text
stringlengths 44
776k
| meta
dict |
|---|---|
Pathod: A pathological HTTP daemon for testing and torturing client software - cesther
http://cortesi.github.com/pathod/
======
cortesi
Drat - this story is just a tad premature. A brand new release of pathod will
be out next week, including a publicly accessible pathod instance, pathoc
(pathod's evil client-side equivalent), and a huge range of other improvements
and bugfixes.
~~~
cesther
apols
~~~
cortesi
No, thanks for posting! Just upvote again when you see the release notice next
week. :)
------
cafeconleche
This is a similar tool as <http://httpbin.org/> which was written by Kenneth
Reitz to test python request <http://python-requests.org/>. I like that this
is written in tornado thanks for sharing.
~~~
cortesi
One difference is that pathod (and pathoc, the client-side equivalent) works
hard to make it possible to violate the HTTP protocol specs at will, in pretty
much arbitrary ways. The next version of pathod also moves away from Tornado
to let it take more direct control of comms.
~~~
cafeconleche
Ok the client sounds really interesting to me. I am goung to play with it a
bit.
------
blatherard
bane is a similar tool that pathod-interested users might be interested in.
<https://github.com/danielwellman/bane>
From the readme: "If you are building an application, you may depend on third-
party servers or web services for your data. Most of the time these services
are reliable, but at some point they will behave in an unusual manner - such
as connecting but never respond, sending data very slowly, or sending an
unexpected response. To ensure your application survives these scenarios, you
should test your application against these bad behaviors. Bane helps you
recreate these scenarios by standing in for your third-party servers and
responding in several nefarious ways."
------
suresk
Really cool!
A year or two ago, I was working on some automated deployment tools that
basically called a bunch of Rest APIs. As I discovered how unreliable the API
calls could be at times, I ended up writing something kind of similar
(although very application-specific to this) to be used as part of my unit
tests for it - it helped immensely.
One thing that would be nice is if I could pre-define reactions to certain
requests - ie, some sort of way to specify that when you get a POST at uri
/add with a content-type of application/json, I want a 500 error (or maybe I
want a 500 error 5% of the time) - rather than having to specify what I want
in the actual request. Is this something your client library will make
possible?
~~~
cortesi
This is already covered. Have a look at the anchor feature for pathod. For
instance, starting pathod like this:
pathod -a /foo=200:b@100
Will result in an HTTP 200 response with an body of 100 random bytes if you
hit the path /foo.
------
enginous
I like the idea, but does the syntax have to be that terse? It's quite
expressive but less readable than code (or JSON/YAML), and I'm not sure why
that's useful in this context.
~~~
cortesi
Yes, this is something I've pondered too. The language is ugly for a number of
reasons - not least the constraint of avoiding syntactically significant
characters for both URLs (because of pathod) and shells (because of pathoc).
At the moment, my stance is that the syntax needs to be as terse as possible
so that it can comfortably be specified in a URL, or in a snippet in a unit
test. In the current master, there's a variant syntax that lets you use
newlines (or arbitrary whitespace) wherever the more compact syntax uses
colons. In time, I could see an argument for also expanding the single-letter
abbreviations in this mode to make a more verbose syntax. There's also no
reason why we couldn't add a way of describing requests by manipulating an
object, which then compiles down to the request language.
Anyway, this is all still evolving - if you have ideas for keeping the
language compact but making it less like line-noise, drop me a line.
------
cypherpunks01
What's the practical usage scenario for this? Would it be only used by http
client library developers, or is there a broader audience?
~~~
cortesi
I started work on pathod to improve the testing of mitmproxy
(<http://mitmproxy.org>). It's since become a very capable Swiss army knife
with many creative uses. I now routinely use it in pen tests (it's great for
exploit delivery), and pathoc has become quite a capable tool for simple
fuzzing and stress testing. I'm working on the next release docs as we speak,
and I'll try to document a range of different use cases there.
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
FEMA Spends More Preparing for Terrorism Than Hurricanes - JumpCrisscross
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2020-08-27/hurricane-laura-fema-grants-aren-t-focused-on-climate-change
======
D13Fd
In the abstract, this doesn't bother me. The potential attack surface for
terrorism is huge, and there is a lot of potential for damage (both loss of
life and economic damage). Hurricanes are a fairly well understood phenomenon
which tend to cause a lot of damage but in fairly limited ways (typically only
to coastal cities, and typically with warning).
It's not all that surprising that it may cost more to prepare for the huge and
unknown variety of possible terrorist attacks as compared to the pretty well-
known threat of hurricanes.
To me, the more important thing is that we make sure they have adequate
resources to address both kinds of disaster (as well as others). I don't
really care which one is more expensive.
~~~
malandrew
I had the same reaction.
Hurricanes are not only well understood, they are also something that every
single citizen living in a coastal city knows is inevitable and frequent
enough that they take the precautions personally for dealing with them.
They also strike with anticipation, so after you've secured your personal
property and made sure you haven't built in a flood plain like a responsible
citizen, you have plenty of time to evacuate if/when one is going to make
landfall where you live.
Terrorism can strike without warning and the same preparations for terrorism
would help in disasters like the blast in Beirut.
~~~
morsch
You propose that people should look after themselves, and their belonings.
Presumably some of the things people need to do in preparation for a hurricane
benefit from economies of scale. Temporary shelter, preparing for rescue
operations, structural engineering, stocking of supplies. People would
probably be well advised to band together in some sort of emergency management
cooperative to share expenses and increase efficiency.
~~~
matthewmacleod
I don't think anybody was arguing otherwise.
The point is that hurricanes are arguably a less difficult emergency to manage
– they are predictable, understood and come with plenty of notice, to the
point that individual preparation is both possible and effective.
This doesn't mean that centrally-coordinated emergency response isn't still
useful – merely that it's not unreasonable for it to cost more to prepare for
a rare and unpredictable emergency than a more frequent but predictable one.
------
throwaway0a5e
Hurricanes don't threaten government credibility the way successful terrorist
attacks do. We might not like it but it makes perfect sense that a government
agency prioritizes threats to the government.
~~~
whatshisface
> _Hurricanes don 't threaten government credibility the way successful
> terrorist attacks do._
This is one of those claims where the only reasonable answer is... "do they?"
Bad disaster responses can make administrations look pretty bad.
~~~
UnpossibleJim
While this may be true, one is carried on a news cycle for a longer period of
time. Weather events are a normal and predictable happening, so the "shock and
awe" don't carry the ratings necessary for the news coverage, regardless of
the human tragedy.
Unfortunately, our society's attention span for weather tragedy is short and
it is very unlikely any federally funded memorials will be built for victims
of wildfires, floodings or hurricanes.
~~~
thatcat
People can’t disagree with and hate hurricanes the way they do other people.
~~~
saagarjha
Perhaps, but some apparently think they can with global warming.
------
philwelch
A lot of FEMA’s work is generalizable—set up emergency shelters, evacuate
people from disaster areas, provide supplies to disaster areas. Most of that
stuff is pretty similar for earthquakes, hurricanes, wildfires, or terrorist
attacks. Having more terrorism-specific funding doesn’t mean terrorism is a
higher priority or greater threat than hurricanes, just that it’s more
expensive to deal with.
------
rayiner
FEMA isn’t supposed to be a nationwide front-line disaster management agency.
It’s supposed to be a backstop for when state governments, who have the
primary responsibility for disaster relief, become overwhelmed. (Put
differently, nobody voted for the whole country to subsidize hurricane prone
states through FEMA.) It makes total sense for FEMA to focus on disasters that
could happen anywhere rather than ones that happen routinely in certain
hurricane prone stages.
~~~
tehwebguy
Did the whole country vote for FEMA to subsidize relief for terrorism prone
targets?
~~~
rayiner
More or less, yes, after 9/11.
------
ApolloFortyNine
Are there any real examples of where the money is going for counter terrorism?
In the entire article there's only one example, copied below. And it's of $14
million out of billions.
>A review of FEMA grant requests made by the latter state for 2019 through
2020 shows that a large chunk of the nearly $14 million has been sought for
law enforcement communication, SWAT training, and bomb detection.
I'm also not sure what more FEMA money would do. As mentioned in the article,
they're not worried about running out of money during the initial response to
any disaster. If it's serious enough (like Katrina was), I don't doubt more
money will be made available. FEMA primarily responds to disasters, and while
some money goes to preventive measures, they are not in charge of preventing
hurricane damage along the entire coast.
------
Shivetya
FEMA is misguided in that is should be dispensing aid to states and cities in
need and not instead doing the relief itself. Too often it actually steps in
and blocks cities and states from properly administering aid to those in need.
In effect, it should be handing out block grants and insuring that states
don't conflict with each other, not be the source of conflict.
One major problem FEMA faces is not how it allocates its fund between
disasters and terrorism it is instead the more of those funds land in states
which have representation in Congress committees which exercise oversight on
FEMA. Terrorism funding goes to police mostly and some to fire and related but
the police and sheriffs of this country have outsized power in politics;
related - the reason why defund the police was quickly dropped from political
platforms
~~~
makomk
This would work great if every state and city government was competent and
good at disaster relief. In general they're not, and FEMA already rely too
much on having competent local government that they can co-operate with - in
particular, I get the distinct impression that a lot of the disaster relief
problems in Puerto Rico which were blamed on FEMA and the federal government
were actually the result of the local government being completely and utterly
useless (infamously so, even).
------
stevehawk
terrorism is scarier. it's unpredictable to the masses with no warning sign.
it has people who commit. a person to put blame on and a theoretical ability
to prevent it.
weather is just weather. we just blame God or "it happens" regardless of how
bad it is. and most can be evacuated if we dont wait to the last minute to do
it. we treat them like they're already mitigated.
~~~
ascagnel_
> weather is just weather. we just blame God or "it happens" regardless of how
> bad it is. and most can be evacuated if we dont wait to the last minute to
> do it. we treat them like they're already mitigated.
Kinda? The effects of extreme weather can be mitigated (eg: don't build on
flood plains), but we're seeing increasing cases where mitigation efforts are
ignored and the adverse effects of that (ie: Hurricane Harvey in 2017, where
neighborhoods in Houston that had been built on top of flood plains were
inundated by storm surge). Mitigation is almost always cheaper than recovery.
While you can definitely mitigate some elements of terrorism (eg: remove cases
where radicalization is likely), you can't mitigate it anywhere near as well
as weather effects.
~~~
philwelch
FEMA is also not responsible for the civil engineering of Houston (or New
Orleans, for that matter). They’re in charge of _managing_ emergencies, not
preventing them.
------
trothamel
I don't know if it's relevant or not, but FEMA is the agency that took over
the Civil Defense role. (Think fallout shelters and that kind of thing.) While
it later took on responsibility for natural disasters, I don't believe that
was the priority for it.
------
Retric
Hurricanes don’t impact much of the US. Nebraska for example has zero
hurricane risks, and while low it’s has some terrorism risks. Also, in terms
of preparation that can have positive returns it’s not clear FEMA actually
needs to spend that much on Hurricanes per year. 10 year old flood maps still
work just fine etc.
So, this may actually be completely reasonable behavior based on FEMA’s
mandates.
~~~
jcranmer
Atlantic hurricanes have cost $400 billion of damage in the last 5 years
alone.
The total damage caused by all terrorist attacks, worldwide, in the 21st
century probably amounts to the damage caused by an _average_ year of Atlantic
hurricanes. Add in the Pacific hurricane season, which is generally worse, and
it's clear that hurricanes cause far more damage than terrorism does.
~~~
Retric
It’s not FEMA’s job to reduce physical damage. That’s what building codes etc
are for. FEMA’s job is to coordinate responses to save lives in the short term
and rebuild infrastructure in the long term. Hurricanes do a lot of damage,
but rarely kill people in the US.
~~~
jcranmer
Hurricane Florence alone killed more people in the US than any terrorist
attack since 9/11\. All hurricane deaths in Trump's term alone (predominantly
Florence, Harvey, Irma), excluding Maria, have killed more people than all
terrorism attacks since 9/11 combined. Hurricane Maria killed more than 9/11.
~~~
Retric
If you’re looking at the excess deaths after Maria then you need to do the
same thing for 9/11\. By one estimate 221 policemen died as a result of
medical issues from 9/11 which don’t make the official figures based on
initial deaths. Dust inhalation etc very much killed people only indirectly
involved on 9/11\. Thus, any kind of apples to apples comparison of either
direct or direct + indirect deaths put 9/11 as a significantly more deadly
event.
PS: Also that extrapolation on death rates for Maria is extremely questionable
as it’s been rising in Porto Rico for years. The increase from 2013 to 2014 is
larger than the increase for 2016 to either 2017 or 2018.
[https://www.statista.com/statistics/580903/death-rate-in-
pue...](https://www.statista.com/statistics/580903/death-rate-in-puerto-rico/)
You can assume the only thing bad that happened was a hurricane, but the data
really doesn’t support that.
~~~
jcranmer
You've lost sight of your own argument in the weeds of specific numbers here.
The broader point I'm making is this: hurricanes in the SE US and the
Caribbean are, to a large degree "expected" disasters. As such they can be
planned for, and damage can be minimized. And, I believe what you want to say
is that they aren't all that "bad" anymore because of proper disaster
preparation.
I would agree that hurricanes _shouldn 't_ be all that devastating in effect.
But the data shows, quite convincingly IMHO, that we aren't doing as good as
we could be doing in actually preparing for them.
~~~
Retric
My point has nothing to do with what _we_ should be doing just what FEMA
should be doing. They have a very important but also very specific role. Other
organizations are supposed to prevent levees from overtopping, keep buildings
standing, etc. FEMA is there for redundancy so that such instances are
mitigated after the fact.
When it comes to hurricanes that equates to selecting evacuation routes and
locations to shelter the storm etc. If needed they may help create such
shelters, but that stuff really seems to be working well. What happens after
the storm is largely a question of how well other organizations have done
their job. Aka what percentage of homes are habitable translates into how many
people FEMA needs to find shelter for.
However, that last bit is a real question. Do we ramp up FEMA’s ability to
build temerity houses or reduce the need for such temporary houses? I think
it’s clear FEMA could do a much better job in disaster aftermath, but for
hurricanes I think that’s largely solving the wrong problem.
------
hakfoo
Maybe part of this is a branding and messaging problem.
I think of FEMA as a response-oriented agency: They aren't there to prevent
disasters from occurring, they're intended to pick up the pieces afterwards.
If you approach it with that perspective, then you'd surely expect them to be
devoted predominantly to hurricanes and similar natural disasters, as they can
be anticipated and planned for.
If their true role is to be proactive about some specific disaster functions,
maybe this needs to be better communicated to the public. Otherwise you end up
with the poor guy who gets a job with the Secret Service and his family is
"OMG do you jump in front of a bullet for the President" when he's going to
spend his career squinting at bogus $5 notes.
------
dwd
They should be focussing on their capacity to quickly move in mobile
hospitals, potable water, emergency accomodation, etc and have adequate
stockpiles of essentials ready to go.
How quickly and effectively you can help those impacted will reduce total
fatalities regardless of whether a terrorist attack, natural disaster or
something like the Beirut explosion.
------
evan_
Hurricanes only kill people who can't afford to flee, while terrorism is
something that even the wealthy are afraid of.
------
NovemberWhiskey
In FEMA speak, preparedness is different from hazard mitigation. FEMA has an
entirely separate grant program for hazard mitigation, which is funded with
~$0.7bn for flood and infrastructure resiliency, for example.
Each of these is dwarfed in turn by the actual response budget which goes into
the Disaster Relief Fund, something around $15bn this FY.
------
vorpalhex
We have a pretty good idea of how to identify and respond to hurricanes.. not
so much for terrorism.
------
xlm1717
One thing I didn't see mentioned in the article is that Congress usually
approves emergency funding after a major hurricane, which can be used to
rebuild to prepare for the next hurricane.
------
hereme888
To me it's obvious and logical that they spend more resources on preparing for
terrorism.
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Networks give you an unfair access to success - aqeel
http://www.gigpeppers.com/networks-give-you-an-unfair-access-to-success/
======
mindcrime
There's no question that networks help, although I guess you could quibble
over whether it's "unfair" or not. But what comes up here on HN sometimes -
and this is one place I disagree with michaelochurch - is the issue of gaining
access to certain networks or individuals. I think MOC and some others feel
like you're largely "in or out" now and forever, and that you can't find a way
to forge a bridge into a network (say, local VC's) that you aren't already
part of. I have not found this to be the case, at least here in the Raleigh /
Durham, NC area.
Now, truth be told, if you're somebody "important" like a VC or a well known
angel investor, you might not be seeking out "common people" to pull into your
orbit, and when you're in a position where a lot of people are coming to you
wanting something, you probably learn to be a bit more guarded and put up some
filters. This may not be completely unlike the way some very attractive women
put up what guys sometimes call a "bitch shield" when they get tired of
getting hit on all the time.
But, at the same time, these people are human, and they are social creatures,
and they ultimately _need_ the people with good ideas and startups, just as
much as they are needed in turn. And if you take the time to learn how they
work, where they hang out, what events to attend, and you trawl your existing
network and ask for connections, etc., you can reach a point where your
network includes VC's, or angels, or CEO's of companies, or pretty much
whatever. Treat people like people, not like caricatured images, ask politely
for their assistance with something, demonstrate that you represent (at least
potentially) some value to them, and most people will reciprocate, and the
relationship can grow slowly over time. It is almost like dating in a sense.
Now what you can't necessarily do is develop a network of "all my Stanford
alumnus friends" if you didn't attend Stanford, or whatever. But you _can_
build a network of the kind of people you need to have relationships with...
if it's hotshot engineers you feel like you need to connect with, go to the
local LUG and JUG meetings, Perl Mongers meeting, Ruby Brigade meetings,
Javascript meetups, Hadoop User's Group meetings, etc. And, like mentioned in
TFA, start establishing your credibility in your field by blogging, tweeting,
speaking publicly (speak at the aforementioned LUG, JUG, HUG, etc. meetings,
for example) and other active steps. Write a book if you have to; self-publish
on Lulu.com if you want to, and get an ISBN so it will be available on
Amazon.com and via special order at retail book shops.
None of this stuff is _easy_ but it's doable. Trust me, I know. I was the
"country bumpkin" guy who grew up in Redneckville, NC, far away from anything
or anybody technical, and after I moved to the RTP area, I did pretty much
everything I just said (minus writing a book, which I'd still like to do, but
don't have time right now). And while I'm not the most connected person in the
world, I know many of the local VC's and angels, have friends who are VP's,
CEO's, etc. of companies, and have a broad network of talented technical
people that I have relationships with. It has taken work and taken time (and
the journey isn't over) but you can "network up" with some effort in my
experience.
Edit: Oh yeah, another thing you can do, although I really don't recommend
this as purely an exercise in network building / PR: Run for public office. It
varies by state, but here in NC, you can run for a statewide office, like, for
example, Lieutenant Governor, just by filing some paperwork and paying the fee
and - depending on whether you are associated with a party or not, and that
party's status, possibly doing some petitioning. If you run as a Republican or
Democrat, you will likely have a primary against the other members of that
party who file for the same office. If you run as a 3rd party, like
Libertarian, you're likely to be unopposed in the primary phase and will
automatically go straight to the ballot in the general election. Anyway, once
you file, you'll start getting surveys to fill out and invites to various
candidate forums and events. Go to them and speak.
I did this (running for NC Lieutenant Governor as a Libertarian) and got about
126,000 votes, so at least a few people have heard my name out there. But,
again, I wouldn't necessarily recommend this just as a way to network. Yeah,
you'll meet a lot of people, and you will get a little bit of media coverage
(even as a 3rd party unknown, the media don't _totally_ exclude you, they just
_mostly_ exclude you) and you might even be on TV in a debate. But whether or
not the people you meet doing this will help your later career or initiatives
(unless you really _want_ to be a politician) is subject to debate. And more
than a few of the people you meet will automatically put you in the "enemy"
bucket just due to party affiliation, so it could actually hurt you down the
road. And you probably won't even know if it happens.
------
tomkarlo
Just because "networks" have value doesn't mean they're in anyway "unfair".
It's like saying that having a college degree is "unfair", because it makes
you more qualified for a job than someone who doesn't have one.
There are lots of people who make their _entire career_ out of leveraging
their personal networks, from salespeople and recruiters to VCs and
politicians. It's no coincidence that half that people I work with worked with
each other at previous jobs.
Calling it a "network" devalues what it really is: a hard-won portfolio of
people who you have relationships with involving trust and credibility. They
know who you are and you know who they are, and that gives you both value. In
an age of linkedin and networking events part of what's lost is that
networking isn't just about knowing someone's email; it's about having a
strong enough relationship with them that you can leverage that.
------
jiggy2011
About the value of blogs, what is the best way to blog in a way that gives you
a decent chance of being read by "the people that matter"?
It feels like technical blogs are 10 a penny these days.
~~~
mindcrime
I think the most important thing is probably to produce high quality content,
and write about "stuff" that people are interested in. Do at least basic
(white hat) SEO to try to make your blog as discoverable as possible through
organic search. Then start marketing the blog: Tweet about your new posts, and
use relevant hashtags. Add your blog to any relevant blog directories. Share
your entries in relevant sub-reddits, or here on HN, or wherever makes sense
relative to your content. Share posts on G+ and, again, use relevant hashtags.
If you're feeling ambitious, find other bloggers who cover a similar area, and
email them and talk about writing a guest post for them. See if you can get
somebody who is at least a "mini celebrity" to write a guest post for _your_
blog. Record podcasts, screencasts and/or video blogs. Share the screencast /
video blog posts through Youtube. Join relevant LinkedIn groups and share your
blog posts with the group. Share on Facebook, G+ Communities, etc., etc...
Setup Google Analytics and Webmaster Tools for your blog so you can get an
idea of what keywords are bringing people to you, and what content is
attracting the most attention. Optimize based on your findings.
Anyway, that's just a handful of basic ideas. I'm far from an expert on SEO,
content marketing, etc., but there's tons of good info our there on the net.
Google "content marketing", "permission marketing" and/or "search engine
marketing" for more ideas.
~~~
X4
You suggest good SEO. Ok.
Counterexample, use the power of a Botnet to do something unorthodox, dive
into the grayzone, get media attention. _Hustle_
Hitting the right persons nerves will again trigger success or failure. If you
gain respect this way you probably will get attention. Your responsibility
then is to react timely. If you do it wrong, you could get negative reactions,
which could be good for SEO, but bad for credit/respect.
But the first thing I would suggest you to do in order to join a network is
simply to join a related network that persons inside of your desired network
are in. Sports/Clubs/Organizations/etc.
~~~
mindcrime
_You suggest good SEO. Ok. Counterexample, use the power of a Botnet to do
something unorthodox, dive into the grayzone, get media attention. Hustle_
Under the right circumstances, I'm not opposed to doing the unorthodox (I
might skip the botnet though), and I agree that hustle is important and
getting media attention is good. I just wanted to share some of the obvious
stuff that jumped to mind immediately.
You saying that reminds me of another resource of interest: Ryan Holiday's
book _Trust Me, I'm Lying: Confessions of a Media Manipulator_.[1] There's
some interesting stuff in there about manipulating the media. You could almost
think of it as "black hat PR".
[1]: <http://trustmeimlying.com/>
~~~
X4
Thank you for the smart input!
I'll put the book into my reading list.
------
obviouslygreen
It's understandable that the simple axiom "life isn't fair" is so hard to
internalize until you've actually seen it in action. It is nice that this
article gives at least a little depth to that, but the title is a bit of a no-
brainer.
For people who don't understand it yet, this post is unlikely to help (but
then, nothing will, and I won't fault the author for trying). For those of us
who do, though, it's almost comically self-evident.
------
GhotiFish
I disagree, in order to get into a network, you have to build respect. What is
that if not a job interview by proxy?
Further, the "objective" criteria we judge new people by are anything but
fair, or even accurate.
I'm looking at you, interview questions.
~~~
IvarTJ
While building respect is a great attitude, it is not the only thing that help
you land in networks. The network connections of your family and the posh kids
you went to school with also play a role.
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
GM to hire 3,000 workers from HP - narad
http://phys.org/news/2012-10-gm-hire-workers-hewlett-packard.html
======
gvb
Cue one of my favorite Dilberts: <http://dilbert.com/strips/comic/2003-02-22/>
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Ask HN: Should I learn Python? - ApplaudPumice
And what about Rust?
======
orionblastar
[https://www.codecademy.com/learn/python](https://www.codecademy.com/learn/python)
[https://www.khanacademy.org/computer-programming/python-
prog...](https://www.khanacademy.org/computer-programming/python-
programming/4682027490082816)
Python is good because it works across different platforms. It has a lot of
example code and libraries to use.
Rust is still a new language not as many people using it as Python does. I
remember a startup tried to write a haunted house video game in Rust but ran
out of money because Rust developers are rare and want a lot of money to work.
If it was Java or C++ based they could have hired cheaper programmers and then
sold it to raise money for a Rust remake.
Here is some Rust learning resources:
[http://hackr.io/tutorials/rust](http://hackr.io/tutorials/rust)
~~~
steveklabnik
Do you happen to remember what that startup's name was? I've never heard this
story.
~~~
orionblastar
The startup name was never given. They posted on HN asking why they couldn't
get their game finished in Rust and why Rust developers wanted more money than
other developers. I don't have the link and HN is hard to search to find it.
But I remembered it.
------
esaym
Hard to say without context. I can speak for myself, after spending many years
doing Perl based web dev work, I'm finding less and less of them and the ones
I do get are not what I want. Got tired of seeing high paying python jobs
going across my inbox...So yea I'm learning Python because I think it will
double my job reach.
Oh and I don't know where you are, but pycon is coming up. If you are serious
about learning, you should go: [https://us.pycon.org/](https://us.pycon.org/)
------
prostoalex
Your productivity is not really tied to the language syntax as much as it's
dependent on libraries. Python Standard Library as well as libraries outside
of it are in many cases mature, stable and well-tested. Things like scikit,
pandas, NLTK, Django have mature ecosystems of their own, so overall it's a
very good general-purpose language to know.
------
mjp94
It's hard to answer this question without knowing what languages you already
know and how experienced you are. I'd recommend Python regardless. It's very
useful for writing small scripts sometimes and is used pretty widely I'd say.
Can't say too much about Rust, but it looks interesting.
------
smt88
If you want to make money, neither is your best bet, but Python is far better
of a bet than Rust. If you want to learn about programming, Rust is a better
bet. If you want to develop apps for your own use, Python will have more pre-
written libraries and components for you to use.
------
analognoise
It depends on what you're trying to do.
------
dllthomas
Where are you coming from, and where do you want to go?
------
jardaroh
My answer: Yes
------
allenleein
If you are a beginner,then YES.
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Worlds Most Expensive Burger: 1/4 million euros - jkuria
http://www.economist.com/node/21548147
======
gfodor
Almost as important as the technology is the marketing. They need to get on
message for this even at this early stage. Calling it "Artificial Meat" is
already conceding the battle. It's not artificial, it's real meat.
"Cultured"? Conjures up images of lab coats. "Man-made"? Not much better.
I'd say some better ideas:
\- Humane meat
\- Painless meat
\- Slaughterless meat
\- Guiltless meat
\- Pure meat
To me, pure meat probably wins. It's meat, but without all the ugly impurities
introduced by having an animal grow it in the wild. See how much of a
difference successful framing can make to how you "feel" about a product?
~~~
anigbrowl
_See how much of a difference successful framing can make to how you "feel"
about a product?_
I like knowing what I'm eating, not how you want me to feel about it. I am
just fine eating artificial meat, cultured in a lab by people in white coats.
~~~
davidw
And you're in the minority, which is why marketing campaigns are not aimed at
people like you.
------
raldi
I'm waiting for the technology to reach the point where we can create whole
new meats. Like, imagine a world where pigs had never evolved, and then a
scientist, working in a lab, invented bacon. They'd make millions and millions
of dollars, and dramatically improve the lives of a billion fat people.
And even in our world, just think: There are meats out there, waiting to be
invented, that are a thousand times more delicious than bacon.
~~~
celoyd
I’m kind of hoping cultured human is delicious. I’m going to send a cheek swab
to a PO box, and six weeks later a slab of my own pseudo-shoulder will show up
packed in dry ice. My first experiment will be:
1 kg own cultured flesh
3 cups orange juice
lime, kiwifruit, or pineapple juice to taste
1 clove of garlic, mashed
pepper and salt to taste
Combine and put in a saucepan on low heat without a lid. Let simmer until the
liquids steam off and it begins to fry in the rendered fat (about 2 hours). At
this point it should be very tender and break apart into threads. Serve over
rice or in tacos.
~~~
peteretep
There's something a little terrifying about this, which I can't quite place.
~~~
raldi
He's mixing imperial and metric measurements in the same recipe.
~~~
celoyd
That’s an interesting. I rarely use actual measuring cups for main
ingredients, so I was thinking of everyday cups, not the well-defined unit.
So I guess my error was using an ambiguous unit, which is even worse than
mixing units.
------
latch
The true cost of beef is staggering. It is, by far, one of our most selfish
indulgences the rich have. It's sad that our economic model doesn't adequately
capture this.
A lot of numbers get thrown around, but the amount of grain and water you need
for 1 pound of beef is enough to feed something like 25 people. Then there's
the environmental impact (land, pollution, ....). The more I travel the world,
the harder it is for me to eat beef.
~~~
zcid
Those claims are only valid for feedlot raised cattle which you shouldn't eat
anyway if you care about your health. Cows aren't meant to eat grain. Plus,
you get to support your local community by buying from local, responsible
farmers.
And if you want to be completely honest with yourself, take a good look at
industrial agriculture and tell me how self-righteous you feel.
Here's a couple of decent articles to start:
<http://www.alternet.org/story/13900/>
<http://www.organicconsumers.org/Organic/IndustrialAg502.cfm>
Also, the documentary Food, Inc. is a well done introduction to the issue.
~~~
latch
The majority of beef comes from feedlots. 90% of the beef we eat _is_ grain-
fed. Also, I can't find any evidence, one way or another, that grass-fed cows
take less land or pollute less (in terms of methane).
There's no doubt that it's healthier for us, and better for the cows, but
there seems to be plenty of back and forth with respect to which of the two is
more sustainable. And I don't see anyone arguing that grass-fed cows are more
efficient (or even close to as-efficient) than chicken, pork or plants.
Thanks for the links on agriculture...going through them now!
~~~
GFischer
The majority of beef comes from grass-fed cows. Of the about 1.3 billion cows,
only 100 million are fed grain (those in industrialized countries).
According to a quick googling, it seems that grass is more sustainable but
lower output.
<http://www.sciencemag.org/content/207/4433/843.abstract>
Free trade would mean less or no grain-fed livestock, hopefully (here in
Uruguay we have almost 7 million cows, all of them grass-fed, neighbour
Argentina has 40 million cows, also grass-fed, Australia and New Zealand also
have similar numbers of grass-fed cows).
In any case, as you argue, cows are not the most efficient means of producing
meat, that's why chicken is much cheaper for instance :) .
Grass-fed cows probably take more land, but I suspect they pollute a lot less
(for example there's a lot of indirect pollution from the grain produced to
feed the grain-fed cattle)
Edit: about free trade - both the U.S. and Europe have trade quotas and
subsidies in place to maintain the local agriculture. I understand not wanting
to destroy it entirely due to strategic concerns (and excessive dependency on
a provider), but I believe it's gotten out of hand.
Edit2: the number of cows in Uruguay was inflated, changed for more reasonable
source.
~~~
latch
1.3 billion is the _total_ number of cows. Almost 300 million of those are in
India, where I doubt very much that they are used for beef. I'm finding it
hard to get numbers since it's largely given in metric tons...
Although, I'll agree that looking more into it, grain-fed appears to be a
largely North American thing.
------
nestlequ1k
Hmm.. pretend this takes off and the quality of the meat is good. Would a
vegan be inclined to eat this lab meat? Seems like most vegans that I talk to
are mostly motivated by animal cruelty issues.
Just curious.
~~~
latch
I'm pretty sure strict vegans (is there any other kind?) would continue to
have a problem with it. The original definition is:
Veganism is a way of living which excludes all forms of exploitation of, and
cruelty to, the animal kingdom, and includes a reverence for life. It applies
to the practice of living on the products of the plant kingdom to the
exclusion of flesh, fish, fowl, eggs, honey, animal milk and its derivatives,
and encourages the use of alternatives for all commodities derived wholly or
in part from animals
Note that they consider honey to be an exploitation of animals...so I assume
extracting muscle tissues from a cow would also be considered exploitation of
animals. Furthermore, it pretty explicitly states "living on the products of
the plant kingdom".
~~~
Sniffnoy
Yes, but one has to wonder whether linear output requiring nearly constant
animal input, vs. linear output requiring linear animal input, will cause some
people to rethink this (thus resulting in a split in veganism). Every burger
may ultimately come from exploitation of a cow, but if the burger in front of
you does not come from any _additional_ exploitation of a cow, many people may
not have a problem with it.
Unless there are already existing products that have this property, in which
case I guess we have our answer. Or if it's not so non-linear as it sounds, in
which case there's no question.
~~~
latch
Well, there's still the issue of "living on the products of the plant
kingdom." The only thing I can think of that's similar would maybe be recycled
leather. I still think ethical vegans would have a problem with it, and I
don't see this changing the opinion of anyone doing it for health reasons.
I think environmental vegans are the most likely to buy into this..if it even
becomes an efficient way to produce nutrition/calories. I could certainly see
some more pragmatic organizations throwing their weight behind it.."if you
must eat beef, at least eat this kind of beef (but consider X, Y and Z as even
better alternatives)."
~~~
ido
I still think ethical vegans would have a problem
with it, and I don't see this changing the opinion
of anyone doing it for health reasons.
I think very few will have an ethical problem with it, most non-meat-eaters
are vegetarians and not vegans, and I suspect even among vegans most are not
as strict as you think.
------
Tsagadai
Having been to a factory farm that used homogenized grain and had "attendants"
in white coats and re-breathers this really isn't far from the present
reality. Anything that can make livestock mass production more humane is a
very good thing.
------
stretchwithme
The real benefit of this will be ending overfishing.
~~~
gerggerg
The real benefit of artificial non-descript meat sausage will be ending
overfishing? I'm assuming you mean when they come out with artificial fish
meat, but I can't find any mention of that in the article.
~~~
stretchwithme
fish meat is muscle too.
------
colonel_panic
"... they are encouraged to exercise and build up their strength by being
given their own gym equipment (pieces of Velcro to which they can anchor
themselves in order to stretch and relax spontaneously)."
Creepy. Do they give these cells an electric jolt to make them exercise?
------
stretchwithme
nonsense. I can make one for you at twice the price.
------
loceng
Why? Because we can!
------
ahoyhere
Given the issues with "whole" organisms which are genetically modified, and
our continuing "tiny keyhole" understanding of nutrition, it seems very
unlikely that lab grown meat will be nutritionally comparable as real meat.
~~~
mvzink
Not comparable, but that doesn't mean worse. It will be easier and cheaper to
provide good nutrition to artificial meat than it is to whole cows. It's easy
to imagine that the cost-cutting inhumanity of ranches includes poor
nutrition.
Besides that, few people eat beef for its nutrition (beyond the protein), and
McDonald's meat is probably more tuned for 1) ease of production and 2) taste
than nutritional value.
------
urdnot
Vegetarians from birth will probably not be inclined to eat this. They've
never acquired a taste for meat. I think this is awesome. Livestock are a
haven for pollution and pestilence, most recently implicated in producing
antibiotic-resistant superbugs that will probably be the death of us all.
------
brianbreslin
Slightly misleading title. However this reminds me of an episode of better off
Ted, in which they create a steak in a lab.
[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Better_Off_Ted_episodes...](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Better_Off_Ted_episodessee)
episode 2
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Preference for youth in tech recruiting (aka ageism) - Pyrrhuloxia
https://twitter.com/mm/status/294179421462609920
======
salgernon
I had submitted a link to a story about this tweet:
[http://brianshall.com/blog/does-morgan-missen-have-thing-
rea...](http://brianshall.com/blog/does-morgan-missen-have-thing-really-
really-young-guys)
Since I had no idea who this person was. Some sort of self promoting
recruiter.
~~~
qthrul
I'm glad someone else noticed this. I actually left a comment on that post
which I'll paste here since Disqus and blog comments can be flagged/deleted
easily:
I am over 40. In fact, I moved to Silicon Valley when I turned 40. That means
I've experienced just over 40 rotations of the Earth around the Sun. I'm
looking forward to my new career in celestial mechanics.
I'll pause while you absorb that.
If you are 40 years of age then it is likely you have some number of career
accomplishments that can be enumerated and, oh, I dunno... described. However,
to simply state you have 10, 11, 13, 20, or more years of experience means
little or nothing. "Years of experience" is simply a throw away resume filler
on par with 'fresh new ideas un-jaded by years of experience' would be for
someone with zero years of experience. i.e. nothing to brag about
Perhaps, focus instead (see also: brag) about career accomplishments that can
be enumerated, what you want to accomplish, and who you want to accomplish it
with and when.
Lastly, I'm searching for any substance in your post beyond name dropping as a
blog post slug, not so thinly veiled personal animosity, and garden variety
denigration of women.
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
The Frightening Power of Ransomware Done Right - elorant
http://nautil.us/issue/66/clockwork/the-100-million-bot-heist
======
dmos62
I've recently learned that OpenZFS has effective counter-measures for
ransomware and data corruption in general. Quote from here [0]:
> As a copy-on-write file system, OpenZFS provides efficient and consistent
> snapshots of your data at any given point in time. Each snapshot only
> includes the precise delta of changes between any two points in time and can
> be cloned to provide writable copies of any previous state without losing
> the original copy. Snapshots also provide the basis of OpenZFS replication
> or backing up of your data to local and remote systems. Because an OpenZFS
> snapshot takes place at the block level of the file system, it is immune to
> any file-level encryption by ransomware that occurs over it. A carefully-
> planned snapshot, replication, retention, and restoration strategy can
> provide the low-level isolation you need to enable your storage
> infrastructure to quickly recover from ransomware attacks.
[0] [https://www.ixsystems.com/blog/combating-
ransomware/](https://www.ixsystems.com/blog/combating-ransomware/)
~~~
amelius
I suppose that snapshotting will cause old versions of the data to be thrown
away, once the old versions start taking up too much disk space. Then I
suppose the ransomware can take advantage of this and simply perform so many
writes that the unencrypted versions of the data are thrown away. And isn't
this what happens anyway when a disk is nearly full and you start encrypting
its contents?
~~~
contravariant
It would be weird for a system to throw away its backups automatically at
arbitrary times.
~~~
Wowfunhappy
What would you have the software do when it runs out of space? IMO, not making
new backups would be worse than deleting old ones.
~~~
namibj
It's actually not allowing you to write new data at all. So it prevents the
user from assuming there is more space to store his data, as there is not
sufficient space with his indicated/configured data retention wishes.
------
turc1656
_" If Bogachev had been more careful about not using his real name when
registering for accounts, he might not now be the FBI’s most wanted
cybercriminal."_
I'm not sure he cared about being discovered given this information... _"
Bogachev lives in the resort town of Anapa on the Black Sea, where Russian
officials have declined for years to arrest him or extradite him to the United
States. In fact, the Russian government has benefited from his criminal
activity."_
Friends in high places never hurts, especially if they are corrupt. He
basically gets to live life like a Bond villain so I'm reasonably confident he
never intended to hide his name or activity for the long haul.
~~~
Misdicorl
It still makes him 100% reliant on those friends, who you've already noted are
corrupt. He's likely already been squeezed out of 99% of this money.
~~~
meowface
Quite possibly, but he's probably still a millionaire. Not a bad deal for him.
He still gets to make millions and commit fraud scot free, with the protection
of the Russian government. He also gets to have fun working on sophisticated
malware and novel C2 infrastructure architectures, continuously honing his
skills.
If I were him (and also had no morals) I'd probably be pretty happy with my
life.
------
Wowfunhappy
Something I've long wondered about—shouldn't Ransomeware be relatively easy to
detect with a heuristic? There aren't all that many† legitimate use cases for
rewriting 30%+ of the data on your hard disk. Seems like a good time for the
OS to pause the process and notify the user before continuing. If ZFS
snapshots or similar are in use, there are even fewer cases where you'd want
to rewrite 30% of data _and_ delete all snapshots.
† Note, "not many" ≠ zero. I realize this would sometimes result in false
positives, but I imagine the trade-off would be worthwhile, _especially_ if
the protection was user controlled.
~~~
technion
Windows admins have been running heuristics with File Server Resource Manager
for a few years. We had users disabled and SMB access immediately denied for
users that created certain file types, and email alerts get sent. It was
surprisingly effective.
------
humbermetallic
An interesting read, thanks for sharing. At the end ransomware WannaCry was
mentioned. Is it in any way related to Bogachev's operations or is it
confirmed to be an effort by North Korea? The part where he uses his real name
for a yahoo account does sound stupid, but maybe he really felt safe that
Russian authorities won't cooperate with an international arrest order.
------
Damogran6
Another thing to look at is dedupe percentage...if things all of a sudden stop
compressing really well, it's an indicator of text files being converted to
encrypted, random looking, noise.
------
mettamage
To know a bit more about one of the researchers see:
[https://syssec.mistakenot.net/](https://syssec.mistakenot.net/)
He gave a lecture about it in one of the classes I followed at one point.
------
nailer
> there was no way to predict which domains the DGA would come up with for any
> given week.
Wouldn't there be a seed on each infected machine used to determine the
current C&C domains to use? Why couldn't we predict them?
~~~
deft-code
Why would taking down the C&C for one week kill the botnet? Or for that matter
even a few months. I assume the bots can just keep trying to find the C&C
until it finally gets through.
~~~
brokenmachine
I don't think it did kill the botnet.
From the article: "on July 11, 2014, the Justice Department reported that the
number of computers infected with GOZ malware had been reduced by 31 percent
thanks to law enforcement intervention."
Also they were blocking the autogenerated domains on a weekly basis, but that
would only work if the infected machine was in the US I believe.
------
tim333
>spent lavishly on a fleet of luxury cars, two French villas, and a large
yacht ... lives ... on the Black Sea, where Russian officials have declined
for years to arrest him
It's a shame the Russians aren't a little more cooperative with stopping this
kind of stuff.
~~~
j0hnml
Why would they? The RU government is likely directly involved with these kinds
of attacks/campaigns
~~~
rdtsc
The article even mentions that allegedly the bot network was used to launch
attacks beneficial to the Russian government.
If there is any criminal organization powerful enough in Russia, and their
leaders haven't been assassinated or imprisoned, it's safe to assume they work
closely with the government.
~~~
acct1771
Obligatory: US/West is precisely the same.
------
demygale
I wish articles had dates on the byline
------
brokenmachine
Wouldn't they be able to trace who registered the C&C domain every week?
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
The Secret of Great Bread - Let Time Do the Work - phreeza
http://www.nytimes.com/2006/11/08/dining/08mini.html
======
dminor
I've used this technique and works great (article is from 2006). There's a
video of it somewhere too, which is helpful for seeing how "wet" the dough is.
If you want to make bread on a regular basis check out "Artisan Bread in Five
Minutes a Day": <http://www.artisanbreadinfive.com/>
------
clistctrl
I made this a few weeks ago, it was very easy, and tasted fantastic.
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
“During the investigation we noticed that you placed a shell into our web root” - dogecoinbase
https://hackerone.com/reports/136169
======
benmcnelly
His argument makes sense to me as to why that was needed, however if they want
to take that stance, thats understandable, as is people being less likely to
run things down for them.
