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Inside the World's Most Humane Prison - omarelamri
http://content.time.com/time/photogallery/0,29307,1989083_2137376,00.html
======
jordanpg
For anyone who wants text instead of photo essays that reload the page:
[http://www.theguardian.com/society/2012/may/18/halden-
most-h...](http://www.theguardian.com/society/2012/may/18/halden-most-humane-
prison-in-world)
------
omarelamri
This place is way better designed and equipped than most startup cowering
spaces!
|
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Facebook Libra - david_shaw
https://libra.org/en-US/
======
david_shaw
The whitepaper for Libra is available here: [https://libra.org/en-US/white-
paper/#introduction](https://libra.org/en-US/white-paper/#introduction)
Calibra, Facebook's wallet, is described here:
[https://newsroom.fb.com/news/2019/06/coming-
in-2020-calibra/](https://newsroom.fb.com/news/2019/06/coming-
in-2020-calibra/)
Hope this helps :)
|
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CaseYak: Plugin for Data-Backed Motor Vehicle Accident Lawsuit Values(++Español) - elpakal
I've built CaseYak (https://thecaseyak.com) with a friend of mine who has been a lawyer in the personal injury space for a few years.<p>The plugin works like a chat-bot in that it can be added to a law firm's website with one line of code. It then slides out and asks website visitors a series of questions about the accident in order to pass accident data to our models. At the end, we are able to predict an estimate for the lawsuit value based on historical data we've collected from previous verdicts.<p>The plugin ships out of the box with support for Spanish and is accessible for large font sizes, hopefully improving access to justice in these demographics while providing more accurate estimates to those already able to provide this data.<p>We are based in Colorado, and right now our models are only trained on historical Colorado data, thus we are currently available only in Colorado (with plans to expand).
======
Mikez3
Hey, good job. That seems cool. We also built something like this. It's called
PainWorth. We launched the start of our beta last year in fall 2019 and have
had a bunch of lawyers really demonstrate excellent lift. One case was closed
30x faster than average. Anyway, we're pretty passionate about this space too.
We have api's for everything so maybe we can help you open other states up
faster :)
Feel free to hit me up if you want to learn more or just want to share
stories. I know a few other founders in the injury space too so I'd be happy
to intro you as well.
Cheers
|
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How should I monetize this post? 16,000 views a month. - kadavy
http://www.kadavy.net/blog/posts/transfer-itunes-library/
======
kadavy
This post is the top search result for "migrate itunes library," and is very
high up for "transfer itunes library." I get 16,000 views a month on it. In
the month after Christmas, I'll probably get 30,000 views (everyone getting
new computers). I feel like I could sign up direct advertisers for this. I'm
using AdSense right now, but you can imagine that isn't much revenue. Any
suggestions?
~~~
ryanwaggoner
[http://garyvaynerchuk.com/post/78967452/want-to-get-
advertis...](http://garyvaynerchuk.com/post/78967452/want-to-get-advertisers-
on-your-blogvlog-go-and-get-it)
~~~
kadavy
Haha - that was a great video. Thanks!
------
barryrandall
Well, you've got an engaged audience, and you're telling them how to do
something for free. I'd probably focus on related products or services. If
they're on your page, you know a few things about them: they don't know how to
transfer an iTunes library, and there's a good chance they just got a new
computer. You might try affiliate programs for tutorials, must-have Mac
software, utilities, online backup services, etc. Generally speaking, CPA
makes more than PPC, and PPC, generally makes more than impression-based
advertising. Do some A/B testing to see what works and what doesn't. With the
traffic numbers like yours, you should know pretty quickly if something is
working or not.
If you want to try more short-term, sleazeball tactics, you could always do
paid linking, affiliate payout-based "ratings/reviews," popunders, zero-click
redirects, etc. They work well on sites with short life spans, but really drag
down sites over the long term.
~~~
kadavy
Great thinking on Mac software, utilities and backup services!
It's funny, I've noticed, year-over-year, the traffic spike on this post on
Christmas day tends to grow at the rate of Apple's market share. So, anything
that is good for a new Mac user would be good for these people. __Would love
to hear more ideas on this from everyone! __
------
staunch
I'm as entrepreneurial as the next guy, but jeez. Is it really worth trying to
make a bit of money off this? Why not just enjoy the fact that you're helping
people out and leave it at that?
~~~
kadavy
I want to address this further, because a couple of people have said something
like this, and don't understand this thinking. Here's my position:
I'm sure other entrepreneurs can agree with me that you need to be resourceful
- to work with your own strengths & experiences.
I did write this post initially to help others; but it has been a successful
posts. I now consider it an asset that I can build upon and learn from. For
now, it may be a matter of just increasing ad revenues; but who knows how it
could be expanded in the future? "You can't connect the dots moving forward."
If I have a place that there is a big enough audience visiting that I can run
tests and easily learn a few things about that audience, I can not only make
that resource more valuable for this audience, I can also learn how to market
things to that audience. I can then use that learning on future endeavors that
will, hopefully have a larger audience.
Not everyone starts Digg overnight, including Kevin Rose. You have to work
with what you have. You have to build your snowball before you can start
rolling it.
------
nobody_nowhere
If you want to max out the value for a lower-traffic site or page think
"sponsorship". It's a little more effort to sell. Find a single advertiser who
will find this article to be more valuable than some random CPC or network CPM
advertier, and sell them the page exclusively for a period of time. Someone
who sells a paid iTunes utility, maybe. Allow them to brand the whole page --
like the background. For the right advertiser it could be a no-brainer to pay
over $10 CPM.
~~~
kadavy
Yeah, I was considering this. One of the selling points I was thinking for
this was "sponsoring this page will keep your competitor's ads off of it." Any
other ideas?
------
axod
Did you choose the dark blue on dark green color scheme for that adsense unit?
:/
~~~
kadavy
Hehe, that's PubMatic's color scheme (they automagically optimize)
------
vegashacker
You could experiment with donations. It seems you already have a decent amount
of data on AdSense. It'd be interesting to see how, say, PayPal donations
perform.
~~~
kadavy
I did used to have a more prominent donation request. I got a few dollars here
and there, then one day a guy sent me $15! Maybe I should give it another
shot.
------
terrellm
How about adding a Mac Mall (or similar) affiliate link for iPod cases,
sleeves, FM transmitters, even those big ugly clocks that you can "dock" your
iPod to.
------
dflock
Why don't you try lots of different things and then write an another article
about how you got on - and what worked and didn't, with numbers?
------
beefman
Howabout not monetizing it? Will you not rest until every piece of useful
human discourse has an invoice attached?
~~~
kadavy
See this comment: <http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=912500>
------
ryandvm
Out of curiosity, what does your 16k a month produce in AdSense revenue?
~~~
kadavy
About 40 bucks. I think it was more back in the good ol' days.
~~~
barryrandall
$4 would be a pretty reasonable RPM for this page. Anything less, and you're
probably losing money to poor ad relevance or poor ad provider revenue
sharing.
~~~
barryrandall
It's just a back-of-the-napkin estimate, but yeah. Try as many options as
you've got time for, analyze your performance data, and get a higher
performing option in place before your holiday surge.
------
zaidf
Link to Amazon Affiliate link for latest iPod model?
------
Mz
Associated Content pays a certain amount of money per 1000 page views. If you
post original content with them (ie not posted elsewhere) you can also get a
few bucks up front (like $10 or $15 -- I really do mean a "few" bucks). Or you
can forgo the up front money, republish it with them, and get a little money
for the page views through them, plus link back to this page from the approved
article if you want.
------
aresant
Suggestions:
(1) figure out what who the users are specifically.
(2) sell sponsorship to advertiser
\- - - - -
(1)Who are the users?
I would encourage you to create a POLL in the top right hand corner of the
white area where the story text is.
Use polldaddy.com or similar.
Survey the users with selling the advertising space in mind.
I am going on the assumption that you are correct in the after-Christmas boom,
that most people are coming because they are switching computers.
So poll is "Why are you here?"
a) I just got a new Macinosh computer!
b) I just got a new PC.
c) Transferring the files to a new computer I already own.
Once you have that data, you're ready for part (2)
(2) Sell sponsorship.
Right now you have a "follow me on twitter" link, you have a email opt-in box
at the top.
These users are not nearly as valuable to you as they are to companies with
businesses focused on new computer users.
If your poll conclusively proves that you have 10 - 30k people showing up with
new computers each month I would sugget that you:
a) Create an advertising box in the same spot that your poll goes - top right
of the article.
b) Sell this box to an article Sponsor and tell the sponsor that you'll let
them plaec a special offr, a follow us on twitter / facebook, and an email
opt-in box at the top.
Finding companies that would be interested in sponsoring a post with thousands
of people that just bought a computer shouldn't be too difficult. Best way to
start is to think about all the bloat-ware that comes with a new computer:
\- anti-virus \- live customer support help \- ISPs \- accessory manufacturers
\- publications like macworld / pcworld / etc
If you average out 16,000 views a month and have strong advertising messaging
in that box, it's not out of the question that you could achieve a $20 - 30
ECPM (earnings per thousand impressions) taking you up to $300 - 500 a month
in revenue vs. current $40.00
Hope this helps.
~~~
kadavy
Fucking amazing. Thank you!
~~~
aresant
LOL - happy to help - I've worked similar systems before. Another good idea
from the top of the comments list was to let somebody totally co-brand the
post, backgrounds, banners, etc once you know who your target should be - good
luck and do a follow-up post after you experiment!
------
mrfish
How about selling a video version for those who don't know what to do.
Download and install Captasia, Create a video that explains how to do it
visually, and then put a link in your page to buy it for a small price. Also
consider a PDF version with more screen shots and very percise instructions
(supported with comments from your post) etc... But keep this post free as
it's the launching pad. Also don't over sell it. Just be honest and say "EDIT:
I noticed that this page is very popular so I made some suplimentary material
that you might be interested in buying if you found this post hard to
understand". Hell I'd even go so far as ask for donations.
But the trick is not to make it sound like your wanting to make a business on
it. Then people won't be put off because honestly, you probably won't make a
mint on this post. You'll probably see less than 1% of visitors monitizing.
|
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Children need to be bored, so I'm smashing the Wii - anuleczka
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/comment/columnists/nigelfarndale/6890370/Children-need-to-be-bored-so-Im-smashing-the-Wii.html
======
rcfox
(Commenting didn't seem to want to work on the site, so I'll comment here.)
Don't blame video games for discouraging reading; blame yourselves for getting
the wrong video games. I grew up on Final Fantasy, Dragon Warrior,
Civilization, etc. These involved massive amounts of reading, all of which was
fun because it let me discover worlds that I was able to interact with.
~~~
Psyonic
You can't force them to play those games; they want to play the games their
friends are playing... basically guitar hero
|
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What is the best service to help me negotiate for an already owned domain name? - jerrya
I would like to approach a person about a domain name they own. Godaddy offers to help me approach them, but they really offer very little. What other services offer a useful, reasonably priced, domain negotiation service?
======
ohashi
Network Solutions has a certified offer service that favors buyers but it just
emails the whois address. Nothing special really.
Sedo, Moniker and few other places will help you and broker (assuming it's
worthwhile).
There are a handful of experienced domainers who broker as well, also domain
lawyers do this stuff.
The biggest issue is what ballpark you're operating in. If your budget is
<1000, it's not worth bothering with anyone else. Between 1-5k, maybe some
individuals will help out/lawyer. As that number gets higher, more people
would be willing. Other big factor is expectations, having a 100,000$ budget
for sex.com is all but a waste of time too. So the domain and budget need to
be approximately in tune.
If you want some specific help on the domain you're trying to acquire I may be
able to help you out some (free advice), contact info is in my profile.
------
petewailes
I've always preferred the personal touch. Find the whois info, and hopefully
there'll be contact info in there.
Failing that, go to the website (assuming there's one on it), and see if
there's contact details on it somewhere.
If that still doesn't work, Sedo are fairly good at ferreting out information.
I'd always try to make the actual buyout overtures myself, as you get a better
feel for the person that way, and you never know when the connection might
come in useful in the future.
I'll try and get a mate of mine who's a domainer to respond to this with his
thoughts.
------
bootload
_"... I would like to approach a person about a domain name they own. ..."_
As an experiment I'd like you to open a _nix console, type in_ whois* domain
name and see who owns the domain and who the domain is registered with. Is it
with GoDaddy? If it is GD are using their superior market knowledge against
you.
Wishlist for startup ~ one that allows searches w/o selling info & negotiates
for domains & makes the transfer stress free & transparent.
------
iSimone
I think the easiest way would be to do it yourself if it is possible to obtain
the owner's info. More personal and you get a feeling for the situation. I
would be willing to bet that a personal email or call would be far more
effective in triggering a saleswish than just some professional calling.
------
3dFlatLander
A good number of the domains I search for are godaddy parked pages. There's a
link to a service godaddy operates that can buy the domain. Is this the
service you're talking about?
------
jeffepp
Definitely do it yourself. You want to know about the person or company who
wants to purchase the domain. It makes a world of difference (re: how to
negotiate).
------
jerrya
I just want to thank everyone for answering my question (and not just pointing
at the n00b and laughing.)
------
amac
Sedo.
------
Hisoka
Do it yourself. Write a personal email, tell them your story, and give them a
serious (but below your max) offer. If you can find the name of the owner, do
some research about him/her, and see if you can find some commonalities just
to get a conversation going (like going to the same school, hobbies,
interests, etc).
Then wait and see
~~~
ohashi
As someone on the receiving end of these, I hear about 'my startup', 'my
school project', etc. all day long. I don't care. It's all about the money.
More than likely it's owned by someone with a lot of domains, if that's the
case, they are almost certainly in the same boat.
tl;dr: the dollar figure is all that matters, your story makes me vomit in my
mouth a little as an excuse to lowball.
|
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How to get an amazing website for $99/mo. - ward_320ny
https://320ny.com/packages/
So we've been dealing with the consulting cash flow roller coaster for some time now and decided generating more recurring revenue was probably a smart move.<p>One idea we had (thanks to advice/guidance from the likes of Brennan Dunn, Nathan Barry, Amy Hoy, and Patrick Mackenzie) was consulting as a service. We realized there were many business owners out there who struggled with the various template sites (Wordpress, Wix, Web.com) but didn't have thousands to spend on custom development.<p>So we created a simple $99/month package which included everything clients needed (design, updates, and hosting) via Squarespace. The price point seems to be working well so far and clients get a quasi-custom site built without having to deal with anything tech related which they love.<p>Curious what everyone thinks of the concept (good and bad)?
======
ward_320ny
Really no thoughts?
|
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Ask HN: Why do I feel anxiety when I'm writing code? - acidus
I'm trying to rewrite something from scratch and I'm not finding it easy at all. I'm supposed to be doing this for fun but I'm struggling quite a lot. I kind of enjoy it, don't get me wrong, I love programming - but I also feel the pain.<p>Most of the times I don't experience this feeling. But it happens consistently when I'm facing a tough problem that it's a bit over my head.<p>Why is this happening? Do you have any tip to overcome it? Hard problems should be fun to solve, not the opposite.<p>This is not new to me. I remember I had a similar issue in school. It feels that at some point my cognitive capacity hits the wall and anxiety kicks in.
======
tlack
I see this in myself at times. A few ideas based on your scenario:
1\. We are constantly screamed at on sites like HN that there is a right and a
wrong way to do something. It's almost always just a fashion trend of some
kind, and the reality is: there is rarely a single "best way", the pros mess
up all the time, and even the perfect design will grow haggard with age, and
that ain't a long time in this business. Perfect is an illusion, so just try
to make some reasonable choices.
1.5. Naming things is hard, but there is no perfect name. Pick a single letter
and move on! :)
2\. You are replacing something that already works. As you begin your
planning, you'll start to notice all kinds of little features you'll have to
build out.. the boring minutiae that you didn't even notice the first version
did.. and then the scope of work changes, becomes less thrilling, and that can
be discouraging.
3\. It's always difficult to start from a blank page, especially in a software
system where the "method of entanglement" of all the moving parts is such a
key design decision. Sometimes it's good to just pick some interesting part
and write that in isolation. Then you will get some momentum going and you can
move on to fleshing out the rest.
4\. Anxiousness sometimes comes from not knowing the full scope of the
problem. Try sketching on a napkin some pieces of what you have to do. Try to
start from large blocks and decompose. This might help you feel more
comfortable committing some code.
5\. Maybe the project is just way more boring than you thought. :)
------
airbreather
Maybe you are worried about not how it will work, but the myriad of ways it
might fail under unusual/unexpected circumstances?
I particularly feel this anxiety when writing code for real time
safety/automation/process control systems of plant and machinery.
For me this is as the consequences can be quite visible and quite expensive -
many tonnes of equipment or megawatts of power may be involved and you can't
just reboot it to fix it once the equipment is damaged. Also a lot of peoples
jobs may be impacted, so others are relying heavily on you to get it right.
I find that good architecture/data structures go a long way to allowing a
feeling of ease as these enable simpler code to be created. That and use of
state machines so the behaviors are exhaustively and unambiguously defined and
if well structured then debugging is limited to small parts of the code
related to a particular state or transition.
------
cerberusss
Isn't that natural?
There are obviously certain sweet spots in projects where you're at your best.
For me, that is after the initial coding on the project, but before going into
maintenance mode. Adding big new features to a project is what I like best.
However when I step into an existing project with a huge amount of code,
there's a lot of uncertainty. Did I grok the existing architecture? Will I use
the existing code to its fullest? Do I make it better instead of worse?
|
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Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey Accused of ‘hate Mongering’ in India - kappi
https://nypost.com/2018/11/20/twitter-ceo-jack-dorsey-accused-of-hate-mongering-in-india/
======
himanshu810e
He was accused of 'hate mongering' by a certain subset of people. The only
thing he did was posting a pic with some people and one of the woman in the
pic was holding a sign stating "#SmashBrahminicalPatriarchy" which is
basically against the caste system in India and aligns well with the Indian
Constitution. The people who were butthurt by this are the radical elements
which are constantly degrading the image of Indians inside as well as outside
India
------
throwawaysea
I am not sure why the message from 'bhengaij' was flagged, as it was largely
accurate (although perhaps worded poorly). This is an unbelievably ignorant
and insensitive move on Jack Dorsey's part. He got involved in a country's
cultural politics in the worst way, impulsively holding up a sign that has a
very biased, potentially violent message, targeting a religious minority that
makes up < 5% of India. This is jumping straight into complicated local issues
whose nature can be very hard for foreigners to understand without knowing
local history, culture, and language, no matter which country we're talking
about.
From what I am seeing on Twitter and in various articles on this topic, Hindus
have been under attack from all sides in India, stemming all the way back from
colonial era divide-and-conquer tactics that put the country's traditional
systems and culture into disarray. These have since been exacerbated by
Western-influenced education systems/textbooks, the cutthroat populist
politics of India, attempts by the Catholic church to replace Hinduism with
Catholism ([https://www.chicagotribune.com/news/ct-
xpm-1999-11-08-991108...](https://www.chicagotribune.com/news/ct-
xpm-1999-11-08-9911080178-story.html)), overwhelming affirmative action
policies (with 50%+ reserved quotas at educational institutions and government
jobs), and more recently, even Western (leftist) activism. Moreover, despite
claims of oppressive power, 65% of Brahmins live below the poverty line
([https://www.wsj.com/articles/SB119889387595256961](https://www.wsj.com/articles/SB119889387595256961)),
as compared to 60% of India overall
([https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Poverty_in_India](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Poverty_in_India)).
That's a lot to think about, and obviously Jack and his people did not think
about it at all when they chose to meet with these activists privately or take
a photo with this poster.
More generally, leaders of companies need to stop getting involved in politics
or caving to the pressures of activism. They need to focus on their
fundamental business goals and know where that line is where they start to
favor the ideologies and political missions of one slice of their customer or
employee base. Google is probably the worst example of this, where it seems a
strong ideological echo chamber has been formed by a vocal minority, who want
to use their political activism as the new decision-making framework for the
company and also the new guidelines for what ideas are allowed to be voiced.
It's bad for everyone, especially so when entities of such enormous wealth,
power, and influence start to take sides. Twitter is a platform of similarly
tremendous scale and needs to avoid falling into the same trap.
~~~
himanshu810e
"impulsively holding up a sign that has a very biased, potentially violent
message, targeting a religious minority that makes up < 5% of India" wow!!
He did not held up the sign another person in the pic did. #SmashPatriarchy is
very famous wording for any Feminist movement and adding Brahminical to it is
just addressing the taboo of caste system which has been introduced by
brahminical society.
Looking at your detailed justification why Jack should not have posted it, it
feels like you align with the butthurt upper caste hindutva brigade of India.
------
kappi
looks like anything negative about bayarea white boysclub is flagged by
ycombinator. News with no value with just 3 points in the frontpage while this
link that got 8 points in less than hour and is now in the third page.
|
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Mobile Patterns - getdavidhiggins
http://www.mobile-patterns.com/
======
alexgaribay
This reminds me a lot of pttrns.com.
Both are appreciated for referencing designs.
|
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Porting a java hashing method to clojure - eggsby
http://samesake.com/log/2012/08/10/Porting-java-to-clojure/
======
eggsby
I believe the clojure equivalent in the example provides increased readability
by distilling the method into its discrete parts, as well as demonstrating how
java's static type constraints (and any incidental complexity therein) were
made completely unnecessary after some simple collection generalization.
|
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Live streaming of Peshmerga offensive at Mosul - tankenmate
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BCsCT6LO8qg
======
tankenmate
And now we are live streaming wars... One may hope in future this will lead to
less wars.
|
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Show HN: 42Share, sending big files the simple way - Draugo
https://www.42share.com/
======
Draugo
Hi guys I just launched this application recently and I am eager to get
feedback from HN. Any advice/comments will be greatly appreciated, thanks!
------
kittxkat
All I get is "We're sorry, but something went wrong.".
<http://i.imgur.com/6QHlx.png>
~~~
Draugo
Sorry the site was attacked, I am still trying to fix that.
~~~
thornofmight
It's up for me. Looks great.
~~~
Draugo
Thanks!
------
jzhou
there was a website called yousendit when i was in high school that does exact
this. But it was shut down like many others due to copyright infrig etc.
------
eli_gottlieb
How is this different from MegaUpload?
~~~
Draugo
Great question! My app is more focused on file sharing with people you already
know, and that's why it requires you to provide the email addresses of file
recipients before any files can be uploaded. Plus, I restrict crawlers from
crawling users' files and I don't plan to use pirated files as a way to drive
traffic.
------
mdg
you dont support IE? fuck you
~~~
benblodgett
You are an idiot, its a MVP. There is no point in browser testing early on for
ignorant people who are determined to stay on a legacy web browser.
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Slack is down (Server Error) - dewey
https://status.slack.com?hn
======
juancampa
Same here, but status page doesn't show it yet.
|
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Upgrade to Android 4.1 Jelly Bean released - jdeibele
Just got prompted to upgrade my Galaxy Nexus to 4.1 and it's in process.<p>#1, I hope this works well on Friday the 13th. Nice sense of humor by somebody at Google.<p>#2, I got a Nexus because it was exhausting trying to keep up with upgrading my phone to the latest version of CyanogenMod or other unofficial releases. Really glad that this version is rolling out so fast after source was released.
======
jdeibele
Disappointed so far with Google Now - "calendar 3 o'clock" is recognized but
brings up a web search for that. Needs to get more Siri-like so it brings up
the calendar app and shows 3:00
|
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Geekbench: iPhone 7 faster than all Macbook Airs in single thread - 762236
https://daringfireball.net/linked/2016/09/14/geekbench-android-a10
======
cwyers
Perhaps relevant. Linus Torvalds' opinion on GeekBench:
[http://www.realworldtech.com/forum/?threadid=136526&curposti...](http://www.realworldtech.com/forum/?threadid=136526&curpostid=136666)
> So basically a quarter to a third of the "integer" workloads are just utter
> BS. They are not comparable across architectures due to the crypto units,
> and even within one architecture the numbers just don't mean much of
> anything.
>And quite frankly, it's not even just the crypto ones. Looking at the other
GB3 "benchmarks", they are mainly small kernels: not really much different
from dhrystone. I suspect most of them have a code footprint that basically
fits in a L1I cache.
It's a few years out of date, and maybe Geekbench has improved since then, but
I wouldn't put a lot of stock into these kinds of numbers until I knew that
those kinds of issues had been addressed.
~~~
imtringued
If these phone processors are that amazing why don't we see them being used
outside phones and tablets? I mean take the A10 Fusion give it four cores
instead of two and put it on a server mainboard with all the usual things like
PCIe, Gigabit Ethernet and SATA. Basically do what AMD did with their A1100
except with a good processors and actually sell more than a dev kit. The lack
of total raw processing power per server could be easily offset by the density
and lower price of the ARM server. Why isn't this happening? I don't think
lack of software is an explanation for that. Things like AWS Lambda could
probably be immediately ported to run on ARM servers.
~~~
JimmyAustin
After Apple left the server space when they shuttered the Xserve, I don't
think they are really interested into getting involved into that space. I
think they view themselves as a consumer goods company that makes good
products and uses technological innovation to serve those goals, rather then
create that innovation and figure out how to productise it later.
~~~
asendra
They don't need to sell them to enterprise. They can be their own customer.
They have some of the bigger datacenters after all.
ARM for data storage pools seems like a good fit.
~~~
ksec
Is because the cost of an CPU, within the server, And the cost of Server
within the whole DC, and then the cost of Running the DC. In the grand scheme
of things CPU cost is pretty small. Not to mention we are getting another
round of CPU upgrade with Intel Broadwell-E. And then some price competition
from AMD's Zen.
And Intel Xeon isn't just about the CPU, it is the enterprise grade QA and
testing, Network Controller, SATA controller etc. And the Xeon-D is a very
Decent offering.
Then there is scale, even though Apple's Cloud is huge, it is still no where
near Amazon AWS scale, not Google and Microsoft Azure either. And even if you
add all these three Cloud Giant Combined, I will bet their annual buying CPU
core doesn't even come close to Apple's annual iPhone sales.
So to finalize, there just isn't any financial incentive of switching.
------
gallerdude
This shows both the amazing progress of iPhone and disheartening progress of
the Mac line simultaneously.
~~~
cloudjacker
Yeah, Macbook air really feels abandoned
Would love a 16GB model.
For the last 4 years of me saying that, everyone and their brother, and the
Apple reps all say "oh you can configure that on the site", because they have
have access to the parallel darknet version of the Apple site where Macbook
airs ship with 16gb RAM
I really like the air, but I can like the Macbook Pro its not really a big
deal. JUST WISH THEY WOULD YA KNOW
~~~
zyxley
> Yeah, Macbook air really feels abandoned
The Macbook-with-no-suffix line is the implicit replacement for the Air
anyway.
~~~
wyager
Lighter, better screen, cheaper. I'm not sure why you'd buy an Air these days.
~~~
visarga
Keyboard doesn't feel like a keyboard, trackpad is fake, speed is that of a
tablet, and has almost no ports.
I wanted the 11'' MBA with retina and an updated CPU, not a bastardized
laptop. I want to feel keys pressing.
~~~
hrrsn
>Keyboard doesn't feel like a keyboard, trackpad is fake, speed is that of a
tablet, and has almost no ports.
All valid points, bar the trackpad. The force touch trackpad is a pleasure to
use and I much prefer it to previous Apple trackpads (which are still
excellent).
------
flamedoge
The day that apple flips switch in opt and ships OS X in Arms means Intel
could be in trouble. They did it before with PowerPC->Intel.
~~~
megablast
Intel will be ok, Apple don't sell that many chips. And it is not going to
affect anyone else.
And Intel are looking at helping Apple out with the next versions of their
chips, possibly fabbing them.
~~~
mungoman2
It would be a powerful statement that Intel is not the given choice for the
CPU in a "real" computers (as opposed to smartphone/tablet) anymore.
~~~
iMark
It would send a signal that Intel isn't the given choice if you've made a vast
investment developing your own CPU line over the years.
~~~
Brakenshire
The rest of the ARM ecosystem is trailing behind Apple, but it is following.
If Apple switched, 2-3 years later the rest of the laptop/desktop space would
be in the same position.
------
captainmuon
Cool, does that mean we can scale down the processor performance by half and
still have a phone that is competitive, but has twice the battery life? OK, I
know speed and power consumption are not linear. I'd really love if one phone
would skip a year of increasing CPU speed and thinness, but would keep the
advances in battery tech.
~~~
andruby
No. CPU's in a phone are probably idling 99% of the time. The power usage for
the full-performance and half-performance cpu when idling will be close to
equal.
The full-performance phone might even have better battery life because it can
finish cpu intensive tasks twice as fast, returning to idle power draw faster
than the half-performance phone.
------
frik
I imagine in near future, we will use smartphones as our personal computer in
every situation. In the office, one can then interact with a Bluetooth
keyboard, mouse/touch pad and use a big monitor. Probably, one of the next iOS
will come with a macOS UI as well (under the hood the iOS is based on macOS
anyway) - so if you connect it to a huge monitor, you have the desktop UI of
macOS, and otherwise the iOS UI. The same will happen with
Android/ChromeOS/Google Fuchsia, Ubuntu and MS has some ideas too (but they
cannot execute it, forcing mobile UI on desktop failed big, now they bet on
Win32 again to fill their empty AppStore).
~~~
erikj
The TDP limits of smartphones (no more than ~10W) make them unuseable for
heavier workstation loads, and there will always be demand for a lot of local
computational power.
~~~
ZmFydA__
I feel (hope :-)) that in the future, network bandwidth will be large enough
that large, high-power general computation services can be used to offload
intense processing tasks from personal devices to work around things like
this.
So, if you're on your phone and need to crunch a massive data-set, this gets
offloaded to the big-datacruncher-in-the-cloud, and the result sent back to
your device.
~~~
erikj
Bandwidth is only one part of the problem. Latency is another one, and it
seems to be insurmountable with the modern network media.
------
jaxn
Does this have implications for game consoles too? Is the iPhone the most
powerful gaming device?
~~~
phire
It's quite possibly faster in the CPU department than the PS4/Xbox One, though
those both have 8 (slower) cores.
But the PS4, Xbox One and possibly even the Wii U will have much faster GPUs.
~~~
13of40
The PS4 and XBox One also have four times as much RAM as the iPhone 7. In fact
I was kind of shocked when they announced it would only have 2GB, considering
you can get a Nexus or OnePlus with 6GB this year.
~~~
tigershark
Why in the world you would need 6GB in a phone today? And the nexus can have
all the ram in the world but will always be painfully slow. I am really
surprised that I didn't throw my Nexus 5 against the wall out of frustration
in the end. The real surprise was when my friend bought the nexus 6x or
whatever is called and it was even slower than the nexus 5. Just to sum up,
RAM is the most useless thing if all the rest sucks.
~~~
13of40
I have an iPad mini, and my major complaint is that applications crash due to
lack of memory all the time. Things like a page full of animated gifs will
crash the browser. I got a OnePlus 3 a couple of weeks ago and I haven't even
remembered to charge the iPad since. I'm pretty sure it (the iPad) is going to
end up in my drawer of misfit PDAs.
------
mappu
Almost every mobile Ax SoC has pushed the contemporary boundaries of per-core
performance.
But Apple won't sell these amazing chips to other manufacturers. For now, i
think the openness of the Android ecosystem is still worth more than extra CPU
performance.
------
thrden
the source also claims that the iPhone 7 is of a comparable speed to the
macbook pro 13-inch from 2013, which is a computer I use daily for my
programming. I'd love to see a way of using an iphone as highly mobile work
station.
------
plantain
It's just a matter of time before we see ARM's in Macbooks.
I wonder if we'll see Rosetta make an appearance for binary backward-
compatibility again.
~~~
_ph_
Rosetta worked, because the Intel chips were much faster than the PowerPcs
back then. I doubt that the ARMs would have a sufficient large lead in
performance. And there are plenty of reasons to run x86 code on Macs, be it
older programs which might not be ported to ARM, or all the Windows and Linux
stuff running in VMs. As much as I would like an ARM based laptop, it would be
much less practical than an x86 one.
~~~
majewsky
> As much as I would like an ARM based laptop, it would be much less practical
> than an x86 one.
We don't need to guess here. Look at the failure of Surface RT.
~~~
jhugg
The RT didn’t have an X86 translation layer like is being discussed in this
thread.
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NSA: key to the extraterrestrial messages [pdf] - anacleto
https://www.nsa.gov/public_info/_files/ufo/key_to_et_messages.pdf
======
Gnarl
Much better quality scans:
[http://www.cufon.org/pdf/4_NSA_Tech_Journal_Articles.pdf](http://www.cufon.org/pdf/4_NSA_Tech_Journal_Articles.pdf)
(see page 20 onwards)
------
simulate
This is a cryptography training exercise and not an actual extraterrestrial
message.
[https://allegedlyapparent.wordpress.com/2011/04/28/nsa-29-me...](https://allegedlyapparent.wordpress.com/2011/04/28/nsa-29-messages-
key-to-et-messages-release/)
------
krob
Very interesting. I've heard about some of this before, they made a movie
about it w/ Jodi Foster called Contact :)
------
evolve2k
The punchline is the first paragraph of page 20.
------
skidoo
Ends with page 23. (skidoo)
|
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Where oh where is Windows Phone 8? - czr80
http://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2012/09/where-oh-where-is-windows-phone-8/
======
freehunter
As a user of WP7 who is looking forward to WP8, I really really want to give
them the benefit of the doubt that there is a major ace up their sleeve they
can't talk about for competitive reasons. Something like Nintendo announcing
the Wii remote early enough for Sony to quickly switch to motion-sensing
controllers as well. Something huge and disruptive that is so critical to
their success that none of their competitors can know in time to ape.
I can't recall a single time Microsoft has ever done that, though...
~~~
joenathan
Direct X and a shared kernel with Windows 8 proper is already pretty big IMO.
I have a Nexus S(Running JB) and I'm going to be giving WP8 a serious look
when it comes time to upgrade.
~~~
mtgx
So far only "Angry Birds" type games have been announced as "Xbox Games" for
Windows 8/RT.
~~~
joenathan
It's not a matter of if, it's a matter of when. When developers make Xbox
games(Xbox uses Direct X), and Windows games(again Direct X), it will be
trivial for them to also target WP8/WinRT.
------
kia
_But what was a little surprising is that there were no handsets for the press
to play with. There were some demonstration units carefully attended by PR
personnel, and while we were able to get kind of close to them, the general
rule was "you can look but you can't touch."_
Looking at this [1] video I would say that this article is just another BS
from Ars.
[1] [http://reviews.cnet.com/smartphones/nokia-
lumia-920-slate/45...](http://reviews.cnet.com/smartphones/nokia-
lumia-920-slate/4505-6452_7-35437152.html)
------
SlipperySlope
Essentially ...
"Whatever the cause of the delays—whether they're because Microsoft has bitten
off more than it can chew with the kernel transition, or due to some other
reason—the situation is now growing critical. It's not just that it's annoying
developers; the delays are undoubtedly hurting Redmond's hardware partners."
~~~
mtgx
I wonder if the Windows 8 kernel will also hurt Microsoft's chances for ever
competing on the mass market. So far all of the announced WP8 phones are using
hardware like Qualcomm's latest gen S4 chip, which could be a way for them to
streamline the launch process, but it could also be a performance issue with
WP8 (based on Windows 8 kernel), which I doubt is as lean and nimble as WP7
(based on Windows Embedded).
~~~
jerlam
Well, targeting current high-end hardware (and tomorrow's merely average
hardware) may be a better strategy than Microsoft's attempt with WP Tango,
which targeted low-end hardware on a platform that was already behind the
competition.
I would assume that Microsoft is smart enough to avoid pushing two separate
ecosystems (WP7 and WP8) since they don't have a real foothold with one.
------
randallu
So they ended up doing (what sounds like, or may as well be) a complete
rewrite and it's taking them much longer than they expected? Shocker!
It sounds like they're running the WP7 apps in a compatibility box. Is that
right? One issue developing for Android is the huge API sprawl. Android has
this immense surface area of public API now, and they only add new methods and
classes every release (I'd love to know how the framework engineers on Android
feel about this, because it certainly detracts from the app development
experience...). So a compatibility box sounds like a good idea in that case,
though making everyone rewrite their apps isn't a good idea...
~~~
SlipperySlope
In order to use WP8-specific features, developers will need to use a new
development model. This is more friction for developers when compared to using
comparable new features in iOS or Android, where the development model is
unchanged, but new APIs are utilized.
One can only imagine the sorts of bureaucratic infighting within Microsoft as
various development tool factions seek to discard the work of factions falling
out of favor. In contrast consider how long Apple stuck by Objective-C as its
chief development framework.
~~~
randallu
Apple's engineering group is much smaller than Microsoft's (or probably anyone
else's). What's the GDP per engineer at Apple vs any other product company
(like MSFT, Google or Samsung)?
EDIT: Which is to say, I believe bureaucracy is more likely in larger
organizations and that the scale of MSFT's engineering org makes it
unmanageable.
~~~
noamsml
IIRC I looked that up, and Google's revenue is about half of MS's for 1/3 the
employees, making it about 3/2 the revenue per employee. Not sure about
Apple/Samsung.
------
Metrop0218
The core operating system swap. Taking a desktop operating system and
shrinking it down to run on a phone is no easy task. In fact, it's a
gargantuan undertaking. Add a bunch of new end user features and you get that
the amount of technical work that is going into WP8 is phenomenal. However,
the windows phone engineering team is superb. I have no doubt's that both
consumers and developers will be thoroughly impressed come holiday season.
~~~
peonies
_Taking a desktop operating system and shrinking it down to run on a phone is
no easy task. In fact, it's a gargantuan undertaking._
iOS is a shrunken version of OSX, while Android is a barely shrunken version
of Linux. Aren't all modern mobile platforms shrunken versions of desktop
operating systems?
~~~
cdh
Who is to say those weren't gargantuan undertakings as well?
The relationship between Windows Phone 8 and Windows 8 is closer than that,
though. My understanding is that both will make calls to the same WinRT APIs,
meaning a significant amount of code (and the XAML defining the UI) can be
shared between both platforms. That's a very different relationship than Mac
OS has with iOS (where the UI differences are significant) or Android has with
Linux (where there is almost nothing in common between X and Android's UI).
------
sounds
If there's one thing Apple has executed on, it's the synthesis of hardware and
software.
That's an often overlooked key to a successful customer experience. Android
has some decent hardware - Galaxy S III apparently but I haven't tried it yet
- but unless you luck out and a carrier throws you an Ice Cream Sandwich or
Jelly Bean, what's the point?
Microsoft knows they need something, but if they don't have some pretty
awesome software they'll be in the same place Android is. (Sans patent
lawsuits)
~~~
SlipperySlope
Microsoft has been crushed by Android in mobile. From a once dominating
position, Microsoft phone OS's now get lumped in the 'other' category when
market share pie charts are illustrated.
Despite patent licensing fees, Google's Android is free to use - or to fork as
was done by Amazon. This is a resounding win for Linux. On the other hand
Apple effectively gives away iOS when you buy or upgrade one of their mobile
products. What niche is left for Microsoft - even if they do create some
pretty awesome software?
~~~
sounds
Oh I wouldn't write Microsoft off entirely yet. Nokia is probably a dodo at
this point, but it would be a bit hasty to forget Microsoft's $60 billion in
cash [1]
I do think Microsoft is trying to apply PC-era tactics to embedded devices.
It's like they're chatting up that hot girl who, it turns out, is a ninja
assassin on a psycho killing spree. The only thing the embedded world produces
with any regularity is bankrupt companies; what I'm saying is, companies like
HTC and Samsung are used to an intensity that Nokia may never figure out.
Microsoft is capable of surviving in the embedded world, but they probably
won't "wake up" for another year at least.
[1] <http://finance.yahoo.com/q/ks?s=msft>
~~~
SlipperySlope
Agree that technically mobile is embedded, but mobile is more popularly
considered a separate market from embedded. For example, while a phone and a
washing machine may have the same sort of CPU, most engineers consider these
separate markets.
Do you think that Steve Ballmer will be the one that wakes up, or does the
board find a new chief executive?
~~~
sounds
I don't know if Ballmer will stay or not as CEO, but remember that he and his
good friend Gates still have a controlling share of the company.
What separates mobile from embedded won't shield mobile, or Microsoft, from
the race-to-the-bottom, cloning, and short product lifespans that make
embedded such a hard business to be in.
~~~
vidarh
> Gates still have a controlling share of the company.
No, he doesn't. He holds around 6% of Microsoft. He lost his controlling stake
with the Microsoft IPO in 1986
------
ladzoppelin
Its crazy that Windows 8 runs better then Windows 7 on the same computer. I
love it. Would love to try the Win8 phone is they ever get one released.
|
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Why Does the US Patent Office Keep Approving Clearly Ridiculous Patents? - DiabloD3
https://www.techdirt.com/articles/20150430/14481230841/why-does-us-patent-office-keep-approving-clearly-ridiculous-patents.shtml
======
johntyree
"Republished" ?
More like ripped off and smothered with ads. Techdirt is miserable.
|
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Ask HN: Balancing your interests and the interests of the company you work for? - koudo
I am a mid level software engineer at a startup that has been running for a little while. I understand that being a startup, we need to prioritize effort into making the company succeed but at the same time, I do not feel that I am
really learning the things that would enhance my skills as a developer.<p>The reason I mentioned we have been running for a while is that because I learn and pick up things very quickly, I have always been the one sent out to evaluate or
implement features that were "needed" quickly. Over time, every one else fell into place for implementing full features which involve detailed design etc. and I end up implementing everything that is "needed" by the company. I have
gone over this over the past several performance reviews and the situation has not changed.<p>I try to self learn and it works most of the time but sometimes it helps to have a change to learn from people with more experience as well.<p>How does everyone deal with balancing your interests and the company's
interests?
======
jjs
Update your resume.
Much better companies than your current one are starved for good developers.
You're not helping anyone by remaining underemployed.
(Be sure to have a job offer in writing before you quit, however. :)
|
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Show HN: Bypassing ad blockers for Google Analytics - StefanoC
https://analytics-bypassing-adblockers.netlify.com/
======
tjpnz
Those who would consider doing this deserve a special place in hell right next
to devs who don't respect user privacy and the crooks in the advertising
industry who turn a blind eye to the fact they're distributing malware. By
installing an adblocker I've made a conscious decision to not have your BS
running inside my browser. Forcing it on me will at the very least result in
me disabling JavaScript on all your pages.
~~~
heliodor
If we're going to use ad blockers, at least let's admit to what we're doing
and not claim a moral high ground.
You're implying the creator of the website is okay letting you receive the
service or content on your terms. They are not. Ads and tracking are there
because they earn the creators some amount of money.
One day when our tech will limit you to a binary choice of ads+tracking versus
paying money, which way are you going to swing once your hand is forced?
~~~
mathnmusic
This is quite silly. Am I also supposed to compulsorily watch all the ads that
come up on TV in the commercial break and not mute it or leave the room?
~~~
joshmanders
Just like ads on your TV you can "leave the room" by closing the page.
Whats with this entitlement that you shouldn't have to endure ads but also get
to have the content too?
~~~
mathnmusic
I said "leave the room during the commercials". If what you meant is that I
can't leave ONLY during the commercials, then this comes across as extremely
user-hostile approach.
Should a user be forced to NOT mute the commercials? I'm clearly in the "NO"
camp on this issue.
~~~
joshmanders
Can you fast forward through commercials? All you can do is mute the TV and/or
leave the room. Even in systems like TiVO where you can rewind and fast
forward they still mostly block you from fast forwarding commercials... No
different than circumventing adblocks, but nobody complains about that.
Hell even TV networks track you. They know how many viewers are on certain
shows and that. That's how they're able to garner high prices too.
Advertising is just something we always had to deal with. You don't have to
watch commercials. You do that by not going to channels that have commercials,
or using different services that you pay to not see commercials.
My point is, you are entitled to not be tracked. You're entitled to not have
to see ads. But you are _NOT_ entitled to the content without those if the
website decides the trade-off of you getting that content for free is by
enduring those ads.
Close your window. Go somewhere else for content if the site you're visiting
displays ads.
------
beagle3
Meh.
If you're using GA to prove your site's worth, e.g. in some M&A deal, this is
useless - your proxying means that you can fudge numbers and thus is no better
than anything else you say. (This is a significant use case among looking-for-
exit startups).
If you're using GA to get insight about your website, it would be somewhat
useful, but not really - because GA would not be able to correlate the cookies
to figure out the demographics, etc (and I don't know how much it would trust
Via / Proxy-for headers, so other statistics it gives you are also limited).
Also, if you have non trivial traction, you're going to get flagged by their
fraud filters.
You're probably better off running a local Piwik or whatever it's called these
days.
~~~
StefanoC
Could you please expand on fudging numbers and fraud filters?
The original question that I was trying to answer was if the numbers that I
was seeing for mobile users were skewed by how much more difficult it is to
get an ad blocker for mobile.
~~~
Nextgrid
Fraud filters is about GA not expecting such a large number of events from a
single IP. You’d be sending _all_ your visitors’ events from that single IP -
at some point GA will ignore your traffic or give you a captcha (effectively
blocking the analytics because it’s not designed to handle the captcha
response).
------
Nextgrid
This is akin to bypassing antimalware protection by hosting the malware on
your own reputable site.
What are you trying to achieve here? Your entire domain will just end up
blocked if you do this at scale, not to mention Google themselves would ban
your reverse proxy’s IP because of too many queries (since you’ll be proxying
all your visitors’ requests from a single IP).
~~~
taneq
To be fair, self-hosted ads are a thing on some sites and often don't get
blocked by adblockers. I know I don't specifically go out of my way to block
such ads because they're generally on sites that I'd like to support.
~~~
Nextgrid
Do these self-hosted ads also embed malware (stalking/tracking code)? If they
do not then I'm 100% with you and would totally support this kind of self-
hosted advertising.
However this example is a bit different, the site in question is going out of
their way to being a reverse-proxy for a spyware command & control server, and
the entire domain should be considered & blocked as such.
~~~
taneq
If we're just talking about tracking then they don't need to because the site
already gets all of your requests. They inherently know what pages you're
viewing on their site because they gave them to you. A great many sites run
this kind of analytics (often including client-side ones to track user actions
- think medium.com's "most highlighted paragraph) and it's not considered
malware.
If you're talking about them selling the data gathered by these, then that'd
be less common but certainly not unheard of. If you're talking about them
doing something more nefarious on your machine (keylogging/cracking) then
hopefully that's pretty hard to do against a modern browser and any site
caught doing so would never get any traffic from me again.
~~~
Nextgrid
The problem we're discussing here is not about the site having a record of all
the _legitimate_ requests needed to load a page.
The problem is that the site is now serving a piece of (third-party, but
that's besides the point) malware explicitly designed to monitor events that
would normally not cause a network request (and thus wouldn't be logged), and
then sending that to a malicious third-party through a reverse-proxy.
------
kevingadd
If you're hosting the analytics on your own domain, is it really even
something an ad blocker should be blocking? It's not coming from a known
third-party service domain (for ads or tracking or otherwise) so there's no
real reason a blocker should be blocking it. It's first-party analytics on
your own website. The fact that you're implementing it via reverse proxying is
kind of an implementation detail, because at any point it could stop being
Google Analytics, or an existing first-party analytics solution on a website
could become GA.
It is kind of unfortunate that third-party tracking can 'hide' this way but in
this case there's not really much you can do if the content author is going
out of their way to pull a fast one...
~~~
reitanqild
> The fact that you're implementing it via reverse proxying is kind of an
> implementation detail, because at any point it could stop being Google
> Analytics, or an existing first-party analytics solution on a website could
> become GA.
I think you (probably unintentionally if I understand you correctly) actually
just pointed out a good reason why those who really really care should block
analytics even from the same domain as the site they are visiting : )
Not that it will help against a determined web site owner trying to track
though: Very much of the tracking can be done one the server side (and even
proxied from the server side to another third party).
~~~
kevingadd
Right, my point is essentially that I don't think it's realistic to try and
block first-party trackers. They're indistinguishable from page content. The
closest you could get would be the 'disable javascript' hammer but there are
non-script-based ways to do first party tracking pretty well, I'm sure.
I get why people would want or expect tracking blockers to work on reverse
proxying but it seems silly to try. On the bright side, if the tracking is
being done first-party it makes it much clearer who's taking your data and
who's responsible for where it goes - it's going through them even if they're
just bouncing it to another server.
------
rvnx
Nice try but doesn't work on Kiwi Browser ;) Shows "This content should be
overriden by GTM". This is because an heuristic is used instead of a
blacklist. So to answer, yes this can be blocked easily.
~~~
StefanoC
That's interesting, and good to know! I wonder if the heuristic can be
bypassed by changing the code (e.g. adding a semicolon) or changing the URL
further.
~~~
rvnx
Of course it can be bypassed and it's not very difficult. It's just that the
way of filtering is different (many browsers / extensions are just
Easylist/Disconnect clones)
To go further on the proxy idea, I think that the best strategy could be to
actually do server-side calls to GA: [https://ga-dev-tools.appspot.com/hit-
builder/](https://ga-dev-tools.appspot.com/hit-builder/) (yes there is an API
for server-side hits).
The minus of the proxy idea, is that since you don't have access to
*.doubleclick.net (which should be blacklisted by any decent track/adblocker)
you don't get demographics info back into GA.
But after all, like other comments said, aren't you simply a first party
tracker ? GA is just a more evolved storage point than, let's say using
goaccess on raw logs.
~~~
StefanoC
> To go further on the proxy idea, I think that the best strategy could be to
> actually do server-side calls to GA: [https://ga-dev-tools.appspot.com/hit-
> builder/](https://ga-dev-tools.appspot.com/hit-builder/) (yes there is an
> API for server-side hits).
Yes, probably big players would like to use server side analytics! But that's
a bit too involved for small websites.
> The minus of the proxy idea, is that since you don't have access to
> *.doubleclick.net (which should be blacklisted by any decent
> track/adblocker) you don't get demographics info back into GA.
When I pull down Google Analytics I also change its content to make it point
to the reverse proxy itself. I didn't find any call to that domain being
blocked, so I didn't do it for that particular case.
I think that the data collections is done via [https://www.google-
analytics.com/r/collect](https://www.google-analytics.com/r/collect), which I
do proxy. Notice however that sometimes an easy list filter kicks in and
blocks that just because it happens to match "r/collect". I think there is a
race condition somewhere that makes it not work sometimes, because I couldn't
replicate it consistently. Anyways, it would be as simple as changing that
domain specifically to something else. I tried doing so, but Netlify's
redirects where playing up (possibly because I'm on the free tier) so I gave
up. The concept of masking the domain/url still applies.
------
maaaats
Since it goes through a reverse proxy, wouldn't it _not_ leak personal data
the way using it directly would? If using GA directly, the browser uses my
google-session data which GA can track between sites/domains. But here the
proxy only gets the unique session for this proxy, so it doesn't know who I
am. Or?
~~~
StefanoC
I checked the analytics dashboard yesterday and updated the website: the only
data that I'm not getting though is the users country/city and their provider.
So in a sense it's better for your privacy: the IP is not your own!
I'm not an expert of Analytics but I'm also assuming that since the cookies
are different (because the HTTP call to analytics happens on a different
domain than usual) it shouldn't be able to track you just as well: G Analytics
don't know your IP and have no trace of your previous anonymous IDs set in
your cookies!
------
userbinator
It's an ongoing cat-and-mouse game. This is like the inverse of people using
VPNs and proxies to get around filtered Internet, except it's now the _server_
that does the tunneling instead of the client.
Personally, I've found that JS off and all the GA/GTM domains (along with many
others) blacklisted is sufficient in daily use; no JS gets rid of most of the
crap, and the blocked domains clean up the rest. My goal is not to become
completely untrackable (I believe that's next to impossible), but just to stop
slow-loading pages full of junk I don't care about (which is what I suspect
most people using _ad_ -blockers are aiming for.)
------
Cynddl
> Hello from Google Tag Manager. This text is being added by a tag running
> from GTM.
One should note that this inclusion, without an opt-in consent banner for
instance, is not GDPR compliant. The URL [https://analytics-bypassing-
adblockers.netlify.com/proxy/htt...](https://analytics-bypassing-
adblockers.netlify.com/proxy/https://www.google-analytics.com/r/collect?..).
sends personal data to a third party (Google) without my explicit consent. See
Article 7 and Recital 32 of the GDPR:
> Consent should be given by a clear affirmative act establishing a freely
> given, specific, informed and unambiguous indication of the data subject’s
> agreement to the processing of personal data relating to him or her, such as
> by a written statement, including by electronic means, or an oral statement.
~~~
ddebernardy
> One should note that this inclusion, without an opt-in consent banner for
> instance, is not GDPR compliant.
IANAL but as I understand GDPR, this is incorrect. The paragraph you cite
discusses _personal_ data. Google's FAQ on GA is instructive (emphasis mine)
[0]:
> When using Google Analytics _Advertising_ Features, you must also comply
> with the European Union User Consent Policy.
