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What are you using to track sales leads and customers? - wensing
What are startups using for CRM these days? I just started a 14-day trial with Salesforce.com, but perhaps I'm missing out on a cool alternative? My main reason for wanting some sort of CRM is as an organizational tool--Gmail + labels isn't cutting it anymore.
======
klous
<http://www.karmacrm.com> is a startup in free beta out of Ann Arbor and they
will have a forever free account too.
<http://pipejump.com> is something to consider that is also very simple and
focused.
And SugarCRM has a free and open source version you can install in addition to
their paid, hosted versions with support.
------
wensing
I don't know why I didn't think of 37s Highrise sooner, but that's looking
like a good option.
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Ask HN: boilerplate incorporation documents? - thatoneguy
I'm looking to incorporate my side project that's getting out of hand & noticed that the boilerplate YC docs don't appear to be for an initial Delaware filing but raising money after you already have a business entity.<p>Does anyone have a pointer to initial incorporation documents that have the dual class share structure and all the other goodies startups should have nowadays?<p>Thanks!
======
simantel
I found this:
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5357618](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5357618)
~~~
thatoneguy
Wow, that's awesome! Thanks!
------
brudgers
[IANAL]
C-corps come with the burden of corporate scale tax and accounting compliance
requirements. Unlike closely held entities I've never seen anything which led
me to believe that a Delaware Corporation was a do it yourself undertaking.
Hire an attorney. Good luck.
~~~
thatoneguy
OK, thanks for the tip and perhaps I'm jumping the gun. I might just continue
as a sole-proprietorship with lots of insurance for awhile longer.
~~~
brudgers
[IANAL]
There is a gradation of limited liability business types between sole
proprietorships and Schedule C corporations. Each comes with its own set of
advantages and limitations. There might or might not be one suitable for your
situation. If one is then it will almost certainly be vastly less burdensome
than a C Corporation.
A C-Corp could be right, but even on HN, I don't think I have ever seen a
story or comment indicating a DIY success story.
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Private Browsing Without a VPN - mikehotel
https://medium.com/@mattholt/private-browsing-without-a-vpn-e91027552700
======
mikehotel
Caddy plugin developed by Sergey Frolov while interning at Google
[https://github.com/caddyserver/forwardproxy/blob/master/READ...](https://github.com/caddyserver/forwardproxy/blob/master/README.md)
------
dustfinger
As I understand things Caddy was chosen because it has sane default settings
making easy to "get things right." I don't like that Caddy is a web server
though if all I am looking for is a forward proxy for private browsing. Did
Sergey Frolov consider any opensource proxy solutions that are not also a web
server but have good default settings?
Thank you for sharing!
~~~
mholt
Part of the point of this plugin is to blend in if desired. If it's standing
alone, it's kind of hard to do that. Baked into a web server is a natural
choice.
~~~
dustfinger
For some reason my mind read browser-plugin. I thought the whole time that it
was a browser plugin that made it easier to connect to the proxy and passed
the proxy some parameters for the type of connection you wanted. Now I see
that it is a plugin for the web server. That makes a lot more sense.
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Meet the tireless entrepreneur who squatted at AOL - streeter
http://news.cnet.com/8301-32973_3-57440513-296/meet-the-tireless-entrepreneur-who-squatted-at-aol/
======
edw519
_...given just $20,000 by the incubator, and after the four-month program
ended, the money was gone..._
_...after pivoting and focusing solely on letting teachers share lesson
plans, Simons said he was able to score $50,000 in seed funding from Ulu
Ventures and Silicon Valley VC Paul Sherer._
_Now, Simons said, he's looking to raise an additional $500,000._
_So is Simons just a kid with a particularly honed entrepreneurial spirit?_
Exactly when did the definition of entrepreneur change from "build a
sustainable business that provides value to its customers" to "survive long
enough for the next round of investment"?
I admire Eric for his tenacity (most others would have quit long ago), but I'd
much rather hear about when he actually sells something.
~~~
vladd
He used AOL infrastructure to build his company, I'm wondering if he disclosed
that to investors as he's pretty liable to them otherwise.
It's lesson number #1 (don't use your employer's computer off-hours when
working on your own projects) for people that try to build something outside
their company's influence.
~~~
danvideo
Might be wrong, but isn't California law especially lenient about ownership of
work produced outside of work hours? (vs. here in NYC, for example)
~~~
bodyfour
Especially lenient, but not infinitely lenient.
------
cfinke
Judging by the gossip I heard while at AOL, he surely isn't the only person
using AOL's offices and food without contributing to AOL, but he's the only
one who isn't actually employed by AOL.
------
joshuamerrill
While I applaud Eric's inexhaustible dedication to his company and mission,
taking advantage of AOL in order to accomplish it is disgustingly unethical.
It just makes it harder for other entrepreneurs who share that dedication but
have chosen to build their businesses above-board.
I'm glad AOL has a sense of humor about this. But you can be sure that this
incident will create additional requirements and restrictions for the [honest]
entrepreneurs who still remain in the building.
~~~
west1737
Do what you have to do. AOL is no worse for having someone sleeping on their
couch.
~~~
nupark2
AOL out the funds they spent on his theft of service and resources, and
they're out the time they spent having security figure out why someone was
sleeping there. They've been embarrassed in the press, and they're that much
less likely to trust people that are part of their entrepreneur programs in
the future.
The security staff in question was probably reprimanded for their failure to
detect the interloper -- he abused the trust he had gained by previously
becoming a "known" face.
You do what you have to do, _ethically_ , to succeed.
~~~
djloche
"They've been embarrassed in the press"
They've actually been profiled as a reasonable company that invests in the
future. How many people reading this article know AOL as "that company that
first sent me discs in the mail" and previously thought AOL as a dead company?
AOL gets free, positive press showing that they're not dead, they're investing
in the future, and that they're reasonable. The positive spin this article
gives them is worth every penny of resources spent.
~~~
nupark2
> _They've actually been profiled as a reasonable company that invests in the
> future._
The best thing they can do at this point is put a positive spin on it, but ...
> _The positive spin this article gives them is worth every penny of resources
> spent._
Not your decision to make for AOL. AOL will spin this, but post-facto
justification ("see, it's not that bad -- they made good on my theft!") does
not an ethical decision make.
~~~
djloche
Nowhere do I lay claim to making decisions for AOL. While I doubt they are
interested, if AOL wishes to hire me for such purposes, I am available.
I pointed out that it was my opinion that the cost of the resources that Eric
used was less than the cost of genuine, positive press.
I also did not declare his actions ethical. I responded to your claim that AOL
has been embarrassed.
AOL responded appropriately (not pressing charges, just kindly requiring him
to not sleep/live there anymore), and was able to respond to the press inquiry
with a lighthearted statement that fits the narrative of the article. The
article presents AOL not only as having reasonable management, but also as a
place to work with great benefits (food, showers, gym, startup incubators,
friendly environment).
AOL is where Yahoo will be in 5 years: they have nowhere to go but up in terms
of public reputation and mindshare.
~~~
nupark2
I see AOL as doing their best to avoid a bigger snafu over a smaller,
unattractive snafu. Opinions on the value of this PR will vary, but the fact
is that there's no substance here.
Somebody abused their fairly standard SV corporate perks, they responded
without bringing in the police.
At the end of the day, my subjective impression is that their startup
interests brought in an immature, ethically-challenged entrepreneur who is
stuck in the money-raising cycle, and accordingly AOL has been dragged into
the press because of something stupid he did.
That isn't a particularly positive narrative, but I can see how people that
are more comfortable with Eric's failure of ethics can see it as a cool story
of "hustling" entrepreneurship.
------
duskwuff
Reminds me of the story of Graphing Calculator:
<http://www.pacifict.com/Story/>
~~~
jacquesm
That's awesome, thanks duskwuff.
Just one quote: "I asked my friend Greg Robbins to help me. His contract in
another division at Apple had just ended, so he told his manager that he would
start reporting to me. She didn't ask who I was and let him keep his office
and badge. In turn, I told people that I was reporting to him. Since that left
no managers in the loop, we had no meetings and could be extremely
productive."
If you have a spare 15 minutes you really should read this.
------
nicholassmith
Got to say the response from AOL was pure class. They could have been really
annoyed at the kid for sponging off their employee services, but no, 'we just
didn't expect it to work so well'. Nicely done from AOL there.
Sure, the kid contravened plenty of rules and laws, but the level of focus to
do 18ish hour days and maintain a lifestyle like that to achieve the goals?
You don't get that everyday.
And lets be honest, he's not the first guy in the Valley to treat the rules
with a loose interpretation.
------
ChuckMcM
Its a neat story. When I read the headline I thought it was a Mike Arrington
story :-)
We joked at Google that they really did want you to live there but their
secops team would not let a non-employee do this.
However for a potential investor this is a great demonstration of how
committed someone is to their idea, and their passion. I don't doubt for a
moment that Eric will be successful at what ever he sets out to do, you can't
buy that kind of focus.
~~~
nupark2
It's also a demonstration of an ethical failure. It was theft.
~~~
ChuckMcM
I could argue it both ways (theft and non-theft) which, for me, puts it into
the ethically 'grey' area of interpretation.
I would reason to 'non-theft' based on an argument that AOL gave access to the
building (badge) and provides services for people with access to the building,
therefore giving access was tacit agreement to the use of the facilities.
Other employees no doubt sleep there on occasion and that it also tacitly
allowed. Therefore non-theft.
I would reason to the 'theft' conclusion that AOL provides services to
incubators and to employees but does not explicitly extend employee benefits
to incubator attendees. Using services and consumables that are provided to
AOL employees is outside the scope of services offered to incubator
participants. Therefore Theft.
Eric was aware of this grey area, clearly trying to stay outside the regular
patrol of security, and thus actively trying to not force a resolution on the
question of allowed or not allowed. His response when the resolution occurred
appears to be 100% compliance.
If I were considering investing in Eric's activities I would consider both
parts of that story, the first where he exploits a grey area and the second
how he responds to being discovered.
In my experience it is people who take Eric's approach of interpreting grey
areas in the most optimistic way until shown otherwise, and being 100% rule
following on explicit rulings, are successful. There are thresholds of course,
if there were signs that said "No one is allowed to sleep in this facility" or
"At no time will anyone spend more than 12 out of 24 hrs in a day in this
facility" or even more general guidelines that define a standard for defining
'living on site' and a express a prohibition against it. Something which might
say "You would be considered to be living here if you spend more than 100 hrs
a week or do more than 3 loads of laundry or sleep more than 12 hrs a week or
eat more than 12 nominal meals at the facility" etc. AOL _could_ call it out,
but they haven't. And that leaves it open to interpretation.
In the business world that is sometimes called 'moxie' or 'stones' or any
number of euphemisms and its generally respected.
What is not respected is explicit exploitation. So for example when I worked
at Google the mini-kitchens all had refrigerators that were full of beverages.
A small number of employees were found to be exploiting this 'perk'. An
example of that which was given was an employee that prior to the weekend,
would take an empty back pack and fill it with anywhere from 20 to 50
beverages to take home. That was 'theft' in the sense that the intention was
for the beverages to be enjoyed _at work_ not at home, even if you were
working from home. But it was theft because of the _quantity_ not because of
the _taking_. Taking one beverage to drink while riding the shuttle home? Not
a problem although you were not 'technically' at work any more.
I think Eric intentionally interpreted the situation in a way that would
support his actions, and recognized that those actions might not be completely
inline with the intent, and waited for AOL to express its intent. I don't
think he ever believed AOL would 'endorse' his living on campus while he
worked on his startup (incubator participation not withstanding) but I could
see a case for it being an open question if not explicitly disallowed.
~~~
hollerith
>I could argue it both ways (theft and non-theft)
If the district attorney's office in Santa Clara County wanted to, it is more
likely than not that they could get a conviction for illegal lodging
(misdemeanor).
If I were the district attorney, I'd tend to let something like this slide
when the doer is as young as this guy is. It bothers me a little though that
he is speaking openly about it to the press because that suggests that he has
no shame about it. If he really has no shame at all about it, I would prefer
that he be dragged into court.
If your reaction to this report is to excuse the behavior because the guy is
an entrepreneur, I think your reaction is no better than, "It's OK because
he's a member of our club."
~~~
ChuckMcM
" _If the district attorney's office in Santa Clara County wanted to, it is
more likely than not that they could get a conviction for illegal lodging
(misdemeanor)._ "
I mention the risk of violating zoning laws below but I also asked a public
defender their take on that aspect as well. They said pretty much that unless
you could prove that AOL both knew and allowed this to occur, or could prove
that they didn't actively try to discourage such things, you could not convict
them of violating the rules. She related a case of a homeless person who was
charged with loitering and the business was charged for allowing people to
live at their facility in violation of zoning laws, but the case against the
business was dismissed for lack of evidence that the business knew about the
activity or allowed it. I expect AOL would use a similar defense in this case.
~~~
hollerith
I meant that the district attorney could get a conviction _of the young
entrepreneur_ if he wanted to. "Illegal lodging" means sleeping where it is
illegal to sleep.
~~~
tankbot
Could you please reference the law that prohibits people sleeping on AOL's
couches?
His security clearance was never revoked. Nobody directly informed him he
couldn't sleep there. I'd say this is perfect 'grey area' since he didn't
knowingly commit any crime and AOL didn't knowingly allow it.
~~~
hollerith
>Could you please reference the law that prohibits people sleeping on AOL's
couches?
Entering into a search engine the phrases "California penal code" and "illegal
lodging" should allow you to find the text of the law.
I learned about this law when someone I knew was charged with illegal lodging
for sleeping in one of the building at Stanford long ago. (He pled _no lo
contendere_ , had no priors, and was fined $100.)
No offense, but I do not want to discuss it with you anymore.
------
tannerc
This is an entertaining story, at most. The pursuit of round after round of
funding that Eric - and many other entrepreneurs, surely - are striving for is
concerning. What ever happened to the pursuit of a savvy business that brings
in real profit? The hunt for funding needs to be replaced with a hunt for
sustainability.
Am I wrong for believing that?
~~~
freshhawk
I agree that it is concerning.
The worst part is that I've seen attiudes subtly shift away from real
entrepreneurial spirit and towards a "how do we make ourselves attractive to
patrons" attitude.
It's a pragmatic choice, if you are going to be the subject of patronage and
treated as such then you don't work on building a business you work on
pleasing the patron so he and his friends will keep giving you money.
It's an unintended consequence of the very healthy VC/Angel ecosystem and
consumer internet sites that are hard to monetize but still valued by the
public. Maybe it's just a weird blip and not a big deal. But it's a direction
that strikes me as unhealthy.
------
jconley
I wonder if he was eating our food. Playdom has three meals a day "up stairs"
in that building, where we are headquartered and have an entire floor. There
is also another startup incubator in this building. It's pretty funny they
just mention AOL in the article.
~~~
dpiers
Shameless self-promotion: If you guys want to have three _awesome_ meals a
day, you should check out ZeroCater. We will hook you up with food from the
best places around. :)
------
cpeterso
I'm reminded of Rodney Rothman's _My Fake Job_ (New Yorker, November 2000), a
"personal history about the writer's tenure at an unnamed downtown Internet
company where he did not actually have a job":
[http://www.newyorker.com/archive/2000/11/27/2000_11_27_120_T...](http://www.newyorker.com/archive/2000/11/27/2000_11_27_120_TNY_LIBRY_000022173)
* Reporter's fake job irks real dot-com: [http://articles.cnn.com/2000-12-05/tech/reporter.irks.dot.co...](http://articles.cnn.com/2000-12-05/tech/reporter.irks.dot.com.idg_1_employees-luminant-worldwide-dot?_s=PM:TECH)
------
jroseattle
This kid's drive and ambition is impressive, but using that as an excuse to
ignore honesty? Sounds like he should be working on wall street, instead.
Kudos to David Tempkin for his response -- spot on. He recognized the
situation for what it was, and responded most appropriately.
But here's the thing -- suppose he was instead sponging off a smaller, non-
corporate, recently-funded, bootstrapped operation. Would everyone be calling
him a go-getter? I'm guessing not, as the "theft" conversation would likely
take a different tone.
------
easy
This guy is fantastic. If what he's doing now with the new incubator doesn't
work out I hope he considers applying to YC. Living at AOL is at least a good
a story as selling cereal.
------
jmtame
He also has been solo the whole time, which makes it more impressive. He had a
cofounder who gave up, but Eric never budged.
------
iblaine
Break the rules when it fits your own interests. This kid should leave the
valley and move to Wall St.
------
citricsquid
> Update 9:31 a.m. PT: This story has been updated with a response from AOL.
What was the response? I can't find it in the article, would be interesting to
see it.
~~~
dangrossman
> Contacted for comment, David Temkin, senior vice president of Mail and
> Mobile for AOL, told CNET, "It was always our intention to facilitate
> entrepreneurialism in the Palo Alto office -- we just didn't expect it to
> work so well."
~~~
DiabloD3
Understatement of the year.
~~~
petercooper
There's one thing you can say about AOL: they have a sense of humor.
~~~
chris24
From that one statement alone, I suddenly have a lot more respect for AOL.
That was hilarious.
------
Mz
Homeless entrepreneurs: The new cool thing.
Now I just need $50k or so.
~~~
jarek
And a contact at CNET.
------
rdtsc
Hearing about AOL throws me back to the late 90s.
And whenever I hear about them it is never in a technical context as in "check
out this new database AOL techs created" it is more of "remember how AOL used
to send people a ton of CDs?" or "Check out the statistics of people still
using dial up"
I don't even remember what made them sort of quitely disappear from the radar?
Was it broadband from cable companies and Verizon's Fios?
So I am wondering what do AOL tech people do there? Is it just maintenance to
keep the dial-up server pool working?
~~~
cfinke
Tech people at AOL not involved in maintaining the dial-up service are working
on about.me, AIM, AOL.com, the Blogsmith CMS, features for blogs running on
the Blogsmith CMS (Engadget, Autoblog, etc.), AOL Desktop, Games.com,
Huffington Post, AOL Mail, Mapquest, Moviefone, Patch, Shortcuts, TechCrunch,
and Winamp, to name a few.
~~~
rdtsc
And out of those things the last thing I remember using was probably reading
an article from huffpo or techcrunch.
------
uptown
Anybody know his Twitter username? The one linked to from the "About Us" page
doesn't work.
~~~
ericmsimons
Hi! My twitter is <http://twitter.com/#!/ericsimons40> \- not sure why it
didn't work from the about page :O
~~~
uptown
This explains it:
@Support: Some users are having trouble accessing Twitter on the web. Our
engineers are looking into it.
<https://twitter.com/support/status/205735369034039297>
------
sparknlaunch12
Great story and lucky for Eric he wasn't locked up in prison. Worth noting he
was involved in an earlier project at AOL and they hadn't deactivated his
pass. A without this things may have gone the other way.
I think Gates and Jobs spent nights at places they were working at, leveraging
off free to use, latest technology.
His startup idea is great. There are variations out there already but maybe
this story and network will turn this into something successful.
------
DigitalSea
I'm sure once AOL eventually goes out of business, they can crash on his couch
and use his shower. Fair enough he was using their facilities to work on his
own projects and try and raise capital, but I admire his audacity. This is
probably one of the most impressive things I've heard and read about in a long
time.
------
joelhaasnoot
Bending the truth gets you far - I spoke to a trainfan once who told everyone
he was a train/locomotive driver/engineer and used that to travel all
throughout Europe in traincabs
~~~
jarek
Also, it sounds a lot better than "lying."
------
libraryatnight
Very cool story :) I understand the ethics arguments, but I can't find the
heart to support them. I admire Eric's resourcefulness and outright balls ;)
------
charlieok
So today I found myself reading Robert Burns' poem, “To a Mouse” (the origin
of the famous phrase, “The best laid plans of mice and men”).
I think it's almost possible to read this poem in the voice of AOL talking to
Eric Simons.
<http://www.worldburnsclub.com/poems/translations/554.htm>
------
alaskamiller
Good hustle, Eric. Sorry for dropping the ball on not getting back to ya but
you've been making do better than I can.
------
gonein60
Too bad his incubator wasn't at Google. He probably could have lived a little
better down in Mountain View.
------
yardie
I had a friend that claimed he was squatting at Virginia Tech's Math Emporium.
At the time I assumed he was joking (they didn't have showers) but now I'm not
so sure anymore. And it's not like college students are renowned for their
personal hygiene.
~~~
ja27
We had a homeless guy living in our dorm lounge for almost a week before
someone realized he wasn't a student.
------
readme
"I went to the woods because I wished to live deliberately, to front only the
essential facts of life, and see if I could not learn what it had to teach,
and not, when I came to die, discover that I had not lived. "
------
lollancf37
His motivation and will to make his project exist is out of the ordinary and I
respect that.
However his behaviour is just shameful. I guess the end, justify the means ...
Still I don't like it, one bit.
------
rubynerd
Discarding the primary point of this article (squatting at AOL), today is my
last day of college (16-18 age bracket in the UK), and you can tell that every
single lesson is the same as it was five years ago, bar electronics because
it's a new exam board and the teacher is only just finding his feet.
Computing, we still use VB6 for coursework, Chemistry, everything is
photocopied with ye olde dates on
Props to him for attempting to introduce variety into lesson plans,
thankfully, today is the last day of copying out photocopy masters from a
whiteboard onto paper
~~~
46Bit
Off-topic, but you should think about going to <http://youngrewiredstate.org>
this summer. It's a week-long open data hack that ends with 1-2 days of
camping at Bletchley Park. I've been to it two years running now and it's done
wonders.
------
myspoonnotyours
Similar to that Duke U. student who lived in a van on campus. Of course he was
paying for tuition.
Also reminds me of Half Baked and the guy on the couch.
------
zandorg
See film 'Secret of My Success' with Michael J. Fox for similiar plot. Great
film.
------
neilkelty
Where did he work during the day as to not be noticed by hundreds of
employees?
------
EREFUNDO
I think "don't die" refer mostly to his ambition and startup....epic!
------
inspiredworlds
love this guys hustle
------
a3d6g2f7
Maybe he should have brought the security guard on as a co-founder?
------
a3d6g2f7
Simons' supervisor commented that he was a model employee for AOL's Palo Alto
Office.
"Eric was always on time, never late for work."
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Cultural Cringe - tin7in
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cultural_cringe
======
tnester1
Similar to how we percieve our food as normal compared to other countries
food; we all see things differently, where you grow up changes perspective a
lot. In my experience, I have never been negative enough to think badly about
my country or my culture. It is a matter of being a positive person and
putting yourself in others shoes and realizing how amazing everything can
seem. Get yourself a foreign friend, you're set.
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
How Mayvenn built community and raised from A16Z - nbhartiya
http://blog.sendsonar.com/2015/06/19/how-mayvenn-grew-its-community-using-sms/
======
pulkitpulkit
I wonder if SMS is being effective now because it's under-utilized by
companies and is known to be a channel more typically free from business
notifications.. if lots of companies started using SMS would it become too
noisy and change user perception about how they wish to be notified / kept
part of the community?
~~~
nbhartiya
This is a bit of "with great power, comes great responsibility" situation.
It's really easy to piss someone off if you keep texting them. That's why
Sonar is all about high touch two-way SMS, and that's largely how Mayvenn uses
SMS as well. To use SMS effectively, it's important to let users opt in
themselves, so they know to expect SMS and have the option to opt out. Mayvenn
places their phone number on their website and asks customers if they want to
opt in on the registration form.
------
nbhartiya
I wrote this case study to analyze how Mayvenn built up to 10s of millions in
revenue and 30,000 hair stylsits across the United States. It was great to
talk to Taylor Wang (COO of Mayvenn) and get his thoughts on it all. Esp on
Email vs. SMS. Let me know if anyone has any questions!
------
vishaldpatel
This is really great. We talk a lot about reducing friction. Have other
company's experience been similar to Mayvenn's in-terms of conversations?
~~~
nbhartiya
Yup, some examples are service businesses to coordinate with users--(Rinse,
Shyp, Handy etc.) Handy is even using it to register users for recurring
cleaning service if they had a good experience. Delivery on demand companies
are using it to allow opt out (Susie assumes you want a meal from them
everyday unless you opt out of it.) Mayvenn's definitely the first to apply
SMS to Ecommerce so well.
------
MatthewB
Great case study by nbhartiya on how Mayvenn used SMS to really drive home the
personal touch for a huge community of stylists.
------
MyNameIsMK
VC BUBBLE
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Let’s Destroy Democracy - hsnewman
https://blogs.cisco.com/security/talos/lets-destroy-democracy
======
oblib
This sure feels a lot like an attempt to spread FUD for profit.
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
The daunting aftermath of releasing your dream game - danso
https://www.pcgamer.com/the-daunting-aftermath-of-releasing-your-dream-game-as-told-by-the-devs-of-stardew-valley-owlboy-and-more/
======
Negitivefrags
We released our game in 2012. Since that time we have had 17 expansion
releases.
You might think that by now it would be easy, or at least routine. Nothing can
be farther from the truth.
Every time is a horrible ordeal. I often feel physically sick during the
process.
To start, I will have just completed a bunch of crunch. We try as much as
possible to reduce this for the team, but for the founders and at least a few
key people it’s always right up to the last minute. So we are already in a
super stressful state.
The second stressor is questioning if anyone will even come to play the game.
It’s almost impossible to know.
Next up, will players even like what you made? This is a dread that is hard to
shake, and in our case we have a bunch of players all hyped up for a release
and if they don’t like your new content there will be a lot of anger and
disappointed people. People are brutal towards game developers in comments on
the internet.
And then there are technical issues. We are an online game and it feels like
every release there is some major issue.
When there are 150k people banging on the door and the game has a critical
issue stopping them from playing, it’s very hard to describe the feeling when
you are the responsible person and you have no idea what is wrong.
Debugging in that scenario is like having an anxiety attack.
These 4 issues together make game release seriously awful.
You have the worst aspects of being an Artist, a Business Owner and Live Ops
all in one nice package and right when you are low on sleep and after weeks of
stress before hand.
It’s a perfect storm of hell.
~~~
WilliamEdward
Why did you have so many expansion releases? I never doubt the work it takes
to be a game dev, since you're essentially doing the job of an audio engineer,
graphics designer, programmer, and marketer in one project, but wouldn't you
rather get your game to a stable position, release maybe one expansion, and go
on with the next big project?
Also if you really are the dev of PoE, keep up the great work. I've never even
remotely come into contact with your game yet Ive heard so much about it. That
says something.
~~~
anewone
It has to do with their business model and style of game. As a F2P product
they benefit most from people simply playing the game as much as possible and
occasionally seeing little things like ads or other players' outfits pointing
towards the store. The game is very replayable so it works well with a regular
content schedule to remix the game a bit and keep people coming back each
season.
And I gather that you believe this is The one dev - there is a sizeable team
making this game.
------
DanHulton
Yeah, this all tracks. I made a "simple" Slack RPG because I was tickled about
the concept and the potential pun of the name (Slack & Slash, though Slack
very predictably asked for me to change it to something a little less
affiliated-sounding). I figured I'd drop six months on it and release it and
see if anyone liked it.
Cut forward two years later, a couple of rewrites (from idle game to turn-
based combat, then from a monthly competition to a long-term progression with
multiple classes), and finally I launch. It got approved by Slack, it goes up
on the app directory, I make a couple key reddit posts, and... Like 5 new
users.
I'm sure folks here can tell the problem already - spending 2 years on
development and maybe a couple days on marketing is always a recipe for a
shitty launch.
Over and over again, I read stories like this and think "thank God this is
just a hobby for me and not my main source of income, not something I took out
a loan to achieve." I like to think that if it were a more serious thing, I'd
have been more serious about the marketing, but even still, that's no
guarantee.
Oh, also - I'm up to about 20 daily users these days. Even with that few, I
still get nervous pushing out any new code. Getting very polite "Hey, the game
isn't working" emails while I'm stuck at the day job and can't go fix it is
devastating. I've ended up with a weird release schedule because of it - I
generally only roll out code on Friday evenings, so that I have as much time
as possible to fix potential bugs.
------
vinceguidry
I really wish more people would appreciate the human cost of building things
by themselves instead of just chalking it all up to 'the creative journey' or
some shit. It could potentially open up some really interesting service
business models.
If I start just about any other kind of business other than a creative one, I
can buy products or services that will help me get to market 10x easier than
if I try to go it without. But if I try to venture outside of established biz
modes and start to wander into the creative, I don't have to go far before I'm
in an awkward no man's land of ugly, no one cares kind of having to burn the
candle at both ends in order to push through to some kind of stability, and
this article shows that that stability is a mirage.
The historical answer has always been to collect your efforts into an
industry. And yeah, that option is there. You can go work for EA.
But it would be so much better if the games industry didn't have to eat its
young. Or at least, not _all_ of its young.
Hollywood's answer to the problem has been to double down on the community. If
you want to be a screenwriter, first you need to realize that it's a hard hard
thing to break into, there are always going to be more people looking to break
in than there will be jobs, but you can still at least find a little bit of
glory in the industry through YouTube or temping or whatever while you figure
out what your plan B is. And everyone around you is going to help you figure
these hard things out.
But you want to break into gaming? Haha fuck you buddy. Nobody gives a shit,
go work for EA and get shit out when you finally stop making them quite as
much $$$ as you did when you were young and stupid. Sure, go make your own
games, I don't give a shit, don't expect any kudos from me, better hope you
didn't dare spend any company resources on it because yes, we will sue the
shit out of you for daring to get bigger than your britches.
I guess this is just my fervent hope that every industry can figure out how to
be like craft beer.
~~~
slg
>Hollywood's answer to the problem has been to double down on the community.
Hollywood's answer to the problem is unions. Screenwriters have unions. Actors
have unions. Directors have unions. Even the people who provide food on the
sets of movies have a union. Hollywood doesn't care about "community" any more
than the video game industry. They just realized that there are more people
who want to work in the entertainment industry than there are available jobs
and a union was the best way to protect themselves from being taken advantage
of because of that fact.
~~~
drakonka
I think it's worthwhile pointing out that it isn't like game developers don't
have unions. Maybe if you're talking about the US exclusively sure, but there
are parts of the world where employees in the game development industry do
have active union representation (which as one such employee is very much
appreciated).
~~~
lentil_soup
Curious to know where you are based. I've not heard of game developer unions
in Europe either.
~~~
drakonka
I'm in Sweden, where most people are in a union. It doesn't have to be a union
specific to game development (although I think one may exist, I'm not sure).
I'm in a general union called Unionen. Even though it's not a union specific
to the game development industry, they have a lot of power and work with the
government, companies, and employees to monitor and improve work conditions
and employee protections. For example, last year a series of meetings was held
at our workplace between interested employees and union representatives,
resulting in a new collective bargain agreement which formalised a flex hours
policy and gave us an extra paid week off per year (partly to address the
overtime we tend to do). I've heard of cases where employees called in their
union representative to help them work through issues with the employer,
negotiate better termination agreements, etc. Basically it's a normal union
that does union-y things :)
------
ohiovr
My brother and I spent about 6 months in 2012 to make a game with unity3d to
hit into the app store craze and we bombed pretty badly. The game had good
looks, editors, customization, but lacked good game play. We basically sat
down one day and said wouldn't it be cool if we made a game similar to an old
arcade but with newer graphics and started to work on it. I think the most
ironic thing about our efforts was that we weren't really gamers ourselves.
I'm glad we did it though because we did use unity3d and C# knowledge for
other things besides games (I guess we were pretty lucky). We didn't even make
a single penny from our game. It was pretty depressing. Going for years on a
project that you might not make a single penny on sounds terrifying.
------
egypturnash
This all sounds so familiar.
I don’t make games, I make comics. Four and a half years quietly working.
Another year to do a messy Kickstarter. A year of feeling lost and empty
afterwards. And then, finally, starting up the familiar grind on the next
project, which I’d been kicking around on and off during those two years.
I know a few professional authors. They seem to be able to go from one project
to another fairly easily; they also typically have much shorter schedules. I
kinda envy that sometimes. A lot.
~~~
redisman
You still released a new work of art into the world. It's not a small thing.
99.999% of people give up.
~~~
egypturnash
I tell myself things like that when I’m in the post-release slump. It still
happens. This thing has dominated your life for several years, it’s done, it
doesn’t need any more work, it’s out of your life. Now there’s this big gaping
emptiness where the project used to be.
The solution usually ends up being “a new project”. After a while.
------
rl3
> _Sandberg’s anxiety had continued after launch. He worried about his
> financial security and felt like he’d wasted the last 10 years of his life._
As someone in a similar boat, the burn of "hey, I just wasted my 20s working
on some project that didn't really go anywhere" is an incredibly painful pill
to swallow, and perhaps something you never fully come to terms with. Life is
so very short, don't waste it.
~~~
colordrops
Better than wasting away in a corporate cube hell.
~~~
rl3
Usually corporate cube hell is a means to an end outside of said hell, but HN
is littered with stories of people being utterly consumed (in a bad, soul-
crushing way) by their workplace all the time, so good point.
~~~
davemp
Cube hell isn’t the only possible situation for cube level workers either.
Working with people you like on projects with varying levels of appeal, while
gradually improving your personal situation, can be a very satisfying way to
spend your career. Grandiose goals are a risky way to look for meaning/value
in life.
------
Insanity
I can relate to the feeling of 'emptiness' after release and don't think this
is any different in other software fields.
After working on a project for close to 2 years with 2 other people (at work)
we released it and just waited for the feedback anxiously. With a lot of
crunching and last minute changes as well.
It was "just 2 years" and I already had such a bad feeling of not knowing what
to do next that I can't even imagine what it must be like after 5 or let alone
9 years :o
~~~
WilliamEdward
You have to understand that you don't lose anything, no matter the outcome.
Even if your game/software sucks you can remain sane knowing you gained a
valuable skill (programming, design, w/e) and a working product that you might
change a bit in the future and reintroduce to the market again.
------
grosjona
My first programming experience was in game development (Flash games) but I
never spent more than a few months on any game... Soon, I stopped working on
games altogether and started working on open source developer tools instead.
Games are awesome and exciting but they almost always have a limited lifespan.
I didn't like the idea of spending so much time building something that had a
limited lifespan. My goal is to build a project that will outlive me. That
said I have huge respect for game developers because it's such a difficult
area, game developers are true artists.
------
pmiller2
I kind of expected this to be about Derek Smart and Battlecruiser 3000 AD:
[https://timhowgego.wordpress.com/bc3k/introduction/](https://timhowgego.wordpress.com/bc3k/introduction/)
[https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battlecruiser_3000AD](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battlecruiser_3000AD)
------
garganzol
Not only games cause such effects on their creators. Any piece of craft-ware
does pretty much the same. I'm an enterprise software creator/publisher and
sometimes I have to go through the very same lows and highs described in the
article.
Doing a product is hard. Much harder that you might initially think.
------
binbag
Games (and books, films, music) exist in an interesting middle ground between
commercial enterprise and pure art. Although I suppose most art these days has
to sustain a business in some form. It wasn't always like this: art used to be
sustained by rich benefactors sponsoring artists. In a way it's good that art
has been somewhat democratised through capitalism, and on the other hand the
stress of having to turn your art into a product must destroy quite a chunk of
the creative freedom and drive. Would be interested to hear what some artists
(not hobbyists who have other jobs to sustain them) would like to see happen
with art in the future and its relationship to society and capitalism.
------
dilatedmind
shoutout to darkfall
[http://www.sickenger.com/articles/the_making_of_darkfall/](http://www.sickenger.com/articles/the_making_of_darkfall/)
\- was the creators' dream game
\- 10+ years in the making
\- team lost funding, went without pay, and moved from sweden to greece
\- not a commercial success
\- best game ever made.
------
atrilumen
I can't even read about it.
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Docker WILL crash. Docker WILL destroy everything it touches - paulygarcia
https://thehftguy.com/2016/11/01/docker-in-production-an-history-of-failure/
======
drugme
Fine article, but (2016):
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12872304](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12872304)
------
gvb
(2016)
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Repo with same name as username and a README.md adds it to your profile - manojlds
https://github.com/manojlds
======
manojlds
Not available for all. A previous post got flagged since people were asking
for examples so posted this one with my own profile as example.