~~~
detaro
If a shell was necessary, a better-secured one (e.g. requiring a signed
command) would have been a good approach.
~~~
duskwuff
Yes. The Uber representative implied that a secure web shell would have been,
at the very least, less objectionable:
> we noticed that you placed an _unauthenticated_ web shell into our web root
(emphasis mine)
That being said, I imagine a phpinfo(); or passthru("whoami"); would have been
preferred.
~~~
i336_
An earlier comment said "Although the system() PHP function didn't directly
work..." so it would probably have been phpinfo().
Authenticating something like this is an interesting question though. Maybe
make the php script filename a sha256, then make the query string another
sha256, and possibly add a few more sha256 query keys that have to match more
sha256 strings. Or maybe that's overkill. (I keep wondering about
cryptographic cipher-based solutions...)
As an aside, an attacker would have needed to know about the name `bugb.php`,
which isn't an intuitive or easily guessable filename IMO, so there was a
reasonable level of security-by-obscurity.
~~~
iamjason89
Since system() PHP function didn't directly work, do you think he would have
been able to gain full access as he suggested?
~~~
i336_
It would probably have required a bit of thought, but PHP can access
databases, (presumably) alter files, and the like; so while full UNIX shell
access might not have been possible, practically speaking PHP could have done
a lot of damage on its own.
------
chillacy
Wow, am I correct in reading that uber just paid out 10k for a OneLogin
wordpress plugin bug? Who said open source was free...
~~~
i336_
Step 1: go to homepage
Step 2: browse
Step 3: profit, literally
I'm considering looking around at bug bounties... I know nada about security,
but who knows, maybe I'll stumble on something.
~~~
anentropic
yeah, anyone offering bug bounties and also running wordpress must be offering
easy money...
------
therealidiot
Sniffs (faked) user-agent and won't even show me the page.
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
PLA Signals Intelligence & Cyber Reconnaissance Infrastructure - skygear
http://project2049.net/documents/pla_third_department_sigint_cyber_stokes_lin_hsiao.pdf
The Chinese People’s Liberation Army Signals Intelligence and Cyber Reconnaissance Infrastructure
======
mmaunder
Anyone know about the idealogical leanings of the project 2049 institute? They
seem to be focused on rocking the US-asia boat perhaps to increase military
spending?
<http://twitter.com/#!/Project2049>
[http://www.uscc.gov/hearings/2011hearings/written_testimonie...](http://www.uscc.gov/hearings/2011hearings/written_testimonies/11_05_11_wrt/11_05_11_stokes_testimony.pdf)
~~~
skygear
exactly
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
BOSS – The Next Step in our Open Search Ecosystem - ajbatac
http://developer.yahoo.net/blog/archives/2008/07/boss_the_next_s.html
======
malpern
Hi, my name is Micah Alpern and I work with the Yahoo! BOSS team. If you have
any questions about BOSS or ideas for how we can make it even better please
feel free drop in on the BOSS Yahoo! group:
<http://tech.groups.yahoo.com/group/ysearchboss/>
There are a number of BOSS team members there who can answer you questions.
You should also check out our Python based mash-up framework that makes it
easy to blend search results from multiple sources.
<http://developer.yahoo.com/search/boss/mashup.html>
Also check out this personal blog post by Vik Sing, the BOSS architect:
[http://zooie.wordpress.com/2008/07/10/yahoo-boss-an-
insider-...](http://zooie.wordpress.com/2008/07/10/yahoo-boss-an-insider-
view/)
~~~
sabat
Micah, thanks for checking in. BOSS is going to solve a problem I've had, and
I'm sure it's going to be a boon for a lot of others.
------
drubio
Remarkable in the sense that BOSS is a search service that will have 'No
Restrictions on Presentation' and 'Blending of Proprietary and Yahoo! Search
Content Allowed'.
But AMAZING it will have monetization, even though right now its says 'Coming
Soon', wouldn't be strange if they took a while on this.
Its their kind of resources and scaling capabilities that allow 'THEM' to
monetize search the way the do, now they will give everyone the same crack at
using their same power and on top monetize it..wow..sounds like this will
shake things up a bit in search, if BOSS delivers on what it says it will.
------
wave
Do they really mean unlimited queries? I think they need to do or say more to
assure the developers they really meant unlimited.
The API can be found at
<http://developer.yahoo.com/search/boss/boss_guide/index.html> and it seems
very simple:
http://boss.yahooapis.com/ysearch/{vertical}/v1/{query}?appid=xyz[¶m1=val1¶m2=val2&etc]
vertical - web , image , news...
query - text query
appid - your Yahoo application id
parm1,2,3 - filter, type...
filter - -hate , -porn...
type - pdf , html , nonhtml , ppt ...
~~~
nose
You might find this helpful (#2, #15):
<http://developer.yahoo.com/search/boss/boss_guide/faq.html>
~~~
aaronblohowiak
also, "There are no rate limits on the number of queries per day" from
[http://developer.yahoo.net/blog/archives/2008/07/boss_the_ne...](http://developer.yahoo.net/blog/archives/2008/07/boss_the_next_s.html)
------
sonink
Yahoo is bang on with this one.
BOSS + Amazon Cloud counters the huge infrastructure edge that Google services
enjoyed till now.
------
michaelbuckbee
I think acceptable BOSS usage can best be described as "anything that doesn't
piss Y! off". Now, this may be a compromise between their lawyers and the host
of innovative search offerings they can't put in a legal box at the moment,
but I'm still hesitant to think this is all great.
Looking through the TOS I also found this beauty (good luck writing a blog
post announcing that you are now integrating BOSS search results):
(a) You shall not refer to the Services, or use or display any Yahoo!
trademarks, service marks, logos or other Yahoo!-related branding in
connection with any Links or Web Search Results or in any other manner, except
where expressly and specifically authorized by Yahoo! in writing.
~~~
IsaacSchlueter
Yeah, but that's the kind of "just in case" language that's rarely actually
used if you're not being a jerk. There's a limit to what's actually
enforceable.
If you wrote a blog post stating that you're using Yahoo's new BOSS service in
your app, and showed the Yahoo logo there, and talked about how great it is, I
sincerely doubt anyone at Yahoo would have a problem with that.
However, if you had an app that was specifically designed to phish passwords,
and you put the Yahoo logo on it, and Yahoo sued you for inappropriate use of
their IP, you couldn't even begin to claim that they gave you permission. This
kind of legal language precludes them from appearing to even accidentally
permit that kind of thing. It's just erring on the side of being cautious,
which is expected, common, and responsible.
~~~
michaelbuckbee
I agree with your interpretation (if you write positive stuff I don't think
they'll complain), and I think they do have the right to just arbitrarily
decide that someone is doing something bad and cut them off.
I don't like that they are saying that this is an open system, then laying
down a legal trap where "everyone" who writes anything about the service would
be in violation of their TOS. You can't have it both ways.
~~~
IsaacSchlueter
They're not trying to have it both ways.
They're saying, "Unless we have given you permission to use our IP, you don't
have it."
It's not like Yahoo is claiming that BOSS is GPL'ed or anything. And even if
it was FOSS, PHP has similar language in its license--you can't use the phrase
"PHP" or the logo to endorse or promote any product without written
permission.
Language like this in a license never trumps fair use anyhow.
------
auston
I hope they give me movie data! I want movie info.
~~~
joseakle
i'm working on movie search as a side project and have been doing it via
scraping
~~~
dkasper
Are you guys avoiding using IMDb's data since it can't be used commercially?
<http://www.imdb.com/interfaces>
~~~
joseakle
yeah, too bad we need a written consent, i'm just scraping theater showtimes
and will have to include links to imdb for more info, thankfully they let me
do this "You are granted a limited, revocable, and nonexclusive right to
create a hyperlink to IMDb.com" they are so generous for letting me link to
them
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
If Elected, Barack Obama Would Name a Chief Technology Officer - jkush
http://venturebeat.com/2007/11/13/exclusive-barack-obama-to-name-a-chief-technology-officer/
======
kajecounterhack
The government tends to...mess things up like this...
Just saying.
~~~
jkush
You're right, of course. What I DO like about this is the fact that Obama
(seems to) know enough to say that he needs someone to help his administration
understand technology. I can't fault that at all.
~~~
altay
Why would they need help? Our current president is an expert on The Google:
<http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=90DKubFKwVo>
~~~
jkush
My head just exploded. I can't decide if I like the infamous Ballmer video or
the infamous "The Google" video better.
Always a good laugh.
~~~
pchristensen
I have referred to Google as "The Google" for a long time now.
------
comatose_kid
What a great idea. After all, we can look to the state of education in this
country, which has been greatly improved by the presence of the Chief
Education Officer (Secretary of Education in the Cabinet).
Yes, I like sarcasm.
I guess I don't understand which important problem this is trying to solve.
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Ask PG : is company culture a priority from day one - lauremerlin
9 months into my startup project, I've been working on and off with quite a few (expert accountant, famous author, cartoonist, developer and web designer), all volunteers. I feel now I'd better wait and find a really fitting match for me (=different skills, tech, but personality match) and for the project (=living a life coherent with the content/positive parenting). How much of a priority is it?
======
bliti
What sort of culture is there if you have people working on and off all the
time? Cultures are developed when people spend time together over time.
~~~
lauremerlin
Trying people out, yes absolutely no culture yet, a precise idea of what it
should be though (company not set up yet). And that means to me live coherent
with the whole purpose of the company itself, no 'that's just a job', really
shared beliefs and values, even in not so public functions, be ready for
transparency.
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Advancing Android Development with Kotlin - ingve
https://realm.io/news/oredev-jake-wharton-kotlin-advancing-android-dev/
======
on_and_off
haha, how many times did he gave that talk already ?
It is a worthy cause though, Kotlin is ridiculously better thought out than
java (which is expected for a language release 20 years later).
If it is an option in your current workplace, do yourself a favor and check
out Kotlin.
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Headphones and Coffee - zdw
http://www.marco.org/2014/02/03/headphones-and-coffee
======
dognotdog
What makes these headphones an order of magnitude more expensive than
venerable work horses like the HD-25 ([http://en-de.sennheiser.com/on-ear-dj-
headphones-hd-25-1-ii](http://en-de.sennheiser.com/on-ear-dj-headphones-
hd-25-1-ii))?
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Browser Detection without Javascript - e1ven
http://documenta.rudolphina.org/cond-css-demo.xml
======
axod
Why would you use this? And why would anyone disable javascript? Nothing makes
sense anymore...
~~~
heyadayo
Its not necessarily about disabling javascript... its that js is often a poor
way of detecting browsers. Remember how the User-agent header was supposed to
identify the browser? All the browser's put arbitrary crap there so they will
be served this or that version of html. Now browser's are all trying to look
like each other in js land for the same reason -- so that apps work right.
Sometimes these css subtleties are all you end up with.
The reason you would use this is that you can optimize your application in all
sorts of arbitrary ways. maybe string concatenation is faster a certain way in
safari, great; lets just make sure its safari before we do that optimization.
~~~
litewulf
This seems equally brittle. If I'm reading the XSLT correctly its based on the
name of the xml library that a particular browser ships with...
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Carol Bartz: Yahoo "f---ed me over" - taylorbuley
http://postcards.blogs.fortune.cnn.com/2011/09/08/carol-bartz-fired-yahoo/
======
wccrawford
Any (ex) CEO that doesn't know why they got fired by someone reading a
lawyer's script obviously doesn't have a clue how things work. A firing of
that magnitude has to go by the book, and they have to close every legal
loophole they can. No personal messages, no teary goodbyes... Just a lawyer's
letter.
The phonecall method seems horrible, but what was the alternative? You don't
want them in the building because you don't want a scene, either from their
being hysterical, or from the guards escorting them to the door. A letter
could only be worse.
No, they played this by the book, and she's upset about them doing things
correctly. And badmouthing them over it.
The personal insult during the phone call really shows her character.
~~~
danilocampos
> Any (ex) CEO that doesn't know why they got fired by someone reading a
> lawyer's script obviously doesn't have a clue how things work.
I want to be clear, here: you're telling me that it is your position that
someone who was CEO of Autodesk – not exactly a shareware developer or
anything – served in that role for 14 years and oversaw its rise to dominance
over its space... doesn't "have a clue" how things work?
Is it possible that she simply expected a little better than a phone call,
given that she's _the CEO of the company_?
> The personal insult during the phone call really shows her character.
It does. It shows me she's a straight talker and the sort of person who
expects the same from others. I like those kinds of people – with them, I
always know where I stand. Fuck the phonies.
~~~
wccrawford
I love straight talkers.
Insults like that are not 'straight talk'. She could easily have said, "I
expected better than this." It's just as straight without the personal insult.
Edit: I keep thinking about this and getting more incensed. Being abusive is
not straight talking. There's no need to attack him personally. Ever. She can
say that the entire company has let her down... But she can't attack him
personally. Abuse like this is simply not acceptable.
And a CEO should know better.
~~~
cbs
>Insults like that are not 'straight talk'. She could easily have said, "I
expected better than this."
Self-censoring is still self-censoring.
------
rbanffy
I see a mess where there should be none. What's the problem with these people?
Firing over the phone, seeking out media attention and badmouthing your former
employer... It really doesn't matter if you are the chairman of the board or
the CEO, there are things you really shouldn't do.
~~~
ddw
I can't imagine even a lowly temp warrants being fired over the phone. It's
just common decency. If there are security or legal concerns then film it and
have a lawyer and security guard there. But doing it over the phone doesn't
make Yahoo! look good, not that much of anything does anymore.
Additionally, why wasn't this one of those "resign or we'll get rid of you"
situations? That's how I've seen it worked at companies I've worked at in the
past. Doing it over the phone seems purposefully spiteful.
~~~
hammock
_why wasn't this one of those "resign or we'll get rid of you" situations?_
It was: "After Tuesday's call from Bostock, Bartz says, she had two hours to
let Yahoo know whether she would resign or allow the board to fire her"
~~~
ddw
My bad!
------
ZipCordManiac
I have seen a whole lot of this woman cussing in the news lately. The image
she puts out is low class, and she didn't make the company money. It's no
mystery why she was fired. There is a time and place for profanity, and it's
very rarely in the professional setting.
~~~
earl
Low class? That's sexist bullshit. There's plenty of men that speak exactly
the same way -- starting with Larry Ellison, and go read about his behavior
sometime -- yet don't get the same opprobrium. It's because she's a woman.
~~~
ZipCordManiac
I wouldn't treat a male any differently. It's low class. I don't recall any
major CEO's on the front page of tech sites cussing before this. Ever. It
shows a poor lack of control. What is said behind doors, not to the press, is
something else entirely. That's not even touching on the professionalism of
publicly calling out a previous employer. Talk about burning bridges and
ruining a reputation.
~~~
Causalien
Joe Biden: It's a big fucking deal.
~~~
ZipCordManiac
You probably should have chosen somebody who wasn't a complete douche bag to
make your example. Joe Biden cussing like that makes him look like a complete
fool. I am all for cussing when situation is right, but this (and Biden's
mockery) is just vulgar for the sake of being vulgar. There is a time and a
place for vulgarity, press releases is not one of them. It just makes you look
foolish, easily manipulated emotionally, and unprofessional in my eyes.
------
jtchang
The situation is sour to begin with. A lawyer script though? This isn't a
cover your ass situation. This is about respect.
I think she honestly spoke what was on her mind. She was insulted that they
would do it via an impersonal lawyer script and said as much.
------
grannyg00se
She was asked whether she would like to resign or be fired if she refused. Can
someone clarify what advantage there would be to one option over the other? I
imagine resignation would provide less financial compensation than letting
them fire you.
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Ask HN: What to do when the .com is too expensive? - hartator
We have found a new name for our company, the .com is parked (I mean do you know any good .com that's not?).<p>We have exchanged maybe 10 emails with the domain broker and he is asking us almost $20,000. We have make a proposal for $1,400 (Similar domains sell for this price), and the broker told us that our offer is too low to even be taken to the actual owner. Sic.<p>We try to find an alternative of the .com, like alternative domains as .io, .net, .ly ... or to add a prefix (my, your, get, the...) or a suffix (app, service, hq...)<p>I wonder what's the best practices?<p>PS: We are a web-based SaaS for businesses.
======
trienthusiast
I will be counter-intuitive here and ask you this.
Is the domain worth 20k for you? If it is, and you think in the long run it
will add 20k to your bottom line, then buy it.
If for any reason the startup won't succeed (knock on wood), if that is an
appetizing enough .com, it will still be worth its asking price.
I recently read the examine.com guys bought it for 42k. I thought that was a
very big risk for a starting blog. But in fairness, i think a domain name like
examine.com could be re-sold for a very similar amount in short time.
If you think the .com is not worth 20k for you, or if you don't have 20k -
then go for a prefix/suffix.
Buy cheap brand PPC campaigns on Googlee for your brand (I assume the parked
domain isn't doing it) so that when people Google the name, they get to you.
And eventually if you have constant Ads on top, and your site has a content as
opposed to a parked domain,it will rank better in google too.
~~~
hartator
We can put 20k on a domain name if we really want to.
But from my experience, a domain name is a domain name and it's usually not
worth that much of the money. 20k can be spent in a marketing campaign that
will out weigth the benefits of having the "pure" .com
~~~
SoloX5
That's a bit simplistic.
Having "Examine.com" as our brand brought us weight - the domain is easy to
remember, easy to understand, has a link to what we're selling, and so forth.
BUT - that 42k was never _all_ we had. It was maybe ~25% of what we had. We
decided that the brandability of the domain was more important than buying
ads.
As you have a SaaS business, buying ads may work out. On the other hand,
having a non-.com may backfire.
YMMV.
------
byoung2
_We have found a new name for our company_
Since you are rebranding, you might be better off finding a name where the
.com is available just to avoid the hassle of being shaken down if you get big
later. Companies that just ponied up the money when they got big are dropbox
(formerly getdropbox.com) and facebook (formerly thefacebook.com). It seems
like recently you don't even need the .com (e.g. famo.us and socket.io), so
you could go that route if your name is short and easy to remember.
~~~
jaredsohn
> It seems like recently you don't even need the .com (e.g. famo.us and
> socket.io)
Keep in mind that these examples are websites that target developers, which at
least in the past were more willing than others to go to non-.coms.
------
notduncansmith
You're best off prefixing (to get a .com) or going with an alternative TLD.
Don't get a .net or .org though, because they just don't have the same appeal.
Maybe try one of the new TLD's (.academy, .guru, .sexy, etc)? Also, don't
worry about the effect your domain may have on SEO. Focus on solid content
marketing and the SEO will come - use paid traffic and a good autoresponder
series if you have to spend money on marketing.
~~~
archagon
Maybe I'm biased because I'm in the same situation, but I really do think .net
has almost as much cachet as .com. Some people even _prefer_ the .net domain
to the .com. (daringfireball.net)
~~~
SoloX5
Very uncommon.
------
ksec
The only other TLD that i see could possibly rival .com is .web. But it is
plagued with all sort of stupid copyright issues.
As a developer or businesses SaaS, i dont think tld matters. Because you
target audience are unlikely to give a damn about it. However if it was a
public facing website then I think .com matters a lot. A lot of people still
think of everything in .com on the Internet.
------
cylinder
Is there any way you can find out who the real owner is?
The broker doesn't want to take your offer because he won't make much
commission. He'd rather hold out for a bigger offer later on.
Circumvent the broker. Owner may be more likely to take your offer.
~~~
hartator
I will do that without a blink of eye, but I don't think that's possible. Both
the website and the whois redirect to the broker.
I can double check whois history or website history on archive.org but I don't
think I will find anything of value.
------
csmdev
Find another one.
Don't get fixated on things. A business must evolve and adapt in order to
succeed. If you are stubborn about a simple name, the web domain is the least
of your worries.
~~~
hartator
Yes, we are working on that.
But, the odds that the other ideas we can have in a .com are still already
taken are pretty high. I will be thinking that's a common issue.
~~~
jbardnz
Yeah in all likely hood any other .com's will be parked but as you mentioned
in your post similar domains are selling for $1400 or around the price you are
happy to pay. If this one broker is asking way to much move on and find a
different .com that you can afford.
------
Noma
How about .co?
~~~
hartator
I was thinking they have bad reputation. Have they not?
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Google Self-Driving Car Project – Monthly Reports - alcubierredrive
https://www.google.com/selfdrivingcar/reports/
======
brudgers
Past discussion:
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9843539](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9843539)
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Yahoo SEC Filing: Name change to Altaba Inc and director resignations - patmcguire
https://investor.yahoo.net/secfiling.cfm?filingID=1193125-17-5897&CIK=1011006&soc_src=mail&soc_trk=ma
======
riemannzeta
For those confused, this filing is reporting a name change because the
operating business (including its brand, domain name, etc.) is being acquired
by Verizon out of what is now Yahoo! Inc. So the Yahoo business, its name,
domains, and so on are not going anywhere as a result of this announcement.
Altaba is just the name of of the company that will hold the investments that
Verizon didn't acquire, including Alibaba shares.
~~~
sperglord
Haha, Verizon owns America Online as well. Perhaps they're going to collect
all relics of the 90's internet into some kind of Voltron monster.
~~~
LeoPanthera
I hope someone at Verizon cares about history and is preserving things for
future museums.
------
stanleydrew
Rather than the inevitable bashing of Marissa that will undoubtedly unfurl on
this thread, I'd like to put in a little reminder that we usually celebrate
taking on big projects and big risks and that we should commend her for taking
on the immense challenge of steadying the Yahoo ship.
Yes, she wasn't able to keep the ship from sinking. But I do think she put in
a good-faith effort.
~~~
akjainaj
I think there is absolutely no indication that anybody, other than Jesus
Christ himself descending from the skies mounted on a Harley Davidson in
flames, could have saved Yahoo.
So, bashing Marissa here would be really, really pointless and sad.
~~~
nikcub
I don't think that is true. In 2012 Yahoo had $5B a year in revenue and was
the second most visited property on the web.
When Thompson stepped down the board were given two proposals. The first,
revive Yahoo as a premium tech firm lead by someone like Mayer, or 2. admit
that Yahoo is now a media co and double down on the verticals where Yahoo is
winning - especially those where you can sell premium ads (Finance, Sport)
The board had delusions of grandeur and saw Yahoo's as still being on the same
level as Google rather than taking the safer bet and building out the media
company.
Being a media company isn't as interesting - but there are a lot of public,
medium sized tech media co's out there who get along just fine (and some even
have an innovative breakthrough every now and then - like IAC) - and Yahoo,
with the later plan, would have been the best of this bunch.
~~~
sperglord
I was surprised to learn at a conference in October that America Online still
exists(!), and this (media) is the route that they took. Apparently they own
the Huffington Post and Engadget now.
~~~
gnicholas
AOL was acquired by Verizon, so in a sense they still exist, but in another
sense not. They did own/operate HuffPo, Engadget, and other properties for
some time prior to the Verizon acquisition.
~~~
empath75
Yahoo is more or less going to be folded into aol, actually.
~~~
bastardoperator
I also heard the recent AOL layoffs had much to do with duplicate positions at
Yahoo and that Yahoo will fall under the AOL umbrella.
------
coderholic
The only mention of Mayer I can find is
> Each of David Filo, Eddy Hartenstein, Richard Hill, Marissa Mayer, Jane Shaw
> and Maynard Webb has indicated that he or she intends to resign from the
> Board effective upon the Closing, and that his or her intention to resign is
> not due to any disagreement with the Company on any matter relating to the
> Company’s operations, policies or practices.
Which indicates that she'll resign from the board, but doesn't say anything
about her resigning as CEO. Is that just left off here because it doesn't
require SEC disclosure, or is it a possibility that she'll stay?
~~~
SonOfLilit
If she stays, it should be with Verizon Yahoo, not with Altaba (shell
containing Alibaba shares formerly known as Yahoo), which is a kind of company
Mayer has no experience managing (and also not a managerial challenge worth
the kind of salary she can get elsewhere)
------
interknot
Well, at least they _registered_ Altaba.com. No IP address as of now, though
it looks like their mail is handled by Google Apps!
~~~
logicallee
You're kidding. Tell me you're kidding.
~~~
akjainaj
And that's not everything because this is the TXT record
altaba.com. 1800 IN TXT "google-site-verification=vO3De5z6qb-
AeM1GmHkcC5dlWA_cw-7WKN5xhcyFFPM"
~~~
stanleydrew
That's required for Google's domain ownership verification, which is a pre-
requisite to enabling G Suite (formerly known as Google Apps for Domains).
------
reid
This says Marissa will not be involved with Altaba Inc. (RemainCo) after
Yahoo's operating business is sold to Verizon. Which makes sense, since any
future of her leadership is with the operating business instead of the
investment company Altaba.
------
folz
Key takeaways from this filing: Yahoo CEO Marissa Mayer is resigning and the
company is changing its name to "Altaba Inc."
(The article link was changed from
[https://twitter.com/BuzzFeedNews/status/818589759320637440](https://twitter.com/BuzzFeedNews/status/818589759320637440)
at around 50 points)
~~~
bmuon
For the record, this is incorrect. The SEC filing does not indicate she is
resigning as CEO. See other comments for explanations about what's actually
going on.
------
djsumdog
I wish there was a real alternative to search. I use DuckDuckGo, but I believe
they run on AWS and purchase index data from Yandex et. al.
At this point, is it even feasible for anyone to enter the general search
market, or has Google simply set the barrier to entry too high? Are there any
niche search engines that focus on things Google has either removed or doesn't
index? Are there other alternatives besides DDG, StartPage, Yandex and Bing?
~~~
hoorayimhelping
_" At this point, is it even feasible for anyone to enter the desktop computer
market, or has Microsoft simply set the barrier to entry too high?"_
-Us, 1999
One thing I've observed in tech over the past 25 years is that change comes
from unexpected places and often very quickly.
~~~
Cyph0n
Uhhh how has the answer to that question changed though? Windows remains the
undisputed king of the desktop.
~~~
tomhoward
Mac has a much more significant market share than it did then, there are
several viable alternatives to MS Office, and iOS and Android have kept
Windows from having any significant market share in mobile.
That last point is the most significant here: sure, you might not be able to
beat Google at Google-like search, but you can try to start building the thing
that will become more important than Google-like search in the next 5-10
years.
~~~
Cyph0n
Mac has increased in market share yes, but it's still not even close to a
threat.
MS Office is, like Windows, still the king of office productivity application
suites. Yes, there are competitors, but they are not a threat to MS as far as
I know.
I'm not entirely sure that mobile will be replacing desktop in the near
future. People have been shouting "fire!" for years now when it comes to
tablets vs. desktop. Regardless, the original comment was talking specifically
about desktop.
~~~
tomhoward
> Regardless, the original comment was talking specifically about desktop.
Yes but that's the point. Microsoft may still be the most dominant player on
the desktop, but they're no longer the most important company in tech, because
the desktop is no longer the only important platform.
Google, Amazon, Facebook and Apple are all now as important or more important
than Microsoft, because they all run platforms that are as important or more
important than Windows.
It was hard to imagine that ever happening in 1999, yet it had started
happening, and it became clearly apparent that it was happening within just a
few years.
Similarly, whilst Google might seem hopelessly dominant now due to their
dominance in search, their dominance over tech will subside when the next
important new platform emerges.
~~~
lorenzorhoades
I think the OP was talking specifically about search, not tech in general.
It's rather obvious that unless companies constantly reinvent themselves that
the new tech will replace old methods. His question was directed toward the
possibility of someone coming in and taking over search as it is today. Which
i'm curious of other opinion on this question as well, because frankly I think
unless a radical innovation happens in the field, that modern day search is
going to be forever relegated to google.
~~~
tomhoward
> I think the OP was talking specifically about search, not tech in general.
Yeah fair enough, so they were.
> It's rather obvious that unless companies constantly reinvent themselves
> that the new tech will replace old methods.
It's obvious in theory/hindsight, but not so much in the real world, as it's
impossible to predict exactly what the next important thing will look like -
which is why it's pretty much always a new upstart that invents it rather than
an incumbent.
> His question was directed toward the possibility of someone coming in and
> taking over search as it is today. Which i'm curious of other opinion on
> this question as well, because frankly I think unless a radical innovation
> happens in the field, that modern day search is going to be forever
> relegated to google.
Well, for what it's worth, and if it isn't already clear from my previous
comments, I'm pretty sure Google will always dominate search-as-we-know-it,
but that's not that big a deal, because search-as-we-know-it won't always be
as important as it is now.
------
ubercow
I wonder what's going to happen to Flickr. I still haven't found a replacement
place to host my pictures that I want to show off to others.
~~~
uptown
Check out Koken. Self-hosting but it's pretty great.
~~~
scott_karana
Looks nice, but for some of us, Flickr is also about externalizing management
of TBs of redundant storage ;)
------
Apocryphon
Etymology of that name - AltaVista + Ali Baba?
~~~
larkinrichards
I figured it is pronounced "alt tabba"; it's so handy that you keep it an alt-
tab away.
Perhaps Ogden Nash wrote a poem about it?
~~~
voidz
"T'alt-tab or _not_ t'alt-tab?"
Wait, that wasn't Nash's. Never mind, carry on.
------
Animats
Altaba is just a investment company. The operating business will be sold to
Verizon (if Verizon doesn't back out), and the money from the sale goes to
Altaba. At that point Altaba ought to liquidate and divide the money among the
shareholders, but the management may try to invest in other things to justify
their jobs.
------
CydeWeys
Is this like Google's move to be under Alphabet as a parent company? Altaba is
for the holding group that controls that substantial overseas investments
while Yahoo becomes just a brand used for some of their web properties that
can be sold off if necessary?
~~~
harryh
That's exactly right except for the "if necessary" part. A deal to sell off
all of the web properties to verizon has already been made.
~~~
CydeWeys
That deal may have gone pear-shaped following the latest and greatest breach,
though. Maybe "if possible" would have been wording on my part.
------
user982
Altabax is a skin cream for bacterial infections.
------
protomyth
Was Marissa Mayer expected to stay with the investment company, move over to
Verizon with the Yahoo property, or leave entirely?
~~~
harryh
She was expected to leave entirely. This is not a surprise.
~~~
praneshp
Source? She has said repeatedly she will be with the unit that is going to
Verizon, and I didn't see anything different yet.
~~~
harryh
Ah yes, you appear to be correct. As of now she's going to Verizon with the
sale. Personally I can't imagine her lasting very long there but I suppose you
never know.
------
powera
"In light of the fact that following the Closing the Company will operate as
an investment company under the Investment Company Act of 1940" \- this is
why. It will let Verizon save billions of dollars on Alibaba stock if it can
get Yahoo out of the way.
[http://fortune.com/2016/02/08/verizon-yahoo-alibaba-
taxes/](http://fortune.com/2016/02/08/verizon-yahoo-alibaba-taxes/)
~~~
harryh
It won't let verizon save anything. Verizon is purchasing the operating
companies and has nothing to do with the alibaba shares.
------
gigatexal
end of an era -- I wonder what Jerry Yang is thinking right now?
~~~
petercooper
I'd like to imagine the multi-billionaire has taken a nostalgic moment out to
reminisce, but I doubt he will be too cut up :-)
~~~
gigatexal
right, i bet he's laughing a lot.
------
thinkloop
What's the verdict on Marissa, did she do a bad job, or was yahoo simply
unsaveable?
~~~
chmaynard
All of the above.
------
akvadrako
I wish Yahoo would make more great series like...
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Other_Space](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Other_Space)
------
shuri
I'm guessing the brand doesn't need to change.
------
wbsun
Probably shouldn't laugh at the new name, but "altaba" really sounds like
"ali(baba)'s father" in Chinese...
------
gm-conspiracy
Will they sell the broadcast.com domain (or will it 301 to altaba)?
I have a great idea to use that domain to host streaming of live youth sports.
~~~
harryh
broadcast.com (as well as all the rest of Yahoo's domains) is undoubtedly part
of the sale of assets to Verizon.
------
mdekkers
Altaba? Because a rebrand is certainly going to rescue the company. I can see
the meetings now. "we need to do something" "....." "Let's do a rebrand! It
will all give us the feeling we are doing something"
------
rabboRubble
Alta Vista + Alibaba = Altaba?
This new name is a confusing mishmash.
------
oh_sigh
Is Altaba etymologically related to Alibaba?
------
jpswade
Yahoo should focus on discussion.
------
voidz
Should have called it Yooha!
~~~
tyingq
I'd have gone with an semi-anagram like: Oh,Hay!
------
beedogs
What an absolutely TERRIBLE new name. Why do they think this is a good idea?
~~~
dpark
Because it doesn't matter. It'll be a holding company for people who basically
want to own Alibaba shares. From that perspective, it's a great name, because
it reads a lot like "alternate alibaba".
------
LeoPanthera
The headline was changed but the new one reveals nothing. For those who don't
want to dig through the filing: Meyer has resigned from the board and Yahoo is
renaming to "Altaba".
Edit: It changed again. That's better.
~~~
cheald
The document says that Mayer is resigning from the Board of Directors, not
necessarily as CEO.
> Marissa Mayer ... has indicated that he or she intends to resign from the
> Board effective upon the Closing,
~~~
ec109685
Will resign. She hasn't resigned yet.
------
goldfishcaura
When all else fails, try renaming the business...
------
meowschwitz
the name is not the problem.
~~~
ryanlol
now it might be!
------
devopsproject
this is dumb
------
meesterdude
It makes perfect sense if you look at it from the perspective of deliberate
ship sinking.
~~~
voidz
Altabandon Ship?
Alt-A, Backspace?
All t'abort, aaaah!
_(OK, I 'll show myself out.)_
_Sneaks in edit:_ ah of course: _Altabasta!_
------
Crito
I'm surprised she lasted this long.
~~~
throwaway91111
Nobody cares.
~~~
Crito
Sounds like you might. ;)
------
inetsee
Does this mean that my email addresses will change to "@altaba.com"?
~~~
bmuon
No. Yahoo as a brand will continue to exist. Verizon will own the brand.
~~~
voidz
Sounds contradictory though, doesn't it?
~~~
bmuon
No. It doesn't.
------
vthallam
I understand the recent security failures of Yahoo must have weakened the
company brand name to certain extent, but it's a 2 decade old web company
almost every know off, not sure what made the decision in favor of the new
name.
------
shshhdhs
Changing the brand under these circumstances doesn't make sense to me. Brands
take years to build, and Yahoo dominates as a brand in Japan. It seems sloppy
PR to pick a name like "Altaba" within mere weeks/months of deciding to buy
Yahoo.
~~~
tlackemann
This is what I'm confused about. Yahoo is a big brand with a lot of companies,
is Tumblr now owned by Altaba? Altaba Weather?
~~~
bmuon
No. Nothing changes for the products. Altaba is a new company that just owns
stock in Alibaba and Yahoo Japan. Tumblr will be owned by Yahoo Holdings,
which will be owned by Verizon. Yahoo Weather will still be Yahoo Weather.
------
wopwopwop
Around 4 years too late.
------
mkaziz
Yeesh, that name sounds like something a fifth grader would come up with.
~~~
dingaling
It has been registered for 15 years but it looks like it was purchased by
Yahoo within the last three months:
Creation Date: 2001-10-09T04:22:42-0700
Updated Date: 2016-10-25T09:47:51-0700
Appears to have previously been owned by a Barcelona-based furniture supplier:
[https://www.google.co.uk/search?q=site:altaba.com](https://www.google.co.uk/search?q=site:altaba.com)
who are now on altaba.cat.
But the new owners have quickly modified the robots.txt and hence locked-out
public access on archive.org
------
erickhill
Changing a company name is one thing. Google did the same, essentially, with
the formation of Alphabet. But please, dear God, don't tell me they are
changing their domain. It's like the Eddie Murphy joke about falling down the
stairs - for what seems like an eternity. ["My shoe!"]
It's hard to believe what's become of the mighty Y! brand.
~~~
BinaryIdiot
Yahoo will still be around. Essentially the assets / pieces sold to Verizon
will be "Yahoo". The rest of this company will be under "Altaba".
------
cowardlydragon
I would like yahoo to go screw itself for one specific reason:
Microsoft had offered its war chest to buy them, and yahoo turned them down.
It had a good chance of bringing down Microsoft in the long run, and yahoo
would have done a solid for the world.
But they turned them down. The ONE TIME I want a goddamn company executive
leadership to take the money and run, and they didn't.
------
PaulRobinson
First scan read I thought they were changing their name to "Alberta Inc." and
thought to myself "well, that's one way to deal with the inauguration..."
"Alt + Tab" is the only reasonable thing I can think of it being rooted in.
But even that sucks like a sucky thing.
~~~
TallGuyShort
I wondered if it was related to Alibaba, which has been closely linked with
Yahoo.
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Angry iPhone Owners Twitition for Lower 3G S Upgrade Prices - transburgh
http://mashable.com/2009/06/09/iphone-twitter-petitions/
======
brk
A) Online petitions are generally worthless
B) Twitter and twit-[foo] words are becoming beyond fucking annoying
C) This is no different than when Palm Treo's were hot and people who bought
Treo 600's were upset that they had to pay to get a Treo 650 if they weren't
eligible for an upgrade. In the US, most mobile phones are subsidized and
there is a pretty basic understanding that you either pay a huge upfront fee,
or signup for a two-year (or sometimes split the different with a 1-year)
contract to lower the price.
------
gregking
It'd be nice to sign another two year contract for the subsidized price. I am
interested to see the new componets and actual processor speed of the new
device. I also want Nike+ so I may be willing to put down the additional money
but I definitley don't want too.
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Second Startup Syndrome - jayliew
http://bhorowitz.com/2010/06/14/second-startup-syndrome/
======
manderson2080
Jack Dorsey and Square, much?
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Fifty Developer Tools of 2018 - octosphere
https://stackshare.io/posts/top-developer-tools-2018
======
Pinbenterjamin
Very bizarre...
Just reviewing some of the categories and runners up;
Application & Data Tool of the Year Javascript was pitted against frameworks
made in Javascript? It was also judged against HTML5? Against Java? Against
MSQL? All of these tools can (quite literally) be used in the same
application, cleanly.
Advice for next time; If you're going to join the hordes of writers ranking
technologies, research your categories better, and include some sort of metric
that they are judged against, other than your own experience. Because some of
these tools would be supremely useful over the winners, in the right
environment.
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Semantic Versioning 2.0.0 (2013) - jbernardo95
http://semver.org/
======
mmebane
This appears to be from 2013:
[https://github.com/mojombo/semver/commits/v2.0.0](https://github.com/mojombo/semver/commits/v2.0.0)
------
SimonPStevens
I've been at so many companies where someone is pushing to adopt semantic
versioning without actually following step 1 in the spec...
> 1\. Software using Semantic Versioning MUST declare a public API. This API
> could be declared in the code itself or exist strictly in documentation.
> However it is done, it should be precise and comprehensive.
SemVer doesn't even make sense if you don't have a public API. SemVer doesn't
make sense for end user products that don't have an API. I really wish people
would stop trying to abuse it.
~~~
dudul
I'm pretty sure they mean "API" in its true sense. An API for a module or a
library, not necessarily a Web API. It's not unusual for an organization to
maintain several projects/libraries/services that interact internally via
their APIs (sometimes over HTTP, sometimes directly as a library), SemVer
makes perfect sense for this use case.
~~~
fenomas
They mean API in the sense of anything that someone can declare a dependency
against.
Whether it's a web service or a library is immaterial; the point of the thing
is to be able to update something and formally tell any downstream
dependencies whether the update breaks compatibility or not.
------
STRML
See
[https://github.com/mojombo/semver/compare/v1.0.0...v2.0.0](https://github.com/mojombo/semver/compare/v1.0.0...v2.0.0)
for the changelog.
Edit: Changes, that is, not a changelog.
~~~
CaliforniaKarl
I don't think that's a changelog. That is a collection of git commits, where
the intended audience is primarily the developers of the work.
A changelog, by comparison, is meant for clients who use the work.
See also
[https://github.com/mojombo/semver/issues/387](https://github.com/mojombo/semver/issues/387)
and [http://keepachangelog.com/en/1.0.0/](http://keepachangelog.com/en/1.0.0/)
~~~
STRML
Yes, you're correct, it's not a changelog - rather, it is the changes.
Click "Files changed" for an actual diff. I am not sure what makes it v2.0.0,
however.
------
Dreami
We probably need a changelog
~~~
jrochkind1
[http://keepachangelog.com/en/1.0.0/](http://keepachangelog.com/en/1.0.0/)
------
eggs_and_avo
Check out Compatible Versioning 1.0 (2016):
[https://github.com/staltz/comver](https://github.com/staltz/comver)
------
panic
Are there any projects that follow this specification strictly? It seems like
most projects are willing to do backwards-incompatible "bug fixes" to the
behavior of their API without incrementing the major version. These are
usually harmless in practice, but technically break rule 8. It seems difficult
to me to prove that any given set of changes can't break someone else's code
(even allocating an extra byte of memory has the potential to do this).
~~~
bartread
The thing I find most frustrating about semantic version is that even under
the strictest adoption it overly legitimizes breaking changes across major
versions.
I see far too much refactoring of JS library APIs that is essentially
aesthetic across major versions - D3 and Angular spring immediately to mind (I
understand the scalability justification for Angular; I just don't really
believe it).
To me, having an elegant API is not the highest concern because what I'm
interested in is building products, and from that point of view stability is
much more important. I _do not_ appreciate a committee of J Random JavaScript
Developers randomly dumping extra work into my product backlog because they
didn't like the cut of an API's jib, especially when these people have gone
absolutely out of their way to drive adoption in the first place.
To give a counter-example: .NET code I wrote in the mid-noughties whilst
working at Red Gate still runs today, substantially unmodified. Some of that
stuff is 11 or 12 years old. SQL Dependency Tracker is the most obvious
example, because the product hasn't changed much since 2006, except for
additions to support new object types in new versions of SQL Server. The fact
that new .NET versions haven't broken the product has obviously made it _much_
easier to support through the years.
~~~
gizmo686
That is the entire point of the major version. The fact is, developers
sometimes make breaking changes (sometimes for good reasons, sometimes for
bad), and we want a standard way of documenting that. If you don't make
breaking changes, than stay on 1.X.Y forever. If your project is only a year
old and already on version 10.0.0, you are probably doing something wrong; but
at least documenting it in your version numbers.
~~~
bartread
Certainly take your point, and maybe it's in part down to my background, where
a new major version generally includes some large chunk of new functionality
(regardless of whether or not there are breaking changes).
And really I suppose you don't ever _need_ to go beyond version 1.x.y. Window
Maker is quite a good example of this: latest version is 0.95.8 after 20 years
of development.
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Mt. Gox's Bitcoins are being sold on Bitstamp? - Andrew_Quentin
http://pastebin.com/c2qWB3nU
======
nwh
Bear in mind that the connection between these addresses is tenuous at best.
There's very little to suggest that the same person owns all of these
transactions. The paths are fairly convoluted, it could be a normal user or a
mixer or an internal wallet. You'd never know by design.
As I've mentioned before, this sort of thing is usually correct in that same
way a broken clock is.
~~~
sillysaurus3
I hope you'd agree with "Jed McCaleb once controlled the donation address
1EuMa4dhfCK8ikgQ4emB7geSBgWK2cEdBG."
While it's unclear precisely how that donation address is related to all of
this, I assume that people traced money flowing out of it and into an Mt. Gox
cold storage wallet, thus establishing that the person who controlled the
donation address was involved with the people who control the cold storage
addresses.