They admittedly keep things as vague as they can, but to me it kind of reads
like: using GA to collect site usage analytics is actually fine and requires
no explicit consent as long as you've configured it to anonymize the IP
addresses (toggle this in GA) and you're not tracking e.g. user IDs and such.
Similarly, using GTM to deliver a paragraph like OP did is also fine.
In both cases the spirit and the letter of the law would seem to be respected
if you add some notice about tracking going on in your footer. No explicit
consent is needed here, because no personal data is getting tracked.
Edit: clarity.
[0]:
[https://support.google.com/analytics/answer/2700409](https://support.google.com/analytics/answer/2700409)
~~~
Cynddl
This website does collect personal data. Google's FAQ on GA simply states that
the first party should obtain consent before transferring data to a third
party (and transfer of consent might not be GDPR compliant, but that's another
issue).
Here, the first party (analytics-bypassing-adblockers.netlify.com) has to
obtain consent before collecting personal data. And IP addresses are not the
only personal data that GA can collect.
------
Xelbair
I remember when modern telemetry gathering practices were labeled a
malware/adware..
~~~
distances
Especially the phone home of ZoneAlarm, that blew up quite big. And to think
that's what basically every application does nowadays.
------
tex5
[https://rrregain.com](https://rrregain.com) does this as a service. There are
others as well but most do not use your own domain.
~~~
StefanoC
Interesting, do you know if they rely on the same principle of using several
domains, making it harder to block?
~~~
tex5
I'm not sure, it uses your own domain, thus www.google-analytics.com becomes
yourdomain.com/analytics.js. Not all requests are proxied, only the ones
blocked by adblockers.
Taking this further, you could have your server send an event to GA when
/index.html is requested, this can even be from tail -f access_log. No one
will know GA was requested.
~~~
rbinv
In general, you wouldn't be able to access third-party cookies this way,
though.
------
highace
I implemented something like this on a site visited almost exclusively by
developers, assuming that developers must have amongst the highest adblock
usage, and that my real visitor numbers according to GA would be much higher.
I saw a boost of about 7-8%. Remember, most adblockers (like Adblock Plus)
don't block Google Analytics. uBlock and Ghostery are probably the 2 main GA
adblockers, but as a % of adblockers as a whole they're not that large.
It's probably not worth it.
------
everdrive
This is unfortunate, but it simply means that we have three options:
\- Block entire domains \- Prevent javascript from running \- Use the internet
less, read books, use your local library.
Happily, I was able to get my browser from the default message: Hello from
Google Tag Manager. This text is being added by a tag running from GTM.
To the blocked message: This content should be overridden by GTM.
But, how far will this game of cat and mouse go?
------
ionised
No personal offence intended, but I hope this project dies on its arse.
It's malicious software, circumventing the protections afforded to me by my
ad/tracker blocking software.
I'll contribute in any way I can to adblocking tech, and to any impotency of
this kind of technology.
~~~
StefanoC
None taken. Believe it or not I'm mostly on your side. I published this
because I've managed to do this in 4 hours, for fun. It exploits the url based
blocking which is so prominent but so easily subverted, and If I've done it
anybody can, so I wanted people to know.
Having said that, I must add, I don't think this is malicious software. Beside
the legalities and the GDPRities which I may have overlooked, when you ask a
website for its content that comes with analytics, but you want to block
analytics. I don't think you can complain about the content provider bypassing
your attempt at blocking it. Don't get me wrong, when I come across websites
that stop me from browsing them because I use uBlock I usually bypass their
block, or close the tab, but I can hardly complain at their attempt, or deem
it as malicious, IMHO.
------
judge2020
Would like to know, does Google Analytics actually use data for tracking/ad
targeting? I thought it would only track users if they embedded the AdWords
script. If so, why is it blocked by UBO and Ghostery?
~~~
mcintyre1994
I've always just assumed it does, in the same way I assume Facebook's like
etc. buttons do plenty of tracking even if you don't interact with them.
------
deca6cda37d0
I blocked GTM and GA with Little Snitch... your bypass doesn't work
~~~
StefanoC
Please explain, I use Little Snitch too!
------
stunt
:popcorn:
------
pdkl95
> [ This content should be overridden by GTM. ]
lol... pages look better if you send the actual document instead of _assuming_
you have permission to run software in my browser.
~~~
StefanoC
It's a proof of concept. If it doesn't work for you then you are meant to know
that :)
It's not a bug, it's a feature!
|
{
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
}
|
How a sysadmin can become a programmer - sea6ear
http://cuddletech.com/blog/?p=817
======
Aqueous
Great advice except for this bit:
"Step 3: Scripting isn’t programming."
I have to disagree that scripting isn't programming. To me it is no less
programming than using a library, except for you are interacting with that
library through stdin and stdout instead of a direct function call. If there
are no libraries available for a single user tool, then execing is your only
option. UNIX is designed to pipeline many different small tools that do one
thing very well together. What's the difference between doing that at the
command line vs doing it in a script? Sometimes it's just the most efficient
way to program something. And with the use of exec tools can get quite
powerful quite fast.
~~~
pacala
> What's the difference between doing that at the command line vs doing it in
> a script?
Testing. Clean consistent APIs. Dependency bloat.
~~~
toomuchtodo
Because my 50-150 line bash scripts need that sort of overhead.
~~~
njharman
Perhaps not. But that is why they are scripting and not programming.
Programming is a large discipline. Writing code is small part.
Scripting is not programming in same way clicking through install wizard is
not system administration.
~~~
waps
There is still a massive difference between developers and sysadmins even in
the devops era. You can make a caricature of both professions to point out the
difference.
A sysadmin and a developer walk into a bar. They decide each to make a website
doing order management and return in a month to demonstrate both solutions.
First the developer gets his turn. There's a massive version history, which is
shown. After 15 minutes of browsing through commit messages and pointing out
test cases and "look how easy it is", everyone in the cafe requests to be
shown the actual site. After pointing out there's more LoC dedicated to unit
testing the code than there is actual code, the programmer gives in and opens
a web browser. "Could not connect to site". The programmer forgot to start his
solution's web server. He logs into a shell, gives the command. After 3 tries
he gets the command right, and it won't start. It is quickly noticed that
there is a bug on the top of the main function preventing it from starting. He
quickly fixes it. The website has every feature you could possibly want and
more than a few you wouldn't want, and looks beautiful, if a bit "full". And
every individual feature works beautifully and perfectly as designed, and then
2 or 3 features have to work together and an hourglass appears. After 5
minutes they give up the wait, and the programmer digs into the code and
concludes that it was completely unreasonable for the sysadmin to ask for a
demonstration of picking a product and while a mail notification service was
enabled, something which was never in the requirements ! Getting a report out
of the system takes the better part of the day. Before the demo can go further
the web server crashes and not only did the programmer lose the entire order
database, but the versioning system, including all the code, and surprisingly
the crash also managed to take out the entire contents of the programmer's
gmail inbox, X-COM savegames and his drink is suddenly empty. Only the drink's
disappearance can reasonably be blamed on the sysadmin.
Second, the devops/sysadmin turn comes round. His website has been running for
a long time, in fact he says he didn't bother restarting it to add the last 10
features he added to the site. The programmer (and everyone who isn't the
sysadmin) has serious trouble distinguishing the website from a terminal
window, or indeed, from an unpowered laptop. Tiny gray letters on a black
background list the orders, as confirmed by an inspection of the sysadmins
laptop screen with a magnifier glass and extreme brightness settings. They are
preceeded with 10 letters that can be either small caps, or capitals
illustrating the various properties an order might have. Oh and it can also be
one of 2378 other letters that indicate various things, but even the sysadmin
himself has forgotten most of them. There is one test, which starts up the
system, and runs 1000 orders through them. The "RoundFloat" function in the
code turns out to return a string, "dog", but is never called. There is no
reporting functionality, insists the programmer. The sysadmin disagrees. Look
! echo 'cat orders/ __/??d _.2013._.xyzz2??3?? | sed " _& (_)&^#@ _\ &^\\\@#"
| grep | perl -pe "lqwtq8_(&()lj;lkd" | mail [email protected]' >> /etc/cron.daily
adds daily reporting of all orders in the asian region over $220 to the system
! The sysadmin insists that this is simple, as he got it right the first time.
When a person standing at the bar is asked to enter an order into the system,
he tries for 10 minutes, then knifes the sysadmin in frustration, before
retreating to an optician for damage control. The "web server", which turns
out to be a bash script, has never spent more than .0003 picoseconds serving
the page. The page ? Yes, there is only one after all. Why would an order
tracking system need more than one page ? It turns out the webpage page is
text/raw, not text/html, after which a baffled sysadmin enquires what's wrong
with that. An inspection of the versioning system reveals 3 commit messages
"start", "middle" and "end", and nothing else. It's replicated to 5 different
datacenters, though. Look ! An offsite backup was initiated as soon as an
order was entered. The programmer, still angry about his crashed server, takes
an axe to the sysadmin's laptop, which surprisingly remains operational after
being hacked in 10 pieces, set on fire, and fed to a local dog. The sysadmin
declares that he's very proud of the system's features, you know, both of
them.
The whole thing ends in a barfight between the two, the sysadmin insisting
that a non-working website has 0 features, even if the programmer implemented
3000 "well-tested" ones, chuckling at the "tested" word. The programmer was
heard saying that a single black screen does not an order system make, before
breaking a beer bottle and attacking, with help of the person that was asked
to enter an order into "the black hole".
------
karlkatzke
I'm a sysadmin who used to be a coder. I know a lot of people who have gone in
either direction.
The reason I stopped coding is that I got into it to solve problems, but I got
tired of spending what felt like 90% of my time writing unit tests, wrestling
with frameworks, and solving problems with upgrades to the huge webs of
dependencies for even basic projects. In other words, I got fed up with what
coding has become. It's no longer hacking. It's toolchain management.
I'd always been a full stack developer, so I just started focusing more on the
sysadmin side and gradually transitioned over there. I can manage toolchains
just fine if I want to focus on that. My coding experience is handy when we're
trying to troubleshoot a bug that only shows up on production ... uncommon,
because our dev and QA groups are GREAT, but it still happens. I not only know
where all the logs are, but I'm able to read the code and make sense of stack
traces from the different languages we use.
Those who think what I've done is ridiculous don't understand how scripted
everything that happens in the sysadmin world these days. Everything in
infrastructure/operations is scripted except the troubleshooting -- and even
that stuff gets scripted as soon as it's done so that it doesn't pop up again.
Yes, the native language of these tasks is bash, but ruby and python are
becoming really popular. So's haskell, for those who can speak it. What's
disappointing me right now is that all of the chef stuff we're doing is
starting to get complicated enough to have a big toolchain (thankfully managed
right now with bundler) and starting to grow unit tests... Didn't I make a
career change to get away from this crap?
I think I'll go be a DBA next. ;)
~~~
hosh
That's a weird association between "unit tests" and "toolchain management".
Did you feel it was a tedious part of development or what?
~~~
ams6110
To me, unit tests are the ultimate in tedium. I appreciate the value, but
writing them is certainly about the dullest part of the job.
~~~
hosh
Thanks for the response :-)
I know a fair number of developers who find ops pretty crazy, considering that
a good chunk of it can be automated. So I suppose the other side of tedium is
the unnecessary risk in having to hand-perform things repeatedly.
~~~
karlkatzke
houk got most of the answer. The other answer is that ops, unlike dev, still
gets to do things the fast way if it makes sense. So if it's faster to hit up
and enter a bunch of times? Do it. Dev doesn't get to make that decision most
of the time these days, and that's just sad and completely against the spirit
of hacking.
~~~
hosh
There's hacking, and then there's polish. You can't make a product out of a
hack. Though some companies offer Hack Days to get things going.
------
oneeyedpigeon
This whole article is full of prejudice, narrow-mindedness, and over-
generalisation. I'm not a sys-admin myself, but I have known some, and they
certainly didn't fit this stereotype.
~~~
shawn-furyan
Yeah, I worked for 2 years as a sysadmin, and now I'm working on building a
website in one of those scripting languages that apparently don't count as
programming, so perhaps I have a better perspective than most on this. The
strange conceit of this article is that all sysadmins apparently want to be
programmers but just lack the self confidence to actually do it. I think that
this is pretty wide of the mark. If anything, sysadmins know how much more
stable and reliable mature tools are than the sort of half baked solutions the
author is recommending that they push themselves to develop. When you spend
your entire day supporting fragile solutions, your first inclination is not
usually going to be to put more of those into the world.
~~~
CodeMage
_now I 'm working on building a website in one of those scripting languages
that apparently don't count as programming_
The article didn't claim that scripting languages don't count as programming.
Despite the heading "scripting isn't programming", it doesn't even really
claim that scripting isn't programming: it claims that if you switch from
shell scripting language to a compiled language, but you still do most of the
stuff by spawning child processes, you're most likely using the wrong tool for
the job.
~~~
shawn-furyan
Forgive me for countering hyperbole with hyperbole. She did baldly say in the
main content of her article "Scripting isn't programming". It's not a
hyperbolic title, it's in the body of the article. She also doesn't counter
that assertion. The article is hyperbolic through and through, and I don't
care to argue its finer semantic points since the original article was neither
nuanced nor subtle.
------
CrLf
Let's just, for a moment, entertain this radical notion that many sysadmins
are actually programmers that just don't want to do software development as a
profession. I know that, for most people here, this is very strange: who would
choose to avoid the exciting world of programming having the skills to do so?
But indeed, it happens.
For someone that likes to solve problems, 95% of software development is mind-
boggingly boring. It's mostly looking at the same codebase day-in and day-out,
while having to deal with shifting requirements. All of this to end up with
some application that you mostly wouldn't use yourself. This, if you're lucky
that your project doesn't get cancelled before it sees the light of day, or it
doesn't get delayed so much that you get so bored that you move on before
seeing it to completion.
And the consultancy... Parachuting into projects at clients and being
extracted by helicopter when "it's done" (which is usually when it meets
minimum requirements to receive payment, not when it is at all in a state to
be proud of).
Really, 95% of software development isn't glamorous stuff at NASA or the next
big social network(1).
Systems administration, provided you are self-motivated, can actually code
your way out of a hole, and are willing to deal with the occasional user,
provides plenty of space to solve problems with programming. With
_programming_ , not IDE and framework juggling.
Sure, it can be boring at times and can be stressful at others, and you have
95% chance of being in the exact same environment where you wouldn't like to
be coding in. But at least you have more autonomy and can actually _solve_
problems.
I'm a programmer by training and a systems administrator by profession. I
would most likely rather be programming than taking care of systems and
databases, but only if I found something in those remaining 5% that I would
actually enjoy doing.
Otherwise, it would just burn me out from programming altogether, and I like
programming...
(1) Actually, developing the next big social network is probably as boring as
everything else I said. Who in hell wants another social network?
~~~
j45
Well said. Programming is solving problems with (hopefully) thinking and
problem solving skills that improve every time you do something.
Differentiating between coding/engineering/programming/scripting is all a moot
point where it counts -- creating value and solving problems.
No matter how perfectly you do or don't architect something, it will have a
failing point, just like the limits of hardware when you buy them. There are
some very general thinks you can do to be kind to your future self
architecturally, but just as many you can do to hurt yourself.
I think edw519 said it best, clever architecture can be far more important
than clever code.
------
dsr_
Hi, I'm a systems administrator. I'm reasonably senior. I can tell you that
pretty much all sysadmins code. In overlapping sets, some are good at it, some
don't need to be good at it, and some like solving problems that way. But
being a sysadmin is a different job from being a software developer, and
people who are good at one and not the other are much more common than those
who are good at both.
The nature of systems administration work falls into two broad categories. The
first is small problem work: a user has a problem, a machine signals an alert,
something isn't working. The second is, of course, large project work: users
need a new service, the alerting system needs to be replaced, new
infrastructure needs to be built. Most of the time, but not always, the small
problems need and have immediate solutions, and the large projects are not as
time-critical and require some amount of research, budgeting, selection,
configuration and support before they can be deemed complete.
A sysadmin who has specialized into a particular problem domain will need the
skills appropriate to that domain. Sometimes that means picking up a new
configuration syntax -- which may be a complete language. Sometimes it means
building better communications skills, so that you can diagnose what your
users are complaining about. Whatever it is, you can assume that the people
who specialize in an area that doesn't require much programming, don't do
much.
Generalist sysadmins, on the other hand, need to be competent at a wide
variety of skills, including two or three languages. That doesn't mean that
they need to be UX designers (but they need to recognize a UI failure) and it
doesn't mean that they need to be database administrators (but they need to
understand how to back up and restore the databases they support, and figure
out the replication system and find single points of failure). They do need to
be able to write short programs to automate what they would otherwise do
manually, to figure out what the debug logs are really complaining about, and
to understand computer systems from electrical and environmental needs through
virtualization systems and configuration management.
Finally, there are sysadmins who are also developers, who announce that they
don't like any of the existing mail programs and so they will write a new one;
who determine that there's no configuration management system that tracks and
removes subsystems as cleanly as they would like, and so a new one will be
needed; who write filesystems or music organizers or browser extensions
because that's what they need and want and are good at.
The industry, nebulous quagmire that it is, needs specialists, generalists,
and dev-ops hybrids. Making false generalizations merely reveals a bizarre
lack of awareness.
~~~
WestCoastJustin
I'd just like to mention something about specialists vs generalists. Over my
career, as a sysadmin, I've noticed this trend. At smallish organizations
(i.e. startups), you'll see almost exclusively generalists, because the
company simply is not large enough to have a team of specialists running
around. As the company grows (think fortune 500 companies, universities,
government, etc), these generalists will have to make the transition into
specialists, say for example into, security, networks, email, linux admins,
windows admins, storage, racking/stacking/cabling, etc. You might even have
these enterprise architects popping up.
I have also seen less sysadmin programming (whatever that is) at the larger
companies, because they will purchase prepackaged products that fit their
need.
~~~
ownagefool
To counter, I worked at a small web hosting company between 2007 and 2010 who
were responsbile for creating Europe's first cloud computing infrastructure
and the worlds second, according to them at least.
They had about 9 sysadmins go through their doors, a maximum of 7 at any one
time with a max of 4 coders. Of those system guys I'd hazard a guess that
around 50% of them couldn't code at all and only really two could get anything
beyond procedural scripting, if that.
Not to disrespect these guys because some of them were between good and really
good at what they did do, but there were also decisions such as to rely on
expensive SANs and proprietary software to tackle issues that could have been
and later were replaced by internal code because, in my opinion, these guys
were unable to comprehend automation on a scale that a developer could unless
they already knew of software available to do such a thing.
After that I worked for a massive hosting company with much more segregation
of departments and as far as I'm aware operations didn't code despite the
deparment being a lot larger than the previous company.
It's funny because back then I was arguing with both these companies that
operations should be driven from an automation stand point utilising devs
skills but it wasn't exactly a great point since I was the only developer on
staff for much of that time in the first company and the second wasn't
interested at all.
For the record, I'd like to be a devops but I'm pretty sure I get shut down
from those roles from a percieved lack of operations experience and buzzwords.
Much of that because I'm actually honest and my experience of sysadmins are
that they were gatekeepers unwilling to so much as let me login to some of
their systems. Meh.
I'm sure theres a lot of sysadmins out there who a very capable software
developers but I think it's a stretch attempting to call often simple
configuration languages and extremely short glue scripts programming. But hey,
as long as you're adding value, who cares what we're calling it.
------
wisty
Most sysadmins aren't LAMP (or LNMP, or LNPR, or whatever the flavor of the
day) programmers, who know how to make a todo list "pop". They aren't
javascript ninjas, who actually know how to interact with the DOM. They don't
know how build models of black holes, or self-driving cars, or make enemy
sprites hunt you down in an interesting way, or debug a GUI.
Sysadmins _do_ program. Their programs tend to be flatter (scripts, not
frameworks), but that doesn't mean they aren't programmers. They probably
can't build great frameworks, but not a lot of programmers can (but sadly,
they try - every big corporate project seems to grow into a badly thought out
framework).
If you pick any domain that's not "compiler design", you can probably make a
good case that they aren't really programmers.
~~~
michaelochurch
_Most sysadmins aren 't LAMP (or LNMP, or LNPR, or whatever the flavor of the
day) programmers, who know how to make a todo list "pop". They aren't
javascript ninjas, who actually know how to interact with the DOM. They don't
know how build models of black holes, or self-driving cars, or make enemy
sprites hunt you down in an interesting way, or debug a GUI._
Most software engineers couldn't do any of those tasks to the typical, silo-
enforcing business asshole's liking (i.e. it needs to be done yesterday). That
shouldn't matter. What matters is _the ability to learn_.
------
hhw
Sure, most people working as sysadmins can't code. Then again, most people
working as programmers can't code either. People who can really write good
code are few and far between.
The very best sysadmins are also good coders, and the very best coders are
also good sysadmins. The foremost experts on any operating system are the
developers that work on them after all. You can never fully understand an
operating system without reading the code, and you can't write the most
efficient code if you don't fully understand the entire stack the application
runs on, operating system included.
As for using tools instead of writing code, what it comes down to is what's
the best solution for the problem at hand. A good sysadmin doesn't need to
memorize ways to use tools; they know each of the tools well enough to make
full use of them. If a task can be done with a one-liner, and has a fixed
amount of work to be done, why would you spend more time to implement the same
in a programming language, when the execution time is insignificant relative
to the development time? Considering the slower higher level languages that
are popular nowadays vs the standard tools written in low level C, the
execution time may actually end up slower despite the execution savings in
running a single process instead of many.
~~~
tete
> The very best sysadmins are also good coders, and the very best coders are
> also good sysadmins.
I can agree on the first, but the second while surely true in cases is maybe
wrong for people doing something completely different, like are more into the
academic areas, in really abstract levels, doing big data stuff in completely
managed environment.
Think about planes. Someone who crafts and maintains them and is close to the
metal, maybe is a really good pilot too, because he knows planes in and out,
but while really good pilots probably know a lot about planes, they may be
focusing on stuff that is really, really far away from crafting one. Still
they could be among the most excellent pilots.
But then who is who, might depend on whom you ask.
I just really find it funny and that's something that kinda came across in the
article, how because sysadmins are frequently good in a field of programming
that by programmers is considered a field of masters, which are operating
systems and all this low level stuff that many programmers have to get to at
some point. In a way sysadmins have to do and shell scripts are pretty high
level. But it also really shows how it is a lot of two different mindsets.
------
dobbsbob
I've never met an openbsd/freebsd, solaris or old school unix sysadmin that
didn't have a total mastery of C/++ and scripting like perl. By total mastery
I mean debugging and even reverse engineering binaries looking for something
that was eating memory, and often completely rewriting some major program
parts to add security like old smtp and sendmail. The Sr admin I worked for
could quote K&R by memory and was a much better dev than the software
engineers there just he was a total neckbeard and didn't want to deal with
"politics" so confined himself to the sysadmin dungeon. He made more money
than them too
Just look at openbsd-dev mailing list. Most of those guys are sysadmins, like
the guy who wrote OpenBGP from scratch, the pf maintainers... basically all
Berkley forks were created by sysadmins.
~~~
4ad
Do you see many OpenBSD or "old school" sysadmins? I mostly see kids that
haven't touched anything but Debian and Ubuntu, think RHEL is too old school
and never heard of fork(2).'
Good sysadmins obviously exist, but in my experience they are a shrinking
minority.
~~~
dobbsbob
I think sysadmins period are shrinking. Most companies are just signing up to
cloud products and using feudal security. The only jobs I've seen locally here
advertising for sysadmins required that you had fluency in C/python.
Everything else is just a $14/hr desktop tech support position.
------
incision
As a set of bullets, I can agree with parts of this list, but the supporting
paragraphs of weird assumption and baffling generalization, not nearly as
much.
The phrase "I'm not a coder" can mean all kinds things coming from a sysadmin,
context is import.
If a sysadmin truly lacks the ability/confidence to write useful code, I'd
expect has more to do with the typical nature of the job and organizational
divisions than prejudices, hang-ups or fickle behavior of the sysadmins
themselves.
A role which is too often reactive doesn't leave much time for development.
Likewise, development towards the goals of a sysadmin (automation, insight,
reliability) too often lead sysadmins to unemployment due to misunderstanding
as the relationships between sysadmins who "don't do anything" and systems
that don't break.
I expect new businesses, particularly the type common on HN could be
exceptions, but in many organizations the preferred language of system
administration and those of software development don't align. As a result,
serious sysadmin code written in say Python as opposed to corporate standard
of .NET/Java is putting the sysadmin on an island and likely to be seen as a
threat/liability.
------
jrussbowman
Couldn't help but write a response -
[http://joerussbowman.tumblr.com/post/54602688494/why-
sysadmi...](http://joerussbowman.tumblr.com/post/54602688494/why-sysadmins-
dont-code)
~~~
hosh
This divide is a really fascinating to me. I feel like I'm watching a National
Geographic special.
"We don’t want to learn the latest IDE and develop best practices for working
with a version control system with other developers. Code reviews, strategy
meetings, QA reviews… what? No thanks, let the programmers get that stuff
done. They have 7 hours to commit to this project today, I have 45 minutes and
that’s only if all my KLO goes well."
Why do you feel this way? (Not a rhetorical question). Looking at it
superficially, I would guess that:
(1) You don't like the engineering part of software development, finding it
too tedious or something? (2) You feel like you're more badass for having to
get shit done in a much smaller time frame.
I read through some of the other responses and it seems to fall into this
general pattern.
~~~
incision
Not the parent and I don't totally agree with his position, but I can
certainly relate.
_> (1) You don't like the engineering part of software development, finding
it too tedious or something?_
I find the engineering of software fascinating. I've found the glacial pace
and ceremony of most software development teams I've been exposed to
unbearable.
I can't imagine this is intrinsic to software development, more likely a clash
of cultures and eras.
For example, during my longest stint in a sysadmin role (~10 years) I
supported and migrated between a continuously shifting mix of OS/2, Windows,
AIX, Solaris, NetWare and all sorts of Linux speaking SNA, IPX, TCP/IP on EoC,
TR etc.
I did this while accommodating and often clashing with internal developers who
had been working the same codebase the entire time.
Again, I don't mean to present this as something necessarily true of all
development vs administration as a whole, but I've seen it and heard similar
experiences related enough to think that it's not uncommon.
_> (2) You feel like you're more badass for having to get shit done in a much
smaller time frame._
Well, "badass" seems a bit condescending.
When a sysadmin needs to get things done in 20 or 45 minutes, there's a good
chance his job depends on it. Though they generally wouldn't choose to put in
positions like that, I have found that people who excel in the role are the
ones who can stay cool, thrive under intense pressure.
~~~
hosh
Interesting. Seems to me, the main thing is the pacing.
So what about, for example, video game development? It's infamous for
development to be in continuous state of crunch time.
~~~
incision
Coincidentally, one of if not the best programmer I've worked with was
previously a programming sysadmin for a big name in the games industry.
His stories corroborate what is often heard about gaming companies - that the
continuous crunch time isn't necessary so much a matter of exploiting an
endless supply of young, enthusiastic talent.
I'd certainly see myself having issues with that kind of environment.
The fast iterating development culture of many Internet-era companies
certainly sound nice, but never having worked in one, I'm not sure how of the
hype to believe.
~~~
hosh
I don't work for a game company, but yeah, I agree that the crunch time
doesn't work well. I've read articles about the correlation between that kind
of crunch time programming, and the general maturity of the artform. That is,
the guys (I remember the industry being dominated by males) who raise a family
and enter that stage of their life end up dropping out of the gaming industry.
Thus, games tend to be made by guys who haven't had that life experience,
willing to go into crunch mode, etc.
I brought it up though as an example of pacing. I'm trying to discern whether
it is the pacing itself, or whether it is the programming jobs you have tried
have been with organizations that have a lot of red tape, or whether it is
simply the engineering discipline that you prefer not to participate in.
As for the Internet-era companies, the fast iteration is something you tend to
see more in startups rather than startups that have matured into big business.
Iteration for the sake of iteration itself doesn't work very well either (John
Boyd "fighter pilot agility" vs. Agile Manifesto). It's also where devops is
coming out from, and proliferating back into mainstream IT.
------
nnq
The way I see it, in:
_Age 0_ , all computer users where actually _users_ and _sys admins_ and
_programmers_ and _EEs_ , then, when computers stopped being room-sized
monsters, in
_Age 1_ , all users were _users_ and _sys admins_ and _programmers_ (the Lisp
machines era is probably at the end of this age), then, when software became
actually usable by most non-programmers, in
_Age 2_ , all users were _users_ and _sys admins_ (the UNIX era falls in this
age), then, in
_Age 3_ , users started to be only _users_ \- or, more exactly, people who
were not programmers and sys admins started to actually use computers on a
large scale (the current era of Windows and Macs and everything else) - since
sys admins separated themselves from the users group long after the
programmers have, they are "philogenetically" closer to users than to
programmers ...also, this is why I think the "Linux desktop" dream took so
long to rise up, becase Unix systems by design ask users to at least be sys
admins too, and reward them to the max when they are sys admins and coders
too.
_Now, if anyone has any idea of what comes next, please share the
enlightening thoughts :)_
The only witty continuations I can think of is: Age N - humans are no longer
"using" the machines and they haven't done this for a long long time (well,
they do, but only in the sense that a plant uses the sun, water and earth to
survive), they are being used by them, grown in "human natural reservations"
for scientific study purposes and historical education purposes for machines
to remember how the beings that preceded them were like ...but hopefully
someone else has a brighter view on the future.
~~~
ams6110
You missed the mainframe era where from at least the 1970s forward you had
office workers by the score who were only users.
~~~
nnq
You're right, I think one may say that mainframes did the Age 2 -> 3
transition first, as it was kind of necessary for their use care, and then PCs
recapitulated history...
------
tehwalrus
small point: the author isn't saying "scripting languages aren't programming
languages", nor are they saying "you cannot write programs in scripting
languages" \- they're saying that _scripting_ \- a particular style of
program-writing - isn't programming, or put better "proper programming" which
is arguably true, especially if you're writing bash or IPython scripts, where
you have access to and make heavy use of shell commands.
That style of programming is very very different to regular compiled programs,
and practicing one and never the other _will_ lead to a bias, and relative
incompetence in the other. This is why I'm rubbish at chaining unix commands
together, because whenever I'm confronted by a problem that might need
something that complex, I just use python. I have the reverse problem to the
rhetorical sysadmin in the article.
~~~
popee
The point of sysadmin scripting is to automate stupid and repetitive jobs.
They are payed for that kind of programming. Also, it can be viewed as kind of
_hacking_ -> word that is not popular in most of enterprise environments. You
know it works, leave it alone :-)
~~~
Cobbler
Exactly, because sysadmins have time and luxury combined with training in
programming, they know how to make their jobs easiy.
------
tmcw
Why Programmers Can't Use Apostrophes Correctly
~~~
rythie
Or control comment-spam
------
popee
Some of best programmers i have met are, watch this out, sysadmins. And no,
they will not do your job :-)
On the other hand most of developers' knowledge is like swiss cheese, because
they don't know enough about underlying machine, they only want to deal with
abstractions and algorithms, so for example trivial things like where is
located config can be really tricky for them. As you can see, one could do
same article about developers, but what's the point on spitting on people you
work with? Ah, yeah, frustration :-)
------
stephengillie
This actually describes how I have approached system administration over the
past few years. I'm just now trying to change that. I'm embarrassed to say,
but I'm writing HTML for the first time -- in 2013, not back in 2003 when all
the cool kids were.
OK so I'm not a cool kid anymore. But I can be again, I just have to slog
through some tomes and actually build something cool. Isn't that what being a
nerd is all about?
~~~
alrs
The cool kids were writing HTML in 1993.
[http://www.w3.org/MarkUp/draft-ietf-iiir-
html-01.txt](http://www.w3.org/MarkUp/draft-ietf-iiir-html-01.txt)
------
od2m
Hi, I have been a Solaris/SGI admin (2 years) and software engineer (10 years)
in my life. The reason why sysadmins can't write software is this: Every day
sysadmin stuff like pulling cable, installing OS's, fixing printers does not
require someone whose super intelligent. But real IT work-- setting up domain
controllers, running a global corporate network, running a cloud service, etc
takes a fair amount of brains yet a lot of companies compensate their IT
departments as if they're well paid cable monkeys.
The skill sets for a good programmer and a good sysadmin overlap somewhat. But
you can make MUCH MORE MONEY writing software. In the early 2000's when I was
a sysadmin jobs in my area were paying 40k-60k a year. Programming jobs were
paying 60k-100k. So basically, poorly payed IT positions select out anyone who
could actually do a good job at them because those very people can make more
money writing software
------
ancarda
>SysAdmin’s are purists and have a lot of ego. Using a module or library is
akin to cheating.
I'm a programmer and I know how this feels. It's not about "cheating". To me,
I view it as "I can't be bothered to learn /how/ this works, I'll just use a
library". I can make a half-assed HTTP library, but in production, I'd
obviously use a real library. The important thing is I understand on a more
intimate level how HTTP works. That is invaluable in debugging as when I ask
myself "why isn't this working", I can think back to my own code and it often
helps to shape my understanding. I can think how the machine thinks as I
taught it how.
I'll often study other systems while building my own. It's all part of the
learning process to me.
It also provides deep appreciation for the effort that's poured into
libraries.
I've also done the same thing on the web; I used XMLHttpRequest and DOM apis
for years before I started using jQuery. I've never had a single complaint but
I've seen programmers who have gone right into jQuery and surrounded
themselves with abstraction and have had no idea how the system is behaving
and they get confused and frustrated. This leads people like me to view
libraries as bad; they are preventing people from learning how their systems
work.
Programmers today seem so lazy. I'm not really sure if that's the right word.
I see people using HTML 5 Boilerplate and they never seem to ask "Why is the
meta charset before the title tag?". I did. Now I know about UTF-7 XSS
vulnerabilities. I spent most of my day reading up on charset vulnerabilities.
With that knowledge, I patched several projects of mine. Sure, people using
Boilerplate would be protected but they wouldn't really know what from.
Perhaps I just think differently to other programmers. Maybe they just want to
get on with their work while I obsess over "how does this work?!"
~~~
vacri
It's not just that it's cheating, it's that it's less portable as well. A
self-contained script can be thrown anywhere. One that needs a library needs
to have the library taken with it. One thing that 'sysadmins' encounter than
'programmers' don't is a wide variety of systems with a varied install base.
The more portable your coding, the easier time you have as you progress.
Throw in that programmers work on more monolithic projects, getting the
libraries for those is (kind of) a one-time affair, but with sysadmins working
on smaller, multitudinous projects, you can end up with a raft of different
libraries to manage.
The real answer, as always, is 'be appropriate'. Often libraries are called
for, but sometimes they're to be avoided. It depends on the use case, or even
the library itself (we're currently using an abandoned one in production...
and there's some crossing-fingers going on as we don't have the resources to
fix it if there's breakage...)
------
vonskippy
And the flip side, why coders can't do the simplest of sysadmin tasks.
I've meet coders who couldn't spell "DHCP" let alone tell you what it does or
how it works.
They're two completely different job descriptions - why should one need to do
the other?
~~~
alephnil
They are different but also related.
Programmers that don't know basics about network are very often poor
programmers as well. Most programmers must be able to set up build servers,
test environments etc that they need. Of cause the sysadmin can do it for
them, but in that case they have to wait until he have time, and even then
they will get poorer understanding of the system. Also a lot of programmers
need to know network basics because their application has a network component.
It is also important for a programmer to understand what he need to make a
system administration friendly, like easy to install and upgrade, sensible
logs when things go wrong etc. They don't need to be able to take over the
sysadmin's job the next day, but should understand what the job is about.
Sysadmins on the other hand need to at least be able to script common tasks
and write plugins for monitoring software and be able do some customization of
the systems. They don't need to be able to, or use the methods for developing
large complex system, but I expect a good sysadmin to know programming and
scripting in some form.
------
Hovertruck
Why not link to the blog post directly? This link will break as soon as the
author writes another blog post about devops.
[http://cuddletech.com/blog/?p=817](http://cuddletech.com/blog/?p=817)
------
contingencies
When a sigh will not suffice, abstract it.
------
shirro
Part of it is just experience. As a sysadmin I was jumping from one task to
the next learning as I went. I never got the chance to be really crazily good
at any one thing. No sooner would I learn something and apply it and I was off
to put out another fire in a totally different area.
------
tete
I can so much agree. I pretty much went that way and a lot of it is true and I
wished I had done that earlier. Also I would recommend everyone to go this
way, because it makes some problems easier to solve for you, even if you stay
a sysadmin.
Other than that, I really wasn't a good sysadmin, actually I used to be a
really bad sysadmin, but still came from that direction. This however brings
me to another thing: Sysadmins aren't ever valued enough.
Everyone treats Sysadmins as second class IT people that can't code too well.
However, that's from my point of view not true at all. They usually code
"script" way faster. Their set of tools simply are different and designed for
people trying to reach different goals.
But there is more to this. As a programmer, you have your cozy, nice
environment, your nice specifications, your nice libraries, your basic
knowledge of data structures, etc and you have an easy way to be like "uh you
can do it that way. It's even cooler".
As a sysadmin you usually don't have anything to rely at all. You don't learn
too much at universities, that can be of help and while as a software
developer you basically have to just write code and make that work as a
sysadmin you are dealing with unpredictable systems, have maybe a single
system with multiple users, need to make sure none of these processes do
something bad, yet can do everything they may need to do, need to trace down
an error that is _somewhere_ , don't have a debugger, can't just quickly run
the code on your test system, have a way harder time to trace things down, but
then it doesn't have to be the one system, but could be a whole network of
such systems, the whole internet can be the source and you are pretty much
always in the battle field, in live systems and lots of attackers could
potentially attack every single thing and you basically need to know every
protocol, and every piece of software, every network connection and by heart.
It could be something very high level causing the problem, a faulty program,
the hardware, physics, whatever and you have to try to master chaos every
single day, while programmers usually just work with something simple and
often see it as a super hard problem when they are dealing with some input
from the outside.
I don't know, but it feels weird, when the bigger amount of math basically
causes your pay to be higher, when that very thing is actually making your job
easier.
I am a programmer myself. I love coding. I love my job and I kinda like to
brag a bit with it, but actually compared to many other jobs, like sysadmins
we are really overpayed, while way too often complain about bad sysadmins.
Being a sysadmin isn't just "apt-get install apache", but way more and way
intense.
Another thing that's also funny and strange is that scripting thing. The same
thing that often causes sysadmin to start out with ugly code is the thing that
makes sysadmin advance extremely quickly when it comes to code quality. Once
they really are programmers they know that a lot of code can be complex and
since they have skills in using many tools and not just use them, but use them
correctly (unlike most programmers tend to) they will usually turn out to
write high quality (less bug prone) code with the right amount of
defensiveness and in a way that brings some kind of order into chaos.
It's a hard way, but sysadmins are maybe a bit too much perfectionists to
realize that they would be good programmers and that hardly is recognized by
people starting out as programmers, who would make really, really awful
sysadmins btw. and no just because you set up a unix system and a firewall it
doesn't make you a sysadmin.
I actually even think that the devop thing is going partly into a wrong
direction. It works, but only if you are using Ubuntu. No, really. That's also
not a good thing in general, because it could actually push IT backwards.
Diversity is sadly not valued enough. Using the right tool can really push you
forward. And while we often seek for tools used by most people it ultimately
leads to stalling. Going into a direction where we have Ubuntu instead of many
Linux distributions, many Unices, many Operating Systems isn't good. There are
reasons for the creation of more than one and they didn't use to be as naive
as they frequently are today.
Also Sysamdins are very humble. One can actually see that by version numbers.
It's maybe a bit silly of an example, but they (and programmers working with
them) are extremely conservative about making a version sound like it could be
stable. If they try their hard to find anything to change or make better and
really can't think of anything then they will maybe call it 0.9 Alpha. On the
other hand, if they find something that is called 12.13.4.0 then the zero at
the end makes them really suspicious about the software being too unstable
(there is enough chaos already). If you know such software then it is probably
written by a person somehow related to sysadmin stuff.
However, there is one thing that would make Sysadmins really great
programmers: They are super pragmatic. They a´have a good sense of realism.
They know what's necessary and what isn't, as long as they are not afraid of
being punished for non-perfect/beautiful code. That means that they are good
at writing release-ready (feature-/stability wise) code.
However none of that is true for anyone who just switched. It's just hard to
learn what the right amount of quality really is and that it also is about
"beautiful code".
Well, so much about my experience. If you know a sysadmin that likes to code,
maybe help him and be nice. They are always complained about when something
doesn't work (even when it isn't their fault) and whenever something works
great it is the developers, marking people and so on who are praised.
------
junkilo
my response: [http://eleventymedia.com/](http://eleventymedia.com/)
------
michaelochurch
I really can't stand all of these silos that seem to exist for the benefit of
MBA-culture idiots who don't understand the first thing about computers, at
the expense of programmers.
"You can't X. You're a Y!" Well, _fuck you_.
All of this warring-camps idiocy, "hire a real X" nonsense, and all of these
damn silos, just exist so a bunch of people who aren't smart enough to manage
technology can feel like they understand shit. They don't. They hire some
$785/hour consultant whose diagnosis is, "you need better system
administration". So they go out and hire a sys-admin or two with a "track
record" and the problem is "magically" solved.
Programming was supposed to be the magic skill that allowed one to move
fluidly about the industrial/technological economy. It showed that you could
grapple with abstraction, learn quickly on your own, and get hard things done
and do them well. It conferred _mobility_ and job security.
Then those useless "be a team player and syngerize the verticals while the
rubber hits the road" monkey-morons came in and had to fucking siloize
everything, just to play a divide-and-conquer game, create the sense that we
were incapable of handling "the big picture", and reduce our bargaining power.
This distracts us from the fact that those people aren't at all necessary.
Good business people go out and solve important business problems; the bad
ones meddle in our affairs for intimidation's sake.
~~~
incision
_> Then those useless "be a team player and syngerize the verticals while the
rubber hits the road" monkey-morons came in and had to fucking siloize
everything, just to play a divide-and-conquer game, create the sense that we
were incapable of handling "the big picture", and reduce our bargaining power.
This distracts us from the fact that those people aren't at all necessary._
So true.
I worked in a largely silo-free environment up until about 2007. New
management transformed an effective ~25 person team into half a dozen kingdoms
of 30+ each in a little over one year.
I left and discovered just how unique my environment had been prior to the
regime change. It's hard for me to imagine how any organization which has gone
down this path can hope to reverse it.
It's desirable to both the managers who use it make themselves relevant and an
unfortunate majority of workers who take comfort in their pigeon-holes.
|
{
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
}
|
We Have Become a Police State, and None of Us Should Be Okay with That - plasticchris
https://www.dailywire.com/news/walsh-we-have-become-a-police-state-and-none-of-us-should-be-okay-with-that
======
yongjik
So cops shut down a well-intentioned but ultimately needless parade during
days of chaos and confusion about what are allowed and what aren't, and we're
living in a police state because of that. Sheesh. Has the author seen an
actual police state?
As long as Americans see the police force as an evil to be starved, instead of
a social necessity to be filled with capable people with proper training, the
police will never get the funding or oversight needed for improvement. The
cycle continues.
~~~
nickthemagicman
What if the police were wrong here though?
What if it violated our right to assembly?
Even if it was a needless it's a massive abuse of power and a constitutional
violation.
Virus or not civil liberties still exist as provided by the Constitution.
~~~
yongjik
> What if the police were wrong here though?
If the police is to do their job, they will be wrong sometimes. The only way
to make sure that they're never wrong is to keep them from doing anything.
Americans should stop acting like a pointy-haired boss running over sysadmins.
It's getting ridiculous.
Also, if you want to protest police brutality there are legitimate cases all
around the country. You don't need to sell made-up outrage.
~~~
nickthemagicman
Sure they can be wrong but they need to be held accountable and their failures
highlighted when they are.
------
david_w
No, no we haven't.
A police state is a one-party state whose domination is maintained through the
application of despotic force against the civilian population.
We, on the other hand, are experiencing a once-in-a-century, world-wide,
corona virus pandemic with a mortality rate at least 10x the normal rate of
corona viruses and which no one has immunity to because it just recently
jumped species.
Since the vast majority of ultimate victims of this disease are the old and
the infirm, we are undetaking a collective, other-sparing, selfless plan of
action.
No one is alarmed by this action. It says absolutely nothing about our form of
government and.what it says about our national character is inspirational and
affirming.
See the difference?
------
luxuryballs
I don’t expect it’s the activities themselves being likely to spread covid or
not that is the issue here. By driving people are taking the risk of a fender
bender or other situation like running out of gas where you may require help
in the form of contact with others. It’s risk aversion. Not sure I agree with
the shutdown but I get it.
------
dmh2000
So anyone who wants the federal government to take over direct action on the
coronavirus situation should think twice about having a federal police force
running things.
~~~
xkcd-sucks
It's like nothing at all was learned from the War on Terror
~~~
ironic_ali
Are there more than a few policians that did learn from it?
|
{
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
}
|
Show HN: GrammarGrizzly – For Serious Spanish Learners - ashrestha8
https://grammargrizzly.com/
======
ashrestha8
Hey HN! Grammar Grizzly
([http://grammargrizzly.com](http://grammargrizzly.com)) is a website that
helps Spanish language learners, make sense of and simplify learning grammar
by showing you what and when you need to learn or revise a grammar point with
endless examples and explanations.
Learning a language takes a lot of time, effort and strategy, while also being
pretty expensive. Most online resources focus on vocabulary and help you pick
up a few sentences for particular situations. Which feels good when you first
apply it, but leaves gaps in your grammar knowledge which are a pain to find
and fill down the road.
We help you prevent those gaps in the first place, learn new grammar and also
continuously review known grammar.
Key benefits:
* The grammar points introduced are accompanied by multiple example sentences that reinforce what you have previously learned. With almost endless examples.
* Each grammar point also includes links to other great free online resources to further your studies and cement what you have learned into memory.
* You also have the ability to review the grammar you have learned using a built-in SRS system. SRS stands for spaces out repetition system, that helps you review the grammar when you would have almost ‘forgotten’ it. An efficient and effective way to memorize things.
* The SRS system requires manual input to test your true understanding of the material.
* Start your grammar studies and track your study progress as you cover all of the grammar points from beginner to advanced. Currently there are only a few levels on the site but we will be adding several levels each week.
We are pretty early and are adding new grammar points, levels and features
daily, so any us hard feedback you have on ways to improve would be greatly
appreciated. Please drop us a line [email protected]
It is completely free to sign up and try, so why not take it for a test drive?
You can learn more at
[grammargrizzly.com]([http://grammargrizzly.com/](http://grammargrizzly.com/))
Thanks
Alex & Jake
|
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How the 'Ferguson Effect' Is Destroying Chicago - Evolved
http://nypost.com/2016/07/09/how-the-ferguson-effect-is-destroying-chicago/
======
dtornabene
Not sure why this is here, its guaranteed flame-bait, and, given its origin,
is also shockingly one sided. I'm a grandson of the city, I've lived here for
years, been coming here since I was born. My great grandfather literally built
a home here with his own hands, was a well respected doctor. My grandfather
was an alderman of a bordering suburb. I'm telling anyone willing to listen
this is garbage flame bait and I hope others will join me in flagging it.
------
Evolved
Original Publication by same author: [http://www.city-
journal.org/html/chicago-brink-14605.html](http://www.city-
journal.org/html/chicago-brink-14605.html)
------
carapace
This is a "reprint" from [http://www.city-journal.org/html/chicago-
brink-14605.html](http://www.city-journal.org/html/chicago-brink-14605.html)
~~~
Evolved
Thank you. I couldn't edit the link so I added the link to the original
source.
~~~
carapace
I agree with dtornabene's comment: Having read it, I find it highly biased, to
put it politely, to the point where I doubt its value. Flagged.
|
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3D printer 'gun parts' found in Manchester raid - jamesmoss
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-manchester-24666591
======
adamcooke
The items shown here are just components of the 3D printer itself. I'd say
they would struggle to create a gun from them!
[http://www.thingiverse.com/thing:52838](http://www.thingiverse.com/thing:52838)
&
[http://www.makerbot.com/blog/2013/02/22/replicator-2-extrude...](http://www.makerbot.com/blog/2013/02/22/replicator-2-extruder-
alternative-some-spring-in-your-step/)
------
quarterto
As noted in the comments on The Verge's article[1], these parts actually seem
to be replacement MakerBot parts. This feels like nothing but 3D printer
scaremongering.
[http://www.theverge.com/2013/10/25/5027282/uk-police-
seize-3...](http://www.theverge.com/2013/10/25/5027282/uk-police-
seize-3d-printed-gun-components)
~~~
tfinniga
It reminds me of an old joke I heard shortly after 9/11.
Did you hear that they confiscated knitting needles from an old lady before
she was allowed to board her flight? They were afraid she was going to make an
afghan.
------
mcantelon
I went to a protest once that featured, for some reason, a number of toy
weapons used as props: a completely non-functional "crossbow" made with a
bungee cord, etc. The cops seized the "weapons" and their statement in the
media made it sound as if they'd seized an actual crossbow, etc.
This raid story makes me think of this. It could be someone seriously
attempting to fabricate arms or it could just as likely be someone having fun
experimenting. At any rate, I am quite skeptical about the cop's grandiose
announcement that "today will be an important milestone in the fight against
this next generation of homemade weapons".
------
loup-vaillant
I guess the war on general computation has officially begun. I can't wait for
someone to propose a ban on home 3D printers to prevent firearm proliferation.
~~~
Wingman4l7
To put this in some context, Cory Doctorow has done talks / written pieces on
"The Coming War on General Purpose Computation".
------
timje1
Charles Stross's 'Rule 34' features a dark near-future setting with organised
criminals operating illegal, _unlocked_ 3D printers that are used to print
guns and child sized sex dolls. An interesting read for sure.
I assume the authorities will lock down 3D printers before they get good
enough to print functioning weapons. If you've got an IPrinter that only
builds licensed IObjects from the official IStore, this problem goes away for
authorities, and all we lose is our computing freedom.
------
intslack
>In theory, the technology essentially allows offenders to produce their own
guns in the privacy of their own home, which they can then supply to the
criminal gangs who are causing such misery in our communities.
Meanwhile, anyone can create a (subpar) .22 machine gun in their garage.
>If what we have seized is proven to be viable components capable of
constructing a genuine firearm, then it demonstrates that organised crime
groups are acquiring technology that can be bought on the high street to
produce the next generation of weapons.
Just like its namesake the Liberator is clumsy. Criminal intent or not, and
aside from the plastic aspect, people are going to prefer a weapon that's
actually reliable.
~~~
hahainternet
> Meanwhile, anyone can create a (subpar) .22 machine gun in their garage.
Really? This is your argument? That's like saying anyone can construct a nuke
in their basement so all explosives regulations are silly.
~~~
intslack
No, not anyone can just build a nuke in their basement. The Chinese struggled
for years until they liquored Richard Feynman up and he accidentally let an
idea slip that led to them getting the bomb.
Anyone that has a garage and tools can easily, and again I want to emphasize
easily, construct a makeshift shotgun or machine gun.
Your position is essentially the same one that enables the (never ending) war
on drugs. I don't disagree with gun and weapon regulations, but the UK and AU
stance is just laughable. Their violent crime per capita has somehow increased
as well making the UK the most violent nation:
[http://www.aic.gov.au/publications/current%20series/cfi/101-...](http://www.aic.gov.au/publications/current%20series/cfi/101-120/cfi115.html)
~~~
hahainternet
You didn't even read the summary:
> Rather than indicating a sharp rise in actual violence, however, this
> increase is largely the direct result of major changes to the way crime data
> are recorded in the England and Wales. First in 1998 and then again in 2002,
> amendments were introduced to include a broader range of offences, to
> promote greater consistency, and to take a more victim-led approach where
> alleged offences were recorded as well as evidence-based ones
Stop pushing an agenda.
~~~
intslack
Sorry, you are right, thought that study took into account the difference in
crime reporting. I'm busy deploying to a server and didn't bother to read the
summary.
>Stop pushing an agenda
Your assumption that I have an agenda is also laughable. I do not own a
firearm.
------
lwhi
Well - I guess we're going to have to licence use of 3D printers and make sure
that DRM is used to restrict what can be printed.
I suppose we'll also have to ensure that corporations have control, so they
can liaise with law enforcement agencies - after all, our safety will be at
stake without affirmative action.
Of course, there'll also be tangential effects: e.g. the technologies for
restriction will be able to be used to ensure that 3D printing IP can be
monitised ..
.. but of course there's absolutely _no way_ in the world that could be
anyone's primary concern. The powers that be are simply worried about our
safety.
------
forktheif
I'll admit I know next to nothing about this subject, but aren't the parts of
a gun which can be machine printed, also fairly easily manufactured using
widely available metal working tools?
Surely the hard parts of manufacturing a gun, would the the ammunition, where
you'd need propellant and percussion caps?
So, 3D printers don't really change things much, since they can only make the
parts that can already be fairly easily made, and can do nothing about
propellant or percussion caps.