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
I Quit a Six-Figure Existence to Create My Own Destiny. (Why You Should Too) - joebalcom
https://joebalcom.blog/2020/07/08/destiny/
======
matchbok
The numerous subtle boasts are really a turn off.
A lot of it is also just... wrong.
> You will never be truly free or become wealthy by working for someone else.
Simply not true, at all. People with family, loved ones, etc would disagree.
People who want to work 8 hours a day disagree. Most people, I'd imagine,
would disagree that this is what "freedom" is.
Really not HN worthy IMO.
~~~
joebalcom
Thank you for your feedback, Matchbox. Maybe this wasn't meant for you then.
Move along.
~~~
matchbok
Also, the writer clearly has an attitude problem. Move along.
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Ask HN: Career Development Plans. Is there a point to this madness? - johnward
I have never really gotten anything out of "Career Development Plans". In the end they just seem to add overhead to the task I already don't have enough time to accomplish. Actually, each time the development planning period comes a long I start looking for new jobs. I see these as a useless exercise when in the end real work gets in the way of achieving these "goals".<p>Why do companies, especially older or larger corporations, seem so set on this method? Do you find value in the process? Is it really "career development" if it's not something I want to do? What is so wrong with not wanting to move up or being happy with the amount of responsibility (or maybe work/life balance) you currently have?
======
LucasCollecchia
Assume for a moment that organizations are information technologies. If that's
the case, then processing units are the firm's humans, plus whatever
mechanized information systems they have.
Now, unlike mechanical systems, human components of this larger IT network are
far less modular. Certain positions require decades of experience and
knowledge in order to perform optimally. You can't merely buy a person off the
rack to slot into your organization if you have particular needs for their
position.
From the perspective of an organization, then, in order to ensure continuity
of capacity of a system, niche capacities need to be actively cultivated. If
your position as X manager is part of their VP of X pipeline, then the
organization's ability to selectively pick people who would be best suited for
grooming into the VP of X position could be vital to their staffing strategy.
That said, this assumes a certain approach to developing capacity within firms
(one, however, that is excessively common), which itself is a strategy choice
mediated by a number of factors, including the firm's attractiveness to hires
from the outside. If you're Google, for instance, you likely have the ability
to pull the capacity you need from the market if its a generalized asset.
~~~
johnward
This is why I have a problem with the term "career development" in general. My
career will never revolve around any one company. It sounds more like it's
employee development for the benefit of the company not the employee's career.
~~~
LucasCollecchia
Well, you're probably right. There's a conflict of interest with respect to
developing an employee's career from the perspective of the employee and the
firm. Both want what's best for themselves.
One of the big concepts in negotiation theory, has been the rise of interest
harmonization, wherein parties attempt to figure out how to make their
dealings with others create shared interests. If successful these efforts
might make career development efforts live up to their name.
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Looking for a Technical Cofounder - jameswcookiv
Looking for a technical cofounder for a reservation based site geared at overlanders.
UX research completed. Working on wireframes and user flow.<p>Email me at: [email protected] if interested.<p>Thanks
======
PragmaticPulp
You'll get better responses if you state your background and your role in this
new venture.
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Gos: Armed Golang - 475783185
https://github.com/storyicon/gos
======
gus_massa
Comets of the author in the duplicate submission:
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19969644](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19969644)
> _gos is compatible with all go commands and has go mod /get equipped with
> smart `GOPROXY`, it automatically distinguishes between private and public
> repositories and uses `GOPROXY` to download your lost package when
> appropriate._
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Microsoft is closing all old bug reports they couldn't fix - ianderf
That's a letter I received today:<p>This notification was generated for feedback item: <...> which you submitted at the Microsoft Connect (http://connect.microsoft.com) site.<p>Thank you for taking the time to report this problem. This problem was reported two years ago. In an effort to focus our resources on the most impactful problems, we are closing old Connect issues. If this problem is still important to you, please go to https://community.visualstudio.com and follow the instructions there to file a new report.
======
dorfuss
It reminds me of an old joke from the Windows95 era:
How many Microsoft engineers you need to change a light bulb? None. Microsoft
simply announces darkness the new standard.
* - (please don't take it seriously)
------
Jyaif
Apple does this after every iOS release. Obviously I'm not filing "Radars"
(Apple's name for a bug report) anymore.
------
douche
At some point, simply keeping track of these things is more overhead than it
is worth. I don't work anywhere near the scale of Microsoft, but at some
point, you just have to say, alright, we're not fixing this; it works
completely different in version N+1 that you should have upgraded to years
ago, and btw, we're actually on N+3 now, so we are not going to fix old, janky
code that we already fixed.
~~~
dariusgodre
The bigger issue is that they let it get this bad. In order to get this this
point, they would have had to systematically fail triage bugs when they come
it, fail to track them as they're fixed, and fail to rectify the problem for
over two years.
This is an admission that they probably never gave a damn about your bug
reports. But hey: if you'd like to help this multibillion dollar company to
triage their bugs and re-file an updated issue they would appreciate it.
~~~
winteriscoming
>> The bigger issue is that they let it get this bad. In order to get this
this point, they would have had to systematically fail triage bugs when they
come it, fail to track them as they're fixed, and fail to rectify the problem
for over two years.
In reality, it's not that easy. There have been times where, in projects that
I have been involved, I wanted to fix a certain issue but the time required to
setup, reproduce, investigate, fix and test against that and other versions,
just adds up to a point where you cannot focus on the other equally important
(new development) tasks at hand. So overtime, issues which might look easy to
fix or interesting, do get piled up.
~~~
ianderf
> time required to setup, reproduce, investigate, fix and test against that
> and other versions
And that's not the case again. I already provided all information to reproduce
that bug easily.
PS "bugs", actually. They've closed several bugs that I reported, though
notified me about one only.
~~~
winteriscoming
I am not denying that many bugs that got closed might still be relevant and
reproducible. What I meant in my comment was that this doesn't look like a bad
or some kind of "we don't acknowledge or care about these issues" move. Rather
this appears to be an attempt at getting the bug reports into a more relevant
and manageable state.
~~~
ianderf
> getting the bug reports into a more relevant and manageable state
What means that _somebody_ got them into the unmanageable state, in the first
place.
------
winteriscoming
Having been part of projects that grew large over time and are composed of too
many components, I understand why this is done. It reaches a point where you
can't go to each open issue and see whether it's still relevant in the context
of all the new and different technical changes that would have gone in during
that period.
That mail does seem to point to a place where users can report this afresh if
it's still relevant. So, not a bad approach, to get these bug reports to
hopefully in a more relevant and manageable state.
~~~
blitzd
They do this for bugs that are easily reproducible on all versions of these
products as well.
I received a similar response to a bug report a few years back, it had been
open for a couple of years without even being acknowledged, then one day they
decided to close it with a form letter listing possible reasons. People
continued to upvote it, and finally 3 1/2 years after it was filed it finally
got fixed. No interaction from anyone at MS other than the form response, and
the final status change. I've filed about a dozen bugs reports on connect -
and this is one of the few 'success' stories, sadly.
User engagement at MS is very broken.
------
CyberFonic
Some manager received a bonus for closing so many bug reports. Wonder if he
took the team out for pizza and beers.
~~~
Zelmor
Downsized them, rather. Save money on wages too!
------
Zelmor
This fits into the picture with the development culture that was hinted on in
these irc chats:
[https://i.imgur.com/y6clspP.jpg](https://i.imgur.com/y6clspP.jpg)
------
GFischer
Many other large companies do that.
Google did that with Android several times, and another poster mentions Apple
does that too.
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8803118](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8803118)
------
anonbanker
it's interesting to see that Microsoft is actively adopting Jamie Zawinski's
CATD model[0].
0\. [https://www.jwz.org/doc/cadt.html](https://www.jwz.org/doc/cadt.html)
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Ask HN: How do you backup personal documents? - burgerquizz
======
simonblack
Two levels of backup.
1\. Daily backup. Personal documents take up one directory tree amongst the
many directory trees of my /home/username directory which is backed up in full
every day. Those daily backups are discarded in a reverse-exponential way,
such that there many recent backups and fewer older backups.
Those daily backups are duplicated twice more on to two separate external hard
drives.
2\. Monthly backups, documents only. The whole of my documents directory tree
is tarred and compressed as a monthly 'snapshot' and this is stored as three
separate instances on three separate hard drives, one internal and two
external. Those monthly backups are stored indefinitely and never discarded.
NOTE: I know I should have another copy stored off-site as 'belt and braces',
but I know from painful experience that 'cloud storage' can be less dependable
than a home-grown solution. And the triple-copy on-site system has served me
well so far.
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Show HN: TryScribe, modern document creator - tankenmate
http://www.tryscribe.com
======
koopajah
I love the concept of branching which really take something great from (D)VCs
to apply it to document reviewing. I always had trouble using word's revision
system and having multiple people correcting/working on the same document at
once. It will highly depend on how you handle the merge and if it's intuitive
enough to use.
From you signup process, it seems like you only plan to develop these
functionalities. Is it demo-ready yet? Or are these only mockups to ensure
which functionality really matters to the users?
EDIT: minor correction, I think visualize is written with a Z but I'm not an
english native-speaker so I could be wrong.
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Ask HN: Where to buy .ly domains? - jimbobimbo
Where one buys .ly domains? I did a quick search and none of the choices that nic.ly offers does look legit.
======
arfrank
I have used <http://libyanspider.com/> in the past and have been totally
satisfied.
------
d_mcgraw
I used <http://www.libyanspider.com/> for my .ly purchases.
------
jimbobimbo
Thanks everyone!
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
How American Jews Toppled Paris Couture and Redesigned the Fashion Industry - robg
http://www.momentmag.com/Exclusive/2009/2009-08/200908-Ghetto-to-Glamour.html
======
brianliu
Again, this is article has a title which is extremely misleading. Ethnicity is
improperly cited as cause, instead of traits that are commonly attributed to
immigrants. Paris Couture was never "toppled" nor "redesigned" and this group
did not exclusively create American ready-to-wear (to which the title infers).
If you look at the large trends of the last hundred years of fashion, the
success is largely cultural (non-ethnicity-based) opposed to any other factor
(this includes innovation through new fabrics or new sewing techniques which
has been cited in the article as the determining factor). Fashion reflects the
cultural and emotional sentiment of its target market, and does not impose any
cultural designs, as the article stated at the end (basic law of demand).
Furthermore, the Jewish-American "advantage" (tailoring trade skills, work
ethic, innovation, optimism) can all be attributed to immigrants in general.
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Microsoft Edge DevTools Z-Index 3D View - cyptus
https://blogs.windows.com/msedgedev/2020/01/23/debug-z-index-3d-view-edge-devtools/
======
app_config
Doesn't seem to work in the chromium version of edge tho
~~~
cyptus
It is the chromium edge version, but only in canary for now
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Google talk bots - davidw
http://googletalk.blogspot.com/2007/12/merry-christmas-god-jul-and.html
======
marcus
Cool idea, but I'm having an IRC chatbot flashback.
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Show HN: I built this to help people know their severe weather risk - hayley
A common theme with the recent tornado tragedies has been to say that people had no warning.<p>For people who rely solely on civil defense sirens for their weather information, this may well be true, but as I've come to learn, the severe weather threat is often known days in advance.<p>Now, this isn't necessarily the public's fault. After all, I would say I'm more knowledgeable about severe weather than most and even I didn't know about sites like the Storm Prediction Center until relatively recently.<p>wickedwx is my attempt to bring this wealth of information to a larger audience in a format that the general public can grasp (always a work in progress as the information is often quite technical).<p>http://wickedwx.com - the daily risk areas
http://wickedwx.com/warnings/ - current warnings - as I write this there are 9 tornado warnings spread across Nebraska, Kansas, Oklahoma, and 1 on the East Coast in North Carolina.
======
hayley
For those interested, KFOR in Oklahoma City is streaming live coverage of this
tornado outbreak on their site: <http://www.kfor.com/news/livestreaming/>
------
ColinWright
Clickables:
<http://wickedwx.com>
<http://wickedwx.com/warnings/>
------
16BitTons
The (show map) links on the right are not working.
This is very cool. You are taking data and turning it into information.
~~~
hayley
Thanks!
I've just fixed the broken links - the image links are based on the valid
start time that the SPC puts on the outlook, which is _supposed_ to be 20:00
(UTC) for this outlook, but they put the start time on there as 20:40, so the
links were pointing to files that didn't exist.
tl;dr - I manually fixed it. :)
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Ask HN: Good documentaries for children - Smrchy
My daughter is 5 and interested in everything about the universe, the creation of life, dinosaurs, space flight, middle ages, castles etc. Just about everything.<p>I would love to show her some good documentaries about those topics but are having a hard time finding the good ones. Can anyone recommend some suited for children?<p>Thank you and sorry if this has been asked before.
======
amirouche
Vikidia has an english version, it's for 8-13 children though
[https://en.vikidia.org/wiki/Main_Page](https://en.vikidia.org/wiki/Main_Page)
------
gus_massa
Not exactly documentaries, but you can try the Beakman's Word show
[https://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=beakman%27s+wor...](https://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=beakman%27s+world)
| {
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Introducing twittastic, a twitter client for windows - gtzi
http://twittastic.net/
======
amarkos
Promising...
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"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
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NFL Bans Purses, Bags at All Games - jsherry
http://abcnews.go.com/US/nfl-bans-purses-bags-games/story?id=19416287
======
onion2k
"It really does dramatically increase our security posture at our stadiums."
"posture" is a great choice of word there. This doesn't really improve
security very much, if at all, but it _looks_ like it does. It's _posing_ as
security, but the reality is much more likely to be that fewer people bring
bags so they need fewer people to check them, and consequently save on the
cost of a few jobs and push profits up a little. By making us safer! Honest!
| {
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Bill Gates says the success rate on VC is “pathetic” compared to development - JDDunn9
http://qz.com/187959/bill-gates-says-the-success-rate-on-venture-capital-is-pathetic-compared-to-development/
======
dragonwriter
Actually, no, he didn't -- while that's the title of the linked article, the
actual quote said that he said that VC has a pathetic success rate if success
rate is all you are looking at, but he doesn't say it is pathetic _compared
to_ development. He says that the criticism of it as pathetic makes the same
mistake as criticizing the low success rate of development projects.
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Ask HN about Server Side Javascript - IsaacSchlueter
What's the best server-side javascript implementation? Why?<p>There are a few out there. mod_js, Rhino, various Spidermonkey implementations. Have you used any or some of these? What were they good for? What did you like about them? What would have made them better?<p>Not interested in debating the merits of javascript as a server-side language in general. Thanks.
======
bdfh42
JScript and the .Net framework works just fine if you are happy with IIS and
Windows
~~~
IsaacSchlueter
Let's just say, hypothetically, that you've sworn a blood oath never to
knowingly install Windows for any purpose other than browser testing, and yet
_another_ blood oath never to deal with IIS, ever again, for any reason
whatsoever.
What's your #2 pick?
~~~
bdfh42
After that, server side JavaScript gets a bit thin.
I came to this after writing a lot of client side JavaScript which made me
realise just how cool a language JavaScript is. I found it disruptive to have
to change languages when I wanted to do part of an action on the server -
after all it was all part of the same integrated process. This was why I took
a good look at running JScript on the .Net Framework. Must admit that I did
not end up using that though.
------
epall
AppJet <http://appjet.com/>
~~~
IsaacSchlueter
What makes appjet so great?
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
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Reusable pre-paid payment model (similar to one skype has) - savior
I would like to know if there is any pre-paid payment module that can be used in my web application for handling the payment functionalities. Essentially, its a model where people load it with cash and use it till it expires.<p>I am intersted in any such module that can be integrated into my system.(commercial / open source)
======
lzw
Not enough information, I think. But maybe what you're looking for are the
stored value cards you can buy at grocery stores. You can hook up with the
providers of these and the customer buys one of the cards and then loads
credits into their account on your system. The card providers handle the
backend of it and take a cut of the revenue. Several providers out there, but
I've not worked with any of them, so I can't recommend.
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
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Show HN: Major Rebuild FreeSurveyCreator.com - filvdg
We Launched the rebuild of freesurveycreator.com today<p>History :
FreeSurveyCreator.com was started by @WillEWallace as a side project with good base traction but he could not find the time to continue to develop it
We took over the service and relaunching today
Major changes :
- Rewrite from Ruby to PHP
- Moved from Heroko to Google App engine (My first project here)
- Restructured the datamodel to accommodate future evolutions
- updated id from nrs to hashes for better privacy<p>Feel free to provide feedback or ask any questions
http://www.freesurveycreator.com<p>(my background is 15Y PHP + 8Y ops at ISP currently Marketing consultant)
======
meekins
Looks handy. However how do you differentiate from dozens of alternatives on
the market already?
Also, running your web pages through a proofreader might be helpful to give a
more professional impression. While small typos on a FAQ page might seem like
a non-issue they do count.
------
filvdg
Original launch announcement
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8131650](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8131650)
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More than 50 nations, but not U.S., sign onto cybersecurity pact - tareqak
https://www.axios.com/cybersecurity-paris-call-for-trust-france-21e434df-8a59-48bc-8cde-cd1c1f43dfd0.html
======
tareqak
Choice quotes:
The original signatories included more than 50 nations, 130 private sector
groups and 90 charitable groups and universities, but not the United States,
United Kingdom, Russia or China.
Key absentees from the agreement included the U.S., U.K. and Australia — three
of the five nations in the powerful Five Eyes digital surveillance alliance.
The others, Canada and New Zealand, both signed.
Many restrictive regimes also did not sign on, including China, North Korea,
Russia and Iran, who all have active cyberwarfare programs, and Saudi Arabia,
which does not.
Israel, which has a large domestic cybersecurity industry, also did not sign
on.
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"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
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Drop out. Or don't. - dabent
http://areallybadidea.com/drop-out-or-dont
======
snprbob86
This matches my experience reasonably well.
Some other random tips:
1) If you do go to college, _live on campus_! Commuters tend to fall into two
categories. Those who miss out on lots of fun stuff and those who live at home
and never grow out of their high school friends.
2) Schoolwork comes second. This does mean get failing grades or drink all day
long (but one semester of that might not hurt). It means that you should take
advantage of your ample spare time to do something fun or interesting. It's OK
to miss a class here or there to get the most out of the overall experience.
And if you don't have ample spare time, take fewer/easier classes.
3) Figure out a way to learn something real. Do research, take courses in
areas you don't know much about, get a non-trivial part time job, do contract
work, something, _anything_. Because if you're good at something, why coast
through classes and do busy work? Why not get better at something you suck at?
Got a bunch of assignments that are too easy, but time consuming? Tell your
professor, then negotiate with them to do less, but more valuable work.
~~~
xiongchiamiov
The dorms filled up before I got a room, so I spent my first year off-campus
(but not at home); as a consequence, I missed out on getting to know people
until, well, even now in my 4th year. Being an active participant of a club
helped counteract this tremendously.
On the positive side, I spent less money, had more room, and had unfiltered
internet.
------
wh-uws
As I get closer to completing my college education (its my last semester) I
think what alot of posts like these miss is most institutions focus less on
teaching you how to do something and more how to learn how to do something on
your own.
\- Its not about that ridiculous project you had to do that the professor
didn't lecture on and is due Monday even through he only assigned it last
Wednesday.
_Its how you deal with that._
\- Its not about the fact that you can drink yourself under a table and party
every day and night
_Its about how you deal with that._ You could do it and fail out of many
schools ,mine is one of those, or you could still do well. But either way you
have to learn to balance it
College is the final playground. The last buffer between you and the real
world. Its up to you to make it something that is worthwhile or figure out
that it is not for you.
Also some of the best people I've met, the closet friends and strongest
connections I most likely keep for life were made in college.
It wasn't perfect and there were things I would do differently given the
chance but I wouldn't trade the experience for anything short of figuring out
I had something of the caliber of what Bill Gate or Mark Zuckerburg found they
had on their hands.
------
danenania
People always point out the social and networking benefits, which can
certainly be great, but college can also be a very limiting social environment
in a lot of ways. It often extends the cliques and general self-conscious
stupidity of high school years and makes it easy to get completely stuck in
that mind-and-soul numbing bourgeois bubble of social status and judgment, and
if you aren't careful you can get pushed along on the conveyor belt into a job
that's just a further extension, and you'll never get to have your own life.
You can actually learn a lot more about life and relationships by putting
yourself in difficult, unfamiliar situations rather than cushy curated ones.
Backpacking solo around the world or starting fresh in a big city doesn't get
you into the Yale Entrepreneur's Club, but the things you learn and the
contacts you get can be more unique and diverse, and I'd venture that a
capable person will tend to end up with a better education and more adaptable
people skills this way, but I don't want to downplay that it can be very very
difficult to swim against the current, especially if you don't have great
social confidence to begin with. It's still worth it though. The real world is
tougher, but it's a lot easier to find meaning there versus being stuck on the
good grades-good salary-right friends-high valuation-Achieve Success Treadmill
Of Doom (tm).
~~~
krn
>> You can actually learn a lot more about life and relationships by putting
yourself in difficult, unfamiliar situations rather than cushy curated ones.
I could not agree more.
Last summer, at the age of 20, I picked a random country of Europe, in which I
hadn't been before, booked a cheap flight and went there on my own just with a
backpack. I didn't have any plans, I didn't know any people or places there,
and I even didn't understand the local language.
I wanted to challenge myself, so I chose to have a flight back from the other
airport, which was 600 km away from the place I had landed - that's to make
sure that I will not spend all the time in one city - I must travel in order
to get out of the country. Also, I decided, that in 2 weeks I must never pay
for a bed - meet strangers, go to the places where noone goes, or sleep
wherever and whenever I can - but prove to myself that it's possible.
Those 14 days, I spent traveling through the entire Portugal, was the most
amazing time in my life so far. Every day I was meeting someone new and every
day it was different experience. I was surprisingly lucky to be hosted by 10
strangers in 10 cities I visited, even though I often didn't know where I will
be after a day - everywhere I went people were just saying to me: "You must
see <that> place, it's really worth and it's so close!".
I still remember the conversions I had - every evening they were totally
different, depending on the people I was drinking local beer on wine with:
from a photographer of Porto sports magazine, and 40 years old famous
Portuguese actor, who lived in the heart of Lisbon, was singing in French and
preparing for the performance after a few days in Paris, to 60 years old
Portuguese woman coffee shop owner, and exchange students from Turkey and
Russia with their own culture and traditions.
However, I spent three nights sleeping on wild Atlantic beaches alone, which I
had never done before. I also had a few days without seeing any people at all.
When I was back, I felt like I had learned more about life than in my whole
academic year at university. I learned how to deal with myself during the
permanent moments of uncertainty. I realised how often the problems are really
not such huge as we tend to imagine. When you throw yourself into the world,
in which you don't know anyone and noone knows you, you become responsible for
every decision you make, - you always have to think forward, you can't be
nervous or scared. Now I am no longer afraid of being with myself for a few
days in the nature without any communication devices (including a computer -
not so easy for a programmer) and without other people. Also, I started to
love meeting strangers and learning about things I never imagined existing
before.
That's a kind of experience, which nobody will teach you at university. There
are no classes on that. It's something, what you have to take from the life by
yourself.
~~~
danenania
Awesome story :)
------
zdw
My take on this:
\- Go to a college on the cheap, and don't break the bank. This often means an
in-state, public school - frankly, where your diploma is from matters little
from a recruitment standpoint after you've proven yourself in a job or two.
You probably have a choice of a few of them - pick the one that has the best
program in what you're interested in.
\- Also, basic english and math will likely transfer from a community college,
and you'll pay a small fraction of what you'd pay to take similar courses at
the big name school. This frees you up to take stuff you're more interested
in, and saves money.
\- Avoid getting in debt if you can. If you must, try to take as little as
possible, and rid yourself of it quickly.
\- Explore. Take weird classes you might be interested in, you never know how
it'll be useful - the example used most often is Steve Jobs taking a
calligraphy course => modern fonts in classic Mac OS => desktop publishing
revolution.
\- Look for mentorship opportunities, and feel out your career path. Do
internships, etc. You want to get a feel for how businesses work, and what
being an employee entails, so you know what you like/what to avoid/how to be a
better employee/boss in the future.
\- Take advantage of "student only" opportunities. Many companies and
organizations will give you hardware/software/conference/professional
membership discounts. It makes sense to take advantage of these.
\- Have social life. Meet interesting people. College is different that high
school - you have more freedom, and consequences. If you're not living with
the parents, then get used to managing the rest of your life.
------
liuliu
I learned a lot in college!
After my high school, I spent two years on a startup idea and ultimately, left
my partner behind and went to college in the United States. Contrary to common
belief, I learned a lot in my college. I am already a veteran in
C/Javascript/PHP/C# before my college day, but the valuable thing about
college is not learning "programming". So, here is what I've learned:
1). I learned how to work with supercomputer, no, it is not Hadoop with
thousands nodes (though I've worked on that too!). It is Ranger, one of the
computer on TOP500. And I can spend thousands of computing hours freely to
just explore MPI and how to efficiently program on this puppy (one lesson I
learned, async communication does not always save you time);
2). I learned what Buddhism is and how it transformed during years, how to do
anthropology study and what the war is like in chimpanzees world and human
tribes, how that interact, and what it implies;
3). I learned what evolutionary theory really is, how it developed, and the
influence to American pragmatism;
4). I learned computer graphics! It is an amazing experience to write your own
ray tracer with all the knowledge you actually knew (not just glue some random
code together);
5). I even learned how MRI works in one of my biomedical class!
I am appreciated so much to the college experience and despite what people say
about it, I learned a lot.
------
fecklessyouth
I don't care if you go to Yale. When "getting in is the hardest part about
attending an Ivy League school," I have to ask, if the problem the system, or
the problem the school?
He later writes: "Most of the foundation in communication, writing, and
quantitative reasoning I developed in middle school and high school, and not
in college."
That's plain screwed up. If you developed no communication, writing, or
quantitative reasoning skills in college, then your college education was a
waste of time. But it's because you made an (apparently) crappy decision to go
to that college, not college in general.
Here in this thread, and many similar on Reddit, it is often advised to go to
a state school or community college, get a technical degree, etc...But we're
joking ourselves if we think a technical degree can lead to better reading,
writing, or reasoning skills. Of course, if you can develop those on your own,
sure, go for the technical degree. But, in this liberal arts student's
opinion, the problem with college is that, instead of either studying a pure
technical degree, or immersing yourself in the true liberal arts, people go to
large state schools and attempt to do both, but end up doing neither.
/rant
~~~
aik
From my knowledge no one really says that a technical degree leads to better
reading/writing/reasoning skills. Then again not very many say what a
technical degree really teaches you either. Funny system.
Pure liberal arts programs are interesting structures on their own. Can you
name a high school student who thinks, "you know, I want to improve my
reading, writing, and reasoning skills and for this reason I will spend 4
years in a Liberal Arts program taking a mostly random stream and number of
unrelated courses."
------
Breefield
This article sits well with me, as I've hashed this out a lot in my own head
in the past year. I would be a freshman this year had I decided to attend a
college. However, I didn't want to get burdened down with any unnecessary
loans, and as previously stated by others, the industry is quite navigable
without a degree. Instead I've moved myself from Boise Idaho to NYC, and I'm
loving it, meeting other people in the industry I wouldn't otherwise be
meeting, and learning new things constantly.
I think one main point that the article leaves out is that if you decide not
to attend college, or decide to drop out, you'll really need some self
discipline. I spent a ton of time in high school sitting in my room being an
autodidact. Learning how things work, and then learning to apply techniques
and such. Then trying to find any scraps of work I could so as to build a
portfolio/resume. Had I been doing what the rest of my peers were doing I
certainly wouldn't have been in a place to not attend college.
Hopefully that doesn't come off as pretentious. I just think the whole aspect
of having a skill v.s. not having a skill, or a passion for that matter, are
left out of many of these "is college worth it right now" articles. Assuming
the goal is to acquire a skill in college, and not to make friends/go through
that rite of passage. Speaking of rites of passage, anyone else going to
Burning Man this year? It's going to be my first, and I'm oh so excited.
~~~
bugsy
Great post. Burning Man is a much more valuable life experience than college.
Many of the engineering projects people bring there are completely amazing and
trump even the wildest accomplishments of CalTech students. What people are
learning in mechanical and electrical engineering in the whole Maker Community
for example is way beyond what is going on at the university level.
------
j_baker
Dropping out of college is hands-down the best decision I ever made. I think
it's useful for some people, but saying that everyone _has_ to go is dumb.
~~~
rimantas
I see people claiming that and upvoted all the time, but: how do you know? It
may very well be the worst decision ever made.
~~~
teej
I appreciate your skepticism. There really -isn't- any way to know for sure.
For me, the best I can do is compare what would have been to what actually
happened.
If I had stayed in college, I would have finished with a masters in CS and
Mathematics.
I dropped out instead. By the time I would have graduated, I managed to:
\- Co-found a startup
\- Build a million-user product by myself
\- Speak at half a dozen conferences, including GDC and RailsConf
\- Help kickstart a multi-billion dollar new industry
\- Get married
That seems like a damn good decision if you ask me.
------
bengebre
I'm always amazed by how many people claim to have learned so little in
college. It's not that I don't believe them; I just had the complete opposite
experience. Perhaps I'm just slower than most here, but I studied science and
engineering in school and it was HARD. It took so much effort, but I learned a
ton. I'm a programmer these days, but most of my analysis skills come from the
education I got in college and grad school. I've learned a lot since then of
course (especially about how to design code), but I attribute most of my
(modest) successes to my education.
------
tlrobinson
BS in CECS and MS in CS, with no regrets on either. On top of learning quite a
lot (I had no prior programming experience, aside from a tiny bit of TI BASIC
and C++) I met my co-founders and mentors in school, which is invaluable. But
who knows, maybe I would have learned even more on my own or met even more
awesome co-founders and mentors elsewhere.
I will say I've learned a hell of a lot more about _programming_ in the 3
years doing a startup after college than in the 4.5 years doing the BS and MS.
CS degrees aren't really about programming, but I do think they lay the
foundation for being better programmers.
------
liedra
What's often not said in these discussions is that college/university time is
a great time to work out what you want to do for a bit. I certainly had no
idea what I wanted to do coming out of high school. I wanted to be a
veterinarian, but didn't get the marks to get into that degree programme, so I
ended up doing bioinformatics, and then eventually wound up doing a computer
science degree double major with history and philosophy of science. And I love
my job now, working as an academic in technology ethics. But if you'd asked
the straight-outta-highschool me about what I'd be doing in 10 years time, she
would have had no idea I'd be where I am now. Going to university helped me to
work out which path I wanted to take. Granted, I didn't go to an American
university, and it somewhat depresses me to hear about how university is
pointless etc. because I had some amazingly good courses and learned a lot at
my university. But that was back when it was still well funded by the
Australian government and less of the corporate entity it's become. So who
knows, really?
Anyway my point is that university is not just about coming out with a piece
of paper, it's about exploring possibilities and different paths. And if you
go to a good university that focuses on actually teaching interesting stuff
rather than churning out pieces of paper, then you'll actually get something
worthwhile.
------
hansy
Depends really.
Going pre-med, college is a massive waste of time. The organic chemistry and
physics is something you will never use as a doctor, nurse, pharmacist, etc.
For business, it can be pretty good depending on where you land up. I was
fortunate to go to a school that offered one hell of a BBA program and a
majority of what I learned was applicable to investment banking, consulting,
and other corporate jobs. But for entrepreneurship? Eh...I dunno yet.
Oh and it's a lot easier to become a pretty good programmer by taking classes
than learning on your own. Feedback from good professors and peers about code
optimization is priceless.
All in all, if I had to do everything over again, I would either apply to the
best BBA or computer science program, or pick the cheapest university option
available to me.
Of course I assume that one already knows what he or she wants do right out of
college, which is rarely the case.
So, actually college is really a place for exploration. It sucked having to go
through trial and error to find my niche, but when I finally did it was
liberating. I stand by my earlier position, though, if high schools went
through more effort to bring the exploratory experience to its students.
~~~
danneu
Pretty much.
I go to a high-rated public undergrad business school because I was
entrepreneurially-spirited when I was applying for schools and though college
would cultivate that.
Instead, I found out that BBA programs are more focused on funneling you into
a mid-level management position where you make dataflow diagrams and Gantt
charts.
------
X-Istence
I agree with the author, college didn't teach me anything that I needed later
on in life, I did meet some absolutely fantastic professors and peers who
pushed me, who challenged me to do more and become better at what I was doing.
That I think is an important part that is overlooked. Sure you can go straight
to working out of high school, but generally the atmosphere is not the same.
In college you can screw up, big time, and all it will cost you is time, in
the real world it can mean your job, and lively hood. Academia provides a
comfort zone in which you can experiment.
Had it not been for a few select professors and my peers I would have never
experimented with electronics and made it a hobby of mine, I would have never
loved programming and network security as much as I do now. Those experiences
cannot be overstated. Overall I think the time I spent in college was spent
well, but I can honestly say that the time spent in classes was a waste.
------
thisrod
I studied physics at a great university, got paid for it, and graduated as
first author on a PRL. I've used everything I learnt, and things from courses
I failed at the time.
If you're doing the right course for the right reasons, it's very worthwhile.
------
bugsy
Good article. I agree with the points. After I dropped out of high school I
ended up going to a well regarded west coast university. I was all set for it
to be very challenging and some place where I would learn a lot but I was
surprised to find the engineering classes were all things I already knew how
to do. To challenge myself I shot for all A+s and considered each mere A to be
a failure.
I also started to, as a further challenge, not even attend some of the easiest
classes and managed to get A+ in those as well. I used the extra time to get
involved in student government. I found it interesting observing the politics
and learning how much back scratching and insider deals infect even college
student council politics.
While in school, I joined a music group (unrelated to the school) and we did
some touring during this time and earned money. One time we were even paid to
play at my university. Touring in a music group is a great gig that I
recommend. I met lots of famous and powerful people and made connections doing
the music.
Still in school, I got a job working for a defense contractor. I wrote
software for secret military satellite based space weapons. This was
interesting since I didn't have any sort of clearance or anything and I was
making close to minimum wage. At one point I had to write a paper on my
research for my boss. He published it and took my name off the paper. He also
went to some conference to present it that I had wanted to go to but he said I
wasn't needed. There were also false promises about getting a $1 an hour
raise. I was pretty resentful of this and stopped working on this project.
I do have a small list of things I learned in the program but they are
somewhat trivial small things that I would have learned anyway. The
interesting things had nothing to do with classes. I did make some friends of
course but these "connections" have not really benefited me all that much, but
I wasn't looking for that. It is strange that that is so often cited as a main
reason to go into debt in order to attend university. Overall the main thing
that happened is it delayed the starting of my first business by several
years.
This makes me wonder about the value of school over all. I dropped out of high
school and then found even college was pretty much useless as well. Very
different from the way it is presented as the solution to all of society's
ills. Did I learn anything even in elementary school I have to wonder?
Well, I knew how to read before I started kindergarten. My parents did not
teach me. They tell me that I just started reading signs as we were driving
along. Then I would read books. For a couple years in elementary I didn't even
attend or study as we were doing some travel. When I returned to elementary
school things seemed really slow and backwards. Before college, in primary
school and high school I am not sure what I learned there either. Although I
did have a psychology class in high school, and then a couple in college that
were very interesting, so I learned some things there. But that was from
reading the textbook and studies I'd look up on my own.
Whenever I want to know something I track down the information and just learn
it on my own. It seems to me that school is pointless. I guess it is for dumb
people? Or maybe its purpose is to brainwash people into being consumers.
Most of the founding fathers and enlightenment philosophe's were self taught.
Some of the greatest minds in history are drop outs.
I think school is a rip off, just considering the wasted time and not even
money. It does not benefit the "student", it benefits the system.
There is something to be said for a community of learners though. That is what
a Start Up is. Others interested in the same niche thing you are come
together, and you are now working together to make something new and figure
out new things out every day. You depend on no one but yourselves. It is like
a Salon of revolutionary France, only more practical.
If I had it all to do over again and was able to do so, I would not attend
school at all, not even elementary school. I would simply unschool myself.
