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Check the Redesigned Google (With Always-Visible Sidebar) Yourself - mixmax
http://blogoscoped.com/archive/2009-11-25-n78.html
======
NathanKP
Personally I think that the logo itself looks more professional. However those
bright blue buttons are too much. The old gray buttons were more attractive.
The sidebar, however, is impeccable. The instant and available filtering
options are incredibly useful.
Edit:
I just noticed something fascinating. The old Google linked from the SERP
through a proxy link which redirected to the actual result. The new Google
links directly from the SERP to the result. In other words you can now copy a
link from the SERP and have it be the actual address of the result, not just
the address of a Google redirect to the result.
~~~
vlad
About 5 years ago, I noticed that links in my Google search results one day
were being forwarded through Google before sending me off to the desired web
site. I hypothesized that if I visited a search result, then clicked the back
button very quickly, then visited another page in those same results, but this
time didn't return to Google, that it would cause Google to think that page
wasn't useful for that search query, while the second page was. Turns out I
was right, because a few days later the first page moved down in the results,
and the other one moved up (I had searched for an obscure mathematical
concept, and my professor's page was the top result, and it had later swapped
places with the second place result.) Thanks for letting me know Google still
incorporates how much time a user spends visiting each search result into
their formulas.
~~~
NathanKP
I had always theorized that they did this, but the point of what I said is
that I don't think they are anymore, at least not unless they are reporting it
via AJAX or something.
The links on the SERP now go directly to the source without going through the
redirect. They are probably doing away with that previous system because it is
too vulnerable to scamming, for example getting a bunch of people to click and
then back out of the competitor's site so that way you can be on top in the
search results.
~~~
vlad
Thanks. I hadn't seen this behavior for years so you have confirmed they still
do it. Secondly, Google did not behave this way every time (in fact, rarely),
so not noticing this in the new version doesn't mean Google no longer does
this.
------
sketerpot
I want searching Google Scholar to have its own button in the sidebar, enabled
by default. Most people won't. The sidebar needs to be customizable.
------
Maascamp
It looks like Bing.
~~~
NathanKP
In what way? Bing features pretty landscape photographs both on their main
page and along the top of the SERP. Google is still fairly plain text in
comparison. Not even the search sidebar operates or looks the same in Bing.
~~~
johnnyb4
I think he's referring to the sidebar, which is what I noticed right off the
bat as well.
I disagree -- the sidebar looks and operates in a similar manner to Bing's. At
the very least, they separate the categories of content just like Bing does
(All results, images, videos, etc.).
~~~
treyp
My first thought when I saw this was Bing.
My second thought was that it looks more like Facebook's search with the
filter labels on the left: [http://www.insidefacebook.com/wp-
content/uploads/2009/08/fac...](http://www.insidefacebook.com/wp-
content/uploads/2009/08/facebook-search-friendfeed.png)
My third thought is that I should stop making comparisons. They're just trying
to organize the types of search in a way that's usable, and my first
assumption shouldn't be that they just ripped it off of another site.
------
RevRal
I had to paste the code into the google search field to get this to work in
Firefox. If anybody is having trouble getting this to work with the address
field, try that.
\----
I kind of feel bad for google that they got stuck with a semi-crappy logo.
That they'll always have to work with it.
~~~
aaronsw
In their print work, the artists remove the bevel and drop shadow from the
logo and it looks 10x better:
<http://www.aaronsw.com/2002/flatgooglelogo>
~~~
NathanKP
The print logo looks decent but it is still flat and lifeless compared with
the vibrant new logo. I think that the new logo (as enabled by turning on this
cookie) pops out of the page more and looks more web 2.0 compared with both
the original logo and the print logo.
------
kentosi
2 things:
1 - didn't work for me when (using firefox 3.5.5)
2 - I have to say that the screenshots look impressive with left-hand column,
but in reality the interface will also have a right-hand column for
advertisements, which will clutter the interface considerably.
~~~
RevRal
<http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=967237>
------
arnorhs
It's not working for me at all. Am on google.co.in (India) and I also tried
switching the domain in the javascript path.. didn't work. I think it's just
working in the US... annoying when the posts always fail to tell you about
that.
~~~
henriklied
Fully working here in Norway. Just press the "Google.com frontpage"-button on
your main Google Search page, and then run the JavaScript.
------
bradgessler
The new logo looks great. I've been using <http://go.infinise.com/> in place
of Google for a while because it looks cleaner. Google has approximated this
UI much better.
------
ct
Looks like all of the other crap search engines by Yahoo, MSN, etc.
Why anyone would want to copy those other crap search engine layouts is beyond
me. Too much clutter. KISS. (Keep it simple...)
~~~
bumblebird
No idea why you were downmodded. I agree. Perhaps an opportunity for a new
startup to be the new 'simple search engine that just gives you uncluttered
results'.
------
rgp
Is it secure to run this code?
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Ask HN: Open Source Call Routing Software for Text Adventure Game? - germinalphrase
Greetings,<p>Simply for fun, I’m interested creating a basic choose-your-own adventure game inside of a regular push-button telephone. Premise is that after some simple directions the user would make decisions in the text-based adventure style (1=yes, 3=no, 2=north, 8=south, 4=west, 6=east, 0=game directions). I suspect this could be made to work using a fairly standard call routing program, so long as the software allows for many levels of menus. Ideally, the software could be run off-line on a raspberry pi.<p>I ask the community because I lack the skills to develop it myself. My background is more closely aligned with the narrative building side of things and I’m hoping someone has experience with a suitable open source option.
======
iamdave
What you're thinking of is called an IVR: Interactive Voice Response.
[http://www.openvbx.org/](http://www.openvbx.org/)
OpenVBX allows you to create an IVR (layman translation: phone tree) where you
can plug in "press 1 and go here, press 2 and go here" via the web interface.
You'll need a Twilio account and API key for it to work, but both are easy
enough to setup.
Feel free to reach out if you'd like any help or want pointers.
If you want to do this programmatically (which I'd advise given how complex
this could get), I refer you to the Twilio API docs for building an IVR in PHP
(other languages available):
[https://www.twilio.com/docs/tutorials/walkthrough/ivr-
phone-...](https://www.twilio.com/docs/tutorials/walkthrough/ivr-phone-
tree/php/laravel)
------
eb0la
If you can provide the sound files, something like Asterisk + PHPivr[1] could
work for you. Problem: It's quite old (2010).
If you _need_ text-to-speech thats could be a problem. Text-to-speech needs
good software. Maybe you can call Microsoft or Google text-to-speech API and
cache replies (I don't know if this is allowed under their ToS).
Finally you could try a platform like Twilio and make ir point to your app
endpoint. This could be a static site (made with hugo/jeckyln/vim) or a
dynamic one.
[1]
[https://code.google.com/archive/p/phpivr/](https://code.google.com/archive/p/phpivr/)
Just make a static site with HUGO/Jeckyln, host it somewhere
------
germinalphrase
Thank you both for the suggestions. I would be using prerecorded sound files
and will dig into your recommendations.
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
The Sad State of Open Source in Android Tablets - angusgr
http://projectgus.com/2010/07/open-source-in-android-tablets/
======
sprout
Couldn't the same sort of mass-lawsuit strategy recently used by certain
copyright holders work here? I mean, if it's really this widespread I could
see the FSF getting a court to issue an injunction against these devices being
sold, given the quantity of infringement going on (especially given that these
are companies who should have the resources to do so.)
~~~
angusgr
It's certainly plausible against the companies that aren't based in China, or
resellers of those products located outside of China.
Although only certain OSS rightsholders have been keen to pursue that avenue
in the past. Happily, at least two of the products on my list contain busybox,
and busybox have generally been keen to defend their rights in court, so there
is clear practical scope for this kind of thing.
------
ZeroGravitas
It strikes me that the most important part is the footnote:
_"I have an email from VIA saying they will be proactively releasing the GPL
source code used in Wondermedia WM8505-based products like the Eken & Gome
tablets."_
If all these tablets (and phones) are based on a handful of chipsets then
getting that lower level code straight from the chipset manufacturer should be
a very important step in getting 3rd-party community distros onto the devices,
much like getting Ubuntu etc. onto an Atom based netbook. You'd still have to
watch out for SD card readers, touchscreens etc. but it's a great start.
------
goodness
I am more sad about the current state of android tablets. Are there any decent
tablets available? When I looked recently, I found a bunch of announcements
for stuff that was coming, like the Dell Streak. But the actual tablets
available look like knockoff Chinese junk. The Archos tablets seem to be the
only moderately respectable devices in the bunch, and those seem to have their
share of problems.
~~~
lulin
The Archos tablet is the same as the Rockchip aPad that is known under many
names: iWeb, iRobot, etc. I am doing a sort-of custom rom for the device and
it's really hard to do without the sources. I don't really understand the
chinese companies, though. Why would they not want people working for them,
for free?
~~~
angusgr
Is this true? Because the Archos 5 Internet Tablet source seems to be on their
site (I originally didn't find it because the naming is kind of weird, but
it's there!)
------
credo
I think angusr may be mistaken in his analysis.
The underlying kernel for Android is licensed under GPL, but the rest of
Android is licensed with the more more permissive Apache license.
My understanding is that Google explicitly chose the Apache license because it
is considered as more friendly to commercial development and proprietary
redistribution.
I'm assuming that the manufacturers will state that they have just extended
Android non-kernel components or (if kernel changes were required,) perhaps
that they've just implemented a new I/O abstraction layer that is independent
of the GPLd code
_Followup to response: If my comments reflect a misconception, can you please
provide an alternate hypothesis for why Google chose the Apache license for
Android_
~~~
angusgr
This is a common misconception about GPL, but it is false.
To oversimplify Section 3 of the GPLv2: if you release a GPL licensed program
then you have to comply by making source code available or showing where
source is available, regardless of whether or not you have modified it.
I can assure you that Linux BSPs for most of the underlying systems included
in the list are not currently available anywhere (that's what the "source
available" column in the table is intending to show.) Although this is
actually unrelated to the issue of whether or not the company themselves are
violating GPL.
You're correct that (as the article says) quite a lot of functionality is spun
off into standalone kernel modules (not necessarily GPL) and the Android
layer, but this doesn't excuse the overall GPL violation.
~~~
loewenskind
>if you release a GPL licensed program then you have to comply by making
source code available or showing where source is available, regardless of
whether or not you have modified it.
This seems pretty arbitrary. If I haven't modified it can't I just point you
to the repository and revision I'm using?
~~~
angusgr
Pretty much. GPL 3(c) - I think - says that provided you got a binary version
with an attached notice telling you where to go to get the source code, you
can redistribute the same binary unmodified with the same notice.
------
flabbergasted
Mark Shuttleworth needs to step into the mobile platform realm with an ubuntu
type android distro.
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Bitcoin has a usability problem - abrkn
https://twitter.com/abrkn/status/911179354381574145
======
nikcub
This is in need of a disclaimer or at least a bit more transparency.
The poll is part of an argument being made for support of the recent Bitcoin
fork Bitcoin Cash
The user submitting here is OP and he also paid to have the poll promoted on
Twitter.
~~~
abrkn
I am the submitter and author of the post. I run paid ads on Twitter to shill
for cryptocurrency. Ask me anything! :-)
------
joobus
The other huge usability problem is the risk of getting hacked. Everybody,
even programmers, didn't write 99+% of the code on the machines they are
using. Even if you manage to go years and years without issue, that 1 time you
get hacked and your coins get transferred out from under you will make you
lose everything and there is no way to get it back. For normies, this is an
even bigger issue.
~~~
zeroxfe
This is no different from early currency -- it was very difficult to protect
from theft, and when you had lots of it, you were an easy target.
I suspect how this will go down is the masses will use banks, who will offer
cryptocurrency accounts with interest and insurance, while the savvy will
continue to manage their own private keys.
------
drcross
>It takes ~1 hour and $0.86 to send $1.00 from a SegWit account on @TREZOR.
The same fee will send a 1,000,000 amount which the user will be pretty happy
about. Bitcoin can't be all things to all people. It doesn't really make sense
to store coffee purchases on a global immutable blockchain. Use other coins to
pay for coffee and let Bitcoin be a store of value.
~~~
simias
You say that now but it wasn't always the narrative from the bitcoin
community. It feels more like after-the-fact rationalization than a true
objective. It just so happens that bitcoin's original architecture didn't
scale and now people are trying to figure it out.
And that's perfectly fine but I feel like we're seeing the same thing now with
segwit and the lightning network. It's all unicorns and rainbows until you
realize that in practice it doesn't work as perfectly as you'd have hopped.
What annoys me is that all these issues could always be anticipated even using
some rough "back of the envelope" calculations. But there's no place for
constructive criticism of bitcoin in the community so the problems are only
faced when you really can't ignore them anymore, and then everybody says "well
duh, it's obvious that wouldn't work" like you just did.
I fully expect that we will see the same thing for segwit and the lightning
network when it'll turn out that the pipe dream of "everybody opens channels
left and right" will fail to materialize and some alternative, probably more
centralized architecture will take its place. It's not necessarily a bad thing
but I wish there was a place where this could be discussed without being
immediately called a shill and a traitor to the cause.
~~~
zeroxfe
> What annoys me is that all these issues could always be anticipated even
> using some rough "back of the envelope" calculations.
Hindsight is 20/20\. Almost no one could have predicted that Bitcoin would be
this big.
------
grubles
This is a silly submission and pretty deceiving. Someone sending me $10 in
Bitcoin only spent $0.06 in fees. And it was via satellite [0].
[0][https://twitter.com/adam3us/status/899410638371524609](https://twitter.com/adam3us/status/899410638371524609)
------
econner
I don't really understand their tech yet but I believe Lightning is working on
a solution to this problem:
[https://lightning.network/](https://lightning.network/)
~~~
MrBlue
LN is years away.
~~~
flyingfences
LN works; integration into mainstream wallets is months away.
------
KasianFranks
One of the most significant rises in cryptocurrency will come when the user
experience, including on-boarding, is made close to frictionless for the
average consumer.
~~~
mmjaa
What, do you think, is key to on-boarding in crypto?
I rate:
1\. Basic, fundamental understanding. This is hard! 2\. Representation - i.e.
education of the user through the interface. 3\. The Status-Quo'ers.
#1: The words are not commonly representable by modern human vernacular.
Crypto's hard to explain, man! The basics have to be really, really virile.
#2: If I have to type in a longass number, you lost me. If I have to type in
_any_ number, its a losing game. See #1.
#3: Nothing beats cash in terms of usability.
On-boarding of ¥ € $ == ∄
On-boarding of web/app/&etc. == ?
~~~
pavel_lishin
> _What, do you think, is key to on-boarding in crypto?_
Convincing someone they need bitcoin.
I have no idea how to buy bitcoins. I guess I could find an exchange, or I
could also go to the Bitcoin ATM at my local Thai place. (Seriously. No idea
why.) But I apparently have to provide my driver's license to exchange cash
into crypto-currency.
What? I'm not putting that into a random machine. That's insane. I don't have
to provide identification when I'm exchanging Euros into Dollars at the
airport, why do I have to send off all this valuable information to a random
person through an ATM over a god-knows-what-kind of connection?
Great. I've just jumped through hoops, and for what? What am I supposed to buy
with it that I can't buy with cash or credit? It seems to me that about the
only thing I can do with it that's useful is move a large sum of money,
relatively cheaply - and if I happened to buy the bitcoins from a guy in a
parking garage, I might even be able to do it with something approaching
anonymity - assuming I never, ever, ever make a mistake.
So how do you convince, say, my mother or my grandfather that they need
bitcoin?
~~~
mmjaa
I just go to the supermarket and buy a Bitcoin card, for 20eu, and use it
immediately to buy things on the Internet.
Its just there, right next to the iTunes credit, the Amazon credit, the Google
Playstore credit, etc. Little cards that I get .. approximately .. 20 minutes
of physical time with, before I discard them and just get the order placed.
Its hard to deal with that, usability-wise, but I guess you have to be in an
"expanding market", like midde-Europe/close-to-Russia to appreciate how weird
it is to just buy Btc at 7/11,Billa, and use it to ship stuff from China.
Edit: i.e. I don't really wanna do it with Euro/$ no more, because Btc. in
China is a value proposition...
------
jacek
I would really like links to twitter posts not be common on HM. How can you
have a good discussion on 140 characters?
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
$250K a Year Is Not Middle Class - applecore
https://www.nytimes.com/2015/12/28/opinion/campaign-stops/250000-a-year-is-not-middle-class.html
======
dragonwriter
Middle class is not principally about income, its about the method by which
you participate in the economy. If your primary means of support is applying
_your_ labor to _your_ capital, you are middle class (yeoman farmers,
independent small business owners, professionals that own or are full partners
in their practices, etc.)
If you primarily live by renting your labor to be applied to someone else's
capital, you are working class.
If you primarily live off your own capital, with most of the labor applied to
it being labor you rent from others, you are in the capitalist class.
Income _correlates_ with economic class, but neither strictly determines the
other. $250K a year is not middle class in the same way that, say, wearing a
bowtie is not middle class.
Its possible to be in _any_ (of the three mentioned) economic class and have
$250K/year income.
~~~
maxerickson
This definition is probably more useful than the popular one, but I don't
think it is what most people understand middle class to mean.
------
hcurtiss
As a family just inside that 5% mark, my first reaction is to object to the
idea that I'm somehow part of a wealthy elite. However, my second reaction is
shock that the median household income is $53,000. If you've got a couple kids
in Portland, Oregon and you're making $53,000, you're going to have a bad day.
I guess I'm left with a feeling of doom that I'm going to be asked to support
so many people when I feel like I have so little margin. We're investing in
our retirement, investing in our kids' 529, and paying down debts. With a home
loan and student debt, we're worth considerably less than zero. I've never
been overseas, and I mostly vacation in state. If I'm the mule that's supposed
to carry this load, I fear we're all going to have a bad day.
~~~
omonra
The author is being disingenuous with numbers. He's talking about 'household
income' \- when a large percent of households comprising of one person.
[http://blogs.wsj.com/numbers/one-in-four-american-
households...](http://blogs.wsj.com/numbers/one-in-four-american-households-
is-one-person-living-alone-1696/)
"The proportion of one-person households increased by 10 percentage points
between 1970 and 2012, from 17 percent to 27 percent."
------
hardcandy
I wouldn't expect it from politicians, but am surprised how even experienced
writers on this topic can't seem to understand the real factors at work here
and contribute to an objective conversation about income, wealth, and class in
America circa 2015...
If my wife and I work 80 hours/week for an energy company that is highly
cyclical, we are very different than two physicians who work 80 hours a week
but have lots of job security, who are in turn very different from a retired
police captain who collects $250k from two spiked Government pensions, who
himself is very different from a retiree who lives on $250k in dividend income
from a $10 million dollar portfolio of index funds. Not to mention who owns
their own home (inherited perhaps), and who doesn't. It's almost like ''income
is the worst way we have to measure relative prosperity, except for all the
others''.
~~~
Pxtl
Not to mention the difference in cost of living in various places.
~~~
pdex
Tell me about it. $250k in Manhattan doesn't stretch very far.
~~~
dogma1138
At some point you need to realize that the middle class is also geographically
gated. There's a reason why the classical middle class picture is a nuclear
family in the burbs and not on 5th avenue. The American middle class was never
"rich" it was very financially prudent. If you still willing to live in the
burbs 250K in NYC will get you a very nice house, a car and even college
tuition for your kids. Even in the golden age of the American middle class
there were plenty of areas that were out of their reach, thats why the middle
class expanded into new sub-urban developments. The cities were mostly
polarized as they housed both the very rich and the very poor.
~~~
pdex
I agree with you but the NYC tri-state area is a strange place and not a great
example for the stratification effect. You're worse off in the NYC burbs in in
many cases, one would think it would be the opposite but it's not. The amount
of money it takes to break out of the middle class quality of life is more
around 400k per year for the NYC tri-state area. In the burbs the houses are
not nice or good for the price, they're overpriced and property taxes are
outrageous- property taxes can actually be worse in the suburbs than they are
for a Manhattan condo or coop. The commute is also a killer, while Metro North
is somewhat reliable and on-time relative to other rail systems, the length of
the commute is just brutal. At least while you're paying more per square foot
in NYC you do get some convenience out of it, although this gets more
complicated if you have kids. If you've got to worry about education for
children, you MUST buy a coop/condo in a NYC district with good zoned schools,
this isn't common and those district command the highest prices per square
foot. If you can't afford those districts your looking at private school for
the kids, and that runs 30-40k, somewhat less if you choose a Catholic school
but still a huge chunk of your budget. Trust me, there are places you don't
want your kids going to public school- and I'm not talking safety, this is in
regards to the piss-poor quality of the education. You'd be better off home
schooling in some places. The burbs do have better schools overall, but you're
still stuck living a middle class lifestyle with a soul-sucking commute in the
NYC burbs on 250k.
------
13of40
"Middle class" doesn't have to be precise or correct, because it's not a
mathematical term. When a politician uses that term, they're doing it because
they know that the guy making $20K (who doesn't want to identify with
poverty), and the guy making $300K (who still feels a sting when he needs to
buy a roof for his McMansion), and everyone in between considers themselves
middle class. Hillary Clinton is just saying "I won't raise taxes for you,
Friend."
------
ipozgaj
$250k is not the same in, for example, California and Iowa. If your family
income is $250k in cities like San Francisco or New York, that definitely
doesn't put you in 95-percentile.
~~~
evanpw
True in San Francisco, but even in NYC $250k is 95th percentile:
[http://www.businessinsider.com/san-franciscos-top-5-of-
earne...](http://www.businessinsider.com/san-franciscos-top-5-of-earners-are-
insanely-rich-2015-3).
~~~
harryh
San Francisco incomes statistics are undoubtedly skewed by stock option cash-
outs that are one time (or at least relatively rare) events. So if you have a
250k/yr salary you might not be in the top 5% for any given year, but I bet
you're in the top 5% for, say, any given 5 year period.
~~~
tedmiston
Not to mention that the top 5% by salary have other forms of compensation not
included in the analysis, like stock options.
------
tsunamifury
I make 370k per year and live in a 500 sqft studio in with my gf (who makes
120 of that). We have student loans, a little credit card debt and so on. We
likely can never buy a house in Berkely and really are thinking hard if we can
afford one kid.
We rent our time just like anyone else and eventually our time will be worth
less. But right now we are taxed heavily to be middle class.
No, it's that 53k a year is near poverty but no one wants to tell America that
the majority of its citizens are so badly compensated for their time.
Median income =/= middle class
~~~
ac29
You are literally the 1%, even in the Bay Area. Either you're lying, have way
more debt than you are letting on, are planning on retiring after a few years
of work, or have a fundamental disconnect from reality.
You should be netting 200k or so a year, and even a fairly lavish lifestyle
should let you save 100k a year, given that you have no kids and live in a
place that should cost less than 10% of your net income.
I've lived in the Bay Area for several decades, and I could buy a very nice
house tomorrow if I made 370k this year, even starting from flat broke.
~~~
tedmiston
It's confusing that he listed $370k as _his_ salary (really, combined salary)
followed by saying $120k of it is his partner's.
I don't know the percentile, but $250k in SF is not even top 5% per an article
someone else shared in comments. [0]
0: [http://www.businessinsider.com/san-franciscos-top-5-of-
earne...](http://www.businessinsider.com/san-franciscos-top-5-of-earners-are-
insanely-rich-2015-3)
------
evanpw
We should banish the term "class" when discussing tax rates. It's got too much
connotational baggage. Even if someone making $250k considers themselves
"middle class", unless they lack all perspective, they don't consider
themselves "middle income".
------
dogma1138
The 250K is a very well selected figure from a political stand point as it
incorporates most of their current voting base and any one who's on the fence.
Families with income of 50K and below are more likely to identify as Democrat
in the current political climate, 50-150 is more or less evenly split and the
higher you go the more ground the democrats usually lose.
Over 250K it most likely won't matter as their political opinions might not be
swain but 150-250K is quite a lucrative poaching ground for both parties, the
republicans spread fear that those are the people who'll suffer the most under
the Dem's taxation policy and the Dem's advertise that they are part of their
precious middle class that must be protected.
The 150-250K range is also where quite a few of the Dem's force multipliers
lie; young educated professionals which are tethered to social media and are
quite likely to be politically active on various social issues attacking and
preserving them is quite paramount for the Dem's long term strategy if they
want to keep the white house for another 8 years.
------
Swizec
The real problem is talking about absolute values. $250k/year makes you king
in many places, but in several cities you'll be hard-pressed to buy a house or
even an apartment.
Owning your home has long been the staple of middle class. In places like San
Francisco even the very high income engineers mostly pay rent. Especially the
ones in their 20's.
(source: me and my girlfriend put together make just over $200k/year, we
wouldn't dare think of buying a place, probably ever. According to the article
we're top 96th percentile)
------
harryh
ITT a bunch of yuppies that live in a bubble and whine that even though they
travel on an airplane for several trips every year, and go to nice restaurants
all the time, just because they might not be able to afford their dream house
in one of the most expensive places to live in the country they aren't rich
damn it. It's _other_ people who are rich.
Living in San Francisco is a luxury good.
Buying a house in San Francisco is one of the most expensive luxury goods
there is.
~~~
gk1
At time of writing most of the posts are about defining the term "middle
class." Don't know if you're projecting or just overly eager to accuse others
of being a "bunch of yuppies in a bubble."
~~~
harryh
Any definition of "middle class" that extends to the top 5% is stretching the
term so far as to be silly. And it gets stretched that far because some people
are unwilling to face the fact that they're rich and accept some of the
responsibility that comes with that.
------
nickysielicki
I think we have a problem in the US where we think the success that we've had
since WWII was something other than an anomaly. For some reason we think that
this comfortable model, where if you work hard and follow the rules and go
through the motions put in front of you, that you can live a comfortable life
with a white picket fence, a couple children, and with one of the parents at
home with the kids.
It doesn't work like that in most of the world. In spite of how interconnected
we've become, we're still largely blind to the terrible conditions of hard
working people who follow the rules in the rest of the world.
So now you're seeing a lot of people upset that they're following the rules
and ending up in bad places-- in a lot of student debt, or unable to find
jobs, or unable to find well-paying jobs. They look at their parents and
grandparents and think that it must be some small systemic problem-- the 1%
isn't taxed enough, or even worse, they think that it's _not_ some systemic
problem, and that this is just a result of the 2008 economic downturn.
I think the problem is a bit worse than that. I think we're on the tail end of
our post-war powerup. I think we're going to try to tax our way out of it and
end up with a broken country. I think we need to face some hard truths and be
a bit more concerned about our national debt; a lot of people on either side
don't seem to realize that a devalued dollar only hurts people that hold
dollars-- you know, lower and middle class Americans. The Trumps of the world
hold capital and couldn't care less about an inflated dollar.
If you click my comment history you'll see that I'm a jaded man that speaks a
lot of doom and gloom, so who knows. I'm just not comfortable simplifying this
as much as the article does. America can't stay on top of the world forever.
~~~
harryh
The first 3 graphs of your comment in chart form:
[https://twitter.com/BrankoMilan/status/668196138332327936](https://twitter.com/BrankoMilan/status/668196138332327936)
------
the-dude
Well, middle class used to mean the family lived on one income, the mother
stayed home/kids/charity, the house in the suburbs was owned and you would
have a car.
Would $55k get you this today? I don't think so. Would $250k get you this
today? Maybe.
edit: typo
~~~
ChuckMcM
There aren't a lot of places where you _can 't_ live on an annual gross income
of 250K. The quality of life will vary, if you living in New Jersey for
example and commuting over to Manhattan, or out in Livermore taking the train
into San Jose or Oakland. You would be doing just fine in Portland and much of
Seattle. Places like Albuquerque and Des Moines would have you really living
well.
But looking at it a different way, where is the money going in those various
locales? Given the cost of living in the Bay Area compared to the Columbus
metro area, the amount of 'pay dollars' is generally flowing out at a much
higher rate in the Bay Area, but they are soaked up just as quickly as they
are in Columbus. So who is getting them? Banks with their Mortgages? Schools?
Government? Restaurants? How can you have a population of people making $200K
a year in one place experiencing the same level of "wealth" as people making
$100K a year in another place? That makes for an interesting conversation.
~~~
the-dude
While this certainly might be interesting today, you glossed over the fact
that middle class was earned by a single income in earlier days.
Which I think is far more interesting.
~~~
rubyfan
It'd be interesting to see when this balance tipped on a timeline.
There's a lot of factors at play here. I can imagine a time where not everyone
in the middle class had an expectation of going to college. I could also
imagine a US advantage on skilled labor that would have yielded far better
wages which has steadily eroded under globalization. I am also imagining a
time when taxes where less burdensome. Probably some other factors at play
that I am overlooking as well, still I wonder when the tipping point was
1980s?
------
aggieben
I'm a bit astonished that it doesn't seem to be pointed out in these comments
(and even a bit more astonished that it's not mentioned in the OP) that there
are a great many people whose income tax returns will say $250k+, but they are
paying taxes on a small business and may not be realizing anywhere near that
much gross income personally.
~~~
encoderer
If I own half of a small business that made $500k in profits, you're right
that I will show $250k of partnership income on my tax form. But whether I
take it as salary or not is moot. You only pay taxes on business profits, so
that wealth exists somewhere and 50% of it is mine.
~~~
hardcandy
I think aggieben might have been referring to FICA, medicare, and all the
other little taxes that small business owners get nickled and dimed with.
~~~
aggieben
Yes, that, and it also depends on what state taxes on business look like, and
you would also pay taxes on any of it that you put back into the business.
The point is just that there are many people with arrangements such that they
might have to file on $250k+, but never realize that as personal income.
~~~
encoderer
Every state that has personal income tax taxes llcs the same as the irs. I
think you've bought into this canard that business owners are regularly paying
taxes out of pocket and it can certainly happen but it's not common. And
that's why the article didn't mention it.
~~~
hardcandy
There are other taxes and fees that add up. The State of California levies an
$800 annual tax on every LLC doing business in the state, for example.
~~~
encoderer
But that doesn't show up on your tax return. The commenter I replied to has
repeated a common trope that there are small business owners who would be hurt
by considering $250k as wealthy because of a quirk in our tax code (pass thru
taxation). It's a canard because if you own half of a business making $500k in
profit nobody should be worried about your tax bill. Income or not, you own a
profitable business that is worth a lot of money. And he suggested that you
pay taxes on money you invest back into the business which is not true. You
pay taxes on your profits not your revenue.
------
s_q_b
The biggest problem is that 250k a year is _is barely_ middle class in a large
city.
If you have three children, and 250k income, that will provide you a decent
living, maaaybe allow you to purchase a home, and just barely afford college
funds. That's what's broken.
~~~
astrange
That's only in San Francisco and other rich neighborhoods. Even in NYC and LA,
250k is more than any family you know makes.
~~~
encoderer
NYC real estate is more expensive per sqft than San Francisco.
> Even in NYC and LA, 250k is more than any family you know makes
What on earth does this even mean? If you have 2 professional incomes in a
family in any of the cities you mentioned, you're at $250k.
~~~
astrange
Well, I only aim to be 90% right.
------
trav4225
Hah, when I first read the headline, I thought the theory put forth was going
to be that $250,000 is below middle class. :)
------
minikomi
As someone living in Tokyo, Japan.. These numbers are all kind of mind
boggling. And not in a good way.
------
n00b101
It sure feels middle class...
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Why don’t we fill bike tyres with helium? - wlkr
http://www.cyclist.co.uk/in-depth/791/why-don-t-we-fill-bike-tyres-with-helium
======
aurizon
go flat in minutes. Helium is the smallest solitary gaseous element, as does
not form molecular aggregates, like most other gasses. Hydrogen exists as H2 =
a far larger molecule. That is why helium novelty balloons go flat in a day or
so even when they use metal lined mylar to keep the helium in.
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
White America Is Dying, Literally - kushti
http://www.pnas.org/content/early/2015/10/29/1518393112
======
dang
Please do not editorialize the titles of stories you submit here.
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Nobody Understands Probability - kmod
http://jsteinhardt.wordpress.com/2010/09/13/nobody-understands-probability/
======
frossie
For those who didn't make it all the way down:
_People often intuitively think of probabilities as a fact about the world,
when in reality probabilities are a fact about our model of the world._
~~~
tome
There are at least two interpretations of probability. Firstly the
epistemological, as you say, represents our lack of knowledge about the world.
Secondly the aleatory truly represents the phenomenon of chance in the world.
The best interpretation of quantum theory for example (as I understand it)
takes the latter view that randomness is genuinely physically manifested, and
does not simply represent our inability to model reality.
~~~
scott_s
I think you're confusing concepts. The original point is about the difference
between the _map_ and the _territory_. And, because I'm (finally)
systematically going through Eliezer's sequences:
<http://wiki.lesswrong.com/wiki/Map_and_Territory_(sequence)>
Your second paragraph is about a particular map: quantum theory. Quantum
theory has probabilities in it. The dominant interpretation of quantum theory
is that the probabilities accurately represent what happens in the universe;
they are not artifacts for us to correct. But there is still a difference
between our map (quantum theory) and the territory (the universe itself).
Put another way: quantum theory is a map with uncertainty baked into it. But
this uncertainty has been _accurately mapped_.
~~~
tome
No I don't think so. Unlike statistical physics, where probabilities are
simply a mathematical technique for dealing with uncertainty, quantum
mechanics actually postulates that randomness is inherent to the universe.
If you disagree with me, please describe how your concept of "maps and
territories" applies to the StatPhys/QM distinction.
~~~
scott_s
Suppose I accurately map the coastline, and every relevant part of the
coastline is depicted in my map. But the map is _not_ the same as the
coastline itself.
If my coastline has some feature that blips in and out of existence in a
predictable way, I can integrate that into my map. My map then has uncertainty
in it. That uncertainty is an accurate reflection of the coastline itself -
but there is still a distinction between the map and the coastline.
I don't disagree with your second sentence. But there is still a difference
between our theory of quantum mechanics and the universe itself.
------
scottw
The odds of _nobody_ understanding probability is near-zero...
~~~
JacobAldridge
I figured there was a good chance someone would say that.
------
adolph
This essay by Yudkowsky is also helpful.
<http://yudkowsky.net/rational/bayes>
------
RickHull
> _However, the answer is not, in fact, 1/3. Why is this?_
This seems like a canard to me.
Here is my defense of 1/3 as a correct answer: <http://gist.github.com/578386>
> _Is Bayes’ theorem wrong?_
> _No, the answer comes from an unfortunate namespace collision in the word
> “given”. The man “gave” us the information that he has at least one male
> child. By this we mean that he asserted the statement “I have at least one
> male child.” Now our issue is when we confuse this with being “given” that
> the man has at least one male child, in the sense that we should restrict to
> the set of universes in which the man has at least one male child. This is a
> very different statement than the previous one. For instance, it rules out
> universes where the man has two girls, but is lying to us._
No, we are assuming that the givens are facts that are true.
> _Even if we decide to ignore the possibility that the man is lying, we
> should note that most universes where the man has at least one son don’t
> even involve him informing us of this fact, and so it may be the case that
> proportionally more universes where the man has two boys involve him telling
> us “I have at least one male child”, relative to the proportion of such
> universes where the man has one boy and one girl. In this case the
> probability that he has two boys would end up being greater than 1/3._
No, we don't have to consider universes where the man has at least one male
child but does not inform of us of this fact. We have a set of givens that are
assumed to be true, and based on those givens and the rules of logic, we can
make justifiable statements of probabilities.
~~~
thwarted
1/3 isn't correct, and I find the OP's explanation to be overly complex.
The set of possibilities for two genders of two children is GG, GB, and BB. In
your possibilities, GB and BG are exactly the same set (order doesn't matter
in a set, only membership), so you don't have 4 possibilities, you have 3
total. Since the guy asserted that one of them is a boy, you can rule out the
GG possibility. This leaves only GB and BB as possible results, both of which
have a 1/2 chance of being the correct one. The guy never makes a claim that
the first child or the second child is the boy (but, this doesn't change the
possibility that he has two boys, it just changes which one you remove from
the possibilities based on the provided information).
I'm not sure that it's that people don't understand statistics (although I'm
not in a position to confirm or deny that), it's that people don't understand
set theory. At least if you're going to use this "genders of two children" as
example.
~~~
RickHull
> _The set of possibilities for two genders of two children is GG, GB, and
> BB._
Yes, but there are two equally probable paths to arrive at _(set-theoretic)
GB_. Each of these paths is equally probably to the remaining paths, _BB_ and
_GG_. There are 4 possible paths, and _(set-theoretic) GB_ is the result of 2
of them.
Your application of set theory is inappropriate given 2 independent events.
~~~
thwarted
The question isn't what is the probability of any one of the paths, the
question is about the probability of the final result.
A fork in the road that joins up again gives each fork equal probability of
reaching the destination.
~~~
seabee
You can't understand the final result in isolation. Out of all men with two
children, the probability that they will have two daughters is 1/4, the
probability that they will have two sons is 1/4. This leaves heterogeneous
offspring occurring 1/2 the time.
If the man is able to make the statement "I have two kids, at least one's a
boy", this puts him among the 3/4 of all men with one or two sons. The
probability of a man with two sons cannot jump from 1/4 to 3/8 (half of 3/4),
as you assert earlier.
It's unintuitive, but it's more obvious when you negate the statement: "I have
two children, but I do not have two daughters."
~~~
carbocation
Perhaps this would offer an equally appealing explanation: if the man said, "I
have two children but at least _my firstborn_ is not a girl..." then the
intuitively appealing response of 1/2 becomes roughly correct.
------
jmtulloss
If you're lucky enough to attend UIUC, I highly recommend taking ECE 413 to
get a thorough introduction to these concepts. It's unfortunate that none of
the class materials are online since it goes well above and beyond what is
taught in most undergraduate CS courses on statistics. Taking it was hard, but
it made me a much better engineer.
Edit: I suppose this applies to anybody in college. Take the hard statistics
course that goes over this stuff. It's really valuable, and pretty hard to
pick up on your own.
------
rmathew
A more thorough introduction to this topic is "Probability Theory: The Logic
of Science" by E. T. Jaynes (<http://www-biba.inrialpes.fr/Jaynes/prob.html>).
------
equark
This article is not particularly clear. It doesn't have a clear discussion of
Bayesian versus frequentist interpretations of probability or inferential
statements that are conditioned on the unobserved true parameter versus the
observed data. It's hard to understand the subtlety of probability without
understanding p(theta), p(x), p(theta|x) and p(x|theta).
~~~
aphyr
I've read several pieces on Bayesian stats, and I've done some nontrivial
statistics before. It _still_ confuses me that p(data) != 1. I kinda wish the
author had gone into detail about how to calculate the probability of an
already-observed event.
~~~
tel
You're confusing p(data) with p(data|data) which is, trivially, equal to 1.
p(data) is better formulated as p(data|F) where F codifies your assumptions
about the possible generative probability models that you're building your
likelihood function from. Or, similarly, F codifies your understanding of the
world and the possible things that could occur within it.
This makes p(data|F) a perfect normalizing constant for the numerator of
Bayes' Theorem since the numerator implies a choice of a _specific_ model in
the family F, but p(data|F) averages over all possible models/worlds/parameter
choices (contained in F).
------
iliketosleep
'Let’s consider an example. Suppose that a man comes up to you and says "I
have two children. At least one of them is a boy." What is the probability
that they are both boys?'.
Am I missing something or in his attempt to solve the problem, does he
implicitly assume statistical dependence?
If statistical independence is assumed, with P(Boy) = P(Girl) = 1/2, then the
answer to the problem is very simple. P(Boy | Boy) = P(Boy) = 1/2.
Maybe I just don't understand probability :(
~~~
tel
The basic formation (which the author argues is not subtle enough to be true)
is better thought of step by step.
_Suppose a man comes up to you and says "I have two children"_
At this point you build a set of possible realities, your model. There are
four possibilities: {BB, BG, GB, GG}. This space fully describes a model
whereupon there are two distinct, children with genders. Additionally, via
assumption of independence and equal likelihood, you can assign probabilities
to each observation, {BB:1/4, BG:1/4, GB:1/4, GG:1/4}.
_"At least one of them is a boy."_
At this point, you update your realities by removing the one firmly
contradicted by the new evidence. Your new space is {BB, BG, GB} and when you
renormalize the probabilities you get {BB:1/3, BG:1/3, GB:1/3} which leads to
the idea that the probability at this point that the man has two boys is
1/3rd.
The author suggests however that during that second step, you should also take
into account the possibility that this guy is lying or that the fact that he's
proffering this information actually changes the likelihoods of those four
scenarios in a way different from just multiplying one of them by 0. So
perhaps the likelihood of hearing "At least one of them is a boy" is reflected
like this:
{BB:0.35, BG:0.32, GB:0.32, GG:0.01}
And your new belief in each of these realities reflects that like so
(renormalized)
{BB: 0.35, BG:0.32, GB:0.32, 0.01}
So now I feel even more confident that he has two boys.
~~~
iliketosleep
Thanks for your explanation. I think his first renormalization process is
wrong. Because once we know there is a boy, the problem space is reduced do
"What's the probability of a boy?" which is 1/2. It has nothing to do with
probabilities involving the known child.
~~~
aphyr
The problem space is not reduced to the gender of the unspecified child. The
important distinction is that "One of my children is a boy" is a statement
about _both_ children, not just one of them. Compare that statement to "My
first-born child is a boy," and it may make more sense.
~~~
iliketosleep
I appreciate your reply. But I'm still not clear on it. Because of this: "At
least one of them is a boy." As I see it, this statement contains the
following pieces of information: 1\. There are two children. 2\. One of them
is a boy. The question is... what's the probability of there being two boys?
Considering the information we've got, there are two possible scenarios
remaining 1. [B, B] 2. [B, G]. So we have P = 0.5. No?
~~~
ced
Three scenarios remain: [B,B], [B,G], [G,B], so the answer is 1/3.
Maybe you were thinking that the order doesn't matter. In that case, what was
the probability of getting a boy and a girl, in any order? 1/4 + 1/4 = 1/2. So
that's still twice as likely as getting two boys, and that ratio (2:1) will
still hold after eliminating [G,G]. You again get 1/3.
Some people find it easier to picture it in terms of frequencies. Imagine 1000
families. What fraction of them have two boys, among those that have at least
one boy?
~~~
iliketosleep
ced, yes i was thinking that the order doesn't matter. I think this is what it
comes down to. Do you think that order matters? If so, why?
yes i do find it easier to picture in terms of frequencies. in this case, take
1000 families which fulfill the criteria of "2 children with at least 1 boy".
what is the probability that a family will have 2 boys? we have not sampled
randomly. we have sampled according to the "2 children with at least 1 boy"
criteria. we are not dealing with two random variables. one variable is fixed
and we sampled according to it. now we are working with one independent random
variable within that sample. that random variable has P = 1/2.
is there a flaw in my logic? if there is, please highlight it. i think the
main confusion is: 1\. we have sampled according to particular criteria. 2\.
we need to calculate a probability within that sample. NOT the population that
sample was taken from.
~~~
tel
In a sampling of 1000 families, the expected values of each kind of family is
as follows:
2xB : 250
1xB, 1xG: 500
2xG : 250
Sampling this population ignoring any family that has no boys leads to the
probabilities
2xB : 1/3
1xB, 1xG: 2/3rds
You're still looking at the same probabilities; the models agree.
I don't fully understand your two random variables formulation. I think the
confusion you're getting at is that there is an assumption that the chance of
any given birth being male is theta = 0.5. The question however is not
"I have two children, at least one is a boy, what is the probability that my
next child is a boy?"
It instead has to do with binomial probabilities on the space of a few
repeated trials under parameter theta. The distribution is no longer flat.
Here's a more stark example of a similar form.
"I have 300 children, and at least 1 is a boy. What are the odds that I have
no girls?"
~~~
iliketosleep
ok, you stated this very well. It's now clear where the confusions arises:
"Sampling this population ignoring any family that has no boys." Yes, with
this interpretation the answer is 1/3, but it's contrary to my interpretation.
Actually, for anyone who is interested, see "Boy or Girl paradox". There is
literature on this which discusses the different interpretations.
~~~
tel
That sampling arises because being part of the population which has no boys is
* necessary and sufficient* to (truthfully) make the statement that forms the
paradox.
The alternative interpretation of the paradox arises when the wording of the
paradox is construed to _identify_ one of the children as male or female. In
this case (stating something like "my first child is male"), being part of the
population (x \in {BB, BG}) is necessary and sufficient and leads to the 1/2
probability of having two boys.
In short, the question becomes whether you believe the child is identified in
the wording of the question. Honestly, the author of the paradox goes pretty
far out of their way to say "at least one of the children is male" avoiding
that identification.
------
signa11
since we are talking about probability-theory, thought folks here might find
gnedenko pretty interesting: [ [http://www-history.mcs.st-
andrews.ac.uk/Biographies/Gnedenko...](http://www-history.mcs.st-
andrews.ac.uk/Biographies/Gnedenko.html) ]
------
AmberShah
"Nobody"? That's not likely...
------
drakep
Never use absolutes?
| {
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Mesosphere Turns Data Center into One Huge Computer - florianleibert
http://www.datacenterknowledge.com/archives/2014/12/11/with-data-center-os-mesosphere-turns-data-center-into-one-huge-computer/
======
florianleibert
Related articles:
GigaOM Jonathan Vanian [https://gigaom.com/2014/12/07/mesospheres-new-data-
center-mo...](https://gigaom.com/2014/12/07/mesospheres-new-data-center-
mother-brain-will-blow-your-mind/)
TechCrunch Ron Miller [http://techcrunch.com/2014/12/07/mesosphere-releases-
first-d...](http://techcrunch.com/2014/12/07/mesosphere-releases-first-data-
center-os-and-announces-36m-in-funding/)
VentureBeat Jordan Novet [http://venturebeat.com/2014/12/07/mesosphere-
funding/](http://venturebeat.com/2014/12/07/mesosphere-funding/)
WSJ Deborgah Gage [http://blogs.wsj.com/venturecapital/2014/12/08/mesosphere-
ra...](http://blogs.wsj.com/venturecapital/2014/12/08/mesosphere-
raises-36-million-for-data-center-operating-system/?KEYWORDS=mesosphere)
The New Stack Alex Williams [http://thenewstack.io/mesosphere-develops-a-data-
center-oper...](http://thenewstack.io/mesosphere-develops-a-data-center-
operating-system-and-raises-36m-from-khosla-ventures/)
| {
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Police surveilled protests with help from Twitter-affiliated startup Dataminr - jbegley
https://theintercept.com/2020/07/09/twitter-dataminr-police-spy-surveillance-black-lives-matter-protests/
======
nullc
This kind of surveillance is not very effective for preventing or solving
crimes.
It is much more effective at making lists of people willing to lawfully and
peacefully stand for the human rights or others, -- "potential subversives",
as the parties monitoring might call them.
Imagine, instead, if law enforcement were to stand outside of a marijuana-
legalization rally and collect the sort of data effectively collected here:
name, address, duration of involvement. They'd end up in court immediately,
and it would likely be found that their actions had a chilling effect which
created a prior restraint on the public's constitutionally protected speech.
Yet online this kind of data collection amasses more data and is more chilling
due secretive nature since you never know when you're not being tracked.
~~~
due737y3
I'm not sure the crime solving utility is wholly relevant here, police have
other duties like maintaining public safety. The obvious utility seems to be
monitoring different protest zones for signs that violence is beginning to
break out. If x people are suddenly tweeting about a fire or gun shots near an
active protest then you know it would probably be wise to at least send a
scout over there to evaluate the situation. This method also has the benefit
of removing the need to have riot-ready police pre-emptively deployed to zones
where everyone is keeping things calm.
Anecdotally, I was able to spectate active looting in my own city's downtown
when the protests first came to us via various livestreaming instagrammers and
while it was mostly a curiosity for me I imagine it would have been useful to
a dispatcher who had to decide where to send officers. I don't see why twitter
couldn't serve a similarly useful purpose.
~~~
jMyles
> I was able to spectate active looting in my own city's downtown when the
> protests first came to us via various livestreaming instagrammers and while
> it was mostly a curiosity for me I imagine it would have been useful to a
> dispatcher who had to decide where to send officers
We all watched the same thing in our cities. And we watched as the police
chose to launch projectiles into crowds of protestors instead of doing
anything about the smashing and looting.
On the first night of large protests (May 29), I found myself in my city of
Portland, OR, on SW 3rd and Yamhill. On one side of me (to the East), where a
small group of matching black-clad people had gone, were the unambiguous
sounds of windows being smashed and building alarms going off. In other
directions, especially South and West, there were huge groups of protestors,
simply occupying the area.
The police engaged, without a single exception that came to my awareness, in
the latter group, breaking them up into smaller and smaller contingents as the
night went on, while doing nothing about the much smaller group going around
smashing.
I described my experience in detail the following morning.[0]
The same story has emerged from streamed video throughout the USA.
So I don't think there's any evidence at this time that the police view
stopping rioting or "active looting" as a goal.
0:
[https://www.reddit.com/r/Portland/comments/gtj1zm/what_i_saw...](https://www.reddit.com/r/Portland/comments/gtj1zm/what_i_saw_last_night/)
------
DoofusOfDeath
I get the sense that most HN commenters are against having police surveil this
kind of event in the U.S.
Could someone share the reasons for this strong opposition?
Personally, I can imagine valid reasons _for and against_ conducting such
surveillance. But given how many people feel otherwise, I wonder if I'm
missing something.
~~~
stefan_
The first obvious point is that protesting is a constitutionally protected
activity, as is any political speech on Twitter, and this is interpreted
extremely widely - so why are public institutions in the business of
surveilling this legal, ney protected activity?
But there is more to it. Courts have long recognized that state activity that
can be reasonably construed to _chill_ exercise of ones constitutional
freedoms is similarly an infringement on those rights, and certainly take a
very dim look on any sort of surveillance of political activity.
~~~
darawk
> The first obvious point is that protesting is a constitutionally protected
> activity, as is any political speech on Twitter, and this is interpreted
> extremely widely - so why are public institutions in the business of
> surveilling this legal, ney protected activity?
There are lots of things that are protected activities that I would like
surveiled. Militias. The KKK. Neo-nazis. I certainly hope the FBI and other
law enforcement agencies are keeping tabs on their activities.
~~~
elliekelly
I would agree, with the giant caveat that I would like those activities to be
surveilled only upon a showing of probable cause and with judicial oversight.
The government shouldn’t have carte blanche to “investigate” citizens who are
not suspected of committing a crime.
~~~
darawk
I agree in spirit here, but in practice in order to get probable cause of
criminality or criminal intent, you need to do a little bit of
surveillance/monitoring first. And it seems to me that a good compromise is
"monitor publicly available media, like twitter to look for evidence of
criminal intent, and then use more invasive tactics if you find it".
~~~
d2v
It takes a lot of faith in law enforcement to believe they won't abuse that
power, especially given they are the target of criticism by these protests.
The argument that it is illegal for them to abuse / misuse this information
isn't very compelling either, given that they are the ones responsible for
enforcing the laws that they would be breaking. I might be okay with this info
just ending up in the hands of the FBI, but I definitely wouldn't want it
winding up in the hands of my local law enforcement agencies, who are known
for harassing and intimidating critics.
~~~
darawk
It's not that I think they won't abuse it. I know that they'll abuse it. The
question we have to ask is whether their abuses will be worse than the
consequences of total inaction on their part. And I think that balances in
favor of surveillance, when it comes to public social media data, but
certainly reasonable people can disagree.
------
throwawizzle
> The monitoring seems at odds with claims from both Twitter and Dataminr that
> neither company would engage in or facilitate domestic surveillance
> following a string of 2016 controversies. Twitter, up until recently a
> longtime investor in Dataminr alongside the CIA, provides the company with
> full access to a content stream known as the “firehose” — a rare privilege
> among tech firms and one that lets Dataminr, recently valued at over $1.8
> billion, scan every public tweet as soon as its author hits send. Both
> companies denied that the protest monitoring meets the definition of
> surveillance.
