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Too Many People Want to Travel - Deinos
https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2019/06/crowds-tourists-are-ruining-popular-destinations/590767/
======
newswriter99
God forbid we have more people entering the middle class, who want to explore
the world.
I hate how preachy publications like Vox and The Atlantic can be. The writers
come from these urbanized, upper middle class backgrounds and have no self-
awareness. When I (with my small-town highschool dropout roots) read stories
like this, I can't help but reword what they're saying in my head:
"Go back to being working-class scum who stays in the same place so us upper-
class people can enjoy jet-setting and taking photos in exotic locations only
you can dream of."
~~~
freddie_mercury
Can you quote some passages that you felt were preachy? I read your comment
and then read the article expecting to find the worst. But it seemed pretty
even handed and didn't at all suggest people go back to being working class
scum.
But maybe that's just my own biased reading. If you could point out the
passages you find problematic it would help me improve my empathy.
~~~
coldtea
> _Can you quote some passages that you felt were preachy? I read your comment
> and then read the article expecting to find the worst. But it seemed pretty
> even handed and didn 't at all suggest people go back to being working class
> scum._
If you are working class, such things are more felt and nuanced at, than
explicitly said (at least not in polite upper class company). Not that
dissimilar with racism.
(Except of course if you're very poor -- then everybody has the free pass to
call you "white trash" and mock you, in a way that they wouldn't dare mock any
other group).
~~~
freddie_mercury
People are entirely capable of articulating what phrasing is racist dog
whistle; when I read, say Ta-Nahesi Coates he is able to elaborate his point
even to an audience with a very different context. It happens all the time.
I'm asking for someone to actually explicitly explain to me the classist dog
whistle in the article so that I can learn something.
~~~
parrellel
For the classic classist dog whistle you're looking for a few things. You
can't just say "screw the poor" or "screw the bourgeois" you go after
behaviors, interests, and appearances. You describe them as rude, ignorant, or
criminal.
Here, from the article, for example: "...selfie-stick deaths, all-you-can-eat
ships docking at historic ports, stag nights that end in property crimes, the
live-streaming of the ruination of fragile natural habitats..."
\- So, selfies / selfie sticks leading to falling off a cliff (rude and
dangerous) -All you can eat ships (cruises, gluttony, probably fat people)
going to historic ports (stinking up the place) -Stag nights leading to
property crimes (fornication and loud partying + criminals) -live-streaming of
the ruination of fragile natural habitats (a lack of shame and propriety +
ecological damage)
So, just from that, I can tell you this is a hit piece against the not-quite-
poor, like I could tell you one from decades past would mention tchotchkes, or
dancing, or casserole.
edit: pardon the borked formatting.
~~~
jsutton
I think any of those examples can just as easily apply to upper class /
wealthy travelers.
~~~
parrellel
Would they do those same sorts of things, yes. Would it be described the same
way, no.
------
alexhutcheson
Some of this is overblown. Locals who live at tourist destinations have always
complained about tourists, even when those tourists are the economic lifeblood
of the area. Talk to anyone who grew up in a beach town.
The multiple snide comments about cruises seem both classist and misplaced.
Most of those cruise ship passengers are going to travel somewhere, and having
them on the cruise ship effectively minimizes their impact on locals. When
they get off the ship, most passengers either take a guided excursion in an
already heavily touristed area, or just go to a beach club. Would you rather
they rent Airbnbs in the downtown neighborhoods of the cities they'd like to
visit? Or would you rather build new resorts and timeshare communities at
beach destinations?
Venice also seems like an unusual case that might need special attention. Most
cruise ship ports are not beautiful places in need of preservation.
Many places in the world (especially national parks) are successfully
restricting visitor volume. The solutions are well known: Require permits
(either via purchase or lottery) and/or increase the cost to visit (via
entrance fees, additional hotel taxes, etc.)
~~~
matwood
> Talk to anyone who grew up in a beach town.
I grew up and still live in a beach town. Tourists were somewhat bothersome,
but they allowed me to make plenty of money in restaurants when I was younger.
Today the bigger problem is people are moving here. I rarely go to the beach
anymore (unless it's 6am surf session) because of traffic and crowds. Just in
the last couple weeks, 4 new stop lights went up near my house. But, with all
the growth has also come real jobs. So it's not all bad.
> Venice also seems like an unusual case that might need special attention.
Having been to Venice, I never understood why so many people like going. It is
basically one giant tourist trap.
~~~
kwhitefoot
> Having been to Venice, I never understood why so many people like going. It
> is basically one giant tourist trap.
How much time did you spend away from St. Mark's square, the Rialto, and the
Grand canal?
My wife and I and our three children went for five days some years ago; we
rented an apartment in an old palazzo about ten minutes walk from St. Mark's.
We went out for walks all over Venice, sometimes early in the morning before
the other tourists arrived, we walked on the north side of the island and saw
almost no tourists even though it was the high season. We ate in small
restaurants away from the bustle and rip off prices of the Grand Canal.
Essentially, we avoided all the high profile locations and never queued for
anything.
It was brilliant.
~~~
matwood
I spent a few nights there in an apartment on the island, so I was able to see
it in a slower time. I may have been a little harsh in my original comment.
I'm glad I visited Venice, but it's not a place I would go again. I will
admit, my view was also likely a bit tainted because I had just spent time in
Slovenia and Croatia. Cities like Rovinj, Piran, and Pula are great. If I had
to do it again, I would stay in Rovinj and take a ferry day trip to Venice.
------
lalos
Pipe dream but it would be interesting to devise some increasing tax based on
the number of flights you've done per year. They already ask for ID when you
buy flights so it would be easily track-able. First flight 10%, second 20%,
third 30%, etc. Just as a thought exercise but I'm aware of the friction this
sort of idea would get. Related gif:
[https://twitter.com/flightradar24/status/1013088775973556224](https://twitter.com/flightradar24/status/1013088775973556224)
~~~
ahoy
A simpler solution would be to tax the wealthy at a higher rate, reducing
their ability to travel as much.
~~~
war1025
I really doubt that would work out. Especially depending what you mean by
"wealthy". There is probably a sweet spot in the income bracket where that
would do something, but those people would not be considered "wealthy" by most
definitions.
------
dangus
The article sort of reads as a list of individual incidents but I'm not sure
it's able to present itself as a particularly alarming trend.
Yes, the Mona Lisa is the most popular painting in the world. Maybe the Louvre
needs to expand or build a new space for it that can accommodate more people.
Maybe ticket sales should be more limited and sell out after a certain point,
with a set number of visitors allowed per day/hour/etc. It sounds like
mismanagement (hence the workers walkout) than the tourists being at fault.
Yes, people are dying taking stupid selfies, but not really all that many of
them, either.
Yes, some landmarks are being damaged, but also, governments completely have
the power to enforce their laws and limit admission, and hand out tickets for
littering and vandalism.
~~~
sametmax
Those are just temporary solutions, one day they will not be enough because of
constant population growth. And you can't use them forever. Plus they all have
a cost anyway.
This is like a doctor treating a symptom instead of the cause of the disease.
~~~
kiran-rao
How is proper management a temporary solution? If the Louvre decided to
control the number of people seeing the Mona Lisa through ticket prices, they
can simply continues to increase prices as more people want to see it. This
will simply generate more revenue.
~~~
sametmax
Making education an elite thing is not sustainable.
~~~
magduf
WTF? Seeing the Mona Lisa in person is not in any way necessary for being
educated. This is the most ridiculous thing I've read all day.
~~~
sametmax
Museum access is education. Why do you think we have them ?
~~~
magduf
University access is education too, but that doesn't mean you're "uneducated"
just because you didn't go to Harvard.
There's a lot more to the Louvre than the Mona Lisa, in case you didn't know.
No one was proposing shutting down the entire Louvre to tourists.
------
ganlaw
I think moving and experiencing the city and surrounding places for a few
years is more enjoyable than short trips. I am now looking at moving to my 5th
different city in 10 years. I spend my vacation days exploring around what is
in my "backyard". Taking a 10 hour flight and spending a few days trying to
see everything is not enjoyable to me.
~~~
0x445442
For years I've been looking forward to traveling but the thought that keeps
nagging me is the whole canned tourist experience which I hate.
One thought I've been trying to sell my wife on is getting a quality RV/Travel
Trailer and tour the country doing contract gigs. This sounds similar to what
you're describing.
~~~
magduf
What makes you think you have to buy a "canned tourist experience"? Traveling
(in highly developed countries at least) is easy: buy airline tickets, book
rooms at hotels or hostels in the cities you want to visit, then just go there
and walk around and see the sights at your leisure, and take the train to the
next city according to your schedule. You don't have to buy tour packages or
hire guides or hang out with other tourists if you don't want to.
------
abeppu
I think it's worth considering not only how online media has contributed to
the very uneven distribution of interest over tourist destinations, but also
how it might help fix it. The internet is used to creating power-law
distributions, where a small minority of titles capture a large fraction of
interest/traffic/views. Real world cities, parks and sites struggle to cope
with global popularity. It's entirely possible for online media about travel
to take a different set of considerations into account, and yield different
top-level distributions in who wants to travel where.
Every listicle, travel-focused instagram, etc, pushes the same destinations to
all of its audience. A small number of places become extremely coveted. What
if we had tools and platforms that spread those eyeballs around more, where
the number of impressions is related to the number of tourist arrivals per
year? Stop showing so many people beautiful shots of Iceland; it's over
burdened. Why should travel sites, influencers etc care to shift impressions
in this way? Among influencers, platforms could place more value on
uniqueness; if I've seen 5 shots of beaches in Bali in my feed this morning,
maybe mix in something else. Influencers could feel a pressure to highlight
comparatively under-exposed destinations. Places that produce travel content
with funds from tourism departments ... well, I'd suppose that the marginal
value of additional prospective visitors for Venice is small, but would be
higher for a city that isn't so popular.
This year I walked the Inca Trail to Machu Picchu. While it was a positive
experience, Machu Picchu itself was crowded, and visitors are very
specifically limited in how they can walk around it. Only once I was in
country did I hear about Choquequirao, another large Inca complex perched on a
promontory, which is much less popular, and sometimes called "the other Machu
Picchu". I can't help but feel that neither I, not Machu Picchu was well
served by that ignorance.
------
harimau777
Something that I worry about is that it seems like almost every
enjoyable/empowering thing is being considered harmful to the
environment/society or is becoming difficult to afford:
Driving a car, eating meat, travel, owning a home, living in a popular
location (e.g New York), owning a gun, etc.
Combine that with an increasing number of people who feel socially isolated
and it seems like a recipe for unrest.
~~~
aaomidi
How is owning a gun bad for the environment? It's somewhat expensive but not
that much compared to other stuff.
~~~
harimau777
Sorry I edited to say environment/society.
Not trying to comment on whether or not gun control is right, just that it
seems like the people who say that they are bad for society don't seem to
understand that it's one of the few empowering things in many people's lives.
~~~
aaomidi
Oh yeah I don't want to get into a gun control debate either.
Even as someone who is pro gun I do agree with the society cost.
------
kasperni
If there is one thing that is for certain, this is only going to get much
worse. And peoples wet dreams about a jobless society. Well, you are not going
to spend all that leisure time alone on secret deserted locations around the
world.
~~~
creaghpatr
Or boring suburbs, for that matter.
------
el_cujo
This is the type of thing that is easy to police other people, but I wonder if
the author has an instagram herself filled with pictures from Italy or France.
~~~
sametmax
Yes, and that's why the logic is wrong: the problem is not too many people
want to do x. Wanting is legitimate.
The problem is thay there are too many people, period. And the more fair we
make the system, the more they will get to do what they should expect from
life, so it's going to get worse.
I often read on HN that this is not a zero sum game. Whatever, we are not
leaving this earth anytime soon, and we are not producing innovation fast
enough to care for everbody.
Soon, the state of mumbai will be mirrored in other places. Beggers like in LA
as well. Venise and phucket are already terrible to live in.
Population is the main problem. It is a problem for food, education, hell,
democraty. Eternal growth is not sustainable.
------
Wohlf
Easy to say this from a privileged position, less so when it's your vacations
or work travel on the chopping block. Free movement for me, but not for thee.
Wouldn't want all those unwashed masses ruining your perfect vacation.
------
francisofascii
Travel is fun, for sure, but I think our society, especially in wealthier and
progressive circles, over-hypes it, to the point that you feel like you have
to travel to make yourself more interesting. Maybe we need to lighten up a bit
and have the attitude that staying home and reading about a far away place,
yet never visiting, is cool too.
------
rthomas6
It's a negative externality. Price it into the cost, use that extra money to
offset pollution/whatever, and the problem is solved. It's simple to say but
nobody wants to do it because it hurts.
~~~
acidburnNSA
It'd be nice to somehow still allow people who can barely afford a plane
ticket today to afford one occasioanlly for family emergencies, etc. Perhaps
we do a personal threshold above which the carbon price kicks in or something.
Lots of air travel is frequent fliers and they need motivation to stop.
------
advertising
My parents have lived in a gem of a town outside of the US for 20 years. About
15 years ago it started to pop up in top 10 lists and the last 10 years has
exploded with tourism.
What used to be an extremely affordable, beautiful, and pleasant place to live
and mix with the local culture is now gone.
It went from a beautiful town to Disney Land. A gigantic party city. Insane
hour long lines of cars to get into the town on weekends. Real estate blew up
and gigantic hotels are being built, all the homes in the center are owned by
rich people from other countries as speculative investments. Tons of new bars
and restaurants have opened but few of them by locals. Rich business owners
from other places come in droves looking for more growth to extract money.
Most people demand USD for rent or real estate deals and not local currency
now, many businesses use foreign payment services for credit cards and the
money never flows into the town.
Crime has greatly increased with all the money floating around. Home
burglaries, car jackings and street muggings are common everyday of the week
anytime of the day.
There have been some improvements from the tourism and a few hundred local
families (out of the 100,000 locals that live there) have done well selling
the homes their families have owned for generations. Now they can’t afford to
live in the center and have to live in the outskirts.
Gone are the local restaurants, pushed out by high rents or because the owners
sold the buildings, replaced by generic tourist traps pushing cheap alcohol
and over priced food.
The local water supply has been drained, utilities cannot keep up with waste
and demand, corruption for permits and zoning changes is rampant.
Literally thousands of homes in generic housing developments are being built
in the surrounding countryside. Cheap build profit extracting developments
solely to make money as the water table continues to drain lower and lower.
The only thing that has some what saved the city is lack of an airport being
close by. Closest is 1.5 hours drive. But another rich entrepreneur is looking
to bring a new runway in that is long enough for private jets.
That’s when it will officially be over.
An influx of money benefits everyone, but it’s also at the expense of the
city. Is that worth it? I think what bothers me the most is seeing thousands
of people crowd the central square and take the same photo of the church over
and over and over and over. It’s within everyone’s right, rich or poor to be
in that square. No one owns a city, except when the money starts coming in,
and then money owns it.
~~~
magduf
I don't really see the problem here. The people of this town want it this way,
or else they would be pushing their local government to make changes to limit
tourism. This is a classic example of people getting the government they
deserve.
~~~
advertising
This is exactly where you’re wrong. The government is full of corruption. They
buy large pieces of land and change zoning laws to allow for a big Home Depot
style place or an oversized hotel on their land and then they sell it. They
shut down any competing construction projects or block use permits.
They obscure any data about public services. Contamination in the water table
for example. People who ask too many questions are threatened.
People don’t vote these types in. They are in place through power and
connections.
Your view is over simplified and not fully informed by reality of the reality
politics.
------
geddy
Cmd+F'd the comments and not one person has mentioned overpopulation. There
are more people than ever before, and the issues of crowding are simply a
symptom of overpopulation. The idea of raising the prices to make it cost-
prohibitive... what's the point of doing anything, then? Soon, every single
hobby will have too many people doing it. Are we to raise the price of
everything to be so unaffordable that we go back to spending evenings sitting
in front of the television?
We need to face the problem sooner or later, and that's that we have too many
people on this planet. We're going to have a massively difficult time feeding
everyone in 20+ years (the meat industry is already devastating enough on the
climate), "tourist crowding" will be the least of our worries. Well, until the
lack of food or the climate issue sorts that first bit out.
~~~
rubidium
Eh, you're just repeating the same 'scare' tactics that Ehrlich did in the
1960's. He was mostly wrong then. And you're mostly wrong now.
We don't have too many people. But we are making poor choices about our
farming techniques, industrial practices, and infrastructure.
10 billion people can live on this planet just fine. The solution isn't less
people. The solution is better care of our planet and resources.
~~~
geddy
Right - _if_ we take better care of our planet and resources. Any idea how to
enforce that in the most densely populated areas? China, perhaps? In what
reality can we get 100%, heck, 10% of people on the planet to do everything a
certain way?
------
Mikeb85
Too many people want to travel, too many people want to eat meat, too many
people want economic development, etc...
But how does someone who grew up being able to do/benefit from all these
things tell the rising middle class from the developing world that they can't
do these things because it's harmful?
------
ninjamayo
Maybe something to do in order to tackle overcrowding in museums is to start
returning some of the exhibits back to their origins. The Louvre and the
British museum hold a lot of antiquities that were shipped from other
countries during colonial times.
~~~
magduf
If you do that, those things will likely be destroyed. Do you really think
that shipping artifacts back to Syria is going to result in those artifacts
lasting for centuries more?
~~~
ninjamayo
There are plenty of artefacts that belong to countries who are not in the
middle of war. Many stolen artefacts were in fact destroyed or damaged during
their shipping to France or Britain. We don't need to go to extremes here,
just do the right thing.
~~~
magduf
>There are plenty of artefacts that belong to countries who are not in the
middle of war.
Like what? Any middle eastern country is not a safe place for valuable
historic artifacts. India and China, sure.
>Many stolen artefacts were in fact destroyed or damaged during their shipping
to France or Britain.
How recent was this? If this happened in the age of sailboats, then I'm not
going to hold it against those countries now; of course shipping back in those
days was a lot more dangerous.
------
rolltiide
As the article states: "while many sites are inarguably overcrowded, very few
cities and towns are"
People aren't really going off the path, there is plenty of opportunity to get
them to do that and disperse the crowds
I travel a lot and am mostly exempt from these crowds because I'm not rushing
on a 5-day trip around a 3-day weekend to jam pack tourist destinations. I'm
also not going to tourist destinations probably because I've already been
there - in off-season no less - or have other things bringing me to an area.
Just disperse.
~~~
harimau777
I suspect that people are rushing to do a 5 day vacation or 3 day weekend
because that is there only option.
~~~
rolltiide
> I suspect that people are rushing to do a 5 day vacation or 3 day weekend
> because that is there only option.
I would suspect that too, it is still an inferior form of travel and approach
to experiencing an area.
------
CydeWeys
> Governments are also rolling out regulations, such as bans on tour buses in
> Rome and gating-and-ticketing in Barcelona.
The ban on tour buses might actually end up being counter-productive, if that
one bus is replaced with many more smaller vehicles that in aggregate take up
a lot more space on the roads.
A better solution would be a universal congestion fee that all vehicles
entering the most congested zone pay (and yes, the fee for large vehicles like
buses would be higher).
------
Areading314
Increasingly, I find that seeing sights around the world turns into: "let's
take a selfie, and get out of here" because it's so crowded.
~~~
AnimalMuppet
That's "I want to have done this" or "I want you to know that I've done this",
but "I don't actually want to _do_ this". Which, if you think about it, is
kind of weird. We want a photo, but we don't actually want the _experience_.
------
sasaf5
The article misses another important cause for the surge in travel:
demography. The baby boomers are retiring, many of them with spare money for
traveling.
------
Kye
A recent LeVar Burton Reads has a story that tackles this in a science fiction
context where Earth is the hot tourist destination.
[https://art19.com/shows/levar-burton-
reads/episodes/30648706...](https://art19.com/shows/levar-burton-
reads/episodes/30648706-18c2-4a84-9141-009636248862)
------
dade_
'Too Many People are using travel destinations as items on the bucket
checklist.' They are missing the point of travelling altogether. I just got
back from the Taj Mahal, and I was stunned, it truly is spectacular.
Unfortunately it was with a client, and everything was social media picture -
check, bad souvenirs - check. Then look at me! I've been to the Taj. The place
is truly amazing. I would go back before dawn and spend a whole day (when the
weather isn't 45 degrees C) and enjoy the space. Every time I end up with so
many questions to answer. Who maintains the place, how do they do it? Why
this, why that? Local bookstores and shops. It makes the history books I read
real, the novels set in a place tangible.
------
calebm
The problem isn't that too many people want to travel, but that too many
people want to travel to the same places. I generally find the more off-the-
beaten-path places more enjoyable.
------
hamoid
Here a documentary about the case of Mallorca (subtitles in various languages,
65 minutes long):
[http://totinclos.cat/documental/](http://totinclos.cat/documental/)
------
forgottenpass
>If tourism is a capitalist phenomenon, overtourism is its demented late-
capitalist cousin: selfie-stick deaths, all-you-can-eat ships docking at
historic ports, stag nights that end in property crimes, the live-streaming of
the ruination of fragile natural habitats, et cetera.
What is this even saying? How is this attributable to specifically capitalism
and not humanity in general? After the hypothetical revolution how will people
magically stop being annoying tourists? Will there be controls on number of
travelers and their behavior? Will nobody have the means to travel? Not be
allowed to travel? What?
Or does the The Alantic's editorial process allows the following format to
grace their pages "If [obvious bullshit], then [invented nonsense from a
faulty premise]."?
------
PopeDotNinja
If we take arguments like this to the extreme, one extreme interpretation is
that their are simply too many people.
~~~
duxup
I'm not sure leisure travel capacity really is a good benchmark for something
like that.
------
purplezooey
Part of the problem is that we don't build enough of anything. Roads, trains,
housing, anything.
------
throwaway50003
I think the actual problem is there are too many people who want to travel to
_specific_ places. Like, there are only a limited number of very touristic
sites that _everyone_ wants to go to, yet plenty of other lesser known sites
exist and provide a better experience if you do your research and learn about
them. Like, I live in Paris and have set foot exactly once (1) on the Eiffel
tower. Likewise, there are hundreds of museums but people only ever go to the
Louvre (and _maybe_ Orsay). I get that they're iconic but _come on_ , there's
plenty of other stuff to do here.
------
NotPaidToPost
"Too many people"
That really is the root cause of most of our problems these days.
The reality is that it's not possible to live a "western middle class"
lifestyle when that lifestyle is accessible to billions of people. The planet
cannot take it.
------
throw51319
Listen, there's too many people for all of us to be at the top of the social
hierarchy and enjoy traveling and consuming whatever we want, etc.
The current capitalist based system isn't bad. But we should get rid of the
inefficiencies and cronyism and money shuffling.
It should basically be, if you innovate and help people enjoy their lives or
live better lives, etc... you get rewarded for that. If you don't, you get to
live a normal and healthy life without pomp.
Also, need to limit the number of people. Nobody should be having more than
2-3 kids or they get penalized with an equal and opposite economic penalty.
~~~
bilbo0s
> _Nobody should be having more than 2-3 kids or they get penalized with an
> equal and opposite economic penalty...._
That statement was a little humorous to me, but if you're serious, you'll be
happy to know that this is already the case. The couple unfortunate enough to
have, say, 5 kids is already, um, "penalized with an equal and opposite
economic penalty". Each child will always soak up much more than his or her
standard deduction. There's no question about that. Operational costs are
enormous, and grow over time. And all that doesn't even count opportunity
costs.
Yeah, anyone who thinks kids are cheap is liable to be very disagreeably
surprised if they ever have one. I'd wager a large part of what keeps the
economy going is spending on, for, or by, kids? But I don't have any data to
back that up, it's just my wild ass speculation.
~~~
throw51319
Unless they are on government support, right? Then the government subsidizes
their overproduction. They get more representation in the next generation for
no reason, having others pay for it.
~~~
bilbo0s
Well, now you've moved the goal posts.
You've switched from the economic issue that I thought you were talking about,
onto what sounds to me like a political issue that you have with people who
have a lot of kids. I don't really want to touch all that political stuff
because that's too controversial.
I was just saying that couples who have to support 5 kids by themselves take
enormous economic hits.
~~~
throw51319
Yeah you are definitely right that kids are very expensive. Also when taking
into account future negative externalities, excessive kids are also very
expensive to our society. The earth has a carrying capacity for humans, even
though the futurists don't believe so.
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
The Man Who Quit Money: An Interview with Daniel Suelo - bemmu
http://www.becomingminimalist.com/the-man-who-quit-money-an-interview-with-daniel-suelo/
======
vinceguidry
This reads a lot less like a scathing critique of modernity as it does yet
another affluent Westerner looking for self-actualization by excoriating
everything that made him rich and idle. He thinks he's not rich and idle any
more just because he gave away his life savings?
Whether he wants to believe it or not, he's the beneficiary of modern
largesse. He doesn't take government handouts or whatever, but the only reason
he can have the sorts of thoughts he's having about nature and religion is
because he was a Western-style education and enough free time to develop a
philosophy. He can dumpster dive, he can spend time on the Internet and at the
library figuring out how to live off grid. It's easy to take for granted the
careful, focused effort of millions of people over thousands of years to give
him all of this. The knowledge he finds in the library isn't cheap, even
though he's not paying for it.
Because I guarantee you, off-grid living wouldn't be nearly as much fun
without it.
I don't mind if you want to go off-grid. I had ideas myself about doing that.
I read about van-dwelling, building my own small house on a trailer,
earthships. If that's what you feel you need to do, by all means go play in
the dirt, get it out of your system. Just don't pretend it's morally superior
just because you've failed to fully appreciate everything that brought you to
that point to where you could renounce the modern world.
~~~
urda
> I don't mind if you want to go off-grid. I had ideas myself about doing
> that. I read about van-dwelling, building my own small house on a trailer,
> earthships. If that's what you feel you need to do, by all means go play in
> the dirt, get it out of your system. Just don't pretend it's morally
> superior just because you've failed to fully appreciate everything that
> brought you to that point to where you could renounce the modern world.
This is such a great statement. These articles when they come around make
finance, business, and work seem like such an "evil" thing, and should be
beneath people. But god forbid you tell them how dumpster diving and just
being a vagabond can also be a burden to everyone else in society.
~~~
shillster
He's only a burden in as much as the fall in his personal consumption reduces
the overall demand for things he might have purchased. In other words, its no
sweat off of anyone's brow. Being individually resourceful doesn't increase
the burden on anyone else.
~~~
vinceguidry
It's wasted potential. The modern world and all its conveniences and all its
resources didn't just come about. It was built up, out of nothing, by people
who saw how shitty the world looked then and wanted to live in a better one. A
better world is not being built by dumpster divers. It's certainly not being
built by dumpster divers managing to convince other people that dumpster
diving is somehow noble.
Every age had its dumpster divers, its people who, rather than to throw their
weight behind efforts to create better institutions, to better understand the
world around them, decided a better world wasn't worth the hassle. That this
world, with all these things that all their ancestors spent their lives
building, is stupid and should be renounced. These people are absolutely a
burden, and should not be listened to.
It made sense in a weird sort of way when the Jains were doing it, religious
renunciation is sometimes the _only_ way you can make a political statement
without getting killed, but it didn't take long until they had made their
point but kept on doing it after it stopped actually being noble.
Yes, there's a lot of crappy things about the world. Roll up your sleeves and
help fix them!
~~~
shillster
I wouldn't be so quick to cast anyone off, especially someone who undertakes
personal initiatives such as this to ensure their own survival. The "economy"
might suffer if more people adopted this attitude, but its hardly the end of
the world. It is not our position to judge if this person's potential is
wasted or not, you can't really be any more subjective.
------
grecy
Interesting read. I'm reminded of Chris McCandless [1] of Into The Wild fame.
I was so inspired by Chris' story I quit my job, sold all my stuff and spent
two years driving from Alaska to Argentina. I made a trip to the now infamous
bus in Alaska [2] during my trip.
While Chris and myself have never gone moneyless like the article, I find
myself tending towards that every day. I now hunt all my own meat and fish,
grow as much of my own vegetables as I can, work on my own car and bike, etc.
etc. I try hard to not pay for anything I can do for myself.
I'm also once again disillusioned with work and consumption, so in a couple of
months I'm heading out to drive around Africa for a couple of years, then all
going well I'll drive Europe->SE Asia.
[1]
[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Christopher_McCandless](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Christopher_McCandless)
[2] [http://theroadchoseme.com/the-magic-bus](http://theroadchoseme.com/the-
magic-bus)
~~~
bglazer
Perhaps this is overly prying, but do you have a family?
~~~
grecy
No wife or children, no.
That being said, I met tons of people on the road traveling with their family
for extended periods of time - tons of tons of people are driving around the
world with kids. I had a pizza on the streets of Cartegena, Colombia with one
French family and one of the kids said "We hate homeschooling..... we love
worldschooling!"
Friends of mine paused their trip for a few months while they had a baby in
Santiago, Chile, then kept driving :)
~~~
bglazer
Interesting! I've always wondered how people managed to have families while
traveling the world.
I very much prefer to travel alone, because being stuck miles from home with
an unhappy partner is a special kind of hell. It can also be quite lonely to
be alone on the road though.
Good luck in your travels!
------
duncancarroll
"Money only exists because two or more people believe that it does."
Er.. I get the point he's trying to make here, but I think what he's not
seeing is that currencies basically spontaneously emerge out of the necessity
of conducting trade. So, sure, you can try to pretend the construct doesn't
exist, but you're just closing your eyes to the problem because you don't
happen to like it.
~~~
RodericDay
Do you have a source for that? The origins of money?
------
ucaetano
"he lives in the caves and wilderness of Utah"
\- Which are wilderness regions because the entire population moved to cities.
"scavenges roadkill"
\- Which exists because people built roads and people drive there.
"pulls food from dumpsters"
\- Which exists because people built the dumpsters and throw food into it.
"sometimes fed by friends and strangers"
\- No comments.
The headline should be: "The Man Who Quit Money But Depends On It".
~~~
drivers99
I actually read [the first third of] the book "The Man Who Quit Money." He
only accepts what is freely given as long as there are no strings attached.
For example, he doesn't take from soup kitchens because the workers there are
required to do it as part of their jobs. I'm not sure what part of that you
think he's ignoring. He's not trying to live as if the rest of the world
doesn't exist, but to prevent others from controlling him via money and vice
versa.
~~~
ucaetano
So he didn't quit money, he quit being controlled by money. But still relies
on people who make money to survive.
------
cholmon
"When I left home for college, I studied other religions and found that all
the world's major religions teach giving up possessions and doing not for the
sake of reward. If all the separated witnesses are saying the same thing, it
must be true."
That's kind of...simplistic.
~~~
carapace
The important truths are all very very simple.
"He who works for the fruits of his labor is a miser." ~Krishna, in The Gita
------
aetherson
Mr. Suelo is certainly free to pursue his own happiness in whatever way he
wishes to. But his personal decisions do not provide a compelling template for
changes to any significant fraction of the population. We can't all -- we
can't even 1% of us -- live in caves and eat roadkill. Heck, my wife and I
can't do that if we want to have our daughter and not face, say, greater than
10% risk that my wife will die in the process.
And the rest of what he's saying seems to be, "Just treat each other like you
would family; do things for no reward and take what you need." That's not a
novel approach. It doesn't scale up well. The major experiments with trying to
scale it up resulted in the deaths of tens or hundreds of millions of people
in the 20th Century.
------
jayfuerstenberg
I wouldn't want to be a dumpster diver anymore than the next person but I
applaud this person for actually having a view outside of rampant consumerism
and following through on it.
~~~
icebraining
Meh, Ted Kaczynski went farther.
------
vaadu
How do people in these situations deal with the government? Obamacare has
mandates and one commenter mentioned a minimal existence with a motor vehicle,
which means license, insurance, inspection and registration requirements. All
requiring money which means some source of income.
In some places living completely off grid is illegal - you are required to be
connected and pay for utilities.
~~~
jarin
If you make less than $9,500/year you're exempt from the Obamacare penalty.
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
NY Top Court: Immigrants Are Entitled to Jury Trials If Deportation Can Result - masonic
https://reason.com/blog/2018/11/28/new-yorks-top-court-rules-immigrants-are
======
docbrown
I wonder how the decision from Jennings v. Rodriguez played into this courts
ruling. While Jennings v. Rodriguez gave immigrants the right to periodic bond
hearings [1], it gives them civil rights from the start.
1: [https://www.npr.org/2018/02/27/589096901/supreme-court-
rulin...](https://www.npr.org/2018/02/27/589096901/supreme-court-ruling-means-
immigrants-can-continue-to-be-detained-indefinitely)
------
seaocean
How much better is the jury trial than the alternatives for those who are not,
uh, a "culture fit"? For example, those that are "highly melanated", or of
"mestizo persuasion (and Mexican extraction who 'no speaka da English')" or
covered head to toe in burka or limp -wristed homosexual or, again, Boris who
is fresh off the boat from Belarus with the thickest of accents and broken
grammar...how do they fare with the jury who I am assuming will be made up of
those who represent the opinion and culture of the majority for who those
listed above are not always the "most respectable of people"? I guess one
could argue this is NY, not Alabama, but then again, NYC is not synonymous
with Upstate New York.
I apologize for my own grammar. Asking the question for my friend :)
~~~
knolax
Presumably, some of those that are selected to be a "jury of your peers" are
going to be the same demographic as you, that is if you have a good lawyer who
can select the right jury.
~~~
Konnstann
How many people about to be deported are going to have access to good lawyers
proficient in jury selection?
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Fully self-directed replication - dvgrn
https://cp4space.wordpress.com/2018/11/12/fully-self-directed-replication/
======
dvgrn
A self-constructing "0E0P" Conway's Life metacell is finally in working order!
The structure behaves like a single cell, obeying the rules of Life or
whatever CA rule it's programmed to emulate. Unlike previous metacells, if a
new cell has to be born, one of its neighbor metacells has to construct it
starting from empty space.
~~~
leetbulb
metacells blow my mind. i'll leave this here for anyone else interested:
[https://codegolf.stackexchange.com/questions/11880/build-
a-w...](https://codegolf.stackexchange.com/questions/11880/build-a-working-
game-of-tetris-in-conways-game-of-life)
------
gene-h
While making interesting constructs in cellular automata is a fun exercise,
there is the possibility that the constructs might be useful in the real
world. In the near term, it is much easier to make a molecular scale cellular
automata than it is to make a conventional processor. The latter requires a
complicated means of stitching together molecules, the former is a crystal
which is much simpler to make. So a molecular cellular automata could
potentially enable us to make a computer with a mole quantity of logic gates,
but we need some way to program said computer. All this work in cellular
automata constructs provides a way to do this. Although the more likely
application of such molecular cellular automata might be the formation of
patterns below the wavelength of light.
------
callesgg
That made me think of a DMT trip. Makes me wounder about the nature of
reality.
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Caleb Wilde is a sixth-generation funeral director - kostyk
https://medium.com/matter/confessions-of-a-mortician-7a8c061bbda3
======
chaosfactor
This article makes reference to Terror Management Theory
([http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Terror_management_theory](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Terror_management_theory))
and Ernest Becker's book The Denial of Death
([http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Denial_of_Death](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Denial_of_Death)).
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Ask HN: After almost dying couple of times I want to revolutionize healthcare - michaelabe
Hey HN,
First of all I wanted to thank you for inspiring a pivot based on this last post of mine that hit the FP on HN: http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2312566 and thank you for the kind words.
I was working on a social app like most of us do, and realized that social apps are a waste of time, there is nothing new or world changing about them. Facebook has kind of solved social already I think 600M friends can prove that. The world needs entrepreneurs to solve real big problems. Since I went through such extensive health issues all by the age of 25, just to name a few: 2 aneurysms, 2 brain surgeries, endocarditis, mitral valve regurgitation, coma, needed to learn how to walk again, and living in the hospital for a while, I decided there is serious change that needs to be done in the healthcare space, coming from someone who not only wants to make money but understands a lot of the problems from within (which there are a lot).<p>I have a clear picture of what I want to do and its super exciting, I started designing/coding it, but would like to find a co-founder to help me solve such a serious problem.<p>Email me at: [email protected] if you are interested.<p>Please be serious, I don't want to talk I want to do.
======
triviatise
IBM is doing some things with watson around expert systems for disease
diagnosis that are pretty interesting. Basically doctors are not very good
expert systems as they dont know the real probabilities and can't factor in
all the variables (or forget to ask).
Surgeons given software that forms a presurgery checklist have a significant
improvement in not screwing things up
Same with pharmacies and detecting side effects between drugs people are
taking. etc
I would be interested in hearing what you want to do
------
triviatise
Also people have been trying to do electronic medical records for ages. I
worked on an electronic patient system in high school in the mid 80's (on
macs!)
Some guys I know sold a startup for around 10M that did analytics for
hospitals on metrics around physician effectiveness. I think they had only
worked on it for a year or two.
------
esnible
[http://www.theonion.com/articles/quicklube-shop-masters-
elec...](http://www.theonion.com/articles/quicklube-shop-masters-electronic-
record-keeping-s,19736/)
------
dawson
Hi, please get in contact, I may be able to help or put you in touch with
people who can [email protected]
------
tnorthcutt
Are you aware of <http://massivehealth.com/>?
------
sixtofour
I can't imagine how you can revolutionize healthcare by coding.
~~~
Sizlak
Every time I have to deal with the health care system, I feel like I'm going
back in time. Doctors that can't even communicate by email. Redundant record
keeping. So much lost information. So much lost data. So much waste. Every
time I have a problem with my insurance, I have to call a 800 number and sort
things out with a human being paid money to do what software could do.
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
GolfScript: a language for solving problems (holes) in minimum keystrokes - gnosis
http://www.golfscript.com/golfscript/index.html
======
kevingadd
Hmm.
"Whitespace is not special, it actually behaves the same as any other
undefined variable, which is nothing. You can set a space to some value and
use it like any other variable. This has the potential to cause hard to track
down errors if you accidently set it without knowing."
Is solving a problem in a minimal number of printable characters really
worthwhile if you end up having to expend a huge number of actual keystrokes
rewriting it and debugging it? It seems like you could solve problems in a
smaller amount of actual, elapsed time in a language like Python.
Interesting to see someone focus on the compactness of the code specifically,
though. Languages like Brainfuck seem to be compact only because it tends to
obfuscate meaning.
~~~
jdp
Brainfuck is obscure, but only because of its restricted character set. 8
operators is not very expressive and requires large, but eventually
recognizable, idioms to get most common tasks done. Languages like J [1] keep
the terse syntax but have a much more expressive set of operators. J is also
very regular, so once one knows the basic vocabulary the programmer is able to
infer the meanings of more complicated operators. Compactness itself is not
what obfuscates meaning.
[1]: <http://www.jsoftware.com/>
------
jdp
Such terse languages have a long history -- going back all the way to APL.
Current environments, like K and J, continue the legacy but their syntax only
includes glyphs from the ASCII character set as opposed to APL's specialized
keyboard. The FALSE [1] and F [2] languages are similar to GolfScript, the
former being a stack-based language, minimalistic compiler, and inspiration
for Brainfuck. The latter is a more recent implementation and purely
functional implementation in K.
[1]: <http://strlen.com/false-language> [2]: <http://www.nsl.com/k/f/f.htm>
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Download the internet - daleharvey
http://www.dotnetdotcom.org/
======
HendrikR
The number of pages crawled keeps counting up. One per second. A glorious
glance into the source code shows, it's faked (the counting).
------
juliend2
I love their navigation :
# Information on how to block our crawler. (Hint, it doesn't involve legal
action)
# Our purpose and goal. (Yes we have one and no it doesn't involve spam)
# Our technology. (Thanks open source!)
[...]
------
gojomo
Their dump would be more useful if they...
(1) Used a preexisting aggregate web content format. Their ad hoc format is
simple enough, but can't handle content with NULLs, and loses valuable
information (such as time of capture -- you can't trust server 'Date' headers
-- and resolved IP address at time of collection).
They could use the Internet Archive classic 'ARC' format (not to be confused
with the older compression format of the same name):
<http://www.archive.org/web/researcher/ArcFileFormat.php>
Or the newer, more involved and chatty but still relatively straightforward
'WARC' format:
<http://archive-access.sourceforge.net/warc/>
(2) Explained how the 3.2 million pages in their initial dump were chosen.
(That's only a tiny sliver of the web; where did they start and what did they
decide to collect and put in this dataset?)
(FYI, I work at the Internet Archive.)
~~~
bravura
gojomo, I have looked at the file formats. Could you propose some off-the-
shelf web spiders? I would like to accumulate a lot of text for NLP research.
~~~
gojomo
At the Internet Archive we've created Heritrix for 'archival quality' crawling
-- especially when you want to get every media type, and sites to
complete/arbitrary depth, in large but polite crawls. (It's possible, but not
usual for us, to configure it to only collect textual content.)
The Nutch crawler is also reasonable for broad survey crawls. HTTrack is also
reasonable for 'mirroring' large groups of sites to a filesystem directory
tree.
~~~
bravura
Could you outline how to configure it to collect only textual content?
~~~
gojomo
Very roughly:
(1) Add a scope rule that throws out discovered URIs with popular non-textual
extensions (.gif, .jpe?g, .mp3, etc.) before they are even queued.
(2) Add a 'mid-fetch' rule to FetchHTTP module that early-cancels any fetches
with unwanted MIME types. (These rules run after HTTP headers are available.)
(3) add a processor rule to whatever is writing your content to disk (usually
ARCWriterProcessor) that skips writing results (such as the early-cancelled
non-textual results above) of unwanted MIME types.
Followup questions should go to the Heritrix project discussion list,
<http://groups.yahoo.com/group/archive-crawler/> .
------
Shamiq
How _could_ you use this?
Creative ideas please!
~~~
braindead_in
Write a better page rank algorithm?
~~~
daleharvey
I think an open source google could be a pretty great project, I would imagine
its been tried before, but by seperating out the steps where these guys crawl,
other people build indexes, and others handle lookups, it sounds more
reasonable than one project taking on the whole thing
~~~
snprbob86
The biggest problem here is hosting the index... in RAM...
It takes A LOT of machines to power a modern search engine which serves any
real amount of traffic. One key component of an open source search engine
would be a sort-of peer-to-peer distributed infrastructure. When I suggested
this in an earlier thread, people were quick to point out the liability
concerns here... but maybe it could work somehow... but then how do you get
people to sign up for it?
That said, I think this is incredibly interesting stuff. I would really love
to see open source, peer-served web utilities. For example, I'd want access to
many of the components of a web search engine, not just the search results
themselves. Things like a language model for spell checking or word
segmentation. Or a set analysis tool for detecting synonyms.
~~~
braindead_in
Ya. Thats true. But purely from an data standpoint, having the same index as
Google has would be valuable. Just because you can do so many things with it.
Like, figuring out how to increase the page rank of your site!
------
ojbyrne
It's funny but just before I read this, somebody sent me some pictures of
Barcelona (where I lived back in 2000-2001). I had a bunch of pictures on my
(non-corporate) website from 2000 to about 2003. Rather than digging them up
from somewhere on my various hard drives, I just turned to the internet
archive. And there they were.
It also turned up this error message, forever preserved in amber, so to speak:
[http://web.archive.org/web/20030802202553/www.permafrost.net...](http://web.archive.org/web/20030802202553/www.permafrost.net/gallery/Barcelona/unknown)
------
meatbag
dotbot is one of the data sources that SEOmoz uses for their Linkscape
crawler. Not sure why it was submitted here but I suspect promotional motives.
It is interesting data, but when people build crawlers to index the entire
www, especially if the data is intended as an SEO intelligence tool, certain
issues arise. Some background on this particular issue:
[http://incredibill.blogspot.com/2008/10/seomozs-new-
linkscap...](http://incredibill.blogspot.com/2008/10/seomozs-new-linkscape-
creates-webmaster.html)
~~~
inovica
Are you sure that Linkscape use the submitted organisations bot? I agree that
it could just be promotional - as they are only giving access to some of their
content (around 10% at my calc) but I'm not sure we're talking about the same
bot in this instance
~~~
meatbag
from <http://www.seomoz.org/linkscape/help/sources>
* Dotnetdotcom.org
* Grub.org/Wikia
* Page-Store.com
* Amazon/Alexa’s crawl and internet archive resources
* Exalead’s commercially available data
* Gigablast’s commercially available data
* Yahoo!’s BOSS API and other data sources
* Microsoft’s Live API and other data sources
* Google’s API and other data sources
* Ask.com’s API and other data sources
* Additional crawls from open source, commercial and academic projects
In my experience, the single most useful feature (main selling point) of the
Linkscape tool is that it reports http status codes (for a price) so SEOs can
detect 301 redirects, etc. AFAIK, dotnetdotcom.org has the only free, publicly
available crawl data which also includes http status codes. Not sure about
Exalead and Gigablast but I am pretty sure the other SEs don't release this
information. To clarify: I don't have any proof, and things may have changed,
but I've read some intelligent speculation (smarter than me) which claims that
dotbot/dotnetdotcom.org provides the majority of the data (especially the
unique info, like status codes) for the Linkscape tool.
------
thorax
search.wikia.com uses Grub: <http://search.wikia.com/about/crawl.html>
And that index is also open for download, though I haven't looked much into
it.
------
parenthesis
Do check out at the bottom in the "Dotbot Spider Statistics" table:
# of Tubes Found Clogged 7188420
~~~
CalmQuiet
Yes: they _do_ have a sense of humor.
And: are thoughtful enough to include typos, because (as we all know) some
people appreciate the opportunity to find errors). [ "...discussion of
girlfriend/boyfriend/husband/wife issues are stickily prohibited." ]
------
YoavShapira
It's good to see activity in this space, with more people and offerings (even
if some of them are semi-dodgy). It's been too quiet for a while, with just
the major search engines and other big players doing their own proprietary
indices.
------
braindead_in
cool idea. they should add a bit torrent link for downloading.
~~~
jonursenbach
There's one there already.
~~~
KrisJordan
Is their tracker working for anyone? Not so much here.
~~~
soult
The tracker is down, but I found some by adding some open trackers and
activating DHT:
* <http://tracker.thepiratebay.org:80/announce>
* <http://denis.stalker.h3q.com:6969/announce>
* <http://tracker.soultcer.net:80/announce>
~~~
Zev
You found the peers through DHT. Randomly adding trackers doesn't really do
much to help the torrent. Not unless _others_ have added the tracker as well.
Which is unlikely if you added it on your own.
~~~
soult
Since the first 2 are quite common "open trackers" (where open refers to the
fact that they track any hash you submit), it is often quite likely to find
sources there, because other people add them as well when they want more
sources.
Furthermore my comment will lead to more people, who might not have a DHT-
supporting client, adding those open trackers.
~~~
jonursenbach
Which torrent clients out there don't support DHT these days?
------
Allocator2008
Awesome idea. I like the flat file based indexing management they mentioned.
Gosh almost wish they had a link whereby one could send them one's C.V.! Keep
up the good work.
------
ajkirwin
Download the internet!
Or, at least, whatever doesn't block robots. :/
~~~
CalmQuiet
Yes: doesn't seem like it's going to be very "deep web", does it?
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Ask HN: What is your product development workflow? - seekingcharlie
I'm leading design & PM in a small team. Even with a QA team, we're suffering with product quality which I'm attributing to our CEO's desire to add new features instead of fixing the core. As a designer, it's not even that I care about getting everything to 100% perfection - I'd settle for 70% at this stage.<p>For example, we allow managers to access Timesheets for when their hourly/shift employees worked. Users have reported severe issues with the current implementation. We've designed a new version that replicates the current functionality but includes some new features.<p>I'm in the camp of wanting to rebuild the current version, removing the things that users hate now, then add the new, "delight" features later on. CEO disagrees & wants to build the new features with the rationale that "current version is functional so new features will have the most value".<p>This is just one specific example, but it's a pattern within our development process. As such, we've ended up with several sections of our app that even members of our team just don't want to look at because they're so janky (i.e. they were released out of MVP mentality & then never polished). I feel like for every new feature we add, we end up with 150 new bug tickets filed in PT that I have to prioritize. Can't we just take our 3 core features, make them 95% effective & then move onto everything else? I totally understand that Investors like new features, but they like paying users more & people are paying for these 3 core features. Am I thinking about this in the wrong way?<p>Any advice would be greatly appreciated.
======
akg_67
Are the users leaving because of reported severe issues? Are the revenue
declining? Can you related revenue decline to reported "severe" issues? Do you
know or understand the constraints your CEO is working under? While there may
be merits to your and developers' concern, you also need to understand the
priorities of CEO.
I have stopped counting the number of times, I hear developers wanting to redo
the current version. Every time, there is a new developer or a developer with
new technology/language skill, the rallying cry is always how the current
version sucks and we should be rewriting it.
CEO priority is to make sure business stays as an on-going concern. S/he can't
afford to stop the business so that you can rewrite and make current version
look pretty in your favorite framework/ technology/ style of the day. You need
to be customer driven and customer focus.
As long as customers keep using current version and not leaving, your goal is
to delight them enough to keep them from leaving, keep adding value so that
they stick around and new ones come onboard. The revenue from customers is
what makes the whole thing work from you and CEO continuing to pay bills, get
paid what they may be worth on regular basis and may get raises time to time.
------
onion2k
Remind your CEO that retaining existing users is a lot cheaper than acquiring
new users, and that the existing users bought in without the new shiny stuff
so fixing the features you _know_ they want is important. Remind him hourly.
With charts.
~~~
davismwfl
Totally what onion2k said.
SOS (shiny object syndrome) is the death of almost all products, teams and
companies in my opinion. You are better of having 50% of the features but high
quality and then add one or two key features every month, quarter etc but have
them be rock solid. This is of course, the idea once you have paying
customers. Up to that point its a bit more fast and loose to get customers
paying and on the line.
The problem will be if your CEO isn't seeing user attrition and is spending
most of his time talking to prospects then he will only be hearing comments
like, well if you had X, blah blah blah... If you have a support desk, ask him
to sit on it for 2 hours and answer questions from users, make sure you pick
the peak time. This can also be a little dangerous if he is the volatile type
person, but usually it helps most people change the conversation in their head
from shiny shit to damn it let's put some priority on existing issues for
clients. I think that is also the point of onion2k's comment about give him
reports hourly if necessary to show the details. I just found that getting a
CIO, CEO etc to physically have to do something like sit on the support desk
or go talk to existing clients with issues makes a bigger impact than a
report, but they go hand in hand.
