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Bitcoin is a Market for Lemons - wsxcde
http://onelessbug.tumblr.com/post/68799401970/bitcoin-is-a-market-for-lemons
======
VMG
> _The key point here is that it is impossible for buyers to distinguish
> between the trustworthy vendors and those out to make a quick buck because
> of the very anonymity that makes bitcoin desirable._
The interesting thing is that today, you can have an online reputation _and_
anonymity thanks to cryptography. Also decentralized escrow services further
reduce the need for trust between parties.
------
FBT
These things work out. Used car salesmen may be shady, sure, but somehow they
are still in business. People tread carefully when dealing with them, but used
car sales do go through in the end. A combination of regulation and reputation
systems makes it all work out.
And I'd say that that is only a sufficient condition, not a necessary one.
While SR was up, it function on purely on reputation, and it worked. No
regulation needed.
All the more so, real business with actual real world presence (who are thus
subject to regulation) will survive, but even the online ones that are not
accountable to any government... well, it is a lot harder, but we _have_ seen
successful examples in the past.
------
TrainedMonkey
I like the point that aside from _illegal_ activities and investment
opportunities there are really not a lot of legitimate uses for bitcoins. Only
site I know that accepts bitcoins is buyincoins and that sells chinese
knockoffs.
~~~
ChrisClark
Places that accept bitcoins:
[https://www.spendbitcoins.com/places/](https://www.spendbitcoins.com/places/)
And not just listing web sites, but physical locations too.
For a map of physical store that accept bitcoins,
[http://coinmap.org/](http://coinmap.org/) is a great site.
------
evilDagmar
This article is /deeply/ flawed.
One of the more obvious things that stands out is that illegal drug purchases
are /by no means/ a service unique to the Bitcoin economy. The major site for
this type of transaction in particular also has a rather detailed feedback
system.
The lesson to be learned from Sheep Marketplace is /don't leave your money in
someone else's wallet/. There's no requirement that people use an "online"
wallet. Also, it was named _Sheep_ Marketplace. Someone's definitely having a
private little laugh at that.
------
adeptus
"In all three cases, note that the economic activity involves something that
is either outright illegal or in a legal gray area"
I stopped reading right there. This is nothing more than just another article
by somebody who doesn't understand bitcoin and couldn't be bothered to do even
basic research. There's over 20,000 LEGAL retail merchants already accepting
bitcoin, and this is just the beginning.
TL;DR: Troll article, author doesn't have a clue about bitcoin.
~~~
goldenkey
I would consider the implicit reason why a vendor might accept bitcoin.
Accepting bitcoin is akin to free advertising for ones' company since bitcoin
has so much buzz.
The business-logic-related reasons for accepting bitcoin are far and few
considering how volatile it is and the non-instant transaction verification
delay.
~~~
lukifer
WordPress got on board with accepting BitCoin early, primarily as a way to
accept payments from countries not supported by PayPal:
[http://en.blog.wordpress.com/2012/11/15/pay-another-way-
bitc...](http://en.blog.wordpress.com/2012/11/15/pay-another-way-bitcoin/)
Promotional purposes notwithstanding, the best legitimate use cases for
accepting BTC so far seem to be online services (web hosting, domains), where
the transaction delay and risk of double-spend isn't a big deal; and
charities, who risk little and potentially gain much by publishing an address
for a donation wallet.
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
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Dropbox gets Flat logo - geekrax
https://blog.dropbox.com/2013/09/simplify-your-brand/?
======
andyidsinga
I guess they're reducing boxiness
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Exploring AirBnb Data in Boston - jastr
https://medium.com/@vql/13-boats-and-a-castle-airbnb-in-boston-1dad9a92039a
======
jastr
Developer/Author here - I built a data analysis tool (it's like IPython
notebook minus the Python!). This is my first published analysis using the
tool.
Short demo video
[https://getvql.com/demos/boston_airbnb_reviews.html](https://getvql.com/demos/boston_airbnb_reviews.html)
~~~
minimaxir
If you made this as advertising for your tool, you may want to show that it
can do more than simple column charts.
And from a product standpoint, "Ipython without the Python" is _Excel_ , which
your video corroborates.
~~~
jastr
I'm working on some analysis showing more of the functionality.
It's like Excel connected to your Postgres! A common use case though is for
people to use VQL to filter/aggregate the data and then export to Excel.
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Covid-19 county map displayed with demographics, policy, healthcare resources - coldshot
https://covid19.topos.com/
======
sarcasmatwork
very cool, thanks for sharing!
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Functional data structures in JavaScript with Mori - swannodette
http://sitr.us/2013/11/04/functional-data-structures.html
======
swannodette
One nifty thing not covered here is that Mori also has an extremely efficient
O(1) thaw to get a mutable copy of an immutable value and a O(1) freeze to get
a persistent value from a mutable data structure (transient).
The performance of a transient vector is shockingly close to using a
JavaScript array under Google V8 for adding new elements:
[http://github.com/swannodette/mori#efficient-
freezethaw](http://github.com/swannodette/mori#efficient-freezethaw)
------
rdtsc
Of course it is obligatory to mention the classic: Okasaki's "Purely
Functional Datastructures" book.
[http://www.amazon.com/Purely-Functional-Structures-Chris-
Oka...](http://www.amazon.com/Purely-Functional-Structures-Chris-
Okasaki/dp/0521663504)
Also check out this link for additional data structures worked on since then
or simply not included in the book:
[http://cstheory.stackexchange.com/questions/1539/whats-
new-i...](http://cstheory.stackexchange.com/questions/1539/whats-new-in-
purely-functional-data-structures-since-okasaki)
~~~
swannodette
A minor nit, most of the data structures provided through Mori via
ClojureScript are not based heavily on Okasaki's work, rather they are based
on Bagwell's paper on mutable Ideal Hash Trees
[http://lampwww.epfl.ch/papers/idealhashtrees.pdf](http://lampwww.epfl.ch/papers/idealhashtrees.pdf)
and Rich Hickey's efficient immutable implementations in Java for Clojure
------
tieTYT
This is great. I never understood why underscore/lo-dash doesn't have a `conj`
or a `concat`.
JavaScript's `push` mutates data which you'd think you'd want to avoid if
you're using a functional library like underscore/lo-dash.
`concat` makes sense to leave out when you consider that arrays already have a
`concat` function. But if that's the reasoning, why did underscore/lo-dash
include `size` and `max` and all those other things that already exist?
~~~
jkrems
One thing I never understood about - awful generalization - "real" functional
languages is their fascination with terrible naming. What I mean is things
like `car`, `cdr`, `conj` - words that are impossible to understand if you
don't already know what they mean.
~~~
lmm
That's only lisp and particularly faithful derivatives (unfortunately
including clojure). Haskell uses more natural names - head, tail, last.
~~~
mjn
Even most Lisps have first/rest as synonyms of car/cdr (dating back to some
very old Lisps, and mandated by the Common Lisp standard). They just don't
seem to have culturally caught on as idiomatic.
------
augustl
I like that the article calls then "functional data structures". Every time I
call them by their real name (persistent data structures), _at least_ one
person will get confused and think I'm talking about serialization to disk.
~~~
pmahoney
Is is possible to construct a persistent data structure that is not
referentially transparent? I suspect the answer is yes, depending on how you
define side effects (example: a persistent array that logs operations).
Which would mean "functional" is a more general adjective than "persistent"
since it includes both persistence and referential transparency.
Wikipedia[1] claims "There also exist persistent data structures which use
destructible operations, making them impossible to implement efficiently in
purely functional languages"
[1]
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Persistent_data_structure](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Persistent_data_structure)
~~~
augustl
"Persistent" is but a bullet point on Clojure's own explanation of its data
strucures, so I suppose we as a community should follow in the official docs'
footsteps :)
[http://clojure.org/data_structures](http://clojure.org/data_structures)
------
agumonkey
IIUC they pulled out clojure's clojurescript projected core structures so you
can use it ~pojo ?
Recenlty I saw
[https://github.com/harukizaemon/hamster](https://github.com/harukizaemon/hamster)
, similarly immutable, structure sharing, persistent data structures
It's becoming mainstream ...
------
ds_
Is there a current build anywhere or do I have to build it myself?
~~~
theothershoe
Install the npm package, mori. You can require it in a NodeJS project, or grab
the file mori.js from the installed package and drop it in a web browser.
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
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Color wheels are wrong? How color vision actually works - tobyjsullivan
http://blog.asmartbear.com/color-wheels.html
======
idspispopd
Wow, just wow.
This is what happens when someone who knows a little bit about how the eyes
and brain interpret colour decides to write an article where they fill their
gaps of knowledge with mistakes instead of doing some research. Since the
author wanted to talk about the eye, they should have kept to additive colour
only and not tried to be confusing by introducing subtractive colour, which
they neither understand or present factually.
~~~
idspispopd
Here's a few of the factual errors:
>They’ll launch into a treatise about how the Three Primary Colors
They'll try to teach you Subtractive colour theory. Artists don't actually
work in three primaries, however the idea of 3 primaries form the basis of
subtractive colour theory. An artists knows you simply don't get brighter
colours out of darker ones.
>Primary Colors produces the Secondary Colors (orange, green, and purple):
The colours shown here are additive colour mixes, not subtractive. E.g.
Magenta is not Purple. Purple has a single wavelength, magenta does not.
>infamous color wheel you probably learned in school
It's based on Goethe's colour wheel, it's artistic not scientific. (As limited
by the few amounts of colours available in earlier times.) Although it's still
a decent representation of colour than the result this author produced.
>Doesn't stand up to scrutiny/ Three colors of ink which, when combined,
produce all others: cyan, magenta, and yellow. (Black is included as a money-
saver — black is the cheapest and most common color; it’s cheaper to have a
black cartridge than to dump ink from the other three.)
CMYK does not produce a full gamut of colour, not anywhere near it. Black is
not included as a money saver, but because CMY simply doesn't produce a decent
'black' and there can be registration issues. What CMYK does produce is a nice
compromise of commonly occurring colours, however you won't get a vivid blue,
green or red out of it - there is simply no building blocks in those colours
to produce a good version of each. Instead you'll get a purplish blue, a
yellowy green and an orangey red. This is why printers have 'spot colours'.
>But wait! I thought the “Primary” colors were red, blue, and yellow, not cyan
(bluish-green), magenta (bluish-red), and yellow.
Not only does the diagram falsely misrepresent the results of mixing of CMY
colours(e.g. it should be a dark mess in the centre), but it also falsely
represents the individual colours themselves. It's actually pretty difficult
to get a computer screen to display a true Cyan, which is not, in any stretch
of the imagination "bluish-green".
At this stage the author has created a bunch of confusion, seemingly his own
because he doesn't truly understand what is going on here. The actual
difference between additive and subtractive colour aren't explored or
explained. There are lots of common school boy mistakes like assuming
subtractive mixing produces similar colours to additive mixing, e.g. he shows
that purple is akin to magenta(it's not), or that you can get any colour your
want out of mixing three primaries(you can't). Or that RGB, or CMY allows for
a full gamut (neither do.)
>This isn’t adding up. Let’s turn to science. From here the article gets
better, but it trips a few times before getting to actual physiology.
For a short while he talks about the 'magenta' problem, which actually is well
resolved. It's called an extra-spectral colour, it's not generated via a
single wavelength, but rather the absence of wavelengths from white light.
Oddly later he mentions this.
>Opposites
"Complements" rather, are well resolved scientifically, there are two sets of
complements and two colour wheels to demo these. Since he's talking about
eyes, he should just focus on additive colour.
The wheel the author has created is utter rubbish, it skips swaths of
wavelengths and is only interested in preserving 'opposites', which are
represented by incorrect renditions of those colours anyway.
~~~
barrkel
In a way I appreciate your pedantry (though not your tone), but I must also
say that the details you add seem to be technical, specific to printing and
not particularly important to the point of the post.
~~~
idspispopd
Half the article is about subtractive colour, which happens to be
print/painting/any kind of colour mixing which isn't combining light sources.
The author (is it you?) has done zero research on the topics they don't
understand, and deserves any amount of critical writing in response.
The whole point of the internet is that it represented the end of people
waffling bullshit, access to accurate information is there, and if people want
to run around spreading incorrect information they deserve to be taken down as
many notches as possible.
I might also add that this is important to the authors conclusion, should the
author has done any real research they'd see that not only does a colour wheel
that addresses their concern exist, but that they've misrepresented the
foundation of their entire argument to begin with.
~~~
leephillips
But every one of his illustrations has a "pin" button on it. And that's really
the point, isn't it?
------
sp332
In the S/M/L chart (this one [http://asmartbear.wpengine.netdna-cdn.com/wp-
content/uploads...](http://asmartbear.wpengine.netdna-cdn.com/wp-
content/uploads/Cone-fundamentals-with-srgb-spectrum.png)) you can see that at
the right-hand side, the M (green) activation is pretty low and goes to zero
where L (red) is still strong enough to be visible. But there's no frequency
on that graph where M (green) is active all by itself. So you've probably
never in your whole life experienced a pure "green" sense input!
CIE takes this into account when defining visible color spaces. Since you have
3 "primaries" you would expect the colorspace to be bounded by a triangle,
each corner being a pure input of each primary. But you can see here
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/International_Commission_on_Il...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/International_Commission_on_Illumination)
that the top green corner is missing. That's because there are no frequencies
of light that would let you see any color that is "greener" or further toward
where that corner would be.
OK one last thing before I get to my proposal :) Your eyes gradually adapt
_against_ the colors you are looking at. For example if you're wearing
red/blue 3d glasses for a while, when you take them off things will look
greenish out of the "red" eye and yellower out of the "blue" eye. You can play
tricks like this
[http://wxerfm.com/blogs/post/jfrieders/2012/jan/25/picture-c...](http://wxerfm.com/blogs/post/jfrieders/2012/jan/25/picture-
cool-optical-illusion-star-negative-photo-/) In fact it's possible to exhaust
some of your photoreceptors, like the "spot" from a camera flash or the streak
from a glare of sunlight.
So here's my idea: if you strobe a really bright red & blue light, enough to
temporarily blind the S & L receptors in your eyes, you should be able to see
a green that is more pure and intense than you have ever experienced, right
off the CIE chart of visible colors! Who's up for experimenting? :)
~~~
hammock
>But there's no frequency on that graph where M (green) is active all by
itself. So you've probably never in your whole life experienced a pure "green"
sense input!
I wonder if there is a medical condition out there where someone is missing
the L (red) cones in their eyes - in that case they COULD see pure green sense
input. In fact despite being disabled, they could see colors that everyone
else is unable to see!
edit: It does seem to exist, protanopes (a severe form of red-green
colorblind) are missing the red cones. So if I understand correctly, while we
tend to think of them as having a restricted spectrum, they may actually see
some colors that others can't.
~~~
colanderman
No, they wouldn't be able to see colors most people can't -- they'd be able to
_experience_ colors most people can't. It's an important difference. Their
"ultra-green" would really correspond to our "yellow".
~~~
hammock
Thanks for clarifying. That's exactly what I meant.
------
derekp7
He's got one minor thing wrong -- in CMYK, black isn't there to save money, it
is because that in theory, CMY mixed will produce black, but in reality the
ink's aren't "pure" enough, so they end up being a muddy color. So the K is
there to produce the darker blacks.
Also, a) Ink is translucent; light goes through the ink, reflects off the
white paper, goes back through, and that affects the color change of the
light. Therefore ink uses CMYK. Pigments in paint are opaque, so light
reflects directly off them. In this mode, Red-Yellow-Blue-Black works. For
monitors, light is emitted not reflected at all, so that is why they use RGB.
Oh, and many colors can translate from one model to another, but not all of
them. Some can only be expressed in RGB but not CMYK, others can only be made
in RYB.
~~~
praptak
True, and not even the K in CMYK is 100% black, hence the notion of "rich
black", which is a collective name for colors produced when K is at maximum
and yet other colors are added to the mix. It even has its own Wikipedia page:
<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rich_black>
------
strebler
It's definitely an interesting topic and a nice high level overview of the
problems of colour and colour spaces. I like the 4 point colour wheel in some
way, but I don't entirely see the benefits.
From a computer vision perspective, this representation still has problems (as
do all colour spaces). Look at how massive the green space is. There's 4-5
greenish slices that are close to each other, yet only 1 slice for yellow and
2ish for red. Red is the colour humans see "best", physiologically it should
have the largest representation, whereas blue should be smallest.
From the simpler side (i.e. a basic colour wheel application), I'm not sure if
this makes it much easier or faster for me to find a colour.
In any case, the article is very nice high level overview of a fascinating
problem.
~~~
AceJohnny2
"look at how massive the green space is..."
This is why, in non-symmetric color coding systems, Green is given the largest
share. For example 16-bit image formats give 5 bits for Red and Blue, but 6
bits for Green. The Bayer color pattern pattern used on CMOS sensors
(basically all sensors on consumer devices) has interleaved rows of Green and
Red and rows of Blue and Green: twice as much green as the other colors!
Finally, green represents more than 50% of Luminance!
From an evolutionary perspective, it makes sense to be more sensitive in the
green spectrum: we were surrounded by green plants. Better catch the nuances
to better identify predators or prey!
------
commieneko
I knew when I saw the title I was in trouble. I've got stuff to do tonight,
and don't have time to write a real response. And a _real_ response isn't even
really necessary; there's nothing wrong with the all the various color
theories and models that paper the floor of the world. They are all imperfect,
but often useful, approximations generally designed by trial and error usually
for specific use cases.
So the notion that those wacky, touchy feely artists (aren't they cute!) don't
know jack about color is specious. Their knowledge is specific to their domain
and tools they use. While many of them could use some touch up here and there,
it's really not necessary because ... dramatic pause ...
__ _It doesn't matter!_ __
No artist is trying to produce a particular color found in nature. They are
trying to produce the _appearance_ of a perceived color of a certain local
color source under certain lighting conditions, and, here's the kicker, under
certain psychological conditions. A good artist can make you think you see any
color they want to using nearly any available palette. The more colors the
better, up to a point; limited palettes can be a very powerful tool.
And the color interactions you get when mixing pigment paint is not just an
optical problem, it's a chemical problems as well. Artists do some very odd
things to get the colors they need. I'm reminded of a story about the MIT
hackers back in the 50s/60s who found out that a radio produced interesting
sounds depending on what the computer next to it was doing. The electronics
would produce radio noise that would be played as sound. With a little
experimentation the hackers found out what kind of operations produced what
kinds of noises, and at what frequencies. So they wrote one of the first
computer music programs using this system. Needless to say, they needed to
make the computers do some pretty odd and complicated things to get the radio
"noise" they needed.
The chemicals we use for pigments are the ones that "happen" to reflect, re-
emit, or transmit light at particular frequencies. Finding the colors is hard
enough, but you also have to worry about how they interact chemically with
each other, for both stability (boom!) light fastness, or toxicity. In the
early days, toxicity wasn't too big a considerations, and many, many artists
died from rather nasty chemical poisoning.
If you are interested, get a book on oil painting. _Creative Illustration_ by
Andrew Loomis is a pretty good place to start. I also highly recommend John
Gurney's books on painting or artistic color usage. These are good things to
read even if you have no intention of every picking up a brush, because they
are not at all about the physics of color. They are about using color to
communicate and create a certain kind of perceptual experience. If optics and
physics were what was needed to understand the mechanics of picture and image
making, anyone with a good camera could do the job. But a good photographer
knows that their job is _not_ to perfectly transcribe whatever may be
happening in front their lens at any old arbitrary time. (As an alternative,
you _can_ learn a lot about practical color theory by studying older
photography books.)
As for CMYK and RGB color spaces, these are simple but quite effective tools
for dealing with color in a purely mechanical way. And they dovetail rather
nicely with the artistic color models used in the past by painters and
photographers. It _is_ important to know that these are abstract color models
intended to produce an approximation that is almost always good enough for
most everyday usage by non-specialists. Specialists use tools that are often
similar, but with more special cases and provisions for calibration and feed
back situations.
If you really need a color model more closely tied to how human visual
physiology works, LAB was designed as a good approximation of that.
Specialists sometimes use other, often proprietary systems. If you need this
level of knowledge, you got some book _larnin'_ to do. No blog posts or
comments on HN is going to help you too much.
Finally, speaking of human physiology, the model of filters he describes seems
to make it impossible to distinguish red from green. In other words it seems
to be describing a system that exhibits red/green color blindness. I have a
suspicion that the author read a complicated article, got hung up on the part
that talked about r/g color blindness, and thought that was the general case.
When I've talked to specialists about this kind of thing, the answers I get
are all the equivalent to "It's complicated ..." Human visual physiology is
real complicated, even the purely mechanical aspects of it, and frankly not a
lot is known about some aspects of it. What I've been told is that when you
reduce the complicated aspects of what _is_ known into a workable set of
approximations, for specific use cases, you get something very similar to ...
wait for it ...
__ _Artistic color wheels and paint mixing systems._ __
~~~
jacobolus
I agree that this blog post takes a sort of silly tone, and also that many
artists are very sophisticated in their understanding and use of color.
He goes wrong in a few places, for instance in using quite confusing
coloration of his diagrams, and he really shouldn’t put the labels R, G, B on
cone responses: these are too evocative and are likely to confuse as much as
they enlighten.
But to be fair, basic paint mixing models in artists’ heads often aren’t very
good, and many artists would really benefit from studying human color vision
more seriously. Explaining how vision works to visual artists, especially
amateurs, is one of the more rewarding things I ever do: you can see these
lightbulbs going off in their heads as a bunch of stuff that they know
“intuitively” and experientially is given proper names and ordered into a
comprehensible model.
> _As for CMYK and RGB color spaces, these are simple but quite effective
> tools for dealing with color in a purely mechanical way._
I think these spaces have no place being taught to non-specialists. They are
not intuitive to humans, being based on particular technology rather than on
human vision. Any user interface which exposes these color spaces to non-
experts is letting them down. Just as bad is using HSL or HSV or some similar
trivial derivative space. Image editing software, in particular, is
dramatically harder to use than it would be if the dimensions were at all
relevant to vision.
> _If you really need a color model more closely tied to how human visual
> physiology works, LAB was designed as a good approximation of that.
> Specialists sometimes use other, often proprietary systems._
Specialists looking for models related to vision mostly use open, publicly
developed and specified models. At root, most of modern colorimetry is based
on the CIE system, which has served very well since the 1930s. Recent fairly
effective models that would be useful for software include CIECAM02 and IPT,
which behave better in some ways than CIELAB, but are a bit more
computationally expensive.
> _If you need this level of knowledge, you got some book larnin' to do. No
> blog posts or comments on HN is going to help you too much._
That’s reasonable. Let’s start with some pointers to good sources!
For this audience, Maureen Stone’s SIGGRAPH notes from 2001 are a nice first
start, with lots of pointers to other good resrouces:
[http://graphics.stanford.edu/courses/cs448b-02-spring/04cdro...](http://graphics.stanford.edu/courses/cs448b-02-spring/04cdrom.pdf)
For anyone who wants to really dive deep, I recommend
<http://www.handprint.com/LS/CVS/color.html> (edit: Actually, I see that the
blogger does link there. So that’s nice.)
Also, anyone looking for pointers to books, feel free to email me (address in
profile), and I can point you in some direction based on your specific
interests.
~~~
commieneko
Artist's color mixing models aren't simple mechanical ratios. They use
emergent properties of chemicals that just happen to be a particularly useful
color. In fact, artist try to do as _little color mixing as possible._ Mixed
pigments of the types artists use do work like the inks used in printing and
the dyes used in RGB displays. Color wheels are guides and approximations.
Learning a color theory that is more accurate is counter productive because
you can't find pigments that behave that way. And if you ever get a chance to
see a painting in the flesh and compare it to even a very good reproduction,
you will see that the simple color model primaries used in printing and on
screen reproduction are only loose approximations of the real colors.
Now what an artist _does_ need to know is how color works perceptually. And
the models used for this are pretty good. And remember the intended result is
seldom "photo realism"; not that photos are particularly realistic. But that's
another discussion altogether.
If you are talking about amateur artists, or beginners, then, sure, lecture
away, but if you talk to someone who's been successfully painting for 40
years, my advice is to listen to him/her. They may or may not know much about
the physiology of human vision, but don't be surprised if they do, but they
certainly know the ins and outs of making you _think_ you see what they want
you to see.
The nice thing about standards are there are so many of them. I've spent more
time than I cared to writing software to convert and compare between systems.
They are a few _lingua franca_ systems, but if you are doing serious, critical
color work, your special cases are going to be the bulk of your job. Which
only makes sense if you think about it. The sources I used are going to be
about 30 years out of date, and the chemistries and optical systems no longer
relevant.
Doing mechanical color reproduction is a specialty and few people need to know
more than the basic RGB/CMY model and whatever specific systems that they need
for their domain of activity. These days these models are very good and well
tuned for their domains. Unless it's a brand new technology (Or NTSC; don't
get me started!) This usually means working with a specific palette and color
gamut.
And while a lot of people in the various industries feel that they are dealing
with the _real_ color models, and the rest mere approximations, there is no
such thing. In the end it all breaks down and you are left with making
specific measurements with specific types of equipment for use with specific
use cases. And then you calibrate.
Color theory is very much a case of the map not being the territory.
~~~
jacobolus
> _Learning a color theory that is more accurate is counter productive because
> you can't find pigments that behave that way_
Learning theories can be tremendously helpful for crystalizing existing
knowledge. Ultimately the only way to learn is to make visual art and look at
it, a whole heck of a lot. But having theoretical models can help guide that
thinking and looking, and can forestall a lot of confusion.
There are two kinds of models an artist needs to learn to deal with color:
(1) How the human eye sees color. This is so that texture and shape can be
made to convey the desired effect of the picture. It’s helpful to learn about
simultaneous contrast, adaptation effects, and even more obscure things like
Ralph Evans’ (Kodak) theories about what he called “brilliance”. Learning this
doesn’t tell you how to mix the paint, but it helps you figure out what
results you should aim for.
(2) Color reproduction technology: the physical properties of paint / displays
/ printers / whatever.
Many people in the general public, including many artists, don’t properly
understand the distinction between (1) and (2), and also take the radically
oversimple concept of primary and secondary colors, etc. (whether it’s
elementary school teachers with their red, yellow, blue, or programmers with
their sRGB) as some kind of ultimate truth.
All of our models of color are approximations. Color is complex and
contingent, depending on observer, lighting, viewing conditions, temporal
effects, and so on.
~~~
commieneko
My point is not that artists shouldn't learn about color and learn color
theories. And I'm not saying that they shouldn't learn how human's see and
process information. What I'm saying is that they already do that. But they
are doing it with different models and techniques that are keyed to their
domain and tools.
Sure, learn about RGB/CMY. It doesn't hurt. And printing technology, which is
a _different domain_ is very similar, though not the same in critical areas.
There's nothing magic or even very special about the methods and models you
are talking about outside their domain of use.
If you are a designer who is working in print or onscreen display, you will
learn to think in RGB/CMY(K). But there's _nothing_ universal or special about
that system compared to other systems. It's not more _science_ compared to the
systems artists use in their various working practices.
It's _not_ more keyed to human physiology, in fact I'd argue that it is less
intuitive and useful. I'll agree that it's not a numeric model and it's not a
model designed for _accuracy_ ; and reproducibility. But it _is_ a model
tightly coupled with human perception, expression, and communication.
(As a designer working with digital imagery and renderings, I make major use
of HSB style color models. I've written many special purpose tools for giving
me effects I want, using all kinds of hair brained models, and then converting
the results into RGB.)
To create a numeric model of how artists use color would be very difficult. If
it weren't we'd be able to make cameras that made illustrations. And we can't
and don't.
What an artist does is make an observation, and I mean this in both an
abstract and practical sense. He or she then takes that observation and
creates an abstraction of it, and then tries to make a work that communicates
that abstraction. With the tools and mental model at hand.
There's a photo floating on Reddit right now of where a hair stylist has
arranged hair clippings found on the floor in the shape of a dog. It's a
wonderful piece of throwaway art. Now you could sit down and say, "If I take
these hairs and arrange them with these percentages, I'll be able to get this
range of colors and represent these textures ..."
But that's silly. The artist sees the hair, it reminds them of something, like
a dog, and they spontaneously arrange them, making corrections and following
intuition as they go.
<http://i.imgur.com/ZNmxV.jpg>
Now if you are going to start an artistic tradition of arranging hair
clippings for art, you might come up with some theories to model different
effects. But I don't think you are going to be making numeric models. For one
thing you never know what kinds of hairs you are going to find on the floor.
Instead you are going to learn to "fake" it by using the relative and
comparative artifacts of the human's visual and perceptual system. But it will
almost certainly be intuitive and spontaneous. Lots of trial and error.
If this art form becomes a tradition, then special markets will develop in
hair clippings, special dealers selling hair patches arranged nicely in
special ways, maybe even a bit like RGB/CMY. (But don't push it.) Hair dyeing
might become a specialty, but purists will insist on nature hair and natural
hair colors. There will be much arguing about it and many bar fights.
And if you decide that there's a market in selling hair floor arrangements in
mass quantities, then you might see something akin to what you see in modern
printing or broadcast. Specialists will arise.
And most artists will say, "It's hard enough to make a pile of dog hair look
like something interesting while worrying about all that. I'll make a good
pile of hair and leave it up to the specialists to mass produce it. Maybe I'll
use standard hair patches to make things easier, I do like it when the
reproduction is well done. But I hate limiting my choices and opportunities,
and besides the reproduced hair piles never look as good as the original
anyway. After all, it's just a copy."
~~~
jacobolus
I think you’re misunderstanding me, because I mostly agree with you.
> _There's nothing magic or even very special about the methods and models you
> are talking about outside their domain of use._
Learning about how cones & brains interpret light into the colors we perceive
is definitely “special” compared to models designed around some particular
physical medium like ink or dye or CRT displays, and the domain of use is “any
time you want humans to look at colors”.
> _[RGB/CMYK] is not more keyed to human physiology, in fact I'd argue that it
> is less intuitive and useful._
Sure. Which is why what I advocate teaching is the physiology and models aimed
at approximating it (something with dimensions like the Munsell system or
CIECAM02, etc.) ... which is absolutely more “intuitive” than RGB or CMYK or
some paint mixing model, in the sense that it tracks perceived color
attributes directly.
------
mbostock
If you want a good introduction to color theory, see Marc Levoy's lecture
notes from CS 248 (Introduction to Computer Graphics). The notes are quite
dense but contain a lot of good information.
[http://graphics.stanford.edu/courses/cs248-08/color/color1.h...](http://graphics.stanford.edu/courses/cs248-08/color/color1.html)
[http://graphics.stanford.edu/courses/cs248-08/color/color2.h...](http://graphics.stanford.edu/courses/cs248-08/color/color2.html)
------
adrianhoward
_Ask any artist to explain how color works, and they’ll launch into a treatise
about how the Three Primary Colors_
Nope.
If you ask an artist or designer about how colour works when you'll usually
get is a deep sigh, followed by "it's complicated", followed by a
_looooooooooong_ explanation of some of the options presented here and a good
few more besides.
(Fascinating bit of trivia: There is some moderatly persuasive evidence that
some folk have more varient cone cells and can see more colours than people
with "normal" vision. See [http://www.post-
gazette.com/stories/news/health/some-women-m...](http://www.post-
gazette.com/stories/news/health/some-women-may-see-100-million-colors-thanks-
to-their-genes-450179/) and
<http://www.klab.caltech.edu/cns186/papers/Jameson01.pdf>).
It's usually developers who have the broken models of colour perception
because, unsurprisingly, they're not trained in it :-) Artists and designers
deal with multiple colour models all of the time - just go look at how many of
the preferences in things like Photoshop are about managing colour... and
that's just in the digital editing space.
------
teilo
I'm somewhat surprised that no mention was made of L * a * b color, since the
four point color wheel corresponds to the a and b channels.
------
ken
> Every seven-year-old kid in America is taught that “the opposite of red is
> green” and “the opposite of blue is yellow.”
Did I sleep through second grade or something? I've spent the first 30+ years
of my life in America and I've never heard of this.
~~~
evincarofautumn
Different schools teach different things; many don’t introduce colour theory
at all. And it’s an odd thing, but most people don’t know intuitively how
colours combine or invert. Of course, as a synesthete and maybe a
tetrachromat, I’m not really statistically relevant to this discussion. ;)
------
arundelo
Terminology note: This is called the opponent process theory.
<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Opponent_process>
------
idan
I had a short bit about this in my datavis talk at Pycon. Youtube link
directly to the explanation of vision / color physiology:
<http://youtu.be/vfYul2E56fo?t=18m31s>.
------
nsns
Nice article, even better comments. But am I the only one who thinks
explaining stuff by "it's because your brain tells you that..." doesn't really
solve anything, simply relocates the mystery?
------
duopixel
Previous discussion (more than a year ago)
<http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2166494>
------
SonicSoul
awesome post. this is not 100% related, but if you're interested in color as
it pertains to human perception (and how to cure color blindess and how a
mantis shrimp can perceive 6x more color) there is a great podcast on
RadioLab! <http://www.radiolab.org/2012/may/21/>
------
gcb
could be a much better article if not so sensationalist about kindergarten
learning not being perfect.
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Iron Sky Official Theatrical Trailer - yesbabyyes
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Py_IndUbcxc
======
malloreon
I was looking forward to this until I found out it was a comedy instead of a
serious b-movie.
The latter would be awesome.
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Say goodbye to the rest of your day with generator of random awesomeness - optikals
http://sharkle.com/?shown
======
ozzmotik
ooooh DAS BLINKENLIGHTS glad most of the things that came up worked on safari
on iOS
~~~
optikals
Some need some time to load.
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Researchers harness brain waves to reconstruct images of what we perceive - rbanffy
http://utsc.utoronto.ca/news-events/breaking-research/do-you-see-what-i-see-researchers-harness-brain-waves-reconstruct-images-what-we
======
sizzle
Reminiscent of Black Mirror season 4, episode 3: "Crocodile"
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Twitter Trends Beat Analysts In Predicting Wall Street - ColinWright
http://www.escapistmagazine.com/news/view/112932-Twitter-Trends-Beat-Analysts-In-Predicting-Wall-Street
======
hugh3
_Following its first month of public trading, a new Derwent fund based on
Twitter reported 1.85 percent return on investment. During this same time
period, the S &P 500 index fell 2.2 percent, "and the average hedge fund made
only 0.76 per cent."_
An algorithm that outperforms the stock market for one month is not news. If
they have an algorithm that can do it consistently over decades I'll be
impressed.
Many funds have been trying to mine this sort of data, and presumably we don't
hear about it when the results aren't so good, so this is just cherrypicking.
I can train ten chimps to pick stocks, and the best-performing of them over
the first month will no doubt outperform the market significantly. But if I
try to sell you my stock-picking chimp then beware.
~~~
gammarator
Here's an extensive takedown of the paper; it has lots of flaws:
[http://blog.someben.com/2011/05/sour-grapes-seven-reasons-
wh...](http://blog.someben.com/2011/05/sour-grapes-seven-reasons-why-that-
twitter-prediction-model-is-cooked/)
------
olihb
I'm sure that plenty of hedge funds were using these feeds (blogs, twitter,
etc.) for years.
They just kept their mouth shut because it's foolish to broadcast that you
have an edge on your competitors... I bet that since it's out in the open,
it's now obsolete...
~~~
hugh3
I heard about a startup which was doing this a couple of years ago via the VC
who had invested in it. It's no big secret.
~~~
olihb
I heard about that on a forum a while ago, but my point was that when you find
a novel way to profit from the stock market you keep your mouth shut.
------
iam
This reminds me of the movie Limitless, where the protagonist devised computer
algorithms that would scan forums and other social media sites to get people's
sentiments of what would happen to the stock, then successfully made 40x+
returns within months.
------
jaredmck
Small sample size.
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
DataFire – An open source integration platform - rmason
https://datafire.io/
======
rmason
This is a competitor to Zapier or IFTTT that's fully open source. To me what
is impressive is the number of integrations they have available at launch.
Here's their source:
[https://github.com/DataFire/DataFire](https://github.com/DataFire/DataFire)
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
70% of the Public Finds Piracy Socially Acceptable - hoag
http://torrentfreak.com/piracy-socially-acceptable-110228/
======
_delirium
Three big caveats that the linked article doesn't sufficiently mention:
1\. The study was restricted to Denmark. It was part of a larger study looking
at Danish attitudes towards economic lawbreaking: tax evasion, benefits fraud,
copyright infringement, taking home company property, etc.
2\. The study asked people to rate how acceptable copyright infringement was
on a scale from 1 (completely unacceptable) to 10 (completely ok). The 70%
figure is everyone who answered _anything except 1_. But clearly a 2 out of 10
is still not very positive, especially since in context it could simply have
meant that someone found it bad, but less bad than e.g. benefits fraud. Only
20% gave an answer >= 7.
3\. The study specifically asked about copyright infringement for personal,
home use.
\---
From the report (rough translation):
_Seven out of ten Danes accept to some extent the copying of music and movies
without paying for them. So long, mind you, as it is limited to copying for
one's own use._
_Thus finds the Rockwool Foundation's study of Danish ethical attitudes in
2010._
_In the study, a representative sample of people were asked to respond on a
scale of 1 to 10, whether it is ok to pirate music from the internet for
personal use. Those who believe that this act is acceptable under no
circumstances, corresponding to a 1, total 30%._
_The rest, i.e. 70%, accept pirate-copying to some degree. 50% give a rating
between 2 and 6. They're probably skeptical in relation to piracy, but they
seem not to think that it is totally unacceptable. The rest, around 15-20%,
rate 7 or higher. This group mostly or fully accepts piracy._
_The views are different however for making money on illegal music
downloading. The population has a somewhat stricter view on that. In fact,
three out of four respond that it is absolutely unacceptable to retrieve
pirated music online and resell it to friends._
_The difference between the two forms of lawbreaking is also clear in the
average for all responses. Piracy for personal use has an average of 3.8 on
the scale, while the score for selling to friends is as low as 1.7._
~~~
ecounysis
This sort of summarization (read manipulation) of scientific results by news
organizations to influence viewership is extremely bothersome. Most people who
read that article take it at face value, don't check the sources, and go on
with life having been misinformed. I know I would have. Irritating.
~~~
Silhouette
To be fair, the TorrentFreak article does mention this rather important detail
as well, but it certainly doesn't make a big deal of it and the headline is
clearly editorialised to the point of outright falsehood.
Looked at the other way around, more than 80% of those surveyed did _not_
mostly or fully accept that pirate copying is ethical (7+ on a scale of 1-10).
~~~
_delirium
Hmm, going back and reading it again, you're right, the article apart from the
headline isn't too bad. I could've sworn some of these details were left out
of it initially though. Any good way to check if the article has been updated?
------
InclinedPlane
As I've pointed out before piracy is a misnomer. Sharing has always been an
integral part of the way people are exposed to and consume art. There are even
institutions that have been built up to support such things for older media:
libraries, used book stores, radio stations, museums. We treasure and value
such institutions because they help to preserve and to spread our art and our
culture.
However, when you take this incredibly vital and ingrained mechanism for
spreading appreciation and knowledge of various works of art and you translate
it to the limits (or lack thereof) and character of modern communications and
storage technologies you get a phenomena which externally is nearly
indistinguishable from piracy (at least without further context of individual
behavior).
To put it lightly this is a very serious problem. Imagine if libraries and
museums were as much legal pariahs as speakeasies during prohibition, how
would the world be different? And yet increasingly the collision of outmoded
legal frameworks (already bent beyond reasonable measure by the corrupting
influence of large "intellectual property" institutions such as Disney and
Sony) with technological advancement is leading to conflict and strife between
ordinary people engaging in traditionally ordinary behavior and governing
institutions who see that behavior as a dangerous threat.
P.S. Whether sharing in the digital realm is compatible with profit is an
equally important question, but the onus is on producers to figure that out
(current evidence seems to indicate that it's not such a big problem, given
record box office revenue in 2010, for example). It's quite simply infeasible
(technologically, legally, socially, and culturally) to demand that people
stop sharing because the power of sharing and of stealing are too closely
related.
~~~
bad_user
Selling used books is not comparable with putting an ebook on PirateBay.
Lending books and returning them when you're done reading is also not
comparable to putting an ebook on PirateBay. You also can't display the same
painting in 2 museums unless one of them is just a cheap copy and people don't
appreciate copies in museums.
All cases of "sharing" the "older media" you describe are subject to the laws
of scarcity. Even xeroxing a book is subject to it, as the cost of that can be
even higher than just buying the book; and is mostly done for technical
references for which you can't find the original.
"people sharing" is a romantic notion; in a perfect world there would be no
problem with it, but writing a book / creating a game / composing a song /
creating a movie - takes time, lots of effort and monetary cost that can be
quite substantial.
Would people create movies such as Avatar (in the interest of sharing) if the
movie industry would go bankrupted? I doubt it. Would people donate money if
movies were released for free? Sharing is all fine for people, as long as it
doesn't cost them too much. But few people give away their work for free and
even fewer do it for altruistic reasons (it's like "spending other people's
money" - how can you not be fine with that?)
the onus is on producers to figure that out
And they have, with DRM and all that. Only problem with it is that it's a PITA
for honest customers, but technology evolves and people always find ways to
build better mouse-traps.
So the onus really is on all of us - if you don't like the current legal
frameworks, think of something to reward the original authors; otherwise the
situation is only going to get worse.
~~~
chopsueyar
_But few people give away their work for free and even fewer do it for
altruistic reasons (it's like "spending other people's money" - how can you
not be fine with that?)_
Are you saying the main motivation to create art is profit and/or recognition?
Human history has many examples of altruistic behaviors for art's sake.
You argue people will stop creating because there will be no profit for them
to do so (or "lots of effort and monetary cost that can be quite
substantial").
I argue if someone is motivated enough and creative enough, that person will
find a way to manifest their vision into physical reality.
James Cameron's life during the creation of the movie "Titanic" was not one
motivated by profit for profit's sake...
<http://www.ew.com/ew/article/0,,290182,00.html>
~~~
bad_user
Are you saying the main motivation to create
art is profit and/or recognition?
No, stop twisting my words.
BTW, that article about the Titanic is in total favor of what I said. To break
even, the Titanic needed ~ $400 million dollars.
I would totally love to see someone sharing that for free, for art's sake ;-)
You argue people will stop creating because there will
be no profit for them to do so
I'm not talking about profits; I'm talking about revenu. I'm talking about a
book author that works on a book for an entire year, during which he has to
put food on the table, pay the rent, pay for his son's tuition and live in a
decent environment. In my country, the best poet we've had, a pure genius,
lived in inhuman conditions and died at 39 years old because of syphilis.
Are you by any chance suggesting that they are paid too much?
~~~
chopsueyar
Do you think the genius poet would have been inspired living in a mansion,
every need catered to by servants?
You validated my point. The best poet was not motivated by revenue, and
althought I do not know, was probably not worried of others disseminating
their work.
Creating art for art's sake, not to pay for the offspring's tuition bills.
~~~
Nobido
In the arts, like in any field, you only get better by immersing yourself in
it and it's hard to do that when you have to treat it like a hobby rather than
a job.
Ask yourself what level of talent you would have right now if there was zero
money in coding or designing software, and you just did it on evenings and
weekends, when you were not working your full time job in retail or food
services to scrape by?
There is just something disturbing to me about this idea that people should be
suffering so that others can read better poetry on their comfy 100k tech
salaries.
~~~
muhfuhkuh
"Ask yourself what level of talent you would have right now if there was zero
money in coding or designing software"
That's actually part of the reason why I find it so delicious that there are
people outside of Computer Science that are hitting it big in Web and mobile
apps; it's a validation that anyone can do the work of a CS grad just as
anyone can write a novel or paint a picture; it just takes time and effort and
acquiring skills.
------
wazoox
I've just read this in "Against intellectual monopoly" page 296 (
[http://levine.sscnet.ucla.edu/general/intellectual/againstfi...](http://levine.sscnet.ucla.edu/general/intellectual/againstfinal.htm)
) :
_Social norms are not a topic in which we are especially expert. Still, it is
a relevant topic: property rights are never enforced only by the law-and-order
system, or even by costly private monitoring of other people's behavior.
Broadly accepted and well functioning property rights systems rest also, one
is tempted to write "primarily," on a commonly shared sense of morality._
Then it quotes another economist, Eric Rasmusen :
_Video rental stores and libraries, of course, reduce originator profits and
hurt innovation, but that is a utilitarian concern. What is of more ethical
concern is that whenever, for example, someone borrows a book from the public
library instead of buying a book, he has deprived the author of the fruits of
his labor and participated in reducing the author's power to control his self-
expression. Thus, if it is immoral to violate a book's copyright, so too it
would seem to be immoral to use public libraries. Libraries are not illegal,
but the law's injustice would be no reason for a moral person to do unjust
things. The existence of children's sections would be particularly heinous, as
encouraging children to steal._
_To entirely deter copying would require a norm inflicting a considerable
amount of guilt on copiers, since legal enforcement of copying by individuals
is so difficult. To partially deter it would be undesirable for two reasons.
First, it would generate a large amount of disutility while failing to deter
the target misbehavior. Second, it would reduce the effectiveness of guilt in
other situations, by pushing so many people over the threshold of being moral
reprobates. At the same time, the benefit from deterring copying by
individuals, the increased incentive for creation of new products, is
relatively small. I thus conclude that people_
_should_not_feel_guilty_about_copying_.
~~~
davidw
So what do they propose to avoid the underproduction of "information goods"?
~~~
wazoox
Well, they made a whole book about this :) They argue that the "first mover"
advantage is actually large enough to take care of the problem in the case of
both books and pharmaceuticals; music isn't actually a problem as people
actually making it earn close to nothing from reproduction anyway; software
wouldn't be so much different than it is now, etc.
They take the quite extreme point of view that _all_ intellectual property
should be _completely abolished_. They make IMO a definitive point on the
complete uselessness of patents in general; the case against copyright and
trademarks is somewhat less clear.
~~~
kd0amg
What arguments do they make about patents that do not apply well to copyright?
Do they take any position on trade secret protections?
~~~
wazoox
Patents has been used exclusively to stifle competition and have a very bad
record of actually hampering progress. Even the canonical case of pharma is
debunked thoroughly.
For copyright, the case is quite clear too, though it may still be possible
that a short copyright (14 years, for instance) may still be better than
nothing at all.
Trade secrecy are treated page 188. Basically, it is much more used than
patents, so suppressing patents won't change things much. Revealing secrets
through patents is very inefficient anyway.
------
kingofspain
Are the AA's and their equivalents not shooting themselves in the foot?
Framing the argument in the way they have done (piracy is KILLING art) might
work for a while but sooner or later a thinking person will come to realise
that it really doesn't. Home taping didn't kill anything. Of course, if
everyone suddenly stopped buying and only used torrents then the system would
collapse, but will that happen? If everyone stopped paying taxes the country
would collapse too. No country has an army big enough to enforce that.
You smoke pot, you're a drug-crazed menaced. Except millions already do, they
just keep it quiet (from the law at least). The more you push the drug-crazed
menace part, the more anyone will any sense will push back as it's
demonstrably untrue.
It might work great as a short term strategy and help you get favourable laws
passed but I think they might be approaching the end of the line soon.
No need to be too sore though, Mickey Mouse has had a better run than
virtually anyone in history.
~~~
towelrod
Look at something like this:
[http://www.nytimes.com/imagepages/2010/03/01/business/01eboo...](http://www.nytimes.com/imagepages/2010/03/01/business/01ebook_g.html?ref=media)
So $4 out of the $26 I pay for a hardcover book goes to the person who is
actually responsible for the content? I submit paying $22 in rent is
ridiculous, and as long as something like this holds true, thepiratebay looks
pretty good.
I buy a lot of ebooks in the $10 range, and I would buy even more in the $5
range -- especially if the $5 went to the person who actually wrote the book.
~~~
kingofspain
I can understand that, but I can also see the other side. Editors,
proofreaders, marketing, binding, printing, sales, distribution etc etc. The
author doesn't pay for those. With ebooks you can drop the binding & printing
but the rest still applies.
I'll concede there will be cases where the mark up is over the top, but you
aren't just paying for the actual words.
------
mistermann
Something that's always irked me is that the recording industry, and artists
themselves, seem to have this notion that every advance in technology should
benefit them, despite them often having no effort in the development of these
technologies.
Secondly, I imagine most everyone here has seen that picture of what its like
watching a non-pirated dvd vs a pirated one.....the non-pirated one takes
forever to get through all their copyright warnings, movie previews, etc. If
they'd show their paying customers a bit more respect they might get some in
return.
~~~
rick888
I doubt it. Most of these warnings and previews that you mention are the
direct result of piracy. I also don't think the movie and music industry are
going to play that game anymore.
in 1999 when Napster came out, everyone said music was too expensive (so they
pirated it). Later, it was because there was no "try before you buy" and
because the artists were getting screwed by the record companies.
Now that we have services like last.fm, pandora, and grooveshark to preview
songs and you can buy songs for less than $1 (which is pretty damn cheap).
Hell, you can even get DRM-less music and artists can easily sell their own
music without a label.
Has piracy stopped at all? no. It's gotten worse and so have the excuses. Why
can't people just admit that they don't give a damn about the artist and just
want free music/movies?
~~~
__david__
> Has piracy stopped at all? no. It's gotten worse and so have the excuses.
Has it? I used Napster to download tons of music. Nowadays I use iTunes (and
Amazon). I find it easier than poking around torrent sites or the awful
gnutella junk and the music is reasonably priced and DRM free. Things are
organized better and it makes my searching and downloading relatively
painless.
I don't buy movies online yet because of they are laden with DRM. I don't buy
blue-ray for the same reason. I'll buy DVDs only because the DRM has been
thoroughly cracked--they go directly to my computer as I haven't even owned a
DVD player in 5 years.
Make movies and TV shows downloadable and DRM free for a reasonable price and
I'll start buying in a heartbeat.
non-pain = lack of DRM + ease of obtaining + delivery speed + quality +
reasonableness of price.
If movie studios want to deal with piracy they _have_ to compete on all those
points. And they have to consider the whole pipeline from the internet to my
TV. These aren't excuses they're just the economics of the situation.
> Why can't people just admit that they don't give a damn about the artist and
> just want free music/movies?
Because that's just not the case.
~~~
rick888
"If movie studios want to deal with piracy they have to compete on all those
points."
Why should the movie studios negotiate with thieves? The music industry
listened (as I stated in my post above) and piracy hasn't decreased. Piracy
will stop when everything is $0 (which is really what most pirates want
anyway, but refuse to admit).
"I don't buy movies online yet because of they are laden with DRM. I don't buy
blue-ray for the same reason. I'll buy DVDs only because the DRM has been
thoroughly cracked--they go directly to my computer as I haven't even owned a
DVD player in 5 years."
You can blame the pirates for DRM. It was created as a direct result.
"Make movies and TV shows downloadable and DRM free for a reasonable price and
I'll start buying in a heartbeat."
"reasonable" is relative to everyone. Since the pirates can download things
for free with little effort, even a penny is too much for many people.
"Because that's just not the case."
The problem is that there isn't any way to prove the case either way. Pirates
aren't going to admit they just want stuff for free.
~~~
__david__
> You can blame the pirates for DRM. It was created as a direct result.
That is untrue. DVDs had DRM well before movies were able to be downloaded
from the internet. DRM was preemptive paranoia from the movie studios. It has
never stopped piracy (only slowed it down temporarily) and it only increases
the view that pirated goods are of higher value than the DRM laden legit
versions.
> Why should the movie studios negotiate with thieves?
Theft is a strong word. Copyright infringement is a better term. And the movie
studios have to compete with it because if they don't they will lose
everything, thoroughly.
> Piracy will stop when everything is $0 (which is really what most pirates
> want anyway, but refuse to admit).
You are casting an awfully wide net there. I've seen this attitude from people
before and I don't get it. Why do you think that $0 is the magical reason for
piracy? Can you not believe that people are more complicated than "OMG
Freeeee!"? Trying to find people's true motivations and ethics and then
working within those boundaries is the only way to stem piracy.
------
arethuza
Is anyone else sick of the use of the term piracy to try and make copyright
infringement sound more threatening?
~~~
motters
Yes, although alternative terms like "forbidden sharing" aren't quite as
catchy and don't have the associated glamour factor from dramatic
swashbuckling movies.
~~~
arethuza
What's wrong with "copyright infringement"?
------
reedlaw
Maybe that's because illegal copying violates no natural law and is in fact
allowable under a common understanding of property rights. If I own a hard
drive, I can store anything I want on it. Copyright limits that natural
property right by saying you can't store certain media or images that have
been designated as "copyrighted" on your own property. This idea is foreign to
most cultures and nearly all ancient societies.
~~~
forensic
>This idea is foreign to most cultures and nearly all ancient societies.
Which partially explains why most cultures and nearly all ancient societies
had little to no intellectual development.
Thinkers gotta eat or they won't exist.
Intellectual property feeds the families of most of the people on HN.
------
natch
I tried very hard to pay Oscars.com this year to get a stream of the Academy
Awards event. They would not take my money. I tried three different browsers
and two different credit cards. No go.
Then later I read that people who did pay the money were duped. They ended up
getting not the broadcast stream, but a bunch of bullshit side-angle camera
streams, not one of which was the broadcast. This after a build-up that
strongly suggested (pretty much promised, the way I read it) that this was the
ticket to watching the Oscars online.