This way I would have more time to work on my projects and inventions that I
started working on before I was a teen. It would have given me a tremendous
head start. I did not know it at the time, but what I was doing then was
useful, unique and valuable and I was doing it right. Of course others are
telling you you are wasting your time and should be doing worksheets or
reading some nonsensical textbook instead, but that is because they are
ignorant.
In addition to running my latest business, I read a lot. Now I am becoming
educated. None of the history that was taught in school was accurate in the
least. It was just propaganda to create patriots who will kill the "enemy"
without question. The most ridiculous thing of all this is being forced to
chant a pledge of allegiance to a flag, a piece of cloth. No allegiance to
one's family or friends, the allegiance must be to a cloth. This ritual that
lead each day is a symbol of the insanity of the whole system.
~~~
nostrademons
I thought basically the same thing all through grade school and college, and
for a couple years afterwards, right through doing my startup. And I still do
- as far as you go. But I think you're missing something very important.
School is not about learning _facts_. It really, really sucks at that - go
grab a book or twelve out of your public library and devour them for that. And
it's not even for learning _skills_ \- the best way to do that is to get a
private tutor, mentor, or coach, and then practice your heart out.
School is for learning _culture_. And culture, by definition, can neither be
learned nor taught. It functions on a subconscious level, in terms of the
little behaviors that people can never quite articulate but certainly notice.
You have to be immersed in it to pick it up, and it takes a significant amount
of time, and an open mind.
It's an open question whether all school cultures are worth learning. For me,
elementary school bus culture and middle school culture certainly were not,
and probably set my development as a human being back by a decade. But the
culture at my high school - a public charter school that was just starting up
- was a good portion of the reason I decided to go into startups, and played a
major role in me becoming the person I am today. I wouldn't trade it for
anything. The culture at Amherst, my alma mater, taught me to look at everyone
I meet as a peer and equal, no more and no less, and to feel that I have
nothing to prove, whatever silly hierarchies people dream of. And the culture
at Google, IMHO, is without equal in the software world. You pick up so many
practices and ways of thinking simply by being there.
So yeah, I think you are basically right. It's interesting that you pick out
the pledge of allegiance as the most ridiculous thing in all of schooling.
That's exactly what I mean by culture. And in this case, that particular
ritual was designed to create a culture of subserviency, a form of
indoctrination so that the masses of public schoolchildren would mindlessly
support their power-elite overlords. It's bullshit, as you say.
But by recognizing it as bullshit and then putting up with it long enough to
"win", you open the door to many other communities which are _far_ less fucked
up than the public education system. Google is _nothing_ like middle school,
and it's only similarities to elementary school are the colorful beanbags, the
ballpit, and the massive quantities of Lego. But it's much, much easier to get
into Google if you did well at elementary and middle school.
~~~
vacri
I disagree - school is an excellent place to learn skills, especially if you
do sciencey stuff. It teaches you how to question things fairly and
appropriately, and how to do and dissect research.
When I left tertiary education we were all sitting around doing the trendy
thing and bemoaning how university had been worthless; we couldn't remember
any _facts_. Then it dawned on us that we got insights into industry, learned
how to communicate professionally, learned how to find the truth or the most
truthful path, how to research, how to critique work, learned how to better
collaborate with others, gained a small measure of self-direction (tertiary is
the first level of education where it's up to you to show up), tastes of
politicking and how to survive it, professional ethics, so on and so forth.
Occupational skills were learned in addition to all of those. Part of the
above meshes with culture, but they're all tangible if non-obvious skills. If
you want someone to do a root-cause analysis, you're not going to turn to the
dropout unless he's talented and a passionate self-driven learner. Most folks
are not this.
As always GIGO, but you learn a hell of a lot of skills in tertiary education,
they're just not all in 14-point font on your syllabus.
~~~
nostrademons
University is a whole lot different from K-12 schooling, and _which_
university makes a difference as well. I felt I learned a lot about respect
for data, the scientific method, how to formulate and test hypotheses, etc. in
my physics classes at Amherst. I learned mostly facts at UMass. I'm not sure I
learned anything about what science really was through my K-12 studies.
One of my main beefs with K-12 science education is that it mistakes the
_results_ of science for science itself. So kids are taught evolution, they're
taught plate tectonics, they're taught Newton's Laws, but they're rarely
taught _how_ these were discovered, or the rigorous data-driven
experimentation process that's refined them. The scientific method is covered
as 6 bullet points that get glossed over in a week, and never returned to.
In many cases, if a student actually _does_ science - they question the
recieved wisdom of their teacher, and go off and do the experiments
themselves, and report back objectively on the results - they'll be labeled a
disruptive student and sent to the principal's. Hell, if the science involves
chemistry, they'll probably be reported to the FBI and arrested for making
bombs.
~~~
vacri
Sorry, by 'school' I was meaning tertiary only. High school didn't add much in
the way of critical thinking, I agree.
------
usaar333
> All of the above is highly dependent on where you go.
That's one of the few claims I agree with. I can only speak for engineering
majors, but my college experience was radically different from the author's.
Whether the piece of paper my classmates and I walked out with mattered is
another story, but at least the first three years of education were
invaluable.
> This really applies to tech, where honestly people don't really give two
> shits about your degree if you are a good programmer or have experience on
> hot projects.
Half-true. Even though I had been programming since middle school, my college
experience with EECS taught me a lot technically and socially. It granted a
far broader network faster than any job has. On top of that, it gave vast
access to internship programs, which taught everyone involved a lot about
industry. And that came in handy after graduating; having the knowledge that I
could get a high-paying job almost anywhere at anytime allowed me to take far
greater personal financial risks with my startup than I would have been
comfortable otherwise.
> If you expect to learn skills that will train you for a job, prepare to be
> disappointed going to a four year college. You aren't going to learn
> anything that is directly applicable to any job.
I completely disagree. Granted it all comes down to your major, but if you
take engineering at a top school (which does not include Yale), this is highly
untrue. The knowledge I learned in college was critical to developing my
startup from a technological standpoint; operating systems, programming
languages, artificial intelligence, probability, algorithms, and databases are
just a few of the subjects which have flowed into it. And yes, you can just
"read a book", but that is no substitute for being in the thick of it through
collaborative group-work. Technically, being exposed to vast numbers of
patterns is essential, and college is a prime place for that to happen. I know
virtually no one who possesses the same technical breadth of those that went
through my program (or equivalent).
> It didn't prepare me mentally for startups. College was really an exercise
> in credentialing within a rigidly defined system, and didn't prepare me to
> think outside-the-box, live the consequences of my own actions, or really
> exist on my own in the real world at all.
It's amazing what a difference a major can make. Working on ill-defined team
projects that would last well over 200 hours in a single semester was a great
precursor to the startup world. And college is an excellent training ground to
build essential social skills.
> In my final year I was taking classes two days a week for only two hours a
> day (most of them intros, perversely). Keep in mind that I was a full time
> student without a job at one of the best universities in the country.
If your goal is to just get a degree, sure, you can slack by. If you want to
take the maximum advantage of courses, this will not be true. Especially in
engineering (architecture is another example I've seen), you will work your
ass off and learn a lot.
> For a lot of students, college is a vacation, and it is a bunch of bullshit
> if we pretend otherwise.
The only sustained vacation during my college years was Winter Break. Hell,
the summer internships I had offered way more of a vacation than college did.
Again, if you are going to college, you need to take full advantage of it.
------
digitailor
Best point made in the article: "College is an oversubscribed resource". This
rings factual, and I think it would be useful to discuss the ramifications of
oversubscription. And the extremely high cost despite oversubscription. And
MIT doesn't count because... it's not oversubscribed as you generally _learn
industrially-applicable information there_. Contrast with Yale, Columbia, or
Vassar. This also goes for art schools- you can use those learned skills in
industry.
------
us
Good or not, I think one thing everyone can agree on is to go to college
first. There are two sides to this debate. To go to college at all, and to
drop out after you're in college. I think at the very least going, is
worthwhile for everyone even IF college isn't made for everyone and in many
cases may not help out at all in things you learn in the classroom. Afterall,
there are other aspects of college you can gain from, both on and off campus.
------
jtbigwoo
Seems like the main message of this post is "If you're majoring in Philosophy
and Physics, don't expect college to teach you about business or computers."
------
DavidChouinard
"Dropping out of MIT is like graduating from Yale."
------
tkahn6
> This really applies to tech, where honestly people don't really give two
> shits about your degree if you are a good programmer or have experience on
> hot projects.
In my experience, this is true up until a point. However, I've been coding
since elementary school, and topics like algorithm analysis and graph theory
are not things that one typically encounters making games in Java or web apps
with RoR.
"If you want to be a world-class programmer, you can program every day for ten
years, or you can program every day for two years and take an algorithms
class." - Prof. Erik Demaine (MIT)
~~~
nostrademons
It's not terribly hard to teach yourself algorithm analysis or graph theory if
you have the motivation. Hop on Amazon, buy CLR, and then go through the
algorithms, work through the proofs, and implement each one.
BTW, you can't become a world-class programmer by programming every day for
ten years _or_ by programming every day for two years and taking an algorithms
class. Try programming every day for ten years _and_ taking an algorithms
class. Every world-class programmer I know has done that - they have both the
experience and the formal knowledge.
~~~
tkahn6
> It's not terribly hard to teach yourself algorithm analysis or graph theory
> if you have the motivation.
I agree absolutely. However in my experience, there's something to be said for
a good lecturer, challenging homework/tests, and peers to consult with.
~~~
impeachgod
I think you can only get those if you go to MIT or CMU. The vast majority of
CS programs and lecturers aren't that good, and certainly worse than what you
could teach yourself on your own.
~~~
llgrrl_
I'm attending a public school, with a CS department consisting of 6-or-so
people. They taught me well :-) Definitely not what I could have taught
myself.
------
tastybites
In school (UC system) I met people who are now doctors, CPAs, attorneys,
investment bankers, top engineers, scientists, and various PhD candidates. I
also learned that their parents are a variety of very accomplished and
impressive people. To say that knowing these people is valuable would be an
understatement since I am now a small business person and having professionals
you can truly trust (as good as it's going to get anyway) is incredibly
important. It factors into confidence and decision making in business.
For me, personally, I would not have met these people if I had not gone to
school. I would have been sitting in a cubicle programming computers for the
next 4 years, severely handicapping my social and professional life. I also
probably would not have learned the basics of Econonomics, something that
fascinates me almost as much as technology. I also didn't spend much time
doing schoolwork, but I certainly didn't get A's like some others here. I
actually was on academic probation twice and spend most of my time
socializing.
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
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Amazon Got What It Deserved–And So Did New York - TheAuditor
https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2019/02/amazon-cancels-new-yorks-hq2and-thats-a-good-thing/582844/
======
kdmedev
Tax government subsidies at 100% percent? That is absurd and I doubt that is
constitutional. Or is it? Can US politicians do this? Its stupid, might as
well not give any subsidies at all.
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
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Mobclix owes thousands to indie app developers - rbchv
Just when I thought I was the exception, it seems a lot of indie developers are fighting to get their payments from Mobclix.<p>This has been going on for months.<p>Some revealing links:<p>This forum thread started June 2012 and is still quite active:
http://iphonedevsdk.com/forum/business-legal-app-store/105160-mobclix-payments-so-late-this-month.html<p>A class action suit. Almost $100k is owed just to the people who have commented:
http://www.iwebss.com/iphone-ipad/478-class-action-suit-possible-against-mobclix-not-paying-indie-developers<p>http://www.imgrind.com/mobclix-not-paying-app-developers-allegedly/
======
rbchv
Clickable links:
[http://iphonedevsdk.com/forum/business-legal-app-
store/10516...](http://iphonedevsdk.com/forum/business-legal-app-
store/105160-mobclix-payments-so-late-this-month.html)
[http://www.iwebss.com/iphone-ipad/478-class-action-suit-
poss...](http://www.iwebss.com/iphone-ipad/478-class-action-suit-possible-
against-mobclix-not-paying-indie-developers)
[http://www.imgrind.com/mobclix-not-paying-app-developers-
all...](http://www.imgrind.com/mobclix-not-paying-app-developers-allegedly/)
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Give your django app a mobile dashboard - huseyinyilmaz
http://django-numerics.readthedocs.org/en/latest/
======
pnslpshr
I've been trying to get in to django, but it seems a bit hard for a newbie
like myself. :/
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
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The Surprising Relevance of the Baltic Dry Index - kawera
http://www.newyorker.com/business/currency/the-surprising-relevance-of-the-baltic-dry-index?¤tPage=all
======
Animats
But compare the Port of Los Angeles container movement statistics, which are
published monthly.[1] Those are actual counts. They're going up, not dropping.
The cost of transport is dropping because China's subsidized shipbuilders
built far more ships than are needed.
(The discouraging thing to see there is that about half the containers coming
in from Asia to the US go back empty.)
[1]
[https://www.portoflosangeles.org/maritime/stats.asp](https://www.portoflosangeles.org/maritime/stats.asp)
~~~
unabridged
>(The discouraging thing to see there is that about half the containers coming
in from Asia to the US go back empty.)
Depends on how you look at it. The US is only sending pieces of paper (or
electrons that represent pieces of paper) and getting back containers full of
goods.
~~~
asmithmd1
I wish I could read an economic analysis of a container of iPhones landing at
the port of Los Angeles. This is recorded as trade imbalance but somehow I
feel Apple and US customers are getting the full benefit of low cost Chinese
labor.
~~~
criley2
>I wish I could read an economic analysis of a container of iPhones landing at
the port of Los Angeles. This is recorded as trade imbalance but somehow I
feel Apple and US customers are getting the full benefit of low cost Chinese
labor.
It doesn't seem like Chinese labor plays that big of a role regardless, seeing
as labor costs on a $800 device are around $2.
Apple and their shareholders certainly benefit from selling $800 devices at
70% profit margins, but I would not go so far as to say that consumers also
get the benefit, seeing as they are paying 70% markups.
~~~
Scoundreller
> seeing as labor costs on a $800 device are around $2.
Well, the Foxconn (or whomever) assembly labor costs may be $2, but in some
way, shape or form, all $800 is a labor cost to somebody, somewhere.
~~~
garrettgrimsley
Only if you subscribe to the labor theory of value.
~~~
Scoundreller
What other theory is there? That 4 $100 bills get burned in the production of
every iPhone?
~~~
garrettgrimsley
Subjective theory of value.
------
Zigurd
In the 2008 crisis, the Baltic Dry Index was a publicly visible indicator of a
semi-hidden crisis: Letters of credit stopped abruptly, therefore so did bulk
shipping. Watching BDI as some kind of general purpose crystal ball will
surely be uninformative.
------
rconti
This seems unlikely. I ordered a new Volkswagen back in July of last year, and
was tracking ship traffic. By following the logistics company they use, you
could see new batches of VWs departing Emden Germany for ports in Canada and
the US (Halifax, Dover, Jacksonville, Houston, Port Hueneme via the Panama
Canal) almost constantly. I'd say a new ship left every 5-7 days, which meant
that at any given point in time, it was almost certain that a ship from Europe
was in the Atlantic on its way to North America _carrying VWs_. I'm sure VWs
represent a very small percentage of the trade from Europe to North America.
------
biztos
Could it have predicted the Brexit vote?
Fewer dry goods shipped == less money for people shipping them == unhappy
working people in England == these vote Leave.
(Ridiculous oversimplification, but the article is suggesting this kind of
prediction could be meaningful.)
~~~
Florin_Andrei
I think it's difficult to come up with hard numbers, but these things are all
indicative of very broad, high level trends. Countries are turning inwards,
global cohesion is weakening.
You have a loud demagogue in the US arguing for building walls around the
country. You have the UK voting for a divorce from the EU; and you have right-
wing extremists in the EU applauding that decision (Marine Le Pen, etc). You
have a totalitarian figure like Putin dominating the East for a long time. And
fundamental indicators like the BDI seem to show a decrease in global
exchange.
If not the whole world, then at least the West broadly speaking (North
America, EU and Russia) is like that person who is gradually slipping into a
nasty depression without noticing it, slowly becoming introverted and fearful.
A sign of health in this situation would not be further isolation and saber
rattling, but a turn outwards, and increased cooperation, and a frank
discussion about what's really going on. This holds true for persons as well
as for countries.
------
jyriand
So as I understand it has nothing to do with Baltic region?
~~~
auntienomen
It's published by the Baltic Exchange, which is a futures exchange located in
London. No idea what the history of the name is, I'm afraid.
~~~
michaelf77
The history of the name is in the Article... Known then as the Virginia and
Baltick, to reflect the most valuable trade concessions—tobacco from Virginia;
fur and tallow from the Baltics
------
xivzgrev
to me it would far more insightfil to note a drop, then postulate as to why.
The current situation is "welp its flat" \- duh, thats been the news all 2016.
Markets are nervous and everyine is waiting for a swing one way or the other
and obviously a positive signak woild have to be much larger as people are
risk averse.
------
rogerallen
Only in the New Yorker would you find a discussion about an economic index
without any visual aid for context...
~~~
lmm
The numbers are in the text. That's a lot more concrete than most
"infographics" you see on the web.
~~~
rogerallen
I would not ask for an "infographic". I'm sure they could channel Tufte very
well.
A small, simple line graph of 10-20 years of this index would allow me to see
in an instant how relevant it might be.
It struck me as a very odd editorial choice to leave this obvious graph out.
------
vegabook
baltic dry has never been anything but an "oh wow" index for
marketers/salespeople to get said reaction from clients and hopefully get them
to transact. It has that beautiful combination of seemingly being a leading
indicator, and being left-field enough to make the originator seem clever.
It has a very low correlation to any actual markets. People on trading floors
have been pushing this baltic dry pitch for at least 10 years. It's very old
news for anybody in markets and is more of an eye-roller than anything else.
That the New Yorker has now latched on shows that they hope to get a bit of
oh-wow out of it too. Snake oil.
Baltic Dry is fun to watch, but there is too much micro going on in it for it
to have any macro significance that is not coincidental.
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
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The Trollable Self-Driving Car - tptacek
http://www.slate.com/articles/technology/future_tense/2016/03/google_self_driving_cars_lack_a_human_s_intuition_for_what_other_drivers.html
======
centizen
I feel like the author of this article is placing altogether too much trust in
human intuition and being very selective with their examples of which human
qualities are beneficial to safety of the roads.
A self driving car will never distract itself. It can't get drunk. It won't be
able to lose it's consciousness or mental acuity as it ages. It has access to
huge amounts of real time information from sensors more accurate than any
humans intuition ever could be and can act on that data in an instant.
If the only hurdles we have to this becoming a reality are edge cases like the
ones listed in this article, then I am very optimistic for the future of self
driving cars.
~~~
tptacek
I think the whole point of the article is that the strengths and weaknesses of
human and AI drivers are _different_ , and that the differences are
exploitable by adversaries, and may in fact be so easily exploitable that
"adversaries" could include bored teenagers.
~~~
modoc
Bored teenagers can (and sometimes do) "exploit" real drivers. I've seen kids
throwing rocks, and bricks off of overpasses, walking on the sidewalk lunge as
if they are about to jump into the road as a joke, etc... I've also seen
people slam on their brakes and/or swerve into other lanes to avoid empty
plastic shopping bags blowing around, etc...
~~~
brbsix
The invisible rope prank comes to mind.[0] I think there are a whole class of
pranks to which AI will not be susceptible to. I assume the LIDAR can or will
be able to clearly detect no such obstruction in the roadway (perhaps even if
it does exist). However there are certainly many other hacks that will
consistently fool AI, at least for a while.
[0]: [https://youtu.be/G_pAcIjqcuY](https://youtu.be/G_pAcIjqcuY)
------
zeteo
The linked article [1] is actually far more worrying than Slate's concerns
about bored 12-year-olds. If a $60 setup can do a rather precise spoof of
lidar readings, we are open to scenarios such as:
\- Causing the car to collide with other vehicles. E.g. getting into a fender
bender to avoid the illusion of an impending frontal collision.
\- Causing the car to stop where it shouldn't. E.g. imagine armed robbers or
kidnappers waiting on a deserted stretch of the road with a lidar spoofing
device.
\- Causing the car to run people over. E.g. spoofing away a pedestrian on a
crosswalk.
What's even worse is that all of these attacks would be difficult if not
impossible to detect or track down. With zero risk you can acquire valid
insurance claims, put victims in positions where they're easily robbed or
kidnapped, or cause your enemies to be run over.
[1] [http://spectrum.ieee.org/cars-that-
think/transportation/self...](http://spectrum.ieee.org/cars-that-
think/transportation/self-driving/researcher-hacks-selfdriving-car-sensors)
~~~
Houshalter
Couldn't you just shoot human drivers from a distance with a sniper rifle? I
don't see why everyone is scared of new technologies being exploitable. Our
civilization is built in the basis that most people are not assholes most of
the time.
~~~
spdionis
Sniper rifles are not easy to get and use.
~~~
panarky
Laser pointers are easy to get and point at helicopters and airplanes.
The FBI successfully arrests and prosecutes those who do. Why would this be
any different?
[https://www.fbi.gov/newyork/press-
releases/2014/westchester-...](https://www.fbi.gov/newyork/press-
releases/2014/westchester-man-charged-with-aiming-high-powered-laser-pointer-
at-police-helicopter-deferred-prosecution-agreement-reached)
------
cornellwright
I don't know, a lot of these things seem to have analogs to human drivers.
I can cause emergency braking on the road outside my house by behaving like
I'm about to run into the street while never leaving the sidewalk.
I could get on an overpass and shine a bright spotlight in drivers' eyes at
night.
I get what the author is saying, and there will be a continual need to improve
self driving cars. Sure there may be different ways to troll them, but I don't
think he makes a strong case that they will be particularly more troll-able
than humans.
~~~
fixermark
Really, the only question that differs usefully is whether self-driving cars
are deterministic enough to be _reliably_ trollable.
Which if they take off, we'll probably find "Yes, until the machine-learning
algorithm at the top aggregates the metrics from multiple cars on the road,
devises a new rule, and pushes that rule via auto-update."
~~~
cornellwright
It's more than just deterministic, but deterministic and stupid enough to make
do some really undesired behavior. Using the same example as before, if I run
a full speed toward the street, almost every car is going to screech to a
halt. Doing this a rush hour, would be incredibly disruptive and probably
cause a small traffic jam if no one made me stop.
The question with self driving cars will be, for example, can a group of
people "herd" one into a garage to steal it, or perhaps get it to do something
crazy like drive into a lake. My guess is at some point the car will just sit
there, just like you would if a huge group of kids were trying to do this to
you.
------
nostromo
Imagine New York City -- where unless a car _appears as if it is ready and
willing to kill pedestrians_ people will jaywalk directly in front of it.
Now imagine New York City clogged up with self driving cars -- frozen at each
intersection in fear of hitting someone. It'd be a disaster.
Humans will quickly understand that these cars are easily bullied, and many
will take advantage of that. Why wait for your turn when you can just cut off
a driverless car?
~~~
kps
I'd like to work on Artificial Road Rage. There are some great opportunities,
especially for networked vehicles. You cut off one Taxy™? Now there are 50,000
tons of mobile neural net wandering the city looking for ways to make your
life miserable.
~~~
brbsix
This has been a free market dream of mine. There's no need for a state to
enforce minor traffic violations (and who knows what else) when "the network"
is willing to do the enforcement. However this poses a huge problem when the
rules are dictated by a central coercive entity rather than by consensus.
------
zodPod
I think the trollable driver is significantly more difficult/dangerous. Humans
have moods and anger issues and vengeful reactions to things.
As has been said repeatedly, accidents like running into a bus are innocent
and could've happened to anyone. While the car was technically at fault, this
likely wouldn't have happened had the bus driver been driving more defensively
or even if the bus driver had been an AI too... lol
~~~
ultramancool
This is sort of the thing though - people can experiment and test the limits
of a driverless system with little to no consequences. Once they know those
limits, they can abuse them, knowing when it's always safe to cut off a
driverless car for example. I can picturing all the videos on youtube now
about how to fuck with these things.
With human drivers, that unpredictability factor adds to a level of fear which
often prevents this sort of behavior.
I think there's also a primed number of people who would do this out of open
hostility to self-driving cars, "took our jobs" types, etc and a lot of people
who would do it just for fun or to make their own trips quicker.
------
mangeletti
> Still, people have an intuitive fluency with this kind of social
> negotiation.
Apparently, the author has never arrived at a four way stop at the same time
as another car.
~~~
roymurdock
Driving 101. In the US, the car to the right has the right of way.
~~~
DrScump
<Driving 101. In the US, the car to the right has the right of way.>
Law 101: driving laws are state-specific.
Law 101(a): Maybe I'm not understanding what you are trying to say here, but
for CA and taken literally, it's incorrect. See, for example, CVC $21753.
[http://leginfo.legislature.ca.gov/faces/codes_displayText.xh...](http://leginfo.legislature.ca.gov/faces/codes_displayText.xhtml?lawCode=VEH&division=11.&title=&part=&chapter=3.&article=3).
~~~
roymurdock
I think you've misunderstood me. I was responding specifically to the case
pointed out by the OP in which 2 cars get to a stop sign at the same time.
Here's the relevant CA code, and I haven't heard of a state that does it
differently:
21800\. (a) The driver of a vehicle approaching an intersection shall yield
the right-of-way to any vehicle which has entered the intersection from a
different highway. (b) (1) When two vehicles enter an intersection from
different highways at the same time, the driver of the vehicle on the left
shall yield the right-of-way to the vehicle on his or her immediate right,
except that the driver of any vehicle on a terminating highway shall yield the
right-of-way to any vehicle on the intersecting continuing highway.
[http://law.onecle.com/california/vehicle/21800.html](http://law.onecle.com/california/vehicle/21800.html)
------
melling
We should pick an easier problem to solve for now. Let's have a few dedicated
roads where we assist the technology either electronically or physically. We
could automate major transport truck freight routes, for example.
[http://ops.fhwa.dot.gov/freight/freight_analysis/freight_sto...](http://ops.fhwa.dot.gov/freight/freight_analysis/freight_story/major.htm)
This system would pay for itself and provide immediate benefits. Convoys of
trucks traveling at 75 mph, drafting to save fuel.
~~~
fixermark
Arguably, that's already being worked on---semi-automatic cruise control that
factors in signals about local traffic flow and the curve of the road has
already been deployed in some luxury vehicles. Applying it to freight hauling
probably has more to do with the entrenched cheap solutions we have now than
with missing technology.
("Why don't we have both?" as the meme says)
~~~
melling
So, in another decade or two we'll see convoys of 10 or 30 trucks cruising
down the road sat 75mph, driving close enough to aerodynamically draft behind
the other vehicles?
No, what you are saying isn't the same thing. People aren't going to be
comfortable driving next to this. The risk on a separate "driverless" road is
much less. And like I mentioned already, other redundant assistance can be
added.
~~~
detaro
Building useful parallel infrastructure is expensive though and would probably
be to slow. If current Autobahn construction projects here in Germany are any
indication, building a parallel long-distance network would take longer and
cost more money than waiting for automation to be reliable enough to share the
roads. Even if we assume that there is space for that, which in many important
places there is not.
Maybe some changes to make roads more robot-friendly (e.g. by adding robot-
only exits, navigation infrastructure, ...).
I think the first step in that direction we are going to see on public roads
are autopilots for trucks. Follow a human-driven truck, or maybe drive simple
long-distance highway routes automatically. At the end, have a human take over
again and do the city stuff. Either have the human on board but resting (which
means they could at least take over with a few minutes delay if necessary), or
have driver hop-on/off parking places at highway interchanges.
~~~
melling
No one said that you have to build an entire parallel infrastructure. You
simply find a section with a lot of traffic and duplicate that. It could be a
long-haul section or it could connect a port to a train, for example. 68% of
all freight is carried by trucks. The United States is big. Find somewhere
where is makes financial sense.
[http://selectusa.commerce.gov/industry-
snapshots/logistics-a...](http://selectusa.commerce.gov/industry-
snapshots/logistics-and-transportation-industry-united-states.html)
The automation technology can be further developed in a "real system". At some
point it'll be ready for public roads.
------
JulianMorrison
People forget that humans used to own the road. Sure there were horses and
carts, but the horses were self driving and went around you if they weren't
going too fast. Children used to play in the street, or at least the less busy
back streets. It has really only been since the 1920s or so that humans got
shoved over onto the sidewalks, or left out of the road planning entirely. A
return to road traffic that deferred to pedestrians would simply put us back
where everyone was in the zeroth through nineteenth centuries.
------
brbsix
There are some places in the world that I'd hate to have a self-driving car,
e.g. South Africa, Brazil, or West Oakland. In such areas, I'd assume it would
be trivially easy to stop the car and rob the presumably well-to-do occupants.
How would a self-driving car react to situations like these?
[https://youtu.be/2VAlyDXl3LY](https://youtu.be/2VAlyDXl3LY)
[https://youtu.be/9RzeRlhhprw](https://youtu.be/9RzeRlhhprw)
These are situations that you'd presumably want to run through the roadblock.
Whereas in others, e.g. an undercover cop with a gun to your head, that you'd
want to stop for.
~~~
recursive
> presumably well-to-do occupants.
Eventually, it should be cheaper to get a ride in one of these than a taxi.
~~~
brbsix
Absolutely. I was just picturing something more like a Tesla Model S (which
AFAIK is the closest thing to a self-driving car now available for purchase)
but I'm aware of the push by Tesla, Uber, and others to make affordable AI
transport practical.
------
vectorEQ
" if you put a foot out into the road you might trigger a nemergency stop" ..
you might trigger a similar painckey reaction in a human, that might include
but wont be limited to , pressing brake, pressing throttle, steering
suddenly... just let them develop it, and if you dont like it, dont use it. ^^
personally im glad people are working on this, especially for older people who
get their licencces revoked due to bad eye sight etc., it can mean the world
to them to be able to 'drive' somewhere.....
------
fixermark
It's a possibly interesting question with a bad example case. In the specific
crash cited, the human driver stated that they reached the same conclusion the
car did. So to the extent that the car's algorithm was "gameable" here, a
human was gamed the same way.
(Besides, since the "win" here was "Get the car to crash into your vehicle," I
wouldn't call it "winning" precisely ;) ).
------
drewg123
One thing I like about the self driving cards is that you can count on them to
let you merge and not be aggressive jerks like some human drivers. I imagine
this will cause lots of people to just cut them off though..
------
davnn
I really think that we often overestimate human intelligence. We may be able
to infer what another person is going to do next but I don't think there is
any magic going on.
PS: Try trolling humans, it works.
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
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Boeing Has An Airplane Problem, Not a PR Problem - bane
http://www.forbes.com/sites/jonathansalembaskin/2013/01/10/boeing-has-an-airplane-problem-not-a-pr-problem/
======
senthilnayagam
Bringing jobs back to America is not solution to all the problems.
Most of all new planes are ordered by China, India, Middle East and South East
Asian countries
------
Karn
> The company was convinced by one or more management consulting firms to
> outsource design and production of the 787’s components.
All that needs to be said.
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
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Voyager 2 Spacecraft will cross "termination shock" in Late 2007 or Early 2008 - nickb
http://www.newsroom.ucr.edu/cgi-bin/display.cgi?id=1720
======
pg
What's significant about whether particles there are travelling above or below
the speed of sound? Surely there are not enough of them to produce the sort of
compression waves that cause problems for supersonic jets.
~~~
DanielBMarkham
For what it's worth, I read about this on a couple of other sites.
From what I understand, particles build up along the compression front,
causing a sort of magnetic storm for things passing through it. The effect is
magnetic and not compression-based as it is in jets. One anonymous poster on
/. claimed to be from JPL and said they were worried about having some of the
electronics in the spacecraft fry as it passed the boundary. For some reason
that made me think of old Star Trek episodes -- "Where No Man Has Gone Before"
I also learned that, far from what we've been told, there IS sound in space.
It travels around 100km/sec in the near vaccum, but nobody has come up with a
way to measure pressure waves at that extreme low inensity. Sounds like a cool
thing -- wouldn't it be neat to listen to the universe?
~~~
ivankirigin
It's all about the density. Even what we consider nebulae are small fractions
of an atmosphere. Sound as we think of it just doesn't apply.
But for SciFi shows that don't respect the audience enough to have no sound in
space, I choose to believe they just placed simulated microphones near the
explosions. The particulate matter and smoke could temporarily host the sound
in space.
Also, sound travels slower in lower density areas, not faster. Where did you
get this 100km/s number? I think it is a neutron star where the matter is so
dense, sound waves move so fast as to cause relativistic effects. But of
course all our models for sound would fail in a Singularity. Just add sound to
the long list of things we have no idea how to model in Black Holes.
~~~
DanielBMarkham
I'm in way over my head, but I'll keep going. Hey this is the internet -- lack
of knowledge never stopped folks from talking about stuff before! You're
probably much better-informed.
This sound question is very much like the "if a tree falls in the wilderness
and nobody is there to hear, does it make a noise?" By sound I mean pressure
waves, which exist I guess everywhere (from what I am hearing) except for a
complete and total vaccum. But at the level of just a 1-1000 particles per
cubic meter, there's not enough matter there to make something like the human
eardrum work. So yes, it's sound, but no, we could never hear it. Does that
make sense?
Here's one of the comments I sourced for my post. Like I said, I am a complete
novice in this area.
[http://science.slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=373279&cid=2...](http://science.slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=373279&cid=21507799)
~~~
ivankirigin
That comment was over my head I think.
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
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AWS Service Catalog - rjsamson
https://aws.amazon.com/blogs/aws/now-available-aws-service-catalog/
======
s_dev
Amazon have the interns upvoting in droves today. 6 or 7 seperate AWS articles
on the front page as of now.
~~~
rjsamson
Nah - I happen to be at the AWS summit in NYC today and submitted a few things
as I saw them announced. I use AWS heavily, but don't work for AWS or
anything. I'm sure there's plenty of upvotes coming from other folks at the
conference like myself.
~~~
s_dev
That explains it, I just assumed Amazon was organising the upvotes. Silly of
me not to consider there could be a conference or event.
| {
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Twitter isn’t a Social Network - dshah
http://www.tonywright.com/2009/twitter-isnt-a-social-network/
======
ashley
I think of Twitter as a space to move large-scale messages to a broad public,
rather than as a social net-working site. Twitter has proven effective in
organizing political protests, encouraging feedback loops between companies
and clients, and in allowing people to feel connected to celebrities (and
whatever value that affords to people, although its economic value has been
certainly proven by the brisk sales of tabloids). Perhaps the tag system
allows people to connect with others who share similar ideas, but Wright is
correct in saying that Twitter falls short of being email or IM in terms of
meaningful communication. It's more of a "status" or information generating
machine.
Maybe I have a limited view of Twitter, given that I have yet to figure out
what it replaces in my life from email, Facebook, LinkedIn, Tumblr
(microblog), WordPress, mobile, RSS feed manager, SMS, letters, and actually
talking to friends in person or via another friend. A Nielsen wire report from
April 2009 mentioned that 60% of new Twitter users fail to return each month,
which averages out to about a 40% overall retention rate, whereas Myspace and
Facebook are reportedly stable at around 70%.
Psychology research on the cognitive limits of stable relationships has
generated an arbitrary Dunbar number of about 150 people, so Twitter
followers/followees numbering in the 1000s seems suspect in terms of actual
social ties. Average Twitter followers for each user has been reported at
around 126, and Facebook is slightly higher, (not sure how those figures were
calculated). But given that many Twitter users are celebrities, companies, or
businesspeople, and Facebook celebrities/products tend to have fan pages
rather than friend accounts, I think we need to see more descriptive
statistics other than just the mean. Perhaps the problem here is one of
defining and then agreeing upon which definition ought to constitute a "social
network." Economics, psychology, marketing, and sociology all have contributed
their version. But I still think Twitter is lacking in its delivery of service
for the average user who isn't embroiled in business, celebrities, or
political turmoil but is looking for a social networking space.
| {
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Apple's Internal Guide to iPhone X Battery Replacement - Eduardo3rd
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MGv7qHlCX0Y
======
samstave
It rolls the tweezers to remove the adhesive strips or it gets a brick again.
Seriously, though, I do find it interesting that Apple seems to have treated
component replacement as an afterthought when it comes to serviceability
procedures even for their own people...