~~~
roel_v
"but aren't the parts of a gun which can be machine printed, also fairly
easily manufactured using widely available metal working tools?"
No, it's quite different. A metal work workshop is not something the typical
urban criminal has access to. Yes, I realize there are many people in rural
areas who have such workshops, and shared workshops in urban settings, so
theoretically yadda yadda yadda, but the practical (socio-economic) reality is
that those who want firearms for criminal purposes in the vast majority of
cases do not have access to these tools, and/or lack the knowledge to reverse
engineer and adapt available plans for metal weapons, and manufacture them.
It's quite hard to make a metal gun using a traditional lathe and milling
machine, and even when using a high-end CNC.
3d printing on the other hand requires no more than the average high school
kid's computer knowledge, plus a few files downloaded from the internet. The
barrier to entry is orders of magnitude lower.
The costs are vastly lower, too - you can get started printing a gun (although
I don't think guns made on MakerBots today will actually work) for ~ 1000$.
That is not much more expensive than a weapon on the black markets costs (to
those who have access to such a market). You'd spend an order of magnitude
more on a metal workshop, and that's not even counting the materials and
auxiliary tools.
------
tomp
Assuming that most organized crime groups exist either to facilitate
prostitution, betting, or sell drugs, we don't we just legalize all of that
and "price them out of the market"?
~~~
roel_v
The guns mentioned in this article are not very useful in either one of those
3; at best in the 'peripheral' aspects of the drug business.
Apart from that, the reasons are different for all 3:
\- prostitution: grounds for prohibition are based on 2 'prongs' as it were:
the moral aspect, it's quite clearly a matter of fact that a large amount of
people find prostitution per se morally reprehensible. Secondly there is the
argument that many prostitutes are being forced into their work. Empirical
evidence shows in countries around the world that legalizing prostitution does
not (completely) take away human trafficking and sex slavery. So, the argument
is, if we prohibit prostitution, there will be less of that sort of suffering.
\- betting: this is based on a protect-people-against-themselves theory. Since
betting is addictive to some people, these have been many cases in the past
where people were driven to ruin by it. Furthermore, there are many 2nd degree
victims - the families and children of gambling addicts, society at large for
the damage they do to fund their addiction, etc. So again the reasoning is -
let's prohibit gambling, then these will go away.
\- drugs: well this is actually similar to betting; its effect might also
compromise somebodies' health, but the fundamental reason is protecting people
against themselves from something of which they cannot quite assess the
effects when they start on it, and are unable to detach themselves from when
they get into problems.
Then again, I think you and anybody else with a 'normal' intelligence are/is
perfectly capable of coming to these conclusions yourself, and you were just
deliberately being obtuse; but just to get this pseudo-anarchistic discussion
out of the way before it really gets started, I thought I'd point out the
obvious.
~~~
tomp
> Empirical evidence shows in countries around the world that legalizing
> prostitution does not (completely) take away human trafficking and sex
> slavery. So, the argument is, if we prohibit prostitution, there will be
> less of that sort of suffering.
But does legalizing at least _reduce_ human trafficking and sex slavery? If
so, then the inverse follows: by allowing prostitution, there is less of that
sort of suffering.
Prohibiting gambling: same thing - gambling happens regardless of whether it's
legal or not. If it's legal, the government can at least tax it significantly.
Prohibiting drugs: I don't think that the government is smarter than me; cars
are dangerous, and scalpels are dangerous, but we don't prohibit them, we
simply require people to educate themselves first before they can use them. I
think the same could be done with drugs; in fact, it would be better than the
current situation where noone really knows what effect drugs have.
> you were just deliberately being obtuse
Well, up until this point I thought your comment was very thoughtful, but here
it went from good to terrible; you know, people with "normal" intelligence can
disagree as well. Unfortunately I already up-voted you.
~~~
roel_v
Look, I'm not defending any of those positions, frankly I think most of them
are stupid, so I'm certainly not going to get sucked into a position arguing
for them. But is it really worth it to ask 'hmm, why would prostitution be
illegal?'. There have been 1000's of man-years of work put into that - start
at scholar.google.com, then continue in your local universities' library, and
one could spend every waking hour the next 40 years studying past discourse on
it and still not be done. Those questions have been rehashed and researched
1000's of times deeper than anything we could every write here. Masquerading
the questioning of the obvious as a question does not add to the vast majority
of discussions. But yay, let's reduce every news item to 'hmm, does morality
really exist?', and drown the actual new things about those items in
tangential hemming and hawing, because putting a little bit of effort into
trying to get some basic knowledge about a subject before partaking in a
public discussion is too much work.
Normally I wouldn't even has responded if it weren't for this
"you know, people with "normal" intelligence can disagree as well"
Of course, that's the _whole point_ of my comment, that it doesn't take much
empathy to see why some people would feel it just that society enforces a
prohibition of those 3 things! If even _I_ can understand why some people feel
that way (of course you'd have to know me IRL to get the implications of
stressing that), it shouldn't be hard or even take effort for a 4-9's
proportion of the general population to do so. By using a glib ' _I_ don't
see, within my moral framework, why they should be illegal, therefore it's
stupid that they are' argument, the GP is denying _exactly that_.
Then again I'm just a grumpy misanthrope so what I do know...
------
zimbatm
The article is really a stretched out version of a single piece of
information: all we know is that somebody might be creating a 3D printed gun.
How surprising !
Citing a "police raid" and making links to gangs is just a dramatization that
doesn't bring anything. Where's the evidence that there is a link to a
criminal activity instead of just being a hacker who's curious and got busted
because he order the wrong set of components from Amazon ?
~~~
martey
> _Citing a "police raid" and making links to gangs is just a dramatization
> that doesn't bring anything._
The article notes that the parts were seized as a part of the Greater
Manchester Police's "Operation Challenger", which targeted "drug dealers, loan
sharks, rogue landlords and counterfeit good suppliers." [1] It is likely that
the owner of these parts is was not targeted for creating guns on their 3D
printers, but for other reasons.
> _Where 's the evidence that there is a link to a criminal activity instead
> of just being a hacker who's curious and got busted because he order the
> wrong set of components from Amazon ?_
I think it is extremely doubtful that they just happened to buy plastic
components that could be used as a trigger and magazine from Amazon while
simultaneously owning a 3D printer (that could be used to construct said
components).
[1]: [http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-
manchester-24660056](http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-manchester-24660056)
~~~
tfinniga
> I think it is extremely doubtful that they just happened to buy plastic
> components that could be used as a trigger and magazine
Agreed. However, those parts aren't able to be used as a trigger or magazine.
One of them hooks onto the back of a 3d printer, holding the spool of plastic.
The other one can be attached to the print head to help feed the plastic into
the nozzle.
In no way can they be used as a trigger or magazine. Coincidentally, I have a
similar spool holder on my desk right now.
~~~
martey
I hope that the GMP's tests mentioned in the original article prove this.
Ideally, the BBC would update their article if this occurred, but I assume
they will not (based on previous articles that they have written that have
turned out to be incorrect).
At the same time, I think assuming that these parts were seized while their
owner was doing nothing wrong may be naive.
------
3838
thought it was easy for some people to get real guns in manchester, unless
those days are gone
~~~
noir_lord
Some people perhaps (career criminals with deep connections in the sphere).
I suspect it's a lot harder for your average man in the street.
~~~
JonnieCache
Even for career criminals it's vastly more difficult and expensive than the
newspapers would have you believe.
Hence:
[http://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=Rebore](http://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=Rebore)
~~~
noir_lord
Oh undoubtably, one of the governments successes over the last decade has been
to get gun control back under control.
Crimes involving a gun are down by half over 10 years (they set up some
special task force to police firearms as well as working in Europe with
partner countries where the guns where coming from).
------
qwerta
When articles like this pops out, it means that soon 3D printers will get
regulated to oblivion.
UK is crazy, even pocketknife or pepper spray is forbidden. And this country
has one of highest violent crime rates in Europe.
~~~
retube
> UK is crazy, even pocketknife or pepper spray is forbidden. And this country
> has one of highest violent crime rates in Europe.
Umm, that entire sentence is total bullshit. UK has no way near the highest
violent crime rates in Europe. Look it up. Plus pepper sprays and pocket
knives are common place. You can buy them anywhere.
~~~
qwerta
[http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1196941/The-
violent-...](http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1196941/The-violent-
country-Europe-Britain-worse-South-Africa-U-S.html)
search "pepper spray self defense":
amazon.co.uk: 151 results, mostly books, none of them actually usefull
amazon.com: 1,812 results
~~~
retube
The Daily Mail.... ha ha whatever.
------
veganarchocap
Of course it would be in Manchester wouldn't it... I promise it wasn't me.
------
veganarchocap
Wait... I hope that wasn't my dealer :(
------
TausAmmer
You silly, organized crime have guns, they are not playing with 3D printers...
------
Apocryphon
Begun, the clone wars have.
|
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Every Volvo Will Get In-Car Cameras to Combat Distraction and Drunk Driving - bookofjoe
https://www.caranddriver.com/news/a26893035/volvo-interior-cameras-distraction-drunk-driving/
======
tomohawk
Driver gets in wearing wrap around sun glasses...
~~~
bookofjoe
Now THAT'S funny
|
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After raising $13M on Kickstarter in 2014, Coolest Cooler is shutting down - bgrynol
https://www.theverge.com/2019/12/9/21003445/coolest-cooler-update-business-tariffs-kickstarter
======
jmccorm
I managed to swing one of those as an “Amazon Warehouse Deal” for $75,
shipped. Honestly, it was nothing short of a steal at that price. The Coolest
Cooler had just so many clever features and accessories, but it was anything
but clever when it came to manufacturing costs with all the custom moldings,
accessories, bulk. and weight.
Somewhere was a website which attempted to break those costs down. No question
that the engineering team put functionality and features first and cost
second. The company needed to sell in volume to survive, but the final cost
was just too high for that to happen. They seemed to have been slowly clawing
their way back, but _I do believe them_ when they say that new tariffs were
the final straw which killed the dream.
I am truly sorry for backers. They were sold on the promise of so many clever
features never before jam-packed into in a single cooler. (The only thing I
would have added were larger rear wheels.) But it just wasn’t the right
product brought to life by the right company and at the right cost. Some
backers were strung along _for years_ and really got screwed.
Still, you better believe that I consider myself lucky. I’m going to keep this
monster for the rest of my life. Now if I only could have gotten my “World’s
Thinnest Watch” from 2013 that raised over $1M on Kickstarter and failed to
deliver _anything_. I know how it feels, and it sucks. Kickstarter isn’t a
store, but I swear that some projects do their damndest to blur that line, you
know?
~~~
merkul204
what is the thinnest watch you are speaking off? Is it nove.com? they claim to
have the thinnest watch
~~~
jmccorm
CST-01: The World’s Thinnest Watch (0.8mm thick)
[https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/1655017763/cst-01-the-w...](https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/1655017763/cst-01-the-
worlds-thinnest-watch)
I believe they ran into problems with their manufacturing partner, and also
with some of their batteries bulging. They had very good intentions, but I
believe the project became too big for this enthusiastic but novice team to
handle. Also: Lots of failed components pre-assembly.
Too bad, really. A flexible e-ink watch embedded into a metal wrist band
should have been achievable and quite a fantastic product!
------
bgrynol
Only 2/3 of orders shipped and many customers left without having their order
fulfilled
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Futures, promises, asynchonicity, and concurrency - iamwil
http://www.michaelharrison.ws/weblog/?p=198
======
gtani
good summary decks [[ Warning, PDFs!!! ]]
[https://github.com/leithaus/talks/blob/master/SideBySideComp...](https://github.com/leithaus/talks/blob/master/SideBySideComputingModels.pdf?raw=true)
[http://www.slideshare.net/twleung/a-survey-of-concurrency-
co...](http://www.slideshare.net/twleung/a-survey-of-concurrency-constructs)
[http://spectrum.ieee.org/computing/software/the-trouble-
with...](http://spectrum.ieee.org/computing/software/the-trouble-with-
multicore/0)
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Joxa: Lisp dialect on Erlang VM - kungfooguru
http://joxa.org/
======
nieve
I'm interested by what seems to attract people to a VM/runtime enough to re-
implement another language on top of it while preferring a new language to
whatever the VM's flagship is. Sticking just to Joxa and the more common ones
showing up here, the claimed motivations[0] seem to be:
Joxa - fault tolerance; concurrency/scaling; "tool set in which to build
DSLs"; (A Lisp on Erlang VM)
MagLev - native code & data persistence scaling to very large stores;
distributed cache; heavily optimized JIT (Ruby on Gemstone/S Smalltalk VM -
<http://maglev.github.com/>)
Clojure - multithreading; Java library access; portability/scaling (A Lisp on
JVM - <http://clojure.org/>)
JRuby - performance; multithreading; Java library access (Ruby on JVM -
<http://jruby.org/>)
Jython - performance; Java library access/extension; optional static
compilation (Python on JVM - <http://www.jython.org/>)
Parrot/Rakudo - Such an oddball case (and not a reimplementation) that I'm
reluctant to toss it in here, but the Parrot VM is explicitly designed for
multiple languages (Perl6 - <http://rakudo.org/how-to-get-rakudo/>)
All three VMs have been around for quite a long time and been the focus of
huge engineering efforts, but none of the re-implementations seem to have
displaced the originals or the VM's default language[1], so my question is
whether there's _any_ re-implimentation that did? The obverse (replacing the
old VM/compiler for a language with a new one) isn't uncommon what with all
the browsers that have done it, the huge changes in the JVM, etc. and usually
those end up being complete swaps, so is there one decisive factor that makes
the difference?
[0] Ignoring the obvious, worthy, and most importantly fun factor of "because
it would be cool" [1] [1] Arguably in the case of the Lisps there's no
original to displace. [2] JSLinux, anyone?
~~~
pjmlp
Because some people are not able to master several languages and prefer to
always use the same regardless of the task at hand.
------
mahmud
How does it compare to Robert Virding's LFE (Lisp Flavored Erlang)?
<https://github.com/rvirding/lfe>
~~~
semisight
Just at a quick glance, I think LFE is a Lisp-2? At least, it bears more
resemblance to Common Lisp than Scheme. I don't see any 'funcall' function
though, so I could be wrong.
~~~
ohyes
Erlang vm is a lisp 2.
To me this looks like a not as well developed version of LFE.
~~~
cyberlync
It depends on what you mean by not as well developed. If by that you mean
maturity. Probably, its much newer and has just had its very first early alpha
release.
------
gus_massa
Add a code sample to the home page. It gives an instant feeling of how the
language is. Does it have long-scheme-like-names? Do you have to sharpquote
the #’functions? ...
~~~
cyberlync
I will do that (its a great idea by the way)
Yes it does have scheme like names. No you do not have to sharpquote. Its a
lisp 1 not a lisp 2
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Adventures in integrating payment services as a Dutch business - primigenus
http://blog.quplo.com/2010/08/adventures-in-integrating-payment-services-as-a-dutch-business/
======
papaf
This is similar to my experience - a paypal alternative that doesn't suck
would be awesome.
One problem they have is being Dutch and not being supported by many services
because of that. I believe anybody in the EU can start a UK company (cheaply)
and company directors are allowed to live abroad. Your company needs a UK
office address but that be provided as a service along with mail forwarding.
~~~
primigenus
Unfortunately that would also mean getting our money in pound sterling,
something we'd rather avoid. If there are no better options out there we might
settle for it, but I'm betting HN can come up with something before then.
------
olalonde
_Shameless self promotion_
That's the kind of pain we are trying to solve at <http://PayFacade.com>. We
offer a unified payment API that let's you connect seamlessly with many
payment providers in a mouse click. We also recommend the best payment
provider for you depending on your country, monthly revenues and typical
transactions.
~~~
primigenus
Looks cool, and I'd love to try you out, but I need a production-ready service
whereas it looks like you're still in beta.
------
tomh-
try <http://cardgate.com/>
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Updating Our Open Source Patent Grant - spicyj
https://code.facebook.com/posts/1639473982937255/updating-our-open-source-patent-grant/
======
zaroth
To those relieved that Facebook open source discussions will no longer be
dominated by PATENTS file discussion, I just would point out, is was exactly
the persistent complaints which motivated Facebook to make this change. So I
would say _thank you_ to everyone who complained about the language in the
original grant. It shows exactly what is possible when a determined group
persists in vocalizing their grievances.
Today it's Facebook PATENTS, tomorrow maybe it's nation-wide automatic license
plate tracking. One thing is for sure, staying silent never changed anything.
It's a ridiculous comparison, I know, but never underestimate the ability of a
small group of determined rabble-rousers to make a difference. A small
incident with some tea in a large body of water comes to mind.
~~~
spcoll
_> Today it's Facebook PATENTS, tomorrow maybe it's nation-wide automatic
license plate tracking. One thing is for sure, staying silent never changed
anything._
On political issues, the three-letter-agency-mandated bots/shills in the
comments of mainstream news outlets and on mainstream social media sites
(twitter/reddit) will always be louder and more numerous than us.
It's only on issues that the powerful don't really care about that democratic
change is possible.
EDIT: To the downvoters: may I know why you are downvoting me? Maybe you
believe I'm a tinfoil hatter? Maybe you think governments, who have been
controlling media "narratives" for as long as media has been a thing, don't
care about social media even though it is dead easy to manipulate? Maybe you
don't know that this has been heavily documented for a while, and is really
happening on a large scale, all the time?
~~~
yulaow
Maybe are the governments those who are downvoting you.
~~~
aptwebapps
Really, I don't know why the GP is getting all bothered, it's just a bunch of
bots, obviously.
------
dynamic
[Lawyer, but not a patent lawyer]
I was perplexed by the uproar on HN about the original patent language (in the
thread announcing the release of React Native [1]). This kind of open-source
patent license--which, in effect, allows Facebook to use its patents against
users of React defensively but not offensively--is exactly what we need more
of in the open source world. Why did people think that their defensive patent
license was somehow worse than the industry standard (the MIT or BSD copyright
license with no patent license, which made patent rights murky at best)?
But this new language eliminates the major limitation on the original
language, which was that the license would be terminated if you attempted to
invalidate one of Facebook's patents or defensively argued that it was invalid
or unenforceable (or even, according to a strict though implausible reading of
the language, if you publicly stated that the patent was invalid).
Glad to see Facebook paying attention, even if the original complaint was
overblown.
[1]
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9271246](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9271246)
~~~
ploxiln
Also try to understand that a lot of software engineers, like myself, would
rather that the source code license not implicate or involve patents at all.
Let the lawyers argue about the patents; I don't want to accidentally hobble
the ones on my side or arm the ones on the other side, I don't want to
accidentally harm other open-source contributors, I'd rather not be involved
at all.
(In the BSD vs GPL debate I'm pro-GPL, but not GPLv3, because it involves the
patents...)
~~~
dynamic
I'm a developer as well. And I am politically opposed to software patents and
would prefer that software not be patentable.
But I'm confused by your statement that you want the license not to mention
patents because you want to leave patent issues to the lawyers. The license
isn't software code, it's legal code--it's what the lawyers are arguing about!
If the license doesn't mention patents (and doesn't imply a particular grant
of patent rights, which like I said is an open issue), then you haven't chosen
"nothing." You've chosen the default: the patent holder retains all rights.
~~~
ploxiln
That's right, the default. (but also, see teraflop's comment about ambiguous
implied patent license)
It seems that any variation either hurts my defense or comes off as aggressive
(which is what happened to facebook).
In a hypothetical situation where the patent language matters, it's total war.
Multiple concurrent lawsuits in opposite directions, ITC injunction requests,
etc. Maximum pain to make the opponent capitulate. None of these patents are
really valid anyway, it's either math or implementation detail. There's no
reason or logic here.
Better to make no statement, leave the default unsaid, and stick your head in
the sand, it may keep you under the radar of involvement.
------
DannyBee
I'm very glad Facebook was willing to take a step back here, evaluate people's
concerns, and update the grant to address them. Most companies, when placed in
the same position, would simply double down and tell people to go pound sand.
The fact that they didn't, and in fact, actually talked with folks and
addressed this head on, speaks volumes about them as a company.
~~~
throwaway41597
edit:
They actually kept a large part of the previous license. The new license will
terminate if you initiate: "any Patent Assertion [...] (iii) against any party
relating to the Software".
So if you sue any React user for infringing any patent, even unrelated to
React usage, your license for React will terminate. On the other hand, if
Facebook uses your Apache 2.0 software, their license to your patents
terminates only if they sue people for using your software. Isn't that
asymmetric?
/end edit
Isn't there a loop-hole though? With the new license, if a FB affiliate sues
you, you can only countersue the affiliate. So if FB asks an affiliate to sue
you (maybe they sell the affiliate a couple of patents for instance), you
can't counterclaim against FB, you can only counterclaim against the
affiliate, which may not have a product.
Is that correct?
Thanks for raising awareness about the previous license. The new one
definitely seems better.
~~~
DannyBee
It is asymmetric vs Apache 2.0, but that's like saying GPLv3 is asymmetric vs
BSD.
Past that, to be honest, there are always "loopholes" in all of these licenses
related to transferring patents to entities/etc. Given any open source
license, i can come up with a valid legal way for an entity to sue you over
patents in it. But at some point, you have to trust that isn't the spirit/goal
of the license, because if it is, you are kind f*cked anyway. That point, has,
IMHO, been reached here now.
Otherwise, it's generally not a sane problem to solve in licenses. It's an
insanely complex area due to the ways it can happen. You generally don't want
to try to shove all that in one document, it'll be a mess, and you'll never be
able to update it for ambiguities discovered or change it with the times as
law changes (OSS already has a large enough problem rev'ing licenses)
Things like transfer problems are better solved by things like
[http://www.lotnet.com/](http://www.lotnet.com/), et al, which have specific,
well thought out and targeted agreements.
Yes, it makes it harder to tell your likelihood to get screwed, in the sense
that you have to know not only the actual license, but whether they are a
member of LOT or whatever, but i honestly can't see a good way around this.
~~~
throwaway41597
Thanks a lot for your answer. The part about loopholes explains a lot. But I
don't quite agree about the asymmetry.
If you use React, doesn't it basically mean that you de facto license all your
patents to Facebook whereas Facebook licenses those required strictly for
React? With Apache 2.0 or GPLv3, you would only de facto license patent
covering the software and the author would de jure license theirs. With BSD,
there is no de facto licensing from you, as termination doesn't relate to
patent suits. If so, the new grant is okay for people who don't have patents
but it seems unsuitable for those who do. Less patent suits overall would
certainly be a good thing but this condition seems very one-sided.
~~~
DannyBee
"If you use React, doesn't it basically mean that you de facto license all
your patents to Facebook whereas Facebook licenses those required strictly for
React?"
No. The only patent grants _you_ give are through CLA's. Otherwise, i'm not
sure i follow the concern?
~~~
throwaway41597
Say you use React and own patents. If you ever sue someone over patents, it
may terminate your React license in the case where the defendant uses React.
You may not even know it and keep using React happily after termination.
Later, you can't sue Facebook without them countering that your use of React
has been unlicensed since termination. Is this a valid concern?
While rereading the grant, I even wonder: (1) does the termination in the
grant mean termination of the copyright license as well? (2) asserting any
patent against "any party relating to the Software" could include end users
since they receive the same license and grant.
------
chamakits
This is what true commitment to open source looks like. Many companies may
have remained silent about this and never address it. Their projects where
already popular enough that they didn't really need to address the concerns
that many had about them.
But they did. And I'm sure it wasn't a trivial effort from whoever worked on
getting this amended. So I applaud Facebook and the people that worked to
address the communities concerns.
------
themgt
I think the key bit is _Notwithstanding the foregoing, if Facebook or any of
its subsidiaries or corporate affiliates files a lawsuit alleging patent
infringement against you in the first instance, and you respond by filing a
patent infringement counterclaim in that lawsuit against that party that is
unrelated to the Software, the license granted hereunder will not terminate
under section (i) of this paragraph due to such counterclaim._
In other words, it's an explicitly defensive capability they are reserving -
to revoke your patent grant iff you are the one to initiate a patent suit
against them. If every open source project included such a statement, it could
potentially do a lot to end software patent wars.
~~~
sulam
I don't think I follow the logic. Most of the "bad" patent lawsuits are from
companies that don't make any software. Not being able to use React (or even
Linux, let's say) would hardly be a problem for them.
~~~
tomjen3
I am sure that we could find some open source software that they use. Surely
they have a website? That almost certainly use Jquery, right?
------
scarboy
I'm glad that facebook fixed this solely for the fact that facebook open
source software discussions will not be dominated by the contents of the
PATENTS file.
~~~
sangnoir
Or possibly to increase the uptake of their projects at other large
corporates: thereby increasing mindshare/developer goodwill. Don't tell me
that Fb doesn't want to put up IBMs logo on the "who uses React" page
~~~
evincarofautumn
GP seems to mean this:
> I’m glad (Facebook fixed this). I’m glad (solely for the fact that […]).
You seem to have read this:
> I’m glad (Facebook fixed this solely for the fact that […]).
~~~
sangnoir
Thanks - you're right about how I parsed GP's text! Apologies GP.
------
SloopJon
Here's a diff from the osquery project mentioned in the post:
[https://github.com/facebook/osquery/commit/159899a303d0859eb...](https://github.com/facebook/osquery/commit/159899a303d0859eb7c3768561544c48ccea42b3)
------
watty
Thank god! This means every Facebook (React) thread on HN and Reddit won't be
half filled with patent arguments.
~~~
loceng
I'd much rather spend my energy supporting an idea or effort than having to
state objections for why it might be bad - as would I hope most who are
inventors and wanting to improve the world around them.
------
fuzzybunny
Can anyone comment on whether corporate M&A departments are concerned with
this license? An aquirer would either have to rewrite much of the code of
their newly acquired startup, or they would lose the ability to initiate a
patent suit. According to [1], Google is not able to use React. How much of a
concern is this when considering a new aquisition?
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9271246](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9271246)
~~~
jamesgpearce
NB that post pre-dates this change.
~~~
fuzzybunny
The scenario I'm worried about may still be a valid concern under the new
license.
Here is the scenario:
1\. Google decides to buy my company in 2016.
2\. They ask me to purge my codebase of React, so I switch to Angular.
3\. Some years later, Google decides to sue Facebook over a blimp route
optimization algorithm.
4\. Facebook responds: "Well Google, one of your subsidiaries used React back
in 2015 before you bought them, and now that you're suing us, that grant is no
longer valid, so you're now liable for infringements on our React patents."
So with that scenario in mind, Google chooses to pass on buying my company,
leaving some smaller acquirers, and maybe Facebook as possible buyers.
Please tell me this is not how it works. I would love to use React, but I
can't bet the farm on this without more assurance.
~~~
tomjen3
INALIDEPLT: That is not how it works - a termination of the licences means
your license is no longer valid, much like you can have any other agreement
terminate but that doesn't mean it wasn't valid in the past. It would
essentially be the same as if you had a license that was purchased for X years
- you can't use it more than X years, but that doesn't mean you can't use it
during that period.
~~~
mcintyre1994
Sorry it's a bit off topic but what does that acronym mean? Your post is the
only result for it on Google!
~~~
tomjen3
I am not a lawyer I don't even play one on tv.
Also apparently I now rank on Google for something; that is pretty cool.
Edit: of course, I also fat fingered that one - the l should have been an o.
------
oe
Waiting for some Lawyer to explain why they think this is or isn't great. But
mostly out of interest. The old patent grant never prevented me from using
their projects.
------
marcofiset
What does this whole patent thing mean? I'm not well-versed at all about
licenses and patents and the technical jargon of the file is mostly non-sense
to me. Would someone care to simply explain what this implies?
~~~
nemothekid
From what I can understand from [1][2][3], is the previous patent clause meant
that if you and Facebook got into patent litigation, any open source software
you used that was written by Facebook would be revoked (opening you up to a
license breach). This was scary because Facebook owns a ton of patents and if
Zuckerberg woke up on the wrong side of the bed one morning and decided to sue
everyone with their portfolio of patents, it would be impossible to countersue
if you used any Facebook code. The other posts go into how companies like
Google and Facebook use patents as a way of ensuring mutually assured
destruction, and if Google had used Facebook code under the license it would
be like Google disarming all their nuclear bombs against facebook.
IANAL, but it seems the new license is a bit more GPL-esque in its
restrictions by saying if you use this software than you cannot sue Facebook,
its subsidiaries, and your parent weapon of choice can't be based off Facebook
software (or else you lose the software license). However if Facebook sues
you, then you don't lose the license and you are free to counter sue facebook
with your nuclear arsenal of patents.
The reason I call it GPL-esque is it seems to introduce restrictions on how
you can legally use the software once you've incorporated it (like how the GPL
prevents you from not redistributed the source code), the Facebook license
seems to prevent you from launching patent claims that are built off Facebook
software. My guess is that if enough people used this license it would be
difficult to litigate anyone else without revoking some of your software
licenses.
Finally, I never took a law class a day in my life and the closest domain
knowledge is an intro to econ class I took in freshman year of college so I
could 100% wrong.
[1][https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9271246](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9271246)
[2][https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9111849](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9111849)
[3][https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9113515](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9113515)
~~~
themgt
Yep, it's effectively a viral (or at least infectious) patent grant.
------
danschumann
I think this is an upgrade. The patent as worded before made it seem like if
Facebook sued you, you couldn't both defend yourself and keep your license. In
this version, it seems, that you only lose your license if you are the first
actor in a lawsuit.
Any legal people to verify what I said?
------
linuxhansl
Why not just use the ASF 2.0?
[https://www.apache.org/licenses/LICENSE-2.0](https://www.apache.org/licenses/LICENSE-2.0)
It comes with a patent grant.
~~~
tomjen3
Also, as far as I know, not compatible with the GPL.
~~~
pluma
Not compatible with GPLv2, but compatible with GPLv3:
[https://www.apache.org/licenses/GPL-
compatibility.html](https://www.apache.org/licenses/GPL-compatibility.html)
------
yizi
I don't see how this makes everything okay to use now? To me it basically
means, if I sue Facebook for any reason involving patents, I would have to
give up using its code. I invent a time machine, Facebook can infringe on my
patent and I can't sue unless I stop using their code. Please tell me I am
wrong.
~~~
Rapzid
It reads to me like the patent grant license is revoked. So yes, but maybe
not? Does facebook even have patents applicable to react?
------
choppaface
The patent language in the previous FB license seemed pretty similar to the
patent language in Apache 2.0. Can anybody comment or link to a discussion of
why the FB language was undesirable? And why not change Apache 2.0 in the same
way? (Confused)
------
cmwelsh
Can you sue Facebook for patent infringement and still use React.js?
What I mean by that is... do you actually need this patent grant to use
React.js? Since React.js is BSD licensed, can you distribute a fork of
React.js that does not include this file?
~~~
pluma
Without an explicit patents grant, you're not granted any patents and
therefore could be sued for patent infringement if the software is covered by
any patents owned by Facebook.
Also, I think the "license" (in the legal sense) for React consists of both
the LICENSE and the PATENTS file, so in order to re-distribute the project
you'd still personally need to obey its terms.
There's also the problem that the requirements for a "derived work" (which
could be distributed with your own license) are more complex than "change a
bunch of files", so if you simply slap a new license on someone else's project
the new license is not necessarily enforcible and you may be infringing their
copyright.
Basically, IP law can not easily be gamed (case in point: legally speaking
there's nothing wrong or unexpected about patent trolls).
------
raquo
> A "Patent Assertion" is any lawsuit or other action alleging direct,
> indirect, or contributory infringement or inducement to infringe any patent,
> including a cross-claim or counterclaim.
Does "action" has any special legal meaning here? It almost seems that you
can't write a _blog post_ about facebook infringing on any patents.
~~~
fncypants
Yes it has special meaning that lawyers tend to forget confuses laypeople. A
legal action is a term of art that means a legal proceeding such as a lawsuit
or a petition at a gov't agency. From Black's Law Dictionary:
Lawful pursuit for justice or decision under the law, typically leading to
proceeding within the jurisdiction’s court system. An entity accuses another
for a unlawful action, to protect an entity’s rights from violation
------
stephengillie
Off-topic, running this URL thru Get-Webcontent (aka curl for Powershell)
produces an interesting pattern:
[http://i.imgur.com/2vjxq8G.png](http://i.imgur.com/2vjxq8G.png)
------
serve_yay
I wonder what will be the next scapegoat non-technical reason not to use it :)
~~~
jakejake
This may not have been an important issue for you, but many of us actually
have to pay attention to licenses. There are components out there that I would
very much like to use, but can't for licensing reasons. Having Facebook
respond and make changes is quite welcome.
~~~
serve_yay
So, this was really all that was keeping you from using React, then? That's
great to hear.
~~~
jakejake
You presume that I haven't used React. I also use and release GPL code,
however I can't use that at work either.
|
{
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
}
|
Assembly programming for Perl programmers [video] - nanis
https://fosdem.org/2016/schedule/event/assembly_and_perl/
======
Paul_S
It's a nice intro to assembly but there's no link to perl. The talk could be
titled assembly for ruby programmers.
~~~
nanis
Agreed. It was useful for me as I did a lot of Z80 a long time ago, and then
some x86, but no amd64.
|
{
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
}
|
Subresource Integrity and Upgrade-Insecure-Requests Are Now Supported in Edge - robin_reala
https://www.troyhunt.com/subresource-integrity-and-upgrade-insecure-requests-are-now-supported-in-microsoft-edge/
======
ahazred8ta
He links to the browser SRI test page
[https://reporturidemos.azurewebsites.net/sri-
test](https://reporturidemos.azurewebsites.net/sri-test)
|
{
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
}
|
Ask HN: What should an Internet “Bill of Rights” include? - rblion
======
angersock
More upvotes, for one.
More seriously, I think that a few things are in order for services:
1\. Information collected about a user must _always_ disclosed ahead of time,
and such explanations must be _always_ worded succinctly and clearly.
2\. Information collected about a user is _always_ available to be downloaded
by that user--there should be no cases where a user is not able to replicate
what their service has collected about them. Note that this does not include
secondary, derived information (for example, statistics calculated from the
data collected).
3\. The sharing of a user's information must _always_ be disclosed before it
happens, and the user given a straightforward opportunity to disallow that
sharing (perhaps at the cost of their continued service).
4\. A user must _always_ be able to request _all_ data gathered about them or
derived from data gathered about them be expunged from a service. Population
statistics calculated from this data do not have to be altered.
5\. A user must _always_ be allowed to create new accounts without having to
link them to pre-existing accounts--in effect, anonymous accounts.
|
{
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
}
|
Russia Getting Rid of Capital Gains Tax - cwan
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/business/10349679.stm
======
johnwatson11218
I want to repeat a point that I read in one of Jim Roger's books. He was in
favor of repealing all capital gains taxes simply to allow individuals an
option in the fight against inflation. The example is of a person who has
enough cash for 100 cheeseburgers. They decide to put that money in something
like gold. The government prints lots of money causing inflation and the
nominal value of the gold is now much higher. If the investor sells the gold
he still has enough money to buy 100 cheeseburgers. However the government
will say that he has a net capital gain and must pay tax. Jim Roger's point
was that without capital gains tax people could put their money into any form
that they thought would preserve their wealth better than fiat currency. With
capital gains we all become speculators trying to beat inflation and still
realize a net profit after taxes.
~~~
lowkey
I get the point, and agree with it somewhat. However, this truly seems like a
perfect example of treating the symptom while ignoring the cause.
Since this is all theoretical, wouldn't it make more sense to just stop
governments from stealing the wealth of the people through the hidden
'inflation tax?'
~~~
goodside
Vague complaints about "inflation tax" do not contribute anything constructive
to monetary policy discussions. No one disputes that excessive inflation is a
regressive and unsustainable tax. Currency collapse is almost always caused
by, or at least mediated through, governments using inflation to pay debt (or,
more accurately, to partially default on debt). Preventing this is the primary
reason modern central banking exists. Even those opposed to this solution
still support its goal; the "End the Fed" movement wants less inflation, not
more.
Nobody--whether left, right, liberal, or fascist--thinks inflation is a good
way to finance government. The only disputes are how to prevent it from doing
so, as those in office have constant incentive to favor short-term stimulus
over long-term stability, and how to balance such restraints against other
goals like preventing deflationary shocks and making monetary inflation
reflect growth in the real economy.
Suggesting we stop taxing with inflation instead of minimizing its drawbacks
is no more helpful than saying, "We should start preventing murders instead of
building prisons," or, "Let's reduce the violence in Afghanistan instead of
endangering more of our soldiers."
------
RockyMcNuts
If you invest in a kleptocracy, capital gains tax is the least of your
worries.
If you don't kowtow to the right people, murky authorities seize your business
on trumped up tax charges, and anyone who fights dies mysteriously in jail.
[http://dealbook.blogs.nytimes.com/2009/11/18/hermitage-
capit...](http://dealbook.blogs.nytimes.com/2009/11/18/hermitage-capital-
lawyer-dies-in-russian-jail/?scp=1&sq=hermitage&st=cse)
~~~
dennisgorelik
No capital gain taxes is important for internal Russian businesses. It would
boost Russian economy.
------
endtime
Not sure this is hacker news, but if it is, could we skip the blogspam and
link straight to the article
(<http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/business/10349679.stm>)? The blog post doesn't
add any value.
~~~
boucher
It does embed that absolutely hilarious Cato Institute video.
~~~
chasingsparks
Center for Freedom and Prosperity is not Cato; it is not a Cato Institute
video.
~~~
boucher
The person speaking in the video identifies himself as an employee of the Cato
Institute, it's not hard to imagine why I made the mistake. Not to mention the
fact that half of the board of directors (and some of the listed experts) of
the Center for Freedom and Prosperity work for or have worked for the Cato
Institute.
In any case, you are correct, the video was created by the Center for Freedom
and Prosperity, and I apologize for the error.
------
rms
It's not enough to get me to do business in a country lacking rule of law.
While I respect the functioning of the Chinese economy, I also wouldn't start
a business there for the same reason. Usually I am comfortable with risk, but
shakedown by government under threat of extreme lack of liberty, torture, or
death is a risk that really messes with my expected value calculations.
~~~
fgf
It's misleading to compare china to russia like this[1], commercial law in
general (IP rights being an exception) is paid more respected in China than in
Russia. As a businessman in the former you don't face the risk of "shakedown
by government under threat of extreme lack of liberty, torture, or death" in
Russia the risk to both your property (apart from IP) and personal safety is
considerably larger (and less predictable).
[1][http://books.google.com/books?id=YlKYLRjcoi0C&pg=PA39...](http://books.google.com/books?id=YlKYLRjcoi0C&pg=PA39&dq=%22Rule+of+law+in+Asia%22&ei=hcIASqy4KKGeygSpzf2vDQ#v=onepage&q=%22Rule%20of%20law%20in%20Asia%22&f=false)
~~~
rms
I'm aware that China is safer to business people than Russia, but I still do
not trust the CCP enough to do business with them. Look at what happened with
Google.
~~~
borism
what happened with Google? They left themselves AFAIK?
~~~
fgf
You're right, "what happened to google" was neither unpredictable nor
unavoidable. The decision to stop cooperating with the CCP was commendable
(and probably good for the shareholders too) but they were not _forced_ out.
------
Ratufa
Since, as the blogger put it, "The former communists running Russia apparently
understand tax policy better than the buffoons in charge of U.S. tax policy.",
he must be in favor of the US having a VAT, like Russia does.
~~~
petercooper
I'm not accusing you of this, but a common misconception I've seen from
Americans is that VAT is "yet another tax." It's (usually) not. In California,
I was paying 8.25% sales tax (and this can go up to 10.75% with some local
sales taxes added) and in the UK I pay 17.5% but there are _no_ sales taxes,
and certainly not any "local" ones I need to be aware of. A can of coke that
costs 60p in London costs 60p in Edinburgh too.
~~~
jerf
Most Americans who are A: informed enough to know about VATs and B: against
their introduction here are concerned that it _would_ be instituted as just
another tax here. Resistance would be lessened if there was a credible promise
to simplify the rest of the tax code (not eliminated, but lessened), but I
don't know who has the moral authority to make such a promise right now,
whereas I have a pretty clear idea who has the legal authority to institute a
VAT. The motivation for it being discussed in the US is not for it to be a
revenue-neutral modification to our tax code.
~~~
yummyfajitas
An additional problem with VAT is that it is mostly transparent to the people
being taxed.
If you raise my taxes with VAT, I'll notice prices of assorted goods going up
slightly, be too lazy to add up the various cost increases. If you raise my
income taxes, I'll immediately notice that I'm $2000 poorer than I was before,
and maybe I'll vote for the other guy.
~~~
jerf
Your argument is what I was thinking of when I said "not eliminated, but
lessened". I'm against it for that reason too, but I am pretty sure many
people are resisting simply because it would be a tax increase.
I also think that the stealth nature of the tax is the actual reason it is
being discussed, but I figured that was getting political, and what I posted
was fairly defensible on (relatively) objective grounds.
------
mcritz
Interesting article. I guess the author wants America's economy to be as sound
as Russia's?
~~~
fgf
High taxes does not make an economy sound; a sound economy economy makes high
taxes possible.
------
muhfuhkuh
Spurring investment in a country whose economy subsists almost solely on oil
and coal controlled by former soviet Politburo officials and their hanger-on
thugs, who then "nationalize" and otherwise stifle outside competition. Then
they all hole up in their high-rise Onion domes in Moscow while the rest of
the country fights for the scraps in an all-grey market economy.
Sounds like a sound business plan to me. Where do I sign?
------
lsc
note, cutting capital gains only helps you when you sell (or when you are
getting investment on the promise you will pump up the company and sell.
for those of us who plan on holding, lowering capital gains does not help. i
have to pay income tax on all my income, like any other working schlub.
------
chasingsparks
I'm curious, do many people here subscribe to Dan's blog? He was formerly my
boss.
~~~
rortian
No, but I am curious, what is this guy like in person?
~~~
chasingsparks
Equally sarcastic and condescending, but far more nuanced. It's a requirement
of people who work for think tanks or politically motivated organizations --
on both sides of the isle -- to over-simplify. For people who study politics,
economics, or whatever, it's infuriating. At the same time, you almost can't
expect anything else; democracy is a game where you win when you have the most
(marginal) voters. You enlist them easier through anger than rationality;
Rationality requires work on behalf of voters.
~~~
rortian
Haha, thanks for that. I'd like more about the person, but I appreciate the
rational of his ridiculous tv persona.
------
xenophanes
Breaking News!! Protests break out by people who sold investments yesterday!!
(Just kidding. The value gain to existing investments from this new law will
only cause a small immediate jump in prices, and the rest will ramp up
gradually over the days before the change goes into effect.)
~~~
stretchwithme
wouldn't it make more sense, assuming they are trying to incentivize
investment, for this change to apply to investments made after the change
takes effect?
~~~
cma
Big assumption. The motivations are probably more akin to the US's 1998
_retroactive_ copyright term-length extension.
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Crunching the numbers on a Techcrunching - blacktar
http://fr.anc.is/2012/08/20/crunching-the-numbers-on-a-techcrunching/
======
c1sc0
Simon Tabor says it the way it is:
<https://twitter.com/simon_tabor/status/237180987350609920>
|
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Executive Leaves Apple After iPhone Antenna Troubles - credo
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/08/08/technology/08apple.html
======
SkyMarshal
I obviously don't know what's going behind the scenes, but I question the
wisdom of ousting someone who makes such a mistake.
Constantly pushing the technology/design envelope as Apple does seems prone to
the occasional snafu. Having engineers and managers on board that have
personally experienced such problems and solved/triaged/otherwise dealt with
them seems valuable. Firing them runs the risk of creating a chilling effect
toward risk taking, as well as lobotomizing some valuable experience from the
company.
Now, maybe the executive was let go because he knew about the antenna problem
beforehand, misrepresented its severity to Jobs, and launched the product
anyway, in which case, yeah let him go. I recall some speculation that Apple
knew about the problem before hand.
But for honest mistakes, with no deception involved, that hurt in the short
term but are solvable and no more than a blip in the long term, maybe that's
not so wise.
Thoughts?
~~~
mishmash
Your theory makes sense, but if this is true, he _fucked up the iPhone_ and
man, even if letting him stay would create a better executive, increase value
to the entire company, etc., I just flat can't see Jobs letting him stay in
any manner at all.
~~~
sprout
That sort of thinking is really stupid, and much as I dislike Apple I do
believe their management is smarter than that.
~~~
jad
I believe it's called 'accountability'.
------
siglesias
This may signal that return rates for iPhone 4 have exceeded expectations and
that iPhone 5 development will have to be accelerated. I can't see this
happening if the antenna situation hadn't had a significant financial impact
as manifestation of customer dissatisfaction.
That's unfortunate because many of us are awaiting the latest OSX iteration,
and Apple is a company that doesn't really focus on more than one major
product release at a time, based on personnel limitations and so on.
~~~
flatulent1
The two people that I know that upgraded (from G and GS) both say that overall
reception is better than before and they love their phones. We're in a hilly
area. The phones are still sold out in many places, I can't believe there is
any significant financial hit over this.
Certainly any revisions to later production and next model antenna design
would have no impact on the timetable of whatever OS X and iOS projects are in
the works. If anything siphons talent within Apple, it'd probably be those
continuing to improve iOS for iPad in particular. Although the iPad is doing
extremely well, being so new they're no doubt working very hard to make things
better yet. Apple is working hard on many fronts. Their projects are planned,
so there's no reason to expect any significant unforeseen migration of
engineers between projects.
Realistically, the biggest thing that drives some people away from the iPhone
is AT&T. (on a personal level it is about general dislike of the company not
any actual service problem, it's similar to how some have grown to feel about
Microsoft. I had the feeling even before the iPhone came out) If Apple can
expand to another U.S. carrier without a significant loss due to changed AT&T
terms, we could see a real change in the financial picture... more growth.
The comment about "many of us are awaiting the latest OSX iteration" puzzles
me a bit. While I'm sure Apple will add some cool new things in the future,
without knowing what they are can you really be chomping at the bit? Apple
certainly does work on development of many things at one time. Release timing
is determined by many factors beyond engineering.
As far as hardware updates go, I think more people are interested in watching
Mac hardware iterations as improved Intel chips come out. But for the bulk of
consumers the existing chips are plenty powerful. I'd probably most like to
see third parties (including open source projects) make more use of the
excellent support for using multiple cores and GPUs in the OS. In particular
I'm thinking of VLC and ffmpeg (which is the basis for many video utilities).
~~~
matwood
You can add a 3rd person to your analysis. I've had the iPhone 2G then the 3GS
and now the 4 and the 4 has the best signal of the 3 by far.
In my experience all the cell phone companies in the US suck. Go to any of
their message boards and you'll see the same complaints over and over. The
nature of Apple tends to draw a lot of hype from both sides and that certainly
spills over to AT&T. Personally, I had zero problems with AT&T when I lived in
the south east. When I moved to Denver I just happened to move into a dead
zone and would lose calls constantly. I used the mark the spot app and
complained a few times and they apparently did something on their end to the
point where I can't remember the last time I dropped a call now.
------
credo
From Gruber's comments in
<http://daringfireball.net/linked/2010/08/07/papermaster> , it appears like
some folks at Apple are spreading the word that Papermaster was fired and that
he was responsible for the problems.
It is unclear whether Papermaster will respond to the rumors or whether he'll
ignore them.
------
jsz0
Maybe the antenna issue played some role but keep in mind he was an IBM old
timer (26 years) coming into a _very_ different company. Imagine what his
first day was like? I'm not sure it was a good fit. So there may be a lot more
to this than the obvious knee jerk reaction of trying to connect it to the
last notable event in our minds. With all the different people involved in
launching the iPhone including Jobs himself it just seems unlikely to me
they'd pick this guy to walk the plank for it. If he wasn't meshing with the
culture before all this it could have been enough to push him over the edge.
------
macmac
"Reached on his cellphone, Mr. Papermaster declined to comment." - so now we
know he already got a job at Nokia.
~~~
jrockway
Haha, I was going to make the same comment. However, for the HN audience, I
wasn't going to add any commentary. The comment, in its entirety, would have
been:
_Reached on his cellphone, Mr. Papermaster declined to comment._
------
00joe
He did make a comment, however the way he was holding his phone dropped the
call.
------
rbanffy
We know very little about the design process that led to the iPhone 4 antenna.
It's very hard to guess how much blame, if any, Papermaster has on the design
flaw and where, in the continuum between "he was fired for covering his ass"
or "he decided he could not work with the kind of external interference in the
design by Ive or Jobs that caused the problem", this decision happened.
------
ravichhabra
Jobs really spend a large amount of time on the Antenna during launch. And he
ended up looking pretty bad, and someone must have been responsible for making
him think he could go ahead and talk about in during launch. If he had known
about these issues I am sure he would never have dedicated a full 5 minutes on
this 'magical antenna design'. Perhaps he never said anything about the
antenna, than the reports might have been different. Jobs himself put the this
under the microscope.
------
gigafemtonano
I suspect Apple never caught this call dropping issue due to the fact that
everyone who had one of these new 4G iPhones was required to keep it in a case
when they were field testing them. Wasn't the phone that Gizmodo got their
hands on in a big case that made it look like a 3GS? How can anyone but the
people who insist on this secrecy be responsible for the fact that the field
testing seemed like everything was working fine?
~~~
mattparcher
This is a common misunderstanding. In fact, Apple showed members of the press
specially-equipped vans that they use to systematically test reception in the
field under a variety of scenarios, in addition to the dozen or so anechoic
black rooms they have indoors. [1]
[1] [http://www.engadget.com/2010/07/16/inside-apples-black-
lab-w...](http://www.engadget.com/2010/07/16/inside-apples-black-lab-wireless-
testing-facilities/) (among others)
~~~
gigafemtonano
Simulated and real world are two different ball games. In the real world tests
with sh- er um crappy AT&T signal strength, they were testing in privacy
cases. Ideal tests in the anechoic chambers or iVans were just that - ideal.
|
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Joe Rogan moving podcast to Spotify, becoming an exclusive - shadowtree
https://twitter.com/joerogan/status/1262812859983151104
======
mariocesar
The announcement video
[https://www.instagram.com/p/CAYSqQLFP_l/](https://www.instagram.com/p/CAYSqQLFP_l/)
|
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Show HN: Chrome Extension that shows image properties on hover - KiDoki
https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/ngadjednajjomdjagknebelhmcjggklk
======
KiDoki
There's source available at <https://github.com/KiDoki/Image-Resolution>
|
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Values of N acquired by Twitter - theantidote
http://www.valuesofn.com/blog/2008/11/fork-in-road.html
======
theantidote
Too bad they're shutting down their services, they were really cool although I
never really used them consistently.
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The ‘Mad Genius’ Mystery - never-the-bride
https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/articles/201707/the-mad-genius-mystery
======
nilskidoo
I think it's just entropy in action. Structures invariably show their cracks,
whether it's a marriage or a society or any other institution. Age beats
idealism into place. The world is more and more tiring the more time we
partake in it. We grow weary of our jobs, our politicians let us down, and our
religious leaders let the hypocrisy slip. Sometimes it leads to defeatist
thinking, and sometimes it leads to drastic changes, like the proverbial
midlife crises.
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Weltschmerz](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Weltschmerz)
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hikikomori](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hikikomori)
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Acedia](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Acedia)
~~~
jondubois
>> Age beats idealism into place.
This is true. Also, it's practically impossible for idealistic people to make
an impact in this world. Nobody who has power trusts idealists because they
are difficult to predict and impossible to control. You can't just throw money
at an idealist to keep them in line with your financial interests; they are
unreliable cogs in the engines of capitalism.
Those who succeed in this society are opportunists who pose as idealists. They
are people who can selectively signal idealism when engaging with the masses
but who can also clearly signal opportunism when engaging with the powerful
few.
That's why hypocrites rule the world.
~~~
GuiA
Don’t you think that we got things like women’s suffrage, paid vacations,
democracy, public healthcare, free public education, modern medicine,
engineering, etc precisely because idealists can have an impact?
~~~
ianai
Much of what you said doesn’t have idealistic roots. Democracy is by nature
pragmatic, for instance. Engineers and physicians will generally employ
whatever tool works best as well.
~~~
GuiA
_> Engineers and physicians will generally employ whatever tool works best as
well._
That’s a common myth amongst people who fetishize “science”. Boltzmann
committed suicide over the pushback on how outlandish his theory of the atom
was. Ignaz Semmelweis was ignored and ridiculed when he pushed for surgeons to
wash their hands before operations and finished his life in an asylum.
Engineers and physicians will only employ whatever tool works best as long as
it fits their conception of the world and what is socially acceptable at the
time.
As far as claiming that democracy is by nature pragmatic, that’s a statement
that’s going to need a lot of arguments to support it, in a time where many
support eg China’s communist party as an example of “pragmatic” government.
~~~
jondubois
It's refreshing to hear this point of view with some notable cases to back it
up.
