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Show HN: Dumbass – UI Made Simple - highlysyntropic
https://github.com/dosyago/dumbass.git
======
Meph504
The ever immature concept of using something edgie as a name, that will likely
result in you having to change it, or never getting broad adoption.
~~~
carapace
"Dolt" [https://www.dolthub.com](https://www.dolthub.com)
"Gun" [https://gun.js.org](https://gun.js.org) (Bonus points for gun-shaped
logo.)
~~~
Meph504
I mean, do you really think "Gun" or "dolt" are on the same par as Dumbass?
I mean is dumbass will likely be filtered by 90% of content filters, the other
two would not.
~~~
highlysyntropic
Hello Meph, I don't really want to change the name but I am open if you have
any awesome suggestions.
I think there's truth in what you say, and other comments saying this limits
the usage. previous iteration of this same framework was called brutal and end
up getting 500 Stars.
recently I had this idea to name things after flowers. I think it's underused
and there's a lot of great flower names. chrysanthemum rhododendron. just an
idea. maybe you got some cool name for this I love to hear it.
~~~
im_dario
In the same vibe, maybe Dumbbell could work. Also, it relates to the "brutal"
concept in some way ;)
~~~
highlysyntropic
Nice. Didn't think of that. Good logo as well :)
------
gaze
This may be a good idea but the schtick is tiresome
------
flowerlad
If you are willing to use JSX you can be even more dumbass, with an even
smaller lib, and you'll get compile-time checks for HTML tags to boot. Check
out this lib:
[https://github.com/wisercoder/uibuilder](https://github.com/wisercoder/uibuilder)
------
simplify
Instead of a JS-centric approach, how about an even simpler, HTML-centric
approach with Apline.js? :)
~~~
gridlockd
This HTML-but-not-really kind of approach makes everything more complicated,
not simpler.
------
SimianLogic2
This seems massively less "dumb" and "debuggable" than say, templated HTML
that's rendered on the server (erb, blade, whatever).
I get that it's trying to be "dumb components" but maybe that's an invalid
starting point?
------
Meph504
Iim not great at naming things, but avoiding anything that will get you
blocked by content sensors, or something you cant use in a board meeting.
Off the top of my head though Nematode would be my suggestion
------
newsbinator
This reminds me of Reef:
[https://github.com/cferdinandi/reef](https://github.com/cferdinandi/reef)
------
leetrout
I like it! I’d argue TypeScript over JS as adoption gets broader (and/or
toolchains simpler)
------
revskill
It sounds easy but not simple to me to refactor on the TodoMVC code.
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Command line one-liners - iamtechaddict
http://arturoherrero.com/2013/11/29/command-line-one-liners/
======
phaer
Maybe I am getting old and elitist, sorry if so. But it seems like those 'one-
liners' are mostly stuff you could find in the man page of your favorite shell
or in any introduction to Unix. There's nothing wrong with a presentation
about it, but there were a lot of those on HN lately and maybe a structured
manual for your shell and operating system might be a better way to learn such
things.
~~~
yukkurishite
Agreed, this presentation seems to be more of a 'shell 101' than anything else
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
WebGPU demos - tilt
https://webkit.org/demos/webgpu/
======
blauditore
Note this is not about WebGL, but about WebGPU by Apple, claiming it
"generally offers better performance" than OpenGL/WebGL.
I'm not an expert in this area, but isn't it a bad idea to introduce another
standard if there's already WebGL with great cross-browser and -platform
support? It reminds me of what people have been raging about towards Microsoft
for years...
~~~
flohofwoe
Apple's WebGPU is just one of 3 proposals (from Mozilla, Google and Apple) of
what the WebGL successor will look like. WebGPU is (more or less) a mapping of
the Metal 3D API to the web, but the final standard API will have to be a
common subset of Vulkan, D3D12 and Metal with a common shading language.
The WebGL programming model has a lot of shortcoming from a modern point of
view, see here: [http://floooh.github.io/2016/08/13/webgl-
next.html](http://floooh.github.io/2016/08/13/webgl-next.html) (you can mostly
ignore my criticism of adopting Vulkan for the web, the Mozilla proposal
(called Obsidian) is pretty close to Vulkan, and doesn't look as bad as I
feared when I wrote that blog post).
~~~
kuschku
> a common subset of Vulkan, D3D12 and Metal with a common shading language.
So, Vulkan? This is literally what Vulkan exists for, and does – a shading
language and API implemented by all vendors.
~~~
flohofwoe
Vulkan is only available on Win32, Linux and Android though. The reality is
that there is no standard low-level 3D-API. I don't see this as a problem
though, the complexity of Vulkan shows that it is very hard to create a one-
size-fits-all 3D API, competition is good and Metal shows that it is possible
to create a balanced 3D-API which combines modern features with ease of use.
~~~
pjmlp
Regarding Windows, Vulkan is only available on the desktop.
UWP only allows for DirectX.
And it is an optional 3D API on Android, starting with version 7.0. Which
makes it pretty useless when targeting the majority of Android market, given
the whole upgrade story.
------
jsheard
Is Apples WebGPU proposal still being actively developed? I haven't seen any
signs of life since the initial reveal nearly a year ago, or from Mozilla's
Obsidian proposal for that matter.
At least from an outsider's perspective, the only active proposal for a WebGL
successor seems to be Googles NXT: [https://github.com/google/nxt-
standalone](https://github.com/google/nxt-standalone)
~~~
markdog12
Perhaps this is Mozilla's implementation?
[https://github.com/kvark/webgpu-servo](https://github.com/kvark/webgpu-servo)
~~~
GlitchEnzo
No, Mozilla's is Obsidian: [https://github.com/KhronosGroup/WebGLNext-
Proposals/tree/mas...](https://github.com/KhronosGroup/WebGLNext-
Proposals/tree/master/Obsidian-Mozilla)
~~~
haxiomic
Obsidian ultimately became WebGPU in servo (the op's link)
–[https://github.com/KhronosGroup/WebGLNext-
Proposals/pull/11#...](https://github.com/KhronosGroup/WebGLNext-
Proposals/pull/11#issuecomment-346517188)
------
mxfh
Would rather see something like WebCL back in development for general purpose
GPU computation, most importantly deep learning, on the web, then the Xth
attempt on superseeding WebGL. Funneling things through WebGL just doesn't
feel right, where proper OES_texture_float support is also not guaranteed.
[https://www.khronos.org/webcl/](https://www.khronos.org/webcl/)
~~~
fulafel
Apparently WebCL was blocked by Apple who refused to let their OpenCL patents
be used: [https://www.khronos.org/files/ip-disclosures/webcl/Apple-
Web...](https://www.khronos.org/files/ip-disclosures/webcl/Apple-WebCL-
Disclosure-Jan14_clean.pdf) ("Apple does not agree to make available .. for
any WebCL Specifications")
------
acoye
I peeked at the source code of the shaders, it looks like it is metal for the
web. I don't get how a closed API like metal could be the future of an open
internet. Yet it can start a discussion.
~~~
Jare
It's meant to be a starting point:
"We expect the discussions around the shading language to be one of the most
fun parts of the standardization process, and look forward to hearing
community opinions.
For our WebGPU prototype, we decided to defer the issue and just accept an
existing language for now. Since we were building on Apple platforms we picked
the Metal Shading Language."
~~~
striking
As someone who likes developing OpenGL apps in his spare time, that handwaving
actually bothered me. Of course Apple's going to pick Metal's shader language,
they don't fully support anything else! They're still on OpenGL 4.1 in their
drivers, even though those GPUs support GL 4.5, in what seems to be an effort
to move graphics devs to supporting Metal. I have no idea why anyone would let
them near an open graphics spec discussion after such a stunt.
~~~
pjmlp
Just like Sony, Nintendo and Microsoft.
Apple had their own 3D API in the old days, Quickdraw 3D.
They only played nice with OpenGL, because of NeXT acquisition, NeXTSTEP had
Renderman and OpenGL, and they needed to bring developers into their eco-
system to avoid closing doors.
Now the bank is full and with graphics middleware, a 3D API is just another
interface implementation for the scene graph rendering calls, that are
actually used.
Metal is already supported by the majority of engines that matter in the
industry, with Qt in the process of adopting configurable backends as well.
------
okket
Previous discussion from 9 months ago:
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14100783](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14100783)
(34 comments)
------
sgt
This is amazing - I've never run any kind of demos like this before in a
browser (i.e. WebGL) that didn't immediately spin up all fans with 100%+ CPU
usage for the browser. I ran the Shadertoy on a 4k monitor in full screen mode
and CPU (as well as energy usage) was minimal, if noticable at all on my
MacBook Pro. (Edited: Which means it's using the GPU only... that's the whole
point here.)
~~~
jsheard
There shouldn't really be any performance difference between WebGL and WebGPU
in a ShaderToy-like example, given that only requires a single draw-call per
frame. The API overhead should be utterly negligible in that case.
If WebGPU really does perform better in an apples-to-apples comparison (i.e.
running the same shader) then there's something seriously wrong with Apples
WebGL implementation.
edit: here's that example translated verbatim to WebGL if you want to compare:
[https://www.shadertoy.com/view/Mt2fRy](https://www.shadertoy.com/view/Mt2fRy)
~~~
pjmlp
While you are right, for me WebGL is nothing more than just for prototyping
purposes, in what concerns mobile devices.
Most of the WebGL demos that get posted around here, always have issues
running on my mid-range devices, that don't have any issues playing my
collection of 3D games.
So I still look forward to a 3D Web API that can actually compete with native
3D across all mobile devices, not only on flagship ones.
Or proper implementations of WebGL, if that is actually the issue.
~~~
jsheard
I'll just refer back to the last time you replied to me with that exact
comment :P
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16086537](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16086537)
I suspect that Three.js is the main reason why so many WebGL demos are slow,
rather than WebGL itself.
~~~
pjmlp
Hehe, didn't notice the username. :)
Might be, but what counts is the perception when someone goes to a given web
page.
EDIT: Just tried your shader toy example on an LG Power X, with a Mali T720,
it averages on 20FPS.
------
markdog12
Would love to see some kind of status update on WebGPU from any of the
participants. Is this the latest?
[https://lists.w3.org/Archives/Public/public-
gpu/2017Sep/0015...](https://lists.w3.org/Archives/Public/public-
gpu/2017Sep/0015.html)
~~~
kvark
I wouldn't say that we've crossed any significant milestone since Chicago F2F.
There's been progress on the implementations, but conceptually the main
questions about the API are still open.
------
pier25
But why?
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
If Sir Tim Berners-Lee had his time again he'd probably leave // out. - nopassrecover
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/magazine/8306515.stm
======
nopassrecover
He has also said he'd leave out the colon.
I thought the whole point was to distinguish the protocol from the path. I
can't believe the BBC article completely misses that forward slashes are used
for paths in Unix (and acceptable in most other OSes instead of back slashes).
See: <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Path_%28computing%29>
------
RiderOfGiraffes
See also: <http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=881278>
<http://searchyc.com/berners?sort=by_date>
~~~
nopassrecover
Ah thanks :-)
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Readernaut Launched, Gorgeous book sharing site. - forsaken
http://readernaut.com
======
pclark
you're joking. This website _redirects_ to the signup page. Bizarrely, its far
more than a signup page.
Why did you design it this way? It isn't a bad thing - slightly odd. I was
tempted to close the window when I saw the URL. Glad I didn't.
Really gorgeous interface. I've signed up -- _peterc_
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Ask HN: Would you buy/sell encrypted dataset for machine learning? - bartolomej
Hi, would you buy or sell quality datasets to teach your AI on? The thing is that the data and model would be encrypted, so both would stay hiden from the other parties. What pros/cons do you see in such approach? Thanks, TB
======
verdverm
Encryption does not equal privacy. Some amount of metadata would be required
to know if the data is the type of data we want to make a model for. How would
data cleaning or feature selection work?
~~~
bartolomej
Thank you for remark! I was thinking about this as a problem too. That needs
to be addressed. I can imagine that some metadata would be public. Keeping it
simple, basic stats of dataset, number of items in the category, names of
categories. But the dataset would still not leak sensitive information about
the exact data ( like the identities of people ) so they could not be misused
or stolen.
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Let's Make Software Great Again by Nadia Eghbal - mxstbr
http://www.slideshare.net/NadiaEghbal/lets-make-software-great-again-18f-talk
======
tdeck
Is there a video I'm missing somewhere? Paging through these slides, they're
mostly prompts for the presentation (a good thing!), but I think I'd enjoy the
talk more.
~~~
aidanfeldman
Will post here and tweet from
[https://twitter.com/18F](https://twitter.com/18F) once it's up.
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Moodle: Official Music Video - Thr4wn
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fCQtwZuqChc
======
Thr4wn
This is a video project for a Taylor University COS class by David Perkins
(transfered from Full Sail University). So far, only the CSE department here
uses Moodle (by lead of Dr. Cramer and Dr. Toll), but hopefully we can switch
the whole campus over soon :).
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Paraplegics learn to walk after years with the help of VR and exoskeletons - ENadyr
http://qz.com/757516/paraplegics-are-learning-to-walk-again-with-virtual-reality/
======
afarrell
I wonder how expensive it would be to build a patch that someone who suffered
from excessive tension in a certain muscle could stick on, say, their lower
back which would detect the level of tension. Then, using a bluetooth
connection and an iPhone game, they could train themselves to become better at
consciously relaxing that muscle.
~~~
dmxt
Doesn't bluetooth have delay that would be nuisance to walking?
~~~
alexwilde
Bluetooth 4.0 maxes out at around 25Mbps. Bluetooth 5.0 is supposed to double
that speed. As far as latency, that should depend on how far away the devices
are from each other and how quick the movement is from device to device. You
would encounter the same issues with wifi, but 802.11 ac allows for 500Mbps
for a single link and up to 1Gbps for multiple links.
------
jobigoud
The bit about regaining bladder and bowel control is particularly interesting
as this wasn't part of the thing the exoskeleton would have simulated.
~~~
ENadyr
Yeah, the resiliency of the organic body is impressive. I would hazard a guess
that similar therapy for stroke rehabilitation could be even more effective if
one were able to actuate the hand like researchers in the OP have done with
the legs. So far I've only seen therapy that is essentially VR equivalent of
mirror box therapy
[https://www.researchgate.net/publication/278157406_Reinforce...](https://www.researchgate.net/publication/278157406_Reinforcement-
Induced_Movement_Therapy_A_novel_approach_for_overcoming_learned_non-
use_in_chronic_stroke_patients) I think I'm going to put an OpenEEG setup
together...
------
Mz
Previously:
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12270477](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12270477)
~~~
ENadyr
Ah, sorry for the double post, didn't see it originally!
~~~
Mz
No big. Just more evidence that luck and timing are huge factors as to what
hits the front page.
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Phil Schiller on App Store Upgrade Pricing, Echo-Like Devices, Swift - heisenbit
http://gadgets.ndtv.com/apps/features/phil-schiller-upgrade-pricing-google-home-amazon-echo-swift-1690180
======
heisenbit
Upgrade pricing and/or subscriptions would make a huge difference to the app
store. Particularly to the Mac app store where there is not an infinite number
of customers.
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Elvish – An experimental Unix shell in Go - networked
https://github.com/xiaq/elvish
======
xiaq
Author here. Wow, I completely didn't expect this to hit HN this early. I did
a talk at FUDCON Beijing 2014 (slides: [http://go-
talks.appspot.com/github.com/xiaq/elvish-fudcon201...](http://go-
talks.appspot.com/github.com/xiaq/elvish-fudcon2014/elvish.slide)) and warned
that "this might eat your ~, so don't post this on HN yet". My original plan
was to only post this HN when it's usable, and by "usable" I mean I use it as
my login shell on my laptop. (My login shell is still /bin/zsh for now.) But
apparently someone else just came across it on the Internet and I should have
put up this warning in the README. :)
I'm on the go now, and will come back to add more details and try to respond
to questions here.
~~~
tinco
In one example you pipe a list through some functions, does every function
parse the list from a string or is there some protocolly side channel action
going on for the typing?
You said you had read about powershell, would be interesting to know if you
plan on doing something with datastructures as well as that is its power
feature :)
------
comex
Huh, wow. I was recently thinking about and prototyping a shell seemingly very
similar to this. Explicit goals I have in common include:
\- Focus on the lispy parts of sh - prefix functions everywhere and a simple,
regular syntax. Not that anything with FD redirections as a primitive can get
anywhere near S-expressions' simplicity, but shell is naturally more regular
than most programming languages (even if bash goes out of its way to be
complex).
\- Be a real programming language that doesn't make you reach for awk or perl
(separate, incompatible environments) to do moderately complex things sanely.
\- Emphasize using pipelines rather than 'backwards' function application to
naturally string together operations.
\- Emphasize lambdas.
\- Typed (i.e. non-string) pipes.
\- Syntax highlighting.
\- Nonzero-exit modeled as exceptions. (I think elvish is doing this, but I
haven't reviewed the code in detail.)
Things I want but don't see in the readme include:
\- A story for passing typed data around between processes (potentially in
different languages) rather than just builtins. I'm not sure exactly what the
story should be, but it should exist.
\- A somewhat more succinct syntax, with metaprogramming kept in mind.
\- A JIT, eventually.
There seems to be a lot more in the first category than the second... give up?
But elvish isn't anywhere near done, and I want to do things all my own way
for once. I'll keep going, and post my project on HN if it gets anywhere. :)
But to the OP, congratulations on elvish. Hope it gets finished and seriously
takes off.
~~~
Dewie
I think the points about types are really interesting. It sounds like a worthy
project for that alone.
Does there exist anything like 'type protocols' across languages? Would it be
feasible?
~~~
comex
Well, there's JSON and variants. Probably a lot simpler than what you had in
mind, but if Unix pipes were based on JSON (and had a suitable shell language
to work with it), that would already make many tasks easier, like
\- Grep the output of ps, without having to count column numbers or do special
work to preserve the header line after filtering.
\- Search for files matching some conditions, without remembering the weird
and unique syntax of find(1) - instead you would write something vaguely along
the lines of
ls | filt {< $1.size 500} {eq $1.type file}
where the stuff after the pipe is the shell language, so theoretically more
memorable than
find -size -500c -type f -maxdepth 1
As a bonus, if you want to cache the output for multiple searches rather than
going through the the kernel every time (OS X find is rather slow on huge
source trees), you can save the output of ls to a file and keep the rest the
same. Good luck doing that with find.
\- Handle filenames with spaces and newlines without issues. Simple, but
newlines at least are near impossible to solve in the standard shell
environment - only a few select tools support null-separated lists. Spaces are
easier... unless you want such extravagances as multiple filename columns in a
table.
Of course it's not that simple: structured data can sometimes be hard to work
with and formatting for display is an issue; Unix's "everything should be
plain text" philosophy didn't come out of nowhere.
But I honestly believe that it's time to reexamine that tenet.
~~~
Dewie
Let's take a concrete example: Say you have a programming language L that has
a parser that is implemented in lang. A, and an interpreter implemented in
lang. B. Now if you want the interpreter (in B) to interpret the program, you
need some structured data to come from the parser (in A). Abstract syntax
trees (ASTs) are the usual conceptual tool for this. Now assume that the
parser outputs an AST that is described by something, like for example an
algebraic data type (ADT). Assume that the structure of the ADT conforms to
some type protocol. Now the interpreter can implement the ADT in its language
(B) and thereby take the ADT directly as input. Now you can use a "typed
pipeline" to easily combine these two programs:
> parser directory/file.lang | interpreter
Does this make sense? Would it have some utility?
------
heavenlyhash
Tangentially related: readers interested in alternatives to bash might be
interested in a golang library called Gosh that provides shell-ish dsl, which
you can see an example of here: [1].
Author here; I use it regularly to replace bash scripts in system glue code --
using golang channels to pipe data between shell commands is awesome. It's
heavily (heavily!) inspired by amoffat's "sh" library [2] which lets one call
any shell program as if it were a function.
But, Gosh exists to scratch some itches as a shell scripting alternative. It's
nowhere near the full-fledged interactive shell environment Elvish is gunning
for. Elvish looks to have a very exciting future :)
[1] [https://github.com/polydawn/pogo/blob/master/gosh-
demo.go](https://github.com/polydawn/pogo/blob/master/gosh-demo.go)
[2] [https://github.com/amoffat/sh/](https://github.com/amoffat/sh/)
------
thinkpad20
This looks really cool and promising! I was thinking of a shell along these
lines, props to you for writing it.
I do take issue with one of the things you wrote though:
> a more complex program is formed by concatenating simpler programs, hence
> the term "concatenative programming". Compare this to the functional
> approach, where constructs are nested instead of connected one after
> another.
There's nothing about the functional approach that necessitates writing
"nested" functions, as you describe. With higher-order functions, you can
structure your code in almost any arbitrary way. In particular, haskell's >>=
operator has this behavior, and you can easily write an operator like
x |> f = f x
to facilitate something like
2 |> addOne |> timesTwo |> show |> reverse |> putStrLn
Or whatever one desires :)
~~~
xiaq
I was actually shown this by another Haskeller once, and I agree that Haskell
is a very expressive language allowing for a myriad ways of doing things,
including the concatenative paradigm.
But I have always doubted that if the language doesn't explicitly endorse a
particular paradigm, you will find it pretty awkward to work with other
people. Which is why less expressive languages that emphasize particular ways
of doing things still make sense.
------
mathetic
Heavy use of backquote might be a problem because it's one of the first keys
to drop when keyboards are localised.
~~~
currysausage
+1. On German keyboards for example, the backtick is on a dead key, meaning
that it is only printed if you press the spacebar afterwards. Thanks to dead
keys, you can e.g. get "é" by typing <´> <e>. But it is a severe annoyance if
you actually want to get "`" (<Shift>+<´>, <Space>).
~~~
bartbes
I switched to using a compose key instead of dead keys, because I just end up
writing much more code (and english) anyway, so it's more efficient than
actually having dead keys in the end.
~~~
levosmetalo
I'm glad I switched to Colemak way before having to type german umlauts, so I
had to learn a few easy combos and keep the rest of the layout unchanged.
------
LesZedCB
The shell looks great, good work!
On a side note, I have to say I love README's that look like this. The author
did a couple things I really like. 1) They attributed feature ideas to the
people they got them from. 2) They listed the good things right along with the
bad/lacking. 3) Screenshots.
------
qmaxquique
Hey guys! For anyone who want's to try Elvish without having to deal with
golang compilation and such, I just created a terminal.com snapshot. Just
register and spin up my elvish container.
[https://terminal.com/tiny/UtZ8VSgWJL](https://terminal.com/tiny/UtZ8VSgWJL)
As it's in development, I will upgrade it again in a couple days.
------
ridiculous_fish
Hey, that name looks familiar!
Best of luck to xiaq, a fellow fish shell contributor. It's definitely good to
see more innovation in the ossified command-line shell space.
Assuming this is planning on using Go's concurrency support, it will be very
interesting to see how it deals with the nasty interactions between fork and
multithreading.
~~~
xiaq
Thanks ridiculous_fish. I'm still more or less following fish development, and
elvish owes a lot to fish.
For now syscall.ForkExec
([http://godoc.org/syscall#ForkExec](http://godoc.org/syscall#ForkExec)) is
sufficient for me. It is written to avoid async-unsafe calls between fork and
exec, which is also what fish does IIRC.
~~~
agentS
Out of curiosity, why do shells need to use fork?
Note: I am not familiar with the implementation techniques behind shells.
~~~
ridiculous_fish
The essential function of a shell is to start processes. In Unix and Linux,
the usual way to start a new process is to clone yourself (fork), and then
have the clone replace itself with a new executable image (exec).
It's kind of roundabout, but the brilliance of this approach lies in what
happens between those two calls. There exists process metadata that survives
the call to exec, such as where stdout goes, or whether the process is in the
foreground. So shells call fork, the clone sets up the metadata for the target
process, and then calls exec to start it.
But when a multithreaded program forks, the clone is very limited in what it
can do (before exec). In particular, the clone must not acquire a lock that
may have been held at the time of fork (which usually rules out heap
allocations!). Now say something goes wrong: the clone needs to print an error
message, _without_ locking anything. But lots of functions acquire locks
internally. How do you know what's safe to call?
fish solves this by providing its own known-safe implementations of printf()
and friends, and being careful to only call those after fork. Go solves this
by disallowing any user-code between fork and exec. Instead it provides a
single posix_spawn-like entry point called ForkExec, and does some black magic
(like raw syscalls - see
[https://code.google.com/p/go/source/browse/src/pkg/syscall/e...](https://code.google.com/p/go/source/browse/src/pkg/syscall/exec_linux.go#39)
) in between the underlying fork and exec calls.
My hunch is that a shell written in Go will eventually bump up against the
limitations of ForkExec. Happily Go has a strong FFI, so you can hopefully
implement this stuff in C, if it comes to that!
------
nawitus
If I type 'mplayer ' and press tab in a folder with only one video file, but
multiple text files, does this shell autocomplete the media file? It's pretty
frustrating that even the most basic stuff like these are not enabled by
default on your average Linux distribution. I wonder if everyone simply
stopped developing unix shells.
I'm aware that one can install support for proper autocompletion by installing
additional stuff. That shouldn't be required, smart autocompletion should work
out of the box. I don't want to configure and/or install stuff for every
single application that I use.
~~~
oinksoft
Bash Completion[1] scripts are what provide this feature; perhaps fewer Linux
distributions are including them. I recommend keeping them in your dotfiles[2]
and loading them in your .bashrc[3]. This is nice because Bash Completion
operates by filename, meaning you can take any project's bash completion
script and install it at `$bash_completion/completions/script-name`.
[1] [http://bash-completion.alioth.debian.org/](http://bash-
completion.alioth.debian.org/)
[2] [https://github.com/oinksoft/dotfiles/tree/master/lib/bash-
co...](https://github.com/oinksoft/dotfiles/tree/master/lib/bash-completion)
[3]
[https://github.com/oinksoft/dotfiles/blob/master/bashrc#L22-...](https://github.com/oinksoft/dotfiles/blob/master/bashrc#L22-L24)
------
jalfresi
I've been tinkering about with writing my own shell at home, as an excerise in
learning more about unix etc but bumped up against the limitation in that
proper job control is currently impossible to do from within go (off the top
of my head it was something to do with the inability to set the process group
correctly for forkexeced processes). How did the author get around this, or
does Elvish not have the ability to put processes into and out of the
background?
------
zokier
It would be nice if
put 1 2 3 4 5 | filter {|x| > $x 2} | map {|x| * 2 $x}
could be written just as
put 1 2 3 4 5 | filter > $_ 2 | map * 2 $_
~~~
Dewie
Some languages have a sort-of default variable name for cases like this,
namely "it":
> put 1 2 3 4 5 | filter > $it 2 | map * 2 $it
~~~
JadeNB
As zokier was presumably pointing out, other languages have a _different_
sort-of-default variable name, namely `$_`
([http://c2.com/cgi/wiki?DollarUnderscore](http://c2.com/cgi/wiki?DollarUnderscore)).
:-)
------
chrissnell
Hmmm...it's not building for me:
$ go get github.com/xiaq/elvish
# github.com/xiaq/elvish/edit/tty
dev/go/src/github.com/xiaq/elvish/edit/tty/termios.go:20: undefined: syscall.TCGETS
dev/go/src/github.com/xiaq/elvish/edit/tty/termios.go:24: undefined: syscall.TCSETS
dev/go/src/github.com/xiaq/elvish/edit/tty/termios.go:49: cannot use &term.Lflag (type *uint64) as type *uint32 in argument to setFlag
dev/go/src/github.com/xiaq/elvish/edit/tty/termios.go:53: cannot use &term.Lflag (type *uint64) as type *uint32 in argument to setFlag
# github.com/xiaq/elvish/sys
dev/go/src/github.com/xiaq/elvish/sys/select.go:66: not enough arguments to return
I opened up an issue for you:
[https://github.com/xiaq/elvish/issues/16](https://github.com/xiaq/elvish/issues/16)
~~~
bobbyi_settv
I think this is because you are on an older version of Go. Try it with Go 1.3
~~~
chrissnell
I am using Go 1.3.
$ go version
go version go1.3 darwin/amd64
~~~
bobbyi_settv
It builds for me with 1.3 (linux/amd64) on Ubuntu, so I'm guessing it somehow
works on Linux but not Mac.
EDIT: Specifically, the first two lines are complaining about an undefined
syscall and the next two are complaining about something terminal-related
being 64-bit where 32-bit is expected, so those certainly seem like plausible
things that would differ across OSes.
------
nathell
Clojure has -> specifically to facilitate writing pipeline code that doesn't
read backwards.
~~~
tgkokk
Or, in this case, ->>:
(def lols (->> strs
(filter #(re-find #"LOL" %))
(map upper-case)
sort))
How I read it: take strs, filter the strings that contain "LOL", turn them
into upper case and then sort them. Basically it reads the same as the
pipeline example in the README.
------
jkbyc
Many alternative shells popping up recently. Someone already mentioned the
Fish shell [1] in this thread. There is also Xiki [2] and its recent
Kickstarter campaign [3].
[1] [http://fishshell.com/](http://fishshell.com/) [2]
[http://xiki.org/](http://xiki.org/) [3]
[https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/xiki/xiki-the-
command-r...](https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/xiki/xiki-the-command-
revolution)
------
pjmlp
Xerox PARC environments and their derivatives keep being partially reinvented.
I really wonder how computing would look like if those systems had succeed in
the market, instead of UNIX.
------
anon4
Unrelated, but I would like to note that you shouldn't use subpixel anti-
aliasing in text in images, especially ones that will be shown by a web-
browser. You never know whether the user's screen is rotated or not; if it has
three subpixels per pixel, or if it's pentile or similar; or if it is high-DPI
and therefore the image is zoomed; and even if none of those are the case, a
lot of people dislike the coloured fringes.
~~~
xiaq
Good to know that, thanks. I have captured and pushed the screenshots with
subpixel turned off.
------
jonathanyc
This is awesome! Necessity is the mother of invention, and all that. The idea
of using lispy syntax while dropping the requirement for the outermost pair of
parentheses is definitely a neat idea - I'll try the shell out in practice to
see how much easier it makes usage, but it seems like it would allow for 99%
of the consistency of Lisp/Scheme less 20% of the annoyance for general shell
usage.
Looking forward to what's in store.
~~~
lispm
LispWorks:
CL-USER 7 > + (sin 1) (cos 2)
0.4253241
------
sgt
I get this error:
clang: error: no such file or directory: 'libgcc.a'
------
bnegreve
I really like in-shell floating point operations. But this:
> / 1 0
+Inf
Is not the correct answer - even as a limit - since the limit of 1 / x (when x
-> 0) can be +Inf or -Inf.
~~~
xiaq
The 0 is a positive one.
> / 1 -0
-Inf
BTW this is just IEEE floating point.
~~~
bnegreve
Ah yes indeed [1], I didn't know.
[1]
[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IEEE_floating_point#Exception_h...](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IEEE_floating_point#Exception_handling)
------
sobkas
So will it work with a gccgo?
------
e12e
"It attempts to prove that a shell language can be a handy interface to the
operating system and a decent programming language at the same time; Many
existing shells recognize the former but blatantly ignore the latter."
Wasn't that the reasoning behind csh[1]? (She scripts csh by the c source).
Did you have a look at plan 9's rc[2]?
I welcome attempts at new/better shells -- doesn't look like elvish will be my
saviour (partly due to the heavy use of backticks) -- but there is always need
for fresh blood in the battle for the terminal.
I suppose that "vi keybindings that makes sense" and "a programmable line
editor" is meant to indicate that rlwrap isn't good enough? I must say, after
a few years (has it really been years) of "set editing-mode vi" in .inputrc, I
actually think it works kind of nice with (plain) bash. I suppose there's room
for improvement in terms of history editing etc... But either due to lack of
imagination or force of habit, I've never really felt a pull towards zsh (or
fish, or other "improved" shells). But playing around with ipython and/or
Conque for vim has made me consider looking for greener shells than bash.
The secret, I think, is to avoid doing to much in the shell, and rather try to
subtly improve on the "simple programs build complex pipes"-idea. I actually
think some rethinking of core command line tools (cat/tac/tee, grep/sort/uniq,
seq etc) might be a better investment than "better syntax".
Not that better syntax is a bad idea -- a "strict" subset of modern bash would
be good, with saner handling of words/expansion/substitution -- essentially
defaulting to proper checking for empty variables ("${might_be_empty}a" ==
"a") (but isn't [[ -z "${var} ]] always better anyway..?), always defaulting
to "${var}" rather than $var, ${var}, and preferring
var="$(some_command_that_outputs)" to var=`dirty backtick command`...
Essentially getting rid of all the crazy old cruft that's needed for backwards
compatibility, and defaulting to sane, modern versions (it's what's hard about
scripting (especially posix [k|b])sh -- there are 5 wrong ways to do
everything, 2 mostly right and 1 perfect -- but which is perfect often depends
on context...).
[1] I'm _not_ a csh-fan, for some reasons, see:
[http://www.faqs.org/faqs/unix-faq/shell/csh-
whynot/](http://www.faqs.org/faqs/unix-faq/shell/csh-whynot/) But mostly I'm
just grumpy and conservative, and having mostly figured out how to properly
get things right in ksh/bash, I stubbornly refuse to use something else ;-)
[2]
[http://swtch.com/plan9port/man/man1/rc.html](http://swtch.com/plan9port/man/man1/rc.html)
~~~
SixSigma
Ironically, Rob Pike eschews big shell scripts.
If you want a programming language, you know where to find one.
------
bubersson
Yep, I just read that as Elvis with Sean Connery's accent... Nice work though.
------
Dewie
> It attempts to exploit a facility Shell programmers are very familiar with,
> but virtually unknown to other programmers - the pipeline.
Really?
It seems that Unix pipes are the go-to example of what you might call pipeline
programming, as if it originated there or because every programmer is a shell-
programmer first and foremost. But I'm not sure that this is such a secret
technique exclusive to shell programmers - object-oriented languages can and
does seem to like to use "fluent interfaces", I think its called, which has
the same pipelining style. Functional programmers are able to and probably
find it convenient to use a "pipeline style" on longer expressions that are
essentially long chains of function application or function composition - they
just have to flip the order of the operators for function application and
function composition, respectively. This is possible in languages like
Haskell, and I think it is even pretty idiomatic in F#.
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Autocorrelation, Correlation and Causation - ca98am79
http://macroquantpdx.tumblr.com/post/116656634625/autocorrelation-correlation-and-causation
======
plg
So a correlation in the first difference (i.e. the first derivative) implies
causality? Is that what he's saying? ummm
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Google Announces High Replication Datastore for App Engine - shawndumas
http://www.readwriteweb.com/hack/2011/01/google-announces-high-replication-datastore-for-app-engine.php
======
lylejohnson
Announcement on Google's blog is here:
[http://googleappengine.blogspot.com/2011/01/announcing-
high-...](http://googleappengine.blogspot.com/2011/01/announcing-high-
replication-datastore.html)
~~~
wccrawford
I like this reply:
"The important factor for my apps is speed. Otherwise my users are left
staring at their phones waiting. Cannot work out what replication does in this
respect...."
... I guess he didn't even bother reading the announcement, since it said
it'll slow down writes a bit.
------
Maro
High replication datastore. Beta coming out soon. Developers and Beta testers
wanted.
<http://github.com/scalien/scaliendb>
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Top 100 Startups Disrupting Cloud and SaaS - usiegj00
http://blog.rightsignature.com/2012/03/rightsignature-named-to-ondemand-top.html
======
leroypa
Great company with the greatest product since sliced bread.
-PL
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Bad Code Offsets: An Update - bdfh42
http://thedailywtf.com/Articles/Bad-Code-Offsets-An-Update.aspx
======
andrewljohnson
Personally, I wouldn't write an essay for $500. Maybe some students with open
source projects would consider doing this.
------
billpg
Yet again, the underheight among us are discriminated against. The shirts only
go up to 3XL.
------
clistctrl
personally speaking, I owe jquery several beers.
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Ask HN: Time tracking - ctingom
Hi all, I'm building a time tracking application. I'm curious about your personal time tracking preferences:<p>Do you track your time mostly after the fact?<p>Not at all?<p>Track time mostly throughout the day (stopwatch)?<p>I ask, because we have a Stopwatch mode in our application and a manual time entry mode and I'm curious which one will be most popular and to focus our efforts.<p>Thanks...
======
cheekysod
I use TaskTrack:
<http://www.bushsoftware.com/TaskTrack/TaskTrack.html>
no setup required, and it tracks exactly how long you spend on each document
during the day; so all you have to do is group the documents into tasks and
you have the total time spent.
its actually made this stuff a heap easier than it was for me, I never used to
bother until the end of the week, now I still dont, but the numbers are right
:)
~~~
ctingom
Sounds like a nice app, sort of like RescueTime.
------
scorpioxy
Echoing on what @mkuhn said, i would normally like to use a stopwatch mode
when i would be doing something for a long period of time. For example, half a
day's work for project A and then switching to project B or something like
that.
Otherwise, i tend to just use time slots and fill then in at the end of the
day in a spreadsheet. Mechanical and tedious, but it does the job. Of course,
it doesn't really help unless i remember to fill the information in.
------
mkuhn
For me its something I normaly do at the end of my workday. Fiddling with a
stopwatch mode throughout the whole day would be somewhat to much effort for
me.
~~~
ctingom
Thanks for the feedback!
------
brusqe
Presumably this is for <http://www.minuteglass.com/>? If you are after any
significantly large sample data to base some usability/design decisions on,
I'd recommend Amazon Mechanical Turk.
~~~
ctingom
Yes, I'm the designer behind Minuteglass and I'll think about using the
Mechanical Turk to get some feedback.
Thanks.
------
chris11
I've just been keeping a time log for the past few days. I'm not sure how long
I will keep doing it, but right now it works so I just my cell phone for the
time, and a piece of paper to write down what I'm doing throughout the day.
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
A robot will take your order now - ArtDev
http://www.marketwatch.com/story/a-robot-will-take-your-order-now-2016-05-25
======
ArtDev
It seems like the robot doesn't actually carry the food to the table? Hard to
tell from the video.
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Apple Marina Bay Sands Opens Thursday in Singapore - todsacerdoti
https://www.apple.com/newsroom/2020/09/apple-marina-bay-sands-opens-thursday-in-singapore/
======
supernova87a
Am I misremembering, or was this some kind of museum building before? Or was
it specially built by Apple? Whatever it is, pretty amazing looking.
But what a shame, you can't even fantasize about going to see places any more
without a little bit of stress/uncertainty right now. 17 hour flight? 2 week
quarantine on arrival? ok...
Anyway, I'm also interested to know how Apple (or other similar retail)
decides to put a store somewhere. Is it a straight potential mobile subscriber
$ figure, or population disposable income within-x-radius kind of thing? Is it
the same threshold across countries? Must be a ~$10M investment to build a
store like this. Worth 10,000 customers?
~~~
arvinsim
It's interesting that this is Singapore's 3rd Apple store while other
Southeast Asian countries don't even have one.
~~~
wushupork
That is factually incorrect. In fact Bangkok has two Apple stores now:
[https://www.apple.com/newsroom/2020/07/apple-central-
world-o...](https://www.apple.com/newsroom/2020/07/apple-central-world-opens-
friday-in-thailand/)
------
whywhywhywhy
With the modern interior design of Apple stores I feel the designers are
actually so out of touch with the rest of the society and so firmly in their
own bubble that they're accidentally designing something that looks extremely
tacky without realizing.
I believe they described it as being a "town square" so we have the trees and
the benches but I'm going to propose they have accidentally designed something
that looks more like a cheap mall food court without realizing it because they
probably haven't even seen a mall food court since their childhood. Almost
feels like it has the same logic behind how mall food courts were designed,
make the unnatural feel natural, add trees, add a nod to the affordances of
community with benches around the trees.
Honestly couldn't believe how tacky it looked when I walked past the main
Apple store in London.
~~~
coldtea
> _With the modern interior design of Apple stores I feel the designers are
> actually so out of touch with the rest of the society and so firmly in their
> own bubble that they 're accidentally designing something that looks
> extremely tacky without realizing._
Have you seen modernist / brutalist / modern / post modern architecture? From
1920 to today? There's nothing ugliest and more unlivable (in the pretenses of
"high brow" BS concepts) than 99% of it.
In comparison, the Apple stores are a breath of fresh air. Tacky? Hardly...
> _Honestly couldn 't believe how tacky it looked when I walked past the main
> Apple store in London._
You keep using that word, tacky. I don't think it means what you think it
means...
This is the "unbelievable tacky" place, because it has trees inside?
[https://cnet3.cbsistatic.com/img/LDehHb_uk995yFKthCDfgOhboH8...](https://cnet3.cbsistatic.com/img/LDehHb_uk995yFKthCDfgOhboH8=/940x528/2016/10/13/05d89c8f-cf0b-46a5-90cd-2e877e757df8/apple-
store-regent-street-london-6.jpg)
~~~
whywhywhywhy
>I don't think it means what you think it means...
Hit a nerve I guess if you're gonna resort to that.
>This is the "unbelievable tacky" place, because it has trees inside?
Yes the overall design, the style of seating, the choice of trees, the choice
of wood, the actual design of the furniture, looks like a mall food court
[https://www.across-magazine.com/wp-
content/uploads/2019/08/C...](https://www.across-magazine.com/wp-
content/uploads/2019/08/CH-ogrody_1200x600.jpg)
~~~
coldtea
> _Hit a nerve I guess if you 're gonna resort to that._
I resort to that all the time, so don't bet much money on it "hitting a
nerve". Just bothered me enough to want to comment - which also happens all
the time, even for minor pedantic corrections.
> _Yes the overall design, the style of seating, the choice of trees, the
> choice of wood, the actual design of the furniture, looks like a mall food
> court_
Well, that's a very pretty mall food court if I ever saw one. Great for the AS
to look like a high end version of that (with superior exterior architecture
to boot). If that's "unbelievably tacky" I'll have to re-use the Princess
Bride line...
Because the ones I've actually seen in the wild in dozens of malls I've been
look like this:
[https://i.pinimg.com/originals/c3/b1/fb/c3b1fbc6c0bfa52eb3cb...](https://i.pinimg.com/originals/c3/b1/fb/c3b1fbc6c0bfa52eb3cbc7c42ecf1d85.jpg)
------
alasdair_
“the first Apple Store to sit directly on the water. ”
Lies! I once bought a mac onboard a ship in the early 2000s.
:)
~~~
coldtea
Was it an Apple Store tho?
~~~
alasdair_
It was a store that I bought an Apple computer in.
------
anm89
Is that the navy where they attack 3rd party repair people from? Is there
anybody left who thinks Apple is cool because they have shiny buildings ?
~~~
junipertea
Plenty of people like apple stores.
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Elon Musk Is Wrong. We Aren't Living in a Simulation - kordless
https://motherboard.vice.com/en_us/article/we-dont-live-in-a-simulation?utm_content=buffera2008&utm_medium=social&utm_source=twitter.com&utm_campaign=buffer
======
squozzer
I agree with the author, but their refutation of Musk's argument takes the
wrong tack.
Musk's argument = The time needed to create a simulation indistiguishable from
reality << age of universe; The time needed for intelligent life to evolve <<
age of universe; ergo, an intelligent species emerged before homo sapiens
somewhere in the (real) universe AND created a simulated universe
indistiguishable from the real one.
The author tries to refute this logic by pointing out the flaws with simulated
anything, but that doesn't refute the logic of Musk's reasoning. To Musk, the
implementation details were long ago worked out.
Problem is, Musk never PROVED anything. His assertion rests upon two axioms.
The fact that we went from pong to COD in 40 years does not mean that in 40
(or 40 million) years hence we'll have a sim universe or even a sim galaxy -
more likely, we'll have a really bloody COD BO 40000000.
The fact that Earth went from molten blob to pretty decent place to live in 4
billion years does not mean that 8 billion years ago some other molten blob
became something Earth-like in 4 billion years, which by then had a sapient
species creating alien Pong, COD, or Madden 50K: The Concussion Continues.
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
How "junior" developers can become regex wizards - joshuakemp1
http://joshuakemp.blogspot.com/2013/11/how-junior-developers-can-become-regex.html
======
tghw
A couple things:
1\. Be careful what you use regex's for. Email addresses are very
difficult[0]. HTML is impossible[1].
2\. There are a number of tools that make it easier to understand, including
[2].
[0] [http://www.ex-parrot.com/pdw/Mail-RFC822-Address.html](http://www.ex-
parrot.com/pdw/Mail-RFC822-Address.html)
[1]
[http://stackoverflow.com/a/1732454/2363](http://stackoverflow.com/a/1732454/2363)
[2]
[http://ivanzuzak.info/noam/webapps/fsm_simulator/](http://ivanzuzak.info/noam/webapps/fsm_simulator/)
~~~
thedufer
> HTML is impossible.
This comes up a lot. Most languages' "regular expressions" aren't, in fact,
regular. A true regular expression wouldn't be able to match HTML, but Perl
regular expressions (the de facto standard) can because of backreferences.
Edit: I'm not saying this is a good idea; it most certainly isn't. I'm just
saying its possible.