If so, then it's hard to see how to disagree with "If the Bitstamp address
1PAzo was funded with coins deposited by Jed McCaleb or one of his associates,
and simultaneously two Mt. Gox cold storage wallets were depleted, and the
chain of withdraws eventually lead from the cold storage wallets to 1PAzo,
then it's extremely likely that Jed or an Mt. Gox owner is trading Mt. Gox
cold storage coins on Bitstamp."
It sounds like you're worried that a chain of transfers doesn't prove
ownership. For example, someone could randomly send all their bitcoin to
someone else for no reason. But in practice, the only reason to give large
amounts of BTC to someone else is either because you're buying something from
them, repaying a debt, or you're cooperating with them. Regardless of which of
those it turns out to be, the Mt. Gox cold storage wallets are the property of
the Mt. Gox customers. Using them to buy something or repay a debt would be
fraud. Transferring them to an associate with the intent of laundering them
via Bitstamp would also be illegal, of course.
I can't think of any other explanations for why the BTC would change ownership
except perhaps that they were stolen yet again. But theft can be ruled out if
the identity of the Bitstamp account turns out to be a cohort of Mt. Gox.
(You mentioned that it could be a mixer, but that can be ruled out in this
case because it'd make no sense for Mt. Gox to launder bitcoins and then
deposit them into a bistamp account that has someone's real-world identity
attached to it. Also, when bitcoins are being mixed using a mixer, it
transfers the coins in a pretty distinctive way that indicates a mixer is
being used, such as by randomizing the BTC amounts rather than always
transferring e.g. 150BTC or 50BTC or some other nice-for-humans value. I
assume that if a mixer is being used here, it'd be possible to show that the
transfers are behaving in a way consistent with a particular bitcoin mixer
implementation.)
Since there are no plausible explanations about how the bitcoins might change
ownership, why would it be unreasonable to proceed with the assumption that
the ownership hasn't changed, unless proven otherwise?
~~~
nwh
Bear in mind that this is the same sort of analysis that attributed large
amounts of the initially mined coins to "Satoshi", when they were in fact core
developer Gregory Maxwell's. There's a lot of room for error, especially when
the email in question has an address in between with no attributable person
behind it.
~~~
maaku
> Bear in mind that this is the same sort of analysis that attributed large
> amounts of the initially mined coins to "Satoshi", when they were in fact
> core developer Gregory Maxwell's.
Citation or redaction, please.
If Gregory Maxwell owns a life-changing sum of early bitcoins, it is certainly
news to me. If he does not, then you are making claims that could endanger the
life and well being of someone who has worked very hard in service of the
bitcoin community.
~~~
sillysaurus3
Anecdotally, I think I remember that incident, but unfortunately I don't
remember precisely where I heard it.
There have been a lot of very-wrong analyses of the blockchain which have
gotten people riled up about one thing or another and then turned out to be
bogus. The whole process has sometimes shown unsettling parallels with
numerology. It's good that nwh is reminding everyone to try to be as skeptical
as possible.
It'll be interesting to see whether the evidence turns out to match the story.
~~~
maaku
The only incident I can think of was a paper by Adi Shamir and Dorit Ron
claiming Satoshi had a connection to Silk Road, and the actual owner of the
coins (Dustin Trammell) came forward and demonstrated that (a) the coins were
his and (b) the transaction was with MtGox not Silk Road. Gregory Maxwell was
not involved in any way:
[http://blog.dustintrammell.com/2013/11/26/i-am-not-
satoshi/](http://blog.dustintrammell.com/2013/11/26/i-am-not-satoshi/)
I know of no other incident involving mis-identification of Satoshi's stash.
------
jackgavigan
Bitstamp is domiciled in the UK.
[https://www.bitstamp.net/about_us/](https://www.bitstamp.net/about_us/)
UK law prohibits handling stolen goods.
[http://www.legislation.gov.uk/ukpga/1968/60/section/22](http://www.legislation.gov.uk/ukpga/1968/60/section/22)
~~~
runeks
The question, as _msantos_ points out, is whether bitcoins are money or goods.
If they are money, then handling stolen bitcoins are not illegal, and the
rightful owner of them doesn't even have the support of the legal system to
get them back:
[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nemo_dat_quod_non_habet](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nemo_dat_quod_non_habet)
I would argue that bitcoins are money, and not goods. Goods have use value,
bitcoins do not - they only have exchange value. They have no use in and of
themselves.
TL;DR: Even if you can prove that someone else holds a dollar bill that was
stolen from you at some point, you do not necessarily have the right to get it
back.
~~~
fabulist
I agree, but people have found some pretty creative "use values" for bitcoins:
[http://www.righto.com/2014/02/ascii-bernanke-wikileaks-
photo...](http://www.righto.com/2014/02/ascii-bernanke-wikileaks-
photographs.html)
tl;dr by sending bitcoins to an fake address, you can use put an ASCII Ben
Bernanke in the Blockchain.
~~~
runeks
I wouldn't say that is related to bitcoins (the currency). They've just put
data into the blockchain. The tokens you and I trade as money (bitcoins) don't
get a use value because someone has put ASCII art into the blockchain.
~~~
fabulist
I'd argue differently because the bitcoins are destroyed in the process. In my
view, they become the ASCII art. But I suppose it could just as easily be said
that you purchased ASCII art hosting from the blockchain.
~~~
runeks
I see your point. I guess I just think it's insufficient that it has _some_
use value, for it to be called a good instead of money. My point is that they
are _mainly_ (almost entirely) money.
I mean, US dollar bills can also be stacked together and lit on fire, thereby
having use value as firewood, or you can write notes on them, making them a
notepad, but they are still money because their exchange value completely
dwarfs their tiny use value (if one can quantify such things).
I'd argue bitcoin falls into the same category.
------
msantos
I wonder if this is true (March 20, 2014):
" _is #bitstamp about to become another #mtgox ? Uk trader seeks high court
injunction to cease Uk trading operations_ "
[https://twitter.com/frankieterrier/status/446638248761503744](https://twitter.com/frankieterrier/status/446638248761503744)
" _#bitstamp getting sued for $1.2m Uk trader seeks freezing of assets in high
court action. #bitstamp not processing withdrawls._ "
[https://twitter.com/frankieterrier/status/446637903721287680](https://twitter.com/frankieterrier/status/446637903721287680)
~~~
zby
There is no thread at
[https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?board=85.0](https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?board=85.0)
about that - so I guess it is just a manipulation attempt.
------
DigitalSea
Seems like people are clutching at straws here. We shouldn't go making fact-
less accusations that the coins are being sold when we technically don't have
any proof, the link is very weak at best. Given Mt Gox's collapse and
surprising lack of security or due-care, it wouldn't surprise me if it were
true, but there is a massive if there.
------
tinco
This seems a bit silly. Why is this made public? If this was a private
conversation then they could set a trap. Now whoever is making these
transactions will simply stop and wait for a new opportunity.
~~~
danielweber
The blockchain is public information.
~~~
mbreese
That's not the question... the question was why put this on pastebin and have
it posted to HN. If this was communicated in a more private manner, you could
have actually done something with the information, such as find the people who
are moving these coins.
Now, if there is anything nefarious going on, the parties responsible probably
know that others are watching.
~~~
dreen
If he figured it out, so can anyone else. Disclosing the find levels the
playing field for any eventuality.
------
cordite
Why is Bitcoin getting so many features on HN?
~~~
pistle
Because a not-insignificant-enough number of "smart" hacker news folks got
very burned by a get rich quick scheme and they won't let it go.
Snake oil and charlatans? There's an app for that.
The cognitive dissonance is maddening. Something so esoteric and technical,
which required great intelligence to even use, let alone build the cottage
industry around... continues to make these intelligent young, white,
libertarians look like simple con targets.
The shovel and panning sellers made loads (mining rigs and exchanges).
Everyone else who hasn't exited is holding the bag.
If you lived through the dotcom bubble, this is a repeat in slowreck motion.
People will lose 95-100% of their investments until the rest freak out and
bolt.
Very smart, young, white guys built up expensive trading stations and lost
their shirt daytrading on dotcoms. It's like buying a mining... nevermind -
nobody's listening.
~~~
venus
This is an excessively cynical, misanthropic view of events. I know a lot of
people who could be described as "long bitcoin" and while there's no doubt a
few opportunistic types, most are genuinely excited and actively involved in
something they truly believe in.
Your bitter prognostications about "young white libertarians" says more about
you than anything else, IMO. And invoking the dot com bubble doesn't help your
point - the internet was, indeed, the next big thing, but the bubble was
misinformed and 10 years too early. Long term, though, "dot com" was and is
real, and many are hoping and working towards cryptocurrencies travelling the
same path.
~~~
clef
Sometimes I still can't get my head around how something that isn't real is
worth anything... Argh, I must be too old to understand now :) I was closely
involved in a startup in the first bubble, I remember the hopes and dreams and
hype and VCs throwing tons of money to invest into ludicrous stuff,and coffee
machines so big and expensive... It looks all the same now, the rich want to
get richer and call it "innovation" (I saw a prototype of something huge that
was "invented in the 90's by some young fellows, unfortunately it was too
early, way too early...and saw it again "invented" by someone else many years
later and called "Facebook") and the young programmers (they're called hackers
now I believe) were just happy to code and get their pat on the back, feeling
special,with stock option promises (I was one of them, I must be an old hacker
now :) ... So many smart people working super hard( although pizza and wine at
midnight was cool)...
Do you feel special and useful guys? Or does it take $19B to be real special?
But still, HN kicks ass no matter what :)
------
atmosx
Did this guy leave an email, bitmessage address or anything???? How is Nejc
suppose to reply?
~~~
nwh
Its a "public" copy of the message, it's been no doubt emailed to the person
in question as well. Posting it here, on reddit and on bitcointalk is just the
author being pushy.
~~~
atmosx
Oh, didn't get that, you're right.
------
jrlocke
What if there was a way to tag bitcoins as stolen and declare them null and
void? Would this not disincentivize thieves? Could we prevent abuse of such a
system?
~~~
atmosx
It's a very interesting development as it shows that _stolen bitcoins can be
tracked indefinitely_ unlike FIAT.
Now, what you propose though, is against the _freedom_ bitcoins is assumed to
stand for (on the ethics side).
On the technical side that's very possible, as of today, if everyone _plays
along_ and I mean literally _everyone_ , especially mixers.
How could one track down bitcoins flushed into public mixers? I guess they
could do this as well, if the BTC were tagged and thus _refused_ by the mixers
or even worst _hold captives_ and resend them to original issuer. However, you
only need 1 TOR hosted mixer to lose track of the wallets.
On the other side imagine the practical chaos: I make a _huge_ transaction of
non-tangible goods in a situation where you can't prove that the
service/product was delivered. Then I just tag these bitcoin that once
belonged to my wallet as _stolen_ if the other party doesn't give them back
:-) you see where this is going right? :-)
~~~
gutnor
> unlike FIAT.
Actually, unlike any commodity or any currency with a physical representation.
What makes other currency not traceable is the notes and coins, not the fact
that they are fiat or not.
side note: has "fiat" now become synonymous with non-crypto currency the same
way hacker has become a swear word ?
~~~
Klinky
Yes fiat has become a word of derision amongst the cryptocoin community,
completely ignoring the fact that cryptocoins are essentially a form of fiat
currency. Many crypto fans sidestep the fact that cryptos also don't have
intrinsic value, and the networks aren't as a decentralized as one would
think(handfuls of devs, early adopters, and pool and exchange operators hold a
large sway over the networks and future of the coins).
------
falconfunction
So are bitcoins going to have a modifiable value based on being tainted?
~~~
yetfeo
blockchain.info has a method of tainting and tracking coins:
[https://blockchain.info/tags?form_type=1](https://blockchain.info/tags?form_type=1)
Taint is viewable using "Related tags" and "Taint Analysis" on address pages.
~~~
nwh
It's widely regarded as complete bullshit and can be fooled by almost anybody
who cares to.
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
The kilogram standard is shrinking - binarymax
http://www.guardian.co.uk/science/2011/jan/24/scientists-weigh-up-shrinking-kilogram
======
Jun8
Hmm, on a practical level, 50um loss may not be that bad :-) Take, plutonium,
which was the most valuable substance I could think of, it's around $4K a gram
(<http://www.crystalair.com/story.php?id=200701023>), so the cost of this loss
is about 20 cents.
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
U.S. warns Americans to leave Japan amid significant increase in Covid-19 cases - bookofjoe
https://www.cbsnews.com/news/coronavirus-in-japan-spread-draws-warning-us-embassy-americans-get-out-2020-04-03/
======
ceejayoz
And go where? Out of the frying pan, into the fire?
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
David Heinemeier Hansson: 'Apple Has Approved Hey Without In-App Purchasing ' - MilnerRoute
https://twitter.com/dhh/status/1275066259801923584
======
MilnerRoute
The tweet leads to a blog post that begins:
_Late Friday night, on June 19th, Apple’s App Store Review Board surprised us
by approving the pending bug fixes to the HEY iOS app that were held up all
last week... A sincere thanks to Apple for their change of heart._
[https://hey.com/apple/path/](https://hey.com/apple/path/)
------
bluedays
It looks like this may have been self-regulation as the app store seems to
have been coming under fire lately as being monopolistic. After seeing what
happened with Android in the EU I would suspect that Apple wants to be much
more cautious when they receive bad PR like they were receiving.
------
Androider
Apple also quietly announced a change to the App Store review process,
including no longer delaying bug fix rollouts over guideline violations for
applications that are already available on the store, and a formal appeals
process and the ability to challenge the store guideline themselves:
[https://www.engadget.com/apple-developers-challenge-app-
stor...](https://www.engadget.com/apple-developers-challenge-app-store-
guidelines-073507855.html)
So many folks said "It's Apple's store, they should be able to do whatever
they want". But if everyone is too scared to complain, for sure nothing will
change!
------
MilnerRoute
More news from DHH:
_We 're going to celebrate what looks to be an agreeable compromise by
ACCELERATING INVITATIONS!! We will invite everyone who's still pending first,
then open HEY up to anyone who wants it THIS WEEK._
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Famed Hacker Kevin Mitnick Shows You How to Go Invisible Online - sdomino
https://www.wired.com/2017/02/famed-hacker-kevin-mitnick-shows-go-invisible-online/
======
retox
Shamed 0-day peddler Kevin Mitnick.
[https://www.mitnicksecurity.com/shopping/absolute-zero-
day-e...](https://www.mitnicksecurity.com/shopping/absolute-zero-day-exploit-
exchange)
------
devoply
Also how to get yourself noticed by the security agencies of your country.
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Ask HN: Just how important is an attractive UI? - peacemaker
I've been building a web application at home for a few months now and having a programmers design skills (i.e. none) means that while it works well, it doesn't look that great.
The design itself is using the standard blueprint css grid, has a top nav bar and uses the Jquery UI buttons and so on. It's not awful it's just fairly simple.<p>I'm getting close to the point where I want to get some trial users but I'm worried that the basic design might put some people off. You hear so many conflicting things about startups, such as "launch quickly, improve later" versus "great design sells" that I'm not sure the best course of action.<p>So how important is it?
======
paulsutter
Just get it out there and watch carefully how people use it. In the early days
of thin traffic I read the raw logs but before long use web analytics.
When you do have an alternate design, try it side by side in an A/B test. It's
very difficult to tell a "good" design by looking at it. It's pretty easy to
compare and find out for certain. The biggest benefit of A/B testing is that
it removes a lot of hesitation and deliberation from the development process.
Although I am a big fan of good design, it's important to note that the
opinions of lots of successful people vary greatly
[http://www.conversionvoodoo.com/blog/2010/04/increase-
your-c...](http://www.conversionvoodoo.com/blog/2010/04/increase-your-
conversion-rate-by-making-your-site-uglier/2012/)
The more you A/B test the better you will get to know your own audience and
what works for your particular product.
------
canatan01
Some of these sources are older, but according to these color and design are
important (for webshops anyway):
<http://www.acrwebsite.org/volumes/display.asp?id=8468>
<http://www.colormatters.com>
[http://www.colormarketing.org/uploadedfiles/media/the%20prof...](http://www.colormarketing.org/uploadedfiles/media/the%20profit%20of%20color!%20-%20final%204%2007.pdf?tierslicer51_tsmenutargetid=650&tierslicer51_tsmenutargettype=2&tierslicer51_tsmenuid=51)
<http://www.nightcats.com/samples/colour.html>
And just google for it and you will find tons of papers and studies.
------
corentino
I think it's vital !
I simply quit poorly designed website unless I badly need them.
You can have a look at this website :
<http://startupsthisishowdesignworks.com/>
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
What’s Next in Web Design? - kosofalla
http://informationarchitects.jp/whats-next-in-web-design/
======
erikstarck
If the rumors surrounding the iSlate are correct we may see a new line of web
sites that are touch optimized, multimedia intensive and built for leaned back
browsing.
In general, web sites not built for PCs (mobile, TVs, tablets, refrigerators)
is one thing I think we'll see lots more of in 2010. OK, maybe not
refrigerators.
~~~
isleyaardvark
I think we'll see a renewed interest in accessability since :hover will be
tricky on a tablet.
Aside: anyone else find this sentence jarring: "Successful websites such as
Google, Flickr, or World of Warcraft..." Besides calling WoW a website, it
doesn't really support their point. The game makes the money, the WoW website
is just an expense to support the game.
------
xenoterracide
Wow I really disagree with this. Most websites do have a profit model, or were
never tying to make any to begin with. Correctly said most /popular/ web
businesses don't have one. A large majority of sites are just personal pages
or business giving itself a web presence, most of these pages (outside blogs)
aren't ones we visit daily. Even then some companies always had the revenue
model of advertising, like newspapers and TV they just haven't quite adapted
it to the web. Depending on how much they charge Comedy Central seems like
they might have a good plan for translating TV to the web and be profitable.
I disagree with Speed of the remote too. sure it's fast to flip channels and
radio stations but that's not much different than clicking next on a page as
long as the button doesn't move it's just as fast. I for the life of me can't
figure out how to turn on closed captioning on my tv with the comcast remote.
I know it can be done, but to be honest where ever it is it's not obvious. And
how do I find the channel comedy central is on if I don't know it? I have
browse a channel at a time? this is horrible with a few hundred channels, they
need to make it more scalable like DNS + search engines is (on demand actually
has a decent interface lets make the whole guide alphabetical shall we). On a
radio the only reason I can get directly to say station 106.1 is because I
have it programmed in to my favorites. Radio's UI would be much simpler if
they had a keypad like a phone and you could type in numbers as well as with a
seek.
He says designers need to learn more about traditional product design but
honestly tell me how you're going to translate a 3D dresser drawer to a
website.
He says that more users move from individual designed websites to "platforms"
(my simplification) this is not true, lots of people who had there own site
now use these platforms for additional marketing, most have not moved from
there original source. Most users using these sites do not have, never did,
and never will have a need for a professionally built site.
Also Technology moves from primitive to complicated to simple? that what I
call the Comcast remote with 100 buttons and not one can turn on closed
captioning. I can't honestly think of technologies that moved from primitive
to complicated to simple. Most I see only get more complicated as features are
added, sure some have really bad UI and are complicated but that doesn't mean
that's how technology works. Would you say the telephone today is more or less
complicated than even 20 years ago? In fact I'd say that all technology just
gets more complicated not less, though sometimes the UI gets improved to hide
that complication.
Honestly I don't think this guy has a clue at reality, his head is in a
Silicon Valley reality perhaps.
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Soylent Update 1/21 - ph0rque
http://blog.soylent.me/post/74091082214/soylent-update-1-21
======
raybeorn
Is Coeliac disease really that prevalent that they are worried about a gluten-
free version of soylent? (I personally know one person with this condition but
even he is annoyed about how everyone is going gluten-free.)
~~~
brianwawok
Its a buzzword to go gluten free, so why not capture as many sheeple as
possible?
~~~
brenschluss
It should be logical that the presence of people with a legitimate condition +
the presence of people who erroneously think they have that legitimate
condition != overreaction on the part of a given person that thinks that they
have that legitimate condition.
Being sugar-free and carb-free are also buzzwords, and for sheeple, right?
------
kolev
GF is not necessarily a good marketing buzzword as most gluten-free products
are more dangerous to the general population in general. For example, gluten
starch is replaced with tapioca, rice, and potato starches, which have higher
GI, i.e. they increase your diabetes risk.
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Streamus updated to be compliant with YouTube terms of service - captn3m0
https://github.com/MeoMix/StreamusChromeExtension/releases/tag/v0.177
======
forgotpasswd3x
When I opened Streamus today, I received this message:
Hey everyone, Sean here.
So, good news for people who love bad news.
I've been working with YouTube on-and-off since November of last year
regarding their Terms of Service. The past four months have involved a lot of
talks with them.
Prior to July 7 I was led to believe that Streamus would be fully compliant
with YouTube's demands once it supported showing video. I spent hundreds of
hours making this a reality.
Unfortunately, after adding this functionality, I was informed that showing
video was not sufficient. YouTube has demanded that Streamus pause music when
minimized. Failure to do so will result in Streamus being removed from the
Chrome Web Store on July 14.
So, for now, this is the end of the road. :(
This update provides you with the ability to export your playlists back to
YouTube. Right-click on a playlist through the left-side menu, or click the
'More actions' button, to see the option. Doing so will create a new playlist
on your YouTube account and move all available songs to it. The code isn't
very smart. It won't be able to update an existing playlist, but at least you
can get your songs out.
As for me? I will begin working on SoundCloud support effective immediately.
Streamus will be unpublished from the Chrome Web Store while I work on this.
If you have any questions, comments, or concerns feel free to e-mail me at
[email protected] or you can find me on the r/streamus subreddit:
[http://www.reddit.com/r/streamus](http://www.reddit.com/r/streamus)
I'm truly sorry. I had the utmost confidence that adding support for video
would fulfill YouTube's demands and was heartbroken when I learned this would
not be the case. You can view the full conversation I've had with YouTube
here: [http://i.imgur.com/15gaOf6.png](http://i.imgur.com/15gaOf6.png). I
fought long and hard for you all and this was not a decision I took lightly.
I look forward to listening to music with you all once again in the future.
~~~
themgt
Last commit "Hiding video for final update since it didnt help"
[https://github.com/MeoMix/StreamusChromeExtension/commit/ba6...](https://github.com/MeoMix/StreamusChromeExtension/commit/ba6354705176f927e8091a3aa58e88e1a2e11534)
Wouldn't it be possible to have most of this functionality in a client-side
web app, and then Google could do nothing to shut it down?
------
infinitesoup
It's unfortunate for Streamus, but expected and reasonable in my opinion
(especially since the developer knew he was breaking the ToS from the
beginning).
YouTube presumably has negotiated contracts with the content owners which
allow them to stream audiovisual content under a certain set of constraints.
Many content owners distribute their content in other ways (e.g., selling
music on the iTunes store), so they allow their content for "free" on YouTube
only because they know that the audio component will be accompanied by a video
of their choice and they will be supported by ads. These content owners
wouldn't want YouTube to be used just like an ordinary music streaming service
without being compensated properly. In order to hold up their end of the deal,
YouTube has to enforce their terms of service, otherwise they risk losing the
contracts that they have already negotiated.
If Streamus wanted to keep doing things like they were before these changes,
then they would have to go and negotiate contracts with the content owners,
just like YouTube had to do. Streamus has to abide by the ToS (which is in
turn the terms of the negotiated contracts) if they expect to use the YouTube
API.
------
jimmydddd
Sean:
I've been a fan of Streamus from early on. Thanks.
YT's policy seems to be "No Audio without Video, unless the Audio is from YT
running in another browser tab, then it is OK."
That being said, there's a Chrome App that lets you run YT in a separate,
hidden tab (so you can't accidentally close the tab, for example).
Maybe you could open a hidden YT tab in parallel to Streamus, and you would be
meeting their requirements? Or maybe you could start with a version that opens
a visible parallel tab, and then later add an option to make it hidden?
Of course, this implementation might use double the bandwidth. Maybe you could
play the audio through Streamus, and the video in the tab?
Good luck.
------
captn3m0
The conversation thread with youtube is also interesting:
[https://t.co/CNZQIz78hU](https://t.co/CNZQIz78hU).
~~~
Touche
Thanks for posting this. While I can empathize with the work he put in, I
can't imagine that he thought this would turn out any other way. He has an app
that allows users to play music for free, he thought he could find a loophole
that would be allowed?
~~~
agumonkey
I wonder what's gonna happen, will they let his code behave like an embedded
youtube player or will they backpressure on every other websites at the risk
of annoying a big chunk of the web ?
~~~
Touche
Sounds like websites with embedded YouTube players will continue to work as
they do today.
------
ptgamr
It's always a pain working with legal stuffs & guys. YouTube make two valid
points:
\- Streamus has to display video
\- Streamus has to display ads
And Sean's doing his very best job to display the video. Ads will be fixed by
YouTube team. So far so good...
However, the final one is not reasonable at all: "stop playing after hiding
the extension". How could that be different with another tab open and playing
YouTube video on YouTube website? If this is a requirement in the deal with
labels, even YouTube.com is not compliant with its TOS :-)
I got the same pain while developing UpNext[formally SoundCloudify]. Basically
like Streamus, but has SoundCloud support.
[https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/upnext-music-
playe...](https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/upnext-music-
player/dgkfcdlmdppfhbfmooinbcejdaplobpk)
Don't make it viral, otherwise, it'll be the same fate as Streamus :(
------
glomph
Honestly reading the conversation I think Youtube made it pretty obvious what
they were going to require. The dev seems to be willfully ignorant in his
replies.
------
azeirah
It's been weird following streamus for a while, I don't use Chrome so I've
never really used it. It's sad to see a project backed by such a dedicated
developer go down like this.
------
userbinator
It's open-source so you can still change it to do what you want, right?
Incidentally, I've also been using YouTube as a sort of internet-radio
recently, with just a simple shell script that searches for videos matching
specific keywords and plays them in a pseudo-random order via youtube-dl.
Works well enough, although I do get the occasional non-music coming through.
~~~
mschuster91
Yeah but Google Chrome all but bans extensions outside of the Chrome extension
store.
~~~
userbinator
Developer Mode is still a way around that, but some of the comments made here
are rather prescient:
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7237725](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7237725)
(Search for "YouTube".)
~~~
Dylan16807
Prescient? They've had the nonsense youtube rules for a long time.
------
fidz
> Streamus always loaded the video and it is now simply being presented to you
I really didn't know this. I thought Streamus only download the audio stream
(since most youtube downloader able to retrieve audio stream without the
video)
------
EGreg
I once built [http://youmixer.com](http://youmixer.com), before FB broke the
login and I never bothered to fix it.
Try creating a mix without signing in.
Does YouTube now ban that?
------
lamosty
Do you know of any high-quality alternatives?
~~~
JoshTriplett
Use youtube-dl to download from YouTube (and many other sites). youtube-dl
downloads the full video/audio file by default (which these days involves
downloading and muxing audio and video streams), but it can also just download
the audio.
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
If you could pick a superpower what would it be? - sfrj
http://javing.blogspot.co.uk/2013/11/if-you-could-pick-superpower-what-would.html
======
krapp
I would have the superpower to pick superpowers. So basically I would be
Rogue. Only not as attractive and a dude.
------
reiz
Being able to read and control other peoples mind.
------
philiphodgen
The ability to put down my phone and go running any ti
------
cdvonstinkpot
Time travel
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Ask HN: list of domains for university emails - jmtame
i'm trying to implement a way to restrict registration based on having a .edu account for specific schools, anyone know of a comprehensive list somewhere? i'm having no luck with my search
======
fgimenez
Why don't you just check if the email ends with .edu? Edu domain names are
restricted to accredited post-secondary institution, handled by educase.
<http://net.educause.edu/edudomain/>
~~~
chris11
In my experience the .edu should all be active universities. My university
recently replaced the college in its name with university. We didn't add any
degree programs, we were just recognizing that the school already had
university status. And the .edu domain for our old name expired after about a
year, I think. Right now our old name doesn't even link to our new website
anymore, and educause has the registry on the whois record for the site.
------
bwh2
I suggest using the Department of Education college data. Most of the ~7,000
US schools listed have homepage URL listed, which you could grab the domain
from with relative ease. Aside from that, you're probably looking at parsing
Wikipedia pages or grabbing data from Petersons, which is not free. The DOE
dataset is a good starting point, but you'll run into a fair (~300? I don't
remember exactly) schools without domains listed, but they're schools like
Joe's Barber School, not major universities. Any reasonably sized school has a
domain in the DOE dataset. Peterson's is good, but they have restrictions on
use which can be annoying to deal with if you care about legality.
Also, on the note of .edu domains being restricted to post -secondary
institutions; that's not entirely true. That wasn't the original rule, so some
non-university level schools are grandfathered in and own .edu domains. For
instance, my high school has a .edu domain.
------
philjr
If you can't get a definitive list, try a whitelist approach with a moderated
queue for any domains not matching the whitelist.
Once you see a domain that's an educational institute it gets whitelisted and
further registrations from that domain get ok'd.
No matter what text you include there, you're gonna get the odd student
registering with a hotmail/gmail/yahoo account (I've tried something similar
in the past). Try and get a list of free email accounts to give feedback on
those straight away.
I think any domain using the .edu TLD is safe straight-away, but I'm not from
the US, so it may be worth clarifying that.
------
run4yourlives
One would assume that you only want US institutions? Because nobody else
really uses .edu to any great degree of consistency.
------
pclark
type in the specific schools in google and grab the first result?
you could automate this quite easily, too.
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Italian universities hacked (Story in Italian) - jeisc
http://www.repubblica.it/tecnologia/2011/07/06/news/hacker_di_nuovo_all_attaco_stavolta_delle_univesit_italiane-18761507/
======
jeisc
Translated with Google: THE EVENT Extremely serious hacker attack at Italian
universities Stolen sensitive data of thousands of people including students
and professors. Hit 18 universities including the one in Rome, Milan, Bologna,
Turin, Naples, Bari Pages and pages of information with phone numbers,
passwords, birth dates, names and surnames
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Tyndall F-22s, Left Behind Before Michael Hit, Possibly Damaged Beyond Repair - walrus01
http://www.airforcemag.com/Features/Pages/2018/October%202018/Tyndall-F-22s-Left-Behind-Before-Michael-Hit-Possibly-Damaged-Beyond-Repair.aspx
======
sdrothrock
I really love the statement from the colonel in charge of the base; it's
clear, concise, and conveys his message perfectly.
> Wing Command Col. Brian Laidlaw said in a statement Friday the base was
> "better than yesterday, and that is how it is going to continue to be. We
> will continue to persevere."
I like it so much that I really just want to make it a motto to live by:
"things are better than yesterday and that is how I will continue to make
them."
~~~
yesenadam
There was an state re-election campaign here in New South Wales, Australia 10
or 20 years ago run under the slogan
_More to do but heading in the right direction_
which was widely mocked for being particularly uninspiring. I still quote it
all the time - hardly a week goes by when it can't be amusingly slipped into
conversation hehe. (Usually to helpfully complete someone's attempt to
describe the state of a situation they're working on.)
~~~
robbiep
The most outrageous part of the 2007 election was that they won. State
politics is so unbelievably uninspiring
~~~
Denvercoder9
There's something to say for boring politics.
~~~
marktangotango
As a US-er I would cherish that boredom. Our politics are insane.
------
metaphor
Tyndall didn't _lose_ $1bil in F-22 assets; the HN title of this article is
pure clickbait.
No other state takes hurricane evacuation more seriously than Florida. This
article[1] posits that Tyndall has 55 F-22s divided between two training
squadrons. If only 4 were left behind, that's 93% brought to NMCM Airworthy
status or better, which is mindblowingly effective.
[1] [http://www.thedrive.com/the-war-zone/24204/setting-the-
recor...](http://www.thedrive.com/the-war-zone/24204/setting-the-record-
straight-on-why-fighter-jets-cant-all-simply-fly-away-to-escape-storms)
~~~
Theodores
The products are 'out of warranty' and effectively antiques.
The article states how much it would cost to get the tooling back to make more
of the planes and you would be looking at spending billions to make
replacements.
There is no 'series production' going on and therefore that means that
'maintenance' is more like 'restoration' with these dubious machines.
I wonder if it would make more sense and provide as much utility if the Air
Force just settled for a fleet of classic concept cars. It wasn't as if the
Air Force was of any use whatsoever on that day seventeen years ago when
action stations was actually needed.
~~~
bradleyjg
The whole project was a boondoggle from the very beginning. It’s up there in
the procurement hall of shame with the B1, B2, and LCS.
~~~
carbocation
The topic is the F-22. Are you thinking of the F-35?
~~~
bradleyjg
No the F22. $350 MM per plane for something that will never see its,
admittedly impressive, capabilities needed or used. Very much like the B2 in
that respect.
~~~
mulmen
The B-2 has been used to great effect in its intended role for years.
Similarly the F-22 is operational today. They’re both combat proven.
Geopolitical rivals have similar tech to the F-22 entering service.
You may disagree with the wars being fought but this tech does what it says on
the tin.
~~~
bradleyjg
That’s revisionist history. Its intended role was nuclear strikes deep in the
heart of the Soviet Union. It has certainly not been used to great effect or
otherwise for that.
Likewise, we will never go to conventional war with those “geopolitical
rivals”. Instead we go to war with countries like Syria and sub-national
actors like ISIS neither of which have similar tech entering service, to put
it mildly.
~~~
mulmen
The B-2 was always a long range bomber capable of deploying both nuclear and
conventional weapons. It needed to have the capability to reach and bomb
Russia but that was never the only intended role.
It was also the first plane to drop JDAMs which are useful regardless of the
tech level of the enemy.
It’s a long range bomber that was designed to fly long distances and drop
bombs that entered service and flew long distances and dropped bombs.
No part of that history is “revised”.
Furthermore, maintaining military parity with geopolitical rivals is _why_ we
do not engage in conventional warfare with them. The MAD doctrine has proven
to be effective for decades.
I’m happy to hear reasoned criticism of American foreign policy but the B-2
and F-22 are both performing exactly the jobs they were designed for. Both as
combat vehicles and as deterrents.
------
lwansbrough
There goes 12 hours worth of the defense budget.
~~~
jbverschoor
Wow, that's actually correct according to wikipedia
In FY 2017, the Congressional Budget Office reported spending of $590 billion
for defense, about 15% of the federal budget.[1] For the FY 2019 president
Donald Trump proposed an increase to the military to $681.1 billion. [2]
~~~
metaphor
...except the statement is pure bullshit given the assets weren't actually
lost.
~~~
walrus01
... except that they were, the aviation industry term for an aircraft that has
been damaged beyond economical repair is "hull loss"
[https://www.google.com/search?client=ubuntu&channel=fs&q=avi...](https://www.google.com/search?client=ubuntu&channel=fs&q=aviation+hull+loss&ie=utf-8&oe=utf-8)
~~~
metaphor
Please cite the media outlet which has asserted that these aircraft have been
damaged beyond economical repair.
From the article: _“We anticipate the aircraft parked inside may be damaged as
well, but we won 't know the extent until our crews can safely enter those
hangars and make an assessment,” the spokeswoman said._
Anecdotally, a former life once allowed me the privilege of directing
flightline ops during several hurricane evacuations. This isn't anything new
to me, and I've seen far worse than what this article (and others) have
depicted--to include an entire squadron of F-15s engulfed in storm surge
saltwater flooding up to their cockpits during Wilma, none of which resulted
in airframe loss.
~~~
dwighttk
they don't make 'em like they used to
------
mothsonasloth
I would have thought the base would have some nuclear hardened hangars for
storing planes?
IANAP (I am not a pilot/military) but the airbases near me in Scotland have
bunkers like
[these]([https://i.pinimg.com/736x/9e/24/8f/9e248f941d40fca8e947c4a57...](https://i.pinimg.com/736x/9e/24/8f/9e248f941d40fca8e947c4a57d6c45bc.jpg))
for storing RAF Tornados and Typhoons.
Hopefully this loss will be a lesson to the USAF
~~~
mulmen
You're assuming you know more about evacuation planning and base design than
the US Air Force. I think that's an unreasonable assumption.
Some possibilities: 1) Nuclear hardened bunkers exist on base but were already
full. 2) Nuclear response planning does not require planes to be stored in
hardened bunkers. 3) The threat model for a nuke is different than a
hurricane.
~~~
CamperBob2
Regardless... these guys had a LOT of warning.
Excuses don't seem credible.
~~~
mulmen
72h is a lot of warning? It's not like they left _everything_ behind. There
was a large scale evacuation and a significant amount of hardware was moved
without being lost. Do you have any indication that the evacuation was poorly
planned or executed? Or that the base design was lacking?
I'm not offering excuses. Hell, I'm not even suggesting the base design was
satisfactory or that this damage is acceptable. I am offering possible
explanations for why this amount of hurricane damage was sustained and why
these specific air frames were not in "nuclear hardened bunkers".
"I saw some bunkers somewhere" is a pretty poor excuse for criticism of a
military installation's design, or anything really.
~~~
onetimemanytime
>> _72h is a lot of warning?_
It's not 72hours, but probably since ~ 1492 they knew that FL is hurricane
country. They also know that x% of planes are always on maintenance and a
certain amount of planes cannot evacuate to a safer base. And while not cheap,
it's possible to make hurricane proof hangars. Someone dropped the ball and a
lot of money was lost.
~~~
ecocentrik
Not all hurricanes are equal. This was the most destructive hurricane to hit
that region in recorded history (yet still weaker than the storm that took out
Puerto Rico a year ago). The Florida panhandle has mostly been an infrequent
target for slow and rainy cat 1 hurricanes every 20 years or so. Those storms
take down some trees and power lines, and sometimes cause minor flooding.
This was a strong cat 4 with heavy forward momentum and a significant storm
surge, a 200+ year storm for the area. Nobody builds for highly unlikely
events like this, they buy insurance.
~~~
onetimemanytime
>> _Nobody builds for highly unlikely events like this, they buy insurance._
Building better ones I bet would be cheaper than year after year insurance on
billion $ items
------
miguelrochefort
Belgium, too, is having trouble with their fighter jets (#1 post on HN at the
moment):
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18211632](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18211632)
~~~
walrus01
Not coincidental at all, found it linked from a forum that was also discussing
the F16.
------
orasis
So one got, like, a flat tire?
------
jeswin
I am curious what reasons there could be for the planes to be immovable by
road. F22 has a 13.56m wingspan. Would it make sense to build trucking
platforms for such contingencies?
PS: I have no knowledge in the subject, just curious.
~~~
metaphor
From this article[1]:
_Throwing jets on flatbed trucks? People don 't realize how large of a flying
machine a Raptor is. They are roughly 44 feet wide, 62 feet long, and weigh
over 43,000lbs. They are not something you just throw on pop's flatbed and
skidaddle out of dodge. Nor are they made to be transported that way in the
first place. And to where? You are talking about a highly sensitive asset
packed with classified material. Its skin treatment alone presents a national
secret risk. These aircraft are supposed to sit in last minute hurricane
traffic heading somewhere as they hog up multiple lanes? The whole notion is
ridiculous. And if they can't seek refuge in time, you have a flying machine
strapped to a flatbed. Good luck with that._
[1] [http://www.thedrive.com/the-war-zone/24204/setting-the-
recor...](http://www.thedrive.com/the-war-zone/24204/setting-the-record-
straight-on-why-fighter-jets-cant-all-simply-fly-away-to-escape-storms)
~~~
code_duck
“You are talking about a highly sensitive asset packed with classified
material.”
Ok, let’s leave it to be destroyed by weather then
~~~
gambiting
Even once destroyed it's still within the base that is presumably still
guarded. Once out of the base on a flatbed the risks of losing any part of it
are much greater.
~~~
code_duck
Getting an intact plane to safety would be far less of a risk of losing parts
than letting it be destroyed in a flood.
------
lifeisstillgood
Look at it this way - climate change is making the job of keeping a functional
military harder and harder - something that may help focus minds as much as
IPCC reports.
~~~
patrickg_zill
Please cite a good source for this assertion. With hard numbers, not
conjecture.
~~~
lifeisstillgood
Which assertion?
Losing a billion dollars of planes because of weather? I know it is only a
billion (a drop in the ocean for the military) but if a adversary had knocked
out three F-22s they would be considered a national threat.
Treat the weather like a potential national security threat is what I am
saying.
~~~
patrickg_zill
There has been stormy weather across the planet, for as long as we know of.
Climate change or no...
------
burfog
It's easy to find better solutions given that we now know the hangers would
fail. It's cheating to know that.
For example, a probable solution would be to place the aircraft far from
things likely to become flying debris, then add sandbags... lots of sandbags.
Park the planes on the runway, then add enough sandbags to divert the wind
over the top.
I'd take that chance if I knew that the hangar would fail, but again, that is
cheating.
~~~
7952
I wonder if a fighter jet would be damaged by the wind alone (ignoring debris)
as long as it is tied down. Naively a fighter jet is already designed to cope
with high speed air flow.
~~~
dingaling
The procedure is to turn aircraft tail into wind and lock the flying surfaces.
But as noted that's useless against debris.
------
skookumchuck
Looks like it's time to upgrade building codes. I wonder what it would take to
make 150mph winds survivable by homes and hangars.
~~~
gonzo41
Lots and lots of concrete. Which isn't that expensive if you've going to
rebuild a state. The bigger problem for Florida is that it has no high terrain
to absorb the hit. Britton Hill is a mere 345 feet above sea level. Which
makes Florida a big sand bar that storms just roll over.
~~~
skookumchuck
I would start with using screws/bolts instead of nails holding the wood to the
foundation. It takes a lot to pull that loose. The other problem is the roof
being lifted off from suction. I would bet that bolting it to the frame would
stop a lot of that.
With relatively minor changes like that, an ordinary wood frame house should
be considerably stronger.
~~~
burfog
This has been the building code in Florida for a quarter century.
Most people do better. Typical construction in Florida is concrete block.
There is no "ordinary wood frame house" in Florida. That would be out of
place. We have termites, but not concrete-eating termites.
To me it feels like the houses are about 5% wood frame, 90% concrete block,
and 5% solid poured concrete that could stop a truck tossed by a tornado.
~~~
skookumchuck
If I was an architect, I'd be headed to Florida first to survey the damaged
and undamaged and see what design elements worked and what failed. Then hang
out my shingle to offer this expertise for the rebuild.
------
JohnBooty
It takes a lot to make me furious, but I'm furious.
These morons built an Air Force base with billions of hardware in hurricane
territory, and were caught flat-footed by a hurricane because apparently there
were no adequate plans for what to do when a hurricane approached?
Jesus christ. Those planes are irreplaceable. F-22 production has ceased, so
it's not like they can order up some more. And considering the problems with
the F-35s, those F-22s are some of the only capable 5th-gen fighters we're
likely to have for a longggggggg time.
(I understand that most of the places were apparently evacuated, but it's
tough to swallow any significant loss of those very expensive pieces of
hardware due to inadequate planning)
~~~
metaphor
> due to inadequate planning
Seeing as you've had the opportunity to thoroughly evaluate Tyndall's
emergency hurricane evacuation procedures, the airworthiness of 55 aircraft
divided between two squadrons, O&M/MILCON budget of a training base, and
logistical impediments arising from 72-hours notice coupled with a swarm of
evacuating civilians from surrounding areas, please do take the time to
enlighten us all.
~~~
JohnBooty
What are you saying here?
Are you saying that their plans were adequate? Clearly they weren't; they lost
at least a handful of irreplaceable planes.
Or are you saying that there was just no way to predict or prepare for a
hurricane hitting an airbase right in the middle of hurricane country? I mean,
a lot of hurricanes roll through that part of the country.
the airworthiness of 55 aircraft divided between two squadrons,
My "evaluation" is what the article says. Namely, that the planes left behind
weren't airworthy. If you know otherwise, let's hear it.