It is about helping him change the conversation in his head, he obviously
doesn't want to see the company do poorly or have clients leaving, but he
likely is marketing focused and so looses track of existing clients to some
degree. This isn't uncommon just something that can lead to SOS and then an
eventual death spiral if not caught. The opposite is the internally focused
CEO that isn't talking with prospects or gaining new clients because he/she
isn't looking at how to grow the product, and that can spell death just as
fast if other people don't fill that void.
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
NASA Outlines Lunar Surface Sustainability Concept - bryanrasmussen
https://www.nasa.gov/feature/nasa-outlines-lunar-surface-sustainability-concept
======
PaulHoule
The worst trouble with long term operations on the moon is the night. Solar
energy is great during the day, but the night lasts 2 weeks.
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
I just broke down crying: Canadian video game creators - myth_drannon
https://www.cbc.ca/news/entertainment/burnout-crunch-canada-1.5109599
======
bananatron
Why does the gaming industry have such a bad track record compared to
'traditional?' software development? Is it that working 'with games' is so
desirable that people are willing to go through this misery, or is there more
here?
~~~
db48x
I think that's a significant part of it, but there's also fashion to consider.
It's hard to make a lot of money in games unless you're chasing the latest
fashions in graphics, design, content, console, etc. There are a fair number
of indie developers who have chosen to avoid all of that and spend multiple
years slowly growing a community around the development of a very different
kind of game. A good example would be Wube Software and their game Factorio
(factorio.com). They've spent the last six years working on the game (making
it available as early access that whole time) and talking to the fans about it
as they go. Compare that to a studio who spends three years working on FIFA
2018, releases it, and then immediately signs a contract to spend three years
working on FIFA 2021.
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Google Store warranty horror story: what to do next? - savecastel
I have been an happy owner of a Nexus 6p phone, bought in the UK Google Store, for the past 2.5 years. Yesterday though, when I went to check my email, I found it stuck in the Google boot loop.
This is a quite well known issue with the phone, and the factory reset didn't help bringing it back to life.<p>I got in touch with Google Store customer support, and here is where the problems start.
The phone is still on warranty, but:<p>* They no longer have Nexus 6p on stock, so they can't give me a replacement.<p>* Since I moved to Canada, I have closed the bank account I used to originally pay the phone, which, according to them, means I can't get a refund.<p>The second customer support person I spoke with mentioned that I might still be able to get a refund on a new UK bank account, but I'd have to find somebody in the UK to go through all the required steps for me, which is not really an option.<p>All in all, this basically means I am stuck with a 500£ phone that is still under warranty, but apparently Google refuses to do anything about it.
Has anybody had a similar experience? What do you think is the best next step in this situation?<p>Thanks!<p>PS: I know there are hacks to fix the issue, but the ones I have found void the warranty and basically require you to throttle the phone, which I would argue is not an ideal solution.
======
linsomniac
I know it _FEELS_ like a 500£ phone, but if you look at ebay it's more like a
35-40£ phone today. Perhaps this helps reframe it? If Google is offering to
give you back your original 500£, that seems like an awfully good deal.
I, personally, just went through a similar situation, except my 6p was out of
warranty. I use Project Fi and have the device protection $5/mo add-on, and
they sent me a top of the line Nexus XL to replace my top of the line 6p, for
$100 (the device replacement cost). My 6p also got stuck in the boot loop.
Perhaps ask if a Nexus XL (not Nexus 2) is a replacement option?
Honestly, my 6p was damn near unusable before the replacement. I wouldn't say
I have a lot of apps installed, I basically install a set of the ones I use
daily and rarely install new ones, but it was incredibly laggy. The Nexus is
way better in that regard. Yes, I had some apps I could remove, but pretty
much everything on the phone was something I used regularly, most I used
daily.
Aside: I was looking at a recent sale on the Nexus 2 XL, which brought it down
to more like $800, and they offered $180 trade in on my Nexus XL. I felt like
that was kind of low, but when I looked at ebay it turned out that was about
right. I decided I'm super happy with my $180 phone! :-)
~~~
dudus
I'm guessing that by "Nexus XL" and "Nexus 2 XL" you mean a "Pixel XL" and
"Pixel 2 XL"
~~~
linsomniac
Oops, you're right.
------
entilzha
A similar issue got me from recommending android and google services to
friends/family to actively discouraging them (and migrating off of every
service I could feasibly do). The WiFi chip on my nexus 6 burnt out and
neither Motorola or google would replace it without paying several hundred
dollars (motorola said it was a software issue and google said it was a
hardware issue). Looking at forums this was a known issue across every nexus
device.
I have zero patience for poor customer service.
~~~
savecastel
I am on the same boat. I really love the stock Android experience, and before
this issue I was suggesting it to colleagues and friends, and I was
considering to possibly upgrade to the Pixel 3 later this year (at least if it
lives to the expectations).
After this though, I think I'll look somewhere else, possibly with a company
that offers a better customer support.
~~~
Spooky23
The changing of countries is a big deal. Many companies will have problems
supporting that scenario.
It is surprising that google is one of them, though!
~~~
ppseafield
When my Nexus 5x stopped charging, I realized when doing my exchange that the
warranty company wasn't Google. They outsource their device warranties.
In any case I paid $100 and got a working replacement.
------
shoo
Ignoring the phone being under warranty, you may be covered under UK consumer
law to request a repair, replacement or refund from the retailer:
[https://www.which.co.uk/consumer-rights/advice/i-want-to-
ret...](https://www.which.co.uk/consumer-rights/advice/i-want-to-return-my-
goods-what-are-my-rights)
[https://www.which.co.uk/consumer-rights/letter/letter-to-
get...](https://www.which.co.uk/consumer-rights/letter/letter-to-get-a-refund-
if-your-item-is-faulty)
[https://www.which.co.uk/consumer-rights/advice/how-to-
reject...](https://www.which.co.uk/consumer-rights/advice/how-to-reject-a-
faulty-product-and-get-your-money-back)
Another angle would be to pursue this based on the terms of your warranty. Do
the terms of your warranty restrict the refund to only be to your original
payment method? (this seems ridiculous to me). If so, it is possible you may
also be able to challenge this under UK consumer law as an unfair contract
term: [https://www.which.co.uk/consumer-rights/advice/how-to-
compla...](https://www.which.co.uk/consumer-rights/advice/how-to-complain-
about-unfair-contract-terms)
> If the extended warranty document makes it look very difficult for you to
> claim, or the wording is particularly tricky to understand this could be
> regarded as an ‘unfair term’.
(disclaimer: i dont live in the UK or know anything about UK consumer law, i'm
just some idiot on teh internets, i am not your idiot on teh internets)
------
pasbesoin
In my dealing with Google Fi, different reps may offer you different options.
I had to call a couple of times on my Nexus 5x. Because of specific business
reasons I won't go into, I'd waited a while before trying to get the thing
fixed or replaced. I couldn't get it replaced -- I'd apparently missed the
window for that, wherein I'd heard of people getting new units or Pixel 1's or
the like, perhaps because they'd run out of that stock -- but a subsequent rep
did qualify it for repair.
In your case, if it's under warranty, I'd say they owe you service.
Often, in the case of warranty, if a company can't repair a failed unit under
warranty, they'll replace it with an equal or better current/available unit.
This is not some novel concept.
But, it costs. Google and partners can afford it, and it might be less
expensive than all the bad PR.
Look what's happened to LG phones and marketshare, since the whole bootloop
fiasco.
Anyway, Google, it's under warranty. Stop fucking around and honor the
warranty.
------
c31415
Maybe try signing up to one of the challenger banks in the UK? Monzo, Starling
or Revolut? The sign up process is a bit easier there.
~~~
savecastel
Thanks for the suggestion.
As far as I can remember from my time there, a valid UK address was mandatory
in order to open a bank account there, but maybe this is no longer the case
(or it isn't for the banks you mention).
------
godzillabrennus
Sue in small claims court.
I expect that Google will lose and you’ll get your money.
~~~
nvarsj
He bought it in Canada, I doubt he has much grounds to sue in the UK. If he
bought it in the UK, that's a whole different story and he has very strong
consumer protections.
~~~
savecastel
I bought in the UK and then moved to Canada. Google refuses to replace the
phone (since they no longer have it in stock), and they claim they can't
refund me since the payment method I used to buy the phone (an UK Credit Card)
is no longer active, and I don't have an UK bank account.
------
panda888888
Keep escalating through Google customer support. I recommend going through Fi
support; I seem to have gotten better service that way. There's also a "reddit
request" that you can submit if you go to reddit.com/r/projectfi.
~~~
savecastel
Thanks, I'll try this approach and see how it goes!
------
jrowley
I'm sorry this happened to you. I don't have a solution for you. Personally I
don't trust google with customer service stuff (as well as most other things),
which is why I rely on Apple, for better or worse.
------
daguvment
If you paid for the 6P with a credit card, you might be able to go through
them. Many credit card companies have lesser known perks, such as doubling the
warranty period of products purchased with that card. If this is the case, you
can contact your credit card company and go through them for a
replacement/refund.
~~~
inetsee
The customer "closed the bank account I used to originally pay (for) the
phone", which means that getting the bank to help is probably not an option.
------
mdekkers
Neither of these should be your problem. Google have a duty under the
warranty. They can make up internal rules and policies all day long, none of
which should be any of your concern. You have a right to a new phone.
------
honkycat
Just tossing in my two cents: Avoid the Google store at all cost. Their
service is absolutely worthless. Getting on the phone is the only way to get
anything done.
I bought a pair of headphones from the Google store that ended up having a
manufacturing defect, so they sent me a replacement.
It broke again. 2 hours on the phone, and denying me a refund, they sent me
another pair.
It broke again. Two more hours on the phone. Deny me a refund. Insist on
sending me a replacement. This is where I get upset, so they escalate me to
their refund department. Denied a refund, send me a replacement. But, I am
assured that if THIS pair breaks, they will refund my purchase.
It broke again. Two more hours on the phone. They tell me I am out of
warranty. I throw a conniption. They agree to refund me. They refund me $30 of
the $180 I spent on the defective headphones. Two more hours. FINALLY after
hours and hours of talking on the phone, I get a refund. 5 months and 4 pairs
of headphones later.
The whole process was demeaning and wasteful. I did not love opening up and
throwing away boxes upon boxes of packaging. I did not love the fact that they
probably received the defective headphones and threw them into the trash.
Their refund policy was asinine and TECHNICALLY, they made an exception for me
because I made it clear I was going to continue accepting the replacement
headphones and sending them back when they inevitably broke again just to
waste their time and money. At one point the support person suggested that it
is a known issue with the headphones, but not something they were
acknowledging yet.
Ironically, the only thing wrong with the headphones was a defective 3.5mm to
USB-C cable which would disconnect due to a weak connection at the USB-C end.
Initially I told them I just want another cable, but they would only accept a
full return.
tldr: the Google Store has a bullshit return and refund policy and you should
NEVER buy anything from the google store if you can help it.
~~~
savecastel
I am sorry to hear you had such a bad experience with them.
I wish I had researched more around Google Store customer support before
making my purchase: now that I know, I'll avoid it as much as I can.
------
dpedu
I bought a 6p on launch day and my warranty has long expired. How is yours
still active?
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Undercover in a Toronto factory where a temp worker died - Zarkonnen
http://projects.thestar.com/temp-employment-agencies/index.html
======
benlorenzetti
Having worked at two manufacturers in the Midwest, anecdotally the majority of
forklift drivers, line workers on specific lines, and even many white collar
office roles were filled by temp agencies. A similar structure existed for
engineering too; we would have a problem and the engineering firm with workers
under the same roof would develop a solution.
For the temp workers the motivation was always very clear and very much based
on working around labor laws. If a forklift driver got in an accident, it
wouldn't be counted in the same way. Line workers could be less rigidly
brought on board or let go with seasonal or other varying demand. They were
cheaper too and everyone worked hard to try and become a regular employee.
I am not sure what a solution is, after all these types of temp companies only
exist to skirt existing labor laws, suggesting these laws may defy economics a
bit too much. On the other hand what other ways do we have of increasing the
bargaining position of labor? Growing the economy, but that isn't something a
politician can honestly promise. Pulling back from globalization would, but
that is bad economics and bad for national security. Perhaps something like
earned income tax credit? Or perhaps we should just continue waiting until the
rest of the world develops and the supply of labor finally becomes
constrained.
~~~
frgtpsswrdlame
Ending right to work laws and bringing back unions.
~~~
RHSeeger
Of course, that too comes with it's negatives. Unions have both positives and
negatives. It's not a simple discussion.
~~~
mikeash
Corporations have both positives and negatives, yet somehow there's never a
debate over whether we should have _those_.
It's very strange to me that employees organizing and working together is so
controversial, but management doing the same thing is not only expected but we
can't even envision anything else.
~~~
benlorenzetti
I think one reason it seems so strange is that it is sort of a mis-
characterization/failure of communication that easily happens in politics.
There is nothing wrong with unions in principle, but once someone has written
into law exactly what a union is, then the possibility for mistakes and
unintended negative consequences exist. When the UAW were fighting for better
wages and conditions in bygone days, I don't think many at that time thought
the same laws would contribute to GM declaring bankruptcy and needing to be
bailed out by all 300+ million Americans, who were never involved in any of
the bad decisions made.
And reasonable people can quibble about who shoulders more of the blame, but
one can't deny that American labor costs were significantly higher than
foreign competition and were largely impossible to adjust.
Unions today need better leaders, who realize that the future is in
collaborating across national borders with their brethren at all global
corporations. The United States simply cannot enforce its own labor laws in
China or any other proud nation. Workers created unions themselves, they did
not need government to do it for them...which is good because neither the US
nor Russia or China rules the whole world.
------
mabbo
I don't understand how this strategy works. Company A doesn't want to hire
employees because employees have rights. Instead, they hire temps from Company
B who abuses their employees' rights.
Why doesn't the government start policing the abuse of rights by Company B?
Why doesn't the government pass laws that acknowledge that these employees are
truly employees of Company A?
~~~
Asooka
First, as stated in the article Company B practically doesn't exist and if it
gets closed, it can reappear as Company C next door. Second, because the
people writing these laws didn't envision such greed and now there's too much
lobbying money thrown around.
~~~
mabbo
> now there's too much lobbying money thrown around
But this is Canada! We have strict political donation laws and campaign
spending laws that really prevent lobbying from getting nuts like it is in
America.
I'm mostly upset because this is in my back yard. I could be at this factory
in 20 minutes in current traffic conditions.
~~~
rtkwe
Even with laws like that large companies have a lot of advantages in lobbying
for laws. First it's much easier for a large company to get lobbyists because
they have the money to hire them where workers and worker rights groups have
smaller purses to draw from. Second the things companies lobby for have nice
big metrics they can trot out, profitability, GDP or job growth, etc where
improving working conditions for industry X doesn't have a nice big number you
can trot out or even really benefits everyone in a way they can appreciate
where the pro-business side can draw more direct 'regulation X killed this
many jobs last year, repeal it and we swear we won't be evil.'
------
grecy
Many companies in countries like Canada and Australia are now trying harder
than ever to emulate the United States with it's extremely low wages, health,
benefits, etc. for temp or casual workers.
Unfortunately, it's a race to the bottom, as tens of millions of Americas will
attest to.
My simple question is - can we justify treating humans like this in the name
of increasing profit?
~~~
wiz21c
My second question is : why don't union gets bigger and stronger ? Millions
can't be put on the brink on poverty without an answer.
Yesterday, on a european TV, I saw a documentary about middle class people who
became half-homeless (their words). They were just unlucky to loose their
jobs. Now I understand they may have had too much credits or debts here and
there but, these were middle class, that is, they went _down_ the social path.
That's scary.
~~~
NicoJuicy
Almost no Belgians in Belgium are homeless. I haven't seen anyone, although
there seems to be some in the main capital.
I know a lot of refugees live in sheltes and currently there are homeless
people in Brussels due to the breakup of Calais. But these people don't want
to get asile in Belgium, but want to go to the UK. So that's why they don't
receive anything here. That is their choice ofc.
~~~
wiz21c
Yep, statistically there are not many. But people helped by "social security"
is growing faster than demographics. Those people are at the last level of
social welfare, after that they're super close to homelessness.
the thing is, before being homeless, you're already in deep shit.
for refugees, I think you're right but "their choice" is a way to frame them
that is a bit harsh. I see many of them everyday close to north station
(brussels) and I doubt it was their choice to be there in the first place.
(edited the station, it's the north one :-))
------
Jeremy1026
The last letter sent from Fiera to The Star[1] is scathing. Fiera is trying so
very hard to play the victim to The Stars mean and "underhanded" tactics to
get information about their operations. It probably would have served them
better to just remain silent instead of sending this response.
[1] [http://projects.thestar.com/temp-employment-
agencies/letters...](http://projects.thestar.com/temp-employment-
agencies/letters/letter-to-ms-mojtehedzadeh.pdf)
~~~
Danihan
I don't know, I find that letter pretty convincing actually. They seem pissed,
but they also make a lot of valid points.
~~~
lovich
At this point isn't it reasonable to assume that companies will not tell you
the truth if it puts them in a bad light, and you would need to go undercover
to find that truth? Companies cant tell their shareholders on one side that
they are doing everything to maximize profit, and on the other side say that
they will show their operations with all the good and the bad to anyone who
asks.
~~~
Danihan
Not really. I believe the journalist did sign a document that she knew where
the emergency exits were, and the only "damning" thing she found on-site was
an unclean bathroom and generally difficult work.
This whole thing seems like such a non-story to me. Maybe it's because I've
worked in factories before, but I've personally had more harrowing experiences
on my 1st day than anything mentioned in this article.
~~~
jakobegger
Unreachable emergency stop buttons? Moving parts of a fan next to workers
without safety covers? Workers fighting for space next to a crowded conveyor
belt? Missing guard rails? Repeated fines for lacking safety? Everything about
this factory sounds like a death trap.
~~~
Danihan
Until these things are flagged upon inspection (and they would) I'd take it
with a big grain of salt.
------
dsfyu404ed
I used to work in similar places. They suck. There's a reason people don't
wear loose fitting clothing around machinery though.
A lot of the author's complaints are just part for the course in these kinds
of environments. Low margin industries suck in general.
The problem here isn't temp agencies it's companies that would be doing bad
things anyway hire their full time workforce though temp agencies to create
level of abstraction that helps avoid liability. Obviously there's temp
agencies that cater directly to this but the problem is on the demand side.
Some companies want to treat people badly and they can use temp agencies to do
it.
I know people who have done very well (or as well as you can for those kinds
of jobs) at temp agencies. Employers can use a temp agency and if they like
the temp(s) they get they can direct hire the temp(s) and cut out the middle
man. This doesn't happen when your entire workforce is temps though.
~~~
exelius
> The problem here isn't temp agencies it's companies that would be doing bad
> things anyway hire their full time workforce though temp agencies to create
> level of abstraction that helps avoid liability.
The problem is worse than that. Companies are providing insufficient worker
trainings/protection to save money and hiding behind a temp agency for any
consequences of that decision. That way, when they get inevitably get sued,
the temp agency can declare bankruptcy. Meanwhile, the plant reassigns the
contract to a "new" company who then hires most of the same workers.
Here's how it works:
\- A holding company owns the factory and everything in it (equipment, etc).
Skilled labor (technicians, etc.) work for this company. This is also the
company that is most likely to be a subsidiary or joint venture of a publicly
traded company that you've heard of.
\- An operating company leases the factory from the holding company with the
goal of manufacturing something (but often something that the parent company
wants). The plant managers are probably the only people who work for this
company.
\- The operating company hires a temp agency to staff the line.
\- The temp workers are employed by the agency to work the line.
\- If a worker gets hurt, the temp agency can declare bankrupcy. Temp agencies
have few capital assets to go after, so even if you win, you're not likely to
get much.
\- Even if you can somehow get the operating company included in the suit for
negligent oversight, it too has very little in the way of assets.
\- The holding company (where the real assets exist) is protected by several
layers of liability.
\- The publicly traded company is out of the loop entirely, but still gets
cheap products to sell at their stores. Risk is transferred to workers in
order to save money.
------
walterbell
_> Fiera’s current clients include some of the continent’s biggest brands
including Dunkin’ Donuts and Sobeys; over the years it has made pastries for
Costco, Tim Hortons, Metro, Walmart, and Loblaw. Its factories churn out baked
goods by the truckload, destined for markets across North America and around
the world. They can produce 2 million bagels alone per day._
Retail boycotts have been used against clothing sweatshops.
Is there a reliable way to identify North American baked goods which originate
from these temp-labor factories? If all the large distributors use the same
suppliers, are there local bakeries which provide better labor conditions and
create better product?
~~~
castle-bravo
Consider getting a bread maker: Keurig for bread.
~~~
ams6110
Or a mixing bowl and 15 minutes or so to hand-knead. You don't need a machine,
likely also made in a factory under similar conditions, to make bread dough.
~~~
yial
I agree. As someone who bakes bread frequently there are many recipes that
don't require anything beyond ingredients , a bowl, and oven and some trays.
However, if you're really doing some serious dough, or just want to branch
out. A kitchenaid mixer makes it way easier to get windowpain, and if you're
all about the yeast, a food thermometer can be good.
------
jonssons
as an ex-temp worker: that's how it is. You want to work, you have to put up
with the stuff they throw at you. No. It's not fair. No. It's not just. It's
for the poor. It's for the uneducated. It's for the immigrants. It's for the
vulnerable people, because they are easy to exploit. They don't know their own
rights.
Temp offices should not be allowed to exist.
~~~
dsfyu404ed
>Temp offices should not be allowed to exist.
I disagree.
Working for a temp agency doing catering, sports venue and whatnot is
generally more stable income than working for several places like that
directly. Temp agencies work well for industries where demand is variable but
predictable.
Companies that use temps to fill their baseline staffing requirements to skirt
legal/ethical requirements are terrible though.
~~~
frandroid
Catering companies, sports venues, etc. can still have you on-call. The
difference between a temp agency and a catering company is that it completely
severs the employment relation which protects the workers by law.
~~~
dsfyu404ed
Yes, and that's usually worse than getting a fairly predictable number of
hours from a temp agency. A temp agency will generally try to avoid asking an
employees to be in multiple places at once. It's a pretty simple resource
allocation problem.
------
Theizestooke
That is some great journalism, can't remember the last time I read an article
like that. Also telling that this article has less than 20 comments on Hacker
News. Or maybe it's a sign of the times that this sort of stuff appears on a
tech news site at all.
~~~
jdietrich
If you want to see more journalism like this, subscribe to your local
newspaper.
Investigative journalism is slow, difficult and expensive. Sometimes it
doesn't yield anything worth printing, sometimes it results in a worthy but
dull story, sometimes it provokes major social change. You can't afford to do
serious investigative work on Adsense revenue.
Local newspapers are uniquely equipped to do this sort of work. They have the
local contacts, they have the experienced journalists who know their beat,
they have the trust of the community. Agencies like ProPublica do important
work, but they're no substitute for grass-roots journalism.
------
asdfasdfasd333
In August, charges were laid against Fiera Foods under the Occupational Health
and Safety Act for the 2016 death of a temp agency worker named Amina Diaby.
_Her hijab was caught in a machine, strangling her._
/thread.
~~~
FLGMwt
Not sure what you're trying to convey?
~~~
err4nt
Every single woodworking shop, electric shop, factory, etc I've been in they
always make a big deal about _never_ wearing loose-fitting clothing, long hair
or necklaces or bracelets - anything you wouldn't want torn off you at a fast
rate of speed with force you remove or restrain. This is common sense and
common instruction - I'm not sure what employment safety laws say about this.
If the cause of her death was loose-fitting clothing that's normally
prohibited from those environments because it's a serious danger and workers
have been getting caught in machinery as long as we've had machinery to get
caught in - and the only reason she was able to wear the clothing in that
environment was because of her religious rights guaranteed under the Canadian
Charter of Rights and Freedoms (which states that her religious rights
supersede any written legal code) then this mortal risk might be something she
fought to take on, even if the company recommended against it.
Imagine for a second that you're a motorcycle police officer, where it's
customary (even law) to wear a helmet, but you (for religious reasons) wanted
to wear your religious headwear in lieu of a helmet. Then imagine you were
killed on the job in a motorcycle crash due to a blow to the skull. Would
there be a need for a month-long undercover investigation to uncover the
reason you died?
~~~
frandroid
That's the point of the article, I think. Because Fiera doesn't have an
employment relationship with the employee, their workers' comp rates will
never increase, no matter what happens to the workers. So they don't take the
kinds of precautions which would have prevented this worker from dying. I
mean, it also severs to human connection between workers and managers, where
they just see workers as a dispensable resource, so there also less every day
care about safety.
~~~
Natsu
I read that as saying they couldn't stop her from wearing the hijab, which
limits their options. Reading the article, it seems like the other deaths were
caused by bad LOTO (lock out tag out) practices and one was some kind of
traffic accident.
If it were me, I'd look at ways to avoid normalization of deviance. Maybe
those with loose clothing can be given other things to wear or put into other
roles. Factory jobs are inherently crappy and employers generally given you
the legal minimums, as I know from direct experience. It's best to figure out
ways to make complying with the rules easier so that most companies and most
workers are complying with the law most of the time, but it's hard to give
clear answers on how to do that. Hopefully things continue to improve. I'm
sure there's a lot of room for it.
------
markvdb
A classic in this type of undercover journalism is the work of Günter Wallraff
in (West-)Germany:
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/G%C3%BCnter_Wallraff#Undercove...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/G%C3%BCnter_Wallraff#Undercover_work)
------
transverse
How is it not her own fault for wearing dangerous clothing (a hijab) in a
factory workplace? Something as simple as long hair can be dangerous in such
an environment, and a hijab or scarf is unthinkable. Darwin award.
~~~
Cthulhu_
It's still the employer's fault though, they're supposed to have managers etc
that make sure people conform to safety rules and don't wear loose clothes,
have their hair tied back, wear hair and beard nets, remove jewellery, wash
hands, etc. Actually (reading further in the article myself now), the
journalist is told all that.
But on the other hand, there's religious freedom and rules that come into
play. In this case though, if she didn't want to remove or replace the loose
clothing, she shouldn't be allowed to work near dangerous machinery.
~~~
ams6110
Agree, but in the PC climate of today people are afraid to criticize any
expression of Muslim faith even for legitimate reasons such as "wearing a
hijab when using this machine will likely get you killed."
------
andrewl
This kind of article is a reminder of how much we need traditional newspapers,
and what we'd lose if they went away. I sometimes read suggestions that
independent bloggers will replace newspapers, but I don't think they can do
everything newspaper reporters do. This reporter worked undercover for a
month. There would also have been a lot of time spent on background research
before she went undercover. Then it would have taken her more time after that
to write the article. During all that time she was paid by the Toronto Star.
An independent writer could work undercover, and some have, but they're stuck
for that period making a very low salary and having to worry about making ends
meet.
Then, at least as important, the reporter is backed by the Toronto Star's
legal team. I suspect that if she were an independent and published her story
on her own blog, this writer would have been sued by the bakery owners and
compelled to take the story down. And she would also pay a lot for her legal
defense. In this case, if the bakery owners want to sue, they can, but they'll
be suing the Toronto Star, which has resources to mount a legal defense, and a
voice with which to write about an unjustified lawsuit.
So this seems like real journalism to me, and I don't want it to go away. And
when I say "real journalism" I'm thinking of George Orwell's view that
"Journalism is printing what someone else does not want printed: everything
else is public relations."
I'm also thinking of Finley Peter Dunne, who said the point of journalism is
to "comfort the afflicted and afflict the comfortable."
~~~
Cthulhu_
Bloggers can one-up journalists though - there's been a number of critical
blog posts and articles from (former) employees at Uber, Google, etc, which
eventually cost CEO's their jobs. Actually working and living the life is even
better than being a journalist and having to dive into it.
~~~
jdietrich
Your examples kind of undermine your point. Disgruntled Uber and Google
employees have the writing skills to make their point, they have the technical
savvy and the social capital to get their message to a wide audience, they
have the confidence and financial resources to resist legal bullying.
In a world without professional journalists, there's no-one to speak out for
the poor and marginalised, no-one to unearth stories that are being kept well-
hidden by unscrupulous people, no-one to do the months of digging and fact-
checking that are involved in a major investigation. Journalism is a highly
skilled craft that plays a vital role in society; we can't afford to delegate
it to amateurs.
------
CryptoPunk
If you impose mandatory higher standards for pay, benefits and training on
temp employment agencies, a great many of these jobs will simply cease to
exist. Given they're employing some of the most resource-challenged people,
such a social intervention is liable to cause far more harm than good.
Perfect is the enemy of the good.
~~~
sushid
Not sure if you read the article, but no one is talking about a higher
standards for pay and benefits. You're literally making generic libertarian
points.
The only direct criticism is that they don't enforce their own safety
guidelines which leads to the death of their workers. A great many of these
jobs can continue to exist even if their managers simply request those with
loose garbs or improper safety shoes, etc. to show up with proper clothes.
Moreover, if there were some sort of government mandated safety check (which
I'm not arguing for, just saying) the imposed burden is equal to all other
competing firms. Unless the onus of taking on such check was so great that
they suddenly decide to put all their money into R&D, these jobs will continue
to exist.
~~~
CryptoPunk
A lot of people are talking about higher mandatory standards in the wake of
this report, most importantly Ontario's Labour Minister:
[https://www.thestar.com/news/queenspark/2017/09/11/temp-
work...](https://www.thestar.com/news/queenspark/2017/09/11/temp-work-growth-
is-alarming-and-changes-are-coming-says-ontario-labour-minister.html)
Publicity of the working conditions and pay of low-skilled workers invariably
leads to calls for more stringent mandatory standards, as if you can outlaw
poverty and low-living standards.
>>Unless the onus of taking on such check was so great that they suddenly
decide to put all their money into R&D, these jobs will continue to exist.
The effect is on the margins. No single mandate will have a significant
impact, but each one adds costs, and in the aggregate, they have a significant
effect on economic growth, which is a compounding effect that translates to
massive long-term effects.
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
UK law says provide key to encrypted data or go to jail - bougiefever
http://www.itworld.com/security/285992/uk-law-says-provide-key-encrypted-data-or-go-jail
======
wfn
In light of this, here's a fun paper/idea (+implementation) to consider:
"Neuroscience Meets Cryptography: Designing Crypto Primitives Secure Against
Rubber Hose Attacks"
[https://crypto.stanford.edu/~dabo/pubs/abstracts/rubberhose....](https://crypto.stanford.edu/~dabo/pubs/abstracts/rubberhose.html)
(summary; full paper (PDF):
[http://bojinov.org/professional/usenixsec2012-rubberhose.pdf](http://bojinov.org/professional/usenixsec2012-rubberhose.pdf))
Abstract:
"Cryptographic systems often rely on the secrecy of cryptographic keys given
to users. Many schemes, however, cannot resist coercion attacks where the user
is forcibly asked by an attacker to reveal the key. These attacks, known as
rubber hose cryptanalysis, are often the easiest way to defeat cryptography.
We present a defense against coercion attacks using the concept of implicit
learning from cognitive psychology. Implicit learning refers to learning of
patterns without any conscious knowledge of the learned pattern. We use a
carefully crafted computer game to plant a secret password in the
participant's brain without the participant having any conscious knowledge of
the trained password. While the planted secret can be used for authentication,
the participant cannot be coerced into revealing it since he or she has no
conscious knowledge of it. We performed a number of user studies using
Amazon's Mechanical Turk to verify that participants can successfully re-
authenticate over time and that they are unable to reconstruct or even
recognize short fragments of the planted secret."
The scheme/system is bound to be imperfect; but it is a nice angle of
approach, so to speak, and hopefully we'll have more stuff of this kind in the
near future.
_edit_ / P.S.: from the paper / intro section:
Readers who want to play with the system can check out the training game at brainauth.com/testdrive
~~~
jwr
It is interesting, but has little to do with the original article, as the
police will kindly ask the accused to authenticate, instead of asking for the
key.
~~~
wfn
You are right, when you look at it like that, my comment was a bit of a
hijack. The threat model in question assumes that the attackers know that the
person in question has a way to auth / is part of an encrypted / limited
access system, which is a very sensible assumption (and is included in the
police/accused scenario in any case.)
I was probably thinking something along the lines of, [this proposed system] +
a way for the user to discretely convey to the auth/security system the info
that they are being coerced, and the system authenticating them to a bogus
user account / set of sensitive data. But this would be cumbersome and very
difficult to implement given the design in question, probably.
It would have probably been more relevant to mention encryption systems with
plausible deniability - e.g. TrueCrypt's hidden volumes [1] and Rubberhose FS
[2].
[1]:
[http://www.truecrypt.org/hiddenvolume](http://www.truecrypt.org/hiddenvolume)
[2]:
[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rubberhose_%28file_system%29](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rubberhose_%28file_system%29)
------
jumblesale
July 13, 2012
A few of us kicked and shouted about this when this was proposed. If you'd
like an example of how this is being abused, El Reg has a good article from
2009:
[http://www.theregister.co.uk/2009/11/24/ripa_jfl/](http://www.theregister.co.uk/2009/11/24/ripa_jfl/)
~~~
mseebach
The case is absolutely awful, but he was jailed for _refusing_ to hand over
the key, which is (according to the article) exactly what he did. The article
is very kind to the suspect here, and nowhere does it even suggest that he had
lost the key or otherwise wasn't able to decrypt the files.
~~~
cmircea
Since when is refusing to incriminate oneself punishable with jail time? Last
time I checked it wasn't.
Refusing to provide encryption keys is the same thing. There might be illegal
data, there might not be. It's the duty of the police to prove it, not the
accused.
Innocent until proven guilty? Not in the UK.
~~~
rayiner
This is the UK not the US. They don't have a 5th amendment.
In the US courts are split on the issue. Some say giving an encryption key is
testifying, an act of the mind, and you can't force someone to testify against
themselves under the 5th. Others say its like handing over a regular key,
which you can be forced to do, because the 5th covers testimony, not
everything incriminating. It was intended to prevent forced confessions.
Once you're in front of a court you don't get to keep secrets, with the
exception of some narrow protections. This has always been the case in the
Anglo-American system.
~~~
IsThisObvious
The debate is partly this: forcing you to produce an encryption key /also/
testifies that the drive belongs to you (or you had access to it).
You are not necessarily obligated to testify to that fact for the police, and
unless they can demonstrate that the drive belonged to you (or you had access)
through some other means, the production of an encryption key is tantamount to
forcing that confession.
It's much like if there were a lock on a gun they found on the street: if they
can't link the gun to you already, they can't demand you turn over the
combination for the lock, because knowing such a combination would be a tacit
admission to knowing about the gun.
------
tommorris
It gets more interesting than that though. Under the Regulation of
Investigatory Powers Act, if you decide to comply and hand over your
encryption keys, or to, say, decrypt an email, you are legally obliged to not
tell anyone that you have done so.
But there is nothing in the law stopping you from saying up front "the only
reason I would revoke my encryption key without explanation is if I'm legally
obliged to by the cops under the Regulation of Investigatory Powers Act". And
when you do so, anyone with a brain can draw the relevant inference...
------
kintamanimatt
It's tempting to think of this as UK-specific issue, but countries like the UK
serve as role models.
It might be prudent to start campaigning against the most egregious provisions
of RIPA.
------
outworlder
This is... interesting.
Considering how close UK and US are, it could go like this: raise public
awareness about PRISM and the like, prompting people to encrypt their stuff.
Now, imprison everyone who has encrypted files.
It's like adding a fluorescent agent in a medium to highlight bacteria.
~~~
zalew
You don't imprison everyone, you imprison a few unlucky citizens and the rest
is shitting their pants "it could be me". Fighting a population would
escalate, targeting single individuals spreads fear as they are just a few
people whose case can be manipulated so the public opinion is divided. A
difference between how regimes and 'democratic' countries operate.
~~~
cLeEOGPw
Exactly. Regimes use direct oppression, while democracies use terrorism
against people.
------
CmdrKrool
> Regulation of Investigatory Powers Act 2000
Incidentally this is the same law that is also being used to legally justify
GCHQ's Tempora operation (the UK's PRISM), according to this Guardian
article[1] and discussed on HN previously.
[1] [http://www.guardian.co.uk/uk/2013/jun/21/gchq-cables-
secret-...](http://www.guardian.co.uk/uk/2013/jun/21/gchq-cables-secret-world-
communications-nsa)
------
hahainternet
I think it's quite frustrating that apparently nobody in this comment thread
bothered to read the relevant laws.
It is a sufficient defence in law to state that you do not have access to the
key file. The only requirements being that you can show some backing and that
the prosecution cannot prove beyond a reasonable doubt that you do have access
to it.
~~~
darkarmani
> It is a sufficient defence in law to state that you do not have access to
> the key file. The only requirements being that you can show some backing and
> that the prosecution cannot prove beyond a reasonable doubt that you do have
> access to it.
How do you prove you don't have access to a key to data that isn't actually
encrypted? Do you need to keep sets of fake keys for sensor data that you
lose, so you have a defense?
~~~
hahainternet
If the data isn't actually encrypted or it is otherwise not protected
information then you wouldn't need to provide a specific defence.
~~~
marcosdumay
Sensor data is indistinguishible from encrypted data. How can some law aplly
to one and not be used to the other?
~~~
hahainternet
Probable cause. If there's no evidence of any kind that the data is actually
encrypted data vs random sensor data then there is no way for this law to be
invoked.
~~~
baxter001
Specifically there has to be evidence that the data had a prior 'intelligible
form' before encryption, in the case of a file of white noise there can be no
such evidence.
------
Raphmedia
Out of the 100+ files and archives I have encrypted, I remember the passwords
of about 25 of them.
I would so go to jail.
~~~
shabble
likewise. There's quite a lot of valuable data I have encrypted in various
blobs that I'd love to get back, but have totally forgotten the passphrase. I
keep them around because I hope that one day I'll have an epiphany (or
bruteforcing/JtR becomes practical)
Bit of a liability though, if I ever come under suspicion of anything. I just
can't bear to nuke them though.
------
jschneiderhan
Would the plausible deniability that comes with using a technique like
TrueCrypt's hidden volumes help in a situation like?
~~~
drostie
It might, but to be perfectly honest most people don't keep partitions of
random-looking data, or large files containing what looks like it. Your
plausible deniability would be of the form, "I was getting ready to make a
hidden volume there, filled it with random bits etc., but I never got around
to actually making it."
I'm not actually sure that TrueCrypt lets you separate these two aspects of
creating a hidden drive, but Linux's tools do. With LVM (to create volumes in
volumes) you could create a partition which exists within an encrypted
partition, so that it's full with random data to begin with -- but then you
could plausibly have forgotten to do anything with it after your computer was
up and running.
Large random-looking files are a bit different; if someone were to ask "what's
this 10 gig file of random data doing on your hard drive?" it would seem hard
to answer them. The only thing that I know people use that much random data
for is testing an RNG for its statistical properties.
~~~
Tomdarkness
A normal (i.e non hidden) TrueCrypt volume is also by default filled with
random data. With a hidden volume you first create the normal volume, which as
part of that fills the file with random data, then create the hidden volume
inside the normal volume.
One password decrypts the normal volume and another decrypts the hidden
volume. However, with just the normal volume password you can't determine the
existence of the hidden volume (as long as you take some precautions to
prevent leaking of information about the hidden volume)
~~~
drostie
Ah, yes! Sorry, I'd forgotten that those existed as well.
I never really saw a deep potential for those -- the problem being that you
cannot open the outer drive for _writing_ without providing the password which
enables the inner drive's _reading_ , which means that you're constantly
leaking that information whenever you're using the outer drive (which ideally
would be relatively frequent, so as to justify that it's not masking a hidden
drive. So I'd just totally forgotten that TrueCrypt could do that. My mistake.
~~~
weavejester
Huh? Why do you think that? The normal encrypted partition can be used
independently of the hidden partition. You just need to be careful to ensure
that the free space of the outer partition is enough to contain the hidden,
inner partition.
------
malandrew
Why not just keep all your encrypted files stored on a server that is not in
the UK jurisdiction? Just SSH in to access your files.
------
rorrr2
It's an awesome weapon. Plant an encrypted file on somebody's computer, report
to the police you saw that person was viewing child porn.
~~~
watty
If you're going to do several illegal things to get someone in trouble you
might as well just place child porn on their computer...
~~~
flyinRyan
There are many ways you could legally put an encrypted file on someone else's
computer. But if you use actual KP then you're putting yourself at unnecessary
risk. Better to have something innocent so if you get caught before you finish
your sabotage you can use the key to decrypt the data and show it was
innocent.
------
burgerz
here's what you could do. put an encrypted volume onto somebody's computer.
call the cops, tell them he's got child porn on it. they seize his computer,
he doesn't know the password.
what is the even the fucking point in having a password if the state can just
ask you for it?
~~~
superuser2
There is never under any circumstances in any modern country a situation where
you are allowed to "win" a fight against Constitutional and democratically
created laws. Asking "what is the point in having a password if the state can
just ask you for it" is like asking "what is the point in having a gun if the
state can punish me for killing people with it at will?"
Encryption is there to protect against thieves, hackers, and other unlawful
surveillance. Using encryption isn't ever going to make you impervious to the
legal discovery process.
~~~
burgerz
>"what is the point in having a password if the state can just ask you for it"
is like asking "what is the point in having a gun if the state can punish me
for killing people with it at will?"
no it's not, bad analogy. in the US the state can't put you in jail for not
giving a password (remaining silent).
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Pioneer: Finding the next Einstein - hsikka
https://pioneer.app/leaderboard#global
======
newman8r
hey it looks like you're #1 on the leaderboard - what are you working on? Must
be interesting.
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Chimps outperform humans in simple contests drawn from game theory - fraqed
http://phys.org/news/2014-06-strategy-chimp.html
======
soneca
I didn't understand two things, if someone would like to explain to me:
i) Isn't it a winner/loser pair for each game? How can a pair "outperform"
another? Nash equilibrium is about an overall better situation for both sides,
but if one is smarter enough than the other, it is better for this one not to
be on Nash equilibrium. So I don't see it as underperformed by a "Nash pair".
ii) Later in the article they explain that chimps have better short memory
than humans through an experiment where chimps correctly recall numbers that
appeared on a screen. My doubt: chimps can undersand the correct order of
numbers? In other words, chimps can read numbers _and_ understand their
order?? That is new to me.
Maybe I misread something...
~~~
baha_man
i) "Isn't it a winner/loser pair for each game?"
Yes, if both players chose the same side, the 'matcher' wins. If they chose
different sides, the 'mismatcher' wins.
"How can a pair "outperform" another?"
A player is better at the game the closer to a game theory optimal strategy
they use. This would presumably be to chose left or right at random. The worst
strategy would be to always chose the same side, the matcher would then be
able to predict your next move with 100% accuracy.
Randomizing choices to be unpredictable is something humans aren't good at.
Poker players sometimes use tricks like checking the position of the second
hand of their watch to do this (e.g. if it's between 10 and 12, bet, if not,
check). The study suggests chimps may be better at it than us.
"Nash equilibrium is about an overall better situation for both sides..."
No, this is not correct.
ii) "...chimps can read numbers and understand their order?"
It sounds like it from this Wikipedia entry:
[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chimpanzee#Memory](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chimpanzee#Memory)
"A 30-year study at Kyoto University’s Primate Research Institute has shown
chimps are able to learn to recognize the numbers 1 through 9 and their
values... jumbled digits are flashed onto a computer screen for less than a
quarter of a second, after which the chimp, Ayumu, is able to correctly and
quickly point to the positions where they appeared in ascending order."
~~~
soneca
If random is better so you might as well say that raindrops falling on a
monitor also outperform a human, as the issue seems to be that humans always
looks for a pattern, even when randomness is better. It is irrelevant that
they are chimps.
Would you care to explain what is the correct Nash equilibrium?
~~~
baha_man
From Wikipedia
([http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nash_equilibrium](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nash_equilibrium)):
"In game theory, the Nash equilibrium is a solution concept of a non-
cooperative game involving two or more players, in which each player is
assumed to know the equilibrium strategies of the other players, and no player
has anything to gain by changing only their own strategy."
So, it is not correct to say "Nash equilibrium is about an overall better
situation for both sides" \- one player wants to win at the expense of the
other.
Chosing sides at random is a game theory optimal strategy, that is, it is the
best strategy to use when your opponent always choses the best counter-
strategy. If the two players flip coins to chose their sides they will both
end up winning 50% of games in the long run. Likewise if they are able to
randomize their choices perfectly, they will both win 50% of games.
If your opponent plays in a sub-optimal manner (e.g. they chose the left side
more often than the right), then the best strategy to use is an _exploitative_
one (e.g. I see you chose left more than right so I always chose left),
however, in this case you gain by changing your strategy (so no Nash
equilibrium).
I can't see any way to 'beat' this simple game and win more than 50% of games
in the long run without using an exploitable strategy, so it seems that chimps
have somehow evolved to become better at playing this game in a game theory
optimal manner than us.
------
aric
It's worth watching these short videos from years ago to get an idea, though
this is a different game. Chimps outperforming humans in memory games:
1\. "Man Vs Chimp - memory test"
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OVlJv7ZkvGA](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OVlJv7ZkvGA)
2\. etc.
[https://www.google.com/search?q=chimp+memory&tbm=vid](https://www.google.com/search?q=chimp+memory&tbm=vid)
------
pazimzadeh
Would it not have been more interesting if players were unknowingly set up
against the other species, for comparison?
------
WalterBright
Since chimps can rip my arms off if they get mad at me, I always let them win.
~~~
lotu
If you get a human mad at you they will try to wipe out your entire race so I
feel it is a bit of a toss up.
~~~
hnriot
not before destroying your habitat!
------
frozenport
They are also better at climbing trees...
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Ask HN: Not Going Past Seed Round - maresca
There's a well-defined flow of investments in startups: Seed, Series A, B, C, IPO etc. Most early stage investors (seed stage) like seeing companies go on to raise more money in a Series A or get bought.<p>Are there any seed stage investors out there that would invest in a company that plans on going profitable straight from seed funding without selling or getting acquired? Are there any good examples of startups that have done this?
======
hashtag
I can't answer your direct question as I'm not an investor but seed
investments are often convertible notes that do not convert to equity with
further funding. Essentially they become low interest loans at that point.
Investors would obviously prefer to have equity in the company and equity at a
seed stage level might place pre-mature valuation on the company that is often
disadvantageous.
If you expect to be profitable and do not wish to raise, venture debt or other
means of capitals might make more sense. Alternatively being profitable does
not mean you shouldn't raise. Raising capital helps with bringing on board
investors and mentors you otherwise lack access to, capital to accelerate
growth, etc.
Unless you expect insane growth and profit without the need of new capital,
chances are anyone investing would want the company to scale up quite large.
Again, as a disclaimer, I am not an investor but this is just what I
understand being in the startup game for some time.
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
What HN Users Wish They Were - tzury
http://www.hnsearch.com/search#request/all&q=%22I+wish+i+was%22&sortby=create_ts+asc&start=0
======
tzury
This is the successor of what HN Users don't mean to be
<http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3658860>
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Launching a start-up and having a family life: It’s possible - peter123
http://entrepreneur.venturebeat.com/2009/09/07/launching-a-start-up-and-having-a-family-life-it%e2%80%99s-possible/
======
AlphaEvolve
To be perfectly honest, you got to ask my ex-wife about this.. I learned this
the hard way unfortunately. Before starting a venture, make sure the
foundation of your couple and family are strong. It takes a LOT of commitment,
patience, energy just to get yourself started. Imagine that you have to invest
as much on the personal level too (if not more). If you don't, your
partner/wife will resent you. I know it's hard, but always try to balance
things out. Time management is a key.
Edit: I am now where I wanted to be professionally, it took me more than a
year of hard work, sleepless night juggling between a fulltime job, my
ventures, and divorce documents.. I am 'successful', but no one to share it
with :(
~~~
BerislavLopac
The trouble is in knowing the strength of the foundation. Too often we don't
want to admit the failure and keep bad things going because of all the wrong
reasons -- kids, mortgages, income etc.
~~~
AlphaEvolve
Agree. Look even if you share the same vision of long term growth when you
just get married, the reality of the short term responsibilities mobilize all
your time and focus. So I learned that there is no such things as tacite
mutual agreement in marriage. You've got to remind your partner your long term
common objective almost constantly. I thought it's a given, it's not. To take
a programming analogy, setting the variables at the beginning of your code is
not enough, you've got to use 'global $variablename' within functions (like
function workinglate($longtermvision, $values, $love)) to make sure your
variables are set and passed on to each function/decision.
Btw, the programming analogy seems to apply that on all types of
relationships: couple, work, business partnerships. For some mysterious
reasons, short terms challenges (bills, rent, mortgage, loans, etc.) keep
blinding our long term objectives.
------
jagtesh
Excellent article. Here's what'll stay with me:
"The irony is when I was working insane hours it was to make someone else
wealthy. When I moderated my behavior it was when they were my startups."
and..
"This life isn’t practice for the next one."
I'm probably much younger than most entrepreneurs here (I'm 22), but I could
relate to everything Steve had to say. And I'll add to it; it doesn't pay to
be burnt out with unhappy people all around you. The negative energy
undoubtedly has an impact on oneself. But what takes the cake, is the
realization about how you'd like your gravestone to read.
------
briancooley
The biggest factor that Blank had in his favor was that he worked outside his
home. If you are going the "garage route" like a lot of YC companies, then I
think it is much harder - maybe impossible - especially when your children are
young. An environment with your kids in it isn't particularly conducive to
working, and young kids will want you to be engaged all the time. There's not
a noprocrast setting on a two-year-old.
~~~
tptacek
Which is why you should never go this route. Work in the local library and a
coffee shop (for scheduled calls). It's better than your home office and it
keeps your hours clear.
------
dpcan
Having kids is a huge motivator to succeed.
I started my business when I had one son. I was young and had no fear. Now I
have 4, a mortgage, etc, so basically failure is not an option without major
consequences. It keeps me hungry for success and doesn't slow me down in the
slightest.