My first job in highschool was desoldering bad memory chips from ][e
machines... This feels even worse than that job. One would have thought that
these types of things would have come a bit further.
| {
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If someone can do it for free, then it will be inevitably free - mtw
http://montrealtechwatch.com/2008/07/27/building-a-profitable-business/
======
mattmaroon
This is a simple failure to understand economics. Most things cannot be done
for free. It might be possible to code them for free, but hosting on an
ongoing basis, not so much. There are plenty of businesses where ad revenue
just won't cut it.
"For instance, that’s why content-based businesses (say newspapers) are doomed
because there’s always people like Mark, me or even the average guy willing to
spend one hour in their day writing articles and take pictures of what’s up."
It's sad that newspapers let it get to this. It used to be that their
journalism was a cut above. They spent the (relatively) big bucks on the good
reporters, gave them the leeway to chase stories, many of which never amounted
to anything, in order to provide hard hitting analysis. Now they just farm it
out to AP or Reuters, until some clown bloggers think their hour a day is a
solid substitute.
Newspapers that actually do quality reporting (NYT, WSJ) are struggling with
the new economy but will come out ahead in the end.
~~~
wmf
I think what they mean by "free" is "no charge to the user"; it still costs
money to run Web 2.0. Maybe a better tagline would be anything that can be
subsidized will inevitably be subsidized.
------
pg
Only if it's fun or prestigious.
Corollary: The less talented the founders of a company are, the more they
should focus on things that are not fun or prestigious.
People who are very talented can do a better job even at things other people
are willing to do free, and charge for the difference. But if you're no better
than the people working for free, you can only charge for things they're
unwilling to do.
E.g. if you're really good (for some definition of good) you can make money
playing your own songs. If not, you can only make money playing covers at
weddings. The distinction in software between product companies and consulting
companies is the same.
~~~
daniel-cussen
>Corollary: The less talented the founders of a company are, the more they
should focus on things that are not fun or prestigious.
Would it be a good idea for a founder to focus on boring/lame things anyway,
if only as a way to improve his/her odds? Which viable ideas strike you as the
most boring?
~~~
pg
Of the ones I included in that recent list
<http://ycombinator.com/ideas.html>
the most boring is probably 5 (enterprise 2.0), preferably in the form of 7
(something your company needs that doesn't exist).
21 (finance software) and 29 (site builders) are also promisingly boring.
------
13ren
_if someone can do it for free, then it will be inevitably free._
I agree. It's similar to reversion to normal profits through commoditization,
but where the costs (labour and capital) can be donated or supported by
advertising.
But "inevitable" means _one day_ it will be free. It doesn't mean "today",
just that your window of opportunity is time-limited.
_People serious about business should then move to areas where people can’t
replicated it easily, for instance by having_ unique technology _[...]_
Unique technology can be protection by patent law (especially if it really is
original and non-trivial). But how effective are they against well-heeled
corporations - in practice? How effective are they against open source - in
practice? (they are not 100% effective, but I'm not saying they are 0%
effective - just asking _how_ effective)
Unique technology can also be protected by confidentiality, but usually it's
not hard to reverse engineer, if competitors want to. Saas hides your tech
better than software products (that competitors can access), but both can be
reverse engineered. Secret tech does buy you time (how long?). You can keep
ahead indefinitely if you can keep coming up with additional unique technology
Assumptions: there are additional techniques to be found... and it is you who
finds them.
I think _unique technology_ protects against free only to an extent. It can
give you a head-start, during which you can establish other protection - which
will also eventually crumble.
Maybe the best thing is to make something that can't be made for free - like
chewing gum, chocolates, soda, bricks, CPUs - and then use all these
protections to fractionally improve your profits?
------
cawel
_if someone can do it for free, then it will be inevitably free._
While this is a trend, it might not always be true.
In France, Mediapart (mediapart.fr) is a website with a focus on
investigation-journalism, built on principles such as independence from
political/media groups.
Subscription fee: 9 euros (14 usd)/month. The project founders are hopeful to
reach a sustainable number of subscribers (which is 65 000, 3 years from
launch; they currently have 8000 subscribers after 4 months).
Conclusion: a high-quality customized product for a niche, although online,
could justify the price - directly paid by the users - for that product.
------
saad0105050
Some services (in context of web), these days, are not only free: they offer
their users (and eventual contributors) a piece of their cake, too. Random
examples are google (search + adsense), and scour (search + annotation).
I wonder where this is going to get: how strong will the "make money too"
factor prove over "it gives me what I want" motivation?
------
Eliezer
Free content drives out unfree content.
~~~
decadentcactus
_Good_ free content that is
------
pierrefar
Website is timing out for me...
~~~
mattmaroon
Apparently nobody could fix it for free.
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
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BMW E-Scooter - ronaldsvilcins
https://designzine.net/transport/bmw-e-scooter/
======
milkytron
12mph? That seems too slow for the road and bike lanes, but too fast for
sidewalks. I wonder why they went with a slower top speed than the
competitors.
| {
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Western Digital’s Advanced Format: The 4K Sector Transition Begins - MikeCapone
http://www.anandtech.com/storage/showdoc.aspx?i=3691
======
MikeCapone
I'm actually surprised this change hasn't happened before. 512 bytes is
ridiculously small (and useless) these days.
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
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3D Audio From Ordinary Speakers (Video Demo) - shawndumas
http://www.synthtopia.com/content/2011/04/23/3d-audio-from-ordinary-speakers-video-demo/
======
abcd_f
Wouldn't his technique require the listener to be sitting still and have his
ears in exact specified locations? Not very practical then if that's the case.
I guess the system can include some sort of (visual) ear recognition and
tracking logic and adjust the cross-talk filter respectively, but (a) that's
pretty far off (b) still won't work for more than one listener.
Moreover...
> _The filter is designed to work with loudspeakers - not headphones_
Because regular stereo in headphones already has no cross-talk, so it is
naturally 3D. And this leads to the trivial 3D stereo solution (if one really
wants it) - just put the headphones on.
------
olihb
I think the most useful application of this technology(except entertainment)
would be conference calls. Even with a polycom conference phone, you still
have to concentrate to follow the conversation. It's even worse when people
don't wait their turn to talk...
If someone can include this technology in an unobtrusive way in Skype, there's
a Nobel prize waiting for them...
------
wazoox
In the late 80s-early 90s, 3D sound with stereo speakers was all the rage :
Q-Sound, Roland RSS... there were several competing processing systems.
Sting's "The Soul Cages" did use Q-Sound quite heavily, for anyone interested
(edit: correct Sting album reference).
------
ck2
Downloaded the 720p version (it has 128kbps AAC) to play back with a better
decoder than flash and it does seem to work - I'd like to hear more demos
though.
On rare occasion the old stereo-wide feature on my TV can make a sound seem
like it occurred behind me (with just 2 cheap speakers) now that's something
they need to research and reproduce - this demo had nothing from behind me.
------
Entlin
Great stuff. Without correct speaker positioning and well-matching HRTFs for
each listener, I feel that this won't fly.
Btw: I'm thinking about creating a 3D audio game where the HRTF model is
constantly refined for the player while he is playing. Does anybody know
whether there has already been work done in this direction, either
academically or in the indie game world?
~~~
ericmoritz
<http://connect.creativelabs.com/openal/default.aspx>
~~~
sp332
Is Creative sponsoring this? I thought they killed A3D in favor of the
(inferior) EAX after they bought Aureal.
------
headShrinker
This effect didn't work so well for me. 3D Audio (from stereo source) has been
experimented with for years. I have heard most of them. The most believable
reproduction I have heard is here,
[http://www.nucleusdevelopment.com/downloads/4-654%20matches....](http://www.nucleusdevelopment.com/downloads/4-654%20matches.mp3)
. It should be heard with high quality headphones. You can hear from the short
demo, the replay has complete 360 degree reproductive control. You can almost
feel the blowdryer in your ear,
[http://www.nucleusdevelopment.com/downloads/4-654%20blowdry....](http://www.nucleusdevelopment.com/downloads/4-654%20blowdry.mp3)
.
~~~
huhtenberg
Both links are dead.
~~~
headShrinker
Sorry. Fixed.
------
TeMPOraL
I've just watched the video on my laptop and this 3D audio actually works!
It's amazing! I'd really like to see more demos.
------
amccloud
My guess is that his "filter" is phase cancellation, which is nothing new.
~~~
sp332
As he explains in the video, phase cancellation doesn't work well when you
stick your head into it. The head-related transfer function interacts with it
in complex ways, so it's not easy to keep audio fidelity and spatial
information at the same time. <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Head-
related_transfer_function>
| {
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LinkedInLabs: visualise your network - xtacy
http://inmaps.linkedinlabs.com/
======
nobody_nowhere
Fascinating... but so many lines! I'm sure there are some really cool
unexpected connections in there, but it's just a mass of arcs and circles...
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
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Elon Musk shares the first progress of the Boring Company - artsandsci
http://mashable.com/2017/05/12/elon-musk-boring-kickoff/?utm_campaign=Mash-Prod-RSS-Feedburner-All-Partial&utm_cid=Mash-Prod-RSS-Feedburner-All-Partial#9QqMdxDVAaq0
======
uptown
Who owns the land he's boring under?
| {
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The Great Brazilian Sat-Hack Crackdown - ffernan
http://www.wired.com/politics/security/news/2009/04/fleetcom
CAMPINAS, Brazil — On the night of March 8, cruising 22,000 miles above the Earth, U.S. Navy communications satellite FLTSAT-8 suddenly erupted with illicit activity. Jubilant voices and anthems crowded the channel on a junkyard's worth of homemade gear from across vast and silent stretches of the Amazon: Ronaldo, a Brazilian soccer idol, had just scored his first goal with the Corinthians.<p>It was a party that won't soon be forgotten. Ten days later, Brazilian Federal Police swooped in on 39 suspects in six states in the largest crackdown to date on a growing problem here: illegal hijacking of U.S. military satellite transponders.<p>"This had been happening for more than five years," says Celso Campos, of the Brazilian Federal Police. "Since the communication channel was open, not encrypted, lots of people used it to talk to each other."<p>The practice is so entrenched, and the knowledge and tools so widely available, few believe the campaign to stamp it out will be quick or easy.<p>Much of this country's population lives in remote areas beyond the reach of cellphone coverage, making American satellites an ideal, if illegal, communications option. The problem goes back more than a decade, to the mid-1990s, when Brazilian radio technicians discovered they could jump on the UHF frequencies dedicated to satellites in the Navy's Fleet Satellite Communication system, or FLTSATCOM. They've been at it ever since.<p>Truck drivers love the birds because they provide better range and sound than ham radios. Rogue loggers in the Amazon use the satellites to transmit coded warnings when authorities threaten to close in. Drug dealers and organized criminal factions use them to coordinate operations.<p>Today, the satellites, which pirates called "Bolinha" or "little ball," are a national phenomenon.<p>"It's impossible not to find equipment like this when we catch an organized crime gang," says a police officer involved in last month's action.<p>The crackdown, called "Operation Satellite," was Brazil's first large-scale enforcement against the problem. Police followed coordinates provided by the U.S. Department of Defense and confirmed by Anatel, Brazil's FCC. Among those charged were university professors, electricians, truckers and farmers, the police say. The suspects face up to four years and jail, but are more likely to be fined if convicted.
======
patio11
If you can triangulate them then the solution seems fairly simple: automate
the triangulation, and have a pre-recorded voice respond to transmissions
randomly with a stern command in Portuguese: This is the United States Navy.
You are transmitting on a restricted channel. Your location is _blah_. Cease
communication via this channel immediately or we will take appropriate
measures to protect our national security.
I think it would be more effective if you made the monitor random than if you
made it deterministic and perfectly effective. If every transmission got the
reprimand, it would sound like a joke. If it happens infrequently enough then
the users will react like OH MY GOD THE FLOORBOARD IS CREAKING HOLY "#$"&
THERE ARE MARINES OUTSIDE MY WINDOW. (Google "panopticon". Yay, I actually
learned something in literary criticism!)
Incidentally: even if you can't triangulate them accurately, I'm going to bet
that an illiterate truck driver told he was broadcasting from 38.89767 N,
77.03655 E would believe you. Even though he is most probably not attempting
satellite piracy from the Oval Office.
~~~
sdurkin
Brilliant strategy. I remember a few years back a port scan of NSA.gov would
give a stern "THIS COMPUTER SYSTEM IS PROPERTY OF THE GOVERNMENT OF THE UNITED
STATES OF AMERICA. UNAUTHORIZED ACCESS WILL BE PROSECUTED."
As a twelve-year-old messing with netcat for the first time, it terrified the
s!&t out of me.
~~~
josefresco
Unfortunately Brazilians are not scared 12 year olds, and would probably not
be so concerned with a pre-recorded warning that has little chance of actually
effecting them (who's going to track down some random logger talking soccer
with a buddy?)
~~~
pavel_lishin
Anatel and the Navy, according to the article.
~~~
rbanffy
They should fear Anatel. The US Navy has no authority here.
------
tsally
If a bunch of impoverished Brazilians can use these satellites to communicate,
is a Denial of Service possible if organized by a well funded group? I admit I
don't know as much about this type of technology as I would like. I assume
they could saturate every frequency?
Also, a thought to fix this problem. How much money do you think the US is
going to spend to try to crack down on the hijackers? How much money do you
think it would take to build a decent infrastructure to remove the motivation
of hijacking? The numbers certainly are not equal, but they're probably closer
than you'd think.
~~~
forinti
Impoverished? Brazil is actually a middle-income country, with the South and
Southeast rapidly approaching european income levels. Brazil has 190 million
people and 150 million cellphones. Most of the population lives near the
Atlantic coast in large metropolitan areas.
~~~
tsally
I'm very well aware of Brazil's economic status as a country. I wasn't seeking
to comment on the country as a whole, simply the segment of the population
hijacking signals. I stand by my statement that this segment of the population
has very little resources in the grand scheme of technical attacks. Seems as
if you were looking for something that wasn't there.
~~~
rbanffy
Believe if I say the Brazilians who are doing this are not "impoverished".
They just found a freebie and many of them don't even know they shouldn't do
it.
As for the military implications, I don't know why the hell those birds were
not DoS'ed before. If a couple clever civilians figured that out, I can't
believe no bad guy ever tried that.
How effective a DoS on those satellites would be on denying US-Navy fleetwide
communications?
Actually, I assume badguys are already using those satellites for short bursts
of encrypted data that looks an awful lot like navy traffic sent via very
narrow beams the satellite (and ground people) have no hope of finding where
it came from.
Perhaps, instead of cracking down, the Navy should call the NSA and listen
more carefully to what is being transmitted.
------
forinti
This is why Brazil has the safest banking system in the world: Brazilians are
unruly and the police is ineffective.
~~~
carterschonwald
Could you elaborate on what you mean here? Eg do you mean that if a bank
flubs, they'll have a riot, so they take care to do things right?
~~~
forinti
I mean that because of past economic troubles, the whole system was integrated
in the 80s. You can easily transfer between any two banks in any point in the
country. The banks are also responsible for the safety of their ATMs and
internet services so if your account is hacked, it's their responsibility and
therefore they make sure it's safe (unlike in England where it's the
customer's responsibility and the banks don't take security as seriously as
they should). My card number was stolen once, and my bank immediately rolled
back all the transactions the crooks had made. Also, if your bank goes under,
your money is insured, but they rarely do because they are tightly regulated
by the central bank. To sum it up: because we had so much economic turmoil, we
ended up with a very safe banking system in both financial and technological
terms.
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Software: Immaculate, fetid and grimy - WestCoastJustin
http://dtrace.org/blogs/bmc/2015/09/03/software-immaculate-fetid-and-grimy
======
douche
I think the last point is the best one, and something that I'll try to keep in
mind
>
And what do you do when that awful, black day arrives? Here’s a quick coping manual from those of us who have been there:
Don’t pretend it didn’t happen — you screwed up, but your mother still loves you
Don’t minimize the problem, shrug it off or otherwise make light of it — this is serious business, and your colleagues take it seriously
If someone spent time debugging your bug, thank them
If someone was inconvenienced by your bug, apologize to them
Take responsibility for your bug — don’t bother to blame other subsystems, the inherent complexity of the software, your code reviewers, your testers, the community, etc.
If it was caught before it was running in production, be thankful that a production user wasn’t affected by it
~~~
Plishar
Really? This is all second nature, stuff you should already be doing. Replace
"bug" with defect and it can apply to anything.
If you find computer work is stressing you out, maybe find a better job that
suits your interests?
------
greenleafjacob
> You may discover as you work in the subsystem that maintaining it is simply
> untenable — and it may be time to consider rewriting the subsystem from
> scratch. (After all, most of the subsystems that are in the first category
> replaced subsystems that were in the second.) One should not come to this
> decision too quickly — rewriting a subsystem from scratch is enormously
> difficult and time-consuming. Still, don’t rule it out _a priori_.
It's good to see this important trade-off mentioned. I've seen Spolsky's
infamous allegory about Netscape [1] that "[rewriting] the code from scratch
[... is] the single worst strategic mistake that any software company can
make," used to browbeat people in response to their quite justified opinion
that "maintaining it is simply untenable." While Spolsky does go on to nuance
his statement a little bit, advocating for a careful refactoring process with
lots of tests, I was happy to see the same advice formulated in a way that
precludes such cherry picking here.
[1]
[http://www.joelonsoftware.com/articles/fog0000000069.html](http://www.joelonsoftware.com/articles/fog0000000069.html)
------
Plishar
I usually skip articles like this. It's like saying biology is immaculate,
fetid and grimy.
No, but some of the people are. Happens in all fields.
Science is usually reduced to a list of facts. Emotions usually are not
related, but if it helps you, go for it.
I half-expect these types of articles to give this tidbit of advice: talk
nicely to the computer. It's your friend.
~~~
douche
I have to conclude that you didn't make any effort whatsoever to RTFA.
I half-expect these types of articles to give this tidbit of advice: talk
nicely to the computer. It's your friend.
Yep, that's exactly the advice given:
Run your change in every environment you can get your hands on, and don’t be
be content that the software seems to basically work —
you must beat the hell out of it
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
The secret nuclear bunker built as the UK's last hope - PuffinBlue
http://www.bbc.com/future/story/20170103-the-secret-nuclear-bunker-built-as-the-uks-last-hope
======
PuffinBlue
There is also an accompanying 360 video here:
[https://www.facebook.com/BBCFuture/videos/vb.279678448760878...](https://www.facebook.com/BBCFuture/videos/vb.279678448760878/1228592763891161/?type=2&theater)
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Think Like a Martian About Money and Universal Basic Income - imartin2k
https://medium.com/basic-income/think-like-a-martian-about-money-and-universal-basic-income-ubi-d543922f06d3
======
Joky
> Think about that fact for a moment through Martian eyes. Humans are the only
> species on planet Earth who have to pay to live here.
Right, other species are just fighting daily for their territory and their
life...
~~~
superstructBase
Yes, so we should be less like animals. People should be allowed to live
without having to "earn a living" \-- the daily struggle for survival would be
abolished by UBI.
~~~
Joky
Actually I'm not against UBI, but I don't think that the martians argument
about the money system was a good one: the current system is just much
civilized than anything that existed before as far as I can tell.
UBI may be part of the next evolutionary step of society, we'll see, but I'm
slightly bothered that it relies on the comfort and the wealthiness of the
"first world" built to the detriment of the "third world". I personally feel
that "people should be allowed to live" would be more convincing to me if it
was about worldwide inequality rather than UBI in westerner society.
------
akarki15
> Thinking as a Martian, if humans were to decide to trust everyone a minimum
> amount, such that no human had no trust, but every human had some trust, and
> that amount of trust was sufficient for everyone to obtain a minimum amount
> of access to the resources necessary for life, then everything would change.
This is looking at human beings from a personal standpoint. You have to look
at humans as a group and decide what the Nash equilibrium looks like. If
everyone tried to trust a minimum amount, there is a large incentive on single
individual to break that trust and gain benefits. You need some kind of system
to dis incentivize people from breaking trust. Guess what that's what law and
order is. But unfortunately nations haven't been able to agree on common
international law because the Nash equilibrium in the group of nations happens
to be different.
While I applaud the optimism of the writer, the piece is too rosy and void of
facts/theoretical framework for me to appreciate it.
------
b_tterc_p
Terrible article. The first half is overly long and feels like it’s just anti
capitalism rather than pro ubi
The rest is just appeals to emotion. The worst offender being here
> We have piles of evidence that a world without UBI is hugely expensive in so
> many ways.
With nothing to say that a world with UBI isn’t.
~~~
HNLurker2
I relate to this sentiment. This is the best system we got so far, would UBI
even work here?
------
HNLurker2
This is nihilist lenses not martian eyes (anthropologist).
This way of working stuff is the reason we have some level of human dignity.
Before civilization things where far worst.
------
jhanschoo
A related notion:
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Veil_of_ignorance](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Veil_of_ignorance)
------
calecon323
The problem with universal basic income is that none of the ways to pay for it
are palatable. Let's assume for instance that we want a UBI of something like
20% of per capita gdp. Either we (a) cut spending from existing government
programs or (b) raise taxes.
It is often suggested that the UBI can replace existing social welfare
programs and save money in the long run by cutting out administration costs.
First, administration costs are already quite low, social security
administration costs in the US for example are usually around 2-3% of total
outlays and there is no real reason to believe that similar old age pension
programs in other countries are any less efficient. Secondly, existing
government programs are usually significantly more generous than a proposed
UBI to the recipients of such programs. Cutting existing spending means that
the existing users of government welfare will suffer a massive drop in living
standards. Leaving outside the moral consequences of imposing austerity on the
most vulnerable in society this point is almost never acknowledged by
proponents of a UBI.
Raising taxes is the second option but this is even more problematic than
diverting existing government spending. Western governments already impose
significant taxation on citizens. If you are living in a rich country with tax
receipts over 50% of GDP increasing taxes by over 40% basically means
restructuring your entire economy. Since income taxes are already quite high
you will almost certainly need some mix of increases in payroll and sales
taxes to meet the fiscal demands of a UBI. The poor can't reasonably be
exempted from this increased taxation as their income will either be hit by
increased consumption taxes on almost every good or service they purchase or
their after tax income will be hit by the higher payroll taxes. Trying to
means test the payroll tax increase won't work as governments will no longer
be able to raise enough income to afford a UBI if they try to carve out
exemptions for the poor and lower middle class. Assuming you are comfortable
with these tradeoffs and the perverse incentives usually created as people try
to avoid the large increase in taxes you will be faced the reality that the
UBI will not go nearly as far as it would before the additional taxes are
imposed. Not only have you given every worker a pay cut you have also
increased the price of almost every good they could conceivably purchase with
their new income. Finally, such a large increase in taxation will almost
certainly impose a dramatic cost in economic activity. Increasing taxation
from 50% to 70% of total economic output is far beyond what even the richest
countries can support in taxation. No Scandinavian country is even remotely
close to this level for example.
The net result is a trilemma in implementing a UBI that cannot be avoided:
a) if you reduce the level of the UBI below what a reasonable person could
subsist on you defeat the entire point of having a UBI in the first place b)
if you cut existing government spending welfare recipients and existing users
of government programs will be massive net losers c) dramatic increases in
taxation are beyond what is generally considered possible to put it politely
Silly articles like this on the UBI never bring up _any_ of the public policy
issues that must be addressed to implement a UBI and it's pretty clear why.
The UBI as I see it proposed incessently is basically the perpetual motion
machine of political thought
~~~
timbuckley
I suggest you look at Andrew Yang’s 2020 platform of Freedom Dividend and
explanation of how to pay for it.
Yang would offer each person an annual choice between existing benefits or an
unconditional transfer payments (UBI). This allows for an easier transition to
more UBI while preventing lapses in important benefits for those who need it.
As for the pay-fors: You do NOT need a policy proposal to be revenue neutral
(ie 100% paid for by spending reductions and/or tax increases) if it grows the
economy or if it saves costs elsewhere in the system. This is true of any
policy. We have never paid for our spending during and after WW2, but that
doesn’t matter because we grew our economy as to make that debt trivial to the
size of the economy.
In UBIs case, we have strong evidence from studies that it tends to improve
health (especially child health), reduces crime, and increases business
creation (a stable albeit small income is a fantastic platform for
entrepreneurship), among other benefits. How much does it cost society to fail
to eradicate below-poverty incomes? How about failing to end involuntary
homelessness? UBI is the cheapest way to get those things.
Back to Andrew Yang’s plan: 1) Institute a 10% VAT. 2) Save on reductions in
social services (to the degree Freedom Dividend is chosen) 3) Remaining
balance paid with deficit spending, growing the economy and reducing upstream
costs.
~~~
calecon323
Except he doesn't explain how to pay for it as far as I can tell. He has four
funding sources that don't come close to adding up to the $3 trillion he would
need to fund a UBI. The $800 billion for a vat is incredibly generous but even
assuming that he can only come up an additional $500 billion by assuming that
everyone will prefer a UBI over other government programs. He also assumes
$100-200 billion will be saved by the government due to lower costs of other
government programs.
Even assuming everything adds up that still only gets you to $1.5 trillion,
you still to come up with another trillion at least! Borrowing the money will
result in the US running the largest peacetime budget deficit of any developed
country ever. A budget deficit of 15% of GDP would be at least 3 times what
the budget deficit was at the height of the Reagan era. It's simply
disingenuous to claim that this is par for the course for advanced economies.
It isn't.
------
sneak
Money was invented as a way of collectively keeping track of who owes what to
whom. To abolish it from “the martian perspective” would be to abolish
interaction by consent, which has variously been termed slavery and rape
throughout the years here on Earth.
~~~
superstructBase
UBI would not abolish money. It would actually create more money for everyone,
and having a guaranteed minimum income would allow people to enter into
employment relationships on a purely voluntary basis, because they would have
the option to abstain from work.
~~~
htk
"Create more money"? If you mean printing more money, than we just get
inflation, otherwise giving money doesn't create any new value by itself, it's
just money changing hands.
~~~
superstructBase
Yes, UBI would likely contribute to some inflation -- a little bit of
inflation is good, necessary, and unavoidable. It would also act as a massive
stimulus to the economy, while also empowering economically-disenfranchised
people to enter into the market, from which they are barred from participating
in without money.
One way to fund a UBI would be through a value-added tax, which would be
collected at every stage of production where money is exchanged.
~~~
sneak
Inflation is an unvoted and unregulated tax; being a flat tax it is regressive
and it vastly disproportionately (negatively) affects the poor.
It is not good, nor a benefit.
~~~
superstructBase
Inflation is not a tax: there is no government entity that collects inflation
payments.
Not having any money is worse for the poor than having a basic income, even if
there is inflation. The market has no direct incentive to serve those without
money. The alleviation of widespread human suffering due to poverty and the
massive increase in the general utility of the market to humans clearly makes
UBI the moral choice.
Inflation does benefit debtors: with money being cheaper, loans are easier to
pay off.
~~~
sneak
> _Inflation is not a tax: there is no government entity that collects
> inflation payments_
Quite the opposite; when new money enters circulation it is spent (by those
doing the printing) at the pre-inflation value of the notes.
------
newspeedster
as a wise man once said, a fool believes and acts as what other fools told him
too, but a wise man who does not understand that becomes a fool!
------
Crye
Anyone who found this line of thinking intriguing, I would like to recommend a
book by Ursula Le Guin, The Dispossessed.
It's a story that follows a mathematical genius who lives on a primitive and
poor but utopic anarchic planet.
His planet, however, orbits a planet very similar to ours. Due to his
discoveries, one of the countries on the earth like planet asks him to
continue his work on their planet. During his time there, he explores the
danger, sickness and wonders our beliefs and system of capitalism creates.
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Stable OpenAI baselines - aidanrocke
https://github.com/araffin/rl-baselines-zoo
======
aidanrocke
A collection of pre-trained RL agents using Stable Baselines [http://stable-
baselines.readthedocs.io/](http://stable-baselines.readthedocs.io/) developed
by Antonin Raffin([https://araffin.github.io/](https://araffin.github.io/))
and Ashley Hill([https://github.com/hill-a](https://github.com/hill-a)).
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Ten things that will change your future [loopt included] - ivankirigin
http://www.smh.com.au/news/technology/ten-things-that-will-change-your-future/2007/12/31/1198949747758.html?page=fullpage
======
ALee
Adrian Holavarty's (creator of Django) startup Everyblock is also on the list.
I know millions upon millions of soccermoms who would love to have a website
that gives them crime info, local sports activities, and local government
information. Those things are barely available anyway.
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Inside a Powerful Silicon Valley Charity, a Toxic Culture Festered - KKKKkkkk1
https://www.nytimes.com/2018/05/11/business/silicon-valley-community-foundation.html
======
Bucephalus355
This is fascinating article. The main complaints are actually against a woman,
the foundation’s top fundraiser. One of her quotes to a black intern:
>“ok slave, come into my office”
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
New-less JavaScript (2013) - voltagex_
http://jfire.io/blog/2013/03/20/newless-javascript/
======
Rygu
I use `delete object[key]` all the time to unset a property. I do think in the
JS world the use of `new` is inconsistent, but avoiding the keyword does not
rid of that fact. Your new-less libraries may be consistent with each other,
but not the rest of the JS world that do it their own way.
([http://xkcd.com/927/](http://xkcd.com/927/))
This seems like a problem the language should solve incrementally. Especially
with ES6 classes and modules!
~~~
maga
`delete` is harmful, consider setting property to `undefined` or `null`
instead.
~~~
kalms
Why is it harmful to delete a property that disappears forever?
~~~
aardvark179
It is going to depend partly on the internals of your JIT. Since JS objects
are so mutable it's common to use their shape as the basic check for fast
method dispatch. So if you take a Foo and add a property x then it will become
a Foo(x). If you make lots of calls on objects of this shape then the method
lookups will make it into inline caches and be very quick, calls against an
object of shape Foo() or Foo(y) or Foo(x,y) will be treated separately. Inline
caches for method dispatch are generally very small, so you'll omly get really
fast dispatch for a few different shapes at any particular call site so the
more consistent the shapes the more likely you are to keep the JIT happy.
~~~
josteink
So your argument is that we should currently and in the future constraint our
usage of language-features based on the current state of language-runtimes?
How are we going to keep pushing the boundaries then? Had JS started with that
sentiment, we would have a V8 JS runtime running about 100th the speed it does
now for general purpose code, written with the aim of being as clear and
reusable as possible.
Personally I prefer good, clear and concise code, over code written trying to
appease some secondary affects on the inside of a black box which is not
guaranteed to stay the same.
This is clearly an optimization, and I'm not saying all optimization is bad
per se, but all optimization should be justified if it affects code-clarity.
Are you sure these optimizations are warranted? Have you profiled your code
and identified that this is a bottleneck for performance-critical sections of
your code?
A former Nvidia-engineer had a really good rant about what sort of things your
thinking leads to:
[http://www.gamedev.net/topic/666419-what-are-your-
opinions-o...](http://www.gamedev.net/topic/666419-what-are-your-opinions-on-
dx12vulkanmantle/#entry5215019)
Key quote: "So the game is guessing what the driver is doing, the driver is
guessing what the game is doing, and the whole mess could be avoided if the
drivers just wouldn't work so hard trying to protect us."
I agree it's not a direct analogue, but the same line of thinking still
applies.
~~~
aardvark179
My argument is that you should be aware of what is required to implement a
language (at least to some extent), and what may go against implementation
assumptions. These things are always a tradeoff, and if you mutate objects
enough through their lifespan then maybe implementations will move more
towards looking at the methods attached to an object, and ignore the shape of
the data except when accessing a property (the methods are already normally
stored off to one side on the assumption that you won't change them), but that
will either make objects larger (need to store a ref to the shape and to the
methods per object) or require an extra indirection (need to follow from the
shape to the methods) so may incur a slight overall performance penalty.
Yes, we are all in the same game as GL driver developers and game devs, and
that goes for all language implementations. The fine details of what gets
optimised best may change from VM to VM, and from release to release, but it's
important to understand the general assumptions that these systems are built
around, because they don't change quickly.
In general dynamic languages that allow properties to be created and deleted
on individual objects are a complete PITA to optimise, and more generally
mutability of classes makes stuff harder, so in general even though you have
these abilities in JS and other languages your code will often perform better
if you limit your use of them, especially in areas where performance is
critical. This doesn't mean you shouldn't use those mutability features, but
you should have some notion of the cost you might be incurring.
------
drinchev
One of the greatest things about preprocessing languages is that they usually
use optimized and hard-tested features of the specific language.
Let's examine CoffeeScript ( which is one of the most popular ) :
class Foo
constructor: -> return 'bar';
foo = new Foo();
will compile to :
var Foo, foo;
Foo = (function() {
function Foo() {
return 'bar';
}
return Foo;
})();
foo = new Foo();
Which IMHO, follows the very best practices of javascript. Since JS is such a
flexible language if you don't have any coding standards, your code could
become hell and unmaintainable very quickly.
I would advise not to use the proposed "New-less JS", because it breaks the
general coding style guides that a lot of libraries use and yes it would be
possible to write it that way, but keep in mind that your code would be one
step less readable from random developers.
~~~
cromwellian
Is that really optimized/optimal? I'd be curious to see jsperf benchmarks of
this method of constructor vs the straighforward approach.
The JS VMs tend to kind of finnicky and optimized towards certain types of
idiomatic Javascript and it's my guess that the further off the common path
you stray, the more likely you are to hit performance gotchas.
Your best bet is to transpile code that looks much like the benchmark suites
they run. :)
~~~
drinchev
I also agree with what you are saying. JS in terms of usage is so big that I
guess developers behind JS compilers will have to optimize for "the most
popular way of solving that problem".
In any case, why I mentioned preprocessors is that there is a lot of history
behind every feature. As of this there are a couple of github issues [1] that
explain why this approach has been used.
For the performance. Seems that "new" is way faster. [2]
[1] :
[https://github.com/jashkenas/coffeescript/issues/912](https://github.com/jashkenas/coffeescript/issues/912)
[2] : [https://jsperf.com/obj-create-vs-new/4](https://jsperf.com/obj-create-
vs-new/4)
------
1day1day
"JavaScript borrowed the new and delete keywords from its less-dynamic
predecessor languages. They feel a bit out of place in a garbage collected
language and are a source of confusion for newbies "
They are? Delete maybe, due to language symantics - but not new. I think it's
unfair to bundle them together in terms of newbie confusion.
Also every time I see one of these type of blog post, discussions in a book
the work arounds are even worse.
JS is easy to understand, by the time you need 'new' it is not that difficult
an extension of your current knowledge. As far as 'delete' even an advanced JS
developer could go a year without calling it
~~~
shangxiao
'new' is a source of confusion for newbies and experienced devs alike,
sufficiently enough for them to ask questions on SO:
[http://stackoverflow.com/questions/9468055/what-does-new-
in-...](http://stackoverflow.com/questions/9468055/what-does-new-in-
javascript-do-anyway)
Even I have to refresh my memory on these ambiguous parts of the language from
time to time.
------
z3t4
The nice thing about JS is that it has so many "religions". But some people
think there should only be ONE religion. While One religion would be easier
for newbies, destroying all other religions would kill the language.
So can we just agree that many religions are nice. It's OK to try and convert
people, but it's Not OK to force someone by changing the language itself.
With that said, I'm a bit worried about more and more religions entering the
JS language. Like classes and block scope (ES6). And how some, both good and
bad new features are forever changing the language.
------
rtpg
I think a good complement tothis concept is that of "this"-less Javascript,
relegating it only to things like mixins.
So many headaches are to be had if you're not careful and using some decent
functional things.
~~~
AnkhMorporkian
I don't think there's anything inherently evil, bad, or even particularly
confusing about this. As long as you understand how it's being attached to a
running function there's very little confusion to be had. The problem is that
most of the resources for learning completely gloss over this incredibly
important aspect of the language.
~~~
insin
...and too few of the posts complaining about it mention strict mode or ES6
fat arrow syntax.
------
jbergens
The library StampIt uses factory methods instead of new to allow some extra
features. Works a lot like .extend() in other libraries but with some extra
options.
[https://github.com/ericelliott/stampit](https://github.com/ericelliott/stampit)
------
EugeneOZ
It's a movement in wrong direction. It's artifact that we can call class name
without "new" and method name, because before ES6 there wasn't such thing as
classes. Now we should just deprecate this artifact.