I'm no military brain genius, but it seems obvious to me that at any given
time less than 100% of the planes at any given airbase would be airworthy and
that perhaps some provision should be made for sheltering or evacuating these
planes if a hurricane rolls through this base which, again, is located in a
very hurricane-prone region.
O&M/MILCON budget of a training base
I'd think that the cost of making sure you don't lose a billion dollars worth
of fighters every time a hurricane rolls through a hurricane-prone area
probably costs less than, I don't know, a billion dollars.
~~~
metaphor
That you've summarily dismissed the efficacy of planning for which you know
precisely _zero_ of is baffling.
That you presume to parade your decision making as superior to the dozens of
career field officers and senior enlisted members with real skin in the game--
let alone the hundreds preceeding them who have _earned_ their keep--is even
more baffling.
That you continually insist $1bil in F-22 assets was lost to this hurricane is
quite telling of both blatant ignorance and inexperience in matters relating
to military aircraft maintenance operations.
Admittedly, I'm rather insulted by the magnitude of sheer narcissism and
narrow-minded hubris in your remarks.
~~~
JohnBooty
Let me back up a step.
I angrily said "these idiots" as if everybody involved was an idiot.
What I should have acknowledged is that the folks on that base are insanely
talented (I know enough about the military to know that the folks trusted with
these aircraft are very elite) and in all likelihood pulled off a freaking
miracle to save as much hardware as they did with (more importantly) zero loss
of life. I have no doubt that they spent 72 hours stretched to their limits
and performed admirably.
Whatever else we disagree on, at least we agree on that.
What I am angry at is the design of a base that had inadequate structures
and/or procedures in place to enable those assets to be fully protected and/or
evacuated in the event of a hurricane. Clearly those (or the budget allocated)
were not adequate to fully handle the situation. The results attest to that.
~~~
mulmen
This was the most powerful hurricane to hit the Florida panhandle in recorded
history. The base has withstood previous hurricanes and storms. So yeah, the
structures were inadequate to protect some of the planes from the storm of the
century (or two?) but should we expect or desire the base to withstand that?
Of the dozen planes left behind so far only four are suspected to have been
destroyed and even that isn't actually known yet. It is still possible the
base did protect the planes at least in part from this extreme outlier event.
The lifespan of the planes is only ~30 years. Losing a few of them to a total
freak storm doesn't seem as outrageous as you are making it out to be,
especially when much more of the fleet was evacuated than should be expected
based on typical readiness.
You're acting like the USAF had no hurricane plan at all when in reality they
obviously did. Not all the F-22s were lost and a bunch of the other assets
made it out too.
------
kolderman
Does that $1b replacement cost include the cost of restarting the f22 assembly
line?
------
biehl
One cannot put an F-22 on a truck and drive it to safety?
~~~
mulmen
Not if all the trucks are busy moving other assets.
~~~
x0x0
And particularly on 72h notice.
------
emayljames
Karma.
------
acjohnson55
There's many billions more dollars where that came from.
------
dizziest
Since this amount of money lost isn't outrageous to the Air Force, what was
keeping them from moving the planes we paid for, and spending the ~billion
dollars on us and our pursuit of happiness, liberty, and life?
~~~
andreasley
From the article: "The F-22s left behind could not fly for either mechanical
or safety reasons, said a spokeswoman, who also said all the hangars on base
were damaged."
~~~
fen4o
Can't those airplanes be moved / evacuated by ground?
~~~
mulmen
In a word, no. F-22s are huge. Time and trucks are limited.
~~~
code_duck
Could they possibly have thought ahead a little more? Is this the first time a
storm hit the area or something?
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Top Financial Mistakes Every Software Developer Should Avoid - debh
http://www.acodersjourney.com/2016/04/top-10-financial-mistakes-every-software-developer-should-avoid/
======
BerislavLopac
I don't see why is this particularly relevant to software developers -- it's
some good advice to anyone with relatively good income who is not already
financially savvy.
With this title, I expected to see some advice for the developers working on
financial software, such as money amounts not (always) being floats, or why
RDBMs are not a good fit to save financial transactions, and the like.
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Unpacking HP Firmware Updates - sobermanman
https://jsof-tech.com/unpacking-hp-firmware-updates-part-1/
======
rshnotsecure
This article is bringing to light a lot of stuff that needs to be said about
printers.
Also somewhat depressingly, HP is definitely the most secure printing company.
That's not a very high standard though. But what it means is everything these
guys have found...is much worse worse at every other printer company. HP was
the first printer company to join HackerOne I believe, shockingly they still
make some of their server brands in the US, and the security options on their
entry level enterprise printers (m406) show at least some effort was put into
them (for instance only allowing SNMPv3).
Yet at the same time, why can I only have a max 16 character password on the
web management portal? Why does the username _have_ to be "admin" which is
obviously super easy to guess?
NOTE: I first saw this article as a promoted tweet on Twitter. This was
hilarious to me because it was the first time I had had a relevant promoted
tweet shown to me where I also didn't feel like the party involved was being
misleading in some sort of way.
EDIT: Had trouble accessing their site. Some things to note that they found:
\- Why do you have to download the updates manually from HP? Why can't the
printer check? Why is it not automated? This process is awful. Do you then
upload the zip file of the update to the printer or the bin file inside, or is
it the bin file plus the md5 hash?
\- PCL and PJL are languages that predate IP. Very insecure and so many things
that have never been fixed.
~~~
reid
The analysis in TFA is of the previous generation OfficeJet Pro 8720 which was
introduced in 2016.
This is fascinating but I'm looking forward to folks poking around at the
current generation of printers because HP changed a lot about the firmware
security lately.
I recently purchased an HP OfficeJet Pro 9015 which was introduced in early
2019. This newer printer has automated firmware updates enabled by default.
The new generation OfficeJet Pro 8025, 8035, 9015, 9025 and similar offers
several security benefits over the previous generation according to a report
[1]:
\- Firmware Integrity and Secure Boot
\- Automatic Firmware Recovery/Self-Healing BIOS
\- Run-Time Code Integrity
\- Automatic Firmware Update
Agreed: HP is the most secure printing company from what I can understand.
Nobody else in the printer business has these security features in their
products. Security elements like secure boot, firmware integrity, and
automatic updates are things I expect now.
[1]: [https://www.keypointintelligence.com/media/2240/hp-
officejet...](https://www.keypointintelligence.com/media/2240/hp-officejet-
pro.pdf)
~~~
eyalitki
Glad to hear that they took our advice, and enabled automatic firmware updates
by default. We suggested this feature when we helped them fix the fax
vulnerabilities (DEFCON 26 - What The FAX?!), happy to see they listened.
~~~
reid
And speaking of printer vulns, I believe it'd be really interesting to
investigate IPP over USB as a attack vector to pwn otherwise secured hosts.
Despite using a VPN which forwards all of my network traffic on macOS, I can
still access my printer's web server because of the automatically configured
IPP-USB connection which provides a reverse proxy to the printer's embedded
web server over USB. I haven't seen many articles detailing how this works and
how it's secured...
------
sobermanman
We reverse engineered an HP printer. Our first of a four-part blog series
documenting the HP printer firmware update format.
~~~
mshook
We killed your DBMS: Error establishing a database connection
~~~
sobermanman
The site is back on! Enjoy the read
------
NikolaeVarius
Relevant Defcon Talk
[https://youtu.be/qLCE8spVX9Q?t=671](https://youtu.be/qLCE8spVX9Q?t=671)
~~~
eyalitki
Happy to see that people still remember our talk :)
------
polygot
Mirror: [http://archive.is/O6Sn7](http://archive.is/O6Sn7)
------
sobermanman
The site is back on! Enjoy the read [https://jsof-tech.com/unpacking-hp-
firmware-updates-part-1/](https://jsof-tech.com/unpacking-hp-firmware-updates-
part-1/)
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Senate encryption bill draft mandates 'technical assistance' - secfirstmd
http://thehill.com/policy/cybersecurity/275567-senate-intel-encryption-bill-mandates-technical-assistance
======
cant_kant
"A long-awaited Senate Intelligence Committee encryption bill would force
companies to provide “technical assistance” to government investigators
seeking locked data, according to a discussion draft obtained by The Hill."
Full pdf text of the bill from Committee Chairman Richard Burr (R-N.C.) and
ranking member Dianne Feinstein (D-Calif.) follows:
[https://www.scribd.com/doc/307378123/Burr-Encryption-Bill-
Di...](https://www.scribd.com/doc/307378123/Burr-Encryption-Bill-Discussion-
Draft)
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Ultrasonic Power Transfer Investigated Using Data from uBeam Patent Filings - szczys
http://hackaday.com/2015/10/20/the-curious-case-of-ultrasonic-power-transfer/
======
Someone
[http://ubeam.com](http://ubeam.com):
_" The most recent paper to investigate the safety of ultrasound was just
published [...] Of note is that this study used energy levels to tissue that
were orders of magnitude higher than levels that uBeam’s system uses."_
The abstract at
[http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0041624X15...](http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0041624X15001973):
_" Demonstrated in vitro, 0.6 W of transcutaneous ultrasound power transfer
to an implant.[...] with an average RF input to electrical charging efficiency
of 20%"_
So, at best, 3W is "orders of magnitude higher than levels that uBeam’s system
uses". That may charge your remote, but not your phone.
~~~
Retric
iPhone 5 has a 5.45wh battery. If you can place a "speaker" in your room and
add 0.3w * 8 h while you sleep that's ~44% charge every night. Which could be
fairly useful. Up the power or assume people spend more than 8h a day in there
bedroom and plenty of people would spend up to say 200$ to have one less thing
to worry about.
~~~
szczys
Sure, as long as it's right in the focus of the beam. If that means putting it
in one particular spot, is there any benefit over inductive chargers? That
method would be faster and more efficient.
~~~
ChrisGammell
Also, not to be the old guy...cables don't bug me THAT much. I'll take USB C
and charge with 100W instead, thank you very much!
~~~
darkmighty
I'm with you. Investors/companies have to get into their heads that power
transmission will never be as easy as data transmission. There's no power Wi-
Fi, only some crude expensive approximations over mediocre distances with
mediocre power levels. We could instead focus on improving _cables_ (and
confined power in general) -- have them available everywhere, retractable,
higher power. There's hardly any physical limit to confined power
transmission; if you look at trends into the future you might expect device
power consumption to actually rise a little, only furthering the divide.
Cables are just so more elegant.
Part of the problem not discussed here is the 'Absorption conflict': for
efficient power transmission you need materials that are able to absorb very
well the given form of power; but at the same time you want nothing to
interact in the path of the unconfined flux. This can only be dealt with up to
a point, since our everyday objects' configuration and atomic composition are
not so different from the composition of a receiver. This applies to all
technologies: even for resonant EM power transfer you are relying on a
specific conductor geometry; thankfully there's no strong conductor in our
bodies, but you will have to deal with metal parts everywhere.
Wireless information gets around this kind of limitation because power ceases
to important for the capacity of a channel [1] past a threshold (roughly when
the signal PSD equals the noise PSD), while the determining factor is
bandwidth. So you just use a few Ghz+ radiation and you have enormous
bandwidth available; once that becomes insufficient we can move to Thz+ light;
and so on without much environmental concerns (just medium concerns --
atmosphere gets opaque), since power levels will be kept constant or lower.
[1]
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Channel_capacity#Example_appli...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Channel_capacity#Example_application)
~~~
Retric
I can think of a single highly popular counter example which used 100%
wireless power over several miles.
[https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Crystal_radio](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Crystal_radio)
RFID are often a short range example of the same idea.
So, it's less that wireless power is useless As it is modern devices needing
lots of power.
~~~
darkmighty
Crystal radio is an interesting concept -- but note I didn't claim it was
impossible, just highly inefficient and with mediocre power/range (I couldn't
find sources, but apparently it's typically 40uW with a ~1m? antenna).
Remember that's for a (usually) 50kW station -- that's 1e-9 efficiency, or
0.0000001%. Realistically I'd expect you to be able scale this to 10k's
receivers to up to about 0.001%. It's not realistic to increase this power
significantly due to health/electronics concerns for persons living close to
the source and massive consumption -- bringing the power near a single station
to 4W would consume 5GW, about 1% of total US power consumption!
Interesting to imagine a system with sightly higher frequencies (20Mhz?)
dedicated to power transmission. It'd essentially be a hugely wasteful system
(and expensive with high powered antennas everywhere to mitigate invsq law)
which however might be able to power ultra low power sensors and gadgets. Some
clever phase distribution (pseudorandom modulation should do it) system would
allow location with ~15m accuracy too (even working indoors, although building
refraction and reflections might be a little troublesome).
------
api
"even some high-profile investors that include [Mark Cuban] have not seen the
uBeam working."
I don't understand how people can raise money like this. Investors usually
like to actually see evidence that you are actually doing something, right?
Right?
~~~
jacquesm
I've seen a few requests come in where I really wondered if the subject
investors had any technical knowledge at all.
Investor scams are unfortunately rather common.
As soon as secrecy, a breakthrough and a very large market coincide the
gullible and their money are soon parted. I personally don't think this is a
bad thing because it keeps me employed, at the same time you'd wish that this
sort of thing would stop because it most likely hinders genuine breakthroughs
from being given the attention they deserve. Some of those get recycled a few
years or decades later so not all is lost but still, a few cold fusions and AI
winters and the tech industry as a whole suffers.
As for the uBeam, ultrasound is a strange medium to choose for this particular
job, ultrasound is fickle, has a ton of side effects, isn't particularly
efficient and interferes with living creatures in all kinds of un-desirable
ways. Going the electromagnetic route would seem to be the first thing to try
(and some companies are doing this and have products, maybe not 'miracle
class' but they'll do the job they're designed to).
The best bet for getting rid of the charger cord are a strong reduction in
required power for the phones, better battery technology, maybe micro fuel
cells or some other exotic conversion technology.
Populating the world with ultrasonic transmitters with about the same range as
the charge cord they replace seems to fix one minor inconvenience by replacing
it with a much larger one, not a company I'd bet on.
~~~
api
With the opening of seed investment to the general public, I unfortunately
think you're going to see a huge increase in professional investor scams. I
fully expect organized crime to get involved.
Of course anyone can go blow their money at a casino and with a much lower
odds of return than investing on AngelList, so I'm not sure it's an overall
bad thing. Still I am concerned about loss of signal in noise and about
'winters' as you say.
~~~
jacquesm
In plenty of places seed investments have been open to the general public just
about forever and as far as I know there have not been any major differences
between the number of scams purported there versus in countries where
investors need to be accredited.
Crowdfunding is currently doing a great job educating people on the risks of
putting money up for vapourware but since those are not investments per se
there is still a gap in that education that will surely be filled once the
stops are pulled. Organized crime is already involved in investments, look no
further than the LPs of some of the funds that have high visibility. That's a
far quicker way to get a return than to bilk a few million out of the pockets
of the gullible public at large.
------
petra
Why don't startbucks really buy usb charging ports or usb charging mats and
put it on their shops , if that's so important ? why don't anybody big do it?
~~~
bsder
Because they don't want to encourage people to stay longer than they already
are.
~~~
zemvpferreira
Actually, I think every Starbucks in the Bay Area has induction chargers built
into several tables (along with a number of charging dongles to choose between
for your particular phone connector):
[http://www.digitaltrends.com/mobile/starbucks-pma-
wireless-c...](http://www.digitaltrends.com/mobile/starbucks-pma-wireless-
charging-launched/)
~~~
Animats
Their active area is so small that an ordinary USB-A power outlet would be
more useful. You have to plug the rigid coil into your device, then place it
exactly over the charging circle.
~~~
zemvpferreira
Induction is a very practical solution for when you don't have your USB
charging cable with you. Plus, who's going to steal the coil to use at home?
And it's a pretty magical experience when you use it.
~~~
Animats
That your phone can get position info from satellites is magical. That you can
bring two halves of a transformer together and get power would not have
surprised an electrician from a century ago.
------
rjdagost
When I first heard of uBeam and their goal I did some back of the envelope
calculations. Setting aside the safety issues (which are not settled, start-up
CEO claims to the contrary), the biggest problem is conversion efficiency.
Using some optimistic assumptions about conversion efficiencies and beam
steering accuracy, I don't see how they're going to achieve even a 10% net
conversion efficiency at useful distances. So I've been very skeptical about
the prospects of success, yet I am very interested to be proven wrong on some
of my assumptions. But the longer this product launch gets stretched out the
more skeptical I get that this will ever be a product that anyone would want
to buy. This is starting to feel like Theranos- the time has come to put up
some real evidence.
------
rootedbox
If you have a room filled with speakers basically.. You are going to have
phasing issues.
~~~
jacquesm
And you're going to have the sum and the difference frequencies to deal with
as well if the transmitters aren't perfectly synchronized. And those
differences may very well be within the audible range.
~~~
beamatronic
If nothing else, now you've created a new type of Active Denial System
------
jimrandomh
[http://predictionbook.com/predictions/125891](http://predictionbook.com/predictions/125891)
(entered back in July)
------
Animats
Those articles mention uBeam's patent filings, but don't actually cite them.
You can look at their patent applications.[1]
The overall system is described in their patent application #20120300593. This
shows the overall plan: focus big transmitting transducers tightly on small
receiving transducers. This resulted in a patent, #9094111. But to get the
patent, they had to narrow the main claim to include "a receiver
communications device adapted and configured to send input to the sender, the
input comprising a power requirement that causes the sender to change a dwell
time of the sender on the receiver". That's not an essential component of such
a system, so it's not a broad patent.
There's an application on beam-steering, #20140281655. That's a known
technology, and the USPTO has sent back a non-final rejection based on prior
art. But that tells us the plan - big phased array of ultrasonic transducers
aimed at a tiny target. Direct line of sight is necessary between transmitting
array and pickup array.
How could they generate 155dB of ultrasonic energy? They applied for a patent
on their transmit transducer, application #20140265727. That has an image of
the sending transducer. It's a piezoelectric device with a silicon membrane,
with a vacuum behind it. (The vacuum in back is to avoid pumping half the
energy back into the device itself.) A "thin film" piezoelectric element makes
the membrane vibrate. Devices like that have been built before, and the USPTO
accordingly just sent them a final rejection. There's no new feature there
which allows generation of more audio power than existing devices. So assume
their device has performance roughly comparable to existing devices.
Here's a product list from American Piezo, a commercial supplier of high-power
air ultrasonic transducers.[2] Their highest power unit that transmits into
air is 119dB. uBeam is claiming 155dB. That's 36dB more, or 4000 times as much
power. That device needs 30V into 2K ohms to power it, or about half a watt.
So uBeam's transmitter would need about 2 kilowatts, comparable to a small
clothes dryer, spread over a large number of transmitting transducers. An
array 64 square would do it. The American Piezo transducer is 16mm across, so
the transmitting array needs to be about a square meter. That's a big
transmitting array, with 4000 elements, each with its own drive electronics.
All that energy, or as least as much as they can focus, gets aimed at a tiny
target.
The parent article discusses the attenuation problem. This gets worse with
frequency.[4] Measured values of attenuation in air at 1MHz at 20C are between
160-165dB/m. This is huge. 1m from the transmitter, all the power is gone,
used to heat the air. uBeam wants to operate in the megahertz range, but no
way will that work. At 50KhZ, where most air ultrasonic systems work,
attenuation is only 2dB/m. Their demo system (with about 1 foot range) used
off the shelf 40KHz transducers.
This thing might work in the 50-100KHz range, with a rather large and
expensive transmitter array, when the target device was facing the
transmitter. Safety remains an issue; if they actually built a 155dB system,
they'd have a steerable ultrasonic welder.
They could potentially build a nice demo system. Build a meter square array of
off the shelf transducers running in the 50-100KHz range and mount it in a
large picture frame. Cover it with speaker grille cloth, maybe with a picture
silk-screened on so it looks like a framed picture. Have it scan at low power
until a cooperating device reports a signal. Then focus the beam and turn the
power up to full.
It's not going to be totally silent, because some harmonics will get through
and some objects in the target area will vibrate with the ultrasonics and
resonate at a lower frequency. But it probably wouldn't be noticeable at a
noisy trade show.
You probably don't want to be near the focus of this thing.
[1] [http://www.faqs.org/patents/assignee/ubeam-
inc/](http://www.faqs.org/patents/assignee/ubeam-inc/) [2]
[https://www.americanpiezo.com/standard-products/air-
transduc...](https://www.americanpiezo.com/standard-products/air-
transducers.html) [3]
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ultrasonic_welding](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ultrasonic_welding)
[4]
[http://www.ndt.net/article/ultragarsas/63-2008-no.1_03-jakev...](http://www.ndt.net/article/ultragarsas/63-2008-no.1_03-jakevicius.pdf)
~~~
the8472
So, bottom line is, if the charging part doesn't work out it can still be used
as an expensive steerable space heater / killing device?
~~~
Animats
It might "work", for small values of "work". With a big emitter, at moderately
short range, and a receiver on the back side of a laptop screen, it might
work. Modest sized conference rooms with art on the walls, for example. Small
classrooms. Maybe even a Starbucks.
Emitter panels on the ceiling could charge mobile devices placed face-down for
charging. A car-based system could charge devices of people using phones while
driving, if you had enough short-range emitters around the car.
The line of sight limitation, though, makes it only slightly more convenient
than a power cord. The electromagnetic charger people have the same problem,
but they're mostly thinking "put mobile devices on charging pad on bedside
table", which works but isn't selling.
~~~
the8472
> The electromagnetic charger people have the same problem
they can just build those into tables and mark the area that charges instead
of having to tile an entire room with those transducers.
Having a human slightly adjust his behavior (place laptop on one of the
rectangles) in exchange for reliable charging should be far less frustrating
than a supposedly automatic system with lots dead zones that the user can't
see.
------
hatsunearu
[http://www.eevblog.com/forum/projects/the-ubeam-
faq/](http://www.eevblog.com/forum/projects/the-ubeam-faq/)
Here's an extremely in-depth analysis of this new snake oil.
------
rootedbox
One other thing.. Look at all there demo videos, and pictures. The size of the
amp they are using to produce this volume of sound is pretty insane.
So..
1\. This is going to add to your monthly electric bill considerably.
2\. I wonder what kind of EM those amps are putting out.
------
sandworm101
If these people want to milk some billionaires for whom shelling a few million
is easier than taking the time to understand a technology, I say more power to
them. So long as they aren't receiving taxpayer support, nor draining the
lifesaving of retires, then they can sell their dream for as long as dreamers
have deep pockets. Is it really any worse than homoeopathy?
A fool and his money.
~~~
jacquesm
> Is it really any worse than homoeopathy?
That depends on whether or not the inventors are aware of the fact that their
tech likely will never work.
In that case it is fraud. In the other case it is simply some group of people
that are very much ready to believe their own story and successfully
transmitting that enthusiasm to investors. I've seen a couple of cases like
that and it always makes me sad that reality will shatter the dream ('wouldn't
it be nice if?', yes, but that does not automatically mean that it is
possible...).
More often than not charisma plays an important role in these exercises in
wishful thinking.
If the purveyor of new, unproven tech is aware that it does not work there is
yet another class of character, the ones that think they're only 'faking it
until it will inevitably work'. Just one more little kink to work out and
_then_ all the reasons to fake it will disappear.
The only ones I have no compassion with are the cold hearted fraudsters who
dream up their schemes knowing full well they'll never deliver. Those are -
fortunately - quite rare.
~~~
sliverstorm
I am reminded of:
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DkGMY63FF3Q](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DkGMY63FF3Q)
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Show HN: Birthkay – Celebrating every thousand days on earth - lopify
https://birthkay.com
======
lopify
Hi Hackers!
Last new year's eve I tried to reflect on the year 2016that just passed by and
I realized that nothing major did really happen, I was one year older but
that's about it.
I went to my photo library and I realized that major changes happened in my
life every roughly 3 years... around 1,000 days. I made some quick numbers and
I realized that I was more than 12k days old. I felt sad that I missed that
many "birth[k]ays".
I shared this sort of "personal insight" with friends and it turns out that
everyone had the same sort of feeling, we tend to do balance and look backward
every year and that's too short to really see things in perspective. We
celebrate our birthday every year but we miss an important date every thousand
days.
That's why I created this very simple app on a quick hackathon we did at work.
I hope it's useful for some of you
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Show HN: Pimp My Tweets - suggests better words for your tweets. - jalada
http://pimp-my-tweets.herokuapp.com/
======
jalada
This was a Friday project at work (<http://labs.newsint.co.uk>). It uses a
couple of word of the day sources, thesaurus APIs and part of speech tagging.
If you use a word that is a synonym for a word of the day, it will recommend
the word of the day instead.
It often has rather bad (and thus hilarious) results - it could definitely be
improved (it could do with some more words, for a start). But not bad for a
couple of days work in total. Any suggestions to help it would be cool, too!
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Ask HN: Why do we capitalize letters? - jmtame
can i stop capitalizing?
======
parenthesis
We do actually capitalise a lot less than was done in the past. Find some
unmodernised English writing from circa 1600, say, and you'll find lots of
capitalisation of (non-proper) nouns, for example.
The contemporary convention of capitalising the first letter of a new sentence
helps to show more clearly where sentences begin and end. Capitalising proper
names helps distinguish particular special (not necessarily animate)
individuals from things that merely have some common property. "In the times
in which we live, The Times keeps us informed of world events." "The spectator
was not actually spectating, but was reading The Spectator."
------
noodle
i haven't done it in years, except in formal capacities. fewer keystrokes =
more efficiency
~~~
noodle
seriously? modded down? i wasn't kidding, i used to type with caps, but found
that i typed faster without caps, as well as felt less RSI strain on my hands.
capitalization is a linguistic construct, and in english, it doesn't has as
much of a purpose as it does in some other languages. its skippable.
~~~
alphamule
as have I, except I do capitalize the word "I", because I find that the
lowercase "i" as first person pronoun is too twee. now that jerry yang has
become the most prominent all-lower-case user, I fear that not wanting to be
associated with the stink of failure will drive me out of the practice.
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Show HN: Quod.us – Building an open database of misinformation - newman8r
https://www.quod.us
======
newman8r
I'm trying to validate this concept, so any feedback is greatly appreciated.
My goal is to create a nonprofit organization and make everything free and
open source.
I have a small amount of experience in NLP, specifically with NLTK. I think
this type of dataset would be very useful for flagging potential
misinformation, but if anyone more experienced than me could chime in, I'd
appreciate it.
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Show HN: A weekly newsletter curating great Wordpress guides - foundersgrid
http://wpstack.io/
======
coreymaass
I tried to subscribe using the top form. It opened a new window, redirecting
me back to the homepage, and I never got a confirmation email. I just tried
again using the form at the bottom, and it seemed to work. Looking forward to
the newsletter!
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Nvidia CEO Reveals New TITAN X at Stanford Deep Learning Meetup - bcaulfield
https://blogs.nvidia.com/blog/2016/07/21/titan-x/
======
cs702
Great news all-around for deep learning practitioners.
Nvidia says memory bandwidth is "460GB/s," which will probably have the most
impact on deep learning applications (lots of giant matrices must be fetched
from memory, repeatedly, for extended periods of time). For comparison, the
GTX 1080's memory bandwidth is quoted as "320GB/s." The new Titan X also has
3,584 CUDA cores (1.3x more than GTX 1080) and 12GB of RAM (1.5x more than GTX
1080).
We'll have to wait for benchmarks, but based on specs, this new Titan X looks
like the best single GPU card you can buy for deep learning today. For certain
deep learning applications, if properly configured, two GTX 1080's might
outperform the Titan X and cost about the same, but that's not an apples-to-
apples comparison.
A beefy desktop computer with four of these Titan X's will have 44 Teraflops
of raw computing power, about "one fifth" of the raw computing power of the
world's current 500th most powerful supercomputer.[1] While those 44 Teraflops
are usable only for certain kinds of applications (involving 32-bit floating
point linear algebra operations), the figure is still kind of incredible.
[1]
[https://www.top500.org/list/2015/06/?page=5](https://www.top500.org/list/2015/06/?page=5)
~~~
pavlov
_A beefy desktop computer with four of these Titan X 's will have 44 Teraflops
of raw computing power, about "one fifth" of the raw computing power of the
world's current 500th most powerful supercomputer._
There have been calls that Moore's Law is dead for at least 10 years, and yet
desktops keep catching up to supercomputing.
I know this increase is not in single-threaded general-purpose computing power
in the fashion of the old gigahertz race... But on the other hand, the scope
of what's considered "general purpose" keeps expanding too. Machine learning
may be part of mainstream consumer applications in 5 years.
~~~
rasz_pl
Moore's Law IS dead for single core CPU performance.
~~~
mrb
_" Moore's Law IS dead for single core CPU performance."_
Moore's Law was never about single core CPU performance. It is about the
number of transistors in a single chip; this has always been its definition.
~~~
honkhonkpants
Actually Moore's law is about the number of transistors you can etch for a
single dollar.
~~~
astrodust
Moore's Law: "Moore's law (/mɔərz.ˈlɔː/) is the observation that the number of
transistors in a dense integrated circuit doubles approximately every two
years."
That's the definition I've always known. It has nothing to do with money or
speed or performance, but usually these things are correlated.
------
tylerwhipple
As great as this product may be, I went to the Stanford Deep Learning Meetup
to learn more about how Baidu Research/Andrew Ng are solving large scale deep
learning problems. I am disappointed by how much (unannounced) time was
dedicated to the keynote/sales pitch.
~~~
argonaut
I'm pretty sure Andrew Ng was hired by Baidu as a recruiting tool /
evangelist. He hasn't done much research recently.
~~~
nabla9
If his job as a Chief Scientst at Baidu is similar to the Director of Research
at Google (Peter Norvig) he is too busy to be part of individual research
projects.
He is probably one of the guys who decides where the direction of company
research is heading and the one who supervises those projects.
------
kartD
Since this question has come up so many times in the thread, my take is that
FP64 and FP16 won't be as good at the GP100. If TITAN X is based on the
consumer parts, it misses out on the GP100's FP improvements.
From Anandtech's GTX1080 review page2: As a result while GP100 has some
notable feature/design elements for HPC – things such faster FP64 & FP16
performance, ECC, and significantly greater amounts of shared memory and
register file capacity per CUDA core – these elements aren’t present in GP104
(and presumably, future Pascal consumer-focused GPUs).
This requires confirmation though, it depends on whether it uses the consumer
chip or the HPC chip.
Edit: AT has an article up [http://www.anandtech.com/show/10510/nvidia-
announces-nvidia-...](http://www.anandtech.com/show/10510/nvidia-announces-
nvidia-titan-x-video-card-1200-available-august-2nd)
They think it's likely a consumer card, so lower FP16 and FP64 perf. Should be
a gaming monster though
~~~
mrb
Well the Titan X is a new chip: GP102. So they could have picked and chosen
features from either GP100 (professional Tesla) or GP104 (consumer GeForce).
We know almost certainly it has lower FP64 perf than GP100 because it has 22%
fewer transistors and the FP64 units take a lot of transistors count. However
it is less clear about what the FP16 performance is. Nvidia could have decided
to match GP100 on that regard.
~~~
kartD
Doubt it, why have three versions of a chip (one with fp16 improv, one with
fp16/fp64 improv and one without them)? Especially when the Titan X has the
same number of CUDA cores as the GP100.
~~~
jhj
"CUDA cores" is a misleading term.
When they quote "CUDA cores", they've been counting float32 fma functional
units; e.g., Tesla K40 has 192 float32 fma units per SM x 15 SMs => 2880 "CUDA
cores".
[http://docs.nvidia.com/cuda/cuda-c-programming-
guide/index.h...](http://docs.nvidia.com/cuda/cuda-c-programming-
guide/index.html#arithmetic-instructions__throughput-native-arithmetic-
instructions)
fp16 and fp64 are likely different functional units with different issue
rates, as is the case with old hardware; unless they've managed to share the
same hardware (since for P100 the quoted fp64 rate is exactly half the fp32
rate, and the fp16 is exactly double the fp32 rate).
~~~
kartD
True, I forgot NVIDIA (and AMD) play around with the "core" definition
~~~
jhj
There's no real analogue to a CPU core (or thread) on a GPU, there are warp
schedulers (Nvidia) and functional units with varying throughput rates. The
closest analogue to a CPU thread is the GPU warp (Nvidia), which shares a
program counter and executes as a 32-wide vector. AMD wavefronts (64-wide) are
a little bit different, but not by much. The CUDA "thread" is really an
illusion that makes a SIMD lane easier to program to (sometimes...)
~~~
kartD
I agree, I think an SMX is the closest to a CPU core - it contains dispatch,
cache, schedulers etc. CUDA threads are of course have important differences
since all threads in a warp move in lockstep. IMO, all of these contrived
definitions are just to ease in programmers into the CUDA/OpenCL model or for
bragging rights (like how a Jetson has 192 cores!).
------
bryanlarsen
For gaming, it's an estimated 24% faster than a 1080 for twice the price.
[http://www.anandtech.com/show/10325/the-nvidia-geforce-
gtx-1...](http://www.anandtech.com/show/10325/the-nvidia-geforce-
gtx-1080-and-1070-founders-edition-review)
~~~
baq
does it have a place where you can plug a display into...?
~~~
jsheard
Yes, the spec sheet says it has DisplayPort 1.4, HDMI 2.0b and Dual-Link DVI.
[http://www.geforce.co.uk/hardware/10series/titan-x/](http://www.geforce.co.uk/hardware/10series/titan-x/)
The Tesla cards are the ones with no display outputs.
~~~
astrodust
Nikolai Tesla was a titan so the confusion is natural.
------
stephanheijl
I'm looking forward to seeing this in stores, as I've wanted to build a new
machine learning rig for some time. The GTX 1080 just didn't seem like it
would do the trick, with ostensibly limited software support and all.
I'm specifically wondering about FP16 handling though. Single precision FLOPS
are never mentioned in the blog, nor on the NVidia page. It would be a shame
if the FP16 units on this card were gimped in the same way as the GTX 1080...
~~~
nitrogen
The GTX1080 still isn't available anyway, unless you pay an exorbitant sum to
a scalper.
~~~
Jach
Funny, my friend had no issue getting two of them. The only impossible to get
model is gigabyte's xtreme version and it's not even the 'best'.
~~~
nitrogen
From which vendor, may I ask?
~~~
Jach
Zotac Extreme.
~~~
nitrogen
Cool. Who has it in stock?
------
jesperhh
Interesting that this does not have HBM2 memory. Apparently this will only be
for the Tesla GPUs on pascal GPUs unless they are going to put it on the 1080
ti, which does not seem likely when the Titan does not have it.
~~~
gbrown_
I don't see this showing up in consumer parts soon. It seems Nvidia can
squeeze out GDDR5(X) outside of the HPC space for this generation. Which is
good for cost but also reduces the risk in terms of reliability of throwing
lots of new technology into a single product.
HPC obviously has different requirement but Nvidia can work with interrogators
and customers with less of a backlash when fixing issues in this segment.
------
nl
This is so great.
NVidia actually care about research, researchers and the scientific computing
market.
Next time someone complains about the lack of OpenCL support, again, in
another framework remember how much work NVidia puts into supporting people
who use their cards for scientific computing, and how they listen to them.
~~~
Cybiote
Microsoft also carefully listened to developers while building DirectX and by
versions 8 and especially 9, it really showed. But only Windows benefited from
this. Having the control of important GPU tech so strongly centered about a
single company is never a good idea, it sets up a conflict of interest.
Something like OpenCL does not face the same conflict nVidia would if porting
core APIs across a wide set of competing technologies. With CUDA, nVidia
prioritizes themselves above AMD, intel, FPGAs and whatever parallel compute
technology the future holds.
~~~
nl
Oh, I agree 100%.
But the truth is that without the hardware vendors putting significant
resources into OpenCL it just isn't competitive and won't be until that
happens.
The truth is that most of the work in Deep Learning is developing new NN
architectures and other algorithmic optimisations. If you are working in the
field there is no reason to put up with second class support from non NVidia
vendors - just build in TensorFlow, Torch or a couple of other frameworks and
wait for the day (one day, we are promised!) when OpenCL is competitive. Then
the framework backends get ported, your code keeps running the same, and it
can run on all those other architectures.
Everyone has been waiting for that day since One Weird Trick[1]. There isn't
really anything to indicate it is getting closer, and AMD's dismissal of the
NVidia "doing something in the car industry"[2] doesn't give me a lot of
confidence.
Anyway, I hope I'm wrong. Maybe Intel will step-up.
[1] [https://arxiv.org/abs/1404.5997](https://arxiv.org/abs/1404.5997)
[2] [http://arstechnica.co.uk/gadgets/2016/04/amd-focusing-on-
vr-...](http://arstechnica.co.uk/gadgets/2016/04/amd-focusing-on-vr-mid-range-
polaris/)
------
imtringued
Intel already surpassed the old Titan X with their Xeon Phi Knights Landing
CPUs which have a peak performance of up to 7TFLOPS. It was about time that
they release a new Titan X.
~~~
vegabook
yeah but where can you actually buy the Xeon Phi KL? I only see dev-programme
versions. I would love to pick one up.
~~~
lorenzhs
The webshops where I've seen it say it will be available from August 9th, so
hopefully it won't be long.
------
hkhall
As this thread is filled with people that know way, way more about CUDA and
OpenCL than myself I hope that you will indulge me a serious question: I get
that graphics cards are great for floating point operations and that bitwise
binary operations are supported by these libraries, but are they similarly
efficient at it?
Some background: I occasionally find myself doing FPGA design for my doctoral
work and am realizing that the job market for when I get done may be better
for me if I was fluent in GPGPU programming as it is easier to build, manage,
and deploy a cluster of such machines than the same for FPGAs.
My current problem has huge numbers of XOR operations on large vectors and if
OpenCL or CUDA could be learned and spun up quickly (I have a CS background) I
may be inclined to jump aboard this train vs buying another FPGA for my
problem.
~~~
ldargin
AMD GPUs have a reputation for speedy integer operations, which are
essentially bit-wise operations, so they are often chosen for bitcoin mining.
So you might want to consider learning OpenCL, since CUDA runs only on NVidia
cards.
~~~
sounds
I've spent a lot of time using both OpenCL and CUDA, and I would recommend
CUDA not because I like NVidia as a company, but because your productivity
will be so much higher.
NVidia has really invested into their developer resources. Of course, if your
time to write code and debug driver issues isn't that important, then an AMD
card using OpenCL might be the right choice.
(I'll try to be honest about my bias against NVidia, so you can more
accurately interpret my suggestions. I think along the lines of Linus Torvalds
with regard to NVidia... [http://www.wired.com/2012/06/nvidia-linus-
torvald/](http://www.wired.com/2012/06/nvidia-linus-torvald/) )
------
epaulson
For comparison, the first supercomputer that was in the Teraflops range and
that was available outside of the nuclear labs was the Pittsburgh Terascale
machine.
[http://www.psc.edu/publicinfo/news/2001/terascale-10-01-01.h...](http://www.psc.edu/publicinfo/news/2001/terascale-10-01-01.html)
It cost $45M, and peaked at 6 Teraflops. (I think that was on 32 bit floats,
but I can't find the specs. It might have been 64 bit floats)
"Total TCS floor space is roughly that of a basketball court. It uses 14 miles
of high-bandwidth interconnect cable to maintain communication among its 3,000
processors. Another seven miles of serial, copper cable and a mile of fiber-
optic cable provide for data handling.
The TCS requires 664 kilowatts of power, enough to power 500 homes. It
produces heat equivalent to burning 169 pounds of coal an hour, much of which
is used in heating the Westinghouse Energy Center. To cool the computer room,
more than 600 feet of eight-inch cooling pipe, weighing 12 tons, circulate up
to 900 gallons of water per minute, and twelve 30-ton air-handling units
provide cooling capacity equivalent to 375 room air conditioners."
------
ucaetano
It will be interesting to see how this compares to Google's custom TPU:
[https://cloudplatform.googleblog.com/2016/05/Google-
supercha...](https://cloudplatform.googleblog.com/2016/05/Google-supercharges-
machine-learning-tasks-with-custom-chip.html)
NVidia is still taking the one-size-fits-all approach to AI and graphics,
maybe it is time to develop AI-specific hardware.
~~~
melling
Isn't this simple economics? The R&D cost is amortized over a larger market.
You can always try to build specialized chips but the market might not be
nearly as big so there's a lot less money. The general purpose market still
moves faster.
~~~
ucaetano
Given that the market is big enough for a single player to develop a chip for
internal usage, minimum efficient scale is probably not an issue.
I'd guess NVidia sells far more cards than Google will produce TPUs.
------
dbalan
HN hug of death. Google cache here:
[https://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:https%...](https://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:https%3A%2F%2Fblogs.nvidia.com%2Fblog%2F2016%2F07%2F21%2Ftitan%2Dx%2F)
~~~
clw8
It baffles me how a company as large as Nvidia could get death hugged by HN. I
guess people are just that excited for Titan X.
~~~
anc84
The company is fine, just one of their blogs is down. It's Wordpress, maybe
they did bad or no caching.
------
p1esk
Anyone knows what is this new INT8 instruction does?
~~~
nabla9
NVIDIA says: 44 TOPS INT8 (new deep learning inferencing instruction)
I think it's a related to storing float arrays as arrays of 8-bit integers in
memory and converting them into floats just before using. It's 2x more space
efficient than fp16
[http://www.kanadas.com/program-e/2015/11/method_for_packing_...](http://www.kanadas.com/program-e/2015/11/method_for_packing_int8_arrays.html)
~~~
astrodust
You can get away with 8-bit floats on many neural network type applications so
that might be the idea here.
~~~
bitfiddler0
It's an 8-bit int type though. Perhaps even that's sufficient for inference?
~~~
astrodust
For a lot of network types that will do the job. 2x the performance is often
better than 2x the fidelity. You can get higher accuracy with more nodes.
------
mrb
Slightly more tech details at [http://wccftech.com/nvidia-geforce-gtx-titan-x-
pascal-unleas...](http://wccftech.com/nvidia-geforce-gtx-titan-x-pascal-
unleashed/) Notably: 1.53GHz is the boost clock, while the base clock is
1.41GHz.
Does anyone knows the performance of the half-precision units (16-bit floating
point)? It's probably 1/64 the FP32 rate, but Nvidia may have been generous
and uncapped it at 2× FP32 like GP100, which would be a big difference (128×
factor!)
------
zk00006
Can we expect the price of "old" Titan X to drop after this announcement? I
would like to upgrade 4x SLI.
~~~
dogma1138
If you have a 40 PCIE lane CPU (and not NVME drives) was the price the thing
that actually held you back? The scaling past 2 cards is also pretty horrible,
depending on how much of a performance increase it would most likely still be
cheaper to get 2 new Titan X's instead of upgrading your maxwell cards if you
can offload them at 400-500$.
~~~
akiselev
It would probably be pretty useless for gaming over 2x or 3x SLI but depending
on whether any CUDA work you need to do is compute or memory (not bandwidth)
bound, it can still make a difference worth the cost.
~~~
dogma1138
Well SLI has nothing to do with CUDA, you can have as many CUDA supported
cards as you want and use all of them they don't even have to be from the same
model/generation and you can use them all. Since he mentioned SLI i assumed it
was for gaming since it's the only thing that actually limits you. But that
said the number of PCIE lanes is still a problem this is why people that do
work on compute opt out (well are forced to) use Xeon parts with QPI to get
enough PCIE lanes because the amount of lanes available for standard desktop
parts (including the PCH) is pretty pathetic even if you are going with the
full 40 PCIE lanes E series of CPU's. This can be even worse if you want to
use SATA Express or NVME drives since they also use your PCIe lanes, as well
as a few other things like M.2 wireless network cards (pretty common these
days on the upper midrange and high end motherboards), Thunderbolt and a few
other things.