This isn't the first time crap like this has happened. People get burned, and
they learn.
------
petercooper
The term 'socially acceptable' makes the conclusion hard to pin down.
_I'd_ say piracy is 'socially acceptable' - in the sense that not many people
would bat an eyelid if you said you'd downloaded one of the latest movies
illegally. But that doesn't mean I think it's _right_ or that people _should_
do it - it's just an observation on what seems to be "socially acceptable."
What is socially acceptable does not typically match up with what _I_ believe
to be right.
~~~
hasenj
You could be of the minority that thinks X is wrong, but why should the law
enforce _your_ opinion on X?
~~~
gjm11
No one's suggesting that it should. He's just pointing out that if you ask
people "is X socially acceptable?" then the results may be quite different
from if you ask "do you accept X?", and they may well be less interesting or
useful.
Imagine a society consisting of 40% Prudes, who disapprove of everything, and
60% Libertines, who disapprove of nothing. And suppose that people in this
society are well informed about one another's opinions. Then if you ask "Do
you approve of goat-fettling?" you'll get 60% yes, 40% no; but if you ask "Is
goat-fettling socially acceptable?" you'll get 100% yes, 0% no, because
everyone knows that most people approve.
Now suppose that the media in our hypothetical society aren't perfectly
accurate and unbiased; they somehow give everyone the impression that there
are more Prudes and fewer Libertines. This doesn't make any difference to the
result of the "do you approve?" survey, but it may change the result of the
"is it socially acceptable?" survey to 0% yes, 100% no because now everyone
"knows" that most people disapprove.
(How relevant all this is to the present survey, I don't know, because my
Danish isn't up to working out just what questions they actually asked.)
~~~
DavidSchor
According to the article the question was something I would translate to: "To
what degree do you accept piracy of music from the internet on a scale from 1
to 10. Not at all accepting = 1. Sceptical = 2-6. Accepts it = 7-10"
------
funthree
What happens when 70% of people are okay with something, in a country ruled by
the people?
~~~
praptak
_"[...] in a country ruled by the people"_
Name one.
~~~
benjiweber
Switzerland
~~~
benohear
Snap :-)
------
ahrens
At first I saw the source (torrentfreak) and thought it would be a survey of
their users... But it actually seems like it is a viably study with a good
spread of the subjects. I am actually not that surprised. First of all, it's a
Danish study. As I am myself living in the south of Sweden, I know that we and
the danish have similar views, and that piracy is pretty well accepted here.
Even more interesting, would be a survey within a bigger geographical spread.
Is there differences within Europe? What about the rest of the world? Are the
opinions similar world wide? I would also appreciate a more detailed view into
the selection of the group that answered.
The most interesting thing about the article is that it is spun very heavily
in the direction of piracy... The actual answers about piracy for private use,
is that less than 20% accept piracy, slightly over 30% not accepting it. The
rest have answered that they are sceptical to piracy for personal use.
Accept is 7-10 on a scale from 1-10, sceptical is 2-6 and don't accept is 1 on
the same scale. All from the linked report in Danish.
------
saw-lau
Sometimes I feel I'm the only person left in the world who a) still buys
media; b) doesn't mind doing it; c) thinks it's wrong to pirate things; and d)
doesn't consider it my right to be able to consume any media I want, and the
only reason I'm not doing it is because it's priced too high - IMHO, DVDs,
CDs, etc. are luxury goods.
Still, I realise I'm in the minority here - the 70% figure definitely doesn't
surprise me. Just, for some reason, makes me a little sad.
~~~
tluyben2
You are not the only person; I buy when I can. But the emphases on can here;
in Europe where I live, you get, via the web, news about every new tv show,
movie, game and book immediately after it comes out. And then you have to wait
for ages (depending on the popularity) before you can watch / buy it here.
Digital products like ebooks, games, movies and tv shows should not have a geo
limiting factor to them; they are digital. As long as they do, I don't see how
copying can be prevented.
Take apps like Pandora; very easy to use, very nice to use. Doesn't work in
the EU. Lame.
If 90% of the cool content you can buy online wouldn't be US only for such a
long time after release _and_ if everything was easier to use, I believe
copying would be less common. Why would you risk (viruses, the law) it or go
to the trouble of acquiring illegal materials if you can easily get it at the
same time US citizens get it?
(I'm using the US as an example here mainly because most content I like from
other countries I _can_ immediately buy, but that might differ depending on
your taste.)
------
Bvalmont
Everyone is copying media. _EVERYONE_. How can it NOT be socially acceptable ?
The other 30% just doesn't realize that lending a game or buying a game and
selling it after you've finished it is exactly the same thing as what an
internet pirate is doing.
~~~
mistermann
Lending a game is not exactly the same thing as piracy, in that case there is
one copy that is being shared. When you pirate something, two people have a
copy and can use at the same time in different locations.
~~~
jasonlotito
Thought game.
If I deleted my digital copy that I sent to someone, would that be okay?
If I download something from someone, am I responsible for verifying the
copyright or is it the distributors responsibility?
If someone requests something from my computer, and my computer allows them to
have it without my explicit intervention, am I responsible?
Am I responsible for distributing a file if someone downloads it after
accessing an FTP server I setup using an anonymous account?
What if it required a password?
Note, I'm not trying to push the agenda that piracy is right. Rather, that
piracy isn't as easy as saying someone copied a file.
Edit: I really want to stress I'm not trying ot make a point. Even I can't
answer all these questions easily.
~~~
aplusbi
>If I deleted my digital copy that I sent to someone, would that be okay?
Ethically I believe this to be equivalent to lending a book/cd/whatever to a
friend (this has been done, actually, as a protest/stunt. A guy attempted to
sell an mp3 from iTunes on eBay).
>If I download something from someone, am I responsible for verifying the
copyright or is it the distributors responsibility?
Distributor, generally. I feel this is similar to receipt of stolen property.
In most places you are only liable if you knew it was stolen.
>If someone requests something from my computer, and my computer allows them
to have it without my explicit intervention, am I responsible?
Yes, though how responsible you are is debatable. Intent is important but
ignorance is rarely a successful defense.
>Am I responsible for distributing a file if someone downloads it after
accessing an FTP server I setup using an anonymous account?
Why wouldn't you be?
>What if it required a password?
How is that any different? Or do you mean someone guessed the password?
Of course, most of these answers are just my opinion/speculation. Sometimes
the line between "piracy" and "sharing" is blurry which I think is a huge part
of the problem. There is (seemingly) no way have one without the other. If I
want the ability to lend an ebook to a friend then I must also have the
ability to give a copy to my friend. There are some systems in place to
attempt to reconcile this, but they are either limited (you can lend it x
number of times) or take away some other right (for example, it might take
away the right to have a backup copy).
~~~
jasonlotito
> Yes, though how responsible you are is debatable. Intent is important but
> ignorance is rarely a successful defense.
Their was no intent. Someone was merely able to gain access to the computer
without my expressed knowledge and download a file (hypothetical, of course).
> Why wouldn't you be?
I guess your assuming I've given them explicit access to the FTP server.
> How is that any different? Or do you mean someone guessed the password?
Sorry, I tried to state the conditions. In the previous question it was merely
that, I setup an FTP server, I don't password protect it, but I don't publish
that the site exists.
So, yes, in the last question: someone guessed the password.
> Of course, most of these answers are just my opinion/speculation. Sometimes
> the line between "piracy" and "sharing" is blurry which I think is a huge
> part of the problem.
Agreed, which was the point of the exercise. We infer so much from simple
actions. Intention is important, as you mentioned.
------
WorkingDead
If copyright laws were reasonable then people would not find it acceptable to
break them.
~~~
rick888
If tax laws were reasonable, then people would not find it acceptable to break
them.
------
cabalamat
Piracy is socially acceptable, but politicians are passing ever more draconian
laws in a futile attempt to prop up the music industry's obsolete business
model.
If you want to stop this, and live in Scotland, you can vote for the Pirate
Party this May. I'm one of their candidates.
------
robryan
Interesting thought, if piracy did manage to put a big dent into say the
profitability of books, would we then see a lot more projects popping up on
sites like kickstarter which would probably be very popular given the
diminished choice in the market for readers.
------
kgtm
Socially acceptable or not, anti-piracy advocates fail to realize that if i am
pirating something, i had no intention to buy it. They really, really fail to
see this. You can inflate the amount of money you are losing because of me all
you want, the reality remains.
And it is this childish obsession that tickles my pirate nerves and makes me
pirate even stuff i would gladly pay for. Because the industry is dishonest
and thinks i sit on the far left of the IQ bell curve. They are lying in my
face, and they know it. They don't deserve my money.
Go Minecraft.
------
slavak
This reminds me of a quote from Penny Arcade[1]:
'I mentioned to Gabe that the LendMe feature didn't extend to all books, and
he was surprised to learn this, as "lending" a book digitally removes it from
your device. It is, in many ways, like lending a person a real book. I
suggested to him that this was precisely what they didn't like - you have to
warp your mind to perceive it, to understand why a publisher of books would
hate the book as a concept, but there you have it. They don't like that books
are immutable, transferable objects whose payload never degrades. A digital
"book" - caged on a device, licensed, not purchased - is the sort of thing
that greases their mandibles with digestive enzymes.
Imagine what these people must think of libraries.'
The fact is that, scare-mongering aside, piracy doesn't seem to have nearly as
big an impact on profits as the large content creators would have us believe.
What worries me more is that they seem to be leveraging this fear campaign to
chip away at the basic concept of "ownership," pushing for a world where
products are "licensed" rather than "bought." This scares me because, being
rather old-fashioned, I enjoy the concept of buying a book, rather than
licensing the words in that book for reading.
[1]<http://www.penny-arcade.com/2009/12/16/>
~~~
forensic
If you ever thought you owned the words in a book, you were mistaken.
~~~
Helianthus16
in certain ideologies subscribed to by some anti-imaginary-property
proponents, this statement applies to the author of those words as well.
------
spacemanaki
This was a Danish study, does anyone know the size of their sample? Did it
include other Europeans, anyone from North America, Asia? I would imagine it
would make a bit of a difference in the results, and would be interesting to
compare.
~~~
sesqu
My Danish isn't too hot, but I make it N=1146, Danish only.
------
njharman
"best bet is probably to focus on lowering the incentives for people to
pirate"
No. It's very hard to not get people to do something and esp to stop doing
something they currently are and tripple esp to do either without some
replacement. As this "study" demonstrated and should be common sense.
Instead they need to incentivize legal downloads / legal media consumption.
Of course, that's extremely hard cause they literally add no value. They
actually have a huge anti-value hill to climb just to reach parity with
downloading. Their middle-man business model is broke and requires ever more
bizarre/ridiculous laws to keep it shored up.
------
bena
I hope this highlights the fallacy of using consensus to determine what is
ethical:
"70% of the public finds rape socially acceptable"
Would we be having the same conversation?
~~~
wnoise
That would be a reasonable counterpoint if 70% of the public did find rape
socially acceptable.
------
sigzero
Really? Almost none of my friends finds it acceptable. Maybe they are skewing
the data to support their position. That never happens though.
~~~
natch
Maybe you live in a bubble. That never happens though.
But more seriously, maybe none of your friends have had the experience of
buying an LP, then later paying again for the same music on cassette, (and
maybe 8-track and minidisc) and then again on CD.
And then maybe they weren't aware that the industry conducted a huge PR
campaign to let people know that when they buy music, they are just paying for
a license, not for the physical artifact. Of course they only did this after
people had already switched to CDs. If we had known this before, we could have
asked for crossgrades of the license from
LP/single/tape/8-track/minidisc/whatever to CD.
And maybe your friends didn't hear about things like "Plays For Sure(TM)",
Microsoft's DRM scheme that tricked millions of people into paying for music
which Microsoft then decided would not play any more.
For those of us who did hear about these things, after paying for the same
music three times, we're ready to just download our fucking songs that we
already paid for.
------
kstenerud
Wow... I didn't expect these sorts of tabloid headers to occur on Hacker News.
That's usually a Reddit thing.
Shouldn't Hacker News be a cut above, where people first read and understand
an article, and then post it to HN with a succinct, relevant, and most
importantly TRUTHFUL title?
------
fields
Did Apple keep the other 30%?
------
s00pcan
I really doubt that software piracy would be illegal if put to a public vote.
------
hernan7
It's not surprising that piracy is becoming more acceptable, since for much of
the world the opposite of "piracy" is "giving money to the US".
(Independently of how much the numbers in this particular poll were
manipulated.)
------
iterationx
How do you do a poll? I'd be more interested in:
X% of HN finds piracy acceptable
------
rick888
The taxes are so high in Denmark, I'm not surprised. Most people don't have
that much money left over to spend on things like music and movies.
~~~
rtp
Do you have a source on that? I live in Sweden, have an average wage, and we
have pretty high taxes, yet I could potentially buy a lot of movies and CDs if
I wanted to, and I gather Denmark doesn't have that much higher taxes than
Sweden, so that is why I'm asking.
------
saturn
Only 70%? In my social circle it would be 100%, and has been for years.
Ironically I still spend more on media than anyone else I know, piracy or no
..
~~~
InclinedPlane
That's hardly ironic at all, it's merely counter-intuitive if you accept the
notion that sharing == piracy (see my other post). If you reject that notion
then the idea that greater enthusiasm for media by way of sharing should be
correlated with greater media expenditures follows quite logically and
directly.
------
libpcap
I find it acceptable. eMule, PeerBlock, and verycd.com have always been my
friends.
------
smogzer
piracy is the opiate of the youth.
------
ancymon
I hope it won't discourage people to become sailors…
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Darpa Red Balloon Challenge and the Diminishing Power of Elite Networks - marciovm123
http://savemefrombschool.com/2009/12/darpa-red-balloon-challenge-and-the-diminishing-power-of-elite-networks/
======
jgavris
I eagerly anticipate the proliferation of self-organizing dynamics as it
pertains to how we will consume (social) media in the future.
"For nearly everyone, the opinion of one's peers is the most powerful
motivator of all—more powerful even than the nominal goal of most startup
founders, getting rich." <http://www.paulgraham.com/mit.html>
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Falsehoods CS Students (Still) Believe Upon Graduating - lolptdr
https://www.netmeister.org/blog/cs-falsehoods.html
======
lacker
Bah, sprinkling printf statements is a quality debugging technique. Sometimes
everything really is a nail.
~~~
est31
It seems to me that there are two schools of thought: one school which uses
debuggers, the other school which uses printf statements and equivalents.
Neither schools are absolutely false.
~~~
irrational
A third school that does both, based on the circumstances.
~~~
kevvok
Exactly! I’ve dealt with multiple real-time embedded platforms that have a log
output channel that is waaay more convenient to use via printfs than hooking
up a whole debug apparatus.
------
mden
Great list, two nits.
"Open Source means it has fewer bugs and is more secure."
Maybe not in the absolute meaning of that expression, but I find it true when
you only consider the higher quality open source projects, e.g. say the top
10k open source projects. The code that most professional software developers
produce at big and small companies alike makes me in awe that their final
products work as well as they do.
"Being able to program is the most important aspect of being a good software
engineer."
Ehh, I would say this is true. Certainly not the only aspect but if you can't
code then you just end up being someone playing office politics all day trying
to hide that fact.
~~~
cperciva
_I find it true when you only consider the higher quality open source
projects, e.g. say the top 10k open source projects._
How are you defining "top" here? The _best quality_ open source projects are
not the _most widely used_ projects -- if anything, I find that the
correlation tends to be negative.
------
mc3
The biggest falsehood I believed is that companies care about writing quality
code, and you will get to apply the rigor on the job that you learn at uni. On
the whole, they don't really care, with some exceptions.
~~~
rhizome
You wouldn't know it from interviews, which is why the falsehood persists.
------
alexbanks
This is a great list. The arrogance of the recent grad is pretty astounding
(in my experience) (myself included). I wish more time was spent on solving
some of these misconceptions during university.
------
floki999
Great list. I would add: ‘Coding and software development are the same thing’
------
hybrids
> Command-line tools should print colorized output.
Just add a "colorless" command line argument if you need to parse things
without ASCII color codes. Better yet, detect when the program is outputting
to a pipe and disable colorized output, e.g. like Git
[https://unix.stackexchange.com/a/19320](https://unix.stackexchange.com/a/19320)
> They will use lots of math in their career.
The validity of this is highly domain-specific.
> 'git' and 'GitHub' are synonymous.
Aside from GitHub-a-likes (e.g. GitLab, BitBucket), what does this mean? I'm
assuming that it's that you can use Git by its original use pattern (i.e.
without a "single-source-of-truth-plus-issue-tracker-as-a-service" system and
more as a "true" DVCS) but very few projects seem to really use it this way.
They're important projects, sure (e.g. Linux) but they are few in number.
> Sprinkling printf statements is an efficient debugging technique.
This is...opinionated. As useful as GDB can be in a pinch I have often
preferred to just output things to console. `printf` specifically is a bad
example, as C doesn't have reflective abilities (out of the box, anyway),
making debug-by-manual-print harder.
> Compiler warnings can be ignored, as they'd be errors otherwise.
I smell a Golang programmer...
> Using lambda in Python is a good idea because it shows others you have a CS
> degree and understand the "Lambda Calculus".
Kinda rolling my eyes at this one. Yes one can "be annoying" with FP-like
concepts but lambdas can be very useful in a pinch.
>Object-oriented programming is the best and most common programming paradigm.
>Using a custom written Vector class makes your program object-oriented.
I feel I should add my personal falsehood: _" State objects with methods means
your program is object-oriented."_
------
chc-sc
CS Students think Steve Jobs was successful _because_ he was a jerk?
~~~
maniflames
Unfortunately I really know people in my class who believe that if people are
in fear of getting fired and missing deadlines they will be more productive :/
~~~
rhizome
That's just MBA canon.
------
oldgradstudent
> 6\. CS professors know how to program.
> 7\. CS professors know how to use a computer / mobile device or how the
> internet works.
I'm not entirely sure how exposure to CS professors could give anyone that
impression.
Reminds me how a CS professor proudly showed me how he managed to send an
email _with an attachment_.
~~~
labster
Now if he could show you how to send an email with PGP, that would be
impressive.
~~~
oldgradstudent
For him, sending an email with an attachment was very impressive.
------
Enginerrrd
Alright, this one eludes me:
>Object-oriented programming is the best and most common programming paradigm.
------
cryptozeus
Sigh... “10. Compiler warnings can be ignored, as they'd be errors otherwise.“
------
ConcernedCoder
If commenting code is bad, then I don't want to be good...
~~~
cjfd
The article talks about 'lots of comments'. The occasional comment can be
helpful but many things are just as clearly expressed in code as in comments.
E.g., if you write a numerical algorithm you should probably either explain it
or add a reference. But if you start to see things like
DatabaseConnection conn; // Connection to the database
things have gotten very badly out of hand.
------
tintintin
One more: "If you're coding on Windows, you're doing it wrong."
------
muststopmyths
Reads more like author's pet peeves than anything supported by data.
------
ychen306
> Sprinkling printf statements is an efficient debugging technique.
Debatable.
~~~
saagarjha
Wrong thread?
~~~
dang
Good catch; we've moved it from
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21481931](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21481931).
Thanks!
------
ossworkerrights
Here is another one: Python is great for web development.
~~~
yjftsjthsd-h
eeeeh, that sounds more like tribalism; there's plenty of good webapps written
in Python... and Ruby, and Go, and PHP, and Perl, and any number of other
languages, many of which might be unexpected but work well for the people
using them.
~~~
ossworkerrights
That is correct, but some just tend to religiously adopt Python. Those who
understand that the best tool for the task at hand is the best tool for the
task at hand are fine.
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Apple Arcade launches later this month for $4.99/mo - artsandsci
https://techcrunch.com/2019/09/10/apple-arcade-launches-later-this-month-for-4-99-mo/
======
alteria
As a Consumer, I'm really excited about this. I'm fed up with skinner box RNG
money extraction apps, and the ability to pay once to try a catalog of games
is great. I've always been hesitant to buy pricer games because I didn't know
if I would like them.
On the other hand, iOS is probably the mobile marketplace with the highest
proportion of customers willing to buy non-lootbox games. If this gains enough
market share, devs will feel forced to join this program, and it's currently
unclear how they will be paid out.
------
makecheck
This move will probably obliterate game developers more than it first seems.
Apple Arcade _refused_ to port any existing games; they only wanted brand new,
exclusive content that was painstakingly developed for all their platforms.
Not only is this a giant “GTFO” to developers that have stuck with their
platforms for years but it practically ensures that the initial game library,
no matter how big it is, will take forever to grow. Players can blow through
content _really_ quickly. And a “library” of X games doesn’t really count
because each person will always have their favorite genres, making most games
unplayable (so we are really talking about an initial library where X/30 games
are actually interesting).
At the very least, they should have invited existing App Store games into the
Arcade, provided that they met some basic requirements (no in-app purchases,
etc.).
It is also really rich to see Apple point out questionable game behaviors on
their own App Store, when Apple has complete control and could have solved the
entire problem many years ago without introducing Apple Arcade at all. _Fix
your damned App Store._ I hate to imagine the millions of dollars that have
_clearly_ been funneled to all the wrong parties, Apple included, by simply
scamming people for more than a decade while legitimate developers beg for
scraps.
Also, the existing game market will be destroyed by $4.99/month. It was
already like pulling teeth to convince anyone on _mobile_ to spend money but
at least on the _Mac_ you saw almost-traditional pricing for some games. Now,
if lots of cross-platform games are available for peanuts, it will be
_impossible_ to charge _anything_ for games, _even on the Mac_. The Mac as a
gaming platform will be completely incinerated by this: if you can’t put a
game in the Arcade and you can’t charge for it because Arcade is cheap, where
does the game belong? On Windows and Switch, apparently.
------
stfwn
Seems like a fair enough price. I don’t know what the deal with the developers
is, but I hope it enables them to make quality games rather than the ‘free’
dopamine clickers that dominate the charts now.
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Born This Way - OoTheNigerian
http://techcrunch.com/2011/02/20/born-this-way/
======
zaidf
Once upon a time, TechCrunch was about start-ups and gosh they were killing
it. I miss those days! Anyone else?
That said, I'm assuming their change in direction over the years has been a
business decision. I will always respect that even if it means less TC for me.
~~~
bmelton
<http://thestartupfoundry.com>. What's old is new again. Paul Hontz had those
exact same feelings, and has brought forth a blog that is closer to what TC
used to be than any other I've seen.
~~~
sgrove
Hard to get their attention though. 3 emails, some tweets, and they've yet to
reply.
Suppose everyone's busy, and persistence pays off.
~~~
g0atbutt
Email me again ([email protected]). It's nothing personal, we just get A LOT
of email. We are looking at ways to improve response time. Sorry about that.
~~~
sgrove
Heh, no problems. Like I said, I planned to be persistent. You might think of
a way to manage responses automatically so the sender knows you at least
received it, to keep relations good.
And, as I've mentioned before, I'm a huge fan of what you're doing, and how
you're doing it.
------
tomwalsham
It's been my not-so-private view for some time now Arrington has consciously
turned into a professional troll. While TC had great value a few years back as
a news source, the purchase by AOL was IMO the culmination of a steady
decline.
I'm not sure if the instigation of flamebait headlines and Gawker level
journalism were a natural progression for an expanding media outlet which
bases its own self worth on impressions and ad-clicks, or a conscious effort
to court the attentions of the big-name acquisitors, but the Techcrunch of
2010 was a noticeable step down from the startup/business related organ of
prior years.
Viral content spreading via limited-char media such as Twitter is probably
encouraging the troll-headline ("Women don't want to run startups"). We know
from the AOL Way missives that the major content farms are encouraging Google-
Trend following made-to-order 'reporting' rather than seeking out the new. As
TC became the go-to place for 'launch' it has become apparent that cronyism
was driving much of the content selection, rather than objective assessment of
the startup in question - see Quora vs StackOverflow reporting on TC in recent
months.
There was a post a few weeks back on HN of someone wanting to produce a
successor to TC - a 'back to the old way' site. Whether they will be
successful or not, the interesting fact was the public response was
overwhelmingly positive, rather than questioning the rationality of pursuing
the idea. At the end of the day, it's just a blog. Crunchbase is great,
Disrupt is valuable, but if the anchoring blog loses its way, the associated
properties will be usurped by someone else.
~~~
Vivtek
<http://thestartupfoundry.com/> is the reboot you're thinking of. So far, I've
really found them good. Way better than TC (natch).
~~~
Helianthus16
Yeah, I'm really impressed with g0atbutt's results so far.
~~~
jarin
And the fact that he hasn't yet changed his username.
~~~
g0atbutt
And I never will! Thanks for the support.
------
talbina
I've seen a lot of bad writing online, even in reputable publications. But
I've never seen ANYONE taunt their readers in comments like Steve Gillmor is
doing now.
And I can say something like this since I'm the type of person that spends my
weekends reading news and articles.
On the Business Insider, when readers ridicule Henry Blodget about his past,
he responds politely with links and explanations about the accusations against
him.
~~~
schwabacher
His taunts don't even make sense. It seems like he is taking offense to people
criticizing his story anonymously, but the way he is asking people for their
real names comes off as strange and kind of creepy. And, he isn't addressing
any of the (IMO valid) complaints they have about his story.
~~~
nhangen
well I must admit, if I worked for TC and had to deal with their comment crew,
I'd probably be firing rounds my now.
~~~
nhangen
arg, misspelling - _by_ now.
------
rumpelstiltskin
Relevant comment from the article -
_This seems to be a textbook "AOL Way" article that Paul Miller was talking
about.
Beatles? Popular.
iPad? Popular (Bonus points for featuring FOUR of them).
Lady Gaga? Popular.
Turnaround time? Few minutes.
Actual substance? None whatsoever._
Steve Gilmor's unrelenting jackassery is getting out of hand. Now that TC is
under new management, can someone rein this guy in?
~~~
lwat
What is YOUR real name!?
~~~
socksy
Sorry, I don't understand how that relates to what he said? Could you explain
further?
~~~
burgerbrain
This is how the author of the article has been responding to criticism.
------
nhangen
Good for Arrington that AOL bought them when they were turning to garbage. Bad
for AOL that they didn't see it coming.
I wonder why anyone even reads TC these days.
------
ilamont
I realize that "star" contributors can command more control (and once upon a
time, higher freelance fees) but I am very surprised a TC editor didn't
exercise veto power over this post. It brings down the brand.
In addition, Gillmor's childish comments are positively embarrassing, and go
against the spirit of Techcrunch's own comment policy, which states "please
think of the comments as a conversation between individuals and interact with
civility." (<http://techcrunch.com/techcrunch-comment-policy/>)
------
noonespecial
Heh. They can't all be winners can they? Based on this article, I'd say they
jumped it, hired it, and now its writing articles for them.
~~~
shantanubala
I'm still trying to wrap my head around what the hell I just read.
So let me get this straight: the author of the article has an argument with
his daughter about Lady Gaga, which leads to his daughter getting her iPad and
hijacking his AirPlay, which leads to a "kids these days" type of commentary,
which leads to him talking about how he missed his deadline.
Which startup is he "obsessively profiling?" Is this a metaphor for something?
I feel like I'm the butt of a joke for even visiting TechCrunch.
~~~
biot
... which leads to people calling TechCrunch out for the useless article,
which leads to him getting all creepy with those commenting, asking for their
real names, and implying that finding out people's names is his homework for
next week.
I, too, used to at least skim almost every article on TechCrunch back when it
was all about startups as it was often the first site to highlight a new
company or reveal mergers, acquisitions, key hires, etc. At some point, it
crossed my personal "quality" threshold and got lumped together with Gawker
Media type of sites where sensationalism trumps quality. I'm sure it's more
profitable, but kind of a shame for the technical community.
~~~
burgerbrain
I advise that people flag his creepy as shit comments as the inappropriate
comments they are.
------
fuzzmeister
I have always found Gillmor's writing absolutely impenetrable. His posts
meander and never seem to arrive at anything resembling a point. I almost feel
like he intentionally avoids making points.
~~~
shareme
it reminds me of Greatfull Dead concerts..never the same meander every
session..
------
bpeters
Maybe it is less that they jumped the shark and more that they tried and
missed, thus being eaten alive by the shark.
Or they really believe that writing about anything is better than writing
nothing.
------
ENOTTY
>Now it’s Sunday morning and I’m ten minutes past my deadline.
And now we know why.
------
soulclap
OoTheNigerian: what's your real name?
That aside: Wow. I thought this would link to an article that might have a
flaw or two or was not 'acceptable' from some cutting edge geek snob POV.
(Sorry for expecting something along these lines on HN, I am new around here!)
But this is really the absolutely worst article I have ever seen on a tech-
related site - including sites that never even had any 'rep' for a start, as
opposed to TechCrunch - plus the author is definitely being mad creepy in the
comments.
------
Kylekramer
Eh, it is just what happens when a tech site reaches a certain point of
popularity. In the early days, a site fights to be unique and high quality to
get the hits. Once a certain level of hits is assured, there is a weird switch
where since every post is going have a certain number of views, the writers
start to care less about quality and get into a feedback loop that tells them
they still are doing well cause they are getting hits. And even worse, the
outliers like Steve's strange ramblings and MG's flamebait are seen as better
cause the novelty drives more attention to them than a normal, well researched
and written post.
I still find it entertaining, but you just can't take it seriously. It is
probably best if you never do.
------
clark-kent
No, they haven't jumped the shark. You were just exposed to Steve Gillmor's
writing. While the article is pointless, its one of his more coherent posts.
He has written much worse TC articles than this.
------
Bossman
What the hell was that? I'm sorry for the bluntness of my statement, but that
"article" was crap.
~~~
shareme
that was TC torturing new interns..their readers :)
------
hartror
I think it is just weak writing, the story seems to be about new technology
and how we interact with it, which is fair TechCrunch fodder. However the
opening sentences provide no hook and no solid message as to what the article
is about. On top of that the writing style is something out of a Sunday
magazine, rambling, relaxed and undirected.
Though it was posted on Sunday so . . .
------
benologist
TC writes whatever will generate ad impressions or curry favor with someone
they wish would like them, and AOL's acquisition makes that official policy.
I really hope the guys at <http://thestartupfoundry.com/> keep at it and
become a significant presence.
------
Zakuzaa
Their feedburner subscribers count has reduced to half of what it was few
months ago. (4000k to 2000k).
------
nhebb
No, they haven't jumped the shark. Happy Days started to suck long before
Fonzie jumped the shark tank. That episode was just the final straw.
TechCrunch isn't that bad - as long as you pick and choose which articles to
read. If you're wasting time reading every TechCrunch article linked to by HN,
then you have bigger concerns than whether the articles are consistently high
quality.
Maybe HN article submitters could do us a favor and bracket the author's name
in the title for those of us that have biases for or against certain writers
at TC, NYT, etc.
~~~
petercooper
Agreed. If you stick to Arrington, Rao, Butcher, and a couple of others, you
get some good content. There are just a few 'bad apples' there who drag it
down.
------
mkr-hn
He seems to have taken the opening paragraphs for several iPad articles and
squished them together.
Maybe it's an experiment in creating articles out of scraps.
------
KeyBoardG
I only started reading tc about a year ago and even in this amount of time
I've seen the downturn. Steve and alexytosis(whatever) both write meaningless
dribble.
------
technomancy
Hardly news. Everything that need be said about TC was covered years ago in
Giles Bowkett's post: [http://gilesbowkett.blogspot.com/2008/05/never-hate-
only-eve...](http://gilesbowkett.blogspot.com/2008/05/never-hate-only-ever-
destroy.html)
------
nl
It's not Techcrunch, it's Steve Gillmore. I'd say he'd jumped the shark, but
that would imply at once point he actually said something sensible.
------
gyardley
Why does snarky title editorializing have this many upvotes? Do we really want
this showing up on the front page of HN every time someone reads a TechCrunch
post they dislike?
Steve Gillmor is nothing but himself - love him or hate him, his writing style
hasn't changed. There's nothing new here to complain about.
------
chailatte
Long time ago. Probably 2008.
I am pretty sure most people are submitting techcrunch articles just for karma
points. That and they come standard with aggressive linkbaiting headlines.
~~~
OoTheNigerian
I don't really need Karma points for anything. Maybe I should just have
written a 2 sentence post with the submission title and put a link to the TC
article.
I just thought this was shorter.
~~~
IsaacL
I can vouch that I know Oo personally, and he didn't submit this for easy
karma. Not sure why he _did_ submit it, though...
~~~
OoTheNigerian
_Not sure why he did submit it, though..._
Maybe the frustration knowing that I will never get my 5 mins back and hoping
that the guys at TC get the feedback. :)
------
drivebyacct2
Steve Gillmor is a child. The last article I read by him, he was stalking and
creeping on people in the comments. It was very, very weird and the comments
on this article seem to imply that he's at it again.
Seriously, I don't care for TC, but they need to get this jackass under
control. After mentioning that he was responding immaturely to commenters, he
replied with "What is your real name?".
[http://techcrunch.com/2011/02/13/close-or-
view/#comment-1458...](http://techcrunch.com/2011/02/13/close-or-
view/#comment-145823647)
------
jawartak
One word: pageviews.
------
shareme
Guys, TC is a tech site right? Than why do they not validate the email when
you want to comment? Epic FAIL!
------
michaelpinto
I don't know if you folks are aware of this but Steve Gillmor in his previous
career was a record producer — he worked with everyone from Firesign Theater
to Grace Jones. That's why is writing is so filled with references to music.
You can say what you want about Techcrunch but Gillmor is one of the writers
they have who is still worth reading. He doesn't give a damn about chasing
page views and if you read in between the lines he often has something
interesting to say. And his charm is that he doesn't give a damn about the
trolls in the comments section.
Also each generation of technology has its publication: In a sense if
Techcrunch is feeling dated it's because we're entering a new era. Once upon a
time in the web 1.0 era we were reading Slashdot, F*cked Company, InfoWorld,
MacWeek, the Silicon Alley Reporter a few others that are pretty much non-
existent today. If Techcrunch is now dead so is Web 2.0 in a sense (and other
brands of that era like SXSW, Mashable, etc.).
~~~
burgerbrain
The music references are not the issue here. Read the comments this tool is
making to people who are (rightfully) giving him criticism.
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Ask HN: Best statistical resources - tixocloud
I'm interested in improving my statistical skills. I have a good understanding of basic stats but would like to dive into more advanced statistics (particularly in soccer). Are there any good statistical books/blogs/resources that you would recommend? Thanks in advance.
======
mikecb
Don't know about soccer, but both of Andrew Gelman's books are bibles for me
(economics). Data Analysis Using Regression and Hierarchical/Multilevel
Modeling[1] and Bayesian Data Analysis[2]. He uses R. They're approachable,
but get into some real hardcore stats.
[1]
[http://www.stat.columbia.edu/~gelman/arm/](http://www.stat.columbia.edu/~gelman/arm/)
[2]
[http://www.stat.columbia.edu/~gelman/book/](http://www.stat.columbia.edu/~gelman/book/)
------
jcr
There were some suggestions in these previous discussions:
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8491378](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8491378)
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8348769](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8348769)
I recall a recent discussion where people made some book recommendations, but
unfortunately, I can't find it.
~~~
tixocloud
That's fine. Really appreciate the links - I'll go through them.
------
stevetjoa
I have yet to go through it, but there is OnlineStatBook:
[http://onlinestatbook.com/index.html](http://onlinestatbook.com/index.html)
Chapter 1:
[http://onlinestatbook.com/2/introduction/introduction.html](http://onlinestatbook.com/2/introduction/introduction.html)
------
johnm132
see the post on the world cup and stats/ML/NN on sportsandillumination.com
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Spectre explanation in CSAPP? - cpu_
https://imgur.com/gallery/ixge26y
======
cpu_
Was reading on "Exception handling" in Computer Systems: A Programmer's
Perspective 2nd edition chapter 4.5.9 and found it interesting that they
explained "subtleties" related to Spectre vulnerability. Was this known before
Spectre being disclosed?
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
PathNet: Evolution Channels Gradient Descent in Super Neural Networks - jweissman
https://arxiv.org/abs/1701.08734
======
cs702
In short, this architecture freezes the parameters and pathways used for
previously learned tasks, and can learn new parameters and use new pathways
for new tasks, with each new task learned faster than previous ones by
leveraging all previously learned parameters and pathways (more efficient
transfer learning).
It's a _general_ neural net architecture.
Very cool.
------
divbit
"During learning, a tournament selection genetic algorithm is used to select
pathways through the neural network for replication and mutation."
Trying to think of another 'tournament' like process that would allow for a
massive distributed network where each node already has a decent GPU, where
something like this could be successfully run. Maybe someone could help me out
here...
~~~
gwern
I assume you're being sarcastic; they do point out in the intro and at the end
that a deep RL agent could be trained to do the topology selections, but that
would be more work to get going than some simple evolutionary operators, and
is left to future work. Don't worry, I'm sure it'll be A3C all the way down
eventually...
~~~
divbit
Well yes, you could use neural net for the tournament selection, but I was
thinking of a much dumber competition that involves a whole lot more
distributed GPU power.
~~~
MBlume
I think you might have to actually explain what you're thinking of
~~~
divbit
loss function tournament winner replacing hash winner in something like
bitcoin mining
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Millionaire teachers: a lucrative online marketplace for lesson plans - Textarcana
http://www.tampabay.com/news/education/k12/millionaire-teachers-rising-standards-have-led-to-a-lucrative-online/2320189
======
pee_arrr
This is textbook PR, literally from the first word. The headline is crafted
specifically to engender resentment and outrage.
The intention is to reinforce the counterfactual narrative that teachers in
the US are overpaid, which is needed to depress opposition to the looting of
public school systems.
Now, a market for lesson plans _is_ interesting - and I'm much happier with
money going to entrepreneurial teachers actually creating content that might
otherwise end up in the pockets of the Blackstone Group or Holtzbrinck - but
the real point of this article has more to do with parochial politics.
~~~
tbihl
Could you point me to what you mean, or how you found that meaning here? I
grant that I probably bring my own biases to this interpretation, but the
article made me think, "teachers now have to spend their own salaries on
teaching material because districts only buy lousy, overpriced stuff (if that)
from textbook publishers. Worse yet, the jerks feel the need to attack the
teachers who are sharing their material, as if $40k p.a. entitled them to 168
hours of their employees' time each week."
~~~
sdflkd
Starting off with the title of "Millionaire" would definitely annoy people.
~~~
tbihl
Ahhh, so it's PR for people who only look at the title. Thank you; I totally
missed that, but you're quite right about it. (This from the guy who misses
important information in emails because why would I read the subject line if
I'm reading the whole message?)
------
socrates1998
Man, I don't get why Teachers stress so much on lesson plans.
I was a high school teacher for about a decade and after the first three
years, it doesn't take long or difficult to have lesson plans available.
If you want ideas, the school district often has a crap load of them. And if
you are teaching a standardized course (like Algebra or Geometry) you are
essentially provided lesson plans for every day.
The website is an interesting idea, but it won't make a bunch of people
millionaires. It will make 2 or 3 teachers millionaires, with most people who
contributed probably losing money for the amount of time invested in creating
these lesson plans.
Really, the school districts biggest waste of resources are their teachers.
You could easily open source all the teachers lesson plans for the district,
then you could freely pick and choose from anyone in your district.
Also, you could do away with those crazy expensive textbooks. Get every kid a
$50 android tablet and get a team of teachers to come up with an open source
version.
It would take them a few weeks over the summer if you are dealing with
experienced teachers.
Then, you update the textbook every summer and the students download the
latest version in August.
The school district would save insane amounts of money.
But, they won't do that because the publishers and administrators have
corrupted the textbook buying process to a maddening degree. So sad.
~~~
coolgeek
Your profile notes:
> Owner/ Founder: Making-The-Grade Private Learning (Private Tutoring
> Services).
Your belief that there is nothing more to teaching than a lesson plan - "you
could freely pick and choose from anyone in your district" \- doesn't inspire
confidence in the services you offer.
You also note that you're a Wordpress (sic) contractor. WordPress (note the
capitalized P) is open source. Do you also believe that you could freely pick
and choose from anyone (i.e. anybody without prior training or experience) to
do WordPress development?
~~~
socrates1998
I know this is super late, but I will respond as I just saw it.
I have been an educator for over a decade, and lesson plans are very low on
the list of what makes someone a good or great teacher/educator.
Teaching successfully is a lot of things, but for me it is a presentation.
Making an interesting presentation and guiding students through a course
correctly is the true skill.
Lesson plans are mostly about inserting industry language and cool sounding
bullet points into pdfs so that your administrator will be impressed. They are
really useful to inexperienced teachers, but are largely an after thought for
many great experienced teachers. When you open source them to people in your
district, it would be easy for other teachers to get ideas from them and allow
them to actually be useful for even the most experienced teachers.
You clearly didn't understand my comment, so please enlighten me on what your
theory of teaching and education is and the role that lesson plans play in all
of it.
Your question, which was probably rhetorical, about Wordpress (note the
uncapitalized p) doesn't make any sense. If you want an honest debate,
rephrase it.
------
MarkMc
This reminds me of what Michelle Rhee wrote in her book 'Radical':
\----------
Imagine a third-grade teacher whose class is working on fractions. She opens
up her laptop that the school has provided. She ventures into a teacher portal
that the district has set up to assist educators. The teacher types “adding
fractions” into the search engine. Up pop links to lesson plans that various
teachers in the district have used to teach the skill of adding fractions.
They are sorted by grade level. Each lesson is rated by a certain number of
stars, ratings other teachers have given the plan based on how well it was
written and how well it worked in their classroom. There are also links to
videos of master teachers presenting lessons on adding fractions. In these
videos teachers can hear narration by the master teacher, who is explaining
what happened in the room, and why she did what she did. There’s also a
message board that teachers can use to comment on the video and share ideas.
\----------------
When I read this, I thought "Yes! Stack Overflow for lesson plans"
------
adwmayer
Glad teachers are finding a way to make some additional money especially given
how much time they spend on lesson plans. The licensing aspect seems
interesting and potentially problematic, but I don't see why the school
districts couldn't get into this too and do some sort of revenue share with
the teachers (ignoring the bureaucracy of actually setting it up). A more
"open source" version of this would be nice too but then you get into the same
kinds of funding issues that open source projects have. Seems like it would be
good to have teachers contributing back improvements though too. Does anybody
know of anything like this?
------
bko
I don't see the downside here. Being able to sell lesson plans would be a nice
little bonus to often underpaid teachers. It would have the upside of having
teachers put in a little more work in developing their lesson plans if they
think they can sell them. Other teachers would be able to benefit greatly from
purchasing other lesson plans and saving time and effort.
I don't think it would harm the "traditional collaborative atmosphere of
schools". Creating an exchange, even with the option of payment would just
improve it
~~~
zardo
>I don't see the downside here.
The new thing here isn't lesson plans for sale, it's a marketplace with small
vendors. So this isn't a new downside, but sponsored content is a continual
worry.
A train carrying delicious Pepsi products is traveling from the Pepsi plant in
Pepsi-town to the Pepsi distribution center in Pepsi-city. What is your
favorite beverage?
~~~
dylz
Imported sparkling glacial water only, sorry.
------
dubya
As a parent, I dread seeing worksheets come home with my kids that are
obviously downloaded from the web. It's mostly been busy work dressed up with
clip-art, or just totally unvetted by the teacher (e.g. "fun" word puzzles
with obscure words). There were a couple of history worksheets that made sense
to share, but the documents were apparently un-editable, so about 2/3 of the
questions were blacked out before it was copied. Which is fine, I guess, but
seems not exactly optimal.
------
JKCalhoun
I'll be curmudgeonly ... can someone open-source lesson plans so the community
could work to improve them and they would be free? Teachers shouldn't have to
be paying out of pocket for this stuff.
Or does such a thing exist?
I guess I'm torn: I like that teachers are seeing compensation by selling
their lesson plans, hate that other teachers have to pay.
(I'm personally working on a site to eventually provide free primers to
elementary school age children.)
~~~
komali2
Ideally we'd abandon this weird psuedo-capitalist idea of education and just
convince our government that education _is the best investment a country can
make_.
An educated populace will devise better defense technologies and strategies.
An educated populace will create more efficient means of production. An
educated populace will strategize better trade deals. An educated populace
will create more cultural icons that attract foreign tourists.
In other words, yes, open-source the lesson plans, and increase the education
budget by 500%.
~~~
namlem
Throwing money at the problem isn't necessarily going to help. Tons of poor
school districts have gotten major cash infusions and produced nothing to show
for it. The money needs to be spent efficiently. Power needs to be taken away
from administrators and given back to teachers. Also, bad teachers need to be
fired.
~~~
komali2
Why do bad teachers exist? Why do we have tyrranical, shitty administrations?
Giving a million dollars to a homeless drug addict would kill him within the
week. You don't solve the problem by throwing money at it, now.
I said _increase the education budget_. That's not just money to schools,
that's money to education research, schools, teachers, after school programs,
parent outreach, and all the other weird little things people don't think
about when they think about education. It would shift our country's cultural
and political policy towards education - if teachers are pulling 120k
salaries, the expectations for their performance would be higher. More people
would seek out the extra difficult training to become a teacher because the
rewards are worth it, much like people are willing to spend 10 years slaving
through medical school for a prominent, well-respected, highly paid job that
involves helping people.
Right now the only people that teach are the genuinely good people that are
willing to take 24k/year salaries minus personal expenses on classroom
supplies, or yea, the shitty people who couldn't figure out what else to do.
------
giarc
>Some legal experts argue that the resources teachers produce while working
for a school district may actually be the property of the school district.
I think as this industry grows, this becomes a huge issue for retention. Some
teachers may decide to leave the profession and produce content full time if
they can make more money (which isn't hard in some states).
~~~
germinalphrase
I doubt it can happen, but I believe we would be well served to more clearly
and firmly limit copyright within the classroom setting. I understand that
publishers need to protect their investment, but teacher actively and
regularly break the law in preparing curriculum for their classes.
------
giarc
Andrew at Mixergy did an awesome podcast on a similar site just recently. I
highly recommend listening to it, the co-founders are incredible.
[https://mixergy.com/interviews/flipped-lifestyle-with-
shane-...](https://mixergy.com/interviews/flipped-lifestyle-with-shane-and-
jocelyn-sams/)
------
germinalphrase
I've always felt that Teacherspayteachers is interesting, but it can’t be a
general purpose curriculum tool. The marketplace model also distorts (in my
mind) the incentives for sharing while limiting buyers/users to the
infrequent, desperate and/or inexperienced. The relationship between teachers
is purely transactional, so there is no collaborative development or
improvement of the content over time. Likewise, it is reliant on discrete
documents, which I find inflexible. This inflexibility might not matter if
you're working with young kids and just need a fun activity/game - but (as a
high school teacher) it is a significant hinderance to using this platform on
a regular basis.
All that said, sincere props to Paul Edelman for developing a strong community
around the site.
------
snarf21
I say great for the teachers who found a way to make some well deserved extra
money for all of their hard work.
The thing that makes no sense is the need for it in the first place. The
constant changing of books for the curriculum forces everyone to reinvent the
wheel for their lesson plans. So much wasted time and _energy_ that the
teachers could be spending actually helping children and being more satisfied.
This isn't cutting edge ML research at MIT, it is helping 3rd graders learn
about planets, etc.
Why isn't this done at the state level Department of Education? Here is the
playbook, follow it and add/adjust as you need to based on your students. Huge
time and money savings for all. This is easy to solve with some political will
and give-a-shit.
~~~
panzagl
It's mostly driven by publishers who want to sell books every year instead of
every decade. Add some academics looking to justify their existence plus upper
administrators who are given big salaries to 'do something' to 'improve'
education and you soon have a system that's very willing to slosh taxpayer
money around.
~~~
Florin_Andrei
In other words, someone has a money incentive to change the game, and the
power to do it, and we're all worse off as a result.
------
pesnk
This is great. I love to see this kind of news. Good teachers are very
expensive and there's a of schools that prefers to have mediocre ones and
capitalize their earnings.
I'm doing 4 to 6 online courses per year I think it's a great way to spend my
money. And I always have the same teachers with me
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Man steals $33 million from Australian casino in 'Ocean's Eleven'-esque heist - jpatokal
http://news.msn.com/world/man-steals-dollar33-million-from-australian-casino-in-oceans-eleven-esque-heist
======
smoyer
The whole reason casinos stay in business is because the house "skims" money
from the players ... or in games where the player plays against the house, the
house has more favorable odds.
The head-line says "steals", but the reality is that he was simply cheating.
One is a crime but I'm not sure about the other. If I'm accomplished at
counting cards, I can still beat the house because I've changed the odds. The
casino may ban me (and I might forfeit the earnings for the day) but they
can't charge me with a crime.
~~~
robomartin
One aspect of the ilegality, if you will, of card counting I don't yet
understand is the fundamental idea behind it: using your brain to make
intellectually sound batting choices is not legal.
I know the casinos would rather have people turn their brains down to "idiot
mode" when they play. However, I can't understand why the law supports the
idea that I am not allowed to use my brain, memory and deductive reasoning
skills when playing.
Weird,
I don't get it.
~~~
andyakb
In the US, and likely most countries, card counting is not illegal. However,
casinos can refuse to do business with anybody they want, so they can ban you
for it. The exception is Atlantic City where you can't be banned for card
counting, but if you are suspected of it, they will use other tactics to
negate any advantage you may have (e.g. shuffling after every hand)
~~~
robomartin
Ah, OK, I thought it was illegal.
------
robomartin
Assuming this wasn't a case where an insider broke into security and installed
a transmitter onto a specific video feed, isn't there an argument here as to
who owns a presumably unencrypted RF signals?
Also, is there an implied Terms Of Service you agree to when entering a
casino? I've been to many and have never seen anything even remotely
resembling a TOS.
I was asked to stop playing roulette at a major Vegas casino a number of years
ago. I wasn't betting big or making tons of money. I am what one might call a
geek gambler: I enjoy devising ways to improve my odds. During my occasional
trips to Vegas (example: Once a year for CES) I test the ideas with a couple
of hundred bucks. It's purely for fun. If the goal was making money it'd be
far more effective to spend four hours coding rather than gambling.
Anyhow, on this particular occasion I had memorized a betting pattern that
improved the probability of my bets winning. On average it seemed effective. I
got kicked out when I won thirteen times in a row. Fun while it lasted.
~~~
chrsstrm
You got lucky 13 times in a row. It happens. And since you were only playing
with "a couple hundred bucks" you were probably at a $5 or $10 limit table.
The casino wasn't worried that you were going to break the bank, it's more
likely you were asked to leave because of your behavior. The numbers on the
wheel don't correlate to the numbers on the table, so there is no betting
strategy where you can make multiple multi-number bet combinations to offset
any risk. Not even with a single zero wheel. Did you consider a win as one of
your numbers hitting or an actual net gain? Run your strategy over 5000 or
10,000 spins and you'll see it doesn't work. You got lucky in the short term
and it wasn't due to skill. Put the money in your pocket and walk away,
because streaks like that are rare.
~~~
robomartin
Are you implying I was behaving inappropriately? Sorry, I am not one of those
idiots. I was the only player at the table. I was sitting across the way from
the dealer betting. I was actually engaging the dealer in occasional chit chat
while running the patterns in my head.
With regards to what would happen over 5,000 or 10,000 spins, yeah, of course,
the odds are the odds.
That said, I went across the street to another casino and did just as well.
Will it happen again? Who knows? Probably not.
------
dhughes
> "Intercepting them [the surveillance signals] is simple as going down to a
> local Radio Shack," he told ABC.
Hunh? At my workplace the surveillance room, as in most casinos, is segregated
from the rest of the building by a separate entrance. Surveillance staff are
not permitted to socialize with other staff and can't work in any job in the
casino other than surveillance. The room has restricted swipe access via thick
steel double-doors aka a "man trap" with poured concrete blocks and reinforced
metal plates in the walls, of course Pelco PTZ cameras covering the outside of
the doors.
The camera system isn't accessible anywhere other than possibly in the ceiling
of the gaming floor which would be pretty obvious having someone trying to
splice in to a cable. Everything else goes to the surveillance room not to the
server room other than maybe the corporate LAN and intrusion detection server
but still that's a restricted access locked room but to get to that door there
are several other steel doors you need to swipe through, not even the big boss
has access to some of them, but I do ;)
Our surveillance manager was telling me he trained in Las Vegas at some guy's
house who teaches surveillance techniques to people in the industry. This guy
has a multi camera setup in his home and tables too. He cheats at cards while
on camera then shows it to the trainees but even he can't see himself cheating
on camera even though he did it himself and knew he was on camera.
Although I should add most times cheating especially Blackjack is from
collusion between player and dealer. There is a reason why staff and patrons
don't mingle or why staff can't use public washrooms when on-shift.
Now I wait for the men in black to come knocking at my door I've said too
much!
------
damian2000
Rather than hacking the video feed, its far more likely remote access to the
feed was given to a second accomplice by the casino insider (who later was
sacked). This second accomplice then signalled to the gambler by some other
method (either physical or electronic). There's a bit more detail here:
[http://www.heraldsun.com.au/news/law-order/crown-casino-
hi-t...](http://www.heraldsun.com.au/news/law-order/crown-casino-hi-tech-scam-
nets-32-million/story-fnat79vb-1226597666337)
------
Samuel_Michon
"According to _Barron Stringfellow_ "
With a name like that, you'll either grow up to be a Bond villain or a casino
consultant.
