be somewhat abstract and academic (e.g., what are stock options?) versus strategic and practical (e.g., what are optimum uses of stock options for startups in different stages?). Founders get sleepy-eyed reading abstract discussions of law but are very alert to practical discussions affecting their vital interests (e.g., on this site, I once posted a simple piece on "what it means to own x% of a company" and got thousands of visitors to my site). For lawyers with some years of big firm experience, though, this is an excellent way to promote any new practices they might establish. It would also be great if large firms used this method as well but the key to it all is being open and approachable and such firms tend to be somewhat closed. Maybe they will open up with time and a changing environment. Moreover, it is perceived to be inherently risky to "give away" your valuable techniques as a law firm and lawyers acting in large groups (such as are found in the large-firm partnerships), being cautious by nature, tend to set up lots of obstacles for any individual lawyer in the firm trying to share expertise in this way - in essence, everything goes through committees, which usually stifle such attempts. In any event, this piece offers prescient insights about this subject. ~~~ startupcomment Grellas, as usual, makes some excellent points. In my experience, businesses are very well served in securing legal services from a sharp, seasoned attorney. ------ MediaSquirrel Thanks! I've spent the last week lawyer shopping for my startup SpeakerText (<http://speakertext.com>) and ran into a couple young, ex-Gunderson Dettimer lawyers who had started their own firm. They already had >5 years each under their belt and new what they were talking about. We had margaritas last night and even though I went with Wilson Sonsini, this was essentially the advice I gave them. More lawyers should do it, if you ask me. ~~~ dsplittgerber So you told them to go blog about their practice and then went with the most established law firm for venture capital there is? I think what people are missing here is the huge difference between interesting blog posts for founders etc and the real reason why everyone goes to Wilson Sonsini et al - because they have the reputation of being the best. Any VC guy will probably stick with the default option - #1 firm on reputation, because you just trust them to do the best possible job - instead of taking risks with an upstart, who writes nice blog posts but where you have no clue to the quality of their work. You can't "fail often, fail early" with legal documents. If you make just one important mistake, there are huge consequences. That's an important reason why people select for reputations on the legal market. ~~~ MediaSquirrel True. But how do they become established and make a name for themselves quickly? I'd say starting a blog, fostering a community and doing it well is probably your best bet.	{ "pile_set_name": "HackerNews" }
Twitter Announces @Anywhere - mattwdelong http://blog.twitter.com/2010/03/anywhere.html ====== jasonlbaptiste can someone explain this without the useless buzzwords? ~~~ benologist They appear to have made a javascript widget that lets you put twitter on a page. ~~~ orblivion Specifically, I think it uses the visitor's current Twitter session, assuming they're already logged in. This is opposed to sending them to twitter.com with an icon link. Should get people tweeting about sites faster. ------ mattwdelong They are already looking to hire a Javascript "guru" for this framework. Looks interesting but is it "too much"? <http://twitter.com/JoinTheFlock/status/10531561796>	{ "pile_set_name": "HackerNews" }
Qt Weekly #21: Dynamic OpenGL implementation loading in Qt 5.4 - koopajah http://blog.qt.digia.com/blog/2014/11/27/qt-weekly-21-dynamic-opengl-implementation-loading-in-qt-5-4/ ====== koopajah I've encountered a lot of issues on Windows XP with QT/Angle but also quite a lot on Windows Vista/7 where the graphic drivers by default don't support properly OpenGL or pretend they do but don't answer properly to Qt's requests. This ended up with a big chunk of my users having a blank window or even no window displayed to them and no way to reliably detect this on our end. This feature has been in the works for multiple months now and I'm really glad to finally see it ship officially with Qt 5.4, so congrats to the team! ~~~ frozenport Indeed, but I have had better success with `--desktop`.	{ "pile_set_name": "HackerNews" }
Does Apple deliberately slow its old iPhones before a new release? - angadsg http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-2709502/Does-Apple-deliberately-slow-old-models-new-release-Searches-iPhone-slow-spike-ahead-launches.html ====== lgas Betteridge says no, others say yes.	{ "pile_set_name": "HackerNews" }
Zstandard – Fast real-time compression algorithm - pierreneter https://github.com/facebook/zstd ====== pvg Bunch of previous discussions: [https://hn.algolia.com/?query=zstandard&sort=byPopularity&da...](https://hn.algolia.com/?query=zstandard&sort=byPopularity&dateRange=all&type=story&storyText=false&prefix&page=0) ------ glinscott If you are interested in compression at all, be sure to take a trip through Charles Bloom's blog [1]. It's an incredible read, he covers everything from the basics all the way through state of the art algorithms. A great example is this post [2], where he talks about how to correctly implement a Huffman encoder/decoder. It's a lot tricker than it is made to sound in most books. For example, most Huffman codes that are used in practice are length limited, to allow the decoder to use smaller lookup tables. There are a bunch of surprisingly interesting tricks to get that to work well from the encoding side (which symbols do you choose to be smaller than they would be otherwise?). [1] [http://cbloomrants.blogspot.com/](http://cbloomrants.blogspot.com/) [2] [http://cbloomrants.blogspot.com/2010/08/08-12-10-lost- huffma...](http://cbloomrants.blogspot.com/2010/08/08-12-10-lost-huffman- paper.html) ~~~ lifthrasiir I like Charles Bloom's blog, but I'm not sure if it's very approachable (after all, it's "rants" :-). If you want more diversity in the readings, ryg blog [1] makes good reading. Start with the most recent series on efficiently reading bits [2]. [1] [https://fgiesen.wordpress.com/category/compression/](https://fgiesen.wordpress.com/category/compression/) [2] [https://fgiesen.wordpress.com/2018/02/19/reading-bits-in- far...](https://fgiesen.wordpress.com/2018/02/19/reading-bits-in-far-too-many- ways-part-1/) ------ pierreneter It has been standardized as RFC 8478 ([https://tools.ietf.org/html/rfc8478](https://tools.ietf.org/html/rfc8478)) and Hypertext Transfer Protocol (HTTP) Parameters ([https://www.iana.org/assignments/http-parameters/http- parame...](https://www.iana.org/assignments/http-parameters/http- parameters.xhtml)) with name: zstd ~~~ ncmncm "Despite use of the word "standard" as part of its name, readers are advised that this document is not an Internet Standards Track specification; it is being published for informational purposes only." So, there's an RFC, but it is not standardized, per se. But close enough, for many uses. ~~~ duskwuff It's as standard as most file formats get. The IETF reserves the phrase "Internet Standard" for certain _very_ important protocols -- there's no place in the process for file formats. ~~~ tialaramex The IETF has a Standards process, which develops new de jure standards and this just isn't one of those. Most products of the IETFs dozens of working groups (e.g. the replacement effort for CAT is being worked on by a group named kitten) will be Standards Track documents. IETF working groups are perfectly capable of defining file formats, eg RFC 7468. ZStandard wasn't developed using the IETF process, that's why it isn't on the IETF Standards Track. PNG likewise is not on the Standards track, whereas Ogg (the container format) is. ------ yjftsjthsd-h So "real-time" here means "probably line speed", not "hard realtime (constant time per byte)", right? That's probably _more_ impressive, but a bit ambiguous phrasing. ~~~ caf Probably "online" would be a better term than "real-time" for this meaning. ------ maxpert I’ve used lz4 several times for compressing blobs and storing them for serving real-time traffic. In my opinion LZ4 and Snappy hits fine balance of CPU usage and network usage when you are sensitive to p99 latencies. ZSTD seems to pay more attention to compression size. I hope to do a real life test instead of sythetic benchmarks. Has someone already used it in prod? ~~~ matsur One production write up, compressing Kafka messages at Cloudflare: [https://blog.cloudflare.com/squeezing-the- firehose/](https://blog.cloudflare.com/squeezing-the-firehose/) “For our data zstd was giving amazing results even on the lowest compression level. Compression ratio was better than even gzip at maximum compression level, while throughput was a lot higher.” ------ franciscop The "training mode" bit sounds amazing. Imagine training on the top 1000 websites with this in 3 modes: zhtml, zjs, and zcss. Then make the training output a different standard, that basically encode the peculiarities of the languages. Finally apply compression in the server and in the browser, that would be basically the same as zstd but without having to send the dictionary each time. It might be small gains, it might be large ones on both transfer size and decompression speed, I'd love to see some tests on this. The best thing is that, if a browser (say Chrome) and a CDN (say Cloudflare) agreed on something like this there would be no need to even to anything on the front-end nor the server side, automatic free benefit for the users. ~~~ felixhandte We are investigating doing that! We're pretty excited about the possibilities too! ------ waterhouse Standard comment on zstd: The "zstdcat" program (equivalent to "zstd -cdfq", I think) is capable of reading a few other compression formats, including .gz and .lz4 (apparently .lzma and .xz are available too), if support is built in at compile time. _Unbelievably, zstdcat is 1.5x faster (in my experience) at decoding .gz files than zcat / gunzip / gzip -d._ I dare you to try it. Anyway, this should ease transitions away from legacy compression formats. ~~~ goodside If you find 1.5x-faster gzip useful, you should consider benchmarking pigz, a parallel gzip implementation that goes faster still: [https://zlib.net/pigz/](https://zlib.net/pigz/) Similarly there's lbzip2 ( [http://lbzip2.org](http://lbzip2.org) ) for parallel bz2. ~~~ waterhouse Good point. But for my use case, I have hundreds or more of logfiles, and I parallelize at that level already. So I'm concerned with the total CPU time per file more than anything else. ------ hultner Have seen zstd pop up frequently in zfs and hammer2 discussions, have been running lz4 on FS (and in some cases in for RAM-compressions) for a while. From my point of view zstd looks like a very interesting alternative to gzip since it's an order of magnitude faster in tests I've seen. But lz4 seems to still be the champion for raw throughput speed with decent compression, this might change (have changed?) with the negative compression modes in zstd. It would be interesting to hear from people who've got a bit more hands on experience with zstd in theses contexts. The dictionary training, would that be applicable on a dataset/volume in a FS context? It would be awesome if for instance I have a dataset for jpg and another for raw-photos and I could get some good compressions for those. Media usually yields quite bad compression ratios using more traditional compression formats, dedupe can improve this some but usually requires large DDTs (deduplication tables). Could the dictionary training be an alternative in these cases? ------ nvahalik I've been using zstd now for over a year to compress my large SQL dumps. Consistently amazed at how fast it works and how small the results are. ------ mnw21cam So now what the world needs more is for rsync (or heck even just ssh) to have an option to use zstd compression, instead of gzip. Using gzip compression is great if you're moving stuff over a slow connection, but I'd like a faster method for when I'm moving loads of data over Gb ethernet between fast discs. I'd even settle for rsync/ssh supporting lz4. ~~~ aberoham This may help? [https://github.com/facebook/zstd/issues/1155](https://github.com/facebook/zstd/issues/1155) ~~~ mnw21cam No, that's a completely different feature. ------ olliej Ok so they say that small file compression is achieved via a training step to produce a dictionary for subsequent compression/decompression cycles. For this to work either you need the library to include all of those models, or you have to transmit those models at least once so they can be cached by the recipient. I don't see why any of the other compression schemes couldn't also use that type of bootstrap mechanism. Obviously it would not be binary compatible with the baseline libraries, but it's seems disingenuous to claim a huge improvement if the bulk of it is coming from just that. ~~~ asdfasgasdgasdg Those other compression algorithms _don 't_ have that feature. If they did have that feature, they would be different than what they are. If they did have that feature, zstd would not claim a big improvement. But they don't, so it does. ~~~ felixhandte To add to @ot's reply, zlib and lz4 actually do support dictionaries. (Zlib via `deflateSetDictionary()`, lz4 via `LZ4_loadDict()`/`LZ4_attach_dictionary()`.) A few things set Zstd's implementation apart. 1\. Zstd actually comes with tooling to generate dictionaries (`zstd --train`, `ZDICT_trainFromBuffer()`). No other compressor ships with this capability, even libraries that support using dictionaries. So we use Zstd to create dictionaries at Facebook, even when, for example, the application is using lz4. 2\. Both zlib and lz4 treat dictionaries as strictly prefixes to make LZ77 matches into. Zstd additionally can use metadata in the dictionary to prime the entropy stage. 3\. Zstd's support for efficiently using dictionaries is much more extensive than other compressors'. Dictionaries are much more a first class citizen in the internals of the algorithm. Zlib implements support for dictionaries similarly to @ot's suggestion. I.e., the dictionary must be parsed/loaded at the beginning of each compression, or (slightly more efficiently) copied from one pre-loaded context into a working context that will then be used by the compression. For very small inputs--which is where dictionaries are most effective--this loading and/or copying can end up being the bulk of the work performed. LZ4 used to work this way, but additional functionality was added--`LZ4_attach_dictionary()`--that let it use the dictionary in place (as a warm-up exercise in a simpler codebase in preparation for doing the same work in Zstd). Zstd includes mature support for maximally pre-processing a dictionary, producing a `ZSTD_CDict`. This object can then be searched in- place with no per-compression set-up work. This lets Zstd use a large dictionary over and over again very efficiently. ------ bruce_one I always find [lrzip]([https://github.com/ckolivas/lrzip](https://github.com/ckolivas/lrzip)) is under appreciated when it comes to compression discussions; it doesn't suit all circumstances, but it works really well in the ones it does (we're using it with the nocompress flag and then using zstd, hence why it comes to mind :-) ) Edit: it's not well suited to real-time... ~~~ terrelln If you're using lrzip, you should also check out zstd long range mode [0]. It uses a long window (128 MB by default, up to 2 GB), together with an efficient search strategy, and multithreading. For example, a 2 GB window, with 4 threads, at level 10: zstd --long=31 -T4 -10 It should be faster than lrzip + zstd and provide about the same results. [0] [https://github.com/facebook/zstd/releases/tag/v1.3.2](https://github.com/facebook/zstd/releases/tag/v1.3.2) ------ walrus01 Very nice to see that it's released under a standard BSD license. ~~~ pmontra And also GPL 2. > The project is provided as an open-source dual BSD and GPLv2 licensed C > library. I don't understand how this works. "You either contribute back your changes or not". Wouldn't the BSD license be enough for that? ~~~ dymk It's so projects that are licensed under either of GPL2 or BSD can use it - so there's no worry about license incompatibility. ~~~ geokon Is that meaningful? Since you can make it close source, can't you as well fork a BSD project and re-license it as GLPv2? ~~~ TheDong Copyright does not work that way. You cannot relicense code you are not the copyright holder of (ignoring public domain, that's a special case). Just because it is under a permissive BSD license does not mean that you own the copyright; only that the copyright owner permits you to use the material permissively. You are still unable to re-license it unless you are the copyright owner (or the copyright owner gives you permission to do so, e.g. by dual-licensing the code). In practice, there's little reason to license under both BSD and GPL since the BSD is compatible with the GPL on its own. By the way, that might be what you're thinking of; when you have BSD code, you can integrate it into a GPL codebase, but that's not because you're re- licensing it as GPL, but because the GPL is explicitly meant to be compatible with most other free software licenses. You're still using said code under the terms of the BSD, which allow you to use it alongside GPL code. Presumably what has happened here is that Facebook's lawyers felt more comfortable being more explicit about the intended licenses, though I can't think of a concrete reason why they'd feel the need to do so. ~~~ terrelln GPLv2 was added before the patents grant was removed, so zstd could be included in the linux kernel. ------ sligor So... chose: \- lz4 for speed/cpu usage \- zstd for compression ratio \- zlib for portability/compatibility with correct compression ratio... but slow... And dump everything else ?	{ "pile_set_name": "HackerNews" }
Facebook CTO Bret Taylor's Biggest Mistake? Buying Servers - alexwilliams http://www.readwriteweb.com/cloud/2011/02/facebook-cto-bret-taylors-bigg.php?utm_source=ReadWriteCloud&utm_medium=rwchomepage&utm_campaign=ReadWriteCloud_posts&utm_content=Facebook%20CTO%20Bret%20Taylors%20Biggest%20Mistake?%20Buying%20Servers ====== iamclovin Absolutely. Until you have a minimum viable product, there is no point shelling out money on hardware or inventing languages or writing your own data-store. Latest case in point being Asana Whig started out writing it's own language but wisely decided it's better to ship first.	{ "pile_set_name": "HackerNews" }
America Is Flint - pavornyoh http://www.nytimes.com/2016/02/07/opinion/sunday/america-is-flint.html?ref=opinion&_r=0 ====== grandalf The broader point is that incompetence and corruption plagues institutions (public and private) of all sizes. Regardless of one's politics, it's critical that we hold our institutions accountable and help them get better over time. This includes our country, our state, our county, our city, our company, our social and professional groups, open source communities, etc. There is a strong human tendency to want to defend organizations we are part of (or rely on) rather than trying to constructively improve them. Flint is an example of institutional failures at multiple levels, but over all the loss of life and suffering pales in comparison to what our failed institutions did in Iraq and around the world, and what they do to our schools all across the country, etc. The more official an organization (government, etc.), the more fancy its facilities (buildings with columns, spires, domes, etc.) the more we must realize its credibility is based on self-perpetuation rather than on tangible, auditable results. There are so many failures happening across the board, and the biggest enemy to progress is the idea that loyalty means keeping quiet. ~~~ rayiner Having worked in this area, I can say that "incompetence and corruption" is an intellectually lazy explanation for the problems facing municipal water supplies. The real problem is that water is a municipal utility and municipal rate setting boards set water rates far too low. There is simply not enough money to rip out all the old lead pipe and replace it: [http://m.huffpost.com/us/entry/clean-water-at-any- rate_b_504...](http://m.huffpost.com/us/entry/clean-water-at-any- rate_b_504263.html). It's politically untenable for water boards to raise rates, especially since water bills are not progressive (seniors and the poor pay the same rate as rich people). ~~~ mikeash So fund the system with taxes. Issue bonds for necessary infrastructure upgrades. If raising money is politically impossible in any form, shut the system down. If the responsible people are just throwing their hands up and letting the systems collapse and poison people along the way, that's at best incompetence. ~~~ ovis The politician who raises taxes or shuts down water delivery may be replaced at the next election by the one that doesn't and keeps the lead pipes. ~~~ mikeash Sure, that's why you end up with incompetent and corrupt people in power. ~~~ jonathankoren I don't think you can call this fictional public servant incompetent and corrupt. He's just doing what the people wanted. That shortsightedness and aversion to investment is problem of the electorate. ~~~ mikeash When the people's wishes result in poisoning children, a good public servant doesn't just say "OK" and do it. "Just following orders" isn't any better just because those orders come through a democratic process. When it's that bad you fight it, you show people the consequences of what they're asking for, and if they insist then you either refuse or resign in protest. Edit: it occurs to me that this characterization of "just doing what the people wanted" is probably completely wrong anyway. I'm sure there was never a public meeting in Flint, for example, where city officials stood up before the public and laid out the plan to switch water supplies and the subsequent poisoning of the entire city that would result. ~~~ jonathankoren But that's not the situation outlined in the thread. It's the public servant that see the lead pipes, the dangerous and untenable situation and takes action. Then he's sacked _for_ taking action. What then? ~~~ mikeash Then someone new takes the position and the process repeats. You can certainly blame the public for electing incompetent or corrupt public officials. Said officials also shoulder the blame for fucking up the water system. That they would be fired for doing the right thing does not absolve them in the least. I'm not saying you can't blame the people for who they choose to govern, merely that the people who govern are _also_ to blame. The situation for Flint specifically is complicated by the fact that the city has an emergency manager appointed by the governor. The elected council approved the decision to switch as well, so the locals aren't free from responsibility either, but there's plenty of opportunity for finger-pointing in many directions. ------ ghshephard If I understood the article, what Kristof is saying, is that as bad as Flint appears to be for children, there are a lot of places as bad, or worse, that are getting no press at all. Testing for elevated level of lead in children: o Flint - 4.9% o New York State (outside of NYC): 6.7% o Pennsylvania: 8.5% o Westside Detroit: 20% o Iowa: 32% If these figures are true (and one hopes that the NYT fact checked these numbers), and are comparable, it seems like what's happening in Flint is just the tip of the iceberg. ~~~ madaxe_again While this is indeed pretty dire, it's worth bearing in mind that the entire generation who are currently running the world suffer from lead poisoning to one degree or another - atmospheric lead from gasoline additives was a major source of lead in humans until lead was withdrawn from petroleum. Add that to most paints being lead based until the last quarter of the 20th century, and you have an entire generation of brain damage. The western roman empire quite likely degraded in part due to its leadership being brain damaged by lead - they added lead acetate to wine as a sweetener, and lined watercourses with lead regularly - although the former was a far greater source. [http://penelope.uchicago.edu/~grout/encyclopaedia_romana/win...](http://penelope.uchicago.edu/~grout/encyclopaedia_romana/wine/leadpoisoning.html) for some reference. In any case, a huge chunk of the world's population has heavy metal poisoning, be it mercury, lead, cadmium, or all of the above - and it's largely being ignored, and things like Flint are almost unhelpful, as it makes this look like a localised problem, when it's actually global. ~~~ herge > The western roman empire quite likely degraded in part due to its leadership > being brain damaged by lead FWIW, modern historians don't believe that. See [https://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/comments/23o92d/on_co...](https://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/comments/23o92d/on_cosmos_neil_degrassetyson_said_some_historians/cgyxmj3) for a rundown of the modern scholarship on the question, including a breakdown of Nriagu's arguments. ~~~ themartorana If the Romans knew lead pipes made water unhealthy, how did we end up with so much lead piping? (I'm not asking the question as a refutation, I'm genuinely curious - was this a lesson we forgot??) ~~~ mike_hearn You could also ask why lead was used for gasoline when it was known that lead was toxic. The reason is simple. People knew it was toxic and caused brain damage ('madness' in Roman terms) at high levels of exposure. What they didn't realise is that very small levels of exposure could cause an internal buildup over time and cause steady mental degradation. If someone is exposed to massive heavy metal poisoning and immediately goes crazy, the correlation is obvious. If an entire generation slowly gets more violent and crime rates go up, then it's much, much harder to spot the issue because everyone is changing at the same time. ~~~ Houshalter Almost everything is poisonous in large doses. This really complicates such research. ------ sz4kerto Minor point: "In Baltimore, a two-year-old boy named Malachi can’t speak, apparently because of lead poisoning." Many two year old children don't speak, and later become completely normal. (I started speaking around the age of 3.) ~~~ sathackr A lot of these cases seem to be borderline, and many times the maladies are only loosely ascribed to lead poisoning. Reading the articles, you see things like "16ppb, 1ppb above the level that the CDC requires you to take action" And, in the linked article, the line that sz4kerto quoted "In Baltimore, a two-year-old boy...can’t speak, apparently because of lead poisoning." Hardly a smoking gun. Many of the outrage-inducing headlines, when you read further, aren't nearly as bad as what they seem. If 15ppb requires no action, why is 16ppb an outrage? Or even 30ppb. Usually 'safe' levels of a substance are set at least an order of magnitude below the point they become a problem in most circumstances. Obviously lead poisoning is a real thing, and the government cover-ups and selective testing are a problem, but I foresee an entire generation of Flint descendants that will start blaming any and all of their problems on this Flint issue, of course, looking for a $$ handout as well. It would be nice for the media(and the general public) to apply even the lowest evidence bar "greater weight of the evidence" \-- meaning at least a 50% probability -- to the situation. It seems the current bar is "a slight chance in hell." A two year old, exposed to an unknown amount of lead, who can't talk, does not seem to be a definitive victim of lead poisoning. He is, however, a great tool for the media to use to invoke the "won't you think of the children" hysteria, which will surely prompt a knee-jerk reaction that will waste millions of dollars. ~~~ putlake It's easy to see this in terms of statistics if it's not _your_ 2-year old with the speech delay. Not all individuals tolerate lead at the same level. Lead was commonly used in the middle ages and not everyone suffered from the neurological damage that lead can cause. Statistics are the best tool we have but it's also important to realize that when the incidence rate is low enough, you need a lot of data for statistical methods to be reliable. We see this in A/B testing of conversion rates. If your base conversion rate is only 0.1% and you are looking for a 15% lift (e.g. 15% higher chance of lead poisoning), then you need a sample size of over 700,000 for each branch (i.e. 700,000 kids "exposed" to lead and 700,000 not exposed). That kind of sample size is hard to come by. ~~~ sathackr I agree -- I wasn't trying to show that there wasn't enough affected cases to indicate definitive lead poisoning, just that it's likely not nearly as widespread or causing as much damage as is currently being ascribed to it. From the article "4.9 percent of children tested for lead turned out to have elevated levels." What is 'elevated'? Is that 30ug/dl? or 3ug/dl when the average is 2ug/dl. When specific information is absent, I generally doubt the accuracy. But I guess that's typical news media anyways. If it's not bursting in to flames, then it isn't news. Edit: added "From the article..." ~~~ alexandercrohde I totally agree with request for more detail; I would love a breakdown of PPB by area. So I found this: [https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/wonk/wp/2016/01/15/this-...](https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/wonk/wp/2016/01/15/this- is-how-toxic-flints-water-really-is/) Flint has an actual problem. ~~~ pyre That article has some issues though: > The city opted out of Detroit's water supply As I understand, it the City of Detroit basically kicked them out (or raised the rates prohibitively high). Flint was already on track to transition to a regional water system ( _not_ the Flint river system), but it wasn't completed yet. This statement places all of the blame onto Flint for pulling out of using Detroit's water system. ~~~ DrScump The details have been posted in several earlier threads, but the TL;DR version is: 1) Detroit was gouging Flint, well into 7 figures per year, (plus the supply pipes from Detroit to Flint have lead) 2) Flint signed a new deal for a new supply direct from Lake Huron with lead- free supply lines at an 8-figure cost savings per decade (or less) -- better water, much cheaper. Construction to take ~4 years. 3) Detroit hears this, cuts off Flint at earliest opportunity (1-year notice opt-out), apparently assuming that they could later gouge even _more_ under the assumption that Flint had no alternative; 4) Flint resorts to using Flint River in the interim (until new Huron feeds from new water system are complete), prepared for the bacterial risks but unaware of lead risks. ------ nashashmi In NYC, we used to install cast-iron lead joint pipes for water main distribution, up until 1985 when a law was passed banning it. To phase out old water main, the NYCDEP has a rule: All pipes older than 1975 (or thereabouts) underneath areas of road reconstruction will be replaced by ductile iron pipe. But NYC still continues to have a lot of pipe that are cast iron even now. ------ pnathan The question immediately for me is: how do I test my own water? If this is such an issue, it's clear public health departments are not fully trustable, which is _terrible_ ; but the starting point isn't to start the engineering project, it's to determine safety of self. Then on to the politicing, raising water prices, improving infrastructure, etc. ~~~ JumpCrisscross > _how do I test my own water?_ If you live in New York City, you can request a free water lead test kit [http://www1.nyc.gov/nyc-resources/service/1266/water-lead- te...](http://www1.nyc.gov/nyc-resources/service/1266/water-lead-test-kit- request). Your own city may have a similar program. Call City Hall and ask. ------ srameshc We live on tap water and always assumed that the water quality would be flawless here in US. But after reading such stories, I subscribe to the idea of buying bottled water or refillable purified tap water. Now I will have to research if refillable RO water shops can actually clear water or has any lead or any other contamination in it. ~~~ dalke > I subscribe to the idea of buying bottled water Quoting from [http://www.nrdc.org/water/drinking/qbw.asp](http://www.nrdc.org/water/drinking/qbw.asp) : > 1\. Isn't bottled water safer than tap water? > No, not necessarily. NRDC conducted a four-year review of the bottled water > industry and the safety standards that govern it, including a comparison of > national bottled water rules with national tap water rules, and independent > testing of over 1,000 bottles of water. Our conclusion is that there is no > assurance that just because water comes out of a bottle it is any cleaner or > safer than water from the tap. And in fact, an estimated 25 percent or more > of bottled water is really just tap water in a bottle -- sometimes further > treated, sometimes not. > 2\. Is bottled water actually unsafe? > Most bottled water appears to be safe. Of the bottles we tested, the > majority proved to be high quality and relatively free of contaminants. The > quality of some brands was spotty, however, and such products may pose a > health risk, primarily for people with weakened immune systems (such as the > frail elderly, some infants, transplant and cancer patients, or people with > HIV/AIDS). About 22 percent of the brands we tested contained, in at least > one sample, chemical contaminants at levels above strict state health > limits. If consumed over a long period of time, some of these contaminants > could cause cancer or other health problems. Don't forget also that there's a _lot_ of plastic waste with bottled water, and the cost is enormous. The pure tap water I drink is cheap enough that I also use it to bathe in and water my plants. Even purified tap water isn't that cheap. This price difference means there is a strong business interest to privatize water. (See also [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Water_privatization](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Water_privatization) ). One of these companies is Nestlé Waters. Nestlé, like other private water companies, are bringing in loads of bottled water to Flint. This has the dual purpose of humanitarian support, and getting the idea across that bottled water is a solution over untrustworthy city water. What an amazing coincidence that Deborah Muchmore, the wife of Gov. Rick Snyder’s ex-Chief of Staff Dennis Muchmore, was also spokesperson for Nestle Waters in Michigan. I think this alignment of interests is a natural consequence of believing that a (democratic) government should be run more like a(n autoritarian) business. ~~~ merpnderp One point, if Nestle ran th water supply, they could be sued for damages and the EPA would have an adversarial role instead of covering for their buddies as they very likely were in Flint (by knowing the water was dangerous for months and only saying something when an independent researcher proved it was dangerous). But the main point is they would face a jury setting damages if they pulled the same rookie corrupt BS that happened in Flint. The government won't. ~~~ dalke I'm not suggesting that Nestle would want to run the water supply. It's much more profitable to sell bottled water instead. The biggest competitor to pop/soda is water. When I was a kid, almost no one drank bottled water, and there were a lot more public water fountains. It should be no surprise that companies entered that marketplace a few decades back, and water fountains started to disappear. See [http://www.smithsonianmag.com/smart-news/why-thinking- public...](http://www.smithsonianmag.com/smart-news/why-thinking-public- drinking-fountains-are-gross-problem-180955931/?no-ist) or [http://www.post- gazette.com/opinion/2015/08/30/Respecting-pu...](http://www.post- gazette.com/opinion/2015/08/30/Respecting-public-water- fountains/stories/201508300106) . Quoting from the latter: > Homegrown brands, though, couldn’t boast glamorous European roots. So > instead, they made Americans afraid of the tap. One ad from Royal Spring > Water claimed that “tap water is poison.” Another, from Calistoga Mountain > Spring Water, asked: “How can you be sure your water is safe? ... > Unfortunately, you can’t.” Fiji Water infuriated Ohio with the tagline “The > label says Fiji because it’s not bottled in Cleveland.” The insinuation, of > course, was that there was something wrong with local water. If people don't trust public city water to drink, but do trust private bottled water, then more profits for those companies. (Or if the new Central Florida University stadium was built without fountains, forcing people to buy $3 bottled water instead, then profit! ... Until the water ran out and "60 attendees were treated for heat-related issues; 18 were hospitalized for heat exhaustion".) ~~~ merpnderp Not having access to potable water inside a public area like that seems nearly criminal. I wonder if they faced legal action, as I assume they had a policy of no outside drinks or beverages. ~~~ dalke My mistake on the name, it was the University of Central Florida, and more specifically Bright House Stadium. There's TV news coverage at [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4t-44S_gebI](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4t-44S_gebI) . It and the article at [http://articles.orlandosentinel.com/2007-09-19/news/FOUNTAIN...](http://articles.orlandosentinel.com/2007-09-19/news/FOUNTAIN19_1_drinking- fountains-water-fountains-heston) say that the university believes it followed the building code at the time, and that water fountains were not required so long as water was available. The followup at [http://articles.orlandosentinel.com/2007-09-22/news/FOUNTAIN...](http://articles.orlandosentinel.com/2007-09-22/news/FOUNTAINS22_1_bottled- water-coolers-drinking-fountains-water-fountains) is more complete: > When the stadium was designed, the building codes called for either drinking > fountains or "bottled water coolers." But the sole source of water for fans > attending last Saturday's inaugural game was from vendors. > "Selling bottled water out of a concession stand is not what the code > meant," said Gregg Gress of the International Code Council in Washington, > D.C. Water coolers "were supposed to be the equivalent of a drinking > fountain." ... > The 2001 plumbing code under which UCF's stadium was designed gave builders > the option of installing water fountains or "bottled water coolers." > But several officials who are closely involved with building codes told the > Orlando Sentinel that bottled-water coolers referred to refrigerated units > fed by large plastic jugs, commonly found in offices. > The code, they said, was not meant to include refrigerators containing > individual bottles of water for sale, such as those that vendors used at the > stadium last Saturday. It then says that the university "was not subject to review by another government agency. That's because the university, like school districts, has the authority to issue its own permits and can decide whether it meets most building standards." as well as pointing to a few previous cases: > In 2003, the new stadium for the NFL's Philadelphia Eagles opened without > water fountains for the general public in what was called an oversight. In > 1962, Dodger Stadium architects in Los Angeles forgot to install drinking > fountains, though some suspected the team's owner wanted to boost beer and > soda sales. In general there was a lot of astonishment over the lack of water fountains. Oh, and no, you can't bring in your own drinks. They might contain alcohol, so beer sales would go down ... err, I mean that people might get drunk and rowdy or violent. ------ jegoodwin3 I was interested enough to follow the link the OP entitled "Across America, 535,000 children ages 1 through 5 suffer lead poisoning, by C.D.C. estimates." Here it is for convenience: [http://www.cdc.gov/mmwr/preview/mmwrhtml/mm6213a3.htm](http://www.cdc.gov/mmwr/preview/mmwrhtml/mm6213a3.htm) (2013) As far as I can tell, the CDC regularly tests some children in a malnourished nutrition program (not a random sample of all children), with sample sizes in the N=1600 to 1800 range over several years. They divided that data into several cohorts, and over time the incidence of children above the threshold reported has decreased in all factor categories, so that by the 2010 cohort it was one third what the incidence was in the 2000 cohort. Now I didn't do more than skim the article -- did I miss a smoking gun? Or am I looking at link bait by a journalist? I do not wish to belittle whatever crisis the article is about, whatever it is, but its links backing up the alarm are not, in fact alarming. "Lead poisoning in poor children decreased 3x over the Augties, CDC said 3 years ago" The author seems to have done a deep dive and found some alarming numbers. I wonder if his Iowa data are from the Quad Cities area -- a region historically known for lead mining. I can well imagine that lead poisoning has a strong environmental and industrial component, and that some places are worse than others just because of the soil. That is certainly true of exposure to radon gas in the home, for example. ------ cavisne Mark your calendars for the same outrage with the electricity grid in 10 years or so. I.e. "Life support users die after cloudy day". Subsidizing inefficient and unreliable energy will put us in the same hole as water infrastructure in Flint, especially as politicians have the same unwillingness to increase rates to reflect the true cost of renewable energy. ~~~ yeahOkay Yeah, okay. So what you're trying to tell the world right now is... "Fear the inevitable nightmare known as solar power, because a half measure avails no one." Is that the alarm bell you're ringing here? You're right, we should fear for the preservation of vegetables that already are, rather than prevent the brain damage that would not have otherwise been. Thanks for the help here, guy. ------ clumsysmurf Similarly, The Guardian reports "Water authorities across the US are systematically distorting water tests to downplay the amount of lead in samples, risking a dangerous spread of the toxic water crisis that has gripped Flint..." [http://www.theguardian.com/environment/2016/jan/22/water- lea...](http://www.theguardian.com/environment/2016/jan/22/water-lead-content- tests-us-authorities-distorting-flint-crisis) ~~~ themartorana I don't know if things were different in the 80s when I was a kid, or the 50s when my parents were, but it feels very much like 2008 set the standard for "the bigger the crime, the less accountable you will be held." From fixing LIBOR rates to HSBC laundering money for multinational crime organizations, to lying to Congress's face, to lead poisoning thousands of people - the bigger the crime, the less accountability. GM knew the Flint river water was toxic, so it got to hook back up to the clean water supply. Poor kids did not. I'm so very unsurprised and so very jaded. ~~~ maxerickson GM switched because the water was corrosive, not because it was toxic. It's a little pedantic, because the corrosiveness is why the water coming out of household taps has the high levels of lead, but GM switched because the water wasn't suitable for their process, not because of toxicity. ------ e40 Chelation: I've heard it is expensive and has serious side effects. How do the people who are affected by the lead, given there are so many, get well? ~~~ leonroy Seems there are foods which can chelate heavy metals such as dark leafy greens, chlorella, coriander. More info here: [http://www.livestrong.com/article/203988-foods-for- chelation...](http://www.livestrong.com/article/203988-foods-for-chelation/) I don't know to what extent damage from mercury and lead is irreperable - even after chelation. Be useful to find out. Sadly with the mass poisonings in Flint we might be seeing more data on the subject. ~~~ dalke Chelation therapy is a common alternative medicine therapy. See [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chelation_therapy#Use_in_alter...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chelation_therapy#Use_in_alternative_medicine) . There is very little evidence that those plants are effective. The positive studies I've seen (based on a few hours of looking in PubMed last year) are only in animal tests, and are more suggestive than conclusive. An effective study would also need to show some response curve. Is one leaf of coriander a month good enough, or do I need to eat 200 grams per day to get a 5% decrease in blood lead levels? Chelation therapy, like with EDTA and DMSA, can be effective for heavy metal poisoning, but they have limits and side effects. For example, "From 2003 to 2005, deaths of 3 individuals as a result of cardiac arrest caused by hypocalcemia during chelation therapy with EDTA were reported to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention" (from Wikipedia) and "The oral chelation test using DMSA may lead to misleading diagnostic advice regarding potential mercury toxicity and can be associated with serious side effects" (from [http://acb.sagepub.com/content/41/3/233](http://acb.sagepub.com/content/41/3/233) ). ------ rdl Is this worse than it had been before (i.e. did lead go down in the 70s/80s/90s and back up now? Will we see a resurgence in crime in a decade or two as a result? ------ mrweasel Could this help explain why the US is more violent that than e.g. European countries? The removal of lead from gas has been liked to a decrease in violence, so I would guess that levels could go even lower if lead was removed from other sources as well. ------ shams93 It would be interesting to see if the TPP hooks up the lead industry to force more exposure it would seem the lead industry could st ------ ck2 I knew America's infrastructure wasn't being funded so I was just watching for bridges to start collapsing. Wasn't expecting it to be in the pipes bringing the water. Not in 2016. Make you wonder about violent criminals in the past decade and if lead had any help in that. We thought we eliminated that decades ago but apparently not. ~~~ Shivetya America's infrastructure is being funded just fine. The numbers are coming down and have been doing so since their peaks in the 90s, an example are bridges are now half their number from before. However the Federal government cannot do all the required work on bridges or even roads as it does not have dominion over them. What that means is that in many areas, same as with water distribution, this is wholly managed and supported by local authorities. This can be city, county, or even state level.	{ "pile_set_name": "HackerNews" }
How The Syrian Electronic Army Hacked Us - wglb http://www.forbes.com/sites/andygreenberg/2014/02/20/how-the-syrian-electronic-army-hacked-us-a-detailed-timeline/ ====== mr_spothawk > The editorial staffer, who had “super-administrator” privileges on Forbes’ > WordPress publishing platform... facepalm ------ coldcode Security and Wordpress seem to be disconnected. ~~~ DigitalSea This is an attack that could happen to any site, Wordpress is irrelevant here. I know people like to bash and blame Wordpress for security issues, but in this instance it was the person who received the email that is to blame for not being diligent and aware of such attacks. ~~~ bsder No. I'm tired of people blaming the recipients of emails. The blame lies on IT departments who won't implement email authentication systems that have existed for years. There should be a big green bar at the top of emails from people I would be likely to trust. ~~~ keyhole_downs In this case, the email WOULD HAVE HAD a big green bar at the top. It was an email from a legitimate contact at VICE media who's email account had been compromised... possibly via something like the Target database leak. ------ sheetjs Something similar happened to CNN earlier this year: [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7113526](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7113526) In both cases, WP-powered sites were attacked. ------ dav- The weakest link in software security is often people. ~~~ fulafel Everything is ultimately built for people. This is just an obscure phrasing of "bad HCI design". ------ dublinben From that telling of the story, multiple people made grave mistakes in a relatively short time period. ------ ommunist How can they be so sure it was not The Albanian Cyber Self-Defence Humanitarian Task Force? ------ blueskin_ tl;dr: Someone got phished. That is not cracking, which is also not hacking.	{ "pile_set_name": "HackerNews" }
1+1=? - lwc123 http://larrycheng.com/2009/09/29/11/ ====== khafra Critique which might be taken personally, please don't read unless you're prepared: You might want to run these blog posts past a proofreader before submitting to avoid things like"1+1=5-4." Also, if you're trying to impress a site full of hackers, you should probably brush up really quick on very basic algebraic field theory on wikipedia and pretend you know it, instead of admitting you don't even recognize it. I'm sure you're very good at psychology and internet application investment, but I don't think this blog post really showcased your strengths.	{ "pile_set_name": "HackerNews" }
Ask HN: What's your best marketing automation techniques? - rloc I run an online SaaS business.<p>I discovered (as many before me...) that marketing is probably the hardest aspect of growing a business. It takes time, patience and perseverance.<p>I spend a fair amount of time everyday trying to be creative on how I could automate my marketing efforts.<p>I'm a dev and I work mostly alone so I learned to be efficient in almost everything I do. Always looking for low hanging fruits with maximum impact and controlled costs.<p>I use automation tools, connect APIs when it makes sense, code some connectors when the tool does not support it, etc.<p>But I often get stuck when looking to solve complicated problems with advanced scripts that could dynamically take decision based on text analysis, sentiment, topic, etc. In other words replace part of what a human would do but with AI. ====== spreadsheetnerd A lot of the times, before you even go into automation, you should run continuous tests to see what content / message has the most impact and on which channels. I've run thousands of tests on posts, blogs, distribution channels to get a better idea of my audience and then I create a customer journey that feeds into my marketing automation and then I measure the success of my marketing automation. Depending on the nature of your SaaS business, you could run several drip campaigns at a time. I would also look into Account Based marketing techniques. Shoot me a DM if you'd like to learn a few more techniques that have worked for me. Have you looked into Zappier / IFTTT to automate some things as well? ~~~ rloc Yes I use Zapier but I feel like I'm not using it at its full potential. ~~~ bryanh If marketing is a primary focus - a classic technique is to comment on relevant threads in your category - filtered RSS feeds from Quora, StackOverflow, Google Alerts, HN, Reddit, etc. It only takes a second to review a thread and see if you can add value with a comment (and possibly plug your service). Could use Zapier's Digest app to get them all at the end of a day/week so you don't have noisy alerts all day. Slack and/or email is usually a solid way to get those alerts. ------ brudgers If you haven't looked at it already, Patio11 has written and talked considerably about marketing SaaS projects: [http://www.kalzumeus.com/](http://www.kalzumeus.com/) Good luck. ~~~ rloc Thanks, a lot of content there.	{ "pile_set_name": "HackerNews" }
NSA says it can’t search its own e-mails - philippelh http://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2013/07/nsa-says-it-cant-search-its-own-e-mails/?fb_source=ticker&fb_action_ids=10201357828524764&fb_action_types=og.likes ====== ColinWright Previous submissions of this story: [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6093243](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6093243) [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6092485](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6092485) [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6091261](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6091261) <\- Discussion	{ "pile_set_name": "HackerNews" }
What It’s Like to Fly the $23,000 Singapore Airlines Suites Class - dot https://medium.com/travel-adventure/what-its-like-to-fly-the-23-000-singapore-airlines-suites-class-17d9f3fee0d ====== dalke Also posted about 9 hours ago at [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8387276](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8387276) , linked to the author's own web domain rather than through the author's publications on Medium. ------ myrandomcomment So I just went to Singapore for the F1 with a friend for his 40th, in peasant business class! Need to figure out away to go this way next year! :)	{ "pile_set_name": "HackerNews" }
LinkedIn's new search architecture - rsumbaly http://engineering.linkedin.com/search/did-you-mean-galene ====== ksec Why this never made it on to the frontpage?	{ "pile_set_name": "HackerNews" }