~~~
akiselev
To repeat what I just said woth slightly different wording: Yes, my point was
specifically referring to the difference between users who want the Titan X
for supercomputing versus those who want it for gaming. You can have as many
CUDA cards as you want but you face the same problem of limited PCIe bandwidth
just like you do with gamers who want SLI. If your use case is CUDA and not
gaming, then the usefulness of four Titans depends entirely on whether your
algorithms are limited by memory, memory bandwidth, or computing power.
------
steve19
Annoying Apple style branding "new Titan X" and "previous Titan X".
X2 would have been easier all round.
~~~
anoother
I agree, but X2 already holds the connotation of a dual-GPU card.
~~~
setrofim_
Could have gone with "TITAN XX" then. The added advantage is that the next one
would be "TITAN XXX", and think of the marketing opportunity there!
~~~
earthnail
The Titan XXX will be a breakthrough in VR.
------
dharma1
Fp16?
~~~
quantumhobbit
While we're at it, Fp64?
------
ipunchghosts
What is the FP64 performance???
~~~
ipunchghosts
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Nvidia_graphics_proces...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Nvidia_graphics_processing_units)
Looks like its still crap :(
Long live the titan black!
------
akhilcacharya
>$1200
Well I'm glad I got my 1080 now.
------
314
About 50-60% faster than a 980-ti / old titan. Quite pedestrian for a
generation of cards.
~~~
zeroer
Do you think we're in the mid-2000s?
~~~
314
Do you think this is any different from the trend in the past five generations
from Nvidia?
~~~
dogma1138
Yes, gen to gen was 15-20% overall improvement (which is also questionable
because when a new gen arrives all of a sudden the previous gen starts losing
performance in games, it was really bad between Kepler and Maxwell where the
780/780ti all of a sudden lost 5-15% performance in certain games with initial
"Maxwell Drivers").
~~~
314
Depends on which figures you look at.
[http://www.techspot.com/article/928-five-generations-
nvidia-...](http://www.techspot.com/article/928-five-generations-nvidia-
geforce-graphics-compared/) has a reasonable comparison. Varies between 20-50%
over the range of that sample. The increase in performance between the
980/1080 or the titans does not seem out of the "ordinary".
~~~
dogma1138
Look at the final trend chart
780ti > 980 = ~15% increase 780 > 780ti = ~12% increase 680 (potentially
should've used the 690 as a reference even tho it was a dGPU card but it was
the) > 780 = ~27 increase.
For the most part in generation that there wasn't a near ~2 year gap, and in
generations where there wasn't a huge change in GPU memory type or a major
architecture change (like dropping the hardware scheduler in Fermi for Kepler
in order to save silicon space for things that actually matter(ed) for game at
the time) there isn't a 50% increase gen to gen. 15-20% increase gen to gen
with comparable price point cards (nvidia has been making it harder now by
charging 150-200$ more per card and effectively bumping a price point lately)
is what you should be expecting.
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Death by Cloud - How Amazon is Killing Open Source Software - Garbage
http://www.keeneview.com/2011/04/death-by-cloud-how-amazon-is-killing.html
======
JoachimSchipper
The author is essentially arguing that platform-as-a-service companies like
Amazon reduce the need for e.g. MySQL support contracts. This is probably
true, but "killing open source software" is overblown.
~~~
wladimir
I'd argue it helps open source software: more people are using it. Pretty sure
that Amazon EC2 caused a lot of people to try Linux servers.
I also don't agree that Amazon support is entirely comparable with a real
MySQL support contract. If you need a feature that requires changes to the
code, the original developers are a better choice.
~~~
dangrossman
That situation won't ever occur. Once an individual/organization has chosen
Amazon RDS, Amazon support versus MySQL support won't be a discussion. You
have no direct access to the servers, so you can't make code changes.
------
bad_user
Companies producing open-source need to make money too -- that's not anything
new.
This is the reason why open-source is a commons resource for software
developers, but it cannot overtake commercial software for consumers, and
rational people could see this coming.
You can also think of it as the commoditization of the software industry, much
like Rentacoder. Companies that sell packaged software are against it,
companies that don't (i.e. IBM, Oracle, Google) are pro.
The open source community has tried
to fight back. For example, the new
Affero GPL license (AGPL) ...
IMHO, AGPL is the product of sower grapes, and the realization that Free
Software needs a business model to survive, which isn't easy when your first
customer can redistribute your software freely.
What AGPL truly allows is for dual-licensing to work for server-side products.
But what it also boils down to is that such a company isn't in any danger of
having any kind of commercial competition from forks (i.e. the perfect natural
monopoly over something that should be public commons), which is something
Free Software was supposed to solve in the first place.
AGPL is not open anymore and I don't know how it could pass the open-source
definition -- because AGPL is an EULA that restrict what users can do with
said software, usage rights that don't have anything to do with redistribution
by the normal copyright definition.
AGPL is only Free depending on which side of the dick you're standing.
~~~
JoachimSchipper
Certain groups[1] have always tried to eradicate commercial software. AGPL is
just the logical adaption to the current environment.
Also, given that BSD and GPL advocates can debate about which is "more free"
for hours, I don't think "free" is a very useful word in this kind of
discussion.
[1] "It's called GNU/crazy!"
~~~
bad_user
Yes, but by going by the definition of both Open Source and Free Software, I
don't think AGPL qualifies; that was my point.
Going by the Free Software definition, which is a lot more relaxed about terms
and simpler:
(0) freedom to run the program, for any purpose
(1) change it to make it do what you wish
How about changing it into something that has an output for which I own
copyright / redistribution rights, such that I can sell it?
If the output of a program can be considered derived work of that program,
than freedom (0) is bitch-slapped. And if redistribution is not involved, then
freedoms (2) and (3) don't enter the picture; which is why AGPL is trying to
redefine what redistribution means.
It's a word-play and I don't know how this was Open Source certified, which
makes me think that the process itself is broken (bias towards FSF maybe?).
------
latch
Not sure how this is Amazon, or even cloud specific. Any hosting company,
traditional or not, can build enough internal expertise to circumvent support-
contracts with the OSS provider.
------
franze
amazon and other cloud services are lowering the access barriere to an
advanced server infrastructure significantly. (hey, even i as a private user
now have a few instances (i.e.:vpn) in the cloud).
the cake gets bigger -> more demand for support services.
------
gregjor
nonsense
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Mac OS X Portal Performace - manvsmachine
http://www.anandtech.com/show/3726/quick-look-mac-os-x-portal-performance
======
zweben
Their screenshot comparison is inaccurate. It didn't look right to me, so I
duplicated their screenshot on my own Mac at 2560x1600. My Mac Portal
screenshot matches their PC screenshot in sharpness. For some reason it looks
like the Mac version was not running at 2560x1600 (or even close) in their
screenshot.
Here is the Mac screenshot I made: <http://bayimg.com/image/eamojaack.jpg>
Their Mac one: <http://images.anandtech.com/doci/3726/Portal2Mac.png>
Edit: thought_alarm noted that there was just an update that fixes "screen
fuzziness caused by color correction operation". That's probably what was
going on.
~~~
manvsmachine
The difference that stuck out to me the most was the lighting. Look at the
transparent pipe at the top of the room or the shadows and specular highlights
coming from the office on the left. At least for now, it seems that the
graphics engine may not quite have feature parity with the Direct3D version.
------
jwr
I don't find this surprising. Windows gaming software (which includes games,
drivers, libraries and OS) has been tweaked and optimized over the course of
the last 15 years or so. Each new graphics driver release brings improvements.
The Mac world is at the beginning of this path. While it might take shorter
(because people know what they're doing), it won't be instantaneous.
------
bcl
Tried it on my Core 2 Duo mini today. It sucked. It complains that it doesn't
recognize the Windows version of my graphic chipset, and then when I continue
it goes full screen with a pixelated image of something and starts flashing. I
had to command-Q it to get out.
And as far as the article goes, I don't consider it a valid test when you are
running on non-Apple hardware.
~~~
manvsmachine
The test results may not be completely definitive, but I think they they bring
up an interesting point: now that Apple is getting what it wants (large-scale
adoption), how is it going to handle relations with third-parties in a rapidly
moving industry such as gaming? As the article points out, the fastest Apple-
sanctioned GPU you can buy is a GTX 285. At nearly a year and a half old, that
card is _ancient_ from that industry's perspective. OpenGL 3.0? NVIDIA
released their _4.0_ drivers for Windows / Linux a month ago. As much as we
all may recognize that Microsoft has issues, their third party device / driver
support is something that Apple could learn from.
~~~
zweben
As far as I can tell, Apple still doesn't care much about gaming on the Mac.
I'm sure they could offer better graphics cards if they wanted to, it's just
low on their list of priorities.
Hopefully Steam will get enough people to start using Macs for gaming that
Apple feels pressure to start offering decent video card choices.
------
DLWormwood
The poor performance verses Windows doesn't surprise me. Consider, my Mac is
about a year old; while it's a Pro model, it was the entry level model.
Despite this, the game plays well (no human perceptable stutter) at full
resolution and settings. Valve isn't really motivated to optimize this game
due to its age and how the current Mac hardware pool surpasses what PCs were
(even accounting for the Mac platform's GPU lag) when Portal was originally
released.
The real proof in the pudding is when Valve starts to release Mac/PC dual
releases like they've been hinting at. If they have the same problems Blizzard
has getting decent performance for their hybrid releases, Apple _might_
finally notice that their lagging on GPU support is a problem and not
something they can continue to dismiss/hand off as the developer's
responsibility. (I know... dream on.)
~~~
SoftwareMaven
I heard somebody say something to the effect that the iPhone was the phone
Steve Jobs wanted (thus explaining how the company executed so perfectly on
it).
Sadly, they went on to say it was obvious Jobs isn't a gamer.
I love my Macbook. I'm thrilled with Valve for their decision to make OS X a
first-tier platform. I wish to no end Apple would take gaming more seriously.
------
thought_alarm
They released an update today that, among other things, fixes "screen
fuzziness caused by color correction operation".
It's an interesting comparison, but considering that Steam/OS X is barely 2
days old it's a little early to start drawing conclusions.
------
MikeCapone
I just played my second game of Mac portal today, and before the game started,
Steam downloaded an update.
It didn't fix any visible bugs for me, but it looks like it introduced a new
one. Now when I look into the portals, all I see is black instead of the room
on the other side. Yesterday when I played, I could see through portals fine.
It is just a glitch on my specific hardware, or did any other Portal Mac
player get this too? I figure that if all of us are getting this bug, it'll
probably be fixed soon. But if it's just me, I might be outta luck.
~~~
JeremyBanks
This isn't a bug, it's a graphics setting. You can control how many iterations
go into drawing the contents of each portal. The lowest setting is 0, which
doesn't draw any. I don't have it installed so I can't tell you exactly how to
change it, but the option's in there somewhere.
~~~
alanstorm
I found the setting you're talking about, and if doesn't fix this bug. The
portals still render as big black holes no matter the setting (well, if you
set it to 0, the portals are obscured by blue/orange flame energy)
------
davidwparker
The only bug I have is that I don't get any sound. I haven't really tried
anything yet to fix it, but played for about 3 minutes. Anyone have any
thoughts on what may be the issue though?
~~~
madmoose
I had that too the first time I started the game. I quit and restarted it and
the sound worked fine.
------
sahirh
Has anyone else had a problem where the menus have no text. As in, I can't see
the menus at all. I figured it might be a font problem but couldn't work out
what it could be.
~~~
ktconsult
I have same issue. Latest patched Steam, 10.6.3. on 1,1 Mac Pro. Tried
-autoconfig on launch in case of video issues. Runs fine on same system under
BC, Win7. Menus are there and can find them after clicking around, dialog
boxes also text-less.
------
arohner
How do we know that there aren't optimizations left to be done on the engine?
This is two days after launch on a new backend. Surely there is room left to
grow.
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
dot.dom: A feature-rich JavaScript template engine in 510 byes - icharala
https://github.com/wavesoft/dot-dom
======
icharala
I created a codepen where you can try it in action:
[https://codepen.io/anon/pen/Kargex?editors=0010#0](https://codepen.io/anon/pen/Kargex?editors=0010#0)
------
hubert123
What is this syntax? const {clicks=0} = state;
~~~
icharala
It's object deconstructuring, including a default value:
[https://developer.mozilla.org/en/docs/Web/JavaScript/Referen...](https://developer.mozilla.org/en/docs/Web/JavaScript/Reference/Operators/Destructuring_assignment#Default_values_2)
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Packing things in your brain in a way that keeps them from leaking out - Tomte
http://archive.wired.com/geekdad/2012/01/everything-about-learning/
======
jbarrow
Gwern wrote a good overview of spaced repetition and how to apply it [1]. If
you're interested in going deeper, it serves as a good starting point as he
provides all kinds of references.
[1]
[http://www.gwern.net/Spaced%20repetition](http://www.gwern.net/Spaced%20repetition)
~~~
jck
Spaced repetition(with mnemosyne) worked very very well for me when I was
preparing for GRE's verbal section. However, I have no idea how I could use it
for technical knowledge.
~~~
chipuni
I use spaced repetition every day for technical knowledge. It's very easy:
Every small piece of information that you want to memorize, create a new card.
Let me give some examples from my current technical deck:
Q: This is an open source data collection system for monitoring large
distributed systems. It's a distributed data collection and analysis system in
Hadoop. It runs collectors that store data in HDFS and it uses MapReduce to
produce reports.
A: Chukwa
Q: This is an Apache templating language and processing engine that can be
used to generate Java code, HTML, JSP's, Hibernate modules and most anything
else that can be generalized.
A: Velocity
Q: In Ruby, what command lets you determine whether you're running as a main
program?
A: if __FILE__ == $0
Q: This C++ function rearranges the elements in the range [first, last) into
the lexicographically next smaller permutation of elements.
A: prev_permutation
~~~
a3voices
Why would you do that instead of just keeping everything in a notes.txt?
~~~
mahmoudimus
Agree with parent. chipuni's strategy seems like trying to pigeonhole a
reference when statistically, you're most likely always going to be on a
computer and have access to a reference that's searchable.
~~~
taeric
The advantage for many is the actual physical association.
I liken it to learning how to get around a building by actually walking around
the building, as opposed to just seeing a map. Ultimately, when there are no
other distractions going on, one is probably as good as the other.
Not that I don't think you can't get this in a notes.txt. Just, I understand
why some would want a physical card deck where they flip a question into an
answer. Involving your body seems logical as a benefit for some.
------
spindritf
Another advantage of full stack development. Code a little, chase a bug in the
webserver, google site:serverfault.com in frustration, knock out a couple of
tickets from users, finally drive to the dc to change a failing drive.
Related, yet different, and get you to change the scenery.
Specialization is for insects.
Here's a paper with an evaluation of those techniques[1] and here's a pretty,
high-level summary[2].
[1]
[http://psi.sagepub.com/content/14/1/4.full](http://psi.sagepub.com/content/14/1/4.full)
[2] [http://bigthink.com/neurobonkers/assessing-the-evidence-
for-...](http://bigthink.com/neurobonkers/assessing-the-evidence-for-the-one-
thing-you-never-get-taught-in-school-how-to-learn)
~~~
notastartup
Amazing stuff, it confirms what I've recently been able to discover for
myself. Narrow focus on one specific problem is a fools game I am learning,
rather keep switching dishes, take a little bite each time. This incremental
practice got rid of burn out, improved quality and was able to get more work
done for less time and stress.
------
troydj
A more up-to-date and complete treatment of these exact topics can be found in
the recently-published book, _Make it Stick: The Science of Successful
Learning_
([http://www.amazon.com/dp/0674729013/](http://www.amazon.com/dp/0674729013/)).
For those that have already immersed themselves in spaced repetition
techniques via Anki, SuperMemo, Mnemosyne, etc., some of the material in the
book will be review. But there is a wealth of useful information for both
students and lifelong learners. In addition to that, the intertwined, real-
life case studies and anecdotes drive home the points. And lest my comments
come off like a back-cover endorsement, I will say that I was a bit
disappointed that the authors seemed to have little awareness of SRS' momentum
on the Internet with the aforementioned programs. For example, even though the
book spends quite a bit of time discussing spaced repetition and flashcards,
it never once mentions Anki, SuperMemo, or other popular SRS software. Aside
from that, it's still an excellent book.
------
jeffrey8chang
This is exactly how the curriculum is designed in a Waldorf school; each main
subject is taught for a few weeks intensively, then left aside for a month or
so before next re-visit.
Only things you can forget is truly learned!
------
ryanpardieck
There was a famous writer once who said that one of his greatest assets was
his extreme forgetfulness. Appropriately, I am blanking on his name at the
moment, but I'll pop back in here if I recall it. It was a long time ago.
However, his point was something like focusing on rote memorization of detail
makes for trite, superficial, and boring fiction-writing, and that you're
better off experiencing something as intensely as possible and then forgetting
it almost immediately. The idea being that your brain will recall the crucial
bits more relevantly and more vividly once they have been yanked back from the
fog of utter forgetfulness. I'm not sure how closely related this is to the
ideas presented in the article, but for me personally, it became significantly
easier to write fiction with a real sense of "immediacy" once embracing this
principle.
However, fiction can require a strange sort of learning: it can involve
sensory knowledge of scattered quotidian detail. Back when I wrote a lot,
things like the discrete texture and smell of different wooden tables were
very interesting to me. Or exactly how it feels to be in a room lit by a
single large fluorescent light vs other kinds of light. I'm not sure that kind
of learning transfers to any other domain, really. But forgetfulness was very
useful for it, at any rate. I'm done now.
------
Kiro
> you’d want to interleave serves, backhands, volleys, smashes, and footwork —
> not serves, synchronized swimming, European capitals, and programming in
> Java.
So if I want to learn European capitals I interleave it with what? The
tennis/serve example is obvious, the rest is not.
~~~
scythe
>So if I want to learn European capitals I interleave it with what? The
tennis/serve example is obvious, the rest is not.
In principle it should be another piece of knowledge which makes "European
capitals" useful, in the same way that having a good backhand gives you more
opportunities to serve. Examples would be "European systems of government",
"European political movements", "European international politics and
diplomacy", "European countries", etc. It's a little harder to think of,
perhaps, because "European capitals" _per se_ seems to many people to be an
almost useless piece of knowledge.
~~~
n8m
I agree. A simple strategy for the "European capitals" would be to learn the
size of them in conjunction. I guess the key is to search for something useful
that you can relate to easier? For Example: London, 8.3 Mil; Berlin 4.3 Mil
and so on...
~~~
sitkack
European capitals are the centers of political decision for a country, but one
could find the capitals for cheese, mathematics, water colors, etc.
------
plg
For me the problem isn't packing things into my brain in a way that keeps them
from leaking out ... the problem for me is figuring out what are the right
things I want packed into my brain
------
ojjzhna
Crude, but what I use: text file with each note a paragraph. Each paragraph
get's an integer weight. A filter repeats a given note (paragraph) as the
integer indicates. Every twenty minutes 3 random notes are echoed to one of my
GNU screen terminals. I go to that 'screen' window when I'm bored. This is
somewhat like UNIX 'fortune'. The weights are arbitary, quite a few '1's, and
some urgent ones as high as 1500 - some for learning, some for nagging.
~~~
spiffytech
Very neat! This is actually an implementation of "spaced repetition", a
learning technique that's been employed for many decades. The Pimsleur foreign
language courses, famous for their efficacy, use it.
For folks less interested in injecting this into their terminal, check out
Anki. It implements spaced repetition as flash cards, and automatically
computes how often to show a card based on how often you say you already know
the material.
------
eik3_de
for spaced repetition learning, I can recommend ankisrs.net
~~~
tunesmith
Anki is great, but I'm currently having a bit of trouble in that after
reaching a few thousand cards that are all fairly mature, I can't seem to get
below 20 cards a day review. When it's that many, I'm experiencing a bit of
disincentive in creating new decks to drill myself on new knowledge. I thought
they'd continually get slower but the rate at which card appearances slow down
seems to slow down over time as well.
~~~
b_emery
I had a similar issue using Mnemosyne. Then I read "Moonwalking with Einstein"
and I'm pretty convinced that spaced repetition is a solution to an adjacent
problem. More important is the vividness of the memory, and the use of spatial
memory (memory palace technique), along with some other techniques, for
engaging many parts of the brain. These make the memory stick much more
clearly and for a longer time.
It's a great book but I understand there are others that are more focused
specifically on techniques, with much less story.
------
Machow
I really like the broad coverage that articles like this give to the
psychology of learning, but I wonder how important some of these principles
are in a practical sense. Sure, the effect of studying and retrieving in the
same context is a classic effect, but how strong is it?
It's like reading an article on how to make money that doesn't even give you a
ballpark estimate of how much money each strategy could make you.
~~~
walterbell
> doesn't even give you a ballpark estimate of how much money each strategy
> could make you
Public strategies have short lives in efficient zero-sum markets. Here is a
site with resources and active discussion on mnemonics, memory palaces and
other practical memory improvement techniques:
[http://artofmemory.com/](http://artofmemory.com/)
------
charlieflowers
The article makes interesting claims. Some of them ring true. But there is
very little backing for the claims in the article. Therefore I'm surprised to
see it still on page 1.
------
teddyh
With the title being “… _and keep them from leaking out_ ”, I thought this
would be about mental compartmentalization and doublethink.
~~~
sitkack
Think of it as knowledge infiltration instead.
------
foxhill
> "Because humans have unlimited storage capacity..."
this is patently untrue, unless human brains defy the known laws of physics.
this makes it hard to believe everything that he mentions.
~~~
tedks
It's _functionally_ infinite, because it's bounded by encoding time, not
storage capacity. If you spent your entire life learning you would not learn
enough to exhaust your long-term memory.
This is a very basic fact about human memory that you can find in any psych
101 textbook. You should consider picking one up and reading it.
~~~
thret
The underlying assumption being that you won't live much longer than anyone
else. Hopefully this will change, and soon. Do those psych textbooks make any
guesses to how long an average human would have to live before they exhausted
their brain's storage capacity?
I am reminded of the immortal character in Douglas Adam's Dirk Gently's, who
has been alive too long and forgotten all of his early life (including who he
is). I believe he was supposed to be a Time Lord.
~~~
teddyh
This is close to the truth – that character was not supposed to be a Time Lord
in the book, but the storyline of the book is loosely based on two separate
scripts written by the same author for two separate Doctor Who serials. (For
unrelated reasons, the one script containing that character was only partially
filmed, and the serial was therefore not broadcast at the time.)
------
notastartup
Similar to the method in this article, I had already applied it to
development.
I used to work on each tickets one by one, move on when it's fully done but
this got very tiring, sometimes I would have to come back to a bug because it
was related to another one.
I started to work on each ticket for 15~30min max, moving on regardless of
whether I had got anything done. When I started to feel the burn from a ticket
I would skip it and move on to the next ticket.
What I found was that I ended up getting far more done in less time. What
happened was kind of like skipping a question on a test and coming back to it
later. Your brain keeps working on it, or maybe you had to ask stackoverflow
and it took time for someone to answer it. Anyways, time automatically began
working for me, instead of me trying to bang my head against the keyboard
until one thing was completely finished.
Once you shake off the feeling of unproductivity and begin seeing just how
easy things are when you work on multiple tickets in short time intervals, its
far worth the effort.
I've yet to name this technique, I shall call it 'notastartups maximum ticket
resolve method'
------
dang
We changed the title to a sentence from the article.
Edit: changed it again, because this piece is more interesting than "Interview
with Robert Bjork, director of the UCLA Learning and Forgetting Lab" made it
sound.
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Google Street View logs WiFi networks, MAC addresses - ableal
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2010/04/22/google_streetview_logs_wlans/
======
hesselink
I'm guessing they do this to provide location on phones without GPS, or to
improve it. Apple uses this as well on the iPhone (I think) and the iPod
Touch. I think they use this company: <http://www.skyhookwireless.com/>
~~~
rufugee
That's interesting, but it perplexes me as well. I have an iPad/Wifi, and I
believe that means it has no GPS. However, Google Maps is able to pinpoint my
location almost perfectly, despite the closest mapped street view being more
than a mile away on any side.
I suppose it's possible that the mapped my street but didn't publish it for
some reason, but that'd be odd.
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Proposal for New RGI Emoji Sequences: Washing Hands - matthewmayer
https://lemiwashmyhands.org/proposal
======
matthewmayer
While a regular emoji could take years to get approved, vendors are free to
implement ZWJ sequences. We've had some tentative interest from Facebook,
Twitter and Whatsapp already.
------
louise67
A simple and useful reminder tool at this difficult time. Thank you Matt and
Lemi
------
tushar1233
really great handwash campaign by matt #LemiWashMyhands
[https://lemiwashmyhands.org/](https://lemiwashmyhands.org/)
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Show HN: First platform with stock and crypto trading in the same account - tgoldenberg
https://www.commandiv.com
======
tgoldenberg
After months of hard work, Commandiv is proud to announce that we’re the first
platform to trade both stock and cryptocurrencies in the same account.
With the growing interest in crypto over the past year, we’ve integrated with
Coinbase so users can now manage their Bitcoin, Litecoin, and Ethereum, as
well as utilize our personalized trade recommendations for stock. No matter
what your target is, our platform enables you with the tools to reach that
goal.
Sign up for a free account today at
[https://www.commandiv.com](https://www.commandiv.com)
------
francesca
Cool. How will you be powering the trade recommedations for Cryptos?
~~~
john_zettler
We let you set a target portfolio with your targeted allocations. Then...when
some assets outperform others, we push you the buys/sells needed to get back
into alignment with your target!
------
GothamSenator
Awesome! Looking forward to putting the trading features to use!
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Andrew Warner’s 3 tips to giving interviews for founders and entrepreneurs - g0atbutt
http://thestartupfoundry.com/2011/02/22/andrew-warners-3-tips-to-giving-interviews-for-founders-and-entrepreneurs/
======
g0atbutt
Really great tips from Andrew. Andrew’s three key points in giving an
interview: 1\. Practice – The old adage “Practice makes perfect” is true.
Especially on film. 2\. Shut up – Don’t trust a producer or editor to cut
something stupid that you said. 3\. Tell a Story – People remember stories.
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Fastest internet in the world can download everything on Netflix in one second - rustoo
https://tech.hindustantimes.com/tech/news/with-a-speed-of-178-tbps-fastest-internet-in-the-world-can-download-everything-on-netflix-in-one-second-71598083166098.html
======
refresher
I assume the entire Netflix library is more than 178Tb.
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Ask HN: Recommendations for affiliate programs (clothing/fashion industry) - n1c
Hi everyone! I run dressed.so which I built for /r/malefashionadvice. Currently I'm using ShopSense/ShopStyle (for the 'shop this look' links on the post page and some other spots) and it's going alright. I'm also experimenting with Prosperent to see how that goes. I've tried to contact rewardStyle but they don't seem to keen on replying to my emails. I was wondering if anyone has any thoughts / insights into any other providers?<p>Specifically I would like to be able to track which of my users are sending traffic so I can pay them out. The affiliate links started as a way for me to cover the hosting costs but now the idea of being a platform where people can earn from their posts is growing on me.<p>I'd appreciate any other feedback as well.<p><pre><code> http://dressed.so
http://www.reddit.com/r/malefashionadvice
http://shopsense.shopstyle.com
http://prosperent.com
https://www.rewardstyle.com</code></pre>
======
thenomad
Check out www.shareasale.com - they've got hundreds of affiliate programs for
real-world items, including lots of clothing stores. I've been with them for
years now - they have an excellent reputation.
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Murder detectives sought Amazon Echo data - sorokod
http://www.bbc.com/news/technology-38450658
======
dbg31415
This is a dupe. This story was posted like 20 times in the last few days. Here
are the most popular discussions...
* Police seek Amazon Echo data in murder case | Hacker News || [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13263894](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13263894)
* Amazon refuses to let police access US murder suspect’s Echo recordings | Hacker News || [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13269930](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13269930)
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
2.4 Kernel Releases Come to an End - Swifty
http://lwn.net/Articles/491245/
======
andyzweb
should we have a funeral for it?
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Show HN: I built a fully ReactJS/Redux WPAPI theme - jackreichert
https://www.jackreichert.com
======
jackreichert
There is a link to the github repo in the footer of the site.
Still a work in progress, but I was itching to go live with it.
I look forward to your thoughts.
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Wikipedia Zero - _pius
http://wikimediafoundation.org/wiki/Wikipedia_Zero
======
itcmcgrath
I haven't looked at the details, but at initial glance - I love the direction.
While Wikipedia my not be the shining-light of data accuracy, it definitely
fits the bill for achieving good: "Perfect is the enemy of good" [1]
I believe removing barriers to knowledge access for everyone is a step in the
right direction. This tries to solve a single barrier. We still have a long
way to go.
[1]:
[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Perfect_is_the_enemy_of_good](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Perfect_is_the_enemy_of_good)
~~~
wrongc0ntinent
Yes. And the net neutrality article on wikipedia is pretty comprehensive,
maybe someone from sub-saharan Africa will come up with a better
implementation ;)
------
tmcb
I can't help pondering about the implications this move could consequently
bring to the perceptions of net neutrality.
Not that I see this project as something inherently bad, it is just the
contrary, but it can give rise to some bad moral precedents.
~~~
livnev
Would you care to expand on these bad precedents that you are referring to?
~~~
kcorbitt
Well, presumably if carriers provide reduced- or no-cost access to Wikipedia
that's a direct violation of net neutrality, aka charging the same amount of
money for data moving through the pipes no matter what it is or who it comes
from.
Presumably the OP is concerned that this could degenerate from "breaking net
neutrality is fine as long as it favors sites we like" to "breaking net
neutrality is fine".
Note that I don't necessarily share the belief of the OP, but it's certainly a
point worth some real consideration.
~~~
_delirium
I do think there is some risk (though I'm not sure how much delta it adds to
the risk either way) that it plays into normalizing the proposals for tiering,
a specific kind of non-neutral net, where ISPs would give you access to
different levels of "internet content" based on your subscription level, like
cable TV packages for the internet. Example: a few sites are available in the
Free tier, a basic whitelisted set of sites (news, webmail, popular blogs,
etc.) are in the Lite tier, everything but high-bandwidth video and torrents
comes with the Standard tier, and the full internet is unlocked only by the
Premium tier. The free tier would be made up of "content partners" who are a
mixture of nonprofits like Wikipedia, and for-profits that pay for their
inclusion in the free tier (CNN, maybe).
~~~
6cxs2hd6
Which sounds like how cable TV works (at least in the US).
In the old days when city governments granted these monopolies to cable TV
companies, part of the deal was community access channels (Wayne's World!).
Even if these benefitted hardly anyone, they provided some moral cover and
justification.
If I were an old media guy, I'd see Wikimedia Zero as the germ of an idea --
maybe suggesting a way how to squeeze the genie back in the bottle and wrap
the internet in a cable TV model. And, hey, in the US most people's ISP is
also their cable company. So ... I don't see it as a definitely bad thing, but
I see the seeds of potential bad as well as good.
(In general, a lot of bad stuff flies under the flag of a good cause fighting
some other bad thing -- "because terrorism", "because children", "because
hyper-inflation", etc. Of course a lot of _good_ stuff also flies under good
flags. I'm just saying it's not obvious either way.)
------
rsync
I want to love this idea. I want to love wikipedia.
But before I can do that, I need to _be able to use_ wikipedia. And by use, I
don't mean consume - I mean, be a full participant in a collective online
encyclopedia.
This is currently not possible.
Rather than explain or give examples, let me challenge you to start any new
article, or make any decent sized edit to any article, and let's assume for
the discussion that your facts, grammar, form, and adherence to wikipedia
style are _perfect_.
Come back and let us know how that goes.
~~~
throwaway092834
I've contributed casually and anonymously in the past without problem, but
it's been a while and I thought I'd take you up on your challenge.
But there's a complication: Wikipedia appears to be TOO COMPREHENSIVE. I can
no longer find a subject of general interest which isn't fleshed out to near
(or beyond) my level of knowledge. All my local landmarks are well
represented, as are the interesting areas I've travelled.
Do you have any ideas on an article Wikipedia needs? I'd be happy to spend
some of my own time on research and submit it anonymously.
~~~
DanBC
Here's a list of requested articles
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Requested_articles](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Requested_articles)
Here are some stubs that might need expanding into proper articles
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Category:Stubs](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Category:Stubs)
Here are articles that need more information
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Category:Wikipedia_articles_in...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Category:Wikipedia_articles_in_need_of_updating)
~~~
nl
It's been a few years, but I've started a number of articles on the "Requested
Articles" list.
Most are pretty obscure, but thankfully Google Books and Amazon "search
inside" gives access to information published before the web was born. There
are also some services where you can ask a librarian online to look something
up in a book for you. I've had some luck previously with
[http://www.nla.gov.au/askalibrarian](http://www.nla.gov.au/askalibrarian)
~~~
voltagex_
Hey, that's my "local" library!
Trove is also amazing, but fairly biased towards Australian history (for
obvious reasons).
[http://trove.nla.gov.au/](http://trove.nla.gov.au/)
------
smn
We built the SMS & USSD connectivity for last week's launch in Kenya with
Airtel [1] using
[http://github.com/praekelt/vumi](http://github.com/praekelt/vumi). Happy to
answer any questions about this, USSD isn't used as much and as such largely
unknown outside of the majority world.
[1]: [http://thenextweb.com/insider/2013/10/25/wikimedia-
foundatio...](http://thenextweb.com/insider/2013/10/25/wikimedia-foundation-
teams-airtel-provide-offline-wikipedia-access-via-text-message/)
~~~
smn
We being Praekelt Foundation [1].
[1]: [http://www.praekeltfoundation.org](http://www.praekeltfoundation.org)
------
TrainedMonkey
I think this is very important step. If this works, then we will have real
data to argue about providing free basic internet connectivity (Enough for
text for example) for entire world population.
This would allow for text only MOOC's accessible by everyone at the very
least.
~~~
001sky
I think you are right to point out the value proposition to a text-only
internet. But the implementation risks are probably more second-order and
worth considering.
The contra case is that someone will twist this into a model to charge <up>
for everything else. its better to create better public goods, than bargain
for special access to private assets, when the quid-pro-quo will surely be
some form of reciporacal monopoly rights (ie, special interest regulation).
------
0x0
So a bit like [http://0.facebook.com](http://0.facebook.com) then :)
~~~
stigi
Or [http://zero.facebook.com](http://zero.facebook.com) :)
------
jlgreco
> _" Some partner billing systems restrict the possibility of zero-rating all
> Wikipedia languages"_
What? Their billing systems can't handle a wildcard subdomain? Even so, it
isn't exactly difficult to enumerate all of the wikipedias. There are less
than 300 total, and only 121 with 1000+ articles.
~~~
hansjorg
I suspect this might be for political, not technical reasons.
~~~
jlgreco
That is my suspicion as well. It doesn't strike me as correct that technical
limitations prevent them from offering all languages in Saudi Arabia or
Russia, but the Democratic Replubic of Congo has it figured out. Going from
wikipedia, it seems like Saudi Arabia has far more developed telecom...
[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Telecommunications_in_Saudi_Ara...](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Telecommunications_in_Saudi_Arabia)
[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Telecommunications_in_the_Democ...](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Telecommunications_in_the_Democratic_Republic_of_the_Congo)
------
nakedrobot2
This is dangerous. The first reaction to such an endeavor is that it is GOOD.
Not just good, but GOOD :-)
But also, this is almost the textbook definition of "the thin end of the
wedge". I didn't really start thinking about this until I started reading the
comments here on HN (awesome!)
So wikipedia should be free. What else should be free? Who should pay? Someone
needs to pay. Who should? Let's start grouping content on one side or another.
This is a very, very bad idea.
The answer, of course, is that it should all be free. Internet access should
be a basic human right. It should be, it will be, it is only a matter of time.
But until it is, an endeavor like this is subverting net neutrality, disguised
as something good, and that is just a terrible idea.
~~~
chalst
I don't like the idea of privileging Wikipedia in this way. That said, the
question _Who should pay? Someone needs to pay. Who should?_ seems to miss the
point of the proposal: the mobile operators freely choose to subsidise this
service, perhaps in the hope that it encourages a group who largely don't
browse the web using their mobiles to do so.
------
srollyson
I remember hearing about the WikiReader [1] a few years back and thinking it
would be great for this sort of use. It's basically a cheap handheld device
with an LCD display and a local Wikipedia text-only cache that runs off of AAA
batteries. Might be useful for delivering Wikipedia content to places where
there's no cell phone infrastructure.
[1]:
[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/WikiReader](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/WikiReader)
~~~
sanoli
Right now it's under 35 bucks shipped on Amazon:
[http://www.amazon.com/WikiReader-PANREADER-Pocket-
Wikipedia/...](http://www.amazon.com/WikiReader-PANREADER-Pocket-
Wikipedia/dp/B002N5521W/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1383913578&sr=8-1&keywords=pandigital+wikireader)
------
nullc
So much for net neutrality. :(
------
rohit6223
Great initiative.. I am glad to India as blue in the map :)
~~~
swatkat
Yes! Aircel provides Wikipedia Zero, here in India. Domains m.wikipedia.org or
zero.wikipedia.org are not billed.
[http://blog.wikimedia.org/2013/07/25/aircel-partnership-
brin...](http://blog.wikimedia.org/2013/07/25/aircel-partnership-brings-
wikipedia-zero-to-india/)
------
e12e
Love this idea, but will it be plagued with problems stemming from the gratis-
ness of the initiative? Building a wikipediafs that stores (optionally
encrypted) binary data in uuencoded wikipedia articles?
Because read-only access won't be nearly as useful as allowing people to
commit. I suppose setting a reasonable limit to uploads might help a lot (say
10mb a day -- that's a lot of text, after all).
------
stigi
Reminds me of [http://zero.facebook.com](http://zero.facebook.com)
------
cupcake-unicorn
Doesn't Amazon's Whispernet already do this?
~~~
dublinben
Only if you own an Amazon Kindle device. This initiative is aimed at giving
every mobile user free access to the knowledge on Wikipedia.
------
emilymainzer
This is even better and i like the concept.
------
jmerton
I'm spare you the details, but some pages have 'Page Meisters" that you must
get by to add to the content.
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Ask HN: What's your favorite embedded system? - timtrueman
I'm looking for something rugged, capable of running Linux, and cheap if possible. I'm just curious what you guys have actually used and liked as I evaluate which one would work for me.<p>I've used this in the past but I'm curious what else is out there: http://parvus.com/products/MilitaryAerospace/EmbeddedBoards/CPU-1421/
======
bootload
_"... What's your favorite embedded system? ..."_
Arduino ~ <http://arduino.cc/>
Hands down the cheapest, most open-sourced and fun stuff you can play with. I
know it doesn't run Linux, but the cost, expandability through open-design and
toolchain make it worth considering for prototyping.
------
bayareaguy
<http://www.soekris.com> has good stuff
------
joe_bleau
My favorite embedded stuff has always been self-designed.
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Show HN: Vulcand – Proxy for microservices and API - alexk
https://github.com/mailgun/vulcand
======
alexk
Hi All! I've built Vulcand to support Mailgun's micro services infrastructure.
I think of it as Hystrix + Zuul embedded in the proxy. Let me know if you have
any questions or comments!
------
chatmasta
Very nice. I'll definitely be looking more into this.
How does it compare to hipache? [0]
[0] [https://github.com/hipache/hipache](https://github.com/hipache/hipache)
~~~
alexk
Thanks! It uses Etcd for backend configuration and has emphasis on resiliency
(implements circuit breakers and anomaly detectors)
------
Oculus
Found this talk really interesting when looking to learn about Vulcand:
[http://youtu.be/VnsA9q9hKEY](http://youtu.be/VnsA9q9hKEY)
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Show, Attend and Tell: Neural Image Caption Generation with Visual Attention [pdf] - tim_sw
http://arxiv.org/pdf/1502.03044.pdf
======
phreeza
I have to say it is very entertaining to see all these innovations in the
field coming in at this rapid pace. Its also great that most papers are there
for everyone to read on arxiv.
------
redlabs4000
Did they release the code for this?
~~~
imkx
Coming soon!
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
North American cloud IaaS providers benchmark [pdf] - alexkon
http://cloudspectator.com/reports/2017-cloud-iaas-providers-benchmark-pdf-download.pdf
======
QuinnyPig
I'm sure that 1&1's previous sponsorship of CloudSpectator reports in no way
contributed to their multiple perfect scores.
BRB, telling a CTO to move from AWS to 1&1; this will surely end well for me.
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Ask HN: Do you use kettlebells - epalmer
I'm 64 and finding that I need a whole body experience at the gym. I have foot and ankle problems and can't jog. I take a beta blocker so getting my heart rate up is hard.<p>I've just started doing kettlebells and think this might be the answer. But I only have used them two days in a row.<p>What are your experiences with kettlebells? What is your age?
======
BiancaDelRio
I used to do squats exclusively. Nothing but squats until my body simply
stopped responding. Then I switched to deadlifts. Nothing but deadlifts.
Initially everything was fine until my body stopped responding to deads as
well. Kettlebells might be just what I need. Thanks.
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
We need worms (Gut worms may be a cure) - ks
https://aeon.co/essays/gut-worms-were-once-a-cause-of-disease-now-they-are-a-cure
======
zeristor
An interesting idea, that we've come to understand the need for bacteria,
fungueses, and virus in gut flora; next stage are gut worms.
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
For 8 years a hacker operated an IoT botnet just to download Anime videos - deathgrips
https://www.zdnet.com/article/for-8-years-a-hacker-operated-a-massive-iot-botnet-just-to-download-anime-videos/
======
bediger4000
I'm skeptical of the "hobby project" designation. The botherder demonstrated
decent operational security, except for the initial lapse of German C2
servers, and the tar file with user name "stefan". Used TOR to access things.
Stefan T. Botherder wrote custom backdoor(s), and subnetted the infected
machines. Stefan was careful not to exfiltrate data so fast as to raise
alarms, and exhibited extensive knowledge of Linux and the NAS/DVR
environments.
This is a lot better than most of the sub-moronic WordPress compromise bottom
feeders who put bitcoin miners out there, or those goofs that run the Perl IRC
bot. The Perl IRC bot people you could characterize as "hobbyists", but this
botnet seems way too carefully done.
This article raises another question: how many carefully-built and maintained
botnets are there, where the botherder just flies under the radar?
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Longevity may lie in a gene called REST - dazosan
https://massivesci.com/notes/longevity-gene-rest-mouse-worms-brain-tissue-genetics/
======
abjKT26nO8
Or it may speak the truth in SOAP.
~~~
oriel
RPC will never die
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Takeaways from the Leaked Files on China’s Mass Detention of Muslims - vincvinc
https://www.nytimes.com/2019/11/16/world/asia/china-muslims-detention.html
======
wbraun
I don't understand why the BDS movement against Israel gets so much attention
when stuff like this, or worse, regularly occurs in China. I have been making
an effort to reduce what I buy from China recently, which is difficult in
electrical engineering. I hope others consider the same. We need a BDS
(Mainland) China movement.