------
daeken
Sometimes an article comes up somewhere that fits life perfectly for that
moment. I'm currently on vacation, taking some time to figure out how I can
achieve a normal life (family, real social life, etc) while running a startup.
A lot of his checklist I figured out (but rarely followed) when I was working
a normal job and trying to balance my fiancee and my startup, and some I
figured out when looking back, but things like the family dinner and engaging
your spouse just didn't really occur to me there. Hopefully I can take his
information and make things work out better in the future.
------
wglb
Seen this before, but I like the article. I have been involved in three--one
well before I had kids, one now that the kids are out of the house, and the
other, well, that was not all that good--was not following his examples.
------
nopassrecover
Er this is just a verbatim repost of
[http://steveblank.com/2009/06/18/epitaph-for-an-
entrepreneur...](http://steveblank.com/2009/06/18/epitaph-for-an-
entrepreneur/). See <http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=663432>
------
Tichy
"back at work for another 4 or 5 hours until the wee hours of the morning."
What if you need sleep?
~~~
nopassrecover
Don't start a startup.
------
sachinag
Work, life, sleep: choose two.
This is different from college how?
~~~
gruseom
"Life" before you have children is very different than "life" afterward.
~~~
timf
Same with "sleep" (which in turn will directly affect our kind of work).
------
abalashov
I think one of the most difficult things about this to manage politically is
actually the reconciliation of
<http://www.paulgraham.com/procrastination.html> with the comparatively
pedantic, very detail-oriented and exacting household maintenance
methodologies of most women, and the expectations they have for you to
participate.
------
nuweborder
Surround yourself with supportive people that understand your sacrifice and
your hard work. Whom understand the long hours, and the large feat that you
are trying to accomplish, and you can be successful. Have a supportive
wife/husband, parents, friends etc, and you will be ok. If they are not
supportive, then maybe they are not the ones for you. Cannot do both without
that support.
------
araneae
Revised title: "Launching a start-up and having a family life: It's possible
if you're a man and can dump all the child-rearing on your wife."
~~~
generalk
Point of order: a female entrepreneur could just as easily put the child-
rearing on her husband.* And there's no need for the negative connotation: is
it impossible that one partner can happily take the lion's share of the child-
rearing duties so that the other can focus on a business?
* applies for all two-gender permutations
------
rjurney
A recent quote from a local VC: I've never known an entrepreneur to bootstrap
a business to a big win who's marriage survived doing so.
Which is what made me leave Atlanta for Silicon Valley.
~~~
tptacek
And I know multiple entrepreneurs who did exactly that who have amazing
families. You want probably the worst person in the world to take life
planning advice from? "A local VC".
~~~
rjurney
Hahaha, I don't know anyone who bootstrapped a startup to serious cash since
2002 in Atlanta, PERIOD - and I've looked really hard, talked to everyone in
town - let alone that did it and kept a family.
------
maxer
how about an article on working full time, coding in any spare time you have,
attend networking meetings and try to maintain a basic relationship with a gf.
------
dshah
Sure, it's possible -- lots of things are possible.
However, I'd argue that it's pretty improbable (at least in the early stages).
------
ganley
WhatEVER. Working until 7, then several more hours after the kids go to bed,
and half a day on Saturday, doesn't fit any definition of "balance" that
interests me. Also, you've carved out a couple of hours a day for your kids,
but what about your wife? Those hours after the kids go to bed are our best
quality time alone.
------
bayareaguy
Curiously absent from his list is time spent on social networks (including
HN).
------
maxer
how about an article on working full time, coding any spare chance you have,
attend networking meetings and try to maintain a basic relationship with a gf.
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Among the apocalyptic libertarians of Silicon Valley [pdf] - ritchiea
https://www.dropbox.com/s/ivt5iw8utlbsyvr/come_with_us.pdf?dl=0
======
eli_gottlieb
Well, the responses to _this_ are going to be just _wondrously_ entertaining.
I think there's a major distinction to make between two different kinds of
"libertarians": democratic and antidemocratic. The former realize that if they
can't convince the population of their ideas, they haven't the right to
implement those policies as state policies and probably won't succeed in a
"free market of ideas" either.
The latter, sadly, have mild or severe tendencies to believe that what other
people want simply does not matter.
I get the feeling this profile is going to be about the latter kind.
>“So you’re going to go from one D.A.O. to ten D.A.O.’s to one hundred
D.A.O.’s to ten thousand D.A.O.’s,” Mohan replied. “Then, just based off of
profit maximization, they’re going to start merging and acquiring one another.
To translate this into plainer speech: yes, there is a significant Skynet
risk, and in fact, it's of _exactly_ the "competition collapses into malign
Singleton" type described by Nick Bostrom in his book _Superintelligence_.
Which of course is derived from what _any_ remotely good economist would tell
you about the behavior of firms in the limit as competition grows harsher and
the rate of profit falls.
>“But I don’t know if we’d ever get to Skynet,” he said. “Maybe in all our
code we can say, ‘If Skynet then exit.’
I really hope Mohan is being quoted davka to make him look like a fool
meddling with forces he doesn't understand, because that's _exactly_ the note
he's striking here.
>Libertarian (and not convinced there’s irreconcilable fissure between
deontological and consequentialist camps). Aspiring rationalist/Bayesian.
Secularist/agnostic/ignostic ... Hayekian
Forgive my asking, but is this entire article going to be mostly about our
fair author, who has my deepest sympathies for having to put up with these
folks, meeting and greeting all the most insufferably wrong SV weirdos he can
find?
I mean, come on. Holding social views that refuse to make contact with
empirical evidence while claiming intellectual foundations that allow for
_nothing but_ empirical evidence!
(You may think Bayesianism allows quite lot of a priori mathematics. This is,
to my knowledge, wrong: your model of mathematics is based on the built-in
modes of reasoning your brain starts with in the first place. The a priori
isn't really _prior_ to anything: it evolved.)
And these jackasses then become our public image!
OH NO, and _then_ he met Michael Vassar, Mr. "Post-rationalist" who believes
in "memeplexes". God fucking damnit.
Well, at least _someone_ will start cracking down on SV's crackpot and nutter
tendencies after reading this profile. God knows it's necessary: for all the
smugness about how super-duper smart and ever-so-intellectual these people (in
which I semi-include myself) are, I have sometimes found them regrettably
unable to do scientific literature reviews relevant to their own problems that
I can do by... Googling through a citation web of published papers like any
other grad student.
The profile is well-deserved and I'm giggling the whole way through.
>They will want their countries to be run as well as a start-up.
GOD SAVE US ALL. Remember that 90% of start-ups _fail!_
~~~
ikeboy
>Holding social views that refuse to make contact with empirical evidence
Could you elaborate? I'm not quite sure what you're referring to.
~~~
eli_gottlieb
I'm referring to the Austrian School of "economics" held to be the True Formal
Science of Humanity among "Hayekian libertarians".
[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Praxeology](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Praxeology)
As noted, "Austrians argue that ... empirical data itself is insufficient to
describe economics which in turn implies that empirical data cannot falsify
economic theory".
You _cannot_ coherently mix a Bayesian epistemology and a Hayekian-Austrian
politics: the latter denies the possibility of the former (ok: it only does so
in worlds without dualistic souls... but still), while the former considers
the latter to have no likelihood function and therefore be nonsense.
~~~
ikeboy
Looking at the archived page here
[https://web.archive.org/web/20130501005618/http://blakemaste...](https://web.archive.org/web/20130501005618/http://blakemasters.com/about),
he links to The Counter Revolution Of Science
[https://archive.org/stream/counterrevolutio030197mbp#page/n1...](https://archive.org/stream/counterrevolutio030197mbp#page/n13/mode/2up)
Also, doesn't that fact that he removed the link imply that he no longer
agrees with that view? It kind of makes me suspicious when you have to go far
back to find something to disagree with. If someone is thinking wrong, they
should be making mistakes constantly, so there shouldn't be a need to dig up
old opinions.
~~~
eli_gottlieb
Picking on him? Why would I be picking on him?
------
scalayer
Unfortunately, the article fails to define their terms. Ugh. Interesting read
anyhow.
~~~
m-photonic
That would take another few articles.
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Panama Papers Scandal: Why This Is Still Legal - gpresot
http://www.theatlantic.com/business/archive/2016/04/panama-papers-crimes/477156/?single_page=true
======
Kristine1975
Glenn Greenwald made a similar point and drew a connection to the NSA's
spying: [https://theintercept.com/2016/04/04/a-key-similarity-
between...](https://theintercept.com/2016/04/04/a-key-similarity-between-
snowden-leak-and-panamapapers-scandal-is-whats-been-legalized/)
------
rdlecler1
Law firms have far less security and IT sophistication than banks or the NSA.
It makes you wonder if we'll see an all out assault by leakers on these soft
institutions.
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Amazon press conference next Monday: I can haz kindle too? - transburgh
http://www.crunchgear.com/2009/01/27/amazon-press-conference-next-monday-i-can-haz-kindle-too/
======
pclark
I really hope its international.
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Paul Simon contemplating retirement - rmason
http://www.nytimes.com/2016/06/29/nyregion/paul-simon-retirement-stranger-to-stranger.html
======
rmason
Love the quote where he talks about fame and how it impacts an artists
decision making process.
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Someone stole my identity on Upwork (2016) - uladzislau
https://hackernoon.com/someone-stole-my-identity-on-upwork-and-all-i-got-was-this-lousy-blog-post-d63aab2b4c90
======
bkovacev
The best part about Upwork is that they have invited me to be a premium
freelancer and closed my account all in the same day. Hilariously I was told
I'm not "good enough for the platform". I have had 5 positive job reviews, all
pretty much 5 stars. That day I applied for 10-15 jobs as I wanted to bridge
the downtime gap between two major gigs. I had 1500$ usd on that account, that
I have not withdrawn yet. I was not working for peanut rate, but rather north
of 50$/h.
Support was unhelpful and I couldn't get a chance to talk to human. Stole my
money literally. They deactivated my account, and only after 10th email to
their support have they've actually deleted the account.
Boycott Upwork.
~~~
dmoy
For $1500, can you take them to small claims court?
~~~
bkovacev
I probably could have - but at the end of the day, it was money well invested.
I moved my business elsewhere (not toptal or any other platform, but a
devshop) and told the same thing to 4-5 other devs that are my close friends
who were charging about the same rate. At the end of the day, they might have
gotten $1500, but they lost 5x that in matter of seconds.
I still feel a bit bitter about it though, but I need to let go.
------
nikanj
Now that this is on the front page of HN, customer service is going to
magically appear.
I don't understand why people even try to wrestle with customer service reps
nowadays, when the only reliable method is getting visibility on
HN/Digg/Slashdot/etc
~~~
mannykannot
You are unlikely to end up on the front page.
~~~
scandox
It's on the front page
~~~
drusepth
In general though, there are probably hundreds (if not more) posts dealing
with customer service that don't hit the front page.
~~~
scandox
Yeah misread original comment actually
------
ivm
One day I found a fake profile that copied my description. Support said that
they can't prove that he got it after me and they will not take any action.
I know two persons who were banned forever after applying to about 20-30 jobs
and not getting them. Support said they are not qualified enough to be on
Upwork, ever.
Sometimes they ban digital nomads for moving around the world too much.
Sometimes they ban people because their clients got unsatisfied and clients
are more important for Upwork than freelancers.
So the support is dysfunctional on many levels but Upwork is the only place
where a non-US/EU freelancer without connections can find jobs relatively
easy.
------
andreasley
Needs (2016) in the title.
------
scandox
I've also previously raised the issue of freelancers selling their accounts:
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13309640](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13309640)
------
pvaldes
Hum, this is not a new history. The same history with exactly the same
messages happened a few years ago to other (the same?) girl if i'm not wrong.
I have seen before the word bombchelle somewhere.
There was also the anecdote of some people (mostly freelancers based in Africa
or Asia) using stock photos of smiling blonde caucasian models to create a
fake sense of trust (and the other freelancers disclosing it for fun again and
again). I remember stock photos taken directly from the web of a dental clinic
for example, or appearing in the first positions in google under the tag
"entrepreneur" and so. It was an arms race, with upwork banning each time and
the fake accounts reappearing and refining their methods each time
As general rule of thumb, If it looks handsome, young and dressed like a model
in a studio of photography, is probably fake.
~~~
edwhitesell
Probably because this blog post is from 2016.
------
nfriedly
That 20% at then end isn't quite right - its actually 23.75% - upwork charges
the clients 3.75% above the contract amount, and they pay the freelancer 20%
less than the amount (for the first $500, then the fees start to drop on the
freelancer side).
So both sides are led to believe that the total fees upwork collects are lower
than they actually are. Its more than a little shady.
Oh, and if freelances don't pay for membership, their accounts get
automatically locked to private for "inactivity" if they go 30 days without
receiving any payment. Regardless of actual activity level. So the freelancers
who earn infrequently have effectively even higher fees. (Support can unlock
it for free, but it can take a day or two.)
------
homero
Upwork recently increased fees massively and I left for good, both as a client
and as a freelancer
~~~
dzamo_norton
Where did you go, if I may ask? I'm also interested in alternatives.
~~~
anon1094
I'm a freelance web developer and I found that what has worked best for me
when I'm in a dry spell is finding people who are actively looking for
freelancers on Twitter, Facebook, and LinkedIn.
No one is going to show up to your website or Google you. You have to actively
look for people who need someone now. I noticed that the ones who post on
social media want to avoid terrible work that is generally associated with
UpWork so you can negotiate good prices.
Send them a quick message to get the conversation started and see where it
goes. It is a numbers game.
~~~
jackgolding
Any particular part of twitter? or is this just your list of followers.
------
DangerousPie
Anybody else annoyed by all the fixed HTML elements on that page? Here is all
I can see on my 14" screen (maximized browser window):
[https://i.imgur.com/u9L81nY.png](https://i.imgur.com/u9L81nY.png)
~~~
teh_klev
Create a browser bookmark with this:
javascript:(function()%7B(function () %7Bvar i%2C elements %3D document.querySelectorAll('body *')%3Bfor (i %3D 0%3B i < elements.length%3B i%2B%2B) %7Bif (getComputedStyle(elements%5Bi%5D).position %3D%3D%3D 'fixed') %7Belements%5Bi%5D.parentNode.removeChild(elements%5Bi%5D)%3B%7D%7D%7D)()%7D)()
Has been pretty good at getting rid of "dick bars"[0].
[0]:
[https://daringfireball.net/2017/06/medium_dickbars](https://daringfireball.net/2017/06/medium_dickbars)
------
thiscatis
Upwork is an absolute piece of shit company and so obviously trying to protect
their revenue in the race to the bottom of freelance work. We only used them
as an agency (to hire freelancers) and they would randomly shut off ongoing
contracts, stall refunds for paid but undelivered milestones after shutting
down our contract, didn't pay back fees and have horrible customer support.
The only thing they do is send a 10 paragraph email explaining that they're
not responsible for the contractors on their platform and we should have read
the TOS better. Stay away. Absolutely horrible.
------
KGIII
It's a bit disconcerting to find someone pretending to be you online. I've had
my real name and moniker used multiple times. This has always been associated
with a little information about me, namely they know a bit about me and will
try to impersonate me based in that.
Usually, they get some details wrong - or make things up entirely. It's pretty
well known that I live in Maine. It surprised me when I'd learned that I'd
written about my home on coastal Maine. See, I don't live anywhere near the
coast.
I've seemingly been an owner, or associated with, a few online businesses. I'm
not, I really am not. In fact, I've never even considered doing MLM, sold
stuff at eBay, or been a 'security researcher.'
If you discover someone impersonating you, my advice is to pretend to be one
of their old friends. The more public you can make this, the better. The
page(s) will get taken down, but it is fun while it lasts.
You can have a lot of fun with that. "Oh, man... I still think we did too much
coke that weekend. I never thought I'd say too much coke was possible. Shame
about that hooker, right?" Things like that will give you hours of enjoyment.
Sort of related, I kind of wish I had people calling me to help me fix my
Windows computers. Alas, nobody seems to have put my number on the list. I
have a mental script already prepared.
------
olala69
Screw Upwork, i ditched them a long time ago
------
chris_wot
It sounds like Upwork have a duty to verify their contractors are who they say
they are.
~~~
tmikaeld
They really don't, there is no such process built in. If it where as rigid as
with bitcoin exchanges, this (and probably many similar) would not have
happened.
~~~
ge96
I had to do a video chat before, kind of odd there was no one on the other end
done through the UpWork site/scheduled.
edit: no one visually but vocally there was someone there
~~~
pvaldes
In my opinion; you do not own a total stranger your image just because they
will promise you a few bucks. If they want their problem solved, just show
that you can do the work. Unless for a very specific type of jobs, it is not
their bussiness at all if you are bald, black or like to work in slippers.
Some people typically will want to grab as many of your personal information
as they can, for undisclosed reasons. Just decline politely and walk away.
Profiles and portfolios are designed for showing what you want to show. In the
best cases those pressing to go further are other freelancers studying their
competitors; in the worst, creepy people trying to impersonate you or selling
your info to a third. Is a dog eats dog world and you do not own them
anything.
~~~
jstandard
> "in the best cases those pressing to go further are other freelancers
> studying their competitors"
There are other valid reasons for requesting a video chat. One of those is to
weed out agencies and impersonators of which Upwork and freelancing platforms
are rife with.
It also builds better relationship to talk with someone face to face.
~~~
pvaldes
Of course and very reasonable, but if the people hiring hides their face
wereas asking the freelancers to be videotaped, well... is a red flag.
Specially if in the end, nobody is hired for this job.
Maybe is because they are shy, that is a perfect valid reason to me.
Another hypothetical explanation could be that in upwork some well stablished
freelancers were targetting new fresh and disperate freelancers hiring then
and paying in peanuts to do a job that they then would bill (for a higher
amount) to the final client.
------
itsfreshmade
I recently tried out their platform in hopes of procuring a few freelance
gigs, hadn't had a whole lot of luck and after reading this I may just delete
my account. Sorry this has happened to you, it truly sucks.
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Why Facts Don’t Change Our Minds (2017) - skm
https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2017/02/27/why-facts-dont-change-our-minds
======
im3w1l
I really dislike this narrative that facts don't change our minds and we are
all irrational.
The thing is, truth does exert a pull on our beliefs. It's a slow force. It
may take years for people to come around to it. Sometimes it even happens on a
generational scale. But we are approaching the truth. Everything in history,
and everything in our daily experience tells us this. A couple of experiments
where researchers manage to fool the people in their studies does not disprove
this overall trend.
What scares me about this narrative, is that people are using it to discredit
democracy. "Look how stupid people are! We have to spoonfed them the
cherrypicked facts that lead them to the right beliefs. We have to decide
everything for them."
~~~
simonh
Whether you like it or not has no bearing on whether it's true. In fact that's
a confirmation bias right there. Presented with evidence of something you find
unpalatable you simply reject it outright purely on the basis you don't like
it. Personally I'd rather know.
The point isn't that evidence has no power, it's that it has dramatically less
power than most people think. However there are strategies for getting us out
of the personal bias quagmire, such as the scientific method and the approach
described in the article of providing an account or explanation of your
position and the reasons for it. The debating rule of first explaining your
opponent's position in your own words, but in a form they accept as being
accurate, before trying to rebut it is also hugely powerful. These do seem to
work and help lead us to better outcomes, so this is valuable and actually
useful work.
~~~
im3w1l
> Presented with evidence of something you find unpalatable you simply reject
> it outright purely on the basis you don't like it.
I presented a case for why I think it is wrong. And I presented a case for why
people have reason to push it despite it being wrong: it gives them more
power. Considering peoples motivations is important, and when someone stands
to gain we should be suspicious and have to go over everything extra
carefully.
~~~
simonh
I suppose I was a bit antagonistic in my post sorry, but if anything your
observation supports the article's position. Why should facts exert only a
slow, painstaking generational force on belief if people are actually
rational? Surely it should have immediate effect?
I really don't see what these researchers or journalists have to gain, beyond
what they would gain from doing any research or journalism. I'm just not
seeing any credible counter-arguments.
~~~
im3w1l
> Why should facts exert only a slow, painstaking generational force on belief
> if people are actually rational? Surely it should have immediate effect?
If you look at rational as a binary, then people aren't rational. But people
are a little bit rational. Sufficiently rational, to eventually find the
truth.
I like the parallel with machine learning. Many, many bright minds have tried
to formalize our intuitions into automatic systems. Gradually they make
progress. But it's plain to see that it's not as easy as "just incorporate the
new fact". We have systems that can deal with facts, and systems that can
learn from experience. But systems that do both, that can learn from
experience and express that in terms of facts, or use facts to guide it's
exploration, that's an open problem.
As for who has to gain, I do think journalists, and editors, and newspaper
owners have something to gain. Their role transforms from giving people "just
the facts", to manipulating people into the right beliefs. What the right
beliefs are? That's for the journalists and their benefactors to decide.
~~~
michaelmrose
A small minority of people are rational enough to forge new truths in the face
of conflicting and complicated information usually in a small narrowly focused
way. A much larger minority is capable of digesting and making use of the work
product of the former group in a productive way again within the scope of a
broader but still narrow scope.
The majority is too stupid to make up their own minds and needs to be educated
at a young age to accept the work product of prior generations experts because
they are just too unintelligent to evaluate it for themselves. This is
literally most people.
The fact that this is unpleasant doesn't make it untrue.
------
SuoDuanDao
I'm reminded of Tetlock and Gardner's excellent book 'Superforecasting', which
was essentially a study of people who consistently score at the top of
prediction markets. One key thing that these 'superforecasters' had in common
was that any new information caused them to update their model of the world,
but none caused them to update it very much - typical people making
predictions either didn't update their model or updated it too much in
response to new facts.
I think it makes a lot of sense, when one is trying to identify patterns in
information, that it's easy to over- or undervalue novel information. We don't
necessarily know what a new fact means, so ignoring it is one common error
while paying too much attention to it is another.
~~~
erichocean
> _We don 't necessarily know what a new fact means_
We also rarely even know if a "new fact" is actually true. So many studies
don't replicate that it makes sense to hold off on updating core beliefs
whenever "new facts" seem unlikely or in contradiction with previously known
(and reliable) facts.
SSC had a nice article (now gone) that discussed this for a scientific theory
that had literally hundreds of confirming studies done for it. All wrong. The
"new facts" were bullshit. So even with tons of studies, it's reasonable to be
skeptical in some situations.
It's also great that, eventually, science was able to figure out the "new
facts" were bullshit. Yay, science. But it also means that people aren't being
irrational when they don't immediately alter their fundamental beliefs while
the ink is still dry, especially "new facts" that seem in contradiction with
everything else we know…
------
dlkf
IMO the conclusion "facts don't change our minds" is a stronger conclusion
than the first two experiments show. On my reading, the first two experiments
show that:
1\. if I have a uniform/undefined prior (how the fuck should I know how
risky/conservative firefighters are?)
2\. and then I'm given an anchor
3\. and then told the anchor is bunk
4\. the anchor still affects me
But I suspect this hinges very heavily on the fact that our initial prior is
basically non-existent. By contrast, if you:
1\. picked a topic where I actually have some prior belief (What country is
colder: Sweden or Germany?)
2\. gave me some information "Germany is actually colder on average than
Sweden because of a weird atmospheric thing that affects the nordics"
3\. told me that 2 was BS
I highly doubt you'd be able to replicate 4.
~~~
eagsalazar2
Specific facts are orthogonal to the actual underlying positions held, which
are presented outwardly as other positions for the sake of political cover,
hence the illusion of facts not changing minds. What's needed is an
understanding of the actual underlying, usually hidden, positions, then
present facts to disrupt _those_ positions.
~~~
dlkf
This is unclear to me. Can you explain what you mean in the context of my
alternative example?
~~~
NoSorryCannot
Not OP, but
You might not know anything about risk-taking behavior of firefighters but you
may already have some vague belief like "firefighters are heroes" that
obliquely colors your impression of their behavior.
Or alternatively you might hold onto the info that Germany is colder because
your underlying belief is more like, you don't like cold and you don't like
Germany, so you'd like to also believe that Germany is colder than other
places.
This entails two things. One, your apparent position on firefighter behavior
or the weather in Germany can change depending on what in the context of the
conversation is being construed as good or bad. Second, trying to inform you
with specific facts on these issues is unlikely to change your mind because
the drivers of your positions are your more general beliefs about firefighters
and Germany.
In politics, I think partisanship often degenerates in this way. Arguing the
issues is often just a facade for arguing for your party's position or arguing
against an opposing party's position, regardless of merit. Facts won't work
here to change minds.
~~~
dlkf
You're just making same claim as the authors in the study, but adding a
proposed mechanism. But just as they don't have evidence, neither do you. You
have to actually do the study to prove it. If you believe that the experiment
would work this just means you and I have different priors on the matter.
------
olah_1
I saw that Yuri Bezmenov interview[1] ages ago and didn't really think of it
until now, when crime statistics are openly denied almost as if crime doesn't
really exist at all.
Then I thought back to that Bezmenov interview with what he said about
"demoralization". When a population is demoralized, they cannot discern true
information when it is staring them in the face.
I think ignoring facts has less to do with some kind of esoteric psychological
process and more to do with raising multiple generations to believe that
they've been lied to and the whole "system" is evil.
[1]:
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wYaR7mWxuf8](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wYaR7mWxuf8)
~~~
mistermann
The general public _has_ been lied to, to a significant degree. People who
have full trust in entities that have and continue to publish untruths seem
more irrational to me than _supposedly_ irrational skeptics, etc (it is
unknowable what the aggregate rationality of a given group is, but good luck
finding anyone rational enough to realize that).
~~~
olah_1
This comment is too vague and general for me to interact with. I have a notion
that I disagree with what you’re getting at here, but I can’t be sure.
I agree that the public is lied to. But that is usually through
editorialization of headline news that omits or emphasizes convenient
information for the sake of a narrative. What I’m talking about is being
presented with raw information and considering it.
~~~
mistermann
> I agree that the public is lied to. But that is usually through
> editorialization of headline news that omits or emphasizes convenient
> information for the sake of a narrative.
How would you have any way of knowing this? And I mean that as a serious
question, not as snark.
------
trabant00
I see quite a big problem with those studies: the facts where made up and the
truth was contingent, not necessary.
So why was it expected of the participants to change their minds? Nothing they
could verify disproved their initial position.
For me all this proves is what I already knew: "garbage in, garbage out".
edit: as below comment pointed out this might not be the problem of the
studies but of how the article tries to use them to prove its point.
~~~
simonh
For example in the one where the participant's own answer was disguised as
that of another person we can't discount the result so easily. That's also
true of the studies where participants downgraded their confidence when asked
to give an account of it.
On the invented studies, bear in mind that the point wasn't to measure
changing the participant's mind, only for them to rate the value of a study
that either supported or contradicted their initial position. Their only basis
for evaluating the value of either study was their own pre-existing bias, so
objectively they had no reason to evaluate them differently.
That's quite different from expecting them to change their minds, as the
reasons for them holding their position might not even have been addressed by
the study. For example someone who disagrees with capital punishment on moral
grounds may not care whether it is an effective deterrent or not so may no
have any reason to doubt a study that it is an effective deterrent.
------
TopHand
What politicians know that the authors of this study don't seem to realize, is
that if we are told the same story repeatedly for long enough, no matter how
absurd, we'll start believing it. If you throw in some scary outcome if we
don't believe the story, we'll come around sooner. It seems that fear will
cause us to re-examine our beliefs and values.
~~~
Majromax
That's the illusory truth effect
([https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Illusory_truth_effect](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Illusory_truth_effect)),
which is one of the understood cognitive biases.
------
RoutinePlayer
According to 19th century German philosopher Arthur Schopenhauer, “All truth
passes through three stages: First, it is ridiculed. Second, it is violently
opposed. Third, it is accepted as self-evident.”
~~~
rafaelvasco
Oh that's a fact right there. Take any piece of evidence or information, if it
is ridiculed too much or violently opposed, and has been for ages, but no one
forgot it, then it's probably true or partially true.
~~~
danaris
Yep, this "round earth" nonsense that has had people ridiculing good honest
flatworlders for generations will die out any minute!
Aaaaany minute....
~~~
rafaelvasco
Ok you found a negative to my law. That was too easy. Now look with more
attention and tell me a positive. You can do it!
------
jstanley
Related: Epistemic Learned Helplessness:
[https://web.archive.org/web/20180406150429/https://squid314....](https://web.archive.org/web/20180406150429/https://squid314.livejournal.com/350090.html)
------
RcouF1uZ4gsC
First of all have all these psychological studies been replicated?
Part of the reason, “facts” don’t change our mind is that a lot of “facts”
aren’t really facts like physics, but are rather the result of statistical
games.
Finally, and I think the biggest issue is that a lot of facts rely on trust,
since they are practically impossible for the average person to fully verify.
And I think, for a variety of reasons, trust has been lost. Think about
vaccines. Say back in the 1950’s, you probably knew or heard of someone who
died from polio. You mom, might have had a sibling that died from one of the
other vaccine related illnesses. The doctor recommending the vaccines, was
seen as a trusted friend. He(it was usually a he back then) probably spent his
whole life in your town. He knew your grandparents. Maybe he delivered your
parents. He would spend hours at the bedside of a sick child or a dying
grandparent. Maybe he was the one who delivered your children as well. Now
when he says that he recommends you give your child this vaccine, you are
going to listen.
Now forward to modern times. You book your appointment. You go to the office
where you wait for hours. The pediatrician comes in and rushes through a 15
minute visit. Says your kid should get vaccinated. On the way home you listen
to an investigative report of how doctors are paid by big pharma to prescribe
drugs. By the way, you have never heard of anyone you know getting one of
these vaccine preventable illnesses.
Now the gap between the educated elites and regular people in this country is
widening. They do t interact much socially. They do t even live together. In
the United States, the non-college educated have seen a steady decline in
their real wages and well-being. Of course they are going to distrust “facts”
put out by the elite who are seen as out of touch.
I say this as someone who totally believes in vaccines and have persuaded many
of my friends that they should have their children vaccinated. The growing gap
between the rich and poor in this country is at the root of many issues.
~~~
treeman79
Trust is a big part of it.
Facts are closely related to statistics. It’s possible to be both true and a
complete lie at the same time.
Abusive people will often use “facts” to control victims. You learn to be very
mistrustful after awhile.
~~~
zzzcpan
Facts is a loaded term here. Facts cannot rely on trust, those are called
authoritative opinions, not facts. And opinions about vaccination are still
just opinions, not facts. If you say, for example, that it's hazardous not to
vaccinate, like the article does, it's not a fact, it's a judgement and
advertising judgements is the essence of propaganda, it's basically the
opposite of a fact, dystopian use of the word fact. But actual decent factual
picture about vaccines is complicated, it's about balancing many big and small
risks: catching the virus while you live your life, catching something at the
clinic while getting vaccinated, having complications from vaccination, being
subjected to unnecessary treatments and drugs because doctors want to profit
from you that may also cause complications, or just being able to afford it
vaccination, and so on. Not to mention all the unknown unknowns and not
knowing how to evaluate the risks involved. And poor but still factual picture
would at least not advertise any judgement and would present the reasoning for
everyone to make their own conclusions.
~~~
ghthor
Thank you, this is a well balanced comment and it's highly valuable to have
this type of viewpoint in our world.
------
abetusk
Interesting read. They're basically proposing that our anti-rational behavior
came out as a type of 'hyper-socialization'. I can believe it and, if true,
would point to why things like changing the Overton window [1] and other mass
public perception shifts change individual perception.
I don't think it's the only way to change peoples minds and I hesitate to dive
into "just employ emotional reasoning" as that seems dangerous.
From personal experience, another effective way is to change people's minds is
by giving them "skin in the game".
I've tried, over the years, to convince friends of the solution to the Monty
Hall [2] problem. After explaining the solution and them either not believing
it or not understanding it, I then play the game with them with 100 doors and
revealing 98 after the first pick. Once this game is played a couple times,
they understand the solution much more readily.
My take on this is that they suddenly have a personal stake in the game, even
if it's weak. There's a personal cost that takes the form as social shame or
loss aversion, even for a game that's played between friends with no money
involved, that gives them a stake. Once they start wanting to actively avoid
losing, they're much more willing to listen to reason.
The article points out that our anti-rational behavior is at odds with
survival but I would bet there's a level of abstraction below which our
survival minded rationality kicks in and above which we don't have enough of a
stake in the answer to use our rationality to good effect.
[1]
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Overton_window](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Overton_window)
[2]
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Monty_Hall_problem](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Monty_Hall_problem)
------
082349872349872
An ancient (albeit trivial) argument for facts not changing minds is that
rhetoric was a distinct discipline from logic.
------
pier25
> _strong feelings about issues do not emerge from deep understanding_
I've thought about this too on my own strong feelings. The more I know about
something, the more I understand its nuances, pros and cons, etc, the less I
feel strongly about it. Now when I spot myself with a strong feeling about
something I try to remind myself that I'm most likely missing something.
We see this constantly in the dev world. Younger devs feel very strongly about
languages, libraries, frameworks, etc, probably because they have a shallower
understanding of the thing.
------
Isamu
It takes constant training and energy to follow where the facts lead you.
Feynman used different approaches as a way to keep himself focused on the
facts and not exclusively what he “knew” was true. He said the easiest person
to fool is yourself.
Mostly people want to validate their intuition and gut feelings and don’t want
to experience the discomfort of finding out that their intuition is not
magically correct.
------
dang
Why they didn't in 2018:
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18099488](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18099488)
Why they didn't at the time:
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13810764](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13810764)
------
iconjack
The fundamental problem is that our beliefs become part of our identity, and
thus most of the time we're not actually seeking the "truth". This is
obviously true when it comes to religion, and almost as bad when it comes to
politics. And these days, a lot of "science" has become hyper political: race,
climate, gender, evolution. Forget changing anyone's mind on those topics, no
matter what facts you have in your arsenal.
------
mD5pPxMcS6fVWKE
Truth is only important to us as long as it contributes positively to our
well-being. This sort of mushrooms is edible and this one is poisonous -
everyone would agree on that. As far as more abstract truths are concerned:
people believed for centuries that the Earth is flat. Many still do. If you
said otherwise, society would probably burn you for heresy, so the cost of
truth was hugely negative.
------
btmoney06
Were the New Yorker honest, they'd entitle this: "Why the Uneducated Don't
Understand That You're Right." Which is a shame. This type of information
should be used to help better the reader by asking them to understand their
own blind spots--not indulge the reader by telling them that their adversary
is ignorant and irraitonal.
------
SmokeyHamster
Slightly misleading headline. The study tested how much a lie persists in
someone's mind even after they're told the truth.
The study found that facts do indeed change people's minds, just not as much
as we'd like, because the initial impression sets expectations. Caldini talks
about this in some of his books on persuasion.
------
bigpumpkin
The Stanford experiment forgot to account for the fact that the students
could've used the fake score they first received as a useful prior on how
difficult the task was. It does not show that "Facts Don't Change Our Minds".
------
gadders
The New Yorker can't help itself, can it? Reasonably fair article, but then
suddenly veers into:
"When I talk to Tom and he decides he agrees with me, his opinion is also
baseless, but now that the three of us concur we feel that much more smug
about our views. If we all now dismiss as unconvincing any information that
contradicts our opinion, you get, well, the Trump Administration."
And:
"(They can now count on their side—sort of—Donald Trump, who has said that,
although he and his wife had their son, Barron, vaccinated, they refused to do
so on the timetable recommended by pediatricians.)"
The thing is with studies like this is it's used by people on the losing side
of elections to start complaining about "low information voters" with the
subtext being "If only everyone was as clever as me and all my friends that
think the same then [thing I disagree with] would never win elections."
Ironically this also lets them avoid any introspection as to whether they may
lose because there are defects with their policy positions.
~~~
Barrin92
> it's used by people on the losing side of elections to start complaining
> about "low information voters" with the subtext being "If only everyone was
> as clever as me and all my friends that think the same then [thing I
> disagree with] would never win elections."
it's pretty backed up by evidence (and honestly attending a Trump ralley),
that the average voter of Trump is less educated, much more prone to
misinformation, and simply holds a ton of trivially wrong beliefs about the
state of the world.
That's without making a value judgement about the voter or saying they
shouldn't have their vote which they should of course because there's no
requirement for voting in a democracy, but it seems silly to pretend that such
a thing as an uninformed group of voters does not exist, or even cannot exist
because it would be offensive in a way.
Autocrats and corrupt leaders have banked on them throughout all of history,
and measured, intelligent and truthful discourse is not always found in the
majority.If we're concerned with truth then "they keep losing elections" or
might makes right style arguments hold no value, in fact they're quite
dangerous.
~~~
war1025
> It's pretty backed up by evidence (and honestly attending a Trump ralley),
> that the average voter of Trump is less educated, much more prone to
> misinformation, and simply holds a ton of trivially wrong beliefs about the
> state of the world.
This is just as true of your "average" Democrat. The "average" person is
woefully misinformed about most things. It's probably safe to say that nearly
everyone, myself and the majority of the HN crowd included, is misinformed
about many things that aren't critical to our day to day life.
~~~
Barrin92
It's not as true and there's actually been studies on the particular voter
behaviour in 2016, and belief in 'fake news' (as in literally made up stuff)
was a strong predictor of defection from the Democratic to the Republican
ticket, and there's solid psychological evidence why this affects
conservatives in particular[1]
It's also very trivial to see if you eyeball the size of the market for
misinformation. While there are some highly partisan left-wing media in the
US, and there were some facebook pages targetting say, Bernie voters it paled
in the market for the Trump base, literally by a magnitude or so in revenue.
Which I think is very obvious too if one looks at the size of the audiences of
youtube channels attracting those audiences or people like Alex Jones.
NPR in 2016 actually did an interview with one such 'entrepreneur', who
actually tried to sell fake news to virtually everyone, but had very little
success with liberal audiences.[2]
[1][https://www.theatlantic.com/science/archive/2017/02/why-
fake...](https://www.theatlantic.com/science/archive/2017/02/why-fake-news-
targeted-trump-supporters/515433/)
[2][https://www.npr.org/sections/alltechconsidered/2016/11/23/50...](https://www.npr.org/sections/alltechconsidered/2016/11/23/503146770/npr-
finds-the-head-of-a-covert-fake-news-operation-in-the-suburbs)
~~~
war1025
For one, the two articles you linked are from liberal media sources. Of course
they are going to find fault with conservatives.
More importantly, just because conservatives are more likely to believe a
certain form of fake news doesn't mean liberals are immune to being misled.
All it means is that conservatives are motivated by different things than
liberals, and will therefore latch on to a particular flavor of things that
confirm their beliefs. Liberals love confirmation bias just as much as anyone.
Find any random person on the street and ask them to explain why they hold the
views they do. You'll quickly find that opinions are based on emotion and
backfilled later with plausible explanations.
------
thisrod
"Knowledge advances one funeral at a time" \- old physics saying.
------
rbecker
"Why some facts, on some topics, don't change our minds as much as they maybe
should" would better reflect the article content.
------
troughway
Jordan Peterson studied/covered this as well; here's a short clip -
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sWbj-2DRLps](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sWbj-2DRLps)
~~~
war1025
It's downvoted and greyed out because of a general hate of Jordan Peterson
(which I've found is really independent of political affiliation), but it's a
good clip in my opinion.
------
dutch3000
i very much enjoyed the article, but i do prefer apolitical content when
possible. unsure why it was necessary to reference trump in the vaccine
portion. people (authors included) that can’t control themselves from
injecting politics where it doesn’t naturally belong are becoming more and
more irritating imo.
~~~
squarefoot
> unsure why it was necessary to reference trump in the vaccine portion.
It wasn't necessary, however it gave the authors the opportunity to test in
just one line if the summary was true, and I guess it worked.
I also don't want politics injected into scientific topics, but the role of
politicians is to rule for people's good, and talk with extreme caution and
responsibility because of the trust people give them. When a high profile
politician says "this is good", a lot of people will follow the advice
blindly, so when a politician put people lives at risk by telling for example
that Hydroxychloroquine works as a cure for the Coronavirus (to date at least
one dead and one intoxicated after following that advice), it's politics
actually harming lives with dangerous information, which makes everyone's duty
to inject back common sense into the debate. If only because scientists don't
have the same exposure, and it becomes so hard or even impossible for them to
undo the damages done by clueless politicians who talk about things they don't
know squat.
BTW. I would have the same exact opinion even in the case it was Obama or
Clinton doing what Trump did.
~~~
dutch3000
i’ve purposely attempted to fully disconnect from all politically related news
and i’ve begun to notice oddities in conversation patterns mostly. the pattern
is mainly people injecting political comments in completely nonrelated topics
being discussed. the trump references were not educational, yet a sign of the
author’s inability to control himself. it’s just a complete turn off for me.
people can easily make the connections in the article to today’s reality, it
doesn’t need to be explicitly referenced.
------
MaxBarraclough
(2017)
~~~
dang
Added. Thanks!
------
baxtr
Is that actually a fact?
~~~
willvarfar
I don't mean to be paranoid, but do you think the article might be
misinformation in some study of the collective gullibility of the HN crowd?
~~~
danaris
Well, given that it was published in the New Yorker 3 years ago, it clearly
wasn't written primarily for us.
Given that it is discussing the results of actual psychological studies (that
I have seen talked about in a number of other places), it is vanishingly
unlikely that it is in some way intended to study anyone's gullibility.
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
OS X Yosemite 10.10 running slowly in vmware? - SpaceRaccoon
Try this: http://www.insanelymac.com/forum/topic/302424-yosemite-on-vmware-unusable/<p>It worked perfectly for me - instant increase in UI speed.<p>I've not looked into how or why it works, but it "Disable[s] Beam sync on [the] 'Quartz Debug' utility". I've used the app "Beamoff" from the download link, appears to work fine. I've got it set to run on login.
======
alsetmusic
Mavericks was far faster on my Mac mini and my MacBook air. Fusion 7 and esxi
5.1.
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
$10,000 TeamSpeak App Developer Contest - qwertyop
If you are interested in developing apps, test you skills in the Overwolf and TeamSpeak app developer contest! Only the best of apps, and the strongest of heart and mind will win from the $10,000 prize pool, including some kick-ass gear from SteelSeries.<p>Do YOU have what it takes to win, and have your app promoted on the Overwolf website forever? Head over to the official contest page to find out!<p>http://overwolf.com/teamspeak-developers-contest-2014/<p>The competition starts today, and ends on August 9th, so get your apps in!<p>Having trouble thinking of ideas? or maybe you have so many your brain might explode?! Check out our feature request page to see what our users want, or to post your own ideas!<p>http://feedback.overwolf.com/forums/235154-feature-requests/category/78411-teamspeak
======
qwertyop
Overwolf is an in-game overlay software that allows you to bring your favorite
apps (twitch streaming, game capture, in-game browser and chat) into the game!
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Show HN: Quick project workspaces - webbruce
Whenever I start a project with a freelance client I thought it would be cool if I could create a workspace for the project management side of things super quickly (no signups, etc). Also as a college student a tool to help manage simple todo's and organize email better would help wonders with our large class projects.<p>Anywho I've been coding this bad boy up called Ready, Takeoff! that gives the ability to do both of these things, college projects and freelance-to-client management.<p>Check out the screenshot demo and let me know your thoughts.
http://readytakeoff.com
======
ColinWright
Clickable: <http://readytakeoff.com>
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Brightbox release new cloud service pricing - wlll
http://blog.brightbox.co.uk/posts/pricing-for-brightbox-cloud-and-last-call-for-private-beta
======
asharp
Interesting offering, looks damn cool ^_^.
There are a few interesting questions raised, though.
Are you guys using local disks or SAN?
Are you guys using Eucalyptus?
Also, it's interesting that you charge less for incoming data then outgoing. I
understand that standard asym links are cheaper upload then download, due to
them being basically "slack" cap from Adsl tails/etc. Why is your outbound
data more expensive then?
How are you securing KVM?
(assuming somebody from there is around, or that anybody else would have
answers....)
~~~
jeremyjarvis
> Are you guys using local disks or SAN?
No SANs, anywhere! :)
> Are you guys using Eucalyptus?
It's our own stack. Eucalyptus afaik doesn't handle zones as geographically
distinct datacentres and, when we looked at it a long time ago, had some
pretty worrying SPOFs.
> Why is your outbound data more expensive then?
Transit is symmetrical, and incoming bandwidth is less utilised compared to
outgoing so we charge less for it.
> How are you securing KVM?
In what sense?
(Co-founder at Brightbox)
~~~
asharp
> No Sans
Ephemeral disks? Or persistent local?
> Our own stack
Very cool ^_^ How do you deal with geographic zones? Are they silod?
> Bandwidth
Ok, makes perfect sense. Thanks.
> Securing KVM
Do you use cfgroups/selinux to deal with compromise of a kvm domain? I've seen
quite a few vulnerabilities coming out on the debian/etc. security mailing
lists.
~~~
comice
> Ephemeral disks? Or persistent local?
Persistent local disks (hardware raid6 15k rpm). More storage options on the
roadmap too.
> Very cool ^_^ How do you deal with geographic zones? Are they silod?
Our zones are different datacenters in different buildings, with completely
different power supplies, UPSes and backup generators.
> Do you use cfgroups/selinux to deal with compromise of a kvm domain?
cgroups currently, selinux in development.
(full disclosure: I'm a Brightbox bod too!)
~~~
asharp
> persistent disks How do you then deal with people who create an instance and
> then don't run it. Unless i'm mistaken, you'd be forced to either unbalance
> for storage or VM usage.
> cgroups currently How do you protect the kernel from something like
> CVE-2011-2212?
Quite cool otherwise :)
~~~
rednaught
Not sure what distro he is using but Debian and RHEL have patches for this.
[http://security-tracker.debian.org/tracker/source-
package/qe...](http://security-tracker.debian.org/tracker/source-package/qemu-
kvm) <http://security-tracker.debian.org/tracker/CVE-2011-2212>
<https://rhn.redhat.com/errata/RHSA-2011-0919.html>
~~~
asharp
I know of this. The interesting question it brings up is how do you keep a
cloud like this patched and up to date without dropping SLA?
~~~
rednaught
Patching is normally considered part of scheduled or emergency maintenance and
therefore doesn't count against the SLA for uptime. This is fairly standard in
the hosting/ISP world.
So much of this can be automated now that it is not a problem. As a provider
myself, I allow customers to pick their patch day/time. They can even manually
push patches themselves and be present to test when the service comes back up.
Proactive maintenance(datacenter, networking, hardware, OS, and
appptack/utils) should be considered a way of life these days if you're a
provider. If customers don't understand or agree with that, then there are
plenty of providers who don't keep up-to-date offerings that they can migrate
to.
------
thehodge
About time :), Have been testing since the alpha and am really happy with the
service
~~~
strowger
perhaps they ran out of gravy
------
alexro
What do they offer that AWS doesn't? They don't look like cheap either
~~~
rahoulb
No lock-in - easy to take your images and use them elsewhere.
~~~
oldpatricka
In what sense is there less lock in with Brightbox than with EC2? I've run EC2
images on other IaaS clouds, and it's easy to pull an image out with
ec2-download-bundle.
~~~
rahoulb
Oh. When I tried (admittedly a while ago) I couldn't get it working elsewhere
and found a few others who had the same problem.
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
UCLA's new transparent solar film could be game-changer - ot
http://phys.org/news/2012-08-ucla-transparent-solar-game-changer.html
======
astangl
I wish I got a nickel for every one of these solar "game changer" headlines.
I'd love to believe the hype, but these wondrous lab results don't seem to
make it to the marketplace. By now we ought to have almost-free PV paint that
we could paint onto every surface, turning our roofs into almost-free PV
cells, windows that function as PV cells, etc. I don't mean to be cynical, but
is this field more prone to hype, or just gets hyped more on HN, or what?
Maybe the "game changer" hype stories ought to be tempered with some
consideration of what might impede commercial development of the idea, like
maybe why it's impractical after all.
~~~
AndrewDucker
They're happening all the time.
[http://reneweconomy.com.au/2012/solar-insights-pv-costs-
set-...](http://reneweconomy.com.au/2012/solar-insights-pv-costs-set-for-
another-30-fall-in-2012-2012) 30% fall in production costs this year, 75% over
the two previous years. PV costs are constantly dropping at very high rates.
[http://cleantechnica.com/2011/06/10/solar-power-graphs-to-
ma...](http://cleantechnica.com/2011/06/10/solar-power-graphs-to-make-you-
smile/)
~~~
marvin
Yep. Things are getting really interesting these days. Some German coal plants
have to shut down during peak solar production because they simply become
unprofitable to operate. The US has added huge import taxes on the next
generation of Chinese panels. Lots of existing solar companies are going
bankrupt because they haven't been able to adapt fast enough.
It's not just a series of pie-in-the-sky headlines. Things are changing, fast.
------
jws
Thin film, transparent in visible frequencies, nanoscale wires you can't see,
harvests infrared, captures 6% of the incoming radiation, maybe 10% in 3-5
years, infrared accounts for 18% of sunlight. A good match for covering
windows where you want to block the infrared anyway.
~~~
Retric
Most windows are poorly placed to collect sunlight. Anything that's not
sloped, southern facing, and shade free is going to be a lost cause unless
this ridiculously cheap.
~~~
jws
_Most windows are poorly placed to collect sunlight_ – ok, don't use it on
most windows. Sloped isn't really important. Southern facing and shade free
is.
Vertical, southern facing isn't bad for high latitude folks. For instance, I
have my non-tracking panels at the optimum angle for this time of year at 45°N
latitude for 2.8kWhr/m^2/day[1]. If they were vertical it would only drop to
2.5kWhr/m^2/day. Going the other way, a 2 axis tracker would get
3.1kWhr/m^2/day[2]. So that is about a ±10% range for mounting options.
Vertical loses more like 40% in the summer.
[1] November is my worst month. It is cloudier than December.
[2] Trackers never work out at my scale, ~600 watts of panels on a pole mount.
It's always cheaper to just add another panel.