Epoll is fundamentally broken - Philipp__ https://idea.popcount.org/2017-02-20-epoll-is-fundamentally-broken-12/ ====== ktRolster The article explains how to use epoll() correctly to solve all the problems he raises. That's not 'fundamentally broken,' because it works. The worst you can say is _confusing and painful._ Maybe that doesn't make good headlines, though. When you're dealing with shared resources (like a listening socket), and you are using threads, and you are trying to maximize performance with networking, _confusing and painful_ is kind of the nature of the problem. ~~~ gizmo The linked interview with Bryan Cantrill gives a good explanation of why it's broken: a straightforward implementation behaves in a way you never want, with bizarre behavior where the kernel can wake up a thread with an accept() on a fd that has already been closed. linux should just have adopted kqueue or an IOCP model instead. [https://youtu.be/l6XQUciI-Sc?t=3643](https://youtu.be/l6XQUciI-Sc?t=3643) ~~~ dboreham I believe at the time there was concern that Microsoft would sue for patent infringement relating to IOCP. Source: at the time I worked on high-performance server products and had discussions with various people active on the kernel side of the problem and encountered much head-shaking and muttering about patents, when I mentioned implementing IOCP. ~~~ aijeiy9X Didn't Linus said that all he cared about is getting code back, with no concern over patent grants such as the one in gplv3? Head-shaking and muttering is all good but the kernel developers has had a long time to take an active stance against software patents and has consistently chosen not to do so. As a project they have chosen not to get political about patents, so this is the reality they have embraced. ~~~ dboreham I think we're saying the same thing. fwiw there was an IOCP-like capability added to AIX, again supposedly because IBM did not have fears about patent infringement (likely due to cross- licensing arrangements). ------ viraptor Is this actually the case? > Waking up "Thread B" was completely unnecessary and wastes precious > resources. Epoll in level-triggered mode scales out poorly. In the analysed situation thread B was already in a wait state and there aren't enough incoming connections to immediately accept the next one. Of course the resources (CPU time) were wasted, but does that impact the performance in any way? (Assuming one "main" application on that host) ~~~ bonzini Because the time wasted by all the threads trying to accept() or read() on the ready socket introduces latency for all other sockets. And since throughput is bounded by the number of threads divided by inverse of latency, increasing the latency makes you lose in scalability. In addition, because a single "readiness event" has to wake up many threads, it can introduce lock contention and cacheline bouncing in the kernel's data structures. ------ bluejekyll I don't feel like this was given enough time: > One option is to use SO_REUSEPORT and create multiple listen sockets sharing > the same port number. This approach has problems though - when one of the > file descriptors is closed, the sockets already waiting in the accept queue > will be dropped Yes, it's a problem if you use it across processes... but if you have a single long lived process with each thread listening on a separate queue, isn't that the simplest solution? ~~~ richardwhiuk That process isn't allowed to fork, I assume, which is problematic. ~~~ bluejekyll I'm not proposing a fork either. Each thread would open a separate socket with the SO_REUSEPORT set. The kernel would then have a separate queue per socket. Please correct me if I'm wrong. ~~~ richardwhiuk I'm saying that none of those threads can start any programs. That may or not be required by your use-case, but it's certainly a disadvantage. ------ arielweisberg You probably shouldn't share epoll FDs across threads for performance reasons. A shared nothing design is likely to perform better with a simpler implementation in both the application and the kernel. I don't see sharing FDs across threads as a useful thing to aspire to. The common design I see these days is load balancing FDs across shared nothing threads. The thread that receives the notification via the selector is the thread that does the IO (no other thread has that FD). Keep adding threads as makes sense and never block let them block. A combined queue makes sense when task sizes are large. For small tasks the performance is poor. I see the queuing decision as something you make after you have already retrieved the message from the network and presented it to an application layer which makes a decision on how to dispatch. It would be cool if the kernel would do this for you under the hood! That would be amazing. Just making it correct is not enough though. ~~~ nine_k If no data are shared, what is the point of having threads, as opposed to processes? ~~~ tyingq One example is in NGINX. They mostly follow a "no threads" pattern, but specifically for Linux, they support "some threads" to get around issues with Linux aio. [https://www.nginx.com/blog/thread-pools-boost- performance-9x...](https://www.nginx.com/blog/thread-pools-boost- performance-9x/) That's not "shared nothing" threads, of course, so it doesn't answer your question at a high level. It does highlight, though, that Linux is especially challenging in this space as compared to FreeBSD. And not just because of epoll(). ------ xorblurb I'm curious if you can really design a practical API that avoid all the issues the author talk about. Even on something as simple as interrupt delivery to a single consumer, you MUST be prepared to handle merged and spurious interrupts -- I would argue that any driver that is not prepared to do so (in the general case) is buggy. Maybe it's easier to do perfectly with an epoll/kqueue API for some reasons, but, without having tried to think much about it, I can't imagine why it should be. I have the intuition this is way harder. Actually I'm not even sure if I can have any intuition about the difficulty to achieve the behavior wanted by the author of that article, because the author did not actually specified the behavior he desires... ------ rdtsc > The best and the only scalable approach is to use recent Kernel 4.5+ and use > level-triggered events with EPOLLEXCLUSIVE flag. This will ensure only one > thread is woken for an event, avoid "thundering herd" issue and scale > properly across multiple CPU's Exactly use EPOLLEXCLUSIVE for accept, that seems to work and has been in the kernel for more than a year. For reads, how reasonable is to even share the file descriptor with multiple threads. Just hand it to a thread and let that thread (possibly bound to a CPU core for possible more performance boost) handle it from then on. Am I crazy to be surprised by that architecture choice? ------ dijit Anecdatum: I work with a guy who is pretty scary brilliant when it comes to programming; He programs on windows and his software is of a really good quality- I asked him why he used Windows and he gave two reasons: 1) Windows is mandated by HQ as the only supported desktop. You're not getting anything else to run on your desktop so you either write Windows software locally or use a VM (which is cumbersome0 2) Epoll is trash. I have successfully convinced him to make some software on freebsd because kqueue is fundamentally better. But it's shocking that epoll is so bad even compared to windows :( ~~~ ktRolster Windows has no right to trash-talk: WaitForMultipleObjects() is one of the most depressing select-like APIs out there. ~~~ GauntletWizard Not being familiar, it looks pretty standard. What're it's negative attributes? ~~~ ktRolster Conceptually, select() can wait on anything that's a file descriptor. WaitForMultipleObjects() can only work on things that were specifically added to its capability list. Practically, MAXIMUM_WAIT_OBJECTS is set to such a low number (64) that people resort to this kind of hack: [https://msdn.microsoft.com/en- us/library/windows/desktop/ms6...](https://msdn.microsoft.com/en- us/library/windows/desktop/ms687055$v=vs.85$.aspx) ~~~ xorblurb IIRC there are even advanced Win32 API that, so that you can go above MAXIMUM_WAIT_OBJECTS, ... automatically handle a thread poll! That kind of "solution" to such a problem is way more insane than epoll() eventually providing the correct flags to fix most of its own issues, even if we had to wait during a decade for it... So praising NT because epoll is "trash" is uninformed at best, malicious at worst. ------ bitwize The least broken modern OS when it comes to async I/O is Windows. I/O completion ports are the correct solution when it comes to waking up one of multiple threads to handle I/O events. ------ bogomipz I have a question. The post states: >"This is because "level triggered" (aka: normal) epoll inherits the "thundering herd" semantics from select(). Without special flags, in level- triggered mode, all the workers will be woken up on each and every new connection." Isn't this behavior similar to disk I/O where the kernel wakes up(via wake_up()?) all tasks that are sleeping on a wait queue for disk I/O? I believe all processes sleeping on a disk I/O wait queue will be woken up regardless of whether their disk I/O is complete or not and will be put back to sleep in the whre it is not. ------ yokohummer7 So, the kernel is free to assign a connection to a new thread even if there is a previous thread working on it? Because the kernel has no idea when the previous worker will be done processing the data. So the user has to manually unregister and register the connection each time? How about a concept like "transaction"? Maybe such as `epoll_begin` and `epoll_end`? One thread achieves exclusive access when entering the block, and releases it when leaving. Does this flaw also exist in IOCP or kqueue? ~~~ Philipp__ I think not, this[0] could be nice read. [0] [http://people.eecs.berkeley.edu/~sangjin/2012/12/21/epoll- vs...](http://people.eecs.berkeley.edu/~sangjin/2012/12/21/epoll-vs- kqueue.html) ~~~ yokohummer7 Well, just by looking at a glance, kqueue seems to pose similar problems. I mean, the problem mentioned in the OP: 1. Kernel receives some data, and wakes up A 2. A reads some data 3. Kernel receives some other data, and wakes up B (cause A didn't call `epoll_wait` yet) 4. B reads some data, leading to a race condition (out-of-order reading). kqueue's `kevent` seems to be more or less similar to `epoll_wait`, in that it doesn't seem to provide a way to notify the kernel the "we're done" signal. Am I missing here? Does `kevent` also signal the end of the exclusive access? ~~~ Philipp__ From Bryan's interview it's clear they've solved the problem like that. From article I linked, it doesn't indicate so. Take a look here[1], at 'EVFILT_SIGNAL'. But does that mean that we have to manually attach signal to monitor, and then we receive "we're done". But that's kinda similar to what you have to do with epoll, the difference is that kqueue structure encapsulates functiona of 'epoll_wait' and 'epoll_ctl'? [1] [https://www.freebsd.org/cgi/man.cgi?query=kqueue&sektion=2](https://www.freebsd.org/cgi/man.cgi?query=kqueue&sektion=2) Edit: sorry for spamming with links, but I find these things really interesting, look here [http://austingwalters.com/io- multiplexing/](http://austingwalters.com/io-multiplexing/) specifically at 4 steps after kqueue code, I think that explains well. So it looks like we wait for signal 'done' after which we rewatch. ------ lngnmn It is pthreads which are fundamentally broken indeed, not epoll. ~~~ unscaled All of the problems outlined are relevant whether you pre-fork into multiple processes or use different threads. I don't see what it has to do with pthreads. ------ beastman82 So what's the best way to multiplex then? ~~~ AaronFriel (Caveat: this is a contentious opinion on Hacker News) (Caveat #2: I'm not terribly familiar with such low level programming. Take anything I say with a grain of salt.) It's my opinion that IO Completion Ports on Windows are superior to the approach taken by *nix and BSDs. Instead of having the usermode application sleep and wake up, do some checks, etc., the application provides an entry point when an event occurs or data is available. Essentially, a callback for the kernel to use. The kernel then jumps directly to this, and can manage the threads involved, using a thread pool to balance requests. This gives much better utilization of threads than with poll/epoll/kqueue, but does place some other constraints on how the code is written. The fundamental difference is that the Unix-kin is a readiness based model. They wake up a thread to tell it that it is ready to read an event. IOCP on Windows is a completion based model, and wakes up threads with the data (or error) already present in a data structure provided to the thread. ~~~ zzzcpan > a completion based model, and wakes up threads with the data (or error) Which means that in this model you have to allocate and provide a buffer for that data long before the kernel is going to fill it. It's going to just sit there waiting, wasting memory. While in unix model you don't have to allocate a buffer until you know there is some data to copy from the kernel, which is easier for the user and much more efficient. Completion model makes sense if your entire networking stack lives in userspace and you can allocate memory on the lowest layer, but pass it as a reference all the way up. Or if you at least can do syscall batching, to make operating on very small buffers efficient. ~~~ eklitzke This exact same problem is also present in the concurrency model provided by Go. To read from the network you need to provide a buffer to read into, which means that a buffer has to be allocated for every goroutine (instead of just the goroutines that actually have data to read).	{ "pile_set_name": "HackerNews" }
Blueprint for a microwave trapped ion quantum computer - estefan http://advances.sciencemag.org/content/3/2/e1601540 ====== mr-Chip I wonder how many real entangled cubits it has	{ "pile_set_name": "HackerNews" }
Video Games Satisfy Basic Human Needs - dnetesn http://nautil.us/blog/-how-video-games-satisfy-basic-human-needs ====== nkozyra > Except, of course, aside from its pre-set storyline, Grand Theft Auto > doesn’t prescribe any of these things. This is not a fair characterization of the game. Yes, you can avoid doing those morally reprehensible things but not if you actually want to play the game. In much the same way if you feel it's morally wrong to stomp goombas, you can avoid doing so in Super Mario Bros. But unlike the latter, you cannot proceed in GTAV without engaging in some of those undesirable actions. The notion that we're making these choices independent of the game is disingenuous. ~~~ d--b Agreed about GTA, but not about Super Mario. At the very least you'll need to kill Bowser to finish the game. ~~~ saint_fiasco Bowser always survives and shows up again in the sequels. ~~~ cma And GTA has a limited pool of pedestrians that repeat themselves and return over and over. ~~~ comex That’s different. In Super Mario Bros., every Goomba in the game is an identical sprite, but story-wise - to the extent the game has a story, anyway - you’re meeting a series of different creatures of the same species. This is evident if only from the fact that there are often multiple on screen at the same time. The more modern GTA has a variety of looks for pedestrians rather than just one, but the same principle applies: the NPC you just met might look identical to the one you killed the other day, but story-wise, we should assume they’re two different people - because it makes more sense that way and the game hasn’t told us otherwise. Bowser, on the other hand, is a named character with a specific personality. Combined with supplementary materials and (in some Mario games, especially the RPGs) in-game dialogue, it’s clear that he’s meant to be a single character who Mario (also a single character) encounters repeatedly. ~~~ KGIII I'd almost suggest that discussing the morality of pixel manipulation is a bridge too far, but this is sort of why I come here. I sort of now want a PETA for video game pixels. ------ runj__ "Eager to steal a bicycle from a 10-year-old boy?" There have never been children in any GTA game. ~~~ khalilravanna I'm sure this isn't what they meant but I think technically you could steal a bike from a 10 year old _player_ in GTA Online now. ~~~ kaybe To be fair, the 10-year-old can probably curb-stomp you online, so the usual difference in power that makes 10-year-olds off-limits is not there. ------ indescions_2017 Bartle's four quadrants is standard in gamification practise. Your assessment of its validity probably tracks with how effective you feel gamification can be in altering human behavior ;) The more interesting modern use case is when people say: "there's this game on my phone I play a lot that helps me with my anxiety." And it's usually something trivial like a free Puzzle Bobble clone that was developed in a week at zero-budget. But for that player, its a lifeline, a coping mechanism. That's very interesting to me. What is it about this gameplay mechanic that relieves stress? It can't just be escape. To me it seems it has to tap into something more intrinsic than archetypal "hunter-gatherer" era categories. ~~~ rubinelli I cannot speak for everyone, but in my experience, it is the sense of efficacy and control. You may feel like you don't have any control over your life, but at least you can rule over those colorful bubbles, and be pretty good at it. ------ burkaman > For these researchers, incredibly, enjoyment is not the primary reason why > we play video games. Enjoyment is not the primary motivation—“it is rather,” > they wrote, “the result of satisfaction of basic needs.” Isn't this just the definition of enjoyment? Satisfying basic needs is the only reason anybody does anything. ~~~ pm90 Its a good question, and I hope someone with more knowledge also responds to this, but I don't think they are the same thing. There is a difference between things that give you pleasure and things that you enjoy doing. e.g. you might not enjoy doing drugs if you're an addict but its almost always pleasurable. So I think enjoying something is more long term, higher level aspect than pleasure, which seems more short term. Which explains a lot why people engage in activities which they may not really enjoy, but get the short term pleasure hit. e.g. binge eating, binge TV watching etc ------ dugditches To quote part of a recent Alan Kay post here: "We are set up genetically to learn the environment/culture around us. If we have media that seems to our nervous systems as an environment, we will try to learn those ways of thinking and doing, and even our conception of reality." ------ jblz The STTNG Episode "The Game"[1] comes to mind :) In the show, the device physically stimulates the pleasure centers of the brain to the point that players are highly addicted & easily manipulated. I interpret it as allegory to the way "real" video games leverage variable rewards & other reinforcement to do something similar. 1\. [http://memory-alpha.wikia.com/wiki/The_Game_(episode)](http://memory- alpha.wikia.com/wiki/The_Game_$episode$) ------ graphitezepp I am glad they took the time to mention Super Smash Bros Melee. That game took over my life for a time, and in hindsight it was because it was the medium that made me feel as if I was expressing myself honestly for the first time. ------ hypertexthero Simon Parkin is a good writer. See also Coming Of Age With Video Games — [https://www.newyorker.com/books/page-turner/coming-of-age- wi...](https://www.newyorker.com/books/page-turner/coming-of-age-with-video- games) ------ jlebrech Risk and reward ------ AmIFirstToThink I think we as society have lost the ability to give the kids a creative space, that used to be a mile away from homes where they can play in the sand and bushes and water, and just be kids, without adult supervision. Video games let kids experience creation. Video games are satisfying an evolutionary need. I think nautil.us should write an article on positive effects of mobile phone connectivity. The snobs are looking down on that just like they are on video games. ~~~ pm90 Urban centers through most of human history have lacked a lot of open spaces, and kids have grown up fine. Human brains are incredibly resilient, and you can raise healthy kids even in dense urban areas. The problem seems to be more about the constant stimuli that comes from internet enabled devices and video games. I grew up without access to much video games or the internet but that made me dream up entire fantasy worlds as a kid, because I was bored. I don't think the current environment allows kids that kind of space to just be bored and create things via imagination. I'm not a child specialist though so I might be totally wrong about this. ~~~ naravara >Urban centers through most of human history have lacked a lot of open spaces For most of human history transportation through urban centers was done primarily on foot and roads were designed to facilitate that. Contemporary urban planning is designed around speedily moving motorized vehicles through and the streets, such as they are, are rivers of traffic that pedestrians have to hurry themselves across during the short windows of time that cars aren't speeding by. The invention of the automobile has been terrible for letting kids roam around. On the flip-side of the dangers they face in urban centers, the ones growing up in newer suburban areas lack the density to have an appreciable amount of kids of similar ages within walking/biking distance of each other. Many older style, "streetcar" suburbs do, but we haven't build many of those in the past 30 or so years. ~~~ njarboe "streetcar" density suburbs can and do function well with only cars. We just need to start building them again. Just sprinkle in a few multi-story parking lots behind street-level retail and they are great places to live. ------ Density e: To clear things up I'm not criticizing Bartle's work here. ~~~ jblz I don't think your criticism is very obvious. Can you elaborate? The Bartle Test is a pretty common tool / consideration in gaming psych & gamified interfaces. ~~~ Density I personally have no issue with the test. Players have different preferences when it comes to video games. What I have a problem with is researchers attempting to drawn a relationship between video game preferences and basic needs. To me this reeks of Jack Thompson. ~~~ ionised > Players have different preferences when it comes to video games. The point is why they have these preferences, and what these preferences lead to in terms of how different people might approach the same game. You could present a counter article instead of just telling us how much you don't like the premise of this one. Anecdotally, I know blasting the crap out of demons in Doom does a pretty good job of channelling my anger. It's cathartic and not something society typically caters for. A lot of games are about building efficient systems, which naturally would attract people that like solving problems with designs and creativity. You are dismissing the entire premise of the article based on a dislike for one man that tried (and failed) to convince America that GTA was a murder simulator. A man that (if you bother to read up on what he is up to now) doesn't even believe any of the shit he said back then and actually apologised for it. ~~~ TuringTest _> A man that (if you bother to read up on what he is up to now) doesn't even believe any of the shit he said back then and actually apologised for it._ Can you provide a pointer to that? I haven't found anything in that regard, either at Wikipedia nor searching at news sites. ~~~ ionised I'm struggling to find the exact article I read (and Wikipedia is light on info about him for some reason) but it was an interview with Thompson himself about where he is and what he is doing now. He is teaching prisoners civics in Florida now after suffering major stress/depression and marriage problems resulting from his crusade. He went into how the whole thing started because stores were selling violent games to under-age kids and even parents were buying them and that's what he took issue with. Based on his medical background and knowledge of how entertainment affects the brain he believed that kids that young and also the mentally disabled should not have access to violent games, but because he was beaten in court (multiple times) he began to make tenuous links everywhere between violence and games, music and movies and began behaving very legally dubious in pursuing his cases like a fanatic to the point where he was calling for all-out bans and ridiculous punishments. He was eventually disbarred and went through a few years of trying not to be such an angry asshole. From the way the article ended it seemed like he had gone through a positive transformation.	{ "pile_set_name": "HackerNews" }
Yahoo Officially Rejects Offer - german http://www.nytimes.com/2008/02/11/technology/11cnd-yahoo.html?_r=1&hp&oref=slogin ====== alexfarran I love the sprinkling of items from Mr. Liddel's resume throughout the article: a former banker from New Zealand who calls himself Microsoft’s “gatekeeper of funding,” who joined Microsoft after serving as chief financial officer at International Paper, the giant forest products company who plays rugby regularly and has completed several triathlons. who sends e-mail messages to colleagues at all hours and is a PowerPoint whiz, who has a master’s degree in philosophy from Oxford He has a background as an investment banker at Credit Suisse First Boston in Auckland. ------ dawnerd I thank Yahoo for this. The open source community should be thankful as well. Remember, Yahoo put a lot of effort into open source projects.	{ "pile_set_name": "HackerNews" }
So just what's going on with the DiggBar? - moses1400 http://www.centernetworks.com/diggbar-analytics-ads-pageviews ====== Devilboy I can understand how the DiggBar is going to benefit Digg but as a casual Digg user this doesn't sit well with me. And you can disable it... but you need to be logged in to Digg to have that work. This could be the final straw for me as a Digger.	{ "pile_set_name": "HackerNews" }
Disque: a distributed message broker - anikdas https://github.com/antirez/disque ====== bryanlarsen Disque is being reimplemented as a redis module rather than a standalone project. It's scheduled for the next redis release. [https://gist.github.com/antirez/a3787d538eec3db381a41654e214...](https://gist.github.com/antirez/a3787d538eec3db381a41654e214b31d) ~~~ anikdas Great! Did not know about that. Thanks for the information :) ------ turkmom2017 Disque is being redesigned, it is scheduled to be released soon.	{ "pile_set_name": "HackerNews" }
Boeing Starliner updates: Spacecraft flies into wrong orbit, jeopardizing test - mzs https://www.cnbc.com/2019/12/20/boeings-starliner-flies-into-wrong-orbit-jeopardizing-trip-to-the-international-space-station.html ====== jacquesm That is a very expensive mistake, but it could have been a lot worse, at least they made it to orbit. The orbit reached is a stable one and if it were a crewed mission at least at this point in time the crew would be fine. If they can't reach the ISS (which is what it looks like right now) they'll have to deorbit a bit sooner, there is a lot of money riding on them making it down in one piece, if they fail at that then you may want to trade in some (more) of your Boeing stock. It's been a very tough year for Boeing, and SpaceX makes it all seem so easy that you tend to forget this stuff is very hard and that success is not at all guaranteed. ~~~ ceejayoz > SpaceX makes it all seem so easy To be fair, their version of this capsule blew up rather dramatically. [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xe4ee56aHSg](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xe4ee56aHSg) _After_ that exact capsule had visited the ISS, incidentally, which must've caused a little butt-clenching at NASA. ~~~ css > 176x144@10fps MMS quality video of the SpaceX Crew Dragon anomaly Is this a covertly taken video? Why so low quality? ~~~ ceejayoz Yes, it was a leak, from a NASA employee/contractor. [https://www.space.com/spacex-crew-dragon-explosion-nasa- memo...](https://www.space.com/spacex-crew-dragon-explosion-nasa-memo.html) ------ themgt Boeing's explanation is that the flight automation software runs on some sort of "timer" and the timing apparently wasn't configured correctly, so Starliner thought it was at a different part of the mission and did the wrong burns. Astonishing to me they make it sound like it runs like an independent stopwatch and not kept in sync with the actual IRL mission parameters in a more direct/continuous way. They're talking about the automation handover between the launch vehicle to the spacecraft, and on Starliner "clearly the time got messed up" ... "the spacecraft was not on the timer we expected it to be on" ~~~ spectramax This is a very disappointing approach I see on HN. Armchair analysis based on sparse information in the article assuming all kinds of things about the avionics, space hardware and rocket physics, condemning an entire team of software engineers that are working on this issue. Think about this - if you're one of those software engineers and you read some random person on forums criticizing your work without context or thorough understanding, how would you feel? I love HN for insight and intellectual debate, this kind of analysis does not add any insight - it is flat out dismissing and condescending. Edit: Also, this behavior against Boeing is unwarranted because it has bias of 737 MAX issues. Completely different team, completely different problem. ~~~ paulmd Yes. For the most part, software engineering is "easy". Find and apply appropriate data structure and algorithm, done. Managing a large legacy codebase and dealing with the soft factors is the hardest part of the job. This leads to a phenomenon where software engineers tend to come up with "one weird trick to solve the space shuttle, NASA hates him". And it's always specifically software engineers. Generally, most people are just as competent at their job as you are at yours. If the obvious solution is not being used, there is usually a very good reason why. A lot of fields have problems that are hard for reasons of physics or other things that are not trivially gone around, and the solution is not one software engineer swooping in with a great idea that totally revolutionizes avionics. (sometimes of course it is social factors, same as software engineering. The best way is too expensive, or management is making bad decisions, etc) ~~~ bumby The jump to simple solutions in hindsight bothers me. Especially with software in complex safety-critical systems it's often incredibly hard to capture all the permutations that can lead to a failure mode. I wouldn't doubt most programmers could do an failure mode effects analysis on the software and figure out they need to mitigate an event where the timer fails to sync. But how many would also capture how to mitigate that sync failure at the precise time the system lost satellite comm? Probably a heck of a lot less. Now multiply that by the total number of software failure modes (including those latent ones we just get lucky with) and see how many get captured. There's a reason why software in these types of systems is incredibly hard to test. ------ exrook More information from Jim Bridenstine's (NASA Administrator) twitter[1]: Update: #Starliner had a Mission Elapsed Time (MET) anomaly causing the spacecraft to believe that it was in an orbital insertion burn, when it was not. More information at 9am ET: Because #Starliner believed it was in an orbital insertion burn (or that the burn was complete), the dead bands were reduced and the spacecraft burned more fuel than anticipated to maintain precise control. This precluded @Space_Station rendezvous. We are getting good burns and are elevating the orbit of the spacecraft. There will be a press conference on NASA TV[0] at 9:30am ET (29 minutes from now) Also some speculation from Scott Manley[2][3] that the spacecraft may have fired it's engines 90 degrees from prograde during orbital insertion, based on mission control displays seen during the launch livestream [0] [https://www.nasa.gov/live/](https://www.nasa.gov/live/) [1] [https://twitter.com/JimBridenstine/status/120802259102746215...](https://twitter.com/JimBridenstine/status/1208022591027462151) [2] [https://twitter.com/DJSnM](https://twitter.com/DJSnM) [3] [https://twitter.com/DJSnM/status/1208006636746330120](https://twitter.com/DJSnM/status/1208006636746330120) ~~~ bad_alloc Am I understanding this correctly?: A timer error caused the vehicle to use too much fuel? No error from the ULA rocket? ~~~ sq_ According to space Twitter, yes, that is correct. Atlas and Centaur both performed nominally. Edit: looks like Tory Bruno (ULA CEO) has confirmed that Atlas and Centaur performed well [0] [0] [https://twitter.com/planet4589/status/1208035453850587136](https://twitter.com/planet4589/status/1208035453850587136) ~~~ Symmetry ULA remains expensive, slow moving, but very reliable. It seems like they have a healthier engineering culture than Boeing. ~~~ phonon ULA is a JV between Lockheed and Boeing though? ~~~ fgonzag Maybe they have have actual Lockeed Engineers managing the JV, instead of Boeing's Financeers. ------ airstrike As a friend put it, I guess Boeing proves that whole saying “Shoot for the moon, even if you miss you’ll land among the stars” is actually just LEO. ------ hurricanetc Keep in mind Boeing was awarded $1.7 billion more than SpaceX. ~~~ neaanopri To be fair, Boeing is developing a new capsule, while SpaceX is making Dragon 2, drawing on the legacy of Dragon 1, which they were awarded at least $1B for. This sort of issue would have shown up on the first Dragon 1 flight if SpaceX had it. ~~~ hurricanetc The total amounts awarded to each company still differ by nearly $2 billion. I cannot imagine how much more Boeing would cost if they weren’t forced to compete with SpaceX. I wonder how much further along SpaceX might be if they were able to ripoff NASA and the federal government the same way Boeing is able to. ------ gpm There have been two public full scale tests of this spacecraft. A pad abort test (launch the abort system from the ground to make sure it can escape a launch vehicle failure) and this. In the pad abort test a parachute failed, this wouldn't have been a deadly failure since the remaining parachutes are sufficient, but it is pretty damn concerning. Now this test suffered a major failure too. This does not bode well for the reliability of this vehicle. ~~~ mzs This wouldn't have been deadly either, the craft would now land instead of reaching ISS. ~~~ jacquesm They claim they could have made the ISS, but I find that hard to believe. ~~~ mannykannot The specific claim seems to be that if the capsule were manned, the crew could have intervened, when the problem was first detected, to correct the error. With no crew aboard, ground control was unable to make the correction because, at precisely that time, the vehicle was in a dead zone between communications satellites. It is not entirely clear to me whether this would have been the chosen course of action had it been manned, or whether it is merely being presented in support of the statement that it would not have created a dangerous situation. ~~~ jacquesm Interesting, that wasn't clear to me before. Thank you. ------ LatteLazy Between this and the 737 Max fiasco(s), I'm surprised the stock price is so healthy... ~~~ ceejayoz Boeing might as well be the textbook definition of "too big to fail". It'll never go bankrupt - the US government wouldn't permit that to happen. ~~~ joering2 What? What do you base that on? Banks may be too big to fail because single bank can affect millions of lives, I doubt you can say the same about one of few plane competitors. Otherwise we could apply your logic to every fortune 500 corp. ~~~ ceejayoz Boeing makes and maintains the Pentagon's ICBMs, tankers, fighters, bombers, satellites, launch vehicles, etc. It's one of the country's most critical national security assets. It also singlehandedly makes up about a half a percent of GDP. [https://www.cnbc.com/2019/03/21/boeings-737-max-could-hit- us...](https://www.cnbc.com/2019/03/21/boeings-737-max-could-hit-us-gdp-if- production-is-halted-jp-morgan.html) ------ bilekas > Mr Bridenstine suggested that had astronauts been aboard they could have > been able to correct the fault and successfully get the craft to the space > station. Its really unfortunate to hear this news as its not easy to gt these things off the ground. (pun very much intended) Hopefully it doesn't take too long for another attempt if any. ~~~ jacquesm That is somewhat hard to believe. Boeing/NASA have everything to gain by showing that they really had that capability and if they don't then I'm going to assume that they can't. ------ gt565k More options are better than just NASA. SpaceX, Boeing, Blue Origin maybe in the future. It'll be good for space travel and the space economy. ~~~ _verandaguy NASA isn't in the same category as the other companies you mentioned. It's a government (and, to an extent, regulatory) space agency which contracts those other companies to build its projects. ~~~ kome I feel like this idea of creating a private market for space exploration is a huge waste of public money. NASA worked better when produced everything in- house. I am not American, so: not my money, not my country. I have no say in it... But I wonder if I am the only one to think like that. ~~~ willglynn > NASA worked better when produced everything in-house. NASA doesn't run a rocket factory. It used to be that NASA specified and ordered hardware from contractors then integrated and operated it in house. The space shuttle orbiter was built by Rockwell (now ~Boeing), the external tank by Martin Marietta (now Lockheed Martin), the SRBs by Morton Thiokol (now ATK). Commercial cargo and commercial crew change this model to NASA specifying and ordering missions or mission capabilities. This affords the vendor more autonomy in how they choose to solve problems, and NASA's still in the loop to sign off on their solutions. In principle, this approach contains cost overruns, since NASA pays only for the deliverable. What it doesn't contain are schedule overruns… ~~~ bryananderson Even the integration and operation were contracted out. Shuttle operation was done by United Space Alliance (Boeing/Lockheed joint venture). ------ astannard If ever a company was in need of some good PR this would be it. Maybe they can still pull this one off? ~~~ jacquesm That very much depends on how much fuel remains. ~~~ ceejayoz They've announced it won't be going to the ISS. Not enough fuel; mission failure. ~~~ jacquesm So, let's see how they bring it down. That will be one way to save some face here. ~~~ ceejayoz Yeah. It'd be a really bad time for them to misplace a parachute pin again. [https://spacenews.com/missing-pin-blamed-for-boeing-pad- abor...](https://spacenews.com/missing-pin-blamed-for-boeing-pad-abort- parachute-anomaly/) ------ soapboxrocket So this gives me an idea: Orbital repair and tow company. Anyone wanna join my new company Triple Orbit? ~~~ kilroy123 Not sure if you're joking but this is the exact startup I'm going to create. ~~~ soapboxrocket It was half in jest. I worked on a cubesat in college, with the long term goal of the project to build networks of service satellites (imaging, repair, repositions, refuel...). I'd love to chat about the idea in more depth with you, it's defiantly plausible and with the increased rate of launch it could be a great business. ------ ryanmercer Oof, Boeing can't catch a break. Still, even if it borked this is still a fairly monumental step in the development. Getting stuff into space isn't all that easy and there's a lot that can go wrong even if you successfully launch something, I'm sure they'll gather a ton of actionable data and fix it in the next attempt. ~~~ Pfhreak Boeing can't catch a break... I'm not so sure luck had much to do with this. ------ ape4 I guess "Rosie" the dummy is a reference to [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rosie_the_Riveter](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rosie_the_Riveter) ~~~ 52-6F-62 Off topic, but some of those photographs are _stunning_ ~~~ CamelCaseName Wow, they really are. I think they are colorized. Here one comparison of the original [0] (taken in the 30s/40s!) in comparison to the image on Wikipedia [1] [0] [http://loc.gov/pictures/resource/fsac.1a34931/](http://loc.gov/pictures/resource/fsac.1a34931/) [1] [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rosie_the_Riveter#/media/File:...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rosie_the_Riveter#/media/File:ConsolidatedWomenWorkers.jpg) ~~~ jacobush Nope. It's why people still to this day can't let go of Kodachrome. ~~~ abruzzi The first thing I thought when I saw those photos was — large format Kodachrome. Those clearly have the color pallet of Kodachrome and many of those old WWII era propaganda color photos were shot on 4x5. ------ Aaron_Putnam Interesting it doesn't mention the test dummy was modeled after Rosie the Riveter, and they are all feminist power for the flight, going so far as to pose for this photo: [https://twitter.com/BoeingSpace/status/1207977494277738496?r...](https://twitter.com/BoeingSpace/status/1207977494277738496?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw%7Ctwcamp%5Etweetembed%7Ctwterm%5E1207977494277738496&ref_url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.wusa9.com%2Farticle%2Fnews%2Fnation- world%2Fboeing-to-test-launch-astronaut-capsule-friday- morning%2F507-662727e0-a622-41ec-a08c-0c47042e0947) ------ sorenn111 Engine stall on a Boeing product because of an incorrect sensor reading? Where have I heard that before... ~~~ jsight This line would be funnier if you dropped the word engine. I am not aware of another Boeing product where an incorrect sensor caused an "engine" stall. ~~~ Shikadi Actually asking, what are you trying to say? I'm interpreting this as airplanes don't have engines, but a jet turbine is still an engine, so you must mean something else? ~~~ brianshaler I think it's a nitpick that an aerodynamic stall (plane not going forward fast enough for wings to generate lift) should not be conflated with an engine stall (engine ceases to burn/spin/propel) ~~~ Tuxer If we're in nitpick land, it truly is important (especially in that 737 case) to remember that stalls on wings has nothing to do with speed, and everything to do with angle of attack (the angle between the wing and the apparent wind). Now, to be fair, going faster DOES create apparent wind coming from the front, so it decreases your angle of attack, but that's it. (the sensor that failed on the 737s was the angle of attack indicator, trying to estimate if the wing was going to stall). ------ jtdev Would be interesting to see a comparison of project management approaches at SpaceX vs. Boeing. I suspect that Boeing has far more antiquated, politically motivated cruft scattered throughout. ~~~ aglavine From what I've read it is analog to Waterfall (Boeing) vs. Agile (SpaceX) ~~~ Agathos So the same except everyone at SpaceX has an extra meeting in the morning? ~~~ wonderwonder In fairness, the SpaceX people likely also get the pleasure of getting to work a few extra hours each day in order to ensure they complete their sprint. So that's nice... ~~~ eitland It also seems they get the pleasure of shipping working products on schedule - something many software engineers can only dream about :-) ~~~ rbanffy For some values of "on schedule". ------ moron4hire Any space mission that doesn't end in "boom" is a success. ~~~ ReptileMan There is an old pilots' joke that any landing after which you can walk is good, if the aircraft can be used again it is excellent... ~~~ Robotbeat And they're planning on reusing the capsule after it lands in White Sands according to the press conference. ------ thrower123 The hits keep coming. Did they outsource their navigation code on this project to the lowest bidder too?	{ "pile_set_name": "HackerNews" }
The Epidemic of Mental Illness: Why? - d0mine http://www.nybooks.com/articles/archives/2011/jun/23/epidemic-mental-illness-why/ ====== nkurz On the advice of people here on HN, I've started reading Whitaker's "Anatomy of an Epidemic", which is one of the books reviewed here. It's a solid book, but not doing a lot for me. As a counterpoint for pro-drug advertising it's fine, but it feels more like a journalistic expose than science. It's not that it's wrong, rather it feels like the author started out with a conclusion and then did a lot of fine research to find supporting evidence. I feel like I'm being given only half the story: a well-founded and less-told half, but still I worry that the author might have chosen to omit any evidence that weakened his case. I'm enjoying another book (not reviewed in this article) that I grabbed off the new book shelf much better. "What is Mental Illness" by Richard McNally. He's a Harvard psychology professor who's served on committees for DSM-IV. It touches on a lot of the same issues, seems a little more current rather than historical, and by and large I trust that he's representing the field as he sees it. I also like the prose better: a fun combination of low brow and erudite. It's highly critical of the field, but also balanced in a way that I don't find Whitaker to be. <http://mcnallylab.com/> ~~~ jonah IANAP, but after reading about the process towards the DSM-V,[1] I'm reluctant to give its "authority" much credence. [1] <http://www.wired.com/magazine/2010/12/ff_dsmv/all/1> ~~~ JonnieCache Doctors don't diagnose purely on the basis of the DSM or similar statistical tools, and haven't for decades, at least here in the UK which is the system I am most familiar with. This is too big a subject area to go into here in a HN comment but if you want to know more, a good place to start would be by familiarising yourself with the difference between nomothetic and idiographic knowledge, which is completely key to modern diagnostic practices in psychiatry. <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nomothetic_and_idiographic> VERY VERY simply, while someone might be considered severely abnormal from a nomothetic viewpoint, from an idiographic viewpoint clinicians might decide that they have always been that way and they have a history of being happy and getting on well in their society and with those around them and being successful, and therefore they _cannot call that person crazy,_ however statistically abnormal their actions may be. But yeah, it's a lot more complex than that. EDIT: an important point to remember is that not every doctor is some sort of sucker, prescribing whatever big pharma tells them to. When you see a microsoft press release, do you read it and say "well that sounds convincing!" and start building everything on MS platforms? Thought not. Obviously this largely depends on the economic relationship between healthcare practitioners and big pharma in your country and your healthcare system, whatever that might be. If you were unlucky enough to live in a country where MS could just pay you per line of ASP.NET checked in, well I guess there would be a lot of misery and shitty code. ------ davidhollander Buddhism for computer scientists: The default state machine thought: if good, go to grasping. if bad, go to repressing. if neutral, ignore. grasping: increment mood, repeat until fail. go to fail //always fail repressing: repeat until fail. go to fail. //always fail fail: decrement mood, goto thought. The enlightened state machine thought: go to observe observe: go to thought [http://www.urbandharma.org/pdf/mindfulness_in_plain_english....](http://www.urbandharma.org/pdf/mindfulness_in_plain_english.pdf) ~~~ BasDirks Interesting, but (at least Theravada) Buddhist Enlightenment is quite free from thinking. (Notice _free from_ , not _devoid of_ ). I suggest: thought: go to null ~~~ joshcorbin As I understand Theravada, it's about observing what is happening rather than stopping or nullifying; so thought -> observe -> repeat is quite appropriate for it. ~~~ BasDirks null not as an act, but as the absence of act :) (the analogy is lacking, I know). ~~~ joshcorbin That's actually what I'm speaking to. The Mahayana tradition (in particular Zen) is the one that focuses more on not doing; where-as Theravada very much puts forth the practice as an act of doing. The usual language is to "turn towards" what is happening, not to simply "be one" with it. ------ Alex3917 There are a few comments from a previous submission here: <http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2622912> Perhaps most notably that the author of this piece is the former editor of the New England Journal of Medicine. In addition to the three books reviewed, Crazy Like Us is definitely also worth a read. It's a more anthropological look at mental illness so it's maybe not quite as good as Anatomy of an Epidemic as the first of these books to read, but it's still incredibly fascinating. ------ throwaway_42_2 As someone who has taken a variety of treatments for depression (never SSRIs -- only Bupropion, St. John's Wort, and most recently S-Adenosyl methionine, or "SAM-e") I can say from my own personal experience that they most definitely do _something_, and for me it's almost always positive. In fact, the only reason I've begun to suspect the role of "chemical imbalances" (which are likely caused by the environment and my own response to it) is because of SAM-e's effectiveness. I have absolutely no financial interest in saying so, but because of its positive effects I'd like to make a plug: SAM-e has been completely wonderful for me -- it's worth checking out the extensive literature on it, which show results that are arguably more impressive than those of the SSRI and tricyclic crowd, especially because SAM-e has virtually no negative side-effects. ~~~ Alex3917 The problem is that virtually every form of sensory or neurochemical novelty elevates mood: acupuncture, aromatherapy, sex, exercise, socializing, sensory deprivation, electrical stimulation, god helmet, music, binaural beats, self- mutilation, menthol, etc. Similarly, every conceivable way you can possibly monkey around with your brain also raises your mood: raising dopamine, lowering dopamine, raising serotonin, lowering serotonin, raising norepinephrine, lowering norepinephrine, etc. You'd literally be hard pressed to find any form of novel sensory stimulation that didn't improve mood, at least in the short term. So why the focus on serotonin depletion? There's no real evidence for it, it was just an arbitrary decision made by drug companies based on the very early research in the field. I don't think anyone would argue that messing around with a person's serotonin levels can't elevate their mood, at least for a while. The issue is that there isn't any real evidence that the depression springs from a chemical imbalance, and there is definitive proof that longterm messing with your neurotransmitter levels causes semi-permanent changes to the structure of the brain which we don't really understand. Also, for what it's worth, St. John's Wort is believed to be an SSRI, at least according to Wikipedia. ~~~ quanticle _The issue is that there isn't any real evidence that the depression springs from a chemical imbalance_ Well, if its not a chemical imbalance, what is it? Neurotransmitters do the work of transporting signals through the brain - they tell neurons when to fire and what intensity to fire with. If its not a neurotransmitter issue, then what is it? ~~~ sudoman If the brain only had a couple of neurons, then it might make sense to pump up the transmitters between them to get a more intense response because you don't need very refined control. However there are 100 billion neurons in the brain, and are connected in very complicated ways. Since there's evidence that cranking up the seratonin for _every_ neuron or suppressing the dopamine for _every_ neuron isn't healthy, it stands to reason that treating "mental illness" is more complicated than turning a water faucet on or off. Who knows exactly what causes it? It could be related to patterns of connection, i.e. neuron A is better off connected to neuron B at site C, but is connected strongly to neuron D at site E. And then comes the question of whether the neuron is sending weird patterns of action potentials. Or it could be the timing, speed or synchronization compared to other neurons is off. Or it could be poor overall health of each individual neuron. Or subtle brain damage. And the problem might be localized to just some neurons in one part of the brain, and not another, making treatment of the whole brain with drugs a messy approach. You see, there are no obvious answers right now, but there are plenty of alternate explanations besides global chemical imbalance. :) EDIT: Also, you could think of mental illness as being psychological, and something that the brain can heal on its own, given the right environment. ------ breakyerself This all makes sense to me. My mom has been one one psychoactive drug or another since 1989. Her cognitive ability is in the toilet and she's on a cocktail of different things now. I had a breakdown 5 years ago. Was on some drugs for a few weeks until I stabilized and I've been ok ever since. I think the standard course of action would have been to stay on them indefinitely. Thank goodness for lack of healthcare I guess. I wish there was a way society could actually help the mentally ill instead of causing harm as usual. ~~~ BasDirks That's terrible, and I'm sorry for you. I'm very thankful for my medication though, because whilst not dependant on them, they do patch a few annoying bugs. ------ gojomo I'm a little surprised the review doesn't mention the Thomas Szasz critique of the idea of 'mental illness': <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thomas_Szasz> ------ 6ren Partly: if you look, you see. Mental illness may have been formerly under-diagnosed. ~~~ leot When we look at poor societies, or even much of Western Europe >100 years ago, we see vast swaths of the population with stunted physical growth suffering from preventable and treatable nutrient deficiencies. E.g., currently around 50-70% of people in Africa are anemic, in large part due too deficiencies in dietary iron [1]. In the same way, I'm wondering if at some point in the not-too-distant future we'll look back to today and see the mental health of whole populations as "malnourished", the psychological equivalent of mean population height being 5 feet tall. [1] [http://whqlibdoc.who.int/publications/2008/9789241596657_eng...](http://whqlibdoc.who.int/publications/2008/9789241596657_eng.pdf) ------ thaumaturgy I am not a chemist nor a psychiatrist, so I know next-to-nothing about any of this. However, I have on occasion read various reports on trace pharmaceutical presence in drinking water supplies (e.g., [http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2008/03/10/health/main3920454...](http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2008/03/10/health/main3920454.shtml)) -- clearly the amounts are too small to have acute effects, but, taken over the course of an individual's life? Especially in the earliest stages of childhood? Is it a possible contributor towards this "epidemic"? I know there are a few HN folks better versed in this kind of stuff. I'd love to hear why those reports are bunk, or why it doesn't work that way. Just curious. ------ StuffMaster Humans aren't meant to stare at a computer all day, and they're not meant to stay inside an isolated domicile the rest of the time. I think our lifestyle is mostly to blame. ------ jpr Here's my guess: * people eat shit * people don't exercise, not even a little, like walking a couple of miles * doctors are too eager to medicalise everything so that they can put you on drugs ~~~ veb As someone who suffers some psychological issues... I sometimes wonder whether it's the result of our consumer-whoring-omg-think-of-the-children-be-vewey- afraid society than drugs/exercise. I mean, are you really going to be all you can when people are condescending towards you because you don't have an iPhone? Shit, what are they going to be like if they ever heard what I've been through _scared_ _hides_ _runs away_ ~~~ gnaffle If people are condescending towards you because you don't have an iPhone, I think you should try to find other people to be around. Running away is the correct response. :) It's easier said than done, of course. ------ chrisjsmith I think that should be "there is an epidemic of diagnosis of mental illness".	{ "pile_set_name": "HackerNews" }