I'm tired of hearing people saying how efficient the markets are and how great
the system is at rewarding talent and hard work and all that "you make your
own luck" bullshit. History books are littered with examples of
mathematicians, scientists and engineers who were being ignored or ridiculed
for purely social reasons.
In fact, it almost seems to be the norm. It shows just how stupid we all are
and that we all ought to eat humble pie.
When we come up with new laws and regulations, we should always factor in our
collective stupidity.
I don't think we can say that markets are objectively efficient when a bunch
of monkeys operating under shared social delusions get to set the price of all
things based on those delusions.
------
usgroup
I think it’s often a forgone conclusion that mathematical brilliance not born
of a just hard work and normal ability often comes as a specialisation rather
than as a superhuman power. I.e. genius to normal intellect is what a GPU is
to a CPU.
------
keithpeter
Isaac Newton was doing chemistry with a range of nasty heavy metals for
_years_. A sample of his hair was analysed some time ago and found to contain
significant levels of lead [1].
Boyle, Cavendish and their cohorts investigated a variety of sources and were
not empiricists in the modern sense. Remember that they had e.g. no concept of
yeast, bacteria, and yet saw the daily baking of bread and brewing of beer.
Not surprising perhaps that they saw similar processes in the chemical realm?
A flavour of the times slightly earlier can be seen in the use of astrology
for medical purposes [2]
[1]
[https://web.pa.msu.edu/courses/2008spring/ISP213H/welcome/we...](https://web.pa.msu.edu/courses/2008spring/ISP213H/welcome/welcome_assets/newtonHair.pdf)
[2] [http://theshakespeareblog.com/2014/06/shakespeare-and-the-
al...](http://theshakespeareblog.com/2014/06/shakespeare-and-the-alchemists/)
------
nabla9
One thing that fascinates me how their 'mechanistic' viewpoints reflects into
their morals and ethics.
People like Grothendieck and Grigori Perelman, and others often stand alone
against customs and norms and they get really disappointed at some time when
they realize that other people don't just act morally against all odds if they
know it's right thing to do. People with mentalistic viewpoint have
inclination to follow the opinions, lifestyles and prejudices of their time
and place even if they have the clarity to see the wrongs.
You can see the same in more functional form in people like Einstein or
Bernard Russel. Bernard Russel spend a year in China because his clarity of
perception was hurting all causes and alienated him from everyone.
------
jimhefferon
The parts about Grothendieck are interesting.
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Implementing an MP3-decoder in Haskell - mqt
http://blog.bjrn.se/2008/10/lets-build-mp3-decoder.html
======
mark_h
If you liked that, you might be interested in jpeg decoding in Haskell:
[http://citeseerx.ist.psu.edu/viewdoc/summary?doi=10.1.1.25.6...](http://citeseerx.ist.psu.edu/viewdoc/summary?doi=10.1.1.25.6522)
I also found this literate source while looking for that paper again; cool!
<http://www.imperialviolet.org/binary/jpeg/>
------
yan
That is one of the coolest articles on Haskell I've seen in a while. Touches
on most things I find interesting: data parsing, signal analysis, compression,
and a realistic implementation of a not-so-trivial program.
------
gills
Cool article! I took a class on compression about a year ago and taught myself
Scheme by implementing the algorithms in it. Functional style really worked
well with those algorithms.
------
zandorg
I wrote an MP3 renamer in Common Lisp that gets MP3s, figures out the length
(in seconds) and looks it up on CDDB/FreeDB.
Quite a pleasure and a nice little program.
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A cartoon to make sense of the current financial crisis - furiouslol
http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-9050474362583451279
======
Ardit20
If Money comes from debt, then what's the credit crunch crises about? If
anything they would be richer rather than go out of money.
An interesting question is indeed though as to why is it not the government
who lends money?
|
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Douglas Engelbart : The Mother of All Demos (1968) - willfarrell
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JfIgzSoTMOs
======
willfarrell
It blows my mind that the functionality of his programs are better then some
applications found today. His first example; A task list with drag and drop
nesting ability (there's an app for that). Groups the items by location (It
think I saw something like that in iOS 5). With a click it shows his route how
with quick links at each location to the items he needs to pickup (I haven't
heard of an app for that).
Seriously, how is this not built into my cell phone yet?
~~~
sp332
I feel the same way about the "Alternate Reality Kit" from 1987
<http://www.open-video.org/details.php?videoid=8050>
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Ulefone Power 5 – Android Phone with week long battery - bane
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3aADeK-bSMU
======
gaspoweredcat
i had one of the earlier models of these but like most devices with MTK chips
from Chinese OEMs it couldnt live up to its claims, it wasnt a terrible
battery life but by no means did it manage what they said it could (or what
would be achievable with a decent chipset and quality battery)
its kind of sad that the smartphone with the best battery life is 2 years old,
even the advent of 7nm chips hasnt seen anything even close to the lenovo P2s
running time
|
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Sinclair: The TV Movie - PaddyCorry
http://www.guardian.co.uk/technology/gamesblog/2009/jun/30/games-gameculture
======
zavulon
I am really looking forward to this.. Sinclair ZX Spectrum was my first
computer, and I taught myself programming on it. It had a great feature where
every key was assigned a BASIC command, which made programming really easy for
an 11 year old :-))
~~~
Luc
Sir Clive is one of my heroes, despite the Speccy being obviously inferior to
the C64... Go and listen to 'Hey Hey 16k' if you haven't already:
<http://www2.b3ta.com/heyhey16k/>
|
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NeXTCube Serial Number AA001032 (1993) - ConstantineXVI
http://simson.net/hacks/cubefire.html
======
ConstantineXVI
In light* of the Surface's magnesium-based construction, this seemed relevant.
Only other Mg-based computer (case) that comes to mind.
[*] sincere apologies for the pun
~~~
spiralpolitik
I think some Sony Vaio Laptops circa 1998-1999 used Mg for part of the casing.
|
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The H Index for Computer Science - scott_s
http://web.cs.ucla.edu/~palsberg/h-number.html
======
hprotagonist
The cyclist's equivalent of _h_ is _E_ , the Eddington Number.
the largest integer n such that one had cycled at least n miles on n different days.
It is painful in both cases because it's a measure of reliable work, not most
overall impressive work. If you write 16 papers and 15 of them are cited 15
times and one is cited 2000 times, your h is still 15!
[http://www2.lowell.edu/users/jch/mtb/e.html](http://www2.lowell.edu/users/jch/mtb/e.html)
~~~
medymed
Maybe an alternate distribution would be some number n such that there is one
paper cited at least n times, at least two papers cited n/2 times, at least 3
cited n/3, up to n=10 or so. Allows for a bit of a tail and still easy to
remember and calculate. Could dramatically shift weight toward people
publishing multiple landmark papers.
------
kepler1
What will the keepers of this index say to the social justice criticism that
it's unfair to track this metric because it discriminates against women and
minorities who don't get chances to publish as much?
~~~
tensor
I'd say it's a good way to measure discrimination, among other uses. If the
average h-index for a given group is significantly lower than other groups, it
could indicate a discrimination problem. Ceasing to measure the problem won't
make it go away.
------
alphagrep12345
Why maintain it? Why not just use google scholar/semantic scholar?
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3Blue1Brown – Essence of Calculus - jmstfv
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WUvTyaaNkzM&list=PLZHQObOWTQDMsr9K-rj53DwVRMYO3t5Yr
======
mrcactu5
this book seems to complement the earlier HackerNews book about the "Calculus
Made Easy" \-- that is certainly the book I first learn from... it really
tries just to get the basic ideas across without being too careful.
I look at it now, this book is wonderful.
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14161876](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14161876)
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How You Can Invest In My Deals - _pius
http://www.fourhourworkweek.com/blog/2013/09/23/youd-like-to-be-an-angel-investor-heres-how-you-can-invest-in-my-deals/
======
ljd
The investment pitch is interesting and while I own my own startup I don't
think I have the knowledge it takes to take a page of text and determine if I
should invest, even if the sum is small.
Regarding Shyp, it would be great to imagine a huge untapped potential market
around "the first mile" problem but it's hard to see the market there.
For example, in almost any sized company I've worked in, FedEx or UPS would
pick up daily from the office for free. So there is a ceiling for this to
become B2B and there is already distribution and experience doing this with
other carriers such as FedEx and UPS.
Also, I've been able to print shipping carrier labels on packages before and
have them picked up directly from the carrier for free so there is already a
mechanism there for residential albeit I don't know the details for this
program.
But more importantly, while I hate taking my packages down to a UPS store as
much as any one else, I rarely do it. And making it easier for me doesn't mean
that I would do it more. It just means that it would be easier to do it a few
times a year. Which is a scary thought for a business; to think that perhaps
you are entering a market that has no room for growth and that the best thing
you can do is take a small market away from a large company with more
potential to squeeze your margins.
I wish Shyp the best of luck, and if this company is successful it's just a
testament to how I probably don't have the wisdom to take a page of text and
make a decision on whether or not it will be successful.
EDIT
\-----
I've done some more research and here is what I found:
For $10/week (Flat) UPS will pickup daily from your house [0]
For $5.50/pickup UPS will do a one time pickup [1]
[0]
[http://www.ups.com/content/us/en/bussol/browse/pickup.html](http://www.ups.com/content/us/en/bussol/browse/pickup.html)
[1]
[http://www.ups.com/content/us/en/shipping/time/service/value...](http://www.ups.com/content/us/en/shipping/time/service/value_added/oncall.html)
~~~
pbreit
I pretty much never sell on Ebay because I envision the shipping pain. I think
you also missed the point that they pack it up for you, too. And that you get
FedEx/UPS-like service at USPS prices.
~~~
jonnathanson
Indeed. As a frequent seller on eBay, Craigslist, and other markets, I can
testify to how big a deal the "first mile" problem really is. Finding time to
package something properly, take it to a UPS or FedEx or USPS outlet, and get
it out the door is a serious PITA for the time starved.
Big, big need with a large TAM, in my opinion. Logistically, it seems very
hard to scale. But the potential is there.
~~~
rschmitty
Wife sells on ebay constantly. She's a Dr, not a stay at home mom, little free
time, and certainly makes more than me!
USPS picks up for free. USPS delivers Priority Mail boxes/envelops for free
(boxes also free). Print a shipping label from ebay for free (and get a rate
cheaper than you would if you buy postage at the post office)
We havent been to the post office in years
You are going to shoot yourself in the foot if you start charging $5 more on
shipping vs competitors on ebay.
~~~
jonnathanson
Really depends on the sellers they're targeting. There is a likely segment of
sellers who will place a big premium on their time, and even a $5+ premium.
The "money is not a concern; just get this taken care of for me" set is not to
be underestimated.
------
isamuel
If I'm reading the SEC rules correctly, to be an eligible investor, you must
have an income in excess of $200K. Is that right?
~~~
gbelote
You need an income of $200k/yr ($300k/yr if married) for at least two years,
or a wealth of over $1m (excluding the value of your primary residence).
------
mathattack
Just so that I follow... You're not investing alongside him as a VC or angel,
you're investing through him, where he acts as the VC and collects the 20%
carry, correct?
~~~
GrinningFool
Correct - and the 20% carry is on any profit, not on the investment itself.
~~~
mathattack
Yes - typical VC structure.
~~~
far33d
Minus the up-front commitment and the management fee.
------
bobbygoodlatte
It's odd that the carry applies to each deal individually. In contrast, VC's
take a carry on the aggregate return of all of their investments.
If a VC does twenty $10MM investments, and sees a $100MM return on two of
them, they break even. No carry would be charged to LP's (although management
fees would apply).
Meanwhile an "LP" auto-backing an AngelList syndicator pays a carry on every
winner, but still loses 100% for every loser.
That's a big deal in angel investing — generally you're counting on very few
winners to cover the costs of your losers. Shaving 15-20% off every winner can
very possibly turn your overall returns negative.
Finally, the syndicator has a mis-aligned incentive to broker as many deals as
possible. It's now possible to net a profit via carry, even if your losers
would have outweighed your winners investing alone.
Tim has fantastic taste in startups. His investment in any startup is a strong
signal. But AngelList's terms are pretty iffy for syndicate backers. If the
carry was applied to his deals' collective return, I'd be the first in line.
------
msrpotus
While Shyp might be a great company (it seems like a great idea), I worry
about this being the start of a flood of dumb money into startups. I wouldn't
consider myself knowledgable enough to invest in a new startup and I follow
tech news; what happens when everyone with a few extra dollars tries to spot
the next Google?
~~~
Major_Grooves
I was invested by crowd-funding via a platform in the UK, called Seedrs. I
have 60 investors and raised £30k to build my MVP. I think at this level of
funding (which is different from Angelist syndicates - I think Seedrs is £150k
max) there is no real dumb money. I just needed the sort of money that people
from wealthy backgrounds dismissively refer to as "friends and family" money.
As it turns out my investors range from millionaire entrepreneurs, city
lawyers, to my mate's girlfriend. It's great to start off with 60 super-fans
that have a vested interest in promoting you to their network.
------
graeme
Just came here to submit this. It's a fascinating development. He's pulling an
end-run around mid-level VCs.
Tim has a good eye for startups + the ability to personally boost their
efforts + get them publicity. Now he can get them money without the hassle of
individual negotiation with investors.
Can someone more knowledgeable comment: is there a maximum amount of money
this can be used for? Or could this conceivably be used for much larger rounds
as well?
~~~
prostoalex
[https://angel.co/help/syndicates](https://angel.co/help/syndicates)
It could be used for larger rounds, but there's understandable fear about
"lead-less" rounds.
------
jessepollak
Two random thoughts:
1\. Shyp is raising $2+ mil at a $5mil valuation — doesn't that seem a little
iffy for a first round.
2\. I hate it when people capture my scroll, please stop that.
Other than that, Shyp looks awesome and syndicates looks great.
------
VladRussian2
that blog post looks and reads like a typical "make huge money working from
home"/"buy this investment report" webpage for me. Even the similar green/lime
colors.
------
pdfcollect
$5 apart from already high postage?
------
7Figures2Commas
The new general solicitation rules permit a _company_ to solicit investment
publicly if certain requirements are met. One of those requirements is that
the company file a Form D with the SEC 15 days before its offering is
advertised, so I don't see how it's possible for a company to be soliciting
publicly _today_.
IANAL but I would be incredibly uncomfortable as a founder if one of my
investors was taking the new rules to mean that _he_ could solicit investment
publicly on my company's behalf.
~~~
pbreit
Maybe they submitted the Form D 15 days ago?
~~~
7Figures2Commas
There's none that I can find on sec.gov.
~~~
pbreit
[http://lmgtfy.com/?q=Sec+form+d](http://lmgtfy.com/?q=Sec+form+d)
But I suspect you'd get such a thing from a lawyer.
~~~
7Figures2Commas
Apparently you didn't understand my comment. The company is Shyp Inc.
[http://www.sec.gov/cgi-bin/browse-
edgar?company=shyp&match=c...](http://www.sec.gov/cgi-bin/browse-
edgar?company=shyp&match=contains&filenum=&State=&Country=&SIC=&myowner=exclude&action=getcompany)
"No matching companies."
------
snowwrestler
Looks like a great deal for Tim Ferriss: more leverage with a 20% upside and
no downside.
~~~
pierrebai
That is slightly incorrect, at least if one takes "slightly" to mean "widly".
Actually, as the blog points out, he invests 25K while the invited investors
can pitch in up to a totla of 250K. He gets 20% of any profit off this 250k,
which is 10 times his own investment. So for every point of profit on his own
investment, he gets two additional point back (250K/25k x 20% = 200%). That's
a nice scheme were there is no increase in risk yet there is 3x the return on
investment he'd normally get. So, for a corral of startup that would net 5% on
average, he'd get 15% average instead. No additional cash nor risk involved.
Meanwhile, the invited get 4% instead of 5%. Would you invest in a scheme were
the risk are the same but the return 20% less? Yet again, the riches get
richer.
|
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|
To Hell with Backups - tlongren
http://ksp_me.svbtle.com/to-hell-with-backups
======
bandy
Again and again he tried after the tempting morsel, but at last had to give it
up, and walked away with his nose in the air, saying: “I am sure they are
sour.”
------
snoldak924
I have a hard time believing the magnet story, but that is tangential to the
story.
I've used SugarSync for a couple years, and Mozy before that. I literally
never think about my backups, except when I get a new computer and download
from the cloud. Total cost: under $80/year.
I'm not sure what's so hard about that, but apparently backups need to be
"easier".
|
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|
The new way to land a job at Facebook - svm33
https://www.kaggle.com/c/FacebookRecruiting
======
3pt14159
They are asking you to build a recommendation engine. One tailored for a
specific type of problem.
Using some startups api aside (spirit of the competition and all that), anyone
interested in completing this should pick up the Springer book Recommender
Systems Handbook, it's a very good place to start.
Depending on the size of the Facebook dataset, you will need either a graph
library like networkx or a graph database (there are many).
You should probably use python because, let's face it, nothing else will have
as many opensource libraries, be as fast, and as accessible from C as python
is (use cython for painless compiled code and to link to other C libraries).
Don't use recursion unless your language is specifically built for it. Stay
away from ILP graph traversal unless you really know what you are doing.
If you are using some sort of context token/vector similarity approach, be
sure to know that the number of tokens you are going to need will be huge, and
furthermore you will likely need some hard coded rule sets for low
follower/following users.
Try to introduce a time-based decay factor or something similar, and of course
take advantage of degrees of "closeness" if there are repeated interactions
between nodes.
One last thing: if your approach uses some sort of map reduce solution, it
might be better for _real world_ applications, but it will _significantly_
slow down your progress. Just load a box up with RAM and use fast algorithms.
Best of luck to all you out there!
~~~
pepsi_can
You seem to be very knowledgeable in this area. May I ask what your background
is? I would like to take on some self study in this area. Would you have any
advice?
~~~
kubrickslair
Besides the excellent suggestions by the parent, I might also look at the
awesome work done by Jon Kleinberg for a more theoretical understanding. One
may start with his pretty concise Networks book:
<http://www.cs.cornell.edu/home/kleinber/networks-book/>
~~~
3pt14159
Excellent book. Definitely recommend if you want to develop a deeper
understanding.
------
tluyben2
I'm not trolling here, but I have to ask i'm seriously wondering what is 'so
great' about landing a job at Facebook? They have a nice tech stack, but it's
a social networking site. How is it interesting to be a cog in the machine
that is Facebook? Again; serious question; I'm curious. I'm a bit older :) and
I would not want to work for any company other than a startup; I learned in
life it is not the right dope for me. And so I am interested what makes it so
interesting to work for this (Edit: scrapped [kind of]) company.
Edit: I mean; so interesting that you want to jump through hoops to get in.
~~~
kmavm
Hey, my name is Keith Adams, and I'm an engineer at Facebook.
I work on the HipHop virtual machine, a dynamic compiler and runtime for the
PHP language. It is the hardest challenge I've tackled professionally, and the
people I'm working with are brilliant and work like animals.*
I think the larger significance of our work on HipHop is in the context of
software as a whole. PHP is one of those "developer productivity languages,"
like Python, JavaScript, LUA, etc. And, though I was skeptical before I came
here, developers really are more productive in these languages. It would blow
your mind what world-class people working in this medium can accomplish in
compressed timeframes. This means that increasing these languages' performance
is incredibly leveraged; to the extent we're successful at making PHP faster,
we change the set of problems that PHP can address. Moving a problem from the
"must be solved in C++" category to the "can be solved in PHP" category frees
up our fellow developers to get more done with their finite professional
lives.
*Edit: By "like animals", I mean, "with a survival-level sense of urgency." It doesn't necessarily mean long hours.
~~~
Slix
One thing that turns me off of seriously pursuing a career at Facebook is PHP.
I haven't learned PHP yet (and I'm only in college), but I've heard bad things
about its design, and it seems to be overshadowed by Ruby and Python in my
programming news sources.
Is PHP a dying language? Even if it is, it makes sense for Facebook to
continue using it instead of throwing out all their code.
But it seems like it might be a waste to spend time at Facebook using PHP if
the rest of the tech and start-up world has moved on.
~~~
jc4p
I'm going to apologize in advance if any of this seems too stern or rude.
You seriously don't have the correct mindset about this. You are thinking in a
way that a lot of other people share, but it's not practical. In the real
world you have to learn new technologies and languages consistently. Every day
something new comes out or gets improved that makes doing a difficult task
easier, and people/companies that can adapt and not be left behind do well.
If I were in your position (which I guess I kind of am, I'm also college-age
but I've spent just under half my life doing some level of professional
programming) I would be learning EVERYTHING I can or at least everything
mainstream I can so that if I come by a cool piece of code online or at work I
can tell exactly what it does.
It's true that PHP isn't as a strictly written language as some of the other
languages (by this I don't mean syntax, I mean that doing two analogous
operations have completely different names/attribute orders in the standard
library) but it's still used by tons and tons of people. PHP isn't dying. I
hate the term "dying language" because there's always something else out there
that's good for that each specific language.
I'm assuming that Flash is also "dying" in your POV but just today I had to
whip up a quick SWF to allow copying something to a user's clipboard because
it was the simplest and quickest way to allow one-click clipboard access that
I could think of and I have spent time learning Flash/AS in the past so I had
that knowledge.
Now, when you say:
it seems like it might be a waste to spend time at Facebook using PHP if the rest of the tech and start-up world has moved on
I have no idea what you mean. Do you mean that Facebook not restructuring
their entire codebase to a cooler and more popular language is a waste of
Facebook engineers time? Or do you mean that you learning PHP to work at
Facebook would be a waste of your time? I don't understand how either of these
two statement could be argued so if you meant something else I'd love a
clarification.
There is absolutely nothing that Facebook _can not_ do with PHP that they
could do with Python or Ruby. Any business logic can be written in a myriad of
ways. And I believe to be a strong candidate for a "wow" employee after you
graduate you should be able to drop head first into any codebase and at the
very least quickly get a simple grasp of what's going on.
If Facebook gave you an internship today would you reject it because you've
heard bad things about PHP?
Sorry about the rant, but I've spent a lot of time working to hire other
developers and it really irks me when I hear something like "oh so and so's a
dying language, it's useless to learn it" because it shows that you don't have
the drive and love of technology that my ideal person would.
~~~
Slix
I do want to learn lots of different technologies, including PHP! That's part
of the reason I read Hacker News in the first place.
But I'm doubtful of its real-world application these days. Most news I see
never mentions it, but Ruby and Python are mentioned near constantly.
I'm sure working at Facebook would be amazing. I mean, it's _Facebook_. But if
I also got internship offers at Google and other high-tech companies, then the
language I use at work will factor in.
And PHP doesn't seem nearly as significant as these other languages, so then
why take a job where I'll learn and use it in-depth for months when there are
other languages?
~~~
jc4p
You're going to be sorely disappointed when you find out that the majority of
user-facing applications at Google are in Java, which you'll hear even less of
on places like here.
The reason you don't see mentions of PHP all the time on places like here is
that Python and Ruby are considered "hip" languages right now. Every one and
their mother wants to learn it to show off how cool it is. Which is freaking
awesome because the more people that learn nice scripting languages the
better, but it means people aren't being driven to build new services on PHP
to show off because instead of listing off 10-20 buzzword plugins by other
people, you have a limited amount of mature things you can use to make a PHP
application. This is not saying that Python and Ruby don't have mature
platforms and extensions.
Have you done any professional programming in the past? I absolutely guarantee
that even doing an short term internship at a company using a programming
language you don't know, the nuances of that specific language won't be what
you take away from you but rather the different ways to think about a specific
problem.
Maybe once every month I face a problem at work or on personal projects where
I can say "Hey, I remember this, it's a really obscure PHP fault!" versus many
many times a times a day when I think "hmm I could build this as a singleton
or a factory or a ....." and can use my previous experience programming in
those fashions at previous jobs to figure out what the best way to do it
currently is.
Learning a new language isn't about dedicating your life to it. It's about
learning new methods of completing tasks, which you can almost always apply to
other languages.
------
georgemcbay
When Netflix did this back in 2006 you could win a million bucks!
Now all you win is a job at post-IPO Facebook.
Talk about a down economy!
~~~
noonespecial
No, you get an _interview_ that might lead to a job...
------
picklefish
"The challenge is to recommend missing links in a social network. Participants
will be presented with an anonymized, directed social graph from which some
edges have been deleted, and asked to make ranked predictions for each user in
the test set of which other users they would want to follow."
When has this kind of data ever been successfully anonymized?
From Netflix's attempt: <http://www.securityfocus.com/news/11497> (First link
I googled, but has the gist)
~~~
dsl
You deleted the important part from your quote: directed social graph _(no,
not Facebook, keep guessing)_ from which some edges have been deleted
My guess is the data is either something public or a non-user facing dataset
they collected internally (like what coworkers have you bought lunch for)
------
heyrhett
The LSE has a good talk about what they're doing here:
[http://www2.lse.ac.uk/newsAndMedia/videoAndAudio/channels/pu...](http://www2.lse.ac.uk/newsAndMedia/videoAndAudio/channels/publicLecturesAndEvents/player.aspx?id=1229)
It helps them find high school dropouts in Maine who might be great employees,
but would otherwise never have shown up on their radar.
------
dabent
This looks like it's effectively a newer version of the old puzzles, which
look like they've encountered problems:
<https://www.facebook.com/PuzzleMaster/notes>
------
sireat
It does seem strange that the only reward is a chance at an interview. Most
other contests at Kaggle at least offer something tangible. One of the first
contests at Kaggle was a chess ratings prediction which offered signed book by
Kasparov, Karpov et al.
I suppose it is one way to weed out those who would not be likely to apply to
Facebook even if they did well at the contest.
------
jhspaybar
Rather than the puzzles which are now discontinued, I recently did an online
timed puzzle through interview street I believe. By solving the problem
properly within 2 hours I received a series of phone interviews, and once I
start my senior year at college will be able to begin the remaining full time
interviews, so they've had something like this for a while.
------
paulhauggis
I would rather put the time and energy into my own startup.
------
sparknlaunch
Really like the kaggle platform. First heard about them from a techzing with
the founders.1
The challenges can help corporations and others from solving complex problems.
No reason why Facebook cannot take advantage of this process.
1 [http://techzinglive.com/page/927/166-tz-interview-anhony-
gol...](http://techzinglive.com/page/927/166-tz-interview-anhony-goldbloom-
and-jeremy-howard-kaggle)
------
jsavimbi
Can we just please have the Netflix recommendation engine?
|
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|
10 years stuck at minimum wage - brianbreslin
http://qz.com/240827/ive-worked-at-mcdonalds-for-10-years-and-still-make-7-35-an-hour/
======
paulhauggis
"As fast-food workers, we prepare burgers and fries, not balance sheets. We
struggle to survive from paycheck to paycheck, without million-dollar annual
bonuses or second homes. We often work behind the scenes—or counters, getting
little of the credit for billions of dollars in company profits."
I feel bad, but why is a mother of four still working a minimum wage job at
Mcdonalds? Minimum wage was never meant to support an entire family
(especially a family of four).
I'm not sure what more credit these workers want. They don't have that much
responsibility. Their job is to either put pre-cooked food in the fryer or
accept money at the register. They get a paycheck on time for a job completed.
This should be enough.
"and many of those barely pay more than minimum wage."
So Mcdonalds is STILL paying more than minimum wage in many instances, and
it's not enough? I like how this is buried in the article..even though the
title would make you believe that they only pay minimum wage.
"We’ll discuss how to escalate our fight for $15 an hour and a union."
I feel like basic economics has been lost.
An increase in only Mcdonalds wages, might work, but Mcdonalds would never do
this because the prices would increase and couldn't stay competitive anymore.
An increase in minimum wage would only decrease the spending power for
everyone because goods and services that rely on minimum wage workers (which
is pretty much everywhere), would be forced to increase their prices.
You can see examples of this in any country with a high minimum wage. I went
to Australia a few months ago and the cost of a combo meal at Mcdonalds was
almost $10. At this point, your spending power doesn't really increase that
much.
------
byoung2
There is a risk (for fast food workers) that as wages rise, there is more of
an incentive for employers to explore ways of replacing workers. For example,
most people are capable of placing orders on a touchscreen device and seem
comfortable with this process (as evidenced by self-checkout lanes at grocery
stores). A fast food company who used to pay $8/hr for cashiers but is now
paying $15 and maybe will pay $20 soon might find it more economical to
replace 4 cashiers with touchscreen ordering stations.
~~~
rajat
That's why they want a union. Raise the minimum wage and reduce or eliminate
the risk of the job being eliminated.
~~~
byoung2
All the more reason for this hypothetical company to want to replace them now,
before they unionize.
|
{
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|
ClickLock: A Mac menu bar app that locks your screen with just one click - marcosmr
https://www.clicklock.xyz/
======
lcnmrn
System Preferences > Mission Control > Hot Corners... > Lock Screen
or System Preferences > Keyboard > Shortcuts > App Shortcuts > Lock Screen
(Cmd+Shift+L)
or Add Lock Screen to Touch Bar.
|
{
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
}
|
Ask HN: Most secure IP video camera for expecting parents? - planxty
Hey HN!<p>My wife and I are expecting our first child and we are exploring options for baby monitors. However, the common video baby monitors seem to be a security nightmare, with stories of strangers watching live feeds of other folks' kids all over the internet.<p>We want to find a solution that is reasonably feature-rich, but more importantly, is highly secure. Any thoughts would be appreciated!
======
jiveturkey
The problem is, you cannot know. There's no such thing as a secure, feature-
rich device. If there are any that are self-updating, that's a very very good
start.
Why do you need an IP camera? The kind that requires a dedicated monitor, that
doesn't use IP, are "secure". Probably not uncrackable-secure, but only your
near neighbors would be able to watch.
We had infant optics. It's great, the range only works within the house,
multicamera, temp sensor, and more. If you put it on mute, you can watch
yourself having sexy time. Not that you will ever have sexy time again.
They also have unbelievably good customer service. For a commodity baby
monitor. Just superb.
------
detaro
Buy something from a somewhat reputable vendor that you can access over LAN,
and completely block it from the internet, both directions.
~~~
jiveturkey
Then what's the point of it being IP.
Also it can be quite hard to block. I mean you have to be an expert. What
happens when webRTC opens it up? Or uPNP? Yes you can block these things but
you need to be savvy enough to know how. And stay on top of all the techs. As
a new parent no one has time for that.
|
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|
Launch HN: Mighty Health (YC S19) – Health coaching for people over 50 - minibronco88
Hey HN!<p>We’re James, Felipe, and Bernard, founders of Mighty Health (<a href="https://mightyhealth.com/gift" rel="nofollow">https://mightyhealth.com/gift</a>), a personal coach that helps people over 50 become healthier through exercise, nutrition, and wellness.<p>With Father’s Day coming up, we thought some of you might be in the same position as we are, worrying about our parents and loved ones, wanting to do more to help out in these uncertain times.<p>A few years ago, my dad was rushed to the hospital for emergency heart surgery. Though he luckily survived, this was quite the wakeup call—he had to change his lifestyle habits immediately, or else he’d have to deal with painful, worsening chronic issues for the rest of his life.<p>These changes—exercise, nutrition, sleep, and reducing stress—are hard as is, but even more so for folks over 50. Most wellness apps are designed for motivated millennials, making them feel less relatable to older adults. They don’t take into account evolving health needs, joint issues, or technical limitations. Personal trainers and nutritionists are expensive long-term and often inaccessible. And because our older loved ones are at higher risk of COVID complications due to their age, they won’t be able to return to gyms for the foreseeable future.<p>That’s why we started Mighty Health. Everything is designed intentionally for people over 50:<p>1. Coaching: A personal coach keeping them motivated through SMS, providing a real human relationship<p>2. Exercise: At home workout videos that are easy on the joints, led by top-rated certified trainers<p>3. Nutrition: A personalized plan and grocery list designed by cardiologists for heart health<p>4. Reminders: Preventative health checkup notifications (based on their age and gender) and medication reminders<p>5. Celebrations: Texts to family members about milestones in the program so you can celebrate together<p>Our app is simple to set up and use, accommodating large and high contrast text. We chose SMS (through Twilio/Front) for coaching because it’s a more familiar medium, like texting with your family. We integrate with Apple Healthkit and Google Fit, as well as a number of cellular blood pressure cuffs and scales.<p>Dr. Bernard Chang, our medical co-founder, is the Vice Chair of Research at Columbia University’s Department of Emergency Medicine and leads our team of physicians, trainers, and coaches who develop our plans and content.<p>These plans are optimized for health goals specific to people over 50, such as losing weight to prevent chronic diseases, becoming stronger/decreasing joint pain, or reducing their risk of heart disease. On average, 85% of our users stick to our plans for at least 12 weeks and lose ~10 pounds.<p>We’d love for you to check out our website at <a href="https://mightyhealth.com/gift" rel="nofollow">https://mightyhealth.com/gift</a> and are eager to hear your feedback and ideas below. Feel free to reach out directly at [email protected] as well!
======
tickerticker
The need for your app is overwhelming. I am 65, female, very fit, and lost 40
pounds since 2014. Daily, I do some type of class, either strength, cardio,
yoga, or walking. Here are my concerns with your app as a vehicle to long-term
improvement.
1\. The enemy of healthy living is social interaction that is nearly always
alcohol and food indulgence. Either your user has to find new friends (like an
alcoholic develops a cohort of non-drinking friends,) or they have to acquire
the strength of purpose to abstain while still being social. Success here is
very dependent on self-esteem....a distinctly non-technical aspect not
directly addressed by the app.
2\. Preparing your next meal BEFORE YOU ARE HUNGRY is critical to success.
This could be addressed by subscribing to a pre-packaged frozen meal service,
or, by consistently doing grocery shopping and meal prep in advance. The
latter takes planning, discipline, and effort. Lack of planning is frequently
the reason for eating excess or unhealthy food.
3\. Eating to self-soothe is prevalent. Learning other sources of pleasure or
gratification is crucial to sustained success. For example, I always want
second helpings even though I know I have already had enough. This because my
stomach needs an extra 15 minutes to tell my brain that I am satisfied. To
cope, I set a 15 minute timer and for that 15 minutes, I walk away from the
food area, sit in a comfy chair and do something pleasant with my phone, such
as read fashion news or text with a friend. A sine qua non of healthy eating
is having a list of other pleasant things to do when you feel the urge to eat
when not hungry.
4\. Many overweight people will only succeed in the transition to a healthy
life if they have in person contact with others that support and acknowledge
their struggle. Either a 12-step meeting or a FaceTime call with their coach
is vital so that your user can visualize that person's face when the user is
at the moment of decision to binge or not.
5\. If you take away food and drink as the emotional coping tool, you have to
replace it with something that is not self-destructive. Your users have to be
ready when emotional crisis comes when, then more than ever, they will feel
entitled to eat or drink anything within convenient reach. For this reason, I
am unable to keep ready-to-eat foods in my house.....cereal, cheese, nut
butters, dessert, snacks, bread of any kind. I do keep fresh apples and
oranges, but that is it. Your user must develop other methods of dealing with
crisis.....journaling, phone a friend, or just giving themselves permission to
withdraw, lay down and rest if possible. Since I have momentum on my side, an
activity that 100% occupies the mind, like a spin class, is my helper that
enables me to muddle through. Meditation is another good tool.
I have come to believe that lack of self-care has much more to do with
emotional self-regulation and self esteem than it does with lack of knowledge
on sleep, exercise, and nutrition.
However, for those who suddenly get motivated by a health scare, the knowledge
and guidance in your app is like a welcome breath of life.
~~~
minibronco88
Wow, thank you for sharing your personal experience and such a thoughtful
response. We'll definitely take your concerns into account as we continue to
improve the product.
100% agreed that the underlying issue is not knowing what to do, but rather
more psychological aspects such as who you spend time with, environmental
factors, self-esteem, and discipline. Our medical co-founder Dr. Chang is a
psychologist by training and constantly emphasizes this. One direction I'd
personally like to see our product go in is increasing our sense of community
and what it means to be "Mighty." Much like the strong online community you
see from apps like Peloton and Strava, but with more of an angle of shared
physical and emotional self-care. As you mentioned, this is not necessarily a
technological solution, but rather one of how we create the right culture and
environment for our members to succeed.
------
sweetheart
Hey this is awesome. One question, can the coach(es) cater to preexisting
conditions/diets? My pops has Parkinson’s and is on a pretty tight diet that
my mom has put him on for weight loss, so in order to try to get him to try
it, Mighty Health would probably need to work within those confines to start.
Would something like that be possible? If so, I’d love to gift a subscription
to see how it helps him.
Cheers and congrats on the launch! v exciting stuff.
~~~
minibronco88
Yes, absolutely! At the start of the program, we ask about nutritional
preferences / restrictions, and the coach can also hop on a call to clarify
anything.
------
benatkin
Have you considered expanding into ADHD coaching? I feel like it's something I
could use. Since I haven't yet tried it, I don't really know how it works. It
seems like something that's useful but is in its early stages, with a lot of
people just relying on frequent counseling, which can be expensive. I also
feel like it's something that could be mostly automated which would be ideal
for a tech company.
~~~
minibronco88
Thanks for the idea! Definitely something to consider for the future, though
we'll need to bring on a few experts to develop the content and pathways
first. We've seen online solutions like
[https://donefirst.com/](https://donefirst.com/) but that seems like a more
pharmaceutical approach.
------
throwaway_jobs
I’m pleasantly surprised you went with 50, as opposed to Medicare age. It just
shows you aren’t going after only the easy Medicare dollars. Of course you can
still capture that too (see the Silversneakers program as an example).
Just like economic gap that is growing in the US there is a major health gap
growing too. For those with resources 50 is like the new 20 as many of men are
now “juiced to the gils“ with testosterone provided by their doctors (I see it
a lot in Miami, and I’m sure it’s proliferated in tech companies/cities too,
just something about money and ego I think), then for the have nots it’s this
age where many are just holding out to become Medicare eligible to begin
treating their chronic conditions and they are only suffering and getting
worse in the meantime.
One day, if I am ever financially independent (unlikely), I have resolved to
dedicate my life to health/wellness for children, with a very specific goal of
type 2 diabetes prevention. I really have no idea why, I never got T2D, but it
breaks my heart especially in children. If you ever expand in this direction,
I’d be the first to apply in any capacity.
Good luck!
~~~
minibronco88
Thanks for sharing! We've definitely seen a bit of the same. The economic gap
leads to an access to care gap, especially in more rural areas. That's before
even factoring in lack of access to fresh, non-processed foods, which is a key
part of nutrition especially at an older age. We hope that services like ours
(and your much-needed T2D concept) can help close that gap!
------
orzig
This is fantastic and could be so helpful so many people. A piece of feedback
on the sales page: it does a good job of describing the person who would be
/gifting/ the service and they (we) need some guidance on how to gently bring
it up to the recipients and sell them on investing the time and energy into
it.
~~~
minibronco88
That's a fantastic idea - we'll work on adding that!
------
bonniewlui
Do you ever plan on adding live video for the coaching or trainers?
Additionally, would preventative health reminders be coordinated with the
patient’s PCP in some way? For example, you wouldn’t want to tell a user to go
get blood work for checking lipids when they just had it done the other day.
~~~
minibronco88
Yes, that's a great idea. Live video would have even more of a community feel
--plus, we could probably capture and edit the streams into re-usable workouts
for the future.
We'd love to integrate with provider medical records in the future, but sadly
there are very few incentives in a fee-for-service environment. For now,
members can just check things off or "postpone" if our cadence is off.
------
janeshmane
I'm glad to see people building for this audience. I have to say I'd be a
little reluctant to gift this to someone for fear of offending them. That
said, it seems like it would be a great addition to a doctor's available
interventions or a workplace wellness program.
~~~
minibronco88
Thanks for the feedback! We’ve been surprised by the number of users who have
told us they couldn’t relate to other exercise programs. You bring up a great
point about potentially offending -- we feel it comes down to how close you
are with the person and if they know you’re coming from a good place. We just
added a 30-day guarantee to the site as well in case they don't end up liking
it!
------
brontide
This is an excellent idea! In the US, there's a culture/mind-set within this
age group that going to the doctor is a waste of time or that they're
"stronger" for not having to see a doctor, which only allows pain/injuries to
linger or grow before they get too far out of hand that a doctor MUST be
consulted.
I think there's an interesting angle to attract a wider audience here too – if
your claim of losing ~10 pounds in 12 weeks is true, maybe there's an
opportunity to be a "weight loss service" masquerading as a "wellness
service." The difference being that well-being is a lifelong goal and weight
loss is not.
~~~
minibronco88
Agreed! It's such a struggle encouraging people to take preventative health
seriously, even as chronic issues start creeping in. Rising insurance
deductibles in the US certainly don't help as well. We've found that the
members who are must successful are those who have received some kind of
"warning" from their doctor -- "if you don't lose the weight, you're going to
need back surgery" \-- or worse yet, people like my dad who had a near brush
with death before realizing he needed to take his health into his own hands.
------
nyeoh
This is such a great solution in a country where healthcare is so expensive.
It helps kids of aging parents, and aging parents themselves take care of
their health. I bought this app for my mum on mothers day, and she's been
using it!
------
codingdave
This sounds great. I'm 47, but have physical limitations due to truamas
earlier in life. I love the idea of a service tailored to older folk, and may
participate.
The one thing from your description that threw me off was " it’s a more
familiar medium, like texting with your family."
I don't text with my family. Or with anyone, really. It is a running joke that
the last way you'd want to get in touch with me is by text. My kids text me
just to take bets on how many days will go by before I see it. Maybe I'm the
exception... but I'd encourage you to re-visit whether that really is how
people who are 50+ would prefer to communicate.
~~~
minibronco88
Thanks for the great feedback. We started with text as it seems more
integrated with daily life than in-app chat, but we'd love to expand out
channels in the near future. Would love to hear what method you'd prefer
instead so I can pass it along to the team!
~~~
codingdave
I like emails and video calls. If I need to communicate in real-time, I prefer
to just have a call and do it. If not in real-time, email feels the least
invasive to me, and is my preference.
~~~
JacobDotVI
Isn't part of the idea here to _be invasive_ though? If part of the intent of
the service is change behavior then the coach must interject themselves into
the clients' lives in order to create action.
How would you see the minimal invasiveness of email aligning with such a call
to action?
(hope this doesn't come across as an attack as it is not intended to. Just
trying to understand how you see these two ideas as compatible since I see
them as opposing and so wanting to know what angle I'm missing)
~~~
codingdave
I see your point, but I believe your goal is to be visible, not invasive. You
are trying to help people along a path that they want to be on, not force
people on a path that doesn't feel right to them.
For me, texting is a path I won't walk. Email is a path I walk multiples time
a day. Talk to me there, I'll see it, it will be injected into my life.
~~~
JacobDotVI
That makes sense - thank you for your reply!
------
jdrmar
Really great idea and well executed from what I can see. Just wondering about
the business model: how often do your coaches interact with your customers? It
seems that at a ~$10/month fee you wouldn't be able to afford too much of
their time per customer.. Maybe 5 minutes per month at most (assuming $75/hr
and deducting payment fees etc) ? Or am I missing something?
~~~
minibronco88
Coaches interact with the members every day. The vast majority of our coaching
touchpoints are asynchronous -- either checking in or replying to members via
SMS, or configuring member's daily plan (step goals, exercise videos, lessons,
etc.). As you can imagine, we've spent quite a bit of time building out
tooling on our back end to scale the coach to member ratio while still being
able to provide personalized, human service.
------
sandGorgon
This looks very good! congratulations.
Curious to know - does the Western market adopt solutions like this very
easily ? Because atleast in India (or Asia), i see my parents and lot of older
folk being highly resistant to adopting management solutions.
And we are a market that's almost entirely mobile-based. I would have guessed
this is something one would need to push via doctors ... rather than directly.
~~~
minibronco88
That's a great question. We're definitely seeing a large shift toward the
consumerization of healthcare in the US -- especially starting with
product/services that folks are already accustomed to paying out of pocket for
(i.e. therapy, home testing kits, meditation, certain drugs). Similarly,
Mighty Health is meant to be aligned with services like personal trainers,
nutritionists, and gyms.
------
ericlucb1
Excited for your launch! How do your coaches get parents to become motivated?
Been a challenge for me to get them to exercise and eat better
~~~
minibronco88
Thanks! Great question. Our coaches are trained to help members develop habits
(using a framework similar to Atomic Habits or The Power of Habit) -- to
successfully create or replace a habit, you need a trigger, the routine (in
our case, the workout or eating well), and a reward. At first, the coach's SMS
prompts serve as the trigger, but over time we help members establish their
own triggers in their environment (post it notes around the house, associating
a workout with finishing a specific meal). Similarly, the coach is at first
the reward (insight on your meals, shoutouts in your support group) but
members learn to embrace other intrinsic rewards like the great feeling of
accomplishment you have at the end of a well balanced day.
------
smallishbees
Congrats on the launch.
To clarify: Are you guys specifically focused on people over 50? The website
makes no mention of the 50+ age focus. I just got a gift for my mom, but the
only reason is for an exercise coach who can create a specific routine for
someone who is 65 years old. We don't need the nutrition coaching.
~~~
minibronco88
Yes, we only focus on people over 50! It's in the sub-headline of our site,
but we could make it a lot more prominent / repeated throughout -- thanks for
the feedback. All of the exercises in our app are specifically designed for
that age range. Looking forward to hearing what your mom thinks of our
program!
------
jrlnm
Love the idea! Honestly health is often taken for granted and we need more
things in tech pushing health forward
~~~
minibronco88
Agreed! Unfortunately, most people don't think of it as an acute problem until
it's too late.
------
auston
My first thought was "the clothing brand is doing coaching"?
[https://hypebeast.com/tags/mighty-healthy](https://hypebeast.com/tags/mighty-
healthy)
~~~
minibronco88
Haha we haven't seen that! Maybe drop a collaboration in the future...
------
markhall
Just gifted it for my mom. Hoping it kick-starts some better habits for her.
~~~
minibronco88
Awesome, excited to hear what she thinks about it.
------
ementi
I was just thinking about how great it would be to have something like this
for my mom! Especially the low-impact exercises. Do you have coaches in any
other languages outside of English?
~~~
minibronco88
Currently, we offer coaching in English and Portuguese -- we'd love to add
more in the future though! What language would your mom prefer?
~~~
ementi
Vietnamese, although Spanish might be helpful if you had to prioritize. Lots
of kids of immigrants in the US where our parents don’t read English well
enough to participate in things like this.
~~~
RafaelZarate
I agree, I would love to get a subscription por my parents but I’m sure they
will not stick to it unless Spanish is supported.
~~~
minibronco88
Got it, we'll be sure to add Spanish and let you know. Thanks!
------
nyeoh
This is such a great idea in a country where healthcare is so expensive,
giving peace of mind for kids of aging parents, and for hopefully parents
themselves. Good luck with this app!
~~~
minibronco88
So true -- deductibles are getting higher every year, and my parents are
always facing hard decisions on whether or not they should go in for elective
visits. Excited to hear your mom's feedback!
------
swuoozy
Love this idea and I can totally see my parents using something like this!
What's been the most interesting insight you guys have learned so far while
building Mighty Health?
~~~
minibronco88
Our older users have been much more tech-savvy than we anticipated when we
first started working on this. Roughly 10k people turn 65 each day, and many
of them are in the generation that is used to relying on an iPad every day.
That said, we've tried to incorporate tiny UX considerations wherever we can,
such as adapting with the phone's text size settings and increasing the size
of touch targets.
We've also found that folks are generally overconfident but misinformed about
nutrition (probably due to the overwhelming amount of information online and
in the media) but anxious and risk-averse when it comes to trying new forms of
exercise.
------
rsilveira1987
This sounds great! I am on my 30s. Maybe I can't join your program right now
but I can definitely share this idea with my parents. Is your app running
global?
~~~
minibronco88
Yes, it's available on both iOS and Android in most countries. We'll refund
your gift in full if we can't get it to work!
------
moneywoes
What did you guys use to build the landing page? Looks nice.
~~~
Banzai10
Hey! CTO here. First, thanks.
We used a custom design by our great designer, meaning the rest of the landing
page is CSS and HTML.
We used a few css libs, for the sake of helping us making it responsive, but
that is all.
~~~
skosch
The overall design is nice, but you may want to reconsider the combination of
Visuelt and Helvetica Neue. Not only are they just different enough to
noticeably clash; what's worse, I thought the Helvetica was (unstyled,
fallback-stack) Arial at first, which looked like carelessness. For Helvetica
to look sharp, you need to really commit to the Swiss look, headings and all.
~~~
minibronco88
Got it. Appreciate the feedback and will incorporate into our future
iterations.
------
polskibus
Sounds like sth [http://www.lab4.life/](http://www.lab4.life/) has been
working for a while.
------
troughway
I’m not the target audience right now, but someday I might very well be. This
is one of those ventures that I’m glad exists.
Thank you for doing this.
~~~
minibronco88
Appreciate the support. For Father's Day, we've added the ability to gift a
membership, in case there's anyone that comes to mind that could benefit!
------
nradov
I hope you succeed. But the people who most need this coaching are also the
same ones least likely to engage.
------
jayp
Congrats James! This would indeed make a great last-minute father’s Day gift.
Good timing on the launch!
~~~
minibronco88
Thanks Jay - always appreciate your support!
------
juhflesch
My mom is one of the first members of the program; it helps her a lot already!
~~~
minibronco88
Wow, glad she's liking it! Let us know if she has any other feedback for how
we can improve.
------
DrScump
Why does your "Contact Us" link just go to the FAQ page?
~~~
minibronco88
Hmm... I'm seeing that it links to mailto:[email protected] - are you
referring to the "Contact Us" at the very bottom of www.mightyhealth.com/gift,
or somewhere else?
~~~
DrScump
On
[https://www.mightyhealth.com/faq.html](https://www.mightyhealth.com/faq.html)
at least.
~~~
minibronco88
Got it - fixing it now. Thanks!
------
jarsj
Is this worldwide ? Can I gift it to my dad in india ?
~~~
minibronco88
Yes, available internationally! You can use the country selection dropdown to
input an Indian phone number while completing your gift.
------
olivertang33
Do your trainers specialize in training older clients?
~~~
minibronco88
We have a couple of trainers that have focused on older clients exclusively
(for example, one of our lead trainers Julie Diamond:
[https://www.instagram.com/juliediamondfitness/](https://www.instagram.com/juliediamondfitness/)),
and all of the rest have had extensive experience training clients up to their
70s. In addition to making sure the workouts are tailored to health goals and
easy on the joints, we ask that our trainers offer lots of modifications in
the workout videos for those who can't do specific exercises due to joint/back
pain.
------
thepeanutman
Congratulations to you and the team for the launch!
------
d0m
That's amazing, congrats for the launch.
------
carlosrivin
Awesome idea!
------
elpakal
Very cool idea, best of luck!
------
texasbigdata
Good luck!
------
Chetane
Congrats on the Launch! My mom has been using Mighty Health for about a month
now, and is very happy with it. She particularly likes the accountability via
text message, and nutrition coaching.
~~~
minibronco88
So glad to hear your mom has been finding it valuable! Will pass that along to
the team.
------
cyrieu
I got Mighty Health for my mom as a Mother’s Day gift and she loves it!
Absolutely worth it and the content the team publishes is especially helpful.
~~~
minibronco88
Thanks! We've been working hard on developing our new workout videos,
especially since everyone's been stuck at home with little to no equipment
recently. Soup can curls look a little funky, but are still effective!
|
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|
Lack of Sleep Increases Weight - robg
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/04/27/health/27real.html?ref=science
======
markkoberlein
This is true if you stay up all night trying to finish a project and then you
have to go into the office the next day. The only way to keep yourself awake
and alert is by consuming a higher amount of caffeine and calories than you
normally would.
~~~
petercooper
Or modafinil - which seems to have attracted a bit of interest in posts around
here recently :-)
------
latortuga
The conclusion of this article seems dubious to me.
"Losing sleep may increase appetite and, as a result, weight."
If you lose sleep you are, by definition, awake more which, it would seem to
me, would cause your body to require more energy for functioning. Logically it
would ask for this energy by stimulating appetite. Eating more is not strictly
correlated with weight gain, you have to look at the types of calories being
consumed.
~~~
nostrademons
Calories in - calories out is a remarkable good predictor of weight gain,
though.
I have a coworker who recently wanted to lose 15 lbs. so she could fit into
her wedding dress. She did up this spreadsheet with goal weight, predicted
weight, and actual weight over the several weeks leading up to her wedding.
The three curves matched up _exactly_ , down to the pound. We were teasing her
a little about just how scientific she'd made the process, and she said that
it really came down to calories in - calories out. Once you know your body's
basic metabolic rate over typical exercise conditions, every X calories above
that will result in gaining one pound, while every X calories below that will
result in losing one pound. The reason most diets fail isn't that the formula
doesn't work, it's that most people don't have the willpower and anal-
retentiveness to count calories like that.
~~~
latortuga
You don't give human metabolism enough credit, as though you don't think that
our bodies respond to different amounts of energy intake/usage. The main
problem with the calories in = calories out myth is that they are assumed to
be independent variables when they are self-evidently not. When you work out
more, your body demands more energy by stimulating appetite. When you eat less
than your body needs, you get cold and hungry.