[3] Standalone footnote: It is an island. Grid power is not an option. This
time of year it is just running telemetry, cameras, and keeping the batteries
from freezing, but during the summer I get 6.1kWhr/m^2/day which gets me
around 3kWhr/day (woo hoo! 25¢ of electricity!) and that takes care of four
people. I choose a generator over a battery bank big enough to ride out more
than one cloudy day. It gives me redundancy if the solar/inverter system
fails.
~~~
Retric
Static solar panels at 45°N latitude only work for really remote areas or with
heavy subsidies which are much better spent in southern areas. (Even adjusting
for transmission losses.)
[http://www.nrel.gov/gis/images/eere_pv/national_photovoltaic...](http://www.nrel.gov/gis/images/eere_pv/national_photovoltaic_2012-01.jpg)
Now, as your in a remote area it's worth considering, but even if it's
minimally expensive there are still far better mounting options than vertical
which makes the discussion somewhat moot IMO. Also, full time tracing may not
be useful, but you can use a manual bracket to change the angle once in spring
/ fall and get noticeably more power. EX: ([http://www.crown-
international.co.uk/products/season-adjusta...](http://www.crown-
international.co.uk/products/season-adjustable-solar-panel-mounting-frame/))
Honestly, it's a cool idea, but space is not the problem with photovoltaics it
cost to deploy which is really the only important question.
PS: As to 25c / day, that's assuming you could get on the grid as long as it's
worth paying for it can be worth far more than that.
------
mchannon
On the off chance that this technology's cost could be brought down to the
same per square meter as a conventional solar panel, it would add $35 to the
cost of each 0.5 m^2 window, plus installation, wiring, conduit, and power
converters, for a power output around 1/8 of a correctly installed commodity
solar panel (and that's assuming they're able to make their 6% number work in
the real world for 25 years). The 1/8 number comes from not only lower
efficiency but also shading losses and bad angles.
It's a neat research project but even high-rise buildings have more cost-
effective options for generating on-site solar electricity and blocking
unwanted light.
------
dmritard96
The concept is nice but making it to market will still be tough. As far as
windows and that type of small scale application, I hate to be a debbie downer
but I think the cost of MPPTs (Maximum Power Point Trackers), transformers,
inverters and storage shouldn't be overlooked. Most of those components become
more cost effective with larger PV installations and 6% (or even 10% if they
actually get there) means that a few windows probably won't really bring the
scale that makes the rest of a PV system a cost effective solution. I do see
this as a cachet product though, maybe in the same way that the solar-prius
uses its solar to run fans...Hopefully the efficiency goes up and it can be
brought to market. If it really can be sprayed on then any and every surface
has potential (yuck yuck yuck).
------
MojoJolo
In positive note, I was thinking this to be integrated in touch screen phones
several years from now!
Imagine using your phone, playing with it while walking in the strees and it's
charging through the solar film integrated in the screen.
~~~
robotresearcher
I looked into this because it sounded far-fetched.
The power available in sunlight in perfect conditions (at the equator at
midday, oriented perfectly, is around 1KW per square meter. Scaled down to
iPhone 5 size gives 7.22W. The iPhone charger can provide 5W.
So maybe with extremely efficient photovoltaics you might be onto something,
but unless you leave your phone flat in the sun in Ecuador over lunch, this is
probably not practical. Mine lives in my pocket.
~~~
Someone
Wild thinking: this uses infrared. Your body irradiaties infrared. So, Put it
on or in your clothing (could be the inside of your t-shirt, or even your
underwear), and you're all set :-)
------
tribe
Sounds more like a game-charger to me!
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Why ‘I Have Nothing to Hide’ Is the Wrong Way to Think About Surveillance - dsr12
https://www.wired.com/2013/06/why-i-have-nothing-to-hide-is-the-wrong-way-to-think-about-surveillance/
======
DigitalSea
I am surprised that this Wired article didn't mention anything related to
Snowden, considering he was the one who blew the lid on mass surveillance.
Edward Snowden summed this up perfectly:
>Arguing that you don't care about the right to privacy because you have
nothing to hide is no different than saying you don't care about free speech
because you have nothing to say.
~~~
msimpson
> ...article didn't mention anything related to Snowden, considering he was
> the one who blew the lid on mass surveillance.
I really wish people would look beyond Snowden. It isn't as if there was zero
knowledge of these types of programs or whistleblowers before him. William
Binney, Thomas Drake, J. Kirk Wiebe, and Edward Loomis, just to name a few,
deserve a lot more credit in this instance.
~~~
Nomentatus
Published evidence goes back to the eighties, but made virtually no difference
- until Snowden blew the lid off. Respect to all the others, yup, but Snowden
broke the issue wide open.
~~~
msimpson
You need to reevaluate your definition of that idiom.
~~~
Nomentatus
You'll have to disambiguate (two idioms above) and specify your advice.
References welcome.
~~~
msimpson
The idiom "blow the lid off" means to publicly expose something which was
previously secret or hidden. As you said yourself, evidence for these types of
programs has existed for decades. Therefore, Snowden did not blow the lid off
anything. What he did, instead, was to present corroborating evidence which
added much needed detail in regard to such programs. I'm not trying to devalue
his effort, just pointing out that he isn't some lone ranger. And the fact
that so many people payed attention this time around had a lot more to do with
the criminality of his actions rather than the information he presented.
~~~
Nomentatus
Alas it this knowledge was hidden from the vast majority of people who rely on
TV news for a long time. "Blow the lid off" doesn't mean the first person to
reveal something, it refers to an explosion that can't be ignored. Kudos to
the rest, but he was the one who really rang the gong.
Many revealed the Holocaust to the Allies during WWII, but very sadly, no-one
managed "to blow the lid off" until Germany collapsed. "The Nazis attempted to
keep the Holocaust a secret, but in August 1942, Dr. Gerhart Riegner, the
representative of the World Jewish Congress in Geneva, Switzerland, learned
what was going on from a German source. Riegner asked American diplomats in
Switzerland to inform Rabbi Stephen S. Wise, one of America’s most prominent
Jewish leaders, of the mass murder plan. But the State Department,
characteristically insensitive and influenced by anti-Semitism, decided not to
inform Wise.
The rabbi nevertheless learned of Riegner’s terrible message from Jewish
leaders in Great Britain. He immediately approached Under Secretary of State
Sumner Welles, who asked Wise to keep the information confidential until the
government had time to verify it. Wise agreed and it was not until November
1942 that Welles authorized the release of Riegner’s message.
Wise held a press conference on the evening of November 24, 1942. The next
day’s New York Times reported his news on its tenth page. Throughout the rest
of the war, the Times and most other newspapers failed to give prominent and
extensive coverage to the Holocaust. During World War I, the American press
had published reports of German atrocities that subsequently turned out to be
false. As a result, journalists during World War II tended to approach
atrocity reports with caution." [http://www.history.com/topics/world-war-
ii/american-response...](http://www.history.com/topics/world-war-ii/american-
response-to-the-holocaust)
So I thank Edward Snowden, even more than I thank the rest.
~~~
msimpson
> ...this knowledge was hidden from the vast majority of people who rely on TV
> news...
They seem so much more enlightened now:
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XEVlyP4_11M&t=1336](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XEVlyP4_11M&t=1336)
> "Blow the lid off" doesn't mean the first person to reveal something...
Which is probably why you remember Riegner, yet give no mention of Leon
Feiner.
> ...it refers to an explosion that can't be ignored.
Sure, or an artful twist to facilitate some hero worship.
~~~
Nomentatus
Just credit where it's due, effective action is praiseworthy, and perhaps even
more praiseworthy than relatively ineffective but noble actions. I don't
understand your willingness to pick out one actor to knock. Why not at least
praise them all, as I do? Because that's the difference between us, I praise
them all and you want to knock one. Your blasts don't reveal much about your
motive for that - do you perhaps want to argue against "Great Man Theory" and
in favor of the "historical power of the masses", and somehow think any
individual achievement anywhere in history would disprove the latter, or
something?
The "artful twist" is built-in to not just that idiom but also "blow wide
open." It's not a coincidence, it's central to the meaning.
~~~
msimpson
> I don't understand your willingness to pick out one actor to knock.
I'm not, and I don't understand your necessity to pick out one above others.
> Why not at least praise them all.
Easy, now. Don't forget that was my argument.
> Your blasts don't ... (unintelligible) ... or something?
Ugh, no. Let's not digress, again...
> The "artful twist" is built-in to not just that idiom but also "blow wide
> open." It's not a coincidence, it's central to the meaning.
That idiom is overused. That "artful twist" lost its impact a long time ago
and "blow wide open" is just a variant. These days both are highly subjective
(as illustrated above).
No, the impact from Snowden's actions are useful but no more explosive than
what was, and is now becoming, known to those of us who were paying attention
all along.
Which is the entire point of my original comment. Would you criticize the WSJ
for not name dropping Trump in an article on political stupidity? Or did he
blow that wide open, too?
~~~
Nomentatus
Such condescension. But I don't think you've added anything. It's pretty clear
on this page that we were amongst those paying attention, but didn't have much
company. Thanks largely to Snowden, now we do.
~~~
msimpson
After a litany of increasingly obtuse replies each growing further away from
my original point to the extent that you actually attempted to turn my own
argument against me, you better believe I'm going to be condescending.
Talk about not adding anything... Good grief, and good night.
~~~
Nomentatus
Wow. Just wow.
------
type0
One of my relatives also said this "I have nothing to hide" BS, I replied by
asking who they were talking about. Response: anyone but the criminals. Hmm,
so I demanded to install a spy app on their phone to be able to monitor
everything they do, where they are, record the conversations etc. They
declined this offer, either implying that they perceive me as a criminal or
they confirmed to being hypocritical about this reasoning. Also this reasoning
implies that government agents and other officials are somehow immune from
illegal or criminal activities.
Edit: my impression is that the general public somehow thinks that this data
collected from mass surveillance is stored so securely that it can never be
accessed by criminals. The only thing that could ever change this perception
is some major breach of personal information followed by massive economic
consequences, otherwise no one cares and politicians care too much about they
own power that they will only expand surveillance efforts.
~~~
thomastjeffery
You just described the vast majority of my relatives. There is a lot of
teaching for me to do...
------
hzhou321
The right way to think about privacy would be "is that privacy worthwhile to
protect". There is no absolute in reality. Everything is a balance. And that
balance is constantly shifting. We, human, are experts in handling shifting
balance though. Do not be stupid (blindly trusting any party, including our
government or google), but do not be paranoid either (worrying about potential
crisis every day). Just live your life, and use common sense.
~~~
Nomentatus
Go with the herd, don't go nuts look for cliffs upcoming. That could work. Or
not.
------
woodandsteel
The thing that worries me most about all the personal data the government has
is not its using it to indict people. It is that it will take information that
would be embarrassing to politicians and either use it to blackmail them, or
hand it over to the opposition to use in an election (from what I understand,
J. Edgar Hoover did that). If that is going on, then you don't really have a
democracy any more.
------
jhbadger
There are good points in the article, but I'm annoyed that they bring up the
"lobster law" as so many articles about "absurd laws you might be breaking
without knowing it" do. There's actually a very valid reason why possessing a
small lobster is illegal -- immature lobsters haven't bred yet and if you want
to have lobsters in the future you shouldn't harvest them.
~~~
throwaway11122
The validity of the reasons doesn't come into this because the point isn't
that "possessing lobsters being illegal is stupid". The pint is "lobster are
illegal, who would've guessed, can you imagine having a lobster and ending up
in jail?, and can you imagine how many other thousands of unknown laws are you
breaking right now?, it's not possible to keep track of them all"
------
ouid
I would like to argue that the fourth amendment implicitly protects against
legislation whose only method of enforcement would require unreasonable
search.
If you cannot observe any direct effects of an action without searching the
person who performed the action, then it _cannot_ be a criminal action, and
theres a reasonable argument that this follows from the fourth amendment.
------
thomastjeffery
Today we need to expand the title from "Surveillance" to "Privacy".
Privacy is integral to liberty. That is why this matters so much.
------
Razengan
Just tell politicians to submit to surveillance, after all, they should have
nothing to hide.
~~~
gumby
Ideas like this sound sensible on the surface, but they have unfortunate side
effects.
For example if politicians must disclose a lot of private information, only
those who don't care about that will become politicians. And then since they
are comfortable with it, they won't see any reason to control dissemination of
others' private info.
(BTW I'm not criticizing you by saying this; I don't know a good fix).
But you know how everyone gets a blast of schadenfreude when that anti-drink-
driving politician is pulled over for driving dangerously after having a few
too many? Of course I laugh too, but I wonder if they have been so vocal about
the issue because they know how dangerous it is. Whereas I, who drink little
and don't even like to drive, probably wouldn't pay much attention to the
issue if I became a politician.
~~~
Razengan
I agree with you. But forcing lawmakers to give up their privacy too would at
least, hopefully, theoretically, level the playing field..
Same way as we now at least hold them subject to the same laws involving
money, taxes, and can use those laws to indict them.
~~~
gumby
> Same way as we now at least hold them subject to the same laws involving
> money, taxes, and can use those laws to indict them.
Actually you can't really, and again for good reason, and again with
unfortunate side effects as well.
Legislators have legislative immunity for good reason: otherwise people would
use the courts to attack legislators for making decisions the attackers don't
like (the emolument suit against Trump is avowedly similar[1], although he has
a slightly different immunity). You can, after all, attack them just as well
via the ballot box. In the US the FBI can still investigate crimes they
suspect were committed by sitting legislators, and the house or senate can
waive one of their members' immunity, so it kind of works.
At the opposite extreme, criminals run for office in India in order to take
advantage of the legislative immunity from prosecution.
All this goes in the "some problems are simple to characterize but not simple
to resolve" bucket. When people hear famous quotes from very smart people
along the line of "if your explanation of your problem is complex, perhaps you
don't really understand it" they often confuse that with "your solution must
be simple too."
[1] I just heard an interview with one of the law professors bringing suit,
Zephyr Teachout, who said she thought it would likely go nowhere but that it
was worth making his life difficult. Even if you consider Trump an
irredeemably corrupt mastermind, it is abuse of the legal system to use it
when you know you'll fail. Not that this is the first time someone filed suit
just to annoy someone else.
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
The Biology of Sloppy Code (2010) - vorador
http://journal.stuffwithstuff.com/2010/11/26/the-biology-of-sloppy-code/
======
calebreach
For different take on the same theme, see Lamport's "The Future of Computing:
Logic or Biology".
[http://research.microsoft.com/en-
us/um/people/lamport/pubs/f...](http://research.microsoft.com/en-
us/um/people/lamport/pubs/future-of-computing.pdf)
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Let's not forget about SNI - foobuzzHN
https://foobuzz.github.io/doh-sni/
======
mhkool
The only SNI that the ISP can see is the SNI of the DNS provider. The goal was
to protect the DNS queries itself from eavesdropping and that is implemented.
~~~
NewEntryHN
Once the target IP is resolved and the actual request to the site takes place
the ISP can see the SNI of the resolved host.
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Show HN: Desta – Thumbtack for outdoor experiences and adventures - liamneesonsarm
https://desta.co
======
joe_desta
Hey everyone. I am one of the founders of Desta
([https://desta.co](https://desta.co)). First and foremost, we're building
Desta to help outdoor professionals and outfitters (like flyfishing guides,
etc.) find new, loyal clients without paying exorbitant commissions like they
would with many third party online travel agents (OTA's) and activity booking
platforms.
Word on the street is that adventure outfitters are sick of paying commissions
to OTA's on already discounted trips and ending up with clients who are more
interested in the discounts than the experience.
We're drastically reducing customer acquisition costs by generating leads via
"trip requests" that outfitters can choose to bid on for a small fee. We don't
need to charge commissions because, once the client accepts the bid, we're
hands-off. All the revenue generated from the trip stays in the outfitter's
hands.
Planning a trip somewhere? Give us a chance and please let us know what you
think about our model.
Cheers,
Joe
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Canal Defence Light - vinnyglennon
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Canal_Defence_Light
======
arethuza
The UK was very fond of making specialised of tanks in WW2 - notably "Hobart's
Funnies":
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hobart's_Funnies](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hobart's_Funnies)
The Soviets also used searchlights to dazzle enemies during attacks -
particularly that attack on Seelow Heights:
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_the_Seelow_Heights](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_the_Seelow_Heights)
------
argumentum
"The idea is credited to a _Greek citizen_ , Marcel Mitzakis, who devised the
system for the de Thoren Syndicate in the 1930s; they were advised by J F C
Fuller."
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Archimedes#Heat_ray](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Archimedes#Heat_ray)
Putting his heritage to good use it seems :)
------
kitd
I remember seeing one of these at the Tank Museum in Dorset, UK. If you're in
the area, it's worth a visit. The weird contraptions mounted on some WW2 tanks
must be seen to be believed.
~~~
swang
According to Wikipedia, you saw the only one in existence with its original
tank model/structure.
------
ceejayoz
Can't imagine driving one of these into battle. Seems like it'd be a giant
"shoot me first!" announcement.
~~~
hopeless
I thought that too but, if it's too bright to look at, you can't hit it. Or
maybe you have retreat beyond your weapons effective range just so you aim at
it.
Though I'm sure the enemy would have eventually found some welding glass or
even oil-smeared glass
~~~
creshal
> Though I'm sure the enemy would have eventually found some welding glass or
> even oil-smeared glass
You don't exactly carry either for an amphibious assault. And once beaten
back, there likely wouldn't be a second attempt.
------
rgbrgb
"Curiously, the actual use of the system resembled its name, which was
intended to be spurious."
Names are important.
------
Avalaxy
So why is it no longer in use? Seems to me that emitting an extremely bright
flashing light is a great way to disorientate enemy infantry in close quarter
combat scenarios.
~~~
Tuna-Fish
Blinding flashes of light are widely used by infantry forces of several
states, including the US, in the form of flashbangs[1]. They are much smaller
and cheaper than a searchlight system mounted on a tank, and being deployed as
a hand grenade allows their use indoors.
[1]
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stun_grenade](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stun_grenade)
~~~
Avalaxy
I'm aware. I was specifically talking about vehicles, but I see that I didn't
include that information in my previous post. I think with present day
technology the lights could be a lot smaller than searchlights no?
~~~
jasonwatkinspdx
I think now the preference is to use night vision, IR sensors or the like and
remain as concealed as possible.
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
How to Learn Advanced Mathematics Without Heading to University – Part 3 - shogunmike
https://www.quantstart.com/articles/How-to-Learn-Advanced-Mathematics-Without-Heading-to-University-Part-3
======
lumberjack
This is stupid. The hard part about a Math degree is the number of hours you
have to put in. If you cannot go to university full time, go part time. If you
cannot go part time, you don't have enough time to actually learn any of these
topics on your own.
I've done these classes. It's typically 150 hours per class and it's not
something you do after coming exhausted home from work either. After those 150
hours you'll get a basic understanding of the topic. You won't be an expert by
any means. That will require more exposure, more time.
The lectures themselves are not that useful, I find. The lecturers are mostly
useful in guiding you along, telling you which aspects of the theory to focus
on and weeding through the study material to deliver you the best bits. The
problem sets are indispensable. Exams make sure you actually know the basics
in depth instead of just knowing about them.
My advice: enrol part-time, take one class at a time, catch up on the lectures
and do the problem sets and the homework over the weekend.
~~~
svanderbleek
I hope it is not stupid. I won't fit inside the university system at this
point. They would make me take courses on subjects I already know which is a
waste. I have about 20 hours on the weekend I can use towards accomplishing a
class and I will have minimal waste since my curriculum is tailored directly
for me. Of course it is only because I already wasted a decade learning math
poorly that I know what I want to know and what I need to know to know it ;)
~~~
whorleater
Prerequisites for classes are oftentimes a suggestion, you can easily get into
a class you don't meet the prerequisites for by simply signing up for the
class (most class registration systems don't bar this), or by emailing the
professor and getting an override. Furthermore, if you're a non-degree seeking
student, the university cares very little about you, so you can skate by with
a lot more freedom with classes.
~~~
Roodgorf
> most class registration systems don't bar this
Interesting, anecdotally, I went to three different universities and they all
barred this from happening without an explicit override from a professor or
occasionally an adviser. Just curious what experience you have that makes you
say this?
~~~
whorleater
Huh, I've attended classes at two universities: one for my undergraduate and
one while I was in HS, and neither had a system in place to explicitly bar you
from registering for a class whose pre-reqs you didn't fulfill. At best you'd
get a scary message confirmation message telling asking you "You don't meet
the pre-reqs, you may be dropped from the class, are you sure?".
Also, at least when I was an undergrad, the Banner student system (from
ellucian company) had no system in place for barring you from registering from
classes. This was frequently the point of discussion between the professors
that I TA'd for.
------
yodsanklai
> How to Learn Advanced Mathematics Without Heading to University
I wonder if it's even possible. Learning maths requires much work, time and
dedication. Doing so alone must be very difficult.
There are several things universities provide that are hard to replicate
alone: a degree, which gives you access to a job, motivation, learning
environment, and "peace of mind".
What I mean by peace of mind is that, when you're a student, your job is to
study, that's what you're expected to do and normally your degree will give
you access to a job (esp. if your university is reputable).
Now suppose someone learns advanced maths on their own. There's a huge
opportunity cost. Not only it takes a lot of time, and the few lucrative jobs
that make use of maths are in finance. I suspect financial institutions are
very conservative and rarely recruit someone without a proper academic
background.
An other thing when learning things alone, is that your job is twofold. You
must be teacher and student at the same time. You need to find the material,
impose yourself some pacing, decide when it's ok to move on etc... It may be
ok when you want to learn a new technique in a field you already know, but
something as broad as "learning advanced mathematics" seems impossible.
~~~
mungoid
I really hope this doesn't come across as brash. I don't mean it to, but I
must disagree with your assertions (In my case at least). Learning advanced
mathematics without university is completely possible. Because it is at your
own learning pace. Not one of a University.
I graduated several years ago with a BS in Computer Science, with a Focus on
Networking. And during that time, I held 3 part time jobs while also being a
math tutor. Almost none of the math I use today as a physics developer was
learned from schools. I also never had that piece of mind you mentioned,
because I was constantly juggling several things at once while going to
school. My knowledge of advanced mathematics at the time of my graduation was
pretty non existent. I think the most advanced math I had was Algebra 2 or
something like that, and the Professors just basically read verbatim from the
book.
A few years after Uni, I started teaching myself Calc, Trig, Vector maths,
Diff Eq and Physics strictly from what I have found on various sites, software
and books. Because of that, I ended up getting a physics simulation developer
position at a software company. Because in my companies view, being able to
teach yourself all that math is much more impressive than being taught from a
University.
I hated math during High School and College, but since then, I have found that
I absolutely love math, and I will never stop trying to learn or do new
things. My degree was two small lines on my CV, while about 50% of what I had
on my CV was all learned on my free time, by myself.
So learning math without a College or University is totally possible, and in
my situation, worked way better. Sites like Khan Academy, Wolfram, Youtube,
etc. all give you the resources and leave it up to you to progress at your own
pace, for free.
~~~
sixo
I don't mean to be rude by saying this, but the truly-difficult advanced math
- the stuff that's really hard to build an understanding of by yourself,
because it's fairly distantly separated from any obvious applications or
anything you'd readily have experience with, and heavily obfuscated (to
newcomers) by the notation and pedantic proof-focused thoroughness
(appropriate for academic math, less so for applications) - starts a few
courses _after_ Diff eq.
~~~
tprice7
If you don't consider the topics mungoid mentioned to be advanced math,
perhaps you'll still consider this to be:
[http://arxiv.org/abs/1509.05797](http://arxiv.org/abs/1509.05797) It was
accepted to Algebraic Geometry in May, (the Foundation Compositio Mathematica
journal, not JAG), so it will probably appear online sometime around December.
So far I've received three invitations to visit two different universities as
a result of this paper. (search for "Price" on these pages:
[http://www2.math.binghamton.edu/p/seminars/arit](http://www2.math.binghamton.edu/p/seminars/arit)
[http://www2.math.binghamton.edu/p/seminars/arit/spring2016](http://www2.math.binghamton.edu/p/seminars/arit/spring2016)
, I will also be travelling to a German university in October but
unfortunately I have no evidence to show for this currently). I say this as
someone who left undergrad after four terms and is mostly self-taught, from
such resources as books, online papers, and wikipedia.
~~~
gone35
Impressive. Congratulations on your achievement!
------
fantispug
Learning advanced mathematics without going to university would take an
extreme amount of dedication, focus, and effort, but it's certainly possible.
It's much easier with the resources available on the internet, and being able
to connect with people through forums and stack exchange.
John Baez's recommendations:
[http://math.ucr.edu/home/baez/books.html](http://math.ucr.edu/home/baez/books.html)
For theoretical physics 't Hooft's recommendations:
[http://www.staff.science.uu.nl/~gadda001/goodtheorist/](http://www.staff.science.uu.nl/~gadda001/goodtheorist/)
~~~
jwdunne
Those are some awesome recommendations. Half way through a bookmarking so
paused to give a big thank you.
I don't care if I need 2 lifetimes to learn advanced mathematics. I might not
even scratch it. It's the journey that counts to me - if I can learn one new
tool, one new perspective of looking at problems and the world, I'm a very
happy man.
The only person who loses out is my poor wife who must listen to my excitement
and then has to go lie down for a bit because it's too much to digest.
------
bitchy
These books will kick your teeth in if you're not prepared. You either get a
teacher who'll hold your hand or you need to gear up for fight(develop math
maturity and learn all the tricks and tips). To the latter end, you can check
out the Book of Proof by Richard Hammack[0] and Discrete Math by Susanna
Epp[1].
[0]
[http://www.people.vcu.edu/~rhammack/BookOfProof/](http://www.people.vcu.edu/~rhammack/BookOfProof/)
[1] [https://www.amazon.com/Discrete-Mathematics-Applications-
Sus...](https://www.amazon.com/Discrete-Mathematics-Applications-Susanna-
Epp/dp/0495391328/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1473084498&sr=8-1&keywords=susanna+epp)
------
biofox
I have found the Chicago undergraduate mathematics bibliography useful for
directing self-study:
[https://www.ocf.berkeley.edu/~abhishek/chicmath.htm](https://www.ocf.berkeley.edu/~abhishek/chicmath.htm)
Previously discussed on HN:
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9927909](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9927909)
~~~
tgb
As a math grad student, I can say that this Chicago list has primarily books
that mathematicians know. The one posted here has primarily books that I am
unfamiliar with. If one were to follow that one, other people trained in math
would have a hard to judging what you've done (it's common to say things like
"I've learned algebra at the level of Dummit and Foote" but this only works if
people know the book you're referring to).
On the other hand, books written for mainstream math majors and graduate
students are not necessarily the ones best suited for an autodidact. Perhaps
the author of this post has selected those that are more appropriate, but I
can't judge. Also, Springer is a great name in math books and you generally
don't go too far wrong by sticking with them, but I've never seen their
undergraduate series before. Perhaps they're more common in the UK than the
US?
~~~
ryanmonroe
An added benefit to learning from a book that's more popular is that if you
hit a wall and have a specific question about the material as it's presented
in your book, you're more likely to find your question answered online. You
might even be able to find course material that follows the book, whether from
an official online course or just because the professor at some university
didn't bother to make the course page blocked off from non-students.
~~~
mafribe
book that's more popular
Yet another benefit of popular books is that they won't be first edition, so a
lot of mistakes that make it into the first edition will have been ironed out.
Don't underestimate how much a strategically placed typo can confuse a
learner.
Rule of thumb: avoid first edition maths books.
~~~
_asummers
I once had an analysis book that began the chapter "There exists epsilon < 0",
which I found very amusing.
------
saretired
What bothers me about this article is the hook: if you can learn this stuff
you can get a quant job on Wall St. Realistically, very very few people can
(truly) learn this amount of material on their own, and even so, you will be
competing with top people with advanced math degrees, so if you're not the
second coming of Gelfand, the goal of getting this kind of job is completely
unrealistic.
On the other hand, if you have the time (and ability) to learn some of this
material on your own, for a purpose other than competing for a highly paid job
as a mathematician, great.
------
mathgenius
This stuff is brutally difficult to learn from books. Sigh. Maybe in the years
since I studied this as an undergraduate things have changed with youtube and
so-on. But there is nothing quite like talking to a real mathematician. One
minute you are asking a question about some little thing you are stuck on, and
the next minute the master is levitating and bending spoons! That's when you
start to feel the real depth behind the concepts. It doesn't come from books.
~~~
Chris2048
You want an amazing, 21st century math tutorial?
I was astounded by this: [https://acko.net/blog/how-to-fold-a-julia-
fractal/](https://acko.net/blog/how-to-fold-a-julia-fractal/)
Amazing intro to complex numbers.
~~~
iorrus
Thanks that was incredible.
~~~
Chris2048
I actually emailed the author, asking if they had a tip jar since I was so
impressed.
They replied "I'd be equally happy if you made a charitable donation this
holiday to someone or some organisation that can use it more."
:-)
------
ziedaniel1
To get the key ideas behind many of these topics, you could try reading Evan
Chen's Infinitely Large Napkin:
[http://www.mit.edu/~evanchen/napkin.html](http://www.mit.edu/~evanchen/napkin.html)
~~~
jacobolus
Concept: undergraduate with no teaching or writing experience who was an
International Math Olympiad gold medalist writes a draft book explaining all
of undergraduate mathematics (or rather, most of the topics from his
coursework in random-ish order) to slightly younger IMO participants.
It’s great that he’s making the effort, but I’m not sure this is the most
useful resource for a typical autodidact.
------
lordnacho
Seems pretty comprehensive to me. As a career quant trader I'd say it's a
matter of doing the advanced stuff so that you understand the simple stuff.
Especially in statistics, there are a number of simple principles, but they
need to be learned by incorporating them into some complicated lessons.
There's also programming. That's a whole can of worms in itself. There's both
theory and practice, where I'd say the practice is far more important than it
seems. You really have to have bashed your head against a wall (of your own
making) to appreciate how to code in a sensible, maintainable way.
~~~
Chris2048
I'm aiming to become a quant dev.
I'm already a dev, but trying to catch up wrt the math at the moment :-O
I'm finding there are a whole bunch of skills unrealted to most dev concerns.
looking at this: [http://quantjob.blogspot.com/2011/12/how-to-avoid-
quantdevel...](http://quantjob.blogspot.com/2011/12/how-to-avoid-
quantdeveloper-black-hole.html) I think a lot of dev skills _are_
"housekeeping" \- VC, commenting, testing, agile, automation, standards etc.
The quant dev stuff seems to be a lot more concerned with performance,
correctness and accuracy, and the last two in particular are somewhat
specialist dev skills I think - I've found code derived from mathematical
equations be be a little different to other code.
~~~
lordnacho
But housekeeping is important! I've seen supposed quants who didn't know how
version control worked. It caused productivity to plummet when people just did
what they thought quants do.
If anything it's knowing the plumbing that makes you productive as a dev, of
any kind. You just can't get around understanding how branching works, or
having some unit tests.
Very little of the work ends up being the bit you think you're there for. I
suspect it's the same in many industries. My parents ran a restaurant, and
there's a lot of cooking, but there's also a lot of driving to the wholesaler,
picking out vegetables, cleaning surfaces before and after a day, doing the
plates, accounts, and so forth.
~~~
Chris2048
> it's knowing the plumbing that makes you productive as a dev, of any kind
Is this true of quant devs? Seems the focus is different - regular devs aren't
as rare, so maybe the most important thing is producing a viable POC?
As for quants not knowing VC - did they come from a dev background?
~~~
lordnacho
> As for quants not knowing VC - did they come from a dev background?
No, and that was the problem. The more you venture into this field, the more
you realise how much of it is coding. New idea about how price series X
relates to Y? No use unless you can pull the data, do the transformations
yourself.
Another critical problem is that when you're unproductive, you make
contortions to make your results "real". You make rationalizations that don't
hold up, because OMG it's a lot of work to test some more ideas.
~~~
Chris2048
I think the last point is very important. Can a failing Quant easily bluff.
Yikes.
------
ronald_raygun
My two cents - I got a BS in math and an MS in stats. A ton of this stuff is
really hard and takes a lot of time to understand, and it really does help to
have a bunch of time to dedicate to it, a professor to guide you, and friends
to try problems with. It also really helps to be exposed to a good order to
learn stuff (for example I'd suggest tons of functional analysis, then prob,
then stats, then finally ML)
But once this stuff clicks it becomes very easy to teach yourself. I've been
learning stuff like quantum algorithm, network analysis, etc.
------
kikishortler
On the face of it this looks more like studying than learning. The distinction
is not meaningless. I _studied_ French for six years and passed an exam at the
end. However despite all this activity I have never been able to converse in
French. By a variant of Gell-Mann Amnesia effect, I conclude that I cannot do
mathematics either.
------
Tycho
What do people think of this idea. Let's say you want to casually improve your
maths knowledge in your spare time. Let's say you find it frustrating how you
generally can't just google concepts as you come across them, because the
material is usually presented so obtusely and you need to be able to ask
questions and have things explained in different ways. Let's say you live in a
university town. Let's say you pay a graduate student to just spend a couple
hours per week answering your questions, on whatever concepts you're having
difficulty with.
Do you think this would work well? Obviously it costs money but I'm guessing
the rate wouldn't need to be too high to make it worth their time. They
wouldn't need to do any preparation, just have a good grounding in the
language of maths.
~~~
ctchocula
That was the idea with this business [1].
[1]
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12268362](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12268362)
------
ekm2
There is another guide online: "
[http://hbpms.blogspot.com/2008/05/stage-1-elementary-
stuff.h...](http://hbpms.blogspot.com/2008/05/stage-1-elementary-
stuff.html?m=1)
------
hal9000xp
As I a software developer with no degree (working since 2009 in 3 countries),
I can share my experience of attempts to learn advanced math.
In 2010, I was very interested in foundations of mathematics, an extremely
abstract math branches:
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Foundations_of_mathematics](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Foundations_of_mathematics)
In particular I spent huge amount of time on:
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nicolas_Bourbaki](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nicolas_Bourbaki)
(Set theory)
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Principia_Mathematica](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Principia_Mathematica)
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Foundations_of_Arithmetic](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Foundations_of_Arithmetic)
[http://www.jhtm.nl/tudelft/tw3520/Introduction_to_Mathematic...](http://www.jhtm.nl/tudelft/tw3520/Introduction_to_Mathematical_Logic.pdf)
What attracted me is that these books doesn't require any specific knowledge
of classical math. I.e. they are self-contained.
It was fun and ... the experience to delve into highly abstract view on entire
math.
The big problem is that while I read that for more than a year, I had no
experience in problem solving and just ignored exercises (thinking that
concept is everything). As a result of that, my entire knowledge is completely
evaporated and I literally can't solve any of exercises.
After that year, I dropped math till recently.
Now, I have completely different approach. I learning elementary olympiad
style math and most importantly solving problems all the time. Currently, I'm
into series of books:
[https://www.artofproblemsolving.com/store](https://www.artofproblemsolving.com/store)
These books made for math olympiad preparation. While I solving exercises, I
feel how solid my knowledge is.
So if you want to learn advanced mathematics, learn elementary olympiad-style
math first. It will give you solid background to start learning advanced math
(not just knowledge background but most importantly problem solving skills).
~~~
adrianm
I don't agree with your suggestion about olympiad math since it often has
little relationship to applying advanced mathematics, but there definitely is
merit to the idea that you might need to put theory into practice in order to
gain insight about these things.
I recommend (surprise surprise) programming. Implement fast fourier transform
in C and then Common Lisp. Write a finite difference PDE solver. Try solving
actual problems to motivate you. Signals analysis can be a fun way to exercise
your knowledge. Try analyzing your favorite songs and figuring out what makes
them sound the way they do. Maybe implement some audio filters. If that's not
your cup of tea, write physics or chemistry simulations instead. Then use
OpenGL to visualize them. Then make them interactive.
I can go on and on, but I'll just leave two book recommendations for those who
might enjoy programming advanced mathematics.
Structure and Interpretation of Classical Mechanics :
[https://mitpress.mit.edu/classical_mech](https://mitpress.mit.edu/classical_mech)
Functional Differential Geometry : [https://mitpress.mit.edu/books/functional-
differential-geome...](https://mitpress.mit.edu/books/functional-differential-
geometry)
~~~
FabHK
Several Project Euler problems require some mathematical nuggets and provide
nice motivation to dive deeper (and provide an application right there, too).
------
echelon
Would it be possible to do this for quantum mechanics, chromodynamics, etc.
(to the point where I can follow the primary literature)? I have an
undergraduate understanding of physical chemistry, but that was the closest
exposure I got to the subject. My mathematics background is petty weak, too
(only a modest background in PDE, no ODE, and a faint memory of linear
algebra).
I'd pay handsomely for a personal tutor / teacher.
------
partycoder
Unless you work on graphics, physics, signal analysis, sound, trading, data
science, computer vision, machine learning, etc... it's hard as a software
engineer to be exposed to math past the basics, meaning that you can survive
without having to go beyond arithmetic.
You might still get some exposure to discrete mathematics once in a while.
Statistics is always there to help you, some people avoid it, some others
embrace it.
~~~
kkarakk
>data science
how do you survive as a software engineer without data science?
------
naveen99
Sympy can help get over the fear of following scary looking equations or just
speed you up.
[http://minireference.com/static/tutorials/sympy_tutorial.pdf](http://minireference.com/static/tutorials/sympy_tutorial.pdf)
------
IvanK_net
The hard part of learning anything without heading to university is not
learning that subject, but persuading yourself, that you realy do need to
learn each specific area of the subject thoroughly, even if you have never
heard of it in your previous "career".
------
jimhefferon
> it is essential that we study topics such as Measure Theory and Linear
> Functional Analysis
I love this sentence. I'm not sure it is true, but it is nonetheless a great
sentence.
------
graycat
Somewhere in the OP or its links is a statement that in 1997 or so the world
of finance was really hot for _quants_.
Net: What I found was not "hot" but ice cold.
In contrast, early in my career around DC, for applied math for US national
security and NASA, in one two week period I went on seven interviews and got
five offers. In four years, my annual salary increased by a factor of 4 to six
times what a new, high end Camaro cost. That was "hot".
When I went for my Ph.D. in applied math, I'd read E. O. Thorpe who had,
basically an early but basically correct version of the Black-Scholes option
pricing model. In the back of his book, he mentioned _measure theory_. So, I
dug into Royden's _Real Analysis,_ and in grad school I got a really good
background in measure theory, probability, and stochastic processes from a
star student of E. Cinlar, long in just those topics and the mathematics of
operations research and mathematical finance at Princeton.
In more detail, about 1992 to 2000, after my Ph.D., I tried to get into
finance in NYC as a _quant_. My Ph.D. dissertation research was in stochastic
optimal control, with careful attention to measure theory and the relatively
obscure topic of _measurable selection_ and with a lot of attention to real
world modeling, algorithms, and software. I had a good background in
multivariate statistics and time series techniques, an especially good
background in advanced linear algebra and numerical linear algebra (e.g.,
numerically exact matrix inversion using only double precision machine
arithmetic and based on number theory and the Chinese remainder theorem),
double precision inner product accumulation and iterative improvement, etc.
So, I sent nicely formatted resume copies, in total 1000+.
I have held US Federal Government security clearances at least as high as
Secret; never arrested; never sued; never charged with worse than minor
traffic violations; never bankrupt; good credit; physically normal; healthy;
never used illegal drugs or used legal drugs illegally; married only once and
never divorced; etc.
Results:
(1) I got an interview at Morgan Stanley, but all they wanted was software
development on IBM mainframes (where I had a good background at the time) with
no interest in anything mathematical.
(2) I got a _lunch_ with some guy who claimed to be recruiting for Goldman
Sachs, but, except for the free lunch and what I had to pay for parking in
Manhattan, that went nowhere.
(3) I had a good background in optimization, published a nice paper in JOTA
that solved a problem stated but not solved in the famous paper in
mathematical economics by Arrow, Hurwicz, and Uzawa.
So, for mathematical finance, I got a reference to
Darrell Duffie, _Dynamic Asset Pricing Theory_ , ISBN 0-691-04302-7, Princeton
University Press, Princeton, New Jersey, 1992.
and dug in: The first chapters were heavily about the Kuhn-Tucker conditions,
that is, the topic of my JOTA paper. By the end of the chapter, I'd found
counterexamples for every significant statement in the first one or two (IIRC)
chapters. I had to conclude that Duffie was not a good reference for anything
good!
(4) Headhunters: I tried them, especially the ones claiming to be interested
in technical work, computing, etc. They were from unresponsive down to
insulting. It wasn't clear they had any recruiting requests.
(5) In those days, getting names and mailing addresses of hedge funds was not
so easy. But I did get some lists and mailed to them. Got next to nothing
back. I didn't hear about James Simons until well after year 2000.
(6) Right, there was Black-Scholes. Well, of course, that was Fisher Black at
Goldman Sachs. So I wrote him and enclosed a copy of my resume. I got a nice
letter back from him saying that he saw no roles for applied mathematics or
optimization on Wall Street.
So, I gave up on trying to be a _quant_ on Wall Street!
So that was 1992-2000, 8 years, 1000+ resume copies, and zip, zilch, and zero
results.
Curious that the OP thinks that 1997 was a "hot" year for applied math on Wall
Street.
Now I'm an entrepreneur, doing a startup based on some applied math I derived,
computing, and the Internet! To heck with Wall Street: If my startup is at all
successful, I will make much more money than I could have on Wall Street. And
I don't have to live in or near the southern tip of Manhattan and, instead,
live 70 miles north of there in the much nicer suburbs!
Lesson: Take the OP with several pounds of salt!
------
Hnrobert42
Am I missing something? This just appears to be a link to buy some guy's
ebooks.
~~~
mathgeek
There are about a half dozen ads (and a fade-in popover) above the actually
content. It's a terrible site design from the perspective of someone wanting
to read the content on mobile, but the article is there.
I also just left without reading it, due to the ads.
~~~
shogunmike
Thankyou for the necessary feedback!
I'm actually in the process of overhauling the design of the site,
particularly with regards to mobile, as the current Bootstrap-derived design
pushes all sidebar content to the top on mobile/table.
------
paulpauper
On question is: why? The examples in differential geometry can be difficult
and time-consuming , unlike simple calculus, and are best done with computer,
not by hand. A single tensor, as found in general relativity, may have dozens
of components...writing them out would be taxing. My question is, what do want
to do with this knowledge. There is value in learning complicated, abstract
math to signal intellect and thus become more popular online, and maybe get
consulting work. But in terms to practical applications, a lot of it is done
by software programmed by large teams (not just one person), although learning
the rules is always helpful. If you want to be a professional researcher who
makes original findings in pure mathematics, it will presumably require full
dedication, and one can't be both a quant trader and pure researcher at the
same time (even someone as smart as James Simmons, founder of Renaissance
Capital, was forced to choose between one or the other; he chose the former).
It seems as of late ,especially since 2013, there is huge demand for learning
complicated mathematics, coding, and trading algorithms. It's like the AP-math
class of high school, but as of 2013 expanded to include almost everyone, not
just a dozen students lol. This recent obsession with math and finance is
described in more detail in . People observe, read headlines about high-IQ
founders, venture capitalists, and coders making tons of money in Web 2.0
(Uber, Pinterest, Snaphat, Dropbox, etc.); STEM people getting tons of
prestige, status, and global notoriety for their finding (Arxiv physics and
math papers frequently go viral); and how the economy, especially as of 2008,
rewards intellectualism and STEM in terms of higher wages and surging asset
prices (like stocks (the S&P 500 has nearly tripled since the 2009 bottom),
web 2.0 valuations (Snapchat is worth $15 billion, on its way to $50 billion),
and real estate (Palo Also home prices have doubled since 2011)), and,
understandably, many people want a piece of the wealth pie. They see that
intellect - which includes STEM, finance, and also quantitative finance - is
the path to both riches and social status (as embodied by wealthy geniuses
like Musk, Thiel, Zuckerberg, Shkreli), which is why there is so much interest
in these technical, difficult subjects, unlike decades ago when only a handful
of people were interested.
But another question is: Does algorithmic trading work? I don't know for sure,
but I think a lot money is made in market making (Citadel Capital comes to
mind), which tends to full under the umbrella of algorithmic trading - the two
are closely related. And the math in involved has much less to do with
differential geometry and number theory and more to to do with statistics and
linear algebra (such as analyzing correlations between data). This involves a
lot of trading and paying constant attention to order books - it's a full time
job. I don't think it's as glamorous as many think it is, and I'm not sure if
the returns are worth the effort. There are simpler methods, based on
mathematics such as the ETF decay, that an also generate very good returns and
don't require full-time trading. Here is one
[http://greyenlightenment.com/post-2008-wealth-creation-
guide...](http://greyenlightenment.com/post-2008-wealth-creation-guide/)
~~~
zizzles
_It seems as of late ,especially since 2013, there is huge demand for learning
complicated mathematics, coding, and trading algorithms. It 's like the AP-
math class of high school, but as of 2013 expanded to include almost everyone,
not just a dozen students lol. This recent obsession with math and finance is
described in more detail....._
Obsession with Math? Where do you live where people have math obsessions?
Where I live STEM graduates are a massive minority (We had an HN article on
the front page about this very topic just yesterday) Mathematics is some sort
of taboo magic in the eyes of 99.99% of humans, not something anybody studies
to gain prestige, status or global notoriety. Your average citizen can't even
name one mathematician.
_People observe, read headlines about high-IQ founders, venture capitalists,
and coders making tons of money in Web 2.0 (Uber, Pinterest, Snaphat, Dropbox,
etc.); STEM people getting tons of prestige, status, and global notoriety for
their finding (Arxiv physics and math papers frequently go viral); and how the
economy, especially as of 2008, rewards intellectualism and STEM in terms of
higher wages and surging asset prices (like stocks (the S &P 500 has nearly
tripled since the 2009 bottom), web 2.0 valuations (Snapchat is worth $15
billion, on its way to $50 billion), and real estate (Palo Also home prices
have doubled since 2011)), and, understandably, many people want a piece of
the wealth pie. They see that intellect - which includes STEM, finance, and
also quantitative finance - is the path to both riches and social status (as
embodied by wealthy geniuses like Musk, Thiel, Zuckerberg, Shkreli)...._
There is NOTHING genius about narcissistic photo-sharing websites or SnapChat.
These are just illusive innovations, a fools-paradise for the masses. Not only
that, but the "social status" of these founders you mention has rarely left
the confines of the tech-world anyway, if you want social status in our
society go to acting school and move to Hollywood. I mean..... this world you
mention where STEM students gain so much prestige and math papers go....
viral? Where is this world? What planet are you posting from? Which galaxy is
it located in? Is this post of yours real-life or am I dreaming?
~~~
imjustsaying
> this world you mention where STEM students gain so much prestige and math
> papers go.... viral? Where is this world? What planet are you posting from?
> Which galaxy is it located in? Is this post of yours real-life or am I
> dreaming?
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Echo_chamber_(media)](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Echo_chamber_\(media\))
------
karma_vaccum123
People don't go to university to learn, they go to university to get
degrees...or to be more blunt...to buy degrees.
------
DavidWanjiru
"Why are you wanting to learn mathematics?"
The author is called Michael Halls-Moore. Why would a person called Michael
Halls-Moore write a sentence like this? I'm genuinely curious, coz I'd assume
this is a native English speaker.
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Hacker with terminal illness seeks to opt out of death - lsparrish
http://aaronwinborn.com/blogs/aaron/open-source-software-developer-terminal-illness-hopes-opt-out-death
======
crazydiamond
Reddit has a thread by Bill Gates (thisisbillgates). Why not write him, he is
a humanitarian who will surely help you.
[http://www.reddit.com/r/IAmA/comments/18bhme/im_bill_gates_c...](http://www.reddit.com/r/IAmA/comments/18bhme/im_bill_gates_cochair_of_the_bill_melinda_gates/)
------
fmitchell0
God speed aaron.
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
'MythBusters' co-host backpedals on RFID kerfuffle - nickb
http://news.cnet.com/8301-13772_3-10031601-52.html
======
mechanical_fish
This was bound to happen. The guy wants to keep his show, right? _I_ certainly
want him to keep his show.
And now for something completely different. Apropos of nothing at all, I was
thinking the other day about how pretending to be senile and apologizing for
it is a timeless legal strategy. It can also work well in family conflicts.
I've known a few crazy-like-a-fox elderly geniuses who do a great senility
impression. In a _real_ emergency, they might even try drooling a little.
~~~
stcredzero
Is our society now particularly corrupt, or has it always been this way?
~~~
mechanical_fish
I think you're failing to look on the bright side. This little exchange
represents a lot of progress.
If you want a good idea of what powerful rulers _used_ to do to people who
said things they didn't like, google "Giordano Bruno". Or, for an
international perspective, ask a 60-year-old Russian, or a 40-year-old
Cambodian, or a contemporary Tibetan.
Note, though, that I'm not saying our society couldn't use a lot of
improvement on the corruption front.
~~~
stcredzero
So our society isn't less corrupt than it used to be. It's just that the
overlords have realized that they can be a little subtler and not have to
hack/burn/behead/hang/shoot people to subjugate and control them.
Yes, there's progress, but I think we can still complain.
~~~
shard
Unfortunately, in human society, the source of corruption is _humans_.
~~~
stcredzero
I've always said those things should be _outlawed_!
------
biohacker42
That is one hell of a long (10 minute speech) brain fart there.
And my how eager to help all those corporations were, why they sound sad that
the segment won't air!
Good news everyone, all the bad publicity has jogged Adam's memory and he now
remembers things _correctly_.
~~~
jrockway
Adam does seem like the kind of person that would make things up to make a
story more interesting. Maybe he didn't realize it would end up on YouTube?
Too bad nobody interviewed Tory, the primary source, before the shit hit the
fan.
~~~
icey
Except the article was intimating that the primary source was Grant, and not
Tory.
~~~
biohacker42
I'm sure there are embellishments and inaccuracies in Adams speech.
But the point is that he got the gist of story 100% wrong, not just wrong but
exactly opposite of what happened. The corporations were trying to help them,
not stop them. No one can be _that_ confused.
In addition to that, we all know that in general (yes I am generalizing)
security through obscurity and legal threats tends to be the norm.
~~~
icey
That's my point exactly - his story was so wrong that he couldn't even get who
told him the story right. Doesn't that set off some BS filters?