------
zimbatm
The best reason to have new-less constructors is because it's now possible to
use them as higher-order functions.
[1,2,3].map(User)
~~~
insin
As long as the constructor doesn't take multiple arguments [1], otherwise:
[1, 2, 3].map(id => User(id))
[1]
[http://speakingjs.com/es5/ch15.html#_pitfall_unexpected_opti...](http://speakingjs.com/es5/ch15.html#_pitfall_unexpected_optional_parameters)
~~~
elclanrs
I find it useful to have `unary` and `apply` around:
[1,2,3].map(unary(User))
[[1,2],[3,4],[5,6]].map(apply(User))
------
leichtgewicht
How is this news? It says 2013 in the title ...
------
simula67
I feel like being bullied for having to learn Javascript to do web
programming. I wish there was a push towards supporting arbitrary languages
for doing web development.
~~~
ChrisAntaki
Well, that's possible with compile-to-JavaScript languages. Also you have the
option of plugins like Unity, if you're going for something graphically
adventurous.
That being said, JavaScript is a powerful tool, if wielded correctly. It's so
flexible. In a lot of ways, it's like a pizza. One man orders a pizza with
anchovies, another with green peppers. And on and on. Eventually it's like
they've got two completely different dinners.
~~~
simula67
> Well, that's possible with compile-to-JavaScript languages.
I have tried to read code that was translated to Javascript using some source-
to-source compilers and they are very hard to understand. On the other hand
for a language like C, it is very easy to understand the output ( assembly ).
Don't get me wrong, understanding the intricacies of assembly for each
processor architecture is a difficult process, but the rules that define
assembly language itself are not so, there is an opcode and some operands and
each instruction performs an action on the operands or stored state in various
registers. Javascript ( at least for me ) is too high-level to attempt to read
a machine translated output. Programmers need to know at least _one_ level
below the abstraction to which they are programming to.
~~~
jbergens
I would say the output of most of the compile-to-js languages are easy or at
least non-hard to read. It is usually the minification that causes problems
and you don't have to do that in a development environment where you usually
attach your debugger. It's usually also hard to debug a running application
written in a static and compiled language (unless you have symbol tables and
similar).
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Connect Any Service to Zapier with the New and Improved Developer Platform - carrja99
https://zapier.com/blog/connect-any-service-zapier-new-and-improved-developer-platform/
======
gleb
Zapier is one of these things that totally blew away my expectations.
It works really well and is easy to use even for non-technical users. Doubly
impressive given that the problem they are solving is really messy underneath
it all.
~~~
WadeF
Thanks for the kind words. Making it simple isn't all that simple so glad that
the effort pays off. :-)
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Ask HN: Should I offer my app on a daily deal site? - flippyhead
I've got offers to put my desktop / cloud application (it comes in two versions) up for sale on several discount daily deal websites (similar to AppSumo). They all take a steep cut, in most cases I end up having to discount my app by over 60%.<p>What has your experience been promoting sass / desktop applications on these type of sites? Did it end up being worth it?
======
kargo
It worked well for me: 5 times our usual sales, at a 60% discount -- that is
still twice the usual daily revenue. Plus the option to earn more when it
comes to renewals.
~~~
taprun
Revenue can't be taken at face value.
Sometimes sales attract customers that wouldn't have bought before (either the
price was too high, or customers were unfamiliar with the product).
Sometimes sales simply pull demand from the future (folks who would have
bought, but haven't gotten around to it yet). If you experience the former,
great! If you experience the latter, then you're actually losing money.
------
saluki
I would, great exposure, lots of new customers.
More revenue than your typical day.
Plus lots of people to spread the word about how great your app is.
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
What Kind of Mother? - wglb
http://www.tbray.org/ongoing/When/201x/2011/01/09/Chinese-Mothers
======
petercooper
_Reading this piece shook me and made me wonder, because either Ms Chua is
bringing her kids up wrong, or we are._
That's a false dichotomy. There are not two ways to treat children (hard vs
soft).
I think Bray falls into the same trap as many of the indignant respondents on
MetaFilter to Chua's piece (though in a less emotive way). There are no
dichotomies when it comes to raising children or "what's best" for them, but
people seem quick to adopt their own society's and communities' norms to
judging both their own parenting techniques and those of others. Seneca was
right to suggest that one should learn philosophy to grow as a human being
because without such study these polarized opinions are so easy to cling to.
I think Chua does a reasonable job of acknowledging and describing the gulf
between her supposedly traditional "Chinese" opinions and the "Western" gamut
of parenting techniques without casting significant aspersions on "Western"
parenting, at least in the essay given (I haven't read her book). When it
comes to Westerners judging Chua, however, people seem very quick to paint her
techniques as wrong, evil, or "cruel" using a moral framework that simply
doesn't apply to her case - it's about as meaningful as criticizing how
Amazonian tribes live (or, better, judging American politics by European
standards).
As in everything, there's a middle way here. Bray's observations indicate, to
me, that he _sees_ the gooey middle of the parenting gamut but then fails to
acknowledge it.
~~~
burgerbrain
I grew up with Asian parents^, and so I think I can safely say that the
parenting techniques are at the very least cruel. For example, she makes it a
point very early on that she doesn't allow her children to properly socialize
with their peers. Education and socialization are _not_ mutually exclusive and
it is absolutely vital that you don't don't convince your children otherwise.
Then after making it a point to mention this little rule, she _never backs it
up or defend it_. Why doesn't she allow her children to participate in drama
or visit with friends? _We don't know_. One is left to simply presume that
perhaps it's because she's on a power trip, enacting some sort of revenge on
her children for daring to be a burden on her life.
^technically my parents were quite germanic, but their parenting technique was
_to a tee_ what Chua described. _"You got a A- in geography?! You need to
spend more time studying!"_ _"why are you listening to rock and roll music?
you should play cello like your brother!"_. It's making a _big_ mistake to
think that this sort of _bad_ parenting is limited to Asian parents.
~~~
petercooper
_For example, she makes it a point very early on that she doesn't allow her
children to properly socialize with their peers._
To call this "cruel" in any _objective_ sense (if you were being subjective,
OK - that's undebatable opinion) would require a definition of what "proper"
is in regards to socialization. Such a definition relates to the values of
_particular societies and communities_ given that they form the basis under
which socialization occurs.
~~~
zasz
Asian American women tend to commit suicide at a rate twice as high as the
national female average:
<http://cdc.gov/women/lcod/archive>
Another link suggesting Asian Americans tend to have worse mental disorders
than other ethnicities: [http://www.healthyminds.org/More-Info-For/Asian-
AmericanPaci...](http://www.healthyminds.org/More-Info-For/Asian-
AmericanPacific-Islanders.aspx)
Causation is not correlation, of course, and you are right that standards for
socialization may differ across cultures, but these statistic and my
experience with other Asians do lead me to believe that Asian upbringings are
unnecessarily cruel and stunt children's ability to deal with other people and
their own feelings to a degree that causes them to take their own lives.
Raising children to be happy enough to _not_ take their own lives or getting
an eating disorder after being called fat one time too many is a bare minimum.
~~~
true_religion
People determine their own level of satisfaction based on comparisons to other
people.
Asian Americans may feel more depressed because they see themselves missing
out on socialization and general "fun" that their western counterparts
experience.
However, Asians in their home countries (or in ethnically homogeneous American
communities) may not feel more depressed because they only have each other as
comparison.
If no one is going out to parties on Friday night, then it is a lot harder to
say "my parents are being unfair to me", or even _feel_ it without expression.
Now addressing your charge that this culture is "unnecessarily" cruel... if we
find that giving people the opportunity to have fun over work leads to higher
satisfaction and consequently lower suicide rates, we still can't call any
specific balance of work vs. fun "unnecessarily cruel" without justification.
It's a judgement call as to what level of 'fun' is a good thing for children
to pursue at the expense of their intellectual, athletic, or social
development. Is the level of depression, and suicide found in western cultures
acceptable or unacceptable? Should we stop foisting 'work' and competitive
rating (in the form of school in particular) on children who don't want it, in
order to have a lower suicide rate?
I'm not pointing at statistics here on purpose because this is a philosophical
question rather than a quantifiable scientific one.
------
laughinghan
Truly touching: [http://www.quora.com/Parenting/Is-Amy-Chua-right-when-she-
ex...](http://www.quora.com/Parenting/Is-Amy-Chua-right-when-she-explains-Why-
Chinese-Mothers-Are-Superior-in-an-op-ed-in-the-Wall-Street-
Journal#answer_251428)
Though all the Quora responses are worth reading.
~~~
turbofail
The Quora responses reveal an important point regarding Dr. Chua's book: the
book was written in response to the failings of the super-strict parenting
style.
The WSJ excerpt makes no mention of this, which is a bit misleading.
On another note, my mother attempted to raise me in such a manner, but she was
always too busy working to do a complete job of it (she didn't bother with my
older brother as much, as he was way more self-motivated than me). I'm
actually a bit curious as to how Dr. Chua managed to find time to hound her
daughters like this while being a professor.
~~~
sethg
You mean, the WSJ chose to highlight that fraction of the book that
_reinforced a popular stereotype of Asians_. Loverly.
------
bergie
Interestingly, Finnish children spend way less time with school and homework
than children in Asia or Europe in general. And still Finland gets top scores
on education...
<http://www.oph.fi/english/sources_of_information/pisa>
~~~
pavlov
I was born in Finland in 1980. My childhood was seemingly the polar opposite
of this so-called "Chinese mom" model.
I never had a guided hobby or one that would have been forced upon me, except
for one time when I was six years old. (My parents enrolled me in a children's
ballet class. Presumably they thought that it would be good for my body
consciousness, or something. After six months I asked them if I had to do it.
They said "no", so I quit, and that was that.)
Instead I was encouraged to come up with my own activities. I always felt that
my parents had great expectations of me, but at the same time they were
careful to never actively formulate those expectations into action points.
That gave me a sense of responsibility: I knew I was just a child, but at the
same time I had been entrusted the serious responsibility of deciding what I
should do with my life. Should it include modern art or maybe egyptology? The
best way to figure that out was to read books about it. If my parents didn't
have a suitable book, I could always walk a few blocks to the library. My
friends' lives had a similar degree of liberty. I don't remember us ever
minding homework; it was something you could take care of in 15 minutes -- or
the next morning at school, if you were feeling lucky.
Probably the general atmosphere in Finland in the 1980s played a role in
making my childhood such a happy one. In retrospect, those were the "halcyon
days" when the Finnish social democracy was complemented by an upstart
liberalization drive that pulled the country out of the Brezhnevian gloom and
stagnation of the '70s. The fun didn't last long: in 1991, the Soviet Union
collapsed and pulled Finland into a recession, as the Finnish economy had
become too reliant on ridiculously profitable exports to the bankrupt Soviet
empire. The social(ist) ambience never really recovered.
------
astrofinch
>On the other hand, they do seem to be loading up the top ranks of violinists
and pianists.
Yes, but being able to flawlessly play back music that other people composed
is mostly useless. (Only half trolling.)
The people who create the most wealth in today's society don't do it through
rote labor.
~~~
jacquesm
The 10,000 hour rule is agnostic when it comes to spending those hours
voluntarily or forced. In either case you will probably be good or even
excellent at something but when forced you'll hate your skill with a passion
probably just as strong as those that will love their skill that achieved it
voluntarily.
------
Tichy
Laszlo Polgar managed to raise three kids to be chess geniuses:
<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Laszlo_Polgar>
In "Bounce" Sofia is quoted as saying "We spent long hours on the chessboard,
but it didn't seem like a chore because we loved it".
Seems there is an alternative to the chinese method.
Note that Laszlo's children didn't have a chess prodigy gene. He set out to
prove that geniuses can be made, found a wife willing to do the experiment,
and decided on trying chess beforehand (without sampling the children's
talents).
I also like about the story that all three children lead happy lives with
their chess talent.
------
fanlee
I’m chinese，share one point；
why chinese mother more attention to their children?
The competision in children is not their ability or wisdom, most of time but
their parents'backdrop.
in future,80%'s children,find out the parents circumstances,you can know the
guy's tomorrow
------
sethg
If you have a class of twenty children, and all twenty have mothers who are
pushing them, not just to do well, but to be _number one in the class_ , then
nineteen of them have been set up for failure.
------
Jun8
There are many stories of Asian kids snapping under their first generation
parent's pressure (for a famous infamous case, see Asia Carrera, who had a
German father and a Chinese mom, and started out as a very bright kid in
Lehigh).
I had a close friend at college who lived through this experience, he said in
junior high school year he totally flipped out, got all Cs, generally
nosedived. Luckily he was able to make it back, but I wonder how many of these
hyper-pressured kids never do.
------
teaspoon
_I don’t observe that the populations of senior management or famous
scientists or leading-edge computer programmers or successful politicians or
rock stars are being dominated by people who are results of “Chinese Mother”
parenting practices. On the other hand, they do seem to be loading up the top
ranks of violinists and pianists._
It's not fair to assume that Chinese American professionals or musicians are
products of a "Chinese Mother" upbringing. Chua herself disclaimed that notion
when she defined a Chinese Mother as something other than a mother who is
Chinese.
Also, consider that there are plenty of impediments to an Asian American
becoming a successful politician or entering senior management that have
nothing to do with his parents' philosophies.
------
plinkplonk
from the Quora thread [1]
(Christine Lu says) "UPDATE: I emailed author Amy Chua this evening (1/9).
Expressed my disappointment about the WSJ piece and pointed to this Quora
thread. To my surprise I received a prompt reply from her that said:
Dear Christine: Thank you for taking the time to write me, and I'm so sorry
about your sister. I did not choose the title of the WSJ excerpt, and I don't
believe that there is only one good way of raising children. The actual book
is more nuanced, and much of it is about my decision to retreat from the
"strict Chinese immigrant" model.
Best of luck to you, Amy Chua"
So it looks like someone at WSJ added a link bait title. And it worked.
That said, this "parenting style" does seem to border on cruelty. Yishsan Wong
(Director of Engineering at FaceBook)'s post (on the same Quora thread) on his
experience in being the subject of such a parental style is a must read. This
bit seemed particularly relevant to HN
_"What I see among other Chinese children who I was raised alongside or who I
see now in workplaces today is that this method of Chinese parenting is great
at producing skilled and compliant knowledge workers, but it utterly fails to
produce children who can achieve greatness, remake industries, or come up with
disruptive innovation.
All the Chinese-American people I know who now perform at the highest levels -
both creatively and technically - either achieved this without being driven to
it by their parents (ask Niniane Wang about her upbringing) or in rebellion
against the paths their parents set out for them (see Tony Hsieh
<http://www.businessinsider.com/t...>).
The others - the skilled and compliant mediocre - make superb employees for
the truly great, and if that is what their parents consider "successful," then
that's exactly what they'll get.What I see among other Chinese children who I
was raised alongside or who I see now in workplaces today is that this method
of Chinese parenting is great at producing skilled and compliant knowledge
workers, but it utterly fails to produce children who can achieve greatness,
remake industries, or come up with disruptive innovation. All the Chinese-
American people I know who now perform at the highest levels - both creatively
and technically - either achieved this without being driven to it by their
parents (ask Niniane Wang about her upbringing) or in rebellion against the
paths their parents set out for them (see Tony Hsieh
<http://www.businessinsider.com/t...>). The others - the skilled and compliant
mediocre - make superb employees for the truly great, and if that is what
their parents consider "successful," then that's exactly what they'll get."_
fwiw (I don't have any children and nor do I intend to have any so this is all
empty theorizing) I believe that the best way for parents to teach a
particular set of virtues or skills (discipline, piano playing, whatever) is
to _embody_ those virtues and skills in _their_ lives and leave it to the kids
as to whether they should be emulated.
[1] [http://www.quora.com/Parenting/Is-Amy-Chua-right-when-she-
ex...](http://www.quora.com/Parenting/Is-Amy-Chua-right-when-she-explains-Why-
Chinese-Mothers-Are-Superior-in-an-op-ed-in-the-Wall-Street-Journal)
------
rb2k_
All of this just reminds me of a picture: <http://i.imgur.com/qhblb.jpg>
(I know, I know... this is not reddit...)
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Choosing a JavaScript MVC Framework - cmckeachie
http://www.funnyant.com/choosing-javascript-mvc-framework/
======
lapdragon
This was just what I was looking for. We are researching various MVC
frameworks and discussing single page applications. This will give us some
good insight on weather we use Angular, Backbone, or other frameworks. Great
job!
------
nalidixic
Thanks for the comparison.
------
rsobers
Fantastically in-depth analysis. Nice work!
As a developer, deciding on a [framework|library|language] is one of my least
favorite things to do. Naturally I want to make the right long-term decision
based on my idiosyncratic needs, which results in countless hours of research,
so I really appreciate posts like these. Huge time saver.
~~~
cmckeachie
Thanks for the kind words you summarize my thoughts on why I chose to work on
a book about the subject.
------
jmcphers
This is very nice. I had to pick an MVC framework for a project early this
year, and was compelled to spend untold amounts of time to do the same
research this author just posted.
Another good resource for choosing a framework is TodoMVC
([http://todomvc.com/](http://todomvc.com/)). It doesn't give you the
philosophy and history behind each framework, but it does show you an end-to-
end example (however constrained) of what it's like to use the framework in
day-to-day work.
~~~
ericclemmons
Even though todos are simple examples, those simple examples are usually
enough to make decisions off of syntax and "flow".
------
sailfast
This was quite helpful in outlining the differences between the options as
well as the key differences in specific features. I also like the philosophy
approach.
As an aside, some have argued (see previous Angular / Ember deck posted to HN)
that Angular is something for building frameworks rather than a framework
itself. I would also say that the documentation for Angular is comprehensive
but not good (as a newbie). With the version change to 1.2 a number of issues
crop up that invalidate old solutions like $sce content escaping and other
bindings, and often times the documentation on the AngularJS site goes a bit
beyond comprehension that have yet to pass the appropriate "abstracto-cline"
of understanding.
Thanks again for the analysis - well done.
~~~
dechov
Link to the deck mentioned:
[https://docs.google.com/presentation/d/1e0z1pT9JuEh8G5DOtib6...](https://docs.google.com/presentation/d/1e0z1pT9JuEh8G5DOtib6XFDHK0GUFtrZrU3IfxJynaA/preview)
And the talk itself (recommended):
[http://youtu.be/7ecsYtRiD5Q?t=56m36s](http://youtu.be/7ecsYtRiD5Q?t=56m36s)
------
mikelbring
A lot of people I hear say they don't choose backbone because of the amount of
stuff you have to write to get started, but they never mention
backbone+marionette, which imo fixes a lot of the boilerplate code you have to
write.
~~~
andywhite37
We've been using Backbone+Marionette at my company, and in general I like it,
and it's much cleaner than just vanilla Backbone, but I still feel like it
falls short for medium-to-large sized apps, and requires you to write a
substantial amount of additional code, or include additional Backbone plugins.
This might include things like "nested/deep" model support, two-way data-
binding, etc. The main problem with the lightweight plugin model is that a lot
of the plugins aren't necessarily compatible with others, or are not up-to-
date on the latest Backbone changes, not to mention the varying degree in
quality and maintenance of plugins, and the problem of choosing which data
binding plugin you want, out of the 10+ available.
I think maybe we have just crossed the line from small, focused
UI/interactions to large-scale single-page apps, and we would be better off
with a more substantial/fully-featured framework like AngularJS or Ember.js.
~~~
cmckeachie
Thanks for the insights. Hit me up on twitter @cmckeachie if you would be
willing to help me out by doing an interview on your experiences.
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Ask HN: Which is more valuable: technical or personal experience for career? - vtoliveira
I am facing a dilemma where I can choose to go for a medium startup, with a relatively consolidate team (I lot of work to do of course) where I would work with Data Streaming, Functional Programming and Machine Learning, basically everything I've been studying for last year. There is also an option to go for a really small startup (4-5 people) where nothing is defined and I would be the guy to work in every aspect of the company, probably not technical challenge as the former.<p>Which path should I pursue in the beginning of my career? I love the small and starting a company aspect, but I feel that if I am not working with high technical challenges I will not be able to catch up later and miss opportunity. Any insights?
======
peteypao
Go with the first one.
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Ask HN: How to sell a start up. - digamber_kamat
Let us say I have completed coded and prepared a project. Hypothetically lets say its the Twitter. i have the entire code ready. Now I just want to sell it. What do I need to do ?<p>I know that if I put it in public domain and it gets millions users it is a successful venture and hence will get sold for a high value.<p>But i am not interested in a high value. Do you think with a reasonable product I will be able to sell it for say a $100k ?<p>Note: you might ask can a reasonably good product be "developed" in $100k ? Then what profit do you make by selling it? The assumption here is that
I alone have developed everything and it is of GOOD quality (however unlikely it might be)".
======
jlangenauer
The thing to remember, is that unless you have _actually_ proven that people
want to use it, and are doing so, then any value that might be attached to the
software is hypothetical.
If an investor had $100k, they could put it in the bank, and with no work and
no risk whatsoever, they would earn $3K to $5K in interest (depending on the
bank).
Now, if they were to spend the $100K buying your software, how much return
could they be guaranteed? Not a likely or possible return, but a guaranteed
return, without any risk?
The easy part in any start-up is writing the code. The hard part is marketing
it, building the user base, and re-writing the code when you realise that what
you thought the users wanted isn't actually what they wanted at all.
What you want to sell is not a startup, but just software. Depending on how
complex the software is, it might sell for between $100 to $1000. Maybe a more
for B2B software in specialized industries, but for any consumer stuff, that
would be the upper limit.
If you have this software written, why not take the plunge and try to turn it
into a company yourself? After all, you've put in the work so far, so
shouldn't you get the rewards?
~~~
digamber_kamat
\--What you want to sell is not a startup, but just software. Depending on how
complex the software is, it might sell for between $100 to $1000. ----
I got the point. Unless you prove that it is an earth shattering idea and get
a few million userbase, you are actually selling a software and not a
business. The question than comes is what is the costliest software in the
market? hardly any sw is costlier than $ 1k.
~~~
jlangenauer
There's plenty of very expensive software - for example some of the really
high end engineering packages I've used, for things like 3D modelling and
fluid simulation, can sell for upwards of $5K per _seat_. But again, the value
this software adds to the business has to be much more than its cost. A big
company will easily spend $500K on software to manage construction materials
if it means that it reduces their material wastage on a $1b project from 5% to
2%.
I'm sure other people here can provide plenty of other examples.
------
anamax
> I know that if I put it in public domain and it gets millions users it is a
> successful venture and hence will get sold for a high value.
Huh? There are lots of things in the public domain with millions of users that
haven't been sold for a high value.
"In the public domain" means that folks can pay virtually nothing.
~~~
davidw
I think he means "public" - available to the public at large, rather than the
legal definition, which is the first thing that came to my mind too.
~~~
digamber_kamat
yes, that is what I meant Sir. Thanks.
------
wheels
The chance of finding someone who just wants the code for a site that isn't
already popular is very small. Not impossibly small, but small. The converse
is much easier: if you've got a lot of traffic, people will throw a lot of
money at a URL shortener.
------
davidw
You could sell it on sitepoint or eBay.
> But i am not interested in a high value. Do you think with a reasonable
> product I will be able to sell it for say a $100k ?
How much is it currently earning? What future earnings potential does it have?
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Snowden: 'Not all spying bad' but NSA program 'divorced from reason' - azth
http://news.cnet.com/8301-13578_3-57617680-38/snowden-not-all-spying-bad-but-nsa-program-divorced-from-reason/
======
azth
A couple of quotes from the article
> The people at the working level at the NSA, CIA, or any other member of the
> [Intelligence Community] are not out to get you. They're good people trying
> to do the right thing, and I can tell you from personal experience that they
> were worried about the same things I was.
> "I think a person should be able to dial a number, make a purchase, send an
> SMS, write an e-mail, or visit a Web site without having to think about what
> it's going to look like on their permanent record."
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Housemate just had that video come up - dredmorbius
https://mastodon.social/@dartigen/101754389608830780
======
dredmorbius
Or: Why media autoplay is manifestly evil.
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Internet data plan back on political agenda - whyleyc
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-30166477
======
k-mcgrady
It's interesting the the internet has been a tool that has allowed people in
repressive states to rebel and at the same time has made states that were
supposedly 'free' become more and more like that states those people were
rebelling against. The difference is that those other states were open about
their corruption - everybody knew it and understood it - and rebellion could
take place. The internet allows the 'free' governments to break laws in
relative secrecy and even when caught regular people find it difficult to
understand the details anyway.
~~~
adventured
It's not the Internet that made the US or the UK act less free. It's enabling
them to do things they wanted to but lacked the technology for.
Were this 1965 or 1970, and were the Internet deployed to the extent it is
now, Hoover and or Nixon would be all over these same types of programs. The
abuse would be rampant, the secrecy would be extreme. Echelon dates to the
1960s, but it wasn't capable of easily reaching into the pocket of every
citizen; they lacked the technology to record everything, and to automatically
sift through everything.
The sole difference between then and now, in terms of doing these programs, is
the technology 40 years ago made it impossible.
What the modern Internet has _exposed_ , is culture rot inside many countries.
That rot has existed in the US for a very long time. You're merely seeing the
military industrial complex laid bare; it has been there for 60+ years.
Rather than making the US or UK act less free, what the Internet is doing is
showing you the rotten insides.
~~~
lifeisstillgood
Sadly this is probably true. So what do we _do_ about it. Conor Gearty (LSE
podcast) recently talked about the awful idea of UKs withdrawal from the EU
Human rights declaration.
To me (and I am still working on this) it seems we need to understand the new
and old landscapes and hopefully put in place trustworthy institutions (and I
would class crypto-currency as an institution too)
\- ensure we keep the 18th/19th/20th century evolution of human rights (ie
rights for white men through to rights for all)
\- expand (somehow) rights to privacy and rights to ownership and control of
data about oneself (I suspect commercial ownership of my data is a solution)
\- start persuading the new UKIP voters that print for a different set of
politicians is not the same as ending this.
In the end I think that the new Labour Party is really the Pirate Party
------
higherpurpose
I find it so depressing that the once beacons of "democracy" in the world, are
rapidly trying to catch-up to China when it comes to surveillance, and even
censorship, most of them already being _well past_ the level of surveillance
the Stasi or the communist states had.
UK is probably the most aggressive from the ones trying to "win" this race
right now with both its surveillance and its "porn & _others_ filter". But
Australia has been making some big moves lately as well trying to catch-up.
US, of course, already has a mature level of surveillance of everyone, and it
has also tried to introduce some censorship with with SOPA. It also has some
Kafkaesque measure in place such as the no-fly lists of tens of thousand of
people, put there with _no evidence_ , just some suspicions. Then there is the
TSA, the border checks where border can mean up to 50 miles from the border or
more, the cash seizing, the civil forfeiture laws, the militarization of
police and the increasing use of SWAT teams and "no-knock" warrants for non-
violent crimes and so on.
Canada has also tried a few times to introduce various surveillance laws, but
it has been stopped by the population for the most part.
What's even more worrying is that it's now pretty obvious all of these
countries are working together and _planning_ together when to introduce such
laws, which is why you see statements within days or weeks at most from US,
UK, Canada about "Tor being a threat" and online anonymity in general, and so
on.
They're also trying to introduce new surveillance laws more or less at the
same time, because then they can make it look more like it's a "natural thing"
to do - "hey, look, all democratic countries are doing it - how bad can it
_really_ be then?!". Except virtually none of them are doing it by _consulting
the population_. The governments in power simply decide by themselves to
introduce them, and that's it. At best, they try to push in the media some
more extreme murder as a "danger to the nation" \- and that _we need these
laws to protect against those kinds of murders_ ".
They're almost starting to turn this into a science. After all, they're
already researching how to manipulate the public through Twitter, Facebook and
so on. They're starting to figure out what "works" and how to press the
public's hot buttons in order to get them to support whatever they want to
pass.
~~~
tptacek
The argument in this comment is nonsensical. The UK's civil rights scheme is
significantly different from that of the US. The US and the UK do not in fact
introduce surveillance bills in any kind of synchrony. The US _funded_ Tor,
and continues to fund the security of Tor and tools like it (that might be
news to you; take my word for it, though: it's an overt, deliberate, and
important program). And appeals to "that's how they do it in the UK" or
"that's how they do it in the US" are more likely to alienate voters than to
garner support.
This reads more like free-association than truth-finding. But, good job for
working SOPA into it!
~~~
xnull2guest
> The argument in this comment is nonsensical.
If I were to summarize higherpurpose's thesis for him I would write:
Western governments once known for their commitments to freedom and civil
liberties are now losing their ability to rightfully claim these good
reputations. There are a number of current real world issues today, some
mentioned in the article and others closely related, facing modern individual
expression where the commitments that once gave these Western governments
their good names are in fact being actively curtailed. We've seen a
simultaneous rise in budding forms of both surveillance and censorship as well
as a rise in the militarization of police and invasive executive and judicial
techniques. Perhaps because Western countries share historical roots and
political goals these changes have been so correlated in them - we've seen a
lot of anecdotal evidence of this, some hard evidence in the form of reports
from oversight committees and more hard evidence from leaked documents/cables
and have good reasons to logically conclude that so partnering would be
efficient and desirable to the agencies in question (motive, opportunity and
evidence). I'm also starting to become aware not only of programs that watch
societies but also ones that have degrees of success in manipulating them in
targeted ways at scale. I am struck by how the nature of programs that seek
active manipulation of political expression and emotion conflict with the
commitments to individual liberty that I was raised to believe _is_ the
justification of the state.
> The UK's civil rights scheme is significantly different from that of the US.
He doesn't assume or state that. He merely states that both were examples of
modern states that enshrine some sort of civil liberty. It does not matter
whether the scheme is different or similar.
> The US and the UK do not in fact introduce surveillance bills in any kind of
> synchrony
I believe he's talking about the "UKUSA Agreement". At this level (the UKUSA
agreement dates back now 70 years) synchronicity is not a discussion of days
or weeks but of years.
> The US funded Tor, and continues to fund the security of Tor and tools like
> it (that might be news to you; take my word for it, though: it's an overt,
> deliberate, and important program).
I don't think this covers his point - he was using Tor as an example of a
subject of internationally harmonized political media coverage.
> And appeals to "that's how they do it in the UK" or "that's how they do it
> in the US" are more likely to alienate voters than to garner support.
I'm not sure how to understand this comment or how it fits the discussion? You
seem to be making a meta point about the strategic political value of invoking
certain topics? Wouldn't engineering a comment to exclude these divorce it
_more_ from 'truth-finding' and more toward overt political maneuvering?
Should we read your comments with the understanding you comb prose for how
appeals will affect voters?
> But, good job for working SOPA into it!
IMO SOPA is on topic as per the summary at the top.
~~~
tptacek
I'm sorry, but I can't figure out how to make a coherent response to this
comment.
Perhaps it's because you altered the arguments 'higherpurpose made, which were
the thing I was remarking on. In 4 of the last 5 of your points, you both (a)
change them so much that my response no longer makes sense, and then (b)
express surprise that I would have responded that way to the fictitious
comment you manufactured.
~~~
xnull2guest
I apologize if my summary significantly alters what higherpurpose had to say.
I do not believe it does, so I believe the rest of the comment makes sense.
Perhaps he will chime in to say whether he feels I captured his thesis or not.
Also a note. I wrote the rest of the comment BEFORE I decided to write the
summary, and then included it at the top. I made very few/small edits
thereafter. So theoretically the criticisms should still make sense. If it
helps, pretend I did not write the summary at the top.
------
peterkelly
Articles like this are truly surreal.
It almost feels as if the debate about whether this data collection should be
introduced is purely for the purpose of distracting from the fact that GCHQ
has already been doing this for years.
~~~
rwmj
Part of it is to retrospectively legalize actions that were (probably) illegal
or in a grey area. I say "probably" because RIPA gives wide scope for
"national security" actions.
~~~
mortov
Technicalities such as whether actions are 'legal' are of little concern to
the UK Security Service (their real name - for some reason, they don't like to
use their initials publicly as other departments do).
There is absolutely no possibility of any court review (not even in the new
secret courts the UK has started for trials [1]) so debate about ensuring
legislative cover is pure theatre probably to bolster the only press statement
they ever release in response to questions which always states their actions
are legally authorized and nothing else.
What this really looks like is a move to shift the data storage burden away
from CGHC offices and place it onto ISPs, Telco's etc. Direct access can then
be made to the data without any of the associated costs of maintaining multi-
PB databases which grow at eye-watering rates every day.
Passing this legislation is a simple government way of saving them money and
passing the cost on to business as a 'compliance requirement'.
They also get the added bonus of plausible deniability - 'don't be crazy - the
_Government_ does not store that sort of information on you!'. They don't -
they force your ISP to keep if for them.
Sadly the UK seems a great starting point for such measures - experience is
people are gullible and swallow the anti-terrorist cool-aid more easily than
most.
[1] [http://www.theguardian.com/law/2013/jun/14/what-are-
secret-c...](http://www.theguardian.com/law/2013/jun/14/what-are-secret-
courts)
------
badgersandjam
I wonder what Andrews and Arnold's approach to this problem will be. They're
the last bastion of common sense in the UK.
~~~
justincormack
See [http://aastatus.net/1984](http://aastatus.net/1984)
"Just to be clear on our policy here - when DRIPA comes in to force, and if
A&A become subject to a retention notice for all customers, we aim to work on
all practical legal means to minimise the amount of data retained under that
legislation - making full use of the bad wording in the Schedule in the 2009
regulations where possible. We also aim to clearly publish what is retained
under such a notice and what steps we have taken to minimise such data. Such
steps may mean separate companies running email or other services, or even
hosting some servers outside the UK, if those are practical steps we can take.
Why? Because blanket mass surveillance is illegal under EU law as it is
against our basic human right to privacy as decided by a court, that's why!"
~~~
badgersandjam
Fantastic - thanks for the link.
------
nly
Technically not the same snoopers charter, but it does sound like they want to
force ISPs to maintain DHCP and NAT logs. Despite a lot of the rhetoric about
stopping terrorism, a lot of the public support for this, and pressure from
this in the UK media comes, from complaints about abuse on Twitter (the
mainstream media has recently discovered the definition of 'trolling' and love
it). I have no doubt this will be one of the primary exercises for these new
powers.
A good showcase :
[https://www.google.co.uk/search?q=site%3Abbc.co.uk+twitter+a...](https://www.google.co.uk/search?q=site%3Abbc.co.uk+twitter+abuse)
------
okasaki
Huh. Don't all ISPs already keep these logs? I would be very surprised to find
one that doesn't.
~~~
nly
From what I've read, the soft spot for them seem to be mobile internet access.
Perhaps someone who knows a bit about mobile systems can comment on logging
procedures in the industry, but while I'm connected to 3G my phone has an RFC
1918 IP address, so presumably everything goes through some form of 'carrier-
grade' NAT.
This is actually pretty interesting, because once you get to the NAT level
you're logging every TCP connection individually...which has huge privacy
implications.
~~~
justincormack
VPN all your traffic?
~~~
nly
VPNs may be forced to log as well under this bill.
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Google Bus Protest Organizer: "We'll Take It to Their Homes" - frostmatthew
http://recode.net/2014/04/11/google-bus-protest-organizer-well-take-it-to-their-homes/
======
dylz
This is just disgusting; these people should be thrown in prison.
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Show HN: Rebrickable - Combine your LEGO sets to create other sets - someotheridiot
http://rebrickable.com/
======
iqster
I came across your site a few months ago and thought it was extremely cool.
Great Job! Can you please tell us about your tech stack?
Ultimately, the site didn't solve my problem though, which was to get some
reuse out of my lego collections. But that wasn't a shortcoming of your site
... rather, I concluded that Lego has explicitly designed most of their models
to be "non-reusable". I.e. even though I have about 10 flagship models (all
technic), I don't get 100% completion on any non-trivial set.
As I recall, initially you site didn't have too many MOCs. That might be one
way of solving the problem. Consider a gigantic set like the Unimog ...
listing a bunch of MOCs made solely from this set would address the problem of
reuse.