~~~
ygra
Perl's regex support can match HTML because of recursive matching, not only
because of backreferences (the latter of which is widely implemented, the
former not quite so).
That being said, there surely are some fun languages that can be matched by
what's commonly called regular expressions. Notepad++ was notable (before
switching to PCRE) that its "regular expressions" could not even match every
regular (or even finite) language
([http://stackoverflow.com/a/4815422/73070](http://stackoverflow.com/a/4815422/73070)).
Many regex engines allow matching languages that are context-sensitive, while
at the same time not accepting all context-free languages.
------
wonnage
This might be overkill but I found I never "got" regular expressions until a
class made me think about them as state machines. The additional bashing over
the head of having to implement a parser/matcher made it really stick. The
quirks and syntax make much more sense when you know why and how a regex
engine works.
That said, anything involving extended/perl regex I wind up googling.
~~~
sliverstorm
Huh, to me I "got" regexp the first time I used it (although it took a while
to learn the details). To me if you understand the idea of wildcards, you
understand regexp.
~~~
omnibrain
I began to understand Regex after reading the awk chapter in Masterminds of
Programming. After that I understood how "the machine" inside might work. I
really understood how to apply Regex to single strings after I started to see
a regex as a "mask", so very similar to your wildcard approach.
------
pjscott
How to become a regular expression wizard:
1\. Write a bunch of regular expressions.
2\. Fix them when they break.
Anybody can do this, however junior they may be. (And yes, it does grant you a
superpower.)
~~~
chaz
3\. Write tests.
Don't change your existing regular expressions without tests, or Bad Stuff
happens.
~~~
mtdewcmu
I don't usually write regular expressions that are complex enough to need
maintenance. If you are writing one that is enough effort that it isn't
disposable, then you might want to reconsider whether you're using the right
tool.
------
dsymonds
[http://swtch.com/~rsc/regexp/regexp1.html](http://swtch.com/~rsc/regexp/regexp1.html)
should be required reading before _any_ developer tries to become a "regex
wizard".
------
colbyolson
Is it worth mastering? No. Worth understanding? Yes.
Regex is used in so many applications and commands, it would be silly not to
learn it.
You don't need to be a wizard, but do understand the basics and it will get
you far.
~~~
sliverstorm
Somewhere in between "the basics" and "wizard" is probably best. Regexp is
_powerful_ , extremely valuable in the right places, and knowing more than the
basics will be useful. On the other hand wizard-level expertise is not
necessary to net 99% of the value of regexp.
------
erichurkman
Also, check for your language's options for white space and comments within
regular expressions [0]. Regexps don't have to be blobs of characters -- you
can use white space to make them more readable and use comments embedded
within a multi-line regexp to describe what/why you are doing.
Bonus: it makes them easier to diff, too!
We don't write our code on one line with no comments, writing regexps should
be no different.
[0] Python example:
[http://docs.python.org/2/library/re.html#re.VERBOSE](http://docs.python.org/2/library/re.html#re.VERBOSE)
------
pekk
Making "junior" developers solve problems with regex sounds like a recipe for
terrible maintainability, unless it is necessary
~~~
rallison
I do actually somewhat agree here. If one doesn't know what they are doing, it
is very easy to do regular expressions incorrectly.
That said, regex is sometimes necessary, so it is important for developers to
be competent in this realm. In my opinion, ideally, junior developers would
start with using them in non-production environments to become familiar, then
go from there. It is also important to be able to distinguish which problems
should be solved by regular expressions, and which shouldn't. A good mentor
here can be great.
------
DonGateley
If you really want to master Regular Expressions in a way you are not likely
to forget do what I did in the '80s. Write a regex interpreter and then a
compiler. I was doing a contract for an embedded controller and found a great
use for compiled regular expressions within it (I remember every nuance of
regular expressions but can't for the life of me remember what my use case
was.)
Debugging it was the really fun part but my earlier career with IBM had taught
me how to test software effectively and some embedded work with PAL's (an
early form of programmable logic) taught me how to really use state machines.
I was surprised how little time it took to write and debug. I don't think you
can really appreciate the elegant logic of the regular expression language
without implementing it.
------
ygra
I found [http://www.regular-expressions.info/](http://www.regular-
expressions.info/) to be an invaluable resource when learning or understanding
regular expressions. Basically every page that explains a feature in the
reference _also_ explains what's going on within the engine, how it works,
when it backtracks, etc. Those things are sometimes hard to see in
applications that just give you the matches from a text (as rubular.com seems
to do).
------
rmrfrmrf
You don't need to be a developer _or_ a wizard to be proficient in writing
regular expressions. Regular expressions are used by all kinds of professions;
that's why regular expression capability is included in almost every text
editor.
The best way to learn to love regular expressions is to use them outside of a
programming context, where you can get real-time feedback with actual test
data. Some text editors will even highlight matches as you type the expression
out.
------
duey
During University one of the projects we were given was to write a regular
expression parser and evaluator. From the moment that project was complete I
have never had trouble understanding regular expressions. I thought it was an
excellent way to learn them.
------
webmonkeyuk
I'm torn a little on my opinion of this post. On the one side I applaud anyone
who's willing to self-learn and isn't a "I'll just Google it" developer. On
the flip side I tire of hearing people tell me that they've written a CMS of
their own, in some cases piggy backing on someone who's solved the an
identical problem pays dividends and will be more mature than your solution.
Perhaps for a self-learner a nice approach is to write it yourself and then go
searching for a solution. That way you'll likely: validate what you did,
figure out that you missed a detail or perhaps learn some new regexp foo or
different way of writing the same thing.
------
gavinlynch
I love these types of things. Kudos to the author.
This one in particular reminds me of a tool I've always found useful. It's an
interactive Regex builder just like the one linked in the OP. I would say it's
got some additional compelling features: like mouse-over breakdowns of each
expression as you build it, a handy reference list as well, but also a
community concept and saved expressions. Really, I've never found anything
better. My only complaint is that it's flash-based, but it's an amazing tool,
so can't really complain too much.
[http://gskinner.com/RegExr/](http://gskinner.com/RegExr/)
------
mtdewcmu
Regular expressions were simple and straightforward tools until Perl. They
were originally intended to be equivalent to finite state machines, but,
thanks to Perl, you can write regexes that may or may not halt, and no one can
can ever prove one way or the other. If you want to take the best parts of
regexes and leave the rest, don't bother with all of the Perl extensions and
just study the basics.
------
adestefan
Go read Mastering Regular Expressions.
~~~
tmallen
This is the bible of regex. Its explanation of "unrolling the loop" will
change how you write regular expressions if you don't already use that
technique. Its discussion of the operation of NFA and DFA engines is great
too.
------
gaving
Can't remember the last time I had to actually hand craft a regex.
Any serious developer these days will be using standardised libraries for this
sort of validation and not reinventing the wheel with some half baked do-it-
yourself regex.
------
jheriko
ugh.
do they really need to be good at regex? we don't all work on the internet you
know... regex is basically pointless for most application development. most
programmers i consider to be exceptionally talented can not write a regex
without reference (although they will do it when necessary by using reference
- and very well too).
on the other hand the general approach to problem solving advocated here is
quite sound. "find good tools" "don't rush pointlessly" "measure don't guess"
"google is good, copy-paste blindly is bad"
~~~
UK-AL
RegEx probably has most use in data validation, which has nothing to do with
internet.
~~~
jheriko
i generally backlash against this. i've seen articles where people are stupid
enough to say "if you don't know regex, you aren't good" my experience tells
me the converse is true. good programmers are so good they end up working in
environments where regex is an irrelevant curiosity and almost never a tool.
------
PavlovsCat
also:
[http://www.rexv.org](http://www.rexv.org)
[http://www.debuggex.com](http://www.debuggex.com)
[http://refiddle.com](http://refiddle.com)
~~~
itsybitsycoder
I like [http://gskinner.com/RegExr/](http://gskinner.com/RegExr/)
------
thomasknowles
You don't need to be a developer to understand or use regex. I use regex on a
daily basis as I have to deal with a lot of text manipulation.
\--edit
I am not a developer.
------
alayne
Please don't use regexes.
~~~
kbrowne
Ever? For any purpose whatsoever? That seems overly prescriptive.
~~~
alayne
Sure, for scripts, adhoc analysis, command line hacking and whatnot, go ahead.
Regexes should be seen more like a last resort than a good software
engineering choice. They're a code smell. I have seen so many incorrect, slow
regexes from people who don't know what they are doing that I have to
recommend as a best practice that you don't use them unless you are going to
study automata, read Friedl's book, the Dragon book, and study with Tibetan
regex monks for years, and mentor everyone who has to maintain your code until
you die.
------
yOutely
a regex tester online?!??!? what "hacker news"!!! This has never been done!
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Nothing is certain, except death and taxes .. and chargebacks - mahmoudimus
http://blog.balancedpayments.com/death-taxes-chargebacks-balanced/
======
jasonlotito
I'm surprised the part on combatting friendly fraud (4.2) didn't include a
part about contacting the customer directly, most likely via phone. If you are
in an industry where this occurs more often, you might even want to invest in
telephone authentication. While it won't stop the friendly fraud, it will be a
deterrent.
Anyways, contacting the customer can usually get things resolved as well, even
if they went straight for the chargeback.
Never underestimate human contact. You might be surprised why they went with a
chargeback. Some just thing it's the way to get a refund for something that
was wrong. Yes, sometimes the person is just being a douche, in which case you
can assure the person that you thank them for reporting the case, and that you
will be following up by filing a police report. When they realize what
information you have available, some are quick to want to work something out,
usually that involves calling the bank in a 3 way conference call and
canceling the charge back.
It won't always work, but the nature of chargebacks means every little bit
helps.
Again, this also depends on the nature of the industry you are in.
~~~
jacquesm
The best way to combat friendly fraud is extensive logging and 3DS.
~~~
jasonlotito
Yes for logging.
3DS, while effective, is not a bullet proof solution. Requiring 3DS
transactions will impact sales, and can impact them enough that it's better to
not use it. I always recommended a scoring approach (reach a certain
threshold, and we require 3DS).
Even still 3DS only affects the initial transaction. Any recurring payment
won't benefit from the 3DS transactions. There are ways to encourage 3DS use
(discounted membership fees if one performs a 3DS transaction), but outside of
games like that, 3DS only affects the transaction it's made with.
------
nym
Use digital cash- no chargebacks, no middlemen.
The best option today if you don't want chargebacks is adopting Bitcoin for
payments (like how Reddit did for Reddit Gold with Coinbase).
[http://blog.coinbase.com/post/40131065845/hosted-payment-
pag...](http://blog.coinbase.com/post/40131065845/hosted-payment-pages-email-
invoices-and-more)
~~~
jareau
What happens if bitcoins are purchased with a credit card? Who will be
responsible for the chargeback in that case? Coinbase?
~~~
JoshTriplett
Yes, if a bitcoin exchange accepted credit cards, they'd be on the hook for
any chargebacks. Hence why most of the existing exchanges want a bank transfer
instead.
In theory, a bitcoin exchange should have a near-perfect defense against
chargebacks for faulty or missing products or similar, by showing via the
public block chain that they delivered the purchased product as requested.
However, there's no defense against chargebacks claiming that the cardholder
didn't make the purchase (stolen card number, etc).
~~~
jareau
What if the buyer does a reversal of the bank transfer -- usually possible up
to 60 days afterward. (I swear I'm not trolling. I'm new to bitcoin exchanges)
~~~
Judson
ACH transfers are reversible and a few bitcoin exchanges have been bitten by
them since most have/do take dwolla, which is a nice service for ACH
transfers.
Bank wire transfers, though, are unable to be reversed. Its a pity that most
US banks charge for them.
~~~
jareau
Yeah, the US banking system is pretty pitiful in general. We (Balanced) are
trying to make it a little bit better by making ACH faster and easier to
integrate, but we can't do much about reversals. [shameless plug] Example,
checkout our ACH payouts feature: blog.balancedpayments.com/announcing-
balanced-payouts/
------
mrweasel
I would actually be interested in knowing how others deal with a certain type
of fraud.
We currently have an issue where someone is using stolen credit cards to buy
"digital goods".
We in the UK and Scandinavia, so we started out blocking purchases of digital
goods from the UK. Fraud goes to zero right away.
The fraudsters moves to using stolen UK credit cards in Denmark, via a large
number of Danish IPs, fine... We'll just require that the card is issued in
the country where your IP indicates that you're located ( not 100% correct,
but close enough ).
At this point fraud has been reduced to zero for a few weeks. The next we
really where not expecting. The same pattern of buying starts showing up,
seems like fraud and it turns out it is. We now see a stolen Danish credit
cards.
At this point we're more or less reduced to having to approve every purchase
manually. The only real solution currently is 3DSecure for MasterCard or
Verified by VISA. These solutions are very American and not at all what
European customers expect to see. Enabling 3DSecure scares of legitimate
customers, but it's currently the only solution.
The article looks at high velocity, that does nothing in some cases, if people
are out to scam you, they will appear as a new customer for a new IP, with a
new card.
CSC are useless, these are stolen all the time.
AVS is supported by almost no one.
Looking a transaction amount compared to the mean doesn't really work when you
mostly sell one product at a time.
Recently created accounts are actually a good indication of fraud, but mostly
you have false positives.
Blocking high risk countries don't work for digital goods.
Large distance between IP and billing address, doesn't work well in smaller
countries, but worth considering. Somewhat difficult to implement though.
High number of card from the same person... That never happens. Our legitimate
customer are the only ones that might use different cards. In the case of
fraud cards and accounts are often used only once.
It's not that the article is a bad write up, but non of the information will
protect you against someone that wants to scam you. Physical products are
easier to safe guard, because the bad guy will need to pick it up at some
point, digital good is a lot harder to secure.
~~~
brandonb
My company (Sift Science) uses machine learning to fight fraud, and we work
with customers who sell digital goods. You're right that normal country
blacklisting, IP blocking, AVS, CVV, etc. aren't terribly effective.
I think some effective techniques for digital goods are: 1) behavioral
signals, such as how long the user spent browsing your site before making a
purchase, 2) physical device -- have I seen activity from this particular
machine before, even if they're going through a proxy to use a fresh IP? 3)
e-mail address -- is it a legitimate domain? an obvious throw-away account?,
4) mismatch between IP and billing info (as you noted).
In general, fraudsters switch tactics with surprising frequency, so I'd highly
recommend combining multiple types of data into a machine learning system that
will adapt. Otherwise you're going to spend a lot of time tuning rules.
And if you're looking for help, feel free to send me an e-mail:
[email protected]. My company deals with fraud all the time. Even if we
can't help, I'd be happy to point you to others who can.
~~~
whit537
Brandon's a great guy, very proactive and helpful. We didn't have quite enough
volume yet (w/ Gittip) to use his services, but I have a positive opinion of
him.
E.g.: <https://github.com/zetaweb/www.gittip.com/pull/387>
~~~
brandonb
Thanks Chad! It's a pleasure to work with people like you!
------
michaelbuckbee
Balanced is burying the lede on this, the final table of correlations between
payment information signal failures and incidence of fraud is pretty
fascinating.
~~~
jareau
A single user attempting purchases with many different credit cards is
fraudulent 100% of the time!!
~~~
huhtenberg
This probably assumes that all cards are under different names.
~~~
dangrossman
The merchant doesn't know what name is on the cards. It's still virtually
guaranteed fraud when one person presents more than 2 or 3 cards on your site
in a short period.
~~~
Domenic_S
Too bad you can never know what "one person" is.
~~~
dangrossman
In theory, everything can be evaded. In practice, it won't be. If you run your
transactions through something like MaxMind MinFraud with Device ID, you will
know it's the same person, even if they clear cookies, switch proxies and re-
register on your store between every card. It costs half a penny per
transaction; anyone can afford basic risk scoring.
Most of the time that kind of tech isn't even necessary. The types of
criminals most online stores deal with are not sophisticated; they're just
people that paid $1/number for a list of phished credit cards on a black
market forum who are going to enter them one-by-one on a few websites to see
which haven't been reported stolen yet.
------
robertst
It would be interesting to see how this compares to other merchants and/or
other payment processors. Does anyone have another source?
~~~
npcomplete
(I wrote the post) I am not aware of any. That's actually one of the
motivations to do this. Someone needs to start !
------
thebooktocome
It's a pity they didn't bother to run it through a spellchecker first.
~~~
mahmoudimus
Sorry about that! Just did a proofread for obvious errors and I think I got
them all. I'm omw out now, but I'll take another look when I get back.
It's open source, you're welcome to contribute a fix:
[https://github.com/balanced/balanced.github.com/blob/master/...](https://github.com/balanced/balanced.github.com/blob/master/_posts/2013-02-21-death-
taxes-chargebacks-balanced.md)
~~~
thebooktocome
You're telling me you've crowdsourced your editing for marketing materials?
Tell me you're not serious.
~~~
mahmoudimus
It's just part of being an open company, read more here:
[http://blog.gittip.com/post/26350459746/the-first-open-
compa...](http://blog.gittip.com/post/26350459746/the-first-open-company)
We crowdsource feedback for a lot of things we do @ Balanced. For example,
we've openly discussed pricing (<https://github.com/balanced/balanced-
api/issues/48>), etc.
Everything's on <https://github.com/balanced/balanced-api>. We're trying a
different approach to payments, for once. Openness and transparency.
~~~
whit537
:D
------
codenerdz
I wonder how would Balanced Payments deal with 'item not as described' fraud
Something that happened with me here:
<http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4867484>
~~~
mahmoudimus
Hey there, I'll ping npcomplete to answer this one. He has some thoughts on
"item not as described" fraud.
------
josscrowcroft
That's super weird- I had my first chargeback today, from a customer who
didn't even attempt to get in touch and ask for a refund... apparently this is
quite common!
~~~
mrweasel
Not common, standard. Having the customer contact you isn't a frequent
occurrence, depending on where you do business. The British do not wish to
talk to you, they assume that you're the one trying to defraud them by
default. Swedes will pretty much never do charge backs.
~~~
fudged71
It always fascinates me when the global nature of software uncovers quirky
cultural differences.
------
nova
About the first ones: Unless you are a libertarian transhumanist, I guess.
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Give me a name suggestion for bootstrap/wordpress theme website - hasibrsohel
I want to publish a website for the bootstrap/wordpress themes but I am still confused about the name of this website. Currently, I have two domains, rowbootstrap.com and bosstemplate.com but I could not understand if they are good to go.<p>The name rowbootstrap is good but as I am also planning to sell WordPress thene, therefore, I am not sure for this name. Also, i have the domain bosstemplate.com but don't have bosstemplate(s).com<p>Please give me a suggestion which name I can use or give me the suggestion for the new domain name. Thanks in advance.
======
rman666
therearenodomainsleft-bootstrapandwordpressthemes.com
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Learn Python via Spaced Repetition - coolgeek
https://www.srsoterica.com/product/learn_python_essentials_srs_spaced_repetition
======
dang
We took "Show HN" off the title because there doesn't appear to be any way to
try it out. In such a case users will complain that the post is just an ad.
The rules are at
[https://news.ycombinator.com/showhn.html](https://news.ycombinator.com/showhn.html).
~~~
coolgeek
Sorry, I did not intend to mislead.
I thought that "Show HN" was simply about things built/written by HN users.
Thanks
------
coolgeek
Hey HN -
Founder of SRSoterica here.
This is not another SRS platform.
This is a comprehensive SRS flashcard deck for learning the Python programming
language. The deck is built for use in Anki.
I'm here to answer any questions or challenges that you may have.
Thanks for your time and consideration!
Mike
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Ask HN: do you value Github profile more or StackOverflow? - codegeek
So I know that there is no zero sum game etc but I was wondering how do you evaluate another hacker based on their online profiles ? Github lets you see someone actual work/code samples etc. but a forum like stackoverflow gives you insights about how someone approaches a problem, respond to it etc when answering questions. A combination of both is of course ideal but if you have to only choose 1, which one ?
======
mekarpeles
I think github and stackoverflow are both good indicators of how people use
their spare time (and the quality of work they expect from themselves). It
shouldn't be used blindly or out of context, however I feel both can be a
powerful addition to a talent-judging heuristic.
To comment on the actual question, i.e. which do I value more, I'd say github.
This probably comes from my bias of valuing execution slightly more than
domain knowledge (and understanding executors better than domain experts).
Here's an example to illustrate why I believe this way. Person 'a' may write
an instruction manual for some appliance -- this may take considerable skills
(it is unclear whether they borrowed the instructions or composed them
entirely themselves). How do we know if the instructions are accurate without
first implementing them? Either we or someone else, let's say person 'b', must
execute on said instructions and have the knowledge to know whether the build
was a success. By this, I do not make the claim that everyone on github who
builds things writes good code (or even understands if they've assembled the
parts correctly). I have, however, experienced that a good github profile (on
average) provides me with more information than a stackoverflow post. Do they
contribute with others, do they comment their code, do they catch bugs, do
they write efficient code, how regularly do they contribute? Granted you can
obtain some of this information from stackoverflow, but this leads me to a
question of my own -- why choose just one?
------
willvarfar
When I review the public GH and SO profiles of various developers I know, they
seem to be very poor indicators of competence as I judge it. So many of the
excellent developers I know are have negligible GH and SO; some don't even
partake.
And I see one chap I'd recommend you all steer clear of and he looks
positively rosy on SO; its downright misleading.
Just my data-point.
------
debacle
This is good, heavy question.
I think it depends on the user.
On github, you might only have code - personal projects. But you might also
have responses to issue trackers, a timeline, responses to pull requests, a
commit log, documentation, etc. On SO, you have a lot of things but you'll
never have the code.
So if the user uses github like I do - as a git repository and nothing else -
then it's probably not super worthwhile and SO is probably more useful, but if
they are engaged in the github community and have active projects with
multiple pull requests and keep good docs, then it's probably the more
valuable resource.
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Ask HN: If you had 15-20k to take a 2-4 week trip, solo, what would you do? - throwaway9er
======
hprx
The important part isn't money, it's time.
Go see the wonders of the world. Be in awe.
I would suggest India because it's a microcosm. Go north to the Himalayas and
you can feel the majesty. Head to the west to the slums of Mumbai and you will
understand poverty. Maybe go learn to meditate out there at a vipassana
center. Visit Agra and the goggle at the opulence of the Taj Mahal. Then head
to Varanasi and experience the rawness. Maybe you'll even see a miracle or two
if you're lucky. Go to Hampi and see giant boulders stacked on top of each
other like lego and be bewildered. Stay in a palace just for the hell of it.
Take a motorcycle through small villages and be greeted by the children who've
never seen anyone so pale or so dark. Sleep in a tent in the deserts of
Rajasthan. Visit the holy places and wonder at the peacefulness.
But then again, India isn't for everyone, but it does have everything.
~~~
vram22
Good points.
I'm Indian, so I'll add a few, particularly about some areas that are likely
to be less well known to foreigners who may mainly have read or been told
about the most popular tourist areas, such as the Golden Triangle
(Delhi/Agra/Rajasthan), Goa and Kerala:
Go to parts of central India, e.g. Madhya Pradesh (MP).
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Madhya_Pradesh](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Madhya_Pradesh)
It's a big state. Lived there for some years. Apart from the usual touristic
areas, of which there are some, try to check out the central Indian deciduous
forests, comprising sal, teak, and many other species. (India has huge
biodiversity.) I really enjoyed the many hikes I did in those forests.
Kanha National Park.
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kanha_National_Park](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kanha_National_Park)
It has those deciduous forests I mentioned, with fauna that include tigers,
gaur (Indian bison - the world's largest bovid), dhole (Indian wild dog),
barasingha (swamp deer with 12-tined horns), etc.
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bengal_tiger](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bengal_tiger)
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gaur](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gaur)
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dhole](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dhole)
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Barasingha](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Barasingha)
Marble Rocks - sheer marble cliffs on both sides of the Narmada river near
Jabalpur (MP). They offer boat rides down that stretch, so you can see the
cliffs from up close. Seen it.
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marble_Rocks](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marble_Rocks)
In South India, less well known places include the "hill stations" (resorts)
such as Kodaikanal, Coonoor (5-7000+ feet high, with a cooler climate, and
mountain forests and orchards), many less frequented and less crowded beaches,
etc. Temples are well known but there are a huge number of them, large and
small, many with interesting architecture. Many wildlife sanctuaries in South
India too. Seen wild elephants on hikes from the mountains to the plains.
Bison too, many times, from nearby. They're huge, but peaceful, unless
disturbed. Cape Comorin (Kanya Kumari), the southernmost tip of the Indian
peninsula, where the Arabian Sea, Indian Ocean and Bay of Bengal meet. Multi-
colored sands there.
Seen some of the above.
The Western Ghats, a long mountain range down the western side of India, right
from Mumbai to almost Kankyakumari, including the states of Maharashtra, Goa,
Karnataka and Kerala/TamilNadu. Lived in parts of it for some years. It's a
biodiversity hotspot, with both deciduous and rain forests.
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Western_Ghats](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Western_Ghats)
A concert about India's environment and the Western Ghats, by Chinmaya Dunster
and the Celtic Ragas band - A Sense of Wonder:
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ft8iJ_5R-Lw](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ft8iJ_5R-Lw)
------
mtmail
The amount is enough to travel the world for a year. Unless you want to spoil
yourself with first class flights and 5 star hotels you'd be hard pressed to
even spent it.
How about climbing Mount Kilimanjaro (takes a week), then relax on the beach
for a week and give the remaining 15k to a local orphanage?
~~~
throwaway9er
It's a thought experiment. Assuming I haven't travelled in years and may not
be able to again. Decadence was not the goal, as is neither spending or
wasting all the money unnecessarily. It's the classic pickle, stay in a few
places for a long time or barely get to know/appreciate multiple. Honestly
looking for ideas I can expand on...
~~~
semicolondev
Going for people and culture ?
Pick different culture. Stay in one country/city, exploring it to the fullest,
making friends. Learning to sign their songs.
Going for refreshment and nature ?
Hop in multiple places.
------
tmaly
I would probably go for South East Asia. Cathay Pacific has this All Asia Pass
that lets you fly to all the destinations in Asia for a month on a single pass
that starts around $1099.
[http://www.airtimetable.com/airpass_asia.htm](http://www.airtimetable.com/airpass_asia.htm)
------
akg_67
For $5K, my wife and I recently did a 4-week road trip, a combination of
staying in hotels, cabins, and camping. We visited:
\- Spokane WA, \- Glacier National Park MT, \- Waterton National Park AB, \-
Banff National Park AB, \- Jasper National Park AB, \- Kamloops BC, \-
Vancouver BC
I will highly recommend trip to national parks in North America.
Last year, for about $15K, my wife and I travelled to Japan and India for 3
months. While 15-20K is plenty of money, 2-4 weeks is not enough to travel to
lot of different places (multiple countries), may be enough for a decent size
country. If you are into nature and hiking, I will suggest Peru.
------
mkempe
What _I_ would do is unlikely to be what _you_ would... There is a huge
difference between 2 and 4 weeks.
With 2 weeks I'd possibly go to Antarctica because that's the only continent I
haven't yet visited. With 4 weeks I'd visit the Galapagos, and walk some of
the Inca Trail to Machu Picchu. Or I might go to Greece.
Btw a decade ago I traveled around the world for one year, for less than that
amount. Best year of my life.
------
kat
Travel to northern Canada (North West Territories, Nunavut) before the planet
warms up too much. See the northern lights, go kayaking, go on wildlife tours
(polar bears!, narwhales!), etc. I know someone who lucked out on a tour and
ended up being the only person in the tour. Flights are incredibly expensive
so it would use up some of your money. Donate the left over money to charity
:)
------
sytelus
Sounds like lot of money and very little time. This means you should take
opportunity to visit places that are otherwise expensive, you can travel to
cheaper places like Asia, Africa, South America any other times ;). This will
then boil down to options like destinations in Europe (example, Italy,
Switzerland or France), Japan, Dubai or Galapagos. I would personally prefer
Italy just because there is just too much to see and absorb there (Rome,
Vatican, Venice, Florence, Milan and so many other little towns). This is
assuming you want to do signtseeing + culture exploration. More rewarding form
of travel is to learn something new and become expert at it while being in new
place but it's hard to blow off 15-20K on that, may be unless you want to get
jet fighter pilot training in Russia or learn to shoot arrows from horse in
Japan.
Just for comparisons, about $25K is pretty good chunk of amount for a solo
travel to go living around the world for entire year.
------
a3n
Road trip with my 17 year old to visit everywhere I've been, and tell the
stories that the visits would inspire. I'm in the US, and I've been as far
west as Kenya, and as far east as England.
~~~
nly
> as far west as Kenya
Not sure if you're being humorous but, from the west coast of the US, it's
still a shorter distance to get to Kenya if you go _east_ than it is if you go
west.
~~~
S4M
If he's on the West Coast, maybe he went to Kenya by crossing the Pacific
Ocean.
~~~
a3n
Yep, courtesy of the US Navy.
------
jasonkester
Personally? I'd take a One Year trip solo. That's the only way to spend that
much money traveling.
I bet I could spend upwards of $2k in four weeks if I really tried, but
honestly the places you'd have to stay and the things you'd have to spend your
time doing would just be way too unpleasant. Think Cruise Ships, Hotels where
people are wearing their Yachting Clothes, God forbid, _Guided Tours_.
It's just not worth it. Either save most of your money or find a way to get
the rest of that year off, then go out and have some real fun
------
aliston
I'd travel on 5k and put the rest in my investment portfolio. The 5k limit
will make the trip a lot of fun and force you to get out of your travel bubble
to meet people. It will also lead you to more interesting experiences and
force you to get creative.
If you really want to burn the cash, then spend another 1k on a day trading
class along the way, and put the last 19k in a highly leveraged investment
like options on GLD or something. Either way the investment goes, it'll make
your trip a lot more exciting!
------
nly
Pay for a good friend to go with you.
~~~
arsalanb
A good friend wouldn't need to be paid, I think?
------
sydneyliu
I think traveling and staying in 1 place or area is a great way to learn and
immerse yourself in a new place. I don't think I'd need 15-20k to do it.
I'd spend all 4 weeks in an area where I don't fit in. Some South American
country probably, perhaps Peru. As an Asian American, I think I'd feel too
comfortable in any American, European, or Asian country. In South America I'd
be able to challenge my comfort zone.
I'd use the money to take necessary precautions on necessary resources and
safety, but otherwise, I'd go lean and rather push myself to do things and
meet people there. I think 4 weeks is a good enough to time learn a new way of
life and really change how you see things.
------
thecupisblue
I'd go to Rome or Greece, and move upwards or downwards to pass through
Croatia, and probably spend a day or two in each seaside city I like or at an
island. If any time remains, go to Berlin and sightsee that amazing city.
------
atmosx
For that sum, I'll try to go Around the World in 28 Days :-) ... a bit like
this guy[1].
Then write book or blogpost about it :-)
I'd take 2 to 3 days each city, then book a plain/train and move to the
next... Take camera (new mobiles are good) and a diary (digital if you like).
Eat specialties and drink the wines and juices each place makes. Talk to
people a lot, write your experiences and think. Seize the moment when you find
something awesome... Take pictures and videos afterwards :-)
[1]
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Phileas_Fogg](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Phileas_Fogg)
------
bbcbasic
I would prefer to travel solo-proper rather than use guided tours that provide
the accommodation, company and excursions. I found that the day after day
early starts, focus on consuming alcohol and being loud and having to be up
for a party and all that not for me when I did that.
Having said that I found travelling alone to be quite lonely, even if I spoke
to and socialized with people along the way. The best way (for me) would be to
go with a friend or even better my family.
As for where to go. I would love to see more of Tasmania or NZ. Far northern
or eastern Europe too. Get away from the cities and see the amazing scenery.
~~~
dwd
Second NZ. Just spent a week in Queenstown and surrounds and wished I had a
month to take everything in.
Ideally you would do two trips: one during the snow season and the other when
it's warmer for the hiking season.
------
vram22
I'd visit one or more of the Central / Eastern European countries. Mainly
because of the culture, geography and nature; okay, food too :) Poland / Czech
Republic / Hungary / Romania / Slovenia / ...
Also check out my feed of some blog posts with images of nature, from
different countries, including some of the above:
[http://jugad2.blogspot.in/search/label/nature](http://jugad2.blogspot.in/search/label/nature)
------
antb123
Not really fair question as you haven't said what you like? Culture, Nature,
Fun?
This guy has done it twice and raved about East Africa
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jim_Rogers](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jim_Rogers)
From my perspective I would hit the countries with the most people - China and
India and then spend a week or so relaxing somewhere (Southern Europe(Greece
Spain) or Israel)
------
pmtarantino
Where are you? It is not the same if you are already in Europe, Asia, etc...
~~~
throwaway9er
American residing in US
~~~
pmtarantino
You could go to South America if you want to know new whole cultures. Though
the big cities may look like the big cities at the United States, the lonely
places are something totally new (search for Patagonia, for example).
If you want to know the big cities, including culture, I'd go to Europe. In
four weeks you can visit culture capitols as Paris, London, Madrid, Rome,
Berlin...
------
hadeharian
I would probably do some kind or genetic study as I traveled. There is some
kind of interesting genotype(s) I would have to test for. This could be plant,
animal, human. I wouldn't really care.
------
lightlyused
Ham radio dxpedition to somewhere on the dxcc most wanted list:
[http://www.clublog.org/mostwanted.php](http://www.clublog.org/mostwanted.php)
------
arsalanb
Fly to Africa, donate all the money I can to better education, healthcare, and
living conditions, raise some more, donate that too, and then fly back.
------
justinv
Trip to Antarctica. National Geographic Expeditions runs tours down there that
last around 10-30 days depending on the experience.
Looks amazing.
------
staunch
Hiking and sailing around the Mediterranean, touring ancient land routes and
sea lanes.
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
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FBI file on Aaron Swartz - gasull
http://www.boingboing.net/2009/10/05/fbi-file-on-aaron-sw.html
======
biohacker42
Dupe.
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Ask HN: Why hasn't Edward Snowden been captured yet? - alexhakawy
If the FBI CIA and NSA is so powerful how come they can't just snatch him up and bring to the US for the crime he allegedly committed?
======
BjoernKW
I'd say diplomacy. Russia is a powerful nation with an at least reasonably
proficient secret service (the FSB might not be the match for the CIA the KGB
used to be but I suppose they still know how to do their job). So, if they did
try capturing him things might get messy and unlike the affairs of less
powerful nations the CIA is involved in, in this case this might have serious
repercussions.
Besides, what does the US stand to gain from capturing Snowden other than
making an example of him? He's no immediate threat to any operations or to
national security.
------
aburan28
He is in Russia? What do you expect the FBI to do, kidnap him and smuggle him
out of a country they have no jurisdiction in? Better question is why did the
State Department cancel his passport on his way to Moscow knowing very well
that he still could hold the key to an encrypted trove of highly sensitive
documents
------
Jugurtha
They could if they wanted to. Do they want to? If they get him to the U.S.,
they'd _have to_ deal with him.
I don't think they want to get him because it'd dramatically limit their
options and possibly set a precedent with far-reaching consequences (is he a
traitor? is he a hero? what does it mean to be either? is the public ready?
how well would a pardon be received? if they pardon him, who else would they
have to pardon? what does it mean to leak sensitive information? what does
that mean for cases of espionage?)
Why address the elephant in the room when you shouldn't have brought an
elephant in the room in the first place? Just let the elephant where he is.
------
Esau
Personally, I have been wondering is the cozy relationship between Trump and
Putin signals danger for Snowden. I could totally see Snowden being handed
over as a gesture.
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
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Zuck & Me: What I Learned Competing Against Mark Zuckerberg’s The Facebook - socialmediaisbs
http://socialtimes.com/zuck-me-what-i-learned-competing-against-mark-zuckerbergs-the-facebook_b136315
======
OafTobark
The irony here is plenty of colleges I was familiar with had a
forum/marketplace/craigslist like competitor of their own (as the author did).
I have a hard time thinking of a campus that I knew of that didn't. The social
profile angle Facebook ran with was less common in comparison
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
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The Coming Changes of K-12 Science Education - grumblefoo
http://www.livescience.com/40283-ngss-science-standards-change-education.html
======
ColinWright
Does anyone else get annoyed by the fact that when you page down you miss
stuff because the banner at the top isn't considered in the calculation of how
far to step?
Why do web designers break this most basic function?
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Why all programmers should earn their master’s - prostoalex
http://qz.com/414542/why-programmers-should-get-a-masters-degree/
======
hwstar
When everyone has a Master's, employers will start stating Phd as the minimum.
In San Diego, most large companies won't even talk to you if you only have a
Bachelor's Degree.
Upskilling: A pox on America. What about hiring for potential, and training
new hires? That was what used to happen.
------
known
I'd say plan your retirement by 40 in Globalization;
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
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Reverse image search - roye
https://ctrlq.org/google/images/
======
roye
Thinking along these lines I also found this:
[http://reversedictionary.org/](http://reversedictionary.org/)
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Home Terminals (1999) - ecliptik
https://www.multicians.org/terminals.html
======
russellbeattie
For years, I could never understand what was special about vi, in that it was
short for "visual". What was particularly visual about it? I also couldn't
grasp the idea of "line editors" like ex and ed that came before it... How
would that even work? Why one line at a time? Memory?
Then one day I saw the famous picture of Gates and Allen at a teletype
terminal for the 100th time, and it suddenly hit me. Oh! It was all printed
out!! So as you were writing your program, it was being typed out on paper in
front of you. Then you'd read the paper (maybe after a few lines) if you saw
some errors, then you would use ed or ex to edit the program by entering the
line number the replacement text. You'd do that a few times, then run the
program again, or print it all out again to double your fixes. Ex would make
that a lot easier than ed by allowing regular expressions, etc.
So vi is a visual on-screen version for a monitor terminal. Duh! Took me years
and years to grok this simple concept.
~~~
cbm-vic-20
If teletypes seem clunky and primitive, remember this is still miles ahead of
the previous computer programming interface: punch cards. TTYs allowed real-
time interactive use of the computer. Even if only one line at a time.
------
jakecopp
> When the Big Snow of 1978 hit, it came with plenty of warning. So I took two
> cases of my favorite beer and a full box of terminal paper home, and
> reminded the MIT operators to set the Multics machine for unattended reboot.
> The blizzard paralyzed the Boston area for a week, but I was able to work.
> The MIT Multics had only a few users logged in, and response was great.
This made me smile!
------
n4r9
> The first people to have home terminals were those system programmers who
> might be called at any hour to investigate or repair a problem with the
> time-sharing system. These folks took home a machine that might cost as much
> as half a year's salary, and had a leased phone line connected to the MIT
> data PBX installed at home. They discovered that having a machine at home
> was useful not only for fixing the operating system, but also for
> programming and writing documents from home, and for sending electronic mail
> to other users on the MIT system.
Imagine being one of the first people in the world to discover that you could
sit at home and tap out messages to other people sitting at home, who'd pick
them up instantly (or at their leisure).
~~~
jakecopp
I wonder what things are just happening now that are the equivalent; the first
people to experience something that will be so commonplace and useful.
------
jakedata
I fished a DEC printing terminal and 300 baud modem out of a dumpster and got
it all working again in the mid 80s. Obsoletely fabulous for dialing up the
Northern Lights BBS and it prepared me for other exciting developments in IT.
------
kristianp
I can see the motivation for APL in these slow terminals. It's surprising how
long it took for screen-based terminals to appear, not until the early 80's,
more than a decade after the first teletype ones.
------
jonjacky
Around 1980, our department shared a portable printing terminal with a built-
in modem, called by its manufacturer the "Silent 700". A friend observed,
"It's silent when it's off."
------
dang
[https://web.archive.org/web/19990422131909/https://www.multi...](https://web.archive.org/web/19990422131909/https://www.multicians.org/terminals.html)
looks the same, so I switched 2001 to 1999 above. It could of course go back
earlier.
| {
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Anticensorship in the Internet's Infrastructure - wglb
https://freedom-to-tinker.com/blog/jhalderm/anticensorship-internets-infrastructure
======
lifeisstillgood
Is it just me or does this smack of security by obscurity - as long as the
great firewall of China/Iran/Whomever does not recognise the packets are
hiding the real destination in their headers, then they will let the packets
pass and anonymous surfing can continue.
But somehow the telex station does, without initially decrypting every packet.
So I guess the arms race will be a short one as whatever telex uses as a
decrypt me signal will be replicated.
Unfortunately, and rather ironically, my client's proxy is blocking telex.cc
so I cannot read any details on the steganography.
~~~
Kliment
From telex.cc:
How does the client tag connections?
When establishing a normal HTTPS connection, the client sends a random number
(called the ClientHello nonce). To create a Telex connection, the client
replaces this number with what we call a tag — essentially, an encrypted value
that looks random until it's decrypted. Decrypting Telex tags requires a
private key contained in Telex stations. Since the censor doesn't have this
key, it can't tell the difference between tags and the random numbers used in
normal connections.
In addition to marking connections that are requests for anticensorship
service, Telex tags convey information that allows Telex stations to decrypt
the secure HTTPS connection that the client establishes with the non-
blacklisted destination website. This lets the Telex station replace the
contents of the connection with data from a blacklisted site.
------
xtacy
Interesting idea. The approach assumes that the only way governments censor is
by inspecting destination IP addresses (or DNS, etc.), which may be true for
some countries, but not others. If the censoring government were to operate a
huge TLS proxy, then I can imagine an ISP doing a Telex-stripping attack that
downgrades the tagged-TLS connection to a normal one. I think this can be
detected...
~~~
Kliment
The whole ides of it is that it looks indistinguishable from a normal https
connection. You could perhaps detect it by requesting the same page yourself,
and comparing the size of the data, but with things like sessions and dynamic
content this too would fail.
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
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Ask HN: Best Cross-platform development tool that you've come across? - ramanujank
Apple Filemaker vs Force.com vs Microsoft Powerapps vs Zoho AppCreator.<p>The space seems to be crowding at the moment. Could users share their experiences?<p>It will help my ongoing evaluation. Thanks.
======
brudgers
Curious as the current results of your ongoing evaluation. It might help
clarify the scope of "cross platform", the relevant technologies, and the
scale at which they are applicable.
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Metaprogramming for madmen (2012) - Ivoah
https://fgiesen.wordpress.com/2012/04/08/metaprogramming-for-madmen/
======
teolandon
>So what did we learn?
>Honestly? I’m not quite sure. The story has a nice poetic justice to itself
though, and I promise that I really didn’t make any of this up – all of this
actually happened like I described!
While I don't think this story is that unbelievable, I also was struggling to
find an actual moral or what to take away from it, all the while smiling
because it's such a nice story.
I think it's mainly because in today's world, there's really no use for small
compiled code. This is such a niche little problem that I don't honestly see
many programmers using Lekktor.
I guess one thing that could be taken as a lesson for some people is that
writing a program for something is much faster than doing it by hand
sometimes. I learned that stuff when getting into using Vim, since even for
tasks that I didn't see myself doing that much, I would write some Vimscript
to take care of it instead of going through a file and doing it manually. This
applies to big projects and one-off tasks too! Computers are faster than us in
repetitive tasks, and we can be really fast at writing instructions to them to
perform those tasks for us. Scripting your way through a problem quickly is a
very very valuable skill IMO.
Also, can't help but laugh at the stuff that got left out due to the test
trials not being diverse enough. Can't scroll up on the menu. Oops.
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
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Play2 Simple HTTP API - etaty
https://gist.github.com/3026886
======
dinedal
Took me a bit of googling to figure out the context.
It's in reference to the Java based Play framework version 2.0.
~~~
densh
Currently it's mostly written in Scala but does support Java alongside.
------
notJim
This article should really provide some context--I have no idea what Play2 is.
~~~
CCs
<http://www.playframework.org/>
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
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Show HN: JOBBOX.io – Refer a friend, get rewarded - ftpaul
http://jobbox.io/?utm_source=hn&utm_medium=hn&utm_campaign=hn
======
andrewstuart
Refer to the top comment in this post.
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7908067](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7908067)
~~~
pcbo
Hi Andrew, you're right on multiple points, please let me not go TL;DR on this
one:
\- Referrals for the sake of taking advantage of your friends are rubish. I'm
with you on that one. Like you, I know multiple referral-only platforms that
went bankrupt already, many more will and I do not wish us to become one of
them.
\- JOBBOX.io started out as a pure referral-based mechanism, however, compared
to other referral mechanisms, it was quite hard to push through a referral as
you needed to write down a propper recommendation letter (we checked all of
them) and your friend needed to apply. We launched on March this year and soon
realised this was definitely not enough.
\- We then implemented the "apply now" mechanism as a result of user feedback
([http://blog.jobbox.io/listening-to-feedback-and-making-
chang...](http://blog.jobbox.io/listening-to-feedback-and-making-changes)). In
order for an application to go forward the candidates needed someone who could
refer them. Again, before the application was approved, our team did a
"5-minutes check" just to make sure everything on the application made sense.
This small step prevented "crappy" applications from being sent over to the
employers.
\- We realised that, from our 3 key users: employers, candidates and
referrers, the candidates were the ones that we needed to focus on. So, we've
re-built our entire homepage communication from being referral-oriented, to
become candidate-oriented.
