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Israel to Get Electric Car Battery Swap Stations - srl
http://www.technologyreview.com/energy/37982/
======
smtf
There is a very informative overview (video presentation) of this model at
Ted:
<http://www.ted.com/talks/shai_agassi_on_electric_cars.html>
by the Better Place CEO Shai Agassi.
------
typicalrunt
Excellent idea. And one I had thought about for many years.
Unlike gasoline where we own the fuel in our car, it actually makes better
sense for the batteries in our car to be a service. Every "gas station" just
acts as a dead battery replacement depot.
The only bottleneck I can see with this model is the depot's recharging units.
If too many people show up at the same time, there may not be enough stock of
charged batteries to go around.
On Top Gear UK a few years ago, Jay Leno was interviewed and he made a point
about the viability of electric cars. Paraphrasing, he said that until
electric cars can recharge as fast as a gasoline car (i.e.: 5 minutes to pump
fuel into a car) the electric car is always going to lag behind fossil fuel
vehicles.
BetterPlace is at least a step in the right direction.
~~~
jessriedel
> Paraphrasing, he said that until electric cars can recharge as fast as a
> gasoline car (i.e.: 5 minutes to pump fuel into a car) the electric car is
> always going to lag behind fossil fuel vehicles.
This could actually be a selling point for electric cars. Once standard
battery specifications are agreed upon, there's no reason the engineering
couldn't get good enough to swap batteries in under a minute.
~~~
PotatoEngineer
My main worry about battery-swapping is that batteries die after a while. At
some point, you're going to show up to the battery-swap station expecting a
battery that goes 100 miles, and get a battery that only goes 50 miles. That
won't be a problem most of the time, but for a few edge-cases, you can strand
someone.
~~~
mc32
One would hope the batteries (or the station) would know how much energy is
stored in each battery --maybe offering a discount (credit) on the
subscription if the battery is below certain energy threshold. 10% discount on
a battery with 80% energy store of a new one, for example.
------
roc
I'm not sure how this model incorporates the demand for better batteries.
Blue Rhino works because propane is a commodity and no-one is really shopping
for larger quantities of propane, or the ability to put the same amount of
propane into smaller vessels. But batteries for electric cars are still
undergoing massive innovation; not only in capacity, but in charge/discharge
rates (for more-efficient capturing via regenerative braking and more-
efficient transfer to the motors).
If Better Place is charging a flat-rate by the mile, what incentive do they
have to offer better batteries? Their profit motive would seem to skew heavily
toward freezing the characteristics of the launch-packs and running with that
as long as possible; allowing improvements to feed their profit margin up
until the moment of customer revolt (should that happen).
Allowing people to pay more to 'upgrade' to larger capacities or 'performance'
packs would add to the inventory they need to keep on hand at their swap
stations and complicate the process.
I guess my concern is that this plan reads as a bold bet that contemporary
100-mile pack performance is good enough.
And truly this isn't a question of servicing most people's daily commute,
which I believe is under 30 miles for most everyone most everywhere. But when
calculating the hassle involved in taking such a car on weekend trips or
vacations, I don't know if 100-miles is going to cut it. Particularly as
battery estimates tend to be fair-weather estimates, and the longer trips tend
to be highway trips at speeds sub-optimal for efficiency.
Will people put up with stopping every sixty or seventy minutes for a 'swap'?
I know it seems silly to think about the annoyances of trips taken maybe a
dozen times a year. But consumers are not always rational. In the end, 100
miles and recharging every hour may not wind up attracting more customers than
the existing 40 to 50-mile range electrics.
~~~
6ren
They might not have a strong motive to improve - but if consumers are saving
30% pa, that will be enough to provide happiness for a while.
Competition is the thing that's supposed to encourage improvement - if Better
Place can actually make it work, competitors will presumably get funded. It's
not just actual competitors, but also potential competitors. A danger then is
an oligopoly (where competitors work in concert; a virtual monopoly. Adam
Smith has a saying that men of the same trade seldom meet without a scheme to
defraud the public being hatched).
But they do have some motivation: more efficient batteries would use less
electricity (cost) but give the same kilometers (revenue); fewer changeovers
would increase consumer usage (more revenue), and make it attractive to the
next segment of the population (more users) - and, perhaps especially, make it
viable for larger cities/countries where a greater range is needed to attract
even a sliver of early-adopters.
NOTE: Battery tech does improve, but _really_ slowly. It's the least of their
problems. funfact: electric vehicles were actually in use about 100 years ago,
and edison (for one) was involved in improving battery tech.
------
nyellin
The article is from July.
I was surprised to hear Better Place described as a California startup: Shai
Agassi is an Israeli entrepreneur; almost all Israelis can describe Better
Place, but no one knows the company is incorporated in the states.
~~~
dmix
Wikipedia says that Shai lives in San Francisco. He also became wealthy in the
valley.
Better Places is headquartered in Palo Alto.
I remember reading the story a while back and Isreal is just the first place
they are running the experiment due to its size and government acceptance to
the idea. But the goal is to deploy the cars in as many countries as possible:
"Better Place says it intends to expand into markets where the business model
economics and investor returns are “optimized”, citing Europe and Asia
specifically. "
~~~
nobody3141592
Israel might be a good place to trial this. It's fairly small so fewer 100mi
trips, most commutes are relatively short.
They have more strategic reasons than most countries to minimize their
dependence on oil.
You generally don't need lots of waste heat from the engine for 6months of the
year.
------
jbm
What depresses me most about this news is that the first thing I thought about
after reading it was "I wonder if environmentalists can use this to sell
electric cars to right-wingers.".
Very nice to see this sort of development, regardless of where it happens.
------
6ren
They have some charge stations installed in Melbourne already
[http://www.betterplace.com.au/drivers/charge-spot-
locations....](http://www.betterplace.com.au/drivers/charge-spot-
locations.html)
------
berntb
The article from July talks about what will happen the rest of the year. Since
it is November, anyone got a good link about the present situation?
------
rplacd
Been a long time since I read about Better Place in Wired way back in '07.
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
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Is there a smooth path to migrate from Xtext to Racket? - senshu
https://stackoverflow.com/questions/61622912/domain-specific-languages-in-racket-compared-to-model-driven-frameworks-such-as
======
senshu
I am the author of the question at stackoverflow.
The racket topic on SO does not seem very active, so I thought I could get
answers here as well.
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Why Google can't search for words prefixed with '--'? - ronbeltran
Why Google can't search for words prefixed with '--' ? Try searching for "--enable-thread"
https://twitter.com/#!/ronbeltran/status/117457491176071168
======
Argorak
It can. Try to quote the term:
"--enable-thread"
(with quotes)
will yield results.
------
saiko-chriskun
if you prefix anything with a dash google takes that keyword out of search
queries, for the most part.
so if I wanted to search for computer stuff, but nothing to do with windows,
I'd type in: "computers -windows"
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
UI designer looking for full-time in BayArea - martinkarasek
http://www.karimartin.cz
UI/UX designer based in Europe looking for full-time gig in BayArea. Skilled in UI for mobile and web.<p>www.karimartin.cz
======
kunle
I'm running flicsy.com, and based in new york. willing to move or work
remotely?
Also run a series of UI, UX, and Design days in nyc, and we love bringing
people with experience like yours together with startups that are hiring. . .
~~~
martinkarasek
Hey - Iam looking for job with relocation from Europe to US.
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
This CTO learned how to build websites in Chinese internet cafes - williswee
https://www.techinasia.com/liu-yi-profile-cto-1ke
======
arthur2e5
As mentioned in this article, Chinese programming education is weird.
Middle/high school students are usually learning outdated stuff like Visual
Basic 6, while college students learn C from a book that is based on and
undefined-behavior-compatible with Visual C++ '98\. (The book also includes
suggestions like "if it doesn't compile, change the extension to '.cpp'.")
In addition, I have heard that the National Olympiad in Informatics (NOI)
still disables ALL compiler optimizations for fairness across Free Pascal,
gcc, and g++. As a result, C++ STL becomes something to be avoided for
performance.
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
FotoFest Pays Tribute to Russian Photography - kuchbi
http://manojmunna.blogspot.in/2012/04/fotofest-pays-tribute-to-russian.html
======
kuchbi
gud work dude
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Ask HN: Should I delete passwords/email addresses for inactive users? - StartupTree
I run a website with circa 100,000 users. Most have not logged-in for over a year.<p>For security, should I delete the password and email address of inactive accounts, in case I get hacked? I want to keep the account usernames and the content they have created.<p>If yes, is a year a reasonable cutoff date? Is there best-practice guidelines regarding this?
======
lucb1e
Interesting idea. Data hygiene is refreshing, I like the change from the
"collect everything" attitude. (My company also deletes old data from b2b
customers to avoid leaking it in case of a breach - we're an IT security
firm.) Still, it's not a common practice yet and it's hard to accurately judge
the odds that any of the protections will ever pay off. But kudos to anyone
who does it! Even as a security consultant, this is not something I regularly
get to think or advise about, so I don't have any standard or well thought out
answer. I'll just share some thoughts :)
Users may be annoyed at having to reset the password or create a new account
(if you remove their email address). Depending on the type of business (porn
site vs random forum), this may not be worth it or you might want to vary the
amount of time (shorter for a sensitive website than for a random forum).
Against credential stuffing, it would be helpful to look at the last login
date and require email confirmation after they didn't login for ?6? I months
and/or if there have been an unusually high number of invalid logins on the
platform in the past 48 hours.
Against data being stolen from your database, strong hashes are really key.
You could apply ten times the cost factor (assuming a linear cost factor; for
bcrypt this would be +3 or so) for users that didn't login in the past few
months. They'll have to wait a second (you could even show a loading screen if
you apply some serious hashing) upon relogin but it can be fast again after
that (if you store the quicker hash after a new login). Removing the password
is even better, but the annoyance factor is probably weighed in for your
business case. Maybe after a few years, this would be worth it (for an
average, not high-security, website).
If the email address is the username, you could also hash the email address
(with a slow hash, just like the password, though you can't salt it for
indexing reasons), since the user enters the plaintext on login anyway. This
way, an attacker has a really hard time recovering it if they don't already
have it (in which case it probably doesn't matter much anyway). I guess this
doesn't work for mailing lists, but those could be kept on separate systems.
The parameters (after how long you apply which protection) additionally depend
on how commonly users return after not logging in for a while. A shop might
have a return customer after a year for infrequent / niche purchases, but a
random blog probably sees many more completely abandoned accounts.
Hope this helps! And kudos for giving this some thought :)
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
High-Speed Traders Profit at Expense of Ordinary Investors, a Study Says - HockeyPlayer
http://www.nytimes.com/2012/12/04/business/high-speed-trades-hurt-investors-a-study-says.html?hp&pagewanted=all&_r=0
======
HockeyPlayer
Several interesting points here:
\+ there are different types of high-frequency traders, some of which are more
aggressive in initiating trades and some of which are passive, simply taking
the other side of existing offers in the market.
\+ that more aggressive traders accounted for the largest share of trading
volume and made the biggest profits. The most aggressive scored an average
profit of $1.92 for every futures contract they traded with big institutional
investors, and made an average $3.49 with a smaller, retail investor.
\+ Passive traders, on the other hand, saw a small loss on each contract
traded with institutional investors, but they made a bigger profit against
retail investors, of $5.05 a contract.
\+ The average aggressive high-speed trader made a daily profit of $45,267 in
a month in 2010 analyzed by the study.
\+ “We’re not estimating,” he [the study author] said. “Our data is
excellent.”
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Remembering the Egyptian martyrs - michaelfairley
http://1000memories.com/egypt
======
mhashim
I'm Mahmoud, the guys at 1000memories are referring to.
I think that Rudy, Jonathan, and Brett had the right intentions with this
post, but it backfired without having provided the proper context (which they
tried to add in the comments here).
I contacted the guys yesterday with an idea for a project they can help
execute with me and a group I'm working with. The idea was basically to setup
individual pages for each individual that has lost his/her life during the
Egyptian revolution. I thought having their families see the whole world's
supporting messages could give them comfort and some closure.
The one thing that was missing was a front page that would combine all their
profiles that would be a group memorial for visitors to land on first. I fired
off the email and went to bed. I woke up 5am in the morning with 3 emails from
Jonathan and an initial page already designed. I can't tell you how
appreciative I was for the quick response and immediate action on their part.
With this post specifically, the guys acted in the best interest of moving the
project forward, but they just missed providing the proper context. It
happens...so lets move on
This is an early project that needs all your help to improve it and promote it
to something that makes these families proud.
I hope I brought some clarity to the situation.
~~~
nlwhittemore
I lived in Cairo on and off for up to 6 months at a time between 2004 and
2009. The whole situation has been somewhat surreal to watch. The places are
all the same, where I lived and spent time, but the context is so radically
different that it's hard to imagine this - even watching the videos on Al
Jazeera.
But there is something about the quiet of this memorial and the simplicity of
the names and ages of these people who I was in classes with just a few years
ago, or riding the metro with, or practicing Arabic with, juxtaposed with the
brutality of the way in which they died, that really hit me.
I'm glad you took the time to email 1000memories and I'm glad that they
responded like they did.
~~~
mhashim
Thanks for your support. When I saw a picture and a name in my news feed on
facebook I had the same feeling as you describe. I believe as people we have
come desensitized to hearing massive numbers of people being killed all over
the world, but when a face is put to a name, and in this case when a whole
profile is put to the name, the world might really feel the magnitude of the
loss and its every individual.
------
bhavin
<something that catches people's attention> \+ 1000memories.
Few other examples: <http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1862700>
<http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2005187>
<http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1598485>
<http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1985340>
I used to like the idea of 1000 memories back when I heard it for first time.
But the aggressive PR posts on HN has ruined it for me. I never visited it
again since I felt 1000memories' publicity rather relied on emotional
exploitation (that is a strong word to use, but I can't think of a better
one).
~~~
daeken
You know, the concept of someone building a memorial for a loved one is a
great one. I love the idea of this service. However, creating pages like this,
for people you don't know, is scummy, IMO. I'm really quite disappointed in
the way 1000memories has done this sort of thing; they've completely and
utterly turned me off of using their service.
~~~
Bretthuneycutt
An Egyptian expat user of ours and HN asked us to build this last night, so we
did.
------
rudyadler
maybe a little context will help. from our blog...
Late last night, we received an email from Mahmoud Hashim, an Egyptian living
in Toronto. Like us, he has watched with horror as peaceful demonstrators have
been killed in the violence in Egypt. He told us about the growing movement to
help document the martyrs losing their lives in the streets and pointed us to
a collaborative Google Doc that is being circulated around the world to aid
the process. Mahmoud wrote "I realized then that the least we can do is not
forget these brave young men and women, and to honor them by letting the whole
nation know who they were" He then asked us for a favor: Could we take the
data being collected from observers in Egypt and make a more visually
compelling website. He wanted us to "create a page that will help young people
honor the memory of those heroes and for the whole world to see and then dive
deeper."
This email came at the very end of a long day, but we knew what we had to do.
We rolled up our sleeves and stayed up late into the evening creating a
special online memorial to the Egyptian martyrs. A place to remember their
sacrifices and know that these are not just numbers. We hope that this can be
a place that shows the world what is happening and helps a little to remember
each of the lives lost that they might not be wasted and that the violence may
end. You can see it at 1000Memories.com/Egypt
If you have any information about someone killed in Egypt, we have linked our
site to the Google Doc that has been used to record deaths. We are totally
committed to continually updating our memorial as the Google Doc is updated.
We currently have 32 names, but know there are hundreds more still
undocumented.
This is exactly why we started 1000Memories in the first place: to help the
living pay tribute and remember the ones we admire and love. We're glad to
have an opportunity to do our part.
------
jonathanbgood
Last night an Egyptian in Toronto, who felt powerless to help in the midst of
the bloodshed, asked if we could create a place for Egyptians and the world to
remember the lives that have been lost in the protests in Egypt.
------
adultthrowaway
There's nothing wrong with businesses making money from providing a service to
the bereaved. But I'm ill at ease with this for some reason. Are we going to
see these 1000memories tributes pop up for all large-scale losses of life?
~~~
JoshCole
Would it be wrong to create an online memorial for all large losses of life?
If there is I don't see it. This just makes it all a little bit more real to
me.
------
avner
Do you ___have_ __to plug in "1000Memories (YC S10)"?
~~~
answerly
That is really just the standard "style guide" of the site. YC companies are
always referenced that way in titles.
It seems a bit unfair to make the assumption there is something opportunistic
going on. The 1000Memories team are very thoughtful about the sensitive nature
of their business in my experience.
------
DanI-S
I feel we need to get away from the word 'martyrs'. It glorifies death in
service, and turns it into something to be expected; even welcomed.
One live freedom fighter is worth a thousand dead ones.
~~~
sp332
I was going to disagree, because I thought you were talking about the ones who
died in assaults. But I think you're right about the ones who just set
themselves on fire in protest. That seems like a bit of an empty gesture.
~~~
danielsoneg
That "empty gesture" was the spark that caught Tunisia and Egypt…
~~~
JoeAltmaier
Right, but to be pedantic it isn't martyrdom. Any more than being killed in an
accident is bravery. Media dilutes these words.
Still, they are amazing souls and I pray for success in Egypt.
------
akozak
Do you have to include the way they were killed right under their name? e.g.
"Bludgeoned to death"
Seems like there are better ways to remember someone.
------
mahmud
The Arabic text is badly translated and obscured by the social-media buttons.
"Egypt Remembers":
مصر تتذكر in standard-arabic
~~~
Bretthuneycutt
Thanks, Mahmud. We have put out a call for native Arabaic speakers to help us
translate the text to English
~~~
mahmud
I'm able to receive future translation calls :-)
------
gruseom
This is surprisingly powerful. It personalizes people who (I assume) lost
their lives asking for freedoms that we take for granted.
"Martyr" is probably the wrong word to use, given its religious connotations
and the political spin around that at the moment. But this is a minor point.
------
d3x
Dont you think this is a bit like ambulance chasing? Are we going to have to
hear about (anything that involves death) + 1000memories? I guess one mans
misery is another mans marketing opportunity.
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Completely Silent Computer - signa11
https://tp69.wordpress.com/2018/04/17/completely-silent-computer/
======
biztos
Am I the only one who thinks of smartphones and tablets as silent computers?
Granted, they can't do what this person's high-spec workstation can do, but
they do most of the computing tasks most people use (used) noisy fanned
computers with clacking disks for and in many cases do those tasks better.
And unless I'm just losing my hearing, my smartphone is _completely_ silent as
long as I don't accidentally press the Golem Invoker, er, Siri button.
~~~
pmcollins
The MacBook is (at least in theory) noiseless as well. It has an SSD and no
fans.
~~~
ckastner
Funnily enough, my MacBook Air 2013 produces a buzzing sound on SSD access.
It's barely audible, but it's there.
~~~
tigershark
Oh...it’s not just me then.. Every couple of months I check my 2015 MacBook
Pro system info because I’m utterly convinced that it has an hard drive
because of the SSD noise. It’s quite frustrating actually..
~~~
cptskippy
Imagine being a kid in the 80s or 90s at school and hearing the distinctive
20k tone of a CRT Television humming and wondering if you were going to be
watching TV in one of your classes that day. It was like a dog whistle for
kids.
~~~
hunter2_
If you're in the US or anywhere else with NTSC, the horizontal scan rate (and
thus the whine of the flyback transformer) is 15.75 kHz :)
525 lines / 2 for interlacing * 60 fields per second = 15750
~~~
burfog
times 1000/1001 ever since color was introduced, so about 15734 Hz
------
bertjk
In the past when I tried to build a silent PC, I found that even after
removing / stopping all the fans, there was still often an electronic humm or
buzz left over. That is when I gave up.
Later I changed desks to one that had one of those built in computer cabinets
made of thick particle board. That did as much to silence a pc as all the tens
of hours of effort I had put into meticulously researching and specc'ing the
build before.
~~~
johnchristopher
The only time I achieved silence was when I moved the computer case outside
the room and used a 2m VGA cable and USB chord extenders. That silence was
weird though. No audio feedback at all from the computer, just the clicking of
keyboard and the mouse.
~~~
Klathmon
I did exactly that too!
I was tired of the never-ending quest for silence, so I bought 3 50-ft dvi
cables and a couple usb-3 cables of the same length and put the PC in the
attic.
It worked great, except any hardware issues resulted in a trip to the attic.
~~~
johnchristopher
Did you leave the machine always on ?
~~~
Klathmon
Pretty much. I've never really shut down my main machines when i'm not using
them.
I work from home, so i'm on it several hours every workday, combined with the
fact that I tend to have multiple things in-progress all the time means it
would be a giant pain in the ass to shut it down fully.
------
jiveturkey
> (Astute readers will notice they are all AMD (Socket AM4) motherboards. The
> whole Meltdown/Spectre debacle rendered my previous Intel system insecure
> and unsecurable so that was the final straw for me — no more Intel CPUs.)
That's a silly and extremist position to take. "insecure" is relative, not
absolute. It's a certainty that the software he's running has far more
quantity of vulnerabilities and a much longer history of them. I don't know
his exact use case, but arguably his use case isn't one where Spectre is
particularly more severe than even a userland, non-priv-escalation vuln. (eg
ransomware doesn't require root access to hold all your files hostage.)
> Eliminate the moving parts (e.g. fans, HDDs) and you eliminate the noise —
> it’s not that complicated.
Ha! And yet it deserved a detailed blog post. I'm surprised he would say this
even after the amount of effort he spent.
~~~
iblo66
After having purchased an AMD GPU, they would have to pay me for me to buy
anything from AMD ever again.
~~~
sliken
Their CPUs are pretty good, their GPUs are pretty good, however their GPU
drivers are terrible, especially under linux.
~~~
Laaas
what? It's the exact __opposite __, their GPU drivers are great on Linux. I
've literally never had a problem with AMDGPU.
Also, you can't even compare NVidia's drivers to them, since they don't even
_support_ Wayland properly!
~~~
y4mi
you're probably getting downvoted because of your 'never'.
AMD linux support was downright abysmal pre ~2015.
------
baseethrowaway
One can make a passive build much more powerful.
NSG S0, once out, will most likely be the go-to case for such setups. Until
then, an HDPLEX H5 is cool.
My desk has a H5 on it, housing an i7 8700 (non-K) and a GTX 1060. The TIM
under the heatspreader is replaced with Thermal Grizzly Conductonaut and
Thermal Grizzly Kryonaut is used as every other TIM that the case setup needs.
The CPU is on stock clocks with a voltage offset of -30 mV. The GPU has the
power target reduced to 90% and clocks increased by 130 MHz, so that it is
effectively undervolted as well. The PSU is a Seasonic Ultra Prime Titanium
650. Prime95 with AVX throttles really, really fast, under a minute, perhaps,
but is a very unrealistic load. Non-AVX stress tests and FurMark take a while
to start throttling (20 minutes?), as the thermal capacity of the aluminum
case is quite big. After hours of gaming, the GPU and CPU float around 80 C
while providing full stock performance. I don't do 3D rendering (other than
in-game) or video en/decoding, so have not had long, real-world, full loads to
see how temperatures behave with those.
From the discussion I've had and forums I've read, I think that people are
afraid of putting more power in passive cases and having their components at
"high" temperatures, despite those being rated for them.
~~~
xxs
>Prime95 with AVX throttles really, really fast, under a minute, perhaps, but
is a very unrealistic load
I suppose blender would thermal throttle the cpu as well. If you run any non-
Xeon/non-Laptop Intel chip (greater than 2k series) and care about
temperatures - delid the bugger. (Xeons are soldered, laptop chips don't have
IHS). Intel uses something that's worse than toothpaste, plus tons of glue
between the die and the IHS. If you see temperature deltas under full load
more than 9-10C between the cores, the thermal paste between the die and the
IHS might have missing spots or have dried out. In your case removal of the
IHS altogether would provide decent results.
You might wish to check the VRMs, they are rated at 125C but if the case is
hellishly hot inside, they might not be able to dissipate the heat.
~~~
Misdicorl
Somewhat unrelated, but maybe you can shoot me down since you seem to have
some experience?
Metal is an incredibly good conductor on its own, and the properties of
thermal paste (typically) are just barely better than air. So long as your cpu
and heatsink are fairly flat surfaces and mashed together physically, it seems
like either forgoing or having the absolute minimum amount of paste is ideal.
I've used a razor to leave an absolutely minimal layer of paste (e.g. filling
in sub-millimeter surface structure) on my latest build, and cpu temperatures
are well within a reasonable range. But I'm also not trying to OC the cpu or
anything.
Thoughts?
~~~
xxs
>...and the properties of thermal paste (typically) are just barely better
than air.
I am not certain how you have managed to come to such a conclusion. Thermal
conductivity of air is around 0.03W/(m·K)[0]. Good thermal, non-conductive
paste is like 12.5W/(m·K)[1] (or 400 times better than air). Conductive ones
are in the region of ~40-80 W/(m·K) and Aluminium is 237W/(m·K). Also air also
expands pushing the cooler and CPU away.
Normally you if choose between "too much" and "too little" paste, you pick the
former. The pressure pushes out the unneeded amounts.
[0]: [https://www.engineeringtoolbox.com/thermal-conductivity-
d_42...](https://www.engineeringtoolbox.com/thermal-conductivity-d_429.html)
[1]: [http://www.thermal-grizzly.com/en/products/16-kryonaut-
en](http://www.thermal-grizzly.com/en/products/16-kryonaut-en)
~~~
Misdicorl
Don't, you need to multiply the raw conductivity by the linear distance
occupied by the thermal paste? I presume that distance will be at least two
orders of magnitude larger than that occupied by air in a metal contact only
setup.
I would be extremely surprised if increased pressure due to air at higher
temperature played any role whatsoever unless the bolts connecting the
heatsink and cpu were very loose. If anything, I'd expect the increased
conductivity of air at higher temperatures to dominate.
I'd also expect there to be effects at the metal-paste and paste-metal
interfaces which reduce the effective system conductivity (i.e. phonons are
much more likely to reflect in this scenario than in a metal-metal interface).
------
emptybits
Clearly a work of passion and I appreciate OP sharing.
I enjoyed earlier days of "Silent PC" building, ten or fifteen years ago. For
example, building a silent tower or desktop for a DAW or softsynth back then
in a recording/studio environment required some ingenuity. SSD? Not on a
hobbiest budget. I recall one build, not mine, fully immersed in a bucket of
oil (mineral?) for passive heat dispersion.
Today, as a new reference point, any MacBook Pro within the last few years may
qualify as truly silent for many people's everyday usage. It does for me. And
when I do heat up the CPU/GPU with heavy tasks, the fans spin up but then they
go away completely as soon as the hard work is done. Back to silent.
No more spinning platters or crappy fan bearings or poorly engineering airflow
nowadays. :-)
There's no hacker pride in buying off-the-shelf, so the performance bar for
DIY is higher. Progress!
~~~
tp69
I'm glad you enjoyed the post. My first silencing attempt (in the early 1990s)
was to seal a hard disk in what amounted to little more than a couple of oven
bags, custom-make a long IDE cable, and then — literally — dangle the drive in
a bucket of water that was under the desk the computer sat on. That ended
poorly, with thermal cycling inducing microfractures in the bags, which
resulted in leaks, a dead drive and a blown controller on the motherboard. Ah
well, we live and learn. Take it easy.
------
recursive
This says that a completely silent computer would be 0dB. But it's a
logarithmic scale, so I think it should say -Infinity dB.
This is admittedly pointless pedantry.
~~~
jiveturkey
He’s using the term incorrectly to begin with so corrections aren’t really
possible.
Of course it can’t be completely silent. Heat generates air movement which is
“sound”.
By 0dB he means 0dB SPL which is give or take correct.
~~~
contravariant
If the air moves at a constant speed I don't think you'd get sound. Any
fluctuations probably won't be in the audible spectrum, although whether that
still counts as 'silent' is more of a philosophical question.
------
dragontamer
So these sorts of builds are way harder than they look. You need to spend a
good amount of time planning out motherboards, and willing to go back to the
shop to buy another motherboard (because this motherboard might have a big
honking capacitor where you expected to run a heat-pipe).
So you either need to carefully look at pictures / guestimate the location of
components, or hope that someone else on the internet has figured it all out
for you. Alternatively, you could just be ridiculously lucky.
But I don't really believe in luck personally. If this guy has been doing
these builds for as long as he claims, he probably had a fair bit of thought
go into the particulars of this build. The kinds of thoughts that don't go
very well into blog posts because they're uninteresting (but very important).
Like, does X combination of components fit or do I do Y instead?
\------------
With respect to the build itself: I'm surprised he was able to get 60+W CPU
and a 60+W GPU in there. Most silent builds I see basically use laptop parts
(30W or less) to keep the heat down.
32gb of RAM will be plenty, and 8 Zen-cores is plenty strong. The GPU is a bit
weak for gaming, but he should be able to play plenty of the lower-end games
without much issue, even at 1080p / 60fps (probably Overwatch for example). He
probably can't run Witcher3 at 4k on Ultra, but such a GPU would blow out his
thermal-design completely.
~~~
tp69
Yep, it took weeks to finalise the parts. I had to contact multiple vendors
and get them to check component heights, track down motherboard layouts,
compare review photos from different angles, plan heatpipe runs, resolve
conflicts with VRM heatsinks and power connectors, watch assembly/review
videos over and over again, scrutinise manuals, determine hardware/OS
incompatibilities... probably well over 80 hours of work before I could even
order the parts.
But, like you say, even though I had done all that, there was still the
possibility that I might have missed something and would need to
return/replace some parts and rework the plan. My mouse hovered over the
"Order" button for quite a while before I finally committed. An anxious
moment.
Virtually none of that methodical and boring research/prep work made it into
the post — it's just not that interesting. Necessary, yes, but not something
that the vast majority of readers would want to read.
The setup should be able to handle a 105W CPU and 75W GPU. At this point 65 +
75W is confirmed. When I OC the 1600 I should be able to verify up to ~95 +
75W.
The strategy was to start with a really well engineered passive case, then
select components that could be pushed right up to the thermal limits. It's
worked well so far. I'll keep publishing all of my test results for those that
may be interested.
------
tsomctl
I'm pretty happy with my setup. My garage shares a wall with my living room,
so I put the tower out there. I then ran high quality, 25' long dvi and usb
cables to the desk in my living room.
Edit: I currently have two gtx1050 in it running at full power, and can't hear
the fans at all.
~~~
saagarjha
Personally, I just don't like computing at a distance. I actually like hearing
things like fan noise or hard drive sounds, as long as they're not incessant,
because it can serve as a subtle notification that the computer might be doing
something in the background that I might not have realized otherwise.
~~~
fipple
But then a silent build wouldn’t be interesting to you at all. The garage idea
is good for someone who does want Silent computing.
~~~
saagarjha
Hmm, I guess. I think my MacBook Pro strikes a nice balance: it's silent 95%
of the time, and I get some fans up when I run builds or something hangs in
the background.
------
fhood
All of my raspberry pi's are completely silent.
On a more serious note, would it be possible to achieve said silence without
too much compromise by some variant of water cooling, with a good sized
reservoir? And use the heat to drive circulation rather than a pump?
~~~
bluGill
Maybe, but it is tricky.
Because there is no pump the water will flow much slower, therefore you need
much bigger pipes. Think at least 3x the diameter you would think you need.
Also because you are depending on thermo siphon you have to ensure you have to
ensure the water flow works with gravity. The heat source must be at bottom,
and the radiator must be at the top. You don't get any flexibility go around
something that might be in the way, the pipes must always be sloped in the
correct direction.
If you are using anything other than water you need to pay attention to
specific gravity (and how it changes with temperature), and viscosity.
Probably something else that I'm not thinking of.
It probably can work. I have an antique tractor that uses such a system. A
2.2L, 16hp engine, has 24L of coolant, and the pipes between the engine and
radiator are noticeably bigger than my truck with a 7.3L 250HP engine.
Remember that this was designed to run at just under the boiling point of
water (antifreeze is too modern). You probably want your computer considerably
cooler, which implies even larger systems than a similar active one.
~~~
fhood
What kind of tractor?
~~~
bluGill
1939 John Deere B. My Grandpa bought it in the mid 1960s, for $300, my dad
drove it home. Now it is mine.
------
chx
If you are interested in this topic then
[http://www.silentpcreview.com/](http://www.silentpcreview.com/) is your
friend, they have been doing this since 2002 although certainly activity has
been lees the last few years. The forums are also good.
~~~
paol
Activity has ceased unfortunately. The last articles are from 2016.
~~~
tempestn
That's a shame; they've been my go-to resource for my last three builds or so.
------
blattimwind
IME components need to be selected for low coil whine (and the related
brethren, namely electrostriction and piezoelectrics), because it easily
dwarfs (both in loudness and annoyance) the air flow and fan noise of a well-
built air-cooled machine.
------
tetha
Hm, this reminds me of two interesting tidbits.
One is the good old P1 125Mhz router we had like 10 - 15 years ago. The only
active cooling in that system was in the PSU and that thing throttled it's fan
off during normal operation. It had zero moving parts outside of the PSU. You
couldn't even get fans for those CPUs. These old systems were fun :)
And beyond that, this makes me think of the computer requirements of coal
mines, and I think mining in general. In a mine, a piece of compute has a
defined maximum energy emission per square inch surface. If you exceed that,
you risk coal dust explosions, which are rather inconvenient, loud and adverse
to throughput. The stuff in the article is very similar to industrial
computers in such a setup. Quite interesting.
~~~
kakwa_
At my college, we had a bar with a custom account management system (it
managed the credit of each students).
The thing was all text/ncurses.
The terminal was an under-clocked PII, with all the fans removed and connected
to the server using a serial cable and it was kind of necessary since the
environment was quite hostile and sticky (spilled beer, some fat deposit,
etc).
If I recall correctly before the PII, it was a VT-100 console, so even more
basic than the PII.
------
egfx
A long time ago I was dreaming of a completely silent computer and bought the
Antec 350 for my birthday. [https://www.bjorn3d.com/2004/11/antec-
phantom-350w-psu/](https://www.bjorn3d.com/2004/11/antec-phantom-350w-psu/)
It cannot power a single mid-range video card today or pretty much any modern
equipment. I would have loved to be able to use it.
Anybody making fanless PSU's today?
~~~
aesthetics1
Seasonic does. They make excellent power supplies. I've used a 400w fanless in
a media center PC, but they also make higher wattage units like this for
example: [https://seasonic.com/prime-titanium-
fanless](https://seasonic.com/prime-titanium-fanless)
~~~
polshaw
A higher wattage than 400W is utterly pointless for a fanless PSU; if you need
to dissipate constant loads of >400W of heat, you will need a fan somewhere
(exotic options like mineral oil cooling aside).
~~~
vertexFarm
Well you can always add absurd amounts of surface area and mass to the heat
sinks to take advantage of thermal inertia, or possibly change components to
simply raise your safe operating temperatures to absurd levels. But that's
pretty involved. Spacecraft take care of huge temperatures with no fans or
even conductive or convective cooling. But that requires enormous, sail-sized
surfaces to take advantage of extremely slow radiative cooling.
It would be an exotic option for sure. And not something you'll find pre-
built.
~~~
jamiek88
[http://fanlessfan.com/](http://fanlessfan.com/)
Massive heat sink you say?
This is cpu and gpu fully passive. Amazing. But $1000.
~~~
vertexFarm
Wow. That thing has more surface area than a motorcycle engine. I guess it
really needs it with such a relatively low temperature gradient, not to
mention the absence of airflow from movement. I'd love to see how that really
performs.
------
weinzierl
Completely silent and zero time boot are the two features I still miss from my
C64. The only thing that came close in the meantime was my Palm III, but it
wasn't a desktop computer. To be fair I rarely boot a device (be it mobile or
notebook) nowadays, but still..
------
Escapado
Nice article. About two years ago I wanted to make my pc completely silent as
well. It turned out that the cheapest solution for me was to put the pc in
another room that I don't sit in and put long hdmi + USB cables through the
wall. I also soldered on a longer cable with a power button so I can start the
pc from my room. The only downside for me is that I had to run cables along my
walls through a conduit but I think in total I paid less than 40€.
~~~
tomaskafka
"How long HDMI cable do I need to call this a cloud?" :))
------
monkpit
> The whole Meltdown/Spectre debacle rendered my previous Intel system
> insecure and unsecurable so that was the final straw for me — no more Intel
> CPUs.
Is any system honestly 100% “securable”? I would argue that any computer,
regardless of cpu manufacturer, is “unsecurable”.
~~~
wilsonnb
A computer with no input mechanism or output mechanism would be secure. Just
not very useful.
I imagine any computer that approaches maximum security also approaches
minimum utility.
Presumably the author just thinks that Intel is a little too low on security
compared to the other offerings, and not that the other offerings are actually
"secure".
~~~
saagarjha
> A computer with no input mechanism or output mechanism would be secure.
Information can be extracted from airgapped computers by measuring magnetic
fluctuations, so this isn't quite true!
~~~
wilsonnb
I suppose that would count as an output mechanism then, wouldn't it?
Perhaps it is impossible to build a computer without an output mechanism.
~~~
luminiferous
If you're going to count all possible side channels as output mechanisms, then
I'd imagine that it is indeed impossible to build a computer without an output
mechanism.
Unless you limit your scope to say, Earth, and somehow build a computer
outside of Earth's light cone. It is thus causally disconnected from Earth and
has no output mechanisms that can be read from anyone on Earth.
------
TwoNineA
There is one flaw in his setup, he doesn't seem to cool the VRMs of his video
card (only memory chips). Not doing that is asking for trouble when load is
put on the card.
~~~
thinkingemote
You can fanless video cards of the same spec as in the article (1050ti) e.g at
[https://www.quietpc.com/palit-
ne5105t018g1-1070h](https://www.quietpc.com/palit-ne5105t018g1-1070h)
(I can personally recommend both the vendor and the card!)
~~~
TwoNineA
For these cards the giant heatsink is connected to the VRMs so cooling is a
non issue. In OP's pictures, he seems to have replaced the heatsink of his
card with one from the case without cooling the VRMs.
From personal experience, I tried to silent cool an RX 550 (50 watt vs 75 watt
of 1050 ti) without VRM heatsink and the VRM temnperatures were up to 100-103C
during a torture test. Adding a fan lowered the temperatures by 20C.
~~~
Ratiofarmings
Both the hi-side and lo-side mosfets (they might be 2in1 on a card like this)
are rated for their amperage at 125c and are typically capable of dissipating
that through their contact with the pcb. Airflow is nice, but not required.
Neither is direct contact with a heatsink. Those are for higher end cards (who
also rate their mosfets at 125c for good reasons. Max tCase for mosfets is
usually 150c. Beyond that they just die.
------
walrus01
Quick note for everyone who might want to build a mostly-quiet home theatre
PC. There are several versions of the geforce1030 that use passive cooling/no
fans. With H265 acceleration in the GPU drivers, more than fast enough for
2160p, 60fps movies in VLC. They're right around $85.
Same basic chip architecture as the much more expensive 1070/1080\. Not
something you'd want to run newer 3D games on, but perfect for media center
use.
~~~
IronBacon
Last time I've looked there was a passive cooled 1050 GeForce model and an
equivalent (more or less) from Amd that I don't recall the name.
~~~
walrus01
There are several passively cooled geforce1050 (not ti), but you really don't
need it for any form of 4k video. My output setup is to a 70" 60Hz TV over
HDMI 2.0, with a ryzen 1500X that is slightly overclocked, this setup handled
2160p60 H265 up to around 300 Mbps, at which point it CPU bottlenecks. Which
is a vastly greater bitrate than any bluray or torrented 4K content.
If you wanted a setup slightly more capable of 3D games then the 1050 would
definitely be a consideration.
~~~
IronBacon
Well, 300 Mb/s it's a lot of headspace, it's nearly nine times the bandwidth
of a Bluray. ^__^
I'm itching to stuff one of the recently release Raven Ridge APUs in a 3
liters case with a PicoPSU and have a portable, reasonably powerful desktop
that I can stuff in a backpack, I'm waiting for a little more mature Linux
support, at least a stable 2.4.17 kernel...
------
soVeryTired
Stupid question from a non-hardware guy. If you wanted a completely silent
computer, could you build one in a vacuum chamber and just suck all the air
out?
~~~
beckler
Yeah, but without air, the heat won't dissapate.
------
shurcooL
As someone who has used the fanless 12" Retina MacBook, I can't put in words
how nice of a feeling it is to have a fully silent computer. It's hard to
understand why without actually experiencing it yourself, but it was a really
big deal. If not for the awful keyboard ruining the experience, I wouldn't
ever give it up.
It may sound (no pun intended) like an exaggeration, but I think more powerful
computers going completely silent (fanless) will be the next most noticeable
breakthrough since we got Retina displays on computers in 2012.
~~~
tp69
Yes, the feeling you get from pure silence is hard to put into words.
------
aembleton
My Xiaomi Air 12 Laptop is completely silent, fanless and uses SSD. Very happy
with it and it comes like that out of the box.
[https://www.gearbest.com/laptops/pp_416105.html](https://www.gearbest.com/laptops/pp_416105.html)
~~~
absove
I got mine last week, pleasantly surprised at how good it was considering the
price. The display is gorgeous and linux support is excellent. Far from usual
experience with linux on laptops.
------
cellularmitosis
It can’t be heard from 1cm away
I doubt that. A while back I removed all of the moving parts from an old 486
and netbooted it, only to find out I could actually hear the network card
making very faint screeching noises whenever there was network activity.
You've probably heard the same effect on a much larger scale, at much lower
frequency, when you hear the 60Hz hum of a "silent" transformer.
------
baus
I thought AMD processors were also susceptible to Meltdown/Spectre. The author
mentions Intel's vulnerabilities as a reason for choosing AMD
~~~
sp332
They weren't vulnerable to Meltdown, only Spectre. The author expands on what
happened to his particular PC in the comments.
------
zokier
Kinda unfortunate timing for him that AMD released Ryzen 5 2400GE about the
time as the article was written, which seems like pretty much perfect chip for
silent reasonably powerful computer. Sure, it might not be quite as beefy as
his 1600+1050Ti combo, but the energy efficiency should be much better. 2400GE
is rated at 35W, while 1600+1050Ti is at 65W+75W=140W, or full four times
more.
~~~
tp69
Yep, you can't always wait for the perfect product to come along — sometimes
circumstances force your hand.
Not only did that processor not exist at the time, but even if it did there
were going to be a bunch of compatibility issues with it on Ubuntu (like there
always are when new hardware is released). I simply didn't want to have to
deal with those sorts of issues for — potentially — months.
Maybe the Ryzen 5 3400G(E) will be a compelling upgrade? We shall see.
------
xtrapolate
> "(Astute readers will notice they are all AMD (Socket AM4) motherboards. The
> whole Meltdown/Spectre debacle rendered my previous Intel system insecure
> and unsecurable so that was the final straw for me — no more Intel CPUs.)"
This is just random FUD.
(1) AMD boards are vulnerable to Spectre -
[https://www.amd.com/en/corporate/speculative-execution-
previ...](https://www.amd.com/en/corporate/speculative-execution-previous-
updates).
(2) There are other vulnerabilities that affect AMD boards -
[https://community.amd.com/community/amd-
corporate/blog/2018/...](https://community.amd.com/community/amd-
corporate/blog/2018/03/21/initial-amd-technical-assessment-of-cts-labs-
research)
(3) Vulnerabilities are found everywhere. That's not the first time
vulnerabilities are found, and it won't be the last. How is that an argument
for anything exactly?
~~~
diffeomorphism
But not to meltdown and AMD did not try to spin it as "everbody is just as
vulnerable as us, move along" like Intel did.
Irrespective of how serious you consider these vulnerabilities, the way Intel
handled them can very well be a "final straw".
------
KaiserPro
Silent Pcs are hard, however the simplest way to make your PC silent is to put
it elsewhere....
I worked at a VFX company, where we did interactive client sessions (think:
zoom! enhance!) which required a totally silent setup. In somecases that meant
trying to silence an entire rack of disks (baselite
8,[http://erwanlecloirec.typepad.fr/digital_flipbook/2000/10/ba...](http://erwanlecloirec.typepad.fr/digital_flipbook/2000/10/baselight.html)
big glowing thing at the bottom of the page)
Obviously this is impossible, so we used DVI senders
([https://www.eastwoodsoundandvision.com/blackmagic-design-
mic...](https://www.eastwoodsoundandvision.com/blackmagic-design-micro-
converter-sdi-to-
hdmi?gclid=EAIaIQobChMIk8en9fKJ2wIVlIXVCh36ngJ_EAQYAiABEgK8o_D_BwE) they are
HDMI nowadays) and remote USB
This has the advantage that we can have a full bore machine with no
compromises.
~~~
pvdebbe
I just put the machine to a closet and buy long cords for all peripherals.
------
Abishek_Muthian
Congratulations tp69! The article details how miners made it difficult to
procure components for the build, but the irony is that the miners might be
specifically interested in this build for its power efficiency.
A decade ago, I was obsessed with fans and at one point I had more than 10 in
my workstation. The noise it created kind of resonated with me, like I would
be able to tell when the job was CPU intensive, HDD or GPU; I guess it felt
more lively!
But after the smartphone boom, I got more adhered to power efficient, noise
less systems (Smartphone/Tablet/SBC's/Chromebook) & after the meltdown spectre
(pun intended) my adherence got reinforced.
Anyone looking for low-cost completely silent yet portable system in laptop
form-factor can take a look at Chromebooks, now that Google has announced
Linux apps support it's usefulness would tend to grow.
------
danboarder
Compulab Airtop makes a VR ready tiny gaming rig i7 gtx1060 that is similar.
There are very few fanless rigs with discrete graphics for gamer and
workstation use like this that I can find: [http://airtop-
pc.com](http://airtop-pc.com)
------
thibran
Raspberry Pi + i3 + Chromium + Emacs = <3
100% quiet, not super fast, but fast enough.
------
nootropicat
I wanted complete silence too, but realized it's way easier to just move the
PC elsewhere. I moved it into an adjacent room, made a small hole in the wall
for cables (10M hdmi+usb+audio) and that was it, it worked perfectly. The
price was trivial - about $40 total for cables. I already had a usb extension
hub.
Sadly, that's only useful for 60Hz, as high refresh rates require a short
displayport cable to work. For this reason I no longer use this solution.
If you're ok with 60Hz and have compatible room layout I recommend this. The
biggest advantage is that it's completely PC agnostic, which makes upgrades
way easier, as standard cooling solutions are fine.
------
nwah1
I bought an HD-Plex case to use with the 35W AMD Ryzen 5 2400GE processor w/
integrated GPU which was just launched. Looking forward to using it.
[https://www.hdplex.com/](https://www.hdplex.com/)
~~~
vidoc
You wont be disappointed. I've been running a router/kodi-box machine with a
low power i5 in their h1 case for almost 4 years now, it works like a charm.
------
Jaruzel
Not quite the same thing but... I'm in the middle of building a totally silent
Retro DOS machine. Using an old low-spec passively cooled VIA Mini-ITX
motherboard in a small case[1] with a passively cooled internal PSU. The
storage is an SD card on the main IDE channel. The motherboard also has
hardware Soundblaster/ADLIB support, so all the DOS games sound really great!
[2]
I've just written a front end launcher for the apps/games, and I found some
working USB drivers for DOS that makes transferring software over nice and
easy.
I'll probably post a Show HN when I'm done.
\---
[1] 22cm x 22cm x 4cm
[2] DOOM as it was _meant_ to be heard.
~~~
eggsome
Which model VIA mb? And what do you mean by "hardware Soundblaster/ADLIB
support" \- do you have to run a TSR to make it work?
~~~
Jaruzel
EPIA 5000 Motherboard. The chipset on the Motherboard directly includes
Soundblaster, ADLib, and MPU-401 support. You can enable/disable each one in
the BIOS.
And yes, you need the EPIA Soundblaster drivers for DOS, but that's not that
different from normal Soundblaster cards. It was a bit of an uphill struggle
getting it working, but it's quite simple once you get the right version of
the drivers.
------
saagarjha
This was a major selling point of MacBook–it had no fans whatsoever, making it
completely silent even under load.
------
jtbayly
I've heard noise (high-frequency whine, changing depending on load) from my
laptop power supply at times, I think. I wonder if that's not a problem for
some reason on desktop power supplies.
~~~
onli
It can be a problem, also with PC psus. Not all of them have coil whine, and
it depends on the connected components, but it definitely happens.
In my case it is the monitor that of all my components has the worst coil
whine (actually the PWM brightness regulation).
~~~
Drdrdrq
In my case also, unless I set the sound volume of built in speakers to 0.
Since they are not connected anyway that solves it for me. It is still
annoying that we have to put up with this though.
------
peterjlee
Alternatively, you could put your computer in a tank of mineral oil.
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2V06LLTNxc4](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2V06LLTNxc4)
~~~
FRex
There's also using ARM, Calyos stuff[0]
Some old Macs were also 'potentially' silent if you were to today remove the
HDD and the optical drive, which were the only mechanical parts[1].
[0] -
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9LauL5JxYis](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9LauL5JxYis)
[1] -
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Power_Mac_G4_Cube](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Power_Mac_G4_Cube)
------
bullen
I made a similar build but with the Streacom FC9 Alpha case. I put a slim
1050Ti in there and replaced the GPU fans with Nuctua 1cm thick 9,2cm fan with
Zalman Fan Mate 2 that I turn up when I play games. I have to run it without
lid though, as any computer I have really, convection is your friend.
I also went with 32GB RAM because I make multiplayer games and I need to be
able to run multiple clients at the same time which takes alot of memory.
This build is my last computer, peak moores law will make it so.