------
DenisM
So he pretends to back off, we pretend to believe him, lawyers pretend to be
satisfied. RFIDs are still a can of worms.
Everything is back to normal then?
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Windows Icons Redesign - judah
https://medium.com/microsoft-design/iconic-icons-designing-the-world-of-windows-5e70e25e5416
======
BitwiseFool
I like them. I haven't been a fan of all the flat and monochrome icons that
have been popular during the last decade.
All the icons start to look the same and converge on basic shapes with no
color to distinguish features. Plus, many designers no longer put labels on
buttons/icons, compounding the problem.
~~~
WorldMaker
As the article briefly touches on, the monochrome icons made a ton of sense
when color was added externally to the icon by the system. Windows Live Tiles
would add brand colors as backdrops and other parts of Windows would color
icons their brand color in foregrounding. Some problems with that approach was
Live Tiles never got the general acceptance they deserved and the "smart"
display surfaces like Live Tiles and Notifications that knew about branding
colors and such were never the _only_ places icons might appear (especially
for cross-platform apps).
------
pedalpete
The icons are fine, but some are identifiable as Microsoft/Windows, and others
are completely generic.
------
WorldPeas
oh joy, more soulless google-like material application design. I hate to sound
like some nostalgic old fogey, but I wish microsoft had kept windows 7 alive.
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Ask HN: Group Chat client that works behind a proxy - durzagott
I'd love to be able to use the Hipchat desktop client with my team, but our corporate network requires a proxy server to access the Internet.<p>Is there an app that meets these requirements:<p><pre><code> - Linux Desktop Client
- Proxy support
- Persistent Rooms
- Image and file sharing
- Desktop notifications
- Firewall friendly (optional)
- Commercial apps not a problem
- No browser-only solutions!
</code></pre>
I've tried a few of the Campfire desktop clients on Linux (such as Snakefire), but some messages seem to go missing or don't show up until the client has been restarted.<p>I've also come across another product called OneTeam (http://oneteam.im/), but there is almost no mention of it outside of their own website. So I'm a bit sceptical...
======
arjitc
How about IRC ? you could setup a local IRC server and use a IRC client to
connect to it ?
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
How sky-high housing costs make California the poorest state - jseliger
http://www.eastbaytimes.com/2017/09/28/how-sky-high-housing-costs-make-california-the-poorest-state-2/
======
free_everybody
This is so fascinating to me, and it seems like a problem we really need to be
focusing on. Are there any other solutions besides building new homes?
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Ask HN: Are you 'crisp' enough to describe your startup idea in 2-4 words? - kulesh
"You need to be able to say what your startup does in 2-4 words. No one has the time or attention span for an elevator pitch anymore." – says David Sacks from Craft Ventures (https://twitter.com/DavidSacks/status/1197276076759584768)<p>Would you be able to tell what your startup does using this rather restricted format?<p>Let me try this with Karma (https://karmabot.chat)<p>Karma is...<p>A) building happy teams
B) micro-feedback chatbot
C) peer appreciation chatbot
D) true bonding at work<p>Which one would you pick/suggest?<p>Please do share your products and one-liners in the comments!
======
kulesh
50 startups in 2-4 words [https://www.indiehackers.com/post/say-what-your-
startup-does...](https://www.indiehackers.com/post/say-what-your-startup-does-
in-2-4-words-903bce6dd1)
------
karmakaze
github search that doesn't suck [https://gitgrep.com/](https://gitgrep.com/)
~~~
kulesh
Can it be shorter, like, 'Better Github search'? Thanks.
------
losthobbies
[https://losthobbies.com](https://losthobbies.com)
Reconnect with your hobbies
~~~
kulesh
I LOVE the concept. Thanks.
------
karmakaze
log view @10,000 ft [https://quicklog.io/](https://quicklog.io/)
------
stockkid
I think A and D are too abstract.
~~~
kulesh
C then? Thanks!
~~~
ajeet_dhaliwal
Even c may be too abstract, b was the clearest to me. I can see why if you’re
completely familiar with your product you may prefer the others, because you
feel it does so much more but for people who’ve never heard of a product it’s
perhaps easiest to understand.
I have the same issue at Tesults.com. If someone’s never heard of it, I’d
describe it as ‘test results reporting’ but yeah it’s a lot more than that,
it’s a complete pipeline for handling post testing.
~~~
kulesh
"complete pipeline for handling post testing" -> "complete pipeline for
testing" does the trick for me.
"True bonding for remote teams"? Too vague?
------
verdverm
low-code for developers
~~~
kulesh
What's 'low-code'?
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Show HN: Appraise – Visual test automation - adzicg
https://github.com/AppraiseQA/appraise
======
adzicg
Author here - Appraise is a new opensource tool for visual test automation.
It’s like FitNesse, but for visuals, and working from Markdown that shows up
nicely in GitHub repositories.
Appraise can help you:
\- Automate acceptance/regression tests for visual look and feel in a visual
language, rather than xUnit style code
\- Review and approve changes to web pages, visual layouts and browser
components quickly through visual inspection
\- Publish easily maintainable/verifiable developer docs with visual examples
to Github easily (markdown) or as a static site (html)
\- Start Spec by Example/BDD from a sketch (hand-drawn, wireframe, or from a
graphic tool), easily compare actual outcomes, then just approve the final
result to make a regression test
In the near future, Appraise will also help you:
\- Speed up visual exploratory testing by making it easier to rebuild visual
components from example data/configuration
\- Run visual tests quickly/in parallel using AWS Lambda
This is another tool we built for MindMup, and we used it for the last few
months internally, to assist with visual checks and test automation. It helped
us move away from tedious layout tests that were very difficult to maintain
for small changes, but that would be visually easy to approve or reject.
Appraise makes visual tests easy to compose and maintain, by letting people
describe what they want something to look like (with a drawing, photo,
screenshot or a wire-frame), instead of describing how to test it (eg 10
pixels left, this css color). Here it is in action, preventing me from
introducing a stupid layout bug: [https://gojko.net/assets/appraise-
screenshot.png](https://gojko.net/assets/appraise-screenshot.png)
Under the hood, Appraise uses headless Chrome to take screenshots, so it can
inspect anything that Chrome can render.
The initial release of Appraise is alpha-quality. It covers our key usage
scenarios, so we think it is ready for some nice community feedback. It’s
useful to us, let’s make it useful to you together.
We’ve designed it to be extensible and pluggable, so other ways of executing
fixtures, taking screenshots or processing results should be easy to bolt on
to it. We’re releasing it under the MIT license, and the code is on GitHub.
~~~
chrisweekly
Bravo! Sounds fantastic. Curious whether you’ve considered possible paths to
integration with tools like WebPageTest.
------
nathan_f77
Nice! I built a very similar prototype a few years ago when I was working on a
mobile app. My test suite would upload screenshots, and I would have a gallery
where I could see all the screenshots that had changed. It was incredibly
useful, and I wanted to turn it into a side-project or startup. But I was
always worried that CircleCI or TravisCI would add the feature and make my
service obsolete. I think I was wrong to worry about that though. Percy
launched a little while ago and seems to be doing really well:
[https://percy.io](https://percy.io)
My new startup has a very large number of competitors, and I've learned the
lesson that competitors are generally a good thing.
Appraise looks much more polished and ready to use. I'll definitely be trying
it out for my current project. I had a bad UI bug recently where I forgot
about scrollbars on Windows (I used offsetWidth instead of scrollWidth.) I
would like to take a lot of screenshots on different browsers and platforms,
to make sure I don't have any regressions. I'm going to look into using
Appraise for that.
~~~
hobofan
I've actually started building a side-project (imagetest.io, the landing page
is still pretty bare-bones) in the visual regression testing space, because I
didn't couldn't find percy.io or Applitools (the two main services right now)
after quite some searching. Once I discovered the others, I was already too
into the project to abandon it, and I also think that there is quite some room
for improvement in the space.
If you are interested in testing it out, you can reach out to me at the e-mail
in my profile. I'm especially interested in making it work for use-cases that
a lot of developers have to solve, but are somewhat underdocumented right now,
like testing on Windows/IE10 (I have the exact same requirements at a current
freelance client).
------
bcherny
This looks pretty neat! A few questions:
1\. Are there plans for a multi-browser (especially mobile web) test runner?
2\. Are there plans to detect change provenance (eg. if I change my heading
height on a page, all the content below it will shift down. The change I
really want to be notified about is that the header's height changed, not that
everything was pushed down because of it)?
3\. There are a lot of similar tools (eg. back in the day I used
[https://github.com/facebookarchive/huxley](https://github.com/facebookarchive/huxley))
- where does Appraise succeed where those tools failed, or what does Appraise
do better?
~~~
adzicg
> 1\. Are there plans for a multi-browser (especially mobile web) test runner?
the screenshot engine is designed to be pluggable, so theoretically this
should be easy to do with some kind of mobile-test-farm runner.
> 2\. Are there plans to detect change provenance...
You can set the relevant clip region to just the header, so it will only
notify you if the header changed and ignore the rest. check out
[https://github.com/AppraiseQA/appraise/blob/master/examples/...](https://github.com/AppraiseQA/appraise/blob/master/examples/controlling-
screenshots.md)
>3\. There are a lot of similar tools...
appraise is designed to be used like fitnesse (so example+fixture=> result)
instead of record/replay tools that end up being fragile. it makes the
examples easy to understand, splitting what is being tested and how it will be
tested clearly so both of those aspects are easy to maintain.
it's also designed to work well with github markdown, so your tests become
executable API/component specs that are easy to read and also easy to verify.
I'm working on an AWS Lambda runner now, which will also make it quick and
cheap to run UI tests in parallel, so it will provide reasonably fast feedback
for large test suites.
------
revelation
This is diffing PNGs? That sounds like a recipe for disaster.
Here is what this looks like in the much denigrated Java Enterprise world:
[https://eclipsesource.com/blogs/tutorials/rcp-testing-
tool-r...](https://eclipsesource.com/blogs/tutorials/rcp-testing-tool-rcptt-
basic-tutorial/)
~~~
adzicg
>This is diffing PNGs? That sounds like a recipe for disaster.
Not necessarily, if you use it for what it was intended -- visual layout tests
that are easy for a human to approve/reject when there is a difference. It
doesn't know if the change is right or wrong, just helps humans be more
effective by showing the difference clearly and aiding in comparisons.
------
sarthakjain
Would be good to have prebuilt rules for eg material design guidelines.
Would it be even possible to test the material design rules across and entire
page without having to define what individual components across the entire
website look like?
~~~
adzicg
not currently, but that's definitely an interesting idea.
Appraise is designed to make it easy for a human to approve/reject current
state or changes, with a smart visual diff and a good way to show actual and
expected pictures side-by-side or as an overlay, but it currently doesn't have
any smart logic beyond that. Theoretically it could do something smarter as a
comparison.
As it stands now, you could run it once to capture the current state, and get
someone to approve it, then it becomes a regression test pack and the tool
would alert to any changes with a smart diff.
------
alkonaut
Could this be used to diff pdf's?
~~~
adzicg
haven't tested it myself, but I assume headless chrome can render PDFs, so the
answer should be yes. Try it and if it doesn't work, submit an issue on github
and we'll make it work together. You'll probably need to use a fixture
producing a local file, check out
[https://github.com/AppraiseQA/appraise/blob/master/examples/...](https://github.com/AppraiseQA/appraise/blob/master/examples/fixture-
types.md#fixtures-returning-a-local-file-name)
------
finnn
That's a nice domain, didn't realize .qa was a ccTLD
~~~
adzicg
yep, qatar :)
------
lunarcave
Very Nice! Can you tell me how this could be different to a tool like niffy
([https://github.com/segmentio/niffy](https://github.com/segmentio/niffy))?
~~~
adzicg
I have not used niffy so this is based on their github description, so might
be wrong
1) niffy seems to be designed to use UI interactions to lead you to the
result, appraise works like fitnesse, separating what is being tested from how
it's being tested, so you could go several levels deeper than UI interactions
and eg test how your models and views produce outcomes, without the http
serving and web pages in between. this makes tests faster and easier to
maintain. appraise is more for visual unit testing.
2) niffy seems to be optimised for developers, appraise is intended for cross-
functional collaboration between developers, testers and designers. with
appraise, the test is a markdown page that renders nicely in github and shows
expected results and the conditions under which they should happen.
------
felipellrocha
How is this different than happo?
------
iamaelephant
Oh good I look forward to deleting mountains of these kinds of tests in a
couple of years when the shine comes off the apple and people realise the
effort of separating the flake from the real failures isn't worth it.
~~~
dang
It's always possible I've misread your comment, but if not: please don't
dismiss other people's work in an assholish way on HN. It breaks both the site
guidelines and the extra rules for Show HNs:
[https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html](https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html)
[https://news.ycombinator.com/showhn.html](https://news.ycombinator.com/showhn.html)
Substantive critique is welcome, of course, but in this case that would mean
talking about problems with visual testing and making it clear you're not
picking on this particular implementation.
~~~
atomical
Is calling someone an asshole okay under the guidelines?
~~~
dang
I was careful not to. Would you please stop this now?
~~~
atomical
Could you stop with the incredibly arrogant attitude? You wouldn't act like
this in real life -- at least I hope not. You would be shunned by everyone
around you.
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
A Less Long, More Connected Medium – The Story - brandonlipman
https://medium.com/the-story/a-less-long-more-connected-medium-c345db2d6a56
======
brandonlipman
I am so happy. I have just started to get really into Medium and have started
to write on it. This update is awesome! Write away everybody.
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Blip – 1977 Mechanical Pong [video] - fortran77
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BSvZbcwqlTw
======
rkagerer
This toy with all its intricate, mechanical components cost $7.44 in 1977,
equivalent to $32 today.
Electronic Pong games of the day cost 8X to 24X more. Crazy how that ratio has
flipped, with electronics becoming cheaper and mechanics more expensive. I bet
someone could recreate it with a 3D printer; a lot of it was plastic and the
patent has some detailed diagrams of the gearing and cams:
[https://patents.google.com/patent/US4147350](https://patents.google.com/patent/US4147350)
~~~
fortran77
That low cost was what stuck out in my mind. There used to be very complicated
mechanisms in low end consumer electronics (VCR, Cassette Recorder, toys) that
we don't see today in low-end items. In fact the only items I can think of
that consumers see that have complicated mechanics are SLR cameras and lenses
(and cars, of course).
------
jccalhoun
I watched this yesterday. Very fascinating. I vaguely remember this as a kid.
I don't know that I ever played one though. I definitely didn't know that it
was actually mechanical.
~~~
FlyMoreRockets
I had one as a kid. It was surprisingly fun, but every time I played it, all I
could think of was the red LED eye of the Cylons. The original BSG was airing
when this toy came out.
------
lubujackson
Cool, I have one of these I bought on a lark from a yard sale. I haven't tried
it out yet, but looks neat if it works.
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Buildah – build your containers from the ground up - nul_byte
http://www.projectatomic.io/blog/2017/06/introducing-buildah/
======
gtirloni
Tools like buildah and cri-o really give us some hope on the backend. I want
rock solid components that do one thing well and fail in predictable ways.
------
nul_byte
Just had a play with this on a VM.
Really not much of a challenge to adjust to from docker. The posix style CLI
args are quite similar as is the stdout.
This was enough to get me into a container:
debcontainer=$(buildah from debian)
buildah run $debcontainer /bin/bash
root@61badeb3d050:/# uname -r
4.10.15-200.fc25.x86_64
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Google+ Will Dominate Facebook - Here's Why - jamesbritt
https://plus.google.com/116024884086268367178/posts/j6FbZtpSDJs
======
soup10
Weakest support of bold headline ever. I expected sharp insight into some
previously ignored market forces to back it up. Instead his argument is
"google is making some small inroads with a couple universities".
Do you not remember that google advertises is google+ on pretty much every
page it serves. Remember when google placed a giant arrow on it's home page
point to google+ shouting "HEY LOOK AT ME". Nobody cares. This isn't 2000,
social networks aren't cool anymore. Google has gone to unprecedented lengths
to get people to use G+ and has failed spectacularly. The only way Facebook
could lose now is if they self implode, leaving G+ to pick up the pieces. The
sooner Google realizes that and gets back to solving real problems that matter
to the world, the better.
~~~
bo1024
> The only way Facebook could lose now is if they self implode, leaving G+ to
> pick up the pieces.
...
------
ashray
The only way Google+ will dominate facebook is when facebook will do something
to really piss off it's users. Some of this is already happening (I get tons
of meme's and cat photos on my feed as opposed to status updates from my
friends..). Their algorithms for feeds is sucking a lot lately (and I like
Path for that reason..). But as long as people can mindlessly ogle at anyone
on Facebook, Google+ is still going to miss the mass market.
As the value proposition of Facebook drops off, Google+ _may_ take over - I
still think it's highly unlikely.
Hangouts are cool though.
~~~
karterk
_The only way Google+ will dominate facebook is when facebook will do
something to really piss off it's users._
No, not really. Remember what happened to MySpace? Sometimes people just move
on to the next thing. Yes, the network effect is pretty strong for FB, but it
has been done before.
~~~
ashray
I think myspace got pretty annoying towards the end with the shitty design and
overdone widgets on every page. Facebook was a pretty clean and usable
alternative. Personally I couldn't stand myspace pages right around when
facebook came in.
Not evolving your design to user requirements or even to make it aesthetically
pleasing is also pissing off your users in my book.
------
devonrt
This strikes me as underpants gnome logic:
1\. Google will allow .edu Google Apps users to activate G+.
2\. ?
3\. G+ will "dominate" Facebook.
~~~
autophil
It took me a second to recall where I first heard "underpants gnome" from. But
it's Slashdot of course.
~~~
pserwylo
Don't want to stray too far off topic, but it is a reference to an episode of
South Park [0]
[0] <https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tO5sxLapAts>
------
aantix
The initial experience of G+ is horrible.
I think everyone here takes it for granted since they've had a Google account
since 2005, but I had to setup a couple of accounts recently to utilize G+ and
Hangouts and getting friends that weren't part of the network yet was
atrocious.
First of all, it looked like I could invite others to my hangout by just an
email address, which I did, but they never received the invite. Then we had a
hunch that they both had to be part of each others circles, but finding the
"Add Friend" functionality where I could simply add an email address was
another treasure hunt. FINALLY after finding that dialog buried in the
"Circles" dialog, I could add the other account, the other account added me
back, and then FINALLY we were able to fire up a Hangout.
Like launching nuclear missels.
~~~
orangethirty
I share the experience and frustration. Seems like the UX was designed by the
same people who design the assembly instructions for baby cribs.
~~~
autophil
The G+ look and feel is way better than FB, IMO. I find FB claustrophobic and
almost anxiety-inducing.
~~~
aantix
The G+ UI is great if all of your other friends have Google accounts and have
signed up for G+. Pretty sweet.
But for those that haven't signed up for G+ or even worse, don't have a Google
account at all, forget about it. I wanted to set up a Hangout for my family
members in other states to chat in, but after the catastrophe above, there's
no way I am going to try and convey those instructions to others..
------
kissickas
Am I misunderstanding something here? I attend UNC and here we have Microsoft
Live Exchange accounts (or whatever they're called, it's forwarded to my
Gmail). Is there a way to sign up to Google+ as an .edu user even if your
school doesn't use them? Or is it just a mistake by the author?
~~~
bricestacey
Many schools use google for email, calendars, and chat. It's google for
business, but I believe it's free (or relatively cheap) for education
institutions. Theoretically all those users would be using Google and perhaps
Google+ with enough encouragement.
Many other schools choose MS Live and those students would not necessarily
have any reason to use Google+. Interestingly, at least at UMass Boston, the
primary justification for MS Live was because MS claims it can identify the
physical machines your data is housed on, whereas Google does not make such
promises. This is only important for checking off boxes when audited.
------
orangethirty
I just joined g+ after google after not using any social network for about two
years. I'm not impressed. The UI is just a sea of grey. Everything is just
piled on top of each other. I've been keeping up with the changes over at
Facebook (with the accounts of friends and relatives), and their UI is better
(but not great, either). They do use colors and icons in a more functional
manner. g+ is also buggy. I keep having problems where the app just hangs or
stops working. I've tried it on a couple of different computers with different
setups and I still get bugs. Weird because Gmail is very solid. I would have
thought their JS would be a bit more reliable across the board. Maybe its me,
though. I do think that what will kill g+ and FB is what I call the privacy
wars. This is something that is brewing given the substantial abuse being
carried out against civil liberties across the world by these mega corps.
------
biznickman
So they have a university outreach program ... You do realize Facebook is
doing something quite similar as well with their groups product, right?
~~~
spindritf
Facebook doesn't have a suite of extremely popular web apps. Every student I
know uses gmail.
~~~
paulgb
Sure they do. Messages, Photos, Videos.
------
murali89
Before anything, Google+ badly needs a complete change in UI. It is very
counter intuitive and stupid. Also, they should not be allowing anybody and
everybody to add a person in their circles. It is annoying. That said, I think
it might really work in their favor if they can execute the plan well, because
significant number of active FB users are college students. I think it makes a
good selling point to switch.
~~~
autophil
My daughter roped me into using G+ but now I think it's a superior experience
to FB in every way. I actually enjoy using G+ (and I thought I had social
media fatigue).
------
edgivas
No. Because I refuse to log in with my google credentials to even read your
post.
~~~
graue
I see this complaint a lot when a G+ link is posted here, but Google never
asks me to log in. Anyone know why it requires a login from some but not
others?
~~~
timothya
I believe it happens when you are already signed in, but the session is
expired (or is in some way not fully signed in). It then prompts you to finish
the sign in so it can give you a good experience once you're there (for
example, the ability to comment, +1, or reshare the post immediately, or add
the author to circles).
If you have no session with Google at all, however, no login is requested.
------
ken
What's missing from this (and most "why $newcomer will beat $incumbant"
claims) is why Facebook can't simply duplicate the feature, and remove it as a
differentiator.
As a programmer, and looking at what Facebook can do already, it just doesn't
seem like adding a "let everyone from my *.edu see this" permission level
would be that hard.
------
BruceIV
I'm a grad student, I've been a university student for the better part of the
last decade, and let me tell you this: the most universally disliked piece of
software on campus is always whatever dreck they make us use for Web services.
Admittedly, Google+ is at least modern and attractively engineered, but that
misses the point. The point is that students rarely use the social network
their university gives them unless their grade depends on it - the university
administration seems to be thinking "hmm, kids these days are on the Web a
lot, let's give them a Web site", while the students roll their eyes and use
Facebook/Twitter/BBM/whatever to get together and get their work done, rather
than logging into some extra site to do things they can already do in their
existing Web flow.
------
liamcampbell
I can't read this because I'm not logged in to Google Plus. I think that kinda
says something.
------
_debug_
Neither. Path or something similar on the mobile will quietly take over
because the distance between the camera and the upload button will be smaller,
and tablets, and more importantly, 5" to 7" phablets, will become the
ubiquitous perfect middle ground between telephony and browser and video game
console.
FB will be forced to provide a comprehensive export feature by law, which will
make the jump easier.
FB knows this.
This is, of course, a personal, subjective viewpoint / projection of the path
of least resistance ahead.
------
jsz0
Interesting theory but I'm not sure why the results would be much different
than when Google pushed G+ on hundreds of millions of GMail users. It helped
them put some numbers on the board but I haven't seen any improvement to the
(lack of) content on G+ -- granted that is only my personal experience but I
don't think I'm alone there. Maybe G+ will be a weird niche hit like the Okurt
of education but it's hard for me to see that being enough to overcome the
massive Facebook social lock-in effect.
------
xpose2000
There is no reason why Facebook can't create a separate echo-system for each
College University and mimic what he is talking about here. Facebook certainly
has the resources and brand recognition to do so.
If anything Yammer could probably do this more effectively than anyone else
since they already offer this service for companies. Does that mean they will
Dominate Facebook? Hrm.
I am a fan of Google+, but I am sorry to say your argument will have to be
better than that.
~~~
pacala
Sure. Given enough resources anyone can copy anyone. But then Facebook will be
playing catch-up and Google will become the de-facto leader. In a space where
the winner takes all, you don't want to be the one that plays catch-up.
Disclaimer: I work for Google, but unrelated to G+.
------
ericts8
I don't understand the logic here. Just because Google (and this guy) THINKS
that college kids will use this/that this is going to be huge - does not mean
it will be.
~~~
Blara
Ah yes, lets skip all forms of projections... I guess the stockmarket will
have to close because just because someone thinks a stock will go up it does
not mean it will do.
~~~
zachinglis
No, he's right. There needs to be valid facts on WHY. He's listed a few
features, but that doesn't mean it'll get traction at all. Or it doesn't mean
that the students will use it in their personal lives too.
------
jblock
...and the college students most likely already have Facebook accounts.
The author discusses all these things that would be great and engaging if that
content the students are going to be posted to G+. The problem is that it
isn't. It's going to Twitter, Instagram, and Facebook, and adding more pretty
features isn't going to change that.
------
Gustomaximus
By tying G+ closer to docs, spreadsheets and hangouts with your lecturer I
would guess this will bring it more in competition with Linkedin. In this
world it becomes more of a business social platform than a friends and family
social platform, at least initially.
------
philip1209
I went in a skeptic, but I wonder if I could hold TA office hours through
Google+. It certainly would be more useful.
------
zachinglis
All the students I know drink PBR, does that mean everyone's going to switch
to PBR sometime soon?
------
stratos2
Ironic considering Facebook has its roots in Universities
------
spullara
Harvard was not just any .edu
------
detox
?????????
------
drivebyacct2
If Google+ dominates Facebook, I cannot imagine this being the reason.
First off, it's not hard to make any post exclusive to my University on
Facebook. Second, why exactly is that a highly desirable feature?
The absolute last thing I want is two Google accounts with two Google+
accounts.
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Ask HN: How to determine temperature of text? - manch
Given a review, say, about a book. What is the best way to determine if the review likes the book or hates it? Just doing a keyword search of "good" or "best" doesn't seem to cut it. What if the review says something like "this is not as good as that"? Some semantic analysis seems necessary.<p>The harder question: now that we know the review is positive, how can we assign a degree of positiveness? "The best since sliced bread" is much more positive than "good, but can be better".
======
mbrubeck
The usual approach for these problems is to admit that you don't know what the
rules are, and instead train a statistical classifier based on some sample
data:
<http://crm114.sourceforge.net/>
Depending on how hard your problem is, the accuracy of the classifier may not
be very good. You can try to come up with fancier "features" to extract from
the items and feed to the classifier, or you can use "artificial artifical
intelligence" and just farm out the work to Mechanical Turk at a penny per
review.
------
gdp
Well outside my field, but I believe this is a reasonably well-established
problem in text processing/NLP, known as "Sentiment Analysis" -
<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sentiment_analysis>
My very brief google scholar search on that key phrase turned up a whole lot
of results that look like they may provide fairly concrete algorithms and
techniques for doing what you describe.
------
keefe
As other posters have said, it's a genuinely hard problem that touches on
natural language quantification. You can find an excellent resource on the
relationship between english words here <http://wordnet.princeton.edu/>. You
could manually rank a set of adjectives and then use wordnet to find synonyms
and generate some heuristic from there, but the bottom line is I think it's
going to be a huge time sink unless you get someone with NLP experience
involved.
------
manch
Thank you all for your wonderful comments. I now have some concrete directions
to look. I must say it is much harder than I initially thought.
Are there companies employing any of these techniques to provide some service?
This seems to be the next step up from keyword-based search. I remember seeing
some startups providing a gauge of positive press coverage on stock symbols.
How do they do it?
~~~
mbrubeck
For one example, I've seen a couple of sites that classify Twitter posts about
movies as positive or negative. I don't know what techniques they're using.
<http://flixpulse.com/>
<http://www.twittercritic.com/>
~~~
manch
Just checked out the 2 sites. They don't seem to be active? The movies there
seem to be dated.
Actually flixpulse.com classified some reviews wrong. Here are some of the
"bad" reviews on "Bolt":
\-- "Bolt" is bringing AWESOME back \-- @seanbonner awesome! BOLT loves you
back.
Whatever algo they use need some tuning. But I don't think anyone is actively
working on it anymore.
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
When can I use a given Web feature? - ajbatac
http://ajaxian.com/archives/when-can-i-use-a-given-web-feature
======
scrod
Well, it looks like Safari is currently and will continue to be the most
standards-compliant browser for at least the horizon of these technologies.
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
An Unexpected Character Replacement - eaguyhn
https://www.datafix.com.au/BASHing/2019-10-18.html
======
Tarq0n
These angle brackets are how R handles printing some Unicode to stdout on
windows. In memory it should be regular Unicode though.
The mistake they made is a classic R footgun: the fileEncoding argument to
write.table() controls the encoding of the filename, not its contents. You
either have to control the encoding of the files by manually creating the
connection through file() or ideally just use the readr or data.table
libraries.
Base R makes a lot of Unixy assumptions when it comes to text, so it's not
pleasant to work with on Windows. The package ecosystem has solved most of
these problems though.
~~~
disgruntledphd2
I'm willing to bet that this problem was actually caused by readr, as base
typically doesn't do crap like this.
Completely agreed with the rest of your points though.
------
avian
I used to have a job that involved parsing large textual datasets. It was
fascinating to me how far you could reconstruct a history of a dataset just by
looking at encoding errors - and practically no dataset I've seen came without
them. Sometimes I could be certain of several specific import/export steps,
each introducing a new layer of encoding errors on top of the previous one.
Other times I could correlate timestamps and see when specific data entry bugs
were introduced and when they were fixed.
Strictly speaking once you lose the information about the encoding of a string
you can't say anything about it. But given some heuristic, some contextual
knowledge (like how the author of the post guesses that "M<fc>ller" means
"Müller") and a large enough amount of data you can pretty much always work
back through and correct the errors. Well, as long as someone didn't replace
all 8-bit characters with question marks, but that was very rare in my
experience.
------
ChrisSD
> The dataset started out as a Microsoft Excel file, presumably in
> Windows-1252 encoding. This was converted into a CSV, then loaded into the R
> environment for adding additional information required by GBIF, then
> exported from R as a text file with the command option fileEncoding =
> "UTF-8".
Quite a journey. The ultimate culprit was an R text cleaning function but I
wonder why the Excel sheet was in Windows-1252 encoding and can't R import
Excel files directly?
~~~
tialaramex
Much of Microsoft Office for Windows dates to an awkward period when it was
apparent that ASCII isn't enough, but UTF-8 isn't yet the obvious winner.
In particular there's a period where you get "strings" that aren't actually
text as we'd understand it but instead a sequence of glyph numbers for a
typeface. So instead of ASCII's "A" or Unicode's U+0041 LATIN CAPITAL LETTER A
you're just encoding that you want whatever the typeface named "Typewriter
Sans" has put in slot number 65. Maybe it's a capital A and maybe it isn't.
This works pretty well on one Windows PC, or even a LAN full of identically
configured Windows PCs. You can see why it was at least superficially
attractive to Windows application programmers. Got a niche that needs
Bulgarian ? No problem, the software doesn't care what the glyphs "mean", just
define how to type the codes in and you're done.
But then somebody tries to open the Excel file with the Bulgarian text in
"Steve's Bulgarian" font on a Mac and it doesn't work, it's gibberish. Oh
dear. You have to install "Steve's Bulgarian" on the Mac and it look better
although it isn't quite exactly right.
Today this is obviously completely insane, but by then the problem is
backwards compatibility.
~~~
peterburkimsher
Just some specific dates.
Microsoft Office was released in 1989 [1], and came out on the Mac before it
was ported to Windows.
UTF-8 was designed in 1992, on a placemat [2]. It has been dominant on the web
[3] since 2009, which seems like ages ago now, but is really quite recent.
[1]
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Microsoft_Office](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Microsoft_Office)
[2]
[https://www.cl.cam.ac.uk/~mgk25/ucs/utf-8-history.txt](https://www.cl.cam.ac.uk/~mgk25/ucs/utf-8-history.txt)
[3]
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/UTF-8#/media/File:Utf8webgrowt...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/UTF-8#/media/File:Utf8webgrowth.svg)
~~~
mkozlows
That's a misleading date for UTF-dominance -- as the link notes, it's counting
things as ASCII if they only have ASCII characters, no matter what the
encoding was specified as, and ASCII is a subset of UTF-8.
I'd put UTF-8's real prominence with the popularity of XML (where it was the
default encoding). That was specified in 1998, and ubiquitous within a few
years. Nobody at the height of XML would have tried doing a non-UTF design for
anything.
~~~
db48x
XML is almost UTF-8, but some characters were disallowed in XML 1.0, and it
wasn't fixed until later. This still causes bugs where I work, here in 2019.
------
ngcc_hk
By R should be in the title?
~~~
kazinator
Where would the spoiler alert go if it's in the title?
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
What's common about the hackers? - ajayjetti
Are they all nerds? Dont they have life beyond computers. Ofcourse generlisations are for the noobs, but there still will be lot of "commons".<p>1. One thing i noticed common among lot of hackers is that they all have profound views about things sorrounding them, but they never let it out.
======
jdp
They aren't so quick to label themselves
------
sachmanb
"profound views but never let it out" - sounds like an intp to me
(<http://www.intp.org/faq.html>). there's a chance there's a lot of intps
around these places. intps like to hack, i know i do. probably some intjs as
well - they get more stuff done. being business and such, there's probably
some entjs around here too - who wouldn't fit that description at all.
sprinkles of other types is my guess, but im guessing a lot of 'engineering'
and 'executive' types.
detailed profile: <http://www.intp.org/intprofile.html>
~~~
ajayjetti
very interesting {:}
------
TallGuyShort
Hackers don't accept the reality they're presented with. They learn how to
change it.
------
jibiki
> "commons"
I'm not sure if you were looking for help on this one, but "similarities" is
the word most Americans would use.
~~~
ajayjetti
Was just a way of expression my friend(s)
~~~
jibiki
Ah, sorry.
------
vaksel
They are almost universally dudes.
~~~
ajayjetti
they all fix
------
noodle
they like technology.
thats about it.
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Canada's startup visa program - mooreds
http://www.feld.com/wp/archives/2013/01/canadas-start-up-visa-program.html
======
rohamg
"would-be immigrants would require the support of a Canadian angel investor
group or venture capital fund before they can apply to the Start-Up Visa
Program."
As the operator of a proudly bootstrapped company, I think this requirement
makes the entire law a farce. I hope the US legislature doesn't follow the
same example. The provision is especially damning because the Canadian
angel/VC community is not particularly large or sufficiently risk-tolerant.
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Launch HN: Noteworthy, If Tailscale and Kubernetes had baby - decentralabs
https://noteworthy.tech/start/
======
decentralabs
Noteworthy is an open-source personal networking framework and API with a
novel architecture that puts users in control of their data and the online
services they depend on by making it easy to replicate the benefits of the
cloud collaboratively with friends and family.
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
No Facebook Messenger for Me - libovness
http://www.joshuawise.com/contact/no-fb-messenger
======
mrorbitman
Just wanted to let you know that not all is lost. To avoid keeping a FB window
open all day at work, you can use messenger.com, which is facebook's solution
for this. Or [http://www.goofyapp.com/](http://www.goofyapp.com/), which is
that webview packaged as a mac app. There's tons of other software solutions
as well.
Facebook messenger is an amazing platform. You can communicate with all of
your friends (even if you don't have their phone number), on all of your
devices, mobile and stationary. It also provides context to conversation - a
full profile is only a tap away. Sharing photos and files is a breeze, and
emojis and stickers add a dimension of fun that is not as effective on other
platforms.
Facebook is keeping up with the times, changing, adapting, and not wasting
resources on outdated technologies.
I get excited about change and technical improvements, even if it means I have
to break old habits. Just something to think about.
~~~
baaron
Unless I'm missing something, this doesn't address the author's concern of
keeping all IM sessions confined to a single desktop window. It's simply a
method of using Facebook's Messenger platform without having facebook.com
loaded in a browser. So it placates users with privacy concerns regarding
opening Facebook on a corporate network, but it does nothing for the advocate
of a single chat client.
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
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First Android netbook to cost about $250 - edw519
http://www.computerworld.com/action/article.do?command=printArticleBasic&taxonomyName=Laptops&articleId=9132109&taxonomyId=76
======
tumult
Seems more like a "could" than a "to" if an editor wants to change the
headline.
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Permission escalation vulnerability in Egnyte reveals user credentials - sallyseashore
http://blog.foldergrid.com/2012/07/why-we-stopped-trusting-egnyte-a-cautionary-tale-for-users-of-cloud-services/
======
bchess
There are security vulnerabilities in every interesting product out there. The
way a company responds to a vulnerability report is much more telling than the
vulnerability itself.
It doesn't look like Eric notified Egnyte before he told the world about the
vuln. Not nice.
------
whiteseczen
If what this guy says is true, the real story here is that Egnyte lied - the
good news is that they now have $16M bucks for HIPAA breach penalties!
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Ask HN: How do we hold news media accountable? - chris-orgmenta
The Issue:<p>Murdoch et al's interests clearly don't align with the commmon person.<p>We've obviously entered a new age of misinformation (where spread/penetration has increased, rather than the accuracy of the information itself necessarily).<p>Sensationalist news is more successful in spreading / catching interest than accurate news.<p>---<p>My Question:<p>How do we solve this, rather than just lamenting the situation?
Is it a governmental body that should regulate this? A not for profit? Or do we leave it to the free market?<p>How do we force a higher degree of integrity from media outlets? How do we reduce bias?<p>Do we need an independent body here?<p>Do we force, through legislation, the requirement for newspapers to make 'louder' apologies for misleading information?<p>Do we force, through legislation, large fines for gross negligence?<p>Do we issue a 'badge' to news outlets that consistently maintain good standards of research and impartiality? How do we maintain the integrity of this badge?<p>Do we hold individual journalists accountable too, rather than just the org? (Sarbanes–Oxley-esque).<p>How do independent journalists & bloggers fit in here?<p>What's the light at the end of the tunnel here?
======
pwg
> Sensationalist news is more successful in spreading / catching interest than
> accurate news.
This is largely a direct result of the advertising model of the internet/news
where advertisers believe they can measure "engagement" on websites.
Sensationalist news grabs more eyeballs, and keeps them grabbed more (i.e.,
more "engagement" being measured) which internet advertisers are willing to
pay more to obtain [1]. Since the "news" is advertiser funded in very large
part, the "news" is drawn to publish ever more sensationalist stories to
increase their magic "engagement" number that the advertiser believe is
telling them something in order to bring in more money for the "news". Repeat
the cycle over about a ten to fifteen year period [2] and you get the current
crop of stories specifically designed to make nearly everything maximally
sensationalist.
So it would seem that one solution is to find a way where "the news" is not
perversely incentivized to sensationalize every story for the purpose of
maximizing their own revenue. I am, however, unsure of exactly what form that
solution might take.
[1] I'm ignoring counter arguments that would argue that their measures are
likely faulty and/or are not measuring what they think they are measuring.
Those arguments, while likely true, miss the fact that the advertisers believe
their measurements are measuring what they believe is being measured, so they
pay more for more of it, whether it is really there or not. I.e., they have
convinced themselves that their measurements are accurate, regardless of
reality.
[2] which is about how long it has been since major "news" really /discovered/
the internet and figured out how to try to profit from it.
------
PaulHoule
The light at the end of the tunnel is an oncoming train, this guy saw it in
1971
[https://www.amazon.com/Information-Machines-Ben-H-
Bagdikian/...](https://www.amazon.com/Information-Machines-Ben-H-
Bagdikian/dp/0060902582)
The problem is not only worse than you imagine it is worse than you can
imagine.
Immense damage is done to the framework of reality itself by the mere act of
saying that the cud the president regurgitated at 4am last night is news but
that 1000 important things that happened to your community were not.
It is inevitable that news introduces "harmless" errors such as the airplane
hijacker identified as "Dan Cooper" is misidentified as "D. B. Cooper" by
reporters, then the F.B.I. puts "D. B. Cooper" as the name on the file because
they think it sounds badass.
The most difficult problem is that the media tends to cast discussions into
"two sides" that somehow need to be dealt with "equally". Frequently one side
or both sides are disingenuous on one level or another, and participation in a
bogus discussion is one of the best ways to "run out the clock" and keep other
issues off the agenda.
------
burfog
You can get very accurate news from OAN. Some cable companies offer it. Also,
they have a video app, and are on the web:
[https://www.oann.com/](https://www.oann.com/)
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Why is some web pages don't load in web views? - sente
Twitter, for instance, never loads from within my HN app. See https://i.imgur.com/oDHwxQB.jpg for an example of what I mean.<p>I'm curious what specifically on the site is preventing it from rendering.
======
sente
[https://i.imgur.com/oDHwxQB.jpg](https://i.imgur.com/oDHwxQB.jpg)
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Want to See More Millennials as Homeowners? Ease FHA Condo Restrictions - jseliger
https://nextcity.org/daily/entry/fha-loans-condo-rules-millennials-homeownership
======
jseliger
Or, better yet, kill FHA loans entirely; still, this might be a second- or
third-best solution.
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
What Java web framework would you use? - donw
I may have an opportunity in the near future to do a bit of Java web programming, in exchange for many shells and beads. Having not done much with Java in the recent past, I'm not up to speed on the current state of lightweight application frameworks, and so I am poking the collective brain of all the people here at Hacker News. If you were going to develop a web application in Java, what framework would you use?
======
waldrews
There's no choice anymore - it's got to be Seam. It's the first Java EE
framework to really learn from Rails, eliminate the XML through annotations,
natively support Hibernate as the ORM, and still keep the perf and tooling
advantages of static typing, use the application servers for automated,
efficient state management, and generally make the vast API resources of the
JEE stack available.
On the UI side there's a lot of support for JSF components, which is good for
someone like me who wants to write the backend and have the UI just work. The
Seam code generator makes pretty instant CRUD applications that go a lot
further than any of the Rails auto-scaffolding apps.
And, if you think Java's too verbose and inelegant - there's no reason not to
write much of the application in Scala or Clojure.
And besides, it's by Gavin King. Gavin King made Hibernate. I know of no ORM
in any other language that approaches its feature set - though SQLAlchemy in
Python is moving in that direction, and acknowledges Hibernate as inspiration.
Hibernate used to be a maintenance nightmare because of the XML; the new
annotation based version keeps the power but is a lot more DRY.
The Java community really did a remarkable job of killing off the XML bloat in
the current Java EE stack - and only within the last year or so.
[if anyone out there is as enthusiastic about Seam as I am, I have budget for
several freelancer projects using it, some of which are actually not boring,
and may evolve into startups - contact me on here]
~~~
xefyr
waldrews: I have some freelancing bandwidth if you have an interesting
project. My email is in my profile while yours is not; send me a line and
we'll chat.
~~~
staticshock
neither of your emails are in your profiles. it needs to be in the "about"
section to be visible.
~~~
xefyr
Thanks!
+1
------
khill
I prefer Wicket over Seam for lightweight web applications. I spent a year or
two trying to like JSF and I just can't do it. I find that Wicket's approach
to building the UI is more closely aligned to how I work and think.
I've also played with the Stripes framework a bit and it seems like a nice
option but I haven't done anything extensive with it yet.
Hibernate is my default choice for the persistence layer. It can be a little
tricky if you're tying into an existing legacy data model with a bad design.
------
jrockway
Sorry to hijack the discussion, but are there any good Clojure frameworks? The
JVM is fine, but programming it with Java is too horrible to even discuss :)
~~~
icey
I think the only two choices you have right now are Enclojure and Webjure.
Both of which are pretty young at the moment.
------
aschobel
Struts 2: Kickass framework that gets out of your way with almost no XML. This
is more WebWork than Struts 1. <http://struts.apache.org/2.x/>
Guice: Dependency injection goodness. <http://code.google.com/p/google-guice/>
Google Collections Library: Makes java.util less painful and awkward to use.
<http://code.google.com/p/google-collections/>
And don't forget to use IntelliJ IDEA. Bitchin IDE.
<http://www.jetbrains.com/idea/>
and YourKit for profiling: <http://www.yourkit.com/>
Using the above will make you a happy camper. Good luck!
------
crazybob
Warp Widgets is the most innovative framework I've seen in a long time. It
support static type checking for the EL: <http://code.google.com/p/warp-core/>
------
xefyr
I succeeded in transitioning my workplace out of the dark ages about a year
go; I chose Spring. If nothing else, use the IOC container and AOP. While it
cannot reduce the xml-sit-ups, the Eclipse plugin does simplify their
maintenance. I've not yet toyed with EJB3, so I have no comment in that
respect. The other specific benefit of Spring is that the .NET side of the
shop has the Spring port which eases the conceptual hurdles as engineers
bounce from project to project. All that said, I'd not heard of Seam and I
will be investigating it as an alternative.
------
axod
I know this is probably an unpopular answer, but I'll answer anyway (I'm not a
framework sort of person).
None of them... Write your own. This is what I did for Mibbit, and it worked
out very well. Of course it depends on what you're writing, and if any
frameworks out there are up to the job, so maybe this advice is unhelpful for
you.
You might however be surprised just how easy it is to create your own custom
framework.
~~~
davidw
What mibbit does is significantly different from what most "CRUD" type of apps
do, though. I mean, you have templates/views like everyone else, controllers,
but then your 'model' is an IRC server, right?
~~~
axod
Sure, it is a special case in that there's the long lived http connections -
comet if you're into buzz words.
The irc client is just a plugin to the server though. Very much a general
purpose system...
As I say though I'm just not a 'framework' type of person - apart from when
its my own ;)
------
crazybob
Oh, and GWT is my #1 choice where applicable.
------
swombat
Lately, I think most people use Spring and Hibernate. I haven't used Java for
a while either, though, so I may be wrong.
Maybe you could run Rails inside a JRuby instance and deliver that... :-)
------
hochento
Have a look at AppFuse: <http://www.appfuse.org/display/APF/Home>
IMHO a great Java Web App "Framework"...
------
presty
<http://code.google.com/p/google-guice/>
(Disclaimer: never tried it)
~~~
greenguy
Guice isn't a web app framework at all...
------
donw
All I can say is, thanks for all the feedback! This is really useful stuff...
------
ckuehne
Wicket. If database is involved wicket+databinder.
------
jcapote
Rails + Jruby
~~~
jamesbritt
Ramaze + Sequel + JRuby
------
timtrueman
I would use Spring and Ibatis.
------
coolestuk
WebObjects
------
noodle
grails
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
We need another communication platform... fb/Twitter/email don't cut it - krausejj
we have created so many ways of pushing/pulling content from friends/followers, but often these are closed networks - my friends are your friends... we follow the same thing. how do you reach actual communities - like your neighborhood?<p>we've tried to solve this problem with a website called http://skychalk.com, and we'd love your feedback.<p>ours is a new spin on sharing - you post something to a location - like fastening a flyer to a tree - and people view information by location.<p>please give us your thoughts / feedback - do we need to talk to our neighbors? do we already have too many avenues of communication? is there room for another platform?<p>thanks for reading!
======
frafdez
I like the idea but when I first read your description and went to the site, I
expected the equivalent of a cork board in an office lunchroom, which it does
do with "gatherings", but the rest feels like Foursquare tips or Yelp's
reviews. Basically, I thought it was something your going to read while you
wait for the coffee to brew that has targeted information about the office
"community" or "neighborhood". "I'm selling my car" or "Employee meeting on
Friday the 13th". I'm using the office as an analogy like you used the flyer
on the tree. But the true question here is why would I go to your site to find
this information? When I walk down the street I have no choice but to run into
the tree with the flyer. Then I might tell my neighbor that Cindy lost her
kitten and that she should look out for it. Maybe it's easier to start
spreading the local info on your site via word of mouth (existing social
networks) so that people hear about your tree (your site) and at some point
they'll get used to looking for the flyer on the tree.
Ok, sorry for the analogies and generalities.
I think it's going to be a challenge to get people to use it since most people
feel saturated by status updates / check-ins / review apps. I'd suggest trying
to leverage other social network api's in order to automatically group people
by location and also facilitate posting to your site. Maybe create a light
weight Facebook app that looks like a tree with flyers on it?
Hope this helps and good luck.
~~~
krausejj
thanks for your thoughts. we'd like to have more gatherings/marketplace type
stuff on the site but that takes a certain critical mass - people know that on
craigslist their ad will be seen. our site is still trying to build traffic.
that's an interesting idea about trying to use facebook and then group by
location. but are facebook apps really the ticket anymore? it seems to me that
most facebook users are extremely hesitant to use apps anymore - especially
apps that post content automatically to walls, etc. and since our site only
collects an email address from each registered user, we just felt the
integration wasn't worthwhile.
------
paul_stanley
Give all email a URI. email is essentially a file on a server but not
accessible by a URI. Invent email and text messaging that has a URI for each
message.
For local broadcasting within a neighborhood, develop a system where you can
send a message to cell phones with TV and radio as a failover.
~~~
krausejj
wow, interesting ideas. i love this out of the box thinking!
------
jacksondeane
I see this as just another channel, which might not be what we need. I'd love
to see a truly innovative service that combines the existing communication
platforms (fb, twitter, email, sms).
~~~
krausejj
i just realized i wasn't replying correctly earlier - sorry about that - see
my response to this above
------
fsethi
I think we do need to talk with our neighbors, but I suspect doing it in
person rather than online would strengthen your community connections more so.
------
krausejj
jacksondeane - here's our opinion on that: the problem is communication intent
- twitter/fb are about communicating to followers. you tweet a beyonce video
from a cafe and your neighbors don't need to see that. but if you want to
advertise a garage sale or send a missed connection, you don't need (or want)
all your friend in nyc to see that. that's what we think the difference is.
~~~
jaypreneur
It seems like this is also overlapping with Craigslist then?
If you want to advertise anything based on location, Craiglist is free and
widely used.
If you can really provide something uniquely useful to bring members then
people will come. I just don't know how much local neighborhoods care. You
could target neighborhood watchs, get-togethers, clubs, and, as you said,
advertising.
The thing is... all of those things are available in different forms
(meetup.com, craigslist, etc.).
I suppose bringing them together isn't a bad idea though. Surely if meetup,
craigslist, and other location-based services work, then there is a market for
this.