\- Since then we've been shifting away from the referral-oriented
communication and we're heading into a candidate-oriented one.
\- What next? We're building core functionalities that support candidates,
like talent advice, evaluation tools and job offers scoring. Still, we're
keeping (and improving) the referral system as we believe that someone should
get rewarded for making an on-target referral.
Sorry for the long reply but as I mentioned to @ftpaul early today, your
comment deserved a proper reply as I agree with your argumentation, and wanted
to give you a sneak peek into JOBBOX.io future.
------
Corrspt
I second the very cool company.
I applied to a job there (went on an interview, waiting for the results), one
of the founders prior to the interview even had a Skype Call with me regarding
the interview and gave me a few tips.
So far, really nice experience. And they're very open to feedback, I've made a
couple of suggestions which where implemented quite fast actually (simple
suggestions, nothing very fancy)
~~~
pcbo
And you're one of our top candidates! :D The _other_ suggestions will be
implemented but will take some more time...
------
ginkgotree
Very cool company with engaged founders! CTO reached out to me last week via
GitHub when a new HackerSurf user wanted to see JOBBOX scraped:
[https://github.com/scotthasbrouck/HackerSurf/issues/9](https://github.com/scotthasbrouck/HackerSurf/issues/9)
~~~
pcbo
Thanks! Glad you scraped us :)
| {
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Digia to pay Nokia €4 million for Qt [...] - palebluedot
http://www.theverge.com/2012/8/10/3233105/digia-nokia-qt-acquisition-4-million-euros
======
pkmays
Glad to hear this. Digia has treated Qt very good.
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Petition the U.S. Government to Force the TSA to Follow the Law - thoughtsimple
http://www.schneier.com/blog/archives/2012/07/petition_the_us.html
======
user49598
We all realize that there is no direct measurable effect on government from
signing these petitions. And we also realize that signing these petitions and
then taking no further action does not make you a hero.
But for god's sake, stop posting about how they're useless every time someone
starts talking about one. First off, we get it, some people think they're
painfully useless. Second off, just because you can't see any direct effect,
or just because the effect wasn't exactly what you wanted it to be, doesn't
make them useless. They are a good tool for rallying support behind an idea.
They are a good tool for spreading awareness. They are a good tool for getting
a cause a little bit of noticeably. They are a good tool for collecting
thoughts in a coherent matter so they may be further discussed.
TLDR: We get it. You don't get petitions. Please figure it out or stop
complaining. You're not helping a goddamn thing.
~~~
rhizome
I speak up and say they're bad because I think signing these petitions uses up
what little political activity the typical citizen is willing to exert. If
they sign this, they're goign to be less likely to pressure their
representatives directly, which, as we've seen from lobbyists, is the only way
to get anything done.
~~~
aneth4
On the other hand, these petitions spread awareness to far more people,
educate them to start researching, and may instigate further action and
discussion.
You say that his is "using up" what little people are willing to do... (and
what are you doing?) Being against a small step in favor of an unstated big
step does not make you a hero.
~~~
rhizome
_educate them to start researching, and may instigate further action and
discussion._
In my experience, this is a highly optimistic prediction.
------
warfangle
I predict it will end up just like every other "successful" petition on
whitehouse.gov:
"We hear you, but you're wrong and we aren't going to change a damn thing."
~~~
jeremyarussell
The SOPA petition got Obama to publicly say he would veto anything that is
overly broad, without due process and threatens the nations security (the DNS
stuff in it). Soon afterwords they dropped it.
Albeit they made a new differently named one later, but still I don't think
the situation is quite so hopeless.
Edit: fixed the spelling of publicly.
~~~
TillE
Was that a change, or just a press release clarifying his existing position on
the issue? Cause I'm betting the latter.
------
true_religion
Well if you have standing, take them back into court (you know, the place
where the government is actually willing to listen to you). Petitions are
meaningless.
------
blhack
None of this matters. Look at the response we got to "Legalize and regulate
marijuana in a manner similar to alcohol"
[https://petitions.whitehouse.gov/response/what-we-have-
say-a...](https://petitions.whitehouse.gov/response/what-we-have-say-about-
legalizing-marijuana)
------
nhebb
Let's face it, the only petition that will make a difference is the big one on
November 6th. I'm amazed the TSA's policies and practices have not become a
campaign issue. If you care about this, then petition the candidates to take a
stance for civil liberties.
~~~
ben0x539
ok i'll make sure to vote for the candidate that has a reasonable anti anti-
terror terror policy
~~~
rhizome
Vote for "someone else" and don't buy into the two-party system. Our votes are
basically ineffectual anyway.
~~~
jmspring
"Our votes are basically ineffectual anyway."
That sentiment was quite prominent in 2000 during the Bush / Gore election. A
lot of people voted for Nader hoping to legitimize a third party on the
ballot. The common thinking was Gore and Bush were no different.
Given how world events unfolded, that view (in hindsight) was probably a
pretty dumb one.
~~~
rhizome
No, they _are_ ineffectual, period. Read up on the Electoral College, who
doesn't have to follow the popular vote at all if they don't want to.
------
sp332
Doesn't the court itself have some power to enforce its mandates?
~~~
tylermenezes
Not usually.
[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Separation_of_powers#United_Sta...](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Separation_of_powers#United_States)
------
chx
If you want change with the TSA first figure out what a politican can say when
(s)he will be attacked for being soft on terrorists cos that's what's going to
be happen if anyone tries to reform the TSA.
~~~
jonhohle
Simple - they are defending your civil liberties and they won't let terrorists
destroy the freedoms we are granted by the constitution. They can also say
that they won't continue increasing debt further through ineffective,
unproven, and personally violating policies.
------
Bruce_Adams
Attempting to login to <https://petitions.whitehouse.gov/> is very slow and
eventually gives an error message:
Our Apologies....
The site is currently undergoing maintenance. We appreciate your patience
while we make some improvements.
Please check back soon.
~~~
boonedocks
I got this informative error message: "Additional uncaught exception thrown
while handling exception."
------
kfinley
Looks like <https://petitions.whitehouse.gov> is using MongoDB
Additional uncaught exception thrown while handling exception.
Original
MongoCursorException: couldn't send command in Mongo->__construct() (line 35 of /mnt/codebase/petition-release-2012-07-11/sites/all/modules/contrib/mongodb/mongodb.module).
Additional
MongoCursorTimeoutException: cursor timed out (timeout: 30000, time left: 0:0, status: 0) in MongoCollection->findOne() (line 22 of /mnt/codebase/petition-release-2012-07-11/sites/all/modules/contrib/mongodb/mongodb_cache/mongodb_cache.inc).
_Edit: The page is loading correctly now._
~~~
jaytaylor
And..
''' Our Apologies....
The site is currently undergoing maintenance. We appreciate your patience
while we make some improvements. Please check back soon. '''
Not so web-scale after all (at least not the way the whitehouse has configured
it.)
I bet it's probably on the default setting where it starts dropping writes if
it becomes overwhelmed.
------
amurmann
Apparently the White House petition page uses Mongo and has no dedicated 500
side. I am sure the tax payer paid many millions for this
"Additional uncaught exception thrown while handling exception.
Original
MongoCursorException: couldn't send query: in Mongo->__construct()
(line 35 of /mnt/codebase/petition-
release-2012-07-11/sites/all/modules/contrib/mongodb/mongodb.module).
Additional
MongoCursorException: couldn't determine master in
MongoCollection->findOne() (line 22 of /mnt/codebase/petition-
release-2012-07-11/sites/all/modules/contrib/mongodb/mongodb_cache/mongodb_cache.inc)."
------
sneak
...because the fact that they simply ignore the law presently means that a
petition will make them willfully start following it.
Delusional. It's time to leave America.
------
shashashasha
Are any of you seeing a lot of duplicate Signature #'s? <http://o7.no/NhQtfu>
~~~
essayist
The duplicates indicate a kind of tie. What I've noticed before are sequences
like 100,101,101,103, suggesting that the two middle signatures happened at
more or less the same time.
5704, 5705, 5705, 5708 is a little odd - there should be a third 5705, or a
5707.
More: [http://citizentools.netalyst.com/2012/liberating-
signatures-...](http://citizentools.netalyst.com/2012/liberating-signatures-
from-white-house-petitions-a-new-tool-for-activists)
------
J3L2404
Are there petitions for poverty and healthcare somewhere?
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
How to Talk to Congress - BuuQu9hu
https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2017/01/how-talk-congress
======
RichardHeart
I've heard that some congressmen are genuinely surprised when you bring up an
issue to them that they didn't know about, because they "hadn't seen any money
on it." Meaning, I think that they're used to getting donations and the donors
having something to say. Thus, I think donations might be the most effective,
though costly way to talk to congress
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
CBP Can’t Detain Domestic Flight Passengers for Refusing Suspicionless ID Checks - jseliger
https://www.aclu.org/blog/national-security/cbp-cant-detain-domestic-flight-passengers-refusing-suspicionless-id-checks
======
perl4ever
You can't un-detain people who have been detained illegally.
------
kn0where
If CBP can’t, why can TSA?
~~~
xfitm3
Jurisdiction.
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Russia blocks ProtonMail - tdurden
https://techcrunch.com/2019/03/11/russia-blocks-protonmail/
======
PeterZhizhin
This situation really pissed me off. FSB (Russian FBI) had problems with
receiving bomb threats coming from Protonmail addresses. So, they secretly
ordered (with an almost classified order) major ISPs to block Protonmail
bypassing Russian's existing website/IP addresses blocking scheme.
Even worse, they ordered to __BLACKHOLE__ traffic coming to Protonmail. It
means that ISPs were ordered to silently drop all traffic coming to Protonmail
addresses. This raises problems not only for Russians, but for potentially for
other countries as well. So, for example, someone connects from Japan to
Protonmail (server is located in Europe, for instance). So, if traffic decides
to go through Russian channels, for a client in Japan it will be just like
Protonmail is not just responding because a Russian ISP in the chain silently
drops traffic.
Again. I want to repeat this once again. FSB had problems receiving bomb
threats to their addresses. Instead of configuring their mail servers to
ignore Protonmail incoming mail, they ordered major ISPs in Russia to block
Protonmail for EVERYONE in the country. That's so dumb.
Moreover, another recent leak coming from another Russian ISP indicates that
FSB also ordered to block sending and receiving mail for certain mail
addresses regardless of their domain. They ordered an ISP to block Email for
certain addresses. Like, they ordered to ban all Email going from/coming to
Emails starting with "putin666", like [email protected],
[email protected], [email protected], any email coming from an email
staring with "putin666".
It's so dumb, oh god. They cannot configure their mail servers, but they have
power to threat ISPs to ban Email for the entire country.
~~~
JumpCrisscross
> _FSB (Russian FBI) had problems with receiving bomb threats coming from
> Protonmail addresses_
Source?
~~~
PeterZhizhin
The source is in the article, actually. This is the order from FSB that MTS
operator received. They translated this as: “the mass distribution of
obviously false reports of a terrorist act” in January, resulting in “mass
evacuations of schools, administrative buildings and shopping centers.”
Right before the IP addresses list, you can find terms "blackhole", "BGP".
The document has a signature of a head of the FSB center that handles this
types of requests and orders. Also, you can see a stamp in the right bottom
corner on the first page.
Full story, how a Russian internet company has actually found out about
blackholing can be found here (in Russian):
[https://habr.com/ru/company/tm/blog/443222/](https://habr.com/ru/company/tm/blog/443222/)
In the story, you can find that MTS confirmed that they are blocking traffic
and referenced the order in the original article.
~~~
JumpCrisscross
If the CIA said “we got bomb threats from Tor so we need to block it,” I
wouldn’t believe it. This source appears to have a similar level of
corroboration. It looks far more likely that ProtonMail is being blocked to
perpetuate the Russian elites’ control of Russia’s polity and economy. Not for
security reasons.
~~~
ymolodtsov
The sad truth that it isn't. The most of the services they blocked were chosen
for some insignificant reasons. This is what happens when you have a ruined
system where every district judge can order to ban Youtube.
------
vogre
In Russia there is an anonymous network of political Telegram channels which
is read by both citizens and elite. The largest one, @russica2 acquire its
information using protonmail. Looks like these measures are taken to restrict
russian officials to send their information to these accounts.
~~~
SUr3na
They can still encrypt their emails in many other ways Just like people did
before protonmail existed.
~~~
tracker1
Or, since they can still access the web interface, they can still send to
addresses/servers not in russia.
------
SUr3na
I switched to protonmail after losing my gmail password.It was literally
impossible to get my account back thanks to gmail "security features". The
500mb free plan is enough for personal usage. I hope other 3rd world countries
don't block it following Russia.interestingly this happened not long after EU
€2 million award.Probably someone read the news and googled protonmail, saw
"encrypted email" in Wikipedia page and decided to block the whole thing.
~~~
pmlnr
Own domain. That's the most important part of email. If you have that, you can
move to wherever you want.
~~~
aljarry
It's also the weak point - do you trust your domain provider he won't allow a
domain move / access based on parts of your personal information, like here
[0]?
Also is it only domain block and not ip block?
[0] [https://medium.com/@N/how-i-lost-my-50-000-twitter-
username-...](https://medium.com/@N/how-i-lost-my-50-000-twitter-
username-24eb09e026dd)
~~~
Semaphor
You shouldn't use the almost-scammers of GoDaddy as an example. Whenever I
hear any Domain horror story it's about GoDaddy, it seems like a bad idea to
extrapolate from them.
------
Brain_Thief
IMHO, anyone who claims to care about privacy should seriously consider
throwing down the ~$10 a month (I forget exactly how much it costs) to have a
paid PM account. The company isn't perfect, but it's a far sight better than
the majority of other providers out there. Furthermore, by paying for your
account you are not only directly supporting a service that aspires to provide
communications privacy, you're also helping to subsidize said service for
those users who may not be able to afford a paid account (particularly
important in countries where economic and governmental problems overlap).
I pay for my PM account and have had nothing but good experiences with the
company and service so far (including with the VPN and with the mobile app
before I ditched my iPhone). It took me years to migrate off of Gmail but
since I finally managed to do it I've never looked back. Give it a shot.
~~~
jsjsjsjsjsjs
120/year is way too much for receiving spam. They are overcharging so much its
not even funny.
------
cpursley
In Russia now. Just successfully logged into my protonmail account over VPN.
My guess is that if you're a protonmail user in Russia, you're knowledgeable
enough to use a VPN.
~~~
protonmail
We implemented some technical tweaks yesterday so that Russian users will no
longer have any issues. Communications with Russian mail servers are also back
up.
~~~
cpursley
Super! I can confirm that I can use protonmail without VPN in the glorious
Russian Federation.
------
move-on-by
Maybe this will reduce my spam rate. Also, this has increased my trust in
ProtonMail.
------
nukeop
Protonmail is one of the last sane email providers. Gmail is essentially
spyware and they can block your access to your account on a whim, especially
if you refuse to have a phone number connected to it (phone numbers are
commonly used to link your account across many different websites, that's why
many of them force users to hand over their phone numbers under the guise of
"security" or "2fa").
Protonmail has its problems but I hope they get over them as a company.
Personally, so far I've received nothing but great customer support from them.
~~~
cotelletta
Protonmail has been a huge disappointment personally. It took days of trying
to get my email in over the IMAP bridge, and now it still has weird spazzes
where it will suddenly decide to redownload all my 30k emails, effectively
making all inbound mail wait for over a day while my laptop fans fire at full
speed.
On top of that, the mobile app is atrocious. It crashes at a drop of a hat,
doesn't autosave drafts, and doesn't even do threading. It also makes terrible
use of space, and has a permanent upsell ad in the sidebar, pushing my folders
offscreen. Someone actually approved this design...
I guess for those weirdos who can live with a webmail client it's servicable,
but it's an embarrassment that they've been at it this long, and this is the
state of their offering.
~~~
Sir_Substance
>Protonmail has been a huge disappointment personally. It took days of trying
to get my email in over the IMAP bridge, and now it still has weird spazzes
where it will suddenly decide to redownload all my 30k emails
I've never had this problem, but since you mention the IMAP bridge it's worth
noting that a) the linux version of the bridge is still an on-request beta
rather than a freely available download despite working flawlessly for me for
the last year and a half and b) you can only use the IMAP bridge with
subscribed accounts. So if you're using a free account you can't use it at
all, but if you have a mix of paid and free accounts only the paid accounts
can use the bridge.
I find the bridge pretty nice in and of itself, but the way it's managed and
monetized is a bit of a trainwreck.
------
rmujica
Probably a good time to start using ProtonVPN.
------
dwighttk
Does ProtonMail work in China?
~~~
dguo
Yes. I recently went to China, and I set up forwarding from Gmail to
ProtonMail beforehand.
------
MrXOR
For russians:
[https://protonirockerxow.onion/login](https://protonirockerxow.onion/login)
------
betulaq
ProtonMail is a service I fully support, but these sorts of actions only
underscore the importance of decentralized alternatives to email.
~~~
topranks
Email is decentralized.
The only centralized part is the DNS.
------
wpdev_63
ehh... it's been known for awhile that protonmail is in the pockets of the US
government so it's not really a loss for the russian people.
What they should be using is either Streisand[0] email with a server in a
country that respects their privacy(neitherlands, panama, etc) or lavabit
email[1].
[0]:
[https://github.com/StreisandEffect/streisand](https://github.com/StreisandEffect/streisand)
[1]: [https://lavabit.com/](https://lavabit.com/)
EDIT --
Sorry streisand doesn't in fact have an e-mail server. I thought it did at one
point. I guess you can use mail-in-a-box([https://github.com/mail-in-a-
box/mailinabox](https://github.com/mail-in-a-box/mailinabox)).
~~~
JumpCrisscross
> _it 's been known for awhile that protonmail is in the pockets of the US
> government_
Source? I thought ProtonMail were Swiss and E2E encrypted.
~~~
brokensegue
They have an SF office
~~~
JumpCrisscross
> _they have an SF office_
I didn’t know they had “support centers in San Francisco, CA, and Skopje,
Macedonia” [1]. Thank you.
Still a far cry from proof of being “in the pockets of the US government” [2].
Signal, too, has American nexuses. That doesn’t automatically render it
compromised.
[1] [https://protonmail.com/about](https://protonmail.com/about)
[2]
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19368140](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19368140)
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Teaching CS in the schools - luu
http://www.cs.uni.edu/~wallingf/blog/archives/monthly/2018-09.html#e2018-09-30T10_31_14.htm
======
badlogic
I'm currently teaching basic computing with a focus on introductionary
programming to 14-18 year olds. The myth that kids that age are all digital
natives and hence much more adept at learning CS amd programming is wrong. A
tablet in every class room is great to augment history, physics etc. lessons.
But it does nothing to improve their understanding of CS and programming.
I've cobbled together a curriculum, starting with CS unplugged activities to
explain computational thinking. I found this to be highly effective!
[https://teachinglondoncomputing.org](https://teachinglondoncomputing.org)
which is a fantastic resource to teach basic CS concepts. The locked-in
activity in particular is highly effective in making things click. You get
students to tackle a real world problem. You can introduce linear and binary
search (or rather, have them come up with it themselves). And finally, you can
teach them complexity analysis with a goal: how to write the book the fastest
way.
Before any programming can happen, getting computational thinking into their
heads is essential. Moving from that to code brings its own challenges. I
found Scratch and similar block based environments to be a bit of a deterrent
with this age bracket. The kids know it's not "the real deal".
However, there aren't any non-overwhelming "real" coding platforms out there.
Python comes very close, but is far from simple (pip, IDE, maybe mypy, because
it turns out types are helpful when learning to program).
So, while I think the CS side is pretty well covered, there is amlack of
beginner friendly programming environments that don't overwhelm the learner,
or treat them like they are "stupid". This could be one thing where the
community could make a difference. I'm building a statically typed structured
PL for that purpose at the moment.
~~~
atoav
I think visual feedback is important, I teached multiple people programming
with [https://processing.org/](https://processing.org/)
Processing is more like a framework and comes in python and java flavour
(although I think the language doesn't really matter as long as you grasp how
loops work and what can be done with it).
Something like this:
def setup():
size(400, 400)
stroke(255)
def draw():
line(150, 25, mouseX, mouseY)
def mousePressed():
background(192, 64, 0)
The concepts learned by just playing around with this are valuable in any
language.
~~~
wefarrell
This is something that earlier versions of flash did very well. You could
start by creating graphics, then turn them into frames in an animation. In
order to make those frames dynamic you had to learn some programming, and
you'd get instant feedback.
It wasn't just some toy, you could create production applications this way.
Unfortunately the low bar resulted in a lot of low quality applications (in
terms of ux and engineering) which led to it's downfall.
------
reacweb
Everyone should be able to create digital media, not just consume it.
Everyone should be able to understand their tools, not just use them.
People should know that technology is not magic.
------
Double_a_92
> The myth that kids that age are all digital natives and hence much more
> adept at learning CS amd programming is wrong.
This is unfortunately very true. It's kinda sad seing my nephews and nieces
struggling when using a desktop computer. I guess scrolling down on instagram
and watching netflix doesn't teach you anything about computers.
~~~
chrisseaton
> struggling when using a desktop computer
They're not native with the desktop computer metaphor, but so what? Why does
that matter? Why is desktop computing the true computing that identifies
whether you're native or not?
And of course, none of this has anything to do with computer science, does it?
You can do good computer science with a desktop, a tablet, or a pen and paper.
~~~
maxxxxx
"You can do good computer science with a desktop, a tablet, or a pen and
paper. "
What development environments run well on a tablet?
~~~
dagw
I haven't tried it, but people say nice things about Swift Playground. If you
add a keyboard and an internet connection you can also use any of the web
based IDEs and programming notebooks out there.
~~~
maxxxxx
Why would you do this over a setup with real keyboards and a big screen? I
couldn't imagine myself staring a tablet the whole day.
~~~
chrisseaton
If you attach a Bluetooth keyboard and use a larger tablet what is the
effective difference between that and a small laptop?
~~~
gowld
Nothing, but that's disingenuous, because kids aren't hanging out with
keyboards and >11inch screens.
------
cntlzw
10 PRINT "Hello, World" 20 GOTO 10
Easy to understand and you can see the result right away. You don't complex
languages or "playgrounds" to teach the basics of programming.
~~~
java-man
but... we have javascript! [0]
[0] [https://hackernoon.com/js-wtf-with-
number-5cd73514befb](https://hackernoon.com/js-wtf-with-number-5cd73514befb)
------
bluGill
Why?
Obviously we need some students to become programmers, and we should start
them early, but do we need all students? The student who wants to be a doctor
should learn to type and then move on to more science/biology classes. The
student who isn't sure what they want to do with their life (this is most,
even though they all have done a "what I want to be when I grow up paper")
needs to good general background. going deep into math, science, and
reading/writing (ie the 3 Rs) will get them much father than specialized
education in computers - they can figure out what they need to know a lot
better than someone with a deep knowledge of CS can figure out something else.
Computers are tools. They are useful when you know some other domain well and
then use the computer to take care of some work for you.
~~~
gowld
Why teach Chemistry, Literature, Music, Physics, or History?
Why is "science" one of "the 3Rs", but computer science is not?
~~~
JoeAltmaier
Honestly, they stay the same long enough to teach something lasting. Teach
java? Wait, no! Now its JavaScript. No! Clojure or Haskell or whatnot.
------
jonnydubowsky
Dave Liepman's Maria Project is a really accessible way to teach students how
to use Clojure with no previous experience. Getting the tooling out of the
picture and jumpstarting with music and art examples goes a long way.
[https://youtu.be/CUBHrS4ZzO4](https://youtu.be/CUBHrS4ZzO4)
[https://www.maria.cloud](https://www.maria.cloud)
------
nimos
I really think the best thing for teaching kids would be giving them a fully
built 2D game and teach them how to mod it, slowly working into how the core
engine works. Not that I have any real evidence to support this. But my casual
involvement in Half-Life/WC3 modding scenes during my teens says this is the
way to go.
------
jjuel
Always love seeing stuff from my alma mater on the front page of HN!
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Tech workers find communal living a solution for high rents - finid
http://www.reuters.com/article/us-san-francisco-tech-images-idUSKBN16H2EE
======
hpcjoe
I try to help recruiters calling me from the Bay Area understand how profound
a negative impact the housing prices are for my modest standard of living. I'm
in the midwest, and my house current estimated sale price (if offered for sale
today), would be insufficient to be the down payment for the purchase a
comparable sized house/property in a reasonable middle class (not upscale)
area. I could drop the size of my house (1600 sq ft) down to say 600 or so.
And then the pricing is, using Bay Area zillow listings, about a factor of 2
higher than what I could sell my house for here.
Honestly, the housing cost is a severe impediment to people with families,
unless companies decide to adjust for this in a real manner. But, the moment
they do, pricing/rents will go way up.
The only real way to solve this problem is to not try to bring more people to
the Bay Area. Defuse the rent seekers. Reduce the tech mediated inflation.
I don't think this will happen on its own. You'll need a crash of some sort
for the area to find its real prices. And it is alarming talking to the
recruiters, whom seem to think that housing prices will only ever go up.
This communal living is IMO, a symptom of the problem. It is not a long term
solution. I don't know what is the solution. Though I should point out that
there is a whole rest of the country which is relatively open ...
~~~
paulsutter
Candidates who make this argument ("pay me 5x my current salary so I can
afford similar housing") come across as super tone-deaf.
The cost of housing reflects the opportunity you find in the area. It's a
matter of personal preference. If you prefer a big home and less opportunity,
stay in the midwest. If you prefer to be where opportunity is greatest, and
are willing to sacrifice on square feet, consider the bay area.
But to expect both reflects a lack of common sense. Market salaries and home
prices are what they are.
~~~
hpcjoe
Respectfully, I disagree with
> The cost of housing reflects the opportunity you find in the area.
The cost of housing reflects the market for housing which is driven by many
factors, including local opportunity.
Again, with all due respect, the tone deafness isn't on my part (and I don't
ask for 5x salary).
It is on recruiters calling me up, telling me how wonderful it is there, then
offering salaries on par with, if not below what I am making or being offered
elsewhere. I have to help them understand the very real aspect of opportunity
cost, the huge negative impact, and that if they want someone like me to view
this as an attractive offer, they are going to need to think about these
issues.
Put another way, the symptom I alluded to is one where you wind up pricing
pretty much all of the talent out of the area. Which, as the invisible hand of
the market often does, fixes the problem for you.
Are some people willing to lower their quality of life, live in a dorm with N
other people, in a space they cannot call their own, for exorbitant rates?
Yes, of course. The article was about that.
Is this a stable scenario? I doubt it. I could be wrong, but I've seen too
many of these cycles to buy into "housing prices always rise." Or, "the reason
it is so expensive is due to opportunity."
The reason it is so expensive is due to rent-seeking behavior, driven in part
but not in whole by opportunity. At what point will people say "no more"? That
is the question I find interesting.
~~~
paulsutter
I can tell you that candidates from outside the bay area made all the same
arguments in 1989, the year I moved to Cupertino from a very low cost state.
And yes there were several booms and busts since that time.
So go ahead, place your bet.
------
nextos
In Oxford & Cambridge we have the same problem.
I am spending an uncomfortable part of my income in renting. Furthermore,
landlords tend to be greedy and unhelpful with any issues. Regulations give
you little protection. So the whole experience is disgusting even if you are
willing to go for premium properties.
I am considering to buy, but I am not to keen to borrow money equivalent to a
decade and a half of income. It feels like selling my soul. The problem here
is incredibly expensive land. A small plot in the countryside goes for at
least £150k. With so much empty land, permit restrictions can only be
explained as a way to keep land supply low and prices high.
I can only sympathise with the tiny house movement. They try to hack planning
regulations by building small homes which require no planning permits [1-4].
Maybe not a scalable solution, but definitely a way to voice concern about
unfair and wealth-extracting policies that force you to devote years of work
to buy a tiny chunk of land from billionaire landowners.
[1] [http://www.tinyhouseuk.co.uk/property-
ladder.html](http://www.tinyhouseuk.co.uk/property-ladder.html)
[2]
[https://tinyhousescotland.co.uk/faqs](https://tinyhousescotland.co.uk/faqs)
[3]
[https://www.echoliving.co.uk/planning](https://www.echoliving.co.uk/planning)
[4] [http://tlio.org.uk/](http://tlio.org.uk/)
------
raverbashing
$1900 for sharing a house with 40 other people? What a joke
And these are people making 6 digits per year
I'd rather get a lower pay and not worry about crap at this level, even though
rising rents seem to be an issue at every city that matters
~~~
pram
Dickensian neo-tenements are cool and disruptive.
------
alphonsegaston
I wonder how far away the tech industry is from returning to company towns,
complete with Bitcoin-like digital scrip to spend at their online stores.
It seems like the amount of time/energy spent dressing up the bleak economic
prospects of structural inequality as new fashions could be put to better use
addressing these problems. But then I guess the robber barons of the gilded
age didn't have teams of marketers under the thumb of outrageous student loan
debt.
~~~
closeparen
>bleak economic prospects of structural inequality
The housing crisis has nothing to do with economic inequality. If there are 3
units and 5 people who want them, 2 are going to be dissatisfied, even if they
all make the exact same income.
Lower inequality just changes the allocation strategy away from "who has the
most to spend" to things like government lottery, who was here first, who
belongs to the most politically favored class, and who is willing to spend the
largest share of their equal incomes on rent (making the most sacrifices in
other areas of life). Arguably, we already live in this world, due to SF's
progressive policies around housing allocation which seek to dampen the
influence of "how much do you have to spend on rent" on what (if any) housing
you'll get access to.
The housing crisis would remain exactly as severe as it is now if you erased
100% of inequality between people.
We have it because there is economic inequality between geographic areas,
leading people to migrate to areas where this no room for them, and no will to
build vertically to make room.
But that's only in a world with flat population. If we were reproducing above
replacement rate, a housing crisis would be _inevitable_ without construction,
even if every person and every area had exactly the same socioeconomic status.
~~~
curun1r
This is only when you look at it as a zero-sum game, which is only the case
because there's not enough new construction happening. If you addressed the
inequality between homeowners and non-homeowners by getting rid of the
protections afforded by proposition 13, you'd create a situation where it's in
everyone's best interests to have lower housing costs and we'd see more new
construction as a result. As it is now, homeowners are actually incentivised
to oppose new construction since it increases the value of their property.
~~~
closeparen
Policymakers have set it up as a zero-sum game _precisely_ to address
structural inequality: to prevent tech workers from ruining everyone else's
lives.
Viewing preexisting homeowners here as unfairly advantaged (rather than
unfairly disadvantaged by the influx of people with higher incomes than them)
is a fringe position that only works on HN. I think it's correct, but it's not
going to win a Board of Supervisors election.
------
lquist
Here's a less flattering article about The Negev:
[http://sfist.com/2014/11/21/tech_co-
op_the_negev_faces_furth...](http://sfist.com/2014/11/21/tech_co-
op_the_negev_faces_further.php)
~~~
dorianm
An almost 3 years old article
------
julius_set
I used to live at the Negev, it is not an accurate depiction of startup
culture in San Francisco. For starters, it used to be a place that hosted
regular Hackathons, tech talks, and other tech related stuff. However it soon
turned into a druggie fest, at one point I even saw a girl doing cocaine in
the main communal area. I don't think I would ever live in the Negev again,
but I did meet a few people that were very nice.
The Negev is a small microcosm of start up culture in the Bay Area.
------
tomjen3
I have been looking into alternative living situations as a hobby for sometime
because I am not convinced that the standard single family occupant
home/apartment is best for us as humans, but at the same time 1900 a month for
a shared apartment is bat shit crazy.
------
aub3bhat
1900$ is ridiculously expensive. Even in Manhattan you can get a nice private
Bedroom in shared apartment (3 to 5 BHK) for significantly less than that. At
1900$ you can get a bedroom in shared 2 Bedroom apartment physically next to
the Google building in Chelsea.
------
inlined
I'm a bit worried that this can be penny wise and dollar foolish. Increasing
density like this temporarily lowers the minimum cost of rent, but the price
per square foot skyrockets. I can't imagine that will be good for any of us.
I also can't imagine the actual cost of the building being anywhere near that
much per person. I pay 50% more (each) with a roommate to live fantastically
in a skyscraper that has plenty of room. How much is being pocketed in this
arrangement?
------
davidf18
> "Sarah Sherburn-Zimmer, executive director of the Housing Rights Committee
> of San Francisco, said housing problems have arisen because occupants leave
> buildings being converted to communal homes and cannot afford to move back
> in or the space is no longer suitable for them."
This is incorrect. The reason is because of zoning density restrictions which
causes market inefficiency in this case a politically induced scarcity which
is a form of rent-seeking.
These zoning laws that create artificial scarcity benefit the wealthy
landowners to the detriment of those who rent or want to buy into the housing
market.
Economists discuss this. See Tim Harford's book, "The Undercover Economist" or
read Harvard Economist Edward Glaeser for starters.
David Ricard was the first to see "rent-seeking" and he joined parliament to
help to overturn the "Corn Laws" in 1848.
These zoning laws are simply another way of the wealthy to unfairly get more
wealth from others instead of wealth creation through good ideas.
With all of the wealthy company owners in SV and SF, I'm surprise they don't
lobby to overturn these repressive zoning laws.
------
aanm1988
> Zander Dejah, 25, pays $1,900 a month rent to live in a downtown San
> Francisco house with at least 40 other people, many of whom sleep in bunk
> beds.
I'm just gonna say it, that's moronic. These articles about people choosing
(and yes, when you are a dev who has loads of options it is absolutely by
choice) to live like this, or in vans or whatever, just piss me off.
------
tomc1985
Some of us don't want to live communally; we want a place to ourselves in a
good area at a decent price :/
~~~
blackguardx
You could always try one of the many SROs [0] in San Francisco, primarily the
tenderloin district.
[0]
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Single_room_occupancy](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Single_room_occupancy)
~~~
tomc1985
Is an affordable one-bedroom apartment too much to ask? A small one- or two-
bedroom house?
The former are close to $1500 just for rents (nowhere near SV) and the latter
do not seem to be built very much. Very depressing as a native who wants to
purchase a simple house in his hometown.
~~~
blackguardx
Where is your hometown? With the cost of land, it seems crazy to build a 1 - 2
bedroom presumably ranch style house in San Francisco. Those style of homes in
the Sunset used to be had for $500k or so ten years ago. I think they go for
around $1M these days.
I agree that 1 - 2 bedrooms houses are the perfect size, though. I currently
live in one (not in CA).
------
kyleschiller
Is this city specific? It's nowhere near this bad in south bay.
I'm in Mountain view, close to Caltrain and getting a private room in a large
house (sizable backyard, garage, hot tub, kitchen, living room) with two other
roommates for $1600/each. We looked at at least a dozen similar houses.
------
patrickg_zill
40 people times 1900 per month is 76,000 per month, 912,000 per year.
Usually for real estate back of envelope calculations, 120 months or 10 years'
worth of rent is what the value of the property is. What did the Negev
property sell for?
~~~
s0rce
It seems in the bay area that figure isn't accurate. From my experience the
term is even greater than 150 months, often more than 200. I guess this means
rent is cheap here (or conversely the price to buy is very high, probably
partly because mortgage rates are so low and the interest is tax deductible).
~~~
user5994461
In most cities (not limited to US) it now takes 20 or 30 years of rent to make
up the price of a property.
~~~
raverbashing
Hello Bubble
~~~
bbcbasic
Ahh. The good ol' days when it was only 20 yrs rent.
~~~
user5994461
And the rent wasn't 50% of your income.
------
m-j-fox
Thought this was going to be about Chinese subcons a la Foxconn and friends. A
different kind of tech worker but maybe not such a difference in lifestyles.
------
f4rker
Nothing new under the sun, the rest of us suffer while the top part of society
buys their 3rd house and 2nd boat. Let them eat Ramen.
~~~
paulddraper
The number of people with 3 houses _and_ 2 boats is tiny. Much less than 0.1%.
~~~
Buge
Does a kayak count as a boat?
~~~
paulddraper
Only if dog houses do.
------
cdransf
As much as I like visiting the Bay Area, the cost of living is one of many
reasons I'd never consider living there.
------
james_niro
Developers should start building communal spaces where you have your own room
and bathroom and share everything else.
~~~
paulddraper
"Dorms" being the technical term for that arrangement.
~~~
Buge
I've lived in several dorms, and I never had a bathroom just for myself.
~~~
protomyth
The new senior dorm where I went to school had private bathrooms in the dorm
rooms. Of course everyone of them went and got a small fridge.
------
creaghpatr
For 1900 a month you can rent the same condos as pro athletes in Atlanta, just
sayin.
~~~
Johnny555
Well yeah, but then you're living in Atlanta (and after 5 years there, I'm not
moving back)
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Expresso? The x spelling has considerable historical precedent (2014) - edward
http://www.slate.com/blogs/lexicon_valley/2014/08/18/espresso_or_expresso_the_x_spelling_actually_has_considerable_historical.html
======
vilhelm_s
I guess even if "espresso means not just ‘fast’ but ‘pressed out’", spelling
it with an x still would be kind of natural in English. After all, "to
express" (from Middle English expresse < Old French espresser, according to
OED) can also mean "to press, squeeze, or wring out".
~~~
schoen
You can also trace it back to Latin exprimo, exprimere, exprimi, expressus,
which is why the linked article says that Italian (and implicitly also French)
"corrupted the Latin root". (The Romance languages lost the /k/ in the
consonant cluster in /ekspr/ → /espr/.)
The complicated part is that even though we _do_ have roots that preserve the
x spelling and the /k/ pronunciation -- "express" and "expression" \-- we
don't have the Italian "-esso" (or Latin "-essus") ending, so when we use the
"-esso" it seems we must be borrowing an Italian word, which it would probably
be most natural to borrow with the Italian spelling and pronunciation, unless
we want to say "a pressed coffee" or "a pressed-out coffee".
~~~
Oletros
> (The Romance languages lost the /k/ in the consonant cluster in /ekspr/ →
> /espr/.)
One of the Romance languages that didn't lost it is Spanish, expresar is
pronunced /ekspresar/
~~~
schoen
Oh yeah, thanks for that counterexample!
Portuguese has lost it in pronunciation but not spelling (unstressed ex →
/iʃ/).
(But I should be careful generalizing about some of these things because
sometimes you have later scholarly borrowings from Latin, so you can have some
words with the modified original root and then some words with the re-borrowed
root, maybe with a different pronunciation.)
------
learnstats2
Essentially:
The x spelling is correct in French. At least some of the article's evidence
for the 'x' spelling appears to have arrived in English through French rather
than the original Italian.
~~~
azinman2
I didn't understand this point (and I agree with Weird Al). Isn't it simply
"café?"
------
contingencies
Someone pulled me up on this here in China the other day. Knowing no better I
accepted correction. I wish I'd had this article then, which essentially
confirms _espresso_ is exclusively a modern Italian form and nothing more.
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Why Flash Doesn’t Suck - nreece
http://pixelborne.com/blog/why-flash-doesnt-suck/
======
glhaynes
"some obnoxious people who dare dub themselves members of the “web elite”
[citation needed]"
Anyway, I clicked the examples the author gave of good all-Flash sites. As
expected, they act weird, they pop up "loading" indicators all the time,
information density seems tiny, I can't copy/paste text that I should be able
to, scrolling doesn't work the way it should (argh that's _so_ frustrating --
that's a fundamental interaction!)... oh and I didn't even try hitting the
Back button.
Sure, all those presumably "could" be fixed with enough work. And an MFC app
_could_ be written that rivals the latest .NET or Cocoa app. But in practice,
the vast majority of apps are going to "feel" like the platform they're on.
And the Flash platform feels super-sucky for information-heavy websites, if
you ask me.
~~~
alayne
I think many of your criticisms apply to current Javascript UIs also. I have
seen so many UI quirks, even in the stuff you'd think would work right like
YUI/JQuery UI. However, its saving grace is its composable nature.
The biggest problem with Flash in my mind, and what will seal its doom, is
that monolithic mentality that you should have a whole site that is only a
flash program. That's wrong and throws away a large part of makes the web
great. If you aren't building stuff out of the dhtml/dom substrate, if you're
not basing architectural decisions on REST, you are doing it wrong.
~~~
est
> The biggest problem with Flash in my mind, and what will seal its doom, is
> that monolithic mentality that you should have a whole site that is only a
> flash program
That what RIA is all about. If you really hates Flash only, write your text in
HTML and transfer it to Flash using javascript. It's best for both search
engines and non-Flash browsers.
------
pierrefar
So many things are wrong with this rant.
1\. "You don’t have to follow convention anymore." Generally, convention makes
it easier for visitors to figure out the website and get how to interact with
it. The prototypical example is having links in blue with an underline. Form
elements that look like other forms' elements are also important.
2\. Innovation: Flash is a tool that has created a lot of innovation, yes, but
so has Javascript. I'd argue projects like jQuery are promoting innovation
much better: it's Javascript that runs on pretty much any browser without the
need of a CPU-sucking plugin.
3\. Rain City bikes: the author needs to brush up on SEO. Firstly, the page
has quite a bit of content that is NOT flash, as cached by Google ( see
[http://66.102.9.132/search?q=cache:ggNvi1Rjd3UJ:www.raincity...](http://66.102.9.132/search?q=cache:ggNvi1Rjd3UJ:www.raincitybikes.com/+Dutch+Bikes&cd=15&hl=en&ct=clnk)
). Secondly, the anchor text of a page will make it rank higher for queries
that match the anchor text; this is regardless of the contents of the page.
The extreme examples of this are called Google Bombs:
<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Google_bomb> . For Rain City, this query shows
you how much the anchor text is helping them:
[http://www.google.com/#hl=en&q=allinanchor%3ADutch+Bikes](http://www.google.com/#hl=en&q=allinanchor%3ADutch+Bikes)
.
In short: nothing in the post is really arguing why Flash doesn't suck.
------
GiraffeNecktie
There is one area where Flash doesn't suck: it provides a great toolset for
creating rich interactive audio visual web experiences. If you're making games
or animations, it's a great choice.
However it's always (with a few rare exceptions) the wrong tool for making web
sites.
------
wvenable
My biggest complaint about Flash is that it isn't truly part of the web. If
you have a completely flash based site, all browser conventions go out the
window: bookmarks, the back button, and deep linking. Sometimes even non-
browser conventions are gone like cut'n'paste, printing, or saving to a file.
If you're going to do that, you should have a good reason beyond "it's easy"
and "you can have music"
Flash is most successful when it's used properly: for small regions of video
or cool interactivity. It's least successful when it's used to replace a
properly coded website.
I don't think the 'web elite' want Flash to die necessarily; they just want
all the same cool toys but with something that plays nice with existing web
conventions. And they also don't want to sharecrop on someone's proprietary
platform. I'd argue the author has taken a very shallow look at the issues
involved here.
~~~
est
> all browser conventions go out the window: bookmarks, the back button, and
> deep linking.
Most of the ajax in the wild is no better than that. Instead of saying Flash
breaks everything, why don't we think about the good n' old browsing behavior
model. Does it suit our Web 2.0 world well?
~~~
wvenable
Actually, a lot of Ajax handles the back button very well. The Extjs
framework, as one example, lets you back through almost all the navigation
including flipping between dynamic tabs. I'm not even sure how they've
implemented that.
There was a Ajax chat application that was posted here recently. And this was
my comment: <http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1128206>
The back button is an extremely useful feature and should probably be in every
application. Whenever a user gets confused or lost they just click that button
-- it's a universal undo for navigation.
------
dougmccune
As a Flash dev myself it's exactly this idea of the _possibility_ that Flash
provides that made the platform appealing to begin with and continues to do
so. Sure, you can make some horrible things, but the sheer number of things
that you can make is so huge. Is it a good idea to make a 3D visualization of
live sound data from the user's microphone and run facial detection on their
webcam to overlay the visualization over their mouth while they talk? No,
probably not. But I _can_. And because I can I'm going to experiment a lot
more. And out of a million experiments that are only possible with Flash,
maybe one is going to produce something truly innovative and unique. That's
the power of Flash.
New capabilities of HTML are going to open similar experimental doors, and
we'll all be better off in many ways because of it. I believe anything that
expands what we can do is inherently a good thing, even if it allows things
that should never be done.
~~~
tomlin
Precisely. This is the point I try to make. Flash gives life to the
experimental web.
Anyone care to tell me why web devs should want Flash dead? No, not a dumb
blanket statement regarding open source. Think.
Flash sets the stage (no pun intended) for innovation on the web.
What if a developer wanted to introduced a new approach to video conferencing
/ VOIP and allowed developers to play with the experience among multiple
audiences?
Why is Flash the spooky village witch, to which we must burn at the stake?
We'll wait on the W3C to "standardize" innovative processes into browsers.
Good luck with that.
~~~
jrockway
_Anyone care to tell me why web devs should want Flash dead?_
Because it's broken and therefore a pain for users. Should something like
Flash exist? Yes. But Flash itself is a bad implementation of a good idea.