------
tomaskafka
For gaming I occasionaly rent an instance on Paperspace and play through
Parsecgaming client (1440p@60fps, <10 ms lag). Totally quiet when a PC is in
Amsterdam datacenter :).
------
matchagaucho
_" For what I will be doing with this computer"_
Would love to know what application this was built for.
As a recording studio enthusiast, I can appreciate the pursuit of silent PCs.
What other use cases?
~~~
tp69
It's my new daily driver. I do everything on it except play games. My previous
rig is now dedicated to that task.
So we have the usual suspects: Watching videos and movies, staying abreast of
current affairs, listening to music.
Then some not so-usual suspects: Research and self-education, software
development, and a simulation that I've been running and tweaking for several
years.
This computer is on for an average of about 15 hours every day of the week,
and is pretty-much always doing something. It spends virtually no uptime
idling.
------
lmilcin
It is my ongoing mission to find completely silent phone and laptop chargers
and PC monitor.
I have three monitors and a laptop and not one is inaudible. They all become
inaudible when I set their brightness to 100% but this is not acceptable to
me.
I was able to mostly fix my Dell U3011 by replacing power supply capacitors.
These were placed in worst possible spot, bathing in hot ascending air
assuring shortened lifespan. One could wonder if it was done intentionally...
------
szemet
I've built a fanless desktop too last year. Because I only use it for browsing
and as a media player, I've chosen a 35w i3 CPU with integrated GPU. This way
I could use a cheap semi-fanless PSU - which never switches on its fan -
because the system just never exceeds its consumption limit.
Because of the 35W CPU, the system was cheap and easy to build.
What I have learned from it, is that my screen has a silent buzzing sound...
:)
~~~
PretzelFisch
try turning the brightness up or down. I had the same issue with many of my
monitors and this would sometimes fix it.
------
shmerl
Nice, but it won't work with higher end parts like Vega 56. They are just way
too hot by design.
There was also some ready solution like this, that used heat dissipation
through the walls of the case: [https://airtop-pc.com/airtop/natural-airflow-
technology/](https://airtop-pc.com/airtop/natural-airflow-technology/)
------
Nasrudith
I am both impressed and left wondering "Why go through such trouble?" Not in a
dismissive way but an inquisitive one since it has been such a long term goal.
I can see some power usage reasons given how much fans use and that noise like
heat is a proxy for inefficiency whenever it isln't the direct goal but that
isn't his main goal.
~~~
tp69
Ratiofarmings is on the right track. The noise coming from the computer drowns
out the subtle sounds of life all around me.
Someone suggested in the comments that I should just wear earplugs instead.
This was my response to him: "But the rest of the world doesn’t make annoying
noises that I want to block out — only the computer does. I still want to hear
the birds tweeting in the trees and the wind blowing past the awnings and the
rain hitting the roof and the ice-cream truck driving by and my wife chuckling
at something she’s watching and the cats running along the floor and the
microwave oven heating a meal and the kettle finishing its boil. I’m not
trying to disconnect from the rest of the world — I’m trying to reconnect to
it."
A lot of the most interesting and enjoyable sounds in life are very, very
faint. It doesn't take much noise to drown them out. Even a single fan will do
it. Now I can hear those noises and get 'work' done at the same time. It's
really hard to describe, but 'magical' comes close.
Thanks for asking.
------
nabla9
Just wait a little longer before making a judgment. Some noise from coils and
capacitors might start to emerge during heavy load.
~~~
tp69
If something starts making a noise I'll update my posts and let people know.
------
stcredzero
Hardware Canucks covers the Streacom case in the article.
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qxHPdoHNRDM](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qxHPdoHNRDM)
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LLuNQPiI-7E](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LLuNQPiI-7E)
Of interest, "Jay's Two Cents" did this clickbaity video where they daisy
chain 4 radiators together. This would be one of those entertainment value
only stunts, except that they discovered that they could shut off all the
fans. Having only a pump running, you can passively cool both the top-end CPU
and a high-end GPU. If someone can put the pump inside a nice machined
aluminum case, this could be a DIY recipe for a fanless silent PC.
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q2SIrV_4-dM](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q2SIrV_4-dM)
------
gautamb0
This is a wonderful project. It looks very sharp and has pretty good
components.
However, it's usually significantly better, cheaper and easier to build an
"almost" silent system, just by using good heatsinks and very slow fans. A
small amount of airflow is usually significantly better than none at all.
------
djhworld
I really enjoyed this post, the author seems passionate and really happy to
have achieved their dream
~~~
tp69
Thanks, and you're right — I am. :)
------
fipple
Why not just put the computer in the adjacent different room and install a
DisplayPort and USB patch panel on each side of the wall? Monitor and
peripherals in one room and the computer on the other side. It’s what I would
do if I owned a house.
------
arca_vorago
I've had much success with fanless industrial computers for certain
applications in certain environments. Seeing someone do it manually though is
super cool (especially the vram chip heatsinks... why have I never thought of
that before?!)
------
bschwindHN
Speaking of noisy computers and electronics, I designed a PCB with an ESP32
bluetooth/WiFi chip on it. I'm far from an expert in board design, and my
board unsurprisingly emits a buzz when the Wifi/BT radio is transmitting or
receiving. It's interesting though, when it's using BLE you can hear the
frequency hopping as it changes channels, and then you get entirely different
sounds when it stops BLE and uses just WiFi. But yeah I should probably fix
that...
Possibly caused by the piezoelectric effect on an SMD ceramic capacitor,
making it vibrate and hit the PCB surface at an audible frequency.
------
hetman
I finally got my work desktop PC quiet enough for my liking by replacing fans,
heatsinks and a passively cooled graphics card.
Now all I can hear is everyon else's PC's whining around me (there not even
that close!).
------
kakwa_
It's less powerful, but personally, I've replaced my Intel NUC case with one
of these Akasa fanless chassis:
[http://www.akasa.com.tw/update.php?tpl=product/product.list....](http://www.akasa.com.tw/update.php?tpl=product/product.list.tpl&type=Fanless%20Chassis&type_sub=Fanless%20NUC)
The thing is not perfect, the case can get quite hot, specially in summer, but
it works reasonably well.
I use the thing as a media center (xbmc/kodi), and it's quite nice to have a
fanless/zero noise setup for this usage.
~~~
Symbiote
I have exactly the same, and I'm very pleased with it. I use it as my main
home computer, which includes occasional use when I'm working from home.
It overheated once (Linux/Ubuntu suspended automatically), my room was also
28°C or something and I'd been encoding videos non-stop for hours.
------
skate22
Quiet enough to protect against this attack? (Using noise of cpu to extract
data)
[https://m.slashdot.org/story/195775](https://m.slashdot.org/story/195775)
------
Drdrdrq
This is some seriously slick design! Congrats to OP for achieving the goal.
~~~
tp69
Thanks, and yes — Streacom did really well on the design. It has a brutalist
aesthetic to it that folks will probably love or hate.
For those that like the looks but want moar powerrr, Streacom have an
actively-cooled version on the drawing board. Do an image search for "Streacom
DA4" if you're interested.
------
Boulth
Excellent post, reminds me of [http://www.aleutia.com/products/r50-fanless-
server](http://www.aleutia.com/products/r50-fanless-server)
------
jonathanstrange
Interesting project. I was playing with the idea of running Linux on one of
those little Chinese Qotom PCs without fan for a server, but I live in
Portugal where it can get very hot in the summer and decided that the
potential fire hazard is not worth it.
Overclocking, fanless PC, etc. are all fine if you can make sure that there is
no problem if the ambient temperature raises to 40 C - or even higher, if the
machine is accidentally exposed to sunlight. I don't trust most existing
fanless solutions to work reliably under such conditions.
------
sp332
If you're removing the GPU heatsink and fans, buying a dual-fan card isn't
necessarily a dealbreaker depending on the design. For example, this 1050Ti
from EVGA has two fans but the board itself is pretty small.
[https://imgur.com/a/AFvUlZs](https://imgur.com/a/AFvUlZs)
[https://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E1681448...](https://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16814487292)
------
matthew-wegner
Real late to this thread, but for the last ~10 years I've run my desktop in
the adjacent room's closet. My desk has the monitors, speakers, USB hub for
peripherals, with cables running through the wall to the actual tower/UPS/etc.
It's a great setup if your living space can accommodate it (the adjacent room
is my bedroom, but I shut this computer down at night).
I started doing this because quiet computers just weren't available at decent
horsepower. Rad to see a build like this!
------
circular_logic
I was wondering about these cases where the metal outside is directly
connected to the CPU. Would this make it possible to kill your machine by
touching it with a static charge?
~~~
baseethrowaway
The CPU's heatspreader is not connected to any leads on the CPU. The case
should be grounded through the power supply, therefore, it should be like
touching ground with static charge.
------
floatingatoll
Apple’s iMac is an excellent budget alternative to this approach, as long as
fan noise under high load is acceptable. 99% of my usage is not under high
load, so it works out to be silent effectively any time I’m not wearing
headphones. Using the CPU and/or GPU and/or writing gigabytes to the SSD will
wind up the fans, so this is not even remotely “always silent for power users”
– but it’s always silent for general non-coder usage!
------
mostlyskeptical
I won a silent computer 5+ years ago as a prize at a lan party. SSD drives,
two of the best passively coolable gpu at the time (ATI I Believe?), passive
CPU cooler, and the whole case was lined with musicians sound absorbing foam.
I think it did have an optional 240mm fan but I never heard it even when I
turned it on. It was so nice that I have built my newest computer in the same
way (though I did put some big storage drives in it).
------
xarien
I've been using a fanless Steacom case for my HTPC for years now. It's a
little pricy, but well worth it given that it looks like a high end DVR.
------
Clubber
My 2009 Mac Pro is the quietest computer I have. I gave up when I installed a
server cabinet in my computer room though. Those 1U units are friggin loud.
------
arketyp
I dream of a passively cool stationary machine with a heat sink case that is
essentially a Menger sponge. For maximizing the surface/volume ratio.
------
etaioinshrdlu
I did a similar (but much more ugly) project a few years ago, and found that
the result was that one could then hear various electrical crackling sounds
from inductors transformers and capacitors, especially from the power supply
and motherboard. It actually sounded worse than a macbook pro which didn't
make as much electrical noise.
------
gnode
I've been interested in passively cooled PCs for a while now. Particularly,
I've been considering building a computer which outputs its heat into a wall
using heatpipes and a metal plate heat spreader. Although I can't find any
case of this being done by anyone else, so I'm not sure if it's a crazy idea
or not.
~~~
nottorp
It's been done with water cooling and a car radiator on the wall ;)
------
dabockster
So I'm guessing passive cooling like this is only obtainable at stock clocks
and low voltages? How does it handle PUBG?
I'd also like to present the loudest computer I've ever seen as a
counterexample.
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EM2G5vLGcQQ](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EM2G5vLGcQQ)
~~~
Ratiofarmings
Since he described how his cpu cooling is capable of dissipating up to 105W
and he uses a 65W cpu, he can overclock a little. He is also using fast memory
and a 1050ti is quite capable of running pubg well. Based on that pubg should
run well.
------
DINKDINK
>[it] doesn’t have a single fan. Indeed, it doesn’t have any moving parts at
all. It’s totally silent — 0dB.
Things without moving parts emit sound. LED lights are a simple example.
Anytime you have a wave -- be it mechanical or electrical -- you'll have some
of the harmonics will 'bleed' into the acoustic spectrum.
------
acd
Built a for normal desktop use a nearly silent gaming MiniITX build, it hums
from the graphics card when gaming. Fractal Design Node 304, ASUS Z170I Pro
Gaming, Intel i7 6700k, Samsung M2 SSD, ASUS Strix Gaming OC Nvidia GeForce
GTX 1070, Noctua NH-U12S CPU cooler, Corsair PowerSupply (PSU) CS550M. Runs
Linux well.
------
yason
I don't have a desktop PC right now but if I needed one I'd just place it in
the basement or a closet (with enough ventilation), and wire the screen, HIDs,
and a few USB connectors to my desk. Bam, no noise. However, it's cool
(indeed) to see these silent constructions, though.
------
hollerith
My Mac mini does not have a hard drive in it. It is completely silent most of
the time. (A fan is running, but I cannot hear it even in the middle of the
night.) When building software or playing certain videos, the fan speed
increases with the result that I hear a quiet white noise.
~~~
cJ0th
Yeah, I love my mac mini for that. For a computer this silent I even find it
remarkably good value. However, there isn't much else positive I can say about
mac/their eco system...
------
agumonkey
[https://paleotronic.com/2018/05/19/steve-wozniak-talks-
disk/](https://paleotronic.com/2018/05/19/steve-wozniak-talks-disk/) <= has a
bit about sound too, read it it's worth it
------
daveheq
But can you make it completely black?
~~~
tp69
The DB4 already has a black version:
[http://www.streacom.com/products/db4-fanless-
chassis/](http://www.streacom.com/products/db4-fanless-chassis/) then click
the Gallery tab.
------
antocv
Samsung Evo drives have a built in hardware error, where the read speeds
diminish with age.
The firmware hides the read-speed decrease, or prolongs the detection of it,
by shuffling data around in the background.
Poor choice of SSDs, Id go with SanDisk Extreme Pro or any other version even
Intel.
------
antongribok
My first silent system was about 17 years ago that booted Linux from a floppy
drive into RAM.
This was before solid state storage options were affordable.
It was a Pentium 1 (can't remember the model) and I had disconnected the PSU
fan. Ran for a long time and I used it mostly as a router.
------
richx
I have a completely silent PC from Cirrus7. I'm pretty happy with it. But it
does not have dedicated GPU like the one in the article.
[https://www.cirrus7.com](https://www.cirrus7.com)
------
walrus01
Seasonic has has a 400W fanless power supply for a few years now.
The new 600W: [https://seasonic.com/prime-titanium-
fanless](https://seasonic.com/prime-titanium-fanless)
------
dest
See linutop fanless computers, less powerful but much more compact
[http://www.linutop.com/linutop6.en.html](http://www.linutop.com/linutop6.en.html)
------
nullifidian
many components on motherboards assume at least some airflow Encasing in
horizontally in a metal box could lead to premature failure due to increased
temperatures, even if the cpu is relatively cool.
~~~
mark-r
The entire outside of the case is a heat sink. If there's any convection flow
whatsoever it shouldn't be too far above ambient.
------
zemo
please tell me he has a really loud mechanical keyboard to go with it
~~~
tp69
Nope, rubber dome.
I'm actually on the lookout for a wired, backlit, white/aluminium, chiclet,
TKL keyboard. Basically something like the Apple Keyboard but sans NumKeypad,
backlit and keyed for Linux/PC. Bonus points if it has a column of macro keys
on the left.
If anyone knows of one please drop me a line.
~~~
zemo
didn't notice this comment until now.
This is a somewhat deep rabbit hole, but what I will tell you is that you'll
probably have a hard time finding what you want in a chiclet keyboard because
there's not much of a market for chiclet keyboards among keyboard enthusiasts.
Chiclet is both a switching mechanism and a keycap; most of the keyboard-
enthusiast community is working with setups that involve separate switches and
keycaps that are interchangeable.
What you probably want in practice is the following characteristics: a
specific key layout, all of the keys should be the same height, the key travel
should be low (i.e., the amount of distance you have to depress the keys
before registering a keystroke). No idea if you want the keys to make noise or
not, or how stiff you want the springs to be, but that's customizable too. If
you want chiclet keys because you want low key travel, you have a lot of
options. If you want something really thin, there are way, way fewer options.
A single left column of macro keys is not something I've ever seen, but the
one keyboard I can think off of hand that has a similar layout is the Red
Scarf II, which has two columns of macro keys on the left side; unfortunately
it's not currently in production. Some people use an external num pad and put
the num pad on the left for this purpose. [https://www.massdrop.com/buy/red-
scarf-ii-ver-b-custom-mecha...](https://www.massdrop.com/buy/red-scarf-ii-ver-
b-custom-mechanical-keyboard-kit)
I personally use a KBD75, which is an aluminum body, tenkeyless layout with a
right-hand column, and it's all programmable with QMK so you can make any key
do whatever you want. For example, I have a key that, when I press it,
reverses the position of the Alt and Win keys, so that I can switch between
layouts for either PC or Mac and have the Alt, Command, and Windows keys
always in their correct location. Images and build information here:
[https://imgur.com/a/5pSva2A](https://imgur.com/a/5pSva2A)
you can get keycaps that have a flat profile that are interchangeable with any
MX-Compatible switch. DSA Granite is a super popular flat-profile keyset like
that: [https://pimpmykeyboard.com/dsa-granite-
keyset/](https://pimpmykeyboard.com/dsa-granite-keyset/)
it's pretty common to add rubber o-rings to the keys to reduce the travel. But
chiclet keys are generally going to restrict the rest of your options.
Anyway reddit.com/r/mechanicalkeyboards has a bunch of info on all this stuff.
~~~
tp69
Agreed, it's a very deep rabbit hole. The 12" PowerBook G4 that I bought back
in 2004 had the best keyboard I've ever used — I still have it and
occasionally use it. But I've been trying to hunt down a desktop equivalent
ever since (but with backlighting and TKL ANSI layout). Haven't succeeded so
far. Still trying though.
Although my highest priority (by far) is low noise, I do prefer short
travel/registration and a soft landing as well.
Prompted by your post, I did some more research and decided to upgrade(?) my
gaming keyboard to a Logitech G Pro TKL [https://www.logitechg.com/en-
us/product/pro-gaming-keyboard](https://www.logitechg.com/en-us/product/pro-
gaming-keyboard). I haven't tried Romer-G switches so it will be interesting
to see how they turn out.
Meanwhile, now that Corsair's exclusive rights to the Cherry MX Silent (Red)
have expired, I'm hoping to see a lot more keyboards with that switch make
their way into the market. The Corsair Strafe RGB was tempting, but the light
spill from under the caps was far too gaudy and distracting for my liking.
Cherry MX Silent (Red) switches with landing pads and o-rings seems like a
combination that would work well (for me) for gaming.
For the DB4 and daily driver usage, though, the hunt goes on. I'll keep using
the wired Apple Keyboard until someone else comes up with a TKL clone.
------
walrus01
For those interested in doing this, the case manufacturer Zalman also makes a
series of atx format cases where the whole body is a radiator, with heatpipes
to a cpu block.
------
amiga-workbench
My machine is almost completely silent.
Semi-passive power supply, passive GTX1050 and a noctua CPU cooler that is
just barely audible when the room is silent.
The coil whine is irritating though.
------
kuon
Isn't there any liquid we could immerse the electronic in for cooling? I'm
sure this must exist in high density industrial applications.
~~~
danlan
3M make a non conductive solution for exactly this application. I remember
reading about an overclocking rig using something like it pumped through a
radiator submerged in liquid nitrogen. Was pretty cool but the solution ended
up turning into a gel at low temps [https://www.3m.com/3M/en_US/novec-
us/applications/immersion-...](https://www.3m.com/3M/en_US/novec-
us/applications/immersion-cooling/)
------
CharlesW
My computer is completely silent. (It's an iPad.)
------
unixhero
How about a fanless Intel NUC, boom done.
------
cdelsolar
Why is this person going off the grid
~~~
tp69
The Australian state I live in has the highest electricity prices in the
country, and amongst the highest in the world — so there's a simple financial
reason to defect from the grid. Then there are the self-sufficiency angles
(produce/control your own power) and the preparedness angles (grid power
always fails in bushfires) to consider as well. They are all the reasons I
need.
------
SeanLuke
I'm not sure. Is it wise to be putting heat pipes that close to an
electrolytic capacitor?
------
Gracana
This ought to go perfectly with my IBM Model M keyboard.
------
chrismorgan
Now I want to know whether it has a system beep. ␇
~~~
tp69
No, it does not. :)
------
fiddlerwoaroof
Do the skull canyon NUCs have fans?
~~~
ridiculous_fish
All NUCs have fans. The Skull Canyon is infamously loud.
~~~
fiddlerwoaroof
Interesting, I've been looking for a small computer that would make a good
HTPC, and I thought the Skull Canyon NUC might be a good choice. I sort of
assumed that that form factor would always be fanless.
------
noja
I wish they made a smaller chassis.
------
ymgch
simplest solution: buy an iMac.
~~~
whywhywhywhy
Regular iMacs are jet engine loud once you throw any CPU or GPU load at them.
I think the iMac Pro is much better in this regard but it's not sustainable as
a workstation machine.
------
heimji
Same system on silent laptop :)
~~~
mlok
I'd love to know more about this : what "system" did you use on a silent
laptop, how do you get rid of the fan ?
------
user15128
you do not hear your pc when it is located in another room/building :)
------
jgritty
Steve Jobs dream machine.
------
anotheryou
I shot a cheapish Lenovo YOGA 710 laptop. It also has no fans.
~~~
Ratiofarmings
It also has no power ;)
~~~
anotheryou
fine for office stuff :) but you are right, no main computer
------
ythn
Sometimes I can "hear" my processor working through my headphones. I'm not
sure how, but, for example, when I scroll down a page I can hear high
frequency chirping in my headphones which stops as soon as I stop scrolling.
~~~
sliken
Likely it's your GPU or LCD panel leaking RF. Try turning your monitor off and
see if scrolling is still audible.
~~~
blattimwind
These phenomena are more typically caused by ground loops and shield currents
in the computer itself. Reordering plug-in cards (e.g. moving a sound card to
a different slot) or isolating/removing the slot bracket can help.
------
yAnonymous
High pitched electric buzzing or hard disk screeching seem to be worse than
fan noise nowadays with all the great coolers available.
That being said, within a year of using Windows 10 four (!) of my hard drives
have begun making loud screeching sounds. They're technically fine, but still
unusable.
~~~
ovao
I built a fanless (technically had fans, but only turned on if needed), semi-
high-performance open bench-style system several years ago.
It's really pretty nice in theory. The reality is that some components still
emit a good bit of noise, and unlike fans, the noise they tend to emit isn't
very pleasant. Power-hungry graphics cards are by far some of the worst
offenders; without being masked by fan noise, they can be incredibly loud and
irritating. An open bench PC is definitely cool, but was kind of a mistake in
my case.
Fan tech has improved to the point that I think, more often than not, you
really _want_ to have them. Otherwise it's time spent trying to eliminate
other noise sources that would otherwise be conveniently and usually
pleasantly masked by a little wooshing.
~~~
yAnonymous
Completely agreed. When GPUs do this, I just declare them defective and send
them back. It comes down to a lack of quality of the electrical components and
simply shouldn't be a problem, especially with the current GPU prices.
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
The draft Bill for upcoming $2.x trillion stimulus package [pdf] - guru4consulting
https://www.majorityleader.gov/sites/democraticwhip.house.gov/files/COVIDSUPP3_xml.pdf
======
guru4consulting
I guess this will go down as the biggest heist in the history. It's 1404 pages
long and likely co-authored by lobbyists. I'm honestly worried for the future
of the country.
Few random things when I glanced:
\- $25,000,000 pay raise for Congress
\- $35,000,000 for The Kennedy Performing Arts Center
\- Howard University gets a $13,000,000
\- $500,000,000 for the Institute of Museum and Library Services
\- Pandemic relief for aviation workers, $40,000,000,000
~~~
endgame
Here are two twitter threads (sorry) with more pork-barrelling:
[https://twitter.com/rachelbovard/status/1242116258834845710](https://twitter.com/rachelbovard/status/1242116258834845710)
[https://twitter.com/Oilfield_Rando/status/124223296654328217...](https://twitter.com/Oilfield_Rando/status/1242232966543282176)
~~~
aaronbrethorst
There's a high likelihood that we see a resurgence of COVID-19 this fall
_right around the same time that the general election is supposed to take
place_. Not including measures to ensure election integrity would be
malpractice on the part of any who cares about the validity of the election.
Also, let's be clear about "pork-barreling" here: Mitch McConnell tried twice
to force through a bill that would have included a $500 billion slush-fund to
be doled out by the Treasury Secretary, Steve Mnuchin, with no functional
oversight.
But God forbid we get early voting and vote by mail this fall.
------
bengotow
Buried in here there is a nice bit about expanding access to Vote-By-Mail, so
that's nice. I know the democratic party has been pushing for this to be
mandatory and un-burdened by extra rules for a while:
""" If an individual in a State is eligible to cast a vote in an election for
Federal office, the State may not impose any additional conditions or
requirements on the eligibility of the individual to cast the vote in such
election by absentee ballot by mail """
------
bengotow
Wait, are bills always typeset like this? It's no wonder it's 1000 pages,
there are only ~150 words per page. This would fit in 300 pages if it was
book-set (and that doesn't seem like too much to ask everyone to read before
voting.)
It's almost like this is designed to be frustrating to read, with narrow
lines, split words and extra whitespace. Lovely.
~~~
Robelius
It also has an .xml extension. For some reason, I always imagined someone
writing bills in Microsoft Word.
Now I'm curious. I assume they used typewriters before XML, and and writing
before that. Anyone know how the length of the bills have changed over time,
and how that maps to different technologies?
~~~
robjan
This document was probably written in WordPerfect which is popular in the
legal profession due to the typesetting options. It stores its documents in
XML format.
------
eksu
I don’t believe this is the draft bill for the stimulus. This is a bill in the
House of Representatives, whereas a different bill is in the Senate and my
understanding was that the Senate Bill is the basis of ongoing negotiation.
------
mysterydip
"Making emergency supplemental appropriations for the fiscal year ending
September 30, 2020, and for other purposes."
That last part is all you need to know about how much pork is in there.
------
0xADADA
As it stands, bailouts will reward the most risky investors and speculators,
while passive investors, retirees, and taxpayers will end up bailing out these
risk takers. Thus, for the finance sector, the Fed provides elasticity:
fungible rules around banking, investing, taxation, and bailouts when things
go bad. For the rest of the economy, and individuals, we get discipline:
massive losses, austerity and cuts to social programs and public
infrastructure, moralizing our individual failures as people, and continual
indebtedness.
Lemon socialism is a pejorative term for a form of government intervention in
which government subsidies go to weak or failing firms (lemons; see Lemon
law), with the effective result that the government (and thus the taxpayer)
absorbs part or all of the recipient’s losses. The term derives from the
conception that in socialism the government may nationalize a company’s
profits while leaving the company to pay its own losses, while in lemon
socialism the company is allowed to keep its profits but its losses are
shifted to the taxpayer.
So the imbalance: Why does the Fed continually save the financial industry
every 10 years, but not any other industry? Why does the Fed create and spend
1.5T dollars to purchase worthless and arcane financial instruments, but never
spend on public goods like housing, student education, public infrastructure
~~~
nopriorarrests
>Why does the Fed create and spend 1.5T dollars to purchase worthless and
arcane financial instruments, but never spend on public goods like housing,
student education, public infrastructure
Because Fed is not Government, plain and simple, and has no mandate to do so.
If you want spend on public goods, you need to elect people who will spend on
public goods.
------
Talyen42
This is the democrats house bill, not the GOP senate bill.
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Steve Mann physicaly assaulted by McDonald's staff for wearing Digital Eye Glass - Leynos
http://eyetap.blogspot.com/2012/07/physical-assault-by-mcdonalds-for.html
======
ColinWright
<http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4252955>
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Ask HN: What are some good free Jira alternatives for a team under 10 devs? - tn_
======
tavoris
Here's a oldie; [https://trac.edgewall.org/](https://trac.edgewall.org/)
------
vaceletm
If you look for strong tracking possibilities, you might want to consider
Tuleap: [https://tuleap.org](https://tuleap.org)
------
vgy7ujm
Redmine, openproject.
Gitlab community edition for all in one.
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Can you do binary under pressure? - pearjuice
http://toys.usvsth3m.com/binary//
======
bpicolo
Pretty simple when you can just check the last bit for odd vs even, but
otherwise fun enough for a binary guessing game
~~~
tiagobraw
its simple, but not that simple... As you advance through later levels you are
prompted with AND and OR operations.
------
aleprok
Ah took a while, but I can do binary under pressure! Quite fun. :D
~~~
deletes
I got everything correct except XOR, which i can't do fast at all. ::Goes to
write some tables::
~~~
aleprok
Yeah I had hard time with XOR as well.
------
poopicus
I learned I can even do hexadecimal under pressure, with no warning!
------
Rampoina
I took me 4 or 5 tries, the AND ones were hard for me
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Lost city of Atlantis found on Google Earth? - transburgh
http://www.crunchgear.com/2009/02/20/lost-city-of-atlantis-found-on-google-earth/
======
CalmQuiet
Absolutely. "The Sun" is word of God in my book, too.
But speaking of the Divine, my personal revelations have disclosed that image
to be an RJ-45 fossil - an "ethernet of the Gods" if you with - and therefore
far antedating Atlantis. You heard it first on HN.
------
rbc
Actually this kind of thing brings out another consequence of widely available
imagery. Imagery analysis is becoming open to far more people than before. It
used to be primarily the purview of governments and other large organizations.
Now, a bunch of part time imagery analysts are looking over the shoulder of
the professional.
------
timf
No: <http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=489073>
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Rising rural BMI is the main driver of the global obesity epidemic in adults - tokai
https://www.nature.com/articles/s41586-019-1171-x
======
shadowtree
As the article states, once automation hits a rural area, people there spend
less energy than in cities.
Very much observable in the US, where rural and suburban population never
WALKS. You need to supply artificial sources of movement (aka sports) to make
up for the delta.
In cities, you walk more by default - your baseline energy expenditure is
higher. Take the stairs to the subway, walk to work, get out for lunch ... all
of that counts.
Driving around in your F150 and have everything as a drive through? You're the
slob from the movie "Up".
~~~
tosser0001
For whatever reason, I was struck watching the special on PBS, "Woodstock: 50
Years Later".
Everybody was thin. It was sort of amazing when you stopped and really noticed
it, then contrasted it to what you see on a day to day basis out on the
streets. There just weren't any overweight people to be seen, at least nowhere
near approaching the magnitude you see walking around today.
There's got to be some cultural component to all this too. I'm not sure the
built environment is really all that much different than from what it was when
I was a kid in the suburbs. It's as if people just collectively stopped using
their bodies and started consuming more calories.
~~~
idoubtit
The demographics is worse than what is seen in the streets, because of the
correlation between overweight and outdoor activities. The CDC facts are that
39% of the American adults are obese and 75% are overweight (including
obesity). So overweight is the norm, and thin people are the exception. As the
tendency is stable, I wonder if a "hidden minority" lobby will emerge in a few
years, claiming that TV speakers and movie actors are too thin to represent
the average citizen.
~~~
Retric
Young people still tend to be significantly less overweight.
[https://www.stateofobesity.org/obesity-by-
age/](https://www.stateofobesity.org/obesity-by-age/)
However, you do see more overweight people on modern films than in the 50’s.
What’s really odd some characters where supposed to be noticeably overweight,
but they don’t seem that way to modern eyes.
~~~
lostapathy
Curious - do you have examples handy of characters like you described who were
"overweight for the time" but don't seem so today?
~~~
krustyburger
Even going back just to the 90s, characters like George Costanza were meant to
look noticeably overweight but look fairly typical by 2019 standards. And
Homer Simpson weighed a very specific 239 pounds, a weight that seems much
less extreme now.
~~~
flukus
On the extreme end there was John Candy
([https://www.imdb.com/name/nm0001006/mediaindex?ref_=nm_phs_m...](https://www.imdb.com/name/nm0001006/mediaindex?ref_=nm_phs_md_sm)),
he used to be "the funny fat guy" but if he were to cameo (and be alive) today
I don't think he'd stand out like he used to.
------
dfsegoat
_" Data on how BMI in rural and urban populations is changing are needed to
plan interventions that address underweight and overweight."_
Specifically in the U.S., isn't it true that the population landscape is
rapidly shifting from Rural => Urban? I intend to read more to see how this
may/may not be a confounder in this type of temporal analysis.
Tldr: If the rural population is decreasing, then your denominator is smaller
and estimates of disease proportion would increase over time.
These confounders are commonly addressed in systematic reviews - just haven't
found it specifically in this one.
~~~
dcolkitt
Agree with this observation. This might simply be a burn-off effect. Consider
a simple model. Fact one: Obesity is disproportionately concentrated in the
less-educated. Fact two: Urbanization is disproportionately concentrated in
the highly-educated.
Well, what we would see over time is faster rising obesity in rural areas than
urban areas. But that's simply a manifestation of the sorting effect. The
underlying populations (the educated vs. uneducated) have not fundamentally
changed, just relocated.
Without considering this we might be spuriously fooled into misunderstanding
the causality of obesity. Under this model, rural living itself has absolutely
nothing to do with rising obesity. It's merely serving as a proxy for a more
important variable.
------
CalRobert
I just moved from the middle of a walkable city to the country and indeed I've
put on some weight. Key factors:
* I used to walk and cycle as my only means of transport (well, 99% of it at least).
* This is kind of a desert for decent food. The local shops have candy, chips, cakes, beer, and some almost-rotten bananas and apples.
* .. well actually that's about it. Though everyone else being heavier probably hasn't helped on a subconscious level.
~~~
tootie
I think when everyone is heavier, it sets a lower bar for attracting a
partner. That's a big factor.
------
droithomme
The food in those areas is also insanely sugar and fat oriented. It made sense
back when people were doing hard farming work 15 hours a day and needed the
calories. But the cuisine didn't change, if anything it got sweeter. When I'm
traveling, I run into difficulty finding low calorie dishes when passing
through rural areas and now basically simply don't eat there. It's infectious:
the asian cuisines found in rural areas has nothing to do with actual asian
food. Expect deep fried chicken drenched in actual sugar syrup in most dishes.
Because nothing else will sell so the restaurant owners adapt. It's not
surprising to look around and see so many people that are waddling around,
driving around stores little electric cart things, with pasty acne riddled
skin, thin hair falling out in clumps, and generally looking like they are at
death's door despite being under 40.
------
pcdoodle
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x4sRsb0a30Y](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x4sRsb0a30Y)
The hacking of the american mind.
------
mbritton72
It keeps being said: you must eat only what is needed to fuel your body for
the activity you are doing in an average day.
By the time someone acquires the maturity to accept this, their lifestyle has
been too deeply established for change to be possible.
------
jp555
We need a study to tell us that _increasing average body mass_ drives obesity
averages more than urbanization?
In related news, eating too much too often is more a cause of weight gain than
how much screen time you get.
~~~
wutbrodo
The very second sentence of the link:
> This has led to a widely reported view that urbanization is one of the most
> important drivers of the global rise in obesity
The study's findings are that the rise in overall weight is attributed
primarily to rural areas, contrary to the current consensus that it's driven
by urbanization. Let alone not reading the link before commenting, it seems
you didn't even read the full title of the post.
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
What happened at Canonical - bigpotatoe
http://www.techradar.com/news/what-happened-at-canonical
======
alrs
Pushing yearly bonuses back to May so that they can do layoffs in April is a
hugely dick move.
If it isn't salary, don't budget for it.
------
vfclists
Nothing happened at Canonical, just what the top executives normally do.
Realizing that it may be more profitable to destroy their companies and
sellout to the main competition rather than compete with them.
With Canonical and Redhat virtually in bed with Microsoft does any one
seriously think that Canonical was going to proceed on a path that would mean
getting into headon competition with a major company they had decided to
collaborate with?
When Ubuntu collaborates with Microsoft on Bash/WSL what do you think is going
to happen? When hardware vendors don't want to open up their drivers for Linux
to compete effectively with Windows and Mac how much progress can Ubuntu make
with their phones?
The Linux desktop is supposed to be a power users desktop but their poor
vision of its developers failed it. It is supposed to be the equivalent of an
advanced Smalltalk or Lisp workstation where its administration is concerned,
to managed by message passing in Smalltalk or Lisp scripts or similar. The
fact that it is still managed by tedious error prone scripts only shows how
poor the whole design has been. Coming to think of Linux is just the kernel,
and none of the desktop developers had the smarts to develop a sound
administration language and build the desktop proper on top of it. All that
has happened is that it has given Microsoft and the other big guys the
breathing space to retrench and now it has carved up the market by basically
co-opting Redhat and Ubuntu into its camp.
------
anarchy4ever
One should post about what happened in Mozilla for the past chaotic 4 years as
well, especially for those offices not in the USA. The story is sorrowfully
similar.
------
crb002
I'm surprised Microsoft hasn't released a semi-offical Linux distribution for
power users showcasing .Net Core and Azure assisted apps. At least a Linux
container on par with AWS Lambda.
------
joeevans1000
Who knows what's really going on behind the scenes and whether this piece
might be unduly negative or not. It's possible that things are shaky to a
level that the changes and the way they were conducted might be in fact much
better than they could have been. I feel this piece works to characterize
Shuttleworth in a negative light (by including his "um" and so on in quoting
him, for example).
Shuttleworth produced the first easy to install Linux distro and brought many
to Linux as a result. Doesn't he get credit for that?
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Show HN: Declutter your inbox by combining your newsletters into ONE email - jevin
https://subscriptionzero.com/?ref=hackernews
======
leshokunin
Looks interesting. Is this open source? How can we contact you?
~~~
jevin
It’s not open source for now. You can contact me on Twitter @jevinsew
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
BMI: one person listening to his own music via the cloud is public performance - grellas
http://www.techdirt.com/articles/20110506/18425714192/bmi-says-single-person-listening-to-his-own-music-via-cloud-is-public-performance.shtml
======
grellas
A few observations:
1\. There _are_ well-settled copyright principles that hold a viewing event to
be a "public performance" even though a single person only is doing the
viewing at any given time. A leading case involved a video-store owner who
owned one copy of each film he had in stock and who set up private viewing
rooms in his establishment in which he allowed a patron to view a film
privately that the patron had rented from the store. This enabled the store
owner to buy a copyrighted video once and to set up a business in which he
repeatedly displayed that video to multiple members of the public, one at a
time. In that case, the court held that the showing of the one copy of the
film owned by the video store owner repeatedly to different members of the
public constituted a "public performance" (the case, _Columbia Pictures v.
Redd Horne_ , may be found here:
[http://scholar.google.com/scholar_case?case=1713962666875062...](http://scholar.google.com/scholar_case?case=17139626668750628957)).
This case is offline law but the principle it articulates is clear. If
copyright holders are in business to sell or license their copyrighted works,
and if someone buys one copy of such work and sets up a business open to the
public to make money from repeated showings of such work (albeit one at a
time), the copyright owners are having the value of their works taken from
them by the intermediary business owner, who gets to profit from such works
without having obtained any right or license from the copyright owners to
license such works to others. A leading copyright treatise (Nimmer) sums this
up, then, by saying "if the same copy . . . of a given work is repeatedly
played (i.e., 'performed') by different members of the public, albeit at
different times, this constitutes a 'public' performance." (discussed here:
[http://laboratorium.net/archive/2011/03/16/that_zediva_thing...](http://laboratorium.net/archive/2011/03/16/that_zediva_thing_its_so_not_going_to_work)).
In this offline context, then, it is indisputable that you can have a "public"
performance for copyright-law purposes from what is technically a private
viewing.
2\. Logically, the one-copy rule should not apply to the case where I own my
copy and merely choose to display it for my private viewing (or private
listening in the case of music) through various methods of playback, including
by use of a cloud service. And this is what both Google and Amazon are banking
on in the way they have set up their cloud music services. Their theory is
that the service they offer does nothing more than allow you to upload a song
you already own and access it from different browsers and devices. To avoid
the one-copy rule, neither Google nor Amazon "de-duplicate" user files, which
means that users will literally access the exact files that they themselves
uploaded into the service (meaning, therefore, that millions of copies of the
same file may exist in the same cloud).
3\. The big test case that is pending in the courts is _EMI v. MP3Tunes_ , and
this case will test whether the old offline rules should apply literally to
the digital world. That is, MP3Tunes is a music locker that _does_ de-
duplicate its files, i.e., stores one copy only of each song (rather than one
copy for each file any user has uploaded) and uses that copy to enable users
of the service to replay songs they have uploaded into the service (though not
literally from the exact file that the user uploaded). It is this case - where
the intermediary business owner is using "one copy" only to enable multiple
members of the public to listen to the same song, albeit only for their own
private listening - that the EMI lawyer is commenting upon when he says that
one person listening to his own music via the cloud constitutes a "public
performance." Though tone-deaf on how this must sound to the average person,
the lawyer is basically reciting what the offline caselaw held in connection
with the one-copy rule. This may indeed be irrational as applied to the
digital world (since, in fact, the service is requiring each individual who
listens to upload his individually-owned version of that song, which
distinguishes this case from the video store owner who bought only one copy in
total), but this is why he is calling it what he does.
4\. EFF has a good discussion of some of the key issues here:
<https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/archive> (see under the heading "Do music
locker services violate current copyright laws?").
The fact that important web-based services are having to use such inefficient
means as storing millions of versions of the same file just to deal with
current copyright laws shows that is is high-time such laws were revamped for
the digital age. The last major revision was in the 1970s. The laws in this
area made sense in their day (at least for those who don't oppose IP rights of
this type) but are today strained to the breaking point.
~~~
bostonvaulter2
This argument about de-duplication reminds me of the excellent essay: "What
Colour are your bits?"
<http://ansuz.sooke.bc.ca/lawpoli/colour/2004061001.php>
~~~
plesn
Yes, thanks for reminding this essay. I think though that de-duplication is a
lawyer oriented smoke-screen. It is based on a complete misunderstanding of
Colour because Colour tracking happens at the wrong abstraction level. Colour
does not exist in the computer but it is a property of the whole process.
Therfore tracking content ownership doesn't happen at the bit-level of storing
a copy or a pointer, but it is rather the consistency of the owner/content
association.
------
ryan-allen
A novel way to solve this problem is to stop signing new talent to the big
labels.
Some of the music I listen to is signed to smaller labels who have much more
liberal views when it comes to distribution and piracy. They host their own
online stores that sell DRM-free albums usually at 50% of the cost of what you
pay to big labels on iTunes, in stores, etc.
The vast majority of musicians and producers (i.e. not the Lady Gaga's or The
Beatles or Michael Jackson) make their money by touring and performing.
Selling their music on CD and in digital formats is considered a marketing
method and token income at best.
My hope is that Big Music become more and more irrelevant (and less
influential) as artists realise that they can do better without them.
~~~
pkeane
BMI is not a record company. It is a performance rights organization. Lots of
independent label artists have their work registered through BMI (myself
included & I get checks quarterly from BMI). This seems crazy/greedy to me,
though. How about if I put my work on a website (which I do -- free for
listening or downloading)? I would hope that's not considered public
performance.
~~~
rprasad
It is a public performance, which is within your rights to control as the
copyright owner....unless you assigned copyright to BMI.
------
jrockway
I figured this would happen. I was going to write a service exactly like Cloud
Drive and Google Music, but I knew that as soon as I had more than 10 users I
would be inundated with angry RIAA lawyers. I guess I was right.
(I would still like to simply see BMI's catalog blocked. If the services are
popular but BMI won't allow Amazon and Google to host their music, then that's
BMI's loss rather than Amazon's or Google's.)
Also, the record companies wonder why nobody buys music: this is why.
------
noonespecial
If you find yourself having trouble reconciling this with the real world _(1)_
, remember that lawyer world is a little different. You might be looking at a
version of the "Chewbacca defense" writ large. A solid legal case can be
completely illogical in the real world but entirely internally consistent (and
effective) in the legal one.
Think of it from their perspective. BMI is essentially an organization of
lawyers. This is what they _do_. If it is possible to twiddle the levers on
the legal-political complex and stymie your competitors, why ever wouldn't
you? This isn't some dastardly new plot to kill teh intertubes, its the same
thing they've been doing since 1940, it just looks really bizarre when done in
the 21st century. Kind of like showing up in your 1942 swimming costume for
this year's spring break at Daytona Beach.
_1)_ But its my music, on my storage, played on my device! How can that be...
------
nkassis
so what he's saying is that even if I paid for the music I store in my amazon
cloud drive, just because amazon probably doesn't store a separate copy of
each song of my collection amazon should be paying him performance royalty?
This dude a moron. Good thing he's going after Amazon and Google, that way his
stupidity will cost him a lot in wasted lawsuits.
------
th0ma5
This kind of stance is further proof of their impending irrelevancy.
You know what would be cool? If publishing organizations strove to outdo the
hardcore curators out there, to invent a more detailed form of musical
notation beyond MIDI, open source the whole shit, and become the de facto
standards barer of musical transcription. I'd like to see detailed engineering
notes as well, and all the samples and full tracks, with all effects broken
out, and timed to the nanosecond, in a zip FLAC file.
If they can achieve technical excellence like that, and give it away for free,
I'd sign whatever paper they put in front in me.
~~~
Kliment
Nine Inch Nails did that with Ghosts, they provided editable multitrack
recordings, and essentially gave it away for free, inviting anyone to edit and
remix.
~~~
th0ma5
I'm sure he got the idea from the same place, Oink and other such OCD pirates.
------
orbitingpluto
Maybe I'll help out BMI. The hard of hearing use hearing aids! They're
illegally rebroadcasting a public performance! SUE! SUE! SUE!
------
sjtgraham
I believe in paying for music and artists being compensated for their art etc,
but the music industry's constant myopic greed is pushing me away from wanting
to pay for music at all.
Way to go music industry.
------
angrycoder
This is like listening to grandpa out on his lawn screaming how he is going to
kick all our asses. The war is over, you guys lost, move on.
~~~
rdtsc
Except grandpa is crazy, has a shotgun, and is friends with the Sheriff (the
RIAA, MPAA, their lobbyists and congresspeople they bought).
------
robryan
The music industry have a piracy problem, yet they discourage services created
to remove the piracy problem. The labels that get stuck in this eternal fight
are going to lose out big time to those that realise that attacking the
problem head on is a waste of time and build up a business around the new
market conditions.
------
mahrain
The main source of frustration with this is the fact that they see music as a
physical product, while using "intellectual property" laws to prevent any
other form.
If it were up to "them" the only way to listen to music is either commercial
radio: which pays for licenses, or purchasing physical media and with it the
"license" to play it in the privacy of your own home. Anything else is
difficult, and DRM and other measures try to institute the same laws governing
physical products on digital media (you can't copy your car ;-) ).
This is the argument they get attacked on time and time again, with people
saying they don't innovate their business model and try to prevent anyone from
innovating as well.
Wait... is it really 2011?
------
ck2
If I have a digital music player and digital speakers (amp inside the speaker)
in my home, playing my owned music, is that a public performance? Of course
not.
Well if the digital music player is now 1000 miles away from my speakers, how
is that any different?
------
bane
aaaand, the music industry takes yet another step down the long stairwell to
obsolescence. Really guys, we want your product, we'll even pay for it, but
you _gotta_ update the delivery mechanism to get with the times.
That's all you have to do.
------
ctdonath
A commenter jokes "It's only a matter of time before we have to pay licenses
to listen to the music we've already bought. What?! You think the music you
stream over speaker wires and earbuds is free?!"
One word: HDMI.
------
jonursenbach
The source of this, <http://www.bmi.com/news/entry/551409>, is the longest
piece of bullshit I have ever read. Oh brother.
------
VladRussian
one couldn't play more by the rules of the industry than Zediva. Zediva only
eliminated some technical inefficiencies. By attacking Zediva the industry
clearly shows itself as just a Luddite fighting to defend the inefficiencies
that are source of the industry's income. In 10-20 years it would be just
another paragraph here <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Luddite>
------
squidsoup
Big record companies seem to be adept at finding novel ways of making
themselves anachronisms.
------
jmilloy
So wait, my friend has a copy of your movie. I offer to pay YOU so I can watch
his copy of the movie. And that's not okay because...?
~~~
rprasad
Because you might pay more to get or rent your own copy of the movie?
That's the primary logic behind BMI's stance.
~~~
tomjen3
Not really, I already brought the movie.
Or rather I didn't because it wasn't yet available outside the US.
------
zerosanity
So if my home stereo is "streaming" music to the speakers in the next room
that's considered a public performance too?
------
adrianwaj
Article wanted: "RIAA, big labels and performing rights organizations:
decimating music since 1999."
~~~
Natsu
They've been at it a lot longer than that. Payola, Hollywood accounting,
abusive recording contracts, ... all of these things predate 1999 by far.
------
cmars
if a seemingly random stream of bits travels across the internet, from a
seemingly random collection of bits on a cluster of virtual machines... does
it make a sound?
------
rglover
Gary, Indiana, Gary, Indiana, Gary, Indiana.
------
drivebyacct2
A private file hosted in rented space that I'm accessing is not public
performance and I don't understand how we can stretch the definition of words
to get to that conclusion.
Dear Music industry, grow up. Or sue, lose in court and miss out on all the
revenue you could be enjoying. It really is your choice.
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Throwing cats out of windows - SandB0x
http://stackoverflow.com/questions/3974077/throwing-cats-out-of-windows
======
Jun8
This, of course, is a popular interview question, albeit asked with eggs (or
bowling balls) instead of cats. Here's a discussion and a solution:
[http://20bits.com/articles/interview-questions-two-
bowling-b...](http://20bits.com/articles/interview-questions-two-bowling-
balls/). I think for m balls and N floors, the number of steps is O(N^(1/m)).
~~~
cperciva
_I think for m balls and N floors, the number of steps is O(N^(1/m))._
Almost right. It's O(m N^(1/m)).
------
ars
I'm not sure if it's interesting, funny, or sad, that almost all of the
responses were talking about the cats, and how they do better with higher
falls, and almost none talked about the actual question.
~~~
gort
A lot of people don't seem to grasp the concept of assuming certain things for
the sake of exploring a problem.
------
Mahh
Problems like these are good for new programmers to think while keeping
abstract thought farther away.