~~~
Apocryphon
Or both.
------
droithomme
Perhaps the words "steals" and "heist" are not the best choice given the man
won the money playing cards and the claims that he must therefore have been
using a second person to feed him information taken from video feeds is
presented without any evidence.
------
antidaily
So he won by cheating at the tables? Was not expecting that from headline.
------
sbarre
So they article is assuming or speculating that someone basically tapped into
the video feeds for the casino surveillance?
I would have assumed the camera feeds would be wired, but I guess maybe for
ease of maintenance they're wireless feeds?
If they're just using run of the mill Wi-Fi cameras, then I suppose they get
what they deserve..
~~~
BryanB55
I really doubt they had wireless wi-fi cameras. Any decent installer would
never do that for such a large establishment with that many cameras. In fact,
it would probably be more maintenance because they are not as reliable. It
would be interesting to see how he got the feed but I really doubt they had
wireless cameras in a casino.
~~~
sbarre
Yeah after reading some other articles, it really does sound like someone on
the inside gave them access to the security system, as opposed to them hacking
into it without help.
------
joonix
Crown is poorly run with incompetent staff, not surprised and not sympathetic.
------
raldi
Better title: "Man taps into security camera system to cheat casino out of $33
million"
------
peterjancelis
I think the chance of recovering the money is higher than zero, close to 1 in
fact. All the casino has to do is store the tape and wait for facial
recognition technology to take off on the web. In a decade or so we'll just be
taping crimes and than the web will tell us which individuals have matching
bone structures.
~~~
rescripting
The title of the article is misleading. He didn't steal it, he cheated the
casino out of it. This is an important distinction since in the eyes of the
law the casino willingly gave him the money when he cashed out. The casino can
catch you cheating and prevent you from cashing out, but once you're out the
door you're pretty much free (although I probably wouldn't come back).
In fact the article actually says they've identified the man and banned him
from the casino. If they had legal backing I'm sure it would have mentioned
the manhunt, and not a "near zero chance of recovering the money."
~~~
rtwtlkj
Or they are just making it up and using this as an excuse to never allow him
to play in their casinos
~~~
andyakb
If they want to ban somebody, they don't need to make up a fake story and get
it in the news, they just ban them
~~~
bhickey
Sure, but they need a good story if they want to recover a $33m loss.
------
taude
Always love a good heist story.
~~~
shocks
This is my favourite article on heists:
[http://www.wired.com/magazine/2010/03/ff_masterthief_blancha...](http://www.wired.com/magazine/2010/03/ff_masterthief_blanchard/)
~~~
taude
Thanks, adding that to my reading list.
------
applecore
Any idea what game he was playing? Was he playing against other players or the
house?
~~~
csense
I'm guessing blackjack or roulette.
For blackjack, he could use the outside accomplice to count cards, then start
playing at a table with favorable shoe.
For roulette, I think I've read elsewhere that precise timing of the spinning
wheel allows you to model its physics well enough to figure out where it will
land.
------
triplesec
Good man, good hack. I have no sympathy for the casinos whatsoever.
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
US Weather Radar - dirtydrummer
http://weather-ng.com/us-weather-radar.html
======
up_and_up
I generally just use the NOAA full resolution loop:
[http://radar.weather.gov/Conus/full_loop.php](http://radar.weather.gov/Conus/full_loop.php)
This plus a big monitor, my kids think they are in a weather command center ;)
------
mparr4
I made a network of twitter bots that tweet beautiful, color-blind friendly
animated radar GIFs every 2 hours.
Here's the continental US (@wxGIF):
[https://twitter.com/wxGIF](https://twitter.com/wxGIF)
And a list of the bot network:
[https://twitter.com/wxGIF/following](https://twitter.com/wxGIF/following)
~~~
arca_vorago
Where are you pulling the info from? Regardless, this is something I didn't
realize I wanted but have already followed the relevant ones. I don't like all
the third party weather sites and usually rely on NOAA, but this makes it so I
will see the radar in the morning. Cool stuff.
~~~
mparr4
Pulling from NOAA, changing the projection, palette, and adding a basemap.
Data source:
[http://radar.weather.gov/GIS.html](http://radar.weather.gov/GIS.html) My
GitHub repo:
[https://github.com/mattparrilla/wxGIF](https://github.com/mattparrilla/wxGIF)
------
thezach
Nothing amazing about this... the national weather service has been doing this
already for about 2 years on their website.
~~~
icantthinkofone
Where do you find something like this there?
~~~
matt_panaro
glad you asked ;-)
[http://forecast.weather.gov/MapClick.php?lat=33.55910&lon=-8...](http://forecast.weather.gov/MapClick.php?lat=33.55910&lon=-82.79530&FcstType=digitalDWML)
[http://forecast.weather.gov/afm/PointClick.php?lat=33.9321&l...](http://forecast.weather.gov/afm/PointClick.php?lat=33.9321&lon=-84.3037)
[http://forecast.weather.gov/MapClick.php?site=all&textField1...](http://forecast.weather.gov/MapClick.php?site=all&textField1=33.5591&textField2=-82.7953&&FcstType=digital)
[http://forecast.weather.gov/MapClick.php?CityName=Sharon&sta...](http://forecast.weather.gov/MapClick.php?CityName=Sharon&state=GA&site=FFC&textField1=33.5591&textField2=-82.7953&FcstType=graphical)
------
nkrumm
My favorite no-nonsense radar for the Seattle/PNW area is the UW atmospheric
sciences one:
[http://www.atmos.washington.edu/weather/radar.shtml](http://www.atmos.washington.edu/weather/radar.shtml).
Fast to load, no-nonsense.
Notice also how post-processing/filtering the data can make a big difference
in the results and interpretation:
Image #1: weather-ng.com: [http://pbrd.co/1DzfPkq](http://pbrd.co/1DzfPkq)
Image #2: UW Atmospheric Sciences:
[http://pbrd.co/1DzfYEh](http://pbrd.co/1DzfYEh)
Much more detail in #2.
------
kaybe
Wait, isn't everyone using these since at least 5 years? A biking culture and
frequent weather with intermitted showers has apparently clouded my view here.
(Simply google weather radar and the area you want to look at, and project the
speed of shower areas to know when to leave the house and how fast you have to
ride to stay dry..)
------
TheCapn
Canada's shoddy version:
[http://weather.gc.ca/radar/index_e.html](http://weather.gc.ca/radar/index_e.html)
They've done lots of modernizing in the last while, it used to be much worse
but at least they're paying attention to it.
------
frenchman_in_ny
I'm more used to the interface of FullScreenWeather [0] from WUnderground, but
this seems to give me access to a broader scope of data. Nicely done!
[0] [http://www.fullscreenweather.com](http://www.fullscreenweather.com)
------
josefresco
For those looking for a "flat" image, I really like the NWS National Mosaic
page:
[http://radar.weather.gov/ridge/Conus/full.php](http://radar.weather.gov/ridge/Conus/full.php)
------
alephnil
I like the Norwegian one at yr.no quite well (In general that is a great
weather forecast site).
[http://www.yr.no/radar/norden.html](http://www.yr.no/radar/norden.html)
------
cjrp
Anyone else just getting a "Loading . . ." splash screen?
~~~
Shivetya
I was able to load it on OS X with both Firefox and Safari without issue. On 7
I got stuck using ie9. Chrome on 7 worked as well
------
rotten
Nice! I like the gadget too.
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
A Day in the Life of a Food Vendor - mozumder
https://www.nytimes.com/2017/04/18/dining/halal-cart-food-vendor-new-york-city.html
======
gumby
A puff piece, yet I learned a lot. Those NYC regulations sound painful but at
the same time I feel safer eating the street food.
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Ask HN: Differences you've noticed between CS students and the self-taught? - _di3p
======
stevewepay
Most of the self-taught engineers that I've met struggle with algorithm
questions, even relatively straightforward ones. Most also don't have a clear
idea of things like algorithmic complexity and how to get an idea of how
efficient an algorithm implementation would be. This is mainly because CS
students are forced to learn this whereas self-taught programmers would need
to be particularly motivated to sit down and teach themselves this, because
there are no immediate practical uses for this.
The great debate of course is, how important are those skills? Many self-
taught programmers I know reject the idea that these CS fundamental knowledge
is important. And to their point, many self-taught programmers that I've
met/hired/worked with that would be productive on day one because they have
real-world knowledge and experience. Case in point, the founding engineer of
the company that I work at is a college dropout, he's more than 15 years
younger than me, and he's excellent. As well, I'm a self-taught programmer but
came from a EE background, so I had two CS courses under my belt before I
decided to pursue programming after graduating.
~~~
rayiner
> Many self-taught programmers I know reject the idea that these CS
> fundamental knowledge is important.
Besides some CS math courses I took while doing an unrelated engineering
degree, I'm self-taught. And I've always felt incredibly limited as a
consequence. E.g. given the popularity of Rust, I'm really interested in type
systems to limit aliasing. But the papers make my eyes glaze over. Self-
teaching is difficult, because even the stuff written with an eye towards
approachability assumes mastery I don't have of a couple of years worth of
discrete math.
~~~
kibwen
As both a Rust user and a CS grad, I can confirm both that papers still make
my eyes glaze over and that thankfully you don't need to understand the type
system to use Rust effectively. :)
Personally I'm thankful for my CS background, but you also need experience
using various tools to round out your knowledge. To put it another way: real-
world experience teaches you how to solve problems, while academic experience
teaches you that hard problems can be solved.
------
thinkdevcode
This is going to be a highly biased answer, and will probably be downvoted. I
don't think there is any difference between a "good" programmer that was self-
taught or one that had a degree in CS/SE. The reason I put "good" is because,
at least in my field, there are a lot of terrible
programmers/coders/developers/etc that come from all backgrounds - be it self-
taught or with a degree (I work in a local market for .NET). I think a persons
background is a terrible starting point to determine their competence. I
personally am self-taught, having started "coding" when I was about 8. I have
a colleague who didn't start coding until he was in college, and I think him
and I are about the same skill level. We have different strengths: he is more
architecturally minded, while I am more of a "hacker" (I can figure any
technical problem out though it may not be pretty). In the course of my career
though, I have met many self-taught coders and university trained ones, and to
me it makes almost no difference. What it comes down to is passion, and that
can be extremely hard to quantify. For me personally, having been doing this
for almost two decades, you just have to feel the person out. If you are
passionate, you should be able to tell if they are as well.
------
briholt
Self-taught person here. This is surely a minefield of downvotes, but I've
noticed several differences in CS students:
1\. While CS students have a broader array of programming knowledge, they have
narrower perspective about it. By this I mean they have difficulty
distinguishing their own programming experience and knowledge from that of the
world as a whole. They assume everyone learned Java in CSE101 so they can't
fathom how some one could program Ruby without being able to explain it using
Java-esque CSE101 terminology.
2\. CS students participate in open source more. Self-taughters usually do so
in order to complete a direct objective (i.e. make a site, sell some widgets),
they weren't exposed to the culture or peer recognition around programming
that comes from years of academia. CS students are often encouraged or
required to participate in open source projects. This sometimes leads to the
false insular belief among the educated that all "good" programs work on open
source projects. This pops up on HN every now and then.
3\. CS students like libraries more. My guesses for why this is might be: (1)
the academic exercise of writing your own libraries; (2) libraries are a
generally more academic approach to programming where you write code "by the
book" and work on many what-if possibilities; (3) it's 11:00pm and you need to
submit your code in an hour - you don't care about maintainability - so shove
a library in there to eek it out as fast as you can. Self-taughters don't have
such academic exercises or deadlines in their learning; and they'll usually be
maintaining their code for a long time, which discourages libraries in my
experience.
These are my observations from the coders I've worked with. Of course, there
are exceptions, I know there are many self-taughters who use libraries and
work on open source, but just not as many CS students.
~~~
trigoman
How does using a libraries make your code less maintainable?
~~~
adrusi
If thought about properly, it doesn't.
If you pull in a dependency on Xlib because you wanted a matrix math function
from a graphics library, then it does.
If you're building on a platform that emphasizes many small libraries, and you
pull in a few well-reputed ones, only to find that your dependency graph now
includes 15 small buggy libraries hosted on github and abandoned by their
developers, then it does.
If you introduce a dependency on a Windows-only library in your game's physics
engine, and then want to port the game to Linux, then it does.
It's possible to be sloppy with using libraries, but I don't think
academically-grounded programmers are any prone to being sloppy.
~~~
trigoman
Ok so basically, being irresponsible about which libraries you depend on. Got
it, thanks!
------
paragraft
Will prefix this with the necessary disclaimer that there are exceptions to
this on both sides, and by generalising I'm necessarily going to get it wrong
for some specific cases. One of the best devs I know dropped out of CS in the
first few months, contributed to opensource projects (particularly in OS X
stuff), got recruited by Apple, has been with them for some 6-7 years since on
a product you all know.
Caveat over, onto the generalization: From having done a few dozen interviews
now, the self-taught applicants are more likely to have holes in their
knowledge that they don't know about. That is, CS grads have (hopefully) gone
through a broad and formal program so they have a more complete mental map of
the knowledge space and their own weaknesses. The self-taughts don't know what
it is they don't know.
This gap can be overcome, but the pattern I've often seen is the knowledge gap
and disadvantage is compounded by the first jobs the self-taught tend to end
up in. Rejected from graduate programs in larger firms where they'll be
exposed to a wider range of talent, they often end up in smaller shops where
they work in a niche where they're not challenged to keep growing (just as
often due to the nature of the business. Smaller shops tend to be contract
businesses, and contract work doesn't provide much opportunity to go deep on
problems in the way that will stretch and grow you). And because they don't
know what they don't know, they don't realise the gap between their skillset
and their contemporaries who went the formal CS track.
Frequently I've interviewed developers who've done this for 5-10 years and
decided they wanted to try working in a larger company. And they're hard
interviews. I hate it when an earnest applicant is an obvious 'no' in the
first few minutes, and it's because they've specialised into a low-level dead-
end, and they didn't realise it.
Having said that, I think we're at a point where it's easier for a self-
teaching programmer to overcome this. Even compared to when I went through uni
in the mid-2000s, it's ridiculously easy to get the material that would cover
an undergrad's CS education. There's no need for a self-taught person to be
caught short in an interview on not knowing what a linked list is, or the
basics of algorithmic complexity. I could probably put together a list of
10-20 Wikipedia articles and Khan videos that, if you were to read and watch
until you understood, would cover you for the vast bulk of CS-related
questions you're likely to hit in an interview.
~~~
thinkdevcode
So by "gap" you mean unable to answer some trivial questions during an
interview that don't pertain to the job at all?
While I agree self-taught developers may lack knowledge in certain areas, they
compensate by being able to learn quickly and efficiently for the job at hand.
School taught, though not always, will lack that discipline and/or efficiency.
At least in my experience, so take what I said with a grain of salt.
~~~
maratd
> they compensate by being able to learn quickly and efficiently for the job
> at hand.
We ALL need to be able to learn quickly or we simply don't last. If you've
been doing this for a decade or more, you're guaranteed to have that skill in
abundance, regardless of your origins.
What the OP was getting at is that you get exposed to a host of different
ideas and paradigms in a proper CS program. Assembly, lisp/ada/scheme/etc.,
C/C++/Java, graphics, computer learning, computer architecture, etc.
I learned how to code when I was ten, but I would have never exposed myself to
any of those things if I didn't focus on CS in college. What does that add?
Exactly what the OP said. I know what I don't know. And it's a lot.
~~~
thinkdevcode
> We ALL need to be able to learn quickly or we simply don't last.
I totally agree with that statement. In my response, I meant that self-taught
devs have a leg up, so to speak, in the beginning. In the end, we all need to
learn quickly and adapt regardless of how we started.
> Assembly, lisp/ada/scheme/etc., C/C++/Java, graphics, computer learning,
> computer architecture, etc.
From my own experience as a self-taught developer, I have learned, though
maybe never used professionally, almost all of those topics to some degree
because I had a keen interest in understanding software and computing in
general. I find that self-taught devs, though not a majority, are like that -
they want to know and understand because its passion of theirs. Also, i'm not
saying that university trained students lack that passion either. I believe at
the end of the day it really doesnt matter whether you are self-taught or not,
only the passion you bring into learning and understanding is what matters.
------
christophmccann
I think that a large proportion of CS students are self-taught anyway. I self-
taught myself most of my coding skills, despite being a CS student. It taught
me the fundamentals, I then built on that myself.
~~~
bramgg
What sort of stuff did you learn in your CS course that have proven valuable
in your career that you may not have learned otherwise? I asked this question
because I don't want to fall off due to not going to university.
~~~
aethertap
The most valuable thing to me in the CS program was really being exposed to
things I didn't know existed. It may not be as big an issue today with places
like HN and Reddit to push you in unexpected directions, but I really
benefited from being introduced to stuff I wouldn't have even thought to look
at. Once the introduction was made, I was mostly self-taught because I'd dig
into it out of pure interest, but that initial introduction was vital.
~~~
mindcruzer
I agree. I only did a CS minor (10 courses), but even just doing that exposed
me to things that I'd never really been exposed to, like operating systems and
numerical computing.
------
kevinaloys
I am a current CS student and everything I know is self taught.
~~~
leetrout
This. I have a degree in digital media- and I studied computer animation. And
what I really learned? How to teach myself.
~~~
daven11
That was what a degree was for in the old days - it was to teach you how to
learn. There are other paths nowadays I suppose, but a degree is a tick from
an institution (who are experts in learning) that you can learn something and
presumably if you've done this you can learn other stuff.
------
Lorenzo45
I'm not great at learning things myself and benefit greatly from having an
instructor, but personally I feel like I need to completely understand
something to say that I've actually "learned" it. So for me, getting a CS
education was huge for me in terms of learning how and why things work the way
they do, which really helped my confidence in feeling that I really know what
I'm doing.
I've also learned about things such as linked structures which I probably
wouldn't have bothered to look into if I taught myself, and are actually some
crucial things that companies look for when they hire.
Another thing I've noticed personally is just a faster progression. I have a
friend who taught himself how to make iOS apps, and it took him 3 years to get
to the point that I did after taking one online course on iTunes U for it.
Having a structured course really makes a huge impact by providing a logical
progression and teaching you all the little things that take a long time to
learn on your own.
------
kenzokai
Like others have said, I find self-taught programmers (I'm a tutor, so I meet
a lot of them) have an attitude of, "why should I care about time complexity?"
They are motivated to get things done quickly, and will do it to the best of
their ability, but it may not be the best solution, since that would require
deeper theoretical knowledge.
On the other hand, programmers coming from academia are expected to "just
know" a lot of the practical tools that are used these days. I did C++, Java,
MATLAB, and machine learning-type stuff in school, but learned Git, Rails,
Python, Hadoop, etc etc. after graduating. Recruiters, etc. expected I'd just
be ready for that stuff right off the bat.
------
daven11
I was self taught then did a CS degree, so have a foot in both camps. Some of
the things I learnt in the degree which I never would have learnt by myself
were (and others have mentioned some of these) - algorithms, relational
theory, O-notation, symbolic logic, stats, CSP. Then there were things I
learnt myself that I never learnt at uni because I wanted to - assembler,
2d/3d graphics, c++. Then there are things I've taught myself since uni -
compiler theory, database optimisation, functional programming (actually did
this at Uni but couldn't see the point then - hardware was rubbish then
though), web stuff.
So difference would be in broad for my case - uni gives you the theoretical
foundations that you probably wouldn't learn yourself, teaching yourself
programming gives you the hands on stuff you'd never learn in depth at a uni.
Two sides of the same coin I suppose, it would be rare to have a self taught
person learn the theory that you'd learn at uni, and I don't think you'd ever
get that depth without some uni training imho.
The other thing that comes to mind is if you're smart and self taught - why
wouldn't you do a degree? The only good answer I can think of is that you're
so friggin awesome you're churning out code that everyone says is awesome and
google or apple has hired you already, there are perhaps 10 people in the
world like this - everyone else do your degree :-)
------
topkai22
Smart people who love coding end up pretty good at programming whatever their
background. That being said, my (extremely generalized) observations have been
that people with more formal training are able to spot issues earlier than
people with less formal training, but end up more false positives (issues that
aren't issues.) I've found CS majors also have a better nose for "code smell"
due to having seen very well constructed code and dealt with graded
assignments for years.
Within the enterprise it world I've worked in, the self taught programmers
tend to be very bimodal- likely to be truly excellent or unspeakable terrible
whereas programmers with a CS credential tend to be more normally distributed.
I do think that the credentialed programmers I've met are a bit more
technically flexible than self taught programmers. A CS degree requires
learning different languages, coding styles, and technologies whereas self
taught coders are more likely to have come up through one language/technology
stack and may never leave it. That's a massive generalization though and I can
think of many counter examples.
Note-I'm was a CS undergrad and mostly deal with very large IT departments
rather than startups or consumer application development.
------
cdevs
There are a lot of interesting views of how everyone here has been exposed to
self taught devs and cs grads and it seems from where I live and what I have
seen its the opposite. I have seen horrible code from both sides from indie
app devs to professional algorithm guys that are smart but shouldn't be
coding. It's hard to assume from a persons background without much work to
review but on the east coast I have met computer science engineers who some
how don't know what a IP address is and couldn't throw together a html page
but still get a junior C++ job. I have been obsessively reading and googling
my whole life and always searching for industry standards, best practice, how
low level code works and what's going on in the background - if the best we're
doing it and using it then I wanted to know. I am now a dev working on just
about every area for a large website and currently finishing up my first year
in college...so far I can say college isn't enough. True passion and interest
in your field will show in your work. Just watch some defcon vids and you'll
see some amazing programmers and hackers from both sides.
------
asher_
The differences within groups far outweigh the differences between them.
I'm a 30yo self-taught programmer. I've worked with many CS grads over the
years.
There are pretty big gaps in my knowledge of what would be considered
fundamentals, some of which are more important than others. I think the type
of software you write largely determines how important these gaps are, and
that being aware of the gaps in my knowledge has been more important than
actually having the knowledge itself. If I need to implement something that
requires some knowledge I haven't yet picked up, I learn what I need to know
as I need it. Sorting algorithms are an example of something that any CS grad
would know way more than me about because the need to understand all the
alternative ways of sorting is not something that I've needed to know.
An important distinction is the difference between knowing something and
knowing the language to describe that thing. I understand the time complexity
of algorithms, but I didn't learn Big O notation until recently.
I don't know if this observation is true in general, or more common for the CS
programs where I live, but I've noticed that CS students and recent grads are
terrible programmers. That is, their ability to produce well-written,
maintainable code is horrible. This can probably be said of all new
programmers, even if they are self-taught, but I think the difference is that
many of the CS students I've worked with have the illusion that their CS
knowledge is what is most important when they write software, so they are more
ignorant of their ignorance.
Learning all the fundamentals of CS in the classroom is no doubt a huge
benefit, but many of the other things that make a good programmer come down to
experience in a lot of cases, and the classroom is not going to be a
substitute.
------
encoderer
Unfamiliarity with data structures and algorithms, and often a large
inferiority complex.
------
eibrahim
This is a very subjective answer. Personally I studied computer engineering
which is essentially the hard classes from computer science combined with the
hard classes from electric engineering. I suck at algorithms. I have a hard
time with abstract theories. I contribute to open source not too much but I
do. I started in .net and now try to stick to JavaScript and node or rails. I
have held titles of architect, director, and team lead. My favorite title
though is "engineer".
The answer to this question is very simple. It's not school vs self-taught.
It's PASSION and I fucking love programming :)
------
falcolas
Self-taught programmers tend to be more practical, while CS graduates (and
worse, Doctorates) value theory over experience.
Some real life examples:
\- The algorithm is tight enough that the choice of programming language
doesn't matter. Also phrased at least once as "the constants in big-O
notations just don't matter".
\- No, you can't install a configuration management tool on the web server;
the web server must be completely isolated to protect our network.
\- If I'm using a programming language with so much power, why would I ever
want my configuration files to have any less power?
\- If only there was a programming language where the (type system / memory
management / homoiconicity) was more powerful, we could solve every problem
automatically.
Of course, on the other side of the fence, there's these pearls of wisdom:
\- Of course C++ is memory safe, if you follow these few hundred best
practices...
\- (Ruby / Python / Perl) is fast enough to solve every problem.
\- If I can use Javascript on the server _and_ the browser, why would I want
to use anything else?
\- Why would I ever care what the Big-O complexity is for this algorithm?
It makes for an interesting comparison and contrast. And since I come from the
self-taught angle, a couple of the second group of quotes are my own.
------
camhenlin
I'm self taught (from the time I was 9) and now, at almost 30, nearly done
with my CS degree. I've worked "in the industry" before going back to school,
and the biggest stand out for me is that the majority of CS students are
terrible at figuring things out on their own. What I've noticed that many,
regardless of course understanding, when faced with a programming problem that
they don't understand, is that they give up and start asking others for help,
whereas most of the self taught coders that I've noticed are much quicker to
pick up a manual or start reading documentation prior to reaching out to
others. This is probably an advantage in some areas as much as it may be a
disadvantage in others. Another thing that I've noticed is that many CS
students are terrible at producing clean looking or consistent code, which is
probably a detriment once they reach "the industry"
------
tmaly
I worked with a guy that was self taught. When he left the company, his stuff
became serious technical debt. If you working with someone that is self
taught, do yourself a favor and teach them some good practices.
------
gclaramunt
Obviously YMMV, but if I think on myself without CS degree, I'll probably: Be
comfortable programming in Java/C#, learned Scala and trying to learn FP.
Learned about big O notation. But wouldn't know: why you should NEVER use
float/double to represent money How databases work That NoSQL conceptual model
predates the relational model. Dependent types Category theory
Overall, a good CS degree exposes you to things you don't know you don't know
(a big pitfall in self study) I really respect the self taught devs, because
they have to work harder for it.
------
rw
The biggest difference is that self-teaching implies more variability in skill
outcomes. Lower lows, higher highs.
Look for people who can learn the structure of a problem when there's no
guidebook (or textbook) available. If they can do this, then they will likely
succeed in tackling the unknown.
This 'autodidactic tenacity' can be learned inside or outside of school.
Knowing how to independently learn means you will invest in yourself for the
rest of your life. Attending classes and doing homework do not, themselves,
teach you how to do that.
------
stickhandle
Here's my generalization ... CS students aspire to be good architects, self-
taught aspire to be good programmers. The caveat - experience and aptitude
combine to blur the groups.
------
astanway
I have a CS degree. I have never noticed a difference. I also don't ask.
You're either smart and talented and I enjoy working with you, or you're not.
------
jmcdonald-ut
I'm a current CS student, finishing this year. I work with both people who are
self taught and people who have degrees. I think pretty highly of those I work
with who are self taught. All in all the differences are minimal when getting
the job done.
CS emphasizes theory and mathematics. Programming and coding is usually
discussed in the introductory courses, but from there students are expected to
teach themselves to keep up.
------
pankajdoharey
I just wanna make one point here, I dont know any self taught programmer in
the world who has made a significant contribution to programming or computer
science or computing.
Case in point :
1) Linus Torvalds : The Creator of Linux kernel. 2) Richard Stallman : GCC,
Emacs and GNU. 3) DHH : Ruby on Rails. 4) Matz : Ruby.
there are several other examples Donald Knuth, Dennis Ritchie, Ken Thompson
and many others ...
All of these people have advanced CS degrees.
~~~
tzs
Stallman has a bachelor's degree in physics, and he did graduate work in
physics. I thought he got a master's, but his bio on his site does not mention
one. No CS degree. (I'm not counting honorary doctorates, which he has, and
why he writes "Dr." in front of his name--yes, an honorary doctorate allows
for that).
Knuth has a bachelor's, master's, and PhD in mathematics. No CS degree.
------
AlexSWilliams
Given enough time as a programmer, we're all self-taught depending on what you
mean by that. My degrees are in mathematics. However, I mostly learn now by
asking about what type of api, constaints, types, and conventions will give me
the desired result. I'll hack at it and use StackOverflow or watch video when
I need some insight or syntax/implementation examples.
------
hdctambien
These are the classes I took to get my Computer Science degree. I spent about
45 hours in lecture for each of these classes plus somewhere between 20 - 50
hours per class (depending on the class) doing labs/homework/studying/etc.
Java
Lisp
Data Structures
Algorithms
Operating Systems
Information Systems (How databases work)
Software Engineering
Assembly Language
Artificial Intelligence
Networking
Embedded Systems
Calculus I & II
Multivariate Calculus
Linear Algebra
Discrete Mathematics
Probability and Statistics
Anyone could self teach all of these things to the same level that I learned
them. It would probably take a similar time commitment. Honestly, if someone
was dedicated enough to spent 60 - 100 hours learning each of those topics on
their own time, they are probably a better computer scientist that I.
Although, I wouldn't say my CS degree made me a "programmer".
What did I didn't learn from College:
How to write maintainable code
How to write testable code
How to deploy code
How to manage servers
How to document code
If you're building web pages there probably isn't any difference between a
self taught developer and someone with a CS degree. The person with the CS
degree most likely also self taught themselves all their web development
skills.
However, if you're building new programming languages or compilers or robots
or missile guidance systems or self driving cars or spaceship navigation
systems you'll probably start to see some differences. From reading the
comments on this thread, I'm not convinced that the self identified self-
taughters are aware of all that a CS degree encompasses (heck, no two CS
degrees are necessarily after the first three semesters!)
A 22 year old with a CS degree is probably not going to be as good of a web
developer as a 22 year old with with 4 years experience working as a web
developer instead of a CS degree. But, a 22 year old with a CS degree and 2
years of internships working as a web developer...
------
Cshelton
I am self taught. My degree is actually in finance. At my current position,
there is another guy slightly older than me who does have a CS degree and the
difference between him and I is not a lot. I may be slightly biased, but he
even admits, most of the development we do, he has been self-taught/ from
previous jobs.
I don't think this is just a CS thing either. In any profession, you have
those who graduate and learn for their first 6 months to a year out of school
and then stop self development. They literally repeat the same experience over
and over for the rest of their career. In the end, anyone who is very
successful, will be 'self-taught', school only provides a foundation to build
on. It's what you do after that matters. If you compared two developers, each
with 5 years of experience, one with a CS degree and one without, the one with
the CS degree will not always be the better developer.
------
mamcx
Something I have noted, maybe is just in my country:
CS Students learn from NON-developers, but CS professors.
Self-taught learn from developers (ie: in the field or from Internet).
------
peterhi
The question about CS students is "were they self taught before they got their
degree". Most who had no interest in computing before they got their degree
seem to remain that way - a CS degree was seen as a way to earn easy money.
Most people who were self taught and then took a CS degree did so as part of
their self teaching.
The rest just couldn't hack accounting or law :)
------
DevFactor
In my experience, self taught engineers are typically better with frameworks
and more productive - but less detail oriented and have less grasp of theory.
CS schools naturally teach you to be slow paced, detail oriented and
methodical, and it is sometimes good and sometimes bad.
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
An Old-School Board Game Goes Viral Among Silicon Valley's Techie Crowd - andrewpbrett
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB126092289275692825.html
======
misuba
Settlers isn't very good. The game is largely all due to luck after the
initial placement of pieces; get that part wrong and you'll be spending 45 to
90 minutes repeatedly asking anyone if they can trade you that one resource
nobody can get, and repeatedly hearing "no." (The 45-to-90 is conservative; if
your game contains one of those knobs who drags trading out into elaborate
haggling over resources-to-be-named-later, God help you.)
Of course, the luck in Settlers is actually why it appeals to people. Nobody
likes feeling like they lost because they played poorly or because somebody
else is better than they are. That said, there are games like Carcassonne and
Ticket To Ride that actually balance luck and skill, and so help to provide
that social insurance against feeling pathetic while still making the time
spent making decisions actually feel like it was worth something.
~~~
nas
Yeah, I find the article humorous because of that. It's not a great game
(well, maybe great compared to traditional North American board games). I get
the impression that these guys are trying to be cool by playing and the WSJ
thinks they are hip by covering it. Maybe that's too harsh but that's the vibe
I get.
There are lots of great board games out there, check out
<http://www.boardgamegeek.com/browse/boardgame>. I like Puerto Rico myself
although I would say it's too tactical to be a good simulation of running a
business.
Update: I haven't played it yet but "Power Grid" is on my purchase list and
probably would be good for the entrepreneurial types. There is a "Board games
with Scott" video on it (with the designer, cool).
~~~
eggoa
Power Grid is good. Less random chance, less trying to trick your friends into
making bad trades.
------
JacobAldridge
I've seen Settlers of Catan at my local puzzle store, where they promote its
popularity. Any personal experiences here about whether this is worth buying
it and introducing it to friends to play (especially over options like Risk,
Cashflow, or even Monopoly which has less of a 'I don't know this game'
resistance)?
~~~
RevRal
Out of all the games that we've played, none have been funner than Munchkin.
The diplomacy aspects of this simple card game don't become apparent until you
start playing.
~~~
misuba
The diplomacy is what game fans call "petty diplomacy;" that is, you have to
smack somebody and there's no compelling in-game reason to smack anyone in
particular, so you default to smacking the guy who smacked you last, or the
guy who's ahead. This can be fun, but it isn't exactly the game itself that
brought that fun to the table.
As for the humor on the cards, you'll have seen it all in two plays
(especially since the game drags on for a while). This explains the healthy
market for expansion sets.
------
Calamitous
So there seems to be a lot of more interesting board games than I ever
realized, but they all seem to require 4-6 players and take over 90 minutes to
play. Juggling two full-time work schedules and a toddler old makes these
restrictions a non-starter.
Does anybody know of a good tactical game, preferably playable by two people
who _used_ to have time for Risk and Monopoly, that can be finished generally
in about an hour?
~~~
alanthonyc
Not quite what you're looking for, but Settlers can actually be played by 3
people and usually lasts for less than two hours.
It's designed so that the longer the games goes, the more likely it is to end.
Also, three seems to be a reasonable minimum number of people for a "social"
game.
------
mreid
For kicks, play a game of Settlers with a New Zealander and ask them if they
have wood for sheep. ;)
------
rms
I'll play Diplomacy with people once I make it out to the west coast.
~~~
vlad
Worst game ever.
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
How do emulators work and how are they written? - alcuadrado
http://stackoverflow.com/questions/448673/how-do-emulators-work-and-how-are-they-written/448689#448689
======
daeken
Wow, on HN again. While I'm proud of that answer, the real bummer was that I
edited it too many times (started with a tiny answer and filled it in from
there) and it became Community Wiki. I got all of 4 or 5 upvotes before it
went CW, so got 40-50 rep out of it instead of the 5290 I would've gotten
otherwise. Glad people have found it useful, though.
~~~
cristoperb
From the end of the SO answer: "I'm glad this post has been helpful, and I'm
hoping I can get off my arse and finish up my book on the subject by the end
of the year/early next year."
Are you still working on the book?
~~~
daeken
I am, but it's been slow going. Between a new job and a social life, I have
little free time and energy to work on it. At this point, it'd be tough to get
it done this year.
------
bane
I had the great opportunity in my undergrad college compiler class to write an
entire ecosystem to understand better how some of this stuff works. We didn't
just write a compiler, we wrote an emulator for a simple, notional
architecture. The whole thing was simple enough that we could write the
compiler toolkit, the system emulator/VM and run it in a few days.
Then for extra credit we could rewrite the whole thing (or part of it) in
another language. And/or get a guaranteed A if we could make the whole shebang
self-hosting.
It was a really great way of understanding the basics of a system
architecture.
As for the emulator, it was pretty primitive, but basically it loaded the
compiled program code into memory, then would read an operation's worth of
bytes, look the operation up in some kind of lookup table (or similar) that
mapped the emulated system's instructions to local system instructions say,
x86, and execute that operation.
Sometimes the mapping resulted in several operations on the host side the
emulated system might execute in one.
eg. ADD R1, R2, R3
might add the contents of registers r2 and r3, then put the result into r1. In
x86 it would be more like
ADD AX, BX
MOV CX, AX
or some such.
(actually we did it a little higher level then that, but that's the idea).
So an emulator needs to provide all of the various registers and operations
and such so that the code can execute, it likely has to have the ability
emulate the memory architecture and translate I/O appropriately. Some older
systems for example could only output to a printer terminal, or to a simple
status display, on a modern system you have to translate calls to those output
devices to equivalent ones on your system (like the screen).
More complex system may need to emulate several processors. The SNES and Amiga
for example have a handful of chips that not only need to be emulated, but
much of the software assumes a particular timing in the interaction of those
components that can be very challenging to get right and keeping track of all
that and running at reasonable performance can require fast hardware.
These days though, not many emulators use the simple execution mechanism I
outlined above. Many of them have sophisticated code profiling and execution
caches that can significantly speed up the emulation.
In these terms, emulating a system, or a VM (like Java) or some other runtime
environment (like Javascript and the V8 runtime for example) isn't really all
that different and there's huge crossover in the theoretical concepts between
these areas.
~~~
silentbicycle
_The Elements of Computing Systems_ (<http://www1.idc.ac.il/tecs/>) follows a
similar approach, building an emulated computer up from NAND gates. Highly
recommended!
~~~
bane
Great book! I really love this approach to teaching this kind of subject.
Seeing the whole stack, top to bottom, really helps tie together _so_ many
different threads that are generally left untied during a CS education.
------
Osmose
<http://www.romhacking.net/> is an amazing resource if you want to find
documents on the inner workings of older game consoles.
The SO post already links to bsnes, which does an excellent job of balancing
readability and accuracy. It's still a little hard to grok the code, but
leagues easier than tackling something like SNES9x.
I would also recommend glancing through the vNES source code; it's much
simpler than bsnes and is very easy to understand for the most part:
<http://www.thatsanderskid.com/programming/vnes/index.html>
------
Jacquass12321
Invariably been linked before, but [http://imrannazar.com/GameBoy-Emulation-
in-JavaScript:-The-C...](http://imrannazar.com/GameBoy-Emulation-in-
JavaScript:-The-CPU) also addresses basics of emulator design.
------
zandorg
I find undocumented opcodes most interesting. They were literally holes in the
6502 circuitry. People used them on the C64 to get more speed out of their
assembly code. Early C64 emulators couldn't cope with those games/demos.
Luckily, they are documented in disk magazines, etc, so they've been
implemented now.
~~~
Zaak
Also, the 6502 has been reverse engineered from micrographs, so perfect
transistor-level emulation can be done.
<http://www.pagetable.com/?p=517>
~~~
T-R
byuu is also doing this for the SNES with bsnes - he's even had all of the
enhancement chips like the DSP-1~4 and CX4 decapped to achieve cycle-perfect
emulation.
<http://byuu.org/snes/donations/>
~~~
thristian
Well, the decapped chips have been photographed, but they haven't been made
into working diagrams like that 6502 one.
The important thing about the decapped chips is that any on-board ROM has been
dumped (electrically, not visually) so that they can be emulated with an
opcode interpreter, just like other emulators.
------
freedrull
Anyone know which of the listed ways of processor emulation that bsnes uses?
~~~
T-R
I'd imagine bsnes is somewhere between interpretation and dynamic
recompilation.
Static recompilation would be really difficult on systems like the SNES and
GBA, which have two processor modes (8bit 6502 emulation/16bit 65816, and
16bit THUMB/32bit ARM respectively), so the width of any given instruction is
dependent on the processor state. Dynamic recompilation would be faster than
instruction-by-instruction interpretation, but full dynamic recompilation
(with subroutine caching and all) would probably get pretty difficult to time
(I could be wrong), and cycle accurate timing is a stated goal for bsnes (to
the point where byuu had the enhancement chips like the CX4 decapped).
bsnes has taken the low-level route because a decent bit of the software for
the SNES is really timing sensitive - even that black circle effect at the end
of the level in Super Mario World is done by changing values between
scanlines. For systems like N64 on the other hand, where the software is less
timing sensitive, high level emulation techniques are more common, for the
sake of speed increases.
~~~
thristian
As best I understand it, bsnes is purely a bytecode interpreter. It does fancy
tricks with stack-swizzling to quickly switch between different parts of the
code to get the timing right, but it never ever generates instructions for the
host CPU architecture.
~~~
lscharen
Actually, I think it's more accurate to say that (at least for the 65816
core), that bsnes is a pipeline interpreter.
Each 65816 opcode takes between 2 and 8 cycles to execute (more for the MVN
and MVP opcodes) and there are rules about when interrupts can be asserted --
bsnes correctly emulates these processor details.
Also, I believe the bsnes properly takes into account the read and write
states of the memory bus. This is also an intra-opcode level of detail.
AFAIK, some of the other CPU cores (esp. the DSP-n and Supergameboy cores) are
straightforward opcode interpreters.
------
CWIZO
Previous discussing of the same link:
<http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1350343>
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Ask HN: Good site to test / try out many APIs interactively? - shaohua
My job requires me to use many third party APIs. To compare three APIs (i.e. payments), it normally takes hours to set up just a hello world for one API. Just wondering whether there is any good site allowing me to test or try out many different third party APIs. Thanks.
======
johns
[https://www.runscope.com](https://www.runscope.com) (I'm a founder, happy to
answer any questions.)
Hurl.it
Also check out Mashape.
~~~
ismaelc
Thanks John. Let me know if you have questions on
[http://mashape.com/](http://mashape.com/) (I work in Mashape)
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Craigslist now asks for exclusive license when posting - jonathanberger
http://baligu.blogspot.com/2012/08/i-dont-remember-seeing-this-before-at.html
======
ChrisNorstrom
Wow. Under the disguise of a pseudo-charity, Craigslist just revealed it's
true intentions. They foolishly just opened themselves up to a lot of hate and
possibly gave people a huge reason to try out competitors. This may be the
beginning of the end of Craigslist's Empire. This is usually how it starts,
users being held hostage, increased control, and decreased satisfaction with
the service with no way out due to network effects.
We all believed in Craigslist and this is our reward? WE built up Craigslist
to be what it is and now we're held hostage for it? I feel like a fool, why do
we keep falling for this? Help the little grow until he becomes king and
screws us all.
~~~
ralfn
Thats a little dramatic.
CL isnt popular here in Holland, but i was under the impression, it was ebay
meets dating, using a 200 byte php forum file, that looked so old, you would
just assume encodimg errors.
Why are you getting your panties in a twist? What import role does this site
play in your life or that of others?
~~~
stellar678
Craigslist is gigantic in big US metro areas.
It's pretty much the standard way to find a place to live, to find an employee
or a job, to buy and sell used cars, etc... etc...
It's also known for having 3 times higher revenue-per-employee than Google
even though the vast majority of activity on the site is free.
~~~
nacorbier
I don't think people outside the US understand how large Craigslist is. I
spend 1 hour, each work day, looking at the national OMPL gig feed after its
been filtered for charity/stupidity/things I don't do, to see if I can pick up
supplemental clients between larger accounts.
The amount of spam and high expectations / low financial reward is high, but a
lot of my small business contracts are from Craigslist.
------
crazygringo
I'm always fascinated when companies make that _one_ decision which seems to
lead to their downfall -- and everyone seems to be able to see it, except the
company itself.
I think this is a great thing -- if Craigslist can get enough bad press from
this, then maybe a movement for "free and copyable" classifieds listings can
take place, and there can be competition in the space again.
~~~
jeremymims
Craigslist could:
\- kill Padmapper instantly by building a map function to view their listings.
\- elect not to build a map feature because they think it's trivial and they
believe no one cares. So Padmapper should languish.
\- buy Padmapper for a little bit of money and have Eric help make their
product better.
\- hire Eric to make their product better.
\- invest a little money into Padmapper as a hedge and hope it does well.
\- charge Padmapper a data access fee
These are all totally reasonable options.
Instead, Craig turned to the lawyers and sued Padmapper for using Google's
listings and decided that all CL posts are now their exclusive property. If CL
really didn't want this data out in the wild, they'd prevent Google from
indexing their site.
This is not only a dick thing to do, it's an especially dick thing to do if
you sit on the board of The Sunlight Foundation and the advisory board of
Wikimedia.
Craig Newmark is a lazy monopolist at this point. All profit taking, no
innovation.
~~~
hnriot
This seems very naive to think that Craig gives a damn about padmapper, they
(CL) have every right to license their data to whomever they want, and PM
choose not to seek such a license so I seriously doubt Eric would really stand
much of a chance getting a job with CL.
You speak as though CL is broken, and it clearly isn't, as a marketplace it
functions well. You may not like the website, but it's marketplace first,
website second. If you want to sell something, it has the inventory and the
customers.
Craid had to sue PM, it's just business, it wasn't a personal attack or a
"dick thing" as you seem to think.
~~~
paulgb
> You speak as though CL is broken, and it clearly isn't, as a marketplace it
> functions well.
I'm guessing you've never had to find an apartment on Craigslist. Sifting
through spam, scams, fake listings by agents, listings that have already been
sold... sure, you can do it, but it's not efficient.
~~~
vampirechicken
Clearly people are still finding value on CL. Hacker News readers are in a
demographic that views the internet and the web VERY differently from how
people who do not create internet services for a living view them. We care
about a completely other set of factors then they do.
We don't bookmark facebook.com we rely on the browser history, having typed it
in to the address bar once. They use google to search for the link to the
facebook login.
They hear that CL is the biggest site for classified ads, so they post there.
They don't care that padmapper will put their apartment on a map, they don't
care about other sites.
CL did the hard work of attracting the people to the marketplace. Padmapper is
not doing any of that hard work. It is my opinion, if you're doing the hard
work of building the community and attracting the users, then you'll agree
with CL on this issue. If you're a repackager, then you'll side with
padmapper.
If your business idea is "Some corner of Craigs List with a better UI" then by
all means, build the UI and then convince people to GIVE you their data.
~~~
owenjones
To me, the word community connotes a separate entity that you interact with in
some way, usually due to proximity. You might define the Craigslist Community
as only people visiting craiglist.com but to me it would imply sites such as
Padmapper that extend and improve Craigslist data. They are symbiotic and
support the same community of users, Padmapper is not "repackaging" Craigslist
like some sort of parasite like you imply.
Anecdotally, whenever I've used Padmapper to find a new apartment I would end
up on craiglist.com anyway as Padmapper would often not contain the real
estate agent's contact information.
------
melvinmt
Nice, you take the time to craft your listing on craigslist and now you've
lost the right to repost your listing ANYWHERE else. I think we can safely
assume that craigslist has a monopoly in (free) online classifieds and this
reeks of very anti-competitive behavior. Wonder what the DOJ thinks of this.
~~~
achompas
This is a bit knee-jerk, no? I highly doubt you waive the right to repost your
listing ANYWHERE; rather, this is legalese allowing them to sue anyone using
their listings without consent.
~~~
dangrossman
Read the text. Exclusive license. That means you may not license your post to
any other site; giving someone else permission to display your listing is a
grant of a license, and such a license is explicitly mentioned in the terms of
any UGC site, including Craigslist. The difference is those other terms always
say NON-exclusive. Go ahead and stop by YouTube and do a search for the word.
This isn't boilerplate legalese.
~~~
jc123
Hard to see the day when craigslist tries to sue posters for this "violation";
so effectively posters can ignore this legalese as it's targeted to give
craiglist ammunition against other sites.
~~~
defen
> effectively posters can ignore this legalese
Operationally, probably true. However, ethically this is no different than the
people who said PadMapper should just use "Craigslist's" data regardless of
what Craigslist thought about the situation. To be consistent, either you
believe:
1) It's ok for PadMapper to re-list Craigslist's data without Craigslist's
consent.
OR
2) If you post a housing listing to Craigslist, you cannot post it anywhere
else.
~~~
alttab
If CraigsList ever went after a poster who also posted their classified on
another site, that would probably be the day they begin to unravel.
You don't want to instill fear into posters (IE, their product) that they
could get sued by posting even a similar ad on a competing site. Then you
enter the territory "I only have access to people who check craigslist"
instead of an array of additional, complementary options. That doesn't sound
very attractive.
~~~
defen
Right, I don't think they would ever sue their own users. But the point is
that you don't get to simply ignore parts of an agreement that you don't agree
with, because "that's not what they meant". So the people who were saying that
PadMapper has no right to use Craigslist's data should be careful not to
submit to multiple listing services if they ever put a house up for rent on
Craigslist, if they care at all about consistent application of their
principles.
~~~
alttab
I don't conflate the two at all.
Padmapper scraping data put up on CraigsList and adding it to their own
listings is very very different than me putting my own listing on multiple
sites.
I don't see this as a "application of principles" issue. The principle I'm
consistently applying is "I have the right to tell whomever I want about
something I want to sell." And Craigslist is applying the consistent principle
that the listing I provided belongs to them. If you ask me, putting my listing
somewhere else makes it a different listing, because it didn't originate at
craigslist (Like stolen listings on PadMapper), but instead, originated
through me.
To apply my principle consistently, I wouldn't post a link to my Craigslist
posting on another site, but I am perfectly entitled to re-post its _content_
where-ever I please.
~~~
defen
The new agreement says that by posting on Craigslist, you give them an
_exclusive_ license to the content. You can't give them an exclusive license
and then turn around and give the content to someone else.
------
chrisacky
Ask AirBnB: Going to change your integration now?
Since AirBnB has _tight_ Craigslist integration, allowing the user to post
their listing _after_ they have posted on AirBnB, this sounds like a total
paradoxical situation (for lack of a better word). AirBnB kind of set up a
listing acting a "proxy", but the owner of the listing hits the final
"confirm" to post.
Take a look here for example of the integration.
[http://andrewchen.co/2012/04/27/how-to-be-a-growth-hacker-
an...](http://andrewchen.co/2012/04/27/how-to-be-a-growth-hacker-an-
airbnbcraigslist-case-study/)
~~~
wmeredith
I'm wondering the same thing for the excellent classifieds app on iOS:
Yardsale.
~~~
chainedtodesk
How much does Yardsale rely on Craigslist to stay alive? I posted a few items
on Yardsale but got empty, flaky replies from Craigslist and still had the
"crazy inbox" problem. Using this as a jumping off point to divorce from
Craigslist, it would be good for Yardsale to differentiate itself with quality
of buyers and manageability of enquiries rather than act as just a portal with
all of the same problems and no real benefits.
------
wpietri
What's up with their recent change in behavior? Craig's public statements are
basically, "Hey, I'm just a customer service guy; talk to the CEO." And as far
as I've seen, the CEO has stayed quiet.
If they're worried about losing relevancy to innovators, why not try
innovating rather than legal maneuvering?
~~~
danielweber
The best way to play a game of chicken is to publicly tear the steering wheel
out of the car. Craig is acting similarly, pretending there is nothing he can
do, so you won't complain to him.
------
prawn
From Wikipedia: "In December 2006, at the UBS Global Media Conference in New
York, Craigslist CEO Jim Buckmaster told Wall Street analysts that Craigslist
has little interest in maximizing profit, instead it prefers to help users
find cars, apartments, jobs, and dates."
~~~
achompas
There's a big gap between "little interest in maximizing profit" and "little
interest in fending off existential threats," no?
~~~
wpietri
No. Either your first priority is delivering value to your users or it's not.
Craigslist has changed from one to the other.
Padmapper isn't the existential threat. It's CL's failure to keep improving.
~~~
achompas
Despite the reigning opinion on HN, adding this legalese to postings does not
hinder CL's ability to serve its users.
~~~
wpietri
I never said otherwise. But as the Padmapper thing shows, the point of the
legalese is to hinder people who are serving its users.
~~~
achompas
CL has every right to do that, especially since scraping CL listings creates a
very high amount of load on their servers. Higher load --> slower response
time --> deteriorated user experience.
~~~
tempestn
Padmapper (and 3taps) don't scrape craigslist though. They get all info from
public sources such as search engine caches.
------
rincewind
Does this license mean copyright? In Germany you cannot protect facts with
copyright. Something like "Flat for rent: $size m², $price €, $coordinates,
$link" seems more like a fact or an idea.
~~~
kleiba
Also, in Germany you cannot give up or transfer copyright to someone else.
~~~
robomartin
How does that work? If I write a book and then sell it to a book publisher and
want to transfer all rights and copyrights? I can't?
~~~
andyjohnson0
There is some information here:
[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Copyright_law_of_Germany#Transf...](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Copyright_law_of_Germany#Transfer)
It looks like you can't transfer copyright but you can exclusively licence it.
~~~
Xylakant
It's a bit more complicated: We don't have copyright as the americans do, it's
split in "Urheberrecht" which is the part the the creator owns and cannot
license or sell and the "Verwertungsrecht" which is the right to use the work.
Urheberrecht encompasses thing such as the right do defend against
modifications that go against the spirit of the work or the author or against
defacing it, the right to be named as the creator (though this one can be
waived by contract depending on the circumstance) etc. The Urheberrecht can
only be transferred by inheritance.
The Verwertungsrechte is anything related to the use of the work, such as
selling, buying, (sub)licensing it.
Please keep in mind that this is a gross oversimplification and IANAL. The
copyright situation is complicated enough for experts in the field and cannot
be explained in a short post I guess :)
------
esbwhat
Why don't they just add a damn map mode already? I get it, they don't want to
change "the secret formula", so make craigslistmapper.com as an extension of
craigslist. Everyone who doesn't want to deal with mapping can stay at
craigslist.