On “White Fragility” - andrenth https://taibbi.substack.com/p/on-white-fragility ====== zdragnar I am amazed that I work at a company full of extremely intelligent individuals, some of whom are truly cream of the crop types given the work we do. Yet, during the Floyd protests, our equity committee sent out an email with a recommended reading list including white fragility and other similar books. Only books that had a similar premise were included, no smart, critical books (including some I can think of written by POC) with any other conclusions or arguments were included. Everything in the company, from the big picture down to the smallest details, received critical scrutiny and thoughtful didcussion- from architecture to code style to customer experience to market position. And yet, any topic that can end with -ism (racism, genderism, etc) can not ever be scrutinized. Words like "blacklist" are abolished, in spite of both prior art and POC employees being (privately) offended that they are thought of as being so fragile. The atmosphere is so thick on such topics that no-one speaks up for fear of being fired. ~~~ gowld "blacklist" isn't banned because it is thought to hurt black people's feelings. It's banned because it promotes a psycholiguistic effect tending to disrespect black people. ~~~ gnusty_gnurc “psycholinguistic effect”: that’s so ethereal as to be meaningless and unfalsifiable. That’s the insidious part too with a lot of anti-racism. You can scarcely disprove or prove any of it. ~~~ Zanni I think it's pretty clear what gowid is saying here. The "psycholingustic effect" is the psychological effect on people of color of a language tradition that enforces the idea that light = good and dark = bad. Reasonable people can disagree on how pronounced the effect _is_ and where to draw the line, but it's not meaningless. I've seen posts elsewhere that claim the etymology of blacklist, specifically, isn't based on this metaphor, but this metaphor exists throughout English. Consider this line from _A Midsummer Night 's Dream_, "Not Hermia but Helena I love. Who will not change a raven for a dove?" where light > dark is so _obvious_ that all you have to do is compare one girl to a dark bird and one to a light bird to make your point. Again, it's possible to go to far with this (e.g. whitespace), but that's a question of _where_ to draw the line, not _if_. ~~~ AnthonyMouse The problem is that it isn't a language tradition, it's inherent in the nature of "darkness" (i.e. the absence of light) as a concept. When it's dark you can't see, it's night so it's cold and there could be predators etc. If we're going to make a change to language then it should be to stop describing _people_ as black or white. Which was never particularly accurate to begin with, since "black people" are really varying shades of brown and "white people" are varying shades of pink to light brown anyway. I assume it's too much to ask that we stop categorizing people by "race" entirely. ~~~ zaarn Batman is a superhero that operates in darkness and has black clothing, yet people don't think of Batman as the BBEG of their comics, no? There is an entire TVTropes page dedicated to "Dark Is Not Evil" and it's not a purely subversive trope either, quite popular in media as well. There is also plenty of media (and culture) where darkness is sacred and pure, not evil or cold. Consider the dwarves in the discworld series that hold this belief. For more real-life examples, the hebrew bible generally refers to shadows and darkness as good since when you live in a desert, those things will bring you some fresh air and protection from the sun. ~~~ AnthonyMouse > Batman is a superhero that operates in darkness and has black clothing, yet > people don't think of Batman as the BBEG of their comics, no? Superman: Literally powered by the light of the sun, boy scout who never breaks the rules, hard-working member of the proletariat. Batman: Tortured soul with tragic backstory, lawless vigilante, billionaire (regarded as evil in popular media, cf. Lex Luthor). The darkness in Batman is the adversity the hero has to overcome. It's integral to the story but it isn't _pleasant_. You can't imagine the young Bruce Wayne wishing for somebody to murder his parents so he can grow up to don a bat suit and punch criminals in dark of night. And so it is with the other common depictions of darkness in hero types -- an internal struggle, not a desired characteristic in itself. You can find the odd situation where darkness actually is positively desirable in itself, but not enough to overshadow all of the more common ones where it isn't. ~~~ zaarn I don't believe darkness being positive is the odd one out. Even major media has "darkness = good" not as a subverise but integral trope (see, for example, darkness). I don't agree with your assessment of Batman and I would point out that Batman isn't regarded as evil in popular media (and even if he was, Superman was evil plenty of times, see Superman Red Son) Lastly, I would mention that in hero types, a internal struggle is usually desired to counterbalance or embolden external conflict. Even superman has internal conflicts. ------ save_ferris > A bizarre echo of North Korea’s “three generations of punishment” doctrine > could be seen in the boycotts of Holy Land grocery, a well-known hummus > maker in Minneapolis. In recent weeks it’s been abandoned by clients and > seen its lease pulled because of racist tweets made by the CEO’s 14 year-old > daughter eight years ago. Seeing stuff like this makes me wonder why people keep using social media at all. It’s terrible that this guy’s daughter made racist posts 8 years ago, but we have no idea what kind of person she is today. She could be doing community organizing against police brutality and it wouldn’t matter at all. The posterity of childhood is one of the most dystopian aspects of our technology-driven society. It’s like a 2020 version of the Scarlet Letter. ~~~ itsdrewmiller Her most recent racist post was 2016, at age 18 or 19 and she held a senior position at the company. The author of this piece doesn’t seem to be super intellectually honest, in addition to his Godwin’s law-breaking. ~~~ gowld A "senior position" at a family hummus shop? Really? ~~~ belltaco Is Walmart a family store too? >Beginning as a small shop in 1986, Holy Land has expanded into a sprawling business that includes an eatery, grocery store, catering business, and commercial food business, with a large restaurant and production facility in Northeast Minneapolis and a stand at the Minneapolis/St. Paul Airport. Its hummus, sauces, and flatbreads are carried by several area grocery stores. ~~~ PostOnce A company with one restaurant in one city is suddenly Walmart? There's a place like that in this town, it has 4 or 5 people working there and two of them are the owner's sons -- they have a restaurant, and in the back they put spices and vegetables into bags and sell them to two local markets, and also in the hallway of the restaurant, which doubles as their "grocery store". They cater, too. This is a town of ~30k. Small businesses have a habit of aggrandizing themselves. The royal we and such. ------ hprotagonist A rough heuristic I’ve found historically very useful to judge the relative sanity of a group or person on matters of race is the question “Do you want to ban _Huck Finn_?” If you do, then I shall waste no time shaking the dust off my feet when I leave, because two things are true as a result. First, you think it’s OK to ban books and are thus beyond the pale to start with; Second, either you understand the denouement of that book and don’t like it because you’re a racist, or you’ve probably internalized _White Fragility_ a bit too thoroughly and dismiss _Huck_ out of hand because it dares to have the n-word in it and have never read the denouement or realized what it means. _It was a close place. I took it up, and held it in my hand. I was a-trembling, because I’d got to decide, forever, betwixt two things, and I knowed it. I studied a minute, sort of holding my breath, and then says to myself: “All right, then, I’ll go to hell”—and tore it up. It was awful thoughts and awful words, but they was said. And I let them stay said; and never thought no more about reforming. I shoved the whole thing out of my head, and said I would take up wickedness again, which was in my line, being brung up to it, and the other warn’t. And for a starter I would go to work and steal Jim out of slavery again; and if I could think up anything worse, I would do that, too; because as long as I was in, and in for good, I might as well go the whole hog._ ------ gentleman11 Everything I know about the book is from a Yaron Brooks podcast. He describes its worldview as one where all white people are inescapably racist by due being born white in this place and time, and that there is nothing we can do about it because it is part of our psyche. Additionally, it is not so much individual thoughts or intended actions that are to blame, but society and our institutions, that are also inherently racist whether or not there are any policies you can point to or not that indicate it. Apparently, white poeple are uncurable in this way. Yaron's issue is that it denies individual responsibility for their wrong- headed thinking utterly; denies free will and the ability for individuals to change their minds and be decent; and finally, that by characterizing people as inherently this or that on the basis of race is itself a deeply racist approach to the topic. Is this an accurate summary or is it mistaken? ~~~ dragonwriter > Is this an accurate summary or is it mistaken? From a very quick look at the preview on Google Books, I'd say it's deeply inaccurate when it comes to the central message of the book. > He describes its worldview as one where all white people are inescapably > racist by due being born white in this place and time, and that there is > nothing we can do about it because it is part of our psyche. The point the book seems to lay out for itself is that awareness of the nature of racial privilege and the related sensitivity is key to enabling one to doing something about it, the exact opposite of it being inescapable. From the introduction: “If, however, I understand racism as a system into which I was socialized, I can receive feedback on my problematic racial patterns as a helpful way to support my learning and growth.” ~~~ Thorentis No, the central message of the book is that in order to become less racist, you need to become less white. This directly ties racism to belonging to a particular race, rather than making it a matter of individual choice and responsibility. And even if it is still a matter for the individual, the book asserts that racism is an inherently white trait. Again, that's racist. The book promotes far more racist ideas than it combats. Its popularity shows just how happy people are for the pendulum to swing the other way. ~~~ dragonwriter > No, the central message of the book is that in order to become less racist, > you need to become less white. Assuming you have read the book and reached that conclusion based on the actual content, I'd be interested in specific support for that claim. Because while I haven't read much (again, just some of the freely-available preview on Google Books), that description conflicts with essentially every bit I have read, including the sentence I quoted from the introduction, which from reading the introduction seems to be the author’s direct statement of their motivation with the book. > And even if it is still a matter for the individual, the book asserts that > racism is an inherently white trait. It seems to say it is a system into which Whites in the modern USA tend to be socialized into participating in in varying ways and degrees; it seems to be extremely repetitive on the point that it is a product of social context and not an inherent trait. I supposed it is possible that after the introduction the author pulls a 180° and reverses every word of the Introduction, but it seems a lot more likely that the people painting the books content as being a bunch of things that the Right has been setting up as strawmen to argue against for decades before the book was published in discussions of race are just setting up those same strawmen again instead of engaging with the content of the book. ~~~ gentleman11 > Being seen racially is a common trigger of white fragility, and thus, to > build our stamina, white people must face the first challenge: naming our > race. Outside the context of this discussion, I don’t think a reader could decide whether quotes like this are from a left wing anti-racism book, or a neo-Nazi pseudo intellectual More troublesome quotes below Why only whites can be racist: > When I say that only whites can be racist, I mean that in the United States, > only whites have the collective social and institutional power and privilege > over people of color. People of color do not have this power and privilege > over white people. Attributing all cultural traits to race, and then labeling everybody based on their race > Whiteness rests upon a foundational premise: the definition of whites as the > norm or standard for human, and people of color as a deviation from that > norm. ~~~ Thorentis I'm sure if you asked the author "so you're saying that racism only exists when you have power over somebody?" they would reply simultaneously "of course not, thoughts can be racist too" and "but all white people have power over black people because of the fact they are white". The whole thing is self-defeating, and it is a tragic indictment on the state of intellectualism and academia, that a book like this can be so widely praised. ------ andreskytt Writing as a non-American. All if this is horrible, but it is not just the horror of US. In my former Eastern European country, that has never ever had a sizable non-white community, people are reading these books, picking up on Twitter fights and apologizing for jokes they told on tv ten years ago. Writing a book with no mention of it being based on a particular society thus assuming the situation to be the same in Helsinki, Rome and Minneapolis, now _that’s_ racist. ------ drdeadringer Since roughly late 2016 the UUA [Unitarian Universalist Association] has been ever trying to "get on top of" their self-described "white fragility issue". This has caused and been a source of contention amongst many within both the UUA itself and also with UUs and UU organizations at large over the years since. I have personal thoughts and feelings on the matter for several reasons but I won't get into them here in order to try to remain neutral in merely stating the fact that said contention exists. For those curious, I encourage research and if it's not too much trouble or against impartiality on my part I can try to point the way to some sources. ------ antiquark Everyone is fragile. There is no "master race" which is immune to negative emotions. ~~~ dragonwriter “White fragility” (the concept, not the book, which I have no opinion about and don't expect a piece leading with the false social generalizations that are straight out of right-wing propaganda that this does to provide any illumination that would help with that) isn't about special fragility in Whites, it's about the special consequences of normal human fragility has in a particular privileged elite when confronted with a challenge to that privilege, and moreover to the mythology that provides a veneer that allows them to see the world in which that privilege exists as just. In contexts other than the modern USA, there are other dominant elites which no doubt would exhibit the same effects when challenged; there's nothing _innately_ White about White fragility, it's only circumstantially White. ~~~ pnako In fact, her own definition is (from Wikipedia): >White Fragility is a state in which even a minimal challenge to the white position becomes intolerable, triggering a range of defensive moves including: argumentation, invalidation, silence, withdrawal and claims of being attacked and misunderstood. You could replace the world white by any other word. And you can replace the list of defensive moves by the equivalent statement : "refusal to unconditionally comply", since it's the only option left. I would venture a guess that this covers about 75% of human interactions, and 99% of interactions when the discussion is about challenging someone's interests or position. ------ alphabettsy Maybe the writer suffers from exactly what the book describes. The primary argument seems to be that we should stop discussing the lived experiences of black people and the issues they keep trying to bring up because talking about things is the real issue. It also strips away any agency from black people by suggesting any coverage of these issues is because of the media and white liberals instead of what black people want. ------ vandalatyou This is over-delicate introspection given reality that does not exist. Cultures differ, wars have been fought. This is something that either becomes overt or is sublimated successfully. Children think that understanding the underlying issue makes the problem go away. ------ xg15 What I never understood with those concepts is what kind of society they are envisioning. Like, if color-blindness is not even a goal anymore, how would a post-racist world look? What would be the role of whites in this world? If "whites" don't exist anymore (not because anyone was killed but because "whiteness" is a particular socialisation and a system of privilege which will have been abandoned), what is the role of descendants of European settlers? (I haven't read the book yet, so it may be I've fallen for right-wing strawmen in those discussions.) ~~~ hirundo > Like, if color-blindness is not even a goal anymore, how would a post-racist > world look? What would be the role of whites in this world? I think the claim is that a post-racist world is a racist construct because white racism is indelible, and the role of whites is to subordinate themselves to the oppressed and support their goals, indefinitely, as reparation. ------ 8bitsrule Many of us (I'm among them) who check far enough back into their ancestry will find that their 'race' is far from a given. Given our recent knowledge of genetic bottlenecks thousands of years ago, the whole notion dissolves into a mere question of self-serving bunkum. ------ ajuc It's insane and it leads to conservative resurgence, not only in USA but all around the world. Which then returns to USA, and so on in a vicious circle. ~~~ war1025 > It's insane and it leads to conservative resurgence Unclear what you mean exactly. The way I interpret it, please correct me if I'm wrong, is: The concept of "White Fragility" is so ridiculous and overbearing that it causes white people to retreat to a more conservative stance. In that case, I agree. But I guess you could also mean it as: White people are so fragile in their identities that being forced to be challenged about their beliefs and behaviors causes them to become defensive and retreat to a move conservative position. Which is I think exactly what the author claimed if I'm remembering the book correctly. Either way it's sort of a "heads I win tails you lose" situation she paints, which mostly makes me not interested in playing along. ~~~ AnthonyMouse > The concept of "White Fragility" is so ridiculous and overbearing that it > causes white people to retreat to a more conservative stance. I think this is underselling it. The problem is that it causes "white people" to think of themselves as "white people" instead of e.g. Americans, or just People. It creates a frame where their team is "white people" and they should get together with their teammates to fight for their interests. (And, of course, the same thing for "black people" as well.) That isn't so much "a more conservative stance" as it is a more racist stance. Describing it as anti-racist is some kind of Orwellian doublethink. ~~~ TMWNN "Part of left's problem is it expects/demands blacks/hispanics to vote on ethnic basis but is appalled when whites do" ([https://twitter.com/JYDenham/status/796345533124186113](https://twitter.com/JYDenham/status/796345533124186113)) ~~~ alphabettsy This only makes sense if you remove historical and present context. “White” people voting in their interests has often resulted in oppression of non-white people. It’s really not interchangeable since one group is hoping to end oppression and the other is maintaining the status quo. ~~~ AnthonyMouse That's just assuming the conclusion. If you stipulate that one group of people are voting to perpetuate oppression and another are voting to end it then you know who the good guys and bad guys are, but that's not how the people voting the way you don't want them to would characterize the situation. ------ hnisahokehoax So happy to see this on the front page while assange news gets flagged and vote brigaded. So stunning, so brave. ~~~ dang HN has had plenty of major threads about Assange, including just a few days ago. [https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=true&que...](https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=true&query=assange%20comments%3E20&sort=byDate&type=story) ------ martythemaniak > Democratic Party leaders, pioneers of the costless gesture, have already > embraced this performative race politics as a useful tool for disciplining > apostates like Bernie Sanders. Bernie took off in presidential politics as a > hard-charging crusader against a Wall Street-fattened political > establishment, and exited four years later a self-flagellating, defeated old > white man who seemed to regret not apologizing more for his third house. > Clad in kente cloth scarves, the Democrats who crushed him will burn up > CSPAN with homilies on privilege even as they reassure donors they’ll stay > away from Medicare for All or the carried interest tax break. It's useful to keep in mind what's actually happening to people like Taibbi, Greenwald etc. For years, they've been trying to lead the class-war faction of the left - for them race was irrelevant and distracted from the actual problems, for which they had a ready made solution. These solutions, M4A, etc, didn't have to deal with race. But, this faction lost. There's not conspiracy, people just didn't want what Bernie, Taibbi, et all were selling, that's all. The faction that did win does in fact talk about race and now Taibbi is out in the cold. But it's alright, this isn't the French Resolution, no one is coming for his head. He's just gonna have to take a back seat and wield less power. He'll be fine. ~~~ AnthonyMouse > The faction that did win does in fact talk about race and now Taibbi is out > in the cold. But it's alright, this isn't the French Resolution, no one is > coming for his head. He's just gonna have to take a back seat and wield less > power. He'll be fine. If the dynamic you're describing is correct (not saying it is) then this conclusion is wrong. When insecure people gain power they try to disenfranchise their enemies. But they have no real power over the far- enemies. Some conservative in a conservative stronghold with conservative employees and customers can't get canceled because nobody who could cancel them is inclined to do it. The people who get their heads chopped off (or get fired or harassed etc.) are the near-enemies, who are the easiest to sacrifice when the new regime wants to prove it can put heads on spikes, because they're at the same time close enough to be vulnerable but far enough to be targets.	{ "pile_set_name": "HackerNews" }
Amazon solved the payload problem in drone delivery system - nitin_flanker http://www.whatafuture.com/amazon-finds-creative-way-solve-payload-problems-drone/ ====== NicoJuicy This already existed long before amazon filed this. It won't hold in court ~~~ Eridrus I have a feeling that Amazon probably provides financial incentives to employees for filing patents, which is the real reason this got filed. And courts are fickle, on the chance this doesn't get thrown out, it might still be worth patenting for Amazon.	{ "pile_set_name": "HackerNews" }
From Shader Code to a Teraflop: How Shader Cores Work (2008) [pdf] - Tomte http://s08.idav.ucdavis.edu/fatahalian-gpu-architecture.pdf ====== DuckConference This is excellent, this clarified things in a way past block diagrams hadn't for me.	{ "pile_set_name": "HackerNews" }
Shutterfly to acquire Tiny Prints Inc. - watchmaker http://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20110321006813/en/Shutterfly-Acquire-Tiny-Prints ====== byrneseyeview ...for $333mm.	{ "pile_set_name": "HackerNews" }
Introducing Selmer: A new fast templating engine using a Django inspired syntaxt - llambda http://yogthos.net/blog/48-Introducing+Selmer ====== bhauer I am really liking this. It's awesome to see performance given a priority in template engines.	{ "pile_set_name": "HackerNews" }
Indian IT firms unfairly targeted in Boeing 737 Max fiasco, says industry - hef19898 https://m.economictimes.com/industry/transportation/airlines-/-aviation/indian-it-firms-unfairly-targeted-in-boeing-737-max-fiasco-says-industry/articleshow/70018756.cms ====== duxup >According to a report by news agency Bloomberg, engineers of Indian companies were involved in the development and testing of the software. I don't think that is "targeted"... could just be a fact. How at fault they are is another issue, something like this is probabbly the fault of a lot of people. >Indian tech is the favorite whipping boy for any issue that goes wrong I'm having flashbacks to when I worked support and the outsourced support folks would complain that the domestic support team only complains about their tickets because they're Indian (never-mind that a large % of domestic support were Indian) ... and then in the same breath would say we can't blame them for closing tickets too early because we didn't tell them they had to make sure the problem was solved before they closed the ticket (or that they had to communicate with the customer at all...)	{ "pile_set_name": "HackerNews" }
Foreign students have begun to shun the United States - sharjeelsayed https://www.axios.com/international-students-are-staying-away-from-the-united-states-2509719080.html ====== jmiller099 awwww	{ "pile_set_name": "HackerNews" }
Google Pixel phone leaked before unveiling - nyodeneD https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2016/oct/03/google-pixel-phone-leak-carphone-warehouse ====== lallysingh It's a rectangle with a screen in the middle. Like an iPhone without the button. I didn't need to see a leak to know that, and don't see why this is news. The smartphone market has become really boring in the last few years. Does anyone care anymore? ~~~ kbody If you read they article you'll see they are mentioning feature/specs as well, including "fingerprint scanners on the back". ~~~ freehunter IMO the idea of "_____ on the back" is terrible usability. My grandma has an LG something or other with the volume and power buttons on the back, and every time I use it, I have to flip the phone over to see which button I'm pushing. That's fine, I don't use it often. But she uses it every day, and she still does that. Granted she's super old, but phones aren't made exclusively for Millennials. My car has controls behind the steering wheel, but for every control behind the steering wheel there is a control on the dashboard too. Nothing is exclusively hidden out of sight. ~~~ wstrange I have a Nexus 6P, and the fingerprint scanner on the back of the phone is brilliant. It is very easy to find without looking, and you can unlock the phone one handed. I actually can't imagine why one would want the fingerprint scanner on the front of the phone. ~~~ freehunter Well there's already a button there that I'm already in the process of pushing. I don't even have to think about if I'm using the fingerprint reader in an iPhone, I just click the button I was already about to press and it automatically unlocks the phone as well. What's the point in having a giant bezel to fit a front button like the Pixel if you're moving half of the function of that button to the back? Now I have to specifically place my finger somewhere just so the fingerprint can be read. I unlock an iPhone one-handed all the time. Just tap the home button. Done. ------ coldpie But will it fit in my hand??? Still looking for a reasonably-sized replacement for my 2013 Moto X. ~~~ Yetanfou Is your 2013 Moto X broken? If not, why replace it? Is it more up-to-date software you want? If so, go for one of the alternative Android distributions (eg. Cyanogenmod: [https://wiki.cyanogenmod.org/w/Ghost_Info](https://wiki.cyanogenmod.org/w/Ghost_Info)). Is the battery bad? That can be replaced. Is it not fast enough? It might be with an alternative Android distribution on it. That phone is only 3 years old so it does not sound like it is in dire need of replacement (if it isn't broken to begin with, of course). I still use a 2011 Motorola Defy, others use devices of similar age. If it still works fine why replace it? ~~~ robocaptain What's the best way to get the battery replaced on one of these? ~~~ coldpie There's a pretty good discussion about it here: [https://www.reddit.com/r/MotoX/comments/4pabyq/my_moto_x_201...](https://www.reddit.com/r/MotoX/comments/4pabyq/my_moto_x_2013_battery_replacement_wasnt/) ------ owenwil This doesn't really tell us much, other than that it looks like a phone and seems to run software. There's going to be much more to it than this, I suspect. ~~~ jasonkostempski I suspect not. Edit: Also, I hope not. Mobile phones don't need anymore gimmicks, we just need removable SD cards and batteries brought back and we'd all be set. ~~~ sangnoir > I suspect not. I think there will be other announcements. The Android SVP is certainly hyping the event: _" We announced the 1st version of Android 8 years ago today. I have a feeling 8 years from now we'll be talking about Oct 4, 2016."_ ------ laurencei "Most other smartphone manufacturers, including the world’s largest, Samsung, use Android but do not actively develop the software, only modify it, relying on Google for primary development." I never really understand this. Surely Samsung has the technical expertise to develop an OS to suit their own hardware? Is it really worth relying on Google to make Android, and then "modify it" to suit their needs? It is clear the benefit of Apple having control over the entire product - why do other large smart phone companies not do this? ~~~ feelix Because it's (relatively) easy to develop a good OS, or one better than Android, but it's going to be very difficult to get the 3rd party apps to support your platform before you have enough users. And you wont get the users without 3rd party app support. ~~~ Grazester You mean like how easy it was for Firefox? ~~~ feelix I said "relatively". That is to say: relative to getting 3rd party app support from everybody. ------ dagurp Disappointing change of direction by Google. When they started on Android they envisioned phones becoming like PC's (i.e. you would buy the hardware and install whatever software you liked). I realise that phone manufacturers stood in the way of that somewhat but at least they didn't go full Apple, until now. ~~~ zodiakzz How is it going "full Apple" when there are still going to be millions of Android phones manufactured by other companies? Did Microsoft go full Apple when they released the Surface tablets? ~~~ dagurp I couldn't comment on the Surface tables but I think that Google were doing alright with the Nexus devices. Now it feels like they're keeping stuff away from manufacturers. ------ oxplot Happy to see 128GB versions at launch. I like to keep my stuff (including music etc) on my phone and I've had to resort to phones with microSD slots to date. If this is a "sensibly" specced phone, I might skip modding my N5 with 128GB flash. EDIT: appears to also have microSD slot! ------ hrgeek Wouldn't having the fingerprint scanner on the back be annoying sometimes? For example, when your phone is just laying on the table and you want to quickly unlock it without picking it up. ------ demarq Those bezels though... In later updates they need to have a look at what LG did with the LG G2 and G3. ------ denim_chicken Since it carries the Pixel name I assume it's gonna be overpriced. ------ sidcool It seems a cross between Samsung and iPhone. ~~~ mrtksn Probably that's how the project was briefed to the designers, so... ------ mkagenius Do we really need more phone? ~~~ dexterdog More than the previous model, probably not, but for the many of us that are a few generations behind, yes. I am in the market for an upgrade from my Note3 and I'm paying attention.	{ "pile_set_name": "HackerNews" }
TypeScript 3.7 - nerdkid93 http://www.typescriptlang.org/docs/handbook/release-notes/typescript-3-7.html ====== achou I just did some refactoring on a medium size code base and here are a few things to watch out for when adopting optional chaining and the new null coalescing operator: foo && await foo(); is not the same as await foo?.(); this will work in most cases but subtly, the await wraps the undefined case into a Promise, while the original code would skip the await altogether. String regular expression matching returns null, not undefined, so rewriting code such as: const match = str.match(/reg(ex)/); return match && match[1]; is not the same thing as: return match?.[1]; because the latter returns undefined, not null, in case of match failure. This can cause problems if subsequent code expects null for match failure. An equivalent rewrite would be: return match?.[1] ?? null; which is longer than the original and arguably less clear. A common idiom to catch and ignore exceptions can interact poorly with optional chaining: const v = await foo().catch(_ => {}); return v?.field; // property 'field' does not exist on type 'void' This can be easily remedied by changing the first line to: const v = await foo().catch(_ => undefined); Of course, these new operators are very welcome and will greatly simplify and help increase the safety of much existing code. But as in all things syntax, being judicious about usage of these operators is important to maximize clarity. ~~~ paulddraper && ?. \|\| ?? It's a shame JS at the beginning doubled down on the "billon dollar mistake" [1] with two(!) kinds of NULL instead of just using Maybe/Option. Ah well, if it were good it wouldn't be popular :/ [1] [https://www.lucidchart.com/techblog/2015/08/31/the-worst- mis...](https://www.lucidchart.com/techblog/2015/08/31/the-worst-mistake-of- computer-science/) ~~~ vikingcaffiene Sorry, JS? While JS might get this stuff one day, these language features are for _TypeScript_ which is its own language. It's strongly typed and just happens to interop with and in some scenarios transpile down to JavaScript. It's whole existence is to deal with that billion dollar mistake you mentioned. Speaking of which, optional chaining and null coalescence are core language features of some very good languages. Kotlin and C# for instance. Kotlin, much like TypeScript, interops with a "broken" language (Java and the JVM in its case) and attempts to address some core deficiencies in that ecosystem. Let us have nice things!! :) I am really excited about these new features and hope they do land in JS sooner rather than later. I hope they do the pipe operator next! `pipe \|> operator\|> plz` ~~~ autora > just happens to interop with It does not interop with JavaScript. > and in some scenarios transpile down to JavaScript It _always_ transpiles to JavaScript and _always_ runs as JavaScript. There is no such thing as a TypeScript runtime engine. TypeScript is a superset of JavaScript. Therefore the OP's point is still valid. Any "mistakes" JavaScript might have made about having null AND undefined are also issues for TypeScript. ~~~ Zarel > It does not interop with JavaScript. I don't know what you mean here, but it is certainly possible for TypeScript code to use JavaScript libraries and vice versa, which is presumably what most people mean by "TypeScript interops with JavaScript". > It always transpiles to JavaScript and always runs as JavaScript. Technically false... [https://assemblyscript.org](https://assemblyscript.org) > TypeScript is a superset of JavaScript. Therefore the OP's point is still > valid. Any "mistakes" JavaScript might have made about having null AND > undefined are also issues for TypeScript. TypeScript adds type checking to JavaScript. The Million Dollar Mistake is having unchecked nulls; TypeScript supports checked nulls so it's not an issue. TypeScript's nulls are much more similar to Maybe/Option than unchecked nulls. ~~~ autora > I don't know what you mean here, but it is certainly possible for TypeScript > code to use JavaScript libraries and vice versa, which is presumably what > most people mean by "TypeScript interops with JavaScript". Ah, I can see what you/they mean by that. The point I was trying to get across was: TypeScript doesn't exist when code is actually executing (which is what I think of as interop - it's happening at execution time.) At execution time - it's all just JavaScript. I have found (working in a TypeScript team currently) that this fact is ignored, primarily by people who "look down" on JavaScript, but it is a VERY important point to remember when you are writing TypeScript, mostly because it's important to remember there is only compile time type checking not run time. > Technically false... > [https://assemblyscript.org](https://assemblyscript.org) Heh, yes - as soon as I posted I realised that was silly. The word "always" is almost "always" incorrect! I should have said: "It usually transpiles to JavaScript and usually runs as JavaScript" > The Million Dollar Mistake is having unchecked nulls; TypeScript supports > checked nulls so it's not an issue. TypeScript's nulls are much more similar > to Maybe/Option than unchecked nulls Good point in theory but my practical experience hasn't borne this out. That is because TypeScript is an "optionally typed" language and it hasn't been true in practice because of excessive use of explicit or implicit "any"s. ~~~ squiggleblaz <i> > The Million Dollar Mistake is having unchecked nulls; TypeScript supports checked nulls so it's not an issue. TypeScript's nulls are much more similar to Maybe/Option than unchecked nulls</i> <i>Good point in theory but my practical experience hasn't borne this out. That is because TypeScript is an "optionally typed" language and it hasn't been true in practice because of excessive use of explicit or implicit "any"s. </i> I think that's a matter of your team's discipline. It's good practice, I think, to enable TypeScript's strict checks, including no-implicit-any, and, to the best of your ability, to keep people who don't understand types ignorant of explicit any and to fail any code that uses it. `any` is basically never necessary even in typing existing code - if you genuinely don't know what the type is at a certain point, you should probably write a type like `unknown`. If you take any of Typescript's options to "ease the transition" you're taking Typescript's options to continue the difficulties. One moves to typescript because javascript's runtime errors are a problem; so it is natural that you will have novel compile time errors. ------ reggieband I'm a big fan of the new operators. One of my remaining gripes with Javascript/Typescript is the try/catch mess around await. It makes assignment of const a pain for async calls that may reject. e.g. let result: SomeType; try { result = await funcThatReturnSomeType(); } catch (err) { doSomethingWithErr(err); } // at this point result is `SomeType \| undefined` if (result) { doSomething(result); } I really want some kind of structures that allow me to make `result` constant. In some cases I've rolled my own Maybe/Either wrapper and then move the try/await/catch into a function but that is still a pain. This is such a common pattern in my code ... I wish there was a more elegant way to deal with it. ~~~ yawaramin IIFEs are an option: const result = await (() => { try { return funcThatReturnSomeType(); } catch (err) { doSomethingWithErr(err); } })(); ~~~ saurik I don't think this is correct, as the try catch will only catch errors that happen while returning the promise, not awaiting it; you need to do this: const result = await (async () => { try { return await funcThatReturnSomeType(); } catch (err) { doSomethingWithErr(err); } })(); ~~~ yawaramin You may be right, proving the old adage that the best way to get an answer on the internet is to post a wrong answer ;-) ------ nikeee I really like the optional chaining operator for statically typed languages. Especially in TypeScript where you have the nullabilaty information baked into the type system. However, in JS itself, it might cause developers to lose track of what can be null/undefined in their code. In case they start to "fix" stuff by throwing in some "?." because they don't know better, the code maintainability will degrade a lot. Maybe I'm just pessimistic. Let's see how it will perform in the field! ~~~ nicoburns It's nice for situations where you want to access a deeply nested prop, and you only care whether the whole path is there or not. Saves you having to add a seperate check for every level of the hierarchy. e.g. You can do: foo?.bar?.baz \|\| "default"; Rather than: (foo && foo.bar && foo.bar.baz) \|\| "default"; Agree that developers can be careful about nullability (in fact I pulled someone up on this in a code review earlier today), but I don't think this feature makes that any worse. ~~~ erikpukinskis The problem is that if you find yourself needing deep accessors, something is very wrong with your scopes. You are reaching across many levels of concerns which is a code smell. So, by making it “nice” you are making a code smell less smelly, which feels good in the moment, at the syntax level, but makes your code worse at the architecture level. This is roughly the story for all of ES6... make it “nice” to work with bad code, allowing bad code to look more similar to good code, until everything looks “nice” at the syntax level but you are surrounded by footguns that are impossible to find, and you need more and more static analysis tools (like TypeScript) to even be able to comprehend your control structures. Callback hell isn’t bad because of indentation, it’s bad because there are too many handoffs in a small space. Promises make it easier to pack more handoffs into a small space, and guess what? Now the problem is even worse. This new ? operator will make it easier than ever to pass on undefined values. In other words, it will make the problem it solves even worse. ~~~ LocalPCGuy > if you find yourself needing deep accessors, something is very wrong with > your scopes I'm not sure I agree with that statement in all scenarios. For code you control, sure. But there are many APIs that return very deeply nested structures that are inconsistent in their shape. That, in my view, is the most common place devs will need deep accessors where parts may be null/undefined somewhere in between the root object and the key they are trying to access. Sure, they could write functions that, similar to get in lodash, expose just the values needed, at which point chaining wouldn't be needed at all in the code that deals with that value. Or it could be serialized into a class object, but again, the chain would be dealt with in the serialization. At some point, the chain needs to be dealt with and often the JSON structures from APIs are not something that's always under our control. ------ wayneftw Optional Chaining also coming soon to create-react-app, planned for v3.3 (current release is [email protected]) - [https://github.com/facebook/create-react- app/pull/7438](https://github.com/facebook/create-react-app/pull/7438) I think they're just waiting on support for the new syntax in prettier. ~~~ ljm Is it not bizarre that you're blocked on a syntax formatter to make a release? If that's what's happening, it sounds like prettier should be core and non- optional, the same way gofmt is. ~~~ eduren The commenter was talking about a release of create-react-app, which is a starter-kit/scaffold. For such a project with the goals of being a packaged collection of tools/configurations, it seems prudent to only release if your set of tools present a consistent experience. Many js developers see formatters as a sane default, and create-react-app is a layer in the ecosystem that incorporates it as a "core" piece in the way that you meant above. ------ dashwav I really like the new optional operator, this might be what gets me to bite the bullet and start moving some of my projects over to typescript - dealing with potential undefined objects in those chains is one of the things I actively dislike about writing in vanilla Javascript. ~~~ andrewingram I'm assuming by optional operator you're referring to optional chaining? If so, it's very cool but strikes me as an odd reason to move to TypeScript, because it's a stage 3 proposal in JavaScript too, so is likely to be widely supported soon. ~~~ nikeee The TypeScript team is only implementing features that have a chance of 100% of landing in JS or 0%. Therefore, they wait for Stage 3. If they start implementing features at an earlier stage, there is the risk of implementing a feature with different semantics in TS than in JS, since the JS spec can still change (or event get rejected). Both cases will result in diverging languages, which is something they try to avoid. Edit: In the past, that didn't work that well. TS 3.8 is planned to ship with JS private fields support (the one with the # syntax). TS had private fields for a long time. In fact, it's one of the first things that the language had. However, these private fields behave entirety different to what ended up in the ES private fields spec. They can't change it afterwards. So in the future, we will have two semantically different ways of declaring a private field in a class in TS. Another case are decorators. They are still in stage 2 and may change. They already exist in TS, behind a flag. But every Angular application depends on their current implementation in TS. If the spec changes, it will get interesting. ~~~ LocalPCGuy > They can't change it afterwards. I would argue that TypeScript absolutely can change things that would be consider breaking changes. And they do have breaking changes in just about every release (sure wish they followed semver for that reason). They'd just want to be careful for big things like private fields or decorators, making sure the breaking changes get communicated publicly and loudly. ------ findjashua now if they can just add a compiler flag for "immutable by default": [https://github.com/microsoft/TypeScript/issues/32758](https://github.com/microsoft/TypeScript/issues/32758) ------ SirensOfTitan I feel really excited about 3.7. Optional chaining and null coalescing will clean up a TON of code. ... but with that being said, 3.7 seems to have broken many aspects of the `Promise.all` interface. Right now the largest issue seems to be that if any `Promise` result in `Promise.all` is nullable, all of the results are nullable. ~~~ nine_k Indeed, how can you declare a list with _some_ elements nullable, and some not? The result should instead be a tuple, but IDK how well tuple size inference would work in a case like that. ~~~ 52-6F-62 I’m not at a computer now, but you can explicitly define a tuple type like: type Tuple<T, K> = [T, K \| null]; Which is my first thought, but I can’t test it against the compiler at the moment and I’m not sure if I’m missing something. ...JavaScript would allow you to extend that list during runtime (unless you freeze it) type Tuple<T, K> = [T, K] const Tuple<T, K> = (x: T, y: K): Tuple<T, K> => { const tup = [x, y]; Object.freeze(tup); return tup; }; ------ munificent The optional chaining and null coalescing operators are very nice. Dart has had those for several years and they really do come in handy. ~~~ grapehut Definitely. It's a shame that dart gets so much unwarranted hate. I mean, I also think it's an absolutely awful language but it's really proven to be a valuable source of data for what other programming languages should do and perhaps more importantly: not do. I really hope we see a lot more things like Dart, and not so much negativity. ~~~ munificent Depending on when you last looked at Dart, there's a good chance we've either fixed or are fixing the things you hate about it. What didn't you like? ~~~ virtualwhys > What didn't you like? That the suggested features in this open issue [1] can't be implemented soon enough :) Is there a roadmap available that would give an idea as to when x, y, z language features may be implemented? [1] [https://github.com/dart- lang/language/issues/546](https://github.com/dart-lang/language/issues/546) ~~~ munificent We don't tend to have detailed roadmaps because it risks setting people up for disappointment when schedules change. But what's roughly happening right now is: \- Extension members are basically done and out the door. (See: [https://medium.com/dartlang/extension- methods-2d466cd8b308](https://medium.com/dartlang/extension- methods-2d466cd8b308)) \- Non-nullable types are well underway. All but a few corners of the design are pinned down, much of the static checking is implemented, the core libraries have been mostly migrated, and we're working through the runtime implementation, migration tests, etc. \- Next up after that, the current plan (which may change) is control over variance and stuff around pattern matching. We're working on it. ------ mceachen The preview release announcement for this version made FP on HN already, but it's a biggie: * Optional Chaining & Coalescing * Assertion Functions * .d.ts Emit From .js Files * Smarter Control Flow Analysis * Flatter Error Messages also great: * Function Truthy Checks / Uncalled Function Checks (which was tslint's biggest value prop for me up until now) ------ vosper What's the end state for TypeScript? Does it one day become feature complete and slow down? One of the frustrating things about trying to find help with TS today as a beginner is the plethora of SO and blog posts talking about much older versions. If you're lucky there'll be some comment "As of 2.6 you can now do ...", but even 2.6 is a lot of versions back - how do I know that's still the best way to do it in 3.7? I'm for progress, but it makes me a little wary to start my team of no- previous-TS-experience JS devs on a TypeScript project when there's still a new version every few months. Keeping up with Webpack is enough of a hassle... ~~~ wwwigham JavaScript itself keeps changing, so we need to keep pace with that, for one. Beyond that, we relentlessly seek to improve how people interact with our editor tools, and make additions to the (type) language and compiler to support that. .d.ts files from js files, for example, are highly motivated by a desire to better support incremental compilations with .js inputs, as .d.ts files are used as incremental metadata. Assertion signatures were added to better express the cross-call control flow patterns some (assertion) libraries already use, to make using them in a well-typed way more ergonomic. Generally speaking, it's not often we add something that _invalidates_ the old way to do something (in the language) - our additions are usually made to make new patterns possible to express. ~~~ vosper Thanks for the response. I do appreciate the efforts of the team, and am planning to continue learning TypeScript :) Maybe this exists, but one thing that would be super helpful is a document that explains any places where there's a "new best way" of doing things, and also details what the old way was. Here's an example from yesterday: I was Googling about extending a type (I think) and the first SO result (top of Google) says "you can't do that in TypeScript"... but reading the comments someone had said "actually you can, in 2.6 or later". That's the kind of thing that it would be great to have summarised in one place. Not necessarily all the changes (ie, not just all the release notes) but specifically where the language has changed and an old way of doing things, or a previous restriction, is gone. Preferably with examples. (I'd try to create this, but I don't have the skills to do so). ~~~ wwwigham We actually primarily use StackOverflow for this (as it's the first resource many devs go to, as you did, and it's collaborative). We even pre-seed questions and answers for releases, sometimes. If you find an answer on SO is out of date - suggest a new answer (or ask for one) and get it updated (there's far, far too many for us to keep explicit track of them, there's only a handful of us on the team)! :D ------ alipang Great incremental release. Typescript really isn't the most exciting language, but it's very very helpful. Compared to regular javascript it saves me a lot of time, and so many pains and headaches every day. ~~~ iLemming Ha. Try Clojurescript. You'll be surprised. ~~~ huy-nguyen Or ReasonML. ~~~ Rapzid Or F#. ------ koolba Does the function argument (i.e. the template string) get evaluated regardless of the optional chaining or does it match up with the “roughly equivalent” code? log?.(`Request started at ${new Date().toISOString()}`); // roughly equivalent to // if (log != null) { // log(`Request started at ${new Date().toISOString()}`); // } ~~~ sicromoft Why would it not match up with the example given? They provided it so you'd know the answer to your question. ~~~ koolba I copied the example from the article but it says “roughly” so it’s not entirely clear. The situation that popped in my mind was something like: f?(++a) Normally you’d expect the side effects incrementation to occur prior to the start of the function invocation. If the function is not evaluated it’s not clear from the article if increment will occur. ------ dstaley I'm super excited about this release, but it got off to a rocky start for me. Prior to 3.7, all our tests worked fine, but something in 3.7 changed that caused the type-checker to fail previously valid code. What's worse is that I can't reproduce the issue in a playground. Thankfully the workaround is "make your code more explicit", which is fine, but it was just a surprise to see something like this break. For those that are curious, here's the error that 3.7 introduced: Type 'SinonStub<[string, RequestBody, (RequestOptions \| undefined)?], KintoRequest>' is not assignable to type 'SinonStub<any[], any>'. Type 'any[]' is missing the following properties from type '[string, RequestBody, (RequestOptions \| undefined)?]': 0, 1 I think the issue here is that `[string, RequestBody, (RequestOptions \| undefined)?]` is a tuple type, and `any[]` is an array type. That being said though, I'd expect that a tuple would satisfy a `any[]` type. ~~~ rraval > That being said though, I'd expect that a tuple would satisfy a `any[]` > type. You have it backwards, the error in question is complaining that `any[]` does not satisfy the tuple type. Minimal repro: function f(x: any[]): [number, string] { return x; } The error matches yours: Type 'any[]' is missing the following properties from type '[number, string]': 0, 1 From poking the playground, `any[]` hasn't been assignable to tuples since at least v3.3.3 My guess is that the compiler got smarter around reasoning about your `SinonSub` generic and is now forcing you to deal with lingering unsoundness. ~~~ dstaley Yeah, that's my assumption as well. It would explain why there's no mention of it in breaking changes, and why being specific about the generics in `SinonStub` fixes the error. Makes me wonder what other unsoundness the compiler isn't catching. ------ macca321 Now I know how people felt when they told me C# was adding features so quickly they couldn't keep up. ------ orta There's a bunch of website work that came out with this release too: mainly search and a lot of playground improvements. [https://www.typescriptlang.org](https://www.typescriptlang.org) ------ seanwilson For this code: const x = [1,2]; const y = x[666]; const z = y + 3; Is there a way for TypeScript to flag the last line as a type error? TypeScript will say "y" has type "number" when "x[666]" returns undefined. Why does TypeScript not say the type of "y" is "number \| undefined"? ~~~ scottlecrab [https://www.typescriptlang.org/play/index.html#code/MYewdgzg...](https://www.typescriptlang.org/play/index.html#code/MYewdgzgLgBAHjAvDA2gRgDQCYC6MCGEMokUA3AFAnQwCeS8KAbCzpdbAF4P0DUMAZjJA) Using `as const` will report both the 2nd and 3rd lines as type errors. You've been able to do this in TypeScript for a while even before they introduced the `as const` syntax. ~~~ seanwilson Thanks, you can still trick it with this though (there's no type error): const x = [1, 2] as const; const r = 666 + 1; const y = x[r]; const z = y + 3; ~~~ nine_k Let's wait until TS supports dependent types! ------ XCSme Very cool features for writing shorter code! I also noticed a small mistake in their examples: [https://github.com/microsoft/TypeScript- Handbook/issues/1135](https://github.com/microsoft/TypeScript- Handbook/issues/1135) ~~~ shhsshs Good catch! ------ russley This is going to be one of my favorite releases since 2.8, which added conditional types. So many bad utility functions will be able to go away. The only thing it seems to be missing is variadic type generics. ------ Diesel555 Optionals! I wrote Swift before typescript, and I'm a huge fan of these new operators. ------ knocte From the snippets in the release notes: ``` function dispatch(x: string \| number): SomeType { if (typeof x === "string") { return doThingWithString(x); } else if (typeof x === "number") { return doThingWithNumber(x); } process.exit(1); } ``` It's very embarrassing in my opinion that they haven't done anything yet against having these horrible kind of type checking; comparing against a string that has the type name? "string", "number"? it's completely ludicrous. I will not take this language seriously until this is fixed. (For sure it's still better than JavaScript, but that's about it.) ~~~ MaulingMonkey You can define your own type guards: function isString(x: any): x is string { return typeof x === "string"; } function isNumber(x: any): x is number { return typeof x === "number"; } function dispatch(x: string \| number): SomeType { if (isString(x)) { doThingWithString(x); } else if (isNumber(x)) { doThingWithNumber(x); } process.exit(1); } TypeScript seeks to manage JavaScript's horrors, but importantly, it does _not_ seek to hide them behind leaky abstractions. This is not an embarassment, but TypeScript's strength and weakness. There is a long list of other languages that compile down to JavaScript or WASM, if you want a language built from clean foundations. But if you want to add gradual typing as a means of slowly reigning in your existing JavaScript behemoth? There is only one TypeScript.	{ "pile_set_name": "HackerNews" }