Using cats rather than eggs or dogs paints a story that's fun to imagine. I
could also ask the question by saying: there is an integer to find and any
integer guessed above this removes one chance
I wonder how people might go about constructing their answer if they worry
with respect to the cats lives as compared to the abstract version
------
cperciva
My favourite version of this problem involves 4 eggs and a 10^6 floor space
elevator. It's small enough to figure out on a whiteboard, but large enough
that you can't do it without figuring out the pattern.
~~~
JoeAltmaier
The egg will break by the 2nd floor :)
------
edw519
_The cat can survive a fall out of a low story window, but will die if thrown
from a high floor._
This is a faulty postulate that cannot be overcome by even the most rigorous
math in the world.
Although controlled studies have not been done (fortunately!), case statistics
assembled by New York City veterinarians suggest that in many cases, falls
from higher floors may actually be _more_ survivable. One theory is that cats
have more time to right themselves before reaching terminal velocity.
<http://www.pets.ca/cats/articles/cat-jumps-off-building/>
~~~
yock
Of course, the problem with the question is that the OP chose cats, as if it's
humerous to think of throwing a cat out of a high window. The problem at its
core is the relationship between height, accelleration, and materials. What is
the necessary height for a given material to reach a sufficient velocity to
cause it to fail upon impacting the ground?
~~~
edw519
I realize that using eggs instead of cats probably would have been more
applicable to this problem. But OP inadvertently demonstrated another problem:
proofs built upon flawed postulates are not only flawed themselves, but a
colossal waste of time. I wonder how many scientists and engineers in the real
world are spending so much time calculating the trees that they've lost sight
of the forest. Probably more than most people think.
------
takrupp
Perfect situation to drop "defenestration". Wasted opportunity.
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Pakistan blocks Tinder, Grindr and other apps - sbmthakur
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2020/sep/02/pakistan-blocks-immoral-tinder-grinder-and-other-apps
======
nakodari
Pakistani here, I gave Tinder a try once and it was awful. The majority of
Pakistanis don't date the way Americans do due to the conservative values.
When we sign up for a dating app, what we're looking for is someone whom we
can connect with and marry soon - possibly within 6-12 months timeframe.
Tinder is optimized for American dating and is incompatible with our family
values. Therefore, when you signed up for Tinder in Pakistan, you saw that it
was a hookup app rather than an app that helps you find a lifelong partner.
Most Pakistanis who're serious about finding a partner use Muslim dating apps
like Muzmatch and Minder.
Edit: A lot of people have replied below that this does not justify banning
the app. I have simply shared my experience and also the experience of many
others in Pakistan. Tinder turned into an immoral app (borderline pornography
in many cases) and this being an Islamic Republic of Pakistan, it went against
the conservative values of the nation to hookup and thus it was banned by the
govt. The govt is the democratic representative of the people and does what
the majority of the nation expects them to do.
~~~
thiht
>The govt is the democratic representative of the people and does what the
majority of the nation expects them to do
A democracy must not be a tyranny of the majority. What if part of the
Pakistani population enjoy these apps? Why ban them if they don't harm
anybody?
~~~
throwaway0a5e
People think these apps are harming people by enabling behavior that harms
people.
It's the same line of reasoning that leads to prohibition on drugs, guns and
booze.
------
_trampeltier
Meanwhile in the western world banks decide about the content on pages like
Fetlife and about the color of dildos in webshops.
~~~
ravenstine
I wonder if the ability to send and receive money should be considered a right
as we become cashless.
~~~
gambiting
It is in some places already. In the UK for instance a bank _has to_ open a
basic checking account for you when asked, to avoid situations where people
without jobs or homeless cannot have a bank account(which is required for
nearly everything else). There can be many restrictions placed on such account
later on(no debit cards, no overdraft, no mobile banking etc), but it's
practically impossible for a bank to close a basic checking account for
someone.
~~~
_trampeltier
I think in the EU, one bank has let you to open a basic account and give you a
debit card. But as far I know, this is just for people, not companys. And in
they ask you for a fee to use the account and in theorie there is no upper
limit for the fee.
------
mellosouls
What is it about Tinder that brings on these flame-wars on HN?
It's almost like those who question Tinder's moral neutrality and innocence in
its impact on society have a point...
~~~
thefz
Talk about distros or the cool new tech, we can carry on a decent discussion.
Talk about sex life and everyone loses their mind.
~~~
stareatgoats
Sex, Russian trolls, Chinese nationalism, US foreign interventions and
Javascript in the browser. Plus a few other topics where everybody is an
expert, too.
------
thewatcher2
I'd support this action. Social media and dating apps are an experiment on the
population that they never consented to. We need a reserve of people who are
not as much impacted by it for further studies.
Until the day AR glasses come that can show you entire financial, sexual,
educational, criminal history etc of a person on the street, dating apps is
hurting the majority of the population.
So are the privacy laws that are going to stifle innovation, if people want
social media and hyper competitive dating, the free market would also allow
the right to violation of privacy by current standards which would allow for
AR glasses to show a person history before you even talk to them.
In the past people used to look at the family history or got introduced to
potential mates by trusted friends. Dating apps have none of that.
The market is neither free, nor fair.
A new generation of dating apps that monitor your entire life and do
background checks and publicize it to the world would change the playing field
immensely.
~~~
Mindwipe
> In the past people used to look at the family history or got introduced to
> potential mates by trusted friends.
Lol, no they didn't. They got drunk and hooked up at bars.
~~~
thewatcher2
Maybe your family did that, but people in my family don't. They preferred the
civilized way.
------
thefounder
Perhaps the pakistani people should be left to decide what's immoral and
what's not?
~~~
implements
Are Pakistani human rights different from the universal kind?
My viewpoint is that people should have freedom of religious conscience, and
with that a large degree of moral relativism with certain bounds.
Given that, is it appropriate that a country interferes with the expressed
sexuality of freely consenting adults? I don’t think so.
~~~
ooobit2
I think your opinion is irrelevant and based in ignorance of Islam and the
values that a predominately Islamic society holds for its citizens. These are
not _easy_ or often flippant decisions made and/or accepted by people. But
part of listening means accepting where you have a right to form opinions, to
have them heard, and to feel entitled to them being relevant. This is not
listening. This is you asserting a colonialist's supremacy on a culture that
does not agree with your ethic. This same line of thinking is what led to the
British invasions of Central Asia and Africa, that Indians were barbaric and
Brits would bring the education and civil discipline to their land and improve
their lives. Well, what good have yours and their Napoleon complexes left?
~~~
cpursley
> This is you asserting a colonialist's supremacy on a culture
Isn't this the history of Islam (colonization and expansion)? Were the people
in those places who got conquered not forced to comply with Islamic law?
I live in former Ottoman Empire territory where slave trade of women and young
boys was rampant until the Russian Empire put an end to it.
[https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/0/0f/Me...](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/0/0f/Meccan_merchant_and_his_Circassian_slave.jpg/1200px-
Meccan_merchant_and_his_Circassian_slave.jpg)
[https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/White_slavery#Ottoman_slave_...](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/White_slavery#Ottoman_slave_trade)
------
bashwizard
Maybe it's time for the rest of the civilized world to block Pakistan.
~~~
aerodog
With your implying a country of 200 million people is "uncivilized" (hate
speech), perhaps it's more appropriate that HN blocks you?
~~~
garbagetime
Maybe the commenter edited his comment, but as it is now, it doesn't mention
or imply that Pakistan is uncivilized (which wouldn't be hate speech, anyway).
------
aerodog
People have a traditional way of building family. The American way, i.e. via
casual dating, often enhanced by apps, is experimental (barely a generation
in) and not looking good for society's long-term stability.
~~~
OneGuy123
This.
The saddest thing is that children are the main casualty in divorces.
Single-parent raised children are known to have more issues/anxiety/etc...
than children raised in a normal family.
~~~
morley
The divorce rate was going up long before online dating, and have actually
been going down since the onset of online dating. Though I'm skeptical they're
directly related.
[https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/wonk/wp/2015/06/23/144-y...](https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/wonk/wp/2015/06/23/144-years-
of-marriage-and-divorce-in-the-united-states-in-one-chart/)
~~~
throwaway0a5e
> and have actually been going down since the onset of online dating.
I'm not blaming online dating (which I think is just a reflection of other
cultural changes) but it's kind of hard to get divorced if you're not married
and we know where marriage rates are going...
------
ArkVark
I'd welcome these applications being banned worldwide. Dating should be
brought back to the real world: through friends, communities, family
recommendations, and events.
The emphasis should be on finding a compatible mate, marriage, co-financing
and procreation. Dating apps encourage endless hookups and destabilisation -
this is their business model.
~~~
Erlich_Bachman
When your moral views are such that they require banning free apps (or free
speech etc) and enforcing your views on other people, that's stops being a
morality and starts being a tyranny.
~~~
knolax
So if I view murder as bad and I ban MRDR, a hot new SV startup that helps
murderers plan their murders, I'm a tyrant? The rest of the world isn't
obligated to import every social engineering system SV comes up with.
~~~
sbmthakur
Not sure how dating compares with murder. The former only happens when both
parties consent and usually doesn't involve harm.
~~~
knolax
It does harm to society. Just look at incels. That's a direct result of hookup
culture.
------
ponker
I don't know about "immoral", but based on my younger acquaintances'
experiences on Tinder, I believe that in the long-term it and its peer
services will be seen as equally destructive to Facebook -- what Facebook did
to interpersonal relationships/friendships Tinder will do to romantic/sexual
relationships.
I think that the world will basically have to have a reckoning with "freedom,"
i.e. that technology has created the ability to build digital technologies
that basically destroy the things we typically value. The companies in charge
are too hyperoptimized and the average human is too underoptimized for this to
be a fair fight... in the name of "engagement" Facebook can easily destroy the
basic subfloor of politics in a representative democracy, and Tinder can
destroy the basic subfloor of couplehood and family life.
~~~
rkachowski
Implicit here is the idea that couplehood and family life were more stable and
somehow more resistent to damage before technology came along and made it
easier for humans to interact.
An alternate theory is that Tinder actually reenforces the "basic subfloor of
couplehood and family life" by enabling and normalising ephemeral sexual and
romantic interaction, instead of requiring the individual to succumb to social
pressure and enter marriage for reasons other than personal. This would be
supported by the fact that divorce rates have been decreasing in the USA since
the 90s.[1]
I agree that more attention needs to be directed towards the ill effects that
technology can have on societal values, but the technology exposes and works
upon impulses already within us. The things we value are incredibly relative
and the ideas + images of friendship and family life we have now are
drastically different from even 40 years ago.
(that is to say, views are always changing and the idea that "this new thing
will destroy what we value" works in the exact same way that fm radio / home
taping / digital piracy killed the musician + music industry so many years ago
(i.e. it did not))
1\. [https://www.weforum.org/agenda/2018/10/divorce-united-
states...](https://www.weforum.org/agenda/2018/10/divorce-united-states-
dropping-because-millennials/)
~~~
cageface
There's a lot of evidence that we are less satisfied with the choices we make
the more options we have. When you can compare your current partner to 1000
other options every day you're very likely to have some buyers remorse.
~~~
cgriswald
I certainly _can_ compare my partner to 1000 other options and I don’t need an
app to do so. The takeaway isn’t “options are bad while you are on the
market.” The take away is “Stop measuring your partner against others while
you’re not on the market.” And, of course, you don’t actually know those
others so you’re comparing your partner against some combination of others and
your own imagination. No partner can compare to your imagination. If you’re
doing this you might as well bail out of the relationship because you’re not
ready. No amount of banning apps is going to protect someone’s relationship
from themselves. A committed relationship takes... commitment; in both thought
and deed.
~~~
ponker
Sure, there are a lot of things that anyone _can_ do. The fact is that the
harder you make things, the fewer people will do them, the easier you make
things, the more people will do them. You can avoid processed junk food and
stay healthy but the availability of cheap junk food is what causes rampant
obesity and its societal costs.
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Show HN: Find Startups nearby - veermanhas
https://headism.com/
======
Simorgh
I love the loading UI: background and the spinner.
------
aguggs
Is this founded by Elon's long lost brother, Roy?
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Mailgun is now charging for email validation - ascom
http://blog.mailgun.com/mailgun-rolls-out-changes-to-email-validation-api-including-new-pricing-model-and-features/
======
homero
This really sucks and very expensive, ridiculous
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Show HN: a weekly email about what's hot in your favourite languages - scottjackson
http://cccode.cc
======
oschrenk
Good idea. Would you consider adding it as an rss feed? I think it would be
nice to be able to subscribe to something like <http://cccode.cc/shell+java-
script+java.rss>
------
adambratt
Cool idea although I think you should provide an example newsletter. I'd also
like to see some more info on where you'll be gathering this information and
how you'll choose to aggregate it.
~~~
scottjackson
> some more info on where you'll be gathering this information and how you'll
> choose to aggregate it
My server basically spends the week trawling GitHub for trending projects, so
the scope of what can appear in a newsletter is kinda limited for now (only
stuff that's trending on GitHub). In the future, I'm thinking of looking in
other places (Twitter, Pinboard, etc.) for content to put in the newsletter,
but the problem there is relating a link in a tweet to a particular
programming language — things like PHP and Objective-C are easy enough, but
just doing a search for tweets with "#python" and links in them isn't going to
return very many meaningful results. So this is just a first release to test
the waters and see if there's demand for something like Cccode. If there is, I
plan on broadening the scope a bit. For now, though, think of it as "the
hottest (GitHub) projects in your favourite language".
Thanks for checking it out!
------
SwearWord
No C# :(
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Ask HN: Taking over after contractors jump ship - bartmcpherson
I was brought in to a company to build their own internal development team. They have a few projects in active development with a couple of contracting firms. The plan was to slowly wean the projects away from the outside firms to internal development.<p>One of the firms has decided to immediately abandon the project they’ve been working on. We have the source and the app runs on our own servers, but that is about it. No documentation or architectural artifacts of any sort.<p>The business has been happy with the product so far. The contractor is “focusing their business on their larger clients”.<p>What has worked best for HN reader’s when taking over a project with little to no documentation/design documents?
======
greenyoda
See if you can talk to the people in your company who hired the contractor.
They might at least be able to give you a high-level description of what the
software is supposed to do and how it's supposed to work. They might even have
specs that they prepared for the contractor or other design documentation.
If the contractor's software has no tests or is poorly written, it's going to
be hard to add features to it or refactor it. You might want to read _Working
Effectively with Legacy Code_ [1] by Michael Feathers, which describes how you
can get a handle on large bodies of legacy software.
[1] [http://www.amazon.com/Working-Effectively-Legacy-Michael-
Fea...](http://www.amazon.com/Working-Effectively-Legacy-Michael-
Feathers/dp/0131177052)
------
chrisbennet
I would try to talk to the contractors. As a contractor myself, the only
reason I would drop a client is if they stopped paying me. There might be a
reason they jumped ship....
------
ExpiredLink
Unprofessional company, unprofessional contractor.
~~~
greenyoda
Yes, unilaterally deciding to walk away from a development effort in the
middle sounds like it could be a breach of contract (assuming that there was a
reasonably written contract).
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Sorry, Linux. Kubernetes is now the OS that matters - mpweiher
https://www.infoworld.com/article/3322120/kubernetes/sorry-linux-kubernetes-is-now-the-os-that-matters.html
======
true_tuna
Wat. Kubernetes is not an OS. It’s an orchestration system. It orchestrates
docker containers which run... Linux. This article was vomited out by someone
without even the most basic understanding of what they are talking about. Or
maybe I am missing the joke? Is this a deliberately absurd article?
~~~
refulgentis
It's an somewhat provactive when stated that shortly as a thesis, but the
thrust is Kubernetes has significant more value as an _economic concern_, not
as a _system critical engineering component_ like the HN comments are taking
it.
With the evidence cited, it is a powerful argument
------
throwaway5250
Something tells me Linux guys/gals will still be the ones getting calls when
the Kubernetes instance explodes.
~~~
tech_tuna
Something tells me we'll all stop hearing about Kubernetes someday but we'll
still be talking about Linux.s
------
sneakernets
I'm impressed. This article reads like a successful troll post during the
golden era of Slashdot.
------
jammygit
Holy popups on that site. There was a thick "want more InfoWorld" banner in
the center of the page for most of the visit.
------
halfastack
I've seen this statement many times... But does Kubernetes run on hardware
natively? Of course not. Does Kubernetes not use containers, which in turn use
some kind of linux bootfs? Is Linux not more important than ever, since we now
put Kubernetes into OpenStack to spawn thousands of containers..?
"Kubernetes is the new $X" generates a lot of clicks I guess...
~~~
gyoza
Remember how Docker was the replacement of everything... 6 months ago? :)
~~~
sneakernets
People have been saying that since 2014 at the least. We're still waiting.
------
sideshowmel
Kubernetes and Serverless...no hardware required :D
~~~
buttholesurfer
It just runs in the clouds!!!
------
mangatmodi
This site is cancer, after clicking 5 popups, I was asked to sign in to read
the full article.
------
akitzmiller
Thank you all for giving this article the treatment it deserves.
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Fatal Tesla crash and battery pack issues for First Responders [video] - 6stringmerc
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UrT5MA_iTXs
======
dogma1138
Heh...
>Another important difference between batteries and gas is that emergency
workers (and anyone who's involved in the accident) can identify when the gas
is leaking out, it's also much easier to stop the gas from catching on fire as
wetting the vehicle or using other fire retardants will usually prevent the
gas from catching fire. On the other hand you can have an internally shorted
battery pack which can catch fire or explode at any moment and you would have
no clue that it can happen.
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11874737](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11874737)
------
jcpham
FWIW as a volunteer first responder, magnesium fires (that's what the dash is
made from these days in most of your vehicles, electric or non) are extremely
dangerous to spray water on. It goes boom, it shoots sparks, it's frightening
to witness.
I'd recommend a dry fire extinguisher or potentially a foaming agent, but the
last thing you want to do if you value your life is send burning white hot
magnesium embers flying with a high pressure water hose.
Tesla's mileage must vary obviously or they've never sprayed water on a
magnesium fire.
------
serg_chernata
The cars were given a really high safety rating. That makes me assume that the
speed and severity of this collision far exceeded those used in testing. If
that's the case, nothing can save your life in that situation.
~~~
shawn-butler
I think the point of the story is that the response is delayed by the
increased complexity of containing a fire in an ev-crash compared to that of a
ice-crash.
Tesla maintains training guides for first responders:
[https://www.tesla.com/firstresponders](https://www.tesla.com/firstresponders)
~~~
6stringmerc
Yeah I look at it more as a learning opportunity. Nothing inherently wrong
with something having a catastrophic failure by way of user error, I mean,
speaking from a safety expectations standpoint.
I think helping more departments get educated on protocols will continue to
benefit EV adoption. Not just Tesla.
------
bArray
Could replace the batteries with fuel and we'd have the same story, I've seen
some horrific car fires from conventional combustion engines.
You're always driving around with a lot of energy - when it all gets released
at once people die.
~~~
admax88q
> I've seen some horrific car fires from conventional combustion engines.
Yay anecdotes! The real question is whether or not battery fires are harder to
put out than gasoline fires.
The current recommended practice for a lithium ion battery fire is to let the
fire burn itself out...
~~~
Declanomous
That's all well and good if the fire takes place on a normal road, but that
seems extremely dangerous if the fire takes place in a tunnel or on/under a
bridge. Are we going to need autonomous vehicles to drag burning cars out of
tunnels so they don't cause structural damage?
Not trying to knock electric cars, I'm a huge proponent of them, I just am not
a fan of hand-waving about safety. Vehicles are probably the most destructive
thing most people own. You can literally cause tens of millions of dollars in
damage with a car merely through negligence. Pretty hard to do that with
anything else normal people have access to.
~~~
bArray
>Are we going to need autonomous vehicles to drag burning cars out of tunnels
so they don't cause structural damage?
Even then, I imagine a lot of damage being done extremely quickly. I think the
way forward is with damage limitation when crashes eventually happen.
>Vehicles are probably the most destructive thing most people own. You can
literally cause tens of millions of dollars in damage with a car merely
through negligence. Pretty hard to do that with anything else normal people
have access to.
Ever seen an old person forget they left the gas cooker on? But sure, with
great power comes great responsibility. I can see automotive law becoming
stricter as a result given the damage that can be done.
------
michaelgrafl
Can a firefighter explain to me how this crash would have been different if it
had happened in a Maserati? Because otherwise there is no story here, except
that weird, horrible accidents now happen with electric cars, too.
~~~
JoeAltmaier
Isn't it because LiOn batteries have their oxidizer in them? So its like jet
fuel or something - fuel and liquid oxygen mixed can't be 'put out'. Neither
can battery fires. They have to burn to exhaustion.
~~~
Retric
You can just use water to extinguish LiOn fires.
[http://batteryuniversity.com/learn/article/safety_concerns_w...](http://batteryuniversity.com/learn/article/safety_concerns_with_li_ion)
"Lithium-ion batteries contain little lithium metal and in case of a fire they
can be dowsed with water. Only lithium-metal batteries require a Class D fire
extinguisher."
~~~
JoeAltmaier
Firefighters say in no uncertain terms that water should never be used. Also
this site claims only foam extinguishers should be used:
[http://venturaaerospace.com/news/suppressing-lithium-ion-
bat...](http://venturaaerospace.com/news/suppressing-lithium-ion-battery-
fires/)
~~~
bmh_ca
From Tessla's first-responder guide:
> If the high voltage battery catches fire, is exposed to high heat, or is
> bent, twisted, cracked, or breached in any way, use large amounts of water
> to cool the battery. DO NOT extinguish with a small amount of water. Always
> establish or request an additional water supply.
~~~
JoeAltmaier
'large amounts' is probably an effort to cool the rest of the pack and prevent
the fire spreading. Not a way to actually put out the cells already on fire?
~~~
Retric
Remove enough heat and fires stop. The geometry of battery packs may make this
difficult, but at a minimum it can prevent secondary fires.
PS: However, simply letting a wretched car burn is generally safe and the car
is already totaled so there is little reason to mess with it.
------
jstx
Seems strange that there is no mention of the purported significance of the
passengers. Were they never confirmed?
[http://www.theindychannel.com/news/local-news/2-killed-in-
fi...](http://www.theindychannel.com/news/local-news/2-killed-in-fiery-crash-
near-downtown-indy)
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
What to create for a novice back end programmer? - SuperDe
Perhaps the question is not the topic of what to create for a novice backend programmer?
What would you take to work and pump skills?
======
duiker101
Think of something you do lately. Think of a problem you have with it and
about how you can fix it. Then create something to fix it.
Example: Situation: You are playing every week some sport with your friends.
Problem: No one can easily agree on a date/time. Solution: Create a little web
app where you friends can vote on times.
~~~
SuperDe
HM interesting. I mainly created applications such as 24memes.com or todolist)
~~~
duiker101
Working on a problem that you have yourself will give more motivation and it
will be more clear what the requirements are. You can follow some generic
example or the classic todo list but their scope are limited and wont expose
you to "real world" problems as much.
~~~
SuperDe
There was an idea to create a platform where people could write about solving
global problems. People would offer solutions to problems or discuss
contemporary problems in the world.
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Dig this OIDC Primer I wrote – feedback welcome - afitnerd
https://developer.okta.com/blog/2017/07/25/oidc-primer-part-1
======
chayesfss
Awesome stuff
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Using select(2) the right way - aivarsk
http://aivarsk.github.io/2017/04/06/select/
======
ts4z
I have worked on servers that had this problem with select(2). poll was better
but kqueue was much much better (from near-100% utilization with a few
thousand open fds to < 1% cpu utilization; please forgive the vague numbers,
it was 7 years ago at a company that I no longer work for).
If you're using nonblocking I/O, or threads, select can become the bottleneck
with a few thousand interesting connections at sizes that are much less than
the FD_SETSIZE max.
The user-space CPU utilization should be near-0 since this is really a kernel
I/O problem; the fact that it is much higher is an indication that a lot of
wasted user space work is being done.
Select, by design, has a flaw: the kernel must scan the bitmask for the
highest-numbered fd passed in, even if there is little change in the fd_set
bitmask (as is usually the case). This means incurring a cost if any fd in the
set has a high fd number. The fd on which you accept probably has a low
number, but your client I/O fds will have increasing numbers as the server
gets greater and greater utilization.
kqueue (and epoll, but I haven't used it) resolve this problem nicely. Only
things that change state must be communicated. poll is better than select in
this respect if the array is sparse, but if a large number of fds are
interesting, it will also get expensive.
~~~
aivarsk
What you wrote about the design flaws of select is correct but a feed set with
10,000 sockets is just 1250 bytes or 157 longs and hardware is very good at
sequential memory access. I agree it will be slower than kqueue or epoll for
long-lived connections because there is more work to do for the kernel and
application but for many applications select is good enough when used
correctly.
I have my doubts about select causing 100% cpu utilization, I suspect you were
doing other suboptimal things as well. The sample code I wrote is running well
with both 100 and 10,000 connections. I have my own anecdotal evidence where
application was barely handling just 100 mostly inactive connections and OPS
guys suggested limits of just 50 connections per application. After I fixed
how feed sets were created and how the result of select was processed the same
application was running just fine with 8,000 connections. We had to support
Linux, Solaris, AIX and HP-UX at that time and select/poll were available on
all of them. That's why I invested time in optimizing the code instead of
switching to epoll. OPS guys still suggested limit of 1,000 connections per
application but this time it was for availability and other non-performance
reasons.
~~~
joosters
In my experience, there's definitely a point where poll() beats select() when
handling lots of connections, long-lived or short-lived. But at that point you
are much better off moving to epoll() or kqueue() depending upon the OS. And
if you support those syscalls, there's little point falling back to select().
For most people, if your program is handling 10s or 100s of concurrent
connections, select() should be just fine.
If you are going to be handling more, it's worthwhile looking into the other
syscalls to improve performance. In any case, I'd recommend abstracting away
the event handling so that you can switch between different syscalls and can
use benchmarking to try to replicate the traffic you want to handle. There's
lots of libraries that will do this work for you, unless you need to get into
the low-level stuff.
Trying to judge the syscall performance based on reasoning about amount of
data transferred between your program and the OS, number of syscalls etc, is
very difficult. You are much better off measuring the actual behaviour. For
example, epoll() seems like a terribly designed API to me as it involves
making many syscalls (whereas kqueue() is just one per loop). However, I found
epoll() was very high performance. I guess the cost of syscalls on Linux can
be very low in some cases.
~~~
valarauca1
systems calls on linux that deal with per-process state try very hard to not
invalidate userland memory mappings.
The kernels _real_ range and userland's _virtual_ range won't overlap so for a
lot of functions kernel memory just has to mapped/unmapped on call, not
invalidate _all_ userland bindings.
Well okay they will overlap. So yeah your mappings may get invalidated but for
synchronized higher performance systems calls they _shouldnt_.
This lets them be in the 10's to 100's of nano-seconds.
Normally the most _expensive_ part of a linux syscall is the TLB misses after
one.
\---
Your model of memory transfer size assumes data is being copied.
The Linux kernel has a lot of features to let userland, devices, and itself
all share the same memory copy free.
~~~
koverstreet
This is wrong.
Kernel address space and userspace address space don't overlap at all. There's
zero mucking with memory mappings, TLB etc. on syscall.
------
hawkinsw
I've written lots of servers in C and found this article quite interesting.
The techniques that the author presents are new to me and I know that I will
take them into consideration when I write a server in C the next time.
More importantly, they are techniques that I think library writers should use.
My uneducated guess is that the underlying implementations of servers in
Node.js and Iron, etc, could be improved with these ideas, even though they
might not be directly applicable since those servers are written in different
languages.
I can't vouch for the results, but the author's experiments seem conclusive.
~~~
DSMan195276
His allocating an fd_set to an arbitrary size is somewhat iffy standards wise,
but if it works it works - especially for a solution for specific OSs like
Linux, where this won't be broken in the future. On that note, it is worth
wondering how expensive the copying is, but I would wager he is right in that
the copying isn't actually that expensive - it's only an 8K buffer.
Also, when creating an array that is indexed by fd, if you want to only use
the memory you need instead of creating an extremely large array for the max
fd of the system you can just allocate the memory using `mmap`. Systems like
Linux won't actually allocate all the memory right when you do the `mmap`,
instead it will map in a zero-page in each spot. When you write to it, the
kernel will automatically allocate a page to back that memory. When you
combine that with the kernel always selecting the lowest fd, it means that the
memory backing your array will only grow to be as large as needed for the
maximum number of fd's you use. (Note: It's likely that such a large array
would be allocated via `mmap` in it's own spot by malloc/calloc anyway, but
using `mmap` ensures you get the functionality you intended.)
------
kelnos
The thing that really resonated for me in this article was the point that for
most of us, the performance of select() or accept() really doesn't matter,
because any time spent there is easily dwarfed by application logic, database
lookups, queries to other services, etc.
You only really need to care about this if you're working on something mainly
concerned with the connections themselves, like HAProxy.
~~~
morecoffee
The right way to think about these kind of things is in terms of
responsiveness. For example, when I think of any request intiated by a user,
there is a ~200ms budget of time to service that request. If you can shave off
a couple hundred micro seconds, those can be spent on returning a better
answer.
Everyone has a piece to contribute to servicing user requests, and every
should be mindful how much of the budget they consume. Using select (or epoll)
more efficiently makes everyone elses job easier. It is important for everyone
in the pipeline to think this way, you included. The user experience depends
on it.
~~~
astrobe_
In a nutshell: performance still matters because your program isn't the only
one running on the computer.
------
Matthias247
Regarding this:
> epoll uses system calls (“slow”) to add or remove descriptor to the set.
> select does the same thing in userspace. If you have to add and remove many
> descriptors per iteration which is typical for short-lived connections then
> select might be more efficient.
I would have estimated that on a select system call the kernel needs to
internally attach some kind of event listener for each passed FD and uninstall
it before the system call returns. Which means select is interally a sequence
of "iterate over all FDs, check if an event is available and if not install
listener", "wait at least one event to happen" and finally "uinstall all
listeners". While epoll requires only "wait for at least one event to be
available and then iterate over the FDs and record all available events". So I
would guess that while epoll requires more syscalls for setup it should be a
lot more efficient if a FD is polled more than once. With edge triggering most
of the registration/unregistration calls can also be avoided.
Or do kernels have special optimizations that make select internally more
efficient than I described? Maybe some memoization of former used pollsets?
~~~
aivarsk
[http://pod.tst.eu/http://cvs.schmorp.de/libev/ev.pod](http://pod.tst.eu/http://cvs.schmorp.de/libev/ev.pod)
and search for "EVBACKEND_EPOLL (value 4, Linux)" to read how much fun epoll
is :-D
~~~
masklinn
Or read this: [https://idea.popcount.org/2017-02-20-epoll-is-
fundamentally-...](https://idea.popcount.org/2017-02-20-epoll-is-
fundamentally-broken-12/)
------
loeg
A lot of the advice seems misguided, if not wrong. Rather than optimize around
the limitations of select(2), I'd suggest using different APIs instead.
For example:
> Literature ussually says that fd_set is limited to 1024 descriptors but some
> mention that you can increase that by defining FD_SETSIZE to a larger
> number.
If you just need a one off tool for a few descriptors, why not just use
poll(2) instead? No problems with high fd numbers, and the API is quite
simple.
> To find out which sockets have events some loop through data structures and
> check each socket they contain. But a much better way is to iterate through
> fd_set as array of long and check 32-64 bits at a time.
If you've reached the point at which this trade-off matters, you're better off
switching to a socket API that scales well (epoll or kevent) and does this
filtering for you. Or like another commenter suggested, using a library that
abstracts this functionality.
> select modifies descriptor sets passed in. A common mistake is to create
> descriptor set from zero before calling select by looping through data
> structures and adding all sockets they contain. I’ve seen that to take huge
> amount of time due to locking and synchronization between threads. The
> correct way is to maintain a descriptor set all the time and create a copy
> of it and pass the copy to select.
Again -- if you've reached the point where this tradeoff matters, just go
directly to epoll/kevent.
> Most programs will need to store some state associated with the socket. Map
> seems to be a good choice at first but you should use an array indexed by
> socket (it’s an int). The POSIX API says that kernel always has to use the
> lowest unused file descriptor when creating a new one. So the array will be
> as big as many connections your program handles and kernel will take care of
> finding a free slot in your array.
Maybe your program deals with non-socket fds, and the set of socket fds is
fairly sparse. Using a map is actually pretty reasonable even if fds are
dense.
~~~
aivarsk
I probably should have started by telling it was years ago when applications
had to work on OSes other than Linux and BSD (AIX, HP-UX, Solaris). Today it's
libev or Boost.Asio.
> why not just use poll(2) instead?
Because as I mentioned later poll basically is the same as select but requires
more memory to be copied to/from kernel and was slower in some test cases
although I can come up with cases where poll will be faster than select.
Networking libraries like libev and others allocate fd_set the same way.
>> To find out which sockets have events some loop through data structures and
check each socket they contain. But a much better way is to iterate through
fd_set as array of long and check 32-64 bits at a time.
> you're better off switching to a socket API that scales well (epoll or
> kevent) and does this filtering for you. Or like another commenter
> suggested, using a library that abstracts this functionality.
That's how kernel, libev and others work with fd_set.
>> The correct way is to maintain a descriptor set all the time and create a
copy of it and pass the copy to select.
> Again -- if you've reached the point where this tradeoff matters, just go
> directly to epoll/kevent.
Again -- libev and others do this
> Maybe your program deals with non-socket fds, and the set of socket fds is
> fairly sparse. Using a map is actually pretty reasonable even if fds are
> dense.
Yes, there might be cases where you have non-sockets and you can't use array
indexed by socket. But it's great in most of the cases and kernel will keep it
as dense as possible. It might be that you have 10,001 connections and then
10,000 are closed and highest socket is still in use and array memory is
wasted. But it will not require more memory than during peaks.
libev use of select:
[http://cvs.schmorp.de/libev/ev_select.c?revision=1.56](http://cvs.schmorp.de/libev/ev_select.c?revision=1.56)
------
adynatos
unsigned long *wfds = (unsigned long *)wfds_out;
Unless fd_set has the same or stricter alignment requirements as unsigned
long, and fd_set and unsigned long are compatible effective types, this line
of code provokes undefined behaviour twice (breaks strict alignment and breaks
effective type access).
~~~
beeforpork
In this case, it is most probably OK, because wfds_out comes from calloc(),
which uses the largest possible alignment to work for any type (it returns
void* and cannot know which types are inside the allocated memory, so it needs
to assume the max on the architecture).
------
t5e
Another problem with select() is that trying to use a file descriptor above
FD_SETSIZE in FD_SET() and the likes will actually result in overwriting the
stack and will cause random segfaults in other areas of code. Note that
sockets aren't the only thing using up file descriptors and it is quite easy
to run into this issue. The solution is to use poll() as essentially a drop in
replacement. Strangely the winsock version of select() acts more like poll and
instead of a bitmask based on socket fds, uses an array of sockets so you can
actually use a number of sockets up to FD_SETSIZE regardless of their file
descriptor.
------
dorianm
Btw "ussually" instead of usually
------
known
Does Apache web server use this trick?
~~~
dfox
In general it cannot, because it does not do asynchronous IO on "sane"
platforms. (what it does/did on Netware might pass for async IO)
------
styfle
It took me a few seconds to realize this article is _not_ about select2[0],
the javascript library.
[0]: [https://select2.github.io/](https://select2.github.io/)
------
peterwwillis
The correct way to use select() is not to use it. You should instead use a
library designed to do at a high level whatever it was you were going to use
select() for. This library will then (hopefully) figure out what your
application needs as efficiently as it can, rather than you having to spend a
week researching how modern operating systems work to finally learn that you
should have been using a library to do what you were about to try to reinvent.
~~~
linkregister
Are there really no applications for using low-level async I/O APIs/syscalls?
Embedded systems? Game servers? Proxies? Software routers? Hidden command &
control servers?
~~~
MrBuddyCasino
For embedded systems, LWIP has a socket API that supports select(). Try
finding an event library for that one! I had to roll my own, and I learned
quite a bit in the process.
~~~
Matthias247
Actually if you use the low-level LWIP (sometimes called Raw API) instead of
the socket API it will be actually event-driven (singlethreaded, callback-
driven, etc.) by design. The socket abstraction layer on top of it then
provides blocking APIs and multithreading support - with the cost of a lower
performance.
~~~
MrBuddyCasino
I'm planning to eventually migrate to the netconn API, but was deterred by a
lack of documentation. Do you know of any sources? This doesn't help much:
[http://www.nongnu.org/lwip/2_0_x/index.html](http://www.nongnu.org/lwip/2_0_x/index.html)
~~~
Matthias247
I also had quite some hard time with the lack of documentation for LWIP. The
only other source that I found was the Wiki which is also linked there:
[http://lwip.wikia.com/wiki/LwIP_Wiki](http://lwip.wikia.com/wiki/LwIP_Wiki)
But I still had to figure out lots of things from the actual code.
~~~
MrBuddyCasino
Rats. I had a feeling you'd say that, thanks!
~~~
Matthias247
I found something more in my work bookmarks:
[http://www.atmel.com/Images/Atmel-42233-Using-the-lwIP-
Netwo...](http://www.atmel.com/Images/Atmel-42233-Using-the-lwIP-Network-
Stack_AP-Note_AT04055.pdf)
Maybe it also has some extra information which can help.
~~~
MrBuddyCasino
Thanks!
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
MapKnitter can make maps from any image source - URfejk
https://mapknitter.org/
======
MichaelZuo
I wonder what the hosting costs of mapping is. The site says the average map
has 24 cm/pixel resolution, assuming a 100 000 x 100 000 pixel average
‘knitted’ map that would be 10 gigapixels per map. With 100 000 maps that
would be a petapixel of maps. If it’s losslessly compressed, which I doubt,
that could be as much as 1.5 petabytes. Probably less, though.
------
OmarShehata
This is cool because there's already a lot of tools to do this for images from
drone/satellite which are georeferenced.
This just gives you a nice interface so you can position/stretch the image on
a 2D map even without that metadata. Seems to be a manual process.
------
Waterluvian
Orthorectification was my second favourite geography “puzzle” in undergrad.
I’m delighted to see some handy tooling to do it from the browser. It’s so
empowering to be able to register public participation remote sensing data to
a map frame.
------
neutronman
Thought this was going to be a map of knit shops when I read the name. First
thing I remembered was once stumbling upon
[http://www.needletravel.com](http://www.needletravel.com)
This is far cooler.
------
m1sta_
This has the potential to be very impactful.
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Ask HN: The cost of incorporating and drafting safe notes, $15k? - somid3
Hello,<p>We have an early startup and we need to incorporate as a C-corp and draft safe notes to raise a sum of $1M in funding. We came across a law firm that is willing to defer payments but they say all of that will cost some $15k.<p>Does anyone know how much it costs to create an investors-ready C-Corp and draft a safe note?
======
davismwfl
Assuming a delaware corp and foreign registration in your home state, just say
roughly $1,000-$1,500 if going through an attorney for that part. Stripe has
Atlas which I think does most of that for $500, but I don't think includes
some of the state fees, so probably a little more.
The SAFE note, should be able to be taken to an attorney and have needed
details filled in and revised based on your specific situation. I would expect
that to be less than $2k in general. That would be roughly 6-10 hrs of
attorney/paralegal time generally which seems adequate to make modifications.
$15k seems high to me for just incorporating and modifying the SAFE note.
However, $15k in legal fees to raise $1M doesn't seem totally out of line.
e.g. closing documents, due diligence support etc.
Make sure you know what it is covering and not covering, because that makes a
huge difference in whether it is reasonable or not. Also your location makes a
huge impact on this as well as the law firms reputation and history of doing
this stuff.
~~~
somid3
This is great feedback, thank you!
------
jasonshen
That seems on the high side. Incorporating on Clerky is under $2k and I would
expect SAFE notes to be pretty easy to draft compared to even say a
Convertible Note which I would still imagine to be under $10k. Try to
negotiate.
------
rajacombinator
Lol! You can self incorporate for about 500 (plus ~500-1k/yr in taxes), and
the SAFE note is available free online just fill in the blanks yourself.
If you already have people willing to shell out $1M then I guess it’s no
biggie to waste 15k on a lawyer. Not sure what the market is like today but a
$1M raise used to be priced round material, seems a bit much for a SAFE.
If you don’t have the $1M yet, don’t waste your time and money.
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Standing Desk Do It Yourself (DIY) - couac
http://williamdurand.fr/2014/03/17/standing-desk-do-it-yourself/
======
trhaynes
The "Standdesk 2200" [1] is similar and seems easier to make, if you have
access to an IKEA.
[1] [http://iamnotaprogrammer.com/Ikea-Standing-desk-
for-22-dolla...](http://iamnotaprogrammer.com/Ikea-Standing-desk-
for-22-dollars.html)
~~~
a-priori
This is the setup I have -- specifically the wider setup shown in the bottom
row of pictures. Works great, been using it for about 8 months now full time.
But if you're going to try standing, please save your body and use an anti-
fatigue mat. It makes all the difference. I use two stacked on top of each
other.
------
henrik_w
I use a standing desk at work, but one that can be raised/lowered, which I
think is superior to a fixed one, since it is easy to adjust to a good height,
and also makes it easy to switch between sitting and standing. Yes, they cost
a bit, but not as much as some people think. Also, how much is your health
worth?
I had severe RSI problems several years ago, but managed to get it under
control, and I am now completely recovered. The most important step I took was
to start using a break program. I also switched to an ergonomic keyboard
(Goldtouch) and a pen-like mouse. Using a standing desk is also part of the
solution.
I've described my problems, and the solutions, in a blog post: "How I Beat
Repetitive Stress Injury" [http://henrikwarne.com/2012/02/18/how-i-beat-
rsi/](http://henrikwarne.com/2012/02/18/how-i-beat-rsi/)
~~~
michaelbuckbee
For my own RSI mitigation, I switched to a Magic Track Pad which I've found to
be far and way the best mouse substitute. I think this is just because your
hand doesn't have to grip anything and clicks don't have to depress a
mechanical switch (reducing the forces involved).
I mention this you said in your article you had switched to a Mac and I
thought you might want to give it a try.
~~~
henrik_w
Thanks for the tip! I have tried one briefly, but it felt a little weird for
me, but that's probably because it was new to me. But the Penclic is working
really well for me - the key thing for me is that I don't have to turn the
hand so the palm is down (at least not as much as with a regular mouse).
------
joeframbach
Use image thumbnails please! You're serving 22MB on every page load. On my dsl
connection, it took 110 seconds to load!
~~~
dhimes
I had the same problem, but it took 4.2 seconds for me to close the window.
I'll read about it here.
------
llllllllllll
My DIY standing desk is an 18" wooden coffee table with a plastic storage
container, the box my speakers came in, and the box my external monitor came
in. The storage container and one of the boxes act as a pedestal for my laptop
(which I removed the broken screen from a few months ago) and my speakers and
the other box hold up the external monitor. A spare t-shirt is placed under
the front or back of the base of the monitor depending on whether I want it
tilted up or down, and to what degree.
It's hardly stylish but functionally I couldn't ask for more.
Standing is nice precisely because it's slightly uncomfortable to do for
longer periods of time. It forces you to stretch, move around, and take
periodic breaks from staring into the screen.
------
casion
I tried a standing desk for a while and I loved it, however I had a fairly
major problem that I couldn't find a way around: I need to sit sometimes.
I was unable to find a stool that would allow me to continue using the
standing desk since I am 6'6". That means that in order to continue using the
desk on a stool, I need a stool that is ~6" taller than the best I could find.
Due to the fact that I do a heavy amount of audio work, I require some
equipment in front of my keyboard/mouse and the height and position of the
sets of speakers that I use is fairly important.
Does anyone have any ideas to deal with this?
edit: I love the solutions being suggested, but I don't have that much money
to spend on it unfortunately.
~~~
js2
Expensive but, motorized GeekDesk?
~~~
casion
That is quite cool, but you weren't joking about expensive!
------
beagle3
An overbed/hospital bedside table works wonderfully for that. I use a straight
one: [http://www.amazon.com/Invacare-Over-Bed-
Table/dp/B000QA0EHI](http://www.amazon.com/Invacare-Over-Bed-
Table/dp/B000QA0EHI) but there's also tilted ones:
[http://www.amazon.com/Hospital-Overbed-Over-Table-
Computer/d...](http://www.amazon.com/Hospital-Overbed-Over-Table-
Computer/dp/B000JWO7JE)
For $50/$60, you get an adjustable, rolling table. It's not the sturdiest ever
(e.g., I wouldn't put a monitor on it without gluing it somehow), but if
you're using a laptop, this thing is perfect.
~~~
couac
Thanks for the hint!
------
miles_matthias
I love the standing desk I installed in my home office. I got a corner desk
top from Ikea for ~$70, went to my local hardware store and talked to some
wall mounting experts, and a few drill holes later I have the best standing
desk ever.
Picture of full desk after initial install:
[https://www.dropbox.com/s/kr9wu01xshbjyku/2013-10-20%2010.04...](https://www.dropbox.com/s/kr9wu01xshbjyku/2013-10-20%2010.04.11.jpg)
Picture of typical setup during the day:
[https://www.dropbox.com/s/s5f1v18jet2blbu/2013-11-14%2010.10...](https://www.dropbox.com/s/s5f1v18jet2blbu/2013-11-14%2010.10.35.jpg)
~~~
miles_matthias
I should give my feedback too that after standing regularly, my back hurts a
lot if I sit more than a couple of hours.
------
jwillgoesfast
I Just had my 1 year anniversary of standing desk. It is great, although I do
sometimes get tired but I have a stool for that.
You can see my desk design here. It was acquired for very cheap: $1 counter
top from thrift store, $10 in 2x4's from lowes. and only 1 strategically
placed screw in the wall. I also have an anti-fatigue mat and a foot stool
that helps a lot.
pic:
[https://www.dropbox.com/s/e3zl8jxk7xeazsr/Screenshot%202014-...](https://www.dropbox.com/s/e3zl8jxk7xeazsr/Screenshot%202014-03-17%2009.53.34.png)
------
chromaton
Standing desks are pretty easy: you just need a shelf for the monitor and one
for the keyboard/mouse. But if you need to sit for some reason, it's a hassle.
I did a desk that can convert between sitting and standing for less than $200
and am satisfied with the results:
[http://planiverse.wordpress.com/2014/01/10/building-a-sit-
st...](http://planiverse.wordpress.com/2014/01/10/building-a-sit-stand-desk-
for-less-than-200/)
~~~
ClayM
In your video, it looked like when you raised it, the monitor's rotation was a
little off - was that just an illusion?
~~~
chromaton
Yes, the monitor is rotation locked with a set screw and there are no other
components in the Ergotron arm that rotate.
------
ozh
"Several reports have come out pointing out the dangers of sitting too long
(e.g. risk of obesity, diabetes, heart disease, a variety of cancers, and an
early death)."
That's such enormous BS. It's "lack of physical exercise", not "sitting".
Standing up and still all day long is NOT going to make you healthier.
Ask any hairdresser how their legs feel at the end of the day.
Sit. Just don't sit _all day long_.
------
uvee
I have had good success following this:
[http://blog.stackpop.com/post/47149734131/our-50-adjustable-...](http://blog.stackpop.com/post/47149734131/our-50-adjustable-
ikea-standing-desk)
Here's my desk:
[https://twitter.com/udaykverma/status/386164901929959424](https://twitter.com/udaykverma/status/386164901929959424)
~~~
couac
Nice!
------
ksar
For those of you looking for a quick fix - I've got a Furinno standing desk -
sturdy, ultra compact, super light and inexpensive.
[http://www.amazon.com/Furinno-Adjustable-Laptop-Desk-
Multifu...](http://www.amazon.com/Furinno-Adjustable-Laptop-Desk-
Multifuctional/dp/B004QXIFCC/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1395066973&sr=8-1&keywords=furinno+standing+desk)
------
fomb
It's an ergonomic disaster to use a laptop keyboard and laptop monitor like
that. Use a proper keyboard and a proper monitor at eye level.
~~~
couac
I know, I ordered a keyboard :-)
------
doctorfoo
I tried standing up to work for a few weeks once and found I just got a
_different_ kink in my back. I would still tend to slouch sideways when
standing, keeping most of my weight on one leg (almost like sitting on a
stool) and using the other as balance. I'm not sure what the solution is,
except maybe a treadmill desk, but that seems a little crazy.
~~~
cmurphycode
Have you ever had your legs measured by a physical therapist or equivalent? I
used to do the same thing. The problem is that resting on one leg tends to
push the hips out of alignment (it's easy to see in the mirror; the hipbones
won't make a line parallel to the ground).
For me, I would always get pain/numbness in my lower back on the side of my
taller leg. Putting a lift in the other shoe and being mindful to keep
straight helped to fix it. I had to be mindful (at least at first) because my
body was so used to slouching sideways that it would still try to default in
one way or another. I think that it's gotten better as the muscles re-learn
the necessary patterns to keep straight.
EDIT: BTW, I don't use a standing desk- I prefer to walk around a lot. Before
my PT visit, I would get pain within 15 minutes of standing!
------
denzen
See also this Grip Desk setup :
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ySEBqNAnyjk](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ySEBqNAnyjk)
(video is by Solarized’s theme author, Ethan Schoonover).
------
TruthSHIFT
I love the idea of a standing desk, but this design probably would cause my
neck and back to hurt. Since the monitor is so far back, I would be constantly
learning forward and tilting my neck down.
~~~
moron4hire
A standing desk should be built to match the height of the user. The top
monitor must be at eye level.
~~~
couac
Exactly, and that is why I first used cardboard to find the best dimensions.
------
mmgutz
Warning for all of those who are a little overweight and older. I forced
myself to use a standing desk after reading all the health benefits. The end
result was plantar fasciatis.