~~~
deogeo
Does it get a lot of attention? In any case, the government policy is pretty
much the reverse - China is getting (in my opinion long overdue) tariffs and
sanctions, while Israel is getting (probably 1st Amendment infringing)
protections against the BDS movement:
[https://theintercept.com/2018/12/17/israel-texas-anti-bds-
la...](https://theintercept.com/2018/12/17/israel-texas-anti-bds-law/)
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
OSTIF, QuarksLab, and VeraCrypt E-mails Are Being Intercepted - y0ghur7_xxx
https://ostif.org/ostif-quarklab-and-veracrypt-e-mails-are-being-intercepted/
======
Kadin
While their emails may well be getting intercepted, I find it somewhat
implausible that a nation-state-level actor would go to all the work of
intercepting their messages, but do so in such a way that they disappeared in
transmission. That doesn't make a ton of sense. Sure, anything's possible, but
have they really considered simpler explanations?
My recollection of how Gmail works is that posting messages to the "Sent"
folder is a bit odd: in contrast to other email providers, where the SMTP
server is completely separate from the IMAP / incoming server, Gmail has them
connected so that if you send messages out via Google's SMTP, a copy of the
message is automatically put in your "Sent" folder. (At least, this is how it
worked for me, last time I checked.) This normally gets noticed because if you
have your MUA set up in a sane way, where it files a copy of each sent message
via IMAP into the "Sent" folder, you'll end up with duplicates. Thus, you have
to suppress the normal MUA behavior when using Gmail and Google's SMTP
servers.
Cf.: [http://superuser.com/questions/224524/sending-mails-via-
mutt...](http://superuser.com/questions/224524/sending-mails-via-mutt-and-
gmail-duplicates)
I wonder if perhaps someone had this Gmail configuration in their MUA, and
then sent messages via an alternate SMTP server. Doing this would cause the
messages not to show in Gmail's "Sent" box, and if that SMTP server was badly
configured or behaving, could easily cause the messages to 'disappear'.
Since many MUAs will roll from one SMTP server to another if the first one is
unreachable, it's not hard to imagine this happening 'mysteriously'.
~~~
dmix
NSA would definitely never make this mistake. PRISM works directly with Google
to intercept emails. So this would assume Google made the mistake in Gmail,
which is questionable. So that only leaves some other countries (assuming it
is a country and not technical anomaly or human error).
China has been known to be sloppy like this when monitoring activists but that
was probably not their top level secret services who monitor hacker groups -
those people are usually going to be good.
Not using gmail is probably a good start regardless though.
------
daveloyall
These folks are probably smarter than me, but they might not be less paranoid.
I have previously been 100% sure something nefarious was going on, (somebody
edited this file!!) and then discovered that I was connected to the wrong
server, for example.
This is only meant to help them think clearly as they investigate.
------
micah94
Why do I feel like I'm being trolled here? But maybe I'm missing something.
Why are they using Gmail? Did they not get the various memos from Snowden? Are
they not familiar with what happened to CIA director Petraeus?
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Is $100,000 middle class in America? - smaili
https://www.washingtonpost.com/amphtml/news/wonk/wp/2017/10/25/is-100000-middle-class-in-america/
======
DoodleBuggy
Obviously depends where you are located, and how you define middle class.
FWIW, this article offers a much better definition of middle class based on
historical standards in the USA:
> "we define the middle class as a set of financial attributes and assets that
> were widely considered an attainable norm in the 1960s"
[http://www.theamericanconservative.com/articles/are-you-
real...](http://www.theamericanconservative.com/articles/are-you-really-
middle-class/)
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Missing Person - Tracy Williams, Technorati Employee - sbisker
http://technorati.com/women/article/missing-person-tracy-williams-technorati-employee/
I saw this on Twitter and thought perhaps the HN community could help. My heart goes out to her family and colleagues.
======
codedivine
Technorati people, in case you are reading this, it might help to post more
than one photo of her. Sometimes, it is hard to remember or recognize faces,
when you have only seen one photo.
I hope everything turns out all right.
~~~
Mz
And post different angles if possible (front, profile, etc). It matters.
------
sbisker
I saw this on Twitter and thought perhaps HN could help get the word out,
particularly around downtown San Francisco where she was last seen. My
thoughts and prayers go out to her, her family and her colleagues.
------
veyron
"Tracy was last seen at 7:45pm PDT on Wednesday evening at the Whitehorse Bar
located in San Francisco." <\-- does the bar have a security camera, and if so
has anyone reviewed the footage from that night?
"After leaving the bar, we believe Tracy texted a friend to let him know she
was going home." <\-- Has anyone asked her friends if she sent them a text
message that night?
(these should be obvious, but there was no indication, from what I've read,
that these avenues were explored)
~~~
citricsquid
> these should be obvious, but there was no indication
I would assume the latter (txt msg) refers to the possibility that the text
message was not sent by her but sent by someone whom has been involved in her
disappearance. There was a text message from her phone to a friend, but they
don't know if she actually sent it. That's my assumption about what it means
anyway.
------
rsiqueira
Tracy Williams WAS FOUND:
"November 7, 2011 at 9:15am PDT - We are relieved to share that Tracy Williams
is indeed alive and safe at a local hospital. We want to thank everyone who
helped spread the word about Tracy's disappearance."
Source: [http://technorati.com/women/article/missing-person-tracy-
wil...](http://technorati.com/women/article/missing-person-tracy-williams-
technorati-employee/)
~~~
codezero
How can it take 3 days to find someone at a hospital? I mean, obviously it
can, but still, this seems to be an inordinate amount of time to find someone.
~~~
athom
You can't just go calling hospitals asking if a certain person has been
admitted. That's actually confidential information, and they won't just give
that out.
~~~
codezero
But after filing a missing persons report with the police, it seems that the
police would be able to quickly find out if they were in an area hospital and
contact the next of kin/emergency contact, this should take less than 3 days.
------
adrianwaj
Does a product exist combining a panic button with a gps (or mobile location)
that links to police, ambulance or fire. 1 click police, 2 clicks ambulance, 3
clicks fire... sort of thing?
~~~
huhtenberg
Dial 911 from virtually any cell phone and hang up. No need to say anything.
PS. 112 in Europe.
(edit) I meant to say that American 911 is European 112. I don't know if the
police in European countries is supposed to react to dropped 112 calls or not.
In Canada and in the US it is. A friend of mine saw it in action. He saw
something, dialed, realized it wasn't a big deal, hung up, walked away 100 m,
then, boom - not 2 minutes later a fire truck and a police car _exactly_ where
he called from. Their precision was really freaky.
~~~
iaskwhy
I'm not sure how it works on all European countries but at least on my home
country if you do call 112 and hang up nothing is going to happen. If you call
112 and say something and the call gets cut for some reason nothing is going
to happen either...
~~~
raphman
German anecdote: A few years ago my 2yr old son seems to have dialed 112 by
accident. We learned about this a minute later when the fire department called
back to check if we needed help.
~~~
sixtofour
When my kid was three or four, I called the sheriff's business number, asked
to talk to the 911 office, and asked them if I could have my son dial 911 and
talk to them, for training (his). They checked if they were busy, then said
OK.
It puffed up his chest a bit, but we talked about emergencies, how to get
help, why we don't call 911 unless it's an emergency, etc.
I suppose if everyone did it they wouldn't be agreeable, but no one does, so
you should too. :)
------
leahculver
Has anyone checked the local hospitals already?
Tracy could have left the bar like her co-workers assumed, only to have some
sort of medical emergency (heart attack? Seizure? Hit by a car?).
~~~
icebraining
_We have notified the San Francisco Police department and hospital checks are
being conducted._
~~~
leahculver
Thanks! I either missed that or it was an update to the post.
When walking around alone in SF, I'm actually irrationally afraid of getting
hit by a car and nobody knowing what happened to me. So yeah, if this is what
happened that would be terrible and one of my worst nightmares come true.
~~~
icebraining
Well, there are fall detectors out there, both as hardware devices as well as
smartphone apps, which can send an SMS automatically in such cases. Of course,
they have to be installed a priori.
------
click170
If someone could get her to leave with them without her making a fuss, I'd
suspect someone she already knows. Assuming she _did_ leave with someone.
~~~
cpeterso
Yes, most crimes like this are committed by people the victim knows. :(
~~~
_mrc
Crimes like what?
~~~
dotBen
This is beyond scope..
..or to put it more bluntly: this is not appropriate for HN.
~~~
_mrc
Fair call. I intended to say the same thing with my comment, but I should have
been clearer (rather than appearing to encourage a flame war). Sorry 'bout
that.
------
cpeterso
The FBI should use Facebook and RSS to crowdsource manhunts. California has
"Amber Alerts" for abducted children that are announced on TV, radio, and
highway signs. But the FBI might be able to get more eyeballs Facebook and RSS
feeds announcing with photos of missing people or wanted criminals. They could
have national, state, and local feeds so people can choose fewer but closer
announcements.
~~~
swalkergibson
I literally thought about building a Facebook app like this not more than an
hour ago. This is definitely something that should be built, I wonder how
difficult it would be to get the data out of the police departments...
------
geuis
Assuming that she has a smartphone, has anyone checked to see her last known
gps position?
~~~
sbisker
Usually the cops are on that sort of thing. I hope. But it might be worth
checking Google Latitude, MobileMe, Loopt and the like; if she used any of
those indirect passive GPS services.
~~~
Klinky
I believe there were major issues getting & sharing information regarding cell
tower pings when James Kim's family went missing a few years back.
<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/James_Kim>
------
drallison
_Tracy Williams Found_
[http://technorati.com/women/article/missing-person-tracy-
wil...](http://technorati.com/women/article/missing-person-tracy-williams-
technorati-employee/)
------
krookoo
This doesn't sound good. :-(
------
swah
Why the quotes on "smoke"?
------
malbs
I hope she is ok and has just gone walkabout. Even then, a courtesy "I'm ok"
call goes a hell of a long way.
------
PaulHoule
Wow, technorati is still around? That's news.
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Don't trust nice people in business - dumbfoundded
https://www.atlassquats.com/post/don-t-trust-nice-people-in-business
======
soneca
> _" Let's step back and define nice. A nice person is one who tries to get
> you to like them"_
That's not my definition of nice, so I realized there was no point in reading
the rest of the text (if the clickbaity title wasn't enough of a hint already)
~~~
dumbfoundded
How would you define nice?
~~~
soneca
To use your own words, people who are _" decent in actions and general
respectfulness"_ would be a better phrasing.
The way you define I would only consider nice those who are genuinely kind to
me. If it's not genuine, they are not nice, just pretending to be nice. So, by
(my) definition, I would trust nice people in business.
~~~
dumbfoundded
I think your definition is fair. I based mine on the dictionary.com definition
which is pleasant, agreeable.
I don't feel that these traits overlap with honesty, respect, and decency.
There are positive traits that are easy and cheap and ones that are expensive
and hard. Compliments are cheap and easy so I don't trust when people use them
in the course of a sales conversation. Trust and respect are hard and
expensive.
------
lbj
And conversely: If you're not nice I'll never do business with you.
But I do take his point: If someone is active attempting to manipulate you
using 'pretend' friendship, then that is a flag. Not red, yellow perhaps.
~~~
6510
or pink!
------
__s
HN Discussion of author's blog post from last week, "Not being an asshole will
make you more money":
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22504897](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22504897)
~~~
dumbfoundded
Nuance is important. You can be a mean asshole and a nice asshole.
You can also be a mean, decent person and a nice, decent person.
My goal is to get people to look at things that matter like respect, decency
in actions rather than the surface level features we associate with them.
------
CiPHPerCoder
> A nice person is one who tries to get you to like them. They want to be
> friendly and [amicable].
Most people who have ever talked to me in a professional setting would
probably describe me as "nice".
I don't give two flying fucks if people like me. I'm not trying to be friendly
or amicable.
_I 'm nice because I'm not weak._
I should elaborate.
There are a lot of shitty people in the world, and they come from all walks of
life. Having grown up in a low-income family in a low-income area in Florida,
I learned very quickly that the worst humans have one trait in common: They
cannot help but confuse _kindness_ for _weakness_.
Enter me. I'm a direct communicator. I will stand up for my beliefs and
values. I will enforce my own personal boundaries, as well as anyone I'm
working with, to the best of my ability. (e.g. Want to co-opt a meeting to
drop something on a team member, without consulting them about their schedule?
Hell no.)
I choose to be nice not because I want to benefit more from a transaction. I
choose to be nice because it subverts the expectations of the shittiest humans
while making life more pleasant everyone who's not shitty. Game theory 101.
> Every single person I've ever met has a dark side. You find it eventually.
> Watch out for the people that hide their dark side as long as possible. Or
> even worse, pretend they don't have one.
> No one is perfect. Everyone has anger, fear, sadness, shame, and a host of
> other negative qualities.
If someone is hiding their "dark" side--unless they're also something super
terrible like a serial killer or sexual abuser--chances are they only do so
because they've learned through painful experience to not be vulnerable.
People can and will take advantage of them.
Which means: If you find someone who is "hiding" their "dark" side... they're
actually showing you their own insecurity, and thus some of their dark side.
If they continue to hide it from you, maybe you're coming across as
judgmental?
People are complicated. It costs nothing to just be nice.
~~~
dumbfoundded
I like the balance you achieve. There's a big difference in what you put out
into the world and what you let the world do to you.
I highly value respect, politeness, and decency. Interactions with other
people shouldn't suck by default. I actually try to be nice.
I just place no value on others being nice to me. I care much more about do
they treat me with respect and decency? Are they honest?
I believe valuing "nice" in and of itself in others is exposure to shitty
people. If you value people simply because they are nice, some of them will
inevitably take advantage of you.
~~~
CiPHPerCoder
> I just place no value on others being nice to me. I care much more about do
> they treat me with respect and decency? Are they honest?
Anyone who's been in The South for an appreciable length of time won't need to
hear this, but it's totally possible to be "nice" while also being a jerk.
Respect and honesty go a long way towards productive conversations.
~~~
dumbfoundded
I don't know much about the South but I agree.
Respect and honesty are slow to earn and easy to lose. Nice is something you
can turn on and off with no cost.
Some of the most honest, wonderful, and smartest people I've met have sharp
edges. Especially on first impression.
~~~
JohnFen
> Nice is something you can turn on and off with no cost.
OK, this confirms that I have a different definition of what makes a "nice
person". Nice isn't something you can turn on and off with no effort. Nice
isn't even always the same as pleasant.
So, I'll bow out of commenting on this, as we're not really speaking the same
language. My apologies for the confusion this may have caused in my comments.
------
xtiansimon
I love discussions of language. IMHO, when you play this game of claiming word
misuse, you have to draw a distinction with the other words you feel are more
appropriate. The words you mean when you say the other word.
Then the claim would be ‘polite’ and ‘respectful’ are what people really mean
when they say someone is ‘nice’.
I like it! Nice wants to be your friend. We all need friends.
I agree ‘respect’ is a quality I appreciate, and ‘disrespect’ is an aggressive
attitude. Suggests a power imbalance.
But ‘polite’? Is it specifically required in business? Retail, certainly
helps. What do you have when someone is polite, but ‘unfair’?
Or how about when someone acts ‘respectful’, but they ignore the details of
what you’re saying? At that point ‘clarity’ is more important.
And I like it when people get to the point. Too much ‘respectful’ and ‘polite’
talk can just be word salad working to confuse the issues. (Some offshore
customer service people say things like, _I understand your concern_ or, _i
understand how frustrated you must feel_ but do they? Or are they just trained
to say that?)
I’m in business services, so we value brief and pointed conversations.
But who is fooled by ‘nice’ anyway—work colleagues and associates are not your
friends. You didn’t choose who you work with. You can become friends, but at
the end of the day who’s going to quit their job, or willingly lose money to
be your friend?
------
_aleph2c_
I think you can put more weight on "nice" being just nice if you are going to
be working in a partnership with that person for a long time, and they have a
reputation of working in longer term relationships. But if you are signing up
for a short duration, by all means be skeptical.
------
Zigurd
I'm not a secret asshole, but secretly I'm sarcastic and even snide. My idea
of humor is sometimes obscure and hard to get. That's hardly ever good in
business communications, so I hide it. I'm nice.
------
syndacks
There's something incredibly perverse about this; that business is inherently
about exploiting others.
You don't hear similar advice in medicine, education, entertainment, politics,
etc. Sure, you can manipulate people at any juncture in life, in any industry.
But business? Capitalism? "Fuck you", basically.
~~~
dumbfoundded
Education and medicine, in particular, are fraught with corruption and value
extraction.
How does a $2 trillion education loan bubble form if colleges aren't pushing
worthless degrees? How are medical emergencies the number one cause of
bankruptcy in the US?
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
reredd: think you've reddit before? - aquateen
http://reredd.com
======
run4yourlives
This site makes me cry... reddit was so great in the past.
------
aquateen
I can only get one mongrel instance running. Search also broke when I
deployed. Working on these, but just wanted to get it out there...
------
iamwil
according to the interesting links on reredd, killnine is defn pretty good.
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
When Nginx becomes the bottleneck - wslh
http://www.smashcompany.com/technology/when-nginx-becomes-the-bottleneck
======
snug
So it was just a misconfigured NGINX setup?
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Having Trouble Getting Yourself To Write? Here are some tips - ColinWright
http://www.happiness-project.com/happiness_project/2012/01/having-trouble-getting-yourself-to-write-xx-tips.html
======
mitchie_luna
I like the tips of the author. If I may add, the writer should always have a
pen/pencil and notebook on his side so that when an idea came in, he is ready
to write it down. Sometimes, the idea should be written immediately so that it
will not escape, because if it does, you may not able to recall it.
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Fighting to Shut Out the Real India - mjfern
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/04/07/world/asia/07iht-letter07.html
======
ankeshk
Here is a snapshot of India that is helpful to folks not living here.
The 2011 census just came out. What is the literacy rate? 75% only. That means
25% Indians can't read or write. Thats 300 million Indians that can't read and
write. 300 million. Thats a big number. If you focus on that number, you will
think that India is in a bad state. Doing pathetic. No hope.
But you need to go back a bit. In the last 10 years alone (from 2001 to 2011),
the number of literate people in India has risen from 650 million to 900
million. That is a huge jump. A shift of 250 million people to literacy in 10
years.
That is India. Statistically - when compared to other countries - seems to be
in the dumps. But improving at a rate that is crazy to comprehend.
India is like that dorky adolescent kid with warts and pimples popping up all
over the face. Give her 20-30 more years.
~~~
zeteo
>India is like that dorky adolescent kid with warts and pimples popping up all
over the face. Give her 20-30 more years.
Now that's a poorly chosen metaphor! What will the adolescent girl do in 20-30
years, replace pimples with wrinkles?!
~~~
akgerber
Look like a dignified adult with some grey hairs & some worthwhile life
experiences behind her, given that she is always growing & learning?
------
ajhai
> Not surprisingly, a recent law that forces private schools to reserve 25
> percent of the seats for financially disadvantaged children has become
> controversial
[http://righttoeducation.in/media/no-objection-25-quota-
say-p...](http://righttoeducation.in/media/no-objection-25-quota-say-pvt-
schools)
~~~
bdhe
This is an interesting development. So one of the biggest problems to
providing reservations (as they are called) is that the system is so corrupt
it is very difficult to ensure that only the needy and deserving get the
benefit. There are tons of people who "scam" these schemes by forging
documents of income and or caste (which are usually the basis for these
reservations). Until the underlying problem is fixed, these schemes, although
noble will only be so on paper.
------
yalogin
Wonderful article. Its absolutely true.
Its a democracy for the world to see but its really corrupt and like the
article says the rich can do absolutely anything and get away with it while
the poor are stuck and their lives never get any better. There is really no
hope for India because the educated middle-class already earn a very decent
living and so is happy. In any country the middle class is the catalyst for
change and I don't see that happening in India. They are too happy with where
India (their own life) is and so they have a fierce sense of nationalism that
everything is good. Just go to /r/india on reddit and see how people blindly
attack anyone criticising India as ignorant and a wannabe westerner.
~~~
known
It is dummy democracy. 80% Indians are surviving on 20 rupees/day. Do you
think these people can vote as per their conscience in elections?
~~~
rooney
Yes, they do and they did. Nitish Kumar, the Chief Minister of Bihar(a
backward state), was reelected with absolutely majority due to his honest and
dedicated efforts during his 1st 5 year tenure. Poor/Rich, people of all
castes/religions, voted unanimously for him and his good work.
~~~
known
I hope you know India is _not_ a
<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Direct_democracy> And people do not elect a
Chief Minister in India.
~~~
rooney
Another wrong and irrelevant comment. I live in India. I am from Bihar. I know
how my state works and how my Chief Minister is elected every 5 years. Both
the main parties are headed by their respective leaders. Nitish Kumar heads
the JDU and there has never been any doubt, before or after the elections,
whatsoever, that he was going to be the Chief Minister. Yes, the party can
elect anyone as the chief minister but thats purely in theory. In practice,
every party throws forward their chief candidate for the Chief Minister post
and they have always stuck to it - in every state - over last 60 years of
Independence.
I suggest you stop trolling HN with your predefined bias against India. Yes,
we have problems and we acknowledge it more than anyone else but you should
stop trolling.
~~~
known
As per Transparency International India, Bihar is the most corrupt state in
India. <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bihar#Economy>
Keep your corruption/suggestions to yourself.
<https://secure.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/wiki/Forward_caste> community has
brainwashed Indian voters to believe that _voting in elections = democracy_
and a solution to
[https://secure.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/wiki/Caste_system_...](https://secure.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/wiki/Caste_system_in_india)
[https://secure.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/wiki/Corruption_in...](https://secure.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/wiki/Corruption_in_India)
[https://secure.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/wiki/Poverty_in_in...](https://secure.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/wiki/Poverty_in_india)
~~~
rooney
You have no basis but online links that have no relation to the transformation
that is underway. Try and search around about the transformation of Bihar over
last 5 years since Nitish Kumar came to power and how it is the 2nd fastest
growing state in India and how corruption has taken a steep dive. It's okay.
You want to hate, do so. I ll pass.
------
groby_b
So basically, just like the U.S.?
~~~
motvbi
Yes you are right, India and the U.S. have a lot in common. The big difference
here in the U.S. is the larger middle class compared to India. The other two
big factors are corruption which is much more widespread and the caste system
which won't go away anytime soon.
Despite all that I believe India has moved in the right direction in the last
20 years. I couldn't imagine how it would have been if not for the reforms of
the nineties, which I personally believe has benefited all. Yes the rich have
gotten richer but the opportunities that didn't exist before do now for the
middle class and the poor. People don't have to depend on the government to
provide jobs.
~~~
intended
Yeah, the 90s opening of the market crushed the Indian economy and removed a
huge chunk of bad companies.
Its good to remember that what stands today, is what was left after being
opened up to the big bad world without any assistance. India has built its
entire tech base, and IT ability from scratch.
------
amitraman1
The scale of poverty is huge. With 1.2 billion, the number of poor and
destitute will always be high. This is unfortunate but true.
I go to India a lot and do see people locking themselves in from reality. BUT,
there are many more who do make an effort to improve the lives of the poor.
Anywho, India is India and will always be India. So if you don't like it,
don't go there. If you live there and don't like it, leave. Otherwise, take it
all in!
------
hariis
The article gives several examples of how things have changed from a few
decades ago. Likewise, a few decades from now, things would be different as
well.
This too shall pass.
------
known
For a Western it is quite easy to understand Indians and Indian society. If
you meet anybody from India, ask him "What Is Your Caste?"
------
known
This is one of best writeup on current life in India.
------
chailatte
A westerner's perspective.
Recent trip from bangalore airport to hotel. Started with a clean, hot dry
airport exit escorted to your air-conditioned car by hotel driver. Then
briefly open fields. Then 30 minutes of red dirt road, with freeway in view
barely in construction. With slums all along the street, with metal shacks
aptly named 'hotels', with heaps of trash openly laid out and eaten by cows,
with homeless kids/adults in bare feet walking along side of roads, with
groups of women on their knees dusting the road with brooms. Then briefly
comes tons of cars and people walking in between traffic. Tons of cars and
people. Some semblance of city began to form. 2 story buildings. Then you're
at your 5 star hotel in a 'nice' neighborhood. Across from slums and heaps of
garbage and dirt roads and massive traffic and beggars everywhere. This is
with no raining, which is usually 8 months out of the year.
Recent trip from Mumbai to airport hotel. Armed guards at outside the airport
entrance. Taxi drivers mobbing you, trying to grab your bags. Your driver
drives on local road as he speaks in his broken english how low this fare is,
and you seemed to be stuck in traffic for an eternity what should've taken
only 20 minutes. Highway barely constructed, with no workers in sight. Loud
motor cars everywhere, no semblance of order. Tons of beggars/slums fills the
side of the road. Nearby, restaurants, all with heaps of garbage sitting
outside the establishments, attracting only the locals. Some fancy houses
appear, but the are lost in the sea of ravage. A woman with a malnourished kid
comes to your taxi and knocks on your window and begs. A woman with a bloody
stump knocks on your taxi window, but your knowlegable friend says that's fake
blood, although the missing hand is real. Then after a while, you arrive in a
5 star hotel, in the most posh neighborhood/city in India, not 10 seconds away
from slums/garbage/cows/dirt. And this is with no rain.
A 3rd world country, with massive population and corruption and squatter's
rights and caste system and religious fervor and terrible weather/land. Same
economic progress in 1980s with China, but vastly diverged since.
I don't see a way out for India.
~~~
sundars
At various times westerners who dont understand the various forces at work in
india have predicted the fall of india. Churchill said: India will fall back
quite rapidly through the centuries into the barbarism and privations of the
Middle Ages (source: [http://www.winstonchurchill.org/learn/speeches/speeches-
of-w...](http://www.winstonchurchill.org/learn/speeches/speeches-of-winston-
churchill/105-our-duty-in-india))
Even we Indian barely understand all the forces and the interplay so I dont
hold it too much against ppl who pass such pronouncements.
In the last 30 years or so in every parameter (health/education/life span)
India has developed and this has happened to all stratas of sosciety. Please
understand that I am not refuting the nytimes article. I am saying that poor
people are also getting better.
Estimates for India also indicate a continuing decline in poverty. The revised
estimates suggest that the percentage of people living below $1.25 a day in
2005 (which, based on India’s PPP rate, works out to Rs 21.6 a day in urban
areas and Rs 14.3 in rural areas in 2005 ) decreased from 60% in 1981 to 42%
in 2005. Source:
[http://www.worldbank.org.in/WBSITE/EXTERNAL/COUNTRIES/SOUTHA...](http://www.worldbank.org.in/WBSITE/EXTERNAL/COUNTRIES/SOUTHASIAEXT/INDIAEXTN/0,,contentMDK:21880725~pagePK:141137~piPK:141127~theSitePK:295584,00.html)
Yes, the rich are getting richer but the poor are also getting a bit better.
I have hope.
~~~
afterburner
Who's predicting the fall of India? I think what's being predicted is the non-
rise of India.
~~~
known
India follows the "Sheep Herd" mentality. The whole country's economy is based
on people getting into "Profitable" domains mostly following the success of a
pioneer in the field. The most recent example of this ideology is the
"Business Process Outsourcing" industry. New BPO units are propping up here
and there at a dime a dozen leading to a quality deterioration in the final
deliverable. This process will continue till a saturation level is reached and
then they will wait till another "Killer" domain picks up momentum. Till then
India will be in a so called "Calm Period" where nothing great and major takes
place.
------
cooldeal
>A luxurious car with an unspeaking driver who works for 12 hours every day at
less than $200 a month,
Again. Comparing earnings in terms of USD is meaningless. $200/month in India
is vastly different from earning the same amount in the US.
Sad that even some HN'ers are taken in by this. In comments the other day
about outsourcing it was about Indian IT workers working for peanuts. Let me
tell you, first compare the prices of services and commodities and then
compare salaries and you will see the discrepancy.
>Rags-to-riches stories in India are popular but rare.
Rare? Well, I don't know the metric that the author is using for 'riches' but
it certainly is not rare.
~~~
known
Let me reveal a little secret. 80% Indians are willing to migrate to USA for
<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Social_mobility> at $200/month salary.
~~~
rjhackin
I don't think so, can you prove your little secret and what social reasons
would that be? just curious to know.
~~~
known
<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Social_mobility>
~~~
rjhackin
The only place where 'India' was mentioned for the link you provided is at the
last section towards the end of the page. It just talks about technological
advances and how people are related to that, but it doesn't say people are
migrating countries because of that.
~~~
known
You could have seen caste (in 1st para), unless you wanted to willingly
suppress it.
~~~
rjhackin
I really cannot undertand what you are trying to express. I really don't see
how 'caste' is linked to the article and your initial comment "80% Indians are
willing to migrate to USA...". Please try to understand what the problem is
and post comments on how that can be solved, that will make the conversation
interesting and live. I am not trying to suppress anything and i see most of
the comments here have gone in different directions.
~~~
known
I said in plain English that 80% Indians are willing to migrate to USA or
Western Nations at $200/month salary due to lack of
<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Social_mobility> in India.
I think you need to understand
<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Economic_mobility> !=
<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Social_mobility>
------
known
It is quite easy to understand Indians and Indian society. If you meet anybody
from India, ask him "what is your caste?"
~~~
chakde
Answer: Probabaly higher than yours because only only low class people ask
crass questions.
Here's the book to actually understand India:- "Late victorian holocausts and
the making of the third world". [http://www.amazon.com/Late-Victorian-
Holocausts-Famines-Maki...](http://www.amazon.com/Late-Victorian-Holocausts-
Famines-Making/dp/1859843824/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1302338147&sr=8-1)
As Nehru and others had observed, poverty in India is highly correlated with
the length of British rule in that part of India, Bengal being the poorest and
Punjab the richest. This is actually true of the world in general - compare
Africa with Japan - prosperity is highly correleted with the colonial
experience a country had.
Caste is almost irrelevant - the Gini coefficient which measures inequality is
much higher in the US than in India.
India which was 25% of the world's economy in 1800 was essentially crushed by
the British to make way for their industrialization via a captive market.
Internal trade in India was crushed by internal tariffs. Railroads which had a
positive network effect in the US, had the opposite (destructive) network
effect in India killing its manufacturing base and driving millions to
unemployment and dependance on agricultural land which lead to the widespread
poverty you see today.
~~~
known
One of the most corruption nations in the world
<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Corruption_in_India>
836 million people live on 20 rupees a day
<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Poverty_in_India>
Pakistan is a better nation to do business than India & China
<http://www.doingbusiness.org/economyrankings/>
Indians among most corrupt while doing business abroad
[http://business.rediff.com/report/2009/sep/24/indians-
among-...](http://business.rediff.com/report/2009/sep/24/indians-among-most-
corrupt-while-doing-business-abroad.htm)
Economic mobility != Social mobility
------
visava
I was once told that if Hell is here then Heaven is also here. The Heaven is
hidden from material eyes.300 - 1000 years back it was present even in the
material form.But it attracted lot of crusaders. So now the heaven is hidden
by poverty and slums.The heaven is in the form of spiritual knowledge which
can lead you to self relaization.Only people actively on the spiritual path
can relate to this.
------
sudomanas
Typical liberal media crap
------
Cherian_Abraham
Which is why I believe that nothing competes with a Zombie Apocalypse as a
social equalizer.
~~~
Cherian_Abraham
In all honesty, that was not meant to be mean. Really, do you think Zombies
choose between Rich or Poor?
I am an Indian, has lived in US for the past 12 years. Every time I go to
India, I am all the more reminded of how the so-called progress has not
penetrated in to the lower stratas of the society.
I use public transportation every time I am home, not because I cannot afford
to shut out the outside world, but I love watching humanity upclose. To ride
in a bus along with 60-70 others, people whose sons I might have gone to
school with, finding familiar faces in the crowd, eavesdrop on conversations,
and for a moment think of their lives, and their dreams. You cant do that
while tucked away in the backseat of a Mercedes.
Class based social racism is a real problem in India. While trying to catch up
with their neighbors, we ignore the ones getting pushed deeper and deeper in
to the depths of poverty.
Another social equalizer? Education. And the fact that most of its free
(regardless of how bad it sometimes can be in India's public schools), I am
proud of my country.
~~~
nkurz
I see you are a fast learner as to what sort of comments are appreciated here.
You two comments are like the before and after photos for a fad diet plan.
Thanks for clarifying, and welcome to HN!
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
9 Timeless Business Virtues from a 19th Century Self-Made Millionaire - brucejaywallace
http://www.forbes.com/sites/ryanholiday/2012/04/23/9-timeless-business-virtues-from-a-19th-century-self-made-millionaire/
======
cynthiaherald
Loved this quote: “Mind your own business; own your own business and run your
own business.”
------
techn9ne
PG and OG-G(?) dropping knowledge
~~~
brucejaywallace
Word
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Who Are The 5 People You Spend Time With? - philk10
http://leostartsup.com/2012/07/the-people-you-spend-time-with/
======
stephengillie
_‘You are the average of the five people you spend the most time with.’ Jim
Rohn_
I see it backwardsly - the 5 people you spend time with are the ones most like
my average. I'm not who I am because of my friends; they're my friends because
of who I am. If I were willing to replace one of these 5 with another, I would
still be me, but I would have a less-close friendship with that person.
This article seems to suggest we should all dump our current "go nowhere"
friends and try to become PG's best friend (or friends with similarly
accomplished humans). I counter with the Nash Equilibrium, that PG would
exclude most of us, and we'd be stuck back at square one, having to be friends
with plain-old each other.
The author himself whittled down his life to 2 other people. What a selfish
and lonely life!
~~~
readme
I think the important thing to realize here is that it's just someone's
opinion. It's not a scientific fact that you are the average of the 5 people
you spend the most time with.
The theory breaks down when you don't spend time with anyone, because you
can't divide by zero!
A live human being is no more influential to me than a good book. If you
really want to get a good "5" and you can't find enough talented people,
consider replacing your unwanted friends with dead trees.
~~~
kruk
You need to take into account that your interaction with a book is usually
short while the effects of your interactions with people accumulate over time.
It might be different for people with very strong personality but I think it
is generally true that we are strongly affected by the people we surround
ourselves with.
------
eshvk
I feel sad for the author if he actually believes this. Sure your environment
does influence you a bit, there is something to be said for self determination
and individual character. I have throughout my life enjoyed friendships with
amazing people who have driven me to succeed. On the other hand, I wouldn't
have the depth/perspective in life where it not for my incredibly enjoyable
friendships whom I have had with people who didn't exactly "succeed" in the
conventional sense of the word. Friendship with those "less successful" people
didn't exactly pull me down or make me "any less" than who I am right now.
Sometimes one makes friends because one enjoys a dimension of a person's
character and not just because they make a ton of money or start a bunch of
companies.
~~~
readme
I think OP has a point but his theory neglects that dead people are still in
our 5 through their works that live longer than they do.
It's possible to be a complete loner and still have a "5". Also count people
you don't personally know who influence you through their current works...
------
brianlovin
I appreciate the sentiment of OP's article, but I (slightly) disagree.
Many of my closest friends are not successful, in the conventional sense of
the world. They coast through college and float through life. Smoking weed and
drinking are their past times.
But you know what, they're my closest friends. They don't hang out with me
because I can help them with business or earn them money. They ask me for life
advice, not business advice. They don't give a shit about traffic to websites,
they care about how many people they can get to laugh at a joke.
They're rooted in the real world, not the tech world. They understand people
way more than they understand technology, and I think many of us here on HN
could use a dose of that.
So while it is admirable and refreshing to surround yourself with smart and
ambitious people, let's not lose sight of our roots and the beauty of loving
people for no other reason than that they bring us happiness.
------
nick_urban
'Spend time with people who want to have the kind of life you want to have.'
This is a great motto if you actually know what you want. If not, you might
choose the wrong people and end up with something that doesn't make you happy.
Also be careful that you don't cut the people out of your life who would have
given you an important perspective (or would have had your back).
Being with smart people is good. Being in an echo chamber full of self-
important opportunists is not.
------
hcarvalhoalves
_It doesn’t matter how smart you are. It doesn’t matter how talented you are,
which skills you have, where you are born or which family you came from. All
that counts if you want to be successful in life is the people you surround
yourself with._
That's just sad, centering one's life around others. I present you a different
perspective: [http://artofmanliness.com/2012/06/11/becoming-an-
autonomous-...](http://artofmanliness.com/2012/06/11/becoming-an-autonomous-
man-in-an-other-directed-world/)
~~~
guard-of-terra
It's not. If you're not talented, not skilled and not interesting, nobody of
interest would let you surround yourself with them.
------
melvinmt
"Lifehacking" your friends for individual gain is going to leave you with no
friends at all.
There's also a paradox to it; why would anyone who's supposedly "better" than
you, have you as a friend?
~~~
ams6110
I don't think he said or meant that you should try to have friends who are
"better" than you but rather _those that will help you get to the next level
you want to get to._
In other words, people who are supportive and have abilities and interests
that complement your own.
I certainly know people who are toxically negative, gripe about everything and
complain about perceived injustices, and when I spend time with them I become
less motivated. And the converse is true, thinking of one person in particular
who I would not consider a friend (in that we don't hang out socially) but who
is so positive and energetic about everything that it's hard not to ride that
wave when you spend time with him.
------
bootload
_"... One conclusion I kept coming back to in this talk is that a large amount
of how successful you will be in life comes down to the people you spend time
with. ..."_
Wrong. Extrovert. What about creative introverts?
_"... Most inventors and engineers I’ve met are like me. They’re shy and they
live in their heads. The very best of them are artists. And artists work best
alone ..."_ Steve Wozniak, iWoz ~
[https://www.nytimes.com/2011/06/26/opinion/sunday/26shyness....](https://www.nytimes.com/2011/06/26/opinion/sunday/26shyness.html?pagewanted=all)
~~~
eurleif
Being an introvert doesn't mean not being influenced by the company you keep.
Most introverts aren't asocial, they just enjoy being alone more than
extroverts do.
~~~
bootload
_"... how successful you will be in life comes down to the people you spend
time with. ..."_
I read this as equating success by association. Not in the presence of the
right company the authour flounders. Woz discredits this idea.
~~~
eurleif
How does Woz discredit the idea? He said that he works best alone, not that no
one else was involved in making him successful. Do you really think Woz would
have been as successful if he had never met Steve Jobs?
------
josephcooney
What about kids? "I won't spend time with my 2y.o. because he wants to drive
trucks around in the mud and aspires to stop peeing his pants, and that just
doesn't align with my life goals".
~~~
lotharbot
The advice in this article seems to be much the opposite of "work-life
balance". It's suggesting that you stop spending so much time with your kids,
your elderly parents, your sister with a mental illness, and so on -- or,
rather, that if you spend time with such people, you'll be less "successful"
or "accomplished".
I don't buy it. IMO one of the major factors that encourages success is having
a reason for your goals -- often, wanting to provide a good life for your
family. In my current household, the five of us (who spend most of our time
with each other) have primary ambitions of "make a solid career", "keep the
household running smoothly", "recover from severe illness", "learn to poop in
the toilet", and "learn to talk". Part of what makes us successful at the
first two is the _motivation_ to support the other three.
------
vipervpn
One of my best friends is an elderly woman who lives alone and cannot walk.
She slurs her speech because of a bad head injury a few years back. She has a
terrible short term memory.
She is pretty cool.
I visit her about three times a week and we will talk for hours. I wonder why
we get along so darn well - I'm a 40 year old single guy with practically zero
in common with her - but I always leave her house feeling happy. She will wave
goodbye to me from the screen door until I am out of view.
I like watching out for her wellbeing and brightening her day, yet I still
feel I'm the one who is benefiting.
------
lcusack
This idea of friendship is heavily influenced by a western consumeristic
culture. Friendship is a transaction, only worth it if we are getting an equal
or greater amount out of it. The irony is that when friendship is thought of
in this way it ceases to be friendship. It's simply another commodity.
True friendship is based on a covenant relationship. I will be with you no
matter what and therefore I am your best friend.
------
Killah911
Seriously? I would refute this article some more, but alas others have beat me
to it. I really like the quoting Dr. Dre for philosophy part. I don't think
Dr. Dre was necessarily talking about "losing" friends in the same way as the
author...
------
zavulon
> Today, the people I spend time with are just 2 people. Joel and Tom.
That is really, really sad.
~~~
ams6110
In your mind. He seems to be happy with it.
------
10098
As I see it, this article boils down to "maintain relationships with people
for profit, not fun". Which does not look like a good approach to
relationships to me. Look at it this way: what would you do if you found out
one of your friends did this and somehow you ended up on his "list"?
Personally, I'd try to avoid contact with that person as much as possible.
------
cristos
It sounds like the usual doctrine stuff.
This can apply to an individual, but isn't generally true. Close 5 awesome
doors, but open two that match you at that point. Alienating people is never,
ever an option to consider - there can be exceptions, of course - if there
isn't honesty, or the person drools on your floor and throws fecal matter on
your wall.
"I am you and what I see is me."
Your personality is reflected through other people. You are a true friend, a
helpful person with cool ideas, the other person will follow along, usually.
I'll scratch your back and you'll scratch mine.
What can be wrong with having everyone as a friend and helping and get helped
by the ones that stick over the years?
------
jnacks
90% of your time with 2 people every day? What's left in a few years?
------
Tichy
And when/if you actually do get successful, you realize you don't have any
real friends and shoot yourself. Congratulations!
~~~
gutnor
When you have that mindset, you find yourself with likely minded "friends".
The problem is not on the way up, the problem is your "friends" will also
brutally let you down if you are ever in a bad spot, or not performing to
their expectations.
Of course in the beginning there is almost no downside: you find yourself with
other young motivated entrepreneurs, you share success and failure, the entry
to the club is only motivation. If you make it, you will want to surround
yourself with other winners, but now the entry to the club is success. That is
when statistics and human nature start to play against you.
------
rlu
what a disgusting read
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
If you’re so smart, why aren’t you rich? Turns out it’s just chance - baq
https://www.technologyreview.com/2018/03/01/144958/if-youre-so-smart-why-arent-you-rich-turns-out-its-just-chance/
======
dang
Submitting follow-ups is not a good HN practice. It's better to link to the
new article from the original thread (in this case,
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23395689](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23395689)).
See
[https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=true&que...](https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=true&query=by%3Adang%20follow-
up&sort=byDate&type=comment) for past explanations.
In addition, though, this article is a straight-ahead dupe of
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21312966](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21312966)
from 8 months ago. That's something you could have found by using HN Search:
[https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=true&que...](https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=true&query=technologyreview%20smart%20rich&sort=byDate&type=story).
(This is how I found it.)
------
karmakaze
It's luck and two other things.
> explore different kinds of funding models to see which produce the best
> returns
1\. Having funds (e.g. family wealth) makes it possible to capitalize on any
chance opportunities
2\. At the extremes, taking risks will play a factor: fortune favours the
bold. You may win or lose bigger--you'll less likely land in the middle.
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Leading companies are trying to make powerful, low-cost Lidar - Tomte
https://arstechnica.com/cars/2019/02/the-ars-technica-guide-to-the-lidar-industry/
======
derek_frome
Tim is one of the best informed journalists on lidar - and this is a pretty
solid summary of where the leading companies are (although Luminar continues
to be incredibly misleading).
------
Tomte
Again, HN software mindlessly strips the title. Here it's not just "How"
(debatable), but also "10", which is useful information, and would have
survived in another position in the title.
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
3. 2. 1. Contact. The Google Contacts API has landed - hwork
http://googledataapis.blogspot.com/2008/03/3-2-1-contact-api-has-landed.html
======
simianstyle
On a side note, I used to love that magazine and was disappointed when they
changed it to "Contact Kids". I think there was also a TV show.
~~~
wallflower
> I think there was also a TV show
Yes. It was a kind-of science show. Thank you for the jaunt down memory lane.
I'm trying to play the theme song in my head now without google assistance.