The other problem is that it overlooks the role of insulin in weight gain.
Insulin is the primary regulator of fat storage, this has been known for 50
years or more. Eating foods that stimulate insulin secretion are going to
cause you to put on pounds - that's the job of insulin! If every type of
calorie we consume contributes the exact same effect on the body, why do
marathoners (or any other athelete for that matter) carb-load before
challenges? Why not fat-load because everyone knows that fat has twice as many
calories per gram?
My main point is that not all types of calories cause the same types of
effects. Cutting calories below expenditures does not lead to long term weight
loss, it leads to hunger.
------
MartinCron
This ties into the ugly cycle with obstructive sleep apnea. People who are a
little thicker around the neck tend to stop breathing and interrupt their
sleep. Of course, if you're not sleeping well, you'll have more trouble
functioning, let alone getting proper exercise, so you'll just get thicker and
thicker around the neck, you'll just make it worse and worse until you're so
tired when you get up in the morning that you physically hurt.
My advice (from personal experience) if you're tired and cranky all the time,
you've been told you snore, and your dress shirt size > 17'' or so, you should
see a sleep medicine specialist.
------
davidedicillo
Well the point is that sleep increase appetite, but who slept less actually
burned more calories. If when you are craving for a snack you go for a carrot
instead of pizza I'm sure results would be quite different.
~~~
Periodic
According to the link, those who slept less had an increase in appetite, which
is the opposite of what you claim in your first sentence. From the article:
> "After the night of abbreviated sleep, the men consumed more than 500 extra
> calories (roughly 22 percent more) than they did after eight hours of sleep.
> ... Some studies pin the blame on hormones, arguing that decreased sleep
> creates a spike in ghrelin, a hormone that stimulates appetite, and a
> reduction in leptin, which signals satiety."
I think what you want to say is that the studies have shown a correlation, but
it might not be a causal relation.
------
metamemetics
Both studies took into account increased calorie expenditure in addition to
intake: <http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/20357041>
<http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/19056602>
Never debate some journalist's summary on these type of articles, just click
through to their sources and read the actual conclusions.
------
nopassrecover
When you are going without sleep there are usually more important things
(short-term) than healthy food choices so you favour easy to prepare and easy
to consume "meals". The fact that you have diminished short-term memory means
you tend to prioritise decision making which again favours the "easy" option.
Your appetite does go up but anecdotally I wouldn't say 36 hours of waking
appetitite was significantly more than two sets of normal 18 hour appetites.
------
blitzo
Well I slept less than 5 hour per day and got a result totally reversed from
what they said, thanks to my high metabolism
~~~
stcredzero
I also know someone from college who had some sort of thyroid condition, and
she slept very little and was very skinny. She was also awake and hyper so
much, she sewed all of her own clothes. (Yes, that's just like the girl in
Real Genius!)
However, I also lost 10 pounds recently by doing just two things: sleeping 7
hours a night instead of 4 or 5 and cooking my own meals instead of eating
out.
~~~
Terretta
I still want Lazlo Hollyfeld's closet.
------
rradu
Not only does lack of sleep increase caloric intake, but you use up MORE
calories while sleeping: [http://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/sleeping-
angels/200906/l...](http://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/sleeping-
angels/200906/lose-weight-while-you-sleep-real)
------
tomlin
It is relatively well-known that lack of sleep increases weight.
------
hackermom
Looks like they just had a dry monday over at the NY Times and had to fill the
empty space with something old and "sensational" :P This was taught to me 16
years ago in high school biology back home in Sweden.
|
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Google+ is Growing Like Crazy - calufa
https://plus.google.com/117388252776312694644/posts/1k85ZNPCu1A
======
adorton
Just so people are clear - this isn't THE Paul Allen. This Paul Allen is a
Utah-based entrepreneur.
I'm sure that's obvious to most here, but I thought it was worth pointing out.
~~~
shantanubala
To be honest, I was first a little excited when I saw the headline, but I
realized it was a different person when I saw the profile picture. The title
of the post is a bit confusing since I didn't know of the Utah-based Paul
Allen.
------
tokenadult
My surname is so rare that by United States government policy it does not show
up on federal lists of surnames by frequency.
<http://www.census.gov/genealogy/names/dist.all.last>
I am on Google+.
A New York Times article
<http://www.nytimes.com/2007/11/17/us/17surnames.html>
establishes some context on the frequency of various surnames in the United
States. English surnames are predominant, but Spanish surnames are gaining
relative frequency.
P.S. Responding to another comment here, surely as more companies get into
social networking, and social networking becomes a growing share of all
Internet activity, third-party organizations will have to agree on
standardized methodologies for estimating users of each service, to guide
advertisers and investors, and to answer the questions of journalists. For the
moment, I notice that Google+ has already achieved a status previously
achieved for me by HN and by Facebook--I tend to keep a tab open to it at all
times while I am browsing the Web.
------
gaius
Another problem with G+: it's not happy that people have non-GMail email
addresses. Let's say I have my friend John Smith [email protected] in a circle.
G+ keeps asking me if I want to add him still. Why? Because in my GMail, I
have also emailed him at [email protected]. There's no way for me to tell
it that these are the same person.
So I think G+ may be double-counting a significant number of users.
~~~
X-Istence
I have a lot of people with multiple email addresses, and as long as they are
merged into a single contact Google+ no longer asks me to add them to a
circle...
~~~
abp
Downvote accident on my mobile. Sorry, someone get him that point back,
please. Thanks in advance.
------
SonicSoul
Buzz had a similar opening <http://goo.gl/kA0pH> Such measures are meaningless
because no effort is required to join for existing G users. Lets wait for
Facebook or Twitter conversion rates to come out before breaking out the
Crystal
~~~
city41
You still need an invite and then walk through the sign up process, even if
you already have a Google account. Buzz was just dropped on all Gmail users
out of nowhere.
------
Estragon
The methodology offered in the comments, of googling for
[http://www.google.ca/search?hl=en&biw=1366&bih=653&#...</a> and taking the
number of results returned for the number of users, seems more direct.
Currently that returns about 6.5 million users, which is in the same ballpark.
~~~
EricBurnett
I see about 2.8 million results from that query, but I'm not surprised the
number changes a lot. The result counts are a very rough approximation
calculated on the fly, and shouldn't be relied on for more than order-of-
magnitude estimates.
The last name method is precise, but of questionable accuracy; the result
count is probably more accurate, but very imprecise. Take your pick :).
~~~
Estragon
That's interesting; if I anonymize by searching through Google Sharing, I also
get 2.8 million results. Searching from my own IP address (though without
being logged in) still gives 6.5 million.
~~~
esrauch
I think that they are reorganizing the results based on if you are signed in
with an account that has plus or not. There was someone who posted that their
Google+ was "already" in the top 10 results and twitter wasn't even shown, but
it was only true if you were logged in.
Hopefully they aren't doing something too drastic; there's allegedly already
an ongoing antitrust investigation about how google orders its search results.
~~~
Estragon
Maybe, but it's worth noting that I wasn't signed in, and don't have a G+
account, yet.
------
topbanana
Great, but I can't use it because those who pay money for Google Apps for
Domains are exluded from having a profile. No, I don't know why either.
------
jcfrei
I think calling G+ to be growing like crazy is misleading. Gmail itself has
about 200 mio. users - migrating those users to a G+ account shouldnt be that
difficult. What's really gonna be interesting is whether G+ will be capable of
attracting new users, which are not yet part of google's 'services cloud'.
~~~
lhnz
True, but I also think it will be interesting to see whether the users that
get a Google+ account actually use it. I use Twitter for purpose-less
tech/business opinions. I use Facebook rarely to talk to my brother and
sister. I use Skype for work conversations. I don't yet see people using this
enough for me to want to move to it.
edit; If they created some kind of BBM-type android service that sat on top of
Google+ I think it would make me switch my SMS usage because I have a lot of
friends that use Android phones...
~~~
jbrkr
_BBM-type android service_
You've described Huddle[1], part of the Google+ app for Android.
_"Huddle lets you send super-fast messages to the people you care about
most."_
Presumably, Huddle will be part of the Google+ app on other platforms, too.
[1]
[https://market.android.com/details?id=com.google.android.app...](https://market.android.com/details?id=com.google.android.apps.plus)
------
yalogin
Whether Google+ is really growing like crazy or not, it appears that there is
definitely a place for a new social network outside of facebook. And on that
note could not help think that Apple probably missed a great opportunity with
Ping.
~~~
codabrink
And I'm glad they did. Judging from Apple's business model, it would have been
yet another closed off, keep your data social network. I've been dying for an
open network like Google+, and I think things played out quite well.
~~~
kmavm
What's open about Google+? You can delete your account and download your data
from Facebook as well; you can also write third party applications that read
and write from/to Facebook, unlike Google+.
~~~
codabrink
Google allows you to export your data through their "Google Takeout" service.
This includes your contacts and circles, unlike facebook, who is now pushing
harder than ever to keep your contacts in Facebook.
~~~
kmavm
facebook.com -> Account settings -> Security -> 'Click here to download a copy
of the data you've put on Facebook.'
~~~
cryptoz
Right. Export everything but internet contact info...the most useful parts
they keep locked up. That button does not export email addresses. Fake export.
~~~
kmavm
I'll let Google explain the _exact same product decision_ for their social
network Orkut in 2009:
"Mass exportation of email is not standard on most social networks — when a
user friends someone they don’t then expect that person to be easily able to
send that contact information to a third party along with hundreds of other
addresses with just one click. In order to protect user privacy, we now
exclude email addresses from the CSV export file."
[http://techcrunch.com/2009/10/26/orkut-slows-hemorraging-
to-...](http://techcrunch.com/2009/10/26/orkut-slows-hemorraging-to-facebook-
by-making-friend-export-tool-nearly-useless/)
They're right. Programmatic export of friends' email addresses is too ripe for
abuse in the world we live in.
------
calufa
// in 1 hour I found 1 million users, so I guess is more than 4.5 millions
------
davros
where are all these people getting their invites? Dropping hints with my
Google contacts hasn't worked...
~~~
rwolf
Invites have been open all day. I'll invite you if you don't mind being
disconnected entirely from the social graph. Please add a way to contact you,
or a link to a way to contact you, to your HN profile.
~~~
davros
Thanks mate : ) Gmail added to my HN profile
------
bonch
Google Buzz also had "tens of millions" of people:
<http://tinyurl.com/64fhwdq>
~~~
tonfa
It was kind of forced to gmail users though.
|
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|
Basics of Compiler Design - cygwin98
http://www.diku.dk/hjemmesider/ansatte/torbenm/Basics/
======
cygwin98
As I've been working on my pet compiler project recently, I began to collect
some compiler-related online resources, this book is one of the hidden gems.
The author (Torben Mogensen) has been so generous to give it out for free,
that's why I think it needs more exposure.
It's heavy on the compiler theory part, so I mainly use it as a reference
book. It also has a "companion" book (my take) -- Programming Language
Concepts for Software Developers [1] by Peter Sestoft. The PLCSD book, also
free, is more on hand-on projects, where you can implement a Micro-C compiler.
[1] <http://www.itu.dk/courses/BPRD/E2010/plcsd-0_50.pdf>
~~~
singular
Perfect. The two together act to provide theory + practice (especially cool
that PLCfSD uses F# :-)
What other resources have you found, and how do they compare? Have you read
the Dragon Book? I hear it isn't actually all that wonderful in reality,
though there seems to be differing opinions on that.
I have both a pet compiler project which has never really got off the ground
and am attempting to contribute (albeit slowly!) to the go programming
language so have a special interest :)
~~~
cygwin98
The intriguing part of PLCSD to me is that it uses F#, which is the language I
use as the tool for my project, :)
I took compiler course during my university days, so the theory part is not a
big issue to me. That's why this free book comes so handy as a reference book.
I'm aware of the dragon book, tiger book, as well as, the whale book and had a
quick read in bookstore. They all are good books, but I don't find my need to
keep them on my bookshelf. So I don't think I am in the position to comment on
them. YMMV.
~~~
abecedarius
I hadn't heard of a whale book -- that turns out to mean Muchnick's.
------
TroelsHenriksen
Nifty, I actually worked a TA under Torben Mogensen recently, teaching out of
this book. It's a really succinct description of the fundamental theory,
although a little light on the practice.
~~~
cygwin98
Out of curiosity, what projects the students have to implement for the course?
~~~
TroelsHenriksen
They are given a functioning compiler (written in Standard ML) for a small
subset of a relatively simple artificial language (a new one every year), and
they have to extend the compiler to support the full language. This involves
changing every level (lexing, parsing, type-checking and code generation). For
the final exam, they have to add a new feature to the language.
|
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|
How WhatsApp Pushes Mobs to Murder in India - dankohn1
https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2018/07/18/technology/whatsapp-india-killings.html
======
acct1771
I'm not even going go read past the headline to say: technology is not the
problem, here, stop titling things as if it is.
|
{
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
}
|
Show HN: Record voicemail messages of your late loved ones - itengelhardt
http://vmsave.petekeen.net/
======
sjs382
I don't understand how this works.
I get this part: I enter my number. Your website calls my phone. I let it go
to voicemail.
But how does it get the message off my voicemail? Presumably, it only records
my "Hi, you've reached.. Please leave a message." voicemail message, rather
than the ones stored in my voicemail box.
What am I missing?
~~~
zrail
You're not missing anything. It's just recording the _outgoing_ message. It
can't get the messages left in the voicemail box.
~~~
sjs382
I thought the value proposition was the ability to save voicemails that others
have left for me?
What's the benefit of saving my own voicemail "Please leave a message"
message?
Or am I supposed to use it to call _someone else 's_ voicemail, to capture
_their_ "please leave a message" recording?
~~~
zrail
The latter. I suppose if you haven't had someone close to you pass away this
is hard to understand, but often the last scrap of someone's voice is their
outgoing "please leave a message" recording.
~~~
sjs382
Gotcha. I understand--I have a .mp3 of a voicemail saved for that same reason.
A bit of feedback re: why this was unclear:
> Eventually, you need to record over that message
This led me to believe that you were talking about my voicemail. I can't
record over someone else's.
> Make sure no one will answer the phone, other than your voicemail or
> answering machine.
"Your voicemail or answering machine" seemed to confirm that it was supposed
to call my number, but now I know I was wrong.
~~~
zrail
You're absolutely right. I'll clean up the language.
|
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}
|
Zuckerberg responds to privacy concerns - evancaine
http://washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/05/23/AR2010052303828.html
======
seliopou
Without judgment, I think it's important to point out in that at no point did
he admit that Facebook screwed up, nor did he at any point apologize for
anything.
~~~
papachito
He did say they sometimes move "too fast".
~~~
benmathes
Which has the sleazy, downright-asshole assumption that He and He alone knows
what's right. It's just us loser Luddites that don't get it. That's not an
apology, it's a syrup-dipped middle finger.
------
bretpiatt
Nothing more than a PR / shill piece with a bare bones disclosure at the
bottom, "Washington Post Chairman Donald E. Graham is a member of Facebook's
board of directors."
Time to read the NYT and WSJ for the real view on how mass print media views
the privacy issue. I won't waste 10 seconds reading another Post piece on
Facebook.
~~~
ube
I keep having an image of Donald E. Graham hovering over Zuke and waiting for
him to complete the article in long script and then handing it off to some
flunky to be typed. Then Donald says "good job Zuke" and pats him on the head
and Zuke smiles and says "yeah...privacy - my ass". And both leave the
conference room they were in laughing manically.
Of course...that's my imagination...it runs wild.
~~~
siglesias
Zuck.
------
bobfet1
the whole piece is totally disingenuous and it isn't anything new from what
we've heard from them before.
the worst part is the end when he subtly tries to use the fact that it started
out as a dorm room project as some sort of excuse as to why the company is
having all of these problems.
------
jacquesm
We've been here before:
<http://blog.facebook.com/blog.php?post=2208562130>
~~~
apphacker
Here's another one:
<http://blog.facebook.com/blog.php?post=7584397130>
------
petercooper
_We do not share your personal information with people or services you don't
want._
Ah, so I guess all those people whose phone numbers are streaming through
"Evil" or whose updates about their rectal surgery are being exposed through
the Open Graph API _want_ this information to be floating around the Web.
~~~
papachito
If people make their profile public, then yes their updates will be made
public.
~~~
warfangle
Except if facebook makes their profile public without their knowledge (or
consent)...
~~~
natrius
Except that didn't happen. There's no evidence that a large portion of
Facebook's users were confused about the privacy changes in December, yet many
people keep repeating that as fact.
~~~
shawndrost
Jesus, a guy asks for a citation and gets voted to -4. If it's that dumb a
question, post a link to a page with some sourced numbers in it and humble
him.
~~~
pixelbath
Where was the previous poster asking anything? He stated something blatantly
false that could easily be disproven by a simple web search. How does him
stating something provably false place the burden of proof on everyone else?
~~~
natrius
I can't seem to find this proof via a simple web search. Care to assist me?
------
robryan
If he truly believes what he writes, why not default privacy to only
displaying say your name and display picture. No problems for anyone to find
you then and if you really want to share everything you write to the world you
can alter from the default.
------
blizkreeg
It just seems like a drab, corporate BS message lacking any sincerity.
(tongue-in-cheek humor) I propose UNIX style privacy controls - user, group,
world.
~~~
mahmud
Don't even joke about Unix "security". The hacks in Jersey thought it was just
faster to pack 10 bits into a PDP word, than to implement a decent permission
system, an example of which already _existed_ :
[http://www.schneier.com/blog/archives/2007/09/the_multics_op...](http://www.schneier.com/blog/archives/2007/09/the_multics_ope.html)
(read the linked PDF; linking to Bruce as sort of "peer review" and "don't
take my word for it")
~~~
blueben
When you write a language and an operating system that both endure for more
than 30 years; across numerous hardware platforms; emulated and rewritten
dozens of times; becoming the fundamental underpinning and architecture of the
greatest information network in the history of mankind, sparking a global
cultural and technological revolution; Then you can call the guys from Jersey
"hacks".
~~~
mahmud
The same arguments can be made for MS DOS, don't you forget. Something has to
be said for being at the right place at the right time.
------
ab9
Zuckerberg acknowledges that complex privacy controls are a problem. But I
suspect that's only true because the defaults are evil. If users didn't have
to worry about being deceived, they wouldn't complain about complex controls
because they'd rarely use them.
Like simplicity, defaults are hugely important in UI design. But Zuckerberg
appears to be carefully avoiding the subject.
~~~
commandar
This. The granular privacy controls were a good thing when they defaulted
toward the side of privacy. The problem is that Facebook has increasingly been
adding new features and new privacy options while defaulting them to being
world-viewable.
What has people angry isn't that the privacy settings are complex; it's that
Facebook has essentially used the increasing complexity to pull a bait and
switch with their privacy of the past few years.
------
mootymoots
Why does Zuckerberg make this announcement, which ultimately affects all of
his 400 million customer base, in a buried article for the Washington Post?
Surely it's best to communicate with your customers directly, y'know, with a
Facebook message or something?
Looking at blog.facebook.com right now, there is no sign of this, nothing
officially on facebook.com. This is why people don't trust Facebook.
~~~
cliffchang
<http://facebook.com/facebook>
------
ErrantX
This time I am going to wait to see what changes they bring
I'm still happy to give FB a break over this; they've done a lot to improve
privacy in recent months and IMO get credit for that. I'm still having a hard
time verifying the vast majority of "privacy violations" people seem to be
finding; I suspect they don't really exist in the way they are presented.
Obviously there are one or two that are a problem (and I hope they address
that) such as the information that can no longer be hidden from search.
I've been playing the Facebook privacy game for a long time - and from that
perspective most of this current reporting/outrage is either a) people getting
on a bandwagon/following the crowd or b) misinformed. Amongst that _the
smattering of genuine complaints has mostly been lost_ to the noise. In a few
months it will be back to a few of us pressing those issues again....
Bottom line is; the problem is in creating effective controls people
understand. They really need to crack that, and if that is what the current
fad achieves then great.
~~~
jacquesm
I actually do think their privacy controls suck _and_ I think all this is
overblown.
They've sucked since day one, they make it steadily worse, but after all, it's
no big deal because my facebook page is mostly empty, it's just a shingle to
help people find me if they're looking for me (it's not like the whole world
reads HN :) ).
Facebook could do a lot better in this respect, and they should default new
features to 'off' if their users check a single box, once that says 'default
new features to 'off''.
That should do it.
After that they can do a one time announcement of that one checkbox and
anybody that doesn't check it will have nothing to complain in 6 months when
they roll out new features that affect your privacy somehow.
And they should stop the double speak just say it like it is, we're not
stupid.
~~~
ErrantX
_Facebook could do a lot better in this respect, and they should default new
features to 'off' if their users check a single box, once that says 'default
new features to 'off''._
Yes, that would be the #1 best fix to be honest.
------
OldHippie
Yes oh mighty and complex one. The problem is that we're too simple to grasp
your controls. Asshat.
How about a simple radio button: [] Share my information with 3rd parties []
Do not share my information with 3rd parties
Put it right at the end there as an override in case we can't understand some
of your more complex settings.
~~~
nano81
In the article: "We will also give you an easy way to turn off all third-party
services."
------
ju2tin
More B.S. from Zuckerberg. He should have said, "We screwed up. We're sorry,
we're fixing it, and we won't do it again." Instead we get nonsense about how
"The biggest message we have heard recently is that people want easier control
over their information."
Um... no, the biggest message you have heard recently is that people don't
want you destroying the terms of service they agreed to with unilateral, opt-
out changes, you greedy tool.
------
motters
It's good to hear that Facebook is addressing the privacy issues, but it's a
bit like closing the barn door after the horse has bolted. A lot of
information which people believed to be private has already been disclosed,
and they'll have to live with any consequences which may arise from that. Once
trust is gone it's difficult to win back.
------
drivingmenuts
Yeah. I'm not convinced.
------
paraschopra
See the comments on this post on Facebook itself
[http://www.facebook.com/posted.php?id=20531316728&share_...](http://www.facebook.com/posted.php?id=20531316728&share_id=125788394107023&comments=1#s125788394107023)
------
aresant
Facebook users' privacy is directly in conflict with the company's stated
goal:
"If people share more, the world will become more open and connected. And a
world that's more open and connected is a better world. These are still our
core principles today."
In other words, Zuck is bent on setting your personal information free so that
"people share more".
That "response" doesn't make me feel so warm and fuzzy.
~~~
nano81
Not necessarily. The sentence immediately before your quote adds some more
context:
"If we give people control over what they share, they will want to share
more."
I read that as saying that if people have control over who sees their
information, they will become more comfortable with sharing more widely over
time. You may not agree with that sentence, but it conflicts with your
conclusion.
------
elblanco
The best response would be to stop mucking with the information that your
users want to be private.
------
drivebyacct
Here are the principles under which Facebook operates:
\-- You have control over how your information is shared.
\-- We do not share your personal information with people or services you
don't want.
\-- We do not give advertisers access to your personal information.
[clip]
Ahahahahahahahahahahahahah. This is why Queerty and Pandora silently installed
applications on my profile and had access to my data without me opting into
anything (I've never used Connect or anything like it). Or why Instant
Personalization was turned on automatically.
You pissed off a population of users, arguably who are tuned-into this
discussion and many of which are technical enough to call you on your BS. The
candy coated, lets see how little we can get away with, isn't going to work.
In fact, it's only going to make things work.
If the new settings are good, good. Maybe they will avert some of the mistrust
that many view towards them. I certainly won't forget the shit that went down
on my profile w/o my permission in the last 2 months. Maybe an apology, an
admission of a bad idea, etc would be more convincing.
At least Google had the stones to say, rather quickly, Oops, sorry, we
shouldn't have done that.
~~~
papachito
> This is why Queerty and Pandora silently installed applications on my
> profile
There is no way for an app to install on your profile without your permission,
it's just not in the API and I see no reason why Facebook would give them
access to a secret API. Are you sure you didn't sign in to Pandora with your
Facebook account? This is a pretty serious accusation. I'm no facebook fan but
we need to be honest in our criticism if we want to be credible.
~~~
Derrek
I bought tickets on Fandango and later found the Fandango App in my FB
profile. I never installed it or approved it--it just appeared. To me, that's
simply wrong.
~~~
nano81
"Facebook spokesperson David Swain contacted us and confirmed that the
appearance of unauthorized apps was a bug:
In this case, there was a bug that was showing applications on a user’s
Application Settings page that the user hadn’t authorized. No information was
shared with those applications and the user’s list of applications was not
shown to anyone but the user. This bug has been fixed.
It does appear that unauthorized apps are no longer being added to users'
pages, however any unwanted applications that were previously added will still
need to be removed manually."
[http://www.macworld.com/article/151087/2010/05/facebook_addi...](http://www.macworld.com/article/151087/2010/05/facebook_addingapps.html)
~~~
random42
Yeah... I dont buy, it being a bug.
|
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|
Questions to ask yourself when writing tests - michalc
https://charemza.name/blog/posts/methodologies/testing/questions-to-ask-yourself-when-writing-tests/
======
discreteevent
"consider instead writing higher level tests that each each test more of the
code."
I really like the way they keep repeating this as the answer to so many
questions. To me it reads as a softly softly approach to weaning people off
what appears to be a mania for micro level unit testing, driven by people like
Uncle Bob.
~~~
Ace17
> ... micro level unit testing, driven by people like Uncle Bob.
"The structure of your tests should not be a mirror of the structure of your
code. The fact that you have a class named X should not automatically imply
that you have a test class named XTest."
"The structure of the tests must not reflect the structure of the production
code, because that much coupling makes the system fragile and obstructs
refactoring. Rather, the structure of the tests must be independently designed
so as to minimize the coupling to the production code."
[http://blog.cleancoder.com/uncle-
bob/2017/10/03/TestContrava...](http://blog.cleancoder.com/uncle-
bob/2017/10/03/TestContravariance.html)
~~~
ancarda
I really wish Uncle Bob would provide code examples with his blog posts and
videos. I struggle to imagine what my tests would look like if I followed
this. Possibly as my tests are so tightly coupled right now that refactoring
is actually not possible in some cases.
Does anyone know of explations of this with a more hands-on approach, or is
this simply a collection of ideas that can’t really be shown?
~~~
hdi
I've been wondering about that for a while.
So far, I've not been able to find any examples of test architecture that
follows those principles online or in my day job.
I've also been too lazy to do a side project and explore a more decoupled and
scalable test suite. Maybe I should get off my arse and finally do it.
~~~
twic
If you're writing a web application, i've had a reasonably happy time with
tests at the controller level, or perhaps right below. You want an interface
where values go in and out that correspond to fairly user-level ideas, but
which are still tractable for testing.
------
conatus
The most important thing here seems to be "For every part of my code change,
if I break the code, will a test fail?". Or as I'd put it "if you break the
code deliberately does the test actually fail?".
Seen quite a few tests in my time that don't capture the functionality they
think they are. They pass but wouldn't be able to tell if the underlying
functionality they capture is genuinely broken. This is why I guess the
standard practice is to go test red before you go test green.
------
simonhamp
The most important question to ask when writing tests: Can I do this faster if
I don’t write a test?
The answer is always no. Even if you are the only person building something,
future you will lick your boots clean in gratitude if there are tests.
Because even the best developers have to work with their own code sometimes.
~~~
crdoconnor
>Can I do this faster if I don’t write a test? The answer is always no.
I think the answer is mostly no but it's dangerous to think that it's always
no.
I've been given many stories in the past for which writing a realistic
automated test would have taken days, manual verification took minutes and the
code was fairly isolated and did not get changed very frequently.
Writing a test under those circumstances is actually a pretty poor investment.
~~~
simonhamp
I would be very surprised if an automated test literally took days to write
when a manual test is just minutes.
Also the time savings still pay off later, as automated tests usually take
seconds to run and there’s no training required - once it’s in the test suite
and the test suite runs are automated, it will always run and quickly identify
a failure - no “oops, we forgot to show Jim the Intern that he had to test
that part manually...”
Setting up your test suite and automation is longer for sure, but not days.
Even a complex manual process can be automated relatively quickly... the
manual process should be fairly scriptable in any OS nowadays, and most
platforms have great test frameworks.
~~~
andrewflnr
Think about something that necessarily involves hardware interaction, or a
GUI, or where all the interesting error cases are non-deterministic
(concurrency, network error handling). Ok, on the last one you're pretty much
hosed anyway. But we're not all writing nice data-in/data-out apps.
~~~
crdoconnor
Actually, I probably wouldn't count network error handling, because you can
probably use something like vaurien - [https://github.com/community-
libs/vaurien](https://github.com/community-libs/vaurien) \- to
deterministically mimic bad network conditions in an integration test in a
fairly reasonable amount of time.
Also, integrating that tool would probably have applications beyond a single
story so even if the change takes 5 minutes and making the test work with
vaurien takes half a day, it's probably still worthwhile.
Assuming that no tool like vaurien exists, though (and there are plenty of
scenarios out there where you'd have to build it from scratch), building the
test scenario could become prohibitively expensive.
------
falsedan
Here are some more questions:
How much business value is this test adding? That is, if this test failed and
we ignored it, how much would the business suffer?
Is the code easy to test? That is, does the design have lots of self-contained
components with well-described input/outputs & conditions/assumptions? Do the
docs clearly communicate that?
Will the test still work if we change the implementation? How much work to
update/remove the tests if the behaviour has to change to follow new business
requirements?
------
nexfitter
> Have I just made something public in order to test it? > > If yes, consider
> instead writing higher level tests that each each test more of the code.
This is one that I struggle with in JS with React.js components. If you have a
little helper component in a file that isn't exported but used in the same
file by a component that is exported, it is sometimes difficult to test that
non-exported component. Because of how enzyme shallow rendering works you
don't get the full tree so that component, if sufficiently nested, might not
ever be touched. This forces me to export the component just to test it.
example: [https://imgur.com/a/gqgcS](https://imgur.com/a/gqgcS)
~~~
reledi
I run into the same problem with React and it bugs me from a testing
standpoint.
Extracting code from a big component to helper functions and extracting those
functions from the component can lead to cleaner code, and it makes it much
easier to test the behaviour of the helpers directly than having to render the
component with enzyme.
A good example of this is moving state changes to pure functions [1] which
makes them much easier to test, but you'll need to export those functions to
test them.
1:
[https://twitter.com/dan_abramov/status/824310320399319040](https://twitter.com/dan_abramov/status/824310320399319040)
~~~
nexfitter
that is a really cool technique, thanks for the link!
------
sethammons
> Mocking introduces assumptions, which introduce risk.
This boils down something I've had on my mind a lot of late. Though, with a
different spin. I write a lot of Go. I prefer testing interfaces while some
others what to use mock generators. This quote captures part of my reasoning
behind avoiding mocks. I plan to write a detailed post at some point full of
examples. I think this quote will work its way in there.
~~~
michalc
I would be interested in reading it... if / when, if you can send me a link,
that would be great!
------
reledi
Couple more which haven't been mentioned yet:
\- Can I run the tests in random order?
\- Are the tests optimised for readability?
\- Are the tests unnecessarily testing third-party code?
\- Do individual tests contain the whole story? (Or do you have to look in
many places to understand each test?)
~~~
baristaGeek
Being able to run tests in a random order is indeed pretty important. It is
not only an indicator that the features were written with high quality, but
that the tests are high quality as well. Things such as the mocks mutating
happen and the developer writing the tests should avoid those kinds of things
happening.
------
KirinDave
I'm glad to see that increasingly people are recognizing that shallow mocks of
an API interface are not very good at testing anything.
------
securingsincity
I'll add a couple more
Can I run these tests more than once? Will they ever go stale? Can I run these
tests and they'll clean themselves up?
Having to update tests because they didn't take into account the date changing
(Happy birthday Joe Test!) or manually cleaning up data is a huge time suck.
------
spion
Here are 3 more questions:
* Are these tests relying on API that is likely to change?
* Can I make the API surface area used by all tests even smaller?
* Can I make a library that wraps the existing API of the unit to
get a smaller and/or more stable API for use in the tests only?
These 3 help get tests that withstand refactors.
An example:
An acceptance test for an editing form is relying on the save button having a
certain CSS style to find it and click it. This is API that is likely to
change. An unrelated change in the looks of a button may break the test.
If we switch to using the text of the button ("Save"), that's better because
that is what the user is likely to rely on too when they try to find a sav
button. But its still not perfect as the text of the button could change.
The final step is to make a little library function that finds a save button
within a certain form. Then we can encode the logic of the test but vary the
kinds of text that are considered "save" (or even the method of finding a save
button - perhaps a standard CSS class of save buttons in the future!); the
test logic itself remains "permanent" since it doesn't rely on any
implementation detail anymore.
~~~
atoko
A small library function like document.getElementById?
~~~
spion
The example wasn't perfect, but no, it wouldn't be that. What if in the future
we have a screen that needs to show more than one save form? Then we'll need
to stop using the "save" element id as a mechanism to denote save buttons; to
do that, we need to update all the tests that rely on this mechanism.
The small library function would be `getSaveButton(form)` or even `save(form)`
- now every form save test no longer encodes the knowledge of how a form's
save buttons are made, whether that's by using a certain ID, class, text or
anything else.
Now when we get that requirement for a screen with two forms, we'll no longer
get mad and try to attack the idea (two save forms on one screen? that's
inconsistent with our product, its confusing the users, etc etc) when the real
reason is that it creates pain updating our tests. Instead we just update the
save function.
The general idea is to encode the meaning of the test and separate the
implementation details (clicking the save button might even be too concrete -
"saving the form" is probably about the right level of abstraction). A good
way to do this is to describe this test in prose and check if its encoding
details that may vary - does this sound like something universally true /
something that will be true forever, or accidentally true due to current
circumstances?
------
lambdabit
Here's one more. Is maintaining this test more time and work than testing
manually?
------
atticusCr
The author does not cover any question related to application security. Things
like is this parameter/input value properly sanitized, does this piece is/is
not vulnerable to injection attacks, does this piece of code performs
authentication/authorization checks? Is RBAC properly implemented for this
method?
~~~
viraptor
I agree with some cases, but "is this parameter/input value properly
sanitized" is a bit weird. It should only every apply to a) the db framework,
b) those N really weird cases that have to break the abstraction and don't use
the db framework. If you have to test every input, then the problem is on a
completely different level than missing a test.
~~~
atticusCr
Kind of, if you have a centralized place to perform input data validation, as
it should, then it is just a matter to test that piece of code same if you are
using a framework. However, I don't understand why you refer to a db in the
first place? Is it because I used the injection attack as an example? if
that's the case bare in mind that Injection target other interprets as well
not only a db.
But getting back to my original idea, what I want to highlight the need of
adding cases to cover application security.
~~~
viraptor
Yeah, my mind substituted parameter with query parameter. Too much database
stuff at my $dayjob recently and I get tunnel vision ;-)
~~~
atticusCr
lol! thanks for your comments.
------
V2hLe0ThslzRaV2
>> "For every part of my code change, if I break the code, will a test fail?"
Since "breaking code" is super subjective, and generally speaking, trying to
"cover everything" is a recipe for hell.
Anyone able to expand on what the author meant by this?
~~~
michalc
Perhaps this part is not clear / well defined, but roughly, I meant that code
coverage is (about) 100% for the lines added/changed, and some "reasonable"
subset of possible breaking changes would be picked up by failing tests.
What I had in mind specifically in the answer, was the case of changing
"interfaces" between parts of code. For example, the case of changing a
function's arguments, or how it uses them, but omitting to change a call site.
Checking that the call site just calls the function would not be enough to
produce a failing test, especially without type safety. The test would
actually need to assert on what the function does, e.g. its return value for a
pure function.
Yes, I think trying to test against every single possible breaking change is
not valuable.
------
yawaramin
Looks like Michal has been immersed in Haskell for at least the past year. I
wonder if he will have something to say about balancing testing and coverage
with static typing.
~~~
michalc
Thinking about this, at the moment, I don't think static typing is a
replacement for testing (or vice versa!). Although, apparently, with something
like LiquidHaskell, you can get more logic "into" the types and checked by the
compiler, but I'm unsure how much you can do when it comes to more complex
business logic.
Regarding testing "glue": static typing often gives evidence (but not proof)
that code is glued together appropriately [refactoring even small projects
without tests in Haskell is a joy: the compiler essentially tells you what to
change]. However, it doesn't give evidence that the high level behaviour is
what it needs to be. So I think higher level tests are still needed.
I think maybe changing the first question from...
> Am I confident the feature I wrote today works because of the tests and not
> because I loaded up the application?
to...
> Am I confident the feature I wrote today works because of the tests and type
> checking, and not because I loaded up the application?
will probably help you to answer the question about how much static types
allow you to forgo tests. My instinct is that in most cases, high level tests
are still worthwhile.
~~~
yawaramin
I'm thinking much the same, though I do think of tests as looking after the
dynamic behaviour and types after the static behaviour. Which seems obvious in
retrospect, but once you wrap your head around it you can build neat
abstractions like lightweight static capabilities:
[https://github.com/yawaramin/lightweght-static-
capabilities](https://github.com/yawaramin/lightweght-static-capabilities)
------
dvh
1\. Am I paid to write tests?
~~~
jyriand
Yes. You are paid to write working software.
|
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}
|
Visitor Tracking Without Cookies (or How To Abuse HTTP 301s) - jaynate
http://www.scatmania.org/2012/04/24/visitor-tracking-without-cookies/
======
paulsutter
The laws don't define cookies narrowly. Just because you're not using an http
set-cookie header doesn't mean you've circumvented privacy laws. For example,
UK law:
<http://www.aboutcookies.org/default.aspx?page=3>
6\. - (1) Subject to paragraph (4), a person shall not store or gain
information, or to gain access to information stored, in the terminal
equipment of a subscriber or user unless the requirements of paragraph (2) are
met.
(2) The requirements are that the subscriber or user of that terminal
equipment -
(a) is provided with clear and comprehensive information about the purposes of
the storage of, or access to, that information; and
(b) has given his or her consent.
~~~
rmc
Agreed, the new EU ePrivacy directive is not about "cookies" per se, but
storing and re-accessing data you store on people's computers. Cookies are the
main example of that, but it also applies to anything that can re-identify a
user.
~~~
blauwbilgorgel
In a sense the "Cookie law" is a confusing misnomer. Not only "cookies", but
also local storage, flash cookies, plugins, toolbars, and even resources like
images, HTML, CSS and JS fall under this law.
The Dutch minister spoke of (freely translated): "Everything that reads or
stores your data on your appliance, without permission, without a functional
goal other than tracking".
Some techniques like browser fingerprinting ( <https://panopticlick.eff.org/>
, but also possible with <http://modernizr.com/> ) don't store anything on
your appliance, but would still fall under the "reading your data from your
appliance" part of our law, if used for tracking purposes.
You would need permission to use the "grey" technique from the article. Even
if you were to store that data in aggregated form.
~~~
fkdjs
If I write a site that logs users in, I keep track of them merely by storing
their username in a database as well as a cookie value representing that they
are logged in, so do they need to accept terms before logging in?
~~~
rmc
There is often "implied consent" for storing local data that is strictly
necessary to perform an action that a user has initiated.
------
eli
The more common way to do this is to stuff data in the ETags or Last-Modified
date on a cacheable piece of content. This "hack" is at least a decade old, by
the way.
Kissmetrics was actually using it in the wild for a while, but I think they
stopped after there was a public outcry.
~~~
erichocean
It's so old it's even in Wikipedia:
<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/HTTP_ETag#Tracking_using_ETags>
~~~
s_henry_paulson
Being in Wikipedia is rarely associated with something being "old"
------
tmister
See also evercookie <http://samy.pl/evercookie/>.
------
SquareWheel
Demo site appears down, but I get the gist of it. It's just abusing browser
caching.
Rather than a bunch of ad networks and analytics companies finding
workarounds, I'd rather sites just stand up to this obviously flawed rule.
It's ill thought out, and I have no plans to offer one of those annoying "Hey,
this site uses cookies, just like every other site on the internet!" alerts.
~~~
anonymouz
So in your opinion the flaw with the rule is that it violates your natural
right to store cookies on your visitors browsers without asking?
If your visitors have to log in you might as well show them such a message. If
they don't have to log in, there is probably also no reason for them to accept
your cookies.
While almost every site on the Internet uses cookies, most of them are of no
benefit to a visitor. And yes, technical solutions exist, but they are not
really suitable for a vast majority of the population that simply does not
know about cookies, and which cookies to accept.
~~~
SquareWheel
It's not a natural right, it's a technical right. It's a fundamental storage
mechanism of browsers. It means you don't have to log in every time you
browser to my site, or you don't have to enter your birthday every time you
want to browse mature content. It means advertisers are delivering the right
ads, and that site owners can see where the bounce rates are highest for users
and fix that page. Cookies are important, and the web functions better with
them enabled and accessible to site owners.
Personally, I get annoyed when I'm badgered by notices, and sometimes even
modal windows, for cookie notices. Of course your site uses cookies, it's just
like every other site on the web. I shouldn't have to agree to a notice every
time I visit a new domain. I have a browser toggle and if cookies offend me
for some reason I can disable them.
~~~
mattmanser
Technical right. Fantastic!
Look at what cookies websites actually store.
When you go to many sites there are a bunch of other people spying on you and
setting cookies that you didn't even know.
I don't agree with the implementation of this law, but I certainly agree with
its intent.
~~~
ZoFreX
No site can force you to set their cookies - you can simply turn that option
off in your browser. You can even whitelist just the sites you trust, or
blacklist just the sites you don't trust.
Not that you can really tell, anyway - it's impossible to know just by looking
at a cookie what it's really being used for, or what data on you is being
tracked. There are certainly good reasons to give cookies to users that have
not logged in yet, though - one example that springs to mind is a CSRF token.
Lastly, what is this meant to achieve? The aim is to crack down on activity
that was _already illegal_ before this law came in. Sites that were doing
naughty things and tracking users illegally aren't exactly going to stop
because they now have to show a notice about cookies. Before the law came in I
said "they'd just not bother showing the notice" but frankly, the could abide
by it - users would just click "yes" anyway out of habit!
------
patrickmay
This paper on browser fingerprinting shows that it is possible to identify a
particular user, with reasonably high reliability, without using cookies or
other tricks: <https://panopticlick.eff.org/browser-uniqueness.pdf>
------
ukjamster
I agree with paulsutter - this does not comply with the law, nor do any of the
hacky workarounds that I've seen mooted (except perhaps server side log file
analysis - old school). I've added a comment to that site, which is awaiting
moderation.
------
rhizome
Is it just me being perfectionist, or does needing to OCD your cookie data
down to census level indicate that maybe your business model needs a little
work? Are there certain niches where this degree of tracking is really
necessary?
------
mixedbit
Standard HTTP headers carry values that are distinct enough to uniquely
identify most visitors: <https://panopticlick.eff.org/>
~~~
ErikD
That uses mostly data collected clientside using javascript and flash. HTTP
headers alone are no way enough.
------
brianchu
Unless you want to get sued ([http://www.extremetech.com/internet/91966-aol-
spotify-gigaom...](http://www.extremetech.com/internet/91966-aol-spotify-
gigaom-etsy-kissmetrics-sued-over-undeletable-tracking-cookies)), I would
avoid doing this until the legal grey area surrounding non-cookie tracking is
resolved. I suppose you might be able to get a user to "agree" to this if you
have them agree to a ToS when they sign up, but even then I'm not too sure of
that.
------
d0m
The irony with the demo... "Passager, rails deployments that just works" with
a huge Error page showing security-sensitive stack traces.
------
16s
Ironic that the first thing that site does is try to set a cookie in my
browser. I denied it. Also, I have JavaScript turned off.
~~~
fooyc
How does the web look like from the 90's ?
~~~
16s
It looks like the Web without privacy snoops whoring out visitor clicks to the
highest bider.
------
sasoon
Why not just use localStorage instead of cookies?
~~~
wooptoo
Because localstorage may pop a message window on some browsers.
------
akaru
As others have mentioned, this is old news. And this site should really be
ignored as trash..."Scatman Dan"?
------
wooptoo
Can be done with ETags too.
|
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"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
}
|
A Math Paradox: The Widening Gap Between High School and College Math - gnosis
http://jerz.setonhill.edu/weblog/2009/11/a_math_paradox_the_widening_ga/
======
tokenadult
The book mentioned in this blog post is a pretty good book. I like another
book
<http://www.amazon.com/Algebra-Israel-M-Gelfand/dp/0817636773>
for slightly more advanced math learners, including those I teach in the more
experienced section of the math classes I teach in my town. Below is a set of
quotations and links about math education I send out to parents of newly
enrolled students in my classes:
LINKS ABOUT LEARNING MATH AND OTHER SUBJECTS
I was first introduced to a mathematician writing about how to teach math when
a parent told me a decade ago about the article "Basic Skills Versus
Conceptual Understanding: A Bogus Dichotomy in Mathematics Education,"
[http://www.aft.org/pubs-
reports/american_educator/fall99/wu....](http://www.aft.org/pubs-
reports/american_educator/fall99/wu.pdf)
by Professor Hung-hsi Wu. His writings have been very influential on my
thinking about math education.
A link that furthered my process of pondering how to teach mathematics better
was Richard Askey's review of the book Knowing and Teaching Elementary
Mathematics by Liping Ma.
[http://www.aft.org/pubs-
reports/american_educator/fall99/ame...](http://www.aft.org/pubs-
reports/american_educator/fall99/amed1.pdf)
Another review of that excellent book
<http://www.ams.org/notices/199908/rev-howe.pdf>
is also food for thought.
Professor John Stillwell writes, in the preface to his book Numbers and
Geometry (New York: Springer-Verlag, 1998):
"What should every aspiring mathematician know? The answer for most of the
20th century has been: calculus. . . . Mathematics today is . . . much more
than calculus; and the calculus now taught is, sadly, much less than it used
to be. Little by little, calculus has been deprived of the algebra, geometry,
and logic it needs to sustain it, until many institutions have had to put it
on high-tech life-support systems. A subject struggling to survive is hardly a
good introduction to the vigor of real mathematics.
". . . . In the current situation, we need to revive not only calculus, but
also algebra, geometry, and the whole idea that mathematics is a rigorous,
cumulative discipline in which each mathematician stands on the shoulders of
giants.
"The best way to teach real mathematics, I believe, is to start deeper down,
with the elementary ideas of number and space. Everyone concedes that these
are fundamental, but they have been scandalously neglected, perhaps in the
naive belief that anyone learning calculus has outgrown them. In fact,
arithmetic, algebra, and geometry can never be outgrown, and the most
rewarding path to higher mathematics sustains their development alongside the
'advanced' branches such as calculus. Also, by maintaining ties between these
disciplines, it is possible to present a more unified view of mathematics, yet
at the same time to include more spice and variety."
Stillwell demonstrates what he means about the interconnectedness and depth of
"elementary" topics in the rest of his book, which is a delight to read and
full of thought-provoking problems.
<http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0387982892/>
Richard Rusczyk, a champion math competitor in high school and now a publisher
of math textbooks, among other ventures, has written an interesting article
"The Calculus Trap":
[http://www.artofproblemsolving.com/Resources/AoPS_R_A_Calcul...](http://www.artofproblemsolving.com/Resources/AoPS_R_A_Calculus.php)
I particularly like this article's statement,
"If ever you are by far the best, or the most interested, student in a
classroom, then you should find another classroom. Students of like interest
and ability feed off of each other. They learn from each other; they challenge
and inspire each other."
which is one reason to encourage able math learners to learn together.
Another good article about a broader rather than narrower mathematics
education is
<http://www.math.sunysb.edu/~mustopa/thurston_edu.pdf>
by William Thurston, a Fields medalist.
"Another problem is that precocious students get the idea that the reward is
in being ‘ahead’ of others in the same age group, rather than in the quality
of learning and thinking. With a lifetime to learn, this is a shortsighted
attitude. By the time they are 25 or 30, they are judged not by precociousness
but on the quality of work."
I recently read an issue of the MAA Focus newsletter of the Mathematical
Association of America, and in the newsletter I saw a link to an article by a
math professor
<http://www.ams.org/notices/200502/fea-kenschaft.pdf>
who is very concerned about the quality of elementary mathematics education in
the United States. She provides many interesting examples of ways elementary
teachers can think more mathematically about elementary mathematics and thus
teach better.
A very interesting article about overcoming learning challenges and thriving
from them
[http://www.stanfordalumni.org/news/magazine/2007/marapr/feat...](http://www.stanfordalumni.org/news/magazine/2007/marapr/features/dweck.html)
reports the work of psychologist Carol Dweck, who shows how "growth mindset"
can make learners smarter.
------
yurisagalov
I have a younger sister who is currently going through the High School system
in Canada, and as the son of a Teacher and an Engineer (both of Russian
upbringing), education is a constant hot topic at family gatherings. While we
are not experts on these topics, I'll share some of the opinions that we've
reached.
The education in North America (not necessarily the US alone, I live in
Canada) is significantly lagging behind the rest of the world when it comes to
mathematics. This should come to no surprise to anyone who has studied with
anyone outside of this country. The Asian and Israeli kids (I am singling them
out as I lived in a predominantly immigrant heavy Jewish/Asian neighborhood of
Toronto, so I only have them to compare against) in my High School classes
_consistently_ scored higher than those born in Canada in all math courses,
and this continued throughout my undergrad.
This widening gap between high school and college math is most prominent here,
as compared to Europe, the Middle East, and Asia. In my humble opinion, this
is largely due to our policy of "no child left behind" when it comes to
Education and, as a secondary cause, due to Teachers teaching the "Fear of
Math" (I'll get to that later).
As a society, we are constantly attempting to make sure that all our kids have
an equal opportunity at success in life. Pursuing this endeavor, we have
decided that rather than recognizing that everyone has different strengths and
weaknesses, we should level the playing field. But how do we level this field?
We simply adjust to the lowest common denominator. We want our children to
score higher on the standardized tests, and when the scores are low, we simply
make the tests simpler. This lowers the bar so that the weakest links in a
particular subject area can keep up (it also allows politicians to get
reelected and show how "great" of a job they're doing).
I think this is inherently wrong. First, not everyone needs to be educated
with the same level of intensity on a particular subject area. Second, you are
preventing "super stars" in particular areas from ever developing since they
will never get to grow to their full potential. Integration is too hard for
some Grade 12's? Let's remove it altogether. My sister, who is a decade my
junior, will never learn even derivatives in high school. Algebra and
geometry? Gone. My dad's high school ended in grade 10, and by the end of
Grade 10 they have learnt derivatives, integration, and the importance of the
natural logarithm. How many of us in our 20's can say the same thing? Yes, the
drop out rate was higher, and if you didn't push yourself the system sure as
hell did not care, but this is also the system that sent a man who shares my
first name into space.
As a society, we have gone soft. We are babying our kids into believing that
everything is roses. It made me _furious_ when even as early as Grade 4, my
sister would come home with a poor mark and say that it's ok because she "did
her best". Really? What do kids really know about doing their best? _of
course_ if she truly did her best it would be ok and often when I see someone
truly struggling to grasp a concept that they can't I feel both sympathy and
have great respect for them, even if they fail. But at such a young age, there
is no way that anyone knows what "their best" is, and this constant statement
from her teachers is certainly not helping. In fact, I've never heard of
"doing your best" until I immigrated to Canada.
And then, then there's the teachers. Oh the teachers. Few people are as
important to a society's success as the teachers of children. They are in a
_direct_ position to influence and train our minds at a very important stage.
And yet, they are underpaid and disrespected, such that only "those who can't
do, teach" has become an unfortunate reality in many school systems. This is
of course (and luckily) not always true, as some of my closest friends have
dreamt of being teachers for as long as I can remember prior to ever beginning
their Bachelor's degrees. In a high school environment the situation is also
not as terrible as in the elementary schools as the teachers have at least
specialized in the subjects they are now teaching.
However, in the elementary school, the situation is in fact worrisome. Class
coordinators (those that you spend most of your day with), teach practically
everything from Math, to English, to History, at least until grade 5, and
sometimes even through middle school. As such, they are in a particularly
strong position to put the fear of _____ into you. Generally, this happens to
be the "Fear of Math". The teachers may in fact be great educators of English,
and may have a very strong foundation in early childhood education, but
_quite_ often, these same teachers are the ones who were not great at math
growing up, and so they subconsciously teach their own fear and lack of
understanding to the kids. I've seen this first hand from kids who are
_afraid_ of math without having even _tried_ , and it used to baffle me, until
I talked to some of my Math teachers in high school and they explained this
concept to me (yeah, I was a nerd growing up and still keep in touch with some
of my teachers ;)
I realize that I place a lot of blame and offer few solutions. The truth is, I
don't really have many solutions, if I did I would be trying to implement
them. I think the position of teacher should be highly respected -- as much as
a Doctor and/or a Lawyer or even an Engineer. I think this can only be
achieved if teachers are not as heavily underpaid as they are today... I think
that the policy of "no child left behind", is fantastic, but it needs to
incorporate the realization that not everyone is the same.