~~~
bryanlarsen
Were you using a good anti-fatigue mat?
------
jsherman76
I've been looking for the perfect standing desk for years now. These are great
examples, thank you!
------
skrebbel
Cool, and great idea. The tables look a lot like LACK from IKEA. I might try
this, too.
~~~
couac
Yep, they are pretty much the same. I just don't have an IKEA close to my
place (yet)...
------
sebbean
Jesus those images are massive
~~~
sebbean
hope he's not paying for that bandwidth
[http://cl.ly/image/3h1T1u3l0p39](http://cl.ly/image/3h1T1u3l0p39)
~~~
couac
Yeah... I reduced the image sizes..
------
moron4hire
I did this a couple of years ago. I would not suggest jumping 100% into using
a standing desk, but have a stool handy and it can be a great experience. I've
since moved out of the coworking space I was in and have everything home, so
I'm back to sitting, but I'd prefer to have a standing desk again. Just been
too lazy to build one.
I was pretty skeptical of standing desks when they first became all the rage
on LifeHacker, et. al. But these hipsters kept harping on dubious health
benefits and were missing the best part of the standing desk: it multiplies
your storage space on your desk! For a coworking space, this is a major win. I
ended up kicking off a "build vertical" craze in the space.
[http://moron4hire.tumblr.com/post/58110389840/last-year-i-
ha...](http://moron4hire.tumblr.com/post/58110389840/last-year-i-had-been-
using-a-standing-desk-this)
It took me just as long to draw everything as to build the standing desk. In
terms of a carpentry project, it's about as simple as they come; bird houses
are harder. Also, you kind of have to "figure it out as you go", because the
desk needs to be custom built to your measurements. As you can see in my
drawings, everything was designed around my eye-level height and my arm
length. This is a must, or you're just trading one posture problem for
another.
I eventually (not pictured) also built a "draft table" feature into the lower
desk top: removing the laptop, the desktop could be rotated into a slanted
position to have an ergonomic writing surface.
One thing to realize is that most people's shoes (even running sneakers) have
a significant heel-rise that will really screw up your standing posture and is
not conducive to standing all day. I had very significant lower back pain
until I started standing barefoot, wearing slippers, or standing on a slanted
platform I built to counter the heel-rise of my sneakers. I liked barefoot the
best, but the room I was in had a lot of sharps on the floor.
You won't be able to work all day. I could only get about 6 hours a day in
until I was just too exhausted to be able to think. However, I also found that
during that 6 hours I was incredibly energized and laser focused on work. I
never goofed off when I used my desk. I don't know why. But 6 hours was enough
to get work done.
After the first month of non-stop standing, it wasn't getting any easier. I
switched between standing and sitting on a stool (which I also built, which my
fellow coworkers have declared the most dangerous thing ever built in the
space, but has survived longer than many store-bought chairs) all day. I still
mostly stood, and only sat in the stool near the end of the day. It was also
useful for getting over that 6 hour hump so I could play LAN games with the
other people in the space at night.
I'm considering doing it again. Perhaps I'll get pre-fab foot stools or a step
ladder. Our condo is pretty small and I've spilt out over everywhere. Having a
standing desk would go a long way to keeping the peace with my wife in regards
to clutter :)
~~~
couac
Thank you for your precious feedback! I'll try to work standing up ~4/5 hours
a day, for a month. I'll see if it makes me either more productive or feel
better.
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Seesmic: Blogging the launch of a company - shayan
http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/6c6a3192-a2d5-11dc-81c4-0000779fd2ac.html
======
iamelgringo
I can't believe that he got press in the Financial Times after just 45 days.
He's developing buzz. It'll be interesting to see if he can carry that through
to developing software that people want to use.
------
sarosh
How is this different from savvy PR? E.g. how much of a competitive advantage
can you glean from just watching the videos? Just curious to hear other
people's take...
~~~
shayan
I think this is great PR... he is getting other people engaged and interested
... but at the same time, if you were a competitor or were coming up with
something very close to his product, then you could get ideas (but I would say
if you are ahead of him or have already launched something you have great
advantage otherwise it wont make too much difference)
it might even be to his advantage, by discouraging those that are just
starting to do something similar by showing how much ahead he is!!
~~~
yariv
Doing this gives him another advantage over competitors: he's getting feedback
from users that his competitors aren't. This lets him plan the next step
better than someone who's just copying his existing idea.
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
This startup can make you invisible to mosquitoes. But it's not stopping there - rachelp
http://www.techiatric.com/latest/2014/9/25/this-startup-can-make-you-invisible-to-mosquitoes#.VCXMZCtdU6c=
======
wlesieutre
Link is broken for me, try this:
[http://www.techiatric.com/latest/2014/9/25/xvm3tujxg82bsa063...](http://www.techiatric.com/latest/2014/9/25/xvm3tujxg82bsa063h7e688wsv52dv#.VCXUme8tAmA)
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Introduction to data science - felipellrocha
http://datascienc.es/spring-2011-course/
======
shaanwastaken
Anybody have a code for the vimeo lectures? Thanks for the post!
~~~
felipellrocha
Sorry. I forgot that detail. Lol. It's 'datascience'.
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Fitbit acquisition by Google is a major privacy risk, says EU - rvz
https://techcrunch.com/2020/02/20/google-gobbling-fitbit-is-a-major-privacy-risk-warns-eu-data-protection-advisor/
======
DyslexicAtheist
sale of fitbit devices should be banned in Europe.
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
The Audacity of the iBooks Author EULA - pooriaazimi
http://venomousporridge.com/post/16126436616/ibooks-author-eula-audacity
======
tstegart
I think this guy is wrong. He's mixing apples and oranges when it comes to who
owns what. Apple is requiring people who use its software to create an e-book
to give Apple a cut of the proceeds of the _Apple created e-book_. The author
still owns his or her content. If you want to sell your book, just don't sell
the form of the book made by Apple's software. You can still sell a PDF, for
example. Or you can sell your Word file. You can sell anything really. But if
you want to sell the nice design Apple lets you make, you have to give them
money.
I believe you can simultaneously sell an e-book in the iBookstore and sell a
non-Apple created e-book with the exact same content somewhere else. For
example, a word document turned into an e-book on Amazon. Just don't try and
sell your Apple created e-book on Amazon, that's all.
~~~
troymc
Indeed, there's a new ebook-production service (still in beta) named Vook
which aims to give authors the ability to produce ebooks in all the major
ebook formats, including EPUB, Amazon's formats, and now whatever Apple calls
their new iBooks 2 format. An author would use Vook's software, not Apple's,
so the iBooks Author EULA wouldn't apply. Smashwords offers a conversion
service similar to Vook's, and is much older. (Disclosure: I have no
association with Vook or Smashwords. I've just been researching the ebook
industry recently.)
Ref: [http://www.vook.com/blog/2012/01/ibooks-2-another-
opportunit...](http://www.vook.com/blog/2012/01/ibooks-2-another-opportunity-
headache/)
~~~
halostatue
iBooks 2 format is more or less ePub3, as I understand it. I could understand
it incorrectly.
I can also speak fairly highly of the leanpub team's process. My wife and I
are finding it less than perfect for our needs in producing a fiction book
with both ebook and print-ready book needs, but appreciate the directness and
promptness with which both Scott & Peter have been responding to us when we
are raising issues with what we're seeing.
Better yet, their conversion is free with no commitment to sell your book on
leanpub required. I'd happily _pay_ for what they're providing for free
because it's so damned easy.
------
ryanwhitney
I'm not seeing why this is so unreasonable, if someone could fill me in.
The program is for creating iBooks, not eBooks, to be sold through their
iBookstore. I'm seeing these more as apps than something like .ePub files or
.PDFs.
Unlike apps though, which require an developer license to load yourself,
Author gives anyone the ability to run these books on your iPad. It also gives
anyone the ability to distribute an iBook _outside_ the iBookstore.
Since licensing every person who wanted to create an iBook would be a pain in
the ass for Apple and a barrier to creation, this seems to be the next good
option.
It prevents anyone from creating their own iBook marketplace (reasonable) and
profiting off of a software that Apple is giving away for free, under the
agreement that products of it are sold though their marketplace. No?
~~~
nchuhoai
"It also gives anyone the ability to distribute an iBook outside the
iBookstore."
That is exactly what the author complains about, you cannot distribute an
iBook outside the store:
"if your Work is provided for a fee (including as part of any subscription-
based product or service), you may only distribute the Work through Apple and
such distribution is subject to the following limitations and conditions"
~~~
Someone
IANAL, but an obvious workaround is to sell the eBook version and add an iBook
version for free with every order.
Problem with that approach is that receivers of the iBook can distribute
copies at will.
~~~
jasomill
IANAL either, but Apple's lawyers _are_ lawyers, so rest assured that they've
thought about this, as well.
I suspect the answer is this: you're free to sell the e-book version for a fee
and give away the iBooks version: this just makes the iPad a more attractive
product and undercuts your own e-book sales. This is probably a stupid move on
your part, but that's hardly Apple's problem.
But giving away the iBooks version _only to purchasers of the e-book version_
is equivalent to the iBooks version being a "feature" of the (non-free) e-book
version, which is quite different than "giving away the iBooks version". This
would also apply to giving away the iBooks version, but only to members of my
fee-based "book club", subscribers to my fee-based newsletter, and so on.
Otherwise, what stops textbook publishers from selling non-iBooks "teachers'
editions" for $10,000, then giving away copies of the iBooks versions to
students enrolled in courses taught by holders of teachers' editions, then
passing the $10,000 cost on to students by way of "enrollment fees" or tuition
hikes, offset by the fact that "textbooks are now free"?
------
alexqgb
If the cost of using the software is giving up clear title to your work, then
it's a very high cost indeed. A deal that big needs to be advertised - boldly
- up front, not buried in the ELUA, then popping up _after_ you've committed
time and effort to a work.
I can understand them saying that wanting to use the Apple store means giving
them the same 30% cut that they charge for in-app subscriptions, and demanding
that you adjust your prices on all other platforms to remain competitive.
That's hardball, to be sure, but it respects the integrity of ownership.
This, on the other hand, is the same pattern that gets people hauled in on
anti-trust charges. They're not a monopoly (yet), but I have a hard time
seeing how this extraordinary claim of ownership in the work of others is
anything less than the type of platform-abuse the anti-trust law specifically
bans.
------
cjoh
Can someone explain this a bit better to me?
Let's say I write a book called "My Awesome Comments from HackerNews,
Unabridged" (MACFHU) using Microsoft Word.
And I send that to my publisher, retaining all rights to publish the book
still.
Then I adapt MACFHU for iBooks using the iBook Author tool. Would I then be
prohibited from selling my book in the iBookstore because it's already
available in hardcover? If I published it first in iBookstore, would my
publisher be prohibited from publishing it in hardcover?
Or does the iBooks EULA basically say: "This is a specialized tool that you
should use to publish books on the iPad." You can certainly publish your
content on other platforms as well, but you'll need to format it using other
tools. Check out InDesign, for instance.
I need some clarification.
~~~
bradleyland
It is the latter. Only the output is restricted. The material belongs to you.
~~~
cjoh
So then what's the problem?
~~~
bradleyland
There appear to be two complaints:
1) Apple hasn't made clear enough that by using "iBooks Author", the only
distribution channel you can use is Apple (de facto in that you must pay them,
regardless of how you distribute).
2) There is disagreement that this is a good direction at all.
Point #1 is the one made by the author of the submission. With regard to point
#2, I feel that Apple should be free to do what they want with their platform.
I also feel that people should be free to openly disagree with them.
------
__david__
Initially I had an unfavorable opinion on this. But I started thinking about
game engines: When you use the Unreal or Unity game engine authoring tools,
you don't expect to be able to sell your game without giving the game engine
company a cut. It might be a flat rate, but that's basically the same thing.
Apple are providing authoring tools for their "iBooks 2" engine and are not
out of line expecting a cut of the profits...
~~~
arien
You are giving them a cut partly because your application will contain parts
of their source code. I think it's not a good/exact comparison.
I think the ownership is about the output format, not the contents itself, so
it could be better compared to InstallShield, for example. It is used to
package and easily distribute/install your Windows programs.
If it was free but they'd requested similar conditions to those in the iBooks
EULA (that you can only distribute it in their own channels, that they might
reject your program if they don't like it, etc.), would you still consider
them for distribution?
------
drcube
When is Microsoft going to get the bright idea to incorporate everything
anybody writes in Word or Visual Studio into their own IP portfolio? Or Adobe
appropriates the copyright of any image edited with Photoshop? Here's to the
crazy ones.
~~~
jasomill
Presumably when Microsoft starts giving away Word and makes Visual Studio a
compelling platform for cross-platform development?
In all honesty, given the iPad's share of the tablet market, making
unrestricted, high-quality, cross-platform interactive content development
tools available to iOS developers at no cost might provoke antitrust claims
from the likes of Adobe. But Adobe isn't likely to sell expensive digital
publishing software to authors of free books, and mainstream publishers are
unlikely to commit to "iPad exclusive" titles to avoid a few thousand dollars
in software licenses.
------
eob
There's another bit that nobody has brought up: no author ever ends up owning
the entirety of his or her work. If I write a book for Harper Collins, I am
not allowed to reproduce or distribute that content via any channel not
approved by them, and they give much worse than a 70/30 cut.
As hackers, we are debating these books as if they are software, but remember
that they are products at the intersection of two industries, and publishers
have had authors in restrictive and less-than-lucrative contracts for a long
time.
------
delackner
What lead us to this point in history where people whine and go on tantrums
about the injustice of being given powerful free tools produced at great
expense?
I think the root cause is the anti-piracy war, going on ever since the dawn of
the computer age. The endgame may be an angry backlash of anti-copyright
extremism gaining mainstream support. We may see a day soon when the voters
demand an end to all copyright. Who knows what the end result of that would
be.
------
wazoox
Hardly surprising coming from Apple. Gosh, that stinks nonetheless. On the
other hand, this probably would be nullified by any reasonable court, wouldn't
it?
------
aidenn0
I don't see how this is substantially different from EULAs that restrict usage
to non-commercial. It's basically "non-commercial, except" so you have
strictly more rights than with e.g. the non-commercial version of CadSoft
eagle.
------
pmr_
I recently thought a lot about the relationship between user input and program
output and what implications the transformations performed by the program have
on the copyright. Consider a heavy optimizing compiler: The program you feed
into it will often be entirely different in terms of execution, but not
result, from the user input. Some optimizations might even hide bugs that the
original program might have had. At what point would it be justified to
consider the program (or the creator thereof) to have some implied copyright
on the produced output. Do we need to consider the smartness of the applied
algorithms? Is it necessary for a program to be considered a true AI to hold
the copyright to something?
Anyway, I don't see how that applies to a pretty printer for books. A mere
tool is only that. I don't see why it should restrict my ability to
commercialize my product. If someone were to suggest that the producers of
pens, paper or canvas should have a say in how artists are to sell their works
people would just laugh at him.
~~~
wvenable
Actually, there is already precedent for these ideas in the copyright laws.
The creative work is the input and mechanical transformation is not something
that can be copyrighted in of itself. A compiler itself is a creative work.
But the mechanical process of compiling a file is not a creative work. It
seems pretty clear cut.
I imagine only true AI could hold the copyright to something -- and even than,
the laws may currently be limited to human creativity.
------
fleitz
Use iBooks Author to generate works for iBooks use another tool to generate
works for other media.
IANAL but I don't think they're saying that if you use iBooks Author to make
your work available for iBooks and use amazon's tools to make your work
available for Kindle that you'd owe Apple a cut of your Kindle revenue.
------
nchuhoai
I think the important thing to note is that the author is not complaining that
Apple wants a cut. The author is complaining that you have to do it through
the App Store. And in that regard, I do agree that this case is unprecedented,
that a EULA restricts the distribution channel.
------
petrovg
Don't use it then... Simple. Write your thing in what you like and sell it as
you like. Write it on paper even. And sell it. Or don't sell it, just give it
away for free and see how many people get your superior thinking and go
downloading you on a scale that will bring the Internet down...
You can get the payment, thats easy, you only take cash, there an ATM round
the corner. Distribution is easy too isn't it.
If someone is unhappy about it, you can handle the returns. Or, no, sorry, of
course you don't do returns. This is YOUR intellectual property - once they've
got it, they may have photocopied it, you don't want your work to go around
for free, do you.
In all fairness, you really don't need this - your website is already drawing
an enormous attention and everyone wants a cut of it....
------
Locke1689
You can certainly put anything you want in a EULA. Whether or not this is
enforceable is another matter. Has any court ever upheld this kind of
contract?
~~~
unavoidable
It would likely be enforceable unless the term is "unreasonable" or
"unconscionable"... although we certainly may not like it, I don't think it
would necessarily meet those thresholds in a court of law because there are
other alternatives to publishing using iBook.
<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ProCD_v._Zeidenberg>
[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Contract_of_adhesion#Contracts_...](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Contract_of_adhesion#Contracts_of_adhesion)
------
cjensen
In the Good Old Days, you had to pay a royalty to your compiler vendor when
you sold a copy of your own program.
So what Apple is doing is legal and has precedent. But it's stupid so I hope
and expect that they will fix this.
------
unsigner
How is this different than Microsoft giving away a version of their C++
compiler as part of the Xbox development kit which can only produce
executables that can be sold via Microsoft to people having Xboxes? The
comparison is favorable to Apple, as they allow free books, unlike the console
vendors.
In both cases, the platform vendor is giving away nice dev tools in order to
get more content to sale on his platform.
(read Microsoft as "Microsoft, Sony and Nintendo")
~~~
ConstantineXVI
> How is this different than Microsoft giving away a version of their C++
> compiler as part of the Xbox development kit which can only produce
> executables that can be sold via Microsoft to people having Xboxes?
You mean like this[1]? Applies to both Xbox and WinPhone. Apple also gives
away Xcode, but you can't make iOS apps outside of their dev program.
[1] <http://create.msdn.com/en-us/home/getting_started>
------
extension
Is Apple claiming this restriction applies to the _content_ of the book, or
just the output of their app? Can I transcribe my book into another program
and then sell it independently? What if the book is already written and
published and I'm transcribing it into an iBook?
And of course, if transcribing bypasses the restriction, then simply
converting the file to a different format must do the same, right?
------
jinushaun
Don't see the problem here. The app makes iBooks—not eBooks. The iBookstore
sells both iBooks and eBooks. Publishers can sell their book in iBook or eBook
format. If you want to sell iBooks which only works on iOS, you have to go
through the iBookstore. Nothing prevents them from selling eBooks instead.
------
ekianjo
Get an Apple typewriter. Write your Book. Once it's done Apple knocks on your
door, tells you that you have to sell their book in their store, and they will
take a cut from it. And if you are against that, you can't sell it at all.
So much for the 21st century progress and freedom to own what you create.
~~~
pieter
I like the similarity, but you have to make it more honest:
You're a writer, but don't have a good typewriter. Apple is willing to lend
you one for free. The only issue is that if you then want to sell your book,
you have to sell it through Apple's store. If you don't sell a single copy,
Apple won't charge you for the use of the typewriter. If you sell a lot of
copies, Apple gets a cut, both for the book being in their store (publicity)
and the use of their typewriter. You're still allowed to use different
typewriters, and you can even sell books written on a different typewriter in
Apple's store, though they'll still take a cut.
Doesn't sound terribly unreasonable to me
~~~
ekianjo
I did not see your comment until now.
The only part where i have a problem is the exclusivity. Apple may own the
typewriter but you own the words that you write. I think Apple may have a
ground to charge you for using their typewriter somehow, but restricting where
you decide to publish your work goes far, very far.
In the end, it's a matter of being in agreement with the contract. I doubt
anyone reasonable would accept such terms willingly - an author wants to
spread their works as much as possible, and not limit them to a single
marketplace.
------
shaggyfrog
Apple would be smart to change this ASAP. It's bad PR to have this kind of
problem present on your launch day. Not to mention a really bad clause to have
in the first place.
------
xaxa2000
why not just use vi, nano, writemonkey or even word for writing your book and
leave apple behind?
~~~
ryanwhitney
why not use dogpile to search the internet?
------
lelele
It's reasonable to ask for a cut on your software output, if the author is
giving it out for free. While should they give out their work for free to
people who are going to make money out of it?
Actually, asking for a cut could become a standard option for selling software
where you would offer at customer's choice:
\- GPL;
\- commercial license, paid upfront;
\- commercial license, paid by royalties.
That way, people who don't agree to the GPL, but still think your commercial
license is too expensive compared to their expected earnings would have a
further option: no gain, no pain.
As a side note, one of the reasons I prefer software which comes with standard
licenses (GPL, BSD, etc.) is that I know what those licenses say, and I can
click on "I agree" without worrying about the fine print. If the license text
differs in some way from its template, authors are explicit about that.
------
mkr-hn
Someone with legal expertise should go over this looking for something that's
less obviously harmful. I can't imagine Apple's legal team not realizing this
would come out.
~~~
unavoidable
That's the thing - they probably did look over it. The EULA clause may or may
not be bad business, but that doesn't make it unenforceable. There doesn't
look to be anything that is legally out of place here. By agreeing to use the
iBooks Author software you are agreeing to those terms - it's a contract.
That's been settled law for a while now.
The only reason it would be unenforceable is if the terms are unreasonable.
Unreasonable is pretty specifically defined in the common law, and it doesn't
just mean that you and I don't like it.
In this particular context you would probably have to prove that there is
economic duress, which might be a valid argument if Apple owned a monopoly on
all textbook producing software and electronic textbook sales - which as of
right now, they don't.
So barring something else more monstrous lurking in the EULA I'm not convinced
that anything can be done about it (in court).
------
rshm
More of a precursor to apple centered DRM for books i would say. And as always
apple using its market advantage on everything it touches.
~~~
gurkendoktor
The iBookstore has always used DRM. I can easily see how DRM is the most
economic options for eBooks right now - eBooks are more than $.99, so they
needed a barrier between the internet's vast reservoir of PDFs and owning a
pretty ePub file. (I still wouldn't buy DRM-ed books)
But the article is about _the authoring tool_ , and Apple was going to produce
it. So they had two primary options to protect their interests:
* Write an EULA and trust the law * Use DRM in _all output_ or otherwise proprietary formats (and implicitly trust the law as a backup)
I'm not saying we should be thankful for the EULA's wording, but for people
who hate DRM for practical reasons, this is probably the best realistic
outcome.
If you hate DRM for ethical reasons and think that all content should be free,
then be happy about a free tool and write content.
Only if you wish you could use Apple's tool to make money on another platform,
well you are out of luck.
> And as always apple using its market advantage
That must be a very limited 'always' :) I don't see how they abused the iPod's
market domination much. The iPad is the _only_ other product where they have
an advantage in numbers, but I am not sure if that extends to the iBookstore
at all.
~~~
gurkendoktor
> * Use DRM in all output or otherwise proprietary formats
Oh well, I just discovered iBooks Author does use a proprietary format, not
ePub. Then of course it is not as useful for authors of free content.
------
Nick_C
I think it stinks. But...
Give it to your wife/husband for free.
Wife sells it for whatever and however she wants. Apple have no comeback.
------
Firebrand
Isn't this sort of the same thing Amazon requires for their Kindle Direct
Publishing program?
------
nirvana
Over the years I've seen a large volume of creative software, often free, that
is used to produce output, that requires, as part of its license, that you
give the creator of the software a cut if you sell any of the things you make
with it.
This includes everything that is "free for non-commercial use", such as, if I
recall correctly, Blender (in the past), most of the Free Fonts out there, and
a lot of free software.
Edit to add: This means everything under the CC BY-NC-SA 3.0 license. There is
a huge amount of content distributed this way.
<http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/3.0/>
The iBooks Author Software is an Apple provided development tool specifically
for the purpose of creating iBooks for the iBookstore.
You can give your books away free in the iBookstore, and you can also, as you
note, output the results in a variety of formats not suitable for the
iBookstore. Those are a nice bonus.
Sometimes I get the impression that people think that everything should be
free, for any use, and that the people who create these free things should
have no right (or that its "audacious" to exercise some right) over what terms
on which they distribute these free tools they create. (Or maybe only the
"right" to distribute them on terms _you_ agree with.)
Apple is providing a free tool, and the restrictions that come with it are the
cost. Either the value of that tool to me exceeds the cost, or it doesn't.
(and the "glovebox" example is nonsense, the EULA is part of the Mac AppStore
sales process, you could read t before downloading the app.)
It is the same way with the Free Software Foundation. If they made a tool
called "ePub Author" and that tool-- especially if it included templates and
copyrighted imagery and other work, as iBooks Author does-- required you to
license any works created with the tool under the GPL, then I'd make the same
evaluation- is that restriction a cost that exceeds the value of the tool or
not?
If you don't like the EULA, feel free not to use iBooks Author and use
whatever tool you like that's value proposition is one you prefer. To rail
against Apple for providing this tool seems to imply that you feel they owe
you something.
Very often today we've seen Apple offer all kinds of new and innovative
things, and I've seen a content stream of comments along the lines of "these
are bad because apple profits from them". Of course Apple profits. We all
profit, though, because they changed the economics of the education situation.
If you want something different, create it.
We're not entitled to demand people to produce things for our benefit in ways
we dictate, at no possible benefit to themselves.
UPDATE:
Further points:
1\. iBooks produced by the iBook Author software contain with in them Apple
copyrighted code, both javascript and HTML, and thus are derivative works. It
is not just images and layout. Since every open source or GPL project imposes
restrictions on derivative software, it seems reasonable for Apple to do so as
well.
2\. Imagine if this product had been released to ONLY support iBooks in a
proprietary format. Apple released a tool last year called iAd producer. This
produced ads but only for the iAd network. It is completely proprietary.
Nobody complained.
Would those who think these terms are unreasonable have complained if Apple
_hadn't_ included the ability to output in a standard ePub format, and the
ability to distribute derivative works for free?
Is it really the case that making this tool more restrictive by limiting its
interoperability would have removed these complaints? If not, how can you
complain about Apple producing a tool to support their proprietary book
format? Is Apple required to make all software capable of supporting whatever
you want to do with it ? Should Xcode be require to produce Android apps?
~~~
dman
The exact analogy in FSF terms which you were careful to avoid is - An
executable created by a GPL compiler will have to be GPL licensed. This is
where your analogy breaks down because this is explicitly not the case.
~~~
eridius
If I remember correctly, the GPLv3 license prohibits creating DRM'd content.
Or more insidiously, a GPLv3-licensed compiler (e.g. recent GCC) cannot be
used to produce an executable that contains DRM code without being in
violation of the license, despite the fact that the executable itself is not
covered under the GPL.
Someone please correct me if I'm wrong. I'm not willing to wade into the sea
of legalese that is the GPLv3 right now just to verify this.
~~~
makomk
As far as I recall, the GPLv3 has two different anti-DRM restrictions, neither
of which does what you say it does. The first restriction is that if you
include GPLv3 code in certain kinds of consumer hardware and it accepts
firmware updates, you must give the end users any keys that are required to
install and run their own modified version of that code. The second
restriction is intended to exempt any DRM system based around GPLv3 code from
anti-circumvention laws. There's no restriction on compiler output that I'm
aware of.
------
drivebyacct2
For better or worse, why do people continue to be surprised when Apple does
these things? They make good stuff, their users don't care and developers
still flock to them. It's like raging at Adobe because Reader sucks, even
though plenty of decent, light-weight PDF readers exist.
If you don't like the EULA, don't agree to it and use something else.
~~~
tikhonj
Yes, you should _not_ use it. However, given that this is an odious practice,
you should also attempt to raise awareness: the more people know, the fewer
will run into it. This is exactly what this post is doing, and it is a good
thing.
~~~
drivebyacct2
Sorry, it wasn't so much a reaction to the content of the post as much as the
pseudo-"outrage" expressed by some here.
------
manmal
I say, let the consumers (=authors) decide - evolution happens through
disruption, and this surely is a disruption. If the authors fall for it, well,
they are ok with the consequences. If the thing really takes off and public
really cares and puts pressure on them, they will loosen the EULA, I'm sure.
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Energy harvesting chips: The next big thing for a connected world - WardPlunet
http://gigaom.com/2013/11/21/energy-harvesting-chips-the-next-big-thing-for-a-connected-world/
======
Ellipsis753
I really like the idea of these. Particularly the idea of getting energy from
radio waves or Wifi. Sadly it's really had to find much about how to make such
designs and the power that can be generated is really low (and hard to store).
There are some nice items for generating from heat and other small sources
(such as radio waves) but they're generally far too expensive for any
practical projects.
~~~
Retric
There is a lot of info out there on this stuff. I would suggest talking to an
EE as a friend of mine was all over this 10 years ago and I suspect the field
has only gotten more refined with time.
From what I recall, storage is often the key to making these things really
useful. Take say a temperature reading every minute store 60 of them and burst
that data once an hour and you need a lot less power than you might think.
Granted, that kind of lag is not so useful for critical operations, but for
say monitoring a bridge it's a good fit.
------
arbuge
I'll believe it when I see it. Energy harvesting chips were also the next big
thing when I finished grad school in chip design. That was back in 2000.
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Introducing SthgNw - bckmn
http://www.sthgnw.com/about
======
bckmn
The reasoning behind why I built this platform: <http://bckmn.com/releasing-
sthgnw/>
And it's official home page: <http://sthgnw.com>
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Ask HN: Do you take anti-depressants? - septerr
If you take anti-depressants, what has their biggest impact been on your life? Have they made you more productive? Have you experienced any drawbacks?<p>(I am considering seeing a doctor about depression. I am not sure if what I experience is really depression. I have been wondering, maybe I have never experienced 'normal' as other people do. I wonder if they will help me focus better and be more productive, esp. in my spare time.)
======
a3n
First, stop considering and see your doctor. Make an appointment now. You may
be treatable as depressed, or the two of you may conclude that some other
treatment is appropriate.
I'm in my late 50s. I've been taking an SSRI, generic Citalopram (Celexa) for
a few months.
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Citalopram](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Citalopram)
The biggest impact on my life may be that I'm still alive, that I no longer
want to or feel that I need to kill myself, that I no longer wake up every day
wondering if this should be the day. This was my life just a few months ago.
I wish I'd done something about this years ago.
More productive? Yeah, maybe. I was still functioning when I was untreated,
but I was miserable, and would obsess over any setback, real or constructed.
So I'm not doing that anymore, and so I'm probably spending more time
producing.
Possibly more productive in the sense that I bother trying to accomplish
things in my personal life that I previously discarded as impossible for me.
"That'll never work."
However, that's my story, not yours. We're all individuals, with our own genes
and experience and environment.
Drawbacks? No, not really. My libido is somewhat less distracting. Some people
report no libido, some no difference. If that becomes an issue you can consult
with your doctor and adjust things.
I'm not more energetic, I'm not more lazy. I am still exactly who I was
before. However, I'm certain that I'm more pleasant to be around. I think
often depression is perceived by others as someone generally being an asshole.
I used to very often find myself riding the trainwreck of an interaction, and
powerless to stop it.
Personally, my biggest fear was not being able to think if I took
antidepressants. If anything, I think better, because I don't waste my brain
on unproductive, irrational thinking. I'm not smarter, and I'm not stupider, I
just don't have as many obstacles as I used to.
Bottom line: you're not a doctor. You aren't going to a doctor to receive
antidepressants, you're going to treat your possible depression. That
treatment _may_ include antidepressants, and/or something else.
Go make your appointment.
------
MalcolmDiggs
I took Lexapro (Escitalopram) around 2010, for 6 months. It's an SSRI, like
Prozac, Zoloft or Paxil.
My experience was an "evening out" of my emotions. If my normal emotional
range was 1-10, Lexapro put me between 3 and 8 all the time. Gone were the 1's
and 2's (the very low/depressed feelings) but so were the 9's and 10's (the
elation / joy). Everything in my life was "okay". Not great, not terrible,
just okay.
I don't think it effected my productivity at all, one way or the other. The
only drawback I experienced (besides losing joy), was that it somehow screwed
up my ability to sense fullness/satiety, so I gained a bunch of weight.
If you think you might be depressed, definitely talk to a professional.
Remember (and this is key): the drugs don't actually solve anything. You're
still going to have to learn how to deal with whatever issues you have. The
drugs just stabilize you so that it's possible for that hard work to begin;
but that's really just the beginning of the journey. They're not a long term
solution.
------
atsaloli
I took anti-depressants for about a year, bridging my last year of college and
first year of work. The anti-depressants numbed me -- suppressed feeling sad
or glad. They covered up the problem (spiritual travail) without handling it.
Getting enough sleep, exercise, good diet and effective counseling (that had
me look at the source of the pain and discharge it) was more effective for me
than taking anti-depressants.
~~~
NumberCruncher
>> They covered up the problem without handling it.
Exactly. Taking anti-depressants lifelong for depression is like taking
painkiller lifelong for toothache. Unfortunately healing is not as profitable
as selling drugs. Because of this it can be really hard to find a doctor who
is interesed in healing you instead of in your money.
Edit: I forgot to write about the alternative solutions. Two of them are
discussed in the followig books:
\- A Guide to the Good Life: The Ancient Art of Stoic Joy by William B. Irvine
\- How I Found Freedom in an Unfree World by Harry Browne
~~~
ruraljuror
I think this view is dangerously close to further stigmatizing mental illness,
which is a big problem in the US. Or at least it's a really bad simile.
------
nathanasmith
I was on Prozac for a few months and while it did reduce anxiety, the effect
was fairly mild. The problem was that it _destroyed_ my sex drive. Even worse
because of the way it hammers down on emotional extremes, I even started
questioning my relationship with my girlfriend like I didn't care one way or
the other about her. I stopped using it and went back to depressed normalcy
within 3 weeks. That was when I decided to try cardio and dietary
improvements. After a month of that, I felt less depressed than ever and
haven't looked back.
------
ruraljuror
I hope some of the more informed comments here can help you start the process
of actively trying things to improve your life.
I do not believe I suffer from depression, but I was recently wondering
whether I might perhaps have attention-deficit disorder. It led me down a
similar line of questioning, and I realized that if I did have ADHD or
something similar, there might be a lot of stigma surrounding that illness and
the treatment. I think this stigma of mental illness is a huge problem in our
country.
To get to your point, according to Andrew Solomon's INCREDIBLE book about
depression _The Noonday Demon: An Atlas of Depression_ there are only two
things that have been proven to help with depression: medication and exercise.
I would also suggest that you talk to a psychologist, I have found it
incredibly helpful in my own life. They can also reflect very well on this
type of question.
Finally, if you are interested particularly in this question towards
developers the NodeUp podcast recently had an episode on developer mental
health:
[http://nodeup.com/eighty](http://nodeup.com/eighty)
------
tvm
I've been on several SSRI/SRNIs. These shitty drugs made everything only worse
to me (Paroxetine, Venlafaxine, Escital, etc.)
From top of my head: \- Constant diarrhea \- Heightened anxiety \- Trembling
hands \- Gastrointestinal problems \- Inability to concentrate \- Anorgasmia
I quit this junk at some point. I also quit my corporate job and forgot about
doctors. Exercise, cutting down stress, drinking tea and enjoying simple
things now. I feel like I'm living again. I spent whole day sitting at park
with book today, watching my daughter play and I'm very content.
It might sound like cliché, but that's how it works for me now.
Honestly, I regret that I've ever touched these silly pills.
From my current seasoned POV: depression is just a symptom that tells you that
you aren't doing something right in your personal life.
------
cweagans
It will change your life. Do it.
Identify the problems you want to solve, and then go to a Psychiatrist. Don't
go to some random doc in the box type place. You want somebody that really
understands brain chemistry.
~~~
a3n
Assuming that the problem is something treatable by that specialist.
I'd consider going to your primary care physician. It's good to have someone
who is concerned with and aware of your entire profile. If necessary he can
refer to an appropriate specialist.
------
Spoom
If you go on antidepressants, make sure you're open to trying different types.
They're not one size fits all and people can have horrible side effects from
one while another makes their life much better. Make sure you have a follow-up
scheduled with your doctor about a month into a new prescription. Good luck!
(Anecdotally, my experience was that SSRIs had bad side effects and a general
dulling of life, but Wellbutrin did much better. I've heard others report the
exact opposite though.)
------
joshmn
My cocktail: 100mg Pristiq, 70mg Vyvanse, 80mg Propranolol.
I don't think I need the Pristiq anymore. It was more for anxiety when I was
younger (16-20) and it's balanced itself out very well. The Propranolol,
however, is probably helping quite a bit as it slows things down.
Yes, you can argue that Vyvanse will speed things up, but it levels me out a
great degree — though, not along anxiety lines.
------
ukoms
septerr - if you feel down and thinking about antidepressants, you should go
to doctor. Not always it is needed to use antidepressants per se (this is very
wide definition). But only a psychiatrist can tell which is suited for your
condition.
I'm on antidepressants for over ten years. During that time I've been using
SSRIs and SNRI is what I take currently. Each of those have side effects - but
every one of them depends on individual conditions. In my case - my
productivity is lowered to the point I sometimes feel like I do only what I
have to do. Before I started - I wrote story a week, each day I made some new
scripts testing this or that. Currently - I struggle with writing stories, I
lost interest in solving intelectual puzzles. Well, I do draw a bit more than
I used to.
From my point of view - I dont shake with fear and panic every moment of the
day, but then again I dont create as many things I used to. Everyday cosyness
at the price of productivity/creativity.
------
ljw1001
if you're considering talking to Dr., you should follow through. Different
meds affect different people in different ways, so don't read too much into
what you're hearing here, but there's a good chance you and your MD can find
something that will improve things.
------
onedev
I personally take exercise and a healthy, balanced diet. It seems to work very
well.
~~~
a3n
Lucky that you (presumably, I'm no doctor) have the healthy neural circuitry
necessary to take advantage of those things.
------
ZeroGravitas
I've taken them a couple of times, an overall positive experience.
Definitely go see a doctor, just getting a pamphlet that totally described
what I was feeling made me feel better, as it became obvious that it's a
normal human thing.
I'd recommend exercise, sleep, spending time with friends/family and CBT as
good general solutions, I also like propanalol for dealing with anxiety.
As far as I could tell, the science is ambivalent on SSRIs, but I liked the
way they made me feel, and the daily pill was a reminder to myself to go easy
on myself as I was I'll.
------
cm2012
My wife does, and it's 100% necessary for her to be functional.
------
neverknowsbest
TLDR; be extremely cautious of anhedonia
I started on Bupropion (Wellbutrin) a few years ago because I was feeling low
+ irritable, and thought meds might have a positive impact. The general
groupthink at the time was that taking SS(n)RIs was a solid "not super
serious" option for tackling anxiety and depression... that you could just
"try it out". Initially I didn`t feel any difference. A little stomach upset,
but nothing especially positive or negative. People around me said they`d
noticed my mood was uplifted, so I thought "what the heck, may as well
continue on with it". Over the months I found myself slipping further and
further away from goals, connections, and general "get up and go". But because
I still experienced ups and downs (some days were still great, I wasn't
completely flat), I just thought I had to "make some positive life changes".
To put that in perspective, my life wasn't/isn't anything to complain about:
good friends, supportive family, understanding job with good pay, and I'm in
good health/fit and work out regularly. But it FELT like nothing was
"clicking", that everything I did was meaningless. It really felt like nothing
was ever enough, and I would become frustrated that there was no reward in
anything I liked doing. Small things could ruin an otherwise great day because
my bar was so low. It felt like I was running on empty, in regards to
fulfillment. I asked my doctor (who had superscribed me the Bupropion in the
first place) if it was safe for me to continue on with it. He said "there was
no harm", and suggested it was a benign drug. I took that to heart and
continued to believe that my issues with motivation were due to an
increasingly severe bout of depression or personal failing. It was only when I
confessed to my partner that I had difficulty finding reasons to continue on
with life that I started to consider it might not be ME/my brain causing the
issue. It wasn't just a bad day that would make me contemplate ending it
anymore, it was normal days, days which were nothing special. "Well, this is
unimpressive... may as well just end it" was becoming a very blasé everyday
thought, and yet I was so detached that I didn't think that was odd, and had
no hesitation revealing it. My partner was horrified, naturally, and started
looking up the side-effects of Bup. It'd been so long since I'd been on it,
that it wasn't an immediately obvious cause and effect, but that was
definitely the source of the anhedonia. Within two weeks of ceasing the meds,
I feel more and more connected to the world, finding everyday things
fulfilling again. It's no longer like scrabbling at little moments of joy: I
can actually just sit back and feel good, without a constant barrage of
interesting/pleasurable things. Looking back, it's obvious I was having
issues, but seeing them from within the very specific brand of null emotion
Bupropion created, was impossible. I can still clearly remember that feeling
of "everything is pointless" and thinking right after "I better just try
harder to find a point" rather than assessing that there might have been
something wrong. The fact I could still have really good days/fun times threw
me for a real loop. At any rate, that was rambly (side effect #2 = less sharp
cognitively, and I'm still regaining my acuity) but hopefully I got the
feeling across of losing yourself in the meds.
~~~
septerr
Thank you for this.
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
$250 Million For A 14-Year-Old's Big Idea: Origami Owl - edw519
http://smallbusiness.yahoo.com/advisor/250-million-14-olds-big-idea-origami-owl-185200844.html
======
iand
Wow, the comments are so heavy and downbeat on this story. There seem to be 2
main arguments:
Various people are saying it's a pyramid scheme and therefore a con. I don't
see it myself. A pyramid scheme generally doesn't have a physical product and
crucially requires a number of tiers recruiting new members. Origami Owl just
appears to be a straightforward direct sales model akin to Tupperware or
various cosmetics parties (e.g. Avon in UK). The reps buy stock, arrange the
parties and sell it. That seems to be entirely legit.
The second bone of contention is with the use of the word "designer" as a name
for the sales reps. Hardly the crime of the century. Tupperware call their
reps "consultants" but they don't charge consultancy rates. It's just in
keeping with the theme.
I think we should be celebrating this young woman's initiative in seeing a
market, finding a product that fits and building out the business.
~~~
roc
> _" Origami Owl just appears to be a straightforward direct sales model akin
> to Tupperware or various cosmetics parties (e.g. Avon in UK). The reps buy
> stock, arrange the parties and sell it. That seems to be entirely legit."_
"Multi-level marketing" is looked down upon as little better than pyramid
schemes/cons, even though people are aware they aren't, strictly speaking,
those things.
Quite a bit of the structure is heavily anti-consumer and even
anti-'consultant'. Incentives often flow up, from each particular direct
salesperson, to the people that recruited them, in a web of perverse
incentives that leave customers and reps alike with a bad taste. To say
nothing of the heavy leveraging of peer/social pressure to incent purchases by
a captive/low-information audience, beyond what they would likely buy on their
own.
> _" Tupperware call their reps "consultants""_
Most of these kinds of companies call their reps "consultants", because of
liability problems, should they go around presenting themselves as employees
or direct representatives of the companies whose goods they're selling. And
these consultants are repeatedly, explicitly admonished against presenting
themselves this way. The admonishments often try to pretty up the arrangement,
like you did, by making "consultant" seem like a desirable title, regardless
of the particulars of the relationship.
Which, in and of itself, is a fairly strong "smell" that the business (and the
relationship) isn't quite on the up-and-up.
EDIT: typos
~~~
efa
> _To say nothing of the heavy leveraging of peer /social pressure to incent
> purchases by a captive/low-information audience, beyond what they would
> likely buy on their own._
Yes, my wife if constantly invited to these "parties" were the host sells some
kitchen or personal products. She also feels she has to buy something even
though she doesn't need anything. Business built on guilt and social pressure.
~~~
infinite8s
Doesn't that drive most of consumption (at least the social pressure aspect)?
------
Nursie
_Origami Owl takes on independent associates – known as “designers” – who buy
products at a discount and then peddle them to others for a marked up price.
One of the favorite points of sale are “jewelry bars,” or private parties at
someone’s home or another venue operated by a “hostess” (the hostesses get
discounts and some free products too)._
Wait, hasn't this pyramid selling thing been done to death already?
\--edit-- I mean obviously not completely _to death_ because it seems to be
working here, but, well, you know what I mean :)
~~~
jerf
This smells bad to me. Even by Silicon Valley standards, that's way too much
growth, too quickly. This smells like some adult (or more likely, group of
adults) with a ready-and-waiting Pyramid scheme is using a 16-year-old girl as
their marketing story. I hope she comes out of this with something other than
millions of dollars of debt in her personal name or something.
Edit: I've been inspired to sign up for a Google Alert on "Origami Owl". I
shall test my nose for accuracy.
~~~
ryanjshaw
I don't see any evidence of a pyramid scheme here, which is unsustainable.
This model is similar to what, e.g. Miglio has used for decades
([http://www.miglio.com/](http://www.miglio.com/)). That being said, the
growth is suspicious when you consider there are established players.
It smells more like modified multi-level marketing scheme, which when you read
the following is not surprising, and fits your 16-year-old-as-marketing
theory:
"According to CEO Robin Crossman, employee numbers fluctuate tend to
fluctuate." ... "Crossman, who had previously acted as a consultant with the
company for several months early this year before becoming CEO in May, boasts
a resume that includes _Amway Global_..."
It sounds like the original business was a straightforward jewelry side
business, which ended up becoming something like an "Amway Jewelry" once
Crossman got involved.
~~~
jerf
Sorry, yes, I was sloppy with the term. I'll leave it as-is so your comment
makes sense.
------
danso
There's a lot of WTF going on in the OP, but I'd say the cake stealer is the
OP's offhand reference to the mom, who is Owl's co-founder, trying to help
exonerate her child-molesting friend who was using an email ruse later
popularized by General Petraeus
Here's the link from the OP:
[http://blogs.phoenixnewtimes.com/valleyfever/2011/11/susan_b...](http://blogs.phoenixnewtimes.com/valleyfever/2011/11/susan_brock_pal_christian_weem_1.php)
------
DanBC
> Origami Owl takes on independent associates – known as “designers” – who buy
> products at a discount and then peddle them to others for a marked up price.
> One of the favorite points of sale are “jewelry bars,” or private parties at
> someone’s home or another venue operated by a “hostess” (the hostesses get
> discounts and some free products too). The company has about 50,887
> designers.
So, the "designers" don't actually design anything? They just sell stuff at
parties organised by a "hostess"?
I hope the friends of the hostess, and the hostess, know that the designer
didn't actually design anything, because otherwise this feels _really_ sleazy.
EDIT: Great that it took off so well though. I guess.
~~~
mildtrepidation
_So, the "designers" don't actually design anything? They just sell stuff at
parties organised by a "hostess"?_
That's my read on it. I find it puzzling at the least that the article takes
no issue with this at all; it wouldn't immediately occur to me that Yahoo
Small Business would publish paid placement ads as articles, but this doesn't
exactly scream "reporting" to me, so I have to wonder if that's close to the
truth.
If they're using "designer" as part of the pitch, then it's definitely
dishonest and intentionally misleading. If that's just a term a 14 year old
came up with and it's only used internally, then... I guess it's just really
poor word choice.
That said, I do like the fact that when she asked for a car, her parents not
only told her to buy it herself, they suggested she start a business. Too bad
about the... um... less intelligent decision(s).
~~~
wmeredith
>> I find it puzzling at the least that the article takes no issue with this
at all; it wouldn't immediately occur to me that Yahoo Small Business would
publish paid placement ads as articles, but this doesn't exactly scream
"reporting" to me, so I have to wonder if that's close to the truth.
“Journalism is printing what someone else does not want printed: everything
else is public relations.” ― George Orwell
------
ck2
I'm curious if any other country has 16 years olds demanding cars for their
birthdays or if it is just our insane culture.
There are countries where 16 year olds would be completing their 6th year at a
sweatshop making shirts.
~~~
pcunite
ck2, I get what you're saying ... it's true. But we don't model ourselves
after the 3rd world. The governments of those nations should be looking to us,
not the other way around.
Having said that some discretion on our part is needed. I don't think every 16
year old needs a car. But that is up to the parents.
~~~
ck2
The 3rd world reference was to show the other side of the extreme.
I was thinking there has to be some kind of middle ground.
Also, I don't want to be on the same road as a 16 year old driver in 2013 in
the US (with their own car). Zero attention span.
------
ebbv
Another pyramid scheme/MLM company. They seem to be at their historical peak
right now, and no signs of slowing down. Am I alone in wishing the FTC would
crack down on them?
------
enko
Oh, thank god. For a horrible second I thought someone had paid 250 big ones
for a business selling actual origami owls.
~~~
mcguire
Could be worse. I thought it was _an_ origami owl.
------
sharemywin
So let me get this straight. MLM where reps sell products face to face, answer
questions, offer sales suggestions : BAD. Walmart beat supply chain down so
everything has to be made in china because us regs(child labor and
environomental) to expensive and employees down so employees can't afford to
support themselves, GOOD. Facebook were people spend mass amounts of time
clicking on games and wasting time as the company sells every click to the
highest bidder: good. Google auctions search results off(except 14% of the
front page is organic) so most of the product profits go to them: GOOD. Malls
were most of the profits end up in real estate developers hands who probably
got kick backs from the local government to build it in the first place:Good.
Show me a billion $ business model that isn't slimey. Also, I would buy the
peer pressure angle except women spend $700 on a purses all the time. Adn
nobody bad mouths those designers. Apple came out with an MP3 player that
doesn't even play MP3s made obsence profits while child make the electronics
in sweat shops. Also, most recuiters for consulting companies make juice off
the billable hours fo the people they bring in why isn't that frowned on?
~~~
jerrya
_why isn 't that frowned on?_
Because carriage returns.
------
confluence
Oh look it's a kid who founded a pyramid scheme. Please tell me more about the
pyramid parties concerning the sale of pointless baubles.