"3-2-1 contact. Reason mumble everybody"
~~~
icky
3-2-1 Contact was awesome! Of course, I was 5 or 6 at the time... ;)
~~~
tipjoy
How about Square One... Mathnet! The Mystery of the Maltese Pigeon was my
favorite one. I remember it so fondly, I'm almost afraid to go find it on
YouTube.
~~~
wallflower
Mathnet! That was an afternoon staple for me. The two detectives named after
days of the week...
As a kid, I remember watching one episode where they opened a door with a
credit card(!) and I was like "Mom, do you have a credit card" - I didn't tell
her why and next thing I know after thirty minutes I shocked her by opening
our side door with the credit card. Later, I got it down to 5 seconds and they
changed the locks...
------
mk
This is weird I was just looking into this yesterday and seemed to miss them
releasing the API.
The other options I was looking at was A.) doing it ourselves. B.) using
libgmailer or some other OS API C.) using octazen.com.
The octazen approach seems to take the least amount of time, which is
important in this situation. The problem I was having with the octazen demo is
that it was breaking on gmail accounts. When I asked their tech support what
was going on they seemed to not know about the issue and asked me to try
again. I bet it doesn't work because google changed their calls when they
released the API. Now we at least have another option if we decide to go with
A or hack up B or C.
------
spif
very awesome this. We've just been working on getting our sync engine to work
with GMail, using crappy gem's and been writing specs to use their
undocumented JSON calls. Which would have been fine, but this is even better.
Looks like Google is actually doing something with their Dataportability
membership!
(BTW for those interested check out www.soocial.com our sync tool)
~~~
luccastera
just curious, what gems are you using?
~~~
spif
gmailer
------
ALee
Yay, perhaps now we'll have a better import/export tool. Or maybe a tool to
create more Xobni-like features (most frequent contacts, etc.)
------
chooseanother
"Have you ever been on a web-site that asked you for your Google username and
password... Did you think twice before giving out that information, hoping the
web-site would not use it to access your credit card information..."
I cannot say, how laughable that sounds to me.
I would never even think first about giving one website my passwort to another
website.
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Why Failure is Good - bemmu
http://www.kimmosblog.com/2008/12/07/on-failure/
======
jeeringmole
"Dealing with failure is easy: Work hard to improve. Success is also easy to
handle: You've solved the wrong problem. Work hard to improve." Alan Perlis,
Epigrams in Programming (#101) <http://www.cs.yale.edu/quotes.html>
------
flashgordon
liked the bit about "blame everybody, and then blame yourself (because you are
the real cause)". Wouldnt a lot of world's problem be solved if people
actually started blaming themselves? Ofcourse lawers may not like that option
as it dries out their chances of suing someone frivolously!!
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Find Your Voice: Writing for a Webzine (1999) - panic
http://polaris.gseis.ucla.edu/pagre/zine.html
======
pjc50
> The role of the audience is central in another context: MP3. MP3's explosive
> growth is fueled by the appeal of free stuff, of course, but at a more basic
> level it is fueled by musicians' fervent desire to circumvent record
> companies and their onerous contracts. Record companies do roughly three
> things: production, distribution, and promotion. Production can already be
> bought by the yard, and MP3 promises a new distribution system. That leaves
> the most complicated of a record company's functions, promoting records.
> [...] In order to circumvent record companies completely, it follows that
> bands must learn to use the Internet to promote themselves -- that is, to
> build an audience.
Interesting and prescient. A good reminder that the "copyright wars" are
three-sided. The record companies like to pretend that they're protecting the
musicians from the public, but who's protecting the musicians from the labels?
------
verytrivial
Google Cache:
[http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:xut4LgT...](http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:xut4LgTjEzYJ:polaris.gseis.ucla.edu/pagre/zine.html)
------
mojoe
The article talks about private, public, and commercial voices as if they're
discrete things, but it seems more like a spectrum to me. For instance, my
zine is ostensibly commercial (compellingsciencefiction.com) but I have
specific goals about the kinds of stories I want to get people reading, which
limits my audience pretty drastically. I think in most true commercial
ventures businesses adapt their products to find a market (which makes money)
rather than try to adapt the market to their product (which is harder and
makes much less money). This is just one example of a point on the spectrum of
private-to-commercial.
------
rijoja
I have some experimental ideas of a not so serious underground zine format.
Please contact me if you are interested.
~~~
farleykr
Also, I'm not seeing any contact info in your profile. How should I contact
you?
~~~
rijoja
Ah totally forgot that this wasn't reddit, and that there is no way for you to
PM me. Drop me an e-mail at [email protected] and we'll take it from there!
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
SNAP: Stanford Network Analysis Project - indescions_2017
http://snap.stanford.edu/index.html
======
Topolomancer
What I like most about this project is actually the repository of data sets.
Curated graph data sets are hard to come, and the ones at SNAP have already
been used in different publications, so there are fewer errors and, usually, a
good baseline for comparisons available. Plus, the data sets are relatively
diverse.
------
drewpc
Looking for a similar library that works with Python 3? Checkout NetworkX.
It's awesome! [http://networkx.github.io](http://networkx.github.io)
------
jwtadvice
Military funded (DARPA's Social Media in Strategic Communication program) to
develop the research necessary for running highly automated global-scale
social network propaganda campaigns.
------
aksakalli
It is really good at performance (thanks to optimised C++ implementation) for
running it on large networks compared to networkx or other pure python
implementations but its usability is very bad.
~~~
chuckcode
Agreed. Useful but documentation is minimal, uses some non-standard naming
conventions.
------
rememberlenny
Can someone explain why this is coming up now? From what I see, this looks
like an old project (2014). I'd love to understand if there is something fresh
to be aware of.
~~~
philipov
Well, I didn't know about the project, and now I do. Looks really promising,
too.
EDIT: except, looks like they don't support python 3 yet. That's a
dealbreaker, unfortunately. All my code is in python 3.6.
~~~
rspeer
I don't care about a bunch of Python 2 research-quality code. The amazing part
of the project, to me, is all the _data_ that they make available in one
place.
~~~
hashnsalt
Another great source of network data:
[https://icon.colorado.edu/#!/](https://icon.colorado.edu/#!/)
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Voices of America - tintinnabula
https://newrepublic.com/article/140976/voices-america-podcasts-stories-individual-obsession
======
slg
>Podcast listening carries with it a faint aura of cultural snobbery, a notion
that to cue up an episode is to do something highbrow and personally
enriching, whether it’s a history lecture broadcast from a university, or an
amateur talk show recorded in someone’s garage. Both types of show are
somewhat educational, in the sense that they expose listeners to unfamiliar
subjects and subcultures.
This is only true if you ignore any podcast that doesn't fit in those two
random buckets that the author made up. There are plenty of big sport podcasts
that are taking the place of sports talk radio. There are also a huge number
of successful comedy podcasts if you start scrolling down past the top 25 on
iTunes.
If you are looking for great examples that fly in the face of that "aura of
cultural snobbery", I can't recommend enough the podcast network of Maximum
Fun [1]. It is a network created by the host of the NPR show Bullseye, Jesse
Thorn. Most of the podcasts on the network are silly and stupid in the best
possible ways. Even the shows that talk about serious issues don't take
themselves overly serious.[2] The network is currently wrapping up their
annual NPR style pledge drive and most shows are putting out their best
episodes this week so it would be a great time to try some. My personal
favorite is Jordan Jesse Go which is one of the oldest podcast around and is
anything but snobby and highbrow. [3]
[1] - [http://maximumfun.org/](http://maximumfun.org/)
[2] - A great recent episode in which Jesse Thorn, the host of NPR's Bullseye
interviews Guy Branum, the host of Max Fun's Pop Rocket about his new TV show,
growing up different in a small town, and coming out in graduate school.
-[http://maximumfun.org/pop-rocket/pop-rocket-
episode-116-bonu...](http://maximumfun.org/pop-rocket/pop-rocket-
episode-116-bonus-guy-branum-interview)
[3] - [http://www.maximumfun.org/shows/jordan-jesse-
go](http://www.maximumfun.org/shows/jordan-jesse-go)
~~~
sealjam
I really can't understand that first quote. Even if you believe you're doing
something "highbrow and personally enriching", that doesn't make you a snob.
~~~
AnimalMuppet
If you do something highbrow _because it 's highbrow_, that probably does in
fact make you a snob. Whether that was intended by the original quote, I will
leave others to decide.
~~~
ImSkeptical
I disagree. You might want to experience a change of pace. You might be
interested in what "highbrow" is. You might like to challenge yourself.
To be a snob, I believe you'd have to look down on other people for their
preferred content forms. E.g. "Oh, you're reading a website? I remember when I
used to do that. Before I had discovered podcasts."
------
panglott
tl/dr: Thanks to Serial, podcasting has acquired a snobby cultural cachet
among the NPR set, but it has surprising origins 10 years earlier among nerds.
Still, it can't entirely replace public broadcasting.
What a weird take on podcasting.
~~~
CharlesW
> _Still, it can 't entirely replace public broadcasting._
If you mean "public broadcasting" as what they _do_ , I'm with you 100%.
Nothing about podcasting reduces the need for not-for-profit organizations
like this.
If you mean the radio-based sound delivery system part, this must transition
to the open web, and that means podcasting¹.
> _What a weird take on podcasting._
Amen!
¹At least for on-demand delivery. There's no live equivalent to the podcasting
ecosystem right now.
~~~
panglott
"Public broadcasting" means a lot of different things. But one of the great
values of radio-based sound delivery systems is that they are very local. And
local radio cultivates niches that translate well into interesting podcasts.
For example, when studying languages, one of the great sources of listening
material is podcasts produced by local radio stations. There isn't a lot of
material in Cajun French (vs. Parisian French) available—except for Cajun
French music and local news radio shows/podcasts in south Louisiana. There's
an Ainu-learning podcast I subscribed to once that IIRC was produced by a
Hokkaido radio station. The local base of the radio station has synergy with a
non-local/Internet audience.
The major European non-English broadcasters tend to have streaming services
rather than podcasts for some reason.
------
camtarn
"We are living through a great flowering of the podcast industry, whose
province of iTunes is something like a frontier boomtown right now, teeming
with hastily erected new storefronts. The podcast form has been around since
about 2004—it is kissing cousins with the iPod, in that way—but it was only in
2014 that the idea struck gold."
Uhhh... what?
[https://trends.google.co.uk/trends/explore?date=all&q=podcas...](https://trends.google.co.uk/trends/explore?date=all&q=podcast)
A re-flowering perhaps, looking at the trend's rise since 2014 - but certainly
not as popular as it was around 2005-2006.
~~~
CharlesW
> _A re-flowering perhaps, looking at the trend 's rise since 2014 - but
> certainly not as popular as it was around 2005-2006._
FWIW, that chart doesn't correlate with any measurements of podcasting
popularity (e.g. downloads, research) that I'm aware of.
For example, Edison Research notes that general familiarity with the term
"podcasting" has gone up 22% with Americans in the last two years. Saturday
Night Live's satire of _Serial_ is an example of how podcasting has broken
into mainstream awareness in a way that it definitely had not even three years
ago.
------
SoulMan
I am glad that I found this article. When I search for podcasts, I
predominantly see listings from America and Britain. Unfortunately, I could
not relate to most of them as I grew up in and lived in India. There is
cultural/historical tight coupling with west except some of the BBC ones.
In my opinion, the radio never took off in India. I see old Hollywood films
and realise that in the pre-mobile internet era radio was a major way to be
entertained and communicate while in the road. I can visualise family road
trips (Playing empty roads .. west Virginia on FM) on a deserted free way.
Same for a truck driver and amateurs having ham radio conversation.
On the contrary India Railways have been the primary inter city commute.
People talk to each other instead, as there are always many people around (Its
kind of true everywhere in India :)). However, with cheap mobile internet,
this is changing. co-passengers may get busy on their own smartphone even in a
24 hours long journey. I think we directly jumped from Television to moile
internet never bothered abour radio. There was a rise of world space radio in
mid 2000s but turned out to be costly. With no restriction on pirated mp3s
from the internet and burning them on CD/ putting them in USB sticks and now
side-loading on smart phones, we never bothered about or dependent on music on
radio. This is one of the reason services like Flipkart flyte who offered paid
mp3 download never succeeded. While countries like Norway switching off FM
some of the cities in India are just coming up with their first channels, that
to full of commercial. Its too late for radio I think. With Google installing
free WIFIs in all railway stations and Reliance Jio giving dirt cheap 4G
internet on mobile (as a result all cell companies matching their offers)
having internet enabled phones will be soon a hous hold thing even in a
poorest hoise.
What we don't have is content. There are millions meaning less whatapp hoaxes
being forwarded which most of the people see as interesting and true.
Especially my father's generation refuse to disbelieve anything which is on
the internet(Whatsapp/facebook). There is no sense of responsibility of the
people who spread those messages.
There is no good Indian radio or podcast online now , at least what I think is
good. I think we need a "Serial moment" .
~~~
CharlesW
> _There is no good Indian radio or podcast online now…_
"Good" is subjective of course, but here's a nice, categorized list of many of
the best: [http://rockingentrepreneur.com/list-of-indian-
podcasts/](http://rockingentrepreneur.com/list-of-indian-podcasts/)
If you search for "best indian podcasts" you'll get many other thoughtful
lists of great Indian podcasts.
If you're personally interested in podcasting, this is a unique time in the
history of the medium. You could take advantage of the potential opportunity
by starting your own podcast, or by creating an Indian podcasting network that
helps others create India-centric shows.
------
strictnein
> "The podcast form has been around since about 2004"
Downloadable audio shows predate the iPod and the term "podcasts". For
example:
[https://web-beta.archive.org/web/19981212013454/dailydementi...](https://web-
beta.archive.org/web/19981212013454/dailydementia.com)
High production values, interviewing guests, etc.
------
dredmorbius
Of all the articles I've read in my life ... that was one of them.
I don't even know where to start, though I'll try.
I access a lot of media, in different forms, much of if online: articles,
books. And quite a bit of spoken or video content.
Most of what counts as "podcast" listening for me comes rather from YouTube,
mostly as recorded lectures or interviews. The better material tends to run 10
- 60 minutes, though it can occasionally go over (most ideas, and speakers, as
well as myself run out of steam after about an hour).
With few exceptions, I tend _not_ to follow any podcasts as such particularly
religiously. There are a few exceptions. I raised a stink some months back
when the CBC blocked my podcasting app (Podcast Republic) from accessing its
content, on the exceedingly slim pretext that PR's occasional text banner ads
constituted "commercial use" \-- and the stink was raised specifically because
Paul Kennedy's _Ideas_ is a very nearly uniformly excellent program. Unusual,
intelligent speakers, outside the Overton window, and generally not heard on
other programs.
The other regular programme is WNYC's _On the Media_ , which is also
excellent, and largely serves as the breech in the news dike I've erected -- a
once-a-week dose of reality seems to be about right for my constitution, if
perhaps not the US Constitution....
But ... other than those two (and they're excellent), I mostly prefer queuing
up a set of related items, and working my way through them. Even with
podcasts, what I'm often aiming for is to string up a set of programmes or
episodes that I'm currently interested in listening to. My listening _doesn
't_ follow any particular schedule.
For YouTube or other downloadable content, the best solution is often to
simply download the material (and usually simply the audio), and to queue it
up on VLC.
(I've previously noted on HN that this is possible on Android if you install
the Termux and Termux-API aps, the termux-api shell tools, python, and via
pip, youtube-dl.)
The Android environment is still sufficiently fuxnored that for a long
playlist -- say, the 48 episodes, 30 minutes each, of David Christian's Big
History lectures -- your best bet is to download _everything_ first, then
queue up the set. It _isn 't_ possible to do the Linux equivalent of
constructing a playlist and running, say, mplayer over it:
<playlist while read file; do mplayer "$file"; done
(Though it may be possible to construct a playlist file and run it.)
VLC _won 't_ directly stream YouTube or other online video content on Android.
So no dice setting up a playlist along those lines.
What's proved most annoying is that the software I've experimented with to
date _simply doesn 't retain or sustain specified lists_. Podcast Republic
allows items to be added to various lists ... but they vanish within seconds
(I've reported the bug). VLC allows queueing up of multiple items, but doesn't
really seem to sustain _that_ list very well. And trying to find and utilise
the playist files that do exist is ... awkward at best.
Beyond this, when playing content, the controls for managing playback ...
don't exist.
Mplayer is awesome on Linux as there are keyboard mappings to skip backwards
or forwards within a track, across tracks, speed up or slow down playback, or
pause. When I'm following a lecture, all of those are employed.
VLC offers none of this.
Podcast Republic has a GUI control to skip forward and backwards (15s) within
a track, which is quite useful. But there's no keyboard mapping.
Short of all of this: there's some truly amazing content out there. Tools for
accessing and programming it from a user's PoV are sorely lacking.
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
The Release Windows Archaism - phaet0n
http://www.mondaynote.com/2012/11/25/the-release-windows-archaism/
======
qeorge
The OP is begging the question. The Release Window never had anything to do
with technology. Its has always been about money. Money is not an "analog era
relic".
Obviously the content producers have considered doing away with release
windows, and for now have chosen not to. Its safe to assume they've decided
they'll make the most money this way. So why? That is a much more interesting
question.
Some things to think about:
1) iTunes/Amazon/Google pay the content producer each time they sell something
(basically consignment), instead of making a big purchase upfront and then
reselling the product (like DVDs, or even Netflix). The DVD model seems much
better for the content producer, as the DVD saler is taking some of the risk
whereas iTunes/Amazon/etc assume none of the risk.
2) Cannibalization is a bigger issue than we might think. Streaming with no
release delays is basically an a la carte model. Its likely this would reduce
the content producer's total take.
Chris Dixon has a great article on why bundling can be a win for both sellers
and buyers here: [http://cdixon.org/2012/07/08/how-bundling-benefits-
sellers-a...](http://cdixon.org/2012/07/08/how-bundling-benefits-sellers-and-
buyers/)
3) The author is probably overestimating the increased sales generated by an
earlier DVD/streaming release.
4) Not everyone is willing to pirate content, simply because it is illegal to
do so. For some people, not being a thief is more important than seeing
Homeland Season 2 _right now_. Thus the growth of piracy may be limited in a
way the OP does not understand (not by viruses or technological hurdles, but
just because some people don't want to be pirates).
Perhaps there's a model where simultaneous releases do make more sense for the
sellers. I'd certainly welcome it. But its not obviously better for the
sellers, and protecting your revenue stream is not equivalent to being stuck
in a "wasteful rear-guard fight for the preservation of an analog era relic",
as the OP claims.
~~~
InclinedPlane
Hold on a minute. The release window was originally an accident and very much
dependent on technological limitations. Back in the 1980s, for example, it
took time to produce a vhs version of a film movie, and that was a big factor
in creating the "release window" in the first place. As technology changed and
production has become all digital there has become less and less of a
technological reason for the window, but it has persisted because publishers
have decided they think it's a good idea, for monetary reasons.
Whether that's true or not is still an open question because nobody has
actually had the guts to complete eliminate the window and see how it affects
business.
------
Hupo
Speaking of archaisms, especially in case of video/film content, there's also
one other thing... exclusive licensing.
Seriously, exclusive licensing has absolutely no place whatsoever in the
digital market. Yet they're still generally bundled with physical licenses
like DVD rights and whatnot and then you end up with digital stores region
locked to a single country because they haven't "licensed" it to stores
operating in other countries or they have licensed it to some entity in said
country that doesn't give the slightest toss about serving people in a nice
digital manner.
Think about it: if exclusive licensing didn't exist for digital distribution,
all TV shows and whatnot would be given out to any interested party. It could
actually be feasible to have some real competition on what entity gives you
the best service instead of what entity has the most content licensed. Sure,
we have that now too, but I'm fairly certain that this would accelerate it
quite dramatically.
And the biggest reason why digital exclusivity is completely dumb is because
_it isn't actually exclusive._ If your content is popular, it's bound to get
pirated, and they sure don't care who or what might happen to have an
exclusive license for legitimately streaming or selling that particular show
in whatever particular country an user might be downloading from. Keeping up
this game of pretend about "exclusivity" does ultimately no good for anyone.
------
phaet0n
On the perpetually debated issue of technologizing old-media all I can say is
this: the big players, the Googles, Facebooks, etc., simply need to stop
playing the waiting game and fully commit to producing their own content. To
do this they have to be savvy enough to hire the right visionary and give them
enough leeway to scout talent, produce content, buy programming, invest in a
studio, and whatnot to make the inevitable future happen.
The question I can't answer is if there is any advantage to being a first-
mover? And that's perhaps why no large technology player is taking that first
step.
~~~
coliveira
The big technology players don't want to enter this game because it is too
dangerous. Everyone knows that a movie big flop can complicate the whole
quarter for a movie company. Why would Google and others expose themselves to
this risk? Also, they would become much less credible as technology providers
for other content companies, which by itself would reduce a lot of the profit
they generate. In other words, I wouldn't expect this happening anytime soon.
------
curiousdannii
Some companies are doing it right: here in Australia Doctor Who was available
on iView at the same time it was shown in the UK a _week_ before being shown
on TV here.
Only problem is iView quality is rather poor.
------
ixacto
Looks like the author has never heard of usenet.
~~~
voltagex_
Neither have we.
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
European Court of Justice blocks social network's anti-piracy filtering system - Tim-Boss
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-17060112
======
yread
"The European Court appears to have ruled out the idea that operators of
social network sites and ISPs can be forced - at their own expense - to impose
blanket monitoring and filtering aimed at stopping infringements."
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Amb: A Redex Tutorial - namin
http://docs.racket-lang.org/redex/tutorial.html
======
akkartik
Do we need to know _amb_ to read this tutorial? I have a vague memory of it,
having worked through that chapter in On Lisp long ago, and yet the first
screen introduces several terms without explaining them.
It says I need to be familiar with call-by-value lambda-calculus. Ok, check.
But I still don't follow what's going on. Is this because of that
parenthetical "(and evaluation contexts)"? I wish there was a link to where I
could read about evaluation contexts. I searched for 'racket evaluation
context' and came up with zip (the first result is about.. redexes[1]).
The exposition seems to bounce around levels of understanding. It explains how
to start typing in the example, and where the menus are, but it skips quickly
past the productions. Is _number_ a keyword of the DSL? I see 8 productions
not 6. Is there some reason it doesn't mention _if0_ or _fix_? Is it
deliberate that _num_ is not _number_? Are _if0_ and _fix_ not literals?
Racket is awesome; that just frustrates me all the more for often not being
able to understand what it provides. Maybe I'm just dyslexic in some subtle
way; I rarely have trouble following docs for other languages. Racket
tutorials are as hard to understand for me as research papers that use
haskell.
[1] <http://redex.racket-lang.org/why-redex.html>
~~~
takikawa
Probably the best way to learn what an evaluation context is to read the book
you've linked to there. Alternatively, it's basically what the Racket
reference section on the evaluation model calls a "continuation":
<http://docs.racket-lang.org/reference/eval-model.html>
We do try hard to make the docs understandable though, so if you have some
feedback please do mention it on the mailing list so that the responsible devs
can try to address it.
~~~
akkartik
Thanks for the tip! Continuations, I know what those are.
Yes, part of what makes racket awesome is that it has a coherent design while
fluidly integrating feedback. The challenge for me is to learn some aspect of
it to the point where I can give constructive feedback. Sometimes I end up
giving up before I get to that point. Perhaps the tower of concepts just has
to be this high, and I need to just suck it up and give it more time/priority.
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Show HN: Serve² says hello. A new way to share big files (coming soon). - dutchbrit
http://blog.serve2.com/what-is-serve²/
======
Daniel_Newby
That link 404s for me.
Clicky: <http://blog.serve2.com/>
~~~
dutchbrit
That's odd - maybe due to the uppercase 2 in the URL - thanks for letting me
know!!
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Why Luck Matters More Than You Might Think - RachelF
http://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2016/05/why-luck-matters-more-than-you-might-think/476394/?single_page=true
======
epalmer
> In an unexpected twist, we may even find that recognizing our luck increases
> our good fortune. Social scientists have been studying gratitude intensively
> for almost two decades, and have found that it produces a remarkable array
> of physical, psychological, and social changes.
At 62 years old I have started to reflect on my life and where I am in
relationship to where I wished I was or envisioned in my youth. I have also
reflected on luck and gratitude and faith. I will state right now that when I
was in my late 40's I had to have emergency 4 way bypass. I was lucky that
over the 3 days to get me to the right hospital I did not have a heart attack
but just pain. My surgeon says I was lucky I just did not die suddenly.
While waiting on the doctors to get the paperwork signed by my wife I closed
my eyes and said a little prayer. Now understand I am not a church goer but I
am spiritual and since having an out of body experience at 5 years old always
believed that we are all connected. So I asked God if I would be okay and to
take care of my family should I die. God talked to me, or I imagined God
talked to me. The difference to me does not matter. The content of what God
said matters. "You will be alright and it is not about you, it is about the
kids." I thought this was about my kids but I have come to believe that it is
about many kids. So I work at a University now, I support FIRST Robotics in
many ways, I take interns from High School on at work when I can, I mentor an
occasional High School student and I help organize a local annual maker faire
like event called RVA MakerFest.
I don't tell you these things to brag. In fact I just feel lucky that I have a
purpose and can help in some small way to increase the success of a few youth.
So how does luck and hard work play into this? Well if I had heard God's
message and not acted on it then my life would be different. I would not be
making a difference with youth. If you are a "slacker" most luck is not going
to change that. If you work hard then luck can play an additional role in what
you achieve. I don't consider myself to be successful but I do consider myself
to be happy. And maybe that is all that matters.
I'm lucky that I had an out of body experience (OBE) during a face injury when
I was 5. I realized what the OBE was in college when I was reading some text
about OBE. I am lucky that I had 4 way bypass and yet not a heart attack. I am
lucky that out of 800+ resumes in my job search I found a local university to
work for that is my dream job. I left banking which surely would have killed
me.
I am lucky that I found my lovely wife and had two great kids. I am lucky for
so much more.
I work hard and expect my staff to do the same. Without that hard work I would
not have the time and the money to give back for mentoring youth. I would not
have the ability to act on luck.
I try to reflect on my gratitude everyday. Sometimes during meditation,
sometimes when going to bed, sometimes really at the top of my lungs in the
car with screams of excitement about life. When I do, I see more opportunity
to give more. Some might call this the miracles of coincidence some might call
it abundance. I don't care what it is called. I just know it works for me.
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Ask HN: How do you manage business contacts? - jtfairbank
I'm meeting a ton of people for different organizations, and I'm having trouble tracking relationships and TODOs between them. This applies to customers, as well as people in the entrepreneurship community and partner companies.<p>I want a contact manager that allows me to record:<p><pre><code> * contact info
* history- how we met and what we've done together
* relationships between contacts (who knows who, who's working in the same company, etc)
* followup items and TODOs related to each contact or organization
* which team member is the primary contact for that person
* lets me share all this with my team
</code></pre>
Currently I'm using gmail's contact manager, and Trello cards to store more information. There's got to be a better way.
======
boxcardavin
I keep customers and business contacts separate, both in my head as well as
digitally. There are too many biz people to meet and you'll either go crazy
trying to keep up, or it will just be a time consuming 'hobby' cataloguing all
of your interactions. Those relationships are like friendships -- If you don't
see someone and talk to them enough to know what's going on with them, then
they aren't good contacts. Yet.
~~~
jtfairbank
Sure thing, but how do you track them digitally?
~~~
boxcardavin
CRM for customers, searchable communications (text, google apps) and social
media for biz contacts. Formal tracking is time consuming when I can just
search for the person and review what we've talked about. I keep hashtagged
notes all over the place (in emails, Slack, Trello) that I can search if I
need to, but I rarely do. Being scientific about tracking interactions seems
less important to me than being able to read the social queues I'm getting
that day.
------
kirinkalia
I'd recommend looking at Pipedrive -- you can do pretty much everything you
listed and they integrate with many other services, too:
[https://www.pipedrive.com/en-US/features](https://www.pipedrive.com/en-
US/features)
~~~
jtfairbank
Checked them out, they seem super useful. Thanks for the tip.
~~~
boxcardavin
Maybe I'll revise what I said, this does look useful and easy.
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Ask HN: How can I revert GitHub's new Gitlab-design? - autogenerated
======
amedvednikov
[https://gitly.org](https://gitly.org) is going to have similar design, even
simpler.
It's written in V, so it's very light and fast. Open source release this week.
------
verdverm
I'm migrating to gitlab
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Preventing Stack Overflow Attacks - AndreyKarpov
http://www.drdobbs.com/cpp/240001832
======
opendomain
Did anyone else read this title and assume that this was a way to make your
website scalable to survive a deluge of visors from SatckOverflow.Com (or
having a front page article on Hacker News) ?
This actually talks about dealing with the REAL stackoverflow - how to manage
your heap memory. I have been too far awys from having to do that that I
forgot what it meant. It was a good read - it reminded me to always optimize
my development - even if i am using a JVM that manages my memory for me.
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Homebrew core does not accept signed binaries - zabil
https://github.com/Homebrew/homebrew-core/pull/25316
======
zabil
The homebrew core team did not accept our pull request for installing from a
signed binary or allow us to migrate to a custom tap.
In the interest of security and user experience, we think it's important to do
this. Is there any other way around it?
~~~
zabil
Just to be clear, we are big fans of HomeBrew don't think it is their problem.
We just need a solution to sign binaries.
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Storing 25 petabytes of Megaupload data costs us $9,000 a day - ttt_
http://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/news/2012/03/isp-storing-25-petabytes-of-megaupload-data-costs-us-9000-a-day.ars?clicked=related_right
======
johngalt
I've dealt with e-discovery sets. No one really has answers to what to do when
you have a litigation hold on data. Legislation commonly requires "retention
of anything related to X case", but how do you know what's relevant and what
isn't? When you are a third party the ambiguity increases. So you end up with
an _everything and kitchen sink_ data dump. Even with _everything_ the data is
commonly useless without context. You have files without access logs and logs
referrencing local namespaces etc...
With a 25 petabyte discovery, I'm not surprised that everyone's scratching
their heads on what to do next. This isn't just an MPAA/Megaupload problem.
Even a smaller dataset like a 10-20TB discovery has numerous problems.
Hosting/indexing/classifying/reviewing millions of documents is an open issue
for the legal field. What do you do when there are multiple parties who all
need to see "everything"? If everyone does their own thing how do you
reference materials in a consistent manner across the interested parties? If
you all agree to host the data in a neutral place who pays for it? What if the
technology of that host benefits one party at the expense of another?
For years the legal field has had a "print it all out and have a team of
paralegals go over it" viewpoint. Clients don't pay for computers, but they do
pay for paralegal hours. Only recently has that become untenable. Discovery
sizes are growing exponentially per year. It's common to have a new discovery
set come in larger that every previous set combined, and the legal industry
doesn't really know what to do about it.
~~~
astrodust
If it's anything like the usual proceedings, the lawyers involved would
probably prefer if they had several copies of the data, too.
I'm sure most of these drives were arrayed in such a fashion where they're
unreadable unless in the proper equipment. It's not like you can just buy a
pile of off-the-shelf external drives and start copying, either, as the
contents might be unreadable unless the proper software is installed and
configured correctly.
~~~
phillmv
Not to mention that it would cost (1Tb * $109 @ newegg) * ( 25,000 Tb)
$2,725,000 just to replicate it.
~~~
papercrane
I'm sure you could get a bulk discount though.
------
shrike
The federal government does have a process for this sort of thing, if they
seize an alleged drug dealer's house and that house has a mortgage the United
States Marshals Service will pay the mortgage. If they seize cars, furniture,
other assets the government is responsible for the storage of those items
until the case has been resolved. [1]
I would guess that MegaUpload's lawyers will make the claim that the data on
those servers is critical to their defense and must be maintained. That is
probably an accurate claim, DotCom will want to present evidence of compliance
with DMCA notices, counter the claim that a "majority" of the content was
under copyright, etc. Best case for DotCom would probably be that his lawyers
argue for retaining the data and the judge lets Carpathia destroy it anyway.
That would give DotCom reasonable grounds for appeal.
[1] <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Asset_forfeiture>
~~~
Duff
You hit it on the head. I used to have to deal with alot of litigation-related
preservation of data... we started calling discovery "Mutually Assured
Destruction".
The lawyers basically try to make things more and more onerous in order to
encourage a settlement. It's amusing, as long as you aren't accountable for
the data!
------
anon808
It sucks, but that's the price of doing business. They chose their customer,
and now are (unfortunately) tied to consequences. Same thing happens to
building owners who have a crime committed by a tenant, the leased space
becomes a crime scene until the police/govt are done with their investigation.
~~~
xymostech
But instead of just losing use of those servers, they have to actively
maintain them. It looks like they just want someone to pay for the $9000 per
day that it costs to keep the servers running, they aren't looking for money
that they lost from not being able to use the servers.
To go with your analogy, sure building owners aren't allowed to rent the space
back out, but they most certainly not asked to pay for usual water, gas, or
electricity bills (because they aren't/shouldn't be being used).
~~~
rmc
Why are the servers still running? Surely it's easier and cheaper to just turn
off the servers, power down the racks and lock the cages?
~~~
deadmike
I'm wondering this, too. The data would still be there, and they wouldn't have
to worry about maintenance costs at least, right?
~~~
Retric
Shutting them down could easily destroy evidence depending on how it's done.
EX: Many redundant systems try replicating data from machines that are taken
off line. What happens when the full network is taken off line quickly has
probably not been tested.
~~~
deadmike
I see, so even just shutting down the servers hosting MU's data could be
damaging to the whole network?
------
tripzilch
So, 25 petabytes ... 25 million gigabytes. Anyone care to guess how much of
this data is illegitimate? And how much of _that_ is under MPAA's copyright?
Back-of-the-envelope calculation: Just did a search for "1080" on some unnamed
site and it appears a bluray rip of a movie encodes to roughly 10GB. So that
would be _2.5 million_ movies in 1080p quality. I don't think we've made that
many, have we? Especially if you consider that movies that came out before the
"high-definition era" are encoded to about a 10th of that size (700MB-2GB
roughly, afaik).
Maybe I'm missing something obvious.
Not counting TV series for instance (are they also intellectual property
represented by the MPAA? I'm not in the USA so I never really dug into that).
Movies duplicated in different quality formats are usually a 10th or less of
the size of a 1080p Bluray rip as well, as an upper limit I could add a factor
of x1.5 for that.
But then, the "long tail" of movie rips are 700-800MB and do not have
duplicates.
Unless ... is the MPAA also representing porn? Because then all bets are off
and I can easily accept that this 25 petabyte consists mostly of MPAA
protected intellectual properties.
But otherwise, what percentage of these 25 petabytes would you estimate
actually represents illegitimate data owned/represented by the MPAA? 2% ? 10%
?
Is that fair to the owners of the other 90% of the data? Even if it's probably
mostly porn? (I'm fairly sure most of the data has to be porn)
I'm just wondering. Also because it's interesting to speculate what could be
in these 25 petabytes. If you have a better guess I'd love to hear it :)
~~~
bigiain
Think of the problem from the opposite direction. What the hell _else_ could
the bulk of that possibly be?
I've got 4TB of storage on my media server, last time I checked at ~60%
used.At _best_, possibly 0.5% of that is stuff that I've personally created
and have copyright over. Hell, all the email I've sent _or recieved_ that
wasnt spam filtered since mid 1995 only comes to a few hundred meg - including
attachments! Smething less than half a TB of it is music which I have some
kind of right to have as digital files (some of it purchased as files, some of
it ripped from cd and vinyl - which is somewhat less clear legally with
respect to my rights to have a "copy" as a file on my hard drives).
Realistically, outside of academia and industry (who presumably aren't
significant users of MegaUpload) chances are so close to 100% that any 1GB+
file is copyright encumbered in a way that gives the MPAA an interest that it
doesn't matter. The nearest I cold come to justifying the rest is that some of
it it "time shifted" TV (from the PS3 TV tuner/PVR), some of it is DVD backups
for discs I own, some migh euphemistically be referred to as "timeshifted DVD
rentals or loans", but a _lot_ is copyrited content found on "channel
BitTorrent" or downloaded from YouTube. If the copyright police confiscated
_my_ hard disks and catalogued them in front of a judge, I'd have a very hard
time looking him in the eye and saying "I didn't think I was doing anything
wrong!"
I fear that line of argument bodes badly for dotcom…
~~~
tripzilch
Just because you don't happen to have activities that generate enormous
amounts of data doesn't mean nobody else does.
There's also people that make a lot more video data than you apparently do,
same for sound recordings. Do you believe that the majority of recorded video
data in the world is MPAA's? That would go against everything we know about
the "long tail". You do realize that of all text (or books) written in the
world, less than 1% actually gets published? Why would video or audio be any
different? Just because _you_ don't produce it, doesn't mean the MPAA
industries are the only ones that do.
Also as you say, there's academia, PHD students I know use equipment that
generates gigabytes per second. Or without equipment there's computer programs
that do it from calculations. Now I agree it doesn't seem likely they'd use
megaupload for that.
And that's just a few things I can come up with right now. Who knows what sort
of computer stuff other people do that generates retarded amounts of data they
need to share?
I'm also not saying that all that copyrighted stuff isn't there, it's just
that if it's _25 petabytes_ worth of data, it just doesn't add up, the MPAA-
represented copyrighted part of those 25 petabytes can only be a tiny fraction
of that amount.
~~~
bigiain
" … it just doesn't add up, the MPAA-represented copyrighted part of those 25
petabytes can only be a tiny fraction of that amount."
Interesting. My completely uninformed assumption is diametrically opposite to
that. I'm guessing there's not much sophisticated de-dup going on, and _way_
more of the diskspace on MegaUpload is probably various bit-wise different
rips of the same smallish set of Hollywood blockbusters. And while I agree the
long tail suggests there's almost certainly lots of people out there with lots
on non-mpaa-copyright encumbered files - I'd be quite surprised to find the
area under the "long tail" was withing 2 or 3 orders of magnitude of the "fat
head" occupied by all the copies of all the dvd rips and broadcast tv
recordings.
I wonder if there's any believable data anywhere to see whether I'm wrong?
(Note: I've got a non-US-centric view of this too, here in Australia internet
connection plans lag behind the US in terms of speed and bandwidth caps, so
even though I've got friends who generate lots of GoPro footage for example,
but they'll in general be storing them on locally attached harddrives, not
trying to push gigabytes of raw data out into "the cloud". That might explain
why I make tghe possibly-incorrect assumptions that I do…)
------
orbitingpluto
In civil or criminal asset forfeiture, the state can conceivably confiscate
property if used for or if it enables a crime. In some jurisdictions it
doesn't even matter if the owner of the property and the criminal have really
nothing to do with each other. (i.e. Your stolen SUV was used to rob a liquor
store.)
Also, the government could have probably seized everything anyway as evidence.
The problem with that is setting up that much rack space and network
infrastructure isn't cheap.
That's Carpathia's basis for compensation. They are providing a service to the
government. Seems like a no-brainer.
------
VikingCoder
Help me out with the math here:
1 terabyte costs them $128.41 per year, right?
Amazon S3 would cost them roughly $444 per year, if they were using the
Reduced Redundancy Storage.
The cheapest HD that I see on pcpartpicker (in terms of Price/GB) is the
Western Digital Caviar Green 2.5 TB (5400 RPM) for $135.43, which is
$0.054/GB. That's $54.17 per TB.
If you want a single backup, that's $108.34 per TB. Two backups (3 copies of
each file), is $162.51 per TB.
So, if I'm doing this right, as long as their HDs last at least 15 months, on
average, they have triple-redundancy, and the cheapest price ratio for
consumer hardware. And I'm not even counting their power, network, cooling, or
puny humans to maintain it all. That means their HDs, if they were made out of
the cheapest parts I could find, would have to last significantly longer than
15 months, on average.
They're actually doing really good on price, if you ask me.
Or am I missing something obvious, or doing the math horribly wrong?
~~~
njharman
The hardware cost 1.25 million. It cost $9000/day in
electricity/connectivity/rackspace.
~~~
brownbat
True. I'm honestly surprised they didn't declare daily depreciation, for $1.25
million in assets that are obsoleted by new technology at Moore's pace, I'd
expect that could arguably be quite high.
------
bshep
Its the storage disks the government need, not the rest of the server
hardware, if they cant come up with an agreement then shutdown all the
servers, take out the disks, catalog, and put in a warehouse somewhere. They
are now free to re-use the rest of the server for something else.
That would satisfy the needs of the government if they need access to the
data, preserve it if in the future people are allowed to download it, and
prevent the MPAA from complaining that it was given back to Megaupload.
I'm sure the cost of storage would not be minimal, but they could still use
the rest of the hardware and not have to keep the servers powered up.
Possible problems:
\- Maybe the servers cant be shutdown and brought back up without certain
passwords or encryption keys
\- Labor cost of shutting down and catalogging all those disks ( if done
progressively would probably work )
\- Others?
~~~
jlawer
You want to pull 1,103 server's disks?
The compatibility problems you have trying to get data off a disks in a
hardware raid make it impractical (do you have the EXACT SAME version hardware
revision & firmware; without this you can't guarantee you can read it back)?
Its either that or you have to pay data recovery guys to rebuild it.
Not to mention hard drive costs are still high, post thai floods. For
enterprise gear we are getting most quotes ~ $300 AUD a disk, for consumer
gear its ~ $130. Most servers are running at least 2 disks... that $286K worth
of disks alone if your talking cheap - low capacity disks, not including
labour to change the disks and test the hardware before you deploy a workload
to it.
~~~
Karunamon
>The compatibility problems you have trying to get data off a disks in a
hardware raid make it impractical (do you have the EXACT SAME version hardware
revision & firmware; without this you can't guarantee you can read it back)?
Its either that or you have to pay data recovery guys to rebuild it.
Forgive me for for sounding like a member of Anonymous but..
So? That's the government's problem. I don't see why a private company should
be in any position where they're required (at wallet or gun point) to help in
an investigation at their own expense. Pull the drives, warehouse them, and
let the FBI do what they have to do. They have IT to rebuild the RAIDs.
~~~
lotu
Carpathia wants to be paid $9000 a day like they were before the Megaupload
case started and pulling the drives and telling the FBI that it's their
problem doesn't do that.
~~~
Karunamon
No, but it stops the costs from accruing. Legal action could then be brought
to recover their other costs.
------
nextparadigms
This is why the US Government shouldn't have seized the site first, and asked
questions later. They should've filed a trial against them, and let them keep
hosting the data, and if found guilty, _then_ take it down.
~~~
sliverstorm
I agree, standard operating procedure when dealing with digital information
should always include a generous window for destruction of evidence.
~~~
darklajid
I disagree. Servers should be inaccessible, but not at all accessed by the law
enforcement agency coming up with claims in court - why would they need to
look at that amount of data anyway and why should tax payers suffer.
Just - put them behind bars. I said so.
------
brownbat
The urgency is because Carpathia's lease has run out, they can't stay at the
$9k/day facility.
Carpathia has to pay $65k to move the servers, then $37k per month to keep
them in a climate controlled facility while powered down. Lost profits are
still a relevant consideration. This is a doozy of a damages calculation.
What's depreciation on assets that are rendered obselete by (something like)
Moore's law?
I'd say Carpathia deletes the data and then supports the petitioners (those
with lost data) in the takings clause case against the government. Carpathia
claims indemnity against claims by pointing at MegaUpload and the Feds, but
probably gets joined in a bunch of messy lawsuits. Real roll of the dice.
------
ericd
Why are options that would destroy any chance at Megaupload conducting
business in the future even on the table before a trial is finished? I suppose
a large amount of damage is already done, but it would be a gross injustice to
kill their business before anything started. The government should pay to keep
this up until they've conducted their trial. If they don't, and they lose
somehow, I hope they get hit with a massive countersuit.