Finally, I think that Arthur Benjamin's formula for changing math is something
everyone should spend 3 minutes, watch, and think about:
[http://www.ted.com/talks/lang/eng/arthur_benjamin_s_formula_...](http://www.ted.com/talks/lang/eng/arthur_benjamin_s_formula_for_changing_math_education.html)
I'd like to apologize to my sister for singling her out in this post, she is a
great kid with a good head on her shoulder's. I'd also like to apologize to
any teachers that I have inadvertently offended -- I have nothing but the
greatest respect for you and your profession. I have been BLESSED by having
teachers who did not tell me to just "do my best", but rather challenged me at
every turn.
~~~
netcan
As someone who has been through the education system in Israel, I am very
suspicious of anyone claiming anything about Israeli high schools is better.
The state of education there is terrible & getting worse. It is common for
high school students to go to private tutors who in 5-10 sessions can do more
for them then school does in 2 years.
~~~
yurisagalov
I haven't gone through their high school education system, but I studied with
plenty of kids who went through it. I don't know if they went to tutors to be
honest, since it never came up, but many of those who came to us in grade 10
were much further ahead of those of us in grade 10 in the field of
mathematics.
As someone who _did_ study in Israel until the end of grade 6, I can safely
and without exaggeration say that when I started grade 7 here, the material we
were covering in math was equivalent to what I learnt in grade 5. In fact, I
was advised to skip grades, but my parents decided not to advance me as my
English was quite poor at the time.
~~~
netcan
When was this?
~~~
yurisagalov
13 years ago :) Keep in mind, I'm not saying that the High School education
system in Israel isn't going to hell and back. It very well may be. The
purpose of my post was to discuss Canadian/North American education...My
comment on Israel was largely anecdotal in relation to how those kids do in
the Canadian high school education system...
~~~
netcan
Well, if they are doing any worse then Israel, they are in trouble. Israel
requires math to graduate, but the level is not high. It was my experience
that the level is set such that a relatively unmotivated & unintelligent
teenager can pass without listening in any classes by doing some preparation
in the weeks before.
BTW, I went in the other direction about that time & age as you.
------
jey
I think the "Lockhart's Lament" explains a good part of the source of this
apparent paradox: <http://www.maa.org/devlin/devlin_03_08.html>
For some reason they don't teach math in high school, but instead "math" class
seems to focus on developing your memorization and robotic homework-completion
skills.
~~~
unalone
Anybody who hasn't read this paper half a dozen times should give it another
read. It's a fascinating article that will change your outlook on education a
little bit.
------
gchpaco
Something that burned a friend of mine is that college math is nothing like
high school math even conceptually. She liked calculus and algebra and became
a math major to discover that the math classes she was taking contained very
little algebra and no calculus but required really abstract thinking that she
had trouble with.
I came at this from the other side, where I dislike mathematics and calculus
but love abstract thinking.
~~~
RiderOfGiraffes
The education system is like a low pass filter follwed by a high pass filter.
The people who really enjoy school math, doing sums, applying equestions, get
to university and find it's really hard and abstract and switch courses or
drop out. The ones who might be really good at university style math get
bored, disengaged, and don't do math at university, never suspecting that it's
completely different.
The problem is that school math is trying to accomplish two things at once,
and they're at odds with each other.
On the one hand, regular people who go on to regular jobs need numeracy and
some facility to understand graphs, sums, and to follow a line of reasoning.
On the other hand, anyone going on to the sciences needs a good background in
(school-type) algebra, some geometry, a little calculus, and some statistics.
Way more than most people need in everyday life.
The latter group also needs a glimpse of some cool stuff to keep them
interested. That's why in the UK there are math masterclasses, "Maths
Inspiration", Further Maths, and other groups that try to get kids interested.
------
christopherolah
I'm a high school student presently. The Math is trivial.
The only way to learn anything is to read by myself and audit university
courses.
I'm actually trying to write a math textbook that will actually teach math. If
you're interested email me at [email protected] and I'll email you
a copy. Please include `math textbook' in you subject (I get lots of emails).
------
jamesbressi
What is most clever about this article (besides the intense and long dialogue
created by the subject matter which has resulted in some of the longest
comments and replies I have seen for any article) is how his wife purchased
that book for their child.
Think about the reactions many parents would fall to by default: Lecturing
their child that if they want to be "x" they have to do "x" in school.
Or, not taking seriously what their child wants to do in the future or finding
it too much effort to debate why they should be doing their school work
because "kids, teenagers, heck even adults, change their minds frequently
about what they want to do in the future and look at how many college students
change their majors."
That was an impressive solution to the issue his wife pursued and an example
that will stay with me a very long time.
+1 to the author of this post and his wife for parenting ingenuity.
|
{
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
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My New Entertainment Web Site - rbertani
Hi people, how are you? I would like to present you my new Entertainment Web Site: http://allinyourhandsweb.com
It is a funny site which you can search by various contents like musics, videos, places near of you and more! I hope you like it and Enjoy! There is a android version too, you can get it on google play. :-)
======
ankitgarg43
nice website!!!!
|
{
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
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Continuous Calculus [pdf] - happy-go-lucky
http://www-users.math.umn.edu/~olver/ln_/cc.pdf
======
schoen
This book formulates calculus by starting with the concept of continuity
instead of the concept of limits. (It shows that limits can be defined in
terms of continuity, rather than the other way away, which other texts usually
do.)
The simple idea that substitutes for limits in the definition of the
derivative is that the derivative of f(x) at x₀ is the value of d that would
make (f(x)-f(x₀))/(x-x₀) continuous at x₀ if (f(x-x₀))/(x-x₀) were to equal d
(instead of being undefined) when x=x₀.
That is to say, there are approximations of the tangent slope on both sides.
The derivative, if it exists, is the value of the tangent slope that would
make these approximations continuous.
The book credits Carathéodory with this concept
> that f:ℝ→ℝ has a derivative at a∈ℝ if there exists a continuous function
> q:ℝ→ℝ such that f(x) = f(a) + q(x)(x−a)
and in this case that that derivative is q(a).
I actually like this a lot; it feels very elegant.
|
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The problem with Amazon's load balancing (ELB) - maccman
http://leadthinking.com/226-the-problem-with-amazons-load-balancing
======
kordless
The title of this post should be "The problem with DNS". It's really the lack
of mapping the root domain to a CNAME that is the issue.
Amazon chose to do load balancing with layer 4, no sessions, and using low
TTLs on CNAME records. This minimal feature set allows them to make the
service highly scalable and fault tolerant. Add more features, and it could
become brittle.
If you build your app or site around naked domains, expect layer 7 support, or
want session persistence, ELB isn't going to work for you very well. On the
other hand, if you build around the set of features they provide, it's likely
to be exactly what you need.
Of course this leaves the issue with someone typing in your naked domain and
getting redirected. I'd point out that this can be solved by using an elastic
(static) IP and always making sure you have that IP address up on a box. If
it's not mapped (and monitoring fails) then bring up a new box and assign it
to that box. Only do 302s on that box to keep things simple.
Alternately you could use something like UltraDNS, which will monitor boxes
for you, and switchero DNS on failures.
------
mark_l_watson
Amazon designed and implemented AWS for their own use, and it is not always a
good fit for outside developers. But sometimes it is.
AWS is very good for offloading non-time critical calculations, backup storage
using S3, etc. AWS may not be the best choice for primary hosting, and as
usual requirements analysis is required.
The DNS problem that the article mentions is not a problem for Amazon hosting
their own applications but can be a problem for external users.
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"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
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More Than Goldman Sachs In SEC Gun Sight - jeromec
http://www.forbes.com/2010/04/16/goldman-sachs-fraud-lenzner-markets-streettalk.html
======
pasbesoin
This is the only news article/commentary on this that I've seen so far that
mentions what I suspect. The current charges are civil. I suspect it may well
stay that way; civil charges do not threaten GS' ability to do business with
the federal government (and some state governments, I would suspect).
Further, it appears that they have picked out a vice president to serve as
figurehead and scapegoat, taking the fall while the real/rest of senior
management uses him as a a convenient shield/raincoat.
I may be wrong, but so far, I'm not terribly impressed.
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Ask HN: Congress is Passing an Internet Sales Tax: Why Doesn't HN Care? - wikiburner
This seems like a pretty big deal for a lot of startups. The compliance requirements alone sound like a nightmare. I'm curious why none of the recent articles submitted to HN (from very legit sources like NYT and WSJ) are getting upvotes. Also, it's not like this is a hypothetical - it looks like it's going to be railroaded through very quickly.<p>EDIT: Here are some links:<p>http://www.nytimes.com/2013/04/23/technology/internet-sales-tax-gains-ground-in-senate.html<p>http://online.wsj.com/article_email/SB10001424127887324493704578432961601644942-lMyQjAxMTAzMDIwMTEyNDEyWj.html<p>http://thehill.com/blogs/hillicon-valley/technology/295431-internet-sales-tax-advances-after-obama-endorsement-<p>http://www.realclearpolitics.com/video/2013/04/22/carney_internet_sales_tax_is_simply_about_leveling_the_playing_field.html
======
DanielBMarkham
It's been a very busy news week. Reid picked just the right time to slide this
in -- the air has been sucked out of the room by other stories.
Congress had a hands-off approach to the internet for some time, and it took
off like wildfire because of it. All that's changing now, it seems.
I'm disappointed that there's so many avenues of attack for legislators that
it's effectively impossible to cover all of our bases. With big players like
WalMart and the states involved, it's a wonder common sense has held out as
long as it has.
For those of you buying into the "level the playing field" bullshit, I don't
want a level playing field. This isn't kid's soccer where nobody keeps score
and everybody gets a prize. I want goods and services delivered to me as
efficiently as possible. Used to be this was the corner store, then the big
box store, then the internet store. Might be something completely new in 20
years. Can I pay it? Sure? Will it bother me? Not a lot, really. The only
thing this is going to do is screw poor people over who were getting goods a
few percentage points below what they used to get them at. It's terribly
regressive -- the very opposite of a "level playing field"
Big players coming in and screwing over the poor? It should be a scandal.
~~~
Avshalom
> I want goods and services delivered to me as efficiently as possible.
You know what makes deliveries more efficient? State funded infrastructure.
now, how could we finance such a thing...
~~~
runjake
No national sales tax currently exists, to my knowledge. So this is a new
precedent. And to answer your question, we could finance such things by
avoiding wars, shutting down needless agencies, and so on.
People are already struggling, burdening them with a tax that will generate
revenue that is peanuts compared to what we're spending on our wars. Doesn't
make sense to me.
~~~
dragonwriter
> No national sales tax currently exists, to my knowledge. So this is a new
> precedent.
No, because, despite the media calling the Marketplace Fairness Act an
"Internet Sales Tax", the bill is not a national (or any other) tax. It is a
bill which conditionally lifts existing barriers to _states_ extending their
sales taxes to cover online retailers selling goods to people in the state.
If the bill passes, then states with sales taxes would have to choose whether
or not to meet the conditions set in order to extend those taxes to internet
retailers selling into the state. No tax is created directly by the bill, and
any tax _enabled_ by the bill would be a state tax, not a national tax.
> People are already struggling, burdening them with a tax that will generate
> revenue that is peanuts compared to what we're spending on our wars.
Most states aren't using any of the taxes they collect to fund wars, and the
central purpose of this isn't so much to raise new revenues (though it will
enable states to do some of that) as to eliminate the tax incentives that
currently exist which favor out-of-state internet-based retailers over in-
state retailers (internet-based or brick-and-mortar) due to the inability of
states to levy the same taxes on the former as the latter.
------
brd
from the NYT article: "The bill would allow states to require all Internet
sellers to collect sales taxes for the state and local governments of the
buyers. State governments would be required to provide software free to
Internet retailers to calculate sales taxes. Online retailers with out-of-
state sales of less than $1 million a year would be exempt."
Internet Sales Tax wouldn't be bad if it were uniformly imposed country wide
(what amazon has pushed for). This specific bill, on the other hand, sounds
like a nightmare.
The only saving grace being that at least states would be required to provide
"software" - I can only hope that translates to APIs - to calculate taxes.
That would make the problem significantly more manageable but it would still
drastically increase the complexity of billing solutions for a lot of SMBs.
The million dollar threshold is just too low for this to be anything but
crushing for small businesses.
~~~
wikiburner
The next two paragraphs after the one you mentioned were possibly more
relevant:
_Opponents predict a bookkeeping nightmare. Online retailers would have to
keep track of more than 9,000 sales-tax regimes. Internet companies in states
with no sales taxes — Montana, New Hampshire, Oregon and Delaware — would have
to build a collection apparatus from scratch._
_Senator Ron Wyden, Democrat of Oregon, called the legislation “a targeted
strike against the Internet and a targeted strike against the digital
economy.”_
~~~
virmundi
Look at this as a SaaS opportunity. Create a clearinghouse to manage all of
the "software". Fairly simple API, you give me the State of the person,
perhaps ZIP to find County level taxes and out comes a {"state":".08",
"cityX":".01"}. Leave it to the client to handle exact cost calculation.
As for the states that don't have sales tax, they can pay the clearing to
provide a {"state":"0"} for all requests.
~~~
lavezza
A little more difficult than that. I grew up in Pennsylvania. My zip code was
for the town next to the township I lived in. There were taxes for stores in
the town that weren't levied on the township (two different local gov'ts).
Also, PA doesn't tax clothing while Maryland a few miles away does. So every
item you sell would have to be categorized in some way (and maybe differently
in different areas). So, every delivery address would have to be accurately
mapped to multiple, overlapping taxing authorities (state, county, local,
school district, etc.) and every item you sell would have to be mapped to
multiple tax categories (clothes and shoes not taxed in A, clothes (but not
shoes) taxed in B, shoes (but not work boots) taxed in C, etc.)
~~~
pc86
To get the most precise taxation possible you would need to get the customer's
address and calculate their zip+4.
This is ignoring the fact that exemptions would be a nightmare.
The only thing I could think of that would be worse than needing to manage
that massive API would be if I was a business owner who had to access multiple
APIs for DC plus all the states with sales tax.
~~~
pnathan
> The only thing I could think of that would be worse than needing to manage
> that massive API would be if I was a business owner who had to access
> multiple APIs for DC plus all the states with sales tax.
So you're saying that putting together that SAAS would be a slog and its very
existence would be a moat to other people who don't want to slog through.
I.e., a great biz opportunity. :)
~~~
pc86
You're probably right on that one. There is a comment elsewhere in this thread
that mentions a SaaS company that handles sales tax automation and reporting,
so clearly there is some money to be made.
------
jacquesm
For now I don't care because (1) I'm already paying sales tax and (2) This is
a US centric thing, if anything it levels the playingfield / is an advantage
depending on where you are.
The fact that there was a time when you did not have to pay sales tax should
be seen as a gift, if there is one thing that seems to be a certainty over the
long run it is that if there is a flow of money sooner or later it will be
taxed.
~~~
seliopou
Yes, it definitely does level the playing field between brick & mortar
business and online businesses, and to a certain extent amongst states. What
would have been really interesting is if the taxes revenues went to the state
that the business was operating out of. Unfortunately, that'd probably just
mean more tax revenue for either Delaware or the existing tech hubs of
America. I think it's because of this fact that a more complex system is
necessary. It's much more fair to the states.
~~~
ohhlx
How does this level the field between brick & mortar and online business?
I manage operations for a small brand that operates both as an online business
(recent venture) and brick & mortar (2 stores, 2 different states). It seems
that this would help us by taxing us more and increasing our IT costs in terms
of implementation? If you are operating a small business (retailers,service
provider) in this day and age - it is almost a necessity to have some online
presence.
With the existence of simple ecommerce tools like shopify and bigcommerce at
the hands of traditional businesses making entry simple - added restrictions
may deter these brick & mortar businesses from entering the online space at
all.
~~~
seliopou
If goods are taxed more businesses raise their prices. Businesses aren't being
taxed. Consumers are. The only cost businesses have to pay is the cost of
implementing the system, which is a fixed cost that you'll pay off over time.
Also, you're kindof proving my point by stating that these new policies may
deter brick & mortar businesses from entering the online space. A brick &
mortar business by definition doesn't have an e-commerce presence. Ones that
do have a hybrid business model. For those, there's an interesting dynamic
that management will face that's a close reflection of what the greater market
will have to deal with, i.e., which side of the business to invest in. But
anyways, if you admit that brick & mortar businesses will be deterred from
moving to e-commerce, then you're admitting that the brick & mortal model is
more competitive under the new tax regime.
~~~
jonpeda
> If goods are taxed more businesses raise their prices. Businesses aren't
> being taxed. Consumers are.
This is entirely dependent on which part of the supply chain has the fiercest
competition. Sometimes consumers get the economic profit and pay cost
(commodities) and sometimes the producers do (monopolies, who already charge
what the market will bear)
------
gte910h
I honestly don't care if retailers have to collect income tax: But
municipalities/states SHOULD have to pick off a menu of plans from the federal
government for internet tax for their boundaries, and should have to register
their boundaries with a federal agency.
The burden of dealing with every crazy tax situation and variety in every
municipality in the country is the issue. Not the tax itself.
------
doktrin
Is the argument that there should be no sales tax, or that online businesses
should be exempt from it? Alternatively, is there some specific compliance
issue or formulation in the proposed legislation that is poorly thought out?
I'm genuinely curious, as (in principle) the fact that online businesses have
been exempt from sales tax largely strikes me as an anomaly and not some new
standard.
~~~
nateabele
Mail-order catalog businesses, which have existed for decades?
You only pay tax in jurisdictions in which you're physically based (for an
internet startup, this would be wherever you're incorporated). This axiom has
held in US tax policy for about as long as there has been US tax policy.
Kinda ties in with that whole 'no taxation without representation' thing.
_Edit: for clarity_.
~~~
weds
Sales tax is applied to the buyer, not the seller
~~~
chrismaeda
Right. Companies with a physical presence in a state are required to collect
sales taxes from buyers for all sales in the state. Businesses are not
required to collect sales taxes for states where they have no presence (aka
nexus); this is based on the Quill v North Dakota interpretation of the
Commerce Clause of the US Constitution.
The problem with the proposed legislation is that counties, cities, and towns
can each set their own tax rates. So the compliance costs are high because of
the thousands of different rates. You cannot use something simple like state
or zip code to determine tax rate; you have to use geolocation to get the
exact jurisdiction. And governments typically levy penalties if you get your
sales tax collection wrong. So who is responsible for paying the penalties if
the third party tax collection service makes a mistake?
The way this was supposed to go down is that states were supposed to simplify
the number of different tax rates before requiring out-of-state businesses to
collect their sales taxes. You shouldn't need to subscribe to a sales tax
compliance service to do business in the United States.
~~~
dragonwriter
> Companies with a physical presence in a state are required to collect sales
> taxes from buyers for all sales in the state. Businesses are not required to
> collect sales taxes for states where they have no presence (aka nexus); this
> is based on the Quill v North Dakota interpretation of the Commerce Clause
> of the US Constitution.
Specifically, its based on a Dormant Commerce Clause interpretation, to-wit,
that States cannot require such taxation of businesses without the kind of
nexus specified in Quill _without Congress taking specific action to permit
the state to do so_.
What you see going on right now is _Congress taking specific action to permit
states, under certain conditions_ to apply the kind of taxes that they may not
be permitted to apply without Congressional permission.
> The problem with the proposed legislation is that counties, cities, and
> towns can each set their own tax rates. So the compliance costs are high
> because of the thousands of different rates.
The proposed legislation sets conditions for the states if they want to have
access to the privilege Congress is granting with regard to taxation, one of
which is that they must provide _free-of-cost_ software for internet retailers
to handle the calculations for their states.
> And governments typically levy penalties if you get your sales tax
> collection wrong. So who is responsible for paying the penalties if the
> third party tax collection service makes a mistake?
If you are the responsible party for collecting the taxes under the law, you
pay the government; if you've paid someone else to do it for you, presumably
you've made sure the terms of that contract make them responsible to you for
any errors they make, so that they pay both the penalties and any additional
costs you face as a result of the error.
> The way this was supposed to go down is that states were supposed to
> simplify the number of different tax rates before requiring out-of-state
> businesses to collect their sales taxes.
"Supposed to" based on what? Or are you just puffing up your personal
preference for government policy as the way things objectively ought to be?
~~~
gamblor956
Only commenting on the last point. He's referring to the previous proposal
from the final years of the Bush administration wherein Congress would have
passed an internet sales tax if the various states (mostly meaning Cali and
NY) would have agreed to simplify their taxation structures ahead of such
legislation. The idea was that states would set their sales tax at one of
several fixed rates (i.e., 5%, 7.5%, 10% etc) subsuming county/city sales
taxes into the state tax rate. Counties and cities would receive their
proportionate shares (though the mechanism for determining shares was never
discussed in depth).
The proposal actually received a lot of discussion among policy makers, but
then got dropped when it became clear that state legislatures wouldn't go
through the trouble of reforming their sales taxes without Congress first
passing the legislation.
------
tsuru
I'd be against this if the U.S. had a progressive tax code to begin with, but
we don't. Sure, if you look at federal income taxes only there appears to be a
progressive tax system but taxes on capital gains is pretty much "flat tax"
loop hole for the ultra rich.
Then you look at States who almost all implement regressive taxes, many
through sales taxes, and see how States' fiscal woes are self-inflicted.
Here's one such examination: [http://www.chicagomag.com/Chicago-
Magazine/The-312/January-2...](http://www.chicagomag.com/Chicago-
Magazine/The-312/January-2013/Illinois-The-Fourth-Most-Regressive-Taxes-in-
America/)
In Tennessee, where I have to endure this regressive insanity, asking for a
progressive income tax has become a third-rail issue for any local politician.
So we have zero income tax and an effective sales tax of 9.25%
Why then am I favorable to internet sales tax when I've derided sales taxes as
regressive just above? In this case I believe, mainly through intuition,
untaxed internet sales are just one more vehicle for the affluent to avoid
paying taxes. This makes regular retail sales tax that much more burdensome
for the poor who receive fewer services because overall State tax revenue
suffers.
Until the regressive tax leanings of the states is abated, which I doubt will
happen in the next decade, I see this as a necessary evil.
------
bane
1) There probably _should_ be a sales tax, more and more of the economy is
moving onto the Internet, and local state coffers are hurting for it
2) Figuring out local sales tax is hideously difficult, it opens lots of great
opportunities for new startups as payment processors who "do taxes right"
3) Other bigger stories have consumed the media
~~~
bmelton
So, it American companies are imposed sales tax burdens no matter which state
they're selling to, wouldn't that just encourage companies like Amazon to move
outside of the United States? They could avoid collecting sales taxes
altogether, coming in lower than the competition, and that would also deprive
the US of collecting revenue taxes on income, etc.
If the economy is moving to the internet, what incentive is there for these
companies to stay in the US, especially if doing business in the US becomes
disadvantageous for their gross sales?
~~~
dragonwriter
> So, it American companies are imposed sales tax burdens no matter which
> state they're selling to
They aren't even if this bill passes; this bill allows states to tax sales
_into_ the state no matter which state they are selling _from_.
> wouldn't that just encourage companies like Amazon to move outside of the
> United States?
Amazon has already reached the point where its given up trying to relocate
outside of individual states to avoid sales taxes, because the efficiency it
gets from having facilities close to customers is worth more than sales tax
avoidance.
So I doubt very much it would try to move out of the US for sales tax
avoidance reasons.
------
specialp
I think that if they do this, they should require all states and localities to
commit to updating an online clearing house of tax rates for their locality
based on location and product type. If you fail to do so, merchants are under
no obligation to collect your tax. The reason why this loophole has existed so
long is that it is very difficult to tax according to 1000s of laws
nationwide.
I do not think people should be really against this. If you are against paying
sales tax, lobby your local government to stop sales tax.
~~~
ROFISH
Because I run a physical item e-commerce store, I am against this because I do
not trust the states to come up with a reasonable solution. Handling the issue
in our home state and city requires two accountants. I shudder at the thought
of 50 state compliance.
------
vy8vWJlco
If I were to venture a guess, I'd say it's because we are mostly all too young
to remember a small government and too time-poor to do much about it.
------
tss20147
To address a couple of concerns raised here.
There is a Small Seller Exemption. If you have less than $1,000,000 in remote
sales during the preceding calendar year you are exempt from collection.
There are six certified service providers, including one free one, which can
be used to calculate the required sales tax. The states certify these
providers and agree to indemnify users against liability if the case of an
error by the service provider.
Before a state can require collection they must change their code to be in
compliance with the requirements of the Marketplace Fairness Act. Currently 24
states are compliant and could begin requiring collection if the bill passes.
For more information go to <http://www.marketplacefairness.org/>
------
krosaen
Companies like Avalara <http://www.avalara.com> must be drooling right now
~~~
PaulHoule
This kind of thing is an opportunity as much as a danger.
------
avanderveen
Because HN readers aren't idiots. We know that it is good and right for sales
tax to be charged on sales. And, that the sale occurring on the internet does
not make it an essentially different thing than any other purchase of a good
or service. I think that, for HN readers, is very important: the internet is a
different marketplace, not a different reality, and to treat it differently in
some aspects can lead to legal problems and credibility issues down the road.
In terms of the nightmare that is implementation, that is another story.
~~~
Glyptodon
I don't think we know that - I'm pretty sure more than 0 of us suspect that
sales tax shouldn't exist at all.
~~~
smacktoward
Then go ahead and make that argument, if you believe it. But it has little to
do with the status quo, which is that sales tax exists but is only collected
from offline businesses. In other words, arguing for the continuance of the
status quo isn't arguing that sales tax is immoral, it's arguing that online
businesses somehow deserve a free ride offline ones don't.
------
pnathan
Theoretically, I am OK with the government not giving a wink and a nod to
certain classes of business. I am also theoretically OK with not allowing vast
amounts of money to pass around without taxation.
Practically, of course, implementing these ideas could be very nastily done
and make no one happy but certain privileged people who attempt to squash
competition.
------
specialist
Existing players are probably fine with Internet sales tax. It's another
barrier to entry.
------
mark-r
The complexities go far beyond just knowing the rates for each jurisdiction
and arranging for payment.
Naturally there's going to be a call for some kind of compliance testing. How
are you going to catch the cheaters when you don't have access to their
financial records, as you would if the business was in your state?
Even just the rates themselves can get complicated. Minnesota for example
doesn't tax clothing or food, but the specifics of what's included aren't
clear - candy bars for example aren't considered food and are taxed. How is
somebody from another state supposed to figure this out even with software
help?
~~~
dragonwriter
> Naturally there's going to be a call for some kind of compliance testing.
> How are you going to catch the cheaters when you don't have access to their
> financial records, as you would if the business was in your state?
The law allows for an audit by the levying state (but requires that it be a
_single_ audit, even if multiple taxes from multiple jurisdictions in the
state are included in the consolidated tax collected on remote transactions.)
~~~
mark-r
So what happens when the stars align against you and 25 states decide to audit
you at once?
------
bzmwillemsen
Disclaimer: Canadian, so I don't know all the rules.
I think that a law like this is inevitable and in part fair. States like
California have tons of tech companies which are contributing a huge amount of
tax dollars to the states coffers. But they are selling goods and services to
citizens in other states. Why shouldn't these other states get a grab at the
revenue made from the citizens purchasing goods and services while in their
state? While the internet is location-independent the purchaser of any item is
not.
------
northisup
What is wrong with an internet sales tax? If you live in the US and buy
something there is a sales tax associated with that purchase.
Why is buying via the internet any different?
------
creativename
This may be a silly question, but does this sales tax also apply to SaaS
products that you might sell? Or is this only for physical products a la
Amazon?
~~~
chrismaeda
It depends on the state. Some states tax services (eg Ohio), while most states
only tax physical goods.
~~~
creativename
So it would depend on the state that your SaaS company is located in, or where
your customer is accessing it from?
~~~
chrismaeda
The latter. If you are a SaaS business in a state that taxes services, you
only have to collect sales tax for customers in your state today. Under the
new legislation, all SaaS businesses in the US would have to collect sales tax
for any jurisdiction that taxes services.
The simplest way around this would be to set up your SaaS business in Canada.
------
nooneelsebut
Does anyone have any idea how this could affect any startups selling software
online?
This could have huge ramifications, but as usual it's Congress mucking things
up.
~~~
dragonwriter
> Does anyone have any idea how this could affect any startups selling
> software online?
Directly, this law would have no effect on anyone except state policymakers if
it passes.
What effects particular state policies electing to make use of the authority
Congress is allowing states under this law would have depends on the exact
policies adopted by individual states (which would affect what goods are
covered by the states internet sales tax regime and what variables are needed
to calculate the rates, and what, within the requirements of the law, form the
free-of-charge tax calculation software supplied by the state takes.)
------
gejjaxxita
As far as I can understand this isn't a new tax, it's just a law which makes
it easier for tax which is owed anyway to be collected. Nobody likes paying
tax but governments need money to provide services. Perhaps I'm a bit blase
about this because I don't live in America so this doesn't affect me, but
unless you want to not pay tax which you legally should, I don't see the
problem.
------
utopkara
What is wrong with paying sales tax over things that we buy over the internet
again? Isn't the real problem the fact that we have to pay sales tax in
general, and/or the sales tax rate? Sales tax income goes to your state. There
are states which can sustain without a sales tax (or even income tax); they
certainly get that money from somewhere though.
------
joshuahedlund
Does anyone know if this would apply to SaaS stuff or only to physically
shipped products? Also, the $1 million threshold exemption is good, but could
it create scenarios where your product/service takes off and then all of a
sudden you gotta figure out if you need to start sticking sales tax in there?
~~~
dragonwriter
> Also, the $1 million threshold exemption is good, but could it create
> scenarios where your product/service takes off and then all of a sudden you
> gotta figure out if you need to start sticking sales tax in there?
Its based on the _preceding calendar year_ , so the only time that is remotely
possible is if you have an unexpected spike at the end of a calendar year such
that you have to little time to comply for the beginning of the next year.
Sensible planning would just set a threshold substantially lower than $1
million in projected calendar year sales at which you make it a priority to
incorporate functionality to handle sales tax collection for the next year.
------
mark-r
I noticed the $1 million exemption for small businesses. How will that work?
If you sell for 11 months without collecting taxes then find yourself going
viral around Christmastime and crossing the $1 million mark unexpectedly, are
you suddenly liable for all those prior sales?
~~~
dragonwriter
> I noticed the $1 million exemption for small businesses. How will that work?
> If you sell for 11 months without collecting taxes then find yourself going
> viral around Christmastime and crossing the $1 million mark unexpectedly,
> are you suddenly liable for all those prior sales?
No, the $1 million is for total remote sales in _the preceding calendar year_.
So up until the first year you make remote sales of $1 million, you are
exempt; once you reach that threshhold, you are not exempt in subsequent years
until the first year _after_ the first year in which you fail to make $1
million in remote sales.
------
zwieback
My senator Ron Wyden (D-OR) is vehemently against this tax. Oregon doesn't
have a sales tax so I'm not really sure why he's against this proposal so
much. Maybe he thinks we already have a "level playing field" and OR has
nothing to gain since we wouldn't collect anything?
~~~
dragonwriter
> My senator Ron Wyden (D-OR) is vehemently against this tax. Oregon doesn't
> have a sales tax so I'm not really sure why he's against this proposal so
> much.
Probably because "Oregon doesn't have a sales tax" is an incentive for
internet-based retail business to locate facilities in Oregon under the
current regime where sales tax only applies to transactions where,
approximately, (1) the state levying the sales tax is one in which you are
incorporated or have physical presence, _and_ _at the same time_ , (2) the
recipient is located in the state levying the tax.
Note that the incentive to locate in Oregon or other no-sales-tax state over a
state with a sales tax goes away under a model where the first condition is
removed and only the second condition applies.
------
apawloski
So will we see VPNs in Delaware spike from this? It's not clear to me if this
is just extending already existing state sales taxes to the Internet, or if
these are new, additional taxes.
~~~
acjohnson55
Not unless you're getting your products shipped to Delaware
~~~
apawloski
I was thinking of services I use, not necessarily physical products, but
you're right.
That was just tongue-in-cheek though. I'd still like clarification on the
second part.
~~~
saurik
Services are generally (a hedge I only add as maybe one state out there is
doing something insane) not subject to sales tax, only "goods". As an example,
it is typically the case that software will transition from an untaxed service
to a taxed property when it is no longer "custom", and instead made once and
sold to multiple people, or in hilarious cases (California) the second you
make the mistake of providing it on physical media.
------
known
the government can create all the money it needs to fund itself. It does not
need to take it from taxpayers. The entire purpose of the tax code is not to
raise money but to control the wage slaves.
[http://www.naturalnews.com/040027_financial_slavery_money_in...](http://www.naturalnews.com/040027_financial_slavery_money_investments.html)
~~~
logn
This is an insult to actual slaves.
------
ck2
Because it is inevitable?
Ebay is one of the few large entities fighting it, I think they are trying to
get a small sales exemption.
~~~
dragonwriter
> Ebay is one of the few large entities fighting it, I think they are trying
> to get a small sales exemption.
There is already small sellers exemption: "-A State is authorized to require a
remote seller to collect sales and use taxes under this Act only if the remote
seller has gross annual receipts in total remote sales in the United States in
the preceding calendar year exceeding $1,000,000. For purposes of determining
whether the threshold in this subsection is met". From Section 2(c) of the
act: <http://www.marketplacefairness.org/bill-text/>
------
logn
Because we're already obligated to pay sales tax, and they're just attempting
to collect it better?
------
fredBuddemeyer
because participating in a hopelessly corrupted system is demoralizing.
"activism" brings at the very best a delay followed by a shady deal as soon as
your back is turned.
viva btc
------
codeulike
This is going to be great for Europe!
------
chrismaeda
I expect it to die in the House.
------
timmm
Bitcoin Anyone?
------
jonpeda
The best result that could come of this Internet/Sales Tax issue is that Sales
tax is abolished in favor of income tax.
|
{
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
}
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Scientists in Abu Dhabi have successfully created 50+ artificial rain storms - DanLivesHere
http://dlewis.net/now-i-know-learn-something-new-every-day-by-email-archives/Making-It-Rain/
======
onteria
I tried to look around for a better source than the Daily Mail, especially on
something scientific in nature. Unfortunately I wasn't able to find anything I
could vouch for as authoritative. However I did notice the images in this page
referenced many times in other sites:
[http://www.indiashines.com/Balgates-photos-95294-dubai-
artif...](http://www.indiashines.com/Balgates-photos-95294-dubai-artificial-
rain)
If anyone knows of a better source or can find information about it on the
National Center of Meteorology and Seismology website:
<http://www.das.ae/>
I'd be most grateful.
~~~
radeon
Here you go
Telegraph:
[http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/middleeast/uniteda...](http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/middleeast/unitedarabemirates/8236350/Abu-
Dhabi-weather-project-creates-man-made-rainstorms.html)
HuffPo: [http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/01/03/abu-dhabi-
rainstorm...](http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/01/03/abu-dhabi-
rainstorm_n_803554.html)
Arabian Business: [http://www.arabianbusiness.com/abu-dhabi-backed-
scientists-c...](http://www.arabianbusiness.com/abu-dhabi-backed-scientists-
create-fake-rainstorms-in-11m-project-371038.html)
LiveScience: [http://www.livescience.com/environment/rain-makers-
ionizatio...](http://www.livescience.com/environment/rain-makers-ionization-
weather-110104.html)
Blog Post: [http://globalwarming-
arclein.blogspot.com/2011/01/ionizers-b...](http://globalwarming-
arclein.blogspot.com/2011/01/ionizers-bombard-abu-dhabi-desert-with.html)
Company: <http://www.meteo-systems.com>
~~~
onteria
Wow, a lot more sources than I was expecting. Thank you very much for
providing this!
------
patrickk
The Russians used similar tactics to ensure the nuclear fallout from the
Chernobyl disaster wouldn't reach Moscow:
[http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/1549366/How-we-
mad...](http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/1549366/How-we-made-the-
Chernobyl-rain.html)
<http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/europe/3943013.stm>
The Chinese also used cloud seeding to clear the smog-filled skies over
Beijing for the Olympics.
------
Groxx
> _silver iodide and dry ice are the most commonly used substances in cloud
> seeding technology_ (down-cased for your reading pleasure)
uh, how _much_ silver iodide? All of it eventually goes down a drain, and back
into the water supply.
<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Argyria>
------
cshenoy
This happens in the US as well. China and India do it although using different
techniques. But I'm wary of using chemicals/technology to induce rainfall (I'm
no scientist but is the water safe then?). Also imagine the resource wars that
will start once countries start using this regularly.
------
nickpinkston
The last comment on man-made earthquakes is actually already here: man-made
3.1 in Switzerland:
<http://www.treehugger.com/files/2007/01/geothermal_powe.php>
------
frank06
Very cool. It'd be great if they could also build a system to actually scatter
rainclouds. Northern European weather would become a bit more bearable.
~~~
Groxx
Maybe a giant frickin' laser beam? It could prevent them from condensing.
------
TY
... and soon there were no more great worms and the spice stopped to flow.
Sorry, just couldn't resist.
------
goombastic
It's probably causing floods elsewhere, unless clouds obey international
boundaries.
|
{
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
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Digg Grabs Senior Yahoo’er To Lead Communications - qhoxie
http://www.techcrunch.com/2008/09/16/digg-grabs-yahooer-to-lead-communications/
======
fusionman
This is all too depressing for Yahoo. How many more can they lose before Carl
Icahn kicks in Yang's door and throws him out?
|
{
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
}
|
Falcon_android: Twitter emailed me. They refuse to extend the token limit. - Shank
https://twitter.com/falcon_android/status/306340529405300736
======
DaemonXI
>"Falcon doesn't provide any features that their app doesn't have already"
Features like having a nice UI and providing good tablet support?
|
{
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
}
|
Europe is living under Microsoft’s digital killswitch - andmarios
https://thenextweb.com/eu/2017/05/10/europe-is-living-under-microsofts-digital-killswitch/
======
danarmak
Although it's not said explicitly in the article, there's an interpretation of
the subject that is both literal and true.
Microsoft distributes constant opaque silent updates to all modern Windows
systems. With Windows 10, some editions cannot even postpone installing those
updates for long. An update deliberately bricking Windows computers, targeted
to all of Europe, a country, an organization, or an individual's home. That
is, quite literally, a digital killswitch.
Of course Microsoft the company wouldn't do such a thing as long as it's
following its own interests. But, being an non-EU entity, it could conceivably
be forced by US authorities. Or, of course, the secure distribution channel
could be hacked. It's far more likely that an attacker would distribute an
update that merely backdoors all systems; but if done as an act of war (or
terrorism), bricking is a somewhat plausible goal.
As the article correctly notes, the same problem affects most other software;
it's just that Microsoft Windows is both so widely used and so infrastructure-
critical (you can't replace it with a different OS and keep running your
native Windows applications). OSX and iOS have minority market shares and you
can buy competing products. Android phones and Linux distributions don't have
a single update channel for all of them. Non-operating-system software
generally isn't installed on most computers and has alternatives for most of
its users. Windows is in a pretty unique position.
~~~
zanny
> Android phones and Linux distributions don't have a single update channel
> for all of them
This is pretty much saying that, because an OS is open source, that means
anyone can put it on almost anything and sell it, so the fact that the
original developer can't control _all possible_ distributions of the software
that said software is untenable.
In practice, that is not how it works. You don't approach broad deployments of
Android or, say, RHEL while getting supplied by a half dozen different OEMs.
You pick one and stick to it. In much the same way Windows shops work - you
normally either go with just Dell or just HP.
Hell, you can't lump Linux and Android in the same boat either. Vendors never
guarantee perpetual phone OS updates on Android, because they always abandon
their devices. The exception might be Google, maybe, with one of their device
series from the last 5 years _since_ the Nexus 4 which did get dropped, but
you might be able to get a perpetual update contract with them for an extended
support period. I have no idea.
But for something at Government scale, adopting Android is actually really
trivial. At least it used to be - you could have just approached Cyanogen to
support _all_ devices with a guaranteed support period. Now I'm not sure if
there is a corporate entity to barter with backing Lineage, but the same
principal applies. There _are_ ways around Android's horrible update model.
For desktop Linux, though, its no competition. You will always be going to one
vendor, using that one vendor, and getting consistent updates from that
singular vendor. Be it Dell or Red Hat or Canonical or whomever you plan to
contract with. They aren't going to be throwing Gentoo randomly on a couple of
your thousand Ubuntu boxes, and if you want they will certainly preconfigure
the images to point the update servers to your own self hosted ones to control
updates if you really want to.
~~~
Qwertystop
True, but there's still a difference: One organization will homogenously use a
single distributor/vendor/update channel within itself, sure. But different
organizations might use different vendors, or even different sections of an
organization if they're bureaucratically separated enough (e.g. not sharing
budgets and IT staff).
If you're running Windows, you're getting it from Microsoft, end of story.
~~~
thaumasiotes
> If you're running Windows, you're getting it from Microsoft, end of story.
You talk as if nobody ever bootlegged Windows.
~~~
jdbernard
In the context of a large government agency that wants support and ongoing
updates, yeah. Nobody bootlegs Windows.
~~~
thaumasiotes
That can change, once you've assumed that Microsoft can't legally deal with
them.
~~~
i336_
So... the reason it's so trivial to locate Windows and Office, and the reason
why KMSPico et exist... is so that the latest version of Windows - and updates
- actually propagate, er, _fully_.
Presumably so that Microsoft doesn't get bad press, and maybe due to (shady
but arguable) legal implications.
Oh _wow_.
------
Osiris
This is a poorly written article. Under the heading "What's the problem":
> IT systems of European governments mostly run on Microsoft software and OS
> [...] that means that almost all of the data of European citizens — tax
> information, health records, etc. — along with security related data, are in
> proprietary file format...
> The problem with the proprietary file format is that Microsoft’s software is
> made to be incompatible with open source, which effectively forces all
> communicating departments within a government to use the company’s products,
> in order to ensure compatibility of files and ease of communication.
The operating system that runs on a system has no bearing on how the data for
various applications is stored. As far as I know, Microsoft isn't providing
the applications that store "tax information, health records, etc.", unless
the governments are using Excel and Word to keep all that information rather
than a database.
Even so, if they are using Excel/Word, the Office Open XML file formats are
ISO/IEC standards, not proprietary.
There may be some problem of vendor lock-in here, but this article seems to
have no idea what the real problem is.
~~~
Maarten88
> This is a poorly written article.
This article seems to originate from the Netherlands, drumming up anti
Microsoft rhetoric that was very prevalent a few years ago here.
It is important to understand with these types of articles, that Microsoft and
their local partner companies (disclosure: such as the one I work for) has
competitors who stand to benefit from stories like these. Other companies
(like IBM, Oracle working with local ISV's and service companies) want to sell
their, also propriety, but non-Microsoft based solutions. They promote
independence from Microsoft as a feature of their software, and have budget to
hire PR firms and run a lobby too, just like Microsoft.
But their solutions often come with a worse type of vendor lock-in. The Oracle
type. In the Netherlands, most public backend administrative software is not
based on Microsoft technology, and it is completely closed, unable to
integrate with (Microsoft based) front end systems or web api's.
The article states that Microsoft makes 2 billion in the EU public sector, I
don't know if that is true, but in the Netherlands spending on Microsoft
software is somewhere around 1-2% of total public IT spending, and I'd say
they provide relatively good value for that.
~~~
djrogers
> unable to integrate with (Microsoft based) front end systems or web api's.
It's not 1992 - Oracle databases can integrate with all sorts of web APIs and
front end systems. You may not like how its done or how much it costs, but
it's a little over the top to claim that it can't be done.
~~~
nickpsecurity
" You may not like how its done or how much it costs, but it's a little over
the top to claim that it can't be done."
It can't be done in a business if the vendor decides it costs too much or will
be done in a way unsupported for good reasons. Whereas, with FOSS, they might
pay someone to fix that or someone might do it themselves. The arbitrary costs
and limitations the proprietary vendors can force on locked-in users is an
important risk of their model for users.
------
kardianos
I have used Linux as my primary desktop system for over ten years. Usability
really sucks. I'm not talking about a new UX model, systemd vs sysv, or
wayland vs xorg. I'm talking about not needing to know about unix-isms to run
a desktop operating system. Gnome and KDE are okay-ish now.
Honestly the best desktop system for linux I've seen is Deepin
[https://www.deepin.org/en/](https://www.deepin.org/en/) , which is produced
by a Chinese based group and marketed mainly at Chinese audiences.
It installs updates on reboot, which removes many corner cases for desktop
users. It has a nice dedicated admin panel that feels like a single interface
rather than 20 different panels glued together. It focuses on efficient
desktop use rather than some new hotness UI concept which Unity and Gnome3
both got infatuated with. The desktop interface is fast and gets out of your
way, but providing useful quick tools to open, close, and switch apps.
Why do I think governments haven't used more open source? Because we care more
about systemd vs sysv then a single good consistent UI. Because we think
writing desktop components in javascript and python will give good (enough)
performance that won't feel sluggish; hint, they won't. Because coders (often)
care more about how their code looks, using the slow interpreted language they
know, or "getting the job done" (as they define it), then they do about
concrete performance evaluation, benchmarking, and end user use cases and long
term person off the street testing.
Sorry, that was kinda a rant. But seriously, checkout the deepin desktop. New
users can be really productive in it quickly and maintain it themselves.
~~~
morsch
I use OS X, Windows 10 and Gnome 3 pretty much every day. They're all okay. I
like Gnome best, and Windows least. But they all do the job, and they're way
more similar than they are different. In contrast, 10 to 15 years ago, the
user experience was wildly different on each of them.
But it's moot anyway. Browser apps will continue to displace desktop apps, and
they don't really care which operating system you're running. European
governments would be well served to somehow supply their administrations (as
well as the general public) with a first-class alternative to Google Docs.
Extra requirements: self-hostable, (even more) extensible.
~~~
rossng
So, Collabora Online[1]
[1]
[https://www.collaboraoffice.com/code/](https://www.collaboraoffice.com/code/)
~~~
qznc
Also, Open Xchange [https://www.open-xchange.com/](https://www.open-
xchange.com/)
------
andmarios
Imo the thing with the public sector, is that it is so large that it probably
could fund both an OS and a productivity suite easily and that would be a net
gain, both from a freedom perspective and for the economy at large.
I am all for entrepreneurship and I do think that companies and competition
create progress. But when one company reaches the level of Microsoft, where
every year we learn how many billions Bill Gates' bank account increased —I do
know that he helps with his money but still, his bank account does increase—,
it just takes money off the market. Hoarding is bad.
~~~
gnode
> it just takes money off the market. Hoarding is bad.
Like anyone with significant wealth, Bill Gates's wealth is mostly in non-cash
investments, whereby the capital is used for enterprise.
A more sensible argument might be that Microsoft is successful because of
anti-competitive practises / exploiting a monopoly, rather than adding value.
~~~
enugu
Even if it was hoarded as cash, this shouldnt matter. Less meal tickets
floating around means that the each ticket gets more food. If Bill Gates is
using the money for consuming resources(say making a huge building), this
affects the economy as there is an opportunity cost(the consumed resources
could have been used elsewhere). One exception is monetary crises where
hoarding has a negative impact, but thats not the usual situation.
There is a strong case for redistribution of wealth on its own terms and
social good.
------
bradford
[disclaimer, MS employee here]
Question: If governments could inspect and audit MS source code, would the
concerns brought up in the article be addressed?
This is a clarifying question, not a loaded one. To avoid any surprises:
governments, including the EU can and do audit MS source code (public source,
for example: [https://forums.anandtech.com/threads/microsoft-lets-eu-
gover...](https://forums.anandtech.com/threads/microsoft-lets-eu-governments-
inspect-source-code-for-security-issues.2433915/))
~~~
jlg23
The code review opportunities are joke. The only chance to review a mere
million lines of codes thoroughly is to throw a million eyes on it and open
communication about findings.
The way those are done now, they are Valium for politicians and a cash cow for
those doing the "audits".
~~~
tormeh
>a million eyes on it and open communication about findings
That's what the Chinese government does internally. Ba-dum-tssh.
------
eksemplar
The thing people in technology forget is that the most expensive resource in
government is the people who work there. Every person in my IT department is
top of their game, everyone of them has been continually honing their skill
sets and are following their interests.
This has put us a head of a lot of other municipalities and a lot of private
companies. We've had to send ADFS and Azure consultants back because our crew
was better, as an example.
Those people live and breathe Microsoft. Those people are the reason we didn't
have to renew our server room, when we decided to go own-cloud in a major
hosting center instead, and they are they reason we'll soon be able to move
our cloud from rental to Azure.
Sure we could have used other technologies for it, but it would cost an
unimaginable amount of money to replace the entire IT-workforce. I'm certain
we could retrain our current staff, but a lot of them wouldn't want to,
because the truth is, if they wanted to be working with non-Microsoft
technologies then they would have been snatched up by our "competition"
already.
I think open source should play an important role in government, and I think
that role should increase steadily going forward, but I also think people and
reason should come before an ideology.
With 370 different IT-systems of various magnitude we already have some that
run on Linux. JBOSS and Wildfly are big in government, but out of our entire
system portfolio only a fraction of the systems even have non-Microsoft
alternatives. Other systems are on 8 year contracts, making it impossible to
swap them out overnight even if we wanted to. Which we don't because we would
need to replace every system, and get every employee on board with open source
alternatives in order to save the insignificant Microsoft licensing fees which
make up less than 1% of our IT budget.
Sure, Europe is bound to Microsoft and that can be problematic. What if Trump
truly goes apeshit for instance? Then we would be royally fucked. The truth is
that there is no viable alternative that won't be ridiculously exoensive and
take up to 50 years to fully implement.
With everything heading for the cloud it might not even make sense. The only
cloud options for a huge part of the European public sector are labeled with
Google, Amazaon or Azure - and none of them would make the legislative
challenges or licenses any less of an issue. At least with Microsoft, we have
a company who has been really open to quickly and efficiently meeting European
demands.
~~~
shmerl
_> Sure we could have used other technologies for it, but it would cost an
unimaginable amount of money to replace the entire IT-workforce._
It's worth doing it, to get rid of the sick MS lock-in. Breaking the catch 22
needs to start from somewhere.
~~~
eksemplar
Our tech guys are absolute wizards, most with a fair business understanding.
Replacing just one of them is around $500000 with no guarantees that we could
find someone suitable.
We're a medium sized municipality in Scandinavia sitting next to the largest
one in the country, meaning that getting good tech staff is already extremely
hard with the popular technologies.
The staff who work here now do so because of benefits or ideals, not the pay,
where we will never be able to compete. On top of that it's taken more than 25
years and five different middle managers to build the right kind of culture.
I'm sorry, but why would we ever want break that? And why on earth would we do
it to possible break free from the Microsoft lock-in 25 years from now, when
Microsoft licenses are less than 1% of our IT spending?
And that's just the tech perspective. We'd also have to reschool 7000
employees on everyday software considering how integrated the office365
platform is here. And where is the open source alternative to 365?
(I'm sorry for the wall of text if you were being sarcastic)
~~~
asdfgadsfgasfdg
> We'd also have to reschool 7000 employees on everyday software considering
> how integrated the office365 platform is here.
I'm confused did you educate them in using office365, or even in using Office
2007 (which was a big change)? I.e. were there courses they all attended? Or
did you just update them and them and they had to learn? Similar with the OS,
did they go on Windows 8 and windows 8.1 and windows 10 courses or did they
just get the update?
I agree that FLOSS lacks a great office suite alternative. I totally disagree
with the concept that if there were your users would need to be re-schooled.
~~~
eksemplar
Yes we reschooled people from 2007 to modern office.
You can't imagine how many man hours teaching one drive for business cost us.
We did a comparrison of open office and google docs vs ms office when we did
our business case of course. Open office lost by around 1400% with some
employees never learning it.
We don't just use office365 though, we use addons. Like automatically sending
electronic mail through APIs that integrate with the national platform while
using a custom template and journalizing into our record system.
Hell, we've build two word adding ourselves allowing citizens to digitally
sign documents with their public identification.
~~~
asdfgadsfgasfdg
> Yes we reschooled people from 2007 to modern office.
As in actual classes? How did this work? This sounds like an epic waste of
money and everyone's time.
> We did a comparrison of open office and google docs vs ms office when we did
> our business case of course. Open office lost by around 1400% with some
> employees never learning it.
Yeah we've all done reports like this. They are usually an epic waste of time
as usually everyone knows the answer they want before they start... I'm
surprised that you managed to get results that were that favorable for the
desired answer though - openoffice.org and the more recent Libre Office kept a
similar UI to MS office 2003.
> We don't just use office365 though, we use addons. Like automatically
> sending electronic mail through APIs that integrate with the national
> platform while using a custom template and journalizing into our record
> system.
Sounds like 10-30 LOC each if you ran on FOSS systems (although obviously it
is hard to tell without knowing what your exact requirements were) - I'm sure
office365 saves you time/money in other ways though.
> Hell, we've build two word adding ourselves allowing citizens to digitally
> sign documents with their public identification.