Dataminr is not the only company with access to the firehose that has law
enforcement and military customers (or customers of customers, who would even
know?) doing whatever they please with it.
I believe that Twitter has cracked down on this recently, or is at least
beginning to ask Twitter data customers to restrict some of their customer's
usage (or remove access entirely). But all of this after the fact.
Also, if you deleted something off Twitter and you think it's gone from every
downstream data warehouses that captured it seconds after you tweeted, and
also the people with access to those warehouses that copied it to their own
storage... well, then I have a bridge to sell you.
~~~
falcolas
Last I heard, there were less than 10 companies with access to the full
firehouse (which has every tweet). Most only get a partial feed, if that.
Disclaimer: Used to work for Dataminr; was laid off.
~~~
ashtonkem
That’s true, but doesn’t mean quite what you’re implying.
The full firehose was originally given to a small number of companies,
including Gnip (eventually purchased by Twitter). What Gnip did was provide
filtering for the firehose as well as some historical searches; this in theory
would allow companies to receive in soft real time every tweet that was
relevant to their search query.
The result is that there are tons of people who don’t have access to the full
firehose, but effectively have the ability to receive every single tweet
that’s relevant to their search query. It wouldn’t be very hard to find every
tweet relevant to a protest, as this is superficially quite similar to finding
tweets relevant to a brand or marketed event.
That being said, this isn’t a product that you can just sign up for and use.
You had (my contacts no longer work at twitter) to negotiate a contract with
Twitter directly to get access to this, pay large sums of money, and go
through a fairly high touch sales and support process.
------
dgarrett
Dataminr Access and Deletion Requests: [https://www.dataminr.com/access-and-
deletion-requests](https://www.dataminr.com/access-and-deletion-requests)
~~~
jb775
> _We will use the information you provide to process and to maintain a record
> of your request._
What a paradox...In order to delete your records, they create records on you
~~~
tzs
For data on people in the EU, that's essentially required to comply with GDPR.
That's because of backups. GDPR doesn't really say if handling a deletion
request just requires deleting from your live databases or if you also have to
through your backups and delete from them too.
I didn't save the link, but at least one country's privacy regulator has
clarified that deletion requests do not apply to backups, but if the backup is
ever restored you have to delete any restored records that had been subject to
a deletion request.
Hence, the need to maintain a record of deletion requests in sufficient detail
to re-delete those records if they ever come back.
------
aspenmayer
I don’t know how these folks sleep at night, lying to the public, their users,
and their customers in the same breath.
> The monitoring seems at odds with claims from both Twitter and Dataminr that
> neither company would engage in or facilitate domestic surveillance
> following a string of 2016 controversies. Twitter, up until recently a
> longtime investor in Dataminr alongside the CIA, provides the company with
> full access to a content stream known as the “firehose” — a rare privilege
> among tech firms and one that lets Dataminr, recently valued at over $1.8
> billion, scan every public tweet as soon as its author hits send. Both
> companies denied that the protest monitoring meets the definition of
> surveillance.
~~~
colordrops
Why is this comment downvoted?
~~~
ciarannolan
Maybe because HN is full of people that work for similar privacy-destroying
tech companies. I find that people on this board get a bit touchy when you
talk about FAANG companies doing immoral things. (I know this isn't a FAANG
company but its affect is in the same vein).
~~~
jakear
Does “FAANG companies” really mean literally those 5 companies? That’s not
very usefully of a term. I think it’s more the concept, which I’d say Twitter
is included in.
~~~
unreal37
Twitter is not even trading at the stock price it was 2 years ago. It's not a
FAANG. It's not a growth stock. It just barely escaped being a Yahoo.
------
thinkingemote
Answering these questions are difficult because the protests were against the
police, and any admission of nuance lessens the passion against injustice.
With less emotional investment comes less participation.
Questions:
Were these protests legal or during coronavirus effectively temporarily
illegal?
Another question is, given a police precinct building was evacuated and set on
fire during a protest, should those attending the protest expect to no
surveillance. Or only if violence happens?
In the UK there are stronger hate speech laws. Most people in the UK would
want the police to be surveiling the far right during their arguably less
violent counter protests. Should they not be wanting this?
~~~
unreal37
"In the UK there are stronger hate speech laws."
The UK is an odd place, legally. Stronger laws against free speech yet looser
laws around freedom of the press to do normally illegal things. It's a
surveillance state with cameras on every street corner, yet a big advocate for
protecting private data online.
A nation of paradoxes.
~~~
0xdeadb00f
Maybe it's on purpose.
This is a stretch but recall in 1984 where the ministry's slogans were all the
direct opposite to what they really did, and how details about the past were
always chopped and changed so no one could keep track.
------
sacks2k
To have a safe society, you need to either have lots of surveillance, so
people know they are being watched and will think twice about committing
crimes (countries with very string gun laws like England and Australia have
very strong surveillance systems in place) or the ability for anyone to defend
themselves legally against said criminal.
When you try yo get rid of both guns and surveillance, it only increases the
crime rate and hurts innocent people.
Very large cities like New York and Chicago are seeing this in action right
now. Police are either quitting, not working, and are being defunded as we
speak. New york and Chicago had record crime rate increases, including murder.
~~~
rsynnott
> To have a safe society, you need to either have lots of surveillance, so
> people know they are being watched and will think twice about committing
> crimes (countries with very string gun laws like England and Australia have
> very strong surveillance systems in place) or the ability for anyone to
> defend themselves legally against said criminal
So, the issue here is that you've picked two countries out of the vast number
of countries who ban or severely restrict guns. There are plenty of countries
with few or no guns which don't have significant public surveillance systems.
------
pmarreck
I guess my first question is, where's the line between "policing" and
"investigating your own citizens"?
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Vbot: a new player in virtual regression testing - katat
http://katat.github.io/2017/01/09/vbot/
======
katat
A command line tool to do visual regression testings, support interaction
flows with JSON based configurations without needing to write any JS code.
Particularly helpful for testing SPA or complicated web apps.
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Ethereum: a decentralized software platform - dsr12
https://www.ethereum.org/
======
bikamonki
Please explain this to me as you'd explain it to your grandma. Thanks!
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Windows Azure Service Disruption on Feb 29th, 2012 - FrancescoRizzi
http://blogs.msdn.com/b/windowsazure/archive/2012/03/09/summary-of-windows-azure-service-disruption-on-feb-29th-2012.aspx
======
panarky
tl;dr
1\. On February 29, 2012, new certificates created with a one-year expiration
date by adding 1 to the year. Since February 29, 2013 is an invalid date, VMs
wouldn't start.
2\. After multiple attempts to restart failed VMs, physical hosts marked as
failed, and VMs migrated to other physical machines -- the problem propagates.
3\. Management services disabled to prevent customers from starting more VMs,
compounding the problems.
4\. After leap-day bug fixed, secondary failures caused by mixing up
incompatible versions of a networking plugin, so VMs had no network access.
5\. Total duration of outages: about 16 hours.
6\. 33% of a month's service to be credited to all customers, regardless of
who was affected.
~~~
tomjen3
Why is it that they think a single customer would be happy with 33% of a fee
which is likely to be only a very small part of what their downtime cost them?
Not to mention that 16 hours time to fix is insane, unless all your
datacenters had been blown up or war had broken out.
~~~
powertower
> Why is it that they think a single customer would be happy with 33% of a fee
Because most other providers would have refunded the customer 16 / (24*28) = 1
/ 42 = 2.4% of the bill.
Microsoft paid out 10x that amount.
The type of an SLA that you are talking about (that pays out to cover all loss
of business) does not exist anywhere, and if it did, it would cost you more
than $10-$100/month hosting account that you'd normally buy.
~~~
panarky
Not exactly. For big outages like this, both Google and Amazon provide bigger
refunds.
When Amazon's elastic block store was down, they credited back 10 days of
service.
<http://aws.amazon.com/message/65648/>
And Google offers a 99.95% SLA for App Engine which refunds 10%, 25% or 50% of
the total monthly bill if uptime falls below 99.95%, 99.00% or 95.00%
respectively.
<http://code.google.com/appengine/sla.html>
------
pilif
_cough_ <http://thedailywtf.com/Articles/DATE_NOT_FOUND.aspx>
And this is why you always use your framework's or language's date arithmetics
library and never try to hack up a solution on your own. Date calculations
alone are hard enough with the basic irregularities of month lengths. Add the
leap years and it becomes even harder.
And don't get me started on times, especially once time zones and summertime
comes into play.
Likely your particular hacked-together solution will fail at some point. And
if it doesn't: was it worth all the effort you put into making it perfect,
especially considering that somebody has already done it for your framework.
NIH at its finest.
~~~
hythloday
I think the problem is that it's not obvious that (in Python, where I saw this
first):
datetime( now.years + 1, now.month, now.day )
_is_ a hacked-together solution. You have to really design an API _very_
carefully to suggest that this is a bad thing to do (I guess you could make
now.years + int yield a type that datetime won't accept as the first argument,
but I'm sure I wouldn't think of that before the fact and I consider myself a
relatively competent API designer.
Not excusing MSFT here, as they have the resources and experience to get it
right, but in general I think that following the rule of "don't DIY" won't
solve the problem.
~~~
jbert
I guess that the fundamental problem is thinking of months and years as
numbers (and representing them as such).
If they were purely symbolic constants, then the expression "January + 1" is
meaningless and would throw an error.
So, with hindsight, I'd say that any Datetime api which represents days,
months and years as numeric quantities (which is, probably, all of them)
encourages these kinds of bugs. (Or at least doesn't discourage them).
Can anyone come up with a use case where you need numeric values for these
things? (Which doesn't suffer from the same kind of bugs as this?)
------
cypherpunks01
How do you all generally handle leap days when doing time math? If you're
selling a service for one year, are you selling 365 days (02/28/12 - 02/26/13)
or do you just give away the leap day for free (02/28/12 - 02/27/13)? Do you
pay your salaried employees one day extra on a leap year?
What other leap year bugs have people run into? Generally the libraries I work
with (e.g. python's timedelta) don't let you add months or years because of
their ambiguity.
~~~
mef
The best approach is to treat Feb 29 as a non-day for purposes of adding
months and years to a date, for example in Ruby:
> t = Time.parse("feb 29, 2012")
=> 2012-02-29 00:00:00 -0500
> t + 1.year
=> 2013-02-28 00:00:00 -0500
> t + 1.year == (t - 1.day + 1.year)
=> true
~~~
ScottBurson
Ugh, that's terrible! A type that doesn't obey basic arithmetic identities --
that's almost certain to result in bugs like the one we're discussing.
~~~
mef
Different approaches, different bugs. The seconds from UTC approach results in
1 month from Aug 31st being Sep 1st, and 1 month from Jan 31 being Mar 3rd.
I much prefer spelling out plainly the intention.
~~~
ScottBurson
Well, a "month", unqualified, is not really a unit of time. You have to know
not only which month you're talking about, but in the case of February, what
year it's in, to know exactly how long it is. The same goes for years, if you
want them to consist of an integral number of days.
So I think as a matter of API design, Ruby has made a wrong choice by making
these operations look like arithmetic on known values. It's too tempting to
think that they'll obey the arithmetic identities, when they don't. If you
want to have an API function "same date N months later", I have no problem
with that at all; then it's much less tempting to think that it's just doing
addition.
------
rdcastro
Working at Microsoft (in Windows Azure), this was the first outage since I
joined the org, so I did not know what to expect from the company in terms of
transparency on this outage. However, given other presentations or papers on
the Windows Azure technology and how open they were publicly, I expected a
good job here.
Bill Liang's post confirmed how transparent Microsoft wants to be with its
customers, what is really nice. And I appreciate how seriously Microsoft is
attempting to learn from these incidents and putting measures in place.
------
kogir
The article really is worth a read if you build complex systems. My takeaway
from this is that you shouldn't schedule maintenance work during "weird"
times.
Had they not been deploying new code on leap day (UTC), the outage would have
been substantially less severe. Code that uses dates and times will have bugs,
because it's hard. Don't complicate things further.
So from now on, no more leap day, daylight savings time, or new years
maintenance. It's worth postponing a day just in case.
------
recoiledsnake
That seems to be incredibly well-detailed, much more than Amazon's or others'
responses to their outages so far.
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
The cortex is a neural network of neural networks - curtis
https://medium.com/the-spike/your-cortex-contains-17-billion-computers-9034e42d34f2
======
skywhopper
This is a good article for deepening the complexity model of the brain, but
mere physical structure and behavior of subcomponents of neurons is only a
tiny piece of the puzzle. To understand the workings of the brain you will
also need to add in the complex interactions of hormones and other chemical
agents in the brain and throughout the nervous system and the feedback loops
they establish with the other systems of the body and through them, with the
external world.
Neural networks of neural networks doesn’t begin to describe it. We haven’t
even scratched the tip of the tip of the iceberg in understanding this stuff.
~~~
ltbarcly3
I appreciate what you are saying, but it may be that it's premature to try to
list things necessary to understand something when it's not understood by
anyone.
In fact, I think you're probably dead wrong. Certainly hormone interactions
and feedback loops in the body have some consequence on an organism, but these
things take time. Lets say that some feedback loop is extremely fast, say 10
seconds. It seems reasonable to assume that you can't have a complex feedback
loop with the body much faster than that, just because it takes time for
chemicals to physically move. Cognition is much, much faster than that. There
are many situations where you can learn, and then apply that learning in less
than a second. Now if we were instead talking about what it takes to build a
complex organism that can satisfy it's own needs, then certainly these complex
hormonal feedback loops are essential. You can't have an organism survive when
it doesn't look for food when it's body is out of fuel or keeps eating
poisonous berries because it's body can't send the reasonable feedback to it's
brain, and you can forget about dropping everything and competing for mates at
the correct time without some kind of behavior modifying hormonal signals!
I would say that your assertion is not significantly different from saying
"you can't understand the workings of the brain without considering the
complex interactions of the brain with the lungs, since without oxygen the
brain can't work". So while I agree that the brain exists as part of the body,
I don't see why you would automatically assume that the hormonal feedback
loops with the body are at all necessary for cognition rather than a way to
tell the brain when it's necessary to find food, when it's adaptive to
conserve energy and be lethargic, or what have you.
My point is that we may or may not find that there is some critical ingredient
of cognition hiding in this place or that, and you can't very well tell us
where that will be if nobody knows if it's there.
~~~
feanaro
Well neurotransmitters are a kind of hormone and they certainly play a direct
role in the computational processes of neurons.
~~~
seandhi
Neurotransmitters are not hormones. Some neurotransmitters are also hormones.
~~~
feanaro
Yes, you're right. That was phrased a bit haphazardly.
My point was that we can't just determine the typical time constant for a
hormone's effect and run home with it since there _are_ chemicals which have
significantly lower time constants and some of them act as endocrine hormones
as well.
Furthermore, an immediate feedback loop isn't the only possible way the body
could play a role in cognition, though I suppose the OP is aware of this and
was talking about moment-by-moment interaction with the body on purpose.
------
buboard
So, a neural network of a neural network is just a deeper neural network. The
big question in dendritic processing is whether it is used (conflicting
information about that, e.g. Jia&Konnerth's work), whether it represents
anything, and how it is learned. Plasticity is all over the place in neurons
and takes place also at the dendritic level with cooperation & competition
between synapses, temporal dynamics and neuromodulation. The credit assignment
problem is hard to solve at the circuit/population level, but dendrites offer
an intriguing alternative, as it is possible for them to bidirectionally
communicate with the spike initiation site.
~~~
svantana
Indeed, the Network-in-Network architecture [1] was a compelling idea to get
complex activations, until it was realised that it's just a standard neural
network which is not fully connected. Since neural networks are universal
approximators, it's a bit silly to talk about something else being more
powerful, it's all about the prior, bias, and training, which are all subject
to the No Free Lunch theorem.
[1] [https://arxiv.org/abs/1312.4400](https://arxiv.org/abs/1312.4400)
~~~
empath75
You can also compose functions together but there’s a reason that programmers
don’t generally jam everything into a single function or think about programs
that way.
~~~
svantana
Right, which is one of the main critiques against deep learning, there is no
separation of concerns or encapsulation, just a single function matching input
to output. But at the end of most days, performance is what matters.
Similarly, the brain hardly has a "clean" structure, it's seemingly spaghetti
code even though there is some structure to it.
------
est31
The model of the technical neuron is only inspired by the biological model,
but not meant as approximation. Instead the goal is to obtain good results in
actual applications.
~~~
arcanus
Yes, and the sooner we dispel with this absurd notion that we have any
evidence we are closely modeling the human brain, the better.
~~~
armada651
Sure, but it's helpful to compare our models of artificial intelligence with
biological intelligence to see if there's anything to be learned.
We learned how to make airplane wings from the shape of a bird's wing. Of
course we should not model our artificial wings so closely as to make a plane
with wings that flap. But there was still plenty of stuff to learn by asking
the question "why does a bird fly and my contraption doesn't?"
~~~
FakeComments
As an explicit example, winglets on airplanes were conceptualized from
watching the way bird wings flap, observing the curl on the outer edge of the
wing, discovering that it controls vortex formation, and then applying the
same concepts to fixed wings.
That kind of thing happens all the time in aerodynamics, fluid dynamics,
mechanics, etc — precisely because evolution is a pretty good optimization
function, and so “natural” solutions can often be very close to optimal, but
using hard-to-discover quirks of physics.
~~~
trentlott
One of my favored arguments for maintaining as much biodiversity as we
possibly can.
Each species' death is millions of years of labwork trashed
~~~
Radim
Labwork with as loosely defined goals as life ("reproduce", "accelerate rise
of entropy") is costly. It's a robust, deep objective long-term, but extremely
inarticulate with poor ROI short-term.
A species of spider nailing down how to live on a particular type of rock on a
particular island, in a very particular environment over millions of years, is
simply not articulate enough "lab work".
Which is of course _not_ an argument for killing off species. But it's an
argument against approaching that _moral_ question from such utilitarian
perspective. You might easily end up with results you don't like, once you do
the cost/benefit analysis in a less hand-wavy manner.
~~~
_Schizotypy
I think the fact that it IS so inarticulate, but that the work has already
been put in, is one of the best reasons to protect biodiversity
~~~
Radim
The "sunk cost" fallacy :-)
~~~
_Schizotypy
yep life was wasteful, time to wipe it out and start over amirite?
------
novaRom
Off topic, but it is really uncomfortable to read anything on medium because
25% of my screen is covered by header containing 'Sign In' and 'Get Started'
and by footer with 'Get Updates' button.
~~~
paol
In addition to the solutions in the sibling comments, let me offer my favorite
one: a simple bookmarklet that zaps all sticky elements on the page. Works
wonders in Medium and a lot of other sites.
javascript:(function()%7B(function%20()%20%7Bvar%20i%2C%20elements%20%3D%20document.querySelectorAll('body%20*')%3Bfor%20(i%20%3D%200%3B%20i%20%3C%20elements.length%3B%20i%2B%2B)%20%7Bif%20(getComputedStyle(elements%5Bi%5D).position%20%3D%3D%3D%20'fixed')%20%7Belements%5Bi%5D.parentNode.removeChild(elements%5Bi%5D)%3B%7D%7D%7D)()%7D)()
~~~
3PS
Thank you, this works like a charm! I tried it on tapas.io where it got rid of
both the annoyingly thick header as well as the sidebar.
------
dschuetz
"... Our analogies often look to artificial neural networks: for neural
networks compute, and they are made of up neuron-like things; and so,
therefore, should brains compute. But if we think the brain is a computer,
..." OK, enough of this. Neurons are not computers. There is nothing what can
be compared to actual neurons. "Artificial" neurons are just reduced models of
the real ones, so that only the "compute" parts are used to calculate input
vectors. It's only a fraction of what the real neurons actually do.
While I appreciate the article trying to actually understand what's really
going on in neural networks, let's not make unnecessary dumbed-down
assumptions. At least the subtitle of the article is actually correct. The
main title is sensationalist "...17 billion computers!!".
~~~
nzjrs
It's funny, I thought the opposite. I was happy to read an explanation by an
eminent and respected systems neuroscientist on hierarchy of computation,
rather than the musing of an undergrad computer scientist on their first
encounter with nature neuroscience.
~~~
mjburgess
An ANN is just calculus with matrices that does not lend itself, by the
mathematics alone, to any "neuronal" description which is ad-hoc and imposed
from the outside. You can draw many computations in "neuronal" form, eg., a
logistic regression. It's really just a way of diagramming math.
"Computer" is an observer-relative term. There is no physical property of a
system which makes it a computer. A "digital computer" is just a tool made of
silicon which we use to aid computation (a goal we have). There are many tools
(from an abacus to a waterfall) that we can use to aid in computation.
"Computation" isn't anything other than a goal we have. To interpret the brain
as engaged in it carries no information and says nothing explanatory. The
sense in which a brain is a computer is the same sense in which everything is:
a physical system whose state evolution can be used to aid in computation (but
isnt: no one uses brains to compute).
~~~
marmaduke
I don’t think it’s helpful to eliminate teleological accounts categorically.
This writing is clearly for public consumption and benefits from simplying
descriptions of what’s happening, so that the layman reader might have the
impression of having understood something.
Computational neuroscience could be written off by your statement that the
brain is not a computer, but perhaps soften your stance and accept that that
allows for applying tools from computer science to ask questions, just as
physicists do.
~~~
mjburgess
Well my stance is hard for the sake of ruling out computer science as an
explanatory framework for neuroscience.
Computational metaphors arent explanatory, they're illusory sorts of
explanations (like narrative) which "satisfy" without providing a causal model
(ie., a scientific explanation).
I'm not convinced they have been helpful, and mostly end up giving deeply
mistaken impressions about the nature of digital computers -- rather than
helpful impressions about the nature of brains.
~~~
marmaduke
Computational metaphors about the brain usually acknowledge explicitly the
nonlinearity of information transformation, and use the word computation under
the assumption the transformation is doing something useful. This hardly seems
controversial so I find the statements you’re making a bit allergic.
------
davesque
Well, a neutral network is a neutral network of neutral networks.
~~~
jarfil
I think the point of the article is that brain neurons are not equivalent to
the ML representation of neurons, so that count if 17 billion in the cortex
would actually require many more "ML neurons" to be simulated.
It also explains how we can keep adding complexity even if no new neurons are
being created, since the branches themselves act like extra neurons.
~~~
taneq
Wouldn't that just mean the brain's more like a small-world network, with
small highly connected 'blobs' tied together in a sparser, larger network?
~~~
shagie
That is one theory. Multiple "agents" is something that has been proposed. I
don't have the background to read beyond the abstract of
[https://eml.berkeley.edu/~webfac/malmendier/e218_sp06/Carril...](https://eml.berkeley.edu/~webfac/malmendier/e218_sp06/Carrillo.pdf)
> We model the brain as a multi-agent organization. Based on recent
> neuroscience evidence, we assume that different systems of the brain have
> different time-horizons and different access to information. Introducing
> asymmetric information as a restriction on optimal choices generates
> endogenous constraints in decision-making.
There's also Society of the Mind (
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Society_of_Mind](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Society_of_Mind)
) by Marvin Minsky (which _is_ very readable)
> A core tenet of Minsky's philosophy is that "minds are what brains do". The
> society of mind theory views the human mind and any other naturally evolved
> cognitive systems as a vast society of individually simple processes known
> as agents. These processes are the fundamental thinking entities from which
> minds are built, and together produce the many abilities we attribute to
> minds. The great power in viewing a mind as a society of agents, as opposed
> to the consequence of some basic principle or some simple formal system, is
> that different agents can be based on different types of processes with
> different purposes, ways of representing knowledge, and methods for
> producing results.
------
orbifold
Another thing that is not well known about the brain (among non specialists)
is that there are roughly one order of magnitude more glia cells than neurons
in the brain, which while non-spiking definitely also respond to synaptic
activity and could be involved in computation.
~~~
_Schizotypy
This cannot be overstated. Glial cells do seem to communicate with traditional
neurons
------
iandanforth
I take issue with the "dendrites know more than neurons" bit. The fact that
they respond to almost all inputs suggests they are performing a different
function that a somatic spike. My preferred explanation for that is that _any_
type of input can be predictive of a somatic spike and that has to be
transduced somewhere.
Specific patterns of concurrent input on a dendrite drive sub-threshold
depolarization which is theorized to be key for sequence prediction.
------
ianai
Is this the first time the concept of neural networks of neural networks has
been proposed? I think it’s close to an idea I’d been knocking around in my
head but never studied NNs deep enough to encounter.
I wouldn’t be shocked if consciousness were composed of hundreds or even
thousands of NNs. Or even a tree thousands of levels deep.
~~~
dredmorbius
Marvin Minsky's _Society of Mind_ was published in 1986.
_A core tenet of Minsky 's philosophy is that "minds are what brains do". The
society of mind theory views the human mind and any other naturally evolved
cognitive systems as a vast society of individually simple processes known as
agents. These processes are the fundamental thinking entities from which minds
are built, and together produce the many abilities we attribute to minds. The
great power in viewing a mind as a society of agents, as opposed to the
consequence of some basic principle or some simple formal system, is that
different agents can be based on different types of processes with different
purposes, ways of representing knowledge, and methods for producing results._
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Society_of_Mind](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Society_of_Mind)
~~~
guskel
As far as I know, nobody takes the "Society of Mind" theory seriously anymore
and none of it lives in present day AI work. There was never a clear algorithm
that could be constructed from the chapters on K-lines.
------
voidmain
A neural network of neural networks is... a bigger neural network. Having two
or three layers of nonlinearities per "neuron" doesn't do anything
qualitatively different.
There are probably lots of huge differences between NNs and brains but this
article is really making the case that the brain _can_ be modeled as a big NN,
just with a few thousand times more activations than neural cells.
~~~
rusticpenn
Brain can indeed be modelled by NNs, however the neurons in brain are more
complex and requires use of more complex neural models like Hodgkin–Huxley
model or can be approximated by more simplified models like Integrate and Fire
models. ( ref:
[https://www.humanbrainproject.eu/en/](https://www.humanbrainproject.eu/en/) )
~~~
j7ake
What's the evidence that "brain" (whatever that means) can be modelled by NNs?
What features of the brain can NNs model?
------
sica07
What I don't understand is the part about the supralinear/sublinear
particularity of the dendrite. First, the article explains that: " If enough
inputs are activated in the same small bit of dendrite then the sum of those
simultaneous inputs will be bigger than the sum of each input acting alone
(...) A bit of dendrite is “supralinear”: within a dendrite, 2+2=6." Further
in the article, I find this explanation: "Because dendrites are naturally not
linear: in their normal state they actually sum up inputs to total less than
the individual values. They are sub-linear. For them 2+2 = 3.5". What makes
the difference between a bit of dendrite spiting a sublinear vs. supralinear
"result"? I feel that the difference lays in the 'if enough inputs are
activated' vs. 'in their normal state'. If that's the case, what's the "normal
state"? Could anybody help me understand this part?
------
johnnycab
This article probably serves as an amuse bouche in the fluid world of mapping
or replicating functions of wetware to algorithms and vice-versa; the top
highlight: _17 billion neurons_ , almost sounds like one of those sampled,
haunting soliloquies in prog or psy-trance tracks, which are usually
restricted to snippets from sci-fi movies or taxonomy of the universe e.g.
there are billions and billions of stars..
This blog post via the Human-Centred AI research from The Stanford Institute,
dealing with a similar subject matter, is wide-ranging, incisive and replete
with sources.
[https://hai.stanford.edu/news/intertwined-quest-
understandin...](https://hai.stanford.edu/news/intertwined-quest-
understanding-biological-intelligence-and-creating-artificial-intelligence)
------
anonoholic
So, a deep neural network?
------
casual_slacker
Not sure if I understand, but it seems the dendrites are "grouped" in a way,
and their influence on the output is a function of the group?
Is this functionally equivalent to having a two layer mini-network (that
represents one brain neuron), with one neuron on top, and "child" neurons on
bottom that mimic the grouping behavior? If this is true, then I would suspect
our networks are already doing something like this automatically.
~~~
buboard
yes, the linked papers deal with this 2-layer abstraction of a single neuron.
In reality, the neuron-to-neuron connections however are different from
dendrite-soma coupling and those levels (Dendrite and soma) differ in terms of
their ability to integrate synaptic inputs and undergoing plasticity, so they
re not really equivalent. This is still an active area of research with a lot
of unknowns.
------
kingkawn
The takeaway seems to be more about degrees of complexity than any particular
structural component taking precedence.
------
coinward
So are we going to be able to use any of this for a new deeper deep learning
framework?
~~~
wetpaws
Not really
~~~
fizx
If you handwave enough at this, it looks like capsule networks.
------
kristianov
At which point should we start to call it neural internet?
------
xenadu02
This seems to make intuitive sense. If we ever create a true AI it will
probably be on the order of billions of neural networks connected together.
~~~
visarga
We're already attempting suff at that scale. GTP-2 has 1.5 billion
connections.
[https://openai.com/blog/better-language-
models/](https://openai.com/blog/better-language-models/)
------
xpuente
metabotropic channels/synapses? ... sadly the most frequent are missing there.
------
westurner
Metadata is not just data
------
User23
I've never understood the almost religious devotion many hackers have to the
idea that the brain is a computer. The brain, or more practicably the brain,
body, and a pencil and paper, can slowly simulate a Turing machine without
great difficulty. But a Turing machine can simulate a DFA too and that doesn't
make it one.
This should not be construed as denigrating the wonderful achievements of AI
researchers. Just because what they do is inspired by the brain rather than
isomorphic to the brain doesn't mean it isn't great work.
~~~
urgoroger
In accordance with the Church-Turing thesis, the Turing machine stands to be
capable of doing anything that should be called computation. It follows that
if the brain is capable of simulating of a Turing machine (this is called a
universal Turing machine, by the way), then it too can do any computation. So
then the class of things that both can do are the same, and so it is
reasonable to call them the same thing, in some sense.
~~~
FakeComments
This only shows computers are a subset of what brains can do, not that Turing
machines can do whatever brains can do.
~~~
mr_toad
If we conjecture that any physical process can be simulated by a computation
then it follows that a Turing machine can simulate it.
While we don’t have any proof of this conjecture (as far as I know) neither
have we discovered any exceptions.
This also doesn’t rule out the possibility of non-physical or non-mechanical
elements in the brain (dualism/vitalism) but frankly I don’t even entertain
that notion.
~~~
FakeComments
You’re just begging the question: if you assume your conclusion, any claim
holds.
Which is exactly my point — everyone is completely okay with those
assumptions, without justifying that. I find it suspect.
How about showing physical processes are necessarily Turing computable, that
is, justifying your underlying assumptions, before the straw man implication
that I’m talking about dualism?
The mathematical equivalent of your argument is that because all finite-length
approximations of a number are rational, the number itself must be rational —
but this is untrue, in the general case. And in fact, for almost no numbers
does a finite set of those rational approximations yield a general rule to
predict the full structure of the number.
It’s therefore unclear that our limited scientific models being computable
mean the underlying object they’re approximating is computable. But if we
don’t know reality is computable, then we don’t know it can be simulated on a
Turing machine.
Just assuming an answer doesn’t help us resolve the claim.
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Ask HN: Please review my startup: TheSunnyTrail - octavdruta
Hello guys & girls, we are looking for a helping hand from the HN community (especially from people that run web apps that use the SaaS model)<p>We enable founders / CEOs to easily to track the financial performance of their web apps in order to make better business & product decisions.<p>Here's how it works: Companies can use our API to send us transactions (signups, payments, upgrades, downgrades, cancellations) occurring in their webapp. Our web interface then allows them to keep track of metrics such as churn, customer lifetime value and others.<p>We'd love to explore whether this is something that might be helpful to you and hear your feedback.<p>You can check out the product over here: http://www.thesunnytrail.com
======
coderdude
Nice site design. It's certainly unique and you stand apart from the crowd.
I just registered an account and I'm playing with it right now. I really,
really like the getting started flow after the registration page. Just pick
your programming language, then you're presented with the methods for
installing the API wrappers, then you get your API key and help on making
calls, handling errors, etc. I'm not left in the dark on how to proceed -- I'm
shown what to do next.
The API wrapper for Python looks simple and easy to use. I could easily see
myself using this for my next Web app.
For some reason on <https://www.thesunnytrail.com/start>, while logged-in, I
am unable to click on the Stream, Overview, or Plans links below the logo.
Also, there is no page title.
The settings page is dead-simple -- I like that.
Without being able to click on those other links that's all I could test so
far. However, so far so good! Good luck, I think this has a lot of potential.
Edit: Played with the demo account. The dashboard looks good. I really like
the stream feature. I think that's something I'd have open in a browser tab,
going back to it every 10 minutes or so to refresh the page and see if
anything has happened. It definitely appeals to the "stats update addict" in
me.
~~~
kolektiv
I rarely comment on these threads, but I had a quick look at yours and I like
it a lot. It's fresh, nicely designed (although some of it could be a little
"tighter" perhaps although I'd struggle to quantify that). I also think it
fulfills a useful niche. I think it's going to live or die by the price points
to some degree - companies who can afford X probably already have the
capabilities of visualising this data, where X is the problematic point, if
that makes sense.
But I think there's a niche there. It's certainly something I'd consider using
if a project had this requirement.
Only one design point I'm not so keen on - the cutting off of the descender on
the "y" of sunny trail on internal pages - it just feels a little jarring to
my eye. Fairly minor quibble though - nice project!
------
yuvadam
Clickable: <http://www.thesunnytrail.com>
------
karlclement
Hello there,
First of all, the overall design is beautiful, bright and esthetically
pleasing. I enjoy the use of the bright colors and vector graphics to make the
home page more appealing.
Although I do think that there should be more information on the home page.
Probably a tabbed format or a simple slideshow to display the main features of
the application. I understand you are aiming for simplicity but I personally
enjoy a more feature filled application.
When visitors access the "Features" page, you can add a more detailed
description explaining how the application works. Maybe a step by step process
to setting up the API.
The "Pricing" page is great, simple and answers the most common questions
users might have.
The "Developers" page is also very instructive. Although as a PHP developer, I
would like to be able to access a wrapper example or a step by step tutorial
explaining the process. Maybe a tutorial to match the Demo Dashboard setup.
For the link to the blog, I would have liked to see a dedicated blog for
thesunnytrail.com. Seems unprofessional. Could be a simple Wordpress
installation with a matching theme. You could even use a simpler platform such
as Posterous and create a matching theme.
I enjoyed the simple and straightforward "Dashboard", but the sidebar seems
empty. Maybe add additional submenu items horizontally under the main tab
bar.The interactive jQuery charts are a must.
Overall, I think this is a fantastic idea and a fantastic application. Great
job. I think it will be very popular for any web startup. Good luck!
~~~
octavdruta
Thanks for taking the time to share your feedback Karl!
------
booduh
UI comments:
\- Separate the primary call-to-action from everything else. On your homepage,
the bright orange call-to-action is competing for attention. Perhaps things
can be rearranged such that the primary call-to-action is in the direct
reading path of the user. Also, I strongly recommend de-emphasizing/gray-
scaling other links/logos (for example, the green link, "Check out the
Sunnytrail dashboard", is the first action I saw).
\- Play up the video a bit more. Make the video placeholder smaller, then
place it where the "green hills" are now (the hills take up too much space,
for very little value added).
\- Tighten up your "tag line". What are the revenue metrics? Be specific and
concise when presenting the purpose/value of your product. A useful formula:
3-7 (basically, keep it short) words to grab the user, then one supporting
sentence below.
I think messaging will be your best advantage here. If you can communicate
clearly and concisely exactly what you are doing and how you make it EASY to
do, then you may find yourself better off.
PS: to be honest, I actually don't know what I can do with these metrics. I
need to be sold.
~~~
octavdruta
thanks for sharing your feedback!
------
bradleyjoyce
I absolutely love the idea and the look/feel of this app. When I first heard
about it I thought... this is what I've been looking for.. an easy way to auto
capture and generate all these important metrics!
So I got started immediately with integrating it into TweetSaver.
Unfortunately, I ran into a show stopper pretty quick.
When passing a signup event, they require you to send a unique username. This
was a major bummer since for the free level of my app, users are not required
to give an email address and in general emails may not be unique to a user in
the system. This essentially renders sunnytrail unusable for me.
The best part though is that co-founder Octav is always in the live chat on
the site, so I explained my situation and he said they would take a look to
see if there is a better solution. I'm anxious to see if they can make some
changes that will allow me to use their service!
~~~
andreisavu
Hi Brad! I'm glad you like Sunnytrail. Your problem can be easily solved. I
suppose that you are generating for each users some sort of unique ID. My
advice is to use that to generate an username (if not already available) and a
dummy email address. You should be able to update those later when that
customer upgrades to a paid plan. TweetSaver looks great! Get back to us on
email if you've got more questions.
~~~
bradleyjoyce
that feels pretty hacky to be honest.
the real issue is that one person may have multiple accounts in the app, and
they may want to use the same email address for all accounts... I have no
reason to enforce a unique email address.
It's odd that Sunnytrail would when there is usually a common unique
identifier across all apps for users.. user id
~~~
andreisavu
Sunnytrail does not enforce an unique email address or an unique username. We
are tracking users based on the supplied internal user ID (or an email address
hash if an internal user ID is not provided).
~~~
bradleyjoyce
hmm, I'm pretty sure that's what Octav had told me in chat.. either way you
require an email address...
RuntimeError: The request is invalid: {"message": "invalid JSON message", "errors": [["", "A valid email address is mandatory"]]}
~~~
andreisavu
required but not unique. just generate a dummy one based on the user id.
~~~
bradleyjoyce
so just really curious.. what's the reasoning behind requiring it?
~~~
andreisavu
we are planning to add some features that depend on that email address (some
sort of advanced client profile)
------
iantimothy
Looks like an implementation of some of the ideas in this article -
[http://thinkvitamin.com/business/how-to-track-six-key-
metric...](http://thinkvitamin.com/business/how-to-track-six-key-metrics-for-
your-web-app/) . Will definitely give your application a look when I create my
own SaaS application.
~~~
andreisavu
Exactly and that's just the beginning. We are working on adding more metrics
and better visualizations.
------
rjrodger
Agreed, site design is very nice.
Any plans for node.js support? I would install today if you had that :)
One minor UX quibble: after signup, it's not so obvious that my registration
has succeeded if I have to step out of the linear flow - e.g. to read the API
docs. You need a "Hi Foo" message somewhere.
~~~
andreisavu
I believe you can write a wrapper in node.js in minutes. Check the raw API
docs at <https://www.thesunnytrail.com/developers> I would do it myself but
I'm not familiar with node.js. Let's get in touch. You can find me at
[email protected]
~~~
rjrodger
coding it up now :)
~~~
rjrodger
<https://github.com/rjrodger/sunnytrail>
~~~
geekfactor
And this is why HN is fucking awesome.
------
andreyvit
Octav, I've spent a bit of time staring at your signup page because it wasn't
clear if you're asking for my full name or for a login (here —
<http://cl.ly/1E2e1S3B2y2J3R0N2r3U>).
Other than that, looks terrific.
~~~
octavdruta
We're asking for a username (for login) rather than your full name :-)
------
rjrodger
You kinda also need a proper About Us page - photos, bios, investors? etc.
Where are you based?
~~~
coderdude
Honest question: Does anyone really care about seeing photos and bios of
people in the company? I don't think I've ever looked that information up,
even if I pay that company money. I agree though that there should be some
kind of about page on the site. They also need to list their privacy policy
and possibly a terms of use page as well.
~~~
gyardley
Honest answer: yes, I care. Like the privacy policy and terms of use,
executive photos and bios are one of my 'this is a real company and therefore
it's safe to pay them money' filters. It's not as important as things like SSL
on the login page or not sending back my password in plaintext, but it still
matters.
~~~
andreisavu
Honest answer: I also care. It's not like we are trying to hide something.
Most of the time Octav it's available on the Live Chat and we write individual
emails to all the users that signup for the service. As side note security is
really important for us and we are taking all the measures needed to ensure
data privacy.
------
octavdruta
Thanks, everyone for sharing your ideas / comments / questions! Keep'em coming
:-) If any of you wants to get in touch via email you can find my address over
here: <http://scr.im/sunnytrail>
------
dlsay
Very nice. I spend so much of my time designing reporting like this or doing
it manually in excel. I especially like the cohort reporting. Im launching a
new product now and will seriously look at a this. Any details on the pricing?
~~~
octavdruta
Not at this moment. We are going to offer pricing tiers based on the size of
your userbase.
------
subbu
Beautiful design. It definitely addresses a problem. Pricing seems to be on
the higher side. But then again I wouldn't mind paying that if my own product
had revenues and could afford it.
------
unohoo
There is a market for this no doubt about it. Although several startups I know
prefer to do this internally - for privacy reasons.
------
smoody
This is a great example of someone finding a nice, untapped niche that was
staring us all in the face. Well done!
------
kyawsoelin1
nice good
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
JSCaml: A compile-time transformation from JavaScript to OCaml - henridf
https://github.com/facebookexperimental/JSCaml
======
systems
Nice to see FB investing so much in OCaml, hope it is not just a phase like
how they did with D
And I sure hope Parallel OCaml gets done
I believe I saw a video for Yaron Minsky (jane street, real world ocaml),
where he said that two areas where ocaml can improve is parallelism and having
a nice GUI Library
~~~
dvorak365
When did FB invest in D?
~~~
stonemetal
[http://forum.dlang.org/post/[email protected]](http://forum.dlang.org/post/[email protected])
Not sure of the full time line but they hired Andrei Alexandrescu after he
started working on D, and he was pretty open about using D at Facebook.
------
rubiquity
Pretty sweet if I understand that this is a front-end for the OCaml compiler!
This means you could run your typed JS on OCaml's runtime instead of Node.js.
Granted, the availability of npm packages will be small since most of them
aren't typed by Flow but in theory you could use OCaml libraries?
Or you could just write Reason I suppose. :) There's a crazy permutation of
ways to write code that can run in a browser or server run time these days!
~~~
kmicklas
> There's a crazy permutation of ways to write code that can run in a browser
> or server run time these days!
Unfortunately the state of tooling and runtime support is far behind the
idealized closure of the transpilation graph.
------
amelius
They give two reasons to use this, but I guess another would be that you want
to run the same Javascript code both on the client and the server, and your
server is running OCaml.
Would they support this scenario?
~~~
jackmott
In my fever dreams, it means all the world's javascript will become OCaml
instead, running on the server and the browser
praise science.
~~~
acchow
To be honest, as much as I like Ocaml I think half of programmers won't be
able to learn it. At least not to its full extent (monads, functors, GADTs).
There's a reason functional programming never took off in the mainstream.
~~~
jasim
Any programmer who can put a loop together can learn OCaml and Haskell and
Idris and Agda and APL. It is just that it takes time and effort.
It won't be a cakewalk like when we first began to learn imperative
programming - learn through osmosis and unstructured play.
It would be more like learning maths, or playing an instrument from the very
basics. You have to work through basic problems, read a lot, practice a lot,
and slowly build up your intuition. Over time a -> b -> c will feel natural to
you, you'll be able to write pattern match expressions without thinking about
it, and will be astounded by your own cleverness when you're able to express
things elegantly using types.
I've been trying to learn Typed FP for the last six months, and it is opening
up slowly but surely. I'd recommend this path to anyone who's been programming
for a while (I've been at it for 10 years now), and wondered whether this was
all there was to it. Beyond these ever-changing APIs and fads and thought-
leaderships, there is a whole new world of programming out there in the Typed
FP community.
You should check it out. It'll make you confident to tackle larger and harder
problems and maybe bring the fun back into programming. OCaml and Reason and
BuckleScript is a great starting point - the community is nice and welcoming.
Real World OCaml by Minsky, Madhavapeddy, and Hickey is a text with a lot of
insights. You can also go straight to Haskell, but its web-browser story is
not as good as OCaml's (thanks to BuckleScript). Or there is PureScript - for
which IMHO you'd probably need to already know some Haskell.
(Wrote this and realized I was talking to people who'd think that OCaml is
hard, not the parent)
~~~
klibertp
> Any programmer who can put a loop together can learn OCaml and Haskell and
> Idris and Agda and APL.
> I've been trying to learn Typed FP for the last six months, and it is
> opening up slowly but surely.
Yes, exactly. Every kind of programming is just programming and if you already
succeeded in learning one kind you should be able to learn any other kind of
programming with enough effort.
The problem is in convincing enough people that a) the effort required is not
that great or b) that the particular kind of programming is worth knowing
despite the effort required or both.
------
kmicklas
Usually compilers are going from something nicer like OCaml to something
janker like JS or C. Interesting to see the other way around for a change.
------
patrickaljord
Does this mean the new React fiber which is written in flowtype could be
compiled to OCaml? Could be useful for a native React Reason.
------
shanemhansen
Pretty neat project. I for one am happy to see more OCaml in the wild. Minor
nit: they mispelled jscaml as "jcaml" here
[https://github.com/facebookexperimental/JSCaml/blob/master/R...](https://github.com/facebookexperimental/JSCaml/blob/master/README.md)
------
jordwalke
Hi I'm Jordan and I work on
Reason([http://facebook.github.io/reason](http://facebook.github.io/reason)),
and previously worked on
ReactJS([https://facebook.github.io/react/](https://facebook.github.io/react/)),
so this touches on a lot of things that are of interest to me. We currently
use the OCaml language with the Reason frontend, for UI development, and use
BuckleScript for compiling it to JavaScript. To some it might seem like this
JSCaml project might be "backwards" in that it compiles _from_ JS to OCaml,
instead of the other way around, but both of these share one important /
valuable thing in common - they use exactly one memory system, allocator,
collector between two different languages. This is very different than
embedding a separate VM/language/allocator as a library inside of another
language runtime. If you've ever tried to bridge two completely different
memory systems together without introducing leaks, you'll quickly realize why
JSCaml gets the most important thing right, even if it is missing some JS
language features - those missing features can be added over time, whereas
unifying two inherently incompatible memory systems can be bankruptingly
expensive.
Seamless memory lifetime interop without leaked cycles is essential for
incrementally moving a code base from one language to the other. In browsers,
that means your only hope is to target semi-idiomatic JavaScript if you want
to incrementally move a large JavaScript system to another language. Wasm is
currently great for whole-program rewrites from scratch, not incrementally
moving over. That's why BuckleScript has been so helpful.
When not running in the browser, you have many more options, and if given the
choice between running Reason/OCaml in a JavaScript VM, vs. running JavaScript
in an ocamlopt runtime, the later offers many compelling advantages.
1\. The ocamlopt runtime allows languages with sound static guarantees to take
advantage of those guarantees to emit more efficient machine code, reaching
the language's full potential. JavaScript will have to go through all the same
dynamic (costly) checks due to its language complexity - at least for object
property/method dispatch, but why should that mean that OCaml should have to
as well? By running inside of the ocamlopt runtime, it can share one memory
system without being limited by an unrelated dynamic language's weaknesses.
2\. Depending on the approach, the emitted JavaScript might be able to take
advantage of many of ocamlopt's ahead of time optimizations to reduce
allocations, and inline function calls (F-lambda for example) without having
to wait for the JIT to reach many of the same conclusions (which slows down
startup time).
3\. Even if the JavaScript compiled to ocamlopt runtime doesn't demonstrate as
much throughput as it would with a JIT (once you wait for it to warm up of
course), the approach of JSCaml allows you to seamlessly break off bottlenecks
and write them in Reason/OCaml which could end up running even faster than JS
with a JIT once warmed up (and without having to wait for the slow JS VM's
startup initialization).
I'm sure there's a ton of work left on JSCaml until you can one-click deploy
your JS programs and see performance wins, but I'm very interested in this
general direction, as it has many uniquely compelling advantages that stand to
help move the JavaScript ecosystem forward.
~~~
ewrcoffee
Very interesting! Where can I more details in building UI with Reason?
~~~
cies
It's all quite in early stage, but this is an example (UI in React) that
speaks pretty much for itself:
[https://github.com/chenglou/reason-react-
example/tree/master...](https://github.com/chenglou/reason-react-
example/tree/master/src/todomvc)
This code is both very pretty and very terse, in my eyes.
------
aylmao
Not to demotivate anyone / anything, but this sounds like the least useful
parts of both worlds; programming JS (and having to deal with typing and
correctness with other tools) to run on the OCaml runtime (which as noted, is
really only better on a small subset of devices).
On the other hand, cool to see the investment in OCaml, and such a popular
language able to run on its runtime! I hope that with all this newfound
interest from the industry and the community more OCaml resources and more
development in the compiler start to happen!
~~~
moron4hire
But how else is Facebook going to cross the extra mile to get on your baby
monitor and keep track of truly everything you do?
------
kristianp
> if you are interested in running benchmarks, you'll probably find that
> existing JavaScript JIT compilers are more than a match for the OCaml code
> produced by JSCaml.
> So why would you use JCaml at all? Two reasons come to mind:"
> You want to run your JavaScript code on small devices where JIT compilers
> are not available or do a bad job. > If you are actually writing your code
> in Reason but you want to make use of JavaScript libraries and you also want
> to run on small devices.
So is this aimed at use in react native? Or IOT?
------
ourmandave
Be interesting to see the JS to OCaml output put back through an OCaml to JS
compiler just to compare it to the original.
------
paultopia
Seems like it would make more sense to go the other way around... who
voluntarily writes in JS to compile to some other language, as opposed to
writing in any of however many dozens of other less horrible languages (but
maybe typed JS is better? never tried it) to compile to JS?
~~~
tdestan
I think the target use case is an existing JS library that you want to use
from an OCaml/Reason program but don't want to port... OK maybe this is a very
narrow use case.
~~~
paultopia
Actually that makes a lot of sense now that you mention it---given the huge
number of JS libraries, and the fact that unlike other languages with massive
library ecosystems (cough cough Python) JS libraries are all written in JS,
that does seem like a nice cheap way to expand the set of libraries available
to a nice language...
------
a0
JavaScript, OCaml, Reason, BuckleScript – such a language ouroborus!
It's amazing how this kind of language interoperability can enable new
development and deployment approaches.
------
linearithmic
Just wait until you see my Java implementation called jocaml. It's smokin'
~~~
LeonidasXIV
Please pick another name, as JoCaml[0] already exists, it is an OCaml with
join calculus.
[0]: [http://jocaml.inria.fr/](http://jocaml.inria.fr/)
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
(Slashdot successor) What Have We Created? - ableal
http://soylentnews.org/article.pl?sid=14/02/20/1936232
======
davidcollantes
They created Slashdot, with a different name. At least, that is what it seems.
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Better Kernel#require profiling information - wwarneck
https://github.com/ruby-prof/ruby-prof/issues/159
======
vidarh
While this is interesting, for every Ruby app I've worked on where startup
times became an issue, the culprit was trivially found with "strace" to be
caused by excessive pollution of the load path to the point where pointless
stat-calls totally dominates load time.
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Migrating from OS.PATH to PATHLIB Module in Python - amitness
https://amitness.com/2019/12/migrating-to-pathlib/
======
RMPR
Didn't know about the division operator, when I used the pathlib module to
resolve the correct paths, I almost always ended up Frankensteining with
os.path.join, thanks for making this.
~~~
amitness
I'm glad it was helpful to you.
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Google’s AMP Poised to Take the Lead from Facebook’s and Apple’s Walled Gardens - webdisrupt
http://www.mondaynote.com/2016/01/18/googles-amp-poised-to-take-the-lead-from-facebooks-and-apples-walled-gardens/?utm_source=Sailthru&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=UK%20Daily%202016-01-19&utm_term=Digiday%20UK%20Newsletter
======
x1024
(The article said to "try any page from The Guardian with '/amp' to test its
performance")
Oh my:
[http://tools.pingdom.com/fpt/#!/bniZiH/https://www.theguardi...](http://tools.pingdom.com/fpt/#!/bniZiH/https://www.theguardian.com/world/2016/jan/20/bacha-
khan-university-explosions-heard-as-gunmen-attack-pakistan/amp)
"Such mobile performance, wow". 4 megabytes of video(Preloading two different
videos. Why?), maybe 10 different domains, downloading JS before downloading
images...