~~~
krausejj
we hope so! what we don't like about the other services is the neighborhood
bucketing... you have to choose a (sometimes arbitrary) label for the area
you're looking at and can only browse in that way....
if you live in SF you know that these labels are constantly changing - better
to just give the user complete control. one person may want to look at two
blocks, someone else may want to browse an entire metro area.
thanks for the feedback!
------
dave22
I guess there is already a proliferation of these sites popping up.
likealittle geosay chatnearme yours
more to come ...
------
jared30248
Interesting idea. Wonder if it is too abstract for average users though
~~~
chacotaco
Yeah. Agreed. I didn't get it at first until I zoomed out and saw what they
were doing in sf. Could be useful if they got more users and figured a way to
manage the noise.
~~~
krausejj
thanks for the feedback. we definitely need more users. HN is denying me
another post because i'm posting too much but i'm actually curious of social
startup hackers on here have good ideas? mashable won't write us up so we're
trying to figure out how to get the word out.
also on the noise - we hope that eventually we get enough content that people
will vote and help us sort through the noise.
again, thanks for trying the site
~~~
jared30248
Try a viral video or something?
------
TMK
Seems actually pretty cool, though no-one near me using it yet.
------
krausejj
well get us started in your area haha! it's the classic chicken/egg problem.
any advice on how to solve it?
------
sjd
actually it looks suspiciously an aweful lot like chatnearme.com that has been
out for awhile :)
~~~
krausejj
we never saw your site before we built this, and our ui is entirely different.
everyone is doing location right now
------
sjd
looks a lot like what I did chatnearme.com check it out
~~~
sjd
btw I have a mobile web application at the same url and you can see how many
people online in your circle
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
A World Made of Rotor Blades - davesailer
http://www.notechmagazine.com/2015/02/a-world-made-of-rotor-blades.html
======
jdietrich
I was initially sceptical, but these ideas seem like genuinely sensible uses
for old turbine blades. The bus shelter in particular seems rather appealing.
I'm reminded of the use of crumb rubber from recycled tyres as a paving
material. Rubberised asphalt is an excellent material for many applications,
but would be largely uneconomic without the supply of very inexpensive rubber
from discarded tyres. These structures made from repurposed turbine blades may
not be ideal, but they may make a great deal of sense if the raw material is
basically free.
~~~
mc32
Isn't there some concern over the chemicals which can leach out into the
environ from recycled tires (crumb rubber) Concerns over impact on human
health. Or is that concern misplaced?
~~~
aroch
You're not eating the rubber and by the time the tires have made their way to
recycling I would expect basically all the volatiles would have offgased. The
MSDS [1] would suggest the biggest risk is breathing the fumes caused by
burning or rubbing the crumbs in your eyes and scratching your cornea. While
there are trace amounts of naphthalene, I imagine its more an issue for those
involved in the manufacture than those people playing on a playground padded
with it.
[1]
[http://edge.rit.edu/edge/P11413/public/Crumb%20Rubber%20MSDS](http://edge.rit.edu/edge/P11413/public/Crumb%20Rubber%20MSDS)
~~~
mc32
I thinks it's too early to tell if there is or isn't a danger. Preliminary
studies in controlled environs have not found cause for much concern, but
others are calling for more rigorous examination. Personally I dont think
there has been enough research taking into account people playing multiple
hours a day on these surfaces, so id rather see more studies into exposure.
------
Jolijn
It all seems rather desperate to me and unimaginative (children will love
climbing over it!). This is not a structural way of disposing of these blades,
it's a public relations effort.
For me, at least, it's not working.
~~~
acjohnson55
I agree. This seems like a "solution" completely out of proportion with the
scale of the problem
~~~
lotsofmangos
The solution of using old rotor blades as structural material seems not badly
suited to the scale of the problem. The global market for cheap lightweight
and strong structural elements is far larger than the amount of rotor blades
needing recycled. Just working out a nice design for an agricultural barn
would probably cover it.
Also, modification for re-use is generally far less energy intensive than full
recycling, even if it were currently available.
------
bengali3
Reminds me of this 747-200 'Wing House' in malibu
[http://www.ilikearchitecture.net/2014/01/wing-house-david-
he...](http://www.ilikearchitecture.net/2014/01/wing-house-david-hertz-
architects-and-the-studio-of-environmental-architecture/)
~~~
CPLX
Interesting article. I liked this part:
> Although, David Hertz Architects did find out that the studio has to
> register the roof of the house with the FAA (Federal Aviation
> Administration) so pilots flying overhead do not mistake it as a downed
> aircraft.
------
galfarragem
Materials are not good or bad in itself, they have just different properties
that are weighted by the 'architect' when choosing a material:
\- some more objective (resistance, durability, toxicity, etc)
\- some more subjective (costs, fashionability, desirability, commissions..,
etc)
In this specific case, the material was imposed, changing the 'game': material
comes first than the function and reaching an optimal solution is normally
more difficult. Optimal solutions are almost never obvious and while there
isn't one, 'architects' use some temporary/obvious solutions like this one.
_What constitutes true creativity is the openness and adaptability of our
spirit - Robert Green_
------
chiph
Can these blades not be shredded and chopped up, and the resulting fibers used
in less-critical parts, like aftermarket auto hoods, swimming pools, etc?
Using a process like the fiberglass spray lay-up, with a chopper gun.
~~~
mcguire
Not a materials person, but wouldn't shredding and chopping leave you with
small fragments of fibers encased in resin. Fiber length is important to the
strength, and I'm not sure how well new resin would bond with cured resin. I'd
think the result would be much, much weaker.
Chopped mat fibers would also defeat the purpose of carbon fiber in
aftermarket auto parts, which is to be pretty.
------
jkot
Carbon fiber dust is nasty stuff, something like asbestos. It can not even go
to landfill, so lets make children playgrounds out of that. Lovely.
~~~
kcbanner
From what I understand, carbon fiber is not directly exposed.
------
ps4fanboy
So much for renewables not creating pollution.
------
Shivetya
sounds to me we need to find a better material to make them from if their
lifespan is as short as it is let alone their disposal is such an issue.
so why is their service life so much shorter than some planes have had? Seems
the idea behind their structure should not be too far off.
~~~
darklajid
I'm confused. Why do you think that planes have a longer lifespan?
I mean, I assume we're talking about plane propellers here, right? Not
airframes or something? Are you sure that a plane would fly with the same
blades for more than the cited 10-25 years?
~~~
switchbak
It's been a while, but I used to work with some folks who performed
maintenance on helicopters that had composite rotor blades - and they were
constantly being inspected and sent back to the manufacturer.
Perhaps it's different in the civilian aerospace world, but I don't think it's
sensible to expect those blades to last as long as the airframe.
~~~
frik
The lifetime of _composite rotor blades_ is shorter than metal based rotor
blades that were used in older generations of helicopters.
Example:
The B0 105 helicopter is cleared for up to 3.5 positive G force and one
negative. Its agility and responsiveness can be partly attributed to its rigid
rotor blade design, a feature uncommon on competing helicopters.
The rotor system is entirely hingeless, the rotor head consisting of a solid
titanium block to which the four blades are bolted; the flexibility of the
rotor blades works to absorb movements typically necessitating hinges in most
helicopter rotor designs. The reliability of the advanced rotor system is
that, in over six million operating hours across the fleet, there had been a
total of zero failures. One benefit of the Bo 105's handling and control style
is superior takeoff performance, including significant resistance to
catastrophic dynamic rollover; a combination of weight and the twin-engined
configuration enables a rapid ascent in a performance takeoff.
The MBB Bo 105 is the only heli cleared for acrobatic stunt flight and is the
work horse of "Flying Bulls" (Red Bull).
Source:
[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MBB_Bo_105](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MBB_Bo_105)
------
a3n
We could just bury the blades under Yucca Mountain.
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yucca_Mountain_nuclear_waste_r...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yucca_Mountain_nuclear_waste_repository)
------
malkia
That's like a new kind of LEGO for grownups. Someone should try to make a game
where you can reuse such pieces, carve them, and then place them on top of
existing google/bing/other maps.
Social Blades...
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
What choices have to be made by whom to solve DDoS problem? - marmot777
https://krebsonsecurity.com/2016/10/senator-prods-federal-agencies-on-iot-mess/
======
marmot777
I mean who other than regulators. That is, I think that this is the last
opportunity before heavy handed regulation that possibly throws out the baby
with the bath water.
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
How Chromium validates email addresses entered in input fields with type=“email” - michaelmcmillan
https://code.google.com/p/chromium/codesearch#chromium/src/components/autofill/core/browser/validation.cc&q=email%20validation&sq=package:chromium&type=cs&l=130
======
ljk
why do they use "k" as prefix for the _kEmailPattern_ variable?
~~~
michaelmcmillan
Good question. I'm not sure. Seems like there is already a constant called
emailPattern. Don't know enough C++ to know if they would be conflicting
though:
[https://code.google.com/p/chromium/codesearch#search/&q=Emai...](https://code.google.com/p/chromium/codesearch#search/&q=EmailPattern&sq=package:chromium&type=cs)
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Ask HN: iPhone xcode projects - tjoozeylabs
Is anyone sharing their iPhone xcode projects? We are looking to peak @code that is interesting and mess around with things. This may be a good collaboration tool for Google Docs.
======
tjoozeylabs
[http://github.com/facebook/three20/tree/d7bbd117ea798f3dc134...](http://github.com/facebook/three20/tree/d7bbd117ea798f3dc134edca8b64d92c37d2bad3/samples/TTCatalog)
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Ask HN: How does your continuous integration process looks like? - andavid
How big is your team and how do you manage/what kind of policies are in place for: committing to the source repository, automate the build, build self-testing, automate deployment etc.?
======
pbiggar
We (Circle - <https://circleci.com>) make continuous integration as-a-service,
so I can talk about what we do, and what a lot of customers do.
So we and all our customers build all branches on every push, connected to
GitHub. That's how we work and what nearly all of our customers want.
We run all tests on every push, including javascript and selenium tests. Tests
always run on a clean environment, so we install dependencies, create a fresh
database each time, etc.
At the end, if tests have passed, many customers do continuous deployment by
pushing to Heroku, or running Fabric/Capistrano scripts (Circle has special
SSH key management so that you can keep this secret from your team without
putting it in your repository).
Our code base uses a slightly different form of continuous deployment. When
tests pass, we merge the code into the production branch, and our auto-scaling
infrastructure just starts new boxes with the latest commit from the
production branch.
We've talked to others about their procedure. One that comes up a bit is
people who package up their code upon successfully testing it via CI, and then
download it and deploy it whenever they scale.
Hope that helps, happy to go into more detail.
------
dylanhassinger
My co-founder and I looked at systems like Chef or Puppet, but decided instead
to build our own using command line actions triggered by Fabric scripts (it's
like a Python version of Bash). These scripts can build us a new sandbox (or
our entire server) on demand. We have a simple web interface to trigger them.
We use Github post-update hooks deploy code to the server after every change
to the master branch.
Later we'll probably integrate a Travis CI server and other fancy tools, but
for now this simple setup works.
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Résumé Infographics - Chirag
http://theportfolio.ofmichaelanderson.com/portfolio/resume-infographics/
======
duck
I hadn't thought about using infographics for a resume, but now I can see that
might be pretty useful. Maybe not as a paper version, but something online.
However, this particular example doesn't cut it - not enough information on
what the person did at each company and the coffee/humor thing is pretty much
a waste.
------
kjbekkelund
Going the non-standard way sets really high demands for a CV. This is an
interesting take, but I do feel I don't get enough data. And isn't that the
goal of a good infographic? Showing a lot of data in a better way than with
raw text. It's a very good start, but not quite there yet.
------
noss
This dark blue area that ended in '03 made me wonder what it is was and I see
that the label text is "Productivity".
Okay, I thought that misinterpretation was initially funny. A picture says a
1000 words, but which they are depends on the viewer.
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Ask any President a question – Message President - whatdoyameanman
https://messagepresident.com/presidents/
======
whatdoyameanman
Message a President and ask your friends to support your message. Share your
message on social media to rank-up.
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
What advantages does Monero offer over other cryptocurrencies? - qertoip
https://monero.stackexchange.com/questions/2254/what-advantages-does-monero-offer-that-are-not-provided-by-other-cryptocurrencie
======
eberkund
The accepted answer is not accurate, ZCash is also decentralized, private,
digital.
~~~
qertoip
ZCash is not private by default. Very few people change this default because
it's not well supported by the ecosystem just yet. And when you do change the
default to private then you stand out of the crowd. That's why ZCash is not
considered private in practical terms (at least not today).
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
We Need Assurance (2005) [pdf] - nickpsecurity
https://www.acsac.org/2005/papers/Snow.pdf
======
nickpsecurity
The best quote illustrating why things are so difficult in OS security:
“The problem is innately difficult because from the beginning (ENIAC, 1944),
due to the high cost of components, computers were built to share resources
(memory, processors, buses, etc.). If you look for a one-word synopsis of
computer design philosophy, it was and is SHARING. In the security realm, the
one word synopsis is SEPARATION: keeping the bad guys away from the good guys’
stuff!
So today, making a computer secure requires imposing a “separation paradigm”
on top of an architecture built to share. That is tough! Even when partially
successful, the residual problem is going to be covert channels. We really
need to focus on making a secure computer, not on making a computer secure –
the point of view changes your beginning assumptions and requirements! "
His 10 year predictions turned out right, too. Fortunately, we have groups
such as CHERI producing secure CPU’s with open hardware. The popularity of
Rust, better automation for SPARK proofs, availability of tools such as Cap n'
Proto, and increasing use of TLA+ is an improvement in others. Formal
verification results in imperative and functional styles have also been pretty
incredible. Also still a niche of people building higher quality or security
software in both FOSS and commercial sectors.
Far from hope being lost point. Unless we’re talking about what will get mass
adoption. ;)
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Logos, Flags, and Escutcheons - FailMore
http://www.paul-rand.com/foundation/thoughts_logosflags/#.UU8CgFsaNW0
======
kps
“Not long ago, I offered to make some minor adjustments to the UPS (1961)
logo. This offer was unceremoniously turned down” Paul Rand, 1991
Is it known what changes he proposed? UPS of course dropped Rand's logo in
2003 in favour of a 3D-gradient-swoosh nicknamed the "golden combover".
------
AnthonBerg
DESIGN IS A VEHICLE FOR MEMORY
Beautiful.
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Why I think Haskell is the best general purpose language as of June 22 2019 - azhenley
http://www.philipzucker.com/why-i-as-of-june-22-2019-think-haskell-is-the-best-general-purpose-language-as-of-june-22-2019/
======
harry8
Today's wildly unpopular reality check for language booster-ism reminds you
that there are next to no applications written in Haskell for a purpose that
isn't programming a computer. When we do this exercise we can't get to double
figures and nobody had a meaningful explanation as to why that is the case for
a language that has been around with claims of being useful as a general
purpose programming language for more than 2 decades.
~~~
anoncake
This is just completely irrelevant. Quality and popularity are independent
concerns.
~~~
philzook
But to be fair, they should be positively correlated. Unless the world has
beaten us down into nihilism and we think merit doesn't even tend to be
rewarded.
~~~
anoncake
I'm sure they are although for programming languages that correlation seems to
be particularly weak. But judging the quality of a programming language by its
popularity causes a kind of distributed circular argument: People use a
programming language (=it is popular), so we assume it is good. We use it
which means it becomes even more popular, convincing other people it is good
etc.
When making a decision, using popularity as an easy but noisy indicator for
quality can still make sense. If you kept your choice secret, you wouldn't
even cause any negative externalities. But here, we don't make a decision so I
don't think popularity is an argument worth considering (when evaluating the
merits of the language itself, popularity does affect ease of hiring of
course).
------
bgorman
Unfortunately I think it is hard to take a "Haskell is the best" article
seriously with no comparison to Clojure or Ocaml. Personally I am skeptical
that typeclasses + an expressive type system bring more benefits than i simple
parallelism, an easy to use macro system and atoms/STM for state management.
It can take programmers months to be productive in Haskell. It should only
take a few days to be productive in Clojure. I think the cognitive overhead of
having to deal with ADTs/Monads is too easily dismissed/disregarded.
~~~
philzook
My accounting of languages was not thorough. I picked very common languages
and Haskell. I am also not sufficiently familiar with clojure to form
judgement. I am skeptical that a language without a type system will scale in
mental and project complexity well, but it might. Lisps intrigue me very much,
and any language with passionate proponents is worth looking at. I am
currently trying to learn OCaml and find it very nice. I think it may be more
pragmatic than Haskell in many respects. Strictness is easier, grabbing
mutation and side effects is easier (is it gonna hurt me later though?). I am
concerned that the community feels smaller and learning resources are scarcer.
I don't love the syntax (a quibble). I think it leads to less power of
abstraction, either as a community aesthetic or perhaps as a language
constraint. I would be perfectly content if my friends accepted OCaml. Perhaps
I will change my mind and then you will find an article labelled "I (as of X)
think OCaml is the best general purpose programming language" on my blog.
Haskell is indeed hard.
~~~
rkangel
I'm interested you think the Haskell community is bigger than the OCaml one.
Without checking any sources, I would have assumed the OCaml has a larger
community of people using it in production for a variety of things, and
therefore would have have the libraries etc. for me to build my thing.
I suppose this is my bias - the only community I care about is the engineering
side as supposed to my academic side.
Also look at ReasonML (and bucklescript). I have tinkered with it for Web
front end and been very impressed.
~~~
philzook
I haven't figured out where on the internet OCaml people live. Maybe they have
better things to do with their lives than proselytizing. There is very clear
bias in my opinions and information. Jane Street is a very prominent
industrial user for which I can't really think of a Haskell equivalent of that
company size. ReasonML is a nicer syntax. Kind of seemed like if you wanna do
ReasonML you need to know both OCaml and ReasonML though on a cursory glance.
~~~
bgorman
In my opinion the worst thing about the Ocaml/ReasonML platform is that
discovery of language features/syntax/functions is needlessly difficult. There
is no Hoogle equivalent for OCaml. Module functors are powerful, but the type
system is very strict so it can be frustrating trying to express what you
want. There are some techniques that are rarely covered by books and are
almost impossible to google for. By contract, I think Haskell's typeclasses
gives useful guard-rails to composing "complicated" logic. Overall, as someone
who has been programming full-time in ReasonML for 9 months now, there are too
many times places where I still feel like a "prisoner" of the type system for
me to advocate for it over Clojure. I need to do more projects with Haskell, I
am hopeful the built in typeclasses can reduce the time I am "stuck".
------
philzook
Author here. This is deeply amusing that among all the posts I write, the
rushed half cogent Haskell rant rehashed for the billionth time gets the most
attention. I guess that makes sense.
~~~
timClicks
I find that with anything I write. The considered post that took weeks gets no
attention, but people latch on to my 10 second tweet
------
dreamcompiler
I'm a Lisp expert. Learning Lisp (a long time ago) blew my mind. Learning
Haskell (recently) blew my mind a second time. There are some things I can
express in Haskell that I can't -- at least not easily -- in Lisp. And that
had never happened before to me, with any other language.
~~~
projectileboy
I’m intrigued - can you share an example?
~~~
dreamcompiler
Automatic currying: Haskell does it; Lisp doesn't. You can do partial
evaluation in Lisp but it's not as convenient. This makes Haskell more
functional than Lisp and eliminates one use case (or maybe more) for macros.
Laziness: You can build infinite data in Lisp but again, it's not as
convenient.
Monads: Possibly the most mind-bogglingly useful programming pattern I've
explored in the last 20 years, and you can't completely build them in Lisp.
You can get about 75% of the way toward monads in Lisp but that last 25%
requires manual one-off coding because Lisp functions don't automatically know
the types they return. Even using macros I haven't figured out a way to solve
this problem.
~~~
kazinator
On the other hand, Lisp gives you variadic functions like (list) (list 1)
(list 1 2 3 4). Lisp catches it in a straightforward way when you pass too
many parameters to a non-variadic function, or fewer than the required number
of parameters to any function. (cons 1) is a plain and simple error rather
than a correct expression that evaluates to an unintended (lambda (x) (cons 1
x)) term. Macros can provide a clear explicit syntax for partial evaluation in
which everything is visibly delimited, like (op cons 1).
~~~
dreamcompiler
I think you're highlighting the downside of ubiquitous laziness. In a lazy
world there's nothing wrong with (lambda (x) (cons 1 x)). But if you want to
call this an error earlier, I agree that Lisp defaults in that direction.
------
jes5199
Haskell people claim that combinators and monads are clear, but in practice
the code seems to be write-only. Each combinator might be simple, but that
doesn’t mean that the result can be understood easily. And monads have the
same problem, except they aren’t simple.
~~~
jsjolen
Javascript programmers seem to have no problem using a monad every day
(promises), and they are huge fans of do-notation in the from of async/await.
Imperative programmers do not seem to have an issue with the idea of
assignment, why are monads problematic?
By "combinator" do you mean combinator as in the combinator pattern?
I have no idea what value your comment brings us except a way for people who
already agree with you to give you upvotes, and what's the point in that?
~~~
dragonwriter
> Javascript programmers seem to have no problem using a monad every day
> (promises)
Using (something similar to) _a_ monad (Javascript promises do not form a
monad) successfully is different than using the monad abstraction
successfully.
> and they are huge fans of do-notation in the from of async/await.
Async / await is not monadic do-notation. Arguably, it has a somewhat similar
relationship to the underlying promise abstraction that do-notation had to the
monad abstraction, but they aren't the same thing.
> Imperative programmers do not seem to have an issue with the idea of
> assignment, why are monads problematic
Why are the two halves of this sentence connected to each other since they
have no relationship other than the proximity they've been (bizarrely) placed
in.
~~~
jsjolen
Yeah, you're right that in some manners JS's promises do extend the semantics
of a monad (notably in its impl. of return) but it is a monad though:
function bindPromise(p, f) { return p.then(f); } function returnPromise(a) {
return new Promise.resolve(a); }
Proof of the laws left as an exercise to the reader :).
But yes, you are correct that promises do quite a bit more than only being a
monad, for example because of how they treat errors.
EDIT: I concede, I am wrong! [https://buzzdecafe.github.io/2018/04/10/no-
promises-are-not-...](https://buzzdecafe.github.io/2018/04/10/no-promises-are-
not-monads)
------
jmull
Don’t take this too seriously. He essentially says in the intro he’s writing
this to troll his developer friends.
And, here’s his first reason for liking Haskell:
> The number one reason is that there is something ephemeral that I just like.
> I am not naturally inclined to analyze such things. When I like a movie or
> don’t like it, it just happens, and if forced to explain why, I’ll bullshit.
------
0815test
Haskell is nice, but it has plenty of room for improvement. The duality of
strict vs. lazy eval is not really treated in an elegant or principled way,
for example - which is one of the drawbacks OP mentions in their blogpost.
There are theoretical approaches (polarity, focusing) that might work well for
this.
~~~
philzook
Interesting, thanks! There are many exciting possibilities for the future of
programming. My point to my friends is that I actually think Haskell is a
shockingly pragmatic choice right now, despite how much my goofing around
implied otherwise.
------
viburnum
I really tried with Haskell but for me it was just impossible to refactor code
without rewriting the whole program.
~~~
Fellshard
I've been considering lately why that doesn't seem to ring quite true. I
thought this for a time, then realized that a fair bit of this concern comes
from lack of intuition.
When you started out refactoring and making changes to object-oriented
programs, how much did you have to rip out and alter each time?
How did that skill improve as your designs became more thoughtful, as you
began to see the seams and tailor your designs to fit those seams?
I believe the same would apply for Haskell: its seams are different, but the
separated concerns that come from experience and intuition should allow you to
follow those seams more closely.
------
kadblas
Qualification: I was introduced to FP a number of years ago and have finally
reached a point where I feel that I have a deep understanding of FP in
general. In my mind, Haskell is the "best" language out there ("best" in that
it provides the best overall gain when all tradeoffs are considered).
I'm no longer confident that Haskell is the "best" language anymore. I was
recently introduced to a language that might be even better than Haskell:
Dyalog APL. ([https://www.dyalog.com/](https://www.dyalog.com/)). Try it out
yourself ([https://tryapl.org/](https://tryapl.org/))
To explain why, I recommend watching Aaron Hsu's videos on Dyalog APL:
\- Does APL need a Type System?
([https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z8MVKianh54](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z8MVKianh54))
- This is actually a very interesting question that is more nuanced than upon
first glance.
\- Design Patterns and Anti-Patterns in APL
([https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v7Mt0GYHU9A](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v7Mt0GYHU9A))
- The main takeaway from this video for me was the principle of "Idioms over
libraries."
\- Higher Performance Tree-Wrangling, the APL way
([https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hzPd3umu78g](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hzPd3umu78g))
- Or how to model Trees without using pointers by using "Inverted Tables." (An
inverted table is a table where the columns are the rows and the rows are the
columns)
------
nunez
Why does Ruby always get the shaft? It is pretty easy to learn, VERY
expressive and readable, extremely easy to write tests against and works great
with the web!
~~~
pjmlp
And slow as a snail versus anything else.
~~~
FranzFerdiNaN
Which doesn’t matter for most of the programs out there.
~~~
pjmlp
Given that one can be productive as Ruby, and still enjoy the benefits of
AOT/JIT compilation to native code, I beg to differ.
------
neonate
[https://web.archive.org/web/20190623200107/http://www.philip...](https://web.archive.org/web/20190623200107/http://www.philipzucker.com/why-
i-as-of-june-22-2019-think-haskell-is-the-best-general-purpose-language-as-of-
june-22-2019/)
------
galaxyLogic
The article makes many good points about Haskell including cons: "Very
difficult learning curve. Let’s get real. Haskell is a very confusing
programming language to get started in for common programming tasks."
I can't avoid the comparison in my mind that Haskell is like Latin, spoken by
priests, a very nice language Latin is.
------
Ice_cream_suit
"I have a tendency to joke about almost everything and have put forward that
we use many interesting but not practical languages in the same tone that I
suggest Haskell. This was a tactical mistake."
Cry wolf too often ot be an assh*le too often, and expect this....
~~~
philzook
Haskell is very, very funny. Coq brings tears of amusement to my eyes. I
couldn't and can't resist. ( _shrug_ )
------
pjmlp
Programming languages don't live in vacuum, libraries, IDEs, supported OSes,
and developer communities are also part of it.
I enjoy Haskell a lot, but trying to create a CMS, desktop GUI or a console
game in Haskell? Good luck with the existing tooling and libraries.
~~~
azhenley
What functional language would you recommend for something like a GUI
application then? I have very little experience with such languages but am
always looking forward to trying one when I get a chance.
~~~
pjmlp
There is none that can match the tooling of Delphi, C++, .NET, Java,
Swift/Objective-C for RAD UI development.
Even the languages that target the JVM or CLR are not supported on the
existing GUI tooling, forcing you to do workarounds.
So Scala, Clojure, F# can do it, but you end up having to save JavaFX or WPF
layouts, while throwing away the generated code, and load them via library
calls.
Or you write the UI layer in Java/C#/VB.NET/C++, while writing the rest as a
library.
So at the end of the day you are forced to chose between RAD productivity or
FP purity.
EDIT: I have naturally forgot Common Lisp, but for that you should make use of
Allegro or LispWorks, not Emacs + FOSS Lisp compiler.
------
iamdamian
I love Haskell.
But I can’t understand why record syntax is 1) completely necessary to write
manageable type systems and also 2) known to be half-baked.
I also wish the community was better at embracing newcomers and teaching them
one step at a time.
Other than that, I have no complaints.
------
blacksqr
"The number one reason is that there is something ephemeral that I just like."
~~~
philzook
I think this is the most honest statement in the post.
~~~
HelloNurse
Most of the mentioned C++ issues, for instance, are also Haskell issues (in a
different form).
~~~
philzook
They are similar in that they are both kind of big languages with many
features, and a reputation for difficulty. However, Haskell's reputation is
one for difficulty on how to do anything at all but once you do the angels
sing, while in C++ it is difficult to do anything right. I think the positive
lists diverge significantly, and I don't really think of the languages as
being similar at all.
~~~
HelloNurse
I didn't mean that C++ and Haskell are particularly similar, but that if the
feature set of C++ is "huge" the even more arcane Haskell language extensions
are in the same league, that legacy features that shouldn't be used in C++ are
no worse than multiple half-baked incompatible libraries for the same basic
purpose in Haskell, that if C++ is full of footguns Haskell is full of footgun
categories, that if C++ syntax is verbose Haskell syntax is bizarre and
misleading.
Evidently, being in love with a programming language is an obstacle to
comparing it honestly.
~~~
philzook
It is very, very, very difficult to be in love with a language and compare it
honestly. I don't think I've ever seen anyone successfully do so. I don't
agree that Haskell has as many footguns or as much legacy cruft, but if you've
found that to be the case, I value your opinion.
~~~
tome
> I don't agree that Haskell has as many footguns or as much legacy cruft, but
> if you've found that to be the case, I value your opinion.
And moreover, please write a blog post or even short comment about it, because
few Haskell footguns are obvious to me and I would appreciate the warning!
~~~
philzook
A short list off the top of my head:
It is very easy to get over eager and use more abstraction than you need or
can handle. This is perhaps the worst of them.
Strings shouldn't be [Char]. OverloadedStrings should be the default.
There are partial functions in base. head for example
It is easy to spring space leaks due to laziness.
Relatedly, choosing between foldr foldl foldl'
Incomplete pattern matching (which will be a warning) or sometimes default _
casing. If you add to the type, the compiler won't save you.
It is not necessarily so obvious to a beginner when you are doing tail call
recursion.
Maybe overuse of typeclasses when records work better?
Over use of Template Haskell can raise an eyebrow.
A minority of extensions are ill advised.
All in all, I think the level of footguns in Haskell is in a different
universe than C++, but I am trying to see it from the other perspective.
[http://dev.stephendiehl.com/hask/#what-to-
avoid](http://dev.stephendiehl.com/hask/#what-to-avoid)
[http://dev.stephendiehl.com/hask/#the-
dangerous](http://dev.stephendiehl.com/hask/#the-dangerous)
~~~
tome
Thanks and agreed!
However, I was more asking for HelloNurse's opinion, since I can't think of
any Python footguns that are on the same level as C++'s. The ones you cite are
more on the level of Python's.
~~~
HelloNurse
A nice article from slightly over 1 year ago [https://lexi-
lambda.github.io/blog/2018/02/10/an-opinionated...](https://lexi-
lambda.github.io/blog/2018/02/10/an-opinionated-guide-to-haskell-in-2018/) was
linked on HN today.
It explains organized _footgun management_ , with a discussion of what
language extension should and should not be enabled, and some specific library
threats (e.g. String and ByteString).
~~~
philzook
That is an excellent article. String vs ByteString is a beginner footgun in
Haskell. It won't make incorrect or crashing code, but it will show up as poor
performance on text heavy processing.
------
PopeDotNinja
Does the Haskell compiler spit out useful concise, meaningful error messages?
Compilers often have some pretty verbose output for what ended up being a
(relatively insignificant feeling) typo.
~~~
philzook
It depends. After having gotten used to it, I can usually barely glance at an
error and figure it out. I am basically satisfied with ghc errors messages,
although they could be better. Sometimes it takes real head scratching. I
think languages like Haskell give the compiler enough information to make
insanely good error messages (At compile time mind you! Unlike
python/javascript/etc). Elm apparently has some of the greatest error messages
in the world. I think it is significantly better than C++ errors.
------
dudul
"functional programming is weirder than imperative programming."
Honestly, it's hard for me to take seriously any post/comment including this.
------
adamnemecek
I think that julia is giving haskell a run for its money. I find it more
productive for numerical mathematics (maybe not formal methods or abstract
algebra).
~~~
philzook
I agree on the promise (perhaps already realized) of Julia. The library
ecosystem there is so, so incredible. The language is custom formed to it's
intended domain of numerical computation. I've been trying to ween myself off
of python for these purposes. Needless to say, my pushing of Julia also meets
with a great deal of pushback. I have also had some setbacks. The 1.0 changes
hurt my learning a bit. I don't like how it doesn't play well with brew. I
feel like it is forcing me a bit into a Jupyter notebook style, which is not
my favorite. All of these are small quibbles ultimately.
~~~
adamnemecek
Use juno. I was in the same sitch re 1.0 update, it's gotten better. Why do
you need brew interop?
~~~
philzook
A small quibble. I hate downloading binaries from websites. I hate ever going
outside my package manager. I want to be able to get the latest version. I
think many people prefer Julia the way it is.
~~~
adamnemecek
You can use brew
[https://julialang.org/downloads/platform.html](https://julialang.org/downloads/platform.html)
~~~
philzook
Welp, my apologies. I'm a doof.
------
thrower123
haha. Hahahahaha. hahahahahahahahahaha. Okay bub, here's your troll card, you
are officially a member.
~~~
dang
Posting like this will get you banned here. Will you please review
[https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html](https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html)
and stick to the rules?
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Show HN: My new JavaScript MVC framework - lhorie
http://lhorie.github.io/mithril/
======
sergiotapia
I've become a huge fan of simple things. When I was just starting out
developing software, I was a big fan of huge integrated solutions. But as the
years went on I loved well scoped, lean options.
This is the reason why I like Backbone.JS instead of Angular. The reason why I
like Go instead of Java.
Mithril looks really promising! Don't let feature creep turn it into a
behemoth! Keep it lean and mean, and excel at the one thing it was made to do!
~~~
the_cat_kittles
I think this is the same taste-maturation that many woodworkers experience. At
first, you salivate over these crazy, overly specific, over engineered power
tools. Over time, you start to really love things that are stupidly simple
instead, like a card scraper, or a hand plane.
~~~
midas007
Cooking is the same way.
A few, simple, fresh ingredients prepared quickly and correctly can be much
more amazing than a complicated 20 ingredient recipe that takes 2 hours to
prepare.
------
lhorie
Hi, Mithril's author here. I'll just put a big comment here, and hopefully
everyone can see it.
@stronglikedan: I don't have plans for extending the core (in fact, keeping it
small and modular is a major focus point for me). I do have a list of things I
want to tackle next (see the roadmap page), but I'll most likely release them
separately from core.
@hcho: re: integrating w/ jQuery: see the integrating w/ other libraries page
in the guide section. There's a simple example w/ select2 there.
@abjorn: those are excellent points. Re: turing completeness: my take is that
things like good error messages in the view layer are more important than
trying to prevent people from doing stupid things (that's what code reviews
are for). Re: Bindings: I'm most familiar w/ Angular ones and yes, their bidi-
bindings are really convenient, but they fail in some 5-10% of the use cases
for me (either by being too aggressive or not expressive enough). So, that's a
conciseness vs power trade-off in design from my personal experience. Re:
templating, you can take the model-level utilities and integrate w/ other
templating libraries. I do provide some comparisons w/ React and a few other
frameworks in the misc section of the guide, as well as design rationales in
the main guide page. TL;DR I use other frameworks full-time and I've done
homework before I settled on the current implementation :)
@hanburglar I do provide a tool to convert HTML to Mithril (although not
automated yet), see the "useful tools" page.
@timmiwil: you're right, jQuery is not MVC (I mention this in the comparisons
page). The point is that with idiomatic jQuery, the app developer is
responsible for knowing when to use .text() instead of .html(), whereas with,
say, idiomatic Angular, that's not a concern, ever. jQuery "templating" tends
to get pretty hard to audit as widgets become more complex (see select2 source
code, for example)
@tzaman: I do contribute to Angular and other projects that I use as time
permits (mostly bug reports)
@BaconJuice: it's a side project, but a scratch-an-itch one that I work on
pretty much every night. Planning on continuing work on it for the foreseable
future. I'm also considering introducing it at my day job as well.
@all: thank you for the feedback, I really appreciate :)
~~~
pygy_
_> thank you for the feedback, I really appreciate :)_
Well, thanks for the framework :)
Apparently, you missed my (now deleted) question:
_> It would be nice if you could document the browser requirements._
We're even, since I had missed the answer, which lies at the very end of the
misc section of the documentation:
_> Mithril allows developers to support browsers all the way back to IE6 and
Blackberry._
Wow! This should IMO be on the home page.
---- ---- ----
_Edit: Is it possible, for SEO, to load Mithril with a pre-rendered page and
have it take over like React?_
~~~
phektus
>> Mithril allows developers to support browsers all the way back to IE6 and
Blackberry. > Wow! This should IMO be on the home page.
Agreed! I'm in!
------
EvanYou
Author of Vue.js here, I'm glad you included Vue in your framework
comparisons. Here's some thoughts regarding your comments on Vue.js: the
reason Vue chose to use ES5-only features is that it enables Vue to provide
plain POJO syntax without having to resort to dirty checking or virtual DOM
diffing. Granted the auto-magical POJO syntax is a somewhat leaky abstraction,
but I'd argue that not all leaky abstractions are bad (since by definition any
non-trivial abstractions are leaky) - it all depends on its leakiness vs. the
benefits provided by the abstraction. TCP is the canonical example of a leaky
abstraction in Spolsky's original post yet it has been the foundation of
everything we build on the web all along. In fact, even the concept of virtual
DOM is a leaky abstraction in itself. My point is, I don't think the leaky
abstraction argument raises anything inherently problematic about Vue.js.
That said, I really like the project because I'm also a big fan of simplicity.
Curious to see if there will be a TodoMVC implementation with Mithril for
easier horizontal comparisons of actual code.
~~~
jpmonette
There is a partial TodoMVC implementation available here -
[https://github.com/jpmonette/todomvc-
mithril](https://github.com/jpmonette/todomvc-mithril)
------
ulisesrmzroche
Have you successfully tried this out in a real app? Why would you want to
structure your dom inside an array? Seem pretty crazy, my dude.
todo.view = function(ctrl) { return m("html", [ m("body", [ m("input"),
m("button", "Add"), m("table", [ m("tr", [ m("td", [ m("input[type=checkbox]")
]), m("td", "task description"), ]) ]) ]) ]); };
~~~
chc
I think the idea is that it's simple — it's just a basic data structure in the
language and can be generated or manipulated with just simple JavaScript. This
is similar to why Lisp programs being Lisp data structures is interesting.
Intriguingly, it looks like the API is compatible with React's JSX. With that,
you could write this as:
@jsx m
todo.view = function(ctrl) {
return (
<html>
<body>
<input/>
<button>Add</button>
<table>
<tr>
<td><input type="checkbox"/></td>
<td>Desk description</td>
</tr>
</table>
</body>
</html>
);
}
~~~
ulisesrmzroche
Adding some more css declarations, id, data-hooks, etc., and make it span 100+
lines, like in real life. Scares me just thinking about it.
~~~
chc
Are those things you wouldn't have to do under any other system, or which
would be significantly simpler there? Because I'm not seeing it. You seem to
be saying "This involves building a web page" — which is true, but would be
regardless.
~~~
ulisesrmzroche
Yes, it would be simplificantly simpler to edit html if it wasn't stuck in
between two strings, for one, let alone inside an array.
todo.view = function(ctrl) { return m("html", [ m("body class='application", [
m("input class='add input input-sm input-md"), m("button class='btn btn-
success button-green", "Add"), m("table class='table table-strped table-row",
[ m("tr class='tr'", [ m("td", [ m("input[type=checkbox] class='checkbox input
input-sm' id=firstName name=firstName") ]), m("td class='td", "task
description"), ]) ]) ]) ]); };
I honestly can't tell you what the hell that is supposed to be anymore. Also,
you guys are using invalid html for everything. Your example is not going to
validate on anything.
~~~
lhorie
I think you're too caught up on syntax and missing the big picture. The m()
method is simply a helper utility that returns a POJO. You can write the code
in coffeescript if js syntax bother you, or you can go nuclear and implement a
frontend or a preprocessor that take some popular templating syntax and spit
out the appropriate data structure. The conversion tool I provide is a small
step in that direction, but, with Mithril being at a mere v0.1, it still needs
more work done to be fully automated.
Also, just FYI, the selector syntax follows CSS rules, so you'd write
m("body.application"), not m("body class='application'")
~~~
ulisesrmzroche
Programs are for humans to read and only incidentally for computers to
execute. Syntax is the whole picture.
~~~
lhorie
Well, I already told you which directions Mithril can go in terms of making
syntax more to your liking. If you're too put off by js templates and not
willing to spend time helping push the project in a direction you like, you
can always try other frameworks or come back later when I have a more HTMLy
frontend option available.
------
abjorn
Overall I like it, except for the templates.
It's perfectly possible to not have FOUC with traditional template languages
like mustache, and I don't think having "turing completeness" in your
templates is a good thing. Frameworks like Ember.js have also shown that you
don't need to manually write bindings to handle when your models change.
That being said, I do see the advantage gained with the virtual DOM you
generate from the templates. I'd be interested to see if it was possible to
integrate other templating languages in via plugin.
~~~
jenius
Entirely agreed, this is what I was about to say as well. Being able to use
html templates for me makes apps much less confusing and much more organized.
Moving your html into your javascript just doesn't seem right. If there was a
way that it would accept a mustache/underscore/other precompiled template I'd
be all about it. But constructing html out of javascript functions and objects
just doesn't sit right with me.
~~~
hamburglar
I actually had the same thought, but I also get that some people don't like
HTML-based templates for various reasons. My next thought was whether or not
you could just augment this framework by providing a utility that converts an
HTML-based template into the view that mithril expects and make both camps
happy. As an optional contrib module, of course -- I'm not suggesting he start
heaping on additional framework features already. :)
edit: I just wanted to add that I read through the guide expecting to find yet
another half-baked framework but the whole thing seems well thought out and I
like the philosophy alluded to in the guide. I'm definitely going to try this
for my next mini-project.
~~~
abjorn
Well, there is such a tool, actually.
[http://lhorie.github.io/mithril/tools/template-
converter.htm...](http://lhorie.github.io/mithril/tools/template-
converter.html)
But while me and my coworker have been trying it out there seem to be quite a
few bugs with it, and I'd much rather have it done at runtime (precompiled for
production build) then have to translate it from my HTML-based template every
time I make a change.
~~~
lhorie
Can you file an issue on Github? I still need to make an automated version of
this tool (and eventually be able to import from something like Mustache), and
I want to make sure it's rock solid.
------
timmywil
The tests don't make sense. jQuery is not an MVC framework and should not be
tested as if it were. It's worth noting that both Backbone and Angular use
some version of jQuery (lite or otherwise), so comparing that to your own way
of using jQuery doesn't correlate. I could use jQuery to append elements in a
way that was much faster than and just as short as what you've done in your
test. Also, did you know you can append image elements with events using
document.appendChild? It must be a security issue! But seriously, don't even
include it in the tests. It is a JavaScript library that serves a lower-level
purpose than MVC frameworks.
~~~
JetSpiegel
It has reached the point where Javascript Framework coders don't know
Javascript.
Looks like Javascript IS the Assembly of the Web.
~~~
nawitus
But DOM is separate from JavaScript.
~~~
hmsimha
DOM is separate from Ecmascript, but is actually one of the 3 components of
Javascript (along with Ecmascript and the BOM). This is at least according to
_Professional Javascript for Web Developers_ (you can see it on 'page 3' in
the Amazon preview).
~~~
nawitus
The sources I've read (Douglas Crockford or Wikipedia) clearly state that DOM
is separate from JavaScript.
------
Tloewald
The approach we've taken in our anti-framework is that the model is your data
(and the code you use to manipulate the data), the view is your HTML/CSS (
_not_ a special templating language -- actual HTML), and the controller is
automatic for simple stuff and custom for complex stuff.
So the big example at the end of Mithril would, for us, be something like (we
implement binding as a jQuery extension)
$('.display').bind(data);
Where .display selects the root node of the bound UI, and data is our object.
Which is simpler and less code, I think. (Oh and our binding library has
jQuery as a dependency, but is sub 3kB minified and gzipped.)
That said, we haven't put our libraries on github yet :-(
~~~
buckbova
Sounds a bit like the pure js library but with jquery.
[http://beebole.com/pure/](http://beebole.com/pure/)
~~~
Tloewald
Ours is a fair bit more elegant and works both ways. It's also being used for
multiple pretty complex projects so it's reasonably "battle-tested" (although
nothing is in production yet, so not as battle-tested as it needs to be).
We also do not bind by class because that's a really bad idea. (Actually the
way we bind is a lot like Angular, but without being a templating language.)
A key design requirement is that the model does not get polluted with special
methods and properties to support the binding -- so (for example) if you have
nice RESTful services, you can GET, bind, edit, POST/PUT and everything just
works. For moderately complex cases we support "decorators" that live "off to
the side" (i.e. do not pollute the model). Again, you _can_ stick getters and
setters in your model if you want to, you just don't need to.
------
markovbling
your "getting started" page is like a crash course in building websites with
javascript - just forwarded it to a bunch of friends
it felt like you were giving a smart person a crash course in javascript
wish more apps sturctured their tutorials like this
great job!
One thing: it feels like it's aimed at people who are already competent at
javascript
but your tutorial isn't too many steps away from a being solid "javascript for
absolute beginners" guide
So would be cool if you made it slightly more beginner friendly, like I'm sure
you're losing a lot of engagment and users because they read the first line of
your guide and immediately think it's too complicated
"Mithril is a client-side Javascript MVC framework, i.e. it's a tool to make
application code divided into a data layer (called "Model"), a UI layer
(called View), and a glue layer (called Controller)"
Like I'd suggest adding a VERY simple sentence about why you'd want to use
javascript AT ALL
both on the guide and the start page
like if someone landed on your page and they were good at HTML and css but
never really programmed, they could probably use your framework to build their
first programming project if you made it a little more beginner-friendly
great work! :)
~~~
_dark_matter_
why don't you
use some punctuation and
not separate your thoughts out on different lines?
Not trying to be mean, this is just hard(er) to read!
~~~
markovbling
Sorry - hadn't planned on making my comment that long but will definitely keep
your feedback in mind next time I reply to a comment.
------
SNACKeR99
I am really interested in this, and am going to give it a go on my next
project. Its areas of responsibility are contained and well-defined, the
syntax is nicely concise, and it really feels like plain old javascript, which
gives me the comfort I can get under the hood if I need to, without massive
conceptual/abstraction overload.
If I am iffy on anything, it would be the templating language, but I suppose a
React-type HTML syntax could be optionally layered over top without
interfering with anything else. And there is something secure about
javascript-rendered HTML in that you are much less likely to have unclosed tag
issues, etc.
But for me, having experimented with some of the slower performers like
angular, performance is a huge draw, and I am willing to write my templates in
js if that's what it takes to get it.
------
Zelphyr
Here are my thoughts, but you won't like them. Stop with the frameworks. Learn
Javascript. Learn CSS. Learn HTML. You'll find pretty quickly that what you
need are _libraries_ , not frameworks. Things like jQuery, underscore, etc...
~~~
AznHisoka
That's similar to my viewpoint. Stop with all the frameworks - what new,
powerful functionality will it provide your users that existing things can't
do (ie JQuery, raw JS)?
~~~
snicker
the point of a framework is speedy development. less lines of code for
results. the tradeoff is often bloat, which one should (ideally) refactor out
later. Angular can get overwhelmingly slow if you're not careful with your
code, but gosh dang, you sure can whip an app up pretty fast
~~~
Bahamut
For most apps, I've found that slowness is not a problem with Angular. You can
do some nasty things though if you're not careful though, definitely agree
with that. If you have flaws elsewhere in your codebase, including the
backend, it may be possible that in practice, the effects may trickle down to
your frontend code with Angular - it has happened in an app I've worked on
with a couple of other developers, in which flaws with the api performance
caused us to implement some subpar workarounds that triggered many $digests &
forced us to spend a day or two on just optimization.
Angular can be quite fast compared to jQuery in an app of substance. It is not
constantly reading/writing to the DOM in most cases, which saves a lot on the
performance front. It is also a smaller library than jQuery, and you're not
naively applying global or complicated selectors. Plugins rewritten to be pure
javascript + Angular also can have a much smaller footprint & be more powerful
to boot, such as the Angular UI Bootstrap project (5 KB minified & gzipped as
opposed to 15-35 KB? I forget Bootstrap's js size) & contains all of the power
of Angular to modify your functionality with them & more.
------
scrrr
First impression after reading across the docs: Compact, fast, seems to
contain most important things. I like it.
~~~
stronglikedan
Unfortunately, they all start out this way it seems. Hopefully, this one will
remain this way.
~~~
tluyben2
The way to keep it that way is to never add even 1 new feature and only fix
bugs. That's not a bad idea actually; if you don't, it'll end up like _every_
other framework on earth. So it's a good niche to say 'this is it' and keep it
exactly like that even though it 'lacks features'.
~~~
stronglikedan
I like that idea. Keep the core frozen. With a good API, users can extend it
to their liking, and complicate it all they want.
~~~
iLoch
Sorta like Backbone... People definitely love adding plugins and definitely
don't count it as a negative when comparing to other JS MVC frameworks......
------
mtford
Looks very clean. Especially having just tried a read through the angular
docs. Bleurgh. Take the advice of the others in this thread and avoid bloating
this and maybe it will take off!
------
BaconJuice
Hi lhorie, I like this. I want to use this. How long will this supported is my
concern. Or is this a fun side hobby you worked on and plan on moving on to
the next with no future updates?
Cheers.
~~~
guywithabike
It's open source. You provide the support and updates.
------
boyaka
I've been using the dform library [link] to create my DOM. I'm creating an
input form used to query a database with PHP and generate a chart from the
data using FusionCharts. I've been considering utilizing frameworks to help
with form creation, manipulation, and query generation/execution/processing,
but I've decided to stick with just these two libraries for the former and raw
PHP for the latter. I also use PHP to enable/disable parts of my form via if's
and file includes.
I really like dform's flexibility. I have been able to add every HTML elements
that I've needed with the same syntax for every one, making it very simple to
stick them into PHP loops to generate the elements based on the query results.
I've learned a lot about writing jQuery functions while using it.
FusionCharts is very specific in what it does, and is compatible with many
languages. I have actually learned to use it's classes in both PHP and
JavaScript so that I can create any part of the chart I please in either
language, and it is capable of transmitting data in both JSON and XML even
though it uses XML internally. I've briefly taught myself the differences
between the formats and have gone from manually creating XML, to learning that
JSON is way better, to automatically converting my arrays into JSON data.