Revenue metrics are completely pointless. I could exchange $1 dollar a billion
times with my neighbor. That doesn't mean that this little enterprise will
either turn a sustainable profit, nor does it mean that I have a billion in
revenue.
Let the pyramid parties commence!
------
fpp
This is not only a 14y-old's idea it is also an idea that is more than 14
years old.
The selling of costume jewellery via hosting aka tupperware parties was kind
of popular with high-income families about 15+ years ago - at that time
products sold were the Bulgari / high price style of objects redone with false
stones as costume jewellery.
Now this is basically the same concept with similar products catering for a
different population group (lower income - less market knowledge).
The companies, like with many others selling products via such a scheme, after
the pyramid has grown to a certain size, become stagnant or disappear (after
those in at the beginning have cashed out).
Have a look at the people and particularly their previous companies mentioned
in the article to know what this model is about. First buy low and find many
that sell / buy high for you - after a while it quickly becomes a seemingly
today very popular model - FABI (find a bigger idiot)
------
carlmcqueen
Article sites that her father worked for Amway which makes a lot of sense,
he'd have a lot of experience in getting this kind of model of business up and
running.
Regardless of shady business model, it is good to see parents encouraging and
backing their kids ideas for business.
~~~
jerrya
[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Grifters_(film)](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Grifters_\(film\))
------
bane
Before everybody gets their panties in a bunch, it's just the same old thing
as a Tuperware party, or Avon or increasingly personal sexual toys. I've even
seen grilling equipment, home beer kits and other kinds of things sold this
way.
Person buys a bunch of inventory from the maker, hosts parties and tries to
sell the stuff at a markup to the party goers. Maker only sells to their
"retailers".
It always seems kind of shady, but in practice the only ones who ever really
get burned are the independent retailers. Usually the product is halfway
decent, if overpriced.
There's usually some kind of pyramid style recruitment element as well, but
moving inventory is typically the goal, not signing up more retailers.
------
chadwickthebold
I wish we could get more tech-related startup stories out of Phoenix and AZ in
general. The place has whole lot of capital and some pretty big tech resources
in local big-name firms and educational opportunities, but so far has yet to
leverage any of that into a great startup culture. Mostly what comes out are
business initiatives like this, where tech is sort of a secondary concern. A
great resource for AZ-related tech/biz stories is AZ Tech Beat
([http://aztechbeat.com/](http://aztechbeat.com/))
------
saejox
Saw amway and immediately got what it's about.
------
segmondy
Why the hate? Because she's not tech? so much speculation without concrete
evidence. HN, you never cease to disappoint... If it was some bullshit JS/Node
website with 1 million users with no fucking revenue, it will be alright if
it's valued at a billion, because some VC invested $10 million for 1% right?
------
magikbum
Um Herbalife?
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
ADSF-install is obsolete - laex
http://www.cliki.net/asdf-install
======
Grue3
It's been for years. Why is this news? ASDF-install != ASDF by the way.
~~~
eslaught
The edit history shows that this notice was put up in 2006:
[http://www.cliki.net/site/history?article=asdf-
install](http://www.cliki.net/site/history?article=asdf-install)
So no, this is not news.
EDIT: Actually, the history must be messed up since Quicklisp hadn't been
released in 2006. Perhaps I'm reading the diffs wrong, or perhaps the cliki-
import script messed up the dates. At any rate, it does not appear to be a new
notice.
------
tempodox
The king is dead, long live the king!
I've been using quicklisp for a while. It's working just fine, as far as I'm
able to use it. But I haven't found out yet where the lost “user
documentation” for quicklisp is buried. Do you need to read all sources in
order to understand it?
~~~
zachbeane
Yes, unfortunately that's the case.
There are a handful of commands described on
[http://www.quicklisp.org/](http://www.quicklisp.org/) but there is no end-to-
end, comprehensive user or developer manual.
------
filmor
Should read ASDF-install in the title and I really wonder how that typo
happened :)
~~~
espadrine
Not everyone has a qwetry.
------
jakobbuis
ob•so•lete "no longer in use"
...which is apparently not true in this case :P
~~~
INTPenis
It is in fact deprecated.
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Mock-ups Show a Google Chrome OS Tablet - aadames
http://www.wired.com/gadgetlab/2010/02/mockups-of-a-chrome-os-tablet/
======
aadames
Unlike most people, I'm very pleased with the ipad. Given that I'm a long time
mac dissenter, I see the ipad as more of a muse for other companies to be
inspired by than a legitimate tablet computer.
Here's a concept video of how chrome OS would interface with the user.
<http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=debO2FroXA0>
They used the hacker news homepage to demonstrate!
------
sparky
More discussion on this topic here:
<http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1094091>
The previous submission was for a different site which also links to the
original source here: [http://dev.chromium.org/chromium-os/user-
experience/form-fac...](http://dev.chromium.org/chromium-os/user-
experience/form-factors/tablet)
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Don’t Design for Mobile - bpierre
https://mattanddesign.com/dont-design-for-mobile/
======
aliswe
I'm making a cms that is kind of mobile first, which makes for a very habdy
ability to make edits on your mobile when needed.
[https://github.com/cloudy-
cms/Cloudy.CMS/blob/master/screens...](https://github.com/cloudy-
cms/Cloudy.CMS/blob/master/screenshot.png?raw=true)
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
A hotspot finder app exposed 2M Wi-Fi network passwords - spac
https://techcrunch.com/2019/04/22/hotspot-password-leak
======
spac
For those who care the app is here
[https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.proofusion...](https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.proofusion.wifi&hl=en_US)
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Apple will no longer terminate Epic’s usage of ‘Sign In with Apple’ - judge2020
https://9to5mac.com/2020/09/10/apple-no-longer-terminate-fortnite-sign-in/
======
zxcvbn4038
Smart move on Apple’s part, they do this once and it raises the possibility
with all app developers that it could happen to them without warning or
recourse - Apple already has an solid history of pivoting without warning and
being uncompromising. Their even threatening to do it should raise alarm both
with Apple, and with social login in general as Facebook and Google have
demonstrated similar behaviors.
~~~
joshstrange
I wouldn’t be so quick to trust Epic’s telling of the “facts”
> When reached for comment about yesterday’s news, Apple told The Verge that
> it was not doing anything to stop “Sign In with Apple” accounts from working
> with Epic Games. So there’s some kind of discrepancy in who is telling the
> truth, as Epic is maintaining that Apple was previously enforcing the
> shutoff (and the way Epic is talking about it, still possibly could). Apple
> did not immediately reply to a request for comment about today’s
> development.
Source: [https://www.theverge.com/2020/9/10/21431396/epic-sign-in-
wit...](https://www.theverge.com/2020/9/10/21431396/epic-sign-in-with-apple-
will-keep-working-fortnite)
------
syspec
> On June 30, 2020, Epic emailed Apple requesting to offer a competing Epic
> Games Store app through the App Store that would allow iOS device users to
> install apps from Epic directly, rather than through the App Store and to
> offer payment processing options within Epic’s apps other than IAP. > On
> July 10, Apple responded that “Apple has never allowed this . . . we
> strongly believe these rules are vital to the health of the Apple platform
> and carry enormous benefits for both consumers and developers.”
> Around 2am on August 13, Mr. Sweeney of Epic wrote to Apple stating its
> intent to breach Epic’s agreements: “Epic will no longer adhere to Apple’s
> payment processing restrictions.” Hours later, Epic activated a secretly
> planted payment mechanism in Fortnite to slide a non-approved change into
> the app that blatantly evaded App Review.
From the legal document:
[https://regmedia.co.uk/2020/08/21/appleepic.pdf](https://regmedia.co.uk/2020/08/21/appleepic.pdf)
The back and fourth on case this is pretty insane
~~~
dragonsky
Thank you, that is one of the clearest descriptions of the events leading up
to this that I've seen. On the surface it seems to be blatant provocation on
the part of Epic the outcome of which should have been no surprise to anyone.
If I were a customer of Epic I think I'd be pretty pissed that their actions
caused me to lose access to my purchased content.
~~~
morceauxdebois
Maybe you shouldn't have bought stuff you didn't actually own?
~~~
m-p-3
With how locked the iOS ecosystem is, you don't really own the hardware
either..
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Increased frequency of travel may act to decrease the chance of global pandemic - evan_
https://www.biorxiv.org/content/early/2018/08/31/404871
======
a-fried-egg
I doubt it. It'll allow for the all diseases in one country to more easily
spread to every country. This isn't just limited to human germs but also
invasive species.
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
PacketQ: SQL queries for pcap files - chrissnell
https://github.com/dotse/packetq/wiki
======
mh-
_> THIS PROJECT IS AS OF NOV 2014 CLOSED AND WILL NO LONGER BE MAINTAINED!_
from [https://github.com/dotse/PacketQ](https://github.com/dotse/PacketQ)
~~~
voltagex_
You'd hope they'd point to an active fork but it's not looking hopeful.
[https://github.com/dotse/PacketQ/network](https://github.com/dotse/PacketQ/network)
~~~
chrissnell
Why does this need to be an active project? If software works as described,
what else does one need?
~~~
voltagex_
There's that aspect too - but there's open issues and 5 pull requests.
------
epicmellon
I think cloudshark ended up doing this anyway, probably not with PacketQ on
the backend though.
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Intro to Computer Science and Programming (no experience required) - fogus
http://academicearth.org/courses/introduction-to-computer-science-and-programming
======
ccc3
If you're going to work your way through this, it's probably better to go to
the MIT site for the class. In addition to the lecture videos, it has the
problem sets and a list of readings.
[http://ocw.mit.edu/OcwWeb/Electrical-Engineering-and-
Compute...](http://ocw.mit.edu/OcwWeb/Electrical-Engineering-and-Computer-
Science/6-00Fall-2008/CourseHome/index.htm)
~~~
glen
Pretty soon you'll be able to find all of these in an easy to work through
sequence, so that you won't have to track PDFs, the course calender, video
etc. Instead, it'll be like Lesson 1 - step 1: video, step 2: transcript, step
3: discussion board (much like HN where best responses get voted up/karma
points etc.); step 4: problems, step 5: solutions, step 6: discussion board,
step 7: test (to assess knowledge) etc. We actually have over 120 courses
built out on NIXTY now and probably 20-30 of those are EE/CS courses.
I've actually been trying to figure out how to bring up the idea of a p2p CS
university/program. Kind of like a HN University. The goal would be for people
to be able to easily take courses and interact w/others around all things CS.
One of the beautiful things about computer science is it seems less and less
dependent upon degrees as predictors of success. We believe that this is where
most fields will go in the future. People pointing to references from trusted
others, work examples etc. will prove to be better predictors than degrees.
Consequently, we are investing a fair amount towards using the CS curriculum
as a type of pilot project.
If you are passionate about this kind of thing and want to help out, shoot me
an email at glen at nixty dot com. (p.s. really trying not to make this sound
like an infomercial for NIXTY. just trying to be clear about what we are doing
and our plans. thanks).
------
zaveri
I would also suggest: <http://www.cs.virginia.edu/~evans/cs1120/>
------
flipp
<http://udemy.com/> actually has a lot more courses than academic earth does.
~~~
glen
Great resource.
------
davidmurphy
What a wonderful world we live in that this sort of stuff is free.
------
jimbokun
Is this the new SICP?
~~~
pgbovine
no, this is a course that's mostly for non-CS majors who want to learn some
programming for their research (e.g., computational biologists, economists,
physicists).
------
ashishbharthi
academicearth.org. Really nice resource. Bookmarked.
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Show HN: Keep your data out of the wrong hands - jason_wang
https://www.truevault.com/blog/keep-your-data-out-of-the-wrong-hands.html
======
hayden_gomes
Interesting idea. How does TrueVault Keep work with systems that want to
process user data in the background? Won't you need to give a single account
access to all records which will introduce the same single point
vulnerability?
~~~
andrewmitchell
Good point! We are working through the details of those sorts of use cases,
and are thinking of ways to mitigate the risks posed. A lot depends on the
characteristics of your particular background tasks, but here are a few ideas
we’re considering:
\- Grant background tasks limited access to data based on some applicable
filter. Imagine your medical software sends a nightly summary of tomorrow’s
appointments. Instead of giving the background task access to the entire
database (including patient names and medical histories), grant it access to
summary data about appointments which occur in the next 24 hours. In this
example, there is still sensitive data at risk, but the scope is limited.
\- Have temporally limited access for scheduled tasks. Can we scope them to
only running for 30 minutes once a day?
\- As a matter of practice, only run these types of jobs on machines that are
isolated in a tightly controlled private network with an absolutely minimal
attack surface.
We’re still working out how to express some of these scoping restrictions in
practice, but the core idea here is that we should be able to mitigate overall
risk by being more judicious about how we grant access.
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Why does HN timeout so fast? - kaushalc
If I dont use HN for a few mins it expires and clicking on next link shows an error message saying link expired. Why is this? Its a pain that I need to go and reload the main page and the click next to come back to the page i was on.
======
pokoleo
I believe that there was a post about this before.
IIRC, the way that HN is set up, it re-distributes the "fnid=NSgN9i46gR"
parameters at the end of the string to the first/second/third/etc. pages.
Reddit (a similar example) does this, but it also does it in such a way that
the parameters "?count=50&after=t3_ihoin" fit into a SQL(/alternative DB)
select statement.
This would probably be a better way for HN to do it, but they probably have a
reason for why it's currently done this way .
------
wkearney99
Could you at least change the error page to include a link back to the main
'new' page?
------
jones1618
It is brain-damaged that both Reddit and HackerNews do this.
Their next page URL's should either be page based ("show me page 4, even if
page 4 has changed") or based on the next article ("show me the page that
contains article 1234"). You might see a few duplicates are miss a few
articles but you wouldn't get "unknown or expired link" errors.
------
Rust
It does seem to vary a lot between about 2 minutes and 5 minutes of
inactivity. Like I can read or even nicely skim 30 articles in 2 minutes...
~~~
Coincoin
My guess is that it depends on the amount of traffic.
Edit: I remember a few years ago it would take 30 minutes to an hour before it
expired. Maybe it deletes the oldest tokens first.
------
pasbesoin
A while back, when the site was rather bogging down, pg made some changes to
memory management (as I vaguely recall from one of his comments posted at the
time). I believe part of this is more aggressive discarding of memory, and
that part of the result was to succeed, or fail, more quickly without
progressively tying up the server.
So, overall the server works better. When there's load, part of this include
bailing sooner on your troublesome request. ;-)
In your case, this may include no longer having memory/context for stale
pagination links. I deal with this by using a browser extension to load
several pages of links at once. (Without a browser extension, one can achieve
the same results by opening those links manually in new tabs and then working
one's way through those tabs at one's leisure. I'd advise not overdoing this,
though; no need to burden the server with requests you will seldom/never use.)
(I may be wrong as to the memory management. Again, this is just my vague
understanding/recollection.)
~~~
zoudini
What browser extension do you use?
~~~
pasbesoin
Sorry to reply twice, but my previous reply was made quickly and I incorrectly
recalled the wrong context. (I also recently mentioned using an extension to
view PDF's in Google's Document Viewer.)
The extension I was referring to in my grandparent comment is:
<https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/repagination/>
(Note that there is another, older "Re-Pagination" extension that was
abandoned. IIRC, this one picked it up and updated it.)
PLEASE BE CAREFUL if you use this extension. If you do not choose a limited
page count, it is easy to unduly load or overload a server. This include the
HN server, and such request behavior will get you cut off or banned (rightly
so; please work to preserve HN resources).
I use it, infrequently, a time or two a day to load the first few top pages of
results, which I then work through at my leisure.
I also use a bookmark to transform all the link href values to open in new
pages/tabs. That way, I don't lose the browser-generated multiple-page page
(as it were) by forgetting to right click or shift-click to open a link that
appears on it in a new tab.
------
MattJ100
Glad you mentioned it, I was beginning to think it was just me.
------
shii
<http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17675>
<http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2677600>
------
cpayne624
Yeah. It's pretty whack
------
donnaware
It seems ironic that the same people that sit around and obsess about what the
latest groovy language is that you supposed to be using to make your web site
with can not seem to make a very good web site for themselves. But then, I am
addicted to Hacker News, so what does that say about me?
~~~
theoa
And me too...
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Samoa switches to driving on left - bluesmoon
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/asia-pacific/8243110.stm
======
riklomas
Just a warning, this article is from September 2009
~~~
hugh3
It does seem a pretty random sort of subject, especially if it's actually "not
news".
------
Rabidgremlin
I was on holiday there at the start of the year. Most of the cars are still
set up for driving on the right (driver sitting on the left). This makes it
hard to judge the where center line is, so people tend to drift over it!
Luckily the speed limit is 50km/h but it is still pretty "exciting" to be a
front-seat passenger, it feels like a continuous game of chicken :)
~~~
dennisgorelik
It looks like it's not too late to switch back to right side and keep
importing used buses from the US :-)
~~~
Rabidgremlin
Actually I think the plan is to be able to import cheaper vehicles from Japan,
Australia and New Zealand.
As for the buses in Samoa, they are truly unconventional and works of art:
[http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-
entries/spider415/2/125...](http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-
entries/spider415/2/1258606382/tpod.html) (see pics at the end)
------
duck
And Ubuntu Lucid made people freak out about the change of sides for the
window buttons?
~~~
alaithea
This makes me think of how small countries can (potentially) have the ability
to be so much more progressive than huge countries like the U.S. We can't even
get on the frickin' metric system.
------
jeebusroxors
It's interesting they chose 6:00am rather than a less populated time. I think
my first instinct would be to make the switch at like 3:00am on a Sunday a la
DST, but I guess this way there was no avoiding it.
~~~
alaithea
I think it would be best to do that sort of thing when you can prepare a good
chunk of your populace to really try it out. "Hey everyone, start driving on
the left on your morning commute tomorrow!" That way, you have a concerted
effort to do it right, and lots of people driving on one side or the other
would reinforce the behavior. That's all as opposed to having a few bleary-
eyed drivers in the wee hours potentially get a surprise.
~~~
CWIZO
I come from mainland Europe where we drive on the right, and I was in the UK
couple of months ago, and was forced (due to the volcano) to drive from London
to Glasgow. At first it was all really wired and scary, but once I drove off
the rent-a-car parking lot onto a road where there ware other cars it was
easy. My point is that other cars help you if you "suddenly" have to drive on
the other side of the road. I did, however, drove a car with the steering
wheel on the right side, so that might help (unlike here where the driver sits
at the edge of the road).
------
bosch
I've always wondered why everyone can't drive on the same side of the road?
That would make automobile production much more efficient. Is there a certain
reason England decided against driving on the left side of the road?
~~~
pkulak
They do drive on the left...
~~~
bosch
I actually meant the right... with the rest of Europe on the other side,
they're the odd ones out.
~~~
robin_reala
We have no direct road links with the rest of Europe. Even the Channel Tunnel
has no road: to take a car across you drive onto a train and off it at the
other end.
------
cameronmccloud
In my final year Theoretical Physics exam we were asked the question: If
Ireland switched from driving on the left to driving on the right, what effect
would this have on the Earth's rotation?
------
ritonlajoie
"Bus drivers have also protested that their doors will now open on the wrong
side, in the middle of the road."
OK that is a good point .. Good luck to them !
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
The Best Overall Database - esaym
http://www.dbta.com/Editorial/Trends-and-Applications/Best-Database-Overall%C2%AD-105362.aspx
======
nexys
ilovepostgresql.com/best-overall-database/guess-what/its-postgresql
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Yes, you can now sue a 4-year-old for negligent bike riding - grellas
http://blogs.wsj.com/law/2010/10/29/4-year-old-not-too-young-to-get-sued-manhattan-judge-rules/
======
RiderOfGiraffes
There's never such a thing as a coincidence, everything that happens is
ordained and brought about by mystic forces.
There's never such a thing as an accident, someone always needs to be at fault
and punished.
Some people tut, sigh, and shake their heads, but it seems inevitable that
people will try to assign blame and receive reparations for what in earlier
times would have been called accidents. Insurance companies get away with
clauses about "Force Majeure," but they have money to make sure the law-makers
listen to them.
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
What do you think about our Growth Hacking tool iogrow.com - MezianeHadjadj
what do you think about our stratup iogrow.com who let you get new Customers, be Organized and Grow your Business.
======
gk1
It looks like you haven't figured out what ioGrow is yet, and that, in turn,
makes it difficult for anyone else to figure out.
Here you're calling it a "growth hacking tool" (using that term just turns
people off), on the site I'm getting mixed messaging about "social discovery,"
CRM, project management, and collaboration? So... what exactly is it?Or is it
all of those things at once? In which case, why start with "social discovery,"
something that's available in any marketing SaaS?
~~~
MezianeHadjadj
So yes as you said is a mixed tool between CRM and Social discovery tool,
using Social discovery tool you will get new leads, people who talking about
your products in twitter and manage them in CRM. so i really appreciate your
feedback after testing to [email protected], thank you
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Internet Explorer 10: "fast" and "native" has gone to other browsers - AshleysBrain
http://www.scirra.com/blog/77/internet-explorer-10-fast-and-native-has-gone-to-other-browsers
======
read_wharf
Has anyone implemented a browser inside Internet Explorer? Download some
javascript file to "install" it, the javascript implements "good" javascript
and rendering on top of IE's "special" javascript and rendering.
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Ask HN: finding a laptop in 2011 with the whole set of ports? - guylhem
Today while giving a hand to an friend who wants to regain access to some of his old data, I realized that I depended on various cables and peripherals to try to rescue his devices, that I could run into a similar problems because I no longer had a "rescue laptop"<p>Years ago, I had a rescue machine, which stayed idle most of the time, but could become quite needed.<p>It's the kind of machine that :
- runs an old linux distro to make xp/linux hd bootable again with grub/lilo/whatever
- is used to grab network data with tcpdump from some equipment in the next room
- tests if IR remote controllers actually work,
- serves as the last resort to try to read the floppy disk where the unique copy of some historical file has been stored
- connects to the printer in parallel mode to put the printer online when the jetdirect is down for some reason
- can be used to run diagnosis on serial ports
- still has a modem so it can serve to replicate the problem a guy still on dialup is reporting.<p>You see the kind of machine - a lot of ports, most of which are no longer used (floppy, firewire...) but come in handy when you need them.<p>My googling did not return such a machine, so I guess I'll have to get a second hand.<p>So can anyone recommend me a laptop or a tablet with : firewire/rj45 (ideally 2x) /rj11/serial/irda/parallel/floppy/dvd/vga/tvout/wifi/bluetooth<p>Tablet a plus (because it will be easy to store/carry when needed)<p>It's just a laptop to be put in a drawer until a specific problem happens where it will be needed (3rd call this week, the 2 others were a firmware upgrade on my modem and sniffing ethernet data to find out the correct tos values)
======
dangrossman
How many of those can you find as X-to-USB adapters or USB peripherals?
Probably all of them, which would mean any laptop will do, you'll just have a
bag of addons to keep with it.
~~~
JanezStupar
The problem of newer machines and/or peripherals is that they often work in
some wacky almost as good as original thing modes, which are "compatible" for
most consumer type regular uses - without actual backwards compatibility.
------
guylhem
Hence the question. I have already far too many cables. An old laptop with
everything integrated would reduce the odds of loosing the connectors.
~~~
guylhem
Replying to myself - found on forums many suggestions for a thinkpad T30 to
this same question
It will just miss the firewire but nothing a pccard that'll stay inside (and
not be lost!) can't fix
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Things from Python I'd miss in Go - smackay
http://www.yosefk.com/blog/things-from-python-id-miss-in-go.html
======
jgrahamc
Towards the end of the article there seems to be a confusion between servers
and web servers. Yes, Go is nice for writing servers, no, web servers aren't
the only things out there doing 'serving' in systems-land.
Three examples from CloudFlare all written in Go:
1\. Our Internet compression/optimization technology called Railgun
2\. Our DNS server
3\. Our CA infrastructure
All are networked, all are highly concurrent.
Also, our entire logging and analysis infrastructure is being migrated to Go.
PS Forgot that we also recently rewrote the code that does image compression
(using C tools) in Go as well. Here the Go code is working as a job server.
~~~
jamra
It looks like the author found the worst use case for Go in comparison to a
library that Python absolutely soars in and uses that as a basis for this
argument. Go does not have something as nice as numpy. For numeric computing,
by all means use Python.
He then makes some crazy statements about operator overloading as if that is
the essence of a good language. I disagree. I don't want operator overloading.
I almost never used operator overloading in C# or Java. Maybe that's just me,
but it's certainly not a reason to avoid a language.
The crux of his argument is that C++ users who switched to Java years ago are
the types of programmers that Go wished to convert.
He neglects to mention deployment. He neglects to mention stability in
runtime. He neglects to mention any low level meddling that you have to do in
compression. The examples you posted are exactly the kind of things that Go
soars in. It's very convenient to leave them out while beating your chest
about how your language is a superior language because it is superior in a
very specific niche.
~~~
S4M
> I almost never used operator overloading in C# or Java.
Dude, you can't overload operators in Java. You can overload methods of a
class, but not operators. Operator overloading means that you can overload '+'
for example for your particular class, which would enable you to write code
like (in Java):
Matrix a = zeroMatrix(4,4);
Matrix b = identityMatrix(4,4);
Matrix c = a+b;
You can't do that, so you would have to write:
Matrix c= a.add(b);
Which makes your code verbose and makes Java (and Go) painful for doing
numerical analysis.
~~~
nordsieck
It's important to note that numerical calculation is a domain particularly
suited to operator overloading simply because the underlying domain (math)
already uses operator overloading heavily (e.g. multiplication means something
different when done on scalars and vectors, but in both cases it is well
defined and in common usage).
~~~
Someone
You should leave out the 'overloading':
\- Math (and it's very close relative logic) are the only domains that use
operators, period.
\- other domains use overloading; homonyms are very common.
------
Kurtz79
Sometimes we get so invested in a language that we forget that it's just a
tool, and a good engineer/hacker should try to choose the best one for the
problem at hand.
Go is just another tool in our toolbox: as the author says it sacrifices some
of Python's friendliness and ease of use (but not as much as other
compiled/statically typed languages) and features for performance and a solid
concurrency model.
It's up to us to decide what the best fit for our applications is.
Even if Go it's definitely not "The Language to rule them all", it's nice to
have more options.
~~~
klibertp
I try to advocate polyglot programming - using the best tool for the job -
everywhere I go, but unfortunately people are largely allergic to the idea.
Most programmers don't want to learn new tools, much less new paradigms or
methodologies. Even worse, the management agrees - the upside of building
better systems isn't convincing enough to justify a temporary drop in
performance while learning.
More to the point, I don't understand why the OP wrote this article in the
first place. It's obvious that Go is not designed to support his use-cases and
that's really all there is to it. Listing reasons why Go is bad at doing
things it wasn't meant to do seems a bit pointless to me. It's like bashing a
screwdriver for how bad a hammer it makes...
~~~
gejjaxxita
The drop in performance isn't just while learning. I worked somewhere where I
had to regularly use TCL, Java, PHP, C++ and Python - each was the most
suitable tool for the job (at the time the tool was written anyway) but the
constant context switching caused a real and permanent performance hit.
~~~
klibertp
> but the constant context switching caused a real and permanent performance
> hit
Maybe context switches were too frequent? Or the opposite, too rare, which
could lead to repeating the learning overhead each time? Personally I didn't
notice any slowdown due to switching between languages and technologies -
other then at the beginning, when I was learning them.
~~~
nostrademons
For me, it's the infrastructure & best practices that's the biggest cost.
There are degrees of language learning. I went through a "everyone should be a
polyglot programmer" phase when I had about 3-4 years of experience, because I
was then proficient - not expert - at about a half dozen languages. At that
point, I knew the syntax and semantics of all of them, the common standard
library calls that I needed for everyday programming, and most importantly, I
could mentally map between constructs in my head. So I'd be like "This is a
'for x in collection' loop in Python, a 'for (String x : collection)' in Java
5, a 'for (var x, i = 0; x = collection[i++];)' in Javascript', a 'map (\x ->
...) collection' in Haskell".
I'm coming up on 10 years of experience now, and I try to limit the number of
programming languages I work with pretty dramatically now. What's changed is
that I now think of a language as an ecosystem and a culture, rather than a
set of things I type into a computer. The typing is automatic; instead I'm
thinking of the level of "Well, if I use Mockito and JUnit for my unit
testing, here's how I have to set up my Dagger modules, and I can use
Providers there to give me a dependency graph of ListenableFutures that will
let me kick off a whole cascade of RPCs when a request comes in, all without
having to manually manage the sequence of events." And all of those libraries
have gotchas and best practices that I've internalized, which I think need to
page out if I start working with another ecosystem. (This was perhaps a bad
example because I'm actually much more fluent with Python and Javascript than
Java now - but then, maybe that makes it a _good_ example, because it shows
how much tacit knowledge is important even for a simple forum comment, let
alone a working system.)
So I can't really judge your level of expertise over the Internet. But I'll
caution you that views on this can flip-flop as you gain more experience. It's
important to really learn one language well before judging that everybody
should be able to use multiple languages with equal proficiency. "Learning
them" is a continuous process, and there're tips and tricks that are very
specific to each language that you continue learning even decades in.
[1]
[http://www.reddit.com/r/haskell/comments/cguuj/a_haskell_web...](http://www.reddit.com/r/haskell/comments/cguuj/a_haskell_webserver_in_ascii_art/)
------
adwn
It's ironic that the author dismisses C++ to a small niche:
> _Those who still stick to C++, after all these years, either really can 't
> live with the "overheads" (real time apps - those are waiting for Rust to
> mature), or think they can't (and nothing will convince them except a
> competitor eventually forcing their employer out of business)._
Yet later he gives a good example for an important area where C++ is still
unbeaten: scientific computing libraries.
If you want/need maximum performance, then right now, there's no other
language that has no overhead and zero-cost abstractions (to the degree that
C++, especially C++11, has them). Hopefully Rust will get there eventually,
but as of today, you have three choices: Fortran, C, and C++ – and neither C
nor Fortran offer any abstractions worth mentioning.
~~~
fulafel
Zero-cost abstractions come at a pretty hefty price if you pick C++. The cost
is in programmer productivity & quality of resulting software. I'm sure there
are some fields of academia where this is a reasonable tradeoff (if you're
programming DSP algorithms running on a embedded battery powered device
strapped to a dolphin, say...) but your generic number crunching job rarely
calls for it.
(As an aside, zero-overhead abstractions being unique to C++ doesn't sound
right to me. Then again I haven't heard the term used outside C++ circles and
its meaning is nebulous, so maybe it's just a name for C++'s tradeoffs?)
~~~
adwn
> _Zero-cost abstractions come at a pretty hefty price if you pick C++. The
> cost is in programmer productivity & quality of resulting software._
I agree with you. But as with most prices, sometimes they are worth it. There
are a lot of practical cases where you really want the performance (even
outside scientific computing, which in itself is a pretty widely applied
field).
> _I 'm sure there are some fields of academia where this is a reasonable
> tradeoff_
I'm not sure where you got "academia" from; _scientific computing_ is in no
way restricted to research. Weather predictions, genome processing, and oil
reserves exploration are just three of many examples for the commercial
application of scientific computing.
> _(if you 're programming DSP algorithms running on a embedded battery
> powered device strapped to a dolphin, say...)_
DSP applications are ubiquitous today; you'll find them, e.g., in your phone,
or in your car.
> _but your generic number crunching job rarely calls for it._
You're very wrong. Number crunching is _the_ example for which you want lots
of performance.
> _As an aside, zero-overhead abstractions being unique to C++ doesn 't sound
> right to me._
I didn't say they are. I said that no other language offers them to the degree
that C++ does.
> _so maybe it 's just a name for C++'s tradeoffs?_
No. It means abstractions which do not cause runtime overheads because the
compiler can optimize them away.
------
rakoo
I think the author misses the point. The number one reason Go was created was
to build _maintainable softwares_ , the kind Google uses at large. The easiest
way to build these are:
\- Automatic memory management -> GC
\- Bug catching before the software is run -> Static typing
\- Overall simplicity -> few features, added only if it is extremely needed
The thing is, when you start using Go, you already know its features. There is
nothing particularly new, and it all fits in your head. It is a bit strict
though, so there is some boilerplate (error checking, sort.Sort, ...) but
that's going to save you when you edit your software in 5 years.
Here, performance (both compilation and running) is a byproduct of simplicity.
Now, I'm not saying the OP's use cases are invalid, far from it; they're just
not what was intended in the process of creating Go. Like OP, I tend to think
that Go is the new Java: "boring" (ie no revolutionary features) but it just
works for server-side softwares.
~~~
_yosefk
Why do I miss the point if, _like me_ , you think Go is the new Java? :-)
I think it's exactly that, it works and that's fine, and why the JVM doesn't
do cheap concurrency I don't know. If it did Java might have been the new Java
:-)
~~~
grey-area
Concurrency is not the only interesting thing about go. The other choices are
also interesting, partly in what they leave out (no inheritance, no headers,
explicit errors, implicit interfaces, static binaries with no dependencies,
fast compilation, strict style enforced by gofmt). You might not like those
choices of course, and you might prefer to use other languages like python or
C++ ;), but comparing Go to Java + concurrency is pretty absurd, as the
culture, tools and standard library are very different. Maybe superficially
some of the syntax looks similar, because of the C heritage.
Thanks for the article with your first impressions of Go anyway - I read
another post on your blog while visiting (about leaving C++ for a simpler OO
C), and it actually echoes a lot of the motivations of Rob Pike and others at
Google in creating Go - frustration at C++ compile times and baroque grammar
was a primary factor in the creation of Go, so it feels to me like they went
back to C as a basis and built something new...
------
nkozyra
The error handling one is an area I've never understood - in a well-designed
Go app errors will be returned from functions/methods and you'll either deal
with them or not _/err.
I love try/catch/finally but I fail to see how doing either a _ or writing a
simple log function to do something with returned errors necessarily
represents "more code" than handling exceptions.
~~~
drdaeman
That creates some mostly unnecessary boilerplate. I.e., if an error happens
down the stack in function to read config, which calls a function to parse a
file, which calls a function to read a file, you'll have to either propagate
(or otherwise handle) that `err` manually or lose the precious information.
On the contrary, Java-like pattern of functions like `Config readConfig()
throws IOError, ParseError` simplifies code quite a bit. No need to deal with
IOError in parseConfig - if an exception happens there it'll be propagated
automatically. And `throws` clause allows for static checking and warning
whenever you forgot to handle something. And sane code analysis tools would
also warn you whenever you really wanted overly-broad `catch Exception(e)`,
too.
There's a panic/recover in Go, but they aren't serious. At least, to my
limited knowledge of Go, there are no guidelines on using them properly, so
everyone panics with whatever they fancy, and this lack of conventions is a
bit problematic, like `raise "Failed to open file"` in Python.
~~~
moreentropy
OTOH, if you follow Go's idioms and handle every error where it happens, your
code will look like having a lot of boilerplate at first, but you end up with
better error handling. It's the same as putting a try-except catchall around
every single call in python, because in python you can never be sure (without
reading the source) what kind of exceptions something will throw.
For request based services and something where some big ass operation will
either fail in some way (and i don't care where exactly) or be successful,
exceptions are fine. If something goes wrong somewhere, log it and reply with
HTTP 500. But for servers with data i care about, i most likely want to
recover right where the error happened, and actively decide if i want to abort
and push the error to the next layer. Not having exceptions makes this more
intuitive.
~~~
pekk
You shouldn't be putting a try-except catchall around every single call in
Python. Exceptions mean you don't have to do that.
~~~
moreentropy
For me the most important thing exceptions mean is that they might pop up at
any time, with unpredictable types. So as long as I don't have a catch all
exception handler wrapped around _all_ code, it might crash at some point.
~~~
TheLoneWolfling
Assuming you're talking about _unchecked_ exceptions, correct.
~~~
moreentropy
Python doesn't have checked exceptions.
------
atilaneves
I've been waiting for someone to weigh in on this from the Python side for a
while now. I'm a C++ and Python programmer (amongst other things) and I can't
ever see myself switching to Go. I'd sooner switch to Rust or Swift, but D has
been my favourite language by far since I picked it up last year.
I actually don't understand why, in the absence of niche use-cases, how and
why Python programmer would write Go code and _like_ it. Are these Python
coders who've never heard of itertools??
~~~
sergiosgc
From what I understand, Go is an opinionated language, with a nice concurrency
framework. It's not groundbreaking, it's not particularly expressive or
adapted to any specific use case. It so happens that if your style fits Go's
ideology (opinionated view), you become a fan.
For me, the lack of exceptions kills the language. C-like error testing smells
like a twenty year de-evolution. I also dislike the flat object model, but
could force myself to live with it for the sake of trying composition over
inheritance. Error returning, however, is taking the ideology too far.
~~~
niemeyer
You are assuming the use of exceptions is an evolution in the first place, but
that's far from being a consensus. To some of us, exceptions are very
convenient, but more easily lead to brittle software.
I wrote a little bit about that before. Probably won't help you much, except
perhaps in acknowledging that there's a different angle to that which some
people may care about.
[http://blog.labix.org/2013/04/23/exceptional-
crashes](http://blog.labix.org/2013/04/23/exceptional-crashes)
~~~
sergiosgc
Exceptions are, when you boil it down to the core, a default behavior for
error conditions. It states that, on error, execution jumps to the first point
in the code path expecting the error. If no such point exists, execution
halts.
This is a stark contrast to the default behavior for error returning, which is
to carry on as if nothing happened. How can "keep calm, carry on" be construed
as better is beyond me.
Now, I know the arguments against exceptions are supported on all kinds of
horror code using exceptions out there. Let me preempt that by stating that
assessing a tool for its wrong uses is not a good evaluation of the tool. A
hammer is not a good screwdriver, there are no news there.
~~~
niemeyer
It's not about horror stories, but about choosing a tool that makes it easier
to get the error handling path right, which is just as real and important as
the success case. In my experience with the medium sized projects I've been
closely responsible for (in the hundreds of thousands of lines ballpark), we
were interested in doing a really good job in both the exception and the error
result cases, because the misbehavior scenario is a real issue, and followed
all the good practices in the modern developer's backpack. In the end,
exception-rich code just turned out obviously hard to get right, no matter how
much we _wanted_ to get it right, because the program is allowed to jump out
of arbitrary stack frames that the developer was conveniently taught to not
handle errors on, because.. hey! the "default behavior"!
After getting involved in these experiments, I started paying more attention
to how people can possibly be happy with exception-rich logic that behaves
like that. My empiric observation is that the lack of proper error handling
turns out to have a relatively low impact for lots of projects. Crashed or
misbehaved? Whatever.. file a bug.
------
micro_cam
So I do a lot of scientific programing in go [1]. I am absolutely still using
python + numpy/scipy/pyamg for linear algebra heavy stuff but this has more to
do with the available and well documented packages then operator overloading.
I actually find that the interfaces used for math [2] encourage a more memory
efficient coding style. Without operator overloading I'm less tempted to jam
everything into a pretty one liner and more likely to set things up to work
with out unintended reallocations.
Lack of efficient generics is a much bigger annoyance.
[1] See for example my random forest package
[https://github.com/ryanbressler/CloudForest](https://github.com/ryanbressler/CloudForest)
[2] See package big for example
[http://golang.org/pkg/math/big/](http://golang.org/pkg/math/big/)
------
gbog
When I read go specs or go vs python comparison, nearly every diff is a
specific pain point of our big python code base.
No keyword argument? to hell with them. Strict formatting? That should be in
python interpreter. No unused import: would have saved our lives. No cyclic
dependencies? No inheritance? No exceptions? Great, all of them are
maintenance nightmares.
~~~
smnrchrds
Can you please elaborate. I don't understand what could be wrong with keyword
arguments. Also I can't see how an unused import can waste a life, unless
there is some lethal side-effect to importing that package (I don't like
import side-effects, but they are inconvenient whether the import is used or
unused). Exceptions seem pretty useful as well.
~~~
gbog
Python's keyword arguments:
def f(a, b=1, c=2):
pass
Now, same call can be written `f(0, 1, 2)` and `f(0, b=2, a=1)`, which makes
it much harder to refactor. For instance, suppose you want to add a non-
keyword argument, you'll have to carefully grep for all calls.
I think functions should be either full keyword arguments and naming them in
calls should be mandatory. Or no keyword arguments at all. The mixing of both
is "convenient" for prototyping, but has a high long-term cost.
Unused imports:
In a module bar, you have `import foo`. How do you know if it is used or not?
You'll have to scan all modules importing bar to check if they import foo.
Granted, the problem is not that import foo is unused, but that it is imported
in bar's namespace.
Exceptions make it hard to follow code paths and easy to hide important
events. The hardest debugs I've endured are because of exceptions. An innocent
looking `except AttributeError` can be hiding a deep issue in some remote
library playing badly with getattr magic.
That said, I love Python, and still think it is the most elegant language. I
will most certainly teach Python to my kid when he'll be old enough. I also
believe it is best suited for a full serie of programming tasks. But, when
code base grow in size and complexity, some of its "tolerance" become a
burden.
------
baldfat
There is no one best language.
Numpy is not something Go is going to do (Correct em if I am wrong). Julia
would be the faster language to switch to, but personally I switched from
Python to R due to the fact that I like languages that are made for what I am
doing. Python always feels second best to whatever I am doing and I have
branched away from Python. So R for statistics is great for me.
~~~
howeman
Besides operator overloading, why can't Go do Numpy?
------
dragonwriter
> No exceptions [...] If I want higher-level error context I need to propagate
> the error upwards, with an if at every function call along the way.
This is flat out false. Go has fairly standard exceptions (panics), though
instead of using try/catch/finally blocks it uses deferred functions that
perform a hybrid of the "catch" (if they use "recover") and "finally"
functionality.
It is a go _convention_ that _library code_ doesn't let panics escape to the
calling code, so if you are going to use panics in your own code, to follow
the convention you should be recovering from them somewhere in the call chain
that you control rather than letting them escape across the public API of your
code. But that's it, they exist, and can be used. So, while there may be some
ground to complain that when calling the standard library you have to handle
error returns rather than catching exceptions (equivalently, "recovering from
panics") -- though, IMO, there is a good reason for this design choice --
there is absolutely no reason, aside from sheer ignorance and not reading even
the most basic Go documentation -- to say that you don't have exceptions that
you can use within your own code and that you have to to error-return handling
at every level in your own code to deal with error propagation. If you make
that complaint, it is clear you don't know what you are talking about.
~~~
rdtsc
> This is flat out false.
So Go has panics and they are _just like exceptions_ in Python? Because to
accuse the writer of being "flat out false" these have to be exactly the same
and he as to be ignorant to not see the obvious.
Let's say you have some step in your function and you might raise an
exception. In Python you'd surround it with try...catch
try:
dosomething()
catch SomeException:
handle_exception()
Can you do that in Go. Please show how. And don't crate a new function that
that is not what Python does.
> there is absolutely no reason, aside from sheer ignorance and not reading
> even the most basic Go documentation
ignorance? have you read the basic Python documentation, sounds like you
haven't
~~~
dragonwriter
> So Go has panics and they are _just like exceptions_ in Python? Because to
> accuse the writer of being "flat out false" these have to be exactly the
> same
No, they don't. Because the claim that I called flat out false was this
>> No exceptions [...] If I want higher-level error context I need to
propagate the error upwards, with an if at every function call along the way.
So, no, Go's exception mechanism doesn't have to be "just like Pythons" for
this to be flat-out false. What it does need to be is _anything that allows
propagating errors up a call chain without an if at every function call along
the way_. Which panic/defer/recover _is_.
> And don't crate a new function that that is not what Python does.
Even if I did accept your "must work like Python" standard (which is, itself,
wrong because its not necessary for the statement at issue to be flat-out
false), what's the substantive difference between an immediately-called
anonymous function and a block?
Sure, you could legitimately complain that the example would be more _verbose_
in Go, but that's not the complaint OP made. (The most direct translation of
your example would look something like this in Go -- though in practice you
wouldn't really do this this way):
func() {
defer func() {
r = recover()
if e, ok := r.(SomeException); ok {
handle_exception()
} else {
panic(e)
}
}
dosomething()
}()
------
howeman
As of at least a year ago, their are bindings for the BLAS library of your
choice (github.com/gonum/blas), which are used in many parts of the matrix
package (github.com/gonum/matrix/mat64). As of a week ago, there are bindings
for the Lapack implementation of your choice (github.com/gonum/lapack). These
have not yet been worked in with matrix, but will be eventually (PR welcome!).
~~~
howeman
Not to mention there's 2/3rds of a go BLAS implementation (benchmarks
[https://groups.google.com/forum/#!msg/gonum-
dev/Cqa41tbUUCw/...](https://groups.google.com/forum/#!msg/gonum-
dev/Cqa41tbUUCw/EuTBQFBhod0J)). Level 3 routines are much harder to make
efficient (people are still researching efficient matrix multiply)
------
Goranek
In the beginning i missed repl, but i've realised using repl in the first
place was a mistake.. Now i rely on docs(godoc is awesome) and when i need to
test something i use go playground.
~~~
yonaguska
Could you elaborate on why using the repl was a mistake? I don't really miss
python's repl, but coming from the Lisp repl, the playground doesn't seem to
cut it. Now, if anyone has written an emacs mode that lets you interact with
the playground by loading a buffer- I think I'd be much happier.
~~~
Rapzid
The repl/insta-repl in LightTable was amazing to me. Particularly what you
could do with clojure-script when it was hooked up to the browser.
------
ant_sz
As for the GUI problem mentioned in the article, we now have
[https://github.com/andlabs/ui](https://github.com/andlabs/ui)
I haven't yet tried this lib, It may not as good as something as Qt, but I
think it is a good beginning.
~~~
dubcanada
I played around with it, it is nowhere near Qt, not even like 5% close. Qt
isn't just a GUI library, it's everything you need to build a application in a
nice large bundle. But it's a nice start...
However I feel that Go is not really intended to be used for desktop
applications, I would much rather see a Rust GUI library.
------
ChikkaChiChi
The argument "would have switched to X before" seems to not consider the
possibility of new adoptions.
If I didn't need the things that Go provides before, that does not mean I do
not need them today or tomorrow.
------
rogerdpack
Did he say that people looking for faster build times than C++ went to java?
They may not have found what they were looking for, in that case...
Go does lack a quality [IMO] IDE [re: REPL use is for development], but that
can still come with time.
Quality GUI bindings can also come with time [how often do you actually use
Python for GUI stuff, though...but still nice to have, just not its major use
I doubt]
Another thing you'll miss from Python is accidentally typo'ing variable names
and having to discover that only at runtime :)
Just my rebuttal :)
~~~
pjc50
Java is faster to build than C++ almost all of the time. Header files
(especially with templates) tend to turn C++ in to an O(n^2) run time, often
running into hours.
~~~
rogerdpack
OK, the only thing I can compare it against is my current "java" build times,
and I can tell you that using maven is somewhat slow. So I guess you could say
that if people went to java from c++ for the improved build times, they might
still be interested in Go for the same improvement over java :)
------
higherpurpose
He forgot the part about Go also being a great replacement for Java, for those
who don't like Java.
------
mimighost
Go could take a bite from Python in web development area, but scientific
computing...No chance
------
pothibo
Most of the GUIs are done on a main thread which makes some of Go's advantages
unneeded. Don't build GUI in Go, ever.
Error handling is a way of thinking: TDD is one, Go's approach is another.
REPL is not a must, environment without REPL means you have to think more
about what you want. It's a process. You should be able to read source code
and figure out how things work.
Like many mentioned here, Go is great at doing system stuff, like background
queues and processing. Stay with Python until you need to get thing faster,
then move them to Go. That's how you should think of it.
| {
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Any iPhone can be hacked with a modified charger in under a minute - jvanderwal
http://www.geek.com/apple/any-ios-device-can-be-hacked-with-a-modified-charger-in-under-a-minute-1557142/
======
Centigonal
It's interesting how the progress of iPhone hacks is mirroring that of the PSP
homebrew scene 5 or 6 years ago. First there were a bunch of easy to use
vulnerabilities or hidden features in apps (like the hidden browser in
WipeOut)that provided functions that were offered natively in future versions
of the OS. Then the hacking scene moved to OS vulnerabilities. As Sony locked
down the platform tighter and tighter, people moved to hardware, using modded
batteries to boot the PSP in some kind of troubleshooting mode.
Eventually, both Sony and the hackers kind of lost interest, I think -- I
haven't kept up with things, TBH. That said, Sony had the PS Vita to move to,
but I don't see the iPhone changing significantly in the next few years (risky
words, I know, but I'll be happy if proven wrong).
------
jamesaguilar
Unfortunately, since it is a university research group, they probably
disclosed responsibly and whatever defect allowed this form of jailbreaking
will soon be fixed. That means that it's unlikely that people will have a
perennial, easy jailbreak going forward from this source.
~~~
nhm
>Unfortunately, since it is a university research group, they probably
disclosed responsibly and whatever defect allowed this form of jailbreaking
will soon be fixed.
I wouldn't consider that unfortunate. Responsible disclosure should be
praised!
~~~
jamesaguilar
In almost all circumstances, I agree. However, the one circumstance I don't
agree is when systems are being kept secure mainly against their own users. In
this case, insecure systems are preferable (as a user), especially when the
attack vector is likely to only be triggered intentionally. Since I don't plug
my iphone into random USB cables pretty much ever, the only likely case where
this vulnerability could be exploited against my phone is if I chose to
jailbreak it.
~~~
eridius
Please stop speaking in generics. I assure you that, for the vast majority of
iPhone users, insecure systems are _not_ preferable.
~~~
randyrand
You're right, but then again, I also like being able to run my own software on
my own devices.