And this is the _showcase_ for AMP.
It's almost as if "there is no silver bullet" for web performance, and "actual
programming skill" is still a requirement.
There is a difference between AMP and non-AMP, yes:
[http://tools.pingdom.com/fpt/#!/bAnV7C/https://www.theguardi...](http://tools.pingdom.com/fpt/#!/bAnV7C/https://www.theguardian.com/world/2016/jan/20/bacha-
khan-university-explosions-heard-as-gunmen-attack-pakistan)
But at this point in time, it seems that installing an ad blocker has about
the same impact as "conceding to view a crippled AMP-redesign of the page that
doesn't even have navigation".
~~~
wanda
Using the same tool, I can see that my website loads in 440ms in the
Netherlands. The homepage is 140kb, makes 6 requests, leverages caching and
http/2 thanks to nginx etc.
Which is great and everything, but for a reader in Texas, that becomes 1.2s
thanks to the fact that my site is hosted in London.
As you point out, AMP pages which weigh in at 4MB can be loaded in a seemingly
underwhelming time: ~800ms. However, I think the important takeaway from this
is that the pages load in ~800ms in two different continents.
The articles I publish on my blog use AMP-HTML. I don't include media or ads
at all, just text and fonts. These pages fully load in 200ms.
I conclude that the free CDN offered by Google is, frankly, a very attractive
feature.
~~~
r1ch
You can always put Cloudflare in front of a site to get the same CDN benefit.
~~~
cromwellian
How do you know Cloudflare or other CDNs are participating with advertisers
somehow, or responding to government tracking requests?
If the government can subpoena data from Google, are we sure they're not doing
the same or more with CDNs, which don't seem as transparent as the consumer-
facing companies.
~~~
tomjen3
Cloudfare publishes a transparency report
[https://www.cloudflare.com/transparency/](https://www.cloudflare.com/transparency/),
whether you trust it is another thing. Personally I have given up on privacy
and now just hope that it can be made so that we are all equally naked.
------
franze
ok, just to get this straight
if a publisher want to do everything right in todays internet, they need
* a responsive website
* with views for desktop, mobile and tablet
* optimized for search, social and conversion
* optional: augmented with schema.org
* an iphone app (one or more)
* an android app
* optional: tablet/ipad app
* facebook channel
* twitter channel
* youtube channel
* pinterest presence
* whatsapp presence
* snapchat presence
* one or more newsletter
* constant A/B testing
now add
* facebook instant articles
* google amp pages
did i forget something?
yes page bloat, third party crap and webperformance is a serious issue for
users and publishers, but solving it with throwing another half baked
technology at the publishers will not work.
it's cHTML all over again
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/C-HTML](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/C-HTML)
AMP solves the right problem with a non solution.
~~~
acdha
The second point is a restatement of the first:
* a responsive website
* with views for desktop, mobile and tablet
#3 and #4 are similarly redundant
#1 makes all of the apps unnecessary, along with AMP and Facebook Instant. See
also the dismal return on the sunk cost for developing apps:
[http://techcrunch.com/2015/07/23/i-dont-want-your-
app/](http://techcrunch.com/2015/07/23/i-dont-want-your-app/)
The real omission, however, should have been #0: “high-quality content”. Sure,
you see the NYT, NPR, Guardian, et al. post a lot on Twitter, Facebook, etc.
but they were already some of the most popular content on the web and would
have been widely shared either way.
~~~
Arnavion
franze probably intended "responsive" to have its dictionary meaning - "not
sluggish".
~~~
acdha
It's possible but in the context of web design “responsive” has had a
specialized meaning for many years, going back to a very influential article
in 2010 which grouped older practices under that term:
[http://alistapart.com/article/responsive-web-
design](http://alistapart.com/article/responsive-web-design)
It's somewhat unlikely that anyone working in front-end development in 2016
would assume the generic usage.
------
hackercomplex
Keep in mind that the AMP caching infrastructure will also be able to serve as
a tracking platform because it records every single IP address. This
effectively grants Google and associates a defacto monopoly in terms of an
unblockable mobile tracking platform in a world where ad-blockers are becoming
ubiquitous.
I think it's a smart move on their part actually, but what I assume will
eventually happen is other providers will come along and provide a similar
free infrastructure but without retaining logs and then everyone will migrate
to that. Google will have gotten the ball rolling, and benefited for a number
of years from the data, but ultimately people on the web prefer not to be
tracked.
~~~
zaphar
but ultimately people on the web prefer not to be tracked.
It's curious because most people on the web pay lip service to this preference
but their actions typically indicate that they don't really care all that
much. The folks on Hacker News are in the minority of users whose actions
indicate they truly care.
~~~
codemac
Nah, I think they don't have the time to get up to speed enough to even
understand what it means to have their IP tracked, let alone understand the
lengths they would have to go to avoid being tracked.
Most of my non-technical friends are super concerned, and frequently tell me
how scary it is not knowing what to do or how to avoid it.
It's an active role the current ad-based industry takes to convince their
users that the tracking either doesn't matter or somehow empowers the user,
which are both demonstrably false.
------
fitzwatermellow
From the F.A.Q:
__Accelerated Mobile Pages are just like any other HTML page, but with a
limited set of allowed technical functionality that is defined and governed by
the open source AMP spec __
And from the Spec:
__Enable the AMP runtime to manage the loading of external resources, which
may slow down the initial render or cause jank. Allow AMP authors to include
functionality above and beyond standard HTML, while maintaining the security-
and performance-minded requirement that no author-written JavaScript is
executed __
Appears we won 't have access to Canvas2D, WebGL, WebRTC, Fetch and other
HTML5 Web APIs. AMP's subset of declarative elements and caching will be great
for longform-y "static" content. The kind of articles I find myself reading
more of on Mobile Chrome during down times in transit. Thinking of Medium
confessionals and NewYorker dispatches, etc.
But how do you implement something like ChartBeat? Snapshots of dynamic chart
images and data pre-rendered on the server and pushed out to the cdn? Sort of
eliminates the performance benefits of geospatial caching doesn't it...
I do take heart however in Tony Haile's pull quote from the ampproject.org
homepage:
__The mobile open web experience is terrible and some have suggested it 's
too slow to compete. We can choose to see the mobile open web as a relic of
its time and flee to the warm embrace of closed platforms and apps. Or we can
say that the open web means something important to the world and if it’s
broken it’s our job to fix it. I think we should fix it. __
------
digitalclubb
The web is getting bigger, there is no denying that. People developing
responsive sites irresponsibly, adding large images, videos and JavaScript
libraries and frameworks.
What I don't understand is why search engines don't punish those individuals
with larger pages rather than move everyone to something new? Is this taking
us back to the mobile site days?
I love the concept of getting core content to the user fast but what is
stopping someone adding a 2MB amp-img to their page and then we are right back
where we were before?
------
VeejayRampay
Past all the considerations of content ownership and all, it seems to be quite
the technical feat, the impact on page load is real (or maybe my testing was
partial or biased).
~~~
espadrine
I'd argue it is more of a social feat than a technical one. It is still HTML,
after all.
The real underlying issue that AMP solves is ad bloat. Online newspapers tend
to include that one more ad library that tracks a particular thing that one ad
partner or one analytics team wishes to have, let alone visual bloat such as
"share as", "like", "comment" and other social widgets all implemented as
iframes with their own separate trackers, and the sum of it all has a large
impact on both download sizes and performance, since they are seldom
optimized. Oil on fire is the fact that there is generally no incentive to
remove libraries that no longer have a use.
AMP forces newspapers and other content providers reliant on advertising to
play nice. It gives them an incentive (through caching and better indexing)
which costs them the bloat.
------
manyoso
Even more centralization and single point of failure. If this continues the
web as envisioned will be entirely replaced by a centralized system of walled
gardens with big companies controlling access.
This is why we need IPFS sooner rather than later.
~~~
manyoso
The case for IPFS to combat these walled gardens:
[https://m.youtube.com/watch?ebc=ANyPxKqMiNbStnEQHC-
kiEBSd1jI...](https://m.youtube.com/watch?ebc=ANyPxKqMiNbStnEQHC-
kiEBSd1jILZqa0BT0CONnIPhZaJx8DboPmzg3vqia97Wk1XMENc3rY3Bjtz6iTqoZ-lK-
mWqsshiIyQ&time_continue=3&v=HUVmypx9HGI)
------
alexatkeplar
Big fan of what AMP is doing, but I'm a little surprised by the statement
that:
> Today, multiple web metrics providers are on board, including Moat (who
> partner with Chartbeat), Nielsen, ComScore, Parse.ly, ClickTale, Adobe
> Analytics
As far as I know, our (Snowplow's) PR into AMP is the first and only (so far)
from a non-GA analytics vendor:
[https://github.com/ampproject/amphtml/pull/1358](https://github.com/ampproject/amphtml/pull/1358)
Maybe I'm looking in the wrong place?
------
r1ch
In order to make my completely static non-JS site AMP compliant do I have to
include the amp JS library or is Google smart enough to realize my site is
plenty fast enough as-is?
~~~
cbowal
It looks like you don't have to use AMP specifically - speeding up your site
is valid however you do it.
"Google made clear that AMP wasn’t the only way to speed up mobile pages."
[http://searchengineland.com/google-amp-coming-rank-
fast-2380...](http://searchengineland.com/google-amp-coming-rank-fast-238046)
------
glossyscr
I tried the AMP versions mentioned in the article on an iPhone 6 connected to
wifi and I am not impressed at all.
Something which loads _really_ instantly is D's forum, it's incredibly how
fast it is and it's written in D:
[http://forum.dlang.org/](http://forum.dlang.org/)
(I am not into D, just found this thing recently on reddit/programming)
------
tombrossman
From the article: _"...most ad servers (not just Google-owned DFP) will be
able to send ads in AMP pages. Some work remains to be done on the formats
that will be deemed acceptable in AMP pages."_ Deemed acceptable by who, and
doesn't this indicate it will become another walled garden?
~~~
shostack
Not sure why you were down-voted as it is a legit question.
I'd honestly be pretty surprised if they didn't just opt to support all IAB-
approved ad formats. The one format I could see being a big question mark is
"native ads." Outside of their increased Gmail ad presence, Google has been
curiously absent from the native advertising landscape.
~~~
alexschleber
> Google has been curiously absent from the native advertising landscape.
> Compare: [https://stratechery.com/2014/peak-
> google/](https://stratechery.com/2014/peak-google/)
~~~
shostack
Ah--love Ben's blog and podcast (listen to it several times a week during my
commute).
His point is a good one. In terms of feeds of potential branding interest,
beyond Youtube, Google's big (and mostly untapped) opportunity is in Gmail.
They made a stride to first assert control and doing users a favor by moving
things to the Promotions tab. Now they have their ads in the email "feed" in
that tab. The Inbox product, IMHO, was their attempt at redefining email into
an fully algorithmically-curated feed ala FB, Twitter and Reddit.
My personal bet is that Inbox was a proof of concept and they will force Gmail
to shift to that approach in the not too distant future. If users don't leave
en masse, I would not be surprised at all to see Google forcing advertisers to
pay to get into the inboxes of Gmail users--even users who have explicitly
asked for promotional emails. That was FB's brilliant gambit (that somewhat
blew up in their face). They convinced advertisers to invest in building an
audience on the FB platform (so FB owned the audience), let them see revenue
from it, and then switched from a "communicate all you like to everyone who
Likes you for free!" model to a "pay us on an auction model if you want to
reach anyone" model. Many advertisers consider it a huge bait-and-switch play,
but I can't deny that it seems to have been successful. And that is why I
won't be surprised to see Google follow suit there.
------
ksk
From:
[https://www.ampproject.org/docs/support/faqs.html](https://www.ampproject.org/docs/support/faqs.html)
> The reality is that content can take several seconds to load, or, because
> the user abandons the slow page, never fully loads at all. Accelerated
> Mobile Pages are web pages designed to load instantaneously – they are a
> step towards a better mobile web for all.
That's kind of dishonest of Google. The "content" doesn't take longer to load.
The website does, but its because of Ads, pointless JS scripts that are spying
on the user and a whole host of things that are _NOT_CONTENT_.
In any case, even if creating a new standard, or reduced-HTML, or w/e made
sense, I'd be less skeptical if it wasn't controlled by an advertising
company.
------
mtgx
I'm fine with it long as all content/analytics don't pass through Google, but
I imagine many content sites will be lazy and let Google handle everything.
~~~
criddell
I wonder what happens when you combiner AMP pages and something like uBlock
Origin? Do you get fast page loads AND minimal tracking?
~~~
dsparkman
Probably a blank screen since AMP requires this in your pages: <style>body
{opacity: 0}</style><noscript><style>body {opacity: 1}</style></noscript>
~~~
criddell
uBlock blocks tracking, not scripting.
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Leonardo da Vinci’s Resume - ggonweb
http://www.cenedella.com/leonardo-da-vincis-resume/
======
angersock
tptacek had (perhaps still has?) a clever riff on this in his profile.
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Trump’s FCC: Tom Wheeler to be replaced, set-top box reform could be dead - distantsounds
http://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2016/11/trumps-fcc-tom-wheeler-to-be-replaced-set-top-box-reform-could-be-dead/
======
hood_syntax
Just kill me now: "Top down power grab" my ass. The one guy punching up for
consumers is gonna be out, I didn't even realize that... Dark days for
internet in the US.
~~~
prasadjoglekar
The subtitle of the article is: "Democrats' last-minute rulemakings could be
easily reversed once GOP takes over."
That's the problem with executive rule making - changes in the executive lead
to changes to the rules. If the rule was not made by consensus, why expect its
repeal to be by consensus either?
~~~
MrZongle2
Agreed. Whenever President Obama would make an "end-run around Congress" by
signing a new Executive Order, _nobody_ should have been cheering it because
each EO can be easily nullified by a successor.
Consensus is neither easy nor guaranteed to generate a result that makes all
parties equally happy. But it _is_ more likely to prevent radical changes in
the future.
------
plandis
I wonder if Trump supporters will care iF he really does appoint FCC chair in
favor of big business over citizens?
Do the majority of Americans even know what the FCC is or does?
~~~
pinkrooftop
The majority of Americans see free data for streaming video and music from a
carrier's partner as a feature.
They look no further into it
------
scarface74
Who cares if set top box reform dies? Government worrying about cable settop
boxes in the age of streaming boxes and services like SlingTV is as silly as
worrying about desktop browser monopolies in the age of mobile.
I have six tvs all with some type of streaming box and all of my video comes
over the internet. I would have had to pay $60/month for set top boxes if I
had go with cable. I pay $50 a month for Sling, Hulu and Netflix and I have
Amazon Prime.
The market is working.
~~~
techdragon
Those streaming devices won't help much if the FCC doesn't stop your <local
monopoly ISP> from kneecapping Netflix, Amazon, etc by trying to profit both
ways... we all know the rest of the net neutrality speech.
Interesting times ahead.
~~~
scarface74
Luckily, I had two choices for unlimited high speed internet - Comcast
business - $120 for 50/10 - and AT&T Gigapower (1000/1000) for $70/month.
With Google still nipping at AT&Ts heel in my area, hopefully it will keep
everyone honest.
------
walshemj
To many important civil service positions are at the whim of the president all
bar the cabinet and SPADS (Special Advisors) etc should be career civil
servant. It would alos clean out the swamp to use his phrase.
The recent clusterF with the FBI is another example of a political place man
failing grossly
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Running Kubernetes Example on CoreOS, Part 1 - kohlerm
https://coreos.com/blog/running-kubernetes-example-on-CoreOS-part-1/
======
kohlerm
doesn't work for me:
< -h [http://127.0.0.1:8080](http://127.0.0.1:8080) -c kubernetes-
coreos/pods/redis.json create /pods F0711 00:42:59.424059 03183
kubecfg.go:182] Got request error: Status: failure (
api.Status{JSONBase:api.JSONBase{Kind:"", ID:"", CreationTimestamp:"",
SelfLink: "", ResourceVersion:0x0}, Status:"failure", Details:"failed to find
fit for api. Pod{JSONBase:api.JSONBase{Kind:\"\", ID:\"redis\",
CreationTimestamp:\"\", SelfL ink:\"\", ResourceVersion:0x0},
Labels:map[string]string{\"name\":\"redis\"}, De
siredState:api.PodState{Manifest:api.ContainerManifest{Version:\"v1beta1\",
ID:\ "redis\", Volumes:[]api.Volume(nil),
Containers:[]api.Container{api.Container{Na me:\"redis\",
Image:\"dockerfile/redis\", Command:[]string(nil), WorkingDir:\"\" ,
Ports:[]api.Port{api.Port{Name:\"\", HostPort:6379, ContainerPort:6379, Protoc
ol:\"\", HostIP:\"\"}}, Env:[]api.EnvVar(nil), Memory:0, CPU:0,
VolumeMounts:[]a pi.VolumeMount(nil),
LivenessProbe:api.LivenessProbe{Enabled:false, Type:\"\", H
TTPGet:api.HTTPGetProbe{Path:\"\", Port:\"\", Host:\"\"},
InitialDelaySeconds:0} }}}, Status:\"\", Host:\"\", HostIP:\"\",
Info:api.PodInfo(nil)}, CurrentState:a
pi.PodState{Manifest:api.ContainerManifest{Version:\"\", ID:\"\",
Volumes:[]api. Volume(nil), Containers:[]api.Container(nil)}, Status:\"\",
Host:\"\", HostIP:\" \", Info:api.PodInfo(nil)}}", Code:500})
~~~
kohlerm
hmm redis still seems to work
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
The weird criticism that Big Tech is too digital - buboard
https://theweek.com/articles-amp/885308/weird-criticism-that-big-tech-digital
======
snowedin
I think there are real improvements made by the tech industry. For example
cellular and smart phones are brand new and overall have improved quality of
life and productivity.
But on the whole I think most of the "gains" made through big tech are
marginal. Marginal specifically because either:
A.) New tech companies create products primarily to make the tech industry
more productive at building/maintaining/deploying systems
B.) New tech companies provide a small amount of value over a preexisting
industry and transfer the industry into the tech sector (e.g. Uber/Lyft)
through "disruption"
As a result, the industry has provided less overall growth and improvement to
society than its raw potential, and at the same time has consolidated wealth
as much as it has created it.
Uber was originally supposed to be a commute-sharing app that reduced heavy
reliance on vehicles, making a dramatically more efficient use of resources
and time. When it came around to executing on this, the real value-making
proposition was to transfer and capture an existing market (ride-hailing/taxi
services).
My prescription for a fix would be to emphasize computer literacy in the
school system, encouraging the entire 12K public school system to introduce
the idea of self-automation as a problem solving pattern for the general
population.
In two generations, every sector of the economy will apply automation within
their own ranks to eek out efficiency, rather than relying on software
developers in California to understand their day-to-day and make an app to
"disrupt" their industry.
~~~
shantly
I have a suspicion that most application of computing and Internet technology,
even in business, has in fact been neutral or somewhat negative in terms of
productivity and, for humans, also for happiness, but some minority of the
applications yield such huge gains (on both fronts) that it's an improvement
overall and one can be fooled into thinking it's _usually_ good, rather than
usually bad but sometimes _very_ good.
------
RodgerTheGreat
You can't make an MVP of a cure for cancer.
You can't "crush code" and build a space elevator in a hackathon.
You can't hustle your way through a robot that collects, folds, and stores all
your dirty laundry.
You can't build an O'Neill cylinder with a 2-year horizon of profitability.
Some problems are hard, expensive, and do not lead to fame or fortune in the
short term. Startups are not structurally equipped to solve these problems,
and perhaps public corporations aren't either. As it turns out, it is much
easier to make money by solving (or inventing!) easy problems, and our culture
currently views making money as a proxy for creating value for society. If you
want a more exciting and ambitious future, we will all need to think further
ahead than the next quarterly earnings report.
~~~
egfx
”You can't make an MVP of a cure for cancer”
That’s linear thinking. Yes you can.
~~~
RodgerTheGreat
It is possible to tackle any of the engineering challenges I listed in an
incremental fashion. That isn't the point.
The context of a "Minimum Viable Product" is a mental model of products,
markets, and profitability. There is a fundamental difference between the goal
"cure cancer" and the goal "make money from a cancer cure". The perverse
incentives and loopholes of the latter are a serious impediment to the former.
~~~
egfx
You don't think you can make money from a cancer cure and cure cancer at the
same time?
~~~
ohithereyou
Not OP, but no - the profit motive is the main perverter of the pharmaceutical
industry. By talking a profit you ensure that your cancer treatment will not
cure cancer - too few people will have access to cure the disease and millions
will still suffer and die needlessly. I guess a few rich, first worlders would
live, so it's not all bad.
People celebrate Jonahs Salk because not only did he develop the polio vaccine
but he rejected his opportunity to massively profit from it because it was
more important that patients have access.
No company that develops a cancer cure these days would do that. Their
shareholders would revolt, their boards would fire their exeutives, their
stock prices would plunge, and their competitors would pile on.
~~~
perl4ever
What to do if you have a cure is an imaginary problem. Regulators set minimum
standards for efficacy which involve a treatment being just _barely_
statistically significant. The problem is not burying cures, because playing
the game of "make believe a treatment is better than placebo" is infinitely
simpler than coming up with a cure. The cures people believe in are like the
infamous 200 mpg carburetor.
------
manfredo
What even _is_ "Big Tech"? I feel like it's a buzzword coined by news outlets
to vilify the tech industry. "Big Tech" companies like Apple, Amazon, Netflix,
and Facebook are in entirely different industries: Electronic hardware
products, online retail, video media, and social platforms. The article
mentions how "Big Tech" is centered on advertising but only 1 out of those
three derive their main source of revenue from advertising. Heck, depending on
how you define "Big Tech" arguably the majority of "Big Tech" does not rely on
advertising: Facebook and Google do while Microsoft (bing is trivial), Apple,
Netflix, and Amazon do not.
------
Barrin92
I don't think the article successfully argues against Thiel's criticism.
Clearly there is an opportunity cost to putting highly trained individuals to
work on some issue vs another. If you look for example at the number of PhD
physicists in finance it seems obvious to me that if these people were working
on biotech or materials or infrastructure or process optimisation there would
at least be some more progress than there currently is.
Digital tech giants barely interact with other sectors of the economy in
meaningful ways, the lack of economic or productivity growth after the
computer era is well documented, and there would be tangible benefits from
aiming resources and talent at sectors that interact with the material world
and the economy at large.
The article also brings up Europe as an example that the lack of digital
giants doesn't result in more progress, but that's actually not true.
Infrastructure costs in Europe are significantly lower than in the US. One
only needs to look at the transport sector in Germany or France and compare it
to California's attempt to build high-speed rail. The US trails not only
Europe but even countries like China in some key sectors.
Now building high-speed transport infrastructure for the masses might not make
it into the next Pivot podcast or on the frontpage of techcrunch, but for the
long term health of the economy and the general surplus for society is
probably larger than more smartphone apps.
~~~
vorpalhex
> One only needs to look at the transport sector in Germany or France and
> compare it to California's attempt to build high-speed rail
California is about the same size as Germany and less than half the
population. Germany has several existing, historical train systems.
California, less so. There's a lot going on in that case beyond just
California having a lot of digital tech folks.
~~~
dragonwriter
> California is about the same size as Germany and less than half the
> population.
California is about 20% larger than Germany, in terms of land area, much
longer when you look at the longest dimension. Germany is both substantially
smaller and more compact for it's land area.
------
buboard
The author may be right for the reason that, the criticism is based on linear
extrapolations of what people wanted in the past decades. Perhaps they don't
want flying cars, but instead the ability to tele-work and telecommunicate.
Perhaps flying cars are the "faster horses" of our time , which will be
overtaken by some yet-unknown tech in the future. Physical infrastructure is
good, if there is going to be a lot of use for it. With industrial production
shifting to china and then africa, there's little incentive to build new
roads. There is a case to be made however about "weird" overregulation in
biotech/medicine. As populations are aging we will be forced to remove
barriers and move faster there.
The author's conclusion "Silicon Valley will almost certainly keep playing a
big role in them" is not well justified imho. Silicon Valley has failed in
most its major promises in 2010s: VR, IoT, blockchain, Selfdriving robots (and
soon satellite internet). Instead, the advertising money that is fueling its
economy, is being recycled through SaaS/Paas companies that make the
developers job ever-so-slightly easier, creating a closed, inward looking
economy. IMHO , the real failure is the lack of ambitious consumer-facing tech
------
patrickwalton
Working on a hardware startup, I'm seeing that hardware infrastructure is way
behind software infrastructure. Figuring out to test a new iteration in a week
feels like magic, when software companies can deploy iterations in an hour.
I think software infrastructure for hardware development is going to get
better, but one of the biggest barriers is the small size of the open source
hardware movement compared to open source software.
~~~
HorstG
Hardware tooling is bad. Like really lifesuckingly bad. Download yourself some
free Xilinx IDE and try to do some Verilog Hello World on a cheap demo board.
Blink a LED or something. Its so bad you will want to scream: Dog slow
sythesis (~compilation), useless IDE support, ten steps to run something,
badly composed. Errors will land in some arbitrarily named logfile somewhere
between the code. More expensive tools are hardly any better.
I started doing hardware but ran away, I feel it is a waste of developer time
to even consider doing any custom hardware designs. People should be punished
for even thinking about using FPGAs. Just don't do it.
Sorry for the rant, but I feel warning yall is my duty ;)
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
A Baccarat Binge Helped Launder the Bangladesh Cyberheist - rayuela
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/features/2017-08-03/a-baccarat-binge-helped-launder-the-world-s-biggest-cyberheist
======
Retric
$81 million seems small potatoes to call it the worlds biggest Cyberheist.
By comparison: £650 million
[http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/crime/11414191/Hacker...](http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/crime/11414191/Hackers-
steal-650-million-in-worlds-biggest-bank-raid.html)
~~~
chx
You could arguably call the 2008 meltdown the largest cyberheist. I can't find
that article again but gosh was it great, an interview with a programmer who
said about CDS something like we fed offal into a grinder and got steak out.
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
It’s A Facebook World … Other Social Networks Just Live In It - sammville
http://techcrunch.com/2011/06/13/its-a-facebook-world-other-social-networks-just-live-in-it/
======
nvictor
inception.
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Pinterest reports 40% growth YoY, now at 200M monthly active users - askafriend
https://blog.pinterest.com/en/celebrating-200-million-people-pinterest
======
stevesearer
I've been a happy recipient of their growth as my readers pin thousands of
images to their boards each month netting millions of impressions on Pinterest
each month, in addition to a solid amount of referral traffic coming my way.
Strangely, my site was recently blocked and have been frustrated that I have
yet to receive a non-automated response.
While I guess I can't really complain as it was free traffic, they have
basically vacuumed up a significant amount of my content, and are now noting
my site as spam.
Frustrating to say the least.
~~~
orliesaurus
If you could write down two sentences about your "Pinterest marketing
strategy", what would it read like? How do you leverage it in a clever way to
generate inbound traffic? I'm interested because I have never ever used
pinterest other than the occasional google search result that sent me to the
website, I really dont seem to grasp how people get so "sucked" into this
tunnel of post-it-notes-of-stuff-you-like?
~~~
stevesearer
My site publishes office design projects and professional designers who work
in that industry pin the images as ideas or inspiration for projects they are
working on.
So there isn't really a strategy other than publishing content / projects we
think our readers will be inspired by and be interested in.
------
MildlySerious
It would be interesting to see how much of that growth is attributed to dark
patterns and malpractices. Like making the first 20 or so results of most
Google Image searches utterly useless.
Strikes me that they haven't been blacklisted from Google yet for that.
------
dredmorbius
So effing annoying to encounter that it's firewalled at the router.
So ... good luck with that.
~~~
Hasknewbie
If you land on Pinterest by chance, it is even more obnoxious than Facebook,
which is saying something.
I avoid it like the plague when looking up stuff, but it is so annoying I
wouldn't be surprised if there's a Chrome/Firefox plugin to directly prune it
from Google search results.
~~~
dredmorbius
I've requested it be removed or deprecated from DDG's results, and strongly
encourage others to do likewise.
------
kakadonton
How is this MAU defined? I would guess possibly any click from Google count as
a unique visitor.
------
znpy
I still haven't grasped what Pinterest is for, in all honesty. And i have an
account, by the way.
~~~
fred_is_fred
It's designed for making moms feel like they make substandard cupcakes that
are not craftsy enough.
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Spore: Open source, Open standards encrypted VOIP client and network for Android - mooneater
https://myceli.al/projects/spore-android-client?
======
freeborn
Mycelial dev here.. full disclosure: Ive been working with guardian project on
a few things including the Open Secure Telephony Network. This project and
beta OSTN network are intended to test the capabilities of the telephony
software available to us. It is our belief that private telephony is abundant,
should be free, and ubiquitous. If you think so too, we invite you to download
and test Spore... for SCIENCE!
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
US Patent: Method of Recording and Saving of Human Soul for Human Immortality - caustic
http://www.google.com/patents?id=CS20AAAAEBAJ&zoom=4&pg=PA1#v=onepage&q&f=false
======
nudge
It's a patent application, not a patent. The difference is important.
~~~
caustic
Thanks for pointing out, I cannot make the title any longer, though.
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
How China Unleashed Twitter Trolls to Discredit Hong Kong’s Protesters - samfriedman
https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2019/09/18/world/asia/hk-twitter.html
======
dirtyid
What is stopping Twitter from releasing server logs for others to
independently authenticate attribution? Facebook, Google have not declared.
The ASPI analysis proceeds on assumption that Twitters attribution is correct.
The startup Digital Intelligence concludes confidently "China has made its
debut as a confirmed information operations actor" because the bots
coordinated behavior "emulat[es] divisive disinformation tactics seen in other
disinformation campaigns from Russia and Iran".
That said, the take away from both analysis is that 30 (DI) - 112 (ASPI) of
the ~900 accounts have high likelihood of being an disinformation network...
that operated for over 2 years, using many re-purposed spam/dating/escort/porn
accounts that was never sanitized to preserve cover. Evaluate the scale and
operational rigor of this network and it's hard to conclude this is state-
level tradecraft than some independent agent/contractor with limited resources
and basic scripting knowledge.
Leave it to NYT to sneak in balance at the end with inflammatory headline.
>Elise Thomas, one of the authors of the Australian report, said that the low
level of professionalism suggested that the campaign was not the work of the
People’s Liberation Army or the Ministry of State Security, which have
previously been linked to Chinese cyberespionage and information campaigns.
>“I would be surprised if the P.L.A. was responsible because I would expect
they would be more competent than this,” Ms. Thomas said.
Yeah. Look, China is bad at foreign influence campaigns, but this is
insultingly bad. I'm completely willing to believe China has expanded
propaganda efforts abroad, but this doesn't feel like it.
E: unsurprisingly people are already using the article to accusing others of
being bots. Because humans writing and replying unique responses are
equivalent to automated bots that copy and base tweets on a schedule.
~~~
yorwba
> some independent agent/contractor with limited resources and basic scripting
> knowledge.
Outsourcing seems likely. Last month an invitation for bids was posted for a
contract to promote Chinese state media on Twitter for 1.2 million yuan,
payable if the follower count increased by at least 580,000 at the end of the
contract period. [1]
Some people have framed it as "China openly buys followers", but it seems
clear that whoever came up with the contract intended for those followers to
be real people, since a propaganda account is pretty useless if it's only read
by bots. Of course the successful bidder would be likely to try and add some
fake accounts if they couldn't hit the target otherwise. Someone seems to have
realized that and pulled the announcement, which is why I had to use an
archive.org link.
This spam campaign might have been similar; with a contract to spread
propaganda messages that lacked the necessary safeguards to ensure subtlety.
[1]
[https://web.archive.org/web/20190822113315/http://www.ccgp.g...](https://web.archive.org/web/20190822113315/http://www.ccgp.gov.cn/cggg/dfgg/zbgg/201908/t20190816_12699714.htm)
~~~
dirtyid
The question is, is this the kind of activity China would outsource to this
quality? This recklessly on a sensitive topic like HK so close to 80th
anniversary. Was it that time-sensitive / desperate to allow something this
amateurish to roll out. They're paying millions buying advertisement in
foreign newspapers, I'd expect an social median influence operation would get
more funding than 100 poorly cultivated bot accounts.
Services for hitting western social media KPIs are dime a dozen, but a private
industry for foreign influence campaigns not so much. Maybe those Estonian
fake news kids. Would be interesting to see what that tender would look like
though, at least they're paying more than 50c.
------
machbio
Am starting to feel this trolling is an industry (like troll farm) of its own
- there are people or bots dedicated to trolling and reporting people who
raise voice against the discrimination.. I recently had to report an unfair
service by virgin atlantic staff after an emergency landing - I tweeted the
pictures and video of the incident.. I was immediately trolled by twitter
accounts about how i should be happy that I am alive - I was complaining about
how the staff handled the issues after the emergency landing .. wish the
social media companies could raise voice against companies or countries that
use their platform to discredit real concern - guess people do not matter
anymore
~~~
AFascistWorld
You may not believe it, the vast majority of Chinese actually love the CCP and
the system, they only just hate that a few corrupt low-level officials who are
the bad apples fucking up leaders' glorious visions.
These "bots" are mostly spontaneous people, they are not even government-
sponsored Wumao, they genuinely love China and defend it, their reason being
it may have some flaws but any other country has too and is worse than China,
and them being either students or comfortable middle-class help.
~~~
wisty
I wouldn't say most Chinese love the system. They don't despise it though.
I think a lot see the HK thing as an attack on their country. There's a fair
bit of history (the insult of losing territory to foreign powers) and also
current tensions ('locusts' is a HK slur against mainland Chinese). A lot of
HK people kinda dislike mainlanders coming to HK, but the city kinda relies on
mainland money.
So there's already a bit of contention, then a large number of HK people are
protesting against mainland China having any influence. It's then easy to
conflate attacks on mainland China (the government) with attacks on mainland
China (the people).
~~~
gleenn
I feel like all the people who are involuntary organ-donors might disagree if
they weren't dead. China has a way of disappearing people who don't like it. I
wonder how many people would come out more vocally if you weren't disappeared
for disagreeing or even being outspoken.
[https://www.news.com.au/lifestyle/real-life/true-
stories/the...](https://www.news.com.au/lifestyle/real-life/true-stories/the-
reality-of-human-organ-harvesting-in-china/news-
story/14d3aa5751c39d6639a1cc5b39f223b7)
~~~
jjcc
Give you some hint: According to Godel theorem, a system in higher order is
necessary to judge the truth in current system. So self claim the story is
true implied the story teller (i.e. the author of the news) is not quite
intellegent and maybe very naive to mix fact and belief.
I totally respect your strong belief about the story. But don't enforce others
accept your personal opion by imply your personal belief is truth. It's quite
insulting.
~~~
legacynl
> I totally respect your strong belief about the story. But don't enforce
> others accept your personal opion by imply your personal belief is truth.
> It's quite insulting.
Are you Chinese? You being offended by his post makes me feel like you are. He
wasn't forcing his oppinion on you.
Also godel's theorem doesn't have anything to do with this, as godel's theorem
is about mathematical systems.
~~~
jjcc
Legally I'm not Chinese but it's not relevant in this context. You have a
wrong assumption about the cause. Another wrong assumption is I'm offended
which I’m not. Here's the subtle difference: A person's behaviour is insulting
meanings he/she could offend some (not all) people who follow some rules,
which might be: reasoning process should base on relative facts/axioms within
the same axiomatic system.
Let me explain a little more about where the insulting comes from. During
daily conversation people usually omit many relevant consensus details:
context and premises. Otherwise communication would be extremely redundant.
One thing is important is: anything put into premise that other conclusions
can drawn from, should be relative facts which all the parties agree. By
providing personal belief as premise to draw other conclusion without
explicitly stating that’s just personal belief means the “evidence” provider
cannot tell the difference , unintentionally and implicitly force others
reasoning within “evidence” provider’s own axioms system, without knowing
there’s totally different axioms system with other premises exist.
In short: There's no problem at all to express personal opinions. However put
personal opinion into a premise to draw other conclusions during reasoning
without explicit emphasise is not good.
About Godel theorem, strictly it’s only about Math. You are right on that. I’m
half joking but it’ an analogy. In sports field there’s a referee because if
one team can act as authoritative way to claim they own truth implicitly gives
the other team the same authority which will lead to chaos. There’s a parallel
relation here.
EDIT: typo and grammar fix
------
phil248
It's a good time to remember that the vast majority of people never use
Twitter. The media has had a fixation with the platform for as long as I can
remember, which has helped it gain an unearned reputation as being relevant.
It's not relevant. It's the trash heap of the internet. I can't understand why
anyone would continue to spend time on it when it's become universally known
that bots and trolls run the show.
~~~
mieseratte
> It's not relevant. It's the trash heap of the internet.
It's got heads of state, leaders of enterprise, and myriad celebrity on the
platform. As much as I'd like to see Twitter, Facebook, et. al. nuked from
orbit, they're very much relevant.
~~~
dmix
Agreed, it may still be a trash heap, but it's still very relevant culturally.
It's also a lazy source for headlines and (occasionally) breaking news so it
gets far more relevance media-wise than it warrants in terms of quality.
------
josefresco
A lot more data here, which was referenced in the article:
[https://medium.com/digintel/welcome-to-the-party-a-data-
anal...](https://medium.com/digintel/welcome-to-the-party-a-data-analysis-of-
chinese-information-operations-6d48ee186939)
------
bernierocks
China has been using armies of bots for many years to sway public opinion.
Much scarier than Russia, because they have 10X the resources.
~~~
55436throw
Well they’ve been doing a pretty bad job then, considering how often they are
bashed on HN, Reddit, Imgur, etc.
~~~
llIIlIlIllIIlIl
It's incredibly funny to me how concerned western netizens seem to be about
Chinese astroturfing... as if it's an actual problem they need to worry about.
99.9999% of comments you'll find online are highly critical of China. The most
upvoted submissions on Reddit and HN are often those critical of China. Most
Americans (60% last time I checked) already have a negative view of China and
their knee-jerk reaction is to support anything or anyone who speaks out
against the CCP.
Does anyone really think 17 bots on Twitter tweeting messages in Chinese is
going to change this?
~~~
bernierocks
"Does anyone really think 17 bots on Twitter tweeting messages in Chinese is
going to change this?"
Try 17 thousand or 17 million bots, Tweeting in English.
This is also only a small fraction of what they are actually doing. If you
take a look at many new movies coming out in the US, many are financed by a
Chinese company.
They have also started buying major stakes in media companies, like Reddit.
The strange thing about the Hong Kong protests is that I can't seem to find
any balanced coverage of it and I almost saw no coverage of it here on major
US television networks.
~~~
cylinder714
_Try 17 thousand or 17 million bots, Tweeting in English_
And now they've got Reddit covered with /r/Sino but I'm unsure if that's new
or not.
------
freeflight
I really hate how inherently biased and subjective most reporting about
"social bots" seems to be.
For these last years headlines about all kinds of "bot armies" are constantly
making the rounds, getting blamed for pretty much everything from Trump's
election to Brexit.
Often based on some research that defines the parameters for a user being a
"social bot", that they have extremely high false-positive rates, but still
end up only identifying hundreds, maybe thousands of accounts, on platforms
that have total user numbers in the hundreds of millions or even over a
billion.
That is already enough to cause widespread paranoia about
Chinese/Russian/Iranian trolls supposedly being everywhere.
So anybody on Twitter, Facebook or Reddit who's opinions and views don't align
with a certain Overton window, are quickly labeled as being "foreign
influencers", regardless of any arguments or facts whatsoever, in a purely
ideological reaction of "What, you do not agree that <insert country> is
evil?! How dare you!".
Meanwhile, barely anybody talks about the reality that these kinds of games
are played by pretty much everybody [0] [1], but I guess it would be weird for
a US American platform to ban users for spreading pro-US propaganda. Tho, it's
still scary how completely oblivious most people seem to be about that, while
seeing the Chinese/Russian/Iranian version everywhere.
[0] [https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2011/mar/17/us-spy-
op...](https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2011/mar/17/us-spy-operation-
social-networks)
[1]
[https://www.reddit.com/r/Blackout2015/comments/4ylml3/reddit...](https://www.reddit.com/r/Blackout2015/comments/4ylml3/reddit_has_removed_their_blog_post_identifying/)
~~~
plausibilities
We've all already been successfully trolled.
The well has already been poisoned.
Paranoia has now been compounded.
Clarity regarding contemporary domestic political landscape has now been
further muddled.
Effective astroturfing was always a secondary objective.
------
diedyesterday
In a few years the Chinese economy will experience much slower growth rate
(similar to the West) and people will get out of the this 30-year hypnotic
state of fast-moving and dehumanizing economic development and quest for money
(which the CCP has used to consolidate its grip) and with the growing
corruption at increasingly higher levels of the government, the people will
eventually demand what is theirs: The right to rule and appoint their rulers
and then the CCP will be in trouble, and there won't be a blazingly fast
economic growth to hide behind.
------
devbyte
twitter is just a cesspit now. I have watched this happen to my own country
(the UK) with trolls and bots constantly pumping out anything which gets an
emotional reaction of outrage.
------
ospider
I stopped trusting any New York Times article since the report of Lanxiang[1],
which became a popular meme on Chinese social networks.
1\.
[https://www.nytimes.com/2010/02/22/technology/22cyber.html](https://www.nytimes.com/2010/02/22/technology/22cyber.html)
------
droidist2
I see this in YouTube comments a lot on Hong Kong-related videos. Also they
flag videos. A Cantonese language YouTuber I follow posted one video with her
opinions and got flagged and hit with a strike on her account.
------
zachguo
China should scrap the GFW and unleash them all, I guess the English-speaking
world would have to build a GFW to fend off all Chinese netizens then.
~~~
dmix
They don't even need to. It's not like they are having any problems doing what
they want currently and their power is so far from being threatened that it's
not even worthing monitoring.
------
no_opinions
They go by the name 50 Cent party:
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/50_Cent_Party](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/50_Cent_Party)
This is purely something that's pushing a political agenda. In China, there's
a single party, so disagreement is perceived as sabotage. While in other
countries, its accepted as part of the system.
In US we have a house/senate minority leader:
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Minority_leader](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Minority_leader)
In Westminster-based systems (Australia, Canada, UK), they call them
opposition:
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Parliamentary_opposition](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Parliamentary_opposition)
So if China lacks this representation, what is there to counterbalance?
Wouldn't it lead to viewpoint discrimination?
There are things that need a more direct form a democracy to fix. Rent
control, tighter restrictions on who does business/runs for election there.
For instance, should agents of Beijing be fit to represent the people of HK
and craft laws?
If you'd like to see what happens when foreign governments sabotage
legislature, Poland's first legislative councils were rampant with it:
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_Poland_in_the_Early...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_Poland_in_the_Early_Modern_era_\(1569%E2%80%931795\))
What other outlet is there but giving control to HK citizens have total and
complete sovereignty to handle their own localized issues?
------
chillacy
Anyone else a bit freaked out at how effective social influence is? What does
that say about how we form opinions?
~~~
cwkoss
I think 95%+ of opinions are directly regurgitated from others, but we humans
mistake our own novelty with the idea for the idea actually being original.
Thinking about my teenage years, I'd often see a documentary and then "come
up" with concepts it covered a week or two later.
Similarly, I think one of the biggest issues with "bot influencers" is that
the average human is not good at thinking for themselves and regurgitates
whatever they agree with/protects the ego. The online activity of many
technology-naive middle aged users gradually becomes indistinguishable from
the bots they follow.
~~~
Kifot
What do you think is the best approach to make sure one's opinion is
independent without spending a massive amount of time on getting an expertise
in the subject?
~~~
krapp
You can't. Independent opinion doesn't exist - you would have to validate
every datum you're presented with starting from first principles, which is
impossible.
Accept that most of your opinions will be informed by the opinions of others,
likely directly, and your method for judging truth will instinctively be
biased more towards emotion, social status and ego-preservation than than
logic and fact, because humans are social animals and that's just how we're
wired.
------
slacka
For anyone paywalled: [http://archive.is/Blzuk](http://archive.is/Blzuk)
------
artsyca
We gotta stop blaming `China` -- The China brand has been tarnished unfairly
in my view as we use it to be synonymous with the so-called `Communist Party
of China`
~~~
artsyca
As usual, with the downvotes, allow us to clarify:
At present there are still people just like us being saddled with some
mandarin fever dream of the social credit system while we're treating the
whole continent of China like a troll brigade pumping fake news on twitter and
suppressing Hong Kong video clips on TikTok
We've gotta understand that fighting totalitarianism with prejudice and
stereotypes plays right into the hands of the puppet masters and doubly
victimizes the innocent people caught in the crossfire, who could very well be
us in another life
------
hujun
most time, and most people always believe what they want to believe
------
president
There needs to be some sort of internet sanction where the offending country's
internet access to the world is cut off until they start acting like good
global citizens.
~~~
praptak
We cannot even eradicate botnets operated by individual criminals.
~~~
dvtrn
We can't (won't) even stop robocalling (US)
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Ask HN: How to get first Dev Job with no shipped code - gremlinsinc
I've got a ton of starts, startups I had ideas for... even working on some projects on Assembly.com as lead dev, but my problem is I make 30k per year now(Tech support), and I get depressed and lose focus.. If I could just up to 60k I'd be much happier, and if I could just get my foot in the door.<p>An apprenticeship, or something. I know rails, django, laravel, php, ruby, angularjs, meteorjs, I do lack a lot of testing experience, but think a team could help me build those skills as I watch other's workflows...<p>An entry level rails or django job, and I'd take 40k (call it apprentice pay) w/ a promise of 70+ when I prove myself an asset.<p>Github: http://github.com/pixelgremlins Linkedin: http://linkedin.com/in/patrickcurl
======
djloche
1\. Stop undervaluing yourself. You should be aiming for at least 75-80k as a
full stack / front end developer in Utah. (I'd also strongly suggest looking
for work outside the state because you can both earn a significant multiplier
of what you will earn in Utah, and more importantly, you'll be able to work
with and make more connections in the industry. That way when you go to look
for your second dev job, you can just reach out to your circle of friends in
the industry and say, hey, I'm looking for a new gig, I'd love to come work
with you at __, do you mind you referring me?).
2\. On your linkedin profile, you state "I've spent 10 years coding freelance
jobs". You need to add an entry into your professional work history that
represents this. Call it 'Patrick Web Development Consulting' and list it as
2005-present. Even if you're under NDA, you can still describe what you did in
general. If you set up a server with technologies x,y,z, implemented a design
(or designed and implemented yourself), etc. list it.
I would separate into three sections: Business Strategy, Front End / Design,
Backend / Server. This allow you to show that you have experience and skills
in these areas. Right now, your profile just lists a bunch of skills, but your
only experience says 'tech support'.
------
dalerus
I run a small agency and I'm in charge of hiring our developers. I took a look
at your GitHub and had a few thoughts:
1) Add a real readme to your projects. If you don't have any shipped work,
that's ok, but you do have side projects I can take a look at. Help me out
though, I want some information on what this app should do and I don't want to
go diving into your code without that background.
The first repo I visited was cupcakes, because, well who doesn't love
cupcakes? But I was disappointed when I didn't see any real information about
what this app was aiming to do.
2) You should be able to get a Jr. level position for at least 70k, so don't
sell yourself short. Now if you have a lot to learn, be willing to take less
and get your foot in the door.
3) Focus on one language that interests you. I don't hire generalists. I look
for developers who have spent the time to learn a language, not six. You can
always learn more later, but you'll have an easier time if you can pitch on
the language or area you know really well.
Other than that, keep applying to jobs, keep growing, you'll land something.
Good luck!
------
gremlinsinc
Actually.. I've shipped some minor projects.. Some are nda, so can't disclose,
and one hasn't really taken off:
[http://glitterandpoop.com](http://glitterandpoop.com) (Laravel). I can
migrate wordpress sites, fix wsod's, and fine-tune server performance/script
performance pretty fast. (I can do a full migration in 10 mins flat, install
from scratch in 2 mins.. ) I work in hosting support now, so that's 70% of
what I do everyday..
------
quadrature
I'm in the same boat but I think you're selling yourself way short. There are
new grads who get 100k jobs, you might not have a portfolio but you do have
work experience.
~~~
gremlinsinc
It's hard...I've been to > 50 interviews since April 2014. So far all I've
gotten is hosting support for a big hosting firm @ $15/hour. Still dropping
resumes though weekly.
~~~
quadrature
How do you prepare for interviews and what would you say are your weak points
?
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
VeryNginx – OpenResty-Based Nginx with WAF, Control Panel, and Dashboards - nikolay
https://github.com/alexazhou/VeryNginx
======
nodesocket
The web UI looks solid, I wish there was a translated version of the README
into English. Currently I am using NGINX Plus for load balancing and love it.
The NGINX Plus web interface is really good as well.
~~~
AlexaZhou
I'am the author. I already translate the web dashboard into english. There
remain some document in chinese, and will be translated in next few days
------
frazz
Is there some similar web UI for an Apache dashboard?
~~~
SEJeff
cpanel :)
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Virginia's $40 Toll Road Better Be the Future of Driving - em3rgent0rdr
https://www.wired.com/story/virginia-i66-toll-road/
======
tomohawk
The Northern Virginia traffic situation is more the result of a failure to
follow the projections put out in the 60s and build the required roads for the
expected growth. I66 was recommended to be a minimum of 4 lanes each way at
the time, but only half of that was put in. The number of roads and lanes on
those roads is totally inadequate.
The main driver was that Southern Virginia had the political power at the time
and refused to allocate money for roads in the north, preferring instead to
build multi-lane highways to nowhere in the south. It's all different now with
the explosion of the size of the federal government increasing the population
of the north so that they're now in the driver's seat - 30 years too late now
that the growth has occurred.
They did build the amazing HOV lanes on I95/I395 that manage to fit 2 lanes of
traffic into the same space where 6 lanes could have been built. The 2 lanes
change direction mid day further inhibiting traffic.
------
bob_theslob646
>The scourge we know as traffic costs the American economy about $125 billion
to traffic per year, according to traffic analytics company Inrix.
I never understood how they got these numbers.
~~~
em3rgent0rdr
I don't know how they got those numbers either, although I could speculate on
a simple way to do a back-of-envelope calculation by Multiplying the
following:
* commuter average hourly wage * time spent in traffic (basically time the commute took in traffic minus the amount of time the commute would hypothetically take if drove at the speed limit)
That's easy although imperfect...might also want to account for other things
like delayed meetings due to traffic.
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Show HN: Mobile Version – Tracking Covid-19 Cases and Testing by State - gboesel
http://virustracking.net/track-covid-19-by-state.html
======
gboesel
I quickly hacked a website together last weekend based on the COVID Tracking
Project[1] data because I wanted to see how much COVID testing was being done
at the state level.
I spent this weekend creating a mobile version of the site which came out
pretty well I think. But if you want to see a LOT of data at once, the desktop
version is still the way to go.
[1] [https://covidtracking.com/](https://covidtracking.com/)
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Pentium Appendix H fiasco - yuhong
http://www.agner.org/optimize/blog/read.php?i=82
======
Locke1689
If you go into to the ISA for hardware assisted virtualization, they just drop
all semblance of compatibility. The memory models just work completely
differently. When you're writing a VMM you'll need to write two separate
submodules -- one for Intel and one for AMD.
I wrote the Intel and part of the AMD for an HPC VMM. I also wrote the Intel
emulation code for an unmerged QEMU patch.
Is this lack of standardization a big deal? I don't know. Kind of. Software
developers generally don't have to deal with this kind of stuff and, to be
honest, wouldn't know what to do if they had to. I think the major problem
seems to be that compilers are a lot shittier than they should be. I'm not
really surprised though because I'd love to do compiler development but that's
just not a practical career choice. No one gets paid to do compiler
development, so compilers suck. Is anyone surprised?
~~~
1amzave
I'm curious what you mean by your comments about the state of compilers.