------
learc83
The judge in the Righthaven (copyright troll) case ruled they didn't have
standing to sue, specifically because they didn't have an _exclusive_ license.
I guess this is a response to that.
I still don't think most craigslist posts are copyrightable though.
I think the only real long term solution is for craigslist to build and charge
for an API, because I really don't think their copyright claims will hold up
in court if someone with enough money to handle the legal battle shows up one
day.
------
grabeh
This move is against the grain of other sites which accept UGC. It has
obviously been moved to the submission page from the main terms of use to
attract attention to the clause, in order to increase the chances that
Craigslist can rely on it in future.
It will also allow them to argue that subject to compliance with the licence,
the information could only have been accessed from CL.
The reality of course is that for a certain number people (perhaps limited) CL
will be the only site where the submit content and will therefore not be
concerned about granting an exclusive licence.
However, I'm sure a greater percentage of people will not necessarily grasp
what Craigslist are asking for here and will not be put off posting elsewhere.
Of course, CL will not go around enforcing the terms of the exclusive licence
against the user.
The grant of exclusivity will simply allow them to argue that subject to
compliance with the licence, the information could only have been accessed
from CL, or at least is more likely to have been obtained from CL.
If Craigslist are serious about ensuring they can rely on the exclusive
licence it should be made clear that the grant means the user can't post the
content anywhere else however this may mean that people would be more put off
using the site.
My view is that it's a shame that CL are now attempting to assert an even
tighter stranglehold over information originating from users. In the long run
it may assist Padmapper in pushing people away from using CL in the first
instance.
It's also worth nothing that their terms of use need to be updated to reflect
the exclusivity change:
<http://www.craigslist.org/about/terms.of.use>
------
paulsutter
This decision is the early sign that Craigslist is a dying company. It won't
have a big direct impact: users won't notice and the PR impact won't go beyond
entrepreneur circles.
But it shows their confidence is suffering and they're starting to focus on
defensive measures - even defensive measure that go against their original
values. Its not a sign of impending doom, just a sign that a long decline is
underway.
------
dedward
Seems to me that would only apply to the specific instance of content you
posted on CL. If you create another post somewhere else, just make it
different - it's not a work derived from that content.. it's derived from
facts that you already know.
You could post different content on another site all you like.. but nobody can
take CL's content and use it.
------
marquis
Before this news, I was playing with the idea of a crowd-sourced scraper which
would avoid Craigslist being able to ban particular IP addresses: for example
a javascript scraper that the end-user runs for the few moments they are on a
particular viewing site. Now that this has been passed even this idea would
seem to fail.
I believe that Craigslist is an immense, rich resource where the inertia of
it's community to move en-masse to another service means it highly unlikely
that another site will take over in the near or near-far future. I am saddened
that Craigslist can't simply provide (paid or whatever) API access to their
data and encourage a healthy sub-ecosystem.
------
smsm42
Saying you have something doesn't really mean you have something - I'm not
sure that would stand in court. IANAL, of course, and anything can happen,
especially in bizarro world of computerized information where there's no legal
practice refined by hundreds of years of common sense applications, so such
thing may probably be useful for Craigslist to go after some content
scrappers. But I seriously doubt they would ever go after the post owner for
reporting his own content.
------
alan_cx
Um, dont most people just click OK, Accept or whatever, with out ever reading
on? Cant see the vast majority giving a toss. How many stories have there been
about ebay, paypal, facebook, etc, and none of those sites seem to be losing
loads of users, if any.
I mean, I even had a facebook "friend" forward a circular about the evils of
facebook, saying "we" should all be up in arms. I asked her if she was going
to close her FB account. Yeah, you all know the answer.
------
MartinCron
One thing that never comes up in these discussions is community moderation.
Craigslist relies on the community to flag off content that's inappropriate
(spam, overpost, whatever).
I wonder of the Craigslist folks are looking at alternative interfaces as ways
people will get the good stuff (real listings) without having to do the work
of wading through and flagging off the bad stuff.
------
chayesfss
It's no wonder, more people try to take craigslist data and push it in their
own site while serving ads it's crazy. Yes, when I post an ad on craigslist I
want that ad to be on craigslist, don't have a problem with that at all.
------
keiferski
How could Craigslist possibly enforce this? Are they going to look for every
single ad on every single classifieds website to ensure that it's not exactly
the same?
Unless someone like PadMapper is scraping data, it seems impossible to
enforce.
------
malandrew
Most people forget this, but you can put whatever you want in the ToS. Just
because they put this in the Terms of Use, doesn't mean it will stand up in a
court of law.
------
einhverfr
So if you are a self-published author I guess you had better not sell your
books on Craigslist, using a part of the blurb posted on the back!
------
Spoom
Is this legally enough for Craigslist? Wouldn't they need a full copyright
assignment in order to pursue copyright infringement claims?
~~~
sadga
Yeah, it seems like weird wording, asking for confirmation that they can sue,
without establishing the basis.
------
achompas
IANAL, of course, but before we all bring out the pitchforks, what does the
word "content" mean in
_Clicking "Continue" confirms that craigslist is the exclusive licensee of
this content_
Does it refer, as many posters suggest below, to the item sold in the listing?
Or does it only refer to the contents of the listing? If it's the former, I
question its legal defensibility (oh man I'm not a lawyer, but I think that's
right). If it's the latter, this is a clear pre-emptive move against future
PadMapper-type problems.
------
bob_george33
Standard move I'd say. Stops people from making services that pull information
from Craigslist and advertise it elsewhere.
~~~
dangrossman
It's not very standard. The standard text in a UGC site's terms is to grant a
_non-exclusive_ license to the submitted content, and does not grant the sole
rights to enforce the copyright in that content. This text on the submission
form is both new and non-standard; it doesn't even agree with what's in their
TOS document.
An exclusive license means landlords themselves are giving up their right to
post the same listing on other rental listing sites, for example, by using a
tool that would post the exact same listing to multiple sites.
~~~
jonathanberger
Thanks for pointing this out Dan, I updated the post to include snippets of
other popular terms. You're absolutely right.
------
threepipeproblm
For whatever reason, my intuition suggests this is a clear sign that
Craigslist won't be bothering us much longer.
------
jordanthoms
Wow craigslist, way to be evil.
------
bwb
Good bye craiglist!
------
jonknee
This means in some areas you now get the pleasure of paying Cragslist to grant
them an exclusive license to your content. That's rich
------
gfaigpodsfisfp
Why all the hate towards Craigslist when HN is the same way? Try to delete
your account. Better yet, ask PG if he will. Nope. All yer data r belong to
them.
Pot, meet kettle.
~~~
Karunamon
What data does HN keep on you? Also I fully agree with non-revocable licenses
for discussion forums. Having all of someone's postings disappear because they
leave in huff is damaging to the site.
------
Evbn
This seems basically the same as the FSF's copyright assignment practice for
GPL products, or Apache Foundation's practice, for basically the same goals.
------
PaulMcCartney
Aww shoot! Now I can't repaste my posting to.....wait....where?
------
vtry
This is no different than say cable tv franchise monopolies.
------
duked
Honestly I have no stake in this, but I'm happy CL is doing that change. 3TAP
and Padmapper and just trying to build a "buisness" sucking up posts from CL
and tried to find doggy way around it. CL don't want their post used somehwere
else, no fancy UI it's their right and it's now becoming their clear LEGAL
right. I have zero sympathy for padmapper I actually think their buisness
practices are disgusting (CL offered them a licence they just dind't want to
pay).
~~~
prodigal_erik
Craigslist offered a useless mobile-only license that wouldn't have permitted
padmapper to remain on the web. And forbidding landlords from pasting their
own ad into any other site is shockingly anticompetitive.
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Ask HN: Can you determine encryption pwd with an encrypted and unencrypted file? - benologist
======
brudgers
If the password is weak [e.g. "12345", "pa55w0rd", "eatMoreCHKin68", etc.] and
the encryption implementation is available, then an educated brute force
generation of encrypted files could recover the password. That's the principal
behind rainbow tables.
Of course the data has to be valuable enough to justify such an attack and the
cost of using physical methods [e.g. theft, keylogging, etc.] has to be
higher.
Good luck.
------
svennek
That depends on the encryption method used. If it is any good, then no.
~~~
benologist
I think it's AES 256 bit, is that good?
~~~
svennek
Yeah, that is state of the art. No chance there...
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
U.S. FBI is leading an inquiry into the Twitter hack - dsr12
https://www.reuters.com/article/us-twitter-cyber-fbi-exclusive-idUSKCN24H2PH
======
jermier
One starting point is the domain the 'hackers' used in those tweets. It's
inaccessible now, but a great starting point for further investigation. You
would need pretty strong OPSEC to register a domain anonymously these days,
even with so called 'privacy aware' registrars like Njalla et al.
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Physicians group labels obesity a disease - codegeek
http://www.cnn.com/2013/06/19/health/ama-obesity-disease-change/index.html
======
uberalex
I have lost quite a lot of weight recently, and went out of obese to normal
weight range for now.
I do think that there is a clear difference between 'I should cut back on the
cakes'-type overweight, and 'I have inadequate control over my eating'-type
obesity.
It's not as simple as 'eat less', 'put the fork down chubby' or 'get out and
run/lift/whatever'. I have trouble with controlling my appetite, and I have
issues with knowing when I should stop eating (it's quite hard to hold back
when every body signal indicates you are still very hungry).
In my view obesity is a disease, but it's false to think of it as being like
the 'flu. It's a chronic issue, like high cholestorol, blood pressure or a
peanut allergy. There are environmental factors and behavioural reasons why it
is a health risk, but the underlying cause has a physiological source.
~~~
BorgHunter
It seems like calorie counting would be a good first-line treatment for
difficulty controlling one's appetite. This requires a fair amount of
discipline, but it's also free of side effects and tools already exist to help
you. Do you think at least knowing A) what your basal metabolic rate is, and
B) knowing how many calories you're eating (and consuming via exercise) is
effective in combating this misfire in a body's signals?
I think a lot of the resistance to this is people are worried that the first-
line treatment will be things like drugs, which can be expensive (to society,
since costs are largely socialized even in the U.S. through the mechanism of
health insurance) and have side effects. Look at, say, jrs235's comment (
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5912203](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5912203)
) elsewhere on this page. That's a valid concern. But obesity also comes with
a lot of costs itself. If calorie counting is an effective approach, I think
that it could address the problem in a cost-effective way. (And in a software
way, too.)
~~~
uberalex
I calorie count, that's how I get through the day. However, it's worth noting
that calorie counting is a depressing thing to do. I've experienced very much
the feelings that I read about for diabetics (type 1) and people who are
severely impoverished. Every cost has to be counted, every extravagance
planned for, every unexpected event has to be compensated for. I overate at
the start of the week, so I need to cut back at the end. It's difficult to
count calories when I don't have the figures, which means I can no longer be
the spontaneous social eater I want to be. I miss that badly.
I like to say it's like going from never having to think about how much money
you spent to having to count every.single.penny. It's not 'I should skip that
holiday in the maldives this year', it's 'Can I afford that trivial
expenditure (a single piece of fruit) today? will I be too hungry to sleep if
I cut that out of tonight's dinner?'
------
jrs235
Great.
1\. So now they can prescribe more drugs to more people. 2\. Insurance
providers will have to pay for more drugs continuing to drive health insurance
prices up. (I'm sure the government will mandate that providers can't have
plans that omit coverage for weight related services and drugs).
P.S. I'm trying not to be mean, just pointing out the harsh reality and truth.
We as a populace have become lazy and complacent. Rome II is about to crumble
unless we stop addressing the symptoms and focus on the disease.
~~~
ap22213
That's quite a bit of hyperbole.
My view is quite different. The Human body evolved to survive in certain
ecological niches. And, very quickly, those environments changed. So, it's not
surprising that the body hasn't kept up.
Your moral angle has a good ring to it, but I think it's misguided. From a
moral standpoint, I think it's much better to use our evolutionary strengths
(big brains, etc.) to let us invent technology to overcome the slowness of
evolution. What benefit is there in forcing people to tough it out when their
biology simply wasn't made to cope?
Plus, it's actually probably cheaper to invent new drugs to treat obesity
(curbing appetite) than the more intensive, invasive treatments for diabetes,
heart disease, etc.
------
glenra
My guess is that eventually we'll confirm something like the "fat virus"
hypothesis and be able to immunize kids (to some degree) against becoming
obese.
There exist human cold viruses such that if you give that particular cold to
an animal, the animal gets fatter. We don't directly test these viruses on
people due to ethical concerns - we're pretty sure they'd make people fat too,
and there's no cure. But you can look at biomarkers for exposure and verify
that people who've been exposed are more likely to be fat than those who
haven't.
Here's a study:
[http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/17908526](http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/17908526)
Quote: "This review discusses the 5 animal viruses and 3 human viruses that
have been shown to cause obesity and examines the evidence to date for virus-
induced obesity. [...] Ad-36 causes obesity in chickens, mice, rats, and
monkeys and was present in 30% of obese humans and 11% of nonobese humans. In
twins discordant for infection with Ad-36, the infected twins were heavier and
fatter than their cotwins."
------
fcorr
_On the other hand, AMA 's declaration could help increase funding for future
obesity research. It could also lead to payment for doctors who want to simply
talk to patients about nutrition or exercise -- time that's not currently
reimbursed by insurance plans._
I don't know enough about medicine to discriminate well between a disease,
condition, syndrome etc., but some of the points made in the article make it
sound like this new designation of obesity as a disease is mainly to do with
appearances.
~~~
strasser
Probably we're overthinking the whole thing. When I was a kid, obese people
just ate too much.
~~~
glenra
Some obese people do eat a lot, but the causality direction is unclear. It's
likely they eat a lot in large part _because_ they're obese.
The human body in general is amazingly good at calibrating how much you eat
versus how active you are to stay within a pretty consistent weight range - if
it weren't, we'd all starve or become morbidly obese in response to tiny
inadvertent changes in diet or exercise. But in some people, that calibration
mechanism is off - they feel hungrier than they should or their metabolism
works slower than it should given their size, and the mismatch leads them to
become obese. We don't yet know why and we don't yet know what can be done to
reliably change or fix it.
We've almost certainly been underthinking the whole thing.
------
gailees
This is huge and, regardless of what you think of its labeling, will forever
change the way we treat obesity. It's become a real problem in the US and as
much as we would like to blame obesity on an individual, the country as a
whole is suffering bc of it. It impacts our health, our relationships, and
even our economy, and it's time to step up to make some real changes here.
------
JimmaDaRustla
My take - shouldn't be a disease.
Reasoning: most diseases have a direct "cause and effect" \- if you can't eat
healthy because you weren't forced to eat anything other than chicken nuggets
as a child, that may well be a disease. (My GF suffers from this; she says we
will serve mini hamburgers and chicken fingers at our wedding...) But obesity
in general, to me, is not a disease.
However, if labeling it as a disease can help people in any way to get on the
path to a healthier lifestyle, then it doesn't bother me. Calling it a disease
should not be a crutch, but hopefully a way to address the problem. I believe
insurance companies will have to cover operations that can help people lower
their weight.
I believe in Canada our health plan covers that, kind of bugs me though
because it comes from my taxes rather than paid insurance.
~~~
uberalex
There is something to suggest that obesity is more than simply having a bad
diet. Obese people react differently to food, and it appears to have a genetic
correlation.
One paper suggests that there is a dopamine response difference in the obese:
[http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/11210998](http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/11210998)
The causal direction is open to interpretation, but I still think that there
is a difference between 'overweight' and 'obese'
~~~
stinos
"genetic correlation"
this probably plays a part in it for some, but only a small part if I would
have to guess, there's way more to it.
First sign there's much more going on than just 'a disease' is the fact there
are way more obese people in the US for instance than in most other countries.
And also for instance that children where both parents are obese are more
likely to develop obesity as well. First comes down to culture, second to
lifestyle. Not two things I'd directly associate with words like 'genetic or
'disease'.
~~~
uberalex
I can't say I agree with this analysis. In the first instance, the fact that
both parents' obesity is a factor could be argued to point towards a stronger
correlation. In a broad sense, it's also important to note that chronic
diseases always have some behavioural and lifestyle component. For example,
physical malformations can be caught early and given therapeutic redress --
Scoliosis correction might be a good example.
You're not condemned to be obese if your genetics give you the propensity for
it, but it's also fair to say that the genetics mean that disease-like
interventions are necessary. [http://www.hsph.harvard.edu/obesity-prevention-
source/obesit...](http://www.hsph.harvard.edu/obesity-prevention-
source/obesity-causes/genes-and-obesity/)
------
angersock
I wholeheartedly look forward to the lavish dinners at doctor conferences
where they discuss this malady.
------
roller
Joining alcoholism in the area of diseases you can get yelled at for having.
Damn it Otto, you're obese!
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
StyleJS: Dynamic CSS styling - vmorgulis
https://github.com/deamme/StyleJS
======
grandman
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/JavaScript_Style_Sheets](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/JavaScript_Style_Sheets)
dumb then dumb now
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Why I miss IE6 - jitbit
http://blog.jitbit.com/2011/04/why-i-miss-ie6.html
======
Symbol
The author misses IE6 because it was the dominant browser and he/she could
code for it and call it a day? Might as well claim you miss Lynx and the days
where shelling out to gopher links was so easy because it was one command in
emacs.
------
LarryA
Blame Microsoft - They went for exclusive Windows support and were pretty
nasty in screwing with standards to force people there.
If they kept with cross-platform support (they dropped Mac IE as of version
5.2...) and played a bit nicer with standards (non MS standards were against
their lock-in strategy), I'm sure the market would not have been as fed-up
with them .
Not talking techies here, just users, if things just worked for most of em
then they would have been happy. But as MS excluded IE tech on non MS phones,
Apples and other computing devices that access the internet they started
excluding themselves as well.
------
ddagradi
The author ignores the idea that his websites don't need to look identical in
every browser, and probably can't. If you're getting bent out of shape over
the limits of styling an option tag, you're doing it wrong.
Give older browsers simpler stylesheets. Build your site to gracefully degrade
without javascript and browser errors won't come back to bite you. We have a
varied and rapidly changing browser ecosystem - you need to change your design
patterns.
------
sandipc
in summary,
"I kinda miss the days when IE6 was _The Browser For Them All._ "
"I have a freaking ton of customers running older browsers"
------
sajidnizami
It is difficult to develop when rendering on all browsers is different.
I do agree with him, one platform that did what we told it to. All hacks were
documented.
However I don't miss it. Plenty of capable platforms out there that can help
build browser compatible sites quickly. Besides if you have to resort to bold
inside an option tag, your design has some other flaws.
My favorite is still web kit. I hope it gets more share.
Edit: try putting image tags inside option. I believe only FF renders it. I
could be wrong though. It's been a while I've worked this deep with HTML. The
DTD never allowed yet FF renders it.
Edit: I was right, he is using option tag to do something it is not supposed
to. <http://www.w3.org/TR/html-markup/option.html> I suppose he missed IE6 for
a reason ;)
------
melling
According to Microsoft's stats, there actually aren't many people running IE6
in North America and Europe.
<http://ie6countdown.com>
Microsoft is trying to get sites involved with getting old IE users to
upgrade.
<http://ie6countdown.com/join-us.html>
It might even be worthwhile for Microsoft to have a generic campaign where
they encourage all users on a given platform to upgrade to the latest IE
possible. XP to IE8, Vista and Win7 to IE9, and next year Win7 to IE10.
Constantly reminding people they are running an older browser can only help.
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Disputed definitions: In search of the terms that get scientists most worked up. - robg
http://www.nature.com/news/2008/081022/full/4551023a.html
======
jgamman
plase don't paste paywall stories - your uni may have blanket access but the
rest of us don't
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Generating Quality Leads - PujaDembla
Suggest some quick ways to generate quality business leads.
======
verdverm
It might help to add the ASK HN, frame it as a question, and provide context.
For example, what's the market, product, buyer persona?
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Git Absorb - jordigh
https://github.com/tummychow/git-absorb
======
To1ne
There is also
[http://torbiak.com/post/autofixup/](http://torbiak.com/post/autofixup/)
Which is supported by magit:
[https://github.com/magit/magit/issues/3053#issuecomment-4104...](https://github.com/magit/magit/issues/3053#issuecomment-410475533)
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
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The Razor Blade Business Model - avner
http://thehopkinsonreport.com/2009/05/20/episode-57-has-gillette-taken-the-razorrazor-blade-model-too-far/
======
bmcleod
Surely at some price point people will just move back to old fashioned safety
razors.
Mine costs me a few cents per blade and gives a very close shave.
~~~
olliesaunders
Yeah I do that too. Even then I shave as rarely as I can bare to, both to save
blades and time. The old safety razors take some getting use to and practise
but I consider that part of the fun.
~~~
karzeem
I got pretty obsessed with safety razors and wetshaving a little while ago.
The blade is unquestionably less forgiving than your standard 3-5 blade Shave
System™, and you have to unlearn some sloppy technique that pivoting-head
razors promote. I.e. you have to pay attention to the angle at which you're
placing the blade against your skin.
But I pretty quickly got to a point where cuts were even less common than they
were before I started using the safety razor, and I think my experience is
pretty much the norm for anyone who sticks with it for 5-10 shaves. It takes a
bit longer, but it's a better shave with less irritation, and the ritual of it
is a lot of fun.
And some of the shaving creams that you apply with a brush (I'm thinking
specifically of Taylor of Old Bond Street's rose-scented one) smell absolutely
incredible.
~~~
pxlpshr
I am very obsessed with safety razors. Been hooked on it for about 2 years now
and haven't gone back: 1) save a ton of money 2) feel like I have that "best
shave of my life" at least once a week. 3) local product I use is much better
for the face.
It is definitely an adjustment, I'd venture to say it took me about 3 months
of experimenting (shaving 3-4 times a week) before I was getting extremely
close shaves. The best analogy I've heard is that using a safety razor is like
driving a manual sports car. It's a lost art of being a man.
I started with a basic $20 razor and common mekur blades... But about a year
ago I upgraded to Markur Futur, and more recently switched to Feather
(japanese) blades. If you haven't tried the Feather blades, definitely
encourage you to do so.
[http://www.truefittandhill.com/catImages/large_MerkurFuturSa...](http://www.truefittandhill.com/catImages/large_MerkurFuturSatin.jpg)
<http://www.fendrihan.com/images/feather_10.jpg>
~~~
bmelton
I personally like the Derby blades I picked up off of Amazon, they still get
just as close as anything else I've used, but they somehow feel 'softer' than
all the others. Perhaps more forgiving is a better phrase. What's so great
about the Feathers?
~~~
Rabidmonkey1
Feathers are made by a Japanese surgical tool company. They are considered by
many to be _the sharpest_ blade you can purchase.
That said, practice with Merkur or Derby's before you graduate to feathers.
I bought the Derbys on Amazon as well (100 pack for 15 bucks! Two year supply,
basically, instead of a stretched 2 month supply for 30 dollar Gillettes) but
I have to say I prefer the feeling of the Merkurs. Still, the price is right
for the Derbys, though I do want to try feathers in the future.
------
cwan
I guess I'm one of the few dupes here :). I recently switched to using Fusion
blades (not the power ones where you also have to worry about the battery)
because I forgot to bring my shaving kit when traveling.
I have to say I was pretty pleased by how quickly and consistent the shave was
relative to Mach 3. Being accident prone and generally impatient in the
morning, it's resulted in no blood loss so far (it's been about 2 months since
I started using them). I've used 2 blades in this time which to me is worth
the cost relative to the time I save and the quality of the shave I get.
------
pmichaud
The software equivalent of this model is probably Freemium. You give away part
of the package for free, but then you charge a "subscription" for the rest.
Razors are the free, Blades are the "subscription."
------
olliesaunders
This sort of reminds me of the HP printer cartridges (cheap printer, expensive
cartridges). I saw a TV interview with a HP executive who was asked to justify
why the cartridges were so expensive. He said that it was because the most
sophisticated technology was in the cartridge.
Of course this business model is quite immoral in a world where disposable,
non-recycleable things are known to be unsustainable.
------
euroclydon
I use the Gilette Fusion and have a heavy beard, but one cartridge lasts me
two weeks. Here's how: I shake the water off my razor and then use a blow
dryer to completely dry the blades after each shave. Supposedly it's not the
cutting of hair that really dulls the blades, but rather the corrosion that
occurs on the wet edges after you put it up.
~~~
narag
That's a big surprise to me, the same as some thing the article says.
For more than thirty years, I've used disposable Blue II (dirty cheap, they
last one or two months each), cream (not sure if that's the word in English...
2€, it lasts a whole year, no kidding) and a brush (natural weasel hair, they
last an average of twenty years). I make the whole thing in three minutes, no
cuts, no pain, very close.
I've tried electrical shavers, gel, more than two razors and all sorts of
novelties, but nothing was a real improvement. I think they can insult us,
cheaper customers because we really couldn't care less. While they keep making
the cheap stuff, they can bark all they want :-)
------
dtf
I think I read somewhere that Mach 3 refills are the most shoplifted item
ever. Gillette's marketing is a truly incredible machine. I finally gave up on
their extortionate cost about 5 years ago and bought myself a Merkur Futur.
Blades cost £3 for 10, and cut as close as you want but require a little more
of a delicate touch. So I still keep a Mach 3 on standby for my hung-over
mornings.
------
croby
Razor and Blade?!? They're freaks!
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
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Black Shark 5G Will Be the World’s First Phone with 16GB RAM - Lagogarda
http://alugy.com/asia/black-shark-5g-will-be-the-worlds-first-phone-with-16gb-ram/
======
gruez
>Now, why would a smartphone need so much RAM, you may ask? Well, Black Shark,
Black Shark 2 and Black Shark 2 PRO are some of the fastest gaming smartphones
on the market and Black Shark is a niche producer, aimed primarily at gamers.
Correct me if I'm wrong, but more RAM shouldn't increase gaming performance,
only multitasking performance. I'm guessing this is only a gimmick as there's
only so much they can do in terms of hardware (ie. the fastest commodity
chipset is SD 8xx and everybody's already using it), so they're resorting to
this to differentiate themselves.
------
newscracker
Apple is (perhaps?) the only smartphone maker that doesn’t advertise RAM
capacity or CPU clock frequency — measures that didn’t really mean much in the
PC era (except to confuse and confound consumers) and didn’t matter in the
smartphone era. If your hardware and software are integrated well and
optimized, you don’t need a lot of RAM (as seen in real world responsiveness
and performance of Apple devices with half or one third the RAM that some
Android devices have). Taking a wild guess, at the current rate of change, it
will be two years before many new Android phones have 16GB RAM, and at least
four years before the new flagship iPhones have that much. Heck, even most
laptops sold today are not yet at “16GB is the base RAM” level and start at
4GB (or worse).
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
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Xkcd: Time - ashleyblackmore
http://xkcd.com/
======
claudius
Changing every half-hour or so – anyone up to crack the (probably) SHA-256
checksum[0]? :-)
[0]
[http://forums.xkcd.com/viewtopic.php?f=7&t=101043&si...](http://forums.xkcd.com/viewtopic.php?f=7&t=101043&sid=a1c7bf145ef1f3be91cd56a27372048d&start=40#p3301961)
------
mansigandhi
its brilliant, i dont know how they do it!
~~~
sidcool
What is it about? I didn't get it.
~~~
dbh937
the picture changes every half-hour. Someone put together a gif of all the
frames here[1].
[1]: <http://primis.org/time/output.gif>
------
Indyan
I don't get it.
------
sidcool
Didn't get it.
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Unvaccinated Oregon boy, 6, nearly dies of tetanus, racks up $1M in bills - smacktoward
https://www.oregonlive.com/health/2019/03/unvaccinated-oregon-boy-6-nearly-dies-of-tetanus-racks-up-1-million-in-bills.html
======
ChrisGranger
> However, knowing all of that, the CDC noted that the parents of the child
> chose not to give him a second dose of the vaccine or any other recommended
> immunizations.
Unbelievable. Their child suffered for almost two months because he hadn't
been vaccinated, and they were obviously OK with all the other necessary
medications and procedures the little guy needed to survive, yet they _still_
refuse to vaccinate...
~~~
DrScump
I think they meant that the parents chose to not proceed with vaccinations
after age 2 months, not that they continue to not vaccinate.
Tetanus is different in that there is no "herd immunity" benefit since it is
not transmitted person to person.
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Ask HN: is Facebook's "GMail Killer" Going to Succeed? - bluedevil2k
So Facebook is planning to unveil their "GMail Killer" on Monday? Does anyone think they're going to be successful in their stated goal of killing GMail?<p>More realistically, how do you see this product turning out? I think it could be a great product if they do it right and aim it to be the e-mail client of choice for the tens of millions of their users who predominantly use Facebook when they're online. If it keeps them on Facebook even more than they already are, then I think it has to be considered a success. No doubt Facebook plans to serve ads with it and integrate it with their existing products.<p>On the other hand...am I the only one concerned that Facebook could potentially screw this up? Would it surprise anyone if they launched the product on Monday and then 'accidentally' let your installed applications also retrieve your entire list of e-mails? Do they get rid of the whole "Delete" button entirely?
======
newyorker
I'm waiting to see how good their email client will ben but I don't think
they're mature enough to kill gmail. They already have email integration, they
just need to add 'attachments' and the basic email product is already there.
Also, many people 'talk off of facebook' on gmail in addition to facebook
(like me, although I'm not a heavy fb user)
It will be interesting to see what else they plan to add.
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
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Berners-Lee: You've Got Our Data, Show Restraint - abennett
http://www.itworld.com/internet/269794/berners-lee-demand-your-data-internet-companies
======
benologist
ITWorld could show some restraint too... spamming HN.
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
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Why don't you shop on eBay anymore? - DanBC
https://www.reddit.com/r/AskUK/comments/6px6iw/why_dont_you_shop_on_ebay_anymore/
======
WheelsAtLarge
I can't trust sellers. They put their own interest way over buyers. I get it,
you need to make a profit, but it's way too uneven. It results in overcharges
in postage, incomplete to false descriptions and more expensive products. The
few bargains aren't worth the trouble. It's just easier to go with Amazon. At
least there the shipping is fast and there's someone to complain to if things
go wrong.
------
microwavecamera
I haven't been using ebay much anymore, except for some tech related stuff
mostly because it's flooded with overseas sellers or domestic sellers sourcing
products from overseas. Not that I have anything against it but most of the
time I don't want to wait weeks for something to get delivered with open ended
delivery dates or deal with trying to return something overseas.
------
DanBC
I thought it was interesting to see people who still like Amazon and think
it's better than eBay.
I still use both, but for what I buy eBay tends to be easier and better.
------
sharemywin
for cheap knockoff electronics from china I use aliexpress.com usually
cheaper. although sometimes ebay is cheaper.
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Google Drive for Work - samcrawford
http://www.google.com/enterprise/apps/business/driveforwork/
======
forca
Cannot and will not ever trust Google with my data or that of any employer for
which I am affiliated. Full stop. I dislike associating my data with a company
whose sole job is making money from ads. I dislike their business model, their
history of trust, their tax evasion offshore company shell games, their
digging through data to serve ads. No, thank you.
There will come a day, mark my words, when there will be a breach of epic
proportions due to trusting cloud providers when instead, we should host our
own data.
------
timdafweak
I am seriously thinking about dumping my Dropbox subscription plan in favor of
Google Drive.
BUT the only thing standing in the way is Differential Sync. Does Google offer
this yet?
| {
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Rocket Internet: Attack of the online clones - antr
http://www.independent.co.uk/news/business/analysis-and-features/rocket-internet-attack-of-the-online-clones-9932262.html
======
kken
These guys operate on the premise that ideas are cheap and exeuction is all
that counts. The excell at execution like hardly anybody else.
~~~
sytelus
No, their premise is that ideas as well as execution is cheap to _replicate_
once it's already done by someone else in many of the cases. These people are
actually copy pasting all the way down to HTML and CSS. All the design work
and nitty gritty of how user interaction should look like is already done for
them. They already know how it was bootstrapped, why it is successful and what
users would expect from it. In other words they bypass most of the risky
unknowns that causes large number of startup to fall. Backend is sure not
replicable but given that they operate on smaller scales, most applications
such as AirBnB would boil down to creating simple database and shuttling data
back and forth which becomes college-level project that can be done quickly
and thrown in market. I would not expect them to clone startups that is heavy
on CS skills such as those requiring machine learning or computer vision or
large amount of computing power. They would mostly go for startups where
formulation of user experience is key and implementation is basically a
relational database with UI doing simple read/writes.
------
andy_ppp
I worked for Rocket Internet for a couple of months in 2012... Interesting
organisation but a proper startup should be able to beat them easily at most
things.
These guys have all the things that you lack as a startup; money, people,
MBAs, finance department, legal, crazy people, good people, indifferent
people. Did I mention these guys have loads of money. And they spend it on all
the wrong stuff.
The things they lack are a soul and good product vision. People can smell
that.
------
barbolo
Rocket Internet: Building companies without a soul
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Survival in chessland [pdf] - bgschulman31
http://tom7.org/chess/survival.pdf
======
modernerd
This is beautifully written and worth downloading.
“Ben does not prefer to use the shift key, a typographic quirk I replicated
faithfully here even though it burns my eyes:”
The premise is: “if you were forced to be one of the chess pieces, which piece
should you choose to give you the best chance of survival?”
The king is the obvious choice, but the author assumes kings will have to be
sacrificed under victory conditions or when time runs out. This is lovely:
“Many games also end in a time forfeit, which is like the king's poor diet and
lifestyle choices leading to a death by natural causes.”
The author uses 500 million chess games from lichess.org to estimate each
piece's survival probability, and even makes heatmaps for which squares each
piece usually dies on.
For those digging for the answer, it's in figure 3 under 4.1. It differs
depending on the game style (bullet, blitz, classical). There's one piece
that's common to almost all categories with a 70% chance of survival.
------
symmetricsaurus
Tom7 made a video also:
[https://youtu.be/DpXy041BIlA](https://youtu.be/DpXy041BIlA)
If you haven’t seen them his other videos are well worth watching as well.
~~~
pronoiac
He's a mad genius! I like his compiler that generates executables made up only
of printable characters:
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LA_DrBwkiJA](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LA_DrBwkiJA)
/
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16312317](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16312317)
He's super playful and awesomely smart!
------
k_sze
Just me or something isn't quite right about the numbers? Intuitively,
shouldn't the survival rates of the white and black kings add up to exactly
100% in each type of game, even given the rules and interpretations that the
author laid out at the beginning of the article?
~~~
6gvONxR4sf7o
Presumably draws were counted as both surviving? The author suggested two
different ways to count a draw ¯\\_(ツ)_/¯
------
thom
Fascinating stuff! Sadly Windows only, otherwise I'd be interested in seeing
if the results are any different run against KingBase or another collection of
mostly GM games.
~~~
LeifCarrotson
Windows only? Lichess is a web app first, works great on any modern browser.
There are Android, and iOS native apps, a few 3rd party clients, and no Mac or
Linux official clients, but you're definitely not limited to Windows.
~~~
thom
I just meant the code behind the paper, it'd need some work to get it
compiling in Linux.
------
akkartik
Such a chess game actually plays out in the novel "Carrion Comfort" by Dan
Simmons.
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
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Why Alcohol Is Good for You - subbu
http://www.wired.com/wiredscience/2010/09/why-alcohol-is-good-for-you/
======
jseifer
Summary: the author of the article speculates that moderate alcohol
consumption leads people to socialize and not be lonely. People who are lonely
are more likely to die from "just about everything." There's no actual study
done here -- the author only references other studies. This article is about
the author's hypothesis.
~~~
andre3k1
This article, similar to "The Web Is Dead", is about nothing more than link
baiting. Wired has been going down hill as of late.
~~~
kiba
How do you measure that rate of "becoming worse"?
~~~
falsestprophet
with careful consideration and scientific rigor, I'm sure
------
retube
"But here’s the really weird data point: Heavy drinkers also live longer than
abstainers."
Really? Really? I don't believe it. I'd like to look more closely at the data
that supports this. And it depends on the definition of "heavy" drinking. If
it's a regular one glass a day, sure. If it's a bottle a gin a couple of times
a week I would beg to differ.
Alcohol is insanely destructive. Whilst no doubt this study is picking up on
correlations between lifestyle characteristics which would explain these
results, there's no doubt that booze is bad for you. It rots your brain,
wrecks your liver, makes you depressed and makes you violent.
It's mental that for £20 I can pop into any off-licence, corner shop or
supermarket in the land and buy enough alcohol to literally kill myself. It's
a factor in 100s of thousands of deaths a year (UK) via heart disease, liver
cirrhosis, car accidents or violence. It costs the NHS and police forces 10s
of billions of pounds a year. It turns town-centres into virtual no-go areas
on the weekend. It ruins lives.
Yet for some reason not only is it legal, it occupies a cherished position in
our culture.
Edit: just to clarify, i'm not a prohibitionist. I think alcohol _should_ be
legal. Personally I love booze and having a few. But our stance on alcohol
versus our stance on other drugs (pot, coke etc) is just utterly illogical,
non-sensical, even I would argue, immoral.
~~~
brownleej
The full study is available online, and is linked to in the article. Their
definition of "heavy drinking" seems to be more than three drinks per day,
which seems like a reasonable definition to me.
~~~
hugh3
The problem with that definition is that it still lumps modestly-heavy
drinkers (two small beers after work, two glasses of wine with dinner) with
_really_ heavy drinkers (guzzle whisky until you pass out every afternoon).
If you plotted "health problems" vs "amount drunk" you'd probably see a fairly
flattish curve from zero up to some level, combined with a sudden increase at
very high levels of consumption. The "heavy drinking" number you're getting
here is going to be a section of the flat curve combined with a section of the
sudden increase, so the number you're getting doesn't tell you much.
------
tfh
Correlation does not strictly mean causation. Our statistics professor brought
this example once, he explained it that people who don't drink (in a western
society) have often problems with their health or are taking medication.
Statistics could be often misleading.
Another example was that people with bigger feet were more likely to be earn
more money. Guess why?
~~~
travisp
While true, it's not just correlation that alcohol may be good for you.
There's growing evidence that, among other things, alcohol boosts your HDL
(good) cholesterol. For one _controlled_ study see:
<http://circ.ahajournals.org/cgi/content/full/102/19/2347>
The conclusion from the controlled study?
"Alcohol intake increases HDL-C in a dose-dependent fashion, associated with
and possibly caused by an increase in the TR of HDL apolipoproteins apoA-I and
-II."
Of course, this is different from the author's hypotheses about socializing
and loneliness, something much harder to test.
~~~
carbocation
But now we are several steps removed from the outcome of interest. We can
postulate the following:
EtOH -> higher HDL -> increased reverse cholesterol transport (or another HDL
function) -> reduced risk of cardiovascular disease.
But there is a problem here. While higher HDL epidemiologically correlates
with reduced CVD, the only clinical trial of a drug that purely raises HDL
showed increased mortality. Now, the trial was complicated by off-target
effects of the drug, but my point is that we actually do not know if raising
"good" cholesterol is good!
~~~
tshtf
Doesn't niacin reduce mortality?
~~~
carbocation
Yes, but it is not a pure HDL modifier: it also reduces LDL-C, so it is not
clear which effect leads to niacin's benefits (both could, to be fair).
------
zach
So the referenced study prompts a basic but hopefully interesting question
about statistics and epidemiology which I hope someone could answer. When they
controlled for former problem drinking status and medical status (among other
factors), there was a major change in abstainers from 200% increased mortality
over moderate drinkers to 51%. So it seems like current abstainers included a
significantly death-prone cohort who were former problem drinkers and/or in
poor health.
Okay, so that makes me wonder what the difference is between controlling for
major factors and simply excluding the cohort with factors having that very
significant impact on mortality. My question is, at what point should one
correct for major factors and at what point is it appropriate to completely
segregate the data? What if the size of the group with major factors excluded
would be statistically insignificant (i.e. heavy drinkers who have never been
problem drinkers)?
------
etal
Complete abstinence from alcohol is also correlated with lower education level
and poverty. People with less certainty and control over their lives are more
likely to distrust alcohol, justifiably -- the risk that comes with it is more
serious for them.
~~~
retube
Hmm, I'm quite surprised. For sure, high levels of alcoholism are correlated
with poverty and lack of education. Random study:
"In the weighted model, a one-unit increase in neighborhood poverty at the
prior examination was associated with a 86% increase in the odds of binging"
[http://journals.lww.com/epidem/Abstract/2010/07000/The_Relat...](http://journals.lww.com/epidem/Abstract/2010/07000/The_Relationship_Between_Neighborhood_Poverty_and.10.aspx)
Anecdotally, all the cases of alcohol abuse I hear about tend to be in
disadvantaged homes.
~~~
stavrianos
Homes might be disadvantaged by the presence of an alcoholic. A friend of mine
came from a home like this- her father spent truly stupendous amounts on
alcohol. There was never enough money afterwards.
------
vishaldpatel
A thought about "having more friends". People like people who are like them.
Since most people drink, you are more likely to have friends if you do.
------
randallsquared
Since I've taken up light drinking almost entirely for the health benefits,
and since I don't drink socially, I hope this hypothesis isn't really the
answer. The other day when a co-worker was trying to get me to go to a scotch
tasting, he said, "What, do you only drink at home, alone, in the dark?!" I
replied that it wasn't _usually_ dark... :)
~~~
Psyonic
Even if your focus is health, why does it always have to be at home, alone?
~~~
randallsquared
It doesn't have to be -- my co-worker was successful at getting me to agree to
go out with the group -- but typically, if I'm around more than a couple
people with whom I'm expected to interact, I'm not going to be having fun, so
why waste alcohol on that situation? With lowered inhibitions, I might
actually _announce_ that I'm not having fun. :)
------
dooshydoo
These studies that whet the appetite for 'sin secrets' are entertaining, but
that's about it. I favor reductionism. Maybe it's not forced brain evolution
or African-plain-life recreation. Maybe it's because when you drink you tend
to eat less, which is, good.
~~~
billswift
The only inherent advantage in eating less is getting fewer calories; alcohol
has a substantial number of calories itself, so no benefit there.
~~~
hugh3
Also, I think that studies (and my own experience) have shown that alcohol
increases the amount you eat anyway.
------
yosho
if alcohol drinkers are happier people, and happier people live longer...
does that mean people who have a lot of good sex live longer too? I bet they
do!
------
antirez
Great article. Now it's time to go out at the local bar to have a few beers
with my friends :)
------
weston
I'd drink to this.
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Show HN: Littlelogs, a social journal of progress on your projects - joshsharp
http://littlelogs.co/
======
fallenhitokiri
Congratulations for launching! What is / will be the difference between
Littlelogs and Twitter e.x.? What wil make it special? I currently cannot
check it out myself, I'm on the waiting list and don't have access yet, but
from what I see it looks like no character limit? Will there be an API to pull
down the updates and include them somewhere else, like on the project
homepage?
small bug report: I tried signing up with this description
"im currently working on a self hosted CI server (leeroyCI) and a static site generated which will soon get a hosted web interface to make it comfortable."
And I got s 500 error page. Replacing the description with "-" worked and let
me sign up.
~~~
joshsharp
Argh sorry. I've emailed you an invite instead.
------
vinodkd
I've been keeping journals for all my personal projects for quite some time
now because I find it useful to "get context" when I go back to a particular
project after some time. So something like this certainly piques my interest.
My journal is usually a journal.md at the root of the project, like so: [1].
It has a very simple format: datetime stamp, text. Sometimes I use bullets and
indented text, but its usually prose or code.
Do you want to consider pulling journal updates directly from people's github
as a feature? Of course, my kind of journal is a little too detailed -
intended for me to pick up when I get back, but maybe a publicjournal.md which
would be the author's ready-for-public-consumption version of the journal?
[1][https://github.com/vinodkd/halo/blob/master/journal.md](https://github.com/vinodkd/halo/blob/master/journal.md)
~~~
goldfeld
I've begun doing that too and second integration with git. I wonder though,
why don't you embed your journal within the git log? Relevant commits of mine
accompany a journal entry that goes after the empty line in the commit
message, it makes for easy and contextual reading--these entries tend to be
paragraph-sized though.
~~~
vinodkd
Two reasons: UX and intent
UX: My next comment usually involves looking at my previous ones and keeping
that flow. sometimes my journal has todos that i'm tracking; things like
that.So having it all in one place is useful and the git log experience breaks
that into two pieces: one to view the log to date and another to add a new log
entry.There's probably an opportunity for a shell script that loads up the log
in an editor, allows me to add an entry, diffs it on exit and auto commits.
Sometimes i'll enter the same text in both my commit message and journal; and
some other times my commit message essentially says "look at the journal, too
detailed to list here".
Intent: Sometimes I use the journal to track not just what i am doing but also
what I _should be doing_. Alternate paths I want to try, philosophical
sidebars on why I'm doing what I'm doing, etc. These entries explain to my
future self why the project is in the state that I come back to it :). I'm not
sure how I could put that into anything other than prose - since its not fully
fleshed out code yet. I've tried design docs and that works sometimes, but
usually I just want to jot down my thoughts in a stream-of-consciousness mode
rather than figure out the right document to put the thought in. The journal
works best for this. Later, I'll pull things from the journal into a design
doc.
~~~
goldfeld
Thanks, I love to read about other people's workflows, especially when it's
about something I also do. Can I get in touch with you once I have that shell
script? It's very relevant functionality for something I'm working on that
works with git.
~~~
vinodkd
Sure. just followed you on github if that's sufficient. i'm not much of a
social media person, so let me know if you want to connect via email.
btw, another project idea of mine is to create a stream-of-consciousness
editor: you create the content (code, meta-information about the code,
whatever) as it "comes to you" and then figure out a place for it later. this
is obviously the opposite of how our current file-based editors work, but in
its simplest form its not that different in its implementation (autosave
untitled files and allow them to be renamed, for example). What would be
really cool is to have chunks of content belong to multiple documents, or
being able to copy-n-paste by linking and so forth. Again, nothing that
hypertext itself isnt already, just a concrete implementation in an editor
context.
one more for "when I get to it" :)
~~~
goldfeld
I had thought about something similar for prose--when I'm writing I often get
sentences or even paragraphs in my head ahead of time, so I want to have some
easy 'capture blobs and arrange later' editor interface at some point.
I can see your email from your commits on halo, if that's alright I can get in
touch through that address once I'm ready to open source what I'm working on.
~~~
vinodkd
dont think that will work - that's an aspirational email address that i hope
to setup one day (you see how far the rabbit hole of procrastination goes :)).
edit: followed you on twitter. follow me back and i can pm you my email.
------
danschuller
This is a neat. I like the idea and implementation!
Reminds me a little of the .plan files from the old Quake days, mixed with
twitter / social media.
[http://floodyberry.com/carmack/plan.html](http://floodyberry.com/carmack/plan.html)
I've signed up. Here's my little log:
[http://littlelogs.co/rpgdan/](http://littlelogs.co/rpgdan/)
~~~
WorldMaker
For a brief period I had a server that polled Twitter and updated a .plan file
from my tweets, simply because I could, but that was two or three Twitter API
versions ago and I've also been using fewer and fewer unix boxen since then.
Part of me wants to revisit the concept and run a Twitter over QOTD (port 17)
server.
------
chazu
I dig it - I'd like to be able to use twitter for this (I suppose I could,
nobody's stopping me) however I find that the twitter platform isn't really
conducive to this sort of application - too much noise. A domain-specific tool
like this has a place, I think.
------
jacquesm
In my case it would probably document the _lack_ of progress rather than the
progress. It's pretty hard to make steady progress on a number of tasks in
parallel, the cost of context switching is huge.
~~~
vinodkd
To counter this, I actually wrote a "Dont break the chain" app[1] that pulled
contributions from all my local projects (since i have some that are not yet
on github, some on bitbucket, etc)
The idea was that I'd be happy if I made progress on at least one of them in
general. Of course, I didnt finish that one either :)
[1][https://github.com/vinodkd/dbtc](https://github.com/vinodkd/dbtc)
------
stevenrossuk
500 Server Error when I submitted my application, replaced description with
"-" as fallenhitokiri mentioned.
~~~
joshsharp
Should be fixed now, but I've emailed you an invite in the meantime. Sorry!
------
dnautics
I think this is what electronic science notebooks should look like.
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Open Source Is Worth Your Time - tkellogg
http://info.timkellogg.me/blog/2012/04/22/why-open-source-is-worth-your-time/
======
TazeTSchnitzel
Preaching to the choir?
~~~
tkellogg
If you think that most HN readers contribute to open source regularly then
yes. I have a feeling though that many don't, despite appearances. Really I'd
like that blog post to be a gateway for devs to get involved. I'm from the
.NET community where there's way too little contribution. If you give to open
source projects, good for you! Now go and get your friends involved too.
~~~
catilac
I do not give back. This blog post is definitely helping to motivate me.
It's funny that I think I'm too bad at coding to give back, but a great way to
get a lot better is to just try.
I'm going to find something fun I want to work on and just do it already.
~~~
emmapersky
Fixing a bug or adding a feature to a huge open source project an be fairly
intimidating at first. I find it's the build systems, test styles, and so on
that get me stuck and often where I give up.
But the first time I received a software update and my name was in the release
notes as a feature contributor was quote exciting :)
------
sanxiyn
<http://openhatch.org/>
OpenHatch is a non-profit dedicated to matching prospective free software
contributors with communities.
------
Omnipresent
List is great. I would appreciate one for ruby projects.
~~~
tkellogg
Yeah a directory would be great.there's so many projects that do great work
but need help. Maybe there should be an app for that :)
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
New partnership changes everything for the DIY diabetes community - GordonS
https://www.hanselman.com/blog/ThisChangesEverythingForTheDIYDiabetesCommunityTidePoolPartnersWithMedtronicAndDexcom.aspx
======
dflock
Does anyone know if it's possible to get the FDA to certify a snapshot of
source code, along with a complete test suite - instead of an executable
binary - for use in medical devices?
From my limited experience with this, it seems that all existing medical
device software is closed source and are certified as executables - but I'm
not sure if this is a limitation of the FDA processes, or the fact that
they're intended to be closed source?
~~~
oliwarner
Just to extend off the other replies, the license might also be a factor.
GPLv3 has an anti-TiVo, "you must let your users apply their changes to
hardware" clause. FDA might consider that too risky.
~~~
belorn
The anti-TiVo clause has some major exception since it is designed to address
a very specific scenario; One where the the owner can update the device but
only through the approval of the device manufacturer through signed updates.
That create two cases where GPL have no issue with DRM. The first case is when
no one can update the device because there is no update mechanism.
The second case is when there is DRM, and the device can be updated, and the
manufacturer give the owner the power to inject their own keys. Again this is
allowed.
FDA should have no issue with the first case. It may have a issue with the
second case if the update allows for changes which impact the medical safety
of the device (but not technological security, as there is an exception for
that by the fda).
------
PascLeRasc
I've been really wanting to learn more about the DIY diabetes community, does
anyone know where to start?
~~~
rullgrus
I learnt a little a few years ago while setting up monitoring and building a
"Parakeet" [0] for a relative. I think the Nightscout foundation [1][2] should
be a good start. I believe they are very active in their Facebook group.
[0] [https://jamorham.github.io/](https://jamorham.github.io/)
[1]
[http://www.nightscoutfoundation.org/](http://www.nightscoutfoundation.org/)
[2] [http://www.nightscout.info/](http://www.nightscout.info/)
------
chrispeel
I was in an accelerator with Tidepool people, including Howard Look. They were
head-and-shoulders above the rest of the groups. I'm not surprised that they
are succeeding where others have failed to make an artificial pancreas work.
------
pkaye
Do you really need a Raspberry PI to do all this? Wouldn't a low end 32-bit
(even 8-bit) micro-controller be enough?
~~~
hanniabu
The documentation, community support, accessibility, etc all make a difference
in making RPI the go-to
~~~
rullgrus
Exactly. A low end micro-controller would do the trick but a Raspberry Pi is
much more accessible - almost anyone can get one fairly quickly and if they
themselves don't have the knowledge to do the setup they most likely know
someone who can help.
~~~
mrob
ATmega micro-controllers also have great community support and documentation
because of their use in Arduinos. If I was relying on an electronic device to
protect my health I'd trust a simple 8-bit device more than something as
complex as a Raspberry Pi.
~~~
endymi0n
If I was relying on an electronic device to protect my health I‘d trust my
garbage collected code on a 64 bit ARM CPU using real CPU timers way more than
my own ability to not segfault or OOM myself to death (literally) with low-
level embedded C code.
YMMV.
~~~
zaarn
Segfaulting and OOM on MCU's is far more rare than on a device with an entire
operating system on top.
In most cases, MCU IDE's like the classic Arduino one don't even give you an
allocator, all data must be statically allocated beforehand.
IIRC it doesn't use the stack either. The main() and loop() functions
initialize all their variables statically.
When you have 2KB of memory to share between code, data and stack, allocating
and using stack for function calls is luxury that only introduces problems.
Hence, I've never ever ever seen an MCU crash from segfaults or OOMs.
On the plus side they will also use vastly less energy. 10 Milliamps is enough
to drive a ESP8266 or ESP32, in deep sleep you start counting microamps. A
single battery cell can easily last a month.
------
wkdown
Open source medical devices! Is this a first? There is potential for some
genuine health concerns where QA and security are involved.
~~~
AYBABTME
What is intrinsic in closed source products that makes them less concerning?