I feel that I've kept my project quite lean indeed, and was actually worried
about not accomplishing a lot, not being complex enough. But I have
intentionally been trying to avoid complexities so that I can make it easy to
pick up and use, just include jquery, dform, and the FusionCharts.js/.php (and
source code).
[link]
[https://github.com/daffl/jquery.dform](https://github.com/daffl/jquery.dform)
------
bjconlan
The templating language reminds me a little of what spacebars (htmljs)
probably looks like if a nice mustache facade wasn't put in front of it.
(which goes back to Gee's comment about react... but I guess anything these
days that promotes a 'virtual dom' will probably be tarnished with that brush
from first glance)
I love the simplicity and independent direction this micro-framework provides.
It's very 'non-magical' which I think makes it far more appealing.
If you end up solving the HATEOAS/ember-data sideloading/'embedded foreign key
data loading' problem I think this will be my goto library (though this
probably falls out of the microframework requirements also ;)
------
matthiasak
tiny, small, idiomatic javascript;
uses POJOs; has just enough 'binding'; uses routing and basic promise/A+
implementation.
I'd say this is good and as high level as one should go if they want to churn
really good performance out of an app.
Keep it coming mate, and link with me on Twitter. I used a number of micro
frameworks and my own glue to make my own mini-framework using much of the
same concepts, only I used a templating engine called doT instead of declaring
my HTML structure in JS (although I know it is easily possible to generate
view code with a tool/script with HTML as input).
@matthiasak mkeas dot org
------
fiatjaf
Aside from templates, this is the same as
[https://github.com/moot/riotjs](https://github.com/moot/riotjs)
~~~
explorigin
I thought riot relied on jQuery and was basically decreed to be more marketing
than substance. This seems to have a lot of substance.
------
maninalift
I like the small, unmagical, well-defined API.
That strength is also a weakness though. Particularly because for coffeescript
(or my favourite, the related LiveScript) it doesn't result in the super-cute
syntax of e.g. TeaCup[1][2].
[1] [https://github.com/goodeggs/teacup](https://github.com/goodeggs/teacup)
[2] Markaby begat CoffeeKup begat CoffeeCup and DryKup which begat Teacup
------
runj__
It's pretty, I like the rendering. A more complex example in the docs could
probably be useful though, something like a bootstrap form.
------
swalsh
This actually fills a good niche, if i'm looking for a monolithic framework
that trys to do a bunch of things, angular fits the bill. I like that this
does one thing, and seems to do it exceedingly well (fast). I'm not in the
market for a new framework right now, but the next time I am... i'd consider
it, if it stays small and compact like it is today.
------
cordite
I know react is not an MVC framework, but I think you should add it in for
comparisons since it uses similar rendering concepts
~~~
jmulho
The author comments on react here:
[http://lhorie.github.io/mithril/comparison.html](http://lhorie.github.io/mithril/comparison.html)
------
findjashua
Thanks for making this, this looks really really good!
I'm a backend guy beginning to venture into front-end stuff (recently picked
up JS for a Node project at work), and the extensive documentation is
incredibly helpful for newcomers like myself.
PS: I'd be very interested in some performance comparisons with Om and Vue.
------
maninalift
I think the m.prop getter/setter creation is a good compromise between the
"magical" creation of properties employed by Vue and Ractive and the
cumbersome use of SomeFramework.set("propertyname", value) employed by other
MV* frameworks.
I can't think of a good argument against it.
------
grannyg00se
I like the license, I like the level and style of documentation, I like the
lean scope, and I like the timing as I've just started looking into an MVC
framework to learn. I was going to choose react over angular but now I'm going
to choose this over either.
------
SNACKeR99
I just came back to say that the documentation really is beyond excellent.
------
Jxnathan
Off-topic: how do you apply animation to your logo on activation of the
browser tab? I loaded your page in a new tab, but the logo animation didn't
fire until I viewed that specific tab.
~~~
sergiotapia
The three rings are in a span. So it's content 'o' in span, the 'o' in :before
and 'o' in :after.
Then he uses a -webkit-animation to translate the positions of each ring.
@keyframes logo {
from {opacity:0;transform:scale(2) rotate(359deg);}
to {opacity:1;transform:scale(1) rotate(0deg);}
}
@-webkit-keyframes logo {
from {opacity:0;-webkit-transform:scale(2) rotate(359deg);}
to {opacity:1;-webkit-transform:scale(1) rotate(0deg);}
}
~~~
Kiro
But does that explain how it's not triggered until you click the tab?
~~~
pastjean
This is browser specific to trigger animations on tab open
------
killertypo
just a bit of a nitpick, but your getting started page uses the word
"performant" [http://english.stackexchange.com/questions/38945/what-is-
wro...](http://english.stackexchange.com/questions/38945/what-is-wrong-with-
the-word-performant)
the debate around the word just leaves a bad taste in my mouth. after reading
arguments from both sides I would tend to agree: until the word is a word, it
just sounds like marketing buzzword garbage.
~~~
lutusp
> ... until the word is a word, it just sounds like marketing buzzword
> garbage.
Fair enough, but remember that a word becomes a word simply by usage, not by
edict. The old Webster's rule was that, if a word appeared in ten recognized
publications with a consistent meaning, it (the word and the definition) would
be included in the next edition of the dictionary. I'm sure there's a similar
rule in play today.
The fluid and pragmatic nature of words and their meanings can be gauged by
noting that "literally" and "figuratively" now mean the same thing:
Link: [http://www.merriam-
webster.com/dictionary/literally](http://www.merriam-
webster.com/dictionary/literally)
Quote:
1 : in a literal sense or manner : actually <took the remark literally> <was
literally insane>
2 : in effect : virtually <will literally turn the world upside down to combat
cruelty or injustice — Norman Cousins>
------
ken47
This is very promising. I like the philosophies underpinning this framework,
and once it is in a mature state, I could certainly see myself using it in a
production environment.
------
b0z0
This is some pretty amazing code, actually. An MVC in 400 lines? Awesome. I
could learn from this for days, lack of semicolons and one-line loops
notwithstanding.
------
hcho
So, how do I integrate existing JQuery plugins? In most real life scenarios
there will be a few plugins which one would like to bring in.
------
omphalos
With that style of view, I suppose it's probably pretty easy to adapt Mithril
to support server-side rendering.
------
danneu
This is the kind of simplicity that brought me to Clojure for the past couple
years.
------
leo_mck
I would love to see a comparasion with knockoutjs/durandal too...
------
Geee
Quite similar to React? Probably about the same performance?
~~~
dangoor
I was actually wondering why this wouldn't just use React for the view. Then
it could leverage all of the work going on with React (server-side rendering,
possibly rendering from within a Web Worker, etc.)
~~~
jonahx
Given the philosophy leo outlines, I'd guess he's going for something slimmer.
This is 3k vs react's 29k. I am curious to know how it's achieving the same
thing in so much less code, or rather, what react can do that mithril can't.
------
tzaman
I don't mean this in a bad way, but do we really need another Javascript
framework? Wouldn't author's energy be more useful when contributing to one of
the existing ones?
~~~
tzaman
Not sure why I'm getting downvoted, it was a serious concern I expressed, with
0 intent of insulting anyone
~~~
hamburglar
You're getting downvoted because this guy thought it was an interesting
problem to think about, sat down and put some effort in, came up with
something he liked (and which appears to be very good) and wanted other people
to see it, and your input was, "isn't this a waste of time? People have done
this before!"
The fact that frameworks are appearing at a ridiculous rate is also the
_reason_ people still feel compelled to make their own: the existing ones
sometimes feel thrown together and flawed in obvious ways, so people
automatically think about ways they could be better and try those things out.
The result is progress (edit: sometimes the result is a bag of crap, but
that's beside the point).
No, we don't need more frameworks. And yet that still isn't a good reason to
stop building them, if for no other reason than to explore for yourself what
goes into building one (if that's your interest).
------
it_learnses
seems a lot like React. I haven't used it, but isn't it also built around the
idea of Shadow Doms?
------
jakiestfu
new function(window){}(this) is kinda weird to me. Sorry that's nothing
valuable to add to your code.
~~~
hamburglar
Correct me if I'm wrong, but what this does is: 1) allows the code to be run
in an environment where 'window' is not the global object (perhaps for
testing), and 2) in a browser, gives the caller the option to isolate the
module code so it's not allowed to touch 'window'.
------
johnnymonster
do you have a todomvc example :)
~~~
criswell
The guide is based off the building of a TODO app.
[http://lhorie.github.io/mithril/getting-
started.html](http://lhorie.github.io/mithril/getting-started.html)
------
ing33k
nice and clean
------
niklasber
Why?
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Free CAD-CAM Software Demos - inc_dude
http://bobcad.com/free-cad-cam-demo-downloads/
======
MaDeuce
Could more accurately titled: "Free Demos of BobCAD CAD-CAM Software that You
Can Purchase from BobCAD".
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Nasty macOS flaw is bricking MacBooks: Don't install this update - Corrado
https://www.tomsguide.com/news/nasty-macos-flaw-is-bricking-macbooks-dont-install-this-update
======
xcalibre
This has been mentioned quite a few times but Apple's software quality
seriously has taken a turn for the worse in the last few years. I've usually
updated my macs to the latest OS's within a couple of weeks of release, but
Catalina is the first time where I still have yet to update. Stories of bugs
such as this as well as mail messages getting blanked out and unrecoverable
makes me actually scared to upgrade.
~~~
mmxmb
Does anyone know what might have caused this recent downturn in Apple's
software quality?
~~~
phs318u
Not sure myself though I’m sure books will in future be written about “the
early signs of Apple’s demise”. My MacbookAir 6,2 (mid-2013) was screwed after
the 10.15.4 update (not the supplemental). The SSD was totally not recognised.
I’ve tried SMC and NVRAM resets numerous times and remote Recovery. The drive
is now invisible. I opened it up to reseat it (cleaning pins and socket) to no
avail.
Fortunately I’ve got a 256GB SDXC card which I’ve installed Pop!_OS on - which
has convinced me that now’s as good a time as any to extricate myself from the
Apple ecosystem (which I’m all in on - iCloud, Apple Music etc). My next
laptop will be non-Apple. First non-Apple hardware in this house since 2003.
I’ll try swapping the drive with my daughter’s - she has the same model. At
least I’ll know whether it’s the drive or the logic board. Then I can sell the
bits.
~~~
hpkuarg
The screen on my MacbookPro13,1 (late 2016) recently gave out. I needed a
replacement but I was not convinced by any of the current Apple offerings -- I
can't stand the stupid touch bar on the Pros, and the new MBA didn't
sufficiently excite me.
The usual build-to-order options like Dell or Lenovo being backordered due to
the pandemic, I walked into a Costco and bought a LG Gram 17[0]. This is the
first time I bought a laptop off the shelf, and the first time my primary
laptop has not been a Mac, in over a decade. I installed Xubuntu 18.04 LTS on
it with no fanfare and have been quite happy with it since.
The early signs of Apple's demise, indeed.
[0] [https://www.lg.com/us/laptops/lg-17z90n-r.aac8u1-ultra-
slim-...](https://www.lg.com/us/laptops/lg-17z90n-r.aac8u1-ultra-slim-laptop)
~~~
throwlaplace
what did you do with the dead macbook? i'd be interested in purchasing it
------
baryphonic
This is interesting. I sat down at my machine on Thursday morning, and it was
entirely unresponsive. It had warned me about installing updates the previous
evening, but I've done this many times without an issue, and regardless, they
are always complete by morning. I waited a minute or two for any sign of life
(beyond the fans running), and then held power. I heard the unpleasant sound
of the fans spinning up to high RPM and then shutting off rapidly. I waited a
few seconds and then held power again. The machine showed a slow progress bar,
but then finally I saw "26 minutes remaining" below it. I was pretty surprised
that the update was running, but I figured it had just started late or hung,
and ran a bit later into the working hours.
This article makes me reevaluate that thought.
Coincidentally, one of my colleagues had warned the team about installing
macOS updates, since he was having repeated issues with kernel panics on the
original 10.15.4 update.
I hope Apple can get some of this together a little better going forward.
~~~
FireBeyond
For added irony, my Hackintosh installed the update without missing a beat.
~~~
Wowfunhappy
I have been a Hackintosh user since 2010 and I’ve never had a system break in
point release. If you set it up right, it’s not that common.
Major version upgrades are an entirely different matter, although even they
sometimes just work with Clover.
~~~
FireBeyond
I just moved my system from Clover to OpenCore last week. A couple of hours of
paying attention and reading and voila.
------
diebeforei485
I think companies are pushing updates way too aggressively to those who have
auto update on.
Is there some reason why phased release isn't more common among OS/firmware
updates?
Auto update does not have to mean "update my device the day new versions are
out".
Edit: Is this related to public disclosure of security bugs? If so, the
community should change their standard so that public disclosure doesn't
happen until a week after the update is available. This would allow for phased
rollouts.
~~~
encom
What OS X and Windows, IOS, Android and probably lots of others need, is Long
Term Support releases. I'm so sick and tired of my phone and computer
switching up major features and UI every year, because some UX person wants to
not get fired.
Releasing a new major version of your OS yearly is insane.
~~~
Joeri
On windows you can choose to get feature updates with a 4 month delay if you
have windows pro (set updates to "Semi-Annual Channel" instead of "Semi-Annual
Channel (Targeted)", and yes microsoft are indeed terrible with naming
things). I never had issues with windows updates on that branch. There is also
windows enterprise long term servicing branch (LTSB), which gets feature
updates every 3 years (but is meant more for things like point of sale
systems, not for regular PC's).
On macOS you can stay one major release behind. So, stay on mojave until the
successor to catalina is released, then upgrade to catalina. You still get
security fixes and full software ecosystem support, but far fewer issues with
buggy updates.
On android and iOS you don't really have good options to my knowledge.
~~~
kiwijamo
Second the recommendation to stay on Mojave. I do this for my $WORK laptop and
it still gets back-ported security updates. $WORK's IT department has advised
Apple users to hold off upgrading to 10.15 and it seems they have good reason
to continue dispensing that advice, still...!
~~~
thu2111
Heck, I do that with my personal laptop. Feeling pretty happy having read
these comments that I never took the leap to Catalina.
I feel pretty sure this must be common because I still see apps and
infrastructure, even last month, coming out with updates related to Catalina
compatibility.
It sucks though. I have a Google Pixel phone and never hesitate to apply
updates, I even look forward to them. I don't think I've ever had an Android
phone experience the sort of severe regressions that occur regularly with
Apple updates.
I've been a MBP user for a long time, but I'm really starting to wonder if
it's time to take a leap soon. I've been using this laptop for maybe a year
and:
1\. I'm scared to upgrade to the latest OS
2\. The screen's coating has been damaged and has key-print impressions on it.
This _always happens_ and Apple seem incapable of fixing it.
3\. The latest butterfly keyboard has at least not broken on me for 8 months
or so, but the options, C and A keys have worn through and now have holes in
them. This started happening a few generations ago and now seems like a
regular problem that I'm just supposed to accept.
4\. Very soon after getting it something happened to the metal such that it
has a large discolouration on the bottom left, of a type I've never seen
before. Nothing seems to fix it.
5\. The screen routinely gets a yellow splotch in one of the corners if the
laptop has been in my backpack for a while.
The problem is that despite not even really having improved for years, macOS
is probably still the best OS out there. Linux on laptops has never worked
well - my colleagues who try to use it routinely have issues with webcams not
working properly. Windows laptops seem to vary wildly in quality and many of
them have stupid design flaws like putting the webcam at the bottom of the
screen instead of the top, coming loaded with crapware, anti-virus products
that cripple performance, Windows is still a rats nest of weird problems under
the hood. And their way to make it better for developers is to just bundle
Linux?
I really wish there was more competition in the laptops-for-technical-people
space.
~~~
Joeri
FWIW I put ubuntu LTS on my thinkpad T460p and everything worked flawlessly
except for the fingerprint reader. For thinkpads that seems to be the rule:
everything works except for the fingerprint reader.
If you want good linux support on a laptop you need to do some research, but
there are options. Thinkpads, XPS, ... They’re just not that much cheaper than
a macbook if you want comparable specs.
------
edapted
2018 MBP, Using it on battery, saw I was at 20% plugged it in, noticed it was
running like crap so I started closing applications, restarted it. Still
running like crap after reboot, also noticed fans were not spinning figured
maybe an SMC reset is in order when I realized it was at 2% battery, had not
been charging, status said it was plugged in but not charging. Powered it off
to do the SMC reset and I can get nothing from it now, not a thing, no sounds,
no signs of life, no fans, no apple logo, no clicks from the trackpad. I think
this qualifies as a brick.
------
rammy1234
Timing of this cannot be more wrong. WFH and no store opened will make this
more worse.
~~~
rootusrootus
I'm actually a little surprised they're pushing out updates at all right now.
They have to be aware of the risk.
~~~
saagarjha
Supplemental updates usually fix serious bugs or ones that impact a lot of
people. They're fairly rare.
~~~
danieldk
Indeed. The problem was 10.15.4 to start with. One reason to roll out the
supplemental update was because 10.15.4 broke Facetime compatibility with
older iOS and macOS versions (which is particularly bad in the current
crisis).
Maybe they shouldn't have released 10.15.4 right now, but instead only the
security fixes in this release. But they had to push out that release to
support the new MacBook Air.
Another problem with such reports is that it is hard to get an idea of how
widespread this problem is. And whether the problem (perhaps) already occurred
with previous Catalina updates, but is now picked up more.
------
perardi
I am quite the Apple apologist, but Catalina is awful.
1\. As seen here, it's a bugfest.
2\. For user-facing features, it brings…Sidecar? And a bunch of half-assed
Catalyst apps, I suppose.
3\. Such an exciting new set of security features—really met what I have to
guess was their goal to quickly train me to click OK on every single dialog to
get to work.
~~~
freehunter
For 3, what it's taught me is that I have to load a video conference, go into
the privacy settings, allow use of camera and microphone, then _exit the video
conference_ and load it again before anyone can see or hear me.
I'm a consultant and talk to multiple clients all with their own video
conference solution and having to do this every time I join a call where a
client is using a different video conference solution is very unprofessional.
The worst was using Teams where I had to close my browser before I could join
the conference, after I had already queued up everything I needed for the
call. So now everyone is waiting on me to re-open everything and reset the
state for the demo.
I never thought I'd miss Windows UAC.
~~~
bobbylarrybobby
Surely this is the fault of the app and not macOS? I have plenty of apps that
asked for those permissions once, got it, and never asked again.
~~~
freehunter
They’re not asking again but asking for the first time is what is disruptive
because it forces you to close whatever application is requesting permissions.
It’s sucks when WebEx does it but at least that only makes you close WebEx.
Still a really poor design choice but not nearly as disruptive as browser-
based tools that make you close your browser.
------
crazygringo
Is there any _actual quantitative evidence_ this update is any worse than any
average update? The article presents _three_ forum posts as evidence... which
isn't evidence.
I assume every update ever has messed up a handful of people's computers, even
if just coincidentally (e.g. the computer was going to die on the next reboot
no matter what).
If thousands of people were complaining on Twitter that would be one thing.
But since there aren't, and considering that Apple hasn't pulled the update...
Is this just much ado about nothing?
~~~
unloco
2019 imac getting kernel panics when going to sleep.
It seems silly if you're not affected. But now that it's hit me, i'm about to
go back to mojave. If it was just a weird bug, I could deal with it. But to
kernel panic is a big deal to me. I cant trust the computer to not break if I
walk away from it for 10 minutes.
I guess I could turn off sleep, but that doesnt seem like a solution to me. To
keep it running all the time so it doesnt break? nah.
~~~
brailsafe
This could very well be a hardware or deeper issue. I had a similar but more
specific issue with my 2018 mbp, and managed to isolate the issue after quite
a bit of trial and error. They replaced it with a 2019 model brand new. I
think for me it was specific to letting the battery drain completely, then
closing it and plugging it into power and waiting a while. I'd open to a
computer that had kernal panicked. It could be related to deep
sleep/hibernate, where the contents of ram is written to the ssd and then
restored on wake. You can test this probably by setting a hibernate timer and
then testing what happens if it sleeps for just under and just over that time.
~~~
ryanmccullagh
This happens to me, but only when I’m connected to my LG ultra fine. I can’t
reliably reproduce it. Can you elaborate on how you did it?
~~~
brailsafe
I reproduced it by eliminating aspects of the scenario and combing through
logs. For example, for a long time I only knew it was happening sometime after
the laptop went to sleep, but that's all. After paying attention to my
patterns, I isolated out the case where the laptop would sleep only for a few
minutes on or off power. Then I did the same thing but either pulled the power
cable or plugged it in after it went to sleep. Then I tried variants of those
after letting it sleep for a long time. Nothing was reproducible for a very
long time until I noticed that the specific case of first using it till the
battery was dead, then letting it sit for a while, then plugging it in and
then opening the lid caused the kernel panic. It persisted through two screen
replacements and one motherboard replacement if memory serves. Not totally
sure how that happened, but it could have been a faulty SSD or something.
It was extremely satisfying to finally isolate it to 100% reproducibility.
Peak of my career right there.
------
bangonkeyboard
I thought this would be about the 10.15.4 update, which had known problems,
but instead it's the supplemental hotfix that was supposed to address them:
_" This supplemental update for macOS 10.15.4 Catalina, released Wednesday
(April 8), was meant to resolve issues created by the 10.15.4 update in late
March."_
------
zhenyakovalyov
My 2019 mbp was bricked with the previous update. Apple support said that they
need to take a physical look, but all of their stores are closed until further
notice.
¯\\_(ツ)_/¯
And by “bricked” I mean - no signs of life whatsoever
------
oneplane
Odd, this seems to be happening across the industry and is now either reported
better or just more prevalent. Besides bricks (well, is it a brick if you can
recover?) we have seen post-update BSOD's, data loss, browsers going bad,
settings getting reset on various operating systems of the big vendors out
there. I know that it isn't like software 'used to be perfect' but this type
of defect feels bigger than it used to be.
~~~
kbumsik
I guess two reasons:
1\. The OS update policies became more "agile". Both Windows and macOS starts
to update the OS more often than ever. macOS moved to an annual update from
biannual, Windows 10 switched to a subscription-like model.
2\. They laid off the testing team and stopped testing on actual PCs in favor
of VMs. [1] It makes sense considering the broken updates are often more low-
level bugs that cannot be caught by VMs.
[1]: [https://www.techradar.com/news/windows-10-problems-are-
ruini...](https://www.techradar.com/news/windows-10-problems-are-ruining-
microsofts-reputation-and-the-damage-cant-be-underestimated)
~~~
Florin_Andrei
> _They laid off the testing team_
Must be good for the bottom line.
The cost is absorbed by the unlucky users.
~~~
chaos_a
It's another case of focusing on the short term to save money. In the long
term it damages their reputation and some frustrated businesses/users might
start to consider moving away from their products if a viable alternative
exists.
~~~
the_other
Unfortunately there’s only two players in this game (I doubt mass consumption
of linux any time soon). So, if they both suck, neither loses the reputation
game.
------
cutler
Well, that's it for Catalina then. Although I really want full Xcode
11.4/Swift UI/Swift 5.2 and my MacBook Pro a Catalina upgrade is just too much
of a risk. On top of all the previous Catalina woes Apple should be hanging
their heads in shame.
~~~
andrekandre
> Xcode 11.4
your probably not missing much, there are some serious regressings in that
release, for example [0]
[0] [https://forums.swift.org/t/swift-5-2-struct-property-
wrapper...](https://forums.swift.org/t/swift-5-2-struct-property-wrapper-
didset-defect/34403/3)
(for me, cant make release builds because the compiler crashes... sigh...)
~~~
trevyn
You’re missing the ability to connect to and debug on iOS 13.4 devices, I
believe:
[https://forums.developer.apple.com/thread/130988](https://forums.developer.apple.com/thread/130988)
So now I’m stuck on 10.14.6 _and_ iOS 13.3.1, one of which is not getting
security updates.
Really hoping Fuschia or someone steps up and displaces Apple.
~~~
apple4ever
What??? Xcode 11.4 requires Catalina now?? That’s nuts.
~~~
plorkyeran
Over the last few years Xcode has dropped support for older versions of macOS
very aggressively. It requires upgrading to a new major version within the
year that the new version came out, and quite often requires the latest minor
version as well.
------
sakisv
I think that Apple should take advantage of the lockdowns and focus just on
fixing things.
They don't need to ship anything new and they have the perfect excuse to focus
on improving both their OS and their processes that allowed such flawed things
to reach their users.
~~~
deergomoo
I wish macOS would just drop back to major releases every 2-3 years. Sure,
drop a point release in September to add compatibility with whatever new
feature iOS has gained, but my Mac is the computer I do work on. I need it to
always be reliable.
Right now it seems the only way to do that is wait a long time before
installing any update they push.
~~~
apple4ever
I absolutely agree. The action of pushing out major updates every year has
lead to a drop in quality. They never get a chance to fix last years bugs
because they are working on next years features.
~~~
thu2111
That's not a fundamental issue though. Chrome pushes new features every six
weeks. Android updates every year and doesn't suffer these kinds of problems.
You absolutely _can_ do regular updates that are high quality. You just can't
do them in an environment that's deadline driven, or which gives PMs too much
power over what dev teams work on.
~~~
apple4ever
You are comparing a browser to an entire operating system (and I believe
Android does have those problems).
But you do have a point: it should be product driven not feature driven.
~~~
thu2111
Browsers get closer to operating systems all the time, for better or worse.
------
Avi-D-coder
Why is Catalina so unstable, were there major architectural changes? I know
they broke Nix, ssh and a few others, but why?
~~~
saagarjha
Depends on what you’re looking at, but on the whole Catalina probably has more
aggressive changes than Mojave did.
~~~
mekster
And what has users gained by that? For the past 5 years or so, I don't exactly
know anything worth it from users' perspective. Getting third party app
updates are enough to increase productivity.
~~~
danieldk
One of the high-impact changes (which broke Nix as the grand-grand parent
mentioned) was moving / to a read-only volume:
[https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT210650](https://support.apple.com/en-
us/HT210650)
Although this change may not be immediately visible it does increase security
a fair bit (malware cannot embed themselves or replace system files) and also
prevents accidental deletion.
Apple made large strides in the last few years improving security, e.g. by
introducing SIP, but also by offering fine-grained permissions for camera,
mic, etc. access. APFS created its own road bumps, but was a long overdue
replacement of HFS+.
IMO there were also some nice user-visible changes, such as dark mode,
replacing iTunes by several separate applications, and dynamic desktop.
I agree that there are also superfluous changes or steps back, I am still
grumpy that they replaced Spaces by Mission Control. I don't care for all the
deep iCloud Drive integration and think it is unfair to the competition.
I strongly disagree that there are no useful new features the last five years.
The problem is more the lack of quality control. That said, I started using
macOS when 10.5 came out, which also had its fair share of ugly bugs (e.g.
serious problems with maintaining WiFi connections).
~~~
anentropic
> I am still grumpy that they replaced Spaces by Mission Control
Can you elaborate? This terrifies me as I rely a lot on Spaces to organise my
desktop between different projects
Is this a change in Catalina?
Is seems like Spaces is still a thing: [https://support.apple.com/en-
gb/guide/mac-help/mh35798/mac](https://support.apple.com/en-gb/guide/mac-
help/mh35798/mac) [https://support.apple.com/en-gb/guide/mac-
help/mh14112/10.15...](https://support.apple.com/en-gb/guide/mac-
help/mh14112/10.15/mac/10.15)
I'm pretty happy with how this works in Mojava, apart from the major gripe
that the apps don't restore to the Space they were in after you reboot.
~~~
apple4ever
> Is this a change in Catalina?
No this was done years ago in 10.7. Spaces was awesome and super configurable.
But they combined it into Mission control and made it much simple but less
useful.
------
saagarjha
Is this something especially prevalent in this update? Pretty much every
single one borks _someone 's_ Mac, so I'm curious if there's something new:
this article seemed light on details.
------
b15h0p
I had a problem with the latest iOS update too: after installing 13.4.1 it
booted to a white screen with „swipe up to upgrade“ at the bottom. Swiping up
crashed the device. Every couple of minutes it would reboot and be back to the
white screen.
I did a factory reset via finder and that worked. As soon as I restored the
iCloud backup: back to the white screen.
I had to revert to 13.4 and could then restore the backup. Now I’m afraid to
update again … I guess I’ll have to wait until 13.4.2 or 14 are released.
Luckily 13.4.1 does not seem to contain security relevant fixes.
~~~
cageface
13.4 failed on my phone and I had to do a manual clean restore via my Mac.
Then 13.4.1 did the same thing and this time I had to do a DFU restore to get
it functioning again. Not fun when taking it in to get it fixed is not an
option.
I'm still getting freezes on my brand new 2019 MBP due to the still unfixed
GPU switching bug and I don't dare install any macOS updates now.
Apple has had a lot of software quality issues in recent years but this is a
new low.
------
intense_feel
I can confirm that the revive via DFU works. It also works over normal USB
(instead of usb-c) connector as I used my gf older mac pro late 2015. Be aware
that you need at least Mojave 10.14.6+ as the app configurator can't be
run/installed on previous versions. There is also a big difference in App
configurator 2.10 vs the latest 2.12. On 2.10 (you can find dmg file on
internet, but be careful about running untrusted software) you can restore
BridgeOS on the chip without wiping the data. In version 2.12 it will wipe all
data!
Initially, I tried to restore the system via Virtualbox where I installed
Mojave via Apple Configurator but that didn't work as it break during the
revival of the last step because of the constant USB de-plugging from
host/guest machine during the process. I think just the revival step in 2.12
should also work as it flashes also the bridge os and power it up which should
avoid any data loss but don't take this for granted.
------
7ewis
Wonder if this update could be related to an issue I had.
Installed Snap Camera a few days ago, was on a video call and when I came off
it the green camera light stayed on. Even after quitting Hangouts and Snap
Camera.
I restarted and the green light persisted throughout the whole reboot. I then
shutdown, and it finally turned off.
After turning it back on, the camera didn't work at all. I uninstalled Snap
Camera, reset PRAM, SMC. Nothing seems to fix it. Now thinking it must be a
hardware fault, but think I was on the latest update already and just seems
like a strange coincidence that it happened almost immediately after I used
Snap Camera for the first time.
------
pinkahd
I've updated my MacBook Pro 2019 before I saw the HN post, the updated went
smoothly without any issues (so far).
I've done the same update on my Mac Mini 2018 and now the fan has stopped
working after reboot. Tried to reset NVRAM and SMC without any luck... the fan
is still unresponsive. Apple diagnostics even confirms this by giving an error
code PPF003
~~~
getpolarized
My mid-2015 mac (last REAL MacBook IMO) won't install it at all.
It says it's installing, I reboot, it does some stuff, then I come back and
the update isn't applied.
Quality stuff!
~~~
asdff
If it's any consolation, I really like the keyboard on this latest air. Gave
me reason to move off my 2012, the REAL last real macbook imo with everything
replaceable/upgrade-able with a Phillips head screwdriver and 20 minutes of
your time.
------
forgingahead
Side poll: Do people automatically download OS updates for their computers? A
lesson from my Windows days way back when was never to update anything unless
absolutely needed -- computer, phones, etc. "Needed" is loosely defined as
"key software that you need to work is no longer working on your older OS,
hence you need to upgrade your OS to keep using this key software (sorry!)."
I'm aware of security patches etc, but risk of regular things breaking for
little apparent upside has always led me (and most folks I know) to avoid
upgrades except in the above-mentioned case.
__Edit, not just asking about Windows, but all operating systems, OSX, iOS,
Android, Linux, etc.
~~~
eru
> A lesson from my Windows days way back when was never to update anything
> unless absolutely needed -- computer, phones, etc.
Windows 10 seems to be pretty good at keeping its users on the latest version?
(Unless you actively tell it, not to?)
~~~
nicolas_t
Yes and because they have a bug with egpu they introduced in August, I had to
go in Group policy to disable updates until they finally release a fix or my
eGPU won't work (it's in beta apparently and will come out after 11 months)...
And I was complaining about Apple but this is even worse...
~~~
zamalek
> And I was complaining about Apple but this is even worse...
So a driver bug, affecting a single external device, is worse than completely
bricking an entire machine?
Microsoft have had their share of controversies with updates (recent memory is
deleting user data folder before they halted the rollout), but they have never
made a machine unresponsive to the degree of the multiple anecdotes in this
comment section.
HN has some smart folks, but the leeway those folks afford Apple despite their
continuous hostile and incompetent behavior is incredible.
------
gerardvivancos
I'm not sure this is an issue specific to this update. The very same
description in the Apple forums matches what happened on my work Macbook Pro
(a 2018 one if I'm not mistaken) while installing a different update a few
months ago.
I won't say this is not an issue specific to this supplemental update, but I'm
not buying it is _yet_.
It looks like one of the usual consequences of a system update going wrong.
See that the user reports that after fixing this through Recovery Mode, they
were asked to install the very same update again, as if nothing had happened.
This looks like a rollback.
I wish MacOS was more transparent about what actually happens on those cases.
If you had to roll back, let me know. If you could not install because of any
reason, let me know.
~~~
sleepless
Apple has historically been lacking on proper documentation. Be that on errors
happening during updates or proper documentation of what exactly they have
changed in software updates. They have slightly improved, but still not great.
------
msie
This really sucks. Can’t use the new Xcode without Catalina but this release
sounds so buggy.
~~~
cutler
Yes, there's no way Catalina is ever going on any of my machines. Apple has
hit a real low-point with this release.
~~~
tonyedgecombe
Just an anecdote but it's been rock solid for me and fixed a number of issues
I had with Mojave.
~~~
aganame
Ditto. My worst problem has been that some games on Steam claim they don’t
work on Mojave... but they do.
~~~
adanto6840
This is due to Steam adding a new checkbox that requires the game's developer
to specifically click an extra checkbox to signify compatibility with Catalina
(and optionally, specify if the binary is notarized and/or signed [don't
recall which, or is possibly both]).
Steam almost always already knows if the game has a '64-bit macOS depot'
configured -- ie ships 64-bit binary for macOS -- though in some cases the
'depot' may be configured as "macOS - All" in which case Steam may not know
for sure.
When Catalina released, they defaulted the checkbox to "No" regardless of the
game depot configuration. Any remotely recent game that supports macOS almost
certainly is shipping a 64-bit binary (been quite a while since OSX was 32-bit
only) -- so odds are very good that games supporting macOS will work with
macOS Catalina, at least likely for anything in the last 5 years if not
longer.
In our case, it took several weeks to find the checkbox to update our store
page. In all fairness, Valve sent out an email alerting of the concern ahead
of time; we just didn't read it thoroughly enough to realize that the default
setting would be "No" even when explicitly having a 64-bit macOS binary
configured.
~~~
toyg
You clearly over-estimate your competitors. Plenty of games I have, will not
work on Catalina - they are 32bit apps and devs have long moved on.
------
CrLf
Well, I've upgraded my personal macbook to Catalina (this update) and nothing
seems wrong... yet.
OTOH, my work machine (a 2016 Macbook Pro) is stuck on Mojave (due to
incompatible third-party software) and the latest "Security Update 2020-002"
broke video conferencing. Right in the middle of a pandemic forcing everybody
to work from home!
Of course, this being Apple, I'm not holding my breath for a fix anytime soon.
They don't seem to release individual updates anymore, and even these bundled
"Supplemental Updates" are few and far between.
Apple really needs to get its act together regarding macOS. People need macOS
to actually be productive, unless they'd rather lose this segment completely
to Microsoft.
------
ObsoleteNerd
It's not "bricked" if you can fix it in Recovery Mode.
Still bad that it's happening, but the term "bricked" is thrown around so
flippantly these days. If a piece of tech is bricked, it's not recoverable at
all.
~~~
gregmac
"Bricked" is relative, depending on your skill level.
For some consumers, if recovery mode doesn't work that might be the end of
line.
However, there are more advanced users that can access the storage via another
system and fix it there, hook up via serial port or JTAG and flash new
firmware, or even desolder and replace chips.
On the far other end of the spectrum, there's going to be people that consider
"doesn't show the normal UI after I press the power button" as bricked.
~~~
at_a_remove
If you go that route, "bricked" is now indistinguishable from "broke," and we
already have a word for that. Broke. We would have then gone from a situation
where we had two different states and names for each of those states to a
situation where we have two words for the very same, very fuzzy state and no
way to talk about the _other_ state.
It makes a mockery of the idea of advice. Imagine your parents calling you and
telling you that their machine is bricked. Well, I guess they must buy a new
one and the old must go to electronic recycling. No need for a diagnostic of
any kind, it's bricked.
Linguistic descriptivism will be the death of communication and standards.
Only pushing back at the creep will allow people to discuss anything
technical. Imagine the trend should it overtake medicine. If a certain kind of
stroke is suspected, the patient should take aspirin right away. No, _aspirin_
-aspirin, not ibuprofen. Then you have someone who says, "Well, ibuprofen is
an aspirin sure!"
~~~
egypturnash
Bricked, to me, means it is _physically_ just fine, but it doesn’t work due to
some kind of software issue.
“I bricked my phone and had to spend a whole day reading obscure guides to
three different levels of embedded software before I could get it working
again” feels like a perfectly valid sentence. You can fix a bricked thing,
just like you can fix a broken thing, but both require some investment of time
and possibly the use of tools that you won’t usually find outside the hands of
specialists.
~~~
richrichardsson
I don't agree.
imo "Bricked" means you turned your piece of electronics into a brick, it
cannot be recovered. Otherwise as mentioned before, it's just "broken", which
can be recovered from in most cases.
~~~
bdowling
> a brick, it cannot be recovered.
A bricked device usually _can_ be recovered using only software tools and
sometimes a special cable. Sometimes those tools or cables are only possessed
by the manufacturer, which frustrates consumers and makes it seem like the
devices are unrecoverable, but they’re not.
A broken device, on the other hand, can’t be recovered using software tools or
a special cable because it contains broken parts that must be repaired or
replaced.
~~~
timzentu
A physically broken device might still be functional though, so personally
your terms are backwards.
A bricked device has a slight chance of recovery, if you have the
tools/skills/training. It is a brick until that repair with high applitude is
completed. Something that is broke doesn't mean it is functional or not, just
not at a perfectly working condition to worse. it might be repaired by doing a
reset of a device, or something more advanced.
This is from my experience dealing with non-technical people who are
mechanically inclined, but not technically inclined. they will call with a
"broke" device that just needs a reset since they have too many users in a
system all attempting to run the same device on different things. (Sorry
keeping vague to keep me out of hot water). They will also call in with
something "bricked" because the device won't function due to a damaged USB
port, and they don't have the skill set/components to solder a port on
something electronic. And then further down the scale it is a paperweight when
it won't boot and is a piece of hardware they hate.
~~~
bdowling
I disagreed with GP's use of the term bricked to mean unrecoverable. You seem
to agree with me because you wrote that a bricked device can be recovered with
the proper tools/skills/training. I hadn't considered partially-working
devices, but I think you're right that they shouldn't be properly called
bricked.
The threads here show that even highly technical people disagree on what
conditions should be considered bricked versus broken. To a non-technical
person whose device isn't working, however, there is no practical difference.
~~~
richrichardsson
I actually changed my mind a little after posting that comment. I think it was
mentioned elsewhere also, but even something that I would consider "bricked"
could still probably be recovered by someone with access to the right tools
(ability to reflash via JTAG, replacing chips etc.)
I would refine my definition to be that a "bricked" device is something that
has occurred via a failed software update making the device inoperable to all
but the tiniest subset of users.
------
d99kris
I have a MacBook 12" 2017 and have not encountered any serious issue with
10.15.4 supplemental update, yet..
I do however note that when adjusting volume in the status bar the UI dragbar
position is very jumpy, which gives a rather unpolished impression.
~~~
davidweir
> when adjusting volume in the status bar the UI dragbar position is very
> jumpy
I've noticed this as well. Qualitatively, it seems to be worse when external
audio output devices are selected, than for the Internal Speakers.
------
wkoszek
Eh. I'm so happy to now be alone. I really hope they'll hear it. I just sent
my brand new MBP 16" back to Apple, because I believe that's what happened to
me too. 2 weeks ago Friday an update fetched overnight messed me up--upon
starting I got an installer with "27 minutes to go", then a login screen, and
upon a login with my password, I got a pure-white-screen for 2-5s, then 2s of
max-fan speed, and an instant reboot.
And it went on to happen in the loop: login -> white screen -> reboot.
Recovery mode + macOS reinstall = "Can't install macOS on this computer"
To my that starts to match the definition of "bricked" already, because a
normal person really can't probably recover from this at that point.
Recovery mode (booted via USB drive) = "Installer is missing assets" (tried 2
USB drives, after re-downloading Catalina installer
Recovery mode (booted via USB drive with Mojave) = this is not supported
anymore
Recovery mode -> Disk Utility -> First Aid -> run a FS check, turned out APFS
volume is corrupted ("fsroot tree is invalid")...
Target mode (went to BestBuy to get a special "SS+" certified USB-C cable,
because of course a normal cable doesn't work) connected to my macOS Catalina
Mac mini -> couldn't unencrypted the APFS partition enough though the password
was correct. Read every possible target mode tutorial, and there's no mention
about what Catalina did to Recovery Keys/User (other than them simply not
being there), but you need to pass a UUID of a recovery used, and I only had
some iCloud Recovery Keys there. Tried my MacBook password, my iCloud password
etc. Nothing worked. Basically I couldn't un-encrypt the drive.
Ended up just starting Recovery Mode again, mounting a separate USB disk from
the Terminal, copied valuable stuff over.
Removed all APFS volumes, tried to re-install on a fresh volumes. Nothing
worked. Was getting the same issues from the installer. Gave up. Packed this
$4k computer and sent it back to Apple. Writing this from my Mac mini, with
Catalina, happily rejecting any updates. BTW, Catalina installer is a joke. It
is broken since Catalina came out, and it's not getting any better.
------
abartl
For me the installation got stuck. Had to try twice
------
szczepano
They're earning billions yet can't afford to keep 5 mac books of each type in
different configurations in one room and person or computer who will launch
update before release and report green light. As always whatever size of
company testing is a bottleneck because having roughly 25 computers and
testing room is a problem. What a wonderful world.
~~~
mthoms
As I understand it, not all components are sourced from the same manufacturer
for the entire run of any one model.
But you're still absolutely right. They should be testing every possible
configuration.
------
neo1691
I am having serious problems with WiFi. I have about six apple devices and my
home wlan works perfectly for all of them except my MacBook Pro. It connects
and then in some minutes there is no internet. No packets in no packets out.
Tried everything.
Tomorrow I do a hard reset. Nice way to spend my Easter holidays.
------
LordFast
The quality of Apple's Apple's and software has been on a gentle downward
trend since about 2015.
I still prefer them for now, but eventually the cost/benefit ratio just won't
make sense anymore. If I'm paying for crappy quality, I'd rather just buy
cheap.
------
neycoda
This is what happens when you focus on features over functionality, get
excited over "delighting" your customers over providing reliable products, and
put visibility over stability. Steve Jobs had a nice balance of this, Tim Cook
is just a numbers guy.
------
bdcravens
I installed it on my 16" yesterday - haven't seen any of the issues in the
article yet.
------
appleflaxen
Since my power cord frayed (no strain relief due to aesthetics) to the point
that it will no longer charge, my laptop has been off for a week.
I've been protected from a major flaw by another, equally major flaw.
I guess it's better than the alternative of getting hit by them both.
------
abootstrapper
Ugh. My 2018 i9 has been freezing randomly recently. I actually rushed to
install the most recent update hoping it would fix the freezing. It hasn’t and
now I gotta worry about this. I regret upgrading to Catalina. Nothing but
problems since.
------
MrMacintoshBlog
I am tracking the issue here.
[https://mrmacintosh.com/10-15-4-supplemental-update-
bricking...](https://mrmacintosh.com/10-15-4-supplemental-update-bricking-
small-number-of-t2-macs/)
------
pier25
None of our 5 macs at home have Catalina installed. We will stay with Mojave
for the foreseeable future.
It seems Apple is finally getting their shit together on the Mac hardware
front. Now they need to do the same for macOS.
Moving to yearly macOS releases was a bad idea.
------
xyst
I have been lucky thus far, I suppose. Before I run the updates, I disconnect
all peripherals (Bluetooth devices, external monitors) and even close out all
active applications.
The two events are likely unrelated but so far has not failed me.
------
duttaoindril
I had to send my mac in for repair. Horrifyingly painful during Corona. And
they stole my graphics card (repair removed the graphics card), and reset back
to Mojave. I had to chance re-installing Catalina myself.
------
cavisne
Truly terrible time with everyone working from home without tech support.
------
rukshn
I just installed the update yesterday and now I'm seeing this.
Mine is working so far
------
kd22
Was going to update today, I guess I am going to be on my current 10.15.2 for
a long time. 10.15.2 is quite stable and runs smooth enough with occasional
freezes happening maybe once a month.
------
DrGeek
Does it have any impact on the display? Well, roughly the lower half-inch
portion of my display gets crazy randomly. Mine is a 13 inch 2017 MacBook Pro.
Any remarks guys?
------
denimnerd42
Apple killed my 2015 macbook pro like this. Rebooted for update and never
turned on again. No smc or recovery options worked. Completely bricked and
also out of warranty.
------
Scheris
New 2019 16in MBP, luckily worked fine on my machine (and an old 2013 13in
MBP).
Sounds like a real pickle for those affected, though. v_v
------
darepublic
It's a good thing I always click later on these updates.. has Apple retracted
this patch?
------
awzeemo
One data point here - my late 2013 MacBook Pro (ME864LL/A) is fine with
10.15.4
------
t0ughcritic
I thought it was just me!
------
GnarfGnarf
Yesterday my MacBook Pro (2018, Model "MacBookPro15,1") updated itself, and
I've had no problems. I'm at macOS 10.15.4 (19E287). Is this the latest
version?
------
qplex
I've never seen an OS update brick a PC.
Linux or Windows, doesn't matter - you can always recover via BIOS.
How can Apple users live with crap like this?
------
bluedino
Are people not using auto-update?
~~~
ravenstine
Why would I want to wake up in the morning to find my laptop not working?
This issue is exactly why I only occasionally install updates, and if I do I
wait a while for the canaries to leave the coal mine. I've been a user of
macOS, distros of Linux, and Windows for years, and in every one of them there
was the inevitable update that made the OS unusable. It happens rarely but,
when it does, it's a miserable experience.
~~~
wuunderbar
Interested in hearing about a Linux update that made the system unusable.
~~~
therealx
Are you kidding? I've had config files overwritten, x11/wayland/whatever just
break after an update, wirelesss/power drivers just...change, sometimes to the
point of having to recover it from a mono-screen tty, or updates fuck up the
fs or something else that requires me to hit up single user mode.
~~~
ravenstine
Yeah, I got a black screen on boot on more than one occasion because of some
change to either X11 or its config after updating. It's probably a rite of
passage for a seasoned Linux user to figure out how to undo the damage to
their `/etc/x11/xorg.conf`. (then again, I stopped using linux about 4 years
ago, so maybe that's changed)
~~~
teddyh
It has changed, yes. Most people don’t even have an /etc/X11/xorg.conf file
anymore; it’s all autodetected now.
------
auggierose
Still on 10.15.3
Just disabled auto-update. Phew.
------
vondur
Well, not bricked you just lose your data. That data that most people don't
have backups for.
~~~
saagarjha
Where does it say that you lose your data?
~~~
LilBytes
I was hit by this bug, my entire unit was fucked and I had to use Recovery
over the Internet to reinstall a fresh OS on my 2019 MacBook Pro. Nearly
everything on my Mac was dot sourced, on Git or using my local NAS'
TimeMachine share. All the same, all my data on the Mac was still lost and had
to be restored using backup.
~~~
saagarjha
Reinstalling the OS shouldn't wipe your data partition…
~~~
harikb
At least in the default install, it is all one partition. Moreover, if you had
disk encryption or something, getting the recovery keys would be a risk even
you had followed all the right steps. Granted, none of these are good excuses
for not doing TM backups since those are so easy. But just saying people could
lose data and not have an easy way to recover it.
~~~
diebeforei485
This is not true in Catalina.
1\. [https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT210650](https://support.apple.com/en-
us/HT210650)
~~~
harikb
Thanks for the pointer. I hadn’t heard about this at all!
~~~
LilBytes
Well, I lost all my data. I have an empty relocated items dir on my desktop.
Edit: there's a Configuration dir in Recovered Items which has two other dirs,
a private dir which contains another etc dir which contains a shells default
file. Nothing else.
Unsure why this didn't help me at all.
------
wisecoder
Why i cannot find any ergonomic keyboard for mac?
------
stblack
I suspect [http://n-gate.com/](http://n-gate.com/) is gonna roast this post’s
comments.
~~~
stblack
LOL n-gate trolls referrals from here. That’s brilliant.
------
sv9
I'm consistently amazed by HN's ability to take the most meaningless,
inconsequential part of an article (the scroll behavior, the whitespace, the
usage of the word "bricked"), and nitpick it to hell and back instead of
actually discussing the article.
Bravo.
~~~
cygned
Brown M&Ms
([https://www.entrepreneur.com/article/232420](https://www.entrepreneur.com/article/232420)).
How am I supposed to assume your content is of any quality if you cannot get
the details right?
~~~
mmcnl
Typical HN response, there is no multi-million dollar exchange going on here.
How about filling in some of the blanks or correct the wrong parts yourself?
This is such an unnecessary defensive response.
~~~
ozim
Great I love this response!
People go into Karen mode here, yes they bought expensive piece of hardware
with expensive operating system. Though site is rather technically minded they
still underestimate how complex are those things.
It just another "Dropbox? Who needs that I can do the same in an hour", but
somehow they don't realize when you have a budget, timelines and as always not
enough developers who understand this specific thing - it is different than
sitting on your own and making perfect thing. (which then if scrutinized by
some other dev would be labeled as crap :D)
~~~
raverbashing
Especially when it's a developing story and probably published in a rush (in
less than ideal situations). Mistakes happen and the informative side is more
important at these times.
------
sillyconvalley
I'm consistently amazed by HN's ability to take the most meaningless,
inconsequential part of an article (the scroll behavior, the whitespace, the
usage of the word "bricked"), and nitpick it to hell and back instead of
actually discussing the article.