~~~
tomlin
Flash has issues and anything the W3S and WHATWG do is without fault. Down
with plugin architecture! All ideas and possible innovations that live outside
of our dying, simple-minded, slow-moving, "One or None" religion should be
killed! _chant_ Kill Flash! _chant_ Kill Flash! _chant_ Kill Flash! _chant_
/sarcasm
~~~
jrockway
Give us Flash's source code. That's the problem. Nobody cares about specs,
they care that they can't use their computer when a website using Flash is
open.
If you were a programmer, you'd know that bugs can be fixed. But not by
sitting around and complaining, but by writing code. Since Adobe won't let
anyone fix their code, so the only solution left is to stop using Flash (and
start using something else). The "something else" is improving browser support
for fast Javascript, Canvas, video, 3d acceleration, etc.
~~~
tomlin
_Give us Flash's source code. That's the problem._ It is a problem, but I am
having a hard time believing that perspective.
The OOS community _can_ create a player. Since the SWF format is inherently
open there is nothing really stopping anyone from making an _awesome_ Flash
plugin, yet no one has. Must me a reason for that.
Oh wait, there is a reason. Money. Time. Adobe invests millions into R&D every
year. Money that is used to do test cases and audience dynamics. OSS community
does not.
The problem is software patents. Not Adobe. Not OOS. And of course, not Flash.
A root problem exists and Flash, like much software, is the result.
------
megaduck
_deep breath_
The most fun I've ever had in programming was programming Flash. There, I said
it.
Flash is an absolute blast. In my first experience with it, I was able to slap
together a simple sprite-based game with basic physics, sound, and a video
background. The whole project took about 10 hours, and most of that was
learning the toolkit and ActionScript. ActionScript is still one of my
favorite languages.
Yes, it's terrible for standards, has awful usability, etc. We should be
pushing web standards hard. However, we shouldn't forget that Flash makes
programming fun and accessible. That's pretty neat, and so I hope it never
dies entirely.
------
teej
I think the article makes a pretty poor case for Flash with it's examples.
Blizzard's marketing sites are the de facto example I give of Flash used right
- incredible and unintrusive layering of audio and animation on top of a
website. Flash makes the difference between good and great.
I'll leave these here:
<http://starcraft2.com/>
<http://www.worldofwarcraft.com/wrath/>
<http://us.blizzard.com/diablo3/?rhtml=y>
~~~
jeff18
Just for the record, all of that could be done better with HTML5.
~~~
tomlin
The record of what? Talk is cheap. Let's see some examples.
~~~
jeff18
I meant that there is nothing in those examples that couldn't be achieved
using HTML5. Basically, the effects could be achieved using HTML5 video for
the background, canvas for the particle effects, and either your choice of
canvas or CSS transformations / animations for the movement of the character
pieces.
It certainly wouldn't work for the vast majority of visitors, as most people
are still using Internet Explorer (hence why I can't produce any examples of
AAA HTML5 sites), but there is nothing shown there that is inherently Flash
only, technologically speaking.
~~~
tomlin
I need to see HTML5+JS perform as well as Flash doing multiple things. Sorry,
sliding PNGs across the page with jQuery isn't really the same.
If we're gonna go into debate about Flash vs. HTML5, I am gonna need to see
more than simple equalizers and canvas bar charts.
Show me <http://mycanvas.landsend.com> or <http://www.myspace.com/fanvideo> in
HTML5. I wanna see this level of complexity without a hindrance on development
time, performance or scope. Enough with the double talk.
~~~
jeff18
jQuery and PNGs are actually not HTML5. I'd recommend checking out the CSS
animation / transitions modules at the W3C to get familiarized. Safari's
implementation is actually hardware accelerated. Also, check out the SVG
animation module. See the ADC for a pretty nice selection of examples which do
actually rival Flash websites, often without even using JavaScript.
~~~
tomlin
_jQuery and PNGs are actually not HTML5._ I understand they aren't the same.
jQuery is often cited as a "Flash killer" of sorts, just covering the bases.
_See the ADC for a pretty nice selection of examples which do actually rival
Flash websites, often without even using JavaScript._
Right. Except that they don't always.
I'm not saying that Flash _should_ be what we use for creating innovative
content. Standards are slow. Video tag? We're just starting to see this
implemented? After how many years has video been a demand on the web?
Flash will always do what the browser can't handle native. New demands for
VOIP, Web Conferencing, h/w accelerated 3D will keep Flash alive as well an
IDE (with mind crushing bugs, mind you) that brings everything together.
And if it doesn't live as a file format, that would be alright, too. There is
a different experience with creating content within the Flash IDE. If Flash
eventually outputted in native standards, that would be a great thing.
~~~
jeff18
If that was your point, you could have just said "Microsoft doesn't support
HTML5, end of story."
I wasn't trying to argue that HTML5 has the same adoption as Flash, simply
that HTML5 is technically capable of creating those "state-of-the-art"
websites cited in the first post.
FYI, HTML5 also addresses hardware accelerated 3D in the WebGL module. ;)
~~~
tomlin
How I love the "The Flash-hater side-step".
If you read, I wasn't talking about adoption rates (although that is also an
issue worth noting).
You might have noticed that I mentioned that Flash brought about new
innovations to the web. Most notably, how video is handled.
Try to look forward and see beyond HTML5, just as you seem to have no problem
doing with HTML5 adoption rates.
~~~
jeff18
To be honest, I don't know what you're saying.
All I wanted to say was that those three sites could be technically created
using HTML5.
You then seemed to say that HTML5 doesn't actually let you create the effects
exhibited in those websites. I corrected you and referred you to the modules.
Sorry for any misunderstandings. If we are clear on the above, and you would
like to bring up a new point, I'd be happy to engage in a separate debate.
~~~
tomlin
_You then seemed to say that HTML5 doesn't actually let you create the effects
exhibited in those websites. I corrected you and referred you to the modules._
The side-step again. The _examples_ that you gave (a vague reference to ADC)
did not support your argument. You might remember: "Show me
<http://mycanvas.landsend.com> or <http://www.myspace.com/fanvideo> in HTML5."
It was apparent to me that we had moved away from the Blizzard sites.
The very simplistic Blizzard sites (which I agree _could_ be done in HTML5 to
some extent) are not what I would consider heavy or complex.
I asked: "I wanna see this level of complexity without a hindrance on
development time, performance or scope."
You replied with the same double talk I expect in a Flash vs. HTML5 thread:
"I'd recommend checking out the CSS animation / transitions modules at the W3C
to get familiarized. " You mean the fully implemented CSS transitions?
If you can't give examples, then just say that. Don't come back with a vague
blanket statement.
~~~
jeff18
Both of those websites, like the Blizzard sites could be completely done in
HTML5. Is there a specific element that you believe could not?
I already explained why I cannot give you an example of a AAA HTML5 website
(Internet Explorer doesn't support it).
If you'd like to discuss the technical aspects of HTML5, feel free to email me
at [email protected] - I am going to stop checking this thread.
------
wglb
Consider, in the context of _Two big reasons why Flash won’t disappear any
time soon. The first is porn._ that there was porn well before the invention
of .gif or the img tag, and well before the invention of flash.
Also consider that an important property of the web is that its content is
searchable.
Finally, I think that there is a desire to have a more open video standard.
~~~
timdorr
I'm pretty sure porn can switch to HTML5 <video> tags anyways. Not quite sure
why Flash is a requirement there at all.
~~~
Timmy_C
I think that he was speculating that since popular porn sites are already
using flash that there is no need to switch.
Or that there is some unmentioned barrier to switching video formats that porn
sites don't have the means or ways to overcome. Either way, his point is
unclear and I agree; porn can switch to HTML5 <video> tags when/if there is
sufficient browser support.
~~~
jeff18
Or more likely, they will roll out HTML5 video support and use Flash as a
seamless fallback, like YouTube, DailyMotion, and Vimeo are publicly beta
testing.
------
thristian
Probably 90% of my time on the web is spent working with information -
searching for it, reading it, manipulating it, submitting it. Sometimes I'm
using Firefox and reading and typing with my own eyes and fingers, sometimes
I'm copy/pasting or even writing scripts to submit forms and screen-scrape.
After all, that's the sort of thing the Web was designed for - free exchange
of information (modulo HTTP's 402 error code).
Flash sucks because it interferes with my usage of the web. Almost every use
of Flash puts a barrier between me and the information I want to get or give,
a barrier that can be very annoying (though never impossible) to overcome.
About the only thing on the Web that isn't "information" is "experience" - I
can't think of any example besides games, but there may be some. You know,
where the valuable thing is the interaction, the ping and pong. That's not a
thing I can paste into a spreadsheet, process with a script or bookmark. For
such things, I can accept that the powerful Flash plugin is a better platform
than the documents-and-tables world of HTML.
Still, most Flash usage that I see on the web is just to add glitz and glamour
to an otherwise informative page - swoopy page transitions, animations, sound-
effects. To the extent that your website prevents your visitors from obtaining
and making use of the information they came to your website to obtain, Flash
sucks.
------
icefox
"What if I told you that you can do anything you want. You don’t have to
follow convention anymore. You don’t have to do things the way they told you
to in school. You can do anything."
What a lie. I can't do squat because flash either is either a POS on my
platform (OS X & 64 bit linux) or nonexistant (blackberry and iphone).
~~~
gb
..."Turns out that’s not totally true, but within the realm of Actionscript
there are, without a doubt, more possibilities, and more opportunities to
innovate. This is why I learned Actionscript."
------
Timmy_C
As I was reading this article I kind of felt the urge to go learn flash
(again, just for fun).
------
protomyth
As to video: Flash pretty much replaced Real Player and HTML5 will replace
Flash.
~~~
tomlin
You're not very well informed, it appears.
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Android phones to automatically share your location during 911 calls in US - craigferg501
https://www.theverge.com/2018/9/19/17878382/android-phones-location-sharing-emergency-911-calls-us
======
Havoc
Seems like a good idea.
I'm totally OK with the concept of phones ignoring all privacy concepts
(within reason) once 911 is typed in.
Privacy etc is important sure but 911 implies an in extremis case that goes
far beyond such considerations.
~~~
greenyoda
> _I 'm totally OK with the concept of phones ignoring all privacy concepts
> (within reason) once 911 is typed in._
Some people may have good reasons for wanting to make anonymous 911 calls, and
may avoid calling 911 if their identity could be revealed.
For example, if I see someone get shot by a street gang and want to call an
ambulance, but fear retribution from the gang if they ever find out I helped
the victim, I may decide that calling 911 is too risky. Or, I might be in the
country illegally, and may not want to interact with the authorities as a
witness to a crime.
Google and the phone carrier should let people make their own privacy
decisions, not decide for them.
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Show HN: Toby the Tab Manager - rohamg
http://www.gettoby.com/
======
arthurcamara
Hey guys, I'm Arthur and I developed Toby. The motivation behind Toby was
basically to have a UI where I could see all my tabs, organize them, have them
"on my face" and treat them as stickers or cards that I could drag around and
search through. I think that's the user experience that works for me, it's
been helping me a lot and has made me more productive, so I wanted to share
with other people who might benefit from it as well:)
Answering your questions here:
\- About difference between this and bookmarks: well, it all depends on how
you use Toby. I've seen people use it as an actual tabs manager, adding and
deleting tabs after they're done with it; others using it as a personal to do
management board; and others using it as a bookmarking tool. In any case, I
think having that type of UI is the biggest benefit and being able to drag
around brings a totally different user experience, which I personally prefer.
But please let me know how I can improve it even further.
\- About Firefox and Opera: I haven't planned that yet, to be honest, since
it's a fairly new project and I'm gathering everyone's feedback, but it would
certainly be nice to consider that and expand browser support.
\- About syncing: It's actually already under development and almost done. I'd
say I'm 95% done and just need a few tweaks and extra testing before
publishing sync with the new release. Yesterday and today we got thousands of
new people using Toby and excited about it, so I want to make sure I do it
right. I'm sure it's gonna be a super cool new feature.
Thank you guys for trying it out and please let me know if you have any other
feedback, ideas, comments, etc.
------
ebalit
It's really interesting extension and I would love to use it. Is their any
plan to take advantage of the Web Extensions standard to offer this extension
on Firefox and Opera too?
------
mackflavelle
I posted this to Product Hunt today. Even for that typically positive
community, the response was so awesome.
------
wingerlang
Looks nice but what's the difference between this and a folder with bookmarks?
------
fiatjaf
Why it doesn't sync? Uninstalling.
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
A Critic Looks at His Own Early Artwork, 35 Years Later - prismatic
http://www.vulture.com/2017/04/jerry-saltz-reviews-his-own-early-artwork.html
======
amsilprotag
This slide show is a follow-up to [0]. I'd argue the context is more
interesting than the content. The original article is a kind of counterweight
to survivorship bias. What happens when an artist in his early twenties gets
some glimmers of potential success as a professional artist, and then goes
down the rabbit hole for about a decade only to find that their work is seen
as mediocre?
From the article:
Soon, I went to get Roberta. I told her the news [about rediscovering his art]
and asked her to come see. She came into my office and started looking. For a
long time. Longer than I had. One by one. Studying, not saying a word. After a
while she turned to me and said, “They’re okay.” Stricken, I said, “Okay?!
What do you mean ‘okay’? I think they’re beautiful. Aren’t they great?” She
turned back to the drawings, looked a little longer, and finally said,
“They’re generic. And impersonal. No one would know what these are about. And
what’s with the triangles? Are they supposed to be women?” I shot back, “No!
They’re Hell!” She talked about how many artists “never get better than their
first work.” And just like that, I was right back to where I was when I quit:
crushed, in crisis, frozen, panicky.
[0] [http://www.vulture.com/2017/04/jerry-saltz-my-life-as-a-
fail...](http://www.vulture.com/2017/04/jerry-saltz-my-life-as-a-failed-
artist.html)
~~~
forgotpwtomain
> What happens when an artist in his early twenties gets some glimmers of
> potential success as a professional artist, and then goes down the rabbit
> hole for about a decade only to find that their work is seen as mediocre?
Most of contemporary art is mediocre looking work which sinks or floats based
on fashion, connections and marketing.
~~~
theoh
There's a lot of truth to that, except for what you said about "mediocre
looking" which suggests that maybe you've missed something. Not all
contemporary art is trying to be "retinal" (Marcel Duchamp's word for the
visual) and beauty or visual impact has been something suspect for years,
sometimes coming into style, sometimes fading.
It _is_ largely a trivial, social, reputation-driven thing, funded by idiots
with pretensions... But that doesn't mean there isn't an intellectual side to
it, pursued by people who actually care about art and what it could be.
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
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Detroit 1967 – A bristling tension, a revolt and the death of a dream - rmason
http://www.freep.com/story/opinion/contributors/2017/07/02/marsha-music-detroit-1967-riot/439448001/
======
rmason
There's a movie coming out on the story of the 1967 Detroit riots.
[http://www.freep.com/story/entertainment/movies/julie-
hinds/...](http://www.freep.com/story/entertainment/movies/julie-
hinds/2017/07/02/detroit-movie-world-premiere-fox-theatre/445885001/)
I witnessed the aftermath two weeks later, buildings still smoldering and it
looked like a war zone. I was with my grandfather, a lifetime Detroiter, who
got emotional as we drove around.
Today on 12th street there's just a vacant lot where it all started. It's
officially a park but one without a name or any official acknowledgement on
that corner. I'd bet if you asked the neighborhood kids they wouldn't know its
significance and that is sad, maybe the movie will change that.
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
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Quizscript: simple markup language for quizz - vmorgulis
http://dbweb.cs.uvic.ca:8080/servlet/MMPServlet?filename=quizscript.mmp
======
vmorgulis
The post about it:
[https://billwadge.wordpress.com/2011/05/28/quiz-
script/](https://billwadge.wordpress.com/2011/05/28/quiz-script/)
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
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Ask HN: I’ve burnt out at a megacorp and don’t know what to do next - xyyyrz
(This is a throwaway account)<p>I’ve been working for a megacorp for the past 3 years, with some time at other megacorps and a startup before that. I’ve had my own company on the side but recently sunsetted my products as they were not going to scale.<p>I’ve been working on a VERY prominent part of a VERY large product. In my short time at the company I’ve secured a niche position where I’m on point for a large component that is critical for the product. I think there was a misunderstanding about the complexity and relative size of the area when I was assigned the role. Over the past year I’ve really stepped up to own the area and contribute across my team in substantial ways which have directly led to the success of my product and team. I worked 100hr weeks for months on end, ensuring that we were able to deliver the right features. Obviously working this much was the wrong choice, but passion drove me to the “the right thing.”<p>But this role and this work, it has damaged my passion. I’ve become something of a machine—problems in and solutions out. I see where our product engineers created designs that were arrogant and inflexible. I replaced “caring” with raw engineering.<p>In the process of working 100hr weeks, I’ve optimized out the rest of “life.” I have roughly ten years of experience and while I am a junior engineer, I know that I am very rapidly approaching the senior level. I know how analyze the larger problem and look past the problem at hand. The role I’m in now has provided me the opportunity to debug very challenging problems not at just the program level but at the operating system level.<p>I’ve always dreamed of starting a company. I don’t have any plan and don’t know how to get there, but at the high level I believe that’s where I want to go. I’m not ready for that just yet, though.<p>What can I do next? I’m very much a “systems guy.”
======
bitops
Take five weeks off and don't engage with work in any way. Don't program,
don't read technical books, no nothing. Slow down and let yourself feel the
toll the amount of work you've done has taken on you.
If you give yourself a lot of space and maybe try something new and different
(kayaking, mountain biking, running, painting, music, whatever) an inspiration
will come to you. You've obviously gained a lot of experience and are ready
for something new. But you have to give yourself a healthy amount of room for
the real creative energy to return.
Good luck!
~~~
xyyyrz
Thanks for commenting!
I've been thinking about a sabbatical type deal, though I'm concerned if I
don't have focus, that'll be very challenging (and potentially put me into a
depressive spiral if I'm not programming). I have a strong desire to build
something, so perhaps painting or some other constructive hobby would help.
~~~
bigiain
I have found a "happy place" for me in programming _very_ small systems – most
powerfully from a personal satisfaction/joy point of view, stuff without an
OS. Arduino, Teensy, bare ATmega168s and ATtinys – coded in either the Arduino
"java-alike" language, bare (no libraries) C, or actual raw assembler. Current
projects include hacking on the Ardupilot quadcopter control code, a data
logger for my coffee grinder
([http://www.flickr.com/photos/bigiain/6722839301/](http://www.flickr.com/photos/bigiain/6722839301/))
and an Arduino driving a pair of cameras on pan tilt mounts to feed into some
Processing/OpenCV code.
I find once I jump up to a RaspberryPi/BeagleBoard scale device with a whole
Linux OS onboard, it starts to seem a little too much like "work".
From a "making things" perspective, I get _heaps_ of inspiration from the
Arduino forums, my local hackerspace (both in-person at the space, as well as
via the mailing list), and my local DorkBot group (again, both meetings and
mailing list).
What works for me might not be what you need – but if you've got a drive to
code and make stuff, tinkering on the borders of the tech and art worlds is
fun…
~~~
xyyyrz
Thanks bigiain. I have been mainly a Windows engineer for a while now, though
I'm feeling increasingly uncomfortable about my skill level on Windows (very
high, imho) against my skill level on Linux (I can't hack Linux with the best
of them unfortunately) is off balance. I've spent some time hacking on Android
(recently) and have a history with embedded systems, but again not at a level
I'm comfortable with. I've also been thinking a lot about 3d printing and how
that intersection can yield new opportunities.
Totally think the intersection of tech and art or tech & other fields is a
good way to reach some balance, maybe it's time to pick up a Pi...
------
coopdog
Ten years experience and programmed a critical feature of a large program? I'd
say you're a senior.
I don't know the culture of your company, but one thing to consider is just
telling your manager that you're near burning out (I wouldn't say burned out),
celebrate what you've achieved and ask for your next assignment to be a little
more laid back while you recharge for the next big push. Get something you can
really switch off of when you walk out the door.
At most places just starting an honest conversation and telling them why
something is in their best interest will get you what you want. If they really
want a revolving door of burned out engineers you're better off leaving
anyway.
~~~
xyyyrz
Thanks for commenting coopdog!
I'm concerned that as soon as I bring this up in any shape, I'll be labeled as
a flight risk (and rightfully so). Right now based on the conversations I've
had with peers on my team, others are planning to leave at the end of the
release. If I am to stay on, my role will widen greatly and I'll need to
(again) train others on the area. It'll be very very difficult for me to "run
away" from my feature area given that I am the resident expert and probably
one of the only people who has a coherent understanding of the end to end
working of the system.
This is especially scary since due to my level, I don't believe I can be
compensated appropriately for the amount of work and stress this situation
would bring on. I've been rejected for promotion due to "length in level"
before, so it is a long way uphill.
I appreciate your optimism about me being senior already (:)) but not all of
those 10 years are post-undergrad experience, so I believe it counts for less
in the eyes of an interviewer. I've been undergoing rigorous introspection
trying to determine how my skills really stack up, but perhaps I just need to
begin interviewing for different levels.
~~~
nicholas73
Without knowing anything else more, I'd say with others leaving that puts you
in a strong position to negotiate.
------
throwaway1979
Where are you based? If you are in the north east US, we should start a
support group :-p
~~~
xyyyrz
Seattle. I hail from the northeast though, thinking about moving back if the
opportunity arose.
------
superconductor
You are asking strangers the question you alone must figure out. Give yourself
some time away to figure out an answer. There are no shortcuts here. You need
time away and only you can do this.
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
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On Having No Head: Cognition Throughout Biological Systems (2016) - DimiD
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4914563/
======
leesec
Was recently floored by Michael Levin's (one of this papers authors) talk at
NIPS. Possibly the most amazing talk I have ever seen.
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RjD1aLm4Thg](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RjD1aLm4Thg)
~~~
maroonblazer
Indeed, I just watched it and it is fascinating. Thanks for sharing!
At about the 38:00 mark, during Q&A, he mentions some yet-to-be-published work
by his team where it's possible to make artificial living machines that are
completely unlike the organisms from which the material is sourced (if I'm
transcribing his words more or less accurately).
That sounds like the stuff of science fiction. Does anyone know where to
follow the progress of this kind of work?
~~~
DimiD
His twitter account (@drmichaellevin) is a good place to start.
~~~
adenadel
I'm not sure why you're being downvoted for this. He often tweets out
interesting articles on neuroscience and electrophysiology.
~~~
DimiD
The irony is that that's where I found this article in the first place.
------
carapace
If you work with any kind of evolutionary system or neural networks or meta-
optimizers (Like Schmidhuber's Gödel machine) there comes a point when you
realize that "intelligence", whatever it is, should be _expected_ to arise.
Evolution and meta-evolution proceed at the same time in life, so intelligence
should be ambient in Nature. (This is what Wolfram has been talking about with
his "New Kind of Science" tome, etc. Gregory Bateson also talked about this in
"Steps to an Ecology of Mind: Collected Essays in Anthropology, Psychiatry,
Evolution, and Epistemology" and "Mind and Nature: A Necessary Unity (Advances
in Systems Theory, Complexity, and the Human Sciences)".)
Now, combine this idea, that meta-evolutionary adaptation naturally leads to
ambient intelligence (put another way, living systems have as much
intelligence as is adaptive, the limiting factor on the intelligence of the
global ecosystem is NOT the difficulty of being intelligent because it's
actually really easy to be intelligent) with the recent discovery that the
oceans are a sort of naturally occuring Grey Goo[1], and it seems that the
oceans themselves are intelligent.
[1]
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Grey_goo](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Grey_goo)
> Marine phages, although microscopic and essentially unnoticed by scientists
> until recently, appear to be _the most abundant and diverse form of DNA
> replicating agent on the planet._ There are approximately 4x1030 phage in
> oceans or 5x107 per millilitre.
From
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marine_bacteriophage](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marine_bacteriophage)
. Ephasis added.
------
ariehkovler
Fascinating. I wonder how the principles here could be adapted to tech? I'm
thinking specifically of IoT-type setups with low-powered on-device processing
that are mesh networked, without needing a cloud-type backend as a 'brain'?
~~~
tree_of_item
I'm thinking of numerical optimization that uses algorithms inspired by nature
but very different from the current crop of neural networks, while still
taking advantage of GPUs, gradient descent etc.
------
talkingtab
If a "debate" is a kind of AI/neural network activity this makes sense. The
smaller groups could correspond to layers, and one would expect that the level
of interchange would be higher in groups of small groups compared to single
large group. In this model, a debate is "thinking" where the participants act
as neurons. A recent thread on HN
([https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18700328](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18700328))
linked to a video
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RjD1aLm4Thg](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RjD1aLm4Thg)
about ion channels providing similar functionality to neurons, so maybe we
humans can create "brains" as well.
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Nosotek -- North Korean software development - drinian
http://www.nosotek.com/
======
drinian
The most incredible part is that they developed two mobile phone games, "Big
Lebowski Bowling" and "Men in Black: Alien Assault"... for a company that
later became part of News Corp.
[http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2010-09-06/kim-jong-il-
bowls-f...](http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2010-09-06/kim-jong-il-bowls-for-
murdoch-dollars-with-video-games-made-in-north-korea.html)
| {
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Gaming the System: How to Really Get Ahead in the Game Industry - req2
http://www.gamasutra.com/view/feature/4133/gaming_the_system_how_to_really_.php
======
petercooper
Not entirely relevant but this is the latest in a long ling of Gamasutra
articles I've seen in the last year and.. man, they do a really good job.
~~~
petercooper
BTW, if anyone has recommendations for sites about non-gaming programming with
articles that go into as much detail as Gamasutra, I'm all ears :) DDJ maybe?
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
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U.S. Launches Attacks on Syria - plessthanpt05
https://www.npr.org/sections/thetwo-way/2018/04/13/601794830/u-s-launches-attacks-on-syria
======
Nuzzerino
Keep an eye on the DEFCON Warning System Twitter. A few minutes ago, they
stated that a counter-attack has been launched, according to Syrian National
TV. [https://twitter.com/DEFCONWSALERTS](https://twitter.com/DEFCONWSALERTS)
~~~
written
Just take the info with a grain of salt. Counterattack on whom? US forces in
the east? US/French ships in the west?
~~~
Nuzzerino
Erm, I think most of the readers here understand how to think critically.
~~~
written
Have you looked around? :)
------
abecedarius
What’s the story on how this is legal? I know that “Congress declares war, not
the president” has been getting increasingly theoretical, but getting an
explicit justification now might matter later when the politics have changed.
~~~
kss238
The President can deploy military personnel for up to 90 days without
congressional approval.
~~~
manjushri
Haven't US special forces been in Syria for years now?
~~~
johnny313
There are currently 2,000 US troops in Syria [0]
[0]
[https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2018/04/11/world/middlee...](https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2018/04/11/world/middleeast/syria-
military-us-russia-iran.html)
------
jumelles
The UK and France, too
------
pcunite
YouTube version:
[https://youtu.be/n0pMQHNjtxc?t=3m34s](https://youtu.be/n0pMQHNjtxc?t=3m34s)
------
cycrutchfield
Wag the Dog
~~~
MBCook
Who would have guessed after the Cohen raid, Comey book, start of the Stormy
trial, constant Pruitt news, renewed discussions about him being unhinged, and
everything else the president would want to distract people? Why no one
predicted this at all.
Certainly not 18+ months ago.
~~~
not_kurt_godel
I think plenty of people predicted it, especially after Bolton’s appointment.
It’s a stupid reaction by a stupid man to circumstances arising directly (and
indirectly) from his own stupid actions and decisions.
------
plessthanpt05
Scrubbed from the front page, huh?
~~~
Jerry2
Always censorship going on.
------
eeks
The day when Trump lost 90% of his base.
~~~
miketery
They'll support him more than ever.
"Unlike weak Obama, who let others walk all over his red line, TRUMP did what
needed to be done!"
You can come up with pro & con arguments for anything if you try.
Most people don't want to look at the net of those pro and cons, and simply
select only some, this is how we get polarization.
~~~
geofft
That is, in fact, a significant number of the comments here:
[https://np.reddit.com/r/The_Donald/comments/8c45dk/president...](https://np.reddit.com/r/The_Donald/comments/8c45dk/president_trump_announcement_regarding_syria/)
"Trust Trump." "We don't know what Trump knows. I trust him to make the right
decision." "He wouldn’t do this if it weren’t appropriate. I’m not happy about
the decision but it’s not like we are deploying battalions to restructure
their government." "Unless you are in a very small circle of people receiving
daily intelligence briefings, you do not know anything, you can only guess and
play armchair President."
Of course, none of these people would have extended the same courtesy to
President Obama, and they've been playing armchair Secretary of State for like
three years.
On the other hand there are quite a number of people who are genuinely
disappointed or unhappy, which is - oddly - pretty heartening.
------
branchless
Because killing thousands with bombs is morally superior to using chemical
weapons.
UK along for the ride. As always.
~~~
deepbreath
Is there reason to believe the strikes will result in thousands of innocent
casualties?
They claim that they're only striking "chemical weapon research facilities".
Looks like it's 4am there, so I guess not a lot of people in research
facilities (plus they've been forewarned of the potential strikes)
~~~
branchless
I mean before this in various regions it's been fine for the west to pummel
places yet when one small attack (which I also disagree with) happens it's a
"red line". I find it a little hard to swallow their concern for innocents
driving this action.
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
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Why Wolfram Tech Isn’t Open Source–A Dozen Reasons - yigitdemirag
https://blog.wolfram.com/2019/04/02/why-wolfram-tech-isnt-open-source-a-dozen-reasons/?source=frontpage-latest-news
======
mimixco
Nonsense.
Wolfram isn't open source for one and only one reason: it depends on a
proprietary cloud-based library in order to function. Without that, the
company has no revenue stream.
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Ask HN: What's the best way to get search engine traffic? - visualm
I don't want to become a spammer.
======
spooneybarger
easiest but most expensive: buy tons of banner ads that get people to search
to find out more about your product.
hardest but least expensive: get people talking about your product so that
others start searching to get more info about it.
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Mail for Good, a self-hosted Mailchimp alternative (like Sendy but FREE) - wiradikusuma
https://medium.freecodecamp.org/our-nonprofit-needed-a-cheaper-way-to-send-email-blasts-so-we-engineered-one-167322e3f28e
======
snadwich
so cool -- kinda like sendy but better!
~~~
wiradikusuma
I updated the title to mention Sendy, since a lot of people know that and it's
quite an apple-to-apple comparison. Thanks!
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Ask HN: What's Your Opinion On All New Suggestions For Domain Name Extensions? - kloncks
Remember how back in the day there were only four or five main domain name extensions? Only .com, .net, .gov, .org, .edu (maybe .biz too)<p>Now, there are hundreds and more are proposed. All the countries have their special two character domain name extension. A lot more are proposed, I heard of .nyc, .sf, .sex and .gay personally.<p>What do you guys think of all those? So many and ineffective? Or do you think they're a good idea and required?
======
jacquesm
That it's an ICANN money grab.
And a phishers paradise.
.biz is recent (2000), long before .biz there were the regional TLDS. The
first such was .nl registered in 1986.
~~~
kloncks
That's what I am saying. It just seems like they want to make money.
They're opening it to anyone next year to claim anything. I can do ha.ny if I
want.
------
chanux
cc TLDs are ok. But I don't see a need of anything else for the time being.
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
About backdoors in crypto messengers - larma
http://blogs.fsfe.org/larma/2017/signal-backdoors/
======
dbalan
Some observations, 1\. At this point its extremely hard to use XMPP - there
are too many competing standards that implements encryption (of which a subset
has forward secrecy), and if sender server doesn't implement any the other end
does, usually falls back to plain text, one can disable it - but this is just
too much overhead for a regular user. (food for thought [1])
2\. Again, reminder from countless HN comments - there is a PR in works to
make GCM optional[2], as soon as its merged, this will be solved
3\. Maps seems to the real problem here: this could be disabled after 2?
(otherwise, whats the point?)
[1] [https://whispersystems.org/blog/the-ecosystem-is-
moving/](https://whispersystems.org/blog/the-ecosystem-is-moving/) [2]
[https://github.com/WhisperSystems/Signal-
Android/pull/5962](https://github.com/WhisperSystems/Signal-Android/pull/5962)
edit: formatting, forward secrecy not e2e
~~~
lima
Conversations is a great XMPP client. It works very well, support inline
images, stream resumption and everything.
The OMEMO standard brings the Signal protocol to XMPP and it works great. I
use Conversations for my hacker friends who refuse to install Signal (GCM
dependency!) and surprisingly, I'm not missing a lot.
Now we only need a desktop client that supports the same features... And iOS
(but TextSecure is making progress there)
~~~
BjoernSchiessle
> Now we only need a desktop client that supports the same features... And iOS
For iOS ChatSecure was just released with OMEMO support
[https://chatsecure.org/blog/chatsecure-v4-released/](https://chatsecure.org/blog/chatsecure-v4-released/)
Regarding desktop clients, I can recommand Gajim which also has a OMEMO
plugin.
------
roddux
The backdoor referred to can be applied to any Android app that uses Google
Maps. Also mentioned is that using the built-in Google keyboard is a
vulnerability, because in theory it gives Google the ability to keylog you.
I supposed this boils down to knowing your adversaries. If you number Google
amongst that list, life is going to be really difficult - no matter who you
are.
~~~
jordskott
I guess it mostly boils down to Moxie and his ridiculous claims of how much
more secure Signal is when compared to other solutions (like XMPP and anything
based on PGP).
Don't get me wrong, I understand the design and user experience decisions of
making Signal depending on GCM but Moxie just loves to bash on XMPP and
federated protocols and putting Signal on a pedestal of exemplary security.
I admire the dedication on putting together the Axolotl protocol but I hate
when he mixes his business interests with secure crypto solutions, because by
the end of the day that is what he wants, to sell Axolotl to companies like
Google and WhatsApp. And of course, bashing on XMPP is just a business pitch
to those companies.
~~~
tptacek
It's not Moxie doing that, it's virtually the entire community of
cryptographic engineers. And Open Whisper Systems is a grant-funded nonprofit
that until recently could so barely afford developers they were considering
withdrawing their iOS version, so the idea that this is all about Moxie's
business interests is horseshit.
------
iuguy
If you're considering Google an adversary, perhaps you shouldn't use stock
Android, or any of their software.
If you're considering Google an adversary, and use a version of Android
without Google support, you can't use Signal anyway.
~~~
em3rgent0rdr
Actually, it is possible to use Signal on Android without Google using the
opensource microG and Xposed framework (setup is a bit involved...but you can
google that :P for a guide).
~~~
Sir_Cmpwn
This still relies on Google's servers to support push messages FYI.
~~~
em3rgent0rdr
"without Google _proprietary code on your phone_ "
------
Sir_Cmpwn
>tl;dr: There is a “backdoor” in Signal nobody cares about, only Google can
use it.
Speak for yourself. This backdoor is the reason why I don't use Signal.
~~~
verroq
You don't use Signal because your phone manufacturer can put a backdoor in the
OS or hardware?
Why even use a phone?
~~~
Sir_Cmpwn
I don't use Signal because of Google Play Services, which is the backdoor this
article refers to.
I'm reasonably confident that my phone's OS is uncompromised and I take the
radio problem into consideration as part of my threat model and change my
behaviors on my phone accordingly. I have also made some progress on using
OsmocomBB as a radio baseband, and on building a custom phone that treats the
radio as hostile and isolates it as much as possible.
~~~
BuuQu9hu
Which device are you using OsmocomBB on? Which custom device are you building?
Neo900 looks pretty good for baseband isolation.
The phone network and the protocols for connecting to it are pretty user
hostile no matter how open and secure the phone and baseband are though.
Don't forget the SIM card runs its own insecure OS that people have hacked
before and you just can't replace that.
~~~
Sir_Cmpwn
>Which device are you using OsmocomBB on?
A Motorola C139.
>Which custom device are you building?
A, uh, custom one.
>The phone network and the protocols for connecting to it are pretty user
hostile no matter how open and secure the phone and baseband are though.
>Don't forget the SIM card runs its own insecure OS that people have hacked
before and you just can't replace that.
Yeah, I'm keeping both of those things in mind. There won't be any assumption
that your phone calls or SMS will be secure, but rather that your mainboard OS
is secure _from_ the radio and that you don't have to worry about discussions
had near your phone and such.
------
gcb0
for the record, firefox for android also integrates the google backdoor for
the sole purpose of allowing chromecast for videos... which zero users use or
want.
~~~
angry_octet
Speak for yourself, Chromecast is very useful. Though obviously you should be
able to turn it off.
~~~
gcb0
it is usefull but not in a browser.
firefox will never be better than mx or vlc for video. those apps should have
chromecast support.
------
binaryapparatus
It seems that if you really want proper secure channel you need to write one
yourself. Anything out there is subject to being compromised.
Is there open source alternative for Signal?
~~~
_0ffh
You don't have to look far. The actual Signal client source is licensed under
GPLv3.
Edit: And server code under AGPLv3.
~~~
em3rgent0rdr
well LibreSignal was shut down because Moxie didn't like them using
WhisperSystem's servers. I guess the libre community could figure out how to
setup and fund an alternative server, but since Signal's server code isn't
_federated_ , then I don't believe there would be a straightforward way to
send messages between the two systems.
[https://github.com/LibreSignal/LibreSignal/issues/37#issueco...](https://github.com/LibreSignal/LibreSignal/issues/37#issuecomment-217211165)
~~~
vurpo
Moxie and Whisper Systems is clearly against decentralization and federation,
based on that blog post they wrote. This means it's unlikely that Signal is
ever going to have any support for federation.
~~~
temprature
_> This means it's unlikely that Signal is ever going to have any support for
federation._
Signal _had_ support for federation. Their server was federated with
Cyanogen's for a while[0]. That being the disaster it was is why that blog
post happened and no one seems to be forthcoming with solutions to the
problems they had.
[0] [https://whispersystems.org/blog/cyanogen-
integration/](https://whispersystems.org/blog/cyanogen-integration/)
------
arghwhat
tl;dr: this is stupid.
People seem to love analyzing security of tiny corners of systems while
ignoring the rest of the system, and entirely avoiding figuring out a scope
for the security.
The post complains about Signal using a Google service, that Google could
utilize (either now or through an update) for malicious activity. A Google
service that without a fair share of poking around is only available on
_Google_ versions of Android. I mean, _what_.
While this is a more serious problem than the usual whine about GCM (Yes,
notifications can give a lot of info, but in case of Signal, the info given is
"You received something from some Signal user while you were offline"), it is
still amazing how blind the analysis seem to the environment. If you cannot
trust Google to provide a "non-evil" Google play services, why the flying fuck
do you think the Google-provided (or manufacturer-under-tight-google-control-
provided) OS is fine? They could backdoor the process isolation and poke
around at Signal memory if they felt like it.
Now, if you are security conscious and willing to let go of the conveniences
of selling your soul to Google, you would be running a non-Google'd version of
Android without Google services. Your only valid complaint in this case, is
that Signal depends on Google services to operate, which makes you unable to
use it (without hacking Google back into your Android version, but if you do
that you might just as well stick to a Google version).
Oh, and what about the black box binary drivers you are using on your super-
secure handset? Baseband? CPU (ME anyone?)? SIM card?
Before you talk about security, figure out what you are trying to protect
against, and start from the top. You look like an idiot if you complain about
breakable windows but do not notice that the door is open.
~~~
snowpanda
Your entire comment is based around the "but there are bigger problems"
argument.
That's like saying you shouldn't fix your leaking engine, if your brakes don't
work.
~~~
tptacek
This analogy is basically perfect.
------
tcoppi
Can we please stop calling these types of vulnerabilities "backdoors"?
~~~
snowpanda
Why? It's a backdoor.
------
snowpanda
>This code is included by calling the createPackageContext-method together
with the flags CONTEXT_INCLUDE_CODE and CONTEXT_IGNORE_SECURITY. The latter is
a requirement as the android system would deny loading code from untrustworthy
sources otherwise (for a good reason). The code is then executed in the Signal
process, which includes access to the Signal history database and the crypto
keys.
\---------------------------
Glad someone points out the technical details of why many people had doubts
about signal. Unfortunately, Moxie will dismiss it, and his following will
claim "it affects other apps too" as if that makes it any better. "Other apps
do it too" is not the standard a "privacy" app should aim for.
------
dutchbrit
Blog seems to be down, and cannot find a cached version in Google :(
~~~
larma
[http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:OSLZXIu...](http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:OSLZXIubGtAJ:blogs.fsfe.org/larma/2017/signal-
backdoors/+&cd=1&hl=de&ct=clnk&gl=de) works for me (better use text only
version as Google tries to load css from the server apparently)
------
throw2016
It difficult to see how a service that ties to your phone number can make any
claim about privacy halfway seriously. This is reckless.
And worse tie itself to a company whose business model is based on creepily
stalking you all over the internet and getting users psychologically
accustomed to the fact they are under surveillance. These are serious
escalations that go unnoticed because SV has become a magnet for those who
want to profit from it.
A half way serious and sincere effort will be open source, not tied in any
remote way to known surveillance companies, and based in a country that
genuinely respects privacy.
~~~
em3rgent0rdr
The claim is secure transport only. They have never made a claim that
adversaries won't be able to detect that you are sending encrypted messages.
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Ask HN: About to launch a web app, am I missing anything? - jmbmxer
I am in the final stages of building up a web application that I have been working on for some time. Like many of you with startups on HN, I would like to start with a paid and free level of access.<p>Since I will be accepting payments, do I need to file as a business / acquire a business license in my state? I want to make sure I am covered if anything goes wrong. I will obviously be using Stripe or another process company to handle all payments. Any tips on money collection would greatly be appreciated!
======
onion2k
I'm in the same situation. I'm very close to launching
[http://pitcher.io](http://pitcher.io) ... with all the usual SaaS things - 3
tiers, free trial, maybe a free account level. I have thought long and hard
about free accounts though. Here's roughly where I'm at:
1\. Are free accounts actually worth having? If your service offers enough
value to the users that they'll invest time and energy using it then why won't
they also invent a token amount of money? Even if it's just $10/year, that's
going to be worthwhile for you if there are 5,000 accounts at that level.
2\. Will a fee really put people off signing up? Putting credit card in to the
sign up process definitely will, so don't do that. But people will try
software even knowing it's going to cost them eventually if the pain you're
taking away is great enough. If you can afford to give them a free account,
just give them a long term free trial instead. "3 months free" is effectively
the same as a free account to someone trying a new app.
3\. Remember the popular saying "If you're not paying, you're the product."
that people love to quote on HN when they're admonishing Facebook. It has an
element of truth to it. If you're planning to make money from users by means
other than direct payment, be upfront and honest about it. Tell them that
they'll see adverts unless they hand over money. Tell them that you're mining
their data. Tell them that you've invented a revolutionary new business model
that makes money out of nothing. And tell me. :)
4\. Consider that if you don't have a free tier you won't need to subsidise
your free users, so you might be able to lower prices. But also consider that
the price you start with will be the highest you ever charge. Users don't like
increases in prices. But you can always grandfather old price points in.
5\. Ultimately, until you launch, it's all speculation really. Just get it out
there and get data to make proper decisions with.
I have no tips about money collection because I'm in the UK.
Actually I do: "Don't use Paypal."
~~~
jmbmxer
First, thank you for the thoughtful feedback. Second, pitcher.io looks great,
it inspired me to think about some potential features.
I have spent the last two days doing some research and visiting lots of "paid"
web applications and I came to the conclusion that maybe having a way for
customers to try out the application without even having to sign up is a great
way to gain traction. I am still considering a very limited "free" version but
will for sure be focusing on the paid tiers even if they are relatively
inexpensive upon release.
Oh yea, Stripe seems to be the way to go for my application.
Best of luck to you and pitcher.io!
------
lifeisstillgood
1\. Yes form a limited liability company (I think a C-corp in Delaware. You
should probably pay no more than 150-250 bucks but never done this outside UK)
2\. Be tax efficient / aware. In the UK certainly you are best off drawing the
majority of income as dividend. Of salary. If you have a wife strongly
consider having her own half the business and draw salary too - this however
more applicable of you are a contractor
3\. Sensibly estimate a portion of your revenue as chafgebacks and related
support costs - start at 10% and work down as you get enough real customers.
4\. If this is B2C ask is it a good idea? It's a tough market
5\. If it is B2B I strongly suggest not doing a free plan - in fact start at
something like 49.99/ mth and discount at rly and yearly. Basically you want
people who have both money a d are serious enough that they will not email you
to fix things the very second they cannot get it working
6\. A stripe self publish book has just come out - may be worth while
7\. Build a mailing list. Do this by creating a landing page that just has
your main selling point on it and a "sign up for a Pre launch discount code".
Mail these people something interesting you have written each week / fortnight
that's related to you.
Publicise this - HN, Reddit, forums related to your product. Just get google
used to you as eay as possible
If you really cannot stop yourself from giving free access try giving away a
private beta access. This is easier to shutdown and lets you test the waters
as it were. Use landing page for that.