Could a financially backed open source device have equal quality, safety and
review?
~~~
ska
There is no fundamental reason, the tricky part is (as always) cost and
expertise.
For all the issues in medical device engineering, the bar is higher than most
people (particularly in software industry) have worked in. Obviously there are
other areas too (e.g. aerospace), with similar or higher bars.
Your project will benefit by finding people with experience in hazard analysis
and risk mitigation, testing, SDLC management etc. They either have to be
motivated to do this on their own or payed, or a mix. Hopefully you'll find
people familiar with ISO13489, IEC60601, IEC62304, etc. - not because you'll
want to audit to these standards, but because the people will _also_ be
familiar with what's needed.
Basically, to have the quality where you want it to be, you need to do the
work. The flexibility of such a system is great, but in terms of verification
and validation, the amount of work could become exponential with the
configurabilty - so you are probably going to want to concentrate on some
specific configurations pretty rigorously and encourage them for "real" use.
------
ska
From the point of view of medical device development, one thing that is very
cool about a community like this is the possibility for broad systematic
testing.
Handled smartly with some centralized tools, they could have something really
effective.
------
qwerty456127
BTW. I don't doubt diabetes is a huge problem and there just is a reason I
don't know but I'm actually curious: why not just go keto, what would you need
insulin for if you just stopped eating carbs? Also can't R-lipoic acid do the
job of push glucose into the cells?
~~~
bayesian_horse
For one thing you can (and will) generate blood sugar from protein, even with
no supply of "carbs". I've heard that eventually after a few weeks the brain
can use fat, but I don't know to which degree.
Also the lack of insulin means the glucose isn't going anywhere to be used.
Diabetic ketoacidosis will eventually lead to a Koma.
~~~
qwerty456127
Sounds like you hardly know much more than I do. I wish scientifically-backed
people could tell us exactly how much glucose does the body make out of
proteins once it switches to ketosis and if lipoic acid supplementation can be
enough to force the cells to consume it quickly enough.
~~~
bayesian_horse
Nobody can predict how much glucose you make from protein. Just too damn
complicated.
I've never heard about Type-1 diabetics avoiding insulin through low-carb
diets. From what I know about diabetes management (and I know a lot) that
sounds incredibly dangerous.
Still, keto-genetic diets and even fasting, can be very beneficial, especially
for Type-2, but patients need to keep track of their blood sugar. If you take
insulin, you MUST check your blood sugar level, otherwise you may faint or go
into a life threatening ketoacidosis.
~~~
qwerty456127
Again, we have the same data.
But doesn't lack of data on glucose levels during ketosis with zero-glucose
diets in type-1 diabetics seem weird to you too? As far as I know (obviously I
may be wrong and I'm not an expert, just a curious person) once your body
switches to ketosis it is fueled entirely by ketone bodies (which feels
awesome according to my experience, but I'm not diabetic) and does not use
glucose any more. I also thought it stops producing glucose from proteins too
when in this mode. So this seems an obviously interesting area for research.
~~~
bayesian_horse
As I had Type 2 diabetes for a short time after a flu and because I studied
veterinary medicine, I can assume to have a bit more data than you.
The assumption that there is no glucose used by your body when you are
eliminating it from your diet is flatly wrong.
Firstly eliminating glucose and anything we can make glucose from
(carbohydrates and protein) from a sustainable diet (= not using up your
reserves) is next to impossible.
Secondly even when there is no protein and no carbohydrates in the diet, your
body will claim the protein from your muscles and turn that into blood sugar.
Thirdly, some tissues in the body, especially the brain, just plainly need
glucose. The body will make glucose, no matter what, even at the expense of
destroying itself.
There is a lot of hype, marketing and simplification around ketogenic diets.
Not all of that translates down to the actual physiology. Ketogenic diets are
beneficial to diabetics, fasting will lower insulin tolerance, whether you are
a diabetic or not. This is well known, and research is going on. There are
even indications that fasting leads to more insulin production in Type-1
diabetic.
~~~
qwerty456127
Can you reference any sources to confirm the body keeps producing glucose from
protein once it has switched to ketososis (which you don't have to eliminate
protein for, the diet just is to be lots of fats and some proteins) the brain
always needs glucose and ketone bodies can't replace it completely? I don't
mean you are wrong, you just are the first person I've met who tells there is
glucose in ketosis (don't confuse it with diabetic ketoacidosis) and I'm
curious to know for sure.
~~~
bayesian_horse
You need to start with the basics:
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hypoglycemia](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hypoglycemia)
and
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_causes_of_hypoglycemia](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_causes_of_hypoglycemia)
Note how both articles don't talk about fasting or ketogenic diets. Basic
idea: even a low blood sugar level (let alone 0) is very very bad news. The
metabolism will do its utmost to make glucose, even from amino acids. That's
why even people who eat nothing don't have hypoglycemia all the time...
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Malicious hackers completely destroy flight sim site - bsgamble
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/technology/8049780.stm
======
mcav
Obligatory reminder:
Back up your system. Now. Automate your backup process.
That is all.
~~~
ars
They did backup - but the hacker (attacker) killed the backup server too.
How do you handle that? I mean, your server has to be able to write to the
backup server - so the attacker can also.
It would need to be some sort of append only filesystem, and who does that?
I use ssh to copy the tar to a different server - remotely distant. Which I
thought was enough, for fires in the datacenter, or going out of business
without notice. But who protects backups from an attacker? With ssh they can
attack the remote machine easily and remove the files.
Maybe I should add a cron on the remote machines to chown the files away (and
hope that server also isn't vulnerable).
~~~
mcav
Pull, rather than push. (For instance, set up a cron script on your home PC to
SSH into your production box and download a backup from time to time (rather
than having your production box push a backup elsewhere).
------
oomkiller
Sounds like they used two servers, and the other was probably a backup server,
maybe even a db slave, designed to run the entire web app in case the other
was down. This probably lead to it being compromised in the same way the main
server was.
There are many good solutions mentioned to this problem, whether it be backing
up to physical media once a month, or using tarsnap. I feel though that this
could have been easily prevented by running a dedicated backup server, instead
of one that was probably vulnerable in the same way as the main server was. In
my experiences, vandals usually aren't the most brilliant bunch and usually
won't go deeper into your others servers unless it's related to the original
exploit, or possibly easier. Of course this could have been more than
vandalism, maybe a personal vendetta or something.
------
0xdefec8
not sure if I'm more annoyed by the dumbass crackers or webmasters...
~~~
ars
How was the webmaster a "dumbass"? They had backups, but the hacker (yes I
know it should be cracker - too bad - that battle is lost), took it out.
~~~
tvon
"Unfortunately, we backed up the servers between our
two servers."
It sounds like two servers ran the site and backups were jsut swapped between
the two, that is a hackneyed setup.
Besides, all it takes is burning the backups to DVD once every blue moon to
prevent massive data loss.
------
badger7
The site's absence from the time the content was deleted until the time it
would have taken to restore a backup is the fault of the dirty, stinking
crackers. From that point onwards, it is the fault of the person who decided
on the backup scheme as, evidently, it was insufficient.
If I don't wear a seatbelt and am thrown from the car in a crash, that is my
fault. The crash itself and injuries I would have sustained anyway might be
someone else's fault, but anything resulting from the difference between
wearing a seatbelt and not wearing a seatbelt is my fault. I'm negligent from
the instant I put myself in a position where I could conceivably have a crash
without having put a seatbelt in place.
------
dryicerx
This is very sad news.
_its main focus was on Microsoft's Flight Simulator._ So this was a game
review site, I had initially thought it was a place where you physically go
(the false cockpit kind of training place).
Lesson: _"Some have asked whether or not we had back ups. Yes, we dutifully
backed up our servers every day. Unfortunately, we backed up the servers
between our two servers. "The hacker took out both servers, destroying our
ability to use one or the other back up to remedy the situation."_
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Show HN: Aplestro - Web App Ecosystem. Split your apps to event sources - peter_nikolaev
https://about.aplestro.com
======
peter_nikolaev
Creator of Aplestro here!
I would love to hear your feedback. Your vision of security, user privacy, and
specific messaging cases between apps is of interest.
I’m looking for developers who would join the early team and help me fill up
the App Market so Aplestro can be launched on a wide user base.
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
A note on reading big, difficult books - MaysonL
https://www.bradford-delong.com/2019/12/a-note-on-reading-big-difficult-books.html
======
crazygringo
Here's the thing: most books, for most people, don't _need_ to be absorbed or
understood in their entirety.
If you're a professional in your field and ought to be expected to be able to
write a similar book? Then sure, you should understand it 100%. But this is a
very rare circumstance for most people.
For most books, the reality is that you only need to know the Big Idea and its
main justifications. Or that, depending on your needs, there are a few
additional details that might come in handy. But that reading the whole book
a) really ensures you'll remember the big idea and its main justifications, in
a way that a one-page summary you might totally forget later, and b) lets you
skim for specific details that might be especially relevant to you personally.
You shouldn't generally feel guilty that you don't remember enough from a
book. You're not _supposed_ to. (Again, unless you have a very specific and
necessary professional reason to.)
Fully understanding a book might take 100 hours. In that time, you could read
10 other books in 10 hours each and get the main gist of each. Which one do
you think is going to be more productive for your life?
~~~
riversflow
>Which one do you think is going to be more productive for your life?
I think it's better to carefully select which books you read, and really get
everything that you can out of them. For example, you could read 10 self help
books or you could read The Republic and really understand it. And you could
probably quickly read 100 self help books and books on leadership in the time
it would take you to go through the relevant
Plato->Aristotle->Kant->Schopenhauer->Nietzsche books that build on each
other. I think you'd be far better off reading the philosophy than the self
help books, but that's just me. Those self help books are a garbage use of
language relative to works held up as being pillars of modern thought, there
is enough extremely high quality literature from human history and text books
from the modern era to keep me busy reading carefully and learning a lot for
the rest of my life if its all I did, I'm fairly certain.
>You shouldn't generally feel guilty that you don't remember enough from a
book. You're not supposed to.
Completely disagree, this might hurt some feelings, but if you can't remember
much from a book you read, you wasted your time reading it if you weren't
reading it just for pleasure. Either the book wasn't worth reading in the
first place or you didn't pay close enough attention.
~~~
crazygringo
I'm sorry, but I just can't disagree enough.
As someone who has read not just The Republic, but much of philosophy from
Aristotle through Rawls and beyond... it's been tremendously useful to me
academically and utterly fascinating, but of relatively little value in my
personal life (with the sole exception of Aristotle). I mean, the Republic is
valuable principally as a historical work, not because any idea within it
whatsoever is going to change your life. Its ideas are... quirky, to say the
least. Also, most philosophy classics are completely inaccessible to the
average reader, and make little sense on their own -- only making sense in a
much wider context that you really need to dedicate extensive study to.
In contrast, there are "self-help" books that can fundamentally alter the way
you look at and lead your life at a personal level -- your actual day-to-day
behavior and the relationships you have with people. Just like any genre,
there are plenty of garbage ones, but plenty of invaluable ones as well,
written by psychiatrists (e.g. "Too Perfect" or "Present Perfect") and artists
(e.g. "The Artist's Way") and literary/philosophy types (e.g. anything by
Alain de Botton).
Your thinking seems very black-and-white -- in that philosophy classics are
overwhelmingly better than self-help for people today, or that a book must
either be worth intense study or else is worthless. In reality, most books are
somewhere in between, kind of like a bell curve.
------
__ka
Reading big difficult books is offered as a way to teach reasoning from first
principles. On how to go about it:
"We have our recommended ten-stage process for reading such big books:
1\. Figure out beforehand what the author is trying to accomplish in the book.
2\. Orient yourself by becoming the kind of reader the book is directed at—the
kind of person with whom the arguments would resonate.
3\. Read through the book actively, taking notes.
4\. “Steelman” the argument, reworking it so that you find it as convincing
and clear as you can possibly make it.
5\. Find someone else—usually a roommate—and bore them to death by making them
listen to you set out your “steelmanned” version of the argument.
6\. Go back over the book again, giving it a sympathetic but not credulous
reading
7\. Then you will be in a good position to figure out what the weak points of
this strongest-possible argument version might be.
8\. Test the major assertions and interpretations against reality: do they
actually make sense of and in the context of the world as it truly is?
9\. Decide what you think of the whole.
10\. Then comes the task of cementing your interpretation, your reading, into
your mind so that it becomes part of your intellectual panoply for the
future."
------
daly
My research involves reading "big, difficult books" all the time. It usually
takes me 5 books on the same subject to get a firm grip on the subject.
The first book gives me the important words.
The second book gives me the paragraphs that show how the words are used.
The third book strings together the ideas.
The fourth book shows how the ideas are used.
The fifth book makes sense and I get a grip on the subject.
Breaking into a new area where you don't even understand the words, such as in
biology, is a very time consuming task.
~~~
SketchySeaBeast
Considering it seems like you're just building up your understanding one step
at a time, wouldn't you also be able to read the same book 5 times?
~~~
DelightOne
Perspectives make the picture. None is complete, and all have assumptions.
~~~
SketchySeaBeast
But that's not how the process was described. The first book is apparently
only for vocabulary, the second for diction (not sure about a better term for
this), third for basic concepts, fourth for application, and then finally a
holistic understanding of the subject. If the case was looking at various
ideas, I'd agree with you, but if the first book only "gives me the important
words" and the second "gives me the paragraphs that show how the words are
used" then it's not really giving you different perspectives as you're still
very much in the "understanding what the book is talking about" phase.
~~~
TeMPOraL
I think this list could be written as "after finishing book one, I have the
important words; after finishing book two, I have a grasp on how these words
are used", etc.
I.e. the process is additive, each book lets you tease out another layer of
understanding, and it's best if these are different books, because then there
are more things for your brain to diff, making the understanding process
faster.
~~~
SketchySeaBeast
Totally fair, but given that you only pulled out the basics the first time
through the book, why not go through it again to see what the book has to say
about those basics? You clearly didn't get everything out of the first book on
the first run through.
~~~
jacobolus
Sure, after you have skimmed 2 or 3 other books, go back and read the first
one more carefully again.
* * *
I strongly endorse this method. Doesn‘t have to be books either. Want to learn
about some cutting edge research topic in a highly technical field, but don’t
want to first go through 3 years of grad-student-level coursework?
Jump right in, but don’t start with a textbook or a survey paper. Start by
skimming 10 or 20 (or more) arbitrary papers about related topics. Don’t worry
that many terms seem like nonsense. Try to get the gist (to the extent
possible) of each paper quickly. Let the methods and terminology wash over
you. After that go back and read the survey paper, which should hopefully
start to make sense after prior exposure to some of its ideas. Then if there
are parts of that which still don’t make sense, go find the relevant
textbook(s).
It’s not worth reading research papers in an unfamiliar community too
carefully right off the bat; most of the papers are garbage and without some
exposure/context it’s sometimes hard to tell which ones. Sweating all of the
details before you have the right high level impression is going to confuse
you and waste your time.
------
lcall
Skimming is helpful, especially I think if in a structured way: reading the
beginning and the end first, then deciding if more is worth it, and if so,
reading the first sentence (or so, maybe last) of each paragraph, and then
deciding if more is needed.
The optimal approach might vary sometimes, but I have found this helpful even
for some fiction (to relax, but get thru boring parts faster), and to get
through more material generally, because things are of very unequal worth.
Also news articles tend to put the most important things at the beginning so
there is less reason to read the end, or anything once you get far enough to
answer your purpose.
------
msie
6-9 hours per book seems impressive to me.
~~~
jkingsbery
That was my reaction too. Maybe this is an argument in favor or reading
slower?
------
commandlinefan
I thought when I was younger I couldn't read big, difficult books and (since
it never occurred to me that there might be people smarter than me) I
concluded that nobody could read big, difficult books. It was quite an
epiphany when I actually really forced myself to get through one - and once I
had pushed past that first barrier, it's gotten easier and easier to read
really meaningful books.
~~~
hogFeast
Most of these books are very poorly written. Smith's Wealth of Nations, as an
example, is mostly very well-written and abysmally bad through the minority
(Marx/Keynes probably the opposite). And meaning isn't really constant either,
you read something and then come back to parts of it.
~~~
chasedehan
Keynes is known as being one of the best Economist writers of all time.
~~~
hogFeast
First, no he isn't. Second, the book we are talking about (again) is a
textbook (this view isn't remotely controversial btw -
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_General_Theory_of_Employme...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_General_Theory_of_Employment,_Interest_and_Money#Observations_on_its_readability)).
Economic Consequences of Peace is very good, a lot of his stuff aimed at the
general public (Persuasion/How to Pay for the War) is good...General Theory is
not.
------
tunesmith
He certainly makes Wealth Of Nations sound compelling. I haven't read it
before and want to see how it's structured as an actual argument with premises
leading towards conclusions.
~~~
arafa
As suggested, it's an excellent but difficult read. But like many such books
(say The Beginning of Infinity), they reverberate in my mind for years
afterwards, with interesting inferences and callbacks.
That said, you might skip the digression on silver (ugh).
------
hogFeast
This isn't really how most people should read books. You aren't reading a book
to learn arguments like a parrot. The meaning of all the books he mentions has
changed over time, and you won't have the same understanding the second time
you read it (i.e. years after, re-reading it straight after is pointless...it
is robotic).
Also, just generally I think the structure of the course is bad. Reading three
books cover-to-cover is basically pointless (Keynes esp. so as it was a
textbook, I think he would turn in his grave if he thought people were being
subjected to this, both Marx/Smith are very dry in areas too). It would be far
better to look at the key ideas across more periods and get students to engage
directly with those ideas...which is why similar courses in philosophy,
theology, etc. do this.
~~~
jkingsbery
I agree, and I don't think I appreciated this point enough when I was in
school. In high school or college, I would do literally what is said here -
get assigned a book, and read the book. In my professional reading, or also
hobby reading as an adult, I would never approach learning a topic that way.
As an adult, I supplement my reading of a text with secondary sources about
the text (things people have written about the text, wikipedia articles about
the text or things in it, etc.).
To take an example of an edition that does this really well: the "Landmark"
series for Thucydides [1] and Herodotus [2] both qualify as "big, difficult"
books, but the book comes with additional secondary sources that aid in the
reading to orient the newbie in how to approach the text.
[1] [https://www.amazon.com/Landmark-Thucydides-Comprehensive-
Gui...](https://www.amazon.com/Landmark-Thucydides-Comprehensive-Guide-
Peloponnesian/dp/0684827905) [2] [https://www.amazon.com/Landmark-Herodotus-
Histories-Robert-S...](https://www.amazon.com/Landmark-Herodotus-Histories-
Robert-Strassler/dp/1400031141)
~~~
hogFeast
Yep, tbh it is kind of wasteful to just go into Thucydides...like you read it,
and 95% of it will go over your head (that is a particularly good choice of
example because it is at the nexus of sp many important subjects...if you just
come in without anything...it is just a normal book).
And, imo, dipping between books is far more effective. Even at university, you
are given a few sources and you move between them but it isn't natural. Going
between sources naturally at your own pace and based on your own
interest/understanding will build far more actual knowledge than trying to
shortcut your way there (and yes, Wiki is great for that). It is a shame that
doesn't fit into some kind of formal education system...definitely in a
subject like history, the end result would be far better work from academics.
~~~
nubbins
Ouch, that really hit home about Thucydides. I was going through the Classics
at one point, and did get a lot out of Herodotus and some of the philosophers,
but Peloponnesian War just seemed like a list of islands they sailed to, and
fought at. I did get a general sense that diplomacy and debate hasn't changed
much in 2500 years though.
~~~
yesenadam
Hehe I had to stop reading Thucydides because my flatmates were fighting each
other at the time, and the book was way too reminiscent of what was happening
at home.
~~~
hogFeast
One of the funniest things I have heard said about Thucydides.
Were you just like: "Bro, if the Delian League could see you two now?" _laughs
quietly to self and walks out the room shaking head_
~~~
yesenadam
There was me and 4 or 5 others renting a huge, cheap Sydney house. My
girlfriend and her best friend (early 20s, involved in uni politics) were
fighting, and there was a couple in their 40s that had split up, he (a
playwright) wanted her out immediately, and she was being hilariously cruel. I
came back from visiting my parents to find everyone fighting with each other.
I'd just gotten through Herodotus, with great pleasure, but the Melian
Dialogue was too much, too in-my-face, sickening.
------
smallcharleston
Realizing you don’t understand the point comes from understanding the point
more than you did before you read the book.
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Build a Vue Chat App - yemiwebby
https://www.cometchat.com/tutorials/build-a-vue-chat-app/
======
CobrastanJorji
> In this tutorial, I will teach you how to build a modern chat app using
> CometChat.
I'm gonna write a tutorial, too. It will be on the subject of how to build a
house using only a plot of land, a blueprint, and the services of Smithco
General Contracting.
~~~
bookercodes
Haha, I see your point. I work with CometChat on content like this. Our
content strategy is to help developers like us build awesome chat features.
Our platform is a hosted service, granted, but we worked really hard to create
a beautiful user interface and clear tutorial that anyone can follow to learn
more about managing state in their Vue app. Any constructive feedback on how
to improve?
~~~
CobrastanJorji
There's nothing wrong with your article as a tutorial on using CometChat. I
think it was only problematic because of the lack of context here. For
example, it assumes I know what CometChat is, but it's a blog post on
cometchat.com, so that seems more than fair.
If it had been posted to Hacker News with a title like "Getting Started With
CometChat and Vue," it would have been more clear. Posted to Hacker News under
the title "Build a Vue Chat App" made me think it contained instructions on
how one might build a chat app or perhaps a war story about someone who tried
to build a chat app on Vue but ran into some interesting technical problems.
The tutorial itself actually looks pretty good. I appreciate the GitHub repo
with clear "how to run this" instructions at the top and big, explanatory
screenshots underneath.
------
benburleson
Seems like the title should actually be "Install CometChat in your Vue app."
~~~
gatherhunterer
There are thousands of these tutorials that walk you through using a CLI to
get a boilerplate and following the “Getting Started” section of a library’s
docs. They explain nothing and are written to “get your name out there” or to
subtly advertise a paid service.
~~~
bookercodes
Completely see where you're coming from. I work with CometChat and our
attitude is to help developers build text, voice and video chat features.
We are a developer tool like any other. The fact that we're a hosted developer
tool lets us remove the (potential) headache of DevOps and the (absolutely
definite) headache of security and compliance like GDPR and HIPAA. Little
things like message history become seamless because we can help manage your
data for you.
I hope you don't think this is subtle advertising, though. We're sharing a
really good solution and some handy free UI components we worked hard on.
People learning Vue can benefit from this tutorial a lot too.
~~~
jsgo
I'm with CobrastanJorji on this one: the tutorial is fine, good even and may
persuade someone to use your tool for a chat system on their site.
I think the title being "Build a Vue Chat App" (not so much in the context of
your site as that title makes sense there as there is an assumption you're
using CometChat to do it, but in the HN post that highlights it) may've been a
bit of a letdown to some though.
------
Gys
Free to start. Pricing for Pro 'Contact Us'
I hate it when they do that. I surely would never implement something for free
without having some idea of the costs in case the volume increases. Still its
often this way. Are other people really so careless ?
~~~
deif
I also hate this pricing structure. It's usually one of the big things that
will make me fork over cash to a competitor instead.
~~~
bookercodes
This is really good feedback, thank you.
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
How big is a neutron star? - raattgift
https://www.symmetrymagazine.org/article/how-big-is-a-neutron-star
======
JackFr
Great hard SF novel about creatures living on the surface of a neutron star:
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dragon%27s_Egg](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dragon%27s_Egg)
Author was a physicist, engineer and gravity expert.
~~~
jessriedel
I just recently read this and enjoyed it. One criticism is that although the
_physics_ is "hard" (i.e., relatively accurate), the sociology and psychology
of the creatures is silly. Despite dramatically different biology, the
creatures act extremely similar to humans with only a few bizarre tweaks
(e.g., widespread polyamory and orgies, which play essentially zero role in
plot development).
~~~
watersb
Yes, Forward does not have characters, in terms of agents with motivations and
opinions. They are engineering constraints.
If you can treat these books as something like Socratic dialogue, or Medieval
theatre, then you can get a feel for Forward's facility with gravitational
dynamics. Quadrupole radiation. Relativistic mechanics.
~~~
jessriedel
This is a different criticism than the one I was making, although it's also
basically valid.
------
a_imho
The study found the radius of a 1.4-solar-mass neutron star is between 10.4
and 11.9 kilometers, a substantial improvement over other estimates.
------
leeoniya
i got curious why neutron stars don't collapse to black holes:
[https://www.forbes.com/sites/startswithabang/2018/06/13/the-...](https://www.forbes.com/sites/startswithabang/2018/06/13/the-
surprising-reason-why-neutron-stars-dont-all-collapse-to-form-black-holes/)
although it did not explain how black holes form then. do they need a
sufficient density of bosons? do those only form in supernovae?
~~~
pdonis
_> it did not explain how black holes form then. do they need a sufficient
density of bosons?_
No. Even degeneracy pressure from the Pauli exclusion principle has a limit;
it can't hold an object up against gravity for an arbitrarily large mass. So
neutron stars, like white dwarfs, have a maximum mass limit; any object over
that mass cannot be a neutron star because neutron degeneracy pressure can't
hold it up against its own gravity. (The article briefly mentions this; the
limit is the Tolman-Oppenheimer-Volkoff limit.)
We don't know exactly what that maximum mass limit is for neutron stars,
because we don't know their equation of state with sufficient accuracy
(whereas we know the white dwarf equation of state accurately enough to know
that the maximum mass limit for them is 1.4 times the mass of the Sun), but we
know it's somewhere betweena about 2 and 3 times the mass of the Sun. Objects
more massive than that can only be black holes.
As far as how black holes form, they form when a sufficiently massive object
collapses under its own gravity. Usually this happens when a star runs out of
nuclear fuel. (More precisely, this is how black holes of roughly stellar mass
form. For supermassive holes, like the one at the center of our galaxy, things
are more complicated, because they probably don't form in one single process,
they form over a long period of time as a hole that started out a lot smaller
swallows other massive objects.) If the collapsing object is over the maximum
mass limit for a neutron star, degeneracy pressure from the Pauli exclusion
principle cannot stop the collapse.
~~~
danenania
Did all supermassive black holes begin as stellar mass black holes? Is there
some other way for them to form?
~~~
cipherzero
My understanding is that we're not totally certain if all black holes form
from stellar mass black holes.
There is a theory that black holes can form from direct collapse. In this
case, as I understand it, it can skip the star phase and just collapse
straight into a black hole.... but I really am not an expert.
You can find more here:
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Direct_collapse_black_hole](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Direct_collapse_black_hole)
And I HIGHLY recommend the PBS NOVA episode "Black Hole Apocalypse" (Jan 10,
2018, Season 45 Episode 1). It was on Netflix for a while (and may still be.)
Edit: here is the full episode on PBS (thank you NOVA!!!)
[https://www.pbs.org/video/black-hole-apocalypse-
yj34qi/](https://www.pbs.org/video/black-hole-apocalypse-yj34qi/)
------
raxxorrax
The sun has a radius of about 700,000 km, but the question is interesting and
there should be a fairly small upper border, since too much mass would end in
a black hole.
~~~
jacquesm
Question: if the sun has a 'fixed' radius but it is radiating constantly
doesn't that mean that at some point that radius will change due to the
changing radiation pressure from within the sun itself? If so how fast does
that change, and how large was the sun say a billion years ago?
~~~
spaetzleesser
The sun will grow to a red giant in a billion years or so. The earth will
possibly be swallowed by it but at least in a few hundred million years earth
will be so hot that oceans boil off and life will be impossible on earth. I
hope I got the numbers right...
~~~
bluedevil2k
Boil off where? What would happen to the water vapor if it floats off the
Earth into the vacuum of space? Pulled in by the Sun's gravity and forever
lost?
~~~
ardit33
Think Venus.... Scorched surface and lots of hot gases above it
~~~
bluedevil2k
There's no water vapor on Venus though. At a certain point in the atmosphere,
wouldn't it be cool enough and pressure low enough to make clouds still? Maybe
they move around the Earth to the cool side away from the Sun?
~~~
ben_w
Water disassociates into hydrogen and oxygen in UV light, and hydrogen gas
move faster than escape velocity, even at current atmospheric temperatures.
Ok, so it is more complicated than that, the speed of any atom or molecule is
a Maxwellian distribution, but enough move fast enough that it’s an acceptable
approximation, especially over these time scales.
------
_Microft
Does anyone know the meaning of radius here? Does it measure from center to
surface along curved spacetime or is it rather the radius that a sphere with
the given surface would have if spacetime were flat (i.e. like the
Schwarzschild radius of a blackhole)?
------
baggy_trough
I love how gravity is so strong on a neutron star that time runs 1.4-1.7x
slower there.
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Who is U2? - OberstKrueger
http://www.whoisu2.com
======
jack-r-abbit
I don't dislike U2 music. I'm not a fan. They were big when I was growing up
(high school & college). I'm pretty sure I even saw them in concert. But I'd
be rightly pissed if Google/Motorola (not sure which one would be the
equivalent of the Apple arm that did this) pushed their album to my phone.
This certainly should have been a totally obvious opt in. Like "Hey! Click
here to download your FREE U2 album to your iTunes" or something. As I
understand it, not everyone got it, depending some auto sync option in iTunes.
------
pan69
Skimming through these, the sad thing is that quite a lot of these are
seemingly people/kids for western countries. It reminds me of a segment in Jay
Leno where they went on the street asking geography questions like, where on
the map is Russia or something like that.
It amazes me how people, even young ones, can be so out of touch with culture.
Whether you like U2 or not, if you grew up in the western world and you're
above the age of 14 (which most these people seem like), you know, or now
what, U2 is.
~~~
readerrrr
I would have to disagree with the age. 14 seems like the time when someone
starts consciously listening to music. U2 was popular around the 90 to 00 and
the last good album U2 created was 10 years ago. Therefore 20 and younger
probably don't know them. I would like to see a pool to confirm or disprove
this.
Here is something interesting: [http://musicmachinery.com/2014/02/13/age-
specific-listening/](http://musicmachinery.com/2014/02/13/age-specific-
listening/)
~~~
pan69
Maybe you're right. Interesting link.
I have to say though, they did one of the biggest grossing tours, if not THE
biggest tour, in history of music between 2009 and 2011:
[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/U2_360%C2%B0_Tour](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/U2_360%C2%B0_Tour)
To be honest, at the age of around 14 today you should at least know "what" U2
is even thought you've never listed to or heard any or their music.
------
informatimago
I listened to a set of U2 albums this week. I could recognize only one song!
They're clearly not a memorable band, contrarily to the Beatles (whether you
appreciate them or not) or the Pink Floyds.
(I'm 50 years old, so it's not a question of age).
------
_random_
I hate some bands, but at least I understand why they are popular (e.g. Cyrus
or Bieber). With U2 I don't even understand the latter. Is it the constant
charity-pushing or some amplifying recursive effect of their networking?
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Rust 1.1 Stable, the Community Subteam, and RustCamp - steveklabnik
http://blog.rust-lang.org/2015/06/25/Rust-1.1.html
======
kibwen
The 1.1 release came out a day earlier than I expected, I suppose we're
releasing on Thursdays now. :P Note that 1.1 is a relatively small release,
since, due to launching the train release model, it was in development for
just three weeks prior to 1.0 (rather than the usual six weeks that all
subsequent releases will have spent in development), and during that time we
were all understandably in a tizzy preparing for a post-stability world. :)
However, despite that short and distracted development window, we still
managed to squeeze out compiler performance improvements that should result in
30% faster compiles for crates in the wild. You can expect even more progress
on the compilation speed front for 1.2, due to be released August 6, along
with a slew of stabilized and much-demanded stdlib APIs.
Let me also mention that tickets have just gone on sale for the first official
Rust conference, a small one-day event in Berkeley:
[http://rustcamp.com/](http://rustcamp.com/) We'll be using the experience
from this proto-conference as a guide for larger events in the future, so even
if you can't go we'd love to get your feedback as to what you'd like to see
from a Rust conference.
~~~
kbenson
If I wasn't going to be on vacation during that conference, I would be
strongly tempted to go, and I haven't written a line of rust. I get excited
about every rust submission I see on HN though, and greedily gobble up as much
information as I can. I can't help it, Rust just excites me.
So, whatever you guys are doing, WRT marketing, you are doing _something_
right.
~~~
mlitchard
What I like about rust is how I think it will go together really well with a
language like idris. The idea is, whatever rust cannot guarantee an idris-to-
rust transpiler can. People should have a much easier time making solid low-
level code in the future.
~~~
cwzwarich
Idris is already more safe than Rust. What would this give you?
~~~
jroesch
Unfortunately safety is not the only concern. Idris' tooling is severely
limited. There are very few executables written in Idris (and even fewer that
aren't bit-rotted), the build tooling and package management are very simple,
the runtime is heavily optimized, concurrent or parallel (like GHC's) and the
single-threaded performance is far from Rust's.
I want to be clear that I'm not hating on Idris I love the goals of the
project and am probably one of the few people outside the core contributors
who has written a backend for the compiler, but you can't really compare a
production quality compiler with a full time team of 10 or so to a research
compiler worked on by researchers (who have different goals) and volunteers.
Edit: To clarify for this reason I could see why it would be cool to be able
to write some critical code in Idris and extract to Rust where you could get
performance and tooling for the rest of your application.
------
exacube
I'm happy things are moving along, but I would still like to see the
documentation be more polished. I still don't know how to write a task queue
(ie queue of closures) that executors can concurrently read and run from.
I don't feel like the docs empower me enough to write multi threaded code
comfortably without the borrow checker spitting at me. Is it just me, or does
anyone else feel this way?
~~~
steveklabnik
When you start documenting a language from scratch, you have to start at the
beginning. A language is a huge project as well. The current book is about
~250 pages when rendered as a PDF. I've finally gotten to the point where the
basics of almost everything have been documented, and am starting to move on
to more intermediate style things.
In addition, we've only had a stable Rust for six weeks: there just hasn't
been enough time to write more advanced things. Nobody wants to invest in
stuff while things are still changing. As an example of this, I know there's
an O'Reilly book coming out in the fall which covers advanced topics
exclusively.
A basic task pool isn't too many lines of code: [https://github.com/rust-
lang/threadpool/blob/master/src/lib....](https://github.com/rust-
lang/threadpool/blob/master/src/lib.rs) Hopefully that can help for that case,
though obviously, this isn't just a comment about threadpools :)
~~~
kybernetikos
I love the rust docs, but I do agree that the intermediate/advanced stuff is
missing. I won't feel like I truly understand until I can implement a bunch of
different datastructures, and it turns out that that is exactly the kind of
code that throws up lifetime issues that as a beginning rust programmer I'm
not really prepared to deal with.
I'd love a 'learn to write rust with datastructures' style intermediate
tutorial.
~~~
elektronjunge
You may also be interested in this post[1] by nrc for a couple of strategies
for implementing graphs. And this companion[2] by Niko Matsakis.
[1]
[https://github.com/nrc/r4cppp/blob/master/graphs/README.md](https://github.com/nrc/r4cppp/blob/master/graphs/README.md)
[2]
[http://smallcultfollowing.com/babysteps/blog/2015/04/06/mode...](http://smallcultfollowing.com/babysteps/blog/2015/04/06/modeling-
graphs-in-rust-using-vector-indices/)
------
gamegoblin
I hope the Rust team also starts prioritizing compiler crashes.
I started using Rust exclusively for hobby projects after the 1.0 release, to
force myself to learn the language, but I found myself running into compiler
panics on nearly a daily basis.
Admittedly, the code the compiler tended to crash on was very macro-heavy, but
a goal of rust is safe macros. (And even if the macro-expanded code was
invalid, the compiler should just report an error, not crash).
There are currently 207 open issues regarding ICE (Internal Compiler Error):
[https://github.com/rust-lang/rust/labels/I-ICE](https://github.com/rust-
lang/rust/labels/I-ICE)
~~~
Jenny1975
I've seen this complaint about the Rust compiler a number of times now, here
and at other sites. Isn't one of the main selling points of Rust that it's
supposed to make it much harder to write code that crashes? It is my
understanding that the Rust compiler is mostly written in Rust. While maybe
these ICEs aren't traditional segfaults that can be exploited, they're still
unexpected crashes none the less! The software stops working without warning.
If the best Rust experts around have so much trouble avoiding those kinds of
crashes, then how is an average Rust user, or even a complete beginner like
me, supposed to write Rust code that's any less susceptible to crashing?
~~~
steveklabnik
TL;DR: don't underestimate the power of technical debt.
Longer answer: The Rust compiler was written in Rust before the Rust language
was even what it was today. As one particular example, the AST used to be
garbage collected! And when you have a codebase that's 320,000 lines long, you
don't update the entire codebase to the latest idiom, because if you did,
you'd never actually ship the language.
Basically no other Rust program will ever have to contend with this kind of
situation. As such, while I can sympathize with this line of argument, I don't
think it's representative.
EDIT: I previously had 750,000 but it's actually 323,326 LOC as of right now.
Whoops!
~~~
Jenny1975
Legacy code and inexperience with new technologies are not problems that are
unique to Rust and the Rust compiler. And presumably Rust will continue to
evolve, will it not? If my team starts a large, multi-year project using Rust
1.1 today, does Rust offer anything that will help us avoid the sorts of
crashes that the Rust compiler suffers from?
~~~
Aatch
Just to expand on what Steve said.
An evolving language is one thing. Pre-1.0 was more like many stages of
violent metamorphasis. Some changes to the language required changing almost
every line of code in the tree. Normal technical debt is when you find an old
approach doesn't work any more and you need to fix it. Much of rustc's
technical debt is from things like features disappearing from underneath it,
or things designed before the features that you would use now even existed.
Looking at rustc as a regular large Rust project is unfair. A new project can
at least assume that the features you are using today will exist tomorrow and
design with that in mind. Your designs may become obsolete due to new
features, but you aren't going to have to pick between a hacky workaround and
a redesign/rewrite of 1000's of lines of code.
------
alricb
Have there been documentation improvements? For instance [http://doc.rust-
lang.org/nightly/std/str/](http://doc.rust-lang.org/nightly/std/str/) is still
quite obscure: it talks about the traits returned by certain methods, but
there isn't an obvious way to get to the documentation for those methods, if
you'd like to know how .lines() is different from .lines_any(), for example.
Compare with
[https://docs.python.org/3/library/stdtypes.html#str](https://docs.python.org/3/library/stdtypes.html#str)
where all the methods are listed, along with what they do.
~~~
gmjosack
You probably want this page for str:
[http://doc.rust-lang.org/nightly/std/primitive.str.html](http://doc.rust-
lang.org/nightly/std/primitive.str.html)
It's unfortunate that most of the links navigate you to the less useful doc.
~~~
bpicolo
I'm getting bizarre rendering errors in chrome for whatever character prefixes
"self" in all those (I assume &?)
~~~
kibwen
People were hitting that a few months ago, is this the first time that you've
visited the docs in a while? In their case it was due to a problem with the
page's font file itself, and it may be that your browser still has that
version of the font cached. Maybe try a force-refresh?
~~~
bpicolo
Hmmm. Force refresh did nothing. It's possible I have Source Code Pro like the
other commenter suggests. Dunno
------
jrapdx3
I'm glad to see Rust's progress. I'm still very interested in Rust, and
incrementally learning the language. I do appreciate the documentation, IMO
the developers have done a tremendous job in that respect.
One question though. When is Cargo going to be available on FreeBSD (and other
BSD's)? I think these platforms are significant in the server space where Rust
would be highly relevant. Having Rust usable there would likely augment uptake
of the language.
~~~
brson
I've heard progress on this front recently (it's mostly about the automation
infrastructure), and I might expect official nightlies of both rustc and cargo
for FreeBSD by the end of summer.
Don't hold me to that.
------
mwcampbell
What exactly does MSVC support entail? For example, will one be able to debug
Rust programs with WinDbg or the Visual Studio debugger? IIUC, that would
require LLVM to output PDB files.
~~~
alexcrichton
In addition to not interacting with the GNU toolchain at all (through MinGW),
MSVC support will indeed enable native Windows debug info (as you mentioned)
so native tools can be used to debug Rust code. Note that this isn't 100%
implemented yet, but it's coming soon! Additionally you'll get interoperation
with MSVC-compiled libraries. Libraries compiled with MinGW don't interoperate
well with MSVC (and vice versa), so this enables Rust code to link against an
MSVC-compiled native library.
~~~
jnbiche
Will MinGW still be supported, or will that be dropped?
~~~
steveklabnik
There's no plan to drop it.
------
bfrog
Impressed daily by the amount of stuff being done to advance Rust as an
incredibly useful language.
------
alexnewman
OOh and there's a rust podcast out as well. You can find it in the new section
of hacker news.
~~~
kiliancs
Just providing the direct link [http://rustyrad.io/](http://rustyrad.io/)
------
worklogin
So I assume 1.x.x won't break features from 1.0? Is Rust using proper semantic
versioning?
~~~
MetaCosm
Rust core team has taken the approach of breakage without major version
increments being acceptable as long as they deem the breakage "minor" (based
on crates.io and companies they have close relationships to).
~~~
kibwen
Qualifying with "close relationships to" is misleading, as _every_ company
using Rust is welcome to sign up to receive new versions of the compiler to
run against their codebases to test for regressions. See the email address in
my profile if you'd like to add your company to our list!
~~~
MetaCosm
OK -- replace "close relationships to" to "have emailed kibwen at his gmail
address to get on a list".
If I could go back and edit I would -- but it has been too long.
------
throw982734
Given Steve Klabnik's recent actions to suppress people who hold political
opinions he does not like, I have a considerable amount of trepidation knowing
he has a leadership position in the community sub-team.
~~~
kibwen
Would you like to cite a source?
~~~
throw982734
[https://gist.github.com/steveklabnik/7cd3267a631c4847c34d](https://gist.github.com/steveklabnik/7cd3267a631c4847c34d)
amongst more
It is especially troubling to have a community leader who equates speech with
violence, even "hate" speech, which in that gist is clearly demonstrated to be
completely subjective.
~~~
kinghajj
That is troubling, but I don't see how that equates to him "suppressing"
anyone, if all he's done is voice his own opinions about those people. I
haven't really followed the story, but was Steve part of the group that
demanded Curtis be removed from StrageLoop?
~~~
hates_shrooms
Worse even.
[https://archive.is/BtDaA](https://archive.is/BtDaA)
~~~
steveklabnik
I wasn't going to respond to this thread at all, but since you went to the
trouble of using 100% of your comments on this account to post in this thread,
and you're spreading this shenanigans, I'll copy what I said over at
Lobste.rs:
\--------------
[This link] takes a thing I said on Twitter and uses it to say something I
don’t mean.
My twitter reply re: violence is based on the tweet it’s replying to: general
activity by groups who call themselves ‘antifa’. I thought my parent was
making a false equivalence, but rather than arguing with them about this false
equivalence, I decided to just say ‘cool’ and bow out, hence my response. I
believe “antifa are just as violent as the fascists” is wrong on multiple
levels, but I don’t really care to get into it here, to be honest.
\--------------
... and I still don't. That's all I'll be saying here about this.
~~~
puredemo
Dude, you explicitly said you're "100% okay with [violence] personally"
You then said, "the only things fascists respond to is violence. Ignoring them
or letting them attack you doesn't help."
You then linked to a Woody Allen video where he confidentially states a Nazi
march in NYC should be attacked with "bricks and bats" rather than taking a
civilized approach against them.
You explicitly endorsed violence against political groups you dislike several
times, don't try to pretend like you didn't now..
~~~
kungfooguru
I'd be suspcious of anyone who wasn't ok with violence against Nazis...
~~~
hates_shrooms
Of course "Nazi" being anyone who doesn't go along with your bullshit.
------
JeffKilborn
While I find Rust interesting, how exactly will Rust deal with a 900lb gorilla
that's about to get released from a cage?
Opensource Swift is only few months away and it already has a much bigger user
base and is backed by the biggest company in tech. Rust & Swift share many
common traits and kinda look alike as well.
Why should anyone pick Rust over Swift when Swift will be able to do
everything Rust can do and is also positioned as a systems programming
language? And Swift will also be a full-stack programming language and you
will be able to program apps and backends with it.
I feel like Rust is about to get killed. And killed quickly.
~~~
kibwen
Swift is an applications programming language where the runtime is non-
optional (at least AFAICT) and memory is managed dynamically. It will be
competing with .Net and Java, not with C and C++ (though, as ever, there are
surely plenty of C++ projects that don't actually need C++'s level of control
and could benefit from a rewrite in Swift).
Swift isn't going to penetrate to the bottom of the stack with pervasive
reference counting. You'd either have to start managing memory manually (as
per C) or implement a borrow checker (as per Rust), and even then your entire
ecosystem is still going to use reference counting pervasively due to the
language's defaults. One of the benefits of Rust defaulting to linear types
and borrowed references is that it creates an entire package ecosystem where
dynamic memory management is the exception, not the rule.
For the record, I think Swift is super fantastic as a language and I'm
thrilled that it's going open-source. I think the two languages will work
swimmingly together. :)
~~~
JeffKilborn
>Swift is an applications programming language where the runtime is non-
optional (at least AFAICT) and memory is managed dynamically.
No, it's optional if you don't need to interact with Obj-C frameworks (ie.
Cocoa). And memory is not managed dynamically. Swift uses ARC.
Like I said, I just don't see Rust sticking around for long. Swift will suck
all the developers out of it since you'll be able to actually get a job
programming in Swift.
~~~
kibwen
We'll need to see how useful Swift is without Cocoa (still waiting for details
on what's actually being open-sourced), but GCD is a runtime component as
well. And as Manish has said, ARC is dynamic memory management, just like
shared_ptr in C++ and Rc in Rust, though pervasive and implicit. If you'd like
to convince me that Swift is suitable as a systems programming language, then
you'll first have to show me an example of Swift code that can be compiled
into a standalone binary that can be called from C, and then describe how many
features of the language and standard library this disables. After that you
can demonstrate how to run Swift code on a memory-constrained platform that
doesn't allow dynamic memory allocation whatsoever.
If anything, Rust is the only modern language that's _not_ threatened by
Swift, by virtue of existing at a level of the stack that's so low as to be
out of Swift's reach. I agree that Swift is going to be huge, but you're
mistaken as to who its competitors are. :P
~~~
Manishearth
C++14 _isn 't_ a modern language? Aw, you killed a dream there :P
| {
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Facebook wrestles with advertisers’ demands as boycott escalates - samizdis
https://www.ft.com/content/2970cf91-dcf7-4424-bdc9-b6d92ad72d67
======
samizdis
Syndicated version:
[https://www.bizjournals.com/albany/news/2020/07/01/facebook-...](https://www.bizjournals.com/albany/news/2020/07/01/facebook-
advertising-boycott-response.html)
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
The Evolution of Stupidity: File Systems - darkduck
http://www.enterprisestorageforum.com/storage-management/the-evolution-of-stupidity-file-systems.html
======
perlgeek
The article talks about repeating mistakes, and descends into the world of
file systems, but I didn't quite understand what the problem is that is
repeated there.
Anybody care to explain?
(FWIW my impression is that there's lots of reinventing going on in the open
source FS development; everybody wants to reinvent the cool features from ZFS,
but with improved performance or a slightly different architecture, and they
all seem to be eager to learn from their own and other people's mistakes).
~~~
mmatants
I, for one, thought that he was going to argue against the overall
hierarchical FS metaphor. Personally, I wonder what things would be like if
the OS provided a key-value store (or some such NoSQL-ish API) as a core
service instead.
~~~
srdev
I suspect that you would still have some semblance of built over such a file-
system. Hierarchy is useful for organizing data, and I often find myself using
keys that allow me to abstract hierarchy in my NoSQL systems. ex:
"/foo/bar/0113" -> data
------
wccrawford
I'd hardly call people who design file systems stupid.
I don't expect them to be psychic, or know everything. I don't even expect
them to be the most knowledgeable person in their field. They're just human.
Calling them stupid because you saw something they didn't isn't just rude,
it's ridiculous.
------
0x12
I'm fine with some of the criticisms but using XFS as the posterchild example
of a free file system done 'right' is a bit much. XFS has absolutely terrible
performance for lots of use cases (deletions, for instance).
What the author also fails to understand - apparently - is that the problems
plaguing the storage industry are perennial, they will never be resolved. We
will always yearn for more storage that is more reliable at a lower price-
point, no matter how good our current technology is.
~~~
dexen
_> XFS has absolutely terrible performance for lots of use cases (deletions,
for instance)._
Depends /heavily/ on hardware. XFS evolved on high-end machines, and performs
awesomely when you have:
* EITHER large write cache (write cache size >> journal size), think `decent RAID controller',
* OR at least put the journal is on a separate harddrive -- which is very real on average workstation.
Been there, done that, the difference is astonishing.
It boils down to specific media access patterns: XFS uses mixed
physical/logical journaling; some operations cause a lot of `physical' (i.e.,
low-level) representation of directory and file metadata to be written to the
journal.
Having harddrive's heads fly back-and-forth between different areas (journal
vs. metadata) is a sure recipe for abysmal performance. On the other hand, if
you have large write cache to handle journal, or at least employ separate
harddrive head to serve journal, directory and file metadata has pretty good
locality (thanks to very smart allocator) and the other head doesn't have to
move too much.
EDIT:
it's worth noting XFS handles large (multi-gigabyte) files very well, as
compared to other filesystems. Both r/w access and creation/removal is fast,
on any hardware. This is XFS's original and primary use case: handling large
multimedia and scientific datasets.
Want to keep countless virtual machine images? XFS is the way to go,
especially thanks to smart allocator which lessens fragmentation as compared
to competing filesystems.
tl;dr: XFS is optimized for handling large files. With the right setup --
possible on mid-end hardware -- it also handles numerous small files (say,
linux-kernel-size projects) very well.
~~~
0x12
Yes, large files are fine.
But contrary to your claim many (10's or 100's of millions) of small files and
performance is terrible, orders of magnitudes slower than vanilla ext3.
I don't consider the linux kernel to be 'many' files.
~~~
notmyname
As we were developing openstack swift, we evaluated many different file
systems and settled on xfs because our testing showed it to be faster than
other file systems when storing many small files (where "many" is much more
than the number of files in the linux kernel).
Unfortunately, I can't find the test results that back up my claim.
~~~
0x12
Yes, storing files is fast. We ran similar tests to yours and storing never
was the problem, deletion also wasn't a problem as long as the number of files
was in the low millions. The problem comes around when you start to delete
files once you have 10's of millions of entries.
I helped a customer set up a CDN and this was one of the most painful mistakes
I ever made to correct for. It took weeks to migrate all the data to EXT3
filesystems while the system was live. The whole point was to end up with
something scaleable, the 'sweep' ran 3 months behind the write so after 90
days, with the filesystems nicely filled to 80% capacity or so we found out
that deleting a single file would take an impossibly long time.
In the end we found a manageable workaround, to try to select candidates for
deletion on a directory-by-directory basis which improved performance to the
point that we could migrate the data but it still was a pretty scary
operation.
------
epo
A linkbait headline that makes the writer seem like the one that is stupid.
If anything he seems to be saying that old known mistakes don't get fixed as
we don't learn from the past. This is not evolution but it is an example of
the widescale misunderstanding of that word that seems to be common in some
parts of the world, it is in fact the exact opposite.
------
mother
It's not a very good article. It's rambling, almost incoherent.
------
thirdstation
I think he is confusing ignorance for stupidity. It's difficult to find good,
sensible information about file systems. And I'm only talking about selection
for using a file system. If I wanted to develop one, where would I go to
learn?
------
noahdesu
I think this article is (doing a bad job of) attempting to explain that
limitations behind the current byte-stream oriented interfaces and
hierarchical organizations that have been around for 20 years. These two
limitations show their heads when 1) people want extreme speed (parallel I/O),
and 2) file systems begin to contain billions of files. People are storing
more and more structured data, and building enormous middleware layers on top
of the read/write to only present richer interfaces to higher levels.
------
radicalbyte
Young people only want to talk about the "presentation"? Appliance based
systems were far easier to "management" than provisioning file systems?
Rambling & incoherent this article is.
------
ori_b
Did he have a point?
------
shawndumas
print version: [http://www.enterprisestorageforum.com/print/storage-
manageme...](http://www.enterprisestorageforum.com/print/storage-
management/the-evolution-of-stupidity-file-systems.html)
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
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People Love Talking About Bitcoin More Than Using It - petethomas
https://www.wsj.com/articles/people-love-talking-about-bitcoin-more-than-using-it-1491989403
======
davidgerard
Surprised this article doesn't mention the one real-world use case: drugs.
Otherwise, yeah.
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Is the Ask HN page broken for anyone else? - krrishd
Looks fixed :)
======
markus_zhang
Broken too. Interesting.
------
drannex
Broken here.
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
VoodooJS – Mix 2D and 3D content on the same page - chrislloyd
http://www.voodoojs.com
======
foxbarrington
"U.S. Patent Pending." \-- wasn't expecting to see that on a JS lib.
~~~
bpierre
Yes, especially coming from a library built on top of three.js [1], which is a
gigantic and awesome piece of work licensed under MIT, using Twitter Bootstrap
(Apache License), and a logo free for non commercial use only [2]. But
everyone can do what he wants with his work, as long as licenses are
respected.