One more thing ... one of the things I was trying to do using your site was
figure out what sets to buy in order to be able to complete the legendary
"Motorized Bulldozer" set. Your site says ... if you get X, you'll be 97%
complete. if you get Y, you'll be 96.5% complete, etc. That isn't what I
wanted to know. Rather, if you said ... buy X and Y to get 100% completion,
that would solve my problem. In fact, if you provided options with different
combos, that would be even better (due to availability and preferences). E.g.
To get to 100%, buy X and Y, or, buy X and W and K, or, ...
Thanks for creating a great resource for the AFOL community! Good luck!
~~~
someotheridiot
Thanks. Yes unless you have hundreds of sets it appears there is very little
chance of getting a 100% complete build. However, some people would argue this
is a good thing as it forces you to figure out how to get the extra few %
yourself :) I want to add some more functionality here to try and assist
people in finding suitable replacement parts.
As for the MOCs, yes originally it had only a few but now that is
accelerating. There are 34 right now with about 50 more in my backlog. As it
becomes more popular, more people contact me asking to submit their MOCs. I
still need to build the self-submit feature!
The idea of listing sets to buy to reach 100% is a good one. I haven't been
too sure how much people actually find that section useful. The idea in my
mind was "if you buy this set you are effectively getting 2 for 1".
Tech stack: Linux, PostgreSQL, Memcache, PHP with jQuery for front end stuff.
Nothing very fancy but the algorithms have been designed (several times!) to
be very fast.
------
someotheridiot
I've spent the last 6 months working on this site which has been a hit with
the lego community, would love to get any and all feedback!
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
SEC director calls for private markets to open up for retail investors - rchaudhary
https://www.ft.com/content/23556406-b462-44db-bb90-a595448e056e
======
gruglife
As they should. Not being an accredited investor is another way of saying your
too stupid to know how to invest your money. But hey, I can yolo on penny
stock.
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Show HN: ShameYour.company –Report companies endangering workers during Covid-19 - shameyourco
https://ShameYour.company
======
jonathanstrange
Public shaming and vigilante sites are always a bad idea.
~~~
profunctor
Why?
~~~
monkin
There is no authority behind them. Author will just remove the site/comment if
first "we will sue you" letter comes.
For example:
[https://twitter.com/dhh/status/1240769043776163840?s=20](https://twitter.com/dhh/status/1240769043776163840?s=20)
DHH has huge respect in industry, they will not piss him off, but some site?
Nah. ;)
~~~
taneq
I dunno, if a twitter mob can wreck a company for posting something bad about
<insert protected group> then I'd imagine a dedicated site with enough traffic
could do likewise.
~~~
brodouevencode
You bring up a good point. Why take time managing and running the resources
for such a site when you can just let Twitter do the hard work for you. You
just provide the "face" of it.
------
johnpowell
I have a friend I talk to daily for 5+ hours a day that works for a major UC
school in California.
They can totally work from home and everyone kept passing the buck when
pressed about this.
The other day the staff got pissed enough they got a answer.. Basically the IT
staff is not all that great and the VPN doesn't work so they are having people
come into the office while they know they should be working from home.
~~~
brodouevencode
Heard the exact complaint from two friends in academia. Seems reasonable given
my own stint in the university system. Not known for being anywhere near
modern.
------
nydel
> You need to enable JavaScript to run this app.
I really, really don't :)
------
sorenjan
> Google
> March 20, 2020 – Forced employees to donate kidneys to certain executives.
I guess unfiltered user data shouldn't be trusted, or have I missed something?
------
weego
Well that's a cease and desist magnet
------
fennecfoxen
With a domain like that will you branch out in the future to other undesirable
behaviors like quietly giving money to the wrong political groups
~~~
intpbro
Could be like a rip-off report as well
~~~
fennecfoxen
no, that one is actually a _good_ idea
------
x86lad
You should tweet at companies with a link to the site if they reach a certain
number of upvotes. A more positive version of this site would be interesting
too. A lot of companies are doing the right thing
------
bjt2n3904
Just what the world needs right now, more strife! Excellent work!
------
vr46
What could possibly go wrong with this idea?
------
patatas
This could just foster fake information. Shame to the creators
------
huxflux
Not that cool, at all, period.
------
monkin
I think this whole thread is way better and more accountable:
[https://twitter.com/dhh/status/1239286206803742721](https://twitter.com/dhh/status/1239286206803742721)
You're inspired by DHH but as history teach us, sites like this are mostly
abused with fakes, and that's my only problem regarding your website. Why?
Anon comments. If DHH will be accused of disinformation he will not shrug this
off very easily...
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
A statistical study of inversions (slash chords) in popular music - davec
http://www.hooktheory.com/blog/statistical-study-inversions-slash-chords-popular-music/
======
rumcajz
Pretty in line with classical music theory. Further, one would expect that
I6/4 chord which was not functionally analysed in the article will be in
majority of cases followed by V chord, possibly the two chords sharing the
same bass note.
~~~
onions
Actually, in popular music I'd expect I6/4 not to resolve normally to V in a
lot of cases, since that's a cadence that sounds characteristically old. I'd
expect to a lot of I6/4 straight back to tonic (alternating bass line) or
deceptively to vi.
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Google wants to monitor your social media - Sumitmic
https://www.protocol.com/google-wants-to-monitor-your-social-media
======
1f60c
Wouldn’t it be better to link to Google’s patent application itself?
~~~
forgotmypw17
Maybe you can link to it here in the comments?
I personally find patent applications to be so dry as to be unreadable without
extreme focus.
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Valve plans to sell apps via Steam ranging from “creativity to productivity” - dkroy
http://thenextweb.com/apps/2012/08/08/valve-plans-to-sell-apps-via-steam-ranging-from-creativity-to-productivity/
======
yeap
What will this mean to the Ubuntu Store (and other distros "appstores") since
steam is arriving on linux? I know competition (even if it's against a free
service) and new things move the world but god damn everything is a mess,
everybody wants to sell everything and make their own software haha.
------
ChrisClark
Soon? They already are. That article is from August 8th.
~~~
Quekster
Valve announced this today: [http://thenextweb.com/apps/2012/11/30/valves-
first-non-game-...](http://thenextweb.com/apps/2012/11/30/valves-first-non-
game-steam-greenlight-software-now-available-50-apps-and-games-launched-so-
far/)
I think the submitter got confused.
~~~
ChrisClark
Ah, that's more interesting.
~~~
dkroy
I appreciate the correction, thanks guys.
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Introduce Time Namespace (2019) - luu
https://lore.kernel.org/linux-api/[email protected]/
======
infogulch
It looks like there are 8 different namespaces now [1]: filesystem root,
network, device mounts, IPC, process id, (now) time, users, and hostname.
What other kinds of namespaces are people thinking about?
[1]: [http://man7.org/linux/man-
pages/man7/namespaces.7.html](http://man7.org/linux/man-
pages/man7/namespaces.7.html)
~~~
theamk
I want a coredump_pattern namespace (or even better, sysctl namespace).
Having a single, global handle gives me so many problems!
~~~
chupasaurus
+1 for sysctl namespaces, but I think it would be a bigger problem to solve
than all other namespaces combined.
------
musicale
Clock/time namespaces are something we've needed for years - is this actually
integrated into the current kernel?
~~~
simcop2387
5.6 and newer, yes.
~~~
musicale
Looking more closely at it, this only seems to implement clock offsets rather
than changing the length of a second. Changing the actual rate of system time
progress would be helpful for a number of things including finding time-based
synchronization errors.
------
maximilianroos
How does Google Live Migration [1] work without this?
[1]: [https://cloud.google.com/compute/docs/instances/live-
migrati...](https://cloud.google.com/compute/docs/instances/live-migration)
~~~
AaronFriel
Live migration of virtual machines is kernel independent. The guest VM can be
running a unikernel, BSD, Windows, etc. The interface the guest uses to sync
or retrieve time depends on whether the guest reads the virtualized hardware
clock (goes by many names) or a paravirtualized API is used (such as kvm-
clock).
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Death of Matt Lightner (creator of Site5) - auxbuss
http://ryanbigg.com/2011/12/matt-lightner/
I just read on Ryan Bigg's blog that Matt Lightner, the guy who started Site5 when he was 15, has died. His facebook account "is currently unavailable". I have no idea of the circumstances, and it would be wrong to speculate.<p>Here's a link to his personal web-site: http://www.mattlightner.com/<p>Site5 was one of the mileposts on the way to where we are today and it's so sad to lose an innovator so young.
======
xtal
Matt's mother, Deborah, submitted a very poignant comment on Site5's weblog:
[http://www.site5.com/blog/s5/saying-goodbye-to-a-
founder/201...](http://www.site5.com/blog/s5/saying-goodbye-to-a-
founder/20111228/#li-comment-9010)
~~~
brainless
Just read the comment. Blew my mind. Hats off to such people and sorry to see
them pass on. RIP.
------
wyclif
Just 28 years old. Sad. What was the cause of death?
~~~
ukdm
Tom Sepper (COO of Site5) posted on Web Hosting Talk
([http://www.webhostingtalk.com/showpost.php?s=fed7907b397ade5...](http://www.webhostingtalk.com/showpost.php?s=fed7907b397ade5ea78f6d272999c333&p=7874619&postcount=9))
when someone asked this same question. His response included the following:
"With respect to everyone in mind, it's not our place to release any details
(nor are they fully known)."
~~~
wyclif
That's nice and everything, but I'm really not interested in Tom Sepper's
opinion on proper etiquette. I'm just curious about what happened, thanks.
~~~
bwb
That is pretty private information, and up to his family if they want to get
into medical details. The important point is that it sucks, not the reason for
it. Thanks, Ben
------
sunchild
I'm a Site5 customer. One of the things that I love about the company is that
I can pretty much forget about it until I need to change something. None of
the pushy upselling and other annoyances that are business as usual for so
much of the rest of the web.
~~~
brianbreslin
I'm pretty sure they sold site5 about 18 months ago. I agree solid service for
the price.
~~~
bwb
Over 3 years ago Joel and I bought Site5 from Matt/Rod. Feel free to hit me up
too.
Thanks, Ben Site5 CEO [email protected]
------
acangiano
I exchanged a few emails with Matt in the early days of Site5's support for
Ruby on Rails. Truly upstanding guy who was committed to his business. So sad
to see him pass away so young.
We don't know what's the cause of death, but given his young age, there is a
chance that he may have taken his own life. Depression can be a disease as
real as heart disease. If you are depressed, and reading this, please seek
help.
------
bwb
It is very sad, I couldn't believe it when Vince told me. Way too young and
too much great stuff left to do.
I'm sure his family appreciates the communities outpouring of support, thanks
for that everyone! Ben Site5 CEO
~~~
kellishaver
I've been a Site5 customer for about 9yrs now, and that's by far the longest
I've stayed with _any_ web host. I had a few email exchanges with him back in
the early days and he always left me with a great impression - very friendly,
very smart, very dedicated to taking care of customers and providing a great
service.
------
inovica
Whilst I've never been a customer (as I had our own dedicated servers) I've
followed Site5 for years. They have always had a reputation for good customer
service and this is usually instilled by the founders. Whilst I don't know the
circumstances behind Matts death, it is very sad to see someone so young die.
My thoughts are with his family.
At least Matt has been created is able to continue beyond him. That he was
(with help of his cofounders and colleagues) able to build this business
feels, to me anyway, that he has done more than many people who live longer
lives
------
meiji
Very sad to hear this. Despite working in the industry for some time (and
therefore being able to have free quality hosting) I have paid for Site5
hosting for some time now. That's a mark of their service.
Deepest sympathies to his family, friends and colleagues
------
mml
I had no idea he was such a big deal. strange to see random people you've had
conversations with show up in on the front page, much less an obit out of the
blue.
------
omarqureshi
Very sad to hear. Really nice guy to talk to an IRC - I shall indeed miss his
banter.
------
skbohra123
RIP. Seems like there's no wikiepedia entry for Matt Lightner?
------
iampeter
confirmed :/
<http://www.beddingfieldfuneralservice.com/obits11.htm>
------
dkd903
Really depressing when such young and dynamic people die un-timely deaths. :(
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Ask HN: Mid-level developers, what does it take to qualify as Mid-level? - morbidhawk
I'm currently in the interview process for a Mid-level position, but my experience situation is kind of different from most as I interned for several years while going to school to make enough to provide for my family. I've got 1.5 years professional experience after that at the same company. I was asked if I have have the skills of a Mid or maybe somewhere on the fence between Jr and Mid. My current salary requirement needs the pay of a Mid but I don't want to jump into something if it ultimately ends with being put on an improvement plan (that's what I was told would happen). Having no clue how I compare to other Mids, as I work only with Sr devs who know more than me. I told them that I would trust their assessment.<p>So if I am not up to par with Mid skills, what can I do to get there and be truly qualified? What is the difference between a Mid and a Jr?<p>The best way I can describe my current ability is that I've been able to recognize that I didn't know all that I thought I did and I try to approach problems and knowledge with no assumptions that I know but rather realize that I can give insight and discuss strategies but I'm not intelligent enough to frequently give the best approach to problems so I definitely discuss approaches and opinions with others to learn from them.<p>So maybe a better question might be what level are you at once you've discovered you're ignorance and you start to use that to your advantage to really learn stuff (but definitely not someone to write a non-erroneous book on programming topics)?<p>Any help would be appreciated, thanks!
======
eagerNewb
For eample:
Peter has been working as a developer for 4 years. Calvin has been working as
a developer for 2 years.
Calvin earns the same money as Peter, why? It seems Peter didn't put in as
much effort as Calvin did. Even more, Calvin learned what Peter knows, for
half the amount Peter did.
You can see where I'm going with this. For me personally work experience does
NOT matter.
What makes a junior developer? A junior developer knows enough to get things
done. If there's a more complex task, there is a big chance he will require
advice or help.
What makes a mid-level developer? A mid-level developer knows enough to get
things done in a more sophisticated manner - compared to junior developers
which use the same hammer for every nail, the mid-level developer utilizes
different technologies for different purposes. He is not proficient, but he
understands the need for different strategies.
I'm on the brink of becoming a mid-level developer. I used to tackle all of my
problems with the tools I know, because I was unsure in my knowledge. Now I
understand the difference. When given a more complex task, I will research
what's the best way to do it, consult with senior developers and ultimately
implement a solution. I'm not an expert so this is my opinion, but you sound
like you are in the exact same shoes. A rising mid-level developer, but a mid-
level developer non the less. Worked hard to get here as I'm sure you did. I
heard this in a songs lyrics, but I use it as a motto in life - "I used to get
what I'm given, now I only get what I'm worth".
~~~
morbidhawk
> junior developers which use the same hammer for every nail
This is what is weird about programming is that you only need to know a subset
of things to build stuff so it gives a lot of Jr developers a false sense of
know-how and confidence (I was like this for a long while). I think a
willingness to own up to what you don't know and like you said "research
what's the best way to do it, consult with senior developers" is a hard
obstacle to get past. I wonder if this might make it hard for hiring managers
to assess skill, jr devs are probably more likely to sell themselves as more
than they are and mid devs might be more likely to admit what they don't know.
~~~
eagerNewb
A thing every hiring manager should ask, at least for Software jobs, is for
you to show him code you've written. The best way to understand if someone has
spend two, three or five years doing this, is to read his code. In case the
interviewer doesn't ask me for my code, I would do it anyway. There is always
this piece of code you are particularly proud of. Perhaps creating 10 ways to
achieve the same thing. Senior developers write clean, efficient code ( if
they don't, they should ). Junior developers find a way and if it works, hey
it works! Mid level developers write a piece of crap code, but they see it as
such. They make the difference. Once the difference is maid, you can go and
ask the senior developer. Or do some research. Or both. This became visible to
me once I wasn't in the phase "Oh shit, I don't know how I'm going to do
this."
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Drawing Spirograph curves in Python - chmaynard
https://www.johndcook.com/blog/2018/08/30/drawing-spirograph-curves-in-python/
======
erikschoster
These are really fun shapes to play with -- here's another little python
script to draw animated hypotrochoid frames that can be stitched together with
ffmpeg:
[https://github.com/hecanjog/hypotrochoid.py/blob/master/hypo...](https://github.com/hecanjog/hypotrochoid.py/blob/master/hypo.py#L47)
I stole the relevant bit from here:
[https://stackoverflow.com/questions/22894942/plotting-
hypotr...](https://stackoverflow.com/questions/22894942/plotting-
hypotrochoids-using-python/22895353#22895353)
Here's one video example:
[https://vimeo.com/99493389](https://vimeo.com/99493389)
------
sytelus
When moving circle is inside, its called Hypotrochoid
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hypotrochoid](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hypotrochoid)
When moving circle is outside, its called Epitrochoid
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Epitrochoid](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Epitrochoid)
The difference between two is sign for radius for moving circle.
Overall this is just ploting parametric equations in 2D in Python using
complex number trick.
~~~
vram22
>When moving circle is outside, its called Epitrochoid
>[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Epitrochoid](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Epitrochoid)
The combustion chamber of the Wankel engine is an epitrochoid. (From the above
Wikipedia link.)
I had read up about Wankel (and also the more conventional internal
combustion) engines as a kid. Thought the Wankel engine idea was cool. It has
both pros and cons.
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wankel_engine](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wankel_engine)
------
netcraft
Its mentioned at the bottom of the article, but thought its worth calling out
here too:
[https://nathanfriend.io/inspirograph/](https://nathanfriend.io/inspirograph/)
------
cheesysam
It's not a spirograph curve unless the cog teeth have slipped and your pen has
scrawled across the page taking up a bit of paper with it and you have to
start again.
~~~
eggy
Agreed. As much as I like coding and generative art too, there's nothing like
the effort of keeping the smaller gear inside the larger one and going fast.
Much harder on the outside! I just picked up a $8 Spirograph in tin case for
my three year old.
------
moolcool
Did you know there's a direct correlation between the decline of Spirograph
and the rise in gang activity? Think about it!
~~~
hour_glass
I'm going to mail one to the oval office. I think spirographs could save us
from nuclear war.
------
abecedarius
There's been progress since the 80s when I typed in Basic code for this from a
magazine -- it was quite a bit harder to follow.
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
National Day of Service - peter123
http://sethgodin.typepad.com/seths_blog/2009/01/national-day-of.html
======
jonas_b
Great idea Seth, there's a lot of really driven, sometimes older people that
contribute heaps to society that would be able to leverage their effort with a
little help from someone with tech skillz.
But let us not forget that many people involved in startups and open source
are already benefiting society in immeasurable ways, by doing what they love
the most.
I suppose however, that the spirit of the day, helping others selflessly, is
what counts, ultimately.
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Show HN: Cli-money, a simple Unix finance utility - veddox
http://www.launchpad.net/cli-money
======
veddox
Does anybody have any feedback on this? I'm only an amateur programmer, I
always appreciate hearing from more experienced pros...
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Node.js callback counter - frankpinto
https://github.com/frankpinto/canicas
======
frankpinto
Whipped it up really quickly, just looking for some feedback :D
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Ask HN: What are things I can learn within 1 hour that will make me a better SE? - bpatel576
I'm a self taught developer that has been working in the industry for a couple years now. I was pursing a part time master in CS but decided to take time off from the program due to the time commitment. I have about a solid hour each day that I want to allocate to learning new things that will make me a better developer. What should I learn? Also how can I break down larger concepts into chunks so I can digest them an hour a day.
======
oblib
> What should I learn? Also how can I break down larger concepts into chunks
> so I can digest them an hour a day.
I'll offer you pick a project you want to work on and learn on a "need to
know" basis to create it. This approach make learning a lot more fun and
productive.
------
edent
Empathy.
Spend an hour a day browsing the Web or using apps as though you were blind.
Or Deaf. Or have poor motor control.
It will make you a better, more compassionate developer.
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Evercoin: A cryptocurrency exchange platform - mcone
https://evercoin.com/
======
uncletammy
Oh, so it's like [https://shapeshift.io/](https://shapeshift.io/) except
subject to the arbitrary and Orwellian US financial regulations!
All jokes aside, I'm not knocking Evercoin. It looks beautiful and I welcome
anyone and everyone who wants to bring liquidity to crypto markets. I'm just
concerned about the sustainability of any platform based in the US. Maybe
Evercoin knows something I don't though.
I feel like the smartest thing we can do is exactly what Bitfinex has done.
Shut out US customers and put pressure on regulators to be sensible.
~~~
komaromy
Shapeshift is very convenient but the fees are exorbitant compared to other
platforms.
~~~
xur17
And Evercoin's fees are even higher.
~~~
gst
I just tried placing an order and Evercoin's fees appear to be significantly
lower.
Shapeshift: 1 BTC -> 14.20477011 ETH
Evercoin: 1 BTC -> 14.25967407 ETH
Changelly: 1 BTC -> 14.35434362 ETH
While Changelly appears to have the best rate they don't guarantee the rate.
In my experience the actual rate is often much worse than the estimated rate
(and unfortunately it's too late to cancel once you see the rate).
~~~
xur17
I was originally testing BCC to BTC, so it looks like it depends upon what you
are exchanging:
Shapeshift: 1 BCC -> 0.06773499 BTC
Evercoin: 1 BCC -> 0.06682701 BTC
~~~
clemens2000
Maybe someone should build a Kayak for Bitcoin exchanges, that picks the
cheapest exchange for each trade...
~~~
ufotarikati
Writing the formula for you
1) pick the cheapest exchange 2) sell at expensive exchange price 3) add
commission 4) add network fees
~~~
tstyle
The formula is more complicated than this. Services such as shapeshift.io
guarantee the price for 10 minutes, as well as sending purchased tokens almost
instantaneously. To accomplish this means keeping inventory and becoming
vulnerable to volatility risk and liquidity risk.
Picking a reasonable bid-ask spread is hard, and probably involves more input
factors than the 4 you listed above.
------
tyrust
As others have noted, this is a clone of
[https://shapeshift.io/](https://shapeshift.io/). Clones are fine: it's
possible that evercoin does something different/better than shapeshift. What
is not fine is the apparent lack of transparency in fees [0]. evercoin says
that they charge both exchange and miner fees but do not specify either; just
because they include the fees in the final price does not mean they do not
exist. Compare this to shapeshift [1], which only charges a miner fee,
specifying exactly what that fee is.
[0] - from their FAQ ([https://evercoin.com/faq](https://evercoin.com/faq)):
> How about fees?
> Let's assume Evercoin tells you that you will receive 7.55 LTC for
> depositing 1 ETH. All fees (our fee and miner/blockchain fee) are all baked
> into our pricing so there is no additional fee. That means if we receive
> -exactly- 1 ETH then you will get -exactly- 7.55 LTC in your LTC wallet. No
> playing with the numbers, no surprises.
[1] - from
[https://info.shapeshift.io/about](https://info.shapeshift.io/about):
>With ShapeShift, what you see is what you get. The exchange rate shown is
exactly what you'll receive, minus only the "miner fee." There is no exchange
fee, or service fee.
> [fee schedule follows]
~~~
amingilani
It doesn't matter. At the end of the day, all you care about is the exchange
rate (e) for the number of tokens you send (x) and the number of tokens you
get (y). i.e (x/y = e)
The way the exchange determines this rate is entirely upto them. If it's too
high, go somewhere else.. but no exchange is required to disclose how they
derived their rate. Just because one did, doesn't mean it's any better than
the other.
If the e(shapeshift) < e(evercoin), I'd go for Shapeshift, or vice-versa.
In the real world, I wouldn't expect a money-exchange at the airport to
include a full breakdown of their costs on their exchange schedule.
~~~
jpatokal
Actually, in most of the world money exchangers are required by law to state
if they charge flat fees/commissions/etc on top of exchange rates, and having
"NO FEES/COMMISSIONS" is an advertising point.
So it looks like Evercoin is in the "NO FEES" camp, which would usually mean
crummier rates for larger sums, and Shapeshift is in the fee camp, again
usually meaning you take a hit on small sums but get better rates for larger
sums. (Note that I'm not sure if this is actually the case.)
------
aphextron
This seems so wacky to me. Are you guys seriously going to start sending
thousands of dollars in currency through some random website with a marketing
page and a blog?
~~~
EthanHeilman
You just described 90% of online merchants.
...and you're right, plenty of online merchants rip people off. This is one
reason that large trusted merchants dominate the space (overstock, amazon,
newegg, etc..).
If a shapeshift clone exit scam [0] hasn't happened yet it will happen soon.
People should do careful research on these sites before using them, just like
people should do research on online merchants.
That being said I don't think evercoin is a scam. I'm glad to see competitors
to shapeshift and innovation in this space. The website looks great! I wish
evercoin all the best.
[0]:
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Exit_scam](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Exit_scam)
~~~
ourmandave
But aren't you protected by your credit card if the merchant fails to deliver?
~~~
aphextron
>But aren't you protected by your credit card if the merchant fails to
deliver?
Yes, among other legal protections. The reason this seems so crazy to me is
because you have absolutely no recourse in the event of a mishap. The company
doesnt even have a published address or phone number. I cant even find a
support e-mail. A Google search yields nothing about the company but this
announcement. The blog is run entirely by their "Chief Marketing Officer". I
guess my skin is not thick enough for the crypto world.
------
jerguismi
Looks like a shapeshift/changelly clone.
~~~
donpdonp
The simplicity of the conversion is fantastic, but I am perplexed as to how an
anonymous exchange exists when there are KYC requirements.
~~~
ringaroundthetx
first by admitting that KYC wouldn't help stop terrorists even if it was
implemented how you imagined it. Even Shapeshift wrote that in response to the
WannaCry investigations.
One hop to Monero and the whole money firewall regime is foiled, hopefully
enough that the people of any nation ask their governments to stop spending
their money on that task, and focus on the economy in more productive ways.
KYC laws apply to national currencies. Any cryptocurrency exchange that has
limits is just trying to run a show to appease some senators for the time
being.
~~~
JumpCrisscross
> _KYC laws apply to national currencies_
Assuming federal laws don't apply because you sprinkled some magic around you
is a pretty awful way to end up in jail. KYC violations are criminally
punishable. Anyone operating a non-compliant exchange is subject to
investigation, arrest and asset freezes.
_Disclaimer: I am not a lawyer. This comment does not constitute legal nor
investment advice._
~~~
ringaroundthetx
> Assuming federal laws don't apply because you sprinkled some magic around
> you is a pretty awful way to end up in jail.
AML/KYC apply to institutions that apply for Money Service Business licenses,
MSBs for short. This is promulgated by FinCEN agency of the US Treasury
department. FinCEN has comprehensive definitions of what kind of digital
currency use is subject to MSB registration.
It is easy for digital currency to other digital currency exchangers to be
exempt from those regulations, via one of the codified exemptions, because
your straw man argument about federal laws not applying wasn't the argument I
was making at all. So now that we've established that, let me know if you want
to discuss the something closer to reality.
~~~
JumpCrisscross
> _AML /KYC apply to institutions that apply for Money Service Business
> licenses_
MSBs have KYC requirements. It does not follow that non-MSBs have no KYC
requirements. FINRA-member firms, for example, are not MSBs and have strict
KYC rules [1].
FinCEN has nowhere said that non-MSBs are exempt from KYC. Nobody can
competently say that. All American businesses are subject to the minimum
threshold of KYC responsibility in coöperating with OFAC restrictions [2].
[1]
[http://www.finra.org/industry/notices/11-02](http://www.finra.org/industry/notices/11-02)
[2] [https://www.treasury.gov/resource-
center/faqs/Sanctions/Page...](https://www.treasury.gov/resource-
center/faqs/Sanctions/Pages/faq_general.aspx)
_Disclaimer: I am not a lawyer. This comment does not constitute legal nor
investment advice._
~~~
ringaroundthetx
FinCEN wouldn't be the agency to say non-MSBs are exempt from KYC.
There may be a kind of FINRA member firm that is both regulated by the SEC and
not an MSB, but many kinds, such as broker-dealers are regulated by both FINRA
and the SEC and subject to the source you linked.
Yes, OFAC is a different discussion with different considerations.
------
2paisay
Their LinkedIn profile doesn't inspire much confidence except for everyone is
Turkish and they keep recommending each other there.
------
peepopeep
Sure, let's just hide the fees and not tell users they are getting taken. How
about some transparency?
~~~
talipozturk
This is Talip@Evercoin. We have mainly two kinds of fees. Miner/Network fees,
which are fixed and can be listed (and we will). Second one is our fee, which
is dynamically calculated based on multiple parameters such as our reserve,
market trend and recent transactions. It is basically a risk calculation. We
can and should say that on our FAQ but not sure if that is going to be
'transparent' enough. Btw, we are a new service, we need feedback from the
community to know how to make our service better and time to get them done. We
are committed to become better. So please keep the feedback coming.
------
SubiculumCode
I am naive but why is there not a decentralized service for exchanging
cryptocurrency (or is there?)?
~~~
kingjacob
There are, see Etherdelta. And also projects like 0xproject.com are working on
going entirely trustless.
------
vit05
Is there any simple exchange like this that accept Paypal? I am losing too
much in fees buying locally. And using places like Localbitcoin is too much
expensive.
------
timothyjj
How is different than having a Bittrex account and then using Bittrex's API to
perform trades based on people's request on the website?
------
choffman
A noble attempt, but without supporting Monero you're not supporting
fungibility and privacy.
I hope this is an oversight that you'll correct.
~~~
talipozturk
This is Talip@Evercoin. Yes we are currently working on adding Monero. Should
be ready in a week. Thanks for the feedback.
------
base698
Why not Neo? Seems like the hottest one to support right now. Would probably
test it out if you get that working :)
------
hossbeast
I was hoping to learn that the in game coin for EverQuest was backed by a
public blockchain
~~~
rhcom2
Couldn't that stop gold farming / selling? Proof of work (proof of grinding)?
~~~
itsnotlupus
Online games give gold to their users liberally as positive reinforcement for
playing the game.
That's probably not compatible with a strict minting schedule constrained by a
proof of work system.
~~~
AgentME
Also, making it super easy for gold farmers to cash out probably isn't great
if you don't want large gold farming groups affecting the game economy and
making it harder for legit non-gold-buying players.
------
aqsheehy
An exchange for unlicensed securities, hope they enjoy what's coming for them
~~~
coinhipster
what do you mean by unlicensed security?
------
mikojava
Hi everyone.
I am Miko from Evercoin and I'm happy to answer your questions.
The People Behind EverCoin
I'm happy to see people on this board looking at our service with suspicion,
this is normal and the community needs to protect itself from scammers. We do
show our own faces and linkedin profiles on the front page of our exchange.
Yes, it is possible that people are just using the identities of others. We
are obviously not so prominent or famous but I do have a number of fairly
prominent people in crypto who could vouch for us or who have met us including
general partners at Pantera Capital, Jackson Palmer, originator of Dogecoin,
Robert CEO of ZenCash, Zooko from Zcash and many others. I know these aren't
necessarily the gods of crypto like Vitalik Buterin, but I havent met him so
he can't say if I'm a real person or not. I am one of the organizers of the SF
Advanced Crypto Asset Trading group and Crypto Underground meetup, so 3500
people in that community know who I am at some level. Anyhow, I welcome the
suspicion, I hate scammers as much as anyone and feel like everyone who asks
you to "send bitcoin to this address" deserves to be checked out. I've been in
Silicon Valley for 25 years working in tech.
Check out our Linkedin here Miko (me)
[https://www.linkedin.com/in/mikomatsumura/](https://www.linkedin.com/in/mikomatsumura/)
Talip's linkedin is here
[https://www.linkedin.com/in/talipozturk/](https://www.linkedin.com/in/talipozturk/)
Yasin's [https://www.linkedin.com/in/yasin-
tamer/](https://www.linkedin.com/in/yasin-tamer/) Ahmed's
[https://www.linkedin.com/in/ahmet-
alptekin/](https://www.linkedin.com/in/ahmet-alptekin/) Ismael's
[https://www.linkedin.com/in/ismaelkose/](https://www.linkedin.com/in/ismaelkose/)
Talip created the open source project Hazelcast.
[https://github.com/hazelcast/hazelcast](https://github.com/hazelcast/hazelcast)
a github based Apache open source licensed project with over 24,000 commits
and 143 committers.
Honestly, we are a BRAND NEW service, so there are very few reviews. Here is
us on Product Hunt
[https://www.producthunt.com/posts/evercoin](https://www.producthunt.com/posts/evercoin)
Here is our Blog [https://blog.evercoin.com/](https://blog.evercoin.com/)
We need to get more reviews. it will take time to become a trusted and
reliable member of this community, we get it. We will keep working hard to
earn your trust.
If you want to see our offices, this is what it looks like: [https://cdn-
images-1.medium.com/max/800/1*5NMG03OXtNCUzXnKYj...](https://cdn-
images-1.medium.com/max/800/1*5NMG03OXtNCUzXnKYjQr-g.jpeg)
Meet us better on this blog post [https://blog.evercoin.com/meet-evercoin-
exchange-4506f897545...](https://blog.evercoin.com/meet-evercoin-
exchange-4506f8975459)
Happy to answer any other questions you all may have.
How to start As with any crypto service, start small. Just try a very small
transaction to see how the system behaves. It's a fully functional system, so
you'll immediately get the feeling of that. And yes, do your homework.
------
hackerboos
Any plans to support Monero?
~~~
talipozturk
We just added Monero today!
------
gst
Is the rate shown when placing an order guaranteed or an estimate?
------
earthly10x
This kind of activity spurs 'The Dawn of $1B ICO's'
[https://hackernoon.com/the-dawn-of-
the-1b-ico-a0486f6587a2](https://hackernoon.com/the-dawn-of-
the-1b-ico-a0486f6587a2)
------
DeepRote
High fees, no good coins, bare bones functionality.
Why would I use this when there a dozen better products that do this and more?
~~~
talipozturk
This is Talip@Evercoin. We will be adding more coins over time starting with
Monero in a week. We think support matters a lot. We want to make sure we are
quickly reachable via anonymous chat on the website when needed.
------
loppers92
Unfortunately, they don't have IOTA listed...
What is IOTA?
[https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=h09z2N0MtuQ](https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=h09z2N0MtuQ)
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Google: Steve Jobs - johnx123-up
https://www.google.com/search?q=Steve+Jobs
======
TobbenTM
Why is this even upvoted?
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
The Idled Young Americans - startuup
http://www.nytimes.com/2013/05/05/sunday-review/the-idled-young-americans.html?partner=rss&emc=rss&_r=0
======
com2kid
As someone who is in his 20s (for another year!) and dating of the same age,
my belief is because the current generation has a real lack of motivation.
I think it is something those of us on sites like this one, and in our field
in general do not notice, we tend to surround ourselves with highly driven and
motivated people, but we really are the exception to the rule.
Roughly 60% of the young women I have dated (generally aged 22 and up, college
graduates) had no real future focus. They weren't looking forward to or
striving for any sort of goal. They were just sort of existing.
Switching tracks a bit, I remember having a conversation with a man about my
age, he had an undergraduate degree in psychology and a masters in a related
field. He was talking about how poorly developed the social skills of many
young adults in this area is (true, Puget Sound is a tech haven and a lack of
social skills go along with that) and how much he would love to start up a
program to teach social skills to engineers. And hey, I agreed, that is a
great idea, there is a large market for that in the area, he would have
customers lining up around the block!
So I asked him why he hadn't done it yet. "Because the government has cut
funding to social programs and there is no way I could get money for it."
He then proceeded to spend the next 20 or so minutes complaining about how it
was the governments fault that he couldn't achieve his dream.
When I recommended a small business loan, or even writing up a business
proposal and seeking private funding, he brushed my suggestions aside and went
back to complaining about how he needed government help to get his idea up off
the ground.
Everyone on this site knows that if he really had aspirations, he would find a
way to make them happen. He's living in an area surrounded by people with 6
figure income and plenty of 7 figure incomes a few miles away, private fund
raising alone would easily pay for his minimal expenses to get started.
But he wasn't passionate enough to actually do anything, and he is one of the
few people I have encountered who have any passion at all.
I have had friends (my age group) tell me that I need to stop being so
aggressive, stop being so perfectionist, stop working so hard. "Why do you try
to do such a good job at everything you do? There is no need for that."