In what ways do current compilers suck? I assume you're not speaking in terms
of utilizing virtualization instructions, since I'm having a hard time
imagining a situation in which a compiler would be generating those.
As for people not getting paid to work on compilers -- I'm not sure what you
mean here, either. Intel employs people to work on ICC, I think Red Hat
employs some GCC devs, Microsoft pays people to work on VC++ (a friend of mine
is currently doing an internship on that team, actually), Apple employs LLVM
folks, Nvidia does too for their CUDA toolchain, AMD has people working on
Open64, I see job postings from Sony and various other companies in
comp.compilers...is that "no one"?
~~~
Locke1689
It's just practically no one. Yeah, there are a few people here and there but
they just don't mean much. I think the biggest single compiler dev team right
now is the .NET team and they're hiring, I guess. It's not really a thriving
market. You spoke about VC++ -- last summer I worked on MS SQL Server and the
optimization query engine that I built required that I be able to construct
optimized tail calls in C/C++. Of course, this turned into a major weeks long
discussion with the VC++ team about this peephole optimization. Yes, the x86
architecture sucks and no you can't do the perfect thing, but doing the simple
thing just to avoid blowing the stack would have been definitely reasonable --
about 5 years ago. Hell, I wasn't even asking for trampolining. Ugh, you get
my point. Compiler development is either fragmented or stagnated or both in
most projects. Right now I'm placing my hopes with LLVM, but we'll see.
_In what ways do current compilers suck? I assume you're not speaking in
terms of utilizing virtualization instructions, since I'm having a hard time
imagining a situation in which a compiler would be generating those._
Well, the entire debate is about generating architecture-independent code, so
that's a good example. It should be possible to generate optimized code for
AMD and Intel using the same compiler. In practice, it doesn't really happen.
GCC is a compiler implemented in C. _In C_. Anyone who took their undergrad
Compiler Construction course should know what I mean here. I mean seriously,
tossing around ASTs in C? I'd bet it takes 10 times the amount of
concentration and time to implement an optimization in GCC than it would in
ML.
~~~
1amzave
> _Well, the entire debate is about generating architecture-independent code,
> so that's a good example. It should be possible to generate optimized code
> for AMD and Intel using the same compiler. In practice, it doesn't really
> happen._
Wait, that's a _good_ example? I still don't see how a compiler would (or
should) care about VMM-acceleration ISA extensions. If I were writing a VMM
and wanted to use those, how could I possibly express that without dropping
into assembly?
~~~
Locke1689
No not VM code. Architecture independent arbitrary code. For any given C code
your compiler should be able to generate optimized code for the Intel and AMD
architectures. This doesn't actually happen.
Sorry about the wording, I wrote that comment last night at 4 am.
------
tedunangst
If the intention was to link to that post, it's way the hell down the page.
<http://www.agner.org/optimize/blog/read.php?i=82#82>
~~~
yuhong
Oops, sorry.
------
vilda
There are some inaccuracies in the text.
The truth is, AMD could not copy Intel's 64 bit architecture. Intel created a
separate company to circumvent licensing agreement which grants AMD access to
86 instruction set.
Next, amd64 is not compatible with ia32. BUT it enables run both ia32 and
amd64 code almost seamlessly AND with no major performance impact. Note that
ia64 does allow to run ia32 but with notable performance hit (justifiable by
commercial interests only).
------
chubs
Its unfortunate that the x86 camp is splintering, with developers caught in
the crossfire unable to find a compiler that works well on all x86 processors,
while the world drifts towards ARM...
~~~
maximilianburke
I wouldn't say that. ARM as splintered as the x86 world, if not more so, with
processors implementing some combination of
softfp/VFP/NEON/Thumb/Thumb2/ThumbEE/Jazelle, not to mention multiple ABIs.
Yes the x86 camp may have different feature sets but it will be handled like
all previous extensions to the architecture: these features will be expected
to exist (for single deployment targets), detected via CPUID and code that
uses these instructions will be selected appropriately at runtime, or they
will be ignored.
------
derleth
It will be interesting to see if this complexity affects closed-source
software more than open-source software, or if AS/400-style bytecode-
compilation schemes catch on again.
(The AS/400 (now iSeries) world compiles COBOL and RPG source to a very stable
bytecode that has been the same for the lifetime of the system, AIUI. When the
program is first run, the bytecode is automatically compiled to machine code
and the machine code is stored alongside the bytecode; all subsequent runs
either just use the machine code, or regenerate the machine code if the
bytecode is newer and then run the machine code. When moving software to a new
system, the machine code is left and only the bytecode (and, possibly,
sources) gets moved. This works well enough IBM has been able to migrate
AS/400 people from CISC to RISC hardware without any more pain than using
OS/400 stuff usually entails.)
~~~
axman6
I may be wrong, but I think that this is theoretically possible using LLVM. If
you just translate the source into LLVM IR without any optimisation, then all
of that can be left until runtime if necessary, which is pretty neat.
Though I'm not sure if languages impose restrictions on the IR that may hinder
this, I know that GHC had to implement its own calling convention for LLVM to
make it run efficiently. There's also the fact that you need all of the
program to be translated into the IR; using GHC as an example again, this is a
problem because the runtime system is written in C.
I shall have to do more reading about AS/400 I think, sounds interesting,
especially the easy CISC -> RISC transition.
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Interior Images of Typhoon Sub – world's largest submarine (2009) - julianpye
http://ru-submarine.livejournal.com/17486.html
======
ge96
Man phenomenal.Engineering. Metal. I used to be obsessed with submarines.
Russians have some nice ones, Akulla class... the g Americans and their
Seawolf. Of course the iconic German u-botats there's one in a smithsonian
museum in Chicago I think, it's nuts. Those 12' long torpedos or longer with
contra-rotating propellers... nuts.
------
rdtsc
I like that it has a full size lathe (how common is that for subs?).
Well and a swimming pool, seltzer water dispenser and the 1980 Soviet sub
arcade. I remember that was my favorite arcade game too.
~~~
throwanem
Machine shops aren't uncommon on naval ships. Such a well supplied one is
perhaps unlikely aboard a submarine, but missile subs are the largest and
generally the longest-cruising of any type, so it makes a deal of sense they'd
have as much capability for self-maintenance as possible, especially given
their vital deterrent role. Same goes for the pool et cetera - the human crew
being as important to the mission as the boat herself, and just as much
meriting maintenance.
------
mpweiher
Documentary here:
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dHOMRsHS6no](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dHOMRsHS6no)
Compare with the interior as imagined in "The Hunt for Red October" :-)
~~~
PhantomGremlin
There was a National Geographic documentary[1] about scrapping one of the
Typhoons. I could only find a Russian language version on Youtube[2], which
it's still fun to at least scan thru quickly just to see the scale of the
thing
[1] Unfortunately the Wikipedia link is broken
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Typhoon-
class_submarine#Notabl...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Typhoon-
class_submarine#Notable_appearances_in_media)
[1] [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HGhxGgQ-
Cd4](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HGhxGgQ-Cd4)
~~~
nsgf
[https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=M6ld7_7ss64](https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=M6ld7_7ss64)
(same video in English)
------
a3n
I was surprised to see the wooden benches in the gym. Except for shoring, I
can't recall much wood when I was in the US Navy; fire danger.
~~~
avmich
Interesting that wood is also sometimes used as a heat shield for spacecrafts
returning to Earth, fire danger notwithstanding.
~~~
solidsnack9000
Probably high enough up, there is not enough air for it to burn -- and the
heat conductivity of wood is really poor.
------
ajmurmann
Is this still in service? It looks like it's not. But who knows. Can someone
who can read the text clarify? Thanks!
~~~
jabl
According to [https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Typhoon-
class_submarine](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Typhoon-class_submarine) of
the 6 built, 3 are scrapped, 2 retired, and 1 in service (though later on that
same page it says the last SLBM of the type used was decommissioned in 2012).
Based on the pictures, it definitely doesn't look like in service. Also, seems
quite strange if they'd let civilians (?) run around and take pictures of a
strategic weapon system in active use..
------
vinkelhake
Could you launch an ICBM horizontally?
~~~
baronvonsp
Sure. Why would you want to?
~~~
oldmanpants
How about a towed sonar array?
~~~
dvtv75
Nope, too close to the screws.
------
grzm
I know it sounds trivial, but the sheer size of these vessels never ceases to
amaze me. Wow!
------
mattbettinson
Is that a little swimming pool? Neat
~~~
throwayguestman
looks more like a bathtub from the size of it
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Stupid Patent of the Month: Movies from the Cloud - DiabloD3
https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2016/11/stupid-patent-month-movies-cloud
======
james143dotcom
is 143movies.com safe to use?
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Samsung Galaxy Tab or iPad? - shashank261
I am planning to buy a tablet. Should I opt for Samsung Galaxy Tab or iPad?
======
SquidLord
Me, I'm a Google fan so the Galaxy Tab running Froyo (Android 2.2) is always
going to be a winner unless you want to get seriously into iPad synthesizer
aps (where it has a huge advantage currently). Ultimately, though, it comes
down to deciding what you want it FOR. Games and sound aps? You'll need an
iPad. eReading, techy geek stuff, reading news / Google integration? Gotta go
with the Android.
~~~
shashank261
If I go for iPad, Should I wait for iPad2. I heard its going to be lot better.
BTW, I ll be using tablet for techy geek stuff, reading news and ocassional
gaming.
~~~
lopatamd
rofl THEN you will have to wait for ipad 3 because will have a better camera
and it will be slimmer XDDDD
dont be a fool dude
~~~
shashank261
Hm,,I heard iPad2 will be launched early 2011. I can wait for couple of months
------
frou_dh
The iPad is essentially twice as big. So screen size and portability
preferences should steer you well for a start.
~~~
odyniec
I'm a fresh baked Galaxy Tab user. So far I've used it for browsing the
intertubes and reading ebooks, and I must say it does both pretty well.
However, I'd agree that some more screen estate wouldn't hurt, especially for
PDF files that don't play well with text reflow (pretty much every book with
formatted source code samples).
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Show HN: Coffee Chats – Schedule virtual coffee chats without the back and forth - chptung
https://www.trycoffeechats.com/
======
chptung
Problem: I wanted to host virtual coffee chats to help others with their
careers during this time but scheduling over emails / DMs is a huge pain and
wastes a ton of time. Calendly is a good option but it felt too impersonal and
lacked a calendar view to see all the events on my calendar.
Solution: So, I built Coffee Chats
([https://www.trycoffeechats.com](https://www.trycoffeechats.com)), which is a
free app that connects with your Google Calendar, determines when you're free
based on calendars you sync, and then creates a profile for you to share with
others so people can easily schedule a virtual coffee chat with you (no more
wasting time trying to find availability). Chats are hosted over Google Meet
which is also free and is automatically added to each coffee chat that is
added to your calendar.
So far, people have been using Coffee Chats to schedule mentoring sessions,
meetups with friends, and user testing sessions, and I just released an update
based on user feedback to show a full weekly calendar view, which you can find
mine here:
[https://www.trycoffeechats.com/chris/calendar?date=2020-08-0...](https://www.trycoffeechats.com/chris/calendar?date=2020-08-03)
Ask: I've been at this for a little over a month after seeing unemployment
rate sky rocket and seeing so many posts on Linkedin offering help but
realizing so much time was wasted on people trying to find a time that works.
Now that it's shipped, I'd love more feedback. It's completely free to make a
profile, and all I ask is that you 1) share your profile to schedule virtual
coffee chats to connect/help people in need right now and 2) provide feedback
on your experience (optional)
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Tornado tracks - xyzzyb
http://flowingdata.com/2012/05/26/tornado-tracks/
======
xyzzyb
I'd love to be able to step through this graph year by year. An animation
tracing each tornado would be fantastic too.
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
The world’s losers are revolting, and Brexit is only the beginning - walterbell
https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/wonk/wp/2016/06/27/the-losers-have-revolted-and-brexit-is-only-the-beginning/
======
sremani
I have not read beyond the head line(which is revolting), and I can guess the
contents. This is new low for Washington Post, BREXIT has 72% turn-out and
4-point spread win. If you are going to bash UK, the so-called most favored
ally in Europe as loser, then congrats.
Washington Post rank and file are certainly not winners, but they are doing a
excellent job for the agenda of their Overlord.
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Google Translate proxies others, why can't we all do it? - marichards
http://accessify.com/visit?domain=onlinebanking.usbank.com
======
marichards
On mobile I get an alert to move me on. On desktop I get an online banking
page.
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Ask HN: How should I report my gender when applying for a job? - cyorir
Sometimes a job application will request certain demographic information - race, gender, etc. In the gender field, I most often find that there are only 3 options: male, female, and decline to self-identify. There are almost never alternatives like "other" or the option to write-in. My question is, how should a transgender individual fill this in? Does it even matter? Is it better to use the gender I identify as or the sex I was born as? Is it better to just always select "decline to self-identify"? What about non-binary/gender-neutral individuals?<p>I am already selective in which companies I apply to, in that I won't apply to companies in states that lack protections against discrimination on the basis of gender identity. However, I'm not sure about whether I should be open to potential employers about my gender identity or whether I should try to hide it; it's hard enough to get an entry-level job.
======
danso
Given your reluctance to be open about your gender identity, what is your
aversion to marking "Decline to self-identify"?
------
dorfuss
Although I am a white heterosexual man, I have always refused to provide such
information as gender (I have recently made a new passport without gender
information). Your gender should not be of concern neither for the state and
administration, nor for any organisation or company. By law in certain
countries (in Europe) it is illegal to ask about things such as gender,
marital status or age, and it should be illegal to ask for adding photos to
your CV.
Even if they ask you to fill a form, just leave these fields blank.
------
idunno246
Any company I worked for, that info never got out of the job tracking system,
and I dont remember even seeing it as a hiring manager, though maybe it was
there. It was basically just a legal cover to have evidence we weren't being
racist/sexist/etc. So I'd say do whatever you feel comfortable with, and I
doubt it will have an effect.
------
ajeet_dhaliwal
How would you expect or want colleagues to refer to you as? For example if a
lead programmer asks another one of your colleagues "who's looking at this
bug?" and that colleague points to you do they say "he is" or "she is" or
something else?
------
imauld
Leave it blank if you can. It shouldn't be required as it's really none of
their business.
------
pcunite
Look at it from their point of view. If you identify as something other than
what you were born as, what is to stop you from changing that from time to
time? You may, at a later junction, feel more comfortable with your birth
gender.
Thus the option "decline to self-identify" gives you everything you need to
say.
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
6 Great Ways for Programmers to be more Effective at Work - pstepin
http://10clouds.com/blog/6-great-ways-for-programmers-to-be-more-effective-at-work/?utm_source=HackerNews&utm_medium=HackerNews&utm_campaign=HackerNews
======
espressodude
Planning the work day works well for me too. Great list in here by the way.
~~~
pstepin
Thanks =)
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
This Is What the GOP's War On Science Looks Like - Kroem3r
http://io9.com/this-is-what-the-gops-war-on-science-looks-like-1556202056
======
tinalumfoil
So now republicans asking questions about how science is furthering humanity
in a hearing about funding science programs is a conspiracy to stop the
progression of science?
Good to know we have come to a point where internet journalism is so shit a
200 page article filled with 3 quotes and some (totally skewed and not
misrepresented) information from their speakers counts as an editorial for a
2-hour senate hearing.
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Mozilla’s plan to fix internet privacy - DvdGiessen
https://www.protocol.com/mozilla-plan-fix-internet-privacy
======
walrus01
Firefox on Android has become my go to choice now, because it supports the
full set of desktop firefox plugins, including the essential ublock origin. I
can't even imagine mobile browsing without full adblock functionality anymore.
~~~
cobalt60
AdguardHome/PiHole on DoT/DoH? Android 9+ supports private DNS.
~~~
zaarn
DNS blockers don't block all ads, uBlock on top is very effective.
------
ilitirit
> Mozilla lost the browser wars
Honest question... who did they lose to? Google Chrome?
For me personally, Firefox has been better than Chrome for several years now.
The only reason I still load up Chrome is when I want to stream to my
Chromecast.
~~~
nathanyukai
Yes, statistically the majority of people are using Chrome
~~~
mirthandmadness
The majority of people are not digitally literate enough to care about what
they're using. How do people preserve social justice if they're not aware that
it is being violated in the first place? Who would deliberately step sideways
and do something that requires effort when they have no incentive to? Most
people just do what is convenient, without bothering to think twice about it.
~~~
AnIdiotOnTheNet
"People made a different decision than I did, therefore those people must be
ignorant."
~~~
rcMgD2BwE72F
Google used a lot of its gigantic resources and ad spaces to advertise Chrome
everywhere. It's been installed and enabled by default on most mobile devices
for years. Google paid software publishers to have Chrome distributed through
other software installs (it also bundled it with its own software like Picasa
and Google Earth). It also paid my local (state-owned) public transport
operator to display gigantic banners in my train station. It organized events
in my work community to promote its software and services, including Chrome of
course. For years, its search engine told me to install Chrome every time I
access google.com from another browser. Google stills serves old and ugly
results page when I do search from Firefox (e.g no chart shown when searching
from Firefox, although every other financial websites is able to perfectly
display their stock charts in non-Chrome browsers). They've even been fined
billions(!) of EUR for illegal practices involving the distribution of
Chrome)[0].
People may have made different decisions to chose their browser for good
reasons, but Google also built a monopoly for very good reasons, too. Users
were and are still constantly pushed and incentivized to use Chrome, because
of extensive, multi-year PR campaign, digital and outdoor ads, but also
technical tricks.
[0]
[https://ec.europa.eu/commission/presscorner/detail/en/IP_18_...](https://ec.europa.eu/commission/presscorner/detail/en/IP_18_4581)
------
mehdix
As a FF user I'll also share my experience.
Since Firefox switched to Quantum, I am exclusively using it on my work, home
and portable computers. Chromium on my Arch Laptop was buggy, had a memory
leak, and would consume all my 16G of RAM after keeping tabs open for a while.
Firefox solved that for me.
With uBlock, Privacy Badger, Cookie AutoDelete and FF's built-in blocker I
have a functional defense-line against privacy violating practices (not
totally immune against fingerprinting yet).
The reader mode helps me to get rid of the clutter and read the text, very
happy with that.
I also use Firefox and Firefox Preview on Android. The latter is specially
superior in performance and has less bugs. For example on Firefox Android I
had non-finishing download bars, not any more in the Preview. The performance
is obviously superior. Nighly builds support uBlock now.
The "Send Tab" feature is also very practical (I have a FF account for syncing
purposes). I send tabs to my other devices which helps me to follow things on
my other machines and also to memorize things by seeing them in a short while
on another machine.
There are two things about FF that I dislike. First thing is the massive
amount of outdated articles and ancient support tickets online. Good luck with
searching for a technical solution for a FF problem!
Next thing is the source code. I have compiled it many times in order to fix a
niche bug. I even bought a better PC to compile it faster. This aside, it is
hard to understand the code. There are zillions of moving pieces, and ad-hoc
bug fixing is not an option. You have to follow things for weeks if not months
to get to the right information. This probably can be improved by better docs
explaining the code to contributors and new comers.
Overall I'm happy with it. Moreover, it is important to have alternatives
otherwise we might lose the open web as we know it.
Edit: add paragraphs
~~~
rbritton
Another FF plugin you might like is Multi-Account Containers [0]. It lets you
isolate one or more websites from others to minimize their tracking ability.
[0]: [https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/multi-
account...](https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/multi-account-
containers/)
------
ocdtrekkie
The aforementioned Facebook Container was an excellent step, but if they
really were serious about fixing Internet privacy regardless of their
financial backers, they'd ship an official Google Container as well. (A third
party developer ships one as a fork of Facebook Container, but it'd be far
preferable for a Mozilla shipped one.) They capitalized on the Cambridge
Analytica scandal with the launch of that extension, but won't follow up with
the Google equivalent.
The code is already written, I just think they are still too scared to ship an
extension that works against their primary sponsor.
~~~
zzzcpan
That's the problem with Mozilla's privacy propaganda, their funding depends on
violating privacy, so they can only talk and pretend, but not actually do
anything about it. Which makes them look bad, dishonest and fake, when they
are talking about privacy.
~~~
wayneftw
You’re not allowed to say anything bad about Firefox or Mozilla around these
parts without being heavily censored in case you hadn’t noticed :)
~~~
JohnFen
Sure you are. I often criticize both. But what you have to say needs to be
based in something resembling actual fact, and it helps a lot if you avoid
stating opinion as fact.
It also helps to be even-handed and call out when Mozilla and/or Firefox does
something right as well as when they do something wrong.
~~~
wayneftw
No, this is incorrect. I was down-towned for simply pointing out that Firefox
nags you to sign in. I detailed each UI measure they took. Nothing but pure
facts that are easily verifiable.
~~~
JohnFen
My comment was tailored toward blowski's remark at the top of this thread, not
anything you said. I'm not sure what comment you're talking about, so I can't
speak to that.
------
RabbiPires
All this talk about openness and freedom, and Mozilla's builds still ship with
the proprietary Pocket extension by default. I really hope they don't have to
rely on the revenue from Pocket at some point.
Not only that, but it also connects to Google's SafeBrowsing servers. Is that
required by their search engine contract with Google? Shouldn't be turned on
by default.
~~~
thawaway1837
You know they own Pocket right?
Pocket is basically their version of Read Later, etc...And it’s completely
optional whether you want to use it or not. So I’m not sure I understand this
complaint.
Mozilla’s first integration of Pocket was poorly done, and rightfully raised
complaints. But since they have purchased it, a lot of those complaints have
been resolved.
~~~
groovybits
<< it also connects to Google's SafeBrowsing servers. >>
As a privacy enthusiast, what's wrong with Google's SafeBrowsing service? It
provides protection from low-hanging fruit with anonymized data (hashes of
URLs).
~~~
heartbeats
It's not very anonymized. Google already has a list of URLs, so they can just
hash them all and see what matches. And if they have URL 1, 2, and 4, odds are
they can interpolate to find out what #3 is.
~~~
tialaramex
> so they can just hash them all and see what matches
Matches _what_ ? Firefox doesn't send hashes to Google Safe Browsing. This
would not only be a privacy problem it would also make the browser much too
slow. Instead Firefox periodically downloads a summary of what might be
unsafe, and then it compares hashes to that summary. If there's a match in the
summary (rare but it happens) it fetches more detailed parts of the total Safe
Browsing map to make a decision.
As a rule of thumb I'd say when a person complains about Safe Browsing without
any clue how it actually works I'm confident they're exactly the type of
"power user" who most needs Safe Browsing to keep them out of trouble because
they're falsely confident in their own abilities.
~~~
throwaway2048
It does however request hash prefixes, then google sends to the client all bad
URLs that match, that is what can be brute forced with relative ease, if you
already have a stream of previous they are visiting (via google analytics,
google captcha, and other matched hashes). Especially if you know most every
URL on the internet already. (hash them, then look it up in a table).
Anonymization is a very tricky subject, and there is a lot of techniques that
get trumpeted but are absolutely not effective assuming a bad faith actor.
~~~
tialaramex
> It does however request hash prefixes, then google sends to the client all
> bad URLs that match
IF the prefix is a match, which is relatively unusual then the browser
requests the full list for that prefix. But also, no, Google just sends back a
list of full hashes and not URLs.
> that is what can be brute forced with relative ease
OK. 1f6866 is a hash prefix, quick "brute force" it with this supposed
relative ease, what am I looking at?
How about 0aebaf? Ah, trick question, that's just noise stirred in
automatically by Firefox (yes their implementation silently does this,
typically the noise drowns out signal by a ratio of 4:1 but it's
configurable).
Or wait, maybe the first one was noise and this isn't. Google neither knows
nor cares.
Still, you'll just use "relative ease" to brute force every 24-bit number and
then er, more brute force to figure out which ones are bogus. You can do the
same with my phone number. One of the digits is a "five" \- quick, brute force
the whole number and tell me what it is to show how great "brute force" is at
hand-waving impossible problems!
> if you already have a stream of previous they are visiting
I know this trick. Hey, pick a number, then add two to that number, then take
away the number you first thought of. The number you're now thinking of is two
- tada!
Yes, if I know where you are then I can "magically" tell where you are using
seemingly unrelated information, by simply discarding it and already knowing
where you are.
But this "technique" works perfectly well without Safe Browsing and so it has
no bearing on whether Safe Browsing is in fact safe.
> Anonymization is a very tricky subject
Brain surgery is also a tricky subject. But Google's Safe Browsing project
doesn't do Brain surgery either.
------
CivBase
> Baker wrote on Mozilla's blog that in the last decade, the world had seen
> "the power of the internet used to magnify divisiveness, incite violence,
> promote hatred, and intentionally manipulate fact and reality." Baker then
> added four new manifesto principles calling for equality, discourse and
> diversity online in an addendum called "Pledge for a Healthy Internet."
"Equality, discourse, and diversity" are the very principles that enable
people to "magnify divisiveness, incite violence, promote hatred, and
intentionally manipulate fact and reality." Any attempt to promote freedom of
expression while simultaneously silencing the worst of humanity is inherently
at odds.
Hatred is a naturally occuring phenomina, not a learned behavior. You can't
just quarantine it to make it go away. That only makes it worse.
The internet is not a breeding ground for hatred. It's just a reflection of
how bad we can really be.
------
DrScientist
Ex-Mozillian Brendan Eich agrees that privacy is the battle for the future
[http://www.brave.com](http://www.brave.com)
The question is - do you need to re-write the internet economy as Brave are
trying to to achieve it, and not just block trackers?
The third element is that governments are becoming addicted to the vast trove
of information gathered - will they be willing to give that up if a
technical/business model solution takes off.
Interesting times.
~~~
catalogia
I want no part of Brave's weird cryptoish scheme. I know the feature is opt-
in, but I don't see the point in supporting an organization unable to find a
source of revenue I find agreeable.
Even something as simple and obnoxious as donation nagging, like Wikipedia,
seems preferable to what Brave has proposed.
~~~
prepend
It’s not perfect, but I like it better than the alternatives (selling user
data, non profit).
Technically the browser is nice, but there’s something nice about a for profit
org whose incentives are aligned with mine. For now, I use a FireFox for
similar reasons, but I like Brave’s mode for the web better than the “bad ad”
model that google and Facebook push.
I used to like Opera for similar reasons.
~~~
hvis
What could one find disgreeable in a company being a non-profit?
~~~
luckylion
In a "we depend on the biggest enemy of privacy for funding" kind of way?
~~~
hvis
Being a non-profit doesn't imply any of that.
And nobody has ever demonstrated that this ostensible "dependence" has any
adverse effects on Mozilla's policy.
~~~
luckylion
It's hard to demonstrate anything if you don't have a control group and can't
turn the thing in question on and off. Conflicts of interest are real, you
don't need to demonstrate that they are, though it's not clear how much they
sway Mozilla's decisions.
And you're right, the non-profit-status doesn't imply that, they could just as
well do the same as a commercial enterprise. It would be more obvious that
way.
Would Mozilla make the step to ship an adblocker with Firefox? It would
certainly be what their users want (the most popular extension by far being
uBlock Origin), but it would pretty much decrease their worth to Google to
zero, hence kill the funding. And there's your conflict of interest.
~~~
hvis
It's a difficult problem. Unless a majority-marketshare browser does that as
well (and we know that Chrome certainly won't), a lot of websites might choose
to block all Firefox users instead.
And perhaps you and I know how to disable an ad blocker selectively. An
average user might simply see problems with websites and uninstall Firefox as
"not working", tanking its marketshare even more.
So Google doesn't necessarily factor into that decision, really.
~~~
luckylion
True, though I think that would be a short (and just!) war that would get us
to a much better place: hiding the type of user agent you're using from the
site means less finger printing opportunities.
It very much could lead to the opposite too. "Oh hey, the web works when
you're using Firefox". My mother has become a missionary (for adblockers, not
firefox) since she's once witnessed how websites look on a friend's PC. She
told her "I think your computer is broken", which lead to confusion & a
presentation on my mother's PC... which lead to them calling me asking how to
make her friend's PC do that too.
It might, ironically, also be a great signal for Google's bots. I've never
seen a quality site that tried to block me for using an adblock, and even
"hey, please turn adblock on" is a strong signal for me that it's SEO content
and I should go on looking for something else.
~~~
hvis
> hiding the type of user agent you're using from the site means less finger
> printing opportunities
There are other (maybe a bit more complex) ways to tell what browser you're
using, and whether you block ads.
> I've never seen a quality site that tried to block me for using an adblock
...yet. This is starting to change, and a lot of websites still have ads as
their main source of revenue. Either that, or subscriptions, and the latter
(for online newspapers, for example) is taking off very slowly.
Again, our usage patterns are in the minority, so whatever tough choices we
might want to make are not necessarily to everyone's benefit right now.
At least in theory, I support the Better Ads initiative by Adblock Plus. Even
though I've mostly been using uBlock Origin lately...
~~~
luckylion
> There are other (maybe a bit more complex) ways to tell what browser you're
> using, and whether you block ads.
Yes, and doing so will escalate the arms race. I believe that browsers will
come out as the winners, and that's a good thing for privacy.
> This is starting to change, and a lot of websites still have ads as their
> main source of revenue.
Sure, but then again, most sites I see on a daily basis in Google are pure
shit - made only to display ads, with the same content that is also on a
million other pages, slightly rewritten so Google considers it unique. Nothing
of value will be lost if the all burn up and go away.
I'm sure you're right, there will be unforeseen consequences, but I feel like
appeasing the adtech industry by not stopping their surveillance is not going
to be helpful.
Better Ads focuses only on perception: A flashy, dumb static banner is bad, a
stalking text-ad that sends information back to its creepy owner where it is
then correlated with MasterCard payment data, your location, the interests of
your friends etc and saves all of that into a shadowy profile that follows you
around is fine, because it's text only and is labeled "advertisement". I can't
decide whether it was just an extortionist cash-grab or a smart way to
redirect the attention from the actual problem to the surface problem ("it's
bright, and it's animated").
~~~
hvis
> believe that browsers will come out as the winners, and that's a good thing
> for privacy
Even if I agree with you on the rest, we're back to Firefox not having a
majority marketshare.
Mozilla _could_ make a choice to only serve our particular niche, to the
exclusion of less-technical users, but I don't think it's a good choice for
it, or for the whole web.
------
gfody
Using uMatrix really raised my awareness of how bad things are - spyTech is
utterly everywhere. I still take the time to micromanage my matrix every time
I encounter a new site and it’s ridiculous how long it can take to get a
random infested page back to an acceptable level of usability.
~~~
nsomaru
uMatrix is better than nothing but I want more micromanagement. I want to be
able to block on a per script basis because some sites will load 49 scripts
from some other domain and only 1 or 2 will actually be needed to make the
page work properly.
~~~
gfody
agree, I'd love to see uMatrix get more sophisticated.. there are already a
lot of sites that simply cannot be fixed
------
badrabbit
Can they focus on making it perform as well as Chrome?
I mean, I support their efforts and all but I am forced to use a chrome based
browser because FF has poor windows/sso integration and absolutley horrible
memory management. A tab of any tool's webui that does a lot of work with a
lot of data will not only bring firefox to a halt but the entire system. I can
at least try to use it for soft workloads but you never know when visiting the
wrong page will cause this issue again. Why can't it manage it's impact on the
rest of the system?
My job performance would tank dramarically if I used firefox exclusively!
Why can't they work to make it better than Chrome? They were throwing Rust at
it a few years ago,so what happened? Do they just not test against the right
sites?
I mean, the mozilla foundation is not poor. They have money. Is it just
politics or do they think getting gmail and youtube to work is all that is
needed? I am only saying all this because i like firefox. Mozilla needs a wake
up call. Do they not get the problems at hand or do they not care or do they
lack some resource or motivation? I mean I will be happy to even buy a license
for firefox if they get it to even come close to Chrome's performance. Maybe
they have too many well intended fanboy's cheeeing them on?
~~~
justinph
Maybe this is a windows thing? I use Firefox on MacOS and it is more
performant than Chrome. I rarely have to restart Firefox. Chrome needs a
restart at least twice a day (I use Chrome for google hangouts a lot).
This changed recently with Firefox Quantum, which was v69 or v70. I noticed a
significant speedup at that point.
~~~
rebelwebmaster
Firefox switched to CoreAnimation in v70, which made a big difference.
[https://mozillagfx.wordpress.com/2019/10/22/dramatically-
red...](https://mozillagfx.wordpress.com/2019/10/22/dramatically-reduced-
power-usage-in-firefox-70-on-macos-with-core-animation/)
------
kup0
I'm finally back to Firefox for good. Feels good to be _home_.
I keep 'Edge-ium' around if I encounter any rare use cases that necessitate
it, but that's relatively rare
------
mark_l_watson
I liked the wrap up where the position is that it is OK when other browsers
adopt some of Mozilla’s privacy features.
I just about exclusively use FireFox with nine containers on my Linux and
macOS laptops. Being able to segregate data is a game changer.
On my iOS devices, I feel stuck with Safari since other browsers sit on top of
Safari. I appreciate the privacy features in Safari but still feel the need to
frequently remove all cookies and use private tabs when using sites like
FaceBook. I just wrote about this yesterday [https://mark-
watson.blogspot.com/2020/02/protecting-oneself-...](https://mark-
watson.blogspot.com/2020/02/protecting-oneself-from-surveillance.html)
Because I like to sometimes use my Chromebook, I am stuck using the Chrome web
browser. Deleting all cookies frequently helps.
~~~
move-on-by
Private tabs are the only way I use Safari. I found that I rarely use websites
that I need to be logged in to, as those type of services generally have an
App that I'm already using. For the odd case where I need to login, with my
password vault, its only a couple extra clicks.
~~~
mark_l_watson
+1 that is excellent advice.
When non-tech friends ask how much of a hassle it is deleting all cookies, I
point out that the passwords are saved and reliving in is quick.
All private tabs is obviously better, and I will do that more often.
------
h91wka
It's funny how Mozilla preaches privacy, but if you open `about:config' and
count
1) parameters that include word "telemetry"
2) everything that looks like a unique token
3) "mozilla.org" URLs
you'll see that the sum is steadily going up with every release. It leaves me
under impression that Mozilla is trying to follow Facebook and Google. Lately
they removed setting to use a custom page for the new tabs, leaving only
choice between blank page and Mozilla-provided "interest based" homepage. I am
still using it as the main browser, though, as "lesser evil", but discrepancy
between Mozilla's slogans and actual features is pretty chilling.
~~~
jfk13
telemetry ≠ tracking
~~~
throwaway2048
Telemetry is absolutely a polite word for tracking. It is fundamentally about
sending information about your system, your usecase, your software and your
data to a remote party (usually without notification).
Calling it anything except tracking is super bullshitty.
~~~
phases
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Sparsh and a chance to blessing, compose or visit your supported kid.
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------
dependenttypes
How ironic. Firefox is the browser that calls home the most on the first run
[https://twitter.com/jonathansampson/status/11658588961766604...](https://twitter.com/jonathansampson/status/1165858896176660480)
They also disabled the ability for extensions to work on mozilla pages and
things like about:addons by default, where mozilla uses google analytics.
They add new tracking crap on the browser in every release, so you are at a
loss what to disable first in about:config as the online guides tend to get
outdated easily.
> that's good for trolls and surveillance organizations and violent groups
Only "surveillance organizations" is relevant to privacy. The others make me
think of centralisation and censorship.
The only real way to browse privately is to use a browser with javascript
disabled and only a subset of css enabled over tor/isp. (but then you have to
deal with cloudflare and broken sites)
~~~
jamienicol
What is the relevance of "number of calls home on first run"? Surely the
contents of said calls, and over an extended time period, is a much more
important measurement?
~~~
dependenttypes
I think that the number of calls home on first run is more important because
you don't get an option to disable them.
------
davidy123
The concept of the browser is a universal vehicle for information. One of the
greatest breakthroughs for browsers, aside from increasing front end
application rendering and interactivity, is extensions. They put the user as
the primary, where they can access, control, organize the information accessed
as they wish using extensions. Of course, there is a wild west aspect to this,
and over time extension facilities are becoming closer to app stores, with
ratings and permissions being primary. Chrome has had some of the best support
for extensions, making it easy to create them and offering most features
through them, which is one reason I use it instead of Firefox day to day. But
no browser properly supports extensions on mobile. Chrome just doesn't, the
Kiwi fork is supposed to but in my experience doesn't really, Firefox says
they will but the signals are it will only be select extensions, at least for
now. Extensions are one of the best markers and facilities of a free, user
first web, that isn't just about accessing opaque, absolutely controlled
services, where hobbyists and principled organizations can work directly in
the space of privacy and trust as information is processed, so I hope they
pick up some priority.
~~~
dexen
_> Firefox says they will [properly support extensions on mobile]_
The most relevant extension - uBlock Origin - works just fine on mobile
Firefox.
It's a real game changer, especially with screen real estate and energy usage
being quite important on mobile.
That extension alone is why I have and use Firefox on mobile phones (aside of
the usual compatibility testing on other browsers for certain web projects).
------
jeffrufino
Brilliant, I'll be moving to Firefox.
------
us000538
Specifically for mobile divices mozilla's performance is too good you can feel
it just try to open blogger html codes in crome it will hang but for mozilla
it's fine [https://www.boringworld.org](https://www.boringworld.org)
------
mariushn
I'd love to have a Gmail-like alternative, both with a Mozilla domain
(personal) and custom domains (business), for a small yearly subscription.
Maybe have ad-supported as an alternative.
------
SergeAx
The momemt Google pull the plug for Ublock Origin and other similar plugins -
we'll see how "Mozilla lost the browser wars".
------
wnevets
The moment ublock origin is limited or broken in chrome is the moment I
abandon chrome completely and switch to firefox full time.
------
tonfreed
> namedropping Cambridge Analytica
And opinion discarded
------
einpoklum
Mozilla destroyed their own platform - by removing its most significant
feature, which was deep extensibility, instead of fixing it to keep that
feature.
> That's how Mozilla works: slowly, collaboratively, trying to speak for
> everyone.
I don't remember Mozilla works collaboratively. By the way - remind me where
they publish their income sources again?
> "the power of the internet used to magnify divisiveness, incite violence,
> promote hatred, and intentionally manipulate fact and reality."
Yeah, well, so has the printing press. When someone suggests we should keep a
"healty press", that's oligarchic censorship. Reminds me of the US Comics
Code.
> Mozilla has spent the last several years fighting harder and louder than
> ever for the future of the internet.
Must not have been loud enough, because I believe few people have noticed
this.
> the company's vision of a more user-centric, privacy-conscious web.
"user-centric" web? Don't know what that means. It's like "reader-centric
books". As for privacy - when something like uBlock Origin and EFF Privacy
Badger is installed by default, and when TOR is an easily-accessible option,
and when Mozilla funds some TOR endpoint routers (in countries outside US
reach of course), then we'll talk.
> But what if people could also use them to keep Facebook from snooping as
> they traveled the web?
If Facebook was prevented from snooping entirely, that would not be that much
of an issue.
> Firefox has long held the not-entirely-flattering distinction of being the
> most popular browser not made by a huge corporation
It's bankrolled by huge corporations. IIRC it was mostly Google for a while.
Also, see below about their new VP.
I am reminded how Mozilla had, for years, neglected its email client in favor
of the browser, thus effectively helping to promote webmail, stored and spied
on by these corporations. It certainly did nothing to promote end-to-end
encryption of email, which has been quite possible with Thunderbird, and would
have prevented (some of the) spying on users.
> So far, Firefox has blocked 1.6 trillion tracking requests
That means it doesn't block most tracking requests.
> Alan Davidson ... new VP of policy ... has been working ... at Google and
> then as President Barack Obama's director of digital economy
So one of the top people at the spying-B-us corporation and the "can't have
privacy and security" administration is the new VP who'll help protect us from
his former colleagues and bosses? Uh-huh.
------
throwaway8291
I'm using Firefox for years, after Chrome started to ask me for a login (at
around version 40). Never looked back. One day I woke up to a chart showing
browser market share of FF at around 4%, which surprised me - as I thought
many people would understand the implications and directions.
Maybe I'm too optimistic.
Update: Loved chrome, used it for years, I also love most Chrome engineering
and all the innovation they added to the field - it's just good to have
alternatives.
~~~
avian
> I'm using Firefox for years, after Chrome started to ask me for a login
It's funny because Firefox has been pushing their login thing pretty hard (the
yellow "oh no" exclamation mark icon if you're not logged in, the account icon
that keeps placing itself back onto my toolbar, occasional full-page ad/nag
screen, ...).
~~~
blackearl
I've never seen the exclamation mark and I'm never signed in on my work
computer. Meanwhile, Chrome signs you into the browser profile if you sign
into any Google site and it's opt-out.
~~~
wayneftw
They've got it plastered around the UI. It's the very top menu item. It's also
in the Pocket address bar button right under where they advertise to you to
"Sign up for Pocket. It's freeeeeee!"
Not only that, but on new installs and after some updates Firefox nags you to
sign up whenever it can, for instance when you log into a website - right
after you save the password it will show some animated crap in the address bar
to nag you to "Sign in to sync..."
I just opened Firefox (on Linux no less) to confirm every single one of these
things.
Chrome (my default browser) actually nags me less and in less annoying ways.
~~~
dao-
> Chrome (my default browser) actually nags me less and in less annoying ways.
Because they just log you in without asking, as noted in the comment you're
replying to. It also has more severe implications in Chrome privacy-wise,
directly linking your Chrome profile with all kinds of other privacy-sensitive
Google services. Since Google is in the business of making money from the data
they have on you (and hence collects as much as it can), I'd be much more
concerned about this than I am about my Firefox account.
~~~
wayneftw
I opted out of that once in Chrome and I never saw it again.
I see no way to opt out of all the nags Firefox gives me.
------
cousin_it
1) Thirteen banner ads, most of them animated
2) Tracking from Google and Facebook
3) Cookie warning with no way to opt out
4) You can only opt out if you live in California:
> _Opting out of the sharing of your personal information by Protocol with
> marketers: Please send an email to [email protected] with the following
> information: -Name -Email -Confirmation of California residency_
~~~
tclover
I often forget how does the internet look like without the adblocker
~~~
hobofan
Not using a dedicated ad blocker (just Firefox) and the article looks very
clean to me.
------
inviromentalist
If anyone can figure out why Firefox doesn't work on my computer, let me know.
It's at least 30 times slower than chrome. So somethings wrong Right?
~~~
jeltz
Yeah, that is not normal at all. Firefox should be about as fast as Chrome on
most workloads.
------
fmajid
Their shabby treatment of Brendan Eich discredits their self-proclaimed
commitment to diversity and open discourse.
------
arkitaip
Maybe the ultimate move would be to create a Tor alternative that goes beyond
slapping on some privacy on the pig that has become the Internet.
~~~
OmarShehata
Why would that be better than current solutions, which at best users don't
really notice when they work, and at worse dislike because they make many
things less convenient?
> Making private browsing more private was a success, which is to say less
> data was collected and users didn't notice the difference.
> The same trackers, though, help users log into sites and pay for goods, and
> blocking them would break the internet for lots of users.
------
beardedman
I've been using Brave these days. Really like it. IMO: Firefox doesn't seem to
know what sort of company they are anymore. Their product arsenal is
expanding, yet core features of their flagship product is still stuck in the
2000's.
~~~
jeltz
How is Firefox stuck in the 2000s? They recently switched to an entirely new
modern renderer, switched to a modern fast layout engine and implement new web
strandards very quickly, sometimes faster than Chrome.
~~~
beardedman
I said core features, not the entire browser. Their bookmark manager hasn't
changed for many many years.
------
heartbeats
If they want to do something, there's a simple three-step plan.
1) block all ads, by default
2) do not unblock Google's ads,
3) receive Adblock Plus-style bribes from Yandex or whoever to whitelist them,
provided they don't harm privacy
This would kill several birds in one stone. First, break Mozilla free of
Google funding. Second, hurt Google. Third, increase Firefox' market share.
Fourth, help users' privacy.
As things stand today, Mozilla just exist so that Google can pretend they
don't have a monopoly. Follow the money - who pays?
(A: Google pays nearly all of their budget, and they have next to no rainy day
fund)
~~~
ComodoHacker
>from Yandex or whoever to whitelist them, provided they don't harm privacy
I doubt you can find one that doesn't harm privacy. And particulary Yandex
will raise other concerns.
~~~
move-on-by
Seriously, why would anyone trust the Russian controlled Yandex any more then
Google? Might as well be advocating for Baidu as well.
~~~
ComodoHacker
On the other hand, there aren't many Yandex served ads in US, so most people
won't care.
------
ecmascript
Mozilla essentially did a "get woke, go broke". They fired Brendan for
ridicolous reasons, they focused on products that were useless and were really
focused on spreading propaganda for woke causes.
I still use Firefox everyday since it's the best browser for linux but I also
use Brave. Mozilla as a company in my eyes are a bit lost and they need more
focus on their technology. It seems like they have realized this in the last
two years or so and I hope that trend will continue. Firefox is awesome, focus
on privacy is awesome. MDN is awesome. If they need money from other sources
than Google, why not create some kind of subscription service for their MDN
docs?
There is a bunch of things they actually need to fix like lack of PWA support
in firefox (still) which is pretty bad that they don't have that enabled by
default.
Focus on what matters, no one cares about your woke politics in the long run.
~~~
Angostura
> hey fired Brendan for ridicolous reasons
Marriage equality isn't a particularly ridiculous reason.
~~~
ecmascript
So because you're a CEO you can't believe whatever you want in your spare
time? Or does the same rules apply for everyone that works at Mozilla? If so,
how the fuck does anyone know what is a fireable opinion? It's not like he
used company resources to promote his beliefs or enforced his beliefs on
others. What Mozilla did to Brendan is essentially to enforce thought crime on
their own staff. It's kind of hard to take them seriously when they say they
value integrity after that.
This idea of an outrage culture is what makes Mozilla go down the shitter. No
one cares about that shit except a very small minority in SF.
It's not like Google or most other for-profit company cares about marriage
inequality either. Just because they don't explicitly say it out loud doesn't
mean they care. They care about profits and market dominance only. If Google
would make more money being anti same sex marriage, then they would most
likely oppose same sex marriage and spend a lot of money on lobbying for the
opposing view.
I'm certain that firing Brendan was probably one of the worst decisions
Mozilla has taken so far. I trust Brave and Brendan far more on privacy issue
since they only care about that and don't shove woke politics onto my face.
I'm convinced that Brave will be larger than Firefox in market share sooner
rather than later mostly because of this reason alone.
~~~
Angostura
> So because you're a CEO you can't believe whatever you want in your spare
> time?
Clearly, if you a CEO and publicly supporting causes, your support for those
causes will have an impact on the reputation of the organisation.
Now, I sure you can think of examples of more extreme spare-time beliefs that
you might think _were_ incompatible with being CEO, so its a question of where
you particularly draw the line. (Or perhaps you can't and you think that any
extreme free-time campaigning is fine).
FWIW, I'm not in San Francisco.
Now Mozilla has, whether you like it or not decided to build its brand values
and ethos around equality and inclusivity - it is written all through its
positioning and marketing material. Similarly Apple pitched privacy. If it was
discovered that Tim Cook had a part time gig with Cambridge Analytica etc. I
doubt he would last that long.
Regarding Google et al:
> Just because they don't explicitly say it out loud doesn't mean they care.
That's correct they don't say it out loud, they don't explicity campaign on
the issue and their CEO doesn't donate money towards it.
> I trust Brave and Brendan far more on privacy issue since they only care
> about that and don't shove woke politics onto my face.
If Brendan started donating to an organisation campaigning to give law
enforcement and marketing companies access to your personal data, do you think
it would be compatible with his position at Brave? Bear in mind that,
apparently when it comes to privacy, very few people care about that shit (as
can be seen from Chrome's market share) and there is good money to be made
selling data.
~~~
ecmascript
> Now Mozilla has, whether you like it or not decided to build its brand
> values and ethos around equality and inclusivity
Yes I know, this is why I use Brave and why Mozilla is not relevant anymore.
At my company we don't really make a lot of effort to test that our product
works in Firefox anymore because they have such a low market share. I am
basically the only one wanting to fully support firefox, testing every feature
in it, but even I am having a hard time defending that position when Mozilla
as a company is being so incredible short-sighted and pushes bullshit.
Their wokeness killed Firefox and I'm very upset about that. I hate the people
who ruined Mozilla which was for the longest time the only sane option in the
browser market.
I believe they will sooner or later discontinue Firefox unless something
extraordinary happens because they won't have enough users to support it.
> If Brendan started donating to an organisation campaigning to give law
> enforcement and marketing companies access to your personal data, do you
> think it would be compatible with his position at Brave?
No I don't think so. But his beliefs in that theoretical case woule oppose
what the product Brave is all about. Supporting same sex marriage or not has
nothing to do with browsers, the internet or even technology.
It's just an unpolular opinion that get you fired for the same company that
pretend they value privacy, freedom and integrity. Which to me is now just
bullshit I do not believe. In fact there is even evidence to support it, they
are sending data to google even when you start a private tab in firefox so
evidently they give away data to the same tech giants they claim to oppose.
~~~
Angostura
I’d love to see your worked examples of why having brand values based around
inclusivity has lead to a drop in market share.
Do you have any evidence for that? Or are you assuming that Brendan’s superior
execution skills would have avoided it?
~~~
ecmascript
It's easy, people don't like getting politics shoved in their faces when
they're using some product that has nothing to do with poltiics. Especially
when they disagree with the message.
Of course, in the Mozilla case it's more than their pander to wokeness that
made them become unrelevant. It's their focus on shitty products that no one
asked for or wanted. For example, Pocket. Such a waste of money, I'm sure they
have some users and so on but come on.
There is no way of donating to the development of Firefox. You can only donate
to Mozilla and the money won't be used for development but rather for pushing
woke politics.
They have used a lot of money afaik on that purpose alone. To be more
inclusive, which basically translates to excluding white men (because that is
what it's always about).
But if you want some concrete list, check this one out:
[https://www.oneangrygamer.net/get-woke-go-broke-the-
master-l...](https://www.oneangrygamer.net/get-woke-go-broke-the-master-list/)
I'm sure Brendan wouldn't have spent millions on shit products and woke
politics but rather to have improved on the core products and stuff like
privacy which people actually care about.
This is why Brave will be bigger than Firefox in the long run, because they
care about what actually matters. Which is the product they offer.
~~~
Angostura
> It's easy, people don't like getting politics shoved in their faces when
> they're using some product
How many people using Firefox do you think have even _heard_ of Brendan? Not
many, I'd wager. The community who contribute? robably significantly more.
I love this bit: "I'm sure Brendan wouldn't have spent millions on shit
products and woke politics"
How much did they spend on 'woke politics'?
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Ask HN: What was the first site to use “karma” voting? - gitgud
Some of the best sites on the internet use the concept of crowd-sourced rating of content and comments by/from the users. It probably doesn't matter anymore, but I'm interested to know who came up with the idea? Or who did it first?<p>- Hacker News<p>- Reddit<p>- Stack Exchange<p>- Imgur<p>- Facebook<p>- Myspace
======
cmdrtaco
I don’t think slashdot was firs to use crowd sourced rating, but I am not
aware of others to have an actual functioning system at a scale of 10s of
thousands in that era.
And to be fair, everything2 used the term karma before slashdot. We had the
concept of karma, but it was called like modtotal or something innocuous. Nate
was working on e2 and we were discussing ideas and I realized the term was way
more clear so I did the UPDATE TABLE that day. 98 maybe?
~~~
acheron
(+1, Informative)
Thanks for the clarification!
------
dpeck
As others have said Slashdot was very early if not the first. The way they did
moderation, which is very different from basically everyone else, and still
unique and interesting.
CmdrTaco did a great writeup on it back in 1999
[https://slashdot.org/moderation.shtml](https://slashdot.org/moderation.shtml)
------
dasmoth
Among the lineage of web comment sites I'm familiar with, I'm pretty certain
it was Slashdot. They definitely had it in 1999. Might have been 1998.