A question for the author: this is a really cool demo, but I can’t see where
is the innovation which needs protection here? A parallax effect when the user
scrolls? 3D on a Web page? The “Next Generation Internet” concept?
[1] [http://threejs.org/](http://threejs.org/)
[2]
[http://findicons.com/icon/33154/mask_02?id=33154](http://findicons.com/icon/33154/mask_02?id=33154)
~~~
skore
The patent thing, the licensing uncertainty, the use of public libraries and
the somewhat overly enthusiastic comments here on HN (most from <300 accounts)
give me a very weird taste in my mouth.
~~~
SnowProblem
I'm sorry to hear that. Point taken. My focus for Voodoo has always been about
creating a great framework to fix a problem and make the web better. Legally,
I am edging on the conservative side for now because I want to make sure the
correct steps are taken for it to succeed. So I'm listening to everything
everyone is saying and I plan to seek advice/mentoring as well. It's still
early.
bpierre, good questions. I'll come back to answer them in a bit. Have to catch
up on a little work.
~~~
bpierre
Thank you!
~~~
SnowProblem
Basically yes, I believe there are some novel ideas here worth patenting.
Specifically, the unified coordinate system between 2D and 3D, and the methods
of implementing it (here by using a virtual camera to align 3D coordinates
with pixels and sandwiching the 2D page with fullscreen canvases). To date, I
don't believe this idea has been suggested anywhere else, and while it might
seem obvious in hindsight, it took many late nights of experimenting
developing it. There was no promise that the research would pay off or the end
result would even work. You should see the early prototypes.
Also, you're right. Voodoo needs a different logo.
~~~
skore
> Basically yes, I believe there are some novel ideas here worth patenting.
Analogous to what Stallman once coined, you are now literally talking about
patenting ideas[0].
> To date, I don't believe this idea has been suggested anywhere else, and
> while it might seem obvious in hindsight, it took many late nights of
> experimenting developing it.
> There was no promise that the research would pay off or the end result would
> even work.
Aka every single software that is a little more daring than standard CRUD. Are
you seriously suggesting that a patent is the only way to be properly
compensated for your work?
Might I suggest a different route? How about you release what you have there
the same way all those libraries you base your work on were released. Trust
me, they are full of research that nobody knew would pay off, with things that
seem obvious in hindsight, but took many, MANY late nights of experimenting.
If what you're saying is true and your "novel ideas" and the solutions you've
found really are that valuable, then there is an incredible trove of respect
and admiration waiting for you. (And if you're smart, you will find ways to
convert that into "making a living".) You'd be robbing yourself of a huge
community (again, the same community that you are currently _using_ \-
bootstrap, jquery, threejs, modernizer etc.) cheering you on, respecting you
in the same way that you might have felt using those other public libraries.
The only thing you see at the moment is that you _have something_ and you
imagine that the thing you have should be the thing that pays your bills,
directly. So you have decided to close it down as much as you possibly can
(and, judging from the use of public, floss libraries, it's debatable how much
you actually can). I'm telling you there is another way. You could be "the
library" for people mixing 2D and 3D.
The path you're on right now only leads to one of two things: First, you're
going to go closed-source. Then somebody else will write a floss "the
library". Then you get angry and lawyer up. Then you realize that only the US
and a handful of other countries is idiotic enough to allow for patents on
software. Then you realize that trying to "go legal" is probably pointless.
Here, you are at a crossroads: On one side is the path I'm telling you to go
now, you're then just five years behind on where you could be now and somebody
else has earned all the admiration and respect. On the other side is an old
and bitter man, clutching his wallet.
[0] [http://www.gnu.org/philosophy/software-literary-
patents.html](http://www.gnu.org/philosophy/software-literary-patents.html)
~~~
SnowProblem
This is very compelling. I've echoed many of these same thoughts.
Growing a community has always been the goal, and that's true --- it would be
the same community as ThreeJs, Modernizr, etc. That's a very good argument to
make it OSS.
And the positive acknowledgement the past 48 hours has been wonderful and
incredibly motivating. Far more than I expected.
Hmm... let me let this sink in for a day. Thank you.
------
islon
The main page eats all my GPU to the point it's almost impossible to scroll
(macbook air 2013). Shouldn't take so much resources for such a simple page.
~~~
zachlatta
I'm on a Macbook Air 2013 and have no issue. Currently using Chrome.
------
SnowProblem
Author here. Thanks everyone. It's all still a work in progress and I'm
listening to everyone's feedback.
------
DoubleCluster
The tree looks cool. If this catches on I might finally buy a 3d monitor just
to browse the web ;)
~~~
ma2rten
It really does look cool. I could really imagine that this would catch on.
It's gimmickry, but unlike almost any other 3D effect on a webpage, it's not
annoying.
------
ArekDymalski
Very impressive and inspiring to think about new possibilities: games,
interfaces, data visualizations ... And works fine on my netbook. Now there's
hope that we won't be dominated by flat design ;)
------
splatcollision
This is great work. An earlier demo page from the same author is at
[http://www.threedeeify.com/](http://www.threedeeify.com/) (VoodooJS is a much
better name)
Looks like the 3d layers are running in full-page canvas overlays and the
Three.js camera is positioned according to the page scroll. Clever work! Must
have some kind of positioning logic to match up the models to DOM elements
(like the ring around the quote)
Wish it was not closed-source, so we could learn from it a bit, or contribute.
But author is free to do with it what he wishes...
~~~
SnowProblem
Essentially yes. There's also some tweaking the CSS pointer-events property on
those canvases to allow mouse events to fall through when you're not hovered
over 3D content.
I envision most people will want to position their 3D objects relative to some
2D element like a div.
------
iMark
This reminds of the emphasis Apple is putting on depth in iOS 7 interface.
Lots of interesting things to be done with this sort of tech.
------
cupofjoakim
Such a great name. To me as a front-end dev, this truly is black magic.
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
How one little community helped us raise $8M - kickme444
https://www.imzy.com/dan/post/how_one_little_community_helped_us_raise_8
======
kickme444
Happy to answer any questions about the fundraising process.
~~~
JBReefer
I don't really get Imzy - it sounds like a more liberal Reddit with more
censorship?
Censorship certainly makes HN better than Reddit, so no judgement there. I
just don't understand the Imzy value proposition as a user.
~~~
Zikes
It looks like you can "tip" communities and users and be tipped yourself for
things you post. The incentive to create genuinely worthwhile content is much
higher, assuming people actually use the tipping feature.
~~~
JBReefer
Can't you do that on the rest of the Internet with Bitcoin?
Why would I want to do that anyway?
~~~
Zikes
I suppose with Reddit's "flair" options you could put a BTC address next to
your username in a lot of subreddits. But BTC is a lot more effort than just
clicking a button, unless the site sets itself up specifically to use BTC, at
which point why not just use real money?
Take a look at all the "gilded" posts on Reddit. I see dozens of them every
day. People love spending a few bucks here and there to show their
appreciation for good content, but all of that money goes straight to Reddit
rather than the person that created or shared that content. I would much
prefer the majority of my "gildings" to go to the user, rather than the site.
~~~
jsprogrammer
Reddit has multiple payment bots. See:
[https://www.reddit.com/r/changetip/](https://www.reddit.com/r/changetip/)
I believe there are Twitter bots for the same. Any bot should be generalizable
to any text medium.
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Quassel IRC: cross-platform, distributed IRC client - Rondom
http://quassel-irc.org/
======
jbermudes
Quassel is awesome, and has a really interesting idea in wanting to store logs
in an sqlite db for better searching, but ironically in the current client
implementation this seems to make it harder to search for stuff.
While searching for things in the immediately loaded buffer is easy (CTRL+F),
searching for things said a long time ago can't be searched via the client.
You either have to use command line tools to dump the sqlite db into a
grepable text file or install the quasselsuche web app (last updated in 2012).
Once better long term search has been implemented in the client, quassel will
become the best GUI IRC client hands down, I look forward to seeing the
progress made in this area.
~~~
kuschku
Do not use quasselsuche, please - there are some major security issues.
I started a small project to work on a better search solution for quassel some
time ago, if you'd like, you can contribute at
[https://github.com/justjanne/quassel-rest-
search](https://github.com/justjanne/quassel-rest-search)
(Works only with postgresql, but uses word2vec for better search results)
~~~
voltagex_
Can you elaborate on the security issues? Have you tried reporting them?
~~~
detaro
If I remember correctly, it has massive SQL-injection holes and isn't
maintained anymore. The issues are known (quassels website etc warn people
against using quasselsuche).
------
fcanela
Probably someone just discovered it.
I think it is relevant in the Slack-oriented era. I would love IRC getting the
hype instead: the protocol and software is open and easy to understand.
~~~
lorenzhs
Have you had a look at WeeChat + Glowing Bear? The idea is to keep WeeChat
running permanently on a server (screen/tmux) and to connect to it from a
browser (desktop or mobile). All the logs and highlights will be there, and
read status is synced. No cloud, communication is direct between browser and
WeeChat via websockets.
Disclosure: I am a maintainer of Glowing Bear. Join us in #glowing-bear if you
have questions :)
~~~
eugeneionesco
Glowing Bear is friggin' amazing, I've been using it for more than 6 months
now and it's pretty much the best irc experience you can get! Thanks!
~~~
skrowl
I also use weechat (on cygwin since they don't have native windows builds) +
glowing bear. It's great as long as you're at a PC, but it's missing a way to
get notifications (for example when you receive a /msg or /notice) when you're
away from the PC but have your mobile with you.
~~~
lorenzhs
Yeah, that's hard to implement without a central server component or annoying
setup. I use IrssiNotifier (despite the name, it also works with WeeChat).
It's not great but I get push notifications for highlights on my phone.
~~~
skrowl
Yeah, it would have to be a push notification. Running an actual IRC client
that had to maintain connection on mobile would destroy your battery.
Anyone aware of anything that works on mobile that does this?
~~~
lorenzhs
Well irssinotifier uses Google cloud messaging (is that the current name? The
Google push service). It encrypts messages on the server and decrypts them in
the client, using a passphrase. It's a technically neat solution but a bit
annoying to set up.
It has a script for weechat (and of course irssi), not sure about other
clients.
Or you can use pushbullet /..., there should be scripts for any popular
scriptable client
------
aagat
This seems to do same thing as tmux+weechat on server and weechat/weechat-
android/glowing bear as client but graphical.
If you want try tmux+weechat combo but don't have/want to setup a VPS, create
an account at hashbang.sh. It's a free shell service and we drop new users in
weechat instance running tmux.
~~~
Tuna-Fish
The main difference is that quassel puts logs in sqlite/postgres. The database
makes the entirety of your logs easily searchable. The Gui lacks a great
search tool, but I just use a few python scripts.
~~~
detaro
Are your scripts published somewhere? A good & documented solution for this
would be great to have!
------
wanda
If you're looking for a cross-platform, distributed IRC client, there's also
Smuxi ([https://smuxi.im/](https://smuxi.im/)) which I used to use.
These days I just use IRC on the move with Palaver
([https://palaverapp.com](https://palaverapp.com)) on my iPhone.
------
kuschku
As this discussion started with webIRC clients, I'd like to mention the
awesome quassel-webserver project from Magne`:
[https://github.com/magne4000/quassel-
webserver](https://github.com/magne4000/quassel-webserver)
Basically, the same features as The Lounge, but it just connects to a Quassel
core, allowing you to connect to the same core with the desktop app or with
the Android app, and allowing you to use the ecosystem of software developed
around Quassel.
------
sktrdie
Does this allow for me to be "always on"? The reason I moved from IRC to Slack
is exactly this. If there was a way for me to use many different peers to keep
my connections alive even when I'm offline, that would make want to use IRC
again.
Otherwise I just don't have time/energy/money to get a server just to host my
IRC session.
~~~
fcanela
You are looking for a BNC[1]. Quassel is a superset of the features you could
expect in one.
I think that there is a lot of people in your situation. They don't know about
the existence of this tools or think their setup is hard or time consuming and
ends using Slack.
[1]
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/BNC_(software)](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/BNC_\(software\))
~~~
pluma
When I first looked for something to let me be "always on" I ran into the same
advice you're giving. It didn't help me at all. Most people looking for the
answer to "how can I have always-on IRC with a backlog" don't want to learn
about what a BNC is or the pros and cons of the various BNC solutions out
there, they want something actionable.
I ended up installing Quassel with a docker image and downloading a Quassel
client for my laptop and smartphone. I hear it's possible to connect to
Quassel (and other bouncers?) with regular IRC clients, too, but I can't be
arsed to figure out how.
~~~
LeoPanthera
> When I first looked for something to let me be "always on" I ran into the
> same advice you're giving. It didn't help me at all. Most people looking for
> the answer to "how can I have always-on IRC with a backlog" don't want to
> learn about what a BNC is or the pros and cons of the various BNC solutions
> out there, they want something actionable.
This is a really strange comment. If the question is "How do I get always-on
IRC" then the answer is "Use a bouncer". Following up with "People don't want
to learn about a bouncer" is the same thing as "People don't really want the
answer". I'm confused.
How is "Install ZNC" (as an example of a bouncer) not "actionable"?
~~~
chipsy
Installing a bouncer means following technical documentation and having a
server free. The first requirement kills the interest of people who want a
single app install. The second kills the interest of people who want the
service free and run by a third party.
These are not enormous barriers but they were enough to put me off of setting
up Quassel on a VPS for a few years. Now that I've done it I don't want to go
back, of course, and I don't see it as a huge chore to do it again. But that's
what's making it "not actionable" \- the perception that this is going to end
in a nightmare of configuration files and Stack Overflow searches.
~~~
kuschku
That's part of the reason why "Quassel as a service" would be a very powerful
tool.
Currently, though, we have to tell users who want that to use IRCCloud instead
- about half of the people come back after the first week of free usage of
IRCCloud when it asks you to pay, and start using Quassel from then on.
------
pizzeys
Weechat, the terminal based client, also supports a protocol like this. There
aren't really any nice graphical clients for it, but there is a mobile one
which is very usable, and there's an HTML5-y one, but I haven't tried that.
If you like irssi, but wish you had a better way to use it on mobile, you
might like Weechat - that's how I use it currently, terminal over SSH on
desktops, mobile client over the relay protocol on the go.
~~~
eugeneionesco
>and there's an HTML5-y one, but I haven't tried that
Glowing Bear is excellent!
------
dvirsky
is there a special reason why this is the top HN item? I've used Quassel for
years and it's a fine client, but why now?
~~~
cocotino
Because somebody sent the link now.
~~~
dvirsky
that's why it's here, not why it's the top item, but WTH, I guess enough
people just discovered it, so enjoy, it's a really nice client.
I personally switched to gnome-xchat recently, which is not as feature rich,
but is really nice as well, and looks better IMHO.
~~~
fcanela
XChat doesn't seem to be maintained anymore (I do not know about gnome-xchat).
Have you considered Hexchat? I migrated to it one year ago and seems solid
while keeping the same look and feel.
~~~
dvirsky
xchat-gnome seems to be in low-maintenance mode, 2 commits in Q2 2016
([https://git.gnome.org/browse/xchat-
gnome/](https://git.gnome.org/browse/xchat-gnome/)).
I tried hexchat, and I don't remember why, I didn't like it so much. I'll give
it another try I suppose.
------
utbabya
Speaking of IRC clients, I don't understand why one particular feature that
has been requested all time (feature request in various clients I've gone
through) but never implemented - keyword highlight and notification, but
customizable depending on the channel. This way you don't have to pay visual
attention to certain channels.
And I thought the need is common enough and it's easy enough to implement..
~~~
kuschku
This is definitely possible in Quassel - Each highlight rule has a regex for
the message, and a regex for the channel. Only if both match, it will
highlight.
This means you can get highlights on every message in channel #support, or
highlights on "quassel" in every channel.
~~~
utbabya
Perfect, then I'd definitely switch from LimeChat. I thought it wasn't
possible because of this [http://bugs.quassel-
irc.org/issues/1348](http://bugs.quassel-irc.org/issues/1348) , and saw no
mention of it in the doc. I guess it's just a request for blacklist instead.
------
kiallmacinnes
I've used Quassel for a few years now, it's great. Your always only, history
is preserved and shown on all devices - no matter how long they've been
disconnected for.
Unlike most BNCs, this also makes sure all the timestamps are correct when
data is replayed..it also doesn't notify you for mentions if you've already
been notified about the message. 10x more useable than any other BNC I've
used.
------
moogly
I evaluated this along with some other clients fairly recently (4-5 months
ago). I really liked it except for an issue where it appeared (from my end)
that I was online but I was actually disconnected. I missed a couple of days
of discussion and my messages ended up in a void. I dunno if it didn't like my
ZNC bouncer, but I considered it a showstopper nonetheless.
------
ivcha
So many clients, so much effort spent... I wish the shared functionality could
be encapsulated and used within other clients (some of which arguably far more
flexible and thus usable), like pidgin (which is my favorite) and irssi...
------
ctrlrsf
Very interesting. Right now I'm using a znc bounce to allow all my clients to
stay connected. For clients I use either weechat, Textual from macOS, or
Mutter from iOS. All clients work seamlessly. Same nicks, channels, and logs
from any device.
~~~
dijit
Have you tried palaver for iOS, how does it compare to mutter- I only ask
because palaver has ZNC integration that allows push notifications and such.
------
h_ar
Quassel is nice and I'd recommend it, even when I stopped using it for a year
and moved to AdiIRC (mainly because I found the customization on AdiIRC is
more fun to play with)
------
mavhc
It's a BNC, but good; or it's IRCCloud, but free.
------
knocte
Haven't tried Quassel, but I use Smuxi because it's a very good (also
distributed) alternative, which is multi-protocol (not only IRC).
------
softinio
What clients on iphone are used with this that support notification?
~~~
kuschku
Sadly, the current iOS client hasn’t been supported in quite a while.
But there are 2 independent projects that allow sending notifications via
Pushbullet or GCM to your phone if you get a highlight via quassel, quassel-
pushbullet and quassel-irssi-notifier.
------
fiatjaf
No installation instructions.
------
foobarbecue
"but also ubiquitous available." \--> "but also ubiquitously available."
~~~
ionwake
Leave Britney Alone!
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
If the Moon Were Only 1 Pixel – A tediously accurate map of the solar system - ZeljkoS
http://joshworth.com/dev/pixelspace/pixelspace_solarsystem.html
======
rackforms
Neat! My favorite way to show the impossibly large scale of our universe:
[http://spaceengine.org/](http://spaceengine.org/). Set your speed to 10 light
years _per second_ and watch the Andromeda galaxy just sit there.
Also fun to see how slow even the speed of light is. Start at the sun and head
for earth. Once you reach Earth marvel at how fast you had been going.
Head towards Jupiter and, once again, marvel at how impossibly slow your going
compared to even the nearest background stars.
~~~
akvadrako
This is inaccurate. At even 1g acceleration Andromeda is just 28 years away.
At 10 light years per second you would have passed it many many years ago.
~~~
herbstein
Uhm, no? He's talking about a constant speed of 1 LY/s, and not an
acceleration.
~~~
akvadrako
And what he said was nonsense; 10 LY/s is faster than light; you must be a
hypothetical particle with some crazy properties and our math really breaks
down at that point.
In space you need to think in terms of relative velocities less than _c_ and
acceleration. To get a reasonable sense of how far away Andromeda is consider
how long it will take to get there, which is just a few years.
------
schoen
In Florianópolis, Brazil, there's a thing called Projeto Helius where someone
has placed plaques along the waterfront showing the locations of the planets,
to scale. They start off deceptively close together for the inner planets,
just a few minutes' walk apart, but then it _really_ takes a while to reach
the outer planets.
[http://www.1000dias.com/rodrigo/avenida-beira-mar-sistema-
so...](http://www.1000dias.com/rodrigo/avenida-beira-mar-sistema-solar-e-a-
ponte/)
I walked as far as Neptune but, like the author of the above blog post, didn't
continue on to Pluto. (It isn't depicted on the map, but I just checked and
all of these markers are Ingress portals/Pokestops, so it's easy to find other
people's maps that show them. Pluto is a little south of the end of the park
there.)
~~~
anonymousiam
Pluto's orbit is so eccentric that perigee (the point closest to the sun) is
actually inside the orbit of Neptune.
~~~
anonymousiam
And of course I stupidly used the wrong term for perihelion. Perigee refers to
the closest point to EARTH not the SUN.
~~~
kbutler
But at this distance, it is the same... -- Robert Heinlein
A little less the same than Heinlein's original context, though Pluto was
involved there, too. Anybody catch the reference?
------
overcast
Every time I see these types of visualizations, I get the feeling of sadness,
that we'll never visit other worlds outside of our own. The immensity of space
is just incomprehensible. The closest star system Alpha Centauri, is over FOUR
light years away. Time dilation will ensure that we will never again see
whomever we send out into deep space.
~~~
javajosh
Like compound interest, constant acceleration is powerful. 10/m/s/s gets you
to 30,000 m/s in 3,000s. That's .1c in less than an hour. The energy required
is mv^2, m being the mass of your vehicle, and you can annihilate anti-matter
to get, theoretically, Mc^2 of energy out of it. That means you can get to .1c
with M=mv^2/c^2=.1^2 or 1% of your vehicle mass of anti-matter. That's a small
enough number to leave a lot of wiggle room.
(Much smaller, and more realistic, accelerations are possible over longer
periods of time, but require using the use of relativistic equations of
motion.)
~~~
ziedaniel1
I think you mixed up m/s and km/s. The speed of light is 300,000,000 m/s, so
30,000 m/s is only .0001c. At 1g, it actually takes a month to reach .1c.
(Still, your point stands.)
~~~
javajosh
Thank you for the correction! 3 OOM off is...embarrassing.
~~~
sjwright
So you'll be mortified to learn you were off by 4 OOM.
~~~
javajosh
I would be, but I wasn't. Last I checked 1km = 1000m.
------
mtkd
_It’s easy to disregard nothingness because there’s no thought available to
encapsulate it.
There’s no metaphor that fits because, by definition, once the nothingness
becomes tangible, it ceases to exist.
We’d be surrounded by this stuff that our minds weren’t built to understand._
aside from being a great visualisation - it's really well annotated
~~~
nonbel
>"We’d be surrounded by this stuff that our minds weren’t built to
understand."
It is interesting to compare this to what was believed during the dawn of the
scientific revolution, eg Isaac Newton's attitude (that the universe was built
for humans to understand it). Both positions are speculative, but asserted as
facts in their time with far reaching effects.
~~~
tossaway1
Interesting that you state Isaac Newton's attitude as fact. When I Google
"isaac newton universe built for humans to understand" unquoted, I don't find
any support for this statement. In fact, this thread ends up as one of the top
hits.
~~~
nonbel
That was more a paraphrase of the impression you get reading him. It was
surprisingly difficult to find some kind of quote from him on the
intelligibility of nature (it looks like it is one of those topics that has
generated a lot of low quality commentary). Here is the closest I could find
for now:
>"Newton refashioned the world governed by an interventionist God into a world
crafted by a God that designs along rational and universal principles.[55]
These principles were available for all people to discover, allowed man to
pursue his own aims fruitfully in this life, not the next, and to perfect
himself with his own rational powers.[56]"
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Religious_views_of_Isaac_Newto...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Religious_views_of_Isaac_Newton)
You can also read his principles of philosophy and general scholium to get an
idea of his views. You will see he believed in a creator that made the
universe as simple as possible:
[https://isaacnewton.ca/newtons-general-
scholium/](https://isaacnewton.ca/newtons-general-scholium/)
[http://sourcebooks.fordham.edu/mod/newton-
princ.asp](http://sourcebooks.fordham.edu/mod/newton-princ.asp)
------
mwidell
In Sweden we have a visualization where Ericsson Globe, the worlds largest
spherical building, represents the sun:
[http://www.swedensolarsystem.se/en/](http://www.swedensolarsystem.se/en/)
------
paulvs
I like how the number 42 is weaved into this.
At 177 light minutes into the journey, there is the following message:
_Emptiness is actually everywhere. It’s something like
99.9999999999999999999958% of the known universe._
leaving 4.2E-21 or 0.0000000000000000000042% non-emptiness in the universe.
I can't find any sources backing up this figure, but I wonder if it was the
author's intent to smuggle in a Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy reference.
Edit: Just saw the second reference to this at 208 light minutes.
------
scandox
This is well executed but I found myself increasingly dissatisfied with the
genially philosophical textual content and craving the nihilist edition of the
same thing. In a way it's a wasted opportunity to generate a day of healthy
despair.
------
Imagenuity
"If the proton of a hydrogen atom was the size of the sun on this map, we
would need 11 more of these maps to show the average distance to the
electron."
Emptiness, both atomic and interstellar, is inconceivably vast.
------
rwmj
This would be a lot better if it used vertical scrolling and not sideways
scrolling.
The BBC did this site about director James Cameron exploring the depths of the
ocean, and I think it works really well with vertical scrolling:
[http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-
environment-17013285](http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-17013285)
~~~
TheSwordsman
I think vertical scrolling worked well in that case because it was used to
display depth. The information you are displaying is literally about going
down. Horizontal scrolling feels more natural to me here because the point is
to show how empty and vast the area between planets is.
The downside is that it's an experience that admittedly only works if you're
using a trackpad, or a mouse with good side-scrolling support. So people with
laptops / trackpad mice are probably okay.
~~~
ajmurmann
A little known fact seems to be that if you hold Option (or was it command?)
on OS X while using the mouse wheel, you scroll horizontally instead of
vertically. Found that out by accident.
~~~
mamon
Another little know fact is that you can go through this map just by holding
Right arrow.
------
bikamonki
In this clever visualization, space is 1702774 pixels wide. At 1366 pixels
width of my screen, the printed version would be 1246 screens-long, that is
roughly 500 meters (0.3 miles). I am able to scroll horizontally the total
screen-width in roughly 200ms, that is, my mouse can travel at 2500 m/s.
------
DanBC
I love this.
Here's another visualisation, using a soccer ball and American football
pitches. It includes "planet 9", which is a staggering distance away.
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pR5VJo5ifdE](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pR5VJo5ifdE)
------
ilaksh
I was reading the comments at the top. One said something about 7 months to
get to Mars being 2,000 feature-length movies of waking hours. I know its old
news, but I remember having a 20MB hard drive back in the day. Now you could
easily fit 2000+ movies on one 10TB hard drive that costs less than $500.
------
erikrothoff
That was beautiful. I got one of those auto-of-body moments contemplating life
and meaning while scrolling.
~~~
DavideNL
...reminds me of the "Overview effect" :
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Overview_effect](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Overview_effect)
~~~
teddyh
“ _The fool on the hill sees the sun going down, and the eyes in his head sees
the world spinning ’round._ ”
– Beatles, _The Fool on the Hill_ (1967)
------
pikzen
The absolute worst thing with this website is thinking that scrolling with
your mouse is way too slow, turning on light speed and realising it goes
slower.
Well, we're not getting to another solar system in my lifetime, it's fine.
------
brett40324
On a phone i scrolled basically as fast as possible all the way to the end,
stopping for a few seconds at each dialog, and it was at least a 10 minute
ride. I loved the wit along the way!
------
Faaak
I would love to be able to print it to scale on A4 paper (with white
background of course). Posted on a long wall the results would be very
interesting ;-)
~~~
musgravepeter
If you go to
[http://www.astro.princeton.edu/universe/](http://www.astro.princeton.edu/universe/)
you can find print-outs of the entire universe all the way to the microwave
background (log scale).
They're very cool.
------
toss1941
Very cool. One suggestion to give an even better perspective is to...
literally give a first person perspective from the planets on what the sun and
other planets looks like in the distance. So on Mercury, the sun would look
relative large compared to venus, earth, mars, etc.
~~~
mattvot
Something close to this is this video from the perspective of the earth,
showing the planets at the same distance from earth to the moon.
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=usYC_Z36rHw](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=usYC_Z36rHw)
------
lacampbell
Speaking of tedious, here is my nitpick ;)
As I was scrolling I stopped to read the little messages about how empty stuff
was, etc. Which kind of distorted my view of how far apart things actually
were, as my scrolling slowed as I stopped to read them.
Other than that, really cool.
~~~
zfedoran
Interesting facts, but they ended up removing me from the experience as well.
Maybe I scrolled too fast?
.essay { display: none; }
------
CarolineW
It's nice to see this again. The revelation that space is so big and empty is
one that more people need to see. I especially recommend finding and visiting
one of the scale models of the Solar System. I visited and walked the one in
Melbourne, Australia.
They are referenced in previous discussions of this particular item. Here are
some:
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7341690](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7341690)
(178 comments)
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13790954](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13790954)
(20 comments)
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7551423](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7551423)
(17 comments)
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13217129](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13217129)
(11 comments)
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12038584](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12038584)
(4 comments)
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13419190](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13419190)
(3 comments)
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13233679](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13233679)
(1 comment)
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9876633](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9876633)
(1 comment)
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8834512](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8834512)
(1 comment)
There are other submissions without any comments - for completeness I thought
I'd include those that I could find - there may be others:
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13285043](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13285043)
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12870694](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12870694)
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12280935](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12280935)
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12273629](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12273629)
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10943525](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10943525)
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10240476](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10240476)
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9469999](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9469999)
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7728435](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7728435)
------
ams6110
Illustrates how amazing it is that we can even detect planets orbiting other
stars. Almost like detecting a grain of black sand on a beach of white.
------
TheSwordsman
>I guess this is why most maps of the solar system aren't drawn to scale.
>It's not hard to draw the planets.
>It's the empty space that's the problem.
------
yokisan
I had an existential crisis after scrolling 50 times and revealing nothing but
more _background-color: #000000;_
------
reactor
"Most space charts leave out the most significant part – all the space". True
to that.
------
alyandon
While this is neat, it scrolls way too slow via mouse and keyboard.
Edit: Ah, autoscrolling works.
------
d--b
this is awesome. It gives a much better idea of scale than any log-based
thing.
------
evertonfuller
I loved your comedic quips. Nice job overall!
------
d0vs
The moon is actually 2 pixels on my screen
------
Fuzzwah
I wanted to read all the snippets of text but didn't have time to scroll
through the whole map, so I selected all, copied and pasted.....
#############
That was about 10 million km (6,213,710 mi) just now.
Pretty empty out here.
Here comes our first planet...
As it turns out, things are pretty far apart.
We’ll be coming up on a new planet soon.
Sit tight.
Most of space is just space.
Halfway home.
Destination: Mars! It would take about seven months to travel this distance in
a spaceship. Better be some good in-flight entertainment. In case you're
wondering, you'd need about 2000 feature-length movies to occupy that many
waking hours.
Sit back and relax.
Jupiter is more than 3 times as far as we just traveled.
When are we gonna be there? Seriously.
When are we gonna be there? This is where we might at least see some asteroids
to wake us up. Too bad they're all too small to appear on this map.
I spy, with my little eye... something black.
If you were on a road trip, driving at 75mi/hr, it would have taken you over
500 years to get here from earth.
All these distances are just averages, mind you. The distance between planets
really depends on where the two planets are in their orbits around the sun.
So if you're planning on taking a trip to Jupiter, you might want to use a
different map.
If you plan it right, you can actually move relatively quickly between
planets.
The New Horizons space craft that launched in 2006 only took 13 months to get
to Jupiter.
Don't worry. It'll take a lot less than 13 months to scroll there.
Pretty close to Jupiter now.
Sorry. That was a lie before.
Now we really are pretty close.
Lots of time to think out here...
Pop the champagne! We just passed 1 billion km.
I guess this is why most maps of the solar system aren't drawn to scale. It's
not hard to draw the planets. It's the empty space that's a problem.
Most space charts leave out the most significant part – all the space.
We're used to dealing with things at a much smaller scale than this.
When it comes to things like the age of the earth, the number of snowflakes in
Siberia, the national debt...
Those things are too much for our brains to handle.
We need to reduce things down to something we can see or experience directly
in order to understand them.
We're always trying to come up with metaphors for big numbers.
Even so, they never seem to work.
Let's try a few metaphors anyway...
You would need 886 of these screens lined up side-by-side to show this whole
map at once.
If this map was printed from a quality printer (300 pixels per inch) the earth
would be invisible, and the width of the paper would need to be 475 feet.
475 feet is about 1 and 1/2 football fields.
Even though we don’t really understand them, a lot can happen within these
massive lengths of time and space. A drop of water can carve out a canyon.
An amoeba can become a dolphin.
A star can collapse on itself.
It’s easy to disregard nothingness because there’s no thought available to
encapsulate it.
There’s no metaphor that fits because, by definition, once the nothingness
becomes tangible, it ceases to exist.
It’s a good thing we have these tiny stars and planets, otherwise we’d have no
point of reference at all.
We’d be surrounded by this stuff that our minds weren’t built to understand.
All this emptiness really could drive you nuts.
For instance, if you’re in a sensory deprivation tank for too long, your brain
starts to make things up.
You see and hear things that aren’t there.
The brain isn't built to handle "empty." "Sorry, Humanity," says Evolution.
"What with all the jaguars trying to eat you, the parasites in your fur, and
the never-ending need for a decent steak, I was a little busy.
I didn’t exactly have time to come up with a way to conceive of vast stretches
of nothingness." Neurologically speaking, we really only deal with matter of a
certain size, and energy of a few select wavelengths.
For everything else, we have to make up mental models and see if they match up
to the tiny shreds of hard evidence that actually feel real.
The mental models provided by mathematics are extremely helpful when trying to
make sense of these vast distances, but still...
Abstraction is pretty unsatisfying.
When you hear people talk about how, "there’s more to this universe than our
minds can conceive of" it's usually a way to get you to go along with a half-
baked plot point about UFOs or super-powers in a sci-fi series that you're
watching late at night when you can’t get to sleep.
Even when Shakespeare wrote: "There are more things in heaven and earth,
Horatio, Than are dreamt of in your philosophy” – he's basically trying to
give us a loophole to make the ghost in the story more believable.
But all this empty space, these things of a massive scale, really are more
than our minds can conceive of.
The maps and metaphors fail to do them justice.
You look at one tiny dot, then you look for the next tiny dot.
Everything in between is inconsequential and fairly boring.
Emptiness is actually everywhere.
It’s something like 99.9999999999999999999958% of the known universe.
Even an atom is mostly empty space.
If the proton of a hydrogen atom was the size of the sun on this map, we would
need 11 more of these maps to show the average distance to the electron.
Some theories say all this emptiness is actually full of energy or dark matter
and that nothing can truly be empty...
but come on, only ordinary matter has any meaning for us.
You could safely say the universe is a "whole lotta nothing." If so much of
the universe is made up of emptiness, what does that mean to people like us,
living on a tiny speck in the middle of all of it? Is the known universe
99.9999999999999999999958% empty? Or is it 0.0000000000000000000042% full?
With so much emptiness, aren't stars, planets, and people just glitches in an
otherwise elegant and uniform nothingness, like pieces of lint on a black
sweater? But without the tiny dots for it to stretch between, there would be
no emptiness to measure, and for that matter, no one around to measure it.
You might say that so much emptiness makes the tiny bits of matter that much
more meaningful - simply by the fact that, against all odds, they aren't
empty.
If you're drowning in the middle of the ocean, a floating piece of driftwood
is a pretty big deal.
What if trillions of stars and planets were crammed right next to each other?
They wouldn't be special at all.
It seems like we are both pathetically insignificant, and miraculously
important at the same time.
Whether you more strongly feel the monumental significance of tiny things or
the massive void between them depends on who you are, and how your brain
chemistry is balanced at a particular moment.
We walk around with miniature, emotional versions of the universe inside of
us.
It's reassuring to know that no matter how depressingly bleak or ridiculously
momentous we feel, the universe, judging by its current structure, seems well
aware of both extremes.
The fact that you're here, in the midst of all this nothing, is pretty amazing
when you stop and think about it.
Congratulations on making it this far.
Might as well stop now.
We'll need to scroll through 6,771 more maps like this before we see anything
else.
------
jeremyleach
Simply brilliant!
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
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In Defense of Call Of Duty - CMartucci
http://whatblag.com/2011/08/13/in-defense-of-call-of-duty/
======
Jach
Hey, this is actually a more serious article than I thought. (I thought it was
going to be about defending the sequel-after-sequel business model.)
This page has a decent section on violent games that I snipped below:
<http://www.theodoregray.com/BrainRot/> (I mostly use it as a link in the
argument over letting students use calculators in Calculus and above.) I
thought the following section was pretty interesting. On the one hand it seems
that violent games can condition a person to react more violently in certain
circumstances, but on the other hand the existence of violent media seems to
decrease the number of those circumstances (depending on which data you look
at anyway, the freakonomics post linked here is certainly intriguing, and a
decrease in crime is probably more strongly linked with an increase in median
standard of living).
====
__Theo __: Let's start with something I'm sure most people would agree has
little educational value, the video game. We'll discuss later how video games
are related to educational software.
To understand the effects of video games, one needs to go back to debriefings
conducted by the U.S. Army after WWII. Interviewing soldiers returning from
battle, researchers discovered a very disturbing fact. A significant number of
soldiers had been face to face with an enemy soldier, rifle in hand, enemy in
their sights, gun not jammed, and had _not fired_ . Something deep in their
being, some sort of innate humanity, had prevented them from actually pulling
the trigger.
Needless to say, this was very disturbing to the military. They began a
research effort to figure out what to do about this problem. They discovered
that in the heat of battle, under the incredible physical and psychological
stress of being faced with another human being you were supposed to kill, the
higher mental functions were largely absent. Under such conditions, the mind
reverts to much simpler modes of operation, to deeply wired, almost
instinctive behaviors. In other words, no amount of target practice at
bullseye targets and classroom lectures about how you're supposed to kill the
enemy had much effect when it counted.
Over the following decades and wars, the Army learned that the way to get
soldiers to reliably pull the trigger was to use very basic, repetitive
operant conditioning, along the lines of standard behaviorist theory. Now,
behaviorism provides a very poor model for how humans act in everyday life,
but it turns out to be a pretty good model for how humans act when they are
under stress and have to act quickly, and are responding primarily to fear.
Under stress, fearful people do what they have been conditioned to do.
The Army's solution was to replace dry target practice with realistic training
grounds, complete with pop-up targets, loud noises, smoke, stress, the works.
The goal was to condition the soldiers: If it moves, shoot it _now_ , don't
think about it. Repetition, repetition, repetition: Target pops up, you shoot.
Target pops up, you shoot. Do that often enough, and, research shows, next
time you see something pop up, you are more likely to shoot it, even if it's a
real human in a real battle. This is not just a theory, it is documented by
exit interviews from soldiers in later wars: The Army got what it wanted.
(What armies do, and how that is similar to video games, is forcefully
presented in the book _On Killing_ by David Grossman, a former military
officer (Little Brown, 1995)).
Now, what does this have to do with video games? The answer should be obvious
by now to anyone who's ever seen one. The whole point is, if it moves, shoot
it. Again and again and again.
__Jerry __: Well yes, but it's aliens and other fantasy figures they are
shooting at, not people. Does it really carry over?
__Theo __: Yes it does. (And by the way, it's not all aliens; many video
games have photo-realistic people complete with recognizable human faces, and
blood splatters. You stick your handgun in their face at point blank range and
pull the trigger.) Intellectually, no one would confuse a video game with real
life, but we're not talking about an intellectual situation. We're talking
about a scared kid with a Saturday night special in his hand seeing a member
of a rival gang move his hand around in his coat. That kid is thinking at an
operant conditioning level; what matters more than anything else is how many
times in the past he has pulled the trigger. In reality or in a video game, it
doesn't make that much difference. For a good discussion of the current
consensus opinion on the effects of violence on TV and in movies and video
games, see the book _Mayhem_ by Sissela Bok (Perseus Books, 1998).
If you think watching violent TV is bad, video games are much, much worse. TV
is a passive medium, requiring no participation from the viewer. A kid
watching a murder on TV may not be benefiting much from it, and maybe he's
learning a certain degree of callousness, but at least he is not being
conditioned to pull the trigger. He is just watching. In the video game, he is
the murderer, _he pulls_ the trigger, _he participates_ in the violence.
When soldiers are trained to kill, it is with a certain amount of context,
with an effort to teach honor, duty, self restraint, and the difference
between civilian and military life. When a 12-year-old kid comes out of his
bedroom after spending three hours actively participating in the killing of
people, what context has he had? what debriefing does he get?
I should mention that most of this chapter was written before the recent
outbreak of kids shooting their classmates at school. To what degree video
games contributed to those incidence is of course subject to endless debate,
but the public does seem to have been alerted to the topic. There are even
reports of, for example, Disney resorts removing violent video games that
include humans as targets. A fine move, but obviously mainly symbolic. As long
as parents pay to have killing arcades installed in their kid's bedrooms, the
harm will be done.
------
hmayer
I have a question: does seeing violence around you make you more violent?
For example, societies which experienced a lot of war are not more violent
societies. Actually, my experience is that seeing violence makes you less
violent. Is that possible?
My second comment is about violent games...
Video games of _any_ type are not good for kids. Not because of violence, sex
and other things. It is because they don't go out to socialize. My theory is
that instead of limiting "what to watch / play", parents should more focus on
limiting "how much to watch / play".
~~~
Detrus
Seeing violence should indeed make you less violent unless you're a psychopath
or trained to commit violence like modern soldiers are.
This is a fun doco about most WW1-WW2 soldiers being unable to kill in combat,
only 2% shot to kill, being psychopaths, and 10-20% shot in the direction of
the enemy.
<http://youtu.be/2vlGR7S2wcI>
Modern training makes 95% of soldiers killers. The training consists of
simulating combat as realistically as possible and turning it into a routine.
Amount matters there. Can realistic videogames give people some level of calm
in a combat situation, which would allow them to kill better? Perhaps the
military has some studies.
Is it related to being the aggressor in shooting rampages and gang violence?
Perhaps weakly.
------
Getahobby
I always thought the freakonimcs guys had an interesting spin on exposure to
media and how it relates to elevated rates of violence.
[http://freakonomicsbook.com/superfreakonomics/chapter-
excerp...](http://freakonomicsbook.com/superfreakonomics/chapter-
excerpts/chapter-3/)
~~~
CMartucci
Thanks for sharing that link. I think it's an interesting addition to the
discussion. It fits well with what Dr. Bruce Perry was saying in this article:
[http://teacher.scholastic.com/professional/bruceperry/aggres...](http://teacher.scholastic.com/professional/bruceperry/aggression_violence.htm)
The culprit is more likely a child's upbringing, which may have been
negatively affected due to television, but not directly caused by television
itself.
~~~
jshort
Those children that are allowed to play video games or watch t.v. on end in my
opinion are those that are most likely to end up in a poorer situation because
there is little parenting done.
------
erikb
When I was young I also argued, that violent computer games and movies don't
make me more violent. That they are fiction and that I can distinguish them
from reality.
From what I know now (which might be half knowledge and thus totally
bullshit), the problem with violence is not really agression. Everybody is
angry from time to time. Also other feelings like fear, frustration and
psychological sickness might make you act violent or make you feel that
hitting and killing other people is not an act of violence. But other factors
are important. One is, that you can picture (meaning have the clear idea) of
hurting someone and the barrier that stops you from executing this picture,
which is made of empathy ("you are like me, I should not hurt you") and
moral/ethics, which are an artificial created result of society. Based on this
I feel that violent computer games really increased my chance of one day
hurting other people. On one side, when I am angry with other people, I can
picture more clearly how I want to hurt them and which tools might be useful
for that purpose. Without my "experience" from movies and c.games I might have
to think more clearly, how to efficiently apply pain to other people. I have
more clear ideas then "take something hard and attack, when totally in rage".
Also I feel that my barrier is lowered through these impressions. If I often
watch this kind of movie and play this kind of game, the "experience" itself
becomes more of a daily experience and less something being special and
disgusting.
Maybe I am just not mentally healthy or the one in a million who reacts this
way to computer games. So I can't really speak for other people. But I myself
am quite sure that violent computer games increase the chance of me being
violent and that my parents did a good job of trying to keep these away from
me.
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Gambit, a payment engine for social games - crxnamja
http://getgambit.com
======
aaronblohowiak
This is what Facebook should have done shortly after launching the platform.
Kudos to you for scratching your own itch and then opening it up to the world.
Reducing developer friction, _handling refunds_ , easy integration across
payment providers, and the optimization of the offers are all huge wins for
small app developer shops.
------
crxnamja
chris smoak, shoutfit.com and another developer tools thingy.
------
iamwil
Which YC Alum?
------
gustaf
Awesome guys!
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Israel Becomes CERN Associate Member - wslh
http://www.globes.co.il/serveen/globes/docview.asp?did=1000683450
======
_delirium
There are some interesting politics lurking in the background of this, around
what Europe is (ignoring the more specific politics of Israel itself). Until
this decision, the two pending applications for membership from outside
geographical Europe, Israel's and Turkey's, had been stalled for quite a
while. Now that Israel is in, there is a question of, what about Turkey? But
that one is tied up in EU expansion politics; Turkey is also an EU membership
candidate, and anti-Turkish-membership politicians don't want it admitted to
other European organizations like CERN, for fear of strengthening the Turkey-
is-European view.
There is also a longer-term question of what CERN (or perhaps other "European"
institutions) should cover geographically. Why are they "European", and what
does that mean? Could Egypt join, for example? One might say it's less
"culturally European" than Israel, but its scientific community is quite
western-oriented, and it already participates in some CERN projects on a case-
by-case basis.
~~~
edanm
Interesting, thanks for sharing.
I'd just like to add, for the benefit of those who don't know, that Israel
already takes part in many other European things, like sports (Euro Cup) and
the European Song Contest (Eurovision).
~~~
toyg
They were accepted by European sport federations a long time ago, usually
because Middle-Eastern federations refused to accept them either on
ideological or security reasons. It's usually not a big deal, they're crap at
everything except basketball, as far as I know.
~~~
edanm
Except for Hapoel Tel Aviv, which is my team! So treat with respect! :)
Seriously though, of the "Major Sports", Israel is only good at basketball
with Macabi Tel Aviv. But there are other niche sports we're ok at, like Judo
or others.
~~~
iaskwhy
Krav Maga just to add one that is getting famous in some european countries.
:)
------
Create
CERN is no longer a European Organisation. Actually, it never really was ("who
ordered that?" for those who know CERN history). Since nothing really new has
emerged in HEP in the last few decades, CERN is trying to grow into an
international lab, as opposed to European, mostly for scaling/funding purposes
(USA, Japan, Russia, China have actually built most of LHC: Russian in kinds
(steel, calos, beryllium etc.), Japanese semi (HAMA PMT, trackers etc), USA
hw/sw (intel, Oracle, RedHat, DDN, Force10, DLT, FPGA) and Chinese assembly
(any SKU built over 50 pcs-s)).
And since theoretical and applied physics needs ever more PR to get attention,
they are also trying to dress up as a technology provider hub, forgetting to
mention, that most of what is there is COTS. The ("management") problem is not
unlike the one that "killed" NASA (which it was modelled upon in terms of
matrix management).
_"How should we make it attractive for them [young people] to spend 5,6,7
years in our field, be satisfied, learn about excitement, but finally be
qualified to find other possibilities?"_ \-- H. Schopper
What an euphemism. Almost like a scam.
btw: .il was already quite present on every level, obviously, so this is just
a formality -- Turkey is somewhat different in this respect.
------
saljam
This disappoints me. CERN is one of the most important representatives of the
European scientific community. Instead of boycotting the apartheid state which
openly practices racial cleansing on a daily basis, CERN embraces it. A truly
sad world we live in today if that's what our brightest minds consent.
Something tells me this won't go well on this forum, but I had to say it.
~~~
bpodgursky
No, what would be sad would be letting politics impede scientific cooperation
and progress.
~~~
saljam
South Africa never got past its apartheid stage until a global boycotting
movement forced it to. This isn't just a matter of "politics". This is
everyone's responsibility, including scientists.
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
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Luxon – A small library for working with dates and times in JavaScript - excerionsforte
https://github.com/moment/luxon
======
lioeters
Looks great! I learned that it's a library developed by one of the maintainers
of Moment.js, with rationale, pros and cons described here:
Why does Luxon exist?
[https://moment.github.io/luxon/docs/manual/why.html](https://moment.github.io/luxon/docs/manual/why.html)
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Ask HN: How can I adapt the business model to better serve a niche industry? - parkern
run a web app that allows people to create custom online stores that is tied into a fulfillment system. We originally created the site geared towards everyone: artist, designers, clothing companies, etc. We have discovered that this is just too large of a bite to chew.<p>I wanted to see if anyone had any advice or ideas on a niche market that could benefit from a platform like this? Basically what group we might be able to repurpose/reformat this for.
======
Scott_MacGregor
Maybe pick a particular multi-level marketing company that is well known and
successful. Contact their CEO and pitch him/her over the phone on endorsing
your business for their business people to use. Maybe price it to the public
at $X, but for them special deal "today only" $X-$y. Let them contact their
people and do brochures or whatever it is they want to do to promote it.
Powercall 10 of these places in 1 day and see if you can get through to the
CEO's and get some heat built up for your business. Basic business to
business. Offer them the special price for a $10,000 fee to make sure they
will follow through on their end. Be ready to close the deal, and be ready to
bill for the fee if you get any takers.
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Ask HN: Is there anything I can do to prevent burnout? - CorvusCrypto
So quite recently at the company I work for I've been noticing that I have been at the point where the coding I need to do is just like a brick wall. I know what I need to do, yet when typing out even a few lines to accomplish stuff I find myself just staring at the screen most of my time. Worse yet, I find that during the management side of my job, I'm becoming more short-sighted and terse in my decisions and I hate that because that's not fair to others. I've definitely already started to lose the drive here, but the company is fairly decent and I don't want to reach full burnout here yet (or maybe I already have). How have those that experienced similar feelings dealt with this? Responses greatly appreciated :)
======
Jtsummers
1) Consider a vacation. A week away, maybe less. Put yourself in a totally
different headspace. One that's relaxed and peaceful and missing stress.
2) How much management responsibilities do you have along with your
development responsibilities? How much of these can you delegate. Perhaps
you've got too much on your plate and your attention is divided too much to
really think/focus on your duties. Perhaps you can't complete anything because
you have too much and that's what's stressing you out. You _could_ code
another 100 lines today, but you know or feel that that's still not enough to
complete the task. Find a way to divest yourself of some
responsibilities/obligations in a way that still lets the work be done (rather
than being undone and in your queue).
3) Counseling. It's not a four-letter word. Someone to talk to, voice your
concerns to, and trust. If you're religious, your priest or minister. If
you're still close to some friends outside your company, perhaps from college
or something, that can be your confidante, then that's a good option too. But
I still prefer the counselor approach. They're trained to help you.
4) Like tmaly said, something outside work that's not
programming/computering/managing. Being able to shut your mind off for an hour
or two while going for a hike or a jog or cleaning out weeds in the garden is
remarkably restorative. It pairs well with things like meditation. In fact,
once the act becomes rote then it becomes meditative. The mind is free to
wander while a minimal portion of the brain focuses the body on the act.
~~~
CorvusCrypto
I have some things that fall into the category of #4 though I have been
getting more stressed and losing time and motivation for them which makes your
#2 advice seem extremely attractive to me. And of course vacation, as I
replied to tmaly, is in the back of my mind also.
I don't know why, but at first read counseling just put a negative thought
into my head, but on further thinking it sounds like a really good idea and
would compliment delegation of tasks to reduce stress or at least help me deal
with it.
Thanks for the reply, this helps!
~~~
Jtsummers
There's a strong anti-counseling stigma in the US. We're seen as weak
(especially for men) if we pursue it.
However, I recommend it heartily. A bad counselor is bad, get out of that
situation. You may have to seek out a few before you find one you're
productive with. But a good counselor offers a nice sounding board for life
and work, and can help you develop coping strategies for dealing with
stress/anxiety. Time management, task management, etc. Prioritizing tasking at
work and your work/life balance. They're also a good, trusted person to go to
just to say things to, not even to get a response from. Being able to voice
what's going on in your mind and concerning you is a remarkably good way to
relieve a lot of your burden. Sometimes, just the act of describing what's
going on is what you need to help kick yourself in the pants and reorient
yourself.
A journal, again like tmaly suggested, is a good way to do this in a private
fashion for those things you still don't feel comfortable discussing with
another person.
------
soulnothing
Are you satiated, at work and after. When looking at burnout it's not just the
hours at work. It's the time after as well. To perform you need to be happy,
in all areas.
As noted a vacation is a good idea. You may not be able to take a big
vacation, but just getting away. Going on a drive for the weekend, or stay
somewhere else. The idea is to reset yourself. This is a short term fix, then
you need to figure out how you got to this point. This weekend I went down to
my parents and just helped around the house. It was a simple way to reset.
Back to being satiated. If your not satiated work will just seem like a drag.
It's not just tech, sometimes you need to satisfy the creative side of your
brain. Indulge in arts, try a new hobby, go to some new spots. Do something
you never thought you would. If work isn't satisfying and you find it almost
monotonous. Hence staring at the screen how can you rectify it.
Addressing and preventing burn out is a multi step process. First you need to
recoop enough energy to make a long term goal. This sometimes sets you a bit
back. But once you take a step back, regroup. You can objectively look at what
started this process.
I've been through several bouts of burn out. It's tough but it gets better.