Packet Radio on 27Mhz (2011) - projectmeshnet http://youtu.be/eFu71XeM998 ====== tgs I've had no experience with radio but find this stuff really interesting. You never know what you'll need to do come the zombie outbreak when the internet goes down. Packet radio, HAM, CB... it is all a mystery to me. Is there a beginner's guide somewhere on getting into this field for cheap? ~~~ unoti Go get your HAM radio license. It's a great way to get in touch with your hacker roots, and connect with interesting like-minded people. The most important resource when any kind of trouble breaks out is friends, and HAM radio people are great, smart, resourceful people to know. When you're studying for your license, use my HAM Radio study guide for Android ([https://market.android.com/details?id=com.tango11.hamstudy&#...](https://market.android.com/details?id=com.tango11.hamstudy&hl=en)). It's free and there are no ads; just something I did to give back to the community. ~~~ burgerbrain Somebody with more experience should correct me here, but I'm under the impression that the penalties for illegal transmission (for example I believe, encrypted communications) are harsher for people _with_ HAM licenses. Something to consider, if that is accurate. ~~~ TheAmazingIdiot Its usually intentional, malicious transmission the FCC cares about. There was some lid in Texas that kept on playing laugh tracks and howlers over peoples' FM communications. In FM, the strongest power transmitter will 'capture' the receivers in range unlike AM, where you hear a smear of all audio tracks. The guy was eventually caught. His punishment was $20K and the loss of his license. However, in all honesty, an encrypted communication can be claimed that you are working with digital modes with different compression schemes. The only real requirement here is to have a call sign in the clear in a common digital mode (CW preferred). Just dont be stupid and do a dump of a GPG encrypted block down the xmit. For example, I regularly run channel 12 on my home wifi gear (european firmware). On my router, I have a sticker that states my callsign and EXPERIMENTAL. It's now allowed under part 97 tentatively. I also, out of respect, went to the 2 local HAM groups and stated what I was doing and where. If there's interference, I can change it. ~~~ gonzo I have no idea why you think this is a good idea. Go look at the ACR specs for the chipset in your AP, and then realize that they're talking about the 'spacing'(for example) between ch 1 (centered at 2412MHz), 6 (2437MHz) & 11 (2462MHz) in the 2.4GHz band. Note that the center frequencies are 25MHz apart. In DSSS (1 or 2Mbps) or CCK (5.5 or 11Mbps) your radio has a signal bandwidth (or frequency occupation) of 22 MHz. Using OFDM modulation, the signal bandwidth is 20MHz. Radios do not have an exact edge to their channel, and energy spreads beyond the edges of the channel boundaries. However, the overall energy level drops as the signal spreads farther from the center of the channel. The 802.11b standard defines the required limits for the energy outside the channel boundaries (+/- 11 MHz), also known as the spectral mask. At 11 MHz from the center of the channel, the energy must be 30 dB lower than the maximum signal level, and at 22 MHz away, the energy must be 50 dB below the maximum level. As you move farther from the center of the channel, the energy continues to decrease but is still present, providing some interference on several more channels. Ch12 is centered at 2467MHz. 11MHz up is 2478MHz. The US ISM band ends at 2485Mhz. In theory you don't need to be a HAM running under part 97 to transmit here, BUT remember that you're probably transmitting at 100mW (20dBm), so your radio's design is probably transmitting 50dBm into the edge of the band. MOREOVER, the HAM band in-question is 2390-2450 MHz, so you're operating illegally when you're transmitting WiFi on ch12 (centered at 2467MHz!) ~~~ TheAmazingIdiot Comments like yours is why I didn't post my callsign. We've discussed what my proposal was with the 2 local ham groups. One person works for the FCC and finds non-compliant stations. From what he indicated, as long as I put "EXPERIMENTAL" on the device, and watch for interference (iow: be a good amateur operator), I can do this. I've passed their kind requests, along with publishing what I am doing and with what wattage I am transmitting. I am also monitoring my emissions as I usually do when operating. I'd also like to remind you that an evil device called a microwave oven transmits more as static on 2.4GHz broadband than my narrowband wifi. ~~~ gonzo You can think what you like, of course. You're still intentionally generating OOB emissions. HAMs like you are actually dangerous to the hobby. A U.S. Federal Standard exists (and is used in most of the world), that limits the amount of microwaves that can leak from an oven throughout its lifetime to 5 milliwatts of microwave radiation per square centimeter at approximately 5 cm (2 in) from the surface of the oven after sale. (at manufacture, the limit is 1 mW/cm2 at 5 cm.) US Dept. of HEW, FDA, Bureau of Radiological Health, “Regulations and Enforcement of Radiation Control for Health and Safety Act of 1968” paragraph 1030.10; Microwave Ovens pp 36-37 PHEW Publication No. (FDA) 75- 8003, July 1974 Now, what's the EIRP of your setup again? Assuming a 50mW (17dBm) radio and 2.2dBi 'short dipole' antennas, and maybe 1dBm of loss in the connectors/coax, you're at 18.2dBm EIRP at the surface of the antenna. Call it 65mW for grins. At 2450MHz, you'll be down -14.2dB 5cm away. 18.2-14.2 = 4dBm, so 2.5dmW @ 5cm. You're lower than a worst-case microwave (but higher than anything that's allowed to be sold!), unless you fit high-gain antennas or high-power radios. KD5FGA, btw. (also www.netgate.com) ------ dlsspy I've recently got a pretty decent APRS setup on 2 meter. There's a decent amount of activity around my house. There's a lot of APRS infrastructure, so things like internet gated messages in and out actually function. It's good to keep this stuff alive. ------ projectmeshnet You can find more info at <http://reddit.com/r/darknetplan> . Cjdns is something to look into as well <http://outreach.x10.mx/cjdns.php> ------ joshu Wow. I can actually afford HAM gear now. How does one decide where to start? ~~~ th0ma5 start studying for the exams with online tests, and look for places near you (often! sometimes in some places multiple times a month) and get a license. the test teaches you mostly what you can and can't do with your license. you don't have to buy gear, for instance there are many low parts count projects you can build using junk components, but read about all the kinds of devices that people use, and practice soldering. i personally got into radio to use APRS after seeing hackpgh use it to track weather balloons. since then i build a very simple direct-conversion software radio, but you can also check out www.websdr.org to play with those kind of radios online using a java app. best of luck!! tons of things to explore. ------ forgeman Very cool, thanks for posting the link. I'm sure this will get a few of us interested in HAM / Packet radio! Thanks again. ------ ge0rg From the discussion here it seems that many hackers do have their amateur radio license. Maybe somebody with enough karma can set up a poll to find out how many? :) ------ gonzo Love that the discussion here went to HAM radio, but kinda disappointed that nobody has pointed out that the video is CB (cheese band), not HAM radio.	{ "pile_set_name": "HackerNews" }
How developers use API documentation: an observation study [pdf] - fanf2 http://sigdoc.acm.org/wp-content/uploads/2019/01/CDQ18002_Meng_Steinhardt_Schubert.pdf ====== kaycebasques I write the Chrome DevTools docs. "Empathy" is a buzzword in technical writing. Recently I wrote a post [1] imploring technical writers to start recording themselves as they use documentation. I want to ask you all to consider doing the same and sending me the footage. My main argument is that the best way to actually develop empathy is to watch lots and lots of people actually use documentation to get stuff done. I've already learned a lot just by watching the videos [2] of me build an Angular app. [1] [https://kayce.basqu.es/blog/empathy](https://kayce.basqu.es/blog/empathy) [2] [https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PL6UItmiYqJhMr_uYG2DkV...](https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PL6UItmiYqJhMr_uYG2DkVNW3oUKbLnNJJ) ~~~ cheez "I have a problem, ok I will go to the docs and use the search function to find things that may solve the problem" I can't imagine anyone else does anything but this aside from initial foray into a API ~~~ kccqzy Over-reliance on search may be a sign that you are unfamiliar with the general patterns and background knowledge of how this API is supposed to be used. It is a shortcut, a very useful shortcut nonetheless but it definitely shouldn't be the only way to do things. ~~~ cheez That's sort of presumptuous. For example, I recently needed to create a ORM w/ SQLAlchemy that consisted of animal/{dog,cat} style inheritance. I googled it and came across this wonderfully written page: [https://docs.sqlalchemy.org/en/13/orm/inheritance.html](https://docs.sqlalchemy.org/en/13/orm/inheritance.html) I've been using SQLAlchemy for about 3 years now and I have used it to make my life so easy that I feel bad for other people who struggle with SQL. Does this mean I am not familiar with it or that I know exactly what to look for? Food for thought for you, perhaps. ~~~ fjp Not to mention any given user may only use a handful of different aspects of SQLAlchemy, and the documentation is seemingly endless. You could spend a year just reading docs on parts of SQLAlchemy that you'll never use. ------ gkoberger I feel like this is a bit light on data, since it's only 11 people from 3 companies using 1 (non-English) website. The takeaway, though, is consistent with what I've seen... people like code examples! Most people will scan until they see one, and start there. The heavy focus on API Reference in this study makes me think either the tasks were too specific, or the tutorials weren't comprehensive enough. For a good documentation site, most use cases should be covered by topical guides. Going to the reference guides to learn an API is like reading a dictionary to learn English. There's not a lot of context. ~~~ kaycebasques > Going to the reference guides to learn an API is like reading a dictionary > to learn English. That doesn't necessarily have to be the case. Back when I was at an IoT startup I structured the reference docs based on the order that a developer would typically use in order to get common tasks done. E.g. call this method to get the device's identifier, and then here's a list of methods that let you do stuff with the device. Chris Bush presented a similar idea [1] at this year's Write The Docs conference. His main argument is that the organization of reference docs is usually implementer-oriented. E.g. alphabetical. In many cases it may make more sense to have a user-oriented organization, one way or another. [1] [https://youtu.be/4OtdFEp88VI](https://youtu.be/4OtdFEp88VI) ~~~ gridlockd > His main argument is that the organization of reference docs is usually > implementer-oriented. This is absolutely the biggest (and easiest) mistake people make when designing APIs. Force developers to use their own APIs as _end-users_ \- quality will improve significantly. ~~~ Crinus This reminds me of the Autotools duality: most developers hate autotools because of its unnecessary complexity but users (ie. those who want to compile the source) like it because of its flexibility (most autotool-based projects build pretty much on anything that smells like Unix), configurability and use of standard tools (shell, make) that are already installed (pretty much every other build system - like cmake, premake, meson, scons, etc - need itself installed on the user's system). So you get developers hating it and users (especially admins and distro packagers) loving it (well, packagers who have to build a lot of stuff sometimes dislike the performance). ~~~ AstralStorm Unfortunately, there's not just one autotools but at least two major variants: libtool and direct, with 3 common incompatible versions in the wild: 2.1, 2.6, 2.13. Packagers have some trouble getting fixes to these build systems to stick. Cue Gentoo autotools.eclass with automatic application of generic set of fixes for all the brokenness of the ages. ~~~ Crinus AFAIK this is a problem only if you want to regenerate the configure scripts. As a "user" (and packager) you should use the pregenerated configure script provided in the release. ------ yomly It took me a bit of time to get used to them but I am really starting to love the vim docs - I love that I can :help split and then get loads of info of all the possible things I can do with a split for example ------ telotortium Mods: please add "How" back to the front - it's needed for the sentence to make sense. ~~~ dang Yes. Done. ~~~ telotortium Thanks	{ "pile_set_name": "HackerNews" }
Redraw state borders, see the election results - yoloswagins http://kevinhayeswilson.com/redraw/ ====== yoloswagins By moving Portland, OR into Washington, and OR flips red. Move the three most western Florida panhandles out of Florida, and it flips Blue. With an intense amount of Gerrymandering, you can really mess with the election results. ------ mr_blobs I'm getting anti-trump Hillary might have won if you get rid of the electoral college and change all the rules around ----fatigue. What's interesting is that when Obama won in 2008, the majority of the population accepted it without protests/violence in the streets. Republicans certainly are more gracious losers. The left in this country can really learn something from them. ~~~ yoloswagins You can also move counties around to reduce the effect of cities on the electoral college. It takes a great deal redrawing midwestern state borders to reduce the effect of Chicago on Illinois. By moving the coastal counties of California into Oregon, what's left of California flips red. Kevin, the creator of this site, also has the 2012 election results. This way you can see how Mitt Romney could have won.	{ "pile_set_name": "HackerNews" }
The trouble with text-only email - corbet https://lwn.net/SubscriberLink/735973/17bdb163fddd41ae/ ====== makecheck I don’t understand this sort of “right to track” that so many organizations seem to have. I don’t care if modern technology gives them a way to do it, I have a right to block or otherwise avoid loading whatever I want. Somehow 20 years ago businesses managed to judge how effective their communications/ads were without tracking; let them go back to that. ~~~ askvictor The article is quite specific in why Mozilla wants to track emails - email being sent to dead email accounts causes greylisting/blacklisting problems for them; they want to be able to unsubscribe inactive accounts, and the only way to determine account inactivity is through some sort of feedback mechanism. ~~~ robotresearcher > the only way to determine account inactivity is through some sort of > feedback mechanism. Or a timeout (distributed systems 101). Just time-out accounts and send a good-bye email that has a one-click reanimation link. ~~~ taneq Making spam lists opt-in? I'm pretty sure there's some kind of secret blood oath amongst marketing types that none shall ever make it simpler or more convenient to get off a mailing list, let alone making it harder to stay _on_ one. ~~~ tpxl Where I live it is required by law for mailing list emails to have an unsubscribe link at the bottom :) ------ y0ghur7_xxx I don't understand the problem: mozilla is basically saying "we need to track you, otherwise gmail/yahoo/hotmail thinks we are sending spam". But if that's the case, isn't the problem the to aggressive spam filtering of gmail/yahoo/hotmail? _Or_ mozilla is really sending spam. But knowing them I don't think that's the case. So the real problem here is that everyone is using gmail/yahoo/hotmail, and those providers have broken spam filters. They should fix them. ~~~ ordu Yes, I agree, they should. But they wouldn't. Mozilla is as powerless here as you or me. ~~~ zAy0LfpBZLC8mAC Which is really irrelevant--if you want to subscribe to Mozilla mailing lists, you should be using an email provider that doesn't randomly label emails as spam, rather than Mozilla annoying everyone else because of it. ~~~ crummy what email provider is that, with perfect spam filtering? ~~~ zAy0LfpBZLC8mAC How is perfect spam filtering the only alternative to obviously terrible and trivial to improve spam filtering?! ------ Animats SMTP has a perfectly good verification mechanism. You send a VRFY request with an email address, and the server tells you if the address is valid. The trouble is that many mail servers don't handle VRFY requests, because spammers used them to explore the space of destination email addresses. There's also "Disposition-Notification-To", which sends back a message when an email is read. Most real mail clients tell the user this is being done, and allow the user to decide whether they want to send back a receipt. Does Gmail support that at all? ~~~ smileysteve This. SMTP is broken because EmailSPs have found people to be spammy - using verify and messages with zero content to find addresses of people not opted in. Added additional ways to track for 'are we sure it is a user' is just another way that bypasses privacy to be able to send more email. Solution? Get real leads, not just honeypots. Make your unsubscribe so easy. Keep customers active with promotions and products. ~~~ bigiain "Keep customers active with promotions and products." Sure, but that isn't exactly easy to do for Mozilla in these cases. The people on these lists are not "customers" and they almost universally do not want "promotions and products" in the ordinarily understood meaning. Serious question - how would you explain your strategy to Mozilla in the context of their lists? ~~~ smileysteve > how would you explain your strategy to Mozilla in the context of their > lists? I'd explain this to Mozilla by showing evidence of high click through rates in directed and singular "Calls to Action" \- whether that's downloading a browser update, pages with new products, and features. The easy to unsubscribe is also key here. But also seeking better/additional channels such as "advertising" on related products and services (much like the service they provide for Google) ------ ikeboy "One metric that some sites evidently use is email sent to accounts that are known to be inactive, which is seen as a sign of a spammy originator. This, seemingly, is where Mozilla has run into trouble. One way to avoid this problem is to track which recipients are actually reading their email; any recipient who doesn't look at any messages for a period of time can then be unsubscribed." Shouldn't the sites bounce those emails in a way Mozilla can detect and therefore use to prune? ~~~ danohu I seem to increasingly get unsubscribed from mailing lists because of not opening them, which is very frustrating. Sometimes it's because I'm reading but not triggering their tracking mechanisms. Other times it's because I'm subscribed to lists that I only occasionally read, but want to have available for reference. Either way: if I've actively subscribed to a list, I have some reason for doing so. I don't want to be unsubscribed! I'd be happy to add my email address to some whitelist of 'assume I'm reading anything I'm subscribed to', if only it were possible. Otherwise, maybe I need to forward mails to some service that will open them all in a browser, and trigger all the tracking pixels. ~~~ giovannibajo1 FWIW Gmail does that: it triggers trackbacks from a pool of Google-owned IP addresses that don’t map to any specific users, and then serves themselves the images to the clients. This is why they now load images by default: there’s no more privacy issue. ~~~ Sephr There is still a privacy issue since Google only caches external images at read-time, leaking the time you read your email to the sender. ------ Silhouette The real problem here isn't text-only email, or even Mozilla being concerned about not being able to track who is opening messages sent to its mailing lists. The real problem is that certain large webmail providers are making a hostile takeover bid for the fundamental infrastructure that email represents. The likes of Google have decided that their own interpretation of how email should work is more important than things like following standards and delivering properly formatted and correctly sent messages. ------ mike-cardwell Been a while since this was fixed now, but I once discovered a method to track views of even plain text emails when the user was using Thunderbird - [https://www.grepular.com/DNS_Prefetch_Exposure_on_Thunderbir...](https://www.grepular.com/DNS_Prefetch_Exposure_on_Thunderbird_and_Webmail) \- thanks to the DNS lookups caused by URL pre-fetching. Same issue worked with various webmail implementations at GMail, Hotmail, Roundcube, IMP, and probably more. You can test your client for this particular flaw and many more at a website I built - [https://www.emailprivacytester.com](https://www.emailprivacytester.com) ------ shabbyrobe Mozilla seem to be falling into the same trap as the internet in general, albeit a good long while later. Just a little bit of tracking here, how is that harmful? Just a little bit of tracking there, too. It's really not a problem. Telemetry this browser feature, Google Analytics that addon page. And like the frog in the pan of water, eventually we're all cooked. "Don't be evil" is deprecated, Mozilla Manifesto #4 will be too, soon enough. ~~~ actuallyalys Those are both anonymized, though. That doesn't make it okay, necessarily, but that's a pretty clear line, so I don't think this is a frog in boiling water situation. They also willing to have conversations with users about privacy in the open [0] [1], and both telemetry and Google Analytics can be turned off. (The latter is already turned off if you've enabled Do Not Track.) Finally, Mozilla apparently spent a year working on a contract with Google before they even enabled Google Analytics [2], so it wasn't a matter of slapping Google Analytics on a page because they thought one page couldn't possibly hurt. That being said, I'm skeptical of their use of Google Analytics, so I'm not trying to defend that. I do think it's unfair to imply Mozilla is carelessly following the rest of the web, though. [0]: [https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=697436](https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=697436) [1]: [https://github.com/mozilla/addons- frontend/issues/2785](https://github.com/mozilla/addons-frontend/issues/2785) [2]: [https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=697436#c14](https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=697436#c14) ------ 20years This leads me to believe that Mozilla may have recently been caught up in the same spamhaus spam-trap debacle as many others and was backlisted. They decided to send a permission pass email because if an open or click hasn't recently been recorded, there isn't really any other way for them to know which emails in their list are no longer active. This also confirms my belief that one or more of the big email ISP's (yahoo, gmail, etc.) may have sold a crap load of their inactive email accounts to spamhaus recently. Doesn't matter if these once active emails did opt in to your list in the past, you will still get backlisted now that they are in the spamhaus spam-trap database. I don't understand why the email providers don't simply shut down the inactive accounts. This would then result in a hard bounce to the sender allowing them to remove the emails from their list. ~~~ iMerNibor It's especially fun if users enter a spam trap email (something along the lines of [email protected]) and they blacklist you for sending a opt-in email to that address :] ------ jstewartmobile I think the whole "non profit" angle of Mozilla is suspect. When so much of their revenue is tied to search engines[0], they're really more of subsidiary than a charity. That, and having the _marketing_ person insist that they _need_ message tracking to prevent being blacklisted is shady as hell. Mozilla has plenty of smart people who already know several other ways to skin that cat. [0] [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mozilla_Foundation#Financing](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mozilla_Foundation#Financing) ~~~ matt4077 Sources of revenue are not relevant to the categorization as a non-profit. Only the use of funds is. ~~~ jstewartmobile Meeting all of the current legalities is a low bar. I'm sure there's some anti-smoking "non-profit" out there that gets 90% of its revenue from Philip Morris, and is 100% compliant with the law. Doesn't make it right though. ------ Sir_Cmpwn You'll have to pry plaintext email from my cold, dead hands. If you send me an HTML email it goes right in the bin. ~~~ skrebbel I see this a lot on HN, but how does that work in practice? nearly all common graphical email clients compose in HTML mode by default. Most signatures that I see contain at least one clickable link. Do you just delete all emails from people who dare to use Gmail? Or Apple Mail? Or Outlook? Are they all horrible, horrible people not worth corresponding with? ~~~ cesarb All common graphical email clients that I know of send a HTML message as a "multipart/alternative", with both a plain text and a HTML version. In fact, AFAIK an email having only a HTML version (or the plain text version being too different from the HTML version) is an indication that the email is probably spam. The text-only email clients just ignore the HTML version and show the plain text version of the email. ~~~ skrebbel Ahh right, that makes more sense. So all the people who proudly boast that they send HTML emails straight to /dev/null actually mean "emails that don't come with a text version". Sounds less hardball when you put it put that :-) ------ dingo_bat It's funny how the entire privacy nightmare was finally avoided by a simple link to click once a year. This itself shows that such involuntary tracking has no useful purpose which cannot be achieved in a simpler manner that preserves privacy. ------ eponeponepon Who are the organisations keeping these lists of 'inactive' accounts and doing it in such a sloppy way that receiving text mail counts as not existing? I sure as hell haven't told them whether or not I use any of my email addresses. Isn't the solution to correct them, not to go along with them? Surely Mozilla has enough clout to at least get a message to them rather than just throwing in the towel? ~~~ gcp The problem is that they are Mozilla's competitor (Google - Gmail). It's not named explicitly but the dots are pretty damn obvious to connect, I think. ------ ekianjo > not that there was really any need for more evidence that the email system > is broken Broken? Where? Is there a reliable open standard alternative to passing messages to one another with attachments, encryption, self-hosting, and local archiving as actual options on the table? And no, IMs are not an alternative for anything longer than a few lines. Email is only "broken" if you don't use it properly. ~~~ Silhouette _Email is only "broken" if you don't use it properly._ Email is plenty broken today even if you do use it properly. In my various business interests, we frequently see mails bounced or silently dropped even though we were sending a legitimate message from one specific person in our business to one specific client or customer contact. We get rejections because a big mail service provider like Google has deemed certain types of attachments unacceptable. We get rejections because someone screwed up a blacklist and caught a server at a service provider we use in the net. Sometimes we get rejections saying our content is unacceptable or whatever words they're using for that this week, when we are literally just sending a standard form tax receipt _that we are legally required to provide to our customer_! If you aren't sending from a well-established system or with whatever extra levels of sender verification these services have deemed necessary these days, you're pretty much automatically going into someone's junk folder regardless of the importance, urgency or legitimacy of your message. I had literally never had a problem with legitimate business mail going into a recipient's junk folder until relatively recently, but in the last few years I've seen whole deals blown because a crucial meeting was happening abroad and information that we sent to a client in good time to meet their own prospects wasn't received and turned up in their junk folder that they hadn't thought to check (and this is with long-term clients we have exchanged literally thousands of messages with previously). Email is broken, and the likes of Google have broken it, and we can and should lay the blame squarely at their feet. ------ purplezooey I recently switched back to Mutt after 10 years of Outlook and OWA. It took a few months of constant tweaking, but loving it now. I can still load html email in a browser with one key if I need to. ~~~ auvrw you mean "neomutt" ^_^ ? i noticed the updated name when running `mutt -h` one day and was pleased to find this page [https://www.neomutt.org/](https://www.neomutt.org/) with good documentation along with an active github repository and apparently welcoming community. i think there's even a Twitter account for "keeping up with the times." ------ crispinb I always explain tracking pixels to non-technical users and show them how to turn off image loading if they wish to. Every single one has chosen to do so. It's way past time for email clients to have this as the default for html emails. ------ rb808 They could send a personalized mail every year saying - "if you still want to continue to receive these mails", click here. ~~~ jordanlev The conclusion of the article states that this is what they did. ~~~ dingo_bat I don't know why this wasn't the first option instead of tracking users without permission? This seems easier to implement, privacy-aware and even seems to more explicitly indicate the users intent to keep receiving emails. ------ z3t4 Also have them opt-in when they sign-up to your newsletter, aka double-opt-in. Don't worry about those that don't opt-in as it's unlikely they'll read your newsletter anyway. ~~~ 4lch3m1st I second that, however most companies seem to think that opt-out is the only way to go if you want to profit. ------ merb There should be email client's who only open images if they are attached. I don't think any email client should try to load anything inside the html automatically if not attached. and even than attachment images should be confirmed. ~~~ bluedino “Automatically download images” is a setting in Outlook and turned off by default ------ grogenaut You don't need html email for that... you just need a trackable link. If someone hasn't actually come back to your site for years due to the mail you're sending out... should you really be sending them mail? ------ astrodust If your site looks virtually the same in Lynx I'm not sure if that's a feature or a bug. ~~~ tomsthumb Digital brutalism is under appreciated. How did we reach a point where a technical write up is forced into a column 6 inches wide on my 32 inch monitor? Why does practically every code snippet exceed this 6 inch width, requiring a scroll bar? Why is there a 50-50 chance that this scroll bar will be so tall that it actually hides the code snippet, and the fastest way to read the bits of information which are the point of the entire write up is to pop open developer tools by inspecting the element and read the code directly from the html? ~~~ astrodust I'd rather not have to follow a line of text from one side of my large screen all the way back to the other, nor be forced to scrunch down the window because they never considered that screens could be so large when that site was laid out in 1996. LWN at least has a reasonable max width, but some sites don't. ~~~ mavhc The trend to run everything full screen is an odd one, probably was never even a thing on Windows, with its terrible window resizing options. Of course tabs in browsers is a side effect of terrible window management in GUIs, and causes more full screenness ~~~ teddyh I have a theory about how this obsession with running web browsers in full screen came about, based on my personal observations on what happened at the time: The graphical web browser was originally mostly used on computers like Sun SPARCstations and NeXTcubes with desktop resolutions like 1152×900 (Sun) and 1120×832 (NeXT). The web browser, in these desktop environments, were _not_ maximized, but were instead used as one window (or multiple windows) among many other windows on a desktop full of other applications, icons, and menus. (See for example the fact that the normal shortcuts Ctrl/Command-N (for new browser window) and Ctrl/Command-W (for close window), which are standard in all current web browsers, actually originated as built-in features of the NeXTSTEP _window environment_ , and _not_ as a feature of the first web browser (which was written for NeXTSTEP). Tabs were not a feature in any web browsers yet – separate windows were used for approximately the same purpose.). Anyway, the first graphical web sites were written with these non-maximized pixel widths in mind, with a typical web site being a bit above 600 pixels in width and assuming a maximum window height of around 700 pixels. PCs, around this time, typically had 640×480 pixels on their whole display (or maybe 800×600 or 1024×768 if they had a more expensive monitor and enough graphic card memory, but this was more rare). At that time, a user on a normal cheap PC, browsing a web site made for about 600 pixels in width, would find it easiest to simply maximize the window. And running multiple applications at the same time was not a practical option anyway for these PCs, considering the limited CPU and RAM available, so maximizing the web browser was natural. A few years later, as PCs became commonplace, and therefore became the norm for web browsing, and as monitors and graphic card memory became cheaper, web designers started using the full-screen mode as the _assumed_ mode for using web sites, and as 800×600 (and later 1024×768) desktop resolutions became more common on PCs, web site designers jumped to using these widths as their assumed web browser widths. (See the common practice at the time to have little buttons on web sites stating “ _Best viewed in 800×600_ ”, and similar.) PC users, during all this time, were thus implicitly taught to _always_ maximize the web browser window. Meanwhile, Sun/NeXT/SGI/etc. workstation users did not really complain since they had ample resolution to spare for viewing these ever widening web sites, and workstations were on the way out anyway. However, nowadays, with both “retina” displays and much wider than 4:3 aspect ratios (initially 16:10 and later 16:9) being the absolute norm, it’s _ludicrous_ to run (and design) a web site in full screen mode. I mean, the line length shouldn’t be over 55 characters per line anyway¹, so a web site has no business being wider than that. And personal computers are now more than capable of running more than one program at a time, which is only made more difficult by programs assuming they can cover the whole desktop for themselves. 1\. [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Line_length](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Line_length) ~~~ pwg Another possible explanation for the penchant of many users (esp. non- technical ones) to run everything "maximized": Most non-technical users have _only_ ever seen and used MS Windows. MS Windows has always had atrocious overlapping windows management features as compared to Unix X11 window managers. So most non-technical users never really learned to use multiple, overlapping, onscreen windows at the same time. The one 'window management' feature that is directly visible to a non- technical MS Windows user is the task bar, and then its (the task bar's) only feature they see is "raise to top". Applying a bit of "if the only tool you have is a hammer, all your problems start to look like nails" mentality, and it becomes easier for a non-technical user to simply hit the MS Windows "maximize" button on every window that opens for any applications they use (after which most MS Windows apps remember and auto-maximize the next time they launch) and then use "the hammer" they have (task bar with "raise this window to top" tool) to simply pop an already full screen window up when needed, then pop up another one when that one is needed, etc. Plus, from their viewpoint, this provides a "less distracting" work-space since only the thing of interest is in view at any given moment. Couple this with a bit of "follow the leader", or in this case, someone else they've observed, or possibly from the trainer who maximized not because he/she wanted to, but because the 800x600 projector of the day was too small to demo anything with overlapping windows and we have non-technical users who all start running everything maximized. ------ FRex Wouldn't a better solution be exempting Mozilla from these checks? I mean really.. it's MOZILLA. The same one that Google, Microsoft, et al are teaming up with them to improve web docs but at the same time some (does gmail and htomail do it or not?) of these hinder it's mailing lists about the very same subject they are supposed to be teaming up on? Other reputable mailing lists operators should also have all their addresses exempt from this charade. What is the danger that mails from Mozilla are actually SPAM, seriously. On the other hand, I just looked into my spam on gmail right now - 2 spammy emails (from shady domains, I guess they're okay, since they don't run mailing lists) and 1 genuine email, form a reputable big site, emails from which I always open that gmail judged to be spam (?!). Yes, it's promotional, so the 'content is similar to spam' but it's a newsletter that I subscribe to and always read, from contact@ a large genuine website, so what the hell? I used to be subscribed to some lists and only read mails I found the titles interesting personally to me, I wonder if that hurt them too now... 'An algorithm did it' is like a new 'a wizard did it'. And it somehow exonerates the people who put that crap in place and then its up to the victim to fix it (complain on Twitter your YouTube was wrongly banned, complain on HN your AWS got locked, track mailing list readers to not get demerit for operating big mailing lists, etc.). This isn't right and often attempting to dispute it doesn't even work, with a human reassuring the victim that the algorithm was right until there is a mini-scandal and only then the decision is overturned. All with 'you broke our terms and/or social guidelines', no concrete information what even happened in the first place and then it happens again to someone (or to the same person again). It boggles my mind a reputable behemoth like Mozilla can be stuck in a situation where they can't send an email to anyone until someone overturns the algorithm's judgement which takes a lot of time (because it's soooo hard to judge emails from Mozilla aren't SPAM, yeah, right). I won't believe there isn't a way to do that because in that case Twitter, YouTube and Facebook would be penalized very BADLY for all their spammy notification emails many people leave in their social tab on gmail for years. Somehow they don't end up in spam ever (and many of them I never open and they would fit the description, especially Twitter updates about what's trending in my country, that I literally can't turn off since my account was judged to be a bot and locked right after creation and 1 Tweet and they now demand my phone number to unlock it). ------ feelin_googley From the comments: "Not blindly loading elements works just fine Posted Oct 12, 2017 17:18 UTC (Thu) by david.a.wheeler (subscriber, #72896) [Link] > All of them. The way this generally works is that there's a unique, > invisible, element in the email, like a 1x1 pixel image. When that image is > requested, the server marks that the email has been read. Since most email > clients blindly load all HTML elements this works. Even for the more careful > clients that don't load elements from remote servers by default and ask the > user to click a "load full message" (k-9 mail on android does this), most > HTML mail is unreadable without those remote assets because the layout is > completely broken. I don't load elements from remote servers by default, and practically never have problems with desirable email. In my experience, email that's broken without remote loading is practically always spam. > This is even harder for mail client's that have to rely on a third-party > rendering engine for HTML mail, since they don't necessarily have the hooks > into the renderer to tell it not to load remote content. At least some third parties DO support this functionality." I use a non-major, non-modern "web browser" that does not load elements from remote servers, and I practically never have problems with desirable content. The "blind loading" problem extends to web browsers in addition to email. In fact, email clients took the idea of tracking _from web browsers_ and applied it to HTML email. It may be possible to disable autoloading of images such as 1x1 pixels but unfortunately the "major" aka "modern" browsers do not allow users to disable all blind loading, e.g., malicious .js files. For example, the recent Equifax incident involved blind loading of an undesirable .js file. This "blind loading" is the foundation of tracking and web ads, not just spam. It seems the more the more "major" a browser is considered, the more people refer to it as "modern", the better the browser works for tracking. Strange coincidence I guess. ------ stephengillie Let's make subscription timeouts a reality. When you subscribe to an email newsletter, have it default to a 1-year subscription, which the user can modify. This solves this problem, and auto-unsubscribes people who are not active users. You could have a login or other action renew the subscription. ~~~ kuschku No. If I subscribe to something, I want it to just continue working. I don’t want to have to continuously spend time maintaining such bullshit. This is another user-hostile action. ~~~ ekianjo > If I subscribe to something, I want it to just continue working. I don’t > want to have to continuously spend time maintaining such bullshit. Every certificate you own for security purposes should have an expiry date, and this is not "user-hostile", this is just good practice. A link to click on once a year is not a big deal. ~~~ kuschku For certificates, we have a fully standardized automated system to renew them. I literally don’t have to do anything, and my certificates will continue to work as long as Let’s Encrypt exists. If I have to manually to any maintenance, the system is broken. Which, in this case, it is. The problem isn’t "one link to click per year", but if everyone does this, suddenly I have to click dozens of links per day. ------ tammer The company that truly improves email will be a fixture and a household name. Its a devilishly hard problem, though. But one with immense potential. I think a big limitation of current attempts are the focus on closed teams/enterprises and making a "clean break" from email. WhatsApp seamlessly bridged a gap between modern messaging and telecom to produce grand success — the same can be done with email. ~~~ astrodust Email is still a necessary component because it fills a specific need. Where tools like Slack and Sharepoint help solve specific problems, Email is a good general purpose tool for both short and long conversations, plus sending out links to other tools. I think the problem is not email itself, but email clients and their pathetic inability to order your inbox correctly.	{ "pile_set_name": "HackerNews" }
Comparing Mesos and Kubernetes - mooreds http://www.developintelligence.com/blog/2017/01/comparing-contrasting-apache-mesos-vs-googles-kubernetes/ ====== davelnewton This report is written by a company that provides Kubernetes support. The thing I found most offensive was that it implies Apache Mesos isn't an open source product. (I don't use Mesos or Kubernetes; I just think it's dishonest.)	{ "pile_set_name": "HackerNews" }
Unapologetically Plastic, Artisanal Buns - jordaninternets https://medium.com/adventures-in-consumer-technology/9655fd3ea2c7 ====== replicatorblog If you want an amazing way to blow an afternoon, read some of the abstracts published in the "Journal of Consumer Research" ([http://www.ejcr.org/](http://www.ejcr.org/)) It's an absolutely fascinating way to see how little turns of phrase, naming, and packaging can influence our perception. There are some absolute classics that back up this article showing that giving exotic names to jelly beans led them to be picked more often, even though they tasted the same e.g. Orange vs. Blood Orange. ------ zachrose I've had phones that were apologetically plastic. They had a metallic finish that wore off to reveal the bone-colored ABS underneath. "Unapologetic" here corresponds to the notion that materials shouldn't imitate other materials, a practice that gained steam during the industrial revolution and irked the Modernists something awful. ~~~ arrrg Exactly. There are so many phones out there that are apologetically plastic, I think it’s a very good idea to point out that one does not share that approach if that is the case. I like Apple’s honest use of materials and I like that they increased it over the years. Silver keys on the MacBook Pro, made to look like the aluminum shell (but actually plastic)? Gone and replaced by black keycaps which are unmistakably plastic. (That is not to say that Apple uniquely has this approach. I also like Nokia’s unapologetically plastic phones very much.) Those words are not completely meaningless. Apple could have made a plastic phone that tries to look like the iPhone 5. That is apologetically plastic. And it would have been awful. There is a difference. ------ vxNsr The importance of this message cannot be overstated. To put it another way: The Words you use to convince someone are more important than the message itself. I've seen people stab themselves in the back (and lose out) because they didn't pay enough attention to the words they used. I was super interested in how Apple was going to sell the 5c for this exact reason, I use a plastic phone that doesn't feel too cheap (the lumia 521) but I think of it as the crummiest phone on the market because of the plastic (though it's actually really durable, I've basically launched it tons of times and like a good nokia it will just come apart- distributing the force evenly) So Apple's "Unapologetic" is a really important marketing concept. ~~~ sp332 There aren't that many metal phones on the market, are there? ------ mrxd Some other fun examples: soft Corinthian leather, Lucky Strike ("It's toasted!"). These fit alongside Madagascar vanilla and artisanal hamburger buns. But "unapologetically plastic" clearly doesn't. The pattern we should look for is a modifier that creates the appearance of a nonexistent competitive difference. Not a regular bun, an _artisanal_ bun. Not regular vanilla, Madagascar vanilla. So... not regular plastic, but unapologetic plastic? Apple wants us to believe that this plastic is special because it doesn't apologize? That doesn't even make sense. It's clear that "unapologetically plastic" means that _Apple_ is unapologetic, proud that the 5c is made of plastic. They want us to believe that this is not a cheap knockoff iPhone, despite being made of plastic, and that's more about affirming their brand values than anything else. ~~~ mc32 You have a point about "It's toasted" (as they were all toasted) --it'd be like selling "cholesterol-free water". Madagascar vanilla, however, is a variety distinct from Tahitian or Pompona. So, depending on what characteristics you're looking for in the vanilla, you might choose one over the other variety. Kind of like how vintners choose one grape variety over others for specific reasons. ------ nsxwolf Have you ever had a really, really good hamburger bun that set the burger apart from almost any other burger you've ever eaten? If you have, why not describe it as "artisanal"? Some bread really is good enough to warrant a special description. Likewise, the iPhone 5c is a really, really nice plastic object. I know next to nothing about plastics, but I do know that the 5c is set apart from, say, this Handspring Visor that's (for some reason) on my desk. ~~~ jbail You have a Handspring Visor on your desk? Have you just not cleaned your desk in 10 years? I kid, but I am genuinely curious what exactly you use it for these days? I cleaned out my bin of extra cords and random electronics this weekend. I found my Visor and promptly put it in the "give away" pile. ~~~ nsxwolf It's basically that I haven't cleaned out my desk, but this thing made it to the top of the pile a bit ago because I was curious if I could get it onto the Internet and what that would mean exactly in 2013. Sadly I cannot find the wireless module. ------ saurik Words affect people deeply, but they don't affect everyone the same. Some people, myself included, hear certain words like this, and get an emotionally strong negative "that's bullshit, you added that word to manipulate me, and now I like you and your product less for it" reaction. For me it hits really hard when I see people use the word "beautiful" to describe a programming tool or API: some people eat that term up, nearly looking for it as a defining characteristic, whereas when I see it I generally no longer trust anything else you have to say about your product. If the target market for your product includes a lot of people who know they are being pandered to and generally dislike it, you have to be really careful to actively avoid these kinds of words. I'd therefore feel a better statement to make (than waxing poetically about words like "artisanal", which I know turned off budget-conscious friends of mine as "probably too rich for my blood" despite meaning little in and of itself, due to associated genre effects) is more "don't underestimate the power of a wording change: test different adjectives and see what resonates best with your audience, whether via live A/B testing or using focus groups, and be prepared for the idea that you may have to split your message and target different sub-groups separately, potentially even splitting your brand entirely (something we tend to not see software companies do much, even though old school product companies like detergent or cereal do it constantly)". ~~~ jff I'm really happy someone else feels the same way about "beautiful". It's lost all meaning in this space, it might as well be "EXTREME" or some other marketing bullshit term. ------ snorkel Well I only eat Artisan Tostitos because I like to support small businesses like FritoLay. ------ breckinloggins I think this has something to do with the word "cheap" being placed in front of "plastic" so often that it stopped modifying "plastic" and just became part of it. When that happens, you need a pretty strong adjective to reset the connotation. "Unapologetically" seems to fit the bill. It works with buns, too. "Go grab some hamburger buns" sounds Forth of July Rainbo Bread to me. "Pick up some artisan buns" resets that. Well, that's how it works in my mind at least; your mind may vary. ~~~ Zikes In the context of phones in particular, Apple had a lot to do with "plastic" being conflated with "cheap" when they launched glass-back phones. ~~~ breckinloggins I was also thinking much older. Growing up I would often hear something like "this is just a cheap plastic toy, it's not a real <whatever>". ------ cschmidt Ive's comment about plastic reminded me of a conversation I had once with an architect. He said that one of his dreams was to have a client who wanted him to do an vinyl siding house. He normally did things in very tasteful wood. However, he wanted the chance to explore the possibilities of what you could do with vinyl. ------ noonespecial They need to try harder. 3 times in the last week when I've told people I'm thinking of upgrading my iPhone(4s) they're said "Are you going to get the real one or that plastic thing?" or something to that effect. Its going to be an uphill battle. ------ nopassrecover Reminds me of "It's Toasted" on Mad Men (based on a real campaign) [https://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_detailpage&v=E0...](https://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_detailpage&v=E0L8f1IY1Vk) ------ pyrocat In other news, copywriting is a valuable skill when selling a product. ------ AsymetricCom Perhaps this strategy works great on the general populous and market, but I already recognize this... advertisement trope, McDonald's has been using it for years. When are marketers going to stop trying to mislead their customers and realize that people in general aren't stupid, just busy? Oh wait, if we told our customers the truth, we'd have to live with a real market, not an inflated one, and everyone knows an inflated market is best.	{ "pile_set_name": "HackerNews" }
Google and Facebook Team Up to Open Source the Gear Behind Their Empires - rey12rey http://www.wired.com/2016/03/google-facebook-designing-open-source-data-center-gear-together/ ====== franciscop Not only Google and Facebook [1]: Facebook, Intel, Google, Apple, Microsoft, Rackspace, Cisco, Juniper Networks, Goldman Sachs, Fidelity, Lenovo and Bank of America [1] [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Open_Compute_Project](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Open_Compute_Project)	{ "pile_set_name": "HackerNews" }