It definitely wasn't Digg. According to Wikipedia, that wasn't even founded
until 2004.
~~~
acheron
I don’t remember it before Slashdot either, and the founders sometimes talked
about it as if it were their own innovation. Not sure if there was any “prior
art” they were working from or not.
------
zhte415
Not only did Slashdot do karma early or the first in it's regular form and
with quite a bit more finesse than most simple up-vote-down-vote, I'm pretty
sure they're the very first with automatically delegated meta-moderation:
Given your metrics on karma, visits, etc, to decide whether a rating was fair
or not. Again, like moderation, not a permanent role, limited to meta-modding
around 5 comments. That was a lot of fun as rated comments tended to be great
or awful, the great ones often in an article I hadn't clicked so get to read
through something new, and the awful ones quite amusing, Slashdot did have a
large subset of trolls that were very smart, sarcastic and scathing.
------
bsvalley
I think you forgot Digg, the first one that blew up and made karma voting
popular. It was not the first one to use karma though, like google wasn't the
1st search engine. But before google a lot of folks didn't even know about
search engines... Most concepts on the Web existed way before the Internet
anyway.
~~~
rando444
Digg was just a copy of Fark with a better UI.
------
tCfD
Slashdot, including the first time 'karma' was associated with digital
influence afaik. Meta moderation and a cap on influence ranking was and still
is the Right Way to constrain sunset score-whoring feedback loops.
------
jki275
Probably slashdot. Certainly none of the ones you listed.
------
techbio
Interesting survivor bias represented here. Except for MySpace, these are only
extant sites. How many karma-implementing sites have vanished?
------
fredsanford
Slashdot is the first "big" site I can remember...
But in 1996 or so there were a few gaming sites whose names I can't rememeber
who had a sort of negative karma... I remember it being described as a
"douchiness factor" a couple of times...
~~~
jki275
I think the concept of shadowbanning may have existed before slashdot. I seem
to remember reading about it in the mid to late 90s on slashdot actually.
~~~
ohithereyou
Distributed shadowbanning was implemented on Usenet with killfiles.
~~~
tCfD
Don't forget the moose! cm.org
------
mr_gibbins
[https://www.b3ta.com](https://www.b3ta.com) have been doing it for around 20
years.
------
brandoncordell
I'm going to say Slashdot as well.
Did Myspace have karma style voting? I don't really remember that.
Also Imgur was BUILT to be an image hosting service for Reddit. Out of the
ones on your list it's the youngest service so it definitely wouldn't have
been the first in pretty much anything.
------
jobigoud
Worth1000 photoshop contests site also had karma back in 2001. It was used to
ensure fairness in voting and gave more voting power.
------
vishalsharma
stumbleupon can also be considered in this list
------
daniel-s
I'm guessing digg.
------
zirkonit
Man, I feel old when Imgur, a yesterday's establishment from my point of view,
can be considered a ’first‘ of anything.
While I also believe Slashdot to be the first one (it certainly is the first
one to use the _term_ ’karma‘), some two other early communities to check for
prior art are Kuro5hin and Advogato.
~~~
tCfD
Kuro5hin was built by Rusty on slashdot's codebase so I don't think it could
have been prior
~~~
jki275
Oh man I haven't heard of Kuro5hin in years. I actually deleted my account
there when I got doxed years ago.
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
When is a ‘travel hack’ unethical? - dribel
https://www.washingtonpost.com/lifestyle/travel/when-is-a-travel-hack-unethical/2015/11/19/694b455a-88a0-11e5-be8b-1ae2e4f50f76_story.html?h
======
JoeAltmaier
I disagree with everything in this article. The assumption is that Americans
should be scalped for airline tickets because, they're American and rich and
deserve it. To take cheap tickets away from people in poorer countries by
paying in Rupees or whatever is 'unethical'.
Well, airlines are a for-profit business. They don't choose their rates out of
some public-service motivation. They charge what they think they can get away
with. To re-cast that as some charity program that Americans shouldn't
participate in, is pure fantasy.
Get the cheapest ticket you can, from whatever carrier you can find it from,
with a clear conscience. Its business.
~~~
hsod
I have no opinion on this particular case, but I strongly disagree with the
broader point you're making (which seems to be that commerce exists outside of
the realm of ethics and that 'anything goes').
If a shopkeeper is distracted, you should not be able to steal candy bars with
a clear conscience, _even if you believe the price of those candy bars to be
unethical_.
Dealing with unethical people does not relieve you of your duty to behave
unethically. And commerce is just another facet of social interaction.
~~~
JoeAltmaier
That was not anything like the direction we were going with this discussion. I
call Red Herring.
Paying the posted price for merchandise is always fair in Business. Some PC
fool comes along with "it was posted below the other price, low down for
people in wheelchairs to see. You are stealing from the unfortunate!" and I
_will_ call out the idiot.
------
jegutman
LOL, is this "native advertising" and is it for the airlines or the companies
helping you buy cheap tickets?
Airlines are in my experience among the least ethically run businesses:
* They will cancel a flight at the last minute stranding passengers because it was "undersold".
* They will delay flights for reasons that have no accountability to consumers.
* They pass on 100% of the risk of flights being on time to consumers.
* They give gate attendants authority to claim your bag is "too large" for the overhead bin even when it fits just fine. They can even claim the overhead bins are full when they are not full.
* Airlines will try to make every seat on a plane "economy-plus" (when you have already purchased a ticket, but they haven't given you a seat assignment yet) when they are overbooked and the bump the passengers that don't pay.
On the contrary I challenge airlines to find one example where they act
ethically even when their incentives are not to and the law would allow them
to act otherwise.
~~~
dmalvarado
To your last point, I have suspected this for a while. The mere fact that you
care where you're seated is a signal that you're willing to pay for the
change.
Airlines are going the way of ISPs. Monopolies that just don't care how
annoyed they make you.
~~~
jegutman
Well, unlike ISPs they don't really make any money. They have many unnecessary
regulatory burdens as well. I will say some of the regulation they face is
from their actions. Industries that find it incapable to do the right thing in
the absence of regulation are often the ones that end up the most heavily
regulated and it doesn't really solve the problem either.
As for the seat. It's not about caring about your seat, because the seats on
the flight that sticks out in my mind were pretty much indistinguishable. It
was a 2x2 plane and there were like dozens of "empty" seats to choose from
even though the flight was over-sold by one person. I refused to pay and then
ended up being the one getting bumped (although in this case it worked out in
my favor since I got bumped to the next morning and got paid 4x my fare). They
do not make it obvious when you're purchasing that you do not have a seat
either, they just "skip" that stage and don't give you one. Very misleading.
------
mikeash
Let's compromise. I promise to be totally clear, transparent, and
straightforward in my ticket purchases as long as the airlines are totally
clear, transparent, and straightforward in their ticket pricing.
Any takers? ...No?
~~~
venomsnake
I will take it - the airline charges the maximum their datamining of your
information tells them you are able to tolerate.
~~~
TeMPOraL
Which is basically how free market is supposed to work, right? ;).
~~~
venomsnake
Air travel is not a free market - the capital requirements are insane, the
cost of fuel is often subsidized by the government (you cannot tax or excise
it IIRC), you have a lot of regulations and so on ...
~~~
tomp
Regulations are a part of a free market. They provide transparency and ensure
that everyone is playing by the same rules.
~~~
ZenoArrow
> "Regulations are a part of a free market."
Are you sure? I've never heard another free market capitalist argue that
government regulations are an important part of how their ideal market works.
Can you point out any free market economists that have argued for government
regulation?
~~~
tomp
That's because those free market capitalists are (at best) hypocrites or (at
worst) stupid. Obviously capitalism relies on regulation - of property rights,
IP rights, contract laws, bans on fraud and insider trading (although opinions
are mixed on that last one), ...
~~~
ZenoArrow
Free market capitalists argue that what we have now is not a free market. IP
rights wouldn't exist in a free market system, for example.
It's probably best to find another term to describe the market you see
working, as 'free market' is what free market capitalists argue for. I don't
know what a better term would be, but I'm sure that economists would've
thought of one.
~~~
tomp
But what _would_ exist in this ideal "free" market? IMO, without contract law
and courts that enforce it and persecute fraud, you can't have a functional
market (free or unfree). Also, without some laws that monopolize violence, the
market would be much more, well, violent (you might think of that as "free",
but I don't think that kind of freedom is beneficial to the society) - we can
see that in numerous places on Earth right now, where there is no effective
"government" and you have multiple factions fighting for power - it rarely
encourages trade and entrepreneurship.
~~~
ZenoArrow
I'm not advocating for free market economics, I'm only passing on information
about what it means. The Wikipedia page is a fairly decent introduction:
[https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Free_market](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Free_market)
------
sophacles
I'm not sure why it would be ethical for a company to charge different for
"location of purchaser's computer", but unethical of me to say "I am coming
from a computer in a different location", particularly if I do it via legal
means.
Would it also be unethical of me to call a (to use an example discussed in the
article) Chilean travel agent to arrange the cheaper ticket for me? In that
case, there would still be the implication that my location when purchasing is
in Chile.
What if it's me having my Chilean business partner, or the travel pool in my
company's Santiago office do the booking, since that is where I'll be
traveling from on that leg?
------
rubbingalcohol
I tried, I really tried, but I failed to be persuaded by an article shaming
consumers for acting unethically towards shamelessly amoral corporations.
Treat people the way you want to be treated, I suppose.
------
Ao7bei3s
As long as airlines set prices in an unethical way (e.g. increase price the
longer you look at an offer), there is no discussion to be had about the
behavior of the buyers.
(Funny, so similar to the ad company / adblocking situation.)
------
cheriot
Henry Flagler kept a quote in his office, "Do unto others as they would do
unto you _and do it first_."
The airlines do everything legal to charge more and I do everything legal to
pay less. The airline has an army of lawyers, lobbyists, and consultants and I
have a VPN.
"Getting a good deal should comply with local laws and the travel company’s
code of business conduct." Since when did an airline have the moral authority
to declare a code of conduct for anyone but itself? Where did they find this
lady?
------
grecy
When is it unethical for Facebook to pay less tax than the average working
person?
When is it unethical for BP to say they're sick of cleaning up their oil
spills and they're going to stop doing it?
When is it unethical for the bankers and mortgage lenders to do what they did
in 2008?
When companies interact with us, they appear to have no ethical obligations of
any kind, so it's amusing to think we're somehow bound to be ethical towards
them.
~~~
TeMPOraL
Because you're making a general point - since when one's unethical behaviour
justifies you to retaliate in kind? Two wrongs doesn't make a right, etc.
~~~
JoeAltmaier
Agreed, mostly. Consider though: the company _cannot_ claim the playing field
operates on ethics, when they don't play by those rules. Its reasonable then
to claim "Caging a good price by lawyering the rules is fair play".
------
TeMPOraL
Looking at the reactions of people to this topic, I come to believe there are
two general approaches to life. Some people try to look at the whole game and
want everyone to win, so they play by the rules. In terms of prisoner's
dilemma, they choose to cooperate. Others notice that the market economy is
designed around people being selfish, so they use it to justify defecting -
minding only their own short-term interest.
As for ethics of this topic, I think the quoted government response about one
such case is spot on - this is people acting in bad faith. Whether or not you
think it's fine to act in bad faith depends on to which group you subscribe -
defectors, or cooperators.
\--
EDIT: The article would make a much stronger point if it focused on the
problem of "hidden city" tickets, where people choosing to reduce their travel
costs are not just haggling over price, but breaking a deal _and_ wasting
airline's fuel.
\--
EDIT2: Took a shower, thought about it some more.
My initial paragraph isn't about airlines really, it's an observation made
after seeing a stream of comments arguing for _general_ selfishness.
As for problems with _some_ of the travel "hacks", I have issues with two of
those in particular. "Hidden city" flying is one, and using golden-card-
carrying third party to buy you tickets is the second. Both of them introduce
waste - the more people do that, the more often a plane flies with seats
empty, wasting fuel that could otherwise provide utility by carrying other
passengers. And speaking of other passengers, this is another thing to
consider - if you use a travel "hack" that leaves an airplane with an empty
seat, you're taking away the seat from another traveler, who could have used
it. Or, given the discriminatory pricing, who could have paid less for it. So
by using those kinds of tricks, people are not only hurting the airline,
they're also hurting each other.
~~~
mantasm
I wouldn't segregate the general approaches to life in that sense.
Providing different prices to different groups of people does not result in
"everyone winning". It's a classical example of market segmentation, price
based on the average ability to pay of someone who holds the currency. It
entirely benefits the airliner, and their profits, to be able to do so.
The "hidden city" tickets? A cheaper ticket to go from A->B->C than A->B is a
deadweight loss in the market (assuming competitive markets). Prices are not
reflecting costs, and airlines again are segmenting based on ability to pay.
~~~
TeMPOraL
I understand, and in general, I hate market segmentation. But I'm willing to
excuse airlines for now, because... without it we wouldn't be flying.
You're right - the prices are not reflecting the costs. A typical traveler
pays nowhere near the price they would if there was no segmentation. An
average tourist ticket multiplied by number of passengers is barely enough to
fuel a jet. And you have to pay the pilots, the airplane crew, the ground crew
and still have enough to keep the lights on at the airport. Airlines are in a
shitty position, and while probably some of it its their own fault, I'm not
that sure if being hard on them is helping anyone.
------
rdtsc
> But it also violates the airline’s fare rules, can get your travel agent in
> trouble and could lead to higher fares for everyone.
From a particular traveler point of view. Airlines are pretty few, and are
consolidating, so in about 2 years you can find yourself banned from all 5-6
of them and have to take the train or drive. Has this ever happened I wonder?
Can this happen? Airlines building private no-fly-lists and just refusing to
do business with some people. Is that allowed legally.
Insurance companies do it:
[https://www.privacyrights.org/fs/fs26-CLUE.htm](https://www.privacyrights.org/fs/fs26-CLUE.htm)
Why can't airlines? I imagine travelers who do it, would get pretty vocal
online, so maybe some airline will respond publicly and say "we don't care,
come to us?"...
------
codingdave
I don't buy the argument that it is unethical to find clever ways to gain
services for a lower price. If actual harm is caused to an individual, then
ethics come into play - but corporations are not people. "Harming" them
doesn't cause me any angst. Even if I did concede that corporations deserve
the same ethical treatment as actual people, they control their own tools,
methods, and processes. If they created mechanisms that harm their own
business, then it is their responsibility to close those loopholes, not mine
as a consumer to opt out of using them.
------
executive
The author must be trolling.
I always get the cheapest price and do not care about the other nonsense.
------
philjohn
Virgin Atlantic have a great service where, upon booking an economy ticket,
you can then bid for an upgrade. The person who bids highest, wins.
It's such a simple concept, but fantastic in that a higher priced seat that
might have gone unsold, instead goes for what someone perceives its value to
them to be.
~~~
FireBeyond
That really is.
"Hey, I can fly JFK to Heathrow for $800. But I'd be willing to pay $1100 for
business class."
You win, great. You lose, no loss.
------
6stringmerc
Considering how often major US airlines have sought to dump their pension
obligations toward employees in deference to management types and investors,
making the rich richer and the working class poorer, I don't think they
deserve any portrayal as bastions of the ethichal highground.
------
emergentcypher
Really? This is capitalism and a free market economy. They sold the tickets,
it's their own damn problem. If they don't like it, they should fix their
ticketing systems.
If anybody needs to be shamed, it's the airlines themselves for arbitrary
price discrimination.
~~~
TeMPOraL
The article is about ethics. Capitalism is orthogonal to ethics. There are
things that are allowed under law and market economy that are unethical, or
just plain douchy.
------
maxxxxx
Companies "hack" their customers all the time but somehow it's unethical for
customers to do the reverse? It seems to some people the "free market" means
corporations can do whatever they want but not vice versa.
------
toast0
Paying in another currency isn't unethical; the airline is expressing a strong
desire to avoid exchange expenses and risk by dealing in their home currency.
I understand the FTC position that it's not an offering directed at US
consumers, however.
Sometimes there may also be regional differences in assessed fees and when
they are displayed (maybe the Chilean price shown at ticket selection includes
a different checked bag allowance, or does not show any airport fees that
would be shown at time of payment)
------
kaizendad
I am absolutely not clear how changing one's IP is different from any other
form of currency arbitrage - which is what this transaction is, and also what
explains the cost difference between currencies from the airline's point of
view - their native currency is easiest for them to transact in, and they pay
additional costs to transact in other currencies.
In fact, the airline probably appreciates being paid in its native currency.
Airlines from countries with currencies that aren't always easily convertible,
such as airlines from the developing world, probably have to keep substantial
reserves in currencies their customers tend to use, to ensure that they can
always carry out transactions in that currency. If you buy your ticket in the
native currency, then you've not required them to dig into that reserve, which
is a win for them.
Conversely, this is probably not a win for the original questioner, because
they probably paid a fee for currency conversion to their bank, which was
probably larger than that paid by the airline, because the airline has more
market leverage with which to set pricing contracts for currency conversion.
------
SuperGent
If it costs the airlines nothing extra, why am I being charged more for a seat
based on where I am at the time of booking?
------
dionidium
Everybody in this thread is talking about the ethics of this in terms of our
obligation to the airlines. But what about your obligation to yourself?
I'm not saying I wouldn't do this -- I probably would -- but deception in
general makes me uncomfortable, and whether you think this practice is
justified or not, it's clearly based on concealing intentions. That sort of
thing should at least make you pause.
As a side note, I've noticed that people seem to get confused about this, in
general. A cheating spouse will come up with all sorts of reasons that their
behavior was justified, without ever addressing the core offense: they weren't
honest about it.
------
tosseraccount
Washington Post must be getting some expensive airline travel advertising
accounts.
------
zeveb
> For instance, although Klaeysen holds a PhD, she won’t book a flight with
> the “doctor” title, because it implies she’s a physician, which may afford
> her preferential treatment.
Anyone who thinks that 'doctor' is reserved for physicians deserves whatever
his mistake costs him.
As for the broader ethical issues: if one party wishes to charge differing
rates according to certain attributes, then it's a-okay by me if the other
party wishes to signal different attributes. What's sauce for the goose is
sauce for the gander.
------
trjordan
It's easy to think that all travel hacks are ethical if you think price
segmentation is unethical.
I'm not convinced that's true. I don't feel pricing has to be a continuous
distribution that feels "fair" to be ethical. Gaps in pricing are allowed. If
customers feel differently, a transparently priced airline should be able to
eat everybody's lunch. That hasn't happened, which makes me think there's
value to consumers to segment aggressively.
------
eveningcoffee
This is another example how you should hide all the possible information about
yourself to not being singled out and exploited.
------
irascible
So... Travel agencies have been ripping me off for my entire life due to the
fact that I'm American... effectively making me pay double what some other
world citizens pay.. and I'm supposed to feel GUILTY about it?
This should be the biggest class action suit ever.
------
livingparadox
Its not unethical to turn a company's unethical behavior on themselves.
------
ddoolin
Which airline company or group do you think sponsored this article?
------
Morty_89
I think everyone has mentioned it but fuck airlines, the shit they pull on a
regular basis means they are void from any form of sympathy, especially from a
consumer.
------
tosseraccount
What happened to the +/\- 3 days search thing?
Airlines have gotten really bad about ticket booking and market sector
discrimination.
------
ahoka
Steam regions, anyone?
------
commaander
Of course it's ethical...It's unethical by airlines trying to trick the user,
in my opinion
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
The Immediate Future of Jekyll - parkr
http://blog.parkermoore.de/2012/12/18/the-immediate-future-of-jekyll/
Had a chat today with Tom Preston-Werner about the future of Jekyll. Here's what is in the works.
======
laktek
While Jekyll is cool to run a blog, it could be a PITA if you want to run a
marketing site or something less blog-like with it. This made me to create
Punch (<http://laktek.github.com/punch>), which can be easily customized to
run many different kinds of sites.
If you already have a blog based on Jekyll, but feels it takes forever to
build. Consider switching it to Punch with this boilerplate
(<https://github.com/laktek/punch-blog>). Basically, you only need to move the
files from Jekyll's `_posts` directory to Punch's `posts` directory. Also, you
would love the ease in template customizations (and ability to use partial
layouts).
~~~
zimbatm
My preferred tool for marketing websites is <http://middlemanapp.com/> . On
top of handling the markdown, erb -> html generation it also takes care of
minifying of js and css, handles sass, less and setting image sizes
automatically. It's not my project but I really love it :)
------
minhajuddin
My annoyances with Jekyll from (<http://substancehq.com/why-substance>)
I used to be a happy jekyll user for a long time. But, bloggin using jekyll
is frustrating when you have to make a lot of minor edits. The commit → push
dance is too much while making small edits. Also, I don't know a straight way
of doing jekyll redirects and allowing the use of tags/categories.
Substance fixes those issues because it is dynamic I sometimes wonder what age
we are living in, when we (the tech bloggers) use a static site generator for
our blogs. Jekyll's main strength has been that it's very very flexible,
I've tried to build Substance to give the most flexibility to the users
without complicating things.
Substance (<http://substancehq.com/>) is a simple blogging engine / site
builder without any fluff. I created it to replace Jekyll for myself. Hope
others find it useful.
Also, it has ability to add custom data collections easily. If you want to
build a simple site, this comes in very handy.
~~~
dr_win
I'm also a heavy Jekyll user. I work on a Jekyll addon, which will allow live
site edits. Imagine static site generator executed on client-side:
<https://github.com/darwin/terraform>
The main trick is to use PhantomJS to pre-generate static site for initial
serving.
~~~
unicornporn
Fantastic, that would be a dream come true. A Jekyll site that I could update
even when I'm not at my own machine.
~~~
lukebaker
If you keep your Jekyll site on GitHub, you can edit your site in your browser
with Prose. I imagine you use GitHub for its Jekyll building and mirror the
built site elsewhere.
<http://prose.io/about.html>
------
yen223
It's refreshing to see that the CEO of a $100 million company can still be
excited about something as trivial as a static blog generator.
~~~
nbashaw
Actually more than 100 million. That's just the amount they raised from a16z
------
JasonFruit
I don't understand why "decrease build time" receives such emphasis; isn't
build time largely irrelevant to the type of sites that are appropriate for a
static site generator?
~~~
parkr
"Build time" means "generation time", or "compile time". It's the amount of
time it takes Jekyll to build the site from the source to the static HTML,
etc. Right now, it's really slow. If you have over 100 posts, it practically
warrants a coffee break. We have some developed some ideas about fixing this
issue.
~~~
PStamatiou
This, 1000x times. I have over 1200 posts on my blog
<http://paulstamatiou.com> and I've purposefully avoided stuff like
pagination, related posts (lsi) at the end of articles, tags/category pages
and other features due to slow time. I'm at about 60s on my Macbook Air now
which I can deal with.
But when I'm writing a blog post and I constantly want to preview it in the
browser (since lots of my posts have images and such I prefer seeing the real
layout than purely in sublime text 2) I use a rake task I have that stashes
every post but the one I'm working on so it only generates the one post.
Edit: and a faster generation time means I don't have to feel bad using lots
of liquid filters / includes (which can help clean things up and organize my
site).
Two things I'd like to see (which I've had to fork my jekyll for) and that
I'll put on the github:
\- "multiviews" support (it's how I get all my links to have no .html ending,
well that and some rack:rewrite rules)
\- support for different post types that are not in the main site.posts. I
only have 2 types now but for a while had a regular post, a shorter "aside"
style post that was not in the main feed nor homepage and had its own index
and feed, and another post type for photos. These go beyond just different
layouts. Though this is more of a CMS feature than a blog feature which may be
a direction thing that Jekyll is not intended for. ?
~~~
unicornporn
I read parkr's above comment and was about to search for your blog (where I
first read about the insane site generation times), but then I found your
comment just below. :)
------
arocks
I am a Python programmer yet Jekyll is still my preferred static blog
generator. I strongly considered Pelican but did not like all the magic it
came with. Pelican would consolidate all my blog posts to the same location
and had various (configurable) directory conventions that I would've to
follow.
I needed just a simple compiler which converts markdown to html while
retaining the structure of the site. Ideally, what need not be processed
should be left as is. This gives developers like me a lot of flexibility to
design a site.
Jekyll has not been updated for a long time but it still serves my needs quite
well. I hope future releases would support minification and preprocessors like
Coffeescript.
~~~
matthodan
You can add support for preprocessors like CoffeeScript to Jekyll fairly
easily via a plugin. I created Jekyll Asset Pipeline for this purpose.
[http://www.matthodan.com/2012/11/22/jekyll-asset-
pipeline.ht...](http://www.matthodan.com/2012/11/22/jekyll-asset-
pipeline.html)
------
thomasreggi
I've only recently heard of jekyll but have been searching or thinking about
creating a markdown based blog for a while. I first discovered it through an
article on the obama campaign, and how they used it in combination with AWS:S3
[http://kylerush.net/blog/meet-the-obama-
campaigns-250-millio...](http://kylerush.net/blog/meet-the-obama-
campaigns-250-million-fundraising-platform/). Jekyll is here to stay.
~~~
sudonim
Me too. I saw that article. I had been using jekyll for a while. Then I
decided to piece together how to replicate what the obama campaign did using
s3 and cloudfront: [http://iamnotaprogrammer.com/Jekyll-S3-Cloudfront-Aname-
Root...](http://iamnotaprogrammer.com/Jekyll-S3-Cloudfront-Aname-Root.html)
~~~
parkr
Why would you want to pay for people to come to your site? Don't you have to
pay Amazon for that bandwidth usage?
~~~
sudonim
I'm curious. Setting things like this up is my idea of fun. I use the same
technique for my business. I like static site hosting, and liked the idea of
things being speedy no matter where our customers are. Cloudfront does that
well.
As far as cost. I'm 30 and I don't like relying on free things. Github
probably wont go down, but I'd still rather pay. I set that up Dec 1st, served
100k pageviews. My Amazon bill right now is $1.25 (one dollar, twenty five
cents). Maybe that'll go up, but for what I'm doing, I doubt it will be that
expensive.
~~~
parkr
Hm, I didn't realize it was so inexpensive. I've only ever used S3 as a CDN
for a huge site with lots of images, so it was an expensive endeavor.
~~~
jvoorhis
I've run a Jekyll site from S3 with no difficulty, at a satisfactorily low
hosting cost. Cloudfront takes only minutes to setup, and the costs are
competitive, so I imagine it's a promising route.
------
jimmytucson
Anyone who doesn't know Ruby (like, at all) tried using Jekyll? How was your
experience?
I've wanted to for a while but I feel somewhat handicapped not knowing Ruby so
I've been putzing around Python-based alternatives like Pelican.
~~~
parkr
Using Jekyllwothout any ruby experience should be a snap. It's all controlled
by the CLI. You create posts and run `jekyll` and you're in business.
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
We’re supposed to be so damn “passionate” that we’d do this work for free - cygnus
https://michaelochurch.wordpress.com/2014/07/13/how-the-other-half-works-an-adventure-in-the-low-status-of-software-engineers
======
edwhitesell
This has some great pieces of information. Though, it might flow better if it
was written in different posts instead of one big one.
One that talks about the ethics of changing titles and responsibilities.
Another that talks about what happened with Bill's changes and interviews. A
third about the ideas of why Bill was perceived differently for the two roles.
Finally, a fourth that discusses the personnel issues of people making
sacrifices for the company, vs. executives not doing the same.
I especially like the last one. I think far too many people today have the
value of their work hours vs. non-work hours inverted. There are far more
important things in life to spend your time on.
------
msie
Hmmm, I thought this reposting would have been caught by HN.
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Ask HN: How do you choose a good font for your next project. - cschmitt
I need to start by saying that I'm not a font guy. I know people who are, and they can wax poetic about the differences between two fonts that look almost identical to me. That being said, I do recognize there is a difference between the right font and the wrong font. I also acknowledge that a good font can drastically impact the story you are telling with your site or app.<p>So I ask the question.. How do you go about choosing a font for your next project?<p>Any advice or help is much appreciated.
Thanks in advance.
======
cskau
I'm not exactly a "font guy" either so I usually take a top-down approach.
Usually this means I go over to Google's rather extensive webfonts
collection[1] and do a quick sweep through, picking all the fonts I like. Then
from there it's simply trying them one by one in the context and seeing what
works.
It can be quite time consuming though.
[1] <http://www.google.com/webfonts>
------
eliot_sykes
This Design for Developers slide presentation has some rules of thumb on font
choice and size. [http://www.slideshare.net/Wolfr/design-for-
developersonlinev...](http://www.slideshare.net/Wolfr/design-for-
developersonlineversionlong) (think this has been shared on HN before)
These are the notes I made on fonts after reading it:
Readable typeface choices: Verdana, Lucida Grande (fallback Lucida Sans
Unicode), Droid Sans, Segoe UI
All text that is supposed to be read should be at least 14px
Interface (button/menu) text can go smaller for readable fonts (11, 12, 13px)
A line of text should not be longer than 60 characters (~ 2 alphabets). Long
lines are hard to read.
Line height makes big difference. Use line-height 1.1 for headings, 1.5 for
paragraphs
------
diwank
Typeface is to design what salt is to cooking. It never feels that important
but it can be the difference between an average design and a brilliant one.
Usually, I use this incredibly helpful chart for choosing typefaces:
<http://img.labnol.org/files/font-selection-chart.png>
You could also take a look at these Smashing article for some Typography
essentials:
[http://smashingmagazine.com/2009/03/18/10-principles-for-
rea...](http://smashingmagazine.com/2009/03/18/10-principles-for-readable-web-
typography/)
[http://smashingmagazine.com/2011/03/24/how-to-choose-a-
typef...](http://smashingmagazine.com/2011/03/24/how-to-choose-a-typeface/)
~~~
cschmitt
I totally agree.. and thanks for the links.
------
pdenya
Like any other aesthetic decision it's difficult to provide hard rules to
follow. The best advice I can give is to know the available web safe fonts
very well and use those until the design is in the polishing stage.
Starting out with Helvetica, Times, Georgia, etc will give you a good feel for
what type of font you need. After that, looking for similar fonts that you
feel go well with your message should be easier.
Any font will benefit immensely from the subtle shadows and other css3 effects
you can provide when using it for headlines. Once those effects are in place
with an FPO font it'll be simpler to pick the font they should be effecting.
~~~
cschmitt
Thanks for the tips.
------
sawyer
I don't have a lot of advice for choosing a font from scratch; but if you find
one you like and can't figure out what it is there's a great application
called WhatTheFont that will help identify it.
<http://www.myfonts.com/WhatTheFont/>
<http://www.myfonts.com/WhatTheFont/iPhone/>
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Tell HN: Creators of Chef offering to help start-ups w/infrastructure - thesethings
I thought this was interesting. Opscode, the creators of Chef, are offering to help a start-up or two design and automate their infrastructure.<p>If your startup runs on Ruby or Java (their requirement), you should strongly consider applying.<p>It looks like they might be using applicants as guinea pigs on a not-yet-released tool. Cool.
======
thesethings
(no affiliation w/the company)
<http://www.opscode.com/alpha>
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
TypeScript vs. PureScript vs. ReasonML vs. Elm - tirumaraiselvan
https://hasura.io/blog/why-we-chose-typescript-for-hasura-console/
======
samhh
I think it's unfair to categorise TypeScript as the easiest for interop if
you've asserted that static type safety is important to you. If the typings
aren't already available you'll need to create a type declaration for them -
meaning it's a lot closer to PureScript and ReasonML than it might otherwise
appear - and I say "need" because otherwise you'll have `any` flowing through
your codebase which defeats the purpose.
Your conclusion is reasonable given your desire to gradually migrate a
preexisting codebase, but I'd personally come to a very different answer were
this for a greenfield project. TypeScript is wonderful and I use it at work
every day, but its limitations are frustrating and it's fundamentally unsafe.
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Keith Flint, Prodigy front man, dead at 49 - adamnemecek
https://edition-m.cnn.com/2019/03/04/uk/keith-flint-prodigy-dead-scli-gbr-intl/index.html
======
daveslash
I discovered The Prodigy in an odd way. I was walking down the sidewalk in
2003 in northern Utah. and a car drove past me on the road. They hit a pot-
hole _really_ hard. So hard that it caused a CD in their visor-cd-holder-thing
to shoot out of the open car window. It was an unlabeled burned CD that landed
darn near my feet. I took it home and popped it in my CD player. It was Fat of
the Land.
~~~
amerine
This feels like the right way to discover new music. Wow.
------
eric_b
Music for the Jilted Generation is one of the best electronic albums I've ever
heard. Not sure how much Keith contributed to that particular album (at the
time I think it was mainly Liam Howlett's project) but certainly Fat of the
Land is a seminal electronic album as well, and Keith was a very visible part
of that act.
~~~
DyslexicAtheist
spent my early days locked up in my room learning C to this album. it's light
on lyrics which makes it (for me) perfect for development work. later his
music helped me stay motivated and push my personal limits when running.
"Breathe" [1] was on my ipod when I crossed the finish line of my first
marathon.
some years later I was lucky to see them live on their _Omen_ tour ...
incredible on stage performance.
so much of their music helped me get over things and stay on track. I respect
his choice which is as good as any way to exit this fucking world. Still I'm
devastated.
------
kemiller2002
The Prodigy was coolest group I went to hear. They had so much energy. I was
lucky as the time my girlfriend could get us box seats through her work. We
were right in front of the walkway between the sections of the covered area.
Keith was bouncing around on stage, and then all of a sudden he jumps off and
starts to run down the walk way at high speed. You could see the overweight
security guards freak out and start to try and follow him to make sure he
didn't get hurt. He runs within like 2 feet of us and makes his way back on
stage. After a couple of minutes, he then proceeds to do it again causing the
crowd in there to go nuts. They were so much fun to watch.
------
ccnafr
RIP Loved this guy and his band
------
canthonytucci
Some cool old interviews and articles
[http://www.nekozine.co.uk/prodigy/media.html](http://www.nekozine.co.uk/prodigy/media.html)
------
rchaud
Very sad news. The Fat of the Land was the first "alternative" music I'd heard
as a 12 year old. As others have said, their live energy is incredible and
Keith Flint's vocals and stage antics were a big part of making it happen.
------
zukestermac
I'm honestly really sad about this. This band were iconic for me growing up. A
true pioneer has left us.
------
LifeLiverTransp
Loved - The Trick, its so perfect in a endless loop.
------
rcatcher
> Flint's distinctive appearance, vocals and dancing made him one of the most
> recognizable figures on the British techno scene
> Keith Flint, singer on hits like ‘Firestarter’ for British electro-pop
> pioneers The Prodigy, has died aged 49
CNN shows again its ignorance, The Prodigy is not techno and not electro-pop.
~~~
eric_b
eh, fighting about musical genre is like arguing tabs and spaces. I often call
Prodigy "techno" to people who don't closely follow electronic music, as it
gets the point across. And certainly you could make an argument that some of
their music was "electro-pop" depending on how you define it, as it hit pop
radio stations for a time, and was predominately electronic...
------
jihadjihad
While personally saddened by this loss, I don't think this post "gratifies
one's intellectual curiosity" [0].
[0]:
[https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html](https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html)
~~~
sjcsjc
As yet another high profile suicide I think that sadly it is noteworthy.
(Source: The BBC article quotes Liam Howlett on the subject).
[https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/entertainment-
arts-47442312](https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/entertainment-arts-47442312)
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
The Problem with RELRO/ASLR in Statically-Linked Executables or Lack Thereof - alyptik
https://www.leviathansecurity.com/blog/aslr-protection-for-statically-linked-executables
======
wahern
AFAICT OpenBSD already does RELRO (inc. GOT RELO) and ASLR for static PIE, and
has for several years. (Maybe since 2015?)
I think it was around that time that OpenBSD added the kbind(2) system call,
which _atomically_ copies data into otherwise non-writeable pages. This
permits lazy binding without marking executable pages temporarily writable
(W^X can't normally be disabled by programs). And kbind has special
mitigations to prevent its use from ROP gadgets.
Also, it appears Rich Felker (of musl libc) did some static PIE work for Linux
(presumably Linux/musl?).
https://www.openwall.com/lists/musl/2015/06/01/12
I wonder if that work went anywhere.
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
What do founders do once they hit 35 and are officially over the hill? - Aloisius
http://www.quora.com/Silicon-Valley/What-do-people-in-Silicon-Valley-plan-to-do-once-they-hit-35-and-are-officially-over-the-hill
======
pedalpete
Amazing to see the number of Founders of VERY successful start-ups who have
responded to this on Quora, and how many of them were over 40!
~~~
wellsjohnston
It actually made me feel really good, and I'm 23
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Linus Torvalds, Creator Of Linux, Shows Off His Home Office - yiedyie
http://www.oregonlive.com/silicon-forest/index.ssf/2014/07/linus_torvalds_creator_of_linu.html
======
schrodingersCat
His desk is so cluttered he "need[s] to burn it down someday."
In other news from the Linux world, Linus's Mercedes is so dirty, he is
planning on scrapping it
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
The assault on neurosurgeons’ privileges by software and bureaucrats - soundsop
http://blogs.law.harvard.edu/philg/2015/12/07/brain-surgeon-tortured-by-software-developers-and-hospital-bureaucrats/
======
vonklaus
> Fuck Off 45. He hates computers.’
> ‘Why forty-five?’
> ‘It’s the forty-fifth month since we signed onto that hospital’s system and
> one has to change the password every month,’ Caroline replied.
Every month is a little aggressive of a timeline. Also, stop making users do
your bizarre regex passwords.
* include caps
* include numbers
* include symbol
* eight charachters
* must be recursive backronym
Also, stop trying to keep password requirements secret. I am sick of this
guessing game. I can relate to Mr. Johnson's total indifference to the system.
~~~
serge2k
If you don't you end up with bad passwords.
Maybe we should just get rid of the damn passwords and replace them with a
system that makes it easier to remember and use without compromising security.
At the very least one password + a smartcard system would be way easier. You
enter your password once then you just have to swipe your card when you login
to another system.
~~~
gozo
Not entirely sure why you're being downvoted. Sun terminals have had smartcard
access for, what, 15 years? (Yes, for hospitals). It's a good idea. Some sort
of complementary directional RFID might be even better.
E.g.
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R497CzmKyVQ&t=38s](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R497CzmKyVQ&t=38s)
~~~
epistasis
Pretty sure he got downvoted because of this canard:
>If you don't you end up with bad passwords.
This is a terrible fallacy that has brought so much pain on the world. The
rate of bad passwords is probably not so different, but the rate of
frustration is so much higher.
~~~
unprepare
Were these regulations created at a time when brute force password cracking
was a legitimate concern?
Password policies do definitely raise the entropy of the passwords, so if the
attack vector you're concerned about is entropy sensitive, its a decent
strategy.
As someone who has had to enforce such password policies many times, I can say
that it's almost always because of some regulatory or certification
organization that requires complex policies.
------
engi_nerd
Most working professionals who aren't software developers suffer through this
in some way or another. I mean, heck, let me count up all the passwords I need
to do my job:
* A password for the account request system
* A password for the internal services system
* My email password
* My password for the local network
* My password for the product management system
* Pass for the old product management system that we still use
* Pass to the online drawing and document retrieval system
* Password to control room computer systems
* Various maintenance laptop user names and passwords
* Various passwords to systems I'd rather not mention, call them about 10 in total
That's 25 to 30 passwords, total, that I need to remember and use on a regular
basis. I've given up NOT writing them down. And IT won't give me any kind of
secure password manager, so I resort to a password protected Excel
spreadsheet. And I'm not alone.
~~~
javajosh
Might I at least suggest using an easy-to-execute algorithm that you can apply
to your note to turn it into a real password? There are many options, from
adding a prefix, a suffix, adding a small integer to every number, or some
combination of these. This, I think, is about as secure as you can get since a
targeted attack would just install a keylogger and be done.
~~~
pdkl95
[https://www.schneier.com/blog/archives/2005/06/write_down_yo...](https://www.schneier.com/blog/archives/2005/06/write_down_your.html)
Even with an algorithm, you're still relying on human memory. As Schneier and
other have been recommending for a long time, _write down your passwords_.
People already understand some amount of _physical_ security, which is
knowledge that can can utilized for password storage.
As long as human memory is the weakest link, password strength will always be
_de facto_ limited to the amount of entropy that a human can reasonably
memorize. Unfortunately, brute-force password cracking capabilities flew past
that limit a long time ago.
------
baldfat
> " They sent the scan on a CD but because of that crap from the government
> about confidentiality they sent two taxis."
Not they sent the scan over the internet but they had to copy the scan on a CD
and rush it over to the hospital.
SORRY BELLOW is a comment I did this week and it seems just as appropriate.
Here is the discussion on Open Source Software for Developing World Hospitals
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10675275](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10675275)
My old comment still reliant. Another story about my journey with my son while
he battled cancer. Closed Proprietary image formats and systems HURTS
patients. We used the local hospital for Chemo and everything else at the
Children's Hospital 1.5 hours away for his legs and lungs. I would always have
to wait 20-30 minutes to get a DVD of the studies (PET, CT Scan or MRI even
ultrasound, but those are worthless) and then bring them to the doctor. The
doctor would be forced to use whatever the portable image viewing program that
came on the DVD and then they had to be sent to the IT Department to be
imported into their system. We would be there to remove some horrible tumor
but before half his surgeries (I can't count how many surgeries he had) we
would have to go in the day before (3 hour round trip) to get the expensive
scan done again. One time I had a scan at 11 PM - Midnight and then drive home
around 2 AM and be back at the hospital at 7 AM check in for a 10 hour
surgery. ALL BECAUSE THE FORMATS ARE CLOSED and SYSTEMS could not connect so
that my son's records were all the same every where. I carried 20 DVDs with me
all the time just in case. In case you are wondering my son unfortunately
passed away after almost 5 years of fighting. If you are ever interested in
giving to a cancer society please consider stbaldricks.org. Most charities
give 0% or 2% to pediatric research and that is why we went over 20 years
without a new chemo for children till last year, which St Baldrick's funded
the research for this amazing new drug to fight a different type of cancer my
son did not have.
------
officialchicken
Nothing surprising here. Far and beyond IT, surgeons posses a rare and special
type of ignorance... typical of your average over-powered decision maker with
not enough time to understand or other incentives to make good IT decisions.
This is really, really common in health IT, and not rare at all, but here's
it's presented in the form of an over-entitled surgeon. Some people seem to
think that brain surgeon is supposed to add gravitas to any conversation, in
terms of understanding or something... but your average QA person is 1000x
more likely to make a better decision than a surgeon, when it comes to IT.
And the source of the problems in this article? The legal dept. So please
don't blame this one on anyone in IT.
~~~
parasubvert
My take away is close to the opposite, having worked around healthcare IT for
many years. Systems are antiquated, un-integrated, use archaic and proprietary
languages and databases, and the lack of cohesive design for usability
encourages most clinicians to keep using paper.
IT as currently and usually practised, especially in a healthcare environment,
is also mostly a disaster in terms of value for expenditure. $2 billion for an
Epic system in a regional hospital system... Which was obsolete before it was
installed. Heck, the Deustche Bank SAP core banking replacement only cost $1
billion.
Much of the "oh but it's regulated" excuses are just that, excuses to be
ignorant and stay stuck in the 1970s.
It doesn't have to be this way, but it requires a lucky administration to find
a way out of the mess given the market for lemons in IT management and systems
integrators in healthcare.
Open source and Cloud solutions (from an operating model perspective way more
than technology) appear to be the only way out of this mess of "your mess for
less" IT because it lifts the veil of sales, consultant-speak, and opaque RFP
processes in favor of actually-working-and-reliable software that anyone can
see and touch.
~~~
AnthonyMouse
> Much of the "oh but it's regulated" excuses are just that, excuses to be
> ignorant and stay stuck in the 1970s.
It is actually a serious problem.
You have a bunch of apparently sensible rules with apparently reasonable
justifications, but without a holistic understanding of what those rules cost
in terms of engineering and design trade-offs. Then compliance prohibits the
use of commodity components not designed with those specific requirements in
mind, which requires everything to be custom for the industry at extreme cost,
which in turn impairs competition and allows the vendors who do pay all the
compliance lawyers to sell low quality software for big money.
And it's not clear how open source or cloud would solve any of that, other
than possibly through some kind of regulatory avoidance shell game, which
sounds more like a loophole than a solution.
~~~
gozo
While that's true many commodity components also currently doesn't live up to
the real requirements of those environments. I have a number of friends who
work with enterprise Linux deployments. They are all doing very well
financially.
------
viraptor
> ‘I’m not starting a big meningioma at 4 p.m.,’ she declared, turning towards
> me. ‘I’ve got no childcare this evening.’
Without knowing what a "big meningioma" involves, I can only imagine it's
something like doing a tricky, manual deployment on Friday afternoon. In that
case no, this is a completely reasonable response. People have lives outside
of work. Yes, "In the pre-modern NHS consultants never counted their hours –
you just went on working until the work was done.", but that doesn't mean it's
a good thing. In pre-modern factory days people of any age worked there whole
day, 6-7 days a week. It doesn't mean that's a good idea to do it now.
~~~
OopsCriticality
> this is a completely reasonable response. People have lives outside of work.
For someone in IT, perhaps, but the professional expectations in medicine are
starkly different (although they are admittedly growing more lax, to the
chagrin of the old guard). In this particular case, the geriatric meningioma
patient had already been cancelled on once, rescheduled with the promise of
being the first procedure of the day, and then delayed to the end of the day
because she tested positive for MRSA and they needed to do a decon of the OR
after her procedure. You would seem to find it reasonable to reschedule her
yet again, but neurosurgeons don't have much room in their schedules to play
scheduling games with, and in general, patients aren't undergoing elective
brain surgery for the fun of it: they need it now.
Perhaps the IT analogy is that neurosurgery is largely a hard real-time
system: you must execute within a given time window or you fail.
~~~
viraptor
> You would seem to find it reasonable to reschedule her yet again
No, I find it unreasonable that not everyone knew the schedule beforehand, or
that someone who knew about it didn't raise it as a problem. This should never
happen right before the operation. At that point it's too late and it's on
everyone to deal with the situation at hand. What I'm pointing out that if the
plan was a surprise then it's completely understandable that someone says no.
As for solutions, it depends on a hospital, location, patient's state,
available team, etc. Lots of possibilities. (BTW, anyone shouting at anyone
else is not even close to a solution)
~~~
doktrin
> BTW, anyone shouting at anyone else is not even close to a solution
It may not be a solution you approve of, but I've witnessed plenty of cases
where managers have effectively bullied their subordinates into doing work
they otherwise wouldn't want to do.
~~~
ryanmarsh
In matters of life and death a little bit of yelling can go a long way.
~~~
doktrin
Truth. When the stakes are that high, at least some tolerance of discomfort is
necessary.
------
kendallpark
As a programmer in my first year of med school, I can only confirm the
frustrations with medical software. As someone that gives a damn about
usability/UI/UX, most (all?) EHR systems make me want to bang my head against
a keyboard.
I honestly don't know how long I will be able to practice medicine before
deciding that I can build something better (as foolhardy a notion as that is).
~~~
smt88
> _before deciding that I can build something better_
It's very likely that something better already exists. The reason you use
something terrible is because "better" does not result in adoption. Personal
relationships, salespeople, and marketers drive adoption, not the quality of
the actual product.
~~~
kendallpark
Right, but if I have control over my practice, I also control what EHR I use.
No idea if I'll end up in private practice, but there's always that
possibility.
~~~
bbarn
Right up until insurance companies won't pay you unless you file using a
compliant system. This isn't a tech problem.
~~~
kendallpark
That's not how meaningful use works. You can use paper for all you care,
you're just going to take a hit financially from the government (and many do).
You can use whatever electronic system you want as long as it all adds up to
meaningful use. The insurance companies have nothing to do with this.
------
bobbles
I love how "mediocre software developers" are called out in the header, but
then it goes on to list about 10 different people in different roles that are
causing actual problems, all systematic, where a developer would make no
difference whatsoever.
------
bagacrap
I find it somewhat distasteful that a doctor would compare an obese patient to
a whale while implying it's less worthwhile to treat them than other patients.
It's not the job of medical professionals to pass moral judgment.
~~~
chrismartin
What if he were complaining about an influx of smokers with emphysema or
alcoholics with liver cirrhosis? Doctors are justified in their frustration
with the preventable burden that lifestyle diseases impose on their
profession.
------
such_a_casual
This is what happens when people create systems they don't have to use
(software or otherwise).
~~~
baldfat
No this what happens when people create systems over things they don't have
experience in nor understanding of how things work.
------
SeanDav
Very frustrating, I agree. I have another medical computer system horror story
- Did you know that the UK National Health Service spent 12 _Billion_ pounds
(18 Billion USD) on a computer system and ended up with....nothing to show for
it!!!
~~~
taberiand
On the other hand, sweet consulting gig if you can get it.
~~~
grrowl
This is the problem. The "if you can get it" translates to "if your company
has a huge request-for-tender team dedicated to shmoozing your way into these
kinds of contracts".
Add to it the whole tech-health ecosystem is scorched earth after countless
clueless contractors have blown their way through it (earning the tens of
millions of pounds and so on in the process), it's not a great environment for
trust, innovation, or making your way through everything to a real-world-
usable result.
------
bootload
_"... I envy the way in which the generation who trained me could relieve the
intense stress of their work by losing their temper, at times quite
outrageously, without fear of being had up for bullying and harassment. ..."_
Toxic work environments in surgery are on notice in Australia: _" Doctors must
stand up to the ‘cowardice’ that is ignoring bullying"_ Victoria Atkinson, SMH
~ [http://www.smh.com.au/comment/doctors-must-stand-up-to-
the-c...](http://www.smh.com.au/comment/doctors-must-stand-up-to-the-
cowardice-of-ignoring-bullying-20151202-gldgyl.html)
------
JabavuAdams
Was at a party with a group of friends who are physicians, surgeons, and
medical researchers. It struck me: we software types are so fucking arrogant.
I was definitely not the smartest person in the room, and yet I could see IT
and CS types mocking these people for their relative computer illiteracy. You
know, the people who are actually saving lives every day instead of figuring
out how to distract (er, engage) and bilk (er, monetize) people.
~~~
aianus
Speak for yourself. I don't know anyone in med school who would have cracked
the top quartile in my math/CS courses.
Doctors aren't smart, they're just friendly keeners with something to prove to
their helicopter parents.
Edit:
> You know, the people who are actually saving lives every day instead of
> figuring out how to distract (er, engage) and bilk (er, monetize) people.
Very few doctors do anything of the sort. Most of them just charge you $100+
to tell you what you already knew and write you a scrip or a referral.
~~~
JabavuAdams
> Doctors aren't smart, they're just friendly keeners with something to prove
> to their helicopter parents.
See, that's what I mean. I wasn't writing about the general population of
doctors, I was writing about the specific doctors who were in the room with
me, who you so arrogantly dismiss.
It's really an ugly and limiting mindset.
------
nickysielicki
I live in Madison, where Epic is stationed. I run into a lot of people that
work there.
They hold the records of over 50% of the US. It's pretty scary when you think
about it.
~~~
officialchicken
I just don't think that's true, but I'd love to be wrong.
Any given time 1/3rd of the user-base is dead... and it's growing because the
data has to remain in the system for 60 months (HIPAA). It's not scary because
it's B.S... No single or group of health provider in the world is close to
having access to 125 million active patient-users on an annual basis.
Until Epic disclose any numbers in their 10Q/10K, realize that they're
probably taking about "rows" in a db table or nonesuch, not actual patients or
anything that will get them in trouble with the SEC/FDA.
I'd guess the reality is Nike is much closer in having shoes on half of the US
pedestrian population than Epic having HL7/PII data.
~~~
nickysielicki
> Health care groups using Epic electronic health records serve 54 percent of
> patients in the U.S. and 2.5 percent of patients worldwide, CEO Judy
> Faulkner said at Epic’s users group meeting in September.