A lot of this is stashed in different parts of HN
[http://m.techcrunch.com/2013/08/24/the-ultimate-cheat-
sheet-...](http://m.techcrunch.com/2013/08/24/the-ultimate-cheat-sheet-for-
starting-and-running-your-business/)
------
wikwocket
It sounds like your main questions are regarding accounting. Therefore I
recommend you talk to an accountant. Find someone (preferably by referral) who
has experience in this area, get a free consultation, depending on your advice
(and your state law) potentially hire them to incorporate a S-corp, C-corp,
LLC, or whatever is appropriate. Ask them about liability, taxes, etc.
You don't need to have everything ironed out before you start, but if you
start making money beyond couch change, you will probably want to talk to
someone before the tax year ends.
~~~
jmbmxer
Yeah, good point about getting some consultation. I am not expecting huge
returns for quite some time (if any) so I will launch first and ask questions
later. Thanks for the input!
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
TclWise: Guide to the Tcl programming language (2004) - netten
http://www.invece.org/tclwise/
======
ofrzeta
The author Salvatore Sanfilippo (antirez) is also the author of the Redis key
value store. Funny, I didn't know he had written a book on Tcl.
As an embedded scripting language for Redis he didn't pick Tcl but Lua,
though.
------
systems
if someone is really interested in learn Tcl (not Tk) i strongly recommend
"Tcl 8.5 Network Programming" by Wojciech Kocjan and Piotr Beltowski
while the book is not very recent, Tcl didnt change much in the past few years
Tcl is really a super nice language, i think if they manage to get a cpan like
platform, and maybe decent ide support .. it should be on every programmer
list of languages
~~~
bambambazooka
What makes Tcl special and worth to learn?
~~~
isr
(not OP, but hope you don't mind my $0:02)
tcl is what you get when you take shell and lisp, and smash them into each
other.
In many ways, its a lisp whose central data structure is the string, rather
than than the linked list (so, a sisp?). And instead of macros, you have
fexpressions (functions which can decide at runtime whether or not to evaluate
its arguments).
When you understand it like that, you can write some elegant code in it. And
as it does have proper, efficient data structures under the hood, performance
is on par with most other mainstream, traditional "scripting" languages.
Although semantically, everything has a string representation - if you're
creating a list, and use it as a list, it only exists in memory as a list (as
so you dont pay performance costs of auto-casting to and from its string
representation).
2 things really tick (goes with tickle, I guess) me off though:
1\. because everything has a string rep, its hard to write code which can
handle polymorphic types. For example, say a parsing routine which can take
either a string, or a list of strings.
You end up having to 'tag' your data somehow (basically, roll your own static
typing), which just feels wrong in such a dynamic language.
(could just be my deficiencies in using it, though)
(on the plus side, rolling your own tagging system using tcl ensembles shows
just how malleable the language is. You can almost turn it into anything)
2\. the parser could do with some changes. Too much tcl code just looks ugly
because you (well, I) can't indent it the way I would like. So you (err, I)
end up with /'s everywhere.
Bottomline: tcl is __so __close to being the perfect drop-in replacement for
bash (if only the last extra yard was taken) that its painful to go back to
using bash for, well, anything.
~~~
rkeene2
If you like using Tcl as a replacement for bash you might enjoy "pipethread"
[http://www.rkeene.org/tmp/pipethread-presentation-
withnotes....](http://www.rkeene.org/tmp/pipethread-presentation-
withnotes.pdf)
[https://chiselapp.com/user/rkeene/repository/pipethread/](https://chiselapp.com/user/rkeene/repository/pipethread/)
~~~
isr
(sorry for the late reply, just saw this now)
Thanks for the info - reading your pdf now :-)
------
mchahn
Hmmm. Can any language manual be a HN post? Maybe I could get some points by
posting 10 or 20.
------
jasondebo
Should this say (2004) in the title?
~~~
dang
Added now. Thanks!
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Ask HN: Rate My Startup - LetMeGo: Let lodgings bid for your stay - torrenegra
http://letmego.com
======
mattwdelong
I'm currently employed in the hotel industry. I really have no defined role,
but I perform a lot of the GM roles. I can give you a few things to think
about.
First and foremost, the chain to which we belong just got out of a long fight
with a large Online Travel Agency [OTA]. During this "fight", the chain really
noticed that OTA's had a stranglehold on the online room distributions,
especially the rates so in response, they have "initiated" some policies to
nip that in the butt. (OTA's are currently killing Vegas)
I will show you the breakdown of our reservation distribution this year: 55%
CHAINWEBSITE.com, 27% CHAIN Call Center, 9% GDS Travel Agencies, 9% Third
Party Websites (broken down into Orbitz, Expedia and Travelocity). In short,
due to our policies we CANNOT offer a lower price outside of our best
available rate available on the CHAINWEBSITE.com - we could null our franchise
agreement.
I only speak for one chains policies, but this chain has 6k properties and
another 1k or so in development. It's not small.
Thats one thing to think about. Some more thoughts:
Getting GMs to lower rates is tough; if you give guest X rate Y, and guest Z
finds out, they also want rate Y. It sometimes makes a messy situation dealing
with this. Selling rooms in important, but keep rate integrity intact is also
important.
Chicken/Egg conundrum. How do you plan on getting hotels to participate?
\-- In response to the above, I would personally like to search my
geographical area for any travelers without having to sign the hotel up. Can I
do that? Why not?
Some solutions to the above thoughts:
Instead of getting hotels to directly negotiate prices, why not use a
combination of that and a GDS system like Amadeus, SABRE or Galileo. You know,
so if a hotel doesn't bid on their trip to offer occupancy, then they have the
option of making a booking through your system opposed defaulting to Expedia
(which books through the same systems). It might solve the intermittency
between the chicken/egg problem, and having an active user base - attracting
one before the other would be essential. Overall, I don't think the hotel
industry will take kindly to having to bid for guests. On the other hand,
there is LOTS of money to be had and I wish you the very best. Its an
ambitious start!
~~~
torrenegra
Thanks a lot for your feedback Matt. It is very interesting and valuable. I
can tell you know a lot about the industry and how it deals with OTAs.
First of all, LetMeGo is not only about low prices: it's about offers
customized for each traveler depending on his/her needs (VentureBeat nailed it
down here: <http://bit.ly/5vioZZ> ). Nevertheless, given that LetMeGo's
pricing is "semiopaque" (the bids submitted by the lodging are ONLY visible to
the traveler that submitted the itinerary), we think that some lodgings will
offer prices below what they publish in CHAINWEBSITE.COM. This would be
relatively similar to the way hotels do with other opaque-pricing service like
Priceline and Hotwire that allow them to forget about parity. Time will tell
if this assumption is correct.
By the way, we are not counting on large chains for our success. In fact, we
want to work primarily with independent and small hotels, bed and breakfasts,
and the large vacation rental market. Our system has been designed with them
in mind first. Why? Because this area of the industry has a lot of potential
that hasn't been discovered yet, and because I am against large corporations
with too much power.
In reference to the chicken/egg dilemma, we have secured access to large
databases of lodgings. We are inviting them all to list their lodgings for
free using a very intuitive interface. They will only pay us a 10% commission
per booking after they get paid.
We are staying away from the GDSs for now because most independent lodgings
don't use them (outside the US independent lodgings account for more than 80%
of the market). Also, because our service, as I mentioned above, is about
custom offers and service, and not only about real-time and the-lowest
pricing.
I had the "pleasure" of chatting with the VPs of Revenue Management of two of
the largest hotel chains in the US and in the world. As you predicted in your
comments, they didn't like LetMeGo's model. That, for me, was a good sign.
Thank you Matt!
~~~
mattwdelong
Glad I could help in some way. A few other thoughts I had after reading your
response.
First, don't let the VPs of Revenue Management make you deviate from targeting
chains. They have THEIR profits to account for, just like each hotel has their
own profits to account for. In a way, this scares them because the revenue is
not coming in through THEIR channels. If you think you can help a hotel in a
chain profit, if you can prove it with data and you're passionate about it
then go for them too! There are some really awesome online tools I want to
use, but there are just so many policies that don't allow it. Hotel industry
right now is stuck between being "innovative" and "head stuck in and around
the ass cheeks region". Simply put, the hotel industry is dropping the ball in
many areas where they can thrive. I would LOVE to work for a chic independent
hotel doing marketing, I think I know enough about the industry and online
marketing to help them immensely.
I am going to discuss it with the owner of the establishment I work at to
check out the site and see what they think. They are fairly old school in
their thinking and I am scared that they might fall behind. I have been trying
hard to be persuasive in transitioning them into online marketing. They might
be willing to test it out at their smaller property first and see how it goes.
I may get back in touch with you via email in the next couple days.
All I can tell you when negotiating with sales/gm/owner is put emphasis on
their value. They do want to fill a room, as a room is perishable just like a
food item. A room not sold is a room that can never be sold again. Just a
quick question with regards to bidding on a guest - does the hotelier see
other hoteliers bidding? Or is this private?
Regardless, I am very interested to see how your venture plays out. Again,
good luck!
~~~
torrenegra
Thank you Matt :)
Yes, lodgings see the bids from other lodgings in real time, including all the
details. Why?
------
torrenegra
LetMeGo is a new service that allows travelers to submit their itineraries so
that lodgings bid for their stays: <http://letmego.com>
LetMeGo is the result of the famous/infamous immersion discussed in here
"Results of: 7 developers, working 24/7 for 90 days, 1 house (in Colombia)"
<http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=730031>
I know I don't participate a lot in HN. In part because I discovered you only
a few months ago and in part because I've quite busy getting LetMeGo ready for
launch. Anyway, I look forward for your feedback and to participate more and
more in here.
Thanks!
------
Lewisham
Not too impressed by being told Chrome isn't good enough for your site!
~~~
torrenegra
I guess you used Chrome for Mac, right? Chrome for Windows is working fine.
Maybe Chrome for Mac, too, but we haven't completed QA there yet. We will
complete it soon, though.
~~~
froggy
I get the warning with Chrome 4.0.249.64 on Windows.
------
andreshb
I absolutely love the intro videos, especially the one narrated by Obama and
Ozzy Osbourne
~~~
jellisjapan
I agree, but I couldn't help thinking that a Christopher Walken video would
really have sealed the deal for me.
------
Vindexus
I was confused by the video tour. I clicked watch video tour and was given the
option of who to narrate it. Unfortunately I didn't know what that was. I
thought I was looking at a rhetorical question along the lines of "you pick
your favorite music, so how do you pick your favorite lodging?" or something
like that. I'd suggest changing the heading of that to "Which narrator do you
want?" or something with the word narrator.
That was my only nitpick. I tried out the interface and I love it. This is a
really cool app that I find to be really well put together.. It does have the
Catch 22 of you need lodgings to get users and users to get lodgings.
Hopefully you find a way around that.
~~~
torrenegra
We will improve the interface for the video tours using the feedback you and
the others (below) have provided. Thank you!
------
felideon
I'd get rid of the yellow note at the bottom---at least from the home page.
You could handle uncaught exceptions and then display the note, for example,
or put it in the About Us page.
Us Colombians are too polite, so it would probably be OK to display upfront if
it was local. The Beta logo should be enough for most people. The note just
predisposes users to think something might go wrong.
~~~
torrenegra
Indeed. The objective is to under-promise and over-deliver ;)
------
drewdrewdrew
Looks good...but from a usability standpoint, would it kill you to label the
fields? Which one is start date, which one is end date. What about i18n?
"Where are you going?" is a little too ambiguous I think. I presume that's
what you were going for, but locality can be quite granular. Hopefully there
is an intuitive interpreter parsing that text.
~~~
torrenegra
Hmmmm... Good point. In fact, there in interpreter for that, but you've got a
good point. We will try to make it easier to understand. Thanks Drew!
------
drhodes
The layout reminds me of the food pyramid ->
[http://www.fda.gov/ucm/groups/fdagov-
public/documents/image/...](http://www.fda.gov/ucm/groups/fdagov-
public/documents/image/ucm070186.gif) (Not a bad thing!) except the style of
the layers is not consistent. Applying some color theory would certainly help.
There seems to be ~9 different fonts on the front page. As for the concept of
the site: the notion of inverting the business model is really neat, I hope it
succeeds.
~~~
torrenegra
We will definitely reduce the number of fonts. And I though we had the number
of fonts under control! I forgot to check the home page, though :S Thanks for
noticing it!
------
thinkbohemian
I really liked in the video that you could skip ahead to different parts. What
did you use to do that?
I liked the videos, and thought the different voices was an interesting
gimmick, though I personally would load a video as soon as the user clicked
the first link, and while it is loading give them the option to switch between
voices. How many people click the first link without clicking to watch the
video?
~~~
torrenegra
Thank you! It is a feature of FlowPlayer.
We will improve the home page so that one of the videos plays back
automatically. Thanks for the idea.
~~~
thinkbohemian
Cool, but don't just take my word for it set up an A/B test, there are many
great ideas friends have suggested, that the internet at large was not too
thrilled about.
------
JangoSteve
Looks really good, great design. A couple minor specific notes...
-"Lodgings" is an awkward word to use in the main description. I agree that it is the most accurate word to use, but I think few people think of the term "lodgings" when looking for hotels.
-Your "How it works" section looks cool, but it's an image. No text. That's not very semantic. It also means I can't copy and paste the description to tell a friend.
~~~
torrenegra
Thank you Steve. You are right. We have had several hours of discussions in
reference to the proper word to use ("lodging" or any other) and we have not
been able to come up with a definite solution.
We will change the "How It Works" area today as per your suggestion. Thanks!
~~~
JangoSteve
My vote would go for something like "accommodations". I think it's a little
more mainstream.
------
tyohn
I love this idea. I'll try it out on my next trip. I love the videos they're
awesome - although since your site looks AJAX-ie you might want to consider
opening the videos in a "lightbox" popup - I tried several times to find the
close button on the first video I opened - because I didn't realize it open a
new page ...or you can just sum it up to my stupidity :p
~~~
torrenegra
Thank you Tyohn. We decided to go with separate URLs for better SEO, but we
will try to make it clearer for visitors :)
------
noodle
my thoughts:
too many options for the video tour. i mean, i didn't have a problem figuring
it out, and i enjoyed what i saw, but you're going to find that some users
will get confused. from the standpoint of converting customers, provide a
default and start it playing, and then provide other options if they want to
get silly.
i'm not sure how i feel about the red box on the map. i kind of think that it
should be a bit more static, so that it doesn't automatically re-search each
time the zoom changes or i scroll the map. but i can't think of a good
solution off the top of my head.
there are a few references to st.hal.biz, where its clear that it should be
just hal.biz. example: <http://st.hal.bz/img/global/guarantee120.gif> is
showing up as a broken image vs <http://hal.bz/img/global/guarantee120.gif>
~~~
andreshb
I agree. I would suggest having one of them already opened, with tabs for the
rest.
~~~
torrenegra
Great ideas for the videos! Thank you. We will try to implement them ASAP.
------
theycallmemorty
Looks pretty cool.
When I was on the 'iternerary' view the bar at the top of the screen changing
colors drove me crazy though.
~~~
torrenegra
Thank you! Would you mind sharing the link with me? I am not sure to which
interface you were referring to.
~~~
theycallmemorty
[http://letmego.com/submit/toronto?G_type=AREA&check_in=2...](http://letmego.com/submit/toronto?G_type=AREA&check_in=2010-02-12%2003%3A00%20PM&check_out=2010-02-15%2011%3A00%20AM)
Just change any of the options on the side and you'll see what I mean.
~~~
torrenegra
I see. You are right. It may become annoying. Thank you for the tip. We will
work on it!
------
eraad
I`m using Chrome/Ubuntu 9.10 and got the warning message. Everything worked
fine though.
After selecting my travel dates, I got the impression that the whole page
would scroll down, not just the left column. It was a bit confusing I think.
I´m not a fan of nesting scroll bars.
I will test the service out for real in a couple of months.
------
pbz
I won't repeat what others said above, but I will add that I feel the home
page is too gray / dark. The "search" page has a better color balance than the
homepage. The way it is now it's rather depressing, and less inviting. Pretty
nice otherwise.
------
jselzer
Are you able to share what strategies you have for increasing participation
among lodgings businesses? It seems to me that this would be a big challenge
and a huge factor in your success, and I am curious how you address it.
~~~
torrenegra
<http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1066008>
------
pedalpete
great idea and great execution (from what I can see). The narration idea is
very original with the video intro. But I do agree with other commenter that
it was odd to have to pick a narration. I'd suggest you pick the one you like
best or which best shows off the capabilities, and just use that, or rotate
through them. Even though you went through the effort to create the different
videos, it is best to keep something like that simple for the user.
------
toptrader
Where did you get all of the hotel data (rating, amenities, types, of rooms,
pictures, etc.)? Are the hotels that sign up required to submit that
information?
~~~
torrenegra
Yes. They are required to sign up and provide all the info.
------
jparicka
Cool looking site .. but where did you get the voice from?
~~~
torrenegra
My other startup: <http://voice123.com>
------
grandalf
Great idea. I will use it next time I travel and if I get a great deal I'll be
a loyal customer.
------
zasz
Damn. I was hoping you were making an app to let landlords bid on desirable
tenants.
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
What Happens When Facebook Goes the Way of Myspace? - edward
https://www.nytimes.com/2018/12/12/magazine/what-happens-when-facebook-goes-the-way-of-myspace.html
======
AndrewSChapman
Honestly, I hope they do! Simply put, the company is ethically bankrupt and
deserve to be made an example of how _not_ to run a social network.
You can't go selling peoples _private_ messages to Netflix (the sheer audacity
of that just blows my mind!). You can't allow peoples private data to be sold
to data analytics firms that are trying to sway elections.
Facebook is built on the belief that people don't need privacy and I think
that's fundamentally wrong.
As an aside, I hope people continue migrating to
[https://MeWe.com](https://MeWe.com) which has a clear privacy bill of rights
at its core and zero ads. It makes money in a far more traditional approach by
charging for "pages" and extended emotions etc.
~~~
dominotw
> I hope people continue migrating to [http://MeWe.com](http://MeWe.com) which
> has a clear privacy bill of rights at its core and zero ads. It makes money
> in a far more traditional approach by charging for "pages" and extended
> emotions etc.
What is the guarantee that they stick to this and not got FB route later. Why
should I trust "Sgrouples Inc."?
~~~
AndrewSChapman
If they changed it would be suicide. Their whole raison d'être is around
privacy and no censorship.
~~~
zwaps
No. Google got big literally only because a huge f-ton of nerds saw them as a
new, unique, good alternative to the big tech companies and pushed their
services. Remember when working at Google was a dream that spawned several
movies even?
Then, Google just went and deleted "Don't be evil" from their manifesto.
Literally they did that. That's like saying "Yo guys, we are evil now".
And what happened? Nothing. They are fine.
------
maeln
Facebook as a website can go the way of MySpace. But Facebook as a company
will probably not. The subject is touched a bit toward the end of the article
but the reality is this: Facebook has reached a critical mass, as a company,
that MySpace never did.
As such, they can just continue to buy all the other new social network that
pop-up and make sure that they have a dominant position in the social network
market. Unless they make a big mistake (which completely possible), Facebook,
as any modern dominant company, will just continue consolidating and securing
their market share.
~~~
jasode
_> , they can just continue to buy all the other new social network that pop-
up_
Yes, many people have this fatalistic perspective about FB but they shouldn't
because Zuckerberg can't buy _all_ the competition. Buying a company requires
a _willing seller_ [0]. Consider that Facebook itself rejected offers from
Viacom (~$1.5 billion), Yahoo (~$1 billion), Microsoft ($24 billion),
etc.[1][2]
The bigger companies such as Microsoft can't force Zuckerberg to sell if he
doesn't want to sell. Likewise, Facebook tried to buy Snapchat for $3 billion
but Evan Spiegel said "no". Yes, Snapchat is no longer a threat but that
doesn't mean another superior competitor can't rise up as a new threat that MZ
can't buy.
[0] my previous comment with other examples:
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15733501](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15733501)
[1] [https://www.businessinsider.com/all-the-companies-that-
ever-...](https://www.businessinsider.com/all-the-companies-that-ever-tried-
to-buy-facebook-2010-5#nbc-met-with-facebook-in-2005-8)
[2] [https://www.cnbc.com/video/2016/10/21/steve-ballmer-
microsof...](https://www.cnbc.com/video/2016/10/21/steve-ballmer-microsoft-
tried-to-buy-facebook.html)
~~~
user5994461
These offers were a joke. Try adding one zero. Pretty sure VC would give a
billion with little strings attached to any company that's threatening
Facebook.
Every seller has a price. WhatsApp went for $16B.
~~~
rapsey
They were not a joke. They were at an earlier stage of growth and all those
prices were fair for what it was at the time.
~~~
user5994461
Don't be surprised when a company in early stages of growth (tens of millions
of users with great potential for more) prefers to continue than take an early
exit.
The Microsoft deal looks incredibly one sided:
[https://www.businessinsider.com/steve-ballmer-microsoft-
trie...](https://www.businessinsider.com/steve-ballmer-microsoft-tried-to-buy-
facebook-for-24-billion-2016-10)
Anyway, prices are up. There is more cash available now than there was 10
years ago, not to mention than being acquired by Google/Facebook/Microsoft is
a better brand name than Viacom. With funding rounds in over a hundred
millions, the founders might not even get a good cut out of a (single) billion
dollar sale.
------
chvid
This article reads like something between a hit-piece and a I-don't-like-
Facebook-opinion-piece.
A similarly article could be written about Google but it is not. I think the
interesting question is why not?
~~~
libdjml
There are a load of criticisms you could call out about google, but suggesting
that their “one primary platform and single focus (social media)” is about to
collapse is not valid; they’re far too broadly invested (from mobile phones to
search to email) to claim they’re about to become irrelevant.
~~~
chvid
If you look at where their revenue is, it it probably not broad at all (just
search advertisement and AdSense).
And if you look solely at the US and Canada their adaption is probably
petering out as well.
And heart what is their core business other than a massive invasion of privacy
and data mining of personal information?
What about all these stories that has push management on the defence? (Google
China, that right-wing guy and so on.)
The point is. What this article is saying about Facebook could just as easily
had been said about Google with just about the same validity.
Why does Facebook get bad press whereas Google does not?
------
gopher2
The New York Times Technology section really wants me to delete my Facebook
account.
[https://imgur.com/a/fV6WKun](https://imgur.com/a/fV6WKun)
Is this content organization personalized? Or are they serving this to
everyone?
~~~
smarttack
It's hard not to suspect that there is at least some personal vendetta
involved here from the media. Facebook destroyed a lot of the business models
which were already reeling in the internet age.
------
buboard
Whatever vendetta the nytimes has with facebook has drawn too far too long.
yawn
~~~
hnauz
I'm starting to suspect they are trying to extort better ad prices from
Facebook. This won't stop until they cave. I hope they don't cave. The press
already has enough power as it is.
~~~
FranzFerdiNaN
Good. The press should have more power than corporations. Especially
corporations with the moral standing of Facebook.
~~~
hnauz
The NYT is a corporation. A corporation who lied about the WMD, garnering
support for a war which caused death and endless suffering to millions of
people.
~~~
matt4077
That particular episode is old enough to have graduated high school now. The
editor and reporter responsible were also fired, and it wasn’t so much that
the reporter “lied”, let alone the paper, but that they were lied to by the
administration at a time where there was still a general assumption that even
Republican officials would not actually blatantly lie to the American public.
So update your talking points. ( _yawn_ )
------
revskill
Facebook open sourced many useful libraries, and it's what matters to me
first. Secondly, as a user, it has problem, just like any company.
~~~
FranzFerdiNaN
Facebook was instrumental in electing the worst president ever that is causing
damage that will last for decades, it seems that every month now a story break
that they handle their users' data even worse than thought possible before,
but hey, they made this cool open source library so i guess it all balances
out!
~~~
chillacy
Why blame Facebook and not:
\- voters for actually choosing this guy
\- the media for giving this guy so much coverage
\- people for not fact checking
Blaming Facebook feels like shooting the messenger. It’s not going to fix any
of the underlying issues going into 2020. At worst it’s a distraction, like
birthers against Obama.
~~~
hackinthebochs
It's a strange meme that "facebook elected Trump" when every news org gave him
billions worth of free coverage because it was good for their bottom line.
They elected Trump because they knew a Trump presidency would be the best
thing to happen to them since Monica Lewinsky. Somehow we all seem to have
forgotten that.
------
golergka
> in the United States and Canada
And that key detail is why this article is wrong. US and Canada are certainly
most lukrative markets in terms of profit per single user, but they are far,
far from the only markets in the world. Facebook usage in North America may
start stagnating in the next few years, but it is still rapidly growing in
other areas. And after that, well, you just run out of people in the whole
humanity itself - and that's not a business problem that we have any
historical example of.
~~~
mijamo
There are plenty of examples of companies facing a saturated market. The
logical next step is to grow vertically as you cannot grow horizontally
anymore. Some succeed, many fail. In the long run, nearly all companies fail.
~~~
grecy
> _There are plenty of examples of companies facing a saturated market_
Globally though? Are there companies that have saturated the entire planet.
Facebook use is BOOMING in the developing world. I've been moving around
Africa though 30 countries for 2.5 yeas now - it's rare to meet someone that
doesn't have Facebook and whatsapp.
~~~
AstralStorm
At a certain point, Facebook might face being either broken up or outright
nationalized in some places...
~~~
kazen44
the seperation of whatsapp and facebook has recently been up to debate. Mainly
for apperently breaching terms of the acquisition.
Whatsapp is so universal it should really be either a federated system or a
public utility.
~~~
bigbugbag
Whatsapp is not universal, privacy aware people are keeping themselves and
friends away from whatsapp.
That being said what you are saing is basically that whatsapp should be
something totally different, akin to riot.im
I do agree though that a global public service of E2E encrypted communication
should exist, but whatsapp is the last option I'd consider for such a service.
------
samfisher83
I think they are like a bank or big tobacco. Too big to fail. They have 2
billion users. Supposed someone came up with a new search engine better than
google. You can go switch to that and it wouldn't be too hard. For a new
social network you would need all you friends too switch too. How is grandma
going to share her grand kids pics.
~~~
vidarh
While that is to an extent a hindrance, it is also an opening.
Social groups in real life are relatively contained. Facebook just mushes it
all together. This is one of the few things Google+ got right, with asymmetric
relationships and ease of controlling who sees what.
While Google+ "failed", that's the attack angle I'd take if I wanted to go
after Facebook: Look for ways to let people better _limit_ sharing, to
encourage _deeper_ sharing. To truly get that right you need to also let
people manage separate identities.
Though really, I'd like to see more decentralised approaches to take over.
~~~
samfisher83
I think most people she want to share a pic and tag their friends. I don't
think people want something so complicated.
~~~
vidarh
It doesn't need to be that complicated. The Google+ model let you do what you
suggest, but also let you assign people to one or more circles, so that you
could share with specific subsets of your friends by picking a circle. E.g.
"family", "people it's ok to share pics from nights out partying with", "work
colleagues" etc., and you can assign people to more than one circle. It
provided a decent basis for enough containment, if it wasn't for their lack of
willingness to deal with pseudonyms and multiple identities.
As for "most people" wanting something simple: I'd argue that most people have
something _far more complex_ today: People sign up to multitudes of sites and
create different identities for e.g. dating, different forums, their regular
circle of friends. People often go to great lengths to separate them. People
even often have multiple accounts on the same sites.
Sites like Facebook stubbornly trying to get people to tie everything to a
single name that they're know to by everyone is fundamentally flawed for this
reason, and it will always present a barrier, and it's something that's
exploitable if someone comes up with the right model to start eating away at
them at the fringes.
------
flareback
I can't say that I really care. I don't have a facebook account. I'm sure if
they go away someone new will step up and start doing the exact same things.
------
ElijahLynn
When Facebook becomes the new Myspace, there will not be a new Facebook, it
will be something is user-centered, that cares about the user. It will likely
be de-centralized, but I haven't found something that has the low friction
onboarding that FB provides that accomplishes this yet.
The new solution won't require you to pick a server (e.g. Mastodon) and will
be straight forward to the user.
It will come.
------
ilovetux
I miss Myspace, it was way less creepy and IMHO led to much more meaningful
communication.
~~~
rwmj
Myspace was very poorly implemented. Slow, often even displaying errors on
some pages.
The social network I miss is Mixi, which was a sort of proto-Facebook around
in the early 2000s (in Japan and Japanese only). Mixi had some really
interesting features like being able to see who had browsed your account. (To
be fair Mixi still exists, but they kind of died when FB became popular, as
well as putting itself out of business with some onerous changes to their
terms of service and business practices.)
~~~
LinuxBender
Myspace wasn't even meant to be a social networking site when it started. When
I registered all the domains initially, there were hundreds of variants of
"myspace, mylinuxspace, mywindowsspace, mydesktopspace" and such. It was
supposed to be the box.com of the time. There was an app you installed and
created an "X:" drive.
They had a couple HP SureStore arrays.. I forgot how much storage exactly, but
they were about 19TB comprised of 9 and 18 GB drives in raid 50 or 51. There
was no de-duplication and basically it was the same few hundred megs of music,
animated gifs and porn over and over again.
They didn't make any money and sold everything to some news company. Even
then, it was quite a while before it started to take shape as a social
networking site.
------
parliament32
>What Happens When Facebook Goes the Way of Myspace?
The world will be a better place.
------
thewileyone
Life goes on. Stop using social media for a few days and you'll find that
you've lost nothing by avoiding it.
------
cityzen
Well, hopefully one difference will be that people remember Tom as your first
friend and Mark as the the lying asshole he is.
------
rchaud
Didn't Cambridge Analytica shut down and re-open the same day under a new
name?
A company that built its riches on the back of a spectacularly successful
surveillance apparatus isn't going to go away. Especially not now that its use
as a psyops tool (2016 US electon, Rohingya genocide) has been proven.
FB as a product may one day not exist, but its leaders will welcome the
absence of the press spotlight so they can start working with law enforcement,
military and other groups that will pay big for their knowledge.
Think Peter Thiel and Palantir.
------
dominotw
Facebook the website maybe... Facebook the company, NO. whatsapp, insta are
still killers.
------
RRRA
I can't wait...
------
Dowwie
The New York Times is not what it used to be, either
~~~
Theodores
I wish there was some truth to that.
They have always been the tool of those that rule this world, whether those
rulers be in Wall Street or the Pentagon. Their work cheerleading the world to
war is a constant. They side with the interests of capital rather than people.
Any aberrations to this, e.g. straying from one political party to another, is
still representing and furthering time-old vested interests. Online media has
yet to usurp the old timers of dead tree media.
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Does It Matter Where You Go to College? - KeepTalking
http://www.theatlantic.com/business/archive/2012/05/does-it-matter-where-you-go-to-college/257227/
======
keiferski
You know your value system sucks when the question "does it matter where you
go to college?" is automatically assumed to be about salary.
~~~
jerf
You sound like you either have one, or have transcended the need for one.
Try not doing either of those things.
I too used to sing along in happy harmony with the "it doesn't really matter,
follow your bliss". Now I'm 33 and my high school circles are filled with
people who have wrecked their financial lives on the shoals of that advice.
Now I know I was singing with the sirens.
It was already screwed up 15 years ago, as my high school circles can attest
to. It's more screwed up now, but now people are seeing how messed up it is.
Money matters, _especially when accruing lots of debt_. It isn't the only
thing that matters, but it most assuredly matters.
Don't keep singing with the sirens.
~~~
keiferski
Maximizing income and minimizing debt are not the same thing.
~~~
jerf
Ha! People should be so lucky as to be worried about "maximizing income".
We're in an era in which people need to be careful just to _balance_ their
income with their college debt.
Stop moralizing and think. Millions of people are hurting out there. It's time
to put away the gibberish about how it's somehow uncouth to think about money
as you think about college. We now _know_ that line of thought is profoundly
damaging. If you don't agree... how much more evidence would you need?
~~~
keiferski
You're missing my point. Making a decision to go to X school because it will
make you more money is fundamentally a different decision than going to Y
school because it's cheaper.
You may have to get the higher debt to get the higher paying job, but going to
the lower debt school is probably good enough to make a decent income.
~~~
suresk
Those aren't fundamentally different decisions. In both cases, you are
determining your rate of return on your educational investment and making a
decision to prefer high debt/high earnings, and lower debt/lower earnings.
If you don't think the school itself matters enough to justify the increased
cost, you'll prefer lower-cost universities. If you think it does, you'll
prefer the school that can net you the most income.
------
confluence
I like answering these questions by solving simpler ones.
Does it matter where you are born?
> Afghanistan vs. United States.
Put you in Afghanistan and you're dead. Put you in the US and you have a shot
at middle class. Both are not your fault - and neither are deserved (I hate
that word).
Does it matter who you are born to?
> Rich parents vs. Poor parents.
One can pay for all you need, and support you in every way to best game the
system (which is completely rational and understandable behaviour). The other
gets screwed by the self same game. Both generally through no fault of their
own - no one deserves anything.
Does it matter when you are born?
> 1900s vs. 2000s.
One situation gives you cholera. The other gives you an iPhone, good health,
decent lifespan and an education. Neither was deserved - both greatly effect
future outcomes.
Of course it matters where you went to college. It matters more than you think
it does, and even more than you now think it does. The world is not a
meritocracy - never has been - never will be. Fun fact - meritocracy was
coined in a satire since it was so ridiculously false. Unfortunately, people
like believing things that are false - it is one of our strengths as humans
(<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Just-world_hypothesis>). Karma is bullshit
masquerading as depth and is merely a result of faulty (but useful) logic
generated by induction machines that we call the brain.
Why do we use QWERTY keyboards? Because some random guy made a couple thousand
typewriters that didn't stick mechanically 70 years ago. What does that have
to do with modern computers? Absolutely nothing.
The world is chaotic, and exhibits extreme path dependence in path outcomes,
which of themselves, are extremely uncertain.
What would've happened if the comet that killed the dinosaurs missed? What
about not having a snowball earth to generate all the oxygen you breath right
at this moment? The importance of people by the people is greatly overrated.
Everyone is replaceable (even if you are 1 in a million - and nowadays even 1
in a billion), but situations aren't.
Situations are king, path dependence and chaos rule your life and there is a
lot of poor reasoning out there. That doesn't mean you have no effect on
future outcomes - it just means you have a lot less control than you think you
do.
------
melvinmt
The bigger question is: Does It Matter _If_ You Go to College?
~~~
kintamanimatt
Depends. Please go to college if you intend to become a doctor! I hear people
frown on "doctors" that are self taught.
~~~
crazygringo
Dr. Mike Ruddy from last week would appear to disagree strongly with you:
[http://www.theonion.com/articles/im-not-one-of-those-
fancy-c...](http://www.theonion.com/articles/im-not-one-of-those-fancy-
collegeeducated-doctors,11237/)
;)
------
ggwicz
College doesn't fucking matter in any way, shape, or form in the context of
reality and actually doing good, productive things. Nor do people who base
hires / who they like on where those people went to college.
~~~
jmduke
I know many, MANY people -- myself included -- who were impacted positively by
college. I found my passions and improved myself tremendously.
I'm not saying college is some panacea, but you're an idiot if you think it
"doesn't fucking matter in any way, shape, or form".
~~~
ggwicz
How does the fact that it positively impacts some people mean that it matters
or is important?
This article is talking about money, employment, status, etc., in the context
of education and college. I'm saying that going to college does not in any way
mean that someone is more qualified, smarter, capable, productive, etc. than
someone who didn't go to college.
I'm saying that if you went to college and discovered, for example, a passion
for graphic design, the idea that you'd inherently be better than a self-
taught graphic designer is 100% ridiculous. And that if an employer chose you
over that person solely because you had some extra letters after your name and
could tolerate 4 more years of schooling, that employer is dangerously stupid.
~~~
jmduke
What you said is "college doesn't fucking matter in any way, shape, or form in
the context of reality and actually doing good, productive things".
Which is completely incorrect. I understand if you think that a self-taught
graphic designer is on par with a college-grad graphic designer, but that's
not what you argued in the above quote.
~~~
ggwicz
It's exactly what I'm arguing above; college doesn't matter.
By saying it "doesn't matter", I'm saying that the ability of a person to
produce something good or provide a good service to others does not require a
causative relationship with that person's level of organized education
(college, grad school, high school, two-year degrees, etc.).
You've said twice that I'm incorrect, without explaining why you think so.
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Why is it so difficult to store energy? - diafygi
http://www.reddit.com/r/energy/comments/26over/why_is_it_so_difficult_to_store_energy/
======
diafygi
From my answer:
> Remember kids, when you fill your car up with 10 gallons of gas in 5
> minutes, you are transferring energy at a rate of 4.5 MW (36 MJ/L * 38 L /
> 300 sec).
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Vietnam: China is mislabeling products as Vietnamese to avoid US tariffs - ga-vu
https://eu.usatoday.com/story/news/world/2019/06/10/vietnam-alleges-china-faking-made-vietnam-skirt-us-tariffs/1408023001/
======
jtlienwis
Pot to kettle: you are black. Chinese have been counterfeiting labels for US
and European nock off brands for decades. Powdered milk being a prime example.
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Actix-web 1.0 – A small, pragmatic, and fast web framework for Rust - Dowwie
https://docs.rs/actix-web/1.0.0/actix_web
======
Dowwie
I'm using actix-web in my work and am familiar with the project, so I'll try
to summarize for everyone why this 1.0 release is so significant.
This is a major milestone for the entire Rust community because we now have
the first web framework written in stable Rust with an architecture that a
credible author has deemed worthy of maintaining backwards compatibility for
and a code base mature enough to have earned a 1.0 designation. This is real
progress.
The architecture of actix-web 1.0 is very different from that of 0.7. In many
respects, it was a rewrite that began last Summer. The architecture is no
longer based on an actor paradigm but rather one of Services, largely inspired
by Eriksen et al's finagle work [1] adopted at Twitter. This service
architecture is accessible through a library known as actix-net. Essentially,
actix-web is a web-based actix-net server. If actix-web were bitcoin, actix-
net would be its blockchain. Because of this, actix-net may be even more
significant to the broader Rust community. The actor models can still be
imported and used but no longer act as the default mechanisms driving the
server.
Regarding performance, according to the Tech Empower benchmarks that evaluate
hundreds of web frameworks across all major languages, actix-web is top-
ranking [2] and first in a few benches. The last benchmark represents a beta
version of actix-web from last month and results may have slightly improved
with 1.0. actix-web is very modular, allowing programmers to only use what is
needed and no more.
In terms of usability, actix-web 1.0 api is far easier to approach than 0.7.
Running blocking calls against a database effortlessly flows within
combinators now where as before one had to implement a lot of SyncActor
boilerplate. Endpoint resource registration can now either be explicitly
registered within an App instance or with a new set of proc macros, but routes
still need to be registered manually. The new testing api is far easier to
work with for unit or integration tests.
A single person wrote two very different platforms in order to get to where it
is today. I believe that future progress requires community participation at
all levels. This is a great time for system programmers to take a deep dive
and learn, from the network-level up, how to build a high-performing, flexible
server. Write about it. Talk about it at meetups and conferences. Pay forward.
Thanks, Nikolay, for your hard work and sacrifice.
[1]
[https://monkey.org/~marius/funsrv.pdf](https://monkey.org/~marius/funsrv.pdf)
[2]
[https://www.techempower.com/benchmarks/#section=test&runid=9...](https://www.techempower.com/benchmarks/#section=test&runid=9f738614-61d5-4c04-a1a5-3778b2ac3003)
~~~
raphaelj
Related to web frameworks, what is the current status on ORM in the Rust
ecosystem?
~~~
the_duke
There is only one option: diesel [1]. It is a powerful solution for
correctness, as it is completely type-safe. It's also really fast since a lot
of work is delegated to compile time.
There are also plenty of drawbacks though: the extensive type system hacking
can lead to very confusing compiler errors, it doesn't work well when you need
to sometimes fall back to more dynamic db handling, and it doesn't handle
large tables well. (very long compile times etc), and the documentation is
quite sparse.
It's a robust solution for greenfield projects where you can design the schema
partially with diesel in mind, but I wouldn't recommend it for existing DBs or
projects that you know will grow large (eg 100+ column tables etc).
[1] [https://github.com/diesel-rs/diesel](https://github.com/diesel-rs/diesel)
~~~
inferiorhuman
_it doesn 't handle large tables well. (very long compile times etc) _
By large tables you mean a large number of columns, not a large number of
rows, right?
~~~
killercup
Correct.
Fun fact: The amount of traits implementations that need to be generated to
support tables with 128 columns actually makes diesel an interest benchmark of
the Rust compiler.
~~~
runiq
Would the recent work on const generics help with this?
~~~
killercup
Not sure. Having the ability to abstract over tuples (using a similar
mechanism as HLists for example) would help.
------
pornel
Actix-web in used in production at Cloudflare for the image resizing feature.
It's been relatively easy to use and flexible enough to integrate with the
rest of Cloudflare's stack. Feels vaguely similar to Node's express. Along
with Rust it's a great fit for a service that needs to have high performance,
tight memory usage with very low risk of leaks, integration with existing
libraries, and a good security story.
~~~
littlestymaar
> Actix-web in used in production at Cloudflare for the image resizing
> feature.
Oh, that's really interesting. I actually used it for exactly the same
purpose, but I was a bit disappointed by the image[1] crate for the image-
resizing itself: it was several times slower than imagemagick (it was less the
case on my decktop, when compiled with `target-cpu=native`, but on my low-end
server many SIMD instructions weren't available and auto-vectorized code
wasn't that efficient) and the image quality was also way poorer. Did you use
that crate for the image processing ? Or imagemagick ? Or something you wrote
internally ?
[1]: [https://github.com/image-rs/image](https://github.com/image-rs/image)
~~~
kbenson
Did you try looking for Rust bindings to ImageMagick? If it's really that much
faster, it might make sense to just call out to it. I found
[https://github.com/nlfiedler/magick-
rust](https://github.com/nlfiedler/magick-rust) with e quick search, but I
don't know how well it works.
~~~
littlestymaar
It was much faster (between 3 and 5 times) but performance wasn't a critical
part on this project, the ease of use and deployment was higher on the list.
Also, I'm not sure I would trust imagemagick enough anymore to put it on a
web-facing server, since its security track record doesn't smell that good
[1].
But I was still disappointed by the poor performance of the `image` library
because Rust has shown in many areas that it has potential to write code which
is as fast as C, and in this case it didn't deliver.
[1]: [https://www.cvedetails.com/vulnerability-
list.php?vendor_id=...](https://www.cvedetails.com/vulnerability-
list.php?vendor_id=1749&product_id=&version_id=&page=1&hasexp=0&opdos=0&opec=0&opov=0&opcsrf=0&opgpriv=0&opsqli=0&opxss=0&opdirt=0&opmemc=0&ophttprs=0&opbyp=0&opfileinc=0&opginf=0&cvssscoremin=0&cvssscoremax=0&year=0&month=0&cweid=0&order=3&trc=505&sha=cad8183bd44fc4f183038a1ca8490122ee688f30)
~~~
superpermutat0r
It didn't deliver because the library is not good, not because rust is a bad
language.
------
the_mitsuhiko
We (sentry.io) use actix-web (though not yet 1.0) for our symbolicator
project. It’s the service that handles all of our native events for
symbolication. That’s for minidump processing, dwarf/pdb based symbolication
and much more.
Couldn’t be happier with it. It’s super fast and stable and does it’s job
really well. We run three machines for it and it didn’t manage to go past 10%
CPU usage yet.
Code is here for the curious:
[https://github.com/getsentry/symbolicator](https://github.com/getsentry/symbolicator)
~~~
sergiomattei
Sorry for the ignorance - what's symbolication? Sounds interesting and looking
to learn.
~~~
staticassertion
I assume it's taking stack traces/ core dumps from stripped binaries and
adding back the symbols.
~~~
the_mitsuhiko
Yap, pretty much. It's used as part of the sentry event processing pipeline
for C/C++/Objective-C/Rust etc. crashes.
------
christiansakai
I think this is my 2nd HN post in 5 years. I just want to shout out to Actix-
Web team especially Nikolay. I was a Rust noob and still a Rust noob, asking
stupid questions on Actix gitter, but the community helped me and give me
suggestions a lot.
Thank you! I am a really satisfied user of Rust and Actix Web! I hope I can
retire my programming career just using Rust lol.
------
brunoqc
Anyone know why the super simple Middleware trait[1] was replaced by the more
complex (and confusing at first) Transform and Service traits?
Here's the simple middleware examples:
0.7:
[https://github.com/actix/examples/blob/0.7/middleware/src/si...](https://github.com/actix/examples/blob/0.7/middleware/src/simple.rs)
1.0:
[https://github.com/actix/examples/blob/master/middleware/src...](https://github.com/actix/examples/blob/master/middleware/src/simple.rs)
Could a simple Middleware trait be added that would implement both new traits
for us?
[1]: actix_web::middleware::Middleware
------
yingw787
Is Rust a high-level language or a low-level language? Does rustlang's
development prove you don't have to choose? My impression of Rust is that it's
intended to replace C/C++, and that web frameworks are high-level libraries
(whereas something like an HTTP library would be low-level). I guess you could
write a web framework in C/C++ but I don't know of any that are popular or
widely used off the top of my head. IIRC I think golang was meant to be low-
level, but the community mostly came from high-level scripting languages that
saw a visible boost in performance.