Bravo.
------
philshem
I was bored, so after reading the thread here, I did the update anyway. iOS,
too.
No problems, still bored.
------
nottorp
I thought they were bricked from the factory because of the shit keyboard that
only works in clean room conditions.
And I’m not talking hearsay here, I own one and the keyboard is as shitty as
the entire internet says. Comparing to my previous MacBooks that had no
keyboard problems when used outdoors too.
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Translating Between Statistics and Machine Learning - BillPollak
https://insights.sei.cmu.edu/sei_blog/2018/11/translating-between-statistics-and-machine-learning.html
======
dhairya
It's fascinating to see the differences in language around statistics across
disciplines. I used to work in a group where my colleagues came from different
backgrounds (one had a phd in particle physics, another a phd in stats, and
the third a phd in economics). We all were hired around the same time. We
spent the first month learning how to communicate with each other about basic
statistical concepts so that we were on the same page.
~~~
otoburb
I wonder if the economics PhD had the most difficulty due to graph axis
inversion[1].
[1]
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Reference_desk/Archi...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Reference_desk/Archives/Humanities/2009_January_24#why_does_my_economics_book_put_the_price_as_a_Y_axis_when_the_quantity_is_a_function_of_it.3F)
~~~
dhairya
That didn't really come up. We were doing institutional research for a
university to support senior leaders. Most of our work entailed working with
transactional HR data, educational outcomes data, other information collected
at the university to provide policy analysis and strategic recommendations.
The stats and econ phd came from the same school, so they had more shared
vocabulary, but definitely thought about problems differently. The physics
colleague came from Europe and also thought about problems at a much different
scale. So a lot of the initial time was spent deriving proofs so that everyone
felt comfortable with different statistical methods used for analysis. The
data we worked with was often small scale, sparse, and not really IID. The
proofs all essentially converged, but it was interesting because different
language and assumptions were made depending on their distinct disciplinary
backgrounds.
Sorry for the vague speak. A lot of the work we did was confidential, so can't
really talk specifics.
------
kgwgk
[http://statweb.stanford.edu/~tibs/stat315a/glossary.pdf](http://statweb.stanford.edu/~tibs/stat315a/glossary.pdf)
------
wodenokoto
A few others I've noticed:
Statistics | Machine Learning
Dummy variable | one-hot encoding
Fitting a model | training a model
~~~
nkozyra
I still hear fitting a model, but usually it's just shorthanded to "training."
------
zwaps
I love how Machine Learning has just taken over Decision Theory/Game
Theory/Economics as well with Reinforcement Learning or rather "Inverse
Reinforcement Learning" \- like just renaming utility to reward.
There seems to be tons of scholars who have become big names by taking results
and concepts from other fields, such as heuristic/approximate dynamic
optimization and game theory... Now I would wonder - were these independent
discoveries, or did they just read it & not provide citations...
------
killjoywashere
I spent an impressive amount of time with a biostats PhD (who had veto power
on my IRB protocol) working this sort of stuff out. In the end it became clear
he really didn't care about the machine's training process at all, and he was
only interested in validation as a way to get to talk about comparitive
statistics to evaluate the results of many machines with each other.
I drew many, many tables on the whiteboard that day.
------
misterdoubt
_X causes Y if surgical (or randomized controlled) manipulations in X are
correlated with changes in Y_
_X causes Y if it doesn 't obviously not cause Y._
This seems to conveniently overlook the _decades_ of quantitative social
science built on "I controlled for a couple things, and p is less than .05, so
X causes Y."
But I'm not clear on the community context here. Is this just good-natured
ribbing?
~~~
daxat_staglatz
I do not think it does overlook that research: those papers generally assume
that once those things are controlled for, the remaining variation is as good
as random and thus we indeed recover the causal effect of X on Y. Many papers
are probably _wrong_ on this, but they still use "causation" in the first
sense and not in the second sense.
------
currymj
I would like to know what statisticians mean by "nonparametric", and what
machine learning people mean by "nonparametric", because they seem to be
something very different.
~~~
bonoboTP
In ML: when your model is not defined by a fixed set of parameters, but the
number of "parameters" varies depending on the training data. For example k
nearest neighbor classification requires storing the entire training set in
order to be able to make predictions. Gaussian process regression and
Dirichlet process based clustering (mixture fitting) are other examples.
Linear regression on the other hand is parametric as the model is defined by a
fixed set of coefficients whose count does not depend on the number of
training examples/observations.
~~~
currymj
this is how I understand it. but then I’ve heard statisticians describe neural
networks as “nonparametric”, even though they typically have a fixed number of
parameters. (millions of parameters! arguably they are the MOST parametric.)
~~~
srean
Neural Network in general is indeed nonparametric because the number of
weights are not something that is fixed in advance but learned from data. If
they are considered fixed, for example for logistic regression then its
considered parametric.
~~~
bonoboTP
The number of parameters in aneural net as used today, specifically in
computer vision, is basically never learned from training data. I actually
cannot recall practically used methods that would do that.
------
esalman
Another example but not related to statistics: "convolution" in machine
learning is not exactly the same thing as in signal processing.
------
visarga
> Statistics: regressions
vs.
> ML: supervised learners, machines
I think ML uses the term regression for the situations where the output is
numeric value (as opposed to a label), and supervised learning is more than
just regression. Usually regression models have mean squared error loss
function, that's one way to spot them.
~~~
wodenokoto
Yes, in ML (and I believe for regular statistics as well) regression is when
you are trying to predict a number rather than a label. Predicting house
prices is a classical example.
An exception for this is "logistic regression" which is accepted by both the
stats and ML communities.
Supervised learning is whenever you have a target variable for the
observations you use to train/fit your model.
If you only have targets for some of your observations, it is called "semi-
supervised learning". Although in deep learning you often talk about "pre-
training" your model, which often is adjusting weights in an unsupervised way.
So you can have supervised regression as well as supervised label predictors.
These can also be semi-supervised.
------
iagovar
Oh jesus, this is super useful. I had a hard time with ML people speak.
------
wUabkSG6L5Bfa5
I once interviewed at a biostats shop where the interviewer kept using the
word "responses" to refer to feature values. I could not pin him down on the
problem statement. Pretty sure that dumbass thinks I'm a dumbass.
~~~
ende
That doesn't make sense. By "response" he probably meant response variables,
as in the dependent variables. Features would be the independent variables (or
"predictors" in some stats/biostats circles).
~~~
wUabkSG6L5Bfa5
Precisely! Post hoc, I figured out that he must have meant responses to an
assay, which makes sense in context, but like, I would have expected someone
with any stats background whatsoever to be able to clarify.
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
The Researchers Who Analyzed All the Porn on the Internet - symkat
http://healthland.time.com/2011/05/19/mind-reading-the-researchers-who-analyzed-all-the-porn-on-the-internet/
======
hugh3
This was actually a really interesting article. I'm tempted to acquire this
book.
Oddly enough I saw this book for the first time on the new books rack in the
bookstore just a couple of hours ago and admired the cover design but didn't
bother to pick it up because I had no idea from the vague cover and
description what it was actually about. I suppose the publishers decided _not_
to go with a cover which emphasizes "porn".
Still, in the interests of maintaining a bookshelf which my mother can look
at, perhaps I'll get this one for the Nook.
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Barebones C64 emulator written in C99, compiled to WebAssembly in under 64K - ingve
https://floooh.github.io/oryol-sticky-tests/c64.html
======
harel
Is the code for this open? Curious to have a peek and a poke...
~~~
Arbalest
fwiw, the github author has starred this repo
[https://github.com/kondrak/rust64](https://github.com/kondrak/rust64)
There also exists this header file:
[https://github.com/floooh/yakc/blob/master/src/yakc/systems/...](https://github.com/floooh/yakc/blob/master/src/yakc/systems/c64.h)
~~~
shakna
It also seems to be based around Oryol [0], where this project is part of the
test suite [1].
[0] [https://github.com/floooh/oryol](https://github.com/floooh/oryol)
[1] [https://github.com/floooh/oryol-sticky-
tests](https://github.com/floooh/oryol-sticky-tests)
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Precorder for iPhone. Never miss a great video moment again - solipsist
http://thenextweb.com/apps/2011/01/25/precorder-for-iphone-never-miss-a-great-video-moment-again/?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+TheNextWeb+%28The+Next+Web+All+Stories%29&utm_content=Google+Reader
======
defen
Cool idea, but it took me a while to figure it out since this blog post is a
little unclear. My simplification: let's say you know an interesting event is
going to happen, but you don't know if it's going to happen in 5 seconds or
500. Using precorder, you can "pretend" to be recording it (you're still
pointing the camera at it, but nothing is being permanently saved yet), and
then press the "record" button when the interesting event occurs. It will
start recording like a normal video recording app, and prepend the previous N
seconds of video (where N is a user-selected value from 0-10).
~~~
evgen
The interesting detail I read somewhere else that is not mentioned in the
article is the source of the cool idea at the core of this. If you watched the
Planet Earth series (or saw any of the promos that were run 24x7 on the
various Discovery channels) there were some very, very cool shots of sharks
jumping out of the water while catching seals. To make these shots the
filmmakers had to invent a new camera technique because it was too difficult
to try to time the shot to get what they wanted. The digital cameras were
attached to what was essentially a big ring buffer and were constantly
running. When a shark breached the guy on the camera would press a button and
the buffer (which had the previous X seconds in it already) would dump and new
data would start going to disk to complete the shot.
------
kamens
Thanks -- this is our side-project which we posted on HN a while back during
launch: [http://bjk5.com/post/2768063563/great-white-sharks-are-
the-b...](http://bjk5.com/post/2768063563/great-white-sharks-are-the-best-
side-project)
~~~
solipsist
No problem. I really liked the idea of the app when I saw it. I do have a
question, though. Like _emef_ said in another comment on this post, what is
the purpose of the exact video embedded in this blog post? Where is the "pre-
recording" feature used?
~~~
kamens
It doesn't look like the key feature was used for this video. I'm not the blog
author, but I think he was just having a good time w/ the vid. Can't exactly
speak to that ;)
~~~
solipsist
OK, thanks for the clarification. I was under the impression that it was a
promotional video you had created, not something TheNextWeb put together.
~~~
kamens
No, sorry. Blogger contacted and covered us.
------
emef
It looks like a great app, but I don't think the example video added anything.
Why couldn't that be done with the normal photo/video app?
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
HPC Systems Special Offer: Two A64FX Nodes in a 2U for $40k - ZeljkoS
https://www.anandtech.com/show/15885/hpc-systems-special-offer-two-a64fx-nodes-in-a-2u-for-40k
======
FeepingCreature
An A64FX CPU has 48 cores. 1 CPU/node means 96 cores on 2 nodes for $40k and
~6TFLOPS (3 per). Meanwhile the 128 thread Threadripper 3990X costs $3.6k, and
benchs put it at 1.5TFLOPS in Linpack, which is less but not 10x less, and I
don't know what the benchmark basis for the A64FX value is, so I suspect it's
closer, especially since it says theoretical peak performance.
... Am I missing something?
~~~
dragontamer
A64FX has HBM2 RAM. This means it will be relatively low (32GBs RAM), but
extremely high performance RAM. Literally the highest-bandwidth RAM in the
market, directly wired onto the chip itself over an interposer (PCB is too
slow! Direct interposer connections only mm away from the cores).
Your implication is correct however. x86 is more in line with "typical"
consumers, and even businesses, who need this kind of compute.
Dell's C6525 quad-node dual-socket EPYC is a good example of what a typical
compute-oriented build: [https://www.servethehome.com/dell-emc-
poweredge-c6525-review...](https://www.servethehome.com/dell-emc-
poweredge-c6525-review-2u4n-amd-epyc-kilo-thread-server/)
\-------------
A64FX is an HBM2 box. Its a normal CPU (not a GPU), with access to that
stupid-high bandwidth RAM. There's probably a few use cases where the high-
bandwidth becomes a major advantage.
A64FX compares against the NVidia V100 on a memory-bandwidth and memory-
capacity basis (and is approaching GPU-level FLOPs thanks to SVE 512-bit SIMD
units). Except its running the ARM instruction set. As others have pointed
out, this thing is like Xeon Phi 2.0, except with the notable niche that its
the #1 supercomptuer in the world right now.
~~~
brandmeyer
SVE is considerably richer than AVX-512, IMO. Its got better unaligned
load/store support (especially on A64FX) and richer instructions for
generating and manipulating masks.
For example, SVE has mask partitioning and speculative vector load
instructions to accelerate data-dependent loop termination. You can do a
vector-length-agnostic strncpy on SVE without too much effort.
------
guillaumei
[https://www.csm.ornl.gov/srt/conferences/Scala/2019/keynote_...](https://www.csm.ornl.gov/srt/conferences/Scala/2019/keynote_2.pdf)
for an overall presentation of the A64FX and the "supercomputer" Fugaku.
------
ksec
2U is only available in Japan. They only ship whole Rack internationally.
May be someone could give some hints as to why?
~~~
q3k
Probably they don't want to deal with the overhead of international sales,
shipping, logistics and support for just a $40k contract.
------
Uptrenda
What is up with the price? 40k for only 2 x 48 cores and a mediocre 2 ghz
clock rate. Modern processors are way more efficient than older processors but
I simply can't imagine the efficiency adds up to (simplistically) $416 per
core...
Very interesting memory bus though... 1 TB / s? That is cool, but I would
still much rather get a crap load more cores at a reasonable price then be
able to send around data that efficiently. Granted, I am definitely not the
target audience for this.
~~~
nottorp
If you need that kind of memory bandwidth you'll probably know already, and
maybe this will even look cheap.
HBM not only has lotsa bandwidth(tm) but also much better latency?
~~~
formerly_proven
Latency in conventional DDRx memory is limited by the DRAM array itself, which
doesn't change with the interface (DDR, GDDR, HBM, ...). Essentially, with
regular DRAM, you cannot do better than the contemporary low-latency DDRx
memory. You might chose to increase latency to increase throughput, though.
~~~
microcolonel
> _Essentially, with regular DRAM, you cannot do better than the contemporary
> low-latency DDRx memory. You might chose to increase latency to increase
> throughput, though._
My understanding is that, given how memory systems work right now, typically
it's the opposite: increasing throughput decreases latency.
------
sjreese
This is a business workhouse; think web hosting, HPC scientific programming OR
any Bitcoin mining related business. You have a system that pays for itself
and RHEL means it will run any Linux application. Adding AI ( What is
processing ) it is a real money maker in the USA. 2U means at home - I'll bet
the US FTC is already placing import restrictions on it as we speak, (with
AT&T wavier) See Also: SKYDRIVE [https://nerdist.com/article/japanese-flying-
cars-nerdist-new...](https://nerdist.com/article/japanese-flying-cars-nerdist-
news/)
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
No, you probably don’t have a book in you - BerislavLopac
https://theoutline.com/post/5541/unconventional-wisdom-you-should-not-write-a-book
======
rossdavidh
A quicker way to put this: \- let's say you want your book to be read by more
than 2 or 3 people; let's use the number 10,000 for argument's sake. \- let's
say most people read 10 books in a year (some do more, but many do less) \-
that means out of 1,000 people, they can support one, count it one, book per
year \- so out of those 1,000 people, fewer than 100 will get to write even a
single book that gets read by significant numbers of people
All the other stuff in this article is no doubt true, but in fact people who
write really, really good books that succeed at all of that still don't get
read. It's simply a matter of arithmetic. Most of us will not be writing best
sellers, even if we all write amazingly good books.
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Ask HN: Why are there no closed captions for the “vocabulary impaired”? - amichail
Such a feature would automatically show you the definitions of difficult words that you may not know.<p>That way, you don't even need to pause your movie/TV show to look up the meaning of a word.<p>Wouldn't that improve vocabulary significantly and be relatively easy to implement?
======
Piskvorrr
Not sure what exactly you mean. Do you mean subtitles like this? (with
apologies to George Lucas and thanks to
[http://xkcd.com/simplewriter/](http://xkcd.com/simplewriter/) )
It is a time of people's war. Space ships of people who do not agree, hitting
from a hidden home, have won their first win against the bad Many-Star-Group
Big-Country. During the fight, people who steal hidden information for people
who do not agree managed to steal hidden plans to the Big-Country's greatest
attack thing, the DEATH STAR, a hard-metal covered space house with enough
power to put away an entire large space home ball.
In such case, it would probably be better to see _both_ the simplified and
original subtitles, no?
------
27182818284
It isn't a pain point for most people. In addition to that, for some people
like myself, it is the opposite of a pain point as I don't mind learning new
words by looking them up.
~~~
amichail
What's wrong with learning new words WITHOUT looking them up?
~~~
Piskvorrr
It does sound as an interesting experiment. I wonder if there's a thesaurus
mapping English to (a) simple English...although I can imagine that output of
such experiment would not be exactly fluent.
I'm not sure that I'd be able to keep up with all the state - 1.story,
2.visual, 3.spoken word, 4.simplified subtitles and their map to 3 (even
"normal" subtitles are pretty distracting).
edit: Let me abuse another classic for an example - something like that
(emphasized words would be the subtitles)?
"All _ancient land name_ is _split_ into three parts, one of which the _tribe
name_ _live_ , the _tribe name_ another, those who in their own language are
called _tribe name_ , in ours _tribe name_ , the third. All these differ from
each other in language, _what they do_ and laws. The river Garonne _splits_
the Gauls from the Aquitani; the Marne and the Seine _split_ them from the
Belgae. Of all these, the Belgae are the _most brave_ , because they are _most
far_ from the _Roman cities_ and _development_ of [our] _part of the world_ ,
and _sellers_ _not often_ _go_ to them and _bring_ those things which tend to
_make weak_ the mind; and they are the _closest_ to the _tribe name_ , who
_live_ beyond the Rhine, with whom they are _all the time_ _making_ war; for
which reason the _tribe name_ also _are better than_ the rest of the Gauls in
_being brave_ , as they _fight_ with the Germans in almost daily _fights_ ,
when they either _chase away_ them from their own _lands_ , or themselves
_attack_ on their _borders_.
~~~
amichail
Instead of simplified subtitles, you would just see the definition of a rare
word that was just said.
------
GFK_of_xmaspast
How do you know what is and is not a rare word.
~~~
Piskvorrr
Language corpus: feed a large collection of texts into database, sort by word
frequency. The lower the frequency, the rarer the word.
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Crash-only software: More than meets the eye (2006) - djpuggypug
http://lwn.net/Articles/191059/
======
rdtsc
> he resulting system is often more robust and reliable because crash recovery
> is a first-class citizen in the development process, rather than an
> afterthought,
Because of that I usually make all my services and systems crash only. End up
using things like use atomic file moves, open files with append-only, use kill
-9 to stop services and so on. To make your system crash-onl,y you have to go
down the base system calls.
Some observed effects so far (many are covered in the article):
* Faster restarts (if your regular operation involves restarting lots of processes).
* Less code (don't have to handle both the clean shutdown and dirty shutdown).
* Recovery/cleanup code if it is needed, is often ends up moved to startup instead of shutdown (you might have to recover corrupt files when you start up again. For example re-truncate the files to a known offset based on some index).
* Something else might need to manage external resources (OS IPC recources, shared memory, IPC message queues etc). This could be a supervisor process.
* If you do a lot of socket operations on localhost, your sockets could get stuck in TIME_WAIT state and you'll eventually run out of ephemeral ports if you do a lot of restarts (say during testing). SIGTERM signals often are caught and processes (libraries) perform a cleaner shutdown.
* Think very well about the database you use and see if it can can support crash only operation. Some do some don't ( I won't name any names here ).
------
mjb
Crash-only software is a great concept, and this article is a very interesting
summary of what it is (and what it's not). If you read only one section of
Candea and Fox's paper, I would recommend section 3 "Properties of Crash-Only
Software". It lays out some basic properties of proper crash-only software,
which work as guidelines even for software that doesn't go all the way to the
crash-only ideal.
My favorite one of the principles is "All important non-volatile state is
managed by dedicated state stores". Being both crash-only (or even just
tolerating crashes) and keeping state is a very difficult combination, and you
don't want every one of your services needing to solve that problem over and
over. Dedicated state stores let you hand this problem off, which turns many
systems stateless (or at least without hard state). Tolerating crashes in
soft-state-only services is much easier, perhaps even trivial if you follow
the other rules.
I wrote a blog post about this paper a while back
([http://brooker.co.za/blog/2012/01/22/crash-
only.html](http://brooker.co.za/blog/2012/01/22/crash-only.html)), if anybody
is interested.
------
sbierwagen
I've got a billion tabs open in Firefox, (plus a bunch of extensions) which
seems to expose some O(n^2) algorithm in the internals, because it becomes
unusably slow after running for 24 hours. I can either quit it normally, which
takes 7 minutes-- or just kill the process and restart it.
~~~
mtdewcmu
Firefox is a house of cards, because all those billion tabs are sharing a
single process and they all need to cooperate perfectly.
~~~
Dewie
In what ways do the tabs need to cooperate/interact?
~~~
pessimizer
They have to share the same thread. If one blocks, they all block.
~~~
mtdewcmu
There are many threads, but threads are not isolated by the OS to the same
extent as processes; hence, their fates are all intertwined. The user can't
kill one misbehaving thread, and even if you could, you couldn't expect the
program to be stable afterward.
~~~
coryrc
Heh, I have attached to the process, went to the stuck thread, went up a few
frames, and told it to return. Never did recover, as expected :) But before it
restored all your tabs it was worth a shot at saving the state.
------
signa11
surprising that no one mentioned erlang in this context. the view that you
don't need to program defensively at all. programs can terminate for a variety
of reasons, and as long as a monitoring process / program can take corrective
action it's all good.
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
The long arrow operator in C++ - santaclaus
http://cukic.co/2017/07/12/the-long-arrow-operator-in-cxx/
======
marklgr
Obligatory "x slides to zero":
while (x --\
\
\
\
> 0)
printf("%d ", x);
~~~
TeMPOraL
Also, never forget, the C++ Multi-Dimensional Analog Literals:
assert( ( o-------------o
|L \
| L \
| L \
| o-------------o
| ! !
! ! !
o | !
L | !
L | !
L| !
o-------------o ).volume == ( o-------------o
| !
! !
! !
o-------------o ).area * int(I-------------I) );
[http://www.eelis.net/C++/analogliterals.xhtml](http://www.eelis.net/C++/analogliterals.xhtml)
~~~
Longhanks
This is some serious black magic. I cannot wrap my head around the fact that
this is valid C++...
~~~
blattimwind
These are "just" some free symbols (o, I, L) used with overloaded operators
(!, |, --). The rest is pretty formatting with whitespace which isn't relevant
to functionality.
------
lower
I remember this from a similar example in C:
#include <stdio.h>
int main()
{
int x = 10;
while (x --> 0) /* x goes to 0 */
{
printf("%d ", x);
}
}
(prints 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1 0)
[https://stackoverflow.com/questions/1642028/what-is-the-
oper...](https://stackoverflow.com/questions/1642028/what-is-the-operator-
in-c)
~~~
jfktrey
Works just as well in Java. I'll have to slip this in to my next code review
:)
~~~
beeforpork
Careful with these jokes -- your coding style nazis will give you a new coding
rule in return to prevent this madness in the future!
~~~
mcguire
Or, worse, adopt it as the way to do things.
I blame Haskell, Scala, and Ruby.
~~~
lower
> Or, worse, adopt it as the way to do things.
Thompson, Ritchie and Kernighan admit that Unix was a prank
[http://www.stokely.com/lighter.side/unix.prank.html](http://www.stokely.com/lighter.side/unix.prank.html)
------
alejohausner
You can even approach 0 from left and right simultaneously:
while (a -->> k --> 0 <-- b <<-- c)
and you can have dashed arrows too:
k = a <- - - - - b;
~~~
trelliscoded
In the dashed case, k is going to be zero or one (a<b is true or false). This
works, though:
int a=0, b=4;
while(a < - - - - --b) {
printf("b: %d\n", b);
}
~~~
alejohausner
I just spent an hour constructing a class called Morse such that this outputs
"HELLO WORLD!":
Morse m;
cout << (++++m) << (+m) << (+-++m) << (+-++m) << (---m) << ", "
<< (+--m) << (---m) << (+-+m) << (+-++m) << (-++m) << "!\n";
Damn you, C++! Why won't you let me overload the . operator? ;-)
------
std_throwaway
In python there is the term "pythonic" describing if something is in the
spirit of the languages founding fathers. As in: "The most pythonic way to
write this down is ..." or "Map/filter don't feel very pythonic."
What is the equivalent term or expression for being in the spirit of C++?
The article, while a joke (just like C++ originally, look it up), feels very
C++y.
~~~
barsonme
I think the word is "confusing"
~~~
TallGuyShort
I was once taught, "In C, calling a solution 'interesting' is a compliment. In
Python, that's an insult. Maybe we should go with "interesting".
------
pzone
Cute. Though if I actually saw this in a codebase I might tear my hair out.
------
kuon
Even if it's a Joke, C++ lost me a decade ago...
~~~
sqeaky
That's a shame. C++11/14/17 each make the language better and deal with many
of the might have pushed someone away in the past.
The typing is getting stronger, the library richer and hard things easier. If
you know about or can google RAII and are willing to lookup things on occasion
to pick algorithms or just the right member function, code gets very clean.
After not too long the looking stops because the std lib is still pretty small
compared to other languages.
But if you have already moved to Rust I can't make an objective argument for
it.
~~~
jussij
> C++11/14/17 each make the language better and deal
That may be true, but all you are seeing is C++ copying from every other
language in an effort to once again become relevant.
IMHO in this modern day and age there are so many easier, better, more
expressive, easier to use languages than C++ to choose from.
And that is coming from someone who spent a lot of time coding C++ some 15
years ago.
~~~
sqeaky
> an effort to once again become relevant.
I was unaware that being the 2nd and 3rd most popular language made it not
relevant when I guess nothing is relevant except Java. (Per the Tiobe index)
If you need high level abstractions and the ability to tweak for performance
at the lowest levels the it is either C++ or Rust, and if you need a mature
ecosystem that really only leaves C++. Game devs, Google, Facebook, HPC and
tons of stuff and now with emscripten and WASM we get to compete with JS devs
for in browser games too!
------
awinter-py
and don't forget the equally useful and serious integer unary-double-equal
greater-than operator
8==>
~~~
digi_owl
I guess if this was Reddit, we would have had a meme storm by now...
------
Double_a_92
Law of Demeter, much?
------
jussij
Is this an Aprils fools joke posted a few months late?
------
ented
Why??????????????????????????
~~~
std_throwaway
It's a joke.
~~~
ggdG
They had me because it was so similar to the - very real - combinations of
"conses" in the lisp world: caaaar, cdaddr, cddddr and so on.
[https://franz.com/support/documentation/6.0/ansicl/dictentr/...](https://franz.com/support/documentation/6.0/ansicl/dictentr/carcdrca.htm)
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Struggling to concentrate? - codebeaker
http://glutendude.com/celiac/celiac-disease-and-brain-fog/
======
codebeaker
I have no affiliation to the site linked, actually it was the first result
that wasn't about.com.
Following some of my comments on the “Meals/Feels” thread
([https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6601091](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6601091))
earlier in the month, a number of people contacted me mentioning that they
also had these symptoms, but had never put things together.
Showing up for work at 8:30 and being useless, frustrated and unable to focus
by 10:00, probably that bagel you ate for breakfast.
I just wanted to put out a link in a place where people might run into it,
that might just improve your quality of life!
Whilst I can't stand by suggestions to go to a caveman diet, I can stand by
advice to experiment with your food, and be aware that being short tempered,
unable to focus, and a menace to your team might be related to something as
innocuous as your daily bread.
------
DiabloD3
I'm glad more and more people are realizing Paleo is the way to go
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Drbdmanage is no longer open source - roidelapluie
http://git.drbd.org/drbdmanage.git/commit/441dc6a96b0bc6a08d2469fa5a82d97fc08e8ec1
======
wmf
Now that's an honest commit message.
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Young Alan Turing and the Arctangent - octonion
http://angrystatistician.blogspot.com/2015/01/young-alan-turing.html
======
tempodox
What is “ _undercontrained_ ”?
~~~
Pitarou
He means "underconstrained".
In other words, there is more than one function that satisfies the relation
f(2x) = f(x) * f(x), so we need to find some more constraints to exactly pin
down the Maclaurin expansion of exp(x).
------
kranner
The author seems to have linked to the wrong book as the inspiration for the
movie though the author's name is correct.
This is the book I remember seeing named in the credits:
[http://www.amazon.com/Alan-Turing-Enigma-Inspired-
Imitation-...](http://www.amazon.com/Alan-Turing-Enigma-Inspired-Imitation-
ebook/dp/B00M032W92/)
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Show HN: Barcode – Your Own Private Gym - dannyminutillo
http://barcodegym.com
======
dannyminutillo
Would anyone use this? Trying to get some user feedback.
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Ask HN: Tools for sharing info on distributed teams? - navd
I'm wondering if anyone can point me to a set of tools that you use to find/share info (procedures, docs, etc) between colleagues on your team?
======
markoa
We host our company playbook as a collection of Markdown files in a GitHub
repo.
~~~
navd
We do the same right now, it kinda works but we might have info for tools
we've built spread across repos.
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Ask HN: What are some good skills to learn as back ender during quaranteene? - scalatohaskell
======
vpEfljFL
I would advise you to enlarge your education in agriculture space especially
growing potato species. It will be helpful and relaxing at the same time.
Fresh air is good for your health as well alongside with physical exercises.
------
slater
Spelling! :D
(scnr)
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Where Games Go to Sleep: The Game Preservation Crisis (2011) - korethr
http://www.gamasutra.com/view/feature/134641/where_games_go_to_sleep_the_game_.php
======
moonshinefe
A lot of it is due to companies centralizing games and putting up huge
barriers to even make games functional without their black box servers. After
many of these games die off population wise, the companies just drop them
instead of giving back to the community to preserve it.
Look at TF2--it could foreseeably be modified and anyone can run a server for
it. It may be possible to preserve it. Blizzard's Overwatch on the other hand,
which is somewhat of a successor to it, they won't let the game to work at all
without their servers since it's a gigantic, centralized black box. Those
servers might go away.
The only reason WoW is preserved for the future at all with third party
vanilla servers is because during the beta they made a mistake and leaked a
ton of debugging info and world data early on. Ideally (from the company's
perspective), we wouldn't even had that and one of the biggest blockbuster
MMOs in history would simply be lost.
Not picking on Blizzard in particular, but they've gone from a decentralized
model in the Diablo 1, War 2 BNE, and Starcraft 1 days to massively
centralized. If there isn't a profit to be had, I think they'll be very happy
to let the history die there, which is very unfortunate and seems to be a
model many AAA game companies are taking at this point, not just Blizz.
~~~
xg15
The irony is that a lot of games before the era of centralisation have active
preservation communities and will probably live on - but a lot of newer games
likely won't, for the reasons you described.
I think it's very likely people will still play Tetris, Final Fantasy IV and
Star Craft in 50 years. Star Craft II and Final Fantasy XV? Not so much.
~~~
degenerate
Life, uh, finds a way. As long as you have talented people that love a game,
they will find some way to preserve it. Even though Blizzard is still running
Battle.net to this day (bless them for that) -- people have created spin-off
servers for Starcraft by analyzing the netcode and mimicking the servers:
[https://freeablo.org/](https://freeablo.org/) (diablo)
[https://shieldbattery.net/splash](https://shieldbattery.net/splash)
(starcraft broodwar)
[http://www.openwow.com/](http://www.openwow.com/) (world of warcraft)
If Blizzard ever shut down battle.net 2.0 there will be a group of people
putting their heads together to mimic the server. Or, if needed, recreate the
entire game engine from decompiled code or scratch. Look at OpenRA and OpenBW
for these examples:
[http://www.openra.net/about/](http://www.openra.net/about/)
[http://www.openbw.com/](http://www.openbw.com/)
And if that's not good enough, game preservation might become a new industry
just like art preservation. We already have GoG releasing classic titles by
working with publishers and digital rights holders to re-release classic
games; this model can be extended to those "black box" games where the server
code is saved in a repository for years but never released until someone like
GoG comes along and revives the game the legal way:
[https://www.gog.com/](https://www.gog.com/)
So, if a game is loved by enough people it will live on.
------
pjc50
To expand on a comment downthread: preservation is piracy and piracy is
preservation. Unfortunately this is unpopular with games publishers.
Traditional archive preservation relies on preserving the media. But for many
games now there is no media, or it's optical disks which aren't going to last.
In order to preserve it it has to be copied. The publishers have no interest
in this and the rights may become mired in uncertainty when the publisher goes
bankrupt.
Conversely, many things we only have copies of because copies were made
illegally. Not just games but TV programmes as well (the notorious early Dr
Who episodes for example).
And if we look at some of the other "big content" industries, they find it
might not be in their interest to allow their old content to compete with
current content for attention. Disney don't make all their films available on
the market at the same time ("disney vault") for this reason.
------
krzrak
I am often thinking this: we put lots of effort into preserving pieces of art,
architecture, writing, etc. from the past (which is, of course, good and
desired).
On the other hand we often don't treat modern creations as an equally valuable
artifacts (so called modern "art" or "performance", etc. is a subject for
another rant on real value of art;). People put tremendous effort into
creating video games, movies, etc. which are of great artistic value, but we
let them slip into oblivion.
So, it's great to see that something is starting to happen in this subject.
~~~
ido
Haven't read the article yet, but from skimming it it doesn't seem to mention
The Internet Archive's work in preserving classic arcade, computer and console
games (not sure if it was already underway in 2011):
[https://archive.org/details/software](https://archive.org/details/software)
It is quite extensive and growing all the time.
~~~
msl09
Well, the internet archive stores the games, not the source or the development
material. Maybe they could start doing so, but I guess it would cost them a
lot to find storage space for that.
~~~
badpenny
I've been trying to collect as much video game source code as I can at
[https://github.com/videogamepreservation/](https://github.com/videogamepreservation/).
~~~
hd4
Please add Allegiance (open source space sim by Microsoft). Also Mechcommander
2.
~~~
badpenny
They're pretty big repos (461MB and 785MB compressed) but I'll try to get them
uploaded ASAP.
------
ideonexus
There's a parallel with the early film industry. In the early 1900s, when a
film had completed its run at the theaters, no effort was made to preserve it.
The amazing science fiction classic "Metropolis" was a famous example. We
still don't quite have a complete copy of this groundbreaking visionary film,
and until recent years (when missing scenes were discovered) DVD releases of
the film had placeholders describing the action that was missing.
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lost_film](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lost_film)
It sounds like we are doing a better job preserving our early video game
history than we did preserving our early film history.
------
cableshaft
I've got some things from old jobs in the game industry, which at least for
now I'm sitting on because I don't want to get in trouble for releasing it and
want more time to pass before doing so (I've already waited almost a decade).
But I care very much about game preservation and would like to see the
information get out there in some form someday.
None of the games I worked on were high profile, but I do have some
interesting documentation on them.
I also started keeping a personal design diary as of last November that keeps
my thoughts and ideas on my game designs and how they change over time that I
might one day release to the public (or a descendant might).
I also used to make and release Flash games and I'm investigating ways to keep
those available once the web moves on 100% from Flash. I've got some
documentation from the design of those that could be interesting as well.
I need to find the time to sit down and compile all this, though, in addition
to working on new things.
------
drops
This thing launched just this week:
[http://gamehistory.org](http://gamehistory.org)
------
match
Many of these companies are having to choose control and the ability to
continue to make profit from their intellectual property vs they're games
effectively being free in a historical archive.
Wonder if any of them would be willing to partner with a company or non-profit
(such as the IA) if they offered to archive the code and artifacts for safe
keeping but not automatically release it unless legally allowed to do so. Some
things would probably stay under wraps for a long time, but at least it
wouldn't be lost that way.
------
prophesi
I used to play Maplestory back in the day. When I came back, I was upset to
find that it had undergone a huge patch that changed most of what I enjoyed
about it. Luckily, there are a handful of private servers that still run
legacy versions of the game. My favorite pastime would have been lost forever
if a few clever people didn't update their game.
------
josephtobin
He/she probably can't. The concept is not new. Here's a flash version of the
same game [http://bagario.net](http://bagario.net) . it is a few years old.
------
cooper12
Part Two:
[http://www.gamasutra.com/view/feature/134653/where_games_go_...](http://www.gamasutra.com/view/feature/134653/where_games_go_to_sleep_the_game_.php)
------
programmernews3
I thought this was going to be about leaving older consoles, like the SNES, on
overnight when you couldnt save
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Is Sequoia China in Trouble? - vaksel
http://www.techcrunch.com/2009/05/15/is-sequoia-china-in-trouble/
======
ev0
Sequoia China is kind of a joke in China. Countless epic fails. But after all,
the Chinese capital market could simply be too capricious and treacherous for
foreign firms to explore. Or, more broadly, the VC model for the Internet is
largely broken in China. There are effectively hardly any laws protecting
venture business in China. Greedy partners could steal the money and
disappear. The government could shut down your industry over night. i.e. the
online video sharing business in China. And Sequoia China may have fallen into
every pitfall possible out there.
~~~
curiousgeorge
I don't see much evidence that the company was funding growth oriented small
venture plays in China. Their role was to help Chinese companies line up
foreign IPOs and cash out.
------
varaon
Mirror:
[http://74.125.93.132/search?hl=en&q=cache%3Ahttp%3A%2F%2...](http://74.125.93.132/search?hl=en&q=cache%3Ahttp%3A%2F%2Fwww.techcrunch.com%2F2009%2F05%2F15%2Fis-
sequoia-china-in-trouble%2F&btnG=Google+Search&meta=&aq=f&oq=)
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
People Don’t Buy Products, They Buy Better Versions of Themselves - benryon
https://medium.com/@zandercutt/people-dont-buy-products-they-buy-better-versions-of-themselves-d481390bfcee
======
ThJ
In the advertising industry, this is called a lifestyle brand. I suspect that
the earliest lifestyle brands were luxury watches and cars, not Pepsi.
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Americans' plastic recycling is dumped in landfills, investigation shows - HillaryBriss
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2019/jun/21/us-plastic-recycling-landfills
======
kilo_bravo_3
I've started, to the greatest extent possible and practical, eliminating
single-use plastics from my life.
If something comes in either a metal can and and a plastic pouch, even if it
is more expensive I'll buy the metal can version.
A glass jar can be recycled or will break down into sand, a metal can can be
recycled or turn into rust, a paper or cardboard container may be recyclable
and will break down into mush.
A plastic bag or jar is unlikely to be recycled and the polymer chains that it
is made up of will remain on earth for a human-scale definition of "forever"
slowly breaking down into microscopic pieces that get into the water and are
carried by slight breezes.
Hopefully, one day, soon, single-use plastics will be seen as a colossal
mistake on par with lead in gasoline, radium clocks, asbestos tiles, and
dumping industrial waste into waterways.
Small changes add up. I have a container of yogurt nearly every day. That's
~350 plastic cups into the fake "recycling" stream every year. Last year I
started weaning myself off plastics and now make my own yogurt in an Instant
Pot. It takes minutes of effort spread over 9 hours. The milk I get comes in a
glass jar from a local CSA that reuses the jars when I return them for more
milk and then I put the yogurt in mason jars.
20 years from now those mason jars will still be usable and 7,000 plastic cups
will have not been consumed, "recycled", shipped to Asia, and burned in open
pits.
Please just spend a couple of minutes and think of how you can lower your
plastic use.
~~~
mrnobody_67
Wish I could upvote this more than once.
Been trying to do this for quite a while, especially since my city has pretty
limited garbage service (one can every two weeks).
Online ordering and the plastic air-bubbles (and occasional foam peanuts) are
absolutely brutal. Recently saw BetterPackaging.com which is interesting -
hopefully more of that in the future.
[https://loopstore.com](https://loopstore.com) also seems to hold some promise
------
ZeroGravitas
Plastic recycling is like a horseshoe theory of politics thing. Most of this
article could have come from an article actually advocating for landfilling
plastic funded by plastics manufacturers who fear recycled plastic as
conpetition, but I guess the actual target audience is people who get so angry
about the unrecycled or unrecyclable plastics that they go off in the opposite
direction and want plastics banned by governments entirely.
------
teslabox
Some months ago I defended the herbal beverages made with various medicinal
plant extracts: Kola Nut, Coca Leaf, root extracts, etc [1]. In that post I
spoke of having a 2-Liter bottle of the classic herbal beverage for when it
seemed like my blood sugar was getting a little low.
In recent months I've decided that even though the 2L bottles are probably
cheaper on a per-ounce basis, my waste 2L bottles were contributing to the
plastic problem. I've switched to buying 12 ounce cans, which I open and pour
into a glass.
My last purchase of Kola was as boxed 12-packs (no plastic in the packaging,
other than possibly in the can liner [2]). I save my cans, and will be taking
them to a local salvage yard to be properly recycled.
My trash company supposedly has "single stream" recycling, but I doubt they
find all the aluminum cans the waste stream.
In drafting this comment I found a Wired story about the engineering that goes
into can production [2]. My cans probably have BPA liners -- "hmm". Maybe I'll
buy some Kola nuts and make my own herbal beverage.
[1]
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17979670](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17979670)
[2] [https://www.wired.com/2015/03/secret-life-aluminum-can-
true-...](https://www.wired.com/2015/03/secret-life-aluminum-can-true-modern-
marvel/)
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Show HN: CartoChrono, a mapping tool – useful to anyone else? - chrisdew
http://www.cartochrono.com
======
chrisdew
I'm considering spending some more time on this to refactor the code and add a
couple of new features. I want to find out whether such a tool is of use to
anyone else, before spending further hours. I am open to feature requests.
------
Amir6
Hey, This is a great idea but the way I see it its more of a demo tool but
without any way to export the map (as embedded map or even GIF). May be I
didn't completely get the point or it might be a good add.
Anyways, great work and hope to see new features.
~~~
chrisdew
Thanks, I like the idea of making an embeddable playback widget for other
people's web sites. The point was to be able to visualise chunks of CSV
time/position data - being able to publish those visualisations may be a
useful feature.
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
The Sixth Extinction: An Unnatural History - wolfgke
http://www.theguardian.com/books/2014/feb/16/sixth-extinction-unnatural-history-elizabeth-kolbert-review
======
nirnira
Some of this seems like conflating unrelated issues. For example, the issue of
brown tree snakes and other extremely successful "invasive" traveller species.
Well, obviously that snake is very well-adapted for the environment of Guam.
It's natural that a more interconnected world means that any given species
which could be well-adapted somewhere else in the world has a better shot of
actually reaching that place. Overall what we're really seeing is the collapse
of old protective "anti-competitive" barriers. And a new competitive
equilibrium will be reached after the dust settles. Superior adaptive
strategies will propagate.
The only reason I can see to view this is as negative is a) sentimentality
about "naturalness," b) aesthetic distaste for hyper-successful species, c)
concerns that, in the short-term, rapid homogenisation of ecosystems may
degrade their utility to humans (e.g. loss of ecosystem services such as water
and air purification, or loss of organisms with useful novel biological
properties - frogs with special antibodies and so forth. a) is silly, because
what is less natural than a world overrun with hairless apes devouring every
resource they can find? b) is again silly - anyone who feels like this really
hasn't come to terms with being human, and should be worrying about what they
see when they look in the mirror. c) is valid, though of course completely
self-centered.
So as far as I can see this problem comes down to self-interest and self-
disgust.
Climate change of course is a rather more serious issue - though it does come
down to similar feelings of self-interest and self-disgust
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Ask HN: Is there a scalable method to paying contractors by check? - Axsuul
We currently work with over 100 contractors whom we pay by check weekly. Currently we are writing checks by hand. We plan on scaling our contractors by an order of magnitude the next year or so. Can anyone recommend a scalable method or service for writing checks or paying our contractors?
======
itafroma
What you're looking for is a payroll service; they generally will handle both
regular wage earners and 1099 contractors and will do the check printing,
direct deposit, and year-end tax reporting.
We used Paychex for years to handle that type of stuff, but there are
definitely others out there that are just as good if not better.
~~~
gee_totes
On top of that, having a payroll service with direct deposit makes contractors
very happy.
I have not used Paychex, but I would advise against ADP (another payroll
company).
------
nmcfarl
There are programs that print checks with signatures already on them using
just your normal printer. VersaCheck is the one I can think of off the top of
my head.
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Vertcoin (VTC) is currently being 51% attacked - whichcoin
https://medium.com/@mwnesbitt/vertcoin-vtc-is-currently-being-51-attacked-53ab633c08a4
======
kenny_r
The animated gif embedded in the article is incredibly hard to follow, since
it has no controls to pause or go back to the previous frame. I wish the
author had just embedded it as a series of images.
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Show HN: Awesometalk – Free video calling without the hassle - brendanib
https://www.awesometalk.com/
======
zachlatta
How is this different than [https://appear.in/](https://appear.in/)?
~~~
brendanib
Right now they're very similar, but we're working on getting Awesometalk onto
more platforms than just the web. We want you to be able to send anyone an
Awesometalk link, and no matter what device they're using, have a
conversation.
~~~
zachlatta
Isn't that exactly what the web is good at though? Cross-platform? Right now I
can send a friend an appear.in link and they can open it on their Android
device and join the chat. I don't think Safari on iOS has WebRTC support yet,
but I can't imagine that they're not working on it.
~~~
brendanib
Let's say you send a link to someone on an iOS device -- we can prompt them to
install a native app, then as soon as they open the app, with no login, your
call starts.
Apple actually is refusing to add WebRTC to Safari, because if you have good
HTML5 support and WebRTC, you can do much more outside of a native app, which
hurts their ability to control the app ecosystem, and helps developers ship to
Android and iOS on the same day. I hope this changes, but right now it doesn't
seem promising.
------
mholt
Awesome! I just tried it from a university campus to a business ISP (both very
high bandwidth) and the quality was crystal-clear.
Two immediate requests:
1) Screen sharing
2) Group chats
Definitely loving that there's no other software or installations required.
Looking forward to its further development.
(Edit: Already got an email from the developers, and I understand the security
limitations of easy screen sharing, so I guess just do what is possible; I'm
not asking for the impossible. Just easier than installing some full-blown
software, if possible, would be great.)
------
brendanib
Hey, I'm one of the co-founders of Awesometalk. We started working on this 2
weeks ago and I'd be happy to answer any questions you have.
~~~
abengoam
Hey there, I just tried it and my experience was not very satisfactory. I
imagine you are interested on the feedback so there it goes: video quality was
low (super choppy, video was getting frozen at several points), voice quality
was low (I could understand about 50% of what was said) and when a third
person tried to join it got a message "This call is full right now" (which I
don't know if it's a bug or by design - it's not clear if this is just a
1-to-1 service). Anyways, the concept is very cool and I hope you get to make
it work. A reliable service like this would remove a lot of my communication
headaches.
~~~
brendanib
Thanks for the feedback, sorry your first call didn't go well.
When the connection is poor, as it sounds like it was in this case, would you
be okay if we fell back to audio-only and explained why? This seems like a
better experience than trying to fight through lag, but we want to be careful
not to arbitrarily cut off your video feed.
~~~
rogerbinns
In Skype I have the option to show call technical info turned on.
It is immensely helpful since it shows continually updated values for latency,
packet loss (in both directions), codec in use, bitrates etc. From that I can
easily tell what the issues are (latency spikes vs packet loss are hard to
distinguish due to the same symptoms).
That isn't helpful for the masses, but you can display some sort of connection
quality indicator. You can also offer suggestions on seeing latency spikes or
packet loss (try to work out of they are upstream or downstream).
The usual solution to video is to reduce bitrate, resolution and framerate.
Blocky video that is taking seconds to update is an obvious indicator of
connection quality issues.
~~~
brendanib
Thanks Roger -- we really want to create a connection quality indicator like
you describe, kind of like the number of bars on your cell connection.
One of our biggest frustrations with existing services is that it's hard to
tell why the call quality is poor - is it my connection, your connection, or
the service's fault?
Can I shoot you an email when we get a beta version of that indicator working?
I'd love to get your feedback on it.
~~~
toomuchtodo
Are you collecting network information/statistics from both sides of the call?
That may assist in troubleshooting.
~~~
brendanib
We are collecting anonymous data about the network, browser, etc. and tying it
back to core metrics like call length, but there's always more we can do. I'm
really hoping that more browsers start to support the network information API
natively too: [https://developer.mozilla.org/en-
US/docs/WebAPI/Network_Info...](https://developer.mozilla.org/en-
US/docs/WebAPI/Network_Information)
------
waldir
This only seems to work for two people at the moment (i.e. no group calls),
but for that use case, it seems promising.
As it happens, for the past few days I've been trying out a lot of tools for
online video/audio conferencing, and made a summary of their features here:
[https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1C1gAWPBmAWsQEo78ysds...](https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1C1gAWPBmAWsQEo78ysdsjdagwobtUX1zh_YCIb3fWIU/edit)
(I didn't include Awesometalk because I'm only looking for group meeting
tools, not one-to-one video chat)
------
superduper33
Screenshare pls
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
What Would Happen If the Sun Ceased to Exist for Just One Second? - davidbarker
http://gizmodo.com/what-would-happen-if-the-sun-ceased-to-exist-for-just-o-1630272866
======
lutusp
Quote: "Some objects would travel closer to others, and others would travel
further away. This would result in many objects finding themselves in unstable
orbits where the slight increase in gravity between them could give them a
slight kick, which over time could lead to objects being ejected from the
solar system entirely, or tugged out of their orbits and into other objects
and planets."
The linked article suffers from a fundamental misunderstanding of orbital
dynamics -- that absent an extraordinary event like the sun momentarily
disappearing, the solar system's orbital behavior is reliably mathematically
predictable.
But in fact, the solar system, indeed any orbital system with more than two
bodies, is potentially a chaotic system, meaning one that is extraordinary
sensitive to initial conditions, and one whose long-term behavior cannot be
predicted in advance.
This means that the hypothetical scenario, in which the sun disappears for one
second, only changes the unpredictable long-term result, it doesn't turn a
predictable outcome into an unpredictable one.
More here: [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Three-
body_problem](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Three-body_problem)
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
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