Apple adds 192-room hotel to plans of Northwest Austin campus - ingenieros https://austin.culturemap.com/news/city-life/05-20-20-apple-adds-surprising-element-to-1-billion-campus-in-northwest-austin/ ====== karlkatzke To add to the information in this story (because I live in the neighborhood), there aren’t a ton of hotel options nearby, and all of the hotel options nearby are along the non-toll road freeways and all require a drive or ride share. ~~~ Scoundreller Are the non-toll road freeways in really bad shape or? ~~~ kgermino I was wondering why they specified as well. My guess: the toll roads have much less traffic (for their size) than the free ones. I know that by me the toll is usually worth it if you value your time at all since the dedicated funding gives them the money to maintain and expand the road as needed. ~~~ AnthonyMouse > since the dedicated funding gives them the money to maintain and expand the > road as needed. The funding rarely has anything to do with it. In nearly all cases road tolls are priced far in excess of what it takes to maintain that stretch of road and the money is then reallocated to other things. What you're experiencing is that the toll deters other drivers from using that road, so there is less traffic on it. This is quite unegalitarian, because you're essentially creating a road for the upper class and then charging more than its maintenance cost to keep out the proles. Whereas if the tolls only covered maintenance of the toll road then the collection overhead would consume most of the money -- it's already not an insignificant cost even when the tolls are disproportionately high. They also create a perverse incentive for the government to leave non-toll roads in disrepair to increase their toll revenue by pushing people to the toll road. ~~~ kgermino That may be true generally - I have no idea - but it definitely isn’t in Illinois. The tolls stay in the system and don’t support any non-tolled roads. If anything the subsidies go the other way, since cities will pay to have a ramp built that will then generate tolls for the main highway. I have no idea what percentage of the toll goes to collection costs. As far as un-egalitarian, I respectfully disagree. I’m sure there are people who can’t afford the toll costs, but “pay for what you use” seems perfectly reasonable to me. I guess that may be different if money is taken from the toll road as you described. ~~~ AnthonyMouse "Pay for what you use" in the case of roads would be the incremental amount of road damage caused by each vehicle, rather than the total road cost divided by the number of vehicles. The large majority of road maintenance costs are attributable to weather and semi trucks. (Road damage from vehicles is _the fourth power_ of vehicle weight, so one semi does as much damage as thousands of cars.) Moreover, the problem with allocating the fixed cost (weather) portion of road maintenance to cars, or the cost attributable to large trucks, is then you over-deter use of the road. You don't want an inefficiency where you deter someone from using the road even though they value their use of it more than the cost to the state of allowing them to, because then you waste idle road capacity for which the fixed construction costs must be paid either way. Doing that also requires the amount of the toll to be even higher, because then you have to amortize the fixed costs over fewer vehicles. You end up with tolls much higher than the efficient level per vehicle even if the tolls do only pay for road maintenance, because of the over-deterrence. The better solution is to pay the fixed cost portion from general taxes and only charge the marginal cost for usage. But if you charge only the marginal cost for "light" passenger vehicles then the amount is so small as to not even be worth collecting. ------ dhosek McDonald's has a hotel on its corporate headquarters campus in Oak Brook. It's run by Hyatt and anyone can book rooms there (we've done a couple "staycations" there in the winter to be able to have a weekend where we can avoid Chicago cold/stay inside the whole time and have access to a swimming pool). I'd guess a large fraction of the business comes from people attending meetings at corporate or training at Hamburger U, but they also host typical hotel things like non-McDonald's conferences and weddings etc. Most, but not all, of the hallway art has a McDonald's theme. ~~~ colmmacc Boeing has Hilton Garden Inns hotels right at Everett field where the wide- bodies are made, and in Renton where the 737s are made. They're a sight to see because they seem very very out of place. But they do a steady trade in Boeing attendees coming in for training, as well as customers coming to negotiate, inspect, and pickup new planes. I got to play a private party in the Everett one, to celebrate a new plane delivery for a customer. The staff told they once had a super-rich Emir book out a whole floor and stay there for a few days while a private jumbo was being delivered. The idea of that happening at a garden inn amuses me. ------ dehrmann Ugh. At a former job, I worked in a satellite office. At one point, I spent three weeks at the main office, embedding with another team. The office was _connected_ to a hotel I stayed at. The room, an apartment room with a kitchenette and, inexplicably, two bathrooms, while nice, overlooked the office. I'd get off work, go to my room, and see teams' dashboards on TVs from my window. For three weeks. I tried to avoid that hotel for the rest of my time there. Worth mentioning that unlike Apple's Austin campus, this was in a central district in a major city, so there wasn't a big compromise between a fun neighborhood and being close to the office. ------ harmmonica This is interesting because Apple's Austin campus is a good distance from the neighborhoods in Austin most people want to hang out/go out/be in. This is one of those things that's far from categorical, as evidenced by other comments in the thread where people appreciate being close to the office when having to travel for work, but I personally, and people of my ilk, like exploring the places we visit when traveling for work and this hotel will make exploring much more inconvenient. Maybe that's even Apple's goal... ~~~ lesdeuxmagots They're staying near the domain area, which seems an incredibly reasonable. Relatively accessible via multiple freeways from population centers and the airport, close to many other tech campuses. Larger tech campuses optimize for those sorts of factors far more than where people want to hang out. ~~~ harmmonica Reasonable absolutely. Convenient, sensible for employees easily being able to get to work. Airport is not close considering it's on the opposite side of the city, but, sure, close enough. That said, I genuinely find it interesting that they would put a hotel in that location because of a lack of amenities and interesting things to explore (I'm betraying my attitude about the domain and that area in general, but I would not call it interesting/enjoyable/fun to explore unless you like mega malls and top golf, which some folks do, but people visiting from out of town likely would not when they can just as easily get that back home). Maybe they were even debating whether to include the hotel at all until Covid came along and made the decision for them--the suburbs are the new city centers (btw, I realize they're in the city technically). ~~~ ghaff Usually when I'm visiting a company it's a long day (or days) of meetings followed by business dinners. I'm as much for exploring new areas as anyone but the last thing I want to do at the end of such a day is take a drive into a not-so-close city. I used to work for someone who would drive a number of us a bit crazy because he always wanted to do team meeting dinners in the city about an hour from the office where we would meet during the day--which was actually the wrong direction from where many of us lived. (He, somewhat understandably, wasn't crazy about the dining options near the office.) ------ dijit Makes some amount of sense. I work for an international company that is small in comparison to Apple (15k employees) and Hotels for international travel are a pain. Having one on-site is probably going to save them some money in the long run. ~~~ chrisseaton What pains do you experience with hotels? I find they're the usually by far the easiest part of an international trip. ~~~ dijit Normally a mixture of: How close is it, what's the contiguous capacity of it, is it the cheapest, what is our relationship with it (payment methods, we prefer invoicing), does it require a down-payment to be paid by the traveller, if so how do we reimburse that. In contrast, flights are usually pretty easy; pick an flight and pay. ~~~ lotsofpulp I have a feeling hotel payment modes are stuck in the 1980s because the franchisors (Hilton/Marriott/IHG/Hyatt/etc) don’t want to pay for any of the merchant processing or chargeback fees, so they don’t care about updating their payment platforms to make it easy for consumers. You can make a reservation at IHG.com with a fake credit card 4111 1111 1111 1111 and they do zero name/address/CVV verification, and the only reason I can tell is because they’re not the ones stuck with dealing with chargebacks and fees. ~~~ dvtrn $lastjob was for a software vendor adjacent to but servicing directly into the hospitality and service industries. Some of our clients included the names you mentioned; I can say from direct experience with three of them, they care a lot about their payment platforms and improving the tech associated, one of them, Marriott has an entire technical certification program that any tech vendor interested in doing business at a hotel with their name on it must go through. It’s just _SLOW_. Hoteliers “love” technology but they are damned SLOW to do _anything_ with it sometimes (I don’t mean implementation here, there can be all sorts of reasons for implementation to take a long time, I mean the decision cycles from directors and executives of chains) ------ angled I expect several airlines have something similar already - Cathay Pacific operates its own on-campus hotel for crew based elsewhere: [https://www.headland.com.hk/](https://www.headland.com.hk/) ------ drewg123 SAS, in Cary NC, also has a hotel on campus. The only other options require crossing a busy 6+ lane street where pedestrians are uncommon. ~~~ brnt Nobody thought of a pedestrian bridge/tunnel? ~~~ aquaticsunset That area is a huge car culture city. You’re lucky if these major roads even have sidewalks. ~~~ cpach For someone living in Europe, this seems slightly surreal :-p ~~~ pentae You might have a bit of a shock in SE Asia then ~~~ cpach I’ve never been there unfortunately. How is the car culture there? How does the people without cars get by? ~~~ ghaff Scooters/motorbikes (not the e-scooters you stand on). There are also various degrees of public transit. But, while there are some exceptions like Singapore, a lot of large SE Asian cities are congested sprawl that takes forever to get around. ------ ideals It's safe to assume Apple will not be embracing a permanent shift to remote work. 2million sq/ft of glorious open floor plan seating. ~~~ raverbashing Apple does not do open floor plans. At least not between departments From what I remember reading every department is closed off and some are only accessible to those with permission to enter. ~~~ colde That used to be the case. But with the new Apple Park campus, they changed that significantly: [https://www.dezeen.com/2017/08/10/apple-park-campus- employee...](https://www.dezeen.com/2017/08/10/apple-park-campus-employees- rebel-over-open-plan-offices-architecture-news/) According to the article the hardware team managed to avoid it by complaining loud enough that they goy their own building. ~~~ xyst The hardware team has their own space yet they produced garbage like the 2016-‘17 MBP. One of the many blunders: [https://apple.stackexchange.com/questions/363337/how-to- find...](https://apple.stackexchange.com/questions/363337/how-to-find-cause- of-high-kernel-task-cpu-usage/363933#363933) ~~~ sys_64738 Wonder how hard it is to find a private corner to work in on that space ship campus. It certainly seems out of this world. ------ waiwai933 > He cites an Embassy Suites hotel as a possibility. I'd have expected it to be open to Apple employees/contractors/guests travelling on official Apple business, and thus wouldn't carry a chain brand. ~~~ vidanay Conversely, I'd expect it to be licensed out to a renewable operational contract by a major chain who has the experience and domain skills to run a hotel. If they don't meet Apple standards, they can be dropped at the end of the contract. ~~~ waiwai933 I'd have thought they could get a chain to run it, but using custom Apple branding. Similarly, they could probably pay the chain/management company a flat fee/fee based on performance standards, rather than letting them do market pricing. ~~~ sjwright It won’t be Apple branded. More likely a generic brand, or something that’s linked to Apple without using the name. Like how their campus cafe is Caffé Macs. (Best hotel name I can come up with is “Energy Saver” in the style of macOS System Preferences. Cute, and comes with a free logo. But I doubt the Apple of today would dare to be so whimsical.) ------ adrianmonk Austin has a lot of events where all the hotels are all booked up. Presumably Apple can give reservation priority to its guests. The headaches saved from that alone could make this worthwhile. Austin is a decent-sized city but not a particularly large one, so hotel capacity isn't huge. And there's SXSW, Austin City Limits music festival, a Formula 1 track, the Republic of Texas biker rally (200,000 attendees). Not to mention graduation weekend for the University of Texas, which is a big campus with over 50,000 enrolled. ~~~ alttab I wonder how many of those events will still occur, and how long it will take them to reach those crowd sizes again. ------ dangus Not directly related to the topic, but this is the first time I’ve seen renders of this new campus and it surprises me that it’s so car-dependent and suburban. It kind of disappoints me especially from a company publicly emphasizing environmental responsibility. That same aspect really surprised me about Apple Park: how the building is so futuristic, but then getting there requires you hop in your regressive oil- burning couch on wheels. Personally, I would never again work for a company that made me drive down a highway to a giant parking garage complex. I want transit-oriented development and I want to live and work near transit lines, in walkable areas with mixed-use amenities. If my choices in 2020 are remote work, suburban car commute, or downtown city office commute watching YouTube on a bus or train, one of these options is the clear last-place option. My parents told me an anecdote of how they recently drove to the center of town (the old part built for walking) just to get out and walk around, as if this is a normal and not-insane byproduct of our misguided city planning. Their home is so isolated and pedestrian-hostile that they have to drive a vehicle just to find somewhere pleasant to _exist._ (The same story goes for getting to a park or outdoor recreation area) Suburbs have all the downsides of a city with none of the upsides of rural life. Obviously, it’s not Apple’s fault that most American cities happened to make massive city planning mistakes after World War II. But it seems like so many of those mistakes continue to be perpetuated by all parties involved. ~~~ ghaff >If my choices in 2020 are remote work, suburban car commute, or downtown city office commute watching YouTube on a bus or train, one of these options is the clear last-place option. It depends where you live. If I drive into my company's suburban office (which I have rarely done for the past few years), I'm about a 25-30 minute drive. If I take the commuter rail into the city to go to another office, I'm about 90 minutes door-to-door between drive to train/train/subway/walk. I don't mind doing the latter now and then, but if I had to make the choice most days, that wouldn't be my pick. I did commute into the city semi-regularly for about a year once. It really wasn't sustainable over a long period even though I didn't need to do it every day most weeks. ~~~ dangus If you didn’t live in the suburbs, it wouldn’t take you 90 minutes to get into the city. If your suburban office didn’t have a huge parking lot in front of it, adjacent to a grass knoll, adjacent to a four lane highway, which also has a grass strip in between it, with your house set back from your street with a lawn and driveway, with your street hidden in curvy cul-de-sac roads from the main road to alleviate thru traffic, you might have an actual chance at walking, biking, or taking a bus to your suburban office. But it’s all been designed around the car so now you must own your very own car to go _anywhere_. ~~~ ghaff I actually live in the country (maybe technically exurbs). No amount of sidewalks or bike paths or reasonable density bus routes is going to get me to either of my offices. This isn't a new thing. My house was built in 1823 well before things were designed for cars. ~~~ ghettoimp This is completely fair and is absolutely a very real thing for many people. But only about 19% of the US population lives in rural areas, for some definition [1] of rural. Unlike rural areas, cities are dense enough that we could certainly choose to build them in a different way, so that we are not all completely dependent on our cars to go anywhere. For a lot of folks, I think it's definitely a discussion worth having. [1] [https://www.census.gov/newsroom/press- releases/2016/cb16-210...](https://www.census.gov/newsroom/press- releases/2016/cb16-210.html) ~~~ ghaff I'm actually not rural by the US Census definition. And probably not especially close even though I and a couple neighbors are on 100 acres between us. I live in a 7K person town and it's not even remotely rural by US Census definitions. ------ fma The General Motors headquarters, "Ren Cen" has a 73 floor Marriott Hotel tower with ~1,300 rooms in the middle. You can access all 7 of the towers w/o going outside. [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Renaissance_Center](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Renaissance_Center) ~~~ ikeyany Having stayed at that hotel last year, those elevators seriously need an upgrade. ------ gumby > Apple is a trendsetter in so many ways. Its proposed hotel as part of its > new Austin campus is another example of it being ahead of the curve,” It’s quite common in some countries for companies and other institutions hotels or guest houses on site, especially when ravel is difficult. And even when not it’s _very_ typical for companies to have a with local hotels for their visitors. This is just another case of wiggling the dividing line between in-house/outsourcing that companies do with fungible tasks like cafeterias, cleaning, call center etc. ------ kevindong For large corporations expecting a lot of inter-office travel, it makes a lot of sense. I assume the company owns the hotel and therefore has first dibs on rooms and pays minimal costs to whomever ultimately operates the hotel. I interned at a company with 50k employees that's redeveloping their HQ campus. The redevelopment includes a fairly large hotel on site because the company has a decent amount of business travelers coming/going every day. The main office building currently has a room dedicated to storing luggage for employees traveling. ------ PaulWaldman It is also quite common for universities to have hotels on campus. ~~~ vidanay Yeah, but they are almost always affiliated with a hospitality/hotel management degree program. ~~~ txcwpalpha The hotel on campus at UT Austin isn’t affiliated with any such program. It’s actually affiliated with the business school, AFAIK, and the circumstances around it’s creation sound similar to Apple’s. At the time, there weren’t many good hotel options around that part of Austin unless you were willing to stay in a motel or a long drive away. I imagine this was a big obstacle when trying to attract MBA students to the weekend MBA programs (where the students are put up at a hotel every weekend) or trying to get business bigwigs to visit campus for events, so UT just decided to build their own hotel. ------ punnerud Similar to CERN where they have hotels within the campus. Only difference is that while working at CERN you don’t pay tax on your earnings, spending, car etc. ~~~ iancmceachern Fermilab too, I've stayed at their hotel working on their collider. ------ rektide The simple boring & likely option is that this is a matter of convenience, to help visitors &c. The cool option, the unlikely one, is that this would also be a technological testbed for a well integrated technical living space. A modest small go at a lab, to try out how we might integrate computing & living. As I said: unlikely. ;) ------ yitchelle Separation of life between work and non-work is really important, especially if long term mental health is concern. Personally, I would burned out really fast in this scenario. This is the pressure I felt when I go on week long business trips where days are spent in the office, and night are spent preparation for the next day. ------ PanMan I work for a small hotel chain, and have often joked about the tech stack if apple would run a hotel (with no legacy)... Time to see how it will actually look! (Although I guess they'll outsource the management to a hotel chain) ~~~ ghaff Vaguely amusing related story. During the 2000s, I stayed at the IBM executive meeting center in Palisades NY. It was managed by some hospitality company or other but it was very IBM branded (lots of old tech displays, etc.) It also definitely had legacy IBM tech. This was before WiFi really took off and the guest rooms all had Token Ring. Which, as I recall, necessitated warning stickers all over the place because you'd fry your Ethernet if you tried to plug in. At some point, I think they redid it but then they offloaded the facility. ------ seanmcdirmid This reminds me of the old SOE/school hotels in China. They generally provide less service than the dedicated hotels, and feel a bit archaic, but that might have just been the era. ------ deugtniet Perhaps this is partly driven by COVID. A hotel is a great isolation facility. Having one for essential staff would be a massive benefit if you need them close by at short notice. ------ dmitriid Honestly, this makes a lot if sense. Any medium-to-large company will always need to book hotels for people traveling. At Apple's size it might be cheaper (and definitely more convenient) to operate their own hotel than to always look for ways to book and transport people around. ~~~ ghaff >At Apple's size it might be cheaper (and definitely more convenient) to operate their own hotel Can be. Depends on the circumstances. There are the capital costs and then the company presumably outsources the running of the hotel to a hospitality company that needs to turn a profit on their management. In general, there's been a long-term trend away from companies owning corporate retreat properties, executive meeting centers, etc. A number of big old-line tech companies I'm familiar with sold off marquee properties over the past 2 or 3 decades. But if you're building a campus and there aren't great existing lodging options, it may make sense. They can presumably sell it off at some point if they don't want to own it. ------ ape4 I can only hope everything in the room has a macOS GUI ~~~ petepete I'd hate to stay in a hotel room with no Windows. ~~~ cardinalfang It would be a Doss-house. ------ Theodores They could add a museum of Apple stuff so that true believers can go there on holiday. Disneyland for Apple enthusiasts would be a revenue earner, you could go there to buy new Apple goodies to spend quality time at the genius bar. ~~~ saagarjha Not a museum, but there’s an Apple Park Visitor Center where you can buy stuff.	{ "pile_set_name": "HackerNews" }
Ask HN: How does one form business partnerships with universities? - omginternets I'm the co-founder of a small US-based startup. As an applied research company, we'd like to form a partnership with my a certain laboratory in my <i>alma mater</i> that would involve the following:<p>- Joint research projects in fundamental and applied science. - Joint grant-writing for said projects - Our partial funding of the laboratory - Collaboration with other departments<p>Patent and publication ownership will have to be negotiated and is outside of the scope of this question.<p>Beyond piquing the interest of the lab's director, what is the usual process for formalizing such partnerships with the university? ====== stephengillie You'll probably contact the dean of that school or something. I don't actually know either, but I would start by asking the lab's director if he knows. If he doesn't, have him ask his boss. And also get the school's publicly published phone number and give them a call. Are you looking to pay them to do research?	{ "pile_set_name": "HackerNews" }
Is Amazon Cloud Drive Down ? - jbub https://forum.rclone.org/t/acd-429-too-many-requests/1792/66 ====== jbub [https://github.com/ncw/rclone/issues/1351](https://github.com/ncw/rclone/issues/1351)	{ "pile_set_name": "HackerNews" }
Seth's Blog: Dewey defeats Truman - twampss http://sethgodin.typepad.com/seths_blog/2008/12/dewey-defeats-t.html ====== aristus This link you sent me... there is no flow, or thesis. What does it say? All headlines. Trashed.	{ "pile_set_name": "HackerNews" }
German police will be able to hack WhatsApp encrypted messages by end of 2017 - ayi https://www.rt.com/news/397504-germany-state-hacking-whatsapp/ ====== swerner The headline and the rt.com article are a bit misleading, German speakers should rather read the original source: [https://netzpolitik.org/2017/geheimes-dokument-das-bka- will-...](https://netzpolitik.org/2017/geheimes-dokument-das-bka-will-schon- dieses-jahr-messenger-apps-wie-whatsapp-hacken/#Bericht) "Police will be hacking WhatsApp" sounds much flashier than "they're developing for malware". There is no cracking of encrypted messages going on. This is about creating and distributing targeted malware to install on (unsuspecting) suspects' devices in order to capture decrypted messages on the end device. ~~~ nthcolumn It should really say 'will be allowed to'. ------ dsfyu404ed This is not about breaking encryption. This is about creating and distributing malware to install on suspects' devices in order bypass most encryption implementations What should be most disturbing is the expected use case. It's expected to be used in run of the mill cases. When you start doing something like this at scale automating it at scale comes soon after. I don't think anyone wants to live in a world where the police have a gui button labeled "install on all suspects" and some software to infer messages of interest based on a case number. Think about all the stuff they did to identify the guys who bombed the Boston marathon. All of that can (and it looks like it will) soon be automated. Now imagine that it's applied to common crime. Imagine being picked up off the street and interrogated because you unknowingly frequented a convenience store that had a drug trafficking operation going on behind the scenes and an automated system identified you (and 50 other people). Would you like to live in a world where you can't talk about buying fireworks for the 4th because you know if you do you'll get "randomly" pulled over every time you drive back across state lines in the month of June We're rapidly marching toward a world where that sort of stuff is possible at scale. ------ kitchi According to this article, they way they bypass WhatsApp's end-to-end encryption is by gaining access to the host device itself, and then recording everything that's on the screen. So this would mean switching to something like Signal (which is in principle more secure) shouldn't help. I'm quite skeptical that they can do this in a general case - Perhaps exploiting some zero days on some Android/iOS versions? I don't expect Google and Apple to sit around and let this happen for too long though. ------ thor1299 rt.com is Russias state owned nees network, I would take this with a grain of salt ~~~ LiveOverflow title is misleading because it's not like Germany broke the encryption. But this has nothing to do with rt, a lot of news outlets reported it in this way. And in the article rt is is pretty clear what it is about: The law makes it legal for the police to install trojans on a phone to gather evidence. ------ moomin RT;DR ------ thinbeige Title and article are misleading. They will be allowed to hack into smartphone OSes but if _they can_ is totally different question. ------ d0mme Not sure if this is already happening unofficially?	{ "pile_set_name": "HackerNews" }
Show HN: Play Go Against a Deep Neural Network - c-clark https://chrisc36.github.io/deep-go/ ====== thaumaturgy It was OK. I'm only about 6k, and I slaughtered it pretty badly (32 for black to -47 for white), but it did a respectable job of playing fuseki and there was an exciting semeai that pretty well decided the game. It filled in some of its own territory to capture a dead group I had in a corner. It's particularly vulnerable to trick moves -- I was able to set up some pretty horrifying ripoffs by throwing a stone in to make a cut and reduce a liberty, which it ignored, and then I could capture from the other side. It plays joseki reasonably well and does pretty OK with shape. I think if there were a way to train it against tsumego it would get a lot stronger. It would be kinda neat to be able to download an sgf of the game with it. edit: this might be fixable: it confuses snapbacks with kos; I set up a snapback in a second game and it wouldn't let me capture the group because it thought the situation was a ko. edit #2: I played two more quick games, more honte this time, and it killed me pretty badly. It's difficult to keep the game even during the opening and if I don't set up a complicated fight then it wins by a handy margin. ~~~ iopq it doesn't actually do any reading, it just plays moves that appear in pro games like for example, it will play out the ladder because a pro would play there since the ladder doesn't work so escaping makes sense however, if it works this loses the game ------ tasuki It plays the opening and middle game impressively well - provided one plays reasonable moves. I'm a 4 dan amateur player and it had me beat around move 40. Its strength deteriorates to a complete beginner fairly quickly whenever there's a fight or a nonstandard situation. ~~~ c-clark That's about what I would expect. The two major weaknesses of "naively" training a Go player in this no-look-ahead purely-supervised way are: 1) The training data only consists of positions that occurred in professional games. This means positions that are not likely to occur in that context have no training data, making the network liable to play poorly. 2) The lack of any kind of planning ahead means situations that require carefully working out future sequences of moves are not handled well. However, even in those difficult situations the network is still usually able to play passably showing that there is at least some generalization. ~~~ NhanH This is quite exciting. I'd imagine combining the supervised version with the usual Monte Carlo search would result in a huge jump in strength, and that doesn't seem too difficult of a task to do. Normally the Monte Carlo bot has a strong fighting ability, but about 0 knowledge of fuseki. This one seems to have mid-high level dan in fuseki, and yet if you get a ladder, you win the game. ------ cjbprime Interesting! Other people seem to think it plays the opening well, but it didn't seem that way to me. Consider this position: [http://chris.printf.net/deepgo.png](http://chris.printf.net/deepgo.png) Every corner shows a joseki, so there's been no non-standard play. But globally, white (the computer) seems to me to have blundered by allowing the combination of the lower-right and top-right joseki and N10. Would be curious to hear if stronger players than me (~1d) agree. Maybe it's actually just much better than me! ~~~ iopq I'm 3k, but it doesn't seem that white is behind in this game because white has komi and gets to move now ------ AaronBBrown I am brand new to Go am trying to learn it together with my bright, but young (6 year old) son. Can anyone recommend some good introductory resources for to better learn the basic concepts and scoring? While general gameplay seems relatively straight-forward, I've found there seem to be a variety of rules and I don't understand the algorithm for scoring and determining the winner. ~~~ JeffL Check out Sensei's Library Go wiki, Nick Sibicky on YouTube, and Janice Kim's "Learn to Play Go" series of books, IMO. Also, the "Hikaro no Go" anime series is absolutely wonderful, and that takes Hikaro from a young and completely new to Go kid through to being a professional, with short instructional videos for kids after each episode. ~~~ fiatjaf Nick Sibicky seems great. Thank you. ------ panic There doesn't seem to be a way to pass. How do you end the game? As a very bad Go player, the bot managed to be even worse than me in several key engagements, giving me territory I had no right to capture. It still beat me by a little bit, though (I think -- the game never actually ended!) I wonder if complementing the NN with a more traditional tree search would help it play better tactically. EDIT: Also, your paper link is broken for me: replacing [https://](https://) with [http://](http://) makes it work. ~~~ c-clark Thanks for catching that, I fixed the link. The network itself has no capability to pass its turn, which is a consequence of the fact it was only trained to predict player moves, not passes (we thought trying to learn when to pass would be difficult and a complication best avoided). So essentially you have to play until it seems clear to you the position is won or lost. If you played on indefinitely the DCNN would start playing terrible/suicidal moves rather then passing, so you could beat in the long run. ~~~ w0bb13 But it doesn't seem possible on the web link for the player to pass and then see the score? ~~~ kqr No, you'll have to estimate or count manually, as it stands. An "end game now" button sounds like a reasonable fix, though. ------ kyubic This is cool, but it seems to think snapbacks are not allowed: [http://i.imgur.com/HdOOpIr.png](http://i.imgur.com/HdOOpIr.png) ------ zorf Didn't have time to play a full game, but it played quite well. As usual with AIs, it made some strange decisions in life and death situations and ko- fights. ~~~ tgb Agreed, I was impressed with it! It killed me on the big picture stuff (I'm not very good) but let me win a lot of life-and-death spots where I had no right to survive. But still, it did much better than I was expecting. The "show analysis" button seemed to suggest a lot of poor moves for me, which surprised me given how the AI didn't actually seem to do anything like that (such as playing into an eye with no chance to win). ------ fiatjaf While other commenters only came here to say "I am a bad player, but I won" I want to say I have lost. The bot was better than me in the sense that he knew exactly the best thing to do in "standard" situations and I don't. In a sense he looks more experienced and studied than me. But he did some stupid moves in some other situations in which he had to think more as a human, I imagine. ------ Tinyyy Sometimes it says ‘Illegal move: Suicide is not allowed!’ after I play (black), then it passes my white control to me. Is this intended or bug? ~~~ w0bb13 Ditto to me. Seems strange - maybe white tried suicide? ------ meekohi Has a decent concept of high-level strategy, but performs very poorly tactically. It makes predictable mistakes that look like what a player might do by "knee-jerk reaction" without considering the entire board state. Certainly the estimate of 4-5 kyu in the paper is ridiculous. Maybe 15kyu? ------ mathgenius This is fun. My game is quite rusty. Love playing fast. Training that neural net in my skull. This was how I originally learned the basics some 20 years ago: by playing & undoing against an AI. It's a low-stress way to get into the groove. ------ programd Can somebody run the obvious experiment and make it play against another instance of itself? ------ chillydawg [http://www.computer-go.info/](http://www.computer-go.info/) has lots of info on other bots and is run by Nick Wedd who is an admin on KGS and is involved in running computer go tournaments. You can play vs lots of different bots (some of which are virtually guaranteed to beat you, but not quite...) on KGS. ------ mark_l_watson Nice job. I started a similar for-fun project a few weeks ago, but progress has been slow and I am using a small board. Really nice! ------ serichsen There seems to be a problem with ko: it alerts that retaking is forbidden even though the board has changed. Afterwards, play seems to be ended. ------ cjbprime Any chance of a source code release for the trainer?	{ "pile_set_name": "HackerNews" }
A toy generational garbage collector - devshorts http://onoffswitch.net/toy-generational-garbage-collector/ ====== obl at first glance it seems to be missing a write barrier to catch new references from old gen to new gen, which is a very important part of any generational collector ~~~ devshorts It's a simplified toy, all new objects go into gen0 and then get assigned a reference to any node. So a gen1 node can have references to gen0, but the paths aren't traversed in this example. In the linked msdn they talk about dirty mem blocks to solve the cross boundary references.	{ "pile_set_name": "HackerNews" }
An open, more distinctive BBC - paublyrne http://www.bbc.co.uk/mediacentre/latestnews/2015/more-distinctive-bbc ====== paublyrne I suspect that were they to open up access to the iPlayer for non UK users and charge a fee in the region of Netflix's, the Beeb would fix their funding crisis. And as they would circumvent advertising concerns, there would be no threat to their impartiality. I feel that were the UK to lose the BBC because of Hawkish government ministers who are ideologically opposed to public service broadcasting that values quality above commerce, than the loss will be not just theirs but the world's. I would be very sorry to lose the BBC World service. ~~~ detaro I suspect opening up iPlayer would be licensing hell. Especially for past content, but also for new productions. Which (IMHO) is a stupid issue, but a real one. ~~~ paublyrne You're right I'd forgotten about that. I wonder would they make more from selling the iPlayer than licensing internationally ... ~~~ detaro For a lot of programmes I'd assume so, where most of the content is produced for the programme and only music and maybe some short archival clips or pictures are licensed. For stuff that is bought externally or is already licensed to other channels abroad, it probably is more difficult. ------ JohnLeTigre hmmm.. Last time they claimed to modernize the BBC, they ended up more populist than ever, usually at the expense of quality information. I am dubious.	{ "pile_set_name": "HackerNews" }
A potentially fatal blow against patent trolls - donnemartin http://www.computerworld.com/article/3153924/technology-law-regulation/a-potentially-fatal-blow-against-patent-trolls.html ====== Fjolsvith Dupe: [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13311737](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13311737)	{ "pile_set_name": "HackerNews" }
Indexes Beat Stock Pickers Even Over 15 Years - dsacco https://www.wsj.com/articles/indexes-beat-stock-pickers-even-over-15-years-1492039859?utm_medium=email&utm_source=newsletter&utm_term=170413&utm_campaign=ritholtz ====== nabla9 Recent paper giving new insight why indexing works so well. Why Indexing Works, Heaton , Polson and Witte, 2015. [https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=2673262](https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=2673262) The distribution of returns in the stock market is very uneven. There is significant positive skew. Just handful of well performing stocks at any moment account make significant gains in market. > The risk of substantial index underperformance always dominates the chance > of substantial index outperformance, with the difference being greater the > smaller the size of the selected sub-portfolios. It is far more likely that > a randomly selected (small) subset of the 500 stocks will underperform than > overperform, because average index performance depends on the inclusion of > the extreme winners that often are missed in sub-portfolios. Index funds pick these winners every time. Active funds start as underdogs even in the stock picking game. ------ dsacco Apologies for the paywall folks; if anyone is interested in reading the original research WSJ is reporting on, this is it: [http://us.spindices.com/documents/spiva/spiva-us-year- end-20...](http://us.spindices.com/documents/spiva/spiva-us-year-end-2016.pdf) The Cliff's Notes are these: * 82% of _all_ U.S. funds trailed their respective benchmarks over 15 years. * 66% of large-cap actively managed funds trailed benchmarks. * 89.4% of mid-cap actively managed funds trailed benchmarks. * 85.5% of small-cap actively managed funds trailed benchmarks.	{ "pile_set_name": "HackerNews" }
Submittable Releases Vimeo & YouTube integration for Film Festivals - mfitzerald http://blog.submittable.com/2012/08/new-feature-custom-form/ ====== waterlesscloud I wish someone would shake up withoutabox a little. It's hard since they have such a lock on the market, but everyone would benefit from them being pushed to innovate a bit. ~~~ mfitzerald Yeah, we're told by their customers that they do two things that are particularly egregious: 1) They force non-compete contracts 2) They treat their customer data as theirs, essentially leveraging the filmmakers submission information against you. As a result, they've gotten incredibly lazy with their product. It's a shame for filmmakers and the festivals.	{ "pile_set_name": "HackerNews" }
Game Theory Calls Cooperation into Question - etr71115 http://www.scientificamerican.com/article/game-theory-calls-cooperation-into-question1/ ====== nosuchthing Pack animals like dogs naturally discourage fighting amongst themselves [1]. Strife weakens the pack. Consider the effort it takes 1 person to build a house, or the amount of effort it would take to build an mp3 player alone from scratch. Game theory would have you believe the optimal way to win at poker is to booby trap the card table and rob your competition. Another theory suggests altruism ultimately trumps selfishness within species, as aggressive warlike creatures would kill each other off ad-infinitum, where as cooperation ultimately strengthens individuals beyond the sum of their parts. [2] All things considered in earthly biology, the cooperation amongst all the various living cells and organs that make up life in a single creature shows something to the efforts of collaboration vs the race to the bottom of virus & parasitic behavior. [1] [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hstLdzCg6l8](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hstLdzCg6l8) [2] [http://www.radiolab.org/story/103951-the-good- show/](http://www.radiolab.org/story/103951-the-good-show/) ~~~ electromagnetic I think the flaws in the thinking with these studies that try to test altruism, and other "odd" behaviours according to Game Theory is that we've become so far removed from where these behaviours originally evolved. The aberration is that we live in densely populated areas where selfishness is a possible behaviour. Our social-limit is estimated at around 500 people. Surnames developed around the 13th century in Britain, before that it was patronyms meaning we could recognise people via association. This is still common in rural areas, my wife's grandfather likes to travel to car shows, he's told people down in the US to just ask for him by name. He lives in a rural part of Canada and sure enough, people will reach him because everyone knows him. Altruism works, because for the majority of human history the people you chose to help or not to help were also the people who would sooner or later face the same decision. One instance of uncooperative behaviour would render you persona non grata. Your neighbour needs help thatching his roof after a storm, do you help? Game Theory keeps saying "no, because you could steal his land!" reality says "yes, because if he doesn't die from exposure, which he most likely won't, then he won't help you round up your goats when your fence breaks and they'll eat all your crops and you'll likely starve to death in the winter". The simple fact is most people are willing to do "favours" with no questions asked, and with no expectation of payment except "being owed one". The classic is helping a friend move. There's absolutely no reason to help someone move, until you need to so you earn the help in advance, and when someone breaks the trust the response is normally "I'm never helping that asshole again." ~~~ jes Thank you for your interesting comment. May I ask for your definition of altruism? Helping someone else, in part because you recognize that you may someday need his/her help, seems like rational egoism to me. And even if I thought I would never see someone again, I might help them if I thought they were virtuous, simply because I think virtue should be recognized and rewarded. ------ omm How about "Cooperation Calls Game Theory into Question"? ~~~ firethief "Data calls extremely simplistic model no one ever would have thought fully explained the domain into question" ~~~ rosser I'm reminded of the 'cstross quip, "Libertarianism is like Leninism: a fascinating, internally consistent political theory with some good underlying points that, regrettably, makes prescriptions about how to run human society that can only work if we replace real messy human beings with frictionless spherical humanoids of uniform density." EDIT: corrected the quote. ------ MarcScott Do these models take into account that it is sometimes beneficial for an individual to lose a game, and actually die in the process? A howler monkey that warns others of approaching danger, but gets eaten in the process, may actually win genetically, if it saves the lives of its siblings, parents and offspring. ------ ThomPete So lets say we are playing a game of soccer. One team is one top pro player the other team is 11 toddlers. Who is going to win? Pretty sure its the pro player. Its better to be 1 top player than 11 toddlers. Now lets make the team 1 top player and 11 5 year olds. Probably the top player will still win and its still better to be a top player than 11 5 year olds. Now lets take one top player and 11 teenagers at age 14... Game theory is never really about the game that is played but always about the players playing the game. ------ klochner from last week - [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9042195](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9042195) ------ taeric I would be highly interested in how this model incorporates appearances into it. In particular, if you can maintain the appearance of heavy sharing, without heavily sharing, that can land you closer to the benefits of not sharing, without the downsides. ~~~ yaur That is essentially what the research is about. The "extortion" algorithm seems like it is playing nice, but cheats as much as it can get away with. ~~~ taeric Hmm.... that makes sense. Though the naming is terrible. Extortion is a distinct thing from cheating. :( edit: Well, I suppose saying it that way is terrible. It is cheating. It is not the same as all forms of covert cheating, though. ------ otakucode Game Theory lost all credibility when it advocated nuking Russia pre- emptively. Besides, most game theory studies don't even consider the possibility of self-destructive action, let alone evaluate whether they're actually advocating such a thing. ~~~ unabridged All game theory results depend entirely on your utility functions. If you set: (value of Russian civilian lives) = 0 (value of the world after nuking Russia) > (value of the world where Russia takes over) * (probability of Russia taking over) Then game theory would suggest first strike would be best solution. ~~~ unabridged But most people interpreted (value of the world after nuking Russia) to be quite low because Russia would automatically launch a retaliation, and the same vice versa from Russia's perspective. So with this utility game theory predicted the Mutually Assured Destruction standoff that so far has turned out correct. ------ yarrel No it doesn't.	{ "pile_set_name": "HackerNews" }
Plan Your Digital Afterlife with Inactive Account Manager - hornokplease http://googlepublicpolicy.blogspot.com/2013/04/plan-your-digital-afterlife-with.html ====== intopieces Still confused about why I should care, given that I will be dead. I'm not sure my Google Voice text messages will be of any use to anyone. Maybe I'll just leave my username/pass in my will, and people can dig through my personal info before my funeral. ~~~ Evbn Some people are concerned about the effect of their to-be-former secrets and digital assets on their loved ones and enemies. It is a continuity of "line" issue, maintaining s thread through history.	{ "pile_set_name": "HackerNews" }
"The Chaos" poem catalogues English word irregularities. Can you read all of it? - sumeetjain http://www.spellingsociety.org/journals/j17/caos.php#caos ====== dmlorenzetti The poem actually misses a word with multiple pronunciations, that's already embedded in the poem: console (line 9). I can console you if your console gets broken. ------ sumeetjain I think it gets more difficult as the poem progresses. The beginning is definitely the easiest part.	{ "pile_set_name": "HackerNews" }
“Architect” should be a role, not a position - bozho https://techblog.bozho.net/architect-role-not-position/ ====== mehh I disagree :)	{ "pile_set_name": "HackerNews" }
What FourSquare needs to do to fend off Facebook - ry0ohki http://www.startupdetails.com/2010/05/what-foursquare-needs-to-do-to-stay-relevant/ ====== brk This has some well thought out points, but the headline is a little misleading. Facebook could implement these same ideas (none are patentable) to "fend off" Foursquare. There is nothing here that would really be a blocker to Facebook growing their check-in feature. IMO, one of the benefits of Foursquare is that it is independent of Facebook and can be slightly more anonymous. There are concerns and websites like pleaserobme.com that call attention to the dangers of Social Media oversharing. Foursquare should, IMO, think about ways to make the game both FUN _and_ SAFE, perhaps things like delayed check-in postings, or options to show certain check-in data to certain groups or subsets of your "Friends".	{ "pile_set_name": "HackerNews" }
A faster, more flexible GitHub Enterprise - ins0 https://github.com/blog/1918-a-faster-more-flexible-github-enterprise ====== peteretep Is it still a bazillion times more expensive than BitBucket? ~~~ FireBeyond $5,000 per 20 users per year.	{ "pile_set_name": "HackerNews" }
Stop the music money stream scream: C.R.E.A.M. - rogueleaderr http://rogueleaderr.com/post/42695281885/stopping-the-music-money-stream-scream-c-r-e-a-m ====== hipsters_unite Pretty well-balanced article. Like in the 'bad old days' the mega-artists that appeal to the mass market are the ones reaping the rewards of economies of scale. ~~~ rogueleaderr Nothing is as popular as popularity.	{ "pile_set_name": "HackerNews" }