------
tmaly
Try an app like headspace, the free 10 sessions were a great help for me.
The 5 minute journal is also a good way to get some perspective.
Having something non computer like hiking or gardening I find also helps.
If its really bad, a vacation to some country with a vastly different culture
helps.
~~~
CorvusCrypto
Vacation is a word I hear a lot these days. I definitely have been itching to
plan a week or so out of country as you suggest. Will also checkout the
headspace app, too, thanks! :)
------
sitkack
Don't go as hard. Only Jack Reacher can go that hard, for that long.
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Former Liberian President had been a long time CIA Agent - stfu
http://www.rawstory.com/rs/2012/01/20/alleged-war-criminal-charles-taylor-worked-for-cia-report/
======
Kynlyn
I'm guessing the CIA first chose innocent Boy Scouts and den-mothers, but when
that strategy didn't pan out, they probably decided to work with folks that
were climbing in power and stature at the time.
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Show HN: In-browser orientation-based VR - richtr
http://people.opera.com/richt/release/demos/orientation/virtualreality/
======
richtr
Best viewed in Chrome/Opera/Firefox Beta for Android.
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Spleeter: Extract voice, piano, drums, etc. from any music track - dsr12
https://github.com/deezer/spleeter
======
mwcampbell
For your listening pleasure, here's a full-length demo. I decided to use the
Jonathan Coulton classic "Re Your Brains", because I can legally share and
modify his music under its Creative Commons license.
First, the original:
[https://mwcampbell.us/tmp/spleeter-demo/jonathan-coulton-
re-...](https://mwcampbell.us/tmp/spleeter-demo/jonathan-coulton-re-your-
brains/original.mp3)
Now the derived stems:
Vocals: [https://mwcampbell.us/tmp/spleeter-demo/jonathan-coulton-
re-...](https://mwcampbell.us/tmp/spleeter-demo/jonathan-coulton-re-your-
brains/stems/vocals.mp3)
Accompaniment: [https://mwcampbell.us/tmp/spleeter-demo/jonathan-coulton-
re-...](https://mwcampbell.us/tmp/spleeter-demo/jonathan-coulton-re-your-
brains/stems/accompaniment.mp3)
Note: I'm not affiliated with this project or Mr. Coulton. I just think this
is a cool project and wanted to share.
~~~
codedokode
While it's a great technology, the result sounds somewhat robotic. On the
original recording the voice sounds soft, but after separation it sounds like
it is synthesized or passed through a vocoder, something is missing. The voice
contains pieces of strumming sound. Guitar also sounds "blurred", as if
someone cut an object from the picture and blurred the cut to make it less
visible. Clap sound is distorted, on the original recording it sounds the
same, but after separation it sounds different every time, as if it was
filtered or compressed with low bitrate.
It is amazing how the ear manages to distinguish all the sounds without
distortion.
~~~
jacquesm
> While it's a great technology, the result sounds somewhat robotic.
That's like complaining about how bad the pig plays the violin. This is
absolutely incredible. The complexity level for this problem is right off the
scale and the software does a passable job of it. Given some time and more
training data and a few more people working on it this has serious potential.
~~~
mikorym
I think you meant how well the pig paints. [1] [2]
[1] [https://pigcasso.org/wp-
content/uploads/2018/12/7.jpg](https://pigcasso.org/wp-
content/uploads/2018/12/7.jpg) [2] Also, I am not affiliated with anything in
particular that has been mentioned, or with the pig.
~~~
jacquesm
I think the original was in relation to pigs dancing.
------
voicedYoda
I gave a talk at pycon this year about dsp [1], specifically some of the
complexities surrounding this. I came across a few other ml projects that
claimed to do this as well, and the biggest hold up is getting enough properly
trained data, tagged appropriately, in order to let the models train
correctly. in the git repo of this project they also explicitly state you need
to train on your own data set, though you can use their models of your like.
YMMV. I will love to try this out, as it's definitely a complex bit of audio
engineering. That said, i loved learning everything i did preparing for my
talk and need to finish up some other parts of the project to get the jukebox
working... Maybe this will help :)
1\.
[https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=fevxy-s0vo0](https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=fevxy-s0vo0)
~~~
lubujackson
Seems like most music (from the 70s on at least) is recorded multi-track and
the data is out there, just not accessible to anybody. If you ever watch Rick
Beato videos, he takes classic songs and isolates vocal/drum/etc. tracks all
the time, I'm not sure how he has access to them:
[https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLW0NGgv1qnfzb1klL6Vw9...](https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLW0NGgv1qnfzb1klL6Vw9B0aiM7ryfXV_)
But you probably don't need to bother with old recordings since there is SO
MUCH music being produced via tracking software right now I feel like it
should be possible to get a pretty big dataset - the difference being, of
course, professional production that affects how all these things sound in the
final mix.
Although... if you have enough songs with separated tracks, couldn't you just
recombine tracks and adjust the settings to create a much, much broader base
for training? Just a dozen songs could be shuffled around to give you a base
of 10,000+ songs easily enough. That might lead to a somewhat brittle result
but it would be a decent start.
~~~
abraae
Rick says in one of his videos that he and some of his buddies have got old
copies of the original source (separated) tracks, and they kind of pass them
around between each other.
I find that pretty amazing given the litigiousness of some in the music
industry, but there we are.
Side note: I discovered Rick Beato a few months ago and I've watched heaps of
his videos. It's really fascinating hearing old classics torn down to their
constituent parts. Here's one of my favourites of his:
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ynFNt4tgBJ0](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ynFNt4tgBJ0)
(Boston - More than a feeling).
~~~
ehnto
Rick Beato is excellent. Nahre Sol and Adam Neely also do great analyses of
things. Adam in a more theory oriented way and Nahre in a more feeling and
composition focussed way; "Funk as digested by a classical musician" for
example looks at funk to try and find the key structures of the style which
illuminates things I might not have noticed otherwise.
~~~
mushishi
Also 8 bit music theory has very solid video essays on varying compositional
concepts that are reflected using game music. I actually find his work most
consistently satisfying. Neely and Beato are great but lower s/n ratio. Nahre
not enough watches to say but thumbs up for her, too.
Don't forget JazzDuets's channel. His content seems to be most mature and uses
actual playing a lot to tune your ear. I find him actually a bit too advanced
for my level but I like a lot his very humble and friendly personal touch.
------
jacquesm
This is very timely. I've been working for about 3 months now on a utility
that transforms mp3's to midi files. It's a hard problem and even though I'm
making steady progress the end is nowhere in sight. This will give me
something to benchmark against with for instance voice accompanied by piano.
Thank you for making/posting this.
For an idea how this project is coming along:
[https://jacquesmattheij.com/toccata.mp3](https://jacquesmattheij.com/toccata.mp3)
Yes, it's terrible :) This particular file the result of the following
transformations:
midi file -> wav file (fluidsynth)
wav file -> midi file (my utility)
midi file -> wav file (fluidsynth once more)
wav file -> mp3 file (using lame)
Of course it also works for regular midi files (piano only for now). The
reason why I use the workflow above is that it gives me a good idea how well
the program works by comparing the original midi file with the output one.
But I did not yet have a way to deal with piano/voice which is a very common
combination so this might really help me.
Possible applications: automatic music transcription, tutoring, giving regular
pianos a midi 'out' port, using a regular piano as an arranger keyboard,
instrument transformation and many others.
Having fun!
Edit: I've done a little write-up: [https://jacquesmattheij.com/mp3-to-
midi/](https://jacquesmattheij.com/mp3-to-midi/)
~~~
IAmGraydon
Just FYI in case you weren't aware - Ableton Live and several other DAWs have
this capability built in. It's far from perfect, but great for humming a
melody and then quickly turning it into MIDI.
~~~
alez
There’s a pretty cool library from Googles Magenta team that does piano
transcription pretty well. [https://magenta.tensorflow.org/onsets-
frames](https://magenta.tensorflow.org/onsets-frames)
They say it’s only really good for piano, but I definitely use it for all
kinds of samples. Great for inspiration
~~~
jacquesm
So, I used it to run the same toccata test, here are the results:
The Magenta code:
f_measure 71.56 precision 65.75 recall 78.49 accuracy 55.72
My little batch of code:
f_measure 77.74 precision 93.40 recall 66.57 accuracy 63.58
Interpreting the results is tricky, they are obviously better on 'recall' but
that is at the expense of being _much_ less precise which gives a much better
result for my code; besides it is nicer to listen to because there are far
fewer spurious notes.
My code also runs about 100 times as fast and uses very little in terms of
resources. So, rather than being depressed it looks like I'm on to something
:)
~~~
alez
Oh wow that's extremely promising! Yeah the magenta thing destroys my browser
when I run it. Still feels like magic though haha. I would be extremely
interested in some other options so good luck!
~~~
jacquesm
Thank you! If you have any files you want me to test with then feel free to
send them, email is in my profile.
------
czr
messed around with the 2stem model for a bit and it's reasonably good. I think
phonicmind is still a bit better - phonicmind tends to err on the side of
keeping too much, while the 2stem model tries to isolate aggressively and
often damages the vocal as a result (distorting words by losing some
harmonics, or losing quiet words entirely)
example:
[https://files.catbox.moe/wjruiv.mp3](https://files.catbox.moe/wjruiv.mp3)
(phonicmind)
[https://files.catbox.moe/uuzot3.mp3](https://files.catbox.moe/uuzot3.mp3)
(spleeter 2stem)
you can hear spleeter does better at actually taking out the bass drums, but
phonicmind _never_ loses or distorts any part of the vocal, while 2stem
occasionally sounds like singing is through metal tube (harmonics are
missing). will try to read instructions more carefully and see if there's some
way to fix.
~~~
roryokane
For those who, like me, hadn’t heard of PhonicMind before, it’s an online
service at [https://phonicmind.com/](https://phonicmind.com/) that charges $4
to $1.5 per song to separate out vocals, drums, bass, and the rest of the
sounds. You can upload any audio file to that website and get a 30-second
preview of separated parts for it.
------
lreichold
An interesting alternative approach for instrument sound separation is to use
a fused audio + video model. So, given that you also have video of the
instruments being played, you can perform this separation with higher
fidelity.
I was fascinated by the work done by “The Sound of Pixels” project at MIT.
[http://sound-of-pixels.csail.mit.edu/](http://sound-of-pixels.csail.mit.edu/)
~~~
renaudg
That’s quite clever but not really practical : instruments heard in most music
produced today aren’t "played" by humans.
------
ooobo
Gave this a go, it's an easy install with pip, and results are pretty quick
even on an old macbook. Splits into 2stems (vocals/accompaniment) on some
random songs I chose actually quite good using the pretrained models provided.
Of course, ripping the vocals out of the accompaniment takes out a good chunk
of the middle frequencies so some songs sound a bit wonky. Worth a play if you
are interested.
~~~
tomrod
Same thoughts here. I ran _Thriller_ , _Alligator_ by Of Monsters and Men, and
_In Hell I 'll be in Good Company_ by The Dead South on the 2 / 5 / 4 stems,
respectively. Impressive results. Definitely agree that some of the middle
frequencies show some error.
It would be really cool to create "music mappers"/life sounds tracks like what
you can do with pictures & art styles (e.g.
[https://medium.com/tensorflow/neural-style-transfer-
creating...](https://medium.com/tensorflow/neural-style-transfer-creating-art-
with-deep-learning-using-tf-keras-and-eager-execution-7d541ac31398))
~~~
colorincorrect
known nothing about the results, i suspect that mid-ranges are poorer mainly
because human frequency response is most sensitive towards mid-range aka
vocal-pitch frequency
------
iamchrisle
Non-open source products that also separate vocals from music if you need
something more "professional".
One-click process: Xtrax Stems 2 ([https://audionamix.com/technology/xtrax-
stems/](https://audionamix.com/technology/xtrax-stems/))
Professional: ADX Trax Pro 3 ([https://audionamix.com/technology/adx-trax-
pro/](https://audionamix.com/technology/adx-trax-pro/))
Both products use a server which have a much larger pre-trained models. The
professional one has added features such as handling sibilance, GUI to edit
note following as a guide for the models, and an editor tool for extracting
using harmonics.
(Note: I don't work for this company. I do pay for / use their products, and I
also happen to know someone who works there.)
------
xamuel
I wonder how it would fare on Pink Floyd's "Sheep", where vocals seamlessly
transform into instrumentals and it's impossible to tell where one ends and
the other begins.
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3-oJt_5JvV4](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3-oJt_5JvV4)
(skip to around 1:40)
------
SemiTom
Interesting to read Thomas Dolby's thoughts on music/technology interfaces--
particularly with VR [https://semiengineering.com/thomas-dolbys-very-
different-vie...](https://semiengineering.com/thomas-dolbys-very-different-
view-of-progress/)
------
Intermernet
I'd love to see how this compares with Celemony Melodyne. As far as I've been
able to determine, Melodyne doesn't use ML, but it's hard to find out exactly
what it _does_ use.
Either way, an open source competitor to Melodyne is a welcome addition!
~~~
SyneRyder
That's the second time I've seen someone mention Melodyne for separating
vocals from a full song source - I don't think that's something it can do?
Melodyne is for tuning vocals / instruments & correcting timing on already
isolated tracks.
~~~
czr
melodyne's editing interface lets you remove different notes from a polyphonic
track. so if it's just vocals + other tonal sounds, you can manually remove
the other tonal sounds. example:
[https://youtu.be/2ZjdDatxTaQ?t=83](https://youtu.be/2ZjdDatxTaQ?t=83)
~~~
vonseel
Hmm, never tried that with melodyne myself and the video you posted isn't a
great example of an accurate vocal extraction - those are more like vocal
chops and are already pretty dirty to begin with. Based on my experience with
Melodyne, I'd be surprised if you could cleanly extract a plain singing vocal
without tons and tons of work.
------
bravura
Is the paper, "Spleeter: A Fast And State-of-the Art Music Source Separation
Tool With Pre-trained Models", available yet? What is the methodology?
~~~
czr
they made an extended abstract for ismir:
[http://archives.ismir.net/ismir2019/latebreaking/000036.pdf](http://archives.ismir.net/ismir2019/latebreaking/000036.pdf)
methodology is a separate u-net per instrument type to predict a soft mask in
spectrogram space (time x frequency), then they apply that mask to the input
audio. fairly standard.
------
davidy123
I look forward to a day I can click a button to watch videos online without
any unnecessary and distracting background music (though it would be better if
there were an option and precedent to offer unornamented narrative in video
players). The next step after this would be to have live 'music cancelling'
headphones for the grocery store (if such a thing still exists).
~~~
swagasaurus-rex
Wow. Office background noise mute.
The headphones can filter out speech that isn't above a certain threshold.
Coworkers nearby can be heard loud and clearly.
Music can play at volume then quiet itself when it detects a person speaking
directly to you.
Maybe even a training button to inform it that it is false-positive-ing
background noise, or true negative and silencing a co worker you would like to
hear.
------
huskyr
This is incredible. I made an example using David Bowie's "Changes". A bit
robotic, but even the echo is still present in the vocal track.
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KPlmrq_rAzQ](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KPlmrq_rAzQ)
------
iagooar
Does it work with spoken word as well? My use case: improve podcast quality by
extracting the vocals only, and leaving out all background and accidental
noise.
~~~
ssttoo
Not free nor open source but you can try a plugin called izotope Rx for this
purpose
------
clashmeifyoucan
I wonder how this compares to Open Unmix ([https://github.com/sigsep/open-
unmix-pytorch](https://github.com/sigsep/open-unmix-pytorch)), that one calls
itself state-of-the-art as well and is done in collaboration with Sony from
what I see of their paper.
~~~
clashmeifyoucan
Oh I just found out their paper,
[http://archives.ismir.net/ismir2019/latebreaking/000036.pdf](http://archives.ismir.net/ismir2019/latebreaking/000036.pdf).
It's pretty competitive.
------
alez
Tried it on “Halleluwah” by CAN, had to hear those drums:
[https://soundcloud.com/alezzzz/can-halleluwah-drums-
extracte...](https://soundcloud.com/alezzzz/can-halleluwah-drums-extracted)
Finding drum breaks in music is very time consuming. This is gonna be amazing
for music production. Think how 90s jungle would’ve been if they had access to
every drum take ever
~~~
smrq
Wow, this is the isolated track I never knew I needed to hear.
------
exogen
The extracted vocals sound great! But the resulting accompaniment tracks I've
heard so far (tried on a handful of songs) aren't of usable quality for most
purposes where you'd want an instrumental track – they're too sonically
mangled.
Since people are often interested in doing this for a handful of specific
tracks and not necessarily en masse, I'd be curious about what a human-
assisted version of this could look like and whether you really could get
near-perfect results...
What if you explicitly selected portions of the track you knew had vocals, so
it could (1) know to leave the rest alone and (2) know what the backing track
for the specific song naturally sounds like when there's no singing happening?
It could try to match that sonic profile more carefully in the vocal-removed
version.
Or what if you could give it even more info, and record yourself/another
singing (isolated) over the track? Then it would have information about what
phonemes it should expect to find and remove (and whatever effects like reverb
are applied to them).
------
BeeBoBub
I am working on a product which makes use of this technology. I generate vocal
pitch visualizations for karaoke
[http://pitchperfected.io](http://pitchperfected.io)
~~~
noja
Cool - but your website needs some work. It looks like a landing page to
gather interest rather than something backed by a real product. Show us some
videos and singing, before and after, etc.
------
gdsdfe
Wait the implications of this are huge for electronic music DJs
~~~
exikyut
The audio (^F soundcloud) sounds a little warbly... if that can be largely
mitigated, then yes, remixes will never be the same
~~~
yowlingcat
While not great, the phase smearing is orders of magnitude better than most
vocal isolation plugins I've used. I only expect it to get better. Very cool!
------
cma
Is there anything like this for images? Meaning essentially trying to
decompose back into photoshop layers. Wouldn't be feasible for lots of stuff
that is completely opaquely covering something, but I'm thinking for things
like recoloring a screen print, etc.
~~~
exikyut
I have no idea how I managed to re-find these, but I did. Two recent
moderately-related/relevant posts:
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20978055](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20978055)
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21220458](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21220458)
------
mettamage
Ah, so this should've been the answer to my ask HN [1].
;-)
Edit: I see someone added it in as an answer 14 hours ago. Well, you have my
vote ^^
[1]
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21399838](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21399838)
------
orloffm
Played with it. The quality of the result is mostly dependent on the amount of
clipping in the source file. Basically, all post-90s masters produce weird
results with orcs singing in the background. And classics from 60s yield
fantastic results.
~~~
cantankerous
Might be the training data?
------
strags
This is awesome. I now have Guns'n'Roses playing in my office, and Axl Rose is
a faint voice coming from the garage.
------
murat124
I gave it a try with Megadeth's Holy wars[1], was expecting something like
this[2] but got very deep audio. Not sure why but perhaps it's because bassist
David Ellefson uses pick which gives the percussive sound and it suits to
Megadeth.
Any parameter I could use with spleeter to get a similar output?
[1]
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9d4ui9q7eDM](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9d4ui9q7eDM)
[2]
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uWkykQHsJ-Y](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uWkykQHsJ-Y)
------
mothsonasloth
I'm trying to find something to generate tracks without guitar. Then I can
cover them with my guitar. Will this software help me?
~~~
ksherlock
depends? It splits it into 2 parts (vocal, everything else), 4 parts (drum,
bass, vocal everything else), or 5 parts (drum, bass, vocal, piano, everything
else). piano isolation is the weakest.
If you want to play along to drum + bass, then yes.
------
sheinsheish
Can we use sample libraries to write, record and simulate desired stems for
training? I guess the more naturally played the better?
------
theLotusGambit
Not only are the results good, but the music is generated decently rapidly.
The implications are clear: whoever wants to make a quick fortune on YouTube
should start converting and uploading truckloads of songs as fast as possible.
The demand is there. I could easily see that bringing in millions of views.
~~~
ErikAugust
They’d still get tagged for copyright.
------
jknz
On iOS, Chord AI [1] gives pretty good results for the guitar chords of any
music surrounding the phone.
[1]: [https://apps.apple.com/us/app/chord-
ai/id1446177109](https://apps.apple.com/us/app/chord-ai/id1446177109)
~~~
ohlookabird
That's sounds pretty nice! Anyone know an Android version? I just checked
Yamaha Chord Tracker and MyChord, but both don't seem to be able to use the
microphone.
------
toptal
Can someone provide a demo link of source music vs. output?
~~~
tomrod
I gave it a test using the project audio sample. Neat stuff.
[https://soundcloud.com/thomas-
roderick-836298141/sets/spleet...](https://soundcloud.com/thomas-
roderick-836298141/sets/spleeter_splits)
~~~
semiotagonal
Holy shit that works way better than I expected. The github project should
link to this or a similar example, the technical description doesn't do it
justice.
~~~
unlinked_dll
I really disagree. It sounds... awful. On par with other approaches, sure, but
the main vocals sounds like a case study in digital artifacts and the
accompaniment sounds like there's a filter automated over the track.
Far from useful.
~~~
semiotagonal
Do you know of something superior?
------
amelius
> Spleeter is the Deezer source separation library with pretrained models
Curious, what is Deezer using this for?
~~~
neohaven
Gonna guess beat/mood/song analysis.
~~~
amelius
Yeah but they can use the raw song for that I suppose.
~~~
cbHXBY1D
Easier way to match voices?
------
tomrod
This is so neat! I went looking a few months back for something like this, and
the best I found was Google's Magenta.
It would be really cool to use this to feed into Magenta. Think of the
mashups!
------
esfandia
Karaoke with the most obscure songs!
~~~
xamuel
And even better, karaoke that doesn't suck--most karaoke tracks are covers by
cheap bands and you can clearly tell the inferior quality if you're familiar
with the song.
~~~
megablast
Sure, not to mention the awful singing accompanying most karaoke tracks.
------
hodder
Very cool. A close friend of mine (and lead singer in our band May years ago)
recently died and we have a couple great recordings from 2 decades ago of his
vocals. When we recorded the rest of the instruments they were DI into a Boss
BR8. The lyrics sound awesome but the guitar and drums are recorded poorly.
This may give us a chance to split the vocals out of the final tracks, and re-
record the tracks as a tribute.
Much appreciated.
------
antman
How could we extract anything but the voice e.g. karaoke?
~~~
aasasd
I'd guess extract the voice and then subtract it from the rest with something
like Audacity. I'm not sure which operation would do that, but I believe that
it exists.
Also, other comments here speak of “separating into the voice and
accompaniment,” so maybe the model/program already do exactly what you need.
~~~
marcan_42
Invert and mix.
When you have an instrumental version of a song (from the same stems as the
vocal version) this is already one way to get the vocals out without any fancy
machine learning. The main tricks besides what you can do in Audacity like
that are properly time-aligning the tracks (even if they drift a bit) and
compensating for phase issues and compression. I wrote a dirty tool that does
that and I've been meaning to turn it into some kind of nicer GUI version.
~~~
navjack27
I've been doing something like this for a bit in Audition. Center channel
extract > invert phase > save as wav > create multi-track project > add
original > add modified > up the volume on the vocal extracted modified
version until the vocals go away
Or you can do the exact opposite and instead of center channel extracting the
vocals you can remove the vocals and use this method to better isolate vocals.
Although if things do fun stuff with stereo it might not be exact.
------
fdej
Has anyone tested this with Glenn Gould recordings?
~~~
jacquesm
Hehe, you want to split his singing and humming into a separate track?
------
jefftk
I have a large number of multitrack recordings of contra dances if anyone
wants to try training this on them.
~~~
exikyut
_You_ train this on them! (And then put the results on SoundCloud or YouTube.)
------
dgreensp
Are there any examples I can listen to?
~~~
tomo-makes
I set up a Colab notebook to try spleeter out for myself. You can try picking
up your favorite mp3, renaming it to "audio_sample.mp3", uploading it to the
Colab, and spining all the cells on the notebook. Enjoy.
[https://colab.research.google.com/gist/tomo-
makes/33b9bc7f22...](https://colab.research.google.com/gist/tomo-
makes/33b9bc7f22e257468ff9bbc7122a6e82/spleeter-multi-source-separation-
demo.ipynb)
~~~
sillysaurusx
This is great. Thank you! I extended the notebook with an example of
downloading a youtube video, extracting the audio, then feeding it through
spleeter.
Notebook:
[https://colab.research.google.com/gist/shawwn/0f286f5d4bc22e...](https://colab.research.google.com/gist/shawwn/0f286f5d4bc22e04d745657ba3ccad26/spleeter-
multi-source-separation-demo.ipynb)
~~~
tomo-makes
Cool! That's so handy.
------
yoogidoky
The long story about Spleeter : [https://deezer.io/releasing-spleeter-deezer-
r-d-source-separ...](https://deezer.io/releasing-spleeter-deezer-r-d-source-
separation-engine-2b88985e797e)
------
nagateja_1995
I was just testing it out on Gazal, it seems to work perfectly. But when it
seems to fail with Qawwalis. My understanding of how this works. Is it safe to
assume that the training data from dreezer lacks enough examples of Qawwalis?
------
seventhtiger
Aren't all the most popular audio formats lossy? Extracting full data from
lossy compression requires reconstruction. Even if they are able to completely
extract all tracks they would have gaps and be very low quality.
~~~
ZeikJT
If you want lossless audio in a decently popular format then just go looking
for FLAC, you'll definitely find some. Even bandcamp uses it [1].
[1] -
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/FLAC#Adoption_and_implementati...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/FLAC#Adoption_and_implementations)
------
xiphmont
Just tried it on _Meet The Sniper_. Disappointment :-(
[This was an unreasonable test, and it did really well considering the likely
training set. I bet it could do much better with better data. Still... man, I
was so hoping for magic.]
------
lebuffon
Has someone in the Intelligence community approached the author? Oops that's
classified. :)
This has implications for extracting sounds from noisy recordings or am I off
base? Does it only track pitch patterns?
~~~
jononor
Source separation of speech and speech denoising is a well established field,
more researched in general than music source separation. Intelligence officers
very likely have access to a range of well-performing ML tools for extracting
speech.
------
haywirez
Is there a known approach that attempts to separate all distinct sounds
(timbres rather than pitch) in a track? Specifically targeted at electronic
music, not standard acoustic ensembles.
~~~
dancek
That's an interesting idea. Many instruments have greatly varying timbres,
though. Combining the timbres back to instruments would require another level
of processing.
------
jMyles
Somewhat of a tangent, but does anyone have a recommendation of an open source
(ideally python) program that can make MIDI from piano audio?
~~~
jacquesm
I've been working on this for the last 3 months.
Can you send me your audio file? I'll send you back the midi I can generate;
it won't be perfect but it might be usable. See comment elsewhere in this
thread.
~~~
jMyles
Awesome! Is your project open source? Can't wait to see it.
Here's the first (but by no means only) file I have in mind:
[http://ocrmirror.org/files/music/albums/ff7/MP3/3-02%20Shnab...](http://ocrmirror.org/files/music/albums/ff7/MP3/3-02%20Shnabubula%20-%20Stone%20Eyes%20\(The%20Great%20Warrior\).mp3)
Stone Eyes from the Final Fantasy VII tribute album Voices of the Lifestream.
------
odiroot
Well, can it extract the bass track from "And the justice for all"?
------
amelius
Can this also separate the backing vocals from the lead singer?
------
marsknight
Thank you!! This is really amazing :)
------
unlinked_dll
demo links would be helpful
------
jsilence
Karaoke everything!
------
foobaw
This is amazing - so much possible learning for aspiring producers.
------
nycjobsboard
Cool stuff
------
propercoil
Pytorch > TensorFlow
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
EU Formally Accuses Google of Antitrust Violations - simas
http://www.wired.com/2015/04/eu-google/
======
BinaryIdiot
Now this is interesting
> At issue is whether the company uses its position as the dominant search
> engine company to muscle out competition from specialized search services,
> specifically comparison shopping sites, by prioritizing its own Google
> Shopping search results.
Google Shopping results suck but when I search for products almost always is
an Amazon, Walmart, Target and others linked at the top of the results
sometimes higher than the actual company that produces the product. As far as
I can tell you can only get their shopping search results by clicking on
"Shopping" (at least I can't seem to trigger it without that).
I don't understand the issue here. foundem is behind the initial lawsuit and
kinda kicked off this whole thing but they're a search engine. If I owned a
search company I certainly wouldn't want to be federating queries and indexing
them doesn't make sense; why would I index an index when I can just index the
source?
Am I missing something here?
> The European Commission also confirmed that it is opening an investigation
> into Android as well. Although the operating system is open source, meaning
> that any manufacturer can install it on the phones and tablets they sell,
> many core applications, including the Google Play store, are proprietary.
> Manufacturers must enter into special agreements with Google to include
> these proprietary apps. The investigation will attempt to determine whether
> Google is using its position to discourage the inclusion of rival
> applications on Android-based phones.
I don't understand this one as well. These applications require the use of
Google's infrastructure so if you want to use them why shouldn't you agree to
handle them as they want? Besides I think Barnes and Noble's nook and Amazon's
Fire platforms show this is a non issue.
~~~
rhino369
The issue is that Google by being the default search engine could slowly
subsume all the profitable markets that run on the internet.
Once they kill off potential competitors then there is no reason to be
competitive on price or quality.
Think of it as sort of a net neutrality for the search engine. People here are
totally okay with telling Comcast they can't leverage their ISP near-monopoly
to win the video streaming market.
Why should we allow Google to leverage their search monopoly into capturing
other internet markets.
~~~
BinaryIdiot
Except they're not. The default search engine for Firefox is Yahoo, for IE
it's Bing. It's just for Chrome and maybe Safari. They are in no way stopping
or even hindering you from using other search engines. Your example of
Comcast, however? They actually got several local governments to sign
contracts saying no one else could run copper to your home. HUGE difference.
~~~
rhino369
It's been illegal to get an exclusive cable franchise since the early 1990s.
Google probably has more marketshare than Comcast does (even if you only
include areas where Comcast operates).
~~~
BinaryIdiot
> It's been illegal to get an exclusive cable franchise since the early 1990s.
You're conflating issues here. A cable franchise is using the cable in the
ground to deliver television and the fees are paid to the local government
yearly. These are regulated differently than internet access AND installing
new utilities into communities.
> Google probably has more marketshare than Comcast does (even if you only
> include areas where Comcast operates).
Marketshare isn't comparable here. You're trying to compare an (arguable)
utility versus an online service. The entire analogy if flawed; stop trying to
force it.
~~~
rhino369
The initial franchise agreement will cover the costs and fees associated with
the initial installation of getting the wires in the ground. It's illegal for
municipalities to grant any sort of exclusive telecommunication franchise.
I'm not sure what your point is, but nowhere[1] in America is Comcast legally
protected from competition. You can build a new cable network, a new fiber
network, or even wireless.
[1]maybe some super old franchise agreement that has been in tact since 1992
still exists but I doubt it. They are usually about 10 years.
>Marketshare isn't comparable here. You're trying to compare an (arguable)
utility versus an online service. The entire analogy if flawed; stop trying to
force it.
I don't see why categorizing the company as a utility really has anything to
do with it. If you want to get technical, ISPs haven't been treated as
utilities (and despite what journalists say that really isn't what Title II is
about).
I don't see why providing internet access and internet search results are so
wildly different that a comparison can't be made.
------
soxpopuli
What is a Search Engine? Is this some kind of legally regulated category that
says you a) must only return Web results and b) in the form of 10 blue links?
Should a search which a search engine knows the direct answer to (word
definitions, the current weather or time, etc) send you to another site for
the answer. Why are "search engines" prohibited from direct answers, but voice
agents like Siri allowed? Is there something fundamentally different between a
text box and a voice input?
Likewise, if a search engine has indexed data and can return deep links to
other sites formatted differently, why is that different? For example, if you
search for "Playstation 4" and Google simply returned the first 10 hits
(Amazon.com, eBay, Walmart, etc) as a page of 10 blue links like it did in
2006, instead of formatting them in a nice box at the top of the screen with
summary price extracted, would this still be illegal? Why is it legal to
display organic search results as blue links, but if you display them in a box
and call it "Product Search", it's suddenly illegal? This makes no sense to
me. The only difference between the Google Product Search box at the top, and
displaying the links is simply better visual presentation.
The world has moved on from ten blue links. Mobile devices have even more
constrained real estate and network latency pushing the need for summarization
and smart presentation even further. A new class of consumer expects these
devices to almost act like intelligent agents when answering queries.
Is the European Commission saying it will be illegal to build JARVIS or the
Star Trek computer, because a smarter search that doesn't delegate to other
niche search engines, and instead returns direct answers, is unfair
competition?
At the heart of this seems to be the idea that Google search should return
links to other shopping comparison engines instead of direct links to Amazon,
et al. That frankly seems like a good way to hurt customer experience. If you
have a good product comparison engine these days, you're probably going to end
up as a native app anyway.
By the time this EU case winds down (Microsoft's took a decade), the
traditional web search engine might not even exist anymore.
~~~
pjc50
There is the rather delicate issue of copyright here. If you google for
something and the answer is on another page, lifting it from that page is (a)
making a copy and (b) potentially depriving the linked page of revenue.
There is also the question of using the threat to ban people from your search
results (which is calamitous for most businesses) to resolve your disputes
with them.
~~~
soxpopuli
But the linked page is there. Google is indexing Amazon, extracting the photo,
description, and price of the product, displaying it in a box, and making it a
link back to Amazon where it got the data from, what's the problem?
Product Search is just another form of summarization/snippeting that just
presents the data in more digestable format.
Remember Google Fusion Tables? That was an attempt to extract facts from pages
and put them into tables, so if you ask "What's the masses of the planets of
the solar system", you could get a table of 8 planets and masses, with the
results coming from 8 different sites. But the links could still be there to
the original site, it's just formatted as a table instead of as 8 blue links
with summary paragraphs, which is harder for humans to process.
Where do we draw the line? You've seen how Google has a new system that can
automatically caption images with deep neural networks.
([http://techcrunch.com/2014/11/18/new-google-research-
project...](http://techcrunch.com/2014/11/18/new-google-research-project-can-
auto-caption-complex-images/))
Now what if this same system eventually allows the search engine to summarize
your web page by 'reading it', and then auto-generating a paragraph that
explains what it thought it was about?
There'd be no actual direct copying of text (like there is with search
snippets), instead it would be more like a human going to a library, reading a
book, and writing a review
Would this also violate copyright?
------
hodder
As a user of Google search and Android, I want Google to bundle services.
Android would, in my opinion, be impaired if it didn't include Google play,
gmail, chrome, and Google Maps.
Similarly, Google search would be worse for me if it didn't present me with
instantly relevant results like shopping, wikipedia responses, imdb style
results, or quick answers to unit conversions and equations.
Yes Google leverages its dominance in search and mobile to bundle services,
but is this something that the EU should fine Google for? As a consumer, I
don't think so.
~~~
azakai
Microsoft said the same back in the day. And it is true - in the _immediate_
term, consumers benefit from a single vendor integrating all their products
and limiting competition.
The problem happens when you look a little farther ahead. Anti-competitive
measures prevent _other_ companies from offering something even better. Those
products might not exist now, but without an open and competitive environment,
they won't show up. And consumers are very much hurt if that is the case.
~~~
euyyn
What Microsoft did was completely different: They coerced OEMs to not include
Netscape Navigator or they wouldn't license Windows to them. They prevented
users from uninstalling IE claiming technical reasons that were proven false.
And the reason they did those things was, as proven from internal
communications, to protect Windows' monopoly from the threat of portable Java
applications delivered via Netscape Navigator, by asphyxiating Netscape to
death.
~~~
probably_wrong
For comparison, here's what Google did in Germany: After a law was passed
requiring all search engines to pay newspapers for using "small sections of
text", Google gave newspapers two alternatives: Either they gave Google
perpetual, royalty-free access to all their content, or they would be removed
from search results.
Given how much of their traffic and online revenue comes from Google they all
agreed, rendering the law moot.
That strikes me as a very similar situation.
~~~
Oletros
> After a law was passed requiring all search engines to pay newspapers for
> using "small sections of text", Google gave newspapers two alternatives:
> Either they gave Google perpetual, royalty-free access to all their content,
> or they would be removed from search results
Source for that?
~~~
amatriain
It's been widely discussed
[http://www.dw.de/german-publishers-vs-
google/a-18030444](http://www.dw.de/german-publishers-vs-google/a-18030444)
[http://www.reuters.com/article/2014/11/05/us-google-axel-
spr...](http://www.reuters.com/article/2014/11/05/us-google-axel-sprngr-
idUSKBN0IP1YT20141105)
In the end german newspapers gave Google permission to use snippets of content
without paying any royalties. They needed Google News traffic more than Google
needed them.
Which is the reason why spanish lawmakers made a similar law but with a
mandatory royalties clause. Spanish newspapers cannot give an exemption to any
company, under the law paying royalties for using snippets is mandatory
regardless of the content owner wishes. This law is not currently being
enforced, but the consequences are dramatic all the same: Google has shut down
Google News Spain, and other content aggregators are under threat of being hit
with fines at any moment.
And that's why I'm not currently allowing feedbunch.com users to subscribe to
RSS feeds from spanish newspaper publishers, until the situation changes.
Anti-monopoly legislation is fine, but sometimes it can be a hammer that the
big players use to hit each other instead of a tool to help new players get in
the market.
~~~
Oletros
Yes, I know that the law was passed. What I asked for was about the claim
about the ultimatum Google offered to publishers
~~~
amatriain
This is the best link I've found with a quick search
[http://the-digital-reader.com/2014/10/22/german-publishers-c...](http://the-
digital-reader.com/2014/10/22/german-publishers-cave-grant-google-free-
permission-use-snippets-search-results/)
~~~
Oletros
But is still the same, this link doesn't talk about Google given any ultimatum
to publishers.
~~~
amatriain
Germany passed a law intending to make Google pay for using news snippets.
Google simply stopped including snippets from german newspapers.
German newspapers reluctantly gave an exemption to Google so that it would
publish snippets from their websites again.
What more evidence do you need? Perhaps only a letter written in blood and
signed "give us an exemption or else" accompanied with a horse head would
convince you about Google's negotiation tactics here?
~~~
Oletros
> What more evidence do you need?
What evidence? An evidence that it is not a law that forbids putting
snippets,.
The ones doping ultimatum were the German government and the publishers
> Perhaps only a letter written in blood and signed "give us an exemption or
> else" accompanied with a horse head would convince you about Google's
> negotiation tactics here?
Perhaps not the bend of reality that you're doing
I suppose that you also think that in the Spanish case the one doing an
ultimatum is also google.
------
mark_l_watson
While I am in general a fan of Google (like AppEngine, Android, etc.
contracted at Google in 2013), it is important to prevent harming markets due
to effective monopolies. One problem is that anti-competitive practices may
cause long term harm to markets while making consumers happy short term.
Really a tough issue to deal with fairly.
I did notice something odd today in Google search results: I searched for
"surface 3" and the link I wanted was a top paid for ad link. In the past, I
could look down the page and see similar unpaid links, but not today.
------
outside1234
Let the EU shakedown for money begin!
This has nothing to do with anti-trust and everything to do with extracting a
kilo of flesh from a successful non-EU company.
~~~
matt4077
Check page 3 on this list:
[http://ec.europa.eu/competition/cartels/statistics/statistic...](http://ec.europa.eu/competition/cartels/statistics/statistics.pdf).
Of the ten highest cartel fines, only one was levelled against a non-European
company (LG Electronics).
~~~
dublinclontarf
This is because European companies aren't good enough to get to "monopoly"
status, much to the commissions chagrin.
~~~
Oletros
> This is because European companies aren't good enough to get to "monopoly"
> status, much to the commissions chagrin.
I think you misunderstood what the OP said
------
lkbm
What would be a viable way for Google to fix this that doesn't hurt users?
Sure, have Google Chrome installs start with "What do you want as your default
search provider?" But can you do that with Android? How much will it affect
Google Now to have it be connecting to a different search provider, and what
does that mean? If I enter "1+1", or "weather", or "call Bob" or "navigate
home", should it go to my search provider, or to Google Now? (I know the first
two currently go to GWS anyway, but why should they?)
And if integration of services like shopping on GWS are a problem, does that
mean they should be removing the "Shopping" tab and make it just another
result? That would suck. (For me, as a user.) I dunno, maybe long-term it
allows for more competition and innovation, but short term I don't see
solutions that aren't "make your product worse". Even allowing me to choose
plug-in search tabs from other services seems iffy.
~~~
ocdtrekkie
Android is very simple: Google needs to be banned from mandating OEMs install
the whole Google Apps package. Leave it on OEMs to decide what browser,
search, etc. apps to package on their devices. The market, and consumers, will
decide what works.
The Open Handset Alliance is a blatant example of an illegal trust. A large
group of supposed competitors agreeing not to compete.
~~~
soxpopuli
Android gets raked over the coals for years for bad customer experience.
Google attempts to reign in fragmentation and divergent and inconsistent UI
experience, and move more of firmware to Play store so it can issue security
updates to customers without carriers and OEMs blocking.
Google raked over the coals for anti-competition.
Meanwhile, Apple ships iTunes and App Store, which can only be used with their
own cloud stores. They ship iMessage which only works with their Cloud. Apple
Maps. A fitness app. A wallet. A payment system. etc All in a proprietary,
single vendor system, closed source.
If every Android phone's out of box experience was a random collection of OEM
apps that had no common standard, the consumer experience would be terrible.
Switch from a Samsung to an LG device and you might be hit by the fact that
the device has none of the apps you were using on your previous phone, you
have to delete all of the current apps, and reinstall all of your previous
ones, enter all the settings again, all of the login credentials, etc. The
switching cost would be huge and it would cause OEM lock in.
The setup process is a factor in consumer choice. If you are faced with an
onerous gauntlet of selection dialogs for 10+ apps when you start (it's not
just app store, browser, maps, but email, music, video, camera, photos, etc),
consumers are going to be very annoyed. I don't want to spend 30 minutes to an
hour unboxing my phone and "installing", that's what used to happen on PCs.
And what happens when things go wrong. If the user installs a third party app
store, and gets malware, do you think they're going to be blamed, or Google's
Android brand will be blamed? Most consumers aren't aware enough to narrow
down who to blame.
So in the end, you'd be asking Google to assume all the brand risk, all of the
complaints over fragmentation and failure to patch older phones, and making
consumer experience worse.
Apple has none of these problems. Say what you will about their locked down
platform, the one thing you don't have to worry about is inconsistent getting
starting experience or malware from the App Store.
The 'choice' being presented here is the kind of choice hackers and engineers
love, but it's not the kind of choice one's parents and relatives may love.
It's just hobbling attempts to improve the Android experience.
~~~
ocdtrekkie
"User experience" should never be chosen at the expense of "user freedom".
~~~
cromwellian
Spoken like Richard Stallman, which is why GNU/Linux desktop took over the
world right?
If you're so interested in freedom, why aren't you picketing Apple Campus too?
The practical effect of your viewpoint is hundreds of millions of unpatchable
Android ROMs, exposing vast quantities of devices to viruses, and HARMING
actual people.
~~~
anon1385
>If you're so interested in freedom, why aren't you picketing Apple Campus
too?
FSF activists do literally picket Apple events:
[http://cdn.arstechnica.net/01-27-2010/apple-ipad-
protest.jpg](http://cdn.arstechnica.net/01-27-2010/apple-ipad-protest.jpg)
As far as I know they haven't done this at any Google events, but maybe I just
missed it. Either way, the idea that Google is being specially singled out for
criticism by the FSF is pretty laughable and you probably need to leave your
filter bubble if you genuinely believe it to be the case.
------
thrownaway2424
In which we see a difference between EU and US law. US antitrust law exists to
protect the consumer. EU antitrust law, evidently, exists to protect other
competitors.
~~~
AJ007
Thankfully we have leaked documents from the US case.
Excerpt from Ben Edelman, whose done a damn good job over the years not only
watching Google but also companies involved in abusive adware and spyware
practices:
'At the same time, Google systematically applied lesser standards to its own
services. Examining Google's launch report for a 2008 algorithm change, FTC
staff said that Google elected to show its product search OneBox "regardless
of the quality" of that result (footnote 119, citing GOOGLR-00330279-80) and
despite "pretty terribly embarrassing failures" in returning low-quality
results (footnote 170, citing GOOGWRIG-000041022). Indeed, Google's product
search service apparently failed Google's standard criteria for being indexed
by Google search (p.80 and footnote 461), yet Google nonetheless put the
service in top positions (p.30 and footnote 170, citing GOOG-
Texas-0199877-906).'
[http://www.benedelman.org/news/040115-1.html](http://www.benedelman.org/news/040115-1.html)
Were consumers hurt if Google de-ranked content which by even Google's own
standards were better than its own? May be not, but it certainly peels away
any idea of the integrity of algorithmic search.
Google's business is under attack from all fronts today. As business owners
and those employed by internet businesses we are so fortunate as to not have
to rely on Google anymore for our audiences. We have have search from two
major app stores, and more if you are international. Social can deliver new
users at a greater rate than search. There was a day where Google penalized
your company, and the next day you fired everyone.
In the next year or so we may start seeing ultra-cheap Chinese smartphones
flood the market with Google free Android. Interesting thing commenters here
seem to not know, device manufacturers are not allowed to sell any non-Google
Android devices if they sell Google Android.
Idealy some lines are drawn so Facebook doesn't engage in similar abusive
behavior against its users and customers. I don't have high hopes. If
anything, the ability to avoid US penalties and the EU's late reaction time
probably emboldens behavior by market leaders everywhere.
~~~
thrownaway2424
I don't understand what you're getting at. The "product search onebox" does
not drive traffic to Google, it drives traffic away from it. For instance if I
search for "bicycle helmet" the thing at the top of the page is the product
search onebox, it contains five prominent links to sites where I can buy a
bicycle helmet.
So I don't see what you are getting at. If anything, the product search onebox
is the opposite of what the EU seems to be complaining about.
~~~
jdmichal
The question would be, how did those links in the OneBox get there? Is there
harm in being the #1 search result, but not the first "result" on the page,
because there's a OneBox above you with links from a different source?
~~~
thrownaway2424
I don't know. Apparently the merchants provide the information to Google
directly in spreadsheets.
[https://support.google.com/merchants/answer/160637?hl=en](https://support.google.com/merchants/answer/160637?hl=en)
As for your other question about being the #1 result but being ranked below
paying advertisers, I'm not sure. Nobody deserves the #1 spot, it's not a
natural right granted by your creator. In fact "the #1 search result" varies
from query to query and from one user to the next based on their own Google
account, if they have one.
------
baldfat
> At issue is whether the company uses its position as the dominant search
> engine company to muscle out competition from specialized search services,
> specifically comparison shopping sites, by prioritizing its own Google
> Shopping search results.
Anyone else find shopping with Google Search is almost useless and I always
follow up with a search on amazon.com and get a better result?
~~~
dragonwriter
No, but then I don't use either Google Search or Amazon for much online
shopping -- mostly, I go directly to an appropriate (more focused than Amazon)
retailer, though sometimes I use Google Search to _find_ a retailer if I'm
searching for something where I don't already know a set of retailers to
check.
~~~
baldfat
I still find better prices from Amazon than NewEgg or other sites. Makes me
feel guilty though.
~~~
qiaorui
+1
------
Goronmon
I never understood the antitrust angle towards Google search. Is there some
kind of browser or app out there that is forcing people to use Google as their
search engine on all their devices?
~~~
ocdtrekkie
The fact that most people use the default, and that Google mandates the
browser be Chrome and the search be Google for all Chrome web browsers
(largest desktop market share) and Android devices (largest mobile market
share). And that they then prioritize their own products and services in
Search as well.
The issue isn't "everyone is forced to use Google Search" as much as "Google
creates a monopoly through connected use of it's various products and
services".
~~~
mirashii
> and that Google mandates the browser be Chrome and the search be Google for
> all Chrome web browsers (largest desktop market share) and Android devices
> (largest mobile market share)
No, they don't. You're free to use any browser on your desktop. You're free to
use any browser on your Android device. And you're free to go into Chrome
settings and use any search engine in Chrome on any of these devices.
~~~
digi_owl
And much the same could be argued about Microsoft and IE. Yet everyone but
Google Chrome failed to overtake IE.
Defaults are powerful things, as so very few take the time to change them.
~~~
twrkit
Chrome overtook IE because it is (or at least at the time, was) a superior
product.
~~~
digi_owl
And the same could be said about Firefox, yet it never happened.
Damn it, since Firefox canceled their deal with Google the latter has taken to
pitching Chrome whenever a Firefox user visits Google.com.
~~~
ocdtrekkie
Are you even remotely surprised, digi_owl?
------
manulp
>The investigation will attempt to determine whether Google is using its
position to discourage the inclusion of rival applications on Android-based
phones.
Shouldn't this also apply to iOS?
~~~
dragonwriter
> Shouldn't this also apply to iOS?
Perhaps, but the set of entities behind the complaints that triggered the
investigations directed at Google are _specifically_ targeting Google.
If a similar group targets Apple, then maybe we'll see a similar
investigation.
~~~
soxpopuli
By entities, you mean the Microsoft funded astroturf organization FairSearch
and the hydra connected to it.
~~~
ocdtrekkie
It's not really "astroturf"ing when FairSearch prominently displays that it's
an organization owned by Microsoft on their about page:
[http://www.fairsearch.org/about/](http://www.fairsearch.org/about/)
(Meanwhile, Google goes out of their way to hide their ownership of the Open
Handset Alliance, burying the first mention of their name on like the third
page of members.)
~~~
cromwellian
Jake, is that you? (Jake Weisz made an almost identical assertion on G+) Do
you not understand the concept of alphabetic ordering?
Do you really believe Google is trying to hide their relationship to the OHA?
The OHA was announced and formed on Day 1 of the Android release
([http://www.openhandsetalliance.com/press_110507.html](http://www.openhandsetalliance.com/press_110507.html))
No one out there is under any illusion that Google didn't put together and
lead this consortium. What else would they do? You make an OS, one that is
free of charge and open, and you need hardware and software partners onboard,
the only way to do that is to adopt some venue for collaboration.
~~~
ocdtrekkie
Also, I would hardly consider the OHA's MADA a "venue for collaboration". A
venue for control, sure. Collaboration, no.
~~~
cromwellian
Have you attended any OHA meetings? You're making quite a lot of unbacked up
assertions.
Microsoft for years ran many working groups for hardware partners, for
example, the Microsoft groups for DirectX which allowed NVidia, AMD, et al, to
influence and collborate on common specs. Microsoft "led" the discussion, but
NVidia and AMD were clearly able to influence the specs because the API had to
be rationalized around real, existing, and upcoming hardware designs in the
pipeline.
You have a habit to attributing negative and conspiratorial agendas to
everything.
~~~
ocdtrekkie
I'd love to attend an OHA meeting! I'm sure Google's going to open that up.
Oh, wait, the OHA is somewhere around as secretive as the NSA. Although at
least the NSA can claim it's trying to protect people. Google's just trying to
cover their dirty laundry.
That's actually one of the things I'm really hoping for out of these cases. A
judge that won't care about your non-disclosure crud and will post that stuff
in open court.
------
father_of_two
As an EU citizen and consumer, here's my message to European Commission: SCREW
YOU!
I would like to know why is it so hard (and expensive) to buy a car on a
foreign EU country and legalize it on other, I don't know why am I still
paying robbery-like roaming "costs", I don't how is it possible to be
considered fiscal resident simultaneous on 2 different countries and why
citizens has still to resort to individual country-to-country specific deals
to avoid double taxation _within_ EU.
And I could just keep going on... BUT they are worried with a freaking search
engine! Piss off.
~~~
TazeTSchnitzel
> I don't know why am I still paying robbery-like roaming "costs"
The EU has brought down roaming every year, and it'll be soon abolished.
> why citizens has still to resort to individual country-to-country specific
> deals to avoid double taxation within EU
because we don't have a federal Europe
------
1971genocide
I wouldn't be suspicious until I read ".. fine of 6.4 billion .."
What ?
Even BP didn't get that big of a fine when they polluted half of the Atlantic
Ocean.
I don't understand what EU's problem is. If they don't like google and android
please ask your tech graduates to create their own.
The EU is an funny organization. they are not democratically elected. Their
policies is the reason half of EU is bankrupt. The EU should be fined for
bankrupting entire generations of young people in Greece and promoting the
largest transfer of wealth from poor European nations to rich European
nations.
Even assuming Google did participate in behaviour that is anti-competitive
that market that google dominates was created by google !
I like china's approach to this where they forced their countrymen to create
powerful competitor to google. The emphasis should be promotion of wealth
creation and not redistribution. Why doesn't Europe have its own homegrown
search giant ? An EU company would clearly have massive advantage due to the
language barrier. The EU should be paying people to create companies to
compete with google. Or atleast make it a priority to do so. What happens when
google refuses to pay the fine and starts backtracing or treating the EU
market as "not worth it", has the EU though about how it will effect consumers
?
~~~
Crito
> _" Even BP didn't get that big of a fine when they polluted half of the
> Atlantic Ocean."_
BP was not fined as much as they should have been, therefore the EU should go
easy on all other companies from now on? How does that make any sense?
~~~
1971genocide
No,
Everyone should be fined based on how much damage they have caused on the
environment,civilization, etc
Do you seriously think google has done damage worth 6.4 BILLION ?