Then I walk over to my friends who are in the tech sector. We strive for the
best, we talk about what we want to happen in the future, what our dreams our,
what we are working towards, what house we want to buy (if any), what projects
we want to work on.
And we are the lazy ones who don't have enough initiative to found our own
start up! (And we all feel guilty about it, we damn well know we should)
Then of course there is the Y Combinator crowd, who are fueled by nothing but
drive and passion.
So, going back to the beginning.
A lot of the young adults who have "given up hope" never had any hope to begin
with. They sort of wanted a job somewhere, but they didn't want it more than
anything else. They didn't desire it, they didn't need it, and they sure as
heck didn't make a plan of how exactly to get it.
~~~
scarmig
Oh, Christ. Start-up wankery has its place, but something to keep in mind:
there's nothing that makes working for a start-up the be-all, end-all of a
meaningful life.
You complain about people just wanting to exist and live and enjoy time with
their friends and family? And that they don't have grand dreams of starting a
business, running it, doing a bunch of shit that's secondary to their actual
interests?
Here's the thing: no one should have to start their own business to be
successful in life. Not all people are cut out for it. And just because you're
a 20-something guy who's willing to spend 60-80 hours a week working to change
the world with a social networking site for cat photographers so that some VC
can make bank doesn't mean that other people are somehow inferior because they
don't want to.
Not everyone can be a special snowflake, and that's fine. Some people want to
work a 9 to 5 job and then head home to cook dinner with their loved ones. In
the past that's been possible, but increasingly for our generation it's
becoming harder and harder. And that's a societal failure.
~~~
laughfactory
Oh, come now, scarmig. All he was saying is that many in our peer group don't
have a plan. And they blame others for their lack of a job and for their lack
of a life they find meaningful--rather than going out and doing something
about it.
I, for one, agree with him because that's what I've observed: numerous
20-somethings working at dead-end, menial jobs after graduation because they
didn't adequately prepare for something more demanding. And many of them
aren't thrilled to be merely subsisting. They want more, but they don't know
how to get it, and they don't really own the responsibility for doing so
anyway.
Somehow at some point they got the mistaken impression that if they got a
degree they'd graduate, and be instantly awarded with that six-figure 9-5 job.
And they'd live happily ever after.
So yeah, for that group they're a little disappointed to graduate and discover
that the median income of someone with a bachelor's degree (as I recall) is
$40,000/yr. And if they have an especially common degree and especially
mediocre academic performance perhaps they can't even get that job. Oh, and
they are surprised to discover they have to work their butts off to find ANY
job, and then that most jobs are just "work" not "play."
I have no aspiration to necessarily work for a start-up or work 60 hours a
week. But I do have a plan, and I do take responsibility for making my life
what I want it to be. I have goals and aspirations and a long-term plan how to
accomplish them. Most of our peers do not.
My hope is to be able to make a decent living (say $50,000/yr) working 25-30
hours a week so I can spend lots of time on my own interests and with my
family. So I didn't hear him saying that we all have to want to work for
start-ups or work 60 hours a week or anything. He was merely pointing out that
many of our peers don't know what they want, or how to get it on top of being
unemployed or underemployed...and they blame others for their situation rather
than taking responsibility for their life.
~~~
waps
> And many of them aren't thrilled to be merely subsisting. They want more,
> but they don't know how to get it, and they don't really own the
> responsibility for doing so anyway.
If you mean by that "aren't willing to do anything -at all- to achieve, well,
anything really" then I agree with you.
> My hope is to be able to make a decent living (say $50,000/yr) working 25-30
> hours a week so I can spend lots of time on my own interests and with my
> family.
That's certainly achievable I would think. However, be prepared for a lot of
rejection. 40 (not 60) hour weeks + actual effort (dare I say it ... drive) is
not just a requirement at startups.
------
aridiculous
I'm always perplexed by the (possibly rhetorical) surprised tone of these
kinds of articles. As if it wasn't glaringly obvious that young people are
getting screwed because of their lack of employment histories combined with an
ultra-competitive job market (for most industries).
The discussion then usually turns to how young people have useless degrees or
are lazy or entitled, or some other monday morning quarterback commentary. The
reality is that prior generations goofed off and made blind decisions just
like this one. They just had more of cushion to rebound from.
I'm steadily employed in a fantastic job but have been on the other side of
the fence as well. One thing is obvious: most white-collar, educated people
who already had jobs before 2008 are doing just fine, haven't noticed a thing,
and don't give a neuron to thinking about unemployed people.
This is just another indication to me that there is a growing class divide and
there will be plenty of losers (and no, the rising tide doesn't help
undeveloped, inexperienced college grads with nondischargable debt). The means
of production are now more abstract than owning factories -- they're owning
the information networks. We have yet to see anything close to the sufficient
political will or desire in DC to bust up these modern day trusts (like Teddy
Roosevelt did with the industrialists a century ago). By design, they're
harder to identify and harder to educate the public about. And with mass media
stomping out thoughtful journalism due to basic economics and a civically
uninterested public, where's the opposition going to come from?
If you happen to be in a line of work that helps those in power (like most
programmers), you'll probably thrive. If you don't, you're going to have a
tough road ahead: our public institutions are behaving more and more like
results-driven board-run corporations. They're misappropriating improved
efficiency to matters that benefit more from longer-term strategies ("Instant
Dashboards! Metrics! Data-Driven Decisions!"). I fear most the speed at which
the consolidation of power could take place (aided by the speed of
technological progress).
Have a great weekend :)
~~~
paganel
> One thing is obvious: most white-collar, educated people who already had
> jobs before 2008 are doing just fine, haven't noticed a thing, and don't
> give a neuron to thinking about unemployed people.
I remember reading an article around 2008 (in the Economist, I think) based on
a (then recent) research paper that showed that people who graduated during a
recession had a lot more to lose in the long run (smaller wages etc) compared
to people who graduated during "normal" times.
We're 5 years later, the "recession" supposedly ended three or four years ago
(I'm talking about the US here), and yet things don't seem to have reverted
back to normal. Unless maybe this is in fact the new normal.
~~~
nicholas73
I read the same article. It said graduates during a recession may take up to a
decade to have their wages catch up to what it might have been had they
graduated during normal times.
------
ljd
I know from personal experience much of the last 5 years worth of work for me
(software / algorithm design) has been building automation. Helping companies
that were struggling push forward by replacing human workers with software.
Perhaps in the recent down years companies were pressured to become more
efficient and now that the economy is picking up they are reluctant to go back
to hiring people versus paying for software and automation.
/completeSpeculation
I can think of two companies I've consulted with since 2008 where the CEO's
told me they were picking up a new contract(s) that would represent massive
growth (200-300%) but that they wanted to keep their same labor force without
having to hire.
------
gcv
Because too many of them are busy looking for other people to give them
employment (which has been difficult for employers to do), instead of figuring
out how to create wealth on their own. If more created their own businesses,
they would probably be able to hire the rest — you know, the ones working in
coffee shops and retail. See [http://www.nytimes.com/2012/03/25/magazine/what-
the-fate-of-...](http://www.nytimes.com/2012/03/25/magazine/what-the-fate-of-
one-class-of-2011-says-about-the-job-market.html?pagewanted=all), for example.
~~~
aridiculous
It's an odd thing: the startup community often has all of the smug traits of
the out-of-touch, old-money elite, but has none of their gifts for enjoying
leisure. It's a particularly awful combination in my opinion.
------
ChrisLTD
Because the U.S. economy hasn't yet recovered from the 2008 recession.
Low demand on the consumer side has meant that businesses don't need to expand
and hire people.
------
woodchuck64
> The official unemployment rate for 25- to 34-year-old college graduates
> remains just 3.3 percent.
So this article should be titled: "Why are Uneducated Young Americans
Jobless."
~~~
aridiculous
Underemployment is the key metric for 25-27 years olds at the moment. Very
difficult to measure.
------
aspensmonster
Buzz words like "entitled" in 3...2...1...
Anyway.
>Average wages are no longer trailing inflation.
And wages as a whole have diverged from productivity since the 70s. That we're
happy that wages are once again keeping pace with inflation --another way of
saying "well, at least we're no longer losing money"-- is depressing in this
context.
>What might help? Easing the parts of the regulatory thicket without societal
benefits. Providing public financing for the sorts of early-stage scientific
research and physical infrastructure that the private sector often finds
unprofitable. Long term, nothing is likely to matter more than improving
educational attainment, from preschool through college (which may have started
already).
So... we socialize the substantial costs of doing business (infrastructure and
research), cut back on "the parts of the regulatory thicket without societal
benefits," --whatever that means-- and just keep pumping people through
college. Has Leonhardt being paying attention at all?
We already subsidize infrastructure and research costs. Hell, it's become
standard policy that no corporation shall break ground anywhere unless the
host promises it special favors and decreased (or absolutely no) taxes.
Regulations are more industry specific. The big ticket ones however typically
revolve around finance and environment. Perhaps we should ask --well, damn
near anyone-- how the year 2009 was for them financially. Perhaps we should
ask the Chinese just how "without societal benefits" all of those
environmental regulations are. And college? We're putting more students
through than ever before. And they are predictably finding that, as the number
of people with degrees rises, the value placed on their own degree decreases.
And what does the hiring company look for? Experience.
>Many business executives and economists also point to immigration policy.
Done right, an overhaul could make a difference, many say, by allowing more
highly skilled immigrants to enter the country and by making life easier for
those immigrants already here. Historically, immigrants have started more than
their share of new companies.
AND we need more H-1B's? This guy's a real piece of work. We already have the
ability to bring in extraordinary talent. We don't need 50,000 more outsource
firm slots.
==========
Here's the thing: businesses will hire exactly as many employees as they need.
No more. Perhaps less, if they can get away with it. And if they run the
remaining folks at break-neck pace long enough, that level will become the new
"need" level. No amount of policy or regulatory finagling is going to make a
lick of difference. By bending over for Corporate America, all you're doing is
throwing taxpayer money at them with the vague and unsubstantiated hope that
they'll take on a few more employees. This is beyond stupid. As business
becomes more automated --not mechanized, automated, as in no human required--
you can expect fewer jobs to remain and for the employment rates to level off
or decline.
~~~
com2kid
> AND we need more H-1B's? This guy's a real piece of work. We already have
> the ability to bring in extraordinary talent. We don't need 50,000 more
> outsource firm slots.
Being on the hiring side of things, America needs all the talent it can get.
Hiring good software engineers is seriously hard.
Maybe the problem is just connecting people with jobs, but given the low
unemployment rate in the tech sector, I really doubt it.
Having to interview 5 candidates before finding one who just knows how malloc
works isn't fun.
Indeed, one of our high quality engineers had to be sent back to his home
country after his work visa expired, we are hoping to get him in on H-1B, and
I believe he got approved, but now we have to sit and wait for government
wheels to churn.
America should make it as easy as possible for highly motivated and talented
individuals to come here. Jobs, heck, entire new industries will be created.
Isn't that the entire lesson from start-up culture? Get talented highly
motivated people together, let them achieve their dreams (with someone who
knows business and finances overseeing things!), and the economy will grow.
~~~
aspensmonster
Hiring top talent is certainly expensive. And if you're searching for the best
of the best, it will always be hard by virtue of the fact that you're looking
for people at the extreme of a bell curve, no matter how large the sample set
is.
As for knowing how malloc works: fewer and fewer universities are even
touching C. It's all C++ or, better yet, Java (no need to understand memory
management _at all_ in that case). The only guys left that are into
reimplementing malloc are the minority of Computer Science or Computer
Engineering graduates that are into embedded work or HA scenarios.
And just to quench my own personal curiosity, since you're on the hiring side
and I'm not: why is it that every company absolutely must find someone who
fits the bill exactly? What is with this aversion to spending any amount of
time training people?
~~~
com2kid
> And just to quench my own personal curiosity, since you're on the hiring
> side and I'm not: why is it that every company absolutely must find someone
> who fits the bill exactly? What is with this aversion to spending any amount
> of time training people?
We don't have an aversion to training, but when someone has supposedly 8+
years of development experience and cannot answer simple questions, well, on
to the next candidate.
I personally do always look for potential, I believe it is the most important
aspect when hiring. But potential means having a drive to learn independently.
I really do understand why a lot of employers are just saying "screw it" and
not hiring anyone who isn't on Stack Overflow, or has a tech blog, or some
sort of presence that said "I am passionate about this field."
(I'd be doomed by that metric, I don't have a github or Stack Overflow
account! I'm on this site and /r/programming, however I do have a somewhat
maintained tech blog.)
> As for knowing how malloc works: fewer and fewer universities are even
> touching C. It's all C++ or, better yet, Java (no need to understand memory
> management _at all_ in that case). The only guys left that are into
> reimplementing malloc are the minority of Computer Science or Computer
> Engineering graduates that are into embedded work or HA scenarios.
Ugh I know. My college still teaches native, and in fact the majority of the
curriculum (last time I checked, its been a few years) was native, but they
are unfortunately the exception to a general trend.
The thing is, managed languages are pretty damn nice for teaching software
engineering principles in, but bad for hands on "this is how it works"
explaining.
Covering how the JVM or CLR does stuff on a PowerPoint slide isn't the same
thing as having students write an allocator. Which sort of sucks when they go
on the job and have to write an allocator!
~~~
peterwaller
Honest question: what field are you in which means your candidates are going
to need to write custom allocators on a regular basis?
What problems need custom allocators? I'm a fan of lower level details and
all, but surely you can get away with one of the many existing allocator
implementations when the problem to be solved isn't "sudo make me an
allocator"?
~~~
com2kid
> Honest question: what field are you in which means your candidates are going
> to need to write custom allocators on a regular basis?
Embedded. :P
> What problems need custom allocators? I'm a fan of lower level details and
> all, but surely you can get away with one of the many existing allocator
> implementations when the problem to be solved isn't "sudo make me an
> allocator"?
Memory is being counted in kilobytes. Processing time in cycles.
I'm loving it, but finding others who feel the same, and who are serious about
software engineering, isn't easy!
~~~
bicknergseng
>who feel the same, and who are serious about software engineering, isn't
easy!
So what you're saying is that you have a hard time finding people experienced
and passionate about your extremely small niche? I'm sure I'd have a hard time
finding qualified child neurologists willing to work for < 200k as well.
~~~
aspensmonster
I'd hardly call embedded work an extremely small niche. Now, what he's doing
on them may or may not be. But microcontrollers on the whole are a much bigger
industry than personal computing. You'll find many more 8-bit and 16-bit
microcontrollers in any given house than you will Intel or AMD 32/64 bit
general purpose microprocessors. Last I checked approximately half of all CPUs
sold globally were 8-bit.
------
hbnyc
As a 23 year old working in tech, I can say that much of my graduating class
had no immediate plans to start a career and even more had no desire to
relocate to a place that jobs were more plentiful. How do we fix this? We stop
telling everyone that they are gifted and things will work out from an early
age. We get far more out of constructive feedback as to why our project wasn't
the best or why we lost than being told we're great in the face of defeat,
getting a trophy, and going home with no fuel to better ourselves.
------
enraged_camel
Like many people here, I work for a software company. We develop business
automation software. Perhaps unlike most though, I'm closer to the bottom line
(Sales Engineer), and are more closely tuned in to the types of business
conversations our customers have when they are thinking about whether to buy
our software.
Often times, the conversation revolves around the fact that the software we
sell makes the average worker so ridiculously productive that often times they
start being able to do the work of two people. They no longer have to spend
time searching for important documents or worry about replacing lost/damaged
ones, or pushing paper documents from one department to the other, or waiting
for a certain supervisor to come back from a business trip so that they can
sign off on stuff. For most knowledge workers this translates to at least a
couple of hours of productivity gains everyday, if not more.
What do businesses do with these productivity gains? From what we have seen,
the overwhelming majority use the opportunity to lay off workers they no
longer need. The reason is simple: their company addresses a certain amount of
customer demand, and if they can meet that demand with half the workforce then
why not lay off the rest and become more profitable?
Over the years, this phenomenon has led me to the conclusion that the main
problem with the economy is lack of consumer demand. If consumer demand was
increasing, then companies would hire more employees _despite_ the efficiency
gains they get from automation. Or, at the very least, they would be less
prone to lay people off, because their existing workforce would be more able
to handle the demand by becoming more productive.
Traditionally, the main source of consumer demand in America has been the
middle-class. If we find a way to bring that back, everybody wins.
~~~
svachalek
Ironically, the middle class isn't coming back until the employment situation
improves, with consequent improvements in salaries etc.
Soon we're going to be seeing low-skill jobs go almost entirely to machines,
while higher-skill work gets more and more levered up. I expect at the pace
we're going (on both technology and economy), that will happen before we ever
recover from the current crisis. A large percentage of workers are not going
to have much to offer, economically, and I'm not sure where we go from there.
~~~
goostavos
>A large percentage of workers are not going to have much to offer,
economically, and I'm not sure where we go from there.
I wonder about this all the time. My primary interest is in fields like
Computer Vision, with an ultimate goal of contributing to the self driving car
scene. As excited as I am by that and want to see that future as a reality,
there's a side of me that wonders what the workforce will do as automated
system continue their steady march forward. Once we 'automate away' driving,
things like truck drivers (of which there are 3.5 million) will be a thing of
the past, probably cabs too given enough time.
Where do they go?
~~~
super-serial
They go home to their robo-housing condo, eat meat grown on sheets in massive
labs run by robo-farmers, and any supplies they need are transported by robo-
truckers. When they get sick, they just go to the robo-hospital.
All these things are completely free and not staffed by any humans... because
the billionaires who live in cities in the sky feel guilty about the pathetic
insignificant lives of the idiot masses below. So we give them the necessities
they need, and poison their food so they don't procreate too much.
~~~
aspensmonster
You just conjured up imagery of the Pangu and Tai Yong Medical from Deus Ex:
Human Revolution in my mind. Lower Hengsha is indeed a place I would rather
not live :) I think more people could do with reading, watching, and playing
dystopic sci-fi media. Keeps everyone cognizant of the fact that technological
advancement isn't an inherently good thing.
------
Swisscoder
Because most Human Resource workers are a..h...s, im speaking from the
experience. Not surprised by those results.
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Build a Web 2.0-like application in haskell, with HAppS. - tphyahoo
http://www.happstutorial.com
======
bootload
_"... There is one minor detail... Unfortunately, the documentation for HAppS
is cringeworthy ..."_
Nothing kills the urge to learn something quicker than incomplete docs. But it
doesn't have to be this way. John Resig of JDoc fame, gets around this problem
by concentrating on writing good documentation of the core API ~
[http://blog.jquery.com/2006/09/02/taking-jquery-
documentatio...](http://blog.jquery.com/2006/09/02/taking-jquery-
documentation-to-the-next-level/) (along with doing stacks of talks, demos)
leaving the gaps for others to fill ~
<http://www.html.it/articoli/johnresig/index.html>
~~~
tphyahoo
I totally agree.
It's not really a "minor detail."
There's a "getting organized" thread on the happs googlegroup about this at
the moment, and I really hope it bears fruit.
This should be done via haddock of course, but haddock won't build HAppS
documentation at the moment because it doesn't work with template haskell (as
discussed in the googlegroup). Optimistically, this should be working again
after ghc 6.10.2, which also targets a haddock fix.
Even without working haddock though, the api should be better documented in
the source. If haddock suddenly started working there still would be a lot of
undocumented functions.
------
delano
A detailed error message is not a good introduction for an application
framework: "Server error: templates: changeWorkingDirectory: does not exist
(No such file or directory)"
~~~
joe_the_user
Yeah, I'll add load-testing to my to do in releasing web frameworks.
But how ever solid one might think one's app is, there's no reason not to make
one's front page static or at least have apache cache it.
~~~
delano
This story is going from bad to worse. The site was up again and I made it to
page 5 looking for code examples (I was pretty interested to see some
Haskell). The closest I found was a shell call for find. Page 6, "Server
Error". The site is down again.
So yeah, load test and do whatever it takes to ensure you're ready for
traffic.
~~~
tphyahoo
This will be the first time I'm doing load testing so gimme some time to get
it right :)
~~~
delano
Ah okay. Try Tsung, the Grinder, or JMeter if you have extra machines. For
less heavy-duty testing try httperf. Siege and Apache bench are okay for basic
testing. And _always_ use a separate machine to generate load.
~~~
tphyahoo
I think I finally fixed this problem.
[http://groups.google.com/group/HAppS/browse_thread/thread/cf...](http://groups.google.com/group/HAppS/browse_thread/thread/cff2b9098c2b7a14/2b64b94525cd28a4#2b64b94525cd28a4)
Basically it was a lazy io issue in haskell, fix was using a strict version of
readFile for templates.
Hope it stays up now!
------
vlad
Great stuff. You mentioned rails, django, catalyst, and php; I think you want
a framework like CakePHP or CodeIgniter in place of php in that list. Also,
just for kicks, you could mention that Smalltalk has a framework as well:
Seaside.
------
michaelneale
Nice - but one thing I noticed - the ORM link points back to the same page
(probably was meant to be wikipedia? )
------
tphyahoo
I am announcing happstutorial 5 on hackage and in darcs.
There are new chapters on various macid topics, utf8 gotchas, cookies, and
various improvements all over.
Please continue to report errors and inconsistencies as they come up.
This version is "close to final". At least for my purposes, it has boilerplate
that covers nearly all the important important use cases for a web 2.0 app. OK
I missed a few -- eg, there's still no email confirmation with registration --
but there's a hell of a lot.
So... don't use ruby for your next web 2.0 app -- use haskell!
thomas.
~~~
whalliburton
live demo?
~~~
tphyahoo
The tutorial site happstutorial.com is a demo. Of a job board. Check it out.
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Tesla – Great things are launching at 2pm - traviswingo
https://www.tesla.com/soon#travis
======
BenoitEssiambre
"To achieve these prices while remaining financially sustainable, Tesla is
shifting sales worldwide to online only. You can now buy a Tesla in North
America via your phone in about 1 minute, and that capability will soon be
extended worldwide. We are also making it much easier to try out and return a
Tesla, so that a test drive prior to purchase isn’t needed. You can now return
a car within 7 days or 1,000 miles for a full refund. Quite literally, you
could buy a Tesla, drive several hundred miles for a weekend road trip with
friends and then return it for free. With the highest consumer satisfaction
score of any car on the road, we are confident you will want to keep your
Model 3.
Shifting all sales online, combined with other ongoing cost efficiencies, will
enable us to lower all vehicle prices by about 6% on average, allowing us to
achieve the $35,000 Model 3 price point earlier than we expected. Over the
next few months, we will be winding down many of our stores,"
Bold
------
chadash
[https://3.tesla.com/model3/design#battery](https://3.tesla.com/model3/design#battery)
is showing a $35K base model
~~~
chadash
Some more notes:
* basic model interior has cloth seats and paired down amenities compared to current model 3
* Looks like autopilot costs $3000 over base
* Full Self-Driving Capability (on-ramp to off-ramp highway driving, autopark and summor your car in a parking lot) is another $5000 over basic autopilot
* Coming this year: ability to "Recognize and respond to traffic lights and stop signs." and "Automatic driving on city streets."
------
nightski
I'm really excited for Tesla and have been waiting to order one some day. But
the problem is, while battery performance in winter doesn't concern me too
much - rear while drive and extremely low clearance does. It's just a non-
starter in northern climates. My Subaru outback handles this with ease and I
feel the Tesla would be a nightmare. It's unfortunate really, they want to
make it feel like a race car instead of a practical car.
We had an all time record snowfall in February and it's been an intense
winter.
EDIT: I realize they have an all wheel drive option but it's 10k more than the
35k option putting it in a luxury market. Not many Americans can responsibly
afford a 45k car.
~~~
injb
As someone who drives an M3 every day in the winter in the northern US in
snow, ice and everything in between, let me assure you rear wheel drive is not
an issue. Tires are what matter, not the drivetrain. Get a good set of winter
tires and it'll be fine.
~~~
windexh8er
Out of curiosity, how far north might you be? We've had record snow in MN this
year for February and own an SUV and half-ton truck. This month had a few
painful days for what normally would be fine in an M3 with winter rubber.
While these types of days aren't always the norm I would argue there's a lot
of value in AWD and 4WD systems, especially with appropriate seasonal tires.
Ultimately though I agree with your logic. An AWD with improper tires is worse
in the snow than a RWD vehicle with the right ones. I think the fallacy many
fall into is AWD is a silver bullet.
Ground clearance is another issue in itself, however. I've often wondered how
often this becomes an issue in Tesla vehicles.
~~~
injb
Yeah good point about ground clearance. We don't get as much snow here as MN,
but probably similar to Chicago. Traction-wise, it's as bad as it gets
anywhere in the US, but I've never had to deal with very deep snow in the M3.
------
schintan
Est. 6-year gas savings = - $4,300
This is terribly misleading to include as a discount in "price after est
savings"
------
taesu
2pm what timezone? honestly Tesla's web dev's couldn't detect timezone of the
visitor and dynamically change the time? or is it 2pm tmr.
~~~
deanCommie
CNBC claims at 2PM Pacific Time [https://www.cnbc.com/2019/02/28/tesla-
suspends-online-orders...](https://www.cnbc.com/2019/02/28/tesla-suspends-
online-orders-ahead-of-announcement-redirects-website.html)
~~~
nicoburns
That would be... now. I think. But the website is still showing "soon".
~~~
bsaul
That's Tesla time. "Now", "Soon" and "before the end of next year" means
something entirely different. /s
------
elamje
Travis, why does your link url include your name? Is it for tracking or fun or
what?
------
pruthvishetty
It's the 35k Model 3, according to Electrek.
~~~
fetus8
The $35k model 3 is live, and is delivering in 2-4 weeks.
------
perfmode
Is it smarter to buy with cash or with the loan?
~~~
azhenley
I did the loan option. The Tesla associates were very, very busy and were
incredibly bad about answering any questions about the loan. It was the only
negative part about the buying process. I went to pick up the car (3 hours
away) and they were still changing around my loan details when I arrived.
Negative part of their loan: they refused to cover the tax with the loan,
which has not been my experience through any other car purchase. This means
you must cover the down payment plus full tax amount when you pick up. They
never told me that until the night before I went to pick it up.
If I had to do it again, I would have got a loan through a credit union.
~~~
perfmode
This is helpful.
------
whatok
[https://electrek.co/2019/02/28/tesla-model-3-standard-
batter...](https://electrek.co/2019/02/28/tesla-model-3-standard-battery-
interior/)
------
Theodores
When is 2 p.m.?
I think that Tesla know enough about UTC and have a slick enough website that
they could get the time right for people outside Silicon Valley, who knows
people in Timbuktu could be part of the grand reveal too.
~~~
chaoticmass
Pacific Time zone is center of the universe, duh.
~~~
octorian
Its only fair, given that everyone else (except Apple) assumes the Eastern
Time zone is the center of the universe :-)
------
rdiddly
Gabbo is coming!
2:03 and no indication of anything different on that page, but I can go to the
Model 3 page and click on "Order Now"... is that the thing?
------
synaesthesisx
$35K Model 3 + Model Y unveil?
------
gravypod
This confused me until I remembered Telsa is likely PST. EST it's 5PM.
------
busterarm
Do they hold announcements for when Elon is getting bad press?
"Break in case of stupid use of Twitter."
------
techntoke
Prepare to spend at least $1k to reserve your car that will be available in 2+
years.
~~~
whttheuuu
they start delivering in 2 weeks.
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
AMD Responds to Intel's 9th Gen Benchmarks - jrepinc
https://www.tomshardware.com/news/amd-intel-benchmarks-ryzen-principled-technologies,37956.html
======
deforciant
Few months ago I switched from i7 to Ryzen 2700X. Honestly, I don't know what
would have to happen so that I would switch back to Intel :)
In my developer workflows that include quite a lot of browser tabs, a bunch of
Docker containers running, occasional Go or Docker build I don't get any of
the CPUs at 100% often. Only when I do cross compilation to a multiple
architectures I do use 6-9 CPUs and even then my machine is totally usable and
I can't even feel that in the background lots of cores are at full
utilisation.
What really counts is the amount of CPUs available, I don't really care about
their maximum frequency. Comments about gaming are valid but I think instead
of buying Intel just go with a better GPU and you will win there as well.
~~~
saiya-jin
How hard is it to understand that there are various uses for PC, and yours is
only one of those? Plenty of us can't make any use of more than 6-8 cores
effectively, will never run any VMs or Docker, and plenty of software still
will benefit from single-core performance.
I am by no means a fan of the price/value ratio for new i9 CPU and any shady
marketing cheap tricks generally, but I don't get this 'Ryzen works for me so
it should for everybody' all over the tech net these days.
Use whatever you feel is the best tool for your needs and your budget. Respect
other's choices, even if it means that for some people, this new i9 will be
the best/preferred option. Or any other option for that matter that isn't
yours.
~~~
deforciant
Apologies, didn't want it to sound like "you have to use Ryzen for everything
now" :)
I wouldn't recommend it to most of my friends or my family for the same reason
you mentioned, none of them will utilize those cores.
It just works really well for me and it wildly surpassed my own expectations
as I was quite used to the fact that my machine wasn't really usable while I
run Kubernetes locally. My workflow used to be:
1\. write some code 2\. start Kubernetes, wait for it to boot and test the
code that I wrote 3\. tear it down 4\. write some more code 5\. repeat
I would be loosing quite a lot of time. Also, while waiting for it to start, I
would usually get distracted and start doing something else. Ryzen changed
this workflow and boosted my productivity. Now I don't even notice whether k8s
is running or not, sometimes I forget it for days :D I can't stress enough how
important it is to have a lag free development environment.
~~~
noir_lord
Agree with everything you've said I have a 1700 at work and 2700X at home and
both are monsters for my workloads.
With an evga RTX2080 in the home PC it murders the games I play (elite
dangerous mostly) at 4K.
~~~
deforciant
I have 1080Ti, but haven't tried installing any games yet. Last time I had a
gaming PC it consumed way too much time so currently I try to use my ps4 for
gaming as it's a lot easier to get bored by it :D
------
larzang
The controversial benchmarks are always at the 1080p level, and I have to
wonder: who are these magical consumers who are willing to consider shelling
out for an i9 and yet are still playing at 1080p.
Of course such marketing benchmarking HAS to be done at 1080p, because
anything more challenging and you're entirely gpu bound with cpu differences
becoming margin of error fractions of a percent.
~~~
gameswithgo
There are a of lot reasons to game at 1080p
* You don't really want a bigger monitor than 24" for competitive shooters, because then you can't see everything at once. There is only one 1440p monitor in that size that I know of and no 4k monitors that I know of
* You want a monitor with 144Hz (or better!) and low input latency. 1440p and 4k monitors that do this are rare or non existent
* Easier to stream
* Overall appearance of a game at 1080p with more anti aliasing vs 4k with less isn't that difference. text being an exception of course.
~~~
orbifold
Dell manufactures a 4k monitor at 24'', I have one at home. They surely are
not the only ones: [https://www.dell.com/en-us/work/shop/dell-24-ultra-
hd-4k-mon...](https://www.dell.com/en-us/work/shop/dell-24-ultra-
hd-4k-monitor-p2415q/apd/210-agnk/monitors-monitor-accessories)
~~~
gameswithgo
cool, I think things are moving in a direction where 4k high level gaming is
going to be more possible. The dell monitor is still only 60hz so isn't going
to be desirable yet, but that could change soon.
the other issue is input latency which is hard to find specs for. I have an
old dell 1080p monitor that is a total outlier on that end and I never want to
give it up!
but yeah, with more 24" options, higher refresh rates, and the latest nvidia
cards 4k, 144hz gaming is going to be viable soon.
------
zachruss92
The real conclusion here is if your use case is purely gaming and cost is not
a factor the 9900k is the best processor to buy. AMD cannot compete with 5GHz
on 2 cores or 4.7 on all 8. If you have a more mixed workload (multi-core) or
are more price conscious AMD is a viable solution.
AMD will be unveiling their Ryzen 2 processors/GPUs in January and it is
rumored that there will be a 15% IPC increase. If that is the case, AMD will
be on-par with Intel. It is also rumored they will be bumping the Ryzen lineup
to have 16 cores.
I've been running a Ryzen system w/ a 1800x @ 4GHz on all cores for well over
a year now and have no complaints whatsoever. As a developer/light gamer it
was the perfect balance of price to performance.
------
vbezhenar
Benchmarks might be bad, but I don't think that numbers are wrong. Intel
frequency is much higher. If your game configuration limits FPS on single or
duo core performance, Intel will be better, I have little doubts about that.
But Intel has 1.5x price, so if you're thinking about performance/price, it's
not that simple. And a lot of games are not limited by CPU anyway, unless
you're playing with unusual settings (like very low graphics).
~~~
simion314
Probably nobody is saying that AMD is faster, the issue is that if Intel is 5%
faster but it costs double(including the coolers) then it does not look that
good, so if Intel could find a way to say in the marketing slides that the
Intel CPU is up to 50% faster then they can get a lot more sells.
I also read that there are still some controversy about the CPU frequency for
multicore and also that reviewers got speical CPUs, you are not guaranteed to
get 5GHz on Intel so it is possible that in 1 month the new CPUs will have not
as good turbo.
My point is not to rush a purchase based on this initial benchmarks, wait a
few more weeks.
~~~
vbezhenar
Intel should be around 10-15% faster. It's like 4.3 GHz for AMD, 5 GHz for
Intel with comparable IPC. Also 5 GHz boost is in 9900K specs, if you're not
getting it, it should be enough reason to replace is as a defective.
~~~
simion314
OK, so I can't be 100%sure what this means: "Max turbo frequency is the
maximum single core frequency at which the processor is capable of operating
using Intel® Turbo Boost Technology and, if present, Intel® Thermal Velocity
Boost. Frequency is measured in gigahertz (GHz), or billion cycles per
second."
Does this mean that is guarantedd that 1 core will reach 5GHz ? Are there
exceptions? Will it work it regular coolers ? Will it turbo without BIOS
changes so in default config?
Thanks if you can clear this, because I am not sure if thix Max is considering
power users that overclock or not
~~~
vbezhenar
I'm not an expert, so take my words with a grain of salt. 9900K will reach
5GHz for 2 cores. So if your OS uses only 2 cores at the same time, they'll
work at 5 GHz. If your OS uses more cores, CPU will slow down frequency. Also
if CPU will be boosted for too long, it'll slow down anyway, because it must
keep its 95W TDP. But you can change setting in BIOS, something like MultiCore
Enhancement. This will allow CPU to use as much power as possibe, so it should
be able to keep working at 5 GHz and 2 cores, if your PSU and cooler are good
enough to provide and dissipate that power.
------
cbg0
Here's a roundup of all 9900K/9700K/9600K reviews:
[https://videocardz.com/78652/intel-
core-i9-9900k-i7-9700k-i5...](https://videocardz.com/78652/intel-
core-i9-9900k-i7-9700k-i5-9600k-and-z390-motherboard-review-roundup)
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Ask HN: What is the one (impossible) thing you wish your editor could do? - tisker
If you could magically wish an IDE/Editor feature into existence, possible or impossible, what would it be?
======
themodelplumber
I have a separate Batcave editor which I use in parallel to my coding
editor...
Anyway, for the Batcave editor I wish it could detect a need to reorganize a
markdown file, based on triggers like "everything added to this text file
lately is going under a log heading, instead of into a table of contents and
hierarchical organization." Then it would give me some previews of what a
reorganization could look like.
There is a periodic need to completely redo the way I think about, research,
or catalog things, and this would be a huge help.
~~~
tisker
Interesting, I like this one. This seems like something GPT-3 might be able to
do with some fine-tuning.
------
karmakaze
Translate whichever programming language codebase is in, into a language of my
choice, let me make edits, save back in original language. When I come back to
the same code, it should show what I wrote in preferred language, not a
translation from what was saved.
------
nic_m
Honestly, a tool that can translate business logic into SQL code. Writing 8
level deep SQL queries trying to create hypothetical business situations is a
bit much.
~~~
tisker
I feel your pain, that would be amazing.
~~~
cell9840179419
Sounds like what Enterprise Java Beans with persistence layer tried to do.
------
cell9840179419
Find sets of words not necessarily on the same line, replace them.
Usecase. First and Last names should be replaced with another first and last
name, singly or doubly.