Source: [http://host.madison.com/news/local/govt-and-politics/epic-
sy...](http://host.madison.com/news/local/govt-and-politics/epic-systems-
draws-on-literature-greats-for-its-next-
expansion/article_4d1cf67c-2abf-5cfd-8ce1-2da60ed84194.html)
You're probably right though. It's still scary to think that it's possible for
them to be centralized to that degree at all.
------
sopooneo
All systems within a medical establishment should be forced to work with a
single-sign-on system. That might sound like a lot of effort for a small
improvement, but I believe it would be the single highest value change that
could be made.
------
dbwest
I see opportunity. Let's make this better.
~~~
LoSboccacc
Hire redundant staff and organize shifts? His frustrated tantrum is wildly
misdirected.
Anyway good luck with that. It's a job that comes with massive liabilities,
unprecedented complexity and loads of political infighting.
------
yeison
Everything that Epic touches turns to dust.
------
marshray
When I read the title I was thinking something different.
Torture is a real and a nightmarish thing, and in this ever shrinking world of
ours, we (i.e., Westerners) can no longer think of such horrors as existing
only for other people in faraway lands.
Am I the only one who's a bit uncomfortable tossing around the term to apply
to a well paid professional who's facing bureaucratic inefficiencies at work?
Or am I just being a sensitive ninny-nanny?
~~~
grrowl
If someone is literally dying in your duty of care because noone can access
any patient records, that sounds tortuous to me. A bit like the Stanford
prison experiment, but replace the guards with IT contractors, and the
prisoners with surgeons, doctors, and nurses.
~~~
marshray
Doctors, particularly trauma and tumor surgeons, have dying patients all the
time.
Often there are additional treatments available but for resource constraints.
Ordinary folk die of heart disease every day, but somehow Dick Cheney lives on
with an artificial heart.
I know being a doctor can be quite a stressful job and requires a certain
class of personality. But still it has gone with the territory of being a
doctor since the beginning of civilization.
~~~
codyb
Well perhaps that is true, but having someone who is dieing because the
surgery is failing is a bit different than someone who's dieing because you
can't remember some login's passcode.
And of course then these delays compound over time and adversely affect the
entire system.
Designing good software which meets government legalese constraints (which are
guaranteeedly absurd in certain instances, in wording, and nature (while
others will make perfect sense and still be just as hard to implement)) in
extremely complex situations (health care systems with millions of users with
an outstanding number of providers of different sizes, with different
conditions, and medications, and the stringency of the privacy requirements).
That's tough.
It'll be really neat to see the progression of software through time. It'll be
neat if what we see today is the Model T to the Tesla (X?) of tomorrow (+~110
Years).
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Ask HN: Any open source production react projects? - longsangstan
Like the reddit mobile site: https://github.com/reddit/reddit-mobile
Not examples/clones like some HN reader, sound cloud client.
======
acemarke
Someone ran some queries of Github's data and generated a list of React-based
projects here:
[https://gist.github.com/sAbakumoff/7b8510adcb16bded189d747e3...](https://gist.github.com/sAbakumoff/7b8510adcb16bded189d747e34f5e114)
Also, I have a list of some selected projects that use React and Redux:
[https://github.com/markerikson/redux-ecosystem-
links/blob/ma...](https://github.com/markerikson/redux-ecosystem-
links/blob/master/apps-and-examples.md) .
~~~
longsangstan
Thx, but I am specifically looking for some relatively large scale production
projects.
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Zynga CEO: "Just copy what they do and do it until you get their numbers." - EvilTrout
http://www.sfweekly.com/2010-09-08/news/farmvillains/?repost
======
danilocampos
The "social" games space is ripe for revolution. There's no fun there, nothing
virtuous in what they consider gameplay. You don't even play with your
friends, so much as exploit them for personal gain.
It's a very cynical view of how to spend time with people. When the leading
social games company is led by a guy like Pincus, what more can you expect?
~~~
eavc
The high-profile "social" games are just really, super casual games that can
be attached to something like Facebook.
The fact that they're not fun is part of why they are successful. You're just
kind of trivially there, so you don't feel dorky and you don't feel like
you're wasting too much time, only a moment.
All online multi-player video games are "social" games, but most of them
aren't hyper-casual and can't be bolted on as a distraction to Facebook.
Therefore, they feel a little dorky, a little like wasting time, and way more
fun.
~~~
danilocampos
Yes, and that's an important observation. I'm not willing to accept that it's
impossible to create a legitimately _enjoyable_ game experience in the
confines of the short attention span Facebook model, though.
Scrabble, for example, lends itself perfectly to asynchronous, light, casual
play (cf Scrabulous, Words with Friends). But it's legitimately fun at the
same time. You're rewarded for imaginative approaches to solving problems. You
can play with no skill or lots, but either way, you'll always find ways to get
better.
Most important: You're genuinely spending _time with your friends_. Sharing an
experience that creates a memory.
This is a big deal. This is missing from almost every other pseudo-social
game.
True story: I was job hunting, someone gave me a lead at Slide. Awesome guy,
gave me good advice. But as soon as I found out I had to be conversant on the
subject of a "game" called "SuperPoke Pets!" I vomited a little in my mouth
and moved on to other options.
Social game companies: Stop making horseshit, start building something fun.
It's possible. It's just a little bit harder.
~~~
teej
Please remember that what you find enjoyable could possibly be different than
what 40-year-old moms in flyover country find enjoyable. Also realize the
latter group is what made Oprah, the Wii, and Zynga billion dollar businesses.
~~~
danilocampos
Anyone who takes enjoyment from exploiting their friends in the furtherance of
a glorified spreadsheet needs a hug, a trip to the ice cream parlor, and a
meatspace game of Uno.
There may be a baseline pseudo-fun available in the current crop of social
games. Most social games, though, are more interested in bare metal compulsion
than truly meritorious, universally recognizable _fun_.
You're really willing to sit there and tell me that you're comfortable with
social game evolution stopping right now? This stuff really is _sufficiently
fun_ for you?
There's pandering to flyover country and then there's _making something good_.
One will get you Oprah and Zynga. The other gets you Inception and Mad Men.
One is quick cash, the other is integrity.
I'd rather take a smaller payday from people I like and respect than make
crap.
~~~
teej
> You're really willing to sit there and tell me that you're comfortable with
> social game evolution stopping right now? This stuff really is sufficiently
> fun for you?
You seem to have a great vision for what social games could be. I cannot urge
this enough - please go build that vision now. The industry needs innovation
badly. There are huge profits to the person who can pull this off, and I hope
that person is you.
But my message is this - Build Stuff People Want. Many people have fallen into
this trap, myself included. I thought I could buck the trend, out-innovate
Zynga, and make a truly fun game. But in the end I failed because I spent too
much time in an ivory tower making the perfect game, and no time making an
enjoyable product.
A great analogy is engineering brilliant software, but failing to build
something people want to buy.
Inception was a success because Christopher Nolan is able to carefully balance
the things that make a great movie with the things that make great ticket
sales. It wasn't the best movie ever, and it wasn't the best selling movie
ever. But a careful blend of both lead to success.
No one in social games today can do this. I want that to change.
To think that one can simply "made something good" is a fallacious line of
thinking along the lines of "build it, and they will come". Fundamental
understanding of what your audience wants is so critical.
I'm not saying Zynga makes good games. I'm not saying you should follow in
Zynga's footsteps. I'm saying you need to understand what Zynga does right if
you want to beat them. And if you think all Zynga does is "be evil" and "buy
ads", you haven't been paying close enough attention.
~~~
mattmaroon
All of this thread about whether or not social games are fun is such an
oversimplification as to be worthless.
First off, there's the semantics. What is a social game? Is it something
running in Facebook? If so, you're not going to see it evolve too much too
soon. That's because of the way the platform incentives are structured, the
mindset of the average person who is on Facebook at the moment (more often
than not at work, multitasking, able to devote only infrequent, short bursts
of attention) and the inherent technical limitations of the Flash platform. If
you ever saw the traffic graphs of a successful game, you'd understand
immediately why casual is winning. It has a high bounce rate and peaks on
weekday mornings.
If you define "social gaming" more broadly, which I think you should, then
World of Warcraft, League of Legends, and many other very innovative games are
social games. In that case you're already seeing social games evolve. My
little cousins play Call of Duty over Xbox live with each other from their
homes 50 miles apart every day. That's social gaming if you ask me, and they
at least think it's fun.
There's certainly no accounting for taste. It's just plain snobbish to say the
games you like are "universally recognized as fun" and the games you don't
like aren't. I'd rather jam a ballpoint pen into my eye than play an
asynchronous game of Scrabble. You'd sooner catch me playing Farmville.
~~~
danilocampos
What a nice barrel of straw men you have there. I love the bonfire you've
constructed for them!
For the purposes of a thread about Zynga, it's reasonable to assume a social
game in this context is, indeed, a Facebook-flavored game.
Realtime multiplayer has enjoyed a lot of evolution since you had to bind
curses and status reports to your F-keys in Quake. Definitely share your
enthusiasm for where it is going right now.
Asynch casual multiplayer is in a dreadful rut. The big beef I have with it is
that so little of it is skill based that you can't enjoy improvement over
time, except with more and more swipes of the credit card (edit: or pointless
grinding). I don't think the games I like are universally recognized as fun.
What I said, if you'll read my post, is that asynch casual games are relying
more on ill-concealed compulsion loops than on anything an observer would look
at and think "boy, that looks fun to play."
Until asynch casual multiplayer, as your semantic nitpicking requires I call
it, leverages gameplay that lets players feel themselves grow more skilled,
we're just not talking about anything of lasting value. Personal growth is a
huge component of enjoyable gameplay and you can't just add a row to a
spreadsheet game to simulate that.
~~~
jshen
Bejeweled
It's social, casual, skill based, and fun.
To answer a likely question, it's social be use I want to beat my friends
scores each week
~~~
mattmaroon
So is Farmville. One of the biggest motivators in those sorts of games is the
comparison bar at the bottom that shows your level and that of your friends.
Notice that is in every Flash map-based game on Facebook.
~~~
jshen
but I don't consider farmville gameplay fun which I think the previous
commenters were also implying.
------
lee
To me this sounds like Zynga just took an idea that was already out there,
improved upon it, and executed the marketing/business side of things better
than their competitors.
The blatant art rip-off is evil, but the methodology of "taking something
proven, and making it better" is not.
Apple does this all the time, and I don't fault them for it.
For the HN crowd who "can't find an idea for a startup", maybe this is a
really good method of finding one. Look at what's successful out there, and
emulate to make it better.
~~~
Keyframe
There is kind of a proverb related to business here, which loosely translated
says something like: "In a street where there are several bakeries, it is wise
to open up another bakery."
edit: I remembered that I have heard another version, with a different take:
"In a street where there are several bakeries, next business that will open up
will be a bakery" - I actually like that one more.
~~~
jashmenn
I like this. Can you give more information on the origins? E.g. in what
country/language is this proverb? What's the original language text?
~~~
kluikens
Somewhat relatedly to the proverb, but you might enjoy the "Emergence" episode
from RadioLab. It's one of my favorite episodes and if you skip ahead to
18:56, you'll hear about 28th St Flower Market in New York which serves as a
prime example.
But, I highly suggest you listen to the whole episode (hour long).
<http://www.radiolab.org/2007/aug/14/>
------
momoro
I find myself entirely on Pincus' side.
The author of the article mistakenly assumes that Zynga's value is in
Farmville/Fishville/Poker. It's not.
Pincus once said that if he could re-do tribe, he would instead build "a
platform for testing ideas about how to make social networks," or something.
With Zynga, Pincus has buildt an entire company mechanism for figuring out how
to make money from FB games, I assume revolving around everything from what he
calls "ghetto testing" to a/b tests et cetera.
Yes, Zynga obviously copied the ideas being a lot of its games. So did 300
other companies. The value in Zynga is that it beat those 300 other companies.
This article gives us no way of understanding why it beat all those other
companies. My guess it that it's because Zynga's value is in its "platform for
figuring out how to get people to pay money for games" rather than in the
games themselves.
~~~
MartinCron
_The value in Zynga is that it beat those 300 other companies._
That's Zynga's value to Zynga. Not Zynga's value to anyone else.
~~~
michael_dorfman
Zynga's value to its users is what allowed them to beat those 300 other
customers. "Copy/improve/iterate" can, in some cases, provide more user value
than "create something new."
------
fondue
The entire article omits the fact that Zynga furiously iterates on their
designs and improves them. I remember when I first joined Facebook and finding
Mafia Wars to be just a cheap knock-off of other games with practically the
same name. Within months Mafia Wars was streamlining their game, adding new
experiences, and making the game more responsive and pleasant to look at.
Their competition, from whom they copied, hadn't changed at all.
~~~
JabavuAdams
Ah yes. Local maximum death by furious optimization. B .. b .. but our A/B
tests told us that this is what people wanted!
True, we don't know what other people want, but they don't know it either
(long-term).
If we always give people what they want (and nothing more), we eventually end
up at the big red orgasm button, and humanity dies.
~~~
fondue
I don't know if they A/B tested their games but I do know that while I was
playing the parts of the game I thought were terrible slowly disappeared and
what I found appealing increased. One game mechanic I thought was terrible was
the situation where you had to go back to earlier 'levels' of the game to
complete your sets of items. They introduced trading. They also completely
divorced the PvP aspect from the collecting game so you could practically
ignore anyone setting a hit on you.
Also, I would totally play the big red orgasm button game and much like
someone addicted to a TASP, die from it.
------
iamwil
I heard the CEO speak at Startup School last year, and he claimed that he
wanted Zynga to be an internet treasure--something with lasting value. Sounded
good to me.
His high minded spiel then seems contrarian to the report here, and I'm
tempted to believe the report. Makes me less inclined to see what else he has
to say.
If it's true, I'm guessing eventually, he'll lose developer and gamer
mindshare in that people won't want to work for Zynga. Then, would it be on
its way to an internet treasure?
~~~
all
I would definitely go with the report. I have lost count of the number of
software companies that I have encountered that win marketshare with similar
ethics to that being reported here about Zynga. They talk up sunshine and
value in public but then go Ballmer on their employees.
------
bond
"I don't fucking want innovation," the ex-employee recalls Pincus saying.
"You're not smarter than your competitor. Just copy what they do and do it
until you get their numbers."
"The former employee, who requested anonymity in order to speak candidly about
his experience at Zynga, said this wasn't just bluster. Indeed, interviews
conducted by SF Weekly with several former Zynga workers indicate that the
practice of stealing other companies' game ideas — and then using Zynga's
market clout to crowd out the games' originators — was business as usual."
No surprises there...
------
Keyframe
I have only a second hand exposure to farmville due to an avid player close to
me. I wouldn't say they don't innovate - or at least they mask it real good.
Farmville is full of new stuff that ties in together all the time, but general
framework looks to be less keen on innovation.
I wonder how long can they run with it though. It's like where you have an
ultra strong brand for games and you innovate by pushing various forms of
gameplay scenarios (think of mario in various games not related to original
genre mechanics). Farmville is just like the opposite, brand is the mechanics
and framework.
Seasonal stuff they put in is the only innovation over original concept they
snitched from Harvest Moon and alike. So I guess farmvilles ultimate fate
likes where genre-locked games go - e.g. fighting games (street fighter,
mk...) where original fad fades away and leaves in core player group. If
they're lucky - and with so many users, they'd have to screw up pretty badly
to lose all of their gaming audience.
~~~
patio11
The concept owes a lot to Harvest Moon, but let's not kid ourselves, those are
_very_ different games.
FarmVille is a well-oiled machine designed for virality, keeping people
playing through social obligation and fear of loss, and monetization. It has
its own peculiar kind of beauty to it. You're a 40 year old woman and your
aunt, who you always keep meaning to talk with but never find the time to do,
needs help with her cow. Not helping her with her cow says you don't love her.
That is genius. Evil genius, but genius.
Harvest Moon, on the other hand, is a fully single person game with a story
which optimizes for good reviews in magazines, because that drives box sales
and that is where they make their money. It can afford to take twenty minutes
until you get any control of your character, because you've already bought the
game and can be assumed to wait it out. Any designer proposing that at Zynga
would probably be shot, thrown out of a window, or shot after they were thrown
out of a window, because it would kill the viral coefficient.
~~~
Keyframe
Aye, you're right about Harvest Moon - maybe "snitched" was not the word I was
after for.
I don't think Zynga should be viewed as non innovative evil place as the
article suggests though. Farmville is a good game in its genre. Because if it
weren't, people would not play it. And I admire their driver for constant
updates, which do take a lot of effort to think about and make. Tournaments,
hunting for truffles with your pigs, honeybees for your bee hives, seasonal
items like wedding gazebos etc...
And it's engaging mechanics works on multiple levels. There's that icebreaker
level that facebook inherently drives which you've mentioned with aunt
example. There's also a point based competing drive: "come on, that girl can't
be a level over mine"...
Then there is show of level (sort of a competing) which I regard as most
genius of all. It's geared towards women population. Where they show of new
items acquired on their meticulously crafted farm designs which are more of a
home+backyard than a farm. This happens in real life too, but this is more
streamlined and on display to everyone you know that plays farmville. Genius.
Also, they produce lots of pixel art for their game - which is dear to my
heart. So, I respect Zynga regarding farmville, a lot.
------
zaidf
Smart, smart move on Pincus' part.
Zynga's already done the innovative part in figuring out
marketing/distribution. Now they need to reduce other risks. Copying
competitors who have good game ideas but weak marketing/distribution is a
great idea.
------
badmash69
Ethical considerations aside, this seems like a solid management strategy to
me. They have the brand to push through large mass of users , who are not so
much into gaming as they are into socializing. If I were an investor in Zynga,
I would be very happy , although I would probably use a part of the 10x ROI to
buy a sweet gaming rig and play real games.
~~~
zackattack
I don't know anything about this, so I'm just speculating:
Are they into socializing? Or are they just into a pleasant distraction that
fires off addicting dopamine patterns that they can also share with their
peers?
~~~
samtp
Those don't have to be mutually exclusive
------
ajleary
Pincus talked on Charlie Rose a year ago about wanting to build a lasting
company as opposed to being a serial entrepreneur. I actually love that
sentiment, but also think it is hard to differentiate from his current goal:
going public.
Wall street investors will value this company very differently if it appears
to be a fad that will have momentary glory (and revenue). That said, wall
street tries to value a company's current AND future revenues (with an
appropriate discount for risk and earnings out in the future) -- so Pincus is
trying to get them to believe it is building the bedrock of a company that
will last a hundred years.
Right now Zynga is a revenue rocketship (even if you don't like the product,
people, or business) that will make Pincus and all their employees wealthy.
Pretty easy to get people to work there with those prospects. The sustainable
business will be the work of the next generation of employees after first 1000
have vested and moved on.
I wish them the best, but wouldn't count on them being a great stable business
in 5 years. Tastes change and the best employees will have long since have
cashed out.
------
ketanb
I attended a startup seminar where speakers were founders from highly
successful startups. Their advice was: "First imitate and then innovate". It
is a usual business practice to first copy what's working for others, then
innovate to make it better and leave the competition behind. It makes sense
specially in a web industry where it takes very little time to catchup with
competition. Companies have to keep innovating to keep an edge over imitators.
Web industry doesn't have number 2 concept. It is either number 1 or out of
business. I think not having room for number 2 is what is forcing companies to
copy others work and kill the competition.
~~~
jarek
There are a ton of number twos and threes on the internet. Quick sample: Bing,
Yahoo!, Tagged...
~~~
ketanb
If we look at sites like Facebook or Linked-in or any company building social
websites/applications chances of finding number 2 is less. I haven't heard any
Linked-In or Facebook competitor.
We do see number 2 like Bing, Yahoo etc because they are not startups. Bing is
funded by Microsoft and Yahoo was number 1 sometime in the past and has enough
money to self-sustain for a while. How long Yahoo will survive?
~~~
jarek
Tagged is a number three, not owned by a large corporation, not a previous
giant.
When it comes to social networking, network effects normally result in one or
two highly visible giants and a long tail of smaller, likely specialized
networks. These can still be profitable, and of course there's more to the web
and startups than stuff that is social in nature.
------
code_duck
Sure, this is obviously the heart of Microsoft's successful tactics. Facebook,
too, considering their newest ideas have been to copy twitter and foursquare.
Actually, an embarrassing number of companies think like that. Unfortunately,
the marketplace rewards them - consumers are indifferent to what should be a
moral outrage AND to their own best interest, which is to reward originality
in the hope that it produces more innovation. Instead, they reward copying and
sleaze, and the innovators are extinguished - resulting in mediocrity.
------
ellyagg
I'm interested in how Zynga blatantly copying competitors is positioned as
evil, but when Google promotes a software and hardware ecosphere that at heart
requires the blatant copying of the iPhone, it's considered necessary and
smart business. It can't be evil sometimes and not evil others. If copying is
just smart business, then Zynga is proving that every shred of copying allowed
by law is even smarter business.
~~~
chc
There's a huge, mind-boggling difference between doing your own take on the
general idea of a touchscreen phone with a user-friendly interface and "I
don't want innovation." It's like the difference between a Cubist painting and
a Picasso forgery — fundamentally they're both copying Picasso, but they're
not the same thing at all.
~~~
hyperbovine
And Picasso copied Cezanne, who copied Pissarro, who copied Corot, who copied
Turner, who copied Poussin, who copied Titian, who copied Bellini ...
everybody copies, so why are we talking about it? Oh right, because somebody
made $500 million a year doing it. Copying is an accepted fact of life until
somebody gets rich. Ditto Facebook.
------
rwhitman
Call me jaded but lately I've learned that most of the wealth on the internet
is generated out of "Just copy what they do and do it until you get their
numbers."
I keep encountering folks with this attitude, and sadly it seems to be working
for them, very very well. No surprises that this is deliberately disseminated
at Zynga
------
ethanhuynh
"I don't fucking want innovation", "You're not smarter than your competitor.
Just copy what they do and do it until you get their numbers."
these quotes say it all, what I love from Zynga (put aside the ethical thing)
is that they obsessively focus on "action" and "execution", and not
"thinking". it matters because action makes the real things HAPPEN, here's
why: when someone come and blame them and their whole evil philosophy they can
just say that "it just happens. we just happened to build it, users just
happened to use it and the company just happened to make revenue. get over it"
~~~
Psyonic
You can always say "It happens." I don't really understand your point. "Hey
Fred, some $100 bills are missing from my wallet... you haven't seen them,
have you? Ya I took em to buy some blow. It happens. Get over it."?
------
inerte
On a related topic, about copying and the drool over innovation, and thinking
outside the box, and whatever buzzword bingo we're on:
[http://www.ribbonfarm.com/2010/08/03/down-with-innovation-
up...](http://www.ribbonfarm.com/2010/08/03/down-with-innovation-up-with-
imitation/)
Well turns out this article wasn't submitted (I hope).
<http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1676407>
------
zaru
Not sure this biz model is sustainable. Especially considering how much FB is
changing and will continue to change.
------
chegra
I think the companies he copied should have had the vision to add money.
All they seem to be doing is simply find a game that has gone viral and copy
it and add money so the viral effect can be much faster.
Point to note: When you have something viral garner more investment to get it
even bigger, quicker.
------
Eight
I understand that Zynga is relatively good at what they do. But as a company I
do not trust them at all. Just with the amount of spam advertising they do
purely on Facebook it would not surprise me at all to see them sell your
information to third parties.
------
ruang
You can still add value to people's lives by improving on what already exists
versus creating from scratch.
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Legislation to stop US border agents from demanding passwords is on the way - JoshTriplett
https://techcrunch.com/2017/02/20/wyden-letter-dhs-passwords-warrantless-border-searches/
======
blazespin
I stopped reading after "In a letter to Homeland Security Secretary John
Kelly, Oregon Senator Ron Wyden called ..."
Unless it's sponsored or at least co-signed by a republican it ain't going
anywhere.
~~~
r00fus
Pretty clear what republicans think of the constitution. Which is in diametric
opposition to what they say.
~~~
viggity
This policy started under Barack Obama. He could have squashed it via
Executive Order if he wanted to. Thanks, try again.
[https://www.federalregister.gov/documents/2016/06/23/2016-14...](https://www.federalregister.gov/documents/2016/06/23/2016-14848/agency-
information-collection-activities-arrival-and-departure-record-
forms-i-94-and-i-94w-and#h-11)
------
josephagoss
Correct me if I am wrong, but isn't this a situation where they shouldn't need
more legislation but rather, Government employees should already be following
pre-existing law?
~~~
sledmonkey
My understanding is that the Border is not technically U.S. soil and as such
the normal laws don't apply there.
~~~
devoply
We need a movement to make borders a part of the normal legal system. It's
stupid to have this no man's land bullshit in the civilized world. It's
uncivilized.
------
ouid
I thought it was already plainly addressed in the constitution.
~~~
jaredklewis
Very little in the constitution could be described as "plain." Most of it was
as broad and ambiguous at the time it was written as it is today.
Rather than hoping justices read the tea leaves the same way you do,
clarifying the law with statues to protect our liberties is a good strategy.
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
October surprise - Nuance
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/October_surprise
======
symplee
How can we avoid the disproportionate influence of late information?
What if we allowed people to voluntarily "lock in" their votes anytime after
the party candidates are chosen? These early votes could only be changed at
some cost, which would rise the closer to election day. No idea what that
"cost" would be, as it would be preferable to have it affect everyone evenly.
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
This is how you healthcare - buro9
https://www.nsfwcorp.com/dispatch/this-is-how-you-healthcare
======
tokenadult
Previous submission, with lots of discussion on the main page:
<http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5245321>
(Hat tip to you for submitting the canonical URL.)
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Why only 57% of visitors to TPM are using Windows - jeffreymcmanus
http://talkingpointsmemo.com/archives/2011/11/the_changing_web_geeks_only.php
======
bsphil
The word 'why' should be removed from the title. Usage statistics are fine,
and TPM admits to not being a representative demographic of the Internet at
large, but the blog entry doesn't attempt to answer the question of 'why' at
all.
------
jeffreymcmanus
tl;dr: In November only 56.81% of visitors to talkingpointsmemo.com were using
Windows. Windows is losing ground to OSX but mostly to mobile.
It would be interesting to compare this to other sites. I'm sure there's a
demographic that's influencing things on TPM.
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
The new, cheaper, MacBook Air includes ~35% slower SSD compared to 2018 model - dcu
https://9to5mac.com/2019/07/15/cheaper-macbook-air-cheaper-ssd/
======
duxup
>A 35% slower SSD does not automatically translate into an overall performance
loss of 35%.
Yeah I was wondering about this. For a MacBook Air... could it be possible
that generally you wouldn't notice the difference?
SSDs are pretty speedy / responsive, not sure how often this speed difference
will come up / what kind of tasks / if at all.
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Danish board calls for retraction of controversial paper - tokenadult
http://retractionwatch.wordpress.com/2013/11/13/citing-scientific-dishonesty-danish-board-calls-for-retraction-of-controversial-paper-on-decline-of-western-civilization/
======
popularopinion
Here's a link I found to the paper in question:
[https://lesacreduprintemps19.files.wordpress.com/2011/04/nyb...](https://lesacreduprintemps19.files.wordpress.com/2011/04/nyborg-2011-the-
decay-of-western-civilization-double-relaxed-darwinian-selection.pdf)
From my quick reading of the paper, Nyborg is arguing that based on Denmark's
current immigration and minority birth rates, “by 2072 the total population
[in Denmark] may consist of 60% ethnic Danes and 40% people of foreign
origin.” Since these minority groups have lower average IQs than native Danes
[1], the average Danish IQ will _decrease_ from about 97 in 2013 to 93 in
2072. This "reverse Flynn-effect" will only increase with time since these
foreign borns have a higher birth rate than native Danes. Nyborg then cites
the correlation between a country's Average IQ and National GDP [2], and
suggests that a drop of 5 IQ points is correlated with a 35% drop in Danish
GDP. He ponders why many Danish politicians and intellectuals have ignored
this data and encourages them to reconsider their policies before there is "an
anti-Darwinian death spiral that dooms democracy, civilization, [and] welfare"
(an argument very similar to that of Norway's Anders Breivik [3]).
-
[1] Racial differences in IQ have been well established for decades but there
is no conclusive evidence for its cause. To give some concrete numbers, for
the United States, the authors of a 1994 book found the average IQ of African
Americans to be 85, Latinos 89, Whites 103, East Asians 106, and Ashkenazi
Jews 113. Amerindians tend to score worse on average than white populations
but better on average than black populations. These differences appear to be
consistent over the past four decades, and still exist (although to a weaker
degree) even after controlling for SES.
If you don't believe me (which you should, since this is a highly
controversial topic), there's more information on the Wikipedia article about
Race and Intelligence.
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Race_and_IQ](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Race_and_IQ)
[2] It's not the article he cited, but here is an excellent article that
attempts to extend this theory.
[http://www.lagriffedulion.f2s.com/sft.htm](http://www.lagriffedulion.f2s.com/sft.htm)
[3] In his manifesto, Breivik, who killed 77 people in the 2011 Oslo bombings,
argued that Norway's (and the rest of Europe's) immigration policies are
letting in too many immigrants, and these immigrants will eventually destroy
Norway's national culture/heritage and bankrupt the nation's generous social
policies. Breivik committed the attacks because he wanted Norwegians to
discuss these policies before it was too late to change them.
~~~
aaron695
Godwin's law / Association fallacy.
But thanks for finding the article.
------
aaron695
A fairly clear case of the scientific community censoring a paper mealy
because they don't like it via dubious methods.
If they disagree with the results then they should do their own analysis
rather than lowing themselves to this.
A similar thing happened to Bjørn Lomborg
[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bj%C3%B8rn_Lomborg#Accusations_...](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bj%C3%B8rn_Lomborg#Accusations_of_scientific_dishonesty)
~~~
tokenadult
Are you sure that's what is really going on here? The submitted article
reports,
"The DCSD found that the defendant had committed scientific dishonesty by
appearing as the sole author of an article and by including a reference which
did not support the data it indicated to support."
There have been researchers in this same field who have called for better
analysis of data sets, only to find that the data sets are not available.
[http://wicherts.socsci.uva.nl/datasharing.pdf](http://wicherts.socsci.uva.nl/datasharing.pdf)
[http://www.plosone.org/article/info%3Adoi%2F10.1371%2Fjourna...](http://www.plosone.org/article/info%3Adoi%2F10.1371%2Fjournal.pone.0026828)
[http://www.nature.com/news/psychology-must-learn-a-lesson-
fr...](http://www.nature.com/news/psychology-must-learn-a-lesson-from-fraud-
case-1.9513)
When researchers in a controversial discipline aren't being scrupulous in
their scholarly practice, maybe there really is a problem there. (I express no
opinion here about Lomborg, who works in a different academic discipline.)
~~~
aaron695
"The DCSD found that the defendant had committed scientific dishonesty by
appearing as the sole author of an article and by including a reference which
did not support the data it indicated to support"
We all know what's really going on here. It's not a coincidence that this
paper is very controversial.
Many, many papers would have errors like the above but are not hunted down
like this.
------
spindritf
The whole case looks personal and the panel was reportedly anything but
impartial and competent[1]. This committee seems bizarre in general.
[1] [http://drjamesthompson.blogspot.com/2013/11/helmuth-
nyborg-g...](http://drjamesthompson.blogspot.com/2013/11/helmuth-nyborg-gets-
watsond.html)
~~~
001sky
_He has just been stitched up by three critics in one of the The Danish
Committees on Scientific Dishonesty which lurk in The Ministry of Science,
Innovation, and Higher Education. In the midst of all this horrible nonsense,
which has already caused him a lot of trouble and cost him his Emeritus
status, I cannot help but be distracted by the funny names education
departments give themselves. Innovation? I suppose a Committee for Public
Safety is an innovation for Denmark, but the Jacobin terror got there first._
== From the link. Classic.
------
shadowOfShadow
We need more honey pot journals to flesh out ALL the nutters.
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Ask HN: Review New Startup - Trafficspaces (its like having a Facebook Ads for your site). - DJN
I would like to get comments from the community about our startup - Trafficspaces.<p>http://www.trafficspaces.com<p>Trafficspaces is an ad management service that helps publishers create self-service user interfaces for their advertisers.<p>It is like having your very own Facebook Ads system customied/branded for your site.<p>We reckon it will be a smash hit with publishers because 1) it saves money for publishers and 2) it helps them reach more advertisers. This is particulary important in a recessionary economic environment.<p>We created Trafficspaces because we think a branded self service interface is infinitely better than the manual, time consuming email based ad processes that many publishers currently use.<p>Please take some time out to have a look at our site, and our demo and tell us what you think.<p>We appreciate your time.<p>Thanks in advance.
Niyi
======
il
Heh, that's funny, I had the idea for this exact same product about a year
ago, and never got around to building it. Props to you for actually executing.
Feature suggestion: I'm more of an advertiser than a publisher, but as an
advertiser, I would love the ability to search all sites registered with
Trafficspaces, and bulk place ads on them. Similar to the AdWords content
network. To appeal to advertisers, highlight popular/niche sites using the
system. In order for you to succeed, you need monetary incentive for
publishers to sign up, that is Trafficspaces will bring more revenue on a CPM
basis than say, AdWords. To do that, you need to engage adveritsers to
actively use the system.
~~~
DJN
Il,
thanks for the kind words. We are a small team trying out best to create a
great product. your comment is much appreciated.
Regarding the multiple site search feature, we are working on it. As you know,
we'll need to scale the platform among publishers before it makes sense to
release that feature to advertisers.
Its interesting that you had the same idea. We are actively looking for
partners (active and advisory). If you are interested, send me your email at
"niyi-at-trafficspaces-dot-com.
Cheers
------
siong1987
Is there any example that I can see the "self-service user interfaces"?
And, I don't think that your service is comparable to Facebook Ads System
where you can target the demographic you want which your service doesn't not
provide.
Anyway, I don't think you are going to read the feedbacks I leave since you
just created a dummy account to promote your website.
~~~
DJN
Here is one - <http://modeltxt.trafficspaces.com/advertise/>
You can see some more examples at <http://demo.trafficspaces.com/setup/> There
is a preinstalled account there.
The Facebook Ads analogy was just to illustrate that publishers can create a
branded self-service ad system just like Facebook does for its advertisers. We
didn't mean it functions exactly like Facebook. :)
Anyway, thanks for the feedback siong1987. Much appreciated.
------
adityakothadiya
the logo still points to <http://www.aductions.com>. pls fix it.
~~~
DJN
We'll fix it now..
Thanks for pointing it out.
------
paraschopra
OpenX has a plugin that enables this
~~~
DJN
Paraschopra,
You are right. Our main competitors are OpenX and Google Ad Manager. However,
there are some things our system does uniquely. For example, a) customising
the system to match your site through a web interface. b) online payments and
c) we do everything out of the box in a hosted environment
OpenX is still the big 800 pound gorilla in the room and we are the underdog
but we reckon there are many weaknesses we can exploit to take them on.
Thanks for the feedback
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
A better namedtuple for Python - tjomk
http://benno.id.au/blog/2014/11/30/a-better-namedtuple
======
dalke
Interesting article. The author asks "So, is the namedfields decorator better
than the namedtuple factory function?"
I have another observation. I like namedtuple as a quick-and-dirty class
constructor when there are many parameters, as otherwise all of the
__init__(self, x, ..) : self.x = x statements get tedious. (Some people have
an editor macro for this, but I don't.)
As soon as that object is part of the external API, I have to rewrite it as a
regular class, because namedtuple has getitem lookup, and I don't want obj[2]
to be part of the public API that I need to maintain forever.
There are times when attribute and index lookup is appropriate. RGB and XYZ
values, and of course things like os.stat(), where there was a tuple but where
attribute use is better.
I therefore like the idea of
@namedfields("spam eggs ham")
class Viking:
pass
where the [0], [1], and [2] aren't built-in.
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Joi extension for validating mobile numbers ONLY - jhnferraris
https://github.com/jhnferraris/joi-mobile-number
======
Fjolsvith
Would be nice if someone could write this into a $2 app and push it onto the
Google Play store.
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
An Island to Oneself - 8_hours_ago
http://www.janesoceania.com/suvarov_tom_neale/index.htm
======
samcheng
This reminds me of some awesome documentary footage of a man who built a cabin
in the Alaskan wilderness:
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iYJKd0rkKss](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iYJKd0rkKss)
Alone in the Wilderness - Dick Proenneke
The same dry commentary made riveting by insightful and sometimes whimsical
observations, the same hardship usually effortlessly overcome, and of course
the same solitary strength of a middle-aged man. Both stories make me a bit
envious, and inspire me to create a little more with my hands.
~~~
drudru11
Interesting - I was given that DVD years ago, but never watched it. Now I will
make time to watch. Thanks for the recommendation.
------
bambax
Slightly OT, but Firefox's reading mode is a great help to consume that
post...
~~~
mythrwy
Not off topic at all. (I came to post the same thing but you beat me to it).
It's a great read but hard on the eyes. Reader mode lays it out just
beautifully.
------
justboxing
If he was completely alone on the Island, who took those beautifully composed
pictures of him fishing, considering it was the 50s where there were no
electronic cameras with timers and stuff? ex:
[http://www.janesoceania.com/suvarov_tom_neale/fishing.jpg](http://www.janesoceania.com/suvarov_tom_neale/fishing.jpg)
Was it Tagi, the pearl diver? If yes, then he wasn't really alone, was he?
What am I missing from this situation?
~~~
lazyeye
He lived the majority of the time alone with the occasional visitor who took
photos. Thats what your missing.
~~~
erikbye
I've found that in most of these stories, the people who have lived alone
haven't been without human contact for any significant period of time. If that
fact wasn't downplayed or outright omitted the story probably wouldn't sell as
well. In this aspect, their stories are not that different from the tens or
hundreds of thousands of lonely people whose apartment or house might as well
be an island. It's probably also very difficult to live anywhere for years
without eventually running into someone, never mind decades.
------
soperj
It's a long, but great read (i read it over the last 2 days.) Thanks to the
original sharer on here.
It's interesting that the book mentions 2 of the times he stayed on the
island, but doesn't mention the last, and longest (of 10 years). Nor does it
mention that he had kids in between, which is mind boggling to me, how you
could leave them.
~~~
gpvos
That was because the book was written before the third time he went. (See
Wikipedia.)
------
yhbgffvv
Apple engineers here, please use this as a test case for Mobile Safari’s
reader mode. It cuts off after 2 paragraphs.
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
A Look at the Formula 1 Steering Wheel - dmmalam
http://www.wired.com/2014/05/formula-1-steering-wheels/?mbid=social_fb
======
cl8ton
A Bit Off Topic: If anyone has interest in how it was before smart steering
wheels, here is a vid clip of the master Ayrton Senna at Monaco in real-time
as it happened.
[http://youtu.be/rh6bwZ4ooTI](http://youtu.be/rh6bwZ4ooTI)
It is deemed the best in car F1 vid of all times by fans. It is raw and not
sped up.
~~~
EC1
That's unreal. I remember watching the Senna documentary and at the end of one
of the races they had to pry him out of his car, starting with his fingers.
His teammates were giving him pats on the back and he just screamed out not to
touch him.
Insane.
~~~
cl8ton
Forearm and leg pump battling lateral G forces, current day Fernando
Alonso/Ferrari describes this during his race season if you following him.
During the Senna video above, he takes his hand off the steering wheel with 2+
lateral G’s to shift which is insane also. Today’s drivers paddle shift with
both hands on the wheel.
~~~
gsnedders
And back in Senna's day relatively little attention was paid to the physical
performance of the driver — nowadays all the drivers spend far, far more time
on their fitness.
------
noonespecial
Its an interesting UI case. Everything happens so fast, there is no time for
modality so every function needs to be directly accessible at the top layer.
You end up with a steering-wheel full of single purpose buttons and knobs.
It kind of feels like the old days when you'd get "mission control syndrome"
because the controls were tied to actual relays that actuated functions so
they could only do one thing. In this case, its entirely justified.
~~~
robmcm
I imagine that the drivers can't look at the wheel when they are using it, so
everything has to be distinguishable by touch.
This happened only the other day to Maldonado:
[http://www1.skysports.com/f1/news/24231/9271393/pastor-
maldo...](http://www1.skysports.com/f1/news/24231/9271393/pastor-maldonado-
takes-blame-for-mistakes-after-crash-follows-earlier-spin-in-china)
>Maldonado confirmed he had been looking down at the steering wheel at the
time and simply took a wrong turn: "I was on the steering wheel. Too much to
do in the out laps. After out laps it's okay."
~~~
jonathansizz
It's difficult to draw conclusions using Maldonado, since he's a pay driver
with a well-established reputation for incompetence.
Lotus are getting what they deserve for hiring him for his money over more
skilled drivers who could have helped move the team forward.
~~~
CWuestefeld
While I'm not his biggest fan, I don't think you can fairly call him
incompetent. Anybody with a win and a pole position next to their name can't
be considered incompetent.
~~~
jonathansizz
If you say so. In today's Spanish grand prix he wrote off his car during
qualifying, and then smashed into Gutierrez during the race, receiving more
penalties, and adding to his already extensive record of crashing.
------
lr
Video of the 2014 Ferrari Steering Wheel:
[http://www.formula1.com/news/technical/2014/0/1180.html](http://www.formula1.com/news/technical/2014/0/1180.html)
~~~
RogerL
This just breaks my brain. I get confused if I accidentally hit the turn
signal while pulling out of a parking spot, and end up turning on the wipers
or something. How they manage all of that at such high speeds with such
consistency is truly a marvel.
------
AndrewKemendo
One thing that is curious to me is that the display for speed takes a
significant portion of the screen space. I would imagine that knowing speed
would be incidental information for a race car driver, given that there are no
speed limits. I suppose that they might have marks to hit for straightaways or
something to limit wear on the engine - but in those cases a simple LED or
flash would be more effective for that.
~~~
mark242
The reason that -- at least on the Sauber -- the speed is displayed so large
is that it's the number that's changing the most rapidly. It isn't a primary
piece of information, but when the car is accelerating away from a corner, the
driver needs to be able to discern acceleration by way of more than just the
seat of his or her pants. With the immense amount of torque available this
year, being able to optimize that acceleration out of a corner is absolutely
paramount.
The "marks to hit for straightaways or (...)" are visual indicators on the
sides of the track, showing the distance to the corner. Part of what makes
these drivers the best in the world are that they're able to hit -- mostly --
the exact same braking spot coming from 300kph down to 60kph lap after lap
after lap, without a computer telling them when to brake.
Coincidentally, that row of LEDs on the top of the wheel is supposed to tell
drivers when to shift, but teams found out a long time ago that the visual
indicator wasn't being processed fast enough by the drivers' brains, so now
drivers get a little beep in their ear when they're supposed to up/downshift.
~~~
Kudos
> Coincidentally, that row of LEDs on the top of the wheel is supposed to tell
> drivers when to shift, but teams found out a long time ago that the visual
> indicator wasn't being processed fast enough by the drivers' brains, so now
> drivers get a little beep in their ear when they're supposed to
> up/downshift.
I'd wondered where those went, it's amazing what they optimize to buy
milliseconds per lap.
------
beachstartup
i'm surprised f1 topics don't come up on HN more often. it's an incredible
engineering field and has driven the development and adaptation of basically
every consumer automobile safety and performance feature for decades.
------
ars
I'm a little skeptical that a human can do a better job on these than a
computer. I guess the computer doesn't know the drivers intent, so he needs to
control things that will change after his next action (speed up/down, etc).
But I wonder if instead of controlling the parameters directly, instead you
switch to an intent based system where you tell the computer what you are
going to do.
Makes me ponder about computerized auto racing - same kind of car, track, and
rules - just with a computer at the wheel. Then even on a human race the car
pretends it was driving and adjusts things based on what it would do with the
assumption the human would do the same (or close enough).
~~~
NamTaf
As the sibling said, it's about pushing more responsibility back on the
driver. You're absolutely right that a computer would do a better job for many
of the functions.
One example is that they removed traction control from the cars a few seasons
ago. Why? Because it made it easier for the drivers to drive optimally, but in
doing so reduced the entertainment and variability of how the race unfolds. By
removing it, it gives more chances for the driver to screw up and for the race
to change. It's more exciting for the spectator.
It was broadly held by many fans some years ago that F1 was becoming too
robotic and taking all the fun and variety out of it. The race depended more
on the tech that the team could jam in to the car, and the driver was really
just a glorified program to run the basic functions. By making driver skill a
bigger slice of the 'what it takes to win' pie, it made it more exciting to
follow as a fan.
~~~
bobbles
Driverless F1 cars in a race... now that would be an interesting competition
~~~
noir_lord
To us.
I'm not convinced that it would be everyone, the "problem" with F1 over the
last few years is that the personality and style of the drivers has taken a
backseat to the technology.
I find the technology fascinating but many of the races boring.
------
Theodores
Interesting that there is a supply chain for these parts, i.e. McLaren sell
instrumentation goodies to their rivals. Volume levels cannot be that high,
even if the margins are good. Why don't they keep things to themselves?
With the steering wheel moving it looks like digital rather than an analogue
style gauge is how information gets best presented as far as speed is
concerned.
Note that when Lewis Hamilton moved to Mercedes he got the engineers to strip
back the 30+ knobs and buttons to be something more like what you might find
on a consumer steering wheel for an F1 game. Hence I don't think the featured
steering wheel is optimal or likely to be the best.
~~~
pedrocr
>Note that when Lewis Hamilton moved to Mercedes he got the engineers to strip
back the 30+ knobs and buttons to be something more like what you might find
on a consumer steering wheel for an F1 game.
Apparently he removed 4 knobs, from 31 to 27, so not very significant. He also
has a supposedly useless red X button by his left thumb. My theory is that
it's the "x-factor" button that he pushes when he's really trying. Sort of
like when Valentino Rossi starts hanging his leg out in the corners when he's
trying to go really fast, apparently useless for balance under breaking but
probably helps mentally.
[http://www.mirror.co.uk/sport/formula-1/lewis-hamilton-
makes...](http://www.mirror.co.uk/sport/formula-1/lewis-hamilton-makes-
mercedes-reduce-1706059)
~~~
hvidgaard
The "X button" could be a button to help him react properly. I know he is a
world class driver, but when something unforeseen happens, all people react
instinctively, rather than consciously. A way to combat this is to train a
movement, like slamming the foot in the footrest, or pressing a button. It
buys you that fraction of a second to assess the situation and act
consciously, rather than just react.
------
joshu
Curiously, modern driver's cars are removing increasingly more from the
steering wheel. It can be a distraction on the track.
~~~
sclangdon
And instead put touch-screen media centres, which aren't distracting at all...
~~~
joshu
At least on the McLaren you can turn it off very easily.
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
A Tiny container to watch other containers on a docker host - omerh
https://github.com/omerh/gowatcher
======
omerh
A Tiny container to watch other containers on a docker host, once the other
containers exits, gowatcher will terminate and reduce autoscaling group count
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Apple makes mobility data available to aid Covid-19 efforts - feross
https://www.apple.com/newsroom/2020/04/apple-makes-mobility-data-available-to-aid-covid-19-efforts/
======
Grif_fin
"Maps does not associate mobility data with a user’s Apple ID, and Apple does
not keep a history of where a user has been. Using aggregated data collected
from Apple Maps, the new website indicates mobility trends for major cities
and 63 countries or regions. The information is generated by counting the
number of requests made to Apple Maps for directions. The data sets are then
compared to reflect a change in volume of people driving, walking or taking
public transit around the world. Data availability in a particular city,
country, or region is subject to a number of factors, including minimum
thresholds for direction requests made per day."
------
isthispermanent
The Apple/Google mobility data gave us the missing piece that lets us know if
the lockdown strategy is the correct strategy.
we basically have a control group in Sweden who isn't locked down. So mobility
plus case rate and we can see the different options
[https://philandrews.io/post/daily-country-mobility-vs-
sars-c...](https://philandrews.io/post/daily-country-mobility-vs-sars-
cov-2-casemortality-report)
------
thefounder
I guess it's time to unplug from these spyware devices...this has gone a bit
too far!
~~~
jjeaff
Why not unplug from the devices -after- we have made it possible to go out in
public without spreading a pandemic virus?
Tracking information like this could allow us to manage the spread well enough
to get back to a somewhat normal day of life.
I realize the arguments about this stuff never going away once the genie is
out of the bottle. Public pressure will cause it to go away after the danger
is over.
But if it doesn't, then you can stop using your phone.
~~~
hotShoeHorn
Nah, let's unplug them right now, throw them in the trash, and never buy any
such device ever again.
It's plainly obvious what's going on by now.
I certainly didn't fork over $999 so that this uniquely identifiable billing
and accounting radio tag could be used calculate a multi-year, comprehensive
geolocation log of 3D/XYZ coordinates (precision within ~100 centimeters) and
accelerometer sensor values, that only large corporations, organizations,
institutions and services can share amongst one another, but I cannot see for
myself.
I'd rather spend $999 on SDR antennas and mess around with open-source
spectrum analysis software, and join the eavesdropping party, and surveil all
the tagged animals within range.
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
One Game A Month - lza
http://www.onegameamonth.com/
======
lza
Make this your New Year's resolution. Visit the site and watch the keynote.
Hope to see many of the HN readers there:)
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Ask HN: Fixed vs Dynamic pricing. - bobo82
Let's assume you've got a product that you can sell with two different pricing stratiegies:<p>A: three-level-pricing: basic - normal - pro<p>B: Custom pricing: The customer set the complexity (not the single features) on a horizontal slider, and the price adjusts accordingly.<p>Generally speaking, which one would you adopt?
======
jeffmould
I would say the tiered pricing is the best. The other method may lead to
confusion and lost conversions. Customers want simple, and tiered is simple.
They know exactly what they are getting and how much they are paying right up
there.
~~~
bobo82
That's what I thought initially. But what if the client won't buy the basic
option because it dosen't fit his needs, and can't afford the normal one? If
the customer starts looking around for another service that offer a better
aligned feature-price point, I might lose a conversion.
I'm not sold yet.
~~~
rubinelli
If you are in the "but what if..." phase then you already know the answer.
Something like AWS's a la carte pricing may appeal to us geeks, but for most
people, three buckets just converts best. Relevant link:
[http://www.michaelmcderment.com/2006/01/19/pricing-web-
servi...](http://www.michaelmcderment.com/2006/01/19/pricing-web-services-
step-1-three-buckets/) Make sure you are capturing emails so you can follow up
and tweak your offerings as necessary. If your prospects decide your product
doesn't fit their needs, they will let you know.
------
LeBlanc
You should do some reading into the economic theory of bundling.
While custom pricing gives the user the most freedom, it may be confusing, and
you may make more money by bundling your services. The classic example of this
is movie studios which, when selling movies to theaters, will bundle a hot
blockbuster movie with a less popular movie. By bundling these two movies
together, the studio ends up with a higher profit than if they sold both
movies individually at a higher total price.
That is the important part: by selling goods as a bundle at a lower price than
the sum of the prices of the goods sold separately, you can actually increase
your total revenue.
Here is a good article to help you:
<http://livingeconomics.org/article.asp?docId=288>
You should be able to use analytics to get a sense of the utilities that users
place on each item within your larger product. From there you can construct
the pricing of your bundles to maximize your profit.
Good luck!
------
jbverschoor
Ah difficult.. It kind of depends how that slider would move..
I like basic / normal / pro, but sometimes I like the slider. Assembla, and
others do this: They provide a couple of packages, and a 'metered' package,
where you pay for what you use.
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"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
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Ask HN: corporate IT stories & startup ideas? - petervandijck
From recent HN threads: "our corporate IT department blocks most foreign domains, such as .ly, .io, .tv, and .ng." and "What should I do, corporate IT has blocked Dropbox?"<p>Maybe we should share corporate IT war stories, and connect them with ideas for startups?
======
adrianwaj
never used it, but: <http://www.glassdoor.com> \--- also see
<http://TheFunded.com>
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
The secure smartphone that won’t get you beaten with rubber hoses - oldgregg
http://arstechnica.com/security/2014/10/the-secure-smartphone-that-wont-get-you-beaten-with-rubber-hoses/
======
oldgregg
This could be huge. The first messaging app that is user friendly and protects
message content and meta data is going to be huge.