If _secure_ means _closed_ well, that is not a trade off a lot of people are
not willing to make. Just take a look at the outrage from the Windows 8 secure
boot loader that can theoretically stop linux from being installed.
Personally, I like it when companies include some physical mechanism of
getting root access to the machine. Whether we have to get root access through
the charger port, or pressing F12 when the PC is booting, this mechanism will
by definition have to be a 'vulnerability.' Of course, root access in this
sense is referring to bootloader root access, not the operating system - that
would be bad. We can only assume which type of root access is being referred
to in the hack above.
~~~
eridius
_If secure means closed well, that is not a trade off a lot of people are not
willing to make_
You're living inside a tech bubble. The vast majority of iPhone owners don't
care about "open". They care about "it works". These people are benefited
greatly from having a "closed" yet secure system.
------
kyrias
With hardware access all bets are off.
~~~
ef4
Yeah, but I think this is a bit worse than that.
If a faulty ethernet driver lets you compromise a laptop just by plugging it
into a malicious network, that's a legitimate vulnerability, not really a case
of "well, they had physical access".
USB may be customarily treated as more trusted than ethernet, but there are
clearly still scenarios where untrusted people may be able to send you USB
messages.
~~~
bigiain
"Here, mind if I plug my video camera into your Firewire port to charge (and
trawl through your ram and swapspace looking for any usernames and
passwords)?"
------
djbender
Hardware access is root access.
~~~
cookingrobot
That rule of thumb usually refers to having unfettered access to the hardware
- to be able to crack it open, snoop on internal signals etc.
In this case the problem is that the dock is expected to be a safe interface
(untrusted), when it actually isn't. For ex, people would be surprised if
their computer could be hacked by plugging it into a malicious power socket.
And likewise they'll be surprised if they find out their phone can be hacked
by putting it on an alarm-clock ipod dock in their hotel room.
| {
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SwiftScrollViews – An approach for managing text field over scroll view in iOS - rajamohan_4U
https://github.com/RAJAMOHAN-S/SwiftScrollViews
======
skadimoolam
How does this library save time for a iOS developer.
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
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We Don't Need More Programmers, We Need Better Tools - mschoebel
http://geekregator.com/2015-03-24-we_dont_need_more_programmers_we_need_better_tools.html
======
enkiv2
When people suggest teaching everyone in school to code, nobody (or at least
nobody sensible) is suggesting that some large number of those people actually
go into programming as a profession. Instead, it's because the basic critical
thinking and problem solving skills required to solve even simple programming
tasks can vastly benefit people in other walks of life.
Already, any real scientist will need to code in rudimentary ways as part of
their job. A linguist will need to be comfortable with unix text processing
tools and probably python. A physicist will know enough FORTRAN to write novel
simulations using the vast swaths of mediocre FORTRAN code written by
physicists before him. This level of working knowledge is the ideal; it's what
the mediocre programmers already flooding the field maxed out on, and it would
be just fine for them if they took advantage of it in a different field. A
person in any field can benefit from knowing how to code (as is demonstrated
by the wonderful generative art and generative writing produced by artists and
novelists who can code).
Mathematics is mandatory in school not because high school graduates are going
to go out and perform calculus daily while they make change for customers at
McDonalds, but because (at least in theory) if they can learn to solve word
problems they can learn to reason about things like state lotteries, ponzi
schemes, and other tricks hidden out in the real world that prey on people who
are unable to think clearly and deeply. Elementary programming experience
teaches that kind of thinking far better than word problems do.
(There's one more utility for universal CS education, which is that it opens
up the possibility of high-paying CS jobs to people with natural talents who
are stuck in socioeconomic situations that prevent them from having adequate
exposure to computers. This is relatively wide-spread, even in the united
states -- poor black families without computers at home, living in areas where
computer access through schools and libraries is heavily limited. By producing
a system that expands exposure explicitly to those groups, because of scale,
you almost guarantee creating the circumstances that produce a handful of
really skilled people who would otherwise have never had the necessary early
exposure and would have spent the rest of their lives working in an industry
that didn't benefit from their genius.)
| {
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Key things to keep in mind when building a marketplace - antoniolc
http://parkfy.io/key-things-to-keep-in-mind-when-building-a-marketplace
======
antoniolc
Which other things would you add?
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Google Chrome Notebook Pilot Program (Cr-48) - panarky
http://google.com/chromenotebook
======
SingAlong
OK! cool! but whom do I report a bug to?
The list of states in the form doesn't change even after changing the country.
And there's no "other" option too in the state field. I ended up selecting a
US state even though my country is different.
~~~
jonknee
"The Pilot program is open to individuals, businesses, schools, non-profits
and developers based in the United States."
~~~
cryptoz
Sure. But they why let the user select a country? Right now, the form lets you
enter "123 Maple St, New York City, New York, Russia".
What?
~~~
jonknee
Sure, my point is the bug is that the country field is selectable, not that it
requires a state.
~~~
jcsalterego
It's a poor man's CAPTCHA.
~~~
deno
If it was meant to be CAPTCHA there's no need to make it selectable.
------
megamark16
I applied, but 140 characters doesn't give me much room to gush about why I'm
an awesome candidate for their pilot program. :-)
------
jjcm
I'm curious what they're looking for in the 140 character box. I put that as
I'm in the middle of the pacific ocean, I often have high latency issues
(which is a concern on a web focused OS). I would enjoy seeing some stats on
who they chose at the end of all of this.
------
sudont
We should do a retrospective to see who here gets one.
~~~
peregrine
I thought about putting news.yc in my little comment box but I decided against
it.
------
Bacchusnp
Did anyone get a confirmation that their application had been submitted
| {
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A Micropreneur’s Perspective: Selling Physical Products vs. Digital Products - rwalling
http://www.softwarebyrob.com/2009/05/04/selling-physical-products-vs-digital-products/
======
herval
"Though I haven’t acquired anything yet (I have my eye on a few), the return
on those funds will be much higher with a software product or SaaS website"
so he's basically assuming 'digital' is better because your experience with
'physical' didn't sell enough? What about thousands of purely digital sites
out there that don't sell anything? Would that disprove the comparison in any
way?
imho, the assumption that the margin is higher on digital ignores one simple
fact: most 'digital products' on the web are free anyway...
~~~
brc
No, digital is better because you own the IP, the distribution and take home
almost 100% of the gross. Returns are not a factor because there's no physical
product to worry about. He is sharing the bulk of the revenue (40%) with the
dropshippers, and if he didn't do that, he'd tie up a lot of capital in
inventory and warehousing, plus have to pack and ship orders. None of these
are problems with a digital business.
~~~
netsp
pigs are better then cats
I don't mean to be snarky, but any comparison between digital and physical
products that's weighing them up in abstract is just silly. There are good and
bad business models doing either one.
------
HeyLaughingBoy
My problem with this article is he mentions that to avoid being a commodity,
you need to build your own product, then ignores the rest of that path.
There is obviously lots of money to be made that way, even by 1-man shops. I
do it (sell custom/semi-custom electronics) and my fulfillment and inventory
costs are minimal.
Sure, reselling most products is relatively low margin (but profit is
profit!), but it's not like the only choice is "digital" vs. "resale."
------
bemmu
<http://marketplace.sitepoint.com/auctions/55207>
------
snowbird122
Key point here: When you sell physical goods, unless you manufacture the goods
yourself, you are a commodity, therefore, margins will always be low.
~~~
netsp
_One major benefit of selling a physical product is you don’t have to build
anything; the work is all in finding a supplier and putting up a site. This is
great because you avoid the 200-400 hours to build something._
I don't know where to start.
| {
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} |
Show HN: Save notes + bookmarks while browsing - zerostar07
http://noteplz.com
======
webwanderings
I have yet to find a similar service which would let me do the same but save
my data on my own computer instead of their servers.....and at the same time,
the data is compatible with multiple browsers.
The standard bookmark managers of both Firefox and Chrome are so outdated and
they don't play nicely together.
------
zerop
Cool Idea. I was really looking for something similar. Adding some notes with
bookmark is much needed. No need to open lot of similar bookmarks while
looking for something. Good job Guys.
------
taliesinb
Looks cool. If I use this for an extended period of time and create a lot of
notes, can I get programmatic access to my own data somehow?
------
davidjhamp
seems like everyone writes one of these(mine is notefeeder.heroku.com). I hope
one of them gets popular so that others will stop repeating this cycle.
Looks good though.
~~~
zerostar07
I like the simplicity of your app. You should add twitter/facebook login.
------
MatthewPhillips
Thank you for implementing BrowserID.
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Where does music come from? - dlokshin
http://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2010/09/where-does-music-come-from/63160/
======
tommynazareth
As a habitual tapper of things and singer of nonsensical syllables, I agree
with the conjecture that music originates with the sound of people moving, but
it also originates in everything we hear as we sit still and listen to other
things move. And like spoken language (I think), as the music we produce grows
from its roots, it is influenced by out exposure to cultural artifacts,
including other music.
An interesting area for inspection is the spectrum between organic music,
technical music, abstract music, and emotional music. Is the original music we
produce from simply moving tied to an emotional experience? At what point do
we begin understanding music as a language that can exist in absence of
physical experience? It'll be a cool book if it delves into these kind of
questions.
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
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Unexpected Consequences of Self-Driving Cars - ghosh
http://rodneybrooks.com/unexpected-consequences-of-self-driving-cars/
======
Daishiman
Whenever people jump up enthusiastically about autonomous cars being right
around the corner, I remember taking a cab in Lima, Peru, in the middle of
some horrendously chaotic traffic, where drivers were navigating with little
regard for lanes, negotiation for merging is done eye-to-eye, and impatient
pedestrians would throw themselves into the street, tired of waiting for
minutes to cross and trusting that the driver ahead wasn't suffering from some
murderous rage that day.
I also remember run-down suburbs where massive potholes and ditches make
navigations of certain streets a puzzle by itself, compounded by garbage
trucks ahead just doing their thing, improperly placed signage ahead, and
those badly-designed intersections where you can totally count on drivers
misjudging distances.
As the designers move away from the relatively trivial confines of well-
maintained urban spaces and into different countries and cultures, I seriously
question their ability to keep things reasonable for the rest of the human
drivers. So far nothing in the near-future horizons of this technology
indicates that the software would be able to navigate in many of these adverse
situations without incurring huge time penalties or causing unacceptable
delays.
I really do think that a lot of the hype happens to be because certain actors
(Uber comes to mind as the most significant) have basically placed all their
bets in these edge cases being small enough that a small number of human
drivers should suffice to get around them. I remain skeptical.
~~~
morgante
Why is the situation in Peru at _all_ relevant? I too have been to lots of
places where self-driving cars would have a ridiculously hard time.
Those places are also very far from the cutting edge of technology.
Even if self-driving cars are confined to US highways, cities, and suburbs
they have terrific potential. The future doesn't have to be evenly distributed
to arrive on time.
Seriously, I don't even understand you argument. Why would the existence of
challenging backwaters in Peru prevent the development and deployment of self-
driving cars in the US?
~~~
gambiting
Because there are 1st world countries where the situation is not that
different? Poland for example, actual road:
[http://i1.ytimg.com/vi/FESuhya2Ig0/hqdefault.jpg](http://i1.ytimg.com/vi/FESuhya2Ig0/hqdefault.jpg)
Signage is absolutely atrocious, there's too many signs, some of them wrong,
some of the rules are implied(speed limit ends at any intersection, but if a
road is going to a private property, then it's not an intersection, so good
luck knowing where a speed limit ends), people drive like crazy, there's loads
of unpaved roads.....and yet a person from a very rich western country(say UK
or Germany) can drive over there in few hours driving time.
Every time someone makes an argument for self driving cars, I keep thinking if
they would work back home - the answer is, they wouldn't.
~~~
annnnd
I would buy a self-driving car (even if it only works on normal roads and
refuses to drive anywhere else) in a heartbeat. Can't drive some road in
Poland? I'll manage. But if it takes the driving out of my daily commute I
would pay good money for it.
On a separate note, try replacing "self-driving cars / normal cars" with "cars
/ carriages and horses" in such discussions. It make many answers obvious.
(Hint: I am sure there were people who pointed out that the cars couldn't
drive over narrow winding paths where horses ruled)
~~~
obastani
How is the self driving car going to know it can't drive on that road? I
imagine the argument is that the self driving car won't notice that the signs
don't make sense (like a human would) and causes an accident.
~~~
baddox
That seems like one of the easiest problems, much easier than actually
navigating a well-organized road system like in the USA. If the car can follow
a lane then it can certainly know when it detects no discernible lane. If the
car can avoid obstacles like a pedestrian or a car crossing its lane, then it
can certainly know when there is a chaotic mess of obstacles crossing its
lane.
------
Larrikin
I thought it was a very good article, but disliked the comparison to the sad
state of US trains.
The author knew he was being a little disingenuous with his comparisons to the
sad state of US infrastructure, which is why he was careful to preface every
reference to poorly automated train systems with the US. There are a number of
automated systems worldwide that work pretty well. The Yurikamome was the
first line that came to mind. Its not an extremely packed line, but having
safety systems similar, like door gates, works very well. Automating a more
used line would of course be more difficult, but not impossible. Aggressive
door closing seems to work pretty well in taming crowds. It might take an
education period in the US, but once people realize holding a door won't allow
you on the train and that it will only allow you to remove a trapped limb,
people will be less inclined to do it.
~~~
jholman
Haha, yeah. Entirely agreed.
There is, within 15 miles of the continental United States, a Level 4
automated train, that has been running for over 30 years, with 50 miles of
track, and 300,000 passengers per day. And it works great. It's off-the-shelf
technology backed by a moderately sizable 70-year-old company, so you can just
go out and order a system like this yourself next year, if you want to (and
you have a few billion dollars).
That doesn't solve any of the self-driving car problems in the article, so
it's totally a side point, but Level 4 trains are a solved problem, for over
30 years.
------
smileysteve
I have to disagree with Social outcasts; A study this year concluded that
driver pedestrian interactions are at an all time low; likely because of both
parties using cell phones.
As the article states, I often enter cross walks to test if a car is going to
slow down; and they often don't. Similarly, I recently had a near miss when a
pedestrian ran across the street when I had a green light (late at night too).
(in Atlanta) Currently, cars are 1st class , Pedestrians are 2nd class, and
when I bicycle, I'm often 3rd class.
Self Driving cars, I hope, will make this more equal because I'm tired of
almost getting hit when I walk across the street in my residential part of
town and a "showboat" enjoys flooring it (going 2x the speed limit) down my
street for the 1 block between traffic lights.
~~~
nommm-nommm
Twice now in the last year I've waited at intersections for the walk signal
and when it came on I almost got run over and got beeped and screamed
profanities at by drivers taking a right. I guess now drivers believe that
they have the right to the road 100% of the time and nobody should ever be
allowed to cross, even at crosswalks during the prescribed time for crossing.
Drivers have become increasingly hostile in the last several years.
------
Tepix
The author is wrong, the manufacturers are already considering the problem of
communicating with pedestrians.
Mercedes: [http://www.electronics-eetimes.com/news/mercedes-benz-
self-d...](http://www.electronics-eetimes.com/news/mercedes-benz-self-driving-
car-communicates-leds)
Google: [http://time.com/4129247/google-self-driving-cars-
patent/](http://time.com/4129247/google-self-driving-cars-patent/)
And this article in popular science: [http://www.popsci.com/people-want-to-
interact-even-with-an-a...](http://www.popsci.com/people-want-to-interact-
even-with-an-autonomous-car)
~~~
amelius
Do pedestrians now have to learn the UIs of different brands of cars in order
to not be overrun?
------
_ph_
Many good points in that article. Probably self driving cars are finally going
to force us to review and to fix in many occasions the way we are using cars
today. Especially the ways which are already broken today. A good example is
the competition for the parking in front of a Starbucks or other similar
shops. The common usage pattern is still crafted by how traffic was decades
ago, and you could still just drive to a location and leave your car. But that
depended on there being fewer cars than parking lots. In most locations, this
is a thing long past - so I would consider the current situation already as
broken. Self driving cars would make it worse and such could force us to
finally find solutions for these situations.
There are two obvious ways of fixing that situation. The first, recognize that
trying to reach a location by individual cars cannot work out and ban private
cars. Many European Cities have large pedestrian zones where private cars are
locked out of whole streets in city centers.
The other option would be, and fortunately self driving cars would be part of
the solution, to create enough parking spaces. Parking in the streets would
still be disallowed, creating large pickup areas instead. So the road sides
would be free of parking cars, enabling drivers to stop at any desired spot.
As soon as the passengers left the car, the car would leave immediately for a
nearby garage. This would of course depend on the creation of the necessary
amount of parking garages.
~~~
chx
Banning private cards, I believe, will be unnecessary. I know free market is
often folly but in this case, I believe, the advantages of just tapping in the
app to call a driverless cab will be huge. In almost all cases it must be
cheaper than owning a car which doesn't work most of the time just sits there.
~~~
_ph_
I was not speaking of a total ban of private cars, just banning cars from
certain streets. Converting streets to pedestrian zones is quite successful in
the center of large cities, where the distances are short and the traffic
density higher than individual transport could deliver.
------
decker
Don't forget that once we get to level 4, every time there's rain or snow,
there might even be more loss of life as everyone gets to learn how to drive
again in bad weather.
------
MR4D
This is a great article that covers not only edge cases, but almost subliminal
behavior that people perform almost every day.
To me, it is clear that our behavior will change. As an American in Amsterdam
a few years ago, I was horrified to learn that at some places pedestrians can
just walk out in front of you, and you have to stop. After a few days of
observing this (as a passenger, thankfully), I noticed that you could tell the
tourists - the natives would walk into the street without looking, knowing the
drivers would stop. Tourists would hesitate, looking to the driver for
feedback. Oddly (to me, as an American), I found that the natives had it
right, and that blind faith made things smoother. The tourists, in checking
for driver feedback before waling into a street, would actually slow things
down more than necessary.
This is but one anecdote of thousands, but it shows how the expected behavior
of a person from one place does not necessarily translate to another place. I
would extend that same thinking to the future, in that or future will be a
behavior change from what we do today.
I'm sure it will come slowly (although occasionally startlingly), and there
will be new signs, new laws, and new behaviors. But for me, the best
comparison is to when we introduced cars into the streets that had previously
been owned by horses and carriages. a bit of chaos, but fairly rapid adoption
(within a decade). It wasn't uniform, and it was messy, and some places lagged
the modern world by decades. But it came, we adjusted, and now we can't even
remember what that previous world was like.
What's that quote about the future not being evenly distributed? I think it
applies here perfectly.
------
tabeth
Weird, but somewhat relevant question (given that self driving capabilities
combined with buses can potentially disrupt public transportation in urban
areas): why do we even allow anything that's not a bus (say, 10+ passenger) or
industrial vehicle on the road?
The downsides of such a thing seem small.
1\. There would be less traffic
2\. The speed limit could be raised
3\. Due to higher occupancy, more people could go to places, faster.
4\. Cheaper per person (maybe) than most other forms of public transportation
5\. High density areas can have fleets of buses go there, express. This would
have only a little overhead compared to driving your own vehicle, yet would be
substantially cheaper.
~~~
amelius
Depending on destination, you might need to change buses several times, which
is of course inconvenient.
OTOH, booking a busride far in advance might mitigate this. Also different
price-levels could mitigate this to some extent. I'm not sure if it would be
sufficient, though.
------
umberway
If and when _all_ cars are computer-controlled another consequence may be that
children will be free to roam about. This assumes that those same cars are
built to be incapable of hitting pedestrians. Is this possible?
~~~
michaelbuckbee
Well, this sort of behavior has (presumably) already happened [1], but this
also gets to the crux of "unintended consequences". Will we see kids
deliberately walking in the street, knowing full well they aren't going to get
hit and extorting drivers to let them pass?
1 - [https://electrek.co/2016/07/21/tesla-autopilot-saved-life-
pr...](https://electrek.co/2016/07/21/tesla-autopilot-saved-life-prevented-
serious-injury-pedestrian-dc/)
~~~
umberway
Yes I'm sure this sort of thing will happen however I imagine the overall
social consequences would be beneficial. Children are highly confined at
present and the ability to roam and talk to different people, walk to school,
etc, has been lost. Largely for fear of their being run over by traffic.
~~~
dagw
_Largely for fear of their being run over by traffic._
Are you sure? I get the feeling that good old Stranger Danger is still alive
and well, and automated cars won't in any way change that.
------
noonespecial
I expect as far as the social aspect of driverless cars making their way
through our neighbourhoods goes, eventually most humans will just come to see
them as an odd type of animal. Like a horse. It probably wouldn't hurt to give
them some active animal-like cosmetic features that help nearby humans
anticipate what they are "thinking".
Delightful symmetry there, no? The first great task of mechanized transport
was getting rid of the horse aspects, the second was building them back in.
~~~
amelius
Nice thought, but as the article states, car manufacturers do not want their
cars to be recognizable as autonomous, because others might take advantage.
------
tony-allan
If the advent of self driving cars corresponds with reduced private ownership
then cars will not need to wait and our children just need to hop into the
next free car and their phone or smart school bag will contain their home
address. For adults, cars will not need to hand around near venues because we
will just get into the next available car.
I agree that the transition will be messy. Perhaps we will need to redesign
our local communities a bit to help. More off street parking for example.
------
webmaven
_> Since there are no current ways that driverless cars can give social
signals to people, beyond inching forward to indicate that they want to go,
how will they indicate to a person that they have seen them and it safe to
cross in front of the car at a stop sign?_
There is no reason that autonomous vehicles can't give other rudimentary
social signals in ways similar to drivers that can't see each other by using
their headlights, turn signals, emitting short 'beeps' from their horn, and so
on.
For that matter, autonomous vehicles can be given greater range of expression
by adding a 100^2 pixel RGB LED display or similar behind the windshield or on
the hood that can display emojis, or by actually giving them the ability to
speak (KITT-style):
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i-UqF5ElduY](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i-UqF5ElduY)
~~~
amelius
Eventually perhaps. But until then, there is a very large uncanny valley to
bridge.
------
lhopki01
The comparison to level 4 or 5 trains doesn't make sense to me. For a train
you've got millions of dollars worth of hardware and track so the driver is
only a tiny component in the overall cost. For trucks and taxis the driver is
the biggest costs. The incentives for autonomous cars are much higher than
autonomous trains.
------
chernaborg
What about that part where all of our computers are riddled with zero-days,
and wide open to shadowy government organizations with massive technical
budgets, and the part where we weren't 100% cool with that.
And like, what about the part where we were worried about nefarious anonymous
super hackers cyber-attacking the electric grid, and the gas grid, and other
critical infrastructure, and we were worried about that sort of thing
spiraling out of control into a federal emergency, because heat and potable
water were taken down in the middle of winter, when a utility worker's laptop
was spearphish hacked, because internet of things? I guess that can't happen
anymore?
So now, right in the middle of this, the cars get to drive wherever they want
because computers, and nothing can go wrong. One has nothing to do with the
other, and we'll all be safe and totally okay, right?
------
elihu
One thing about self-driving cars that I'm not looking forward to is the
proliferation of zero-occupant vehicles on the roads.
~~~
jakeogh
Remotely connected AI with ~1MJ of KE? No thanks.
------
eriknstr
Having the description of abbreviations all the way at the bottom of the
article so that one has to scroll a mile to read what they mean is a bit
annoying. Instead of:
>When the first IMPs^1 for the fledgling ARPANET were being built starting in
1969 at BBN^2 in Cambridge, MA, I think it safe to say that no one foresaw the
devastating impact that the networking technology being developed would have
on journalism thirty to fifty years later.
>[A million words]
>^1 Interface Message Processors. Today they would be referred to as Internet
protocol routers.
>^2 Bolt, Beranek and Newman in Cambridge, MA, a company that was always known
as BBN. As distinct from BBN, the Buckingham Browne and Nichols school in
Cambridge, MA — no doubt many employees of BBN sent their kids to school at
BBN.
I would have preferred for at least the first of these two to be baked into
the text itself.
~~~
MikeTLive
While I agree to some extent, I find it funny that I've somehow been around
long enough to not realize people needed your example acronyms and names to be
defined. Including the reference in the BBN definition to the other bbn :) I
guess that's what happens when you live it first hand.
------
bamboozled
What about privacy?
There could be some serious privacy issues introduced by self-driving cars if
they take off.
Cameras and microphones patrolling neighborhoods of the world, constantly
feeding data into "the cloud" with absolutely no accountability?
Just no!
------
pfarnsworth
I had to stop reading because the blog poster's level of thinking is really
superficial.
If you're going to think completely autonomous self-driving cars, why the hell
would you bother with things like parking? Why would I even bother "owning" a
car? What the more reasonable approach is time-sharing of multiple vehicles,
like Uber.
So instead of worrying about parking, you order a car, and it picks you up,
and then you get dropped off. It drives off and services other customers.
Then, when it comes time to get driven home, you order another car that comes
and picks you up. You only pay for the car while it's driving you, not while
it's sitting there doing nothing.
Or, if you did own the car, when you are not using it, it could go off and
service other people and earn you money, and then return to pick you up.
And why would you go to Starbucks to pick up your own coffee? Why not send a
self-driving car through the special self-driving car drivethru to pick up the
coffee and return it to you? It could wireless transmit the order and payment
details for you, and have a special slot for the coffee or food order.
Seriously, the article is really superficial thinking when it comes to self-
driving cars.
~~~
vecinu
I keep hearing this rhetoric and one could say that this superficial thinking
because it's very out of line with how people all over the world use their
cars today.
I don't feel comfortable renting out my car to strangers while it's not being
used. I'm afraid of it getting dirty, them not operating it properly and
causing mechanical damage that won't be seen for weeks.
On the other hand, having an "on demand" car service as my only option would
increase my transportation costs. My car is paid off, insurance is almost free
and gas is dirt cheap in the US it might as well be free. If I had to Uber
around with self driving cars my costs of getting around would skyrocket.
Are you suggesting having your own car as well? That's the only way I could
see this working.
~~~
smileysteve
> On the other hand, having an "on demand" car service as my only option would
> increase my transportation costs.
I've done some of the math on this; here are some very conservative figures.
\- $50/mo for reasonable high deductible coverage.
\- $100/mo gas
\- $100/mo parking at the office
\- $x /mo parking at home (not realized in my case)
\- $80mo misc expenses (tires, wiper, diy synthetic oil change, taxes, car
wash)
$330/mo pays for a lot of $5 uber pool trips.
And while _our_ cars are paid of; The average American does not and is
increasingly spending more. This adds an additional $300 to the amount I can
spend on trips.
This says nothing of the current liability of driving a car. Where an accident
with a > $50k car with over $100k of medical costs creates a gap in coverage
for the average American.
~~~
vecinu
I don't commute to work by car so for my occasional use of getting groceries,
going out to eat, getting a haircut or doing the occasional shopping, I don't
spend anywhere near that much.
\- $40 for insurance
\- $30 gas
\- $5 (Maintenance)
$75/month on my end. If I were to UberPOOL everywhere, besides the fact that
it would be inconvenient because it would take longer and I would have to
share a ride, it would cost more.
~~~
nommm-nommm
$5 in maintenance sounds low. $5 a month in maintenance is $600 over 10 years,
a new set of tires would cost around $600 and you should replace your tires
before 10 years no matter the tread depth(1). I believe you are probably doing
more maintenance to your car than new tires every 10years.
You also can't just totally discount the initial cost of the vehicle like that
as "free."
(1) [https://www.edmunds.com/car-care/how-old-and-dangerous-
are-y...](https://www.edmunds.com/car-care/how-old-and-dangerous-are-your-
tires.html)
------
ck425
This is very interesting to read from a UK perspective. We don't have the
concept of jaywalking, except for on motorways (I was actually shocked when an
american friend explained it at uni, how the hell does anyone get anywhere,
then I realised they mostly drive). So these social interactions don't just
occur in certain areas, they're widespread across most roads and pedestrians
technically have right of way over cars. Could autonomous vehicles cause the
end of walking places?
------
aamederen
At some point, we will debate against manual driver cars. As a petrol-head, I
love driving and riding but that is the truth. the sooner we get rid of
manual-drived cars, the faster we switch to self driving cars because the
existence of manual cars are a big problem for self driving cars and they
limit the potential the self-driving cars can achieve. We should at least do
that in some cities. Imagine a town with no traffic lights and cars move in a
harmony and scary precision in traffic.
~~~
yjftsjthsd-h
Imagine a power outage. Imagine solar flares. Imagine a town with no backup
plan for complex systems suddenly encountering events with 1 in a million
odds.
------
zby
One aspect that is not covered is armed conflict (or terrorism). Imagine what
would happen if enemy take over a fleet of autonomous cars, be it through
hacking or by physical attack on a control center.
Another thing: imagine robbery with autonomous robots and cars.
I am waiting for Hollywood to catch up on these ideas - this would be very
cinematic.
~~~
ajmurmann
Does the car need to be completely autonomous for that scenario to be a huge
issue. Isn't completely controllable through on board computer bad enough?
Someone could remote control and thus weaponize such a car already, could they
not?
~~~
zby
Yeah - indeed, remote control would be enough. There is a problem with
latencies though - so you need at least some autonomy in the car. And then
there is also the thing that if it is remotely controlled - then it is easy to
stop it - just jam the communication link.
~~~
jakeogh
Eliminating the passenger lets you make the tool more expendable. The attacker
can control more than one and afford to lose a few.
------
njharman
Most of #2 sounds fascinating and not anti-social to me at all.
Except, very few parents are gonna send a car and forgo helicoptering over
their kids. Isn't having kid unattended in car illegal most places?
------
argonaut
> taking away much of the rest of advertising revenue from print, radio, and
> TV
TV advertising revenue continues to grow, and is still larger than online ad
revenue.
------
jack9
Bait title for blog hits. These aren't unexpected consequences, they are some
of the specific benefits. It adds nothing to the discussion as it's neither
comprehensive nor insightful. Why does the author think autonomous cars are a
net good? Thanks, he went on and on about a few things he wants to pretend are
"unexpected". SMH
------
tahoeskibum
I think that driving in places such as India with little traffic rules might
be easier for an AI because the traffic flow is self-organized. There might
not be any rules, but that is not relevant as we are not talking about expert
rule based systems. If the AI car sees a cow it'll just slow down and move to
the side to overtake.
------
wcummings
I live in this area, completely agree, author is spot on.
------
known
Social mobility is a major problem in democracy [http://www.bbc.com/news/uk-
politics-24936416](http://www.bbc.com/news/uk-politics-24936416)
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
How to Handle Big Git Repositories - brudgers
http://blogs.atlassian.com/2014/05/handle-big-repositories-git/
======
yeukhon
submodules is a curse IMO. I used submodules in the pass and I hate it. Some
of our projects still use submodules and I am vocal about removing the
reference. My reason disliking it is that 1) I always forget to do recursive,
2) I hate to muddle my root repository with another repository inside of it,
3) I forget to update the commit, and 4) most of the time I don't need
submodules. I can live with more git clone commands. Oh add one more - a lot
of people use git@ rather than [https://](https://) because I don't use SSH to
clone (I enable two-auth however) on my laptop, so whenever I clone one of our
org's project which has sudmodule, I have to fix sudmodule config....
Personally I really dislike the fact Ansible's plugins are now sudmodules, but
not up to me to decide.
The only large repo I have worked with was Firefox (mozilla-central) but I use
Mercurial. Either way the speed was never an issue for me for a fresh clone -
I expect a while. In git I could clone specific branch or specify a depth if I
know I just need specific branch to work with. I guess when you work with real
big repo like Facebook's or Google, then maybe there is a concern.
------
sytse
Git Annex is a great way to handle large files. You can version them with git
but they don't make the repository larger. And they are synced at rsync
speeds. GitLab.com and GitLab EE have build in support for it
[https://about.gitlab.com/2015/02/17/gitlab-annex-solves-
the-...](https://about.gitlab.com/2015/02/17/gitlab-annex-solves-the-problem-
of-versioning-large-binaries-with-git/)
------
res0nat0r
BFG Repo Cleaner is also a good tool which I don't see mentioned in the
article: [https://rtyley.github.io/bfg-repo-
cleaner/](https://rtyley.github.io/bfg-repo-cleaner/)
~~~
e40
This looks very interesting, but I'm a little nervous about it since it would
appear it operates directly on the repo internal files.
Anything you can say to make me feel better about using it?
~~~
robertotyley
I'm the author of the BFG, I'll try to help with that.
The BFG uses the JGit library to act on Git repository internals - JGit's the
library used by Google for hosting the Android codebase, handling thousands of
commits a day, and it's basically a pretty serious library. As for the BFG
itself, I've used it myself on several critical repositories at the Guardian,
and it's been used on many major projects around the world - here's a hundred
tweets by different people who've used the BFG:
[https://twitter.com/rtyley/timelines/464727264345993216](https://twitter.com/rtyley/timelines/464727264345993216)
...and here's a comment by the head maintainer of Git itself, Junio Hamano:
[https://plus.google.com/+JunioCHamano/posts/Lm7iBwSLvoo](https://plus.google.com/+JunioCHamano/posts/Lm7iBwSLvoo)
So, I guess, most people like it.
------
m0th87
We made git fit to manage big assets as well:
[https://github.com/dailymuse/git-fit](https://github.com/dailymuse/git-fit)
Didn't go with git annex because, frankly, I never felt like I grasped what
was going on in the background when using it.
------
shurcooL
Someone should show this article to Jonathan Blow.
------
aikinai
Does anyone know if mainline git has any plans to eventually add better
support for binary files? There are a number of hacks and bolt-on solutions,
but it would be a lot easier to propose git for projects if it would just work
as-is.
------
skeletonjelly
Wish Atlassian's Stash supported Git Annex natively
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Show HN: Toasted Notes – flexible toast notifications for React - bmcmahen
https://toasted-notes.netlify.com/
======
infinitone
How does this compare with the many other react notification impls?
~~~
bmcmahen
The main difference is that it uses an imperative api and it accepts a render
callback allowing you to customize it pretty much any way you want.
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
How the BBC News website has changed over the past 20 years - dberhane
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-41890165
======
andy_ppp
How wonderful to see the BBC General Election site from 2010. Me and one other
guy built the whole output because the World Cup was on and all the main staff
were working on that. The other engineer even had to make the results service
work on Ceefax [1]!
We had over a billion hits in 24 hours to the statically published JSON file
that updated the results every 15 seconds and we could even control the client
poll rate from that file just in case.
Over a weekend we built the first version of the BBCs live page amongst other
things. It was terrifying watching constituencies declare for the first time;
about as close to a live performance of web development as you can get.
[1]
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ceefax](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ceefax)
[2]
[http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/shared/election2010/results/](http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/shared/election2010/results/)
(slightly broken now...)
------
cup-of-tea
One thing I've always appreciated about the BBC website is that the old
articles are still in the old style of the time. For example:
[http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/business/3559050.stm](http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/business/3559050.stm)
or
[http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/business/574132.stm](http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/business/574132.stm)
(there might be a way to reliably find more examples, I'm not sure).
I'm not sure whether this is by design or if the content was too tightly
coupled to the style to migrate, but I like it. I think in the relevant RFCs
it says that a URL should always point to the same thing, so it's good that
they don't try to update them.
~~~
wldlyinaccurate
I wouldn't say it's by design - more of a fun consequence of the way the BBC's
web platforms have been retired so far. Most of the retired platforms
generated static content (some XML, some HTML) so when the platform needed to
be switched off it was relatively trivial to archive all of the content. In
about 2013 the website was transferred piece by piece to a dynamic platform,
which it (mostly) still runs on.
The current platform is already slated for decommission some time in the next
couple of years and there's still no cohesive plan for how pages on that
platform will be archived. My guess is that they will be rendered on the new
platform(s) indefinitely, since everything is driven by a CMS API now. I think
it's kind of a shame - there's something nice about being able to look back in
time without the pages being distorted through the lens of the wayback
machine.
~~~
vanderZwan
I really hope they will archive statically rendered pages. It matters that you
are able to see old websites in their original form.
EDIT: does anyone know whom we might contact at the BBC to encourage them to
do this when they make the transition?
------
dotBen
I was a web producer (front end developer) and then web developer (CMS
template developer) for BBC News online 2000-2004. It was my first job in tech
at 18 and arguably still my fondest time in the industry. I led some of the
redesign from single column to the more modern design we see today.
I'm now startup founder and a VC - v far from the non-profit public service
nature of the BBC.
Happy to AMA if anyone had any questions.
~~~
dotBen
An interesting part about BBC News's tech stack, which was touched on in
another comment here, is that we didn't have the budget to serve dynamic pages
and so everything SPG'd (statically page generated) as we called it so it
could be served statically from the production web servers.
It meant an incredibly novel use of Apple WebObjects - which was set up to
render all of the versions of the story (flavours, I think we called them) via
the WOA and then FTP them to production. We used this system to produce not
only web versions but content for interactive TV output and I believe even
Ceefax at one point.
Another curious fact now: most of the BBC News website was coded in Objective
C in the early 2000's, to much chagrin as it meant us developers having to
learn this 'dead' language when really we wanted to use the Java version of
WebObjects instead. Many of the devs went on to have leading roles in the UK
iPhone development industry when apps were enabled for iPhone given the amount
of experienced we all unknowingly had received in what suddenly became a much-
sought after language.
~~~
mercer
I wish I had a specific question to ask, but honestly I'd love it if you just
told more stories about this period in your life!
------
interfixus
Hardwired widths, inaccesibility on small screens etc. were always annoying,
but in many respects, I'm retrograde enough to actually prefer the clunkier
designs and layouts of the paleolithic web-era. No-nonsense, unambiguous,
clearly delineated sections, and a healthy emphasis on content over form.
~~~
ryandrake
Correct me if I'm wrong, but I always understood that if you write basic, un-
styled HTML, you get flexible widths and small screen support for free. You
have to deliberately decide to make it worse by hardwiring widths and element
sizes. Is this not true?
~~~
interfixus
Oh, absolutely. And all kinds of horror were perpetrated against html in the
nineties.
My point was that _even so_ , I found - and find - lots to like in the
websites of yore.
------
anton_tarasenko
Wayback Machine allows browsing website history by year. Press year, instead
of arrows:
— The New York Times:
[http://web.archive.org/web/19961112181513/http://www.nytimes...](http://web.archive.org/web/19961112181513/http://www.nytimes.com:80/)
— WaPo:
[http://web.archive.org/web/19961220172326/http://www.washing...](http://web.archive.org/web/19961220172326/http://www.washingtonpost.com:80/)
— Financial Times:
[http://web.archive.org/web/19970607125328/http://www.ft.com:...](http://web.archive.org/web/19970607125328/http://www.ft.com:80/)
------
ajb
Interesting, although I wish they'd shown the whole of the historical pages.
I'd like to work out when the front page dropped below 50% actual news stories
(as opposed to 'The X that Y', 'Must See' and other buzzfeed type stuff). It's
clear that in 2003 it was still nearly 100% news, but the later ones are
cropped so you can't tell.
------
SoulMan
I am surprised how professional the site design looks even in 1997, also with
rich media link like audio and video.
------
jv22222
I interviewed to work as a web dev for the bbc back in tye very early 2000’s.
In the interview I said I was better at going away and thinking about things
rather than making decisions off the top of my head. I think that’s why I
didn’t get the job.
As far as I know, it’s the only tech interview I didn’t get offered the job.
Tough crowd!
------
that_lurker
And still no https
~~~
DRW_
With a site like BBC News integrating with lots of different internal
services, it can be more difficult than it seems on the face it to enable
HTTPs, but I'm sure it's coming soon, other BBC sites have enabled HTTPs.
~~~
wldlyinaccurate
There's actually not much to stop the rollout of HTTPS on the BBC News site
now. In fact, the major hurdles were overcome nearly a year ago. The final
hurdle is convincing the product and editorial teams that enabling HTTPS is
more important than whatever features they want to build.
~~~
DRW_
Ah - fair enough. I made some assumptions based on some of the hurdles seen by
some of the more recent moves to HTTPs on smaller BBC sites, not of any real
knowledge of the current situation.
(FWIW, your article from Dec 2016 played a part in me joining the BBC recently
as a developer, and I know of at least one other developer currently at the
BBC who also was motivated to apply after your article :))
~~~
wldlyinaccurate
There are hurdles for sure. I guess I'm just publicly venting my frustration
at having HTTPS on one of the world's biggest news websites be under-
prioritised for years and years :)
I'm really glad to hear that btw. I wish I could have stuck around for longer!
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Silicon Valley: Ironically Local - barisser
http://www.barisser.com/silicon-valley-48cf02089424
======
strict9
Not a good sign when the link to your company in the article doesn't work.
Also not encouraging that there's no Apache rewrite rule from www to root for
a production site.
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Show HN: Visualization of US Flight Data - dvdt
http://davetsao.com/flights-visualizer.html
======
jdeisenberg
This is wonderful! Is there a GitHub link for the source code for the plotting
tool you wrote?
~~~
dvdt
Thanks =). I'm planning on putting it up on GitHub as soon as I clean the code
up a bit.
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
ODNI/DOJ statement on the Yahoo/PRISM document declassification - GabrielF00
http://icontherecord.tumblr.com/post/97251906083/statement-by-the-office-of-the-director-of
======
GabrielF00
I shortened the title because the actual tumblr post title is obscenely long.
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Ask HN: I signed a NDA non-compete, but declined the job - jimkri
I have a question about an NDA which was also non-compete. It was for an internship, I signed it because I planned on working there, but I ended up declining the offer. I never did any work for them, I was involved with the start-up maybe 24 hours not even, I don't plan on doing any work in that area they are in.
Do I have anything to worry about? Other than the fact that I need to think before I sign anything.
======
mchannon
Depends on where you signed the papers.
In practice, the state of California makes it next to impossible to enforce
non-competition agreements. You are legally allowed to earn a living without
indenturing yourself to one employer.
Put this out of your mind. NCA's are routinely signed and ignored by nearly
the entirety of the bay area. Even the high-profile cases involving
executives/founders jumping ship and joining the competition tend to focus
more on nondisclosure rather than noncompetition.
If this is another state just let us know.
~~~
jimkri
That's what I was thinking too, I am in Pennsylvania and the company is in
NYC.
~~~
aosmith
That makes this a little trickier. Both of those states do not have right-to-
work laws. I still doubt they will chase you down over anything you do so long
as you don't start a competing business.
I've been in a similar position a few times and generally as long as you don't
screw anyone over those documents mean very little, especially at an
internship level.
------
HeyLaughingBoy
Did they disclose anything to you that's covered by the NDA? If not, then you
don't have anything to worry about. Since you didn't actually work for them,
the odds of there being something you learned from them accidentally are slim
to none.
I'd say forget it and get on with life. And yeah, think hard before signing
anything: there's always time to think about it.
~~~
jimkri
Not that I can think of, the only time I really talked to anyone was during
the interview, than I stayed for maybe 2 hours in the office doing research on
what they were going to have me do.
Yea, I was just excited that a start-up wanted me, it was my first interview
that went well. Its a learning experience.
------
icedchai
Practically speaking, don't worry about it, especially since you've never done
any work for them.
Don't waste your money on a lawyer. (Many people here are overly paranoid and
will tell you otherwise.)
------
debacle
Were you privy to any critical proprietary information?
If so, then you may be in a bind.
If not, I would email them letting them know you plan on ignoring the non-
compete. Explain your reasoning.
~~~
jimkri
No, I only talked with someone during my interview, unless they consider what
we talked about is critical information. Which would be a stretch because it
is basic information about the industry. Otherwise I think I am in the clear.
Thanks for the advice!
------
SEJeff
You signed the Non-Compete, which makes it legally enforceable. Most NCAs
(non-compete agreements) have clauses allowing the firm to not enforce them if
they so choose.
I would send an email to the firm asking them if you're still bound by it. I
would also seek a lawyer to read the agreement you signed and advise you of
your rights first.
~~~
jimkri
Okay, yea I planned on emailing them today to see if it is still binding, and
okay that makes sense. Also thanks for the advice, it has been driving me
crazy thinking about it.
~~~
HeyLaughingBoy
I think that may cause more trouble than it's worth. They will likely have
forgotten that you exist by tomorrow. But if you email them specifically
asking about the NDA, they'll remember your name forever if there is ever a
breach of information.
~~~
saluki
Not a lawyer here either . . . I definitely wouldn't draw attention to myself
though by contacting them about it . . . you didn't work there and didn't
learn anything proprietary so you should be good to go . . . that said I
wouldn't launch a similar startup to theirs . . . without consulting a lawyer.
But being an employee or launching an unrelated startup should be fine . . .
in the future I'd sign NDA/NCA on your first day or when you formally accept
the job (this might be the case, or they might be 'NDA crazy' and had you sign
one before even interviewing. Good luck in 2015.
------
petervandijck
Don't worry about it.
* Unless you are starting a company in the exact same business right now.
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
The WSJ cracked the adblocking code - vladiim
http://www.heuro.net/blog/wjs-cracked-adblocking/
======
stephengillie
This article reads like a "submarine article" for one of the WSJ's articles.
Is this a future for journalism - use an article-as-advertisement to promote
your articles?
~~~
jerf
Use your article-as-advertisement to promote your advertisement-as-article,
then rake in the pageviews from your long series of introspective articles
asking _exactly_ where the line between those two things is, neatly anchoring
the debate in a way that helps you avoid considering the possibility that the
very fact we're debating that encompasses acceptance of the advertising either
way, and drawing readers away from the question of whether perhaps the whole
site itself fits under one of those categories....
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Show HN: A bookmarking tool designed to help synthesize your web research - te_ch
https://klobie.com
======
rjeli
Looks very nice.
Relatedly, I wish I could automatically freeze and archive every single web
page I visit, minus heavy media, possibly with very low quality images. I
tried squid and the internet archive’s proxies, but MITM’ing myself is just
slightly too annoying. There’s SingleFile[0] which does pretty much exactly
what I want, ripping every single page into a self-extracting HTML+zip file,
but it runs inside the browser so it adds a little delay after you navigate to
a page, again slightly too annoying. Anyone have a recommendation for a
seamless way to do this? Otherwise I’ll probably roll my own extension that
pipes every URL to a local process that rips in the background with e.g.
selenium.
I wish there were a way to run fully privileged extensions in Firefox, i.e. in
the browser context instead of the page...
[https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/single-
file/](https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/single-file/)
~~~
interurban
Saving every single page feels a little overwhelming to me, I open lots of
pages looking for a piece of information or an answer to a question and many
aren't relevant, many others are outright spam.
That said, I use pinboard to save/bookmark links, and I paid for the archival
account type which automatically stores the pages I save. There's a handy
bookmarklet so saving a page is a one click operation.
~~~
treszkai
How do you deal with the eventuality of Pinboard going down? (Which will
almost certainly happen sooner or later.)
While the civilization doesn't depend on my data, I always like to have a
backup, so paying for a service to store my web archive is barely more future-
proof than saving links.
~~~
canadianwriter
You can export the archive and put it on your own harddrive if you want,
that's what I do, so I have an offline backup of all sites I have bookmarked.
------
Abishek_Muthian
Congratulations on the launch!
Although 'synthesise' has broad meaning, I think organising the bookmarks this
way helps to fetch our bookmarks when needed e.g. A need gap - 'I forget my
web bookmarks quite often'[1] was posted on my problem validation platform
which I think this tool can effectively address.
Did you have the intention of solving that problem when creating this tool?
Then I would suggest improving the copy in the home page from 'Synthesise' to
something on the lines of -
'Don't forget your bookmarks again, get them back when you need it'.
Also, an address bar integration which brings results from Klobie first could
serve the purpose better IMO.
[1][https://needgap.com/problems/57-i-forget-my-web-bookmarks-
qu...](https://needgap.com/problems/57-i-forget-my-web-bookmarks-quite-
often.-internet-organizing)
~~~
te_ch
Thanks! Great points.
My specific use case is doing initial, exploratory web research to work on
company, industry and market analysis. This initial phase requires reviewing
many sources and identifying the "important bits" that will help structure the
main project. I take notes for that, at the bookmark, topic and board (theme)
level. I get what you say, the wording of the one-liner maybe doesn't reflect
all possible use cases, or even properly describe my own! I'll consider
options for this.
The idea of address bar integration is _terrific_.
Thanks again for the feedback!
------
sawaruna
Not sure if this will fit the bill exactly, but have been looking for
something like this to accompany knowledge base note tools like Roam,
Obsidian, etc., since those don't work that well with web content IMO. Using
Zotero at the moment, which is fine for something not web-based. are.na is
maybe another similar service aimed at content beyond bookmarks. klobie looks
good though!
A couple of suggestions: I like the 'card view' of the board pages, but
assuming one has a lot of tags, and many bookmarks per tag (or even many
bookmarks for a single tag), I feel the 'overview' you get with the board page
kind of vanishes and the individual tags take over. Something like a fixed
height option for the cards that becomes scrollable would be nice.
Alternatively, each tag becomes a separate page, with the bookmarks being
listed once you enter the tag page instead of the board page, but not sure if
you want that kind of hierarchical structure. Oh, and maybe a tighter column
view might be nice!
~~~
te_ch
Thanks! I appreciate the feedback. I'm not familiar with all those tools, but
yes, the idea here is bookmarks for now.
I get what you say about boards with too many topics/bookmarks. I've been
thinking of different ways to display information, so this kind of feedback is
very useful!
------
mooreed
Looks slick.
What do the numeric figures mean at the top of a topic card?
Things like 1b, 7b, 2.1bt and 11% and 17%
Is there somewhere that explains those? Did I miss some internet wide naming
convention ??? :)
~~~
te_ch
Thanks!