------
ksaj
Autocitation with Autofill. You write what you remember of the source material
you wish to cite, highlight it, and the editor finds the source, corrects any
errors and missing bits, then adds it to the properly formatted numbered
index.
I'm guessing you are looking for code-related features, but there are also
documentation and technical papers to worry about.
------
lucinda_dev
I work at a company where a large and important part of the software stack
sits on really old legacy infrastructure. Everyone is too scared to touch it.
A feature that automatically converts the legacy code to a modern
language/framework so that it can be transferred to newer infrastructure.
------
tisker
I'll start: The ability to automatically find and repair bugs, while
traversing the project structure to fix the related issues in relevant files.
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Two-legged robot mimics human balance while running and jumping - jpm_sd
http://news.mit.edu/2019/two-legged-robot-mimics-human-balance-while-running-jumping-1030
======
clairity
while the headline is technically correctly phrased, it buries the lede on the
interesting bit here: the bi-directional feedback mechanism. robots that
walk/run/jump like humans have existed for decades, but a bipedal robot that
literally mimics the movements of a particular human, and sends force feedback
to that human for real-time control is novel. that’s the neat part.
~~~
jcims
I subscribe to a small channel on YouTube and the channel owner had a very
impressive demo of low latency bi-directional teleoperation. He's got some
Cheetah vids so I'm guessing he at least contributed some code here if not
control/hardware.
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FnQGPGG-
vuQ](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FnQGPGG-vuQ)
I feel creepy posting this for some reason but if you have even an inkling of
the complexity it's a crazy demo that I had to share lol.
~~~
snops
That channel owner, Ben Katz did the mechanical hardware, motor control PCB +
firmware for the MIT Mini Cheetah as part of his PhD, here is his blog post on
it[1], which links to a full technical report. The latest firmware is here [2]
[1] [http://build-its-inprogress.blogspot.com/2019/03/hello-
there...](http://build-its-inprogress.blogspot.com/2019/03/hello-there-mini-
cheetah.html)
[2]
[https://os.mbed.com/users/benkatz/code/Hobbyking_Cheetah_Com...](https://os.mbed.com/users/benkatz/code/Hobbyking_Cheetah_Compact_DRV8323/rev/6cd89bd6fcaa/)
~~~
jcims
Ah! That links to the thesis folks were talking about in the comments. Thank
you!!!
Also, geez. That's a lot of (very impressive) work.
------
Pfhreak
If you made a robot big enough to carry the human (and the human
sensing/feedback machinery), you'd basically have Battletech, right?
~~~
calibas
Or instead of giant death robots, you could have remote-controlled first
responders. They could be dispatched quickly by drone and not put a human at
risk.
Personally, I'm most excited about the possibility of robot backup dancers.
~~~
PhasmaFelis
I love fictional giant deathbots. In reality, I'd be happier with giant robot
gladiator fights.
~~~
ralusek
The important thing is that it's not taking jobs.
------
plq
I like how they treat the robots and the human on equal terms in the photo
label :) No need for a second renaissance anyway.
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
How do Unix pipes work? - v3gas
https://www.vegardstikbakke.com/how-do-pipes-work-sigpipe/
======
nneonneo
This article promotes bad practices for dealing with SIGPIPE.
1\. Closing stderr in Python is not a good idea because that’ll swallow any
other errors that occur at exit. Redirecting stdout to devnull is really just
a way to prevent the flushed output from going to the now-closed stdout and
triggering another SIGPIPE. That’s more preferable than closing stderr and
losing error output at exit.
2\. Ignoring SIGPIPE is a terrible idea for a process that should do stream
processing. Try making a yes clone and ignoring SIGPIPE - your process will
likely run forever trying to shove “y” into a closed pipe. There’s a reason
SIGPIPE was invented! Very few programs bother to check the return value from
write/printf/etc.
~~~
seneca
Agreed. I like articles like this because they show the learning process,
which I think is super valuable. However, they really need a big disclaimer
stating the author is experimenting and doesn't know the correct answer.
Otherwise people stumble upon it and take it as authoritative.
~~~
v3gas
Great point, I should probably add that disclaimer!
------
cperciva
If we cat this file, it will be printed to the terminal.
> cat brothers_karamazov.txt
... many lines of text!
***FINIS***
It takes a noticeable amount of time to finish.
The amount of time it takes for cat(1) to read and output the file is almost
certainly insignificant. The time the author is noticing is probably related
to how long it takes for his _console_ to process the text.
~~~
happytoexplain
This is the first thing I noticed too.
>how does cat know to stop when head is finished
I'm no expert on Unix, so correct me if I'm wrong, but surely this line of
reasoning is misleading because pipes create a unidirectional data flow, so
`cat` _can not_ know anything about `head`. It does not "stop" \- it passes
the whole text along just as it did without the pipe. As you said, the delay
comes in printing to the console, not in the `cat` command.
~~~
kyuudou
This is a great example of Useless Use of cat and why it is bad - the full
text is indeed sent through the pipe simply for head to chop n initial lines.
I've actually had "developers" go "but, readability". Yea ok.
------
ur-whale
This article only shows basic usage of pipes (this is what they mean by "how
pipes works"), but doesn't explain at all "how pipe works" (as in: how are
they implemented).
~~~
userbinator
It's implemented as a buffer and some associated state. A process that writes
to the buffer can do so until it is full, at which point the thread is
suspended (blocked on the write() call) until it is not full. The read() side
is similar --- reads return successive data in the buffer unless it is empty,
at which point the read() call will block.
~~~
emmelaich
ur-whale probably knows that
------
no_gravity
I had a nice surprise and learning experience, when I discovered that the
output of
(echo red; echo green 1>&2) | echo blue
is indeterministic:
[http://www.gibney.de/the_output_of_linux_pipes_can_be_indete...](http://www.gibney.de/the_output_of_linux_pipes_can_be_indeter)
As it turns out, this short line and its behavior nicely demonstrate a bunch
of aspects that happen under the hood when you use a pipe.
------
pierremenard
See Section 1.2 this & 1.3 of the MIT Unix teaching OS for a great intro to
FDs and pipes: [https://pdos.csail.mit.edu/6.828/2019/xv6/book-riscv-
rev0.pd...](https://pdos.csail.mit.edu/6.828/2019/xv6/book-riscv-rev0.pdf)
------
ryanmccullagh
Here's something that you should remember about using pipes and fork(2) in
Python 3: By default, O_CLOEXEC is passed to the pipe(2) system from the
CPython runtime.
This means, that reading the read end of the side in the parent process after
you forked will not work. Thefore you should explicitly change fctl flags and
remove os.O_CLOEXEC:
fcntl.fcntl(readfd, fcntl.F_SETFL, fcntl.fcntl(readfd, fcntl.F_GETFL) & ~os.O_CLOEXEC)
------
kccqzy
My own rule of thumb of whether or not to ignore SIGPIPE is simple:
* If you only deal with file descriptors provided to you (stdin, stdout, stderr) as well as some files that you open (including special files like FIFOs), do not ignore SIGPIPE.
* If you deal with sophisticated file descriptors (socket(2) and pipe(2) count as sophisticated), you'd better ignore SIGPIPE, but also make sure to check for EPIPE in every single write.
In my view, SIGPIPE is a kludge so that programs that are too lazy to check
for errors from write(2) (and fwrite(3) and related friends) will not waste
resources. But if you are dealing with sophisticated file descriptors, there
is a lot more happening than just open/read/write and a lot more error cases
you must handle, and at that point the incremental cost of handling EPIPE
isn't a significant addition.
------
RoutinePlayer
My favorite sentence from Brian Kernighan's latest book "UNIX A History and a
Memoir": Pipes are the quintessential Unix invention, an elegant and efficient
way to use temporary connections of programs .. so I'll read this article :-)
------
ilammy
Another point where you have to ignore SIGPIPE is concurrent code that handles
multiple fds (say, like a web server). In this case you _have to_ ignore the
signal and process EPIPE correctly, because the signal is not associated with
a particular fd so you cannot tell which one of them failed.
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
How Apple has shaped the user interface - edu
https://www.punchkick.com/blog/2015/08/07/how-apple-has-shaped-the-user-interface?utm_source=designernews
======
vilmosi
Ugh, what garbage.
Apple invented/popularised windows, grid of icons and flat design apparently.
~~~
calciphus
They also invented circles, squares, watches, and rectangles.
Unfettered fanboyism at its finest.
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
ML Beyond Curve Fitting: An Intro to Causal Inference and Do-Calculus - dil8
http://www.inference.vc/untitled/
======
smallnamespace
Something to note about this formulation is the explicit assumption that in
p(y|do(x)), the 'do' operation is supposed to be completely independent of
prior observed variables, e.g. the doers are 'unmoved movers' [1].
That fits the model where you randomly 'do' one thing or another (e.g. blinded
testing); however this is _not_ the same thing as p(y|do'(x)), where do' is
your empirical observation of when you yourself have set X=x in a more natural
context.
E.g. let's say you will always turn on the heat when it's cold outside. P(cold
outside | do(turn on heat)) = P(cold outside), because turning on the heat
does not affect the temperature outdoors.
However, P(cold outside | do'(turned on heat)) > P(cold outside), because
empirically, you actually only _choose_ to turn on the heat when it's cold
outdoors.
These two are also different from P(cold outside | heat was turned on) (since
_someone else_ might have access to the thermostat).
In reality our choices and actions are also products of the initial states
(including our own beliefs, and our own knowledge of what would happen if we
did x). Our actions both move the world, but we are also moved by the world.
Does do-calculus have a careful treatment of 'mixed' scenarios where actions
are both causes _and_ effects of other causes?
[1]
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Unmoved_mover](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Unmoved_mover)
~~~
Darmani
You can write P(cold outside | do(turned on heat=X)), where X is another
random variable. So P(cold outside | do(turned in heat=X=1)) will be equal to
P(cold outside | do(turned on heat=1))P(X=1 | cold outside) = P(cold
outside)P(X=1 | cold outside).
But, you might want to consider making "turned on heat" part of the system in
this case, and go back to using the classic conditioning operator instead of
the do operator.
This is covered in chapter 4 of Pearl's Causality.
------
Darmani
For those trying to understand the difference between action and observation,
here's a good example from a friend:
Every bug you fix in your code increases your chances of shipping on time, but
provides evidence that you won't.
------
phkahler
I really enjoyed the humility the author had in the introduction to this
piece. He paused and took a hard look at what seemed to be harsh or arrogant
criticism of his field and found insight.
~~~
mlthoughts2018
Can you cite any parts of the article that support your view on this? I’ve
read it a few times now and don’t see any. The author describes glossing past
do-calculus before but for practical reasons, and doesn’t mention anything
about “harsh or arrogant criticism” — and in fact doesn’t make reference to
_fair_ criticisms, like Rubin’s & Gelman’s.
~~~
phkahler
>> Can you cite any parts of the article that support your view on this?
How about this: "In the interview, Pearl dismisses most of what we do in ML as
curve fitting. While I believe that's an overstatement (conveniently ignores
RL for example), it's a nice reminder that most productive debates are often
triggered by controversial or outright arrogant comments. Calling machine
learning alchemy was a great recent example."
When a person is dismissive of an entire field and claims to have a better
way, that often comes off as arrogant (even if it is true). My interpretation
is "harsh" while the author uses the word "overstatement". You'll also see
"arrogant" in there and that last line calling it "alchemy" really has to be
interpreted with negative connotations. Perhaps I read more into it than was
written, but that was the impression I got.
~~~
mlthoughts2018
Though the authors mentions that one comment of Pearl, all of the causal
inference / graphical model work takes the opposite stance.
The popular academic writing in that field claims _everyone else_ is being
arrogant. It’s not a statement that Pearl is arrogant for dismissing huge
chunks if ML, rather that since causal inference is such a cure-all, then
_everyone else_ is arrogant for not dropping everything to use it everywhere.
There’s no spirit i this article of saying, “boy it looked like a short-
sighted criticism of ML, but now that I look at it, the causal inference
people _are right_ after all, and ML people are wrong.”
It may try to disingenuously frame it that way, but this is not what they are
saying.
------
thadk
Here is a paper explaining the essentials of how 45+ years of Causal Inference
applies to ML:
[http://www.nber.org/chapters/c14009.pdf](http://www.nber.org/chapters/c14009.pdf)
In this podcast by the same author, it explains the potential of sharing
lessons from both worlds, if you're not in the mood for an academic paper:
[http://www.econtalk.org/archives/2016/09/susan_athey_on.html](http://www.econtalk.org/archives/2016/09/susan_athey_on.html)
~~~
mlthoughts2018
It's _very_ important to note that the term 'causal inference' in this
research paper is not the same thing as Pearl's causal inference techniques,
and in fact the main two statistics and econometrics researchers cited in your
linked article are Imbens and Rubin, two of the biggest critics of Pearl's
methods.
The linked paper mostly goes into instrumental variables and mixed effects
modeling for how classical econometrics has dealt with trying to understand
the causality of intentionally varying a treatment. And, despite citing Rubin
heavily, the paper doesn't go much into the Bayesian methods for solving
similar problems (hierarchical models), even though they are a state of the
art approach with modern computational MCMC techniques.
The last few sections do offer some interesting research citations for how
classical instrumental effects models have been morphed with advances in
machine learning, with things like causal trees.
But just look at one of the take away points of the survey, in section 5:
> "4\. No fundamental changes to theory of identification of causal effects"
Overall, the link you've shared would be strongly in favor of ML-extended
classical econometrics and possibly Bayesian hierarchical models or latent
variable approaches, but almost surely would be _against_ the notion that do-
calculus could lead to a wide-spread or real-world set of applicable models.
------
gowld
How does someone _use_ do-calculus? It's a nice mathematization of Goodhart's
law,
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Goodhart%27s_law](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Goodhart%27s_law)
but how would help an algorithm make better predictions?
Sure, the reason a person turns on the heat affects our belief in the outside
weather (were they feeling cold, or were they just trolling?), but how do you
_know_ the reason a person turned on the heat, and couldn't you learn which
reason are predictive by measuring correlations with other observables? If you
_know_ the reason directly ("I'm just playing with the dial because I'm 4
years old") that's a data point you could throw into your ML model _without_
explicitly knowing it's a _reason_.
~~~
sjg007
See [http://www.michaelnielsen.org/ddi/if-correlation-doesnt-
impl...](http://www.michaelnielsen.org/ddi/if-correlation-doesnt-imply-
causation-then-what-does/)
And
[https://www.statisticssolutions.com/structural-equation-
mode...](https://www.statisticssolutions.com/structural-equation-modeling/)
------
mlthoughts2018
I am interested in a companion phenomenon with the recent interest in causal
models in machine learning. Namely, the fact that at least in computer vision,
it is not new at all and has been an important idea for at least many decades.
One of the original sources that took this approach is "The Ecological
Approach to Visual Perception" (1979) [0], by James Gibson, discussed at
length the idea of "affordances" of an algorithmic model, similar in some
respects to topics in reinforcement learning as well. Affordances represented
the information about outcomes you gained by varying your degrees of
observational freedom (i.e. you learn how to generalize beyond occluded
objects by moving your head a little to the left or right and seeing how the
visual input varies. This lets you get food, or hide from a predator that's
partially blocked by a tree, etc., so over time generalizing past occlusions
become better and better -- this is much more interesting than a naive
approach, like using data augmentation to augment a labeled data set with
synthetically occluded variations, for example as is often done to improve
rotational invariance).
Then this idea was extended with a lot of formality in the mid-to-late 00's by
Stefano Soatto in his papers on "Actionable Information" [1].
I wish more effort had been made by e.g. Pearl to look into this and unify his
approach with what had already been thought of, especially because it turns me
off a lot when someone tries to create a "whole new paradigm" and it starts to
feel like they want to generate sexy marketing hype about it, rather than to
say hey, this is an extension or connection or alternative of this older idea
_already in the topic of machine learning_ rather than appearing like one is
saying, "Us over hear in causal inference world already know so much more
about what to do ... so now let's apply it to your domain where you never
thought of this". Pearl has a history of doing this stuff too, like with his
previous debates with Gelman about Bayesian models. It almost feels to me like
he is shopping around for some sexy application area where his one-upsmanship
approach will catch on too give him a chance at the hype gravy train or
something.
[0]: <
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/James_J._Gibson#Major_works](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/James_J._Gibson#Major_works)
>
[1]: <
[http://www.vision.cs.ucla.edu/papers/soatto09.pdf](http://www.vision.cs.ucla.edu/papers/soatto09.pdf)
>
~~~
joe_the_user
_I wish more effort had been made by e.g. Pearl to look into this and unify
his approach with what had already been thought of, especially because it
turns me off a lot when someone tries to create a "whole new paradigm" and it
starts to feel like they want to generate sexy marketing hype about it, rather
than to say hey, this is an extension or connection or alternative of this
older idea already in the topic of machine learning..._
I think you wind-up with a situation where the none of the less-than
mainstream of conceptions intelligence will have further parts added. Instead,
each becomes associated with a single individual's career. It's something of
the nature of academia, a situation that made sense when scientific models and
approaches were "small" enough to be fully encompassed by an individual.
But you have the problem models aren't naturally modular. Whether X model
extend Y model is something of a judgment call. What makes one like or not-
like another model is a matter of both the structure of the model and the
reasoning behind the model.
Moreover, consider ten programmers creating one computer program tend to
proportionately less productive than one programmer creating a program (ie,
they work much less than 10x as fast as a rule). Ten theorists putting
together one single theory may face a similar or greater problem of
diminishing return and coordination.
~~~
philipov
The development of Quantum Field Theory is a good example where >10 people all
collaborated to come up with a framework that integrated the viewpoints of
multiple theorists with radically different approaches, rather than every new
contributor forking a personalized version of the previous theory.
Consider, for example, the way Freeman Dyson combined the graphical approach
of Feynmann with Schwinger's more formal methods.
~~~
joe_the_user
_The development of Quantum Field Theory is a good example where >10 people
all collaborated to come up with a framework that integrated the viewpoints of
multiple theorists with radically different approaches, rather than every new
contributor forking a personalized version of the previous theory._
Sure, I hope I was clear that I don't ten theorist (or ten programmers)
collaborating is impossible. I would simply say that collaborating has an
extra cost to it - and a competitive academic world, any cost needs some
degree of payoff. This makes extending a mainstream theory advantageous but
not so much less-known theories.
And Quantum field theory had the advantage that the experiments for
demonstrating it's truth or falsehood were relatively straightforward. With
AI, the question of a theories truth is more debatable.
------
carapace
Worth mentioning, perhaps, that Cybernetics originated from the study of
"circular loops of causality", systems where e.g. A causes B, B causes C, and
in turn C causes A, etc...
------
thanatropism
This is really sexy.
------
offpolicy
Nothing to see here. The do-calculus is just fancy notation for what
reinforcement learning is already doing: trying different possible actions and
trying to maximize reward. If you know possible actions in advance, this is
basically minimizing regret of wrong policy actions.
~~~
Darmani
First, RL and causal inference do fundamentally different things. RL is trying
to train a controller; causal inference gives you a theory so that you can
predict the results of a randomized controlled experiment without running one.
Second, consider this: Classic ML techniques will tell you that you should
never go to the doctor because it increases the probability that you have a
disease. Causal inference does not have this problem.
How does RL dodge this?
~~~
Eridrus
Not an RL expert, but Model-Based RL is a thing, where you try to train a
model of how actions affect the world, and then use that model to
choose/influence your actions.
But I don't think it's true that we always need a model, or at least I don't
necessarily think we always need a human understandable model.
Your doctor example is weird to me tbh. A non-causal ML approach would seek to
determine whether a patient has a disease based on some symptoms, and then
send them to a doctor based on those results, sidestepping the need for causal
models.
To rephrase it in a way that makes a bit more sense to me is: let's assume we
want to know if a specific procedure would be good for a patient (basically
the same example). With a non-causal approach we would want to predict whether
a patient would have a better outcome from doing a procedure than not.
A natural way to solve this (to me) would be to build one model that estimates
the probability of various outcomes from the procedure, and one that estimates
the probability of various outcomes from not undergoing the procedure.
Or if you're working in the world of Neural Nets/Deep RL, have a model that
takes all the non-intervention data as input and outputs the expected outcomes
from the procedure and the expected outcomes from not doing the procedure, and
when you train it, you only supervise the outcomes that you had data for.
This ignores the Bayesian/Distributional Shift issue, but I don't think the do
calculus has a real answer to that either.
I would be interested in knowing if this ad-hoc modelling approach is any
different to the causal modelling the Pearl is arguing for, or if Causal
modelling is more necessary when you have more complicated causal
relationships than a single intervention.
~~~
Darmani
> A non-causal ML approach would seek to determine whether a patient has a
> disease based on some symptoms, and then send them to a doctor based on
> those results, sidestepping the need for causal models.
I saw an ML presentation a few months ago, on training a decision tree to do
the same thing as a neural net, so we can understand what the neural net was
doing.
They used this on a neural net trying to diagnose people with diabetes. It
showed that having any other diagnosis would increase its probability of
diagnosing them with diabetes. Why? Because it meant they're more likely to
have gone to the doctor to get diagnosed. (Along with detecting general health
indicators that weren't screened out.)
You can try to partition your data into intervention/non-intervention, or do
something else to try to stop your model from detecting spurious correlations.
Causal models makes this more formal and tells you which things you should
include/exclude, gives you formulas for adjusting them out, and how much bias
you introduce by failing to do so.
The theory of causal inference is also immune to distributional shift, and
serves as a nice guidance for what actual systems should do (usually: failing
to return an answer).
(Yes, I've fully drunk the Pearl Kool-Ade.)
~~~
Eridrus
Thanks for the example, it does motivate it a bit better when there are more
complicated (but still relatively simple) causal relationships.
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Do you care about animals? Then you really shouldn't eat octopus - prawn
http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2016/may/26/do-you-care-about-animals-then-you-really-shouldnt-eat-octopus
======
Alexey_Nigin
A potato has 2 more chromosomes than I do. Does it mean that I shouldn't eat
potatoes?
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Cactus (Crowdsourced Decisions; Beta) - darweshsingh
http://cactustheapp.com
======
darweshsingh
Hey guys: I'm working on an app (will enter beta very soon) that lets users
post polls and vote on them. Atm it's a bit rudimentary (UI will change, push
notifications will be added, gamification features upcoming, etc.), but I'd
love to get it out to you bunch asap and see what happens. The link above will
let you look at the app and register for the beta.
Note: I'm planning _two_ sweepstakes. If you register now, you'll be entered
into a sweepstakes, and if you happen to register later on, you'll be entered
into a sweepstakes with a smaller prize. So, register now! Feedback is
welcome. Thanks again!
~~~
nikolay
I see a blank screen.
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Ask HN: if DNA is the code, are proteins the processes? - niels_olson
I'm a physician, teaching myself python (hat tips to LPTHW, Codecademy, and Lutz). If DNA is the code. I'm guessing RNA is ... like the front-side bus and proteins are the running processes? Does that sound about right?
======
vaxdigitalnh
What is the computer? The cell?
Python code is not DNA.
Even to say binary is DNA seems a stretch, and of course it's quaternary.
With cells, there is no single "front-side bus". There is Brownian motion,
geometry (e.g. at the level of DNA, A,T,C and G each have their own geometry),
collisions and a poorly understood process of geometrical "recognition". We
know how to build circuits and registers and construct computers from them,
but we don't understand how RNA builds up a cell from scratch. We can only
speculate that RNA can do this... the origin of life.
Perhaps Python would be a protein, but certainly not one that is required for
the cell to function. Some interesting exogenous protein perhaps. If you want
to control the essential "cellular proteins", the basic machinery of the cell,
e.g. the enzymes you allude to, then you need to learn assembly. Python, like
an exogenous protein, only acts to influence the machinery of the cell,
including the proteins within the cell: in the case of the computer, circuits,
registers and an assembly language.
Processes could be analagous cellular processes, i.e. what the proteins may
take part in, their various roles in the biochemical reactions that drive the
cell. Proteins are not the running processes, they are running the processes.
I think, with respect to coding, more important than the accuracy of the
metaphor is simply the skill of being able to think abstractly and derive
metaphors. So just the exercise of trying to come up with a comparison is
something a programmer would instinctually do.
All of our attempted comparisons are likely flawed in numerous ways. But it's
the exercise of making them that makes them worthwhile.
Good luck.
------
RiderOfGiraffes
Why should there be any direct analog between "things" in the cell and
"things" in computing? Perhaps there is no real mapping between the two that
either makes sense, or is in any way useful.
Not to stop you from trying to find connections, but you seem to be certain
that there must be, and I was wondering why.
~~~
niels_olson
Well, the deeper you get into cell bio, it's a huge amount of protein A
phosphorylates protein B phosphorylates protein C, cleaves protein D into D1
and D2, D2 phosphorylates ...
And it seems like there are some pretty basic verbs. I'm just playing around
with it all in my head, thought I'd ask the question.
------
31reasons
The DNA is definitely the code but I think proteins are code,data and the
processor itself depending upon what role its playing in the cell. At
molecular level protein structures can affect creation or destruction of other
protein structures, they also act as logic-gates. So proteins are clearly part
of the cell hardware that regulates the cell. They also act as messages and
if-else control logic (its also called GNR, Gene Regulatory Network) to read
different DNA chunks based on certain conditions, so in that way they are part
of the code. So I think DNA is the code on the disk-drive but proteins is "in
memory" code,data and the hardware itself.
------
dear
DNA is the class. Proteins are the instantiations.
------
Mz
I don't really program. I know a little html and css. But I am guessing you
mean the folded proteins that the cell creates as tools? I am not sure that
most programmers necessarily know the direct connection between genes and
"proteins". I would think most people here view "protein" as a nutritious part
of their hamburger or building blocks for their own muscles. I only know that
"protein" can equal "important cellular process mechanism" because of my
genetic disorder, which miscodes a protein which handles traffic of specific
molecules into and out of the cell. I think even people with genetic disorders
frequently poorly understand that connection, though, as I understand, the
malfunction caused by most disorders is rooted in a missing or defective
protein. I happen to have thought a lot about the way my miscoded genes impact
cell function. That isn't the way most people frame things. So I think
relatively few people will see a connection between "protein" and "process".
So I will suggest that you might need to expand a little on the biological
half of your metaphor here before you get much useful feedback.
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Show HN: Startup Tools List - Procrastes
https://github.com/BrightCanopy/startup-tools
======
Procrastes
OP here. Nothing to promote, just replacing my bookmarks with a collaborative
list, so I can share what I run across and learn about new tools or services
from other people.
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Ask HN: Managing Translated Texts - glun
We have come to the conclusion that we need a separate program to manage the lifecycle of the translated texts that appear in our software. We're looking for features such as the following:<p>* The ability to query for all texts that lack translation in a given language.
* The ability to bulk export/import texts/translations so that an external translation specialist can work with them.
* For each text we would like to track its source. Was it written by a programmer, a business specialist or an external translation specialist?
* The ability to query for translations that are outdated (i.e. the default English text has changed since the translation was made).
* Both a gui (so that non-programmers can work with it) and an api (so that the build pipeline can interact with it).<p>We're considering building it ourselves as it's a fairly simple program. However, we already have so many other things we would like to work on so we would prefer to purchase existing software if we find any that works well. We're also open to the possibility that we might be approaching the problem in the wrong way.<p>Do you have any experience with software like this? How do you manage your translations?
======
sujato
We've been working on a translation system that handles some of these things.
It's a CAT front-end for translators, with tests stored as plain JSON on
Github. The idea is to leverage git's version control and other features as
much as possible. Our use case is translating texts (Buddhist scriptures), but
we also use it for UI. The software is just coming together, so check it out,
[https://github.com/suttacentral/bilara](https://github.com/suttacentral/bilara)
\- _The ability to query for all texts that lack translation in a given
language._ No. Our project has a very large number of texts, so everything is
assumed incomplete. Would it be possible track this via Github, I wonder?
\- _The ability to bulk export /import texts/translations so that an external
translation specialist can work with them._ Sure, just pull from Github.
\- _For each text we would like to track its source. Was it written by a
programmer, a business specialist or an external translation specialist?_
Every translation edit records the Github user.
\- _The ability to query for translations that are outdated (i.e. the default
English text has changed since the translation was made)._ No, but that would
be awesome. Ideally the translator would be notified. It shouldn't be hard to
do this using Github notifications.
\- _Both a gui (so that non-programmers can work with it) and an api (so that
the build pipeline can interact with it)._ We have a front end GUI built with
LitElement, and ArangoDB for search and translation memory. For the back end,
apps consume the JSON data, there's no formal API yet.
In addition:
\- You can hook anything you like off the translation segments: notes,
variants, markup, etc.
\- It has a publication model so the translator and site manager can publish
any text or keep them as drafts.
------
yorwba
[https://www.transifex.com/](https://www.transifex.com/)
Query for all texts that lack a translation: this is the default behavior in
the translation interface.
Bulk export/import: there's an API and a CLI client for it. You can also make
it automatically pull new strings to translate from a git repo. (Not sure
whether it has to be public, in our case it is.)
Track the source: for changes made through the web UI, this happens
automatically. If you use the API, changes will be attributed to the account
associated with the API key.
Query outdated translations: those are treated as untranslated. But if the
change in the source text was small, you'll get the old translation as a
suggestion and can adapt it.
Downsides: not open source, free plan has limitations (but it's enough for our
project), some questionable UI choices (I recently had to explain to someone
how to join the translation team for an additional language, because the link
is extremely tiny)
~~~
glun
Looks like it might be roughly what we need. I’m going to dig a little deeper.
Thank you.
------
vicjicama
I am using google spreadsheets to generate localized sites at www.pagews.com
(The sheets for the site translations are public if you want to check an
example)
The service convert the sheets to JSON and use them on the generated site
content, I detect changes based on the hash for the cell and then the JSONs
are published and versioned.
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Ask HN: Are you wearing computer glasses? - ecaron
I'd love to know if the HN community is wearing those yellow-tinted glasses (discussed on places like http://lifehacker.com/5980509/do-computer-glasses-really-work), or if they're just a gimmick/subject to the same suspicion at copper bracelets...<p>I'm seeing more of them around the office and local hackathons, but my primary thoughts lean towards thinking they're an unproven fad.
======
gt565k
I use the Gunnar Optiks (mentioned in the lifehacker link). They do seem to
make my eyes less strained at the end of the day. I had this issue where I
would work on the computer all day, and when I got home, I didn't even want to
look at a computer screen because my eyes were so tired. Since I've been using
the Gunnars, I've noticed I don't have that issue.
I think it definitely makes a difference, but you can also achieve a similar
effect by using f.lux ([https://justgetflux.com/](https://justgetflux.com/)).
Although, I found f.lux to be a big buggy at times, especially with a multiple
monitors setup.
~~~
ecaron
I've waxed and waned about using f.lux (actually
[http://jonls.dk/redshift/](http://jonls.dk/redshift/) because
f.lux+linux=painful.) I think my biggest problem with it is my office's
fluorescent lighting isn't within my control to turn-off/change, so the stark
contrast between a screen-gone-red and the screaming white light causes my
screen to feel silly.
If I had the luxury of working exclusively in a officespace without
fluorescent lighting, I think I could be 100% on f.lux
~~~
djb_hackernews
I suffer pretty badly from eye fatigue due to computer use and in scenarios
where there is overhead florescent lighting I'll go ahead and twist the bulbs
so they turn off and then get a small desk lamp for when I need light (I
prefer darker settings). Not sure if that is an option, but it's worked for
me.
------
NeutronBoy
Not the glasses, but I use f.lux, which has the same effect. It's great, and
makes a noticeable difference to eyestrain
------
mlwarren
I have a pair of Gamma Rays and a pair of Gunnars. Both seem to help my eyes
fatigue wise. I originally bought them and used them to see if my sleep would
be less affected from the computer screen, but I don't think they've helped in
that regard.
I've used flux in the past but I find I like the glasses more.
If you want to try some out I'd suggest starting with Gamma Ray, they're
significantly cheaper than Gunnar. Some are as low as 12-15 dollars.
[http://www.amazon.com/GAMMA-ESSENTIALS-Computer-Glasses-
Harm...](http://www.amazon.com/GAMMA-ESSENTIALS-Computer-Glasses-
Harmful/dp/B00G04OLS2/ref=sr_1_5?ie=UTF8&qid=1424279320&sr=8-5&keywords=computer+glasses)
------
SamReidHughes
Sometimes I use reading glasses when using a 12"-screened laptop. It makes it
like you're sitting farther away from a 14" laptop, taking up the same solid
angle of your view.
Yellow-tinted glasses do the same thing as what you get if you use f.lux or
redshift. It's probably better to use that, because you don't have to have
glasses on your face.
------
kevinrpope
I wear Gunnars and think they're great. My eye strain was so bad I couldn't
use a computer for more than about 10 minutes at a time, but now can go
several hours before needing a break, and I recover faster as well. If you
don't have severe eye strain the Gunnars may end up being a bit pricey. YMMV.
------
ljk
This is what I use: [https://justgetflux.com/](https://justgetflux.com/)
It changes the color at night gradually and helps with eye strain
------
oaf357
I have considered wearing glasses but couldn't justify the cost and I've never
met anyone that swore by them.
~~~
sixQuarks
I swear by them. Before, I couldn't use the computer for more than an hour or
two without severe eye strain. Now I can be online for 12 hours, no problem.
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Obama Administration Announces Massive Piracy Crackdown - jayro
http://www.dailytech.com/Obama+Administration+Announces+Massive+Piracy+Crackdown/article18815.htm
======
byoung2
_"It's smash and grab, no different than a guy walking down Fifth Avenue and
smashing the window at Tiffany's and reaching in and grabbing what's in the
window."_
Except that it's not...stealing jewels from a store deprives the original
owner of physical property. Downloading torrent of the latest Jay-Z album
(that I would never have bought anyway) doesn't take any "ice" off of Jay-Z's
wrists. The former is theft, the latter is copyright infringement.
As the article mentions, piracy may actually help the economy. If I download
that Jay-Z album and tell 3 friends how great it is, they may actually buy it,
or even better, buy some concert tickets to see Jay-Z in concert (where he
makes more money from merchandise sales).
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Stravinsky’s “Illegal” Arrangement of “The Star Spangled Banner” (2015) - wrongc0ntinent
http://www.openculture.com/2015/07/stravinskys-illegal-arrangement-of-the-star-spangled-banner-1944.html
======
rurban
I want to bring this comment to the articles author and readers attention.
> Terry Vosbein says: July 5, 2015 at 12:40 pm
> I made a comment here yesterday, and its disappearance is disturbing. I
> wrote that I liked the arrangement by Stravinsky, but that the author had
> misused the term “dominant seventh chord.” Today I find my comment erased,
> the article re-written, and the new version just as incorrect.
> The original version of the Star Spangled Banner utilized dominant seventh
> chords. In fact. most tonal music from Bach on forward utilizes dominant
> seventh chords. A lot of them.
> It is true that Stravinsky’s “sin” was to muck with the harmonies. But the
> description as it stands is pretty meaningless. He did not add a dominant
> seventh chord. He re-hamonized a few chords with tonal, yet not traditional,
> chords. They may be a bit startling to one used to the original harmonies,
> but I assure you, the inclusion of a dominant seventh chord is not the
> reason why. \---
In my ears Stravinsky's version is much clearer and richer than the simplier
original version. The original is like a pop song for kids, the improved
version does not fulfill all cadences immediately, he leaves them open, as in
most better arrangements. E.g. hear the last notes of the trombone.
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Break Up the Liberal City - bootload
https://www.nytimes.com/2017/03/25/opinion/sunday/break-up-the-liberal-city.html?_r=0
======
bootload
Interesting response by Noah Smith
[https://twitter.com/Noahpinion/status/846057873721372673](https://twitter.com/Noahpinion/status/846057873721372673)
and comparison "The High-Res Society":
[http://www.paulgraham.com/highres.html](http://www.paulgraham.com/highres.html)
------
detaro
see also:
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13962650](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13962650)
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Electoral map over population density - weinzierl
http://i.imgur.com/gPoFk.jpg
======
weinzierl
Creator is <http://www.reddit.com/user/Felicia_Svilling>, unfortunately there
is only an imgur link to this.
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
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