BP,Shell,Nestle have caused real damage to real humans and the environment and
there seems no outrage or investigation towards them.
Banks in germany have clearly destroyed lives of people financially and no one
is asking any questions ?
Google allegedly tweaked its algorithm to make it slightly inconvenient for
people to use alternative services and now we need to fine google 6.4 BILLION
?
~~~
ocdtrekkie
Google has absolutely done more than $6.4 billion worth of damage to society.
Google's arbitrary automatic penalty systems put people out of business on a
daily basis.
~~~
lamuerteflaca
Of course, what you do not include is that google has enabled businesses to
make trillions of dollars. Put that in your pipe and smoke it.
------
Aoyagi
This might help
[http://www.theregister.co.uk/2015/04/15/what_did_google_do_w...](http://www.theregister.co.uk/2015/04/15/what_did_google_do_wrong/)
~~~
ocdtrekkie
Writing in their PhD paper in 1998, Larry Page and Sergey Brin described paid
advertising as “insidious”, because it “often provides an incentive to provide
poor quality search results”.
Absolutely hilarious.
------
undefined0
In addition to this, Google currently deprioritizes other video search engines
over YouTube because of the recent DMCA algorithm change, as Google forwards
DMCA's to YouTube and doesn't impact the search ranking for YouTube per
notice. It's completely unfair.
------
wstrange
Google's competitors should spend more time improving their products and less
time complaining to the EU.
As an example, google flight search is just hands down better than the
alternatives. It is ultra fast (a killer feature) and has a simple but
intuitive UI.
~~~
1971genocide
I agree.
I am someone who constantly tries out alternative google services. consumers
are always looking for better deals. If there were better search engines,
email clients, etc than google people will be switching in droves.
The reality is there isn't and the solution is not to fine these companies but
to promote the creation of competitors. Given that there is 60% youth
unemployment in may europeans countries I do not see why this is so hard.
This lawsuit just seems like a nice way for lawyers to pocket some money from
the wealth that was created by google at the expense of google and the
consumers.
~~~
ocdtrekkie
Honestly, if you constantly tried out alternative services, you'd probably
have left Google already. I did, and I found many competitors' services
faster, smoother, higher performance, and more configurable. Unfortunately,
they have terrible market share because of Google's anticompetitive business
practices.
~~~
wstrange
Can you give me some examples for flight search?
~~~
ocdtrekkie
I actually can't. My response to the above comment was pretty generic. I don't
fly often, and when I do, it's generally airline specific because of mileage
programs.
------
ocdtrekkie
Very excited to see this happen. The US surely wasn't going to do it, but it's
well past due.
~~~
baldfat
Can you elaborate on your reasons why? I like to hear both sides of an
argument.
I see Google not as a monopoly but as a majority holder where people have
control of what services they use. Are they abusing this position to the
detriment of users and market?
~~~
ocdtrekkie
The problem is that people don't have control of what services they use. The
vertical integration model, used quite successfully by both Google and Apple,
is specifically designed to make it unfavorable or impossible to use
competitors.
At least under the US definition, the practice of "tying" is illegal when you
use your monopoly position in one market to try to monopolize another market.
By using Search to prioritize promoting their other services, they are trying
to capture other markets through their dominance in Search. This is what the
law was written to prevent. Most of my issues stem with how they do this in
Android though, which is a separate investigation the EU is conducting.
Google's Search behavior hurts consumers in a lot of ways. Since Google is the
front door to the Internet, effectively, particularly in Europe where their
market share is nearly uncontested, being an unfavorable result in Google
prevents you from adequately competing. Being "penalized" by Google Search for
any reason can put you out of business.
And Google is now trying to exact their will on the entire Internet through
penalizing sites in Search as a means of activism. For example, choosing to
penalize sites for not using HTTPS, or penalizing sites for not using "mobile
responsive" design, which has at best, subjective appeal.
~~~
fixermark
I'm failing to see an issue with penalizing sites for not using HTTPS.
Google has incentive to maintain the quality of their search results by being
able to make some guarantees that the sites they send visitors to are what
they say they are. It's reasonable to extend that to prioritizing sites that
can be verified over sites that are easily MITM'd.
~~~
ocdtrekkie
The quality of a local business cannot be determined by whether or not they
cough up $70 a year for HTTPS. The quality of content cannot be determined by
whether or not they cough up $70 a year for HTTPS.
Penalizing sites for not using it raises the cost of having an opinion or
trying to run a business on a nearly arbitrary restriction defined by a
monopoly with conflicting business interests who sells web hosting services.
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Statins have no side effects? What our study really found - tokenadult
http://www.badscience.net/2014/03/statins-have-no-side-effects-what-our-study-really-found-its-fixable-flaws-and-why-trials-transparency-matters-again/
======
sushijain
I dream about a tl:dr button for content.
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Backblaze Hard Drive Stats for 2016 - ingve
https://www.backblaze.com/blog/hard-drive-benchmark-stats-2016/
======
Twirrim
Backblaze's environment is abnormal. They do very little to dampen vibration
amongst other things, based on their last pod design. That puts drives under
stresses that don't reflect what you're likely to see in your environments.
What you're seeing is not the most reliable, but the most reliable under
_their_ particular set of bad conditions. The reliability under _your_
circumstances might be wildly different.
Their pod approach even results in worse performance: more vibration results
in more effort spent by the drives trying to keep the head positioned in the
right places, increasing latencies and decreasing read performance. The higher
density they push for with their pods actually compounds this. Drives vibrate.
Fans vibrate (chassis, PSU, CPU, the works) . If you don't pad them all
appropriately, the vibration of the components ends up causing the entire rack
to vibrate. By the time you've got several dozen of drives in the rack, the
whole rack will be feeling the effect.
~~~
slewis
At Google my colleague developed a simple test that made vibration effects
very obvious (this was in 2008). In a server with a bunch of disks, do random
reads or writes on all but one disk. On the final disk, do sequential reads.
Back then you could get on the order of 100MB/s sequential read speed on the
outer edge of a hard drive in ideal conditions. Under this test performance
would dive to something like 10MB/s or worse. All of the seeking would cause
vibration, which caused misreads on the disk under test. When a bad read
happens a hard drive has to wait until the next rotation to try again. We
eventually fixed this with better damping.
~~~
raubitsj
I am that colleague. While it great that Backblaze releases this information,
there are many factors that you need to keep in mind when looking at this
data.
With respect to vibration: we found vibration caused by adjacent drives in
some of our earlier drive chassis could cause off-track writes. This will
cause future reads to the data to return uncorrectable read errors. Based on
Backblaze's methodology they will likely call out these drives as failed based
on SMART or RAID/ReedSolomon sync errors.
~~~
swampthinker
HN is amazing.
~~~
Jgrubb
Threads like this are what it's all about :)
------
softawre
Funny how it is this exact blog post, every year, that really sets it in for
me how fast the last year has gone by.
Thanks for that, I guess.
~~~
atYevP
Time..../sigh
~~~
nthitz
More over I can always expect "Yev from Backblaze here". Hey Yev, miss you
from the mashupfm days!
~~~
atYevP
Heeeey ;-) Yea, I look back fondly on them. Had much less to do, less
responsibility - could spend my day frolicking on the internet...no more!
------
user5994461
Related topic: I'd like to see an update on the enterprise vs commodity hard
drives.
A few years ago, the consensus (and data) was that they were mostly the same
thing and it was arguable to pay double for the enterprise one.
But... in recent years, the consumer market have moved toward ever cheaper,
slower and power savings hard drives (e.g. reduced RPM and stop the disk when
unused for 30s).
That calls for a re evaluation of the situation.
~~~
atYevP
> Related topic: I'd like to see an update on the enterprise vs commodity hard
> drives.
Yev from Backblaze here -> we wrote about this in 2013 and have honestly not
bought too many enterprise drives since, simply because they were more
expensive and the benefit was negligible in our usage. Lately though Seagate
has had a nice run of enterprise drives and they're well-priced, so we might
be giving those more of a shot in the coming months!
~~~
pooloo1
How is the benefit negligible? You are running consumer drives that are not
designed to be run at a 100% load 100% of the time. The drives are not meant
to be spun up constantly; in fact, many of them have mechanisms designed for
them to spin down between use and lower power consumption. It's like
complaining about a drag racer not being able to haul a ton of bricks without
breaking the transmission on a regular basis.
~~~
effie
> _The drives are not meant to be spun up constantly;_
I think having the drives spin constantly is the best for lifespan, because
there are less spinups and thus components wear less.
~~~
Already__Taken
There should be no wear at all once it's running, read:
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Air_bearing](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Air_bearing)
So barring any manufacturing defects that I'm soure would be abundantly clear
early on, it's down to logic or electrical failures.
------
overcast
Always amazed on how far ahead HGST is in reliability. What are they doing
that is 2-6x better in failure rates?
~~~
handruin
I've gone all-in on HGST for personal use because I've seen their results from
Backblaze and also have good luck with them so far. I have 14 of their 4TB NAS
and 22 of the 6TB NAS.
~~~
Symbiote
I'm amazed that personal use requires 188TB of storage.
That's more than my employer's Hadoop cluster...
~~~
avn2109
Maybe he does his own offsite backups with "personal use" HD's in several
physical locations, each in a highly-redundant raid configuration?
Even so it seems like a lot.
~~~
antisthenes
Someone's gotta back up that climate data...
~~~
handruin
Actually...I am doing some of that also.
------
gravypod
I'd love a set of charts made that would plot Hours Runtime vs Failure Rate
and Data Transfer Rate vs Failure Rate.
These tell us little about how good these drives hold up, it tells us more of
the churn cost that backblaze has.
------
ents
Has anyone made a failure rate vs current price chart for all drives included
in these reports to help guide purchasing decisions for normal people? I'd
love to find where the dollar per terabyte sweet spot is, with respect to
reliability.
------
runjake
Are there any reasonably scientific "death matches" like these for 2.5"
spinning hard drives?
Edit: clarification
~~~
DiabloD3
The 2.5" market has gone almost entirely SSD.
I, too, would like to see more regular SSD death matches.
~~~
cm2187
Particularly given that almost no SSD review says a single word about
reliability, which is my principal concern.
~~~
wmf
Reviewers can't really believe anything the vendors say and can't afford to
run hundreds of SSDs for years to gather real data so there's not much they
can say. By the time there is real-world experience with an SSD model it's
probably obsolete anyway.
~~~
cm2187
Yep. But that's a problem...
------
PascLeRasc
Does anyone have any insight into why they don't have any 10TB drives running?
~~~
atYevP
Yev from Backblaze here w/ some insight -> Yes! They are expensive. We are
looking to test some in our environment very soon, but may not have enough to
(we want at least 45) to truly test them. Once they drop further in price and
we can afford to drop them in some of our pods we'll be all over it!
~~~
jasode
Since you have many years of data, do you explicitly factor the observed the
failure rate patterns of particular brands into cost models when buying
drives? (E.g. more anticipated replacement cost factor when buying Seagate
drives.) Or is the failure data purely for curiosity and not fed back into a
spreadsheet? In other words, does every cost projection treat every brand with
the same predefined anticipated failure rate regardless of brand?
~~~
atYevP
> Since you have many years of data, do you explicitly factor the observed the
> failure rate patterns of particular brands into cost models when buying
> drives?
Sometimes. We do take it in to account but if a hard drive that costs less but
fails more comes around and the failure rate in our environment is within some
"tolerance" we'll get that drive, even if we might see some more failure. So
we do use the data to inform our purchasing department of the "future costs"
of drives, but a good deal's a good deal :)
~~~
jasode
I was worried that my question wasn't worded well enough to make sense but
your calculation answer was exactly what I was looking for. Very insightful
and thanks for sharing the thought process.
~~~
atYevP
I got you :D
------
rbirnie
How are you generating the raw data? Can you share your scripts that are used
to generate it?
I'd be very interested in generating raw data against the disks I maintain as
well, might also be able to share it, which might be interesting since its
primarily SSDs.
------
E6300
I love these statistics, but I would just like some clarification on what
exactly constitutes a "failure". Does the drive have to stop responding
completely, or are a few bad sectors enough to consider the drive "bad"?
~~~
atYevP
Yev from Backblaze here -> We wrote a bit about this in our SMART Stats blog
post -> [https://www.backblaze.com/blog/hard-drive-smart-
stats/](https://www.backblaze.com/blog/hard-drive-smart-stats/).
~~~
E6300
Thanks!
------
izzydata
Why do they buy such weird proportions of each type of harddrive? Do they just
use anything they can get their hands on? If the purpose was actually to test
drive failure rates wouldn't you want to buy similar amounts of every drive?
~~~
andrewbinstock
Drive failure rates can be computed across different batch sizes, provide the
batches are big enough to provide meaningful numbers. There's no need to have
the batches be exactly the same size to get useful and accurate data.
~~~
izzydata
Sure, but a drive count of 45 is not very reliable.
~~~
basch
a pod was 45 drives, so everything they do was in pod units. they would want
at lest 45-90 of a drive to have a complete set.
pods are 60 drives per unit now.
------
frik
Who owns the company that produces the HGST 3.5" drives? (the former Hitachi
drives)
Is it Western Digital? Is it Toshiba? someone else? (afaik the HGST 2.5 and
3.5 production lines were sold to different companies -right?)
~~~
currysausage
It's complicated:
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10057519](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10057519)
~~~
frik
Thanks a lot, it's indeed complicated.
------
cm2187
Does anyone has any experience on the reliability of the Seagate 8TB archive
drives? They are incredibly cheap for cold storage, but a bit concerned by the
Seagate numbers in the Backblaze stats...
~~~
bkruse
Yes, I run about 800 of them now. They have not been as reliable as the 6TB
archive drives. I think this was related to a bad run that seagate had while
manufacturing. Our numbers, overall (with 6,000+ drives now, if I remember
correctly) are much lower than Backblaze's reported failures.
We also classify a drive as failed when it throws ANY SMART error, then it's
diagnosed with Seagate's internal tool (which I believe they are open
sourcing, if they haven't already) and put back into production
Seagate has given us good warranties on these drives as well. Yes a higher
immediate failure rate (first 1 month) with the 8TB drives was annoying, but
they more than made it right replacing the drives.
~~~
cm2187
Thanks!
------
devwastaken
I remember a bunch of people saying that seagate's drives with 15% failure
rates were a 'one time thing'.
------
coralreef
Was not surprised to see Seagate leading the failure rate. Had a portable 2TB
seagate drive fail within weeks. There goes my vacation photos and videos!
~~~
handruin
I had four of the Seagate 3TB drives that are listed in their ratings with
high failure rates. All four of mine died in less than 3-years. They were a
really disappointing purchase.
~~~
aaronmdjones
I had 4 Seagate drives of varying capacity and model numbers die on me within
11 weeks of each other, all were less than 3 years old and one of them was in
use for less than an hour.
Never again.
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Share your experience with selling to stock photo sites. - idheitmann
In the spirit of looking for assets I already have to monetize, I have been thinking about iStockPhoto as a possible way to add a few bucks of monthly income.<p>I have thousands and thousands of hi-res RAW images that just sit on my HD, mostly because I'm unsatisfied with 99% of them (what photographer isn't?).<p>After reading "Developer income report #6", I was struck by the fact that his non-negligible income from iStockPhoto is over a smallish portfolio of a bunch of cat5 and a decently framed picture of a plane being loaded.<p>Please tell HN about your experience of selling stock photography to iStockPhoto:<p>What's the relationship like? Does anyone have problems?
How much money do you make (ballpark) on what size portfolio? Are they photos that you are tremendously proud of or just whatever seems like it might sell?
Are there certain personal rules or guidelines that you keep to when deciding what to submit?
How much post-proc will you do with a photo before submitting it?
What else do you have to say about selling stock photography in general and wherever?
======
idheitmann
I hope that's not insensitive to kreci!
<http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2095979>
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Boston area entrepreneurs blogging about failure - cwan
http://www.boston.com/business/technology/innoeco/2009/08/blogging_about_failure.html
======
sebg
Companies mentioned (four of them) : TipJoy, Lookery, Convoq, Actuality
Systems.
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Facebook says Apple rejected its attempt to tell users about App Store fees - pseudolus
https://www.reuters.com/article/us-facebook-apple-exclusive/exclusive-facebook-says-apple-rejected-its-attempt-to-tell-users-about-app-store-fees-idUSKBN25O042
======
dividedbyzero
Good thing they did, too – it'll strengthen Apple's legal case (because
they're consistent), and weaken Apple's PR case, because this would be at
least somewhat offensive to most people if they realized it happens, and
Facebook running into those limitations is much harder to hide than a million
Smalltime Cos being treated like that.
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Data Shows 2007 Worldwide Global Cooling - single fastest temperature change ever recorded - gibsonf1
http://www.dailytech.com/Temperature+Monitors+Report+Worldwide+Global+Cooling/article10866.htm
======
yzeli
As Benjamin Disraeli's quote goes, "There are three kinds of lies: lies,
damned lies, and statistics." Maybe, if we are in fact able to affect the
climate to the extent that some argue we do, we should concentrate on
developing the necessary pollution requirements to turn Greenland into
Virginia.
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
The TTY demystified - iveney
http://www.linusakesson.net/programming/tty/index.php
======
sgt
Linus Akesson is quite a character, and you can certainly spend some time on
his website. Be sure to check out his chip music
<http://www.linusakesson.net/music/chipmusic.php> and especially the piano
music paired with chip tunes; <http://www.linusakesson.net/music/piano.php>
~~~
Centigonal
You're quite a character yourself!
...When do we get more cooking videos?
------
ChuckMcM
Hmm, I should send him pictures of the guts of my ASR-33 a "real" teletype,
aka tty. :-)
And for the record it is much safer to pronounce it 't-t-y' rather than
'titty' as one professor at school was fond of doing. I was in the unfortunate
situation of being in a meeting to analyze image data where he said "Ok,
everyone grab a titty and lets get to work." Sigh.
According to Gordon Bell, one of Digital Equipment's top engineers, originally
the consoles that computer companies first built used typewriters from the
typewriter companies. Unfortunately the typewriters were found to be
unreliable as they were not designed for continual typing. So they took a
"cheap" teletype from Teletype corporation (which had made Teletype machines
that ran 24/7/365) the model 33 and used that. Even though it was the 'cheap,
lightweight' version of a Teletype it was 100x more reliable than the
typewriters it replaced. Only IBM stuck with their Selectric typewriters as
consoles (but they were the manufacturer of the Selectric so they could beef
them up accordingly, and they could change the font with a type ball).
------
leppie
Blocked by Fortiguard, and reported.
Edit: To clarify. It was blocked. I reported this 'false positive' to
Fortiguard to remove it from their list. They normally clear it in 24 hours.
~~~
vog
I had a look at the page source and didn't find anything remotely "dangerous"
there. There's just a bit javascript to (de)obfuscate the author's email
address, the rest is pretty standard stuff.
When I read this comment, I immediately asked myself: "What's wrong with the
site?"
Now, I'm asking myself: "What's wrong with tools like Fortiguard?"
~~~
leppie
The category was: Proxy avoidance.
Yes, Fortiguard is a POS, but some of us have no choice behind corporate
firewalls/proxies.
------
peterwwillis
_"We have already seen that a TTY device may be configured to give certain
data bytes a special treatment. In the default configuration, for instance, a
received ^C byte won't be handed off to the application through read(2), but
will instead cause a SIGINT to be delivered to the foreground job. In a
similar way, it is possible to configure the TTY to react on a stop flow byte
and a start flow byte. These are typically ^S (ASCII code 19) and ^Q (ASCII
code 17) respectively. Old hardware terminals transmit these bytes
automatically, and expect the operating system to regulate its flow of data
accordingly. This is called flow control, and it's the reason why your xterm
sometimes appears to lock up when you accidentally press ^S."_
A 12-year-old mystery to me is finally solved.
~~~
yuhong
Remember when emacs used these as shortcuts?
------
stcredzero
I'm old enough to have hung out with others breaking into mainframes to play
Star Wars inspired text games on printed-paper TTYs. (I was in grade school at
the time.)
~~~
smashing
I'm younger than that even, but I think its invigorating there is a generation
trying to re-discover the innovations from that era. I wish HN had more links
like this, and not just Facebook/Groupon/Bitcoin market-o-rama.
------
drudru11
One thing missing... all the bugs and misinterpretations in all the various
unixes around this stuff :-)
------
jvehent
OOhhhh ! `kill -l` !!!
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Ask HN: What monitor setup do you prefer for writing code? - webmaven
Over the past few years I've seen a number of recommendations for multiple monitor setups, and I'm curious if any rough consensus has emerged concerning number of monitors, their arrangement, size(s), and orientation(s).<p>Also, is a laptop (and/or it's screen) incorporated in this setup when sitting at your desk, or do you use a desktop computer?<p><i></i>UPDATE:<i></i> How does your use of virtual desktops interact with your monitor setup?
======
cmg
(I'm a web developer, for context.)
At home, I have a 27" Apple Thunderbolt Display, which sits directly in front
of me. My 13" MacBook Pro is on the left. Email, tasks lists, Twitter, etc,
will live on the laptop display while editors, terminals and browsers are on
the main display.
At the office, I have a 27" Monoprice display (the equivalent of the
Thunderbolt Display at 1/2 the cost) that sits directly in front of me, an
Acer 23" display to the right, and my laptop sits to the left. Similar to
home, email and Twitter are on the laptop, code/browsers/terminals are on the
27" display. Task lists are on the Acer, along with browser dev tools (because
of the extra available space).
~~~
webmaven
Is it the same laptop at home and in the office?
------
st3fan
It depends on the type of work for me.
I am super productive on a Dell 34" widescreen for Xcode work where I have
Xcode and the iPhone simulator next to each other. Or when I have to write
documents and can have three browsers side by side.
Multiple displays have never worked well for me. Too much to look at. I prefer
to work on macOS and use different Spaces for different contexts. I disable
the 'smart spaces ordering' and just three-finger swipe between a bunch of
fixed spaces I have setup.
On the complete opposite side of this setup .. my most productive Go or C
hacking has been on a small laptop with a fullscreen terminal or emacs window
with the font size set to 15 or 17 or so. Nothing else on the screen, just
code.
~~~
webmaven
How many lines of code can you typically see at once in Xcode on that
widescreen monitor?
------
inceptionnames
Currently I'm on a single 24" monitor and it's inadequate as I do coding, read
documentation, manage Trello, FTP, have a dozen of so Chrome tabs opened, etc.
Windows 10's side by side feature can be erratic but even when it works a 24"
monitor doesn't have enough real estate for efficient work.
Two 24" would be great. maybe even 3 monitors but they wouldn't even fit on my
desk and would probably require a lot of micro head movement.
~~~
webmaven
I've found that three monitors can definitely be overkill (especially if they
are widescreen) _unless_ at least one is rotated to portrait orientation.
However, I have never had more than two in my own day-to-day setup, so I'm not
sure whether my visceral reaction would eventually pass.
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
The Zen of Erlang (2016) - jxub
https://ferd.ca/the-zen-of-erlang.html
======
autocorr
Does anyone know of erlang being used for scientfic computing? The ideas and
"let it crash" scheme outlined in the article are really cool, and it made me
think how it would actually be very useful for making robust data pipelines in
scientific contexts. For example, in astronomy you would have a telescope
spitting out raw data, and a pipeline processing the data to create more
inspectable intermediate products. Typically these are brittle C/C++ programs,
with lots of state and branching logic, and further they become extremely hard
to refactor because their function is so integral to running the facility.
Erlang seems like it would be very useful for a control and pipeline system
like this that needs to stay alive and not crash, but it's hard to tell (for
me) if it's well suited to numeric/scientific computing tasks. Do people know
of libraries or resources that would be useful for that? I did find this neat
lsci[1] package that aims to call python modules like numpy/matplotlib (which
would be perfect) but is sadly in a nascent state.
[1] [https://github.com/lfex/lsci](https://github.com/lfex/lsci)
~~~
jiangplus
What you need should be a language/framework to better model the complex state
of your system, and handle distributing processing, monitoring, fault
tolerance, recovery and retries.
Consider a functional programming language with immutability and pattern
matching, which should help a lot.
~~~
codetrotter
> Consider a functional programming language with immutability and pattern
> matching, which should help a lot.
So Erlang then
~~~
farresito
Erlang is not particularly performant, and it seems like what the top comment
is describing requires something faster.
~~~
tormeh
You only use Erlang for the orchestration part. Probably Fortran or something
for the actual number crunching.
------
mumrah
If you like this, I recommend checking out Learn You Some Erlang (for great
good)
[http://learnyousomeerlang.com/content](http://learnyousomeerlang.com/content)
~~~
_asummers
His other writings are good too. I recommend Erlang in Anger.
~~~
mononcqc
I've also written [http://propertesting.com/](http://propertesting.com/),
which I'm currently working to turn into a full book with Pragmatic
Programmers (with Elixir translations included as well, so that everyone on
the BEAM can benefit :) )
------
kuon
I really like the "let it crash" philosophy. I have been working with elixir
for a year now and it makes software much more reliable and easier to write.
------
snarfy
"We all know the saying it’s better to ask for forgiveness than permission.
And everyone knows that, but I think there is a corollary: If everyone is
trying to prevent error, it screws things up. It’s better to fix problems than
to prevent them. " [1]
[1] - [https://signalvnoise.com/posts/2440-we-all-know-the-
saying-i...](https://signalvnoise.com/posts/2440-we-all-know-the-saying-its-
better-to-ask-f)
------
Ceezy
That s a MUST READ
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
How to check if a thread holds lock on a particular object in Java - javabuddy
http://javarevisited.blogspot.com/2010/10/how-to-check-if-thread-has-lock-on.html
======
javabuddy
Nice article.
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Friends of AT&T Want New Digital Dead Zones - rosser
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/bruce-kushnick/comments-from-the-front-f_b_2755612.html
======
anigbrowl
This is unusually good reporting (far better than I expect from the HP), and
well worth a read.
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Facebook is building a new campus that includes 1,500 apartments - bedros
https://www.recode.net/2017/7/7/15935032/facebook-mark-zuckerberg-new-campus-expansion-willow-menlo-park
======
ceautery
The company store returns!
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jIfu2A0ezq0](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jIfu2A0ezq0)
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Windows 7 at 1.5% of computers connected to the Internet - iamelgringo
http://www.computerworld.com/s/article/9138798/Vista_peaks_starts_decline_in_share_as_Windows_7_surges
======
hitonagashi
I wonder if Steve Ballmer considers this 1.5% as also a rounding error...
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Ask HN: Good developer Chromebook? - jason_slack
Recommendations on a Chromebook? I'd prefer to spend the money on a model with good RAM and includes cellular. There seem to be so many makes and models it is hard to make sense of.
======
mattbgates
Probably not the best, but I've stuck with the HP 14 with Wifi+SIMM card port
for many years. T-Mobile 200 MB free 4 GB of RAM should allow you to do what
you need to do. Unfortunately, they are now a rare find... as they
discontinued them, so Ebay is the only place you can really find them now.
Don't want to say I burn them out.. but my usage of doing things on them is
pretty high. Lots of PHP programming.
~~~
Kevin_S
Second the HP though I don't code. I ended up picking up a new HP Spectre x360
for all my laptop needs but keep the 14 around for use in a pinch. Incredibly
useful little chromebook and I only paid 300 for it. Was worth twice that
easily.
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Are humans cruel to be kind? - robg
http://www.newscientist.com/article/mg20227081.400-are-humans-cruel-to-be-kind.html?full=true
======
TheSOB88
Holy crap, this article is amazingly interesting. Please repost it or
something. I'd vote for it again.
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Oracle JDK downloads page now require an Oracle account - creatonez
https://www.oracle.com/java/technologies/jdk8-downloads.html
======
creatonez
Note that this is not a near-EOL thing. The Java JDK 12 download is _also_
blocked without being logged into an account.
Ugh. Why oracle?
~~~
quaquaqua1
Having worked there, everything is not just motivated by money and market
control, but specifically short-sighted pursuit of profit.
Anything that Oracle feels will help it maintain its 30% profit margin (as
demanded by Wall St) is pursued with laser-focus. They want to turn Java into
a sales opportunity.
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
American billionaires got $434B richer during the pandemic - xoxoy
https://www.cnbc.com/2020/05/21/american-billionaires-got-434-billion-richer-during-the-pandemic.html
======
ztratar
Article picks the worst possible dates and stretching the truth. Bad
reporting.
------
orangecat
Ridiculous cherry-picking of dates. The middle of March was the lowest point
the market hit after falling around 30% from February.
~~~
xoxoy
The point stands. Nasdaq is near all time highs in what is supposed to be a
major economic contraction.
Amazon and FB both hit All Time Highs post-lockdown. Others are either near
ATH or surpassed it as well.
~~~
nojito
What point exactly?
The stock market != the economy.
~~~
xoxoy
I didn’t say or suggest that?
Billionaires have become wealthier during whatever timeframe you want to pick
pre and post Covid if their company’s stock is higher now in what is supposed
to be a major economic shock than before.
~~~
nojito
Many people have increased their paper wealth from March.
You again claim that the stock market = the economic in your comment. Which
isn't true.
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
VLC Media Player 1.0.0 is finally out - etix
http://blog.l0cal.com/2009/07/07/vlc-1-0-0-goldeneye/
======
jrockway
Considering VLC has worked wonderfully for many years, I am not sure how an
arbitrary version bump is particularly meaningful.
~~~
palsecam
I don't care that much too, but I would say: it's good to see some software
which doesn't suffer from the _eternal beta syndrom_ (like Gmail).
~~~
jrockway
What actual difference does this make? Is VLC 1.0.0 any more stable or secure
than the non-1.0 versions? Would Gmail be any different if it didn't say
"beta"?
(As an aside, VLC still crashes on malformed data because the video codecs are
written in careless C code. Changing the version number isn't going to fix
that bug. )
~~~
palsecam
For VLC: apparently this version 1.0 is effectively not a special release, a
"major version, with long time support". 1.0 just comes after 0.99. However,
quoting one of the developer blog: _"After the longest feature freeze
stabilization period in the project's history, VLC 1.0.0-final is coming at
last..."_ (<http://www.remlab.net/>).
In general case: for me "version 1.0 _not_ beta" means _"we give you the
insurance that this software is very stable and reliable. We consider all bugs
as important issues. We respect you."_
In the case of GMail, I'd like Google to give me this insurance and stop the
_"no warranty at all, f_ * _you if there is a problem"_ era. I think they have
the power to do it. Would it be really different? No, but I would be able to
sleep at night knowing Google takes _really_ care of my email.
~~~
radu_floricica
Time, cost, quality, right? Even google can't do miracles.
~~~
weegee
yeah, you get what you pay for. VLC has worked for me when Quicktime would not
(to play a movie from a DVD, for example)
------
dmix
New HD codecs work well. It can finally handle my Blu-ray rip of Blade Runner
without being choppy.
~~~
DarkShikari
Thank the folks over at ffmpeg for that; they write the (en|de)coders.
------
palsecam
The official website, announcing the news: <http://www.videolan.org/vlc/>
This version doesn't support Mac OS X Tiger anymore. From the changelog:
Support for Mac OS X 10.4.x was dropped due to its technical limitations.
------
uggedal
While nothing beats mplayer-nogui, it's nice to have an alternative running on
Windows.
~~~
etix
You can run VLC without a GUI too: vlc -I dummy
There's also a skins, ncurses and http interface.
------
mtomczak
This news and Google Apps coming out of beta in the same day?
I can't take all this sudden and drastic change!
------
mleonhard
They're missing checksums for the download files. Here are md5sums:
ca4041c2d80391b9963e7599b75b8c1d *vlc-1.0.0-win32.exe
58d0e276690442fa887e9a07767ddd6c *vlc-1.0.0.dmg
------
bardioc
After experiencing frequent crashes with VLC (every 2 out of 3 launches, on
different pc's), I eagerly upgraded to 1.0 to find that... it still crashes 2
out of 3 times. I must be doing it wrong.
~~~
tjpick
dusty?
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
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Best tool for capturing ideas anytime, anywhere - strimp099
What do you use to capture those genius ideas when you're on the bus, listening to SoundCloud, at the gym, whatever.<p>Ideally to collect text, voice, clippings, links, aggregate news, etc.<p>I've tried Evernote, Paper (albeit a while ago), Trullo, iOS Notes, iOS Reminders, Voice Memo, Jira, even good old paper and pen.
======
DrScump
I use Jota Text Editor in conjunction with Dropbox on my Android phone. This
way, I can read _and write_ using all of my devices with the contents synched
to all other devices.
I used Note Everything for a long time before that but became annoyed that
they don't have a built-in export capability, even in the paid version. (I
found a clever hack that let me export all contents at once with minimal
fixup.)
This likely works with other editors, too, but Jota handled this cleanly out
of the box.
------
DiabloD3
Evernote and OneNote (I'm switching from one to the other, but both are good).
They both require you to have a way of cataloguing your data: YOU must have a
system of doing it, and both of them will mostly comply. The better your
system, the better ANY tool works for you.
Its either that, or back to paper and pen.
------
rajeshmr
Simplenote,works best for me. No nonsense approach to notes. Just text,
nothing else.
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
CRA Statement on US News and World Report - ychen306
https://cra.org/cra-statement-us-news-world-report-rankings-computer-science-universities/
======
vmarsy
For some reason, on my laptop the webpage renders on Chrome but not Firefox.
It's an open letter from the following schools/companies:
University of Pennsylvania, Computing Research Association, Northeastern
University, University of Massachusetts Amherst, University of Michigan,
Google, University of Alberta, and Cornell University.
They're criticizing the new US new world rankings[1] methodology, placing
schools like CMU at #22, Cornell #67 , but U.T. Austin at #2.
[1] [https://www.usnews.com/education/best-global-
universities/se...](https://www.usnews.com/education/best-global-
universities/search?region=&country=united-states&subject=computer-
science&name=)
| {
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Product Design of the Stripe Dashboard for iPhone - benjamindc
https://medium.com/swlh/exploring-the-product-design-of-the-stripe-dashboard-for-iphone-e54e14f3d87e
======
dsawler
Hey, thanks for writing this.
Your article talks a lot about the nuances of the app (prototyping animation,
specifically) but I'm curious how you were able to distill the experience down
to 2 primary use cases - did this come from research, data, customers saying
this is what they intend to use the app for?
Did you test any of this with your existing customers? If so, how did you go
about that process?
------
alphakappa
If anyone from Medium is listening, here's some feedback about the page design
itself. Every time I scroll, there's the 'share/follow tab' that pops in and
out at the bottom of the screen. This adds undue stress to the process of
scrolling when every action I do causes things to pop in and out. If a share
sheet is absolutely necessary, fix it somewhere in the page, or bring it up
when I come to the end of the page or something. Don't animate things as I'm
scrolling the page.
~~~
waxjar
For me, this only happens when I scroll up. That seems sensible to me.
------
mikeryan
_Designing any product can feel overwhelming but by diluting it down to the
essential user experience, you can make it approachable and doable._
How did you find out what the essential user experience was without talking to
users?
------
byron_fast
Wow that card interface, though beautiful, looks like a real waste of time to
develop. A list of text links would be faster and more effective. But mobile!
~~~
panic
_A list of text links would be faster and more effective._
What makes you say that? The card interface gives a sense of context--you can
still see the stuff behind it. You can pull on the entire card to navigate
instead of hitting a small text target. I haven't used the UI, but it looks
like it works pretty well.
~~~
byron_fast
To access a previous card, you could have a small target for each. The front
one can always have a large target.
The card metaphor has no value. No extra information is communicated, and yet
it is expensive to program and display.
UIs always look like they work well when demoed by the creator. Show me a
usability test with this, and then you'll see the reality.
------
sensecall
Would love to hear more about the UX process involved in creating this (and
other Stripe products).
From what I read you guys jumped right in to the UI design?
------
bilmeswe
Nice! What did you guys use to build the visualizations?
~~~
michaelvillar
Some of them are created using After Effects, HTML/CSS and iOS code. Was this
your question?
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
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How to lock a Gmail account for more than 5 days - draxofavalon
This happend to me, its pretty easy to lock any gmail account for more than 5 days (and counting...). This is what I did:<p>- Search for some useless mails, for example do a search of @somedomain.com [I got 100k results]
- Select ALL those mails and send them to trash
- Go to your trash folder and try to empty that folder
- voila! you dont have access to your mail account anymore!<p>You will get a Temporary Error (500) Numeric Code: 93<p>If someone sends a mail to you it will bounce!<p>It looks like gmail server is still trying to delete those 100k emails from my trash folder.<p>(if someone at G reads this my email is ericgil (at) gmail)
======
eliot_sykes
Some help can be found on the 2nd page of the Gmail Help Forum post that
draxofavalon posted:
_Numeric Code 93 means google's mail firewall has blocked your ip address,
normally due to trying to delete trash or bin labels from a 3rd party mail
client. So most of you who have a dynamic ip can just reboot your router to
reissue a new ip address and you'll be back into you account. If you are
unfortunate enough to have a static ip you'll need to access your account from
a friends computer or mobile phone._
------
draxofavalon
I dont think so, I already filled all the forms they have and I found lots of
ppl with the exact same problem, look here
[http://www.google.com/support/forum/p/gmail/thread?tid=0a23b...](http://www.google.com/support/forum/p/gmail/thread?tid=0a23b0815d7319e9)
and there are lots like that one. Gmail servers just cant handle massive
deletion :(
Try with your account :)
------
tawm04
I had this happen at work. I admin a Google Apps domain and someone tried to
delete several hundred thousand emails at once. We ended up having to do some
account name switcharoos and he lost everything that was in the old account
because Google was moving too slow. Best of luck to you.
~~~
draxofavalon
Today I had my account back!
Tip: go search in G+ some gmail staff and annoy them, thats how I got my
account back.
I still cant get rid of lots of mails I need to delete and I dont want to
delete them by 100 a time.
------
mark-r
Deleting a ton of emails is one sign of a hacked account, and Google has been
trying to add safeguards lately. They're probably waiting for you to contact
them, at which point you'll have to jump through hoops to prove you're the
rightful owner.
~~~
dlikhten
heh. There goes my hopes of cleaning out my wife's 200k+ unread email account.
~~~
draxofavalon
dlikhten try! lets see if this works for everyone :)
------
its_so_on
how do you have a hundred thousand emails from any domain??
~~~
draxofavalon
I have some blogs and every registration sends me a email.
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Show HN: I build this without knowledge of code - attendos
https://luego.app
======
attendos
I've built an app that helps collect testimonials. It's completely built on
Bubble.io without knowledge of code.
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Coderloop is the coder's gym - federicof
Hi everybody,<p>we're working on a community for developers where coders can practice their skills by solving programming puzzles. Coders can earn "skill points" (programming, knowledge of algorithms, etc) depending on the puzzles they solve and on how good their solution is. We currently support submissions in Java, C/C++, Perl, Python, Ruby, PHP, Fortran, Erlang, C#, Objective-C, LUA, Javascript, Scala, OCaml, Clojure and Common-Lisp.<p>You can check out the site at http://www.coderloop.com/<p>If you want to give it a try, I will appreciate any comment/feedback or suggestion you may have.<p>thanks!<p>-
Federico Feroldi
======
djb_hackernews
Why do I need to register? For a website like yours I should be able to try
whatever it is before I have to sign up for anything. User registration is a
HUGE barrier to adoption that I don't think you can afford (or really need).
I like the idea, I wish TopCoder had a UI like this.
~~~
federicof
We're working on a way to submit code without the need to register. However
the service want to be a community where developers compete against each other
and earn points, that's why we ask them to create profile.
We try to lower the barrier as much as possible by not asking the users to
create a brand new user/pass for coderloop.
------
Jabbles
Very nice.
I'm not sure the ability to sort users by name is useful.
People may possibly be shy of showing how many times they've failed.
projecteuler.net only displays the number of correct submissions for each
user, and I'm personally very glad, as I can then try a variety of techniques
without fear of losing "rating".
Of course, this may not be the way you wish to go, but I think many people
would appreciate the option of hiding the number of failures.
In fact, if I may be pessimistic, I predict that if your website becomes
popular, you will find people start opening multiple accounts in order to test
solutions with one, and keep a perfect score with the other.
~~~
federicof
Thanks for the feedback, I didn't thought about that. :) We were thinking
about two things: \- public/private profiles \- replacing the success/failures
count with just a success rate
~~~
twymer
I still think that's missing the point. Publicly showing what percentage of a
users submissions pass/fail is probably not desirable to the user. Keeping it
private or using it for problem statistics is pretty cool, though.
------
silentbicycle
It's "Lua", not "LUA". (It means "Moon" in Portuguese, same etymology as
"Lunar".) Also, it seems a bit odd to be using problems from Project Euler.
Looks great otherwise, though.
I'll try to suggest more problems once I have time to dig in - how about
adding infrastructure so members can submit problems themselves?
~~~
federicof
Thanks, we needed a set of problems to start with and we've used some Euler
problems as the basis even thought we slightly changed the problems to be more
generic (the input is unknown) so that users are forced to write a generic
solution.
~~~
silentbicycle
Could you add a Prolog, too? GNU Prolog or SWI would be good.
~~~
federicof
Sure, we can add any language that have an open source compiler/interpreter.
I've added Prolog to our backlog. Stay tuned!
------
tetha
Meh, this has the same problem the acm online judge has, and the sphere judge
and so on and so on. Which is also why I will stop usign this after a single
attempt.
The issue is that it is impossible to debug these programs. I just submitted a
solution. It failed. I get no input that failed, I get no message why it
failed. While I can guess further inputs in this simple case (missles), for
more complicated problems, this becomes simply impossible. Especially for more
involved puzzles where subtle differences in problem definitions dictate the
difference between a perfectly fine and a horribly wrong solution.
Sorry, but pretty much every coding kata site failes on this, and you did not
manage to get this one (for me) crucial, make-or-break feature working.
~~~
federicof
Hi, I understand your point. The problem with the feedback is that if we tell
you for which inputs we're testing your solution, you could develop an
optimized version of the solution for those special case, or worse you could
precompute the solutions and just write a solution as a long if-then-else
sequence. The purpose of the challenge is instead twofold: being able to
understand the problem specs and being able two produce a generic solution
that must work in an environment that you don't control (because that, at the
very end, is what happens to the programs you write... They're going to be
executed with inputs that aren't under your control and that you couldn't know
in advance).
~~~
tetha
In theory, I agree with you.
In practice, I have spent an entire week during a universitary course with
various problems from such problem site and eventually learned that the
problem descriptios were different in a subtle way or certain edge cases were
not considered or the test suites were flat out wrong. (This was particularly
amusing, because they had added wrong test cases after certain solutions were
accepted beforehand. Thus, It was clearly visible that the problem was
solveable, because there were programs accepted).
Also I don't entirely agree with the argument that my program has to work in
an unknown environment with unknown controls. In such a situation, I would at
least get a logfile to see what was going wrong. Without that, debugging
anything non-trivial is just not worth it without getting paid for it.
~~~
federicof
Ok but here the point is not about technology, it's very easy for us to give
you access to the output of your program (in fact if you use a compiled
language, and the compilation phase breaks, we show you the log). The point is
that any kind of feedback that I give you access to that is generated from the
input we send you to you program, will give you the chance to produce a
solution that i not generic, because you know the input in advance, you can
precompute the solution and just "print" it. You can object that we should
generate the inputs randomly and on the fly. That can be definitely done for
the very trivial problems (like reverse a string or a sequence) but will be
impractical for more difficult problems that have very few input data sets
that lead to a "meaningful" result.
Anyway, we're open to suggestions on how to improve the process. :)
~~~
tetha
Well you have a correct solver to the problem. Couldn't you just randomly
generate an input, push it through the certified solver and supply me with the
input-output-pair?
For one, even if this is the actual test input you use, I will not know it.
For two, it might not contain the trigger for my errors, but if I can get
enough such samples, I should eventually get a sample which contains the
problematic input.
For three, from what I see, the problems should be possible to generate
randomly, especially if the certified solver rejects malformed input. E.g. for
the missle problem, throw together N numbers and look what happens until the
certified solver outputs a proper solution.
~~~
federicof
In theory it can be done, but it would be very expensive in terms of
computational power. Anyway, you raised a very good point that we will keep in
mind for the near future. Thanks indeed for your feedback and the nice
discussion.
~~~
tetha
I see this concern. I thought a bit more about this during the day. The
computational power required could be reduced if you stored the generated
inputs and present them to the user if he requests additional help.
Given this, this system could be extended using a rating-system by users
("Click here if this input helped you solve the issue"). This would overall
result in a bunch of inputs being generated (basically whenever someone needs
a new input), and some edge case inputs will overall bubble to the top,
because they are rated helpful more often than others.
Anyway, I'm happy to help. Good luck :)
~~~
federicof
Cool, this one is a very good idea actually, a user generated database of test
cases for each puzzle! I'm putting it in our backlog, thank you very much!
------
twymer
I was pretty excited to do some of this when I got home from work, but my
preferred language (Python) is only supported in an ancient version (2.3.0).
I wasn't sure when this version was released so I decided to look it up, 2.3.0
dates back to 2003.
~~~
federicof
Hi, sorry for that! What is the most common version used currently?
~~~
twymer
Python 2.7 is the newest 2.x release, so it's what I imagine most people who
haven't taken the plunge to Python 3 would be using.
~~~
federicof
Thanks, I've added the upgrade to our backlog, stay tuned!
------
nolite
How about a way to sort by puzzle difficulty (%pass out of total tries for
example) so we can easily find the hard problems
~~~
nolite
Oh, and a forum so people can discuss solution approaches, programming
techniques, ask questions, etc.. that would be great. Doesn't need to be
anything groundbreaking, just a normal forum
~~~
federicof
hi, the forums are already available, there's one for each puzzle, at the
bottom of each puzzle page (i.e. <http://www.coderloop.com/puzzles/helloworld>
)
they're a bit hidden, in the next design phase we will give them better
visibility
------
mahmud
I have a feeling I will get addicted to this.
Add more problems and you win me over.
~~~
federicof
Great thanks! Currently almost all the problems are algorithm based (you can
solve them with any language). Since we have the ability to have
language/framework specific puzzles we will soon implement more
language/framework specific puzzles (i.e. java, ruby, rails, etc) to let you
test your knowledge of a specific technology.
If you have any suggestion for kind of puzzles you would like to see please
let us know :)
cheers
~~~
mahmud
I just solved the first one. This will be fun.
------
dan_b
<http://www.coderloop.com/puzzles/>
When looking at this page it's not immediately obvious that I have to click on
the name of the puzzle to go to it.
~~~
federicof
Thanks, we will make the links more obvious :)
------
wh-uws
You should also drop people on the hello world puzzle as soon as they sign up.
It helps to be able to see some examples and know where/what the guidelines
are before you get started
------
flaurita
Already addicted! The online code editor with the possibility of edit a just
submitted solution for a fast fixing makes the different! Great job!
~~~
federicof
Great! Soon we will integrate everything in one single page so you don't have
to leave the editor to get the feedback on your submission.
------
twymer
Seems cool, I had to manually find my OpenID account link to be able to use it
to login though.
------
mahmud
<http://www.coderloop.com/>
------
gsivil
you could ask the users for the shortest correct solution in any available
language this will show the relative power of each language and the
flexibility of the user to seek for the best tools
~~~
federicof
interesting idea, how will you measure the "length"? just how many characters
the source code is made of? we could make a competition out of it...
~~~
gsivil
I guess so. But maybe the use of the standard library could be allowed
------
nolite
support Haskell
~~~
federicof
will do! :)
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Ex-Spy Runs His Own Private C.I.A. - georgecmu
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/01/23/world/23clarridge.html?pagewanted=all
======
brandnewlow
I met Clarridge during college. I took a class taught by an ex-spook where we
read spy novels and talked about the ethical dilemmas involved. We read
Clarridge's autobiography, "A Spy for all Seasons" and then he came and
glowered at us for 3 hours and answered questions. He really doesn't like the
CIA these days anymore. If you're interested in this sort of thing, his book's
pretty darn good: <http://www.amazon.com/Spy-All-Seasons-Life-
CIA/dp/0743245369>
~~~
jimmybot
Clarridge denies Pinochet caused thousands to disappear or be murdered under
his dictatorship. He also calls Amnesty International a propaganda mill. Judge
for yourself: <http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SNgCyDsvi84>
The end of the video: <http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SNgCyDsvi84#t=2m20s>
Reminds me that I can't handle the truth:
<http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8hGvQtumNAY#t=1m36s>
~~~
Confusion
A good reminder that _anyone_ can suffer from unexpected loopy opinions about
some stuff. You can't take anything at face value.
------
jdp23
"Over the past two years, he has fielded operatives in the mountains of
Pakistan and the desert badlands of Afghanistan. Since the United States
military cut off his funding in May, he has relied on like-minded private
donors to pay his agents to continue gathering information about militant
fighters, Taliban leaders and the secrets of Kabul’s ruling class."
Sounds like the government is now outsourcing paying for private intelligence
and security services as well as the work. I can see why 'small government'
people would like this but from the oversight and human rights perspectives it
seems like a really bad idea.
~~~
law
Actually, this is a terrific idea from the oversight and human rights
perspectives. Let's consider a hypothetical for-profit corporation to which
the government would outsource these operations. Under a broken system (what
we have now), the management of these companies would have some sort of non-
business relationship with the government officials responsible for awarding
the contracts. Moreover, these companies, under a broken system, would keep
their books shut, offering less transparency than we already have.
Now let's consider the best case: these companies compete with each other for
government contracts, which the people award. This type of system would compel
the companies to maintain high levels of transparency, especially with the SEC
and IRS now taking interest.
The reason the government is so inefficient is because they don't have any
external auditing agencies. The SEC and the IRS, for example, will never put
the CIA or FBI through the same rigorous audits that they would put private
companies through.
~~~
jdp23
a hypothetical for-profit corporation like Blackwater?
or the guys who were pimping Afghan teenage boys to warlords?
yeah, that worked well.
~~~
law
Right, I tried to make it clear that our current system is broken... the for-
profit corporation approach absolutely can work with transparency.
~~~
shkb
Transparency in spying?
------
geekfactor
This article reads like the back-story of a season of 24...
Owner of intelligence-agency-for-hire is "determined to remain a player."
President/government has a different take on things and attempts to shut down
the agency. Agency plants WMDs on American soil in order to distract country
and guarantee relevance.
Wait. That _was_ a season of 24.
Oh well. In actuality I'm surprised at myself for being surprised that such
outfits exist.
------
tsotha
We probably need outfits like this. The CIA seems to have completely lost the
ability to do human intelligence. They get punished when they deal with
unsavory characters, which is a necessity in that business. So they don't
bother, and rely instead on signals intelligence. Nobody ever got fired at CIA
running a program to listen in on jihadi phone calls. But you're not going to
pick up everything through signals intelligence.
~~~
shkb
Specifically they got their asses handed to them by the Soviets in human
intelligence, and choose to do what they were good at. But why would you need
a group like this, with all the problems of privatizing intelligence
operations? Would reform be a better choice? Or the acknowledge that the
disadvantages of covert operations are great enough to find an alternative
(similar to how the disadvantages of conventional warfare lead to covert ops)
~~~
tsotha
The problem is "reform" is what got us where we are today. When a human
intelligence operation blows up it's embarrassing. Congress gets involved
"reforming" things. So you get stupid rules like "The CIA can never pay
someone who's been accused of human rights violations".
People genuinely put the interests of their country first and they get hung
out to dry after the next election cycle. So the people who survive do what
risk-averse bureaucracies always do: nothing.
------
wglb
Didn't Bobby Inman <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bobby_Ray_Inman> attempt to
start such a private company with private clients? While he had no problem
speaking his mind, it doesn't appear that he was as pugnacious as Clarridge.
------
ahi
There are plenty of private intelligence agencies. It's an industry pretty
much like any other. Few are dumb enough to compete with the CIA. Why hire a
private agency in Afghanistan when the American taxpayer is already paying for
those services? If you run a private intelligence firm, just how desperate for
customers/donors do you have to be to get an article in the New York Times?
~~~
joe_the_user
Yes,
The "intelligence community" is a community - whether a given actor is in or
out of government does not seem as important as whether they in the community.
Secrecy grants it's possessors the ability to act very informally.
------
dguido
In related news, ex-spy who runs his own private c.i.a. no longer has any
business due to being featured in the NYT.
------
ilamont
_It is difficult to assess the merits of Mr. Clarridge’s secret intelligence
dispatches; a review of some of the documents by The Times shows that some
appear to be based on rumors from talk at village bazaars or rehashes of press
reports._
Actually, the New York Times could have gone back to older dispatches and
evaluated whether the bazaar-based predictions came true, or were otherwise
accurate.
The danger of using such information is much of it is not true, greatly
exaggerated, subjective, etc., but is nevertheless being taken seriously by
some military, diplomatic and intelligence staff and helping drive strategy
and tactics on the ground. This potentially creates even more problems,
misunderstandings, and mistrust and can even lead to unnecessary death and
destruction.
------
bane
I wonder what this kind of thing is called?
Bounty Hunter? Mercenary? Vigilante? Somehow, none of those labels really seem
to fit quite right. Is this sort of thing something new?
~~~
snth
How about "Private Intelligence Contractor". Like "Private Military
Contractor".
~~~
bane
There's plenty of those. The fact that he's going it solo, vs. working on a
contract makes this something uniquely different.
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
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