Congratulations to the authors/contributors of actix-web on the 1.0 release!
~~~
untog
In my experience it has elements of both, but stuff like managing lifetimes
means that (IMO) it's more trouble than it's worth when you're creating a web
backend. Any more established garbage collected language is absolutely fine.
Unless it needs to, say, run in a very resource constrained environment, in
which case it's a pretty interesting possibility.
~~~
james-mcelwain
It's certainly a less mature ecosystem, but once you get over the hump of
_understanding_ lifetimes, there's nothing preventing you from using lots of
owned values and clone in a way that makes it really easy to ignore annoying
lifetime problems. And, the benefit being if you ever _need_ to get more
performance out of a hot part of your code, you can always optimize to get
that zero copy goodness.
~~~
Matthias247
There is however a downside to the „clone everything“ approach: The
performance might get worse than what it would be in an optimized GCed
language that doesn’t require cloning (eg C#/Java).
At least I would only reach out for Rust at the moment for performance
critical code, and then don’t leave easy optimizations on the table due to
lifetimes.
~~~
james-mcelwain
There are other solutions (like Rc<RefCell<T>>) that allow you to avoid
cloning as well if you still don't want to deal with lifetimes.
------
jeffbarg
I'm sure it's been posted on HN before, but a great summary of other Rust
libraries/frameworks for web development can be found here:
[https://www.arewewebyet.org/](https://www.arewewebyet.org/)
The couple of times I've checked it's been fairly up to date and helpful for
understanding what's out there.
~~~
epaulson
I've found this link helpful too:
[https://github.com/flosse/rust-web-framework-
comparison](https://github.com/flosse/rust-web-framework-comparison)
------
iBelieve
Great to see actix-web reach 1.0. I've played with Rocket in the past and
liked it, but ended up choosing actix-web recently for a production project
because I don't want to rely on a nightly compiler for a production project.
I'm only using actix-web in a small portion of a larger Rust project, but so
far my experience with it has been quite pleasant.
~~~
Callmenorm
First time I even tried to use Rocket, I couldn't get there Hello World thing
compiled. I honestly don't know if it was my error or a nightly compiler
incompatibility and that sucked.
------
cabalamat
Is the example program in Actix-web considered good programming style for that
framework? The reason I ask is that the equivalent in Python/Flask might look
like:
@app.route("/<name>/<id>/index.html")
def index(name, id):
return form("Hello {}! id:{}", name, id)
This has the advantages that:
1\. the endpoint "/<name>/<id>/index.html" goes in the code right above the
function that implements it.
2\. the variables are called `name` and `id` and not `info.0` and `info.1`
which is a less informative naming convention.
~~~
killercup
I can't speak for the actix-web maintainers but I did find this in their
examples:
#[get("/resource1/{name}/index.html")]
fn index(req: HttpRequest, name: web::Path<String>) -> String {
println!("REQ: {:?}", req);
format!("Hello: {}!\r\n", name)
}
see [https://github.com/actix/actix-
web/blob/e399e01a22b8a848ecbb...](https://github.com/actix/actix-
web/blob/e399e01a22b8a848ecbbc21c362878cd59a4342e/examples/basic.rs#L7-L11)
~~~
JoeCamel
I've just run it and it works! I didn't know about the macro.
~~~
munmaek
The thing with actix's web stuff is that things like these are just not well
documented yet.
I also had no idea about this macro until I was digging through documentation
for something else.
------
xixixao
Example reminds me: I love Rust, but every decent programming language in 2019
should have actual string interpolation (the "Hello ${expression}" kind). It's
just so much nicer to read and write, and it doesn't come with any downsides
besides some slight, local compiler complexity. (I have raised it on the
forums already...)
~~~
nicoburns
There's a library for that: [https://github.com/ct-
austin/ifmt](https://github.com/ct-austin/ifmt)
In general, a lot of things that are language features in higher-level
languages, can and are implemented as libraries in Rust. It's possible that
this will make it into the standard library at some point.
~~~
xixixao
The reason to include it in the core language, besides potentially not
requiring the additional syntax of a macro call, is what another commenter
pointed out: You want editor support (click to definition, syntax
highlighting, typing).
~~~
nicoburns
IntelliJ provides syntax highlighting for common Rust macros.
------
anurag
Show HN via comment:
You can now deploy an Actix web app in production in just a few minutes.
[https://render.com/docs/deploy-actix-todo](https://render.com/docs/deploy-
actix-todo)
A Rust user testimonial:
[https://twitter.com/sebasporto/status/1136032748894736384](https://twitter.com/sebasporto/status/1136032748894736384)
------
MuffinFlavored
use actix_web::{web, App, HttpServer, Responder};
fn index(info: web::Path<(u32, String)>) -> impl Responder {
format!("Hello {}! id:{}", info.1, info.0)
}
fn main() -> std::io::Result<()> {
HttpServer::new(
|| App::new().service(
web::resource("/{id}/{name}/index.html").to(index)))
.bind("127.0.0.1:8080")?
.run()
}
How do you know the HTTP method your path is called with?
~~~
Dowwie
that example isn't very good.. here's what the resource-registration for
"/products" endpoint would look like (note the http method), where I've lazily
omitted "/products" a level above because I wanted you just to see the http
methods:
web::resource("")
.route(web::get().to_async(products::get_products))
.route(web::post().to_async(products::add_product))
~~~
mdtusz
This syntax makes it look almost like
[warp's]([https://github.com/seanmonstar/warp](https://github.com/seanmonstar/warp))
"filters".
------
ac130kz
I chose Rocket.rs instead for my personal project, because most of the things
are built-in in the library, so there was no need for me to spend hours
figuring out how to put my own database pool or something.
~~~
blakesmith
Agreed. Rocket has been an absolute pleasure to use. I'm looking forward to it
being able to run on Rust stable at some point. Procedural macros abound!
~~~
ac130kz
They surely need to add security features like CORS/CSRF, which are already in
the milestones. I adore the approach of the project to be easy, while
maintaining the code quality.
~~~
mevile
Worrying about security while using a nightly version of Rust seems
counterintuitive.
~~~
ac130kz
Stabilizing is the primary goal of the stable (1.0) release as well, so there
is no reason to argue.
~~~
mevile
How's that going? Last I checked some of that stabilizing depends on nightly
rust macro issues that are years old with no signs of progress. When is your
rocket.rs project shipping to real users in production? When that issue is
resolved in five years?
------
dustin1114
I wrote a relatively simple web application
([https://github.com/DSpeckhals/bible.rs](https://github.com/DSpeckhals/bible.rs))
about 9 months ago with version 0.7. The initial code changes to migrate to
1.0 weren't that bad
([https://github.com/DSpeckhals/bible.rs/commit/fbd7e8207023a0...](https://github.com/DSpeckhals/bible.rs/commit/fbd7e8207023a0bf9ce7b51b0943c24f30a7a662)).
The most substantial changes I made during the migration weren't necessary,
but according to the author, are a little more idiomatic actix-web: moving
from sync arbiter actors for Diesel connections to just using `web::block`.
Both use a threadpool behind the scenes, but `web::block` is less verbose.
I've been extremely satisfied with its performance and ergonomic abstractions
over HTTP and async Rust that actix-web offers. And like others have
mentioned, the author and other contributors provided me with some good,
practical answers to a few questions I had.
------
anderspitman
I think Rust has a very bright future in web servers. I have one small service
(using warp[0]) in production. The level of confidence I have once the dang
thing compiles is quite comforting.
[0] [https://github.com/seanmonstar/warp](https://github.com/seanmonstar/warp)
------
jupp0r
Good to see that it supports async handlers. I feel like many Rust web
frameworks look nice on paper but are completely useless for many real-world
applications because of synchronous request handling.
------
fafhrd91
[https://www.techempower.com/benchmarks/#section=test&runid=5...](https://www.techempower.com/benchmarks/#section=test&runid=5cc1a314-4e0c-4294-b8f1-cb607e0a5440&hw=ph&test=fortune)
~~~
losvedir
That's on 0.7, right? How does the new architecture of 1.0 compare?
~~~
fafhrd91
This is 1.0 bench
------
Fiahil
I was trying to get actix-web working on arm (hosting a small rust API on a
raspberry pi seemed exciting enough to get me rolling). However, compiling it
was slightly too much resource-intensive and building ARM docker images on a
Macbook Pro was not straightforward (at least not with a "scratch" base).
I was a bit disappointed because I really wanted to use rust as a small-
footprint app server :(
------
sbr464
Does anyone have experience/feedback using Actix with the juniper graphql
library? Especially with the newer 1.0 changes.
[https://github.com/graphql-rust/juniper](https://github.com/graphql-
rust/juniper)
------
amelius
Does this framework support the use of the same language on the client as on
the server? Can I send actix messages between client and server?
------
lacampbell
How suitable is actix-web for serving static files? I'd love a programmable
server for this, as opposed to dealing with nginx.
~~~
SahAssar
It seems fast enough for simple file serving, but if all you want is modify
some of nginx's behavior I'd probably look to openresty or nginxcript instead.
It's easy to underestimate how many edge cases that nginx (or similar mature
web-servers) will handle for you and that you won't know about when rolling
your own webserver.
------
inlineint
No one mentioned Riker [https://github.com/riker-
rs/riker](https://github.com/riker-rs/riker), another actor framework for
Rust. It would be interesting to hear comparison of both from those who used
it.
------
submeta
Off topic: Does it make sense (would it be useful) for a Python developer who
uses Python for Data Analysis (Jupyter Notebooks, Pandas, Numpy), quick
scripting, automating, scraping etc to look into Rust?
------
pxtail
I'm not sure if it's intended or not but every time I'm looking at this name I
need to correct myself to not read/perceive it as ActiveX
------
chriswwweb
Is it just me? Every time I read headlines about this framework I misread it
as active-x and it makes me feel uncomfortable ;)
------
soperj
Just wondering, does anyone know off hand if there's any support for this in
PAAS's like Heroku & Openshift?
------
bfrog
Look forward to perhaps replacing my iron based service with this if it really
does solve some problems I have
------
kibwen
The title somewhat buries the lede: actix-web has had its 1.0 release today.
See also the thread at
[https://www.reddit.com/r/rust/comments/bwy99w/actixweb_10_re...](https://www.reddit.com/r/rust/comments/bwy99w/actixweb_10_released/)
~~~
Dowwie
The title was a 1.0 release announcement but @dang changed it..
~~~
dang
One of us did. When a project hasn't had significant attention on HN yet, the
project itself is the story, not the release. But we can squeeze a 1.0 back up
there.
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Someone copied our website, what are things we can do? - zuhayeer
We found out today that someone blatantly copied our website (levels.fyi). The bad actor is at levelsfyi (dot) com. Are DMCA Takedown notices effective or is it just for a good scare. Would appreciate any advice on any actionable things we can do
======
techjuice
The best thing you can do is talk to a lawyer. Normally they would start out
with a DMCA and cease and desist notice to the webmaster, domain registrar and
hosting company. If things still are not right, more then likely you would end
up taking the site owner to court. If you have a trademark then you could also
take them to court for using your brand illegally (you have to do this to show
you are working to protect your trademark).
------
bufferoverflow
.com is within US jurisdiction. So just DMCA them.
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Billionaire Icahn Exits Apple Stake After Three Years - rezist808
http://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2016-04-28/billionaire-icahn-exits-apple-stake-almost-3-years-after-buying
======
mmrezaie
Saying he is worrying about china and claiming he is activist and then going
and endorsing Drumpf. Something is rotten here.
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
How to write a WordPress job description - tzaman
http://www.woothemes.com/2013/09/how-to-write-a-wordpress-job-description/
======
ppgr
Nice article, with must see advice for anyone hiring a developer.
------
mayankg
pretty cool. A good job description is always helpful for both the client and
the contractor. It saves time, less confusion and faster turn around.
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
OpenIO: object storage and grid for apps - lormayna
http://openio.io/
======
mbrock
Here's my feedback as a person being marketed to:
After trying for a while to scroll through your landing page despite the
extremely annoying custom scroll thing, I have no idea what your thing
actually does.
I know you have offices in France and the U.S., that you sell something
involving the storage of objects, and that there is a "storage revolution"
going on.
When I click "learn more", I get instructions for installing VirtualBox and
Vagrant...
Even if I click further and read your PDF, the introductory paragraph tells me
that you are using "the groundbreaking concept of 'Conscience'" which I have
no idea what it is.
After reading a bit more, I still don't understand what your thing actually
does.
It sounds kind of cool from all the cool words and stuff, but I'm never going
to install it or recommend it because I can't get a concrete and tangible idea
of what it is.
My suggestion: on the first page, you should have a terse description of the
steps a user or company would go through and what they would gain from it.
Something like... and I'm just making this up:
1\. You're storing lots of objects but your hard drives are overflowing and
breaking all the time.
2\. You install our product, which is a server that runs on Linux computers.
3\. You configure it to use a variety of storage engines, for example plugging
in your S3 credentials and some other things.
4\. Now you can use a REST API to store content-addressed objects, and the
product takes care of datacenter distribution, backups, and stuff.
5\. Benefits cascade upon you like you could never imagine, for reasons X, Y,
and Z.
~~~
TheAceOfHearts
I noticed the annoying scroller and just closed the tab. It's just really
annoying.
From the title, I don't know what they mean when they say "grid". When I think
grid, I'm usually thinking about layouts.
~~~
dsp1234
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Grid_computing](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Grid_computing)
------
boulos
As people have pointed out, this is similar to S3, GCS, etc. and apparently
they've been running it for a bit:
> The first production ready version was built in 2008 and the first massive
> production of a large scale email system started the year after. Since then,
> the solution has been used to store 10+ Petabytes, 10+ billions of objects,
> at 20 Gbps of bandwidth at the peak hour, with low-latency SLAs enforced
> 24/7.
That's not a bad scale for such a project, but an individual large customer
can easily consume that much bandwidth and storage like the guys at Descartes
Labs ([http://googlecloudplatform.blogspot.com/2015/11/startup-
spot...](http://googlecloudplatform.blogspot.com/2015/11/startup-spotlight-
Descartes-Labs-monitors-planet-Earths-resources-with-Google-Compute-
Engine.html)).
It seems like they need a lighthouse customer to really push it. Best of luck
gdelaporte and team!
------
lobster_johnson
For those looking for a bit more detail: [http://openio.io/wp-
content/uploads/2015/07/OpenIO-CoreSolut...](http://openio.io/wp-
content/uploads/2015/07/OpenIO-CoreSolutionDescription-June2015.pdf).
------
gdelaporte
Thanks for your feedbacks, we appreciate it. Work is ongoing for a website v2,
we'll take them into account.
~~~
hemancuso
How is your product different than the many many competitors?
~~~
gdelaporte
Hi hemancuso,
Maybe you will find this useful:
1/ Pure software for any mixed hardware optimized by dynamic data placement 2/
No rebalance and no perf impact on production when scaling 3/ Grid For Apps:
distribute & run any apps on same nodes
If you want to go further we will be at the OpenStack Summit, feel free to
visit us. We have a booth. Don’t forget to vote for our presentations:
[http://openio.io/events/openio-will-be-a-sponsor-at-
openstac...](http://openio.io/events/openio-will-be-a-sponsor-at-openstack-
summit-in-austin) See you there!
------
gsmethells
Is this trying to _be_ OpenStack Swift or _leverage_ OpenStack Swift?
~~~
khc
They are a swift competitor with a swift compatible frontend
------
fareesh
That's an unusual way to pronounce "data"
~~~
goldenkey
Yeah sounded like they got a non-english speaker to do their intro. That or
someone on the autism spectrum.
I wouldn't trust my data to a vendor that can't even pronounce data
correctly...
~~~
pavlov
Both pronounciations are correct:
[https://www.quora.com/How-do-you-pronounce-the-word-data-
cor...](https://www.quora.com/How-do-you-pronounce-the-word-data-correctly-Is-
it-DAY-ta-or-DA-ta)
~~~
goldenkey
Its not dahta or dayta that is the issue. Its the slow irreconcilable way the
speaker voices the two syllables with an emphasis on TUH. Its a soft word, not
Dat Tuh with a hard tuh. Literally sounds mentally challenged and unless the
team behind this product is one person who has a throne, I can't think of a
reason why no one would voice opposition to the anti social pronunciation.
Laughable error.
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
87% of all Smartphones are powered by Linux. Really? - ashitlerferad
https://haydenjames.io/81-percent-smartphones-powered-by-linux/
======
zerognowl
From Wikipedia:
"Android does not include the GNU C Library (it uses Bionic as an alternative
C library) and some of other components typically found in Linux distribution"
[1]
1\.
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Android_(operating_system)](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Android_\(operating_system\))
~~~
ashitlerferad
Also from that WiKi: "Android's kernel is based on one of the Linux kernel's
long-term support (LTS) branches. Since April 2014, Android devices mainly use
versions 3.4, 3.10 or 3.18 of the Linux kernel. The specific kernel version
depends on the actual Android device and its hardware platform; Android has
used various kernel versions since the version 2.6.25 that was used in Android
1.0."
------
informatimago
And since iPhones are powered by Mach\BSD, 99% of all Smartphones are powered
by UNIX! :-)
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Undergrad improves CERN supercollider algorithm - joshwprinceton
http://www.dailyprincetonian.com/2009/03/23/23108/
======
spoiledtechie
Well I think Einstein said that if you haven't made your major contribution to
society by 30, you will never make it.
~~~
jambalaya
It's probably 35 or later nowadays considering we're living longer and there's
more flexibility in terms of careers.
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Alaska's 34-year basic income experiment - mortenjorck
http://www.marketplace.org/2016/03/12/economy/alaskas-annual-dividend-residents-adds
======
ZoeZoeBee
The Price of oil cratered and now the fund does not have the money to provide
the citizens with the income they've grown to depend on.
The experiment is a success at providing another example of Socialism being
great until running out of other people's money.
This does set us up for the next experiment, What happens to a frontier town
when the commodities which fueled it dry up?
~~~
johng
In this case I don't agree with it being Socialism. The "oil" belonged to the
people... not the government. So the people get the money. The thing is they
came to depend on it, and obviously the price is in the shitter. So the
dividend should be cut. It should be based entirely on how much the State is
making off the resource of the people. If it goes away, the people should be
prepared.
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
CoinLaunch – Launch your own cryptocurrency for free - AlaskaCasey
https://techcrunch.com/2017/10/13/build-your-own-token-sale-with-coinlaunchs-coincreator/
======
tonetheman
The extension they use for chrome can watch everything you do on the
internets... :(
That stopped me. It looks interesting though.
It would be cool if there was a way to install chrome extensions in an
isolated spot.
------
Alghero90
That's what the world needs right now, more of these coins.
------
preillyme
I like it. The Coin Creator seems to work well. Will be curious to see how it
grows over time.
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
How to Talk to Anti-Maskers - mitchbob
https://www.nytimes.com/2020/07/22/opinion/coronavirus-health-experts.html
======
devenblake
> Early in the pandemic, federal officials instructed Americans not to buy or
> wear masks. The C.D.C. revised that guidance in April.
That was stupid and a mistake, and I don't have the words to describe the
disaster that's come of it. It was a mistake then, even though people may
_say_ masking was unneeded then, because it was clear even at the beginning
that masks were necessary even in areas that had not yet had the virus. If we
hadn't advised against masks then anti-masking might be less of a threat right
now. The thing is, that even if masking may not have _seemed_ to have work,
they should have advised people to start wearing masks just in case.
------
rwcarlsen
The same way you talk to normal humans. Why are we trying so hard to label
people one dimensionally?
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Is it Possible for Me to Get Hired as an Intern? - isitpossible
So.. here's the deal. I'm 19, live in Vancouver and been programming for ~2.5 yrs. I know, I started a bit late and I truly regret that.<p>Since I started programming, I fell in love with it and I tried to learn as much as I could (Linux, Windows, C, C++, Java, Python, Git, XHTML, SQL, etc). Your alarms probably went off right there. Thing is, I know a little about a lot of things. If you ask me some basic questions about C like pointers, I can probably answer you. If you ask me what abstract methods, interfaces, etc are in Java and how they work, I can answer that as well.<p>However, my main problem right now is I don't have any projects that I'm truly proud of to show my employer. I only have small tools (around 100-300) lines of code. Examples of these are (imgur uploader, irc bot built using twisted, multiple todo list with timers, crappy looking review site I built in my web dev class, etc). I would contribute to open source but I'm on a full load right now (7 classes) and it's almost impossible to work on something without depriving myself of sleep.<p>My question right now is, how can I present myself to an employer (through cover letter and resume) as someone who can solve a few problems here and there and who's truly passionate about software development?
======
cliffchang
I interview plenty of people, for fulltime positions and internships, and,
basically, yes, you can definitely be hired.
It sounds like you're starting your 2nd year of college now, and most of your
peers have pretty thin resumes, too. The fact that you have pursued personal
projects beyond classwork already puts you ahead of the vast majority of
candidates. Be sure to provide links to the source code for the projects you
hacked together in your resume. Even though you don't think they're perfect,
they show your passion, and that's what people are looking for.
In the cover letter, talk about how you discovered programming, how much
you've learned in just 2.5 years, how much you want to learn still. I didn't
start coding, really, until halfway into my freshman year, and I was still
able to find internships.
Once your resume is strong enough (and providing links to good code that you
wrote will look very good, for a college student), it's just the interview,
and it doesn't seem like you're asking about that.
P.S.
Another way of doing things is getting to know some professors well (TA for
them, ask them lots of questions, talk to them after class, etc.), and asking
them to help you find an internship. A lot of companies trust professors'
opinions of their students a lot more than resumes when deciding who to
interview.
------
devmonk
Do what you said you can't. Get code into Github, etc. Focus on one project
that you're interested in, and do it well. As people have stated recently, go
to bed earlier, wake up earlier so you work on it first thing for a few hours
each day. Don't develop all of it and then contribute it- come up with the
idea and as soon as you have something- anything- worth sharing, put it up
there. Then start adding to that. Once it is up, you'll be less timid about
contributing more.
Spend adequate time on beefing up your resume to look like the best resumes
you find on the web (in your opinion). Spend time on interviewing technique,
but realize that the people interviewing don't like evasiveness and are just
looking for someone that knows what they are talking about (not someone trying
to show that they know) and that is a good culture fit and wants the job (and
says at the end that they want it). Don't mention money or benefits until they
make an offer.
------
QLMag
First, 19 is still young. If you have some real-world experience and have
either completed, or are in the process of getting an education/training to
back it up, you can certainly position yourself for a paid internship. I was
able to hold down a great internship in design with just some photoshop work I
did when I was 16. It's definitely about your passion and true potential. Just
show that you have a roadmap to bring value to the company, while being able
to learn from them as well, and you'll do fine.
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Bitcoinfographics.com – infographics about Bitcoin - patestevao
http://bitcoinfographics.com/
======
thomasrossi
mh.. bizantine consensous and bitcoins, mining saga, transaction explained as
"calculation of a certain hash" (lol, certain)
I don't believe these are good infographics, I am more puzzled than before. If
this is what the user base accepts, then probably the protocol is wasted in
their hands.
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Fuzzing with AFL is an Art - moyix
http://moyix.blogspot.com/2016/07/fuzzing-with-afl-is-an-art.html
======
vvanders
Great to read real-world use cases.
Tangent-ish question, I've seen some work on AFL for Rust[1], how much of this
understanding maps to Rust? Is the instrumentation path pretty uniform for
LLVM based binaries?
[1] [https://github.com/frewsxcv/afl.rs](https://github.com/frewsxcv/afl.rs)
------
haberman
I wonder if fuzzing with libFuzzer is less of an art?
[http://llvm.org/docs/LibFuzzer.html](http://llvm.org/docs/LibFuzzer.html)
~~~
colmmacc
Alex, an SDE from AWS S3, recently added LibFuzzer fuzzing to s2n:
[https://github.com/awslabs/s2n/pull/263](https://github.com/awslabs/s2n/pull/263)
. The integration has been very simple, very impressive, and it has already
found an issue we hadn't triggered with afl (a small memory leak in an error
case). The minimization step is a big help in improving the branch coverage.
~~~
csl
LibFuzzer runs in the same process as the code you want to test, right?
Doesn't that mean you have to take special care to recover from errors? I
mean, if it messes up the heap, for example, it would be possible but tricky
to continue running. And continue is what you want, because then you save a
process restart when exploring the parameter space (which makes it very fast).
~~~
mikessu
Hi! Take a look at libFuzzerfication project at
[https://github.com/ouspg/libfuzzerfication](https://github.com/ouspg/libfuzzerfication)
LibFuzzerfication project uses libFuzzer for fuzzing popular applications and
libraries.
There are already some test stubs and mysamplelib stub is very good for
learning purposes.
------
microcolonel
I've been fuzzing a target pretty judiciously, and I have seen all of these
effects. Glad to see somebody do a writeup. The dictionary is a huge boon,
especially for text-based files.
------
d33
Shameless plug: I created a project that simplifies building jumping straight
into fuzzing of most command-line Debian projects. Have a look here:
[https://github.com/d33tah/aflize](https://github.com/d33tah/aflize)
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Blue lights keep students alert, improves reading speed, reduces hyperactivity - allenp
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-1333029/Blue-lighting-trialled-British-school-wake-drowsy-pupils-thing-morning.html
======
JonnieCache
I would like to point out that the source, the daily mail, is a joke here in
britain and it has a diabolical track record of science reporting. It is aimed
at middle class women and as such will hype any science story that could be
seen as a way for mothers to create an advantage for their children over other
people's children.
For a catalogue of the Mail's scientific failings, including the fish-oil saga
which was very similar to this story, see here:
<http://www.badscience.net/category/media/papers-mail/>
------
allenp
I posted this because I wanted to see if anyone had experience with this sort
of thing first hand. I've seen daylight lamps before for SAD but nothing like
this.
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Show HN: System to manage ad-hoc SQL queries within small organizations - skun
https://github.com/LogicSoftInd/LSQ
======
igauravsehrawat
Nice. But isn't that more of an app rather than system?
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Real books are back. E-book sales plunge nearly 20% - MilnerRoute
http://money.cnn.com/2017/04/27/media/ebooks-sales-real-books/index.html
======
Nomentatus
The reduction in ebook purchases may not be quite what it seems. There's no
call to buy an ebook in advance of the moment you're ready to read it, unlike
a paper book. Unless you might forget it entirely, of course. So once you've
accumulated a fair bit of ereading, you're not going to buy anything more
unless you know you're going to read it immediately.
Additionally, the fact that you can't actually turn the Amazon kindle's light
off completely means I don't eread in the evenings; pity.
------
sonabinu
This is personally true for myself. I have been buying more books lately!
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
I’m tired. So I’m selling my game that just went viral - napsterbr
https://medium.com/@renatomassaro/99e525f99f65
======
masukomi
Re the emails / support / whatever being stressy... dude. It's been like no
time at all, and you had a spike. You don't have to reply to EVERYTHING ASAP.
All things in moderation. Set up an autoresponder politely telling folks that
you're a single person and the spike in requests is a bit overwhelming. ask
their forgiveness and let them know that you'll get to people as soon as you
can.
With that out of the way, congratulations on the spike in traffic.
After having been on the front page of multiple programmer sites I can tell
you it's just that. It's a good day. You _may_ even get a good week out of it.
Unless you are _incredibly atypical_ the spike in traffic _will not last_.
There's absolutely no basis for assuming that traffic will continue at the
spiked rate. It tells me your either naively optimistic (sorry to inject an
unpleasant reality) or trying to sell it quick to someone else who is naively
optimistic.
The upside is that the onslaught of requests is that since it's a spike, they
will die down and you'll be able to catch up. The longest, and hardest, i had
was a project that ended up with me stuffing envelopes every night and making
daily trips to the post office sending of letters to people around the world
because my offer started getting passed from message board to message board.
It lasted about a month.
I'm _very_ dubious of the belief that adding "more advantages" would get you a
10-15% conversion without _any_ evidence to back it up, especially when you
can't even be sure of the 1% conversion rate you _think_ you can get for the
current state of things.
You can't extrapolate an enduring income stream (or even an amount of work)
from a single _small_ spike.
~~~
downandout
_> Unless you are incredibly atypical the spike in traffic will not last._
The spike won't last, but it doesn't mean that it won't grow consistently from
where it is into something much larger than it is today.
_> It tells me your either naively optimistic (sorry to inject an unpleasant
reality) or trying to sell it quick to someone else who is naively
optimistic._
That's pretty judgmental. This obviously has the _potential_ to grow. If he
doesn't want to deal with it or maybe needs the money now, he isn't doing
anything wrong by trying to sell it to someone that sees the same potential
that inspired him to spend 2 years creating it.
Maybe he won't get $60K, and maybe he'll get more. Maybe somebody will offer
to invest in it and allow him to draw a salary while he grows it. Maybe he'll
be hired by someone that has a use for the talent and dedication he displayed
by building this. Regardless of the outcome, it's clearly worth _something_ ,
and if he wants or needs to sell, I hope he gets a fair offer.
~~~
RogerL
> The spike won't last, but it doesn't mean that it won't grow consistently
> from where it is into something much larger than it is today.
That is absolutely true, but investors don't invest based on "doesn't mean".
The equation is discounted future free cash flow minus risk premium, and
usually, minus how desperate you are to sell. If you are big and threatening
(can take away Facebook's customers), then that adds some plus to the
equation.
If you are trying to sell Apple we can talk about projecting future growth -
the equation changes dramatically. A PHP game with a one day spike? No.
This could be the next minecraft, but more likely it'll make 1K this month,
$500 next month, and so on into obscurity, is the thinking. Disagree? Show us
the numbers. You'll get about 1x on those numbers, as others have ably pointed
out.
I think we all agree he has done extremely well to get to this point, and that
we hope he gets fair value. But I can't imagine spending that much money to
basically buy myself a job in the hopes of a revenue stream that the owner has
not generated for himself. I think the advice he has gotten to take a
breather, and take stock in a few weeks is extremely sound. If he can make a
case for his revenue #s he will get a nice price for his game. But he needs to
understand what investors are thinking about his pitch. That is not bashing
him or being judgemental, it is merely echoing what the market is going to be
thinking. How else will he get fair value? The goodness of the investor's
heart?
tl;dr - the things being written may be painful to read, but they come from
people with experience and a friendly desire to explain how to do business
valuation. It in no way implies an assumption of a limited upside in the
future of the game.
------
ddingus
Why not take the modest income and pay somebody to improve the game and or
it's traffic?
Seems to me, you could find another University student looking to grow traffic
as part of their studies. Collaborate on this.
Take another small share and pay somebody to do a little support for those
users worth responding to.
As others have said, you could potentially benefit from this in the future.
Right now, you are just a programmer. Continue that. Do well, grow.
But, a programmer who understands some business has serious potential. Seems
to me you just created the perfect lesson plan. This little project won't take
that much to treat like a business and if you make a couple of friends, who
knows where you all might go in the future?
You would be able to learn how to better execute on an idea, get a lot of very
interesting user metrics, have a following, show income, etc...
Consider this. I would in a second. A few hours here and there just isn't
going to impact your studies. However, those few hours here and there could
really educate you in ways you will find difficult to realize in a strictly
academic environment. This is worth more to you than you currently realize.
Nice work :)
~~~
napsterbr
Thanks, this is something that I should try.
~~~
jagermo
please do this. I just signed up (sorry for the additional load) and it looks
fantastic. Reminds me of Uplink in a modern setting.
Plus, as a dad of a 4 month old, this looks like the perfect pasttime when the
small one wakes up in early morning.
Please reach out. You have done an amazing job and should keep it up.
~~~
tux3
>Reminds me of Uplink in a modern setting.
You just made me sign up.
~~~
jagermo
well modern as in "web based". It's not really uplink (i loved the use of
different nodes to hide yourself) but it looks like a fun pasttime that take
the hacking scenario seriously.
------
zak_mc_kracken
First of all, congratulations for finishing your game and getting some success
with it.
A few thoughts:
\- 6000 registered users in a couple of days is hardly going viral. It's a
promising start but too early to use that adjective (and the numbers are also
pretty low).
\- The fact that you are trying to sell something you worked on for more than
a year just because you can't keep up with the email volume is... suspicious.
Especially if the income estimates you give in that article are accurate. Why
not just ignore your inbox for a few weeks and come back to it later?
\- I think the answer to the question above is obvious: you know your success
is temporary and you're trying to cash out while you can. Sorry for my
cynicism, just being honest.
~~~
napsterbr
Sorry for your honesty. OP here.
Some people don't think only on money. I created this game as a fun project,
for fun, without expecting any revenue. (If I did, it would be pay-to-win).
I tried to kill myself last year a few days after I gave a talk at a FOSS
conference. Some people can't handle pressure, email volume or too much social
contact, specially if they have something called social anxiety, depression,
and other things that I do.
I understand your suspicious.. However you are assuming I'm a crazy-for-money
guy like... many people.
If no one buys the game I'll probably shut it down. For my own mental sanity.
~~~
rmetzler
It's free to play, you don't owe anyone anything. If you get emails and don't
feel like answering, just ignore them. If you get praise, print it out so you
can look at it whenever you feel down.
~~~
jtheory
This is totally logical, but psychologically hard.
When I was a student I had totally-free online stuff I built lead to a stream
of requests for upgrades, additions, bugfixes, etc. -- and the unreasonable
ones are easy to discard, but some requests would be polite, friendly, and
include offers to help. I'd agree to make the seemingly-small tweak, or accept
the help, and then realize after a week that I didn't really have the time, or
that my TO-DO list was being pulled completely out of whack....
Better to not publish your email address at all, perhaps, or make very clear
that emails may be eventually read but very likely not responded to.
------
napsterbr
Hey, I'm Renato.
I really don't know what to do. Many people told me if I hire a team, or at
least one developer, this would help me get going with the game. This does
make sense.
However I've been extremely stressful for the last hours. I guess this really
is a bad decision, but one that would free myself for university and other
projects I have.
The problem is I can't stand to spend my whole day working only on Hacker
Experience anymore. I already have other projects that I want to work full
time with.
Happy to hear any advice from you. I have no experience at all with business,
marketing or even start-ups. I'm just a programmer.
Thanks!
~~~
bpizzi
Hey Renato, good job you did here, but I would honestly don't sell and I'll
definitely don't buy.
See, I've been wandering on HE a couple of hours yesterday, and your project
seems to have some serious execution flaws (bad ui, downtimes, social based
income, etc). Nothing serious for a side project but these are definite
blockers if you ask for a 50k something.
Not mentionning the stack: slackware (honestly?), php and python (why two
langages?), no framework. The last one could be the main reason you are
struggling to keep it afloat, and that at least throws a big red flag: "I'm
gonna head troubles if I'm gonna buy".
And the business side doesn't seems to be worth it.
My 2 cents on selling/buying webapps : I would be keen on paying 10K on a
website-based business with 10 long-time customers paying 100$ each month.
That's not the kind of deal you seems to be after, but I think this is somehow
the standard for serious buyers on the market. Why so low you may ask? Because
if I understand your project to the point I could buy it, then that means I
can replicate your little business. I'm only buying time, and I think it would
take ~10 months to build that webapp and gather some ~10 customers (maybe
yours, now I know your flaws...).
And that means buying a strong problem solving webapp, not a niche online
game. If the webapp is very well executed then I would maybe push to 15K per
10 recurring customers, not more. And I don't care the market size: it's for
the potential 100 recurring customers that I would be in, not for the seldom
social viralisation peak with an only 1 or 2% conversion.
In a nutshell: don't loose your time trying too hard to sell it. If it sells
then congrats, but you should spend your time fixing the UI to keep your
players onboard, writing a great FAQ that handle the tickets, and boosting
your infra so you that you're not needed around when it collapse.
Because after that you're done: let it live alone and enjoy your 1000$/month.
Based on my experience there's little chance you'll reproduce that for the
years coming.
But that's still a good feat for your age and experience, kuddos and congrats
to you ;)
~~~
jqm
Why not Slackware? Besides, does that matter? I'm sure one could easily run
the game on CentOS (or something else) if they chose.
Your point about maintainability might be more valid.
~~~
giancarlostoro
Slackware is a highly capable distro. It may not have the fancier things that
other distros have (or at least not as simple), but it's just as capable, and
it's highly more stable.
~~~
bpizzi
I was not trying to be mean on slackware users, nor implying that slackware
isn't a capable distro. Sorry if I wasn't clear enough.
I implied that, when a distro is missing dependency management, it should be
the last on your picking list. I'm an Arch guy myself, but my own servers run
on wheezy (because 'life').
~~~
giancarlostoro
Everything has its uses I suppose.
------
fsk
My advice - don't sell.
First, it's hard to put a value on it. It isn't clear than the buyer would
make enough revenue to keep up with the expense of keeping it running.
Second, you aren't obligated to respond to everyone who sent you an E-Mail or
message. Wait a couple of weeks, and then start looking at them.
Third, you aren't considering user retention. You had 6k unique visitors
today. There is no guarantee you will still have 6k unique visitors in a
month.
Fourth, as long as your income from ads and payments cover the expenses, leave
it running.
Finally, if you do retain an audience of 1k+, now you have a customer base for
whenever you launch your next project.
------
jliptzin
Congrats on the success. Allow me to give you some advice before you sell,
having been in almost your exact position at your age:
\- Lots of emails/press attention is a good sign and no reason to give up on a
project. Focus on improving the game and ignore the emails if you have to.
They don't matter
\- I too had a game go viral (0 to 3 million accounts in about 6 weeks). I was
getting multiple acquisition offers but up until that point it was the most
exciting and stressful time of my life. I got absolutely no sleep for days on
end. But it paid off and I learned more practical knowledge in those short few
weeks than my entire college career.
\- When the time was right I sold, not because I was tired, but because it was
the right time for the game and for my future
\- Shortly thereafter I developed another game which I considered selling
early on like you are doing now because I wanted to move on to something else.
I decided to continue improving it and it ended up lasting 5+ years and
grossing several million $s, far more than I ever thought was possible with
the initial version
\- This is your baby. You are by far the best person to nurture it and turn it
into something you're extremely proud of.
\- Your growth is promising but the traffic right now is too low for you to
get any serious offers in my opinion. Keep on grinding, it'll be worth it
~~~
DonHopkins
>This is your baby. You are by far the best person to nurture it and turn it
into something you're extremely proud of.
That comes through in all the meticulously detailed, earnest and honest
information you posted about it. It sounds kind of like you're trying to find
a good home and trustworthy owner for a beloved cat who you can't keep in your
apartment any longer. Just remember, your cat (i.e. your audience) loves you
too. Good luck whatever you do!
~~~
napsterbr
This is the best analogy someone could come with. It feels exactly like that.
------
gasping
I had to laugh at the revenue estimates based on the peak of a brief social
media buzz. Most of that traffic will disappear over the next few days.
~~~
mqsiuser
Yes it will. He tries to cash in now.
My "show HN" went peek on HN and then back to what it was before.
He is smart: Everything seems fine. From the media we know about all the
companies, which have established business models with such figures. But they
are the 1%.
Taking over (from him) is already so hard: If you were the inventor of [X],
you would have done [X]. Taking it over and going on: ~IMPOSSIBLE~
------
victorfigol
I doubt anyone will want to buy your game. It is not that it is not good but
without you in the price it is not worth it, they will not be able to improve
it or even maintain it. The learning curve in order to maintain that game will
be very expensive. Also success is not guaranteed yet, now is the time your
game is growing do not let go. Just take a trip somewhere to relax.
Also find a partner, if you were working on this with someone else, you would
have much less stress. Working alone is very unhealthy and extremely
stressful. Either partner with someone or balance life and work which might be
hard since you have to study too. Go to forums where other programmers that
love making games are and find someone to become your partner.
------
cypherpnks
I'll make an alternative suggestion. Hire management. You want to sit in a box
and code. You want someone to handle business, support, etc. People who can do
that are a dime a dozen.
That could be another student at the university; someone with an active
Twitter account, good charisma, etc. Offer 25% equity vesting over 4 years.
That's pretty generous. Keep hacking and plugging, and do as much or as little
of the interacting as you want. If the other person doesn't carry their weight
-- which is not uncommon -- dump them or swap them out for someone else. Be
very upfront about this when bringing them on (if you want, overly upfront --
pitch this as a short-term engagement, with possibility of going longer
depending on how business goes).
Give yourself the title of CEO and CTO. Give them the title interrim
president+COO.
Regarding depression, social anxiety, etc., this can help fix it. I've been
there. Depression gets better when you have meaning and purpose, and when
you're busy enough to not have time worrying about it. Social anxiety gets
better with status. When people are competing to talk to you (rather than the
other way around), and you're in a position to say yes or no, the dynamic is
just different. If this were to grow into a successful company, you might be
in a very different position. You've been playing with fixing this for a
while. Play with this as an opportunity to try a different approach to fixing
it.
Again, I don't know you. This could not apply at all. Take this as what it is
-- an idea from a stranger.
~~~
tokai
>Depression gets better [...] when you're busy enough to not have time
worrying about it.
Very harmful advice potentially.
------
lsc
So... I can't advise you about selling. I've bought tiny companies, but have
never successfully sold them, and... yeah.
However... I do have a suggestion for your sanity now and in the future that
doesn't involve selling the company, or at least, not all of the company.
Assuming you want to keep releasing stuff direct to the public, I suggest
finding a friend that you can interact with, that can interact with the public
and other business partners. There are a lot of different ways to structure
that relationship; some people get a "business partner" and when the
relationship is described that way, usually the partner gets some control over
you. This relationship can also be structured as "hiring a secretary" \- if
that's what you call them, you are implying your partner has less power, and
often that you will compensate said partner regardless of revenue, but
compensate them less.
On your end, I think, the fact that this person can deal with your quirks and
protect you from the parts of the limelight you find unpleasant might be more
important than their raw talent as a business person, especially if you retain
more control over the business side of things. (Note, if I'm reading your
personality correctly, and I might not be, you probably want someone who is
willing to at least act in public like they made the decision in question.
Someone willing to take the blame even if it was actually your decision. These
people exist, but you need to be clear, if that is in fact what you need.)
I mean, you and your partner need to decide what your relationship looks like,
how the power dynamic works, and how remuneration works, and it doesn't have
to conform to either one of those models, but I've worked with people that
were really, really uncomfortable with social situations; I've been that
"human interface" person, and if you find a compatible person, I think it can
generate a whole lot of value for both people.
------
whocares
Hi Renato
I am very sorry to hear about your health problems. I don't have the same
challenges as you but I do have experience of when a side project explodes. I
have a piece of freemium software that has been downloaded about 700,000 times
and here is what i did to manage the emails:
\- set up a great FAQ and put all questions that are asked more than once in
there. \- if you use a mac get a copy of TextExpander ( or a similar product)
and automate all your email replies. Then you can answer support emails with
one command. \- use a Gmail label to sort out support, and batch send emails
once or twice a week. Don't be afraid to ignore whiners, complainers and the
people who cannot Google answers for themselves.
Take care of your health first and best of luck!
------
fishnchips
My €0.02.
This is somewhat similar to the situation where a FOSS developer feels the
pressure from the users of his software. The more successful their software
the more miserable and frustrated they become. I believe the best way of
preserving your sanity in this case is just pushing back and allow others to
take responsibility. Forks and pull requests exist for a reason. Chances are
you're using my open source library for your regular job in which case you
(unlike myself) will actually get paid for your contributions.
@napsterbr: you don't owe anyone anything. If there's any obligation it runs
the other way. Take a deep breath and enjoy the ride, long may it last. One
way of sharing the burden of support (which seems to be your main concern) is
creating a community and granting most eager and devoted users some
'superpowers'. Makes them happy and they do a lot of work for you. You only
get involved sporadically and on your own terms.
------
meh_master
Pretty good time to sell, given that all that traffic will be gone by next
week. But I think the dev and any potential buyers know that.
------
orasis
Get some sleep bro. Shelve the project for a while, work on something else,
then come back to it in a couple of months when you're feeling energized
again.
------
mikkom
> At the current stage of the game, one would be able to get about $1000 per
> month with both ads and user membership.
The current usage is a peak because of exposure. It will drop and the ad
profit will go way down in the coming few weeks.
------
foz
Please remember, that even if you don't do anything at all - ignore it, let it
fade, or whatever - you had a great success. Be proud, let yourself feel the
satisfaction. Working for years on something and having people connect with it
is an amazing accomplishment. If nothing else comes of it, that's OK. You won.
------
sheetjs
> There are two main ways to earn money with this game. One is using Google
> Adsense.
> These values are estimated, but I believe one can get at least $20–$25 per
> day. That’s about $750 per month.
Until you actually see your first payout, the estimate is meaningless. I've
heard of many cases where people saw significant estimates and google turned
around and shut down their accounts before the first payout.
There is an ongoing class action lawsuit against AdSense for this behavior.
Relevant discussion:
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7776282](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7776282)
------
iSloth
I've been in a very similar position to what you're in now, at university in
England and a side project went viral and was making a decent amount of money.
In the end I sold it onto someone that gave me a decent offer.