Good question, I forgot to add that to the help section :)
B = board
t = topic
b = bookmark
bt = bookmarks per topic
The percentage is the "coverage" received by a given topic in each board. If a
board has 10 bookmarks and 3 of them are labeled e.g. "topicX", topicX's
coverage is 30%. Totals may add up to more than 100% due to multiple topic
assignments.
It helps you figure out where you stand in terms of the information you
collect. I sometimes have to e.g. research and compare a number of topics
within a given theme (e.g. companies in nanotechnology), and I want to make
sure I do enough digging on each one.
I'm here if you have more questions!
~~~
shaunkoh
Looks super nifty! Is there a way to import pinboard bookmarks or Evernote
notes?
~~~
te_ch
Thanks! Data import is at the top of the pending features, and plan to work on
it within the next week. I'll look into those two sources and see what I can
do.
------
squallstar
I was one of the tech founders of a start-up called Cronycle which made a
similar (but more advanced) tool many years ago:
[https://www.cronycle.com/](https://www.cronycle.com/)
I don't know if I can still recommend the product but for the years I used to
work there I know we built an amazing product.
\---
A few years ago I also made a bookmarking tool expanding links which is open
source and free to use: [https://fragments.me/](https://fragments.me/)
~~~
te_ch
Thanks for sharing these!
------
asimjalis
I like the app. One thing that did not work well for me was the requirement to
enter a topic. I want to quickly bookmark a page and move on. Why is topic
required?
~~~
te_ch
Great point. I wonder if you use bookmarking to save URLs "just in case"? When
you are on mobile, and then return to the website when you have more time for
that? Any other use case?
In my use case, it's a matter of organization. But totally get what you say,
classifying things into buckets is extra work. I'll consider options to
address this but, would adding a topic "later" be a temporary solution to you?
Then you can edit bookmarks' topics as you please, but they would initially
appear under the same card corresponding to the topic "later".
Thanks for the feedback!
------
jsnk
This looks useful. But I would like to confirm if it has "export to static
file" functionality.
It would really suck if I spent months accumulating data for some research,
only to have the account banned or suspended, or the app shuts down.
~~~
te_ch
It actually has already an export function hidden somewhere :) But I had to
disable it temporarily. So, yes, it'll definitely have it back in a few days.
Question: are CSV exports ok? Any other format you'd prefer?
Thanks for your feedback and interest!
~~~
indit
For me, markdown will be a great option. Since it would help for deveolping
research or blog notes.
~~~
dhet
+1 for markdown. For me as developer (and for others as well I'm sure)
markdown has become second nature for taking notes.
BTW, great work, te_ch! Do you have any plans for monetization? I can
definitely see myself paying a few dollars a month if I end up using it
enough.
~~~
te_ch
Thanks! I really appreciate the feedback. No plans for monetization yet.
If you decide to try it, I look forward to receiving more feedback and feature
requests!
------
juskrey
Bookmarking does not work. Saving every page of the slightest interest to me,
even if I don't read it immediately, was one of the best things I took as a
habit.
(Using Evernote for this)
------
known
You can bookmark this
javascript:void function(){var e=window,a=document,b=encodeURIComponent,c=e.open("https://archive.is/"+b(a.location)+"%26title="+b(a.title),"td_popup","left="+((e.screenX||e.screenLeft)+10)+",top="+((e.screenY||e.screenTop)+10)+",height=510px,width=550px,resizable=1,alwaysRaised=1");e.setTimeout(function(){c.focus()},300)}();
~~~
hundchenkatze
Sure, but the value added by klobie is by organizing and presenting the
bookmarked sites in a useful way. Take a look at the sample board
[https://klobie.com/v/8oqy1eg/coronavirus](https://klobie.com/v/8oqy1eg/coronavirus)
------
neovive
This looks great! There seems to be a renewed interest in bookmarking
services. I've experimented with a few options over the past few years and
recently settled on the Notion web clipper. Although Notion doesn't have all
the features of a dedicated bookmarking service, the ability to save
everything to a table that you can tag, add notes and filter is nice. I will
keep Klobie in mind as an option.
~~~
te_ch
Thanks! I'm glad you found a bookmarking tool that works for you. But please
don't hesitate to reach out to me directly to discuss what features would make
you consider using klobie. Cheers.
------
donbale
Fantastic work, I have been looking for something like this. I have started
using it and it works great, just a little feedback: In Chrome when entering a
new bookmark I have to click back in the box once a topic has been entered and
I wish to add another, which is annoying. It would also be great if the title
was auto populated via the URL and then leave it to the user if they want to
customise this.
~~~
te_ch
Thanks! I really appreciate your feedback.
Re: title: it actually is auto populated when you bookmark a webpage with the
bookmarklet AND the webpage has a title. Let me know if I'm missing something
here.
Re: topics: yes! You are absolutely right, I'm fixing that asap.
------
slowkow
Diigo has been active since 2006. It works well enough for me.
[https://www.diigo.com/](https://www.diigo.com/)
> Diigo is a multi-tool for personal knowledge management dramatically improve
> your workflow and productivity easy and intuitive, yet versatile and
> powerful
------
caviv
A bit confusing. Me myself I prefer to use [https://yabs.io](https://yabs.io)
\- like good old del.icio.us
------
kvdr
Love it! Thank you for creating this. Is there a way to add the bookmarklet to
my toolbar instead of having it on the bookmarks toolbar which I keep hidden.
EDIT: Also can I get to my home page when I click on Klobie than clicking on
my username? And can I tag bookmarks with topics under different boards?
~~~
te_ch
Thanks! I'm glad you find it useful!
What browser do you use? Once you created the bookmarklet, you can move it to
your e.g. "bookmarks bar" in Chrome and it's pretty handy (that's my current
set up).
I'll consider your navigation suggestion – any specific reason why you prefer
to click on the logo to go back to your home page rather than the username?
Any problem with the interface? Visibility?
Each board has its own set of bookmarks and topics. If you want to save a
bookmark to multiple boards, you'll need to do save it to each one of them.
Sorry for that – this is at least for now, a copy bookmark function is an
option that I'll consider.
I'll be here if you have questions, or you may want to just send an email to
the contact email (address here:
[https://klobie.com/help](https://klobie.com/help))
Thanks again!
------
kanobo
Great job, looks clean and useful! I think it'll help to put the site's
favicon or some kind of visual differentiator next to each link so it's easier
to scan when you're looking for a specific link.
~~~
te_ch
Thanks! It's a great idea. I've been considering something along those lines
but haven't decided about the ideal way to implement it. But I think I'll have
an update on this in a few days. Stay tuned! I appreciate the feedback.
------
laybak
Been working on a similar tool: [https://getrumin.com/](https://getrumin.com/)
Does the bookmarking, along with a visual canvas for editing the
relationships.
Feedback welcomed :)
------
superasn
Nice but I forgot my password during signup and now can't find a way to
retrieve it. Where is the forgot password page because I can't find link for
it on the login page either.
~~~
te_ch
Sorry for the inconvenience! I still need to implement that feature (I know,
it's important). Would you like to sign up again using the same username?
Please contact me at k at klobie.com and I'll make sure you can access/use the
tool. Thanks!
------
ghostbrainalpha
Great Job on the example board. It totally sells the idea.
I wonder if you could tie in with Googles related search terms to get
suggested ideas to further research and fill out your board?
~~~
te_ch
Thanks! A connection with Google search does sound interesting! I'll look into
it. Feel free to contact me directly if you try the app and have questions.
------
lachlan-sneff
Any chance of being able to host on my own server?
------
cuttyhuddy
we've actually made something similar. Have a few unique workflow features for
switching and searching as well.
[https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/blink/jgnbmndipgkk...](https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/blink/jgnbmndipgkkiedmlkpkonbppmfjjial)
------
weswpg
error upon verifying account:
2 validation errors detected: Value at 'username' failed to satisfy
constraint: Member must have length greater than or equal to 1; Value at
'username' failed to satisfy constraint: Member must satisfy regular
expression pattern: [\p{L}\p{M}\p{S}\p{N}\p{P}]+
~~~
te_ch
Hey sorry for this, the bug was fixed already, please go ahead and try it :)
Thanks for reporting!
------
qwerty456127
I want to feed URLs to a service which would assign relevant subject tags
automatically. Can it do this?
~~~
te_ch
Hey thanks for asking. That's not an option though, at least for now :) But do
let me know if there is any other feature that could help with tagging in the
meantime!
------
jeppesen-io
Just signed up, I ike it and will start using it
A request: Make `topics` optional or ability to set a default topic(s)
~~~
te_ch
Thanks! I'll work on this soon, it's going up on my to-do list.
------
cel1ne
Just a tip, if you want this to become internationally used:
"Klo" means "toilet" in german.
~~~
sdoering
for me the first German association was "klobig" that could be translated as
unwieldy.
not sure if this is better, though.
------
veleventh
OMG. When will someone make a free Pinboard clone and that's enough
------
tsieling
Ah another round of 'guess the password policy'!. Try a password. No, it needs
a capital letter. Next try, No, it must also have a symbol.
I moved on after that. If this is the UX of setting up a password, I'm not up
for the rest.
~~~
te_ch
Thanks for the feedback and sorry for the inconvenience!
The sign-up page actually does include the password requirements: "The
password must be at least 8 characters long and include upper and lowercase
letters, numbers and symbols."
In sum: * 8 chars long minimum * include all of these: upper and lower case
letters, numbers and symbols
I do realize that such a combination of characters is somewhat hard to
remember compared to simpler passwords. I'll consider options to simplify all
this.
I appreciate your feedback.
~~~
zikzak
I keep getting an error with the username and finally inspected the validator.
I think you could be applying your pwd validation to the username field but I
could be wrong, anyway I figured it out eventually.
~~~
te_ch
Thanks for your feedback! Please contact me (k at klobie.com) if you still
encounter any issue when signing up/logging in.
------
vagsmith
there was an over-engineered tool called Surfmark which was trying to do the
same a few years ago. the website still seems to be active. surfmark.com
~~~
te_ch
Thanks! I'll take a look, it does seem to be active.
------
im_dario
Nice :) Do you have any plan for paid subscriptions?
~~~
te_ch
Thanks! No plan for subscriptions. I look forward to receiving more feedback
if you use it (feel free to reach out directly to me).
------
CarlosMoz
Really useful. Great project!
~~~
te_ch
Thanks!
------
CharlesMerriam2
FYI... Chrome only; no Firefox.
~~~
te_ch
Thanks for your feedback. Having trouble with Firefox? Something specific?
~~~
zikzak
I'm late to the party but do you have tips for adding pages quickly on mobile?
The boomark I created in the desktop Chrome client either isn't syncing or
isn't available in mobile Chrome (Android).
~~~
te_ch
Thanks for the feedback! The bookmarklet should actually work on both desktop
and mobile. Please consider that bookmarking on Chrome (Android) requires you
to type the name you used when creating the bookmarklet into the browser's
address bar to bookmark a web page. You may want to reach out directly: k at
klobie.com if it still gives you a hard time.
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Startup dies after topping Product Hunt charts. Founder shares lessons learned - vmalu
https://www.techinasia.com/music-app-lisn-shutdown-insights-from-failed-startups
======
foobarbazetc
"Product Hunt doesn't matter"
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
PHP 7 – What changed internally? – Nikita Popov(2015) - pknerd
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zekEqhaPmag
======
tyingq
Just the slides if you like that better than video:
[http://www.slideshare.net/nikita_ppv/php-7-what-changed-
inte...](http://www.slideshare.net/nikita_ppv/php-7-what-changed-internally)
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
What happens in your body during a “cleanse” or “detox” - ValentineC
http://lifehacker.com/what-happens-in-your-body-during-a-cleanse-or-detox-1669540259
======
vixen99
Summing up -
"Rather than worry about 'detoxing,' people would be better off thinking about
eating nutritious, health-promoting foods on a daily basis. Think leafy
greens, beans, whole fruit, nuts, and seeds. The idea that six months of
unhealthy eating can somehow be remedied by drinking nothing but green juice
for 72 hours is erroneous."
------
unreal37
Doesn't really answer the question of the title. The authors can't determine
what happens during a detox because the detox sellers don't mention any toxins
by name.
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Moving Forward Boldly with Kin [Kik Shutting Down] - ga-vu
https://medium.com/@tedlivingston/moving-forward-boldly-with-kin-ec6290a6453
======
Deimorz
Posts like this one make me hate HN's strict title requirements, which you've
even broken with your clarification in brackets.
The important story here is the shutdown and mass firing, but on HN it has to
be told through the lens of their PR-friendly title, which is unlikely to get
much attention (and that's exactly why they wrote it that way).
~~~
dang
HN's title rule is " _Please use the original title, unless it is misleading
or linkbait; don 't editorialize._" When a corporate press release uses an
anodyne title to deflect attention, that's misleading—so it's well within the
guidelines to change it to something more accurate. The main thing is not to
overcorrect by sensationalizing it the other way.
[https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html](https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html)
------
mikepurvis
Seems bizarre to me that there wouldn't be enough value in the Kik app to spin
it off or at least sell it. It must be losing a lot of money to need to be
dumped like this.
------
raiyu
Additional information here: [https://www.coindesk.com/in-drunken-text-kik-
ceo-threatens-t...](https://www.coindesk.com/in-drunken-text-kik-ceo-
threatens-to-quit-im-not-going-to-jail-for-this)
------
wildtomato
I wonder if Azer Koçulu should get his NPM package 'kik' back. :)
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Building a Sophisticated Mobile App with Google Flutter - monmongel
https://quire.io/blog/p/Quire-Building-a-Sophisticated-Mobile-App-with-Google-Flutter.html
======
karmakaze
Should have 2018 in title--Apr 10, 2018.
As such, some notes are out of date. e.g. There is now a scrollToIndex (but
still not for varying height items).
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
How to Recognize Article URLs from Regular Sites - massanishi
https://medium.com/@Massanishi/how-kaffae-extension-recognizes-and-tracks-articles-2f477092b9d1
======
massanishi
Summary:
\- Defining what constitutes an article is hard.
\- Today, many article URLs follow similar structures thanks to Wordpress.
\- A simple url check is usually sufficient to distinguish forum and Q&A sites
even though they can be textual sites.
\- Article content should contain title, paragraphs, author, published date in
meta tag/html.
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
P2P Ajax over WebRTC - pfraze
http://blog.grimwire.com/posts/grimwire0.4
======
d1_mo
Impressive. But what's the main use case?
~~~
pfraze
Privacy. It'll be more obvious as I get more apps done, but you can replace
remote services with pages in the browser and avoid sending data away.
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Ending coronavirus lockdowns will be a dangerous process of trial and error - sohkamyung
https://www.sciencemag.org/news/2020/04/ending-coronavirus-lockdowns-will-be-dangerous-process-trial-and-error
======
undersuit
I agree. Governor Bullock has Montana re-opening on the 24th. Why are we re-
opening? It's the start of tourism season people! We already had plenty of
out-of-staters flee to their vacation homes in the state and the infection
rates in the cities that service them shows. Now we're bringing more people
in?
[https://covid19.mt.gov/](https://covid19.mt.gov/)
------
redis_mlc
The US lockdown as of April 14 is idiotic for several reasons:
1) Lockdown was started to reduce need for ventilators. Since they don't work
66% - 90% (80% in NY) of the time, that's moot. (But Chinese papers have
published that since January, so I guess we're slow learners.)
2) 98% of people who catch corona virus recover fine on their own. Of the
remaining 2%, most are older, just like the flu every year.
3) The US is not S. Korea - we're not setup for testing or tracing, and won't
be for months. We'll run out of food and most small businesses will be ruined
for no good reason.
4) Corona virus has spread world-wide. There is no way to predict if it will
come back next month or not, so let's get rolling on herd immunity.
My practical suggestions are, to use a medical metaphor, just rip the bandaid
off:
1) Spend a week creating dedicated quarantine hospitals, just like Wuhan did
in Dec./Jan.
2) Tell everybody to sew a mask.
3) End the lockdown after communnicating the above, and let the flu runs its
course, just like every other year in human history.
I understand that it's human nature "to want to do something", but we have no
cure for this.
~~~
DoreenMichele
_but we have no cure for this._
We also basically have no treatment, and that's why people are freaked out.
I'm personally encouraged by the speed at which people have risen to the
occasion, adapted and begin developing new hypotheses. I think if we can
figure out a more effective treatment modality, people will calm down
dramatically.
~~~
IfIEverCatchYou
> We also basically have no treatment
Not so:
[https://www.cancernetwork.com/news/clinical-trial-
explores-a...](https://www.cancernetwork.com/news/clinical-trial-explores-
azithromycin-hydroxychloroquine-combo-covid-19-treatment)
Edit: Besides, what if the cure already exists, and Big Pharma wants to make
more money selling long-term treatment drugs and equipment?
~~~
DoreenMichele
Clinical trials are not the same thing as reasonably effective, proven
treatment.
We are seeing an 80% death rate for people on ventilators. This means when the
worst happens, most people die, even with heroic measures and the most
advanced technology available.
When they have a more reliable means to treat people in serious distress, I
think people will be more amenable to easing the lockdown. Until then, it's a
big fat _fuck you_ to people in high risk categories.
I am hearing that doctors are comparing it to high altitude sickness and
trying to come up with a more accurate mental model that may yield more
effective treatment than ventilators. I hope that happens rapidly. A big
breakthrough in that area, where we know what the hell to do for you when
things get really bad, would make a very big difference in this situation.
Edit in reply to your edit:
I don't think that's at all what is going on.
I think I have some idea of what would help. It's mostly not more serious
drugs.
As a former homemaker, no one much cares what I think. But just as one human
to another in a stupid online discussion, I'm all for blaming big pharma for a
lot of things, but not this time.
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
70’s TV game recreation using an Arduino - geocar
http://searle.hostei.com/grant/AVRPong/index.html
======
n-gauge
Reminds me of this project using a pic 16c84 I built in the 90's
[http://320volt.com/en/pic16f84-video-tv-oyun-tetris-ve-
pong-...](http://320volt.com/en/pic16f84-video-tv-oyun-tetris-ve-pong-joistik-
kontrollu/)
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
How the Maker of TurboTax Fought Free, Simple Tax Filing (2013) - danso
https://www.propublica.org/article/how-the-maker-of-turbotax-fought-free-simple-tax-filing
======
musicale
What's puzzling is that the IRS seems to calculate your taxes anyway; if
there's a disparity, then they send you a correction a few weeks later.
Why can't they do this beforehand so you have the option of just clicking "OK"
and being done with it?
~~~
rayiner
That wouldn’t work for most people. If you are married, have kids, or own a
house, the IRS cannot calculate your taxes correctly.
(Single young people downvoting me. The IRS doesn’t know how many kids live
with you, what you pay in mortgage interest, and whether you’re still married
to your spouse, all of which are necessary to calculate even simple tax
situations.)
~~~
jdietrich
The article explains how return-free filing already works in many countries
and how it could work in the US. I know it's against the HN guidelines to
comment on whether someone has read the article, but you clearly haven't read
the article.
From a British perspective, the US tax system seems utterly bizarre, because
most people here have never filed a tax return. Taxes for regular employees
are deducted at source by the employer. Everyone has a tax code that reflects
what allowances they are entitled to; if your circumstances change, you just
call the tax helpline, inform them of the change and they update your tax
code. Self-employed people do have to submit a tax return, but you can do it
all online and the tax agency offers free training on how to do it.
There is literally no reason why salaried employees should have to do their
own taxes.
[https://www.citizensadvice.org.uk/debt-and-money/tax/how-
to-...](https://www.citizensadvice.org.uk/debt-and-money/tax/how-to-pay-
income-tax/the-pay-as-you-earn-paye-system/)
~~~
rayiner
> The article explains how return-free filing already works in many countries
> and how it could work in the US. I know it's against the HN guidelines to
> comment on whether someone has read the article, but you clearly haven't
> read the article.
This article (or something similar) pops up on HN every six months, and it’s
stupid every time. It’s shocking to me that people find the idea credible
because it doesn’t even pass the smell test. Even if this was about lobbying,
there is no way Intuit and H&R Block can outspend all the people who have an
interest in simpler tax filing. Seriously, Intuit spends $2.5 million per year
on lobbying—there are dozens of things that raise more on crowdfunding each
year, such as the “Opal Nugget Ice Maker.” Last year, a board game raised more
money on Kickstarter than Intuit and H&R Block spent lobbying.
The UK is a very different country than the US, and much more comfortable with
both central government control and taxes. Switzerland also has manual tax
filing, and the US is much more similar to Switzerland in terms of taxes as a
fraction of GDP, guns per capita, federalism, etc.
~~~
jdietrich
Why don't you make paying tax easier? It wouldn't work here. Why don't you
reduce your carbon emissions? It wouldn't work here. Why don't you make
healthcare affordable? It wouldn't work here. Why don't you make it harder for
psychologically disturbed adolescents to access semi-automatic weapons? It
wouldn't work here.
It's the same argument ad nauseum about every political issue since before the
civil war. The US is unique, the US electorate have strong and immutable
views, the US cannot learn from anyone else. Time and time again, educated
people dismiss the possibility of change, dismiss the possibility of
persuasion and compromise and reconciliation, dismiss the possibility of
shifting the Overton window and changing the zeitgeist. That isn't common
sense, it's political nihilism. The consequences of that nihilistic ideology
are writ large on the American political landscape and they are proving to be
disastrous.
~~~
rayiner
Whether or not American culture can be changed is besides the point. My point
is that the article misidentifies the reason we don't have automatic tax
filing. It's not the $5 million in Intuit/H&R Block lobbying, which is not a
large amount of money. Intuit/H&R Block are simply riding much more powerful
political forces that exist for other reasons.
(For the same reason, the $5 million in NRA lobbying each year is not why we
don't pass laws limiting access to semi-automatic weapons for "disturbed
adolescents." It's voters like me who are morally opposed to the government
keeping a list of who can and cannot exercise their 2nd amendment rights. The
lobbying is just so the NRA can remind politicians how many of us there are.)
~~~
nielsbot
Sounds like you'd be surprised how cheaply politicians are bought.
BTW--"sensible gun reform" has majority support.
~~~
rayiner
That’s a self-refuting assertion. If lobbying works, why would it be so cheap?
The economy has tons of competing interests—if they could get their way
through lobbying, that should bid up the cost of “buying” politicians.
For example, Grover Norquist has no personal stake in keeping tax filing
complicated (he doesn’t own stock in Intuit or H&R Block as far as I know).
But he spends a lot of time on the issue for ideological reasons. You’re
telling me that there’s not a billionaire Democrat who could throw $5 million
a year at the tax issue for funsies? Or public unions who would benefit from
simpler tax filing allowing taxes to be raised more easily? If it was just a
matter of outspending Intuit and H&R Block, someone would do it. But I could
give you $10 million a year (double what the tax companies spend) for this
issue, and you would not be able to lobby tax simplification into law.
~~~
moorhosj
Why would people spend money on something like this “for funsies”? You don’t
even take your own idea seriously or provide a credible reason other than “why
not”. Intuit and H&R Block have a specific goal and target it with specific
dollars each year. Over time that builds influence and control.
Grover Norquist absolutely has an interest in keeping taxes complex, it’s his
entire basis for influence and power. His fight is about lowering taxes
anyways, not complexity.
Here’s the flip side to your stance. If lobbying has no influence, why do
privately held businesses spend so much on it each year? Wouldn’t these
rational actors stop wasting money if there was no ROI?
~~~
rayiner
You can’t build influence and control with $5 million a year in lobbying. It’s
just not very much money. There are a lot of public interest organizations and
concerned individuals who could spend that kind of money (and do). They spend
it on other issues instead because they know this tax filing issue won’t go
anywhere.
You’re missing the point of the Grover Norquist example. _Why_ is tax filing
something Grover Norquist cares about? He’s rich—this doesn’t affect him
directly. And he doesn’t make any money off tax preparation. He campaigns
against tax filing simplification because it taps into a very large anti-tax
movement that he’s part of. _It is that movement that keeps tax filing
complicated._ Intuit and H&R Block don’t create that movement through
lobbying; they lobby to tie their issue into the larger movement.
As to the amount of lobbying: private companies don’t spend much money on
lobbying every year. Total US lobbying expenditures is $3.5 billion, out of a
$20 trillion economy (and a $4 trillion federal budget). (And that’s not just
companies, but includes public interest organizations.) If lobbying had
direct, non-speculative impacts on legislation, companies would do a lot more
of it. Look at the tax filing example. H&R Block makes more than $3 billion in
revenue each year. If lobbying had direct results, they wouldn’t be able to
protect that cash cow with less than $3 million a year in lobbying. A
competitor would come in and outbid them for legislation. (Indeed, corporation
versus corporation lobbying is probably the most typical kind. E.g. all the
money Google spends on copyright lobbying is best seen as a proxy war with
Hollywood over whether copyrights should be weak, which favors distributors
like Google, or strong, which favors Hollywood.)
Of course lobbying is important enough that companies do it. But it’s not
transactional like people make it out to be. Lobbying involves hiring
professionals to make presentations to staffers about specific issues, tying
them into general platforms that politicians already believe. Tax filing is a
great example. Intuit and H&R Block aren’t going in and spending $5 million to
convince people who love taxes to oppose automatic tax filing. They’re using
that money to lobby legislators who already want Americans to be outraged each
year in April 15. They connect their specific issue to the larger platform the
politician already supports. “Simpler tax filing is the first step to Danish
style 60% tax rates.” Then, they educate the legislator about relevant pending
legislation. “Elizabeth Warren has introduced an automatic tax filing bill.”
And they arm the legislator with arguments and white papers they need to
oppose the lesilation. “Making deductions opt-in will result in a $45 billion
effective tax increase on seniors, who will be to scared to challenge the
‘bill’ sent by the IRS.”
~~~
moorhosj
==You can’t build influence and control with $5 million a year in lobbying.
It’s just not very much money.==
You still haven’t provided any evidence. Your comments in this thread are
mostly ideological arguments.
From the article about them directly lobbying against bills on this issue:
==The disclosures show that Intuit as recently as 2011 lobbied on two bills,
both of which died, that would have allowed many taxpayers to file pre-filled
returns for free. The company also lobbied on bills in 2007 and 2011 that
would have barred the Treasury Department, which includes the IRS, from
initiating return-free filing.==
~~~
1123581321
The article doesn’t establish that the lobbying was the cause of the death of
the bill. You did not refute rayiner’s central assertion.
~~~
moorhosj
To believe his assertion you must first admit that the market competition is
apparently broken and we have numerous profit-seeking companies who invest
heavily in lobbying while seeing no benefit.
There will never be a direct link made because no politician will say, “I am
voting against this bill because Intuit took me to a nice dinner and
contributed $100k to my re-election campaign.” We do have evidence that
constituents want taxes simplified, bills have been presented to fix this
problem, companies lobbied against the bills, and the bills died. What’s your
theory?
~~~
1123581321
He was not saying that lobbying was completely ineffective. He was saying that
lobbying rode supported an ideological belief that taxes should not be
simplified, and the cost to lobby against the combination of the 5MM in
lobbying plus the ideology is a lot more than 5MM. His evidence was that the
relatively low value of 5MM hasn’t been outspent by an interested party, there
being so many such people who could afford it. I don’t know if that is the
case but I would like you to address the central claim. I don’t have a theory
of my own.
~~~
moorhosj
I would suggest the burden is on proving that there is a legitimate group of
people who think taxes should be complicated for ideological (not political)
reasons. You readily accepted that premise without any provided evidence. It
seems to me that politicians are making a calculation that it is advantageous
politically to have complicated tax filing process. Oddly, in the recently
passed tax bill the House GOP campaigned heavily on the idea of taxes filing
so easy it could be done on a postcard, an admission that people want
simplicity. When the law ultimately passed, they didn’t follow through on that
promise, maybe due to lobbying maybe for political reasons.
No party has as much direct interest in this issue as tax preparers. That they
haven’t been outspent is not itself evidence of anything.
~~~
1123581321
I did not accept the premise. Please don’t mistake my attempt to improve the
discussion as agreement with anyone. I just want this discussion to be better.
I don’t think demanding burden of proof is a comment worth making; could you
at least explain why you think there can’t be such people?
I do agree it is interesting that the GOP campaigned that way, incidentally.
Regardless of what degree of support for complicated taxes there may or may
not have been, support for simplified taxes in the large, populist wing of the
Republican Party plus presumably broad support in the Democratic Party should
mean more changes to tax collection soon.
~~~
moorhosj
==could you at least explain why you think there can’t be such people?==
It's not that there can't be such people, it's that there hasn't been any
credible evidence provided to prove there actually are such people. That both
sides of the political spectrum use the same language is pretty strong
evidence that there is broad support ideologically for a simpler tax code.
Bringing up Grover Norquist seems like a red herring, as he is himself a
lobbyist. His organization, Americans for Tax Reform, describes itself as a
group that "believes in a system in which taxes are simpler, flatter, more
visible, and lower than they are today." [1] Yet, they are used by rayiner as
an example of an organization ideologically opposed to simpler taxes and tax
filing. If anything, we should be adding ATR's own $5 million of annual
spending to the total lobbying dollars being spent against a simpler system.
==should mean more changes to tax collection soon.==
This is the central point. The tax code was just completely overhauled and it
included almost zero simplification, even though it's main proponents used
that exact messaging in their sales pitch.
The article suggests that the lack of action is, at least in part, because of
lobbying. It provides the evidence of lobby spending related to this topic and
the ultimate death of those bills. The also have a quote from Former
California Republican legislator Tom Campbell, he says he "never saw as clear
a case of lobbying power putting private interests first over public benefit."
[1]
[https://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php/Americans_for_Tax_Refo...](https://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php/Americans_for_Tax_Reform)
------
kazinator
This year for my taxes I used a little DSL I hacked up in TXR Lisp, where I
you can declare each line on a tax form, along with its description and its
value (or else how it is calculated from other lines). A bit like cells in a
spreadsheet: reactive programming, basically.
There is a function to produces a report of all the lines and their values,
grouped by form, sorted by line.
If I change a value, as in _(set (line 42) 123.32)_ , then re-run the report,
it will indicate all the lines that have changed, showing the old and new
value side by side.
I have some nice things in there, like handling groups of conditional lines
that vary by tax bracket and such.
All of the data is in a nice text file that is just (load ...)-ed, together
with the module that provides the logic, and that file is checked into git.
If the government did these calculations, I'd still want the option to do it
myself; I wouldn't want to be forced into dealing with entering numbers into
some web crap.
~~~
curiousgal
> I'd still want the option to do it myself
" _Taxpayers would have three options when they receive a pre-filled return:
accept it as is; make adjustments, say to filing status or income; or reject
it and file a return by other means._ "
------
Simulacra
Any business that has a captive or semi-captive market is going to do all is
can to dissuade others from participating in the market. It's the basis for
most licensure laws.
------
gamerDude
Does anyone know the true cost of lobbying? Salaries + whatever other expenses
are involved. It would be interesting to see a kickstarter style company for
hiring lobbyists for more public interest causes.
~~~
Kye
These exist. They're called nonprofit organizations.
~~~
toomuchtodo
Would they matter? If representatives ignore the good of their citizens (in
preference of lobbyists providing campaign contributions), you might have to
find alternative methods to bring about positive change.
~~~
rcpt
There's a strong argument that lobbying is more of a "legislative subsidy"
than it is vote buying or persuasion.
The idea is that most of the information governments need to craft policy is
only provided by lobbyists and that government staffers are typically less
informed about a given field than expert lobbyists.
Congressional staffers don't make a ton of money and typically aren't PhDs.
One way to reduce the impact of lobbying would be to offer very high salaries
to staffers so that we could attract world experts to our side of the table.
[https://www.cambridge.org/core/journals/american-
political-s...](https://www.cambridge.org/core/journals/american-political-
science-review/article/lobbying-as-legislative-
subsidy/AE4B5D8AB9C2487BB78C2A51BB53E03F)
------
tastyfreeze
I have never looked into why the US hasn't moved towards government prepared
taxes like many other countries. I just want to say fuck Intuit! Wasting
thousands of hours of time for corporate profit. Absolutely disgusting.
~~~
ApolloFortyNine
That majority of people could fill out the 1040EZ in 10 minutes and call it
done.
There's no way for the government to know what your work expenses were, what
you donated to charity, and so on and so forth through many of the deductions.
If you don't want to maximize your return, you can be done in less than 15
minutes.
Even making more than 100k, with stocks through multiple brokers, a 401k,
interest from multiple accounts, a house, student loans, and probably a few
others I forgot to mention, it took me an hour and a half to do my taxes and
cost me under $20 on freetaxusa (whatever the price for the state taxes they
charged was low enough where I didn't care to figure it out on my own).
The tax code is one of those boogeymen items that everyone attacks, but in
reality isn't nearly as bad as people make it out to be.
~~~
baby
> That majority of people could fill out the 1040EZ in 10 minutes and call it
> done.
How long does it take to understand that it's all you have to do?
> There's no way for the government to know what your work expenses were
What? That makes no sense.
> what you donated to charity
Same. This makes no sense.
> it took me an hour and a half to do my taxes and cost me under $20 on
> freetaxusa
wow. I guess you are used to filling your taxes so you're fast.
~~~
ApolloFortyNine
Maybe you're not American? Or haven't done taxes?
In the US, you can deduct your work expenses if you so choose (such as
required clothes, for instance). Since you did this on your personal card, how
would the government have any idea that you bought that suit for work? And the
same goes for donations to non profits.
~~~
sokoloff
Work clothes are only deductible if required _and_ not suitable for ordinary
wear _and_ only for tax years prior to 2018. A suit does _not_ qualify.
------
p1mrx
At least they're being honest about it. It's not TurboTax's fault if lobbying
is legal and cost-effective. The only way they'll stop is if we make that kind
of lobbying illegal, and good luck with that.
~~~
_robbywashere
It 100 percent is their fault. They are manipulating elected members of
government intended to respresent the PEOPLES best interest. This is where
capitalism fails
~~~
mrunkel
Wouldn’t the fault lie with the representatives and the people that keep re-
electing them?
~~~
akanet
Uh, I mean, partly? It's a pretty strange argument to say that no one can be
culpable of a bad thing so long as that thing is currently legal.
~~~
chronolitus
Imagine that murder was not illegal. Imagine that instead of making it
illegal, we complained to murderers that what they are doing is bad and they
ought not to. Then, we'd wonder why the crime rate isn't going doing.
The argument isn't about assigning blame. It's about criticizing society for
not solving the problem. Complaining about lobbyists doing bad things is not
an effective solution. Doing so shifts the dialog away from law implementation
(solution-oriented and practical) towards what is "right" and "wrong" (vague,
subjective, and doesn't lead to improvement).
------
dang
Big discussion from two years ago:
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13853150](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13853150)
And back in 2013:
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5443203](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5443203)
~~~
wmeredith
I’ll bookmark this page so I can link to it in 2021 when we’re complaining
about the same thing again.
------
JMTQp8lwXL
The tax code is complex because of many special interest groups that get their
carve-out. Even if you completely ended all lobbying from the tax preparation
industry, how much simpler would taxes actually get?
If you want a straight flat tax (or a progressive one), you'd need to get rid
of the mortgage interest deduction, charitable deductions, all these things to
refine the tax calculation to a very simple formula. And you bet those special
interest groups would never let that happen, even if the tax preparation
industry didn't lobby.
~~~
philipov
Don't let the perfect be the enemy of the good. We can and must improve things
iteratively. Just because we can't fix everything doesn't mean we shouldn't
fix anything.
~~~
cyphar
The issue is that the reason why governments have tax cuts for certain groups
is because that's how they win votes. Tax codes are so complicated in almost
every democratic country in the world specifically because such complicated
tax codes serve a purpose.
The difference between governments is who is getting the tax breaks.
Progressive governments give tax breaks and stipends to ordinary workers,
while conservative governments give it to corporations and the wealthy.
In order to gain or stay in power you need to make sure your key supporters
are looked after. This is as true in dictatorships as it is in democracies.
~~~
jpfed
>The issue is that the reason why governments have tax cuts for certain groups
is because that's how they win votes.
Isn't that an oversimplification, though? Governments also use tax cuts to
shape behavior.
~~~
cyphar
I would argue that shaping behaviour is another aspect of looking after your
key supporters.
If you put taxes on speculative trading, such traders won't vote for you --
but people who are against speculative trading will. If you give speculative
traders a tax cut, the inverse happens.
It also obviously will shape behaviour, but if that was the only purpose then
the government wouldn't be fulfilling their primary purpose: trying to stay in
power as long as possible so they can achieve whatever they set out to do.
~~~
philipov
If you're a career politician, "Stay in power as long is possible" is _the_
thing you set out to do.
------
argd678
I could have sworn there was an effort to release the tax laws codified in
Python libraries by the IRS or another official government agency. I wonder
now if it was a dream, I can’t seem to find the article now.
------
faitswulff
This comes up on HN basically every year. I'll put a different spin on it than
"big bad company ruins America": America was broken before Intuit got to it.
There will always be bad actors in society. Ideally government officials have
the temperament, wisdom, and intelligence to act in the public's behalf.
Unfortunately, that seems to be largely not the case in the US.
------
cmurf
It isn't just Intuit, and it isn't just their $5 million in legal bribes. If
it were simple to do income taxes, it would be tens of thousands of accounting
industry jobs that would be cast aside. I suspect the lobbying money comes
with that as part of the message.
Leona Helmsley, as quoted by her housekeeper: "We don't pay taxes; only the
little people pay taxes." She believed that and I suspect we have no idea the
extent of this corruption, and very well could also be why the system is the
way that it is. Corruption and tax avoidance is a right for the privileged,
secured as a product they can buy. If this is all easy peasy and automated,
how do you do clever obfuscation so you're avoiding taxes?
------
thewhitetulip
I'm glad that Indian tax system is great. They already do everything & if not,
they have Excel document written formulas which you can download & enter
amounts and it does calculation
------
zanderz
I already hated TurboTax before that story broke because of the horrendous DRM
that blocks legitimate use. I had kept DVDs for each of several years I filed,
then once when I went back to re-install a previous year to open the file, it
wouldn't work. I even found the amazon sales email from that year and TurboTax
support said there was still no way to use it, despite having original media
and a sales reciept! NEVER AGAIN. I use FreeTaxUSA now.
~~~
0xcde4c3db
> horrendous DRM
In case anyone thinks this description is excessively dramatic, you should
know that the DRM scheme in question works by writing its activation key to a
particular sector of your boot drive that _probably_ didn't contain anything
important.
------
lnyng
Is distributing free tax filing software illegal? i.e. some web app similar to
Intuit that help you fill forms but not filing for you. For general public
that do not have many special deduction items I think this would not be very
hard to do. For special deductions, I guess the app can just point the user to
possible forms they should look at.
~~~
everythingswan
You can already file for free if you make under $66k:
[https://www.irs.gov/filing/free-file-do-your-federal-
taxes-f...](https://www.irs.gov/filing/free-file-do-your-federal-taxes-for-
free)
Edit: I don't think I addressed your question, sorry!I agree that a simple
tool could be a great help if it doesn't already exist!
~~~
u801e
You can even do it if you make more than that with the free fillable forms
option.
------
rb808
I'm pretty sure the real reason its complicated is because politicians are all
trying to get deductions or special rules for their favorite special case. I
thin its simplistic to blame tax preparers.
Actually simplifying tax is one good thing Trump has done. Hopefully will
continue.
------
TimJRobinson
Is there a non profit out there lobbying and working to make tax filing free
and simple? I'd be happy to donate to them. We the people need to build more
nonprofits to fight back against corporate greed.
------
Zarath
At least having to file your own taxes maintains some pretense of financial
privacy.
------
rongenre
And that's why I do my taxes using Credit Karma.
~~~
charlescearl
I was tempted to but a bit worried that tax return information would be shared
with their partners.
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Tumblr has lost 30 percent of web traffic since December - jaredwiener
https://www.theverge.com/2019/3/14/18266013/tumblr-porn-ban-lost-users-down-traffic
======
alleyshack
This doesn't surprise me at all. I run a reasonably popular non-porn,
submissions-based blog and immediately after the ban was implemented, our
numbers tanked. Submissions dropped from 25-35 per day to around 10-20, while
the number of notes (likes+reblogs+replies) per post has dropped from 600-800
to 200-400.
Unfortunately, we still see about the same total number of spambots and fake
blogs in our notes. So at least from my own anecdotal experience, the ban did
nothing except drive away human users.
A lot of our followers asked if/when we would move to another platform, but
unfortunately for them (and us), Tumblr is the only major blog platform we
know of which supports a curated, moderated submissions-based blog. Reddit is
the closest runner-up in that it allows submissions and can be moderated, but
isn't curatable for all intents and purposes. I suspect if (when) Tumblr goes
under, it's going to take my blog with it, which is disappointing.
~~~
aussieguy1234
I run a popular tech blog on Tumblr and I've noticed the same thing.
Their faulty AI censor bot also flagged 20+ of my non porn tech posts as porn,
including a photo of Mars. Sent them all in for manual review months ago, no
response yet.
Conversely I'm also still seeing some actual porn on Tumblr. Its apparently
not difficult to fool the AI censor with carefully crafted images.
~~~
alleyshack
I had several _text posts_ flagged by their algorithm. I still don't know how
it managed to do that.
------
Izkata
On top of it, they weren't entirely truthful about how the block would be
implemented. A couple text-only tumblrs I followed had long been voluntarily
marked adult, and the announcement made it sound like they'd be in the clear.
Not only were they not, the implementation was to simply turn on the safe-mode
filter and remove the setting to turn it off, while still allowing the adult
content on subscribers' dashboards. So they had no idea they were blocked from
the public until someone told them, since subscribers could still interact
from that one page.
I expect it to continue to drop as more realize this.
~~~
gtsteve
I've seen a post showing that you can change the value of the checkbox behind
the UI element using "inspect element" and posting the form back. The server-
side doesn't validate and you can disable the flag.
This is probably patched now but if not it might show you how much they care
about this.
------
CydeWeys
Verizon is just a terrible company all around, and they certainly don't know
how to run a big social network. Everyone was predicting this when the
acquisition happened, and it's come to pass exactly as the critics said it
would.
Verizon may well be OK with killing Tumblr. It's far outside their core
competency, and unlike their core competency, it's hard to monetize.
~~~
HaloZero
I don't see how Verizon had another option?
With SESTA/FOSTA they could be held liable for anything too sexual. I imagine
Tumblr even as an independent agency would do the same.
~~~
perfmode
The affected Tumblr communities weren’t enabling sex trafficking.
This is just puritanical American values being imposed.
~~~
darkpuma
> _The affected Tumblr communities weren’t enabling sex trafficking._
How is tumblr meant to _economically_ filter those that do from those that
don't? Algorithmic detection of pornography of any sort is a much easier
(cheaper) problem to solve.
~~~
perfmode
Throwing out the baby with the bath water.
------
fouc
Just a month ago there was a HN thread about sex censorship killing off safe
spaces for LGBTQ folks and more.
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19061135](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19061135)
Tumbler really didn't do anyone justice. They're clearly reaping what they
sowed. Unfortunately it's a lose/lose/lose situation for all.
~~~
TorKlingberg
Tumblr didn't do it because they wanted to. They were forced by Apple removing
their app from the App Store.
~~~
vilhelm_s
Apparently they had already decided to do it before the App Store thing
happened.
[https://www.vox.com/the-goods/2018/12/4/18126112/tumblr-
porn...](https://www.vox.com/the-goods/2018/12/4/18126112/tumblr-porn-ban-
verizon-ad-goals-sex-work-fandom)
> But a former staff engineer, who recently left Tumblr and asked to remain
> anonymous for professional reasons, tells Vox that the NSFW ban was “in the
> works for about six months as an official project,” adding that it was given
> additional resources and named “Project X” in September, shortly before it
> was announced to the rest of the company at an all-hands meeting. “[The NSFW
> ban] was going to happen anyway,” the former engineer told me. “Verizon
> pushed it out the door after the child pornography thing and made the
> deadline sooner,” but the real problem was always that Verizon couldn’t sell
> ads next to porn.
~~~
iknowstuff
Why do companies refuse to have ads on a well known website on which some
posts happen to be porn? Is it an american thing?
~~~
jdavis703
It’s not an American thing, most advertisers also refuse to advertise next to
content that references extreme violence (think ISIS beheadings) and gambling
content. I worked on the ads team at a company, and we constantly had to tweak
our filters to ensure ads didn’t get served next to “adult” content.
~~~
subpixel
Meanwhile I have to watch a pre-roll ad to see reportage about a terrorist
attack.
------
colorincorrect
Is there a reason why advertisers don't like ads next to adult content? Is
there an actual study that shows ads in this form are less valuable?
~~~
p49k
I think they are acting on a reasonable fear that the reputation of the brand
could be tarnished by their placing of ads on the page, which could be seen as
a tacit endorsement of the content.
Let’s not forget that this is not about whether to spend money or not - it’s
about _where_ to spend money. Advertisers have countless options for where and
how to advertise, so it makes sense to shift money to more boring, safe
platforms where the ROI is almost identical anyway.
~~~
Joe-Z
That‘s so absurd though. It went from „hey let‘s put a banner in this popular
place, so people will know us“ to „let‘s police this place so people will only
associate us with nice things“
This whole ad-based internet needs to die.
~~~
sonnyblarney
It's not absurd, it's really the opposite - it's common sense.
Ads are an important means for companies to get the word out for stuff you
might want and they're in more places than the internet.
The industry suffers from inefficiencies, surely, but it's still net
beneficial.
Someday we might have fewer ads, and better ads that we really want to see.
If you ever get into a position where you have a company, and you run ads, and
you see how it affects your business, you might have a different view. For
example, I'm helping with a small new business making a very cool niche
product - they'd be dead without FB ads because only FB offers the kind of
targeting necessary (just basic demographics really). None of us are big fans
of FB but the business would not exist without them.
Businesses that have more scale and bigger budgets can hit demos a little
easier, but there's only two real games in town for many businesses: G and FB.
And of course, we would never, ever advertise near porn, not for a second. In
fact - if we felt that 'Tumblr' became well known or synonymous with porn, we
wouldn't advertise there. As far as G, well, they have porn, but for whatever
reason, it doesn't seem to affect their brand.
~~~
Dylan16807
> And of course, we would never, ever advertise near porn, not for a second.
> In fact - if we felt that 'Tumblr' became well known or synonymous with
> porn, we wouldn't advertise there. As far as G, well, they have porn, but
> for whatever reason, it doesn't seem to affect their brand.
I don't understand how the first and last sentence are compatible, unless
you're saying that you'd never advertise near a brand _known for_ porn, and
don't care otherwise? That's not a very principled stance, and it really does
seem wastefully harmful to a lot of sites.
~~~
sonnyblarney
Having your ads next to porn, is very different than having your ads inside a
technology that may show porn.
For example, advertisers do not want their ads shown before a youtube clip if
it contains porn.
Google is not seen as a 'porn brand' because ostensibly they are just
technology - they help you find stuff.
Tumblr had a problem in that a considerable portion of their content was porn.
If it happens that Google develops this popular attribution, i.e. they are
known as a 'porn brand' \- then people would advertise there, but I don't
think this will ever be the case.
FYI - Google also has some content controls, they don't have ads for porn,
they don't promote it etc.
Again, this is very easy social math. The 'proof' is not in any of my
statements, rather, it's the consistent application by basically every ad
agency: they don't want their ads with porn. But they're ok with their ads on
a site that may happen to show it if there isn't a branding concern and there
obviously is not with Google.
------
ddebernardy
I'm surprised it was only 30%... Per Wikipedia:
> As of March 1, 2019, Tumblr hosts over 459 million blogs. As of January
> 2016, the website had 555 million monthly visitors.
The numbers quoted in the article are barely more charitable. Basically it's
about one monthly visitor per blog... which one would assume means the blog
owners periodically check what their sites look like.
Was anyone actually using Tumblr for anything _but_ porn nowadays?
~~~
ungzd
> Was anyone actually using Tumblr for anything but porn nowadays?
What I've encountered there most frequently is blogs with "atmospheric" photos
and images. I always thought that most frequent use for tumblr is the same as
pinterest: for collecting pics of the same theme, "moodboards".
Of course I've seen nudes there, but almost no real porn, i.e. no photos of
sexual intercourse. I've rarely seen blogs entirely of nudes, they were mostly
posted amongst other "atmospheric" pics.
~~~
MrEldritch
I'd also agree that "Tumblr-as-less-shitty-Pinterest" is a pretty major use,
as is general "Twitter-without-a-character-limit" usage.
------
wyoh
No shit! Like plenty of users I don't visit this place anymore as my blog is
now empty of content (NSFW nude art blog). But even before the ban, content
creators (photographers in my case) were posting less and less, focusing
instead on Instagr.am networking and Patreon.
~~~
HenryBemis
Tumblr has a fantastic community of cartoonists, I have actually asked some
cartoonists to put their designs on other platforms just so I can buy a
t-shirt with some of their cartoons. Of course it is just a platform to
showcase the free stuff and then pull people to their patreon, which makes
perfect sense. Free blog hosting with X million teenagers.
------
iooi
The problem with hosting adult content is that it's pretty hard to monetize
it.
Advertisers want to be excluded from placements next to adult content, to the
point that there's entirely separate ad networks and payment processors that
are exclusive to adult content.
I'm guessing that this is the first step of a monetization overhaul for
Tumblr, this traffic was only costing them money and they don't see it as a
loss of users, more of a good riddance.
~~~
abel212
This actually makes a lot of sense. I think there are a lot of concerns about
this being an assault on free speech when ultimately it comes down to it just
not being profitable to maintain.
~~~
gizmo686
The two aren't exclusive. If major platforms of speech are privately owned by
profit seeking entities, then the fact that certain kinds of speech are not
profitable to host is a threat to free speech.