David Patterson Says It’s Time for New Computer Architectures and Languages - teklaperry https://spectrum.ieee.org/view-from-the-valley/computing/hardware/david-patterson-says-its-time-for-new-computer-architectures-and-software-languages ====== philipkglass Are there languages that have first-class support for representing/optimizing memory hierarchy characteristics? Optimizing C compilers, for example, may have extensions to force specific alignments: [https://software.intel.com/en-us/articles/coding-for- perform...](https://software.intel.com/en-us/articles/coding-for-performance- data-alignment-and-structures) But I'm not aware of languages where e.g. declaring alignments is part of the base language. Awareness of L1, L2, L3 cache characteristics, plus NUMA nodes, is increasingly important to writing high performance code. Every language I've ever used exposes nothing of that hierarchy; it's all just "memory". People who write performance-critical code are already aware of these issues and can measure/hint/optimize to work with the memory hierarchy in existing languages. But I feel like this could be better if we had languages that modeled these issues up front instead of only exposing the abstracted view. Maybe such languages already exist and I just haven't encountered them yet. ~~~ axilmar Wouldn't it be better if the slow RAM we have was replaced more and more by the fast RAM used in caches, before we do anything else? ~~~ gpderetta Caches are significantly less dense than normal ram. You wouldn't be able to fit gigabytes in the same area. They would probably be more expensive as well. ------ Animats It's really hard. Remember the Itanium and the Cell. You can build it, but they may not come. GPUs, though. Those have turned out to be very successful, they can be parallelized as much as you're willing to pay for, and they're good for some non-graphics tasks. Much of machine learning is a simple repetitive computation running at low precision. Special purpose hardware can do that very well. So what's the next useful thing in that area? ~~~ marcosdumay Well, past experiences are not that useful right now. I don't think the Itanium or the Cell were great architectures, but it's clear that their most obvious failure mode (mainstream architectures improving faster than them) isn't a showstopper anymore. For some guess on the next big thing, I would imagine that stuff that avoid the need of memory coherence have nice odds. ~~~ OldHand2018 Does anyone else have real-world Itanium experience? We've got a couple 5+ year old HP Integrity servers running OpenVMS on Itanium at work that we use to batch process large ASCII vendor files in an ETL process written in C. They certainly don't embarrass themselves. We'll be connecting them to a new Pure Storage SAN in a few months and the IT guys are really excited to see what happens to performance. I take the same exact C code, compile it with Visual Studio, and then run the same ASCII files locally on my 7th-gen 4c/8t i7 desktop and am not seeing any improvement. That's about the best I can do as far as benchmarking goes. ~~~ philipkglass I used Itanium from 2003-2006 for scientific computing on a big cluster. For that purpose it was much faster than Intel's Xeons of similar vintage. It was also significantly faster than the MIPS and POWER systems we had. Caveats: \- The simulation suite that I used most heavily was developed in-house at the same lab that bought the hardware. It was profiled and tuned specifically for our hardware. The development team was a _real_ software development team with experience writing parallel simulation code since the early 1990s. It wasn't just a bunch of PhD students trying to shove new features into the software to finish their theses. \- There was also close cooperation between the lab, the system vendor (HP), and Intel. \- Other software (like all the packages shipped with RHEL for Itanium) didn't seem particularly fast. \- God help you if you needed to run software that was available only as binary for x86. The x86 emulation was not fast at all. It was _great_ for numerical code that had been specifically tuned for it. It was pretty good for numerical code that had been tuned for other contemporary machines. Otherwise I didn't see particularly good performance from it. I don't know if it really was a design that was only good for HPC or if (e.g.) it also would have been good for Java/databases, given sufficient software investments. Maybe it would have been competitive against AMD64, even considering the difficulty of architecture-switching, if it had not been so expensive. But I'm not sure Intel had wiggle room to price Itanium to pressure AMD64 even if they had wanted to; Itaniums were quite big, complicated chips. ~~~ gpderetta Numerical code is usually the best case for VLIW machines. It is not surprising that Itanium did well there. ------ Razengan I fear, the more we advance, the more we are going to become permanently entrenched in The Way Things Are. To really shake things up at a fundamental level will probably require running into an alien species that does basic things differently than us. Even creative people with lots and lots of spare time and resources at their disposal will still be too "colored" by existing human knowledge and established practices to really try anything new (and without falling into the trap of needlessly reinventing the wheel.) ~~~ z3phyr Can we pretend to run into alien species when we encounter innovators among ourselves and try to adapt it? Most of the new lisp people do it anyway .. ------ amckinlay I want a language where you can express time and constraints on time within the language and the type system. I want to be able to guarantee program correctness, pre-calculate fine-grained energy usage, optimize for energy/power-saving mode usage, interface with asynchronous signals, and whatnot -- all with respect to program execution at the ISA-level within some hard real-time constraints. Compilers make optimizations using detailed instruction timing information, but as far as I know, these details do not bubble up to the surface in any programming language. It may be wise to keep these details under the surface at the compiler level, but for 8-bit architectures, it would be awesome to have a language where you have explicit control of time. ~~~ munificent Part of the reason most languages obscure this is because it's a moving target. If a language let you say, "this chunk of code here should run in 7 cycles", what happens when a new optimization finds a way to reduce that, or a new architecture comes up where that operation gets slower but lots of others get faster? I'm not arguing against your desire, just explaining that it's not unreasonable that we're where we are now. We've gotten so used to language portability, that it's good to remember how painful it can be to lose that. It's no fun having to rewrite all your code every time a new chip comes out. ~~~ yuushi This could only ever be doable with extremely simple architectures anyway. Off the top of my head, add in just one of branch prediction, micro-op fusion, out-of-order execution, pipelines and pipeline stalls, or cache misses, and this becomes impossible. Of course, this assumes you even know which CPU you are targeting its specific instruction latencies. That's already an extremely niche set of processors. Further, the number of bits of code you're likely to care about this kind of extremely precise timing for, you'll either examine the emitted assembly, or just hand-write the ASM yourself. It seems like a huge amount of effort for an extremely niche scenario. Remember, the ISA is still just an abstraction, after all. ~~~ daemin To add to that there's also the difference between cycles spent executing an instruction and how many of those instructions can be executed at once in the pipeline. So there is a difference between executing a set of instructions once versus executing them millions of times. ------ api Here's something that seems shockingly under-explored to me: languages that incorporate relational data structures natively. We have SQL of course, but SQL is not a general purpose language and is (intentionally) often not Turing-complete. I'm imagining something like Go, Ruby, JavaScript, or Rust with native tables, queries, and other SQL-ish relational data structures. The long term goal would be to kill the age-old impedance mismatch problem and eliminate CRUD code. Toward this long term end the language runtime or standard library could actually contain a full database engine with replication/clustering support. ~~~ chubot Data frames in R give you the relational model with a Turing complete language. I think of it as a better SQL, at least for analytics (as opposed to transaction processing). Besides its data structures, R is surprisingly similar to JavaScript -- it's has Scheme-like semantics but C-like syntax. For certain problems, it's a pleasure to program in. You don't have to go through "objects" to get to your tables; you just have tables! The examples here might give you a flavor: [https://cran.r-project.org/web/packages/dplyr/vignettes/dply...](https://cran.r-project.org/web/packages/dplyr/vignettes/dplyr.html) R itself has a lot of flaws, but the tidyverse [1] is collection of packages that provide a more consistent interface. FWIW I agree that more mainstream languages should have tables natively. It is an odd omission. Somehow they got coupled to storage, but they're also useful for computation. [1] [https://www.tidyverse.org/](https://www.tidyverse.org/) ~~~ api Yes, but I'm thinking of a general purpose language like Go that would be used to implement normal things. R is specialized for data analysis. Most "normal things" have designs that are deeply inefficient and compromised by bad under-powered data models. ~~~ chubot I'm not suggesting that people actually write business applications in R -- I'm just saying it's probably the closest thing to what you're asking for. And I agree that what you want should exist -- R is proof that it's perfectly possible and natural! Although, people are using (abusing) R to write web apps: [https://shiny.rstudio.com/](https://shiny.rstudio.com/) They mostly display data, but they have non-trivial interaction done in the style of JS. ------ stellalo Well, there are some interesting new languages out there already: [https://julialang.org/](https://julialang.org/) In fact Moore’s law must have been the reason why Python is what it is today: “Who cares if it’s slow, tomorrow’s computers will be faster!” ~~~ elihu I think the current attitude could be summed up better as "Who care's if it's inefficient, yesterday's computers are fast enough!" I think that's true of most software, but not all -- there will always be people who care about the best performance, but we shouldn't expect them to be in the majority. ~~~ fsloth "there will always be people who care about the best performance, but we shouldn't expect them to be in the majority." Given how machine learning is going to kick in in lots of fields quite soon there will be a lot of real world applications that are _not_ ambivalent about performance (if not else then from energy use point of view). We're going to get Clippy the Clipper 2.0 who can actually do something usefull, and how long he spends figuring out his suggestions and how good they are are likely to be dependent on the available CPU resources and how fast Clippy can think. ------ tabtab I have to say that most bottlenecks are from lazy designs, not wimpy hardware. As a thought experiment, suppose parallel processing scaled easily without worrying about Amdahl's Law and similar bottlenecks. So then we put 128 cores into our computers. Software companies would eat up every single core eventually if there's no penalty for inefficient coding. They don't pay our electric bill, we do. It's kind of like freeways: the more you build, the more the traffic increases to fill them up again. It is "nice" to be able to slap components together like magic legos and/or a Dagwood Sandwich rather than smartly tune and coordinate everything, but doing such is often computationally inefficient. The speed of light will probably put a hard upper limit on this practice that no clever language or architecture can work around to a notable degree. ~~~ chubot Yes, a pithier way of saying this is: _Software is a gas; it expands to fill its container_ \- Nathan Myhrvold Bad performance isn't really a software design problem; it's an economics problem (ditto for security). You could speed up the browser by 2x now, or reduce it's memory usage by 2x, and websites would be exactly as slow after a few months. I'm not trying to be negative here, just stating an unfortunate systems dynamic. ~~~ gone35 _Bad performance isn 't really a software design problem; it's an economics problem (ditto for security)._ Why do you say so? ~~~ saagarjha It means that people haven't thrown enough {time, energy, money} at the problem. ~~~ chubot Not quite.. see my sibling response. It's probably more accurate to say that some people have thrown a lot of time and energy at the problem. But the market does not value their software; we use slower and less secure alternatives. Slack is a great example. There are probably 99 other chat services that perform better than Slack. (Apparently it makes fans spin on laptops, which is kind of shocking for a chat app.) But the market doesn't necessarily care -- it values the features that Slack provides more. Part of it is a bad network effect. I care about speed, but I might have to use Slack because the people I want to talk to on Slack don't care about speed. ------ quickben What's happening with that Mill Arch? Is it moving forward outside of them publishing papers? It seemed promising. ~~~ zaarn I believe end of next month there will be another Talk where the Mill designers will talk about Spectre and Meltdown attacks in relation to Mill (though the spoiler would be that the talk mentions the point "and why Mill is immune" so I guess it'll be a very fun talk). I do hope a lot that Mill will succeed, it's an incredibly promising architecture. ~~~ daemin I do hope they just put paper to silicon and implement the damn thing, even if they just distribute simple RaspberryPi type boards with a slow version on it. ------ davidhyde The author makes it sound as if there have been no material changes to programming languages recently but unless you've been hiding under a rock you will know that this is not true. He compares Python to C. Come on, please. It would have been more relevant to speak about the LLVM project and how that enables architects to build more expressive languages which can still make use of 30 years of optimization wisdom (most of which was built when CPU's were much slower) What about mentioning languages like Rust which are designed for high concurrency and zero overhead which let developers write software with the safety of python but the performance of C. What about mentioning that some old languages, like c++, have evolved though new language features AND guidelines into much more effective languages to guide us into the future of concurrent programming (the easiest way to enjoy the speedups of yesteryear) ------ watmough The lack of obsolescence is terrible news for Dell and HP. Ran into a client this afternoon still running his seismic workflows on an old HP EliteBook 8570w with a couple big monitors, big SSD and 16 Gigs of memory. That family was launched mid-2012! ------ mjfl It would be nice if low volume foundry costs went down an order of magnitude. I'm in a bio lab right now, but I did CS in college and really enjoyed VLSI. If I want to turn a design into a prototype in my bio lab, it's going to cost hundreds of dollars, but if I want to turn a chip I designed into reality, it's going to cost thousands to tens of thousands of dollars even with specialized low volume foundries like MOSIS. I feel like it should be cheaper. ~~~ tonysdg Generally speaking, that's where FPGAs excel. You get a good chunk of the speedup that comes with designing your own circuit at a lower cost than actual ASICs (at least for protoyping and low volume batches). ------ mark_l_watson A little off topic, but I greatly admire generalists: Dr. Patterson (along with Dr. Fox) taught a good Coursera course on agile web development with Ruby and Rails. Quite a departure for an originator of RISC architectures! I think Dr. Patterson makes a great point on there being plenty of headroom in the increase in software efficiency. ------ nickpeterson It's way easier to push the limits on simple things. We need languages with fewer features and clear design, running on hardware with less exotic features. ~~~ AnIdiotOnTheNet I agree in general, and while I think that is totally completely possible in languages and operating environments, I'm not so sure it is in hardware, at least not without sacrificing a lot of performance. People respected by people I trust, who have a lot more domain knowledge than I do, don't seem to think it is. ~~~ justin66 On the other hand, we can afford to sacrifice a lot of performance. ------ ericand I'm a VC and I've seen lots of pitches lately for various tech related to new architectures, be it GPU, FPGA or RISC. I'd add cryptocurrency to list workloads with insatiable computing demands. ~~~ crb002 Massive parallel prefix and reduction operations in RAM. Start with just the MPI standard reduction ops. 1000x faster than Von Neuman bottleneck. ~~~ snaky > Massive parallel prefix and reduction operations in RAM Sounds similar to Micron Automata Processor. ~~~ crb002 Micron's processor in memory doesn't have near the same bandwidth as a processor in memory array geared to doing parallel prefix. ------ agumonkey Probably old news, but forth cpu arrays are so radically fun .. I wonder why they're not interesting. Every forth core can pass forth to its neighbors, forth is very expressive yet tiny since it's a stack language. Anyway my 2cents ~~~ snaky > the so-called Adaptive Compute Acceleration Platform (ACAP) will deliver 20x > and 4x performance increases on deep learning and 5G radio processing, > respectively, Xilinx claimed. The first chip, called Everest, will tape out > this year in a 7nm process. > The centerpiece of the new architecture is word-based array of tiles made up > of VLIW vector processors, each with local memory and interconnect. > tiles communicate with each other to create data paths that best suit their > application. [https://www.eetimes.com/document.asp?doc_id=1333632](https://www.eetimes.com/document.asp?doc_id=1333632) So GA144 is going to mainstream finally. ~~~ agumonkey great, but do they have actual lineage to GA144 chips ? or just another matrix of cores ? did xilinx buy GA ? ps: funny reading 'post-moore' in the linked article :) ------ Lerc I have had this fun idea for an odd architecture floating in my head for ages. Lots of small processors with local work ram, cached ram, shared ram. Each processor has a numerical id, communicates with each processor with one bit different in the id by optical link plus an additional link with to the processor complimenting all bits. They send messages and fill their caches from the pool of shared ram. Place even parity processors on one board and odd parity processors on another board facing towards the first. Thus all processors have line of sight on their communication partners. Messages go back and forth with processors relaying messages by fixing one bit in the message address. All neighbours with a one bit better address are candidates for relaying. If any are busy, they have options to use another path. This means the most number of hops a 2^19 core system would have to do is 9. If more than half of the bits are wrong then jump to the compliment. So the example with half a million processors, each talking to 20 neigbours by optical links. Messages can be sent anywhere with a latency of up to HopTime9. Filling a cache from anywhere in the shared memory pool would have a latency of twice that. If speed of light is the latency factor a 150ms latency would get you 9 hops across a 5 meter gap. Smaller is of course always going the make it better. This is the sort of thing that would also probably need a new language. I'm not entirely sure you could come up with an appropriate language without at least a simulation of the architecture. ~~~ smilekzs Hop time is not constant. There will be longer and shorter optical links, and if you want the system to be synchronous, everyone would have to wait on the longer links. ~~~ Lerc True, angles would add a little extra depending on how large the proccessor panels were and their separation distance. I had envisioned every link comminicating independantly. what would be the advantage of communicating syncronously? ------ gone35 As part of one of those "45 hardware startups" (in stealth mode) trying to tackle the problem, I think nevertheless there is _plenty_ of fat to trim just on the software side still... I mean, just look at that very page: 200 MB [edit: in memory consumption] for a single static article! Information-theorically at least, I bet that is another 10-100x speedup opportunity right there (and next multi-billion dollar industry, perhaps)... ------ reacweb IMHO, machine learning is a tiny aspect of the issue. The main issue is that, strangely, C is still the desert island language (first hit: [http://www-cs- students.stanford.edu/~blynn/c/intro.html](http://www-cs- students.stanford.edu/~blynn/c/intro.html)). The is a huge intimacy between the C language and CPU, they have evolved together during the many years of Moore law. I think there should exist a far better language to access hardware. linux kernel should migrate to this language. And the intimacy between OS and hardware should drive CPU (and GPU) toward better directions. Maybe I am dreaming. ------ luma Only tangentially related to the article but... I'm left to wonder about the photograph selected. His left hand appears to be on a stack of 20-year old HP 9000s (maybe rp3440, pre-grey box?), and standing across from a rack full of ancient 4U systems mounted into 2-post relay racks. The white blanking panels are early 2000's-era HP kit, and in the background are racks full of tower systems stacked vertically. Is this a recent photo? Do they have a computer history museum @ UCB or is that datacenter actually running production workloads on that kit? ~~~ Varcht Per the exif data embeded in the image "Date Time Digitized: May 1, 2006, 9:10:59 PM, Creator: Peg Skorpinski photo". ~~~ luma That would certainly explain it! After posting my comment it occurred to me that having Dr Patterson pose next to a PA-RISC system was probably intentional, given his history. ------ ArtWomb In gamedev, Nvidia's Turing enabled real time rendering at 4k 60fps could be "future-proof" well into the next decade. I'm just not sure end users are clamoring for more photo-realism. Instead, future of computing turns toward optimizing for the experience. With 3D printed form factors and smart haptics. European startup Canatu provides a glimpse of what carbon nano tube (CNT) sheets make possible: [https://canatu.com/](https://canatu.com/) ~~~ the8472 Now it's time for display technology to catch up. Once things like light fields roll around those 4k will seem laughable. > I'm just not sure end users are clamoring for more photo-realism. People are definitely making fun of characters looking waxy, fire effects looking cheap, shadows being pixelated etc. Plus this is just the first generation of realtime raytracing. It's not like the entire scenes will be raytraced, just some parts will be raytracing- assisted, e.g. lighting. The next generations will most likely enable a higher percentage of the scenes being based on tracing. ------ snaky > And Intel, he said “is trying to make all the bets,” marketing traditional > CPUs for machine learning, purchasing Altera (the company that provides > FPGAs to Microsoft), and buying Nervana with it specialized neural network > processor (similar in approach to Google’s TPU). Actually Intel has even wider view of the things and interest to non-(yet?)-mainstream tech, like e.g. async circuit design. They has bought Achronix, Fulcrum, Timeless Design Automation. Fulcrum in 2002 made things like "a fully asynchronous crossbar switch chip that achieves 260-Gbit/second cross-section bandwidth in a standard 180-nanometer CMOS process" \- [https://www.eetimes.com/document.asp?doc_id=1145012](https://www.eetimes.com/document.asp?doc_id=1145012) ------ zvrba > "When performance doubled every 18 months, people would throw out their > desktop computers that were working fine because a friend’s new computer was > so much faster." So we have finally reached some sustainability. Good. ~~~ mehrdadn People still have to throw their computers out because other hardware still advances, software also advances, and companies decide not to support older hardware in their new software. The wastefulness really doesn't end. ~~~ earenndil They don't have to throw them out as often, though. ~~~ mehrdadn ionno... did people actually throw out their computers more often before? I'm honestly skeptical that people threw out their computers every 18 months just because their friend had a faster computer as was claimed here. I feel like people are very quick to buy new computers now. And not just that, but now we're having this problem with phones too. ------ dschuetz While I agree with Patterson, I'd be careful with the expectations though. Computational engineering is _highest_ tech. Whatever purpose, whatever specialization, processors are the central domain in modern technology and engineering. It would still take decades to find a feasible approach to make new architectures work (in silicon). But I agree that it is an exciting time, I want to see new clever architectures emerging, competing and be used for different purposes. ------ j45 Most languages in use today have had to extend from their core to the web, or mobile through a framework. On the other hand, web or mobile first frameworks/platforms, are often high level, and have been a little ornery when digging into the weeds. Our paradigm has shifted from desktop-first, to web-first, to mobile-first a while ago, but our frameworks are still often anchored from a desktop-first world perspective. If there's examples that do, or do not highlight this, would love to see and discuss :) ------ tokyodude Not a new language, maybe not even a new idea but Unity's new Entity Component System.is designed around making cache friendly parallelizable coding easy [https://github.com/Unity- Technologies/EntityComponentSystemS...](https://github.com/Unity- Technologies/EntityComponentSystemSamples/blob/master/Documentation/index.md) ------ bcheung It seems like hardware is moving away from RISC and even CISC architectures in favor of lots of different types of silicon for specialized applications (GPU, machine learning, vision, DSP, hashing, encryption, SIMD). It makes sense from a hardware perspective but it seems software development is not keeping pace. General purpose languages have trouble targeting this kind of hardware. ~~~ calebh This sounds good, as a person who specializes in domain specific languages. Maybe we'll see higher demand and corresponding salary increases... ------ breckuh > We are now a factor of 15 behind where we should be if Moore’s Law were > still operative. We are in the post-Moore’s Law era. Is this true? According to [https://ourworldindata.org/technological- progress](https://ourworldindata.org/technological-progress) it looks like we are maybe a factor of 2 or 4 off. ------ eveningcoffee I think that we well see more and more specialized silicon like has been used for mining and training. This hardware is orders of magnitude faster than conventional CPU. Another point is that processors are already now incredibly fast and the performance is caped by the peripherals. This is were the huge potential is hiding for some time. ~~~ astrodust Better FPGA could bridge the gap between ASIC and software. FPGA chips are still almost exclusively niche products, but if they became mainstream like GPUs the economy of scale kicks in and it's a whole different game. ------ bogomipz The article states: >"Google has its Tensor Processing Unit (TPU), with one core per chip and software-controlled memory instead of caches" Is have heard of software-controlled caches before but I am imagining this is not the same thing? Could someone say? Might anyone have any decent resources on software-controlled memory architectures? ------ nuguy This is a question of computer science but more a question of economics. Computer systems will drop their own compassing solutions for more specific solutions as time goes forward. ------ graycat IMHO, stochastic optimal (SOC) control is a framework that is much more powerful than anything like current artificial intelligence, machine learning, deep learning, etc. and, in particular, a much better version of something like actual learning. The difference is like going from gnats to elephants, like a bicycle to the star ship Enterprise. A good application of SOC looks not just "intelligent" but wise, prudent, brilliant, and prescient. There have been claims that necessarily SOC is the most powerful version of learning there can be -- a bit much but ... maybe. For computing architectures, the computing that SOC can soak up makes the computing needs of current deep learning look like counting on fingers in kindergarten. The subject is no joke and goes back to E. Dynkin (student of Kolmogorov and Gel'fand), D. Bertsekas (used neural nets for approximations for some of the huge tables of data), R. Rockafellar (e.g., scenario aggregation), and, sure, R. Bellman. Some of the pure math is tricky, e.g., measurable selection. I did my Ph.D. dissertation in SOC and there actually made the computing reasonable, e.g., wrote and ran the software -- ran in a few minutes, with my progress in algorithms down from an estimate of 64 years. For larger problems, can be back to taking over all of Amazon for 64 years. More algorithmic progress is possible, and, then, some specialized hardware should also help, sure, by factors of 10; right, we want lots of factors of 10. If want to think ambitious computing, past Moore's law, past anything like current AI, with special purpose hardware, go for SOC. SOC Applications 101. For your company, do financial planning for the next 50 years, 60 months. So, set up a spreadsheet with one column for each month, one column for the current state of the company and then 60 more columns. Goal is, say, to maximize the expected value of something, maybe the value of the company, in the last column, right, with control over the probability of going broke, if a bank always be able to meet reserve requirements and pass stress tests; if a property-casuality insurance company, stay in business after hurricane Florence, etc. For each variable of interest, have a row. In the cells, put in the usual expressions in terms of the values of cells in earlier columns. Also have some cells with random numbers -- the stochastic part. Also have some cells empty for the business decisions, the _control_ part. This is the 101 version; the 201 version has more detail! Can't get the solution with just the usual spreadsheet _recalc_ because the best solution is _optimal_ and varies through the 60 months as more information is gathered -- and that is the core of the need for more in algorithms and taking over all of Amazon for the computing. Really, the work comes too close to looking at all possible business state scenarios over the 60 months yet still is astronomically faster than direct or naive ways to do this. Or, a little like football, don't call the play on 2nd down until see the results of the play on 1st down, BUT the play called on 1st down was _optimal_ considering the options for the later downs and plays. The optimality achieved is strict, the best possible, not merely heuristic: No means of making the decisions using only information available when the decisions are made can do better (proved in my dissertation). Intel, AMD, Qualcomm, DARPA, NSF, Microsoft, etc., think SOC!!! You just heard it here -- I might not bother to tell you again. ~~~ ssvss What book would you recommend to know more about SOC? ~~~ graycat Start with books on dynamic programming, discrete time, discrete space space, no uncertainty. There's a nice one by Dreyfus and Law, _The Art and Theory of Dynamic Programming_ that also gets into the stochastic case. It's called _dynamic programming_ because the _program_ , that is, the planning, changes _dynamically_ over time as learn more and more as time passes. D&L show a nice result that could be used for some first cut approximations: If are minimizing a quadratic cost, if the algebraic expressions in that spreadsheet I mentioned are all linear, and if the randomness is all just Gaussian, then get "certainty equivalence" \-- that is, get to f'get about the Gaussian, random, stochastic part and use just the expectations themselves. Huge speedup. For more, there is Dynkin and Yushkevich, _Controlled Markov Processes_ \-- one of the key assumptions that permits treating the spreadsheet columns one at a time is that the stochastic part obeys a Markov assumption (the past and future are conditionally independent given the present). There is, from MIT and CMU, Dimitri P. Bertsekas and Steven E. Shreve, _Stochastic Optimal Control: The Discrete Time Case_. And there is Wendell H. Fleming and Raymond W. Rishel, _Deterministic and Stochastic Optimal Control_. There are papers by R. Rockafellar, long at U. Washington. There is now an ambitious program at Princeton in the department of Operations Research and Financial Engineering. I tried to get IBM's Watson lab interested; by now they would have been nicely ahead. The guys I was working for wanted me to do software architecture for the OSI/ISO CMIS/P data standards. Garbage direction. A really big mistake for Big Blue, not so big now. One of the reasons for IBM to have done SOC was that they had some vector hardware instructions, that is, that would do an inner product, that is, for positive integer n, given arrays A and B, each of length n, find the sum, i = 1, 2, ..., n of A(i)B(i). Well inevitably work in probability does a LOT of this. So, if thinking about hardware instructions for SOC, such a vector instruction would be one of the first features. Then maybe more for neural net approximations to some big tables of several dimensions, e.g., computer language _arrays_ A(m, n, p, q) for 4 dimensions but in practice several more. And multivariate splines can play a role. Commonly can get some nice gains by finding _non-inferior_ points -- so will want some fast ways to work with those. The software for my dissertation did that; got a speedup of maybe 100:1; on large problems, commonly could get much more. There is some _compiling_ that can get some big gains -- some of the big gains I got were from just my doing the _compiling_ by hand, but what I did could be a feature in a compiler -- there's likely still a stream of publications there if anyone is interested in publications (my interests are in business, the money making kind, now my startup). There is a cute trick if, say, all the spreadsheet column logic is the same -- can "double up on number of stages". There are lots of speedup techniques known. A big theme will be various approximations. If there's an opportunity to exploit sufficient statistics, then that could yield big speedups and shouldn't be missed. Having the compiling, sufficient statistics, and non-inferior exploitation all work together could yield big gains -- that should all be compiled. Get some papers out of that! No doubt similarly for other speedups. There's lots to be done. ~~~ patrickg_zill Curious if you have evaluated any of the APL family of languages as being useful for your work. ~~~ graycat Looked at APL long ago. My guess is that since it is interpretive it would be too slow. I wrote my dissertation code in just quite portable Fortran. As I suggested, I do believe that some progress in execution time could be had from some new machine instructions, new language features to use those instructions, and some _compiling_ help. For the compiling part, the language would have some well defined semantics the compiler could exploit. E.g., for something simple, the semantics could let the compiler exploit the idea of non-inferior sets. E.g., say have 100,000 points in 2-space. Say, just for intuitive visualization, plot them on a standard X-Y coordinate system. Say that the X coordinate is time and the Y direction is fuel. Part of the work is to minimize the cost of time and fuel. At this point in the computation, we don't know how the costs of time and fuel trade off, but we do know that with time held constant, less fuel saves cost, and with fuel held constant, less time saves cost. So, in the plot of the 100,000 options, we look at the lower left, that is, the south-west parts of the 100,000 points. Point (X2,Y2) is _inferior_ to point (X1,Y1) if X1 <= X2 and Y1 <= Y2. That is, point (X2,Y2) is just equal to point (X1,Y1) or is to the upper right, north east of (X1,Y1). If point (X1,Y1) is not inferior to any other of the 100,000 points, then point (X1,Y1) is _non-inferior_. So, there in the work, can just discard and ignore all the inferior points and work only with the non-inferior points. May have only 100 non-inferior points. Then, presto, bingo, just saved a factor of 1000 in the work. Okay, have sufficiently restricted programming language semantics that the compiler could figure out all that and take advantage of it. When I wrote my code in Fortran, I had to write and call a subroutine to find the non-inferior points -- bummer, that work should be automated in the compiler, but to do that the compiler will need some help from some semantic guarantees. The above is for just two dimensions, but in practice might have a dozen or more. So, what's the fast way with algorithms, programming language semantics, and hardware to find the non-inferior points for a dozen dimensions? Non-inferior points are simple -- lots more is possible. ------ person_of_color Any suggestions for MS in CompArch? ------ ilaksh Does David Patterson know that Cython already exists? ------ StillBored How about instead of inventing new languages we just pick a couple and tell people that if care at all about performance not to use the rest. I would start by throwing away all the interpreted/GC'ed languages because even after decades of massive effort they are frequently lucky if they even manage to keep up with unoptimized C.. But that really isn't the problem, the problem is that they cannot be debugged for performance without directly hacking the GC/interpreter. At least in C when you discover your data structures are being trashed by insufficient cache associativity (for example), you can actually fix the code. Put another way, up front people need to know that if they write in python/Java/etc to save themselves a bit of engineering effort and its anything more than throwaway low volume code, the effort to optimize or rewrite it will dwarf any savings they might have gotten by choosing python. ~~~ ychen306 We need new languages; at the very least new ways to approach to optimization. We are at the point where even C doesn't give you the performance you want -- that's why people invented things like Halide, XLA (Tensorflow), etc. ~~~ StillBored There are a ton of domain specific languages (SQL, GLSL, etc), and I don't have a problem with those, they have a place. The problem is that we already have too many languages trying to be generic, and languages like C++, and openMP can be wrangled into nearly any programming paradigm in common use and the results tend to also be significantly faster. If your talking about performance, the minimum baseline requirement should be running faster than a language in common use, say C++. There are a few languages that might take this (Cuda/OpenCL) but they also tend to be somewhat domain specific. Similarly verilog/VHDL can produce fast results. There have been calls for languages that can express parallelism better and are both expressive, and safe for decades. But what we have actually gotten haven't been better in most objective measures. What we have gotten are a pile of "scripting like" languages with very similar characteristics (tcl, ruby, perl, python, javascript, PHP, lua, go, applescript, etc).	{ "pile_set_name": "HackerNews" }
Show HN: Tax, CLI Task List Manager - netgusto https://github.com/netgusto/tax ====== netgusto I coded this as I needed a simple tool to help keep track of my things to do. The hard requirements were: * command line operated * keep state in a standard markdown file * display the current task in my shell prompt and tmux status to help me focus :) I chose to do it with Rust as I felt this could be a nice project to learn the language. Maybe this can be useful to someone else! Also, Rustaceans out there, I welcome your code reviews to help me grow into Rust!	{ "pile_set_name": "HackerNews" }
Microsoft Releases 125M Building Footprints in the US as Open Data - seshagiric https://blogs.bing.com/maps/2018-06/microsoft-releases-125-million-building-footprints-in-the-us-as-open-data?PC=EMMX01 ====== rmc Microsoft has allowed the OSM community to trace from Bing aerial imagery for almost 10 years now. That's been a massive benefit to OSM, way more than this dump of buildings. They should be congratulated and thanked for that contribution. ~~~ Krasnol Why do you assume anyone using this data is not thankful? ~~~ Jonnax Because consumers of the data may not know. ~~~ Krasnol I'm sure consumers doesn't know my input there too but I don't care much. I mean...what do you expect? A banner? Money? Those who entered the data from their browser and directly used the bing data do know and I'm sure they appreciate it. ------ doikor I don't understand why this is needed. Here in Finland the government just gave this info out for free to anyone (CC 4.0). They have all the information anyway because they have need for it due to planning/building permits, defense, etc. The data is very accurate (for example I can zoom into my parents cottage and see the out house on it). Later on they used laser scanning from planes to scan the whole country for very accurate topological map too. The moment this information was released for free both OSM and Google Maps quality jumped a notch or two. Before this google maps only had roads but now it has small foot paths etc too. [https://www.maanmittauslaitos.fi/en/e-services/open-data- fil...](https://www.maanmittauslaitos.fi/en/e-services/open-data-file- download-service) ~~~ rcdmd The USA is about 30x Finland's size by landarea and building data is primarily stored at the county or equivalent level of government (3000 of those). Imagine munging data from 3000 different counties, each with their own standards and systems of recording. ~~~ endorphone It should be trivial. It should be standardized. It is absolutely bizarre that we need to rely upon commercial companies to map things like streets and buildings when this is very accurately tracked by government. In an ideal world OSM data grids could be delegated to the appropriate governments, where it could have perfect precision with changes, street closures, one ways, redirects, etc. ~~~ reaperducer _It should be trivial. It should be standardized._ Your use of the word "trivial" indicates you've never worked on complex GIS systems. Whether it should be standardized is a matter of debate. Currently, each county or state or municipality uses the software and standard that suits its needs, and more importantly -- it's budget. The GIS needs of New York City are not the same as the GIS needs of Saint George, Utah. Saint George doesn't need skyscraper functions, and New York doesn't want to measure airports on top of mesas. The real world is messy, and so is pretty much every single GIS deployment. The real world doesn't digitize well. ~~~ endorphone "Whether it should be standardized is a matter of debate." In the same way that vaccines are `debatable'. To export an accurate, up to date model of roads (and road data) and optionally building layouts should absolutely be the norm. Nor does a standardized export format necessitate using a single uniform GIS solution, of which I've had to inter-operate with a number. The real world digitizes spectacularly well, a lot of people just make poor choices and make excuses (or worse, buy nonsensical excuses) for not helping in getting there. ~~~ reaperducer _The real world digitizes spectacularly well_ No, it doesn't. If it did, then the surveying industry would be out of business. Yet every time a building is permitted in the United States, surveys are done. Here's an example for a recent project surveyed in Chicago just this year: West Roosevelt Road; South Clark Street; a line beginning at a point 116 feet north of vacated West 16″‘ Street as measured along the west line of South Clark Street that is westerly 135.20 feet along the arc of a circle having a radius of 375.00 feet concave northerly and whose chord bears north 79 degrees 49 minutes 52 seconds west a distance of 135.20 feet; a line north 69 degrees 46 minutes 04 seconds west a distance of 101.85 feet; a line north 69 degrees 49 minutes 57 seconds west a distance of 26.00 feet; a line along the arc of a circle having a radius of 407.80 feet concave southerly and whose chord bears north 75 degrees 52 minutes 04 seconds west a distance of 85.51 feet a distance of westerly 85.67 feet; a line north 83 degrees 47 minutes 05 seconds west a distance of 164.45 feet; a line north 69 degrees 43 minutes 24 seconds west a distance of 25.16 feet; a line north 43 degrees 07 minutes 24 seconds west a distance of 31.91 feet to a point on the easterly dock line of the former South Branch of the Chicago River; a line south 46 degrees 47 minutes 47 seconds west along the easterly dock line of the former South Branch of the Chicago River a distance of 73.33 feet; a line south 89 degrees 54 minutes 55 seconds west a distance of 32.69 feet; a line south 49 degrees 36 minutes 35 seconds a distance of 46.38 feet; a line north 89 degrees 54 minutes 55 seconds east a distance of 296.25 feet; a line easterly along the arc of a circle having a radius of 375.00 feet concave southerly and whose chord bears south 78 degrees 32 minutes 39 seconds east a distance of 109.97 feet for a distance of 110.36 feet; a line south 69 degrees 46 minutes 04 seconds east a distance o f 136.90 feet; a line easterly along the arc of a circle having a radius of 391.00 feet concave northerly and whose chord bears south 79 degrees 33 minutes 50 seconds east a distance of 135.64 feet for a distance of 136.33 feet; South Clark Street; vacated West 16″‘ Street; a line 155.40 feet west of and parallel to South Clark Street; the north line of vacated West 16″” Street; and the South Branch of the Chicago River Digitize that. Source: [https://www.chicagoarchitecture.org/2018/05/29/everything- th...](https://www.chicagoarchitecture.org/2018/05/29/everything-there-is-to- know-so-far-about-the-78-in-chicagos-south-loop/) ~~~ endorphone You have this somewhat backwards. Cities have loads of data that define property lines. They could keep it on paper, but more and more they keep it in computers now. Surveyors take that digital data and convert it into its precise real world marks. This has literally _nothing_ to do with whether the real world digitizes well, and if really stretched only proves that it certainly does because that's the entire basis of property grants. Further, pointing out a massive civic project in the middle of a large city as some sort of counterpoint, when it is in reality still not that complex at all, doesn't make your case. ------ kerng >>The CNTK toolkit developed by Microsoft is open source and available on GitHub as well. The ResNet3 model is open source and available on GitHub. Our Bing Maps computer vision team will be presenting this work at the annual International State of the Map conference in Milan, Italy Nice! ------ TekMol I wonder if I ever heard about Microsoft Maps before. What is the state of it? Who uses it? So I tried www.bing.com/maps. The first thing that surprises me is that it tries to set 5 cookies from google.com and one from www.google.com What is the reason for Microsoft to allow Google to track everybody who uses their maps? ~~~ lucb1e > What is the state of it? Who uses it? In the Netherlands the businesses (shops, restaurants, and general businesses) are more complete than OpenStreetMap, but not as complete as Google because everyone sees Google as the de facto standard and they push owners to add their info in the de facto Google search. Bing Maps is fast and responsive (unlike Google Maps on anything other than their own, proprietary platforms such as Google Chrome, the Google Maps app, or Google Earth), and has aerial imagery and traffic info (unlike OSM). Bonus game: turn off labels on satellite view, zoom out to world view, and try to find your house or other places. Surprisingly hard! ------ jakobegger When I read the part about downloading the dataset from Github, my first reaction was "Can't Microsoft afford to host downloads themselves?", and then I realized they own Github now... ~~~ jmspring Seriously, the two aren’t related. Microsoft has had public projects on Github for a couple of years now with more important projects being made public regularly. Downvoted because the cynicism and not paying attention. ------ justinclift Out of curiosity, I wonder if this data dump includes "sensitive" buildings? eg things that would generally be blurred/missing/etc on OSM for various reasons. ~~~ maxerickson If it is visible in the imagery they analyzed it wouldn't be intentionally left out of OSM without some superseding information that it didn't exist anymore. ~~~ justinclift Makes sense, thanks. :) ------ kozikow If anyone is interested in that type of data, our startup ([https://tensorflight.com](https://tensorflight.com)) extracts information like footprints and 10 other property factors for insurance (including bing imagery). More info: [https://tensorflight.com/catalogue#Objects-supported-by- Tens...](https://tensorflight.com/catalogue#Objects-supported-by-TensorFlight) . ~~~ jollivier Hey ! I'll look into it with a lot of interest. Your catalog link is not very obvious in your navigation (only in text corpus). You could make it more visible in the orange bottom navbar? Cheers ------ davidmurdoch This is pretty great! This data is usually locked up in individual scraper- unfriendly county websites, sometimes behind a paywall, sometimes only by person, or even only by mail. And the data is often limited to parcel geometry, not building footprints. The other option is to use 3rd party services to purchase or lease the data. This data can cost hundreds of thousands of dollars for the entire US dataset.	{ "pile_set_name": "HackerNews" }
Ask YC: Is the Bay Area Much Better than Seattle for Startups? - arooni Long time reader, first time poster. Thanks in advance for reading this post and extra thanks if you can reply with your thoughts. <p>I'm working full time in a software company in Seattle area and will be leaving soon to work full-time on my startup. (I already have already released a prototype of my product). I'm tempted to stay in Seattle as I love it here... but my startup is my first priority, and I'm prepared to move anywhere in the world if it means I'll have a significantly higher probability of success. Finally, I'm a single founder and potentially looking for a technical co-founder... so <i>where</i> I can find this person factors in to the decision as well. <p>Questions for you: 1) For those of you who have lived in Seattle & San Francisco, how much better is SF for startups than Seattle? How do you quantify this? 2) I have a quick list of pros/cons to Seattle vs. SF below... can folks provide feedback on whether this analysis makes sense? 3) Any other thoughts on whether I should make the move or not? 4) Where is better for finding like minded entrepreneurial hackers? <p>Pro/Con for Seattle vs. SF Seattle Pros: lower cost of living, closer access to outdoors & mountains etc..., lower cost of rent for offices, lower legal costs, less competition for top quality talent than SF (there are fewer startups in Seattle so people who want to work at them have fewer choices on where to go), monthly startup events have on the order of ~50 people or so, rains often so you're more likely to sit inside coding than going outside Cons: rains a lot :P<p>SF Pros: epicenter of startups, monthly startup events (SFBeta etc..) have on the order of ~100 people, huge talent pool of highly skilled engineers, more likely to find technical co-founder, more startup events, more access to capital, closer to family SF Cons: higher cost of living, higher cost of rent, higher cost of services (leagal etc..), harder to get top quality talent (you're competing with hundreds of startups), more competition for capital<p>PS: I have already read PG's essays and read the YCNews forums on where to be for a tech startup. I've also recently read Marc Andreessen's post on where your startup should be (he reccomends moving to the Valley). Finally, I have a friend who recently quit Google to work on his startup full time in the Bay Area and he extols the advantages of the location. ====== webwright Noooooo, don't leave Seattle! <grin> Why exactly wouldn't you apply for YC funding? Would get you rice and beans money and 3 month trip to startup school in CA... If you get selected, of course. It sounds like your core unmet need is a technical co-founder. If finding a technical co-founder is your highest priority, you should be able to find one in Seattle. Every event I go to I meet scads of "I work at Amazon/MS ad I'm just seeing what's out there" type of coders. How many of those have you talked to? Why aren't they jumping on board? Like any other marketing, if you aren't getting a ton of nibbles with smaller audience (Seattle), expanding to a larger audience might not be the answer. It might be smart to address your idea or how you're pitching it. All that being said, SF looks pretty cool. :-) ------ iamelgringo I moved to the Bay area for my Day job (ER nurse) while I complete my CS degree. Even as an ER nurse, 2-3 nurses that I work with are married to either VC's or angel investors. One of our volunteers at the ER where I work is an executive assistant for a VC. Several other nurses are married to engineers who work for Yahoo, Google, etc... She's offered to put me into contact with whoever I want to in the VC world. I'm not ready for it yet, but I can imagine that she could arrange an introduction or two. It's hard to avoid networking opportunities here. And, there is an acceptance even among the non-tech people that Startups are the place to be. It's the cultural norm to start a business here. I've lived in Minneapolis, Chicago, outside of Boston, LA and now the Bay area. Every city is good at certain things. Tech and startups are what the Bay does, and we do it well. ------ dzohrob i can't say whether you should move to SF or not, but i can tell you my experiences. i've lived in both seattle and san francisco, and currently live in SF. though i was more involved with the corporate scene than the startup scene in seattle, the vibe is entirely different down here. startups live here. you meet tons of smart people working on cool stuff. it's a great place to be. competition ends up being a good thing -- as LA is to many of the best (and wannabe-best) people in the entertainment industry, so SF is to the nerd industry. even though it can be a bummer sometimes to be coding when the weather is beautiful outside (as it is now), i find the overall environment more stimulating -- intellectually, culturally, geek-ally. there are also plenty of outdoorsy things to do very nearby in marin and the east bay, though not quite as close as the options in seattle. the only thing i miss is a lower rent and the seattle music scene. though i can't tell you whether moving will make or break your startup, SF can be a very wonderful place to live (and work). ------ falsestprophet In short, no. As far as I can tell the Silicon Valley offers value most to a very specific sort of start up. If you don't need to raise a lot of capital or require a large team of very gifted engineers (which probably requires a great deal of capital anyway), then I don't think the Valley is as valuable to you. That said, I think being connected to the important people in the industry may help your cause immensely. Perhaps spending the winter with YCombinator would accomplish that (as far as I can tell Mr. Graham is pretty important). You also need to consider how much you value your home against the value you would bring your career. For me, moving away for a decade or two is a big deal. No worries, I think there are a lot of good businesses that can be established by a few smart developers hacking away for a while, then launching and picking up angel funding as or if needed. I have a myriad schemes and I found that those criteria helped me cull the ten thousand to ten I am comfortable with and confident in. It is easier to make a million dollars after a hundred thousand and a billion after a million. Don't get ahead of yourself. ~~~ thomasptacek My perception, from experience, is that it's actually harder to hire in the Bay Area than, well, anywhere else. Anyone with a modicum of talent that you interview in Sunnyvale can pull a $130k/yr job out of their back pocket, and the BigCo alternatives in the valley are actually pretty spectacular. If you need a large team of very gifted engineers, start in a college town that isn't Palo Alto or Berkeley. ~~~ anamax I don't understand why lucrative alternatives are an obstacle. That $130k/year makes trying a startup less risky. It gave them an opportunity to save so they can live off savings. It also means that they can recover quickly from any debt they incur. It also establishes a benchmark for a startup's value creation. If early employees can't reasonably believe that they're going to get significantly more than $130k for their efforts, either the idea/execution is too small or the founders may not play well with others, which causes other problems leading to failure. ~~~ thomasptacek You're making a lot of sense; I'm just saying, my experience was that it was harder to hire in the Bay Area than it has been for me to hire in NYC or Chicago, where I hire now. It's also obvious that developers are more expensive to hire anybody in San Francisco than in Des Moines or Minneapolis. Also, please note the bias towards founders in these discussions. A tiny team of founders is a good start, but you eventually need actual employees. ~~~ anamax There are lots of places where it's very easy to hire but that hiring ease comes from factors that reduce the success rate. Does harder hiring in the SF Bay Area hurt or does it merely help weed out things that don't have a chance for some other reason? As far as later stage employees go, successful silicon valley companies go elsewhere for what they can get elsewhere. I think that you should start where you think that you have the best chance of success. I don't think that "harder to hire" or "more expensive" captures sufficient detail, but it's your company, so that's your call. ~~~ thomasptacek I think you should ask questions of the conventional wisdom. The conventional wisdom says one of the reasons to move a company to the Bay Area is that it's easier to hire developers. You should question whether that's really true. I gave some reasons why I think it might not be, and cited my experience. I don't think it's true. But you make the call. Also, careful with words like "later stage". You're "later stage" as soon as you hire the first person who isn't getting a founder's stake in the company. For us, that was weeks, not months, after the birth of our company. ~~~ anamax That's odd. I see founders, early, and maybe another round of folks before "later". To me, "later" isn't until the biz is well beyond self-sustaining, when there's very little risk of failure. ~~~ thomasptacek I understand, and am not arguing with you. Whatever you want to call them, that "second round of folks before later" is harder to hire than the founders. They're employees, not principals, and you can't bullshit them. ~~~ anamax "Can't bullshit" sounds like a good thing. I'm not disputing harder to hire, I'm asking whether harder to hire is a negative or a useful indicator. ~~~ thomasptacek If, holding talent constant, a developer costs $100k in the bay and $65k in Ann Arbor, Michigan, then Ann Arbor startups have a pronounced recruitment advantage. That's all I'm saying. The conventional wisdom is, "go to the Bay Area, it'll be much easier to find smart developers." It is, in fact, very easy to find smart developers in the Bay Area. Unfortunately, they work for Google. ------ myoung8 I'm assuming you attend Seattle Tech Startups at the library every month (if you don't, you should, you've got a pretty good chance of finding a co-founder there). Having lived in both places, I would personally rather start a company in the Bay Area all things considered. ~~~ arooni Yes I do attend the event most months. It's a great group... many thanks to Gaurav setting it up, and folks like Tony for coming and speaking. ------ dedalus there's a good reason for bay area to be that expensive (quoting your stuff, higher rent,higher competition,etc) and if you are in doubt simply follow the money. not that you cannot do what you wanna do in seattle, I have lived in SF and now in Cambridge. I can simply tell you the vibe is far far better and you get stimulated to take risk when you see people around you taking far more risks (in seattle you are more likely to encounter people who say job is fine, buy house,have kids,etc). So yeah! my vote, move to the bay and be pleasantly surprised by what it offers ------ indie01 There was an article in Business 2.0 Magazine awhile ago titled: "Escape from Silicon Valley". OK, I just found it for you: [http://money.cnn.com/magazines/business2/business2_archive/2...](http://money.cnn.com/magazines/business2/business2_archive/2004/12/01/8192509/index.htm) Although it discusses the pros and cons of big city vs. little towns for start-ups, it also touches upon a variety of factors which seem to be relevant to your question. I started my startup in a tiny place (Flagstaff, AZ) thinking I could make it work there. It almost did, but the reality is that there are numerous benefits to be had not necessarily from _living_ here (SF), but from having the contacts and network of people in this area; living here just happens to be one of the best ways to get it. I lived in Portland, OR for awhile, and visited Seattle a few times. I seem to remember something about abnormally high depression and suicide rates being cited for residents of Seattle . . . also, isn't Seattle one of the few places that has had cost of living increasing significantly / deviating from the norm? Not to knock Seattle (hey, hey -- no income tax in WA state), but the success of a startup I imagine would be correlated to happiness of its founders/employees. Anyway. One of the things that I think makes this area such a hub of successful startups is that people here truly believe they're going to change the world. And, a lot of them end up doing just that. :) ------ dohsinbebe more SEA PROs: 1) No state income tax 2) Very Green/Environmentally Friendly (until Seattle gets overcrowded) 3) Perfect Summers (beats anywhere in the country) more SEA CONs: 1) It does not RAIN a lot. It drizzles a lot, but recent studies in the last decade have shown that Seattle's average rainfall in the given year is ranks like 46th outta 50 US states. So if you don't mind daily drizzle, then ya fine. 2) SEATAC airport is not a major hub, so expect inconvenience and pricier tickets if flying to most major cities around the continental US. Although you can make arguments on the pro's/con's of any given city. Seattle makes more sense in that its lower overheard for your startup. When you hit it mega-big, then you can live in both areas and fly daily for lunch in SF and dinner in SEA. ------ pg The "less competition for talent" argument doesn't seem to matter in practice, probably because the first 10 people you hire always (or always should) come through personal connections. ------ nextmoveone Why not develop a prototype or beta at home, then after you've got something working go to the Bay and start from there! ~~~ arooni Great call... I actually already have a prototype of the product built... now it's about improving it and selling/marketing it. ~~~ gibsonf1 Ahh, then its time to move to San Francisco :) I lived in Seattle in 1995 starting in August and was able to survive there only until February - the lack of sunshine was far too depressing for me to cope with. At the time, I helped start an architecture office (HOK) specifically to build part of the expanding Microsoft Campus (I was completely impressed with the MS real estate management pros). So I can only answer based on quality of life, and San Francisco (for me) wins hands down. We also have nature here just a short bike ride away (crossing the GG bridge) and we have world-class skiing about 3 hours away. The cultural scene here is extremely rich compared to Seattle. There are also deals to be had in office space (I pay $1 per s.f. per month) but you have to look (I found mine on Craigs List). ------ mynameishere If you _love_ it, then of course stay there. Geez, stupid question. ------ steveplace Well, if I were to get fully involved in a startup, I'd love to stay south of the Mason-Dixon (Florida). It's nice to be able to not wear a coat from March to November. ------ iamyoohoo you've listed pros and cons - but you have to prioritize yourself. So what's more important to you - a co-founder or less rent and so on... are you certain you cannot find those things you think are important in seattle ?	{ "pile_set_name": "HackerNews" }