Did you build libreoffice extensions as well? Or do you expect citizens to
subscribe to your software choices? I don't mind what you do for internal
software but forcing everyone to use the same software as you is a bad use of
tax money.
~~~
eksemplar
Every citizen who doesn't opt out of it, is a digitized citizen.
That means they have a two-factor identity and an secured electronic mailbox
hosted by us in the cloud.
So what our addons do is it allows a caseworker to send a document as a PDF
directly to a citizen, who can then follow a link to our document signing
server and sign it online. They don't need any kind of software to do so,
because everything is supplied by us.
If they don't have a computer they can use one at a library our at our town
hall. (Which run ubuntu by the way)
I get that you think we wanted office to win in our business case. That's not
true, we simply show the political level the facts and they act accordingly.
------
submeta
I tried to migrate to Ubuntu in 2011 and gave up because I was missing apps
like Evernote or Visio. - I moved away from MS products in 2015, replaced my
Thinkpad + Windows 7 with a Mac, replaced MS Visio with Omnigraffle, abandoned
Visual Basic and migrated to web Apps (Django mainly). The only MS product I
use is MS Office (via a subscription) on my Mac.
This article made me think: Do I really need MS Office? Occasionally I use
Word for 1 to 10 page documents. Then there is MS Excel. I used to use it to
do data analysis with it, used Pivot Tables extensively. But now I mostly use
it for simple tables. Finally there's PowerPoint. I have created many
businesses plans with it. (I used MS Access as well, to create quick line of
business solutions, but I'm trying to do this in Python + Django now.)
Now I'm considering trying to move away from MS Office as well. Because
actually all that keeps me using it is a vague feeling that I might miss
something if I don't. Or others expecting me to send them Office documents
(instead of Libre Office) - Germany is MS Office land.
~~~
Lev1a
Another German here. I have abandoned MS Office in favor of
OpenOffice/LibreOffice years ago and when I have to send documents I just send
.pdf's but if I REALLY had to send .doc, .xls etc. LibreOffice can im- and
export those formats too.
------
lucb1e
There is lots of truth in this. I've been saying all of this for years and am
trying to raise awareness whenever I get the opportunity, while not trying to
be pushy (that just doesn't work, people need to want to). Two highlights of
the article:
> European children are educated in Microsoft Office, which is given to
> schools and universities for free, which some call the “crack model” —
> getting people hooked for free and then start charging them.
God this is so true. Every year emails go out "you can get office for free via
$ourSchoolName!" What do you mean indoctrination and free advertisement? I
wanted to reply to all with a message in a similar tone (about libreoffice
being free and not a trial) but never found a good phrasing that would do
anything beyond provoke a backlash (also when discussing it with like-minded
friends).
> Security risk
All eggs (not just "all your eggs", no, _all_ eggs) in one basket is a
terrible idea for obvious reasons.
------
cmurf
I'm not overly sympathetic, governments should be doing more to support open
source software. Public money should be used to make public software. The idea
of using public money to support proprietary software and formats really bugs
me. If you want to do this for your own personal or business reasons, fine.
But public resources should be used to make existing public owned (effectively
we all own free open source software) software better.
------
amiga-workbench
Government systems simply should not be running proprietary software.
~~~
batrat
I agree with you, but... There is a HUGE problem with this statement.
90% of the devices that are bought require windows. Every single microscope,
ID reader, card reader, access system, detection system, defence devices,
advanced cameras, radars, etc. provide drivers and/or software, that I know,
offer drivers/apps only for windows.
Even they make a plan to move from windows, it will take years, in this time,
every acquisition will be made for windows. A common use for these
devices/pc's is more than 5 years. Heck i've seen tools that are used even
after 15 years because they worked and no money/desire to replace them.
Of course you can negotiate, or request support for other operating systems,
but that means extra money, training, etc. Even in the current state it's hard
to get good IT people, programmers, sysadmins, etc. It will be harder to get
linux admins. Also it will take years to teach people to use another OS.
And to end: have you seen custom software made for governments? 50% just slap
a program that requires x version of .net, some c++ redistributable and
requires to run only as admin or only xp, 40% just slap a java abomination or
applet and call it a day, 9% make a nice piece of software but just like
everyone else after they deliver the software they forget about the support or
patch 1-2 things and they are gone. ALL OF THIS is happening mainly because
the state doesn't have trained people and they don't know what to ask from
devs & because they don't give a shi*t about they money they spend.
~~~
amiga-workbench
I've often thought that the British government should have an in-house team of
developers to work on services for local authorities and public facing
institutions.
It seems every time a contractor gets involved the tax-payer gets a good
fucking, think of all the accrued billable hours taken up by redundant layers
of manglement pontificating, the endless reworks and finally the extortionate
support contract to keep the end product limping along.
------
alphabettsy
I would much rather see governments embrace and contribute to Open Source
software available to all, they could even pay 3rd parties to maintain and
service.
~~~
Osiris
Some have tried and have gone back to Windows[1]
[1] [https://yro.slashdot.org/story/17/02/11/1930217/the-city-
of-...](https://yro.slashdot.org/story/17/02/11/1930217/the-city-of-munich-
now-wants-to-abandon-linux-and-switch-back-to-windows)
~~~
hutzlibu
But there are som hints, that the decision to "go back" might have been
politicaly motivated. Like relocating the microsoft central in germany to
munich ...
But on the other hand, there were many flaws in the system, but many in the
OSS-community did not want to acknowledge, because it is easier to shift the
blame to evil conspiring microsoft, than to admit, that linux and libre office
is not perfect. Which is really, really stupid, because how can it be
technically as good and polished as microsoft products, given there is so much
more money behind them. And even though the linux kernel might be now even
better than microsoft - that is not at all the case for Desktop, Drivers,
Stability, Programms, etc.
------
OldBlueBear
This shows just shows how stupid the guys who contract for (EU) government IT,
and their political masters who are supposed to be directing them. Any
software that not built from the ground up to be secure is unlikely to be, it
is not something that can be bolted on. Various version of Windows needed to
be heavenly hacked to meet even the most basic DoD-CETCS (RedBook) standard
back in the 1990s. And I doubt it is any better now. That some public services
dumped Microsoft years ago suggest this lock-in problem is almost as old as
commercial computing.
~~~
ordu
I cannot believe they are stupid. On the contrary they are clever enough to
side with MS.
------
fimdomeio
When this news circulated around one month ago in Portugal it was put in more
harsh terms as somewhat a form of digital colonialism.
------
jagermo
I watched Munich trying to change to Linux, they even created a LiMux, a
special distribution.
In my opinion, the biggest problem was UI and design. LiMux and all its
programs just look like something that has been thought up in the 90s. No
modern UI, no sleek design.
In addition, the interoperability is horrible. Its just not fun to work with
something like that, not when you come home to an iPad oder a Windows 10
machine.
If there was any chance to roll out something other than Microsoft (or Apple,
for that matter), government bodies must invest into the UI. If people have to
fight with the OS and its applications every step of the way, it will never be
accepted.
------
amelius
For other industries, roles may be reversed.
For example, another headline could be: the US is living under ASML's digital
killswitch
------
shmerl
Time to ditch Windows for Linux.
~~~
wil421
Large Organizations like Microsoft, Oracle, and the like because they have
support numbers to call when things go wrong. Oracle is the top offender I
dislike integrating with their products but it's hard to get decision makers
in IT to look elsewhere. No ones lost a job buying oracle as the saying goes.
I'm not familiar Linux support. Not sure what Red Hat has going on for desktop
support.
~~~
danieldk
_Not sure what Red Hat has going on for desktop support._
If you are a reasonably large government body with a budget, I am pretty sure
that Red Hat will provide desktop support if you pay them.
Moreover, it is likely that desktop support will become more and more trivial
as administrative applications will probably move towards web apps as well.
------
Taek
If I were a country that was not allied with the US, or otherwise feared
potential power plays by the US against my nation, I would not use any closed
source software originating from the US.
Same applies to China, to Russia, and any other nation with a well funded
cybersecurity division.
A nation could order a software producer under their jurisdiction to write an
automatic updater pushing malware to collect:
National secrets
Credentials
Access to critical systems
And who knows what else if we are being creative. We use our computers for
everything. Coded source software, especially with automatic updates, is
systemic risk and it's going to bite a lot of people really badly if a cyber-
competent nation ever decides to initiate WW3
------
msabalau
Amusing that this article is going out as Europe is being hammered by
ransomware on unpatched Windows computers.
If the US wanted to take out all EU computers, presumably they'd use an
airburst nuke, and target all the electronics, not just the Windows boxes. Of
course, if things got that bad, presumably the "logical" course of action
would be to scour the continent, rather than let a pissed off high skilled
population live to join Putin.
~~~
sqeaky
War is not about killing your enemy and breaking his things. That is the job
of warriors, but not how you win a war.
It would immensely benefit the US in a war with Europe to silently snoop on
all those systems and act like we couldn't. Use the information to perform
lower cost higher gain military operations.
Killing the populace En masse makes nothing but enemies, but leveraging
information can make you friends. Imagine if the US used is massive
infiltration to find people sympathetic to its cause and gave them guns and
bombs with Russian labeling. Those people do most of the damage in the country
and we swoop in with targeted precision bombing and cost effective troop
deployments to arrest huge amounts of heads of states and legislatures. We
could defeat Europe in a year and at least some portions of Europeans would
thank us. Then we move on to the part the US sucks at, occupying.
------
nebabyte
Micro "It's not like we can just flip a switch" soft
(Though I guess it requires a broader umbrella of 'MS dickery with networks'
as the Xbone debacle was you being forced to be online at MS' behest, and this
is sort of the opposite)
------
partycoder
And most countries on Earth are living under Monsanto's food killswitch.
------
keth
I always wonder why the european countries don't work together to build their
own software. Or at least a single country looking at germany, where each city
seems to brew it's own stuff.
------
Xoros
Well, regarding today's massive ransomware attack based on a Microsoft
security flaw, it's a little bit ironic
------
nom
Hm, what operating systems are used by governments outside of Europe? Doesn't
everybody have to rely on Windows?
------
booleandilemma
Is there any possibility that China has a hardware backdoor in our iPhones?
(and whatever other devices they make?)
------
ps28
i went thru all the comments here and maybe it's a dumb question - but I'd
assumed that the situation described applies to all/most governments? Is the
situation vastly different e.g. in the U.S.?
------
Theodores
I think there is a bigger problem - using Microsoft Office means that an
organisation is stuck in 1990's ways of working. The web should replace these
tools that were developed for personal computers that came with floppy disk
drives instead of ethernet connections.
Companies 'stuck' on old-fashioned Microsoft Office also have to present
information to customers and internal stakeholders, so they hire a 'web
department' that then becomes the new typing pool. Instead of dictated or
hand-written things that get typed up on 'Wordperfect' (MS Office killed the
typing pool for good), we now have Word documents or Excel spreadsheets that
some 'web person' has to then copy onto some CMS or other system powered by a
SQL database.
I did open a 'legacy spreadsheet' today so I appreciate that there is still
some life in having data that way, however I cannot remember the last time I
had a use case for a wordprocessor, Microsoft or otherwise.
I also know Microsoft do 'sharepoint' and a few other web things but not many
'real' websites have gone for the Redmond solution, 10% according to the
survey I just Googled:
[https://news.netcraft.com/archives/2017/02/27/february-2017-...](https://news.netcraft.com/archives/2017/02/27/february-2017-web-
server-survey.html)
Although 10% isn't quite into Windows Phone territory of pointlessness, I
can't imagine setting out today with a new project and instantly thinking
'Microsoft'.
I think the Microsoft problem will cure itself much like how the old typing
pool died - people get old, they retire, new people come along and learn how
to do stuff with the new tools, the more efficient processes and the demands
of the time.
~~~
SCHiM
I honestly can't imagine using any other tools to do my job than office. As a
student I tried the Google suite/docs and years of usage has me relieved that
I could leave them behind. Thinking back the only thing I remember about them
is the instances of them not working or not working correctly. Printing was a
mess. Left/right clicking to open more complex interfaces would often
interfere with native browser/system functionality.
There are no true alternatives in my opinion. Everything else just does not
cut it. Websites are slow and more often than not come with all kinds of
garbage. Such as advertisements and the latest and greatest font or version
1.25.2.3 of whatever.js (that developers insist must not get cached because
they use continuous integration! (note '&t=' parameters when GETting a
script)).
No please, PLEASE, let me keep my efficient clean familiar office
applications. They are everything I need, I think it's great not much has
changed about the basics since they were introduced. I love the fact that I
can sit down behind office 2016 and office 2000 and be just as productive when
working with simple documents. I love the fact that my dad, whom I often
support with computer related stuff, did not even notice the update from word
2003 to 2010.
~~~
sqeaky
I am surprised to hear that you say that the difference between office 2000
and 2016 is not so big.
I find that sharing files between them is huge pain and that the UI is totally
different.
Have you considered LibreOffice, it is at least as fast as ms office, but can
work with files from any version of ms office or other programs. It also
doesn't cost money, which you didn't mention, but is a concern for most
people.
As for letting "your software", as the article made clear it is not yours. You
keep them at the pleasure of microsoft. If they ship an update that breaks
them you are screwed. If they decide that your version of office is too old
for your new version of windows they can ship an update that breaks it and
they are financially incentivized to do so.
|
{
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
}
|
Some cities that took on a traffic safety challenge are seeing fatalities go up - luu
https://www.citylab.com/transportation/2019/11/vision-zero-data-traffic-deaths-pedestrians-cyclist-safety/601831/
======
jordanbeiber
At the same time, in Norway:
[https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/europe/oslo-
traffic...](https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/europe/oslo-traffic-road-
deaths-accidents-norway-a9269441.html)
Road deaths in Oslo (pop. 673.000) in 2019:
Pedestrians: 0 Cyclists: 0 Children: 0
Totally different outcome from ”vision zero” - actually 0. Impressive.
~~~
woodpanel
Having driven throughout Europe and as a non-Scandinavian I have to say that
this impressive result has a lot to do with the ways scandinavians behave in
traffic. As car-drivers as well as cyclists.
If urban politicians in cities "just short of the border" to Scandinavia like
Berlin or Hamburg propose such measures, residents with traffic experience in
both places will often chuckle, because car drivers but even more so cyclists
are much more aggressive in Germany than in Scandinavia.
It is not uncommon for urban pedestrians in Germany to be more concerned with
danger posed to them by cyclists than by cars.
~~~
praestigiare
I think the cause and effect may be reversed from what you imply here. Having
been a cyclist in both Berlin and in Oslo, I was much more aggressive in
Berlin, out of necessity. When there is not appropriate infrastructure and
traffic does not respect you, it creates a sort of Max Max mentality where you
do what you have to do.
~~~
lazyjones
There's plenty of infrastructure for cyclists in the Netherlands and they're
still famously aggressive.
So, no.
~~~
adrianN
I haven't heard of aggressive cyclists is the Netherlands. The image that
comes to my mind is a slow bicycle with an upright position and a basket at
the front. No helmet.
~~~
lazyjones
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XypDTdd4qr0](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XypDTdd4qr0)
~~~
adrianN
The video says less than 5% of cyclists actually impeded other road users:
[https://youtu.be/XypDTdd4qr0?t=129](https://youtu.be/XypDTdd4qr0?t=129)
Doesn't sound so aggressive to me.
------
TulliusCicero
It sounds like this is really more, "What happens when a city says they're
going to end traffic deaths, then completely half-asses it."
It was super obvious when these cities committed to Vision Zero on hilariously
overoptimistic timelines that they weren't taking it seriously at all. It was
just a bullet point to signal that they cared, without having to do actual
work or sacrifice any convenience for cars.
~~~
Joe-Z
Well, to be fair, it's very very hard to take away any conveniences for cars
because of the strong opposition by pro-car people.
Just recently there was a proposition in Germany to enact an absolute speed
limit on the Autobahn. The german Autobahn is famous for having no upper speed
limit (in reality you only have that in some parts though), so you can imagine
how well that went...
It's one of the "drawbacks" of living in a democracy I guess: Revolutionary
changes are basically impossible to implement, because the disadvantaged side
also has a right to be heard.
~~~
redprince
> The german Autobahn is famous for having no upper speed limit
30% of the Autobahn have a mandatory speed limit for varying reasons, mostly
safety (high incidence of accidents for example). On 70% there is an advisory
speed limit of 130kph.
This means, it is inadvisable to exceed this speed even under the best of
circumstances. Now in practice this has very little meaning. You may speed
with impunity.
Until there is an accident. Then if a driver has exceeded the 130kph he will
invariably be assigned a higher liability for consequences of the accident
since the driver accepted the increased risk for accidents by operating the
vehicle at a speed above the advisory speed limit. This is even true, if the
other party to the accident is completely at fault. The only exception would
be, if it can be shown beyond a doubt that the accident would have happened at
the recommended speed of 130kph as well. In practice this is next to
impossible.
There have been several attempts to change the advisory speed limit to a
mandatory speed limit. Albeit the arguments aren't clearly on the side of the
proponents. Regarding accidents, a statistic from the German autobahn ministry
in 2018 stated that 71% of all deaths on the autobahn occur in places with no
mandatory speed limit. Since 70% of the autobahn have no speed limit, one
might wonder, what the expected result of a mandatory speed limit is expected
to be.
In addition 33.6% of all kilometers are driven on the autobahn while only 12%
of all deaths occur on the autobahn. 60% of all traffic deaths do occur on
rural roads which have speed limits throughout.
Regarding climate change argument, the estimated reduction of total CO2 with a
mandatory speed limit of 120kph would be 0.2% or even less if the mandatory
speed limit were 130kph.
A visit to the neighbors Austria and Switzerland (both have speed limits on
the autobahn) would also destroy the expectation, that smaller cars would be
bought, if there were a mandatory speed limit on the autobahn.
~~~
Joe-Z
I don't really have a stake in the matter, but as your response clearly shows
even just mentioning the topic triggers vehement defenses. You clearly have
done your research though, so I respect your argument.
What I will say however, whenever I drive on the german Autobahn at some point
it happens to me that I'm in the left lane to take someone over and another
car comes speeding towards me from seemingly kilometers away at the speed of a
damn rocketship. Whatever the hard numbers may be, this causes high amounts of
stress and makes me feel very uncomfortable on the road every time. Not a good
state to be in while operating high-velocity death machines!
~~~
Joe-Z
@FDSGSG: That's why I said "from seemingly kilometers away". Like, I base my
decision on if I have enough space to take over by assuming reasonable[0]
speed levels and suddenly someone comes along going 250 km/h
[0] I guess reasonable in this case means what I'm used to from driving on
other countries' highways
EDIT: Sorry, I changed my response while you were actively responding it
seems! You can call me a bad driver all you want. The fact is that the rules
should be made to accommodate bad drivers also. Survival of the fittest is not
a good rule when it comes to traffic law!
~~~
FDSGSG
Yeah, but you know very well that many people drive 250km/h on the autobahn.
If you decide to assume "reasonable speed levels" and try to overtake someone
in a corner that's just you being a bad driver.
But sure, maybe the rules should better account for bad drivers.
E: > The fact is that the rules should be made to accommodate bad drivers
also. Survival of the fittest is not a good rule when it comes to traffic law!
Of course, but people also need to take personal responsibility for their
actions. Statistically the autobahn is quite safe, it's not clear that adding
global speed limits would make it much better. It's very difficult to balance
this possible minor safety increase with the fact that many (perhaps even
most?) people find it vastly more comfortable to drive on the autobahn as is.
There are places where I refuse to drive because I'm not comfortable with the
environment, there's no way you'll find me driving in a city like Barcelona or
London. Perhaps you should do everyone (especially yourself!) a favour and
consider the same in regards to the Autobahn?
~~~
Joe-Z
For some reason now I have a reply button again. I want to use it to tell you
that I find your suggestion based on the remarks I made here very rude. The
driving skill you infer on my part probably says more about your
interpretation of my comment than on my actual ability to navigate a vehicle
safely. That said, I detest cars and wish cities were free of them. THAT said,
I never posted this to take any stance on the "global speed limit on the
Autobahn"-topic, so this will be it for me.
Thank you for the discussion!
~~~
lobotryas
If you as a driver or your vehicle cannot move quickly enough to overtake
another car on the autobanh then the fault is with you. That “rocketship”
behind you should not have to decelerate because of this. The other poster is
right: you are at fault here.
~~~
wink
No, you are wrong here. §5.2 StVo[0] says (my bad translation) "You may only
overtake if your speed is _significantly_ higher than the one being
overtaken."
So let's assume the one you're overtaking is going with a solid 100. What's
significant? Let's say 150? +50%. The one approaching with 240 is still the
perceived rocket ship.
Also, just for completeness, here's a blog post about some case[1] where the
speed was being judged, 10km/h is barely enough. So let's be generous and
change my example to 100+120.
[0]: [https://www.gesetze-im-
internet.de/stvo_2013/__5.html](https://www.gesetze-im-
internet.de/stvo_2013/__5.html)
[1]: [https://www.deubner-
recht.de/news/verkehrsrecht/details/arti...](https://www.deubner-
recht.de/news/verkehrsrecht/details/artikel/mindestgeschwindigkeit-beim-
ueberholen-auf-der-autobahn.html)
~~~
lobotryas
Did you reply to the wrong person? By my reading we are saying the same thing.
If a person cannot overtake quickly enough then they are at fault for impeding
the “rocketship” traffic behind them.
------
josh2600
A big part of why LA has so many pedestrian and bicyclist fatalities is
because the mass transit system is awful and the sprawl. A ton of people in LA
still just drive drunk because ridesharing and cabs are too expensive. Lots of
people can’t afford to pay $30 to get home and would rather risk it.
Note that the economically less fortunate districts of LA dominate the drunk
driving fatalities by capita:
[https://starpointinjurylaw.com/research/deadliest-cities-
dru...](https://starpointinjurylaw.com/research/deadliest-cities-drunk-
driving-los-angeles/)
~~~
stevenicr
I've wondered for years why we don't have more tow trucks on the road for
this, and bars need to have X amount on retainer per Y seating capacity.
It's not just the cost of the cab / uber, it's not having your car when you
wake up, no good way to get it, and not being sure if the lot you left it in
is going to have it impounded / booted or something.
Still waiting for the uber/tow combo that guarantees your car arrives before
you wake up, and in the exact condition it was in when they went to pick it
up.
~~~
Broken_Hippo
I am not sure we have enough tow trucks for this, and it seems unnecessary if
the public transportation is robust enough. Even if you leave your car at the
pub, it should be a minimal hassle to use public transportation the next day
to get it back - or to simply use it in the first place. I do think we should
disallow booting/towing for cars in those situations, so perhaps having a
"safe" parking lot to keep one's car would be prudent.
~~~
stevenicr
The good thing is that the tow trucks wouldn't have to drive them all at 3am..
they could drive some at 3am some at 3:30am... most people don't need them
until 7am or later - so you'd have 4 hours or more..
getting people to use public transportation - haha that's a whole 'nother
podcast I'd like to do.. it's just not happening.
The booting, and LAZ parking's new "barnacle" \- it's just absurd, as are the
prices they charge.
Vars could start fixing the problem with tows - or the double drivers as
another pointed out below, is popular in Japan..
or the cops could start pulling licenses for the places that are over
serving.. or do the Salt Lake law where bars have to stop serving an hour
before close / stay open an hour later than they stop serving..
I mean, something should be done. It's a true safety issue, and people are
profiting by looking the other way every day in just about every city as far
as I know.
------
lubujackson
> Despite its efforts, San Francisco is facing headwinds. By October of this
> year, the city had counted 25 crash-induced fatalities, already higher than
> last year’s total.
The most notable change in SF has been the delayed light cycle after
pedestrian crosswalk comes on. There was a spike in deaths after that change
and I understood why immediately - drivers were timing the light by watching
the crosswalk countdown and/or the cross traffic's light cycle. Your light
used to turn green just as the other direction's light turned red. When they
suddenly changed all the light I noticed a fair number of cars jolt forward
then stop, confused, until their light actually changes 4 seconds later.
I'm not sure how this change results in deaths directly, but it definitely
added to road rage out there. When the light does change and a car is turning,
the expectations are different now. Pedestrians are in the middle of the
street already and are less wary of cars jumping out because before there was
a moment when everyone would figure out the situation before moving (ideally).
Now people are mid-crosswalk and have no idea when the cars' light is going to
change which leaves pedestrians more vulnerable.
Another issue I imagine is cars that are making a legal right turn on a red
light. The driver looks to see if they can go and have their head turned the
exact opposite direction of the crosswalk and wouldn't be aware of when the
crosswalk symbol changes. Meanwhile, pedestrians aren't expecting a car to
suddenly turn into them 2 seconds after they step into the crosswalk and it is
a recipe for disaster. I don't see how they can fix that now without banning
all turns on red.
There is also a particularly ugly intersection at Laguna and Geary where they
instituted a delayed green when crossing over Geary. People were getting run
over in the crosswalks because there is an extra long crosswalk on both sides
and cars were turning from both directions with other cars getting backed up
and unable to go around them. Because there isn't room for dedicated turn
lanes, they have one side go then the other side go, but people lose their
shit when they see the southbound cars coming at them for 15 seconds while
their light is still red because all prior experience at other lights
indicates they should also have a green light when other cars are going... I
have seen multiple cars simply drive through that red light and one time 3
cars in a row just decided to go despite the red. They finally put up a sign
that says "delayed green" which seems to be helping, but it is an imperfect
solution and another counter-intuitive solution.
~~~
chrisseaton
I don’t understand when I visit SF and as a pedestrian when my light is go
there still seem to be cars allowed to cross my path. Why don’t they stop cars
entirely for pedestrians to cross? And why don’t the lights in SF allow you to
cross diagonally?
~~~
ramshorns
I'm curious where you live and what the signals are like there, because what
you describe is how almost all the traffic signals I see work.
When the light is green on the N-S street, pedestrians have the right of way
to cross N and S (on the E and W sides of the intersection). Cars going
straight N and S also have the right of way, and cars can turn left or right
from the N-S street after they yield to oncoming traffic and pedestrians.
There are a few intersections in Ontario with a dedicated phase for crossing
in any direction, including diagonally, but they're rare.
Anyway, I bet the different ways traffic signals work inform people's
perception of traffic and streets in different places.
~~~
chrisseaton
> I'm curious where you live and what the signals are like there
In the UK. Where I am if there is a light for a pedestrian to cross that
guarantees no car will be trying to cross your path. I feel like you shouldn’t
show a pedestrian a light if cars are still allowed to cross their path! Seems
dangerous and misleading and it scares me every time.
In most cases what happens here is that the whole intersection gets stopped
for pedestrians periodically, so you can cross diagonally as well.
Why isn’t that popular in North America? Trying to interleave cars and
pedestrians and let cars edge towards you menacingly as they try to turn
across your path is absolute madness to me.
~~~
Symbiote
I don't know how common each system is worldwide, but the UK system (no
traffic against a "green man") is different to the system in Germany, Denmark,
Sweden and California ("green man" but turning traffic must give way to
pedestrians).
I do prefer the UK way, but the downside in a car-centric place like most of
Britain is there's much less time for pedestrians to cross. You often wait
over a minute for the pedestrian light to go green.
------
sliken
I live in a "bike friendly city", competing for the friendliest bike cities.
Yet bikes seem like a distant after though. Things like putting "share the
road" signs _IN_ the bike lane during the day. Even worse at night they don't
move them, but fold them down so they are near invisible (black cloth) even
with a light. They re-engineered intersections with big cement islands to
protect pedestrians... but force bikes into traffic right at the intersection.
When they want to slow down a bike trail they put a "S" in it, then line it
with large boulders... typically where there's no street lights.
------
Double_a_92
I live in a city that has lots of external commuter coming into it, and
traffic is becoming a problem. And politics are going a bit haywire here...
They have been arguing for years about some expensive, 2-station, city train
in some inaccessible edge region of the city. And now they even proposed to
tax driven distances on our roads, with some GPS tracking device or so in
every car.
------
hannob
At multiple points the article tries to argue that things are outside the
cities control. But this often sounds more like a cheap excuse.
From the text: "Several factors are fueling this disconcerting trend, from low
gas prices that make it easier to drive, rollbacks on state-level traffic
safety laws, the ongoing prevalence of digital distractions, and the rising
popularity of ride-hailing services and heavy-duty SUVs. Such factors are
frustratingly beyond the control of local leaders."
Some of those, ok. But well, you can't stop people from buying SUVs, but
nobody says you have to give them free or cheap parking spaces in dense cities
or make streets wider for them. You can't stop ride-hailing services, but you
can police them to follow traffic rules. You can't control gas prices, but you
can control parking fees (and police them). You can't change state-level
safety-laws, but you can make sure the existing ones are followed.
------
segmondy
I wonder if people from such region are more likely to become victims when
they go outside of their city since they might be less attentive to traffic
else where.
|
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To John Archibald Wheeler, the race to explain time was personal - dnetesn
http://nautil.us/issue/9/time/haunted-by-his-brother-he-revolutionized-physics
======
joaorico
Freeman Dyson, another important physicist, wrote this a few years ago:
"I changed my mind about an important historical question: did the nuclear
bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki bring World War Two to an end? Until this
year I used to say, perhaps. Now, because of new facts, I say no. This
question is important, because the myth of the nuclear bombs bringing the war
to an end is widely believed. To demolish this myth may be a useful first step
toward ridding the world of nuclear weapons."
Here's the rest of the text: [http://www.edge.org/response-
detail/11732](http://www.edge.org/response-detail/11732)
~~~
tzs
Wheeler was worried about the war in Europe, though, and what could have been
had the bombs been developed a year earlier. That would have put them early
enough to consider delaying D-Day until after the bombs were available.
What, I wonder, would have turned out different if D-Day had started with
nuking Berchtesgaden?
------
AnimalMuppet
I think this is a misunderstanding of what's going on in quantum mechanics. A
photon is emitted as a probability wave function. (Note well: This is _not_
the same as "sometimes a photon acts like a wave!) It travels as a probability
wave function. It gets to the detector as a probability wave function. The
form of the detector determines how the wave function collapses into an
observable state. _That 's_ when the "choice" gets made. There is no
projection of the choice onto the past; there is only the projection of the
choice onto the probability wave function in the present. So this
"retrocausality" stuff is actually a fundamental mis-understanding of quantum
mechanics.
What the article got right: Relativity and quantum mechanics are talking about
two fundamentally different things when they use the word "time". Reconciling
those two ideas is going to be critical to a fundamental understanding of the
universe.
~~~
physonaught
That is true, but, (if you haven't already), I would recommend looking into
the delayed choice quantum eraser experiment. I think it is probably more true
to the essences of what the article was trying to communicate.
I don't think I can do the idea justice, but the basic idea is such: if you
'tag' the photons in the double-slit experiment by which path they went
through, then you necessarily break superposition and won't see an
interference pattern.
However, if you 'throw' away this information completely, the interference
pattern re-emerges. The delayed-choice part of it is just a way to through
away the 'tag' information after the photon has moved through the slits. It
seems to suggest that you can uncollapse a wavefunction if you just erase any
knowledge you have of the measurement you made. (I've probably butchered it,
read here for more[1])
Although, honestly, you don't need retrocausality, and personally I think it
has much more interesting applications to information theory (how does one
destroy information? How does the wavefunction know about our records? What
even is information, man? etc)
[1]
[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Delayed_choice_quantum_eraser](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Delayed_choice_quantum_eraser)
~~~
georgemcbay
Related, worth watching (IMO):
[http://youtu.be/dEaecUuEqfc](http://youtu.be/dEaecUuEqfc)
------
elpachuco
>>In 1984, Alley—along with Oleg Jakubowicz and William Wickes, both of whom
had also been in the audience that day—finally got the experiment to run. It
worked just as Wheeler had imagined: measurements made in the present can
create the past.
I'm not a physicist so unfortunately I don't know whether this is true.
However, of all the documentaries on Physics that I've seen they have never
mentioned this.
Could anybody please chime in whether this is true.
~~~
Ono-Sendai
I can't tell you if it's true or not, but you can read more about it here:
[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wheeler's_delayed_choice_experi...](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wheeler's_delayed_choice_experiment)
~~~
ctchocula
Here's a Wheeler quote from the link: 'Actually, quantum phenomena are neither
waves nor particles but are intrinsically undefined until the moment they are
measured. In a sense, the British philosopher Bishop Berkeley was right when
he asserted two centuries ago "to be is to be perceived."'
Could this be used as an argument that we are inside the simulation of the
universe? I mean if I were to design a game, I might leave the state undefined
until it's necessary for it to be known (by some consciousness perhaps).
~~~
Ono-Sendai
The state is not really 'undefined'. Rather there is a well defined
wavefunction (that is governed by precise evolution rules) that 'collapses' to
a single point when a position measurement is taken. That's the Copenhagen
interpretation at least :)
~~~
ctchocula
Yet there is something "undefined" about the phenomenon we're seeing. In the
context of the quote, what is undefined is whether the the quantum phenomena
is a wave or a particle. I found a name for the concept I was describing:
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Digital_physics](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Digital_physics)
------
jsun
Unsourced wikipedia articles seem to suggest that Wheeler believed the exact
opposite on retrocausality. Since both pieces seem to cite no academic sources
I will leave it to you to determine which is true.
[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wheeler%27s_delayed_choice_expe...](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wheeler%27s_delayed_choice_experiment#Cosmic_interferometer)
|
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Ask HN: Is it possible to build your own cell phone? - kapilkaisare
Any online resources would be preferred.
======
retroafroman
Yes, it is possible to build a cell phone that can perform the functions of
making calls, sending SMS, and even data transfer. For an example of a GSM
module that would be the main component of such a system, see here:
<http://www.sparkfun.com/products/10138>
However, from a cost and performance point of view, it doesn't make any sense
to do so. The cell phone OEMs have a large amount of engineering and logistics
resources to put behind building devices that are aesthetically pleasing,
small, and powerful.
------
runjake
You can and a simple Google search will link you to a number of homebrew
projects.
Hint: include terms like "avr", "Arduino", or "arm" in your searches.
The problem with home brew cellular systems is, unless you have access to some
pretty advanced chip/board fab equipment, they're usually way too bulky to be
practical, and they use too many mAh's (battery life).
The stuff on Sparkfun and Adafruit are great for hobbyist projects, but aren't
going to be better than a cheap series 40 Nokia that's hackable via a serial
interface.
------
bschiett
major chip manufacturers probably have reference designs you can get, which
include some of their parts, and which should be a good starting point.
you will indeed need to have access to advanced PCB fab and assembly
subcontractor, but with some digging around you can find those.
the biggest problem is that you'll need hardware and software engineers who
really know their job and can do the schematics, layout and firmware - doing a
cell phone well is not an easy or small project, certainly not if you want to
do something at a serious level and go beyond hobbyist type hacking.
you'll also have to do research on where to get an OS - developing this
yourself is a huge project, probably just as big if not bigger than doing the
hardware design. I don't know if it's possible, but perhaps you can get
android OS source code and use that as a starting point.
you'll have to make each part of the hardware talk to the OS which means
writing some driver or glue code, which is a whole other job. I'd try to use
standard peripherals/ICs in your design for which android already has drivers.
without knowing more about your project, I can't really help more than this -
if you want to talk about it feel free to msg me.
|
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Class action claims Windows 10 causes hard drive failures and other problems - rbanffy
https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2017/03/unhappy-windows-10-upgraders-take-microsoft-to-court-for-lost-data-damaged-pcs/
======
nisa
Not really Microsofts fault but difficult to check for and explain that some
disks that are already broken start to die or refuse to work after an Upgrade
that rewrites big parts of the disks. Bad sectors are getting remapped when
beeing written to and likely writing 10-15gb on these disks caused the disk to
reach it's reserved sectors and just giving up - or the new writes couldn't be
read anymore after booting.
However for someone that has no knowledge about computers and just uses them
this issues might make them angry at Windows 10.
~~~
rbanffy
Windows update could check SMART readings before attempting the upgrade. It's
like 10 lines of code...
------
PaulHoule
I have seen machines that looked OK but then you try to upgrade the OS and all
hell breaks lose and when you look closely you see that disk errors messed up
the install, sometimes trashing the whole system. (Although on one Windows
machine it would always roll back the install and leave the machine usable)
I have seen this on both macosx and windows.
------
ivraatiems
I haven't seen any compelling evidence that W10's upgrade process is so broken
as to break hardware or fundamentally not work correctly as described here. It
sounds like coincidence.
But the fact that I read "Windows 10 destroys hard drives," nodded to myself,
and thought "huh, maybe," is indicative of how incredibly poor Microsoft's QA
has become lately, and how low my trust is in them as an entity. Businesswise,
they've adopted some great strategies. Software quality wise, not so much.
------
Santosh83
On a related note, what would be HN readers' preferred HDD SMART monitoring
tool for Windows? Back on Linux the GNOME Disks utility did the job adequately
but am now on Windows.
~~~
brainfire
What do you want to do exactly? Windows will log and give a pop-up if a disk
SMART status indicates it's failing.
~~~
TwoNineA
Google did some tests/research/study a few years back and they noticed that
hard drives fail around 40% of the time without showing any signs with SMART
attributes.
EDIT: Ok, few years = 10. [http://storagemojo.com/2007/02/19/googles-disk-
failure-exper...](http://storagemojo.com/2007/02/19/googles-disk-failure-
experience/)
~~~
brainfire
Fair- matches my experiences (seems to me it only flags a drive at the point
where it's physically clicking or otherwise very dead) but they specifically
asked for a SMART monitoring tool.
|
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Twitter lays off around 20, shuts down engineering office in Bangalore, India - doppp
https://techcrunch.com/2016/09/20/twitter-lays-off-around-20-shuts-down-engineering-office-in-bangalore-india/
======
trjordan
I feel like "lays off" is the wrong term here. If you're closing an office of
20 people at a company of 3,800, that feels more like firing a team for not
producing, not making bottom-of-the-stack-rank cuts because you need to free
up budget.
~~~
omouse
Each of those 20 people have lives and families. Not producing by whose
measurement? Who defines that ,they were obviously hired for a particular job
and have been doing it for a while and pretty well if they weren't fired
before.
I wonder how much help Twitter is giving them in looking for their next jobs.
~~~
coldtea
> _Each of those 20 people have lives and families. Not producing by whose
> measurement? Who defines that ,they were obviously hired for a particular
> job and have been doing it for a while and pretty well if they weren 't
> fired before._
Don't necessarily disagree on the human impact, but this is a strange
reasoning.
> _Not producing by whose measurement?_
Obviously by the one who hired them?
> _Who defines that, they were obviously hired for a particular job and have
> been doing it for a while and pretty well if they weren 't fired before._
Nobody is fired until they are fired. So by the same logic, everybody who
wasn't fired immediately did their job "pretty well". Alternatives not
considered:
(a) they did their a bad or mediocre job for a longish time, but company only
ever cared to fire when money got tight, cuts needed to be made, performance
review was completed and they came up empty.
(b) they did their job bad for a short time, and they're fired as soon as it
was discovered.
Of course firing is can be also because they were hired for a specific project
that they completed and now they no longer needed, or because the project went
south or went out of favour with Twitter management and Twitter wants to kill
it, etc.
Or they do their job perfectly well, but it doesn't bring Twitter the money it
expected, so they are canned.
> _I wonder how much help Twitter is giving them in looking for their next
> jobs_
None? Like most employees? Besides maybe a good recommendation letter?
~~~
omouse
And you're okay with an employer not offering any help beyond a recommendation
letter and you're okay with not knowing whether or not Twitter is a supportive
employer? I'm not, that's why I brought up. Perhaps the beginning of my
comment isn't so great but it is damned important that we know what kind of
support employees and former employees will get when they're fired and
something that needs to change in industry.
~~~
riboflava
What sort of help would you want or expect? A severance package or help by
having the employer pay a recruiter to pimp the former employee? Or something
else? In any case I'm totally fine with the idea of no help being offered
provided such an exit clause is not part of the contract of employment the
employee signed. If you want some specific sort of help from your old company
in the event they fire you for cause, require that to be in the contract
before you accept employment.
------
r_smart
It seems weird that they would choose to do this. From what I understand,
they're a company in need of something big happening for them. Laying off 20
people, who are probably some of the lowest paid on their staff, doesn't
really seem to do anything for them as I can understand it. It's basically $0
in Twitter dollars. Why not just turn it into an R&D department and see if
they churn out anything interesting? Otherwise, just don't replace them as
they leave.
Having worked in the semiconductor industry (oh boy, annual layoff time!),
once you start firing people, rumors start and morale tanks. Sometimes you
have to do it, but I just don't see how 20 people in India helps at all, but
will get rumors churning internally.
I guess it just seems to me like saying: "I've realized I'm going to have a
hard time ahead of me financially. To that end, I"m going to start buying
generic dish soap. I'm now saving about $0.3 / month!" You haven't fixed your
financial problem, and now your dish soap doesn't bubble up like it's supposed
to.
Please enjoy that labored analogy :)
~~~
joneholland
Firing a offshore team usually improves morale for the onshore teams.
~~~
iampims
This is the saddest thing I've read in a while.
~~~
r_smart
It might be sad, but I have a hard time thinking it's true. It certainly runs
counter to my own experience.
------
TheLarch
2015 R&D: $806,648,000 2015 Sales, General and Admin $1,132,164,000
I can't imagine a justification for these numbers. Twitter seems like a small
company idea.
~~~
cpr
Well, $200K/employee, 4K employees (roughly), and you're at $800M pretty fast.
Still an astounding number.
------
Naritai
A lot of people seem to be commenting that a 20-person office would hardly
move the needle at Twitter. They're right, in general - the total numbers are
too small to be layoffs and it covered an entire office so is unlikely to be
performance related (in an individual sense). The logical inference then is
that this team was hired for a specific project, and that project isn't
working out.
If they were sales, then they were likely hired to try to break into a
specific market (probably something geographically close to their office), and
when they failed to make the numbers the project was axed. If they were
engineering, it was a side project that has now lost its budget.
Something like that.
------
raverbashing
The real question is why does Twitter need 3 offices in India
It seems the whole company is freewheeling
~~~
codeonfire
Lots of Indians in tech work their way into management and then try to bring
home the bacon back to India. They continue identifying as Indian nationals
even after going through grad school, green card, etc. You may not have
noticed but there was/is a large wave of placing Indians in executive
positions at tech companies, so I don't see why this is so mysterious. Did
people think they were going to open offices in Omaha?
~~~
geodel
Until they get US citizenship they do remain Indian nationals. And for Indian
origin people it can easily take 10-15 years after graduation to get US
citizenship.
Also identifying with India and actually going back and living in India are
two vastly different things. Most of them will talk and plan but never leave
for India as facilities, money and comfort of the first world will be just too
much leave. Of course some of them may go for CEO/very senior position to
establish office in India and then come back after some time.
~~~
codeonfire
Green card holders and those seeking permanent resident status have presumably
announced their intent to become Americans. If they are trying to use their
position in America to send jobs and offices back to India then that's their
power that corporations have given them. But, they should lose their green
card and/or visa as a result because their loyalties are obviously not to the
US. They just want a green card to exploit American businesses, not to become
a citizen.
------
0xmohit
We thank the impacted individuals, less than 20 persons, for
their valuable contributions and are doing as much as we can to
provide them a respectful exit from our company.
Epic.
~~~
yequalsx
It's the "less than 20 people" that rubs me the wrong way. I think something
along the lines of feeling bad at having to do this would go over much better
and sound sincere. Writing "less than 20 people" makes them seem insincere.
The last part of the sentence is nice. I wish they had reworded the first
part.
~~~
ipince
"less than 20 people" also implicitly assigns a value to 20 people. Should
read "fewer than 20 people."
(ok im sorry for nitpicking)
~~~
coldtea
As with a lot of such corrections, the fewer/less dichotomy is wrong:
[http://itre.cis.upenn.edu/myl/languagelog/archives/003775.ht...](http://itre.cis.upenn.edu/myl/languagelog/archives/003775.html)
------
gerby
If Twitter has other offshore employees that were underperforming, now that
they've shown a willingness to let people go even though they probably cost
less - it'll make the rest of the offshore employees work harder to keep there
jobs.
------
coldtea
And Twitter needed an "engineering office in Bangalore, India" because?
~~~
intoverflow2
Same reason it needs 3,800 employees to run what is essentially an internet
forum/messaging client.
We will never find out what that reason is though....
~~~
anondon
> Same reason it needs 3,800 employees to run what is essentially an internet
> forum/messaging client.
That's a very cynical way of looking at it.
The part of Twitter that you use "is essentially an internet forum/messaging
client". True, but what about the analytics, targeting ads, moderation, logs
etc.
Twitter most likely builds custom software,libraries for internal use. What
about their development and maintenance?
TL;DR : There is a whole lot more than the seemingly simplistic product that
you use.
~~~
coldtea
> _That 's a very cynical way of looking at it._
Considering WhatsApp, with 50 employees, was sold for perhaps more than
Twitter will, it's also a valid way to look at it.
> _Twitter most likely builds custom software,libraries for internal use. What
> about their development and maintenance?_
Development of what? Compared to something like the first UNIX, which was
built by 3-5 people at AT&T, Twitter is an order of magnitude less
challenging, including the whole server infrastructure and the mobile app.
Unless they built all those from scratch.
~~~
grardb
Sincere question: have you ever worked at a larger company?
When I was at Etsy, people always asked why we had "so many employees" for
what seemed to them like a simple e-commerce website. These people were always
from smaller companies.
I don't know a ton about the technology behind WhatsApp, but if I had to
guess:
1\. WhatsApp does not have an advertising platform.
2\. WhatsApp does not provide you with analytics for anything.
3\. WhatsApp doesn't need a team (or at least as big of one) dedicated to
anything related to big data or machine learning. Think of Twitter's "Trends"
and "Who to Follow" features.
4\. Searching Twitter is a much more difficult problem to solve than searching
through just your own personal chats.
5\. I may be wrong about this, but doesn't WhatsApp _not_ store anything/much
on its servers, and instead relies on your phone? I'd imagine that reduces a
lot of overhead.
6\. I'd be willing to bet that Twitter has (and needs) way more admin features
for dealing with things like harassment, illegal content being posted, etc.
I could probably go on, but this should give you an idea. All of these things
require people to make happen. Designers, developers (front-end, back-end,
mobile, dev ops, and more), PMs, you name it. Also, given that Twitter is just
a bigger site/app in general, it takes more work to handle things like
internationalization, for example. It's no sweat getting "Send," "Chats," and
"Settings" translated, but think about translating your entire advertising and
analytics platforms.
It's a lot of work.
~~~
coldtea
> _Sincere question: have you ever worked at a larger company?_
The largest tech company I've worked for was around 100 people, but I've also
worked for a (no tech) organisation of about 20000, and have done projects for
businesses with IT departments in the 1000 people range.
That said, not sure what unique insight it would give me. As a programmer I
can kinda evaluate the work behind Twitter. And I've seen companies that have
done equally or much more impressive stuff, technology wise, with 1/10 or 1/50
the resources. Nothing about Twitter, including the scaling, is rocket
science.
That's why I brought up WhatsApp -- itself is an example of this very thing.
I've read this (1), (2), (3). Fail to see why you'd need > 500 people total
for all of those, plus sales and support.
~~~
sangnoir
> As a programmer I can kinda evaluate the work behind Twitter.
That's just the Twitter you _see._ There is plenty you don't see: back-office
systems, their strategic decisions and product roadmap. All of which have a
material impact on staffing.
> That's why I brought up WhatsApp -- itself is an example of this very thing.
While the core functionality of WhatsApp and Twitter might seem
technologically similar, businesswise they aren't (weren't?). Twitter, for
better it for worse requires analytics and ads, which WhatsApp did not have.
Additionally, even the technological similarities are superficial as WhatsApp
is mostly 1:1 messaging whereas Twitter is M:N
~~~
coldtea
> _That 's just the Twitter you see. There is plenty you don't see: back-
> office systems, their strategic decisions and product roadmap. All of which
> have a material impact on staffing._
Well, knowing HN rules on profanity, I better not evaluate their "strategic
decisions and product roadmap" thus far.
> _Additionally, even the technological similarities are superficial as
> WhatsApp is mostly 1:1 messaging whereas Twitter is M:N_
True. But I'm pretty sure being M:N is not some unique challenge compared to
being 1:1 for hundreds of millions -- especially since WhatsApp had 1/60 the
people and, from what I know, 1/100 the funding to make that 1:1.
It's not that it's the same challenge, but is it that much of a challenge?
------
camelNotation
Well, there goes Twitter. It was a nice experiment. Pack it up.
Seriously, why is this news...
------
dlandis
They need to figure out a way to start monetizing Bootstrap.
------
debacle
20 down, 2000 to go?
------
threesixandnine
Sorry. Wrong thread.
|
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iPhone 8 Plus Camera Review - ruang
http://austinmann.com/trek/iphone-8-camera-review-india
======
rangibaby
This isn't a review. It is a competent photographer showing off. Which is
fine, but you should be aware of it while reading.
1\. The fake bokeh looks surprisingly good. I don't think any of my non-
technical friends would be able to spot it on their own.
2\. These pictures are absolute best-cases for the iPhone (or any) camera. For
headshots with well-chosen natural light as in these pics a picture taken with
an iPhone 4 would look almost as good. "Studio lighting" and other tricks
won't fix bad light. Neither will a $6,500 Nikon D5 with a $1,000+ lens.
3\. Nikon, Canon et al need to try harder. Cellphones have already replaced
several categories of "real" cameras, and they keep improving every year.
~~~
mtgx
Nikon and Canon should have gotten into the licensing game with smartphone
manufacturers. And by that I don't mean suing their asses off "because
patents". They should've started making camera modules and lenses and sensors
for smartphones 4-5 years ago. Now it may already be too late. In 5 years,
even amateur photographers won't be using DSLRs, at the rate smartphone
computational photography is improving.
Just look at these cropped images over a span of 4 years:
[https://cdn.dxomark.com/wp-
content/uploads/2017/09/asian_old...](https://cdn.dxomark.com/wp-
content/uploads/2017/09/asian_old_guy_apple_comparison.png)
They got disrupted and like most incumbents, they failed to capitalize on the
disruption "because it could eat their margins" or whatever their reason for
not getting into the smartphone market was.
~~~
semi-extrinsic
> In 5 years, even amateur photographers won't be using DSLRs, at the rate
> smartphone computational photography is improving.
I call BS, if by "amateur photographers" you're talking about enthusiasts who
care about composing and exposing a great shot, not just taking a nice picture
of the kids in front of the Christmas tree. It's like someone in 2012 saying
"at the rate smartphone input apps are progressing, in 5 years no-one will buy
physical keyboards for their computers."
The reason someone carries a DSLR today is because of the optics, the speed
and the control mechanisms. Having shutter speed, aperture, white balance etc.
at your fingertips when shooting. Having the ability to switch from a 105mm
portrait lens to a 20mm fisheye. Having that rapid autofocus and response time
that lets you capture great shots. Having 14 bit RAW files that you can post-
process to save that reflex once-in-a-lifetime shot that was underexposed.
Having the ability to mount a flash off-camera (or even three strobes). Those
are things you can never get on an iPhone or Samsung.
Nikon, Canon etc. have already "bled dry" of customers going to smartphones
instead of DSLRs, and at this point their business models look fairly stable.
The share price of both companies has also been fairly stable for the past 3-4
years; both are up 30% over the past year, although that (and a lot of their
volatility) is tied to the JPY:USD exchange rate.
~~~
shawnz
> Those are things you can never get on an iPhone or Samsung.
Why couldn't you have adjustable white balance, rapid autofocus, high response
time, high bit depth, external flash, etc on a smartphone camera? These seem
like things which should be possible even with today's technology.
~~~
dognotdog
I think once the smartphone's internal capabilities are exceeded, a "System"
(as in put together from multiple parts) DSLR or Mirrorless has more
advantages:
\- if you need more parts, eg. flash, you go from having one thing in your
pocket to carrying a bag anyway
\- dedicated UI and buttons for adjustments while shooting without having to
look away from your subject or having to change your grip
\- much larger sensors means more light to work with during shooting and post-
processing \- dedicated glass that you can't quite yet replicate with light-
field tech
The smartphone can do many of the things a dedicated camera can, it's just not
as good on almost all fronts, and much worse in some aspects. You can under
more and more conditions get images that rival DSLRs, but not ALL
condititions: If you can control time, light, and subject all at once, a
dedicated camera can be matched. If you can't control of only one, grab a
dedicated camera.
The tactile UI is one major gripe against smartphone photography for pros and
enthusiasts alike, which is why a phone to some extent needs to be
smart/automatic, and while today's image sensors straight beat the pants off
any predecessing image sensors, physics still poses hard limits on noise and
light capture.
Today's image sensors are very close to be able to count individual photons,
and making the sensor larger means being able to capture more of them at a
time. Tricks are being worked on to extend dynamic range and lower noise (like
double exposure HDR), so image quality still increases, but the larger image
sensors profit from those developments just as much as the small phone ones.
The days of small image sensors being good enough to beat a human eye are
still far off.