~~~
krupan
I think you are confusing gratis with freedom.
~~~
Dylan16807
You can't get back into the network by paying, so it boils down to a freedom
issue.
------
irrational
Huh, that is nowhere near the percentage drop I would've expected. I guess
people actually use Tumblr for more than NSFW stuff.
~~~
gabbygab
30% is a significant drop. It's really unheard of. MySpace and Digg didn't
have such ridiculous drops.
And keep in mind that this could be the start of an overall downward trend. If
30% leave, then activity on the platform crumbles. Some of the remaining users
notice the decline in activity and so they leave. Rinse, repeat. Once it
reaches a critical mass, you can't stop the decline and tumblr is finished.
Or it could be a temperory decline and a new plateau is reached where tumblr
can survive at.
~~~
irrational
I guess. But, I was expecting an 80+% drop by now. I'm astonished it is only
30%
------
marsrover
I have a non-porn tumblr with over 100k followers and following the ban
traffic has plummeted.
------
jug
So now we have a number for the porn traffic. The filter isn't perfect and
porn is still there. I wouldn't be surprised if the real number approaches
40%.
But apparently Tumblr is fine with it, because surely they knew how much
traffic it was driving? Or else someone did a truly shitty job with their
website statistics.
I can only assume they expect the brand value to rise proportionally to the
level that better advertising profits will offset the loss of porn. I guess
that's the harder number to estimate, and I have a feeling they're S.O.L.
because all blogging platforms are struggling in the days of the big services
like Instagram and Facebook, and those don't even have to try reverse a brand
associated with porn... They can speak of staying out of these big social
networks and win privacy and not selling your private life, but the problem is
that literally billions are on these services. They're giving you the
unparalleled reach.
------
tonymet
I'd wager that more than 30% of content consumed , and probably 60+% on insta,
is adult content. The difference here is that tumblr didn't have the resources
to mitigate the issue, so they chose a blunt cut-off.
~~~
totoglazer
I’m not big into insta, but I don’t get that impression at all. Tumblr, sure.
------
bazzargh
The data linked in the article suggests a different, less headline-grabbing
cause: perhaps Oath's obnoxious cookie banner? The statista figures showed the
downturn starting well before december:
[https://www.statista.com/statistics/261925/unique-
visitors-t...](https://www.statista.com/statistics/261925/unique-visitors-to-
tumblrcom/)
That points back to July 2018. It's not quite a smoking gun, as their GDPR
banner went up in late May, ahead of the 25th May deadline; even back then
people were complaining that their tumblr stats were tumbling.
[https://twirpz.wordpress.com/2018/05/20/has-oath-killed-
tumb...](https://twirpz.wordpress.com/2018/05/20/has-oath-killed-tumblr/)
------
HenryBemis
Tumblr is just lazy nowadays. There are many fandoms being active though. The
spark is long gone since Yahoo got their old shaggy greedy fingers on it.
Pornography aside, it is a great place to host a blog. Nice template, can
support many types of media. The disgusting part is the 3-4 pages of other
filthy fingers (ads-trackers) that welcome you every time you go to <insert-
name>.tumblr.com
~~~
Hoasi
> The disgusting part is the 3-4 pages of other filthy fingers (ads-trackers)
> that welcome you every time you go to <insert-name>.tumblr.com
I moved 1500+ posts (drawings, own content) from Tumblr to Jekyll just to
avoid that page. It seems designed to repel visitors permanently. People
cannot reasonably opt out of 300+ ads-trackers each time they check a single
blog. Another great missed opportunity as a competitor to WordPress, and other
blogging platforms, Tumblr will follow the path of Posterous.
~~~
HenryBemis
I've seen many people keep their blog to git.. I'll have a look at Jekyll,
thank you for the recommendation!
~~~
Hoasi
Jekyll is great. This _gist_ is a good starting point (once you are familiar
with Jekyll) to migrate from tumblr:
[https://gist.github.com/ndarville/5f8a7fb93191801de460c5ebe2...](https://gist.github.com/ndarville/5f8a7fb93191801de460c5ebe21cc9d4)
------
classicsnoot
More than a few comments here lay the blame on "puritanical Americanism" and,
as an American, I'm wondering where these so-called Puritans are when it comes
to gay wedding cakes, homeschooling, residence based cotton industry,
Christian expression, and gun rights.
America is neo-Protestant, not puritanical.
------
ChildOfChaos
That's not that much to be honest.
Most people were expecting Tumblr to be dead. I am sure they are pretty happy
with these numbers.
------
JBReefer
I wonder what the dollar value of that is. I know that even fairly recently
Tumblr was valued at $0
~~~
HenryBemis
The problem with Tumblr is that they could never figure out how to make profit
from it. Yahoo just made things worse by giving full access to so many
advertisers and trackers. Think Cambridge Analytica x50, but at least they
have do documented it.
------
wheelerwj
honestly, 30% isn't terrible for a major shift. I imagine they will save a
considerable amount of money on moderation and dealing with legal issues.
~~~
scrollaway
30 percent in three months is huge for a site this large. It's well beyond
critical mass needed to cause a permanent downward trend. The effect of the
loss of one third of the community will have an impact on the rest, causing
others to leave, and so on.
------
2038AD
I had already stopped using Tumblr but after the ridiculous advertiser opt-out
with GDPR and the introduction of the infamously inaccurate censorship AI, I
deleted my account
------
eruci
Tumbling down
------
etaerc
Hm, they must have gained a shit load of new content creators. Porn and
<shitload_of_letters>\+ was not just 30% of tumblr, it was like 80% of it.
~~~
Pfhreak
> <shitload_of_letters>+
... really? You can use LGBT+ that's four letters. Or GSM (Gender/Sexual
Minorities), that's three letters and it doesn't require you to stay current
on what the letters represent.
Going out of your way to type _more_ letters to take a shot at a minority
community is not a great look.
~~~
2038AD
To be fair I think it was more a joke about the acronym being overloaded. LGBT
on its own is already longer than it needs to be with 2/3 ways of saying
'attracted to people of the same gender or sex' but it then gets extended with
two Qs (queer and questioning), 2 As (asexual and allies), a P for pansexual
(which then causes arguments over whether bisexual people can be attracted to
trans people) and more. To add to that there are more distinctions which
should arguably be included (such as being homoromantic vs homosexual or
genderfluidity/genderqueerness as distinct from being trans or even being
transgender vs transexual(?)). In short, I think GSM is a great suggestion
with the only possible problem being at some point GSM people not being a
minority so the term becomes a misnomer.
~~~
Raphmedia
> LGBT on its own is already longer than it needs to be with 2/3 ways of
> saying 'attracted to people of the same gender or sex'
Sure and that's on purpose. Your perception of it is not the idea this acronym
is trying to push. It's not a label to say "homosexual" or "I like people of
the same gender as my own".
It's about unifying the lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender communities
together under an umbrella. Individually they have different values,
lifestyles and challenges. Together they have a stronger voice and can tackle
shared issues. They are very different identities.
As other communities grow bigger, they are welcomed into the acronym. That's
the very point of it and that's why it often gain letters.
------
anigbrowl
This thread is notable for the absence of 'free speech defenders'.
~~~
valar_m
What are you talking about? A private entity controlling the content they
permit on their network has nothing to do with Congress restricting freedom of
expression.
~~~
anigbrowl
Go and look at the thread about Amazon pulling books with quack autism 'cures'
from the website.
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19391696](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19391696)
------
aussieguy1234
They banned alot more than just porn. Alot of content normal people would not
consider to be porn was also banned, like fandom art and other content.
In response to this nonsense I've built Libr
([https://librapp.com](https://librapp.com)). I'm in the process of launching
it to production now, first to the early access people that signed up and then
to the wider public.
It's a progressive web app built on serverless tech and could handle all of
that lost Tumblr traffic, if it all came overnight (unlikely but who knows)
~~~
tuesdayrain
I'm confused why the "Safety for women" section doesn't contain anything that
specifically targets women. I believe male safety is a concern of equal
importance.
~~~
krapp
Every one of those bullet points is an issue which predominantly affects women
versus men. Implying that an equal amount of men are stalked and harassed
online and sent unsolicited nude pictures is simply incorrect.
Male safety in this regard is _not_ of equal importance because male risk is
so low in proportion as to be practically nonexistent.
IIRC, Tumblr users tend more often to be women, so it makes sense to advertise
features towards women for a site whose intent is to draw in former Tumblr
users. But... the site doesn't say those features are only available for
women, so given that they're available for men as well, I don't see what the
concern is.
~~~
scrollaway
You're conflating importance and need, I think. It's as important, even if
there is less need for it.
We value lives equally, even though some need more protection than others.
~~~
krapp
As long as the actual featureset is available to everyone, there's no issue
with unequal treatment, and nothing for men to be concerned about.
However, there's still little point in mentioning men, specifically, when
advertising those features to a primarily female demographic with those
specific concerns.
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
UI Testing Tutorial - ashitvora
Can anybody suggest me good UI / Javascript testing framework tutorial.<p>I have heard of qunit and yui test but never used it before.
======
sr3d
I've had success with Scriptaculous Unit test. You can find out more
information here:
[http://wiki.github.com/madrobby/scriptaculous/test-unit-
runn...](http://wiki.github.com/madrobby/scriptaculous/test-unit-runner)
The test suite itself is fairly standard: you have a test suite with setup and
teardown function, then you implement the test cases. You can setup your the
test suite in very short amount of time, since it only depends on PrototypeJS
and Scriptaculous. There is not very many info or tutorials on this, but you
can read the instruction and it will help you get started.
Alex.
~~~
ashitvora
Thanks Alex. Will give it a try.
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Show HN: Cross-Platform Apple IIe Emulator Written in Go - empressplay
http://octalyzer.com/downloads/
======
giovannibajo1
I've been working on and off on a Nintendo DS emulator 100% written in Go. You
can have a look here:
[https://github.com/rasky/ndsemu/](https://github.com/rasky/ndsemu/)
It features both the 2D and the 3D engine (with a full software rasterizer
with poly-fillers generated through go generate). It's highly concurrent (each
graphic layer is drawn in a different goroutine and then mixed together). The
ARM interpreter is also generated via go generate.
I'll add some screenshots at some point.
~~~
mappu
I think Go has great potential in this area. Some emulators (?
PCSX2/Dolphin/...) are famously stuck with very few threads owing to the
design of the underlying hardware, so anything that encourages extracting
parallelism from within each subsystem could potentially be a major
performance win.
~~~
flohofwoe
Cycle-perfect emulators at least for typical 8- and 16-bit systems need to run
each emulator subsystem (CPU, video, audio, ...) in lock-step for each clock
cycle. Spreading those emulator systems over multiple threads would mean that
the threads need to synchronize with each other after each step (which is just
a few host CPU instructions long). It might be easier for more modern hardware
where subsystems are much more decoupled from each other (and I guess with
Moore's Law dead this is our only hope to emulate more modern hardware in the
future).
~~~
giovannibajo1
That's true. In the case of Nintendo DS, I'm aligning doing line-based
emulation; so I first serially emulate the two CPUs (I could in theory
parallelize then, but I haven't properly design the emulator around this, so
all memory-mapped callbacks are not concurrent safe), and then emulate the
graphic subsystem for a single line, spreading the different layers across
different goroutines.
This means that goroutines synchronize 263*60 times per second, which is
something. I measure a high contention, so I'm not even sure it was worth in
the end, but I thought it was a good experiment to attempt :)
Another Go-related thing I did was using struct tags to configure memory-
mapped registers in a declarative way. See for instance:
[https://github.com/rasky/ndsemu/blob/master/irq.go#L13](https://github.com/rasky/ndsemu/blob/master/irq.go#L13)
where I configure the memory-mapped registers of the interrupt controller;
"wcb" / "rcb" tags stand for write/read callbacks, which means that specific
callbacks (with names matching the register names) will be called for each
read/write operation; this is all achieved through reflection. The same
applies to mapping the whole register bank, which is done here:
[https://github.com/rasky/ndsemu/blob/master/nds9.go#L69](https://github.com/rasky/ndsemu/blob/master/nds9.go#L69)
The memory subsystem handling these and more features is in emu/hwio, and I'm
actually pretty proud of it. For the memory mapping itself, a radix tree is
built which is quite quick to lookup and doesn't require much barcoding.
In fact, the whole "emu" package is a generic framework for emulators in Go,
and I plan to reuse it in the future :)
------
empressplay
Currently the Octalyzer features full-screen Apple IIe emulation with decent
compatibility, USB and mouse-controlled joystick support, cloud disk library
(when logged-in to Octa-Link), 3D camera support, 3D LOGO, enhanced BASIC
interpreters, custom file browser and editor, and remote screen sharing.
~~~
Hydraulix989
Does it have a CRT filter?
A lot of these retro games don't look so authentic on LCD screens because
things like blur and shadow masking were actually used by the designers of the
original games.
[http://filthypants.blogspot.com/2015/04/more-crt-
shaders.htm...](http://filthypants.blogspot.com/2015/04/more-crt-shaders.html)
~~~
lloeki
I could care less about games looking like they're "authentic" WRT to
curvature or phosphor grid pattern, but things like aspect-ratio correction
(non-square pixels), colour switching[0], or cheap transparency tricks through
composite[1] are another matter entirely.
[0]: [http://www.aaronbell.com/secret-colours-of-the-
commodore-64/](http://www.aaronbell.com/secret-colours-of-the-commodore-64/)
[1]: [http://nerdlypleasures.blogspot.fr/2015/03/the-case-for-
comp...](http://nerdlypleasures.blogspot.fr/2015/03/the-case-for-
composite.html)
------
notthemessiah
Reminds me of the AppleII+ simulation from XScreensavers:
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p3QZqhp67l8](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p3QZqhp67l8)
[http://manpages.ubuntu.com/manpages/trusty/man6/apple2.6x.ht...](http://manpages.ubuntu.com/manpages/trusty/man6/apple2.6x.html)
------
yobert
So cool. I'd love to read the source if it's available?
------
tombert
An emulator has been my "bucket-list" ever since I became a software engineer.
I still haven't done it...Do you have any good pointers for someone to get
started with making an emulator (particularly for someone who works almost
exclusively with with server-ey stuff)?
~~~
girvo
Definitely look into CHIP-8, it's more of a virtual machine than an emulator,
but then what's the difference at the edges!
------
z3t4
One of the screen-shots looks like Flappy bird:
[http://octalyzer.com/wp-
content/uploads/2017/02/oct16.png](http://octalyzer.com/wp-
content/uploads/2017/02/oct16.png)
~~~
empressplay
It's flapple bird:)
------
harel
I'm afraid this does not appear to work on my system (Ubuntu 16.04, 64bit).
None of the key combos work (Shift-ctrl-` etc.), and dropping an image just
crashes it. And I was all geared up for karateka...
~~~
empressplay
We will check it out thanks!
------
haspok
Auto updating? You must be joking.
Also, a single binary file download without even a checksum (let alone the
source)??? No thank you.
~~~
coldtea
You don't have an application firewall and restricted user rights? Or a VM to
run this in?
~~~
josefx
Implying that both of these have been exploit free?
\- posted from my totally secure Firefox
------
loppers92
That is awesome
------
jlebrech
Go is the new C
~~~
afdsadf
C is the new C. Go is only going to replace C like Java was going to replace
C.
~~~
pjmlp
C is hardly used in the enterprise space as it used to be in the 90's.
Even when C like performance is required, C++ is actually used instead.
The three major C compilers (gcc, clang and VC) are all written in C++
nowadays.
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Show HN: HNView – Browser extension providing a better style for hacker news - Landish
https://github.com/chenxsan/HNView#addon-link
======
ullarah
I'm not sure how this is any different than using the browsers zooming tool?
------
drvortex
Why is something an extension, that can just be a Greasemonkey script ?
~~~
Landish
Yes it can just be a Greasemonkey script, but you need to tell people to
install another extension first to use your script :), so I thought an
extension might be much easier.
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Pin - an all-in-one payment system API for Australian devs - ChrisArchitect
https://pin.net.au/
======
chewxy
awesome! A stripe for australia. Instantly signed up
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Forget Foreign Languages and Music. Teach Our Kids to Code - dsr12
http://www.wired.com/opinion/2013/09/ap_code/
======
jacquesm
Why should there be a choice? Can't we teach them foreign languages, music and
to code as well?
Or maybe give the children some choice in the matter?
~~~
drivers99
It's a terrible headline that is going to derail (or already has) the points
of the article itself: we should start teaching programming concepts earlier.
The first comment on HN and most of the comments on Wired are mostly
discussing the inflammatory heading.
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
NUMA-aware scheduler for Go - signa11
https://docs.google.com/document/u/0/d/1d3iI2QWURgDIsSR6G2275vMeQ_X7w-qxM2Vp7iGwwuM/pub
======
billhathaway
There is a new small thread[0] on golang-dev about someone from Intel looking
into this. It would be great to see the go scheduler be more aware of NUMA
characteristics.
[0] [https://groups.google.com/d/msg/golang-
dev/ARthO774J7s/7D9P0...](https://groups.google.com/d/msg/golang-
dev/ARthO774J7s/7D9P00XhAQAJ)
~~~
stonogo
Intel needs _everything_ to be NUMA-aware. They're betting a lot of money on
Xeon Phi, and once the self-booting KNL machines are out nobody will want to
deal with the pcie cards any more.
~~~
Jweb_Guru
As far as I know, the Phi doesn't actually require NUMA-awareness at all (at
least, the older models didn't; see
[https://arxiv.org/pdf/1310.5842v2.pdf](https://arxiv.org/pdf/1310.5842v2.pdf)).
A Phi lives on a single socket with a coherent L2 cache, and remote L2
accesses are not much slower than main memory ones, nor does core distance
along the interconnect seem to affect access time. The new models with lots of
main memory are going to be used with six-DIMM slot DDR4 sockets (64 GB each
of DDR4, in addition to 16 GB MCDRAM to get even more absurd bandwidth for
pure FLOPS / benchmark / coprocessing workfloads; see
[http://www.intel.com/content/www/us/en/processors/xeon/xeon-...](http://www.intel.com/content/www/us/en/processors/xeon/xeon-
phi-processor-x200-product-family-datasheet.html)), in order to avoid having
to split the Phi up into multiple NUMA domains.
So, I have no idea why Intel would care at all about making stuff NUMA-aware
for the purpose of Phis. Cache-aware, sure, but that's pretty much required
for good performance on modern machines already. What they _would_ care about
is making everything vectorize properly, since Phis do horribly if you aren't
exploiting the VPU; hence, you'd think they'd be more interested in adding
badly missing SIMD support to Go than NUMA-aware scheduling.
(Please let me know if I'm wrong and there's a multi-socket Phi announced, but
I've been following it really carefully because I'm excited about the
possibilities of using the new KNLs for main-memory databases, and I have yet
to hear anything about that).
~~~
martinpw
There is no multi-socket Phi - I asked about it at an Intel booth at a
conference a while back and was told the delta between memory bandwidth and
inter-socket bandwidth would be so great that it would not be a useful
configuration.
I believe the talk of NUMA refers to the single socket behaving like a cluster
with up to 4 NUMA domains, but I can't find any good references right now.
~~~
Jweb_Guru
Ah, interesting; I hadn't read that anywhere. From the limited reading I just
did, it does seem like that's a configuration they offer, but from the scant
sources available I can't quite figure out to what extent it's actually
necessary to extract maximum performance out of the machine (compared to just
artificially pinning each core to disjoint memory). Either way, good
information--thanks!
------
scott_s
The first listed risk is why I shy away from solutions that depend on pinning
threads to logical processors:
_Several processes can decide to schedule threads on the same NUMA node. If
each process has only one runnable goroutine, the NUMA node will be over-
subscribed, while other nodes will be idle. To partially alleviate the
problem, we can randomize node numbering within each process. Then the
starting NODE0 refers to different physical nodes across [Go] processes._
Basically, your particular runtime system is probably not going to be the only
thing running on a host. And even if it is, the kernel itself may choose to
run things on particular logical processors, and it may not take into account
what pinning you have done. For that reason, I find these approaches brittle.
If your users know exactly how they're going to deploy applications (not _you_
, since you're implementing a runtime system for user code), they can squeeze
out some more performance, but all it can take is one extra process running on
that host to mess it all up.
That's the difficulty with implementing runtime systems, and not applications:
your runtime system has to work for (usually) arbitrary user code on (usually)
arbitrary systems. If you're writing a single application, and you know
exactly how and where it will run, thread-pin away. But when implementing a
runtime system, you don't have that kind of luxury. You often have to leave
performance on the floor for a small number of cases so that you don't hose it
for most cases.
In principle, I think this kind of scheduling should be handled by the
operating system itself. If the kernel does not have enough information to do
it properly, then we can identify what information it would need, and devise
an API to inform it. But the kernel is the only entity that always has global
knowledge of everything running, and controls all of the resources. I find
that a much more promising direction.
As some minor support, consider the recent paper "The Linux Scheduler: a
Decade of Wasted Cores",
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11501493](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11501493).
My intuition is that runtime systems which perform thread pinning like this
will tend to make such problems _worse_ , since it constrains the kernel
scheduler even more.
~~~
toast0
> Basically, your particular runtime system is probably not going to be the
> only thing running on a host.
I'm running Erlang, not Go, but basically the runtime is the only real thing
running on our systems[1], so it's good for the runtime to pin its os-threads
to specific logical processors. On the systems where this isn't the case (for
example, when using a separate TLS termination daemon), it's easy to unpin the
threads and let the OS manage where to run things.
[1] there's also monitoring, ntpd, sshd, getty, and network/disk processing in
the kernel
~~~
scott_s
I'm unfamiliar with Erlang's runtime, so please forgive some basic questions.
Is Erlang's runtime doing the thread pinning without any input from you? Or
are you, at the application level, explicitly telling the Erlang runtime how
to pin threads?
edit: Did some googling, looks like it's the latter:
[http://erlang.org/doc/man/erl.html#+sbt](http://erlang.org/doc/man/erl.html#+sbt).
There are a bunch of policy options where the user picks what behavior they
think will work best with their application, on the current system. Key to my
point, though is: _The runtime system will by default not bind schedulers to
logical processors._
Providing options where users opt-in to such behavior is good. But the Go
proposal, as far as I read, was unilaterally proposing that is how the runtime
would work, always. That's not good, for the reasons I stated.
------
morecoffee
One thing I have never understood about the Go scheduler is how P's are
involved. The OS (assume Linux) works with threads, and schedules threads not
processors. How does it pin the P to the processor, or in this case Node?
~~~
willvarfar
Go calls them 'processors', but in OS terms they are OS threads. You can
configure Go to have some different number of processors than you have
physical processors (GOMAXPROCS).
~~~
prattmic
This is not quite right. M's are OS threads. P's are processing units, on
which goroutines are scheduled. There are exactly GOMAXPROCS P's. P's are
scheduled to run on M's, but there may be more M's than GOMAXPROCS.
For instance, when a goroutine makes a blocking syscall, it will continue to
use its current M (which is blocked in the kernel), but will release its P,
allowing another goroutine to execute.
This means that GOMAXPROCS goroutines can execute in user space in parallel,
but more goroutines can be blocked in the kernel on different OS threads.
The Go runtime will create more M's as necessary to run all of the P's.
(Note that the Go runtime does try to avoid needing one M per goroutine. For
instance, goroutines blocked on a channel are descheduled entirely (they give
up their P and M), and are scheduled again only once they need to be woken.)
~~~
giovannibajo1
It's also very important to notice that network blocking calls like send/recv
also release the P because the scheduler knows what's happening and passes the
FDs over to the net poller, that is a single thread that waits on all of them
through epoll or similar API. So you don't end up with one M for network
socket and you get fully transparent async networking
------
iends
This was proposed a few years ago but it never got any traction it seems.
~~~
gribbly
Well, AFAIK the author of this suggestion, Dmitry Vyukov, is the main
architect of Go's runtime scheduling, so I doubt there is anything preventing
him from implementing this should he so wish.
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
App Store Rejection as positive feedback - nonames
http://www.codebykevin.com/blosxom.cgi/2011/04/03#rejection-as-positive-feedback
======
mattberg
I have had similar experiences with apps before where someone from the App
Store review team actually called me about an app rejection. Very surprising,
but that sort of feedback definitely helps a great deal.
Unforunately, I have also seen the opposite end of the spectrum where I have
received extremely vague rejections, and upon talking with the App Store
representative, received additional even more vague reasoning. I really just
wish there was some sort of consistency.
------
wtn
The app evaluation process isn't quite "free, professional-level usability
testing for my apps"—it requires an annual membership fee.
However, if you get as much useful technical help as this person did, that fee
looks like a bargain.
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Ban on discarding edible fish caught at sea has failed - howard941
https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2019/jul/16/ban-on-discarding-edible-fish-caught-at-sea-has-failed-lords-report
======
NikkiA
The fishing industry is terribly maverick and I don't really know what the
solution is other than fining the maverick elements out of existance. The
socialist side of me would suggest nationalisation so that monitoring of
adherence to the rules and laws could be achieved, but I suspect that it'd end
up with the same mavericks that refuse to follow those laws today would simply
fill the places such a government endeavour.
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
The future of PHP 8 in jeopardy - velmu
https://react-etc.net/entry/the-future-of-php-8
======
otherflavors
how is php "The first web native programming language"?
~~~
DerekL
That probably means that PHP is the first programming language created
specifically for web programming, as opposed to languages created before the
web, or originally intended for something else.
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Joe Armstrong - On Erlang, OO, Concurrency, Shared State and the Future (Channel 9 interview) - iamelgringo
http://channel9.msdn.com/ShowPost.aspx?PostID=351659
======
gregwebs
interesting how he gets flustered when asked if he is trying to model the real
world, doesn't the real world have side effects? Don't people perceive the
world as having all kinds of interacting state?
Of course it does. We would be crazy to try to re-implement the world the way
nature does it. DNA is the worst spaghetti code ever created. Side-effect free
concurrency does not have to be the most natural or intuitive way to model
things- it should be an attempt at finding the best way.
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
The Light L16 – a multi-aperture computational camera - derwiki
https://light.co/
======
chaostheory
Constructive feedback about the video and website (if the founders are
reading)... I'm probably not the target demographic since I don't know much
about cameras, but the video did not quickly explain to me why this camera was
so special aside from me seeing multiple lenses; I would have just turned it
off after the 15 second mark (even if I saw this on Product Hunt) if this
wasn't posted on HN. It felt like the video didn't really convey anything and
I couldn't help but feel that it was a waste of my time watching it to the
end. Of course it could just be me.
If only this was front and center on their webpage (it took me a really long
time to find this):
_" With 16 individual cameras, 10 of them firing simultaneously, the L16
captures the detail of your shot at multiple fixed focal lengths. Then the
images are computationally fused to create an incredible high-quality final
image with up to 52 megapixel resolution."_
So you can fit a camera with the power of a DSLR in your pocket now, while
having the same ease of use as a smart phone?
As a quick fix: drop the video and fix your site so that you can explain why
your camera is so special at the top of the page. Use the image gallery as
quick proof right after the explanation.
~~~
eggie
It's not just you. The video, while beautiful, is completely superfluous and
distracting from the target market. In the video, nice people use a cool
smartphone to take pictures. One edits them on their computer. People are
enjoying what they are doing. I had to guess, based on the fact that the
camera appears to have multiple (independent?) lenses, that some kind of
computational method was combining the image data, and then returning to the
site revealed that this is basically the case.
Many questions remain unanswered. Will I be able to fully edit the photos on
my phone, or do I need to get a Mac and some custom software to really take
advantage of this system? Will the software on the device be open? I'd like
insurance against the unfortunate case that you make a nice device but then go
out of business. Will the battery be replaceable? A non-replaceable battery in
a $1600 handheld device is a really nasty design decision.
In short, really nice, and I would love to drop $200 right now to reserve one,
but I'm afraid that I won't be able to undo the reservation if it turns out
that the feature set of the phone doesn't match up with my practical needs.
Marketing: you are losing sales right now. Go back to the beginning and
explain to us _why_ this is a good device.
~~~
gocoder23
In addition, neither the video nor the FAQs clearly explain the basic
technical details that users look for in a device
------
vessenes
Some raw (is there an equivalent here?) or high res samples would be greatly
appreciated in exchange for my deposit.
I had an interesting reaction reading this: I'm totally sold on the idea and
science behind this. We have large scale radio telescopes, why not cameras?
But, I'm super turned off by the proposed plan: modified android OS combined
with the promo photos makes me think viewfinder lag is going to be a bitch. v1
seems likely to feel like a janky short-run phone from a new manufacturer.
Which is too bad, because the concept and possibilities are amazing.
Light; the articles mentioned a partnership with FoxConn; why not work with
them or Samsung to put one out that you just license tech for?
And, it would be cool to see some high res samples.
~~~
moultano
If you break it out of the gallery, you can get a little better look.
[http://light.co/content/2-gallery/gallery_modal_13.jpg](http://light.co/content/2-gallery/gallery_modal_13.jpg)
[http://light.co/content/2-gallery/gallery_modal_14.jpg](http://light.co/content/2-gallery/gallery_modal_14.jpg)
Pretty impressive.
~~~
vessenes
I liked that first picture, too. And on closer inspection it's interesting --
some different color temperatures in different spots. I wonder if you get a
natural HDR type capability using different sensors like this. The second one
makes me think low light should be reasonably good, which is what I would hope
for considering the technology description.
~~~
eurekin
About the low light... You might want to take a look at this image as well:
[https://light.co/content/2-gallery/rtalt6.jpg](https://light.co/content/2-gallery/rtalt6.jpg)
~~~
lumpypua
That's insane how well the faces are exposed given the dynamic range of the
light in that shot. With an SLR the correct exposure is like walking a
tightrope. Definite postprocessing required to get a result near the L16
image.
~~~
alkonaut
I don't see the problem with exposing that on an SLR. Just meter for the
faces? It looks just like any noisy high-ISO SLR image to me?
~~~
moron4hire
Any modern full-frame Canon with the ol' "nifty fifty" (cheap fixed 50mm, 1.8f
lens) could get a shot like this. I've taken portraits in-doors in candlelight
with mine.
~~~
jerich
It took me a few looks at this picture to pick up on the fact that it is all
in focus, whereas the depth of field of the f/1.8 lens is going to give you
one of the subjects' eyes in focus.
I was a little disappointed in the amount of noise and the noise reduction in
this pic until I started thinking about how it would look with other cameras.
Probably a blurry, noisy mess with cellphone or compacts. To get the same
effect as this pic with a DSLR, you'd have to massively stop down that 50mm
lens and would end up boosting the ISO so high that even a modern full-frame
DSLR wouldn't be that much better.
~~~
moron4hire
You won't get both the front and the back of the table in focus, but given how
far back you'd have to sit to get all three people in frame, you'd probably be
able to get all three people in focus, especially if the guy in the back leans
in a little. Also, I mentioned Canon because their high ISO modes are
particularly low noise these days, even before noise reduction. And Nikon
might have caught up as well, I haven't reviewed lately.
But that's actually not the most important part.
The most important part is that there are only two cameras in my life: my
"good" camera and my smartphone, aka the camera I use when I know I'm going to
be taking photos, and the camera I have on me all the time.
Since this image is probably boosted and noise reduced and photoshopped to
make it the most presentable representation of the product, I really think the
same amount of effort would get you better results, for less money, out of a
DSLR. If you're into spending money, the right DSLR and lens combo would get
you far, far better results.
On the other hand, yes, DSLRs are bulky and you don't want to carry them
everywhere. But the Light is not a smartphone, so it's yet another device to
have to remember and carry around, so while it's smaller, I'm still likely to
leave it home because I just don't think to bring cameras with me everywhere.
I've got an older smartphone (Galaxy Note 3) that can take photos pretty near
this quality in its fakey HDR mode. I've seen some shots out of the newest
iPhone that very much rival this sort of photo. And that iPhone is cheaper
than the Light, plus it's not an extra device.
~~~
alkonaut
That's why it's most interesting as a concept and not a product. I'd really
like my next iPhone (the iPhone 8S if if past shopping behaviour is any
indication) to have 3-4 lenses and sensors, if it meant it could be more
sensitive in low light _or_ use different focal lengths in good light, and
still not be bigger than my current iPhone is. So this company should just
make a showcase product, and then wait to be bought by sony/apple/samsung.
------
tdj
There was a pretty good interview with their CTO a few months ago on Imaging
Resource. Much more technical than what you see on the site, also gives a
glimpse on what they were thinking when they were developing this.
[http://www.imaging-resource.com/news/2015/04/27/light-
interv...](http://www.imaging-resource.com/news/2015/04/27/light-interview-no-
more-full-frame-dslrs-by-2025)
Personally I think the money shot is the synthetic DoF simulation on the
skater:
[https://light.co/content/2-gallery/gallery_modal_11.jpg](https://light.co/content/2-gallery/gallery_modal_11.jpg)
[https://light.co/content/2-gallery/gallery_modal_06.jpg](https://light.co/content/2-gallery/gallery_modal_06.jpg)
The subject isolation properties is a pretty big reason why people still
bother with large-sensor cameras. As an amaterur, I don't have big demands for
image quality, so I only bring my D60 or F4 when I want subject isolation.
Otherwise I'm pretty happy with my smartphone as a camera (Lumia 930).
~~~
bonaldi
I too am interested in this for shallow dof, and was excited at the idea that
these lenses are effectively f1.2. But there's no way that skater shot is
f1.2-equivalent. In fact, there are no sample shots anywhere I can see that
back up that claim.
~~~
olemartinorg
No, that's not like f/1.2 on a full-frame camera. But you have to consider the
sensor size, and thus multiply by the crop factor. Most photographers know
this about focal length (50mm on full-frame becomes a 100mm lens on micro four
thirds), but it seems people forget that the same goes for aperture. f/1.2 on
a full-frame becomes a f/2.4 on m43, so you'll need an even bigger (smaller
number) aperture to have the same effect on a smaller sensor.
I'm guessing these sensors are way smaller than m43 even, so that f/1.2 won't
produce anything near the stunning bokeh it would on a full-frame camera.
~~~
bonaldi
Yes, though if that's their angle the marketing line is very misleading:
they're discussing focal length as 35mm-equivalent, I had assumed they were
doing the same with aperture.
------
07d046
The multi-aperture thing isn't what makes this interesting. What is
interesting is that it takes a bunch of little sensors and combines them into
a single better image with software.
Because a lot of work has been done into making very good sensors and optics
for phones, this approach does make some sense. It also lets you have more
sensor surface area without the bulky optics. I'm pretty sure that there are
telescope arrays that work in a similar way.
I'm not about to replace my cameras with these, but it's got potential.
There's more information in
[http://www.theverge.com/2015/10/7/9473793/light-l16-16-lens-...](http://www.theverge.com/2015/10/7/9473793/light-l16-16-lens-
camera-specs-price) and [http://www.technologyreview.com/news/542121/a-high-
end-camer...](http://www.technologyreview.com/news/542121/a-high-end-camera-
in-a-small-package/) .
~~~
steckerbrett
The multi aperture thing doesn't make much sense, it appears to have multiple
lenses which will have debilitating parallax error due to the positioning. I
don't see how that's possible. I'm also struggling to see why they laid out
the sensors in such a non geometric pattern too.
~~~
tlrobinson
Parallax could be corrected by software as long as the subject isn't too
close. You might lose a little detail around the edges but with enough
redundancy it's probably not a big deal
~~~
steckerbrett
In their examples there's a macro photo of a chess board.
~~~
thrownaway2424
If you look closely at that photo, the result is really weird. The black
pieces behind the plane of focus have very uncertain positions that the
software didn't bother fixing. It's bokeh, in a way. A horrible way.
~~~
reitoei
Yup, it's not nice. Headache inducing.
------
_Adam
I don't know if it was intentional, or necessitated by the internal mechanics,
but I find the layout of lenses to be visually unpleasant. It looks like
someone took a camera and gave it chicken pox...
Aside from that, this is a really cool idea! But I don't know how it's being
positioned. Is it a point and shoot replacement? Or a mirrorless camera
replacement?
Or maybe it's just a technology demonstrator - this sort of system, suitably
minimized, would make an excellent smartphone camera.
~~~
userbinator
I agree with the unpleasantness, as the multiple irregular holes does
stimulate my trypophobia slightly. (Note: do not Google "trypophobia" if
things with multiple irregular holes makes you feel uneasy, as you will become
_very_ disturbed.)
~~~
earlz
I wasn't aware I have some trypophobia, but now I do heh.
~~~
has2k1
The only people without trypophobia are those who do not know about it.
------
iamleppert
This camera, like many that have come before it are likely to be subject to
the uncanny valley of market. Consumers won't want to stomach the price tag
and professionals are already accustomed to their DSLR's, and in most cases
have significant investment in specific brand and/or lens type with a lot of
expensive glass.
Professionals don't care about the bulkiness of their cameras, they care about
the performance and flexibility. DSLRs have 20+ years of development in terms
of speed, durability, flexibility and the raw image processing power that the
giants have spent decades perfecting (lots of work on DSPs).
How many pictures can it take in burst mode? How long does the battery last?
Can I use my suite of existing lenses with this?
Sorry to say this camera, while unique and technical marvel, has an uphill
battle from the business perspective. It's interesting from a niche
perspective but I don't see it becoming a huge success financially for them,
which is unfortunate because many talented people probably worked on this.
~~~
rprospero
I agree with everything that you say. However, it's also eerily reminiscent of
the explanations I was given 25 years ago about why digital cameras would
never catch on. Digitals were far more expensive than a simple Canon or
Polaroid, so it would never catch on with consumers. As for professionals,
they had far to much experience with developing negatives to throw it all away
for some flash in the pan gimmick. Heck, the digitals had terrible lenses
compared to what you'd get on Service Merchandise point and shoot, not to
mention anything professional grade. Besides, even if CCDs kept improving,
they'd be competing with a moving target. Even if digitals were better ten
years down the line, it's not like Kodak wasn't going to be improving their
processes, too.
~~~
thrownaway2424
A very attractive straw man, but I personally can't remember anyone saying
that digital would "never catch on". 25 years ago the state-of-the-art digital
camera was a 1.3MP digital back for the Nikon F3, that included a gigantic
external box that the user wore over their shoulder. Only a weirdo would use a
digital camera in 1990, but it was pretty obvious that digital was the future.
15 years ago the digital camera (Nikon D1) was just barely a good idea for
dedicated enthusiasts and still basically terrible for everybody else.
------
unicornporn
My first thoughts as a working professional for 11 years (retouch,
photographer and later videographer).
Forget a raw file format (that you will be able to use in LR/PS) and the
flexibility and editing headroom it gives you. Perhaps there will be some
specialist proprietary software like for the Lytro (that will be unsupported
in 10 years, leaving you with unusable files). Considering this I really hope,
as The Verge article says, "the output isn't as punchy" (which normally means
contrasty and saturated).
The lack of a raw file format will also mean that I can forget DCP camera
profiles to normalize the output with my other cameras.
What we know nothing about: what will AF be like? What will the dynamic range
be like (considering they're stitching, not stacking, smartphone sensors)?
Noise will probably be OK as you can downsample. But Sony is and Canon has
42/49 MP FF cameras out that doesn't need downsampling to look good. A year
from now (when Light comes out) more cameras will have followed.
Focal length range is a bit strange. 35mm equiv is a bit on the long side to
be an all-round solution. 24-70 would have been OK for me, but I realize
that's personal.
Perhaps we shouldn't expect the death of the MILC/DSLR because of this camera
just yet. Many hobbyist though, has left both the compact and the MILC/DSLR
for a more enjoyable smartphone experience. Perhaps it could lure them back to
buying a camera (without a phone in it)
~~~
jerich
If you take a look through the FAQ, they do say that they are designing it to
work within common photography workflows, giving example formats of JPEG,
TIFF, and raw DNG (though I'm assuming the DNG is after their proprietary
postprocessing, not a set of the true raw sensor outputs). They're asking for
input going forward, so take a few minutes to express your concerns about
workflow and maybe it will be a better product for it.
I believe they are doing quite a bit of stacking, as they say they are
processing up to 130 megapixels from 10 sensors to get the final image. There
should definitely be a dynamic range improvement. I hope they can somehow
apply their processing to video streams and provide a wide dynamic range
(maybe even HDR) video, but I'd be surprised if they can do more than provide
a cellphone-like 4K stream from a single sensor.
Focus speed shouldn't be an issue. I'm guessing it's using tiny cellphone-
sized camera sensors, so even at the f/2.4 printed around the lens, they'll
have massive depth of field. It looks like they even have the DOF printed on
each lens: 10cm-infinity for the 35mm lenses, 40cm-inf for the 70mm, and
100cm-inf for the 150mm. Any focusing will be done computationally at post-
processing time.
I'm interested in the concept; I just hope they're a little more developer-
friendly then Lytro turned out to be. I know there's a lot of proprietary
secret sauce going on with the computational post-processing, but if they can
open up their system just a bit to let the crowd in to poke around, there's
probably a lot of unique creative opportunities.
~~~
unicornporn
Thanks for an excellent reply! Well, I had totally overlooked the FAQ and I
see now that they are hoping to deliver DNG, and it doesn't seem to be the
demosaiced linear DNG variant (which is very good). As you say it most
certainly needs to be processed/exported (either in camera or in post) to DNG.
If the software lives as long as the camera, that's fine by me. Many camera
makers already "cook" their raws so perhaps this doesn't need to be bad.
> Any focusing will be done computationally at post-processing time.
I catch myself being stuck in old ways of thinking. Again you are right and
you just threw some fuel on my excitement fire.
I must say I love the innovation that new actors are bringing to the market.
However, I will remain a bit skeptical until release. A lot can happen in a
year.
------
flashman
The most exciting thing about this (and things like Lytro) is that people are
still discovering fundamentally different ways to do 'camera'. Perhaps one day
our phones will use a dozen cameras, some optimised for low light, others for
high dynamic range, and others still for action, with software figuring out
the best combination to use for the each shot.
~~~
starky
Despite all the interesting cameras that have been made recently, they all
rely on one piece of technology that is pretty archaic, the lens. Today's
lenses are definitely limiting the image quality available on small sensors,
and they seems to improve at a snails pace. I'm cautiously optimistic that
this camera may be able to correct for many of the issues with the lenses by
using the multiple lenses to create the single image.
------
tmd83
Don't really know much about optics to really know the viability of this
specially after Litro. But here is what I like
1\. Its a different take on the problem, stitching multiple lens and sensor
data to make a whole that's better than the parts. Even if this don't work I
think that idea would probably live to see another day.
2\. There are comments about DSLR being fast, viewfinder easier to work on all
situations and I agree to all of that. But I think the biggest point is what
one of the founder said in the video, it doesn't matter if you have the best
camera @home. This is something you can carry just like your smartphone.
3\. Yet even this is a separate device, what I would like eventually is for
this idea to be improved and implemented for smartphones. Maybe a 3 lens
system that's not as good but much better than current cameras?
4\. And I really loved the way the lenses were placed horizontally. That looks
to be a simple yet effective innovation (not that I know if it has bad optical
consequence).
~~~
dspillett
_> Its a different take on the problem, stitching multiple lens and sensor
data to make a whole that's better than the parts._
I've seen the idea discussed a few times in the past, essentially doing for
cameras what is done with multiple radio telescopes to create something that
would be impractical to achieve with a single unit. This is the first time
I've heard about someone having implemented the idea outside of a proof-of-
concept. I'd be interested to see how well it works in practice. I'm not that
much much of a photo taker myself, but a few of my friends are camera bugs so
I'll be passing the link on for them to dissect.
~~~
tmd83
I tend to use the HN crowd like that :). You can expect to find from an optics
professor to professional photographer and everything in between to comment on
this.
------
leni536
According to the FAQ they support raw DNG. Does that mean that you can get the
raw sensor data for each individual sensor and you can hack around your own
algorithm for merging them?
------
kisstheblade
Well at least this looks like something new! But notify me again when I can
read the review on dpreview.com, the site was kind of light (pun!) on the
details.
~~~
desireco42
I agree, all this is nothing without thorough review. Looking forward to that,
this really looks interesting though.
------
DannoHung
This is a straight up weird product at the price point they're targeting. And
given that they're asking for money up front and not providing sample raw
images and/or full resolution jpegs makes me very hesitant.
------
YZF
This is quite interesting/cool but the two primary reasons I prefer DSLRs to
any point and shoot are: 1. The viewfinder. Screens just don't cut it in
sunlight or at night (too much or too little light). 2. Time between getting
the camera out and getting that shot is very very quick with a DSLR.
It's hard to imagine this replacing my DSLR. If the cost is low enough it
could replace my point and shoot though... I'm still more likely to have my
phone on me than a camera...
~~~
thrownaway2424
I have an interest in photography and little to no interest in cameras like
Lytro, and probably this one although there's not enough information yet to
tell. As you point out handling and speed are important. Nobody cares about a
"light field" camera if it's impossible to hold and takes three seconds to
turn on. $1300 is a huge chunk of money for unknown performance.
------
themagician
This is interesting, but silly. It's hard to imagine a practical use for this
other than perhaps wanting to flip between two versions of a photo with one
wide open and one sharp across the frame. But you'll have different shutters
anyway to keep the same exposure.
Seems like this was spawned from a moment of inquiry where someone was so
preoccupied with whether they could that no one stopped to think about whether
they should.
~~~
apendleton
I don't think the point is to let you switch between different versions of an
image (though the after-the-fact adjustments of depth of field are really
slick). I think it's more that with a bunch of sensors and lenses you can
simulate a much larger sensor and lens, so you get the low noise and choice of
lens profiles of a DSLR without having to actually lug one around, or a bag of
lenses to go with it. Some of those pictures in their gallery are pretty
awesome, particularly in terms of noise. I'd never have guessed that they were
taken with something so portable.
------
nkoren
I try not to engage in classic HN-style middlebrow dismissal, but can I take a
moment to complain about their "Watch the Film" promotional video? It tells me
nothing more than "this is a device you can take photographs with". Absolutely
useless .
------
billconan
why do they arrange the lens irregularly, what's the reason behind this
arrangement?
~~~
onion2k
They're not irregularly arranged. If you look at the image of the front of the
camera at the bottom of the [http://light.co/camera](http://light.co/camera)
page, they're arranged in concentric circles around a point that's just off to
the right hand side of the case. As there are 15 lens and a laser rangefinder,
presumably they're directed at various points in space from that center along
a straight line in front of the camera. Which 10 lens used for a picture, and
consequently how far along that line your subject is, will depend on the
rangefinder for an optimal image.
------
desireco42
It is about time someone makes this.I know it looks gimmicky and it kind of
is, but this trend should allow more interesting photography. I personally am
looking forward to it, whether this one will be good or someone else, I am not
invested much, I am just looking forward to the trend.
Also, better processors should allow more sampling from sensors and
aggregating that info for better photos.
------
grondilu
I was hoping this was an application of the single-pixel camera concept I've
read about few years ago[1]. Apparently not.
1\.
[http://web.stanford.edu/~jbarral/PSY221/SinglePixelImaging.h...](http://web.stanford.edu/~jbarral/PSY221/SinglePixelImaging.htm)
------
analytically
You video is pretty useless. People taking pictures. Tell us why it's
different, what's new.
------
watersb
This multi-aperture camera was delivered rather before the Light L16:
[https://public.nrao.edu/telescopes/vla](https://public.nrao.edu/telescopes/vla)
It's about time someone did this for consumer products.
------
SandB0x
Everyone in the video seems to be holding the camera in an awkward way to
avoid getting their fingers in front of any of the lenses.
------
aaronbrethorst
Man oh man, do I _want to believe._ But given what a huge disappointment Lytro
turned out to be, I'll wait for v2 or v3.
------
beyondcompute
Can it make calls?
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Ask HN: How to overcome “Marketer's block” - c1sc0
I find it really hard to go out & actually promote my projects in social media, IRL, in emails. What do you do to stay motivated on the sales/marketing front?
======
percept
For motivational purposes you might try focusing on the other side of the
relationship, and consider the people who need your help and will benefit from
your projects, if only they could find you.
And while you're there, maybe ask where they're likely to be found, how they
(or you) would be searching for you, and how best their personal or business
goals would be served by what you have to offer.
------
JSeymourATL
> What do you do to stay motivated...
Don't underestimate the Mental Game aspect of this work, it can be absolutely
brutal. Recommend reading Mark Divine on his mind gym concept, unusually good
>[http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/17465530-the-way-of-
seal](http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/17465530-the-way-of-seal)
------
funkylexoo
I apply a simple approach:
1/ State the objectives you want to achieve. They should be measurable e.g. %
increase in signups, emails collected, etc.
2/ As @noelwesh mentions, create a checklist
3/ Measure the impact of each action in the checklist
4/ At the end of a 'campaign', evaluate what worked, what didn't, how to
improve things, how to learn further.
5/ Iterate.
------
noelwelsh
What part do you find difficult and why? We have a checklist for promoting our
blog posts etc. Whenever we do a post we just follow the checklist. Takes the
thinking out of it and helps avoid procrastination. For in-person, practice
your pitch.
~~~
spitcode
Mind sharing? Sounds awesome for noobs like me...
~~~
noelwelsh
It's basically just, after publishing a blog post:
\- tweet it \- retweet from personal accounts \- post on relevant forums (e.g
HN, sub-reddits) \- post on relevant mailing lists
Monitor every few hours for comments, and reply. It's important you don't turn
monitoring into constant browser refreshing. Set a timer if need be, and don't
check for comments till the timer expires. Suggest 2hr intervals.
------
an_tonova
Start with the interesting self-created content in social media and you'll
start receive subscribers so that afterwards you can tell about your products
to your audience
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
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