Amazon pulled an Apple on the smart home - imartin2k https://staceyoniot.com/amazon-just-pulled-an-apple-on-the-smart-home/ ====== Tloewald If there’s one thing Apple did, with Steve Jobs, other than build fantastic user experience out of mature but unapproachable technologies, it was communicating the fact that it had done so. Not only has Amazon failed to do this, the writer has as well. I think it’s pretty cool that, in theory, I could say “Alexa, turn on the oven to 450” and it would (a) turn the correct device to the correct setting and (b) remind me when it was ready (or if it’s being super duper smart, tell me that it was 2 mins or so away from being ready) so that I could stagger over to the kitchen, pull a pizza out of the fridge or freezer, unwrap it, and stick it in the oven. All I need to do is have a bunch of speakers bugging my home, a new oven, ideally probably not two new ovens or not a new oven and a new toaster oven because god knows what will happen, and all this stuff networked. Or I can walk over to the oven, turn it to 450, and say “Hey Siri, set timer for ten minutes” and wander off. When my wrist buzzes, I go stick a pizza in the oven and I say, “Hey Siri, set timer for thirteen minutes” and go do stuff. I don’t need a new oven. I don’t need to worry that I’ll pick the wrong oven. I’m not inviting Amazon to parse all my conversations. I don’t need to learn a new magic phrase. Oh and imagine the hilarity when you try to sell or rent your house and the internet gets turned off. We had a smart sprinkler system which, when we sold the house, we essentially had to rip out because it was easier to install a conventional replacement than figure out how to talk to it without an active WiFi. ~~~ WalterBright I'd never allow the internet to turn on my oven. ~~~ slantyyz I'm with you on that, but what I would want is the ability to know is the _status_ of my oven. My wife and I are always (excessively) concerned with whether we left our gas stove on/off, the doors are locked and that the garage door is closed. For that stuff, I'd be willing to pay for the ability to check on that stuff that worries me. Having said that though, knowing that you left your stove on and not having the ability to turn it off would probably be kind of pointless. ~~~ WalterBright Suffering from that issue myself, one thing that helps is a checklist, and go through that when you leave. Another way is to unplug them, because then one remembers doing that. Ovens can also suffer failures where the gas is turned on, but it fails to ignite. This is no issue when you're there and notice the gas smell and the burners not going on. If you're not there, the house fills with gas and explodes. ~~~ slantyyz We do the checklist thing, and I find it helps to say stuff out loud while you're going through it. Fortunately, our range is a "dual fuel" stove, which means the oven is electric but the stove burners are gas. Having said that, stuff being left on is still a concern irrespective of whether a burner is electric or gas. ~~~ joshvm Verbal checklists are extremely effective. It's why flying is incredibly safe, and they're also used in some operating theatres (see the Checklist Manifest). Works even better with two people as you're forced to cross-check every item. It's important to keep it a sane length and at a suitably high level, otherwise users have a tendency to skip items that are "obvious". ------ patryn20 While I'm aware anecdote is not the same as data, I really feel that the smart home experience vis-a-vis Alexa is getting worse. It no longer recognizes simple voice commands. Third party integrations constantly need to be reset ("I'm sorry, I can't find that." or "If you want to use SiriusXM, please open Alexa on your phone."). Randomly swaps responses between devices across the house whereas it would always respond with the nearest device in the past. Etc. Etc. Etc. It's the same sort of things that keeps happening with maps programs, smartphones, and basically any modern tech with software updates. No one can leave well enough alone. They have to put their fingerprints on it in order to advance their careers, so everyone mucks around and breaks things and calls it an improvement. Frankly I'm just tired of expensive devices getting worse with every single software update. ~~~ billforsternz Pointless updates really are a scourge of modern tech. I wish there was some googleable concept to focus and unite user rage. I don't think the culprits even recognize there's a problem. ~~~ wildrhythms I've been thinking about this a lot recently. Do you think these kinds of 'updates' belong in the category of feature creep, or do they deserve some new category? ~~~ billforsternz I was more thinking about updates that don't actually advertise their purpose - no new features at all (unless you do some forensic analysis I suppose). So that can't be feature creep on the surface. But no doubt it would be possible to define a whole taxonomy within the class of 'updates considered harmful' that includes feature creep updates. I must admit the ones that really get to me are Windows updates that for some reason best known to the devil himself seem to be postponed until I actually need to use the computer. Or those ones where you've just done a fresh install (say) only for the system to proudly announce that it's downloading updates, then installing updates, then working on updates, then (finally) announcing it needs to reboot (okay) and then just when you think maybe it's time you can use the system - no - checking for updates - and finding new ones! Just kill me please. ~~~ mrsteveman1 > I must admit the ones that really get to me are Windows updates that for > some reason best known to the devil himself seem to be postponed until I > actually need to use the computer. This is the one thing that's becoming _really_ infuriating lately, not only Windows but even macOS. It's not just updates either (which macOS does pretty well), but a more general problem that the OS routinely interferes with what I need the machine to do and wastes the CPU/RAM/SSD/Network resources I need while I'm using it. For example, updating caches/indexes requiring it to read/write the system drive heavily, running various kinds of maintenance and pinning the CPU to 100% for several minutes, or taking up all available bandwidth to do things that frequently did not need to be done _at all_. Apple's iCloud Photo Library did the last one all the time until I disabled it. If you delete a large file and free up local drive space, it will almost immediately start using all available internet bandwidth to download and cache photos and videos from iCloud to fill up that space again. Just yesterday, I discovered that Microsoft has either intentionally pushed everyone to use the "balanced" power plan or just broke the ability to select "high performance" in control panel. I had to open the group policy editor just to put it back it on high performance, because it was not possible to do it anywhere else. I only noticed that little change because I was capturing data from a satellite passing overhead, which is not something that you can just arbitrarily delay or slow down, and _right then_ Windows decided to reduce the maximum CPU speed to 0.49Ghz, completely ruining the data. That's not even a "real time" task, it doesn't specifically require low latency just high performance. Ordinarily that machine can handle it just fine, as long as the OS isn't actively crippling the hardware or trying to do other pointless, resource intensive tasks at the same time. ------ blfr I don't like the idea of home automation and these complex, all-in-one systems in general. They are just bound to fail. And not even in some spectacular fashion, they will just be a grind to use with this or that piece not working correctly, requiring fiddling, etc. Like my rather pricey, fully automatic Nivona coffee machine which has a really hard time beating a manual coffee grinder and a French press since they don't require descaling, special cleaning tablets, or adjusting the tray sensor to notice that the tray is back in. Or like these home audio solutions where the sound is following you around the house in whatever configuration you want but have a hard time beating a simple bluetooth adapter connected to an old hifi. Both at 1/50th of the price. What works and what I would like however are some simple technological improvements to existing solutions. For example, being able to check if I closed _and locked_ the door behind me. More like that bluetooth adapter than a complex integrated solution. Also, it really doesn't need to relay my conversations to the cloud. What a terrible trade-off for a silly gimmick. ~~~ debaserab2 I miss the days when my TV didn't have software updates and was simply a dumb panel whose only job is to display a picture for whatever input I give it. ~~~ blfr Fortunately, you still can buy dumb screens and add smart features with addons like Chromecast or just a computer with HDMI output. This works reasonably well, much like the bluetooth adapter. ~~~ scarface74 I think Chromecast is one of the worse ideas for a shared communal TV. How do other people control the TV? Am I expected to leave my phone/tablet in the living room? A Roku stick/Apple TV/Nvidia Shield have apps and you can just use a traditional remote. With the AppleTV/Nvidis Shield you can Airplay/Cast when necessary. ~~~ blfr I just disconnect when I'm done watching and the next person can connect using their device. With Netflix you need to at least switch profiles so it's about as convenient but I rarely watch anything on TV and never actual TV so it may be more annoying for heavier users. ------ Tepix Amazon is a company that wants to know everything about me, just like Google. They want to sell me all kinds of stuff. Not a company I'd trust with private data about my home. ~~~ lykr0n That's my concern as well. I love the idea of home automation, but I don't want someone else to have that data. It sucks, but we're the minority here. ~~~ JoshMnem > It sucks, but we're the minority here. I'm not interested in any home automation. The ability to turn on my lights with a wristwatch doesn't have reasonable benefits compared to the risks. It's hard for me to believe that people actually put these Internet-connected, voice-activated devices in their homes. The smartphones are bad enough. That kind of automation doesn't encourage living deliberately, and the privacy and behavior manipulation (tracking, ads, etc.) issues around it are horrendous. (DIY can avoid most of those problems though.) ~~~ reaperducer _It 's hard for me to believe that people actually put these Internet- connected, voice-activated devices in their homes._ Some of the new apartment buildings in Chicago come with Alexa built in to a wall panel. If you live there, you cannot escape it. ------ alkonaut I have high hopes for smart home and IoT appliances which is still mostly terrible. But Amazon seems to still believe that voice interactions are not just a feature of future smart homes, but essential. I have never seen the need to voice control anything in my home, and I likely never will. I don’t want AI I want simple, cheap reliable and interconnectable automation hardware. The first home automation tech I want is normal lightswitches everywhere and a hotel style master switch at the front door. The home automation/smart home tech I can easily get is a speaker that can order things? I think IKEA seem to be a lot closer to revolutionizing smart homes than Amazon. ~~~ slantyyz > I have never seen the need... Nobody "needs" any of this stuff. But once you factor in laziness and convenience, "normal" people are willing to make tradeoffs. I know I don't need Alexa, but when you've got grocery bags in both hands and it's dark, being able to turn on the lights by voice is handy even though it's far from "needed". And when it works well enough most of the time, it's easy to become dependent on it. For some things, voice is way more convenient than pulling out your phone and fumbling with an app (like changing a setting on a Nest). A slightly related but different example: I just tried installing a pihole in my network, and it ended up being a total headache. My wife likes using deal sites for shopping, and they like to redirect to a half dozen tracking sites before landing you on the e-store you want. And of course, the pihole got in the way of her shopping. The pihole ended up being way more trouble than it was worth and got decommissioned after only a couple of days, as white listing is a time consuming cat and mouse game I didn't want to play. My wife cares more about her $5 shopping rebate than she does her information being passed around to marketing companies, because the tradeoff is worth it. I don't think my wife is much different from most _normal_ consumers in that regard. ~~~ QasimK > I know I don't need Alexa, but when you've got grocery bags in both hands > and it's dark, being able to turn on the lights by voice is handy even > though it's far from "needed". A simple motion/heat detecting light does what you need here, and is probably more reliable... ~~~ slantyyz I have Alexa commands that will light up the group of lights I need to get from my front door to the kitchen. Also, I have dogs that would probably find a way to turn the lights on when I don't want them to. ------ GuB-42 They didn't address the biggest "pain point" of "smart homes" aka home automation or domotics. The biggest issue is the lack of a universal standard. A home is not a smartphone you can replace every 2 years. Things are measured in decades, and changes may require expensive and time consuming work in addition to the cost of the product itself. I looked into home automation when I had to work on an old house. I looked into KNX, which seemed to be a good standard: adopted by several manufacturers, robust, etc... The biggest problem, beside the price, is that I can't buy the hardware I want (ex: A/C unit) and expect it to connect to my network. Most of them don't have any smart feature, and those that do are restricted to a single system that even if it lasts may not be what will be popular 5 years from now. In home building, almost everything is standardized. Power plugs, dimensions of appliances, pipe fittings, etc... Smart home won't take off unless it is the case too. Any yet, maybe because it looks like the next big thing, companies try to lock down the market instead of first working together. The worst part is that the "smart home" is not a new thing at all. We had most of the technology decades ago, it never took of for that reason, and it seems like all we can do is repeat the same mistake. Cloud and AI are new but it doesn't change the deal at all. If you can't get appliances to talk the same language, it isn't going to work. As for the incentive for the companies involved, getting your money or getting your data is essentially the same thing. ~~~ kazen44 > I looked into home automation when I had to work on an old house. I looked > into KNX, which seemed to be a good standard: adopted by several > manufacturers, robust, etc... The biggest problem, beside the price, is that > I can't buy the hardware I want (ex: A/C unit) and expect it to connect to > my network. You could integrate KNX into IP, but that would require another server which is either dreadfully expensive, or just way to complex to maintain for an average house. Also, i don't know how it is in the US, but many buildings around my area lack any proper cabling infrastructure because they are ancient. Things like having cable gutters for ethernet and coaxial connections. Most have a single coaxial cable coming in from the floor directly into the living room. (because that is where the TV/radio used to be). These buildings are unlikely to be broken down because of their high value, but renovating them would cost a fortune. Currently no proper standard for wireless home automation exists. ------ shimon There's a really interesting strategic move here that I hadn't previously realized. Amazon is bundling some perpetual cloud service cost into their new connectivity module. They're solving a cost problem for device makers in a way that can address a critical risk for consumers. With perpetual cloud support, the long term maintenance costs of a novel connected device are much lower, and there's less of a chance that your smart devices suddenly die after a year or two when the manufacturer kills that product line. If done right, this could mean the ability to buy any off-brand or startup device product and not worry about losing ongoing support. This could significantly increase choices and lower costs for consumers, and gives Amazon an even more powerful voice in the ongoing direction of alexa- integrates products. It's also a brilliantly unique move, in that no other company can offer the same blend of services around a smart home device. Conceivably, Amazon could enrich this with purchase and provisioning, i.e. every device sold through Amazon.com gets a certain lifetime support guarantee and arrives at your house provisioned for your wifi. This could make experimenting with new gadgets a lot lower risk. ------ fredley The microwave is a genius move. The key thing is that it's a really cheap microwave. Most people who need a microwave don't want or need anything special, and will buy the cheapest decent-looking one, and this is where the Amazon microwave sits. They'll sell crate-loads of them. And all those people will then have a device sitting in their home with the potential to connect to Alexa. So if/when they decide they want to play the smart home game, they'll think 'Oh well we already have one Alexa device, so lets get an Alexa'. ~~~ kazen44 How many people own a microwave though? Most people i know don't have one and would rather spend to money on getting a proper oven. Microwaves also seem like they have little use compared to things like a stove or oven. Atleast i personally have barely used a microwave when cooking. ~~~ fredley This is not the reality I live in. Everyone has a microwave, and for people in student halls or less affluent accomodation, it's sometimes the only available way to cook. For many (in the UK) 'ready-meals', most of which are preparable with just a microwave, are a staple part of people's diet - even among more affluent, but time-poor people. There's usually a whole supermarket aisle dedicated to these foods. ~~~ adventured Individual accounts are of course often of modest value, however, I've literally never known a person that didn't have a microwave in their home, rich or poor, in the US. It's one of the things that is nearly universal in homes. They're too inexpensive to not buy due to cost, and they're too useful (even if only used in rare circumstances) to disregard as a part of a kitchen. They take up a small amount of space, and come in numerous sizes to fit spacing requirements. Essentially every supermarket in the US also has a frozen meals (ready-meals as you say), or equivalent, aisle. The items in those aisles appeal to just about every price point these days. They're clearly still quite popular. ------ twblalock More evidence that integration and centralization create better experiences for developers and consumers. Amazon is very successful in this area, and one of the few companies with the resources to offer this level of integration and centralization. It’s a no-brainer for IoT companies to integrate with Alexa at this point. The problem is that nobody in the IoT industry seems to care about security, and Amazon does not seem to care about privacy. ------ newscracker Is Amazon the new Samsung? Make as many products and product variants as possible, throw them against the wall and see what sticks? It's not like its shareholders mind having little to no profits. Selling things for cheap or below cost helps it "innovate rapidly" (aka trial and error)? P.S.: Samsung does make some good quality hardware in a few areas. I don't know if the same can be said of Amazon. ------ BerislavLopac I would say that the main difference was that, in its heyday, Apple was looking and developing solutions for specific problems most people were not actually aware they were having. On the other hand, Amazon has a bunch of really solid solutions, very well executed, and is now experimenting with known problems they can be applied to. ------ octosphere It would be so cool if Amazon had their own OS instead of relying on Android. They could use this on their Fire tablets and even have their own unique phone with a unique OS to sell. It's sad that the we have to choose between Android and iOS at every instance. I know of very few competitors (Like Purism). ~~~ user812 Ironically if Google will indeed switch to Fuchsia or another in-house OS, Android may survive in some form as their biggest competitor. ~~~ binomialxenon A fork of Android would probably be most successful in China where they don't rely on Google apps and services. I don't think there's much of a market for Android without Google outside of China. I'm curious how long Google!Android will be supported once Fuschia launches. Maybe 2-3 years, and it depends on how many existing Android devices can move to Fuschia. ~~~ foepys I don't think they will release Fuchsia and then immediately abandon Android. They will most likely release it for some low-end phones first and then work their way up. Maybe even release a Fuchsia Chromebook before any Fuchsia smartphone. Android's strength over Windows Phone was the app ecosystem and I don't think an emulator will instantly be good enough to emulate all kinds of apps with sufficient performance, especially games. ~~~ binomialxenon It doesn't need to be an emulator. It would more likely be a compatibility layer, like Alien Dalvik or Wine. ------ baq once upon a time, on a site called slashdot, there was a meme (not sure if it was called that back then) about our robotic overlords. i've suddelny realized how close to home it's now hitting and am very nervous about the future. ~~~ scarface74 It was first popularized by the Simpsons. [https://knowyourmeme.com/memes/i-for-one-welcome-our-new- ins...](https://knowyourmeme.com/memes/i-for-one-welcome-our-new-insect- overlords) ------ davedx Amazon is no Apple.	{ "pile_set_name": "HackerNews" }
Tracking Reality’s “Fuckedness Quotient”: An Interview with William Gibson - eliotpeper https://lareviewofbooks.org/article/tracking-realitys-fuckedness-quotient-an-interview-with-william-gibson/ ====== pmoriarty Is anyone here a fan of Gibson's post _Neuromancer_ trilogy work? After enjoying _Neuromancer_ and loving _Count Zero_ , I was pretty disappointed in _Mona Lisa Overdrive_ , and that's when I stopped reading him, and I've heard his later work isn't so much scifi as very near-future social commentary, which doesn't really interest me. But I've still had a vague interest in what he's done since. Any recommendations? ~~~ __s Read the rest of the trilogy this month, after having read Neuromancer a decade ago. Preferred MLO to Count Zero, though both were underwhelming As for recommendations, if you liked his narrative voice you might also like Margarette Atwood, Oryx & Crake in particular ------ transitivebs Found this delightfully insightful. "I doubt anyone has ever stood out on a street corner wearing a sandwich board reading, “THE WORLD IS COMING TO AN END IN A FEW HUNDRED YEARS.”" I love it. ------ newnewpdro Not much of an interview, is he just making the rounds to market Agency? ------ ganzuul We are living in interesting times, and 2020 sure has started running balls out. Greetings from warm and sunny Finland.	{ "pile_set_name": "HackerNews" }
Show HN: CurlMail – Quickly send email notifications using cURL - mrmattyboy https://www.curlmail.co/#?pk_campaign=hN2 ====== humbleMouse This is cool, but does it scale? What happens if 10,000 people start using it daily?	{ "pile_set_name": "HackerNews" }
For What It’s Worth: A Review of Wu-Tang Clan’s “Once Upon a Time in Shaolin” - tintinnabula http://www.dancohen.org/2016/01/04/for-what-its-worth-a-review-of-the-wu-tang-clans-once-upon-a-time-in-shaolin/ ====== roywiggins > This is like someone having the scepter of an Egyptian king The point of a scepter is that you can wave it around in front of your subjects, not leave it in a vault somewhere all the time. It's more like the actual grave goods the Egyptian kings were buried with, maybe. > Sol LeWitt is an unusual artist in that he rarely painted, drew, or sculpted > the art you see by him. Instead, he wrote out instructions for artwork, and > then left it to “constructors”—often art students, museum curators, or > others, to do the actual work of fabrication. LeWitt liked to be a recipe > writer, not a chef. So. Algorithmic art, except executed by humans instead of the traditional computer. "calculate z_{n+1} = z_n²+1 for each point repeatedly; color it black if it converges..." ~~~ dagw What makes LeWitt interesting is the ambiguity in his instructions. Give the instructions to 100 different groups and you'll get 100 different works with no way of knowing which, if any, match what LeWitt had in mind. "calculate z_{n+1} = z_n²+1..." on the other hand will always give the same result no matter who implements it. ------ blaze33 In France we have a legal definition of what constitutes an original work of art. For instance you can produce up to 8 original copies of a sculpture, that's art. Wanna sell 9 copies, you're no longer an artist but an artisan. That also applies to furniture, I couldn't track down what the actual law says, there are many exemptions and edge cases but basically that's the idea. Here, this album fits the criteria for being numbered 1/1. ~~~ Grue3 So, music or film aren't considered art in France? ~~~ blaze33 Well, the actual disk you buy in the store, no, that's mass production. Nonetheless music, movies, books are still covered by intellectual property laws and considered as intellectual works, but yeah that's not legally art. The laws I was referencing in my first comment are more concerned about what is sold in an art gallery. A limited edition album would have its place there (even if it's a terrible one), not an album from Prince that sold millions of copies even if the later is socially recognised as a piece of art. ------ keypusher Of all the people that could have bought this album, the fact that it was Martin Shkreli continues to amaze me. ~~~ kamilszybalski What amazes me is the number of people who dislike Martin Shkreli...most of who can't even tell me why. ~~~ ZenoArrow If you're trying to troll on the sly you'll need to be a bit more subtle than that. I'd suggest most people who dislike Shkreli know that he massively jacked up the price of a drug that there were no legal alternatives to, even if they don't know or can't remember the exact details. For those that want to learn more, search online for daraprim. EDIT: alex95, your comment is flagged as dead, many people reading this won't see it. I know the excuses Skreli gave, about using the revenue to fund new drugs, but I don't buy it, and the reason I don't buy it is because he jacked up the price so much he was putting the life of some people in danger. That doesn't strike me as a move someone who cared about improving healthcare would make. ~~~ mtobi AFAIK the drug was free for everyone without insurance, so the only ones who felt the actual price increase were the insurance companies. Am I wrong or there really is some merit to Shkrelis explanations? ~~~ gizmo The that only insurance companies felt the price is an audacious lie by Shkreli and his people. Documents that were subpoenaed for the congress hearing revealed that people _with insurance_ got stuck with 30%-50% co-pays. At 75.000 a bottle a 40% co-pay is still a 30.000 out of pocket expense. Regular people have to remortgage their house to come up with this kind of money. Shkreli basically lied about everything. He lied about his business model. He lied about the availability of the drugs. He lied about his programs that supposedly made the drug available to people who could not otherwise afford it. The guy is a real piece of work. Watch the hearing on C-SPAN if you don't believe me. [http://www.c-span.org/video/?404183-1/hearing- prescription-d...](http://www.c-span.org/video/?404183-1/hearing-prescription- drug-market) [http://www.c-span.org/video/?406885-1/sudden-price-spikes- de...](http://www.c-span.org/video/?406885-1/sudden-price-spikes-decadesold- rx-drugs-inside-monopoly-business-model) Found the timestamp, starts at 00:41:00 (second hearing) where victims of Martin Shkreli talks about their attempts to mortgage their house in order to pay for the drug for their sick child. ~~~ koolba So who's the real crook? Is it the sleazebag who legally takes advantage of the terrible system that we refer to as the US health insurance system? Or is it the 435 representatives and 100 senators who are in the pockets of the insurance companies and pharma companies that perpetuate our current system? At a moral level, yes the guy is as bad as they come ( _and those youtube videos of him are just plain weird_ ). But I'd argue he's not the cause of our problems, he's a product of the system that we've cornered ourselves into. ~~~ gizmo He's a real crook in a system that's awful. It's not either-or in my book. So I agree he's not the root cause. He just pushes the existing framework to its "logical" conclusion. But only if "Logical" means being as ruthlessly exploitative as possible. Even the other sleazebag drug CEOs don't go this far, so Shkreli is uniquely contemptible. But yes, ideally anger should be directed to the pharma industry and health insurance as a whole, not to Shkreli the individual. ~~~ koolba > He's a real crook in a system that's awful. It's not either-or in my book. The "either-or" is figuring out which one to go after and where to change things. If you only go after the Shkrelis, it's all for show and probably is a waste of tax payer money as he'll get off the hook for not _legally_ doing anything wrong. People need to wake up and go after the real problem and replace the healthcare system and corrupt officials that perpetuate it. ~~~ ZenoArrow Why do you only have to go after one side? Both sides (the corruptor and the corrupted) can and should be held accountable. Holding Shkreli accountable is more than just a token gesture, and no charges would've been brought against him if no laws were broken. ~~~ koolba I fail to see what laws he's broken. If you're going to allow a "free market" healthcare industry, this is the result. Being a dick isn't a crime. Neither is being a price gouger. ~~~ ZenoArrow > "I fail to see what laws he's broken." Take a look then... [http://www.marketwatch.com/story/these-are-the-charges- again...](http://www.marketwatch.com/story/these-are-the-charges-against- martin-shkreli-2015-12-17) ~~~ koolba > Take a look then... > [http://www.marketwatch.com/story/these-are-the-charges- > again...](http://www.marketwatch.com/story/these-are-the-charges-again..). Did you actually read that article? It has nothing to do with price gouging prescription drugs. That's for an unrelated securities fraud charge for juggling hedge fund money. I'm not saying he's not at fault in that situation (honestly not sure) but it's unrelated. ~~~ ZenoArrow If you want something closer to daraprim: [http://www.legalreader.com/distribution-network-for- daraprim...](http://www.legalreader.com/distribution-network-for-daraprim-may- violate-antitrust-laws/) ~~~ koolba That's definitely closer but he hasn't been charged with anything on it. The only charges are for (unrelated) securities fraud. ------ im3w1l If I had it, I would use it to entice famous people to have tea with me. ~~~ rboyd That's basically exactly what happened with Allie Conti in his Vice interview ([https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2PCb9mnrU1g](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2PCb9mnrU1g)). Only it was red wine and not tea. ------ beloch Perhaps this album just wasn't very good, and Wu-Tang (or their managers) realized they could make more money by boosting their fame with this stunt release than they would by actually releasing a crappy album. ~~~ IshKebab That actually makes a lot of sense. At most it must be mediocre. If it was amazing they'd definitely want to release it and make money. ~~~ michaelt If they'd just released the album, I don't think it would be on the front page of HN getting compared to Ai Weiwei, and covered in forbes, the guardian and the atlantic. Perhaps they value the publicity (and resulting discussion of their work as "serious art") more than the extra money a regular release could have brought. ~~~ 59nadir > Perhaps they value the publicity (and resulting discussion of their work as > "serious art") more than the extra money a regular release could have > brought. ... which is exactly what the previous posters said: The album isn't good enough to sell great and would likely hurt them in the long run and so a gimmick release will at least have positive publicity and wouldn't ruin the brand. If it was good enough, that publicity would outshine the gimmick release and would also bring in more money short-term. ~~~ michaelt No, the previous poster said at most the album must be mediocre. It's possible the album is really great, but they place an exceptionally high value on the publicity. ------ BWStearns I just looked at HN right after pulling up Wu-Tang on Spotify. I realize that it doesn't fundamentally add much to note that, it was just a fun coincidence and I thought I'd share. It is fun to think about the meta-art of manufactured scarcity. It's fun trying to articulate a rigorous reason for the value difference of Wu-Tang making an album that only one person will get to hear versus me (a decidedly untalented non-musician) making one, when they both sound exactly the same to all of us (unless that dick Shkreli is reading). That said I would trade all the idle but-what-is-value-really-man musing for Shaolin monks or an unscrupulous Fed to exfiltrate and share the album soonish. ~~~ elevenfist Is it really fun? Or is it just a marketing gimmick to get people talking about the artist. ~~~ darawk Honestly it doesn't seem like a marketing gimmick to me. They almost certainly could have made more money by actually releasing the album, and they've no real need of increasing their visibility. Whether or not you agree, it seems pretty clear that they did this because they thought it was a cool and interesting thing to do. ~~~ dagw _They almost certainly could have made more money by actually releasing the album_ The sales of their last album was pretty abysmal all things considered, and the album before that was hardly top seller. Even if this album did 3-4 times the numbers their last album did, they probably wouldn't have gotten close $2million. It basically seems that 'everybody' loves the early Wu-Tang works, but very few people actually still actively followed them and cared about their current work. ------ Artoemius People are infinitely fascinated by scarcity. ~~~ dave2000 It's not as simple as that otherwise they'd just record their own CD, write their own game etc. This is more like hoarding; either related to grief (can't let go of a loved one but can keep hold of random shit) or just good old consumerist "you'll be a great person if you buy this". It's pathetic but hey, we're in a late capitalist, consumer driven society where owning a small piece of plastic is more important than saving tens or hundreds of lives. ------ bwilliams18 I had the pleasure of spending a week at MassMoCA a few years ago, it's a unique institution and is a treat to visit. ------ keithpeter The OA has a partial quote from Ellsworth Kelly taken from the New York Times obituary [1]. Below is the full quote, which I found useful. >> _“I think what we all want from art is a sense of fixity, a sense of opposing the chaos of daily living,” he said. “This is an illusion, of course. What I’ve tried to capture is the reality of flux, to keep art an open, incomplete situation, to get at the rapture of seeing.”_ << [Perhaps the GI Bill at the end of the second world war provides us with an idea of what could happen if we had a basic income.] [1] [http://www.nytimes.com/2015/12/28/arts/ellsworth-kelly- artis...](http://www.nytimes.com/2015/12/28/arts/ellsworth-kelly-artist-who- mixed-european-abstraction-into-everyday-life-dies-at-92.html) ------ fluffysquirrel Which apparently has nothing to do with Xiaolin Wu's algorithm. ------ ComodoHacker The site is down. ------ recivorecivo If you had no ego, you would just say Mandelbrot set. If Mandelbrot had no ego, he would have just called it "calculate z_{n+1} = z_n²+1 for each point repeatedly; color it black if it converges...". Ponder this. Without ego, there is no judgement. And no judgement of those who judge. The cycle breaks. ~~~ johnloeber I don't think this is about ego -- this is just about naming for convenience. We say "Mandelbrot Set" rather than "calculate (...) converges" because the former has four syllables and the latter has thirty-two. Beyond that, I'm not sure what you're getting at w/r/t/ judgement and cycles. ------ mirimir > Then, in one of 2015’s greatest moments of schadenfreude, especially for > those who care about the widespread availability of quality healthcare and > hip hop, Shkreli was arrested by the FBI for fraud. Alas, the FBI left Once > Upon a Time in Shaolin in Shkreli’s New York apartment. So why doesn't the FBI take the bloody thing, and auction it? They sold DPR's Bitcoin, no? ~~~ amock Why would the FBI confiscate and sell his property? Just because he was arrested doesn't mean he's guilty, and even if he his that doesn't give the FBI the right to confiscate his property. ~~~ mirimir Well, they sold DPR's Bitcoin before he was convicted. Cops do that. It's partly how they fund themselves. I was responding to the precious "maybe we'll never know" aspect of the article. I'm not saying that civil forfeiture is legitimate. Far from it. But it's pretty common. Edit: Also, the article basically suggests burglary as an option. So ... ~~~ the_mitsuhiko To which DPR agreed. ~~~ mirimir Really? That I did not know. Why? Plea deal? ~~~ kevinnk In his pre-trial, Ross denied ownership[1] of the server that the coins were found on (for obvious reasons - the server also ran the Silk Road). Since no one claimed ownership, the FBI was free to auction them. [1] This actually turned out to be a major blunder on the part of the defense. See [http://www.wired.com/2014/10/silk-road-judge- technicality/](http://www.wired.com/2014/10/silk-road-judge-technicality/) ~~~ jessaustin Eh, do we all _really_ believe the judge on that one? Sure, if he had claimed ownership, then the unreasonable search objection wouldn't have fallen on _that_ point. Except, she eventually would have found some _other_ reason why all FBI activities constituted "reasonable" search. Conviction rate in federal court is over 90%, and for many of those cases only the prosecutor assigned even gives a shit. _Everybody_ in the federal system, FBI, prosecutors, judges, etc. wanted this guy's head on their wall, so no legal argument was going to keep him out of FPMITAP. Ross was fucked from the moment the beast knew his name. For future projects like Silk Road, a basic part of the security plan will be to set up Ross look-alikes to take the fall, because USA-Justice is not something you can just design around. Once the beast has a scent, it _will_ be fed, by someone.	{ "pile_set_name": "HackerNews" }
Internetarchive.bak - edward http://archiveteam.org/index.php?title=INTERNETARCHIVE.BAK&hn ====== sp332 Current status: [http://iabak.archiveteam.org/](http://iabak.archiveteam.org/) Helping out is super easy: On Linux or Mac, git clone [https://github.com/ArchiveTeam/IA.BAK/](https://github.com/ArchiveTeam/IA.BAK/) and run the iabak script. It will walk you through setup. [https://archive.org/donate](https://archive.org/donate) ------ userbinator This is what 21(decimal)PB looks like in terms of Backblaze storage pods: [https://www.backblaze.com/blog/why-now-is-the-time-for- backb...](https://www.backblaze.com/blog/why-now-is-the-time-for-backblaze-to- build-a-270-tb-storage-pod/) ------ Mithrandir Previous discussion: [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9147719](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9147719) and (more recently) [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9602868](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9602868)	{ "pile_set_name": "HackerNews" }
How to teach informatics in 3 months (german satire) - chupa-chups https://www.heise.de/newsticker/meldung/Missing-Link-Migration-in-die-Industrie-4-0-Fluechtlinge-als-Software-Entwickler-gegen-4310106.html ====== chupa-chups [https://translate.google.com/translate?sl=auto&tl=en&u=https...](https://translate.google.com/translate?sl=auto&tl=en&u=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.heise.de%2Fnewsticker%2Fmeldung%2FMissing- Link-Migration-in-die-Industrie-4-0-Fluechtlinge-als-Software-Entwickler- gegen-4310106.html)	{ "pile_set_name": "HackerNews" }
Income, Poverty and Health Insurance Coverage in the United States: 2016 - 11thEarlOfMar https://www.census.gov/newsroom/press-releases/2017/income-povery.html ====== electrograv How is "all time high" income surprising, given that inflation essentially guarantees perpetually increasing dollar amounts of everything? ~~~ jdavis703 The increase is measured in "real terms" which means things like CPI are taken in to account. Further this number does decrease, for example during the last recession, so household median income is not directly correlated with inflation -- especially in this era of low inflation (compared to the mid-to- late 20th century inflation) that we've been in for a while. ~~~ alexasmyths " which means things like CPI are taken in to account." Yes - but we should all be weary of this. CPI is measured in funky ways, and it's tough one. Problems with measures: \+ Both housing and Oil prices are usually left out of the numbers they use (included in others). There are reasons for doing this, but it's bazonkers crazy to think of 'consumer prices' as not including their #1 item (housing) and a huge variable cost that consumers pay for directly (gas) but also that goes into everything (airline tickets, transport of stuff, taxi, etc. etc..) And of course the hardest thing to measure is the real value increase of a product ... i.e. a tomato that is bigger, redder, juicier, healthier - is worth more than one that is not. So - if prices for tomatoes stay flat - but - their value has actually increased, well, that's deflation. That intangible is super hard to measure and quantify. It's the later issue that is at the heart of so many economic arguments: some say we are 'poorer than ever' \- and yet, every single bit of material consumable is way better than it ever was. The crappiest Peugot today drives better than the #1 Mercedes from 1985 ... ~~~ lotharbot "core" CPI includes housing. This is funky for another reason: people don't live in similar housing to what people lived in in the past. If you look at census data (American Housing Survey) from 40-50 years ago, you find the average American home was under 1500 square feet, 2-3 bedrooms, 1-2 bathrooms, no AC, no laundry machines, and so on. In fact, the average American home in the 1970s was smaller and had less amenities than the average current American home _for people below the poverty line_. Any measure that just looks at the change in housing _costs_ and doesn't adjust for the _benefits_ of on-average larger homes with more amenities will end up overestimating that piece of monetary inflation (accidentally counting lifestyle inflation.) As you say, it's really hard to measure the "real value increase of a product", and that makes a lot of inflation measures... sketchy. ~~~ maxxxxx If only we could buy 1000 square foot houses in expensive areas. They don't get built anymore. ~~~ lotharbot yeah, building and zoning are certainly relevant considerations. I'm not saying "this is all the fault of consumers". More like "when we measure inflation, we conflate monetary and lifestyle inflation, and our preferred policy ideas might not reflect that." ------ alistproducer2 For context, the survey covers 2015-16. The gains are from the last administration. ~~~ vacri The first year of someone's term is very rarely affected by their policies. My particular pet hate is when politicians start bragging about how their policies are responsible for good economic news when they're still in the first three months. Truth is that economies change slowly, and politicians have much less control over it than we all like to believe. ~~~ rdtsc I think in general you're right, but with a some exceptions. Like say it depends on what part of economy we are talking about. If inflation, GDP numbers and so on, then those move slower. But stock market can react pretty quickly it seems. For example it can react to getting a hint of a possibly changing regulatory environments. A crashing or rapidly rising stock market will affect the economy quite a bit, especially if it is sustained long enough. War can change things, disasters, foreign economic threats (say a trade war with a major superpower). Those can have rapid effects as well. ~~~ vacri Well, disasters and foreign economic threats aren't due to a politician's policy, and the regulatory environment usually doesn't change straight away (that requires legislation, not just a policy manifesto). War is a rare event as well, and it doesn't necessarily affect the wider economy - the war in Iraq and Afghanistan hasn't affected the US economy much, which quite happily went through a boom time in the early years of the war, then crashed for reasons unrelated to the war. Of course, the economy of Iraq got soundly fucked by war, but that wasn't due to the economic policies of the politician in charge. ~~~ linkregister The war had enormous implications for the economy. Commodity prices were driven extremely high due to investor uncertainty about the Middle East oil supply. It got so bad that Congress had to pressure traders to stop hoarding massive amounts of crude oil in the hopes that the supply would be disrupted and the price would escalate. These commodity price rises fueled speculation into other asset classes, such as housing and loans. As always there were some short-term positive Keynesian stimulative effects by increased government spending, but a massive run-up of the deficit did increase the cost of servicing the national debt, which might otherwise have been directed into productive enterprises, rather than the wasteful Iraq war which achieved negative progress. ------ McBlorker I'm curious: is anyone at a point where they're pulling out of equities at all? I feel like things are getting a bit too good to be true in the markets. The Shiller P/E ratio is at a 2nd-time high - the only other higher time being the dot-com boom and bust: multpl.com/shiller-pe/ ~~~ baron816 Trying to time the market is a well known suboptimal strategy. Just leave your money and try not to worry about it. ~~~ empath75 Unless you’re retiring in the next five years or something like that. ~~~ virmundi Do you think market will return to this level with your current basket of equities? There is an argument that the market has too much liquidity due to QE and low rates within the fractional reserve system. If the market crashes, will the monetary policy be there to get the market to these highs within 5-10 years? Also, if you think the market is going down, one doesn’t need perfect timing. You can get out and have cash on hand to buy later. If everything goes down 25% and you sold out 5% below the max value, you now have more money than your peers, which started in the market, to get gains in the future. ~~~ refurb This is true, but nailing that timing is really hard. I can't remember the exact numbers but if you missed the 10 best days for the market in the last 40 years, you missed out on 70% of the gains. ------ mattbgates My bank account says, "That was a lie." ~~~ 0xbear Your bank account says “find a better job”. In today’s job market there’s really no excuse for anyone who can understand at least half the news posted on this site to make less than six figures. ~~~ HarryHirsch Tell that to the people on the wrong side of 40. ~~~ 0xbear I’m older than that myself. Doing pretty good. ~~~ chillwaves If you are 40 and just getting started, how does that feel? Do you have any capacity for empathy or understanding a life situation that is not your own? ~~~ 0xbear No. If you can’t find a job as an engineer in this white hot market, it’s time to think of a career change. That’s the cold, hard truth. Things are crazier than I’ve seen them in 20 years. Empathy does not motivate. Get off your ass and strike this iron while it’s hot. ------ zappo2938 What happens when the US needs to start paying off the trillions in debt? I remember the last time things were good. It stopped being good quite rapidly. I don't know much about monetary and economic policy but I'm optimistically cautious. I can't imagine the US borrowing several trillion dollars to keep credit from freezing again. ~~~ malandrew My understanding is that most US debt is held by US citizens or US organizations. ~~~ xiphias And the Chinese government which is building a massive army for totally unknown reasons /s ~~~ Clubber The wonderful thing about owing so much debt is it really makes the financial incentive for war against you that much lower for your lenders. ------ 11thEarlOfMar Side note: The 5.8% decline in poverty is not explicitly stated. Per the report, the number of persons in poverty dropped by 2.5 million to 40.6 million. I added the 2.5 million back to 40.6 million to get the 2015 number, then divided it back into 2.5 million to get the 5.8% YoY decline from 2015 - 2016: 2.5 / (40.6 + 2.5) = 5.8% ------ stevenmays I wonder why the title of this post got changed from "US Median Household Income +3.2% to All-Time High..." ~~~ grzm The title was changed to the actual title of the document. HN discourages editorializing titles. > _" …please use the original title, unless it is misleading or linkbait."_ [https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html](https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html) ------ chiefalchemist As I understand it, the measurement for poverty is unreasonably low. That the better rule of thumb is the number of citizens below 2x the traditional poverty income levels. This data is over-aggregated.	{ "pile_set_name": "HackerNews" }
Join Thinklab’s $1M effort to crowdsource a biomedical data translator - jspaulding https://thinklab.com/blog/join-thinklabs-1-million-effort-to-crowdsource-development-of-a-biomedical-data-translator/217 ====== jspaulding Hey folks. Thinklab founder here. Would be happy to answer any questions you have. ~~~ brudgers Job solicitations are probably better suited for the monthly "whoishiring" threads. They are automatically posted 11AM Eastern time the first weekday of each month. The next one will be Wednesday, June 1.	{ "pile_set_name": "HackerNews" }