------
untothebreach
Seems like this article is more about Pond than about DarkMatter. Rightfully
so, IMO, as Pond looks very impressive.
~~~
larssorenson
Yeah I noticed that as well. Hadn't heard about either, so I'm pretty stoked
to see what will happen with them. Pond definitely seems interesting, because
it'll be easier to pick up and integrate, plus it has the benefit of solving
the first contact problem, with no real key exchange prior necessary. I wonder
how this will be able to be exported/imported.
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Ask HN: What is the next bubble in your opinion? - ooonotooto
It's been a while since financial systems in US and around the globe went through massive shock. We have massive supply of money and artificially boosted demand.<p>Murphy's law says that, "if everything seems to be going well, you have obviously overlooked something".<p>We had quite a dramatic elections in the US. Student debt is growing. Auto loans are growing. What concerns me more is that, there is significant wealth concentration under global organization such as Google, FB, Amazon, Pharma companies, Retail chains and more.<p>I am not american by birth, but I love to travel to rural areas and get to know people outside of tech. I can tell you that things don't look great. Hundreds and thousands are leaving the jobs and switching to contracting, driving for Uber/Lyft and/or taking similar jobs.<p>Since we have computer literate people, founders, risk takers, entrepreneurs, intelligent people on this site, I want to know what do you think is going to be next bubble?<p>Of course, in finance (federation) based economy, we all may feel financial shocks, but what could cause these massive shocks?
======
bdcravens
> We had quite a dramatic elections in the US.
> Since we have computer literate people, founders, risk takers,
> entrepreneurs, intelligent people on this site, I want to know what do you
> think is going to be next bubble?
I'd argue that "we" are pretty ignorant of what's really going on. (see the
recent presidential election)
We live in a world of fast Internet, current-gen personal devices, and
Instabizzes that make our life function. Our values (or what our Twitter feeds
has told us our values should be) are apparently the new world order.
There's a LOT of people, both red and blue, whose lives need more than an
emoji, hashtag, and a Ruby bootcamp to move the needle.
I think our bubble may be the one to pop.
~~~
_coldfire
>There's a LOT of people, both red and blue
There's a magnitude more of people who aren't either and wouldn't even
understand the meaning of that phrase.
~~~
bananicorn
Honestly, I didn't get it at first - I thought it was some kind of matrix
reference about the red and blue pill (in hindsight, not even for a particular
reason), not about democrats and republicans... Even though I'm not american I
feel stupid not having thought of that first.
------
0xcde4c3db
It might not be the _next_ bubble (rather next decade's bubble), and not as
big as the mortgage securities bubble, but I have my eye on siloed social
media in general and Facebook in particular.
I don't know exactly how or when the federated/web-of-trust alternative to
Facebook will unfold, but people are definitely working on commoditizing this
stuff, and doing so in an unassuming way that has the potential to catch major
players by surprise when it finally crystallizes. I'm not convinced that any
of XMPP, GNU Social/OStatus, diaspora*, or IRCv3 have all the pieces to solve
the puzzle, but the direction they're pulling is not a big mystery, and I
consider it a very real possibility that a successor to those efforts does to
Facebook what HTML5 did to Flash.
~~~
spronkey
I'd be pretty happy if this were the case. Likewise, I'd be pretty happy if
the same thing happened to instant messaging.
------
vadym909
The student loan bubble will burst putting colleges out of business or cutting
back hard- and as before the public will bear the brunt. from 3 years ago and
it is still growing with no slow down [http://ijr.com/2014/06/149516-mark-
cuban-predicts-burst-stud...](http://ijr.com/2014/06/149516-mark-cuban-
predicts-burst-student-loan-bubble/)
~~~
JamesBarney
Could you explain this a little. I don't understand.
Usually a bubble is an asset where most of it's value is tied to future
expected appreciation. And when price growth starts to fall this decreases
future price, and then it crashes down to its fundamental value(or a little
below).
I'm not quite sure how this can happen with student loans. Is the discounted
future cash flow of student loans widely different from their price?
------
jdavis703
I think there's a lot of bad auto loans out there. I just bought a new
vehicle, and when applying for the loan I couldn't fill out half of the
required information (I didn't have it readily at hand). The business office
person just kept saying "that's OK, just skip that part." All in all they had
barely enough information to let me prove I was who said I was, much less that
I could repay the loan. This behavior reminded me a lot of what I heard up the
mortgage bubble, where there was basically free money floating around.
~~~
nicholas73
It's personally weird to me that auto loans can be a serious bubble, since I
would not feel comfortable buying a car unless I have 10x the sticker price in
spare cash, or free cash flow that covers it. Seriously, since it's just a
depreciating asset with maintenance liabilities.
~~~
bdcravens
I'm sure you know you are the exception. About 85% of all new vehicles are
purchased on credit; the US is approaching $1T in auto loan debt.
~~~
stephancoral
1.1 trillion, a number that actually surprised me. According to this article,
auto loans are "the second-fastest growing consumer debt market"
[http://www.huffingtonpost.com/allan-smith/the-us-auto-
loan-d...](http://www.huffingtonpost.com/allan-smith/the-us-auto-loan-debt-
mar_b_11911206.html)
------
joeclark77
I suspect it will be non-healthcare jobs in healthcare. People are noticing
that at the same time their premiums are doubling, tripling, quadrupling,
doctors and hospitals seem to have larger and larger staffs of computer
technicians, billing specialists, insurance negotiators or whatever the heck
those people are doing. It used to be that a doctor could be self-employed,
with just one nurse who doubled as a receptionist. Now fewer people are going
into medicine, at the same time millions of people are going to be trained to
work in the healthcare industry.
I think a lot of the resentment against "Obamacare" is that people can see
this non-value-added waste ( _muda_ ) and they saw government making a deal
with the insurance industry to add even more bureaucracy to an already
wasteful system. If there is going to be any compromise betwen left and right
on healthcare, it may be that we keep the mandate (pleasing the left) but cut
the regulation and bureaucracy that creates all the waste (pleasing the
right).
That would be good for doctors and patients, of course, but very bad for
insurance companies and other parts of the healthcare-industrial complex.
------
CM30
I think advertising may be the next bubble. I mean, there have been lots of
comments online about how large a percentage of ad clicks are fraud, so it's
likely most sites shouldn't be making anywhere near as much cash from their
ads once that's figured out.
Add the increasing usage of adblockers, fears of privacy regarding tracking
and ads plus a stupidly high amount of competition, and I can see ads not
being able to fund the sites they need to soon. Complete with various news
sites, social networks and platforms simply being unable to pay their bills
without finding a new payment model.
------
SFJulie
Actual university education. When public it transforms in debt (Europa) else
private in student loans (USA).
The debt of the countries are growing up.
The quality of research papers is a measure of quality of the teaching that is
decreasing, since both reproducibility and relevance diminishes (Signal =
ln(relevant / noise)).
The over qualification has not resulted in improvement of lower paid works or
the raise of wages and it has put kids in situation of disarray whereas they
would have survived otherwise hence the word "pro-net-arians". This generation
that cannot save money is a generation barred from entrepreneurship, favouring
conservative business models.
We are also seeing the first wave of homeless educated and competent coders.
Education is also failing at protecting the educated one.
Education has also failed at achieving a fairer society and have resulted in
the opposite leading worldwide to a ghettoisation of poor (public) vs rich
(private that is often publicly funded).
[https://www.google.com/finance?cid=662984](https://www.google.com/finance?cid=662984)
The danger of education is that it is essentially present in public debts that
by nature is hard to bankrupt; thus countries (like Europe) may bankrupt as a
result of this bubble. Remember that right now debt are obligations that are
the safest investment ... if obligations disappear, the market will be
explosively volatile.
------
dontJudge
College bubble will pop. Prices have been sustained longer than normal due to
special laws for school debt. But even with the extra protection of wage
garnishments and no bankruptcy option, it cannot keep going up. People are
starting to get their money underground in a homeless lifestyle or leave the
country. It's going to burst and hard.
------
tbihl
The bond market. We're all doing some crazy things with our government
spending, at local and national levels, and it has to fall apart at some
point.
------
bsvalley
There won't be any big bubbles anytime soon. Only small bubbles. If silicon
valley falls apart tomorrow for example, it would be considered a small bubble
since it would be very contained (only VC money). In 2000 the entire world was
injecting money in Silicon Valley. It was a complete different setup...
So talking about the next big bubble in 2017 does not make sense.
~~~
segmondy
Do you know where some VC's money comes from? Wall street invests in VCs using
pension funds, 401k money. So if SV falls apart, the effect will be more than
outside SV. Follow the money.
~~~
bsvalley
You need to understand the difference between "VC" money and the economy. The
first one is about extra cash that can be invested, the economy is about
people's money. If a bank loses it's money invested in tech, it won't go
bankrupt because the bank doesn't invest its capital into one single thing.
It's more complex than you think.
------
drsilaswiggin
The Euro will collapse
------
tmaly
I am placing my bet on either the student loans, state pension systems, or the
auto loans.
------
spoonie
The carbon bubble in the form of the market cap of carbon-extraction
industries. Though it is possible there are non-burning uses for petroleum
that will sustain the industry in the medium-term future.
------
zhte415
There has been a recession +/\- 2 years from the end of every decade for the
past 170 years.
Boom and bust. Past pains fade and we get over-confident about our ability to
act prudently.
------
mmargerum
The last one for a while. The money bubble.
------
miguelrochefort
> Hundreds and thousands are leaving the jobs and switching to contracting,
> driving for Uber/Lyft and/or taking similar jobs.
Which is a very good thing...
------
auternach
The question isn't: "What is the next bubble?" The question is: "Which of the
existing bubbles will collapse first and cause the rest of them to implode?"
Furthermore, the even bigger question is: "Is there creeping contagion forming
behind the scenes in derivatives and shadow banking similar to 2007, out of
sight of governments and regulators yet again?"
The central banks of the world have gone on a ridiculous 8 year binge to prop
up global growth, this binge will have consequences. Probably for Donald
Trump, who may buy another two years of bubble activity with his planned
economic actions.
Most people are used to the 1999 bubble and the 2007 bubble. Those are just
the ones that got really out of control Over the last decade, numerous smaller
bubbles have come and gone, mostly deflated by government (foreign or
otherwise) intervention and we are generally none the wiser. China has had
bubbles in their real estate and stock market come and go (or be suppressed,
for now) several times in the last couple years.
If you have seen what China is willing to do to their skies in terms of
pollution, imagine what they are willing to do behind closed doors in their
financial and real estate sectors. One can only imagine the toxic, over-
leveraged stew that is likely lurking behind the scenes. People have been
expecting China to implode for years, it hasn't happened.
In the United States there are multiple bubbles now. Students loans are
clearly in a bubble. It was announced this week that the government admitted
to falsifying data (they call it a "technical glitch," It is not a glitch, it
was likely deliberate) around what % of sub-prime students were not repaying
their debts.
The private tech stock bubble of worthless, unprofitable Silicon Valley
unicorns who can never go public is alarming but seems contained for now and
not of a large enough size to tank the stock market.
Sub-Prime Automotive is also a bubble, but so far the numbers are far lower
than anything near what was experienced in 2007.
Real estate in the United States in some segments, notably high-end real
estate in Miami and Manhattan were both in bubbles as well and seem to have
deflated. There was also a significant housing bubble in Vancouver which seems
to be deflating due to government action.
So there are numerous bubbles that we know about. But this isn't the real
problem. The real problem is that credit, derivatives and shadow banking going
on behind the scenes. While many regulations have been passed to ensure that
the United States banking sector is more "solid," the financiers of the world
always find a way to introduce more leverage.
My conclusion after digging into the various bubbles and their sizes is as
follows:
Sub-Prime Automotive is a bubble but the size of it isn't so bad. The biggest
problem is repercussions of such a bubble collapsing and becoming contagious.
Real Estate seems ok, nowhere near what happened in 2007 in terms of scale and
corruption.
Student loans are a rather large bubble. Still nowhere near the size of the
sub-prime mortgage nightmare.
Tech bubble, shouldn't be a big problem if it implodes by itself in the United
States
China: I can't even speculate. Everyone has been screaming wolf about China
for years and nothing has collapsed yet. China is rated #1 by the Economist as
a risk of collapse which would take down the global economy.
I am going with: China or EuroZone banking melt-down that spreads and pops all
the United States bubbles.
------
hnhnic
Mary Jane.
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Ask HN: What kind of bussines is 'antifragile' during these times? - walclick
======
tlb
An antifragile business should be antifragile period, not just in certain
times. N.N. Taleb would surely give you a vigorous public thrashing for mis-
applying his term :-).
Most online services will grow while people are stuck at home. Entertainment
will grow somewhat, but practical and educational services will grow even
more.
As well as a huge immediate demand for masks & sanitizer, the public will
probably demand an substantial stockpile of such supplies for the future. So
if you build a mask factory, you don't have to worry that demand will fall off
a cliff in a few months.
------
satya71
Playset makers probably. I'm considering buying one to keep my kid engaged.
They can't share with the neighbors.
------
mdorazio
Utilities, staple goods, healthcare. People still need to cover the basics
even if they're not going to work.
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Tesla and other EVs will be overtaken by hydrogen cars by 2030 - Corrado
https://www.teslarati.com/tesla-evs-will-be-killed-by-hydrogen-cars-continental-executive/
======
jppope
I had to double check when this article was released... to my surprise it was
written in 2019.
I assumed it was from the early 2010s back when Toyota and Honda were pushing
the fuel cell tech... Mainly so they could work with the existing energy
(petroleum) industry to retrofit gas stations.
The good news is that it was all vaporware anyway. I think Honda's clarity was
going for $350K or something... who knows though maybe people will prefer
$350K to using a supercharger on trips ¯\\_(ツ)_/¯
------
wglb
Unlikely. Hydrogen in this use is a pollution amplifier. Additionally it is
very dangerous to store and transport. A hydrogen fire has no color. Hydrogen
make metal brittle and likely to fracture.
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Ask HN: riak/luwak vs openstack swift for private S3 clone? - shedam
Hello,
what is the best choice for a private cloud storage between openstack's swift and a riak/luwak solution?
The purpose of the storage is long term archiving of files (1MB - 500MB), what would you choose and why?
======
rzezeski
I know nothing about Switft so I'll keep my comments strictly related to
Luwak.
Luwak preforms really well as a large object store...up to a point. I've
personally seen latencies of < 4s when writing/reading a 700+MB CSV across 3
physical nodes (keep in mind, in the case of write, that doesn't mean all the
data was strongly consistent yet...it's all async). Luwak has a really cool
feature that also acts as a double edged sword -- it's a persistent data
structure [1]. When you insert data it's chunked into blocks which are then
keyed by their hash, i.e. a Merkle Tree [2]. If 2 (or more) blocks of data are
the same only one instance will ever be created which acts as a general form
of compression. The flip side of this is that you can't just willy nilly
delete a file. You must perform garbage collection (via reference counting).
Currently this is not implemented in the main line but I have a branch with a
prototype implementation that uses Map-Reduce under the covers [3]. It scaled
for me up to about 20+ GB of data and then I started hitting timeouts. I had
plans to take this further but went a different direction for my purposes
(which wouldn't relate to your problem at all so I'm not going to bother
stating them).
[1]: <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Persistent_data_structure>
[2]: <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hash_tree>
[3]: <https://github.com/rzezeski/luwak/tree/delete2-1.0>
------
jarnold
(I'm going to have some bias here as I've done Swift deployments as well.)
One of the advantages of using something like Swift for long-term storage is
it's simplicity of how data is stored on disk. Data isn't chunked up and
distributed throughout a cluster. Each replica is whole and on disk. And, as
notmyname, mentions there are auditors that continuously run to check for
bitrot and to ensure replicas are in place. The data is extremely durable in a
swift cluster if you deploy and configure everything right.
I've done most of my price modeling for petabyte-scale deployments, but it
actually has good scaling-down properties as well. If you're concerned about
power, 2.5" drives may be an option. Although I would avoid 'green' drives as
Swift tends to keep the drives quite active (replica and integrity checks) and
you won't see much benefit.
------
notmyname
I'm going to lean towards swift, but then again, I'm a core dev for swift and
I haven't played with riak/luwak.
Swift is ideal for storing static content (backups, web resources, documents).
It's designed to be very scalable (both with concurrency and with total
storage space). And it's designed to work with commodity hardware (read:
cheap), so it handles failures well (ensuring that data is replicated and safe
from bit rot). Also, swift has basic S3 compatibility support.
Please let me know if you have other, more specific questions, and I'll try to
answer to the best I can.
~~~
shedam
thank you very much for your answer. I have several question : can we mix node
with different storage capacities (for example when we add new node later)? Is
this kind of storage really cheaper than Nas with RAID on "small" capacity
like 40 or 60TB total space? Ok hardware is cheaper, but what about other cost
like power consumption or cooling?
~~~
notmyname
Power consumption and cooling will, of course, be very dependent on your
chosen hardware and hosting (DC).
Yes, swift can handle heterogenous drive sizes. For example, you can start
with 2T drives and start adding 3T drives when they become more cost
effective. You initial 40-60TB is well within reason for a swift cluster. I
know of several running clusters at much larger scale than that (PBs of data,
billions of objects).
Cost consideration are also highly dependent on your particular hardware
choice. We recommend that you optimize your hardware for price per GB rather
than for IOps or RAM or CPU. As you can imagine, there are nuances to all of
this, too.
In case you haven't seen it yet, all the auto-generated docs for swift are at
<http://swift.openstack.org> and much help can be found in #openstack on
freenode IRC.
I'd recommend that you first look at the swift all-in-one docs
(<http://swift.openstack.org/development_saio.html>) for running an entire
cluster in a single VM. It should give you a good feel of the different parts
of the system.
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Ask HN: Apple webserver hardware - mechanician
I am trying to decide what type of hardware to buy to use as a personal webserver. I am an Apple guy, so my initial thought was to go with a Mac mini. Is there value in going with a laptop instead? Yes it is more expensive, but it also seems like a more compartmentalized solution as well. Regarding the mini, is it worth it to spend an extra $400 for the server version that comes with OS X Server?
======
jrwoodruff
I don't have the mini, but I'm running os x 1.4 server on an old G4 xserve.
Coming from a graphic design/mac background, the initial server setup was dead
simple. The workgroup and server admin tools are excellent and allow you to
administer every function of the server remotely. It ships with Apache, tomcat
and jboss and mysql, etc. and provides nice interfaces to administer all
services. When I bought the xserve it was running server 10.2, I considered
updating it to a regular 10.4 or linux install, but found the tools and other
utilities (and stability) convenient enough to purchase a copy of 10.4 server.
Hope that helps.
All said, I love my mac server :)
------
towndrunk
I'm using a mini for a server in the home office. Basically, it's just a file
server but I do have Tomcat and MySQL on there as well. Like the other poster
said, it's dead simple to set up and work with.
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Ask HN: Bluetooth File Sharing App. Is the idea feasible? - anujkk
People carry their mobile phones with them 24x7. They may have various files such as music, pictures, videos that they don't mind sharing with even strangers. So I guess it would be nice if we provide them with a bluetooth file sharing app that allows them to control which files are private and which are public. Random people around you having same app can search for devices having public files and download it on their device.<p>Do you think this idea is practical and worthy to be implemented?
======
cincinnatus
Why not park the files in the cloud, but have discovery be local? Or have
discovery be GPS based so you find shared content from people in your vicinity
regardless of device capabilities. no actual device to device connectivity is
needed to achieve this.
Public dropbox sharing could be the storage part of the backend.
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
New financial reform makes it harder to become an angel investor - joss82
http://www.usatoday.com/money/smallbusiness/columnist/abrams/2010-05-07-financial-reform-and-small-business_N.htm
======
hga
" _We've had an explosion of entrepreneurial growth in this country over the
last 20 years, financed in large part by angel investors...._ "
But we can fix that.
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
My Apology Regarding Jeffrey Epstein - Anon84
https://www.media.mit.edu/posts/my-apology-regarding-jeffrey-epstein/
======
whowhatwhy
"I met Epstein in 2013 at a conference through a trusted business friend and,
in my fundraising efforts for MIT Media Lab, I invited him to the Lab and
visited several of his residences. I want you to know that in all of my
interactions with Epstein, I was never involved in, never heard him talk
about, and never saw any evidence of the horrific acts that he was accused of.
"
" On June 30, 2008, after Epstein pleaded guilty to a state charge (one of
two) of procuring for prostitution a girl below age 18 "
~~~
sithlord
Do you do a deep dive in the criminal history of every person you deal with?
No? didn't think so.
~~~
filmgirlcw
Come on. This wasn’t a hidden secret. I can believe not everyone who did
business with Epstein after he left prison was aware, but this wasn’t a
secret; it was widely reported (the truth is, many people just didn’t care)
why he went to jail. The circles he traveled in might have changed, but from
my own experiences on the periphery of the wealthy/connected, stuff like this
comes up.
You’ll note Ito never claims he wasn’t aware of the allegations or the guilty
plea, he simply says he didn’t ever see any evidence of that behavior.
Plenty of people would pause before accepting money from someone like Epstein
and plenty of people, as we’ve seen, did not.
Those that did aren’t responsible for any of Epstein’s crimes, but it’s more
than fair that they answer questions about why they took money from someone
like him — even if the answers are uncomfortable.
~~~
TAForObvReasons
This is probably not the best time to point to SV and the influence of Milner
and the Kremlin, but it's fascinating to read PG's comments in the 2011
discussion
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3143604](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3143604)
and how he seems to be comfortable with the Kremlin connection even though
others seemed to have known at the time.
~~~
atemerev
So? There are many other external investors in the US companies, most
importantly from China and Saudi Arabia. This is not illegal. And US-Russia
relationships were a lot different in 2011.
~~~
TAForObvReasons
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3143897](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3143897)
and PG's reply captures the problem well:
> Basically, Milner is a crook, and if there was any justice in the world he
> and Usmanov would be in jail for what they have done. But there isn't, and
> there are people in the Valley who are willing to overlook ethics if you
> have enough money. The fact that Milner is now working with YC is a sad
> testament to that fact.
PG: VCs are not so high minded that they're offended by who his LPs are,
believe me.
> Actually, it would seem to be just as simple as he implies. VCs in the
> valley care only about money and don't give a hoot about morality. You
> haven't debated the fact that Milner is linked to the looting of state
> resources; you've simply said that anyone else would also take his money if
> they could.
PG: even if Yuri's money was tainted in some way, it was being used as a
counterweight to another bad thing.
This is the ultimate problem and it has nothing to do with US-Russia relations
but rather with dealing with known seedy characters
------
rhombocombus
This seems like an appropriate response. I was approached by a woman who
wanted to merge her lab with mine a number of years ago, I didn't go through
with the deal for a number of reasons, but many years later it was revealed
that this woman was a neo-nazi. I had no inkling in my business dealings with
her that this was who she was, but it would have made zero difference if I had
merged my business with hers, as I would have been in business with a nazi.
Folks make mistakes. Owning those, taking accountability for your mistakes and
moving forward with contrition is the only way to make those kinds of mistakes
okay.
~~~
madrox
I was listening to a recent podcast interview of Ricky Gervais on this topic,
where he observed “it’s not enough to apologize anymore and move on. People
want blood, people want you ruined, because it’s a point-scoring competition
now.” [1]
My only disagreement with Ricky is that I'm not sure it was ever enough, but
the people for whom it isn't enough now have a platform.
[1] [https://www.nationalreview.com/2019/08/ricky-gervais-
takes-o...](https://www.nationalreview.com/2019/08/ricky-gervais-takes-on-
verbal-terrorism-dont-apologize/) is a write-up of the podcast interview
~~~
watwut
Should it be enough to apologize and move on? I would say that such apology is
empty. There should be that part where people who were affected are made even
as much as possible, where we reflect on what was supposed to be done
differently and make changes for future.
There was really no one who voiced disagreement at the time? If no, why? If
yes, what did happened to their career and status in the organization? How
were they argued again, how did the fight at the time went? Were they
retaliated against at the time?
All these things matter and should matter, so that next time people voice
dissenting opinions in case like this and are listened to.
~~~
jaaron
The difference is between "wanting blood" and "restorative justice." In
former, vengeance is a motivating force, potentially with little regard to
making amends. Simply inflicting pain can be sufficient. In other, the goal is
to compensate, restore and reform. This may or may not require inflicting
great pain or ruining someone.
------
stickfigure
I find this tiresome. You don't need to apologize for acquaintances, or for
the hidden personal lives of people you have impersonal business transactions
with. Guilt is not spread by touch.
My guess is that you have shaken hands, at least once in your life, with
someone who (unbeknownst to you) is a truly horrible person. It's life.
~~~
JshWright
It wasn't exactly "hidden" though. Their interactions happened _after_ his
plea dead for underage prostitution.
~~~
news_to_me
It sounds like Ito probably missed that news, which I think is what folks have
a problem with — he should have done his research before accepting the money.
I think there is also a separate debate here about whether Ito should accept
or reject money from a donor who he knows is a sex offender.
Edit: seems like people are assuming he _did_ know about that past, which is
unclear to me.
~~~
JshWright
> seems like people are assuming he did know about that past, which is unclear
> to me.
According to Ethan Zuckerman, he "urged [Joi] not to meet with [Epstein]".
Presumably Epstein's past was the reason for that urging.
[http://www.ethanzuckerman.com/blog/2019/08/20/on-me-and-
the-...](http://www.ethanzuckerman.com/blog/2019/08/20/on-me-and-the-media-
lab/)
------
cdibona
Also, Ethan Zuckerman and his Center for Civic Media is going to exit the lab
as he can't in good conscience remain:
[http://www.ethanzuckerman.com/blog/2019/08/20/on-me-and-
the-...](http://www.ethanzuckerman.com/blog/2019/08/20/on-me-and-the-media-
lab/)
~~~
stochastic_monk
I think the information portrayed here is less favorable to Ito.
~~~
cryptonector
Quite. Though Zuckerman doesn't detail what was inappropriate about the Lab's
relationship with Epstein (besides "Epstein"), Zuckerman does say that they
tried to warn Ito about Epstein five years ago -- that should have been
sufficient to cause the Lab to separate from Epstein then.
~~~
stochastic_monk
> Joi told me that evening that the Media Lab’s ties to Epstein went much
> deeper, and included a business relationship between Joi and Epstein,
> investments in companies Joi’s VC fund was supporting, gifts and visits by
> Epstein to the Media Lab and _by Joi to Epstein’s properties_.
> As the scale of Joi’s involvement with Epstein became clear to me, I began
> to understand that I had to end my relationship with the MIT Media Lab.
Emphasis added
This doesn't go into enormous detail, but I wouldn't say he "doesn't detail
what was inappropriate".
~~~
cryptonector
I'd missed that! Visiting Epstein's properties, especially his island, makes
one radioactive.
------
thwythwy
The system has a turnkey solution to this sort of thing. Say I'm sorry. Then
reassure us in conclusory fashion you didn't do anything really bad (ignore
his prior conviction). Formulaic apology that uses phrases like "allowed him
to invest" and "funds were received with my permission" to distance from the
problem. "Equivalent" future-facing commitment to fund-raise. Return exactly
the amount of money that led to your personal benefit, don't mention any gains
on the money. Use the word "again" to reiterate empty message. Ok, everyone,
ready to move on?
~~~
yuy910616
So what should we do?
~~~
msghacq
He should step down from the boards of the Media Lab and The New York Times.
Far more information is provided in Ethan's resignation letter than in Ito's
"apology":
[http://www.ethanzuckerman.com/blog/2019/08/20/on-me-and-
the-...](http://www.ethanzuckerman.com/blog/2019/08/20/on-me-and-the-media-
lab/)
------
tareqak
I'm somewhat surprised that MIT just took money from someone based on a
notable fundraiser's nod to do so. My understanding would be that a some kind
of financial department would handle an application from the donee citing a
joint interest between them and the donor [0]. That department would then
investigate the donor for any red flags or question marks. This news is still
pretty fresh, so I think there will be an investigation as to how all of this
came to be and we will find out if there was any oversight process and if so,
whether or not that oversight process was short-circuited in any way.
I mean I probably had to go through more for each of my job interviews and any
corresponding background checks. Furthermore, MIT probably assesses potential
students more thoroughly than what happened in this account of the event.
[0]
[https://definitions.uslegal.com/d/donations/](https://definitions.uslegal.com/d/donations/)
> The person making the gift is called the donor and the person receiving the
> gift is called the donee.
~~~
whamlastxmas
It's easy to return money or apologize after the fact. Universities are going
to attempt to take any free money they can get and not worry about it until
there's a proven public outcry.
~~~
msghacq
It wasn't just the university though. Ito also allowed Epstein to coinvest in
his personal startup investments. He also visited his houses (which were
decorated somewhere between provocatively and illegally based on residence).
Ethan Zuckerman also directly confronted Ito and was ignored:
[https://medium.com/@EthanZ/on-me-and-the-media-
lab-715bfc707...](https://medium.com/@EthanZ/on-me-and-the-media-
lab-715bfc707f6f)
~~~
tareqak
To add, it would be less likely that we would be reading and commenting on
this story if a university like MIT was not involved here: Ito would just be
some venture capitalist that did not perform adequate due diligence.
------
mLuby
> _I vow to raise an amount equivalent to the donations the Media Lab received
> from Epstein and will direct those funds to non-profits that focus on
> supporting survivors of trafficking._
Raising money to combat human (child sex) trafficking is a worthy endeavor; go
for it.
> _I will also return the money that Epstein has invested in my investment
> funds._
Using well-earned money for evil is bad. Using ill-gotten money for good is
good. If you think MIT Media Lab's research is good, keep the money and use it
for good. Giving money (back) to a bad source just makes matters worse. At
best it's a vain attempt to wash your hands of the situation.
> _Regrettably, over the years, the Lab has received money through some of the
> foundations that he controlled. I knew about these gifts and these funds
> were received with my permission. I also allowed him to invest in several of
> my funds which invest in tech startup companies outside of MIT._
Was Epstein's money even ill-gotten? The man's deplorable personal crimes seem
orthogonal to his wealth, or at least the causality runs from wealth to crime,
not the other way around.
------
ccccppppp
This person is also a board member of New York Times [1].
[1] [https://www.nytco.com/board-of-directors/](https://www.nytco.com/board-
of-directors/)
------
pmdulaney
I don't understand an apology in which the person apologizing admits to no
wrongdoing. If you did nothing wrong, I would expect something along the lines
of "What has taken place is extremely unfortunate, but I did not and could not
have known that what I did would entangle MIT with a criminal."
------
soheil
Does this mean anyone who attended MIT and went to the Media Lab should also
apologize because they acquired their skills through a corrupt system and now
they're reaping their rewards in their careers?
------
news_to_me
I think I'm missing something with all this — hopefully someone can link me to
better resources, or help me out.
What exactly did Ito do wrong here? It sounds like he had no knowledge of
Epstein's misdeeds while they were associates.
~~~
msghacq
Epstein's conviction for raping a minor was public information at the point
that Joi Ito raised money from, coinvested with and visited his homes. Far
more information is included in Ethan's MIT resignation post:
He should step down from the boards of the Media Lab and The New York Times.
Far more information is provided in Ethan's resignation letter than in Ito's
"apology":
[http://www.ethanzuckerman.com/blog/2019/08/20/on-me-and-
the-...](http://www.ethanzuckerman.com/blog/2019/08/20/on-me-and-the-media-
lab/)
There's no way Ito didn't know about this, it would come up with a simple
Google search. Investors do diligence.
~~~
news_to_me
Yep, that makes sense. I wish more of that info was in the apology — Ito makes
it sound like he was just unaware.
------
strangeloops85
Some important context is in this other post and thread:
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20757879](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20757879)
~~~
msghacq
Indeed, people should read Ethan's post as it contains _much_ more content.
I'm not even sure why Ito's apology is on HN right now. I submitted this exact
same link days ago:
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20741961](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20741961)
Shouldn't post this be a dupe?
------
throwaw-zxcvbn
FWIW, I am pretty sure that the rich cavorting with pretty young women (and
some of it in an exploitative manner, and some of them under 18, and most of
it for compensation) is going on in a lot of places, and certainly in many
parts of the Middle East, Asia, Africa.
In fact, it's probably safe to assume that anyone accepting investments from
the Middle East or Asia has very likely dealt with or taken money from people
engaging in the same or worse conduct, only that it hasn't been prosecuted
there.
If this here is the standard by which things ought to be measured and decided
now, then I would expect a lot of money be returned and/or given to NGOs and
charities.
But then, I suspect this is mostly moral posturing and virtue signalling, so
nothing substantial will happen.
~~~
calcifer
It's funny how this comment in article about an American child sex trafficker
that abused American children [1] somehow makes it about unprosecuted rich
people in everywhere but the USA.
> I suspect this is mostly moral posturing and virtue signalling
Indeed, though I refer to a different "this".
[1]
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jeffrey_Epstein#Civil_cases](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jeffrey_Epstein#Civil_cases)
~~~
throwaw-zxcvbn
If the policy is "don't accept money from American child sex traffickers that
abuse American children", then fine, return the Epstein money and ask for the
head of everyone that took money from him.
If the policy is "don't accept money from anyone abusing children (or at any
rate people under 18)", then I suggest that a lot more due diligence is
required.
~~~
calcifer
But that's just whataboutism. The article and the whole topic is about _this_
particular American child abuser and his American victims.
------
MrZongle2
If the author never had reason to suspect Epstein of anything unsavory.... why
is the apology required?
I can understand the need to make a statement, but seems to me that there was
no lapse in judgement exercised at the time, but rather an unfortunate
crossing-of-paths in retrospect.
~~~
FillardMillmore
The only reason he wouldn't have had anything unsavory to suspect of Epstein
would be that he lived under a rock. Epstein's "unsavory" predilections were
known for about five years (he was convicted in 2008) at the time that Ito
started associating with him.
------
joshypants
They probably take in money from so many questionable sources at MIT (and
similar institutions) that Epstein's prior conviction didn't raise any red
flags. Business as usual.
------
michele_f
"he was accused of" ... a truly peculiar choice of words for a person who
confessed, was sentenced, and in jail.
------
ryacko
>I am deeply sorry to the survivors,
This is very strange phrasing. I would certainly say victims.
Perhaps English isn’t his native tongue, but I doubt he wrote this himself or
alone. It seems to both eschew responsibility and subtly remind everyone to be
grateful it wasn’t worse.
------
ElCapitanMarkla
I don't understand the logic in returning the money? Why raise an equal amount
of money for charity while returning the original contribution? Wouldn't it be
better to also donate that original contribution to these charities?
------
univalent
And he's an Ethics professor? I am still fuming at having to pay for a
(required) Ethics class at business school. What a load of crock that was!
Come, learn how to be ethical in one credit spread over 4 Sunday seminars.
------
mootzville
What's the scariest thing about monsters?
They look like you and me.
------
ozzmotik
all i can think reading this is, "well the capitalist in me says that money is
money, it doesn't really matter where it comes from, all that matters is where
it goes to and what good it can do". i understand wanting to disavow oneself
of unsavory characters, that's just fairly common political and business
acumen. but, just accepting money from someone doesn't make you complicit in
their behaviors, nor does it mean you condone anything they have done. it
literally just means an transfer of finances occurred between two parties
(which may itself have other ulterior motives, but ultimately that has nothing
to do with how the money is distributed).
i honestly think in situations like this, when you get money from an awful
person, the only place that that money should go is somewhere where it can do
good in the world to offset the negative influence of the individual that
provided it. just sending it back is basically saying "i worry more about
maintaining my image than potentially helping people here and now when I can".
sure, the whole "im going to work to match all the donations" thing is a good
way to hedge your bets, but really, DRY should be a virtue in more than just
coding. reduplication of effort is a bad code smell, and I'm sure that
inefficiency extends to other domains in some analogous manner as well
------
erikpukinskis
Could someone explain why this is flagged? Maybe someone from HN? Is this
topic verboten?
------
setgree
Dude, just resign
------
ropiwqefjnpoa
IDK, people seem to have forgotten the idiom, "Talk is cheap"
------
onevu
You have to apologise for having been friends with and having received money
from someone you didn't know was a pederast?
Excusatio non petita, accusatio manifesta.
~~~
whowhatwhy
Didn't know? Epstein was convicted 5 years before they met.
~~~
onevu
So you look up everybody who you meet irl? I mean the way I'm reading this
blog post is that the author had no idea. Personally I don't believe it,
that's why I wouldn't accept the apology if I cared about this
~~~
okmokmz
>So you look up everybody who you meet irl?
No, but if I'm trying to get someone to give me money for a project, invite
them to my lab, and visit "several of their residences" I would definitely
look them up
------
JustSomeNobody
> That said, I take full responsibility for my error in judgment. I am deeply
> sorry to the survivors, to the Media Lab, and to the MIT community for
> bringing such a person into our network.
If you don't know that a person is bad, then you just don't know. People
didn't know Bundy was a serial killer, and we shouldn't fault them for not
knowing. You don't know what you don't know. That's not a fault. That's not
something you have to apologize for.
~~~
calvinmorrison
He pled guilty in 2008 for hiring child prostitutes. Joi mentions they met in
2013. If you don't do due dilligence, or even a cursory Google search, I
believe you might bear some moral culpability in being willingly associated
with a pedophile.
Frankly, nobody seems to have given lark about this guy until the new broke
again this time. I'm not sure if it was his connections with many obviously
famous people and the time peroid this took place, but before the MeToo
movement it seems like many famous people had things like this swept under the
rug or people looked the other way. I'm sure it's still happening, but
hopefully more light will be shed on bad people in positions of wealth and
power.
~~~
aflag
After he paid for his crime, doesn't he deserve a second chance?
~~~
jessaustin
This is part of the problem; at that time Epstein hadn't "paid for" his crimes
in any meaningful sense.
~~~
ndarwincorn
Rehabilitation/reintegration of sex offenders after they're released from
prison is a real discussion that we'll need to have as a society sooner than
later, but I think we should start with the folks on probation/parole listing
a walmart parking lot as their residential address because they can't find
housing, not a billionaire that gets a slap on the wrist.
------
john_brown_body
Either Ito failed to do even a minimal amount of due diligence on a person he
accepted millions of dollars from, or he did and then didn't care. Either way,
it's a catastrophic failure of judgment.
He ought to resign immediately. This is CYA apology. He's taking
responsibility in words only. It's disgraceful.
Resign.
------
bananabiscuit
Doing this seems completely unnecessary to me. Did Joi really make a mistake
that they could have realistically avoided?
To me, putting out this apology vaguely comes off as something like “virtue
signaling” or “fishing for sympathy”. I’m not saying it actually is either of
those things, I just don’t know the exact words to describe how I feel about
it.
Somebody please let me know if I am wrong and an apology is in fact
appropriate from this person.
~~~
rodgerd
> Did Joi really make a mistake that they could have realistically avoided?
Yeah, how could he have known a guy convicted 5 years before they met was a
high-profile abuser. I guess he could have asked lab founder, Minsky, about
what services he received from Epstein.
~~~
bananabiscuit
Didn’t notice that Jeffery was already convicted at that point.
If we don’t want to believe in rehabilitation (not that it did Jeffery any
good), then in that case, a resignation seems more appropriate than a few
words for an apology.
~~~
devinjflick
I think your point about rehabilitation and "paying one's debt to society" is
very valid. Unfortunately in Epstein's case the punishment hardly fit the
crime, ultimately he served 13 out of an 18 month sentence. "after 3 1⁄2
months allowed to leave the jail on "work release" for up to 12 hours a day, 6
days a week. This contravened the sheriff's own policies requiring a maximum
remaining sentence of 10 months and making sex offenders ineligible for the
privilege. He was allowed to come and go outside of specified release
hours"[0]
Ito visited Epstein several times at Epstein's residences, which all
apparently are plastered with enough "art" to make someone question if he
really was a "reformed" sex offender. It should be perfectly clear to everyone
that Ito understood two things: Epstein wasn't rehabilitated and Ito could
claim enough plausible deniability if his dirty laundry ever got aired. His
apology would be more meaningful if he actually donated to charities out of
his own pocket rather than promising to externally raise funds...
Check out the his Wikipedia entry on how lax that sentence was.
0:
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jeffrey_Epstein#Conviction_and...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jeffrey_Epstein#Conviction_and_sentencing_\(2008%E2%80%932011\))
~~~
simplicio
Even with Epstein's light sentence, I'd be open to Ito saying he believed
Epstein had served his time and been rehabilitated.
But Ito doesn't even try to use that defense in his apology, because it would
make explicit that he knowingly took money from a sex-offender. So instead he
doesn't mention Epstein's conviction at all, uses some weasel language to make
it sound like he was unaware of it without explicitly saying so, and tries to
make it sound like he (Ito) was just a victim of circumstances.
It's a pretty impressive non-apology apology, since he makes a big show of
apologizing for something, but not the actual thing most people find troubling
about his behavior.
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Damien Katz: CouchDB switching from Erlang to Java - iamelgringo
http://damienkatz.net/2008/04/couchdb_language_change.html
======
brlewis
Best part:
_Developers in the US who've worked on a successful Erlang project probably
number less than 10. But the number of developers who've worked on a
successful Java project are easily 100X that amount. With a much wider talent
pool to work from the quality of the contributions should increase
dramatically._
~~~
ALee
PG wrote that, "if a company chooses to write its software in a comparatively
esoteric language, they'll be able to hire better programmers, because they'll
attract only those who cared enough to learn it."
Can someone help explain this paradox? Is it just that there aren't that many
great programmers out there, so Damien was forced to java or is he just taking
the wrong route?
~~~
brlewis
Yesterday was April Fools day. There is no actual switch to Java. The humor
here is the obfuscated statement that fewer than 1000 developers in the U.S.
have been involved in a successful Java project. Damien and PG are on the same
page.
~~~
ALee
damn, caught in the back thread! Thanks (sheepishly)
------
michaelneale
Amusing but still waiting something like a 1.0 couch db release. Its a DB, not
a web server, kind of has to be uber stable.
------
Readmore
I allllmost fell for that one ;) The lego bricks line saved it for me.
------
oz
Damn! I keep getting caught...
------
anupamkapoor
af08
------
acangiano
Very amusing. :)
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Show HN: Looma – swipe to make personalized meal plans - somewhat_stoic
https://livelooma.com
======
somewhat_stoic
Hi HN,
I'm Kyle, co-founder of Looma
([https://livelooma.com](https://livelooma.com)), a swipeable meal planning
app coming soon to iPhone. We want to spark inspiration by finding intriguing
new recipes, reduce the hustle and bustle that comes with cooking and
shopping, and help people make healthier decisions with automatic nutrition
tracking.
Looma helps you stay nourished by keeping your goals in mind, personalizing to
your taste, and customizing the nutrition specifics to you. With just a swipe,
you can schedule the recipes you please. The app works with you by tracking
your nutrition automatically, providing ready-made shopping lists, and showing
recipe directions to prepare a limitless variety of healthy meals aligned to
your lifestyle and goals. It's like recipe pinning and calorie counting in one
place.
Our biggest focus is the usability of our app and the end-to-end user
experience. Please post your feedback and visit
[https://livelooma.com](https://livelooma.com) if you're interested in joining
the pre-release on Indiegogo coming up this January.
Regards, Kyle
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Zawodny: Database Abstraction Layers Must Die (at least for PHP) - Shakescode
http://jeremy.zawodny.com/blog/archives/002194.html
======
Davertron
I think this is just ridiculous. I'm not necessarily gung-ho about using
database abstraction layers myself, but the author only argues against it on
the basis of one of the benefits of using an abstraction layer. On top of
that, he then admits that he uses a database abstraction layer himself, albeit
a seemingly thin one.
~~~
smokinn
Yeah, I couldn't understand that either.
He goes on saying "database abstraction layers" are bad but then, at the end
says he uses a "library" that abstracts away database issues such as
persistent connections, replication awareness and load balancing. How is that
not a database abstraction layer?
~~~
nimbix
The way I understand it the phrase "abstraction layer" is usually used to
refer to the layer between your SQL and the database and is supposed to allow
you to run the same SQL using multiple database engines (at least in theory).
While the author's DIY library abstracts the database, I would say its main
purpose is isolation, not abstraction. This makes it easier to port apps to
new DB engines because it's not that hard to replace an instance of a class
with mysql specific code with an instance of a class containing postgres
specific code.
~~~
smokinn
I suppose. But abstraction layers give you so much more than that. A good
counter-example for why you should use one is simply prepared queries. Doing
stuff like:
mysql_query("SELECT something FROM table WHERE that='" .
mysql_real_escape($var) . "'"); is just terribly ugly and annoying, especially
if the query gets complex.
I've never put any faith in the whole database portability claim for exactly
the reason he points out. Any even moderately complex app is going to leverage
database-specific performance enhancements that can't be abstracted away.
~~~
Davertron
"Any even moderately complex app is going to leverage database-specific
performance enhancements that can't be abstracted away."
I'm not sure I totally agree with you here; I run what I would consider to be
a "moderately complex" app (basically an e-commerce site) using PHP and MySQL
with no data abstraction layer (if I had my choice, I WOULD use one...). We
don't leverage any database-specific performance enhancements directly via our
queries (we do use indexes and the like on particular tables to help speed up
certain queries though), because MySQL is generally better at it than I would
be. Granted, I'm no DBA, and I can see how some people out there really CAN
tweak their own queries to be more efficient than the database system
optimization might be. But in general, in the ideal situation, I'd much rather
have clean, portable code, and once in awhile have to avoid the abstraction
layer (any good database abstraction layer will allow you to write your own
SQL if you wish, and if it doesn't, there's nothing stopping you from not
using the abstraction layer for that particular query) then to not use the
abstraction layer at all.
I guess my point is, in general, you don't start out optimizing; you optimize
where you need to optimize when you need to, and the benefits of using an
abstraction layer for 90% of the stuff I would do far outweigh any possible
downsides.
------
emilis_info
Based on my experience, I do not agree with the author.
DB Abstraction layer has helped me reuse the same libraries on different DB
engines more than once.
I had one occurance when I needed to install my new webapp in a hurry (for
demonstration purposes) and couldn't arrange for a database with the server
administrator fast. Well... I just changed "mysql" to "sqlite" in my DB
config, fixed a few problems with SQL CREATE statements and it worked.
On a side note I also agree with the "PHP is the best templating languge"
idea. I just use a template class for it that has a similar API to Smarty.
So yes, I use abstraction layers in both cases. I guess that is more
convenient because I do not work on any one web application for too long and I
need to carry my libraries and knowledge painlessly from place to place. If I
had only one application to build and support at one location... who knows,
maybe I would even write php extensions for it in C.
~~~
profquail
I agree with you 100%. Smarty (or similar templating engines) can make it much
faster to get a website up and running; as for the speed complaint, Smarty
compiles it's templates to PHP the first time you run them, so there's really
not much difference after that.
I'm also kind of tired of programmers who complain and complain about others
taking the easy way out, people don't program like they used to, etc.; the
whole reason for having abstractions is to take some of the 'real' programming
out of the equation and let you focus on the actual task you want to
accomplish. It may not be the most efficient method of programming, but there
are only so many hours in a day...
------
nimbix
I totally agree. DB abstraction libraries buy you very little in terms of
database portability. I use them in my projects, but only because their
object-oriented APIs are nicer to work with than plain pgsql_ _/mysql__ /etc
functions.
I worked on at least 3 large projects where we went through a lot of trouble
to make them work on multiple databases. All that effort was wasted as all of
them ended up running on Postgres only. Unless you're absolutely sure that
you're going to need support for multiple databases, my suggestion is that you
use the technique from the end of the article: put all of your DB access code
in separate classes so you can easily swap them with different ones should the
need arise. Until then, save yourself some trouble and make your product work
really well with one database engine.
------
Zak
_So why do folks [make templating systems like Smarty]? Because PHP is also a
programming language and they feel the need to "dumb it down" or insulate
themselves (or others) from the "complexity" of PHP._
I don't think that's it, or if it is, it's not a very good reason. Using a
templating system that's less than a full programming language keeps you from
putting too much logic in your templates. Most of us prefer that logic and
presentation be separated. PHP's HTML embedding tempts people to do the Wrong
Thing in that regard.
~~~
rjurney
But along this line - PHP started as a template language... and it should have
remained a template language.
------
abyssknight
This is bull. I've used straight mysql_* calls, PEAR::MDB2, as well as a
custom rolled DB abstraction class before. Personally, I prefered MDB2 because
of the portability and ability to do prepared statements (which wasn't
available in our version of MySQL and PHP at the time). Changing the few bits
of SQL that need changed is far easier than retooling an entire application
(i.e. code changes). The other added value is that the developers don't have
to relearn the DB functions.
------
bcl
Database portability isn't the only reason to use a DB abstraction layer. They
provide a way to better integrate the data from the DB with your language's
data types and development model. Not to mention making it easier to plug in
caching like memcached.
If you write your app using an abstraction layer (or even a simple class
wrapper), adding caching is almost trivial. If you are using the low level DB
function calls it becomes a large task to cache any of your requests.
~~~
prodigal_erik
Adding caching should be a large task, because cache coherence is hard. If you
do it the trivial way you are almost certainly not figuring out which cache
entries need to be invalidated during an update, and getting wrong answers.
------
teilo
I don't know much about PHP abstration layers, but Django's ORM makes an app
pretty damn portable from DB to DB. I know, without a doubt, that I could roll
out my CMS/blog/documentDB in a heart beat to MySQL, Postgres, Oracle, and
SQLite with nothing but a change to the settings file. I have to think that
Django is by no means unique in this regard, and that PHP has the equivalent.
~~~
jasonkester
Django pulls this off by being specifically designed to do it. There's a ton
of code back there running for every query you execute, adding a tiny bit of
overhead to everything you do, just on the off chance that maybe one day you
might want to migrate to another DB.
That's certainly one way to go, and it makes sense if your product is a
Framework intended to be used by thousands of developers on thousands of
projects, many of which will require that kind of portability. If, however,
your product is a product, then maybe it's not so important.
~~~
teilo
For DB intensive apps querying a wide distribution of changing data, say, an
accounting or project management system, you are absolutely right. An heavily-
abstracted ORM is the wrong tool for the task.
But how many web apps require this? If caching can easily prevent the bulk of
your database hits, then an ORM like Django is a great tool for the job, saves
a large amount of work, and scales beautifully. This is especially important
for the typically short dev cycle that Django targets.
------
elv
He starts saying DB abstraction layers are useless and he seem to conclude
saying every abstraction and every library not written by you is pointless
this seem to me like "I'm paranoid about unknown code but I can't accept the
truth SO I reinvent the wheel over and over again putting my code in my
library and I say everyone this is cool cause it's faster and performance and
bla bla blah"
the truth: abstraction -> helps think about the logic that matters in your
program library -> helps not to reinvent the wheel and use code tested by
everyone
his logic: abstraction -> ZOMG unknown stuff HEEELP, let's think about every
algorithm in my program from scratch and let's justify this to me by saying
I'm saving 3-4 intermediate function calls
------
IsaacL
2004! This article is 5 years old, and it's a reply to an article written in
2002!
------
technomancy
As long as they take the rest of PHP with them when they die, I'm all for it.
------
rjurney
Yeah, put the SQL in the view - where it belongs. Long live Spaghetti PHP!
------
edw519
It's tough to take anyone seriously who calls something he disagrees with
"bullshit".
Database abstraction, like many other things, serves a purpose under the right
conditions (when flexibility and portability are needed to serve customers).
Get over it.
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
AirBnb is a rental economy, not a sharing economy - atmosx
http://www.thepressproject.net/article/68073/AirBnb-is-a-rental-economy-not-a-sharing-economy
======
beyondcompute
And quite expensive for that sake. As people seemingly charge travelers much
more than what locals are paying for renting the same level apartments.
~~~
Gys
Exactly the same as hotels ? Te me it seems somehow a standard hotel room
anywhere in the world costs about USD 150-200 per night. Odd, because the
costs of living varies a lot more. So it might be more related to what
visitors are willing pay ?