TL;DR: dedicated tactile UI, physical interfaces, physics, can't quite be beat
by all the high-tech we can pack in a smartphone package.
------
grandalf
A top performing smart phone "camera" is really just the algorithm that
creates a psychologically appealing composition.
Note that AI is not being used to (simply) mimic a better sensor and lens,
there is all sorts of stuff going on in the algorithms that a photographer
would do in photoshop or in the dark room.
The problem is, there is a specific aesthetic being targeted, and this removes
some of the artistry from photography.
I think there is a fundamental difference between a) the camera capturing
multiple depths of field, focal points, etc., and then allowing the user to
make the final decision in post production and b) the camera computationally
simulating lens effects and lighting effects in the way that snapchat filters
widen eyes and add animal ears.
Cameras are supposed to capture reality, not create a postcard-like view of
whatever was in range or generate a flattering selfie.
These reviews should not be called camera reviews, they should be called
"image algorithm reviews".
What's next, phones whose "microphones" make our voices sound more masculine
or flirtatious?
~~~
jbob2000
I am really afraid of the direction "camera algorithms" are going. My partner,
bless her to death, prefers to take pictures on Snapchat now instead of any
other app. Mainly because the filters there make your nose smaller, eyes
bigger, and alter some of the other facial dimensions to make you look
prettier. We are going to end up in some weird future where everyone looks
beautiful digitally, but, uhh, "normal" in reality.
~~~
grandalf
> We are going to end up in some weird future
I worry about that too. It may also end up being a future where we are no
longer fooled by fake effects and they start to feel inauthentic.
Chances are when plastic were new, people remarked at how similar chrome-
painted plastic was to actual metal. These days we can easily tell them apart.
------
bogomipz
TL;DR: This is little more than an advertisement for luxury tour operator Ker
and Downey and the luxury hotel brand The Taj Group masquerading as an Apple
hardware review.
------
JustAnotherPat
These photos all have a very "Shot on the Iphone" feel. Can't tell if it's
because Iphones excel at one type of picture or because Apple/this reviewer
feels the need to go all the way to India to test out a phone camera.
------
cphaynes
I got the 8 Plus (upgrade from the 6S Plus), mainly for the camera. Lugging my
Nikon D610 has become a pain in the ass.
I wish iOS would allow native DNG (RAW) captures with their camera app. They
added HEIC but not DNG? It'd be so much faster to snap a pic and capture DNG
with the native app, rather than firing up LR Mobile / VSCO, etc.
~~~
ashman5
While I agree, I speculate that Apple doesn't allow this simply for iCloud
Photo Library backup aspects. The HEIC/HEVC save backup space. Backing up
RAW/DNG would be data costly. I realize there are ways around this, but it's
not Apple's style.
~~~
snuxoll
There are apps like ProCam that take RAW images and save them to the camera
roll, they sync over iCloud Photo Library without issue. I think the normal
user is just fine with JPEG or HEIF and the space savings are more important,
so Apple has kept it out of Camera.app.
~~~
spike021
I'm not sure why they couldn't, though. They provide several different format
options for recording video, like 1080p vs 4K.
~~~
snuxoll
Yeah, but at the end of the day the different video settings still use
"standard" formats that a normal consumer can open on their desktop or laptop.
HEIF being the real outlier, changing any of the settings buried in
Settings.app for the built-in Camera.app doesn't effect the ability of a
normal user to view their content on a current operating system (Windows 10 or
macOS High Sierra). RAW images change all of that - Windows 10 has really
basic support for some RAW formats, and there are some workarounds like
RAW+JPEG in ProCam but it results in two separate files combined as one
"image" in your iCloud Photo library, syncing this to a Windows PC results in
two files and just confuses users (macOS works around this by hiding
everything in the Photo Library, invisible to most users).
------
AOsborn
That is some of the best SEO/content marketing I have seen all year. Nice
camera review too. Have already passed the link to a number of friends.
------
gnicholas
There are lots of reviews popping up about iPhone 8 vs iPhone 7. What I'd like
to see is a side-by-side of Portrait Mode on: iPhone 7 Plus running iOS 10,
iPhone 7 Plus running iOS 11, and iPhone 8 Plus.
------
coverband
Isn't it possible to offer the "Slow Sync" feature on older models like 6/6s?
I would assume this would be software controlled... Maybe another camera app
has this already?
------
rem1313
The marshmallow comparison was spot-on at the end :)
------
denisehilton
never been a fan of iphone camera but this is next level. For iphone standards
at least.
------
tobyhinloopen
In Today's news: A newer model iPhone has a better camera than the previous
model.
Neat new features though, like that "slow sync". Why don't older models get
"slow sync" though? It seems like something that is controlled by software
~~~
sdrothrock
All of these except the "smarter sensor" seem like software features -- I
wonder if it's technically impossible to get them on the iPhone 7 or if it's
just a matter of differentiation.
~~~
aorth
An honest iPhone 8 launch event would say " _we improved the camera hardware
but also had some fantastic breakthroughs in the camera software, and we 'll
be backporting those to all supported models in iOS 11_". The pessimist in me
says that nobody would buy an iPhone 8 if they did this. Wait a second, now
that I've thought it through it's obvious that this is exactly why they didn't
backport the software improvements to previous iPhones. :)
~~~
jamesrcole
> The pessimist in me says that nobody would buy an iPhone 8 if they did this
People with an iPhone 4, 5 or 6 have more reason to upgrade to an 8 rather
than a 7 than just the camera.
~~~
imtringued
I think his argument is that they are not backporting other software features
including those that are unrelated to the camera.
~~~
jamesrcole
The improvements aren't just to the software. There's non-software reasons for
a, say, iPhone 5 user, to upgrade to an 8 over a 7.
|
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"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
}
|
A case against syntax highlighting (2007) - lelf
http://www.linusakesson.net/programming/syntaxhighlighting/
======
davelnewton
> It encourages you to skim through code rather than understand it.
Personally I find it _allows_ me to skim through code so I _can_ understand
it.
I'm not generally interested in syntactic overhead. I care about the names and
structures of things. Occasionally I care about the type of things, but less
often than I care about what I can actually do to that thing.
------
geon
Comparing code to natural language is dishonest. Code is nothing like that. In
code, the structure and exact wording is important, while you probably
wouldn't notice if a paragraph of fiction was rearranged and had words
substituted with synonyms.
|
{
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|
Ask HN: How perfect was your app when you launched it? - ziyadparekh
How perfect was your app/website when you launched it? Were there issues (bugs, bottlenecks, bad code)? Did you wait until all outstanding issues were ironed out until you launched it? Or did you let it out in the wild and fix it as issues came up ?
======
animeshk
My team and I launched our product about 17 days ago. It's might look better
than an MVP, but it's literally just that. We're trying to identify the users
who would love using even the crappiest version of our product.
With over 300 users now, it turns out they do want browser extensions and
mobile app. So our product is far from perfect. You can have a look at it -
[http://www.searchtrack.co](http://www.searchtrack.co).
SearchTrack helps teams and individuals collaborate to save content, contacts,
products and services around any topic. Best of all, you can share your
research with the community so others in need can spend more time learning and
implementing from your collection of rich resources (than they would, in
finding and organizing those).
------
pedalpete
I took over a project 8 months ago which had been running for 2.5 years.
It was far from perfect when it launched, was still far from perfect when I
took over, and I'm going to guess it is going to take a year or so before it
gets to a point that I'm even happy with it.
The issues are plenty.
It looked horrible when I took over, and though we've done a redesign, it is
still not a beautiful app.
Bottlenecks galore! Very slow page load times, parts of the app where we
wanted to improve the UX are so duct-taped together we can barely touch it and
are biding our time to do a re-write.
Dead code, confusing code, poorly thought out code. This has all of it. I even
lost a developer because he was so frustrated with the code structure.
So, how bad can this all be?
We've got a large base of dedicated users that love the product, we're growing
nicely (though growth is somewhat held back as we can't release features and
improvements as quickly as we'd like).
Ignore the 'perfect', it's never perfect (but definitely aim for 'good
enough'). Having users that love the product is much more important than it
being perfect.
Also, what app do you think is or was perfect when it launched? Facebook sure
as hell wasn't perfect. Twitter? Clearly not.
Nobody is perfect, give that up. The perfect time to launch an app is when it
is perfect enough to get feedback.
------
mattkrea
"If you are not embarrassed by the first version of your product, you’ve
launched too late."
Unless you are some kind of a wizard, waiting to clean everything up before
making sure you are doing the right thing is probably a bad idea.
------
hendersonsam456
The lean start-up would say: \- launch early \- test with your users what
needs fixing \- fix it (and don't bother fixing the stuff that the user's
don't care about).
I think there is a legitimate caveat to this though. If you're app does
something where failure leads to death or some other really bad outcome (might
be medical software), then being super lean is probably not advised. But in
the main, launch early, test, fix and repeat.
|
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This WebGL Shader somehow brokes android/iOS chrome and safari both - eodnjs2998
https://www.shadertoy.com/view/ltSfzz
======
eodnjs2998
Hope somebody figuring out why this thing happens.
EDIT: Even more serious thing is, the link below will make your entire iOS
device FREAZE, so you will need to reboot.
BE CAUTIOUS:
[https://www.shadertoy.com/results?query=&sort=newest&from=96...](https://www.shadertoy.com/results?query=&sort=newest&from=96&num=12)
(This page is sorted by "newest order", so may not be work in future.)
------
cylinder714
Worked fine on my copy of Chrome 63.0... running on a Nexus 6 with Android
7.0.0, and I could scroll horizontally to view the editor.
When I visited the page with Firefox Beta 58.0b12 it ran, but I couldn't view
the editor.
------
navjack27
Nothing wrong in brave on my Pixel running Android 8.1.0
|
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|
Who Gets Email Sent to test[at]test.com? - acron0
http://www.josiahcole.com/2007/11/01/who-gets-email-sent-to-testtestcom/
======
amccloud
Use [email protected]
<http://www.iana.org/domains/reserved>
|
{
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
}
|
White Gold (2015) - wallflower
https://story.californiasunday.com/mushroom-hunters-oregon-tokyo
======
mchahn
Why isn't something so valuable farmed? I have seen great mushroom farms in
abandoned tunnels in Pennsylvania.
P.S. Great photos.
~~~
yongjik
It's not for lack of trying. Whoever finds out how to farm these mushrooms
will be filthy rich.
------
mc32
This is about a sought-after white mushroom, prized in Japan for infusing
dishes with nuances flavors, but it hijacks a term that's been used since
antiquity to refer to cotton fiber... Interesting none the less.
~~~
kqr
Also used for rhodiated or palladiated gold-as-in-the-element-aurum.
~~~
mc32
Sure, I think that's more a literal meaning, rather than the metaphorical
sense the article was going for. As a metaphor, it's more common and way
longer associated with king cotton.
------
nicheasta
In the area that I live there are plenty of eatable mushrooms but sadly none
like that. I wonder how it actually tastes but wouldn't ever pay so much for a
mushroom
|
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|
Ask HN: We aren't getting users to create stories on our content platform – why? - siddharthram
We are building a product TYMLINE (https://tymline.co/)
It's a timeline based story blogging platform. Here, people create timelines to narrate stories of any kind like relationship, career, travel, hobbies etc as timelines which can be discovered basing on users interest.<p>We got about 10k visits with around 250 sign ups but only 10 new people have created timelines organically. Others either read a story or check the platform and drop off.<p>Sample timeline:
https://tymline.co/SiddharthRam/siliconvalley?ref=hn<p>Where are we going wrong in the product?<p>Any suggestions or feedback to improve the product would be helpful for us to iterate further.<p>TIA
======
montrose
By default, products fail to appeal to users, in the same sense that, by
default, ten-digit integers are not perfect squares.
Is this something you and your friends eagerly want and constantly use? I.e.
that you and your friends would use _if you weren 't working on this startup,_
and had merely come across it as potential users? If so, you should be able to
get users from among your friends and their friends. And if not, it's a made-
up idea
([http://paulgraham.com/startupideas.html](http://paulgraham.com/startupideas.html))
that you can't expect to fix by tweaking it.
My guess is it's the latter. This sounds like a made-up idea to me.
~~~
siddharthram
Thanks Montrose,
We built this product as an experiment to document experiences in a much
easier way than writing a blogpost.People who are not interested in blogging
could tell a cohesive story by stitching a set of posts which are easier to
understand.
We are trying to experiment this and see if it could be used as a
microblogging tool for experiences and stories as an alternative to writing a
blogpost.
We will surely reflect on your feedback but if you have anything that we could
look to pivot can be helpful for us to consider from here on.
thanks again
~~~
quickthrower2
It seems so similar to blogging to me, I find it hard to see the difference,
personally.
~~~
siddharthram
The difference is here the posts are structured into threads to make it easier
to convey a story than writing a blogpost.
------
pseingatl
They're not timelines. They are merely chronological narratives divided by
paragraphs in outline fashion. The tool can't be used to create a real
timeline either. The timeline is a gimmick; what do you offer the narratives
that Medium doesn't?
~~~
siddharthram
Thanks for the feedback.
I didn't get the point when you say the tool cannot be used to create a real
timeline ? Could you elaborate on what you expected ?
In medium, one has to construct the narrative which is not an easy task for
everyone to do especially for people who cannot articulate well. Timelines
have proven to be a form of narrative since ages and we wanted this tool to be
given for people to construct a narrative of any life story they wish to say.
If you think it could have been done in a better way, I would love to hear
your thoughts on what you expect over a medium in order to construct
narratives easily?
It would help us in shaping the product. Thanks again
------
lovelearning
It's an interesting concept - an entire timeline can focus on a single theme,
unlike Twitter or FB feed.
I can see myself using this as a travel log to share with friends, _if_ I go
on an interesting journey (which sadly I haven't done in a long time).
Using it for documenting progress in a hobby is also interesting. I have never
done it before, so can't say I'll start now, but still it's a mildly
attractive idea.
I don't see myself using this to document my career. Firstly because I don't
think there's anything special about mine to document it publicly. Secondly,
because it's already documented in personal journals - warts and all - and
lessons learned which I don't particularly care to share with anybody.
Thirdly, I don't have any great photos or anything to make my career timeline
look interesting to other people.
I can't think of any reason why anybody would document their relationships
publicly. Do people actually do that?
I think you should focus this product on serving travel and hobbyist
communities, and market this to them.
~~~
siddharthram
Thanks for the feedback.
We had done a product hunt for valentines day and people have created
timelines as we provide a private timeline feature.
Your thoughts on travel and hobby resonate with us and have seen early users
using for that purpose. Could you try creating one timeline of your recent
travel or a hobby and share us your feedback on creation of timeline. That
would help us in improving the product further.
If you can share your email address or initiate a chat on the product we can
take the discussion off HN and could serve you better.
TIA
------
stevenicr
your home page just says real big "sign up to..."
I would think most people are not interested in signing up for anything,
especially something they don't know what it is. (does anyone want more spam,
or trust some place they know nothing about)
I would put the sign up smaller and the home page show the best 3 -5 examples
of awesome uses for your timeline thing.
I looked at a few timelines, and all I could think to myself is, "tumblr" \-
with a slightly modified theme. Or wordpress, or blogger, or just about all
the other "post here on our portal" things out there.
Not sure why people would want to post on your thing, or the other things
actually.
If I was looking for a place to post my previous stuff, I would want to know
more about cost. Wordpress.com runs ads on the side and you can go premium to
remove them, get themes, etc. They have a strong track record for fighting for
their users against lawyers and stuff as well, and mostly not censoring.
The cost of each place is different. Given that the content is controlled by
others, we don't want to trust valuable content to other's land.
If you made it really easy to export everything automatically, and made it
really easy for a group / gathering of people to share to a common timeline, I
could see a group of people uploading candid wedding pics to a place they
could all share easily.
Otherwise I don't know why people would trust content here as opposed to other
more well known places. The others aren't perfect, but you can be sure that a
certain level of trust exists for most content posted.
Commercial Spam is always looking for new places to post, but the well funded
commercial stuff is already making stories on instagram and snapchat and
similar elsewhere. I think it'd be a long time before you had enough viewers
to catch their interest.
Just some random thoughts from here, I am likely not your target audience.
Airdrop party pics and share a url with new friends easily maybe, make them
private for a fee? You'd need to be easier than Flickr to upload and share.. I
dunno.
~~~
siddharthram
Thanks mate for the feedback.
Liked your airdrop party thingy. will think about it.
Do you think having multiple themed timelines tailored to specific use cases
and some premium features will get people to use it ? oh yes and making it
easy by getting some integrations on with fb/twitter/linkedin/ google photos
and so on.
~~~
stevenicr
"themed timelines" \- yes, each theme that party city pushes every couple of
months.. but also like the premium filters that snapchat offers on occasions
people like.
If I was married to your idea thing here... I would make it so anyone could
upload pics or text notes, vieos, etc to a url - and the cms would auto detect
via time uploaded, or time photo was taken and places - (exif data if avail) -
and have one click sort options.. one click - show all pics uploaded by time
uploaded.. show my exif data.. show my each different person's uploads..
in order to get people to really use it.. it needs to be faster and easier to
go to your site, grab a semi-secret url, upload and share.. than any other
portal.
Why not just use facebook? not all of the people at this party are on
facebook, nor do they neccesarily want to "become fbook friends just to share
a pic" \- plus to use fbook you need to sign in, or register, and share all
kinds of data.. meh
so have some people you find at a local shopping center see how fast they can
share a pic with people they just met.. is it faster to upload to flickr than
your site? Is it faster to share via imgur? Why? How can your thing be faster?
I think, no registration to start a timeline, just upload and get a url that
is easy to share via sms text msg, qr code, fbook invite..
only register if you want to save the timeline for more than 24 hours...
the on boarding process of riot.im is the best I've seen in ages.
your differential thing is faster to share, and more privacy in that you don't
need to become fbook connected...
offer one click zip-all to download/ backup for a fee.
offer to make the url password protected, and auto send that pw via sms text
to friends..
sponsored themes for wedding gold themes could be a semi easy sell to wedding
companies..
one tap screenshot your any timeline pics (maybe with glitter flowing
animation?) - with "davids bridal gowns" in the frame.. and easy save to drive
/ dropbox.. export to facebook... share via pinterst.. (individual items /
pics etc)
This could work.. I have been thinking of this kind of thing for a long time..
been looking to make something like this where any group of friends could have
their own "facebook" which is not facebook for $60 per year.. not each person,
just one person in the group could pony up the dough..
if the system auto-backed up stuff - and notified each person in the group
that the yearly dues were coming up and one person could pay it to keep
storage for another year, or any number of people in that group could split
the bill.. this could work.
random thoughts from thinking of making a similar project..
------
mycentstoo
First, fix the landing page - you need to present value before you can expect
a conversion. This means making something that is interesting and
aesthetically pleasing.
Second, if this is a business idea, I'm not sure how you monetize this. Is it
ads from user visits? If so, you are going to need a ton of user visits.
Third, up the social media game. If you want visitors you need to make these
articles/timelines sharable and unique.
Fourth, I'm in agreement with others here when they say this is not a
timeline. Medium/Wordpress provide the same functionality. This can be
replicated in Wordpress/Medium just be including subtitles with dates in
between paragraphs.
~~~
siddharthram
This is an experiment to see if timelines can be used for telling stories much
easier than writing a blogpost.
The posts are sorted as per dates and creating threads is much easier here
than articulating on a medium.
The restriction on content size and picture based storytelling keeps this
quite different from MEDIUM. As we go further, notification system for posts
and embeddable features will differentiate from other platforms too.
------
SyneRyder
I don't see why I'd want to use this, instead of something like Twitter
Moments.
But perhaps more importantly, there is nothing on the front page of the site
to explain what the product is and encourage a signup. The Explore link is
tiny and I nearly missed it (that is probably closer to what your front page
should be like). And that catchphrase "Travel Your Memories" doesn't make
sense to me.
But on the signup form, what is a "PHUSER"? I don't even know how to complete
the signup form. Is that meant to say Username? (It should also be an Email
Address, not an "Email id".)
~~~
siddharthram
PHUSER is a pre filled invite code which we kept. It doesn't make sense and
confuses the users. Didn't think that through.
We are working on fixing the complete user flow and making it more user
friendly. Will consider your feedback for sure.
Twitter moments is not much customisable but being a platform we can come up
with numerous additions which will be personalised to the user.
Consider this to have all timelines of your stories at one place - sharable,
discoverable and editable at any point of time.
------
nightfly
Your logo in your nav bar is way too small, it's practically unreadable. I
have no idea what I'd want/need an invite code and yet I'm being asked for one
if I want to sign up. There is nothing on the home page that lets me see
anything about how this product looks or behaves.
Pages seem kind of slow to load, it takes about 5 seconds to render each page
in the "explore timelines section". Each page is also really heavy at like
4.5MB, several times larger than an image gallery site I frequent. Probably
contributes to the slow load times.
Also, I don't really see any times on the timelines.
~~~
siddharthram
Thanks for feedback!
We will change the logo size. Agree on the landing page not explaining about
the product. Will work on it.
We have the servers located at India and we are probably guessing the slow
page load is because of this.
We are working on reducing the size of the page, which is something we have
overlooked.
If the above teething problems are solved, can I know if you feel the product
will be used by people gradually?
------
anthony_franco
Out of 100 visitors, 90 will passively look. 9 will participate
(commenting/discussing). 1 will create (post).
These are very general numbers of course and really depends on the actual
service, but it’s a good rule of thumb to follow.
~~~
siddharthram
Aware about this. But if you could share some insights specific to this case
it would really help.
------
sharmi
Hi, one of the key reasons users don't use a product even If they like it is
because it fades away from their memory. Only way, a social product will
survive is if it can be part of their daily routine. Also, the initial
friction to get going should be low.
Why not target segments that will derive greater value from your product like
couples abt to get married who may want to create invitations. Software teams
who would like visualize their release timelines etc.
------
eps
At the risk of stating the obvious - this is one really dorky name _and_ it's
on a .co domain. It looks and sounds dispensable, so it's understandable few
are willing to commit to using it.
~~~
siddharthram
Will consider this feedback. Thanks a lot :)
------
tinymollusk
How did you acquire the visitors? Did they indicate interest with a search or
click to get to your site?
~~~
siddharthram
A click to get to our site through partner events of few brands as they used
our product for content marketing
Early users who created content and shared it on social media
Some initial content seeded by us garnered a lot of visits
~~~
tinymollusk
If you're interested, I just finished a conversion tool designed to help sites
get more signups. Won't know until we try, but I'm pretty sure I could
increase your signups by 30-50%.
I'm soft launching this week and willing to set you up for free so I can test
out my tech. My email is in my profile.
(same goes for any other HN reader who stumbles across this -- free
optimization service for anyone who reaches out and is a nice person.)
|
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Connecting an iPad retina LCD to a PC - noonespecial
http://emerythacks.blogspot.com/2013/04/connecting-ipad-retina-lcd-to-pc.html
======
ChuckMcM
That's pretty awesome, and a pretty grim testament to the lameness of Laptop
makers if they aren't willing to put that panel in a laptop! (I mean
seriously, you can't pull the display port connection out of an ivy bridge
chipset?
Something I have always felt there would be a good market for would be a
compact an inexpensive LVDS (TFT-LCD connector) to some sort of driver (small
FPGA or maybe SOC). You could then salvage displays from "dead" laptops (where
the display works) and build up some pretty awesome sorts of deca-panel UIs
:-) I'm thinking 'home star trek bridge' to a whole new level.
~~~
ajross
Of course you can pull the DP connections out, that's not the problem. The
problem is that when you put that display on a windows machine, you end up
with a bunch of legacy windows software and web graphics content that looks
unreadably small, followed unhappy users who return those fancy DP panels to
your retailers.
Of course, the same thing is true of iOS and OS X software, which is precisely
the reason "Retina" (as distinguished from arbitrary 200+ DPI hardware)
displays are always shipped in resolutions that exactly double those of pre-
existing devices. So even though the legacy software doesn't handle it Apple,
by controlling the framework, is able to make it work more or less seamlessly.
Dell and HP don't have that freedom, they need help from Microsoft, and
Microsoft, well... At least Windows 8 does high DPI natively, though the MS
decision was basically to jettison legacy visuals and hope no one runs the old
software anymore.
~~~
Al-Khwarizmi
I had a Thinkpad with a 15.4-inch 1920x1200 screen, back when such wonders
existed, and I had no big problems with its 150 DPI running Windows XP, even
less with Windows 7. Yes, there were some really old applications that
wouldn't react to system-wide DPI settings, but that was a small minority.
I think there is simply no excuse for the regression in laptop resolutions - I
can't even find a laptop that will give me 1200 lines anymore, they give me
"full HD" at best, which is less. And we can see proof in all the comments
saying that they would buy this guy's hack to plug a hi-res screen into a
laptop.
~~~
ajross
I had a Compaq in 2004 with the same display. And indeed, windows works pretty
well up to about 150-170 DPI. But I have a 10" Acer tablet with a 1920x1080
screen sitting next to me, and the legacy windows desktop is basically
unusable. Yes, it can be made to work if you are tolerant of VERY SMALL
BUTTONS, largely unreadable text in graphics assets, and know where to find
all the font settings. But it pretty much sucks, and no one sane would try to
use it that way.
------
ElliotH
Does anyone know if there is some company I could send off a schematic of the
adapter he uses and have one sent to me? (This would be UK, but I have no idea
what term I'm searching for to get a single circuit board made)
~~~
silasb
I haven't done profession PCB printing yet, but the one that catches my eye
for cost and finishing is <http://oshpark.com/>
~~~
tomkinstinch
OSH Park does an outstanding job. I've used them for work and hobby
prototyping, and while the turnaround time isn't great (week or two) the
quality is first rate.
From what I gather the boards are actually made by Amitron outside Chicago.
Unlike most quickturn PCB fabs they don't bury you with options. The standard
options give you everything you need (ENIG, double mask+silk screen, either
2/4 layer, etc.). The OSH Park ordering wizard is a case study in how PCB
orders should be done, and for the quality the price can't be beat. Best of
all, it's just a "Fred in a shed" operation in Oregon that came out of a
hackerspace there.
------
deevus
Props for using OpenTTD to test the screen :)
<http://www.openttd.org/>
------
malkia
My immediate thought was - Raspberry Pi! - an LCD screen like the iPad one
would be very nice for it...
~~~
acous
The Pi doesn't have a DisplayPort output, I imagine it would be significantly
more complicated to convert from hdmi!
~~~
voltagex_
<http://www.jaycar.com.au/productView.asp?ID=AC1621>
~~~
jychang
Well, that like doubles the price, for one. Also, it maxes out at 1080p
resolution, good luck getting it to work with the ipad screen.
------
sinak
I thought seriously about building and selling something similar to this about
4 years ago - really cool to see someone hack it together. Awesome work
Andrzej!
Compact, portable screens seem like a no-brainer to me. My MBA display is less
than half an inch thick. Why does my desktop screen need to be significantly
thicker? Why not use the same panels from laptops to build a display that can
be used both on the desktop and for portable use? I love to use one large/two
smaller screens when coding - and I want a display that I can pack into my bag
along with my main display and use at a coffee shop. The panels themselves are
generally cheap (it's something of a commodity market, but depending on the
display size/specs they run $35 to $90)
When I originally started researching this, there were two problems, both of
which have been (pretty much) solved:
1 - Connectivity. Laptop panels generally use LVDS, which from my
understanding are bit-reversed versions of DVI, possibly with some extra
baggage. So you needed to have some intermediary processing, which was then
(and is still) possible using a DisplayLink chip. The DisplayLink chip
basically uses CPU power to create a virtual DVI/LVDS port over USB. The
advantage of DisplayLink is that it negates the necessity for even using the
Thunderbolt/DVI/Displayport output of your laptop, and allows you to simply
plug in via USB and go. But the chips cost ~$15 each, require non-trivial
integration, and use up CPU. As Andrzej mentions, displays are moving towards
eDisplayPort, which means you can pretty much plug them in directly.
2 - Power draw. For the display to work well as a portable device, it should
be possible to power it via USB alone. USB 2.0 standard is 5V and 0.5A, so
2.5W, which isn't sufficient. But USB 3.0 is 0.9A, bring the total up to 4.5W.
As Andrzej mentions, the iPad display can be powered off the Displayport power
(3.3W, 0.5A, ~1.9W), and with a step-up convertor you should just about be
able to power the backlight up to max brightness from the USB port.
Both those problems are now fixed. You can now build an external display,
either using an iPad panel, or that from a 13" MBA or (possibly that of a MBP
Retina, not sure about the power requirements there). Then you have an
extremely slim, awesome external display that's completely portable and
powered by USB.
Some companies have been building crappy versions of this using DisplayLink
chips, but I really want to see something with a clean, minimal design and way
higher resolution. I'd try at it myself, but I'm busy trying to build software
to enable better online political activism. If anyone out there is interested,
I'd love to help, either with funding or advice.
A few examples of products that do this (not very well) using DisplayLink
chips:
\- <http://www.mimomonitors.com>
\- [http://www.amazon.com/Lenovo-ThinkVision-
LT1421-Widescreen-M...](http://www.amazon.com/Lenovo-ThinkVision-
LT1421-Widescreen-
Monitor/dp/B005L2NA54/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1366665383&sr=8-1&keywords=portable+display)
\- [http://www.amazon.com/AOC-E1649FWU-USB-Powered-Portable-
Moni...](http://www.amazon.com/AOC-E1649FWU-USB-Powered-Portable-
Monitor/dp/B005SEZR0G/ref=sr_1_2?ie=UTF8&qid=1366665383&sr=8-2&keywords=portable+display)
\- [http://www.amazon.com/Toshiba-14-inch-Ultra-portable-
Mobile-...](http://www.amazon.com/Toshiba-14-inch-Ultra-portable-Mobile-
Monitor/dp/B005F0IKHA/ref=pd_cp_pc_1)
~~~
scarmig
Out of curiosity, is the software to enable better online political activism
public yet?
~~~
sinak
Not yet I'm afraid. My pet project is <http://fixthedmca.org>. I'm working on
first implementing <http://trydiscourse.org> to help get the community engaged
and communicating and building tools like click-to-call legislators to help
drive action. I'll be abstracting out and offering the tools to other
campaigns (anti-CISPA, patent reform, etc) as quickly as possible.
At the moment it's just me, so a little developer strapped as I try and both
code and navigate getting an unlocking (+ DMCA hearings) bill through
Congress. If anyone's interested in helping out, please please get in touch.
------
zokier
Next step: make four of them and get nice 20" 4096x3072 desktop. Of course
you'd need to plan your DE to suit the tiled nature, but I imagine that it
wouldn't be that bad.
------
hmottestad
I want one.
Seriously though, I really want one. At 70 USD it's incredible.
_Dreaming of all the places I want a screen in my future house_
~~~
noonespecial
The really sad part? The entire build cost less than the replacement LCD
element to revive my old thinkpad.
------
ibrahima
Woah, $55 for that panel? Seems like it costs less than $100 including the PCB
stuff, I'm really tempted to do this but I don't have the time :(. Heck, I'd
buy a reasonably finished version of this for $150, maybe $200, without
thinking too much. That's pretty awesome.
------
gfodor
What's the cheapest most compact PC you could drive this level of display
with? One could imagine packing them together to put together a open source,
absurdly cheap (albeit bulky) iPad wannabe.
~~~
randallu
People have already beaten you to it, with accurate ID and everything:
[http://www.onda-tablet.com/onda-v818-mini-quad-
core-7-9-inch...](http://www.onda-tablet.com/onda-v818-mini-quad-
core-7-9-inch-android-tablet-ram-2gb-wifi-dual-camera-16gb.html) (they
probably have one that copies the big iPad, too, with the same panel mentioned
in the article...).
~~~
drivebyacct2
I don't understand, can the iPad3 panel be put into that or what?
------
moreati
If I'm reading [http://www.ifixit.com/iPad-Parts/iPad-Retina-
Display/IF116-0...](http://www.ifixit.com/iPad-Parts/iPad-Retina-
Display/IF116-022) correctly then all Retina iPads use the same screen i.e.
3rd gen (dock connector) and 4th gen (lightning connector) should both be
compatible with this.
Assuming you're brave/handy enough to cut the necessary holes to expose the
connector
------
shawndumas
Add a Leap Motion device to the mix...
------
adamors
Give me a Thinkpad with a screen (4:3 screen mind you) like this.
------
navitronic
I would love to be able to hook one of these panels up to a Mac and use it as
a retina display (1024x768) for testing desktop retina usage.
------
rocky1138
Props for OpenTTD in the last screenshot :)
------
silasb
Any clues if the iPad Mini Display using the MiniDP interface?
~~~
nobodyshere
Minis can be easily disassembled so if I were you I'd try those ifixit reviews
where they do it and compare the connectors. Chances are still unknown though.
------
ttrreeww
Do it with the Nexus 10 panel! 2560×1600!
~~~
CJefferson
I would just like a nice way of using my nexus 10 as an external monitor -- I
have tried a few things in Linux but nothing which really worked well.
~~~
jacquesm
have you tried this?
<http://dmx.sourceforge.net/>
I've used it to combine macs and pc's as one big display and it worked pretty
good.
~~~
idupree
I tried Xdmx a few months ago. It failed pretty badly for me, so I blogged
about it ( <http://idupree.dreamwidth.org/2151.html> ; choice quote: "Xdmx is
broken in various different ways for various different people on the Web. Xdmx
isn't very well maintained. It doesn't support XInput2 [1], it relies on
Xinerama which is somewhat maintained but whose architecture needs improvement
[2], it may be incompatible with Composite [3], it just plain segfaults for a
lot of people [4], and is generally unloved [5]." — citations in blog post.)
~~~
jdc
There's also Synergy (<http://synergy-foss.org>).
------
rektide
Imagine a beowulf cluster to... power them.
------
teeboy
Or you could avoid all the trouble and bad a Surface RT or Pro, isn't it?
Compatible out of the box with thousands of printers, scanner and every kind
of peripheral you can possibly imagine.
~~~
wlesieutre
Perhaps you didn't read the article, but it's about using an iPad display
panel as an external monitor for a computer (via displayport).
There are no other parts of the tablet, only a screen.
|
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Reed Hastings: Please Raise My Taxes - robg
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/02/06/opinion/06hastings.html
======
anamax
What's stopping Hastings from paying more now, without any change in the law?
I suspect that he could even make "pay more" a condition of employment at
NetFlix.
I'll bet good money that Hastings is arranging things so a huge fraction of
the money he makes goes to entities that won't pay a dime in taxes when he
dies, that he's going to exempt himself from the estate tax.
------
AndrewWarner
No offence to Reed, but he can pay more taxes without anyone elses permission.
What he realty wants is for YOU to pay more taxes.
All the people who say "raise my taxes" are saying that.
------
anamax
I'm surprised that Hastings didn't mention that there's already a "luxury tax"
on CEO salaries over $1M.
Ordinarily, salary is a deductible biz expense. However, there's a cap - if
Netflix wants to pay Hastings $2M/year, it can only deduct the first $1M.
This cap doesn't apply to performance-based pay or options.
Curiously, options and the like for CEOs and so on didn't become popular until
that cap was imposed.
Oh, and he's wrong about tax rates. CA's top rate is over 9% (it hits that at
around $50k) and the fed top rate is almost 40% and there's a phase out of
deductibility of state taxes. If he's paying around 30%, he's not working for
salary.
------
tjic
Reed writes:
The reality is that the boards of public companies hate
overpaying for anything, including executives. But
picking the wrong chief executive is an enormous
disaster, so boards are willing to pay an arm and a leg
for already proven talent
So if it currently takes $2 mill / year in an executive's pocket to get him on
board, and that means $3 mill / year pretax (because, as Reed points out, the
current tax is roughly 33%), then why, with a higher tax rate, is it going to
take any less to get the same executive on board?
The only different between a 33% marginal tax rate and a 50% marginal tax
rate, of course, is that now the board have the pay the same executive $4
million pretax to get the same after tax dollars in his pocket ... and the
bitching and moaning about high executive salaries will ramp up in proportion.
Reed is a pretty smart guy, but this is a pretty stupid editorial.
~~~
gravitycop
_why, with a higher tax rate, is it going to take any less to get the same
executive on board?_
The difference is that with a pay cap, no matter where an executive works, he
gets paid the same. He has no incentive to compete against his peers. Within a
high tax-bracket (with no pay cap), instead, executives have incentive to
compete, because their salaries are able to differ from one-another.
~~~
markwweaver
The way I understood it, the pay cap is only for companies that take
government money. So companies that are already in trouble are going to be the
ones that can't attract the new executive talent they need to survive. If a
company that takes government money can't turn itself around and still fails,
then all the bailout did was postpone the failure - and the government loses
its investment - a bad deal all around.
~~~
gravitycop
_the pay cap is only for companies that take government money._
Yes, it is. Reed Hastings' proposal is, however, not just for companies that
take government money.
_Perhaps a starting place for "tax, not shame" would be creating a top
federal marginal tax rate of 50 percent on all income above $1 million per
year._
That isn't to imply that there are not healthier alternatives. Andrew W.
Mellon advocated a flat income-tax rate of 10%:
[http://www.archive.org/stream/taxationthepeopl033026mbp/taxa...](http://www.archive.org/stream/taxationthepeopl033026mbp/taxationthepeopl033026mbp_djvu.txt)
_the Government received substantially the same revenue from high incomes
with a 13% surtax as it received with a 65% surtax. It is not too much to hope
that some day we may get back on a tax basis of 10%, the old Hebrew tithe,
which was always considered a fairly heavy tax._
------
lrm242
Easy to say when you already have f*ck you money. Why does he not take it upon
themselves to make things better, rather than suggesting that he, along with
EVERYONE ELSE, should do it. What's good for you, isn't always good for me. I
don't like everything you do. Stay out of my business. Don't tread on me.
Sheesh.
------
indiejade
Or CEOs could be the philanthropists themselves. If you contract out your
building cleaning, for example, start there -- start with the people on the
bottom who show up to clean your bathrooms or vacuum your carpets. Find them,
ask them if they could use a raise. Then find your next lowest-paid employees,
maybe the interns or "temp" people or the part-time workers, give them a
raise.
"Paying up" in hopes that prosperity will trickle down has proven to not work
very well.
~~~
azgolfer
Or he could his money in a bank, where it would be lent to new business, used
to build houses, etc. Or in a new business as stock, or venture capital.
Capitalism - what a great idea !
He seems to think government bureaucrats will do a better job investing the
money after they take it from him. Which in itself creates an incentive not to
earn more money.
------
gislebertus
It's called "paying back your investors."
If I get rich, it won't be because I'm some superman. It'll be because I had
good teachers, good public health, a stable banking system, adequate military
and police protection, etc.
If I'm making $10 million a year, I'll gladly pay half of that to support the
institutions and people who helped me get rich.
During the United States' golden age, 1945-1975, rich people were taxed
heavily. Nowadays, when the country is in decline, they're relatively lightly
taxed. No coincidence.
Greed is bad. Selfishness is bad. Community is good. Public investment is
good.
As for, "Don't let the bureaucrats take your money!", our government can work
well. It has worked very well in the past. It just hasn't lately because it's
been run according to conservative ideas such as "Don't let the bureaucrats
take YOUR money!"
Your money is not all your money, it's partly our money, because we all helped
you make it. Pay back your investors.
|
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Cartoon Picture of Magnets That Transformed Science - sandwall
https://www.quantamagazine.org/the-cartoon-picture-of-magnets-that-has-transformed-science-20200624/#comments
======
gus_massa
The subtitle is much better than the title " _One hundred years after it was
proposed, the Ising model is used to understand everything from magnets to
brains._ "
(Also, this links to the comment section instead of the main article.)
|
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Wtftw: xmonad inspired tiling window manager written in Rust - adamnemecek
https://github.com/Kintaro/wtftw
======
rawland
What the fuck, tiling windows? ;-)
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WebGL dynamic terrain rendering demo - devongovett
http://badassjs.com/post/12793805074/gorgeous-webgl-dynamic-terrain-rendering-demo
======
daeken
This is neat, but the blur shader is waaaaaay off. It looks like a focal blur
that doesn't take distance into account properly. IMO, the worst thing you can
do in a demo is get your post-processing wrong; in the best case you add
nothing to the demo, and in the worst case you give your users a headache as
they attempt to focus on your content.
~~~
McP
The blur doesn't take distance into account at all, it simply blurs more at
the top and bottom of the viewport. I don't blame the author though, depth-of-
field blur is expensive to simulate accurately - look at any video game with
DOF blur and before long you'll notice artefacts around the edges of
foreground objects.
~~~
bd
Author here ;)
You are correct - it's not depth-of-field, it's fake "tilt-shift" effect that
blurs screen non-uniformly based on vertical position of pixels, independently
of content.
And I chose it exactly because it's much cheaper than real depth-of-field
while looking "good enough" for some type of scenes (it's the same trick many
photographers use to get "miniature" feel, instead of using real tilt-shit
lenses they apply such blur in Photoshop).
~~~
lloeki
Maybe you can turn it quite a bit down: as is it effectively creates a very
strong miniature effect, except with 'living' flying birds, which ends up
generating massive cognitive dissonance. It's way over the top.
------
yread
25 fps in Chrome and stuttering. Is there something limting the frame rate or
is this the best my 2630QM and GT 540M can do?
~~~
bd
It's quite heavy on texture bandwidth. I got very smooth 60 fps on Nvidia
Quadro 2000M (should be similar to GeForce 460M) and somehow stuttering 30-35
fps on ATI Radeon 3650 Mobility.
------
gavinpc
Works in Chrome but not Firefox, as I've come to expect from this sort of
thing.
Doesn't hose my CPU, though, as I've come to expect from this sort of thing.
~~~
devongovett
Works great in Firefox for me... the screenshots on that post were taken in
Firefox.
------
devongovett
Forgot to mention that this works best in Firefox and Chrome. Safari with
WebGL enabled _should_ work but didn't in my experience...
------
exit
i see stuttering birds and nothing else, chrome 15.0.874.120 * macosx
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API Gateway and AWS Lambda allow you to never use servers again – live stream - jlag34
https://www.livecoding.tv/ac360/
======
anoncoder
I agree that these are interesting services. But please, do some simple math.
The prices climb astronomically even for relatively low rps. It's only useful
for small services at this point.
Here are the costs for a 50 rps lambda function served by API Gateway for one
month:
Requests = 50x60x60x24x30 = 129,600,000 request per month API Gateway Costs =
129,600,000 x 3.5/M = $453
Convert the requests to GB/s at 512M and 100ms requests, we get:
129,600,000 x 512/1024 * .1 = $113
$453 + $113 = $566/mo for 50rps. Please note the .1 multiplier. For every
100ms increase in your request time, add another $113. So for a 1 second
request, you get $1130.
This doesn't even count other machines you need to run to handle databases,
etc, it's for the most bare vanilla request.
For a simple lambda function with no external servers, you can easily serve
50rps from a micro for $9/month.
------
fiatjaf
How do you test these things?
~~~
icedchai
you do it live, of course.
~~~
fiatjaf
That's my method.
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Ask HN: Membership hosting / CMS - jonnyrowntree
Just got this question from a friend but I don't know about membership sites outside of WordPress. If you could give me some ideas, I'll pass them onto him. Thanks!<p>Q: In the future I'll need a membership website. Its to host my Squarespace templates. Paid users can login into the site, manage their account details, etc. Do you know any website hosting that offer this? I know Wordpress have several plugins, but I can't use Wordpress.
======
dcooper
Hi Jonny,
I'm building this and very close to MVP (less that 7 days away). I will
message you when it's done so you can try it out if you would like?
------
jonnyrowntree
dcooper: That would be great, thanks!
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Show HN: I created a database of companies hiring remotely - rodolphedutel
https://remotive.io/remote-companies
======
bossnayamoss
Awesome, thank you for this!
|
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Anonymous Hacker Group Video on Facebook Takedown on Guy Fawkes Day : Hoax? - bobby9999
Attention citizens of the world, We are Anonymous……Anonymous Operation Facebook 300x231 Anonymous Hacker Group Video on Facebook Takedown on Guy Fawkes Day : Hoax?
We wish to get your attention, hoping you heed the warnings as follows..
Your medium of communication you all so dearly adore will be destroyed. If you are a willing hacktivist or a guy who just wants to protect the freedom of information then join the cause and kill facebook for the sake of your own privacy.
Facebook has been selling information to government agencies and giving clandestine access to information security firms so that they can spy on people from all around the world. Some of these so-called whitehat infosec firms are working for authoritarian governments, such as those of Egypt and Syria.ect..<p>Watch the Video Operation Facebook Nov 5 2011 : Guy Fawkes Day<p>http://www.cheatsden.com/anonymous-hacker-group-video-on-facebook-takedown-on-guy-fawkes-day-hoax/
======
bobby9999
Every one know's dat Anonymous Attack's BART Website
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Steve Jobs' impact on the tech community cannot be understated [pic] - zamfi
http://zamfi.net/blog/steve-jobs-legacy
======
zamfi
Ah, obviously meant "cannot be overstated". Sigh. Not thinking too straight!
|
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Neqo, an Implementation of QUIC Written in Rust - enz
https://github.com/mozilla/neqo/
======
pcr910303
For people like me who wondered what QUIC was:
QUIC is an entirely new protocol for the web developed on top of UDP instead
of TCP. UDP has the advantage that it is not dependent on the order of the
received packets, hence non-blocking unlike TCP.
If QUIC is used, the TCP/TLS/HTTP2 stack is replaced to UDP/QUIC stack.
According to Wikipedia:
> As improving TCP is a long-term goal for Google, QUIC aims to be nearly
> equivalent to an independent TCP connection, but with much reduced latency
> and better SPDY-like stream-multiplexing support.
> If QUIC features prove effective, those features could migrate into a later
> version of TCP and TLS (which have a notably longer deployment cycle).
So basically, QUIC wants to combine the speed of the UDP protocol, with the
reliability of the TCP protocol.
~~~
tialaramex
>> If QUIC features prove effective, those features could migrate into a later
version of TCP and TLS (which have a notably longer deployment cycle).
When I searched for it, this text is not present in the Wikipedia article
about QUIC though it presumably was present in some version as many _other_
sites on the Internet quote this sentence. Can you say where you actually saw
it?
The reality is probably closer to, a successful QUIC will replace TCP (and
TLS) in future protocols or, such protocols will give up and move to HTTP so
as to take advantage of QUIC anyway.
One reason is as so often, middleboxes. The usual corporate cycle (new
technology is embraced on a small scale because it avoids the overhead of
management oversight, grows to become important to the business, importance
means oversight imposed, major benefit of technology destroyed, rinse and
repeat) injures the Internet in the form of middleboxes, so of course a
technology is deployed with the purpose of undermining the middleboxes and
that technology is QUIC.
~~~
the8472
Despite middleboxes TCP and TLS are still evolving. It is slow and painful
compared to green field designs like QUIC, but it still happens.
Latency-based congestion controllers such as CTCP and BBR have gained adoption
to better utilize long, fat pipes while keeping bufferbloat down. TFO was
introduced to cut down the connection setup latency by 1 RTT if the endopints
have seen each other before before. There is some noise about upstreaming
MPTCP to linux which would then eventually make its way to android where it
would be a big deal for seamless wifi/mobile transitioning.
TLS' evolution is self-evident from new versions including dramatically
changed handshakes rolling out.
~~~
tialaramex
Sure, but that has the relationship wrong. TLS development can't realistically
import work from QUIC because the relevant work already is TLS. The
relationship between TLS and QUIC in such a system is mutual, like a clownfish
and an anemone - each needs the other, QUIC is not just replacing TCP here,
it's also dependant on TLS (in a way TCP obviously is no) because it offers
TLS guarantees (e.g. forward secrecy) in QUIC itself, as well as guarantees
TCP has like delivery order preservation.
QUIC needs a cryptographic setup mechanism. 99% of TLS is the cryptographic
setup mechanism, and then 1% is "Now that we've agreed everything, here is how
to send application data", QUIC doesn't need that 1% but it takes all the rest
of TLS 1.3 straight out of the box.
A QUIC implementation can hypothetically end up negotiating TLS 1.4 (some
future compatible TLS 1.3 upgrade) and that'll work out fine, the keys get
generated and then just as with TLS 1.3 they are used to encrypt QUIC's native
packets not a TLS application data layer.
------
kbumsik
So it's made by Mozilla. It is going to the implementation of HTTP/3 in
Firefox?
~~~
enz
Yes, I think this is the plan.
------
rapsey
A third rust QUIC implementation. They all have their own crypto lib. Neqo
with NSS, Quiche with BoringSSL and Quinn with rustls.
~~~
thombles
Serious question - can anyone explain how you would choose which of these to
use? e.g. I'm aware that Quinn is tokio-based whereas Quiche is an async-
agnostic state machine. Where does this one fit in?
~~~
dochtman
Disclaimer: one of Quinn's maintainers.
Actually, Quinn is split up in two crates: quinn is the tokio-based async
layer, but quinn-proto provides an async-agnostic state machine (and provides
a trait-based abstraction over its use of rustls and ring).
Also, I think quiche and neqo are squarely aimed at serving their particular
corporate goals, whereas quinn is really aimed at being a library for use in
the Rust ecosystem. So far that has mostly been the tokio ecosystem, but that
might change as the async/await story matures.
------
The_rationalist
Are there any HTTP 3 benchmarcks?
------
jmpeax
No description whatsoever of wtf Neqo is, nor wtf QUIC is... this must be some
kind web library because every web developer is a narcissist that thinks
nothing else but the web exists. Googling "QUIC"... yep, every time.
~~~
jon-wood
I don’t get the anger here. Quite simply if you don’t know what QUIC is then
you probably don’t need a library which implements it, and so there’s not much
point doing all the groundwork to explain that.
~~~
jmpeax
"All the ground work"... only needs a short sentence. Is it a graphics
library? A parser? A command line tool? A sorting algorithm? A heat equation
solver? Oh, it's a tcp library.
|
{
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
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|
Semaphore - Hosted Continuous Integration for Ruby and Rails - darkof
https://semaphoreapp.com
======
pbiggar
We're making a competitor: <https://circleci.com/?join=hn>. We're a lot like
semaphore, except our tests run much faster, we do automatic parallelization,
and we support python, node, clojure and PHP.
We're in beta, but you can check it out here: <https://circleci.com/?join=hn>
------
boonedocks
Looks good. I guess they beat Travis CI to the punch for testing private
projects and taking payment for it. But it's Ruby only, at least right now.
Maybe someday Github will just build this in with their 100 million.
~~~
djipko
They may do that - however running tests on every single push is not exactly
resource free, and I have a hard time believing Github will offer it for free.
And Semaphore's integration/UI seems pretty seamless already.
On a side note - I know some of the guys behind this - solid team that will go
above and beyond to make you a happy customer if you sign up. I believe this
alone could be a significant competitive advantage.
------
chapitos
Semaphore definitively saves time and release a developer from a burden of
setting up stuff manually. I would recommend this to everyone. Keep on the
good work!
------
desireco42
Simple and to the point, exactly what I needed. Thanks guy, great work.
------
rubystream
Easy to use and integrate -> exactly what I needed. Great work!!!
------
robkuz
Really nice integration! Didn't have to think about anything at all.
------
mr_rock
Looks great! Congrats to Marko and his team for an awesome job. ;)
------
dmajkic
Integrates with GitHub, doesn't drain my battery, notifies only when needed.
Good job - keep up.
------
joshica
Awesome!
------
dushan01
awesome guys!:)
------
cobranet
nice.
|
{
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|
Ubuntu 19.10 - FeatureIncomple
https://ubuntu.com/blog/ubuntu-19-10-delivers-kubernetes-at-the-edge-multi-cloud-infrastructure-economics-and-an-integrated-ai-ml-developer-experience
======
Deimorz
Link to the release notes:
[https://wiki.ubuntu.com/EoanErmine/ReleaseNotes#New_features...](https://wiki.ubuntu.com/EoanErmine/ReleaseNotes#New_features_in_19.10)
More informative than this blog post's buzzword-salad: Kubernetes at the edge
of your multi-cloud topology integrating accelerated machine learning
developer productivity enhancements
~~~
curt15
>The Chromium browser is only available as a snap in 19.10.
A little disappointing since snaps still have Windows 10-style unskippable
updates and don't quite integrate with the system as normal deb packages
would. What other debs are planned to be replaced by snaps?
~~~
padraic7a
I don't believe there is a plan for replacement yet. The justification for
snapping Chromium seems valid to me. I don't know if the same conditions exist
for other commonly used software. That said when the different bugs do get
ironed out maybe it will make sense to increase the number of default snaps.
------
whalesalad
Can someone ELI5 the emphasis on the term edge? What edge are we talking about
here? The developers machine? Embedded environments? It’s unclear.
~~~
ac29
Its a vague term that only a marketer could love in my opinion. In this
context "edge" appears to refer to more or less anything running some cloud-y
technologies outside of the cloud, including on devices with relatively
limited capabilities (at least as opposed to cloud infrastructure).
|
{
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|
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