------
moonboots
For reference, this amount of data would require 190 backblaze storage pods
($7,384 for 135TB) totaling $1.4 million.
~~~
DanBC
Is that pre- or post- Thailand flooding prices? (Have drive prices settled
down again?)
And is there any redundancy included in your figures? (25 petabytes / 135
terabytes == about 190 pods)
~~~
moonboots
Backblaze quoted this price before the flood at $120 for 3TB. I'm not sure if
post-flood prices are back to these prices or what range of prices you can
expect at this volume.
This figure doesn't include redundancy. Backblaze uses raid6, so the usable
capacity is actually 117TB per pod[1]. With this configuration the final cost
should be closer to $1.6 million.
[1] http://hardware.slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=2341206&cid=36834390
~~~
nknight
> _$120 for 3TB_
So even if you throw out the rest of the hardware and have zero redundancy,
$40/TB * 25000 terabytes = $1,000,000.
(Of course, somebody has to ship and store over 8,000 HDDs, too.)
------
adrianpike
Can someone more familiar with this stuff explain why Carpathia's still paying
for "power and connectivity"?
I would have assumed that the FBI would have actually seized the servers, or
at the very least pulled the network cables out.
~~~
gee_totes
Not if the evidence is on the servers.
------
DanBC
I'm really confused by this. Is Megaupload (or any megaupload employee) facing
a criminal trial? How can any "evidence trial" (or whatever they call it) be
maintained if a law-enforcement agency doesn't have the drives?
Have any hashes been taken of the drives?
------
jlawer
The costs of moving that amount of data is crazy. I am surprised the
government hasn't seized the hardware, and chucked it in a warehouse.
I did some back of an envelope calculations... and its absolutely crazy. Tape
would require over 17,000 Ultrium tapes. Now you could De-dupe... but the
hardware to process and dedupe that much data.... not really an option. Not to
mention the time to write that many tapes...
Something like thumpers (48 disk sun x86 boxes) would be expensive, last time
I looked they were around say $30k for a large order... 160tb usable assuming
4tb disks are the thumper is split into 4 Raid 6 arrays... thats 160
thumpers... 4.8 Million
Even backblaze pods would likely be well over a Million...
This doesn't even cover hosting costs, transfer and such. Not to mention to be
usable in court there are going to have to be processes in place to document
compliance and validity of the copy....
All in all not a great place for Carpathia to be in.
~~~
Tuna-Fish
> Now you could De-dupe... but the hardware to process and dedupe that much
> data.... not really an option.
FYI, the data is already comprehensively de-duped.
~~~
jlawer
I know they dedupe on the file level, but I wonder if they are doing block
level deduping... as without a big shared storage infrastructure block level
deduping becomes pretty hard to serve at high speed from as the reads
potentially become distributed across hundreds of nodes...
To build out web scale systems you generally use commodity gear and accept the
overhead of duplication, heavy deduping requires massive IO, and there is no
way i can see you can be dealing with that much data have that level of IOPS
and be profitable charging what they charge.
------
genu1
This post really hurts my soul.
Can Carpathia sue the Federal Government for NOT seizing assets. It's the
data, not hardware. Data is transferable. They want it, take it.
Can Carpathia sue? This kind of injustice just makes me boil.
------
Zikes
Pardon my ignorance, and this is a serious question, but why can't they just
turn them off? I realize it doesn't address all the costs, but surely it could
reduce them significantly.
~~~
frio
While I'm obviously uninvolved, there are several reasons why turning them off
might be a hassle. Primarily is that if anything is encrypted, the encryption
key is currently in memory and the disks are already open - turning the
servers off might require reentering details.
Alternatively, in a setup of this size, I imagine there'd be no end of
redundancy configurations - RAID for individual disk sets, DRBD (/a SAN
equivalent) across servers - turning them off would turn all that HA tech off.
Meaning that, when you try to bring the system back up, the redundancy
implementation might say "oh no, I've lost x peers from my set of n" and fail
itself completely.
Shrug. I've no doubt explained it badly, but there are good reasons to keep
them running. It's not just a case of "pop the hard drive out and use it
elsewhere"; the logic associated with keeping 25 petabytes of data would also
have to be restored to its current state.
------
mmaunder
This gives an idea of the economic activity generated by services like
megaupload and what is being removed from the economy by killing the company.
Roughly $3.2 million in hosting fees, and could be more if that's just the
cost price. Also salaries, over $1 million in hardware, and the various other
suppliers. One wonders about the GDP of the recording and movie industries
relative to the businesses they're going after.
------
jneal
What's the big deal? Just delete the data. Customer pays for storage. Company
stores. Customer stops paying for storage. Company deletes.
Sure, a bunch of pissed off people will certainly be upset - but it's not the
company's fault - they shouldn't have to bear this burden. I can't see how
they could be sued by users for this, they didn't enter into any kind of
agreement with the users, only with the customer.
~~~
zevyoura
The article also mentions that they need to hold onto the data because it may
be used as evidence in the court case.
~~~
brown9-2
It boggles my mind that the court hasn't taken position of the hardware/data
then.
If the hardware is left running, and not in official custody, how do any
authorities know that the data isn't being tampered with?
------
jakejake
I can definitely understand the lost potential revenue of having unused
servers. But I wonder why they are saying that cost includes power and
connectivity for the servers? Seems like they would be powered down. I would
actually have assumed the servers to be confiscated and taken off-premise by
the FBI.
~~~
aqme28
It's possible (though I'd doubt it is the case) that those servers have data
from other clients as well.
~~~
JoeAltmaier
Any large datacenter has storage allocated in complex ways. IT may be
challenging to isolate one customer's data physically from another. For
instance, physical disks can be virtually concatenated then repartitioned into
virtual storage containers, which may reside on part of 1, or parts of many
physical disks.
They could of course migrate all of the contested data onto new storage. But
its large; who would pay for that?
~~~
jakejake
That makes the most sense to me.
------
katane
There are legal obligations for the government to reimburse telco companies if
they are asked to spy on their customers on the governments behalf. Also,
obviously, if you want to use data as evidence in a trial, it needs to be
stored safely by the police and sealed off, to ensure that its integrity is
preserved.
So either the government needs to pay up, store the drives themselves or
dismiss these thousands of harddrives from the witness bench.
Also, I cant see how the EFFs claim has any legal merit. Theres no obligation
for a site to enable you to access data you sent them.
------
guan
Megaupload had a lot of assets that were frozen. I don’t know about the
legailities, but it would be reasonable to use frozen funds to pay for this.
~~~
SoftwareMaven
I really doubt that would be legal. It would be akin to the government can
forcing you to pay for them to prosecute you.
Of course, I think the whole category of forfeiture law it blatantly contrary
to the Fourth Ammendment, so what do I know.
~~~
ItsTrueYouKnow
> It would be akin to the government can forcing you to pay for them to
> prosecute you.
Taxes?
------
firefoxman1
I know any legitimate hosting company would never do this, but it would be
amazing if they just "happened" to have very loose security on the servers
that hold Megaupload's data, and if some hacker were to..."gain unauthorized
access" and wipe all the data.
They wouldn't be held responsible for a breakin, would they?
~~~
rmc
If a court orders them to take "reasonable, and industry best practice
computer security approaches to prevent the data being lost", then, yes, they
would be responsible for "accidentally-on-purpose" leaving the servers
accessible. If it were to happen, someone would do a post-mortem, find out
that they intended for it to be broken into, and then they would be guilty of
contempt of court/destroying evidence/etc.
~~~
firefoxman1
Yeah, realistically it just wouldn't be worth it. But it's fun to imagine.
------
av500
Are there seriously people that used Megaupload as their sole and only place
to store their data? What if there was a fire in the server room? Or some MU
intern typed rm -rf /?
~~~
gwern
Believe it or not, there are even people who don't have backups at all. I
know, right?
~~~
georgemcbay
Not backing up your important data is passive stupidity.
Backing up your data on Megaupload and then not keeping a local copy is active
stupidity of such vast scale that I refuse to believe it has ever happened in
the real world.
~~~
randomdata
> Backing up your data on Megaupload and then not keeping a local copy is
> active stupidity of such vast scale that I refuse to believe it has ever
> happened in the real world.
The purpose of having a backup is so that you can restore your data after the
original is lost, because there is a good chance the original will be lost.
Explicitly retaining it on your local system is not enough to keep it safe. If
it was, there would be no reason to backup in the first place.
If a million people used the service for backups, it wouldn't be unreasonable
to expect several of them to have a drive failure each and every day.
~~~
georgemcbay
Do you really think a million people used Megaupload for backups, when the
service was nearly completely unusable for that task?
Do you think they were zipping up the contents of their own systems and then
uploading them daily?
------
nextstep
Making Megaupload pay this $9000/day seems unfair, too. The US government has
cut off all of Megaupload's revenue streams, and so they would be forcing
Megaupload to keep paying for a service that they can no longer make money
from.
Regardless, why is the cost so high if the server is down? Does this $9000/day
reflect the loss that Carpathia suffers from not re-allocating this storage to
other customers? It would seem to me that given Megaupload's current state, it
would be sufficient to leave the servers powered down and unplugged until the
legal dispute is resolved... surely the cost of leaving a server idle is not
$9000. I don't really know though...
------
neilparikh
Wait, why do they need to keep the power and connectivity on if they are not
being actively accessed? That would same a bunch of money it they were kept
off.
------
joering2
_"and argues that if that data needs to be preserved, someone else—the
government, Megaupload, or an interested party such as the MPAA or EFF—should
bear the costs of preserving the data"_
Fucking exactly!! Have fucking MPAA pick up the tab.
EDIT: its going to be amazing (and will take years for sure) to see if this
won't bite MPAA in the ass if the judge will rule that yes they do have to
pay. Would looove to see that. This should be actually a rule of thumb -- if
MPAA believes someone is infringing, court suit is entirely fine, but you guys
(MPAA) will pay to keep the light on in the meanwhile.
------
rdl
I wonder if this is an opportunity for a startup, and/or an insurance product
sold to SaaS end users, hosting facilities, or developers.
------
nwmcsween
I don't feel one bit of sympathy towards Carpathia, they most likely had all
the warning signs on their door - dmca notices, legal notices and more but
they willingly provided service to a company with garbage morals.
------
dos1
In my mind, the MPAA is certainly the best choice to pay these costs. They're
the ones with the problem, they should be the ones to bear the burden.
Especially considering Megaupload offered to take the data and they explicitly
forbade it. If the MPAA didn't like the solutions offered, but can't come up
with something better, then I think Carpathia should get to do what it wants.
Edit: The opinion above has NO legal basis whatsoever. As many have pointed
out, it's not even legally possible. I made this comment solely from a "In a
perfect world..." standpoint.
~~~
citricsquid
The data is being held (from what I understand) as part of an FBI
investigation. The MPAA may be responsible for the case existing and bringing
the supposed crime to light but the FBI are the people trying the case and
this is beyond the MPAA now. The responsibility lies with the government
agencies.
~~~
stfu
The FBI, as MPAA's minions, should be the ones paying it. Either their
"confiscate" the data or they do not. If they do, they have the responsibility
to keep it up, if they do not, they should have to give it back to its
"owner".
~~~
coderdude
Unwitting puppets perhaps, but I doubt the people of the FBI want very much to
be dealing with copyright drama. That's like fixing bugs in form code to them.
It must feel like a complete waste of their time and talent.
~~~
furyofantares
Then they should choose not to do it.
------
ecaron
At that price, it would only take them 150 days to stop losing money if they
started building some Backblaze servers
([http://blog.backblaze.com/2011/07/20/petabytes-on-a-
budget-v...](http://blog.backblaze.com/2011/07/20/petabytes-on-a-
budget-v2-0revealing-more-secrets/)). 25,000TB / 135TB * $7,384 = $1,367,407
minimum cost of commercial hardware to store that much.
"historically and mind-bogglingly large amount of data" - you could say that
again.
~~~
jonknee
Did you read the article at all? They can't lease the equipment to anyone
else, which is what's costing them money. The servers were estimated to be
values at $1.25M, but they are also unable to lease all the space that they
are using, which is significant.
~~~
ecaron
Yes, I get that. That's why I said "stop losing money." It seems like their
only solution would be to transfer the images of the data to cold storage and
then find some source to recoup the cost of the cold storage devices (which is
why I thought the backblaze numbers would be interesting.)
~~~
jonknee
I doubt they are legally allowed to do that. Otherwise it would be a simple
matter of a lot of tape drives.
------
jamespo
Surely it wouldn't take too long to contact both the legitimate users of
Megaupload and ask them to download their totally legitimate files?
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Android platform engineer on application architecture - EddieRingle
https://plus.google.com/105051985738280261832/posts/FXCCYxepsDU
======
Benjamin_Dobell
Unfortunately, the contents of this post are no surprise to any seasoned
Android developer. It's very clear the Android engineers haven't given a lot
of thought to how applications are to be developed.
I'm all for them not enforcing one methodology over another. However, in order
to build an Android application (following whatever pattern) we do need core
building blocks that have been well thought through on how they will be used.
In general performing Async tasks (in particular networking) is excruciatingly
convoluted on Android - well, at least to get it right. _Many_ inexperienced
Android developers simply get this wrong, and quite frankly I can't blame
them. Such a common task should be trivial to perform and not require hours of
background reading.
The issue largely comes down to the fact the "system framework" has been
designed to be simple (supposedly[1]) for system framework maintainers, and
not developers writing applications. Destroying and recreating activities (so
you can load different resources) may be simpler from AOSP's perspective, but
it's not at all logical from the perspective of an application. Sure, there
are several ways to work around this, but they're all stupidly convoluted.
_Frameworks should be written for consumers, not maintainers._
[1] Okay, the system frameworks definitely aren't actually well designed /
simple to work with for framework maintainers either, that was just the
(missed) goal. If you want to see world's worst state machine (a stupid amount
of booleans), check-out: [http://stackoverflow.com/questions/17847775/nested-
fragments...](http://stackoverflow.com/questions/17847775/nested-fragments-
illegalstateexception-can-not-perform-this-action-after-onsa)
~~~
Aaargh20318
Not only didn't they give a lot of thought on how apps are to be developed,
they made a bunch of really shortsighted design choices that continue to harm
Android as a platform today.
First is the stupidity of Activities. The basic idea was that 1 screen = 1
activity and we can remove all non-active activities from memory and restart
them as needed. This was clearly designed with an eye on memory constrained
systems. Nowadays even the cheapest phones have shitloads of RAM but we're
still stuck with this retarded model. Worse, now we have support for tablets
and phones with big screens the 1 activity per screen no longer makes any
sense anymore either.
Second, the decision to go with Java as a language. After they make us jump
through ridiculous hoops to fit our applications into their stupid activity
model just to save RAM, they go waste it by chosing a GC'd language, combined
with the performance hit you take for the VM this this has really hurt Android
app performance. In return we get an OS that can run in multiple CPU
architectures, unfortunately no one runs it onanything other than ARM. The
0.01% of non-ARM devices can't run half the software anyway because they
included ARM JNI components to work around the slowness of the VM.
But, I hear you say, you can supply JNI binaries for multiple architectures.
Sure you can, if you can fit them in your APK, which you can't because your
APK is limited to 50MB because it has to be downloaded to a temp partition
before installing. This brings us to the thirds major fuckup: the file system
on Android, or specifically the fact that there are several filesystems
instead of just the one. But hey, at least now we get to support removable
storage, which is both a PITA for developers, extremely confusing for end-
users (why can't I install this app when I have gigabytes of free space on my
SD card ?) and after all that trouble hardly any phone has removable storage
anymore.
This seems to be the big problem with Android's development: a complete lack
of vision by Google. They never designed for tomorrows hardware, instead they
designed for last years hardware. Android is an OS built around hardware
limitations that no longer existed by the time it gained momentum. It's like
they were completely surprised by the speed at which mobile hardware evolved.
~~~
konschubert
> First is the stupidity of Activities. The basic idea was that 1 screen = 1
> activity and we can remove all non-active activities from memory and restart
> them as needed. This was clearly designed with an eye on memory constrained
> systems. Nowadays even the cheapest phones have shitloads of RAM but we're
> still stuck with this retarded model. Worse, now we have support for tablets
> and phones with big screens the 1 activity per screen no longer makes any
> sense anymore either.
Shouldn't fragments solve this?[0]
[0]
[https://developer.android.com/guide/components/fragments.htm...](https://developer.android.com/guide/components/fragments.html)
~~~
thecupisblue
Uh, fragments introduced just more of the same problems. A fragment in an
activity has an insane, confusing lifecycle, then if you nest them, you
basically summon Cthulhu. The more experienced part of the Android dev
community is slowly transitioning into using views instead of fragments.
------
twotavol
Eschewing the traditional application architecture has made for both a
terrible development experience and poor quality applications in general. The
application lifecycle is convoluted with even the Android developers joking
about how confusing it is. Everything about the model has made it far more
difficult to port existing software to, and native development for me
personally has been an absolute nightmare. No clean exit strategy for
applications, half the methods in the lifecycle don't even get called, etc. I
can't imagine the completely naive and oblivious thought process that led to
the mess they created. Good thing Android is backed by Google though, so no
matter how terrible it is it'll still be popular.
~~~
lanestp
I agree. Android architecture is a mess. Activity life cycling is actually
impossible. There are certain actions the OS takes that will cause crashes no
matter how well architected the app is.
My main quibble with Android is that since everything is tied to the
activities it is impossible to build an MVC style app. You are better off
using the NDK or an engine. Then you can build your software correctly.
~~~
EddieRingle
Do you mind expanding on some of your statements? Especially:
> Activity life cycling is actually impossible. There are certain actions the
> OS takes that will cause crashes no matter how well architected the app is.
~~~
lanestp
I work on a very popular app in Latin America. That means we get to experience
every single edge case in the eco system. My favorite quirk has been that for
some reason I will never understand when an app goes into a full screen ad it
can make your main activity eligible for GC. That means that you don't get any
of your Activity life cycle events. Just a lone finalize and your app is gone.
Then when the video ad is done you get a truly spectacular crash!
Sadly, I have a half dozen different ways activities have found to explode
themselves. It makes me sad!
~~~
EddieRingle
Sounds like the video ad is a new activity? Since it's full screen, your main
activity is no longer visible so you should be seeing onPause and onStop fire.
Are you saying you don't see them?
Also, I'd imagine video ads are also quite memory intensive, so if a low-RAM
device is playing one I wouldn't be surprised if Android has to kill some
processes (like your activity that was sent to the background) to make space.
Perhaps you should look into what these video ads are doing and what sort of
resources they eat up?
------
cnbuff410
One thing platform engineer should do is to rotate into app engineer role and
experience it for a couple month at least, without doing it you don't really
understand all the pains the app engineers are suffering due to platform
design. At very least you can make your doc so much better by knowing which
part you absolutely want to cover in details.
This is especially true for Android platform team, to be honest.
~~~
spriggan3
What a platform engineer needs to do is to listen user's feedback early and
often in order to improve the API. An API is a product,and like every products
there should be usability concerns. I wouldn't say Android SDK is bad, it's
just so convoluted it doesn't feel like it was written in this century.
It's like someone wanted to impose something regardless of its usability, a
lot of design decisions seem to have been taken unilaterally because of one
engineer's ego.
------
shruubi
After developing a few Android apps as an agency dev, we settled on a common
structure that helped keep our code relatively clean.
Each activity would have an associated fragment, the idea was that the
activity would be responsible for loading the fragment as the current view and
other lifecycle functions as well as being the entry-point for any external
data-loading (through creating and calling of services).
The fragment would initiate with a reference to the parent activity as a
context, and would be responsible for view-centric things like displaying
content and adding event handlers, which would more often than not use the
context reference to call some remote API.
I suppose you could think of it in terms of Model/Controller/View-Controller
but I'm sure there is a more correct model for thinking about it (and it
probably is more straight MVC anyways).
The problem I've found with Android is that Google has created almost it's own
language when it comes to Android app architecture, which creates a lot of
confusion, especially for developers who just assume that all frameworks use
the MVC concept (laugh if you will, but this is a thing).
Even though google is quite behind when it comes to the app market, I think
there is still time for them to come out with a new set of documentation which
outlines the "correct" (the "Google-blessed" one at least) structure for
Android apps so that we as a development community can start moving away from
the "everything-and-the-kitchen-sink goes in the current activity" style of
Android development.
~~~
jc4p
What you described sounds a lot like what I used to do for years. It works
fairly well, and you can tack a headless Fragment onto it for things that you
don't want directly connected to an activty's lifecycle (rotating the screen
mid user sign-up shouldn't restart the HTTP call, etc).
This works well, and I'm at the point where I develop it without thought while
creating new apps, but I've been playing with a less constrained DI flow
instead using Dagger 2.
The more business logic and multiple copies of shared UI elements in different
Fragments are directly connected to their parent Activity, the harder it is to
re-arrange and re-use them. I've been working on migrating all core elements
of our application into a shared library project, and that would've been
impossible with a closely tied codebase.
~~~
bschwindHN
> rotating the screen mid user sign-up shouldn't restart the HTTP call, etc
This was the very first thing I struggled with when making my first (and to be
honest, only) Android app. I was making an HTTP call in a background thread
and when the screen rotated, the app crashed. Making this kind of basic
functionality harder to program is such a big turn-off for the platform, and
seriously lowers my confidence in the correctness of what I've written.
I ended up writing this gross code ([https://github.com/bschwind/skritter-
android/commit/6fdffab1...](https://github.com/bschwind/skritter-
android/commit/6fdffab111629cb79d732789b83a088e9c335eea)). That's probably not
the recommended way to solve it now, or maybe it is. I don't know because
everyone seems to have their own special solution to the problem, and we're
lacking solid, idiomatic solutions to basic problems an app developer faces.
For the small Android work I do now, I just stay in my own little NDK world.
Edit: It also seems I was pretty frustrated with the android API at the time,
lots of colorful print statements :)
~~~
jc4p
I used to use AsyncTask way more, I now stick to other ways to doing
background processing. What you have is pretty close to what I described as a
"headless fragment", it's a pretty common (but ugly, imo) paradigm, from the
looks of it you either made something similar to or followed this:
[http://www.androiddesignpatterns.com/2013/04/retaining-
objec...](http://www.androiddesignpatterns.com/2013/04/retaining-objects-
across-config-changes.html)
Nowadays I've pretty much drunk the RxJava kool-aid. For this kind of thing, I
would make the HTTP method exist inside of an Observable which would be
observed on a shared single instance Looper provided via Dagger.
~~~
bschwindHN
Yep! I think that's the exact article I settled on after running into that
problem. It's been 2.5 years since I wrote that code and I haven't done any
significant Android programming since then. Next time I do, I"ll give RxJava a
try.
------
jwatte
I worked with Dianne fifteen years ago, and she was good. However, hearing
from others who were involved in early Android, and then left in disgust, the
designers who set out the initial form did boot have extensive application
framework/developer experience, and we're still hiring to this day because of
it.
Let's say it all together: Implementation inheritance is a mistake, and
interface based design is a clearer option.
~~~
thrownaway2424
It's not just that. Hackborn spent many years denying that Android was janky
as fuck, or making excuses for it (e.g.
[https://plus.sandbox.google.com/105051985738280261832/posts/...](https://plus.sandbox.google.com/105051985738280261832/posts/2FXDCz8x93s)).
~~~
RomainGuy
You must be mistaking me with someone else.
~~~
thrownaway2424
Deleted, then. Perhaps I have conflated the memory of being at javaone and
being told all about the wonders of javafx, and the contemporaneous wonders of
"filthy rich clients".
------
HillaryBriss
This makes my head spin.
Plenty of examples on developer.android.com use Activities, Services,
BroadcastReceivers for things that go beyond what Dianne Hackborn is
recommending here.
It's like the Android SDK team want to have their cake and eat it too:
"We've built a tremendously powerful and useful SDK. It really helps you build
great apps quickly and easily."
vs.
"Oh, and, by the way, be careful not to misuse our main components. They were
never designed to help you build great apps quickly and easily."
~~~
saturn_vk
Well, d.android.com exists to showcase the core apis. They can't possibly show
you how to create an app with 3rd party components on top of a single
activity. Just take the bear necessities from there add your own stuff on top.
~~~
HillaryBriss
I guess I've been reading that documentation from the wrong perspective. I
thought they were trying to show me the right way, or at least, a good way, to
create apps and add features to them.
------
zzalpha
The fact that an Android platform engineer doesn't know of design patterns
beyond MVC, and only knows that vaguely by reputation, explains why it's so
difficult to build well designed apps for Android.
Yes, technically the platform APIs don't "care" about what's going on in an
app. But when the APIs are designed in such a way as to (inadvertantly) work
against MVC or other design patterns, they make developer lives more
difficult. And you can expect that to happen if your platform engineers aren't
familiar with these concepts.
~~~
userbinator
Actually I'd attribute the difficulty to the culture of "Java-ism" that
emphasises huge, complex, design-pattern-filled "extensible" architectures
which happen to be extensible only in very specific ways.
I wanted to take up casual writing of Android apps as a hobby, mainly because
I think the little portable computer I keep in my pocket could become so much
more useful, but the unusual API combined with the complexity and general
baroqueness of the architecture was a big turn-off. I don't get the whole
"design patterns" thing either, but I do have extensive experience with
writing Win32 apps, and a little bit of X (which is not all that different.)
~~~
aphexairlines
26min into the 2014 Google I/O Android fireside chat:
[https://youtu.be/K3meJyiYWFw?t=26m](https://youtu.be/K3meJyiYWFw?t=26m)
Q: So I was wondering if you guys at any point considered the support -- the
official support -- of the Scala programming language. I'm asking this
question especially now that we all saw that Apple released Swift after 4
years of work. And I think that Swift allows for things for iOS developers
that we can't do in Java with the Android SDK. So my question was: have you
ever thought about it before -- the release of Swift? Have you thought about
it after that? Is there any plan?
Android answer 1: Well, so, I like Cocoa, but Objective-C is based on C, which
is 40 years old, so I think Apple sort of had to, like, update it a bit. Umm,
so, yeah [laugh], I don't know. Scala -- I don't know. Anyone want to take
that? [Android team laughs]
Android answer 2: [loudly] No. [room laughs, claps] Alright, seriously, it's
-- Java is the programming language for Android. I don't really think there's
a lot of benefit to -- the entire framework is built around the Java
programming language and I don't really -- I don't think there's much benefit
for us to try to support another whole -- another different language.
Person from answer 1: What about Swift? [room laughs]
Person from answer 2: [jokingly] I'll think about it.
Person from answer 1: [mockingly] It's got optional semi-colons.
Person from answer 2: You have the NDK so you can throw something there. But
the NDK -- it doesn't have access to the framework, and that's kind of the
challenge. If you want to do a different language, if you want to have it as a
first-class language equivalent to the current framework you've got to have
either a whole new framework or some bindings to it, which is going to make it
a really bad experience because it's going to be Java and this other language.
Q: I want to work with Scala because Scala is compiled to the JVM, so it can
run on Android. So there are currently ways to do that -- to work with Scala
-- but it's using third-party libraries. So you have classes -- that's what I
meant by people to wrap their Java classes, but then it becomes tricky to
integrate that cleanly with Android Studio. That also evolves quickly. I'm not
sure if it's as complicated as creating a whole new language like Apple did,
but my question was just if you guys were considering any...
Android answer 3: From the tool perspective, probably later this year or early
next year, there are some changes going on inside Gradle right now that will
make things easier to you to just have a module that's originally written in
Scala that you compile down to bytecode and then we can just dex that and
package that with your application. But it's not going to help you access the
activity API through Scala code. It would be -- if you have some code that --
your business logic or whatever that you want to write in Scala because it's
easier for you, you should be able to do that. Because as you said, it's
compatible. It just generates regular bytecode and then just dexing it. But
that's very different from saying "you can code Android in Java" where you
have access to all the framework APIs.
~~~
christop
I gave up on watching those Android Fireside chat sessions because of the
horrible jokey way in which so many valid concerns end up getting dismissed,
every time.
~~~
HillaryBriss
It's been interesting to see the emergence of the Android Developer-Advocate-
Comedian in Fireside chats and at Google I/O sessions.
Maybe some of these folks are bored with their jobs, or just tired of trying
to do the impossible: convince the developer community that the Android SDK is
a great and well designed thing that makes creating great, robust, secure apps
easier and faster.
"We know we can't give them world-class, visionary, insanely great
engineering, but we can try to give them something entertaining."
Bread and circuses ...
------
vowelless
Disclaimer: I am not an Android developer.
I cannot seem to reconcile these two statements:
> Should you use MVC? Or MVP? Or MVVM? I have no idea. Heck, I only know about
> MVC from school and had to do a Google search to find other options to put
> here.
And
> In Android, however, we explicitly decided we were not going to have a
> main() function, because we needed to give the platform more control over
> how an app runs.
So this person claims to not know or care about design patterns; but then
explicitly enforcing a design pattern?
She does say:
> Android could feel like it has strong opinions on how apps should be
> written. With its Java language APIs and fairly high-level concepts, it can
> look like a typical application framework that is there to say how
> applications should be doing their work. But for the most part, it is not.
But after reading through the post, it does seem like a particular set of
design patterns is being propagated.
~~~
EddieRingle
Seems many people are missing the overall point of the post: The APIs Android
provides that are listed here are intended to be used as the glue between your
application and the rest of the system. However you want to build your
application from that point on is up to you.
In particular, Android Activities aren't simply a main() function because they
are designed from a multitasking standpoint; users are going to be going in
and out of apps, changing the state of the device (such as rotating the
device), etc. In other application environments, you might register callbacks
to fire when the window is hidden or gets resized. In Android those callbacks
already exist and are set in stone to encourage apps to behave as a good
citizen on a potentially resource-constrained mobile device. But as the post
details, you don't have to do anything beyond properly managing heavy
resources (like camera access) and saving and restoring state at the
appropriate points if you don't want to.
------
kabdib
You need only look as far as the large collection of flags involving the
Intent object to realize how badly things went wrong.
~~~
EddieRingle
Most Android developers I know (and even some iOS developers) consider the
Intent system one of Android's diamonds in the rough.
Could you perhaps explain how you would've designed it?
~~~
Benjamin_Dobell
The _concept_ may be a diamond in the rough i.e. co-operative multi-tasking.
The implementation, not so much.
~~~
georgemcbay
Speaking as someone who has been writing Android software for like 4 years now
as my job (but who has been in the industry for much longer than that, as a 42
year old who has programmed in just about every major environment), I agree
with what you wrote here.
Intents are great in concept and they work out well for users, but the
interface/API for using them to do anything can quickly become painful if you
go even a step off the beaten path of "perform this operation with these
parameters".
A common recurring theme with Android (and this applies to all the major bits
-- Activities, Fragments, Services, etc) is that you'll easily hang yourself
if you don't have a really clear picture of how they actually work but you
attempt to use them. Android almost completely fails, IMO, when it comes to
the concept of "keep the easy things easy". There's a huge upfront cost to
understanding the major components before you can start really using them at
all safely, in my experience. As a bare minimum, if you don't have an intimate
understanding of the Activity and Fragment lifecycles and a full understanding
of what needs to be on the UI thread when (and when different callbacks from
the OS are/aren't on the UI thread) you are likely to create a terrible mess
of an app that kinda sorta works on most devices, usually, but is broken in
some fundamental ways you aren't aware of.
I don't personally know any day to day Android developers who haven't spent a
considerable amount of time in the AOSP code trying to figure out exactly how
some of these systems work because failing to understand them internally
combined with lack of any sort of clear direction from the platform team
(extremely open case of there being more than one way to do anything, which
makes authoritative answers to the question "How should I do this?" nearly
impossible without a long list of caveats) is the path to writing Android code
which mostly works but has some fundamental mismatches with the operating
system and becomes a complete mess to maintain.
------
zebob123
The great "Advocating Against Android Fragments" post on the Square Corner
blog by Pierre-Yves Ricau highlights how horrible the Android lifecycle is.
[https://corner.squareup.com/2014/10/advocating-against-
andro...](https://corner.squareup.com/2014/10/advocating-against-android-
fragments.html)
Also, if you are doing any substantial Android development, you are bound to
run into many issues (say, for instance, it's horrible soft keyboard
management system). Hackborn can be found on many of these issues trashing
developers asking those questions.
[https://groups.google.com/forum/#!topic/android-
platform/Fyj...](https://groups.google.com/forum/#!topic/android-
platform/FyjybyM0wGA)
Non productive vitriol is the norm for this person.
------
grendozy
Android noob here. I've been teaching myself Android programming for the past
couple of months and I've found it overall a messy and unpleasant experience
for the reasons many of you have already mentioned. So much, in fact, that I'm
looking for alternatives.
So what's the best option?
Kivy? Python is slow, adoption seems non-existent, not suitable for every kind
of app
Cordova? Web apps are slow, JavaScript sucks big time
Qt? Google discourages use of the NDK for developing apps, can't figure out
anything from their crappy website
Xamarin? C# doesn't look like a significant step up from Java, from Microsoft
Delphi? Proprietary, Windows-only and costly
Clojure/Kotlin/Scala? It seems you need to be a master Android developer to
use them, still doesn't get you out of the horrible Android architecture.
~~~
virmundi
Android is a messy process. Since you've effectively implied that you're
excluding all of the options, you only have message Android.
Web apps don't suck that much as long as each screen does one thing well.
Xamarin is for getting a slightly more elegant language (since Java 1.8 isn't
supported) into the mix while providing a reasonable cross-system platform.
Clojure/Kotlin/Scala do require you to master Android first because they are
built on top of it. Each provides is own abstraction, even if it's just a
language.
In the end it's about trade offs and acceptance. Raw Android is like working
in a better assembly. It's got decade's old abstractions. It's powerful, but
annoying. For everything else, there's the complexity of working with the
various abstractions over a system that does not want to be abstracted.
------
petra
If this is so terrible, why isn't there some Java framework on top of this
that's designed to make sense for developers?
~~~
jmfayard
They do exist.
Check out rxjava from netflix, dagger and butterknife and okhttp and retrofit
and picasso (and and....) from square, MVP libraries, kotlin and anko from
jetbrains
What is truly holding back many developers is the above cargo cult that the
path mentionned in android.developer.com is always the right one.
There have been some harsh comments on Dianne Hackborn, but I find that she is
actually doing us a great service here by dissiping this myth. I find she does
a great job at explaining what is the scope they really care about, and the
one where you are free to discover better alternative that do not have the
"Google" label on it.
~~~
kodroid
I agree with your last two statements, but the idea the RxJava and Dagger make
things _easier_ to understand for developers (I'm inferring this relates more
to newcomers to Android as they are the once which have a hard time grokking
this stuff) is a joke. RxJava and Dagger only increase ramp up time and the
amount of stuff to learn, regardless of how useful they are. If someone came
to me confused and I pointed them in that direction, Im sure they would get
lost in the woods somewhere and Id never see them again.
~~~
jmfayard
Fair point. They make things simpler, not easier
------
hidro
Rails is built on top of Ruby language, designed to be opinionated, following
MVC. You like it, you use it. You don't like it, try another framework.
Using the same analogy, Android is build on top of Java language, is
'opinionated': instead of designing with Model, View, Controller components,
it's designed with 'unusual' components (as in not following any classic
architectures) e.g. Activity, Service, ContentProvider. You like it, you use
it. You don't like it, unfortunately you still have to use it. The real issue
here is a lot of developers depend on Android framework, and many of them seem
to struggle with the way it's structured, with no direct replacement (not
taking into account hybrid frameworks here).
The way I see it, architecture is an opinionated topic. Sure classic
architectures like MVC, MVP, MVVC are proven ones, but they serve as a
guideline at most. There is no right or wrong if you follow this and not
follow that. You are not happy with any of them, you make your own
architecture/pattern. Hell it's opinionated, you are allowed to have an
opinion here! If you think MVC or some other pattern is the right way to go,
then the author has the right to think her design is the right way. It just
keeps going on.
~~~
emidln
> You like it, you use it. You don't like it, unfortunately you still have to
> use it.
You always have the option of falling back to OpenGL-rendered widgets and
using a framework with MVC if you want to. Qt supports this, for instance.
------
0xFFC
Recently I was looking for one book desperately , a book that shows android
(and its apps) architecture, form low-level to high-level, design decision
which you should take when you design your app architecture. I hate how all
books are kind of reference manual. If I want to see what an API doing , I
will look at it documentation I don't need another book.But sadly most of
books written about android is just talking about API details.
p.s. If you know such book I would be grateful .
~~~
ktRolster
You might consider this book: [http://www.amazon.com/Android-Programming-
Ranch-Guide-Guides...](http://www.amazon.com/Android-Programming-Ranch-Guide-
Guides/dp/0321804333) I've read some of their books before, and they have good
understanding (and presentation) of architecture.
------
chickenbane
One of the biggest challenges for building on Android is its complexity, and
the team must successfully integrate with a lot of surface area conceptually
(the fundamental building blocks Dianne explains is just the start). This
unusually negative comment thread (for HN, I think) is probably illustrative
of how frustrating Android development can be.
On the other hand, it's been clear to me that Google is investing heavily in
making Android an easier platform to develop for.
First, the tooling: Moving to Gradle for the build system was a huge
improvement. Making a repeatable, extensible build is the vital with teams
moving towards the DevOps world with CI/CD. Android Studio has also been a
welcome change; all of the separate components of the build being integrated
together makes for a much better development experience. The best example of
this is Instant Run, which is a great accomplishment for the tooling team.
The Support Libraries are also a solid investment for implementing good
patterns - particularly patterns that can be tricky to implement yourself like
the separately sliding appbars. Getting more developers to adopt the support
libraries also allows more compatibility, since Google can release the fixes
independently from platforms.
YouTube has also been a great resource for Android developers as Google has
been constantly releasing content about how to build better apps. Jo and Ian
are really great.
Anyway, I would watch this space. It might be a coincidence that Dianne made
this post, or the most recent videos ("concurrent tasks with multiple
documents" and "tasks and back stack", respectively) were also about basic
Android features. Maybe Googlers are reflecting on what Android is due to the
current news of Oracle v Google. Or maybe it's because IO is this week. I'll
be watching!
~~~
HillaryBriss
I agree that moving to AS+Gradle was a net improvement (even though Gradle is
not always so quick) because it let us exactly reproduce the individual
developer's build on the CI server, as you say.
OTOH, I wonder how many devs really grok the Android gradle plugin and feel
comfortable just writing tasks themselves without carefully
copying/pasting/modifying some magical incantation from somewhere.
I feel like the verdict on Instant Run is still out though. We need to get
used to the complexity of IR's choices to restart the Activity or stop the
entire app and reinstall the apk etc and gain solid confidence that we can
just trust IR to _truly_ reproduce our code changes in its special, optimized
way.
~~~
vorg
> how many devs really grok the Android gradle plugin and feel comfortable
> just writing tasks themselves without carefully copying/pasting
That plugin uses Apache Groovy for its syntax, though in reality only a tiny
non-Turing Complete portion of Groovy's syntax is used in virtually every
build script out there. The main difficulty with Gradle is really the complex
API it exposes to Groovy, e.g. not knowing whether to use an = like in
depos = {
//stuff
}
or
depos {
//stuff
}
------
bengotow
I think it's fine for the Android team to take this approach like so many
framework authors before them. I think the problem is that Android developers
are seeking patterns and prescriptivist documentation because that's what many
other platforms offer these days.
On iOS, the message has always been clear: "Use MVC, delegates & data sources,
storyboards, etc. /We use them internally/ and you should too. Don't go re-
invent UIViewController!"
------
shade23
Tldr: that's how the system interacts, you are free to do what you want and
just use the framework for system interactions if you need them.
I guess this is a late reply but I feel the need to add in here considering I
began my career with Android devices and because of that have looked at
everything from that perspective(I write code for web apps, analytics, devops
too). What everyone seems to be focusing on is how broken the android platform
is. But no one sees the main theme of the post being that your code is really
not necessarily a part of the design. Take the entire Android environment ,
Android currently works on at least a million distinct devices which vary
massively in configurations (I include tv/wear/auto and maybe upcoming
platforms here too). This with a 6 month major release cycle (if you want to
argue about the necessity of this, it's a another topic). You really cannot
break everything in the next api level and neither can you make a simple
framework for the comfort of the newer programmers or people from other
environs. If you really want to get to the main bit of development, there are
several starter packs which can help you in the same. This would also explain
the sheer number of Android libraries available. this how the system works,not
your app. And unless you are building a system app you are free to do what you
want and interact with the system as it dictates, because more than the
Android system is designed to cater to the end user. It's not a product for
developers (I look at the ios development as a a product for devs and end
users).
Android development is frustrating and I have had my fair share of pointless
arguments on bugs which the Android team refuses to recognize. But when you go
through the AOSP code you see how much of can be done with the system. The
bitmap provider implementation for example is my go to code for whenever I
have to perform intensive processing.
The new memory manager is also an interesting piece of code which Android devs
should read. And all these were written while interacting with the same
framework.
------
johndifool
I remember her name. Wasn't she the one who vehemently was defending activity
lifecycle and other broken multi-threaded API, something every Android
developers I talked to would consider totally broken?
To be fair, developing on Android has become so insane releases over releases
that her crazy write up about no engineering design hardly comes as a
surprise...
Shame on Google for forcing us to use that POS.
~~~
ocdtrekkie
I met her once at Google I/O, and it wasn't a pleasant interaction. I was
lamenting how the recent (at the time) switch from USB Mass Storage to MTP
made file transfers to and from computers very iffy. (And it's still pretty
iffy today.) I was asking why the change was made, and if there was a chance
at the option for it being restored, as devices used to allow both.
A lot of times, files on the Android device don't show up properly in Windows
Explorer. She asked what I was doing, and I said copying APK files. (I
regularly used to backup APKs so I could revert software updates which
degraded the experience.)
She immediately stated that they "didn't support piracy" and walked off. As if
the process of sideloading APKs or transferring them to and from a PC was
somehow automatically illicit activity, rather than... something a lot of
developers probably do regularly.
~~~
ffiw
I see Android guys lack commonsense and I am not surprised. How did they think
you are pirating apk's after attending I/O event that costs fortune to enter ?
------
fighting
They really should have stuck with int main. What's unfortunate is the quantum
leaps they've been taking in terms of complexity to just get an app up and
running on their platform. But I guess that's the only way their engineers can
justify their salaries/bonuses. Same as with that horrific nightmare of an app
Facebook puts out.
~~~
mondoshawan
What would staying with the main entry point solve, aside from being familiar?
Your application would still have to directly manage binder callbacks and
register for lifecycle events. Re-using the old Java/POSIX entry point
actually increases the complexity significantly.
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
That awkward moment when Gmail thought I was spamming myself - nathana
http://www.brokenbitstream.com/gmail-spf-policy
======
anigbrowl
Cached:
[http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:http://...](http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:http://www.brokenbitstream.com/gmail-
spf-policy)
TL;dr
_Ultimately, the lessons I took away from my own experience are these:
If you haven’t already created an SPF record for your domain, do so. If your
mail server allows its users to forward mail off-site, then implement SRS
remailing on it ASAP._
Note to author: it's better to put the conclusion at the beginning instead of
burying it 1000 words down. _What_ you learned is more important than _how_
you learned it, even though the latter ultimately validates the former.
~~~
nathana
You may be right, but I think your comment has also demonstrated that I'm not
a good story-teller yet. :) Thanks for the constructive feedback.
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Subsets and Splits
No community queries yet
The top public SQL queries from the community will appear here once available.