Has to be one of my biggest regrets, I could have paid someone else to support
it while I was busy with my education. Perhaps the biggest kick was that the
person who bought it didn't really look after the site and it went into
decline anyway losing most of it's users.
Selling might be your best option, however be 100% sure before doing anything
:)
------
pouzy
Everybody's advising not to sell it, but looking at the game: Yes, it might
only be a spike. The game is long to get into, a lot of reading, etc. It's
like starting a complicated board game without somebody to explain it to you:
a lot of people will just drop it to play a game in which the rules are
explainable in 20 seconds.
There's a buzz going on around it right now, but don't expect it to be Flappy
Bird. So depending on what you want (you seem tired of that game), I don't
think it's a bad idea to sell it while it's hot
------
kngspook
Pretty cool that you made the forum automatically create account when the game
account is made. It's the small touches that make the difference between
something people will use and something people love to use.
Like other people commented, I don't think your user numbers will hold up in
the long run -- not because of the game, necessarily, but because people
naturally try stuff out and then never return.
Nonetheless, I'd consider buying it, but not at any price that would make you
feel good about spending two years coding the thing.
------
dsirijus
Find an understanding partner. Since you obviously don't have a clue about
anything besides programming (sorry, harsh words, but I don't have the time to
type out a list of mistakes you did here), it'll have to be business dude that
handles stress and load well.
Have him insulate you from the support, monetization, PR, and so on, and let
him assemble Terms of Use to be very generous towards you as a programmer in a
way that you don't have to respond to reported bugs (especially concerning
monetization) immediately but leisurely.
Agree with him on the priority of types of fixes/improvements and have him
deliver lists of tasks to you on a weekly/monthly basis.
Have that business partner on a probation period first, to see is he
supportive of your persona and then split profits with him 50/50\. It'll be a
great opportunity to learn from him strategems of handling stuff you cannot.
Aim long-term. These types of games are something people stick around for
quite some time. Adjust monetization model accordingly. These numbers you have
or project right now are meaningless from that context.
Do the right thing and good luck.
As a side note, an analogy to first-time parents is an appropriate one here. A
lot of them panic a lot when they find out baby is on its way. _But I 'm not
ready! I'll make mistakes during parenthood! Will I be able to support it!?_
And most kids still turn out just fine.
Cheer up. :)
------
presumeaway
Alternate title: how to sneak a For Sale listing to the top of HN.
~~~
bertil
I believe that this particular post is more about what someone should look
into when facing unexpected success than driving a good sale price: so far, no
one has posted this was a good idea to sell.
My reaction is: pay a litt major to respond to e-mails for couple of hours a
day. Most reactions are: get a serious business partner. Debating that is a
lot more relevant than an ad -- hence the tolerance.
------
TallboyOne
That's not going viral... going viral is 8 million visitors in one day. What
you have is about the amount of traffic we get in ~10 minutes. You need to
chill out.
------
mrpickles
Cool project. It's nice to see someone put together something awesome while so
early in their education/career and have it work out for them. Shows you've
got potential.
If I could give you any advice, I'd say think about going to academia. Working
in the software industry is all about this kind of stress, and it really only
gets worse from here. It's why we get paid lots of money to sit in a chair all
day eating free snacks.
If this project has been stressful, the industry is going to chew you up and
spit you out. Projects follow the same trajectory: you work on a project in a
bubble for a long period of time (maybe a year or two). Then, there's a usage
spike the first day, the first week. Maybe it goes up (if you're lucky), but
it probably goes down. You have to fight to get usage.
And then things get harder. Bug reports. QA nitpicks about a million things
you didn't notice. Product Developer's decide to change something major and
you re-write 20% of your code base. Some of your junior team mates can't
handle stress, so their output drops. The senior folks on the team get
agitated and are suddenly unaccessible to help you with anything because they
have their own shit to do.
Oh, and btw now that it's already in the field with customers bitching about
it, so everything needs to be done yesterday. You think about leaving
sometimes, but you can't afford to be out of a job for a month, and thinking
about studying for an interview yet again while working sounds even more
stressful (since you haven't really used big-O notation or graph algorithms in
your last 2.5 years as a web developer).
Not every job is going to be stressful, but the really good ones will. You'll
work with people smarter than you doing things a lot of people haven't done
before.
~~~
mareofnight
This is a good point. Though there do seem to be a few lower-stress workplaces
out there - Vanguard seems to be one of them, in terms of not having much
crunch time or overly-long hours. They're pretty sociable people, though, but
it might still be something to consider.
(I'm a former intern and not currently working there, and not a recruiter;
pretty sure their hiring managers don't read Hacker News.)
------
sdnguyen90
I think selling it would be more stressful than just keeping it running. Lots
of buyers flake and lots of things could go wrong.
Also, how much time do you really need to put into this project to keep it
running?
This is also a reason why I prefer working on PaaS's for solo projects.. For
the most part I can do other things and not put too much mental effort towards
it.
------
danielrhodes
Stress can really drive people to make bad decisions.
He should step back, take a breath of fresh air, and then get back to work.
------
arjie
Don't make a decision either way until you're less excited about this. Sit
back, take a deep breath, and then go through with it tomorrow after a good
night's sleep.
You know the rule: Don't make any decisions hungry, angry, or sleepy.
I wish you luck and happiness. Nice work.
------
nanofortnight
Suggestion:
Ignore it for a week, don't think about it.
I would hardly call that going viral, plus it's only been two days. You're too
optimistic, thinking too big.
If this is anything average you'll find that most of the traffic will die off
after a month.
------
korzun
TLDR: I received a single traffic spike for a game I just released and looking
to make a quick buck, take everything and make me an offer before traffic goes
away.
There are so many things wrong with that blog post.
------
pitchups
Kudos on your success!
This may be a bit off-topic but reading your post, was struck by the low cost
of your dedicated servers at OVH : $116 per month, for a server with "64GB ECC
RAM, Xeon E5 3.7 Ghz, 360 GB of SSD (at RAID 1) and 500 Mbit of networking."
seems like a really great deal - drastically cheaper than Rackspace or
Softlayer for similar configurations. How good / reliable is their customer
service and responsivemess in case you have a problem?
------
elwell
> There are about 60kLOC in PHP, and 2kLOC in Python. We do not use any
> framework. The PHP code was written completely from scratch. This give us
> some performance boost, however it might be a little more difficult to
> understand the code.
60kLOC in PHP from scratch. When I hear that, I just hear that it probably
will need to be rewritten. If the buyer isn't hiring you, then that's a pretty
hefty amount of code; unless it is written very well.
------
mrchess
If only it was as simple as using personal time and emotion invested as a
large part of the equation that determined a softwares value... we would all
be rich :)
------
adir1
Just set up something like GetSatisfaction and let community try to help
itself, while you rest and get your sanity back. Take as long as you need - a
week, or a month, whatever.
You are probably in the best position to fix/improve it going forward, so
selling it is not an option IMHO. Instead, look around campus for a partner-
dev. Even with just one partner developer, to bounce ideas and priorities off,
things will become clear for you long term.
Good Luck!
------
paul9290
This seems ridiculous, yet and maybe unintentionally smart too.
As it makes for a good story press outlets will probably pick up and write
about. It's semi-similar to the Flappy Bird's creator decision to remove it
from the app store and all the press that followed.
Though maybe it's creator just want to cash out on it quickly and go relax on
a beach with nice looking people (who doesn't?).
Good luck!
------
curt
Have you thought about placing it on third party gaming sites? Kongregate.com
is a great example (disclaimer I work there), they have a built in audience,
handle marketing, payments, customer support, etc so you can focus on
development. Solo game development, even in small teams, can be quite the
struggle and there are communities that are happy to help.
------
natch
This post feels like spam. I'd hate to see more of this kind of thing taking
over the HN front page.
------
adam74
I'm tired? I don't understand this. It's like climbing a mountain and then
closing your eyes. Of course you are tired from all the hard work, but now is
the fun part. Relax and enjoy the view. I guess the view for this developer is
selling the product.
------
alegrn
Here is some math:
The formular for the present value of a perpetuity is just
present_value := cashflow / discount_rate
Given 750$ per month (9000$ per year) and a 3% annual discount rate, then an
infinite stream of 750$ monthly payments is worth today 300.000$.
~~~
empressplay
It's so totally not suspicious that an account that hasn't posted for over a
year all of a sudden pops up to make a post in support of the author?
~~~
alegrn
Nope, my post was just meant as some random fact. You can easily put a price
on an infinite stream of constant payments. I don't believe the project is
able to generate an infinite stream of 750$ payments. But if it could, that
would be roughly it's value.
By the way, for an investor it does not matter how much effort (1 year, 5
years, 100 years) the author did put into the project. For the present value
of the project only matters what monthly payements there will be. If someone
can forecast these payments, he can also put a price tag on the project.
So it might also be, that there is no more interest in the game in one or two
months ... then it would be roughly worth 0$ to 750$ (even if it took much
effort to implement it).
~~~
punee
You probably also want to revise your discount rate assumption.
~~~
alegrn
Sure. The given assumed discount rate of 3% was just meant as an example.
------
ethana
I too advice you not to sell it. Branding is a hard commodity to come by. Give
it a week or two before doing anything hasty.
The Flappy Bird guy ran into similar situation, but he kept it running.
Perhaps there are some lessons to take away from that.
~~~
nbevans
He didn't. He didn't even sell it. He freaked out big time and just removed it
from the app stores, never to be seen again.
~~~
photorized
He's back promoting a new game.
------
misulicus
Just sent you an email few minutes ago. Let me know what you think :)
------
NicoJuicy
Fyi, the wiki doesn't contain any content.. If you want to get someone else on
board. It wouldn't be a bad idea to fix this (depending on the amount of work
required)
------
wavesum
I think many commenters here have been watching too much shark tank. The old
ways of valuing a business based on past revenue work very badly for seed-
stage software startups.
------
tuananh
This is like the peak of your game right now. You can't take it into
calculation just yet. Let it cool off and see. If you get stressed from it,
just leave it for awhile.
------
nerdbeere
I'm not sure if I this is a sign that I should stop working on my realtime
multiplayer hacker game or if it means that there is a huge market for this
genre out there.
------
torbit
lol what? using medium to sale a product. I was expecting some great insight
on why, but it quickly turned into a pitch and then an action to sell.
------
volume
Are you open to different structures of the deal? Like:
* some upfront fee
* you remain onboard for X months
* each time period is a certain % of equity
* some monthly fee paid to you until X total
------
realrocker
Don't sell! Hire someone who will take salary as a profit cut. If I had any
money I would have totally bought it though.
------
Donzo
Flippa.com if you are serious about selling.
------
yazaddaruvala
Does the code have an automated a test suite? It would be really hard for
someone to take over for you without one.
------
andyidsinga
the Op might consider building some nice sales pitches to different types of
customers. for instance, someone in the movie industry might be able to use
his for a more realistic production asset!! please, for the love of mitnick,
we need better hacker production assets in entertainment!
------
hrrsn
Nice game. Looks to me like a modern slavehack. Keen to give it a try.
------
argntnspc
Hope all goes well.. I would be glad to help. Let me know.
------
sideproject
Want to put it up on Sideprojectors?
[http://sideprojectors.com](http://sideprojectors.com) \- I'm sure there will
be plenty of people who would be interested in your project!
------
nbevans
I lol'd when I saw "[the codebase use classes but in an unconventional way]"
followed by "[i can offer programming support]"
Down-votes accepted but let's face it this guy is extraordinarily naive.
------
tux3
Well, the site just went completely down apparently.
------
ForFreedom
Selling this game or an application when there is high traffic is not the way
to handle things. Invest about 2-3 hours daily to respond and resolve any
bugs.
------
minusSeven
meh this is very early days and so making and comments about the future of the
game is very stupid.
------
asdz
you sell your game. now I should quit
------
eridal
OT, but the correct term should be `cracker`
------
biomimic
Is this an episode of "Silicon Valley" in the works?
------
telltherello
This is a slavehack clone
------
telltherell
This is a clone of slavehack
------
telltherello
This is a clone of slavehack
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
How did my password reset link expire so soon? - cardiffspacemon
I asked for a password reset, and got the email, and clicked through. It said "Unknown or expired link." instead of letting me enter a new password. I reviewed the email I received, and made certain that iOS had not accidently added the period after the URL to the URL. Is there something wrong with password recovery at the moment?
======
gus_massa
Try contacting the moderator dang by email to [email protected] . It's the
preferred method and it's usually faster and more reliable because sometimes
they don't find the thread. (It's midnight now, you may have to wait until USA
working hours.)
~~~
cardiffspacemon
It turns out I created the reset link from one machine and followed it from
another. This allowed a condition to exist that could not possibly exist if I
had used just one machine. The moderator explained it to me and now I'm back
in business.
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Zazzle’s anti-free-speech practices - triplesec
http://ashleybmeyer.com/blog/?p=25
======
caseyv
Sensationalized title. It appears this person may be using someone else's
intellectual property. I don't see any indication that this has anything to do
with the NSA. I can't be certain, but that's my take.
~~~
caseyv
There is this though so who knows:
“Sec. 15. (a) No person may, except with the written permission of the
Director of the National Security Agency, knowingly use the words ‘National
Security Agency’, the initials ‘NSA’, the seal of the National Security
Agency, or any colorable imitation of such words, initials, or seal in
connection with any merchandise, impersonation, solicitation, or commercial
activity in a manner reasonably calculated to convey the impression that such
use is approved, endorsed, or authorized by the National Security Agency.”
~~~
cjbprime
But see this:
[http://graphics8.nytimes.com/packages/pdf/us/20100803-wiki-L...](http://graphics8.nytimes.com/packages/pdf/us/20100803-wiki-
LetterToLarson.pdf)
The FBI quoted a similar statute when asking Wikipedia to remove its copy of
the FBI seal. Wikimedia pointed out that their encyclopedia article does not
"convey the impression" of endorsement and refused to take down the seal, and
the same defense appears to work here.
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Gimli Glider: When systems go wrong. - RiderOfGiraffes
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gimli_Glider
======
jgrahamc
Do not watch the movie version of this
([http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Falling_from_the_Sky:_Flight_17...](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Falling_from_the_Sky:_Flight_174)).
It's inaccurate and overly dramatic.
~~~
RiderOfGiraffes
It would be interesting to find a film version of a real event of which the
same cannot be said. The film "U-571" springs to mind, although is most likely
an extreme case.
~~~
chaosprophet
You might want to watch the documentary series Mayday (also called Air Crash
Investigations). They had an episode called "Gimli Glider".
Wikipedia:
[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Mayday_episodes#Season_...](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Mayday_episodes#Season_5)
------
megaduck
I see that the pilot demotions were temporary, and didn't negatively impact
their careers. They also received the first ever FAI diploma for "Outstanding
Airmanship".
Goes to show that any crisis, even a self inflicted one, can become a net win
if you recover well, learn your lesson, and nobody gets killed.
~~~
JoeAltmaier
Many were killed in a Sioux City crash landing; the pilot Captain Al Haynes,
still buckled into the ruined cockpit part of the wreckage, when informed that
over 100 died exclaimed "My God, I've killed 100 people!". His rescuer replied
"No, you saved 200". This flight crew is regarded as heros too (and rightly
so). It was a freak failure of the DC10 triply-redundant hydraulic system, yet
the flight crew, steering the plane using only the two remaining engines'
throttles, put the nose wheel on the centerline of the runway.
~~~
megaduck
In that situation, the fact that it was a freak accident totally exculpates
the pilot. He did an admirable job under impossible conditions.
With the Gimli Glider, Captain Pearson took some of the blame because he flew
the plane when the minimum equipment list said he shouldn't have, and he
miscalculated the quantity of fuel on board.
It's quite possible Captain Pearson would have been hung out to dry if there
had been fatalities. Instead, his admirable performance in the air was enough
to almost entirely outweigh whatever mistakes he made on the ground.
~~~
sokoloff
It is often said that there is no such thing as an "Emergency Takeoff"
------
youngian
Other fun stories of software gone wrong, off the top of my head:
<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Therac-25>
<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ariane_5_Flight_501>
[http://www.pcw.co.uk/computing/analysis/2073427/emergency-
ro...](http://www.pcw.co.uk/computing/analysis/2073427/emergency-room-london-
ambulances-won-crash-again-expert)
------
furyg3
_"[...] the cockpit warning system sounded again, this time with a long "bong"
that no one present could recall having heard before.[3] This was the "all
engines out" sound, an event that had never been simulated during training"_
Whoa. I wonder if it was intentional or not to leave out an almost no-win
simulation from the training.
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Ask HN: Why don't companies replace code tests with open-source contributions? - fnwx17
I'm asking this in the context of code tests that are used during the interviewing/hiring process.<p>There is a general consensus that generic code tests that are frustrating and time-consuming for the developers, but that it also doesn't give the company too much insight into someone's skill set.<p>One thing we thought of was to replace those tests with contributions (or bug/issue fixes) to a company's open-source project.<p>Obviously, if it were an easy to implement idea, more companies would be doing it already. And so we're trying to figure out what are the obstacles and barriers to this.<p>We also created a typeform survey in case you have a few minutes to spare (6 mins is the average completion time)
https://workshub.typeform.com/to/OqzTZS
======
nostrademons
Many of them already do weight contributions to open-source projects heavily,
particularly their own open-source projects. I remember that when I was in
college, over a decade ago, one of the major reasons to contribute to open-
source was to build your resume and develop real connections at companies.
The reason they give you code tests is because very often the type of work you
will be doing on the company's proprietary code base is different from fixing
bugs & implementing features on an open-source codebase, and they want to
ensure that you have the skills to do real coding where there isn't an
existing codebase to build off. For example, my referrer at Google was someone
who I'd worked on a volunteer PHP-based Harry Potter fandom website with.
That's great, but very different from the sort of heavy algorithmic code that
much of my work at Google entailed.
------
eesmith
> "One thing we thought of was to replace those tests with contributions (or
> bug/issue fixes) to a company's open-source project."
That sounds like you are saying that job applicants need to do unpaid work
which economically benefits the company before being hired.
Do they need to sign a CLA as well, or do they at least get to keep ownership
of the copyright?
More specifically, if I contribute something under the AGPL to an otherwise
MIT-licensed project, will that count against me?
If the point is to see if my skill set is relevant, then that shouldn't
matter, right? Because you can still evaluate it, hire me, and have me redo
the work under a standard employee work-for-hire arrangement.
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Optimizing matrix multiplication in C - attractivechaos
https://attractivechaos.wordpress.com/2016/08/28/optimizing-matrix-multiplication/
======
makmanalp
Attractivechaos's stuff blows my mind. Shameless plug - I've started
dissecting his header-only hashmap library (khash.h) bit by bit, and I've been
documenting my adventure here:
[https://medium.com/@makmanalp/dissecting-khash-h-
part-1-orig...](https://medium.com/@makmanalp/dissecting-khash-h-
part-1-origins-7577d6445670#.s7e4au49z)
edit: and part 2:
[https://medium.com/@makmanalp/dissecting-khash-h-
part-2-scou...](https://medium.com/@makmanalp/dissecting-khash-h-
part-2-scouting-32eda6660919#.ys3d0org4)
~~~
santaclaus
Rad, I wasn't aware of khash, thanks! Any idea how it compares to Google's
dense_hash_map?
~~~
makmanalp
No clue! Your comment history seems to say you're more qualified to answer
that than me.
My first look says that dense_hash_map seems to use STL stuff and generics,
khash is in pure C, and uses macro hacks to achieve the same functionality and
only has a few key types it can use (str, int, int64).
Other than that, dense_hash_map and khash both use quadratic probing
([https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quadratic_probing](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quadratic_probing))
to resolve collisions. I couldn't really dig and find the hashing functions
used by dense_hash_map but khash uses a weird one called X31 (search in
[https://download.samba.org/pub/unpacked/ntdb/lib/ccan/hash/h...](https://download.samba.org/pub/unpacked/ntdb/lib/ccan/hash/hash.h))
for the string ones and .... nothing??? for ints, with an alternative of
Wang's integer hash function
([https://gist.github.com/badboy/6267743](https://gist.github.com/badboy/6267743)).
The world of hashing functions seem to be a crazy underworld of arcane
incantations, old tomes, and copy pasting and emailing and trying random shit.
It's really wonderful, reminds me of the olden days.
Khash.h is a measly 624 lines of code, everything included, so there's that.
~~~
makmanalp
OK, a bit more here:
[https://attractivechaos.wordpress.com/2008/08/28/comparison-...](https://attractivechaos.wordpress.com/2008/08/28/comparison-
of-hash-table-libraries/)
------
apathy
Good write up. It is very rare to outperform decades of numeric analysts (and
also avoid nasty machine precision issues) by shooting from the hip, and Eigen
is amazingly easy to use (plus it is a headers-only implementation: no DLL).
------
santaclaus
I'd like to see how MKL stacks up -- if you are on Intel hardware MKL often
beats out Eigen.
~~~
dagw
Doesn't Eigen use MKL as a backend if MKL is installed?
~~~
attractivechaos
Eigen can use MKL as a backend, but not by default. I don't have MKL installed
on my machine (don't have a license on that linux server), so Eigen is
entirely using its own matrix multiplication code.
------
hairy_man674
Any programmer with a competent faculty for science can see that your
experiment is flawed:
1\. too many indepedent variables: comparing two different compilers on two
different platforms on two different architectures?!!
2\. and then you compare performances without equal consideration of the
problem size for n!
your conclusions are premature, sir, your analysis is conjecture and yet you
dare use the word "primitive". for instance, are you aware that Blas uses
Fortran whose lack of pointer aliasing effects in memory could be causing the
disparity here? have you considered that certain interprocedural optimizations
have been affected by not having seperate translation units for your tests?!
you have also added debugging flags to the compilers further slowing the BLAS
routines with more debugging cruft!?! gah!
for these reasons above and the flaunted use of architecture specific
intrinsics, your post stands accused! make revisions and then also see how
blas performs using a better algorithm with possibly fewer aliasing effects
see
[http://m.mathnet.ru/php/archive.phtml?wshow=paper&jrnid=zvmm...](http://m.mathnet.ru/php/archive.phtml?wshow=paper&jrnid=zvmmf&paperid=4056&option_lang=rus)
begone from this thread! use proper profiling tools. learn c! fix this
violence to science and injustice!!!
~~~
attractivechaos
> 2\. and then you compare performances without equal consideration of the
> problem size for n!
All the different implementations are compared on the same condition: same n,
same compiler and same machine.
> are you aware that Blas uses Fortran
Wrong. uBLAS and Eigen are written purely in C++. OpenBLAS is a mixture of C
and ASM. They have nothing to do with Fortran.
> you have also added debugging flags to the compilers further slowing the
> BLAS routines with more debugging cruft!?
By debugging flags, you mean "-g"? No, -g should not affect the performance
(maybe a tiny bit on loading the executable, but that is negligible). Get rid
of -g, and you will get essentially the same result.
> you dare use the word "primitive"
Yes, I dare, because uBLAS is just that bad and should be trashed. Prove me
wrong with your benchmarks. Let number speak for itself.
~~~
hairy_man674
The burden of proof is on you to prove otherwise, sir.
------
timeu
Some time ago I did compare different BLAS implementations (OpenBLAS, MKL,
ACML etc) on different Intel CPU architectures, in case somebody is interested
in the differences between them
[http://stackoverflow.com/questions/5260068/multithreaded-
bla...](http://stackoverflow.com/questions/5260068/multithreaded-blas-in-
python-numpy/7645939#7645939)
------
Const-me
Apparently, the main reason for your results — GCC optimizer ain’t good.
Here’s Visual C++ port: [https://github.com/Const-
me/matmul/](https://github.com/Const-me/matmul/)
Eugen is still faster than naïve implementations, but not that faster, just
30-40% compared to SSE+tiling sdot.
~~~
attractivechaos
You have a faster CPU. "SSE sdot" and "SSE+tiling" are both faster on your
machine. However, "Eigen" is slower. This suggests gpderetta might be right –
MSVC is not as good as gcc to optimize Eigen, or conversely, Eigen has not
been optimized for MSVC. Nonetheless, MSVC did fully vectorize the inner loop
of non-SSE sdot, better than both gcc and clang (EDIT: of the versions I was
using; it would be good to try the latest gcc/clang). It seems that explicit
SSE vectorization is the most stable. Other implementations of "sdot" depend
too much on the behavior of compilers.
Anyway, thanks a lot for this experiment. I rarely use MSVC these days. It is
good to know where it stands.
~~~
Const-me
Both CPUs are same microarch, Haswell. Xeon has much more cache. The i5 has
higher base frequency (3.2 vs 2.6) the Xeon however has higher turbo frequency
(3.6 vs 3.4).
OK, I’ve installed Cygwin and GCC, compiled and benchmarked the original code.
I made the following changes in the makefile: (1) Replaced -O2 with -O3 (2)
added -msse -msse2 -msse3 -mssse3 -msse4 -msse4.1 to the option, both C and
C++.
The results on GCC/i5/Windows 10 are very consistent with the OPs result on
GCC/Xeon/Linux.
Diagram: [https://raw.githubusercontent.com/Const-
me/matmul/master/res...](https://raw.githubusercontent.com/Const-
me/matmul/master/results-gcc.png)
Numbers: [https://github.com/Const-
me/matmul/blob/master/Run/result.xl...](https://github.com/Const-
me/matmul/blob/master/Run/result.xlsx?raw=true)
------
gbrown_
Just wanted to share this video given at ANL recently which goes into the cost
of communication in such methods. It has a HPC focus but the presentation is
quite digestible.
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TUViqCd9EKk](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TUViqCd9EKk)
------
em3rgent0rdr
I don't like how the author has labeled tables as "Linux" and "Mac", when
really most of the differences between those columns are the result of the
_compiler_ used, and to a lesser extent, the fact that the Mac was a local
machine while the "Linux" tests were done on a remote server.
A much more useful comparison would keep everything constant except the single
variable that is different. This could have been done by utilizing the same
hardware, and only using a different compiler. Since both GCC & Clang work on
both linux & mac, there is no excuse.
------
rurban
The latest scatter/gather vectorization tricks are missing. The SSE
improvements are only minimal.
Maybe a very new compiler, like Polly or ICC can vectorize this automatically.
ICC has a special -qopt-matmul option. [https://software.intel.com/en-
us/node/524953](https://software.intel.com/en-us/node/524953)
~~~
sevenless
I'd like to see support for optimized multiplication on symmetric matrices. I
don't think BLAS can take advantage of that, certainly scipy/numpy doesn't.
~~~
santaclaus
> I don't think BLAS can take advantage of that
There is BLAS level 2 (f|d)symv for matrix-vector multiplies and BLAS level 3
(f|d)symm for matrix-matrix multiplies. Last time I benchmarked symv, it was
slower than the general implementation by around 25%...
~~~
sevenless
Any idea why it would be slower? I liked the idea of avoiding half the
multiplications.
~~~
Someone
Disclaimer: I have very, very, very little experience using BLAS. The reasons
I post this are:
\- the original poster gave an unqualified speed difference, which cannot
reasonably be the full story. They likely left out information such as a 'for
my use case' clause.
\- I was curious, too, but couldn't Google benchmarks.
Having said that, my guess would be that it is slower for small matrices
(where algorithm overhead plays a role), but faster for larger ones (where
speed probably is proportional to memory access speed times amount of data
accessed). There's a similarity here with searching a sorted array. There, a
linear search is faster than a binary search up to a surprisingly large N.
I wouldn't dare guess where the cut-off point lies, but it likely lies at a
point above where a matrix row fills a cache line (below that, reading only a
few entries of a row brings in an entire row, anyways). For a level 1 cache
line of 64 bytes, for floats, that would be a 16x16 matrix.
------
mamcx
Similar tricks in a managed language like .NET?
~~~
tom_mellior
The transpose "trick" should work the same way and have similar beneficial
cache effects. Manually unrolling the sdot loop should probably help, too.
Vectorized intrinsics are also available from .NET, so that should work as
well: [https://msdn.microsoft.com/en-
us/library/hh977022.aspx](https://msdn.microsoft.com/en-
us/library/hh977022.aspx)
------
sickboy
fma may help to double performance，if you control memoryrw wrll
~~~
Const-me
Right, but the price is slightly different product because incompatible
rounding.
Also, too few CPUs support those, FMA only available since Intel Haswell
(2013) and AMD Bulldozer (2011).
Finally, there’s also incompatibility between 3 and 4, but that’s the least of
the problems because simple to workaround in runtime.
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Git: Bram Cohen vs Linus Torvalds - Xichekolas
http://wincent.com/a/about/wincent/weblog/archives/2007/07/a_look_back_bra.php
======
swillden
I think an Bram errs when he thinks that his experience in studying and
experimenting with merge algorithms gives him deeper insight than the apparent
newcomer to the field, Linus.
What he's missing is that Linus has spent a large part of nearly two decades
doing merges using a variety of inadequate tools which no doubt frequently
forced him to hand-edit many thousands of patches in order to get successful
merges. When Linus sat down to start his two-week project, he brought with him
an incredibly rich base of experience with real-world merging of changes in a
significant, complex codebase with large numbers of contributors. Also, he's
an insightful guy. So while he may not have spent as much time in formal study
of the esoteric intricacies, Linus had great insight into the day-to-day
issues that merge-heavy development processes create, and how to solve them.
~~~
dasil003
And more importantly he had seen so many thousands of conflicts that he
realized the futility of a smart algorithm significantly reducing the pain.
Think about it, a bad automated merge probably causes as much pain as is
alleviated by 10 trivial merge resolutions.
~~~
aaronblohowiak
... it also spits out very good explanations of what failed in the more
complex merges, which saves you time. I love good error messages.
~~~
windsurfer
I do too, and as someone who has just started using Git... the error messages
need some help. Luckily, it's open source, so I decided to take a look and see
if I could improve them... unfortunately, they are hard-coded into the source,
and not in some central location, making it very difficult to change.
------
SwellJoe
Linus' strength, I think, and this article is pointing out one particular
instance of that strength, is in spotting the right problem...not in any
particular brilliance in solving the problem (though he's pretty good at
solving the problems, as well). I suspect Bram is as talented a developer as
Linus, but in chasing down elegant solutions to esoteric problems while Linus
spotted and solved the problems that most effect developers, Codeville has
missed the boat. I suspect the revision control wars are pretty much over for
the next few years, and git won by a large margin. That, in and of itself, is
an interesting indication of Linus' genius...he built something that had
dozens of competitors, some with major backing like Canonical's bzr, and
within a couple of months it was apparent to just about everyone that git had
the mindshare for next generation revision control. His solution was ugly,
just some C and Perl scripts thrown together in a short period of time, but it
solved the right problems at the right time.
~~~
axod
Has git really won? It'd be interesting to see some real stats, also how far
has it actually penetrated businesses etc.
~~~
kragen
Well, it's certainly beaten the crap out of Codeville, Monotone, OpenCM,
darcs, ArX, and the other various decentralized source control systems that
have been presented at CodeCon (Bram's conference), including the one Bram
wrote.
I decided that Git had won about a year ago, so I switched to it (from CVS and
darcs). Mercurial still looked like it might be a reasonable competitor at the
time, and it certainly isn't going to disappear, but Git is definitely in the
lead at this point.
~~~
axod
Certainly seems to have won the popularity contest, but that doesn't map to
what is actually in use across the board - businesses, universities, open
source, etc etc
~~~
nostrademons
It's won the mindshare of the people who typically start new projects:
hackers, entrepreneurs, independent developers, freelancers.
Existing projects rarely switch VCses, because it's such a pain to move
everything over. So new ones gain market share by being the choice of _new_
projects, which then gradually displace old projects in the marketplace. This
takes basically forever: a lot of people are still using CVS. But git's won
the battle for folks creating new codebases, so it's basically inevitable at
this point that people will eventually migrate over to it.
~~~
SwellJoe
_Existing projects rarely switch VCses, because it's such a pain to move
everything over._
git trounces the competition on this single point, actually, and it could even
be one part of the explanation for why git has won so soundly. The tools for
converting from another VCS to git are dramatically better than any other DVCS
that I'm aware of.
~~~
nuclear_eclipse
That's a very good point. For the MantisBT project, we were interested in
moving from SVN (after our initial move away from CVS) to a DVCS, and Git's
excellent `git-svn` layer allowed us to experiment with using Git while still
working on a day-to-day basis within our central SVN repository. It was an
extremely useful method of evaluating a new source control tool, with reliable
usage in pulling from and committing directly to the underlying SVN
repository.
~~~
nostrademons
It's also really nice that git can often coexist with an existing VCS in the
same working directory structure, and then you just delete the .git directory
when you're done.
I started using git this way - I had a svn project that I had to go offline
with for about a week, so I setup a git repository so I wouldn't lose my work,
and then just checked the final state in and deleted the .git directory
afterwards. And I currently have to use Perforce at work, but I'll frequently
setup a quick git repository to checkpoint large changelists while I'm working
on them.
------
adambyrtek
There is a lovely quote in the linked post:
"Maybe someday somebody will do a PhD thesis on that topic and we'll add it,
but until then we're sticking with the basic functionality."
I guess not much innovation would happen if everybody waited for a PhD thesis
to be published on a given subject instead of experimenting with their own
ideas.
------
gcheong
You might be interested in this talk Torvalds gave at Google where he talks
about how Git came about:
<http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4XpnKHJAok8>
------
staunch
Cohen is now to revision control what Tanenbaum is to free Unix clones.
------
tjogin
This mirrors my own realization; With Linux, Linus showed me he is an
extremely good programmer. With Git, Linus showed me that he is a true genius.
------
nihilocrat
I don't have much appetite for commentary on internet pissing matches.
However, I don't want to sound like a complete curmudgeon! I think the "What
Git does right" section is a nice read.
~~~
Xichekolas
Well I linked this page instead of the original mailing list thread for two
reasons:
1\. He strips all the 'pissing' out of the matches... the underlying argument
got kind of bitter.
2\. His commentary summarizes the important parts on one page, and points out
the fundamental difference in their viewpoints. Namely, Bram was focused on
making the best merge tool, whereas Linus was focused on making something so
merging ends up being a small part of the larger goal of versioning the
underlying content instead of just files.
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
A really hard problem - rumcajz
http://250bpm.com/blog:62
======
AnimalMuppet
"They're making it so that the _real_ lines are easier to use."
At least, that's what the other lines are _supposed_ to be doing. As to
whether they succeed or not, I suspect that opinions may differ...
~~~
rumcajz
What do you mean by "use"? It has nothing to do with the functionality. That
would work well even if all the scaffolding was removed. It's not readability,
a code with scaffolding is harder to grok than the code without. I guess you
mean ease of maintenance, but even that is highly dubious, especially in a
well-aged codebase where the actual behaviour have diverged far away from the
original abstraction.
~~~
AnimalMuppet
I mean "use in the context of a much larger application with the minimum
possible pain". If done right (a big if, I admit), all the other lines make it
_easier_ to use the "working" code than it would be if all the other lines
weren't there. "Easier" means "over the scope of the whole project (or
multiple projects)", not just "in this one place".
There's lots of ways to do the surrounding lines that _don 't_ actually do
that, but that's the intent.
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
The Linux Information Project - jorgecastillo
http://www.linfo.org/
======
WestCoastJustin
Very, cool site. I have used it before, and it is nice to see someone posted
it! As a meta note, if you are into this type of thing, I have created a
couple screencasts along the same lines:
Crash Course on the Filesystem Hierarchy Standard [1]
Crash Course on Common Commands [2]
Hard and Symbolic Links [3]
[1] [http://sysadmincasts.com/episodes/12-crash-course-on-the-
fil...](http://sysadmincasts.com/episodes/12-crash-course-on-the-filesystem-
hierarchy-standard)
[2] [http://sysadmincasts.com/episodes/13-crash-course-on-
common-...](http://sysadmincasts.com/episodes/13-crash-course-on-common-
commands)
[3] [http://sysadmincasts.com/episodes/16-hard-and-symbolic-
links](http://sysadmincasts.com/episodes/16-hard-and-symbolic-links)
There were also many great threads on HN about UNIX commands:
Unix Commands I Wish I’d Discovered Years Earlier [4]
Useful Unix commands for data science [5]
Favorite Unix Commands [6]
Top Unix Command Line Utilities [7]
[4]
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6360320](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6360320)
[5]
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6046682](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6046682)
[6]
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5022457](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5022457)
[7]
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4985393](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4985393)
Cheers
------
kevinoid
Could anyone comment on how this compares to The Linux Documentation Project
<[http://tldp.org/>](http://tldp.org/>)? It seems like there's a lot of
overlap in objective. Why was it necessary to create a competing project (if
it is competing) rather than combine effort on expanding TLDP?
~~~
nitrogen
I had the same thought. TLDP is how I got PPP working on my 28.8k modem when I
first installed RedHat in 1999, so maybe the information on TLDP is out of
date?
~~~
krakensden
It'd be nice if someone gave a shot at patching rather than forking, for once.
It's not like the problem with finding documentation about Linux and its
ecosystem was the lack of options.
------
CraigJPerry
[http://www.linfo.org/uptime.html](http://www.linfo.org/uptime.html)
vs
[http://linux.die.net/man/1/uptime](http://linux.die.net/man/1/uptime)
I prefer the man page! This is just an example but i feel the same for all the
pages i browsed.
Maybe it's just familiarity on my part, i know man pages so i feel more
comfortable? Not sure, i just know my eyes were scanning for a synopsis
section!
~~~
npsimons
Different strokes for different folks; I too like man pages, but I feel that
sometimes the best way to learn something is to get at it from different
angles, different ways of thinking, etc, etc. As long as both (or more!)
documents are well written, why not read them both?
------
jetblackio
Absolutely love this site. It's incredibly well written, informative, and on
point.
------
hjek
"Linux is a high performance, yet completely free operating system"
Of course switching to Linux is fresh if you are running Xnu or Ntoskrnl.exe,
but you're gonna need an OS on top of that:)
Just to avoid confusion, e.g. about Android, which is using Linux, but is
obviously not free, it could be a good idea to start calling things their
proper names.
[https://www.gnu.org/gnu/linux-and-gnu.html](https://www.gnu.org/gnu/linux-
and-gnu.html)
~~~
jorgecastillo
A lot of individual projects make Linux and any other open source Unix-like
system possible, I don't see why GNU deserves more credit than those other
projects. I think I'll stick with Linux.
~~~
hjek
Well, yes, it's the same wonderful technology, no matter what you call it.
I was not thinking about whose credit it is, more about the logic of it.
Calling it Linux could lead to some paradoxes. How would you for instance
describe Debian GNU/kFreeBSD or Debian GNU/Hurd? "Linux without Linux"?
~~~
jorgecastillo
What logic? What paradoxes? Debian BSD and Debian GNU would be fine with me.
There is no such thing as Linux without Linux, even in android you can find
the Linux goodness if you want to.
------
Oculus
I'm sorry, but "easily accessible information" doesn't equal wall of text. If
we want Linux to become more popular with the general population we have to
make more user friendly sites. Walls of text just manage to scare non hackers
away.
~~~
gojomo
There are plenty of good readers who aren't hackers, who will appreciate well-
written, on-point "walls of text" – as long as such text is easy to find,
matched to the reader's sophistication, well-organized, quick-loading, and
readable on any screen.
That's "easily accessible" enough, especially as a start!
------
runn1ng
I thought this is a historical site posted for some nostalgia value.
Is this actually a website from 2013? Wow.
~~~
ekianjo
I was not sure if this was from 2013 either, since the date at the bottom of
the page shows 2007.
~~~
Amadou
I am pretty sure it is from 2007. Pages are dynamically generated so http last
modified date is not helpful.
But, the home page refers to the root definition as being the most recently
updated page and at the bottom of that, it says "Updated October 27, 2007."
[http://www.linfo.org/root.html](http://www.linfo.org/root.html)
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
New Australian Laws Force Facebook, WhatsApp to Open Encrypted Messages - gravelc
https://www.gizmodo.com.au/2017/07/new-australian-laws-force-facebook-whatsapp-to-open-encrypted-messages/
======
throwawaymanbot
Its laughable that the 5 eyes make this policy, and try to use sympathetic old
politicians who have no idea what it can entail, to implement it everywhere as
policy in those countries and elsewhere.
Its reasoning is contemptible to western values. The banana republic-ization
of the west continues. Its a disgrace.
------
resf
Article contradicts its own title. WhatsApp is not required to open end-to-end
encrypted messages.
~~~
gravelc
It does and it doesn’t. It’s entirely unclear what the new laws are hoping to
achieve. PM Turnbull appears to think that companies can decrypt messages
without a back door, with the only thing stopping them to date is the fact
they haven’t been compelled to do so.
This is an actual real quote from him : “The laws of mathematics are very
commendable but the only laws that apply in Australia is the law of
Australia.”
~~~
shakna
He does at least admit he knows exactly nothing about this area, and is
leaning on the UK contact who told him this was "feasable".
But, considering they're ignoring Troy Hunt, who is usually an advisor in
these matters, its clear they just don't care. (Moreso as this appears to be a
bipartisan decision).
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Aviary - 18 different web-based graphics tools - nickb
http://a.viary.com/tools
======
fiaz
I call vaporware. Another example of a concept site with impressive demos is
streamy.com. I wouldn't be surprised if these were "honey pots" of sorts to
collect email addresses of specific demographics (in this case it seems to be
different levels of web developers, whereas Streamy was aimed at the
Digg/reddit news crowd).
The thing that sets me off is the statement: "As soon as your invitation code
hatches we will send it to your inbox." Cute way of saying, "We'll send you
and invitation whenever we feel like it; but in the meantime we will do
whatever we like with your email address." I did notice the guarantee "We
promise not to spam!", but honestly that promise is as strong as the typeface
used to display it.
Another factor that tips me off is that they seem to be violating one of the
basics of good web application design: HAVE A FOCUS!!! Like Streamy, there are
too many things going on here that promise a lot of possibilities but seem too
much to deliver realistically. I would believe them more if they took perhaps
ONE or at most TWO of the things they claim to be releasing and said that this
product should be available soon...
Given the technology they are developing, I would hope to see a blog article
with some substance talking about some of the cutting edge technology that is
at least tangentially related to what they are claiming to be able to deliver.
Instead, there are some pics with text of little substance that seem to foster
an image of "coolness" and design savvy but no indication that they have any
real technical ability to deliver what they are advertising.
But of course, I could be wrong.... hopefully somebody here can disprove my
cynicism (see the reply button below this comment Aviary
people/developers/employees?!??!?!).
~~~
codebrulee
For what it's worth, I have received an invite from them. I played around a
little with the one application that is available - Phoenix. It seemed to be
pretty good software (but definitely still beta quality) for the 15 minutes I
played around with it.
~~~
fiaz
Interesting....I've been waiting for my invitation to "hatch" for sometime
now. By all means, I hope somebody proves me wrong and I really do hope there
is something to Aviary. But for some reason, their promiscuity in showing all
of their "goodies" seems that they are quite desperate for some attention.
I will issue a public apology here to Avi and company if my invite does happen
to "hatch", but as it stands, it looks like vaporware to me.
~~~
Avi
fiaz - please email me at avi (-a-) worth1000.com and I'll send you an invite
now to Phoenix and Peacock.
No apology will be needed either, I'm just sorry you had to wait so long.
~~~
fiaz
I have received your invite and I have logged in, and I DO owe you and your
entire team a great big apology.
It shows a great deal of integrity on your behalf that you took the time to
register here and respond publicly. I really look forward to what you guys
will be releasing in the coming months.
I'll tone down my skepticism in the future....in the meantime, all the best!!
------
nickb
Check out demos on their blog: <http://a.viary.com/blog> Pretty impressive.
I'm pretty sure you could do those operations with Splashup as well.
------
fiaz
Damn, I wish I wasn't so skeptical in my earlier postings on this thread. The
"tools" page link above seemed too good to be true; but it turned out to be
true, so does this mean it is that good? I hope so...
I have been playing with Peacock for the last hour and I must say that the
last time I had this much fun messing around with any sort of graphics
application was way back when I discovered KPT v2.0 back in 1996.
Good job to the team at Aviary and worth1000.com! You definitely have
something here.
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Unlearning the myth of American innocence - kawera
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2017/aug/08/unlearning-the-myth-of-american-innocence
======
randcraw
America is indeed an empire. Apparently the author was oblivious to this, and
her epiphany that empire creates a reality distortion field for all those
within it is really not that much of a revelation, except to her. Perpetuating
unthinking patriotism is fundamental to empiric survival. Only as long as the
populace believes in their inherent superiority (AKA exceptionalism) do their
eyes remain blissfully closed to the consequences of their righteousness on
others.
The rest of the article (book?) is about the author's slow growing awareness
that non-Americans are warped by these distortions of reality too, in ways
that are just as self-delusional and self-destructive. Yes, power does
corrupt. Absolutely.
Frankly, I have a hard time seeing how anyone over 30 could find this piece
compelling. It's founded in a childish self-centered view of the world, a
self-indulgent bubble that finally popped for the author, but not until age
30?