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
IPhone is flush down the toilet... then (awesomely) retrieved - christangrant
https://plus.google.com/110703832132860599877/posts/HwkciwGK5Bt
======
tantrumSeeker
Nice try on trying to convince us that this REALLY happened, the Iphone was
clearly TOO LARGE to fit into a small toilet opening...points for creativity
though...
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
See? Nobody Buys on Facebook. Nobody Cares - fezzl
http://blog.zuupy.com/see-nobody-buys-on-facebook-nobody-cares
======
grovulent
For every person who wants to believe that facebook is the biggest thing since
word-of-mouth, there is someone equally hoping the whole thing collapses in on
itself.
Each party wants their outcome so passionately it's hard to believe that
anyone can look at the data with a neutral frame of reference.
~~~
jerrya
Okay, so how do you and I make money on both these types?
~~~
jerrya
I'm so new here. Why would someone downvote my comment? Noting there are two
types of people with different needs and predictable responses and asking how
to make money... Sounds very appropriate for a hacker forum.
And the basis of arbitrage.
------
veyron
The fundamental problem with social networking as it currently stands is that
the advertisements are a distraction rather than being synergistic with the
sites workflows. I used to use facebook to communicate with second-tier
acquaintances (before realizing why I didn't really communicate with them in
the first place)
If I want to buy something I have a pretty good idea of what I want (hard to
draw thenwindow shoppers to an online store). That being said I will go and
search ( google, not a social network )
~~~
phamilton
I think an interesting case to look at was the Best Buy vs. Circuit City
competition. After going head to head on prices for so long, Best Buy decided
to raise their prices and better train their staff and service. If people know
what they want, they can find it on Amazon, or New Egg, or somewhere online
for cheaper than Best Buy can offer, often because of the sales tax exemption
in buying from out of state vendors. What Best Buy discovered is that people
come into Best Buy when they don't know what they want. When they need to ask
a few questions and get some recommendations. Then they figure, "I might as
well buy it while I'm here" and pay a little premium for it.
------
kariatx
I have heard from a friend in the hotel business that the majority of the
leads they get from Facebook are from Facebook messages (meaning friends
telling one another about the hotel). The other efforts they've made with
advertising and marketing have pretty much fallen flat.
------
rokhayakebe
There maybe a huge informal sector within Facebook. My older sister tells me
she goes to Facebook to see pictures of merchandise from her friends before
going to their house to buy stuff.
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
A Failure of Understanding - A response to "The Start-Ups We Don't Need" - blasdel
http://enfranchisedmind.com/blog/posts/failure-of-understanding/
======
voidmain
The entire argument of this article is the broken window fallacy.
The original article is not that great either, but I'm sure it's true that
government programs intended to encourage small business have a net negative
effect. The author's proposed alternative policies would probably have a net
negative effect, too. The best thing the government could do to help
innovation would be to interfere less with the economy.
------
ivanstojic
I do disagree with one thing – that somehow larger companies are more
efficient than smaller companies. I’ve spent three years working in Siemens,
and was loaned to several other large companies in telecoms and aviation
business. The amount of HR overhead in those places is scary beyond belief.
In none of those places have I seen the efficiency of a typical startup, where
one employee/founder will customarily be doing the work of at least two people
employed by larger companies.
What does your experience tell you?
~~~
swombat
Indeed. If you're going to argue against that article, surely that's the main
point you should be addressing.
Large companies? Efficient? In what universe?
~~~
GavinB
There are different types of efficiencies.
A small group can accomplish more tasks per person than a large group, as
there is less overhead.
However, large groups can benefit from network effects. A larger group may be
able to build a reputation, distribute work to a broader audience allow more
specialization. So even though each individual worker accomplishes fewer tasks
per day, the overall output of the firm may be much higher.
A factory with 90 workers and 5, managers, 4 HR people, and a CEO may be able
to produce more chairs than 100 independent workers, all of whom spend every
day with a hammer and saw.
Different organization sizes are appropriate for different tasks.
~~~
aberman
"Different organization sizes are appropriate for different tasks."
Yes, if you are making chairs or cars, it makes sense to have more people (up
to a point of inflection where the diminishing returns would make adding new
workers grossly inefficient).
HOWEVER, if we are talking about startups -- disruptive, scalable businesses
-- they are, by definition, more efficient than big companies. I would make
this argument myself, but it has already been made pretty well by PG:
<http://paulgraham.com/boss.html> Startup founders seem to be working in a way
that's more natural for humans...each species thrives in groups of a certain
size...groups of 8 work well; by 20 they're getting hard to manage; and a
group of 50 is really unwieldy.
<http://paulgraham.com/wealth.html> You could probably work twice as many
hours as a corporate employee, and if you focus you can probably get three
times as much done in an hour. You should get another multiple of two, at
least, by eliminating the drag of the pointy-haired middle manager who would
be your boss in a big company. Then there is one more multiple: how much
smarter are you than your job description expects you to be?
<http://paulgraham.com/avg.html> In a big company, you can do what all the
other big companies are doing. But a startup can't do what all the other
startups do [this is why/how startups can beat the average].
It's hard to argue that startups are not more efficient than big businesses.
------
tptacek
I don't like this guy's blog. I happen to not agree with the AEI article about
startups, but blowing a long jet of smoke into the debate isn't doing anything
to help us. The AEI article is full of facts, and the blog post is full of
emotions and ideology. Also, Grameen Bank scored a Nobel Peace Prize, not a
"Nobel in Economics".
------
Virax
The AEI article is stunningly bad - reminds me of intelligent design
arguments. Take this: "To get more economic growth by having more start-ups,
new companies would need to be more productive than existing companies." This
is like suggesting that people shouldn't have kids because kids aren't as
productive as adults. I usually try to not name-call on the internet, but
Scott Shane is an idiot. He clearly didn't get to be a professor based on his
intelligence.
Unfortunately the linked blog post doesn't quite hit the nail on the head...
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Something is burning in the server room; how can I quickly identify what it is? - usea
http://serverfault.com/questions/496139/something-is-burning-in-the-server-room-how-can-i-quickly-identify-what-it-is/
======
yardie
You can tell from the responses who has a real DR plan and who are just
winging it. The DR-backed commenters can switch to site B with nary a worry.
Everyone else is trying to justify keeping the server room running while
something is burning. To them a misplaced backhoe is a bigger problem than you
know a server burning.
I love the sanity check part. But really, you're keeping someone on hand to
drag your ass out after you pass out while you sniff up toxic fumes.
~~~
growse
A million times this. If turning a whole datacenter off is catastrophic for
your business, you've not done your risk management properly. Single events
that take down datacenters happen. Not being prepared for them is
unforgivable.
~~~
rdl
Even with DR, it has a cost. Especially if you're a colo provider, powering
off your whole facility (or, ideally, at least a room) to find smoke is going
to have cost, even if all your customers have DR plans.
In most datacenters I've seen, I'd probably be willing to do a run through
with IR cam/temp probe, or just visual inspection, with a handheld 1211,
especially if I had a respirator, if it were just "smell of smoke". Clear view
and path to two exits, someone at the EPO switch, etc.
The "big scary things" are battery plant and generator plant, and any kind of
subfloor or ductwork. As long as the fire isn't in any of those, it's far less
of a big deal. I probably wouldn't EPO a room for a server on fire, either --
just kill the rack, which takes slightly longer.
I've been in places where "smell of smoke" was a fucknozzle smoking a cigar or
burning leaves outdoors outside an air intake, and another where it was a
smoker's coat being put on an air handler.
~~~
yardie
The great thing about DR plans is... when implemented correctly no one should
have to risk their life avoid using it. He didn't say that one of his servers
was running a little hot (which happens, a lot). He said there was smoke and
the acrid smell of something burning. Which means that one of his components
actually got hot enough to ignite.
If you're not ready to use your DR plan it probably means your DR plan is
inadequate to begin with. Why the hell do fire drills? Even cruise ships do
drills. God forbid they pull their passengers away from that very important
game of Texas Hold'em.
_I probably wouldn't EPO a room for a server on fire, either -- just kill the
rack, which takes slightly longer._
You fail to understand how fires start or why they spread. I mean why the hell
do datacenters spend millions of dollars on fire supression when an IR cam and
a handheld extenguisher is just as good, right?
~~~
rdl
Essentially no one does "EPO drills" on their datacenters. Particularly in
multi-tenant environments like commercial colocation centers. It's quite
reasonable for your DR plan to involve a $200k+ cost per EPO pull or DR
failover. Your business should have DR provisions, and you should test the DR
plan, but it's probably not reasonable (or legal) to do a full test involving
dumping agent, rapid power off, etc.
The fire suppression exists for two reasons. One, is to get code exemptions to
be allowed to run wiring in ways which would otherwise require licensed
electricians to do every wiring job, and prohibit people from being in the
facility. Two is to detect small fires early, and to prevent their spread, as
well as to protect facilities from catastrophic facility-wide fire.
Servers are just not that high a fire risk, particularly when de-energized.
Generally inside a self-contained metal chassis, less than 100 pounds each,
metal/plastic, etc. The power supply is the most likely component to start a
fire, and contains a max of maybe 250g of capacitors and other components. The
risk of one server catching on fire is low, and the risk of it rapidly
spreading to anything else is low, so yes, I'd be comfortable pulling a single
burning server out of a de-energized rack.
Also, in big or purpose-built facilities, those components _most_ likely to be
fire risks (batteries/power handlers, and generators) are in separate rooms,
separated by firewalls from the datacenter. A fire in the _battery room_ is
going to be dealt with by sealing that room and powering it off, dumping
suppression agent, and bringing out the FD immediately.
Life safety is much more important than business continuity, but a lot of
people have jobs where they accept a non-zero risk of physical harm to do
their jobs. It's certainly not reasonable to demand a datacenter tech go into
a burning building to rescue a database server or something, but approximately
zero datacenter staff I know would have a problem with assuming the level of
risk I would to find problems. (it's probably a bigger deal for employers to
actually discourage risk-taking by employees, particularly when it's risk-
taking to save themselves effort, like single-person racking large UPSes or
very large servers, etc.)
~~~
yardie
I think we are aiming at the same thing here. A proper, multi-tenant
datacenter will have separate zones for generators, UPS, electrical, and
climatisation. The actual chance of a fire starting and spreading in this type
of configuration is low and this is the environment I prefer to work in. I've
also worked in server rooms in 100+ year old buildings which did double duty
as storage/broom closet. The original post was closer to this since they had
racked UPSes next to their servers and network equipment. It apparently caused
enough smoke to fill a server room and make the poster nauseous, which makes
me wonder what air handling capacity they have. It's this type of "datacenter"
where you have to worry about your life.
------
patio11
You ask the fire marshal what was burning, about an hour or so after you've
Big Red Button'ed the server room.
This story is giving the Japanese engineer in me apoplexy.
~~~
elektronaut
Acting quick and getting a fire under control often makes the difference
between an emergency and a disaster. But only after you've made sure the
building is being evacuated, and the fire department has been alerted.
Don't be afraid to call the emergency number. They'll know what to do and walk
you through it.
Under no circumstance should you enter a room filled with smoke. Smoke
inhalation is incredibly dangerous.
~~~
rmc
_Under no circumstance should you enter a room filled with smoke. Smoke
inhalation is incredibly dangerous._
To re-iterate, a lot (most?) of the people who die in fires actually die from
smoke inhalation than from getting burned by the fire/flames.
~~~
niels_olson
Hi. I have worked in a burn unit. Inhalational injury is usually not the cause
of death. In fact of the people I saw only one who died of bronchoscopy-
confirmed inhalational injury. And he was an obese smoker with minimal
residual lung volume to begin with.
~~~
saraid216
This seems to imply that most people who die _are_ burn victims? (It feels
like this is a stupid question, but I'm not sure of the answer so eh. Asking
anyways.)
Would people at risk of a inhalation injury actually pass through you often?
You're in a burn unit, so I'd assume that means you mostly get burn victims,
and inhalation injuries would be pointed somewhere else?
~~~
niels_olson
> imply that most people who die are burn victims
Inhalation injury is a subset of burn trauma. The flow control is "Ambulance
inbound from fire" -> ER calls trauma alert -> trauma team meets the
ambulance(s) at the ER door. Those with inhalation injury are sorted from
there.
------
rdl
IR/thermal imaging cameras are SO USEFUL. I had a fire (bathroom fan caught
fire due to being 45y old, knocked it down and extinguished it myself, but was
worried about extension in the ceiling/duct).
Oakland FD came out and used their IR camera to check the heat from the
ceilings nearby. Hilariously they found a hot water pipe (running between
bathroom and kitchen) and almost axed the ceiling open (turning $1500 in
damage into $3k+), but their captain was smart and figured it out from another
angle.
Really tempted to hack an EOS 5Dm3 into an IR camera next. Not so much for
fires as night vision, but it would be useful for fires too. I'm not sure how
useful an IR camera is at detecting heat, since things which aren't yet on
fire are not quite so infrared, though.
I usually use a Fluke IR temp meter when cooking and to find hot wires/etc. in
the datacenter, though.
~~~
Udo
They are useful but they do have limitations. I'm not sure it would have
necessarily detected the faulty battery in this case. Last year, there was a
fire at my house and the FD searched for the source for three hours. With
thermal imaging and everything. It was inside the walls, no open flame, just a
lot of smoke and no clear readings on the imager. That was pretty frightening.
(However when they finally did find it, they put it out in a couple of
minutes.)
~~~
rdl
I'm glad it motivated me to get ABC Dry and Halon 1211 extinguishers for both
rooms and the car, at least.
In a "real" datacenter, you should have smoke sensors which would map where
heat/smoke is coming from (since you have controlled airflow, it should be
obvious which rack or small group of racks was the source -- it doesn't just
exhaust into the whole room). But it's pretty clear this wasn't a "real"
datacenter by their lack of protocols for handling fire, it was some office
server thing.
~~~
Udo
I'm just saying these things can quickly get more complicated than expected. I
too had extinguishers handy at the time but of course I didn't know what to
use them on (and neither did the FD for three hours). These electrical fires
can be tricky to debug, especially when different kinds of barriers come into
play.
> But it's pretty clear this wasn't a "real" datacenter by their lack of
> protocols for handling fire, it was some office server thing.
Probably. What's the right protocol though? In this case, it was apparently
clear that something minor was amiss, nothing that would justify shutting down
the whole thing. In any case, flooding the room with inert gas would probably
not have made much of a difference, as it looks like the battery was never
actually burning.
~~~
rdl
House construction is insane, anyway -- they're full of random stuff, and
there are plenty of non-accessible void spaces. Datacenters are at least
generally nice and open, so finding a weird residential hidden fire _should_
be a lot easier. (which is why datacenters get permission to run their wiring
the way they do, etc., because they have so much other safety)
The right thing to do in a real datacenter it to check which of your ~hundreds
of laser VESDA sensors first tripped, and investigate in that area :)
Presumably you have floor air supply, ceiling air return, so the first thing
to trip should be a ceiling sensor near your fire. If no floor sensors trip, I
wouldn't be super afraid to go in there, and if it's only a small number of
them it's not a big fire.
You don't want the dry pipe to go off for sure, and you don't want the FM-200
either, but the consoles should be reporting the smoke alarm to you way before
a human would smell it "filling the whole room", and they don't generally
discharge either for very small events (at least everywhere I've seen).
In an office (some open plan, some cubicles, some conference rooms and
offices, etc.), with a few racks of equipment, and maybe some lab space, it's
a lot more similar to the scary hidden residential fire problem. :( Your risks
in trying to uncover the problem are actually higher than in the datacenter
because then you don't have the amazing gas system and a dry pipe backup to
save you if it turns into a big fire while you're there, and it's not as
designed for easy egress, and probably doesn't even have real EPO. I wonder if
there's a firefighter on HN who would know the real answer to this case.
~~~
n2dasun
FM200 systems do go off for small events at times. I managed a team of
datacenter facility specialists up until last year, and we'd seen issues like:
FM200 dumps because underfloor smoke detectors notice smoke from a CRAC
condensate pump (pretty low risk) smoking its winding, FM200 dumps when a
quick refrigerant discharge (technician error) looks like smoke to the
detector, and false positives at smoke heads due to a dirty area under the
raised floor, combined with air flow irregularities.
I definitely agree that I'd be more concerned about a house fire, but the rule
that we enforced to our people and the vendors, as well as the vendors working
for us (not to mention the guidance that we received from our customers) was
that nothing in that datacenter is worth potentially losing anyone's life.
That having been said, I have Toucan Sam'd in a datacenter to try and find the
source of an odd odor before, but never alone, and only to find out what to
secure power to. I wouldn't sit there and try to fight it with a fire
extinguisher.
~~~
rdl
The only "accidental discharges" I've seen were related to construction dust
in an underfloor. And yes, suck :(
In general the purpose of a handheld extinguisher is to fight tiny fires as
well as to help you escape a bigger fire. The thing I'd be most afraid of
would be someone walking around trying to find a small fire, only to discover
a big fire, have egress blocked, and need to figure out a solution. Or, coming
across an actual person who is on fire or otherwise in danger (even if you'd
expect virtually no personal risk for property, I think most people would
accept substantial personal risk to save a person, particularly a coworker).
------
ck2
Maybe we need a diy thermal sensor that plugs into an android or iphone
device?
Oh wow, it exists:
[http://www.instructables.com/id/Thermal-Imaging-Phone-
Camera...](http://www.instructables.com/id/Thermal-Imaging-Phone-Camera/)
<http://www.robhopeless.com/search/label/Thermal%20Imaging>
[http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/andyrawson/ir-blue-
therm...](http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/andyrawson/ir-blue-thermal-
imaging-smartphone-accessory)
<http://rh-workshop-llc.myshopify.com/>
Costs only $150 to make?
Open-source: <https://github.com/RHWorkshop/>
~~~
aw3c2
Wow, I wonder what the range of that is. I.e. if I can use it to analyse the
thermal loss of houses.
~~~
walshemj
why do you need that you from my termofluids classes you should be able to
calculate the heat loss for a given Delta T by taking a ball park figure for
the materials ie so many square meters of brick Glass etc.
~~~
wiml
You use it when you don't know the material (because you're surveying an old
house) or you don't know the delta-T (because you're looking for a hidden
fire, grow op, etc).
~~~
NickNameNick
Or you're trying to track down head loss caused by construction flaws,
especially leaks and drafts caused by cracks or gaps. Also leaks caused by
improperly installed power points. Missing or settled insulation is also
common.
------
whizzkid
I couldn't answer the question there because of reputation thing. (just signed
up)
Here is a little bit different approach;
If you are in the room and smelled the burn, that means something is already
happened and you are dealing with its result and possible side effects, and
that gives you possibly enough time before shutting down everything or getting
out of the room. Your chance of not being harmed by this situation is high at
least for 5-10 minutes.
In this case, having a termal check would not help you a lot since burned
hardware is most probably not functioning anymore and might be colder than the
regular servers. The other option would be that it is still working but not
causing any fire yet so heat is not much different than the usual.
Now, smell is your only evidence,
I am hoping you guys have air conditioner in the server room. Put it on the
max level so that the smell will not be so strong everywhere. This can help
you identify where the smell is coming from. Before you check the smell, get
out of the server room, breath as much as fresh air you can, so that your
realisation will be sharper when you get back to server room. Having your
colleague with makes the process faster.
This would be my first reaction to these kind of situations.
It is of course costly to turn off whole system but don't forget that it is
not important than you!
------
jeremyjh
I'm not sure if everyone responding really read this all that carefully. There
was absolutely no mention of smoke in this question. There was a "smell". If
you drop an entire datacenter, you are easily looking at $100K+ in damages
just to reset the room. So, getting a buddy and taking some time to look for
the problem until it is found or until you actually are seeing smoke or other
specific danger seems like a pretty reasonable course of action.
~~~
DanBC
X times out of Y that's going to be a reasonable course of action. But one
time someone will die, and at that point (because it's rare and we freak out
at rare dangers) people will be up in arms about it, and about how stupid and
irresponsible it is to not hit the button.
~~~
johngalt
Panic can be dangerous as well. A halon dump can asphyxiate someone who
doesn't reach the oxygen mask or an exit in time.
Dropping a whole server room without seeing any smoke or fire is silly. Do you
pull a fire alarm if someone smokes a cigarette indoors?
------
darwinGod
For some more context, this was the OP's previous question in Stackoverflow.
[http://serverfault.com/questions/420877/ive-inherited-a-
rats...](http://serverfault.com/questions/420877/ive-inherited-a-rats-nest-of-
cabling-what-now)
Doesn't that change the entire question!
~~~
astrodust
If there was a burning smell in _that_ , yikes, hit the Big Red Button and
turn in your resignation.
~~~
micro-ram
Seeing that rats nest I would have let it burn!
------
blantonl
It is pretty simple. You call the fire department.
They have a TIC (thermal imaging camera) that can detect heat/overheating
sources pretty quickly. Plus, it's kind of nice to have them on hand in case a
smell progresses to a fire.
~~~
micro-ram
I agree. Even if you call just to alert them that something is not right. Let
them roll one truck just to have someone on hand in case someone gets burnt or
shocked.
------
jahabrewer
It's been a while since I've been in IT, but don't failing UPS batteries put
off fumes that destroy your lungs?
A friend of a friend was a hero and shutdown his datacenter cleanly/recovered
some hard drives during a situation like this. He got severe lung damage (not
from fire).
------
JimmaDaRustla
Lead acid batteries will have a rotten smell after shorting out - more so in
wet ones, but SLA will smell the same.
If you wait to the point that an SLA smells, it has probably expanded and
caused internal damage to your UPS/server rack, albeit minor if you can manage
to get it out without dismantling anything.
------
chris_wot
Just an idea: the server room should be segmented into smaller areas with
isolated power circuits. Using the sniff test, if you are truly concerned that
you are about to have a fire, then it's only responsible to start an orderly
powerdown to prevent equipment loss, and more importantly, prevent injuries to
_people_.
If you start shutting down areas of the datacentre that appear to be closest
to the smoke, then you will have a better chance of locating the issue in the
fastest possible timeframe, with minimum disruption.
On top of this, if you then have critical infrastructure that you must keep
running, then you keep your failover servers in different areas and failover
to that equipment.
I'm not a server or datacentre guy in any way, but doesn't this seem sensible?
------
johngalt
'hmmm... probably UPS battery venting' _click_ 'yup'
When UPS batteries vent it has a distinctive odor. It's very pungent and
sulfuric, but it doesn't smell like a fire or melting silicon. Any experienced
operations guy has smelled it before.
Additionally in most fire suppression systems the Big Red Button is the
_abort_ button. A well designed room will dump itself when it detects smoke
after a short evacuation alarm. It's precisely designed to keep people from
screwing around with a real fire. They must make the active decision to _stop_
fire suppression rather than _start_ fire suppression.
------
peterwwillis
HVAC. Has no noticeable smoke (it'd probably be outside the building anyway)
but pumps a burning smell into the room when the motors start dying or aren't
oiled right.
Don't hit the big red button just because you smell burning.
------
protomyth
I've had this happen to me once. No alerts and all boxes were up, but there
was a smell in the room. I went machine by machine and UPS by UPS and nothing
was wrong or burning(1).
Next day we find out the breaker panel next door had a short that blew out
several breakers. Smell was vented into the server room.
So, not always your room, could be something else just as or more dangerous.
1) shut down all machines, unplug all UPSes, open every case
------
iSnow
What kind of server room is this which is not equipped with smoke detectors?
~~~
gambiting
If it's just the "melting plastic" kind of smoke, it won't trigger smoke
detectors. And I believe that his battery wasn't actually on fire - if it was,
then yes, smoke detectors would have triggered.
~~~
HeyLaughingBoy
Oh yes, it will.
I made my 12 year-old read the story (along with pictures) of a girl his age
who was trapped in a burning house after he set off the smoke alarms at
midnight by melting bits of plastic in his room.
Hopefully he learned something that night.
~~~
eridius
How did setting off smoke detectors cause a fire?
~~~
HeyLaughingBoy
Poor sentence structure on my part.
My son set off the smoke detectors by melting plastic in his bedroom with a
cigarette lighter.
To demonstrate the danger of what could come from this, I had him read a news
report of a girl who was screwing around with fire and ended up being badly
burned over most of her body.
------
ChuckMcM
I spent a couple of summers interning at IBM and one of the things they taught
you in orientation was the sound of "imminent halon dump" (the alarm that said
Halon was about to be used in the machine room). The instructions were, hold
your breath and make for an exit _immediately._ Failure to do so would lead to
asphyxiation.
------
dattaway
Lead based batteries often have a usable life of 3-5 years. Chances are, the
others of that vintage are already dry and have already failed. Then they will
rupture, often with smoke as their series connected brothers try to push
electrons.
~~~
micro-ram
I have seen plenty of UPS batteries swell up so big they can't be removed
without disassembly. The only indication was the failed self test. OP did say
it was the UPS in the rack next to his production DB.
Don't forget Capacitor Plague. I still see it regularly.
<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Capacitor_plague>
Have a plan, be safe.
------
FireBeyond
If it's that important, buy a TIC (thermal imaging camera). They can be had
for under $10,000 and will show you actual hotspots. Walk through, sweeping
every item.
------
squozzer
Temperature indicator stickers.
~~~
stevenrace
At $5+/ea, that quickly adds up and difficult to parse in large numbers in
duress. Whereas an IR camera is rather effective and perhaps cheaper.
------
lobster45
Thanks for this story. I am ordering a fire extinguisher for our server room
now.
------
snarfy
It helps to prioritize what you look for. 9 times out of 10 it's power
related.
------
Qantourisc
Get in an electronics "expert" they know what component smells like what :)
------
hp50g
Infra red camera!
------
lotsofcows
Can of deodorant.
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Ask HN: Highest quality resources about anything? - bry_lnd
What is just the outright best material out there on any topic? The most effective, straight-to-the-point material where anyone can dig in and learn something quick. Or it's just high-quality content that you can't miss if it is in your field of interest.
e.g.<p>HTML+CSS : https://internetingishard.com/html-and-css/<p>Stats + R : ISLR (introduction to statistical learning with R)<p>Biology : Albert's The Cell
======
uneekname
I just came across
[https://www.geeksforgeeks.org/](https://www.geeksforgeeks.org/), which has a
lot of cool resources including introductory courses for many programming
languages
~~~
non-entity
Seem to have high search engine rankings and is relatively recent. Trying to
relearn C has been a pain because a lot of material was either too basic (i.e.
teaches programming basics more than it does C) or not very detailed, but that
site has helped me with a few concepts.
------
elamje
I like designing data intensive applications by Kleppmann
------
arduinomancer
It’s more of a reference but I’ve used
[https://learnxinyminutes.com/](https://learnxinyminutes.com/) many many times
for picking up new languages when needed.
It cuts straight to the point, much simpler than wordy tutorials.
------
samrohn
AWS, Devops [https://linuxacademy.com](https://linuxacademy.com)
~~~
diehell
Compare to [https://acloud.guru](https://acloud.guru) ??
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
The four year vesting schedule doesn't make sense - groth
http://stuckinthevalley.tumblr.com/
======
tptacek
I don't invest in companies, but if I did, having nonstandard vesting schemes
would be a no-deal red flag, at least for any team that didn't have a mile-
long pedigree starting and successfully building companies. Vesting is one of
the most important protections the operating team has against hiring (and
foundational) mistakes, and anybody who has ever started a company knows those
mistakes happen routinely.
Some things to keep in mind when you feel the urge to twiddle the nods on how
vesting works:
* It can take 2-4 months, maybe even more for senior hires, to discover whether a new hire is going to fit with the team.
* Your rational incentive for allocating ownership of the company to someone who doesn't belong on your team is zero or worse. You are helped not-at-all by the warm fuzzies a fired employee gets when they contemplate their options, but you are harmed immensely by the share of the long-term upside that those employees take from everyone who comes after them and executes well.
* Equity grants are not just a proxy for future money. They're legal contracts that can drastically complicate later bizdev events. You don't want a large pool of former employees wandering around with executed options. Think of every such person as a P>0.10 risk of a lawsuit threat.
* It is very hard (often virtually impossible) to claw ownership stakes back from former employees. You will, P>0.90, discover candidates later in the life of the company that you'd love to entice with an ownership stake. You will, P>0.90, have a cofounder or employee<4 that doesn't work out. At the same time, a cofounder or employee #1 that's still with the company 3-4 years later almost certainly earned their stake. Vesting balances these needs out.
Don't fuck around with vesting. Do what your lawyer says, or get one to sign
off on the standard four-year+1-year-cliff scheme for your state. If you want
to incentivize people to stay with your company for a year, pull other levers
to make that happen. Don't pull the vesting lever for something as simple as
"students just out of school have shorter time horizons".
~~~
glimcat
Just from an efficiency standpoint, you don't _need_ other levers for new
grads. A reasonable engineering salary will already be highly motivational for
someone who is coming off a student's budget, probably with loans just kicking
in.
Some percentage of them are going to flake. That happens when you take people
who have spent their lives in an environment with one eval loop and place them
in a new environment with differing expectations.
Of those who would flake, some of them can be made into great employees. But a
bigger carrot is _almost_ _never_ effective at accomplishing this. The real
need is generally along the lines of "effective mentorship" - which is far
harder to implement than a revision to your employee benefits plan.
------
georgemcbay
I think there's plenty wrong with the way most startups handle equity
assignments (particularly as it relates to dilution without subsequent
regrants, etc), but the viewpoint here just seems bonkers to me.
A year is a _LONG_ time to a 6 year old, but to a 22-24 year old (avg. age of
college grad)? Really? When I was that age I could easily imagine committing
to things for a year. And even if that makes me an anomaly (which I seriously
doubt it does), why would you bend over backwards to reward people that are
going to jump ship right away due to their own ADD? Particularly considering
they're the least likely to be making really useful contributions to the code
and are basically (hopefully) mostly learning the ins and outs of professional
development (IME, very different than school work, or even open source
projects) on the company's dime at that point.
On top of all that, a lot of companies still use traditional options and other
than in some very extraordinary circumstances, anyone quitting prior to a year
of service and also prior to a major liquidity event would be foolish to
actually exercise their options, which they'd almost certainly have to do to
avoid losing them within 30-90 days (or so depending upon terms) of leaving.
Sorry, but this is just a half-baked idea all around.
------
powera
What a terrible idea. If people don't want to stay for even a year, they don't
need equity in a startup. That's what salary is for. And getting 1/4000th of
the first year's equity grant after the first month won't motivate anybody who
understands math, which is probably a trait that startups are looking for.
~~~
Firehed
The idea is that the longer you stay with the company, the larger percent of
your remaining equity you get per period. Hockey-stick equity, if you will ;)
I think it's actually a pretty reasonable approach. I've had people straight-
up tell me during interviews that they're leaving their current position
because they've reached either their one-year cliff or their four-year package
and want a new opportunity with potentially higher gains. While leaving after
four years if your options package isn't extended isn't unreasonable, the one-
year cliff does seem a rather broken approach for keeping all but the most-
dedicated people more than a year.
Of course, if your employees don't want to stay more than year and are only
doing so because of the vesting cliff, you probably have bigger problems that
need sorting out. But let's assume that your employees are only going to stay
12 months no matter what - would you prefer to give them 25% of their options,
or ~3.6%[1]?
That assumes that the exponential grant continues for the entire period, not
just for the first year as the article suggests. I'd also be a bit concerned
about possible tax implications of that approach; three years in you only have
31% of your stock, and you get about 10% of the total in the last month.
Here's a graph, assuming my math is right.
[https://docs.google.com/spreadsheet/oimg?key=0AgIFMGYSPNuPdH...](https://docs.google.com/spreadsheet/oimg?key=0AgIFMGYSPNuPdHQyMGhxV2hEZC1uVlVqS19WbVBlYUE&oid=2&zx=9a33xzyohuq8)
Seems to me that this would be a pretty good way to get people to stay for
longer than a year, the issue is when employees still leave early. With the
cliff, there's one less shareholder around, helping the company stay under
that magical 500-shareholder limit. You lose that benefit with the exponential
grant.
[1] I've probably done the math wrong, but roughly solving m^48=100 (percent),
getting about 1.1007^(month#) = total percent of equity granted at the end of
that month
~~~
tptacek
_I've had people straight-up tell me during interviews that they're leaving
their current position because they've reached either their one-year cliff or
their four-year package and want a new opportunity with potentially higher
gains._
The person who told you "I'm looking because I just hit my first-year cliff"
actually told you "DO NOT HIRE ME". Listen harder.
People do leave when they hit four years. Four years is a long time! Some
teams are O.K. with this, but if you're not, there's no reason to mess with
vesting to solve the problem; just grant them more of the employee pool to
stay.
Everyone is always looking for better opportunities. That's fine. Be the best
opportunity for everyone on your team, or get better at recruiting. Vesting
can't help you with this problem, but it sure can hurt you.
~~~
loceng
Makes me wonder how hard they worked those 4 years, or perhaps just that last
year they didn't necessarily care to be kept on afterward.
~~~
j2labs
If they were there four years without being let go, the company was clearly
fine with the performance.
------
jaredstenquist
Terrible idea, and based on the title of your blog, it's no surprise to me
that you'd like all your equity in year one.
There are reasons for 3,4 or N year vesting - namely keeping employees
invested in the business. If employees at a startup turned over every year, it
simply wouldn't survive.
Salary is used to keep employees for a year. Salary and/or equity is used to
keep employees for a meaningful period of time. There will always be the ones
there to simply collect a paycheck, and likewise there will be ones who stick
around for their 50,000 shares of equity without doing the math to realize
their potential upside near 0.
------
trotsky
If there is only one thing I wished someone had told me when I started out it
would be not to include grants as part of your compensation calculations. It
is rare that they'll ever be worth a dime and even rarer that getting a little
less/more will make any real difference. I'm assuming we're not talking about
public companies here or ones obviously on an ipo track (very short list).
They are like getting a portion of your money in lottery tickets - sure there
is a minimal real value to them, but the only rational way to use them in
planning is to value them at zero.
Rank and file grants are only about retention. If you are bitching and moaning
about a cliff and your finances you really misunderstand how business works
here.
But that's very understandable - silicon valley thrives on misleading the
young and energetic on this very topic.
------
cbsmith
This is ridiculous. For starters, in what world is vesting based on value to
the employee?
It's also more than a bit ill informed to think that time at a company is less
"costly" for an employee the older they are, particularly when it comes to
equity. Based on success rates of startups, once you are older you likely only
have a few more shots at "winning the lottery", the costs of losing benefits
(particularly medical) is higher, and showing forward career progress is so
much more crucial. The cost of a few early setbacks is trivial as compared to
setbacks towards the end of your career (unless you've already won the
lottery, in which case, the discussion is moot).
------
snprbob86
Why would I want to treat new-grads better than experienced folks? And why
would I want to incentivize somebody who doesn't like it after 3 months to
stay for 4 months?
The 1 year cliff prevents disinterested parties from holding equity in my
company and helps me retain people who have become important over time during
that first year.
You're proposing improving my retention of lesser experienced people with
lower bus factors in my organization. That seems backwards...
------
jakejake
Equity is an incentive for loyalty and commitment to the company. If you
aren't even sticking around for year then chances are you are barely finished
training. You split just about the time you are actually becoming useful and
productive. So the company has invested in you - but you ditched the company.
That's the opposite of commitment.
This kinda reminds me of when I was a grade-school student and I used to
wonder why the teachers got paid because it was us students who were doing all
the homework!
------
vampirechicken
There is a reason that stock options are called Golden Handcuffs.
------
mattmaroon
I really don't think young people think/care much about equity until you're
one of the hotter startups, at which point 1 year doesn't seem so long. If
you're hiring on at Dropbox now, you're working that year. If you're hiring on
at some company that's 6 months old that nobody has heard of, the equity is
just a batch of lottery tickets.
Put another way, I doubt anyone has ever said "I would have worked there if
the cliff was only 6 months".
------
prostoalex
"After a couple of months at a company, a new grad may think “hey, this isn’t
THAT great’, and not stick out the next 9, 10, 11 months, because that seems
to them, an insanely long time."
Then he made a mistake during the interview process. Remember, it's not only
them interviewing you, it's also you interviewing them. Bring up issues you
care about (work ethic, work load, flexibility), and you'll have fewer
surpises later on.
"On the other hand, for someone who has been working for a few years, 8,9, or
11 months might seem to be a much shorter period of time, and proportionally
it is. They might stick it out, get equity, and become much more committed to
the enterprise."
Yes, the company can issue additional grants, there's no law in place to say
that what you get on day 1 is the only equity you're going to get, ever. The
company can structure performance (equity for shipping major products) or
retention (equity for 2nd, 3rd, 5th, 10th, 50th anniversary with the company)
however it pleases.
------
wellthat
Suppose someone (highly qualified, not from the startup world however) can
tweak your marketing message for a couple of weeks (i.e. work on your startup
for 80-150 hours intensively) and as a direct consquence get you an audience
of millions, because your message is now awesome. This person doensn't care
about startups.
Say you are pre-money. How should you pay for this person's time?
You would think, if this person can really work for two weeks and give you a
company that is worth seeding at a high valuation (due to traction), which
also becomes a good signal and thereafter with the company's fantastic
traction, money, and engaged audience, it has fantastic growth prospects - but
without these two weeks will simply languish as another "project" - then a two
percent stake with no cliff whatsoever is a no-brainer.
~~~
ghaff
And, if you're a consultant, with few exceptions, taking an equity stake
rather than cash is not a good idea. Happened a lot in the dot com bubble. Not
pretty. Sure, if you're looking for work and a genuinely intriguing
opportunity that only takes a couple weeks comes along, why not? But bad idea
as a business model.
------
whackedspinach
As an undergraduate at a top tier CS school, I have seen a lot of companies
boast about these vesting schemes. Honestly, I don't think most new grads
consider them due to the 1 year cliff. Most people I talk to will say "Well,
if I want to leave, the new signing bonus/RSU package will just make up for
the lost RSUs."
What really hurts companies is the drawn out exponential vesting periods. I
believe Amazon does a package that is 15% after the first year, 40% after the
second, 75% after the third, and 100% after four. Maybe my numbers are off,
but you are rarely going to get new grads to commit to four years, even with
that scheme. I'll take my 25% at another company after a year and move on.
Anyways, the work/experience/location/culture/salary is usually more of a
factor than the vesting schedule.
------
ajdecon
_For someone who sees 1 year as a long time, the one year vesting cliff may be
a reason to discount the equity portion of the compensation package
altogether, especially at a small startup where the chances of cashing out are
low anyway. After a couple of months at a company, a new grad may think “hey,
this isn’t THAT great’, and not stick out the next 9, 10, 11 months, because
that seems to them, an insanely long time._
1) From the employer perspective in a startup: do you actually want an
employee who's going to stay longer than a few months, based on any reason
except the company and the work?
2) From the employee perspective: unless you're an _extremely_ early employee,
discounting the equity portion of a startup compensation package is probably
the correct thing to do...
------
gojomo
A company is unlikely to want the overhead of option/equity paperwork (and
cap-table complications) for some restless joker who leaves after a few
months. Nor are they likely to want an official policy of offering
discriminatory vesting-schedules by candidate age.
------
jaynate
Not an HR specialist and this may be beside the point, but i believe if you do
this for the new grad you'd also have to give that option to the tenured folks
as well otherwise you'd basically be discriminating based on age which is
illegal.
------
ChuckMcM
They make sense in the same way that dollar cost averaging makes sense.
Whinging that a year is too long to wait for the vest is pretty shallow. Now
if it didn't _start_ vesting for a year, sure that would be something, but
since your 25% vested on the day of the 'cliff' your good.
But the bottom line is that shares are compensation and compensation is money.
A startup needs to extract the most mileage out of the money they've got, this
vesting schedule has been shown to be a reasonable choice over the last 50
years.
------
dguido
Nice try, new grad.
------
pm24601
As someone with his not yet successful company, I am against 1-year cliffs. I
believe in the 6-month cliff and am considering dropping it to 3 months.
When I make a poor hiring decision, I usually know within 2-3 months. A
shorter cliff forces me to evaluate new-hires faster. No one needs 1 year to
determine if a new hire was a good fit.
~~~
tptacek
But it works both ways; there will be people who you like who decide not to
stick with _you_. You want to minimize the number of outsiders who hold shares
in your company. If you don't grok this, you need to talk to more experienced
people; this has to be one of the top horror story themes in startupland.
Also, stop kidding yourself. Evaluating startup team members is very hard. You
probably have a longer ramp-up than you think you do, during which you have
very little ability to evaluate people; also, there is a huge class of bad
hire that starts strong and decays rapidly.
There are all sorts of ways you can motivate yourself to evaluate new hires
quickly. Use salary or sign-on bonuses instead of vesting. Messing around with
your company ownership to accomplish such a simple tactical goal says
something about how seriously you take ownership; it's probably not something
you want to be saying out loud.
~~~
pm24601
I am very experienced. Re: the number of "outsiders" - not as big a deal as
you might believe. Good lawyering helps.
Its better to be considerate and balanced. The cliff only exists to protect
against bad hiring decisions, 6 months is plenty enough time to figure out
that someone is a bad fit.
You are correct about shares not being a very good tool for motivating people.
Your suggestions about salary or sign-on bonuses are actually worse because
that takes away from the working capital.
~~~
tptacek
You don't sound very experienced. I mean that factually, not as an insult. For
what it's worth, I've been in "key" roles (lead engineering, founder, and
m-team) since 1996; I've spent my whole career in startups. I am not making
the horror stories up, and they've happened in places with extremely good
"lawyering".
~~~
pm24601
There are always people with different experiences to learn from.
That said, 1 year cliff is an arbitrary period of time. 6 months is an
arbitrary period as well.
Your statement about experience is fine. I have my own collection of
experience.
In my experience, forcing a fit/retention decision about a new hire to be
earlier is a good thing. I do this with a 6 month cliff.
When I look at the people I have had to fire, I always saw the handwriting on
the wall by the 2nd-3rd month.
A 6-month cliff gives me and them a chance to correct the issue.
Yes I could do this review process with a 1-year cliff. The 6-month cliff
makes sure the issue is addressed consistently early after a new hire joins.
So if after 6-months I know I want to keep the person, why not say it with a
stock plan?
Conversely, if the goal is to reduce the number of outsiders with stock:
* do you then support a 2-year cliff?
* a 5-year vesting schedule?
If going earlier than a year cliff is bad then, using your argument, going
longer must be better.
------
photorized
4-yr vesting with a cliff works, and the concept should probably be left
alone. The are plenty of other mechanisms to provide incentives to good
people, for the business owner/founder to experiment with.
------
yresnob
Give new grads a faster vesting schedule..is that a joke?
Give everyone who is good enough to get hired alot more shares and be upfront
about their % it's real easy
------
zaroth
I don't agree with this at all. Vesting schedules are an extremely important
component of how equity in a company is awarded, and the one year cliff is an
essential part of the formula.
Options are priced, when they are awarded, to have no present value. The
exercise price of the option (the cost to buy a share) is equal to the current
market value of the share. Furthermore, you can only hold the options for as
long as you are an employee of the company. If you leave, you typically have
30 - 90 days to exercise (buy) whatever options you have vested, if you so
choose.
Options are worthless when their exercise price is <= the market price. So, in
the first place, it wouldn't make sense to vest options immediately (or
"exponentially") in order to accommodate employee drop-outs. The ex-employee
would have to exercise the option before the shares could have had time to
appreciate significantly relative to their beta.
The value of incentive stock options is simply the value of being able to
profit from increased market cap without having to actually risk or tie up any
of your own money. On the CBOE (options market), you can buy options with a
strike price equal to the market price, but with a set expiration date. The
option has no inherent value, but the farther out that expiration date, the
more "time value" the option has. I think LEAPs max out at expiring 3 years
out. Incentive stock options however will typically have a 10 year expiration
date. Just look at the time value of 3 year LEAPs and you will start to see
how much time value a 10-year option actually has.
More importantly, the primary purpose of giving your employees options is to
increase employee retention and align employees' and investors' goals. The
secondary purpose is to reward employees when their contributions add long-
term value to the company well beyond the scope of their salary. That type of
exceptional contribution is never about 'cranking out code' for a few months
to add some new feature. It happens when key employees bring with them a sort
of magic which helps their team or even the entire company perform at a higher
level. These are the people you want holding a meaningful equity share of your
company.
If you ever run a company, it will fundamentally change how you look at these
things. For example, you start to see _all_ the taxes being confiscated from
the money you are paying your employees (payroll, income, state, etc.) are
taxes that the _company_ is paying in order to reward their employees. There
is no "company share" / "employee share". All that matters is how much money
actually makes it to your employee's bank account. The more efficient the
company can make the transfer of wealth, the less money comes out of company
coffers.
Options, at least for now, are a more efficient way to pay your best employees
so that they are equitably rewarded for the contributions they are making.
After a certain point it's just too inefficient to try to compensate your key
employees with a pay check ("the taxes are too damn high").
When options are part of an offer letter, those options should always have at
least a 1 year cliff. It's pointless handing vested options to a new hire if
they're going to be leaving and exercising them just a few months after
they've been priced. In that case the options likely haven't appreciated, the
employee has likely not made an unpredictable and lasting contribution, the
employee is demonstrating they don't believe in the company, and furthermore
the first year you work at a company is the likely the easiest year to
establish a value for the services you'll be providing, and that should be
paid out as salary.
~~~
tossit1234
This is a throw away account for a couple of reasons...but I wanted to make a
point from the engineering grunt point of view...
>The value of incentive stock options is simply the value of >being able to
profit from increased market cap without having >to actually risk or tie up
any of your own money.
That may be true of the value of the option from a purely market point of
view. That said, unless you are part of the rare group who is part of a
facebook, twitter, or related that can actually trade on the private markets
before an exit event.
The reality is, most engineers working for a startup are gambling their time
and efforts for a single investment. More often than not, those investments of
effort and time do not always result in much of a return.
From experience - a number of startups will push for rates that are "below
market" for the promise of returns. That said, in the same time, day to day
engineers (not the founders) who have experienced an exit has been on the
order of basically $20-30k/year (over the term of one's employment). Often
finding an arrangement with a more established company will result in a better
return during the same time.
If you are in the market to join a startup for the exit, weigh your options
closely. If you are in it to learn, work with a close bunch, and want to build
something interesting, by all means pursue it.
Joining a startup is an investment of time and effort, you should not enter as
a non-founder with the expectation of a monetary return. Most fail.
------
ryguytilidie
I agree that the current system is broken, unfortunately this proposed system
seems more broken.
------
michaelochurch
It makes sense when there's real equity being disbursed. One person has
$500,000. The other has sweat equity. How do you calculate the relative value
of the latter? Come up with a fair salary, and turn it into equity. Four years
is a good starting estimate, but if the person leaves early, then the
assumption on which the equity level was set is invalidated.
I'm against cliffs, though.
~~~
tptacek
Being against the one-year cliff means you either (a) believe you will never
make a hiring mistake or (b) believe that it doesn't matter who holds equity
in your company. Both are dangerous assumptions.
Not having a cliff doesn't even help employees. It creates a culture where new
hires need to be on the defensive from the moment they're hired, because
management is strongly incentivized to release new hires as soon as they can
to contain the damage of bad hires. In cliff vesting companies, management has
a full year to figure out whether someone's going to work out, which is good,
because most equity-compensated jobs have ramp-up periods.
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Ask HN: Best way to recruit developers during a conference? - orbyone
We are platinum sponsors in a major software developer conference, which means we have unlimited freedom (and for the sake of argument, budget) in order to come up with ideas to approach candidates during the conference.<p>What is the best way to recruit developers during a conference, approach them or get ourselves noticed? Put up banners next to the main stage saying We're hiring? Having girls in costumes walking around scanning badges? Setting up a kiosk and inviting people in for interviews on the spot?<p>I am looking for original and effective ideas to make the best of the event.
======
goldenbeet
From a developers perspective, if I'm not actively looking for a job I almost
never want to talk to companies that are trying to recruit. The one time where
I actually went out of my way to talk to a company was when they held their
own event. They rented a space with an open bar and brought their engineers
with them. You could just go hang out and talk with the engineers and see what
kind of stuff they worked on what not and it was a great way for us to vet the
company and decide whether or not we could see ourselves on the team.
------
albumdropped
Swag is always good. Stickers are a given.
One conference I attended had a company handing out cards with a puzzle on it
(encoded message). Decode the message and email it to them and they tell you
to drop by their booth for a free t-shirt. Clever way of collecting email
addresses for recruiting and they mention that they're hiring when you get the
shirt. They never did spam me via email, so I didn't think it was too
intrusive.
~~~
orbyone
When you say swag, can you give 1-2 examples in mind?
The puzzle card sounds a great idea. Do you remember roughly what the puzzle
was?
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Everything you need to know about Loading Animations - LisaDziuba
https://medium.com/flawless-app-stories/everything-you-need-to-know-about-loading-animations-10db7f9b61e
======
JoeAltmaier
Cute!
I personally object to loading progress bars that don't actually show
progress. They just start over. I'm waiting for the bar to complete, then it
repeats and I'm duh, they sure made a fool out of me.
~~~
LisaDziuba
We had to use such loading animation as well, the only difference is we put a
text description of what our app is doing. That makes waiting a less
frustrating, at least users know that app is working on something specific.
~~~
JoeAltmaier
Right! And if you can enumerate those steps, then they can 'fill in the
cupcake' or whatever to show that as progress.
------
LisaDziuba
No one enjoys waiting.
Loading animations can make this process delightful and reduce the perception
of waiting time.
I made detailed research on
* best practices for loading indicators
* types of preloaders
* tools & resources & history
Hope, you'll like it!
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
UC system's global rankings slip amid funding cuts, international competition - SemiEarlyGoogle
http://www.latimes.com/local/education/higher-ed/la-me-uc-global-rankings-20180228-story.html
======
purplezooey
Thanks Howard Jarvis
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Ask HN: To employees of a startup that later got acquired/IPO'd - ccdev
How do you figure out you picked a "winner" startup before joining?<p>Let me preface this with saying, I'll be so upset if the majority of answers boil down to having a lot of luck :D I've been burned out through a few early stage companies and it feels like it's all blind luck. Hopefully it's not all a guessing game and you can make predictions based on certain qualities and metrics of a startup at early stages.<p>As a bonus question: would you work for an early startup whose founder(s) have no previous business track record?
======
roguecoder
I look for:
1\. Solving an actual problem for actual users that users have shown they are
willing to pay for. This One Neat Trick will leave you significantly better
off than average: everything else is secondary.
2\. No long hours, burned out founders, fancy soda machines or other signs of
prioritising appearances over competence.
3\. Multiple cofounders, but one that is in charge. That person should have at
least have managed a team before, and the people they had managed should
respect them.
4\. The team should look like the audience they intend to serve. Unless the
product is specifically for men, no way I'd join a team that's all dudes.
No startup track record might be okay, depending on what background they did
have, but I'm also always concerned about founders who are willing to give
away the farm for funding. I need to trust the CEO with my stock options, not
just the company's success.
------
SirLJ
If you find a formula for this , I'll be very interested to buy it, so I can
start a VC fund on the side...
------
alain94040
Work with people you respect.
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Show HN: Our 1st startup video. Any thoughts? - gqgy
https://vimeo.com/54126768
======
kevinconroy
Great voice over, sound effects, and animation, but still doesn't show me why
this will make me better.
What happens when the product is released? What's the pain that you're taking
away from me in the future so that I want to use your product now?
~~~
gqgy
That's a fair question Kevin. The reason we embarked on this project was
because there is no single place on the Internet right now where you can see
what is coming out in the future. There may be information, but it is
scattered across various sites and blogs. We provide that one place.
More importantly, it provides the answer to the question: how one can find or
look for something when that person does not know its existence?
Hypejar is still in its infancy and we're continuously working to make it
better and more informative.
Thanks for your feedback! Much appreciated.
------
wonjun
This is really well done.
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
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