Introducing Realm React Native - porsager https://realm.io/news/introducing-realm-react-native/ ====== kristiandupont I think this is a very exciting match for both eco systems. I look forward to seeing where it will go. ------ bleonard Congrats to the team. We've been really happy trying it out. It's a drop-in replacement for the standard flux pattern. ------ quotewall What about PhoneGap? Seems weird to support React Native but not PhoneGap. ~~~ timanglade Hi, Tim from Realm here. We actually rely on a custom C++ core, which means we have to support each JavaScript engine separately. We completed support for JavaScriptCore first, which React Native uses on both iOS & Android. To support PhoneGap / Cordova we’d need to support V8, which will be close to as much work as supporting JSC in the first place. We’re looking forward to getting it done though! [https://github.com/realm/realm- js/issues/261](https://github.com/realm/realm-js/issues/261) Beyond that we were quite excited about the architectural decisions behind React Native and the emerging community around it, so we figured it’d be a good place to start that lined up very well with our own goals! ------ jchrisa If you are interested in React Native and Couchbase Lite, here's a tutorial for Android [1] and notes for iOS [2] [1] [http://blog.couchbase.com/2015/november/getting-started- with...](http://blog.couchbase.com/2015/november/getting-started-with-react- native-android-and-couchbase-lite) [2] [https://gist.github.com/jchris/3c32524577deff3d69aa](https://gist.github.com/jchris/3c32524577deff3d69aa) ------ drew22huthut Awesome news, thanks for showing support for RN! ------ arijun It's too bad that Realm's core technology isn't open source, it would be interesting to see what other immutable databases (e.g. Datomic) would do with the ideas they've come up with. Also grafting Datascript onto Realm for a datalog competitor to sqlite would be sweet. ------ grandalf Does anyone know the actual queries that are used in the benchmark comparison? ~~~ timanglade There’s a link in the caption to the code: [https://github.com/realm/realm- js/tree/master/examples/React...](https://github.com/realm/realm- js/tree/master/examples/ReactNativeBenchmarks) ------ brind Is this usable with electron / nodewebkit apps ? ~~~ brmunk Not out of the box at the moment. But it would technically be possible to do. Feel free to post a suggestion to [https://github.com/realm/realm- js/issues](https://github.com/realm/realm-js/issues) so we can see the interest. ------ grandalf can it be used as a simple key/value store? ~~~ patrickrogers Patrick from Realm here. Realm _can_ be used as a key-value store using our primary keys but at the moment it does expect a fixed schema (all of the keys can be optional though). It’d be trivial for us to relax that requirement and we do have dynamic APIs that allows this on Swift/Objective-C/Java. That said, there’s a lot more Realm can do that a K/V store can’t such as query efficiently on arbitrary properties, link objects in a graph, and more. Does that answer your question? ~~~ grandalf Yes -- is there a doc about the graph semantics? ~~~ timanglade You can add any object as a property of another object, and access them via dot notation: [https://realm.io/docs/react-native/latest/#object- properties](https://realm.io/docs/react-native/latest/#object-properties) You can probably find some more advanced examples in our Swift docs [https://realm.io/docs/swift/latest/#relationships](https://realm.io/docs/swift/latest/#relationships) We’re barely scratching the surface of this in our query language, which is heavily NSPredicate-inspired, but we might add more OpenCypher-ish features in the future. (And we’d greatly appreciate concrete use-cases or anything else you can share in a GitHub issue to help us prioritize development) [https://github.com/realm/realm-js/issues](https://github.com/realm/realm- js/issues) ~~~ grandalf Sounds interesting!	{ "pile_set_name": "HackerNews" }
Ask HN: How do you manage freelance projects when clients only want to email? - bennythomson I've been developing websites for businesses for a few years now, and like many freelance web developers, the people I work for are not particularly tech savvy. As such, email has been the prime way of communicating project updates, content, and feedback back and forth. This of course becomes quite messy with multiple email threads titled "updates" or "following up" making it hard to find information. Am I alone in this? I use task management software for my own side of the project, but that still leaves me to interface with the clients by email.<p>Is there a better way to do this? ====== davismwfl You will not escape email with small clients generally. A couple of my methods: 1: create a weekly summary document, summarize all email and verbal decisions and status in this document and email it to them. Keep it short. 2: Make sure you summarize any decisions that were made in an email chain. Do this an an email back and ask for their confirmation, this avoids misunderstandings. Because sometimes what they asked for after having it summarized and documented doesn’t sound so good. Also gives you a place to find scope creep and change orders. This will help feed your summary document. In your weekly status document, keep it as short as is reasonable. Use color codes for things on track and things blocked and highlight why. E.g green is all good, yellow means delayed and red means stopped for some reason. Don’t reorganize the summary document, create a template and keep it the same during the project. Doing this is a little bit of work but it so pays off. It also helps you stay on track and helps you see if the scope creep is getting dangerously high. ------ zwayhowder I capture all their email in Zendesk, that lets me keep all correspondance related to specific tasks in one ticket, I haven't looked at integrating it with a project management tool, but there are a number of offerings in the Zendesk marketplace. I'm grandfathered onto a very good value Zendesk plan, so I can't speak to the cost/benefit for someone who signs up today.	{ "pile_set_name": "HackerNews" }
The Emerging-Semantics Web ("The Semantic Web is Dead") - bootload http://yahooresearchberkeley.com/blog/2007/05/16/the-emerging-semantics-web-the-semantic-web-is-dead/ ====== bct The Semantic Web and tagging, etc. aren't mutually exclusive. In fact, if Flickr's machine tags are machine parseable then they're part of the Semantic Web already, particularly with those tasty intersite links between data.	{ "pile_set_name": "HackerNews" }
How a Mexican Drug Cartel Makes Its Billions - jlees http://www.nytimes.com/2012/06/17/magazine/how-a-mexican-drug-cartel-makes-its-billions.html?pagewanted=all ====== guelo The only way to stop these large criminal enterprises is to legalize the stuff. Just like alcohol prohibition created some of the most notorious American criminals, South American drug prohibitions produce powerful criminals down there. There isn't any large crime related to South American cocoa or coffee imports. Legalize it and then spend money and make laws regulating consumption, it would greatly reduce the misery in our corner of the world. ~~~ paulhauggis At this point, I doubt it will help. Why? The cartels thrive in countries where you can essentially buy off any official. When you legalize drugs, they aren't going to suddenly stop selling it. They will now have a legal business which will continue to fund their criminal empires. We most likely will see an increase in other crimes, like extortion and kidnapping. Drugs are still illegal in the US and we don't really see the same kind of crime in our country because the police actually (for the most part) do their job. If you really want to stop the violence, stop the corruption. I know the recreational drug users of HN don't really want to hear this.. ~~~ elorant Legalizing drugs means that the street price will drop by 90% and that will eventually make drug trafficking obsolete. This of course doesn't solve the real problem which is consumption. ~~~ vlisivka Meth is very cheap already. Any changes? ~~~ mrtron From what I understand meth is produced really poorly by regional producers. I think it would end up more expensive at your local pharmacy if legalized. The benefit would be you know you won't lose your teeth from the odd chemicals the producer is using. (I could be horribly off on the details) ~~~ refurb You are horribly off. Methamphetamine is currently available at your local pharmacy. It's a generic drugs and costs less than a $1 per dose. You don't lose your teeth from meth because of chemicals used in it's production, you lose them due to a combination of poor oral hygiene and reduced saliva production. The same thing happens if you abuse the stuff you can get at the pharmacy. ------ danso > _Michael Braun, the former chief of operations for the D.E.A., told me a > story about the construction of a high-tech fence along a stretch of border > in Arizona._ > _“They erect this fence,” he said, “only to go out there a few days later > and discover that these guys have a catapult, and they’re flinging hundred- > pound bales of marijuana over to the other side.” He paused and looked at me > for a second. “A catapult,” he repeated. “We’ve got the best fence money can > buy, and they counter us with a 2,500-year-old technology.”_ ~~~ tgrass This is the border in Arizona, south of Sierra Vista. I often drive the international road and rarely see anyone else...not even border patrol. One does not need a catapult. <http://postimage.org/image/wtie29yrb/> ~~~ startupfounder Are drones patrolling the area from above? ~~~ tgrass There's a conspicuous blimp that flies about sixty miles to the north. I'm not sure of drones. I camp out there a lot and have never seen them. [edit] it's an aerostat, not a blimp: Fort Huachuca is about fifteen miles to the north and "is home to a radar-equipped aerostat, one of a series maintained for the Drug Enforcement Administration by Lockheed Martin. The aerostat is based northeast of Garden Canyon and, when extended, supports the DEA drug interdiction mission by detecting low-flying aircraft attempting to penetrate the United States." <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fort_Huachuca> ~~~ blhack Well...the drones aren't exactly huge, and they're flying really high up in the air, so it's doubtful that you'd see them. ~~~ hexagonal The MQ-1 has a wingspan of two dozen feet, and a service ceiling of 26,000 feet. (ten thousand feet lower than a 747) It's also got a pretty tinny piston engine, with a fairly distinctive sound. Think more "cessna with missiles" than "RC plane". __EDIT: __Just checked the wikipedia pages for both: MQ-1 Predator Cessna 172 Wingspan 8.22m 11m Gross weight 1,020kg 1,111kg Service ceil. 25,000ft 13,500ft Cruise speed 90kn 122kn ------ startupfounder Joaquín Archivaldo Guzmán Loera is a true hacker, he continually breaks into the most secure country in the world by exploiting it's weaknesses. "The cartel makes sandbag bridges to ford the Colorado River and sends buggies loaded with weed bouncing over the Imperial Sand Dunes into California." Because of this, even when he is caught and send to a maximum security prison he is able to organize an escape by hacking the prison system. "...[Joaquín Archivaldo Guzmán Loera] was transferred to the Puente Grande maximum security prison in Jalisco...Guzmán carefully masterminded his escape plan, wielding influence over almost everyone in the prison... The escape allegedly cost Joaquín $2.5 million... According to officials, 78 people have been implicated in his escape plan." - Wikipedia (<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Joaqu%C3%ADn_Guzm%C3%A1n_Loera>) ~~~ vecinu It sometimes blows my mind how much power money can buy. This gentleman seems to also have a powerful charm. ~~~ AncientPC Not just a carrot, but a carrot and a stick. If you don't comply, your family and friends can and will be harmed. It's a large reason why Mexico military forces stays anonymous by wearing balaclavas on duty and getting rid of the short hair requirement. ------ revelation This is a 101 on capitalism. Raw capitalism, where killing someone is cheaper than settling on a solution that works for everyone. One where power amasses. But most importantly: where all actors are innovating. You can be amazed at crudely built submarines and private cell relay stations but really its just market pressure at work. Which brings us back to the obvious conclusion: prohibition doesn't work; the market will find its way. It doesn't need intricate portraits like this one to make that clear. ~~~ mullingitover Yes, exactly. The war on drugs is a perfect example of capitalism v socialism. In the red corner we have black market capitalists engaged in an enterprise with extremely high risk premiums. In the blue corner we have socialized law enforcement. If you truly believe that capitalism is the superior force, you can't help but know that the war on drugs is absolute unwinnable folly. ~~~ WildUtah Upvoted for quality. But I disagree with your choice of colors. The communist/socialist side is traditionally colored red. ------ abruzzi Also impressed that the cartel smuggles cocaine on 747s that they own. That's a large operation. ~~~ Eliezer I'm a bit surprised by this; I'd expect spy satellites to be able to spot a rogue 747. ~~~ ovi256 You're assuming the money that bought a 747 can't buy a fake company for registration, plane manifests, flight plans and whatever else is needed to make it look legal. ------ jboggan I'd be really curious to know what their IT department looks like. ~~~ wmf [http://web.archive.org/web/20021014183134/http://www.busines...](http://web.archive.org/web/20021014183134/http://www.business2.com/articles/mag/0,1640,41206,00.html) ~~~ vecinu > They even use a fleet of submarines, mini-subs, and semisubmersibles to > ferry drugs -- sometimes, ingeniously, to larger ships hauling cargoes of > hazardous waste, in which the insulated bales of cocaine are stashed. "Those > ships never get a close inspection, no matter what country you're in," That's interesting...I wonder if these ships are actually getting inspected now (since the article is from 2002) since they are a known transportation vessel. > The mainframe was loaded with custom-written data-mining software. > Most of the cartels' technology is American-made; many of the experts who > run it are American-trained. American-trained or Americans? I wonder if 'hackers' actually go to these countries to earn some big bucks while developing some "cutting-edge" technologies. ~~~ blhack I've heard more than one hacker say with lots of humor and hushed speaking something along the lines of: "You know if I wanted to..." ------ fkn I'd be interested in knowing how they were able to buy Boeing 747s. Those are huge transactions, you can't simply buy planes with cash. I would assume that it would be through shell companies, but wouldn't (or shouldn't) Boeing be careful about who their customers are? ~~~ larrys "but wouldn't (or shouldn't) Boeing be careful about who their customers are?" Forgetting for a second whether we are talking about Boeing or the used market that is what money laundering is all about. Taking ill gotten gains and putting into a legitimate business. It wouldn't be a stretch to form a legitimate air charter company and even get customers as a cover for buying an airplane. If you've got the level of money they have there are many things you can do. Obviously you are hiding the transactions even if some of the parties might know there is something wrong going on. ~~~ ceejayoz Hell, it'd be good for your cover if 99 out of 100 flights are genuine charters with real passengers on board. ------ alexqgb There's a direct correlation between misery and drug use, as well as a direct correlation between misery and high levels of social inequality. People who agonize between the dangers of prohibition vs. the dangers of legalization (or even decriminalization) are doing so in the context of a highly unjust society that offers virtually no social mobility, no access to the courts for anyone who isn't fantastically rich, no prospect for wage growth for anyone who isn't already in the top 10%, no job security for anyone not worth putting under contract (i.e. nearly everyone), and the terrifying prospect of loosing access to the health care system in the event of a job loss - all of which imposes tremendous levels of anxiety and insecurity for the vast majority of its members. In spite of all this, we're still rich enough for most people to have some disposable income. Add that to the conditions under which most people live, and it's no wonder that the US is, per capita, a tremendously big consumer of drugs. Given this environment, either option will have predictably bad results. But a society that was far less friendly to the winner-take-all ethos, and more concerned with basic health and economic security for a large middle-class population would find that drug coming down to much more manageable levels, making the decriminalization route a much more attractive option. ------ Osiris Laws could punish behavior that affects other people rather than behavior that does not. With alcohol, it is legal but certain actions that involve alcohol are not, like driving. So, driving while high would be illegal and there would still penalities for committing other crimes while using drugs, but casual use that affects only oneself would not be illegal. However, there may be other consequences to actions like higher medical premiums or getting fired from a job for misuse, etc. To me, laws should be designed to protect people from other members of society, not to protect people from themselves. Breaking someone else's things is illegal, but breaking your things is not. ------ GoliMaster I've found this article to be 100 times as effective when listening to this as I read it: <http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4-wtJuqyKko> ------ joejohnson I wonder is Ignacio "Nacho" Coronel is the basis for Gustavo on Breaking Bad. ~~~ acangiano Reading this article made me think about how well researched Weeds and Breaking Bad are. ------ nfriedly I wonder if we could find a way of making these drugs less "popular", similar to how we've done with smoking. That might require legalizing them, so I'm not sure it would actually reduce consumption. But it would hurt the cartels either way. ------ user49598 Here's a link to story on the Wisconsin hunter that stumbled upon a marijuana farm operation on public land. <http://fox6now.com/2012/05/17/cartels-invade-the-northwoods/> ------ praptak I admit that I (in a way) root for those guys. If they can move around such quantities of _physical_ illegal stuff then we can be sure we can move around any strings of bits we choose to. ~~~ objclxt It is a matter of priorities - drug enforcement isn't high up the agenda. The DEA has a budget of $2.4 billion. The NSA's budget is classified, but most analysts estimate it's at least $6 billion - over double that of the DEA. And that's just _one_ intelligence agency. The total intelligence budget of the USA is $80 billion. Cartels could easily be dismantled if the will and money was there - it isn't, because we would rather spend that money on other things, such as nation state intelligence and counter-terrorism. ~~~ mullingitover They might be dismantled, but all the incentives of illegal distribution would remain. Demand would remain, prices would climb, and inevitably new cartels would spring up in their place to fill the demand. ------ mcantelon "The Sinaloa is occasionally called the Federation because senior figures and their subsidiaries operate semiautonomously while still employing a common smuggling apparatus. ... To reduce the likelihood of clashes [between competing interests], the cartel has revived an unlikely custom: the ancient art of dynastic marriage. ... An associate may be less likely to cheat you, or to murder you, if there’ll be hell to pay with his wife." ------ antimora “A catapult,” he repeated. “We’ve got the best fence money can buy, and they counter us with a 2,500-year-old technology.” ~~~ GoodIntentions seeing as stone walls have been around for minimum 20000 years, and wooden fences likely much longer, I find his comment kind of funny. Catapults are cutting-edge tech compared to a fence.. ------ dreamdu5t Preaching to the converted. What's the point of these articles if they have no impact on legislation or the national conversation? ------ patrickgzill Opium Wars - there is at least 1 President who had connections in some way or another to this earlier form of the drug trade. FDR (via his maternal grandfather Warren Delano). There are others who also became President, (starts with a B) who are alleged to have been heavily involved while in a secretive government position. ------ AlexDanger Can anyone recommend a good book/author detailing the history of these cartels? ------ blhack If you guys have interest in this topic, this is a good blog to watch: <http://www.borderlandbeat.com/> ------ alan_cx Why does government follow policies that make drugs so incredibly profitable? ~~~ Mz The folks I know who work for the government are pretty rule driven. Folks like that seem to think that rules have real power over people in a way that isn't true -- as if the rule itself has intrinsic power to stop people from doing X rather than the rewards and punishments which get tied to it. ------ user49598 Whats the easiest way to stop people from breaking the law? Change the law. ------ Futurebot I believe that in order to fix drug policy, we need to think about the issue a completely different way. The main issue is the basic one of sovereignty of the self; the ability to do whatever you want with your own body without imposing costs on others. It's the very same idea underpinning the legalization of suicide. It's bigger than this, but that's for another post. The short version is that all laws should be guided, first and foremost, by the harm principle. Keep in mind the one thing that is paramount with applying the harm principle: /without imposing costs on others/. So what we should do is make _smoking anything where others can inhale it without consent illegal_ and legalize everything else-whether snorted, injected, swallowed or absorbed of all drugs. The only places you should be allowed to smoke are designated private smoking facilities with air filtration systems or your own home if you install an air filtration system yourself. I cannot refuse or consent to inhaling smoke (and where I live, it's a constant assault on your respiratory system. If the people using it ate, snorted, or injected it, there would be no problem). Otherwise, just legalize and regulate; you should have to go through a process to determine whether you're fit to use certain types of drugs, sign consent forms, and agree that any costs incurred due to potential addiction are your own and will not be borne by the state (including things like alcohol - nothing would be exempt from the basic health indemnification. Addiction programs would be covered, though.) If you agree, you're sold drugs by state-chartered companies that are tightly regulated, including pricing, to eliminate the black market. If you use them for medical purposes, you'd be able to bypass the process with a prescription (subject to the same regulations about methods of use.) We should also deign to move hardcore addicts into treatment programs, or, in the case of those who are incorrigible, to long-term "use and protection" facilities. Finally, we should have designated locations with medical personnel, security, and addiction counselors where addicts could use drugs without fear of personal harm and without being public nuisances. With a harm reduction-based system, the entire apparatus surrounding the drug war crumbles. The income of smugglers and dealers disappears. The need for most costly state organizations to fight it goes away. The violence largely disappears (what's the nominal level of violence surrounding nicotine and alcohol?) Regarding DEA funding. Under the system I outlined, this agency would actually get useful: to crack down on and prosecute black market (for those who want to go around the screening process) drug smugglers, importers/exporters, and sellers to the full extent of the law. People are going to do drugs no matter what we do, so we should be talking about methods of use and harm reduction, not just "substances." Don't "legalize pot" or the like; protect sovereignty of the self, and reduce harm to individuals and society. Caveats: Is a full drug legalization policy feasible everywhere? In every country? I would have to give that an unqualified no. In order for a system like this to be feasible, many things are needed. \- A working system of justice that is generally trusted by the populace. \- A largely transparent system of governance. \- A government, justice system, and law enforcement personnel that are perceived to be (and actually are) to be largely free of corruption. \- A strong state that can actually enforce edicts against black market suppliers. \- A strong state, stable state that would be difficult to overthrow. \- A culture that _truly_ accepts harm reduction, and does not simply regard using it as "defeat" or "moral midgetry" Most developed countries fit, or could fit this bill. There are places, however, that are so plagued by corruption, are already so violent, are so unstable, or are already basically run by drug organizations that legalizing drugs would be like legalizing murder (Mexico fits this definition, unfortunately. It appears to already be near to a full-fledged narco-state.) It's already the rule, and would basically have no effect except to make these drug organizations laugh. In those places, some of which are bordering on failed states (or successful narco-states) cannot be fixed in this way. Those places need to re-establish order, trust, and strong states. They should not be thought of as drug wars, however. They should be thought of more like "reclamation missions." Criminal organizations have gotten so powerful, that they are often their own nations inside of existing states, and those states need to "reclaim" their territory and power from said organizations. Those situations are far beyond the drugs. They're fundamentally about power. Moving beyond today's current drug-related battles, we need to ask another question: why, in the face of so much effort to combat it, do so many people still want to use recreational drugs? 1) To escape crushing poverty, despair, depression. For these, only addressing the root causes are going to get us anywhere. Economic opportunities, physical security, better social safety nets, better mental health services, etc. 2) Pure enjoyment. For this, developing largely non-addictive, side-effect-free, cheap, legal alternatives to current recreational drugs. This could be anything from better drugs to computer-neural interfaces that allow more pleasurable/realistic experiences. ------ adventureful It's disheartening to see the intense division on this subject on Hacker News. It leads me to believe the issue gridlock will continue, and the only plausible solution (legalization) will continue to be a fantasy. And as a consequence millions will continue to be jailed, tens of thousands will continue to die and the cartels will continue to grow stronger. Small prediction: the US Government won't legalize drug use and production until the cartels are so powerful the Feds can no longer even partially contain the drug trade. Within a decade the cartels will be powerful enough to directly threaten the US President. I think that'll just about do the trick. ------ its_so_on I don't like the way the author glibly compares his subject with startups like Facebook and Netflix and seemingly seriously uses real notions of economics such as 'cartel' and 'capital-intensive'. ("Sinaloa is both diversified and vertically integrated, producing and exporting marijuana, heroin and methamphetamine as well. ") It's frankly disgusting. Of course economics is the study of how people behave with money and resources. You can make these comparisons - just as you can study the economics of lynchings and torture by slaveowners to assert ownership over their property, the practices of the East Indian Company, or the (taking out touchy subject - think of warmongering; not saying such a thing exists). But please don't do it "straight" or without any irony. This isn't economics. This is death and murder (or war etc). The economics is important. But it's not the economics that keeps me - or the Coca Cola company or your uncle Jack - from arming up with an uzi and "diversifying" into this "sector". Have some decency.	{ "pile_set_name": "HackerNews" }
Probabilistic Machine Learning: Foundations and Frontiers - blopeur https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QEq96wib5tw ====== blopeur Slides: [http://www.nasonline.org/programs/sackler-forum/frontiers- of...](http://www.nasonline.org/programs/sackler-forum/frontiers-of-machine- learning/ghahramani-ppt.pdf)	{ "pile_set_name": "HackerNews" }
Baumol's Cost Disease: Why Artists are Always Poor - mnemonicsloth http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Baumol%27s_cost_disease ====== cousin_it I don't see how the linked article supports your editorializing in the headline. ~~~ mnemonicsloth It would have been more precise to say BCD explains why most artists have trouble finding paying gigs. Wages for artists rise, their output stays more or less the same [1], so the proportion of artists whose output is good enough to justify the rising price shrinks. The artists who aren't "good enough" (whatever that means), or have trouble convincing buyers that they are "good enough", have to take other jobs, e.g. as waitstaff, to make ends meet until their careers take off. [1] Mass production has made some kinds of artists more productive, like novelists and screenwriters, but the net effect is a similar winner-take-all situation. Many unknowns compete to be the next Umberto Ecco or Dan Brown. ~~~ tlb I don't think the BCD effect goes as far as you say. In a nutshell, the effect is that because artists can make $X working day jobs, you have to pay O($X) for them to perform. But this effect stops working before artists price themselves out of the market, because artists actually like performing and adjust their price to clear the market. This is why you can hire a really good band to play at your party for only several hundred bucks. ------ mnemonicsloth Apparently I've got this wrong. Baumol's Cost Disease is a theory in dispute. I just googled "Baumol's Cost Disease Arts" and found: The first link is to the wp article. The second is an Amazon listing for a book called _Baumol's Cost Disease: the Arts And Other Victims_. ([http://www.amazon.com/Baumols-Cost-Disease-Other- Victims/dp/...](http://www.amazon.com/Baumols-Cost-Disease-Other- Victims/dp/1858985080)). The author is apparently an economics professor at a University in England. There's also an abstract from the Journal of Cultural Economics. Baumol apparently developed his claim in the 1960s by looking at the economics of the performing arts, and then generalized it to education and health care. <http://www.springerlink.com/content/k16p700536510057/> At the top of the second page is a New Yorker article that certainly would have made a better HN submission: [http://www.newyorker.com/archive/2003/07/07/030707ta_talk_su...](http://www.newyorker.com/archive/2003/07/07/030707ta_talk_surowiecki) But apparently, the jury is still out. Google also turns up links to skeptical papers: "Has Baumol's Cost Disease disappeared in the performing arts?" [http://www.sciencedirect.com/science?_ob=ArticleURL&_udi...](http://www.sciencedirect.com/science?_ob=ArticleURL&_udi=B6WWV-45N44TX-B&_user=10&_rdoc=1&_fmt=&_orig=search&_sort=d&_docanchor=&view=c&_searchStrId=1119612647&_rerunOrigin=google&_acct=C000050221&_version=1&_urlVersion=0&_userid=10&md5=24e19cf9babcb2a23cd7004955670d27) and "Why I do not Believe in the Cost Disease" <http://www.springerlink.com/content/xuegr8k39y17t3nq/> ------ Alex3917 The other problem is that the market can't properly value artists by definition, because if you know what you're paying for then it isn't art. edit: This is one of the arguments in Seth Godin's next book, which you can get a review copy of here: [http://sethgodin.typepad.com/seths_blog/2009/12/preview- copy...](http://sethgodin.typepad.com/seths_blog/2009/12/preview-copy-of-my- new-book.html) ------ cageface I'm not sure you can argue, as the article does, that musicians' productivity hasn't increased either. In the age of digital distribution that same string quartet can (potentially) generate far, far more revenue than their 18th century counterparts. ~~~ anigbrowl Hmm, I'm not so sure about that. The thing is there's nothing unique about string quartets or orchestras. Prior to the availability of recorded music, you couldn't listen to music without musicians, and for something complex like a symphony or an opera that meant you had to go buy a seat. But nowadays there are lots of orchestras, whereas the number of consumers who can tell the difference between a good performance and an outstanding performance is pretty low. This has been good for orchestras in places like Eastern Europe, who in recent years have made money by playing music for sample libraries, movies and videogames for much less money than it would cost to book a similarly skilled orchestra in the USA. On the other hand, as the number of recordings increase, consumers have less and less need for new ones. In terms of pure sound quality recording techniques have largely ceased to improve - the fidelity modern recording gear far exceeds the resolving power of the human ear, so if you go out and buy a great surround recording of a Beethoven symphony, that's pretty much as good as it gets, technically. You won't get a better recording in 5 years; you can only hope for a better performance. But very few consumers care so much that that they want to accumulate multiple different recordings of the same music, deriving pleasure for the individual interpretations of different conductors and orchestras. Most of them will either buy 'all the classic hits you'll ever need' (performed by some hack orchestra, but hey, it's 99 tunes in a box), or else go for what most people agree is the best (Pavarotti singing Pagliacci or whatever). And the supply of new orchestral tunes, and the audience for them, is very small...film soundtracks are probably the main source of orchestral raw material, and the payments for that are generally a fixed fee. One issue I do have with the Baumol thesis is that saying that wages of musicians have risen is sort of meaningless, because so have prices for other things. It's unclear to me whether the purchasing power of musicians has risen relative to the cost of goods and services, or whether it has merely kept pace with inflation...but I blame the summary nature of Wikipedia for that. ~~~ cageface Elite string quartets like the Emerson or Takacs earn far more than the average string quartet. Perhaps the market for their music is small compared to that of pop artists but you can't argue that they're interchangeable. ------ chrismealy For extra credit square Baumol's Cost Disease with the Cambridge capital controversy. ------ pwnstigator The connection is actually the inverse of "Baumol's Cost Disease". BCD describes the increase in labor costs when the laborers have other options. The problem for artists and writers is that they're concentrating on their artistic work, rather than building a resume and career, just because the artistic careers require so much energy, and most of what they end up doing is not transferrable to mainstream work. So they have _fewer_ career options, and those who patronize them (e.g. publishers, agents) are able to exploit their weak bargaining position. For the same reason, academics in the humanities are often paid less than those in the sciences; science professors have other options. You can say that BCD is making the science professors rich, or making the humanities professors poor-- two sides of the same coin.	{ "pile_set_name": "HackerNews" }
“Create so much they can't ignore you” for coders - dillonraphael Just finished reading this post<p>https://artplusmarketing.com/create-so-much-they-cant-ignore-you-230012615efe#<p>It sparked something in me, and made a serious point.<p>I'm mostly a frontend dev. I'm looking for ideas that will allow me to code and release content on a weekly basis.<p>-video tutorials? -codepens? -design to code?<p>Any other ideas? ====== philiphodgen Clickable: [https://artplusmarketing.com/create-so-much-they-cant- ignore...](https://artplusmarketing.com/create-so-much-they-cant-ignore- you-230012615efe#) ------ iDemonix Entirely up to you. Get a portfolio to link to all of this stuff, and then make whatever will help you improve. Create + sell themes/designs, release free libraries, write tutorials (Envato used to pay me $200 or something per Objective-C tutorial back in the days before Swift). ------ mjankowski Tympanus is the first thing that comes to mind. ------ unlikelymordant Blog?	{ "pile_set_name": "HackerNews" }
When Carl Sagan Warned the World About Nuclear Winter (2017) - bryanrasmussen https://www.smithsonianmag.com/science-nature/when-carl-sagan-warned-world-about-nuclear-winter-180967198/ ====== pmoriarty By far the most terrifying movie I've seen on nuclear war has been _Threads_. If you can find a good copy of it, watch it. Also, many people these days act like the threat of nuclear war went away with the end of the Cold War. But the threat is still very real, and there are still thousands of nuclear weapons that the US and Russia continue to aim at each other, not to mention the rest of the world's nuclear powers, some of which have been at war with each other before and stand a good chance of going to war again. ~~~ Trasmatta > Also, many people these days act like the threat of nuclear war went away > with the end of the Cold War Lots of people seem to be convinced that MAD is a sufficient deterrent for nuclear war. Which may be true if your safeguards are perfect and your actors are always rational. But in reality, all it takes is a mistake or a madman to set off nuclear armageddon. ~~~ simonh That was certainly true during the Cold War, with two implacably opposes factions that have no dependencies on each other and no real understanding of each other either. It was terrifying, and mistakes were made that brought us extremely close to catastrophe. I think that less of an existential threat now. The works us a lot more interconnected and interdependent. What would Russia be without the west to export its oil and gas to? What would China be without foreign markets? We all need each other. Proliferation means the risk of nuclear terrorise or limited conflict us still significant, but not at the globe killing level we had 40 years ago. A limited or regional nuclear exchange would be catastrophic, but not species killing. ~~~ acqq >> But in reality, all it takes is a mistake or a madman to set off nuclear armageddon. > The works us a lot more interconnected and interdependent. What would Russia > be without the west to export its oil and gas to? What would China be > without foreign markets? We all need each other. The argument was "all it takes is a mistake or a madman." Neither cares about the fact that "we all need each other." If you worked anywhere in tech long enough, you should be aware how much unexpected errors are indeed possible even in "old and tested" workflows. And some madman is always somewhere where "everybody thought he's so nice." > A limited or regional nuclear exchange would be catastrophic, but not > species killing. Note: "species" and "civilization" aren't the same. ~~~ simonh OK, what is the scenario where a single madman causes a complete simultaneous nuclear conflagration by the USA and USSR, the only countries with enough bombs to cause a global nuclear holocaust? Russia and the USA have no interest in destroying each other. All the other nuclear powers are too small fry to cause more than regional damage. ~~~ acqq > what is the scenario where a single madman causes a complete simultaneous > nuclear conflagration An actual nuclear war planner wrote a whole book about that: "The Doomsday Machine Confessions of a Nuclear War Planner" [https://www.bloomsbury.com/us/the-doomsday- machine-978160819...](https://www.bloomsbury.com/us/the-doomsday- machine-9781608196746/) P.S. USSR doesn't exist anymore. ------ gxqoz Another take on the same incident: [https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2017/01/30/the-atomic- ori...](https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2017/01/30/the-atomic-origins-of- climate-science) "The biggest consequence of the nuclear-winter debate, though, has had to do not with nuclear-weapons policy but with the environmental movement. In the short term, the idea of a nuclear winter defeated the idea of deterrence. In the long term, Sagan’s haste and exuberance undermined environmental science. More important, the political campaign waged against nuclear winter—against science, and against the press—included erecting a set of structures, arguments, and institutions that have since been repurposed to challenge the science of global warming." ~~~ hypertexthero Ann Druyan, Sagan’s wife, responded to this article with the following: > Lepore has done history and science, your readers, and my late husband, Carl > Sagan, a great disservice. Her article’s central thesis demeans Carl’s > scientific acumen and his character, wrongly asserting that, in his > “grandiosity,” he harmed the environmental movement by advancing an > exaggerated theory of the long-term consequences of nuclear war. > From Lepore’s account, readers would conclude that Carl’s interest in the > greenhouse effect on Venus was something that he picked up from a bright > grad student. In fact, five years earlier, Carl had published his own > dissertation, viewed as the beginning of our modern understanding of Venus, > which included his groundbreaking greenhouse model. > Lepore also gives the impression that the theory of nuclear winter has been > debunked. If anything, more recent scientific research indicates that Carl > and his colleagues were conservative in their estimates. Tellingly, she > makes no reference to the findings—in peer-reviewed, refereed > publications—that fully support, and expand on, the models created by Carl > and the other nuclear-winter scientists. > Carl is also faulted for “partisanship,” in part for declining an invitation > to dine with the Reagans in the White House—a choice that I made, in > response to the El Mozote massacre and other crimes in Central America for > which I believed Reagan bore some responsibility. Does Lepore find those > public figures and celebrities who refuse to be co-opted by the Trump White > House to be partisan? Or is that an unwillingness to lend your cachet to > policies that you abhor? > According to Lepore, Sagan “made some poor decisions” and “undermined > environmental science.” She leaves the reader to wonder what those bad > decisions were. Fighting for the reduction of tens of thousands of nuclear > weapons? Sounding the alarm on global warming decades before others started > paying attention to it? Mounting the world’s most successful campaign for > public scientific literacy? Attracting multitudes to science and reason? > Turning the camera on Voyager 1, which was out by Neptune, to point > homeward, to make us see our true circumstances in the vastness? What better > decisions have other people made? > Ann Druyan > Ithaca, N.Y. —[https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2017/02/27/letters- from-t...](https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2017/02/27/letters-from-the- february-27-2017-issue) ~~~ TaylorAlexander Wild that Ann Druyan’s words would be downvoted here. ------ gojomo This article should mention that the original conception of, & strongest warnings about, a global 'nuclear winter' effect haven't really held up with better models & better understanding of how ground fires/explosions might affect the upper atmosphere. The answers here include a fair summary of the updated case _against_ : [https://www.quora.com/Is-the-nuclear-winter-a-hoax](https://www.quora.com/Is- the-nuclear-winter-a-hoax) ------ Trasmatta The threat of nuclear war doesn't seem to occupy people's minds the way it used to. It tends to still scare me and keep me awake more than the threat of climate change (although both give me pretty regular existential crises). There was even an earthquake where I live a few months ago (first I've experienced). It woke me up, and the first thing my mind thought was "nukes" for some reason (despite not living somewhere that would be a likely target). It only took a split second to realize what was really happening, but it was interesting that it was the first thing my mind went to. ------ makerofspoons I went to several of Professor Brian Toon's presentations when I was a student at CU Boulder. The article briefly mentions his current research but if anyone is interested in the effect a nuclear exchange between India and Pakistan would have on the world, this is a sobering read: [https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2019/10/191002144251.h...](https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2019/10/191002144251.htm) ------ jpm_sd As a kid in the 80s, I was terrified of nuclear winter. Had nightmares about it. ~~~ njharman Same, well not winter, I assumed I'd die in initial strike living near major targets. I, and many people of similar age I've talked with since, did not believe they would live into adulthood. Believing nuclear war was imminent and inevitable. ~~~ gojomo I as a teen in the 80s, I never believed nuclear war was _inevitable_ , but it was a constant background fear. In the suburbs of Houston, any nighttime lightning-strike waking me up would trigger the thought: "was that a nuclear detonation over the city?" Those seeking to learn more about the mindset could check out ABC's 'The Day After' miniseries (1983) or the movie 'Miracle Mile' (1988) – which I'd suggest viewing with no other pre-reading other than this recommendation. ------ ardy42 > This article marked the public’s introduction to a concept that would > drastically change the debate over nuclear war: “nuclear winter.” The story > detailed the previously unexpected consequences of nuclear war: prolonged > dust and smoke, a precipitous drop in Earth's temperatures and widespread > failure of crops, leading to deadly famine. "In a nuclear 'exchange,' more > than a billion people would instantly be killed,” read the cover. “But the > long-term consequences could be much worse..." > According to the article, it wouldn’t take both major nuclear powers firing > all their weapons to create a nuclear winter. Even a smaller-scale war could > destroy humanity as we know it. What's the current consensus on the idea of a nuclear winter? I vaguely recall reading that the early papers like these overestimated the effects, and it would take a far larger nuclear exchange than has ever been possible to cause that kind of effect on the climate. ~~~ catalogia > _According to the article, it wouldn’t take both major nuclear powers firing > all their weapons to create a nuclear winter. Even a smaller-scale war could > destroy humanity as we know it._ I'm skeptical of this; in the 20th century there were more than 500 atmospheric nuclear tests. Given that, it seems unlikely that a ""small"" nuclear war would necessarily cause such dramatic effects as humanity- destroying nuclear winter. This said, cities getting nuked would probably launch more soot into the atmosphere than the desert or ocean getting nuked, so... maybe? But I think we should try to avoid finding out for sure. ;) ~~~ simonh The theory is that the incineration of so many cities, and the subsequent firestorms would put vast amounts of smoke and particulates into the upper atmosphere. It’s this rather than the bombs themselves that has the main climatic effect. The fact that all these particulates would be radioactive is an extra dimension to it all. ~~~ ardy42 > The theory is that the incineration of so many cities, and the subsequent > firestorms would put vast amounts of smoke and particulates into the upper > atmosphere. It’s this rather than the bombs themselves that has the main > climatic effect. The fact that all these particulates would be radioactive > is an extra dimension to it all. Some later Googling of mine found some stuff about how the nuclear winter theorists's models made predictions that oil well fires would result in a small scale global winter, but the Kuwaiti oil files did not confirm that prediction. [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nuclear_winter#Kuwait_wells_in...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nuclear_winter#Kuwait_wells_in_the_first_Gulf_War): > One of the major results of TTAPS' 1990 paper was the re-iteration of the > team's 1983 model that 100 oil refinery fires would be sufficient to bring > about a small scale, but still globally deleterious nuclear winter.[109]... > In articles printed in the Wilmington Morning Star and the Baltimore Sun > newspapers in January 1991, prominent authors of nuclear winter papers – > Richard P. Turco, John W. Birks, Carl Sagan, Alan Robock and Paul Crutzen – > collectively stated that they expected catastrophic nuclear winter like > effects with continental-sized effects of sub-freezing temperatures as a > result of the Iraqis going through with their threats of igniting 300 to 500 > pressurized oil wells that could subsequently burn for several > months.[110][111][112] > As threatened, the wells were set on fire by the retreating Iraqis in March > 1991, and the 600 or so burning oil wells were not fully extinguished until > November 6, 1991, eight months after the end of the war,[113] and they > consumed an estimated six million barrels of oil per day at their peak > intensity.... > The atmospheric scientist tasked with studying the atmospheric effect of the > Kuwaiti fires by the National Science Foundation, Peter Hobbs, stated that > the fires' modest impact suggested that "some numbers [used to support the > Nuclear Winter hypothesis]... were probably a little overblown."[119] > Hobbs found that at the peak of the fires, the smoke absorbed 75 to 80% of > the sun's radiation. The particles rose to a maximum of 20,000 feet (6,100 > m), and when combined with scavenging by clouds the smoke had a short > residency time of a maximum of a few days in the atmosphere.[120][121] > Pre-war claims of wide scale, long-lasting, and significant global > environmental effects were thus not borne out, and found to be significantly > exaggerated by the media and speculators,[122] with climate models by those > not supporting the nuclear winter hypothesis at the time of the fires > predicting only more localized effects such as a daytime temperature drop of > ~10 °C within 200 km of the source.[123] ------ KorfmannArno I'm often amazed that the world didn't encounter a nuclear war yet. What is so effective preventing it? ~~~ thansz Luck. In the short period of time we have had access to nuclear weapons, we have come very close to nuclear war between superpowers: * Cuban Missile Crisis - Vasili Arkhipov Prevents launching of nuclear torpedo while his Soviet submarine flotilla is being bombarded by depth charges (happened to be signaling depth charges). Turns out the US warships above them just wanted the submarines to surface so they could communicate the end of hostilities. * Computer Malfunction - Stanislav Petrov Holds off alerting officials of multiple incoming nuclear ICBMs because he "suspected" they were a glitch, preventing a likely nuclear counter-attack. * Science experiment looks like nuclear attack - Boris Yeltsin correctly decides to wait launching a counter-attack based on an incoming rocket. All the while sitting in front of an activated nuclear briefcase and being pressured by aids to launch within the 12 minute response window. The rocket was meant for atmospheric testing. There are many, many more. Proliferation means more and more nation states have access to nuclear weapons. Balancing peace amongst all those nations can be difficult (look at India and Pakistan). Countries with existing nuclear stockpiles can undergo dramatic shifts in leadership and policy (US politics anyone?). We also have 7.5+ billion people on the planet, consuming more resources than ever, on a planet with a finite amount of things. Now throw in the further ramifications of climate change like political instability, infrastructure strain, resource scarcity, and refugee migrations into the mix. Or a truly mad guy with a nuke. There are way too many people out there that are crazy optimistic that we aren't going to have a nuclear war...ever. We have always had warfare, and when the shit hits the fan, armies have always used the biggest weapons they have had. Nuclear weapons may very well be our great filter. ~~~ KorfmannArno Like, I'm very inclined to think it might happen soon. But what is making me less inclined is the fact it didn't happen within the last ca. 70 years. ~~~ thansz We haven't had a global pandemic in over 100 years and yet here we are. Countries have nuclear weapons and the global community has to get it right every single day to avoid nuclear war. I'm hoping it doesn't happen, but the lack of precedent doesn't mean nuclear war cannot happen. If we needed precedent for something to occur, we never would have a "first" of anything, and history is littered with firsts. But here's hoping. Did I mention I'm great at parties? ------ atemerev Except that the current consensus on nuclear winter hypothesis is that it was largely politically (as opposed to scientifically) motivated. So comparing it to climate change is rather controversial in its own regard. ------ hchz The valid criticisms of the accuracy of these studies are missing the forest for the trees. A major exchange would utterly cripple the global economy, destroy much of our electrical generation and distribution infrastructure, along with our information storage and processing systems, and our manufacturing capability to rebuild it. ------ staycoolboy I remember the ham-fisted "The Day After" miniseries when I was in highschool. It was the biggest TV event since the miniseries "Roots" in the late 70's (watch that and you'll never look at "Reading Rainbow" or Geordi La Forge the same way again). It was a super cheesy depiction of nuclear war and the days that follow. I was too young for the "duck and cover" drills of the 50's, but my generation (X) knew that global thermonuclear war (heh) had no chance of survival. Toward the end of the 80's and early 90's, fear of nuclear war tapered off after The Wall came down. In fact, Sagan was harassed by the GOP and Right- wing pundits for claiming that if Saddam burned the oil fields, we would experience a nuclear-winter around the equator. The 80's were nuts tho: Reagan & Gorby's nuclear standoff was pretty fucking insane in hindsight: mutually assured destruction is in the DNA of the modern right-wing movement. Jeez, even Sting wrote a #1 hit about it in 1985 using a melodic theme by Prokofiev. Those were the days? ------ umc0der talk about synchronicity... sam harris recently released a podcast entailing the ever-present threat of nuclear war: [https://open.spotify.com/episode/7DbMBiOYCCr7LRObkqfffe](https://open.spotify.com/episode/7DbMBiOYCCr7LRObkqfffe)	{ "pile_set_name": "HackerNews" }

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