Has this become typical? Even an Ivy League American student can be so
insulated that they're not aware that people elsewhere in the world see the
world so differently? That their disenfranchisement from power, both locally
and globally leaves them bitter and mistrustful of all forms of authority? Who
doesn't know this? Jeez. We just elected TRUMP, dammit. Who isn't aware that
even the average _American_ feels disempowered by the routine abuse of
authority by self-perpetuating elites?
Likewise, I was equally taken aback at the general public's response to
"Hillbilly Elegy" as epiphany. Back in the 1970's I lived on the edge of
Appalachia, which left me well aware of the subsistence lifestyle in rural
America that the book revealed as something new (to most?). Are such wide
dynamic ranges of experience in and outside the USA really so invisible to
most of us?
If so, that's freaking inexcusable. We live in an era where the ubiquity of
the Net can make you aware of virtually every aspect of human experience on
Earth in less than a heartbeat. Just open your eyes.
~~~
autokad
i found it strange that she was sort of selling a story of the provincial
country girl when she grew up in jersey.
~~~
beisner
New Jersey is a very, very diverse place. Things may not be as spaced out as
they are in the Midwest, but culturally the New Jersey countryside is very
very different from the sections on the Shore, on the Northeast Corridor, and
in the affluent North.
~~~
Balgair
> New Jersey
> ...
> affluent North.
Good one!
~~~
beisner
Meant the part of North Jersey that is affluent, not that all of North Jersey
is affluent.
------
gobugat
The piece is stating the obvious, and the reactions in this thread --
predictably -- prove the author's point. Expatriation, even temporary, has so
many benefits. I'd be curious to correlate the postures of HN commentators
with their provenance and life experience.
~~~
DarkKomunalec
The piece is also full of guilt for American foreign policy that's mainly
decided by special interests, but then gets blamed on ordinary Americans.
Aren't they lucky - first they get their democracy subverted by multinational
corporations, then they get to feel guilty about what those same corporations
do.
Source: [https://www.cambridge.org/core/journals/perspectives-on-
poli...](https://www.cambridge.org/core/journals/perspectives-on-
politics/article/testing-theories-of-american-politics-elites-interest-groups-
and-average-citizens/62327F513959D0A304D4893B382B992B)
~~~
coldtea
> _The piece is also full of guilt for American foreign policy that 's mainly
> decided by special interests, but then gets blamed on ordinary Americans._
Well, ordinary citizens also get to benefit from a strong position of their
country in the world arena.
Plus, in a democracy ordinary citizens are also to blame for their
government's decisions. They can always vote something else, protest, revolt
etc. People all around the world have done it for their governments (and of
course Americans at different times).
Lastly, some (if not most) of those actions also have strong popular support
(whether for misinformation, misplaced patriotism, or just because of strong
propaganda).
~~~
candiodari
> Plus, in a democracy ordinary citizens are also to blame for their
> government's decisions. They can always vote something else, protest, revolt
> etc. People all around the world have done it for their governments (and of
> course Americans at different times).
Those BASTARD Mosul Kurds ! I KNEW they did something to deserve getting mass-
murdered and raped.
Thanks for clarifying that not revolting means you are guilty of whatever
government happens to rule the piece of land you're currently occupying does.
And of course, what it did in the past.
I must say, I was not clear on that. Well, I still am not clear on that.
~~~
coldtea
> _Those BASTARD Mosul Kurds ! I KNEW they did something to deserve getting
> mass-murdered and raped._
First of all, I wrote "in a democracy". For all the sneer, you missed that
part.
Second, those "Mosul Kurds" did very much rebel, and for a long long time. For
all the sneer, your example doesn't match their history.
Third, even if they hadn't that would be irrelevant, as they were a minority
in that country. It's the duty of the general population that first and
foremost should not let its government do injustice, not of an oppressed
minority, that not only doesn't control the government but also has the
majority against it. For all the sneer, you missed that obvious counter-
argument as well.
> _Thanks for clarifying that not revolting means you are guilty of whatever
> government happens to rule the piece of land you 're currently occupying
> does._
You're welcome. People in a democracy are not just random bodies occupying
random pieces of land and getting on with our lives whatever happens. They are
citizens, they vote, they participate in the public discussion, the voice
their opinions, etc. Silence is complicity.
~~~
candiodari
> First of all, I wrote "in a democracy". For all the sneer, you missed that
> part.
Iraq was a democracy at the time. In fact this is one of the big grievances
that is blamed for the creation and advance of ISIS.
Oops.
> Second, those "Mosul Kurds" did very much rebel
No they didn't. Not when it mattered. Here is the sequence of events, in the
hope that it can show you just how wrong you are :
Iraq was a sectarian country. That America made it a democracy is part of the
causal chain that gave us Daesh/isis. Here's what happened:
1) Saddam (gets put into power as an ally of Hitler and more generally as a
product of the nationalistic ideologies sweeping the world)
2) Saddam is a Sunni muslim, and rules in sectarian fashion. This means that
anybody in government jobs is a Sunni muslim too (sunni muslims, in case you
don't know, are the ones behind most terrorism, the ones behind daesh/isis,
and the largest group of muslims (80% or so). They are completely intolerant
of other islamic groups, and of course of any other faiths and atheists).
3) Sunnis, however are a minority in Iraq. Shi'a, the "Iranian/Persian"
"branch" of islam, are the majority. Other minorities include Kurds,
Christians, Druze, Zoroastrians, and expats.
4) America fights two wars against Iraq. Second time, they install a
democracy.
5) The democracy puts the majority Shi'a in power. They put Shi'as in power
who, together with Americans, fire pretty much every Sunni in government
service, which were pretty much the only remaining jobs.
6) After that, of course, those Shi'as found that over time they had been
relocated to areas of the country that were unimportant economically, where
Sunni's lived.
7) Sunnis react to this state of affairs by attacking everyone and everything.
As a result of this, the Christian community of Iraq has essentially been
murdered out of existence.
8) Shi'as remove Sunnis from those economic areas, by simply destroying their
houses, villages, etc. and shooting everyone. The Shi'a police force, with
help from Americans, learn to deal with the Sunni terror attacks over time and
those become ineffective.
9) The Sunni band together and form Daesh/isis, and take territory. Confronted
with an organized force, the Shi'a soldiers simply abandon their posts and let
them take large parts of the country.
So, firstly, not only were the Kurds living in a democracy, but a democracy
that was doing very unacceptable things (by our moral code, not by theirs). A
racist democracy, installed and supported by the US and Iran (yes, really).
In the areas that were conquered, everyone saw it coming.
But of course outside of that we simply cannot accept that, given the chance,
in the middle east (and elsewhere I might add) muslims simply immediately
oppress and even massacre anyone even slightly different from them. When they
get control of a government, they replace the agents on the ground, the police
and the army, so that, firstly, they can do whatever they want, and second the
government itself helps with the ethnic cleansing. And of course, that happens
whether that government is a dictatorship or a democracy, because that fact
simply has nothing to do with the problem. People might even suggest that
similar things are in the very early stages of happening in cities like Paris,
in a few districts.
------
throw2016
Exceptionalism always carries with it the danger of supremacism and once that
gets you as individual, group or country there is a constant desire to find
the 'logic and evidence' to support the position post-facto.
Identity becomes deeply entwined with protecting the purity of the
'exceptional group' with an unhealthy reductive interest in judging others and
clearly demarcating the 'unexceptional'. This is a very negative space.
The problem with sweeping articles like this is it requires intense engagement
with history, reason and reflection to escape the generalization and find a
truth you can be comfortable with.
No one can define you, you can always choose what you want to be. On a wider
level people have always been led and as long as exceptionalism remains a low
key 'motivator' it works but its a dangerous game as the lines can blur pretty
quickly.
------
losteverything
My take. She is a journalist. They have to write. She writes. We read.
The old saying is "everybody has one novel in them." updated verson: everyone
has a blog post in them.
Her words are ok. Not inspiring whatsoever. Not dramatic. Not new.
I take it for what it is. Let her get better at her job.
------
reptation
It very much glosses over Turkey's own history of (Greek, Armenian) genocide
and the very real differences in religious and other liberties between Turkey
and the U.S.
~~~
vkazanov
She's not talking about Turkey as something superior to the US. Quite the
opposite!
She notices _similarities_ between Turkish nationalism and American patriotic
world view, and that includes being a very aggressive state.
~~~
jessaustin
Yes, we must see ourselves in others. My epiphany was when I realized how
similar the political decision-making process in Pakistan is to that in USA.
Short answer: in both places, the military-industrial complex dictates the
"reality" it's acceptable to perceive, and all decisions flow from that.
------
dalbasal
My take on the topics raised - US innocence, hostility towards the US,
patriotism, nationalism... my take is that these are changes in prevailing
opinions and notions. The cumulative of subjective opinions. I'm not American,
btw.
There are a few big reasons for what the author is observing and commenting
on, that get too little attention IMO.
One is the end of the cold war, and the wars preceding it. The cold war was
cold, but the psychology was regular war psychology. Fear, demonisation,
rallying around your side... Relative evaluation of conduct and goals, rather
than idealistic evaluation.
In the corld-war-world, the US represented democracy, personal liberty and its
associated human rights, and (very importantly) culturally icons. US and
western police forces behaved well relative to Soviet police forces. US Movies
& Music were better. Press was more honest. The comparison was not made
relative to an idealised concept of democracy or human rights (or music). It
was made relative to the Soviet Union associated states. It was also mostly
made in Eastern Europe, where the divide was arbitrary, non-national and
highly visible.
That dichotomy world is gone. These days, I think people evaluate these things
in a more abstract way, relative to abstract idealizations.
A second effect is US politics' global viewership. This is a product of
globalized media, the dramatic merits of US political theater, the genuine
impacts of big US decisions and other reasons.
This is huge. I live in Ireland. The _majority_ of people are more
knowledgeable, vested and opinionated about US politics than local politics.
They have a strong opinion on US health policies, but not Irish ones. This is
a recipe for insanity. US politicians are pandering to US opinions, not Danish
or Georgian or Irish opinions. Of course they feel unrepresented. When one
side loses a heated election, large numbers always feel alienated and angry at
the country. It passes, a normal part of democracy. Many Danes (and everyone)
were involved enough emotionally to get the same feeling but being non-
americans aren't as affected by the normalizing effects that bring everything
together in the end.
When Europeans express a frustrated criticism of US politics, they are doing
it as insiders. They are criticising it the same way they would criticize a
local party coming to power, one which they don't like. Imagine how angry
Americans would get at the Danish or Mexican parliament if they were following
it like this.
A third issue is the "someone must be driving" fallacy. In this sense being
angry at the US is like the constant anger at one's own government. There is
so much wrong with everything and it has to be someone's fault.
The US has been having a bad run in foreign policy. Afghanistan, Iraq, Libya,
Syria, even N. Korea, ... The US is (rightly or wrongly) held responsible as
the guy in charge. Politics rarely rewards successes. The failures are just
more visible.
Who do you get angry at for the Syrian civil war? Who's to blame? The UN?
~~~
cantremember12
Thank you for this comment. I'm an American but have lived abroad for most of
the last 13 years in various countries and articles like this drive me nuts.
Yes, the US has made a lot of terrible mistakes in our foreign policy, but we
have also paid for and ensured (basically unilaterally) the security of free
trade (securing shipping routes, underwriting NATO, projecting force against
anyone that tried to disrupt international trade). We did this readily during
the Cold War because markets were our strongest weapon against the Soviet
Union. Now that there is no equal existential threat, we no longer have much
motivation for ensuring global security.
When I read shallow reflections like this article, I think, here's a person
that judges the wartime decisions of the past in the peace of the present, and
submits to the vapid criticism every government levels against the world's
boogieman.
~~~
dalbasal
A appreciate it.
But, I don't really think the writer of this article is all that bad. He's
obviously writing from a personal perspective. Basically narrating his
"disilusionment," for lack of a better term. It's actually a fairly poor term.
We always start from simpler idea, less knowledge and grow from there.
The reality is that there is no such things as patriotism. It's a made up
concept to describe how we feel about our country (another made up concept).
There is no True narrative of Turkey's political saga.
These are all opinions and narratives, subjective by nature. Facts play a
roles, but they are intermingles with a lot of stuff that isn't factual in
nature. That doesn't make it shallow.
The problem is that we're all playing a losing game. You can't read an article
like this, and just fish for stuff that supports are weakens your own position
in some meta-trial conducted in the minds of the whole world.
~~~
tome
> He's obviously writing from a personal perspective.
He?
------
DanielBMarkham
_For all their patriotism, Americans rarely think about how their national
identities relate to their personal ones. This indifference is particular to
the psychology of white Americans and has a history unique to the US._
This is the thesis of the piece. The rest is an extended critique of
Americans.
I have difficultly buying into the thesis, so the rest of it reads like a very
long-winded opinion piece with the standard throwaway charges about how the
U.S. is horribly bad.
This seems to be a perennial topic and folks all over the world eat it up.
It's nice to see it done in such a talented way. Just not my thing.
~~~
boyce
It's certainly going to be an easy sell to the bulk of the Guardian's
readership.
Can't see them publishing the equivalent article about the prejudices of, say,
the north London elite.
~~~
Nursie
Actually I think they probably would. The Guardian's schtick is quite full of
"Oh god we're all so awful, we must repent". Although you may be right - it's
more likely to be aimed at everyone they consider less enlightened than them.
All that said, there certainly is something in what she writes, particularly
about the naivety of people growing up with little world perspective like
that.
~~~
marcus_holmes
Her assertion that world geography is not taught to US high school students
shocked me.
~~~
coldtea
How about not taught properly?
How many US high school students can pinpoint even fairly known countries on
the map?
(Come to Austria, meet the Kangaroos)
~~~
taneq
I see this accusation leveled at the U.S. all the time, usually in highly
contrived scenarios (random people picked off the street, asked to locate
landmarks in another country, then the worst/funniest performers made into a
gag reel). It shits me because it's so hypocritical. I'm not from the U.S. and
I have no idea where your capital city is (let alone state capitals and
whatnot) and I really don't give a crap, so why should you care about mine?
It's just "hurr, durr, murkins are stupid" so that equally stupid people can
feel superior about something.
~~~
coldtea
> _(random people picked off the street, asked to locate landmarks in another
> country, then the worst /funniest performers made into a gag reel)._
Only it's not like that. You can ask random people yourself to verify, or you
can trust one of several surveys and/or studies in the subject. E.g:
[http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2006/05/0502_060502_...](http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2006/05/0502_060502_geography.html)
> _It shits me because it 's so hypocritical. I'm not from the U.S. and I have
> no idea where your capital city is (let alone state capitals and whatnot)
> and I really don't give a crap, so why should you care about mine?_
Well, it's exactly the "don't know, don't care" attitude we're arguing against
here.
A basic knowledge of geography is not only essential in the modern, globalized
world, but also indicative of a lack of knowledge in other areas, including
history and current world affairs. And that, for a country that's intervening
left and right, and whose citizens are trusted to vote, rally for, or oppose
parties that will perform such international interventions, diplomatic
actions, etc, a lack of such knowledge is shameful.
Not as if lack of knowledge was ever some kind of badge of honor.
~~~
taneq
Memorizing names and locations of cities and landmarks in a far-off country
that you have no plan to visit, when those names and locations are instantly
publicly available and there is an infinite number of more useful things to
learn instead, is a waste of time.
Don't conflate being able to recite geographic info with knowledge. It's not
knowledge, it's just... data.
~~~
coldtea
> _Memorizing names and locations of cities and landmarks in a far-off country
> that you have no plan to visit, when those names and locations are instantly
> publicly available and there is an infinite number of more useful things to
> learn instead, is a waste of time_
Which would be relevant if anybody had asked them to do that. Nobody suggested
people should "memorize names and locations of cities and landmarks in a far-
off country that you have no plan to visit".
I (and others, including classical education) suggested a working knowledge of
work geography -- what the continents are, what the major countries are, major
cities. They should also know a thing or two about their history. You know,
the history of human civilization, even if they have no plans to contribute to
it.
And the "instantly public availability" of information doesn't make one
smarter. Only the information already accessed (and even more so, evaluated
and assessed) does. Things you know are there in your mind, available for your
thoughts and comprehension, can help you follow a discussion, can be used to
make judgements etc. Things one can merely look up do not inform your
worldview -- they are absent from it.
> _Don 't conflate being able to recite geographic info with knowledge. It's
> not knowledge, it's just... data._
Knowledge itself is just data plus understanding them in context. Without data
there's no knowledge. Don't conflate potential access to data with actually
knowing things.
~~~
coldtea
a working knowledge of work geography -> a working knowledge of world
geography
------
cafard
Quite a few years ago, I saw a trailer for a movie about the 1950s quiz-show
scandal. It included a clip of the producer, Robert Redford, saying something
about "the end of American innocence." At that point, I started wondering
about the man's smarts.
------
RodericDay
One thing I find very interesting is how entertainment media, probably as a
result of needing to pander to whatever the mainstream sensibility of the
moment is, really works as a barometer for how people in America see
themselves.
Back when America could do no wrong, America was Rocky, or one of those
glistening 80s heros. Maybe a bit flawed, but generally a family man vs.
evildoers, a plucky little upstart.
Then America was Bruce Willis in Die Hard, rough around the edges and divorced
but still a good guy, trying to do the right thing. Then America was Keifer
Sutherland in 24... somebody's gotta do the torturing! For a good cause,
though.
The more and more dirt comes out, the more public sensibilities turn to stuff
like Breaking Bad and Game of Thrones and House of Cards, reassuring watchers
that nobody's good, that if you try to do the right thing the world will crush
you, that all that matters is being top-dog. Sucks, but "that's the way the
world really is".
It's super interesting. You'd think the character development in those shows
is indicting, but it really is mostly immunizing and pride-preserving.
~~~
eregorn
I'd like to throw in that I wonder if this article is a bit late, and in a way
Americans are already coming out of exceptionalism.
I was noticing I cared more about international politics than I previously
did, and I saw a lot of other Americans putting more skin in the game than in
the past (Although the only way I know this is from the last days of the
French Election, where a bunch of tone-deaf English/bad French memes were
being pushed to save Le Pen). It is European focused but hey its a start I
guess.
More importantly though, is the lack of trust in institutions. When the
article started talking about conspiracy theories and the deep state I had be
do a double take for a second on whether she was still talking about Turkey.
------
evolve2k
Summary of Americans responses here: "Oh no, this doesn't apply to me"
------
traverseda
I'm surprised at how easily another "original sin" doctrine has taken root. I
suppose if it works, it works. Still, I'd have expected people to build up
some kind of immunity.
------
johnrichardson
Jordan Peterson has a great take on the attitude this author (and many others
like her) have about America, and the West in general:
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Cf2nqmQIfxc&t=1s](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Cf2nqmQIfxc&t=1s)
The modern Left is dripping with hatred for the West - quite ironic given that
we live in one the most free, prosperous societies ever created in human
history. They are driven almost entirely by resentment, and lack even a shred
of gratitude for the vast wealth, comfort and freedom they've been born into.
~~~
DarkKomunalec
> lack a shred of gratitude for the vast wealth, comfort and freedom they've
> been born into.
That's 'privilege', and is something to feel guilty about. It's not something
to be grateful to your ancestors for providing, but something you get unfairly
by 'accident of birth'. Only when it comes to guilt is your connection to your
ancestors and ethnicity more than an accident.
Edit: I did not think a 'sarcasm' tag necessary.
~~~
johnrichardson
Yet another example of what I was referring to.
I happen to be quite grateful for the sacrifices my ancestors (and the human
race more broadly) made in building civilization, so that I don't have to live
in a Hobbesian world where death by age 30 is the norm.
~~~
icebraining
_Yet another example of what I was referring to._
Pretty sure DarkKomunalec is being sarcastic, but good job reinforcing your
biases.
[https://hn.algolia.com/?query=white%20by:DarkKomunalec&sort=...](https://hn.algolia.com/?query=white%20by:DarkKomunalec&sort=byPopularity&prefix&page=0&dateRange=all&type=comment)
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
How Amazon Tricks You into Thinking It Always Has the Lowest Prices - xmpir
http://recode.net/2015/01/13/how-amazon-tricks-you-into-thinking-it-always-has-the-lowest-prices/
======
ecaron
When I started working on [https://trackif.com](https://trackif.com), I
thought the premise was thin because prices couldn't fluctuate that much. I
assumed everything gradually declined in price, and that it'd primarily be
driven by store-A vs store-B price dropping.
Nope. Retailers are just gaming us 24/7\. I've become very aware of all the
different timeframes retailers offer post-purchase price-matches (published at
[http://blog.trackif.com/trackif-smart-shopping-guide-
store-p...](http://blog.trackif.com/trackif-smart-shopping-guide-store-price-
matching-correction-return-policies/) since I felt like I was hoarding
knowledge.)
Have retailers always played games like this? Or it just a side-effect of
sales moving online?
~~~
indymike
I can speak to 25 years ago: the answer is yes. Here are some of the things I
saw:
* Marking items up 30-45 days ahead of a big sale. This allowed our price to be 25% off instead of 10%. Or sometimes, our sale price probably should have been the regular price. This happened all the time, and people fell for it hard. Usually this would happen before a 10% off everything sale.
* Price adjustments from competitive shops. All of a sudden on some non-advertised sale day the laser printer would spit out a new low every day price if a strategic product was priced above the competition.
* Some price adjustments occurred to game the competition. We did this a lot with appliances where we'd mark up a model we knew the manufacturer had a ton of inventory. The competition would buy a few truckloads and then we'd run $200 off when they ran their $100 off add.
The only thing the internet has changed is the speed price changes occur and
has enabled some other kinds of buy this get that deals.
~~~
corysama
In the furniture biz, lots of places have laws restricting how many days/year
a given shop can do "going out of business"/"total clearance" sales.
Otherwise, they tend to run them non-stop for decades because they are so
effective at bringing in customers.
According to my friends that have worked furniture retail, it was common
practice to mark everything up 300% for a week then have a "40-60% Off!!!"
sale. Customers would be very excited about how much money they were "saving"
even though the reality was that they were buying at a net markup compared to
a few weeks ago. But, a few weeks ago the shop was much, much quieter even
though the prices were lower. So, what's a shopkeeper to do?
~~~
justincormack
In Europe, there are rules about sale pricing for all items, they have to be
at the original price for a certain period. They still manage to game it a
bit, but slightly less so, eg some items are normally overpriced etc.
~~~
SixSigma
What I have noticed recently in UK TV adverts is that £xxx off special offer
and then put an on-screen rider "discount on 'after offer' price".
So they pitch it like a sale but really they will just offer whatever is left
of their product at a higher price for a while in some store or maybe just
online.
------
TheLoneWolfling
[http://camelcamelcamel.com/](http://camelcamelcamel.com/)
(Amazon price tracking.) Very useful if/when you want to buy something and
want to check historical prices. (You can also set email alerts when something
drops to below a certain price.)
Edit: linkified. (Thanks, canvia!)
~~~
exhilaration
If anyone is curious about whether's it's worth checking CamelCamelCamel
before making an Amazon purchase, look at the price history for this tea in
the past year:
[http://camelcamelcamel.com/Stash-Tea-Green-Chai-
Count/produc...](http://camelcamelcamel.com/Stash-Tea-Green-Chai-
Count/product/B000CQE42M)
The price rapidly fluctuates between $18.99 and $14.24 on a nearly monthly
basis. In this case it's worth it to create an alert and wait a week or two
for the price to drop again.
~~~
talmand
But wouldn't something like tea fluctuate in pricing anyway because of the
type of product it is and not necessarily because of price gaming?
~~~
exhilaration
You're suggesting that the worldwide price of tea or market conditions are
causing these nearly monthly fluctuations, between two set prices? I'm
skeptical, the graph doesn't suggest that to my untrained eye.
~~~
talmand
I wasn't suggesting anything, I was asking a question.
------
dominotw
I buy from amazon for their predictable shipping and insanely awesome customer
service.
~~~
chaostheory
Agreed. Maybe if this article was written 5 years ago I can understand, but
unless you're live somewhere where you don't have access to Amazon; everyone
knows it's not just the prices that Amazon has that keeps customers coming
back. People trust it. Amazon has the best customer service I've ever
experienced. It is amazing. imo it's because unlike most stores, Amazon keeps
your full shopping history so they know your worth to the company (as well as
your habits and so on).
~~~
_delirium
As a counterpoint: Most people I know go to Amazon 100% for the prices. Often
they will actually visit a brick-and-mortar store first to browse in person
(page through a book at a bookstore, even try on shoes at a shoe store), and
only _then_ order on Amazon, once they've decided what they want. Amazon adds
nothing here in convenience or service. The most convenient option would be to
just buy the item you already physically have in your hands, which means you'd
get it today, and not have to deal with UPS missed-delivery bullshit. But
Amazon gets the sale because they win on price. Or at least used to!
~~~
tacotime
counter-counterpoint: I bet a large portion of the people you're talking about
are genuinely price conscious consumers trying to make the most educated
purchases they possibly can. I doubt these people would be the same type that
blindly buy an hdmi cable at a 20% markup... how simple is it to compare
prices these days online? If you're traveling to a book store then buying
through amazon I would bet money that you're probably going to price check
that Amazon branded hdmi cable.
------
GabrielF00
They mention HDMI cables specifically. I just went into a Best Buy and asked
for their cheapest HDMI cable. The salesman showed me one for $15. The Amazon
basics cable is $5.49. If you've got Prime and you factor in the shipping
costs of using another website, it's hard to beat Amazon's price.
~~~
sparkman55
For cables, Monoprice is also a good alternative (and, generally, price-
competitive with Amazon).
Another commenter mentioned that Monoprice's HDMI quality has declined; I
haven't noticed any problem with their Ethernet and USB cables.
For HDMI, Monoprice goes all the way down to $2:
[http://www.monoprice.com/Search/Index?keyword=hdmi](http://www.monoprice.com/Search/Index?keyword=hdmi)
Best Buy preys on the 'I need this cable in 30 minutes for the big
presentation' customer, and prices accordingly. Try buying coaxial cable -
it's obscene!
~~~
eropple
The main reason I buy cables from Amazon instead of Monoprice is Prime.
Monoprice's shipping is always slow for me. (Last gig I was at, we bought a
truckload of their monitors, though, on my recommendation. Love those guys,
just wish they could ship faster without ruining my wallet.)
~~~
driverdan
You can buy a lot of Monoprice cables through Amazon at the same price but
with Prime shipping.
------
peteretep
I am willing to pay a significant premium to Amazin for the no-bullshit
customer support. If my transaction doesn't delight me, I know they will make
good on it.
~~~
ZenoArrow
I have a similar mindset. I don't know anyone who thinks Amazon has the best
prices, I'm happy to pay a little extra for the convenience and quality of
service.
Case in point, I bought a new router from Amazon last week. When I got it I
realised I'd made a mistake (I'd chosen one without an ADSL modem). I fill in
a simple online form to get the return label, return it via Collect+ (it's a
service in the UK for collecting parcels from local stores) and Amazon process
my refund whilst the item was in transit (before the item got back to their
warehouses). This is typical of their customer service, it's really second to
none (in my experience).
~~~
thirdsun
Apart from the refund before the item was returned, this is pretty much
standard procedure in europe, as in a consumer right by law - you always have
14 day return period at any online store. Sure, amazon extends their grace
period (30 days, right?) - other than that it's really nothing special.
~~~
ZenoArrow
Nothing special from a legal standpoint, but it's all about how easy they make
it. I have bought from other online retailers, and whilst the experiences
haven't been bad, they still aren't quite as slick compared to Amazon. I can't
really point to anything in particular that will convince you, it's just that
the whole process is painless and easy, not just for the basics (purchasing)
but for everything.
Aside from the 'refund before the item was returned' example, I could also
point to when I'd had to speak to Amazon customer support before, all done
through instant messaging on the website with one of their team. Resolved
within minutes. Contrast with other retailers where there's a back and forth
with emails. Again, not horrible with other retailers, but the Amazon
experience was more streamlined.
~~~
thirdsun
It's fine, I didn't try to nitpick. No need to convince me - I like their
service too. Though you'd be surprised how many people don't know that the
return option is available everywhere.
------
Tarang
It's not only amazon that does this with loss leader pricing, it its also my
local grocery store with milk and bread.
For me what gives me the impression amazon has the lowest prices are their
nearly nonexistent profits. Whatever's up may not the the _cheapest_ but it's
always difficult to find something cheaper elsewhere, even if it does exist.
------
DougWebb
I'm sure Amazon is constantly adjusting their prices in order to maximize
their sales and revenue; they even have some price automation tools as part of
their inventory management system for people who sell their stuff through
Amazon.
However I'm not sure these adjustments are meant to make people perceive that
Amazon has the lowest prices. Instead it seems like they're meant to ensure
that Amazon actually _has_ the lowest prices on the most popular and high
volume items. On those items they are pricing for high volume, while on the
lower volume items they need a higher price to get an equivalent margin.
That's what this looks like to me: maximizing margins across products with
different sales volumes.
------
WalterBright
Another common sales technique is to have 3 models in a line - the stripper,
the standard, and the deluxe. The stripper was barely functional, and its sole
purpose was to have a cheap price to attract customers to the showroom. The
deluxe had every silly feature the manufacturer could think of, like
pinstriping on a dishwasher. It had a very high price. It's sole purpose was
to 'frame' the price of the standard model and make it look like a bargain.
The standard model was the one the manufacturer expected to sell. Of course,
the rare price-insensitive customer would buy the deluxe, and the salesman was
happy to sell that and collect the large commission.
------
JoachimSchipper
Pricing the most-seen items lower is not quite as nefarious as "trick" would
suggest, IMHO - and part of it is probably just driven by various advantages
of selling a lot of some particular product.
------
WalterBright
This is all old, old news. Back in the 1970's, a friend of mine was shopping
for a nice SLR camera. He knew which camera he wanted, and diligently
researched ad after ad, finally settling on one with the cheapest price. We
all piled into his car to go get it.
Sure enough, he bought the camera body dirt cheap. But he walked out of the
store with a lense, filter, case, flash, film, and a few other accessories.
When back home, he ruefully discovered that the total price he shelled out was
higher! He didn't realize that the accessories were priced higher than the
competition. People simply are not price sensitive to add-ons, and salesmen
have known that for centuries.
Gillette is famous for pretty much giving away the razor and making money on
the blades.
There's even a word for it: "loss leader".
All Amazon has done is automate it. Pretty much all retailers do it.
~~~
tobinfricke
> Gillette is famous for pretty much giving away the razor and making money on
> the blades.
Admittedly... if you're not including the blades, the "razor" is just a
plastic stick.
~~~
WalterBright
Not so before BIC - the Gillette razor was a nicely crafted metal tool.
------
WizzleKake
Amazon jacks the price around on a lot of the household items that I buy.
There one item that I last purchased for $11.94. I have seen it as high as $29
and some change. Right now it is $23.94.
I've wised up to this tactic and will buy extra when the price is low enough
to make it a better deal than buying at the grocery store.
~~~
driverdan
Their pricing of household items is not very good. Almost everything I'd buy
is cheaper at retail stores and I don't need to buy a pallet load.
------
steven2012
Surprisingly most home improvement things are cheaper at Home Depot rather
than Amazon. I learned this one the hard way. Also Amazon routinely displays
"original" prices that are much higher than other places and with the
"discount" falls in the same price range.
------
gdulli
When I decided I didn't feel great about supporting Amazon any longer due to
its reported treatment of its business partners, corporate employees, and
warehouse employees, I started shopping around and was surprised to find it
wasn't so hard to find deals just as good or better elsewhere.
Sometimes prices are just lower elsewhere, sometimes free shipping comes
without a requirement to make a $35 order. (Or pay a high annual fee for free
shipping that wouldn't amortize well for me.)
And sometimes Amazon still is the cheapest, but not by so much that it feels
imperative to shop there if I have reasons not to.
------
kmfrk
As has been said, this should be no surprise at all - especially if you've
followed phenomenons like the Harry Potter books that got the same treatment.
Amazon underbid competitors on the short tail and make it up on the long tail.
Amazon also stand the benefit that nothing is technically "upsale", since it's
all horizontally in the same basket, so they can't get accused of selling you
extra stuff the way other vendors might.
------
zeeshanm
I read on NPR a while ago some guys found an arbitrage opportunity in book
prices. So - he would track the most sought after books, buy them when price
were low, usually around July/August, and then sell them back on Amazon when
prices were high, around the time of September and January. Makes sense.
~~~
bronson
Planet Money, probably their second best textbook story:
[http://www.npr.org/blogs/money/2014/11/10/363103753/textbook...](http://www.npr.org/blogs/money/2014/11/10/363103753/textbook-
arbitrage-making-money-off-used-books)
(best imo was talking about the whole mess around writing textbooks)
------
xenadu02
This has been WalMart's strategy for decades so it shouldn't surprise anyone.
~~~
returnofthejedi
What is Walmart's digital stratergy?
~~~
GabrielF00
I think WalMart is pretty focused on free ship-to-store. This doesn't appeal
to me at all since I live in a big city and going to a suburban Walmart would
be a big production. It makes a certain amount of sense for my parents since
there's a Walmart neighborhood market five minutes from their house. It
eliminates one risk of online purchases (package sitting on your doorstep) but
introduces the inconvenience of parking and getting your product from the
store's customer service department.
~~~
logfromblammo
Every time that I have used Ship-to-Store from Wal _Mart, I have had to spend
at minimum 30 minutes between entering and exiting the store parking lot. Most
of the time, I have to hunt down a store employee myself, because unlike the
customer service desk, the Ship-to-Store /Layaway desk is not continuously
staffed.
Wal_Mart is great when the value of your own time is not very high, but at
some point, it is glaringly obvious that they keep prices lower by making all
their customers spend just a little bit more time in the store than absolutely
necessary.
So the inconvenience is very inconvenient. It is only made worse by the fact
that I didn't shop for the items, and didn't buy them, but I'm simply the one
who drives past a Wal*Mart every day. For the shopper, it really is free at-
home delivery. For me, it is, "Hey, guess what? You get to flush half an hour
of your life down the toilet today--what a deal!"
Ship-to-Store is precisely the reason why I fear Amazon Locker and other "ship
it the last mile yourself" services.
------
tmalsburg2
> The startup wants to help Amazon competitors think about pricing in as
> sophisticated a way as Amazon does.
The catch is that if several big retailers apply the Amazon strategy, a self-
reinforcing feedback loop will drive the prices for popular products to zero
and the prices for less popular products to +inf. This will make popular
products even more popular, which further strengthens the effect. The question
that this startup has to answer is thus how they are going to keep the market
from exploding and how they can benefit several clients at the same time.
------
DiabloD3
I dont get why they use HDMI cables as their first example: we keep buying
HDMI cables because they get busted, not because we need more.
AmazonBasics is currently the best cheap cable (replacing Monoprice's now that
they aren't nearly as good as they used to be).
Also, why does the article call them HD cables. Whats an HD cable? None of my
ports say HD, they say HDMI.
And it doesn't even get into how Prime games S&H over the long term.
~~~
wingerlang
Is it possible that there are different types of cables that offers HD
transfer to the TV? I've never really heard "HD" cable either, but in the
article I read it as HDMI, had to go back to check if it actually said HD.
~~~
DiabloD3
You can do 1080i over YCbCr analog, but no one has done this for like a
decade, and it only made sense for pre-HDMI HD sets (which made as little
sense to manufacture as pre-Rec2020 4k TVs being made now).
------
kenjackson
Lego pricing on Amazon is generally bad. Often much worse than what Lego sells
the sets for. That is one area I'd love to see Amazon change.
~~~
mynameisvlad
Amazon doesn't sell every product themselves. Most are Amazon Marketplace
sales, which are entirely 3rd party (some are Fulfilled by Amazon, which gives
you the Prime shipping but is still 3rd party). In these cases, Amazon can't
control the prices at all; it's all up to the 3rd parties to set the prices.
------
eurusd
I also like the simple but effective Keepa
[http://keepa.com](http://keepa.com) to compare amazon prices in different
countries at the same time. In Europe for example, Hometheater amps are 50%
cheaper in Germany than france, while france is cheaper on something else and
UK is cheaper on tools and sometimes projectors (depending of FX rates)
------
known
I think Amazon is emulating
[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/S%26P_500](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/S%26P_500)
------
AnonJ
"Rising the price of the cables by 33%" feels really sinister and underhanded.
Is this guy totally sure that it was done intentionally.
------
milesf
I use [http://camelcamelcamel.com](http://camelcamelcamel.com) to track stuff
I'm looking to buy. Here's a screenshot from my price tracking last year on a
WD 6TB drive:
[http://i.imgur.com/evOBCVN.png](http://i.imgur.com/evOBCVN.png)
------
known
You'll buy anything you think Amazon is losing money on.
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Article | How Homo-Facebookiens will kill Homo-Sapiens? - bea85
https://plus.google.com/111297306144520956414/posts/JLQogwzooYd?hl
======
_delirium
Slightly earlier submission: <http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3033327>
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Lisp Lovers, how would you fix Lisp or bring it up to date? - bootload
http://discuss.joelonsoftware.com/default.asp?joel.3.373043.10
======
Hexstream
I'd start by asking a more specific question.
For the rest, I'd say lisp is at least _fixable_ , unlike most languages, and
that's already saying a lot. It just lacks standardization in some crucial
areas: threading, graphical interfaces, etc. There are already implementation-
specific extensions for this and compatibility libraries to write mostly
portable code for non-standard features but more standardisation would help
adoption of the language in my opinion.
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
The Builder's High - guptaneil
http://randsinrepose.com/archives/the-builders-high/#HN
======
dkulchenko
This line is brilliant:
"This is a reminder not to let a digital world full of others’ moments deceive
you into devaluing your own. Their moments are infinite – yours are finite and
precious."
For some time now, I've been spending the majority of my day jumping between
Reddit, HN, and YouTube. Any time that I'm not on the computer, from the time
I wake up to the time I go to bed (with a few exceptions), I'm listening to
podcasts. Basically never idle, and rarely truly living my life - just
endlessly consuming information in an attempt to fill the void.
I used to be a builder, living the high described in the post almost every
day, but I've lost it somewhere along the way.
Something I hope to change. This post was a big kick in the pants for me.
~~~
chrisrickard
So funny, I just had this revelation. I haven't been producing anything for
the last few years. Sure I read & study how to do a lot of varied things
(taught by other people - usually on HN) - but personally my output is...
underwhelming.
Great post, i'm gonna build shit.
~~~
cousin_it
Just curious - are you going to build something that will waste other people's
time like you wasted yours?
------
jere
>What’s the last thing you built when you got that high?
Decided to write a bot at 8pm. Had it done by 3am (scraping, posting,
scheduling, and all).
[https://twitter.com/NEWS_XX14](https://twitter.com/NEWS_XX14)
I know that high well. For me, especially for short projects (a day or a
week), it's a giddiness, a literal shaking with excitement. Now I wish I could
maintain that for a year long project.
~~~
alttab
Success may be the difference between taking a year, and needing a year.
------
zw123456
I completely agree with this idea. I also experience the "high" of completely
a cool project, even if no one else ever sees it, just knowing if solved a
problem in a cool or fun way, it just gives me a buzz. I think this is a
universal feeling that woodworkers, artists, musicians, and other various
artisans feel. In that way, the act of techno-creation is... I think, related
to art.
------
regal
_Part of the reason we’re at the top of the food chain is that we are
chemically rewarded when we are industrious – it is evolutionarily
advantageous to be productive.
And we’re slowly and deviously being trained to forget this._
Good article, yet the author seems to be making the same mistake so many make
- to assume that our present generations are being eroded away and forgetting
how to be productive because the masses are hypnotized by social media and
news on demand.
If you stop for a minute and look at what's being spread via social media and
TV/Internet news, you quickly realize it's the exact same things that hunter-
gatherers probably spend 99% of their downtime gossiping about too: this
person said that thing; this guy slept with that girl; this guy has so many
resources and isn't that so unfair to the rest of us; the guys in charge of
tribal society have secretly been spying on all of us, isn't that scary...
social media and online news isn't changing anything more than the mediums we
gossip through and making said gossip more permanent and apparent and less
ephemeral and transitory than it's previously been. But just because it's
still there doesn't mean people are spending much time obsessing over the
gossips of yesterday; just like those in tribal societies, the news of
yesterday is quickly forgotten, and soon supplanted by the urgent, pressing
news of TODAY.
I'm pretty sure in Archimedes's or Newton's days most people weren't sitting
around removed from society on their parents' farms inventing calculus, or
holed up in towers devising calculating machines and giant ship incendiary
weapons... rather, they were going to the county dance, swilling home-brewed
beer with the neighbors, and gossiping about the same things we gossip about
today: wasn't it scandalous how Ellyn was behaving with the men at the dance?
Isn't it a crime how much the poor are taxed by the local lord, while he lives
in luxury? How unfair it is that the law applies so unevenly between peasant
and lord! Can you believe that Brom and Beatrix are fighting again?
Despite the very long period of leisure that medieval peasants had during
wintertime, not a whole lot of scientific or technological progress came out
of the peasantry. While I agree there's little more satisfying than building
something yourself, I'd differ with the article in suggesting that the masses
of people today are in fact no different than the masses of people of times
past - a minority produces new things, while the majority handles the day-to-
day of maintaining what we've already got, and spends its leisure time
consuming the output of those producers who've successfully managed to produce
things others want and/or things useful to those others.
~~~
norswap
I don't know about other people, but I probably would much more productive all
the bustle that the internet brings about, and I'm very much aware of the
problem (and I try to improve).
On the other hand, the internet has exposed me to so many wonderful things and
ideas that it was probably all worth it. I just try to be mindful what I put
into my brain these days. It's really easy to tether over the edge and waste a
whole lot of time.
------
sarreph
My takeaway from this piece is that I should always be asking myself: "Am I
creating, or consuming?"
------
britknight
Time to close HN and spin up the Python interpreter...
------
chris_wot
_Part of the reason we’re at the top of the food chain is that we are
chemically rewarded when we are industrious – it is evolutionarily
advantageous to be productive._
[citation needed]
------
swalsh
"What’s the last thing you built when you got that high?"
Just built a side table out of white oak.
------
plg
I think this is great.
I suspect (like myself) many, many people are interested in the idea of
setting aside time in their lives to spend creating, whether it's writing,
cooking, building, crafting, photography, whatever.
I also think that (like myself) many people, especially in the age of the
internet, blogs, twitter, facebook, etc, are essentially stopped in their
tracks before they start, by a fear of (for lack of a better word)
"publishing".
I wonder if we would be freed from our fear if we agree with ourselves to
create, but without publishing. Write 500 or 1000 words per day, but don't
publish it to your blog. Take a photo every day but don't post it to
instagram.
The enemy of creativity is the inner censor ... and I wonder how many of us
just need to be reminded that it's ok (indeed, arguably better) to create for
nobody but ourselves.
(at least for the first 10,000 hours)
~~~
Aaronneyer
Couldn't agree more. I've been making a website pretty much just for personal
use, that is kind of a timeline/personal journal. I write lots of random posts
and thoughts and for every day, I write down a summary as well as record some
basic statistics.
The data aspect of it, and being able to look back at these things later is
great, but the best part for me is that it forces me to actually sit down and
write everyday
------
DonGateley
Brilliant insight. Having successfully completed the building of something on
Christmas day that has been my primary creative focus for nearly 10 years I am
well placed to understand the high he talks about and know that there is none
like it (I've a lot of experience with highs of all sorts.)
Something he doesn't address is the ennui of post-completion blues. I've
suffered it for significant duration many times as an engineer and am in the
middle of one now, primarily spending my time in other people's moments like
right now. He provides the solution though; whether or not I feel like it it's
time to start building the next thing. Thankfully I buffered a list when
enthusiasm ran high. :-)
------
mjp94
This really hit home with me. For a while now, whenever I've been coding, I've
been more focused on learning new things instead of creating things. While
this isn't necessarily a bad thing, I had project for a CS course that I
didn't end up doing so well on, and I attribute that partly to me not having
built something in a long time.
I'd like to change that this year. When he posed the question "What was the
last thing you built that gave you that Builder's High?", I sure as hell
couldn't remember much that I've built recently that gave me that feeling.
~~~
AYBABTME
I like to separate my time in 3 parts: loop: 1/3 :
Reading/researching/learning new concepts. 1/3 : Hands-on experiment with what
I learned. 1/3 : Actual work, were I might apply what I've learnt in the last
2 phases.
The new knowledge gathered improves my throughput in the 3rd phase, making up
for the 'lost time' doing research. That's of course a rough estimate and I
don't have any numbers to back that up, aside from my own biased experience
living it.
I find it's a good balance and having it formally listed out reminds me to
actively switch from a phase to another every few weeks. I end up always
applying newly learnt stuff, which is rewarding and motivating.
------
henrik_w
Absolutely agree. There are many reasons why I love to program, and number one
on the list is "The sheer joy of making things"!
[http://henrikwarne.com/2012/06/02/why-i-love-
coding/](http://henrikwarne.com/2012/06/02/why-i-love-coding/)
------
discreteevent
The spectator is a dying animal. - Jim Morrison
------
Dewie
I don't often feel inspired to start a programming project. It seems that I
first have to start it, and _then_ the inspiration and the drive comes.
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
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